the low-born individuals who had become possessed of them, that, in
particular, the rich abbey lands held by idle priests might be
appropriated to the use of impoverished gentlemen who could turn them to
so much better account. It is quite probable that interested motives such
as these were not entirely inactive among a comparatively small class of
gentlemen. The religious reformation in every land of Europe derived a
portion of its strength from the opportunity it afforded to potentates
and great nobles for helping themselves to Church property. No doubt many
Netherlanders thought that their fortunes might be improved at the
expense of the monks, and for the benefit of religion. Even without
apostasy from the mother Church, they looked with longing eyes on the
wealth of her favored and indolent children. They thought that the King
would do well to carve a round number of handsome military commanderies
out of the abbey lands, whose possessors should be bound to military
service after the ancient manner of fiefs, so that a splendid cavalry,
headed by the gentlemen of the country, should be ever ready to mount and
ride at the royal pleasure, in place of a horde of lazy epicureans,
telling beads and indulging themselves in luxurious vice.

Such views were entertained; such language often held. These
circumstances and sentiments had their influence among the causes which
produced the great revolt now impending. Care should be taken, however,
not to exaggerate that influence. It is a prodigious mistake to refer
this great historical event to sources so insufficient as the ambition of
a few great nobles, and the embarrassments of a larger number of needy
gentlemen. The Netherlands revolt was not an aristocratic, but a popular,
although certainly not a democratic movement. It was a great episode--the
longest, the darkest, the bloodiest, the most important episode in the
history of the religious reformation in Europe. The nobles so conspicuous
upon the surface at the outbreak, only drifted before a storm which they
neither caused nor controlled. Even the most powerful and the most
sagacious were tossed to and fro by the surge of great events, which, as
they rolled more and more tumultuously around them, seemed to become both
irresistible and unfathomable.

For the state of the people was very different from the condition of the
aristocracy. The period of martyrdom had lasted long and was to last
loner; but there were symptoms