Margaret trembled with anger.
"What do you want of me?" she asked, driven to desperation.
That was too complex a matter for either the Prince of Orange or Count Hoorne to commit themselves to, but Lamoral Egmont, who was neither cautious nor wise, answered instantly—
"The withdrawal of Cardinal Granvelle from the Netherlands."
The Duchess rose in her agitation, sweeping her needlework to the ground.
"Ho, you ask no little thing of me!" she cried in her indignation. "How think you the King would take that request?"
"Let Your Grace make it," replied the Stadtholder of Brabant, with a touch of insolence. "And, while we wait an answer from Madrid, let Your Grace counsel the Cardinal to comport himself with less overbearing arrogance."
"Arrogance!" flashed Margaret. "What of the Count Brederode, who nightly, when in drink, sports Cardinal's attire at some public mask, and mocks and flouts His Eminence with huge indecency? What of the pasquils that reach my very closet and are thrust under the Cardinal's pillow? What of these vile rhetoric plays which no punishment can stop and which jeer at all holy things?"
"We know none of any of this," declared Hoorne, with rising anger.
"Henry Brederode is not my charge," said Egmont, "nor do I control his frolics."