On his return to Groningen, the estates were summoned, and received a severe lecture for their suspicious demeanour in regard to the rebellion.  In order more effectually to control both province and city, the Governor-general ordered the construction of a strong fortress, which was soon begun but never completed.  Having thus furnished himself with a key to this important and doubtful region, he returned by way of Amsterdam to Utrecht.  There he was met by his son Frederic with strong reinforcements.  The Duke reviewed his whole army, and found himself at the head of 30,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry.  Having fully subdued the province, he had no occupation for such a force, but he improved the opportunity by cutting off the head of an old woman in Utrecht.  The Vrow van Diemen, eighteen months previously, had given the preacher Arendsoon a night’s lodging in her house.  The crime had, in fact, been committed by her son-in-law, who dwelt under her roof, and who had himself, without her participation, extended this dangerous hospitality to a heretic; but the old lady, although a devout Catholic, was rich.  Her execution would strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of her neighbours.  The confiscation of her estates would bring a handsome sum into the government coffers.  It would be made manifest that the same hand which could destroy an army of twelve thousand rebels at a blow could inflict as signal punishment on the small delinquencies of obscure individuals.  The old lady, who was past eighty-four years of age, was placed in a chair upon the scaffold.  She met her death with heroism, and treated her murderers with contempt.  “I understand very well,” she observed, “why my death is considered necessary.  The calf is fat and must be killed.”  To the executioner she expressed a hope that his sword was sufficiently sharp, “as he was likely to find her old neck very tough.”  With this grisly parody upon the pathetic dying words of Anne Boleyn, the courageous old gentlewoman submitted to her fate.

The tragedy of Don Carlos does not strictly belong to our subject, which is the rise of the Netherland commonwealth—­not the decline of the Spanish monarchy, nor the life of Philip the Second.  The thread is but slender which connects the unhappy young prince with the fortunes of the northern republic.  He was said, no doubt with truth, to desire the government of Flanders.  He was also supposed to be in secret correspondence with the leaders of the revolt in the provinces.  He appeared, however, to possess very little of their confidence.  His name is only once mentioned by William of Orange, who said in a letter that “the Prince of Spain had lately eaten sixteen pounds of fruit, including four pounds of grapes at a single sitting, and had become ill in consequence.”  The result was sufficiently natural, but it nowhere appears that the royal youth, born to consume the fruits of the earth so largely, had ever given the Netherlanders any other proof of