[1107] Ibid., ubi supra.—Guerres Civiles du Pays-Bas, p. 171.—Meteren, Hist. des Pays-Bas, fol. 57.
The third volume of the Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau contains a report of this execution from an eye-witness, a courier of Alva, who left Brussels the day after the event, and was intercepted on his route by the patriots. One may imagine the interest with which William and his friends listened to the recital of the tragedy; and how deep must have been their anxiety for the fate of their other friends,—Hoorne and Egmont in particular,—over whom the sword of the executioner hung by a thread. We may well credit the account of the consternation that reigned throughout Brussels. "Il affirme que c'estoit une chose de l'autre monde, le crys, lamentation et juste compassion qu'aviont tous ceux de la ville du dit Bruxelles, nobles et ignobles, pour ceste barbare tyrannie, mais que nonobstant, ce cestuy Nero d'Alve se vante en ferat le semblable de tous ceulx quy potra avoir en mains." P. 241.
[1108] If we are to believe Bentivoglio, Backerzele was torn asunder by horses. "Da quattro cavalli fu smembrato vivo in Brusselles il Casembrot già segretario dell'Agamonte." (Guerra di Fiandra, p. 200.) But Alva's character, hard and unscrupulous as he may have been in carrying out his designs, does not warrant the imputation of an act of such wanton cruelty as this. Happily it is not justified by historic testimony; no notice of the fact being found in Strada, or Meteren, or the author of the Guerres Civiles du Pays-Bas, not to add other writers of the time, who cannot certainly be charged with undue partiality to the Spaniards. If so atrocious a deed had been perpetrated, it would be passing strange that it should not have found a place in the catalogue of crimes imputed to Alva by the prince of Orange. See, in particular, his letter to Schwendi, written in an agony of grief and indignation, soon after he had learned the execution of his friends. Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. III. p. 244.
[1109] Bor, the old Dutch historian, contemporary with these events, says that, "if it had not been for the countess-dowager, Hoorne's step-mother, that noble would actually have starved in prison from want of money to procure himself food!" Arend, Algemeene Geschiedenis des Vaderlands, D. II. St. v. bl. 37.
[1110] "Ce dernier fait chaque jour des aveux, et on peut s'attendre qu'il dira des merveilles, lorsqu'il sera mis à la torture." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 589.
[1111] Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas, tom. II. p. 247.
[1112] The Interrogatoires, filling nearly fifty octavo pages, were given to the public by the late Baron Reiffenberg, at the end of his valuable compilation of the correspondence of Margaret. Both the questions and answers, strange as it may seem, were originally drawn up in Castilian. A French version was immediately made by the secretary Pratz,—probably for the benefit of the Flemish councillors of the bloody tribunal. Both the Castilian and French MSS. were preserved in the archives of the house of Egmont until the middle of the last century, when an unworthy heir of this ancient line suffered them to pass into other hands. They were afterwards purchased by the crown, and are now in a fitting place of deposit,—the Archives of the Kingdom of Holland. The MS. printed by Reiffenberg is in French.
[1113] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II. p. 14.
[1114] Supplément à Strada, tom. I. p. 244.
[1115] Ibid., p. 219.—Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 588.