was
doubted whether he could be removed thither; "but a collection of relics,
amassed by his orders in Germany, had just arrived at the Escurial, and
the festival of consecration was to take place within a few days. 'I
desire that I be borne alive thither where my tomb already is,' said
Philip." He was laid in a litter borne by men who walked at a snail's
pace, in order to avoid all shaking. Forced to halt every instant, he
took six days to do the eight leagues which separated him from his last
resting-place. There he died in atrocious agonies, and after a very
painful operation, endured with unalterable courage and calmness; he had
ordered to be placed in front of his bed the bier in which his body was
to lie and the crucifix which his father, Charles V., at his death in the
monastery of Yuste, had held in his hand. During a reign of forty-two
years Philip II. was, systematically and at any price, on the score of
what he regarded as the divine right of the Catholic church and of his
own kingship, the patron of absolute power in Europe. Earnest and
sincere in his faith, licentious without open scandal in his private
life, unscrupulous and pitiless in the service of the religious and
political cause he had embraced, he was capable of any lie, one might
almost say of any crime, without having his conscience troubled by it.
A wicked man and a frightful example of what a naturally cold and hard
spirit may become when it is a prey to all the temptations of despotism
and to two sole passions, egotism and fanaticism.

After the death of Philip II. and during the first years of the reign of
his son Philip III., war continued between Spain on one side, and
England, the United Provinces, and the German Protestants on the other,
but languidly and without any results to signify. Henry IV. held aloof
from the strife, all the while permitting his Huguenot subjects to take
part in it freely and at their own risks. On the 3d of April, 1603,
a second great royal personage, Queen Elizabeth, disappeared from the
scene. She had been, as regards the Protestantism of Europe, what Philip
II. had been, as regards Catholicism, a powerful and able patron; but,
what Philip II. did from fanatical conviction, Elizabeth did from
patriotic feeling; she had small faith in Calvinistic doctrines, and no
liking for Puritanic sects; the Catholic church, the power of the pope
excepted, was more to her mind than the Anglican church, and her private