red,
and that their office proved no sinecure. Their labors, however, were not
encumbered by antiquated forms. As this supreme and only tribunal for all
the Netherlands had no commission or authority save the will of the
Captain-General, so it was also thought a matter of supererogation to
establish a set of rules and orders such as might be useful in less
independent courts. The forms of proceeding were brief and artless. There
was a rude organization by which a crowd of commissioners, acting as
inferior officers of the council, were spread over the provinces, whose
business was to collect information concerning all persons who might be
incriminated for participation in the recent troubles. The greatest
crime, however, was to be rich, and one which could be expiated by no
virtues, however signal. Alva was bent upon proving himself as
accomplished a financier as he was indisputably a consummate commander,
and he had promised his master an annual income of 500,000 ducats from
the confiscations which were to accompany the executions.

It was necessary that the blood torrent should flow at once through the
Netherlands, in order that the promised golden river, a yard deep,
according to his vaunt, should begin to irrigate the thirsty soil of
Spain. It is obvious, from the fundamental laws which were made to define
treason at the same moment in which they established the council, that
any man might be at any instant summoned to the court. Every man, whether
innocent or guilty, whether Papist or Protestant, felt his head shaking
on his shoulders. If he were wealthy, there seemed no remedy but flight,
which was now almost impossible, from the heavy penalties affixed by the
new edict upon all carriers, shipmasters, and wagoners, who should aid in
the escape of heretics.

A certain number of these commissioners were particularly instructed to
collect information as to the treason of Orange, Louis Nassau, Brederode,
Egmont, Horn, Culemberg, Vanden Berg, Bergen, and Montigny. Upon such
information the proceedings against those distinguished seigniors were to
be summarily instituted. Particular councillors of the Court of Blood
were charged with the arrangement of these important suits, but the
commissioners were to report in the first instance to the Duke himself,
who afterwards returned the paper into the hands of his subordinates.

With regard to the inferior and miscellaneous cases which were daily
brought in incredible profus