[The historian was present at the ceremony, and gives a very full report of the speeches, all of which he heard.  His imagination may have assisted his memory in the task.  The other reporters of the councillor’s harangue have reduced this pathological flight of rhetoric to a very small compass.]

Engaged in mortal struggle with such an enemy, Caesar felt himself obliged, as the councillor proceeded to inform his audience, to change the scene of the contest from the humid air of Flanders to the warmer atmosphere of Spain.  He rejoiced, however, that his son was both vigorous and experienced, and that his recent marriage with the Queen of England had furnished the provinces with a most valuable alliance.  He then again referred to the emperor’s boundless love for his subjects, and concluded with a tremendous, but superfluous, exhortation to Philip on the necessity of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity.  After this long harangue, which has been fully reported by several historians who were present at the ceremony, the councillor proceeded to read the deed of cession, by which Philip, already sovereign of Sicily, Naples, Milan, and titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem, now received all the duchies, marquisates, earldoms, baronies, cities, towns, and castles of the Burgundian property, including, of course, the seventeen Netherlands.

As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration throughout the assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, that in the present great danger upon the frontiers from the belligerent King of France and his warlike and restless nation, the provinces should be left without their ancient and puissant defender.  The emperor then rose to his feet.  Leaning on his crutch, he beckoned from his seat the personage upon whose arm he had leaned as he entered the hall.  A tall, handsome youth of twenty-two came forward—­a man whose name from that time forward, and as long as history shall endure, has been, and will be, more familiar than any other in the mouths of Netherlanders.  At that day he had rather a southern than a German or Flemish appearance.  He had a Spanish cast of features, dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical.  His head was small and well placed upon his shoulders.  His hair was dark brown, as were also his moustache and peaked beard.  His forehead was lofty, spacious, and already prematurely engraved with the anxious lines of thought.  His eyes were full, brown, well opened, and expressive of profound reflection.  He was dressed in the magnificent apparel for which the Netherlanders were celebrated above all other nations, and which the ceremony rendered necessary.  His presence being considered indispensable at this great ceremony, he had been summoned but recently from the camp on the frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the emperor had appointed him to command his army in chief against such antagonists as Admiral Coligny and the Due de Nevers.