With the single exception of Count Egmont, in whose province of Flanders the stadholders were excluded from the administration of justice,--all were likewise supreme judges in the civil and criminal tribunal.

The military force of the Netherlands in time of peace was small, for the provinces were jealous of the presence of soldiery.

The only standing army which then legally existed in the Netherlands were the Bandes d'Ordonnance, a body of mounted gendarmerie--amounting in all to three thousand men--which ranked among the most accomplished and best disciplined cavalry of Europe.

They were divided into fourteen squadrons, each under the command of a stadholder, or of a distinguished noble.

Besides these troops, however, there still remained in the provinces a foreign force amounting in the aggregate to four thousand men.