Flanders from accepting the proposed arrangement with Parma. The people
of Ghent were reminded that the chief promoter of this new negotiation
was Champagny, a man who owed a deep debt of hatred to their city, for
the long, and as he believed, the unjust confinement which he had endured
within its walls. Moreover, he was the brother of Granvelle, source of
all their woes. To take counsel with Champagny, was to come within reach
of a deadly foe, for "he who confesses himself to a wolf," said the
burgomasters of Antwerp, "will get wolf's absolution." The Flemings were
warned by all their correspondents that it was puerile to hope for faith
in Philip; a monarch whose first principle was, that promises to heretics
were void. They were entreated to pay no heed to the "sweet singing of
the royalists," who just then affected to disapprove of the practice
adopted by the Spanish Inquisition, that they might more surely separate
them from their friends. "Imitate not," said the magistrates of
Brussels, "the foolish sheep who made with the wolves a treaty of
perpetual amity, from which the faithful dogs were to be excluded."
It was affirmed--and the truth was certainly beyond peradventure--that
religious liberty was dead at the moment when the treaty with Parma
should be signed. "To look for political privilege or evangelical
liberty," said the Antwerp authorities, "in any arrangement with the
Spaniards, is to look for light in darkness, for fire in water." "Philip
is himself the slave of the Inquisition," said the states-general, "and
has but one great purpose in life--to cherish the institution everywhere,
and particularly in the Netherlands. Before Margaret of Parma's time,
one hundred thousand Netherlanders had been burned or strangled, and Alva
had spent seven years in butchering and torturing many thousands more."
The magistrates of Brussells used similar expressions. "The King of
Spain," said they to their brethren of Ghent, "is fastened to the
Inquisition. Yea, he is so much in its power, that even if he desired,
he is unable to maintain his promises." The Prince of Orange too,