"On February 16, 1568 a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were acquitted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition and ordered it to be carried out into instant execution without regard to age and sex. This is the most concise death warrant that had ever been framed. Three million people—men, women and children—were sentenced to the scaffold."

(The Rise of the Dutch Republic, by John Lathrop Motley, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, par. 12, p. 2.)

What was the result of this Draconian measure? The Netherlands is mostly Protestant. Catholic Spain certainly showed them!

History can teach us many things but only if we heed the lessons.The trick is to get someone to listen.