tone of the King's despatch. Under the advice of Granvelle, she had
recourse to a trick. A private and confidential letter of Philip was
read to the council, but with alterations suggested and interpolated by
the Cardinal. The King was represented as being furious at the delay,
but as willing that a sum of money should be furnished instead of the
cavalry, as originally required. This compromise, after considerable
opposition, was accepted. The Duchess wrote to Philip, explaining and
apologizing for the transaction. The King received the substitution with
as good a grace as could have been expected, and sent fifteen hundred
troopers from Spain to his Medicean mother-in-law, drawing upon the
Duchess of Parma for the money to pay their expenses. Thus was the
industry of the Netherlands taxed that the French might be persecuted
by their own monarch.

The Regent had been forbidden, by her brother, to convoke the states-
general; a body which the Prince of Orange, sustained by Berghen,
Montigny, and other nobles, was desirous of having assembled. It may be
easily understood that Granvelle would take the best care that the royal
prohibition should be enforced. The Duchess, however, who, as already
hinted, was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable under the Cardinal's
dominion, was desirous of consulting some larger council than that with
which she held her daily deliberations. A meeting of the Knights of the
Fleece was accordingly summoned. They assembled in Brussels, in the
month of May, 1562. The learned Viglius addressed them in a long and
eloquent speech, in which he discussed the troubled and dangerous
condition of the provinces, alluded to some of its causes, and suggested
various remedies. It may be easily conceived, however, that the
inquisition was not stated among the causes, nor its suppression included
among the remedies. A discourse, in which the fundamental topic was thus
conscientiously omitted, was not likely, with all its concinnities, to