to 1555--yet the policy of centralisation was steadily pursued. A States-General composed of clergy, nobles, and city representatives from each of the provinces, was summoned, although its meeting was not a success. A Central Court of Justice was again established at Mechlin, to which all provincial courts were declared subject. The control of the administration was placed in the hands of three Councils: a Privy Council, to act as a ministry of police and justice; a Court of Finance over the financial chambers of the provinces; and a Council of State, composed chiefly of the greater nobles, which, under the presidency of the Regent, was to administer foreign affairs and exercise a general superintendence over the other Councils. The provinces were placed in the hands of Stattholders, nominated from the ranks of the nobility by the Emperor himself. The other officials, both municipal and judicial, were usually appointed by him. The privileges of the towns were gradually circumscribed, and the attempt of Ghent to refuse a tax voted by the States-General, and generally to resist the centralising policy of the Emperor, was crushed out with merciless severity in 1540; the immunities and privileges of the city were declared forfeit, and the exclusive nomination of ten magistrates vested in the Emperor’s hands (cf. p. 209). It was on the question of heresy, however, that Charles proved himself most inexorable. Not only had the doctrines of Luther early spread among the Netherlanders, but the more extreme views of Calvin, which were even better suited to the genius and character of the people; while the extravagant and anarchical views of the Anabaptists of Munster had appeared at Amsterdam, and elsewhere. Untrammelled by the political difficulties which surrounded him in Germany, Charles was eager to crush out these opinions. A series of edicts, termed ‘Placards,’ culminating in that of 1550, threatened death by pit, fire, or sword to all convicted of heresy, or of harbouring heretics, of dealing in heretical books, of attending conventicles, of disputing on the Scriptures, or of image breaking. An attempt, indeed, to appoint one Inquisitor-General, with uncontrolled powers of enforcing these edicts, led to such discontent that the Inquisitor had to fly, and Charles was fain to content himself with dividing the office among four, who were not to proceed to sentence without the consent of the provincial council. If the number of victims under these ‘Placards’ has been grossly exaggerated, yet at least Charles had not refrained from persecution. Nevertheless, he was not unpopular in the Netherlands; the religious and political grievances had not as yet become identified. Charles was a Fleming born; in his earlier years he was entirely in the hands of his Flemish councillors, and if latterly the exigencies of his European position enforced his residence elsewhere, he often visited the home of his birth; and not only