FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 

BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 

THE LIBRARY OF 

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 






THE 



/ 




DUTCH REFORMATION: 



A HISTORY 

OF THE STEUGGLE IN THE NETHERLANDS 
FOR CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
BY W. CARLOS MARTYN, 

AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS," "A HISTORY 
OF THE HUGUENOTS," ETC., ETC. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



Entered according to Act of Conc;rcss, in the yoar 1868, by 
the American Tract Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Soutlicrn District of New York. 



PREFACE. 



The Auglo-Saxons and the Dutch arc cousius- 
german. The records of their respective histories 
are of mutual interest. To thoughtful Americans 
the annals of the Netherlands are of special con- 
cern. It was in Holland that British Protestantism 
found an asylum in the Marian epoch ; it was in 
Holland that New England was conceived ; it was 
in Holland that some of the stoutest of the colonial 
immigrants were cradled ; it was in Holland that 
our statesmen of 76 sought the model of the Fed- 
eral Republic. 

Nor do these links, strong and sufficient in them- 
selves, form the whole sympathetic chain. Eegu- 
lated liberty comes to us as much from the Low 
Countries as from England. In tlie sixteenth cen- 
tury the Dutch soil was the battle-ground of human 
progress : when the Eeformation was guaranteed 
there, it was won for Christendom. 

That struggle was a long conspiracy of king and 
priest against religion and the masses. For a time 
it was local. On the one side the empire of the 
mediceval Csesars, aggrandized by a multitude of 
dependencies, cis and trans Atlantic, rich beyond 
the dreams of Croesus, puissant as the fabled Her- 
[cules ; on the other side a group of cities governed 
by merchants and advocates — " these regarding 
profit, those standing upon vantage of quirks," as 
Walsingham sneered; precariously planted on an un- 



4t PREFACE. 

stable and meagTo soil. Spain was strong in every 
tiling but justice ; the Netherlands were weak in all 
save right. In the end, weak right conquered 
strong injustice. Spanish veterans, Italian condot- 
tieri, German mercenaries, papal bulls, Mexican 
gold mines — all were pressed into service against 
the striving spirit of Dutch independence, only to 
be transformed, one after another, into stepping- 
stones to liberty and an empire world-embracing, 
wdien the hand of the Spaniard was palsied in de- 
crepitude. 'T is a lesson worthy the conning. 

As the war went on it became of European im- 
portance. Distinctions of nationalities were lost. 
Morall}', there were but two nations in existence — 
that of Protestantism and that of the popes ; for it 
was primarily a religious war. . It took a sanction 
from the much-prized burgher-charters, but the new 
theology vivified the old dead forms. It is impos- 
sible to understand the Reformation era without a 
familiarity with this, its grandest chapter; a fact 
which gives the story an indisputable claim upon' 
the attention of all thoughtful men. 

These pages undertake to photograph this agou}' 
of the Netherlands — fighting and conquering not for 
themselves alone, but for humanity. And as the 
struggle was inspired by the gospel, this narrative 
is written from the evangelical standpoint of the 
actors in it — an entente cordiale which is never bro- 
ken. The volume opens with a description of the 
primitive condition of the provinces, analyzes the 
causes of the revolt against Madrid and the Vati- 
can, details somewhat minutely the events of the 
first decade of the prolonged co'ntest, and closes at 



PEEFACE. 5 

the Union of Utrecht : not that the interest ends 
with that achievement, not that the war there furls 
its banners, but because that act assured the Refor- 
mation, and because thereafter fierce internal strifes 
began, sect raving against sect, each " swearing a 
prayer or two" against the other, a quarrel neither 
proper nor desirable for these sheets to depict ; 
therefore a few paragraphs summarize the later his- 
tory of the republic. 

It would be impossible conscientiousl}^ to write 
a history of the Dutch Heformatiou without a thor- 
ough examination of the original records pro and 
con. Accordingly all the leading contemporary 
chronicles and pamphlets of Holland, Flanders, 
Spain, France, Germany, and England have been 
studied — at least all obtainable in this country, very 
many more than any one not acquainted with the 
facts would suspect. These have been supplement- 
ed by a liberal use of the works of the Netherland 
archivists, and by citations from a multitude of 
comparatively recent writers where these seemed 
likely to enhance the interest or enlighten the doubts 
of the narrative. For every statement of fact, au- 
thority, volume and page, is given. Possibly the 
imputation of tediousness and pedantry may be 
hereby incurred ; but that has been esteemed as 
nothing compared with the importance of an im- 
pregnable fortification of the text. 

The many friends who have lent their personal 
aid and their libraries to this work, are most cordi- 
ally thanked. 

Wherever it was possible, the actors in this 
drama have been summoned to the witness-stand 



6 PREFACE. 

and made to tell their own story in their own words ; 
for what basis can compare with that afforded by 
the written correspondence of the parties them- 
selves? "I have long believed," says Euskin, "'that 
restored history is of little more value than restored 
painting or architecture ; that the only history 
worth reading is that written at the time of which 
it treats, the history of what w^as done, and seen, 
heard out of the mouflis of men who did and saw- 
One fresh draught of such history is worth a thou- 
sand volumes of abstracts and reasonings and sup- 
positions and theories." Without accepting this 
dictum in its fullest sense, it may be conceded to 
carry a modicum of truth. The facts of history may 
be chalked down by the chronicler ; the hidden 
ci'iuses of great movements — at the best but indis- 
tinctly and uncertainly — may be traced by the phil- 
osophic historian ; but the spirit, the aroma, even 
the outward form of a picturesque age, can only be 
caught from the vivid, impassioned, roughshod 
writers of the time. 

Such a history of the Dutch Reformation — full, 
yet sufficiently compendious for general circulation, 
has long been a desideratum. Of course, this work 
falls sadly short of its aim ; but it is at least an hon- 
est attempt k) focus and to popularize a marvellous 
story ; one of which the sages of the Porch and the 
Grove in the great days of Athens would have loved 
to speak to their disciples, had Christian hearts 
beaten within their breasts ; one which requires the 
pencil of a lineal descendant of Livy or of Tacitus 
to do it justice. 

New York, ]8('.S. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DEBATABLE LAND - page 29 

Characteristics of Modern Holland, 29; Lessons, 33; Earliest 
Features of the Netherlands, 35; Geogi-aphy, 35; Pliny's Ac- 
count, 3G; Ethnograjihy, 36; Theological Systems of the Celts 
and the Saxons, 37. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO 38 

Caesar in the Low Countries, 38; Belgium, Batavia, and Fries- 
land, 38; Characteristics of the Frisians, 39; Democratic Rudi- 
ments, 39; Polity of the Belgians and Batavians, 40; Valor of 
the Primitive Races, 40; Completion of the Roman Conquest, 
41 ; Metamorphosis of the Belgic District, 41 ; Claudius Civilis, 
42 ; Transformation confined to Belgium, 42 ; The Frisians under 
Tiberii;s and Vespasian, 43 ; The Menapians, 43 ; Commerce in 
Embryo, 44; End of the Roman Domination, 45; Epoch of the 
Immigration of Nations, 45; Empire of the Franks, 46; Belgium 
again denationalized, 40; The Frisians resume their Indepen 
dence, 4G; Introdiiction of Nominal Christianity, 47; Rome 
l^uts on the Triple Crown, 47; Early Missionaries, 47; Origin 
of the Bishopric of Utrecht, 47; Conflict between Chiistianity 
and the National Idols, 48 ; Charlemagne lays the Ghost of 
Woden, 49; Condition of the Netherlands under Charlemagne, 
50; Progressive Steins of the Frisians and Flemings, 52; Rise 
of Guilds, 52; Social Progress, 53; European Politics revolu- 
tionized, 53 ; Death of Charlemagne, 54 ; S^^bdivision of the 
Frankish Empire, 54; Fate of the Low Countries, 54. 

CHAPTER III. 
DEVELOPMENT 55 

Mediaeval Life, 55; Voluntary and Comimlsory Servitude, 55, 56; 
Status of tho'Serfs, 50; Raids of the Norsemen, 57; Influence 



S CONTENTS. 

of the Crusades, 58 ; The Three Forces, 58 ; Feudalism, 59 ; 
Its Origin, 59 ; Allodial and Feudal Estates, 59 ; Demesne 
Lands, 59 ; Benefices, 59 ; Became Hereditary, 59 ; Rise of 
Nobility, 60; Nature of the Feudal Tenure, 61; Feudalism not 
planted in Friesland, 62; Its Influence there, 62; The Feudal 
Polity makes for Freedom, 62 ; Why and How, 63 ; Mediaeval 
Ecclesiasticism, 63; Distinctive Features, 63; Rise of the Mu- 
nicipal System, 65; Influence of Wealth, 66; Progress of the 
Commons, 66; Republican Genius, 67; Results, 68; Growing 
Commercial Importance of the Netherlands, 69; The Nether- 
lands and the Norman Conquest of England, 70; Jacqueline, 
71; Commencement of the Burguudian Rule, 71; Philip the 
Good, 71; Charles the Bald, 72; His Ambitious Projects, 72; 
Mary of Burgundy, 73; The "Great Privilege," 74; Mary and 
Maximilian, 74; Birth and Reign of Philip the Fair, 74; Birth 
of Charles V., 75; Results of two Fortunate Marriages, 75. 

CHAPTEK IV. 

RUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION 76 

The Reformation a Development, 76; Troublesome Question- 
ers, 78; Course of the Native Churchmen, 78; Their Compara- 
tive Independence, 78; Early Opposition of the Low-Country 
Prelates to Rome, 78; Their Patriotism, 81; Conflict with Pope 
Hildebrand, 82; The Reproving Nathans of the Church begin 
to die ofif, 82; The New Race of Dissidents, 83; Nicknames, 83; 
84; Character of the Dissidents, 84; Rise of the Netherland 
Baptists, 85 ; Vaudois Massacres, 85 ; Free Fairs the Seed- 
ground of Reform, 85; Translation of the Bible into Low Dutch 
Rhymes, 85; Dawn of Persecution, 86; First Execution of Her- 
etics, 86; Martyrdom, 86; Dissidents increase in Number, 87; 
John Baptists of the Reformation, 88; Increasing Profligacy of 
the Romish Church, 89 ; The Law commences to restrict Eccle- 
siastical Estates, 90; Spread of Intelligence, 91; Early Dutch 
Writers, 92 ; Mediaeval Literature revolutionized, 93 ; Cham- 
bers of Rhetoric founded in the Low Countries, 95 ; Invention 
of Printing, 96; Knights of the Golden Fleece, 96; How "All 
Things work together for Good," 97; Men learn to discrmii- 
nate, 97. 

CHAPTEK V. 

THE GERMAN C^SAR 98 

The Netherlands reach the Acme of Material Prosperity, 98; 
Evidences, 98; Metropolitan Imj)ortance of Antwerp, 98; Com- 
merce of the Middle Ages revolutionized, 99 ; Antwerp the 



CONTENTS. 9 

Gainer, 90; Siilendor of the City, 100; Ghent, 101; Its Wealth 
and Importance, 101; The Great Bell "Roland," 102; Political 
Constitiitious of Ghent and Antwerp, 102, 103; Condition of 
the Low-Countrymen, 103; Educational Institutions, 103; The 
Women of the Netherlands, 101; Their Treatment and Influ- 
ence, 104; Agricultural, 105; Inventions, 105; Friesland isola- 
ted, 197; Self-governing Instincts of the Frisians, 107; Civili- 
zation through the Stomach, 108; The German Caesar, 108. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE NEW REGlJtfE---- - 103 

Time as a Reformer, 109; Dawn of the Sixteenth Century, 109; 
Rapid Decadence of Rome, 110; Rise of Public Opinion, 110; 
The Second Band of Apostles, 111; An Antithesis, 111; The 
Press an Agent of Reform, 112; Progress of the New Theology 
in the Low Countries, 112; Causes, 112; Attendant Circumstan- 
ces of the Reformation, 1-K; European Rivalries, 114; Charles 
V. enters the Lists against Reform, 115; Imperial Schemes, 116; 
Violent Outbreaks of the Republican Spirit, IIG; Insidious Suc- 
cess of Charles, IIC; Sagacious Despotism, 117; Great Vassals 
crippled, 118; Cunning outwits Itself, 118 ; Luther anathema- 
tized, 119; Imperial Decrees, 119; Despotism and Romanism 
clasp Hands, 120; Appalling Preparations, 121; An Initial Auto 
da Fe, 121; Vicissitudes of the Pontificate, 121; Pacification, 
122; Use to which Charles put It, 123; Internal Dissensions of 
the Reformation, 123; The Munster Excesses, 124; Philosophy 
of Fanaticism, 126; The Governant's Opinion, 128; The Empe- 
ror i)roi¥)ses to introduce the Spanish Inquisition, 128; Effect 
of the Threat, 128; A Shrewd ManoBUvre, 129. 

CHAPTER VII. 
EXEUNT - - 130 

A Gala-Day at Brussels, 130 ; Abdication of Charles V., 131 ; 
Reasons for the Act, 132; Retires to the Monastery of St. 
Juste, 135; His Character, 136; Philip's Chief Inheritance the 
Revolution, 137. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
AFFINITIES - - 138 

Portrait of Philip II., 138, 139; Unnatural Union between Spain 
and the Low Countries, 144; Old Rivalries, 144; Imperilled 
Nationality asserts Itself, 145 ; Latent Revolution, 146. 

9* 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE IX. 

SCHEIIES --- 147 

Ascendency of the Monarchical over the Republican Sjnrit, 147; 
"WTiolesale Perjury, 147; The King and the Citizens, 148; Philip 
dissembles, 149; The People suspect, 149; Government set- 
tled, 149; Emanuel Philibert, Governor-General, 149; Compo- 
sition of the Court, 149; Crafty Preparations, 150; A Des^jot's 
Desideratum, 150; Adroit Absolutism, 150; Keenactment of the 
Imperial Edicts against Heresj', 150; Poj^ular Opposition, 151; 
Fires of Perseciation lighted anew, 151; The King asks for a 
Subsidy, 152; Refused by the States-General, 152; A Com- 
promise, 152; Philip in a False Position, 153; War with France 
and the Pope, 153; Causes, 153; Pope Paul Carafiix, 154; Philip 
feels the Anomaly of his Position, 154; Council of Theologians, 
155; Philip in England, 155; Triumphant Progress of Philip's 
Arms, 156; Peace, 156; Alva's Query, 157; Singular Terms of 
the Pacification, 157. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE MASK LIFTED --- 158 

Position of Philip 11. after the Treaty of Chateau Cambray, 
158 ; His Purpose, 158 ; Rejoicings of the Low-Countrymen 
over the Pacification, 159; The King desires to return to Spain, 
160; Necessary Preliminaries, 161; Ominous Restlessness of 
the Netherlands, 161; Sinister Arrangements, 162; Conduct of 
the Mercenaries, 162; A Trial of Wits, 162; Spirit of the Peo- 
ple, 163; The Rhetoricians, 163; Placard against Them, 164; 
Its Futility, 164; The New Bishoprics Scheme, 164; How the 
People received It, 165; Philip's Severity, 165; Emanuel Phil- 
ibert resigns the Governor-Generalship, 166 ; Candidates for 
the Vacant Office, 166. 

CHAPTER XL 

EGMONT AND ORANGE 167 

Christierne, Duchess of Lorraine, 167 ; Sketch of Lamoral, 
Count Egmont, 167; Portrait of William of Orange, 1G9; His 
Birth and Early Education, 169; An Unexpected Inheritance, 
171 ; Transferred to the Imperial Court at Brussels, 172 ; Is 
trained under the Eye of Charles V., 172; Honored and trusted 
by the Emperor, 172; His Standing with Philip II., 174; Earns 
the Surname of William the "Silent," 174; Personal Appear- 
ance, 175; William's Character at this Period, 176; Philip's 



CONTENTS. 11 

Instinctive Dread of Him, 177 ; Orange and Egmont fail to 
attain the Governor-Generalship, 177; Reasons, 177; Non-Suc- 
cess of the Duchess of Lorraine's Suit, 179; Margaret of Parma 
appointed Govemaut, 179. 

CHAPTER XII. 

A CHECK--- -- 1^0 

Philip welcomes the New Governant to the Netherlands, 180; 
Romantic History of Margaret of Parma, 180; Her Ungainly 
Personal Appearance, 182; Policy of Her Appointment, 182; 
The Three Governmental Chambers, 183; The Consulta, 184; 
Barlaiment, 18.5; Viglius, 185 ; Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of 
Arras, 186; History aiKl Character, 18G; Distribution of the 
Provincial Stadtholderates, 190; Philip's Address to the Grand 
Council of MechHn, 190; Convocation of the States-General at 
Ghent, 190; The Feast, 191; Midnight Mission of the Prince of 
Orange, 191; Meeting of the National Deputies, 191; Perreuot's 
Harangue, 192; Philip's Dinner, 193; Reply of the Deputies 
to the King's "Request," 193; Philip's Anger, 195; Perrenot's 
Advice, 195; Response to the "Remonstrance," 195; Lies, 196; 
Philip and Orange, 196; The King- embarks for Spain, 197; Mar- 
garet de Valois, 197; Philip at Home, 198; The Victims, 198. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

UNDERCURRENTS - • I'J'-^ 

Material Prosperity of the Netherlands, 199; A Glance below 
the Surface of Affmrs, 200; The Seeds of Convulsion, 200; Con- 
tinued Assaults of the Court on the Republican Rudiments, 
201; Status of the People, 201; Rottenness of the Aristocracy, 
202; Profligacy of the Titled Ladies of the States, 202; Influ- 
ence of the Nobles, 204:; Democratic Tendency of the Reforma- 
tion, 205; Philosophy of this Fact, 205; Spread of the Reform, 
205; The Counterpoise, 207; Protestantism in the Netherlands, 
208; The People enter the Arena against Priestcraft, 209; The 
Baptism of Suffering, 210; Philip and Catharine de' Medici, 
211; The Governmental Book, 211. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

QUICKSANDS - 212 

Intimated Insanity of Philip II., 212; A Capital Blunder, 212; 
Pliabilityof Perrenot, 213; Management, 213; The Administra- 
tion opens Its Campaign, 214; The Papal Bull, 214; Ol^ect of 



12 CONTENTS. 

the lunovation, 211; Presto! 215; Trickery, 215; Coustitutioiml 
Oj^positiou, '21G; Voice of the Charters, 21G; Perrenot's Conuec- 
tion with the New Bisho^jrics, 217; Advanced to the Primacy 
of the Netherlands, 218; Eage of the People, 218; The Jlinister 
instructs the King, 218; A Popular Syllogism, 218; The Bish- 
op's Prayer, 219; Growing Excitement, 219; Ministerial Plati- 
tudes, 219 ; The Mercenaries in Zealand, 220 ; Alarm of the 
Court, 220; Correspondence, 221; Philip withdraws the Foreign 
Soldiers, 222; Jubilation, 222. 

CHAPTER XV. 

AGITATION---. - -- • 223 

Ultramontane Sighs, 223; Effect of the Departure of the Mer- 
cenaries, 223; The Agitation gathers to a Focus, 223; How the' 
Cities received the New Bishops, 224; Perrenot gets the Red 
Hat, 225; The Cardinal's Hauteur, 225; Altercations between 
Granvelle and the Seigneurs, 225; Conduct of the Consul ta. 
225; A Scene at the Council Table, 226; Relations between 
Orange and Granvelle, 226; A Hollow Friendship broken, 227; 
Orange and Egmont memorialize the King, 228; The Royal 
Answer, 229; Count Horn, 229; Voluminous Despatches, 229; 
Philip opens his Heart, 230; Financial Condition, 231; Plan for 
debasing the Coin, 231; The Eoj'al Bankrupt resorts to Chica- 
nery, 231; The Abbej's and the New Bishoj^s effect a Compro- 
mise, 232. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE INQUISITION 233 

The Inquisition the Chief Cause of the Revolution, 233; Queries, 
233; End and Means of Christianity, 234; Early Corrim:)tions, 
234; Latin and Greek Churches, 235; Nicene Council inaugu- 
rates Punishment for Heresy, 236; Character of the Penalties, 
236; Decrees and Counter-Decrees of the Earlj' Roman Empe- 
rors. 236; Rise of the Papacy, 237; Usurpations of the Popes, 
238; Causes of Their Success, 239; Props of Usurped Author- 
ity, 240 ; Three Phases of the Inquisition, 241 ; Arbitrative 
Authority transformed into Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of all 
Causes, 242; Episcopal Form of the Inquisition, 243; Pontifi- 
cate of Innocent III., 243; The Vaudois, 244; Ecclesiastical 
Commission under Dominic, 245; Establishment of the Papal 
Inquisition, 246; Distinctive Features, 246; Inception of the 
Spanish Type of the Inquisition, 247'; Torquemada, 247; Xim- 
enes, 250; Methods of Procedure of the Inquisition, 252; The 
"Black Book," 255; The Torture-Room, 257; Procession to the 



CONTENTS. IB 

Stake, 259; Statistics of Slaughter, 2G0; Instruments of the In- 
quisition, 261; Society of Jesus, 262; Marseillaise of the Coun- 
ter-Eevolution, 262; Influence of the Inquisition, 2G3. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE EDICTS - 26(3 

Early Introduction of the Episcopal Inquisition into the Neth- 
erlands, 266; Charles V. brings in the Papal Form, 266; Activ- 
ity of the Pontiflcian Censors, 266; Philip schemes to inaugu- 
Tflte the Sp)anish Inquisition, 267; New Bishoi^rics Part of that 
Programme, 268; Granvelle's Slyness, 268; Fresh Impetus given 
to Reform, 268; Charlatan Reformers, 268; Open Conventicles, 
269; The Defiance of the Edicts i^rovokes Renewed Persecu- 
tion, 269; The Roj'al Inquisitor, 270; Granvelle's Complaint, 
270; Commencement of an Inqiiisitorial Campaign, 271; Ex- 
ploits of Peter Titelmann, 271 ; Titelmann and Red-Rod vis-a- 
vis, 272; Gratulatory Speech of Philip, 273; Granvelle's Witti- 
cism, 273; The People resist the Inquisitors, 273; Count Ber- 
ghen denounced, 274; Riot at Valenciennes, 274; Margaret's 
Revenge, 275; Protestantism of the Northern Provinces, 275; 
Immigration Thither, 275; Government essays to stop It, 276; 
Efforts of the Magistrates to shield the Reformed, 277; The 
Hoodwinked Commission, 277; Organization of the Reformed 
Dutch Church, 278. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

MINES AND COUNTER-MINES 279 

Crisis in the Netherlands, 279; Unjiopularity of Granvelle, 279; 
He presses Philip to return to Brussels, 279; The King vouch- 
safes no Answer, 279 ; The Minister carries It with a High 
Hand, 280; "The Smithy," 280; League of the Nobles against 
Granvelle, 281; The Seigneurs entrench Themselves behind 
• the Charters, 281; William of Orange leads the OpiDOsition, 
281;' War in France between Catharine de' Medici and the Hu- 
guenots, 282 ; Philip orders the Low-Countrymen to assist 
Catharine, 282; Amazement of the Goveruant, 283; The Dilem- 
ma, 283; Granvelle's Ruse, 284; The People clamor for the 
Convocation of the States-General, 284; Margaret convenes the 
Knights of the Golden Fleece, 285; Caucus at Nassau-House, 
285; Decision of the Knights, 285; Montigny sets out for Ma- 
drid, 286; Gi-anvelle's Despatches, 286; Montigny's Audiences 
with the King, 280; Royal Equivoques, 287; Margaret attempts 
to alienate Egmont from Orange, 288; Reasons for Her Fail- 
ure, 289. 



14 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

GRANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL 290 

The Netherlands ou the High-road to Euin, 290; March Letter 
of the Seigneiirs to the King, 290; Granvelle instructs Phihp 
how to answer, 291; The Reply, 292; "'Will You walk into 
My Parlor?" said the Spider fro the Fly," 292; The Grandees 
embittered, 292; Second Letter to the King, 293; Orange, Eg- 
mont, and Horn ret&-e from the Council of State, 294; Alva's 
Opinion, 294; A Skirmish of Pens, 294; Granvelle assailed by 
the Comedians, 295; Brederode and Robert de la Marck, 296; 
Grobbendonck's Suijper, 296; Fool's Cap Liverj', 296, 297; Po- 
sition of Granvelle, 297; Margaret deserts Him, 298; Mission 
of Armenteros, 298; Dismissal of Granvelle, 299; His Insou- 
ciant Departure, 299. 



CHAPTER XX. 

JUGGLING --- 301 

Rumors of Grauvelle's Return, 301; Return ot the Grandees to 
the Council of State, 302 ; Their Diligence, 302 ; Margaret's Wrath 
against the late Minister, 302 ; Disgrace of the Whole Cardinal- 
ist Faction, 303 ; Programme of the Prince of Orange, 303 ; 
Privy and Finance Councils Sinks of Corruption, 304; Deprav- 
ity of the Administration, 304; Crimination and Recrimination, 
304 ; The Huckstering Governant, 305 ; Eflects of the Adminis- 
trative Venality, 306; Growth of Heresy, 306; Momentary Sus- 
pension of the Inquisition, 306; Philip orders Perseciition to 
be resumed, 307; Execution of Fabricius, 308; Antwerp Muti- 
nies, 308; The News at Madrid, 308; Flandevs memorializes 
Philip against Titelmanu, 309; Non-success of the Petition, 309; 
Sine Die Adjournment of the Council of Trent, 310; A Glance 
at Its Work, 310; Philip orders the Tridentine Decrees to be 
received in the States, 311; General Surprise, 311; Ma;rgaret's 
Dismay, 311; Advice of Viglius, 311; Counsel of Orange, 311; 
Embassy of Egmont, 311 ; Debate on His Instructions, 312 ; 
Chagrin of Viglius, 312; Is prostrated by a Stroke of Ajpoplexj', 
312; Joachim Hopper, 312; Egmont sets out for Spain, 313; 
His Reception, 314; The Cozened Soldier, 315; Philip and the 
Theologians, 315; Hypocrisy, or Fanaticism? 316; A Pleas- 
ant Partmg, 316; Egniont's Return, 316; The Sealed Instruc- 
tions opened, 317 ; Astonishment of Egmont, 317 ; Indigna- 
tion of Orange, 318 ; Rebukes Egmont, 318 ; Egmont loses 
Caste, 318. 



CONTENTS. 15 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE DEAGON'S TEETH 319 

Coi;riers En-rotite, 319; Conclave of Ecclesiastics and Civilians, 
319; The Mitigation, 320; Eemark of Orange, 321; People's 
Opinion of the Mitigation, 321; A Notable Admission, 322; 
Doctors Disagree, 322; Kumors, 322; The Bayonne Interview, 
323; Incessant Conflicts between the People and the Inquisi- 
tion, 324; Activity of the Keformers, 325; Inquisitors petition 
Philip for Protection, 32G; Decisive Eescript of the King, 326; 
Meeting of the Council of State, 327; Viglius and Orange ex- 
change Holes, 328; Publication of the Canons of Trent, 329; 
Ominous Comments of the Populace, 330; Protest of the Bra- 
bautine Cities, 330; The Seigneurs refuse to enforce the Tri- 
dentine Decrees, 330; Orange's Letter to the Eegent, 331; Eg- 
mont vacillates, 331; The Last Year of Peace, 331. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

"THE BEGGAES" 332 

Count Megen's Announcement, 332 ; A Double Wedding at 
Brussels, 334; The Sermon at Culemburg-House, 334; Frauds 
Junius, 334; Formation of a League against the Inqiiisition, 
335; Signing of the Covenant, 335; It becomes the Fashion, 
33G; Brederode, Nassau, and St. Aldegonde, 33G; Lesser Lead- 
ers of the League, 337; Grandees stand aloof from the Move- 
ment, 337; The Statesman Prince, 338; Meeting of the Seign- 
eurs at Breda, 339 ; Margaret convenes the Notables, 339 ; Emi- 
gration, 310; Discussion, 340; Argument of Orange against the 
Inquisition, 341 ; The Petitioners, 345 ; Wait upon the Eegent, 
346; Barlaiment's Taunt, 347; Margaret's Eeply to the Peti- 
tioners, 347; The Confederates retire to considt, 317; Its Unsat- 
isfactory Nature, 348; Second Audience, 318; The Ultimatum, 
348; Arrangements of the Leaguers, 348; The Carouse, 348; 
"Vivent les Gueux," 349; Baptismal Eites of the "Beggars," 
349 ; Orange and Egmont pledge the Gueux, 350 ; Universal 
Adoption of the "Beggar's" Dress, 351. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

FIELD-PEEACHING - 352 

The Governant's Portrait-painting, 352; The "Murderation," 
353; Margaret's Stratagem, 353; New Embassy to Spain, 254; 
March of Events, 355; A Forgery, 35(1; Field-preaching, 3.56; 
Characteristics, 357, The Preachers, 357; In the Fields, 3^'^ 



IG CONTENTS. 

Calvinists especially identified with the open Air Conventicles, 
3(51; Field-pi'eachiug encouraged by the Gneux. 362; Feeling 
at Coiirt, 3(32; Parchment Fiats, 3G2; The Pieformed demand 
Legal Recognition, 31)3; Terror of the Antwerp Magistrates, 
3G3; Orange in Antwerp, 304; The Court Caxj-in-haud to Will- 
iam the Silent, 304; A Stab in the Back, 3(35; Convention of 
the Gueux at St. Trond, 3G5; Duflfel Conference, 366; The Vin- 
dication, 367; The Regent's Evasion, 368; A Sinister Thi-eat, 
368; Meeting of the Spanish Council at the Grove of Segovia, 
368; Sentiments of the Eoj-al Councillors, 369; Their Advice 
to Philip, 369; An Absurd List of Concessions, 370; Insincerity 
of the King, 370; Philip in the Confessional of the Vatican, 
371; Granvelle's Forebodings, 373; " Great and Admirable Voy- 
ages of King Philip IL," 373. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE IMAGE-BEEAKEHS 374 

Field Conventicles characterized, 374 ; Image - worship De- 
noianced by the Eeformed Preachers, 374; The Zealots, 375; 
Ecclesiastical Architecture in the Netherlands, 375; Outbreak 
of the Iconoclasts, 376; First Peltings of the Storm, 376; Re- 
ports of the £meute reach Antwerp, 378; GeiTcral Excitement, 
378; Ribald Jests, 380; Precursory Disturbances, 380; Bo-Peep 
of the Madonna, 381 ; Scuffle in the Cathedral, 381 ; Magis- 
trates in Council, 382; An Uneasy Night, 382; The Morrow, 
382; Sack of Antwerp Cathedi-al, 384; Continued Riot, 386; 
Inaction of the Citizens, 387; Antwerp Quieted, 388; The Image- 
Breakers sweep over the Netherlands, 389; Incidents, 389; 
Scene at Ghent, 390; Events at Valenciennes, 391; Occurrences 
at Tournay, 391; Act of Posthumous Justice, 391; Extent of the 
Waste, 393; A Discriminating Destruction, 393; Vandalism, but 
not Blood-thirstiness, 393; Honesty of the Image-Breakers, 391; 
Their Insignificant Number, 396; Reformed Party of the Low 
Coiiutrics not Responsible for the Outbreak, 396; Philosophy 
of the Iconomachy, 397; Consternation of the Court at Brus- 
sels, 399; Margaret in a Bellicose Mood, 399; Consults with the 
Seigneurs, 399; Events tame the Shrew, 400; The Governant 
decides to desert the Capital, 401; Midnight Interview with 
the Grandees, 401; Vain Expostulation, 402; Viglius' Announce- 
ment, 402; Brussels secured against an Outbreak, 403; Marga- 
ret's Relapse, 403; The Accord, 404; The Regent's Letter to the 
King. 404; The Pupil of Loyola, 405; Vain Hopes of the Re- 
formers, 405. 



CONTENTS. 17 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE REACTION- - 40G 

Pacitic Influeuce of the Accord, 40G; The Seigneurs quit Brus- 
sels for Their Stadtholderates, 40G; Orange in Antwerp, 406; 
Arranges Terms of Just Agreement between All Parties, 407 ; 
Margaret displeased, 408; William's Ecply to Her Remon- 
strance, 40S;"she dissembles, 408; Orange not deceived, 408; 
Departs for the North, 408; William's Justice disarms Riot, 
409; Hoogstraaten in Mechlin, 409; Megen in Guilders, 409; 
Egmont in Flanders, 410; Exchanges the Baton of St. Qucntin 
for the Staff of Peter Titelmann, 411 ; Dishon-orable Severity, 411 ; 
Count Louis of Nassau remonstrates, 412; Horn in Tournay, 
412; Brief Interval of Religious Freedom, 414; Treachery and 
Dissimulation of the Regent, 414; Ceases to coquette with the 
Patriot Leaders, 415; Interview with Viglius, 415; Arrival of 
Phihp's Post Factum Concessions, 416; Margaret manoeuvres, 
416; Recalls Horn from Tournay, 417; Increasing Arrogance, 417; 
Nullification of the Accord by Construction, 418; Orange com- 
plains, 418; Varying Effect of Margaret's Estrangement, 419; 
Philip learns of the Iconomachy, 419; Asks the Advice of His 
Councillors, 420; Their Opinion, 420; Ruy Gomez and the 
Duke of Alva, 420; Two Methods, 421; The King's Determina- 
tion, 421 ; He conceals It, 422 ; Announces His Intention to 
visit the Netherlands, 422; The Governaut duped, 423; The 
Royal Budget, 42.3; Dissolution of the League, 425; Orange 
FamiHar with the King's Programme, 425 ; The Use of Spies, 425, 
Important Meeting of the Seigneurs at Deudermonde, 427 ; Eg- 
mont's Defection prevents a Decision, 428; Weak Behavior of 
theReciisant Soldier, 429; Horn retires to Weert, 431; Isolation 
of William the Silent, 432; His Plea for Toleration, 432; Avows 
Himself a Protestant, 432; Reformed Consistories established, 
433; Bickering Sects, 434; Antwerp Reformers attempt to sub- 
sidize the Court, 434; Margaret's "Study of Revenge," 435; 
Bold Stretches of Arbitrary Power, 435; Accord revoked, 435; 
Foreign Mercenaries called into the Provinces, 435; Ill-regu- 
lated and Fragmentary Resistance of the People, 436 ; Noir- 
carmes before Valenciennes, 436; The City shuts Its Gates in 
his Face, and appeals for Aid, 437; The Gueux in ilotion, 438; 
New Petition, 439; Margaret's Haughty Answer, 439; Confed- 
erates take Arms, 439; Nassau at Austruweel, 440; Tumult in 
Antwerp, 440; Appeased by Orange without Bloodshed, 440; 
Noircarmes defeats the Leaguers, 440; Elation of the Court, 
441; Siege of Valenciennes pressed, 441; Capitulation of the 
City. 442; Chastisement, 442; Execution of Do Bray and Do la 



18 CONTENTS. 

Grange, 442 ; The New Oath, 443 ; Bead-roll of Court-Saints 
who took It, 444; Orange and Others refuse to take It, 444; 
Margaret endeavors to joersuade the Prince to subscribe, 445; 
William and Berti tete-a-tete, 445; Orange determines to quit 
the Netherlands for a Season, 445 ; FareweU Interview between 
Orange and Egmont at Willebrock, 445 ; A Prophecy, 447; 
The Prince's Letter to Philip, Margaret, Horn, and Egmont, 
448; Sets out for Germany, 449; Brederode's Good-by Carouse, 
450 ; Flight and Death of the " Great Beggar, " 451 ; The Exodus, 
451; Panic, 451; Licensed Spoilers, 452; Margaret enters Ant- 
werp at the Head of an Army, 452; Deputation from the Lu- 
theran Princes, 452; A New Edict, 453; The Governant's Mis- 
take, 453; Triumph of the Coiirt, 454; The Eeaction Useful to 
Eeform, 454. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

ALVA • 455 

The Outbreak, 455; Margaret awaits her Guerdon, 455; Philip 
determines to supercede Her, 455; A Morisco Precedent, 456; 
Alva to be sent into the Low Countries, 45 G; Warlike Prepara- 
tions, 457; Portrait of the Duke of Alva, 458; His Farewell In- 
terview with Philip at Ai-anjuez, 401; The Diike en-route, 4G1; 
Margaret strives to prevent his Incoming, 4G2; Mortification of 
the Governant, 462; Her Letter to Philip, 463; To Alva, 463; 
The King's Eeply, 464; Death of Berghen, 464; Alva's Muster 
at Alexandria de Palla, 464; The March, 464; Character of the 
Invading Army, 465; The Corps of Courtesans, 465; Alva enters 
the Netherlands, 466; The Welcome, 467; Egmont meets the 
Duke, 467; "Whom the Gods would destroy. They first make 
mad," 468; Alva at Brussels, 408; His Siillen Eeception, 468; 
The Exodus, 468; The Duke's Sang Froid, 469; His Interview 
with Margaret, 469; Incidents, 470; Alva exhibits His Commis- 
sion, 471; Preliminary Acts, 472; Omens, 473. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD 474 

Purpose of the New Captain-General, 474; Philip and the Pope 
unite to facilitate His Labors, 474; The Netherlanders denation- 
alized, 475 ; Plot to arrest the Leading Seigneurs, 475 ; Treach- 
erous Pleasure, 476; Horn enticed to Brussels, 477; Continued 
Gloom of the Capital, 477; The Hour strikes, 477; Arrest of, 
Egmont and Horn, 478; Other Arrests, 479; The Captive Seign- 
eurs sent to Ghent, 480; Elation of Alva and Philip, 480; Gran- 
velle's Inquiry, 480 ; Titelmann's Foreboding, 481 ; Margaret 



CONTENTS. 19 

resents the Conp-de-nlain, 481; Demands Iler Dismissal, 481; 
General Consternation, 482; Emigration at Flood-Tide, 482; 
Forbidden under Pain of Death and Confiscation, 482; The 
Ten Merchants of Tournay, 482; An Honest Churchman, 482; 
Alva affects to despise the Exodus, 483; His Efforts to stay It, 
483; Absolutism, 483; Institution of the Council of Troubles, 
484; Composition of the New Tribunal, 485; Alva's Check on 
the Powers of the Blood-Judges, 486; Initial Meeting of the 
Council, 486. 

CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
AT WORK -- 487 

Regulations of the Coiancil of Blood, -187; Method of Proce- 
dure, 488; Treason defijred, 489; Vargas' Latin, 490; Terrible 
Industry, 491; The Judges in Session, 492; A "Word concern- 
ing Vargas, 492 ; The Judges at Odds, 493 ; Sleepy Hassels, 
494; Vargas again, 494; A Harvest of Death, 494; Civil "War in 
France, 49.5; Refugees enter the Huguenot Service, 496; Com- 
plaints, 496; Decrees, 496; Catharine de' Medici's Despairing 
Cry, 496; Alva's Response, 496; Aremberg marches into France, 
497; Discontent of Margaret, 497; Procures Her Dismissal from 
the King, 497; Parting Scenes, 498; Silver Sorrow, 498; She 
urges Philip to be Merciful, 499; The Farewell, 499; Her Ad- 
ministration characterized, 500; Alva assumes the Governor- 
Generalship, 500; Brutum Fulmen against Orange, 500; The 
Prince's Reply, 501; "William's Son, the Count of Buren, kid- 
napped, 501; Protests, 502; Vargas and the Dons of Louvain, 
502; Whispers from Madrid, 502; General Feehng of Insecuri- 
ty, 503; Offenders executed in Gangs, 504; Examples, 504; 
Shrovetide Eve, 505; Status of the Sufferers, 505; Alva's Gag, 
506; Confiscations, 507; Proscription a Bad Paymaster, 507; 
Searching Despotism, 508; The "Wild Beggars," 509; Orange 
asked to take Arms, 510; He decides to do, 510. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP 511 

Asiiirations of the Refugee Prince, 511; Eff'orts to redress the 
Grievances of the States by Peaceful Means, ^12; Alva and the 
Antwerp Burghers, 512; Intercession of the German Emi^eror 
rejected, 513; Warlike Preparations, 514; The Antagonists, 514; 
William's Activity, 515; Schemes for obtaining Foreign Coun- 
tenance, 516; Louis Nassau, 517; William invests Him with 
Authority to enroll an Army, 518; Pecimiary Embarrassments 
of the Patriots, 518; Individual and Municipal Contributions, 



20 CONTENTS. 

519; Character of the Levies, 520; Plan of Campaign, 520; The 
Tripartite luYasion, 521; Defeat of De Villars, 521; Rout of De 
Cocqueville, 521; Louis Nassau in Groniugen, 522; Ai-emberg 
despatched to repel Him, 524 ; Manoeuvring, 525 ; Battle of 
Heiliger-Lee, 526; Eout and Death of Aremberg, 528, 529; Fall 
of Adolphus Nassau, 529; Count Louis' Booty, 529. 

CHAPTER XXX. 
TEAGEDIES - 531 

Effect of the Battle of Heiliger-Lee, 531; Alva's Rage, 531; 
Eajjid Vengeance, 532; Execution of Backerzeel, 533; Egmont 
and HoEQ brought to Brussels, 534; Two Facts, 534; Cumula- 
tive Illegality, 535; Interrogatories, 535; Articles of Acciasation 
against the Two Seigneurs, 536; They plead to the Jurisdic- 
tion, 537; Fruitless Efforts of Their Friends, 538, 539; Interces- 
sion of Foreign Powers, 539; Counsel retained, 540; Pleas of 
Counsel, 540; The Government embarrassed, 541; Alva a^jpeals 
to Philip to stop the Harangues of the Advocates, 541; The 
King complies, 541; The Cases foreclosed, 542; Egmont and 
Horn sentenced to Death, 543; Reflections on the Trial, 543; 
Obsequioiis Viglius, 543; The Bishop of Ypres sent to shrive 
Egmont, 544; His Unavailing Praj'er, 544; In the Cell of the 
Condemned, 545 ; Egmont's Last Hour, 545, 546 ; Scene in 
Horn's Cell, 547; Details of the Execution of the Grandees, 
547; On the Scaffold, 549; The Headsman strikes, 549; Popu- 
lar Grief, 550; Results, 551. 

