s passed by the privy council, which had cognizance of
matters of justice, were frequently frustrated by the amnesties and
pardons granted by the council of state. To remedy this, the nobles
contended that it was necessary to subject the decrees of the other
councils to the revision of the council of state, and, in a word, to
concentrate in this last body the whole authority of government.[621]
The council of state, composed chiefly of the great aristocracy, looked
down with contempt on those subordinate councils, made up for the most
part of men of humbler condition, pledged by their elevation to office
to maintain the interests of the crown. They would have placed the
administration of the country in the hands of an oligarchy, made up of
the great Flemish nobles. This would be to break up that system of
distribution into separate departments established by Charles the Fifth
for the more perfect despatch of business. It would, in short, be such a
change in the constitution of the country as would of itself amount to a
revolution.

In the state of things above described, the Reformation gained rapidly
in the country. The nobles generally, as has been already intimated,
were loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the younger nobility,
however, who had been educated at Geneva, returned tinctured with
heretical doctrines from the school of Calvin.[622] But whether Catholic
or Protestant, the Flemish aristocracy looked with distrust on the
system of persecution, and held the Inquisition in the same abhorrence
as did the great body of the people. It was fortunate for the
Reformation in the Netherlands, that at its outset it received the
support even of the Catholics, who resisted the Inquisition as an
outrage on their political liberties.

Under the lax administration of the edicts, exiles who had fled abroad
from persecution now returned to Flanders. Calvinist ministers and
refugees from France crossed the borders, and busied themselves with the
work of proselytism. Seditious pamphlets were circulated, calling on the
regent to confiscate the ecclesiastical revenues, and apply them to the
use of the state, as had been done in England.[623] The Inquisition
became an object of contempt, almost as much as of hatred. Two of the
principal functionaries wrote to Philip, that, without further support,
they could be of no use in a situation which exposed them only to
derision and danger.[624] At Bruges and at Brussels the mob