upon his antagonist with crushing effect. He repudiated the idea of a
king in the Netherlands. The word might be legitimate in Castillo, or
Naples, or the Indies, but the provinces knew no such title. Philip had
inherited in those countries only the power of Duke or Count--a power
closely limited by constitutions more ancient than his birthright.
Orange was no rebel then--Philip no legitimate monarch. Even were the
Prince rebellious, it was no more than Philip's ancestor, Albert of
Austria, had been towards his anointed sovereign, Emperor Adolphus of
Nassau, ancestor of William. The ties of allegiance and conventional
authority being, severed, it had become idle for the King to affect
superiority of lineage to the man whose family had occupied illustrious
stations when the Habsburgs were obscure squires in Switzerland, and had
ruled as sovereign in the Netherlands before that overshadowing house had
ever been named.

But whatever the hereditary claims of Philip in the country, he had
forfeited them by the violation of his oaths, by his tyrannical
suppression of the charters of the land; while by his personal crimes he
had lost all pretension to sit in judgment upon his fellow man. Was a
people not justified in rising against authority when all their laws had
been trodden under foot, "not once only, but a million of times?"--and
was William of Orange, lawful husband of the virtuous Charlotte de
Bourbon, to be denounced for moral delinquency by a lascivious,
incestuous, adulterous, and murderous king? With horrible distinctness
he laid before the monarch all the crimes of which he believed him
guilty, and having thus told Philip to his beard, "thus diddest thou,"
he had a withering word for the priest who stood at his back. "Tell me,"
he cried, "by whose command Cardinal Granvelle administered poison to the
Emperor Maximilian? I know what the Emperor told me, and how much fear
he felt afterwards for the King and for all Spaniards."