Viceroy were thus exchanging blows, the real sufferers were, of course, the unfortunate Netherlanders.  Between the upper and nether millstones of Elizabeth’s rapacity and Alva’s arrogance, the poor remains of Flemish prosperity were well nigh crushed out of existence.  Proclamations and commissions followed hard upon each other, but it was not till April 1573, that the matter was definitely arranged.  Before that day arrived, the commerce of the Netherlands had suffered, at the lowest computation, a dead loss of two million florins, not a stiver of which was ever reimbursed to the sufferers by the Spanish government.

Meantime, neither in the complacency of his triumph over William of Orange, nor in the torrent of his wrath against the English Queen, did the Duke for a moment lose sight of the chief end of his existence in the Netherlands.  The gibbet and the stake were loaded with their daily victims.  The records of the period are foul with the perpetually renewed barbarities exercised against the new religion.  To the magistrates of the different cities were issued fresh instructions, by which all municipal officers were to be guided in the discharge of their great duty.  They were especially enjoined by the Duke to take heed that Catholic midwives, and none other, should be provided for every parish, duly sworn to give notice within twenty-four hours of every birth which occurred, in order that the curate might instantly proceed to baptism.  They were also ordered to appoint certain spies who should keep watch at every administration of the sacraments, whether public or private, whether at the altar or at death-beds, and who should report for exemplary punishment (that is to say, death by fire) all persons who made derisive or irreverential gestures, or who did not pay suitable honor to the said Sacraments.  Furthermore, in order that not even death itself should cheat the tyrant of his prey, the same spies were to keep watch at the couch of the dying, and to give immediate notice to government of all persons who should dare to depart this life without previously receiving extreme unction and the holy wafer.  The estates of such culprits, it was ordained, should be confiscated, and their bodies dragged to the public place of execution.

An affecting case occurred in the north of Holland, early in this year, which, for its peculiarity, deserves brief mention.  A poor Anabaptist, guilty of no crime but his fellowship with a persecuted sect, had been condemned to death.  He had made his escape, closely pursued by an officer of justice, across a frozen lake.  It was late in the winter, and the ice had become unsound.  It trembled and cracked beneath his footsteps, but he reached the shore in safety.  The officer was not so fortunate.  The ice gave way beneath him, and he sank into the lake, uttering a cry for succor.  There were none to hear him, except the fugitive whom he had been hunting.  Dirk Willemzoon, for so was the Anabaptist