Of the seventeen provinces which formed the Netherlands at the accession of Philip II., the greater number had been gradually collected together by the powerful Dukes of Burgundy during the fifteenth century, by successful marriages, by cession, and by conquest. On the marriage of the Burgundian heiress Mary to Maximilian they had passed to the house of Hapsburg, and thence, by the marriage of the Archduke Philip and Joanna, to their son Charles V. The tie which bound these provinces together was purely a personal one. They were held by various titles.[68] They were inhabited by peoples of different race and language; the Dutchman in the north-east, the Flamand in Brabant, the Walloon and the German in the western and southern provinces. The social conditions also varied. In Flanders and Brabant the country districts were in the hands of a powerful nobility, the cities inhabited by an industrial and turbulent people, controlled by opulent burghers. In the north, the democratic element predominated, more especially in the Frisian provinces, and the inhabitants spent their life either in fishing and commerce on the sea, or in saving their country from its inroads. These differences, social and political, were reflected in the variety of their institutions. Each province had its own peculiar government. Many had especial privileges guaranteed them by charter, and no native of one province could constitutionally hold office in another. | Policy of Charles V. The attempt of the Dukes of Burgundy to establish a more centralised system of government, and to fuse these heterogeneous elements into greater unity, had been strenuously resisted, more especially by the burghers of Brabant and of Flanders, and the relations between the provinces and their rulers had often been severely strained. During the rule of the Archduke Philip (1494-1506) the struggle had abated, but with the accession of Charles V., the policy of consolidation and centralisation was again resumed. The boundaries were extended by the acquisition of West Friesland in 1524, of the lordship of Gröningen in 1536, and of the duchy of Gueldres and of the county of Zutphen in 1543. By the treaty of Madrid (1526), Artois, Flanders, and Tournay were freed from their dependence on France, and in 1528, Charles acquired the temporalities of the bishopric of Utrecht, and the lordship of Overyssel. In 1548, the whole of the Netherlands were formed into the Burgundian Circle, while retaining their independence of the Diet and the Imperial Chamber, and Charles thought of erecting them into a middle kingdom under a separate government--a policy which was, unfortunately, reversed when, in 1555, Charles decided to leave these provinces to his son. Owing to his necessary absence from the country, the Emperor left the control of the government in the hands of Governesses--his aunt, Margaret of Savoy, ruling from 1506 to 1530; his sister, Mary of Hungary, the widow of Lewis, from 1530