So when the emperor, enfeebled by excesses of action and appetite, felt his grip of power slackening, and determined to transfer this people of three million souls, the most industrious, versatile, and liberty-loving in the world, from his own pocket to that of his son, he saw to it that the proceeding should be conducted with a pageantry of ceremonial worthy of the occasion.
It was enacted in the hall of the renowned Order of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the walls of which were hung with superb tapestries from the looms of Arras, representing the Biblical story of Gideon. The floor was occupied by official representatives of the provinces, clad in the sumptuous bravery of costume that distinguished this country and the times. Upon the dais at one end, beneath a splendid canopy, three chairs awaited the principals in the drama. Precisely at the stroke of three, the emperor entered from the adjoining chapel. Strange whim of Fate, he supported his gout-ridden body by leaning on the arm of the man who was eventually to be chief in undoing the policy that this day inaugurated--William, Count of Orange. Behind the emperor came Philip, and the regent, Queen Mary of Hungary, the “Christian widow” admired by Erasmus, who on one occasion had written to her brother, the emperor, that “in her opinion all heretics, whether repentant or not, should be prosecuted with such severity as that error might be at once extinguished, care being only taken that the provinces were not entirely depopulated.” Following the principals, appeared the Knights of the Fleece in full regalia, and a retinue of nobles, many of them, Egmont, Brederode, Berlaymont, Aerschot, and others, destined to figure in the subsequent drama of the Netherlands.
After a long oration by a member of the Privy Council, depicting the bodily infirmities of the emperor, his great zeal for his people’s welfare, and the particulars of the cession he was about to make, Charles himself read a long recapitulation of his wars and triumphs, dwelt upon his failing strength, and commended his successor to the good will and allegiance of his “dear Netherlanders.” At the conclusion of the speech the whole audience was melted to tears and the emperor himself wept like a child. Philip knelt in reverence, as his father made the sign of the cross above his head and blessed him in the name of the Holy Trinity. Then, while the assembled host applauded he rose to his feet, ruler by the grace of God, vice the emperor, of the Netherlands, Spain, and her American possessions. But he could not speak the language of the Netherlands; his acceptance of their allegiance and his own promises of regard for their interests had to be made through an interpreter.