An assembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain.  The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a “request” for three million gold florins “to be spent for the good of the country.”  He made a violent attack on “the new, reprobate and damnable sects that now infested the country,” and commanded the Regent Margaret “accurately and exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the extirpation of all sects and heresies.”  The Estates of all the provinces agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of the “request,” but made it a condition precedent that the foreign troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable burden, should be withdrawn.  This enraged the king, but when a presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the foreign soldiers, the king was furious.  He, however, dissembled at a later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.

Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip, the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war.  As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion, Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors.  To sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept in the provinces indefinitely.

Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign soldiery.  The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient charters and constitutions.  Foremost in resistance was the Prince of Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle.  Finally, Granvelle was recalled by Philip.  But the Netherlands had now reached a condition of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.