In truth, Margaret was herself in mortal fear of this horrible personage.  He besieged her chamber door almost daily, before she had risen, insisting upon audiences which, notwithstanding her repugnance to the man, she did not dare to refuse.  “May I perish,” said Morillon, “if she does not stand in exceeding awe of Titelmann.”  Under such circumstances, sustained by the King in Spain, the Duchess in Brussels, the privy council, and by a leading member of what had been thought the liberal party, it was not difficult for the inquisition to maintain its ground, notwithstanding the solemn protestations of the estates and the suppressed curses of the people.

Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in the matter of the great religious persecution, was more determined as to his course than ever.  He had already, as easy as August of this year, despatched orders to the Duchess that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced throughout the Netherlands.  The memorable quarrel as to precedency between the French and Spanish delegates had given some hopes of a different determination.  Nevertheless, those persons who imagined that, in consequence of this quarrel of etiquette, Philip would slacken in his allegiance to the Church, were destined to be bitterly mistaken.  He informed his sister that, in the common cause of Christianity, he should not be swayed by personal resentments.

How, indeed, could a different decision be expected?  His envoy at Rome, as well as his representatives at the council, had universally repudiated all doubts as to the sanctity of its decrees.  “To doubt the infallibility of the council, as some have dared to do,” said Francis de Vargas, “and to think it capable of error, is the most devilish heresy of all.”  Nothing could so much disturb and scandalize the world as such a sentiment.  Therefore the Archbishop of Granada told, very properly, the Bishop of Tortosa, that if he should express such an opinion in Spain, they would burn him.  These strenuous notions were shared by the King.  Therefore, although all Europe was on tip-toe with expectation to see how Philip would avenge himself for the slight put upon his ambassador, Philip disappointed all Europe.

In August, 1564, he wrote to the Duchess Regent, that the decrees were to be proclaimed and enforced without delay.  They related to three subjects, the doctrines to be inculcated by the Church, the reformation of ecclesiastical moral, and the education of the people.  General police regulations were issued at the same time, by which heretics were to be excluded from all share in the usual conveniences of society, and were in fact to be strictly excommunicated.  Inns were to receive no guests, schools no children, alms-houses no paupers, grave-yards no dead bodies, unless guests, children, paupers, and dead bodies were furnished with the most satisfactory proofs of orthodoxy.  Midwives of unsuspected Romanism were alone to exercise their