he was driven to wander about the country,
suffering from the condemnation of his allies because he had not been
successful. Alva's victory would have seemed too easy if there had not
been a terrible lack of funds among the Spanish, owing to the plunder
which was carried off from Spain by Elizabethan seamen. The Spanish
general demanded taxes suddenly {91} from the people of the
Netherlands, and expected that they would be paid without a murmur.

But he had mistaken the spirit of a trading country which was not
subservient in its loyalty to any ruler. These prosperous merchants
had always been accustomed to dispose of the money they earned
according to their own wishes. Enemies of the Spanish sprang up among
their former allies. Catholics as well as Protestants were angry at
Alva's demand of a tax of the "hundredth penny" to be levied on all
property. Alva's name had been detested even before he marched into
the Low Countries with the army which was notorious for deeds of blood
and outrage. Now it roused such violent hatred that men who had been
ready to support his measures for their own interests gradually forsook
him.

In July 1570, an amnesty was declared by the Duke of Alva in the great
square of Antwerp. Philip's approaching marriage with Anne of Austria
ought to have been celebrated with some appearance of goodwill to all
men, but it was at this time that the blackest treachery stained
Philip's name, already associated with stern cruelty.

Montigny, the son of the Dowager Countess of Hoorn, was one of the
envoys sent to Philip's court before the war had actually opened. He
had been detained in Spain and feared death, for he was a prisoner in
the castle of Segovia. Philip had intended from the beginning to
destroy Montigny, but he did not choose to order his execution openly.
The knight had been sentenced by the Council of Blood after three years
imprisonment, but still lingered on, hoping for release through the
exertions of his family. The King was busied with wedding
preparations, but not too busy to {92} carry out a crafty scheme by
which Montigny seemed to have died of fever, whereas he was strangled
in the Castle. The hypocrisy of the Spanish monarch was so complete
that he actually ordered suits of mourning for Montigny's servants.

In 1572 the Beggars, always restlessly cruising against their foes on
the high seas, took Brill in the absence of a Spanish garrison. Their
action was so succe