the religious peace, they had been assisted by envoys from the Netherlands.  The princes of the Empire held the ground, therefore, that the religious peace, which alone had saved a vestige of Romanism in Germany, should of right extend to the provinces.  As to the Prince of Orange, the Archduke would have preferred to say nothing more, but the orders of the Emperor did not allow him to be silent.  It was now necessary to put an end to this state of things in Lower Germany.  The princes of the Empire were becoming exasperated.  He recalled the dangers of the Smalcaldian war—­the imminent peril in which the Emperor had been placed by the act of a single elector.  They who believed that Flanders could be governed in the same manner as Italy and Spain were greatly mistaken, and Charles the Fifth had always recognised that error.

This was the sum and substance of the Archduke’s mission to Madrid, so far as its immediate objects were concerned.  In the course, however, of the interview between this personage and Philip, the King took occasion to administer a rebuke to his Imperial Majesty for his general negligence in religious matters.  It was a matter which lay at his heart, he said, that the Emperor, although, as he doubted not, a Christian and Catholic prince, was from policy unaccustomed to make those exterior demonstrations which matters of faith required.  He therefore begged the Archduke to urge this matter upon the attention of his Imperial Majesty.

The Emperor, despite this solemn mission, had become more than indifferent before his envoy had reached Madrid.  For this indifference there were more reasons than one.  When the instructions had been drawn up, the death of the Queen of Spain had not been known in Vienna.  The Archduke had even been charged to inform Philip of the approaching marriages of the two Archduchesses, that of Anne with the King of France, and that of Isabella with the King of Portugal.  A few days later, however, the envoy received letters from the Emperor, authorizing him to offer to the bereaved Philip the hand of the Archduchess Anne.

[Herrera (lib. xv. 707) erroneously states that the Archduke was, at the outset, charged with these two commissions by the Emperor; namely, to negotiate the marriage of the Archduchess Anne with Philip, and to arrange the affairs of the Netherlands.  On the contrary, he was empowered to offer Anne to the King of France, and had already imparted his instructions to that effect to Philip, before he received letters from Vienna, written after the death of Isabella had become known.  At another interview, he presented this new matrimonial proposition to Philip.  These facts are important, for they indicate how completely the objects of the embassy, the commencement of which was so pretentious, were cast aside, that a more advantageous marriage for one of the seven Austrian Archduchesses might be secured.—­Compare Correspondance de Philippe]

The King replied to the Archduke, when this proposition was made, that if he had regard only to his personal satisfaction, he should remain as he was.  As however he had now no son, he was glad that the proposition had been made, and would see how the affair could be arranged with France.