[1015] "Qu'ils seraient et demeureraient à jamais bons catholiques, selon que commandait l'Eglise catholique romaine; que, par haine, amour, pitié ou crainte de personne, ils ne laisseraient de dire franchement et sincèrement leur avis, selon qu'en bonne justice ils trouvaient convenir et appartenir; qu'ils tiendraient secret tout ce qui se traiterait au conseil, et qu'ils accuseraient ceux qui feraient le contraire." Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de Belgique, tom. XVI. par. ii. p. 56.
[1016] Ibid., p. 57.
[1017] Belin, in a letter to his patron, Cardinal Granvelle, gives full vent to his discontent with "three or four Spaniards in the duke's train, who would govern all in his name. They make but one head under the same hat." He mentions Vargas and Del Rio in particular. Granvelle's reply is very characteristic. Far from sympathizing with his querulous follower, he predicts the ruin of his fortunes by this mode of proceeding. "A man who would rise in courts must do as he is bidden, without question. Far from taking umbrage, he must bear in mind that injuries, like pills, should he swallowed without chewing, that one may not taste the bitterness of them;"—a noble maxim, if the motive had been noble. See Levesque, Mémoires de Granvelle, tom. II. pp. 91-94.
[1018] The historians of the time are all more or less diffuse on the doings of the Council of Troubles, written as they are in characters of blood. But we look in vain for any account of the interior organization of that tribunal, or of its mode of judicial procedure. This may be owing to the natural reluctance which the actors themselves felt, in later times, to being mixed up with the proceedings of a court so universally detested. For the same reason, as Gachard intimates, they may not improbably have even destroyed some of the records of its proceedings. Fortunately that zealous and patriotic scholar has discovered in the Archives of Simancas sundry letters of Alva and his successor, as well as some of the official records of the tribunal, which in a great degree supply the defect. The result he has embodied in a luminous paper prepared for the Royal Academy of Belgium, which has supplied me with the materials for the preceding pages. See Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique, tom. XVI. par. ii. pp. 50-78.
[1019] "Hasta que vean en que para este juego que se comiença." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 598.
[1020] "Car l'incertitude où celles-ci se trouvent du sort qu'on leur réserve, les fera plus aisément à consentir aux moyens de finances justes et honnêtes qui seront établis par le Roi." Ibid., p. 590.
[1021] "Porqué creo yo que, con la voluntad de los Estados, no se hallarán estas, que es menester ponerlos de manera que no sea menester su voluntad y consentimiento para ello.... Esto irá en cifra, y aun creo que seria bien que fuese en una cartilla á parte que descifrase el mas confidente." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 590.
[1022] Ibid., p. 610.
[1023] "Para que cada uno piense que á la noche, ó á la mañana, se le puede caer la casa encima." Ibid., tom. II. p. 4.
[1024] "Esto se ha de proponer en la forma que yo propuse á los de Anvers los cuatrocientos mill florines para la ciudadela, y que ellos entiendan que aunque se les propone y se les pide, es en tal manera que lo que se propusiere no se ha de dejar de hacer." Documentos Inéditos, tom. IV. p. 492.