It was on young William's shoulder that the Emperor leant on the celebrated occasion of his abdication, when, worn out with illness, old before his time—for he was only fifty-five—sick of life and of his own schemes and wars, he gave up his crown and titles to his son, Philip, himself retiring into a monastery in the depths of Spain.
The superstition was still held at that period of history (and, in fact, up to more recent days) that a king is a king by divine right, and that he can therefore do no wrong. Charles's record in crime is no mean one, though it does not perhaps equal that of his son Philip II. He was a despot, and a cruel despot, though he liked to regard himself, as many kings have before and since him, as merely fatherly. But he had behind his actions some sort of principle, while his son appeared to have none whatever. Charles had never let the system of Inquisition die down in the Netherlands, and on his accession he had immediately made efforts to bring the people to submission, visiting one of its principal towns with an army and taking away by force all its privileges, and imposing heavy fines upon its inhabitants. He passed edicts against the Protestantism of Luther, "to exterminate the root and ground of this pest," and it is said burnt in his lifetime at the least fifty thousand people. How Charles could have been of service to the Netherlands it is difficult to see, for he only committed crimes against the people, crushing their in-
