Still his spirit was unbroken. His letters showed a perfect appreciation of his situation, and of that to which his country was reduced; but they never exhibited a trace of weakness or despair. A modest, but lofty courage; a pious, but unaffected resignation, breathed through—every document, public or private, which fell from his pen during this epoch. He wrote to his brother John that he was quite willing to go, to Frankfort, in order to give himself up as a hostage to his troops for the payment of their arrears. At the same time he begged his brother to move heaven and earth to raise at least one hundred thousand thalers. If he could only furnish them with a month's pay, the soldiers would perhaps be for a time contented. He gave directions also concerning the disposition of what remained of his plate and furniture, the greater part of it having been already sold and expended in the cause. He thought it would, on the whole, be better to have the remainder sold, piece by piece, at the fair. More money would be raised by that course than by a more wholesale arrangement.
He was now obliged to attend personally to the most minute matters of domestic economy. The man who been the mate of emperors, who was himself a sovereign, had lived his life long in pomp and luxury, surrounded by countless nobles, pages, men-at-arms, and menials, now calmly accepted the position of an outlaw and an exile. He cheerfully fulfilled tasks which had formerly devolved upon his grooms and valets. There was an almost pathetic simplicity in the homely details of an existence which, for the moment, had become so obscure and so desperate. "Send by the bearer," he wrote, "the little hackney given me by the Admiral; send also my two pair of trunk hose; one pair is at the tailor's to be mended, the other, pair you will please order to be taken from the things which I wore lately at Dillenburg. They lie on the table with my accoutrements. If the little hackney be not in condition, please send the grey horse with the cropped ears and tail."
He was always mindful, however, not only of the great cause to which he had devoted himself, but of the wants experienced by individuals who had done him service. He never forgot his friends. In the depth of his own misery he remembered favors received from humble persons. "Send a little cup, worth at least a hundred florins, to Hartmann Wolf," he wrote to his brother; "you can take as much silver out of the coffer, in which there is still some of my chapel service remaining."—"You will observe that Affenstein is wanting a horse," he wrote on another occasion; "please look him out one, and send it to me with the price. I will send you the money. Since he has shown himself so willing in the cause, one ought to do something for him."
The contest between the Duke and the estates, on the subject of the tenth and twentieth penny had been for a season adjusted. The two years' term, however, during which it had been arranged that the tax should be commuted, was to expire in the autumn of 1571. Early therefore in this year the disputes were renewed with greater acrimony than ever. The estates felt satisfied that the King was less eager than the Viceroy. Viglius was satisfied that the power of Alva was upon the wane. While the King was not likely openly to rebuke his recent measures, it seemed not improbable that the Governor's reiterated requests to be recalled might be granted. Fortified by these considerations, the President, who had so long been the supple tool of the tyrant, suddenly assumed the character of a popular tribune. The wranglings, the contradictions, the vituperations, the threatenings, now became incessant in the council. The Duke found that he had exulted prematurely, when he announced to the King the triumphant establishment, in perpetuity, of the lucrative tax. So far from all the estates having given their consent, as he had maintained, and as he had written to Philip, it now appeared that not one of those bodies considered itself bound beyond its quota for the two years. This was formally stated in the council by Berlaymont and other members. The wrath of the Duke blazed forth at this announcement. He berated Berlaymont for maintaining, or for allowing it to be maintained, that the consent of the orders had ever been doubtful. He protested that they had as unequivocally agreed to the perpetual imposition of the tag as he to its commutation during two years. He declared, however, that he was sick of quotas. The tax should now be collected forthwith, and Treasurer Schetz was ordered to take his measures accordingly.
At a conference on the 29th May, the Duke asked Viglius for his opinion. The President made a long reply, taking the ground that the consent of the orders had been only conditional, and appealing to such members of the finance council as were present to confirm his assertion. It was confirmed by all. The Duke, in a passion, swore that those who dared maintain such a statement should be chastised. Viglius replied that it had always been the custom for councillors to declare their opinion, and that they had never before been threatened with such consequences. If such, however, were his Excellency's sentiments, councillors had better stay at home, hold their tongues, and so avoid chastisement. The Duke, controlling himself a little, apologized for this allusion to chastisement, a menace which he disclaimed having intended with reference to councillors whom he had always commended to the King, and of whom his Majesty had so high an opinion. At a subsequent meeting the Duke took Viglius aside, and assured him that he was quite of his own way of thinking. For certain reasons, however, he expressed himself as unwilling that the rest of the council should be aware of the change in his views. He wished, he said, to dissemble. The astute President, for a moment, could not imagine the Governor's drift. He afterwards perceived that the object of this little piece of deception had been to close his mouth. The Duke obviously conjectured that the President, lulled into security, by this secret assurance, would be silent; that the other councillors, believing the President to have adopted the Governor's views, would alter their opinions; and that the opposition of the estates, thus losing its support in the council, would likewise very soon be abandoned. The President, however, was not to be entrapped by this falsehood. He resolutely maintained his hostility to the tax, depending for his security on the royal opinion, the popular feeling, and the judgment of his colleagues.
