rmy under Count
Louis crosses the Rhine--Measures taken by Requesens--Manoeuvres of
Avila and of Louis--The two armies in face at Mook--Battle of Mook-
heath--Overthrow and death of Count Louis--The phantom battle--
Character of Louis of Nassau--Painful uncertainty as to his fate--
Periodical mutinies of the Spanish troops characterized--Mutiny
after the battle of Mook--Antwerp attacked and occupied,--Insolent
and oppressive conduct of the mutineers--Offers of Requesens
refused--Mutiny in the citadel--Exploits of Salvatierra--Terms of
composition--Soldiers' feast on the mere--Successful expedition of
Admiral Boisot

The horrors of Alva's administration had caused men to look back with
fondness upon the milder and more vacillating tyranny of the Duchess
Margaret. From the same cause the advent of the Grand Commander was
hailed with pleasure and with a momentary gleam of hope. At any rate, it
was a relief that the man in whom an almost impossible perfection of
cruelty seemed embodied was at last to be withdrawn it was certain that
his successor, however ambitious of following in Alva's footsteps, would
never be able to rival the intensity and the unswerving directness of
purpose which it had been permitted to the Duke's nature to attain. The
new Governor-General was, doubtless, human, and it had been long since
the Netherlanders imagined anything in common between themselves and the
late Viceroy.

Apart from this hope, however, there was little encouragement to be
derived from anything positively known of the new functionary, or the
policy which he was to represent. Don Luis de Requesens and Cuniga, Grand
Commander of Castile and late Governor of Milan, was a man of mediocre
abilities, who possessed a reputation for moderation and sagacity which
he hardly deserved. His military prowess had been chiefly displayed in
the bloody and barren battle of Lepanto, where his conduct and counsel
were supposed to have contributed, in some measure, to the victorious
result. His administration at Milan had been characterized as firm and
moderate. Nevertheless, his character was regarded with anything but
favorable eyes in the Netherlands. Men told each other of his broken
faith to the Moors in Granada, and of his unpopularity in Milan, where,
notwithstanding his boasted moderation, he had, in reality, so oppressed
the people as to gain their deadly hatred. They complained, too, that it
was an insult to s