Flushing played a great part in the great war.  It was from Flushing that Charles V. sailed in 1556; from Flushing that Philip II. sailed in 1559; neither to return.  It was Flushing that heard Philip’s farewell to William of Orange, which in the light of after events may be called the declaration of war that was to release the Netherlands from the tyranny of Spain and Rome.  “As Philip was proceeding on board the ship which was to bear him for ever from the Netherlands, his eyes lighted upon the Prince.  His displeasure could no longer be restrained.  With angry face he turned upon him, and bitterly reproached him for having thwarted all his plans by means of his secret intrigues.  William replied with humility that everything which had taken place had been done through the regular and natural movements of the states.  Upon this the King, boiling with rage, seized the Prince by the wrist, and, shaking it violently, exclaimed in Spanish, ’No los estados, ma vos, vos, vos!’—­Not the estates, but you, you, you!—­repeating thrice the word ‘vos,’ which is as disrespectful and uncourteous in Spain as ‘toi’ in French.”

That was 26th August, 1559.  Philip’s fleet consisted of ninety ships, victualled, among other articles, with fifteen thousand capons, and laden with such spoil as tapestry and silks, much of which had to be thrown overboard in a storm to lighten the labouring vessels.  It seemed at one time as if the fleet must founder, but Philip reached Spain in safety, and hastened to celebrate his escape, and emphasise his policy of a universal religion, by an extensive auto da fe.

Flushing did not actually begin the war, in 1572, after the capture of Brill at the mouth of the Maas, by the Water Beggars under De la Marck, but it was the first town to respond to that invitation of revolt against Alva and Spain.  The foundations of the Dutch Republic may have been laid at Brill, but it was the moral support of Flushing that established them.

The date of the capture of Brill was April 1st, and Alva, who was then at Brussels, suffered tortures from the Belgian wits.  The word Brill, by a happy chance, signifies spectacles, and a couplet was sung to the effect that

    On April Fool’s Day
    Duke Alva’s spectacles were stolen away;

while, says Motley, a caricature was circulated depicting Alva’s spectacles being removed from his nose by De la Marck, while the Duke uttered his habitual comment “’Tis nothing.  ’Tis nothing.”

What, however, began as little more than the desperate deed of some hungry pirates, to satisfy their immediate needs, was soon turned into a very far-reaching “something,” by the action of Flushing, whose burghers, under the Seigneur de Herpt, on hearing the news of the rebellion of Brill, drove the Spanish garrison from the town.  A number of Spanish ships chancing to arrive on the same day, bringing reinforcements, were just in time to find the town in arms.  Had they landed, the