Barbara saw the bishop shake his head in dissent and, while she was listening with strained ears to his explanation, Viglius, as if singing bass to Granvelle’s tenor, repeated again and again at brief intervals, in a low tone, the one word, “Debts,” while his green eyes sparkled, sometimes as if asking assent, sometimes combatively.

He believed that the weight of financial cares was causing the Emperor Charles’s abdication.  Like a wise man, he said, he would place his own burden of debt upon his son’s shoulders.  His Majesty usually uttered exactly the opposite of his real opinions, and therefore, in the outline of his abdication speech, he twice emphasized how great a debt of gratitude Don Philip owed him for the Heritage which while still alive he bequeathed to him.  True, besides the debts, crowns and kingdoms in plenty passed to Charles’s successor; but the father, so long as he drew breath, would not give up the decision of the most important questions of government, and therefore this abdication, after all, was merely an excellent means of divesting himself of burdensome obligations, embellished with a certain amount of humbug.

The Bishop of Arras made no weighty protest against this severe speech; nay, he even said, in a tone of assent, that the Emperor Charles’s tireless intellect would continue to direct political events.  Besides, he could safely commit the execution of his conclusions and commands to his obedient and dutiful heir.

“The world,” he added, “will not fare badly by this arrangement; but you, Viglius, can not forget the religious liberty which his Majesty promised to the Germans.”

“Not until the end of my life!” cried the Frieslander, his green eyes flashing angrily.

Granvelle protested that this act of indulgence weighed heavily upon him also; but at that time a refusal would have occasioned a new war, which, according to human judgment, would have resulted in loss and the establishment of heresy in the Netherlands.  Maurice of Saxony, he reminded the councillor, did not fall until a year later, and then as a conqueror, on the battlefield.

His Majesty’s abdication, he went on with calm deliberation, was, however, not exactly as Viglius supposed.  The desire to rid himself of troublesome debts had only hastened the Emperor’s resolution.  The principal motive for this momentous act he could state most positively to be the increasing burden of his physical sufferings.  To this was added the feeling, usually found most frequently among gamblers, that the time to win or, in his Majesty’s case, to succeed was past.  Lastly, Charles really did long for less disturbance from the regular course of business, the reception of ambassadors, the granting of audiences.

“In short,” he concluded, “he wants to have an easier life, and, besides, if the despatches and orders leave him time for it, to occupy himself with his favourite amusements—­his clocks and pieces of mechanism.  Finally, his sufferings remind him often enough of the approach of death, and he hopes by religious exercises to secure his place in the kingdom of heaven.”