After the news of the reduction of the city, he again expressed gratification, but in rather cold language.  “From such obstinate people,” said he, “not more could be extracted than has been extracted; therefore the capitulation is satisfactory.”  What more he wished to extract it would be difficult to say, for certainly the marrow had been extracted from the bones, and the dead city was thenceforth left to moulder under the blight of a foreign garrison and an army of Jesuits.  “Perhaps religious affairs will improve before long,” said Philip.  They did improve very soon, as he understood the meaning of improvement.  A solitude of religion soon brought with it a solitude in every other regard, and Antwerp became a desert, as Sainte Aldegonde had foretold would be the case.

The King had been by no means so calm, however, when the intelligence of the capitulation first reached him at Madrid.  On the contrary, his oldest courtiers had never seen him exhibit such marks of hilarity.

When he first heard of the glorious victory at Lepanto, his countenance had remained impassive, and he had continued in the chapel at the devotional exercises which the messenger from Don John had interrupted.  Only when the news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew first reached him, had he displayed an amount of cheerfulness equal to that which he manifested at the fall of Antwerp.  “Never,” said Granvelle, “had the King been so radiant with joy as when he held in his hand the despatches which announced the capitulation.”  The letters were brought to him after he had retired to rest, but his delight was so great that he could not remain in his bed.  Rushing from his chamber, so soon as he had read them, to that of his dearly-beloved daughter, Clara Isabella, he knocked loudly at the door, and screaming through the keyhole the three words, “Antwerp is ours,” returned precipitately again to his own apartment.

It was the general opinion in Spain, that the capture of this city had terminated the resistance of the Netherlands.  Holland and Zeeland would, it was thought, accept with very little hesitation the terms which Parma had been offering, through the agency of Sainte Aldegonde; and, with the reduction of those two provinces, the Spanish dominion over the whole country would of course become absolute.  Secretary Idiaquez observed, on drawing up instructions for Carlo Coloma, a Spanish financier then departing on special mission for the Provinces, that he would soon come back to Spain, for the Prince of Parma was just putting an end to the whole Belgic war.

Time was to show whether Holland and Zeeland were as malleable as Antwerp, and whether there would not be a battle or two more to fight before that Belgic war would come to its end.  Meantime Antwerp was securely fettered, while the spirit of commerce—­to which its unexampled prosperity had been due—­now took its flight to the lands where civil and religious liberty had found a home.