The account given by the Duchess was in truth very dismal.  She said that grief consumed her soul and crimson suffused her cheeks while she related the recent transactions.  She took God to witness that she had resisted long, that she had past many sleepless nights, that she had been wasted with fever and grief.  After this penitential preface she confessed that, being a prisoner and almost besieged in her palace, sick in body and soul, she had promised pardon and security to the confederates, with liberty of holding assemblies to heretics in places where the practice had already obtained.  These concessions had been made valid until the King by and with the consent of the states-general, should definitely arrange the matter.  She stated, however, that she had given her consent to these two demands, not in the royal name, but in her own.  The King was not bound by her promise, and she expreesed the hope that he would have no regard to any such obligation.  She further implored her brother to come forth as soon as possibe to avenge the injuries inflicted upon the ancient church, adding, that if deprived of that consolation, she should incontinently depart this life.  That hope alone would prevent her death.

This was certainly strong language.  She was also very explicit in her representations of the influence which had been used by certain personages to prevent the exercise of any authority upon her own part.  “Wherefore,” said Margaret, “I eat my heart; and shall never have peace till the arrival of your Majesty.”

There was no doubt who those personages were who, as it was pretended, had thus held the Duchess in bondage, and compelled her to grant these infamous concessions.  In her secret Italian letters, she furnished the King with a tissue of most extravagant and improbable falsehoods, supplied to her mainly by Noircarmes and Mansfeld, as to the course pursued at this momentous crisis by Orange, Egmont, Horn, and Hoogstraaten.  They had all, she said, declared against God and against religion.—­Horn, at least, was for killing all the priests and monks in the country, if full satisfaction were not given to the demands of the heretics.  Egmont had declared openly for the beggars, and was levying troops in Germany.  Orange had the firm intention of making himself master of the whole country, and of dividing it among the other seigniors and himself.  The Prince had said that if she took refuge in Mons, as she had proposed, they would instantly convoke the states-general, and take all necessary measures.  Egmont had held the same language, saying that he would march at the head of forty thousand men to besiege her in that city.  All these seigniors, however, had avowed their determination to prevent her flight, to assemble the estates, and to drag her by force before the assembly, in order to compel her consent to every measure which might be deemed expedient.  Under all these circumstances, she had been obliged to defer her retreat, and to make the concessions which had overwhelmed her with disgrace.