Spare of figure, plain in apparel, benignant, but haggard of countenance, with temples bared by anxiety as much as by his helmet, earnest, almost devout in manner, in his own words, "Calvus et Calvinists," William of Orange was an old man at forty-three.
Perhaps there was as much good faith on the part of Don John, when he arrived in Luxemburg, as could be expected of a man coming directly from the cabinet of Philip.

The King had secretly instructed him to conciliate the provinces, but to concede nothing, for the Governor was only a new incarnation of the insane paradox that benignity and the system of Charles the Fifth were one.

He was directed to restore the government, to its state during the imperial epoch.

Seventeen provinces, in two of which the population were all dissenters, in all of which the principle of mutual toleration had just been accepted by Catholics and Protestants, were now to be brought back to the condition according to which all Protestants were beheaded, burned, or buried alive.

So that the Inquisition, the absolute authority of the monarch, and the exclusive worship of the Roman Church were preserved intact, the King professed himself desirous of "extinguishing the fires of rebellion, and of saving the people from the last desperation." With these slight exceptions, Philip was willing to be very benignant.