social intercourse formed for him a
pleasing recreation from the severe Spanish gravity. He spoke their
language, and followed their customs in his private life. The
burdensome ceremonies which form the unnatural barriers between king and
people were banished from Brussels. No jealous foreigner debarred
natives from access to their prince; their way to him was through their
own countrymen, to whom he entrusted his person. He spoke much and
courteously with them; his deportment was engaging, his discourse
obliging. These simple artifices won for him their love, and while
his armies trod down their cornfields, while his rapacious imposts
diminished their property, while his governors oppressed, his
executioners slaughtered, he secured their hearts by a friendly
demeanor.

Gladly would Charles have seen this affection of the nation for himself
descend upon his son. On this account he sent for him in his youth from
Spain, and showed him in Brussels to his future subjects. On the solemn
day of his abdication he recommended to him these lands as the richest
jewel in his crown, and earnestly exhorted him to respect their laws and
privileges.

Philip II. was in all the direct opposite of his father. As ambitious
as Charles, but with less knowledge of men and of the rights of man, he
had formed to himself a notion of royal authority which regarded men as
simply the servile instruments of despotic will, and was outraged by
every symptom of liberty. Born in Spain, and educated under the iron
discipline of the monks, he demanded of others the same gloomy formality
and reserve as marked his own character. The cheerful merriment of his
Flemish subjects was as uncongenial to his disposition and temper as
their privileges were offensive to his imperious will. He spoke no
other language but the Spanish, endured none but Spaniards about his
person, and obstinately adhered to all their customs. In vain did the
loyal ingenuity of the Flemish towns through which he passed vie with
each other in solemnizing his arrival with costly festivities.

[The town of Antwerp alone expended on an occasion of this kind two
hundred and sixty thousand gold florins.]

Philip's eye remained dark; all the profusion of magnificence, all the
loud and hearty effusions of the sincerest joy could not win from him
one approving smile.

Charles entirely missed his aim by presenting his son to the Flemings.
They might eventually have endured his yoke wi