e Idiaquez was chief
secretary of state and of war; the Count de Chinchon was minister for the
household, for Italian affairs, and for the kingdom of Aragon; Don
Cristoval de Moura, the monarch's chief favourite, was at the head of the
finance department, and administered the affairs of Portugal and Castile!

The president of the council of Italy, after Granvelle's death, was
Quiroga, cardinal of Toledo, and inquisitor-general. Enormously long
letters, in the King's: name, were prepared chiefly by the two
secretaries, Idiaquez and Moura. In their hands was the vast
correspondence with Mendoza and Parma, and Olivarez at Rome, and with
Mucio; in which all the stratagems for the subjugation of Protestant
Europe were slowly and artistically contrived. Of the great conspiracy
against human liberty, of which the Pope and Philip were the double head,
this midnight triumvirate was the chief executive committee.

These innumerable despatches, signed by Philip, were not the emanations
of his own mind. The King had a fixed purpose to subdue Protestantism and
to conquer the world; but the plans for carrying the purpose into effect
were developed by subtler and more comprehensive minds than his own. It
was enough for him to ponder wearily over schemes which he was supposed
to dictate, and to give himself the appearance of supervising what he
scarcely comprehended. And his work of supervision was often confined to
pettiest details. The handwriting of Spain and Italy at that day was
beautiful, and in our modern eyes seems neither antiquated nor
ungraceful. But Philip's scrawl was like that of 'a' clown just admitted
to a writing-school, and the whole margin of a fairly penned despatch
perhaps fifty pages long; laid before him for comment and signature by
Idiaquez or Moura, would be sometimes covered with a few awkward
sentences, which it was almost impossible to read, and which, when
deciphered, were apt to reveal suggestions of astounding triviality.

Thus a most important despatch--in which the King, with his own hand, was
supposed to be conveying secret intelligence to Mendoza concerning the
Armada, together with minute directions for the regulation of Guise's
conduct at the memorable epoch of the barricades--contained but a single
comment from the monarch's own pen. "The Armada has been in Lisbon about
a month--quassi un mes"--wrote the secretary. "There is but one s in
quasi," said Philip.

Again, a despatch of Mendoza to the