Page:Short Treatise on God, Man and His Wellbeing.djvu/19

Rh of converts, were condemned to the dungeon, the rack and the stake without mercy, while princes and priests shared the spoils without scruple. No wonder that the eyes of Spanish and Portuguese Maranos were ever strained in search of cities of refuge. About a century after the expulsion from Spain, good tidings came from the revolted Netherlands.

Not content with the wholesale expulsion and slaughter of Jews and Moors, the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to all Christians who were in any way suspected of the slightest disloyalty to Roman Catholicism. And the work of this &quot;holy office&quot; was vastly extended in scope when the religious policy of Ferdinand and Isabella was adopted by their grandson, the Emperor Charles V., who desired nothing less than the entire extermination of all heresies and heretics, so that the world and the fulness thereof might be reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of Roman Catholics, with the Emperor at their head. In accordance with his policy he issued various edicts for the extirpation of sects and heresies, and introduced the Inquisition into the Netherlands, with which alone we are here concerned. On the abdication of Charles in 1555, his son, King Philip II., continued his religious policy, only with far greater zeal. Within a month of his accession to the throne he re-enacted his father's edicts against heresy, and four years later he obtained from Pope Paul IV. a Bull for an ominous strengthening of the Church in the Netherlands. Instead of the four Bishoprics then existing, there were to be three Archbishoprics with fifteen Bishoprics under them, each Bishop to appoint nine additional prebendaries, who were to assist him in the matter of the Inquisition, two of these to be inquisitors themselves. Four thousand Spanish troops were stationed in the Netherlands, the government was more or less in the hands of Anthony Perrenot, Archbishop of Mechlin (better known as Cardinal Granvelle), a kind of Torquemada after Philip's own heart, and his underling the