It was believed that his ambition would be less to extend his dominions than to vindicate his title of the most Catholic king.

There could be little doubt entertained that he would be, at least, dutiful to his father in this respect, and that the edicts would be enforced to the letter.
He was by birth, education, and character, a Spaniard, and that so exclusively, that the circumstance would alone have made him unfit to govern a country so totally different in habits and national sentiments from his native land.

He was more a foreigner in Brussels, even, than in England.

The gay, babbling, energetic, noisy life of Flanders and Brabant was detestable to him.

The loquacity of the Netherlanders was a continual reproach upon his taciturnity.