Of the captives, some were soon afterwards hurled off the bridge at Namur, and drowned like dogs in the Meuse, while the rest were all hanged, none escaping with life.

Don John's clemency was not superior to that of his sanguinary predecessors.
And so another proof was added--if proofs were still necessary of Spanish prowess.

The Netherlanders may be pardoned if their foes seemed to them supernatural, and almost invulnerable.

How else could these enormous successes be accounted for?
How else could thousands fall before the Spanish swords, while hardly a single Spanish corpse told of effectual resistance?
At Jemmingen, Alva had lost seven soldiers, and slain seven thousand; in the Antwerp Fury, two hundred Spaniards, at most, had fallen, while eight thousand burghers and states' troops had been butchered; and now at Gemblours, six, seven, eight, ten--Heaven knew how many--thousand had been exterminated, and hardly a single Spaniard had been slain! Undoubtedly, the first reason for this result was the superiority of the Spanish soldiers.

They were the boldest, the best disciplined, the most experienced in the world.