tion of the
country. He urged the necessity of religious toleration, as demanded by
the spirit of the age, and as particularly necessary in a country like
that, the resort of so many foreigners, and inhabited by sects of such
various denominations. He concluded by recommending them to lay a
petition to that effect before the throne,--not, probably, from any
belief that such a petition would be heeded by the monarch, but from the
effect it would have in strengthening the principles of religious
freedom in his countrymen. William's memorial is altogether a remarkable
paper for the time, and in the wise and liberal tenor of its arguments
strikingly contrasts with the intolerant spirit of the court of
Madrid.[839]

The regent proved correct in her prediction that the example of Antwerp
would be made a precedent for the country. William's friends, the Counts
Hoorne and Hoogstraten, employed the same means for conciliating the
sectaries in their own governments. It was otherwise with Egmont. He was
too stanch a Catholic at heart to approve of such concessions. He
carried matters, therefore, with a high hand in his provinces of
Flanders and Artois, where his personal authority was unbounded. He made
a severe scrutiny into the causes of the late tumult, and dealt with its
authors so sternly, as to provoke a general complaint among the reformed
party, some of whom, indeed, became so far alarmed for their own safety,
that they left the provinces and went beyond sea.

Order now seemed to be reestablished in the land, through the efforts of
the nobles, aided by the confederates, who seem to have faithfully
executed their part of the compact with the regent. The Protestants took
possession of the churches assigned to them, or busied themselves with
raising others on the ground before reserved for their meetings. All
joined in the good work; the men laboring at the building, the women
giving their jewels and ornaments to defray the cost of the materials. A
calm succeeded,--a temporary lull after the hurricane; and Lutheran and
Calvinist again indulged in the pleasing illusion, that, however
distasteful it might be to the government, they were at length secure of
the blessings of religious toleration.

During the occurrence of these events a great change had taken place in
the relations of parties. The Catholic members of the league, who had
proposed nothing beyond the reform of certain glaring abuses, and, least
of all, anything p