brother-in-law the King of Spain and to
other potentates--as if the very soul of Philip II. were alive within
him--that he would rather have a country without inhabitants than with a
single protestant on its soil. He strongly urged upon his Catholic
Majesty--as if such urging were necessary at the Spanish court--the
necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch.

Here was one man at least who knew what he meant, and on whom the dread
lessons of fifty years of bloodshed had been lost. Magnificent was the
contempt which this pupil of the Jesuits felt for any little progress
made by the world since the days of Torquemada. In Ferdinand's view Alva
was a Christian hero, scarcely second to Godfrey of Bouillon, Philip II.
a sainted martyr, while the Dutch republic had never been born.

And Ferdinand was one day to sit on the throne of the holy Roman Empire.
Might not a shudder come over the souls of men as coming events vaguely
shaped themselves to prophetic eyes?

Meantime there was religious peace in Hungary, in Austria, in Bohemia, in
France, in Great Britain, in the Netherlands. The hangman's hands were
for a period at rest, so far as theology had need of them. Butchery in
the name of Christ was suspended throughout Christendom. The Cross and
the Crescent, Santiago and the Orange banner, were for a season in
repose.

There was a vast lull between two mighty storms. The forty years' war was
in the past, the thirty years' war in the not far distant future.

CHAPTER LIII.

CONCLUSION.

Forth-three years had passed since the memorable April morning in which
the great nobles of the, Netherlands presented their "Request" to the
Regent Margaret at Brussels.

They had requested that the holy Spanish Inquisition might not be
established on their soil to the suppression of all their political and
religious institutions.

The war which those high-born "beggars" had then kindled, little knowing
what they were doing, had now come to a close, and the successor of
Philip II., instead of planting the Inquisition in the provinces, had
recognised them as an independent, sovereign, protestant republic.

In the ratification which he had just signed of the treaty of truce the
most Catholic king had in his turn made a Request. He had asked the
States-General to deal kindly with their Catholic subjects.

That request was not answered with the age and faggot; with the avenging
sword of mercenary legions. On the contra