The Revolt of the Netherlands

THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS Alva's rule, from 1568 to 1573, is the classical example of mili tary despotism. Margaret resigned soon of ter his arrival : Egmont and Hoorn had already been arrested. An illegal tribunal, the Council of Troubles, nicknamed the Council of Blood, was set up to try those who had taken part in the disturbances. There were wholesale executions. Crowds of refugees fled by sea and land. Orange was outlawed (Jan. 24, 1568) and his estates confiscated; his eldest son and heir, a student at Louvain, was kidnapped and carried away to Spain. The father meanwhile, acting in his ca pacity as a sovereign prince and making war nominally only on Alva, not on his master Philip, had raised an army in Germany which was led by his brother Louis of Nassau into Friesland. Here it won a fight at Heiligerlee (May 23) ; but at Jemgum or Jemmingen it was completely defeated on July 21 by Alva in person. Before setting out from Brussels he had struck a charac teristic blow. Egmont and Hoorn and 20 other nobles had been beheaded. In September Orange appeared with another army; but Alva, avoiding battle, starved him back into Germany. He was now undisputed master in the Netherlands and settled down to the military, ecclesiastical, judicial and other measures which were needed to consolidate his success. These measures caused sub terranean discontent and was growing opposition.

Campaigns of l572-73.

In 1572 affairs took a new turn. William had been in the habit of granting to some of his followers commissions to act as privateers. These fierce sea-rovers, the Sea Beggars (gueux de mer) had committed many depredations on commerce and had not abstained from cruelties, especially against priests, but they had had to operate from foreign parts, such as England or East Friesland. Now, on April I, 1572, they seized the port of Brill, at the mouth of the Maas. Soon after this they took Flushing, which commands the other great waterway, the Scheldt. Henceforth the rebels had a foothold of their own in the Netherlands. In comparison with this great fact it was of minor importance, though few saw it at the time, that an almost simultaneous movement of rebellion in the southern provinces was overpowered. William's brother Louis met with disaster in his seizure of Mons, from which the promised help of the French Huguenots was cut off by the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The co-operating army of William failed as his other armies had failed. Within three months of the capture of Brill Amsterdam was the only town still remaining to the Spaniards in the province of Holland. The States of Holland assembled and put the finances

and administration of the rebels on a sound footing. When the south fell away after his and Louis's failure, William took up his residence at Delft. He had been converted to Lutheranism at an earlier stage, but was soon to throw in his lot with the Calvinists of Holland. Alva moved northwards to stamp out the rebellion. At Mechlin there were three days of butchery. The duke's son Don Frederick de Toledo sacked Zutphen and massacred the whole population of Naarden. But a new element was making its appearance in history : the burghers began to show a heroism with which the Spaniards could not cope. Haarlem held out all through the winter. On July 12, 1573, it surrendered: the towns folk were spared, but the garrison, except the German merce naries, were killed to a man. At Alkmaar victory began : the dikes were cut and Don Frederick withdrew his army before the advancing inundations. In October Alva's fleet was defeated on the Zuider Zee and the admiral captured. On land his troops were unpaid and mutinous; he had lost the confidence of the king; on Dec. 18 he left Brussels, having served the master as badly as he had served the subjects.

Requesens.

His successor, Don Luis de Requesens, grand commander of Castile, arrived in Nov. 1573. Both sides were now ready for compromise. The south was suffering from the mari time war, but the north insisted on freedom of religious belief and the negotiations which were begun broke down in July Meanwhile the war had gone on, with serious reverses for the rebels but on the whole in their favour. In Feb. 1574 the fall of Middelburg ended the hold of the Spaniards on Zeeland ; but on March 14 Louis of Nassau was defeated and killed at Mook Heath near Nijmwegen. The siege of Leyden was a turning-point. After enduring every extremity the town was at last relieved on Oct. 3 by ships which crossed the flooded countryside. This triumph was commemorated by the foundation of the university which soon made Leyden one of the famous places of the world. During the summer support had been falling away from the inefficient Requesens : only Hainault, Artois and Namur appeared at a meeting of the States-General. On the other hand the north set about strengthening its organization. Holland and Zeeland made an agreement for union, and entrusted William of Orange, their stadholder, with the command of the naval and military forces and the final appointment to all political and judicial offices and to vacant city magistracies.