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                            BOOK II.

                      CARDINAL GRANVELLA.


ANTHONY PERENOT, Bishop of Arras, subsequently Archbishop of Malines,
and Metropolitan of all the Netherlands, who, under the name of Cardinal
Granvella, has been immortalized by the hatred of his contemporaries,
was born in the year 1516, at Besancon in Burgundy.  His father,
Nicolaus Perenot, the son of a blacksmith, had risen by his own merits
to be the private secretary of Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, at that time
regent of the Netherlands.  In this post he was noticed for his habits
of business by Charles V., who took him into his own service and
employed him in several important negotiations.  For twenty years he was
a member of the Emperor's cabinet, and filled the offices of privy
counsellor and keeper of the king's seal, and shared in all the state
secrets of that monarch.  He acquired a large fortune.  His honors,
his influence, and his political knowledge were inherited by his son,
Anthony Perenot, who in his early years gave proofs of the great
capacity which subsequently opened to him so distinguished a career.
Anthony had cultivated at several colleges the talents with which nature
had so lavishly endowed him, and in some respects had an advantage over
his father.  He soon showed that his own abilities were sufficient to
maintain the advantageous position which the merits of another had
procured him.  He was twenty-four years old when the Emperor sent him as
his plenipotentiary to the ecclesiastical council of Trent, where he
delivered the first specimen of that eloquence which in the sequel gave
him so complete an ascendancy over two kings.  Charles employed him in
several difficult embassies, the duties of which he fulfilled to the
satisfaction of his sovereign, and when finally that Emperor resigned
the sceptre to his son he made that costly present complete by giving
him a minister who could help him to wield it.

Granvella opened his new career at once with the greatest masterpiece of
political genius, in passing so easily from the favor of such a father
into equal consideration with such a son.  And he soon proved himself
deserving of it.  At the secret negotiations of which the Duchess of
Lorraine had, in 1558, been the medium between the French and Spanish
ministers at Peronne, he planned, conjointly with the Cardinal of
Lorraine, that conspiracy against the Protestants which was afterwards
matured, but also betrayed, at Chateau-Cambray, where Perenot likewise
assisted in effecting the so-called peace.

A deeply penetrating, comprehensive intellect, an unusual facility in
conducting great and intricate affairs, and the most extensive learning,
were wonderfully united in this man with persevering industry and never-
wearying patience, while his enterprising genius was associated with
thoughtful mechanical regularity.  Day and night the state found him
vigilant and collected; the most important and the most insignificant
things were alike weighed by him with scrupulous attention.  Not
unfrequently he employed five secretaries at one time, dictating to them
in different languages, of which he is said to have spoken seven.  What
his penetrating mind had slowly matured acquired in his lips both force
and grace, and truth, set forth by his persuasive eloquence,
irresistibly carried away all hearers.  He was tempted by none
of the passions which make slaves of most men.  His integrity was
incorruptible.  With shrewd penetration he saw through the disposition
of his master, and could read in his features his whole train of
thought, and, as it were, the approaching form in the shadow which
outran it.  With an artifice rich in resources he came to the aid of
Philip's more inactive mind, formed into perfect thought his master's
crude ideas while they yet hung on his lips, and liberally allowed him
the glory of the invention.  Granvella understood the difficult and
useful art of depreciating his own talents; of making his own genius the
seeming slave of another; thus he ruled while he concealed his sway.  In
this manner only could Philip II. be governed.  Content with a silent
but real power, Granvella did not grasp insatiably at new and outward
marks of it, which with lesser minds are ever the most coveted objects;
but every new distinction seemed to sit upon him as easily as the
oldest.  No wonder if such extraordinary endowments had alone gained him
the favor of his master; but a large and valuable treasure of political
secrets and experiences, which the active life of Charles V. had
accumulated, and had deposited in the mind of this man, made him
indispensable to his successor.  Self-sufficient as the latter was, and
accustomeded to confide in his own understanding, his timid and
crouching policy was fain to lean on a superior mind, and to aid its own
irresolution not only by precedent but also by the influence and example
of another.  No political matter which concerned the royal interest,
even when Philip himself was in the Netherlands, was decided without the
intervention of Granvella; and when the king embarked for Spain he made
the new regent the same valuable present of the minister which he
himself had received from the Emperor, his father.

Common as it is for despotic princes to bestow unlimited confidence on
the creatures whom they have raised from the dust, and of whose
greatness they themselves are, in a measure, the creators, the present
is no ordinary instance; pre-eminent must have been the qualities which
could so far conquer the selfish reserve of such a character as Philip's
as to gain his confidence, nay, even to win him into familiarity.  The
slightest ebullition of the most allowable self-respect, which might
have tempted him to assert, however slightly, his claim to any idea
which the king had once ennobled as his own, would have cost him his
whole influence.  He might gratify without restraint the lowest passions
of voluptuousness, of rapacity, and of revenge, but the only one in
which he really took delight, the sweet consciousness of his own
superiority and power, he was constrained carefully to conceal from the
suspicious glance of the despot.  He voluntarily disclaimed all the
eminent qualities, which were already his own, in order, as it were, to
receive them a second time from the generosity of the king.  His
happiness seemed to flow from no other source, no other person could
have a claim upon his gratitude.  The purple, which was sent to him from
Rome, was not assumed until the royal permission reached him from Spain;
by laying it down on the steps of the throne he appeared, in a measure,
to receive it first from the hands of majesty.  Less politic, Alva
erected a trophy in Antwerp, and inscribed his own name under the
victory, which he had won as the servant of the crown--but Alva carried
with him to the grave the displeasure of his master.  He had invaded
with audacious hand the royal prerogative by drawing immediately at the
fountain of immortality.

