who, at the age of sixty, in the month of August 1567, made his entry into the Netherlands by the province of Luxemburg, at the head of an army of fifteen thousand men. One of his first acts, after arriving at Brussels, was to seize the Counts Egmont and Horn, and send them prisoners to Ghent. This and other acts convinced the Duchess of Parma that she was no longer the real regent of the Netherlands; and accordingly, having asked and obtained leave to resign, she quitted the country early in 1568, Alva assuming the government instead.

Now that a grand struggle was to ensue in the Netherlands, we trust our readers clearly understand what it was about. On the one hand was a nation of quiet, orderly people, industrious in a high degree, prosperous in their commerce, and disposed to remain peaceful subjects of a foreign monarch: all they asked was to be let alone, and to be allowed to worship God in the way they preferred. On the other hand was a sovereign, who, unthankful for the blessing of reigning over such a happy and well-disposed nation, and stimulated by passion and bigotry, resolved on compelling them all to be Catholics.

CRUELTIES OF ALVA.

Alva was a suitable instrument to work out Philip's designs. Supported by a powerful army, he was unscrupulous in his persecution. Blood was shed like water; the scaffolds were crowded with victims; the prisons filled with men in all the agonies of suspense. He appointed a court, called the Court of Tumults, to investigate with rigour into past offences. The Inquisition also pursued its diabolical vocation without opposition or disguise, covering the land with its black and baleful shadow. Heretics hid their heads, glad if present conformity would save them from the tortures which others were enduring for actions which they had thought forgotten. Above 18,000 persons in all are said to have suffered death by Alva's orders. And thousands more fled from the country, dispersing themselves through France and Germany; many of them also finding an asylum in England, into which, being kindly received by Queen Elizabeth, they carried those arts and habits which had raised the Flemings high among commercial nations, and which at once incorporated themselves with the genial civilisation of England. The Prince of Orange was declared a rebel; and his eldest son, the Count de Buren, then a student at the university of Louvain, was seized and sent a prisoner into Spain. But perhaps the most signal act of cruelty in the beginning of Alva's regency was the execution of the Counts Egmont and Horn. After an imprisonment of nine months, these unfortunate noblemen were brought to a mock trial, and beheaded at Brussels. So popular were they, and so universal was the sympathy for fate, that even the presence of the executioner, and of the Pounded the scaffold, could not prevent the citizens

of Brussels from dipping their handkerchiefs in the blood, and treasuring them up as relics.

The Prince of Orange, residing on his family estates of Nassau in Germany, was attentively observing all that was going on in the Netherlands, and making diligent preparations for an attempt in their behalf. He entered into communication with Elizabeth, queen of England, with the leaders of the Huguenots in France, and with the various Protestant princes of Germany; and from all of these he received either actual assistance in men and money, or the promise of future support. To meet the expenses of the expedition he was fitting out, he sold his plate and furniture, and incurred debts on his estates. Having at length assembled a considerable force, he divided it into four armies, each of which was to march into the Netherlands by a different route. Before setting out, however, he thought it necessary to publish a manifesto to the world, in justification of a step so serious as engaging in hostilities with the forces of one whom he had hitherto acknowledged, and still wished to acknowledge, as his sovereign. In this manifesto, also, he made it known that he had changed his religious views: although hitherto a Catholic, he was now convinced that the doctrines of the Protestants were more agreeable to Scripture.

The issue of this first attempt was unfortunate. In several engagements with the enemy, the different bands of patriots were successful. In one of them, Count Adolphus, a brother of the Prince of Orange, was killed in the moment of victory; but at last Alva himself hurrying down to the frontier, the provisions of the prince's army beginning to fail, and winter drawing near, they were compelled to retire. The prince and his brother Count Louis led the remains of their army into France, to assist the Huguenots in the meantime, until there should be a better opening into the Netherlands. Alva, prouder of this success than he had been of any of his former victories, returned to Flanders, and caused medals to be struck and monuments to be raised in commemoration of it, and, what was most offensive to all the people, a brass statue of himself, in a heroic attitude, to be erected at Antwerp. Delivered now from the fear of any interruption from the Prince of Orange, he resumed his exactions and his cruelties; and for four years he and the Inquisition carried on the work of persecution and blood. To detail the history of these four years of tyranny is impossible; we can but sketch the line of the principal events, and show how the minds of the people were ripened for the final struggle.

