generosity or his brother's, she could lead a pleasant life. To sun
herself in his glory, too, was sufficiently cheering, and must satisfy
her.

He spent three years at the University of Aleala, and nothing but good
news of him reached her. Then she received tidings which gave her
special joy, for one of the wishes she had formed in Landshut was
fulfilled. He had been made a Knight of the Golden Fleece, and how
becoming the jewel on the red ribbon must be to the youth of one-and-
twenty! How many of her acquaintances belonging to the partisans of the
King and Spain came to congratulate her upon it! Because John had become
Spanish, and risen in Spain to the position which she desired for him,
she wished to become so, and studied the Spanish language with the zeal
and industry of a young girl. She succeeded in gaining more and more
knowledge of it, and, finally, through intercourse with Spaniards, in
mastering it completely.

At that time the prospects for her party were certainly gloomy; the
heretical agitation and the boldness of the rebellious enthusiasts for
independence and liberty surpassed all bounds.

The King therefore sent the Duke of Alba to the Netherlands to
restore order, and, with the twenty thousand men he commanded, make the
insurgents feel the resistless power of offended majesty and the angered
Church.

Barbara and her friends greeted the stern duke as a noble champion of the
faith, who was resolved to do his utmost. The new bishoprics, which by
Granvelle's advice had been established, the foreign soldiers, and the
Spanish Inquisition, which pursued the heretics with inexorable