Three times Granvella changed his master, and three times he succeeded
in rising to the highest favor.  With the same facility with which he
had guided the settled pride of an autocrat, and the sly egotism of a
despot, he knew how to manage the delicate vanity of a woman.  His
business between himself and the regent, even when they were in the same
house, was, for the most part, transacted by the medium of notes, a
custom which draws its date from the times of Augustus and Tiberius.
When the regent was in any perplexity these notes were interchanged from
hour to hour.  He probably adopted this expedient in the hope of eluding
the watchful jealousy of the nobility, and concealing from them, in part
at least, his influence over the regent.  Perhaps, too, he also believed
that by this means his advice would become more permanent; and, in case
of need, this written testimoney would be at hand to shield him from
blame.  But the vigilance of the nobles made this caution vain, and it
was soon known in all the provinces that nothing was determined upon
without the minister's advice.

Granvella possessed all the qualities requisite for a perfect statesman
in a monarchy governed by despotic principles, but was absolutely
unqualified for republics which are governed by kings.  Educated between
the throne and the confessional, he knew of no other relation between
man and man than that of rule and subjection; and the innate
consciousness of his own superiority gave him a contempt for others.
His policy wanted pliability, the only virtue which was here
indispensable to its success.  He was naturally overbearing and
insolent, and the royal authority only gave arms to the natural
impetuosity of his disposition and the imperiousness of his order.  He
veiled his own ambition beneath the interests of the crown, and made the
breach between the nation and the king incurable, because it would
render him indispensable to the latter.  He revenged on the nobility the
lowliness of his own origin; and, after the fashion of all those who
have risen by their own merits, he valued the advantages of birth below
those by which he had raised himself to distinction.  The Protestants
saw in him their most implacable foe; to his charge were laid all the
burdens which oppressed the country, and they pressed the more heavily
because they came from him.  Nay, he was even accused of having brought
back to severity the milder sentiments to which the urgent remonstrances
of the provinces had at last disposed the monarch.  The Netherlands
execrated him as the most terrible enemy of their liberties, and the
originator of all the misery which subsequently came upon them.


1559.  Philip had evidently left the provinces too soon.  The new
measures of the government were still strange to the people, and could
receive sanction and authority from his presence alone; the new machines
which he had brought into play required to be kept in motion by a
dreaded and powerful hand, and to have their first movements watched and
regulated.  He now exposed his minister to all the angry passions of the
people, who no longer felt restrained by the fetters of the royal
presence; and he delegated to the weak arm of a subject the execution of
projects in which majesty itself, with all its powerful supports, might
have failed.

The land, indeed, flourished; and a general prosperity appeared to
testify to the blessings of the peace which had so lately been bestowed
upon it.  An external repose deceived the eye, for within raged all the
elements of discord.  If the foundations of religion totter in a country
they totter not alone; the audacity which begins with things sacred ends
with things profane.  The successful attack upon the hierarchy had
awakened a spirit of boldness, and a desire to assail authority in
general, and to test laws as well as dogmas--duties as well as opinions.
The fanatical boldness with which men had learned to discuss and decide
upon the affairs of eternity might change its subject matter; the
contempt for life and property which religious enthusiasm had taught
could metamorphose timid citizens into foolhardy rebels.  A female
government of nearly forty years had given the nation room to assert
their liberty; continual wars, of which the Netherlands had been the
theatre, had introduced a license with them, and the right of the
stronger had usurped the place of law and order.  The provinces were
filled with foreign adventurers and fugitives; generally men bound by no
ties of country, family, or property, who had brought with them from
their unhappy homes the seeds of insubordination and rebellion.  The
repeated spectacles of torture and of death had rudely burst the
tenderer threads of moral feeling, and had given an unnatural harshness
to the national character.

