He now made himself secretly active in promoting the schemes of Parma and in counteracting the negotiation with England.

He flattered himself, with an infatuation which it is difficult to comprehend, that it would be possible to obtain religious liberty for the revolting Provinces, although he had consented to its sacrifice in Antwerp.

It is true that he had not the privilege of reading Philip's secret letters to Parma, but what was there in the character of the King--what intimation had ever been given by the Governor-General--to induce a belief in even the possibility of such a concession?
Whatever Sainte Aldegonde's opinions, it is certain that Philip had no intention of changing his own policy.

He at first suspected the burgomaster of a wish to protract the negotiations for a perfidious purpose.
"Necessity has forced Antwerp," he wrote on the 17th of August--the very day on which the capitulation was actually signed--"to enter into negotiation.

I understand the artifice of Aldegonde in seeking to prolong and make difficult the whole affair, under pretext of treating for the reduction of Holland and Zeeland at the same time.