He was to request two hundred thousand crowns toward the lottery, which the Regent proposed to set up as a financial scheme.

He was to represent that the Duchess had tried, unsuccessfully, every conceivable means of accommodating the quarrel between the Cardinal and the seigniors.

She recognized Granvelle's great capacity, experience, zeal, and devotion--for all which qualities she made much of him--while on the other hand she felt that it would be a great inconvenience, and might cause a revolt of the country, were she to retain him in the Netherlands against the will of the seigniors.

These motives had compelled her, the messenger was to add, to place both views of the subject before the eyes of the King.

Armenteros was, furthermore, to narrate the circumstances of the interviews which had recently taken place between herself and the leaders of the opposition party.
From the tenor of these instructions, it was sufficiently obvious that Margaret of Parma was not anxious to retain the Cardinal, but that, on the contrary, she was beginning already to feel alarm at the dangerous position in which she found herself.