When Orange complained that she had been censuring his proceedings at Antwerp, and holding language unfavorable to his character, she protested that she thoroughly approved his arrangements—­excepting only the two points of the intramural preachings and the permission to heretics of other exercises than sermons—­and that if she were displeased with him he might be sure that she would rather tell him so than speak ill of him behind his back.  The Prince, who had been compelled by necessity, and fully authorized by the terms of the “Accord”, to grant those two points which were the vital matter in his arrangements, answered very calmly, that he was not so frivolous as to believe in her having used language to his discredit had he not been quite certain of the fact, as he would soon prove by evidence.  Orange was not the man to be deceived as to the position in which he stood, nor as to the character of those with whom he dealt.  Margaret wrote, however, in the same vein concerning him to Hoogstmaten, affirming that nothing could be further from her intention than to characterize the proceedings of “her cousin, the Prince of Orange, as contrary to the service of his Majesty; knowing, as she did, how constant had been his affection, and how diligent his actions, in the cause of God and the King.”

She also sent councillor d’Assonleville on a special mission to the Prince, instructing that smooth personage to inform her said cousin of Orange that he was and always had been “loved and cherished by his Majesty, and that for herself she had ever loved him like a brother or a child.”

She wrote to Horn, approving of his conduct in the main, although in obscure terms, and expressing great confidence in his zeal, loyalty, and good intentions.  She accorded the same praise to Hoogstraaten, while as to Egmont she was perpetually reproaching him for the suspicions which he seemed obstinately to entertain as to her disposition and that of Philip, in regard to his conduct and character.

It has already been partly seen what were her private sentiments and secret representations as to the career of the distinguished personages thus encouraged and commended.  Her pictures were painted in daily darkening colors.  She told her brother that Orange, Egmont, and Horn were about to place themselves at the head of the confederates, who were to take up arms and had been levying troops; that the Lutheran religion was to be forcibly established, that the whole power of the government was to be placed in the triumvirate thus created by those seigniors, and that Philip was in reality to be excluded entirely from those provinces which were his ancient patrimony.  All this information she had obtained from Mansfeld, at whom the nobles were constantly sneering as at a faithful valet who would never receive his wages.