The persecutions produced the effects which might have been foreseen. They caused the immortal revolt of the Netherlands. “Nothing was talked of but the Edicts and the Inquisition. Nothing else entered into the minds of men. In the streets, in the shops, in the taverns, in the fields; at market, at church, at funerals, at weddings; in the noble’s castle, at the farmer’s fireside, in the mechanic’s garret, upon the merchants’ exchange, there was but one perpetual subject of shuddering conversation. It was better, men began to whisper to each other, to die at once than to live in perpetual slavery. It was better to fall with arms in hand than to be tortured and butchered by the Inquisition.”[32] Eminent men inveighed against the tyranny of the Government, and several of the nobles refused to obey the Edicts. At first it was debated whether Philip would be mad enough to enforce them, but all doubt as to his intentions was removed by the Inquisition being formally proclaimed in every town and village throughout the country. The Netherlanders steeled their hearts, and prepared to resist to the death. As Motley remarks: “They knew that the obligation of a King to his vassals was as sacred as the duties of the subjects to the sovereign.” Philip was not unaware of the peril, but, like the wooden-headed bigot that he was, considered the danger of discrediting the Inquisition greater than any inconveniences that were likely to result from its rigour. The general indignation became so pronounced that Philip was urged to modify his instructions in some important particulars, the chief of which were the repeal of the Edicts and the abolition of the Inquisition. Very reluctantly he agreed to make certain concessions, but the sincerity of his compliance may be estimated from the facts that he withdrew the Papal but maintained the Episcopal Inquisition, stimulating the latter to fresh exertions, and that he agreed to relax the penalty of death for heresy, though, considering the promise extorted from him, he declined to be bound by it. He wrote to his envoy at Rome that this was, perhaps, the best arrangement, “since the abolition would have no force unless the Pope, by whom the institution had been established, consented to its suspension. This matter, however, was to be kept a profound secret.... The Papal institution, notwithstanding the official letters, was to exist, unless the Pope chose to destroy it; and his Holiness had sent the Archbishop of Sorrento, a few weeks before, to Brussels, for the purpose of concerting secret measures for strengthening the Holy Office in the Provinces.”[33] The severity of the Edicts Philip declined to mitigate; his secret resolve was not only to keep them in full force, but so efficiently to support the Inquisition that all his heretic subjects could be exterminated, even if it cost him his realm and his life.