what in such cases it ever will be
so long as men remain men. The bad cause, too, which had nothing in
common with the good but the employment of illegal means, emboldened by
this slight point of connection, appeared in the same company, and was
mistaken for it. Luther had written against the invocation of saints;
every audacious varlet who broke into the churches and cloisters, and
plundered the altars, called himself Lutheran. Faction, rapine,
fanaticism, licentiousness robed themselves in his colors; the most
enormous offenders, when brought before the judges, avowed themselves
his followers. The Reformation had drawn down the Roman prelate to a
level with fallible humanity; an insane band, stimulated by hunger and
want, sought to annihilate all distinction of ranks. It was natural
that a doctrine, which to the state showed itself only in its most
unfavorable aspect, should not have been able to reconcile a monarch who
had already so many reasons to extirpate it; and it is no wonder,
therefore, that be employed against it the arms it had itself forced
upon him.

Charles must already have looked upon himself as absolute in the
Netherlands since he did not think it necessary to extend to these
countries the religious liberty which he had accorded to Germany.
While, compelled by the effectual resistance of the German princes, he
assured to the former country a free exercise of the new religion, in
the latter he published the most cruel edicts for its repression. By
these the reading of the Evangelists and Apostles; all open or secret
meetings to which religion gave its name in ever so slight a degree; all
conversations on the subject, at home or at the table, were forbidden
under severe penalties. In every province special courts of judicature
were established to watch over the execution of the edicts. Whoever
held these erroneous opinions was to forfeit his office without regard
to his rank. Whoever should be convicted of diffusing heretical
doctrines, or even of simply attending the secret meetings of the
Reformers, was to be condemned to death, and if a male, to be executed
by the sword, if a female, buried alive. Backsliding heretics were to
be committed to the flames. Not even the recantation of the offender
could annul these appalling sentences. Whoever abjured his errors
gained nothing by his apostacy but at farthest a milder kind of death.

The fiefs of the condemned were also confiscated, contrary to the
priv