of religion, wished to enrich themselves by plunder and murder," they had
bound themselves to each other by holy covenant and solemn oath to resist
the inquisition. They mutually promised to oppose it in every shape,
open or covert, under whatever mask, it might assume, whether bearing the
name of inquisition, placard, or edict, "and to extirpate and eradicate
the thing in any form, as the mother of all iniquity and disorder." They
protested before God and man, that they would attempt nothing to the
dishonor of the Lord or to the diminution of the King's grandeur,
majesty, or dominion. They declared, on the contrary, an honest purpose
to "maintain the monarch in his estate, and to suppress all seditious,
tumults, monopolies, and factions." They engaged to preserve their
confederation, thus formed, forever inviolable, and to permit none of
its members to be persecuted in any manner, in body or goods, by any
proceeding founded on the inquisition, the edicts, or the present league.

It will be seen therefore, that the Compromise was in its origin,
a covenant of nobles. It was directed against the foreign influence
by which the Netherlands were exclusively governed, and against the
inquisition, whether papal, episcopal, or by edict. There is no doubt
that the country was controlled entirely by Spanish masters, and that
the intention was to reduce the ancient liberty of the Netherlands into
subjection to a junta of foreigners sitting at Madrid. Nothing more
legitimate could be imagined than a constitutional resistance to such a
policy.

The Prince of Orange had not been consulted as to the formation of the
league. It was sufficiently obvious to its founders that his cautious
mind would find much to censure in the movement. His sentiments with
regard to the inquisition and the edicts were certainly known to all men.
In the beginning of this year, too, he had addressed a remarkable letter