Strictly speaking, the idea of death by the halter or the axe was less shocking to the imagination than that of being burned or buried alive.  In this respect, therefore, the edicts were softened by the proposed “Moderation.”  It would, however, always be difficult to persuade any considerable slumber of intelligent persons, that the infliction of a violent death, by whatever process, on account of religious opinions, was an act of clemency.  The Netherlanders were, however, to be persuaded into this belief.  The draft of the new edict was ostentatiously called the “Moderatie,” or the “Moderation.”  It was very natural, therefore, that the common people, by a quibble, which is the same in Flemish as in English, should call the proposed “Moderation” the “Murderation.”  The rough mother-wit of the people had already characterized and annihilated the project, while dull formalists were carrying it through the preliminary stages.

A vote in favor of the project having been obtained from the estates of Artois, Hainault, and Flanders, the instructions for the envoys; Baron Montigny and Marquis Berghen, were made out in conformity to the scheme.  Egmont had declined the mission, not having reason to congratulate himself upon the diplomatic success of his visit to Spain in the preceding year.  The two nobles who consented to undertake the office were persuaded into acceptance sorely against their will.  They were aware that their political conduct since the King’s departure from the country had not always been deemed satisfactory at Madrid, but they were, of course, far from suspecting the true state of the royal mind.  They were both as sincere Catholics and as loyal gentlemen as Granvelle, but they were not aware how continuously, during a long course of years, that personage had represented them to Philip as renegades and rebels.  They had maintained the constitutional rights of the state, and they had declined to act as executioners for the inquisition, but they were yet to learn that such demonstrations amounted to high treason.

Montigny departed, on the 29th May, from Brussels.  He left the bride to whom he had been wedded amid scenes of festivity, the preceding autumn—­the unborn child who was never to behold its father’s face.  He received warnings in Paris, by which he scorned to profit.  The Spanish ambassador in that city informed him that Philip’s wrath at the recent transactions in the Netherlands was high.  He was most significantly requested, by a leading personage in France, to feign illness, or to take refuge in any expedient by which he might avoid the fulfilment of his mission.  Such hints had no effect in turning him from his course, and he proceeded to Madrid, where he arrived on the 17th of June.