On his return to the Netherlands, the duke found himself again under the necessity of repairing to Spa, in search of some relief from the suffering which was considerably increased by the effects of a wound received in this last campaign.  In spite of his shattered constitution, he maintained to the latest moment the most active endeavors for the reorganization of his army; and he was preparing for a new expedition into France, when, fortunately for the good cause in both countries, he was surprised by death on the 3d of December, 1592, at the abbey of St. Vaast, near Arras, at the age of forty-seven years.  As it was hard to imagine that Philip would suffer anyone who had excited his jealousy to die a natural death, that of the duke of Parma was attributed to slow poison.

Alexander of Parma was certainly one of the most remarkable, and, it may be added, one of the greatest, characters of his day.  Most historians have upheld him even higher perhaps than he should be placed on the scale; asserting that he can be reproached with very few of the vices of the age in which he lived.  Others consider this judgment too favorable, and accuse him of participation in all the crimes of Philip, whom he served so zealously.  His having excited the jealousy of the tyrant, or even had he been put to death by his orders, would little influence the question; for Philip was quite capable of ingratitude or murder, to either an accomplice or an opponent of his baseness.  But even allowing that Alexander’s fine qualities were sullied by his complicity in these odious measures, we must still in justice admit that they were too much in the spirit of the times, and particularly of the school in which he was trained; and while we lament that his political or private faults place him on so low a level, we must rank him as one of the very first masters in the art of war in his own or any other age.

CHAPTER XIV

TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP II.

A.D. 1592—­1599

The duke of Parma had chosen the count of Mansfield for his successor, and the nomination was approved by the king.  He entered on his government under most disheartening circumstances.  The rapid conquests of Prince Maurice in Brabant and Flanders were scarcely less mortifying than the total disorganization into which those two provinces had fallen.  They were ravaged by bands of robbers called Picaroons, whose audacity reached such a height that they opposed in large bodies the forces sent for their suppression by the government.  They on one occasion killed the provost of Flanders, and burned his lieutenant in a hollow tree; and on another they mutilated a whole troop of the national militia, and their commander, with circumstances of most revolting cruelty.