Still the rebellion would have crouched timorously and silently on the
ground if it had not found a support in the nobility.  Charles V. had
spoiled the Flemish nobles of the Netherlands by making them the
participators of his glory, by fostering their national pride, by the
marked preference he showed for them over the Castilian nobles, and by
opening an arena to their ambition in every part of his empire.  In the
late war with France they had really deserved this preference from
Philip; the advantages which the king reaped from the peace of Chateau-
Cambray were for the most part the fruits of their valor, and they now
sensibly missed the gratitude on which they had so confidently reckoned.
Moreover, the separation of the German empire from the Spanish monarchy,
and the less warlike spirit of the new government, had greatly narrowed
their sphere of action, and, except in their own country, little
remained for them to gain.  And Philip now appointed his Spaniards where
Charles V. had employed the Flemings.  All the passions which the
preceding government had raised and kept employed still survived in
peace; and in default of a legitimate object these unruly feelings
found, unfortunately, ample scope in the grievances of their country.
Accordingly, the claims and wrongs which had been long supplanted by new
passions were now drawn from oblivion.  By his late appointments the
king had satisfied no party; for those even who obtained offices were
not much more content than those who were entirely passed over, because
they had calculated on something better than they got.  William of
Orange had received four governments (not to reckon some smaller
dependencies which, taken together, were equivalent to a fifth), but
William had nourished hopes of Flanders and Brabant.  He and Count
Egmont forgot what had really fallen to their share, and only remembered
that they had lost the regency.  The majority of the nobles were either
plunged into debt by their own extravagance, or had willingly enough
been drawn into it by the government.  Now that they were excluded from
the prospect of lucrative appointments, they at once saw themselves
exposed to poverty, which pained them the more sensibly when they
contrasted the splendor of the affluent citizens with their own
necessities.  In the extremities to which they were reduced many would
have readily assisted in the commission even of crimes; how then could
they resist the seductive offers of the Calvinists, who liberally repaid
them for their intercession and protection?  Lastly, many whose estates
were past redemption placed their last hope in a general devastation,
and stood prepared at the first favorable moment to cast the torch of
discord into the republic.

This threatening aspect of the public mind was rendered still more
alarming by the unfortunate vicinity of France.  What Philip dreaded for
the provinces was there already accomplished.  The fate of that kingdom
prefigured to him the destiny of his Netherlands, and the spirit of
rebellion found there a seductive example.  A similar state of things
had under Francis I. and Henry II. scattered the seeds of innovation in
that kingdom; a similar fury of persecution and a like spirit of faction
had encouraged its growth.  Now Huguenots and Catholics were struggling
in a dubious contest; furious parties disorganized the whole monarchy,
and were violently hurrying this once-powerful state to the brink of
destruction.  Here, as there, private interest, ambition, and party
feeling might veil themselves under the names of religion and
patriotism, and the passions of a few citizens drive the entire nation
to take up arms.  The frontiers of both countries merged in Walloon
Flanders; the rebellion might, like an agitated sea, cast its waves as
far as this: would a country be closed against it whose language,
manners, and character wavered between those of France and Belgium?  As
yet the government had taken no census of its Protestant subjects in
these countries, but the new sect, it was aware, was a vast, compact
republic, which extended its roots through all the monarchies of
Christendom, and the slighest disturbance in any of its most distant
members vibrated to its centre. It was, as it were, a chain of
threatening volcanoes, which, united by subterraneous passages, ignite
at the same moment with alarming sympathy.  The Netherlands were,
necessarily, open to all nations, because they derived their support
from all.  Was it possible for Philip to close a commercial state as
easily as he could Spain?  If he wished to purify these provinces from
heresy it was necessary for him to commence by extirpating it in France.

It was in this state that Granvella found the Netherlands at the
beginning of his administration (1560).

To restore to these countries the uniformity of papistry, to break the
co-ordinate power of the nobility and the states, and to exalt the royal
authority on the ruins of republican freedom, was the great object of
Spanish policy and the express commission of the new minister.  But
obstacles stood in the way of its accomplishment; to conquer these
demanded the invention of new resources, the application of new
machinery.  The Inquisition, indeed, and the religious edicts appeared
sufficient to check the contagion of heresy; but the latter required
superintendence, and the former able instruments for its now extended
jurisdiction.  The church constitution continued the same as it had been
in earlier times, when the provinces were less populous, when the church
still enjoyed universal repose, and could be more easily overlooked and
controlled.  A succession of several centuries, which changed the whole
interior form of the provinces, had left the form of the hierarchy
unaltered, which, moreover, was protected from the arbitrary will of its
ruler by the particular privileges of the provinces.  All the seventeen
provinces were parcelled out under four bishops, who had their seats at
Arras, Tournay, Cambray, and Utrecht, and were subject to the primates
of Rheims and Cologne.  Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, had, indeed,
meditated an increase in the number of bishops to meet the wants of the
increasing population; but, unfortunately, in the excitement of a life
of pleasure had abandoned the project.  Ambition and lust of conquest
withdrew the mind of Charles the Bold from the internal concerns of his
kingdom, and Maximilian had already too many subjects of dispute with
the states to venture to add to their number by proposing this change.
A stormy reign prevented Charles V. from the execution of this extensive
plan, which Philip II.  now undertook as a bequest from all these
princes.  The moment had now arrived when the urgent necessities of the
church would excuse the innovation, and the leisure of peace favored its
accomplishment.  With the prodigious crowd of people from all the
countries of Europe who were crowded together in the towns of the
Netherlands, a multitude of religious opinions had also grown up; and it
was impossible that religion could any longer be effectually
superintended by so few eyes as were formerly sufficient.  While the
number of bishops was so small their districts must, of necessity, have
been proportionally extensive, and four men could not be adequate to
maintain the purity of the faith through so wide a district.

