The change naturally did not please him, although he well knew the reasons.

It was impossible for the Dutch ambassador to be popular at a court where Spain ruled supreme.

Had he been willing to eat humiliation as with a spoon, it would not have sufficed.

They knew him, they feared him, and they could not doubt that his sympathies would ever be with the malcontent princes.

At the same time he did not like to lose his hold upon the place, nor to have it known, as yet, to the world that his power was diminished.
"The Queen commands me to tell you," said the French ambassador de Russy to the States-General, "that the language of the Sieur Aerssens has not only astonished her, but scandalized her to that degree that she could not refrain from demanding if it came from My Lords the States or from himself.