Chapter IX: Cardinal Granvelle

Anthony Perrenot, Archbishop of Mechlin, Cardinal Granvelle, chief adviser to the Regent and the chief reliance of Philip in the Netherlands, as he was the chief object of the detestation of the Netherlanders, grandees and people alike, spent most of his time in his beautiful country house outside the gates of Brussels, surrounded by all that elegant luxury and worldly extravagance which particularly aroused the wrath of his enemies.

His position with the King his master was as secure as any man's could be with Philip, and he flattered himself that he had an influence not easily shaken over the mind of the Regent, who was by no means the strong and masculine character she appeared, but one easily influenced, as Philip well knew when he sent her to the Netherlands with Granvelle to stand behind her chair and pull the strings of government over her shoulder; he had also some supporters among the nobles, notably the Duke of Aerschot, Barlaymont, and Viglius.

For the rest, he stood alone in an atmosphere of hatred, contempt, and insult, even perhaps peril, for he believed that he was in constant danger of assassination. But the Burgundian priest preserved his serene calm, for he was absolutely fearless, sincerely loyal to his master and his Church, and intensely ambitious; and courage, loyalty, and ambition combined to hold him steadfastly in the place to which all three had called him and now kept him.

On this day of the hot waning autumn he finished his usual voluminous dispatch to Philip with particular pleasure, for he had been able to give his master definite news of the misdeeds of his enemies, against whom he had been cunningly and gently insinuating complaints for some while past.

That morning Barlaymont had come to him with the information that he had been approached to join a league of the grandees, the sole object of which was to force the recall or retirement of the Cardinal. Barlaymont had not only refused to join, but had instantly disclosed all he knew to Granvelle, who thus had been enabled to inform his master that the chiefs of this league were Orange, Hoorne, and Egmont, and that all the nobles had joined them with the exception of Aerschot, Aremberg, and Meghem.

Barlaymont's information had not come as a surprise to Granvelle; he knew perfectly well that the grandees were working by intrigue and open opposition for his downfall, but he was glad that they had committed themselves by this league, and pleased that Barlaymont had proved so faithful a tool.

He added to his letter a complaint of the way in which the Marquis of Berghen, Stadtholder of Hainault, Valenciennes, and Cambray, and Hoorne's brother, Baron of Montigny, Stadtholder of Tournay, refused to carry out the decrees of the Inquisition in their several provinces. He advised His Majesty to add these two names Berghen and Montigny to those of Orange, Egmont, and Hoorne as dangerous men.

He also added that Viglius, though his loyalty was unquestioned, was becoming frightened at the storm raised in the Netherlands by the Inquisition and the rumour that the late Emperor's edicts against heretics were to be enforced, and was counselling moderation.

The Minister then sealed up his letter and went out into his exquisite gardens, where, in consequence of the continued great heat, his dinner was laid on a marble table of beautiful Greek workmanship which stood beneath a chestnut tree now covered with tawny and golden foliage. To-day the Cardinal took his midday meal alone; the great nobles had long since ceased to accept his hospitality, and he was not always in the mood to entertain those of the lesser sort who still cared to come.

His keen, intelligent mind, highly accomplished and learned, did not disdain its own company; he found the cultured man's pleasure in a luxurious solitude.

Seating himself in the gilt chair, softly cushioned in red, set for him, he glanced with pleasure at the cool white table flecked with sunshine and the shadows of the great chestnut leaves, at the crystal bottles of amber and ruby-coloured wine, at the curious twisted glasses stained with opal hues like a foam bubble, the gold service with jade handles, the plates and dishes of porcelain as fine and glossy as an egg-shell, the napkin of Brussels lace rich with a design of lilies, the honey-coloured loaves lying in their snowy linen, the fruit reposing on ice in the delicate silver basket. The Cardinal was never wearied in his refined enjoyment of the elegancies of life.

As he sat over his luxurious repast admiring the mellow light of the garden and the way his Grecian fauns and dancers showed their marble limbs among the exotic shrubs of laurel, myrtle, citron, and bay, his secretary came across the grass with a paper in his hand.

"Another pasquil?" smiled the Cardinal.

"A fellow passing, Eminence," replied the priest, "found this thrust into the bars of the gate."

"Give him a piece of money," returned the Cardinal carelessly, "and pray that the hand that put it there be not the same as took it down."

"Shall I leave it?" asked the secretary. "It is, as usual, very foolish."

"Leave it," replied his master. "You know I make a collection of them."

The priest's dark figure returned through the sunshine, and Granvelle sipped his wine, bright as a diluted jewel in the opal clouded glass, while his serene eyes rested on the sheet of coarse paper roughly printed with picture and verses in smeared black.

