So far as ink and sealing wax could defend a land against sword and fire, the Netherlands were impregnable against the edicts and the renewed episcopal inquisition.

Unfortunately, all history shows how feeble are barriers of paper or lambskin, even when hallowed with a monarch's oath, against the torrent of regal and ecclesiastical absolutism.

It was on the reception in the provinces of the new and confirmatory Bull concerning the bishoprics, issued in January, 1560, that the measure became known, and the dissatisfaction manifest.

The discontent was inevitable and universal.

The ecclesiastical establishment which was not to be enlarged or elevated but by consent of the estates, was suddenly expanded into three archiepiscopates and fifteen bishoprics.
The administration of justice, which was only allowed in free and local courts, distinct for each province, was to be placed, so far as regarded the most important of human interests, in the hands of bishops and their creatures, many of them foreigners and most of them monks.