rival had been confidently
expected, and the well-disposed of the people had placed all their last
hopes on this event. The vessels, which Philip had caused to be
equipped expressly for the purpose of meeting him, still lay in the
harbor of Flushing, ready to sail at the first signal; and the town of
Brussels had consented to receive a Spanish garrison, simply because the
king, it was pretended, was to reside within its walls. But this hope
gradually vanished, as he put off the journey from one season to the
next, and the new viceroy very soon began to exhibit powers which
announced him less as a precursor of royalty than as an absolute
minister, whose presence made that of the monarch entirely superfluous.
To compete the distress of the provinces their last good angel was now
to leave them in the person of the regent. From the moment when the
production of the duke's extensive powers left no doubt remaining as to
the practical termination of her own rule, Margaret had formed the
resolution of relinquishing the name also of regent. To see a successor
in the actual possession of a dignity which a nine years' enjoyment had
made indispensable to her; to see the authority, the glory, the
splendor, the adoration, and all the marks of respect, which are the
usual concomitants of supreme power, pass over to another; and to feel
that she had lost that which she could never forget she had once held,
was more than a woman's mind could endure; moreover, the Duke of Alva
was of all men the least calculated to make her feel her privation the
less painful by a forbearing use of his newly-acquired dignity. The
tranquillity of the country, too, which was put in jeopardy by this
divided rule, seemed to impose upon the duchess the necessity of
abdicating. Many governors of provinces refused, without an express
order from the court, to receive commands from the duke and to recognize
him as co-regent.

The rapid change of their point of attraction could not be met by the
courtiers so composedly and imperturbably but that the duchess observed
the alteration, and bitterly felt it. Even the few who, like State
Counsellor Viglius, still firmly adhered to her, did so less from
attachment to her person than from vexation at being displaced by
novices and foreigners, and from being too proud to serve a fresh
apprenticeship under a new viceroy. But far the greater number, with
all their endeavors to keep an exact mean, could not help making a
dif