more accommodating
temper, or of her capacity for government, he gave a larger share of it,
at the outset, to Granvelle than to her. If the regent could have been
blind to this, her eyes would soon have been opened to the fact by the
rivals who hated the minister. It was not long before she hated him too.
But the removal of Granvelle did not establish her in her brother's
confidence. It rather increased his distrust, by the necessity it
imposed on her of throwing herself into the arms of the opposite party,
the friends of the people. From this moment Philip's confidence was more
heartily bestowed on the duke of Alva, even on the banished Granvelle,
than on the regent. Her letters remained too often unanswered. The
answers, when they did come, furnished only dark and mysterious hints of
the course to be pursued. She was left to work out the problem of
government by herself, sure for every blunder to be called to a strict
account. Rumors of the speedy coming of the king suggested the idea that
her own dominion was transitory, soon to be superseded by that of a
higher power.

Under these disadvantages she might well have lost all reliance on
herself. She was not even supplied with the means of carrying out her
own schemes. She was left without money, without arms, without the power
to pardon,--more important, with a brave and generous race, than the
power to punish. Thus, destitute of resources, without the confidence of
her employer, with the people stoutly demanding concessions on the one
side, with the sovereign sternly refusing them on the other, it is
little to say that Margaret was in a false position: her position was
deplorable. She ought not to have remained in it a day after she found
that she could not hold it with honor. But Margaret was too covetous of
power readily to resign it. Her misunderstanding with her husband made
her, moreover, somewhat dependent on her brother.

At last came the Compromise and the league. Margaret's eyes seemed now
to be first opened to the direction of the course she was taking. This
was followed by the explosion of the iconoclasts. The shock fully awoke
her from her delusion. She was as zealous for the Catholic Church as
Philip himself; and she saw with horror that it was trembling to its
foundations. A complete change seemed to take place in her
convictions,--in her very nature. She repudiated all those with whom she
had hitherto acted. She embraced, as heartily as he could desi