Note 1580 — Chapter XVI

De Thou, VII, 37 (cf. Louis of Nassau’s letter to his brother on the subject in Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, IV, 278 ff.). Charles IX was ill at the time and the queen mother went alone to Blamont (ibid., IV, 276, 277; Mém. du duc de Bouillon). The Spanish ambassador in France was not unobservant of the favorable policy of Charles toward the Netherlands and so informed the duke of Alva (Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, IV, 132). The peace of La Rochelle was a hard blow to Spain (Languet, Epist. secr., I, 201; St. Goard to Charles IX, July 17, 1573 in Archives de la maison d’Orange-Nassau, IV, 164-69). These negotiations of the prince of Orange and his brother with England and France, however, came too late to save Haarlem. On July 12 the unhappy city succumbed. On the 14th the Spaniards entered and began a regular massacre, in which nearly 1,800 persons were either slain with the sword, hanged, or drowned (ibid., IV, 173; cf. a letter of the prince of Orange to Louis of Nassau, giving details of the surrender on July 22, 1573, ibid., 175).