443.
The duke of Alva was alarmed at the danger; and stopping those bloody executions which he was making on the defenceless Flemings, he hastened with his army to extinguish the flame, which, falling on materials so well prepared for combustion, seemed to menace a general conflagration.
His fears soon appeared to be well grounded.

The people in the neighborhood of the Brille, enraged by that complication of cruelty, oppression, insolence, usurpation, and persecution, under which they and all their countrymen labored, flew to arms; and in a few days almost all the whole province of Holland and that of Zealand had revolted from the Spaniards, and had openly declared against the tyranny of Alva.

This event happened in the year 1572.
William, prince of Orange, descended from a sovereign family of great lustre and antiquity in Germany, inheriting the possessions of a sovereign family in France, had fixed his residence in the Low Countries; and on account of his noble birth and immense riches, as well as of his personal merit, was universally regarded as the greatest subject that lived in those provinces.

He had opposed, by all regular and dutiful means, the progress of the Spanish usurpations; and when Alva conducted his army into the Netherlands, and assumed the government, this prince, well acquainted with the violent character of the man, and the tyrannical spirit of the court of Madrid, wisely fled from the danger which threatened him, and retired to his paternal estate and dominions in Germany.

He was cited to appear before Alva's tribunal, was condemned in absence, was declared a rebel, and his ample possessions in the Low Countries were confiscated.