She promised that she would state publicly every where that the Cardinal was an upright man, intact in his morals and his administration, a most zealous and faithful servant of the King.

She added that she recognized the obligations she was under to him, and that she loved him like a brother.

She affirmed that if the Flemish seigniors had induced her to cause the Cardinal to be deprived of the government, she was already penitent, and that her fault deserved that the King, her brother, should cut off her head, for having occasioned so great a calamity .-- ["Memoires de Granvelle," tom.

33, p.

67.] There was certainly discrepancy between the language thus used simultaneously by the Duchess to Granvelle and to Philip, but Margaret had been trained in the school of Macchiavelli, and had sat at the feet of Loyola.
The Cardinal replied with equal suavity, protesting that such a letter from the Duchess left him nothing more to desire, as it furnished him with an "entire and perfect justification" of his conduct.