As for the Prince himself, he did not move too soon.  Not long after his arrival in Germany, Vandenesse, the King’s private secretary, but Orange’s secret agent, wrote him word that he had read letters from the King to Alva in which the Duke was instructed to “arrest the Prince as soon as he could lay hands upon him, and not to let his trial last more than twenty-four hours.”

Brederode had remained at Viane, and afterwards at Amsterdam, since the ill-starred expedition of Tholouse, which he had organized, but at which he had not assisted.  He had given much annoyance to the magistracy of Amsterdam, and to all respectable persons, Calvinist or Catholic.  He made much mischief, but excited no hopes in the minds of reformers.  He was ever surrounded by a host of pot companions, swaggering nobles disguised as sailors, bankrupt tradesmen, fugitives and outlaws of every description, excellent people to drink the beggars’ health and to bawl the beggars’ songs, but quite unfit for any serious enterprise.  People of substance were wary of him, for they had no confidence in his capacity, and were afraid of his frequent demands for contributions to the patriotic cause.  He spent his time in the pleasure gardens, shooting at the mark with arquebuss or crossbow, drinking with his comrades, and shrieking “Vivent les gueux.”

The Regent, determined to dislodge him, had sent Secretary La Torre to him in March, with instructions that if Brederode refused to leave Amsterdam, the magistracy were to call for assistance upon Count Meghem, who had a regiment at Utrecht.  This clause made it impossible for La Torre to exhibit his instructions to Brederode.  Upon his refusal, that personage, although he knew the secretary as well as he knew his own father, coolly informed him that he knew nothing about him; that he did not consider him as respectable a person as he pretended to be; that he did not believe a word of his having any commission from the Duchess, and that he should therefore take no notice whatever of his demands.  La Torre answered meekly, that he was not so presumptuous, nor so destitute of sense as to put himself into comparison with a, gentleman of Count Brederode’s quality, but that as he had served as secretary to the privy council for twenty-three years, he had thought that he might be believed upon his word.  Hereupon La Tome drew up a formal protest, and Brederode drew up another.  La Torre made a proces verbal of their interview, while Brederode stormed like a madman, and abused the Duchess for a capricious and unreasonable tyrant.  He ended by imprisoning La Torre for a day or two, and seizing his papers.  By a singular coincidence, these events took place on the 13th, 24th, and 15th of March, the very days of the great Antwerp tumult.  The manner in which the Prince of Orange had been dealing with forty or fifty thousand armed men, anxious to cut each other’s throats, while Brederode was thus occupied in browbeating a pragmatical but decent old secretary, illustrated the difference in calibre of the two men.