" he wrote to Philip, "feel that any day his house might fall about
his ears.[1023] Thus private individuals would be induced to pay larger
sums by way of composition for their offences."

As the result of the confiscations, owing to the drains upon them above
alluded to, proved less than he expected, the duke, somewhat later,
proposed a tax of one per cent. on all property, personal and real. But
to this some of the council had the courage to object, as a thing not
likely to be relished by the states. "That depends," said Alva, "on the
way in which they are approached." He had as little love for the
states-general as his master, and looked on applications to them for
money as something derogatory to the crown. "I would take care to ask
for it," he said, "as I did when I wanted money to build the citadel of
Antwerp,--in such a way that they should not care to refuse it."[1024]

The most perfect harmony seems to have subsisted between the king and
Alva in their operations for destroying the liberties of the nation,--so
perfect, indeed, that it could have been the result only of some
previous plan, concerted probably while the duke was in Castile. The
details of the execution were doubtless left, as they arose, to Alva's
discretion. But they so entirely received the royal sanction,--as is
abundantly shown by the correspondence,--that Philip may be said to have
made every act of his general his own. And not unfrequently we find the
monarch improving on the hints of his correspondent by some additional
suggestion.[1025] Whatever evils grew out of the male-administration of
the duke of Alva, the responsibility for the measures rests ultimately
on the head of Philip.

One of the early acts of the new council was to issue a summons to the
prince of Orange, and to each of the noble exiles in his company, to
present themselves at Brussels, and answer the charges against them. In
the summons addressed to William, he was accused of having early
encouraged a spirit of disaffection in the nation; of bringing the
Inquisition into contempt; of promoting the confederacy of the nobles,
and opening his own palace of Breda for their discussions; of
authorizing the exercise of the reformed religion in Antwerp; in fine,
of being at the bottom of the troubles, civil and religious, which had
so long distracted the land. He was required, therefore, under pain of
confiscation of his property and perpetual exile, to present himself
before the