Elizabeth, and was even thought to aspire secretly to the hand of the
great English Queen herself. Thus, crusader and bigot as he was, he was
willing to be reconciled with heresy, if heresy could furnish him with a
throne.

It is superfluous to state that he was no match, by mental endowments,
for William of Orange; but even had he been so, the moral standard by
which each measured himself placed the Conqueror far below the Father of
a people. It must be admitted that Don John is entitled to but small
credit for his political achievements in the Netherlands. He was
incapable of perceiving that the great contest between the Reformation
and the Inquisition could never be amicably arranged in those provinces,
and that the character of William of Orange was neither to be softened by
royal smiles, nor perverted by appeals to sordid interests. It would have
been perhaps impossible for him, with his education and temperament, to
have embraced what seems to us the right cause, but it ought, at least,
to have been in his power to read the character of his antagonist, and to
estimate his own position with something like accuracy. He may be
forgiven that he did not succeed in reconciling hostile parties, when his
only plan to accomplish such a purpose was the extermination of the most
considerable faction; but although it was not to be expected that he
would look on the provinces with the eyes of William the Silent, he might
have comprehended that the Netherland chieftain was neither to be
purchased nor cajoled. The only system by which the two religions could
live together in peace had been discovered by the Prince; but toleration,
in the eyes of Catholics, and of many Protestants, was still thought the
deadliest heresy of all.