Ferdinand Alvarez of Toledo, duke of, was born in 1508, and descended from one of the most illustrious families of Spain. His grandfather, Frederick de Toledo, was his preceptor in the military and political arts, and he displayed his valour at the battle of Pavia and at the siege of Tunis. The ambitious Charles V. selected Alva as a proper instrument for conducting his military enterprises, and he made him his general in 1538; and, after several operations, in which he both displayed his valour and military knowledge, in 1542 he successfully defended Perpignan against the dauphin of France.

In 1546, Alva was made general in chief of the army which marched against the German Protestants, who were marshalled under the banners of the elector of Saxony. Francis, the king of France, died at Rambouillet, and by his death a considerable change was made in the state of Europe. Instantly, therefore, Charles began his march from Egra on the borders of Bohemia, and entered the southern frontier of Saxony, and attacked Altorf upon the Elster. Incessantly pushing forward, he arrived the evening of the 23rd of April on the banks of the Elbe, opposite to Mühlberg. The river, at that place, was three hundred paces in breadth, about four feet in depth; its current rapid; and the bank possessed by the Saxons was higher than that which he occupied. In opposition to the opinion of the duke of Alva and his other officers, Charles, with undaunted courage, and with inexplicable difficulties, led his army through the river, and engaged the Saxons. The elector displayed great personal courage and military knowledge, but having received a wound in the face, he at last surrendered himself prisoner. When he approached the emperor, he said, "The fortune of war has made me your prisoner, most gracious emperor, and I hope to be treated."

Here Charles hardly interrupted him, "And am I then at last acknowledged to be emperor? Charles of Ghent was the only title you lately allowed me. You shall be treated as you deserve." The elector made no reply; but, with an unaltered countenance, which discovered neither astonishment nor dejection, accompanied the Spanish soldiers appointed to guard him. The emperor proceeded towards Wittemberg, whither the remains of the Saxon army had fled, carrying along with him the captive prince, as a spectacle of consternation and amazement to his own subjects. But when he approached the town, he found it defended by the vigorous efforts of the elector's wife, along with the inhabitants. He summoned Sibylla once and a second time to open the gates, informing her, that if she persisted in her obstinacy, the elector should answer for it with his head. Accordingly he brought his prisoner to an immediate trial. The proceedings against him were as irregular as the stratagem was barbarous. Instead of consulting the states of the empire, or remitting the cause to any court, which, according to the German constitution, might have legally taken cognizance of the elector's crime, he subjected the greatest prince in the empire to the jurisdiction of a court martial. The emperor selected the unrelenting duke of Alva as a proper instrument to carry into effect any measure of violence and oppression, and therefore made him president of that court, composed of Spanish and Italian officers. Moved more by the entreaties of his wife than by a sense of his own danger, the elector submitted to all the rigorous and unjust measures that were proposed in order to save his life; but when it was added, that he should also renounce the Protestant faith and become a Roman Catholic, he refused to act in opposition to his conscience, and bravely fell a sacrifice to the cause of truth.

In 1552, Alva was intrusted with the command of the army intended to invade France, and was constrained by the opinion and authority of the emperor to lay siege to Mentz, in opposition to his own military knowledge; but notwithstanding all his valour and abilities, the duke of Guise successfully defended the place. In consequence of the success of the French arms in Piedmont, he was made commander in chief of all the emperor's forces in Italy, and at the same time invested with unlimited power. Success did not, however, attend his first attempts, and after several unfortunate attacks, he was obliged to retire into winter quarters. The next year he was sent into the pope's territories, and, had he not been restrained by his master, he would have taken possession of all his fortified places, and deterred Henry from entering into any new connexion with him, and have thereby prevented the renewal of the war. Philip was strongly inclined to peace, but Alva was inclined to severe measures: he however yielded to the instructions of his master, until being deluded, and sometimes haughtily answered, he at length sent Pino de Loffredo with a letter to the college of cardinals, and another to Paul, in which, after enumerating the various injuries which his master had received, and renewing his former offers of peace and friendship, he concluded with protesting that, if his offers were again rejected, the pope should be chargeable with all the calamities that might follow. The pope threw Loffredo into prison; and, had not the college of cardinals interfered, he would have even put him to death; and on account of Philip's failing to pay tribute for Naples, he deprived him of the sovereignty of that kingdom. This violent conduct of Paul gave great offence throughout all Europe, and greatly lessened his influence in Italy; but Philip, though a young, ambitious, powerful monarch, and of a temper of mind impatient of injuries and affronts, moved moved with a religious veneration, discovered an amazing reluctance against proceeding to extremities. After much time spent in negotiation, Philip was at last forced to give orders for Alva to take the field. He cheerfully obeyed, and began his march in the beginning of September 1556, with a well disciplined army, which reducing several towns in the Campagna di Roma, he pursued his conquests to the very gates of Rome. The circumstances, however, in which Alva found his army, induced him to make a truce of 40 days, and, after several negotiations, he yielded to peace. One of its terms was, that the duke of Alva should in person ask forgiveness of the haughty pontiff whom he had conquered. Proud as the duke was by nature, and accustomed to treat with persons of the highest dignity, yet such was the superstitious veneration then entertained for the papal character, that he confessed his voice failed him at the interview, and his presence of mind forbore him. Not long after this, he was sent at the head of a splendid embassy to Paris, to espouse, in the name of his master, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry king of France.

