As already observed, the advent of Alva at the head of a foreign army was the natural consequence of all which had gone before.  The delusion of the royal visit was still maintained, and the affectation of a possible clemency still displayed, while the monarch sat quietly in his cabinet without a remote intention of leaving Spain, and while the messengers of his accumulated and long-concealed wrath were already descending upon their prey.  It was the deliberate intention of Philip, when the Duke was despatched to the Netherlands, that all the leaders of the anti-inquisition party, and all who had, at any time or in any way, implicated themselves in opposition to the government, or in censure of its proceedings, should be put to death.  It was determined that the provinces should be subjugated to the absolute domination of the council of Spain, a small body of foreigners sitting at the other end of Europe, a junta in which Netherlanders were to have no voice and exercise no influence.  The despotic government of the Spanish and Italian possessions was to be extended to these Flemish territories, which were thus to be converted into the helpless dependencies of a foreign and an absolute crown.  There was to be a re-organization of the inquisition, upon the same footing claimed for it before the outbreak of the troubles, together with a re-enactment and vigorous enforcement of the famous edicts against heresy.

Such was the scheme recommended by Granvelle and Espinosa, and to be executed by Alva.  As part and parcel of this plan, it was also arranged at secret meetings at the house of Espinosa, before the departure of the Duke, that all the seigniors against whom the Duchess Margaret had made so many complaints, especially the Prince of Orange, with the Counts Egmont, Horn, and Hoogstraaten, should be immediately arrested and brought to chastisement.  The Marquis Berghen and the Baron Montigny, being already in Spain, could be dealt with at pleasure.  It was also decided that the gentlemen implicated in the confederacy or compromise, should at once be proceeded against for high treason, without any regard to the promise of pardon granted by the Duchess.

The general features of the great project having been thus mapped out, a few indispensable preliminaries were at once executed.  In order that Egmont, Horn, and other distinguished victims might not take alarm, and thus escape the doom deliberately arranged for them, royal assurances were despatched to the Netherlands, cheering their despondency and dispelling their doubts.  With his own hand Philip wrote the letter, full of affection and confidence, to Egmont, to which allusion has already been made.  He wrote it after Alva had left Madrid upon his mission of vengeance.  The same stealthy measures were pursued with regard to others.  The Prince of Orange was not capable of falling into the royal trap, however cautiously baited.  Unfortunately he could not communicate his wisdom to his friends.