advice.  Innumerable were the appeals made in subsequent years, upon this subject, to the patriotism and the conservative sentiments of the Netherlanders.  Repeatedly they were summoned to maintain the inquisition, on the ground that it had been submitted to by their ancestors, and that no change had been made by Philip, who desired only to maintain church and crown in the authority which they had enjoyed in the days of his father of very laudable memory.

Nevertheless, the King’s military plans seemed to interfere for the moment with this cherished object.  He seemed to swerve, at starting, from pursuing the goal which he was only to abandon with life.  The edict of 1550 was re-enacted and confirmed, and all office-holders were commanded faithfully to enforce it upon pain of immediate dismissal.  Nevertheless, it was not vigorously carried into effect any where.  It was openly resisted in Holland, its proclamation was flatly refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant.  It was strange that such disobedience should be tolerated, but the King wanted money.  He was willing to refrain for a season from exasperating the provinces by fresh religious persecution at the moment when he was endeavoring to extort every penny which it was possible to wring from their purses.

The joy, therefore, with which the pacification had been hailed by the people was far from an agreeable spectacle to the King.  The provinces would expect that the forces which had been maintained at their expense during the war would be disbanded, whereas he had no intention of disbanding them.  As the truce was sure to be temporary, he had no disposition to diminish his available resources for a war which might be renewed at any moment.  To maintain the existing military establishment in the Netherlands, a large sum of money was required, for the pay was very much in arrear.  The king had made a statement to the provincial estates upon this subject, but the matter was kept secret during the negotiations with France.  The way had thus been paved for the “Request” or “Bede,” which he now made to the estates assembled at Brussels, in the spring of 1556.  It was to consist of a tax of one per cent. (the hundredth penny) upon all real estate, and of two per cent. upon all merchandise; to be collected in three payments.  The request, in so far as the imposition of the proposed tax was concerned, was refused by Flanders, Brabant, Holland, and all the other important provinces, but as usual, a moderate, even a generous, commutation in money was offered by the estates.  This was finally accepted by Philip, after he had become convinced that at this moment, when he was contemplating a war with France, it would be extremely impolitic to insist upon the tax.  The publication of the truce in Italy had been long delayed, and the first infractions which it suffered were committed in that country.  The arts of politicians; the schemes of individual ambition, united with the short-lived military ardor of Philip to place the monarch in an eminently false position, that of hostility to the Pope.  As was unavoidable, the secret treaty of December acted as an immediate dissolvent to the truce of February.