[859] "Siesse qu'elle jure que s'et la plus grande vilagnerie du monde..... et que s'et ung vray pasquil fameulx et qui doit ettre forgé pardechà, et beaucoup de chozes semblables." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 400.
[860] "En fin s'et une femme nourie en Rome, il n'y at que ajouter foy." Ibid., p. 401.
Yet Egmont, on his trial, affirmed that he regarded the letter as spurious! (Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 327.) One who finds it impossible that the prince of Orange could lend himself to such a piece of duplicity, may perhaps be staggered when he calls to mind his curious correspondence with the elector and with King Philip in relation to Anne of Saxony, before his marriage with that princess. Yet Margaret, as Egmont hints, was of the Italian school; and Strada, her historian, dismisses the question with a doubt,—"in medio ego quidem relinquo." A doubt from Strada is a decision against Margaret.
[861] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom I. p. 474.
[862] Ibid., p. 491.
[863] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 282.
[864] Ibid., ubi supra.
[865] Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 109.
[866] Ibid., p. 113.
[867] Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 391.