Church in any way, and was even ready to acknowledge the supremacy of
the King, could not fail to enrage every pious Catholic and faithful
subject of King Philip.

To spoil a Requesens's game was no difficult task for the man who,
though by no means as harmless as the dove, was certainly as wise as the
serpent; but that the Duke of Alba, the tried, inflexible commander, had
been obliged to yield and retire vanquished before the little, merry,
industrious, thoroughly peaceful nation which intrusted itself to the
leadership of William of Orange, had been too much for her and, when it
happened, seemed like a miracle.

What spirits were aiding the Prince of Orange to resist the King and the
power of the Church so successfully? He was in league with hell, her old
confessor said, and there were rumours that his Majesty was trying to
have the abominable mischief-maker secretly put out of the world. But
this would have been unworthy of a King, and Barbara would not believe
it.

In the northern provinces the Spanish power was only a shadow, but in
the southern ones also hatred of the Spaniards was already bursting into
flames, and Requesens was too weak to extinguish them.

The King and Barbara's political friends perceived that Alba's pitiless,
murderous severity had injured the cause of the crown and the Church far
more than it had benefited them. Personally, he had treated her on
the whole kindly, but he had inflicted two offences which were hard to
conquer. In the first place, he urged her to leave Brussels and settle
in Mons; and, secondly, he had refused to receive her Conrad, who had
grown up into a steady, good-looking, but in no respect remarkable young
man, in one of his regiments, with the prospect of promotion to the rank
of officer.

In both cases she had not remained quiet and, at the second audience
which the duke gave her, her hot blood, though it had grown so much
cooler, played her a trick, and she became involved in a vehement
argument with him. In the course of this he had been compelled to
be frank, and she now knew that Alba had persuaded her to change her
residence at the King's desire, and why it was done.

She afterward learned from acquaintances that the duke had said one was
apt to be the loser in a dispute with her; yet she had yielded,
though solely and entirely to benefit her John, but she could not help
confessing to herself that her residence in the capital could not be
agreeable to him.