said the constitution of Holland, "is eligible as, councillor, financier,
magistrate, or member of a court. Justice can be administered only by
the ordinary tribunals and magistrates. The ancient laws and customs
shall remain inviolable. Should the prince infringe any of these
provisions, no one is bound to obey him."

These provisions, from the Brabant and Holland charters, are only cited
as illustrative of the general spirit of the provincial constitutions.
Nearly all the provinces possessed privileges equally ample, duly signed
and sealed. So far as ink and sealing wax could defend a land against
sword and fire, the Netherlands were impregnable against the edicts and
the renewed episcopal inquisition. Unfortunately, all history shows how
feeble are barriers of paper or lambskin, even when hallowed with a
monarch's oath, against the torrent of regal and ecclesiastical
absolutism. It was on the reception in the provinces of the new and
confirmatory Bull concerning the bishoprics, issued in January, 1560,
that the measure became known, and the dissatisfaction manifest.
The discontent was inevitable and universal. The ecclesiastical
establishment which was not to be enlarged or elevated but by consent
of the estates, was suddenly expanded into three archiepiscopates and
fifteen bishoprics. The administration of justice, which was only
allowed in free and local courts, distinct for each province, was to be
placed, so far as regarded the most important of human interests, in the,
hands of bishops and their creatures, many of them foreigners and most of
them monks. The lives and property of the whole population were to be at
the mercy of these utterly irresponsible conclaves. All classes were
outraged. The nobles were offended because ecclesiastics, perhaps
foreign ecclesiastics, were to be empowered to sit in the provincial
estates and to control their proceedings in place of easy, indolent,
ignorant abbots and friars, who had generally accepted the influence of