It is one of the most
amazing tales in history. Where he had thought himself most secure,
there he failed. The foe which had seemed most helpless, proved his
undoing. He had insisted on the enforcement of the Inquisition in the
Netherlands. It is said that thirty thousand people perished there in
its flames. Yet even with thirty thousand of their bravest gone, the
Protestants refused submission. Gradually the temper of the oppressed
people grew more and more bitter, till in 1566 they flared into open
revolt. "The beggars," they were contemptuously called by the Spaniards,
and they adopted the name as a badge of honor. Penniless, helpless they
might be, yet they would fight.[8]
[8] See _Rise of the Gueux or Beggars_, page 81.
The cruel Alva was sent by Philip to suppress them, and for six years
(1567-1573) his savagery and that of his brutal Spanish soldiers made
the Netherlands a theatre of horror--and of heroism. The revolt in the
southern provinces, now Belgium, was finally put down. The inhabitants
there were mostly Catholics, and their strife was only against the
general despotism and cruelty of Spain. But the North would never yield.
The terrific siege of Leyden, with its accompanying horrors of
starvation and defiance, is world-famed.[9] In 1581 Holland finally
proclaimed its complete independence of Spain.
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