If Charles IX and the queen mother had known the full extent of the cardinal of Lorraine’s treasonable conduct at this time they might not have been so lenient toward him. For he was guilty not only of treasonable intercourse with the empire, but directly with Spain also. The one supremely important result of this petty war over Metz is that at this time the cardinal—and with him the whole Guise house—began those secret negotiations with Philip of Spain which culminated in the establishment of the Holy League. Shortly after the end of his ignominious war around Metz, burning with anger and shame, the cardinal sent a secret agent to Franche Comté, who found Granvella at Beaudencourt in July, 1565, to whom he recited the cardinal’s grievances, saying that owing to the death of his brother the duke of Guise and the insolence of the marshal Montmorency, he had no hope in the justice of Charles IX. The agent then went on to point out the great danger threatening Catholic Europe by reason of what had recently happened at Metz, and, speaking for the cardinal of Lorraine, expressed the wish that Philip II would enter into a league with the house of Guise, the duke of Montpensier—Alva’s convert at Bayonne—and certain others for the protection of the Catholic faith in France and the overthrow of the Châtillons, the prince of Condé, “Madame de Vendôme,” and other Huguenots. This formidable overture was made under the seal of secrecy. The cautious Granvella listened but refrained from committing his master to the proposition.[1049] Again, Philip II hesitated to implicate himself so directly in French affairs, as the cardinal of Lorraine urged, just as he had hesitated the year before with Montluc, and while he waited events in the Low Countries went from bad to worse. In August, 1566, a furious outburst of iconoclasm swept through the churches of Flanders. Commencing at St. Omer, the contagion rapidly spread, and in a fortnight 400 churches were sacked in Flanders alone, while in Antwerp the cathedral was stripped of all its treasures. Images, relics, shrines, paintings, manuscripts, and books shared a common fate.[1050] The event stirred Philip to action. He determined to send the duke of Alva to Flanders to repress things with an iron hand.[1051] On November 18, 1566, the duke of Alva formally requested the French ambassador at Madrid to secure Charles IX’s permission for a Spanish army to cross France. The remedy has become little by little so difficult [said the duke] that deeds not words and remonstrances, are now necessary. Having exhausted all good and gracious means to reduce things in the Low Countries, the King is constrained, to his great regret, to have recourse to force. Public assemblies, preaching, the bearing of arms, and violence prevail in the land and the King’s ministers amount to nothing.