History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

countrymen as a man of insatiable greed and
measureless cruelty. He it was who proposed the
compendious settlement of the Netherlands
question to which we have just referred, namely,
that of hanging all the inhabitants on one gallows.
"The gangrene of the Netherlands," said the
Spaniards, "has need of a sharp knife, and such is
Vargas."[12] This man was well mated with
another Spaniard nearly as cruel and altogether as
unscrupulous, Del Rio. This council pronounced
what sentences it pleased, and it permitted no
appeal.
It would be both wearisome and disgusting to
follow these men, step by step, in their path of
blood. Their council-chamber resembled nothing
so much as the lair of a wild beast, with its
precincts covered with the remains of victims. It
was simply a den of murder; and one could see in
imagination all its approaches and avenues soaked
in gore and strewn with the mangled carcases of
men, women, and children. The subject is a
horrible one, upon which it is not at all pleasant to
dwell.
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