said, to imagine the insolence of the Cardinal, nor to form an idea of
the absolute authority which he arrogated.

In truth, Granvelle, with all his keenness, could not see that Orange,
Egmont, Berghen, Montigny and the rest, were no longer pages and young
captains of cavalry, while he was the politician and the statesman. By
six or seven years the senior of Egmont, and by sixteen years of Orange,
he did not divest himself of the superciliousness of superior wisdom, not
unjust nor so irritating when they had all been boys. In his deportment
towards them, and in the whole tone of his private correspondence with
Philip, there was revealed, almost in spite of himself, an affectation of
authority, against which Egmont rebelled and which the Prince was not the
man to acknowledge. Philip answered the letter of the two nobles in his
usual procrastinating manner. The Count of Horn, who was about leaving
Spain (whither he had accompanied the King) for the Netherlands, would be
entrusted with the resolution which he should think proper to take upon
the subject suggested. In the mean time, he assured them that he did not
doubt their zeal in his service.

As to Count Horn, Granvelle had already prejudiced the King against him.
Horn and the Cardinal had never been friends. A brother of the prelate
had been an aspirant for the hand of the Admiral's sister, and had been
somewhat contemptuously rejected. Horn, a bold, vehement, and not very
good-tempered personage, had long kept no terms with Granvelle, and did
not pretend a friendship which he had never felt. Granvelle had just
written to instruct the King that Horn was opposed bitterly to that
measure which was nearest the King's heart--the new bishoprics. He had
been using strong language, according to the Cardinal, in opposition to
the scheme, while still in Spain. He therefore advised that his Majesty,
concealing, of course, the source of the information, and speaking as it