The jurisdiction which the Archbishops of Cologne and Rheims exercised
over the Netherlands had long been a stumbling-block to the government,
which could not look on this territory as really its own property so
long as such an important branch of power was still wielded by foreign
hands.  To snatch this prerogative from the alien archbishops; by new
and active agents to give fresh life and vigor to the superintendence of
the faith, and at the same time to strengthen the number of the
partisans of government at the diet, no more effectual means could be
devised than to increase the number of bishops.  Resolved upon doing
this Philip II. ascended the throne; but he soon found that a change in
the hierarchy would inevitably meet with warm opposition from the
provinces, without whose consent, nevertheless, it would be vain to
attempt it.  Philip foresaw that the nobility would never approve of a
measure which would so strongly augment the royal party, and take from
the aristocracy the preponderance of power in the diet.  The revenues,
too, for the maintenance of these new bishops must be diverted from the
abbots and monks, and these formed a considerable part of the states of
the realm.  He had, besides, to fear the opposition of the Protestants,
who would not fail to act secretly in the diet against him.  On these
accounts the whole affair was discussed at Rome with the greatest
possible secrecy.  Instructed by, and as the agent of, Granvella,
Francis Sonnoi, a priest of Louvain, came before Paul IV. to inform him
how extensive the provinces were, how thriving and populous, how
luxurious in their prosperity.  But, he continued, in the immoderate
enjoyment of liberty the true faith is neglected, and heretics prosper.
To obviate this evil the Romish See must have recourse to extraordinary
measures.  It was not difficult to prevail on the Romish pontiff to make
a change which would enlarge the sphere of his own jurisdiction.

Paul IV. appointed a tribunal of seven cardinals to deliberate upon this
important matter; but death called him away, and he left to his
successor, Pius IV., the duty of carrying their advice into execution.
The welcome tidings of the pope's determination reached the king in
Zealand when he was just on the point of setting sail for Spain, and the
minister was secretly charged with the dangerous reform.  The new
constitution of the hierarchy was published in 1560; in addition to the
then existing four bishoprics thirteen new ones were established,
according to the number of seventeen provinces, and four of them were
raised into archbishoprics.  Six of these episcopal sees, viz., in
Antwerp, Herzogenbusch, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and Ruremonde, were placed
under the Archbishopric of Malines; five others, Haarlem, Middelburg,
Leuwarden, Deventer, and Groningen, under the Archbishopric of Utrecht;
and the remaining four, Arras, Tournay, St. Omer, and Namur, which lie
nearest to France, and have language, character, and manners in common
with that country, under the Archbishopric of Cambray.  Malines,
situated in the middle of Brabant and in the centre of all the seventeen
provinces, was made the primacy of all the rest, and was, with several
rich abbeys, the reward of Granvella.  The revenues of the new
bishoprics were provided by an appropriation of the treasures of the
cloisters and abbeys which had accumulated from pious benefactions
during centuries.  Some of the abbots were raised to the episcopal
throne, and with the possession of their cloisters and prelacies
retained also the vote at the diet which was attached to them.  At the
same time to every bishopric nine prebends were attached, and bestowed
on the most learned juris-consultists and theologians, who were to
support the Inquisition and the bishop in his spiritual office.  Of
these, the two who were most deserving by knowledge, experience, and
unblemished life were to be constituted actual inquisitors, and to have
the first voice in the Synods.  To the Archbishop of Malines, as
metropolitan of all the seventeen provinces, the full authority was
given to appoint, or at discretion depose, archbishops and bishops; and
the Romish See was only to give its ratification to his acts.

At any other period the nation would have received with gratitude and
approved of such a measure of church reform since it was fully called
for by circumstances, was conducive to the interests of religion, and
absolutely indispensable for the moral reformation of the monkhood.  Now
the temper of the times saw in it nothing but a hateful change.
Universal was the indignation with which it was received.  A cry was
raised that the constitution was trampled under foot, the rights of the
nation violated, and that the Inquisition was already at the door, and
would soon open here, as in Spain, its bloody tribunal.  The people
beheld with dismay these new servants of arbitrary power and of
persecution.  The nobility saw in it nothing but a strengthening of the
royal authority by the addition of fourteen votes in the states'
assembly, and a withdrawal of the firmest prop of their freedom, the
balance of the royal and the civil power.  The old bishops complained of
the diminution of their incomes and the circumscription of their sees;
the abbots and monks had not only lost power and income, but had
received in exchange rigid censors of their morals.  Noble and simple,
laity and clergy, united against the common foe, and while all singly
struggled for some petty private interest, the cry appeared to come from
the formidable voice of patriotism.