CHAPTER XXXL 

DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING - ■ 552 

Alva sets out for the North, 552; The Royalist Muster, 552; 
"Have You seen the Bride':" 553; Whereabouts of Louis Nas- 
sau, 553; Skirmish at Groniugen, 554; Retreat of the Patriots, 
555; Position of Count Louis of Jemmiugen, 556; The Pursuit, 
556; Tactics of Nassau, 556; Alva's "Science," 556; The Muti- 
ny, 557; The Attack, 557; Tremendous Defeat of the Patriots, 
557; Elation of Alva, 558; Rejoicings, 558; The Duke's Inquis- 
itorial Campaign, 559; Incidents, 560; Orange ojiens a New 
Campaign, 561; Alva marches to meet Him, 562; Williams' 
Manifold Discouragements, 562; His Piety, 563; The Levies 
completed, 565; State Papers, 566; The Prince crosses the 
Rhine, 566; Passes the Meuse, 567; Astonishment of Alva, 567; 
William challenges a Battle, 567 ; The Duke declines, 568 ; 
Masterly Tactics, 568, 569; Skirmishing, 56!); Death of Hoog- 



CONTENTS. 21 

straaten, 569; Painful Emban-assment of William, 569, 570; 
Junction vnth De Genlis, 570; Sufferings of the Patriots, 570; 
Disastrous Close of the Campaign, 570; Upright and Generous 
Conduct of Orange, 570; Passes into France to assist the Hu- 
guenots, 571. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

ALVA'S MILLENNIUM 572 

Renewed Mediation of the German Emperor, 572; Imperial 
Hypocrisy, 574; A Koyal Alliance, 574; Triumi^hant Attitude 
of Alva, 575 ; Enforced Festivities, 575 ; The Duke erects a 
"Brazen Image," of Himself, 576; An Historic Parallel, 577; 
Imbroglio with England, 579; Alva crowned by the Pojje as 
Champion of Holy Chiirch, 582; Stringent Measures against 
Heresy, 582, 583 ; Eeeords of Persecution, 584 ; The Martyr 
"Willemson, 584; Emigration, 585; Communication with the 
Refugees forbidden, 586 ; The Press put nuder Censorship, 
586; A Brave Voice from Leyden, 587; Impecuniosity of the 
Viceroy, 588; Alva's Financiering, 588; Determines to estab- 
lish an Arbitrary Sj'stem of Taxation, 588 ; Meeting of the 
States-General, 589 ; The Duke demands the Hundredth, Twen- 
tieth, and Tenth Pennies, 589, 590; Protest of the Deputies, 
590; Viglius hugs His Money-Bags, 591; Bickering, 592; The 
States-General partially agree to the Taxes, 593; Opposition of 
Utrecht, 593; Anger of Alva, 594; Dragonnading, 594; A Com- 
promise, 595; Philip's Affianced Bride at Brussels, 595; The 
Duke requests His Majestj^'s Leave to attend Her to Spain, 
refused, 595, 596; An Amnesty proposed, 596; A Parddn pro- 
claimed with Pompous Ceremony at Antwerp, 597, 598; The 
Amnesty Characterized, 598; A Flood, 599; Between the Mill- 
Stones, 600. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS - 601 

The Foreign Outlook, 601; The Status of England, 602; The 
Ridolli Plot against Elizabeth, 603 ; The Pope excommuni- 
cates the Maiden Queen, 601; Philip countenances the Pro- 
posed Murder, 604; Orders Alva to cooperate, 604; The Duke's 
Opinion of the Essay, 605 ; Explosion of the Plot, 605 ; Chagrin 
of the King, 606; Further Efforts to compass the Assassination, 
606; Orange in France, 606; Returns to Germany, 607; Deca- 
dence of His Fortunes, 607; His Christian Resignation, 608; 
The "Harangue," 60S; The Reformed Preachers empowered 
to collect Contributions in Aid of the Good Cause, 608; Their 



22 CONTENTS. 

Success, GOD; Peter Boomgard, 609; William resolves to make 
the Maritime Provinces His Next Scene of Action, 610; Secret 
Correspondence with the Chief Men of the North, 610; Well- 
Carried Plans, Gil; Komantic Aet of De Rnyter, 611, C12; The 
Prince decides to issue Privateering Commissions, 613; The 
"Water Gueux," 613; Foundation of the Duteh Navy, 614; 
Alva the Unconscious Ally of the Prince, G15; Reopening of 
the Taxation Question, 616; Vigliiis Still in Opposition, GIG; 
The Duke decrees the Collection of the Hundredth, Twentieth, 
and Tenth Pennies, GIG; Violent Opposition of the Provinces, 
616; Medina Coeli sent to supersede Alva, 617 ; This News 
causes a General Revolt against the Taxes, G17; Grinding Con- 
cessions, 617; Alva's Correspondence with the King, 618; A 
Spanish Ambassador's Opinion of the Situation, 618; The King 
perplexed, 619; Alva attempts to levy the Taxes in Brussels, 
619; Universal Suspension of Business, 619; Rage of the Vice- 
roy, 620; Orders the Execution of Eighteen Tradesmen, 620; 
The Tragedy postponed by a Report of the Taking of Brille, 621. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE RISING - 622 

The Count de la Marck, 622; His Inability to distinguish be- 
tween Meum and Tuum, 622; Draws on the Patriot Navj'^ the 
Hostility of the European States, 623; The Buccanier Admiral 
at Anchor in Dover, G23; Alva gets Elizabeth to expel the Beg- 
gars of the Sea from Her Harbors, 623; De la Marck sets Sail, 
623^ The Descent on Brille, 621; The Ferryman Envoy, G24; 
The Place escaladed, 625; Revels of the Gueux, 62.5; Alva's 
Chagrin, 626; Sends Bossu to retake Brille, G2G; The Rejiulse, 
627; The Townsfolk take the Oath to Orange, G28 ; Bossu's 
Treachery at Rotterdam, 628; Revolt of the Maritime Provin- 
ces, 629; Squibs and Witticisms, 629; Flushing revolutionized, 
G30; Spread of the Insurrection, 631; English Volunteers cross 
to Zealand, 632 ; The Iconomachy Redivivus, 632 ; Honorable 
Stipulations, 633; The Ballot supplements the Rising, 633; Sa- 
noy ai^pointed Depiity Stadtholder of Holland, by AVilliam, 
631; Tolerant Wisdom of the Prince of Orange, 634; Means and 
Results, 635. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

TRIUMPHS ON THIS SIDE AND ON THAT -- G36 

William raid Count Louis, 636; Policy of the Fi-ench Court, 
636; The Huguenots cajoled, 638; Alarm of His Holiness, 638; 



CONTENTS. 23 

Charles IX. aud Coligny, 630; Charles IX. and Nassau, 640; 
Sagacity at Fault, 640; Couut Louis surprises Mons, 641, 642; 
Effects of the News ou Alva, 643; Spanish Thorns and Tuscan 
Lilies, 644 ; The Viceroy is doubtful where to begin the Kecon- 
quest of the Provinces, 644 ; Decides to open the Campaign 
with the Siege of Mons, 644; The Duke of Medina Coeli in the 
Mouth of the Scheldt, 615; Destruction of His Fleet off Flush- 
ing, 645; Narrow Escape of the New Viceroy, 646; Suspends 
His Commission in Favor of Alva, 646; Empty Courtesies, 646; 
Medina Coeli returns to Spain, 646; Alva holds out the Olive- 
Branch Vainly, 646, 647; Assembly of the Estates of Holland 
at Dort in the Interests of Orange, 647 ; Their Eesolute Action, 
647; Enthusiasmof the People, 649; Mons invested, 650; Posi- 
tion of Count Louis in the Town, 650; De Geulis advances to 
His Aid, 651 ; Total Defeat of the French Contingent, 651 ; Pious 
Eejoicings of the Royalists, 652; Alva arrives in Camp, 652; 
Efforts and Counter Efforts, 653; The Liberator's New Cam- 
paign, 653; Incidents of His Advance, 653. 654; The Two 
Armies Face to Face, 655; Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 656; 
The Hilarity at Eome, 657; Extravagant Joy of Philip II., 657; 
Orders Alva to kill all French Prisoners, 658; Effect of the 
News in Great Britain, 658; Orange "Struck as with a Sledge- 
Hammer," 659; Throws do-mi the Gauntlet to Alva, 660; The 
Duke's Wai-y Tactics, 660; The Prince forced to decamp, 661; 
Mutiny and Dissolution of His Army, 661; The Resolution, 
661; Surrender of Mons, 661; Noircarmes in Mons, 662; Sack 
of Mechlin, 663; Alva justifies the Deed, 664. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

SCENES OF HOEROE .- C65 

Orange in Holland, 665; At Work, 665; Meeting of the Estates 
at Haarlem, 666; In Counsel, 666; WiUiam's Faith, 667; Affairs 
in Zealand, 667; Patriots lay Siege to Middleburg, 668; Its 
Clever Defence, 668; 'T Zeraerts besieges Turgoes, 669; Roy- 
ahst Plan for Its Eehef, 669; Brilliant Expedition of Mondra- 
gone over the "Drowned Land," 670; The Denouement, 672; 
Zirickzee emancipates Itself, 672; March of the Spaniard into 
Holland, 672; Don Frederick's Circuit, 672, 673; Massacre of 
Zutphen, 674; Its Effect in the Northeast, 674; Naarden, 675; 
Attempts to resist the Invaders, 675 ; Subsequent Endeavor to 
capitulate, 676; Romero's Pledge, 676; The Feast, 677; Treach- 
ery, 677; Pillage of the City, 678; Individual Cases, 679; Naar- 
den in Ruins, 680; Alva endorses the Massacre, 680. 



24 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 
HEROISM - CSl 

Resolute Despair of Holland aud Zealand, G81; Isolation, 681; 
Amsterdam adheres to Spain, CSl; Auto da Fe in the City 
Square, 6S2; Alva in Amsterdam, 682; Determines to reduce 
Haarlem, 682; Why, G82; The Citizen Deputies, 683; Ripper- 
da's Speech, 683; Haarlem determines to resist, 684; Decisive 
Acts, 68-1; Orange promises his Aid, 684; A Battle on the Ice, 
685; Commencement of the Siege of Haarlem, 685; Topography 
of the Vicinage, 686; Numbers of Besiegers aud Besieged, 686, 
687; Spaniards take the Fort of Sparendam, 688; Defeat of a 
Relieving Force under Command of De la Marck, 688 ; The 
First Assault; repulsed, 689; Activity of Orange, 690; Defeat of 
Bateuburg, 691; Ghastly Pleasantries, 691; Mining and Coun- 
ter-mining, 691, 692; The Cross-gate, 692; A Slight Relief, 693; 
The Spaniard's Second Assault; bloodily repulsed, 694; Toledo 
asks Permission to raise the Leaguer, 694; Alva's Rebuke, 695; 
Change of Plan, 695; Royalist Fleet on Haarlem Meer, 695; A 
Patriot Flotilla, 695; Naval Victory of the Beleaguerer, 695; 
Frightful Suffering in Haarlem, 696; Sorties, 696; The Ama- 
zons, 696 ; Starvation, 697 ; Elforts of Orange, 698 ; Grand 
Attempt to relieve the Place; defeated, 699; Despair of the Cit- 
izens, 699 ; An Heroic Project, 699 ; The Surrender, 699 ; A 
Thorough Massacre, 700; Cost of the Victory, 700. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE PATRIOT HORIZON BRIGHTENS 701 

A Calculation, 701; The Duke's Monitory Circular, 702; The 
Hollanders Incorrigible, 702; Meeting of the Spanish Troops, 
702; Finally quelled, 703; Patriots occupy the Interval in com- 
posing the Poi^ular Fear, 703; Serenity of Orange, 703; His 
Letter to Count Louis, 703; An Enthusiastic Appeal, 704; Re- 
sponse of the Masses, 705; Siege of Alckmaar, 705; A Foiled 
Escalade, 706; The Beleaguerer driven off by the Oldening of 
the Sluices, 709; Naval Victory of the Dutch on the Zuyder- 
Zee, 710 ; Solemn Thanksgiving observed throiigh Holland, 
707; "Wry Face of the Viceroy, 711; Bossu and St. Aldegonde, 
712; Alva convenes the States-General of the Netherlands, aud 
demands a Subsidy, 712; Counter ApjDeal of the Prince of Or- 
ange, 712; His Partial Success, 713; The "Epistle," 714; Will- 
iam joins the Reformed Dutch Church at Dort, 714; Attitude 
of Alva, 715; His "New Way to pay Old Debts," 715; Reque- 
sens sent to supersede Him, 716; Alva retires from the Low 
Countries, 716; Review of His Administration, 717-719. 



CONTENTS. 25 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
THE GRAND COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO 720 

The New Governor-Geueral, 720; His Reception at Brussels, 
720 ; "S\Tiispers, 721 ; The Cue of Requeseus, 721 ; Poi^ular 
Measures, 721; The Viceroy's Diagnosis of the Netherland Dis- 
ease, 722; Mondragoue reduced to Extremities at Middleburg, 
723; Expedition to relieve Him, 723; Defeat of Requesens' 
Armada, 724; Middleburg capitulates, 724; The whole Island 
of Walcheren acquired thereby, 725; Invincibility of the Beg- 
gars of the Sea, 726; Inferiority of the Dutch to the Spaniards 
on the Land, 72C; Orange renews Diplomatic Relations with 
France, 727; Help traded for Help, 728; Count Louis begins to 
recruit in Germany, 728; His Advance, 728; Plan of Campaign, 
729; Ccrunter Preparations of Requesens, 729; Count Louis 
foiled, 730; The Hostile Armies meet at Mookheath, 730; The 
Battle, 731; The Rout, 731; Fall of Duke Christopher, Henry 
Nassau, and Count Louis, 731; Character of Louis Nassau, 732; 
A "Widow's Tears, 733; Mutiny of the Spaniards after the Fight, 
733; Antwerp occiipied by the Mutineers, 734; They gluttonize 
and guzzle at Free Quarters, 734; The Emeute composed, 734; 
Requesens accused of countenancing It, 735; Boisot's Triumph 
in the Scheldt, 735; PhiHp equips an Ai-mada for the Subjuga- 
tion of Zealand, 736; The Zealanders prepare to defend Their 
Archipelago, 73G; A Plague stays the Spanish Fleet, 737; Re- 
quesens administers His Panacea, 737; His Amnesty scouted 
by the Netherlanders, 738. 

CHAPTER XL. 
"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH" - -- 739 

Leyden, Its Beauty and Importance, 739; Valdez lays siege to 
It by Alva's Order, 740; Called off to defend the Frontier against 
Count Loiiis, 740; The Return of Valdez, and Renewed Siege of 
the City, 740; His Plan of Operations, 740; Culpable Neglect 
of the Citizens to Provision the Town, 740; Heroic Determina- 
tion to stand out the Leaguer, 741; John Van der Does, 741; 
Parleyings, 742; Orange encourages the Citizens, 742; Despe- 
rate Sorties, 742; Want begins to make Itself felt in Leyden, 
743; AVilliam's Project for Rehef, by innundating Rhj'uland, 
743; Hesitation of the States, 744; The Doubters convinced, 
744; Opening of the Sluices, 744; Magnanimity of the People, 
744; Exertions for the Relief of Leyden paralyzed by the Dan- 
gerous Sickness of the Prince, 744; Convalescence, 745; The 
Work resumed, 745; Rise of the Water, 745; The Wild Zealand- 
ers, 745; The Patriot Flotilla launched on the Extemporized 

Dutch Ret 2 



26 CONTENTS. 

Sea, 745; Aground, 74G; Frightful Sufferings of the Besieged, 
746; The Plague clasps Hands with Famine, 747; Taiiuts, 747; 
Van der Werf's Offer, 747; The Defiance, 748; The Spaniard 
becomes Uneasy, 748 ; The "Wind shifts, 749 ; Boisot Afloat 
again, 749; Amphibious Battles, 749; The Last Obstacles. 749; 
Midnight Combats, 749; Flight of the Spaniards, 750; Deliver- 
ance, 750; Scenes in the City, 751; Thanksgiving, 751; William 
informed of the Succor, 751; Crosses to Leyden, 751; The Re- 
ward of Merit, 752; Two Incidents, 752; Foundation of the 
University of Leyden, 752. 

■ CHAPTER XLI. 

DIPLOMATIC "PEACTICE" 754 

A Fencing Match between the Diplomats, 754; St. Aldegonde's 
Mission, 754; Conditions precedent to a Pacification, jorescribed 
by the Eevolted States, 755; Rejected by Eequesens, 755; Re- 
newed Negotiations, 756; William and His Tempter, 756; Brave 
Words, 756; Universal Wish for Peace, 757; What Orange un- 
derstood by the Word, 757; Philip's Idea, 757; Maximilian 
again proffers His Mediation, 758; Peace Congress at Breda, 
758, 759; Proposition of the Dutch Deputies, 759; Response 
of the Royal Envoys, 759; The See-saw of- Parties, 760; Angry 
and Indecisive Adjournment of the Congress, 760; The Confer- 
ence justifies the Patriot Cause at the Bar of Europe, 760; 
Other Gains, 760; Union of Holland and Zealand under tha 
Stadtholderate of Orange, 761; Evangelical Religion becomes 
Lawful, 762 ; Romanism temporarily suppressed under Mar- 
tial Law, 762; Reasons, 762; The Suppression merely Nominal, 
763; Sonoy imitates Juan Vargas, 763; Orange breaks up His 
Protestant Inquisition, 763; William and the Estates decide to 
proffer the Sovereignty of Holland and Zealand to some Friend- 
ly Power, 764; Philip deposed, 764; Question of the Succes- 
sion, 765; A Union with England esteemed most Desirable, 
765; Embassy to Elizabeth, 766; She coquettes, 766; Sub.stan- 
tial Failure of the Mission, 766; The Designs of Requesens, 7416; 
Success of the Gueux at Sea, 767; A Submarine Project, 767; 
Expedition to recover the Island of Schouwen, 768; A Brilliant 
Feat of Arms, 770, 771; Siege of Zierickzee, 772; Chagrin of 
Orange, 772; Sublime Resolution, 772; Death of Requesens, 773. 

CHAPTER XLII. 
THE GHENT PACIFICATION 774 

The Council of State at Brussels assume the Government pend- 
ing the King's Nomination of another Viceroy, 774; The Coun- 



CONTENTS. 27 

cillors prosecute Eequesens' Plan of Operations, 775; Continued 
Leaguer of Zierickzee, 775 ; Efforts of Orange to relieve the Town, 
775; Death of Boisot, 776; Surrender of Zierickzee, 77G; Mutiny 
of Mondragone's Veterans, 776 ; The Mutineers swarm into 
Brabant, 777; Alarming Spread of the Mutiny, 778; The Masses 
take Arms for Self-defence, 778 ; The Soldiery banned, 778 ; 
Movements of the Prince, 779; The Situation in Holland and 
Zealand, 780; A Financial Antithesis, 781; Watchful William, 
782 ; Puts Himself in Communication with the Patriots in the 
Belgic Provinces, 782; The Councillors in Duress, 783; Two 
Claimants of Authority, 78J:; Meeting of the Inter-Provincial 
Congress at Ghent, 784; Siege of the Castle of Ghent, 784; 
Activity of the Brigands, 784; Sack of Maestricht, 784; "Span- 
ish Fury" at Antwerp, 785; The "Pacification of Ghent," 787; 
Act characterized, 788; Taking of Ghent Citadel, 789; Recov- 
ery of Zierickzee, 789; Arrival of Don John of Austria, the New 
Governor-General, 789. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

PRAISE GOD 790 

The Hero of Lepanto, 790; Double Meaning of His Ai^point- 
meut, 791; Instructions, 791; Api^rizes the States-General of 
His Arrival, 792; Perplexity of the States-General, 792; Apply 
to Orange for Advice, 792; The Prince's Letter, 792; Prelimi- 
nary Negotiations with Don John, 793; Foreign Alliance solicit- 
ed, 793; Attitude of Elizabeth, 793; Union of Brussels, 794; 
The Council of State and the Doctors of Louvain on the Ghent 
Treaty, 796; Resumi^tion of the Negotiations with Don John, 
794; He accedes to the Ultimatum of the States, 795; A Pro- 
viso; granted and withdraw^l, 795; The "Perpetual Edict," 
795; Approval by Philip, 795; AVords of Warning, 79 G; Depart- 
ure of the Spanish Soldierj^, 796; Don John in Brussels, 797; 
Demise of Viglius, 797; Affairs in the Maritime Provinces, 798; 
Tour of Orange, 798; Treacherous Conduct of Don John, 799; 
A Crisis, 799; An Open Breach, 800; Quill-driving, 800; The 
Intercepted Letter, 801; Preparations for War, 801; Expulsion 
of the Germans, 801 ; '• The Jingling of the Guinea heals the 
Hurt that Henor feels," 801; Razing of the Citadels, 802; Or- 
ange invited to Brussels, 802; The "Gallows Journey," 802, 
State of Parties, 802; Aerschot's Plot, 803; Archduke Matthias, 
803; William's Adroitness, 804; An £meute at Ghent, 805; Elec- 
tion of Orange to the Dignity of Ruward, 806; "Nearer Union 
of Brussels," 806; The "Justification," 806; Embassy to Eng- 
land, 800; An Alliance with Elizabeth, 807; Matthias enters 



28 CONTENTS. 

the Capital, 807; Orange made Lieutenant-Governor of tlia 
Netherlands, 807; Don John at Namiir, 807; Alexander Farnese 
leads the Spanish Kegiments back from Italj', 808; The New 
Crusade, 808; Pious Motives, 808; A Eoyal Decree, 808; Army 
of the States, 808; Battle of Gemblours, 809; Accession of Am- 
sterdam to the Patriot Cause, 810; The States' Army remod- 
elled, 810; Affair at EjTnenant,-810; Disordered Condition of 
the Provinces, 810; The "Religious Peace," 811; William de- 
nounced, 811; Discord, 811; Prince Casimir leads the English 
Contingent into the Low Countries, 812 ; D'Alen§on invited 
into the States, 812; The Abnormal Situation, 813; Death of 
Don John of Austria, 813; Departure of D'Alen§on and Casi- 
mir, 813; Fresh Complications, 813; Farnese's Ducat Argu- 
ments, 814; Defection of the Walloon Provinces, Sl-l; Elements 
of Disunion, 815; William weaves the Web of a New Confed- 
eracy, 815; The Union of Utrecht, 816; Birth of the Dutch 
Eepublic, S17; The Reformation guaranteed, 817; a Summary, 
817-823. 



THE 

DUTCH REFORMATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE "DEBATABLE LAND." 

There is a gore of land iu the extreme north- 
western corner of Europe which juts out into the 
German ocean, and seems, like Venus, to have just 
risen fresh and blooming from the sea-foam. In- 
deed, it can hardly be said to have arisen from the 
waves, for it is all afloat. The land is full of lakes, or 
the lakes are full of land — you may phrase it wliich 
way you please. 'T is an amphibious country : its 
legs are water ; its body is a spongy soil ; its arms 
are ships ; its veins are canals ; its eyes are schools 
and churches; its crown is liberty — for though of 
late years it has had a king, he is but a name, and 
the state is in fact as free as Switzerland. 

Holland is the modern sphynx ; everything 
about it is unique and unprecedented. Nothing 
could be more prosaic than a sail along its long, 
low, sandy coast, which hugs the sea so closely that 



30 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

you cannot see it until you are within a stone's toss. ■ 
But, once landed, nothing could be more bewilder- 
ing, strange, and picturesque than the buoyant, 
breathing, thrifty landscape which salutes you. You 
seem to have entered an enchanted garden. Canals, 
spanned by ten thousand bridges, creep with their 
sluggish waters before and behind, to the right 
and to the left, interlacing the whole scene. The 
smooth, clean roads are embroidered with willows, 
and gemmed with beautiful suburban villas. Teem- 
ing cities and thriving villages — the wealthiest 
towns of continental Europe — -vivify and humanize 
the landscape. The laughter of trade is heard. 
The commerce of two hemispheres crowds the har- 
bors. The land seems bursting with prosperity. 
Here runs a river, floating a flock of boats to mar- 
ket; there a church-steeple peers and beckons; 
yonder stands a group of happy citizens, chatting, 
and motioning to a canal-boat captain to .pause 
and take them on board; and beyond looms a sen- 
tinel windmill, scooping up the ever-encroaching 
water with its tireless fingers, waging its never- 
ending combat with the complaining sea, spoiled of 
its rights. 

That plain which touches France on one side 
and Prussia on the other, shelves towards the north- 
west, and ends in a marsh. Here sits Holland— a 
made countr}', a land of art. It is simply an allu- 
vial deposit, Avashed by the Rhine and its tributa- 
ries from the Alpine regions of the interior — mud, 
sinking to the bottom of the sea and rising with the 



THE "DEBATABLE LAND." 31 

gradual accumulations of ages into arid sandbanks, 
which the skill and grim persistence of the Hol- 
lander have transformed into fat and fertile pas- 
tures. Much of the laud lies lower than iilie ocean 
level. At such points artificial dykes have been 
constructed and laced with willows, to bar the out- 
witted sea. 

The coast being thus secured, the Hollander 
next begins to pump out his half-submerged coun- 
tr}-; and he realizes dry ground by raising low, 
green mounds in all directions across the morass, 
so as to enclose sections or fields, which may be 
cleared by the individual proprietors. Each of 
these leaky enclosures has wet ditches cut all 
around it and through its centre; then, for the pur- 
pose of drawing off the water and keeping it in 
subjection, windmills are stationed to work pumps ; 
and these, set in motion by the wind, drain the soil, 
and send the reluctant water in channels along the 
tops of the dykes to the main canals, which inter- 
sect the country on a level with the sea; while the 
Dutchman rests in peace, knowing that "Father- 
land " is made safer by the passage of each breeze. 
At times man has been momentarily beaten in this 
terrific conflict between human intelligence and the 
blind force of the elements; then, surging over these 
frail barriers, the jubilant sea has roared and tum- 
bled, swamping villages, and drowning in an hour 
the toilsome acquisitions of long centuries. 

The whole country is a dead level, broken only 
by an occasional mound of sand; but it is so cun- 



32 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ningly filled up and variegated, so brimful of odd 
sights, that it is impossible to call it monotonous. 
From any point it is possible to command a pic- 
turesque cou'p d'ceil. If we were in Amsterdam, by 
ascending to the dome of the Stadt-house, we might 
gaze uj)on a highly-finished and curious picture, 
rich with the fragrancy of meadows and the beauty 
of the abounding flower-gardens ; or, if we stood in 
Eotterdam, we might ascend a lofty tower, and look 
down upon the buzzing city, and glance off to the 
country beyond — a delightful background, cultiva- 
ted like a continued garden, and stretching away 
to the misty horizon. 

Looking southward across the city, we should 
perceive the river Maas winding majestically on- 
wards to the sea, with the rich plains of Isselmonde 
on the opposite side, and the towering dome of the 
old church at Dort in the distance. Turning tow- 
ards the northwest, we might see the sea-bordered 
territory of Holland si3read out as Tar as the human 
eye could reach. The steeples of the towns of Schie- 
dam and Delft would seem quite at hand ; while the 
spires of the Hague, more distant, might be dis- 
cerned rising above the mass of trees which veil the 
horizon. Gouda lies more in a southerly direction; 
while innumerable little villages, sprinkled over the 
scene, and hundreds of windmills revolving in every 
direction, would serve to decorate and animate the 
landscape. Everywhere we should see water; and 
then the land, so singularly flat, yet so rich and 
pastoral, would be flecked here and there with 



THE "DEBATABLE LAND." 33 

straggling herds of those beautifully spotted cattle 
which Paul Potter loved so well to paint.* 

But the most wonderful feature of this marvel- 
lous country is its history. Springing from a few 
fisher-boats on a dreary coast, it grew gradually 
stronger, in arms, in intelligence, in wealth, until it 
would brook no superior by land and could have 
none by sea. The Hollander first created his " Fa- 
therland," and then, standing on piles, conjured 
modern commerce into being. With territory just 
wide enough to give him elbow-room, he monopo- 
lized for centuries the trade of the world, and an- 
nexed continents as coffers wherein to garner his 
wealth, patching out his little country with vast 
colonial possessions, until he held a principality 
greater than Christendom before had known. In 
the darkest ages ho was the merchant, the trader, 
the manufacturer of Europe. His municipal sys- 
tem was the germ of republicanism. His cities 
struck the key-note of civilization, resuscitating the 
industrial arts, and bequeathing to mankind that 
idea of union which begets and assures liberty. 

For a thousand years the Netherlands t were 
the camping gi-ound of Europe; their whole exist- 
ence was a fight; and nobles of every nationality 
sped thither to flesh their maiden swords and to 
win their spurs. " Mars," saj'S Strada, " only trav- 

* Many of the facts above cited, and some bits of description, 
are taken from "W. Chambers' Tour in Holland in 1838 ; London, 
1839 ; and from an old volume, entitled "A Tour in Holland, by 
an American ;" Worcester, 1790. 

t From the Dutch, Xeider land, under land, or low country, 
2* 



34 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

els other countries, and carries about a running 
war, but here he seats himself. Beyond poetic 
miracles, we have not only fought with man, but 
with mighty rivers ; and not alone Avitli these, but, 
breaking the cloister of the sea, we have challenged 
the ocean itself. We walk upon the water as if it 
were firm ground; we let in the sea to make the 
land navigable, fighting in both elements at once."* 

But it was in the sixteenth century, which Schil- 
ler calls "the brightest of the world's epochs,"t that 
the Netherlands played the sublimest part. The 
backbone of that struggle was religion. When 
France was rent by faction, when Germany cow- 
ered, when England stood lukewarm, when the rest 
of Europe was actively hostile to reform, Holland 
espoused it — struck the tocsin of resistance to civil 
and religious tyranny. The gallant little territory 
collected its scattered energies, and flung its whole 
being into the spasm of its effort. It was humanity 
agonizing for its noblest rights ; and " the resources 
of resolute despair" triumi^hed in this unequal con- 
test with a king who was the Crossus of modern 
times; who coined his gold in "either Ind;" who 
had Spain and Germany for his fulcrum; whose 
anathema-maranatha was the awful malediction of 
the church of Rome. 

If w^e would understand effects, we must study 
them through the medium of causes. Events, hke 
Hebrew, are to be read backwards. A cursory r.e- 

s> Stracla, Hist, of the Low Coinitry Wars. London, 1C50. 
t Schiller, Hist, of the Bevolt of the Nethciiaucls. 



THE "DEBATABLE LAND." 35 

view of the rise and progress of tlie Netherlands 
before the dawn of the second birth in the sixteenth 
century, will help us to solve the riddle of that age ; 
familiarize us Avith the mainsprings of Holland's 
action, with the rationale of her development, with 
the causes of her revolution; tell us why, though 
Spain wotn battles and the Dutch Republic lost 
them, every victory brought tyranny only nearer to 
defeat; how Holland was snatched half drowned 
from the Netherlaud morass, and girt with benefi- 
cent sovereignty ; and we shall learn that the secret 
of this Samson's strength was in the well-thumbed 
Bible. 

Our earliest glimpse of the Netherlands is got- 
ten through Roman ej-es. Half a century before 
the Christian era, Rome, while pushing her tri- 
umphal car around the world, stumbled upon these 
marshy meadows, and paused to gather the reluc- 
tant inhabitants into her heterogeneous retinue of 
conquest, draggiug them into histor3^ 

The Low Countries were then a huge bog — " a 
wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage for- 
ests were interspersed among lagoons and shal- 
lows." This misshapen mudbank was born of three 
rivers, the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, which 
had been for ages spitting their slimy deposit 
among the dunes and sandbars heaved up by the 
ocean about their mouths. 

It is impossible to portray the geography of the 
Low Countries at the period of the Roman inva- 
sion. The coasts were mere slime-banks; inland, 



36 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

trees might be seeia, but they were rooted in a soil 
so marshy, that an inundation or a tempest threw 
down whole forests; and these are still sometimes 
discovered imbedded ten feet below the surface of 
the earth.* The sea had no limits, the rivers no 
beds nor banks, the earth no solidity, and there 
was not a spot of ground which did not yield be- 
neath human footsteps.f 

Pliny the naturalist once visited the Nether- 
lands, and he has left us a dreary portrait of their 
aspect. " There," he says, " the ocean pours in its 
flood tAvice every day, and produces a perpetual 
uncertainty whether the country may be consid- 
ered as part of the continent or of the sea. The 
wretched inhabitants take refuge on sand-hills or 
in little huts, which they construct on the summits 
of lofty stakes, whose elevation is conformable to 
that of the highest tides. "When the sea rises, they 
appear like navigators ; when it retires, they seem 
as though they had been shipwrecked. They sub- 
sist on the fish left by the refluent waters, and 
which they catch in nets formed of rushes or sea- 
weed. On the shore is neither tree nor shrub. The 
people drink rain-water ; and their fuel is a kind of 
turf, which they gather and form with the hand."! 

In geography and ethnography the Netherlands 
belong partly to Gaul and partly to Germany. The 
Belgian provinces stretch out the right hand of fel- 

•-• Grattan, Hist, of the Netherlands, p. 3. 
f Eumenius, Paneg. Const. Cas. 
t Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. 16. 



THE "DEBATABLE LAND." 37 

lowship to the Gallic tribes ; Holland is Saxon, and 
the Dutchman is the nearest blood relative of the 
Anglo-Saxon race.* This difference of race was 
as marked eighteen centuries ago as it is to-day. 
Tacitus noted it ; and it is a fact which has colored 
the whole history of Europe. 

The Celt and the Saxon were alike physically; 
they were equally brave ; and the Koman annalists 
bear the most glowing testimony to their valor.t 
But in their social customs they were dissimilar, 
and in tlieir theology they did not agree. The 
Gaul was superstitious and priest-ridden; he wor- 
shipped a thousand blood-stained deities. The 
German held to a ^ugle supreme, almighty God — • 
too sublime to be imaged, too infinite to be enclosed 
in earthly temples, visible always to the reverent 
eye of faith. Such is the Roman's testimony to the 
lofty conception of the Saxon. :j: And such were 
the Netherlands in their physical aspect and in 
their native tribes, when Cfesar essayed to leash 
them to his car of conquest. 

* Motlej', Gibbon, Iliime, Grattan. 

\ See Ca'sar's Comm. cTe Bell. Gall. Anmi. Marcel., 15, 12, 1. 
Tacitus. 

± Motley, vol. 1, j). 9. 



38 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

CHAPTEE II. 

THE NETHEELANDS IN EMBRYO. 

"When, some twoscore years before Christ, impe- 
rial Caesar, having subjugated Celtic Gaul, paused 
to wipe the perspiration from his brow, he was told 
that the warlike tribes to the northeast, who made 
their lair in the tangled patches of the Ardennes 
wood, had refused to accept his alliance or to 
implore his protection. At once the conqueror 
pushed his legions into the Netiierlands. Here he 
w^as met bj a swarm of separate tribes, each of 
which, liowever, was allied to one of three great 
nations who then occupied the morass. 

The district which stretches from the Scheldt 
to the Ehine, embracing substantially the modern 
territory of Belgium, was inhabited by a liard^^ race 
of warriors — men who ranged the interminable for- 
ests without a fixed home, indebted to rude agri- 
culture and the chase for their livelihood." These 
were the Belgians. 

Beyond the Belgic flats, on the old island of 
Batavia,t was another people, the Batavi,:]: fierce 
even beyond their savage neighbors, whose occupa- 

* Div. Cass. lib. 4. CsEsar, Comm. de Bell. Gall, 
f Tacitus, cTe Mar. Ger. The name comes from Bet-ana, 
"good meadow." 

± Ibid. Grattan, Motley. 



THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO. 39 

tion was also war — a race wliicli aforetime had 
streamed from the German highlands.* 

Still farther north, in what is now North Hol- 
land, dwelt yet another nation, the Frisians, a 
nation of fishermen — of nascent traders, uniting the 
distinctive qualities of merchants and navigators; 
moderate, sincere, slow but sure, and implacable 
in anser, when once aroused. Their more south- 
ern neighbors were more inflammable, quicker to 
strike, and fiercer, but they were less steady and 
more ambitious ; for they were rovers, while the 
fishermen sat contented on their piles, made slow 
progress towards civilization, thought little of con- 
quest, and gave their thoughte chiefly to the im- 
provement of their countrj-.t 

Like the Germans, whose blood they shared, 
the Frisians lodged sovereignty in the people — 
bnilt it upon the basis of individualism. At the 
full of the moon the popular assemblies met and 
legislated, electing their chiefs and deciding mooted 
points of policy.:]: Almost alone among barbarians, 
they were not addicted to polygamy ;§ and among, 
them there were .no slaves but their prisoners of 
war, and a few unfortunates who had gambled 
away their liberty II — for gambling, one of the most 
deep-rooted and pernicious of the vices, was even 
then the curse of mankind, and as much in vogue 

* Pliny, Berlier, Prec. de rAncienne Gaule. 

f Grotius, de Antiquitate Eeip. Batav. 

X Ibid. Davies, Hist, of Holland. 

§ Ibid. Motley, vol. 1, p. 10. || Ibid. 



40 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

in the Netlierlancl marshes as in the civilized haunts 
of the profligate Romans.* 

Tlie Belgians and the Batavians knew nothing 
of this primitive democracy. Their polity recog- 
nized three classes, nobles, priests, and pariahs ; 
and CcTBsar testifies that their commonalty were all 
slaves.f In war, the nobles led their retainers to 
battle ; in peace, the Druids, the bloodiest of priest- 
hoods, governed. I 

These were the races whom Caesar had come to 
subdue. They defended their liberty with head- 
long valor; but discij^line was invincible, and the 
hapless barbarians could only die sword in hand. 
Across these warm corpses stepped the grim Ro- 
man, and on he pushed, gaining now by his arms 
and now by his arts, until eventually he either con- 
quered all opposition, or seduced it into his alii- 
auce.§ First, the Belgians were subdued ;l! then 
the Batavians submitted, and entering the Roman 
service, became the most renowned cavalrymen of 
the empire, often clutching victory from the jaws of 
^defeat.^ " Others," says Tacitus, " go to battle ; 
these go to war ;" and we are told how the Da- 
cians were terrified by the wild courage of these 
untamed horsemen, as they saw them in full armor 
plunge into and swim across the Danube.** 

'~" See Davies, vol. 1, p. 13. 

t Ca3sar, de Bell. Gall. 

t llotlej', vol. 1, p. 8. Grattan, Davies. 

§ Co3sar, de Bell. Gall. Tacitus, de Mar, etc., cap. 29. 

II Ibid. If Tacitus, Hist. 

** Schiller, llibt. of the Eevolt of the NetbcrlaudH, p. 2. 



THE NETHEELANDS IN EMBRYO. 41 

The Frisians attracted attention later, and the 
bogs among whicli they dwelt enhanced the pwce 
of conquest. But at last they too yielded, and 
their country was made the pedestal of farther con- 
quest ; for " the Eoman Darsus, warring in these 
swamps, cut a canal from the Ehine into the Flevo — 
now merged in the Zuyder Zee — through which the 
imperial fleet penetrated into the German ocean, 
and thence, entering the mouths of the Ems and 
the Weser, found an easy passage into the interior 
of Germany."* 

Now, for a time, the Netherlands were united 
in their servitude to Rome, and the old Belgic 
tumults were pacified in a gilded slavery. At once 
a metamorphosis commenced. The cunning con- 
querors began to eradicate all feelings of national- 
ity in the victim races. They dazzled their rude 
auxiliaries with the -splendor of their capital, 
encouraged them to identify themselves with the 
world's masters, gave them Komau names, ener- 
vated them by initiating them into dissolute cus- 
toms ; and thus the young Netherland adventurers 
returned, after twenty years' service under the 
imperial eagles, and walked their native wilds with 
Koman hearts and tastes. Gradually the forests of 
the Ardennes were pierced with highways and 
cleared for towns; and these innovations completed 
the amalgamation of the allies; nationality was 
obliterated, or merged in the all-devouring epithet, 
"Eoman." The Belgians began to borrow the 
•-" Scliiller, Hist, of the llevolt of the Netherlands, p. 2. 



42 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

usages and to ape the maimers of Italy, and they 
finished by speakmg Latin.* 

The Batavians did indeed make one expiring 
effort to preserve their nationahty as they saw it 
fading from history. Claudius Civihs, a Bataviau 
soldier of fortune, who had studied war under the 
Koman eagles, is the phantom who flashes as the 
hero of this revolt. The confederacy was at first 
successful; the pillars of the prison-house began to 
totter ; a commonwealth was well-nigh cemented by 
the courage and talent and eloquence of a single 
chieftain. But reverses followed ; the frail confed- 
eracy fell apart like a rope of sand ; the lowland 
mate of the German Arminius saAv that his cause 
Avas shipwrecked, and held out only to coerce hon- 
orable terms ; these were granted, and the Batavi- 
ans once more became the allies of Kome in the 
latter half of the first Christian centuryf — an alli- 
ance which proved fatal to their existence. They 
became rapidly degenerate ; and when, a hundred 
and fifty years later, the Franks overran their 
island, they said with a jeer : " The Batavians are 
not a nation ; they are only a prey.":}: 

But this transformation was confined to the 
Belgic provinces — did not cross the Bhine. Isola- 
ted by their position, the Frisians were not corrupt- 
ed by the Bomans. They were of the Saxon race — 
a blood of unconquerable vitality, giving, not taking 

« Grattaii, Hist, of the Netherlands, p. 9. Des Roches, Hist, 
de la Belgique. 

t Tacitus, Motlej', etc. J Tacitus, lib. 4. 



THE NETHEELANDS IN EMBRYO. 43 

its color. So the Frisian made an obeisance to 
the victorious eagles of the emph^e, and there stop- 
ped ; he never intermarried with his conquerors ; 
he despised the super-refinement of the Sybarite 
Italians, and 

"Left to the soft Campauiau 
His baths and his perfumes ; 

he hugged the memory of his murdered liberty; he 
clung with fidelity to his ancient customs; he ad- 
hered to his language with religious care ; he stood 
aloof from the Koman ranks; he rejected the titles 
and distinctions for which others bartered inde- 
pendence; he asked no favors, and trusted solely 
to industry for support, educating himself through 
the stomach, by an incessant contest with famine 
and the sea ; and, spite of its original unattractive- 
uess, as the Switzer loves his icy crags, so the Fris- 
ian adored his boggy "Fatherland." 

The Frisians of the age of Tiberius and Ves- 
pasian differed little from their fathers, who, 
perch-ed on their high-built huts, fed on fish and 
drank the water of the clouds. Slow and successive 
improvements had taught them to cultivate beans, 
which grew wild among the marshes, and to tend 
and feed a small, degenerate kind of horned cattle. 
But if these first steps towards civilization were 
slow, they were certain ; and they were taken by it 
race who never walked backward.* 

The Menapians, as that portion of the Frisians 
were called who occupied the west bank of the 
* Grattan, Hist, of the Netherlands, p. 7. 



44 THE DUTCH KEFOKMATION. 

Meuse, becoming at a later day the Flemings,* 
were a maritime people in the earliest ages, and 
had carried on a commercial intercourse with Eng- 
land from time immemorial. The stajjle article of 
this primitive traffic was salt, which they manu- 
factured and exported in vast quantities, f They 
also understood the preparation of salted meat, 
which they did Avith such perfection that it became 
of high repute even in Italy; and Ptolemy tells us 
that they had planted a colony on the eastern coast 
of Ireland, in the twilight of the world.:}: 

So marked was the difference between the races 
who inhabited the Netherlands when Vespasian 
wore the purple. The southron was brave, impul- 
sive, frank, but fickle; he was the shuttlecock of 
his time, and Avhoever held the battledore mieht 
buffet him which way he pleased. He took im- 
pressions easily, and any plastic hand might mould 
him. 

