To the eyes of all who loved their fatherland and their race, the sight of a desolate country, with its ancient charters superseded by brute force, its industrious population swarming from the land in droves, as if the pestilence were raging, with gibbets and scaffolds erected in every village, and with a Sickening and universal apprehension of still darker disasters to follow, was a spectacle still more sad, hideous, and abominable.

For it was now decided that the Duke of Alva, at the head of a Spanish army, should forthwith take his departure for the Netherlands.  A land already subjugated was to be crushed, and every vestige of its ancient liberties destroyed.  The conquered provinces, once the abode of municipal liberty, of science, art, and literature, and blessed with an unexampled mercantile and manufacturing prosperity, were to be placed in absolute subjection to the cabinet council at Madrid.  A dull and malignant bigot, assisted by a few Spanish grandees, and residing at the other extremity of Europe, was thenceforth to exercise despotic authority over countries which for centuries had enjoyed a local administration, and a system nearly approaching to complete self-government.  Such was the policy devised by Granvelle and Spinosa, which the Duke of Alva, upon the 15th April, had left Madrid to enforce.

It was very natural that Margaret of Parma should be indignant at being thus superseded.  She considered herself as having acquired much credit by the manner in which the latter insurrectionary movements had been suppressed, so soon as Philip, after his endless tergiversations, had supplied her with arms and money.  Therefore she wrote in a tone of great asperity to her brother, expressing her discontent.  She had always been trammelled in her action, she said, by his restrictions upon her authority.  She complained that he had no regard for her reputation or her peace of mind.  Notwithstanding, all impediments and dangers, she had at last settled the country, and now another person was to reap the honor.  She also despatched the Seigneur de Billy to Spain, for the purpose of making verbal representations to his Majesty upon the inexpediency of sending the Duke of Alva to the Netherlands at that juncture with a Spanish army.

Margaret gained nothing, however, by her letters and her envoy, save a round rebuke from Philip, who was not accustomed to brook the language of remonstrance; even from his sister.  His purpose was fixed.  Absolute submission was now to be rendered by all.  “He was highly astonished and dissatisfied,” he said, “that she should dare to write to him with so much passion, and in so resolute a manner.  If she received no other recompense, save the glory of having restored the service of God, she ought to express her gratitude to the King for having given her the opportunity of so doing.”