Another governor-general arrived in the early days of the year 1596, to
take charge of the obedient provinces. It had been rumoured for many
months that Philip's choice was at last fixed upon the Archduke Cardinal
Albert, Archbishop of Toledo, youngest of the three surviving brothers,
of the Emperor Rudolph, as the candidate for many honours. He was to
espouse the Infanta, he was to govern the Netherlands, and, as it was
supposed, there were wider and wilder schemes for the aggrandizement of
this fortunate ecclesiastic brooding in the mind of Philip than yet had
seen the light.

Meantime the cardinal's first care was to unfrock himself. He had also
been obliged to lay down the most lucrative episcopate in Christendom,
that of Toledo, the revenues of which amounted to the enormous sum of
three hundred thousand dollars a year. Of this annual income, however,
he prudently reserved to himself fifty thousand dollars, by contract with
his destined successor.

The cardinal reached the Netherlands before the end of January. He
brought with him three thousand Spanish infantry, and some companies of
cavalry, while his personal baggage was transported on three hundred and
fifty mules. Of course there was a triumphal procession when, on the
11th February, the new satrap entered the obedient Netherlands, and there
was the usual amount of bell-ringing, cannon-firing, trumpet-blowing,
with torch-light processions, blazing tar-barrels, and bedizened
platforms, where Allegory, in an advanced state of lunacy, performed its
wonderful antics. It was scarcely possible for human creatures to bestow
more adulation, or to abase themselves more thoroughly, than the honest
citizens of Brussels had so recently done in honour of the gentle, gouty
Ernest, but they did their best. That mythological conqueror and demigod