The uorthener was ,cool, phlegmatic, calcula- 
ting, self-dependent, untiring. He was able and 
determined to develop himself. The civilization of 
Italy he never accepted, for it suited neither his 
taste nor his genius. Like his country; he was self- 
made, and he grew his OAvn civilization. 

This hard}^ and intrepid race were mariners by 
instinct ; and when once possessed of the coast- 
line, they did not seek to make the least jirogress 

* GraUan, Hist, of the Neth., p. 7. Motley, Davies, Grotius. 
t Gibbou, Grattai), Grotius, Van Loon, Alande Hist. 
J Des lloches, Hist, de la Belgique. 



THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO. 45 

towards the interior. The element of their enter- 
prise, the object of their ambition, was the ocean. 
When they became too numerous for their narrow 
limits, they sent off the redundant population to 
colonize new regions.* When their veins became 
too full, the blood spouted in expeditions. Thus 
Saxon warriors seated themselves at the mouth of 
the Loire ; thus Hengist and Horsa crossed the sea 
into England, departing, as it has been conjectured, 
from the Netherlands.! 

The domination of the empire in the Nether- 
lands continued upwards of five centuries. Then 
Eome, gouty with excess, dizzy with license, stag- 
gered to its grave. The empire lost its cohesive 
power long before it crumbled. " Stately, exter- 
nally powerful, but undermined, putrescent at the 
core, and death-stricken," nothing sustained it for 
a century but the ghost of its former proAvess. 
Soon prying eyes detected this hidden weakness. 
" I am a Koman citizen " ceased to be a passport 
and a palladium ; and at length jubilant barbarism 
swooped to the sack of the Eternal City. " It was 
the opening of the fountains of the frozen North; 
and the waters prevailed, but the ark of Christian- 
ity floated upon the flood. As the deluge subsided, 
the earth returned to chaos, the great pagan empire 
was washed out of existence, but the dim, groping, 
faltering, ignorant infancy of Christian Europe 
began."! 

Then came what Schiller terms " the epoch of 
o Grattau, p. 14. f Ibid. J Motley, vol; 1, p. 19. 



46 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

the immigration of nations "* — the nomadic age. 
Europe was redivided. A confused horde of bar- 
barous tribes quarreled over, and fought for the 
possession of, the disjointed fragments of the 
Koman empire. Gradually from these ruins rose a 
new monarchy, that of the Franks.t Like their 
Koman prototypes, they too aspired to universal 
empire. In order to that, it was necessary to sub- 
jugate at the outset the adjacent territory. So the 
Netherlands once again shook beneath hostile foot- 
steps. The Belgians, already Romanized, were again 
denationalized, and with the pliancy of old days, 
they easily accommodated themselves to the new 
regime, becoming as enthusiastically French, under 
the pressure of necessity, as they had been Latin.:!: 

The Frisians — who had resumed their indepen- 
dence on the fall of Rome, erecting a nation Avhose 
limits were nearly commensurate with those of the 
Dutch Republic in after-days§ — prepared for a des- 
perate resistance. The death-tug continued through 
the sixth and seventh centuries ; nor did it termi- 
nate definitely until Charlemagne throttled Fries- 
land.ll 

Evil is the pioneer of good. "W^ar has been 
finely called religion's " hewer of wood and drawer 
of water," It is the clearer of choked channels, 
the unknowing smiter of organized falsehood; in 

■-' Schiller, p. 3G4. 

t Ibid., p. 3G4. Davies, Grattau, Grotiiis, Van Loon. 

X Grattan, Hist, of the Netherlands, p. 14. Grotius. 

1^ Ibid. Motlej', vol. 1, p. 20. Van Loon. 

jl Grotius, de Antiq. Reip. Batav. 



THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO. 47 

twilight ages, the only light we see is the sabre's 
gleam. And so now this epoch sowed gospel seed. 
The Franks, hewing their way to empire, opened a 
gap for the Bible. Nominal Christianity was plant- 
ed in the Netherlands — nominal Christianity, for it 
had been already emasculated and burdened with 
a host of idle ceremonies, and half-paganized by its 
adoption of the heathen dogmas of the Academi- 
cians. Even thus early the bishopric of Eome had 
assumed dictatorial powers, and put the triple 
crown upon its brow. The Eternal City, sighing 
for the sceptre of old days, said with the Greek, 
" The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep ;" 
and her ambitious prelates schemed — successfully, 
as the sequel proved — to cement a spiritual king- 
dom vaster and more world-embracing than the 
pagan empire of the CaBsars. 

So, following in the wake of the Frankish armies, 
the popes sent their missionaries into the Low 
Countries. Early in the seventh century, Dago- 
bert, first king of Austrasia," contended with the 
Frisians, and conquering Utrecht, he planted there 
the emblem of the cross : this was the first Chris- 
tian church in Friesland.f Nor did it long exist ; 
for in G92 Utrecht was again held by the Frisians, 
who were still stout unbelievers. | But in that same 
year, another of the Frankish monarchs, Pepin, 
vanquished Eadbod, the Frisian chief, forcing him 

* Afterwards the ducliy of Lorraine. 

f Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 20. Grotius, Motley, etc. 

t Ibid. 



48 THE DUTCH KEFOBMATION. 

to exchange a royal for a ducal title;* then, as the 
fierce pagan continued turbulent, the tremendous 
blows of Pepin's bastard, Charles the Hammer, 
pounded a large part of Triesland into Christian- 
itj.t Eadbod himself was persuaded to allow him- 
self to be baptized. But the imprudence of a monk 
spoiled all ; for after Radbod had immersed one leg 
in the baptismal font, a thought struck him, and he 
j)aused. " Where are my dead forefathers ?" que- 
ried he. "In hell," said the officiating priest. 
" Mighty well," retorted the pagan ; " then I would 
rather feast with my ancestors in the halls of Wo- 
den, than shiver and starve alone in the heaven of 
the Christians ;" and he declined the rite4 

Badbod did not, however, actively oppose the 
conversion of his people. In 719, Gregory II. 
despatched Willibrod, an Anglo-Saxon monk, from 
England, into Friesland to preach the gospel § — 
selecting him because the languages of the English 
and the Frisians of that period were very similar.il 
This priest was created archbishop of Friesland by 
the pontiff ;1[ and now, landing in the Netherlands, 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 20. 

■j- Ibid. Des Koehes, Hist, de la Belgiqiie. Van Loou, Alande 
Hist. X Vita Sti. Bonifacii. 

§ Brandt, Hist, of the Eef. in and about the Low Countries. 

II "So late as the sixteenth century, the dialect of Friesl.and 
bore more resemblance to English than to any other tongue — 
Guicciardini, Des Belg. , torn. 2, -p. 288, duod. ; and even now an 
acquaintance with the Dutch language is an excellent glossary to 
our old poets, for it has sustained little change in the lapse of 
time." Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 18, note. 

IT Bede, Hist. Eccl., lib. 5, cap. 11. 



THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO. 49 

lie fixed tlie seat of his see at Utrecht, rebuilt the 
ruined church, supplemented it by a monastery, and 
gave a nucleus to the Christianity of the marshes.* 

Thus England proselytized the Low Countries ; 
and such was the origin of the famous bishopric of 
I^^trecht. For many years it was piously fostered. 
Charles Martel granted the royal domains and priv- 
ileges in the adjacent territories to the bishops of 
this see, enriching them besides by the cession of 
several other more distant estates.f Gradually 
thej^ assumed to levy taxes and collect customs, 
until, in the lapse of ages, they vied in splendor and 
autocratic sovereignty v/itli the Roman pontiifs. 

From the date of the definitive establishment of 
the bishojjric of Utrecht, the fight between Chris- 
tianity and the national idols was spasmodic. Join- 
ing hands with the Saxons, the Frisians rebelled in 
the middle of the eighth century; but Charles Martel 
stamped down the rising ;:]: and Charlemagne for ever 
laid the perturbed ghost of Woden — for the first time 
since the sack of Eome, uniting the Netherlands 
under one crown imperial.§ Once before, the low- 
land provinces had been united in their servitude 
to Caesar. Eight hundred years' had passed away, 
and now they were again made one in their subjec- 
tion to Charlemagne — a conqueror of whom men 
might sa}^ as Cassius said of Caesar : 

« Hist. Wil. Hedfe in Willibrodo, p. 25 ;Bede, Hist. Eccles., 
lib. 5, cap. 11. 

t Davies, Hist, of Holliind, vol. 1, p. 2G, et seq. 

X Grotius, Motley, Gruttan. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 22. 

U.Uch lUf- 3 



50 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

"He doth bestride the naiTOW world 
Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonorable graves."* 

Throuc;li all these vicissitudes the Frisians and 
the Menapiaus clung tenaciously to their national- 
ity ; of that nothing could rob them. " They agreed, 
however, to obey the chiefs -whom Charlemagne- 
should appoint to govern them, according to their 
own laws — laws which were then collected, and are 
still extant. The vernacular version of their Asega 
book contains the Frisian customs, together with 
the additions of the Franks. The general statutes 
of Charlemagne were of course in force; but that 
great legislator knew too well the importance at- 
tached by all mankind to local customs, to allow 
his imperial capitulars to interfere unnecessarily 
with the Frisian law^s."t " The Frisians shall be 
free as long as the wind blows out of tlie clouds and 
the world stands;"! so ran the text of their statute 
book. It was the spirit as well as the letter of 
their law, even in chains; it was the consolation 
and the aspiration of their servitude. 

From the recitals of the missionary monks who 
w^ent into the Netherlands to preach Christianity, 
we may get an idea of their condition under Char- 
lemagne. The old difference between the southern 
provinces — some of which have since been incor- 
porated with France — and those of the north, was 

* Shakespeare, Julius Cresar, act 1, sc. 2. 

t Motlej', vol. ], p. 22. % Ibid. 



THE NETHERLANDS IN EMBRYO. 51 

as perceptible as ever. On the Frencli border " the 
inhabitants had forgotten their former names ; the}-- 
were designated by the appellations of their rivers, 
woods, and towns, classified as accessories to inan- 
imate objects; and having no monuments to remind 
them of their origin, they became without recollec- 
tion or association — sank into a people without an 
ancestry."" The country was a desert. The mon- 
asteries, if we may credit the words of their char- 
ters, were established amid vast solitudes. The 
French nobles came into Brabant only for the sport 
of bear-hunting in its interminable forests.'!' A 
race of serfs now cultivated the domains of haughty 
lords and imperious priests. The clergy held 
immense estates in these wastes; a single abbey, 
that of Nivelle, owned fourteen thousand families 
of vassals.:}: 

The peoples to the north mounted one step high- 
er with each age. A maritime race, they were more 
industrious, ingenious, prosperous, and happy than 
most others of that rude time; and the natural 
ferocity of their Saxon blood had been somewhat 
tempered by habits of labor. " They are handsome 
and Avell clothed," say the old chroniclers, " and 
their lands are well cultivated and abound in fruits, 
milk, lioney."§ Friesland then swept from the 
Scheld to. the Weser; and numbers of the Hano- 
verian and "Westphalian Saxons, decimated by a 
barbarous edict which ordered every warrior of 

=:- Grattan, p. 17. f Ibid., p. 14. J Ibid., p. 18. 

§ Acta Sanct. Belgii. 



52 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

their tribes who exceeded the height of his own 
sword to be beheaded,* had adopted the Frisian 
name.t 

The descendants of the Menapians began now 
to be called Flemings, and they had so greatly 
improved their provinces, that Pliny's shade would 
not have recognized the old morasses of his day. 
Already the turbulent waters had been gotten in 
hand — subdued to purposes of utility. Already 
dykes were built and canals were dug. The plains 
thus partially reconquered from the sea were dis- 
tributed in portions, according to their labor, by 
those who had reclaimed them, except the parts 
reserved for the chieftain, the church, and the poor. 
This vital necessity for the construction of dykes 
had given to the Frisians and the Flemings a habit 
of union, good-will, and reciprocal justice ; because 
it was necessary to make common cause in tliis 
good work of mutual preservation.:]: Indeed, at 
this very period the Flemings so well understood 
the principles of association, that they had formed 
political clubs as barriers to the despotic violence 
of their more barbarous conquerors ; these they 
called guilds,^ and they comprised, besides their 
covenants for mutual protection, an obligation, 
which bound every member to succor every other in 
sickness, or shipwreck, or distress.ll "^le guilds 
were the sure breeders of the free towns, and the 

* V;m Loon, Alande Hist. f Ibid. J Grattau, p. 18. 

§ Gilden, or in the Latin of those times, g'lldonia. 
II Grattan, p. 20. 



THE NETHEELANDS IN EMBBYO. 5:3 

principle on which they were based originated the 
most ancient corporations.* The increasing influ- 
ence of these social compacts alarmed the quick- 
sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and he pro- 
hibited them. But the imperial ban was powerless 
when opposed to the popular will; so the guilds 
stood their ground, and within a century after their 
prohibition they had cobwebbed Flanders with cor- 
porate towns.t Already Bruges and Ghent, Ant- 
werp and Courtray, Bergen-op-zoom and Thiel, were 
the seats of an ever-increasing trade ; and Thiel 
contained in the tenth century fifty-five churches, 
from which, in the absence of other evidence, we 
may conjecture the extent of its population. :|: 

Contemporaneously with this social transfor- 
mation in the Netherlands, a political revolution 
occurred in Europe. The old Batavian and the 
later Roman forms faded away, and were succeeded 
by a new polity. No great popular assembly assert- 
ed its sovereignty, as in the primitive epoch. The 
elective power had been lost under the Bonians, 
who had, after conquests, conferred the administra- 
tive power over their subject provinces upon offi- 
cials appointed by the metropolis. So did the 
Franks; and Charlemagne completed the revolu- 
tion. Popular assemblies, popular elections were 
ignored. Military, civil, judicial officers were the 
creatures of the king.§ Counts, earls, dukes, were 
not then the hereditary heads of noble families : 

•~- Grattan, p. 20. t I^^i'l- 

t Ibid. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 25. 



54 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

they were merely the officials of the empire, remov- 
able at will, possessing no hereditary rights.* 

But Charlemagne did not live long enough to 
consolidate his revolution ; and vvhen he died, chaos 
came again. Europe had lost its old forms, and it 
had not yet acquired new ones. The great law- 
giver reigned too soon. He was five centuries in 
advance of his epoch. Prodigious as was his geni- 
iis, it was still too weak to remould society single- 
handed; and so, since he left no kindred soul saga- 
cious enough to comprehend his plans, his clumsy, 
swollen, heterogeneous empire began to crumble. 
Cold masses up all things, sticks, stones, earth, and 
water, into dirty ice ; heat first makes separation, 
then reunites elements of the same nature. Char- 
lemagne was the cold, massing the empire; his 
dawdling descendants were the heat, severing the 
congealed lump, which, as it severed, reunited kin- 
dred particles ; and thus Friesland found itself once 
more in its desolate corner, a cohesive unit. But it 
was not independent. The kings who had divided 
and subdivided Charlemagne's vast dominion, ceded 
the Netherlands now to the German, now to the 
Frenchman, until the country grew dizzy with 
changing masters; but the provinces were still 
parts of the loose, disjointed empire.t In this oscil- 
lation Friesland shared ; and thus that narrow hook 
of land which Avas destined in future ages to be the 
cradle of a great republic, was for a time the oft- 
bartered victim of chaifering barbarians. 

* Grattan, p. 19. f Motlc}-, id antea. 



DEVELOPMENT. 55 

CHAPTEE III. 

DEVELOPMENT. 

The Netherlands now trembled upon the thresh- 
old of those ages to which historians have fitly 
prefixed the epithet " dark." Medieval life was sub- 
terranean. Europe at large groped in a fog-bank ; 
saw "as through a glass, darkly" — "saw men as 
trees walking." Since Charlemagne there had been 
no central authority. Each local patch of territory 
was plundered, in the name of government, by who- 
ever in the hurly-burly could usurp the rule ; and 
though the continental provinces were nominally 
attached to one or the other of the several monar- 
chies among which Europe was parcelled out, in 
fact each robber noble, each grasping prelate, 
swayed an absolute sceptre in whatever domain he 
had contrived to snatch. " Power, the more subdi- 
vided, became the more tyrannical. The sword Avas 
the only symbol of law ; the cross was a weapon of 
offence; the bishop was a consecrated pirate; every 
petty baron was a burglar ; while the people, alter- 
nately the prey of duke, prelate, and seignor, shorn 
and butchered, esteemed it happiness to' sell tliem- 
sel\TS into slavery, hoping thereby to gain shelter 
beneath the eaves of a convent, or to huddle for 
protection mider the castle walls of some little 
potentate."* 

* Motley, Rise of the Dutch Eep., vol. 1, p. 2C. 



66 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Besides this voluntary entrance into servitude, 
made by tlie timid or the weak, shxvery was also 
compulsory. Criminals, vagrants, strangers, ship- 
wrecked sailors, prisoners-of-war, were commonly 
reduced to serfdom.* 

There were three classes in this brotherhood of 
woe. Lowest grovelled the slaves of laymen — mere 
human cattle ; btutes, with no claim to a fraction 
of their own labor, without j'ights, and with no mar- 
riage, except under infamous conditions. t One step 
higher stood the villeins', or villagers, only less for- 
lorn. But they had a beneficial interest in their own 
flesh and blood; for " they could commute the labor 
due their owner by a fixed sum of money, after 
annual payment of which they were graciously per- 
mitted to work for themselves.":}: Then there were 
the serfs of the cloisters and the various ecclesi- 
astical establishments. With cunning policy, the 
churchmen made their slavery milder and more 
humane than that of the rude barons — as showing 
the superior clemency of their rule and the prefera- 
ble status of their serfs. And, indeed, Motley assures 
us that " the lot of a church-slave was freedom in 
comparison with that of his fellow-bondmen. To 
kill him was punishable by a heavy fine. He could 
give testinrony in court : he might inherit, was able 
to make a will, and could plead before the law, if 
law could be found. "§ For these reasons most of 
the voluntary sales were made to ecclesiastics; 

•=■ Motley, Rise of the Dutch Rep., vol. 1, p. 26, 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. o3. J Ibid., Grotius, Davies. § Ibid. 



DEVELOPMENT. 57 

and this gave the church an immense number of 
retainers ; the number hekl by the bishopric of 
Utrecht is said to have been enormous.* 

The picture is sickening. But there was another 
still darker : for 

"iu the lowest deep, a lower deep 
Still threatening to devour men, opened wide, 
To which the hell they suffered seemed a heaven." 

The Norsemen — as that pagan race was called 
which then inhabited Denmark and Sweden and 
Norway — began their ferocious raids. These fierce 
freebooters had long infested the northern seas, 
making desultory descents upon the coasts of Fries- 
land, England, and France. Towards the close of 
the ninth centuryf they waged a wider, more deter- 
mined war. Quitting their wild ej-ries in vast 
flocks, they swooped to batten on European civili- 
zation at large. The Netherlands were quickly 
overrun ; Germany wap harried ; France was pil- 
laged.l One province alone successfully resisted 
their first onset. Flanders, the patrimony of Bald- 
win Bras-de-fer — confirmed to him of the iron 
arm, with the title of count, by the king of France 
as the reluctant reward of his romantic and daring 
elopement with Judith, the monarch's daughter§ — 
was preserved unplundered throughout the life of 
that doughty knight. But on his death, the Flem- 

* Motley, Grattan. 

f 882. Yvheatou, Hist, of the Northmen. 
X Michelet, Hist, of France ; Grotius, Hume. 
§ Van Loon, Aleudc Hi.sl., Grotius. 



58 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ings, too, succumbed ; and the wliole Netherlands 
wore the terrible shackles of the *sea-kings.* 

But the domination of the Normans was not 
long. Their chief was assassinated by the com- 
mand of Charles the Fat, the German emperor; 
and this left the nuisance to abate, just on the 
edge of the tenth century.t It was an alleviation ; 
one link in the chain of the serfs was broken. The' 
Crusades snapped another. Many knights, anxious 
to win barren laurels on the Syrian sands, were 
unable to command the money necessary for their 
outfit. Such always found a Shylock in the church. 
Ecclesiastics would dole out their hoarded gold to 
purchase the estates of the needy adventurers ; and 
these were glad to sell or mortgage their serfs, if 
thereby they might get the means of fighting the 
Paynims.^ 

Besides, any one might become a soldier of the 
cross — a service which ioq^ precedence of every 
other. The serf was invited to combat for the holy 
sepulchre equally with the noble ; and he who did 
so returned a freeman : — liberty which many were 
adventurous enough to purchase at such an honor- 
able price.§ Thus the Crusades — those Quixotic 
tilts against an Asiatic windmill — became at once 
educators and emancipators. 

But throughout this period there were no longer 
laws — there were only forces, of which three were 
preeminently potent : feudalism, ecclesiasticism, and 

«•' Grattan, p. 2i. Slallet, Northern Antiqiiitics. t l^id. 

I MicLiuur.s Hist, of the Cn;sades. § Motley, vol. 1, lutrod. 



DEVELOPMENT. 59 

the rising municipal power. Each of these extended 
an unwitting hand to civihzation : in their grinding 
friction a hght was struck. 

The first force, and for a time the most powerful, 
was the feudal system — emblematic of the un- 
sheathed sword. Even this brute power was a 
growth. It sprang from land ; land, then as now, the 
pedestal of influence, almost of manhood. Estates 
were then of two kinds ; proprietary, or allodial — a 
word synonymous with tlie fee-simjjle of our common 
law* — and feudal A' Besides the lands held in each 
kingdom by local owners, care was always taken, in 
those days, to reserve many estates to the crown, 
partly for the support of its dignity, partly for the 
exercise of its munificence.:}: These desmcnse lands, 
as the territory thus reserved was called,§ were the 
chief source of the royal revenue.il Often they were 
granted in trust to favored courtiers, to be held of 
and for the king, as benefices.*^ Though conferred 
originally during the royal pleasure, in the course 
of time benefices became hereditary f* the claim 
of a son to succeed his father was frequently too 
plausible or too formidable to be rejected ; and 
thus were laid the foundations of the half-independ- 
ence of the great media)val vassals. ft 

"A natural consequence of hereditary benefices," 

* Hallam, Hist. Middle Ages, p. 65. 

t This word is probably the barbSrous sj'nonym of the Latin 
benfficium. See Du Caiige v. Freedom. 

X Hallam, p. 70. § Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Lois. 

II Ibid. II Ibid. Maine, Ancient Law. 

o« Ibid. Hallam. ff Hallam, pp. 67 and 73. 



60 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

remarks Hallam, "was that those who possessed 
them carved out portions to be held of themselves 
bj a similar tenure of service and fealty."* Soon 
the law begaji to look upon allodial owner^iip with 
dislike, and to favor the more popular tenure, until 
eventuall}' lands held in fee-simple were exceptional 
and rare.t 

The same change occurred in the nature of the 
crown offices. The kingdom of Charlemagne, and 
of his predecessors, was divided into a number of 
districts called counties, each under the government 
of a count — a name long familiar to the Romans, 
and by which they rendered the gyrif of the Ger- 
mans:!: — whose duty it was to administer justice, pre- 
serve tranquillity, collect the public revenue, and 
lead his retainers into the field to the assistance of 
his monarch in time of war.§ The title of duke 
implied a still higher dignity, and commonly gave 
authority over several couuties.il 

At the outset these offices, like the benefices, 
were awarded at pleasure ; but like the others, 
they, too, gradually hardened into hereditaments, 
so that at last titled families came to regard the 
usurped duchies or counties which they governed 
as theirs cJe jure as well as de facto. \ 

From this double usurpation nobility sprouted. 
In early times, all distinctions of rank were founded 

• 
■~ IluUam, p. 72. 

t Leg. Burgundy, tit. 2G. Hallam, Montesquieu. 
% Hallam. § Ibid. 1| See Hallam, p. 67, note. 

H Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Lois. Grotius. 



DEVELOPMENT. Gl 

ou tlie possession of land and on civil employ- 
ments.* When these became hereditarj, and were 
shut np to a few fortunate families, a patrician caste 
was the inevitable result ; " that landed aristocracy 
arose which became the most striking feature in 
the political system of Europe during many cen- 
turies, forming in fact its chief distinction both from 
the despotism of Asia, and the equalit}'^ of republi- 
can government."'!" 

The customs of an epoch will always be moulded 
by its habits. So now, what had begun through 
ambition was at last dictated by necessity. " In 
that dissolution of all law. which ensued on the 
death of Charlemagne, the turbulent nobles among 
whom his empire was divided, constantly engaged 
in internecine strife, placed their chief dependence 
upon men whom they attached to their respective 
banners by gratitude, and bound by strong condi- 
tions. The oath of fidelity which they had taken 
on their accession to power, the homage which they 
had paid to their sovereign, they exacted from their 
■ vassals in turn. To render military service became 
in that age, when war was a passion and a business, 
the essential obligation which the tenant of a ben- 
efice undertook ; and out of those old royal grants, 
now become for the most part hereditary, there 
grew up in the tenth century both the name and 
the reality of feudalism.":}: 

Such in its more salient aspects was the feudal 
system. In many of the Netherland provinces, it 

e Hallam, p. 69. j H'i^l- Grotius. | ILiIli.ni, p. 7.'. 



62 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

took early and deep root ; in Friesland it was never 
planted.* Under various pretexts, the sagacious tra- 
ders contrived to retain their proprietary interest in 
the soil. Man and the land were linked together ; 
iliey were lawfully married for life or death ; the 
Frisian had wedded his bogs. Thus it was that in 
Friesland the lands were cultivated, not by laborers 
or by serfs, as elsewhere, but by owners ; and the 
swamps yielded, some tenfold, some twenty-fold, 
and some a hundred-fold, because they were loved. 
It was one of the secrets of Frisian progress. Each 
man was interested in the improvement of his coun- 
try, and this fact nerved every arm, emboldened 
every heart, to grapple with the sea, to erect dykes 
and windmills ; as 

" Ouward for aye, though diligently slow, 
The firm, conuected bulwark seems to grow ; 
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar, 
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. "f 

But though feudalism did not ground itself in Fries- 
land, it had an influence there. Indeed, the essen- 
tial principle of a fief, which Hallam defines to have* 
been " a mutual contract between suzerain and ten- 
ant of support and fidelity,"! was already exempli- 
fied among the Frisians in the spirit of complete 
concert which united them against the tyranny of 
the ocean, and against the despotism of man ; and 
it might also be traced in the Flemish guilds.§ 
But the feudal polity was an advance, and made 

* Motley, vol. 1, pp. 21 and 38. Grattan, Grotius, Van Loon, 
f Goldsmith, Traveller. J Hallam, p. 75. § See chap. 2, p. 51. 



DEVELOPMENT. G3 

for civil freedom chiefly in this, that at a time when 
the desolating hand of power seemed about to sweep 
individualism into the abyss, as it had done in Asia, 
it preserved the name, if not the essence, of right, 
and privilege, and honor ; and it cherished the idea 
of private justice, as we may learn from the consid- 
eration of the limitations of the services of vassal- 
age, so cautiously marked out in those old law- 
books which record the customs of the past, and 
from the reciprocity of obligation between the lord 
and his tenant, from the consent required in every 
legislative measure, and from the security which 
every vassal found in the privilege of judgment by 
his peers.* 

In its chivalric notions of the inviolability of 
faith, of the necessit}- for honor, and of the honesty 
of truth, the feudal system was an excellent school 
of moral discipline in an age drunk with excess, 
careless of treachery, vicious from habit, and riot- 
ous with power. In just these respects it was a help 
to civilization — the go-cart which held up its infant 
feet and strengthened them to walk. 

By the side of feudalism, at one time inferior to 
it, but finally controlling it, stood another and a 
different force — the religion of the popes. With the 
jus divinum on its lips, every step it took was tow- 
ards empire — temporal as well as spiritual. Doav- 
ered by the pious donations of the successors of 
Charlemagne, who chiefly sign ahzcd their authority 

""" See the very able resume of the iiiflucuce of feudalism, in 
Hallam, p. 123, et scq. 



n4 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

by lavishing territorial gifts on the cliiircli;* organ- 
ized by the subtlest wit of man on an amalgamated 
basis of truth and shrewd imposture; officered by 
the most consummate genius of the age ; engross- 
ing the scholarship of the time : the Koman see 
swept on conquering and to conquer. Europe was 
cob-webbed with episcopal cities which gradually 
became so many principalities, independent of the 
civil law, taking orders from the popes alone ; dic- 
tating the political policy of the world ; deposing 
and setting up princes ; consolidating their usurped 
power, now by force, now by fraud ; intriguing, 
ubiquitous, all-powerful. 

The clergy of that day were not merely church- 
men, they were huntsmen and warriors ; and so 
" careering in helm and hauberk with other ruff- 
ians, they bandied blows in the thickest of the fight, 
blasted their enemies with bell, book, and candle ; 
forced sovereigns at the head of armies to grovel 
in the dust at their feet, and offer abject submission 
for the kiss of peace ; exercised the same conjury 
over" ignorant baron, and cowardly hind, making 
the fiction of apostolic authority to bind and loose 
as prolific in acres as the other divine right to have 
and hold ; thus the force of cutivated intellect, 
wielded by a chosen few, and sanctioned, as the' 
assumption went, by supernatural power, became 
more potent than the sword" — directed its blows, 
told it wlieu and where to strike, and became the 
guiding brain of feudalism. 'Tis an instructive 
* Gnittau, p. 21. 



DEVELOPMENT. 65 

picture, and it teaches the tremendous power of 
knowledge, the inevitable superiority of educated 
mind over brute violence. And this was why the 
holy see so carefully monopolized learning — know- 
ing the secret of its authority, it could not but 
frown uj)on popular intelligence. 

But God made the wrath of man to praise him ; 
even priestcraft had its mission. It preserved and 
fostered art; it treasured up in crj-pts and con- 
vents the fossils of antique learning; it incarnated 
some of the Christian precepts ; and at last its bold 
assumption and its corruptions provoked inquiry — 
forced honest men,- spite of themselves, to investi- 
gate and to protest. 

Cap in hand to feudalism and tlie Eoman see 
knelt a third force — the rising municipalities of 
Europe. The constant tendency of mankind is tow- 
ards aggregation. Even individualism gravitates 
towards poj)ulation. And so now the clustering- 
hovels of the villiens began to expand into towns. 
The nascent burghers built better houses, and threw 
up ramparts. Elbowing each other on the street, 
brought into daily contact, they commenced to com- 
bine and to trade. Little by little manufactures 
were started; the different trades yveve born, and 
each had its guild. Then money was made. Gold 
began to assert itself. Commerce was launched, 
and "plucking up half-drowned Holland by the 
locks, it poured wealth into her lap." 

The nobles, scenting no danger, at first encour- 
aged the towns, rewarded them with charters, erected 



66 THE DUTCH EEFOBMATION. 

them into corjjorate bodies, and were bribed into 
complacence by burgher gold. The church, sus- 
pecting no heresy, spread out her arms in blessing 
over the rising municipalities, and dictated the 
recompense. The cunning citizens long made no 
claims, only asked leave to be. But gradually they 
grew in power and wealth. " Fishermen and river 
raftsmen became ocean adventurers and merchant 
princes.. Needy Flemish weavers became mighty 
manufacturers." Like the imprisoned spirit in the 
fabled casket, when the seal was broken, the little 
towns lifted into colossal shape. " Armies of work- 
men, fifty thousand strong, tramped through the 
swarming streets. Silk-makers, clothiers, brewers, 
became the gossips of kings, lent their royal friends 
vast sums, and burned the royal notes in fires of 
cinnamon wood." 

The opulence of the merchants of this period, 
and their sumptuous style of living, quite shamed 
the aristocracy, impoverished by war and frequent 
spoliation. On one occasion, it is related that the 
count of Flanders invited a number of Flemish 
magistrates to dine with him. The chairs which 
they were to occupy at table were unfurnished with 
cushions. The proud burghers, not satisfied with 
bare seats, strij^ped off their valuable velvet cloaks, 
and folding these, sat on them during the repast. 
After the feast they were about to retire in appa- 
rent forgetfulness of those costly articles of dress. 
A courtier ventured to remind them of their man- 
tles : but the burgomaster of Bruges replied, " We 



DEVELOPMENT. G7 

Flemings are not in the habit of carrying away the 
cushions after dinner" — and the cloaks were left in 
the count's dining-hall.* 'T is an illustrative anec- 
dote ; and though there was a spice of insolence in 
it, the action was high and authoritative. 

But spite of the equivocal attitude in which they 
stood, the mediieval municipalities were the sole 
depositories of those rights which lay hid under the 
epithet " privileges." The logical sequence of their 
life was independence. Every dollar they coined 
meant emancipation. The keen competition of their 
trades opened men's eyes, and awakened intellect. 
The burghers were democratic by instinct ; and this 
was why their cities were sure to become the cra- 
dles of republican and protestant ideas. 

Indeed, the maritime spirit, wherever it showed 
itself, already bore the countenance of republican- 
ism. In Italy the Lombard merchants w-ere demo- 
crats.f Venice, then towering in her pride of place, 
with no sea-weed tarnishing her marble halls, the 
fresh, beautiful bride of the Adriatic, vv^as an oligar- 
chical republic. Avignon, and Aries, and Marseilles, 
commercial cities in the south of France, tottered 
to their feet and stood a moment as free common- 
wealths in the middle of the twelfth century 4 

The alliance of town with town for maritime 
purposes was common. Narbonne formed one with 
Geneva in 1166,§ and nearly a century later the fa- 

« Chambers' Tour in Holland, p. 9. 
f Sismondi, Hist, des Kep. Ital. 
X Yelly, t. 14, p. 44G. 
§ Hallum, Middle Ages, p. 119. 



68 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

mous Hanseatic* League was formed, and the chief 
cities of Germany cemented a union whose purpose 
it was to foster and protect commercial interests.l 

But it-was in the Netherlands that the munici- 
pal system was carried to the greatest perfection. 
In Holland especially, the towns were not, as else- 
where, merely portions of the state ; the state itself 
was rather an aggregate of towns, each of which 
formed a little commonwealth within itself, provi- 
ding for its own defence, governed by its own laws, 
holding separate courts of justice, administering its 
OAvn finances; the legislative sovereignty of the 
whole being vested in the towns, forming in their 
collective capacity the assembly of the states.:]: 

Each community elected its own municipal au- 
thorities; and thus inspired with the breath of life, 
with plenty of blood m their veins, the miniature 
republics made their gold weigh up the other forces 
in the end, spite of the jus divimon.^ 

" Stability," says Schiller, " the security of life 

and propertj^, arising from mild laws and an equal 

administration of justice — these are the parents of 

activity and industry."!! This advantage the Low 

Country cities had. They became established marts. 

Antwerp, Amsterdam, Dort, Ostend, and the rest, 

were more or less affiliated with the Hanse-towns.lF 

Tlieir burghers, launching their ships, visited first 

* From the German Ilansa, a union. 

f Ai^pletou's Cyc, Ai-t. Hanseatic League. 

X Davics, vol. 1, p. 76, et seq. § Motley. 

II Schiller, Eev. of the Netherlands, p. 3G9. 

t Appleton's Cyc. , in loco. 



DEVELOPMENT. 69 

the iieigliboiing coasts of Denmark and England; 
and the wool which thej brought back employed 
thousands of industrious hands in Bruges, Ghent, 
and Antwerp; while by the middle of the twelfth 
century the cloths of Flanders were extensively 
worn in France and Germany.-" 

Nor did the Netherland seamen pause here : 
with unprecedented daring, "they A^entured, without 
a compass, to steer under the North pole, round 
to the most northern cape of Russia. And in this 
voyage they received from the Wendish towns a 
share of the Levant trade, Avhicli then passed from 
the Black sea, through the Russian territories, to 
the Baltic. When, in the thirteenth century, this 
trade began to decline, the crusades having opened 
a new passage through the Mediterranean for In- 
dian merchandise, and after the Italian municipal- 
ities had usurped this lucrative branch of commerce, 
the Netherlands became the emporium between the 
Hanseatic League in the north and the Italian tra- 
ders in the south. 

The main current of this trade flowed through 
Bruges, in Flanders, for several centuries, and fat- 
tened that favored city. " Here," if we may credit 
Schiller, " a hundred and fifty vessels might often 
be counted at one time, entering the harbor of 
Sluys. Besides the rich factories of the Hanseatic 
League, here -were seated fifteen trading companies, 
with warehouses, and merchants' families from every 
European country. This also was the market for 

*- Schiller. 



70 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

all the northern products for the south, and for the 
Levantine trade bound north."* Bruges rolled in 
prosperity. The meanest citizen nursed his person 
in velvet and silk.f 

Such was the origin, such the varied influence, 
of the three great mediae val forces, which " build ed 
better than they knew." 

Meantime, the Netherlands remained divided 
into numberless small provinces, whose rulers did 
homage at one time to the German emperors, at 
another to the kings of France. To recite the 
names and achievements of these " illustrious ob- 
scure" might well cause even the most patient gene- 
alogist to shudder, and is foreign to the purpose of 
these pages. One of them, Count Baldwin of Flan- 
ders, was the father-in-law of William of Normandy; 
and when the conqueror crossed the channel into 
England, Netherland ships ferried him over, and 
Netherland men-at-arms helped him subdue the 
island :|; — assistance which he recompensed by the 
annual payment of three hundred silver marks into 
the Flemish treasury ;§ which proves that even in 
the middle of the eleventh century, and in family 
transactions, the Flemings looked sharply to the 
main chance. It was Mathilda, William's Flemish 
Avife, who worked with her own fair hands that cele- 
brated tapestry of Bayeux, on which was deftly 
embroidered the whole story of the conquest.ll 

Another of these petty sovereigns, and the last, 

« Schiller, pp. :'.70, 371. f Ibid. Gruttan, p. 29. 

t Hume,Hi.st. oIEiig., in loco. § Grattau, p. 28. || Ibid. 



DEVELOPMENT. 71 

was Jacqueline, the most lovely, intrepid, and tal- 
ented woman of lier times — the Helen of the Middle 
Ages. She was as unhappy as she was beautiful. 
Succeeding in her seventeenth year to an inheri- 
tance of three counties — Holland, Zealand, Hai- 
nault — she was mated successively with three greedy 
but titled adventurers, who persecuted her, tore her 
provinces by dissensions incessantly fomented, and 
drove her to implore the intervention of her cousin 
Philip of Burgundy; who, in his turn, despoiled her 
of her last possessions, and degraded her, on her 
marriage with Yrauk Von Borselen, a gentleman of 
Zealand, whose gentle and knightly spirit consoled 
her for the cowardice and brutality of her former 
husbands, to be the lady-forester of her own domin- 
ions.* On the death of Jacqueline, in 1436, the 
uncourtly usurper took undisputed possession of 
her titles, drowning remorse in his thirst for aggran- 
dizement.! 

Thus began the rule of the Burgundian dukes in 
the Netherlands : that ambitious house, leaping into 
the saddle, was now to run its appointed race in pur- 
suit of the illusive phantom of empire. By the various 
shifts of purchase, legacy, and bargain, Philip, sur- 
named " the Good," added territory after territor}' 
to the nucleus states which he had wrung from the 
reluctant hands of his fair cousin, until, finally, he 
united under his ducal coronet eleven of the richest 
provinces of Europe.:}: His court rivalled that 

•-■ Davies, vol. 1, p. 217, d seq. Motley, vol. 1, p. -10. Grattau. 
p. 47, ei seq. f l^i'^- ^^^^" Loou. X Schiller, p. 3115. 



72 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

of the Vatican in ostentatioiis magnificence ; and 
flushed with success, the smooth usurper proceeded 
to curtail the privileges of his burgher subjects. 
But he was so subtle and insidious in this spolia- 
tion, that the parchment liberties of the Netherlands 
were partially suppressed ere the cities awoke to 
protest. Besides, the citizens were so enervated 
by luxury, that they lacked heart to resist, and 
feared that they might lose every thing by claiming 
any thing. Meantime, their material prosperity in- 
creased, and they hoarded gold which their descend- 
ants were to melt into bullets and beat into swords. 

Philip died in 1467; and his son Charles the 
Bold succeeded to the extensive and compact duke- 
dom which he had so unscrupulously consolidated. 
Charles augmented his domains by the conquest of 
two additional provinces ; then, casting an envious 
eye on the diadem of Louis XI., lie aspired to 
expand his own coronet into a crown by carving 
out with his sword a kingdom which should surpass 
France in extent, as its j)resent dukedom exceeded 
it in wealth. 

The vaulting and restless spirit of this meteoric 
prince devised a scheme of conquest embracing the 
whole line of country from the Zuyder Zee and the 
old mouth of the Bliine away to Alsace, with the 
icy and granite battlements of Switzerland as the 
ramparts of his realm.* His execution was not 
equal to his conception. Narrow-minded, short- 

^' Scliiller, p. 3G5. Motlej'. Grattiiii. Kirk, Life of Charles the 
Bold. 



DEVELOPMENT. 73 

sigbtetl, despotic, as a conqueror, he was as far 
removed as possible from Haninbal to wliom he 
was foud of comparing himself ; and as a politician, 
he could outwit no one but himself.* 

Charles at once put his project afoot. Begard- 
ing the Netherlands only as an inexhaustible bank 
on which he had carte UancJie, he confined his inter- 
course with his states to the extortion of vast sums 
of money with which to pamper his quixotism ; and, 
since his militar}^ career was singularly unsuccess- 
ful, the frequency of these demands well-nigh drove 
the patient burghers to despair. By oaths and bra- 
vado he was nearly successful in establishing a cen- 
tral despotism on the ruius of the ancient provincial 
charter, when, in a happy moment for the Nether- 
lands, he collected an army and dashed to the con- 
quest of Switzerland — meeting, not the victory of 
which he felt assured, but an obscure death in the 
melee at Nancy ; and this awful rout saved the 
republicanism of the Swiss, and partially restored 
the liberties of the Low Countries.'!- 

For the Lady Mary of Burgundy, the daughter 
of the infatuated paladin, now became sole mistress 
of this magnificent dukedom — a woman as young, 
fair and unprotected as poor Jacqueline had been. 
Hel' strait was the opportunity of the burghers. 
Environed by difiiculties, menaced by Louis XL, 
the most treacherous and subtle of kings, she ap- 
pealed, as was usual in such cases, to the commons. 
Naturally, the citizens demanded a quid pro quo. 
o Motley, vol. 1, p. 48. \ Ibid. Ivirk, Life of Charles. 



