Apart from this hope, however, there was little encouragement to be derived from anything positively known of the new functionary, or the policy which he was to represent.  Don Luis de Requesens and Cuniga, Grand Commander of Castile and late Governor of Milan, was a man of mediocre abilities, who possessed a reputation for moderation and sagacity which he hardly deserved.  His military prowess had been chiefly displayed in the bloody and barren battle of Lepanto, where his conduct and counsel were supposed to have contributed, in some measure, to the victorious result.  His administration at Milan had been characterized as firm and moderate.  Nevertheless, his character was regarded with anything but favorable eyes in the Netherlands.  Men told each other of his broken faith to the Moors in Granada, and of his unpopularity in Milan, where, notwithstanding his boasted moderation, he had, in reality, so oppressed the people as to gain their deadly hatred.  They complained, too, that it was an insult to send, as Governor-General of the provinces, not a prince of the blood, as used to be the case, but a simple “gentleman of cloak and sword.”

Any person, however, who represented the royal authority in the provinces was under historical disadvantage.  He was literally no more than an actor, hardly even that.  It was Philip’s policy and pride to direct all the machinery of his extensive empire, and to pull every string himself.  His puppets, however magnificently attired, moved only in obedience to his impulse, and spoke no syllable but with his voice.  Upon the table in his cabinet was arranged all the business of his various realms, even to the most minute particulars.

Plans, petty or vast, affecting the interests of empires and ages, or bounded within the narrow limits of trivial and evanescent detail, encumbered his memory and consumed his time.  His ambition to do all the work of his kingdoms was aided by an inconceivable greediness for labor.  He loved the routine of business, as some monarchs have loved war, as others have loved pleasure.  The object, alike paltry and impossible, of this ambition, bespoke the narrow mind.  His estates were regarded by him as private property; measures affecting the temporal and eternal interests of millions were regarded as domestic affairs, and the eye of the master was considered the only one which could duly superintend these estates and those interests.  Much incapacity to govern was revealed in this inordinate passion to administer.  His mind, constantly fatigued by petty labors, was never enabled to survey his wide domains from the height of majesty.

In Alva, certainly, he had employed an unquestionable reality; but Alva, by a fortunate coincidence of character, had seemed his second self.  He was now gone, however, and although the royal purpose had not altered, the royal circumstances were changed.  The moment had arrived when it was thought that the mask and cothurn might again be assumed with effect; when a grave and conventional personage might decorously make his appearance to perform an interlude of clemency and moderation with satisfactory results.  Accordingly, the Great Commander, heralded by rumors of amnesty, was commissioned to assume the government which Alva had been permitted to resign.