Their religious ardor had not been fully awakened; but the events of the next generation were to prove that in no respect more than in the religious sentiment, were the two races opposed to each other.

It was as certain that the Netherlanders would be fierce reformers as that the Spaniards would be uncompromising persecutors.

Unhallowed was the union between nations thus utterly contrasted.
Philip the Fair and Ferdinand had detested and quarrelled with each other from the beginning.

The Spaniards and Flemings participated in the mutual antipathy, and hated each other cordially at first sight.

The unscrupulous avarice of the Netherland nobles in Spain, their grasping and venal ambition, enraged and disgusted the haughty Spaniards.