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er the raising of the siege of Leyden they had beset Utrecht and pillaged and maltreated the inhabitants, till Valdez contrived to furnish their pay. No sooner had Requesens expired than they broke into open mutiny and acted as if they were entire masters of the country. After wandering about some time and threatening Brussels, they seized and plundered Alost, where they established themselves; and they were soon after joined by the Walloon and German troops. To repress their violence, the council of state restored to the Netherlands the arms of which they had been deprived, and called upon them by a proclamation to repress force by force, but these citizen-soldiers were dispersed with great slaughter by the disciplined troops in various rencounters. Ghent, Utrecht, Valenciennes, Maestricht were taken and plundered by the mutineers; and at last the storm fell upon Antwerp, which the Spaniards entered early in November, and sacked during three days. More than a thousand houses were burnt, eight thousand citizens are said to have been slain, and enormous sums in ready money were plundered. The whole damage was estimated at twenty-four million florins. The horrible excesses committed in this sack procured for it the name of the "Spanish Fury." The government was at this period conducted in the name of the State of Brabant. On September 5th De Heze, a young Brabant gentleman who was in secret intelligence with the Prince of Orange, had, at the head of five hundred soldiers, entered the palace where the council of state was assembled, and seized and imprisoned the members. William, taking advantage of the alarm created at Brussels by the sack of Antwerp, persuaded the provisional government to summon the States-General, although such a course was at direct variance with the commands of the King. To this assembly all the provinces except Luxemburg sent deputies. The nobles of the southern provinces, although they viewed the Prince of Orange with suspicion, feeling that there was no security for them so long as the Spanish troops remained in possession of Ghent, sought his assistance in expelling them, which William consented to grant only on condition that an alliance should be effected between the northern and the southern, or Catholic, provinces of the Netherlands. This proposal was agreed to, and toward the end of September Orange sent several thousand men from Zealand to Ghent, at whose approach the Spaniards, who had va
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