It happened thus: Duchess Marie, who in 1477 had married Maximilian of Hapsburg, son of the Emperor Frederick III., died two years later, leaving two children--Van Orley's friend Marguerite, whose acquaintance we have already made; and Philip, surnamed the Handsome, who, inheriting his mother's domains, ruled them from the time that he attained his majority in 1493 till his death in 1506. Philip had married Juana, the daughter and heiress of Isabel, Queen of Castile, and of Ferdinand, King of Aragon; and the eldest born of this union was the famous Charles Quint. If old King Ferdinand and Cardinal Ximénez had been allowed to have their way, the Spanish succession would have been settled on Charles's younger brother, and Spain and the Netherlands would perhaps have been spared many years of misery. To this arrangement Charles, naturally enough, objected; and no sooner had he attained his majority than he despatched, 'par devers le roy d'Arragon, pour aucuns grans affaires secretz dont n'est besoin ici faire declaration'--thus it was given out--his tutor, Adrian Boyens. This remarkable man, it will be interesting to note, was the son of a brewer of Utrecht; in his early days he had been curate of the Grand Béguinage at Louvain--a portion of the house which he then occupied is still standing (No. 153 Rue des Moutons)--towards the close of his life he ascended the pontifical throne, under the title of Adrian VI., and at the time of which we are writing he held, along with other preferments, a canon's stall in the old Collegiate Church of Saint Guy at Anderlecht. The ex-curate of Louvain ought certainly not to have been a match for the experienced statesman and diplomatist who at this time held the destinies of Spain in his hands, but, somehow or other, he managed to convince him of the justice of his master's claim: presently, with the approval of his all-powerful minister, Ferdinand consented to acknowledge his eldest grandson as his heir; and when he died, two years afterwards, Charles ascended the throne. Thus were Spain and the Netherlands united under one sceptre; and the inhabitants of the greater realm were the first to rue it; for Charles, who was a native of Ghent and had been brought up at Mechlin, had little liking for Spain, and took no pains to conceal his sentiments: he refused to speak the Spanish tongue, flouted the aged Cardinal Ximénez (a statesman of whom Spaniards were justly proud, and whom the people regarded as a saint), filled the land with foreign officials, levied illegal taxes, violated the most cherished constitutional rights--in a word, treated his southern domain almost like a conquered country; and when at last the Castilians rebelled, and after a bitter struggle were crushed, he deprived them of their time-honoured liberties. [Illustration: AT MECHLIN]