In the year 1567 “the council of blood” as it was called, held its first sitting. There are few readers who have not heard something of the infamous character of Alva. "Such an amount of ferocity," says Motley, "of patient vindictiveness and universal bloodthirstiness was never found in a savage beast of the forest, and but rarely in a human bosom." It was no longer the trial of ones and twos that occupied the council, as it was thought more expeditious to send the accused at once in large numbers to the flames. But no crime at that moment was so great as being rich. No belief, no virtues, could expiate such guilt. Bloodshed and confiscations were the daily amusements of the tyrant who thus gratified his avarice and his cruelty. He boasted that a golden river, a yard deep, should flow through the Netherlands, from confiscations, to replenish the treasury of his master. In the town of Tournay alone, the estates of above a hundred rich merchants were confiscated.
Blood now flowed in torrents. "Thus, for example, on the 4th of January, eighty-four inhabitants of Valenciennes were condemned; on another day, ninety-five from different places in Flanders; on another, forty-six inhabitants of Malines; on another, thirty-five persons from different localities. Yet, notwithstanding this wholesale slaughter, Philip, Alva, and the Holy Office were not satisfied with the progress of events. A new edict was issued, affixing a heavy penalty upon all wagoners, carriers, and ship-masters, who should aid in the emigration of heretics. They had resolved that none should escape.
Early in the second year of the council of blood, "the most sublime sentence of death," says Motley, "was promulgated, which has ever been pronounced since the creation of the world. The Roman tyrant wished that his enemies' heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them off at one blow. The Inquisition assisted Philip to place the heads of all his Netherland subjects upon a single neck for the same fell purpose. Upon the 19th of February 1568 a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people-men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines."
"This horrible decree," says Brandt, "against a whole nation, drove many with their wives and children to seek a place of safety in the West-woods of Flanders, from whence, turning savages through the solitude of the place, and the extinction of their hopes, they made excursions on the priests and friars, serving themselves of the darkest nights for revenge and robbery."