James Edwin Thorold Rogers

“ The distress of Mary has claimed the sympathy of the sentimental. But it is one of the most inevitable and disheartening results of hereditary rank, that it breeds hereditary lackeys. One result, however, came out of the old fox’s perfidy. Mary would have none of his, or those who were allied to him.
She married Maximilian of Hapsburg, son and successor of Frederic the Sleepy, and with the consent of the Netherlanders. Maximilian was a king, soon to be an emperor, with vast necessities and narrow means. He became from time to time the pensioner and the tool of most of the Western kings. ”

“ In answer to these demands, Mary granted the “Great Privilege,” the Magna Charta of the Netherlands. It was this constitution which Mary's grandson violated, which the Netherlanders took up arms to recover and maintain, which Holland fought for during more than fifty years, and finally secured. It provided that offices should be filled by natives only; that the Great Council and Supreme Court of Holland should be re-established, and should be a court of appeal, having no jurisdiction over the other tribunals; that the cities and estates should hold diets when they chose ”

“ The dissensions of the Estates had put them at the mercy of an autocratic family.
Philip of Burgundy, in 1496, married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1500 his son Charles was born, who was afterwards Charles the Fifth, Duke of the Netherlands, but also King of Spain, Emperor of Germany, King of Jerusalem, and, by the grant of Alexander the Sixth, alias Roderic Borgia and Pope, lord of the whole new world. ”