The political aim of the kings of Spain was attained, for the maintenance of religious unity preserved the kingdom from the bloody catastrophes which at that period spread desolation throughout France and England. This is admitted even by Voltaire, in his “Essai sur l’Histoire Générale.” While deploring the horrors of the Inquisition, he says, “In Spain there were none of those bloody revolutions, conspiracies, or cruel reprisals which disgraced every other European nation. Neither Count Olivarès nor the Duke of Lerma sent their enemies to the scaffold, and sovereigns were never assassinated as in France, nor did they suffer beneath the headsman’s axe, as in England.” [Illustration: Fig. 338.--Philip II., King of Spain.--From the work of Cesare Vecellio: 8vo, 1590.] The Inquisition was less successful in the Netherlands, for the Protestant cause made great progress in Holland during the reign of Charles V. The nobility and the upper clergy, indignant at the rigorous measures adopted by Philip II. (Fig. 338) in his efforts to put down heresy, countenanced the general uprising against the Spaniards. Emboldened thereby, the Protestants flew to arms, the churches were burnt, the priests and monks were massacred, and the Catholic form of worship suppressed in many localities. Philip dispatched thither the notorious Duke of Alva, who, on assuming the command, instituted the _council of troubles_, which the people nicknamed the _council of blood_. The religious question resolved itself into a struggle for national independence. A bitter war resulted in the definite separation of the United Provinces, which afterwards became the kingdom of Holland. Belgium, created an independent province, was handed over with hereditary rights to Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella, daughter of Philip II. [Illustration: Fig. 339.--Cruelties committed by the Gueux, in Holland. A. Master John Jerome, of Edam, and other Catholics of Hoorn, being put to the torture, at Scagen, in Northern Holland. Those who survive the first tortures are tied down upon their backs, a large cauldron turned upside down is placed upon their naked stomachs, with a number of large dormice underneath. A fire is lighted upon the top of the cauldron which enrages the dormice; and as they are unable to creep under the edges of the cauldron, they burrow into the entrails of the victim. B. Ursula Talèse, a nun of Haarlem, having refused to renounce her faith when made to stand beneath the gibbet upon which her father had been hung, is thrown into the water and drowned. C. Her sister, bewailing her fate and that of her father, also refuses to change her creed, and her skull is beaten in with a large stone.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on Copper in the “Theatrum Crudelitatum nostri Temporis” (4to, Antwerp, 1587); with a translation of the explanations given.]