The Duke of Alva was greatly in want of money to pay his troops, maintain the fortifications of the various towns, and carry on his government; and Alva was not the man to respect, even if the times had been less disturbed than they were, the ancient right which the people of the Netherlands claimed of taxing themselves through their Assembly of States. Accordingly, with

a soldier-like impatience of indirect taxation, he determined to accumulate a vast sum of money by a very summary process. He imposed three taxes: the first an immediate tax of one per cent. on all property, personal or real; the second an annual tax of twenty per cent. on all heritable property; and the third a tax of ten per cent. on every sale or transfer of goods. Crushed and broken-spirited by all that they had already endured, the burghers stood utterly aghast at this new infliction. Persecution for religion's sake was hard to bear, and the Inquisition was very obnoxious, still it was but a portion of the population that actually suffered personally in such cases; but here was a visitation which came home to every Fleming and every Dutchman, and seemed but a prelude of utter ruin. Three such taxes as these of Governor Alva were never heard of within the memory of man. Utterly amazed and bewildered at first, the burghers at length tried to argue, and singled out the third of the taxes as the special subject of their representations. A tax of ten per cent. on sales of goods would amount in many cases, they said, to the value of the commodities themselves; since the same commodities were often transferred from one person to another, and from him to a third, a fourth, a fifth, à sixth, before they came into the hands of the consumer. In vain did the states make these remonstrances; in vain did Viglius, the president of the council, second them; in vain even did the states offer to pay a large sum in lieu of the proposed taxes. Alva was inexorable. At length the general convention of the states, after procuring a few paltry concessions, was obliged to yield to the imposition of the taxes: on this condition, however, that all the states, without exception, should give in their adherence. This was a condition, as it proved, of singular importance; for, gifted with greater boldness and resolution than the other provinces, Utrecht refused to comply with the governor's demands; and, by nobly persevering in its resistance, not only raised a more determined spirit in the other provinces, but delayed the collection of the taxes so long, that in the meantime Alva received instructions from Spain to desist from measures calculated to produce such dangerous results. Alva's conduct, however, had already produced its effects; and the people of the Netherlands had come to detest the very name of Spain.

The Prince of Orange, who, after a short period of military service on the side of the Protestants in France, had returned to his estates in Germany, was earnestly intent on the condition of affairs in the Netherlands. All that could be done, however, was to harass the Spaniards as much as possible in the meantime, and enter into negotiations with the Protestant powers of other countries, with a view to obtain the means necessary for bolder conflict. Both these courses of action were adopted William; and it is a remarkable characteristic of his whole hat even when he is least heard of, he was busy in secret.

mirthless disposition; and an intense bigotry on religious subjects. At the age of sixteen he married a princess of Portugal, who died soon after, leaving him a son, Don Carlos. In 1548, Charles V., desirous that his son should cultivate the good-will of his future subjects of the Netherlands, called him from Spain to Brussels; but during his residence there, and in other cities of the Netherlands, his conduct was so haughty, austere, and unbending, that the burghers began to dread the time when, instead of their own countryman Charles, they should have this foreigner for their king. In 1554, Philip, pursuing his father's scheme for adding England to the territories of the Spanish crown, went to London and married Mary, queen of England; but after a residence of fourteen months, he returned to the Netherlands, where his father formally resigned the government into his hands.

