rench exiles who
irrigated the receptive soil of the Low Countries with doctrines
subversive of church and state alike. The intercourse with England,
partly through the emigration from that land under Mary's reign, partly
through the coming and going of Flemings and Walloons, also opened
doors to Protestant doctrine.

At first the missionaries came secretly, preaching to a few specially
invited to some private house or inn. People attended these meetings
disguised and after dark. First mentioned in the edict of 1550, nine
years later the Calvinists drew up a _Confessio Belgica_, as a sign and
an aid to union. Calvin's French writings could be read in the
southern provinces in the original. Though as early as 1560 some
nobles had been converted, the new religion undoubtedly made its
strongest appeal, as a contemporary put it, "to those who had grown
rich by trade and were therefore ready for revolution." It was among
the merchants of the great cities that it took strongest root and from
the middle class spread to the laborers; influenced not only by the
example of their masters, but sometimes also by the policy of
Protestant employers to give work only to co-religionists. In a short
time it had won a very considerable success, though perhaps not the
actual majority of the population. Many of the poor, hitherto
Anabaptists, thronged to it in hopes of social betterment. Many
adventurers with no motive but to stir the waters in which they might
fish joined the new party. But on the whole, as its appeal was
primarily moral and religious, its constituency was the more
substantial, progressive, and intelligent part of the community.

The greatest weakness of the Protestants was their {249} division.
Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist continued to compete for the
leadership and hated each other cordially. The Calvinists themselves
were divided into two parties, the "Rekkelijken" or "Compromisers" and
the "Preciesen" or "Stalwarts." Moreover there were various other
shades of opinion, not amounting quite to new churches. The pure
Erasmians, under Cassander, advocated tolerance. More pronounced was
the movement of Dirck Volckertszoon Coornheert [Sidenote: Coornheert,
1522-90] a merchant of Amsterdam who, in addition to advising his
followers to dissimulate their views rather than to court martyrdom,
rejected the Calvinist dogma of predestination and tried to lay the
emphasis in religion on the spirit of Jesus rat