To these demands and complaints, the estates replied by a string of resolutions.  They made their usual protestations of attachment to his Majesty and the Catholic faith, and they granted willingly a foot-guard of three hundred archers.  They, however, stoutly denied the Governor’s right to make eliminations in their lists of deputies, because, from time immemorial, these representatives had been chosen by the clergy, nobles, cities, and boroughs.  The names might change daily, nor were there any suspicious ones among them, but it was a matter with which the Governor had no concern.  They promised that every effort should be made to bring about the execution of the treaty by the Prince of Orange.  They begged Don John; however, to abandon the citadel of Namur, and gave him to understand that his secret practices had been discovered, a large packet of letters having recently been intercepted in the neighbourhood of Bourdeaux, and sent to the Prince of Orange.  Among them were some of the despatches of Don John and Escovedo, to his Majesty and to Antonio Perez, to which allusion has already been made.

Count Bossu, De Bresse, and Meetkercke were the envoys deputed to convey these resolutions to Namur.  They had a long and bitter conversation with Don John, who complained, more furiously than ever of the conspiracies against his person, and of the intrigues of Orange.  He insisted that this arch-traitor had been sowing the seed of his damnable doctrines broadcast through the Netherlands; that the earth was groaning with a daily ripening harvest of rebellion and heresy.  It was time, he cried, for the states to abandon the Prince, and rally round their King.  Patience had been exhausted.  He had himself done all, and more than could have been demanded.  He had faithfully executed the Ghent Pacification, but his conduct had neither elicited gratitude nor inspired confidence.

The deputies replied, that to the due execution of the Ghent treaty it was necessary that he should disband the German troops, assemble the states-general, and carry out their resolutions.  Until these things, now undone, had been accomplished, he had no right to plead his faithful fulfilment of the Pacification.  After much conversation—­in which the same grievances were repeated, the same statements produced and contradicted, the same demands urged and evaded, and the same menaces exchanged as upon former occasions—­the deputies returned to Brussels.

Immediately after their departure, Don John learned the result of his project upon Antwerp Castle.  It will be remembered that he had withdrawn Aerschot, under pretext of requiring his company on the visit to Queen Margaret, and that he had substituted Treslong, an unscrupulous partisan of his own, in the government of the citadel.  The temporary commander soon found, however, that he had undertaken more than he could perform.  The troops under Van Ende were refused admittance into the town, although permission