History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

spreading. The three seigniors wrote again to the
monarch. They begged to say, if the statement had
any interest for him, that the country was on the
road to ruin. The regent Margaret about the same
time wrote also to her brother, the king. As she
now heartily hated Granvelle, her representations
confirmed those of Orange, although, reared as she
had been in the school of Loyola, she still
maintained the semblance of confidence in and
affection for the cardinal. The king now began to
deliberate in earnest. Pending the arrival of Philip's
answer, the Flemish grandees, at a great feast
where they all met, came to the resolution of
adopting a livery avowedly in ridicule of the grand
dresses and showy equipages of the cardinal.
Accordingly, in a few days, all their retainers
appeared in worsted hose, and doublets of coarse
grey, with hanging sleeves, but with no ornament
whatever, except a fool's cap and bells embroidered
upon each sleeve. The jest was understood, but the
cardinal affected to laugh at it. In a little while the
device was changed. The fool's cap and bells
disappeared, and a sheaf of arrows came in the
room of the former symbol.[3] The sheaf of
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