intimate, through the Regent, that their reasons for the course proposed by them did not seem satisfactory.  He did not prescribe this treatment of the case as “a true remedy, but only as a palliative; because for the moment only weak medicines could be employed, from which, however, but small effect could be anticipated.”  As to recalling the Cardinal, “as they had the impudence to propose to his Majesty,” the Duke most decidedly advised against the step.  In the mean time, and before it should be practicable to proceed “to that vigorous chastisement already indicated,” he advised separating the nobles as much as possible by administering flattery and deceitful caresses to Egmont, who might be entrapped more easily than the others.

Here, at least, was a man who knew his own mind.  Here was a servant who could be relied upon to do his master’s bidding whenever this master should require his help.  The vigorous explosion of wrath with which the Duke thus responded to the first symptoms of what he regarded as rebellion, gave a feeble intimation of the tone which he would assume when that movement should have reached a more advanced stage.  It might be guessed what kind of remedies he would one day prescribe in place of the “mild medicines” in which he so reluctantly acquiesced for the present.

While this had been the course pursued by the seigniors, the Regent and the King, in regard to that all-absorbing subject of Netherland politics —­the straggle against Granvelle—­the Cardinal, in his letters to Philip, had been painting the situation by minute daily touches, in a manner of which his pencil alone possessed the secret.

Still maintaining the attitude of an injured but forgiving Christian, he spoke of the nobles in a tone of gentle sorrow.  He deprecated any rising of the royal wrath in his behalf; he would continue to serve the gentlemen, whether they would or no; he was most anxious lest any considerations on his account should interfere with the King’s decision in regard to the course to be pursued in the Netherlands.  At the same time, notwithstanding these general professions of benevolence towards the nobles, he represented them as broken spendthrifts, wishing to create general confusion in order to escape from personal liabilities; as conspirators who had placed themselves within the reach of the attorney-general; as ambitious malcontents who were disposed to overthrow the royal authority, and to substitute an aristocratic republic upon its ruins.  He would say nothing to prejudice the King’s mind against these gentlemen, but he took care to omit nothing which could possibly accomplish that result.  He described them as systematically opposed to the policy which he knew lay nearest the King’s heart, and as determined to assassinate the faithful minister who was so resolutely carrying it out, if his removal could be effected in no other way.  He spoke of the state of religion as becoming more and more unsatisfactory, and bewailed the difficulty with which he could procure the burning of heretics; difficulties originating in the reluctance of men from whose elevated rank better things might have been expected.