On the whole, the Duke of Alva was inferior to no general of his age.
As a disciplinarian he was foremost in Spain, perhaps in Europe. A
spendthrift of time, he was an economist of blood, and this was, perhaps,
in the eye of humanity, his principal virtue. Time and myself are two,
was a frequent observation of Philip, and his favorite general considered
the maxim as applicable to war as to politics. Such were his qualities
as a military commander. As a statesman, he had neither experience nor
talent. As a man his character was simple. He did not combine a great
variety of vices, but those which he had were colossal, and he possessed
no virtues. He was neither lustful nor intemperate, but his professed
eulogists admitted his enormous avarice, while the world has agreed that
such an amount of stealth and ferocity, of patient vindictiveness and
universal bloodthirstiness, were never found in a savage beast of the
forest, and but rarely in a human bosom. His history was now to show
that his previous thrift of human life was not derived from any love of
his kind. Personally he was stern and overbearing. As difficult of
access as Philip himself, he was even more haughty to those who were
admitted to his presence. He addressed every one with the depreciating
second person plural. Possessing the right of being covered in the
presence of the Spanish monarch, he had been with difficulty brought to
renounce it before the German Emperor. He was of an illustrious family;
but his territorial possessions were not extensive. His duchy was a
small one, furnishing him with not more than fourteen thousand crowns of
annual income, and with four hundred soldiers. He had, however, been a
thrifty financier all his life, never having been without a handsome sum
of ready money at interest. Ten years before his arrival in the
Netherlands, he was supposed to have already increased his income to
forty thousand a year by the proceeds of his investments at Antwerp.
As already intimated, his military character was sometimes profoundly
misunderstood. He was often considered rather a pedantic than a