Requesens quickly afterward repaired to the scene of this gallant exploit, and commenced the siege of Zuriczee, which he did not live to see completed.  After having passed the winter months in preparation for the success of this object which he had so much at heart, he was recalled to Brussels by accounts of new mutinies in the Spanish cavalry; and the very evening before he reached the city he was attacked by a violent fever, which carried him off five days afterward, on the 5th of March, 1516.

The suddenness of Requesen’s illness had not allowed time for even the nomination of a successor, to which he was authorized by letters patent from the king.  It is believed that his intention was to appoint Count Mansfield to the command of the army, and De Berlaimont to the administration of civil affairs.  The government, however, now devolved entirely into the hands of the council of state, which was at that period composed of nine members.  The principal of these was Philip de Croi, duke of Arschot; the other leading members were Viglius, Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont; and the council was degraded by numbering, among the rest, Debris and De Roda, two of the notorious Spaniards who had formed part of the Council of Blood.

The king resolved to leave the authority in the hands of this incongruous mixture, until the arrival of Don John of Austria, his natural brother, whom he had already named to the office of governor-general.  But in the interval the government assumed an aspect of unprecedented disorder; and widespread anarchy embraced the whole country.  The royal troops openly revolted, and fought against each other like deadly enemies.  The nobles, divided in their views, arrogated to themselves in different places the titles and powers of command.  Public faith and private probity seemed alike destroyed.  Pillage, violence and ferocity were the commonplace characteristics of the times.

Circumstances like these may be well supposed to have revived the hopes of the Prince of Orange, who quickly saw amid this chaos the elements of order, strength, and liberty.  Such had been his previous affliction at the harrowing events which he witnessed and despaired of being able to relieve, that he had proposed to the patriots of Holland and Zealand to destroy the dikes, submerge the whole country, and abandon to the waves the soil which refused security to freedom.  But Providence destined him to be the savior, instead of the destroyer, of his country.  The chief motive of this excessive desperation had been the apparent desertion by Queen Elizabeth of the cause which she had hitherto so mainly assisted.  Offended at the capture of some English ships by the Dutch, who asserted that they carried supplies for the Spaniards, she withdrew from them her protection; but by timely submission they appeased her wrath; and it is thought by some historians that even thus early the Prince of Orange proposed to place the revolted provinces wholly under her protection.  This, however, she for the time refused; but she strongly solicited Philip’s mercy for these unfortunate countries, through the Spanish ambassador at her court.