“did an arrogant or indiscreet word fall from his lips.  He, upon no occasion, manifested anger to his servants, however much they might be in fault, but contented himself with admonishing them graciously, without menace or insult.  He had a gentle and agreeable tongue, with which he could turn all the gentlemen at court any way he liked.  He was beloved and honored by the whole community.”  His manner was graceful, familiar, caressing, and yet dignified.  He had the good breeding which comes from the heart, refined into an inexpressible charm from his constant intercourse, almost from his cradle, with mankind of all ranks.

It may be supposed that this train of living was attended with expense.  Moreover, he had various other establishments in town and country; besides his almost royal residence in Brussels.  He was ardently fond of the chase, particularly of the knightly sport of falconry.  In the country he “consoled himself by taking every day a heron in the clouds.”  His falconers alone cost him annually fifteen hundred florins, after he had reduced their expenses to the lowest possible point.  He was much in debt, even at this early period and with his princely fortune.  “We come of a race,” he wrote carelessly to his brother Louis, “who are somewhat bad managers in our young days, but when we grow older, we do better, like our late father:  ’sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in secula seculorum’.  My greatest difficulty,” he adds, “as usual, is on account of the falconers.”

His debts already amounted, according to Granvelle’s statement, to 800,000 or 900,000 florins.  He had embarrassed himself, not only through his splendid extravagance, by which all the world about him were made to partake of his wealth, but by accepting the high offices to which he had been appointed.  When general-in-chief on the frontier, his salary was three hundred florins monthly; “not enough,” as he said, “to pay the servants in his tent,” his necessary expenses being twenty-five hundred florins, as appears by a letter to his wife.  His embassy to carry the crown to Ferdinand, and his subsequent residence as a hostage for the treaty in Paris, were also very onerous, and he received no salary; according to the economical system in this respect pursued by Charles and Philip.  In these two embassies or missions alone, together with the entertainments offered by him to the court and to foreigners, after the peace at Brussels, the Prince spent, according to his own estimate, 1,500,000 florins.  He was, however, although deeply, not desperately involved, and had already taken active measures to regulate and reduce his establishment.  His revenues were vast, both in his own right and in that of his deceased wife.  He had large claims upon the royal treasury for service and expenditure.  He had besides ample sums to receive from the ransoms of the prisoners of St. Quentin and Gravelines, having served in both campaigns.