The Spanish inquisition had never flourished in any soil but that of the peninsula.  It is possible that the King and Granvelle were sincere in their protestations of entertaining no intention of introducing it into the Netherlands, although the protestations of such men are entitled to but little weight.  The truth was, that the inquisition existed already in the provinces.  It was the main object of the government to confirm and extend the institution.  The episcopal inquisition, as we have already seen, had been enlarged by the enormous increase in the number of bishops, each of whom was to be head inquisitor in his diocese, with two special inquisitors under him.  With this apparatus and with the edicts, as already described, it might seem that enough had already been done for the suppression of heresy.  But more had been done.  A regular papal inquisition also existed in the Netherlands.  This establishment, like the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth.  A word of introduction is here again necessary—­nor let the reader deem that too much time is devoted to this painful subject.  On the contrary, no definite idea can be formed as to the character of the Netherland revolt without a thorough understanding of this great cause—­the religious persecution in which the country had lived, breathed, and had its being, for half a century, and in which, had the rebellion not broken out at last, the population must have been either exterminated or entirely embruted.  The few years which are immediately to occupy us in the present and succeeding chapter, present the country in a daily increasing ferment from the action of causes which had existed long before, but which received an additional stimulus as the policy of the new reign developed itself.

Previously to the accession of Charles V., it can not be said that an inquisition had ever been established in the provinces.  Isolated instances to the contrary, adduced by the canonists who gave their advice to Margaret of Parma, rather proved the absence than the existence of the system.  In the reign of Philip the Good, the vicar of the inquisitor-general gave sentence against some heretics, who were burned in Lille (1448).  In 1459, Pierre Troussart, a Jacobin monk, condemned many Waldenses, together with some leading citizens of Artois, accused of sorcery and heresy.  He did this, however, as inquisitor for the Bishop of Arras, so that it was an act of episcopal, and not papal inquisition.  In general, when inquisitors were wanted in the provinces, it was necessary to borrow them from France or Germany.  The exigencies of persecution making a domestic staff desirable, Charles the Fifth, in the year 1522, applied to his ancient tutor, whom he had placed on the papal throne.