mitigating the edicts, were
to go for nothing,--mere words, to amuse the people until some effectual
means could be decided on. The king must be allowed, for once at least,
to have spoken with candor. There are few persons who would not have
shrunk from acknowledging to their own hearts that they were acting on
so deliberate a system of perfidy as Philip thus confided in his
correspondence with another. Indeed, he seems to have regarded the pope
in the light of his confessor, to whom he was to unburden his bosom as
frankly as if he had been in the confessional. The shrift was not likely
to bring down a heavy penance from one who doubtless held to the
orthodox maxim of "No faith to be kept with heretics."

The result of these royal concessions was what might have been expected.
Crippled as they were by conditions, they were regarded in the Low
Countries with distrust, not to say contempt. In fact, the point at
which Philip had so slowly and painfully arrived had been long since
passed in the onward march of the revolution. The men of the Netherlands
now talked much more of recompense than of pardon. By a curious
coincidence, the thirty-first of July, the day on which the king wrote
his last despatches from Segovia, was precisely the date of those which
Margaret sent to him from Brussels, giving the particulars of the recent
troubles, of the meeting at St. Trond, the demand for a guaranty, and
for an immediate summons of the legislature.

But the fountain of royal grace had been completely drained by the late
efforts. Philip's reply at this time was prompt and to the point. As to
the guaranty, he said, that was superfluous when he had granted a
general pardon. For the states-general, there was no need to alter his
decision now, since he was so soon to be present in the country.[806]

This visit of the king to the Low Countries, respecting which so much
was said and so little was done, seems to have furnished some amusement
to the wits of the court. The prince of Asturias, Don Carlos, scribbled
one day on the cover of a blank book, as its title, "The Great and
Admirable Voyages of King Philip;" and within, for the contents, he
wrote, "From Madrid to the Pardo, from the Pardo to the Escorial, from
the Escorial to Aranjuez," &c., &c.[807] This jest of the graceless son
had an edge to it. We are not told how far it was relished by his royal
father.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ICONOCLASTS.

Cathedral of Antwerp sacked.--S