The archbishop and the other priests expressed the opinion that he must
have had, not a paroxysm, but a celestial vision, for human powers would
not have enabled him to arouse himself so quickly and so vigorously as he
had done at that crisis.

He did not speak again, but lay unconsciously dying for some hours, and
breathed his last at five in the morning of Sunday the 13th September.

His obsequies were celebrated according to the directions which he had so
minutely given.

------------------------------------

These volumes will have been written in vain if it be now necessary to
recal to my readers the leading events in the history of the man who had
thus left the world where, almost invisible himself, he had so long
played a leading part. It may not be entirely useless, however, to throw
a parting glance at a character which it has been one of the main objects
of this work, throughout its whole course, to pourtray. My theme has
been the reign of Philip II., because, as the less is included in the
greater, the whole of that reign, with the exception of a few episodes,
is included in the vast movement out of which the Republic of the United
Netherlands was born and the assailed independence of France and England
consolidated. The result of Philip's efforts to establish a universal
monarchy was to hasten the decline of the empire which he had inherited,
by aggravating the evils which had long made that downfall inevitable.

It is from no abstract hatred to monarchy that I have dwelt with emphasis
upon the crimes of this king, and upon the vices of the despotic system,