In 1515 Charles secured from Leo X and again in 1530 from Clement VII the right of nomination to vacant benefices.

He was able to make of the bishops his tools and to curtail the freedom, jurisdiction, and financial privileges of the clergy considerably because the spiritual estate had lost favor with the people and received no support from them.
As the two privileged classes surrendered their powers to the monarch, the third estate was coming into its own.

Not until the war of independence, however, was it able to withstand the combination of bureaucracy and plutocracy that made common cause with the central government against the local rights of the cities and the customary privileges of the gilds.

Almost everywhere the prince was able, with the tacit support of the wealthier burghers, to substitute for the officers elected by the gilds his own commissioners.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Ghent] But this usurpation, together with a variety of economic ills for which the commoners were inclined, quite wrongly, to blame the government, caused general discontent and in one case open rebellion.