despite the many and varied calls and duties which had prevented him from residing for any length of time in the Netherlands, had always been at pains to manifest a special interest in the country of his birth.  The Netherlands were to him throughout life his homeland and its people looked upon him as a fellow-countryman, and not even the constant demands that Charles had made for financial aid nor the stern edicts against heresy had estranged them from him.  The abdication was the more regretted because at the same time Mary of Hungary laid down her office as regent, the arduous duties of which she had so long and so ably discharged.  On the following day, October 26, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the members of the Councils and the deputies of the provinces took the oath of allegiance to Philip, the emperor’s only son and heir; and Philip on his side solemnly undertook to maintain unimpaired the ancient rights and privileges of the several provinces.

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CHAPTER III

THE PRELUDE TO THE REVOLT

Philip at the time of his accession to the sovereignty of the Netherlands was already King of Naples and Sicily, and Duke of Milan, and, by his marriage in 1554 to Mary Tudor, King-consort of England, in which country he was residing when summoned by his father to assist at the abdication ceremony at Brussels.  A few months later (January 16, 1556) by a further act of abdication on the part of Charles V he became King of Castile and Aragon.  It was a tremendous inheritance, and there is no reason to doubt that Philip entered upon his task with a deep sense that he had a mission to fulfil and with a self-sacrificing determination to spare himself no personal labour in the discharge of his duties.  But though he bore to his father a certain physical likeness, Philip in character and disposition was almost his antithesis.  Silent, reserved, inaccessible, Philip had none of the restless energy or the geniality of Charles, and was as slow and undecided in action as he was bigoted in his opinions and unscrupulous in his determination to compass his ends.  He found himself on his accession to power faced with many difficulties, for the treasury was not merely empty, it was burdened with debt.  Through lack of means he was compelled to patch up a temporary peace (February 5, 1556) with the French king at Vaucelles, and to take steps to reorganise his finances.

One of Philip’s first acts was the appointment of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, to the post vacated by his aunt Mary; but it was a position, as long as the king remained in the Netherlands, of small responsibility.  Early in 1556 he summoned the States-General to Brussels and asked for a grant of 1,300,000 florins.  The taxes proposed were disapproved by the principal provinces and eventually refused.  Philip was very much annoyed, but was compelled to modify his proposals and accept what was offered by