Presently he set down the wine and took up the paper delicately in his fine, capable fingers. It contained a hideous caricature of himself in the likeness of a hen seated on a nest of eggs, each of which was labelled with the name of one of the new dioceses; the shells of several were already broken, and newly fledged bishops were hopping out of them.

Granvelle was well used to such jests; the Netherlanders were famous for their pasquils, their pamphlets, their medals, and their rhetoric plays, and Granvelle had been the butt of all in turn; not even the terrors of the dreaded Inquisition itself could restrain the sharp and lively wits of the people from ridiculing their enemy.

Often enough they hit him on the raw, sometimes too they went wide of the mark, as in the coarse pasquil he held now; for, despite the general opinion to the contrary, the Cardinal was not responsible for the creation of the new bishoprics. He remained leaning back on his silk cushions gazing musingly at the caricature; the sense of some one approaching caused him to look up. Even his perfect control could scarcely repress a start; the Prince of Orange was coming across the grass. William made his salutation with smiling apology for his intrusion. The Cardinal dismissed the half-doubtful secretary, who was behind the Prince, and motioned his guest to the seat opposite his own.

"I come without permission," said William, smiling, "but I felt a great desire for a little speech with Your Eminence."

Granvelle's sumptuously liveried attendants were bringing the Prince cushions, a footstool, and setting before him wine, cakes, and fruit.

Granvelle, with a laugh, flicked the pasquil on to the marble table.

"The people become extraordinarily daring," he remarked, accepting the Prince's presence as if it was the usual thing for him to behold his arch-enemy at his table. "There is a general defiance, a lawlessness abroad, very displeasing to the servants of His Majesty."

William leant back in his chair; he was still smiling; his graceful, youthful figure, his small handsome head, his rich attire of black velvet with rose-coloured points—all gave him the appearance of the useless grandee many believed him to be. But Granvelle was not so deceived; he knew that the young cavalier smiling at him was as astute, as experienced, as able, as wise, as prudent as himself, and that he was the most dangerous of the many dangerous men in the Netherlands.

"There is much abroad displeasing to the servants of His Majesty," he answered. "I think there are perilous times ahead."

"If the grandees persist in what is near disloyalty, yes," admitted Granvelle, and he too smiled.

"Disloyalty?" said William lightly, and raising his fine brows. "It is a matter of terms. Our remonstrances have been given to the Regent out of regard to our loyalty."

"I know something of your regards, Highness," replied the Cardinal, thinking of the information he had received that morning.

William instantly took his meaning.

"Had we not wished Your Eminence to know of our proceedings, we should scarcely have disclosed them to Baron Barlaymont."

The Cardinal's fine face hardened; he set down the peach he was handling, and took his chin in his fingers. In the young grandee's manner was a hint of that insolence the Burgundian priest had had to endure from the lesser nobles like Brederode and De la Marck—the insolence of the great towards the upstart who had been born a commoner.

"Your Eminence," continued William delicately, "would be wise to retire from the Netherlands."

"You came to tell me that?" asked Granvelle, almost surprised into anger.

"The Netherlands will not endure the measures of Your Eminence."

"Then they are rebels against the King's authority," replied the Cardinal proudly, "for I do nothing of myself, but all as the instrument of Madrid; and now we are speaking with this boldness, I tell you, _in the name of King Philip_, to warn your friends Montigny and Berghen to be more obedient to the commands of the Inquisition in their provinces."

William looked at the Cardinal.

"The King promised not to introduce the Inquisition," he said.

"I am not the keeper of the King's conscience," replied the Cardinal adroitly, "but I can bear witness that His Majesty is introducing nothing—the Inquisition was in the Netherlands in the Emperor's time."

"But it was never enforced," replied the Prince, "and in many provinces unknown, so that there are whole villages, nay, townships, of those of the Reformed Faith."

"What is the _Reformed Faith_ or the Netherlands to _you_?" asked Granvelle keenly—"you, a Provençal prince, a German count, a Spanish grandee, a Catholic?"

"As to that," replied the Prince lightly, "I am Stadtholder of some Netherland provinces, and one of the advisers to the Regent, therefore I think I do well to protest against measures which I foresee bringing ruin on His Majesty's dominions—and I do not believe in punishing people for their private faith."

"That sentiment would be a dangerous one were you a common man," returned the Cardinal.

"I know," smiled William, "and it is against such things that I protest."

"Tolerance for heretics is only to be expected from a Prince united so closely to them."

"Perhaps," said William indifferently; "but I was not talking of my tolerance, but of Your Eminence's policy."

"That is known, clear, and will not be altered," said Granvelle; he raised his glass and slowly sipped his wine.

William leant forward across the marble table set with the mingled luxuries of crystal and silver, and fixed his dark eyes on the churchman's serene face.

