They were two foreigners, two Germans; Philip II.
clothed himself with a false Spaniardism to continue the German policy of his father.

This masquerading caused us great harm, because there are many men now who think of him as the noblest representation of a Spaniard.

The absurd inventions and lapses from truth to which those times give rise are enough to drive one mad.

Many Catholics dream of canonising Philip II.

for the cold cruelty with which he exterminated heretics, but such a king had really no Catholicism but his own; he was heir to the German Caesarism, that eternal hammer of the Popes.
Driven by pride, he was always sailing to the windward of schism and heresy; that he did not break with the Pontificate was solely that this latter feared that the Spanish soldiery, who had twice entered Rome, would remain there for ever, and that it would have to submit to all their extortions.