Page:Short Treatise on God, Man and His Wellbeing.djvu/20

xiv inquisitor Peter Titelmann, who rushed through the country like a tempest, and snatched away whole families to their destruction, without being called to account by any one. Fortunately for the Netherlands, William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, had learned from King Henry of France the whole extent of Philip's bloody schemes for the extirpation of dissenters. Though at that time a Catholic himself, he revolted from such heartless inhumanity in the guise of religion, and determined to watch and wait. In the meantime, the holy inquisitors had ample opportunity to slake their unholy thirst. Wedged in between France and Germany, the Netherlands were naturally influenced by the Calvinism of the one and the Lutheranism of the other. Under the circumstances, to give unlimited power to the Inquisition meant practically to condemn a whole people to death. The people were furious. Various leagues and confederacies were formed. The position of affairs seemed for a time so threatening that the Regent, Margaret of Parma, a worthy disciple of Loyola, granted an Accord in 1566 in which the Inquisition was abolished. But this was only done to gain time by duping the rather tactless malcontents. The following year, 1567, there appeared on the scene Alva, the most bloodthirsty and unscrupulous villain even of his generation. He brought with him ten thousand veteran troops to purge the Netherlands of heretics. And now commenced the grim struggle for existence which was to last eighty long years (1567-1647). After various fortunes and misfortunes the seven northern provinces, more or less deserted by the ten southern provinces, leagued themselves together by the Union of Utrecht, in 1579, to defend one another &quot;with life, goods, and blood&quot; against the forces of the King of Spain, and they decreed, at the same time, that &quot;every citizen shall remain free in his religion, and that no man shall be molested or questioned on the subject of divine worship.&quot; The united provinces managed to hold their own under the leadership of &quot;Father