There was so much brave daring in D. John's act of entering alone a country, for the most part rebel and not a little heretical, his Spanish troops already dismissed, and without other guards than the Duke of Arschot's Flemings, that the Prince of Orange and his followers were amazed and understood that nothing would stop D. John if he were not deprived of life or liberty. They determined, therefore, to effect one or the other, and the numerous agents of Orange, helped by those of the Queen of England, went about the country spreading clever calumnies against him, to prepare the way, maliciously interpreting all his acts and gradually making him and his government hated. Faithful to the policy of peace which had been enjoined on him, D. John wished to confer with Orange, and sent the Duke of Arschot to tell him that the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland were the only two which had not signed the "Perpetual Edict," and as they were under his command D. John confided this task to him. Orange then threw off that mask, which had gained for him the surname of "Silent," and with which he had covered his ambitions and mischievous designs, and answered Arschot that Holland and Zeeland would never sign the "Perpetual Edict," as both these provinces were Calvinistic and neither would promise to keep the Roman faith, and taking off his hat and showing his bald head, he said to the Duke, with a smile, "You see my head is bald (calva)! Then know that it is not more so than my heart." This play upon words signified that the traitor meant he was also a Calvinist, and his apostasy being now known, all hopes of agreement were at an end. In truth, Orange continued his infamous war of calumnies and perfidious intrigues against D. John even more openly from this time, and with the greatest effrontery as also all that he had hitherto done in secret to the Catholic Church in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland: persecuting the clergy, expelling monks and nuns, destroying temples and altars, melting bells to make cannon, confiscating ecclesiastical revenues for his own purse or those of his partisans, and from the pulpits of Catholic churches making heretic ministers preach the doctrines of Calvin. At such impious insolence D. John proposed to the States to join their troops with those of the King, and make war on Orange and seize the provinces he had usurped; but the States put off his proposal with such shallow excuses that D. John could easily see that mutual and secret confidence existed between them and Orange. Meanwhile, in Brussels, the want of confidence and even the hatred which the agents and partisans of Orange the Silent had sown against the Austrian, grew more and more. These men became so barefaced that they wore special caps and medals with allusive letters, and the authorities and deputies became so arrogant that they ordered D. John to be called the Magistrate of Brussels, as if he were what we should now call the Mayor. He answered that they must come and see him, because it was not usual for the Magistrate to hear anyone outside the H?tel de Ville.

The solemn festivity which the magistrates were accustomed to hold in the H?tel de Ville, a banquet, always presided over by the Governor-General, was about to take place. D. John received several warnings not to attend it, as something was being contrived against his person; but he, even more afraid of showing that he distrusted the magistrates, came to occupy his place, accompanied by eighty musketeers of his guard, who had orders that, happen what might, they were to wound nobody. Half-way through the banquet a crowd of seditious people attacked the H?tel de Ville, intending to enter by force, uttering insults and threats against the Austrian. The musketeers drove them back without wounding any, but many of them were hurt. D. John retired with those who remained uninjured, leaving the magistrates to deal with the guilty ones, but they overlooked this and let them go free, to show D. John that they did not consider an affront to his person worth punishing. Then it came to D. John's knowledge that the Baron of Hesse and Count de Lalaing, with two other great lords, confirmed heretics, had assembled one night in the house of another noble, and had arranged with the English ambassador and more than 500 neighbours to take D. John at the first opportunity and to kill him if he resisted. They thought that the procession of the Holy Sacrament, called in Brussels the "Miracle," might afford a good one. It took place on the 3rd of July and was always presided over by the Governor-General. D. John did not wish to break with the States, who were consenting to all this, and preferred to avoid the danger by going to Mechlin on the pretence of settling the pay of the German troops, who were asking for their money, which was in arrears. But his friends did not think him safe there and so they told him; because the conspirators, furious at their prey having escaped them, armed the militia and took the road to Luxemburg, which was a quiet place where D. John and Alexander Farnese could take refuge, and to which the Spanish troops could return. With great patience D. John thought it wise still to dissimulate, and found another plausible excuse for leaving Mechlin and not returning to Brussels and getting nearer to a strong and safe place. He went to Namur, very quietly and calmly, to receive the Queen of Navarre, Margaret of Valois, who was passing in order to take the waters of Spa at Liége. This lady was the celebrated Queen Margot, first wife of Henry IV of France, then at the summit of her vaunted beauty and in the waxing period of her coquetry, which at last degenerated, as it generally does, into shameless and complete dissoluteness.

Queen Margot entered Namur on the 24th of July in a litter entirely made of glass, a present from D. John of Austria. The glass of the litter was engraved with forty verses in Spanish and Italian, all alluding to the sun and its effects, to which the poet gallantly compared the beautiful Queen. D. John rode on her right, and their persons were guarded by the forty archers who surrounded them; they were preceded by a company of arquebusiers on horseback and one hundred Germans forming two lines, and were followed by the Princess de la ............