The word might be legitimate in Castillo, or Naples, or the Indies, but the provinces knew no such title.

Philip had inherited in those countries only the power of Duke or Count--a power closely limited by constitutions more ancient than his birthright.

Orange was no rebel then--Philip no legitimate monarch.

Even were the Prince rebellious, it was no more than Philip's ancestor, Albert of Austria, had been towards his anointed sovereign, Emperor Adolphus of Nassau, ancestor of William.

The ties of allegiance and conventional authority being, severed, it had become idle for the King to affect superiority of lineage to the man whose family had occupied illustrious stations when the Habsburgs were obscure squires in Switzerland, and had ruled as sovereign in the Netherlands before that overshadowing house had ever been named.
But whatever the hereditary claims of Philip in the country, he had forfeited them by the violation of his oaths, by his tyrannical suppression of the charters of the land; while by his personal crimes he had lost all pretension to sit in judgment upon his fellow man.