nce
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 lesson had been read in the same thickets by
the Nervii to Julius Caesar, by the Batavians to the legions of
Vespasian; and now a loftier and a purer flame than that which inspired
the national struggles against Rome glowed within the breasts of the
descendants of the same people, and inspired them with the strength which
comes, from religious enthusiasm. More experienced, more subtle, more
politic than Hermann; more devoted, more patient, more magnanimous than
Civilis, and equal to either in valor and determination, William of
Orange was a worthy embodiment of the Christian, national resistance of
the German race to a foreign tyranny. Alva had entered the Netherlands to
deal with them as with conquered provinces. He found that the conquest
was still to be made, and he left the land without having accomplished
it. Through the sea of blood, the Hollanders felt that they were passing
to the promised land. More royal soldiers fell during the seven months'
siege of Harlem than the rebels had lost in the defeat of Jemmingen, and
in the famous campaign of Brabant. At Alkmaar the rolling waves of
insolent conquest were stayed, and the tide then ebbed for ever.

The accomplished soldier struggled hopelessly, with the wild and
passionate hatred which his tyranny had provoked. Neither his legions nor
his consummate strategy availed him ag