United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At last Granvelle sent down a peremptory order to execute the culprits by fire. On the 27th of April, 1562, Faveau and Mallart were accordingly taken from their jail and carried to the market-place, where arrangements had been made for burning them. Simon Faveau, as the executioner was binding him to the stake, uttered the invocation, "O! Eternal Father!"
Thus, the "cup of bitterness," of which Granvelle had already complained; was again commended to his lips, and there was more reason than ever for the government to regret that the national representatives had contracted the habit of meddling with financial matters. Florence de Montmorency, Seigneur de Montigny, was selected by the Regent for the mission which had been decided upon for Spain.
They even informed him that his Majesty had assembled "certain persons learned in cases of conscience, and versed in theology," according to whose advice a final decision, not yet possible, would be given at some future period. This assembly of learned conscience-keepers and theologians had no existence save in the imaginations of Granvelle and Margaret.
The Duchess, on her part, characterized the proceedings and policy, both past and present, of the cardinalists as factious, corrupt, and selfish in the last degree. She assured her brother that the simony, rapine, and dishonesty of Granvelle, Viglius, and all their followers, had brought affairs into the ruinous condition which was then but too apparent.
The great object of immediate good was the removal of Cardinal Granvelle. William boldly put himself at the head of the confederacy. He wrote to the king, conjointly with Counts Egmont and Horn, faithfully portraying the state of affairs. The duchess of Parma backed this remonstrance with a strenuous request for Granvelle's dismission.
It was not an interposition to save the Prince from chastisement, however the artful pen of Granvelle might distort the facts. It was an address in behalf of religious liberty for the Netherlands, made by those who had achieved it in their own persons, and who were at last enjoying immunity from persecution.
He was not mistaken one was no less a personage than the younger Granvelle, the Bishop of Arras, who, notwithstanding his nine-and-twenty years, was already the favourite counsellor of Charles V; the other, a man considerably his senior, Dr. Mathys, of Bruges, the Emperor's physician.
Supported by the evidence which, alas was not collected and published till after his death, it was impregnable. He denied that he had ever plotted against his King, to whom he had ever been attached, but admitted that he had desired the removal of Granvelle, to whom he had always been hostile.
Young Chavoncourt, a youth of two-and-twenty, and another young gentleman, named Monsieur de Vauchelles, no richer than Amedee and his school-friend, were his intimate allies. They made excursions together to Granvelle, and sometimes went out shooting; they were so well known to be inseparable that they were invited to the country together.
During the early part of the year, after the reconciliation of Bruges with the King an event brought about by the duplicity and adroitness of Prince Chimay the same machinery had been diligently and almost successfully employed to produce a like result in Ghent. Champagny, brother of the famous Cardinal Granvelle, had been under arrest for six years in that city.
Word Of The Day