The deanery of St. Donatian's Church in Bruges was Baroque in style, intended to counter the Reformation. That period also happened to be the era of Spanish rule.
Even though the Spanish granted the people of the Netherlands autonomy, the Netherlands still erupted in the "Dutch Revolt" against Spanish rule, also known as the Eighty Years' War.
The Spanish king at the time was a famous Catholic, while the prosperity of the Netherlands had much to do with the Hanseatic League. Its principal participants were northern Germans, Britain, Sweden, and other Protestant nations. The reforms of Archduke Joseph II of Austria included freedom of worship for Protestant minorities, the secularization of civic status, and the abolition of monasteries and diocesan seminaries. The main opposition came from Catholic commoners. By then, the Hanseatic League had already dissolved, and Sweden, once the "lion of the North," had weakened as well. Protestants could no longer support William of Orange in fighting several major battles against the Spanish as they had in the seventeenth century.
The Inquisition did not merely try wizards; it also tried "heretics," and was sometimes used to eliminate political enemies. At long last, William of Orange was chosen by the Dutch people as monarch of the Dutch Republic, only to be assassinated in his own home by a Spanish assassin. Philip II, King of Spain, offered a reward of forty thousand guilders for the assassin, but the Spanish did not seize the chance to continue the war, because William's son inherited the Dutch throne. It was also William III of Orange and Mary II who, after the tyrant James II was overthrown, replaced James's son and were supported by Parliament of the United Kingdom as monarchs of Britain.
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