Among all the provinces Brabant was loudest in its opposition.  The
inviolability of its church constitution was one of the important
privileges which it had reserved in the remarkable charter of the
"Joyful Entry,"--statutes which the sovereign could not violate without
releasing the nation from its allegiance to him.  In vain did the
university of Louvain assert that in disturbed times of the church a
privilege lost its power which had been granted in the period of its
tranquillity.  The introduction of the new bishoprics into the
constitution was thought to shake the whole fabric of liberty.  The
prelacies, which were now transferred to the bishops, must henceforth
serve another rule than the advantage of the province of whose states
they had been members.  The once free patriotic citizens were to be
instruments of the Romish See and obedient tools of the archbishop, who
again, as first prelate of Brabant, had the immediate control over them.
The freedom of voting was gone, because the bishops, as servile spies of
the crown, made every one fearful.  "Who," it was asked, "will after
this venture to raise his voice in parliament before such observers, or
in their presence dare to protect the rights of the nation against the
rapacious hands of the government?  They will trace out the resources of
the provinces, and betray to the crown the secrets of our freedom and
our property.  They will obstruct the way to all offices of honor; we
shall soon see the courtiers of the king succeed the present men; the
children of foreigners will, for the future, fill the parliament, and
the private interest of their patron will guide their venal votes."
"What an act of oppression," rejoined the monks, "to pervert to other
objects the pious designs of our holy institutions, to contemn the
inviolable wishes of the dead, and to take that which a devout charity
had deposited in our chests for the relief of the unfortunate and make
it subservient to the luxury of the bishops, thus inflating their
arrogant pomp with the plunder of the poor?"  Not only the abbots and
monks, who really did suffer by this act of appropriation, but every
family which could flatter itself with the slightest hope of enjoying,
at some time or other, even in the most remote posterity, the benefit of
this monastic foundation, felt this disappointment of their distant
expectations as much as if they had suffered an actual injury, and the
wrongs of a few abbot-prelates became the concern of a whole nation.

Historians have not omitted to record the covert proceedings of William
of Orange during this general commotion, who labored to conduct to one
end these various and conflicting passions.  At his instigation the
people of Brabant petitioned the regent for an advocate and protector,
since they alone, of all his Flemish subjects, had the misfortune to
unite, in one and the same person, their counsel and their ruler.  Had
the demand been granted, their choice could fall on no other than the
Prince of Orange.  But Granvella, with his usual presence of mind, broke
through the snare.  "The man who receives this office," he declared in
the state council, "will, I hope, see that he divides Brabant with the
king!"   The long delay of the papal bull, which was kept back by a
misunderstanding between the Romish and Spanish courts, gave the
disaffected an opportunity to combine for a common object.  In perfect
secrecy the states of Brabant despatched an extraordinary messenger to
Pins IV. to urge their wishes in Rome itself.  The ambassador was
provided with important letters of recommendation from the Prince of
Orange, and carried with him considerable sums to pave his way to the
father of the church.  At the same time a public letter was forwarded
from the city of Antwerp to the King of Spain containing the most urgent
representations, and supplicating him to spare that flourishing
commercial town from the threatened innovation.  They knew, it was
stated, that the intentions of the monarch were the best, and that the
institution of the new bishops was likely to be highly conducive to the
maintenance of true religion; but the foreigners could not be convinced
of this, and on them depended the prosperity of their town.  Among them
the most groundless rumors would be as perilous as the most true.  The
first embassy was discovered in time, and its object disappointed by the
prudence of the regent; by the second the town of Antwerp gained so far
its point that it was to remain without a bishop, at least until the
personal arrival of the king, which was talked of.

The example and success of Antwerp gave the signal of opposition to all
the other towns for which a new bishop was intended.  It is a remarkable
proof of the hatred to the Inquisition and the unanimity of the Flemish
towns at this date that they preferred to renounce all the advantages
which the residence of a bishop would necessarily bring to their local
trade rather than by their consent promote that abhorred tribunal, and
thus act in opposition to the interests of the whole nation.  Deventer,
Ruremond, and Leuwarden placed themselves in determined opposition, and
(1561) successfully carried their point; in the other towns the bishops
were, in spite of all remonstrances, forcibly inducted.  Utrecht,
Haarlem, St. Omer, and Middelburg were among the first which opened
their gates to them; the remaining towns followed their example; but in
Malines and Herzogenbusch the bishops were received with very little
respect.  When Granvella made his solemn entry into the former town not
a single nobleman showed himself, and his triumph was wanting in
everything that could make it real, because those remained away over
whom it was meant to be celebrated.

