History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

said or thought that the Tribunal of Tumults was
obliged to conform itself to the ancient charters and
privileges, or "to have asserted or insinuated that
the king had no right to take away all the privileges
of these Provinces if he thought fit, or that he was
not discharged from all his oaths and promises of
pardon, seeing all the inhabitants had been guilty of
a crime, either of omission or of commission." In
short, the King of Spain, in this fulmination,
declared that all the inhabitants of the Low
Countries were guilty of treason, and had incurred
the penalty of death. Or as one of the judges of this
tremendous tribunal, with memorable simplicity
and pithiness, put it, "the heretical inhabitants
broke into the churches, and the orthodox
inhabitants did nothing to hinder it, therefore they
ought all of them to be hanged together."[11]
The Council of Blood consisted of twelve
judges; the majority were Spaniards, and the rest
fast friends of the Spanish interest. The duke
himself was president. Under the duke, and
occupying his place in his absence, was Vargas, a
Spanish lawyer. Vargas was renowned among his
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