"Cardinal Granvelle," he said earnestly, "do you mean to force the Inquisition on the Netherlands?"

"I mean," answered Granvelle, with his habitual evasion, "to fulfil to the letter the commands of His Majesty."

"Whatever they may be?"

"Most certainly—yes."

"Even if the King enforces the Emperor's edicts against heresy?"

"He will not do so until he knows the findings of the Council of Trent."

"But if those are in favour of greater severity against the heretics, and the King endorses them," persisted the Prince, "will you be the instrument to obey His Majesty?"

"I think that Your Highness knows well enough that I shall be that instrument," replied the Cardinal haughtily.

William of Orange drew back; his expression changed to a look of decision that was almost hard, and this unusual sternness of his dark features so altered him that he seemed a different person. For a second Granvelle glimpsed the man behind the mask of the courtier.

"To do what you speak of doing," said William, "is to ruin the Netherlands. The civil officers will not obey, the population will not submit, you will break commerce and industry—you will provoke a revolution."

"I do not fear that," replied Granvelle; "the Stadtholders are not all like Berghen and Montigny——"

"Nor all like Barlaymont. Do you think such a man as he could do anything?" flashed William.

"I am not afraid," smiled the Cardinal, showing to the full that gentle contempt for his adversaries that they had always found so galling. "As for the grandees——"

"As for the grandees," interrupted the Prince steadily, "we are no longer boys or idle courtiers, as perhaps Your Eminence imagines us, but men, able to play a man's game."

Granvelle's smile deepened.

"I never underrated the abilities of Your Highness," he said, "but you perhaps overrate your own power; and for the people——"

"The people! It is they will decide the final issue. They are not slaves, Your Eminence, nor a conquered race, but His Majesty's subjects through inheritance; nor is he an absolute King here, as in Spain, but merely Count and Lord, and bound by oath to protect the people's charters as they to obey him. Look back a little—did not Maximilian do penance in the square of Bruges, and Mary go on her knees to her own councillors? These Netherlanders are easily pressed too far."

"Your Highness threatens revolt?"

"I threaten nothing. I prophesy."

The Cardinal tossed down his lace napkin.

"Even if there were a revolt," he said quietly, "it might be crushed."

"It might be supported," replied William.

"By the House of Nassau?" asked Granvelle.

William laughed in the priest's face.

"I am Catholic, and His Majesty's subject," he replied, "but there are certain neighbours who are neither who might easily be induced to foment discontent in the Netherlands."

"Notably the relatives of Your Highness's wife?" insinuated the Cardinal.

"Nay, they are peaceful in Saxony," said the Prince serenely. "I was thinking of the Elector Palatine."

Granvelle made a dignified movement with his hand as if he swept aside all the other's arguments.

"His Majesty is not to be frightened by either rebellious people, jealous nobles, nor the heretic Princes of Germany from proceeding in his duty to God and his subjects. Nay, I am so persuaded of the fervency of the King for the Holy Church that I believe he could sacrifice the Netherlands, and every soul within them, sooner than allow them to become the breeding-ground of heresy."

"And in this you would support him?" asked William gravely.

"With all my power," replied the Cardinal, "and at peril of my life."

"You are a poor politician then," said the Prince.

"I am a good churchman," returned Granvelle calmly, "and that is all I ever made pretence to be."

"So His Majesty, you think, would sooner ruin the Netherlands than suffer them to become heretical?" remarked the Prince.

"I do believe it, and in that resolve the Duke of Alva does support him—and myself."

William rose.

"Then we who have estates in this country must look to them, lest we be ruined too," he said, with a little smile.

"Your Highness will pursue one way, I another," replied the Cardinal, rising also.

"And both of us will be serving His Majesty," remarked William gravely.

The Cardinal gave him a sidelong look, but the Prince's face was impassive.

"That His Majesty must decide," was the priest's answer. Ever courteous, he now conducted his guest to the gate where his horse and squire waited.

They passed the famous statue inscribed "Durate," a woman with an empty wine-glass in one hand and a full glass of water in the other, by which the Cardinal sought to symbolize the resistance of his own calm fortitude and temperance as opposed to the extravagance and worldliness of his enemies.

He called the Prince's attention to this figure.

"'Durate,' my motto," he remarked, with a meaning smile.

"A brave word," replied William. "I too have a high, aspiring motto." He looked straightly at the priest. "Ce sera Nassau, moi, je maintainerai." With that he mounted and rode back to Brussels, while Granvelle returned thoughtfully across his smooth lawns to his marble table under the chestnut tree. There, leaning back in the pleasant shade, he threw crumbs of bread to the peacocks that came strutting across the grass at his call.