seen. But Philip, instead of ducats or
cloth, had only sent orders to go forth and conquer a new kingdom for
him. Verdugo, too, from Friesland was howling for money, garrotting and
hanging his mutinous veterans every day, and sending complaints and most
dismal forebodings as often as a courier could make his way through the
enemy's lines to Farnese's headquarters. And Farnese, on his part, was
garrotting and hanging the veterans.

Alexander did not of course inform his master that he was a mischievous
lunatic, who upon any healthy principle of human government ought long
ago to have been shut up from all communion with his species. It was very
plain, however, from his letters, that such was his innermost, thought,
had it been safe, loyal, or courteous to express it in plain language.

He was himself stung almost to madness moreover by the presence of
Commander Moreo, who hated him, who was perpetually coming over from
France to visit him, who was a spy upon all his actions, and who was
regularly distilling his calumnies into the ears of Secretary Idiaquez
and of Philip himself. The king was informed that Farnese was working for
his own ends, and was disgusted with his sovereign; that there never had
been a petty prince of Italy that did not wish to become a greater one,
or that was not jealous of Philip's power, and that there was not a
villain in all Christendom but wished for Philip's death. Moreo followed
the prince about to Antwerp, to Brussels, to Spa, whither he had gone to
drink the waters for his failing health, pestered him, lectured him,
pried upon him, counselled him, enraged him. Alexander told him at last
that he cared not if the whole world came to an end so long as Flanders
remained, which alone had been entrusted to him, and that if he was
expected to conquer France it would be as well to give him the means of
performing that exploit. So Moreo told the king that Alexander was
wasting time and wasting money, that he was the cause of Egmont's
overthrow, and that he would be the cause of the loss of Paris and of the
downfall of the whole French scheme; for that he was determined to do
nothing to assist Mayenne, or that did not conduce to his private
advantage.

Yet Farnese had been not long before informed in sufficiently plain
language, and by personages of great influence, that in case he wished to
convert his vice-royalty of the Netherlands into a permanent sovereignty,
he might rely on the assistance