that he could sustain the character which he chose to enact. He lost the
crown, which he might have secured, because he thought the emperor's son
unworthy the heiress of Burgundy; and yet, after his father's death, her
marriage with that very Maximilian alone secured the possession of her
paternal inheritance. Unsuccessful in schemes of conquest, and in
political intrigue, as an oppressor of the Netherlands, he nearly carried
out his plans. Those provinces he regarded merely as a bank to draw upon.
His immediate intercourse with the country was confined to the extortion
of vast requests. These were granted with ever-increasing reluctance, by
the estates. The new taxes and excises, which the sanguinary extravagance
of the duke rendered necessary, could seldom be collected in the various
cities without tumults, sedition, and bloodshed. Few princes were ever a
greater curse to the people whom they were allowed to hold as property.
He nearly succeeded in establishing a centralized despotism upon the
ruins of the provincial institutions. His sudden death alone deferred the
catastrophe. His removal of the supreme court of Holland from the Hague
to Mechlin, and his maintenance of a standing army, were the two great
measures by which he prostrated the Netherlands. The tribunal had been
remodelled by his father; the expanded authority which Philip had given
to a bench of judges dependent upon himself, was an infraction of the
rights of Holland. The court, however, still held its sessions in the
country; and the sacred privilege--de non evocando--the right of every
Hollander to be tried in his own land, was, at least, retained. Charles
threw off the mask; he proclaimed that this council--composed of his
creatures, holding office at his pleasure--should have supreme
jurisdiction over all the charters of the provinces; that it was to
follow his person, and derive all authority from his will. The usual seat
of the court he transferred to Mechlin. It will be seen, in the sequel,
that the attempt, under Philip the Second, to enforce its supreme
authority was a collateral cause of the great revolution of the