himself, that the President was very
serviceable and diligent, and that he deserved to receive a crumb of
comfort from the royal hand. Philip, in consequence, wrote in one of his
letters a few lines of vague compliment, which could be shown to Viglius,
according to Alva's suggestion. It is, however, not a little
characteristic of the Spanish court and of the Spanish monarch, that, on
the very day before, he had sent to the Captain-General a few documents
of very different import. In order, as he said, that the Duke might be
ignorant of nothing which related to the Netherlands, he forwarded to him
copies of the letters written by Margaret of Parma from Brussels, three
years before. These letters, as it will be recollected, contained an
account of the secret investigations which the Duchess had made as to the
private character and opinions of Viglius--at the very moment when he
apparently stood highest in her confidence--and charged him with heresy,
swindling, and theft. Thus the painstaking and time-serving President,
with all his learning and experience, was successively the dupe of
Margaret and of Alva, whom he so obsequiously courted, and always of
Philip, whom he so feared and worshipped.

With his assistance, the list of blood-councillors was quickly completed.
No one who was offered the office refused it. Noircarmes and Berlaymont
accepted with very great eagerness. Several presidents and councillors of
the different provincial tribunals were appointed, but all the
Netherlanders were men of straw. Two Spaniards, Del Rio and Vargas, were
the only members who could vote; while their decisions, as already
stated, were subject to reversal by Alva. Del Rio was a man without
character or talent, a mere tool in the hands of his superiors, but Juan
de Vargas was a terrible reality.

No better man could have been found in Europe for the post to which he
was thus elevated. To shed human blood was, in his opinion, the only
important business and the only exhilarating pastime of life. His youth
had been stained with other crimes. He had been obliged to retire from
Spain, because of his violation of an orphan child to whom he was
guardian, but, in his manhood, he found no pleasure but in murder. He
executed Alva's bloody work with an industry which was almost superhuman,
and with a merriment which would have shamed a demon. His execrable jests
ring through the blood and smoke and death-cries of those days of
perpetual sacrifi