[1025] Thus, for example, when Alva states that the council had declared all those who signed the Compromise guilty of treason, Philip notes, in his own handwriting, on the margin of the letter, "The same should he done with all who aided and abetted them, as in fact the more guilty party." (Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 590.) These private memoranda of Philip are of real value to the historian, letting him behind the curtain, where the king's own ministers could not always penetrate.
[1026] Cornejo, Disension de Flandes, fol. 63 et seq.—Hist. des Troubles et Guerres Civiles des Pays-Bas, pp. 133-136.—Documentos Inéditos, tom. IV. pp. 428-439.—Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. III. p. 119.
[1027] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II. p. 13.
[1028] "Non-seulement afin qu'il servît d'ôtage pour ce que son père pourrait fairs en Allemagne, mais pour qu'il fût élevé catholiquement." Ibid., tom. I. p. 596.
[1029] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 372.—Vandervynckt, Troubles de Pays-Bas, tom. II. p. 261.
[1030] Strada, ubi supra.—Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas, tom. II. p. 243.—Aubéri, Histoire de Hollande, p. 25.
[1031] Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. III. p. 159.
[1032] "Or, il vaut beaucoup mieux avoir un royaume ruiné, en le conservant pour Dieu et le roi, au moyen de la guerre, que de l'avoir tout entier sans celle-ci, au profit du démon et des hérétiques, ses sectateurs." Correspondance de Philippe II. tom. I. p. 609.
[1033] This appears not merely from the king's letters to the duke, but from a still more unequivocal testimony, the minutes in his own handwriting on the duke's letters to him. See, in particular, his summary approval of the reply which Alva tells him he has made to Catherine de Medicis. "Yo lo mismo, todo lo demas que dice en este capitulo, que todo ha sido muy á proposito." Ibid., p. 591.
[1034] Ranke, Civil Wars and Monarchy in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, (Eng. trans.,) vol. I. p. 349.