directing and governing power. He scrawled apostilles in the margins to
prove that he had read with attention, and persuaded himself that he
suggested when he scarcely even comprehended. The bishop gave advice and
issued instructions when he seemed to be only receiving them. He was the
substance while he affected to be the shadow. These tactics were
comparatively easy and likely to be triumphant, so long as he had only to
deal with inferior intellects like those of Philip and Margaret. When he
should be matched against political genius and lofty character combined,
it was possible that his resources might not prove so all-sufficient.

His political principles were sharply defined in reality, but smoothed
over by a conventional and decorous benevolence of language, which
deceived vulgar minds. He was a strict absolutist. His deference to
arbitrary power was profound and slavish. God and "the master," as he
always called Philip, he professed to serve with equal humility. "It
seems to me," said he, in a letter of this epoch, "that I shall never be
able to fulfil the obligation of slave which I owe to your majesty, to
whom I am bound by so firm a chain;--at any rate, I shall never fail to
struggle for that end with sincerity."

As a matter of course, he was a firm opponent of the national rights of
the Netherlands, however artfully he disguised the sharp sword of violent
absolutism under a garland of flourishing phraseology. He had
strenuously warned Philip against assembling the States-general before
his departure for the sake of asking them for supplies. He earnestly
deprecated allowing the constitutional authorities any control over the
expenditures of the government, and averred that this practice under the
Regent Mary had been the cause of endless trouble. It may easily be
supposed that other rights were as little to his taste as the claim to
vote the subsidies, a privilege which was in reality indisputable. Men