"I could not live among these people even as a private citizen, for it would be impossible to do my duty towards God and my Prince. As to governing them, I take God to witness that the task is so abhorrent to me that I would rather earn my daily bread by labour than attempt it." In 1559 (Aug. 26th), Philip left the Netherlands never to return. He had selected Margaret of Parma, his half-sister, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V., for Regent. Margaret had been born and brought up in the country; she knew the language, and she had been so long away from her native land that she was not personally committed to any policy nor acquainted with the leaders of any of the parties. The power of the Regent, nominally extensive, was in reality limited by secret instructions.[246] She was ordered to put in execution the edicts against heresy without any modification; and she was directed to submit to the advice given her by three Councils, a command which placed her under the supervision of the three men selected by Philip to be the presidents of these Councils. The Council of State was the most important, and was entrusted with the management of the whole foreign and home administration of the country. It consisted of the Bishop of Arras (Antoine Perronet de Granvelle, afterwards Cardinal de Granvelle);[247] the Baron de Barlaymont, who was President of the Council of Finance; Vigilius van Aytta, a learned lawyer from Friesland, "a small brisk man, with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, fat round rosy cheeks, and flowing beard," who was President of the Privy Council, and controlled the administration of law and justice; and two of the Netherland nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Prince of Gavre, and William, Prince of Orange. The two nobles were seldom consulted or even invited to be present. The three Presidents were the _Consulta_, or secret body of confidential advisers imposed by Philip upon his Regent, without whose advice nothing was to be attempted. Of the three, the Bishop of Arras (Cardinal de Granvelle) was the most important, and the government was practically placed in his hands by his master. Behind the _Consulta_ was Philip II. himself, who in his business room in the Escurial at Madrid issued his orders, repressing every tendency to treat the people with moderation and humanity, thrusting aside all suggestions of wise tolerance, and insisting that his own cold-blooded policy should be carried out in its most objectionable details. It was not until the publication of de Granvelle's State Papers and Correspondence that it came to be known how much the Bishop of Arras has been misjudged by history, how he remonstrated unavailingly with his master, how he was forced to put into execution a sanguinary policy of repression which was repugnant to himself, and how Philip compelled him to bear the obloquy of his own misdeeds. The correspondence also reveals the curiously