antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty
rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to
embody all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which
he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to
make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent
consideration for a few points of political interest and individual
privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts
against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct
had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the
despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them
an easier prey.

Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce
such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states
to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid
by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining
a great step toward his designs, as it superseded the necessity
of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of
the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to
Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious
but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in
dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards
and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France;
and although he did not remove from their employments the
functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new
appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.

In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip
was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of
France, and by Pope Paul IV. A prince less obstinate than Philip