M. Crétineau-Joly is not so candid when he turns to Holland. He marks how, in spite of the heretical atmosphere, the Jesuits have planted colonies at Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Leyden, Harlem, Delft, Rotterdam, Gouda, Hoorn, Alkmaer, Harlingen, Groningen, Bolsward, Zutphen, Nimegues, and Vianen; how they mingle with the Spanish troops and board their vessels in the war; how they press on to Denmark, and are seen everywhere as the fearless "standard-bearers of the Church." It was, perhaps, natural that he should be indisposed to mar this picture with an account of the relations of the Jesuits to the secular clergy; but, since our purpose is to attain a just and complete view of the Jesuit character, we are compelled to consider it. During forty years they maintained a struggle similar to that they had conducted in England in the days of Elizabeth.
The secular clergy of Holland pressed for the appointment of a bishop, and the Jesuits used all their resources to prevent such an appointment, since it threatened their ascendancy. When a priest named Sasbold was named for the office, they made a scandalous attack on his character; and when, in 1602, he was appointed Archbishop of Utrecht, they had his name changed to Archbishop of Philippi. Until his death in 1614 they conducted an unceasing intrigue against Sasbold, and they first endeavoured to prevent the appointment of a successor, and then transferred their rancorous hostility to him. They had been banished from Holland in 1612, but they again secured toleration, and by 1628 there were seventy Jesuits in the country. The struggle against the archbishop continued all through the period, in spite of several papal injunctions that they were to obey him; but it is unnecessary to enter into all the details. We need not question the bravery of the Jesuits as standard-bearers of the Church, but it is impossible to admire their efforts to prevent the employment of other standard-bearers. Their work was, in point of fact, less effective than that of the secular clergy, because the Dutch Protestants hated and distrusted them. They were found in 1638 to be implicated in a political plot to introduce the Spaniards, and two of them were tortured and executed.