e hostility of the people generally, a
hostility founded on fear, for the introduction of so many new bishops
nominated by the king was looked upon as being the first step to prepare
the way for the bringing in of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. Already
the edicts against heretics, which Charles V had enacted and severely
enforced, were being carried out throughout the length and breadth of
the land with increasing and merciless barbarity. Both papal and
episcopal inquisitors were active in the work of persecution, and so
many were the sentences that in many places the civil authorities, and
even some of the stadholders, declined to carry out the executions.
Public opinion looked upon Granvelle as the author of the new bishoprics
scheme and the instigator of the increased activity of the persecutors.
He was accused of being eager to take any measures to repress the
ancient liberties of the Netherland provinces and to establish a
centralised system of absolute rule, in order to ingratiate himself with
the king and so to secure his own advancement. That the cardinal was
ambitious of power there can be no question. But to men of Granvelle's
great abilities, as administrator and statesman, ambition is not
necessarily a fault; and access to the secret records and correspondence
of the time has revealed that the part played by him was far from being
so sinister as was believed. The Bishop of Arras was not consulted about
the bishoprics proposal until after the Papal Bull had been secured, and
at first he was unfavourable to it and was not anxious to become
archbishop and primate. It was his advice which led Margaret to send
away the hated Spanish regiments from Netherland soil; and, far from
being naturally a relentless persecutor, there is proof that neither he
nor the president of the Privy Council, the jurist Viglius, believed in
the policy of harsh and brutal methods for stamping out heretical
opinions. They had in this as in other matters to obey their master, and
allow the odium to fall upon themselves.

To Orange and Egmont, the two leaders of the opposition to Granvelle, a
third name, that of Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn and Admiral of
Flanders, has now to be added. These three worked together for the
overthrow of the Cardinal, but their opposition at this time was based
rather on political than on religious grounds. They all professed the
Catholic faith, but the marriage of Orange in August, 1561, with a
Lu