History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

that threatened speedily to make them as silent as a
graveyard. Nor did Philip mean that his strangling,
burnings, and massacrings should stop at the
Netherlands. The orders to his devastating hordes
were to follow the steps of Protestantism to every
land where it had gone; to march to the shores of
the Leman; to the banks of the Thames; to France,
should the Guises fail in the St. Bartholomew they
were at that moment plotting: everywhere
"extermination, utter extermination," was to be
inflicted. Protestantism was to be torn up by the
roots, although it should be necessary to tear up
along with it all human rights and liberties. It is not
the Netherlands, with William at their head, for
whom we need to offer vindication or apology, for
coming forward at the eleventh hour to save
Christendom and the world from a catastrophe so
imminent and so tremendous; the parties that need
to be defended are those more powerful States and
princes who stood aloof, or rendered but
inadequate aid at this supreme crisis, and left the
world's battle to be fought by one of the smallest of
its kingdoms. It is no doubt true, as we are often
reminded, that the great Defender of the Church is
517