a war which was to outlast his own life and that of his children; a war
in which the mere army expenses were to be half a million florins
monthly, in which about seventy per cent. of the annual disbursements was
to be regularly embezzled or appropriated by the hands through which it
passed, and in which for every four men on paper, enrolled and paid for,
only one, according to the average, was brought into the field.

Granvelle, on the other hand, gave his master but little consolation from
the aspect of financial affairs in the provinces. He assured him that
"the government was often in such embarrassment as not to know where to
look for ten ducats." He complained bitterly that the states would
meddle with the administration of money matters, and were slow in the
granting of subsidies. The Cardinal felt especially outraged by the
interference of these bodies with the disbursement of the sums which
they voted. It has been seen that the states had already compelled the
government to withdraw the troops, much to the regret of Granvelle.
They continued, however, to be intractable on the subject of supplies.
"These are very vile things," he wrote to Philip, "this authority which
they assume, this audacity with which they say whatever they think
proper; and these impudent conditions which they affix to every
proposition for subsidies." The Cardinal protested that he had in vain
attempted to convince them of their error, but that they remained
perverse.

It was probably at this time that the plan for debasing the coin,
suggested to Philip some time before by a skilful chemist named Malen,
and always much approved of both by himself and Ruy Gomez, recurred to
his mind. "Another and an extraordinary source of revenue, although
perhaps not a very honorable one," wrote Suriano, "has hitherto been kept
secret; and on account of differences of opinion between the King and his