The Flemish government was soon alive to the necessity of breaking the power of this confederation.[1079] Membership in the confederation, if proved, was heavily punished. The retirement of the prince of Orange from the land was believed by the government to be due to a prudent effort to avoid being so compromised. It was certainly true of Brederode. But Egmont and Hoorne remained, declaring they had done nothing, and renewed their oath of allegiance to the King.[1080] Nevertheless Granvella sarcastically quoted Lycurgus that neutrals were more odious than enemies. “After the towns have been cleared out,” wrote the provost Morillon, “it will be time to attack the garden in order to destroy the weeds and roots there,” and Spain’s agent at Amsterdam at the same time wrote: “God may pardon those who are the cause of _one_ and the _other_ league; but I assure you, unless I am much mistaken, that those who have made others to dance, have some other purpose than we know. Time will discover it.”[1081] [Illustration: EXECUTION OF EGMONT AND HOORNE IN THE MARKET SQUARE AT BRUSSELS Original copper plate by Franz Hogenberg.] This somewhat long dissertation upon the nature and development of the confederation formed by Philip’s II revolted subjects in Flanders is not a digression beside the mark. The number of Huguenots to be found in the Low Countries in 1566-67, intriguing with their coreligionists against Spain was very great. The duke of Bouillon and the prince of Porcien were the most prominent of these.[1082] In the aggregate the number was so great and their participation so serious a matter for the government, that the maintenance of the frontier against the French was urged upon Alva as the first necessity, immediately after his arrival at Brussels.[1083] France for her own part began to erect a citadel at Verdun and to strengthen the Picard frontier, whose towns received new troops in June, and when word came that there were German troops in Luxembourg awaiting Alva’s arrival, D’Andelot was sent to the frontier of Champagne with 6,000 Swiss which the government had levied.[1084] This action ruffled Philip II’s temper, for to him it was flaunting his failure to break the alliance of the Swiss with France in his very face. His ambassador in France protested energetically and charged the queen with duplicity.[1085] At Madrid the nuncio inquired with curiosity of Fourquevaux, in what spirit Philip II—who had had an audience with the ambassador the day before—received the news of France’s activities in Switzerland. “I told him,” wrote the ambassador to Charles IX, “that it was the usage and custom of great kings and princes whenever they saw their neighbors arming, to assure themselves also of their realms and states.”[1086] Calais was a double source of anxiety, first because Spain, in pursuance of Alva’s recommendation, had not been content with fortifying Gravelines, but had actually built