12. =The Growth of the Dutch Republic. 1572-1578.=--By this time the provinces of Holland and Zeeland had risen against Spain. They placed at their head the Prince of Orange with the title of Stadtholder or Lieutenant, as if he had been still the lieutenant of the king of Spain whom he resisted. The rebels had but a scanty force wherewith to defend themselves against the vast armies of Spain. Alva took town after town, sacked them, and butchered man, woman and child within. In =1574= Leyden was saved from his attack. Holland is below the sea-level, and the Dutch cut the dykes which kept off the sea, and when the tide rushed in, sent flat-bottomed vessels over what had once been land, and rescued the town from the besiegers. Alva, disgusted at his failure, returned to Spain. In =1576= his successor Requesens died. Spain, with all the wealth of the Indies pouring into it, was impoverished by the vastness of the work which Philip had undertaken in trying to maintain the power of the Roman Catholic Church in all western Europe. The expenses of the war in the Netherlands exhausted his treasury, and on the death of Requesens, the Spanish army mutinied, plundered even that part of the country which was friendly to Spain, and sacked Antwerp with barbarous cruelty. Then the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands drove out the Spaniards, and bound themselves by the Pacification of Ghent into a confederate Republic. In =1578= Alexander, duke of Parma, arrived as the Spanish governor. He was a great warrior and statesman, and he won over the Catholic provinces of the southern Netherlands to his side. By the Union of Utrecht the Prince of Orange formed a new confederate republic of the seven northern provinces, which were mainly Protestant. 13. =Quiet Times in England. 1572-1577.=--The Spaniards were no longer able to interfere in England. Elizabeth was equally safe from the side of France. In =1574= Charles IX. died, and was succeeded by Elizabeth's old suitor Anjou as Henry III. There were fresh civil wars which gave him enough to do at home. In =1573= Elizabeth sent aid to the party of the young king in Scotland, and suppressed the last remnants of Mary's party there. In England she pursued her old policy. Men might think what they would, but they must not discuss their opinions openly. There must be as little preaching as possible, and when the clergy began to hold meetings called prophesyings for discussion on the Scriptures, she ordered Grindal, who had succeeded Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury, to suppress them, and on his refusal in =1577= suspended him from his office, and put down the prophesyings herself.