“‘Thou sayest ill, my son,’ says His Sacred Majesty.
“And indeed the assembly murmurs, seeing the young king so arrogant and so haughty. The woman, who is the queen, speaks also to make her eulogy, then comes the turn of an aged man of learning who, when he has made an end, receives a sign from the hand of His Sacred Majesty by way of thanks. These ceremonies and harangues being over, His Sacred Majesty declares his subjects released from their oath of fidelity, signs the acts drawn up to that end, and rising up from his throne, sets his son therein. And everyone in the hall weeps. Then they go back to the house in the Park.
“There, being once more in the green chamber, alone and all doors fast shut, His Sacred Majesty laughs loud and long, and speaking to King Philip who laughs not:
“‘Did you see,’ he says, speaking, hiccuping, and laughing all together, ‘how little is needed to move these good souls? What a deluge of tears! And that fat Maes who, when he finished his long discourse, wept like a calf. You yourself seemed touched, but not enough. These are the true spectacles the common folk must have. My son, we men love our mistresses the more the more they cost us. It is the same with peoples. The more we make them pay, the more they love us. In Germany I tolerated the reformed faith that I punished severely in the Low Countries. If the princes of Germany had been catholic, I would have been Lutheran and confiscated their goods. They believe in the reality of my zeal for the Roman faith and regret to see me leave them. There have perished at my hands, in the Low Countries and for heresy, fifty thousand of their most hardy men and prettiest maids. I am departing, they lament. Without counting confiscations, I have made them pay more than the Indies and Peru: they are heartbroken at losing me. I have torn up the peace of Cadzand, broken Ghent, suppressed everything that could come in my way; liberties, franchises, privileges, everything is at the discretion of the prince’s officers: these good souls think they are still free because I allow them to shoot with the cross bow and carry the banners of their guilds in procession. They felt my hand as master: put in a cage, they find themselves comfortable there, they sing in it and weep for me. My son, be to them as I have been: benign in words, harsh in deeds; lick as long as there is no need to bite. Swear, swear always to their liberties, franchises, and privileges, but if there be any peril to yourself, destroy them all. They are iron if one touch them with a faltering hand, glass if you brush them with a strong arm. Smite heresy not because of its divergence from the Roman religion, but because in these Low Countries it would destroy our authority; those that attack the Pope, who weareth a triple crown, have speedily done with princes that have but one. Make it treason, as I did liberty of conscience, entailing the confiscation of goods, and you will inherit them as I did all my life, and when you depart, to abdicate or to die, they will say:—’Oh! the good prince!’ and they will weep.
“And I hear nothing more,” went on Nele, “for His Sacred Majesty has lain down on a bed and is asleep, and King Philip, arrogant and proud, looks upon him with no love.”
Having said so much, Nele was awakened by Katheline. And Claes, pensive, looked at the flame on the hearth lightening up the chimney place.
LIX
Ulenspiegel, leaving the landgrave of Hesse, mounted his ass and crossing the town square, met certain wrathful countenances of lords and ladies, but he took no heed of them.
Soon he arrived on the lands of the Duke of Lunebourg, and there fell in with a band of Smaedelyke broeders, jolly Flemings from Sluys who laid aside some money every Saturday so that once a year they could go for a tour in Germany.