The King received the substitution with as good a grace as could have been expected, and sent fifteen hundred troopers from Spain to his Medicean mother-in-law, drawing upon the Duchess of Parma for the money to pay their expenses.

Thus was the industry of the Netherlands taxed that the French might be persecuted by their own monarch.
The Regent had been forbidden, by her brother, to convoke the states-general; a body which the Prince of Orange, sustained by Berghen, Montigny, and other nobles, was desirous of having assembled.

It may be easily understood that Granvelle would take the best care that the royal prohibition should be enforced.

The Duchess, however, who, as already hinted, was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable under the Cardinal's dominion, was desirous of consulting some larger council than that with which she held her daily deliberations.

A meeting of the Knights of the Fleece was accordingly summoned.