Philip—­being now less alarmed than his nephew concerning French affairs, and not feeling so keenly the misery of the obedient Provinces, or the wants of the Spanish army—­sent to Alexander six hundred thousand ducats, by way of Genoa.  In the letter submitted by his secretary recording this remittance, the King made, however, a characteristic marginal note:—­ “See if it will not be as well to tell him something concerning the two hundred thousand ducats to be deducted for Mucio, for fear of more mischief, if the Prince should expect the whole six hundred thousand.”

Accordingly Mucio got the two hundred thousand.  One-third of the meagre supply destined for the relief of the King’s starving and valiant little army in the Netherlands was cut off to go into the pockets of the intriguing Duke of Guise.  “We must keep the French,” said Philip, “in a state of confusion at home, and feed their civil war.  We must not allow them to come to a general peace, which would be destruction for the Catholics.  I know you will put a good face on the matter; and, after all, ’tis in the interest of the Netherlands.  Moreover, the money shall be immediately refunded.”

Alexander was more likely to make a wry face, notwithstanding his views of the necessity of fomenting the rebellion against the House of Valois.  Certainly if a monarch intended to conquer such countries as France, England, and Holland, without stirring from his easy chair in the Escorial, it would have been at least as well—­so Alexander thought—­to invest a little more capital in the speculation.  No monarch ever dreamed of arriving at universal empire with less personal fatigue or exposure, or at a cheaper rate, than did Philip II.  His only fatigue was at his writing-table.  But even here his merit was of a subordinate description.  He sat a great while at a time.  He had a genius for sitting; but he now wrote few letters himself.  A dozen words or so, scrawled in hieroglyphics at the top, bottom, or along the margin of the interminable despatches of his secretaries, contained the suggestions, more or less luminous, which arose in his mind concerning public affairs.  But he held firmly to his purpose:  He had devoted his life to the extermination of Protestantism, to the conquest of France and England, to the subjugation of Holland.  These were vast schemes.  A King who should succeed in such enterprises, by his personal courage and genius, at the head of his armies, or by consummate diplomacy, or by a masterly system of finance-husbanding and concentrating the resources of his almost boundless realms—­might be in truth commended for capacity.  Hitherto however Philip’s triumph had seemed problematical; and perhaps something more would be necessary than letters to Parma, and paltry remittances to Mucio, notwithstanding Alexander’s splendid but local victories in Flanders.

Parma, although in reality almost at bay, concealed his despair, and accomplished wonders in the field.  The military events during the spring and summer of 1586 will be sketched in a subsequent chapter.  For the present it is necessary to combine into a complete whole the subterranean negotiations between Brussels and England.