In accordance with these suggestions and these hopes, the famous ban was accordingly drawn up, and dated on the 15th of March, 1580.  It was, however, not formally published in the Netherlands until the month of June of the same year.

This edict will remain the most lasting monument to the memory of Cardinal Granvelle.  It will be read when all his other state-papers and epistles—­able as they incontestably are—­shall have passed into oblivion.  No panegyric of friend, no palliating magnanimity of foe, can roll away this rock of infamy from his tomb.  It was by Cardinal Granvelle and by Philip that a price was set upon the head of the foremost man of his age, as if he had been a savage beast, and that admission into the ranks of Spain’s haughty nobility was made the additional bribe to tempt the assassin.

The ban consisted of a preliminary narrative to justify the penalty with which it was concluded.  It referred to the favors conferred by Philip and his father upon the Prince; to his-signal ingratitude and dissimulation.  It accused him of originating the Request, the image-breaking, and the public preaching.  It censured his marriage with an abbess—­even during the lifetime of his wife; alluded to his campaigns against Alva, to his rebellion in Holland, and to the horrible massacres committed by Spaniards in that province—­the necessary consequences of his treason.  It accused him of introducing liberty of conscience, of procuring his own appointment as Ruward, of violating the Ghent treaty, of foiling the, efforts of Don John, and of frustrating the counsels of the Cologne commissioners by his perpetual distrust.  It charged him with a newly-organized conspiracy, in the erection of the Utrecht Union; and for these and similar crimes—­set forth, with involutions, slow, spiral, and cautious as the head and front of the indictment was direct and deadly—­it denounced the chastisement due to the “wretched hypocrite” who had committed such offences.

“For these causes,” concluded the ban, “we declare him traitor and miscreant, enemy of ourselves and of the country.  As such we banish him perpetually from all our realms, forbidding all our subjects, of whatever quality, to communicate with him openly or privately—­to administer to him victuals, drink, fire, or other necessaries.  We allow all to injure him in property or life.  We expose the, said William Nassau, as an enemy of the human-race—­giving his property to all who may; seize it.  And if anyone of our subjects or any stranger should be found sufficiently generous of heart to rid us of this pest, delivering him to us, alive or dead, or taking his life, we will cause to be furnished to him immediately after the deed shall have been done, the sum of twenty-five thousand crowns; in gold.  If he have committed any crime, however heinous, we promise to pardon him; and if he be not already noble, we will ennoble him for his valor.”