Requesens, the next Regent, was unable either to stem the rising tide of revolt or to pay his soldiers--King Philip failing to send funds until the pay of the Spanish veterans was at one time twenty-two months in arrears. The sudden death of Requesens in 1576 left matters in a nearly chaotic condition. The veterans who had been fighting in Zeeland against the Dutch mutinied and returning to Flanders captured the town of Alost, where they forced the citizens to give them food and shelter. On November 4th, 1576, the mutineers marched to Antwerp, some two thousand strong, where they joined the Spaniards and mercenaries in the citadel. They were under the command of an _Eletto_, or elected leader. Jerome Roda, a Spaniard, had proclaimed himself the commandant of the fortress until the new Regent, Don John of Austria, should arrive in Flanders. Under these two worthies the combined forces in the citadel, some five thousand men in all, proceeded to attack the city. The citizens, on their side, had for some time feared such an attack and should have been able to repel it. There were fourteen thousand armed burghers, four thousand Walloons and an equal number of German troops--twenty-two thousand in all. It may have been that they felt unduly secure against an attack on that day because it was Sunday. It is certain that they were badly commanded. Shortly after noon the Spaniards rushed from the citadel and across the broad open esplanade cleared a few years before by Alva, shouting their war cry, _Sant Jago y cierra España_. The _Eletto_ was the first to fall, but the rush of furious soldiers was not to be stopped by a single volley. The Walloons put up a brave fight but part of the Germans treacherously lowered their pikes and let the Spaniards pass down the rue St. Georges. On the Place de Meir the defenders made another stand, but were swiftly swept back in a confused and disorganised mass by the Spanish cavalry. At the Hotel de Ville the burghers fought fiercely until the mutineers set fire to the edifice. In the conflagration that followed not only this noble structure, one of the finest in Europe, but the adjoining guild houses and some eighty other buildings were consumed. Of the Hotel de Ville only the blackened walls remained. By nightfall the Spaniards and the German mercenaries, most of whom had joined the victors in order to share in the spoils, were masters of the doomed city.