A.D. 1566

FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

During the later mediaeval and early modern periods, European states
and provinces passed through many changes of political relation. In
those times the territories comprised under the name of the
Netherlands--embracing the present Holland and Belgium--belonged
successively, in whole or in part, to different governments. In the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the region was united with
Burgundy; in 1477 it passed to the Hapsburgs; and later it came
under Spanish dominion.

In the reign of Charles V the Protestant Reformation spread through
the Netherlands, whose peoples shared in all the disputes and
turbulences of that religious revolution. Often in great peril,
the liberties of the Netherlands were more than ever endangered by
the absorption of the provinces into the vast empire of Charles.
The Emperor issued persecuting edicts against the Protestant
inhabitants, introduced the Inquisition with its terrible _auto
dafe_, which spared neither character nor sex, and by his severe
oppression caused the people of the Netherlands to feel themselves
"destined to perpetual slavery." The number of martyrs there during
the reign of Charles has been estimated on high authority at one
hundred thousand, although some modern historians place it far
below. The Inquisition, at all events, did some of its most cruel
work in the Netherlands during that period.

Toward the end of Charles' reign the Netherlands secured a certain
degree of exemption from these persecutions. Philip II, when he
succeeded his father, Charles V, on the throne of Spain, renewed
such favorable pledges to the Netherlands as the Emperor had given.
But once in full power (1555), Philip began the "dark and bloody
reign" which a few years later drove the Netherlander to their great
revolt, under the lead of William, Prince of Orange, called "William
the Silent."

In 1563 William and the Counts of Egmont and Horn, members of the
council of state, sent to Philip II a petition for the recall of
Cardinal Granvella, adviser of the regent, Margaret of Parma, who
was violently persecuting the Protestants. Although next year
Granvella was recalled, Philip did not change his determination to
destroy political and religious liberty in the Netherlan