Such were the expedients adopted by Charles the Fifth for the suppression of heresy in the Netherlands. Notwithstanding the name of "inquisitors," the new establishment bore faint resemblance to the dread tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, with which it has been often confounded.[391] The Holy Office presented a vast and complicated machinery, skilfully adapted to the existing institutions of Castile. It may be said to have formed part of the government itself, and, however restricted in its original design, it became in time a formidable political engine, no less than a religious one. The grand-inquisitor was clothed with an authority before which the monarch himself might tremble. On some occasions, he even took precedence of the monarch. The courts of the Inquisition were distributed throughout the country, and were conducted with a solemn pomp that belonged to no civil tribunal. Spacious buildings were erected for their accommodation, and the gigantic prisons of the Inquisition rose up, like impregnable fortresses, in the principal cities of the kingdom. A swarm of menials and officials waited to do its bidding. The proudest nobles of the land held it an honor to serve as familiars of the Holy Office. In the midst of this external pomp, the impenetrable veil thrown over its proceedings took strong hold of the imagination, investing the tribunal with a sort of supernatural terror. An individual disappeared from the busy scenes of life. No one knew whither he had gone, till he reappeared, clothed in the fatal garb of the _san benito_, to take part in the tragic spectacle of an _auto da fé_. This was the great triumph of the Inquisition, rivalling the ancient Roman triumph in the splendor of the show, and surpassing it in the solemn and mysterious import of the ceremonial. It was hailed with enthusiasm by the fanatical Spaniard of that day, who, in the martyrdom of the infidel, saw only a sacrifice most acceptable to the Deity. The Inquisition succeeded in Spain, for it was suited to the character of the Spaniard. But it was not suited to the free and independent character of the people of the Netherlands. Freedom of thought they claimed as their birthright; and the attempt to crush it by introducing the pernicious usages of Spain was everywhere received with execration. Such an institution was an accident, and could not become an integral part of the constitution. It was a vicious graft on a healthy stock. It could bear no fruit, and sooner or later it must perish.