History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

Chapter 11
The Image-breakings
WE have seen the procession of the 300
noblemen who, with Count Brederode at their
head, on the 5th of April, 1566, walked two and
two on foot to the old palace of Brabant in
Brussels, to lay the grievances under which their
nation groaned at the feet of Margaret, Regent of
the Netherlands. We have also heard the answer
which the regent returned. She promised to send
their petition by special envoys to Philip, with
whom alone the power lay of granting or
withholding its request; and meanwhile, though she
could not close the Inquisition, she would issue
orders to the inquisitors to proceed "with
discretion." The noblemen whom Margaret
selected to carry the Confederate Petition to Spain
were the Marquis de Berghen and the Baron de
Montigny. They gladly undertook the mission
entrusted to them, little suspecting how fruitless it
would prove for their country, and how fatally it
would end for themselves. The tyrant, as we shall
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