As a matter of course, his brother, in whose company he was about to visit the mother whom he had not seen for the past nineteen years, was as much mystified as the rest of the world.  Chantonnay was not aware that any thing but the alleged motives had occasioned the journey, nor did he know that his brother would perhaps have omitted to visit their common parent for nineteen years longer had he not received the royal order to leave the Netherlands.

Philip, on the other side, had sustained his part, in the farce with much ability.  Viglius, Berlaymont, Morillon, and all the lesser cardinalists were entirely taken in by the letters which were formally despatched to the Duchess in reply to her own and the Cardinal’s notification.  “I can not take it amiss,” wrote the King, “that you have given leave of absence to Cardinal de Granvelle, for two or three months, according to the advices just received from you, that he may attend to some private affairs of his own.”  As soon as these letters had been read in the council, Viglius faithfully transmitted them to Granvelle for that personage’s enlightenment; adding his own innocent reflection, that “this was very different language from that held by some people, that your most illustrious lordship had retired by order of his Majesty.”  Morillon also sent the Cardinal a copy of the same passage in the royal despatch, saying, very wisely, “I wonder what they will all say now, since these letters have been read in council.”  The Duchess, as in duty bound, denied flatly, on all occasions, that Armenteros had brought any letters recommending or ordering the minister’s retreat.  She conscientiously displayed the letters of his Majesty, proving the contrary, and yet, said Viglius, it was very hard to prevent people talking as they liked.  Granvelle omitted no occasion to mystify every one of his correspondents on the subject, referring, of course, to the same royal letters which had been written for public reading, expressly to corroborate these statements.  “You see by his Majesty’s letters to Madame de Parma,” said he to Morillon, “how false is the report that the King had ordered me to leave Flanders, and in what confusion those persons find themselves who fabricated the story.”  It followed of necessity that he should carry out his part in the royal program, but he accomplished his task so adroitly, and with such redundancy of zeal, as to show his thorough sympathy with the King’s policy.  He dissembled with better grace, even if the King did it more naturally.  Nobody was too insignificant to be deceived, nobody too august.  Emperor Ferdinand fared no better than “Esquire” Bordey.  “Some of those who hate me,” he wrote to the potentate, “have circulated the report that I had been turned out of the country, and was never to return.  This story has ended in smoke, since the letters written by his Majesty to the Duchess of Parma on the subject of the leave of absence which she had given me.”  Philip himself addressed a private letter to Granvelle,