Nor was the president silent on his part, and in his correspondence with Granvelle he retorts similar accusations in full measure on his enemies. He roundly taxes the great nobles with simony and extortion. Offices, both ecclesiastical and secular, were put up for sale in a shameless manner, and disposed of to the highest bidder. It was in this way that the bankrupt nobles paid their debts, by bestowing vacant places on their creditors. Nor are the regent's hands, he intimates, altogether clean from the stain of these transactions.[615] He accuses the lords, moreover, of using their authority to interfere perpetually with the course of justice. They had acquired an unbounded ascendancy over Margaret, and treated her with a deference which, he adds, "is ever sure to captivate the sex."[616] She was more especially under the influence of her secretary, Armenteros, a creature of the nobles, who profited by his position to fill his own coffers at the expense of the exchequer.[617] For himself, he is in such disgrace for his resistance to these disloyal proceedings, that the duchess excludes him as far as possible from the management of affairs, and treats him with undisguised coldness. Nothing but the desire to do his duty would induce him to remain a day longer in a post like this, from which his only wish is that his sovereign would release him.[618] The president seems never to have written directly to Philip. It would only expose him, he said, to the suspicions and the cavils of his enemies. The wary statesman took warning by the fate of Granvelle. But as his letters to the banished minister were all forwarded to Philip, the monarch, with the despatches of his sister before him, had the means of contemplating both sides of the picture, and of seeing that, to whichever party he intrusted the government, the interests of the country were little likely to be served. Had it been his father, the emperor, who was on the throne, such knowledge would not have been in his possession four and twenty hours, before he would have been on his way to the Netherlands. But Philip was of a more sluggish temper. He was capable, indeed, of much passive exertion,--of incredible toil in the cabinet,--and from his palace, as was said, would have given law to Christendom. But rather than encounter the difficulties of a voyage, he was willing, it appears, to risk the loss of the finest of his provinces.[619] [Sidenote: ASCENDANCY OF THE NOBLES.] Yet he wrote to his sister to encourage her with the prospect of his visiting the country as soon as he could be released from a war in which he was engaged with the Turks. He invited her, at the same time, to send him further particulars of the misconduct of Viglius, and expressed the hope that some means might be found of silencing his opposition.[620]