The wrath of the Duke was even greater than his surprise.  Like Augustus, he called in vain on the dead commander for his legions, but prepared himself to inflict a more rapid and more terrible vengeance than the Roman’s.  Recognizing the gravity of his situation, he determined to take the field in person, and to annihilate this insolent chieftain who had dared not only to cope with, but to conquer his veteran regiments.  But before he could turn his back upon Brussels, many deeds were to be done.  His measures now followed each other in breathless succession, fulminating and blasting at every stroke.  On the 28th May, he issued an edict, banishing, on pain of death, the Prince of Orange, Louis Nassau, Hoogstraaten, Van den Berg, and others, with confiscation of all their property.  At the same time he razed the Culemburg Palace to the ground, and erected a pillar upon its ruins, commemorating the accursed conspiracy which had been engendered within its walls.  On the 1st June, eighteen prisoners of distinction, including the two barons Batenburg, Maximilian Kock, Blois de Treslong and others, were executed upon the Horse Market, in Brussels.  In the vigorous language of Hoogstraaten, this horrible tragedy was enacted directly before the windows of that “cruel animal, Noircarmes,” who, in company of his friend, Berlaymont, and the rest of the Blood-Council, looked out upon the shocking spectacle.  The heads of the victims were exposed upon stakes, to which also their bodies were fastened.  Eleven of these victims were afterward deposited, uncoffined, in unconsecrated ground; the other seven were left unburied to moulder on the gibbet.  On the 2d June, Villars, the leader in the Daalem rising, suffered on the scaffold, with three others.  On the 3d, Counts Egmont and Horn were brought in a carriage from Ghent to Brussels, guarded by ten companies of infantry and one of cavalry.  They were then lodged in the “Brood-huis” opposite the Town Hall, on the great square of Brussels.  On the 4th, Alva having, as he solemnly declared before God and the world, examined thoroughly the mass of documents appertaining to those two great prosecutions which had only been closed three days before, pronounced sentence against the illustrious prisoners.  These documents of iniquity signed and sealed by the Duke, were sent to the Blood-Council, where they were read by Secretary Praets.  The signature of Philip was not wanting, for the sentences had been drawn upon blanks signed by the monarch, of which the Viceroy had brought a whole trunk full from Spain.  The sentence against Egmont declared very briefly that the Duke of Alva, having read all the papers and evidence in the case, had found the Count guilty of high treason.  It was proved that Egmont had united with the confederates; that he had been a party to the accursed conspiracy of the Prince of Orange; that he had taken the rebel nobles under his protection, and that he had betrayed the Government and the Holy Catholic Church by his conduct in Flanders.  Therefore the Duke condemned him to be executed by the sword on the following day, and decreed that his head should be placed on high in a public place, there to remain until the Duke should otherwise direct.  The sentence against Count Horn was similar in language and purport.