h
inquisition, had been established among them by means of bishops and
ecclesiastics. She urged Philip to cause the instructions for the
inquisitors to be revised. Egmont, she said, was vehement in expressing
his dissatisfaction at the discrepancy between Philip's language to him
by word of mouth and that of the royal despatches on the religious
question. The other seigniors were even more indignant.

While the popular commotion in the Netherlands was thus fearfully
increasing, another circumstance came to add to the prevailing
discontent. The celebrated interview between Catharine de Medici and her
daughter, the Queen of Spain, occurred in the middle of the month of
June, at Bayonne. The darkest suspicions as to the results to humanity of
the plots to be engendered in this famous conference between the
representatives of France and Spain were universally entertained. These
suspicions were most reasonable, but they were nevertheless mistaken. The
plan for a concerted action to exterminate the heretics in both kingdoms
had, as it was perfectly well known, been formed long before this epoch.
It was also no secret that the Queen Regent of France had been desirous
of meeting her son-in-law in order to confer with him upon important
matters, face to face. Philip, however, had latterly been disinclined for
the personal interview with Catharine. As his wife was most anxious to
meet her mother, it was nevertheless finally arranged that Queen Isabella
should make the journey; but he excused himself, on account of the
multiplicity of his affairs, from accompanying her in the expedition. The
Duke of Alva was, accordingly, appointed to attend the Queen to Bayonne.
Both were secretly instructed by Philip to leave nothing undone in the
approaching interview toward obtaining the hearty co-operation of
Catharine de Medici in a general and formally-arranged scheme for the
simultaneous extermination of all heretics in the French and Spanish
dominions. Alva's conduct in this diplomatic commission was stealthy in
the extreme. His letters reveal a subtlety of contrivance and delicacy of
handling such as the world has not generally reckoned among his
characteristics. All his adroitness, as well as the tact of Queen
Isabella, by whose ability Alva declared himself to have been astounded,
proved quite powerless before the steady fencing of the wily Catharine.
The Queen Regent, whose skill the Duke, even while defeated, acknowledged
to his mast