He had refused to come to Brussels at the request of the Duchess of Parma, when the rebels were about to present the petition.  He had written to his secretary that he was thenceforth resolved to serve neither King nor Kaiser.  He had received from one Taffin, with marks of approbation, a paper, stating that the assembling of the states-general was the only remedy for the troubles in the land.  He had, repeatedly affirmed that the inquisition and edicts ought to be repealed.

On his arrival at Tournay in August, 1566, the people had cried “Vivent les gueux;” a proof that he liked the cry.  All his transactions at Tournay, from first to last, had been criminal.  He had tolerated Reformed preaching, he had forbidden Catholics and Protestants to molest each other, he had omitted to execute heretics, he had allowed the religionists to erect an edifice for public worship outside the walls.  He had said, at the house of Prince Espinoy, that if the King should come into the provinces with force, he would oppose him with 15,000 troops.  He had said, if his brother Montigny should be detained in Spain, he would march to his rescue at the head of 50,000 men whom he had at his command.  He had on various occasions declared that “men should live according to their consciences”—­as if divine and human laws were dead, and men, like wild beasts, were to follow all their lusts and desires.  Lastly, he had encouraged the rebellion in Valenciennes.

Of all these crimes and misdeeds the procurator declared himself sufficiently informed, and the aforesaid defendant entirely, commonly, and publicly defamed.

Wherefore, that officer terminated his declaration by claiming “that the cause should be concluded summarily, and without figure or form of process; and that therefore, by his Excellency or his sub-delegated judges, the aforesaid defendant should be declared to have in diverse ways committed high treason, should be degraded from his dignities, and should be condemned to death, with confiscation of all his estates.”

The Admiral, thus peremptorily summoned, within five days, without assistance, without documents, and from the walls of a prison, to answer to these charges, ‘solos ex vinculis causam dicere’, undertook his task with the boldness of innocence.  He protested, of course, to the jurisdiction, and complained of the want of an advocate, not in order to excuse any weakness in his defence, but only any inelegance in his statement.  He then proceeded flatly to deny some of the facts, to admit others, and to repel the whole treasonable inference.  His answer in all essential respects was triumphant.  Supported by the evidence which, alas was not collected and published till after his death, it was impregnable.