itherto unknown scale within the next thirty or forty years carried
400,000 persons from the Netherlands. Thousands of others fled to the
woods and became freebooters. The people as a whole were prostrated
with terror. The prosperity of the land was ruined by the wholesale
confiscations of goods. Alva boasted that by such means he had added
to the revenues of his territories 500,000 ducats per annum.

William of Orange retired to his estates at Dillenburg not to yield to
the tyrant but to find a _point d'appui_ from which to fight. Wishing
to avoid anything that might cause division among the people he kept
the religious issue in the background and complained only of foreign
tyranny. He tried to enlist the sympathies of the Emperor Maximilian
II and to collect money and men. William's friend Villiers invaded the
Burgundian State near Maastricht and Louis of Nassau marched with
troops into Friesland. {259} [Sidenote: April, 1568] By this time
Alva had increased his army by 10,000 German cavalry and both the rebel
leaders were severely defeated.

This triumph was followed by an act of power and defiance on Alva's
part sometimes compared to the execution of Louis XVI by the French
Republicans. Hitherto the sufferers from his reign of blood had not in
any case been men of the highest rank. The first execution of nobles
took place at Brussels on June 1, that of the captured Villiers
followed on June 2, and that of Egmont and Horn on June 5.

Orange himself now took the field with 25,000 troops, a motley
aggregate of French, Flemish, and Walloon Huguenots and of German
mercenaries. But he had no genius for war to oppose to the veterans of
Alva. Continually harassed by the Spaniards he was kept in fear for
his communications, dared not risk a general engagement and was
humiliated by seeing his retreat, in November, turned into a rout.

[Sidenote: July 16, 1570]

Finding that severity did not pacify the provinces, Alva issued a
proclamation that on the face of it was a general amnesty with pardon
for all who submitted. But he excepted by name several hundred
emigrants, all the Protestant clergy, all who had helped them, all
iconoclasts, all who had signed petitions for religious liberty, and
all who had rebelled. As these exceptions included the greater portion
of those who stood in need of pardon the measure proved illusory as a
means of reconciliation. Coupled with it were other measures,
including the pr