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 of these establishments,
but the political rights of the abbots whom they were to succeed;
and the whole of the ecclesiastical order become gradually
represented (after the death of the then living abbots) by the
creatures of the crown.

The consequences of this vital blow to the integrity of the national
institutions were evident; and the indignation of both clergy
and laity was universal. Every legal means of opposition was