The war with France at the beginning of this reign, with its attendant evils, quartering of troops, conscription and levies of money, joined with cattle disease and scanty harvests in plunging the land again into distress, from which it recovered very slowly.
The storm is swallowing up the levies, and we sent folks north.
Alva then advanced to meet the invaders with a large army, and at Jemmingen (July 21), with very slight loss, annihilated the levies of Louis, who himself escaped by swimming from the field across an estuary of the Ems. He now joined the army of his brother William, which had in October to beat a hasty retreat before Alva's superior skill.
The Guelph towns of Lombardy again raised their levies.
By this time the rising had attained the dimensions of a revolution; all the feudal levies of the kingdom were called out against it; and mercenaries were hired in haste from Venice, Bohemia and the emperor.
