The siege of Alkmaar was one of the last acts under Alva's auspices in the Netherlands, and formed a fitting termination to his career. He had himself solicited to be recalled, and in December, 1573, he was superseded by Don Luis de Requesens, Grand Commander of St. Jago. In fact, Philip had found this war of extermination too expensive for his exhausted treasury. Alva boasted on his journey back that he had caused eighteen thousand six hundred Netherlanders to be executed. He was well received by Philip, but soon after his return was imprisoned along with his son, Don Frederick; the latter for having seduced a maid of honor, his father for recommending him not to marry his victim. Alva was, however, subsequently released to undertake the conquest of Portugal.
Requesens, the new Governor, had been vice-admiral to Don John of Austria, had distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto, and had subsequently governed the Milanese with reputation. He was mild and just and more liberal than the generality of Spaniards, though inferior to Alva in military talent. He attempted immediately after his arrival in the Netherlands to bring about a peace through the mediation of St. Aldegonde, but Orange was too suspicious to enter into it. Requesens put down robbery and murder, but he was neither able to abrogate the Council of Blood nor to alleviate the oppressive taxes. Philip had selected him as governor of the Netherlands, as a pledge of the more conciliatory policy which he had thought it prudent to adopt; yet Requesens' hands were tied up with such injunctions as rendered all conciliation hopeless, and he was instructed to bring forward no measures which had not for their basis the maintenance of the King's absolute authority and the prohibition of all worship except the Roman Catholic.
The Gueux de Mer were at this time most troublesome to the Spaniards, as their small vessels enabled them to penetrate up the rivers and canals. A naval action had been fought (October 11, 1573) on the Zuyder Zee between Count Bossu, who had collected a considerable fleet at Amsterdam, and the patriot admiral Dirkzoon, in which Bossu was completely defeated and taken prisoner. One of the first acts of Requesens was to send a fleet under Sancho Davila, Julian Romero, and Admiral Glimes to the relief of Middelburg, which had been besieged by the patriots upward of eighteen months and was now reduced to the last extremity. Orange visited the Zealand fleet under the command of Louis Boissot (January 20, 1574), and an action ensued a few days later, in which the Spaniards were completely beaten. Requesens himself beheld the action from the lofty dike of Schakerloo, where he stood all day in a drenching rain; and Romero, who had escaped by jumping out of a porthole, swam ashore and landed at the very feet of the Grand Commander. The Hollanders and Zealanders were now masters of the coast, but the Spaniards still held their ground in the interior of Holland. After raising the siege of Alkmaar, they had invested Leyden and cut off all communication between the Dutch cities.
The efforts of the patriots were less fortunate on land, where they were no match for the Spanish generals and their veteran troops. It had been arranged that Louis of Nassau should march out of Germany with an army of newly levied recruits and form a junction with his brother William, who was at Bommel on the Waal. Toward the end of February, 1574, Louis encamped within four miles of Maestricht, with the design of taking that town; but finding that he could not accomplish this object, and having suffered some losses, he marched down the right bank of the Meuse to join his brother. When, however, he arrived at Mook, a village on the Meuse a few miles south of Nimwegen, he found himself intercepted by the Spaniards under Davila, who, having outmarched him on the opposite bank, had crossed the river at a lower point on a bridge of boats, and placed himself directly in his path. There was now no alternative but to fight, and battle was delivered on the following day on the heath of Mook, when fortune declared against the patriots. The gallant Louis, seeing that the day was lost, put himself at the head of a little band of troopers, and, accompanied by his brother Henry, and Duke Christopher, son of the Elector Palatine Frederick III, made a desperate charge in which they all perished, and were never heard of more. The only effect of Louis' invasion was to cause the Spaniards to raise the siege of Leyden; before which place, however, they afterward again sat down (May 26th).
The defence of Leyden formed a worthy parallel to that of Haarlem and Alkmaar, and acquired for the garrison and the inhabitants the respect and admiration of all Europe. A modern historian has aptly observed that this was the heroic age of Protestantism. Never have the virtues which spring from true patriotism and sincere religious conviction been more strikingly developed and displayed. Leyden was defended by John van der Does, Lord of Nordwyck, a gentleman of distinguished family, but still more distinguished by his learning and genius, and his Latin poetry published under the name of Joannes Douza. The garrison of Leyden was small, and it relied for its defence chiefly on the exertions of the inhabitants. The revictualling of the city had been neglected after the raising of the first siege, and at the end of June it became necessary to put the inhabitants on short allowance; yet they held out more than three months longer. Orange, whose head-quarters were at Delft and Rotterdam, had no means of relieving Leyden except by breaking down the dikes on the Meuse and the Yssel, and thus flooding the country, a step which would involve the destruction of the growing crops, besides other extraordinary expenses; yet he succeeded in obtaining the consent of the Dutch States to this extreme and desperate measure. On the 3d of August he superintended in person the rupture of the dikes on the Yssel; at the same time the sluices of Rotterdam and Schiedam were opened; the flood began to pour over the land, while the citizens of Leyden watched with anxious eyes from the tower of Hengist the rising of the waters.
