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 lofty nature of Orange was easily effaced in Spain by court flattery and by royal bribes.  Notwithstanding the coldness, the rebuffs, and the repeated warnings which might have saved him from destruction, nothing could turn him at last from the fanatic loyalty towards which, after much wavering, his mind irrevocably pointed.  His voluntary humiliation as a general, a grandee, a Fleming, and a Christian before the insolent Alva upon his first arrival, would move our contempt were it not for the gentler emotions suggested by the infatuated nobleman’s doom.  Upon the departure of Orange, Egmont was only too eager to be employed by Philip in any work which the monarch could find for him to do.  Yet this was the man whom Philip chose, through the executioner’s sword, to convert into a popular idol, and whom Poetry has loved to contemplate as a romantic champion of freedom.

As for Horn, details enough have likewise been given of his career to enable the reader thoroughly to understand the man.  He was a person of mediocre abilities and thoroughly commonplace character.  His high rank and his tragic fate are all which make him interesting.  He had little love for court or people.  Broken in fortunes, he passed his time mainly in brooding over the ingratitude of Charles and Philip, and in complaining bitterly of the disappointments to which their policy had doomed him.  He cared nothing for Cardinalists or confederates.  He disliked Brederode, he detested Granvelle.  Gloomy and morose, he went to bed, while the men who were called his fellow-conspirators were dining and making merry in the same house with himself:  He had as little sympathy with the cry of “Vivent les gueux” as for that of “Vive le Roy.”  The most interesting features in his character are his generosity toward his absent brother and the manliness with which, as Montigny’s representative at