The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1564-65 | Page 4

compelling people to fear him a
little, even if they did not love him. But the Cardinal knew better than
to believe in this magnanimous picture of the doctor's fancy.

Viglius was anxious to retire, but unwilling to have the appearance of
being disgraced. He felt instinctively, although deceived as to the actual
facts, that his great patron had been defeated and banished. He did not
wish to be placed in the same position. He was desirous, as he piously
expressed himself, of withdrawing from the world, "that he might
balance his accounts with the Lord, before leaving the lodgings of life."
He was, however, disposed to please "the master" as well as the Lord.
He wished to have the royal permission to depart in peace. In his own
lofty language, he wished to be sprinkled on taking his leave "with the
holy water of the court." Moreover, he was fond of his salary, although
he disliked the sarcasms of the Duchess. Egmont and others had
advised him to abandon the office of President to Hopper, in order, as
he was getting feeble, to reserve his whole strength for the state-council.
Viglius did not at all relish the proposition. He said that by giving up
the seals, and with them the rank and salary which they conferred, he
should become a deposed saint. He had no inclination, as long as he
remained on the ground at all, to part with those emoluments and
honors, and to be converted merely into the "ass of the state-council."
He had, however, with the sagacity of an old navigator, already thrown
out his anchor into the best holding-ground during the storms which he
foresaw were soon to sweep the state. Before the close of the year
which now occupies, the learned doctor of laws had become a doctor of
divinity also; and had already secured, by so doing, the wealthy
prebend of Saint Bavon of Ghent. This would be a consolation in the
loss of secular dignities, and a recompence for the cold looks of the
Duchess. He did not scruple to ascribe the pointed dislike which
Margaret manifested towards him to the awe in which she stood of his
stern integrity of character. The true reason why Armenteros and the
Duchess disliked him was because, in his own words, "he was not of
their mind with regard to lotteries, the sale of offices, advancement to
abbeys, and many other things of the kind, by which they were in such
a hurry to make their fortune." Upon another occasion he observed, in a
letter to Granvelle, that "all offices were sold to the highest bidder, and
that the cause of Margaret's resentment against both the Cardinal and
himself was, that they had so long prevented her from making the profit
which she was now doing from the sale of benefices, offices, and other
favors."

The Duchess, on her part, characterized the proceedings and policy,
both past and present, of the cardinalists as factious, corrupt, and selfish
in the last degree. She assured her brother that the simony, rapine, and
dishonesty of Granvelle, Viglius, and all their followers, had brought
affairs into the ruinous condition which was then but too apparent.
They were doing their best, she said, since the Cardinal's departure, to
show, by their sloth and opposition, that they were determined to allow
nothing to prosper in his absence. To quote her own vigorous
expression to Philip--"Viglius made her suffer the pains of hell." She
described him as perpetually resisting the course of the administration,
and she threw out dark suspicions, not only as to his honesty but his
orthodoxy. Philip lent a greedy ear to these scandalous hints concerning
the late omnipotent minister and his friends. It is an instructive lesson
in human history to look through the cloud of dissimulation in which
the actors of this remarkable epoch were ever enveloped, and to watch
them all stabbing fiercely at each other in the dark, with no regard to
previous friendship, or even present professions. It is edifying to see
the Cardinal, with all his genius and all his grimace, corresponding on
familiar terms with Armenteros, who was holding him up to obloquy
upon all occasions; to see Philip inclining his ear in pleased
astonishment to Margaret's disclosures concerning the Cardinal, whom
he was at the very instant assuring of his undiminished confidence; and
to see Viglius, the author of the edict of 1550, and the uniform
opponent of any mitigation in its horrors, silently becoming involved
without the least suspicion of the fact in the meshes of inquisitor
Titelmann.
Upon Philip's eager solicitations for further disclosures, Margaret
accordingly informed her brother of additional facts communicated to
her, after oaths of secrecy had been exchanged, by Titelmann and his
colleague del Canto. They had