“The nobles of these countries, seeing this tyranny, presented in the year 1566 a request wherein they entreated the sovereign to moderate the rigour of his edicts and in especial those which concerned the Inquisition: he consistently refused this.”
“Let him be deposed as a tiger abandoned and obstinate in his cruelty,” replied the States.
The clerk continued:
“Philip is strongly suspected of having, through the intermediary of his Council of Spain, secretly inspired the image-breakings and the sacking of churches, in order to be able, under the pretext of suppressing crime and disorder, to send foreign armies to march against us.”
“Let him be deposed as an instrument of death,” replied the States.
“At Antwerp Philip caused the inhabitants to be massacred, ruined the Flemish merchants and the foreign merchants. He and his Council of Spain gave a certain Rhoda, a notorious scoundrel, the right by secret instructions to declare himself the head of the pillagers, to harvest the booty, to employ his name, the name of Philip the king, to counterfeit his seals and counterseals, and to comport himself at his governor and his lieutenant. The royal letters, which were intercepted and are in our hands, prove this to be the fact. All took place with his consent and after deliberation in the Council of Spain. Read his letters; therein he praises the feat of Antwerp, acknowledges that he hath received a signal service, promises to reward it, enjoins Rhoda and the other Spaniards to continue to walk in this path of glory.”
“Let him be deposed as a robber, pillager, and murderer,” replied the States.
“We ask for nothing more than the maintenance of our privileges, a sincere and assured peace, a moderate freedom, especially with regard to religion which principally concerns God and man’s own conscience: we had nothing from Philip but deceitful treaties serving to sow discord between the provinces, to subdue them one after another and to treat them in the same way as the Indies, by pillage, confiscation, executions, and the Inquisition.”
“Let him be deposed as an assassin premeditating the murder of a country,” replied the States.
“He made the country bleed through the Duke of Alba and his catchpolls, through Medina-Coeli, Requesens, the traitors of the Councils of State and of the provinces; he enjoined a vigorous and bloody severity upon Don Juan and Alexander Farnèse, Prince of Parma (as may be seen by his intercepted letters); he set the ban of the empire upon Monseigneur d’Orange, paid the hire of three assassins before paying a fourth; erected castles and fortresses among us; had men burned alive, women and girls buried alive; inherited their goods, strangled Montigny, de Berghes, and other lords, despite his kingly word; killed his son Carlos; poisoned the Prince of Ascoly, whom he made espouse Doña Eufrasia, with child by himself, in order to enrich with his estates the bastard that was to come; launched an edict against us that declared us all traitors, that had forfeited our bodies and our wealth, and committed the crime unheard of in a Christian land, of confounding innocent and guilty.”