With the additional cares of the Portuguese Conquest upon his hands, he felt as irresistibly impelled as ever to superintend the minute details of provincial administration.

To do this was impossible.
It was, however, not impossible, by attempting to do it, to produce much mischief.

"It gives me pain," wrote Granvelle, "to see his Majesty working as before--choosing to understand everything and to do everything.

By this course, as I have often said before, he really accomplishes much less." The King had, moreover, recently committed the profound error of sending the Duchess Margaret of Parma to the Netherlands again.

He had the fatuity to believe her memory so tenderly cherished in the provinces as to ensure a burst of loyalty at her reappearance, while the irritation which he thus created in the breast of her son he affected to disregard.