We have seen that the secular officers of justice were at the command of the inquisitors.

Sheriff, gaoler, judge, and hangman, were all required, under the most terrible penalties, to do their bidding.

The reader knows what the edicts were.

He knows also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person and by letter, had done his utmost to sharpen those instructions, during the latter portion of his sojourn in the Netherlands.

Fourteen new bishops, each with two special inquisitors under him, had also been appointed to carry out the great work to which the sovereign had consecrated his existence.