VII
It was the fifth of April, just before Easter, and the Counts Louis of Nassau, de Culembourg, and de Brederode (he that was surnamed Hercule the Toper) were entering the courtyard of the palace of Brussels, together with three hundred gentlemen. They were come to seek an audience of the Governess of the Netherlands, Madame the Duchess of Parma, and were mounting the great stairway of the palace four by four.
Coming at length into the hall where my Lady was seated they presented their petition, which entreated her to use her influence with King Philip for the abolition of all those decrees which concerned religion and the introduction into Flanders of the Spanish Inquisition. This petition, which afterwards became known as “The Compromise,” also declared that in our already disaffected country such a policy as the introduction of the Inquisition could only result in troubles of all kinds, ruin to the country, and universal misery.
Berlaymont, who later on was to prove so treacherous and baneful to the land of his birth, stood close by Her Highness, and mocked at the poverty of certain of the confederate nobles who had come to visit her.
“Have no fear, my Lady,” he told her, “they are nothing but beggars!”
And by these words he implied either that the said nobles had been ruined in the service of the King, or else that they were eager to emulate the luxury of the great Lords of Spain. And thus it was that later on these same nobles endeavoured to bring ridicule upon the words of Berlaymont by saying that “they held it indeed an honour to be esteemed and spoken of as beggars—beggars for the good service of the King and the advantage of these lands.” And from that time they began to wear round their necks a golden medal carved with an effigy of the King. And on the obverse side of the medal were two hands clasped upon a beggar’s wallet, with these words writ thereunder: “To the King, faithful even unto beggary.” On their hats and bonnets they carried also little golden ornaments made in the form of beggars’ hats and platters.
And all this time Lamme went carrying his portly form about the town, seeking the wife that he never found.