The friar strenuously urged upon the favourite and the rest of the royal advisers the necessity of prompt action with the States.  This needed not interfere with an unlimited amount of deception.  It was necessary to bring the negotiations to a definite agreement.  It would be by no means requisite, however, to hold to that agreement whenever a convenient opportunity for breaking it should present itself.  The first object of Spanish policy, argued honest John, should be to get the weapons out of the rebels’ hands.  The Netherlanders ought to be encouraged to return to their usual pursuits of commerce and manufactures, whence they derived their support, and to disband their military and naval forces.  Their sailors and traders should be treated kindly in Spain, instead of being indulged as heretofore with no hospitality save that of the Holy Inquisition and its dungeons.  Let their minds be disarmed of all suspicion.  Now the whole population of the provinces had been convinced that Spain, in affecting to treat, was secretly devising means to re-impose her ancient yoke upon their necks.

Time went by in Aranjuez and Madrid.  The forty days, promised as the period of Neyen’s absence, were soon gone; but what were forty days, or forty times forty, at the Spanish court?  The friar, who, whatever his faults, was anything but an idler, chafed at a procrastination which seemed the more stupendous to him, coming fresh as he did from a busy people who knew the value of time.  In the anguish of his soul he went to Rodrigo Calderon, of the privy council, and implored his influence with Government to procure leave for him to depart.  Calderon, in urbane but decisive terms, assured him that this would be impossible before the king should return to Madrid.  The monk then went to Idiaquez, who was in favour of his proceeding at once to the Netherlands, but who on being informed that Calderon was of a different opinion, gave up the point.  More distressed than ever, Neyen implored Prada’s assistance, but Prada plunged him into still deeper despair.  His Majesty, said that counsellor, with matchless effrontery, was studying the propositions of the States-General, and all the papers in the negotiation, line by line, comma by comma.  There were many animadversions to make, many counter suggestions to offer.  The king was pondering the whole subject most diligently.  When those lucubrations were finished, the royal decision, aided by the wisdom of the privy council, would be duly communicated to the archdukes.

To wait for an answer to the propositions of the suspicious States-General until Philip III. had mastered the subject in detail, was a prospect too dreary even for the equable soul of Brother John.  Dismayed at the position in which he found himself, he did his best to ferret out the reasons for the preposterous delay; not being willing to be paid off in allusions to the royal investigations.  He was still further appalled at last by discovering that the delay was absolutely