[967] "Elle est affectée, jusqu'au fond de l'âme, de la conduite du Roi à son égard." Ibid., p. 567.
[968] Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pay-Bas, tom. II. p. 207.
[969] "Seu vera seu ficta, facilè Gandavensibus credita, ab iisque in reliquum Belgium cum Albani odio propagata." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 368.
[970] See his remarkable letter to the king, of October 21, 1563: "A los que destos merecen, quítenles las caveças, hasta poderlo hacer dissimular con ellos." Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle, tom. VII. p. 233.
[971] "Les Espaignols font les plus grandes foulles qu'on ne sçauroit escryre; ils confisquent tout, à tort, à droit, disant que touts sont hérétiques, qui ont du bien, et ont à perdre."
The indignant writer does not omit to mention the "two thousand" strumpets who came in the duke's train; "so," he adds, "with what we have already, there will be no lack of this sort of wares in the country." Lettre de Jean de Hornes, Aug. 25, 1567, Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 565.
[972] Clough, Sir Thomas Gresham's agent, who was in the Low Countries at this time, mentions the licence of the Spaniards. It is but just to add, that he says the government took prompt measures to repress it, by ordering some of the principal offenders to the gibbet. Burgon, Life of Gresham, vol. II. pp. 229, 230.
[973] The duchess, in a letter to Philip, September 8, 1567, says that a hundred thousand people fled the country on the coming of Alva! (Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 357.) If this be thought a round exaggeration, dictated by policy or by fear, still there are positive proofs that the emigration at this period was excessive. Thus, by a return made of the population of London and its suburbs, this very year of 1567, it appears that the number of Flemings was as large as that of all other foreigners put together. See Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de Bruxelles, tom. XIV. p. 127.
[974] Thus Jean de Hornes, Baron de Boxtel, writes to the prince of Orange: "J'ay prins une résolution pour mon faict et est que je fay tout effort de scavoir si l'on poulrast estre seurement en sa maison: si ainsy est, me retireray en une des miennes le plus abstractement que possible sera; sinon, regarderay de chercher quelque résidence en desoubs ung aultre Prince." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. III. p. 125.
[975] Göthe, in his noble tragedy of "Egmont," seems to have borrowed a hint from Shakespeare's "blanket of the dark," to depict the gloom of Brussels,—where he speaks of the heavens as wrapt in a dark pall from the fatal hour when the duke entered the city. Act IV. Scene I.