xy. Philip
lent a greedy ear to these scandalous hints concerning the late
omnipotent minister and his friends. It is an instructive lesson in human
history to look through the cloud of dissimulation in which the actors of
this remarkable epoch were ever enveloped, and to watch them all stabbing
fiercely at each other in the dark, with no regard to previous
friendship, or even present professions. It is edifying to see the
Cardinal, with all his genius and all his grimace, corresponding on
familiar terms with Armenteros, who was holding him up to obloquy upon
all occasions; to see Philip inclining his ear in pleased astonishment to
Margaret's disclosures concerning the Cardinal, whom he was at the very
instant assuring of his undiminished confidence; and to see Viglius, the
author of the edict of 1550, and the uniform opponent of any mitigation
in its horrors, silently becoming involved without the least suspicion of
the fact in the meshes of inquisitor Titelmann.

Upon Philip's eager solicitations for further disclosures, Margaret
accordingly informed her brother of additional facts communicated to her,
after oaths of secrecy had been exchanged, by Titelmann and his colleague
del Canto. They had assured her, she said, that there were grave doubts
touching the orthodoxy of Viglius. He had consorted with heretics during
a large portion of his life, and had put many suspicious persons into
office. As to his nepotism, simony, and fraud, there was no doubt at all.
He had richly provided all his friends and relations in Friesland with
benefices. He had become in his old age a priest and churchman, in order
to snatch the provostship of Saint Bavon, although his infirmities did
not allow him to say mass, or even to stand erect at the altar. The
inquisitors had further accused him of having stolen rings, jewels,
plate, linen, beds, tapestry, and other furniture, from the
establishment, all which property he had sent to Friesland, and of having
seized one hundred thousand florins in ready money which had belonged to
the last abbe--an act consequently of pure embezzlement. The Duchess
afterwards transmitted to Philip an inventory of the plundered property,
including the furniture of nine houses, and begged him to command Viglius
to make instant restitution. If there be truth in the homely proverb,
that in case of certain quarrels honest men recover their rights, it is
perhaps equally certain that when distinguished public personag