Page:The silent prince - a story of the Netherlands (IA cu31924008716957).pdf/13

 pope’s threats, nor the grand inquisitor’s bloody deeds could stamp it out of existence.

When the Emperor Charles entered the royal palace at Brussels, and leaning on the arm of William of Orange, delivered his valedictory address in broken accents to the assembled throng, the people wept and applauded. They forgot, in that hour, that it was his hand which had planted the Inquisition in their midst. His faithful subjects remembered only that he was a Fleming, and that his preference for the language and customs of his native land, neither the imperial crown of Germany, nor the Spanish diadem which destiny had added to the coronet of his fatherland, could diminish in the slightest degree. They readily took the oath of allegiance to support his son, and at the time they were sincere in their pledges of fealty.

Ten years wrought many changes. Philip the Second was soon detested by the Netherlanders as much as his father was revered. These provinces, so passionate in their desire for civil and religious liberty, had become the property of an utter stranger—a prince foreign to their blood, their tongue, their religion; to one whose oft-repeated maxim was, “Better not rule at all, than to rule over a nation of heretics.”

Philip had entrusted the subjugation of the Netherlands to two persons, the Regent, Margaret of Parma, and Cardinal Granvelle. The Regent was