rejudicial to their own religion, were startled as
they saw the inevitable result of the course they were pursuing. Several
of them, as we have seen, had left the league before the outbreak of the
iconoclasts; and after that event, but very few remained in it. The
confederates, on the other hand, lost ground with the people, who looked
with distrust on their late arrangement with the regent, in which they
had so well provided for their own security. The confidence of the
people was not restored by the ready aid which their old allies seemed
willing to afford the great nobles in bringing to justice the authors
of the recent disorders.[840] Thus deserted by many of its own members,
distrusted by the Reformers, and detested by the regent, the league
ceased from that period to exert any considerable influence on the
affairs of the country.

[Sidenote: MARGARET REPENTS HER CONCESSIONS.]

A change equally important had taken place in the politics of the court.
The main object with Margaret, from the first, had been to secure the
public tranquillity. To effect this she had more than once so far
deferred to the judgment of William and his friends, as to pursue a
policy not the most welcome to herself. But it had never been her
thought to extend that policy to the point of religious toleration. So
far from it, she declared that, even though the king should admit two
religions in the state, she would rather be torn in pieces than consent
to it.[841] It was not till the coalition of the nobles, that her eyes
were opened to the path she was treading. The subsequent outrages of the
iconoclasts made her comprehend she was on the verge of a precipice. The
concessions wrung from her, at that time, by Orange and his friends,
filled up the measure of her indignation. A great gulf now opened
between her and the party by whom she had been so long directed. Yet
where could she turn for support? One course only remained; and it was
with a bitter feeling that she felt constrained to throw herself into
the arms of the very party which she had almost estranged from her
counsels. In her extremity she sent for the president Viglius, on whose
head she had poured out so many anathemas in her correspondence with
Philip,--whom she had not hesitated to charge with the grossest
peculation.

Margaret sent for the old councillor, and, with tears in her eyes,
demanded his advice in the present exigency. The president naturally
expressed his surprise at