Philip II., his new master, being strongly devoted to the Roman see, and determined to reclaim rebels to his government, and dissenters from his faith, by the most unrelenting severity and unbounded cruelty, he pitched upon Alva as the fittest person to carry this system into practice; with this design, therefore, he was sent into the Low Countries in 1567. Having received his orders, armed with such power as left only the shadow of authority to the natural governor, and provided with 10,000 veterans, he marched towards that devoted country. When he arrived, he soon shewed how much he merited the confidence which his matter repose in him, and instantly erected a bloody tribunal, to try all persons who had been engaged in the late commotions which the civil and the religious tyranny of Philip had excited. The depraved enormities of the mind of Alva raged with unexampled violence. He imprisoned the counts Egmont and Horn, the two popular leaders of the Protestants, and soon brought them to an unjust trial, and condemned them to death. In a little time he totally annihilated every privilege of the people, and with uncontrolled fury and cruelty, put multitudes of them to death. Beholding herself deprived of all authority, and her subjects devoted to destruction, the duchess of Parma resigned her office, disdaining to hold the nominal, while the actual reins of power were in the hands of Alva. This event increased the general tide of wretchedness, and every place was filled with scenes of horror and dismay. Unable for the present to administer the least aid, the prince of Orange saved his life by flight. This noble prince suddenly collected an army in Germany, and returned to the relief of his countrymen; and at the same time Prince Lewis, his brother, marched with an army into Friesland. Although success at first attended Lewis, yet the activity and experience of Alva prevailed, and he was totally defeated. The prince of Orange proved a more formidable foe; and it gave exertion to the united talents of Alva, and his son Frederick of Toledo, to prevent the prince from making a descent upon the Netherlands. But notwithstanding all the address and military skill of the prince of Orange, this was effected; and the glory remained to Alva to baffle that great leader, and to compel him, after great loss of men, to disband the remainder of his army. Now the cruelty of Alva had unrestrained vent. Instantly the executioner was employed in removing all those friends of freedom whom the sword had spared. Uncontrolled, the base and unrelenting heart of Alva began to reduce all the provinces to utter slavery, and to extirpate Protestantism in that country. In most of the considerable towns, Alva built citadels. He erected a statue of himself, which was no less a monument of his vanity than his tyranny, in the city of Antwerp: he was figured trampling on the necks of two smaller statues, representing the two estates of the Low Countries. By his unusual and arbitrary requisition of new supplies from the states, he greatly aggravated this haughty insult. The human mind displays unusual vigour when rendered desperate by oppression. The exiles from the Low Countries, roused to action, fitted out a kind of piratical fleet, and, after strengthening themselves by successful depredations, ventured upon the bold exploit of seizing the town of Brielle. Thus, unattended by him, the cruelty of Alva was the instrument of the future independence of the seven Dutch provinces. The fleet of the exiles having met the Spanish fleet, totally defeated it, and reduced North Holland and Mons; and numbers of cities hastened to throw off the yoke; while the states-general assembling at Dordrecht, openly declared against Alva's government, and marshalled under the banners of the prince of Orange. This situation of affairs opened the eyes of Alva to behold the instability of a power founded on terror and oppression; he therefore began in vain to use more lenient measures. He prepared, however, with vigour to oppose the gathering storm, and afterwards recovered Mons, Mechlin, and Zutphen, under the conduct of his son Frederick, where his soldiers more than retaliated upon the prince of Orange. With the exception of Zealand and Holland, he regained all the provinces; and at last his son stormed Woerden, and, massacring its inhabitants with the most savage cruelty, he then proceeded to invest the city of Haarlem. Fully convinced of the miseries that waited their surrender, this city stood an obstinate siege; and nothing less than the inflexible and persevering spirit of Alva could have opposed difficulties almost insurmountable. Dispairing of success, Frederick was at one time disposed to raise the siege, but the stern reproaches of his father urged him on; and at length the inhabitants, overcome with fatigue and resistance, surrendered. The victorious Frederick gave tolerable conditions to the town; but his cruel father arriving on the third day after the surrender, sacrificed numerous victims, who had been led to expect mercy, and satiated his vengeance to the full. Their next attack was upon Alkmaar; but the spirit of desperate resistance was raised to such a height in the breasts of the Hollanders, that the Spanish veterans were repulsed with great loss, and Frederick constrained reluctantly to retire. Alva now resolved to try his fortune by sea, and with great labour and expense fitted out a powerful fleet, and proceeded to attack the Zeelanders, but was entirely defeated, and the commander taken prisoner. About the same period, the prince of Orange proceeded to attack the town of Gertruydenburg. Alva's feeble state state of health and continued disasters induced him to solicit his recall from the government of the Low Countries; a measure which, in all probability, was not displeasing to Philip, who was now resolved to make trial of a milder administration. In December 1573, that devoted country was freed from the presence and oppressions of the duke of Alva, who, accompanied by his son, returning home, gave out the inglorious boast, that he had, during the course of six years, besides the multitudes destroyed in battle and massacred after victory, configned 18,000 persons to the executioner. Requiem, who succeeded him in the command, in his first act of administration, pulled down his insolent effigies at Antwerp, so that nothing might remain of him in that much injured country but the remembrance of his injustice and cruelty.

