espotism and Protestantism which succeeded. It was soon evident that the
conflict could terminate in but one way. The Prince had considerable
military abilities, and enthusiastic courage; he lost none of his
well-deserved reputation by the unfortunate issue of his campaign; he
measured himself in arms with the great commander of the age, and defied
him, day after day, in vain, to mortal combat; but it was equally certain
that the Duke's quiet game was, played in the most masterly manner. His
positions and his encampments were taken with faultless judgment, his
skirmishes wisely and coldly kept within the prescribed control, while
the inevitable dissolution of the opposing force took place exactly as he
had foreseen, and within the limits which he had predicted. Nor in the
disastrous commencement of the year 1572 did the Duke less signally
manifest his military genius. Assailed as he was at every point, with the
soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he did not
lose his firmness nor his perspicacity. Certainly, if he had not been so
soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on Saint Bartholomew's Day
caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered the recent structure of
Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might have been worse for his
reputation. With Mons safe, the Flemish frontier guarded; France
faithful, and thirty thousand men under the Prince of Orange in Brabant,
the heroic brothers might well believe that the Duke was "at their
mercy." The treason of Charles IX. "smote them as with a club," as the
Prince exclaimed in the bitterness of his spirit. Under the
circumstances, his second campaign was a predestined failure, and Alva
easily vanquished him by a renewed application of those dilatory arts
which he so well understood.

The Duke's military fame was unquestionable when he came to the
provinces, and both in stricken fields and in long campaigns, he showed
how thoroughly it had been deserved; yet he left the Netherlands a
baffled man. The Prince might be many times defeated, but he was not to
be conquered. As Alva penetrated into the heart of the ancient Batavian
land he found himself overmatched as he had never been before, even by
the most potent generals of his day. More audacious, more inventive, more
desperate than all the commanders of that or any other age, the spirit of
national freedom, now taught the oppressor that it was invincible; except
by annihilation. The same les