Nickhere said "but apparently to people who were alive at the time and who handed down their memories he stood out as something exceptionally cruel and savage" which sounds like accepting their contemporaries saying that the Catholics massacred 100,000 protestants(which I infer is a figure you'd dispute?)

If its your mother, father, brother, sister, son or daughter that was killed (whether as a 'normal' act of war or not) must feel cruel and savage. Does the death of a close relative seem more or less cruel and savage if it's an isolated incident or part of genocide?