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.

The aristocracy of the Netherlands was excessively extravagant, dissipated, and already considerably embarrassed in circumstances.  It had been the policy of the Emperor and of Philip to confer high offices, civil, military, and diplomatic, upon the leading nobles, by which enormous expenses were entailed upon them, without any corresponding salaries.  The case of Orange has been already alluded to, and there were many other nobles less able to afford the expense, who had been indulged with these ruinous honors.  During the war, there had been, however, many chances of bettering broken fortunes.  Victory brought immense prizes to the leading officers.  The ransoms of so many illustrious prisoners as had graced the triumphs of Saint Quentin and Gravelines had been extremely profitable.  These sources of wealth had now been cut off; yet, on the departure of the King from the Netherlands, the luxury increased instead of diminishing, “Instead of one court,” said a contemporary, “you would have said that