ter of this odious minister: _Animum_avidum_invidumque,_ac_
_simultates_inter_principem_et_populos_occulti_foventum_.]

A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent
and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity
was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the
Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired,
and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the country, living
in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess.
Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government
to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards
were removed to Zealand; but instead of being embarked at any of
its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money,
ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting
for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in
every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime
those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple
natives at length declared they would open the sluices of their
dikes; preferring to be swallowed by the waters rather than remain
exposed to the cruelty and rapacity of those Spaniards. Still
the embarkation was postponed; until the king, requiring his
troops in Spain for some domestic project, they took their
long-desired departure in the beginning of the year 1561.

The public discontent at this just cause was soon, however,
overwhelmed by one infinitely more important and lasting. The
Belgian clergy had hitherto formed a free and powerful order in
the state, governed and represented by four bishops, chosen by
the chapters of the towns or elected by the monks of the principal
abbeys. These bishops, possessing an independent territorial
revenue, and not directly subject to the influence of the crown,
had interests and feelings in common with the nation. But Philip
had prepared, and the pope had sanctioned, the new system of
ecclesiastical organization before alluded to, and the provisional
government now put it into execution. Instead of four bishops, it
was intended to appoint eighteen, their nomination being vested
in the king. By a wily system of trickery, the subserviency of
the abbeys was also aimed at. The new prelates, on a pretended
principle of economy, were endowed with the title of abbots of
the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses. Thus not
only would they enjoy the immense wealth o