He was already rich.  His income from his see and other livings was estimated, in 1557, at ten thousand dollars—­[1885 approximation.  The decimal point more places to the right would in 2000 not be out of line.  D.W.]—­; his property in ready money, “furniture, tapestry, and the like,” at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  When it is considered that, as compared with our times, these sums represent a revenue of a hundred thousand, and a capital of two millions and a half in addition, it may be safely asserted that the prelate had at least made a good beginning.  Besides his regular income, moreover, he had handsome receipts from that simony which was reduced to a system, and which gave him a liberal profit, generally in the shape of an annuity, upon every benefice which he conferred.  He was, however, by no means satisfied.  His appetite was as boundless as the sea; he was still a shameless mendicant of pecuniary favors and lucrative offices.  Already, in 1552, the Emperor had roundly rebuked his greediness.  “As to what you say of getting no ‘merced’ nor ‘ayuda de costa,’” said he, “’tis merced and ayuda de costa quite sufficient, when one has fat benefices, pensions, and salaries, with which a man might manage to support himself.”  The bishop, however, was not easily abashed, and he was at the epoch which now occupies us, earnestly and successfully soliciting from Philip the lucrative abbey of Saint Armand.  Not that he would have accepted this preferment, “could the abbey have been annexed to any of the new bishoprics;” on the contrary, he assured the king that “to carry out so holy a work as the erection of those new sees, he would willingly have contributed even out of his own miserable pittance.”

It not being considered expedient to confiscate the abbey to any particular bishop, Philip accordingly presented it to the prelate of Arras, together with a handsome sum of money in the shape of an “ayuda de costa” beside.  The thrifty bishop, who foresaw the advent of troublous times in the Netherlands, however, took care in the letters by which he sent his thanks, to instruct the King to secure the money upon crown property in Arragon, Naples, and Sicily, as matters in the provinces were beginning to look very precarious.

Such, at the commencement of the Duchess Margaret’s administration, were the characters and the previous histories of the persons into whose hands the Netherlands were entrusted.  None of them have been prejudged.  We have contented ourselves with stating the facts with regard to all, up to the period at which we have arrived.  Their characters have been sketched, not according to subsequent developments, but as they appeared at the opening of this important epoch.

The aspect of the country and its inhabitants offered many sharp contrasts, and revealed many sources of future trouble.