he military force of the Netherlands in
time of peace was small, for the provinces were jealous of the presence
of soldiery. The only standing army which then legally existed in the
Netherlands were the Bandes d'Ordonnance, a body of mounted
gendarmerie--amounting in all to three thousand men--which ranked among
the most accomplished and best disciplined cavalry of Europe. They were
divided into fourteen squadrons, each under the command of a stadholder,
or of a distinguished noble. Besides these troops, however, there still
remained in the provinces a foreign force amounting in the aggregate to
four thousand men. These soldiers were the remainder of those large
bodies which year after year had been quartered upon the Netherlands
during the constant warfare to which they had been exposed. Living upon
the substance of the country, paid out of its treasury, and as offensive
by their licentious and ribald habits of life as were the enemies against
whom they were enrolled, these troops had become an intolerable burthen
to the people. They were now disposed in different garrisons, nominally
to protect the frontier. As a firm peace, however, had now been concluded
between Spain and France, and as there was no pretext for compelling the
provinces to accept this protection, the presence of a foreign soldiery
strengthened a suspicion that they were to be used in the onslaught which
was preparing against the religious freedom and the political privileges
of the country. They were to be the nucleus of a larger army, it was
believed, by which the land was to be reduced to a state of servile
subjection to Spain. A low, constant, but generally unheeded murmur of
dissatisfaction and distrust upon this subject was already perceptible
throughout the Netherlands; a warning presage of the coming storm.

All the provinces were now convoked for the 7th of August (1559), at
Ghent, there to receive the parting communication and farewell of the
King. Previously to this day, however, Philip appeared in person upon
several solemn occasions, to impress upon the country the necessity of
attending to the great subject with which his mind was exclusively
occupied. He came before the great council of Mechlin, in order to
address that body with his own lips upon the necessity of supporting the
edicts to the letter, and of trampling out every vestige of heresy,
wherever it should appear, by the immediate immolation of all heretics,
whoever they might be