This monarch, tiring of the atmosphere of the Netherlands, soon withdrew to Spain, whence for the remainder of his life he attempted to govern the distant provinces as a satrapy, through vice-regents, military commanders, and bishops. His aim, as became his father’s son, was autocracy over the lives, fortunes, and consciences of his subjects. But, to do him justice, it was their own good, as he saw it, that he labored and intrigued for: to purge them of heresy and retain them within the fold of the Roman communion. For nothing is to be gained in the way of understanding the temper and conditions of that day by regarding Philip as an inhuman monster. Judged by the manner of our own time, he may seem to have been; but, judged by the tenacity and unscrupulousness with which men still cling to what they believe to be their rightful privileges and pursue what they are convinced is the dictate of their conscience, he is seen to be but a natural product of the mental and social conditions of his day. He was a recognizable and for a time even tolerated part of a system that men as yet had not thought of disturbing. It was so, at first, that the citizens of the Netherlands, even William, Prince of Orange, regarded him. They held his overlordship sacred, even while they opposed the acts of his official representatives. They expected to be roundly taxed, but at the same time to have the machinery of their local government of free cities and Estates-General unimpeded; and it was against the interference with this on the part of Philip’s mercenaries that they first remonstrated. For, in the pursuance of his policy of riveting Roman Catholicism upon the Netherlands, Philip had induced the Pope to create more bishops and archbishops, to uphold whose hands in the extirpating of heresy four thousand Spanish troops were to [Illustration: COUPLE DRINKING JAN STEEN RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM] be retained in the country at the expense of the Estates. The latter and the cities remonstrated, and the troops were withdrawn, though the Inquisition continued its fell work. So matters drifted until 1566, a memorable year in the story of the rise and growth of Holland. The Flemish nobles, though Roman Catholic to a man, drew up a “Compromise” and pledged themselves to resist the Inquisition. William of Orange, also a Catholic, though he had married a Protestant princess, Anna of Saxony, and would later change his profession of faith, instituted a secret system of espionage in Madrid over the acts and counsels of Philip. Then the League of Nobles, Orange assisting in the wording of the document, presented a “Request” to the vice-regent, praying that the edicts against heresy and the Inquisition might be withdrawn and the management of affairs restored to the Estates-General. Its presentation drew from one of the vice-regent’s counselors, Berlaymont, the expression: “Is it possible that your Highness can be afraid of these beggars?”