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 any interference on the part of the magistracy to wreak their will upon its splendid and priceless contents.

The effect of the outbreak was in every way disastrous. The regent was alienated from the popular leaders, and was no longer disposed to help William of Orange, Egmont, and Hoorn to secure a mitigation of religious persecution; and the heart of Philip was hardened in its resolve to exterminate heresy in the Netherlands. He dissembled until such time as he could despatch his greatest general, the duke of Alva, to Brussels at the head of a picked force to crush all opposition.

William of Orange was not deceived by the specious temporizing of the king. He foresaw the coming storm, and he did his utmost to induce Egmont, Hoorn and other prominent members of the patriotic party to unite with him in taking measures for meeting the approaching danger. Egmont and Hoorn refused to do anything that might be construed

into disloyalty; in these circumstances William felt that the time had come to provide for his personal safety. He withdrew (April 1567) first to his residence at Breda, and then to the ancestral seat of his family at Dillenburg in Nassau.

Margaret of Parma meanwhile, with the aid of a considerable body of German mercenaries, had inflicted exemplary punishment upon the iconoclasts and Calvinist sectaries. A body of some 2000 men drawn principally from Antwerp were cut to pieces at Austruweel (March 13, 1567), and their leader John de Marnix, lord of Thouseule,

slain. Valenciennes, the chief centre of disturbance in the south, was besieged and taken by Philip de Noircarmes, governor of Hainault, who inflicted a savage vengeance (April 1567). The regent therefore represented to her brother that the disorders were entirely put down and that the time had come to show mercy. But Philip’s preparations were now complete, and Alva set out from Italy at the head of a force of some 10,000 veteran troops, Spaniards and Italians, afterwards increased by a body of Germans, with which, after marching through Burgundy, Lorraine and Luxemburg, he reached the Netherlands (August 8), and made his entry into Brussels a fortnight later.

The powers conferred on Alva were those of military dictator. The title of regent was left to the duchess Margaret, but she speedily sent in her resignation, which was accepted (October 6). Before this took place events had been moving fast. On the 9th of September Egmont and Hoorn were arrested as they left a council at the duke’s

residence and were confined in the castle of Ghent. At the same time Orange’s friend, the powerful burgomaster of Antwerp, Anthony van Stralen, was seized. The next step of Alva was to create a special tribunal which was officially known as the “Council of Troubles,” but was popularly branded with the name of the “Council of Blood,” and as such it has passed down to history. As a tribunal it had no legal status. The duke himself was president and all sentences were submitted to him. Two members only, Vargas and del Rio, both Spaniards, had votes. A swarm of commissioners ransacked the provinces in search of delinquents, and the council sat daily for hours, condemning the accused, almost without a hearing, in batches together. The executioners were ceaselessly at work with stake, sword and

gibbet. Crowds of fugitives crossed the frontier to seek refuge in Germany and England. The prince of Orange was publicly declared an outlaw and his property confiscated (January 24, 1568). A few weeks later his eldest son, Philip William, count of Buren, a student at the university of Louvain, was kidnapped and carried off to Madrid. William had meanwhile succeeded in raising a force in Germany with which his brother Louis invaded Friesland. He gained a victory at Heiligerlee (May 23) over a Spanish force under Count Aremberg. Aremberg himself was killed, as was Adolphus of Nassau, a younger brother of William and Louis. But Alva himself took the field, and at Jemmingen (July 21) completely annihilated the force of Louis, who himself narrowly escaped with his life. One result of the victory of Heiligerlee

was the determination of Alva that Egmont and Hoorn

should die before he left Brussels for the campaign in Friesland. They were pronounced by the Council of Blood to be guilty of high treason (June 2, 1568). On the 6th of June they were beheaded before the Broodhuis at Brussels.

A few months after the disaster of Jemmingen, Orange, who had now become a Lutheran, himself led a large army into Brabant. He was met by Alva with cautious tactics. The Spaniards skilfully avoided a battle, and in November the invaders were compelled to withdraw across the French frontier through lack of resources,

and were disbanded. Alva was triumphant; but though Alva’s master had supplied him with an invincible army, he was unable to furnish him with the funds to pay for it. Money had to be raised by taxation, and at a meeting of the states-general (March 20, 1569) the governor-general proposed (1) an immediate tax of 1% on all property, (2) a tax of 5% on all transfers of real estate, (3) a tax of 10% on the sale of all articles of commerce, the last two taxes to be granted in perpetuity. Everywhere the proposal met with uncompromising resistance. After a prolonged struggle, Alva succeeded in obtaining a subsidy of 2,000,000 fl. for two years only. All this time the brutal work of the Blood Council went on, as did the exodus of thousands upon thousands of industrious and well-to-do citizens, and with each year the detestation felt for Alva and his rule steadily increased.

All this time William and Louis were indefatigably making preparations for a new campaign, and striving by their agents to rouse the people to active resistance. The first successes were however to be not on land, but on the sea. In 1569 William in his capacity as sovereign prince of Orange issued letters-of-marque to a number of vessels to prey upon the Spanish commerce in the narrow seas. These corsairs, for such they were, were known by the name of Sea-Beggars (Gueux-de-Mer). Under the command of the lord of Lumbres, the lord of Treslong, and William de la Marck (lord of Lumey) they spread terror and alarm along the coast, seized much plunder, and in revenge for Alva’s cruelty committed acts of terrible barbarity upon the priests and monks and

catholic officials, as well as upon the crews of the vessels that fell into their hands. Their difficulty lay in the lack of ports in which to take refuge. At last by a sudden assault the Sea-Beggars seized the town of Brill at the mouth of the Maas (April 1, 1572). Encouraged by this success they next attacked and took Flushing, the port of Zeeland, which commanded the approach to Antwerp; and the inhabitants were compelled to take the oath to the prince of Orange, as stadtholder of the king. They next mastered Delfshaven and Schiedam. These striking successes caused a wave of

revolt to spread through Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht and Friesland. The principal towns gave in their submission to the prince of Orange, and acknowledged him as their lawful stadtholder. Within three months of the capture of Brill, Amsterdam was the only town in Holland in the hands of the Spaniards.

This revolt of the northern provinces was facilitated by the fact that Alva had withdrawn many of the garrisons, and was moving to oppose an invasion from the south. Louis of Nassau, with a small force raised in France with the The connivance of Charles IX., made a sudden dash into Hainault (May 1572) and captured Valenciennes and

Mons. Here he was shut in by a superior force of Spaniards, and made preparations to defend himself until relieved by the army which Orange was collecting on the eastern frontier. On the 9th of July William crossed the Rhine, and captured Malines, Termonde and Oudenarde, and was advancing southwards when the news reached him of the massacre of St Bartholomew, which deprived him of the promised aid of Coligny and his army of 12,000 men. He made an attempt, however, to relieve Mons, but his camp at Harmignies was surprised by a night attack, and William himself narrowly escaped capture. The next morning he retreated, and six days later Mons surrendered. 