funds, and declaring his purpose to
remove the forces so soon as he could pay their arrears. The public
exchequer was undoubtedly at a low ebb; lower in Spain than in the
Netherlands.[516] But no one could believe the royal credit so far
reduced as not to be able to provide for the arrears of three or four
thousand soldiers. The regent, however, saw that, with or without
instructions, it was necessary to act. Several of the members of the
council became sureties for the payment of the arrears, and the troops
were ordered to Zealand, in order to embark for Spain. But the winds
proved unfavorable. Two months longer they were detained, on shore or on
board the transports. They soon got into brawls with the workmen
employed on the dikes; and the inhabitants, still apprehensive of orders
from the king countermanding the departure of the Spaniards, resolved,
in such an event, to abandon the dikes, and lay the country under
water![517] Fortunately, they were not driven to this extremity. In
January, 1561, more than a year after the date assigned by Philip, the
nation was relieved of the presence of the intruders.[518]

Philip's conduct in this affair is not very easy to explain. However
much he might have desired originally to maintain the troops in the
Netherlands, as an armed police on which he could rely to enforce the
execution of his orders, it had become clear that the good they might do
in quelling an insurrection was more than counterbalanced by the
probability of their exciting one. It was characteristic of the king,
however, to be slow in retreating from any position he had taken; and,
as we shall often have occasion to see, there was a certain apathy or
sluggishness in his nature, which led him sometimes to leave events to
take their own course, rather than to shape a course for them himself.

This difficulty was no sooner settled, than it was followed by another
scarcely less serious. We have seen, in a former chapter, the
arrangements made for adding thirteen new bishoprics to the four already
existing in the Netherlands. The measure, in itself a good one, and
demanded by the situation of the country, was, from the posture of
affairs at that time, likely to meet with opposition, if not to occasion
great excitement. For this reason, the whole affair had been kept
profoundly secret by the government. It was not till 1561 that Philip
disclosed his views, in a letter to some of the principal nobles in the
council of