visit soon, he would come too late, and that every week more harm was done by procrastination than could be repaired by months of labor and perhaps by torrents of blood. What the precise process was, through which Philip was to cure all disorders by his simple presence, the President did not explain.
As for the measures propounded by the King after so long a delay, they were of course worse than useless; for events had been marching while he had been musing. The course suggested was, according to Viglius, but "a plaster for a wound, but a drag-chain for the wheel." He urged that the convocation of the states-general was the only remedy for the perils in which the country was involved; unless the King should come in person. He however expressed the hope that by general consultation some means would be devised by which, if not a good, at least a less desperate aspect would be given to public affairs, "so that the commonwealth, if fall it must, might at least fall upon its feet like a cat, and break its legs rather than its neck."
Notwithstanding this highly figurative view of the subject; and notwithstanding the urgent representations of Duchess Margaret to her brother, that nobles and people were all clamoring about the necessity of convening the states general, Philip was true to his instincts on this as on the other questions. He knew very well that the states-general of the Netherlands and Spanish despotism were incompatible ideas, and he recoiled from the idea of the assembly with infinite aversion. At the same time a little wholesome deception could do no harm. He wrote to the Duchess, therefore, that he was determined never to allow the states-general to be convened. He forbade her to consent to the step under any circumstances, but ordered her to keep his prohibition a profound secret. He wished, he said, the people to think that it was only for the moment that the convocation was forbidden, and that the Duchess was expecting to receive the necessary permission at another time. It was his desire, he distinctly stated, that the people should not despair of obtaining the assembly, but he was resolved never to consent to the step, for he knew very well what was meant by a meeting of the States-general. Certainly after so ingenuous but secret a declaration from the disciple of Macchiavelli, Margaret might well consider the arguments to be used afterward by herself and others, in favor of the ardently desired measure, as quite superfluous.
Such then was the policy secretly resolved upon by Philip; even before he heard of the startling events which were afterwards to break upon him. He would maintain the inquisition and the edicts; he would exterminate the heretics, even if he lost all his realms and his own life in the cause; he would never hear of the national representatives coming together. What then were likely to be his emotions when he should be told of twenty thousand armed heretics assembling at one spot, and fifteen thousand at another, in almost every town in every province, to practice their blasphemous rites; when he should be told of the whirlwind which had swept all the ecclesiastical accumulations of ages out of existence; when he should read Margaret's despairing letters, in which she acknowledged that she had at last committed an act unworthy of God, of her King, and of herself, in permitting liberty of worship to the renegades from the ancient church!
The account given by the Duchess was in truth very dismal. She said that grief consumed her soul and crimson suffused her cheeks while she related the recent transactions. She took God to witness that she had resisted long, that she had past many sleepless nights, that she had been wasted with fever and grief. After this penitential preface she confessed that, being a prisoner and almost besieged in her palace, sick in body and soul, she had promised pardon and security to the confederates, with liberty of holding assemblies to heretics in places where the practice had already obtained. These concessions had been made valid until the King by and with the consent of the states-general, should definitely arrange the matter. She stated, however, that she had given her consent to these two demands, not in the royal name, but in her own. The King was not bound by her promise, and she expressed the hope that he would have no regard to any such obligation. She further implored her brother to come forth as soon as possible to avenge the injuries inflicted upon the ancient church, adding, that if deprived of that consolation, she should incontinently depart this life. That hope alone would prevent her death.
This was certainly strong language. She was also very explicit in her representations of the influence which had been used by certain personages to prevent the exercise of any authority upon her own part. "Wherefore," said Margaret, "I eat my heart; and shall never have peace till the arrival of your Majesty."
There was no doubt who those personages were who, as it was pretended, had thus held the Duchess in bondage, and compelled her to grant these infamous concessions. In her secret Italian letters, she furnished the King with a tissue of most extravagant and improbable falsehoods, supplied to her mainly by Noircarmes and Mansfeld, as to the course pursued at this momentous crisis by Orange, Egmont, Horn, and Hoogstraaten. They had all, she said, declared against God and against religion.—Horn, at least, was for killing all the priests and monks in the country, if full satisfaction were not given to the demands of the heretics. Egmont had declared openly for the beggars, and was levying troops in Germany. Orange had the firm intention of making himself master of the whole country, and of dividing it among the other seigniors and himself. The Prince had said that if she took refuge in Mons, as she had proposed, they would instantly convoke the states-general, and take all necessary measures. Egmont had held the same language, saying that he would march at the head of forty thousand men to besiege her in that city. All these seigniors, however, had avowed their determination to prevent her flight, to assemble the estates, and to drag her by force before the assembly, in order to compel her consent to every measure which might be deemed expedient. Under all these circumstances, she had been obliged to defer her retreat, and to make the concessions which had overwhelmed her with disgrace.
With such infamous calumnies, utterly disproved by every fact in the case, and unsupported by a tittle of evidence, save the hearsay reports of a man like Noircarmes, did this "woman, nourished at Rome, in whom no one could put confidence," dig the graves of men who were doing their best to serve her.
Philip's rage at first hearing of the image-breaking has been indicated. He was ill of an intermittent fever at the wood of Segovia when the news arrived, and it may well be supposed that his wrath at these proceedings was not likely to assuage his malady. Nevertheless, after the first burst of indignation, he found relief in his usual deception. While slowly maturing the most tremendous vengeance which anointed monarch ever deliberately wreaked upon his people, he wrote to say, that it was "his intention to treat his vassals and subjects in the provinces like a good and clement prince, not to ruin them nor to put them into servitude, but to exercise all humanity, sweetness, and grace, avoiding all harshness." Such were the avowed intentions of the sovereign towards his people at the moment when the terrible Alva, who was to be the exponent of all this "humanity, sweetness, and grace," was already beginning the preparations for his famous invasion of the Netherlands.
The essence of the compact agreed to upon the 23d August between the confederates and the Regent, was that the preaching of the reformed religion should be tolerated in places where it had previously to that date been established. Upon this basis Egmont, Horn, Orange, Hoogstraaten, and others, were directed once more to attempt the pacification of the different provinces.
Egmont departed for his government of Flanders, and from that moment vanished all his pretensions, which at best had been, slender enough, to the character of a national chieftain. During the whole of the year his course had been changeful. He had felt the influence of Orange; he had generous instincts; he had much vanity; he had the pride of high rank; which did not easily brook the domination of strangers, in a land which he considered himself and his compeers entitled by their birth to rule. At this juncture, however, particularly when in the company of Noircarmes, Berlaymont, and Viglius, he expressed, notwithstanding their calumnious misstatements, the deepest detestation of the heretics. He was a fervent Catholic, and he regarded the image-breaking as an unpardonable crime. "We must take up arms," said he, "sooner or later, to bring these Reformers to reason, or they will end by laying down the law for us." On the other hand, his anger would be often appeased by the grave but gracious remonstrances of Orange. During a part of the summer, the Reformers had been so strong in Flanders that upon a single day sixty thousand armed men had been assembled at the different field-preachings within that province. "All they needed was a Jacquemart, or a Philip van Artevelde," says a Catholic, contemporary, "but they would have scorned to march under the