a skilful and
provident administration elicited its resources. Charles V. bequeathed
to his successor an authority in these provinces little inferior to that
of a limited monarchy. The prerogative of the crown had gained a
visible ascendancy over the republican spirit, and that complicated
machine could now be set in motion, almost as certainly and rapidly as
the most absolutely governed nation. The numerous nobility, formerly so
powerful, cheerfully accompanied their sovereign in his wars, or, on the
civil changes of the state, courted the approving smile of royality.
The crafty policy of the crown had created a new and imaginary good, of
which it was the exclusive dispenser. New passions and new ideas of
happiness supplanted at last the rude simplicity of republican virtue.
Pride gave place to vanity, true liberty to titles of Honor, a needy
independence to a luxurious servitude. To oppress or to plunder their
native land as the absolute satraps of an absolute lord was a more
powerful allurement for the avarice and ambition of the great, than in
the general assembly of the state to share with the monarch a hundredth
part of the supreme power. A large portion, moreover, of the nobility
were deeply sunk in poverty and debt. Charles V. had crippled all the
most dangerous vassals of the crown by expensive embassies to foreign
courts, under the specious pretext of honorary distinctions. Thus,
William of Orange was despatched to Germany with the imperial crown, and
Count Egmont to conclude the marriage contract between Philip and Queen
Mary. Both also afterwards accompanied the Duke of Alva to France to
negotiate the peace between the two crowns, and the new alliance of
their sovereign with Madame Elizabeth. The expenses of these journeys
amounted to three hundred thousand florins, towards which the king did
not contribute a single penny. When the Prince of Orange was appointed
generalissimo in the place of the Duke of Savoy he was obliged to defray
all the necessary expenses of his office. When foreign ambassadors or
princes came to Brussels it was made incumbent on the nobles to maintain
the honor of their king, who himself always dined alone, and never kept
open table. Spanish policy had devised a still more ingenious
contrivance gradually to impoverish the richest families of the land.
Every year one of the Castilian nobles made his appearance in Brussels,
where he displayed a lavish magnificence. In Brussels it was accou