day--the Prince of Eboli and the Duke of Alva. They still represented
entirely opposite ideas, and in character, temper, and history, each was
the reverse of the other. The policy of the Prince was pacific and
temporizing; that of the Duke uncompromising and ferocious. Ruy Gomez
was disposed to prevent, if possible, the armed mission of Alva, and he
now openly counselled the King to fulfil his long-deferred promise, and
to make his appearance in person before his rebellious subjects. The
jealousy and hatred which existed between the Prince and the Duke--
between the man of peace and the man of wrath--were constantly exploding,
even in the presence of the King. The wrangling in the council was
incessant. Determined, if possible; to prevent the elevation of his
rival, the favorite was even for a moment disposed to ask for the command
of the army himself. There was something ludicrous in the notion, that
a man whose life had been pacific, and who trembled at the noise of arms,
should seek to supersede the terrible Alva, of whom his eulogists
asserted, with, Castilian exaggeration, that the very name of fear
inspired him with horror. But there was a limit beyond which the
influence of Anna de Mendoza and her husband did not extend. Philip was
not to be driven to the Netherlands against his will, nor to be prevented
from assigning the command of the army to the most appropriate man in
Europe for his purpose.

It was determined at last that the Netherland heresy should be conquered
by force of arms. The invasion resembled both a crusade against the
infidel, and a treasure-hunting foray into the auriferous Indies,
achievements by which Spanish chivalry had so often illustrated itself.
The banner of the cross was to be replanted upon the conquered
battlements of three hundred infidel cities, and a torrent of wealth,
richer than ever flowed from Mexican or Peruvian mines, was to flow into
the royal treasury from the perennial fountains of confiscation. Who so