to Philip, “that grandees, nobles, and people, all abhor me, nor am I surprised to find that grandees, nobles, and people are all openly against me, since each and all have been invited to join in the league.”  The Cardinal’s reasons for the existence of the unpopularity, which he admitted to the full, have no bearing upon the point in the letter.  The fact was relied upon to sustain a simple, although a momentous inference.  It was for Philip to decide upon the propriety of the deduction, and to abide by the consequences of his resolution when taken.  As usual, however, the monarch was not capable of making up his mind.  He knew very well that the Cardinal was odious and infamous, because he was the willing impersonation of the royal policy.  Philip was, therefore, logically called upon to abandon the policy or to sustain the minister.  He could make up his mind to do neither the one nor the other.  In the mean time a well-turned period of mock magnanimity had been furnished him.  This he accordingly transmitted as his first answer to a most important communication upon a subject which, in the words of the writers, “admitted neither of dissimulation nor delay.”  To deprive Philip of dissimulation and delay, however, was to take away his all.  They were the two weapons with which he fought his long life’s battle.  They summed up the whole of his intellectual resources.  It was inevitable, therefore, that he should at once have recourse to both on such an emergency as the present one.

At the same time that he sent his answer to the nobles, he wrote an explanatory letter to the Regent.  He informed her that he had received the communication of the three seigniors, but instructed her that she was to appear to know nothing of the matter until Egmont should speak to her upon the subject.  He added that, although he had signified his wish to the three nobles, that one of them, without specifying which, should come to Madrid, he in reality desired that Egmont, who seemed the most tractable of the three, should be the one deputed.  The King added, that his object was to divide the nobles, and to gain time.

It was certainly superfluous upon Philip’s part to inform his sister that his object was to gain time.  Procrastination was always his first refuge, as if the march of the world’s events would pause indefinitely while he sat in his cabinet and pondered.  It was, however, sufficiently puerile to recommend to his sister an affectation of ignorance on a subject concerning which nobles had wrangled, and almost drawn their swords in her presence.  This, however, was the King’s statesmanship when left to his unaided exertions.  Granvelle, who was both Philip and Margaret when either had to address or to respond to the world at large, did not always find it necessary to regulate the correspondence of his puppets between themselves.  In order more fully to divide the nobles, the King also transmitted to Egmont a private note, in his own handwriting, expressing his desire that he should visit Spain in person, that they might confer together upon the whole subject.