In
compliance, therefore, with their advice it was determined to present
their address unarmed and in the form of a petition, and a day was
appointed on which they should assemble in Brussels.
The first intimation the Regent received of this conspiracy of the
nobles was given by the Count of Megen soon after his return to the
capital. "There was," he said, "an enterprise on foot; no less than
three hundred of the nobles were implicated in it; it referred to
religion; the members of it had bound themselves together by an oath;
they reckoned much on foreign aid; she would soon know more about it."
Though urgently pressed, he would give her no further information. "A
nobleman," he said, "had confided it to him under the seal of secrecy,
and he had pledged his word of honor to him." What really withheld him
from giving her any further explanation was, in all probability, not so
much any delicacy about his honor, as his hatred of the Inquisition,
which he would not willingly do anything to advance. Soon after him,
Count Egmont delivered to the Regent a copy of the covenant, and also
gave her the names of the conspirators, with some few exceptions. Nearly
at the same time the Prince of Orange wrote to her: "There was, as he
had heard, an army enlisted, four hundred officers were already named,
and twenty thousand men would presently appear in arms.
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