for liberty met with little result, and the Spanish sovereigns continued to govern their Belgian dominions like a conquered country. In 1578, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (son of Margaret), was sent as Governor to the Netherlands, where he remained in power till 1596. In the prosecution of the war against the Northern Provinces (Holland) he besieged Antwerp, and took it after fourteen months in 1585. In the “Spanish Fury” which followed, Antwerp was almost destroyed, and all its noblest buildings ruined. Nevertheless, under Parma’s rule, the other cities recovered to a certain extent their municipal freedom; though the country as a whole was still treated as a vanquished province. The next great landmark of Belgian history is the passage of the Spanish Netherlands under =Austrian rule=. The first indefinite steps towards this revolution were taken in 1598, when Philip II. ceded the country as a fief to his daughter the Infanta Isabella (Clara Isabella Eugenia) on her marriage with Albert, Archduke of Austria, who held the provinces as the Spanish Governor. (Portraits of Albert and Isabella by Rubens in the Brussels Gallery.) The new rulers made the country feel to a certain extent that it was no longer treated as a mere disobedient Spanish appanage. After the troubles of the Revolt, and the cruel destruction of Antwerp by Parma, trade and manufactures began to revive. Albert and Isabella were strongly Catholic in sentiment; and it was under their _régime_ that the greater part of the rococo churches of Antwerp and other cities were built, in the showy but debased taste of the period, and decorated with large and brilliantly-coloured altar-pieces. They also induced Rubens to settle in the Netherlands, appointed him Court painter, and allowed him to live at Antwerp, where the trade of the Low Countries was still largely concentrated. During their vice-royalty, however, Brussels became more than ever the recognised capital of the country, and the seat of the aristocracy.