The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1572-73 | Page 5

Gerrit at his own house. As soon as this
conviviality had come to an end, Romero, accompanied by his host,
walked into the square. The great bell had been meantime ringing, and
the citizens had been summoned to assemble in the Gast Huis Church,
then used as a town hall. In the course of a few minutes five hundred
had entered the building, and stood quietly awaiting whatever measures
might be offered for their deliberation. Suddenly a priest, who had been

pacing to and fro before the church door, entered the building, and bade
them all prepare for death; but the announcement, the preparation, and
the death, were simultaneous. The door was flung open, and a band of
armed Spaniards rushed across the sacred threshold. They fired a single
volley upon the defenceless herd, and then sprang in upon them with
sword and dagger. A yell of despair arose as the miserable victims saw
how hopelessly they were engaged, and beheld the ferocious faces of
their butchers. The carnage within that narrow apace was compact and
rapid. Within a few minutes all were despatched, and among them
Senator Gerrit, from whose table the Spanish commander had but just
risen. The church was then set on fire, and the dead and dying were
consumed to ashes together.
Inflamed but not satiated, the Spaniards then rushed into the streets,
thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled of their contents,
and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then
struck dead as their reward. The town was then fired in every direction,
that the skulking citizens might be forced from their hiding-places. As
fast as they came forth they were put to death by their impatient foes.
Some were pierced with rapiers, some were chopped to pieces with
axes, some were surrounded in the blazing streets by troops of laughing
soldiers, intoxicated, not with wine but with blood, who tossed them to
and fro with their lances, and derived a wild amusement from their
dying agonies. Those who attempted resistance were crimped alive like
fishes, and left to gasp themselves to death in lingering torture. The
soldiers becoming more and more insane, as the foul work went on,
opened the veins of some of their victims, and drank their blood as if it
were wine. Some of the burghers were for a time spared, that they
might witness the violation of their wives and daughters, and were then
butchered in company with these still more unfortunate victims.
Miracles of brutality were accomplished. Neither church nor hearth was
sacred: Men were slain, women outraged at the altars, in the streets, in
their blazing homes. The life of Lambert Hortensius was spared, out of
regard to his learning and genius, but he hardly could thank his foes for
the boon, for they struck his only son dead, and tore his heart out before
his father's eyes. Hardly any man or woman survived, except by
accident. A body of some hundred burghers made their escape across
the snow into the open country. They were, however, overtaken,

stripped stark naked, and hung upon the trees by the feet, to freeze, or
to perish by a more lingering death. Most of them soon died, but twenty,
who happened to be wealthy, succeeded, after enduring much torture,
in purchasing their lives of their inhuman persecutors. The principal
burgomaster, Heinrich Lambertszoon, was less fortunate. Known to be
affluent, he was tortured by exposing the soles of his feet to a fire until
they were almost consumed. On promise that his life should be spared,
he then agreed to pay a heavy ransom; but hardly had he furnished the
stipulated sum when, by express order of Don Frederic himself, he was
hanged in his own doorway, and his dissevered limbs afterwards nailed
to the gates of the city.
Nearly all the inhabitants of Naarden, soldiers and citizens, were thus
destroyed; and now Don Frederic issued peremptory orders that no one,
on pain of death, should give lodging or food to any fugitive. He
likewise forbade to the dead all that could now be forbidden them--a
grave. Three weeks long did these unburied bodies pollute the streets,
nor could the few wretched women who still cowered within such
houses as had escaped the flames ever wave from their lurking-places
without treading upon the festering remains of what had been their
husbands, their fathers, or their brethren. Such was the express
command of him whom the flatterers called the "most divine genius
ever known." Shortly afterwards came an order to dismantle the
fortifications, which had certainly proved sufficiently feeble in the hour
of need, and to raze what was left of the city from the surface of the
earth. The work was faithfully accomplished, and for a longtime