s instantly informed, however, by Alexander, that a divided authority
like that proposed was entirely out of the question. Both offered to
resign; but Alexander was unflinching in his determination to retain all
the power or none. The Duchess, as docile to her son after her arrival as
she had been to the King on undertaking the journey, and feeling herself
unequal to the task imposed upon her, implored Philip's permission to
withdraw, almost as soon as she had reached her destination. Granvelle's
opinion was likewise opposed to this interference with the administration
of Alexander, and the King at last suffered himself to be overruled. By
the end of the year 1581, letters arrived confirming the Prince of Parma
in his government, but requesting the Duchess of Parma to remain,
privately in the Netherlands. She accordingly continued to reside there
under an assumed name until the autumn of 1583, when she was at last
permitted to return to Italy.

During the summer of 1581, the same spirit of persecution which had
inspired the Catholics to inflict such infinite misery upon those of the
Reformed faith in the Netherlands, began to manifest itself in overt acts
against the Papists by those who had at last obtained political.
ascendency over them. Edicts were published in Antwerp, in Utrecht, and
in different cities of Holland, suspending the exercise of the Roman
worship. These statutes were certainly a long way removed in horror from
those memorable placards which sentenced the Reformers by thousands to
the axe; the cord, and the stake, but it was still melancholy to see the
persecuted becoming persecutors in their turn. They were excited to these
stringent measures by the noisy zeal of certain Dominican monks in
Brussels, whose extravagant discourses were daily inflaming the passions
of the Catholics to a dangerous degree. The authorities of the city
accordingly thought it necessary to suspend, by proclamation, the public
exercise of the ancient religion, assigning, as their principal reason
for this prohibition, the shocking jugglery by which simple-minded
persons were constantly deceived. They alluded particularly to the
practice of working miracles by means of relics, pieces of the holy
cross, bones of saints, and the perspiration of statues. They charged
that bits of lath were daily exhibited as fragments of the cross; that
the bones of dogs and monkeys were held up for adoration as those of
saints; and that oil was pour