a sore temptation to informers, who received a certain
share of their neighbour's goods if they denounced him. When the
"reconciled" had been sent back to prison under a strong guard, all
eyes were fixed on the unrepentant. These wore cards round their necks
and carried in their hands either a cross, or an inverted torch, which
was a sign that their own life would shortly be extinguished. Few of
these showed weakness, since they had already triumphed over
long-protracted torture. They walked with head erect to the _quemada_
or place of execution.

Dominican monks, by whose fanatic zeal the Holy Office gained a hold on
every Spaniard, often walked among the doomed, stripped of their former
vestments. Once a noble Florentine appealed to Philip as he was led by
the royal gallery. "Is it thus that you allow your innocent subjects
to be persecuted?" The King's face hardened, and his reply came
sharply. "If it were my own son, I would fetch the wood to burn him,
were he such a wretch as thou art." And there is no doubt that Philip
spoke truth when he uttered words so merciless.

Under the royal sanction the persecution was continued in the
Netherlands. It had closed the domains {78} of science and speculation
for Spain. It must break the free republican spirit of the Low
Countries. Charles V had been afraid of injuring the trade which
enabled him to pay a vast, all-conquering army. His son was less
tolerant, and thought religion of greater importance even than military
successes.

The terror of that formidable band of Inquisitors came upon the
Protestant Flemings like the shadow on some sunny hill-side. They had
lived in comfort and independence, resisting every attempt at royal
tyranny. Now a worse tyranny was ruling in their midst--secret,
relentless, inhuman--demanding toll of lives for sacrifice. Philip was
zealous in appointing new bishops, each of whom should have inquisitors
to aid in the work of hunting down the Protestants. "There are but few
of us left in the world who care for religion," he wrote, "'tis
necessary therefore for us to take the greater heed for Christianity."

Granvelle, a cardinal of the Catholic Church, was the ruler of the Low
Countries, terrorizing Margaret of Parma, whom Philip had appointed to
act there as his Regent. Margaret was a worthy woman of masculine
tastes and habits; she was the daughter of Charles V and therefore a
half-sister of Philip. She would have won some