The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-59 | Page 6

regular. His delicate health made it
necessary for him to attend to his diet, although he was apt to exceed in
sweetmeats and pastry. He slept much, and took little exercise
habitually, but he had recently been urged by the physicians to try the
effect of the chase as a corrective to his sedentary habits. He was most
strict in religious observances, as regular at mass, sermons, and vespers
as a monk; much more, it was thought by many good Catholics, than
was becoming to his rank and age. Besides several friars who preached
regularly for his instruction, he had daily discussions with others on
abstruse theological points. He consulted his confessor most minutely
as to all the actions of life, inquiring anxiously whether this proceeding
or that were likely to burthen his conscience. He was grossly licentious.

It was his chief amusement to issue forth at night disguised, that he
might indulge in vulgar and miscellaneous incontinence in the common
haunts of vice. This was his solace at Brussels in the midst of the
gravest affairs of state. He was not illiberal, but, on the contrary, it was
thought that he would have been even generous, had he not been
straitened for money at the outset of his career. During a cold winter, he
distributed alms to the poor of Brussels with an open hand. He was
fond of jests in private, and would laugh immoderately, when with a
few intimate associates, at buffooneries, which he checked in public by
the icy gravity of his deportment. He dressed usually in the Spanish
fashion, with close doublet, trunk hose, and short cloak, although at
times he indulged in the more airy fashions of France and Burgundy,
wearing buttons on his coats and feathers in his hat. He was not thought
at that time to be cruel by nature, but was usually spoken of, in the
conventional language appropriated to monarchs, as a prince "clement,
benign, and debonnaire." Time was to show the justice of his claims to
such honorable epithets.
The court was organized during his residence at Brussels on the
Burgundian, not the Spanish model, but of the one hundred and fifty
persons who composed it, nine tenths of the whole were Spaniards; the
other fifteen or sixteen being of various nations, Flemings,
Burgundians, Italians, English, and Germans. Thus it is obvious how
soon he disregarded his father's precept and practice in this respect, and
began to lay the foundation of that renewed hatred to Spaniards which
was soon to become so intense, exuberant, and fatal throughout every
class of Netherlanders. He esteemed no nation but the Spanish, with
Spaniards he consorted, with Spaniards he counselled, through
Spaniards he governed.
His council consisted of five or six Spanish grandees, the famous Ruy
Gomez, then Count of Melito, afterwards Prince of Eboli; the Duke of
Alva, the Count de Feria, the Duke of Franca Villa, Don Antonio
Toledo, and Don Juan Manrique de Lara. The "two columns," said
Suriano, "which sustain this great machine, are Ruy Gomez and Alva,
and from their councils depends the government of half the world." The
two were ever bitterly opposed to each other. Incessant were their
bickerings, intense their mutual hate, desperate and difficult the
situation of any man, whether foreigner or native, who had to transact

business with the government. If he had secured the favor of Gomez, he
had already earned the enmity of Alva. Was he protected by the Duke,
he was sure to be cast into outer darkness by the favorite.--Alva
represented the war party, Ruy Gomez the pacific polity more
congenial to the heart of Philip. The Bishop of Arras, who in the
opinion of the envoys was worth them all for his capacity and his
experience, was then entirely in the background, rarely entering the
council except when summoned to give advice in affairs of
extraordinary delicacy or gravity. He was, however, to reappear most
signally in course of the events already preparing. The Duke of Alva,
also to play so tremendous a part in the yet unborn history of the
Netherlands, was not beloved by Philip. He was eclipsed at this period
by the superior influence of the favorite, and his sword, moreover,
became necessary in the Italian campaign which was impending. It is
remarkable that it was a common opinion even at that day that the duke
was naturally hesitating and timid. One would have thought that his
previous victories might have earned for him the reputation for courage
and skill which he most unquestionably deserved. The future was to
develop those other characteristics which were to make his name the
terror and wonder of the world.
The favorite, Ruy Gomez da Silva, Count de Melito, was the man upon
whose shoulders the great burthen of the state