The estates rejected the request for supplies, on various grounds; among others, that the civil war was drawing to a conclusion in France, and that less danger was to be apprehended from that source than had lately been the case.  Thus, the “cup of bitterness,” of which Granvelle had already complained; was again commended to his lips, and there was more reason than ever for the government to regret that the national representatives had contracted the habit of meddling with financial matters.

Florence de Montmorency, Seigneur de Montigny, was selected by the Regent for the mission which had been decided upon for Spain.  This gentleman was brother to Count Horn, but possessed of higher talents and a more amiable character than those of the Admiral.  He was a warm friend of Orange, and a bitter enemy to Granvelle.  He was a sincere Catholic, but a determined foe to the inquisition.  His brother had declined to act as envoy.  This refusal can excite but little surprise, when Philip’s wrath at their parting interview is recalled, and when it is also remembered that the new mission would necessarily lay bare fresh complaints against the Cardinal, still more extensive than those which had produced the former explosion of royal indignation.  Montigny, likewise, would have preferred to remain at home, but he was overruled.  It had been written in his destiny that he should go twice into the angry lion’s den, and that he should come forth once, alive.

Thus it has been shown that there was an open, avowed hostility on the part of the grand seignors and most of the lesser nobility to the Cardinal and his measures.  The people fully and enthusiastically sustained the Prince of Orange in his course.  There was nothing underhand in the opposition made to the government.  The Netherlands did not constitute an absolute monarchy.  They did not even constitute a monarchy.  There was no king in the provinces.  Philip was King of Spain, Naples, Jerusalem, but he was only Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders, Lord of Friesland, hereditary chief, in short, under various titles, of seventeen states, each one of which, although not republican, possessed constitutions as sacred as, and much more ancient than, the Crown.  The resistance to the absolutism of Granvelle and Philip was, therefore, logical, legal, constitutional.  It was no cabal, no secret league, as the Cardinal had the effrontery to term it, but a legitimate exercise of powers which belonged of old to those who wielded them, and which only an unrighteous innovation could destroy.

Granvelle’s course was secret and subtle.  During the whole course of the proceedings which have just been described, he was; in daily confidential correspondence with the King, besides being the actual author of the multitudinous despatches which were sent with the signature of the Duchess.  He openly asserted his right to monopolize all the powers of the Government; he did his utmost to force upon the