"Tell Iniquez to warn them not to be sluggish.

Let them not begin in a lukewarm manner, but promise them plenty of assistance from me, if they conduct themselves properly.

Let them beware of wavering, or of falling into plans of conciliation.

If they do their duty, I will do mine." But the Guise faction moved slowly despite of Philip's secret promptings.
The truth is, that the means proposed by the Spanish monarch were ludicrously inadequate to his plans, and it was idle to suppose that the world was to be turned upside down for his benefit, at the very low price which he was prepared to pay.
Nothing less than to exterminate all the heretics in Christendom, to place himself on the thrones of France and of England, and to extinguish the last spark of rebellion in the Netherlands, was his secret thought, and yet it was very difficult to get fifty thousand dollars from him from month to month.

Procrastinating and indolent himself, he was for ever rebuking the torpid movements of the Guises.
"Let Mucio set his game well at the outset," said he; "let him lay the axe to the root of the tree, for to be wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening the knife for himself." This was almost prophetic.