from the beginning of Philip's reign, the curse of the country. Doctor
Sonnius, with his batch of bishops, had sowed the seed of the first
disorder. A prince, ruling in the Netherlands, had no right to turn a
deaf ear to the petitions of his subjects. If he did so, the Hollanders
would tell him, as the old woman had told the Emperor Adrian, that the
potentate who had no time to attend to the interests of his subjects,
had not leisure enough to be a sovereign. While Holland refused to bow
its neck to the Inquisition, the King of Spain dreaded the thunder and
lightning of the Pope. The Hollanders would, with pleasure, emancipate
Philip from his own thraldom, but it was absurd that he, who was himself
a slave to another potentate, should affect unlimited control over a free
people. It was Philip's councillors, not the Hollanders, who were his
real enemies; for it was they who held him in the subjection by which his
power was neutralized and his crown degraded.

It may be supposed that many long pages, conceived in this spirit and
expressed with great vigor, would hardly smooth the way for the more
official negotiations which were soon to take place, yet Doctor Junius
fairly and faithfully represented the sentiment of his nation.

Towards the close of the year, Doctor Elbertus Leoninus, professor of
Louvain, together with Hugo Bonte, ex-pensionary of Middelburg, was
commissioned by the Grand Commander to treat secretly with the Prince.
He was, however, not found very tractable when the commissioners opened
the subject of his own pardon and reconciliation with the King, and he
absolutely refused to treat at all except with the cooperation of the
estates. He, moreover, objected to the use of the word "pardon" on
the ground that he had never done anything requiring his Majesty's
forgiveness. If adversity should visit him, he cared but little for it;
he had lived long enough, he said, and should die with some glory,