In the meantime, too, the period had elapsed within which the Spanish
troops were to have left the country, and as yet there was no appearance
of their being withdrawn.  People perceived with terror the real cause
of the delay, and suspicion lent it a fatal connection with the
Inquisition.  The detention of these troops, as it rendered the nation
more vigilant and distrustful, made it more difficult for the minister
to proceed with the other innovations, and yet he would fain not deprive
himself of this powerful and apparently indispensable aid in a country
where all hated him, and in the execution of a commission to which all
were opposed.  At last, however, the regent saw herself compelled by the
universal murmurs of discontent, to urge most earnestly upon the king
the necessity of the withdrawal of the troops.  "The provinces," she
writes to Madrid, "have unanimously declared that they would never again
be induced to grant the extraordinary taxes required by the government
as long as word was not kept with them in this matter.  The danger of a
revolt was far more imminent than that of an attack by the French
Protestants, and if a rebellion was to take place in the Netherlands
these forces would be too weak to repress it, and there was not
sufficient money in the treasury to enlist new."  By delaying his answer
the king still sought at least to gain time, and the reiterated
representations of the regent would still have remained ineffectual, if,
fortunately for the provinces, a loss which he had lately suffered from
the Turks had not compelled him to employ these troops in the
Mediterranean.  He, therefore, at last consented to their departure:
they were embarked in 1561 in Zealand, and the exulting shouts of all
the provinces accompanied their departure.

Meanwhile Granvella ruled in the council of state almost uncontrolled.
All offices, secular and spiritual, were given away through him; his
opinion prevailed against the unanimous voice of the whole assembly.
The regent herself was governed by him.  He had contrived to manage so
that her appointment was made out for two years only, and by this
expedient he kept her always in his power.  It seldom happened that any
important affair was submitted to the other members, and if it really
did occur it was only such as had been long before decided, to which it
was only necessary for formality's sake to gain their sanction.
Whenever a royal letter was read Viglius received instructions to omit
all such passages as were underlined by the minister.  It often happened
that this correspondence with Spain laid open the weakness of the
government, or the anxiety felt by the regent, with which it was not
expedient to inform the members, whose loyalty was distrusted.  If again
it occurred that the opposition gained a majority over the minister, and
insisted with determination on an article which he could not well put
off any longer, he sent it to the ministry at Madrid for their decision,
by which he at least gained time, and in any case was certain to find
support.--With the exception of the Count of Barlaimont, the President
Viglius, and a few others, all the other counsellors were but
superfluous figures in the senate, and the minister's behavior to them
marked the small value which he placed upon their friendship and
adherence.  No wonder that men whose pride had been so greatly indulged
by the flattering attentions of sovereign princes, and to whom, as to
the idols of their country, their fellow-citizens paid the most
reverential submission, should be highly indignant at this arrogance of
a plebeian.  Many of them had been personally insulted by Granvella.

The Prince of Orange was well aware that it was he who had prevented his
marriage with the Princess of Lorraine, and that he had also endeavored
to break off the negotiations for another alliance with the Princess of
Savoy. He had deprived Count Horn of the government of Gueldres and
Zutphen, and had kept for himself an abbey which Count Egmont had in
vain exerted himself to obtain for a relation.  Confident of his
superior power, he did not even think it worth while to conceal from the
nobility his contempt for them, and which, as a rule, marked his whole
administration; William of Orange was the only one with whom be deemed
it advisable to dissemble.  Although he really believed himself to be
raised far above all the laws of fear and decorum, still in this point,
however, his confident arrogance misled him, and he erred no less
against policy than he shined against propriety.  In the existing
posture of affairs the government could hardly have adopted a worse
measure than that of throwing disrespect on the nobility.  It had it in
its power to flatter the prejudices and feelings of the aristocracy, and
thus artfully and imperceptibly win them over to its plans, and through
them subvert the edifice of national liberty.  Now it admonished them,
most inopportunely, of their duties, their dignity, and their power;
calling upon them even to be patriots, and to devote to the cause of
true greatness an ambition which hitherto it had inconsiderately
repelled.  To carry into effect the ordinances it required the active
co-operation of the lieutenant-governors; no wonder, however, that the
latter showed but little zeal to afford this assistance.  On the
contrary, it is highly probable that they silently labored to augment
the difficulties of the minister, and to subvert his measures, and
through his ill-success to diminish the king's confidence in him, and
expose his administration to contempt.  The rapid progress which in
spite of those horrible edicts the Reformation made during Granvella's
administration in the Netherlands, is evidently to be ascribed to the
lukewarmness of the nobility in opposing it.  If the minister had been
sure of the nobles he might have despised the fury of the mob, which
would have impotently dashed itself against the dreaded barriers of the
throne.  The sufferings of the citizens lingered long in tears and
sighs, until the arts and the example of the nobility called forth a
louder expression of them.

