The “beggars of the sea” seized Brille on April 1, 1572; all Holland and Zeeland rose. Help and money came from England, and Alba saw himself face to face with an enraged nation instead of downtrodden serfs. First he crushed the south and then held the French Huguenots out of Brabant. Mons was captured, Genlis’s Frenchmen massacred, and swift and relentless as a thunderbolt swept Alba’s vengeance through the southern provinces of Flanders. Submission the most abject, or slaughter was the only alternative. But Holland and Zeeland were made of sterner stuff, and the shambles of Naarden only made Haarlem the more obstinate. Then followed that fell struggle which lasted until Alba’s confession of failure. Cruelty could not crush the Dutchmen, for they were fighting for their faith now as well as their money, and by the end of 1572 Philip had become tired of the useless slaughter. It was difficult for him to revoke or interfere with his commander-in-chief in the midst of such a war, but long before Alba’s final retirement from Flanders at the end of 1573, the king showed his displeasure with his proceedings unmistakably, and it well-nigh broke the old duke’s heart, hard as it was. When at last Philip wrote that his successor, Requesens, was on his way to replace him with an amnesty, these were the king’s words: “I am quite aware that the rebels are perfidious. I understand all your arguments in favour of a continuance of the system of severity, and I agree that they are good; but I see that things have arrived at such an extreme that we shall be obliged to adopt other measures.” Alba’s fall had been decided upon long before, and Medina-Celi had actually been sent to Flanders to replace him, but Philip had always hesitated to withdraw him while he was actually in arms against the enemy. Thirty years before his father had told him that Alba was the best soldier in Spain, and Philip knew that he was so still. But how deeply Philip disapproved of his wanton cruelty in time of peace will be seen by the words already quoted above, and by his sudden degradation of the powerful Cardinal Espinosa when the king discovered that he was being deceived with regard to Alba’s proceedings (September 1572). The number of victims and the reasons for the sacrifices were kept back by the favourite, for Espinosa was for crushing the Dutchmen as he had crushed the Moriscos. But there were others, like Antonio Perez, by Philip’s side to open his eyes to Alba’s enormities, and one day in the council the king turned upon the astounded Espinosa and told him roundly that he lied. When Philip, usually so impassible, said such a thing it meant disgrace and death, and Cardinal Espinosa promptly went home and died the same night.