The religious zeal which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty; and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.
Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration and unusual self-command; the first revealing to him the views of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself.

Although ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning.

He wanted courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of wounded pride.

All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.
Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands.

His father had already sapped its foundations, by encouraging foreign manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad.
His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the nation to religious discords and hatred.