History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

were confiscated, and sentence of banishment was
recorded against them.
Had they succeeded in ensnaring William of
Orange, the joy of Philip and Alva would have
been unbounded. His sagacity, his strength of
character, and his influence with his countrymen,
made his capture of more importance to the success
of their designs than that of all the rest of the
Flemish nobility. Their mortification, when they
found that he had escaped them, was therefore
extreme. His figure rose menacingly before them in
their closets; he disturbed all their calculations; for
while this sagacious and dauntless friend of his
country's liberties was at large, they could not be
sure of retaining their hold on the Netherlands,
their prey might any day be wrested from them.
But though his person had escaped them, his
property was within their reach, and now his
numerous estates in France and the Low Countries
were confiscated, their revenues appropriated for
the uses of Philip, and his eldest son, Count van
Buren, a lad of thirteen, and at the time a student in
the University of Louvain, was seized as a hostage
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