courier on the same day with two or three additional despatches of
identical date. Such prolixity enchanted the King, whose greediness for
business epistles was insatiable. The painstaking monarch toiled, pen in
hand, after his wonderful minister in vain. Philip was only fit to be the
bishop's clerk; yet he imagined himself to be the 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