These riots are remembered as the "Spanish Fury." [_PACIFICATION OF GHENT_] Deplorable though they were, they would not have been too heavy a price to pay if national unity could have been maintained. Never did it seem nearer at hand. With fresh memories of Alba's regime and the wholesale executions of the Council of Blood, under the direct influence of the terrible news from Antwerp, the Belgian Catholics were never more ready to wipe off old grievances, to forget the sacrileges of the Iconoclasts, the massacre of Gorcum and the persecution of those of their faith in the North. The Pacification of Ghent was signed on November 8th. The seventeen provinces allied themselves into a confederation, promised to render each other mutual help, to expel the Spanish armies, to suppress the placards and the ordinances of the Duke of Alba and to proclaim a general amnesty. Liberty of conscience, however, was only proclaimed in fifteen provinces. Calvinism remained the only religion permitted in Holland and Zeeland. It is true that the pre-eminent situation of Catholicism was recognized and that the Protestants were not allowed any public manifestations outside Holland and Zeeland, but if we take into account the fact that, all over the country, the Catholics were far more numerous than their rivals, this last clause of the Pacification of Ghent shows that the Calvinists were bent on exacting all the advantages of the situation they had so heroically conquered and that the moderates of the Southern provinces still found themselves placed between the hammer of Spanish domination and the anvil of Calvinist sectarianism. The Prince of Orange cannot be held entirely responsible for missing this unique opportunity of concluding with his compatriots a fair and liberal compact. His correspondence shows that he had hard work to reconcile his partisans even to such one-sided religious conclusions as those expressed in the Pacification of Ghent, and that in many instances he had to resign himself to being led in order to be allowed to lead. [_DON JUAN_]