Prior to the Burgundian dynasty, and under it, the Netherlands, profiting by their natural advantages for commerce, had acquired considerable wealth ; their wealth secured to them a free though complicated con stitution ; and they gradually rose to be the first trading nation in the world. The fulness of prosperity, which we have described as existing at Bruges and Antwerp, was but the concentrated result or an adventurous in dustry, abundant riches, and a generous spirit of inde pendence, disseminated over all the country. At the ac cession of Charles V. the Netherlands abounded in re sources beyond any other portion of his great dominions. The complex politics of this ptince, his far-extended undertakings, gave him ample use for all their contribu tions ; and his irresistible power allowed him to make various inroads on their freedom. The taxes he levied on them were immense, and granted unwillingly. He more than once introduced foreign troops into their towns, foreign officers into their government ; the tri bunals of the country were subjected to the revision of a supreme court established by the emperor at Brussels, and entirely devoted to his will. A still more glaring instance of his arbitrary procedure was the conduct he pursued with regard to religion. The new light of the formation, which in his reign was dazzling or illumi nating every corner of Europe, had early found its way into the Netherlands, and excited instant noticc there. Foreign merchants, assuming the liberty of speech and action natural to persons in their situation, had already professed the doctrines of Luther. The Swiss and Ger man soldiers of Charles were often Protestants: the nobles of the country were accustomed to study in the academies of Geneva : refugees from France and Eng land Were allureci by the freedom of the Low Countries to escape from the pressure of domestic persecution; their mechanical skill or commercial capital was wel comed as a benefit ; and their opinions were listened to with toleration or approval, by a people in whom an in tercourse with remote and dissimilar nations had soften ed the asperities of bigotry,—in whom the long possession of wealth and social comforts had developed a spirit of inquiry and comparison, while their trading prejudices, their exclusive respect for diligence, and their love of gain, were shocked at the expensive, unproductive estab lishment—the lazy monks and haughty prelates—of a hierarchy, whose gorgeous splendours suggested no idea but that of useless cost to their calculating and unima ginative minds. The art of printing circulated those speculations among thc higher classes. Bands of ad venturers, animated by the love of truth or the love of change, moved over the country from place to place, to circulate them among the lower. To the serious, those speakers, as they were named, could preach with all the fervid zeal of missionaries and apostates: for the careless and light of heart, they had songs, and farces, and bulfooneries in every possible style of contrivance. Such multifarious causes did not work in vain. The Itomish church in the Netherlands, attacked at once by argument and ridicule, by enthusiasm and self-interest, was nodding to its fall before the clanger had been met or even noticed. Its guardians at length awolce, and the usual expedients were put in motion. Chailes V. had agreed to tolerate the Evangelical creed in Ger many, because its professors were formidable in their united strength; but he seemed anxious to make amends for this compelled forbearance, by a double severity in treating the heretics of the Netherlands. Contrary to the fundamental laws of the state—contrary to the universal wish, no less than to the voice of jus tice and humanity, he introduced religious tribunals into the cotintly, to superintend the execution of his edicts, in which the most stern and relentless vengeance had been denounced against any variation, however slight, from the Itomish creed. The guilt of having advanced heretical doctrines, or having even assisted at a secret meeting of the nefOrMed, NY3S punished with death—V the axe, if the culprit was a man ; women were buried alive. A relapsed heretic NV3S committed to the dames, and no recantation availed him, The ministers of Charles were diligent enough in their obedience. Fifty thousand persons perished on the scaffold here, suf fering far conscience sake," during his reign. No pri vacy, however sacred, W3S secure ; no age, or sex, or rank, was spared; and this once cheerful land was overshadowed with grief, and terror, and silence. Posterity have learned, with a kind of satisfaction, that, in his old age and retirement, Charles himself began to doubt ; that the spirit which bad never felt for the fate of another, was doomed in its feebleness to expe rience the blackest terrors for its own fate, and to leave the world it had wasted and deformed, under a weight of blood which superstition itself could no longer alle viate.
