Resolved to annihilate the reformation in the Netherlands, Philip converted the _three_ bishoprics into archbishoprics, and established seventeen bishoprics, with a court of inquisition, under the direction of Cardinal Granvile. The Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and Count Horn remonstrated with the Duchess of Parma, against the Inquisition and Cardinal Granvile. This was in vain. The executions of the Inquisition became more frequent and more rigorous than before; and a general combination was resolved on, to procure a redress of the common grievances. The Duchess of Parma remonstrated with Philip; but the infatuated monarch was deaf to every argument; and the only concession which he made was, that, for the future, heretics, instead of being burnt, should be hanged. Philip, influenced by superstition, and governed by the priests, supported the policy of the inquisitors in the Netherlands. Their cruelties, therefore, increased, until the people broke out into open revolt. The populace made disturbances, throwing down the images in the churches, and committing other acts of violence. The king threatened vengeance upon the transgressors; and submitted the case to the supreme court of inquisition in Spain, to know its judgment concerning the revolters--information and depositions being given by the inferior inquisitors among the disaffected, that court determined that the inhabitants of the Netherlands were guilty of treason. Philip now indulged his bigotry to the utmost, regardless of the welfare of his subjects. He sent “the Duke of Alva, of infamous memory,” into the Netherlands, with a powerful army to destroy the heretics. That monster, whose bigotry, pride, and stubbornness corresponded with those of his royal master, is said to have “poured out the Protestant blood as water on every side; while _one hundred and twenty thousand_ fled from the persecution.” Throughout all their cities, old and young, men and women, without any distinction of dignity, age, or sex, might be seen suffering by the sword, the gibbet, the fire, and other torments, until the wretched people, roused with indignation, arose as one man, and totally overthrew the horrid Inquisition. William, prince of Orange, undertook the deliverance of his native country, which he accomplished with troops levied among the refugees and the German Protestants. The mortified King of Spain recalled the Duke of Alva; but that “monster boasted that he had delivered into the hands of the executioners above _eighteen thousand_ heretics and rebels, besides those who died in the war!” Father Paul reckons the Belgic martyrs at 50,000; but Hugo Grotius estimates the numbers who suffered by the hands of the executioner at no less than 100,000. Popery, however, with the accursed Inquisition, was thus driven from the country, and the civil war terminated only with a new form of government, which formed a new Protestant state in Europe, under the title of “THE SEVEN UNITED PROVINCES.”