Thus the provinces had received a new master. A man of foreign birth and
breeding, not speaking a word of their language, nor of any language
which the mass of the inhabitants understood, was now placed in supreme
authority over them, because he represented, through the females, the
"good" Philip of Burgundy, who a century before had possessed himself by
inheritance, purchase, force, or fraud, of the sovereignty in most of
those provinces. It is necessary to say an introductory word or two
concerning the previous history of the man to whose hands the destiny of
so many millions was now entrusted.

He was born in May, 1527, and was now therefore twenty-eight years of
age. At the age of sixteen he had been united to his cousin, Maria of
Portugal, daughter of John III. and of the Emperor's sister, Donna
Catalina. In the following year (1544) he became father of the
celebrated and ill-starred Don Carlos, and a widower. The princess owed
her death, it was said, to her own imprudence and to the negligence or
bigotry of her attendants. The Duchess of Alva, and other ladies who had
charge of her during her confinement, deserted her chamber in order to
obtain absolution by witnessing an auto-da-fe of heretics. During their
absence, the princess partook voraciously of a melon, and forfeited her
life in consequence.

In 1548, Don Philip had made his first appearance in the Netherlands. He
came thither to receive homage in the various provinces as their future
sovereign, and to exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.
Andrew Doria, with a fleet of fifty ships, had brought him to Genoa,
whence he had passed to Milan, where he was received with great
rejoicing. At Trent he was met by Duke Maurice of Saxony, who warmly
begged his intercession with the Emperor in behalf of the imprisoned