The country was simply under martial law—­the entire population under sentence of death.  The whole civil power was in Alva’s hand; the whole responsibility in Alva’s breast.  Neither the most ignoble nor the most powerful could lift their heads in the sublime desolation which was sweeping the country.  This was now proved beyond peradventure.  A miserable cobbler or weaver might be hurried from his shop to the scaffold, invoking the ‘jus de non evocando’ till he was gagged, but the Emperor would not stoop from his throne, nor electors palatine and powerful nobles rush to his rescue; but in behalf of these prisoners the most august hands and voices of Christendom had been lifted up at the foot of Philip’s throne; and their supplications had proved as idle as the millions of tears and death-cries which had beep shed or uttered in the lowly places of the land.  It was obvious; then, that all intercession must thereafter be useless.  Philip was fanatically impressed with his mission.  His viceroy was possessed by his loyalty as by a demon.  In this way alone, that conduct which can never be palliated may at least be comprehended.  It was Philip’s enthusiasm to embody the wrath of God against heretics.  It was Alva’s enthusiasm to embody the wrath of Philip.  Narrow-minded, isolated, seeing only that section of the world which was visible through the loop-hole of the fortress in which Nature had imprisoned him for life, placing his glory in unconditional obedience to his superior, questioning nothing, doubting nothing, fearing nothing, the viceroy accomplished his work of hell with all the tranquillity of an angel.  An iron will, which clove through every obstacle; adamantine fortitude, which sustained without flinching a mountain of responsibility sufficient to crush a common nature, were qualities which, united to, his fanatical obedience, made him a man for Philip’s work such as could not have been found again in the world.

The case, then, was tried before a tribunal which was not only incompetent, under the laws of the land, but not even a court of justice in any philosophical or legal sense.  Constitutional and municipal law were not more outraged in its creation, than all national and natural maxims.

The reader who has followed step by step the career of the two distinguished victims through the perilous days of Margaret’s administration, is sufficiently aware of the amount of treason with which they are chargeable.  It would be an insult to common sense for us to set forth, in full, the injustice of their sentence.  Both were guiltless towards the crown; while the hands of one, on the contrary, were deeply dyed in the blood of the people.  This truth was so self-evident, that even a member of the Blood-Council, Pierre Arsens, president of Artois, addressed an elaborate memoir to the Duke of Alva, criticising the case according to the rules of law, and maintaining that Egmont, instead of deserving punishment, was entitled to a signal reward.