The metropolitan heart of the whole country was almost motionless.
Men high in authority sympathized with the general indignation.

The Marquis Berghen, the younger Mansfeld, the Baron Montigny, openly refused to enforce the edicts within their governments.

Men of eminence inveighed boldly and bitterly against the tyranny of the government, and counselled disobedience.

The Netherlanders, it was stoutly maintained, were not such senseless brutes as to be ignorant of the mutual relation of prince and people.

They knew that the obligation of a king to his vassals was as sacred as the duties of the subjects to the sovereign.
The four principal cities of Brabant first came forward in formal denunciation of the outrage.