74 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

A convention was summoned to meet in Ghent, 
and the deliberations flowered in the " Great Privi- 
lege," an instrument which was the 3Iagna Charta 
of the Dutch, and which, though it was afterwards 
rescinded, became the corner-stone of the Dutch 
republic* 

Thus a stroke of the pen restored the pristine 
Netherland charters ; and Mary, besides, bound her- 
self not to marry without the consent of the states.f 
The richest and most beautiful princess in Europe, 
she had many wooers ; two were especially promi- 
nent. Louis XI. claimed Mary for the French 
dauphin; Frederick III., the German emperor, de- 
manded her for his son, Maximilian of Austria ; 
and to one of these suitors the choice soon nar- 
rowed itself. Then the states made an unfortunate 
choice. Dreading Louis XI., whose kingdom bor- 
dered on their territories, and aware that Mary's 
husband must become the most powerful prince in 
Christendom, they finally awarded the hand of their 
duchess to Maximilian, accelerating the very evil 
which they were striving to forestall.:]: 

A decade of squabbles succeeded; then Mary 
died, after giving birth to a son, Philip the Fair. 
This prince, young, handsome, engaging, was mated 
with Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella 
of Castile and Aragon, a bride who brought Spain 
and the two Sicilies as her dower.§ From this 

<^- Grotius, Motley, Van Loon, Grattan, Davies. 

t Motltey, vol. 1, p. 50. Scliiller. 

X Schiller, p. ?,Gi>. § Ibid. 



DEVELOPMENT. 75 

union sprung Charles V. Born in 1501, lie was 
destined to unite in his simple person this vast 
domain acquired partly by conquest, but chiefly by 
two fortunate marriages. 

The reign of Philip the Fair was short and 
turbulent,* Dying in 1506, while on a visit to his 
brother-in-law, the king of Spain, he was speedily 
followed to the grave by Joanna, who became mad 
from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses 
from jealousy during the life of the handsome 
profligate, t 

The regency of the Netherlands reverted to 
Maximilian, now become emperor of Germany, on 
this event ; and he at once named his daughter 
Margaret governant of the states during the in- 
fancy of the second Charlemagne, And this brings 
the political history of the Low Countries into the 
dawn of the sixteenth century, when God said, 
" Let there be light." 

* We must not omit to notice the existence of two factions 
■which, for two centuries, divided and agitated the whole popula- 
tion of Holland and Zealand. One bore the title of Eoeks — 
fish-hooks ; the, other of Kaaheljaus — codfish. The origin of these 
grotesq^^e names was a dispute between two parties at a feast, as 
to whether the codfish took the hook, or the hook the codfish. 
This apparently frivoloi;s dispute was made the pretext for a seri- 
ous quarrel : and the partisans of the nobles and those of the 
towns ranged themselves on either side, and assumed different 
badges of distinction. The Iloeks were partisans of the towns, 
and wore red caps ; the Kaaheljaus were the friends of the nobles, 
and wore gray bonnets. These factions were finally extinguished 
in 1192. Grattan, p. 49, note. f Ibid., p. G5, 



76 THE DUTCH EEFOUMATION. 



CHAPTER IV. 

RUDIMENTS OF THE REFOEMATION. 

It is an authoritative declaration of Miclielc^t, 
that " whoever restricts himself to the present, the 
actual, will never comprehend the present and the 
actual. Whoever contents himself with seeing the 
exterior, and painting the form, does not even see 
it. To see it correctly, to paint it faithfully, we 
must know that which is within, the motor; no 
painting without anatomy.""^' 

In obedience to this rule, we have traced the 
progress of the Netherlands towards civilization — 
seen men getting "first a house, and then a wife, 
and then an ox to plough," as Hesiod has phrased 
it,t and so slowly developing into society — a plural 
unit formed by daily exigency. It remains for us 
to retrace our steps a little, that we may thread the 
maze of the more distinctive rudiments of the Ref- 
ormation by holding their clue. 

And if we look back, we shall see that the Ref- 
ormation itself was not an emeute, but a develop- 
ment, often most alive when it seemed most torpid ; 

♦ Michelet, The People, p. 15. 

I Trcmenbeere, Political Experience of the Aucieuts, p. 2. 



RUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 77 

for every earnest opponent of ecclesiastical pride, 
of scandalous errors, of ill-morals in tlie early ages 
was a reformer. Lutlier in embryo lurked under 
tlie cowls, went girt by the cord, walked in the san- 
dals of a hundred monks, preaching patches of 
truth, and uttering piecemeals of protest, centu- 
ries before the famous Wittemburger collected and 
moulded these disjecta memhra into one body, armed 
by God with a flaming sword to smite the pretend- 
er who 

" Sat upon the Seven Hills, 
And from his throne of darkness niled the world. " 

In the march of the Eoman see to its suprem- 
acy, thoughtful men see less to marvel at than to 
deplore. When Christianity lost the democratic 
simplicity of the apostolic age, and began, like the 
Athenians, to " spend its time in nothing else but 
either to tell or to hear some new thing,"* the 
reign of bastard prelates — half fanatics and half 
mountebanks, dealers in terrible phantasmagoria, 
but unable to meet each other in the street without 
laughing, like the Eoman augurs who were their 
prototypes — was insured.f 

Though the Netherlands, with the rest of Eu- 
rope, had been persuaded or coerced to break their 
idols and accept the pagan Mosaic, which the Ital- 
ians called the gospel, they were always restless 

* Acts 17:21. 

t See Brandt's rationale in his History of the Reformation in 
she Low Countries, vol. 1, Introduction. 



78 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

and fretful believers, prone to ask tliS reason of 
their faith, "why this?" and " why that ?"— terrible 
questioners, in which undutiful and puzzling be- 
havior they were long aided and abetted by their 
native churchmen. " Heresy," says Grotius, " was 
the Hollander's immemorial inheritance."* 

Indeed, the Low Country prelates, the bishops 
of Utrecht especially, were more indebted to the 
pious donations of kings and kaisers for their wealth 
and influence, than to the, good- will of the pontiffs; 
therefore, as they were more independent of the 
metropolitan see than most" other churchmen, they 
frequently, in the midnight ages, shouted "veto" 
when the popes made extravagant demands or set 
afloat new pretensions. 

Thus, if you will have an illustration, in 860, 
King Lotharius requested Nicholas I., who then 
wore the purple, to decree his divorce from Tend- 
berg his consort, as being too near of kin to him,t 
or because of her scandalous life, as some say. J 
The pontiff said no; whereupon the monarch con- 
vened a synod at Aix la Chapelle, which Hunger, 
bishop of Utrecht, attended; and this assembly 
pronounced the divorce lawful and proper.§ The 
enraged pontiff at once cited these ecclesiastics to 
answer for their bold action at Eome, pretendirg 
that his decision in such cases was final and unim- 
peachable. The archbishops of Treves and of 

* Grotiu?, de Antiq. Keip. Batav. 

t Keginonis, chron. 11, p. 47. 

I Blondel, de Papa pocma, p. 136. § Brandt, vol. 1, p. 5. 



RUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 79 

Cologne were delegated by the rest to answer at the 
bar of the Vatican.* 

On reaching Eome, these high dignitaries were 
kept in waiting almost a month ere they were 
admitted to an interview with his holiness; and 
when they were at length conducted to his audience- 
room, they found themselves "surrounded by a 
company of ruffians, who treated them as robbers 
are accustomed to treat the entrapped," were 
insulted by the pope, and finall}^ without any 
attempt at confutation, they and theirs were bound 
by a scandalous sentence, "inconsistent with the 
Christian faith," which " bereaved them of all hu- 
man assistance, and interdicted the use of every 
thing sacred or profane."t 

On their return, the aggrieved bishops indited 
a letter to Pope Nicholas, which closes thus : 

"God has made his queen and spouse the 
church a noble and everlasting provision for her 
family, with a dowry that is neither fading nor cor- 
ruptible, and given her an eternal crown and scep- 
tre; all which benefits, you, like a thief, intercept. 
You set up yourself in the temple as God ; instead 
of a shepherd, you have become as a wolf to the 
sheep. You would have us believe you supreme 
bishop; you are rather a tyrant; under the mask 
of a pastor you hide your horns. Whereas you 
ought to be a servant of servants — as you call your- 
self, you intrigue to become lord of lords. What- 

* Blondel, de Papa poema, p. 13G. 

f See their Letter, cited in Brandt, id antea. 



80 THE DUTCH BEFORMATION. 

ever you desire, you think lawful; thus you have 
become a deceiver of Christians. For all these 
reasons, neither we nor our brethren and friends 
regard or submit to your commands — know not 
3'our voice, and fear not your bulls. You condemn 
all for irreligious and impious that do not obey your 
despotic precepts, forbidding them the use of the 
sacraments. "We smite you with your own sword, 
because you bring the commands of God into con- 
tempt, dissolving the unity of spiritual assemblies, 
and violating peace, the badge of the Prince of 
heaven. The Hoty Ghost is the builder of all 
churches as far as the earth extends. The city of 
our God, of which we are citizens, reaches to all 
parts of the heavens ; and it is greater than the 
city, by the holy prophets named Babylon, which 
pretends to be divine, equals herself to heaven, and 
brags that her wisdom is immortal; and finally, 
though without reasouj that she never did err, nor 
ever can."* 

Such was the impeachment of a pontiff in the 
ninth century; and this tremendous indictment for- 
cibly recalls Luther before the Cardinal-legate Ca- 
jetan eight hundred years later. The scenes are so 
much the same, that unless you knew the difference 
by the dates and names, you would fancy yourself 
present at the Augsburg interview. " For in human 
things," remarks Strada, " however times and jDer- 
sons die, still the same causes and events revive ;"t 

* Cited in Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 5, 6. 

f Strada, Hist, of the Low Country Wars, p. 2. 



RUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 81 

and Schiller can tell us that " like conditions pro- 
duce like phenomena."* 

Leap now over a hundred and thirty years. In 
992, that famous synod "which deposed Poj^e John 
XV. was convened at Rheims, and among the as- 
sembled bishops were several Netherlanders. Ar- 
nulp, bishop of Orleans, presided. " This pontiff," 
said he, "is antichrist;" and he added, "In the 
Low Countries and in Germany, both near us, there 
may be found priests of God — men eminent in reli- 
gion. Wherefore it seems to me much more expe- 
dient and proper, were it not for the godless obsti- 
nacy of contending kings, that we should seek in 
those parts for the judgment of bishops, than in 
that city which is now set to sale, and whose deter- 
minations ponderate according to the weight of 
gold."t 

So also these early churchmen often sank their 
esprit du corps in their patriotism ; for whenever the 
popes encroached upon the imperial crown, as they 
constantly did in those days, the great part of the 
Netherland bishops invariably sided with the em- 
peror, and opposed mitre to mitre.:}: When Hilde- 
brand excommunicated Henry IV.. in 1076, William, 
bishop of Utrecht, responded by procuring an epis- 
copal vote which excommunicated Gregory himself; 
because "he had confounded profane and holy 
things, by attempting to screw himself into the man- 
agement of the popedom and the empire ;" because 

- Schiller, p. 361. 

f Cited iu Brandt, vol. 1, p. 0. J Ihid. 

4* 



82 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

" lie deceived the common people with a hypocriti- 
cal religion;" and "because he would make every- 
body believe that none were rightly consecrated 
but such as bought the priestly office of his gold- 
suckers."* The clergy of Liege espoused the impe- 
rial cause in this same spirit, were always the bitter 
opponents of Hildebrand and his innovations — 
stoutly Ghibelline and never Guelph.t 

It was this same Hildebrand who in 1076 pre- 
scribed clerical celibacy, a manoeuvre by which the 
wily pope meant to insure the consolidation of 
church spoils, and the ecclesiastical reversion to 
each churchman's property ; for if the priests were 
deprived of marriage, they could have no legiti- 
mate children among whom to portion out either 
their personal estates or the domain of the church 
over which they might happen to preside.^ 

This decree provoked a storm of indignation. 
In the Netherlands the imprecations Avere loud and 
deep. Sigebent, a monk of Gambloon in Brabant, 
inveighed against the prohibition as " a rash sen- 
tence, contrary to the sentiments of the holy 
fathers ;"§ while the Hollanders compelled their 
priests to marry, saying, " The man who has no 
wife will naturally seek for the wife of another. "|i 

But with the dawn of the twelfth century these 

plain, brave speakers, these reproving Nathans 

* Cited in Brandt, vol. 1, p. G. 

i Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 8-10. Motlej-, vol. 1, p. 07. 

J Kanke, Hist, of the Popes. Mosheim, etc. 

§ Bloudel de Pap. poema, p. 3. Chron. W. Heda. 

II Grattan, p. 32. 



RUDIMENTS OF THE IlEFOEMATION. 83 

among the clergy, began to die off. 'Tis true in- 
deed that when, in 1122, the canons of Middleburgh 
disgraced their cloth hy lasciviousness, Godebald, 
bishop of Utrecht, drove them out of their cloister, 
and replaced them by other religionists.* It is the 
last instance of attempted reformation within the 
church for four centuries ; and now we must seek 
for reformers elsewhere than upon archiepiscopal 
thrones and within monastery walls. 

The chain of protest was not interrupted; but 
in the latter decades of the twelfth century a differ- 
ent class of» dissidents appeared — reform changed 
front. The priests shut their eyes to the abound- 
ing and flagitious abuses, awed by the half-omni]30- 
tence of the holy see, and stripped of lay support 
by the entente cordkdc patched up between the 
empire and the Vatican. 

Just at this period, a sect which grounded its 
plea upon the Scriptures, holding doctrines which 
agreed in every vital point with the tenets of mod- 
ern Protestantism, and haloed by imimpeachable 
antiquity, entered the Netherlands, and began to 
teach the primitive doctrines.t Their missionaries 
were known by a variety of appellations — names 
which oiiginated either in their habits or in the 
localities in which they worked. They were inde- 
fatigable in prayer, and they were called " Beg- 
hards.":!: They were Puritans in religion, and they 

<5 Cliroij. W. Heda, p. 117. 

f Brandt vol. 1, p. 12. Mp.slieim, Justiu. 

X Eccl. Hist., vol. -J, p. '221. 



84 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Avere styled " Catliari,"* They were handicrafts- 
men by trade, and they were named "Weavers."t 
They were humble, and they were nicknamed 
" Humilists.";|: One of their chief seats was in 
the French county of Alby, and they were styled 
" Albigenses."§ Among their most famous teach- 
ers was Pierre "Waldo, and they were called " Vau- 
dois."|| In Bohemia they proclaimed the brother- 
hood of Christianity, and they were named " Bohe- 
mian Brothers."1[ But whatever the sobriquet in 
which they were clothed, their characteristics were 
everywhere the same — zealous, untiriufg, patient in 
suffering, constant in Avell-doing, sheathed in the 
panoply of that charity which " beareth all things, 
hopetli all things," and is "kind;" they were, if not 
in fact, as some have claimed,"^* at least in spirit, 
the lineal descendants of Peter and Paul and that 
disciple whom Jesus loved, for they were the resur- 
rectionists of Christianity. 

« Sismondi, Hist, of Albig. f Ibid. Brandt. 

X Brandt, id antea. 

§ Ibid. Hist, of the Huguenots, Am. Tract Soc, 1866. 

II Ibid. Unless, as many hold, Vaudois and Waldouan were 
older than Pierre Waldo, and meant simply a Valleyer, an inhab- 
itant of the high valleys sloping from Mount Viso, early and long 
the seats of a purer faith, which Kome branded as heresy. ^ Ibid. 

** It is certain that the Vaudois themselves claimed a descent 
from the apostles, and several of their writings do indeed bear 
intrinsic evidence of such antiquity ; bi;t some authoritative schol- 
ars have denied their apostolic descent, though conceding great 
antiquity to them. The question has been much discussed pro 
and con / nor is it probable that it will ever be definitely settled. 
Consult and compare Vanema's Eccl. Hist, in loco, "The Noble 
Lesson" in Blair, vol. 1, pp. 473, 484, Sismondi's History of the 
Vaudois, Gibbon, Bossuet, Hist, oes Variations, etc. 



HUDIMENTS OF THE EEFORMATION. 85 

Some of these teachers rejected infant bap- 
tism f and from these Baptists claim descent, 
tracing their genealogy through them up to apos- 
tolic times. t They won proselytes with almost 
inconceivable rapidity; and when Pope Innocent 
III. launched his crusaders once, twice, thrice 
against the French Vaudois, slaying a million of 
the most industrious artisans and pure citizens in 
Christendom,! the dazed and maimed survivors 
fled into Germany, into Bohemia, into the Nether- 
lands, to swell the ranks of their brothers in the 
faith.§ 

The free fairs which the chief Low Country cities 
held once or twice every year for business pur- 
poses, and which attracted traders from all coun- 
tries,!! became the seed-ground of these reformers.! 
A word spoken, a convert won in the mOjfket towns 
of Holland, Flanders, and Brabant, was sure to 
spread the principles of dissent far and wide : and 
in the bustle, their first growth might easily escape 
notice, and be accelerated by concealment. Finally, 
the Beghards translated the Bible, which "Waldo 
had previously turned into French, into Dutch 
rhymes, in imitation of the Teutons, who had long 
been accustomed to record their most memorable 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 12. Allix, chh., Pied., chap. 16, pp. 110- 
li;5. 

f Orchard, Foreign Baptists, p. 324, et seq. 

X Sismoudi, Hist, of the Albig., passim. Hist, of the Hugue- 
nots, passim. 

§ Mosheim, Waddington, Clark, Martyn, p. 96, etc., Brandt. 

II Schiller, p. 373. V Ibid., p. 381. 



86 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

affairs in verse ; because, said tliey, " there is great 
advantage in it ; no jests, no fables, no trifles, no 
deceits, nauglit but words of truth. There is, in- 
deed, here and there a hard crust, but even in this 
the marrow and sweetness of what is good and holy 
may easily be discovered."* 

Then Rome awoke from the dog-nap into which 
she had fallen, weary with the Languedocian mas- 
sacres. Incensed and alarmed at the wonderful 
growth and the increasing boldness of the reform- 
ers, the pontiffs — who had banned the Bible, j)ub- 
lislied new decrees, and reinterpreted and glossed 
the early teachings — at once summoned the tempo- 
ral sword to their assistance, and began the extir- 
pation of the heresy which opposed what they 
assumed to be the church. 

Previous to 1135, the punishment of death for 
heresy was unknown in the Netherlands.! In that 
year the bishop of Utrecht burned several victims 
before the doors of his archiepiscopal palace, be- 
cause they were charged with holding witli Beren- 
garius, that the corporeal presence was a fable.| 

From this initial pyre the fire spread fast, until 
the whole horizon was red and fetid with burning 
bodies. Human bloodhounds were unleashed and 
put upon the scent. Hordes of idle priests were set 
to ferret out the heretics. Monks prowled in every 
city eager to clutch victims. Spies were bribed to 
become betrayers, A bounty-fund was raised for 
apostates. Suspicion was proof. Heavier and fiercer 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p, 11. IT Ibid., p. 11. t Ibid. 



BUDIMENTS OF THE REFOKMATION. 87 

grew the persecntious ; closer grew tlie scrutiny ; 
severer grew the tests of orthodoxy. To doubt was 
heresy ; to deny was death — not speedy death, but 
death by agonizing inches, by ^jrolonged spasms. 
Human ingenuity racked itself to invent new tor- 
tures which should wring but not kill too soon. 

In Flanders, the accused were stripped and bound 
to a stake, and then flayed from the neck to the 
navel ; on this quivering, lacerated flesh, swarms of 
wasps or bees were let loose to fasten and stiug to 
a death of exquisite torment.* 

One of the bitterest of these persecutors was 
Monk Eobert, suruamed Bulgarius. He was an 
apostate, and so when he assumed the Dominican 
hood he brought with him an acquaintance with the 
haunts, manners, signs, and hiding-places of the 
reformers, which made him the most successful of 
inquisitors. In his hands murder became a fine 
art. Butchery was his meat and drink : so much 
so that at. last he even turned the strong stomach 
of the holj see, which vomited him into imprison- 
ment.t 

But spite of blazhig fagots and torture-rooms 
dissidents increased in numbers and in knowledge. 
They held the Bible to be the sole infallible author- 
ity in religion 4 they proclaimed that " no man 
should be coerced to believe, but should be won by 
preaching ;"§ and they held to the democracy of 

=-• Brandt, vol. 1, p. 14. Motley, vol. 1, p. 68. f Brandt. 

} Bossuet, Hist, des Variations. Motley, vol. 1, p. G8. 
# § Brandt, id aniea. 



88 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Christianity; for Voltaire himself confesses that they 
strove to implant in every breast the idea that all 
men are created equal.* 

Truly a formidable list of heresies — an indict- 
ment on each of whose counts men might easily 
have been condemned in that bitter age. And wo 
arc to trace their story, as the Alpine hunters do 
the wounded chamois, by their bloody footsteps. 
Whenever, wherever discerned, Rome endeavored 
to stamp them out. She wounded them especially 
in their chief teachers. The famous Beghard, Wal- 
ter Lollard, a Dutchman whose remarkable elo- 
quence filled England with dissenters, and bathed 
the valley of the Eliine in light, was apprehended 
and burned in 1320.t 'I Wickliff's long life was a 
miracle. Huss and Jerome vanished in the lurid 
fire of Constance early in the fifteenth century.| 
But the gaps thus made were always filled ; and 
even in 1457, Germany, highland and lowland, was 
so full of Yaudois that in travelling from Cologne 
to Milan, from Antwerp to the Zuyder Zee, they 
could lodge nightly with their co-religionists ; while 
it was their custom to ajQfix private marks to their 
signs, to write cabalistic letters on their gates as 
an invitation and assurance to the Christian passer ; 
and this Trithemius can substantiate.! These were 
the "gap men" of the Middle Ages. Waldo, Lol- 
lard, Wickliff, Huss — these were the John the Bap- 
tists of the Reformation. 



'■ Cited iu Orcliiii-a, p. 336. f Moslieim. 

I Ibid. § Dauveis' Hist. , p. 25. 



• 



EUDIMENTS OF THE REFOEMATION. 89 

Eonie never succeeded in suppressing them, and 
though she drowned their voices by her thunders, 
often the very means she took to crush them only 
increased their influence. For instance, when the 
Hussites rose in Bohemia to defend their faith, 
Rome preached a crusade. Many Netherlanders, 
tempted by the brave words and the indulgences of 
the pope, enlisted to share in the glory and to reap 
the reward. They got little of either, for Ziska, the 
illustrious Bohemian chieftain, always baffled the 
invaders of his country; and the Dutchmen, becom- 
ing familiar with the tenets and manners of the 
heretics in their campaigns, returned home with 
a greater aversion to the church for which they 
had fought than to the Hussites whom they had 
attacked.* 

Meantime, the pride and the power, the extor- 
tion and the presumption of the priesthood, in- 
creased apace. They asserted their independence 
of the civil authority. They insinuated themselves 
into the management of temporal affairs by hold- 
ing the pens of princes, and cities, and towns — ne- 
cessitated by the prevalent ignorance to seek their 
clerks among ecclesiastics. Then taking advantage 
of their position, they wrote in cloister-latin, a jar- 
gon understood by the monks alone, and often they 
got the civil magistrates to sign and seal instru- 
ments of bequest to the church — to sign and seal 
unwittingly; and these would be trumped up and 
used in after years.t 

* BnunU, vol. 1, p. ly. |- Ibid., p. 15. 



90 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Nor was their avarice less than their ambition. 
The bishops, not content with their old revenues, 
laid new burdens upon trade and land from time to 
time. In some places the husbandman was forced 
to pay so much wheat and oats for every plough he 
owned. The landless were charged a certain meas- 
ure of corn as a fine for their poverty. Eapacious 
churchmen exhausted the laity by every species of 
extortion, establishing new orders of monks and 
friars, endowing abbeys, and enlarging and building 
countless monasteries with the spoils.* 

Since the estates of the church might not be 
taxed, of course every acre of land which was added 
to the already enormous ecclesiastical domain in- 
creased by so much the burdens, and decreased in 
the same proportion the ability of both lord and 
burgher on whom alone the state exjUnses fell. Nor 
was this all. Numbers of the clergy became huck- 
sters ; and since they were shielded by their cloth 
from all taxation, they undersold the lay merchants. 
Common shopkeepers began to starve for want of 
custom, and deep were the curses which they mut- 
tered against priests who thus took bread out of the 
mouths of those who fed them. In this way it hap- 
pened that monasteries were converted into shops, 
convents into warehouses, and the mansions of 
secular churchmen into inns and tap-houses — typi- 
fying exactly the prior change in the ethics of the 
church.t 

Then the avarice of the clergy partially accom- 

=•' Boxharn, Ned. Hist., p. 179. Braudt. f I^i^l- 



RUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 91 

plislied what tlieir cruelty and paganism had been 
powerless to do. The people began to mnrmur at 
the burden thrown on their backs. Haughty nobles 
disputed the right of lazy priests to enjoy vast 
estates while refusing to be taxed or to draw the 
sw^rd in the state's defence. Princes, piqued by 
the superior wealth of the churchmen, and ag- 
grieved by their withholding of all rents, opened the 
law books and feed attorneys to hunt up or invent 
some statute which should salve this wound.'"' 

Soon the Netherland sovereigns began to im- 
pose restrictions upon the right of the clergy to 
hold and acquire property — restrictions which grew 
sterner and more general in the lapse of time.f 
And so the instinct of self-interest began to sharpen 
the eyes of all classes. Men's pockets were enlisted 
against Rome. 

Then, too, the people of the Netherlands were 
slowly rising into intelligence. Their language was 
already one of the grandest as it was among the old- 
est of Europe. France had not yet begun to under- 
mine the Belgic tongue, and Holland and Flanders 
still conversed in the same idiom : — an idiom which 
the nobles already began to hate as that of freedom 
and commerce, and which the clergy still more dis- 
liked as that of heresy and moral independence. | 
Still, the Low Dutch,§ as it was styled to distin- 

« Boxham, Ned. Hist., p. 179. Brandt, Motley. 
t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 23, et scq. 

X Bowring, Sketch of the Lang, and Literature of Holland. 
Amsterdam, 1829, p. 9. § Nedcr-duiische. 



92 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

guisli it from the Higli Dutcli* or German lan- 
guage, was tlie Netlierland tongue as the German 
was that of the upper plains — and the coexistence 
of these idioms has been historically proved since 
the eighth century.t 

In the beginning of the thirteenth century dqgds 
began to be drawn up in the national language ; 
and in that same century Yau Maerlant and Uten- 
liove gave a brilliant impulse to their native tongue 
through their poetical writings.']: 

Van Maerlant, born at Damme, in Flanders, in 
1235, was a philosopher, an orator, and a poet whose 
influence was singularly broad and niarked.§ He 
has been honored with the title of " Father of 
Dutch literature ;"11 and what entitles him to espe- 
cial distinction is, that he was a layman — a layman 
renowned for taste and learning in an age when 
reading was almost exclusively the prerogative of 
the clergy.l 

Before him " poetry was a vagrant art, which, in 
the long winter evenings, took refuge in the chim- 
ney corners of great feudal castles, where it served 
to amuse and console maidens, who repaid the 
efforts of the troubadour by a sympathetic tear of 
compassion. Disdaining cities, the minstrel of that 
period was to be seen wherever noble blood presi- 
ded, and it was an exception when he occasionally 
condescended to bestow a poem upon the most emi- 

■■' Ilocli-deutsche. 

t Delepierre, Hist, of Flemish Literature, p. 5. J Ibid, p. 11. 

§ Eowiing, Btituvian Antholugy, p. 22. || Ibiil. If IbiiL 



RUDIMENTS OF THE REFOEMATION. 93 

ncnt among the plebeian classes. At court lie was 
ever welcome; the princes loaded him with favors, 
and sought to make him one of their retinue ; for it 
was to the minstrel's art alone that they were in- 
debted for their fame."" 

The quality of the troubadour's muse corre- 
sponded with the vagrant character of his life, and 
with the habits of the time. They sang of love and 
war to the exclusion of higher themes; though even 
in the Middle Ages translations of the masterpieces 
of Athenian and Roman literature were not wholly 
unknown to the Germanic races. Translations of 
the Odyssey and the ^neid were rare, but they ex- 
isted,! while the legend of King Arthur was familiar 
as a household tale throughout Europe.^ 

Van Maerlant revolutionized early literature. 
He wrote in the vernacular, and for the people ; and 
he gave the Dutch, which is peculiarly adapted to 
the expression of devout, dignified emotion, the high 
tone of religious feeling and sublimity which has 
ever since distinguished it, and which made it at 
one time the representative of Christian thought.§ 

Beginning life as a minnesinger, Van Maerlant 
soon gave up the composition of madrigals to devote 
himself to sacred and profane histor}-. Henceforth 
his writings were didactic ; and he taught his coun- 
trymen philosophy, and medicine, and the natural 
sciences, through the medium of his verse. He dealt 
the Romanists of his age a hard blow, and when 

* Delepierre, p. 31. t Ibid., p. 19. 

t Ibicl.,Bowrmg,Hallam. § Bowring, Batav. Auth.,pp. i;'>, 14. 



94 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

he touched upon the duties of men, his pure and 
vigorous style enabled him to demonstrate that a 
title of nobility is something more than a sheet of 
parchment, and that the virtue of a priest does not 
lie in his tonsure.* 

Inveighing against the vices of the church, he 
put the Bible into verse, " What," says he, " the 
reading of the Bible is forbidden to the people, and 
they listen to the adventures of Tristan and Laun- 
celot, imaginary personages, while throughout the 
world love and war stories alone are read, and the 
Gospel is thought to be too grave because it teaches 
truth and justice."t And he exclaims again, "Is 
Antichrist already come into the world ? If I dared, 
I would say, Yes. Let a cunning serf become a judge 
or a priest, and he will be listened to in the councils 
of princes. Does a fool become a grain the wiser by 
increasing the size of his tonsure even to his ears ?"| 

This energetic and unwonted language gradually 
acted on the awakening minds of the Hollanders, 
and abandoning lighter reading, they opened books 
of history and science : the useful began to prevail 
over the merely entertaining. The classics began to 
be dug up. The best thoughts of the ancients were 
pondered and acted upon, so that Van Maerlant 
himself could sing with truth : 

' ' All these realities have we sought, 
And out of Latin to Dutch brought, 
From the books of Aristotle. "'^ 

* Deiepierre, p. 38. f Ibid. . t Ibid., pp. 41, 42. 

^ Bowi'ing, Catav. Anth., p. G?>. 



ETJDIMENTS OF THE BEFORMATION. 95 

This iconoclastic poet had many admirers and im- 
itators: a race of nobler minnesingers was begotten 
by his stately verse. Then the stream of literature 
began to gather as it rolled a thousand contribu- 
ting rivulets. In the fourteenth century the Cham- 
bers of Rhetoric were founded. Diest lays claim to 
the possession of a poetical society as early as 1302 ;* 
and ere long the "Rhetoricers" covered Flanders 
and Brabant. The object of these associations was 
the cultivation and exercise of letters ; and though 
they introduced much exaggeration of expression, 
and many foreign idioms, their influence could not 
fail to make for progress at that time, by awakening 
thought and rewarding literary effort. 

It is to the Greeks and Romans that we are in- 
debted for the theatre in its modern sense ; but the 
muse of iEschylus and of Terence had long been 
silent, and when the Chambers of Rhetoric resur- 
rected the drama, it took a different form, became 
the repository of mediaeval Christianity, and was 
surrendered to scenic representations of the life 
of Christ.f At a later day these religious plays 
became the engines of reform. Rhetoricers making 
the circuit of the provinces, satirized the abuses and 
immorahties of the clergy through the theatrical 
representations, and thus helped largely to break 
the charm of the Roman church :| for ridicule is 
the most potent of spell-breakers. But the crowning 

* Delopierre, p. 03. f H^iil- 

X Eo^v^ing, Sketch of Lang, and Lit. of HoL, p. 28. Schiller, 
p. 381. 



96 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

acliievement of the Middle Ages was the invention 
of the printing press. " At the very moment when 
PhiHp the Good, in the full blaze of his power and 
flushed with the triumphs of territorial aggran- 
dizement, was instituting at Bruges the famous 
order of the Golden Fleece, ' to the glory of God, of 
the blessed Virgin, and of the holy St. Andrew, pa- 
tron saint of the Burgundian family,' and enrolling 
the names of the kings and princes Avho were to be 
honored with its symbols, an obscure citizen of 
Haarlem, Lorenz Koster, succeeded in jDrinting a 
little grammar by means of movable type.* The 
invention of printing was accomplished, but it was 
not ushered in with such a blaze of glory as her- 
alded the contemporaneous erection of the Golden 
Fleece. The humble setter of type did not deem 
emperors and princes alone worthy of his compan- 
ionship. This' invention sent no thrill of admiration 
throughout Christendom ; and yet what was Philip 
of Burgundy, with his knights of the Golden Fleece, 
and all their effulgent trumpery, in the eye of human- 
ity and civilization, compared with this poor citizen 
and his wooden type ?"t 

From this time popular intelligence marched 
forward with vast strides and to assured triumph. 

* The question of the iuventiou of printing has long been a 
mooted one. Germany claims it for Faust, Holland for Koster. 
It will most probably never be satisfactorily settled. Biit all the 
Netherland historians give Koster the honor, fixing the time vari- 
ously between the years 1423 and 1440. The first and faulty edi- 
tions of Koster are still religiously preserved at Haarlem. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 45. 



EUDIMENTS OF THE REFORMATION. 97 

Eome could no longer monopolize learning. Books 
soon became cheap and plenty; and whereas men 
before were shut up to the use of manuscripts, and 
for one copy of the Bible tolerably written upon 
Yellum, were wont to pay five hundred crowns, now 
as the art of printing grew common they might buy 
one for four crowns. Thus the people who could 
not reach the price of the Scriptures in mamiscript, 
found it easy to purchase and read them in Roster's 
prints.* Towards the close of the fifteenth century 
a Dutch translation of the Old Testament was made 
from the Vulgate, and this, first printed in 1477, is 
at once a monument of language and a remarkable 
specimen of primitive typography.! 

Thus " all things worked together for good." 
The first protests of the monks ; the worn voices of 
the Waldenses; the songs and plays of the minne- 
singers; and Roster's type — these were rudiments 
of reform, the creators of thought; and growing 
knowledge was the spear of Ithuriel, whose touch 
made masked impiet}^ and hidden despotism start 
up and reveal themselves. The world, long agoni- 
zing to speak, now possessed the most potent of 
voices. Analysis began. Men of nisi — " I take an 
exception ;" and of dislinguo — " I draw a distinction," 
entered the long-closed temple to investigate and to 
dispute. Christendom was at last prepared to listen 
intelligently to the protest of the Eeformation, stood 
ready to shout, "Welcome Luther, and all hail." 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 23. 

f Bowring, Sketch of the Lit. and Lang, of Hoi., p. 27. 

Dutch Ref. 5 



98 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 



CHAPTEK V. 

THE GERMAN C^SAE. 

When, iu 1515, Charles Y.,* a boy of fifteen, 
placed the crown upon his brow and grasped the 
sceptre, the Netherlands had reached the acme of 
material prosperity. The tamest portrait of their 
condition looks like exaggeration. Seventeen prov- 
inces,! huddled in an obscure morass, extending, 
when counted together, but three hundred Flemish 
miles, covering an area not a fifth part as large as 
Italy, had dug themselves out of the mud, and now 
stood bathed in the meridian sun of a splendor 
as unexampled as it was honorable. 

Grouped within this narrow neck of land were 
three hundred and fifty cities, humming with trade, 
alive with industry, many of them fortified by their 
natural position, and secure without artificial bar- 
riers, six thousand three hundred market-towns of 
a large size, and scores of farming hamlets and 
picturesque castles, imparting to the landscape a 
singular aspect of unbroken, breatliing life ; while 

* Chap. 3, pp. 77, 78. 

f The duchies of Brabant, Limbnrg, Luxembourg, and Guel- 
ders, the seven counties of Artois, Hainault, Flanders, Namur, 
Ziitphen, Holland, and Zealand, the margravate of AntweriJ, and 
the five lordships of Friesland, Mechliu, Utrecht, Overj'ssel, and 
Groningen. 



THE GERMAN C^SAR. 99 

the whole was guarded by a belt of sixty fortresses 
of maiden fame, hitherto iincaptured.* 

Antwerp was at this time the commercial metrop- 
lis of Europe, the entrejMt and the exchange of 
nations. She scrawled "Antwerp" on her bills, 
and they passed current from Peru to Pekin, Beau- 
tifully seated on a plain beside the river Scheldt, 
shaped like a bent bow, with the water for its 
string, the city had long been a bustling one ; 
but it was indebted to a recent discovery for its 
sudden importance. The Levant trade no longer 
rolled overland to pour itself into Europe through 
the Italian cities ; it now took shii?, and sailing 
round the cape of Good Hope, landed in Portugal 
for European distribution — a divergence which rev- 
olutionized the commerce of the Middle ages,t help- 
ed largely to wither the Hanseatic league, and sent 
ruin into the counting-rooms of the Mediterranean ; 
robbed Genoa of her sails; and degraded the city 
of the doges to sit a beggar amid the broken pil- 
lars and defaced frescoes of her choked and weedy 
palaces — gave her nothing to do but bathe her feet 
in the stagnant waters of her canaJs, and hug the 
bitter memory of the past. 

On this ruin the new metropolis fed and was 
fattened; and w^hile Verona, Venice, Nuremburg, 
Augsburg, Bruges, were sinking, Antwerp, with its 
deep and convenient river, stretched its arm to the 
ocean and caught the golden prize as it fell from 

« Schiller, p. 388. Motley, vol. 1, p. 91. 
t Van Loou, Grotius. 



100 THE DUTCH KEFOKMATION. 

its sister-cities' grasp.* The Portuguese established 
the mart of their East India trade in Brabant, and 
" the spices of Calicut were displayed for sale in 
the markets of Antwerp. "t Here, too, centred the 
West Indian merchandise, with which the haughty 
indolence of Spain repaid the industry of the Neth- 
erland burghers. Here the Hanse towns stored the 
manufactures of the north.:j: Here the English had 
a factory which employed thirty thousand hauds.§ 
And here, on the new Eialto, the great mediaeval 
commercial houses, the Gaulteratti and Bouvisi of 
Italy, the Velseus, the Ostetts, the Fuggers of Ger- 
many, established themselves and competed for 
custom.il * 

Hundreds of splendid buildings dignified the 
city. Here was the cathedral of Notre Dame ; here 
the stately Exchange, thronged daily by five thou- 
sand merchants, prototype of all similar establish- 
ments throughout the world.l 

In its harbor between two and three hundred 
ships might often be seen loading at one time; "no 
day passed on which the boats casting or weighing 
anchor did not exceed five hundred; on market- 
days the number was swollen to eight or nine hun- 
dred. Daily more than two hundred carriages 
drove through its gates; above two thousand heav- 
ily-laden Avagons arrived each week from Germany, 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 82. 

t Schiller, p. 374. Van Metereu, Hist, cler Neclerlanden. 

I Ibid. § Camiues, Prexxves des Meinoires. 

II Van Meteren, Schiller, Motley. IT Ibid. 



THE GERMAN C^SAR. 101 

France, Lorraine, without reckoning the farmers' 
carts and corn-vans, seldom less than ten thousand 
in number."* Thus it was that, while the culture 
of grain, flax, the breeding of cattle, grazing, the 
chase, and fisheries enriched the peasant, arts, 
manufactures, and trade brought wealth to the 
burgher, sent Flemish and Brabantine manufac- 
tures to either India, and as far east as Araby and 
the Persian stejDpes, making this the distinctive 
characteristic of the Netherland seaman — that he 
made sail at all seasons, and never laid up for the 

winter 4 

Antwerp had a twin, Ghent; like itself one of 
the most important and influential cities in Europe. 
" Erasmus, who, as a Hollander and a courtier, was 
not likely to be partial to the turbulent Flemings, 
asserted," so_ Motley reports, " that there was no 
town in Christendom to be compared with it for 
size, power, political constitution, or the culture of 
its citizens. It was rather a country than a city. 
The activity and wealth of its burghers was prover- 
bial. The bells were rung daily, and the draw- 
bridges over the many arms of the river which 
intersected the streets were raised in order that 
business might be suspended while the armies of 
workmen were going to or returning from their 
labors. As early as the fourteenth century, the age 
of the Arteveldes, Froissart estimated that Ghent 
could bring eighty thousand men-at-arms into the 
field; and now, by its jurisdiction over many other 

* ScliiUcr, p. 375. t I^id., 374 



102 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

large but subordinate towns, it could muster up- 
wards of two liundred thousand. 

" Placed in the midst of well-cultivated plains, 
Ghent was surrounded by strong walls, the external 
circuit of which measured nine miles. Its streets 
and squares were spacious and elegant ; its church- 
es and public buildings were many and splendid. 
The sumptuous church of St. John, where Charles 
V. had been baptized, the ancient castle whither 
Baldwin Bras de Fcr had brought the stolen 
daughter of Charles the Bald, the City Hall, with, 
its graceful Moorish front, the well-known belfry, 
w^here for three centuries had perched the dragon 
sent by the emperor Baldwin of Flanders from 
Constantinople, and where swung the famous Ro- 
land, w^hose iron tongue had called the citizens, 
generation after generation, to arms — all were con- 
spicuous in the city and celebrated in the land. 
Especially the great bell was the object of the 
burghers' affection, and generally of the sover- 
eign's hatred"; while to all it seemed a living per- 
sonage, endowed with the human powers and pas- 
sions which it had so long inflamed and directed."* 

Both Antwerp and Ghent were essential repub- 
lics in miniature. Each guarded its charters — the 
trophies of a dozen centuries of toil and struggle — 
with jealous care. Each was scrupulously watch- 
ful of the personal and domiciliary rights of the 
citizen. Ghent divided its i)opulation into fifty-two 
guilds of manufacturers, and thirty-two tribes of 

« Motley, vol. 1, pp. 53, GO. 



THE GEKMAN C^SAK. 103 

weavers ; each fraternity elected its own deans and 
subordinate officers annually or biennially. The 
city senate, composed of twenty-six members, was 
tlie administrative and judicial power; but was 
subject to the supervision of the grand provincial 
council which sat at Mechlin.^' Antwerp was gov- 
erned by the sovereign — solemnly swoAi as Mar- 
quis of Antwerp to rule under the charters — who 
shared his authority with the four municipal es- 
tates — the senate, the deans of the guilds, and two 
officers called respectfully the schout and the am- 
man, who represented the king, one in criminal, 
the other in civil affairs. t 

The condition of the people at large correspond- 
ed with t}ie importance and wealth of their cities. 
Thrift had dowered them with plenty. "There 
were but few poor; and these did not seek, but 
were sought by the almoners. Schools were excel- 
lent and cheap. It was difficult to find a child of 
sufficient age who could not read, write, and speak 
at least two languages ; and the sons of the wealth- 
ier citizens were sent to the universities of Louvain, 
Douay, Paris, or Padua, where education, though 
feeling the onward movement of the age, still pre- 
served its monkish spirit, and now wrapped learn- 
ing in the ancient cere-cloths, and the stiffening 
sarcophagus of a by-gone age which had once saved 
it from annihilation. "I 

'Tis a high saying of Macaulay that "The man- 

* Motley, vol. 1, pp. 83, 81. Van Meteren. t Ibid. 

J Ibid. Schiller, pp. 388, 389. 



