The natural want of sympathy between sovereign and people arising out of these circumstances doubtless began the trouble which ended in Spain’s downfall. No part of Philip’s career shows so clearly as his treatment of the Netherlands the limited and inelastic character of his policy, the lack of adaptability of his methods; for how should a man be yielding or conciliatory who supposed that he was part and parcel of Divine Providence, the one man on earth selected by the Almighty to carry out His irresistible decrees? There is no reason to suppose that when he first decided upon the rearrangement of the Flemish dioceses he desired to offend his subjects; it was probably only a step in his persistent policy of bringing the clergy of his dominions under his more immediate control. But in order to pay his new bishops he designed to appropriate the large revenues of the conventual houses, and he thus raised up against him all the cloistered clergy. The pope was bribed to agree to the change, but the Flemings, already sulky, were willing to listen to the monks, who denounced the innovations of the foreigner which were to deprive them of their revenues, and what would have been under other circumstances a not unwelcome reform became a fruitful source of trouble. There is no doubt, moreover, that before the king attended the States-General just prior to his departure he had every intention of withdrawing the Spanish infantry from Flanders now that peace had been made with France, and the men were badly wanted in Naples, where his principal danger at present lay. But when the States-General so roughly demanded of their sovereign the immediate withdrawal of the troops, Philip’s heart must have hardened and his pride revolted that these independent-minded Flemings should question his omnipotence. Another difficulty was that the troops obstinately refused to budge until they were paid, and the treasury was empty. The Flemings, who had been bled freely during the war, professed inability to find any more resources, and the Antwerp bankers shut their money-bags until some of their previous advances were paid. When Philip arrived in Spain, his sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, governess of the Netherlands, ceaselessly urged him to withdraw the troops. She assured him that their further stay would cause trouble, and Granvelle warned him gravely of the results. With the first half of his French wife’s dowry of 400,000 ducats Philip was able to pay the troops in the autumn of 1560, and they left in January 1561; but by that time the evil seed had been sown, and Philip was pestered in every letter with reminders of the various rights and privileges which he had sworn to uphold in the respective states. Most of the unpopularity fell upon Granvelle, who had to carry out the arrangements for the new bishoprics. He found his task so difficult that before long he “wished to God that the erection of these new sees had never been thought of,” although the