No sooner had Alva reached Brussels than the scheme of Philip rapidly unrolled itself. In spite of the protests of Margaret, the Walloon soldiers in the chief towns were replaced by Spanish soldiery, who forthwith made up for the restraint imposed on them during their march, by a reckless cruelty and a licence which even Alva deplored. Egmont and Hoorne, enticed by fair promises, were arrested on the 9th of September, together with Egmont’s secretary, Backerzell, and Van Stralen, the Burgomaster of Antwerp. To try such offenders the ordinary courts could not be trusted. Accordingly Alva created the ‘Council of his Excellency’ or of ‘Tumults,’ which became popularly known as the Council of Blood. This terrible tribunal was nominally composed of twelve judges. Two of these, Berlaymont and Noircarmes, were nobles, and six were lawyers of the country; but these eight only acted as assessors, or sub-commissioners, and the right of voting on the cases was reserved to three Spaniards, Juan de Vargas, Del Rio, and La Torre, the final ratification of their decisions being reserved to Alva, who was president. Of this trio, Juan de Vargas, who presided in the absence of Alva, was a miscreant who, after violating his ward, an orphan in Spain, had fled from justice, and earned immunity by subservience to the will of the King. He was in the habit of relieving the monotony of his work of blood by cruel jokes at the expense of the accused; while another judge, Hessels, who subsequently had much influence, is reported, when aroused from naps in court, to have cried out automatically: ‘To the gallows, to the gallows.’ To furnish victims for this court, commissioners, despatched to the provinces, arrested on the charge of treason all preachers, or harbourers of them, all members of Calvinistic consistories, all who had joined in destroying Catholic, or in building Protestant churches, and all who had signed the Compromise. Except in more important cases, the commissioners or local authorities proceeded to judgment, the revision of their sentences being alone reserved for the Council itself; and rarely, if ever, was the revision exercised on the side of mercy. The punishment was death and confiscation of goods, and Alva hoped from this source to replenish the exhausted treasury. As to the precise number of the victims it is impossible to speak with certainty. Alva is said to have boasted that he had executed 18,600 during the period of his rule. This is probably an exaggerated statement, but that the victims are to be counted in thousands is not to be doubted, nor that the trials and executions were accompanied with all the refinements that cruelty could suggest. It is indeed difficult to find a parallel in history for this irresponsible and tyrannical court, which was created by the mere word of Alva, without even the authority of his written instrument, much less of the royal warrant, and which violated every constitutional privilege of the Netherlanders. Alva