The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1568 part 1 | Page 5

of comparatively slight
avail. An armed force of veterans actively scouring the country was
more successful, and the freebooters were, for a time, suppressed.
Meantime the Counts Egmont and Horn had been kept in rigorous
confinement at Ghent. Not a warrant had been read or drawn up for
their arrest. Not a single preliminary investigation, not the shadow of

an information had preceded the long imprisonment of two men so
elevated in rank, so distinguished in the public service. After the
expiration of two months, however, the Duke condescended to
commence a mock process against them. The councillors appointed to
this work were Vargas and Del Rio, assisted by Secretary Praets. These
persons visited the Admiral on the 10th, 11th, 12th and 17th of
November, and Count Egmont on the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 16th, of the
same month; requiring them to respond to a long, confused, and
rambling collection of interrogatories. They were obliged to render
these replies in prison, unassisted by any advocates, on penalty of being
condemned 'in contumaciam'. The questions, awkwardly drawn up as
they seemed, were yet tortuously and cunningly arranged with a view
of entrapping the prisoners into self-contradiction. After this work had
been completed, all the papers by which they intended to justify their
answers were taken away from them. Previously, too, their houses and
those of their secretaries, Bakkerzeel and Alonzo de la Loo, had been
thoroughly ransacked, and every letter and document which could be
found placed in the hands of government. Bakkerzeel, moreover, as
already stated, had been repeatedly placed upon the rack, for the
purpose of extorting confessions which might implicate his master.
These preliminaries and precautionary steps having been taken, the
Counts had again been left to their solitude for two months longer. On
the 10th January, each was furnished with a copy of the declarations or
accusations filed against him by the procurator-general. To these
documents, drawn up respectively in sixty-three, and in ninety articles,
they were required, within five days' time, without the assistance of an
advocate, and without consultation with any human being, to deliver a
written answer, on pain, as before, of being proceeded against and
condemned by default.
This order was obeyed within nearly the prescribed period and here, it
may be said, their own participation in their trial ceased; while the rest
of the proceedings were buried in the deep bosom of the Blood-
Council. After their answers had been delivered, and not till then, the
prisoners were, by an additional mockery, permitted to employ
advocates. These advocates, however, were allowed only occasional
interviews with their clients, and always in the presence of certain
persons, especially deputed for that purpose by the Duke. They were

also allowed commissioners to collect evidence and take depositions,
but before the witnesses were ready, a purposely premature day, 8th of
May, was fixed upon for declaring the case closed, and not a single
tittle of their evidence, personal or documentary, was admitted.--Their
advocates petitioned for an exhibition of the evidence prepared by
government, and were refused. Thus, they were forbidden to use the
testimony in their favor, while that which was to be employed against
them was kept secret. Finally, the proceedings were formally concluded
on the 1st of June, and the papers laid before the Duke. The mass of
matter relating to these two monster processes was declared, three days
afterwards to have been examined--a physical impossibility in
itself--and judgment was pronounced upon the 4th of June. This issue
was precipitated by the campaign of Louis Nassau in Friesland,
forming a aeries of important events which it will be soon our duty to
describe. It is previously necessary, however, to add a few words in
elucidation of the two mock trials which have been thus briefly
sketched.
The proceeding had been carried on, from first to last, under protest by
the prisoners, under a threat of contumacy on the part of the
government. Apart from the totally irresponsible and illegal character
of the tribunal before which they were summoned--the Blood-Council
being a private institution of Alva's without pretext or
commission--these nobles acknowledged the jurisdiction of but three
courts. As Knights of the Golden Fleece, both claimed the privilege of
that Order to be tried by its statutes. As a citizen and noble of Brabant,
Egmont claimed the protection of the "Joyeuse Entree," a constitution
which had been sworn to by Philip and his ancestors, and by Philip
more amply, than by all his ancestors. As a member and Count of the
Holy Roman Empire, the Admiral claimed to be tried by his peers, the
electors and princes of the realm.
The Countess Egmont, since her husband's arrest, and the confiscation
of his estates before judgment, had been reduced to a life of poverty as
well as agony.