The embroidered fool’s cap was supposed to typify the gibe, and to remind the arrogant priest that a Brutus, as in the olden time, might be found lurking in the costume of the fool.  However witty or appropriate the invention, the livery had an immense success.  According to agreement, the nobles who had dined with the treasurer ordered it for all their servants.  Never did a new dress become so soon the fashion.  The unpopularity of the minister assisted the quaintness of the device.  The fool’s-cap livery became the rage.  Never was such a run upon the haberdashers, mercers, and tailors, since Brussels had been a city.  All the frieze-cloth in Brabant was exhausted.  All the serge in Flanders was clipped into monastic cowls.  The Duchess at first laughed with the rest, but the Cardinal took care that the king should be at once informed upon the subject.  The Regent was, perhaps, not extremely sorry to see the man ridiculed whom she so cordially disliked, and, she accepted the careless excuses made on the subject by Egmont and by Orange without severe criticism.  She wrote to her brother that, although the gentlemen had been influenced by no evil intention, she had thought it best to exhort them not to push the jest too far.  Already, however, she found that two thousand pairs, of sleeves had been made, and the most she could obtain was that the fools’ caps, or monks’ hoods, should in future be omitted from the livery.  A change was accordingly made in the costume, at about the time of the cardinal’s departure.

A bundle of arrows, or in some instances a wheat-sheaf, was substituted for the cowls.  Various interpretations were placed upon this new emblem.  According to the nobles themselves, it denoted the union of all their hearts in the King’s service, while their enemies insinuated that it was obviously a symbol of conspiracy.  The costume thus amended was worn by the gentlemen themselves, as well as by their servants.  Egmont dined at the Regent’s table, after the Cardinal’s departure, in a camlet doublet, with hanging sleeves, and buttons stamped with the bundle of arrows.

For the present, the Cardinal affected to disapprove of the fashion only from its rebellious tendency.  The fools’ caps and cowls, he meekly observed to Philip, were the least part of the offence, for an injury to himself could be easily forgiven.  The wheat-sheaf and the arrow-bundles, however, were very vile things, for they betokened and confirmed the existence of a conspiracy, such as never could be tolerated by a prince who had any regard for his own authority.

This incident of the livery occupied the public attention, and inflamed the universal hatred during the later months of the minister’s residence in the country.  Meantime the three seigniors had become very impatient at receiving no answer to their letter.  Margaret of Parma was urging her brother to give them satisfaction, repeating to him their bitter complaints that their characters and conduct were the subject of constant