but the axiom was not so familiar three centuries ago as now.

Meantime, the report of the deputies to the assembly on their return to
their constituents had created the most intense excitement and alarm.
Petition after petition, report after report, poured in upon the
government. There was a cry of despair, and almost of defiance, which
had not been elicited by former agonies. To induce, however, a more
favorable disposition on the part of the Duke, the hundredth penny, once
for all, was conceded by the estates. The tenth and twentieth
occasioned--severe and protracted struggles, until the various assemblies
of the patrimonial provinces, one after another, exhausted, frightened,
and hoping that no serious effort would be made to collect the tax,
consented, under certain restrictions, to its imposition.--The principal
conditions were a protest against the legality of the proceeding, and the
provision that the consent of no province should be valid until that of
all had been obtained. Holland, too, was induced to give in its
adhesion, although the city of Amsterdam long withheld its consent;
but the city and province of Utrecht were inexorable. They offered
a handsome sum in commutation, increasing the sum first proposed from
70,000 to 200,000 florins, but they resolutely refused to be saddled with
this permanent tax. Their stout resistance was destined to cost them
dear. In the course of a few months Alva, finding them still resolute in
their refusal, quartered the regiment of Lombardy upon them, and employed
other coercive measures to bring them to reason. The rude, insolent,
unpaid and therefore insubordinate soldiery were billeted in every house
in the city, so that the insults which the population were made to suffer
by the intrusion of these ruffians at their firesides would soon, it was
thought, compel the assent of the province to the tax. It was not so,
however. The city and the province remained stanch in their opposition.
Accordingly, at the close of the year (15th. December, 1569) the estates