History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

four to seventeen. This was a formidable
augmentation of the clerical force. The nobles
looked askance on the new spiritual peers who had
come to divide with them their influence; the
middle classes regarded them as clogs on their
industry, and the artisans detested them as spies on
their freedom.
The violation of faith on the part of their
monarch rankled in their bosoms, and inspired
them with gloomy forebodings as regarded the
future. Another fundamental law, ever esteemed by
the Netherlanders among the most valuable of their
privileges, and which Philip had sworn to respect,
did these new arrangements contravene. It was
unlawful to bring a foreign soldier into the country.
Philip, despite his oath, refused to withdraw his
Spanish troops. So long as they remained, the
Netherlanders well knew that the door stood open
for the entrance of a much larger force. It was also
provided in the ancient charters that the citizens
should be tried before the ordinary courts and by
the ordinary judges. But Philip had virtually swept
all these courts away, and substituted in their room
69