house.  The crime had, in fact, been committed by her son-in-law, who dwelt under her roof, and who had himself, without her participation, extended this dangerous hospitality to a heretic; but the old lady, although a devout Catholic, was rich.  Her execution would strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of her neighbours.  The confiscation of her estates would bring a handsome sum into the government coffers.  It would be made manifest that the same hand which could destroy an army of twelve thousand rebels at a blow could inflict as signal punishment on the small delinquencies of obscure individuals.  The old lady, who was past eighty-four years of age, was placed in a chair upon the scaffold.  She met her death with heroism, and treated her murderers with contempt.  “I understand very well,” she observed, “why my death is considered necessary.  The calf is fat and must be killed.”  To the executioner she expressed a hope that his sword was sufficiently sharp, “as he was likely to find her old neck very tough.”  With this grisly parody upon the pathetic dying words of Anne Boleyn, the courageous old gentlewoman submitted to her fate.

The tragedy of Don Carlos does not strictly belong to our subject, which is the rise of the Netherland commonwealth—­not the decline of the Spanish monarchy, nor the life of Philip the Second.  The thread is but slender which connects the unhappy young prince with the fortunes of the northern republic.  He was said, no doubt with truth, to desire the government of Flanders.  He was also supposed to be in secret correspondence with the leaders of the revolt in the provinces.  He appeared, however, to possess very little of their confidence.  His name is only once mentioned by William of Orange, who said in a letter that “the Prince of Spain had lately eaten sixteen pounds of fruit, including four pounds of grapes at a single sitting, and had become ill in consequence.”  The result was sufficiently natural, but it nowhere appears that the royal youth, born to consume the fruits of the earth so largely, had ever given the Netherlanders any other proof of his capacity to govern them.  There is no doubt that he was a most uncomfortable personage at home, both to himself and to others, and that he hated his father’ very cordially.  He was extremely incensed at the nomination of Alva to the Netherlands, because he had hoped that either the King would go thither or entrust the mission to him, in either of which events he should be rid for a time of the paternal authority, or at least of the paternal presence.  It seems to be well ascertained that Carlos nourished towards his father a hatred which might lead to criminal attempts, but there is no proof that such attempts were ever made.  As to the fabulous amours of the Prince and the Queen, they had never any existence save in the imagination of poets, who have chosen to find a source of sentimental sorrow for the Infante in the arbitrary substitution of his father for himself