In 1579, Alessandro Farnese became the royalist governor-general. He immediately offered to return to the southern Catholic nobles their original privileges. With the Spanish army under control and their local liberties returned, the Walloon nobles and southern provinces no longer had any reason to rebel. However, the northern, Calvinist-controlled provinces were as unwilling to give up their religion as Philip II was to allow them to practice it. The French-speaking provinces thereby concluded the Union of Arras, prompting the northern provinces to answer with their own Union of Utrecht. These two agreements produced a split between Habsburg Netherlands, never to be reconciled.