His forebodings were only too correct. Philip had resolved to send the Duke of Alva to subdue the Netherlands. A force of nine thousand veteran Spanish infantry with thirteen hundred Italian cavalry had been collected from the garrisons of Lombardy and Naples, and Alva began a long, difficult march over the Mt. Cenis and through Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and Luxemburg. William had escaped just in time. When the Duke arrived in Brussels and presented his credentials to the Council of State, it was seen that the King had bestowed on him such extensive powers that Margaret remained Regent in name only. One of his earliest acts was to get possession of the persons of Counts Egmont and Hoorn, with their private secretaries, and to imprison Antony van Straelen, Burgomaster of Antwerp, and a confidential friend of the Prince of Orange. Many other arrests were made; and Alva, having caught his victims, invented an instrument to help him to dispose of them. By the mere fiat of his will he created a judicial chamber, whose decisions were to override those of any other court of law in the Netherlands, and which was to be responsible to none, not even to the Council of State. It was called the _Council of Tumults_, but is better known by its popular name, _The Bloody Tribunal_. It consisted of twelve members, among whom were Barlaymont and a few of the most violent Romanists of the Netherlands; but only two, Juan de Vargas and del Rio, both Spaniards, were permitted to vote and influence the decisions. Del Rio was a nonentity; but de Vargas was a very stern reality--a man of infamous life, equally notorious for the delight he took in slaughtering his fellow-men and the facility with which he murdered the Latin language! He brought the whole population of the Netherlands within the grip of the public executioner by his indictment: _Hæretici fraxerunt templa, boni nihil faxerunt contra; ergo debent omnes patibulure:_ by which he meant, _The heretics have broken open churches, the orthodox have done nothing to hinder them; therefore they ought all of them to be hanged together._ Alva reserved all final decisions for his own judgment, in order that the work might be thoroughly done. He wrote to the King, "Men of law only condemn for crimes that are proved, whereas your Majesty knows that affairs of State are governed by very different rules from the laws which they have here."