The Germans offered but a feeble resistance.
Oberstein perished; Champagney and Havre took refuge on vessels in the river; and the Spaniards were masters of Antwerp.

The scene of massacre, lust and wholesale pillage, which followed, left a memory behind it unique in its horror even among the excesses of this blood-stained time.
The "Spanish Fury," as it was called, spelt the ruin of what, but a short time before, had been the wealthiest and most flourishing commercial city in the world.
The news of this disaster reached the States-General, as they were in the act of considering the draft proposals which had been submitted to them by the Ghent conference.

At the same time tidings came that Don John, who had travelled through France in disguise, had arrived at Luxemburg.

They quickly therefore came to a decision to ratify the pact, known as the _Pacification of Ghent,_ and on November 8 it was signed.
The _Pacification_ was really a treaty between the Prince of Orange and the Estates of Holland and Zeeland on the one hand, and the States-General representing the other provinces.

It was agreed that the Spanish troops should be compelled to leave the Netherlands and that the States-General of the whole seventeen provinces, as they were convened at the abdication of Charles V, should be called together to decide upon the question of religious toleration and other matters of national importance.