release captives, restore confiscated
property, and reinstate officers who had been removed; leaving the
details of such restorations to the council of Mechlin and the other
provincial tribunals. He was to engage that the Count Van Buren should be
set free within two months. He was himself, while waiting for the
appointment of his successor, to take up his residence in Luxemburg, and
while there, he was to be governed entirely by the decision of the State
Council, expressed by a majority of its members. Furthermore, and as not
the least stinging of these sharp requisitions, the Queen of England--she
who had been the secret ally of Orange, and whose crown the Governor had
secretly meant to appropriate--was to be included in the treaty.

It could hardly excite surprise that Don John, receiving these insolent
propositions at the very moment in which he heard of the triumphant
entrance into Brussels of the Prince, should be filled with rage and
mortification. Never was champion of the Cross thus braved by infidels
before. The Ghent treaty, according to the Orange interpretation, that is
to say, heresy made legitimate, was to be the law of the land. His
Majesty was to surrender--colors and cannon--to his revolted subjects.
The royal authority was to be superseded by that of a State Council,
appointed by the states-general, at the dictation of the Prince. The
Governor-General himself, brother of his Catholic Majesty, was to sit
quietly with folded arms in Luxemburg, while the arch-heretic and rebel
reigned supreme in Brussels. It was too much to expect that the choleric
soldier would be content with what he could not help regarding as a
dishonorable capitulation. The arrangement seemed to him about as
reasonable as it would have been to invite Sultan Selim to the Escorial,
and to send Philip to reside at Bayonne. He could not but regard the
whole proposition as an insolent declaration of war. He was right. It was
a declaration of war; as much so as if proclaimed by trump of herald. How
could Don John refuse the wager of battle thus haughtily proffered?

Smooth Schetz, Lord of Grobbendonck, and his episcopal colleague, in vain
attempted to calm the Governor's wrath, which now flamed forth, in
defiance of all considerations.

They endeavored, without success, to palliate the presence of Orange, and
the circumstances of his reception, for it was not probable that their
eloquence would bring the Governor to look at the subject