A flotilla of two hundred flat-bottomed vessels had been provided, stored with provisions, and manned by two thousand five hundred veterans under the command of Boissot. But unexpected obstacles arose. Fresh dikes appeared above the water, and had to be cut through amid the resistance of the Spaniards. Twice the waters receded under the influence of the east wind, and left the fleet aground; twice it was floated again, as if by a providential interposition, by violent gales from the north and west, which accumulated on the coast the waters of the ocean. Meanwhile the besieged were suffering all the extremities of famine; the most disgusting garbage was used for food, and caused a pestilence which carried off thousands. In this extremity a number of the citizens surrounded the burgomaster, Adrian van der Werf, demanding with loud threats and clamors that he should either provide them with food or surrender the city to the enemy. To these menaces Adrian calmly replied, "I have taken an oath that I will never put myself or my fellow-citizens in the power of the cruel and perfidious Spaniards, and I will rather die than violate it." Then drawing his sword he offered it to the surrounding crowd and bade them plunge it in his bosom and devour his flesh if such an action could relieve them from their direful necessity. This extraordinary address filled the people with amazement and admiration and inspired them with a new courage. Their constancy was soon rewarded with deliverance. On the night of October 1st a fresh gale set in from the northwest; the ocean rushed furiously through the ruined dikes; the fleet had soon two feet of water, and sailed on their onward course amid storm and darkness. They had still to contend with the vessels of the enemy, and a naval battle was fought amid the boughs of orchards and the chimney-stacks of houses. But this was the last attempt at resistance on the part of the Spaniards. Appalled both by the constancy of their adversaries and by the rising flood, which was gradually driving them into a narrow circle, the Spaniards abandoned the two remaining forts of Zoetermonde and Lammen, which still stood between the fleet and the city. From the latter they fled in alarm at the noise of the falling of a large portion of the town walls which had been thrown down by the waters, and which in the darkness they luckily mistook for some operation of their adversaries; otherwise they might easily have entered and captured Leyden. The fleet of Boissot approached the city on the morning of October 3d. After the pangs of hunger were relieved the whole population repaired to church to return thanks to the Almighty for their deliverance. On October 4th another providential gale from the northeast assisted in clearing off the water from the land. In commemoration of this remarkable defence, and as a reward for the heroism of the citizens, was founded the University of Leyden, as well as a ten days' annual fair, free from all tolls and taxes. During this siege the Gueux had been again successful at sea. On May 30th Boissot defeated between Lilloo and Kalloo a Spanish fleet, took the admiral and three ships, and chased the rest into Antwerp.
The bankrupt state of Philip II's exchequer, and the reverses which his arms had sustained, induced him to accept in the following year the proffered mediation of the emperor Maximilian, which he had before arrogantly rejected, and a congress was held at Breda from March till June, 1575. But the insurgents were suspicious, and Philip was inflexible; he could not be induced to dismiss his Spanish troops, to allow the meeting of the States-General, or to admit the slightest toleration in matters of religion; and the contest was therefore renewed with more fury than ever. The situation of the patriots became very critical when the enemy, by occupying the islands of Duyveland and Schouwen, cut off the communication between Holland and Zealand, especially as all hope of succor from England had expired. Toward the close of the year envoys were despatched to solicit the aid of Elizabeth, and to offer her, under certain conditions, the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand. Requesens sent Champagny to counteract these negotiations, which ended in nothing. The English Queen was afraid of provoking the power of Spain, and could not even be induced to grant the Hollanders a loan. The attitude assumed at that time by the Duke of Alençon in France also prevented them from entering into any negotiations with that Prince.
In these trying circumstances William the Silent displayed the greatest firmness and courage. It was now that he is said to have contemplated abandoning Holland and seeking with its inhabitants a home in the New World, having first restored the country to its ancient state of a waste of waters, a thought, however, which he probably never seriously entertained, though he may have given utterance to it in a moment of irritation or despondency. On June 12, 1575, William had married Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Montpensier. The Prince's second wife, Anne of Saxony, had turned out a drunken, violent character, and at length an intrigue which she formed with John Rubens, an exiled magistrate of Antwerp, and father of the celebrated painter, justified William in divorcing her. She subsequently became insane. Charlotte de Bourbon had been brought up a Calvinist, but at a later period, her father having joined the party of the persecutors, she took refuge with the Elector Palatine, and it was under these circumstances that she received the addresses of the Prince of Orange.
The unexpected death of Requesens, who expired of a fever, March 5, 1576, after a few days' illness, threw the government into confusion. Philip II had given Requesens a carte blanche to name his successor, but the nature of his illness had prevented him from filling it up. The government, therefore, devolved to the council of state, the members of which were at variance with one another; but Philip found himself obliged to intrust it ad interim with the administration till a successor to Requesens could be appointed. Count Mansfeld was made commander-in-chief, but was totally unable to restrain the licentious soldiery. The Spaniards, whose pay was in arrear, had now lost all discipline. After 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 Hèze, 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 valorously defended themselves for two months under the conduct of the wife of their absent general, Mondragon, surrendered and evacuated the citadel. The proposed alliance was now converted into a formal union, by the treaty called the Pacification of Ghent, signed November 8, 1576, by which it was agreed, without waiting for the sanction of Philip, whose authority, however, was nominally recognized, to renew the edict of banishment against the Spanish troops, to procure the suspension of the decrees against the Protestant religion, to summon the States-General of the northern and southern provinces, according to the model of the assembly which had received the abdication of Charles V, to provide for the toleration and practice of the Protestant religion in Holland and Zealand, together with other provisions of a similar character. About the same time with the Pacification of Ghent, all Zealand, with the exception of the island of Tholen, was recovered from the Spaniards.