Thus the Infidel, the Protestant, and the Holy Church were all combined together to crush him.

Towards all the great powers of the earth, he stood not in the attitude of a conqueror, but of a disappointed, baffled, defeated potentate.

Moreover, he had been foiled long before in his earnest attempts to secure the imperial throne for Philip.

Ferdinand and Maximilian had both stoutly resisted his arguments and his blandishments.

The father had represented the slender patrimony of their branch of the family, compared with the enormous heritage of Philip; who, being after all, but a man, and endowed with finite powers, might sink under so great a pressure of empire as his father wished to provide for him.