Their doom had been settled in advance, and the king was inflexible.

Alva accordingly determined that they should be executed before he left Brussels for his campaign in the north.

On June 2, the council, after refusing to hear any further evidence in the prisoners' favour, pronounced them guilty of high treason; and Alva at once signed the sentences of death.

Egmont and Hoorn the next day were brought by a strong detachment of troops from Ghent to Brussels and were confined in a building opposite the town hall, known as the Broodhuis.
On June 5, their heads were struck off upon a scaffold erected in the great square before their place of confinement.

Both of them met their death with the utmost calmness and courage.