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.
Charles had, however, already, in the previous year appointed Francis Van der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Netherlands.

This man, whom Erasmus called a "wonderful enemy to learning," was also provided with a coadjutor, Nicholas of Egmond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was characterized by the same authority as "a madman armed with a sword." The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal.

He was, however, in pronouncing definite judgments, to take the advice of Laurens, president of the grand council of Mechlin, a coarse, cruel and ignorant man, who "hated learning with a more than deadly hatred," and who might certainly be relied upon to sustain the severest judgments which the inquisitor might fulminate.