He assured Philip that upon the movement of those nobles depended the whole existence of the country.

It was time that they should be made to open their eyes.

They should be solicited in every way to abandon their evil courses, since the liberty which they thought themselves defending was but abject slavery; but subjection to a thousand base and contemptible personages, and to that "vile animal called the people." It is sufficiently obvious, from the picture which we have now presented of the respective attitudes of Granvelle, of the seigniors and of the nation, during the whole of the year 1563, and the beginning of the following year, that a crisis was fast approaching.

Granvelle was, for the moment, triumphant, Orange, Egmont, and Horn had abandoned the state council, Philip could not yet make up his mind to yield to the storm, and Alva howled defiance at the nobles and the whole people of the Netherlands.

Nevertheless, Margaret of Parma was utterly weary of the minister, the Cardinal himself was most anxious to be gone, and the nation--for there was a nation, however vile the animal might be--was becoming daily more enraged at the presence of a man in whom, whether justly or falsely, it beheld the incarnation of the religious oppression under which they groaned.