The envoys accordingly, in obedience to their instructions, made a formal statement to the Prince of Orange and the states of Holland and Zealand, on the part of Don John.  They alluded to the departure of the Spaniards, as if that alone had fulfilled every duty and authorized every claim.  They therefore demanded the immediate publication in Holland and Zealand of the Perpetual Edict.  They insisted on the immediate discontinuance of all hostile attempts to reduce Amsterdam to the jurisdiction of Orange; required the Prince to abandon his pretensions to Utrecht, and denounced the efforts making by him and his partisans to diffuse their heretical doctrines through the other provinces.  They observed, in conclusion, that the general question of religion was not to be handled, because reserved for the consideration of the states-general, according to the treaty of Ghent.

The reply, delivered on the following day by the Prince of Orange and the deputies, maintained that the Perpetual Edict was widely different from the Pacification of Ghent, which it affected to uphold; that the promises to abstain from all violation of the ancient constitutions had not been kept; that the German troops had not been dismissed, that the property of the Prince in the Netherlands and Burgundy had not been restored, that his son was detained in captivity, that the government of Utrecht was withheld from him, that the charters and constitution of the country, instead of being extended, had been contracted, and that the Governor had claimed the right to convoke the states-general at his pleasure, in violation of the ancient right to assemble at their own.  The document further complained that the adherents of the Reformed religion were not allowed to frequent the different provinces in freedom, according to the stipulations of Ghent; that Don John, notwithstanding all these short-comings, had been acknowledged as Governor-General, without the consent of the Prince; that he was surrounded with a train of Spaniards Italians, and other foreigners—­Gonzaga, Escovedo, and the like—­as well as by renegade Netherlanders like Tassis, by whom he was unduly influenced against the country and the people, and by whom a “back door was held constantly open” to the admission of evils innumerable.  Finally, it was asserted that, by means of this last act of union, a new form of inquisition had been introduced, and one which was much more cruel than the old system; inasmuch as the Spanish Inquisition did not take information against men:  except upon suspicion, whereas, by the new process, all the world would be examined as to their conscience and religion, under pretence of maintaining the union.

Such was the result of this second mission to the Prince of Orange on the part of the Governor-General.  Don John never sent another.  The swords were now fairly measured between the antagonists, and the scabbard was soon to be thrown away.  A few weeks afterwards, the Governor wrote to Philip that there was nothing in the world which William of Orange so much abhorred as his Majesty; adding, with Castillian exaggeration, that if the Prince could drink the King’s blood he would do so with great pleasure.