.

Meanwhile the odium of these measures fell on the head of the minister.
No other man had been so active in enforcing them, and he had the credit
universally with the people of having originated the whole scheme, and
proposed it to the sovereign. But from this Philip expressly exonerates
him in a letter to the regent, in which he says, that the whole plan had
been settled long before it was communicated to Granvelle.[525] Indeed,
the latter, with some show of reason, demanded whether, being already
one of four bishops in the country, he should be likely to recommend a
plan which would make him only one of seventeen.[526] This appeal to
self-interest did not wholly satisfy those who thought that it was
better to be the first of seventeen, than to be merely one of four where
all were equal.

Whatever may have been Granvelle's original way of thinking in the
matter, it is certain that, whether it arose from his accommodating
temper, or from his perceptions of the advantages of the scheme being
quickened by his prospect of the primacy, he soon devoted himself, heart
as well as hand, to carry out the royal views. "I am convinced," he
writes, in the spring of 1560, to Philip's secretary, Perez, "that no
measure could be more advantageous to the country, or more necessary for
the support of religion; and if necessary to the success of the scheme,
I would willingly devote to it my fortune and my life."[527]

[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF GRANVELLE.]

Accordingly we find him using all his strength to carry the project
through, devising expedients for raising the episcopal revenues, and
thus occupying a position which exposed him to general obloquy. He felt
this bitterly, and at times, even with all his constancy, was hardly
able to endure it. "Though I say nothing," he writes in the month of
September, 1561, to the Spanish ambassador in Rome, "I feel the danger
of the situation in which the king has placed me. All the odium of these
measures falls on my head; and I only pray that a remedy for the evil
may be found, though it should be by the sacrifice of myself. Would to
God the erection of these bishoprics had never been thought of!"[528]

In February, 1561, Granvelle received a cardinal's hat from Pope Pius
the Fourth. He did not show the alacrity usually manifested in accepting
this distinguished honor. He had obtained it by the private intercession
of the duchess of Parma; and he feared lest the jealousy of Philip might
be