ures. Thus the influence of the crown was often thwarted, if
not actually balanced; and the proposals which emanated from it
frequently opposed by the stadtholderess herself. She, although
a woman of masculine appearance and habits,[2] was possessed
of no strength of mind. Her prevailing sentiment seemed to be
dread of the king; yet she was at times influenced by a sense
of justice, and by the remonstrances of the well-judging members
of her councils. But these were not all the difficulties that
clogged the machinery of the state. After the king, the government,
and the councils, had deliberated on any measure, its execution
rested with the provincial governors or stadtholders, or the
magistrates of the towns. Almost everyone of these, being strongly
attached to the laws and customs of the nation, hesitated, or
refused to obey the orders conveyed to them, when those orders
appeared illegal. Some, however, yielded to the authority of
the government; so it often happened that an edict, which in one
district was carried into full effect, was in others deferred,
rejected, or violated, in a way productive of great confusion
in the public affairs.

[Footnote 2: Strada.]

Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent
disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had
overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty
that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence
of the restive members, he had left Granvelle the first place
in the administration. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an
eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician,
bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real
head of the government.[3] Next to him among the royalist party
was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman,
attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter
of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of
the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of
the financial department--a stern and intolerant satellite of the
court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which
operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed
the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of
the king were mere subaltern agents.

[Footnote 3: Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and therefore a fair
witness on this point, uses the following words in portraying the
charac