produced an
explosion that would have unsettled the authority of Charles himself,
and left for his successor less territory in the Netherlands at the
beginning of his reign, than he was destined to have at the end of it.

Indeed, the frequent renewal of the edicts, which was repeated no less
than nine times during Charles's administration, intimates plainly
enough the very sluggish and unsatisfactory manner in which they had
been executed. In some provinces, as Luxembourg and Groningen, the
Inquisition was not introduced at all. Gueldres stood on its privileges,
guaranteed to it by the emperor on his accession. And Brabant so
effectually remonstrated on the mischief which the mere name of the
Inquisition would do to the trade of the country, and especially of
Antwerp, its capital, that the emperor deemed it prudent to qualify some
of the provisions, and to drop the name of Inquisitor altogether.[394]
There is no way more sure of rousing the sensibilities of a commercial
people, than by touching their pockets. Charles did not care to press
matters to such extremity. He was too politic a prince, too large a
gainer by the prosperity of his people, willingly to put it in peril,
even for conscience' sake. In this lay the difference between him and
Philip.

[Sidenote: UNPOPULAR MANNERS OF PHILIP.]

Notwithstanding, therefore, his occasional abuse of power, and the
little respect he may have had at heart for the civil rights of his
subjects, the government of Charles, as already intimated, was on the
whole favorable to their commercial interests. He was well repaid by the
enlarged resources of the country, and the aid they afforded him for the
prosecution of his ambitious enterprises. In the course of a few years,
as we are informed by a contemporary, he drew from the Netherlands no
less than twenty-four millions of ducats.[395] And this
supply--furnished not ungrudgingly, it is true--was lavished, for the
most part, on objects in which the nation had no interest. In like
manner, it was the revenues of the Netherlands which defrayed great part
of Philip's expenses in the war that followed his accession. "Here,"
exclaims the Venetian envoy, Soriano, "were the true treasures of the
king of Spain; here were his mines, his Indies, which furnished Charles
with the means of carrying on his wars for so many years with the
French, the Germans, the Italians, which provided for the defence of his
own states, and maintained his dignit