esteemed.

Here was plain speaking. Here were all the coming horrors distinctly
foreshadowed. Here was the truth told to the only being with whom Philip
ever was sincere. Yet even on this occasion, he permitted himself a
falsehood by which his Holiness was not deceived. Philip had no
intention of going to the Netherlands in person, and the Pope knew that
he had none. "I feel it in my bones," said Granvelle, mournfully, "that
nobody in Rome believes in his Majesty's journey to the provinces." From
that time forward, however, the King began to promise this visit, which
was held out as a panacea for every ill, and made to serve as an excuse
for constant delay.

It may well be supposed that if Philip's secret policy had been
thoroughly understood in the Netherlands, the outbreak would have come
sooner. On the receipt, however, of the public despatches from Madrid,
the administration in Brussels made great efforts to represent their
tenor as highly satisfactory. The papal inquisition was to be abolished,
a pardon was to be granted, a new moderation was to be arranged at some
indefinite period; what more would men have? Yet without seeing the face
of the cards, the people suspected the real truth, and Orange was
convinced of it. Viglius wrote that if the King did not make his
intended visit soon, he would come too late, and that every week more
harm was done by procrastination than could be repaired by months of
labor and perhaps by torrents of blood. What the precise process was,
through which Philip was to cure all disorders by his simple presence,
the President did not explain.

As for the measures propounded by the King after so long a delay, they
were of course worse than useless; for events had been marching while he