twitted by
Philip, or Granvelle, or Don John, or Alexander of Parma. Anna of Saxony
was false to him; and entered into correspondence with the royal
governors and with the King of Spain; Charlotte of Bourbon or Louisa de
Coligny might have done the same had it been possible for their natures
also to descend to such depths of guile.

As for the Aerschots, the Havres, the Chimays, he was never influenced
either by their blandishments or their plots. He was willing to use them
when their interest made them friendly, or to crush them when their
intrigues against his policy rendered them dangerous. The adroitness with
which he converted their schemes in behalf of Matthias, of Don John, of
Anjou, into so many additional weapons for his own cause, can never be
too often studied. It is instructive to observe the wiles of the
Macchiavelian school employed by a master of the craft, to frustrate, not
to advance, a knavish purpose. This character, in a great measure, marked
his whole policy. He was profoundly skilled in the subtleties of Italian
statesmanship, which he had learned as a youth at the Imperial court, and
which he employed in his manhood in the service, not of tyranny, but of
liberty. He fought the Inquisition with its own weapons. He dealt with
Philip on his own ground. He excavated the earth beneath the King's feet
by a more subtle process than that practised by the most fraudulent
monarch that ever governed the Spanish empire, and Philip, chain-mailed
as he was in complicated wiles, was pierced to the quick by a keener
policy than his own.

Ten years long the King placed daily his most secret letters in hands
which regularly transmitted copies of the correspondence to the Prince of
Orange, together with a key to the ciphers and every other illustration
which might be required. Thus the secrets of the King were always as well
known to Orange as to himself; and the Prince being as prompt as Philip
was hesitating, the schemes could often be frustrated before their
execution had been commenced. The crime of the unfortunate clerk, John de
Castillo, was discovered in the autumn of the year 1581, and he was torn
to pieces by four horses. Perhaps his treason to the monarch whose bread
he was eating, while he received a regular salary from the King's most
determined foe, deserved even this horrible punishment, but casuists must
determine how much guilt attaches to the Prince for his share in the
transaction. This history is