The next measures of the new governor were the reestablishment of the Inquisition, the promulgation of the decrees of the Council of Trent, the revocation of the duchess of Parma’s edicts, and the royal refusal to recognize the terms of her treaties with the Protestants.  He immediately established a special tribunal, composed of twelve members, with full powers to inquire into and pronounce judgment on every circumstance connected with the late troubles.  He named himself president of this council, and appointed a Spaniard, named Vargas, as vice-president—­a wretch of the most diabolical cruelty.  Several others of the judges were also Spaniards, in direct infraction of the fundamental laws of the country.  This council, immortalized by its infamy, was named by the new governor (for so Alva was in fact, though not yet in name), the Council of Troubles.  By the people it was soon designed the Council of Blood.  In its atrocious proceedings no respect was paid to titles, contracts, or privileges, however sacred.  Its judgments were without appeal.  Every subject of the state was amenable to its summons; clergy and laity, the first individuals of the country, as well as the most wretched outcasts of society.  Its decrees were passed with disgusting rapidity and contempt of form.  Contumacy was punished with exile and confiscation.  Those who, strong in innocence, dared to brave a trial were lost without resource.  The accused were forced to its bar without previous warning.  Many a wealthy citizen was dragged to trial four leagues’ distance, tied to a horse’s tail.  The number of victims was appalling.  On one occasion, the town of Valenciennes alone saw fifty-five of its citizens fall by the hands of the executioner.  Hanging, beheading, quartering and burning were the every-day spectacles.  The enormous confiscations only added to the thirst for gold and blood by which Alva and his satellites were parched.  History offers no example of parallel horrors; for while party vengeance on other occasions has led to scenes of fury and terror, they arose, in this instance, from the vilest cupidity and the most cold-blooded cruelty.

After three months of such atrocity, Alva, fatigued rather than satiated with butchery, resigned his hateful functions wholly into the hands of Vargas, who was chiefly aided by the members Delrio and Dela Torre.  Even at this remote period we cannot repress the indignation excited by the mention of those monsters, and it is impossible not to feel satisfaction in fixing upon their names the brand of historic execration.  One of these wretches, called Hesselts, used at length to sleep during the mock trials of the already doomed victims; and as often as he was roused up by his colleagues, he used to cry out mechanically, “To the gibbet! to the gibbet!” so familiar was his tongue with the sounds of condemnation.