the horrible times upon which they had fallen, the Netherlanders might be
excused for believing that no measure was too monstrous to be fulfilled.
At any rate, it was certain that when all were condemned, any might at a
moment's warning be carried to the scaffold, and this was precisely the
course adopted by the authorities.

Under this universal decree the industry of the Blood-Council might, now
seem superfluous. Why should not these mock prosecutions be dispensed
with against individuals, now that a common sentence had swallowed the
whole population in one vast grave? Yet it may be supposed that if the
exertions of the commissioners and councillors served no other purpose,
they at least furnished the Government with valuable evidence as to the
relative wealth and other circumstances of the individual victims. The
leading thought of the Government being that persecution, judiciously
managed, might fructify into a golden harvest,--it was still desirable to
persevere in the cause in which already such bloody progress had been
made.

And under this new decree, the executions certainly did not slacken.
Men in the highest and the humblest positions were daily and hourly
dragged to the stake. Alva, in a single letter to Philip, coolly
estimated the number of executions which were to take place immediately
after the expiration of holy week, "at eight hundred heads." Many a
citizen, convicted of a hundred thousand florins and of no other crime,
saw himself suddenly tied to a horse's tail, with his hands fastened
behind him, and so dragged to the gallows. But although wealth was an
unpardonable sin, poverty proved rarely a protection. Reasons sufficient
could always be found for dooming the starveling laborer as well as the
opulent burgher. To avoid the disturbances created in the streets by the
frequent harangues or exhortations addressed to the bystanders by the