occupies, the learned doctor of laws had become a doctor of divinity
also; and had already secured, by so doing, the wealthy prebend of Saint
Bavon of Ghent. This would be a consolation in the loss of secular
dignities, and a recompence for the cold looks of the Duchess. He did
not scruple to ascribe the pointed dislike which Margaret manifested
towards him to the awe in which she stood of his stern integrity of
character. The true reason why Armenteros and the Duchess disliked him
was because, in his own words, "he was not of their mind with regard to
lotteries, the sale of offices, advancement to abbeys, and many other
things of the kind, by which they were in such a hurry to make their
fortune." Upon another occasion he observed, in a letter to Granvelle,
that "all offices were sold to the highest bidder, and that the cause of
Margaret's resentment against both the Cardinal and himself was, that
they had so long prevented her from making the profit which she was now
doing from the sale of benefices, offices, and other favors."

The Duchess, on her part, characterized the proceedings and policy, both
past and present, of the cardinalists as factious, corrupt, and selfish
in the last degree. She assured her brother that the simony, rapine, and
dishonesty of Granvelle, Viglius, and all their followers, had brought
affairs into the ruinous condition which was then but too apparent. They
were doing their best, she said, since the Cardinal's departure, to show,
by their sloth and opposition, that they were determined to allow nothing
to prosper in his absence. To quote her own vigorous expression to
Philip--"Viglius made her suffer the pains of hell." She described him
as perpetually resisting the course of the administration, and she threw
out dark suspicions, not only as to his honesty but his orthodoxy.
Philip lent a greedy ear to these scandalous hints concerning the late
omnipotent minister and his friends. It is an instructive lesson in
human history to look through the cloud of dissimulation in which the