The gilds of Ghent, a proud and ancient city, suffering from the encroachments of capitalism and from the decline of the Flemish cloth industry, had long asserted among their rights that of each gild to refuse to pay one of the taxes, any one it chose, levied by the government.

[Sidenote: 1539] The attempt {237} of the government to suppress this privilege caused a rising which took the characteristically modern form of a general strike.
The regent of the Netherlands, Mary, yielded at first to the demands of the gilds, as she had no means of coercion convenient.

Charles was in Spain at the time, but hurried northward, being granted free passage through France by the king who felt he had an interest in aiding his fellow monarch to put down rebellious subjects.

Early in 1540 Charles entered Ghent at the head of a sufficient army.

He soon meted out a sanguinary punishment to the "brawlers" as the strikers were called, humbled the city government, deprived it of all local privileges, suppressed all independent corporations, asserted the royal prerogative of nominating aldermen, and erected a fortress to overawe the burghers.
Thus the only overt attempt to resist the authority of Charles V, apart from one or two insignificant Anabaptist riots, was crushed.
In matters of foreign policy the people of the Netherlands naturally wished to be guided in reference to their own interests and not to the larger interests of the emperor's other domains.