Returning from this scene of oppression and blood, he was treated for some time with great distinction by his master. Justice, however, soon overtook the crimes of Alva: for his son having debauched one of the king's attendants, under promise of marriage, he was committed to prison; and being aided in his escape by his father, and married by him to a cousin of his own, this procured Alva's banishment from court, and confinement in the castle of Uzeda. He remained two years in this disgraceful situation, until the success of Don Antonio, in assuring the crown of Portugal, determined Philip to turn his eyes towards a person, in whose fidelity and abilities he could on this occasion most confide. A secretary was instantly despatched to Alva, to make inquiries concerning the state of his health, and whether or not it was sufficiently vigorous to undertake the command of an army. The aged chief returned an answer full of loyal zeal, and was immediately appointed to the supreme command in Portugal. It is a singular fact, however, that the enlargement and elevation of Alva was not followed by forgiveness. It is a characteristic mark of the unrelenting temper of Philip, and, at the same time, a noble testimony to the honour and loyalty of Alva, that although placed in this important trust, he did not procure his pardon. In 1581, Alva entered Portugal, defeated Antonio, drove him from the kingdom, and soon reduced the whole under the subjection of Philip. Entering Lisbon, he seized an immense treasure; and with their accumulated violence and rapacity, he suffered his soldiers to sack the suburbs and vicinity. It is reported, that Alva being requested to give an account of the money expended on that occasion, he sternly replied, "If the king asks me for an account, I will make him a statement of kingdoms preferred or conquered, of signal victories, of successful sieges, and of sixty years service." Philip deemed it proper to make no farther inquiries. Alva, however, did not enjoy the honours and rewards of his last expedition, for in 1582, at the age of 74, he was removed by death to the impartial tribunal of heaven, to receive the just rewards of his iniquitous life.

The actions already enumerated give such an ample idea of his character, that little more is necessary to complete it. In him a variety of extremes concentrated. Some of the best qualities of a commander were blended with some of the worst that ever existed in a man or in a general. The Spanish severity, little tempered by the spirit of generosity, appeared in all its horrible deformity in Alva. A strict impartial discipline was his greatest military virtue, and vanity was his greatest weakness. In consequence of this strict discipline, he sometimes punished the unlicensed barbarities of his soldiers; and there is an instance recorded, that when his favourite son Frederick, thinking he could attack the prince of Orange with advantage, sent a request to his father for permission, he received a stern reprimand, for presuming to exercise his judgment on a point already determined by his superior, with a threatening in case of repetition. (Gen. Bage.)