The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
Literature -- Collections
As the clock struck three, the hero of the scene appeared. Caesar, as
he was always designated in the classic language of the day, entered,
leaning on the shoulder of William of Orange. They came from the
chapel, and were immediately followed by Philip the Second and Queen
Mary of Hungary. The Archduke Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and
other great personages came afterward, accompanied by a glittering
throng of warriors, councilors, governors, and Knights of the Fleece.
Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity in the
Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the student of the epoch,
seemed to have been grouped, as if by premeditated design, upon this
imposing platform, where the curtain was to fall forever upon the
mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, and where the opening scene of
the long and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reign was to be
simultaneously enacted. There was the bishop of Arras, soon to be
known throughout Christendom by the more celebrated title of Cardinal
Granvelle--the serene and smiling priest, whose subtle influence over
the destinies of so many individuals then present, and over the
fortunes of the whole land, was to be so extensive and so deadly.
There was that flower of Flemish chivalry, the lineal descendant of
ancient Frisian kings, already distinguished for his bravery in many
fields, but not having yet won those two remarkable victories which
were soon to make the name of Egmont like the sound of a trumpet
throughout the whole country. Tall, magnificent in costume, with dark
flowing hair, soft brown eye, smooth cheek, a slight mustache, and
features of almost feminine delicacy--such was the gallant and
ill-fated Lamoral Egmont. The Count of Hoorne,[22] too, with bold,
sullen face, and fan-shaped beard--a brave, honest, discontented,
quarrelsome, unpopular man; those other twins in doom, the Marquis
Berghen and the Lord of Montigny; the Baron Berlaymont, brave,
intensely loyal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, but who at
least never served but one party; the Duke of Arschot, who was to
serve all, essay to rule all, and to betray all--a splendid seignior,
magnificent in cramoisy velvet, but a poor creature, who traced his
pedigree from Adam according to the family monumental inscriptions at
Louvain, but who was better known as grandnephew of the Emperor's
famous tutor Chievres; the bold, debauched Brederode, with handsome,
reckless face and turbulent demeanor; the infamous Noircarmes, whose
name was to be covered with eternal execration for aping toward his
own compatriots and kindred as much of Alva's atrocities and avarice
as he was permitted to exercise; the distinguished soldiers Meghen and
Aremberg--these, with many others whose deeds of arms were to become
celebrated throughout Europe, were all conspicuous in the brilliant
crowd. There, too, was that learned Frisian, President Viglius,
crafty, plausible, adroit, eloquent--a small, brisk man, with long
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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