es in Spain, their grasping
and venal ambition, enraged and disgusted the haughty Spaniards. This
international malignity furnishes one of the keys to a proper
understanding of the great revolt in the next reign.

The provinces, now all united again under an emperor, were treated,
opulent and powerful as they were, as obscure dependencies. The regency
over them was entrusted by Charles to his near relatives, who governed in
the interest of his house, not of the country. His course towards them
upon the religious question will be hereafter indicated. The political
character of his administration was typified, and, as it were,
dramatized, on the occasion of the memorable insurrection at Ghent. For
this reason, a few interior details concerning that remarkable event,
seem requisite.

XI.

Ghent was, in all respects, one of the most important cities in Europe.
Erasmus, who, as a Hollander and a courtier, was not likely to be partial
to the turbulent Flemings, asserted that there was no town in all
Christendom to be compared to it for size, power, political constitution,
or the culture of its inhabitants. It was, said one of its inhabitants at
the epoch of the insurrection, rather a country than a city. The activity
and wealth of its burghers were proverbial. The bells were rung daily,
and the drawbridges over the many arms of the river intersecting the
streets were raised, in order that all business might be suspended, while
the armies of workmen were going to or returning from their labors. As
early as the fourteenth century, the age of the Arteveldes, Froissart
estimated the number of fighting men whom Ghent could bring into the
field at eighty thousand. The city, by its jurisdiction over many large
but subordinate towns, disposed of more than its own immediate
population, which has been reckoned as high as two hundred thousand.

Placed in the midst of well cultivated plains, Ghent was surrounded by
strong walls, the external circuit of which measured nine miles. Its
streets and squares were spacious and elegant, its churches and other
public buildings numerous and splendid. The sumptuous church of Saint
John or Saint Bavon, where Charles the Fifth had been baptized, the
ancient castle whither Baldwin Bras de Fer had brought the daughter of
Charles the Bald, the city hall with its graceful Moorish front, the
well-known belfry, where for three centuries had perched the dragon sent
by the Emperor Baldwin of Flanders