Horrors, alas, were commonplaces in the Netherlands.

Cruelty too monstrous for description, too vast to be believed by a mind not familiar with the outrages practised by the soldiers of Spain and Italy upon their heretic fellow-creatures, were now committed afresh in the streets of Maestricht.
On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered.

The massacre lasted two days longer; nor would it be an exaggerated estimate, if we assume that the amount of victims upon the two last days was equal to half the number sacrificed on the first.

It was said that not four hundred citizens were left alive after the termination of the siege.
These soon wandered away, their places being supplied by a rabble rout of Walloon sutlers and vagabonds.

Maestricht was depopulated as well as captured.