The same political views which engaged Elizabeth to support the Hugonots would have led her to assist the distressed Protestants in the Low Countries; but the mighty power of Philip, the tranquillity of all his other dominions, and the great force which he maintained in these mutinous provinces, kept her in awe, and obliged her, notwithstanding all temptations and all provocations, to preserve some terms of amity with that monarch. The Spanish ambassador represented to her, that many of the Flemish exiles, who infested the seas, and preyed on his master’s subjects, were received into the harbors of England, and were there allowed to dispose of their prizes; and by these remonstrances the queen found herself under a necessity of denying them all entrance into her dominions. But this measure proved in the issue extremely prejudicial to the interests of Philip. These desperate exiles, finding no longer any possibility of subsistence, were forced to attempt the most perilous enterprises; and they made an assault on the Brille, a seaport town in Holland, where they met with success, and after a short resistance became masters of the place.[*] * Camden, p. 443. The duke of Alva was alarmed at the danger; and stopping those bloody executions which he was making on the defenceless Flemings, he hastened with his army to extinguish the flame, which, falling on materials so well prepared for combustion, seemed to menace a general conflagration. His fears soon appeared to be well grounded. The people in the neighborhood of the Brille, enraged by that complication of cruelty, oppression, insolence, usurpation, and persecution, under which they and all their countrymen labored, flew to arms; and in a few days almost all the whole province of Holland and that of Zealand had revolted from the Spaniards, and had openly declared against the tyranny of Alva. This event happened in the year 1572.