The prelate, having thus reached the dignity to which he had long
aspired, did not grow more humble in his deportment, or less zealous in
the work through which he had already gained so much wealth and
preferment. His conduct with regard to the edicts and bishoprics had
already brought him into relations which were far from amicable with his
colleagues in the council. More and more he began to take the control of
affairs into his own hand. The consulta, or secret committee of the
state council, constituted the real government of the country. Here the
most important affairs were decided upon without the concurrence of the
other seignors, Orange, Egmont, and Glayon, who, at the same time, were
held responsible for the action of government. The Cardinal was smooth
in manner, plausible of speech, generally even-tempered, but he was
overbearing and blandly insolent. Accustomed to control royal
personages, under the garb of extreme obsequiousness, he began, in his
intercourse with those of less exalted rank, to omit a portion of the
subserviency while claiming a still more undisguised authority. To
nobles like Egmont and Orange, who looked down upon the son of Nicolas
Perrenot and Nicola Bonvalot as a person immeasurably beneath themselves
in the social hierarchy, this conduct was sufficiently irritating. The
Cardinal, placed as far above Philip, and even Margaret, in mental power
as he was beneath them in worldly station, found it comparatively easy to
deal with them amicably. With such a man as Egmont, it was impossible
for the churchman to maintain friendly relations. The Count, who
notwithstanding his romantic appearance, his brilliant exploits, and his
interesting destiny, was but a commonplace character, soon conceived a
mortal aversion to Granvelle. A rude soldier, entertaining no respect
for science or letters, ignorant and overbearing, he was not the man to
submit to the airs of superiority which pierced daily more and more
decidedly through the conventional exterior of the Cardinal. Granvelle,