In the Netherlands the course of events was much the same, but the situation developed later, and only became acute during the reign of his son Philip. Karlekin, as the Flemings called their Sovereign, at all events was one of them; and though the Ghenters experienced his lash when they refused to pay his illegal imposts, and though his 'placards' against heresy were stamped with the cruel rigour of the penal code of the day, they only touched a small minority, and to the end of his reign he remained with the bulk of the people sufficiently popular. Upon the rare occasions when he visited Brussels he was welcomed with _fêtes_ and enthusiasm. Often away from home, he was fortunate in his choice of Regents--Marguerite of Austria, his aunt, and, when she died, his sister, Marie of Hungary. These ladies resided for the most part at Mechlin, in a beautiful Gothic palace, which had formerly been inhabited by Marguerite of York, the widow of Charles the Bold, and which is still standing; and the Court of each of them was rendered brilliant by the artists and scholars who frequented it. They were deservedly loved by their subjects, for they held the reins of government with a gentle hand; and it was in large measure owing to their prudence that when Charles put off his crown, the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands were among the most prosperous in Europe. When on the 25th of October 1555, leaning on the shoulder of that Prince who was so soon to become the mortal enemy of his race, the Emperor, not old in years but worn out by disease and the weight of a realm on which, as he used to say, the sun never set, bade farewell to the men of Brussels in the great hall of the Coudenberg--we have it on the testimony of an eye-witness--all those who heard him wept. Well might the people weep, if they had only known: they were assisting at the opening scene of a tragedy which lasted a hundred years. [Illustration: BY THE DYLE AT MECHLIN.] The new Sovereign had been born and bred in Castile, and despite his Flemish ancestry and his Flemish face he was a true Castilian. Of course he knew nothing of Flemish, and he either could not or would not speak French: he was as much a foreigner in the Low Countries as his father had been in Spain. Like him, he had the instincts and the inclinations of a despot; but whereas Charles delighted to mix with his fellow-men and, when he would, could win their affection, Philip was cold, grave, aloof, and kept even the highest of his Court nobles at arm's length; nor were the Netherlanders sorry when, four years after his inauguration, he bade them farewell. But if they imagined that their Sovereign's fingers were not long enough to reach them from Madrid, in this they were mistaken, as presently they learned to their cost, for it was no vain boast when Philip said that 'everywhere in the vast compass of his dominions he was an absolute King.'