Philip spent the first five years of his reign in the Netherlands, waiting the issue of a war in which he was engaged with France. During this period his Flemish and Dutch subjects began to have some experience of his government. They observed with alarm that the king hated the country, and distrusted its people. He would speak no other language than Spanish; his counsellors were Spaniards; he kept Spaniards alone about his person; and it was to Spaniards that all vacant posts were assigned. Besides, certain of his measures gave great dissatisfaction. He re-enacted the persecuting edicts against the Protestants, which his father in the end of his reign had suffered to fall into disuse; and the severities which ensued began to drive hundreds of the most useful citizens out of the country, as well as to injure trade, by deterring Protestant merchants from the Dutch and Flemish ports. Dark hints, too, were thrown out that he intended to establish an ecclesiastical court in the Netherlands similar to the Spanish Inquisition, and the spirit of Catholics as well as of Protestants revolted from the thought that this chamber of horrors should ever become one of the institutions of their free land. He had also increased the number of the bishops in the Netherlands from five to seventeen; and this was regarded as the mere appointment of twelve persons devoted to the Spanish interest, who would help, if necessary, to overawe the people. Lastly, he kept the provinces full of Spanish troops; and this was a direct violation of a fundamental law of the country. Against these measures the nobles and citizens complained bitterly, and from them drew sad anticipations of the future. Nor were they more satisfied with the address in which, through the bishop of Arras as his spokesman, he took farewell of them at a convention of the states held at Ghent previous to his departure for Spain. The oration recommended severity against heresy, and only promised the withdrawal of the foreign troops. The reply of the states was firm and bold, and the recollection of it must have rankled afterwards in the revengeful mind of Philip. "I would rather

be no king at all," he said to one of his ministers at the time, "than have heretics for my subjects." But suppressing his resentment in the meantime, he set sail for Spain in August 1559, leaving his half-sister, the Duchess of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V., to act as his viceroy in the Netherlands.

The duchess was to be assisted in the government by a Council of State consisting of the six following persons: Antony de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, and afterwards a cardinal; the Count de Barlaimont, Viglius de Quichem, the Count Horn, the Count Egmont, and the Prince of Orange. Three of these, Granvelle, Barlaimont, and Viglius, were devoted to the Spanish interest, and were therefore very unpopular in the Netherlands; the others were men of tried patriotism, from whose presence in the council much good might be expected. Granvelle was a man of extraordinary political abilities, and the fit minister of such a king as the moody and scheming Philip; Barlaimont had also distinguished himself; and in all the country there was not so eminent a lawyer as Viglius. Counts Egmont and Horn were two of the most promising men in the Netherlands, and both of them had rendered services of no ordinary kind to Philip by their conduct in the war with France. Of the Prince of Orange, the principal personage in this struggle, and the true hero of the Netherlands, we must speak more particularly.

William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, sometimes called William I., was born at the castle of Dillembourg, in Germany, in 1533. He was the son of William, Count of Nassau, and the heir therefore of the large possessions of the house of Nassau in France and Germany, and in the Netherlands. At the age of eleven years he had succeeded, besides, to the French princedom of Orange, by the will of his cousin René of Nassau; so that before he arrived at manhood, he was one of the richest and most powerful noblemen in Europe. William was educated in the principles of the Reformation; but having entered, when quite a boy, into the employment of the Emperor Charles V., he changed the habits of a Protestant for those of a Roman Catholic; and accordingly, at the time at which we introduce him to our readers, he was conscientiously a Catholic, although by no means a bigoted, nor even perhaps what the Spaniards would have called a sound one. The Emperor Charles, who, like all such men, possessed a shrewd insight into character, and could pick out by a glance the men of mind and talent from among those who came within his notice, had from the first singled out the young Prince of Orange as a person from whom great things were to be expected. Accordingly, in the employment of Charles, Prince William had had ample opportunities of displaying the two kinds of ability then most in request, and which every public man of that age, except he were an ecclesiastic, was required to combine-diplomatic and military talent. While yet scarcely more than twenty years of age, he had risen to be the first