Horn complained bitterly of the situation in which he was placed.  He knew himself the mark of incessant and calumnious misrepresentation both at Brussels and Madrid.  He had been doing his best, at a momentous crisis, to serve the government without violating its engagements, but he declared himself to be neither theologian nor jurist, and incapable, while suspected and unassisted, of performing a task which the most learned doctors of the council would find impracticable.  He would rather, he bitterly exclaimed, endure a siege in any fortress by the Turks, than be placed in such a position.  He was doing all that he was capable of doing, yet whatever he did was wrong.  There was a great difference, he said, between being in a place and talking about it at a distance.

In the middle of October he was recalled by the Duchess, whose letters had been uniformly so ambiguous that he confessed he was quite unable to divine their meaning.  Before he left the city, he committed his most unpardonable crime.  Urged by the leaders of the reformed congregations to permit their exercises in the Clothiers’ Hall until their temples should be finished, the Count accorded his consent provisionally, and subject to revocation by the Regent, to whom the arrangement was immediately to be communicated.

Horn departed, and the Reformers took instant possession of the hall.  It was found in a very dirty and disorderly condition, encumbered with benches, scaffoldings, stakes, gibbets, and all the machinery used for public executions upon the market-place.  A vast body of men went to work with a will; scrubbing, cleaning, whitewashing, and removing all the foul lumber of the hall; singing in chorus, as they did so, the hymns of Clement Marot.  By dinner-time the place was ready.  The pulpit and benches for the congregation had taken the place of the gibbet timber.  It is difficult to comprehend that such work as this was a deadly crime.  Nevertheless, Horn, who was himself a sincere Catholic, had committed the most mortal of all his offences against Philip and against God, by having countenanced so flagitious a transaction.

The Admiral went to Brussels.  Secretary de la Torre, a very second-rate personage, was despatched to Tournay to convey the orders of the Regent.  Governor Moulbais, now in charge of affairs both civil and military, was to prepare all things for the garrison, which was soon to be despatched under Noircarmes.  The Duchess had now arms in her hands, and her language was bold.  La Torre advised the Reformers to be wise “while the rod was yet green and growing, lest it should be gathered for their backs; for it was unbecoming is subjects to make bargains with their King.”  There was hardly any decent pretext used in violating the Accord of the 24th August, so soon as the government was strong enough to break it.  It was always said that the preachings suppressed, had not been established previously to that arrangement;