The bodies were afterwards delivered to their friends.  A stately procession of the guilds, accompanied by many of the clergy, conveyed their coffins to the church of Saint Gudule.  Thence the body of Egmont was carried to the convent of Saint Clara, near the old Brussels gate, where it was embalmed.  His escutcheon and banners were hung upon the outward wall of his residence, by order of the Countess.  By command of Alva they were immediately torn down.  His remains were afterwards conveyed to his city of Sottegem, in Flanders, where they were interred.  Count Horn was entombed at Kempen.  The bodies had been removed from the scaffold at two o’clock.  The heads remained exposed between burning torches for two hours longer.  They were then taken down, enclosed in boxes, and, as it was generally supposed, despatched to Madrid.  The King was thus enabled to look upon the dead faces of his victims without the trouble of a journey to the provinces.

Thus died Philip Montmorency, Count of Horn, and Lamoral of Egmont, Prince of Gaveren.  The more intense sympathy which seemed to attach itself to the fate of Egmont, rendered the misfortune of his companion in arms and in death comparatively less interesting.

Egmont is a great historical figure, but he was certainly not a great man.  His execution remains an enduring monument not only of Philip’s cruelty and perfidy but of his dullness.  The King had everything to hope from Egmont and nothing to fear.  Granvelle knew the man well, and, almost to the last, could not believe in the possibility of so unparalleled a blunder as that which was to make a victim, a martyr, and a popular idol of a personage brave indeed, but incredibly vacillating and inordinately vain, who, by a little management, might have been converted into a most useful instrument for the royal purposes.

It is not necessary to recapitulate the events of Egmont’s career.  Step by step we have studied his course, and at no single period have we discovered even a germ of those elements which make the national champion.  His pride of order rendered him furious at the insolence of Granvelle, and caused him to chafe under his dominion.  His vanity of high rank and of distinguished military service made him covet the highest place under the Crown, while his hatred of those by whom he considered himself defrauded of his claims, converted him into a malcontent.  He had no sympathy with the people, but he loved, as a grand Seignior, to be looked up to and admired by a gaping crowd.  He was an unwavering Catholic, held sectaries in utter loathing, and, after the image-breaking, took a positive pleasure in hanging ministers, together with their congregations, and in pressing the besieged Christians of Valenciennes to extremities.  Upon more than one occasion he pronounced his unequivocal approval of the infamous edicts, and he exerted himself at times to enforce them within his province.  The transitory impression made upon his mind by the