, when she told the king she "was sure he would never be so unjust,
and do a thing so prejudicial to the interests of the country, as to
transfer to another the powers he had vested in her."[964]

The appointment of Alva may have stimulated the regent to the
extraordinary efforts she then made to reduce the country to order. When
she had achieved this, she opened her mind more freely to her brother,
in a letter dated July 12, 1567. "The name of Alva was so odious in the
Netherlands that it was enough to make the whole Spanish nation
detested.[965] She could never have imagined that the king would make
such an appointment without consulting her." She then, alluding to
orders lately received from Madrid, shows extreme repugnance to carry
out the stern policy of Philip;[966]--a repugnance, it must be
confessed, that seems to rest less on the character of the measures than
on the difficulty of their execution.

When the duchess learned that Alva was in Italy, she wrote also to him,
hoping at this late hour to arrest his progress by the assurance that
the troubles were now at an end, and that his appearance at the head of
an army would only serve to renew them. But the duke was preparing for
his march across the Alps, and it would have been as easy to stop the
avalanche in its descent, as to stay the onward course of this "man of
destiny."

The state of Margaret's feelings was shown by the chilling reception she
gave the duke on his arrival in Brussels. The extent of his powers, so
much beyond what she had imagined, did not tend to soothe the irritation
of the regent's temper; and the result of the subsequent interview
filled up the measure of her indignation. However forms might be
respected, it was clear the power had passed into other hands. She wrote
at once to Philip, requesting, or rather requiring, his leave to
withdraw without delay from the country. "If he had really felt the
concern he professed for her welfare and reputation, he would have
allowed her to quit the government before being brought into rivalry
with a man like the duke of Alva, who took his own course in everything,
without the least regard to her. It afflicted her to the bottom of her
soul to have been thus treated by the king."[967]

It may have given some satisfaction to Margaret, that in her feelings
towards the duke she had the entire sympathy of the nation. In earlier
days, in the time of Charles the Fifth, Alva had passed some time both
in