success spread
like wildfire. The coast towns "fell away like beads from a rosary
when one is gone." Fortifications in all of them were strengthened
and, where necessary, dykes were opened. Reinforcements also came from
England.

[Sidenote: Revolution]

By this time the revolt had become a veritable revolution. It found
its battle hymn in the Wilhelmuslied and its Washington in William of
Orange. As all the towns of Holland save Amsterdam were in his hands,
in June the provincial Estates met--albeit illegally, for there was no
one authorized to convene them--assumed sovereign power and made
William their Stat-holder. They voted large taxes and forced loans
from rich citizens, and raised money from the sale of prizes taken at
sea. All defect in prescriptive and legal power was made up by the
popularity of the prince, deeply loved by all classes, not only on
account of his affability to all, even the humblest, but still more
because of confidence in his ability. Never did his versatility,
patience and skill in management shine more brightly. Among the troops
raised by the patriots he kept strict discipline, thus making by
contrast more lurid the savage pillage by the Spaniards. He kept far
from fanatics and swashbucklers of whom there were plenty attracted to
the revolt. His master idea was to keep the Netherlands together and
to free them from the foreigner. Complete independence of Spain was
not at first planned, but it soon became inevitable.

For a moment there was a prospect of help from Coligny's policy of
prosecuting a war with Spain, but these hopes were destroyed by the
defeat of the French Huguenots near Mons [Sidenote: July 17, 1572] and
by the massacre of Saint {262} Bartholomew. [Sidenote: August 24,
1572] Freed from menace in this quarter and encouraged by his
brilliant victory, Alva turned north with an army now increased to
40,000 veterans. First he took Malines and delivered it to his
soldiers for "the most dreadful and inhuman sack of the day" as a
contemporary wrote. The army then marched to Guelders and stormed
Zutphen under express orders from their general "not to leave one man
alive or one building unburnt." "With the help of God," as Alva
piously reported, the same punishment was meted out to Naarden. Then
he marched to the still royalist Amsterdam from which base he proceeded
to invest Haarlem. The siege was a long and hard one for the
Spaniards, harassed by the winter weath