The existing bishops resented the diminution of their jurisdiction and dignity, and still louder were the protests of the abbots, whose endowments were appropriated to furnish the incomes of the new sees.  Still more formidable was the hostility of the people generally, a hostility founded on fear, for the introduction of so many new bishops nominated by the king was looked upon as being the first step to prepare the way for the bringing in of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition.  Already the edicts against heretics, which Charles V had enacted and severely enforced, were being carried out throughout the length and breadth of the land with increasing and merciless barbarity.  Both papal and episcopal inquisitors were active in the work of persecution, and so many were the sentences that in many places the civil authorities, and even some of the stadholders, declined to carry out the executions.  Public opinion looked upon Granvelle as the author of the new bishoprics scheme and the instigator of the increased activity of the persecutors.  He was accused of being eager to take any measures to repress the ancient liberties of the Netherland provinces and to establish a centralised system of absolute rule, in order to ingratiate himself with the king and so to secure his own advancement.  That the cardinal was ambitious of power there can be no question.  But to men of Granvelle’s great abilities, as administrator and statesman, ambition is not necessarily a fault; and access to the secret records and correspondence of the time has revealed that the part played by him was far from being so sinister as was believed.  The Bishop of Arras was not consulted about the bishoprics proposal until after the Papal Bull had been secured, and at first he was unfavourable to it and was not anxious to become archbishop and primate.  It was his advice which led Margaret to send away the hated Spanish regiments from Netherland soil; and, far from being naturally a relentless persecutor, there is proof that neither he nor the president of the Privy Council, the jurist Viglius, believed in the policy of harsh and brutal methods for stamping out heretical opinions.  They had in this as in other matters to obey their master, and allow the odium to fall upon themselves.

To Orange and Egmont, the two leaders of the opposition to Granvelle, a third name, that of Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn and Admiral of Flanders, has now to be added.  These three worked together for the overthrow of the Cardinal, but their opposition at this time was based rather on political than on religious grounds.  They all professed the Catholic faith, but the marriage of Orange in August, 1561, with a Lutheran, Anne daughter of Maurice of Saxony and granddaughter of Philip of Hesse, was ominous of coming change in William’s religious opinions.  In 1562 the discontent of the nobles led to the formation of a league against the cardinal, of which, in addition to the three leaders, the Counts of Brederode, Mansfeld