Both these gentlemen, together with Pardieu De la Motte, general of the artillery, were voluntarily absent from the forces, under pretext of celebrating the wedding of the Seigneur De Bersel with the niece and heiress of the unfortunate Marquis of Bergen.

The ghost of that ill-starred noble might almost have seemed to rise at the nuptial banquet of his heiress, to warn the traitors of the signal and bloody massacre which their treachery was soon to occasion.

Philip Egmont, eldest son of the famous Lamoral, was with the army, as was the Seigneur de Heze, hero of the State Council's arrest, and the unstable Havre.

But little was to be hoped from such leaders.

Indeed, the affairs of the states continued to be in as perplexed a condition as that which honest John of Nassau had described some weeks before.