viz., in
Antwerp, Herzogenbusch, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and Ruremonde, were placed
under the Archbishopric of Malines; five others, Haarlem, Middelburg,
Leuwarden, Deventer, and Groningen, under the Archbishopric of Utrecht;
and the remaining four, Arras, Tournay, St. Omer, and Namur, which lie
nearest to France, and have language, character, and manners in common
with that country, under the Archbishopric of Cambray. Malines,
situated in the middle of Brabant and in the centre of all the seventeen
provinces, was made the primacy of all the rest, and was, with several
rich abbeys, the reward of Granvella. The revenues of the new
bishoprics were provided by an appropriation of the treasures of the
cloisters and abbeys which had accumulated from pious benefactions
during centuries. Some of the abbots were raised to the episcopal
throne, and with the possession of their cloisters and prelacies
retained also the vote at the diet which was attached to them. At the
same time to every bishopric nine prebends were attached, and bestowed
on the most learned juris-consultists and theologians, who were to
support the Inquisition and the bishop in his spiritual office. Of
these, the two who were most deserving by knowledge, experience, and
unblemished life were to be constituted actual inquisitors, and to have
the first voice in the Synods. To the Archbishop of Malines, as
metropolitan of all the seventeen provinces, the full authority was
given to appoint, or at discretion depose, archbishops and bishops; and
the Romish See was only to give its ratification to his acts.

At any other period the nation would have received with gratitude and
approved of such a measure of church reform since it was fully called
for by circumstances, was conducive to the interests of religion, and
absolutely indispensable for the moral reformation of the monkhood. Now
the temper of the times saw in it nothing but a hateful change.
Universal was the indignation with which it was received. A cry was
raised that the constitution was trampled under foot, the rights of the
nation violated, and that the Inquisition was already at the door, and
would soon open here, as in Spain, its bloody tribunal. The people
beheld with dismay these new servants of arbitrary power and of
persecution. The nobility saw in it nothing but a strengthening of the
royal authority by the addition of fourteen votes in the states'
assembly, and a withdrawal of the firmest prop of th