the republic with hardly an attempt on the part of the royal forces to
relieve them, and with the country which he was supposed to govern, the
very centre of the obedient provinces, ruined, sacked, eaten up by the
soldiers of Spain; villages, farmhouses, gentlemen's castles, churches
plundered; the male population exposed to daily butchery, and the women
to outrages worse than death; it seemed like the bitterest irony to
propose that he should seize that moment to outwit the English and Dutch
sea-kings who were perpetually cruising in the channel, and to undertake
a "beard-singeing" expedition such as even the dare-devil Drake would
hardly have attempted.

Such madcap experiments might perhaps one day, in the distant future, be
tried with reasonable success, but hardly at the beck of a Spanish king
sitting in his easy chair a thousand miles off, nor indeed by the
servants of any king whatever.

The plots of murder arranged in Brussels during this administration were
on a far more extensive scale than were the military plans.

The Count of Fuentes, general superintendant of foreign affairs, was
especially charged with the department of assassination. This office was
no sinecure; for it involved much correspondence, and required great
personal attention to minute details. Philip, a consummate artist in
this branch of industry, had laid out a good deal of such work which he
thought could best be carried out in and from the Netherlands.
Especially it was desirable to take off, by poison or otherwise, Henry
IV., Queen Elizabeth, Maurice of Nassau, Olden-Barneveld, St. Aldegonde,
and other less conspicuous personages.

Henry's physician-in-chief, De la Riviere, was at that time mainly