ir soil.
The rivalry of the houses of Habsburg and Valois, this was the absorbing
theme, during the greater part of the reign which had just been so
dramatically terminated. To gain the empire over Francis, to leave to Don
Philip a richer heritage than the Dauphin could expect, were the great
motives of the unparalleled energy displayed by Charles during the longer
and the more successful portion of his career. To crush the Reformation
throughout his dominions, was his occupation afterward, till he abandoned
the field in despair. It was certainly not desirable for the
Netherlanders that they should be thus controlled by a man who forced
them to contribute so largely to the success of schemes, some of which
were at best indifferent, and others entirely odious to them. They paid
1,200,000 crowns a year regularly; they paid in five years an
extraordinary subsidy of eight millions of ducats, and the States were
roundly rebuked by the courtly representatives of their despot, if they
presumed to inquire into the objects of the appropriations, or to express
an interest in their judicious administration. Yet it maybe supposed to
have been a matter of indifference to them whether Francis or Charles had
won the day at Pavia, and it certainly was not a cause of triumph to the
daily increasing thousands of religious reformers in Holland and Flanders
that their brethren had been crushed by the Emperor at Muhlberg. But it
was not alone that he drained their treasure, and hampered their
industry. He was in constant conflict with their ancient and
dearly-bought political liberties. Like his ancestor Charles the Bold, he
was desirous of constructing a kingdom out of the provinces. He was
disposed to place all their separate and individual charters on a
procrustean bed, and shape them all into uniformity simply by reducing
the whole to a nullity. The difficulties in the way, the stout opposition
offered by burghers, whose fathers had gained these charters with their
blood, and his want of leisure during the vast labors which devolved upon
him as the autocrat of so large a portion of the world, caused him to
defer indefinitely the execution of his plan. He found time only to crush
some of the foremost of the liberal institutions of the provinces, in
detail. He found the city of Tournay a happy, thriving, self-governed
little republic in all its local affairs; he destroyed its liberties,
without a tolerable pretext, and reduced it to the con