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To raise the siege of Leyden, the main reliance of the Prince was upon Count Louis, who was again in Germany. In the latter days of Alva's administration, William had written to his brothers, urging them speedily to arrange the details of a campaign, of which he forwarded them a sketch. As soon as a sufficient force had been levied in Germany, an attempt was to be made upon Maestricht.
Only when Alva's blood- thirstiness shall have been at last overpowered, can the provinces hope to recover their pure administration of justice, and a prosperous condition for their commonwealth." In the "warning" or proclamation to all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, the Prince expressed similar sentiments. He announced his intention of expelling the Spaniards forever from the country.
Strange to say, this man who had spent almost a century on the battlefield, who had been a soldier in nearly every war that had been waged in any part of Europe during that most belligerent age, who had come an old man to the Netherlands before Alva's arrival, and had ever since been constantly and personally engaged in the vast Flemish tragedy which had now lasted well nigh thirty years had never himself lost a drop of blood.
Alva's first step, after securing the most suspected of the nobles, was to restore the Inquisition to its former authority, to put the decrees of Trent again in force, abolish the "moderation," and promulgate anew the edicts against heretics in all their original severity.
In Haarlem he had wondered that the air did not still resound with the cries of Alva's three thousand victims. In Leyden his heart had swelled in sympathy as he thought of the long procession of scarred and famished creatures who after the siege, with Adrian van der Werf at their head, tottered to the great church to sing a glorious anthem because Leyden was free!
The Spaniards advanced, burned the village of Egmont to the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st of August Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally to invest Allanaar. In a few days this had been so thoroughly accomplished that, in Alva's language, "it was impossible for a sparrow to enter or go out of the city." The odds were somewhat unequal.
He eagerly offered, if he were accused or suspected of crime, to surrender himself to imprisonment if he only could be brought to trial. Soon after Alva's arrival in the Netherlands, the first part of this offer was accepted. No sooner were the arrests of Egmont and Horn known in Madrid, than Montigny was deprived of his liberty, and closely confined in the alcazar of Segovia.
His fortification of Philippeville and Charlemont, in the face of the enemy his passage of the Meuse in Alva's sight his unfortunate but well-ordered campaign against that general his sublime plan of relief, projected and successfully directed at last from his sick bed, for the besieged city of Leyden will always remain monuments of his practical military skill.
The idea of making the heiress his wife was one worthy of his evil ingenuity, and why should he not put it into practice? Elsa, of course, would rebel, but Alva's officials in such days had means of overcoming any maidenly reluctance, or at least of forcing women to choose between death and degradation.
Only when Alva's blood- thirstiness shall have been at last overpowered, can the provinces hope to recover their pure administration of justice, and a prosperous condition for their commonwealth." In the "warning" or proclamation to all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, the Prince expressed similar sentiments. He announced his intention of expelling the Spaniards forever from the country.
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