The struggle round Mons had at least given the northern provinces time to strengthen themselves, and to Holland the Prince of Orange retired, to organise resistance. It was now the plan of Alva to try and isolate the revolt by reducing the chief towns in the north, and so to place the disaffected provinces between two fires. The work was intrusted to his son, Don Frederick. Zutphen was taken and its garrison put to the sword. The provinces of Guelderland, Overyssel, and Groningen submitted, and Don Frederick passed on westwards to Holland, where Amsterdam was the only city held by the Spaniards. After razing the small town of Naarden to the ground, in violation of the terms on which it had capitulated, Don Frederick laid siege to the important town of Haarlem. The city lies on the narrowest part of the neck of land which separates the Zuyder Zee from the German Ocean, and which at that point is barely five miles broad. Its occupation by the Spaniards would completely isolate the northern portion of Holland. Alva, fully realising the strategical importance of the city, ordered his son, who had a force of 30,000 men, to take it at all hazards. The task, however, proved most serious. The city was protected on the east by the large though shallow lake of Haarlem, and by land was only approachable from the west. The inhabitants, warned by the experience of Zutphen and of Naarden that they could expect no mercy, resolved to resist to the last; and although the garrison was but some 4000, it took the Spaniards more than seven months before they could reduce the city (December 9-July 14). The siege was marked by great cruelty on both sides; and, after the surrender, the city became a shambles, over 2000 being murdered in cold blood. The news of the fall of Haarlem is said to have raised Philip from a bed of sickness; but the city had been dearly won. Don Frederick had lost 12,000 men, and the cruelties of the victors only nerved the Netherlanders to greater efforts. ‘Our cities,’ said William, ‘are pledged to each other to stand every siege, to dare the utmost, to endure every possible misery, yea rather, to set fire to all our homes and be consumed with them, than ever to submit to the decrees of this cruel tyrant.’ The independence of Holland, indeed, may be said to have been won by the defence of Haarlem. Fifteen days after the fall of the town, the Spanish soldiers, furious at the arrears of their pay, mutinied. They were conciliated by the promise of the pillage of the town of Alkmaar if they could take it, but this they failed to do; and on the 11th of October, Alva suffered a still more serious check in the destruction of his fleet off Enkhuizen. | Alva superseded by Requesens. Nov. 17, 1573.