t Montigny's answers to the interrogatories addressed to him
had created a triumphant vindication of his course, than that such
vindication would be utterly powerless to save his life. The charges
preferred against him were similar to those which had brought Egmont and
Horn to the block, and it certainly created no ground of hope for him,
that he could prove himself even more innocent of suspicious conduct than
they had done. On the 4th March, 1570, accordingly, the Duke of Alva
pronounced sentence against him. The sentence declared that his head
should be cut off, and afterwards exposed to public view upon the head of
a pike. Upon the 18th March, 1570, the Duke addressed a requisitory
letter to the alcaldes, corregidors, and other judges of Castile,
empowering them to carry the sentence into execution.

On the arrival of this requisition there was a serious debate before the
King in council. It seemed to be the general opinion that there had been
almost severity enough in the Netherlands for the present. The spectacle
of the public execution of another distinguished personage, it was
thought, might now prove more irritating than salutary. The King was of
this opinion himself. It certainly did not occur to him or to his
advisers that this consideration should lead them to spare the life of an
innocent man. The doubts entertained as to the expediency of a fresh
murder were not allowed to benefit the prisoner, who, besides being a
loyal subject and a communicant of the ancient Church, was also clothed
in the white robes of an envoy, claiming not only justice but
hospitality, as the deputy of Philip's sister, Margaret of Parma. These
considerations probably never occurred to the mind of His Majesty. In
view, however, of the peculiar circumstances of the case, it was
unanimously agreed that there should be no more blood publicly shed. Most
of the councillors were in favor of slow poison. Montigny's meat and
drink, they said, should be daily drugged, so that he might die by little
and little. Philip, however, terminated these disquisitions by deciding
that the ends of justice would not thus be sufficiently answered. The
prisoner, he had resolved, should be regularly executed, but the deed
should be secret, and it should be publicly announced that he had died of
a fever.

This point having been settled; the King now set about the arrangement of
his plan with all that close attention to detail which marked his
character. The