104 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

iier in which a nation treats its women is a correct 
criterion of its civiHzation." In the Netherlands, 
woman's influence was broad and healthful. There 
the harems of the East, the jealous surveillance of 
the Spaniard, the hothouse culture of the mediaeval 
epoch, when woman was looked on {1,s the toy of 
passion, a? a drudge to be watched, were happily 
unknown. Treated as sentient beings, the Dutch 
girls mixed from infancy with all classes and sexes, 
travelled alone, and so became self-reliant, frank, 
courteous ; while their morals were as pure as their 
decorum was undoubted.* Distinguished by beauty 
of feature and form, and glowing with health, they 
were fond of dress — a taste which their burgher 
husbands, fatliers, lovers, were always eager to 
gratify. " Eeally," exclaimed a queen of France, 
with astonishment not ulimixed with envy, when on 
a visit to Bruges she witnessed the splendor, the 
fine linen, silk, and velvet in which the common 
ladies were habited, " really, I thought myself the 
only queen here ; but I see six hundred others who 
appear more so than I."t 

No, the Dutchman did not think with that old 
Chinese sage whom Aristotle endorsed, "A wife 
should be a shadow and an echo in the house." He 
enthroned her in his heart and at his hearthstone, 
where she became the genius of economy and order J 
while each addition to her influence was a step in 
morality. Not only so, but as, in Italy, Vittoria 
Colonna and Yeronia Gambara were the friends and 
■=■' Motley, vol. 1, p, 91. Comiucs. f Grattan, p. 75. 



THE GERMAN C^SAR, 105 

equals of Michael Angelo, the women of the Neth- 
erlands became the counsellors of princes, the silent 
heroines of suffering, the inspiration of many thril- 
ling dramas of the revolution, the jewelled setting 
of the picture of Low Country life. 

It has been said that modern civilization gets its 
conscience from the Hebrew, its brains from the 
Greek, and its hands from the Koman. The Neth- 
erlander was heir to this inheritance — indeed, he 
was the Yankee of the middle ages. Never a nig- 
gard, he was yet an economist, and knew how to 
utilize. His cattle, grazing on the bottom of the 
sea, were the finest in Europe." His agriculture 
was esteemed the wisest in Christendom. t That 
he could make money we know, as also that his 
liberality kept pace with his opulence. When John 
the Fearless was captured at the battle of Nicopolis, 
a single merchant of Bruges ransomed him at two 
hundred thousand ducats.| And once a provost o^ 
Valenciennes, visiting Paris during one of the great 
fairs periodically held there, purchased, on his own 
account, every article that was for sale.§ 

Nor was the Netherlander content to grub for 
wealth alone. Ranging above the splendid linens, 
woollens, silks, and tapestries which his looms wove, 
he became an inventor, an artist, a discoverer — 
work to which his genius, developed by commerce, 
and by intercourse with many nations, pushed 
him. II In the lap of abundance and liberty, all 

•"- Motley, vol. 1, p. 90. f Ibid. 

J Grattun, p. 75. Guicciarclini. § Ibitl. |I Schiller, p. 375. 



106 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

arts, all sciences, Avere cultivated and perfected. 
From Italy, to wliicli Cosmo de' Medici had lately 
restored its golden age, painting, arcliitectnre, and 
the arts of carving and engraving on copper, were 
transplanted into the Netherlands, where, in a 
new soil, they flourished with fresh vigor.* 

The Flemish artists were the brotfiers of Titian - 
and the teachers of Angelo. One of their number, 
John Yan Eyck, discovered the art of painting in 
oil, and thereby immortalized the vivid touches of 
the brush,- the sweet blushes of the canvas. t The 
Dutch musicians were the first in Europe — the 
instructors of Italy, the amusers of France.! The 
weaving of tapestry, the art of painting on glass, of 
polishing diamonds, of making sun-dials and pocket 
watches — all these, so Guicciardini tells us, were the 
original inventions of Low Country workmen.§ 
Even the points of the compass were known by 
Flemish names ; and when Koster f)erfected his 
type, the industrial pyramid of the Netherlands 
was capped, while the Dutch, seizing the new 
engine, recognized it from the outset as an eman- 
cipator. Where they did not originate, they per- 
fected; for Schiller says, "The people of the 
Netherlands united with the most fertile inventive 
genius a happy talent for improving the discoveries 
of others ; so that there are probably few of the 
mechanical arts and manufactures which they did 
not either produce or perfect."ll 

* Scliiller, p. 375. f Grattau, p. 75. Guicciardiui. 

X Ibid. § Guicciardiui. || Schiller, p. 37G. 



THE GERMAN CvESAR. 107 

While the Netherlands, as a Avhole, were thus 
felicitously circumstanced, Freieland had been tem- 
porarily "WTenched from her connection with the 
sister provinces, partly by natural, partly by politi- 
cal causes. In the thirteenth century, the slender 
stream which alone separated East and West Freis- 
land was swollen into the Zuyder Zee by a tremen- 
dous inundation. A watery chasm yawned between 
kindred people, destroying at once the j)olitical and 
geographical continuity of the land. West Freis- 
land was ere long absorbed in Holland ; the eastern 
section, isolated, left somewhat free, became a 
federation of self-governing maritime provinces. 
Each of its seven little states was subdivided into 
cantons, governed by their own laws and by griet- 
men of their own selection ; while the whole confed- 
eracy was ruled by an annual congress, presided 
over by the podesta, an elective magistrate identical 
in name and functions with the chief officer of the 
Italian commonwealths.* 

Here there were few towns, no magnificence. 
The people lived in patriarchal simplicity. Their 
fine instinct had led them to curb the clerical 
power ; priests were not recognized as a political 
estate ;t monasteries were not common, but they 
existed ; and one of the old chroniclers relates that 
a convent of Benedictines was once terrified at the 
voracity of a Saxon sculptor, who had been employ- 
ed to decorate the chapel. The monks implored 
him to go elsewhere for his meals, because he and 
« Motley, vol. 1, p. 37, d seq. f Cf rattan, pp. 31, 32. 



108 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

his sous consumed euough to eat out the enth's 
brotherhood in a we«k.* The Frisians were sure to 
become civihzed, for they had capacious stomachs. 

In the last years of the fifteenth century, Maxi- 
mihan had prevailed upon East Freisland to elect 
the duke of Saxony as podesta ;t and when Charles Y. 
succeeded to his paternal inheritance in the Low 
Countries, the Saxons held the nominal sovereignty 
of Freisland — a title which he purchased,^ thereby 
reuniting a kindred race. 

In 1516, the ambitious boy caused himseK to be 
proclaimed king of Spain, in right of his mother, 
mad queen Joanna ;§ and a few years later his skil- 
ful intrigues won for him the imperial crown of 
Germany, which made him sovereign of the Neth- 
erlands, monarch of the twin kingdoms of Spain, 
lord of the two Sicilies, duke of Milan, emperor of 
Germany, dominator of Asia, Africa, America, auto- 
crat of half the world :ll and this combination of 
titles gained him also that other surname of the 
German Caesar. 

■"■ Cliron. Menconis Abb. in Weram. 
f Motley, Yol. 1, p. 55. Grotius, Vau Metereu. 
t Grattan, p. 67. 

§ Krobertson, Hist, of the Eeign of Charles V., vol. 1, p. 189, 
el seq. || Ibid. , passim. 



THE NEW REGIME. 109 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE NEW KfiGIME. 

Time is the finest of organizers, the greatest of 
reformers. It transforms impediments into instru- 
ments, and subdues the most formidable mischiefs 
of the past into the most useful slaves of the future. 
Growth itself is the fruit of time ; and growth is 
but another name for progress. " The fossil strata," 
says Emerson, " show us that nature began with 
rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex as 
fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place ; 
and that the lower perish as the higher aj)pear."* 

Civilization is a similar development, unfolding 
naturally from its causes. In the sixteenth century 
these causes flowered. Want with its scourge, war 
Avith its cannonade, trade with its money, art with 
its portfolios, had long tapped the tough chrysalis ; 
but the vivifying power still lagged, until reformed 
Christianity came with its charity, with its spiritu- 
ality, with its holiness, and broke the shell, set the 
dull nerves throbbing, and helped the new epoch 
to emerge erect and free.f 

Thus out of the past there grew at last an age 
whose " mouth was to speak gi'cat things ;" words 
which should liberate the human soul, long a pris- 
oner in the Vatican ;| whose hands were to new- 
s' Emerson, Conduct of Life, -p. 143. f Ibid. 
X "L'Anima nostra e sempre prigioniera nel Vaticano." De 
Boui, La Chiesa Romana e 1' Italia, p. 19. 



110 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

model the map of Europe. The dawning atmo- 
sphere of the sixteenth century was heavy with rev- 
okition. Widespread abuses necessitated change, 
Rome had touched the muddiest bottom, and Hke 
Jerrold's profligate, insisted with drunken gravity 
that all mankind should lie beside it in the gutter ; 
to which decent men objected. In an age of rising 
intelligence and progressive tendency, the Holy See 
held to the maxims, preached the dogmas, and 
claimed the absurd, wornout prerogatives of the 
darkest epochs — set itself in resolute O2323osition to 
the spirit of the time. The pontiffs became a tribe 
of deplorers and copiers. They esteemed the vir- 
tues of the present vices, and the vices of the past 
virtues. They stoned the saints of their day, and 
canonized mediaeval sinners. They endeavored to 
manufacture the antique, and strove to reenact the 
Innocents and Hildebrands. 

In the meantime, Platonism, which the Medici 
had resurrected in Italy, the communal idea, which 
had grown from the German municipalities, the 
printing j)i'ess, and the Waldense protests in the 
Netherlands, all combined to spread intelligence 
and to awaken inquiry. Then a. new power arose — 
public opinion ; for heretofore there had been but 
two kinds of opinion, the opinion clerical, and 
the opinion baronial. Enlightenment popularized 
thought ; and thought was the pool of Siloam, in 
Avhicli blind Europe bathed its eyes and recovered 
sight. Suddenly men saw, and what they saw both 
shocked and amazed them. An ecclcsiasticism 



THE NEW REGIME. HI 

wliicli they had immemorially worshipped as an 
inspiration and a saviour, revealed itself as the 
m(5&t brazen of mountebanks, whose greed was 
insatiable, whose morals were licentious to a prov- 
erb, whose schemes looked only to self-aggrandize- 
ment, whose forged keys rattled only to lure men to 
destruction. 

Such was the awakening of the human intellect ; 
and the danger was that the force of the rebound 
would send Europe over into jeering infidelity. 
Then God commissioned a second band of apostles 
to arrest this fate, and to point out the true path — 
reformation, not abolition. 

Eome banned the Bible ; " it must be put into 
all hands, and diligently searched,"- said Luther. 
Eome promised Paradise as the reward of meri- 
torious works ; " it must be won by prayer, and 
faith, and a renewed sj)irit through Christ,"t said 
Zwingle. Eome made fine distinctions between 
the priesthood and the laity ; " we are all sons of 
God and heirs of heaven, if we but accept the 
Saviour,"! said Melancthon. Rome talked loudly 
of the supererogatory merits of the saints, a fund 
which the popes administered, and labelled " indul- 
gences ;" " all a snare and a delusion, "§ said Bucer. 
Eome rattled the keys of St. Peter ; " they are 
forged,"|| said Luther. Eome claimed and held 

* John 5 : 39. f Gal. 2 : IG ; Eom. 5:1; Eom. 3 : 28. 

X Gal. 3 : 26 ; 2 Cor. 6 : 18 ; Eom. 8 : 17. 

§ Vsn. 143 :2 ; Augustine, Confess., ix. Luther, L. 0pp. Lat. 
1,211. II 2Tliess. 11:9. 



112 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

the temporal sword ; " Clirist's Idngdom is not of 
tins world "* said Zwingle. Eome went clothed in 
purple and fine linen and " fared sumptuously ev?ry 
day ;" " the Son of man had not wdiere to lay his 
head,"t said Melancthon. Eome forbade the clergy 
to marry ; " marriage is one of the most honorable 
of earthly estates,";!: said Bucer. 

These and kindred sayings spread throughout 
Christendom with amazing rapidity. The infant 
press groaned beneath the load of pamphlets which 
were printed for the "healing of the nations."§ 
The writings of the reformers were publicly hawked 
by the booksellers of the period, and by hundreds 
of monks who had been "born into the Spirit."!! 
Everywhere the sheets were seized and scanned 
while yet wet with printer's ink.l In the castle of 
the noble, in the dweUing of the burgher, in the 
hovel of the peasant, nothing was talked of but the 
Reformation. 

In the Netherlands especially, the new tenets 
received the most speedy, heartfelt, and unanimous 
welcome.** For this there were many reasons. 
Instinct is often keener than intellect ; and the 
democratic instincts of the Netherlanders had long 
recognized an enemy in the Eoman oligarchy. 
They w^ere also more broadly educated than any 
other race. Thinkers from habit, they had always 

« John 18 : 36. f Luke 9 . 58. % Matt. 19 : 4-6. 

§ Seckendorf, Hist. Eef. D'Aubigne, etc. |1 Ibid. 

^ Michelet, Life of M. Luther. 
«« Schiller, Duvies, Motley, Grotius, Van Loon, Van Meteren. 



THE NEW BEGIME. 113 

listened half incredulously to the fables of the 
priests. For them the charm of the papacy was 
broken. Their cities and their nobles had fre- 
quently united to curtail ecclesiastical estates. 
They had themselves questioned, and they had 
heard others question many of the assumed prerog- 
atives of the Holy See. The burghers in the happy 
leisure of affluence, had forsaken the narrow circle 
of immediate wants, and pushed by the spirit of 
independence, which is wont to go hand in hand 
with abundance, learned to examine the authority 
of antiquated opinions.* Moreover, in a country 
where industry was the most lauded virtue, men- 
dicancy the most abhorred vice, a slothful horde like 
the monks must have been objects of long and deep 
aversion.! 

Thus Komanism, which was indigenous to Italy, 
«'as an exotic in the Netherlands. Kome was the 
antithesis of Holland. ^ The Dutch were half-prot- 
estantized before the Eeformation, and when Luther 
began to preach, they instinctively accepted the 
pure gospel. If Saxony bore and nursed the re- 
form, Holland was the guardian and defender of its 
maturer growth.:]: 

A happy collocation of circumstances attended 
the inception of the Eeformation. The elector 
Frederick of Saxony shielded Luther from the first 
onset of Eome, and enabled him to develop and 
organize the principles of his dissent. In 1519, 

•-- Schiller, p. 352. \ Ibid., p. 381. 

X Davics, History of IloUaiid, vol. 1, p. 358. 



114 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION, 

Maximilian died. At ouce the succession had as 
many chaimants as Christendom had kings, each of 
whom began to demonstrate his unquestionable 
right to wear the iaiperial purple — a right which 
each proved to be just as clear as his sword was 
long. In the interregnum caused by this squab- 
ble, the disputed dominions were without a defin- 
itive rule, and the gospel theology was thus left 
free to ground itself. Finally, Charles Y. clutched 
his grandfather's sceptre;* and ♦then God so oc- 
cupied his time in politics, compelHng him to 
defend himself now against home-bred mischief, 
now against the Saracen, that the environed em- 
peror could never pause long enough to strangle 
heresy. 

For there were political as well as moral giants 
in those days. A constellation of great princes 
gemmed the horizon. Leo X. wore the tiara, Hen- 
ry VIII. ruled England, Francis I. was king of 
France; and while Charles Y. was being crowned 
at Aix-la-Chapelle, one of the most accomplished, 
enterprising, and victorious of the Turkish sultans, 
Solyman the Magnificent, ascended the Ottoman 
throne. t Each of these sovereigns had his own 
ends to subserve, and a singular scrub-race for 
power ensued. Leo X. used all the arts of his pro- 
tean see to cheat Europe into a new crusade against 
reform. Henry YIII. fomented discord, and then 

« In 1520. 

■j- Kobertsoii, History of the Reign of Charles V., vol. 1, p. 
234. 



THE NEW REGIME. 115 

laughed at those he had entangled from the safe 
distance of his ishand throne. Francis I. was 
wresthng with Charles V., and 8oljman, the con- 
stant and formidable rival of the rest, led his Mos- 
lem hordes into the heart of Christendom, planting 
the Orient now here, now there; for in those days 
the Porte was not the " sick man " of Europe, and 
its continued existence had not become a mere 
diplomatic juggle. 

Still, spite of this dizzy and incessant rivalry, 
Charles V. did make spasmodic efforts to curb the 
prodigious progress of the innovating tenets. The 
same astute instinct which had won the Nether- 
lands to espouse the Reformation, made the em- 
peror, a despot from temper and position, its im- 
placable enemy, for he recognized in it the essence 
of republicanism. As a papist and as a king, he 
could not fail to despise its teachings, and to perse- 
cute its adherents. 

Besides, there were other causes for the violence 
with which he now began to hack the Low Country 
reformers — causes which aggravated the more placid 
dislike which he bore to tlie innovation generally 
into a passion in the Netherlands. Since his acces- 
sion to the Spanish throne, Charles had become 
accustomed to the exercise of absolute power. In 
Aragon and Castile he was an irresponsible despot, 
vexed by no barriers, troubled by no questioners. 
But when he entered the provinces all was changed. 
There he was only the first citizen; multitudinous 
checks, in the form of privileges and charters, 
<* Ivobertson, ul antea. 



116 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

•which the burghers defended and extended Avith 
unsleeping vigilance, constantly fretted and thwart- 
ed his arbitrary will. Inflated with pride, stagger- 
ing beneath titles, and habituated to the submis- 
sion of the commons, Cesar's stomach was turned by 
the hardy independence of the haggling burghers. 
" This talk of privileges I hate," said he.* 

Moreover, it has been well said that, as the 
whole government of the fiimous emperor was but 
one tissue of plots and manceuvres to enhance his 
authority, it was,* of course, necessary fi-om his 
standpoint, that he should become absolute mas- 
ter of the various links of his mighty empire, 
so that he might move all or any at will, effec- 
tuall}', suddenly ; and this necessitated centrali- 
zation — he must make himself the soul of his 
dominions.'!' 

In the execution of this scheme, Charles met 
with little opposition outside of the Netherlands. 
There the citizens, awakened to the distrust Avliich 
always accomj^anies comparative weakness, had 
never before been so alive to their constitutional 
rights, never before so jealous of the royal preroga- 
tive.| Violent outbreaks of the republican spirit 
and ominous mutterings warned him of danger; 
yet he persisted, and even made insidious prog- 
ress. 

He subjected' the decrees of the national courts 
of judicature to the revision of a royal council 

* Kobertson, Hist, of the Reign of Charles V. 

t SchiUer, p. 378. J Ibiil., p. 377. 



THE NEW EEGIME. 117 

seated in Brussels, and Lis echo.* He ousted all 
doubtful natives from office, and intrusted the most 
vital functions of the provinces to his foreign crea- 
tures — men whose only tenure of office was his 
favor, and consequently certain to infringe privi- 
leges which they knew to be obnoxious to their 
master, but of which otherwise they knew nothing.! 
He, like his predecessors, regarded the provinces 
as an inexhaustible bank, on which he might draw 
at will, and " the ever-increasing expenses of his 
warlike government pushed him as steadily to 
augment his resources ; and in this, trampling on 
the most sacred guarantees, he imposed new and 
strange taxes. To preserve jeven the name of their 
liberties, the states were forced to grant what he 
had been so modest as not to extort ; for the his- 
tory of this emperor's government in the Nether- 
lands is a continual list of imposts demanded, 
refused, and finally accorded. Contrary to the 
constitution, he introduced mercenary troops into 
these territories, directed the recruiting of his oft- 
decimated armies in the provinces, and involved 
his burgher subjects in wars which could not 
advance if they did not injure their interests, and 
to which, against all precedents, they had not been 
even so much as asked to assent.":]: 

But Charles V. was much too sagacious not to 
foster the business enterprise of the Netherlands — 
the exchequer of the empire ; so much was essen- 

« Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 357. Grotius. Van Loon, 
t Ibid. Van Metorcn. % Schiller, pp, 382, 383. 



118 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

tial to Mie success of his politics. Their commerce 
was his strength ; and since liberty was the creator 
of commerce, he spared just so much of it as he 
could work over into the sinews of war ; which 
explains why he did not strip the Low Countries of 
all their hated privileges.'^ 

But while the wily emperor did, in a certain 
sense, protect and enlarge the business of the 
states, he hit upon an ingenious plan for the grad- 
ual impoverishment of the most wealthy and dan- 
gerous families of the land. "He crippled the 
great vassals of the crown " — it is Schiller who says 
it — "by expensive embassies, imder the specious 
pretext of honorary distinctions. Thus, William of 
Orange was despatched to Germany with the impe- 
rial crown ; and Count Egmont was commissioned 
to conclude the marriage contract between Philip 
and Queen Mary. Both afterwards accompanied 
the duke of Alva to France, to negotiate the new 
alliance of their sovereign with Madame Elizabeth. 
The expenses of these journeys amounted to three 
hundred thousand florins, towards which the em- 
peror did not contribute a single penny. The 
Netherland nobles were also encouraged to keep 
open table, and display a lavish magnificence. By 
these and kindred arts, the nobles were soon bank- 
rupt."t 

But in this Charles outAvitted himself. The 
great vassals, reduced from affluence to poverty, 
became needy adventurers, and finally midnight 
e Guiccip.rclini, Dcscriptio Belgii. f Schiller, pp. 389, 391). 



THE NEW REGIME. 119 

conspirators — plotters from necessity and from 
pique ; for, already ruined, they had no motive to 
preserve the peace, and could not fail to gain from 
revolution. 

When the emperor had thus bled the Nether- 
lands, and, as he supposed, somewhat thinned the 
veins of their exuberant independence, his next stei^* 
was to restrain their religious liberty.* At the 
Diet of Worms, in 1521, he formally anathematized 
the person and the teachings of Martin Luther.t 
This anathema was, a few weeks later, pubHshed in 
the Low Countries, and soon supported by an edict 
forbidding the composition or publication of lam- 
poons on the church, or of any writings on matters 
of faith, under pain of " punishment according to 
temi^oral and spiritual justice ;" terms which were 
afterwards construed to mean death by torture. :j; 

Spite of the imperial decree, the reformers con- 
tinued to talk, write, publish, propagate. In 1522, 
Charles commissioned a special agent to weed out 
the heretical books, and fulminated a new edict ; 
measures which proved futile.§ Then the emperor, 
enraged by this contemptuous disregard of his 
parchment fiats, and bent on convincing Pope 
Leo — who affected to doubt his zeal, and was then 
coquetting with Francis I.|| —of the sincerity of his 

* Davies, Tok 1, p. 357. Brandt. 

f Eauko, Hist of Popes, Leo X. Mosheim. Miclielet, etc. 

% Davies, vol. 1, p. 358. 

§ Brandt, Hist, of Eef. in Low Countries, vol. 1, book ii. 

II Robertson, Hist, of Charles V., p. 280, et seq. 



120 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

faith, rained a tempest of decrees upon the obsti- 
nate provinces. 

Bj these, to open the evangelists was pronoun^ 
ced a crime ; to attend any meeting, secret or pub- 
lic, to which religion lent its name, even by impli- 
cation, was an indictable oJSence ; to converse on 
4he subject of reform, at home as abroad, was 
damnation.* Everywhere unheard-of courts were 
established to enforce these laws ; and a conviction 
of holding, diffusing, or listening to heretical doc- 
trines was death — if a man, by the sword ; if a 
woman, by burial alive. Even aj)ostacy was ban- 
ned, for all recanters were ordered to be burned. f 

Despotic politics and bastard religion now clasp- 
ed hands in the raid on freedom. " The fiefs of the 
condemned were confiscated, contrary to the statute 
law, which permitted the heir to redeem them after 
payment of a trifling fine ; and in defiance of an 
express and valuable privilege of the citizens of 
Holland, by which they were not to be tried out of 
their own province, culprits were forced beyond the 
limits of the native judicature, and condemned by 
foreign tribunals. Thus Romanism guided the ftd- 
tering hand of despotism, to attack with its sacred 

'-■ Brandt, Schiller, Van Meteren. 

f Ibid. "The usual mode of executing the punishment of burial 
alive was to lay the victim in an open coffin, placed on the scaffold, 
of a length and breadth just sufficient to contain her ; three iron 
bars were then placed, one on the neck, another t)n the stomach, 
and a third on the legs ; through a hole at the upper end of the 
coffin was passed a rope, fastened round the neck, which the exe 
ciationer drew tight from under the scaffold as the body was cov- 
ered with earth." Davies, vol. 1, p. 383, note. 



THE NEW REGIME. 121 

weapon, and without danger of opposition, liberties 
wliicli were inviolable to the secular arm."* 

But these appalling preparations could not 
affright the dauntless, and they made no converts, 
while the gospellers still prayed, and sang, and 
spoke of Christ.t Then Charles invoked the fire 
goblins. On the first of July, 1523, the initial 
autos-da-fe were kindled in the Netherlands. Two 
Augustine monks, convicted of heresy, were drag- 
ged through the streets of awe-struck Brussels, and 
publicly burned.^ "Alas," sighed Erasmus, the 
" doubting Simon " of the age, the twin of Bunyan's 
"Mr. Facing-both-waj^s," "two heretics have been 
burned at Brussels, and that city now begins stren- 
uousl}'' to favor Lutheranism."§ 

Some eight months previous to these executions, 
the papal throne, left vacant by the premature 
decease of Leo X., who died " as the poppy 
fades,"i| was filled by the election of the venerable 
Cardinal Tortosa, who reigned under the title of 
Adrian VI.^ This pontiff was a Netherlander by 
birth, the son of a boat-maker, educated at Lou- 
vain by charity, and by nature of an austere and 
monastic temper ; but his genuine piety was sadly 
distorted by those prejudices which he had sucked 
out of the^livinity of the schools."* By his attempts 
at the regeneration, in some sense, of his church, 

« Scliiller, p. 383. f Braudt, vol. 1, book ii, passim. 

X Ibid, p. 49. Motley. § Erasmus, Epist. 

II Kanke, Hist, of the Popes, p. 31. ^ Ibid. 

«» Brandt, vol. 1, p. 47. 

Dutch Eef. () 



122 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

and by his fierce denunciation of the reformers, 
he won the hatred of both parties in those pas- 
sionate days, dying after a stormy rule of twenty 
months, profoundly convinced that the greatest 
misfortune of his life was to have worn the triple 
crown.* 

Tortosa was in his turn succeeded by the crafty 
Giulio de' Medici, who took the name of Clement 
VII. ;t and he, dying in 1534, was followed by a 
number of short-lived pontiffs, until, on the com- 
mencement of the Dutch Revolution in 1566, Pius 
Y. was on the throne.:]; 

But while the history of the pontificate was 
marked by these vicissitudes, the march of mighty 
necessities which swaj-ed the destiny of Christen- 
dom went on and on, fulfilling Goethe's maxim, 
" Without haste, without rest." 

In 1529, the clash of arms ceased for a moment, 
and Europe was permitted to catch breath in the 
pause occasioned by the treaty of Cambray, some- 
times styled the " Ladies' Peace," because it was 
negotiated by two statesmanlike women — Louise, 
queen-mother of France, and Margaret, the singu- 
larly able and astute governante of the Netlier- 
lands.§ 

* Kauke, Motley. f Eanke, id antea. \ IbiJ. 

§ Dumont, Corps Dip., torn. 4, p. 2, pa. 42. Margaret was 
the emperor's aunt. She had been twice married —to Charles VIII. 
of France, who had broken from the nuptial contract before its 
consummation ; and to the Infant of Spain, who died immediately 
after the -union. "While on a voyage to Spain, to wed the heir ap- 
parent of thai) kingdom, the vessel in which she had sailed was 



THE NEW EEGIME. 123 

But Charles V. made a bad use of the pacifica- 
tion, for he employed the interval of leisure in re- 
newing edicts against reform, and in sharpening 
the punishment and narrowing the tests of heresy.* 
He was a physician of the heroic school, and blood- 
letting was his panacea. Or, if you will have 
another figure, he was a schoolman of the mediaeval 
pattern, and the scafi'old was his favorite syllogism. 

Worst of all, while the Eeformation was thus 
excommunicated, and imperilled, and hacked from 
without, internal dissension commenced to tear its 
vitals, and it lost the fine moderation and the dig- 
nified unity which had characterized its inaugura- 
tion. The good cause began to split into sects — a 
dangerous tendency in the face of the common 
enemy in hostile array, and moving to the storm of 
the camp. At such a crisis, division looked like 
suicide. " This is the true path," said Luther. 
"Nay, hither it runs," cried Zwingle. "Wrong," 
affirmed Menno Simon, the able and famous Neth- 
erland teacher who organized the Mennonites ;t 

tempest-tossed, and all hope was given up ; whereupon the cour- 
ageous princess wi"ote her own epitaph, as follows : 

" Here gentle Margaret sleeps beneath the tide, 
Who twice was wedded, yet a maiden died." 

She was not shipwrecked after all. See Davies, vol. 1. p. 385. 

* Brandt, vol. 1, book 2, passim. 

f "The venerable Menno Simon was born at Witmorsam in 
Friesland, in 1496. His education was such as was generally 
adopted in that age with persons designed for the priesthood. He 
entered the church in the character of a priest in 1524, and had 
then no acquaintance with the Bible, nor would he touch it, lest 
he should be sodnoed by its doctrines. At the end of three j^ears, 



124 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

"wrong ; 't is as clear as day that I am on the only 
road." All good men, and true ; but at that criti- 
cal moment, when the safety of the cause they loved 
dictated union against the foe of each, somewhat 
too heatedly wedded, to subordinate phases of the 
grand movement for reform. The gospel phalanx 
was confused and embarrassed. The soldiers of 
the cross took sides. Some said, " I am of Paul ;" 
some, " I am of Apollos ;" others, " I am of Ce- 
phas," Did they forget those wise words of the 
apostle to the Gentiles : " Is Christ divided ? was 
Paul crucified for you ? or were ye baptized in the 
name of Paul ?"* 

But a blacker and still more portentous cloud 
dimmed the horizon. The Reformation was being 
compromised by the excesses of an insane gang 
robed in its colors and mouthing its watchwords. 
A horde of apocalyptic visionaries, in motion 
throughout Europe, were especially violent in the 
Netherlands. What have been called the " ana- 
baptisticalt atrocities" commenced. "A handful 

lie began to doubt the dogma of transubstantiation ; but attributed 
the doubt to Satan. Dissipation could not put the cries of con- 
science to sleep, and he was won to search the Scriptures ; and 
this, with the aid of Luther's writings, convinced him of the error 
of popery." In 1536, he became a gospel preacher. The plaji of 
doctrine and practice, which he threw into the form of catechisms, 
did for the Low Country Baptists what Calvin's ' ' Christian Insti- 
tutes " did for nascent Protestantism at large. See Orchard, For- 
eign Baptists, p. 365, et seq. Also, Mosheim, vol. 3, p. 329. 

'-' 1 Cor. 1 : 13. 

t "It is but justice to observe, that the Baptists of Holland, 
England, and the United States are essentially distinct from the 
seditious and fanatical individuals who were called Anabaptists at 



THE NEW EEGIME. 125 

of madmen," says Moslieim, "who had got into 
their heads the absurd notion of a new spiritual 
kingdom, soon to be visibly established in an ex- 
traordinary manner, formed themselves into a soci- 
ety under the guidance of a few illiterate leaders 
chosen out of the jDopulace. And they persuaded, 
not only the ignorant multitude, but even several 
among the learned, that the city of Munster was to 
be the seat of this new Jerusalem, whose ghostly 
dominion was to be propagated thence to all the 
ends of the earth. The ringleaders of this furious 
tribe were John Matthison, a baker of Haarlem, John 
Brockhold, a tailor of Leyden, one Gerhard, with 
some others, whom the blind rage of enthusiasm, or 
the still more culpable principles of sedition, had 
embarked in this extravagant and desperate cause. 
The band made themselves masters of Munster, 
deposed the magistrates, and committed every crime 
which perversity could suggest, every folly which an 
infernal imagination could devise. Brockhold pro- 
claimed himself King of Zion, and substantiated his 
title by running naked through the streets and mar- 
rying eleven wives at one time. But his reign was 
transitory and his end was awful ; for Munster was 

the Eeformation. They do not consider the word applicable to 
their sect." D'Aubigne, Pref. to Hist, of Eef., p. 10. 

' ' The true origin of that sect which acquired the name of Ana- 
baptists, by their administering the rite of baptism even to those 
who came over to their communion, and (Jerived that of Menuo- 
nites from that famous man, to whom they owe the greatest part 
of their i)rcsent felicity, is hid in the remote depths of antiquity, 
and is consequently extremely difficult to be ascertained." Mos- 
heim, vol. 3, pp. 318, 319. Ed. of 182G. 



126 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

retaken in 1636, the New Jerusalem of tlie fanatics 
was destroyed, and the mock monarch, chained for 
a time in an iron cage, was- finally put to a painful 
and ignominious death,"* 

This did not stay the plague. Scenes of tumult, 
license, blood, were every where exhibited. On 
one bitter winter night at Amsterdam, in 1535, the 
snug burghers were roused as the clock chimed 
twelve, by a hideous outcry in the street. Quit- 
ting their cosy couches, they ran shivering to their 
windows, and lo, they saw seven naked men and 
five nude women raving and bawling as they hur- 
ried over the cold pavement, " Woe,Avoe,woe to Bab- 
ylon." WheD, after being seized and brought before 
the magistrates, clothes Avere proffered them, they 
refused them stoutly, crying, " We are the naked 
truth."t And when marshalled for execution they 
sang and danced upon the scaffold.]: 

Eomanists have often pointed to these, and to 
kindred wild outbreaks as the logical result of 
schism ; and nonplussed Protestants have some- 
times relieved themselves of the odium by saying, 
" ' Thou canst not say I did it,' for these madmen 
did not belong to my sect." But no sect is to be 
judged by its exceptions; none is responsible for the 
acts of fanatics whom it disowns. Venner called 
himself a Puritan ; were the Puritans Fifth Mon- 
archy men and seditious because he was ? In Ger- 
many every audacious varlet who broke into churches 
and cloisters and plundered altars, called himself a 

o Mosheim, vol. 3, p. 328, et seq. f Ibid. , note. | Ibid. 



THE NEW REGIME. 127 

Lutlieran ; were the Lutherans a horde of pilferers 
because one robber stole and stabbed under that 
name ? 

Perhaps you will say, Why, then, charge fraud, 
and ambition, and irreligion upon Rome because 
Hildebrand, and Innocent, and Loyola were church- 
men ? For this reason : these infamous churchmen 
w^ere not the exceptions, they were the rule of the 
papacy — the type-men and the models of the holy 
see for ages ; the logical, consumma,te fruit of that 
ecclesiasticism, never disowned, never even depre- 
cated. When the Baptists canonize the Munster 
madmen, when the Puritans organize a propaganda 
under the name of St. Yenner — then, and fiot till 
then, can they be asked to adopt the enfants perdus 
of the past, and defend their atrocities with com- 
placent infamy. Many Protestants have been fanat- 
ics, and some have been intolerant and bloodthirsty ; 
but on the shield of such warriors is the bar-sinister 
which marks them as the bastards of reform. Nei- 
ther Protestantism as a whole, nor Protestantism 
in its sects, is to be impeached for their offences — 
offences alien to the spirit and to the letter of the 
faith. 

Emeutes like that at Munster were sure to mark 
the Reformation. Such outbreaks are the inevi- 
table concomitants of revolution. Litense social, 
moral, intellectual agitation is certain to fanaticize 
weak minds "whose zeal is without knowledge;" 
and demagogues and profligates will always saddle 
fanaticism and ride it booted and spurred to the 



128 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

goal of their ambition. Wliat tlieii, shall there be 
no reform ? ileform must be ; and the evil which 
accompanies it is to be charged, not to progress, but 
back upon the opposition which seeks to conserve 
the ignorance and the wrong of whose embrace 
fanaticism is begotten. 

But this aside. These fanatical antics were un- 
fortunate for tlie Reformation, for they armed the 
emperor with a pretext for fresh severities; stimu- 
lated him to redoubled exertions to extirpate a 
creed which policy and superstition united in his 
mind to condemn; and furnished him with a spe- 
cious plea against the new doctiines on the ground 
of decency and outraged nature. 

"In my opinion," wrote Mary, queen-dowager 
of Hungary, who had succeeded Margaret in the 
government of the Netherlands, to her brother the 
emperor, " In my opinion all heretics, whether 
repentant or not, should be persecuted with such 
severity as that error might at once be extinguished, 
care only being taken that the provinces be not 
wholly depopulated."* In this opinion Charles so 
fully concurred that he promised to introduce the 
Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.'!- 

This bare threat paralyzed the nation. Antwerp 
was shocked, shut its shops, left its ships to rot, 
hushed the hum of its market-place, hid its gold, 
and dropped the prices and rents of its houses be- 
low zero ; while the chief foreign merchants pre- 
pared to quit the ruined metro j)olis.:|: At once the 

^ Motley, vol. 1, p. 80. f Schiller, p. 383. J Ibitl. 



THE NEW KEGIME. 129 

shrewd emperor abandoned this resolution in form, 
but he kept the fact, and estabUshed the tribunal by 
hiding the frightful name of inquisitor under the 
milder title of Spiritual Judge.* " Then," says 
Schiller, " this abhorrent court proceeded to rage 
with the inhuman despotism which has ever been 
peculiar to it. And we may get an idea of its suc- 
cess in slaughter by the fact that during the reign 
of Charles V. fifty thousand persons iDerished by 
the hand of the executioner for the sole crime of 
imputed lieresy."t 

In the midst of these orgies, the wailing, bleed- 
ing Netherlands learned that Charles Y. had deter- 
mined to abdicate — learned and marvelled with 
mankind. 

■-- Schiller, p. 383. t Ibid., p. 381. 



fi* 



130 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

CHAPTER VII. 

EXEUNT. 

On the morning of the 25th of October, 1555, 
there was an nnusual stir in the good old town of 
Brussels. It was not the bustle of traffic, for trade 
was at a stand-still, and the only marketable com- 
modity was talk. The city had emptied itself into 
the streets. Thousands of promenaders, brave in 
their gala garb, blocked up the thoroughfares, and 
broke into eager, excited groups ; here a dozen 
ranged about a shop-door, yonder a score under 
the windows of a mansion. The gay capital was 
draped for a festa. Flags and quaint devices, rare 
flowers and costly tapestries were lavishly displayed 
in each of the irregular, picturesque streets through 
which the town climbed, in the form of an amphi- 
theatre, from the banks of the little river Senne up 
the steep hillside to the border of the forest of 
Soigniers, ending abruptly at its gates. 

Brussels, unlike its lowland sisters, did •not 
spring from the ocean mud; it nestled in the lap of 
a bluff, wrapping around it " a wide expanse of liv- 
ing verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile 
cornfields," flowing like a mantle. " In the heart 
of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely em- 
broidered tower of the Stadt-house, three hundred 
and sixty-six feet high, a miracle of needlework in 
stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb 



EXEUNT. 1*51 

tracery of that lace which for centuries has been 
synonymous with the city, and rearing itself above 
a fagade of profusely decorated and brocaded archi- 
tecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned by 
the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with 
its extensive and thickly wooded park on the left, 
and by the stately mansions of the Flemish gran- 
dees, of Orange, of Egmont, of Aremberg on the 
right. Just at hand lay the forest, dotted with 
monasteries and convents, swarming with every 
kind of game, whither the citizens made their sum- 
mer pilgrimages, and where the nobles chased the 
wild boar and the stag."* 

Such was Brussels, and such was now the scene 
within its walls. Why met the burghers ? and why 
stirred the city? It was the day appointed by 
Charles Y. for his abdication and for the corona- 
tion of his sont — an eventful day for Brussels, for 
the Netherlands, for Christendom ; and the loyal 
town had draped itself and proclaimed a holiday 
that it might fitly say good-by to Ctesar, and cry 
welcome to King Philip. 

The drama was enacted in the grand hall of the 
ducal palace. Kings were the actors ; seven crowned 
heads, the foreign ambassadors, the knights of the 
Golden Fleece, the Netherland nobles, the Low Coun- 
tries,present b}^ delegates — these were the audience.^ 
Charles was fond of ceremonj', and he knew its 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 'JG. 

f Vim Meteren, Hist, der NederLincTen, vol. 1, p. IG. Badavaro, 
Eelazioms MS. J: Ibid. 



132 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

effect; and, determined that tliis last public act 
should be a fit close to his stormy career, he lav- 
ished his gold and his skill to make it so. , 

He succeeded ; Christendom looked on with open 
mouth, and the emperor not only sent his immediate 
auditors home weeping — stranger still, he wept him- 
self.* Could men have foreseen the future, there 
had been greater cause for tears ; facts would have 
been more pathetic than leave-taking Csesar. 

Two sentences will summarize the imperial ad- 
dress : " In a qiiarter of a century of successful war 
I have heaped up a mighty dominion, which is 
now menaced by religious heresy and by political 
assault — so fiercely threatened, that to defend its 
integrity youthful vigor must enter the arena. At 
fifty -five I am an old man, with shattered health ; 
but here is my son, I seat him on my throne as the 
defender of the faith, as the ruler of my realm. "t 

This was the spirit of the abdication, and it was 
the emperor's solution of the riddle. What says 
history? History acquiesces in this dictum, but 
finds additional motives. Charles was the greatest 
glutton of his day,| and after forty years of unex- 
ampled abuse, his long-patient physique revolted. 
Lame with gout, half choked with asthma, he was 
also a confirmed dyspeptic, and physiologists can 
tell what whims a disordered stomach puts into the 

* Poutus Heutcrus, U, pp. 33G-339. 

f See the address in extenso in Gacliard, Anal. Belg., pp. 81- 
102. It is also given in Pont. Heut. 14, p. 338, et seq. 
X Godelaerus, Motley, and others. 



EXEUNT. 183 

heads of men. Depression caused by dyspepsia — 
this cropped out iu abdication. Originally of an 
athletic, well-proportioned frame, though always of 
an ugly countenance," the emperor w^as now a sad 
wreck. " When physicians questioned his lower 
limbs, Death-in-life answered, ' I am here ;' when 
their eyes, rising attentively by way of his hands 
and arms, questioned upward to the muscles round 
the protruding Burgundian jaw, Death-in-life an- 
swered, 'I am coming.' " Charles was keen enough 
not to sit still and rot into the grave, sceptre in hand ; 
by a splendid affectation of unselfishness, he with- 
drew decorously from public view ; withdrew because 
he willed to do so, not because he was compelled — 
and got the credit of unprecedented self-abnegation. 
But racking disease was not the only ingredient 
in the bitter cup of the emperor's last years. Pohti- 
cal misfortune began to overtake him. The con- 
queror at Pavia had, on two recent occasions, been 
humiliated, outwitted, defeated. Young Maurice of 
Saxony, who had once sat at the feet of this Gama- 
liel to verse himself in war and diplomacy, left his 
master when he had learned the lesson, and, putting 
himself at the head of menaced German Protestant- 
ism, dashed down upon the emperor while he was 
seated in solemn conclave at Innspruck forging 
thunderbolts with which to smite reform ; drove him 
to hasty and ignominious flight in a peasant's wag- 
on ; defeated his troops a little later at Fiissen ; 
forced the sick and half-stunned monarch to an- 
X Van Meteren, Gachard. 



