because, although not expressly stated, it was clear that the Bishop was
an ordinary inquisitor; but it was necessary to expunge words that gave
offence.

It was difficult, however, with all the Bishop's eloquence and dexterity,
to construct an agreeable inquisition. The people did not like it, in
any shape, and there were indications, not to be mistaken, that one day
there would be a storm which it would be beyond human power to assuage.
At present the people directed their indignation only upon a part of the
machinery devised for their oppression. The Spanish troops were
considered as a portion of the apparatus by which the new bishoprics and
the edicts were to be forced into execution. Moreover, men were, weary
of the insolence and the pillage which these mercenaries had so long
exercised in the land. When the King had been first requested to
withdraw them, we have seen that he had burst into a violent passion.
He had afterward dissembled. Promising, at last, that they should all
be sent from the country within three or four months after his departure,
he had determined to use every artifice to detain them in the provinces.
He had succeeded, by various subterfuges, in keeping them there fourteen
months; but it was at last evident that their presence would no longer be
tolerated. Towards the close of 1560 they were quartered in Walcheren
and Brill. The Zelanders, however, had become so exasperated by their
presence that they resolutely refused to lay a single hand upon the
dykes, which, as usual at that season, required great repairs. Rather
than see their native soil profaned any longer by these hated foreign
mercenaries, they would see it sunk forever in the ocean. They swore to
perish-men, women, and children together-in the waves, rather than endure
longer the outrages which the soldiery daily inflicted. Such was the
temper of the Zelanders that it was not thought wise to trifle with their
irritation. The Bishop felt that it was no longer practicable to detain