Philip was in no hurry for revenge. An army of 15,000 men was sent from Castile to occupy Zaragoza under Alonso de Vargas, one of the butchers of Antwerp. The townspeople were disinclined to hopeless resistance, and only some of the nobles, the friars, and the country people made any attempt at it. Anarchy was rife all over Aragon, and Philip’s troops made a clean sweep of such marauding bands of rebels as stood in their way. The Aragonese of the richer burgher class were indeed by this time somewhat ashamed of having championed the cause of such a man as Perez, and Vargas was soon master of Aragon, the young justiciary and the other leaders of the rebellion having fled. For a time Philip made no attempt to punish them, and they were gradually lured back home on promises of forgiveness. Then suddenly fell Philip’s vengeance. At the end of December 1591 Vargas was ordered without previous warning to seize and behead the justiciary, in defiance of the Aragonese constitution, and at the same time the net of the Inquisition was spread far and wide, and swept into the dungeons all those who had offended. The few refugee nobles and Perez thereupon prevailed upon Henry IV. to send a body of Béarnais troops into Aragon, but the Aragonese joined with Philip’s troops to expel them, and nothing serious came of the attempt. Some of the higher nobles of Aragon died mysteriously in the dungeons, and seventy-nine citizens were condemned to be burnt alive in the market-place of Zaragoza. Philip, however, intervened, and urged clemency upon the Holy Office, and only six were actually executed at the great auto de fé, the rest of the seventy-nine suffering other punishments, perhaps hardly less severe. The spectacle, and the stern repression that preceded it, were dire lessons for the Aragonese, who were thus made to understand that their free institutions must not be exercised against the will of their sovereign. The constitution was not formally revoked, in accordance with Philip’s promise, but all men now understood that henceforward, at least whilst Philip lived, it must be a dead letter, and no more vain dreams of autonomy were allowed to interfere with the system of personal centralisation upon which his government rested. CHAPTER XVII Philip and Mayenne--The English attack upon Lisbon--Assassination of Henry III.--Philip’s plans in France--The war of the League--The battle of Ivry--Philip’s attitude towards Mayenne--Farnese enters France--Relief of Paris--Retirement of Farnese--Philip changes his plans in France--Farnese’s second campaign--Henry IV. goes to mass--Enters Paris as king--Exit of the Spaniards.