that the
council of state found itself forced to proclaim them rebels,
traitors, and enemies to the king and the country, and called
on all loyal subjects to pursue and exterminate them wherever
they were found in arms.

This proscription of the Spanish mutineers was followed by the
convocation of the states-general, and the government thus hoped
to maintain some show of union and some chance of authority.
But a new scene of intestine violence completed the picture of
executive inefficiency. On the 4th of September, the grand bailiff
of Brabant, as lieutenant of the Baron de Hesse, governor of
Brussels, entered the council chamber by force, and arrested all
the members present, on suspicion of treacherously maintaining
intelligence with the Spaniards. Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont
were imprisoned, with some others. Viglius escaped this indignity
by being absent froth indisposition. This bold measure was hailed
by the people with unusual joy, as the signal for that total
change in the government which they reckoned on as the prelude
to complete freedom.

The states-general were all at this time assembled, with the
exception of those of Flanders, who joined the others with but
little delay. The general reprobation against the Spaniards procured
a second decree of proscription; and their desperate conduct
justified the utmost violence with which they might be pursued.
They still held the citadels of Ghent and Antwerp, as well as
Maestricht, which they had seized on, sacked, and pillaged with
all the fury which a barbarous enemy inflicts on a town carried
by assault. On the 3d of November, the other body of mutineers,
in possession of Alost, marched to the support of their fellow
brigands in the citadel of Antwerp; and both, simultaneously
attacking this magnificent city, became masters of it in all
points, in spite of a vigorous resistance on the part of the
citizens. They then began a scene of rapine and destruction
unequalled in the annals of these desperate wars. More than five
hundred private mansions and the splendid town-house were delivered
to the flames: seven thousand citizens perished by the sword or
in the waters of the Scheldt. For three days the carnage and
the pillage went on with unheard-of fury; and the most opulent
town in Europe was thus reduced to ruin and desolation by a few
thousand frantic ruffians. The loss was valued at above two million
golden crowns. Vargas and Romero were the principal le