Meanwhile the inquisitions into religion were carried on with renewed
vigor by the crowd of new laborers (1561, 1562), and the edicts against
heretics were enforced with fearful obedience.  But the critical moment
when this detestable remedy might have been applied was allowed to pass
by; the nation had become too strong and vigorous for such rough
treatment.  The new religion could now be extirpated only by the death
of all its professors.  The present executions were but so many alluring
exhibitions of its excellence, so many scenes of its triumphs and
radiant virtue.  The heroic greatness with which the victims died made
converts to the opinions for which they perished.  One martyr gained ten
new proselytes.  Not in towns only, or villages, but on the very
highways, in the boats and public carriages disputes were held touching
the dignity of the pope, the saints, purgatory, and indulgences, and
sermons were preached and men converted.  From the country and from the
towns the common people rushed in crowds to rescue the prisoners of the
Holy Tribunal from the hands of its satellites, and the municipal
officers who ventured to support it with the civil forces were pelted
with stones.  Multitudes accompanied the Protestant preachers whom the
Inquisition pursued, bore them on their shoulders to and from church,
and at the risk of their lives concealed them from their persecutors.
The first province which was seized with the fanatical spirit of
rebellion was, as had been expected, Walloon Flanders.  A French
Calvinist, by name Lannoi, set himself up in Tournay as a worker of
miracles, where he hired a few women to simulate diseases, and to
pretend to be cured by him.  He preached in the woods near the town,
drew the people in great numbers after him, and scattered in their minds
the seeds of rebellion.  Similar teachers appeared in Lille and
Valenciennes, but in the latter place the municipal functionaries
succeeded in seizing the persons of these incendiaries; while, however,
they delayed to execute them their followers increased so rapidly that
they became sufficiently strong to break open the prisons and forcibly
deprive justice of its victims.  Troops at last were brought into the
town and order restored.  But this trifling occurrence had for a moment
withdrawn the veil which had hitherto concealed the strength of the
Protestant party, and allowed the minister to compute their prodigious
numbers.  In Tournay alone five thousand at one time had been seen
attending the sermons, and not many less in Valenciennes.  What might
not be expected from the northern provinces, where liberty was greater,
and the seat of government more remote, and where the vicinity of
Germany and Denmark multiplied the sources of contagion?  One slight
provocation had sufficed to draw from its concealment so formidable a
multitude.  How much greater was, perhaps, the number of those who in
their hearts acknowledged the new sect, and only waited for a favorable
opportunity to publish their adhesion to it.  This discovery greatly
alarmed the regent.  The scanty obedience paid to the edicts, the wants
of the exhausted treasury, which compelled her to impose new taxes, and
the suspicious movements of the Huguenots on the French frontiers still
further increased her anxiety.  At the same time she received a command
from Madrid to send off two thousand Flemish cavalry to the army of the
Queen Mother in France, who, in the distresses of the civil war, had
recourse to Philip II. for assistance.  Every affair of faith, in
whatever land it might be, was made by Philip his own business.  He felt
it as keenly as any catastrophe which could befall his own house, and in
such cases always stood ready to sacrifice his means to foreign
necessities.  If it were interested motives that here swayed him they
were at least kingly and grand, and the bold support of his principles
wins our admiration as much as their cruelty withholds our esteem.

The regent laid before the council of state the royal will on the
subject of these troops, but with a very warm opposition on the part of
the nobility.  Count Egmont and the Prince of Orange declared that the
time was illchosen for stripping the Netherlands of troops, when the
aspect of affairs rendered rather the enlistment of new levies
advisable.  The movements of the troops in France momentarily threatened
a surprise, and the commotions within the provinces demanded, more than
ever, the utmost vigilance on the part of the government.  Hitherto,
they said, the German Protestants had looked idly on during the
struggles of their brethren in the faith; but will they continue to do
so, especially when we are lending our aid to strengthen their enemy?
By thus acting shall we not rouse their vengeance against us, and call
their arms into the northern Netherlands?  Nearly the whole council of
state joined in this opinion; their representations were energetic and
not to be gainsaid.  The regent herself, as well as the minister, could
not but feel their truth, and their own interests appeared to forbid
obedience to the royal mandate.  Would it not be impolitic to withdraw
from the Inquisition its sole prop by removing the larger portion of the
army, and in a rebellious country to leave themselves without defence,
dependent on the arbitrary will of an arrogant aristocracy?  While the
regent, divided between the royal commands, the urgent importunity of
her council, and her own fears, could not venture to come to a decision,
William of Orange rose and proposed the assembling of the States
General.  But nothing could have inflicted a more fatal blow on the
supremacy of the crown than by yielding to this advice to put the nation
in mind of its power and its rights.  No measure could be more hazardous
at the present moment.  The danger which was thus gathering over the
minister did not escape him; a sign from him warned the regent to break
off the consultation and adjourn the council.  "The government," he
writes to Madrid, "can do nothing more injurious to itself than to
consent to the assembling of the states.  Such a step is at all times
perilous, because it tempts the nation to test and restrict the rights
of the crown; but it is many times more objectionable at the present
moment, when the spirit of rebellion is already widely spread amongst
us; when the abbots, exasperated at the loss of their income, will
neglect nothing to impair the dignity of the bishops; when the whole
nobility and all the deputies from the towns are led by the arts of the
Prince of Orange, and the disaffected can securely reckon on the
assistance of the nation."  This representation, which at least was not
wanting in sound sense, did not fail in having the desired effect on the
king's mind.  The assembling of the states was rejected once and
forever, the penal statutes against the heretics were renewed in all
their rigor, and the regent was directed to hasten the despatch of the
required auxiliaries.