134 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

otlier headlong midniglit flight through the difficult 
Alpine gorges in an awful storm ; permitted his 
escape only because "for such a bird he had no 
convenient cage ;" and, finally, anchored the Kefor- 
mation in Germany by the advantageous treaty of 
Passau — a peace which he compelled the staggered 
emperor to sign.* 

So, too, when Charles had attempted to retake 
the French town of Metz ; of the hundred thou- 
sand men whom he brought to the siege, he returned 
balked and bloody with a loss of forty thousandf — 
returned to hear that the Protestant princes, that 
the Turkish sultan, that the Holy Father had 
formed a "triple alliance" against his tottering 
throne.:|: " For some days," says Strada, " he 
kept his chamber, and ever after his disease grew 
sharper. Nay, it was commonly believed that Cae- 
sar's fortune, glutted and grown coy, began to retire, 
and that the happy genius of this long-unconquered 
emperor was fled to Henry the French king ; Caesar 
himself, not able to dissemble it, being heard to 
say, 'It seems fortune is the young man's mistress,' 
And therefore for his device of Hercules' pillar, and 
the motto ijIus ultra — 'more beyond' — there was 
painted on his palace walls a crab, with the words 
plus citra — 'more on this side' — a jeer agreeable to 
the times. ' The emperor,' said some, ' does like a 
wary gambler at dice, who, having drawn a great 
sum of money in many hours' play, holds his hand, 
and suffers not himself to be stripped of all his 
* Eobeitsou, vol. 2. f Ibid., Strada, X Ibid., Motley. 



EXEUNT. 135 

victorious Leap at one throw.' "* On the other 
hand, it has been contended that the abdication 
came from no soreness of defeat, but was the con- 
summation of a purpose avowed many years before 
this lesson of the mutabiHty of success, to Francis 
Borgia, when Charles confessed that "he was minded 
to divest himself of all the cares and baggage of this 
world," and seek peace in quietude ; recalling the 
words of an old cavalry officer who had petitioned 
for a discharge from service, giving this reason : "I 
wish to put a space of religious contemplation 
betwixt my life and my tomb."t 

However all this may be, it is certain that from 
one motive or another Charles did resign his digni- 
ties and retire, " like a nobody," to a private house 
in Brussels. His tarry was not long. One night a 
comet was discerned flaming athwart the sky, pre- 
saging — as was at that time thought — disaster, and 
the death of princes. Me meet fata vocant — " my fates 
call for me,":l: he said ; and at once embarking, the 
self-discrowned emperor sailed for Spain, and buried 
himself in the monastery of St. Juste,§ where he died 
in 1558,11 after a residence embittered by the mem- 
ory of the world he had surrendered ; after hours 
wasted in reading despatches, in whining over 
dishes, in making epigrams on his cook's inabihty 
to tickle his tanned palate. "^F 

So passed the last years of Charles V. — what 

* Stvada, pp. 8, 9. f Ibid. J Godelajrus, p. 615. 

§ llobcrtsou. II Sept. 21st. 

IT Stirling, Cloister Life of Charles V. 



136 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

was lie at his best? Au able soldier, a shrewd, 
unscrupulous politician, a cool, determined despot. 
He had no convictions — only a purpose. He had 
no heart — only a muscle to circulate his blood. His 
most familiar weapons were trickery and brute force. 
Charles qui tricJie — such was the sobriquet which his 
frauds had won him.* 

To aggrandize his house, this was his object ; 
and to this he bent every thing, as one might twist 
a nose of wax. He persecuted from policy, not 
bigotry, and stabbed reform because he was keen 
enough to see that its talk of religious rights neces- 
sitated civil rights — meant political as Avell as moral 
heresy. He plucked the bud, that he might kill the 
flower. The glass of his history reflects no fanatic ; 
every action of his life turned on the well-oiled 
hinge of imagined policy. Policy made him listen 
to Luther at Worms, and dismiss him in peace. 
Policy persuaded him to proclaim TItc Interim, that 
bastard juggle of a creed. Policy pushed him to 
permit his German troops to listen to the exhorta- 
tions of their own chaplains, accompanjiug them 
from city to city. Policy led him at the same time 
to bury alive in the Low Countries any woman who 
should read her Bible. Policy urged him to sign 
the treaty of Passau, the Papal couj) de (jra?e in 
Germany. Policy led him, first since Attila, to sack 
the " Eternal City." Policy decided him to fling an 
ofi'ending pontiff into the dungeons of the castle of 
St. Angelo. 

''^ Brautome, Art. Charles Quint. 



EXEUNT. 137 

Yet spite of his finesse, spite of the connivance 
with which he met connivance, spite of his tri- 
umphs, and his titles, and his power, greatest since 
Charlemagne, his career was a magnificent failure, 
a gilded cheat. He lived to see the Keformation 
which he had essayed to crush, triumj)liant in Eng- 
land, conqueror in Germany, and spreading in the 
Netherlands — men reading the interdicted evange- 
lists in the lurid light of the very fire kindled to 
consume them. 

So with the empire which he had massed. Al- 
ready it was crumbling. The imperial crown went 
to his brother Ferdinand, the Eoman throne passed 
also into his tenacious possession,* In what re- 
mained there was no cohesion — a mere concferies of 
victim states held under the lock and key of despo- 
tism, tending inevitabl}^ to dismemberment : like the 
rich mud of our Mississippi, shifting with every 
flood from one side to the other of the channel.t 
Yast and rich as was his realm, Philip's chief inher- 
itance was the revolution. 

* Kobertson. 

t Wenflell Phillips, Letters and Speeches, p. 350. 



138 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

CHAPTEK VIII. 

AFFINITIES. 

Under Charles V., the Netherkinds were decima- 
ted by ambition ; under Philip II. they were deci- 
mated by fanaticism. Standing on the threshold of 
his reign, let us pause a moment to analyze this 
king — for it is a safe rule of the ancients, " If you 
would comprehend events, understand men." 

Philip II. was the Sphinx of his own day; he is 
the spelled riddle of our time. The iron mask 
which, unlike the famous Bastile prisoner, he wore 
from choice, not necessity, has been torn off by the 
hand of time, and we may read his features — see 
him as a man of starch and buckram. It was his 
constant effort to divorce himself from humanity. 
If he ever had a heart, he murdered it in boyhood, 
and he was more stoical than the stoics. 

This icy temper — which caused his courtiers to 
shiver when they approached him, which made them 
hear a crash when he smiled — was exactly typical 
of his mind. Narrow, incapable of generalization, 
tied down to minutke, sluggish, chained in forms, 
enamored of the letter of the law which kills, he yet 
had a remarkable memory, and when he once em- 
braced a purpose, he moved to execution with 
tedious but pitiless certainty. 

He was singularly patient. " Time and I," such 



AFFINITIES. 139 

was bis boast, " are a match for any two."* But it 
has been well said that time was not always his 
ally — sometimes refused to hunt in couple ; for time 
succors virtue and helps genius, tenders to the one 
golden oj^portunities, which must be snatched with 
ready gTasp, and renders to the other tardy justice. 
Philip's patience often balked him ; for while he 
advanced with measured, methodical step, success 
was clutched by a more rapid hand. While the man 
of system deliberated and shaped his plan, the man 
of action, inspired by the moment, extemporized a 
triumph. While Philip was writing a despatch, his 
father Avould have conquered a kingdom. 

Gloomy, sour, conceited, ascetic, Philip had not 
the faculty, and he lacked the desire to please. He 
would not compromise his pride by affecting to be 
debonair. He studied solitude, stood apart from 
choice. Surrounding himself with mystery and ter- 
ror, he aped deity. 

In this he was unlike Charles V. " When the 
emperor returned to his palace escorted, as he usu- 
ally was, by a train of nobles and princes of the 
empire," observes Prescott, painting him on one 
occasion at Augsburg, " he courteously took each 
of them by the hand, and raised his hat on parting. 
But Philip then, and always, walked directly to his 
apartments, without so much as turning round, or 
condescending in any Avay to notice the courtiers 
who accompanied him. In fact, it was said of him, 
that he considered himself greater than his father, 
* Gayarre, Philip II. of Spain, i>. 59. 



140 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

inasmuch as the son of an emperor was greater 
than the son of a king."* 

This sullen haughtiness was his by nature, but 
it was increased by untoward circumstances. He 
was born and educated in Spain. " Castile, Ara- 
gon, Leon," Grattan reminds us, "were in some 
degree excluded from European civilization. A con- 
test of seven centuries between the Mohammedan 
tribes and the descendants of the Visigoths, cruel, 
like all civil wars, and, like those of religion, not 
merely a contest of rulers, but essentially a war of 
races, had given to the manners and feelings of 
the Spaniard a deep stamp of barbarity. The fero- 
city of military chieftains had become the basis of 
government and law. The Christian kings had 
adopted the perfidious and degrading etiquette of 
the despotic sultans whom they had displaced. 
Magnificence and tyranny, power and cruelty, saga- 
city and dissimulation, respect and fear, were insep- 
arably associated with government in the minds of 
such a people. They could comprehend nothing in 
religion but a God armed with omnipotence and 
vengeance ; nothing in politics but a king as terri- 
ble as the deity he represented."! 

It was in such a school that Philip was cradled 
and taught. His earliest lesson was the omnipotence 
and irresponsibility of royalt3^ " The vassal who 
kills a man by his sovereign's order," so wrote his 
confessor at a later day, " is free from blame, be- 
cause the king, being master of the lives of his sub- 
o Prescott, Hist, of Ferdinand and Isabella. f Grattan, p. 79. 



AFFINITIES. 141 

jects, can dispose of them as he pleases, either with 
or without the formahty of law."* This was the 
doctrine which the monarch was set to learn. Is it 
strange that the unquestionable despot of the south 
should become the usurping master of the north ? 

Besides this, Philip was isolated by ignorance. 
Two out of three of the Netherland burghers could 
speak several languages ; their king was master of 
but one, and he never became sufficiently familiar 
with the modern languages to be able to do more 
than write a little French and Italian with painful 
slowness. t Of the Dutch he could not speak a word, 
and he was the most prejudiced of foreigners when 
he essayed to govern the Low Countries — domina- 
ted solely by a hatred of their liberties, which barred 
him from the absolutism to which he was habitua- 
ted ; and by a contempt for the hearty, ' familiar 
manners of the burgher populace, whose character 
was so fatally antipodal to his, whose loquacity was 
so constant a reproach upon his taciturnity, whose 
somewhat boisterous joy grated so harshly on his 
cynical ear, whose freedom was so perpetual a 
menace to his despotism. 

Philip was a manikin, not a man. He had a 
low instinct of cunning, and flattered himself that 
he could read men. He mistook deceit for sagacit}', 
and esteemed cruelt}' to be an imperial quality. He 
thought he had an aptitude for business, and was 
indefatigable in work. A passion for contemptible* 
details was his most prominent intellectual trait ; 
• Cited in Gayarre, p. 163, ei seq. f Grotius, Motley, Grattau. 



142 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

and his chief delight was to pen, despatch, receive, 
and scrawl silly comments on despatches, in which 
he was a glutton.* "He hated to converse; but he 
could write a letter eighteen pages long, when his 
correspondent was in the next room, and when the 
subject was, perhaps, one which a man of talent 
could have settled with six words of his tongue. 
The world, in his opinion, was to be moved upon 
protocols and apostiUcs. Events throughout his 
dominions had no right to be born without a pre- 
paratory course of his obstetrical pedantry ; and he 
could never learn that the earth would not rest on 
its axis while he wrote out a programme of the way 
in which it was to turn."t 

He was grossly licentious, as vv^ell as cruel and 
unscrupulous, yet he was as constant and regular at 
mass, at" sermons, at vespers, as a monk.:]: He prob- 
ably esteemed himself a model Christian, for it is 
Schiller who informs us that " egotism and fanati- 
cism were the title-page and contents of his life."§ 

Philip was the contented jackal of Rome. " My 
mission," said he, " is the suppression of heres3\"|| 
The man was worthy of the mission, and the mis- 
sion was worthy of the man. In the prosecution of 
this atrocious purpose, he embarked his diminutive 
soul, stuck at no oaths, balked at no barrier, scru- 
pled at no crimes ; for'had he not read and pondered 
that papal canon which sanctifies the means if the 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 142. Watson, Life of Thilip II. 

t Ibid. X Ibid., p. 145. Gayarre. § Schiller, p. .".92. 

II Gayarre, p. 30. Grattan, Vau Meteren, etc. 



AFFINITIES. 14B 

end be good? "Keep no faith with heretics" — it 
was the essence of his ethics ; there was merit in 
the breach, sin in the observance. 

Constitutionally and systematically Philip was 
the champion of immobility. Movement disturbed 
him. Progress of any kind smelt of heresy in his nos- 
trils, " No innovation," cried he, when reform was 
broached. "We cannot but fancy," observes his 
biographer, " that if Philip had been gifted with 
omnipotence, he would have delighted in creating a 
world without motion. Creeping things might per- 
haps have been tolerated, but the wind would cer- 
tainly have been excluded ; and he would have said 
to the ocean, ' Peace, be still.' "* 

Philip's person corresponded with his intellect — 
like that was narrow, angular, meagre, and awry. 
He had the air of an habitual invalid ; and his 
timid, shrinking frame was surmounted by a small 
head and a pinched face, weighed down by the 
heavy, protruding Burgundian jaw.f In this human 
cage his tiger spirit crouched and growled. 

Such in temper, mind, and body was Philip II. 
when, at the age of twenty-eight,:]: he entered the 
Netherlands to succeed the wornout .and gouty 
emperor. Other traits he had, which time was to 
develop, and some which we have sketched were 
still in embryo ; but if this was Philip in the green 
tree, what was to be expected of him in the dry? 

o Gayarre, p. 302. 

t Pont. Heut. 14, p. 346, et seq. Watson, Life ofTbilip II. 

J He was born in Maj', 1527. 



144 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Now we may be sure tliat an outbreak will not 
be long in coming. Philip piqued himself on being 
a foreigner — widened the chasm which already 
yawned between the Netherlands and himself; dis- 
missed his father's Dutch officers ; would be attend- 
ed by none but Spaniards, and brought in his reti- 
nue and cantoned on the Netherlanders a swarm of 
needy Castilian adventurers.* 

The unnatural union into which Spain and the 
Low Countries were now forced was pregnant with 
ill. No two people could be more dissimilar. Each 
misunderstood the other. 

There had always been ill-blood between the 
Spaniard and Netherlander; and now, when the 
burgher saw his old enemy quartered on his coun- 
try in the guise of a conqueror ; and under a mon- 
arch who took no pains to disguise his contempt 
for the time-honored customs and parchments which 
he so highly prized, the seeds of bitter discontent 
were sown in his heart prior to the commission of 
any overt act. This mutual jealousy was sharpened 
by the religious differences of the time. Spaniard 
and Bomanist were synonymous words. Just as 
synonymous were Netherlander and Protestant. 
While the Spaniard saw in the Dutchman a heretic 
in religion, a Jew in trade, and a rebel in politics, 
the Dutchman saw in the Sj^aniard a fanatic in 
faith, a slothful mendicant in business, and an igno- 
rant slave in civility.f 

o Meteren, Grotius, Motley, etc. 

t Grotii Annal. Belg. Latin., 1, 4, 5, et seq. 



AFFINITIES. 145 

This feeling extended to all classes in the Low 
Countries. Even the. nobles whom Charles V. had 
done so much to corrupt and impoverish, paused 
between their cujis to hiccough curses upon Spain ; 
while all whose chief demand, like the Eoman sav- 
ages under the empire, was for food and amuse- 
ment — panem et circenscs — echoed a deep amen. It 
was imperilled nationality rising to assert itself. 

The manner of Philip and the insolent presence 
of his Spanish satellites awakened thought. A 
strong republican reaction set in. Men began to 
question the jus divlmim of Madrid as they already 
had that of Eome. The absurdity of an hereditary 
monarchy which might lapse into absolutism at 
any moment, was almost as generally felt as that 
of the establishment w'liich the Keformation had 
exploded, and to which Fletcher of Saltoun com- 
pares it — an hereditary professorship of divinity. 

For the Reformation had created a people — 
taught men to think — educated men through re- 
sponsibility. The religious conflict had been let 
down to common comprehension; it was seen to 
be no quarrel in the upper air between angry and 
loquacious priests, each afraid to soil his latinity by 
a popular appeal. And when the reformers "awoke 
all antiquity from the sleep of the libraries," and 
moved to their work, not 

' ' to the Doriau mood 
Of flutes and soft recorders, '.' 

but with lips touched like Isaiah's, they planted — 
without intending to do so, for their sole purpos-^ 



146 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

was religious reformation — they planted the rude 
idea of political democracy, and left it to unfold 
through Christian martyrdom and faith in God. 

But all this was latent — in the minds, not yet 
in the acts of the people. The burghers still 
stood intrenched behind their parchment guaran- 
ties, and fought inside of constitutional forms. 
Hoping against hope, they applied a rule to Philip 
which Coleridge has put into an epigram : " "When 
you cannot understand another's ignorance, account 
yourself ignorant of his understanding." But the 
rules of construction have their limits, and patience, 
5" entertained too long, becomes a vice. 



SCHEMES. 147 

CHAPTER IX. 

SCHEMES. 

When Philip II. placed- his father's discarded 
crown upon his head, he grasped with it the sceptre 
of a limited monarch ; for already the prerogative 
of the throne had gained a visible ascendency over 
the republican spirit.* Still, many of the ancient 
franchises remained in nominal force, and these had 
acqiiired fresh importance, in the estimation of the 
provinces, by the wholesale oaths of office which 
the new king had not scrupled to take. 

Seven years before the abdication, Philip had 
visited the Netherlands at the request of Charles; 
coming to receive their oaths of future fealty, and 
to swear in return to support the whole round of 
privileges which hedged in the sturdy burghers — 
indiscriminate concessions which king and emperor 
alike believed would be an opiate certain to make 
vigilance slumber, and which, as each knew, need 
not shackle an unscrupulous conscience.! By these 
oaths Philip assented to larger liberties than any 
of his ancestors had yielded since Mary of Bur- 
gundy signed the "Great Privilege "t. — assented all 
the more readily because he did not mean to hold 
himself bound by his amen. 

-'-■ Scliiller, p. 389. f Meteren, Davies, Motley. 

t Chap. Ill,, pp. 76, 77. 



148 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Thus it was tliat the wily monarch be^au his 
connection with the Low Countries, not as emperor, 
not as king, but as hereditary prince. This was the 
theory, the fact had a different face. 

Philip and the burghers had hated each other 
at first sight — one reason why the citizens had 
bound their prince with so many and so unusual 
green withes of concession. For, this haught}', sul- 
len, retiring, impassible foreigner, what confidence 
could he inspire in the hearts of one of the most 
lively, frank', energetic, and progressive of the Euro- 
pean races? Vainly had they striven to make him 
smile by the warmth of their greeting. Brussels 
exhausted itself in festivities, Antwerp outdid itself 
in the magnificence of its celebrations,Ghent shouted 
itself hoarse in his honor ; and yet the icy phlegm 
of Philip remained unthawed. The joyous roar of 
the populace grated on his ear, the frequent expres- 
sion of popular rights he esteemed the voice of 
incipient rebellion, the magnificence of the display 
offended his jealous vanity.* 

" Well, then," said the angered citizen, " if we can- 
not make this frigid senor smile at our greeting, we 
will see if we cannot make him wince by our de- 
mands." The good burghers were doubly piqued, 
for Philip subscribed concessions as imperturbably 
as he received addresses of welcome. 

This was in 1548.t Now, in 1555, Philip was 
again on Netherland soil, this time not as heir but 

* Wageiifer, Vavderlanclsche Historie, vol. 4, p. 294, et seq. 
Meteren, 1, f. 13. Motley, vol. 1. Grattaji,. p. 81. f Ibi'l- 



SCHEMES. 149 

as master. Both prince and citizens remembered 
the former visit — both anticipated trouble. But 
there was quiet in the land, that frightful calm 
which precedes a storm. Philip began to dissem- 
ble ; it was not safe yet to throw off the mask. As 
for the Dutch, they put their fingers to the lips of 
their foreboding suspicions, and waited. 

Meantime the government was settled. The old 
governant, Mary of Hungary, had resigned her office 
on the abdication of the emperor, alleging that she 
was " too old to recommence and learn a new 
alphabet" under another reign. ■^' Philip reluctantly 
assented to her resignation,! and, convening an 
assembly of the state, inducted into the governor- 
generalship of the Netherlands his cousin Emanuel 
Philibert, duke of Savoy — a brilliant and astute ad- 
venturer, who had been spoiled of his estates, and 
stripped of every thing but his title and his skill by 
French usurpation.:]: 

The court — a herd of Spanish grandees, with 
liere and there a Netherland noble for appearance' 
;iake§ — had been organized prior to the appoint- 
ment of the pauper duke. At arbout the same time 
Philip seated half a dozen Spaniards at his council- 
boardll — among the rest the duke of Alva, destined 
later to play an awful part in the opening drama of 
the revolution ; and JXny Gomez, the royal favorite, 

<^ Papiers d'etat du Cardinal Granville, vol. 4, p. 47G. 
J Gii^hard. 

J Brantomc vol. 1. Badavaro, MS., cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 
1.30, d seq. § Badavaro, ut aiilea. 

II Apolog. d'Orange, p. -17, el seq. 



150 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

valet, councillor, and finance minister, the king's 
right hand, the gate to his good-will, the power 
behind the throne.* 

These preliminaries settled, Philip, with the 
mingled craft and caution of his nature, began to 
smooth the way towards the accomplishment of his 
lifework. It was the nature of this man to plot in 
secret, to stab in the dark, to act in enigmas. He 
would have been a midnight conspirator, if he had 
not been a despot. He never went straight towards 
an object — always chose the crooked path, and 
would naturally tell a lie unless he had a dozen dif- 
ferent and distinct reasons for speaking the truth. 

So now, resting with one hand on Alva's shoul- 
der, and with the other upon that of Buy Gomez, 
" the pillars of his j)0wer," as the shrewd Venetian 
envoy, Suriano, called them,t he did not command, 
he schemed. Philip was anxious to cement his 
authority before he strained it. Yet, like his father, 
he desired to regard the Netherlands as a whole, 
and not as a congeries of provinces, and he hated 
the antique liberties, the obstinate privileges, which 
interfered with his kleas of symmetry; and he, too, 
like the emperor, looked about him for some engine 
which should crush these irregular, heterogeneous 
rights into the uniformity of despotism. | 

Philip's first move was adroit. He reen acted his 
father's merciless edict of 1550, which made burning, 

«-• Brantome, Art. Philip II. Gayarre. * 

f Suriano, MS., cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 117. 
X Motley, vol. 1, p. 155. 



SCHEMES. 151 

hanging, drowning, and burial alive the punishment 
which awaited even a suspicion of heresy f and then, 
skulking behind the emperor's ghost, he cried, "I do 
not innovate, I simply reenact. These punishments 
are a part of the national institutions which I find, do 
not bring, here. They have received Caesar's sanc- 
tion, and have been sustained by past generations."t 

But though the act was subtle, though innumer- 
able aj)peals were made to the conservative senti- 
ment, and to the patriotism of the commons ; though 
they w^ere summoned to enforce the edict because 
it had been acquiesced in by their ancestors, and 
because Philip had made no change in it, but only 
essayed to stand in the old ways of the emperor, 
"of very laudable memory;" yet, spite of all, the 
people growled ominously. Antwerj) refused to jjub- 
lish the placard iX other cities echoed this veto of 
the commercial metropolis ;§ and these protests 
drove Philip to recede in their case, though in 
sections where the placards had been published it 
was ordered to be enforced — a strange anomaly, to 
subject some towns to the Inquisition and to ex- 
cuse others ; yet advantageous, because it made the 
resistance of Antwerp and the rest all the more 
conspicuous.il 

In the meanwhile the fire of persecution wanted 
no human fuel to feed on. At Mons, in Hainault, 
two* men, suspected of heresy because they were 
diligent in their study of the Bible, were first im- 

* See Chap. VI. , pp. 12G-128. f Motley, id antea. Metereii. 
t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 110. § Ibid. H Ibid. 



152 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

prisoned, and then, without any very close scrutiny 
into their notions of religion, condemned to be 
beheaded. One Adrian Van Lappen, a citizen of 
Bruges, returning from a fair at Frankfort, halted 
for the night at Aste, in Hainault, and gave his 
satchel to the landlady of the inn : she being curi- 
ous, opened it in his absence, and found it to be 
filled with heretical books. Some of these she 
showed to the village priest ; the hapless merchant 
was at once arrested, and after a brief space, burned 
to death in a slow fire.* 

These are two instances out of hundreds. Phihp 
would have kindled similar fires throughout the 
Low Countries had it not been for the protest of 
brave Antwerp ; which he heeded, because he was 
anxious to disarm suspicion, and bj^ securing a sub- 
sidy, emancipate himself from the control of the 
popular deputies.t He had already demanded of 
the assembly which met to confirm Emanuel PhiH- 
bert, that a tax be imj)Osed on Flanders, Brabant, 
Holland, and the sister provinces, which should fill 
his exchequer Avithout the intervention of the states. 
" No," said the provinces ; but they softened the 
refusal by granting Philip a generous commutation 
in gold.:!: 

In the midst of these intrigues, when partially 
balked in one direction and partially successful in 
another, Philip found himself suddenly comi)eHed 
to suspend this congenial campaign of trickery and 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 108. i Meteren, Wageuacr, Grattan. 

J Ibid. Davies, vol. 1, p. 490, ei seq. 



SCHEMES. 153 

murder, in order to defend himself against exterior 
assault : France menaced bim on one side, the popo 
thundered on the other. The jackal of Rome had 
been forced into the false position of foeman to the 
Holy See. 

This was how it happened. The emperor's half 
centur}^ of life had been an incessant battle. Now he 
smote Francis I. ; now he caged a Protestant prince ; 
now he buffeted the pope ; now he pulled the beard 
of the paynim Solyman. But he was a lover of 
dramatic effect ; and when he decided upon abdica- 
tion he was anxious to improvise a peace, that a 
serene sky might lend lustre to the pageant. He 
began to intrigue. "Hush," said Caesar; and he 
juggled up a truce, hollow, treacherous, made to be 
broken, but sohd enough to bridge over the period 
of the imperial comedy. 

A farce of a pacification was signed at Vaucelles 
early in 1556.* It was ostensibly an armistice for 
five years, and suspended hostilities throughout 
Europe. "Ah ha," cried Charles. " 'Tis well," said 
Philip. " Good," exclaimed Henry. Complacent 
diplomacy rubbed its hands. " The science of gov- 
ernment is fraud," says Machiavelli; and while the 
negotiators were assembled at Vaucelles, Henry II. 
and the pope had concluded an offensive and defen- 
sive alliance against Spain, whose object was the 
expulsion of the Spaniards from the Italian penin- 
sula.i- Henry was to aid the pontiff to emancipate 

* Mcteren, De Tliou, Br;iiitomc. 
f Brantoinc, Memoircs do Colignj'. 
7* 



154 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

himself from neiglibors whose influence reduced him 
to the position of head chapLain to the court of 
Madrid; and as a reward he was to be permitted 
" to carve thrones for his royal brood out of the 
confiscated realms of Philip^ — out of Naples and 
Milan. "When was France ever slow to sweep upon 
Italy with such a hope ? How could the ever-glow- 
ing rivalry of Valois and Hapsburg fail to burst into 
a general conflagration, while the venerable vicege- 
rent of Christ stood beside them fan in hand?"* 

The reigning pope, Paul IV., was the Faust of 
ecclesiasticism, the antithesis of Charles, While the 
emperor laid down a crown to become a monk, Paul 
Caraffa quitted his convent cell — whither he had 
betaken himself after abdicating the episcopal dig- 
nity — to assume at eighty the tiara, and then im- 
merse himself in the vanities of earth, to stir up wars 
Avith his trembling fingers, to croak havoc with his 
aged voice, and to strut and totter in the purple in 
his second childhood. t Such was the game which 
v.-as now afoot, and such was the pontiff who had 
launched it. 

With a heavy sigh and a muttered curse, Phihp 
postponed his Netherland schemes, and turned to 
the consideration of foreign affairs. He hated war— 
for he was not a soldier, he was only an assassin. 
He preferred autos da fe to battle-fields ; the pleas- 
ure was greater, and the risk was less. Besides, he 
felt the anomaly of his position — he, the Pvomanist, 
the fanatic, the antagonist of the pope. It was his 

<* Motley, vol. 1, p. 153, et seq. \ lianke. Brandt. 



SCHEMES. 155 

dream to consolidate a league of the papal powers, 
for the purpose of uprooting heresy. Evidently, 
then, this absurd crusade of mutual friends against 
each other must be ended ; and how end it more 
fitly than by union against Protestantism, the com- 
mon foe? To the consummation of that purpose, 
the royal plotter determined to demand every 
thing, or to sacrifice every thing, as circumstances 
might dictate; for whatever he might win, or what- 
ever he might lose, all Avas gained if that was 
gained.* 

Meantime this sluggish prince acted for once 
with strange energy, the vicious activity of his mind 
conquered even the stubborn slowness of his body. 
Convening a council of theologians, he asked, " Is 
it lawful for me to wage war against the Holy See ?" 
" Yea, truly," responded the chorus, " so it be only 
in defence."! 

With this decision in his pocket, Philip crossed 
into England to cajole Queen Mary, his wife — fit 
consort for such a king — and to browbeat the Brit- 
ish parliament, exactly contrary to his marriage 
vows, into a participation in the ponding contest — 
which concerned England just as much as it did 
the Arabs.:]: He succeeded. England declared war ; 
and while arming, dropped from her girdle Calais, 
the key to France.! 

* Watson, Life of Philip 11. Apolog. d'Orange. 
I Michele, Relatione, MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 163. 
Gayane. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. Ifi9. 

§ De Thou, Brantome, Hume, in loco. 



15() THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

While the king was thus occupied, Ruy Gomez, 
absent in Spain, had raised a contingent and sent it 
to the seat of war ;* and Philip, on his return from 
England, wrung the money which paid for this 
strife, and two thirds of the soldiers who won barren 
laurels in it, from the Netherlands. Then followed 
siege and counter-siege, marching and counter- 
marching, melde, and rout, and death. Finally, 
Guise, who had passed the Alps into Piedmont, was 
worsted by Alva, who held Italy for Philip ; Coligny, 
who had been ravaging Artois, was cooped up in 
the fatal city of St. Quentin ; and France heard one 
day that her power had been broken in two awful 
routs, at St. Quentin and at Gravelines, and that her 
noblest children were either dead or prisoners — a 
double Pavia ;t while Pope Paul IV., also in ex- 
tremity, craved peace for his old age. 

Philip, elate and triumphant, then exhibited his 
true character. " I crave peace at any price," said 
he:t^ — why, we know. He granted the baffled occu- 
pant of St. Peter's chair terms which astonished no 
one more than Paul himself ; ordered the victorious 
Alva to make an abject submission for him to the 
pope, and to kiss the great toe of his holiness ; and 
crowned this pitiful surrender to the vanity of a 
peevish old dotard by a congenial act of perfidy — 
for he confirmed his grumbling captain's consent 
to the confiscation of the estates of those Italian 

* DoCTimentos lueditos para la Hist, de Espana, vol. 9, p. 487. 

f BrautOme, De Thoii, Motley. 

t Watsou, Life of Pliilip II. Gayarre, p. 10. 



SCHEMES. 157 

princes who had espoused his cause." " Sire," que- 
ried Alva, "Do we capitulate, or does the pope?" 

Having thus placated the beaten pontiff by 
treating with him as the conqueror, Philip next 
cemented peace with France. In this treaty ho 
compelled Henry II. to concede important advan- 
tages,! but he did not ask all that he might, because 
he gained all that he wished when he was assured 
that Henry would cordially unite with him in any 
scheme which looked to the extirpation of here- 
sy, | The gloomy and victorious bigot was now at 
leisure to resume his interrupted game in the Neth- 
erlands — to resume it with fresh advantage, forti- 
fied on the right hand and on the left. 

So bright was the out-look for despotism — so 
portentous were the prospects of reform — when, in 
April, 1559,§ the facile diplomats scrawled their 
signatures across the treaty of Chateau-Cambray. 

■-' Grattan, p. 82, et seq. Gayarre, Motley, 
f Meteren, Grotius, De Thou. 

t Apolog. cT'Orauge. De Thoii, lib. 22, cap. G. Davics, vol. 
1, p. 497. 

§ De Thou, Meteren. 



158 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTEK X. 

THE MASK LIFTED. 

The pacification of Cliateaii-Cambra}^ placed in 
Philip's hand the haton of the dictator of Christen- 
dom — recognized in him a dreaded superiority 
■which menaced the independence of Europe. His 
wealth seemed inexhaustible ; deep as the unfath- 
omed gold mines of Peru and Mexico, which formed 
his coffers in the West, untold as the glittering dia- 
mond heaps of Borneo and Golconda, which formed 
his dowry in the Orient. His captains were the 
ablest of the age. His soldiers were veterans har- 
dened by war, accustomed to victory, habituated to 
obey the daring genius of their leaders with blind, 
unquestioning audacity — soldiers Avhose tread, like 
that of Csesar's cohorts, shook Europe ; soldiers who 
had scaled the pyramids, and i)lanted the Spanish 
banners on the walls of Eome. Had he been Alex- 
ander, he would have ground the world under the 
heel of his military boot. Had he been Caesar, ho 
would have carved out an empire whose limits 
would have been the globe. But he was Philip 11. , 
and it was his ambition to become the assassin of 
Netherland reform. This was the pivotal point of 
his policy ; upon it he brought all his terrible 
resources to bear. " I will succeed, or I will sink 
Europe," said he. Philip was narrow, dogmatic, 
fanatical ; but ho had a purpose, and he was in 



THE MASK LIFTED. 159 

deadly earnest — the chief promoters of success in 
any sphere. But cunning and powerful as he was, 
this bold, bad man had one antagonist on whom he 
did not count, God ; God, whose name is love, and 
whose other name is justice, which was before 
Philip, before Eome, and will be after it. 

Still, Philip entered the arena with all the ma- 
terial forces on his side. 

Peace is the essential condition of successful 
commerce, and the Netherlanders craved it. When 
they heard that a pacification had been signed, the 
jocund, excitable burghers were wild with delight. 
The holiday was nine days long. Bonfires blazed, 
bells pealed, cannon belched pacific flame. But 
thoughtful men looked on the jubilee with gloomy 
faces and foreboding hearts — what meant the con- 
ditions of the peace ? Humor had already bruited 
the alliance of crowned heads for the extirpation of 
heresy.* Across keen souls there fell the chilling 
shadow of the future. 

Suspicion might well awaken thought. " Philip 
had not inade peace with all the world that the 
Netherlanders might climb on poles, or ring bells, 
or strew flowers in his path for a joyous movement, 
and then return once more to their counting-rooms 
and looms." This treaty meant deadlier war, war 
bitter for its peaceful garb ; and when the unthink- 
ing populace rose to hail it, they shouted over the 
initial step in a scheme which Philip mesnt to end 
in a national murder. 

* Davies, vol. ], p. 497. Thuanus, Mete. on. 



160 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

The king had long pined for the congenial atmo- 
sphere of Madrid;- in 1559 he determined to quit 
the Netherlands and return to Spain. He had a 
twofold motive : he thought that it would be safer 
for him to direct the movements of his satellites at 
a distance and by impersonality; he dearly loved to 
write voluminous despatches.t Evidently, Madrid 
was preferable to Brussels, 

Possibly, two additional considerations may 
have influenced this decision. Charles V. had just 
breathed his last, bewailing his impious folly in 
permitting Luther to slip through his fingers at 
Worms.:]: and employing the last fevered spasms of 
his strength in writing these lines to his son, whose 
eager spirit did not need a spur : " Deal to all 
heretics the extremest rigor of the law, without 
respect of persons, and without regard to any favor- 
ing pleas."§ Philip could now return to Spain more 
really a king than he would have been while Caesar 
lived, even though weakened and fanaticized by a 
rot of his faculties, and buried in a monastery. 

The battle of St. Quentiu, one of the most deci- 
sive of the recent war, had been fought and won on 
the festival of St. Laurence, to whose intervention 
Philip attributed the success of his arms. In grate- 
ful homage to the saint, and to commemorate the 
manner of his martyrdom, he vowed to erect a mon- 
ument in the form of a gridiron, as a memorial — an 
idea which gradually expanded, in thirty-two years 

* Watson, Gayarre. t Ibid., Brantome. 

t Stirling. Cloister Life of Charles V. § Ibid. 



THE MASK LIFTED. 101 

of incessant labor, into that gigantic architectural 
absurdity, the Escurial, at once a palace, monas- 
tery, and mausoleum.- Philip's anxiety to return to 
Spain may have been heightened by his pious ardor, 
for, soon after, he laid the foundation-stone of the 
marble anachronism. 

But many things remained to be done before he 
could shake the Netherland dust from off his feet. 
" Let me see," thought the king : " some grave 
matters await adjustment ; delicate and menacing 
questions must be answered ; a programme for the 
future will have to be written out ; the instruments 
of my despotism must be selected, and so selected 
as not to provoke suspicion ; and the government 
must be deputized and new modelled." To these 
several duties Philip at once addressed himself. It 
was work to his taste ; for, as the petrel loves the 
storm, so his element was chicanery. 

The Netherlands were ominously restless and 
fretful. Illegal robbery, under the name of taxa- 
tion, fettered trade, and mortgaged the labor of the 
future.t A bureau of ubiquitous spies made all 
classes anxious and uneasy by their surveillance.:]: 
The merciless execution of the merciless edicts 
against heresy, stirred constant riot§ and insured 
rebellion; for what is it that the old saw says? 
"Persecution necessitates revolt." The most potent 
and eloquent of reformers was the Inquisition ; for 
every auto dafe that it kindled illuminated a score of 

« Watson, Gayarre. t Meteren, Wagenajr. 

X Watson, Hoofd. § Hoofd, Meteren. 



162 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

darkened souls. The early victims begat the later 
soldiers of the Eeformation. The gospel throve 
even amid devastation ; and when a martyr died, 
the multitude saw liberty and virtue burning by his 
side. 

Philip had taken care, on the conclusion of 
peace, to canton his Spanish men-at-arms on the 
large cities of the Netherlands, for the double pur- 
pose of overawing local mutiny and having them at 
hand in case of need.* At the same time he split 
the renowned Low Country cavahy — but three 
thousand strong in time of peace, for the Nether- 
lands had a sturdy republican distrust of standing- 
armies, though still redoubtable to the fears of despo- 
tism — into infinitesimal squads, and scattered these 
in different sections under independent captains.! 

These sinister movements increased the popular 
discontent, and were universally construed to be a 
menace to the nationality of the i:)rovinces.:j: The 
conduct of the foreign soldiery added fuel to the 
fire. Their ribaldry and lic'entiousness were pro- 
verbial ; and since their pay was kept habitually in 
arrears by Philip that he might have a pretext for 
their retention, they did not hesitate to indemnify 
themselves at the expense of the citizens.§ 

A trial of wits ensued. The burghers exhausted 
persviasion in their effort to win Philip's assent to 
the departure of his troops ; the king was fertile in 

'-• Grattau, Schiller, Motley, Wageuper. 

f Grattan, p. 85. Motley, yoI. 1, p. 210, et seq. 

t Van der Vynckt, vol. 1, p. 135. § Scliiller, p. 400. 



THE MASK LIFTED. 163 

excuses — now lie dreaded a sudden invasion from 
France, althougli that kingdom, rent by the League 
and Huguenot wars, was too weak to send a trooper 
across lier frontiers ; now lie said that they were to 
form the escort of his son, Don Carlos, whom ho 
was careful to retain in Castile ; again they were his 
■creditors, and since the exchequer was empty, "quite 
exhausted, gentlemen, I assure you," he dared not 
bid them go unpaid lest they should mutiny — such 
were the exj)edients to which he had recourse.* 
These men-at-arms were a part of Philip's pro- 
gramme of usurpation, and necessary to his pur- 
pose ; he never meant to say good-by to them. 
Despots love bayonets. Cannon were the props of 
this king's throne. 

But the greater the desire which Philip showed 
to retain his docile Spaniards in the country, the 
more obstinately the states insisted upon their 
removal : t on that point all classes were a unit. 
The spirit showed itself in various ways — especially 
in the " Cliambers of Khctoric." The rhetoricians 
were the newspapers of that day^filled the exact 
place occupied by the modern press, and used their 
influence better than some editors use theirs in the 
middle of the nineteenth century. They \vere emi- 
nently liberal in their tendencies, and they made it 
their business to spin verses and street farces out of 
the raw material of public sentiment.^ Civil and 
religious tyranny was their constant butt ; and 
"sharing with the pulpit the only power which then 

« Scliillcr, p. 401. t I^i<i- t Motley, vol. 1, p. 3i0. 



164 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

existed capable of moving the passions and direct- • 
ing the opinions of the people," they used their 
influence nobly. The best of their comedians was 
not even cousin-german to Aristophanes; but if 
they had less attic salt, they had equal heartiness 
in their truculent, effective, homely Satire, and they 
made " tlie galled horse wince." 

The court had long suspected and watched these 
homely wits ; and now, when they began to satirize 
the king's men-at-arms, the bishop of Arras urged 
that they be gagged under heavy pains, and-a pla- 
card to that effect was issued early in 1559.* " At 
this time," wrote Sir Eichard Clougli to a friend in 
England some years later, " these plays are forbid- 
den much more strictly than any of the works of 
Martin Lutlier."t But it is easier to ban than to 
suppress. Public opinion cannot be gagged by 
statutes. So new comedies were still written and 
enacted — "plajs which first opened the word of 
God in the Low Countries, and which, as they were 
persisted in, cost many thousand lives.";|: 

At this same time, Philip, always anxious to 
enlarge the boundaries of the ecclesiastical realm, 
solicited from the pontiff' permission to erect four- 
teen new bishoprics in the Netherlands — sending 
the request to Eome on the two feet of a double 
reason: the insufficiency of the existing seas to sup- 
ply the spiritual wants of an increasing "population; 
and their weakness, imenlarged, as a barrier against 

" Burgon, Life and Times, vol. 1, p. 377, et seq. 

f Burgon, ut anka. X Il^it^l- 



THE MASK LIFTED. 105 

heresy.* Tlie octogenarian pope, willing to pleas- 
ure a prince whose victorious viceroy bad kissed 
Ills toe, and eager to smite reform, readily granted 
a bull decreeing the innovation.f 

Perhaps this manoeuvre was the most generally 
odious of Philip's acts thus far; the Netherland 
churchmen were incensed because the revenues of 
the new sees were to be created by alienating a 
portion of the funds of the existing bishoprics and 
abbeys — against which their fat pockets vehement- 
ly protested;:!: the nobles were angered because the 
prelates thus created were certain to be the subser- 
vient tools of the Spanish interest, eclipsing them 
by superior power and dignity ;§ the people, largely 
converted to a purer faith, and detesting the very 
name of priest, were convinced by their keen in- 
stincts, and rightly convinced, spite of the king's 
declaration that the project was a century old, be- 
queathed from father to son and neglected till now, 
but now enforced by the emperor's dying admoni- 
tions,ll that the " sole purpose for which the new 
bishops were instituted was to increase the efficien- 
cy of the Inquisition — a conviction substantiated 
by the fact that each prelate was empowered to 
appoint nine prebendaries in his cathedral to assist 
the accents of that abhorrent tribunal, while two of 
their own number were themselves inquisitors. "IT 

But the conflicting excuses from day to day put 

* Strada, p. 17. Mirrei Dip., torn. 3, p. 523. 

t rijit^- Davies, vol. 1, p. 497. Grattan. t Ibid. § Ibid. 

