measure, as quite superfluous.

Such then was the policy secretly resolved upon by Philip; even before he
heard of the startling events which were afterwards to break upon him.
He would maintain the inquisition and the edicts; he would exterminate
the heretics, even if he lost all his realms and his own life in the
cause; he would never hear of the national representatives coming
together. What then were likely to be his emotions when he should be
told of twenty thousand armed heretics assembling at one spot, and
fifteen thousand at another, in almost every town in every province, to
practice their blasphemous rites; when he should be told of the whirlwind
which had swept all the ecclesiastical accumulations of ages out of
existence; when he should read Margaret's despairing letters, in which
she acknowledged that she had at last committed an act unworthy of God,
of her King, and of herself, in permitting liberty of worship to the
renegades from the ancient church!

The account given by the Duchess was in truth very dismal. She said that
grief consumed her soul and crimson suffused her cheeks while she related
the recent transactions. She took God to witness that she had resisted
long, that she had past many sleepless nights, that she had been wasted
with fever and grief. After this penitential preface she confessed that,
being a prisoner and almost besieged in her palace, sick in body and
soul, she had promised pardon and security to the confederates, with
liberty of holding assemblies to heretics in places where the practice
had already obtained. These concessions had been made valid until the
King by and with the consent of the states-general, should definitely
arrange the matter. She stated, however, that she had given her consent
to these two demands, not in the royal name, but in her own. The King
was not bound by her promise, and she expreesed the hope that he would