In the embarrassment created by the stringent language of these statutes, Doctor Viglius found an opportunity to make himself very useful.  Alva had been turning over the laws and regulations of the Order, but could find no loophole.  The President, however, came to his rescue, and announced it as his legal opinion that the Governor need concern himself no further on the subject, and that the code of the Fleece offered no legal impediment to the process.  Alva immediately wrote to communicate this opinion to Philip, adding, with great satisfaction, that he should immediately make it known to the brethren of the Order, a step which was the more necessary because Egmont’s advocate had been making great trouble with these privileges, and had been protesting at every step of the proceedings.  In what manner the learned President argued these troublesome statutes out of the way, has nowhere appeared; but he completely reinstated himself in favor, and the King wrote to thank him for his legal exertions.

It was now boldly declared that the statutes of the Fleece did not extend to such crimes as those with which the prisoner were charged.  Alva, moreover, received an especial patent, ante-dated eight or nine months, by which Philip empowered him to proceed against all persons implicated in the troubles, and particularly against Knights of the Golden Fleece.

It is superfluous to observe that these were merely the arbitrary acts of a despot.  It is hardly necessary to criticise such proceedings.  The execution of the nobles had been settled before Alva left Spain.  As they were inhabitants of a constitutional country, it was necessary to stride over the constitution.  As they were Knights of the Fleece, it was necessary to set aside the statutes of the Order.  The Netherland constitutions seemed so entirely annihilated already, that they could hardly be considered obstacles; but the Order of the Fleece was an august little republic of which Philip was the hereditary chief, of which emperors, kings, and great seigniors were the citizens.  Tyranny might be embarrassed by such subtle and golden filaments as these, even while it crashed through municipal charters as if they had been reeds and bulrushes.  Nevertheless, the King’s course was taken.  Although the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth chapters of the Order expressly provided for the trial and punishment of brethren who had been guilty of rebellion, heresy, or treason; and although the eleventh chapter; perpetual and immutable, of additions to that constitution by the Emperor Charles, conferred on the Order exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes whatever committed by the knights, yet it was coolly proclaimed by Alva, that the crimes for which the Admiral and Egmont had been arrested, were beyond the powers of the tribunal.

So much for the plea to the jurisdiction.  It is hardly worth while to look any further into proceedings which were initiated and brought to a conclusion in the manner already narrated.  Nevertheless, as they were called a process, a single glance at the interior of that mass of documents can hardly be superfluous.