nd
they were threatened that if his gracious offers of mercy were
neglected, his majesty would strip bare and utterly depopulate the land,
and cause it to be again inhabited by strangers. So ludicrous a specimen
of paternal love was not calculated to excite much confidence in the
breasts of the Hollanders, and Alkmaar, the next town to which Don
Frederick laid siege, though defended only by eight hundred soldiers and
thirteen hundred citizens against sixteen thousand veterans, also
resolved to hold out to the last extremity. Enraged at this contempt of
what he called his clemency, at Haarlem, Alva resolved to make Alkmaar
an example of his cruelty, and he wrote to Philip that everyone in it
should be put to the sword. But the inhabitants made a heroic defence
and repulsed the besiegers in many a bloody assault; till at length the
superstitious Spaniards, believing that the place was defended by the
devil, whom they thought that the Protestants worshipped, refused to
mount to the attack, suffering themselves rather to be run through the
body by their officers; and Don Frederick, finding from an intercepted
letter that the Prince of Orange contemplated cutting the dikes and
flooding the country, in order to prevent the place from being
surrendered, raised the siege (October 8th) after it had lasted seven
weeks.

About this time William published his _Epistle in the form of
supplication to his Royal Majesty of Spain, from the Prince of Orange
and States of Holland and Zealand_, which produced a profound
impression. It demanded that the privileges of the country should be
restored, and insisted on the recall of the Duke of Alva, whose
atrocities were vigorously described and condemned. Orange, as
stadtholder, was now acting as the King's representative in Holland,
and gave all his orders in Philip's name. He had recently turned
Calvinist, and in October publicly joined the Church at Dort. It was
reserved for the two greatest princes of the age to alleviate by their
apostasy, which, however, approached more nearly than the orthodoxy of
their adversaries, the spirit of true Christianity, the evils inflicted
on society by a consistent but bloody-minded and intolerant bigotry.

The siege of Alkmaar was one of the last acts under Alva's auspices in
the Netherlands, and formed a fitting termination to his career. He had
himself solicited to be recalled, and in December, 1573, he was
superseded by Don Luis de Requesens, Grand Co