II Strada, p. 17. Davios, vol. 1, p. 498. II Ibid. 



166 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

forth for the retention of the Spanish troops, the 
placard against the comedians, the erection of the 
new sees, and the sullen temper of the provinces, 
did not disturb the icy serenity of Philip, nor make 
him hesitate; they only quickened his movements 
and pushed forward the reorganization of the gov- 
ernment — necessitated by his approaching depart- 
ure, and by Emanuel Philibert's resignation of the 
governor-generalship of the states, in consequence 
of the restoration to him by France of his long-lost 
duchy of Savoy, in compliance with a clause of the 
treaty of Chateau-Cambray." 

It was necessary to refill the deserted office at 
an early day, since Philip grew hourly more impa- 
tient to quit Brussels. "Who should succeed the re- 
cusant duke? The court was perturbed, the citizens 
were anxious. The merits of those most likely to 
succeed Philibert were ardently canvassed. In this 
talk of the drawing-rooms and the sidewalk, three 
names were especially prominent — the duchess of 
Lorraine, Count Egmont, and the prince of»Orange.+ 
Who were they ? 

* De Thou, Bran tome. 

t Meteren, Strada, Wagenaer. 



EGMONT AND ORANGE. 167 

CHAPTER XI. 

EGMONT AND OEANGE. 

One of tlie three personages who seemed most 
certain to succeed PhiHbert in the Netherland 
regency, was Christierne, duchess of Lorraine, Cae- 
sar's niece, and cousin-german to the king. A 
woman of rare political talent, she had been fore- 
most in negotiating the recent treaty of peace ; and 
this circumstance, added to her high rank and per- 
sonal fitness, gave her claim no small authority.* 

The suit of Lamoral, Count Egmont, prince of 
Gavere, was pressed by his own great achievements 
and by the popular voice. He Avas the most dash- 
ing and brilliant captain of his age ; worthy to have 
filled the vacant seat among the Round Table 
knights. It was to him that Philip was indebted 
for the crushing victories of St. Quentin and Grave- 
lines,! and the wars of the emperor had been the 
school of his genius. Though his brow was crown- 
less, he could boast of as lofty a lineage as most 
anointed kings; for he traced his origin up to the 
Frisian Radbold, while many illustrious marriages 
had allied him to scores of the first European fami- 
lies, and centred in him some of the proudest titles 
and some of the richest estates of the Low Coun- 
tries.t "Flemish pride, like a fond mother, exulted 

« Strada, p. 19. Meteren. t Ibid., Brantome. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 171. 



168 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

over this illustrious son, who had filled Christen- 
dom with admiration. His appearance on the street 
was a triumphal procession; every eye which Avas 
fastened upon him recounted his exploits ; his deeds 
lived in the plaudits of his companions-in-arms ; at 
the games of chivalry mothers pointed him out to 
their children as a model."* 

Egmont was at this time thirty-eight years oldf — 
in the noon of a life as yet sunny and unclouded. 
Happy and prosperous himself, he was inclined to 
underrate the dangers which menaced his country. 
Indeed, his temper led him to see every thing couleur 
de rose; for, light and buoyant, the cares which 
ploughed his heart at one moment, only insured 
a harvest of fresh hopes at the next. 

The truth is, that he was volatile and vain — vain 
of his handsome person, of his magnificent cos- 
tume, of his dark lovelocks, of his soft brown eye, 
of his smooth cheek, of his features, almost femi- 
ninely delicate, but emboldened by a slight mus- 
tache ;X "^i^ii^ of l^is fame and of his popularity.§ 
For, though a Dutchman, Egmont resembled the 
fickle "Walloons of the southern provinces, and fatally 
lacked the firmness of character, the tenacity of 
purpose which have placed the Saxon race in the 
van of modern civilization. He was easily cozened 
and easily led, and open to a fault. Carrying his 
unsuspecting soul on his brow, "his frankheart- 
edness managed his secrets no better than his 

« Schiller, p. 401. f He was born in lo22. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 100. § Brantonie, Schiller, Davie.s. 



EGMONT AND OEANGE. 1G9 

lavish benevolence did liis immense estate, and a 
tliouglit was no sooner Lis than it was the propertj'- 
of all" — a dangerous trait in that age, and one 
unfitting him for diplomacy, which Machiavelli and 
the Medicis had reduced to a science of fraud. 

Egmont had a conscience, but was without fixed 
principles. His religion was of the mildest Roman 
type, and not enlightened, because it derived its 
light from a code which he had learned by rote, not 
from the heart and the intellect.* In a word, though 
fascinating and pure-minded, he was a mere sol- 
dier ; beyond that, he was a childish bungler — a 
human pipe played on by cunning fingers. He often 
fettered his patriotism by lower duties ; was as timid 
in council as brave in the field; and was sure to 
bend when he should stand firm, and to stand firm 
when he should have bent. Thus he was at one time 
the puppet, at another the victim, of Spanish perfid3^ 

The prince of Orange was another of these can- 
didates. From this moment Orange becomes the 
pivotal man of the Netherland drama — the brain 
and the right hand of the revolution ; it is fit, there- 
fore, for us to pause and make, his acquaintance. 

William of Nassau, prince of Orange, was born, 
at the castle of Dillembergh, in the German county 
of Nassau, on the 25th of April, 1533.1- God granted 
him to be the heir of a glorious past as well as the 
inaugurator and liberator of a grander future ; for 

« Scbilleif p. 409. 

t Lives of the Princes of the House of Oratigc, p. 2. Loadon, 
1734. 

1)111. 'ii rii-r. Q 



170 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

he, too, like Egmont, was the representative of an 
august and ancient family, able to boast, with the 
Venetian oligarchy, that it stood upon the basis of 
a thousand years, yet whose age had been from 
time to time reinvigorated by puissant alliances, 
until now its head was as wealthy and as influential 
as most kings.* 

For many generations the house of Nassau was 
divided — a kind of double unit. One branch re- 
mained in Germany — tarried to wear the purple in 
the person of Adolph of Nassau, and to give, besides, 
countless captains, bishops, and electors to the Fa- 
therland. The other branch, though retaining the 
sovereignty of the modest birthplace of their house, 
Nassau, emigrated to the Netherlands and at once 
attained influence and authority.t Just previous 
to the birth of the liberator, two brothers held the 
entire estates, Count Henry inheriting the Low 
Country properties, Count "WilHam succeeding to 
the German sovereignties.:]: It was Count Henrj' 
to whom Charles V. was indebted for his empire — 
he who cheated Francis I. out of the crown — he 
who placed that royal bauble on the head of Cc^esar 
at Aix-la-Chapelle :§ spite of which, Francis, with 
singular generosity, married him to Claude de Cha- 
lons, whose dowry was the sovereignty of Chalons. 
From this union sprang Rene of Nassau, who, later, 

«' Lives of the Princes of the House of Orange, p. 2. Loudon, 
1734. Ai'chives de la Maison d'Orange. Nassau, t(jm. 1. 
t Motley, voh 1, p. 235. 
J Lives of the Princes, etc. Archives, etc. § Ibid. 



EGMONT AND ORANGE. 171 

acquired the little principalit}' of Orange, in France, 
as heir to his mother's brother Philibert of Chalons, 
prince of Orange, who died childless.* Meantime, 
Count William also had married a noble lady, Juli- 
ana of Stalberg ; and this couple, too, had a son — 
the first of a numerous progeny — whom they named 
William, and whose earliest breath was drawn in 
the ancient cradle of his race.t 

Years sped, and little William was in his elev- 
enth year, when news reached Dillembergh that 
Prince Ilend had been killed at the emperor's feet 
in the trenches before St. Dizier, leaving to his 
cousin the whole magnificent inheritance of Nassau, 
Chalons, and Orange — a retinue of principalities 
stretching from Germany through Holland, Flan- 
ders, Brabant, and Luxemburgh, to the old king- 
dom of the popes.l So much for the genealogy of 
the Nassaus ; let genealogists look closer if they will, 
we know enough for the purpose of these pages. 

Of course, this accidental union in his person of 
the immense possessions of his house, broadened 
and elevated the young prince's destinj^ " Yes, 
yes," muttered Charles, " this brave little monsei- 
gneur must be looked to ; I '11 have him here at 
court." This purpose was strengthened by the 
fact that William's parents were Lutherans, and had 
been among the first to embrace, and the most ac- 
tive to propagate, the principles of the Ileformation.§ 

•'' Archives, etc., id aniea. t Ibid. 

X Ibid. VandervjTickt, Troubles des Pays Bas, torn. 1. 
§ Ibid. Robertson, Hist, of Cliarles Y, 



172 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Thus far the boy had been educated in the gospel 
faith.* The emperor saw this with alarm ; and one 
of the chief objects of his proposed removal of the 
prince was to run him, like ductile metal, in the 
mould of Latin orthodoxy.f 

William was brought to Brussels at the age of 
twelve, and placed in the family of Queen Mary of 
Hungary, then governant of the Netherlands, where 
he was bred in the Koman tenets.:]: He became 
and remained through his early manhood, a nomi- 
nal papist ; but the prayerful letters of his pious 
mother, and the good seed sown in his boyish heart 
in the old Dillembergh castle, flowered at last in 
ardent Protestantism, as we shall see. 

At fifteen, the prince was transferred into the 
imperial household, and passed under Caesar's eye 
as his special page.§ Charles prided himself on his 
ability to read and use men, and his discernment in 
this case proved that he possessed that crucial test 
of greatness ; for he at once recognized the extraor- 
dinary character of his 3'outhful attendant, and 
made him his intimate, confidential friend. 11 Here 
William resided for nine years ; here he was initia- 
ted into the tortuous politics of his epoch ; here he 
studied history with attention, and learned to speak 
and write Latin, French, German, Dutch, and Span- 
ish with equal facility and elegance.l 

But chiefly the thoughtful boy studied men ; Lc 

* Eobertsou, Hist, of Charles V. Lives of the Princes of the 
House of Orange. . f Ibid. , p. 7. 

X Ibid. Prescott, Schiller, etc. § Ibid. || Ibid. If Ibid. 



EGMONT AND OEANGE. 173 

monde est un livre — the world is a book; aud this 
volume he mastered thoroughly. lu the earliest 
months of his residence at court, Charles was accus- 
tomed to retain him at his side even in interviews 
with the highest diplomats, and on the gravest ques- 
tions.* The secrets of the empire were intrusted 
to his discretion ; and Caesar once declared that 
William had often furnished him counsel, and ex- 
temporized for him expedients of which otherwise 
he had never thought.f In such a school " the 
perceptive and reflective faculties of the future 
statesman, naturally of remarkable keenness and 
depth, acquired a precocious aud extraordinary 
development. He was brought up behind the cur- 
tain — in the green-room of that great stage where 
the world's dramas were daily enacted ; therefore 
the machinery and masks which produced the grand 
delusions of history had no deception for him. 
Carefully to observe men's actions, and silently to 
ponder their motives — this was the favorite occupa- 
tion of the prince during his apprenticeship at 
court.":}: 

Charles loved to honor him ; now employing his 
dexterous wit, now invoking his military genius. It 
was Orange, scarcely yet of age, whom he appointed 
' generalissimo in the place of Philibert, in the French 
war which preceded his abdication — chose him, too, 
in his absence, unsolicited, against the unanimous 
advice of his council, and to the exclusion of his 

« Prescott, Schiller, etc. Motley, Davies, Yaudervyuckt. 
t Vandervynckt, Metereu. % Motley, vol. 1, pp. 236, 237. 



174 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

laurel-crowned band of heroes — Egmont, who was 
twelve years his senior, among the rest — and found 
no reason to repent his selection of the youthful 
"tyro" in arms, who grappled with Guise and 
baffled Coligny,* It was Orange on whose shoul- 
der he rested during the delivery of his farewell 
address.t It was Orange whom he despatched 
with the imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand 
of Germany.^ So ripe was the prince in honors 
even while so young in years. 

The marks of confidence and friendship which 
the emperor had showered upon William, would 
alone have sufficed to bring him into disrepute with 
Philip ; who seems to have laid it down for himself 
as a rule, to avenge the slights of the Spanish 
grandees, for the preference which his father had, 
on all important occasions, shown to the Low 
Country nobles, by a similar leaning toward the 
other side.§ 

Still, the prince had not been inactive since 
Philip's coronation. He bore an important part in 
the negotiations which resulted in the pacification 
of Chateau-Cambray; and he was one of the hosta- 
ges left in the French king's hands for the fulfil- 
ment of the treaty.§ It was during his residence 
at Paris in this capacity that he earned his sur- 
name of the " silent." One day he was hunting 

■-• Schillei-, p. 405. Prescott, Hist, of the Eeign of Philip 11. 
t Ibid. Lives of the Princes, etc. Archives, etc. 
X Ibid. ^ Schiller, p. 405. 

§ Motley, Vaudervyuckt, Meteren, Archives, etc. 



EGMONT AND ORANGE. 175 

beside Henry II. in the forest of Vincennes. Sud- 
denly Valois paused, laid his hand on William's 
arm, and opened to him a budget of perfidy — 
imagining that Orange, like Alva, was in the plot. 
A .general extirpation of Protestants was to be the 
cement of the pacification ; Henry was to assist 
Philip in strangling heresy in the Netherlands, 
Philip was to aid them in assassinating the Hugue- 
nots of France ; and in these massacres the Spanish 
regiments detailed in Flanders were to bear a cen- 
tral part : such was the revelation of the king. 
William heard him with horror ; but suffered no 
trace of surprise or disgust to aj)pear in his imper- 
turbable countenance, and they called him later the 
" silent," because he knew when to hold his peace 
as well as when to speak.* 

Henry's blunder enabled the keen prince to 
fathom the muddy policy of Philip, forewarned him, 
and did much to ripen him for his after work ; and 
he it was who had evoked and organized the pro- 
test against the continuance of the Spanish troops 
on Netherland soil.f 

The prince of Orange was at this time but twen- 
ty-six, though he had been married and was now a 
widower.^ Like Egmont, he was a tall and stately 
man. His features were dark, well chiselled, and 
symmetrical ; his head was well turned and finely 
placed upon his shoulders; his forehead was lofty, 
spacious, and already prematurely engraved with 

* Metei'eu, Vandervynckt, Motley. I Ibid, 

t Lives of the Princes, etc. 



176 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

the lines of anxious tliouglit; his eyes were brown, 
full, well opened, and expressive of profound reflec- 
tion.* 

His courtly bearing and cliarm of manner fasci- 
nated all who came within the sphere of his influ- 
ence.! Graceful, familiar, caressing, yet dignified, 
Orange was king of hearts.:}: " Never did an arro- 
gant or indiscreet word fall from his lips," remarks 
a chronicler who was his bitter foe ; " nor did he 
upon any occasion manifest auger to his inferiors, 
however much the}'^ might be in fault, but con- 
tented himself with admonishing them graciously, 
without menace or insult. For he had a gentle and 
agreeable tongue with which he could turn all the 
gentlemen at court which way he liked."§ 

In some respects his sobriquet was a misnomer, 
for Motley tells us, what others have avouched, and 
what William's life proves, that "he was neither 
'silent' nor 'taciturn' from habit; though these are 
the epithets which will be for ever associated with 
the name of a man, who, in private, was the most 
affable, cheerful, and delightful of companions, and 
who on a thousand public occasions was to prove 
himself, both by pen and by speech, to be the most 
eloquent man of the age."|| 

He was ambitious, not with the vulgar pur- 
pose of self-aggrandizement, but to enrol himself 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 106. 

t Ibid., p. 24(!. Scliiller, Stracla. \ Ibid. 

§ Poutus Payeu, MS., cited iu Motley, ut antca. 

II Motley, ut antea. 



EGMONT AND ORANGE. 177 

among the builders of states by liberating his 
country. 

No one was ever more perfectly equijiped to 
organize a revolution. Imperturbable, cautious yet 
decisive and irresistible, master of men, coolest 
and firmest in disaster, sound and commandincf in 
body as in mind, sitting apart, as the heathen dei- 
ties talked from peak to peak all round Olympus, 
yet^easy himself and xible to make others share his 
ease — persistent, kind, forbearing — Orange was all 
this, and more, even from the outset. In the Neth- 
erlands he had no mate in genius — was, like most 
great men, a unique. " The Scipioism of Scipio," 
says an epigrammatist, " was precisely that part of 
him which he could not borrow." The Orangeism 
of Orange was exactly that part of him which none 
other could imitate. And though Egmout, his friend 
and compeer, was fully his equal as a soldier, as a 
statesman he was not worthy to unloose the latchet 
of his shoes. 

Such was the duchess of Lorraine, such was 
Count Egmont, such was the prince of Orange, 
when, in the spring of 1559, they competed with 
each other for the governor-generalship of the Neth- 
erlands. They were none of them to be successful. 
Philip had an instinctive dread of Orange. These 
two men, so unlike in most respects, had two points 
of contact. Both were gifted with intuition; and 
the king saw deeply enough into the character of 
the prince to know that, while he possessed the 
qualities as a politician which he highly prized, he 
8* 



178 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

yet bottomed Lis statesmanship upon a theory wliicli 
was fatal to absohitism — human rights ; and was 
therefore necessarily his foeman. Then, too, both 
had sat at the feet of the same master, only Philip 
had learned by rote and was an imitator ; William. 
had looked deep, and completely mastered the per- 
ilous arts by which thrones then rose and fell ; and 
the king had an especial dread of him because he 
was aware that in him he had an antagonist who 
was armed against his policy by forecast, and who 
in a great cause, was able to command the science 
and resources of a bad one.* 

Add to this instinctive hatred William's popu- 
larity and wealth; and we shall see that, notwith- 
standing the deep sea and fair wind on which he 
sailed, in Strada's figure, the bark of his chances 
was sure io founder.t 

As for Egmont, his family had been, in times 
past, the bitter and successful foes of the house of 
Austria. He was a soldier ; he Avas the popular 
idol. " If I intrust the supreme stadtholdership to 
him," thought Philip, "he may endeavor to revenge 
the oppression of his ancestors on the son of the 
oppressor ; nay, but I'll none of him.":j: 

Thus it was that what seemed the clearest titles 
of Egmont and Orange to the succession, were 
really fatal to their success ; while the king was 
supplied Avith an excellent pretext for passing both 
by on the ground that where merit was so equal it 
was impossible to decide. 

■"■ Schiller, p. 407. f Strada, p. 19. * Schiller, p. 100. 



EGMONT AND OEANGE/ 179 

"William's sagacity speedily convinced liini of 
the hopelessness of his success ; and, therefore, he 
shrewdly withdrew his claims and pressed those of 
the duchess of Lorraine, to whose daughter he 
was paying suit, " with the intention," if we may 
credit Strada, "of giving his proposed mother-in- 
law the title, and taking to himself the power."* 

The advocacy of Orange ruined the prospects of 
Christierne, for Philip made a point of always run- 
ning against the current of the prince's will; and 
one morning Brussels was astonished to hear that 
Margaret of Parma had been appointed governant, 
and had already quitted Italy to take her seat. 
Philip the Taciturn had for once outmanoeuvred 
William the Silent. The prince was soon to return 
the compliment. 

* Strada, ut antea. 



180 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

CHAPTEE XII. 

A CHECK. 

While Orange and Egmout were digesting the 
disappointment of their hopes, dashed by the an- 
nouncement of the new governant's name, and Avhile 
the burghers were still sulking over the rebuff of the 
national favorites, Philip, trailing after him a glit- 
tering cortege, sped towards the Netherland fron- 
tier to welcome Margaret of Parma.* It was in 1559, 
in the early days of June, pregnant with summer, 
that he met her, and, accompanying her to Brussels, 
inducted her into office, with a pomp which recalled 
the days of the abdication. t 

Margaret's story was a romance. The natural 
daughter of Charles Y. by a Flemish orphan of 
gentle blood, named Yan Glieest, and born in 1522, 
she had been acknowledged by the emperor, and 
educated as became a princess. :j: For a time she 
was the ward of the emperor's aunt, then regent 
of the Netherlands ; but the little waif was only in 
her eighth year when this lady died; whereupon the 
guardianship devolved upcn her successor, Queen 
Mary of Hungary.§ 

According to the custom of that age, when hearts 

were the chattels of princes, and when marriage 

o Strada, p. 24. Meteren, Vandervynckt. f Ibid. " 

J Strada, p. 20. Prescott, Levensbusch, Nederl. Man. enVrou- 
men. § Ibid. Brantome. 



A CHECK. 181 

was a mere counter in dii^lomatic games, this child 
was wedded at twelve to the p«.s6'e' duke of Tuscany, 
Alexander de' Medici.* A dozen months elapsed, and 
this profligate was assassinated by a kinsman in the 
streets of Florence.t A widow at thirteen, the girl 
was once more in the matrimonial market, findinof 
many bidders. But Charles was in no haste to find 
Margaret another husband, and it was not until she 
was a woman of twenty that she was again mated, 
this time to Ottavio Farnese, nephew of Pope Paul 
III., and a boy of thirteen — thus at the age of ma- 
turity being married to a child, as in her infancy 
she had been sold to a man.:}: 

To Farnese she brought the duchies of Parma 
and Piacenza as her dowry ;§ but the youth of the 
prince inspired her with such contempt for him that, 
as Strada remarks, "her indifference was only soften- 
ed into a kindlier feeling when she had been long 
separated from him."|| 

This, roughly outlined, was the history of the 
woman whom Phihp had installed as governant of 
the Low Countries. As for her character, she did 
not lack ability ; but qualities which might other- 
wise have raised her above mediocritj", were fatally 
biased by a monkish superstition learned, at the 
feet of Ignatius Loyola, who had been her confes- 
sor while she tarried in Italy'F — the chiefest of her 
recommendations to Philip. 

* Brantome. | Ibid. 

J Schiller, p. 412. § Ibid. Strada, p. 22. 

II Ibid., p. 23. U Ibid. Prcscott, Motley, Schiller. 



182 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

In person, Margaret was tall and ungainly. 
Upon lier upper lip a mustache liad sprouted." 
" Her gait itself was so devoid of grace," as Schiller 
paints her, " that one was far more tempted to take 
her for a disguised man than for a mascuhue wom- 
an ; and nature, whom she had derided b}^ thus 
transgressing the limits of her sex, revenged itself 
upon her by a disease peculiar to men — the gout/'f 
Spite of the surprise it caused, the appointment of 
this odd woman to the regency was dictated by 
profound policy, and was, as rumor had it, the 
result of Alva's counsel and the bishop of Arras' 
advice4 Tor, while certain to be the puppet of the 
king, Margaret had four excellent recommenda- 
tions : she was earnest for the faith ; she was Phil- 
ip's sister ; she was a Netherlander by birth ; she had 
spent her youth in Brussels, where she had acquired 
a knowledge of the national manners, while the 
duchess Margaret and Queen Mary of Hungary, 
the two regents under whose eyes she had grown 
up, had gradually initiated her into the maxims by 
which they had governed in the past.§ It was, 
indeed, a formidable list of recommendatory cir- 
cumstances, and justified the choice. "Withal," 
observes Strada, " Philip hoped that the Low-Coun- 
trymen, for the reverence they bore the name of 
Charles V., would cheerfully obey his daughter, born 
among them, and bred up to their fashions, and be 
able the better to digest her government, because 

o Strada, ui antea. t Scliiller, p. 412. 

X Schiller, p. 413. ' § Ibid., p. 412. 



A CHECK. 183 

subjected people think themselves partly free if 
ruled by a native."^" Besides, the Netherlands were 
habituated to female government; and the king 
thought that the innovations he had designed would 
be more popular coming from a lady — like an incis- 
ion, that pains the less when made by a soft hand.f 

With the prevision of a despot, Philip seldom 
trusted individuals — never, unless he had a curb in 
their mouths. So now he put a double check upon 
his sister by demanding her little son, Alexander 
Farnese — a name famous in the Low Countries at 
a later day — as a hostage, and by equipping three 
chambers to assist her in the administration of the 
government.! 

The organization of these chambers was a mas- 
terpiece of political skill. The idea was old, it 
was only the composition that was unique. There 
had been a council of finance, a privy council, and 
a state council under the emperor — all composed 
of Netherlanders.§ Now just so many citizens were 
seated at these council-boards as were deemed suf- 
ficient to deceive the nation with a show of repre- 
sentation — not enough to command a majority on 
any one important measure, the decision resting 
with the creatures of the court. || The royal juggler 
shouted, " Presto," and instantly a repubhcan bar- 
rier was transformed into the citadel of despotism. 

To the board of finance was intrusted whatever 

*•■' Strada, p. 24. f Ibid. 

X Vandervynckt, vol. 1, p. 148. Metereu, Wagena3r. 

§ Hoofdt, vol. 1. p. 22. Meteren, 24. || Ibid. Grattan, pp. 84, 85. 



184 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

related to the royal exchequer in the states, and its 
president was Count Barlaiment.* To the privy 
council was given the general administration of jus- 
tice, and its president was Viglius.t To the council 
of state was referred all matters of foreign inter- 
course, all inter-provincial affairs, and its president 
was the bishop of Arras ::|; of this board Orange, and 
Egmont, and Horn, and Aerschat were members,§ 
sharing in the responsibility of the government, but 
powerless to shape its policy. These three boards 
were quite independent of each other, with this im- 
portant exception : while the members of the coun- 
cil of state had no voice in the other two chambers, 
the privy and finance councillors, together with the 
knights of the Golden Fleece, had access to their 
deliberations!! — an arrangement which lassoed that 
board to Philip's feet, and reduced the national 
nobles to titled nullities at Brussels. 

But to make surety doubly sure, the wily mon- 
arch created another board behind the government, 
back of the councils, hidden, tireless, omnipresent, 
all-powerful — the Consulta. " It was a committee of 
three members of the state chamber, by whose 
deliberations the regent was secretly instructed to 
be^ guided at all critical moments. The three, 
Barlaiment, Yiglius, and Arras, who composed this 
back-stair conclave, were in reality but one. The 
bishop of Arras was in all three, and the three 
together constituted only the bishop of Arras."! 

«- Hoofd, Meteren, ub'i siqx \ Ibid. J Ibid. § Ibid. 
II Schiller, Hoofd, Stradii. H Motley, vol. 1, p. 209. 



A CHECK. 185 

Baiiaiment was au antique. He liad the uu- 
qualifying, blind, audacious temper of the darkest 
ages. He had been dug up from the crusades. The 
simple lesson which his life was devoted to learning 
and teaching was, submission to superiors, subor- 
dination of inferiors. He had no brains — he had 
scraped his skull clean on entering Philip's service, 
and he stood asking, not. Is this right ? but. What 
shall I do ? In war he was a soldier ; in politics he 
was an ultra absolutist; in religion he was a fanatic* 
Barlaiment was just honest enough to be a tool; 
just wise enough to be an ultramontauist ; just reli- 
gious enough to be a bigot. Philip treated him as 
a human bull-dog; Ai'ras subdued him to be his 
lackey. 

Viglius was a pedant, but de did not lack talent. 
Unlike Barliament, he was of " boor's degree,"t but 
a round of studies at the Lorraine, Padua, and 
Paris schools had kindled ambition in his heart, 
and set him scheming, until now in the autumn of 
his life, he had acquired fame, and wealth, and influ- 
ence.:!: Infirm and overtasked, he still held on to 
power and was singularly patient of work. Ambi- 
tion has been defined to be satiety ivith desire. 
Perhaps it was this which held Viglius still feeding 
at the public trough. 

A small, brisk man, round, timid, sleek, with 
rosy cheeks, glittering green eyes, and a flowing 
beard,§ Viglius was a jurist of extensive erudition; 

* Hoofd, Mcteren, Lcveusbusch. 

f Levensbusch, vol. 4, p, 75. | Ibid. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 101. 



186 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

a monarchist by instinct, a papist from policy ; able 
to quibble "svitli any one ; adroit enougli to baffle 
most antagonists ; plausible enough to cheat the 
majority of hearers ; eloquent enough to hide the 
intentions of the court beneath a fluent stream of 
common places ; and unscrupulous enough to balk 
at nothing.* Politics is the hospital for broken 
scoundrels ; and this Bohemian, this political bri- 
gand under the mask of a legal doctorate, had 
drifted into it to end his days. 

But the bishop of Arras was the soul of the 
trio, as he was the Mephistophiles of the tragedy 
whose prelude these days were. 

Anthony Perrenot of Granvelle, bishop of Arras, 
was born in 1517, at Besan^on, in Burgundy.t His 
father had risen, step by step, from the condition of 
an humble country attorney to the chancellorship 
of the empire under Charles V.J The secret of this 
marvellous career was hidden in two words — syco- 
phancy and industry. By the one he gained the 
heart of Caesar ; by the other he mastered the sci- . 
ence of government, and deserved confidence. 

In 1517, the elder Perrenot was the emperor's 
favorite minister, successful, honored, courted. Thus 
he was able to secure for his son Anthony a sunny 
opening to his career. The boy was precocious. He 
learned as others play. At twenty he had mastered 
the civil and the canon law, and spoke seven lan- 

* Prescott, Meteren, Motley. 

t Levensbusch, Strada, Motley. 

% Prescott, vol. 1, p. 405. Metereu, Levensbuscli. 



A CHECK. 187 

guages without halting.* Three years later he was 
chosen a canon of the Liege cathedral, through whose 
massive door he entered, though under age, the rich 
see of Arras.t In 1543, the youthful bishop, commis- 
sioned as plenipotentiary, entered the council of 
Trent, where his dulcet eloquence so captivated 
Charles that the dazzled emperor created him a 
councillor of state.:]: 

From that time his rise was rapid. With con- 
summate art he insinuated himself into the con- 
fidence of Csesar, remembering the secret of his 
father's success— ^sycophancy in winning, industry 
in preserving confidence. 

At the abdication, Charles recommended this 
crafty, pr^voyant chancellor to Philip's confidence,! 
bidding him rely upon an intellect which had lifted 
him out of many a " slough of despond," caged 
for him numberless birds, sung for him count- 
less syren songs. Such a recommendation would 
have been as useless in his case as in that of 
Orange, had not the keen priest known how to rec- 
ommend himself. He vanquished Philip's doubt of 
him by one master-stroke. It was he who put into the 
treaty of Chateau-Cambray the secret clause which 
was to cement peace in the blood of Protestantism, 
and which Orange so strangely discovered in the 
Vincennes wood.ll This rascality was exactly in the 
vein of the gloomy bigot whom the facile chancel- 

* Prescott, Meteren, Levensbuscb, Motley. j- Ibid, 

t Ibid., Schiller. § Ibid. 

II Prescott, Motley, Schiller. 



188 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION, 

lor termed " the master." Henceforth, two such 
men were needful to each other. 

This all-powerful prelate had the subtlest of in- 
tellects; he had also profound and varied learning.* 
To talent of a high order he wedded patience — a 
rare union. He was, too, a man of thoughtful, me- 
chanical regularity. Always vigilant, always col- 
lected, nothing escaped him; and he -weighed the 
most important and the most insignificant affairs 
with the same scrupulous attention. f 

In a combat oifinesse, a duel of intrigue, no one 
could outwit him. Cool, wary, imperturbable, hiding- 
all concern under an easy noncJialance, masking inor- 
dinate ambition under an insouciance wdiich never 
disclosed a feature of the real Perrenot, he walked 
calmly on — this serene, smiling priest — and with 
paternal benignity did Satan's work. 

Arras was diplomacy personified: he had that 
fine quality which is colorless because inscrutable, 
and irresistible because far-seeing — acumen: acu- 
men, which crowns genius and dethrones kings. 
And this silkiest, most dulcet of churchmen aimed 
at ubiquity, withal. Monsignore had his politic 
webs spun over Italy, over France, over Austria, 
over England, over Spain. Monsignore had his 
secret spies of the ablest. Monsignore was the 
lover of great ladies who played Iscariot for him in 
palaces. Monsignore never gave a Benedicife with- 
out some diplomatic touch. Monsignore never ad- 
ministered the Viaiicum that the church was not 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 248. t Schiller, p. 121. 



A CHECK. 189 

the richer for a legacy. Monsiguore never yet was 
compromised by a lie, and never yet was driven to 
the vulgarity of a truth. 

But what would 30U have? Even Achilles could 
be shot in the heel; and Monsignore himself had 
his weaknesses. One of them was, that he disbe- 
lieved in any virtue that was proof against a bribe, 
or capable of preferring a creed to a sovereignty. 
He could not credit it, that any one should be so 
mad as not to exchange, if it were made worth his 
while, the Phrygian bonnet for a coronet. Another 
was, that, educated between the throne and the 
confessional, he knew of no other relation between 
man and man than that of rule and subjection.- 
This idea was the rock on which his bark was to 
be wrecked ; for, in the Netherlands, half republican 
and two-thirds Protestant, the statesmanship which 
bottomed itself on absolutism, however adroit, was 
certain to be suicidal. The prescient wit,' the ex- 
haustless capacity which would have lifted this man 
into a statesman at Home or in Spain, dwindled 
him into a mere politician at Brussels ; for his 
rationale did not suit that atmosphere. He could 
weary half a dozen amanuenses at a sitting, but he 
could not tire out a people determined to be free. 

So much shall suffice to depict the government, 
and so much to paint the persons who composed 
it, in that smiling June when Margaret of Parma 
entered Brussels. The initial ceremonies of the gov- 
ernant's reception once over, Philip pressed on to 
♦ Schiller. 



190 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

anotber arrangement. Some of the provinces were 
supplied with new executives ; others had those 
local rulers whose credentials bore the imperial 
seal, confirmed.* In this distribution of ofiices, the 
prince of Orange was accredited as stadtholder of 
Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and West Friesland.t 
To Egmont were awarded Flanders and Artois.:|: 
And among others of the national grandees, Arem- 
berg, Bergen, Barliament, the remainder of the 
states were parcelled out;§ but Brabant was re- 
served to the regent, who was there executive ex 
offido.\ 

This done, nothing remained but to say fare- 
well — for on several recent occasions the king had 
exerted the whole weight of his personal influence 
to impress upon the country the paramount impor- 
tance of the edicts against heresy ; and once he had 
stammered out an address to the grand council at 
Mechlin, with his own lips emphasizing his demand 
for Protestant blood. If 

On the 7tli of August, 1559, an assembly of the 
states was convoked at Ghent.** The court was gay 
and giddy with triumph. Diplomats smiled pla- 
cidly. The bishop of Arras was as serene as the 
summer sky above him. Even Philip lost a little 

•"' Vandervynckt, Meteren. j Ibid. J Ibid. § Ibid. 

II Ibid. IT Metereu, Ivucb, Hopperus, Hoynckt. 

. «"' To give edal to his presence in Ghent, a chapter of the Golden 
Fleece was held just before the convocation of the states-general, 
and fourteen knights were admitted to the order. This chapter 
was the last ever held. After this date, knights were preferred <o 
the honor of the Fleece by the king's nomination. Vandervynckt, 
Troubles des Pays-Bas, torn. 2, p. 21. 



A CHECK. 191 

of his Jiciideur. On the eve of the convention all 
whirled in a thoughtless glitter. There were wines 
of the rarest. There were feastings of the daintiest. 
Turkish and Levantine fruits imported by the Ant- 
werp merchants, with crystallized confections in sil- 
ver baskets, which dainty statuettes of Odalisque 
slaves and Greek girls held up in a shower of flow- 
ers. Every palace was transformed into a chamber 
of revelry, and in the perfume and the lustre human 
rights were mocked at, and heresy was impaled on 
dainty skewers, with a light laugh, amid the whirl 
of the dance and the glitter of gold and azure, of 
silver and scarlet, while the air was drowsy with the 
odor of wines, and spices, and incense. 

While the orgy was at its maddest, a stately but 
haggard man might" have been seen to quit the sup- 
per-room and wend his way with quick, firm step 
past the stadthouse, past the tower where Boland 
had swung, on through the quaint, crooked streets, 
towards the quarters of the town where the depu- 
ties found shelter. It was William of Orange going 
at midnight to warn the delegates of the lurking 
danger, and to suggest a plan of action for the mor- 
row.* How well his warning was heeded we shall see. 

In the morning the states assembled. Here 
the king, the governant, Philibert of Savoy, and the 
courtiers, still drowsy with the night's excess ; yon- 
der in the body of the hall the deputies, cool, col- 
lected, determined. For the sturdy burghers took 
their seats in no friendly mood. For once, as- 

^ Gnxttau, p. 85. Archives of the House of Orange — Nassau. 



192 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

tonislied absolutism was to listen to republican 
truth.* 

With a benignant sroile, the bishop of Arras 
stepped forward to harangue the states as the mouth- 
piece of the king. Very smoothly, very plausibly , 
he spoke, skipping, like a chamois, from topic to 
topic, touching lightly on obnoxious, dwelling 
largely upon popular subjects ; insinuating, elab- 
orating, always with a glacial smile upon his face, 
and with roguery at his heart. Not a word did he 
say about the Spanish troops ; his only reference to 
the disordered state of ■ the public finances was 
when, in calling attention to his majesty's "request," 
he asked the deputies to vote him an additional 
sum of three millions of gold florins ;t but his allu- 
sion to reform was pregnant. " These beggars and 
vagabonds," smiled the suave orator, " who, under 
cover of religion, traverse the land for purposes of 
plunder and disturbance — as it regards them, his 
majesty desires to follow in the footsteps of his 
august father. Therefore he has commanded the 
regent, Margaret of Parma, for the sake of religion 
and the glory of God, accurately and exactly to en- 
force the edicts made by his imperial majesty and 
renewed by his present majesty, for the extirpation 
of all sects and heresies.":|: 

The complacent rhetorician sat down ; the dep- 
uties, according to an ancient custom, adjourned to 

<'• Prescott, Schiller. 

f Documentos Inedits, vol. 1, p. 326, et seq. VaiulcrvyucLt;. 

t Bor., vol. 1, p. 19, et seq. 



A CHECK. 193 

deliberate,* and the court awoke out of its dog-nap 
to dine. Philip, however, occupied himself in pen- 
ning a last exhortation to the Mechlin council, the 
supreme court of the Low Countries, in wliicli 
appendix to his recent speech he commanded them 
anew to be diligent above all things in " inquiring 
on all sides as to the execution of the placards, 
employing the utmost rigor not alone against trans- 
gressors, but equally against such judges as should 
dare to prove remiss in their prosecution of here- 
tics, without respect of persons."t Some thought 
that the placards were fulminated against Anabap- 
tists alone. The wily fanatic corrected the error. 
" All who reject Home are heretics," said he ; " en- 
force the edicts against all sectaries, without any 
distinction or mercy, if they be merely spotted with 
Luther's errors.":!: This was Philip's dinner. 

On the morning of tlie eighth of August the 
states again convened. They had voted their con- 
tingents to the "request;" but made the removal of 
the Spanish squadrons a condition precedent to the 
payment of their respective quotas.§ 

"Sire," demanded the blunt syndic of Ghent, 
addressing Philip in person, "why are foreign hands 
needed for our defence ? Is it that the world shall 
consider us too stupid or too cowardly to protect 
ourselves? Why have we made peace, if the bur- 
dens of Avar are still to oppress us ? In war, ueces- 

<* Pontns Payen, MS. Beutivoglio. 

t Cited in jMotlc3%*vol. 1, p. 218. | Ibid. 

§ Motlej% vol. 1, p. 210. Viindorvynckt. 

Diltrli R.-l. g 



194 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

sity enforced endurance ; in peace, our i^atieuce is 
exliaiisted by its burdens. Or shall we be able to 
restrain these licentious bands, which your pres- 
ence is powerless to restrain? Here Cambray, 
there Antwerp, cry for redress. Here Thionville, 
there Marienburg, lie waste. Surely you have not 
bestowed upon us peace that our cities may become 
deserts ? Perhaps you desire to guard us from exte- 
rior assault ? 'T is a wise precaution ; but the report 
of our neighbors' preparations will long outrun their 
hostilities. Have you not still at your command 
the same brave Netherlanders to whom your father 
intrusted the republic in far mpre troublous times ? 
Will not they be able to sustain themselves, when 
they held their country inviolate for so many cen- 
turies ?"* 

Each of these short, sharp interrogatories cut 
Philip to the heart ; as for the courtiers, they gaped 
in wonder. The pithy sentences of the burgher 
orator, and the addresses of the separate states, all 
in the same strain, were followed by a remonstrance, 
drawn up in the name of the states- general, and 
signed by Orange, Egmont, and a long bead-roll of 
patricians.f • 

• A gallant stand was also made that day for lib- 
erty of conscience. " Every people," it was so they 
argued, " ought to be treated according to their 
natural character, as every individual should be in 
accordance with his idiosyncrasies. Thus the soutli 

* Schiller, pp. 401, 402. ' 
f Meteren, vol. 1, p. 21. Eor., vol. 1, p. 22. 



A CHECK. • 19:j 

may be considered liappy under a certain degree of 
constraint, which would j)i'ess intolerably on the 
north. Different nations often require different 
laws. What suits the Spaniard would not for that 
reason suit the Netherlander. The Inquisition is 
ill-adapted to men accustomed from their cradles 
to freedom of action and of thought."* 

Philip was dumb with anger. This tone, un- 
heard of in Castilian legislative halls, and new to 
his haughty ears, made him gas23 for breath. The 
shock was so great that it threw down the barriers 
of his self-possession. Rising from his seat and 
rushing from the hall, he flung back this query: "I, 
too, am a Spaniard and a papist ; must I therefore 
quit the land and resign all authority over it?"t 

The assembly adjourned in disorder. The wise- 
acres put their heads together. Philip closeted 
himself with the bishop of Arras. They decided to 
dissemble:}: — a policy kindred to both their natures. 
They were driven to that last resource of baffled 
despotism, a compromise. On one point, however, 
the king was firm. The religious edicts must remain 
intact.§ " It may lose you the provinces, sire," 
said the minister. "Well, then," responded the 
inexorable bigot, "better not reign at all than reign 
over heretics."!! 

