ded, requested her brother to accept her
resignation. On October 6 the office of Governor-General was conferred
upon Alva; and shortly afterwards the duchess left the Netherlands and
returned to Parma.

Alva had now the reins of power in his hand, and with a relentless zeal
and cold-blooded ferocity, which have made his name a by-word, he set
about the accomplishment of the fell task with which his master had
entrusted him. He had to enforce with drastic rigour all the penalties
decreed by the placards against heretics and preachers, and to deal
summarily with all who had taken any part in opposition to the
government. But to attempt to do this by means of the ordinary courts
and magistrates would consume time and lead to many acquittals. Alva
therefore had no sooner thrown off the mask by the sudden and skilfully
planned arrest of Egmont and Hoorn, than he proceeded to erect an
extraordinary tribunal, which had no legal standing except such as the
arbitrary will of the duke conferred upon it. This so-called Council of
Troubles, which speedily acquired in popular usage the name of the
Council of Blood, virtually consisted of Alva himself, who was president
and to whose final decision all cases were referred, and two Spanish
lawyers, his chosen tools and agents, Juan de Vargas and Louis del
Rio. The two royalist nobles, Noircarmes and Barlaymont, and five
Netherland jurists also had seats; but, as only the Spaniards voted, the
others before long ceased to attend the meetings. The proceedings indeed
were, from the legal point of view, a mere travesty of justice. A whole
army of commissioners was let loose upon the land, and informers were
encouraged and rewarded. Multitudes of accused were hauled before the
tribunal and were condemned by batches almost without the form of a
trial. For long hours day by day Vargas and del Rio revelled in their
work of butchery; and in all parts of the Netherlands the executioners
were busy. It was of no use for the accused to appeal to the charters
and privileges of their provinces. All alike were summoned to Brussels;
_non curamus privilegios vestros_ declared Vargas in his ungrammatical
Latin. Hand in hand with the wholesale sentences of death went the
confiscation of property. Vast sums went into the treasury. The whole
land for awhile was terror-stricken. All organised opposition was
crushed, and no one dared to raise his voice in protest.

The Prince of Orange was summoned to appear