Here, in the outset, he seems to have fallen into a capital error, by committing so large a share in the government to the hands of a foreigner,--Granvelle. The country was filled with nobles, some of them men of the highest birth, whose ancestors were associated with the most stirring national recollections, and who were endeared, moreover, to their countrymen by their own services. To several of these Philip himself was under no slight obligations for the aid they had afforded him in the late war,--on the fields of Gravelines and St. Quentin, and in the negotiation of the treaty which closed his hostilities with France. It was hardly to be expected that these proud nobles, conscious of their superior claims, and accustomed to so much authority and deference in their own land, would tamely submit to the control of a stranger, a man of obscure family, like his father indebted for his elevation to the royal favor. [Sidenote: DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS.] Besides these great lords, there was a numerous aristocracy, inferior nobles and cavaliers, many of whom had served under the standard of Charles in his long wars. They there formed those formidable companies of _ordonnance_, whose fame perhaps stood higher than that of any other corps of the imperial cavalry. The situation of these men, now disbanded, and, with their roving military habits, hanging loosely on the country, has been compared by a modern author to that which, on the accession of the Bourbons, was occupied by the soldiers whom Napoleon had so often led to victory.[494] To add to their restlessness, many of these, as well as of the higher nobility, were embarrassed by debts contracted in their campaigns, or by too ambitious expenditure at home, especially in rivalry with the ostentatious Spaniard. "The Flemish nobles," says a writer of the time, "were too many of them oppressed by heavy debts and the payment of exorbitant interest. They spent twice as much as they were worth on their palaces, furniture, troops of retainers, costly liveries, their banquets and sumptuous entertainments of every description,--in fine, in every form of luxury and superfluity that could be devised. Thus discontent became prevalent through the country, and men anxiously looked forward to some change."[495]