might stand in need of his favors. He wrote, accordingly, a most
characteristic letter to Philip, in which he informed him that he had
been honored with the Cardinal's hat. He observed that many persons were
already congratulating him, but that before he made any demonstration of
accepting or refusing, he waited for his Majesty's orders: upon his will
he wished ever to depend. He also had the coolness, under the
circumstances, to express his conviction that "it was his Majesty who had
secretly procured this favor from his Holiness."

The King received the information very graciously, observing in reply,
that although he had never made any suggestion of the kind, he had "often
thought upon the subject." The royal command was of course at once
transmitted, that the dignity should be accepted. By special favor,
moreover, the Pope dispensed the new Cardinal from the duty of going to
Rome in person, and despatched his chamberlain, Theophilus Friso, to
Brussels, with the red hat and tabbard.

The prelate, having thus reached the dignity to which he had long
aspired, did not grow more humble in his deportment, or less zealous in
the work through which he had already gained so much wealth and
preferment. His conduct with regard to the edicts and bishoprics had
already brought him into relations which were far from amicable with his
colleagues in the council. More and more he began to take the control of
affairs into his own hand. The consulta, or secret committee of the state
council, constituted the real government of the country. Here the most
important affairs were decided upon without the concurrence of the other
seignors, Orange, Egmont, and Glayon, who, at the same time, were held
responsible for the action of government. The Cardinal was smooth in
manner, plausible of speech, generally even-tempered, but he was
overbearing and blandly insolent. Accustomed to control royal personages,
under the garb of extreme obsequiousness, he began, in his intercourse
with those of less exalted rank, to omit a portion of the subserviency
while claiming a still more undisguised authority. To nobles like Egmont
and Orange, who looked down upon the son of Nicolas Perrenot and Nicola
Bonvalot as a person immeasurably beneath themselves in the social
hierarchy, this conduct was sufficiently irritating. The Cardinal, placed
as far above Philip, and even Margaret, in mental power as he was beneath
them in worldly station, found it comparativ