s might at other times have remained unfathomed by his
whole generation; but not so by the distrustful spirit of the age in
which he lived. Philip II. saw quickly and deeply into a character
which, among good ones, most resembled his own. If he had not seen
through him so clearly his distrust of a man, in whom were united nearly
all the qualities which he prized highest and could best appreciate,
would be quite inexplicable. But William had another and still more
important point of contact with Philip II. He had learned his policy
from the same master, and had become, it was to be feared, a more apt
scholar. Not by making Machiavelli's 'Prince' his study, but by having
enjoyed the living instruction of a monarch who reduced the book to
practice, had he become versed in the perilous arts by which thrones
rise and fall. In him Philip had to deal with an antagonist who was
armed against his policy, and who in a good cause could also command the
resources of a bad one. And it was exactly this last circumstance which
accounts for his having hated this man so implacably above all others of
his day, and his having had so supernatural a dread of him.

The suspicion which already attached to the prince was increased by the
doubts which were entertained of his religious bias. So long as the
Emperor, his benefactor, lived, William believed in the pope; but it was
feared, with good ground, that the predilection for the reformed
religion, which had been imparted into his young heart, had never
entirely left it. Whatever church he may at certain periods of his life
have preferred each might console itself with the reflection that none
other possessed him more entirely. In later years he went over to
Calvinism with almost as little scruple as in his early childhood he
deserted the Lutheran profession for the Romish. He defended the rights
of the Protestants rather than their opinions against Spanish
oppression; not their faith, but their wrongs, had made him their
brother.

These general grounds for suspicion appeared to be justified by a
discovery of his real intentions which accident had made. William had
remained in France as hostage for the peace of Chateau-Cambray, in
concluding which he had borne a part; and here, through the imprudence
of Henry II., who imagined he spoke with a confidant of the King of
Spain, he became acquainted with a secret plot which the French and
Spanish courts had formed against Protestants of both king