ing to release him, and pleaded his
infirmities of body in excuse. Philip, however, would not listen to his
retirement, and made use of the most convincing arguments to induce him
to remain. Four hundred and fifty annual florins, secured by good
reclaimed swamps in Friesland, two thousand more in hand, with a promise
of still larger emoluments when the King should come to the Netherlands,
were reasons which the learned doctor honestly confessed himself unable
to resist. Fortified by these arguments, he remained at his post,
continued the avowed friend and adherent of Granvelle, and sustained with
magnanimity the invectives of nobles and people. To do him justice, he
did what he could to conciliate antagonists and to compromise principles.
If it had ever been possible to find the exact path between right and
wrong, the President would have found it, and walked in it with
respectability and complacency.

In the council, however, the Cardinal continued to carry it with a high
hand; turning his back on Orange and Egmont, and retiring with the
Duchess and President to consult, after every session. Proud and
important personages, like the Prince and Count, could ill brook such
insolence; moreover, they suspected the Cardinal of prejudicing the mind
of their sovereign against them. A report was very current, and obtained
almost universal belief, that Granvelle had expressly advised his Majesty
to take off the heads of at least half a dozen of the principal nobles in
the land. This was an error; "These two seigniors," wrote the Cardinal to
Philip, "have been informed that I have written to your Majesty, that you
will never be master of these provinces without taking off at least half
a dozen heads, and that because it would be difficult, on account of the
probable tumults which such a course would occasion, to do it here, your
Majesty means to call them to Spain and do it there. Your Majesty can
judge whether such a thing has ever entered my thoughts. I have laughed
at it as a ridiculous invention. This gross forgery is one of Renard's."
The Cardinal further stated to his Majesty that he had been informed by
these same nobles that the Duke of Alva, when a hostage for the treaty of
Cateau Cambresis, had negotiated an alliance between the crowns of France
and Spain for the extirpation of heresy by the sword. He added, that he
intended to deal with the nobles with all gentleness, and that he should
do his best to please them. The o