Charles, however, was less a bigot than a despot : he relaxed his cruelties when he found they would inter fere with the prosperity of a country whose revenues he needed so much; and he preferred allowing the con tinuance of erroneous doctrines at Antwerp, to the ha zard of destroying the commerce of the city in extir pating them by an Inquisition similar to that of Spain. l'he people, ton, were inclined to suffer much at his hands. He was their countryman ; spoke their lan
guage, adopted their manners, and visited them often. The fame of his victories, his talents, and his power, laid hold of their admiration ; and the promotions which he lavished on their chief men, secured him a permanent interest among the inferior. And if all those persuasives could not lead to obedience, the ex tent of his other dominions was sufficient to force it. Thc prompt and hard punishment to which he had ccmdemn ed the mutinous inhabitants of Ghent, was a lesson of hu mility and submission to all.
But in the case of Phlip his son, every thing was different. With a heart as stony as his fathei's, Philip united an intellect vastly inferior by nature ; and the gloomy tutelage of monks had narrowed and obscured it still farther. He was born in Spain; and thc harsh sadness of his temper was best fitted to relish the so lemn and monotonous style of society prevalent there. In his youth he had been sent to visit the Netherlands, that his presence might conciliate the affections of the people ; but his haughty department, his unaccommo dating character, produced quite an opposite effect. Phi lip loved not the Netherlands ; and the feeling was mu tual. At the abdication of his father (l556,) the States evinced their distrust of Philip's intentions by the vain attempt which they made to guard against them. The splendour of a spectacle so extraordinary could not lull their vigilance ; and an additional oath was imposed on Philip, forbidding every shadow of innovation in the es tablished laws of the country.
The suspicions which arose so early were soon abun dantly confirmed. By the treaty of Chateau-Cambresis, Philip was delivered frorn all foreign enemies ; yet he obtinately continued, under the shallow est pretences, to retain a body of Spanish troops, occupying the gal iisons and consuming the resources of the country. The edicts of his father were brought forward anew, and the more strict and impressive execution of them was intrusted to Cardinal Granvella, a man whose inflexible disposition and consummate political skill were well fitted for the purposes of Philip ; but whose proud contemptuous be haviour disgusted the nobles, while his rigid severity ex asperated the people. Under the advice or superinten dence of this man, Philip appointed ',Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V. to be regent of the Ne therlands, and returned to Spain, where con'tplaints and representations were not slow to follow him. The fo reign troops had rernained till long after the promised period ; the spiritual tribunals were active ; and the car dinal, who had never been popular, was fast acquiring universal execration. The appointment of fourteen new bishoprics, showed Philip's zeal to exterminate heretical doctrine, but WaS highly disagreeable to every class of the community. It dissatisfied the nobles, because it abridged their political importance by the addition of so many votes entirely at the royal disposal in their deli berative assemblies; the existing clergy, because it di vided and extenuated their revenue ; the people, because it was meant to cramp their freedom. The national dis content had begun to exhibit itself in actual commotions, before Philip, having vainly tried every subterfuge, could be prevailed on to recal his minister (I564,) and give promises to remit the execution of his father's edicts, and redress the many grievances of the state. Nor was the calm, which these occurrences diffused, of long continuance. Philip intended nothing so little as al lowing the growth of heresy, and he saw no method but that of persecution for preventing it. In place, there fore, of removing the inquisitorial court, which differed only in name from the Spanish Inquisition, and which all men, Catholics as well as Reformed, agreed in ab horring, he transmitted express orders to his represen tative, the Duchess of Parma, to quicker, the movements of that tribunal, and protett its decrees with all the force of the civil power. The Inquisition needed no such sti mulus. It had already done its work effectually enough to frighten 100,000 families frorn their native country ; and now, when no hope appeared of deliverance from it, the people rose in many towns of Flanders (1566f) forced t'ne prisons of the Inquisition, and set flee all who were confined there on religious accusations ; delivering them selves up, at the same time, as might have been expect ed,.to many other measures of a less excusable nature. '1 his uproar would have been appeased, or would soon have sunk away of itself ; but in the meanwhile most of the nobles, participating in the discontents of the popu lace, to which peculiar discontents were added in their own case, seconded, though they affected not to counte nance, the popular p, oceedings ; and formed themselves into a combination, which has become known to history by the epithet Gueux (beggars,) applied to the members of it in contempt, by a minion of the court, when they appeared in Brussels to lay their petition and remon strance before the regent. The name Gueu.r was adopted with an indignant smile, by the confederacy it self; and the symbols of beggary, the wallet and staff in miniature, hecame the rallying emblems of the dissatis fied, and were to he seen on the persons of men and wo men over all the country.