contracted and highly cultivated country. Their ships were the carriers
for the world;--their merchants, if invaded in their rights, engaged in
vigorous warfare with their own funds and their own frigates; their
fabrics were prized over the whole earth; their burghers possessed the
wealth of princes, lived with royal luxury, and exercised vast political
influence; their love of liberty was their predominant passion. Their
religious ardor had not been fully awakened; but the events of the next
generation were to prove that in no respect more than in the religious
sentiment, were the two races opposed to each other. It was as certain
that the Netherlanders would be fierce reformers as that the Spaniards
would be uncompromising persecutors. Unhallowed was the union between
nations thus utterly contrasted.

Philip the Fair and Ferdinand had detested and quarrelled with each other
from the beginning. The Spaniards and Flemings participated in the
mutual antipathy, and hated each other cordially at first sight. The
unscrupulous avarice of the Netherland nobles in Spain, their grasping
and venal ambition, enraged and disgusted the haughty Spaniards. This
international malignity furnishes one of the keys to a proper
understanding of the great revolt in the next reign.

The provinces, now all united again under an emperor, were treated,
opulent and powerful as they were, as obscure dependencies. The regency
over them was entrusted by Charles to his near relatives, who governed in
the interest of his house, not of the country. His course towards them
upon the religious question will be hereafter indicated. The political
character of his administration was typified, and, as it were,
dramatized, on the occasion of the memorable insurrection at Ghent.
For this reason, a few interior details concerning that remarkable event,
seem requisite.