The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1560-61 | Page 8

secret consulta,
without the knowledge, and in a manner opposed to the views of
Orange. He was then furnished with a list of the new magistrates, and
was informed that he had been selected as commissioner along with
Count Aremberg, to see that the appointments were carried into effect.
The indignation of the Prince was extreme. He had already taken
offence at some insolent expressions upon this topic, which the
Cardinal had permitted himself. He now sent back the commission to
the Duchess, adding, it was said, that he was not her lackey, and that
she might send some one else with her errands. The words were
repeated in the state council. There was a violent altercation--Orange
vehemently resenting his appointment merely to carry out decisions in
which he claimed an original voice. His ancestors, he said, had often
changed the whole of the Antwerp magistracy by their own authority. It

was a little too much that this matter, as well as every other state affair,
should be controlled by the secret committee of which the Cardinal was
the chief. Granvelle, on his side, was also in a rage. He flung from the
council- chamber, summoned the Chancellor of Brabant, and demanded,
amid bitter execrations against Orange, what common and obscure
gentleman there might be, whom he could appoint to execute the
commission thus refused by the Prince and by Aremberg. He vowed
that in all important matters he would, on future occasions, make use of
nobles less inflated by pride, and more tractable than such grand
seignors. The chancellor tried in vain to appease the churchman's wrath,
representing that the city of Antwerp would be highly offended at the
turn things were taking, and offering his services to induce the
withdrawal, on the part of the Prince, of the language which had given
so much offence. The Cardinal was inexorable and peremptory. "I will
have nothing to do with the Prince, Master Chancellor," said he, "and
these are matters which concern you not." Thus the conversation ended,
and thus began the open state of hostilities between the great nobles
and the Cardinal, which had been brooding so long.
On the 23rd July, 1561, a few weeks after the scenes lately described,
the Count of Egmont and the Prince of Orange addressed a joint letter
to the King. They reminded him in this despatch that, they had
originally been reluctant to take office in the state council, on account
of their previous experience of the manner in which business had been
conducted during the administration of the Duke of Savoy. They had
feared that important matters of state might be transacted without their
concurrence. The King had, however, assured them, when in Zeland,
that all affairs would be uniformly treated in full council. If the contrary
should ever prove the case, he had desired them to give him
information to that effect, that he might instantly apply the remedy.
They accordingly now gave him that information. They were consulted
upon small matters: momentous affairs were decided upon in their
absence. Still they would not even now have complained had not
Cardinal Granvelle declared that all the members of the state council
were to be held responsible for its measures, whether they were present
at its decisions or not. Not liking such responsibility, they requested the
King either to accept their resignation or to give orders that all affairs
should be communicated to the whole board and deliberated upon by

all the councillors.
In a private letter, written some weeks later (August 15), Egmont
begged secretary Erasso to assure the King that their joint letter had not
been dictated by passion, but by zeal for his service. It was impossible,
he said, to imagine the insolence of the Cardinal, nor to form an idea of
the absolute authority which he arrogated.
In truth, Granvelle, with all his keenness, could not see that Orange,
Egmont, Berghen, Montigny and the rest, were no longer pages and
young captains of cavalry, while he was the politician and the
statesman. By six or seven years the senior of Egmont, and by sixteen
years of Orange, he did not divest himself of the superciliousness of
superior wisdom, not unjust nor so irritating when they had all been
boys. In his deportment towards them, and in the whole tone of his
private correspondence with Philip, there was revealed, almost in spite
of himself, an affectation of authority, against which Egmont rebelled
and which the Prince was not the man to acknowledge. Philip answered
the letter of the two nobles in his usual procrastinating manner. The
Count of Horn, who was about leaving Spain (whither he had
accompanied the King) for the Netherlands, would be entrusted with
the resolution which he should think proper to take upon the subject
suggested.