have no motive for further bloodshed, provided all heretics should
consent to abandon the country. As usual, however, he left his agents in
the dark as to his real intentions. Even Requesens was as much in doubt
as to the King's secret purposes as Margaret of Parma had ever been in
former times.

[Compare the remarks of Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., v 259-
262; Bor, viii. 606, 615; Meteren, v. 100; Hoofd, g. 410.--Count
John of Nassau was distrustful and disdainful from the beginning.
Against his brother's loyalty and the straightforward intentions of
the estates, he felt that the whole force of the Macchiavelli system
of policy would be brought to bear with great effect. He felt that
the object of the King's party was to temporize, to confuse, and to
deceive. He did not believe them capable of conceding the real
object in dispute, but he feared lest they might obscure the
judgment of the plain and well meaning people with whom they had to
deal. Alluding to the constant attempts made to poison himself and
his brother, he likens the pretended negotiations to Venetian drugs,
by which eyesight, hearing, feeling, and intellect were destroyed.
Under this pernicious influence, the luckless people would not
perceive the fire burning around them, but would shrink at a
rustling leaf. Not comprehending then the tendency of their own
acts, they would "lay bare their own backs to the rod, and bring
faggots for their own funeral pile."-Archives, etc., v. 131-137.]

Moreover, the Grand Commander and the government had, after all, made
a great mistake in their diplomacy. The estates of Brabant, although
strongly desirous that the Spanish troops should be withdrawn, were
equally stanch for the maintenance of the Catholic religion, and many
of the southern provinces entertained the same sentiments. Had the