rhaps
more so to that of Cardinal Granvelle. The faint and struggling rays of
humanity which occasionally illumined the course of their government,
were destined to be extinguished in a chaos so profound and dark, that
these last beams of light seemed clearer and more bountiful by the
contrast.

The Count of Hoogstraaten, who was on his way to Brussels, had, by good
fortune, injured his hand through the accidental discharge of a pistol.
Detained by this casualty at Cologne, he was informed, before his arrival
at the capital, of the arrest of his two distinguished friends, and
accepted the hint to betake himself at once to a place of Safety.

The loyalty of the elder Mansfeld was beyond dispute even by Alva. His
son Charles had, however, been imprudent, and, as we have seen, had even
affixed his name to the earliest copies of the Compromise. He had
retired, it is true, from all connexion with the confederates, but his
father knew well that the young Count's signature upon that famous
document would prove his death-warrant, were he found in the country. He
therefore had sent him into Germany before the arrival of the Duke.

The King's satisfaction was unbounded when he learned this important
achievement of Alva, and he wrote immediately to express his approbation
in the most extravagant terms. Cardinal Granvelle, on the contrary,
affected astonishment at a course which he had secretly counselled. He
assured his Majesty that he had never believed Egmont to entertain
sentiments opposed to the Catholic religion, nor to the interests of the
Crown, up to the period of his own departure from the Netherlands. He was
persuaded, he said, that the Count had been abused by others, although,
to be sure, the Cardinal had learned with regret what Egmont had written
on the occasion of the baptism of Count Hoogstraaten's child. As to the
other persons arrested, he said that no one regretted their fate. The
Cardinal added, that he was supposed to be himself the instigator of
these captures, but that he was not disturbed by that, or by other
imputations of a similar nature.

In conversation with those about him, he frequently expressed regret that
the Prince of Orange had been too crafty to be caught in the same net in
which his more simple companions were so inextricably entangled. Indeed,
on the first arrival of the news, that men of high rank had been arrested
in Brussels, the Cardinal eagerly inquired if the Taciturn had been
taken