he was not so presumptuous, nor so destitute of sense as to put himself into comparison with a, gentleman of Count Brederode’s quality, but that as he had served as secretary to the privy council for twenty-three years, he had thought that he might be believed upon his word.  Hereupon La Tome drew up a formal protest, and Brederode drew up another.  La Torre made a proces verbal of their interview, while Brederode stormed like a madman, and abused the Duchess for a capricious and unreasonable tyrant.  He ended by imprisoning La Torre for a day or two, and seizing his papers.  By a singular coincidence, these events took place on the 13th, 24th, and 15th of March, the very days of the great Antwerp tumult.  The manner in which the Prince of Orange had been dealing with forty or fifty thousand armed men, anxious to cut each other’s throats, while Brederode was thus occupied in browbeating a pragmatical but decent old secretary, illustrated the difference in calibre of the two men.

This was the Count’s last exploit.  He remained at Amsterdam some weeks longer, but the events which succeeded changed the Hector into a faithful vassal.  Before the 12th of April, he wrote to Egmont, begging his intercession with Margaret of Parma, and offering “carte blanche” as to terms, if he might only be allowed to make his peace with government.  It was, however, somewhat late in the day for the “great beggar” to make his submission.  No terms were accorded him, but he was allowed by the Duchess to enjoy his revenues provisionally, subject to the King’s pleasure.  Upon the 25th April, he entertained a select circle of friends at his hotel in Amsterdam, and then embarked at midnight for Embden.  A numerous procession of his adherents escorted him to the ship, bearing lighted torches, and singing bacchanalian songs.  He died within a year afterwards, of disappointment and hard drinking, at Castle Hardenberg, in Germany, after all his fretting and fury, and notwithstanding his vehement protestations to die a poor soldier at the feet of Louis Nassau.

That “good chevalier and good Christian,” as his brother affectionately called him, was in Germany, girding himself for the manly work which Providence had destined him to perform.  The life of Brederode, who had engaged in the early struggle, perhaps from the frivolous expectation of hearing himself called Count of Holland, as his ancestors had been, had contributed nothing to the cause of freedom, nor did his death occasion regret.  His disorderly band of followers dispersed in every direction upon the departure of their chief.  A vessel in which Batenburg, Galaina, and other nobles, with their men-at-arms, were escaping towards a German port, was carried into Harlingen, while those gentlemen, overpowered by sleep and wassail, were unaware of their danger, and delivered over to Count Meghem, by the treachery of their pilot.  The soldiers, were immediately hanged.  The noblemen were reserved to grace the first great scaffold which Alva was to erect upon the horse-market in Brussels.