one, indeed, when Margaret was
so filled with respectful affection for the prelate, that she could
secretly correspond with the Holy Father at Rome, and solicit the red hat
for the object of her veneration. She now wrote to Philip, stating that
she was better informed as to affairs in the Netherlands than she had
ever formerly been. She told her brother that all the views of Granvelle
and of his followers, Viglius with the rest, had tended to produce a
revolution which they hoped that Philip would find in full operation when
he should come to the Netherlands. It was their object, she said, to fish
in troubled waters, and, to attain that aim, they had ever pursued the
plan of gaining the exclusive control of all affairs. That was the reason
why they had ever opposed the convocation of the states-general. They
feared that their books would be read, and their frauds, injustice,
simony, and rapine discovered. This would be the result, if tranquillity
were restored to the country, and therefore they had done their best to
foment and maintain discord. The Duchess soon afterwards entertained her
royal brother with very detailed accounts of various acts of simony,
peculation, and embezzlement committed by Viglius, which the Cardinal had
aided and abetted, and by which he had profited.--[Correspondence de
Phil. II, i. 318-320.]--These revelations are inestimable in a historical
point of view. They do not raise our estimate of Margaret's character,
but they certainly give us a clear insight into the nature of the
Granvelle administration. At the same time it was characteristic of the
Duchess, that while she was thus painting the portrait of the Cardinal
for the private eye of his sovereign, she should address the banished
minister himself in a secret strain of condolence, and even of penitence.
She wrote to assure Granvelle that she repented extremely having adopted
the views of Orange. She promised that she would state publicly every
where that the Cardinal was an upright man, intact in his morals and his
administration, a most zealous and faithful servant of the King. She
added that she recognized the obligations she was under to him, and that
she loved him like a brother. She affirmed that if the Flemish seigniors
had induced her to cause the Cardinal to be deprived of the government,
she was already penitent, and that her fault deserved that the King, her
brother, should cut off her head, for having occasioned so great a
calami