But to this the council of state would not consent.  All that she
obtained was, instead of the troops, a supply of money for the Queen
Mother, which at this crisis was still more welcome to her.  In place,
however, of assembling the states, and in order to beguile the nation
with, at least, the semblance of republican freedom, the regent summoned
the governors of the provinces and the knights of the Golden Fleece to a
special congress at Brussels, to consult on the present dangers and
necessities of the state.  When the President, Viglius, had laid before
them the matters on which they were summoned to deliberate, three days
were given to them for consideration.  During this time the Prince of
Orange assembled them in his palace, where he represented to them the
necessity of coming to some unanimous resolution before the next
sitting, and of agreeing on the measures which ought to be followed in
the present dangerous state of affairs.

The majority assented to the propriety of this course; only Barlaimont,
with a few of the dependents of the cardinal, had the courage to plead
for the interests of the crown and of the minister.  "It did not behoove
them," he said, "to interfere in the concerns of the government, and
this previous agreement of votes was an illegal and culpable assumption,
in the guilt of which he would not participate;"--a declaration which
broke up the meeting without any conclusion being come to.  The regent,
apprised of it by the Count Barlaimont, artfully contrived to keep the
knights so well employed during their stay in the town that they could
find no time for coming to any further secret understanding; in this
session, however, it was arranged, with their concurrence, that Florence
of Montmorency, Lord of Montigny, should make a journey to Spain, in
order to acquaint the king with the present posture of affairs.  But the
regent sent before him another messenger to Madrid, who previously
informed the king of all that had been debated between the Prince of
Orange and the knights at the secret conference.

The Flemish ambassador was flattered in Madrid with empty protestations
of the king's favor and paternal sentiments towards the Netherlands,
while the regent was commanded to thwart, to the utmost of her power,
the secret combinations of the nobility, and, if possible, to sow
discord among their most eminent members.  Jealousy, private interest,
and religious differences had long divided many of the nobles; their
share in the common neglect and contempt with which they were treated,
and a general hatred of the minister had again united them.  So long as
Count Egmont and the Prince of Orange were suitors for the regency it
could not fail but that at times their competing claims should have
brought them into collision.  Both had met each other on the road to
glory and before the throne; both again met in the republic, where they
strove for the same prize, the favor of their fellow-citizens.  Such
opposite characters soon became estranged, but the powerful sympathy of
necessity as quickly reconciled them.  Each was now indispensable to the
other, and the emergency united these two men together with a bond which
their hearts would never have furnished.  But it was on this very
uncongeniality of disposition that the regent based her plans; if she
could fortunately succeed in separating them she would at the same time
divide the whole Flemish nobility into two parties.  Through the
presents and small attentions by which she exclusively honored these
two she also sought to excite against them the envy and distrust of the
rest, and by appearing to give Count Egmont a preference over the Prince
of Orange she hoped to make the latter suspicious of Egmont's good
faith.  It happened that at this very time she was obliged to send an
extraordinary ambassador to Frankfort, to be present at the election of
a Roman emperor.  She chose for this office the Duke of Arschot, the
avowed enemy of the prince, in order in some degree to show in his case
how splendid was the reward which hatred against the latter might look
for. The Orange faction, however, instead of suffering any diminution,
had gained an important accession in Count Horn, who, as admiral of the
Flemish marine, had convoyed the king to Biscay, and now again took his
seat in the council of state.  Horn's restless and republican spirit
readily met the daring schemes of Orange and Egmont, and a dangerous
Triumvirate was soon formed by these three friends, which shook the
royal power in the Netherlands, but which terminated very differently
for each of its members.


(1562.) Meanwhile Montigny had returned from his embassy, and brought
back to the council of state the most gracious assurance of the monarch.
But the Prince of Orange had, through his own secret channels of
intelligence, received more credible information from Madrid, which
entirely contradicted this report.  By these means be learnt all the ill
services which Granvella had done him and his friends with the king, and
the odious appellations which were there applied to the Flemish
nobility.  There was no help for them so long as the minister retained
the helm of government, and to procure his dismissal was the scheme,
however rash and adventurous it appeared, which wholly occupied the mind
of the prince.  It was agreed between him and Counts Horn and Egmont to
despatch a joint letter to the king, and, in the name of the whole
nobility, formally to accuse the minister, and press energetically for
his removal.  The Duke of Arschot, to whom this proposition was
communicated by Count Egmont, refused to concur in it, haughtily
declaring that he was not disposed to receive laws from Egmont and
Orange; that he had no cause of complaint against Granvella, and that he
thought it very presumptuous to prescribe to the king what ministers he
ought to employ.  Orange received a similar answer from the Count of
Aremberg.  Either the seeds of distrust which the regent had scattered
amongst the nobility had already taken root, or the fear of the
minister's power outweighed the abhorrence of his measures; at any rate,
the whole nobility shrunk back timidly and irresolutely from the
proposal.  This disappointment did not, however, discourage them.  The
letter was written and subscribed by all three (1563).