rangement Philip had made for the
_consulta_, one has little reason to commend his candor in this
transaction, and not much to praise his policy. As he did not redress
the evil, his implied disavowal of being privy to it would hardly go for
anything with the injured party. In his answer, Philip thanked the
nobles for their zeal in his service, and promised to reply to them more
at large on the return of Count Hoorne to Flanders.[535]

There is no reason to suppose that Granvelle was ever acquainted with
the fact of the letter having been written by the two lords. The
privilege claimed by the novelist, who looks over the shoulders of his
heroes and heroines when they are inditing their epistles, is also
enjoyed by the historian. With the materials rescued from the mouldering
archives of the past, he can present the reader with a more perfect view
of the motives and opinions of the great actors in the drama three
centuries ago, than they possessed in respect to one another. This is
particularly true of the period before us, when the correspondence of
the parties interested was ample in itself, and, through the care taken
of it, in public and private collections, has been well preserved. Such
care was seldom bestowed on historical documents of this class before
the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: OPPOSED BY THE NOBLES.]

It is not till long--nearly a year--after the date of the preceding
letter, that anything appears to intimate the existence of a coldness,
much less of an open rupture, between Granvelle and the discontented
nobles. Meanwhile, the religious troubles in France had been fast
gathering to a head; and the opposite factions ranged themselves under
the banners of their respective chiefs, prepared to decide the question
by arms. Philip the Second, who stood forth as the champion of
Catholicism, not merely in his own dominions, but throughout
Christendom, watched with anxiety the struggle going forward in the
neighboring kingdom. It had the deeper interest for him, from its
influence on the Low Countries. His Italian possessions were separated
from France by the Alps; his Spanish, by the Pyrenees. But no such
mountain barrier lay between France and Flanders. They were not even
separated, in the border provinces, by difference of language. Every
shock given to France must necessarily be felt in the remotest corner of
the Netherlands. Granvelle was so well aware of this, that he besought
the king to keep an eye on