Philip's more inactive mind, formed into perfect thought his master's
crude ideas while they yet hung on his lips, and liberally allowed him
the glory of the invention. Granvella understood the difficult and
useful art of depreciating his own talents; of making his own genius the
seeming slave of another; thus he ruled while he concealed his sway. In
this manner only could Philip II. be governed. Content with a silent
but real power, Granvella did not grasp insatiably at new and outward
marks of it, which with lesser minds are ever the most coveted objects;
but every new distinction seemed to sit upon him as easily as the
oldest. No wonder if such extraordinary endowments had alone gained him
the favor of his master; but a large and valuable treasure of political
secrets and experiences, which the active life of Charles V. had
accumulated, and had deposited in the mind of this man, made him
indispensable to his successor. Self-sufficient as the latter was, and
accustomeded to confide in his own understanding, his timid and
crouching policy was fain to lean on a superior mind, and to aid its own
irresolution not only by precedent but also by the influence and example
of another. No political matter which concerned the royal interest,
even when Philip himself was in the Netherlands, was decided without the
intervention of Granvella; and when the king embarked for Spain he made
the new regent the same valuable present of the minister which he
himself had received from the Emperor, his father.

Common as it is for despotic princes to bestow unlimited confidence on
the creatures whom they have raised from the dust, and of whose
greatness they themselves are, in a measure, the creators, the present
is no ordinary instance; pre-eminent must have been the qualities which
could so far conquer the selfish reserve of such a character as Philip's
as to gain his confidence, nay, even to win him into familiarity. The
slightest ebullition of the most allowable self-respect, which might