little respect for the rights
or the property of their allies, as for those of their enemies. They
quartered themselves on the peaceful inhabitants of the country, and
obtained full compensation for loss of pay by a system of rapine and
extortion that beggared the people, and drove them to desperation.
Conflicts with the soldiery occasionally occurred, and in some parts the
peasantry even refused to repair the dikes, in order to lay the country
under water rather than submit to such outrages! "How is it," exclaimed
the bold syndic of Ghent, "that we find foreign soldiers thus quartered
on us, in open violation of our liberties? Are not our own troops able
to protect us from the dangers of invasion? Must we be ground to the
dust by the exactions of these mercenaries in peace, after being
burdened with the maintenance of them in war?" These remonstrances were
followed by a petition to the throne, signed by members of the other
orders as well as the commons, requesting that the king would be
graciously pleased to respect the privileges of the nation, and send
back the foreign troops to their own homes.

Philip, who sat in the assembly with his sister, the future regent, by
his side, was not prepared for this independent spirit in the burghers
of the Netherlands. The royal ear had been little accustomed to this
strain of invective from the subject. For it was rare that the tone of
remonstrance was heard in the halls of Castilian legislation, since the
power of the commons had been broken on the field of Villalar. Unable or
unwilling to conceal his displeasure, the king descended from his
throne, and abruptly quitted the assembly.[413]

Yet he did not, like Charles the First of England, rashly vent his
indignation by imprisoning or persecuting the members who had roused it.
Even the stout syndic of Ghent was allowed to go unharmed. Philip looked
above him to a mark more worthy of his anger,--to those of the higher
orders who had encouraged the spirit of resistance in the commons. The
most active of these malecontents was William of Orange. That noble, as
it may be remembered, was one of the hostages who remained at the Court
of Henry the Second for the fulfilment of the treaty of
Cateau-Cambresis. While there, a strange disclosure was made to the
prince by the French monarch, who told him that, through the duke of
Alva, a secret treaty had been entered into with his master, the king of
Spain, for the extirpation of heresy