even a secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no
duty towards them, he had committed the gravest crimes against them. He
had regarded them merely as a treasury upon which to draw; while the sums
which he extorted were spent upon ceaseless and senseless wars, which
were of no more interest to them than if they had been waged in another
planet. Of five millions of gold annually, which he derived from all his
realms, two millions came from these industrious and opulent provinces,
while but a half million came from Spain and another half from the
Indies. The mines of wealth which had been opened by the hand of
industry in that slender territory of ancient morass and thicket,
contributed four times as much income to the imperial exchequer as all
the boasted wealth of Mexico and Peru. Yet the artisans, the farmers and
the merchants, by whom these riches were produced, were consulted about
as much in the expenditure of the imposts upon their industry as were the
savages of America as to the distribution of the mineral treasures of
their soil. The rivalry of the houses of Habsburg and Valois, this was
the absorbing theme, during the greater part of the reign which had just
been so dramatically terminated. To gain the empire over Francis, to
leave to Don Philip a richer heritage than the Dauphin could expect, were
the great motives of the unparalleled energy displayed by Charles during
the longer and the more successful portion of his career. To crush the
Reformation throughout his dominions, was his occupation afterward, till
he abandoned the field in despair. It was certainly not desirable for
the Netherlanders that they should be thus controlled by a man who forced
them to contribute so largely to the success of schemes, some of which
were at best indifferent, and others entirely odious to them. They paid
1,200,000 crowns a year regularly; they paid in five years an
extraordinary subsidy of eight millions of ducats, and the States were
roundly rebuked by the courtly representatives of their despot, if they
presumed to inquire into the objects of the appropriations, or to express