g schoolboy's hand and style--if ever schoolboy, even in
the sixteenth century, could write so illegibly or express himself so
awkwardly; couriers in the court-yard arriving from or departing for the
uttermost parts of earth-Asia, Africa America, Europe-to fetch and carry
these interminable epistles which contained the irresponsible commands of
this one individual, and were freighted with the doom and destiny of
countless millions of the world's inhabitants--such was the system of
government against which the Netherlands had protested and revolted. It
was a system under which their fields had been made desolate, their
cities burned and pillaged, their men hanged, burned, drowned, or hacked
to pieces; their women subjected to every outrage; and to put an end to
which they had been devoting their treasure and their blood for nearly
the length of one generation. It was a system, too, which, among other
results, had just brought about the death of the foremost statesman of
Europe, and had nearly effected simultaneously the murder of the most
eminent sovereign in the world. The industrious Philip, safe and tranquil
in the depths of the Escorial, saying his prayers three times a day with
exemplary regularity, had just sent three bullets through the body of
William the Silent at his dining-room door in Delft. "Had it only been
done two years earlier," observed the patient old man, "much trouble
might have been spared me; but 'tis better late than never." Sir Edward
Stafford, English envoy in Paris, wrote to his government--so soon as the
news of the murder reached him--that, according to his information out of
the Spanish minister's own house, "the same practice that had been
executed upon the Prince of Orange, there were practisers more than two
or three about to execute upon her Majesty, and that within two months."
Without vouching for the absolute accuracy of this intelligence, he
implored the Queen to be more upon her guard than ever. "For there is no
doubt," said the envoy, "that she is a chief mark to shoot at; and seeing
that there were men cunning enough to inchant a man and to encourage him
to kill the Prince of Orange, in the midst of Holland, and that there was
a knave found desperate enough to do it, we must think hereafter that
anything may be done. Therefore God preserve her Majesty."

Invisible as the Grand Lama of Thibet, clothed with power as extensive
and absolute as had ever been wielded by the most imperial