In Spain, the affairs of the Order were in the most flourishing condition. Their revenues amounted to a very considerable sum. The authority they possessed was almost unlimited. Philip III., who had loaded them with benefices, expired on the arm of a Jesuit; and hardly had Philip IV. taken the government into his own hands than he showered down upon the Society still greater favours than his predecessor.[263] He encouraged his subjects to build colleges for them; and many bishops and noblemen, to please the sovereign, vied with each other in endowing the Society with richly provided establishments, and in investing them with all power and influence. But it seems that when the haughty and imperious Olivarez possessed himself of the supreme power, he ruled with such a despotic hand both king and kingdom, that very little share of authority or influence was left to the reverend fathers. _Inde iræ._ The affront must be resented, and, although it was rather difficult to attack openly in Spain either the premier or the monarch, surrounded as he was by the devotion and the love of his subjects, yet the Jesuits were not the men to suffer patiently what they considered an injury. They then thought of snatching from the hands of Philip that same sceptre of Portugal which they had placed in the hands of his grandfather. They accordingly set themselves to work, and formed a conspiracy to transfer the crown to the head of the Duke of Braganza. The pulpit, the confessional, the congregations, were all made to subserve their designs; and the minds of the people being sufficiently prepared, they caused the duke to repair to Evora. He took up his abode in the Jesuit college; and when he descended into the church, thronged with people, Corea, a Jesuit father, addressing the duke from the pulpit, exclaimed, “I shall yet see upon your head the crown——of glory, to which may the Lord call us all!”[264] The church rung with plaudits at this well-managed _réticence_; and the mysterious prediction passed from the church to the street, and from thence throughout Portugal, to strengthen the hopes and inflame the courage of the Portuguese, already impatient to shake off the Spanish yoke. From that moment the conspiracy made rapid progress. The fathers publicly preached the revolt, without, however, altogether forgetting their Jesuitical duplicity. The provincial forbade all his subordinates to mix in political matters, and even imprisoned one of them for having from the pulpit too openly exhorted the citizens to rebel. But the greatest part of the fathers disregarded the order of their superior, who, nevertheless, except in the instance just mentioned, left them unpunished, and in the evening sat down with them at the same table as friendly as ever—a policy which, we must observe, was adopted by the fathers in all doubtful emergencies, in order that, on whichever side the scales declined, there might be a portion of the Jesuits claiming