The Cardinal left Brussels with a numerous suite, stately equipages, and much parade.  The Duchess provided him with her own mules and with a sufficient escort, for the King had expressly enjoined that every care should be taken against any murderous attack.  There was no fear of such assault, however, for all were sufficiently satisfied to see the minister depart.  Brederode and Count Hoogstraaten were standing together, looking from the window of a house near the gate of Caudenberg, to feast their eyes with the spectacle of their enemy’s retreat.  As soon as the Cardinal had passed through that gate, on his way to Namur, the first stage of his journey, they rushed into the street, got both upon one horse, Hoogstraaten, who alone had boots on his legs, taking the saddle and Brederode the croup, and galloped after the Cardinal, with the exultation of school-boys.  Thus mounted, they continued to escort the Cardinal on his journey.  At one time, they were so near his carriage, while it was passing through a ravine, that they might have spoken to him from the heights above, where they had paused to observe him; but they pulled the capes of their cloaks over their faces and suffered him to pass unchallenged.  “But they are young folk,” said the Cardinal, benignantly, after relating all these particulars to the Duchess, “and one should pay little regard to their actions.”  He added, that one of Egmont’s gentlemen dogged their party on the journey, lodging in the same inns with them, apparently in the hope of learning something from their conversation or proceedings.  If that were the man’s object, however, Granvelle expressed the conviction that he was disappointed, as nothing could have been more merry than the whole company, or more discreet than their conversation.

The Cardinal began at once to put into operation the system of deception, as to his departure, which had been planned by Philip.  The man who had been ordered to leave the Netherlands by the King, and pushed into immediate compliance with the royal command by the Duchess, proceeded to address letters both to Philip and Margaret.  He wrote from Namur to beg the Regent that she would not fail to implore his Majesty graciously to excuse his having absented himself for private reasons at that particular moment.  He wrote to Philip from Besancon, stating that his desire to visit his mother, whom he had not seen for nineteen years, and his natal soil, to which he had been a stranger during the same period, had induced him to take advantage of his brother’s journey to accompany him for a few days into Burgundy.  He had, therefore, he said, obtained the necessary permission from the Duchess, who had kindly promised to write very particularly by the first courier, to beg his Majesty’s approval of the liberty which they had both taken.  He wrote from the same place to the Regent again, saying that some of the nobles pretended to have learned from Armenteros that the King had ordered the Cardinal to leave the country and not to return; all which, he added, was a very false Renardesque invention, at which he did nothing but laugh.