Such barbarities as those committed at the capture of Haarlem roused the people to desperation. The siege of this place lasted for seven months, and when it was taken by the Spaniards the Governor and the other magistrates were beheaded, and twelve hundred of the garrison were either slaughtered or drowned in the lake. Before Alva's rule was ended, the northern provinces, chiefly Protestant, had rebelled against the Spanish crown. When no other resource remained, the intrepid burghers cut the dikes, as they have done in Belgium today, and so forced the enemy to retire. Philip at last recalled the sanguinary Duke, and commissioned Requesens to complete his task. But the conciliatory measures of the new governor came too late, and the war went on. After the death of Requesens and before the arrival of his successor, Don John of Austria, the mutinous Spanish troops seized the citadels of Ghent, Antwerp, and Maestricht, and gave the towns over to pillage and destruction. In November, 1576, they were joined by other mutineers from Alost, and for three days the "Spanish Fury" raged in Antwerp. Even in the Low Countries such carnage and vandalism had never been known. When it ended the city was in ruins, and seven thousand of its citizens had been slain. A few days later, the delegates from the different provinces, assembled at Ghent, under the leadership of Orange, issued the famous declaration known as "The Pacification of Ghent." This document proclaimed universal amnesty, the union of the provinces to expel all foreigners, the suspension of the edicts against heresy, liberty of worship, and the annulment of all confiscations and judgments of the ten years of warfare. The people seemed now to have taken a great stride toward freedom. The death of Don John in the following year gave the command of the Spanish forces to Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, one of the greatest generals of the age. The Walloons having practically gone over to the side of Spain, on account of their devotion to the Catholic religion, William of Orange saw that it was only the northern provinces upon which he could really depend, and formed the "Union of Utrecht." By this act the states now constituting the kingdom of Holland were bound together as a united and independent whole, each state to enjoy complete freedom of worship. They were soon joined by the towns of Antwerp, Ypres, Ghent and Bruges. After William the Silent was assassinated, in July, 1584, at the instigation of Philip, the United Provinces, though bereft of their leader, still held out against the power of Spain, but the cities that at first cast in their lot with them, were one by one reduced by siege, the last to surrender being Antwerp. In all the conquered territory the Protestant religion was absolutely proscribed, more than half the population went into voluntary exile in England and Holland rather than renounce their faith, and the country was left desolate.