pieces." It was a tribunal superior to all human law, without appeal,
and certainly owing no allegiance to the powers of earth or heaven. No
rank, high or humble, was safe from its jurisdiction. The royal family
were not sacred, nor, the pauper's hovel. Even death afforded no
protection. The holy office invaded the prince in his palace and the
beggar in his shroud. The corpses of dead heretics were mutilated and
burned. The inquisitors preyed upon carcases and rifled graves. A
gorgeous festival of the holy office had, as we have seen, welcomed
Philip to his native land. The news of these tremendous autos-da fe, in
which so many illustrious victims had been sacrificed before their
sovereign's eyes, had reached the Netherlands almost simultaneously with
the bulls creating the new bishoprics in the provinces. It was not
likely that the measure would be rendered more palatable by this
intelligence of the royal amusements.

The Spanish inquisition had never flourished in any soil but that of the
peninsula. It is possible that the King and Granvelle were sincere in
their protestations of entertaining no intention of introducing it into
the Netherlands, although the protestations of such men are entitled to
but little weight. The truth was, that the inquisition existed already
in the provinces. It was the main object of the government to confirm
and extend the institution. The episcopal inquisition, as we have
already seen, had been enlarged by the enormous increase in the number of
bishops, each of whom was to be head inquisitor in his diocese, with two
special inquisitors under him. With this apparatus and with the edicts,
as already described, it might seem that enough had already been done for
the suppression of heresy. But more had been done. A regular papal
inquisition also existed in the Netherlands. This establishment, like
the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth. A word of introduction is
here again necessary--nor let the reader deem that too much time is