Note 157 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
In May, 1598, Philip II. had ceded the Netherlands, the Franche-Comté, and the Charolais to his daughter Isabelle. The Archduke Albert, brother of the Emperor Rudolph, at that time governor of the Netherlands, renounced Holy Orders in order to marry the princess; and the pair had since exercised a sort of vice-regal authority, with very extensive powers. Their contemporaries always called them “the Archdukes.”