aring, in a letter to him, that "she would not continue to live
with, much less to reign over, a people whose manners had undergone such
a change,--in whom respect for God and man seemed no longer to
exist."[493]

A philosopher who should have contemplated at that day the condition of
the country, and the civilization at which it had arrived, might feel
satisfied that a system of toleration in religious matters would be the
one best suited to the genius of the people and the character of their
institutions. But Philip was no philosopher; and toleration was a virtue
not understood, at that time, by Calvinist any more than by Catholic.
The question, therefore, is not whether the end he proposed was the best
one;--on this, few at the present day will differ;--but whether Philip
took the best means for effecting that end. This is the point of view
from which his conduct in the Netherlands should be criticized.

Here, in the outset, he seems to have fallen into a capital error, by
committing so large a share in the government to the hands of a
foreigner,--Granvelle. The country was filled with nobles, some of them
men of the highest birth, whose ancestors were associated with the most
stirring national recollections, and who were endeared, moreover, to
their countrymen by their own services. To several of these Philip
himself was under no slight obligations for the aid they had afforded
him in the late war,--on the fields of Gravelines and St. Quentin, and
in the negotiation of the treaty which closed his hostilities with
France. It was hardly to be expected that these proud nobles, conscious
of their superior claims, and accustomed to so much authority and
deference in their own land, would tamely submit to the control of a
stranger, a man of obscure family, like his father indebted for his
elevation to the royal favor.

[Sidenote: DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS.]

Besides these great lords, there was a numerous aristocracy, inferior
nobles and cavaliers, many of whom had served under the standard of
Charles in his long wars. They there formed those formidable companies
of _ordonnance_, whose fame perhaps stood higher than that of any other
corps of the imperial cavalry. The situation of these men, now
disbanded, and, with their roving military habits, hanging loosely on
the country, has been compared by a modern author to that which, on the
accession of the Bourbons, was occupied by the soldiers whom Napoleon
had so oft