Early in February, Brederode, Hoogstraaten, Horn, and some other gentlemen, visited the Prince at Breda.  Here it is supposed the advice of Orange was asked concerning the new movement contemplated by Brederode.  He was bent upon presenting a new petition to the Duchess with great solemnity.  There is no evidence to show that the Prince approved the step, which must have seemed to him superfluous, if not puerile.  He probably regarded the matter with indifference.  Brederode, however, who was fond of making demonstrations, and thought himself endowed with a genius for such work, wrote to the Regent for letters of safe conduct that he might come to Brussels with his petition.  The passports were contemptuously refused.  He then came to Antwerp, from which city he forwarded the document to Brussels in a letter.

By this new Request, the exercise of the reformed religion was claimed as a right, while the Duchess was summoned to disband the forces which she had been collecting, and to maintain in good faith the “August” treaty.  These claims were somewhat bolder than those of the previous April, although the liberal party was much weaker and the confederacy entirely disbanded.  Brederode, no doubt, thought it good generalship to throw the last loaf of bread into the enemy’s camp before the city should surrender.  His haughty tone was at once taken down by Margaret of Parma.  “She wondered,” she said, “what manner of nobles these were, who, after requesting, a year before, to be saved only from the inquisition, now presumed to talk about preaching in the cities.”  The concessions of August had always been odious, and were now canceled.  “As for you and your accomplices,” she continued to the Count, “you will do well to go to your homes at once without meddling with public affairs, for, in case of disobedience, I shall deal with you as I shall deem expedient.”

Brederode not easily abashed, disregarded the advice, and continued in Antwerp.  Here, accepting the answer of the Regent as a formal declaration of hostilities, he busied himself in levying troops in and about the city.

Orange had returned to Antwerp early in February.  During his absence, Hoogstraaten had acted as governor at the instance of the Prince and of the Regent.  During the winter that nobleman, who was very young and very fiery, had carried matters with a high hand, whenever there had been the least attempt at sedition.  Liberal in principles, and the devoted friend of Orange, he was disposed however to prove that the champions of religious liberty were not the patrons of sedition.  A riot occurring in the cathedral, where a violent mob were engaged in defacing whatever was left to deface in that church, and in heaping insults on the papists at their worship, the little Count, who, says a Catholic contemporary, “had the courage of a lion,” dashed in among them, sword in hand, killed three upon the spot, and, aided by his followers, succeeded in slaying, wounding, or capturing all the