The daily meetings of the board were almost entirely occupied by this single subject. Although since the arrival of Alva the Council of Blood had usurped nearly all the functions of the state and finance-councils, yet there now seemed a disposition on the part of Alva to seek the countenance, even while he spurned the authority, of other functionaries. He found, however, neither sympathy nor obedience. The President stoutly told him that he was endeavouring to swim against the stream, that the tax was offensive to the people, and that the voice of the people was the voice of God. On the last day of July, however, the Duke issued an edict, by which summary collection of the tenth and twentieth pence was ordered. The whole country was immediately in uproar. The estates of every province, the assemblies of every city, met and remonstrated. The merchants suspended all business, the petty dealers shut up their shops. The people congregated together in masses, vowing resistance to the illegal and cruel impost. Not a farthing was collected. The "seven stiver people", spies of government, who for that paltry daily stipend were employed to listen for treason in every tavern, in every huckster's booth, in every alley of every city, were now quite unable to report all the curses which were hourly heard uttered against the tyranny of the Viceroy. Evidently, his power was declining. The councillors resisted him, the common people almost defied him. A mercer to whom he was indebted for thirty thousand florins' worth of goods, refused to open his shop, lest the tax should be collected on his merchandize. The Duke confiscated his debt, as the mercer had foreseen, but this being a pecuniary sacrifice, seemed preferable to acquiescence in a measure so vague and so boundless that it might easily absorb the whole property of the country.
No man saluted the governor as he passed through the streets. Hardly an attempt was made by the people to disguise their abhorrence of his person: Alva, on his side, gave daily exhibitions of ungovernable fury. At a council held on 25th September, 1571, he stated that the King had ordered the immediate enforcement of the edict. Viglius observed that there were many objections to its form. He also stoutly denied that the estates had ever given their consent. Alva fiercely asked the President if he had not himself once maintained that the consent had been granted! Viglius replied that he had never made such an assertion. He had mentioned the conditions and the implied promises on the part of government, by which a partial consent had been extorted. He never could have said that the consent had been accorded, for he had never believed that it could be obtained. He had not proceeded far in his argument when he was interrupted by the Duke—"But you said so, you said so, you said so," cried the exasperated Governor, in a towering passion, repeating many times this flat contradiction to the President's statements. Viglius firmly stood his ground. Alva loudly denounced him for the little respect he had manifested for his authority. He had hitherto done the President good offices, he said, with his Majesty, but certainly should not feel justified in concealing his recent and very unhandsome conduct.
Viglius replied that he had always reverently cherished the Governor, and had endeavoured to merit his favor by diligent obsequiousness. He was bound by his oath, however; to utter in council that which comported with his own sentiments and his Majesty's interests. He had done this heretofore in presence of Emperors, Kings, Queens, and Regents, and they had not taken offence. He did not, at this hour, tremble for his grey head, and hoped his Majesty would grant him a hearing before condemnation. The firm attitude of the President increased the irritation of the Viceroy. Observing that he knew the proper means of enforcing his authority he dismissed the meeting.
Immediately afterwards, he received the visits of his son, Don Frederic of Vargas, and other familiars. To these he recounted the scene which had taken place, raving the while so ferociously against Viglius as to induce the supposition that something serious was intended against him. The report flew from mouth to mouth. The affair became the town talk, so that, in the words of the President, it was soon discussed by every barber and old woman in Brussels. His friends became alarmed for his safety, while, at the same time, the citizens rejoiced that their cause had found so powerful an advocate. Nothing, however, came of these threats and these explosions. On the contrary, shortly afterwards the Duke gave orders that the tenth penny should be remitted upon four great articles-corn, meat, wine, and beer. It was also not to be levied upon raw materials used in manufactures. Certainly, these were very important concessions. Still the constitutional objections remained. Alva could not be made to understand why the alcabala, which was raised without difficulty in the little town of Alva, should encounter such fierce opposition in the Netherlands. The estates, he informed the King, made a great deal of trouble. They withheld their consent at command of their satrap. The motive which influenced the leading men was not the interest of factories or fisheries, but the fear that for the future they might not be able to dictate the law to their sovereign. The people of that country, he observed, had still the same character which had been described by Julius Caesar.
The Duke, however, did not find much sympathy at Madrid. Courtiers and councillors had long derided his schemes. As for the King, his mind was occupied with more interesting matters. Philip lived but to enforce what he chose to consider the will of God. While the duke was fighting this battle with the Netherland constitutionalists, his master had engaged at home in a secret but most comprehensive scheme. This was a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth of England, and to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, who was to be placed on the throne in her stead. This project, in which was of course involved the reduction of England under the dominion of the ancient Church, could not but prove attractive to Philip. It included a conspiracy against a friendly sovereign, immense service to the Church, and a murder. His passion for intrigue, his love of God, and his hatred of man, would all be gratified at once. Thus, although the Moorish revolt within the heart of his kingdom had hardly been terminated—although his legions and his navies were at that instant engaged in a contest of no ordinary importance with the Turkish empire—although the Netherlands, still maintaining their hostility and their hatred, required the flower of the Spanish army to compel their submission, he did not hesitate to accept the dark adventure which was offered to him by ignoble hands.