 "<ref>Lesger, 110</ref>

Many elite Protestants were now alarmed by the forces unleashed, and some of the nobility began to shift towards support of the government.Implementing the somewhat vague terms of the agreement led to further tensions, and William of Orange, appointed by Margaret to resolve the situation in Antwerp, tried and failed to produce a wider settlement that all parties could live with.Instead unrest continued and the episode fed into the causes of the Dutch Revolt which was to erupt two years later.<ref>Elliott, 91–93; Petegree, 132–134; Wells, 89–91; Arnade, 100</ref>

On August 29,1566 Margaret wrote a somewhat panicked letter to Philip, "claiming that half the population were infected with heresy, and that over 200,000 people were up in arms against her authority".<ref name="auto2"></ref> Philip decided to send the Duke of Alba with an army; he would have led them himself but was kept in Spain by other matters, especially the increasingly evident insanity of his heir, Carlos, Prince of Asturias.<ref></ref> When Alba arrived the following year, and soon replaced Margaret as Governor-general, his heavy-handed repression, which included the execution of many convicted of iconoclastic attacks the summer before, only made the situation worse.