evertheless there arose between Philip and Orange a growing feeling of
distrust and dislike, with the result that William speedily found
himself at the head of a patriotic opposition to any attempts of the
Spanish king to govern the Netherlands by Spanish methods. The presence
of a large body of Spanish troops in the country aroused the suspicion
that Philip intended to use them, if necessary, to support him in
overriding by force the liberties and privileges of the provinces. It
was largely owing to the influence of Orange that the States-General in
1559 refused to vote the grant of supplies for which Philip had asked,
unless he promised that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from the
Netherlands. The king was much incensed at such a humiliating rebuff and
is reported, when on the point of embarking at Flushing, to have charged
William with being the man who had instigated the States thus to thwart
him.

Thus, when Margaret of Parma entered upon her duties as regent, she
found that there was a feeling of deep dissatisfaction and general
irritation in the provinces; and this was accentuated as soon as it was
found that, though Philip had departed, his policy remained. The spirit
of the absent king from his distant cabinet in Madrid brooded, as it
were, over the land. It was soon seen that Margaret, whatever her
statesmanlike qualities or natural inclination might be, had no real
authority, nor was she permitted to take any steps or to initiate any
policy without the advice and approval of the three confidential
councillors placed at her side by Philip--Granvelle, Viglius and
Barlaymont. Of these Granvelle, both by reason of his conspicuous
abilities and of his being admitted more freely than anyone else into
the inner counsels of a sovereign, as secretive in his methods as he was
suspicious and distrustful of his agents, held the foremost position and
drew upon himself the odium of a policy with which, though it was
dictated from Spain, his name was identified.

Orange and Egmont, with whom were joined a number of other leading
nobles (among these Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn, his brother
the lord of Montigny, the Counts of Meghem and Hoogstraeten and the
Marquis of Berghen), little by little adopted an attitude of increasing
hostility to this policy, which they regarded as anti-national and
tending to the establishment of a foreign despotism in the Netherlands.

The continued presence of the Spanish tro