The “hundredth penny” was voted, but instead of the other taxes, which were to provide a steady annual income, he had to content himself with a fixed payment of 2,000,000 guilders for two years only.  The imposition of these taxes on the model of the alcabala had been part of a scheme for sweeping away all the provincial jurisdictions and rights and forming the whole of the Netherlands into a unified state, as subservient to despotic rule as was Castile itself.  A greater centralisation of government had been the constant policy of the Burgundian and Habsburg rulers since the time of Philip the Good, a policy to be commended if carried out in a statesmanlike and moderate spirit without any sudden or violent infringement of traditional liberties.  The aim of Philip of Spain as it was interpreted by his chosen instrument, the Duke of Alva, was far more drastic.  With Alva and his master all restrictions upon the absolute authority of the sovereign were obstacles to be swept remorselessly out of the way; civil and religious liberty in their eyes deserved no better fate than to be suppressed by force.  Alva’s experience was that of many would-be tyrants before and since his day, that the successful application of force is limited by the power of the purse.  His exchequer was empty.  Philip was himself in financial difficulties and could spare him no money from Spain.  The refusal of the provincial estates of the Netherlands to sanction his scheme of taxation deprived him of the means for imposing his will upon them.  His reign of terror had produced throughout the land a superficial appearance of peace.  There were at the beginning of 1570 no open disturbances or insurrectionary movements to be crushed, but the people were seething with discontent, and the feeling of hatred aroused by the presence of the Spanish Inquisition and the foreign soldiery and by the proceedings of the Council of Blood was, day by day, becoming deeper and more embittered.

This condition of affairs was duly reported to the king at Madrid; and there was no lack of councillors at his side who were unfriendly to Alva and eager to make the most of the complaints against him.  Among these enemies was Ruy Gomez, the king’s private secretary, who recommended a policy of leniency, as did Granvelle, who was now at Naples.  Philip never had any scruples about throwing over his agents, and he announced his intention of proclaiming an amnesty on the occasion when Anne of Austria, his intended bride and fourth wife, set sail from Antwerp for Spain.  The proclamation was actually made at Antwerp by the governor-general in person, July 16, 1570.  It was a limited declaration of clemency, for six classes of offenders were excepted, and it only extended to those who within two months made their peace with the Catholic Church and abjured the Reformed doctrines.