12 - Faithful exhortation to the inhabitants of the Netherlands against the vain and false hopes their oppressors hold out to them, 1568

Summary

This is the prince of Orange's reaction to the duke of Alva's edict of 11 November 1568 against the many pamphlets appearing at the time. The prince had already been forced to withdraw his troops from the Netherlands after the failure of the year's campaign.

Awake therefore and do not allow yourselves to be further deceived by those totally false and vain promises which your oppressors and the common enemies put about in order to win a richer booty later. Do not allow your minds to be bewildered any longer by the beautiful titles to which they refer in that edict and generally in relation to all their activities, trying to justify their iniquities, acts of violence, massacres and rapines by the authority of the king, the charge of the governor, the name of justice, the respect of sovereignty, the title of edicts, the pretext of religion, the hope of pardon, the feigning of clemency, the assurance of gentleness, the promise of grace, and so many other sweet and beautiful attributes with which the prologue of that edict has been embellished. Do not be blinded henceforth by the unjust strictures which our common enemies pass on the virtuous acts of our liberators in order to hoodwink your trustful minds, calling them in that edict rebellious, guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté (divine and human), seditious, mutinous, wretched forgers, enemies and disturbers of the public welfare, rabble-rousers, distributors of notorious pamphlets, publishers of booklets, seditious, malicious, turbulent, impudent people, accusing them of so many other vices and trying most unjustly to defame them.