England enjoined. While the Queen and the 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,
guilt