ascribed to the lack of support from Madrid, and Luis Requesens was sent by the influence of the Ruy Gomez party, to endeavour to bring about by conciliation and mildness the pacification which severity had been powerless to effect. This is not the place for any detailed account to be given of the proceedings of Alba in the Netherlands, which have so often been recounted, but it may be interesting to consider how far Philip is personally responsible for them. It may be conceded at once that the king would have no sentimental scruples whatever in ordering the sacrifice of any number of lives he considered necessary for the success of his object, which in his eyes transcended all human interests. There is no doubt that when Alba was first despatched to Flanders it was for the express purpose of utterly stamping out the Flemish claims of autonomy. The first men to be struck at were the great nobles who had dared to formulate such a claim. The Regent Margaret was dismissed with every sign of disgrace. Her edict of toleration was revoked as “illegal and indecent,” and she herself was ordered to obey the Duke of Alba in all things. She was the king’s sister, however, and she was allowed to go to Parma, complaining bitterly of the outrages to which the king had submitted her. But with Orange, Egmont, Horn, Montigny, and Bergues it was another matter. At some time or another all of these had raised their voices, however submissively, in favour of the national rights of self-government. The blow was carefully planned beforehand, and the treacherous seizure of Egmont and Horn after the dinner party on September 9, 1567, immediately after Alba’s arrival in Brussels, was promptly followed by the even more underhand detention and imprisonment of Bergues, Montigny, and Renard in Spain. Fortunately the greater wariness of Orange and Mansfelt saved them from falling victims to Alba’s lying caresses. The charge against the nobles was not religious, but purely political. It is true that Orange in his absence was accused of speaking disrespectfully of the Inquisition, but the real crime was for having requested the convocation of the States-General on the pretext that “the king could not determine anything in these provinces except with the approval of the States-General, which means stripping the king of all authority and power and adorning him merely with the title.” That Alba’s persecution was not a religious but a political one, is also proved by the fact that the conventual clergy were struck at the same time as the Catholic nobles because they had ventured to protest against Philip’s reorganisation of the ecclesiastical establishment in Flanders, which was intended to make him supreme over the clergy, as he was in Spain. The abbots and monks, we are told, were the first that fled on Alba’s advent. They were followed by rich burgesses, Catholics almost to a man. They fled not for religion yet, but because the