The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1572-73 | Page 7

fast approaching; for the aspect of the contest in the
Netherlands was not that of ordinary warfare. It was an encounter
between two principles, in their nature so hostile to each other that the
absolute destruction of one was the only, possible issue. As the fight
went on, each individual combatant seemed inspired by direct personal
malignity, and men found a pleasure in deeds of cruelty, from which
generations not educated to slaughter recoil with horror. To murder
defenceless prisoners; to drink, not metaphorically but literally, the
heart's blood of an enemy; to exercise a devilish ingenuity in inventions
of mutual torture, became not only a duty but a rapture. The Liberty of
the Netherlands had now been hunted to its lair. It had taken its last
refuge among the sands and thickets where its savage infancy had been
nurtured, and had now prepared itself to crush its tormentor in a last
embrace, or to die in the struggle.
After the conclusion of the sack and massacre of Naarden, Don
Frederic had hastened to Amsterdam, where the Duke was then

quartered, that he might receive the paternal benediction for his
well-accomplished work. The royal approbation was soon afterwards
added to the applause of his parent, and the Duke was warmly
congratulated in a letter written by Philip as soon as the murderous
deed was known, that Don Frederic had so plainly shown himself to be
his father's son. There was now more work for father and son.
Amsterdam was the only point in Holland which held for Alva, and
from that point it was determined to recover the whole province. The
Prince of Orange was established in the southern district; Diedrich
Sonoy, his lieutenant, was stationed in North Holland. The important
city of Harlem lay between the two, at a spot where the whole breadth
of the territory, from sea to sea, was less than an hour's walk. With the
fall of that city the province would be cut in twain, the rebellious forces
utterly dissevered, and all further resistance, it was thought, rendered
impossible.
The inhabitants of Harlem felt their danger. Bossu, Alva's stadholder
for Holland, had formally announced the system hitherto pursued at
Mechlin, Zutphen, and Naarden, as the deliberate policy of the
government. The King's representative had formally proclaimed the
extermination of man, woman; and child in every city which opposed
his authority, but the promulgation and practice of such a system had
an opposite effect to the one intended. The hearts of the Hollanders
were rather steeled to resistance than awed into submission by the fate
of Naarden." A fortunate event, too, was accepted as a lucky omen for
the coming contest. A little fleet of armed vessels, belonging to
Holland, had been frozen up in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam. Don
Frederic on his arrival from Naarden, despatched a body of picked men
over the ice to attack the imprisoned vessels. The crews had, however,
fortified themselves by digging a wide trench around the whole fleet,
which thus became from the moment an almost impregnable fortress.
Out of this frozen citadel a strong band of well-armed and skilful
musketeers sallied forth upon skates as the besieging force advanced. A
rapid, brilliant, and slippery skirmish succeeded, in which the
Hollanders, so accustomed to such sports, easily vanquished their
antagonists, and drove them off the field, with the loss of several
hundred left dead upon the ice.
"'T was a thing never heard of before to-day," said Alva, "to see a body

of arquebusiers thus skirmishing upon a frozen sea." In the course of
the next four-and-twenty hours a flood and a rapid thaw released the
vessels, which all escaped to Enkhuyzen, while a frost, immediately
and strangely succeeding, made pursuit impossible.
The Spaniards were astonished at these novel manoeuvres upon the ice.
It is amusing to read their elaborate descriptions of the wonderful
appendages which had enabled the Hollanders to glide so glibly into
battle with a superior force, and so rapidly to glance away, after
achieving a signal triumph. Nevertheless, the Spaniards could never be
dismayed, and were always apt scholars, even if an enemy were the
teacher. Alva immediately ordered seven thousand pairs of skates, and
his soldiers soon learned to perform military evolutions with these new
accoutrements as audaciously, if not as adroitly, as the Hollanders.
A portion of the Harlem magistracy, notwithstanding the spirit which
pervaded the province, began to tremble as danger approached. They
were base enough to enter into secret negotiations with Alva, and to
send three of their own number to treat with the Duke at Amsterdam.
One was wise enough to remain with the enemy. The other two were
arrested on their return, and condemned, after an impartial trial, to
death. For, while these emissaries of a cowardly magistracy were
absent,