hurch in Holland to have freedom of organisation. It was
stipulated, however, that a previous communication should be made to the
government of the papal intentions and plans, before they were carried
out. The only communication that was made was not official, but
confidential; and it merely stated that Utrecht was to be erected into
an archbishopric with Haarlem, Breda, Hertogenbosch and Roeremonde, as
suffragans. The ministry regarded the choice of such Protestant centres
as Utrecht and Haarlem with resentment, but were faced with the _fait
accompli_. This strong-handed action of the Roman authorities was made
still more offensive by the issuing of a papal allocution, again without
any consultation with the Dutch government, in which Pius IX described
the establishment of the new hierarchy as a means of counteracting in
the Netherlands the heresy of Calvin.

A wave of fierce indignation swept over Protestant Holland, which united
in one camp orthodox Calvinists (anti-revolutionaries), conservatives
and anti-papal liberals. The preachers everywhere inveighed against a
ministry which had permitted such an act of aggression on the part of a
foreign potentate against the Protestantism of the nation. Utrecht took
the lead in drawing up an address to the king and to the States-General
(which obtained two hundred thousand signatures), asking them not to
recognise the proposed hierarchy. At the meeting of the Second Chamber
of the States-General on April 12, Thorbecke had little difficulty in
convincing the majority that the Pope had proceeded without Consultation
with the ministry, and that under the Constitution the Catholics had
acted within their rights in re-modelling their Church organisation. But
his arguments were far from satisfying outside public opinion. On the
occasion of a visit of the king to Amsterdam the ministry took the step
of advising him not to receive any address hostile to the establishment
of the hierarchy, on the ground that this did not require the royal
approval. William, who had never been friendly to Thorbecke, was annoyed
at being thus instructed in the discharge of his duties; and he not only
received an address containing 51,000 signatures but expressed his great
pleasure in being thus approached (April 15). At the same time he
summoned Van Hall, the leader of the opposition, to Amsterdam for a
private consultation. The ministry, on hearing of what had taken place,
sent its resignation, which wa