Sire, have pity on the Spanish infantry, which, for lack of pay and out of sheer starvation, is scouring the low country round, plundering the peasantry in mere need of food. These disorders I cannot repress, much less can I punish them, for necessity has no law.

William to Philip II while William was in command of the forces round Philippeville, January 5th, 1556, as quoted in William the Silent (1902) by Frederic Harrison, p. 11.