states furnish but one instance of a similar perversion of justice, of such violation of the rights of property, and of such waste of human life; but Cinna, Sylla, and Marius entered vanquished Rome as incensed victors, and practised without disguise what the viceroy of the Netherlands performed under the venerable veil of the laws. Up to the end of the year 1567 the king's arrival had been confidently expected, and the well-disposed of the people had placed all their last hopes on this event. The vessels, which Philip had caused to be equipped expressly for the purpose of meeting him, still lay in the harbor of Flushing, ready to sail at the first signal; and the town of Brussels had consented to receive a Spanish garrison, simply because the king, it was pretended, was to reside within its walls. But this hope gradually vanished, as he put off the journey from one season to the next, and the new viceroy very soon began to exhibit powers which announced him less as a precursor of royalty than as an absolute minister, whose presence made that of the monarch entirely superfluous. To compete the distress of the provinces their last good angel was now to leave them in the person of the regent. From the moment when the production of the duke's extensive powers left no doubt remaining as to the practical termination of her own rule, Margaret had formed the resolution of relinquishing the name also of regent. To see a successor in the actual possession of a dignity which a nine years' enjoyment had made indispensable to her; to see the authority, the glory, the splendor, the adoration, and all the marks of respect, which are the usual concomitants of supreme power, pass over to another; and to feel that she had lost that which she could never forget she had once held, was more than a woman's mind could endure; moreover, the Duke of Alva was of all men the least calculated to make her feel her privation the less painful by a forbearing use of his newly-acquired dignity. The tranquillity of the country, too, which was put in jeopardy by this divided rule, seemed to impose upon the duchess the necessity of abdicating. Many governors of provinces refused, without an express order from the court, to receive commands from the duke and to recognize him as co-regent.