He ate no meat in Lent, and used extraordinary diligence to discover and to punish any man, whether courtier or plebeian, who failed to fast during the whole forty days.

He was too good a politician not to know the value of broad phylacteries and long prayers.

He was too nice an observer of human nature not to know how easily mint and cummin could still outweigh the "weightier matters of law, judgment, mercy and faith;" as if the founder of the religion which he professed, and to maintain which he had established the inquisition and the edicts, had never cried woe upon the Pharisees.

Yet there is no doubt that the Emperor was at times almost popular in the Netherlands, and that he was never as odious as his successor.

There were some deep reasons for this, and some superficial ones; among others, a singularly fortunate manner.