instances are on record in which he was obliged to give way. The newly acquired provinces were not immediately incorporated in the assembly of States-General.
In the Netherlands, as in his other dominions, Charles endeavoured to enforce his will upon the Church. But the rival interests of the great alien sees, possessing ecclesiastical authority over the chief part of his territory, rendered this difficult; and his plan for the creation of six national dioceses failed owing to the opposition of the existing prelates and the Roman See. But in the matter of heresy he succeeded in holding his own for his lifetime. Early in 1521 before the Diet of Worms he issued his first edict in the Netherlands against Luther. By repeated laws, increasing in stringency, he kept if not the Reformed opinions at any rate their public expression within bounds; and the only serious danger of an outbreak in the Netherlands under Charles was at the time of the Anabaptist movement at Munster (1535), when the attempted seizure of Amsterdam by those sectaries led to a more rigorous persecution of them in various parts of the Netherlands. The Inquisition was established on a secular basis, for Charles could not afford to give this powerful instrument into the hands of alien Bishops or the Holy See. But under the surface the forces were growing; the movement was amorphous and heterogeneous; Lutheranism in the North, Zwiuglian views in the South, Anabaptist doctrine among the more violent, and towards the end of the reign the more methodical and better organised Calvinistic system were spreading in spite of the Inquisition. The persecution of Charles, which, although vigorous in appearance, was in effect not especially severe, succeeded in concealing rather than in preventing the spread of heresy. This legacy he left to his son.
Indeed, though the Netherlands flourished under Charles, though their trade prospered through the connexion with Spain and the Indies, though the wealth of Antwerp and Amsterdam increased year by year, though peace was preserved and apparent obedience, though territory was rounded off and hostile provinces incorporated, the seeds were being sown which bore fruit in the days of Philip. The pressure of taxation was severe. The Spanish garrisons introduced in the early years of Charles' reign were hated here as elsewhere. Religious causes of discord were constantly growing. Charles spent but a small part of his reign in the Netherlands, but his early years were passed there, and he was never a stranger, nor out of sympathy. His son was a Spaniard, and his home in Spain. The days of Margaret and Maria were to be followed by the rule of a different class of proconsuls, with a different kind of instructions. Then the accumulated discontent, the weariness of long-continued burdens borne in a cause that was not their own, the strain of the prolonged strife with France, their natural friend, all the errors and mistaken policy of Charles, would make themselves felt; the issue of these things will be seen in a later volume.
