r passion--the love of liberty,
the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest
Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to
the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled
resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns
a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the
advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so
high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the
spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by
temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and
excitable population in Europe.

For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went
on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian,
Charles V., in turn assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age
after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose
again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in
the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of
religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary
power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new
combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little
Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at
bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering
strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and
more determined combat than the world had ever seen.

On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were assembled in
the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and
splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the
Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The
happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated
in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet,
what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that
they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a
secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty
towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was
in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political
liberties.

Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man
of foreign birth and breeding, not speakin