A few days later, the king, who would not again 
face the deputies, sent to the assembly a response 
to their remonstrance — a wily, i:)lausible paper, 

* Schiller, Prescott. f Wagena^r, Vaclerl. Hist. , vol. 6. 

X Ibid. j\[otley. § Ibid. || VaiideiTynckt, Schiller, Wageuaer. 



196 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

which bore the imprint of Arras' brains. It was to 
this effect : " I desire not to place strangers in the 
government — as witness my selection of Margaret, 
your countrywoman, as governant. I regret not 
having learned your wishes sooner touching the re- 
moval of the troops. Their pay is in arrears, and 
I cannot order them away unpaid. Immediately 
on reaching Spain I will forward the moneys owed 
them, and within three months you shall be quit of 
their presence. Meantime, Orange and Egmont 
shall command them."* 

Philip II. was a lie with a moral at the bottom 
of it. The moral was this : Trust him least when 
he promises most. Now, the king's three months 
stretched into eighteen ; and at last the Spanish 
regiments were withdrawn, "rather hastily than wil- 
lingly," because further delay meant insurrection, 
and because the exigencies of the state called for 
their presence in another quarter of the globe.t 

But this was in the future when the king sent 
this word to the states, and the deputies were fain 
to be content.:]; With an undisturbed mien, but with 
the anger of humiliation gnawing at his heart, 
Philip now set out for the Netherland seaport of 
Plashing, whence he was to embark for Spain.§ He 
was accompanied by a throng of nobles, William of 
Orange among the rest. The irate despot suspected 
that it was the prince's hand that had upset his 

" Resi^onse du Eoy a la Eemoustrauce, cited iu Documents 
Inedits, vol. 1, pp. 326-329. t Schiller. 

X Meteren, Suriano, Relatione MS. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 219. 



A CHECK. 197 

schemes and given this check to his tjrannj. Just 
as he was about to quit the seashore for his fleet, 
he gave voice to this suspicion. Turning abruptly 
upon Orange, who stood close beside him, he 
bluntly accused him of having engineered the op- 
position which had partly wrecked his polic}', 
" Sire," rejoined the imperturbable prince, " that is 
to be regarded not as the work of any individual, 
but as the act of the states." " No," hissed Philip, 
shaking his antagonist fiercely by the wrist, " No 
los Estados, mas vos, vos, vos" — not the states, but 
you, you, you ! ""^ 

AVilliam was silent, and by his silence he admit- 
ted the glorious accusation — admitted that he had 
earned his title to the hatred of the king, and the 
gratitude of his country.f 

The royal fleet at once set sail, Philip left the 
Netherlands never to see them more ; left them 
agonizing to reach Spain, in which, so he was told, 
the Reformation had ventured to raise its voice.} 
A widower for the second time by the death of 
Mary Tudor in 1558, he was to celebrate his mar- 
riage with the beautiful Isabella de Yalois, " dis- 
creet, witty, and good," as Brantome paints her,§ on 
reaching Toledo.il 

After a stormy voyage, he landed at Laredo in 

■'•• ' ' Vos " is an epithet of contempt in the Castilian, equivalent 
to "toi" in French. This anecdote rests on the atithority of 
Aubery, -whom Vallaire terms a "well-informed writer." See Me- 
moires de 1' Aubery du Maurier, p. 9. f Grattan, p. 88. 

t Prescott, Hist. Reign of Philip II., vol. 1., chap. 3, passim. 

\. Brantome, CEuvrcs, torn. 5, p 126. (] Prescott. 



198 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

the early days of September, and found an auto da 
/e awaiting him. Eeport had spoken truth. Spain 
itself, where Komanism was at once a principle of 
honor and a part of the national history, where for 
eight centuries the Spaniard had been fighting the 
battles of the church at home ; where every inch of 
the soil was won by arms from the infidel; where 
life had always been a crusade for Eome ; Spain 
was infected with the distemper of heresy.'^ Philip 
was half crazed. The Inquisition was invoked. 
Human bonfires blazed merrily. At Yalladolid the 
king paused to witness one. " Sire," cried one 
of the sufferers, young Carlos de Lessa, a noble of 
talent and distinction, " how can you look on and 
permit me to be burned?" "I would carry the 
wood to burn my own son withal, were he like ^-ou, 
a heretic," rejoined the royal brute.t 

On reaching Seville, Philip had the happiness 
to witness another auto da fe of fifty living heretics. 
This scene so refreshed him in body and in soul, 
that immediately afterwards he solemnized his mar- 
riage. " These human victims, chained and burn- 
ing at the stake, were the blazing torches which 
lighted the monarch to his nuptial couch.":]: 

* Prescott, ut antea. Hist. Crit. de I'lnqui., vol. 2, chap. 18. 
t Cabrera, vol. 5, p. 236. | Motley, vol. 1, p. 223. 



UNDEECURKENTS. 199 

CHAPTER XIII. 

UNDERCUEKENTS. 

To a casual observer, unfamiliar with the causes 
and effects of histor}^ it would have seemed that 
the Netherlands were never more prosperous, never 
more snugly well-to-do, than on that day when 
Philip II. weighed anchor for Castile. The states 
were lapped in a luxury that recalled the Sybarites. 
"Not the most minute strip of the soil," says Guic- 
ciardini, " was without its production ; even the 
sand-heaps afforded shelter to vast numbers of 
rabbits, esteemed for their delicate flavor ; and on 
every creek of the sea were to be found incredible 
flocks of water-fowl and their eggs, both of which 
formed a reliable article of export."* It was indeed 
so : the shrewd Italian painted to the life. 

Off the coasts of Holland, Zealand, and Fries- 
laud, two thousand boats found daily employment 
in the fisheries. t Flanders freighted fifty ships in 
a single year with household furniture and utensils 
for Spain and the colonial wants.:]: A single city — 
Bruges — sold annually stuffs of Spanish and Eng- 
lish wool to the amount of eight millions of fiorins,§ 
and the least value of the florin then was quadruple 
its present worth. || 

^- Guicciardiui, Belg. Des., torn. 2, p. 95. 

t Velius Hoorn, book 2. J Grattan, p. 88. § Ibid. 

II Tlie florin was a coin originally made in Florence. The namo 



2U0 THE DUTCH KEFOKMATION. 

The Englisli commerce of the provinces, less 
important than that with Spain, was vakied yearly 
at twenty-four millions of florins.* Amsterdam was 
a rising town, but Antwerp) was still the- pivot of 
European trade.t Oftentimes the table service of 
her wealthy burghers consisted entirely of solid 
silver ;:{; and these merchant princes were the 
money-changers of Christendom. Germany, Eng- 
land, France, Italy, Spain, constantly fed their lean 
exchequers from the fat coffers of the burghers. 
Immense loans were asked and gotten, not in ne- 
gotiable bills, or for unredeemable debentures ; 
but in hard gold, and on a simple acknowledg- 
ment.§ 

But beneath' the sunny surface of this material 
prosperity crouched death and chaos, soon to reveal 
themselves. The useful and inoffensive Nether- 
landers wished to add yet one thing more to their 
immense possessions — the gospel. Aghast Home 
and angered despotism leagued to crush it out. 
From that fanatic effort sprang the revolution. 

Many historians have run up and down, groping 
for the causes of the prodigious convulsion that now 
begins to rumble beneath our feet, for scenes of 
tremendous horror are just at hand. It needs no 
long search. The past sows the seed, which the 

is given to different coins of gold and silver, of diflerent value in 
different countries. Tlie silver florin now varies in value from 
twenty-three to fifty-four cents. The gold florin of Hanover is 
now held at Gs. lid. sterling. 

« Grattan, p. 88. Vandervj'uckt. f Ibid. 

X Velius Hoorn, book 2, it. 142. § Grattan. tihi sup. 



UNDERCURRENTS. 201 

present ripens, and the future reaps. In one sense, 
it was the reopened New Testament which brought 
the sword into the Netherlands ; in another sense, 
it was an emasculated church, shod in ambitious 
worldliness, and clothed in fanaticism, that lighted 
the conflagration ; a church prohfic as Proteus in 
disguises, but, like him, ever the same unde"r what- 
ever mask it lurked. To restore to the provinces 
the uniformity of papistry, to break the coordinate 
power of the nobility and the states, and to exalt 
the royal authority on the ruins of the old repub- 
lican rudiments — this was the purpose of King 
Philip II.* For that he plotted, and for that he 
dissembled ; and that purpose Avas the germ which 
flowered in revolt. Margaret was commissioned, 
and so was the bishop of Arras, to compass that 
object ;t and this fact at once reduced the so-called 
government of the regent to a colossal fraud, to a 
chartered hypocrisy, to a conspiracy against justice 
and honest men, to a junta of licensed stabbers. 

The ship in which PhiliiD sailed for Spain was 
hardly huU-down upon the ocean, before the gover- 
nant and her crafty Mentor began to carry out the 
prescribed programme of despotism, heedless of 
the increasing excitement of the people — that 
"mischievous animal" which the bishop of Arras 
held in such supreme contempt.']: 

Before opening the Medician volume of govern- 
mental acts, let us glance briefly at the stains of 
the Netherlanders towards the close of the year 

« Schiller, p. 426. t Ibid. % Papiers cV Etat, vol. 7, p. 367. 

9* 



202 THE DUTCH BEFOEMATION. 

1559, and familiarize ourselves with the mainsprings 
of the national action, with the affected indifference, 
but real bitterness of the patrician, with the senti- 
ments of the burgher, with the inspiration of the 
boor. 

As for the aristocracy, it was, like all others, 
rotten to the core ; indeed it had sunk lower than 
kindred castes in other countries; for the lavish 
exjDenditure, the eager competition, the profligate 
habits into which Charles V. had lured the Low- 
land nobles, had, as he wished, steeped them to the 
lips in ruin, and left them bankrupt in character as 
Avell as purse.* 

But, though stripped of their property, they 
retained their tastes, and hungered morbidly for 
the luxuries of the past. Many a seedy noble took 
to gambhng as a panacea for his ills. The money 
thus gotten was lavished in riotous debauchery : 
they worshipped a carouse, and a banquet was their 
god. Those patricians Avho still retained their 
estates were doing their, utmost to waste them in 
lavish display. " They spent twice as much as they 
were worth," remarks a contemporaneous critic, 
" on their palaces, furniture, troops of retainers, 
costly liveries, and sumptuous entertainments."t 
And another observer says, " Instead of one court 
at Brussels, you would have said that there were 
fifty."t 

* Pontus TayeD, MS. 

f Albertos de Flandes, MS., cited in Prescott, vol. 1, p. 477. 

X Pootiis Pay en, MS. 



TJNDEECUEEENTS. 203 

As the nobles grew poorer, their orgies waxed 
madder. "Dum vivimus, vivamus'''' was the motto 
of every bacchanal. Drunkenness was a wide- 
spread vice. "When a Flemish gentleman finds 
himself sober, he thinks that he is ill," sneered the 
bitter Badovaro," one of those keen Italians, half 
spy, half ambassador, whom the Venetian doges 
kept at the different European courts, that they 
might acquaint themselves Avitli the most intricate 
phases of the social and political life of Christen- 
dom. The English Camden phrased it more naively 
when he said that, " in drinking others' health they 
impaired their own."t 

Nor was this Avild life confined to the gentlemen 
of the Lowland cities : the ladies of the higher 
ranks were every bit as fond of presiding at mid- 
night orgies ; and at the best, the distinction 
between the morals of Avhat modern feuilletomsts 
style the monde and the demi-monde, were very 
shadowy.;]: 

As a body, this aristocracy was without princi- 
ple and without patriotism, but not without hate ; 
and the more they became impoverished, the bitterer 
grew their hate of the Spaniard who had tricked 
them into ruin, the closer they drew towards the 
burgher class which held the wealth of Croesus in 
its iron boxes, and the more they labored to stir up 
sedition ; for an emente meant, possibly, the repudi- 
ation of their debts, and mortgaged lands wrested 

o Badovaro, Relatione MS. f Camden, book 3;, p. 263. 

X Badovaro, Pontiis Payen, etc. 



204 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

from the maw of creditors; at the worst, beggar- 
ed lords and mendicant gentlemen had naught to 
fear. 

No question but the nobles joined the republi- 
can ranks and SAvelled the chorus for reform, more 
from pique than from conviction, and more from 
selfishness than from either. But Avhile this is so, 
v.e should not therefore conclude with the Roman 
publicists, or believe, as the bishop of Arras pre- 
tended to believe, that the trouble now at hand was 
stirred by a few score of needy and ambitious patri- 
cians ; for revolutions are not made, they grow, and 
this one was begotten of the collision of two radi- 
cally antagonistic ideas — Christian liberty and Ro- 
man despotism. It was a popular, not an aristo- 
cratic movement. The patricians joined it, not 
from choice, but from necessity, and impelled by 
the hope of gain. " Those nobles so conspicuous 
in the surface at the outset, only drifted before a 
storm which they neither caused nor controlled," 
as Motley records. " Even the most powerful and 
sagacious were tossed to and fro by the surge of 
great events, which, as they rolled more and more 
tumultuously around them, seemed to become both 
irresisible and unfathomable."* If the Prince of 
Orange was an exception to all this, it Avas not be- 
cause he was a patrician, but because he was a 
Christian patriot, earnest to serve God and to ad- 
vance the common weal. 

The movement for reform in the Netherlands 

* Motley, vol. 1, j). 25G. 



UNDERCUEEENTS. 205 

liad been democratic from the commencement, and 
it grew constantly more and more popular. How 
could it be otherwise? Had not the Reformation 
called the people into being ? Had it not crumbled 
classes into men ? Had it not dug out of the low- 
est, dirtiest boor the diamond of an immortal soul ? 
Truly, the pariah classes, the villains of the feudal 
ages, might well love the gospel and die for it ; for 
it had enfranchized them. Who can marvel that 
such a gospel, " the hidden might of Christ," had 
ever a victorious power joined with it, like him in 
the Apocalypse that went forth on the white horse, 
with his bow and his crosvn, conquering and to con- 
quer ? Who can feign to wonder that it leaj^ed the 
Ehine, and clasped Germany to the bosom of its 
faith? that it won Switzerland by a word, and en- 
throned its great apostle at Geneva ? that it lisped 
in England, and was buried in ten times ten thou- 
sand hearts? that it sighed in France, and awaken- 
ed the Huguenots ? that it pleaded in Holland, and 
subdued the Netherlands? The lowermost classes 
of all tribes and tongues could not choose but love 
and adhere to the reform, which resurrected Christ 
for the second time — Christ, w'ho had promised to 
reward all who loved him with "the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God." 

And still the reform spread. The Sclavoniau 
races hailed it with rapture. Scandinavia entered 
the gospel fold with eager alacrity. Bugeuhagen, 
the founder of Lutheranism in Denmark, could find 
uo Avords to describe the zeal with which the Danes 



206 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

listened to his preaching, " even on work-days, even 
before daylight, on holidays, and all. day long."- 
The evangelical pastors had traversed the ice-fields 
of Lapland in company with the Swedish govern - 
ors.t On the south shores of the Baltic Protestant- 
ism was predominant.:]: Already the great cities of 
Polish Prussia had confirmed the ritual of Luther 
by express charter.§ And in Poland itself it was a 
common saying, "A Polish nobleman is not subject 
to the king; is he to be the vassal of the pope?"|| 
Hungary swarmed with reformers; the mountains 
of Franconia echoed to their exhortations. 1 In 
Vienna, twenty years had elapsed since a single 
student of the university had taken priests' orders.** 
Scotland was as Protestant as Knox could make 
it.tt In England, an alliance between the Eefor- 
mation and the throne had moulded the ecclesias- 
ticism of the island into the peculiar form which it 
still wears from the south of the Thames to the 
TAveed.:}:]: As for France, the Venetian ambassador 
at Paris, Micheli, gave this testimony to the doge : 
"Your highness, with some few exceptions, this 
nation has quite fallen away from the Latin faith, 
especially the nobles and the young men under 
forty almost to a man; and though many still go 
to mass, they do so for appearance sake, and out of 

* Narrative of D. Pomerani, 15o9. 

t Eauke, Hist, of the Popes, p. 130. J Ibid. 

§ Ibid. II Ibid. IT Ibid. 

*-• Ranke, uhl sup. 

tf Chambers, Kebellions iu Scotland, 1638-1660. 

tj Hist. Eng. Puritaus, Am. Tract Soc, 1867. 



UNDERCUEEENTS. 207 

fear ; when they thmk themselves unobserved, they 
turn their backs on both mass and church.* 

Protestantism everyAvhere triumphant; Roman- 
ism everywhere subdued and despoiled — such was 
the jubilant European fact in the middle decades of 
the sixteenth centur3^ Why was it that the reform- 
ed faith did not extend its sway over the whole of 
Christendom at this auspicious moment, when, con- 
queror in the east, in the north, in the west, it had 
insinuated itself into that holy of holies of the popes, 
the Spanish peniosula, and stood knocking at the 
gates of the Vatican itself? Why? Balmes, an em- 
inent Eomanist pamphleteer, shall answer: "Philip 
II., a prince devoted with his whole soul to the 
interest of the Latin church, and at the head of the 
most powerful empire in the world, by his energy 
and determination afforded a counterpoise to the 
Protestant cause, which prevented it from making 
itself complete master of Europe. "t It was, indeed, 
Philip's dogged fanaticism which assisted the holy 
see to organize and launch its counter movement. 

Of course, while the atmosphere of Europe was 
in this highl}' electric state, the Netherlands could 
not fail to inhale heres}'. Their very position made 
them the reservoir of opinion. Among them, at 
least, it was impossible to put an effectual embargo 
on thought, for the great majority of the people 
could read. Seated "in the heart of Europe, the 
blood of a world-wide traffic was daily coursing 

« Miclieli, Relatione delle cose di Fiancia, Tanno 1561. 

t Balmes, Protestantism and Catholicity com' ired, p. 215. 



208 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

through the veins of their water-inwoven territory. 
There was a mutual exchange between the Low 
Countries and all the world, and ideas were as lib- 
erally interchanged as goods. Truth was imported 
as freely as less precious merchandise. The psalms 
of Marot were as current as the drugs of Malacca 
or the diamonds of Borneo. The strict prohibitory 
measures of a despotic government could not anni- 
hilate this intellectual trade; nor could bigotry de- 
vise an efficient quarantine to exclude the religious 
pest, which lurked in every bale of merchandise, 
and was wafted in every breeze from east and west."* 
Besides, the history and the habits of this peo- 
ple tended to alienate them from Borne. The old 
bishops of Utrecht, the mediaeval Waldenses, had 
bitterly opposed the holy see. The precious parch- 
ments which guaranteed their liberties had been 
clutched from ecclesiastic as well as from feudal 
lords. Then, too, the republican virtues of tlirift 
and intelligence had taught them to loathe the 
priests — a horde of lazy epecureans, telling beads, 
and pampering themselves in luxurious vice on the 
earnings of others. t Added to all this, the burgh- 
ers were men accustomed to think and act for them- 
selves. This independent spirit they brought to 
the discussion of the new doctrines. Bead in this 
way, the gospel tenets looked reasonable and true, 
the papal dogmas seemed absurd and atrocious. 
They began to love the one and to doubt the other. 
The authority on which the gospel rested was the 
e Motley, vol. 1, p. 258. f Ibid. 



UNDEECUERENTS. 209 

Bible. The authority on which popery depended 
was the haughty ipse dixit of a priest. The shrewd 
burghers remembered that the Greeks beheved the 
legends in Herodotus— that the Romans credited 
the figments in Liv}'. " Are not the Italians as 
credulous and as nationally vain as the Greeks of 
the Athenian forum, as the Romans of the heathen 
empire ?" queried they ; and they demanded better 
sponsors for their creed. 

For a time the Netherlands held to Protestant- 
ism as an intellectual conviction; but when the 
fiery field-preachers of the south of France entered 
the states, they speedily kindled this cold adhesion 
of the brain into a blazing faith in the heart, ready 
to cry with Paul: "I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which is 
in Christ Jesus our Lord."* For Protestantism 
entered the provinces, not by the Hapsburg, but 
the Huguenot gate.f 

It Avas the Netherland people, thus enlightened 
by their memories of the past, thus inspired by the 
grace of Christ aglow in their hearts, that now 
entered the arena, armed like David with a simple 
pebble, the gospel, to contend with the two Goli- 
aths of Spain and of the Vatican. The nobles? 
they were but the gilded hands on the outside of 
the dial; the hour to strike was determined by the 

* Eom. 8:38, 39. f Motley, vol. 1, p. 251). 



210 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

people, the obscure but weighty movements hid 
within/^ 

A bitter baptism of suffering, trying the faith of 
the Netherland disciples " so as by fire," had ripen- 
ed them for heroic deeds, for martyrdom is the 
grandest developer of revolutions. For years the 
pitiless edicts of Charles V. had hacked them; of 
late the yet more merciless placards of Philip II. 
meted and peeled them ; and though content to 

"Wait beneath the fm-nace-blast the pangs of transformation," 

quivering lips could not at all times choke the wail, 
"How long, O Lord, how long?" 

Singularly enough, the Eeformation, hypocriti- 
cally acquiesced in for a space in Germany, peace- 
fully settled in England by the recent accession of 
Elizabeth to the throne, armed and militant in 
France, was still banned and burned in the Nether- 
lands, and all the more fiercely persecuted, because 
the general pacification left Philip nothing else to 
do. From the east and from the west the clouds 
rolled away, leaving a comparatively bright and 
peaceful atmosphere, only that they might concen- 
trate themselves with portentous blackness over 
the devoted soil of the Netherlands.f 

Philip did indeed lend his assistance to the* 
ultramontane party in France, and scheme to set on 
foot another " Sicilian vespers." But the splintered 
lance which pierced the brain of Henry XL in the 
dismal tournament of 1559, postponed the Hugue- 
not massacre for a dozen years, and seated a wom- 
c- Motley. t Ibid. 



UNDEECUREENTS. 211 

an in the regency whose tenure of power depended 
upon the division of the kingdom into hostile fac- 
tions. The power of Catharine de' Medici grew 
from her poHcy of balancing Coligny against Guise, 
Huguenot against Romanist; therefore "the per- 
suasions of Philip and the arts of Alva were power- 
less to induce her to carry out the scheme which 
Henry had revealed to Orange in the forest of Yin- 
cennes." Eventually the queen-mother thought 
that she might say "yes" to the project without 
being the suicide of her own influence ; but " when 
the crime came, it was as blundering as it was 
bloody; at once premeditated, and accidental; the 
isolated execution of an integral conspiracy, exist- 
ing for half a generation, yet exploding without 
concert ; a wholesale massacre, but a piecemeal 
plot."* 

But St. Bartholomew was still in the future, and 
we have to do with the Netherlands in the year 
1559. We know now what their status was, and 
what their sentiments. What remains then but to 
open the governmental book? 

* Motley. 



212 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

QUICKSANDS. 

Had Philip II. been Aiirelius, or had he risen 
to the level of the old philosophers of Academus, 
he would have known that a system of toleration 
in the domain of faith, and of liberality in the 
realm of politics, would be best suited to the genius 
of the Netherlands ; but he was a fanatic, and it 
was his grim ambition either to desolate the coun- 
try — sweep it clean as the palm of his hand, or to 
Romanize it. 

Some say the king was mad. Gayarr6 bids us 
remember that " his royal line sprang from insanity 
in the person of his mother, Joanna of Castile, and 
ended as it began, in the idiotic madness of Charles 
IL, the last Hapsburg on the throne of Spain."^ 
'T is an ingenious argument ; but if it be indeed so, 
we cannot fail to think that Philip had " method in 
his madness." 

Still, his departure from the Netherlands on the 
eve of the battle between absolutism and conscience, 
was a capital error. He should have remained, to 
give his innovations the advantage of the personal 
presence of royalty. Delegated power is at best 
but weak ; and when, as now, the government was 
known to be but the sh-adow of a shadow — for Mar- 
o GayariH-', Hist, of Pliilip II., p. 83. 



QUICKSANDS. 213 

garet was seen to be but the puppet of Arras — the 
people were still less disposed to brook insulting 
changes and to pocket wrongs. 

Besides, their lingering loyalty forbade them 
to connect the king with their grievances: they 
strapped the load upon the shoulders of his minis- 
ter; and borrowing the tactics of their ancestors, 
who, while i^retending, were really sJiaking off obe- 
dience to Tiberius and Vesjoasian, they pelted the 
usurpations of the regency as treason against the 
throne,""' which had been an impossible rusc,\v\i\\ 
Philip at Brussels. 

As for the minister, he had a wit that could 
easily new-cast itself into any mould. He endeav- 
ored to veil his influence from vulgar eyes; for 
which purpose he revived a custom which draws its 
date fi'om the times of Augustus and Tiberius, and 
transacted his business with the government through 
the medium of notes, even though they were both 
dwelling under a common roof — a practice which 
Arras esteemed to have this further advantage, of 
more deeply imprinting his counsel upon Marga- 
ret's mind, and affording him data to fall back on 
in case of need.t " But 't is hard to deceive the 
keen eyes of the court," says Strada; " and now no 
man doubted but that Arras insj^ired every move; 
and as often happens in such cases, even matters 
in Avhich he really had no hand, when once his 
name was up for a favorite and a do-all, were held 

^ Vaudervj'uckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas, torn. 2. 
f Strada, uhi sup. 



214 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

to be his doings."^' It was au early and striking 
application of that graceful fiction of modern par- 
liamentary law in England, which shields the sov- 
ereign beneath ministerial responsibility^ 

In January, 1560, the administration opened its 
campaign against the people by the publication of 
the papal bull creating those new bishoprics which 
Philip had solicited M^hile yet at Brussels/!" 

The object of the innovation was palpable, for 
it sought to destroy the equilibrium and to corrupt 
the independence of the three orders, the clergy, 
the nobility, and the cities, whose delegates formed 
the states-general of the Netherlands. For many 
years the clergy had been a free and powerful order 
in the state, governed and represented by four bish- 
ops, chosen by the chapters of the towns, or elected 
by the suffrages of the monks of the abbeys.:]: Pos- 
sessing an independent territorial revenue, and not 
directly subject to the influence of the crown, these 
churchmen had to some extent interests and feel- 
ings in common with the nation ; while bishops and 
abbots occupied the Ui3per benches of the states- 
general, side by side with their good friends the 
barons.§ Thus circumstanced, and immensely 
wealthy, these recluses were lazy to a proverb. 
Like Erasmus, they were optimists, so long as their 
ease and purse were left them. Philip saw that 
he could never spur these epicurean monks into 
preaching a crusade against heresy, in which they 

«- Strada, uU sup. t Cliap. X., p. ICO. 

J Vandervynckt, Gialtaii. § Ibid. 



QUICKSANDS. 215 

were certain to gain nothing, and exposed to lose 
mucli.^-' 

Besides, he could not reach them, for they were 
■within the spiritual jurisdiction of the two archie- 
piscopal sees of Cologne and Rheims in France — 
an extra-provincial allegiance which had long been 
a stumbling-block to the Low Country sover- 
eigns.t 

Presto! and now look. The bull authorized 
Philip to increase the number of the Netherland 
bishops from four to eighteen, he to have the nom- 
ination, the pope to retain the confirmation. Three 
archiepiscopates Avere established, one at Cambray, 
one at Utrecht, one at Mechlin, which snatched 
the prerogative from the alien archbishops ; and to 
crown all, Perrenot was made archbishop of Mech- 
lin, and promoted from the see of Arras to the j)ri- 
macy of the Netherlands.^ 

A trick was to insure the subserviency of the 
abbeys. From a pretended motive of economy, the 
new prelates were endowed with the title of abbots 
of the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses, 
which not only insured them a reversion in the gold 
chests of these establishments; but, better still for 
despotism, made them the legal heirs of the politi- 
cal rights of the abbots, after the death of those 
then living; secured the dominance of the ecclesi- 
astical order to the creatures of the court ; and gave 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 2(io. 

t Schiller, p. 42;^. Metereii, Yandervynckt. 

X Strada, p. 40. 



216 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Pliilip the control of that estate in the national 
assembly.* 

When the papal /ai announced this programme, 
the Netherlands were filled with consternation, for 
the negotiations with the holy see which resulted in 
the decretal had been kept secret, and were known 
to but few.t For once, priest, noble, and citizen 
united to execrate this fatal usurpation. "It is 
impious, for it confiscates our houses, perverts to 
selfish objects riches which a devout charity has 
jolaced in our chests for the relief of tJie unfortu- 
nate, and usurps for the plunderers of the poor the 
places of superiors elected by and among ourselves 
from time immemorial," cried the abbots. " 'T is a 
trick, by means of which we are to be out-voted in 
the states-general by lackey churchmen bound to 
enact what the king shall be pleased to dictate," 
said the barons. " It is the entering wedge of the 
Inquisition — part of the merciless machinery of per- 
secution," exclaimed the citizens.ij: With one accord 
the innovation was hooted as a fraud, and scouted 
as unconstitutional — fatally against the ancient 
charters of the states; and so it was. 

For the constitution of Brabant contained these 
three provisions among others : " The prince of the 
land shall not elevate the clerical estate higher than 
of old has been customary and by former princes 
settled, unless by consent of the other two estates, 

* Graftal!, p. !)2. 

f Papiers d'Etat, torn. 5. Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1. 

I Schiller, p. 430. Motley, vol. 1, p. 271, et seg. 



QUICKSANDS. 217 

namely, tlie nobility and the cities." " The iDrince 
shall appoint no foreigners to office iu Brabant." 
" Should the prince, by force or otherwise, violate 
any of these privileges, the inhabitants of Brabant, 
after regular protest entered, are discharged of their 
oaths of allegiance, and as free, independent, and 
unbound people, may conduct themselves as seems 
to them best."* 

So spoke the charter of Brabant, to which Philip 
II. had sworn and set his seal ; and so that of Hol- 
land, its tAvin brother; and so the rest.f To these 
brave old parchments the Netherlanders now had 
recourse, and a combat of words, a battle of pens, 
a war of letters at once commenced. The humblest 
citizen could quibble, when liberty was in peril from 
a misconstruction of statute law, as glibly as the 
primate himself, and closely and widely were the 
constitutions studied. The people were keen to see 
and quick to note. It was quite impossible to cheat 
their instincts, for the Reformation had been their 
teacher, and the Eeformation was a schoolmaster 
that carried its pupils up from room to room in the 
university of the mind. 

However, the masses did err in attributing the 
inception of this assault upon their privileges, as 
everybody did, to the new metropolitan. They mis- 
took when they thought Perrenot had sj)un his hon- 
ors out of his own brain, as spiders spin their houses 
out of their own bowels. For once the churchman 

* Metereu, vol. 1, p. 28. Bor, vol. 1, p. 19. f Ibid. 

t Papiers cl'Etat, torn. C, p. 554. 

Dutch Eef. ^Q 



218 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

was inuocent. Until the bull came, lie knew nothing 
of the project;* bvit when it came, by adopting and 
attempting to enforce it he made the offence his own. 
When it was bruited on the streets that Perrenot 
had accepted the see of Mechlin, the rage of the 
people was portentous. Even the minister's match- 
less serenity was a trifle disturbed. When Holiness 
strangled Error, in Spenser's immortal poem, 
" Her vomit full of books and papers was." 

When report made Perrenot the originator of this 
innovation, his alarm was full of despatches. Once, 
twice, thrice he hurried couriers o& to Madrid, 
freighted with letters to this effect: "They say that 
the episcopates wete devised to gratify my ambi- 
tion; as your majesty did not consult me in the 
matter, I pray you contradict these ill reports."t 
And the docile monarch sent back the denial as 
repeatedly as it was asked for.:]: But it was use- 
less ; denials subscribed "Philip, Eex," and piled 
as high as the dome of St, Peter's, would not have 
absolved him in the minds of the people. He was 
the friend of Spain; Spain had the Inquisition; 
therefore he wished to plant it in the Netherlands ; 
and the syllogism seemed without a flaw, "Bah!" 
cried they, with a bitter, incredulous smile ; " is not 
Perrenot the lion of this fable? Who is it that is 
striving to settle the new order ?" No epigram was 
made that did not blister him; not one after-din- 
ner speech but took him for its text. At last the 

" Papiers d'Etat, torn. 6, p. 554. f Ibid. , pp. 552-.i62. 

J Cor. de Phil. II., torn. ], p. 207. 



QUICKSANDS.' 219 

complaceni prelate, who had patted the new arrange- 
ment on the head and styled it " a holy work," 
warmly pledging fortune, blood, and life to its suc- 
cess, wailed this prayer in the ears of the Spanish 
ambassador at Eome : " Would to God that the 
erection of these new sees had never been thought 
of. Amen ; amen."* 

The excitement of the people, already finding 
voice in a menacing chorus, was tuned to a still 
higher pitch by the continued retention of the Span- 
ish soldiers in the Netherlands. Three months, six 
months, nine months, twelve months passed, and 
yet they lingered, in the teeth of the royal promise 
that they should be speedily removed.t " What- 
ever else is left undone, retain the men-at arms," 
said the royal liar to the minister, at their parting 
interview. t Perrenot strained every nerve to obey 
the mandate. Setting his imagination at work, he 
invented evils which the presence of the soldiers 
could alone avert. Trading on credulity, he based 
their tarry on events which he knew would never 
take place. Thus, by elevating fables into realities, 
he illustrated the old saying, that " there is nothing 
so false as figures but facts." 

But the platitudes of the prelate were unheeded. 
It was an open secret that the men-at-arms were 
part and parcel of the conspiracy against the states.§ 
Fiercer and louder grew the clamor. The Zealand- 

* Papiers d'Etat, torn. G, p. 3-il. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 
275, and in Prescott, vol. 1, p. 501. f Chap. XII., p. 212. 

J Vandervyuckt, Meteren. § Apologic d'Orauge. 



220 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

ers, among wliom the mercenaries werci quartered 
for a time, were so exasperated at their presence 
that they refused to go near the dykes, then in need 
of the annual repairs, and indeed threatened to 
swamp the province, unless speedily ridden of the 
pest.* 

Some time before Margaret learned of the feel- 
ing in Zealand, she had cajoled the Low Country 
merchants into advancing the pay of these soldiers, 
on pretext of the necessity of settling their arrears 
before removing them, pledging the royal treasury 
to refund tlie debt.t Now, disgusted with the 
treaty of Philip, and convinced that there was no 
intention to send off the troops, they too lent their 
voices to swell the chorus of dissatisfaction, and 
even went so far as to refuse to pay their taxes to 
the government collectors.:!: 

At last the court was alarmed. In October, 
1560, a session of the council of state was held, on 
which occasion Orange threw up the command of 
his legion, and affirmed, supported by Viglius and 
by the primate himself, that the longer retention of 
the Spanish regiments would inevitably provoke a 
revolt. The governant begged that action might 
be deferred until the return of Egmout, then absent 
on an embassy to Spain, but expecting ere long to 
return to Brussels ; but this proposition was nega- 
tived without dissent.§ 

* Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas. 

-j- Meteren. Grotius. { Strada, p. 51. 

§ Documents luedits, torn. 1, pp. 330, 331. 



QUICKSANDS. 221 

Nothing remained but to succumb. Accord- 
ingly, the regent wrote to acquaint the king with 
the result of the council ; but since this missive was 
to be read at the open board before being despatched 
to Madrid, she touched slightly and perfunctorily 
on the causes which had influenced the decision, 
lest she might be thought to act from fear.- ■ 

In a private note, written in cipher and sent hj 
the same post, she opened the cause more fully to 
Philip's eye : " The provinces are resolved, sire, that 
so long as they are overawed by the foreign sol- 
diers, they will not give a penny to the collectors 
by way of subsidy. The bankers complain that the 
cities which borrowed of them great sums where- 
with to pay the Spaniards when they seemed about 
to quit the land, when they saw them delayed, grew 
angry, and refused to pay interest on the money. 
Our sky is overcast ; mischief impends ; I pray you, 
sire, release our fears by ordering these regiments 
hence."t 

At the same time the primate wrote these lines to 
" the master :" " It cuts me to the heart to see the 
troops leave us ; but go they must. Would to God 
that we could devise some pretext for their stay, as 
your majesty desires! We have tried all means 
humanly possible ; but I see no way to retain them 
Avithout incurring the risk of a sudden revolt, which, 
just now, would be a blunder."^ 

Upon the receipt of these letters, PhiHp was 

* Strada, uhi sup. f Cited iu Strada, pp. 51, 52. 

X Papiers d'Etat, tome 5. 



222 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

plunged into doubt ; but happily for the Nether- 
lands, just at this moment he received news of a 
reverse to his arms on the coast of Barbary- — a 
reverse which necessitated reinforcements. Taking 
np his pen,. he scrawled these lines to Margaret: 
"You may, if you see fit, send away the Sj)anish 
soldiers, who will be a seasonable supply in Africa. 
As for the money-masters, I will look to their 
engagement with the cities."* 

This permit was decisive. Early in 1561, the 
hated mercenaries embarked for the Mediterranean 
amid the execrations of the seventeen provinces.f 
Over their departure, Margaret and the primate 
alone grieved. The Netherlands gave that day at 
least to vivas. 

* Strada, ubi sup. t H^id-j Schiller, Motley. 



AGITATION. 223 



CHAPTEE XV. 

AGITATION. 

When the ships wliicli bore the mercenaries to 
Africa lifted anchor, the court said with a sigh, 
"Alack, 'tis a sad necessity; but there is one good 
thing, we shall see the flood-tide of popular rage 
begin to ebb, which will leave us to new-model the 
abbeys without danger of catching cold from wet 
feet." It was an error into which Margaret fell, 
because she was more skilful as a hawker than as a 
governant; and into which the primate stumbled 
because his politics were precisely those which 
least qualified him for the control, or even com- 
prehension of a republican movement, not to be 
barred by artful dodging, suave lies, and occult 
cruelty. 

The Netherlanders hooted the embarking Span- 
iards, but refused to hush their suspicions to sleep 
when they were gone. The Inquisition impended, 
and nothing was done while any thing remained 
undone. The agitation gathered to a focus, and 
was increased by concentration. The talk of the 
sidewalks crystallized into organized resistance. 
Brabant expended thirty thousand florins in the 
defence of her charter, paid for the opinions of the 
most eminent of the European jurists, and accred 



224: THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

ited an agent to Rome to appeal from the pope ill- 
informed to Lis holiness better-informed.* Utrecht, 
Guelders, Deventer, Karemond, and Lenwardeu 
slammed their gates in the faces of the prelates for 
whose benefit they had been erected into dioceses.f 
Brave Antwerp absolutely refused to install her 
bishop, and despatched a commission to Spain to 
represent to Philip the ruin that such an innovation 
would send along her wharves. For a twelvemonth 
the remonstrance which was thus carried to his 
throne, was suffered by the king to lie, unanswered 
and neglected, in the pigeon-holes of his royal 
cabinet ; and at the last, he would render no defin- 
ite decision, though consenting to defer the installa- 
tion of tliat individual prelate until his personal 
arrival at Brussels, which he seems at that time to 
have contemplated. This was more than Antwerp 
had expected, and her burghers regarded themselves 
as indefinitely reprieved.:}; 

In some towns no open resistance was made to 
the new bishops, though they were everywhere 
received with the most marked and bitter con- 
tempt.§ When the primate himself entered the 
capital of his see, Mechlin contained no voice to 
cheer him, and no tongue to shout a welcome :|| "he 
seemed more like a thief stealthily climbing into the 

■'- Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas, torn. 2, j). 71. 
f Ibid., Cor. de Philippe II., torn 1. Meteren. 
X Papiers d' Etat de Granvelle, torn. 6, p. 612. Meteren, Hist, 
des Pays-Bas, folio 31. 

§ Ibid., Cor. de Philijipe II., torn. 1. 
II Vandervynckt, torn. 2, p. 77. 



AGITATION. 225 

fold, than a good sliepherd who had come to 
guard it."* 

In February, 1561, Margaret secured for Arras 
a cardinal's hat. From this time, Anthony Perre- 
not, the notary's son, vanishes; he is transformed 
into Cardinal Granvelle, and by that name we must 
know him, if we wish to be in the fashion. This 
unexpected honor — his good friend the duchess had 
obtained the red hat from his holiness unknoAvn to 
the bishop — did not tend to abate the rigor or to 
lower the autocratic tone of the upstart minister. 

The evident rulership, the careless impudence 
of Granvelle could not fail to madden a body of 
nobles as haughty as himself, and who despised 
him as a mushroom favorite who had been cradled 
in the dingy office of a country lawyer. When he 
cracked his whip, they refused to cower. 

On his part, the cardinal repaid contempt with 
contempt, and regarded the bulk of his antagonists 
as a horde of titled blockheads. He treated them 
as if they had been a parcel of foolish children ; and 
never consulted those lords who were nominally 
associated with him in the government, except upon 
the most trivial questions: every matter of impor- 
tance being decided by the consulta, whose irrespon- 
sible and unknown acts, meanwhile, were done hi the 
name of all the members of the council of state. f 

Against this absolutism of the minister the fiery 
Egmont rebelled, nor was Orange the man to ac- 
knowledge its legitimacy. Neither fancied respon- 
* Prcscott, vol. 1, p, 500. f Meteren, Schiller, Motley. 

10* 



226 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

sibility without participation. Between Egmont 
and Granvelle there was bitter feucl. They were 
antipodal characters. The count was a rude sol- 
dier, ignorant, impetuous, blunt, and proud. The 
cardinal was a Machiaevellian politician, deeply 
read, shrewd, self - controlled, and unscrupulous. 
Such men could not but despise each other. 

Not only so, but on several occasions Granvelle 
had taken pains to thwart Egmont : once when the 
count had requested the governorship of Hesdin 
for a friend, whereupon the minister awarded it to 
a gentleman who had no claim to the office; and 
once again when the count asked that the abbey of 
Trulle might be given to a relative, on which the 
greedy cardinal appropriated it to himself.* By 
similar acts he had angered others of the Neth- 
erland seignors — Horn and Berghen and Brede- 
rode. 

One day there was a scene in the council-cham- 
ber, which came near having a tragic close. Eg- 
mont, exasperated by the bland insolence of the 
cardinal, drew his sword, and was about to sheath 
it in the body of his foe, when Orange with others 
seized and disarmed him ; and all this occurred 
before the eyes of the duchess regent.t 

The relations between Orange and Granvelle 
had once been very intimate; and now, though tlie 

'•' Dom I'Eresque Memoires, torn. 1, p. 231. Cited iu Motley, 
vol. 1, p. 283. 

t Pontus Payen, MS. Some say Egmont cuffed Grauvello's 
ears. Sec Van der Hacr, tom. 1, p. 180, d seq. 



AGITATION. 227 

cardinal plotted for absolutism while the prince 
planned for the opposition, both were a trifle timid 
about precipitating an open rupture of the old-time 
friendship. Granvelle knew how to dissemble, and 
Orange had learned to piece out the lion's skin 
■with the fox's ;* therefore the forms of amity were 
carefully preserved long after the reality was dead.f 
But in this play of diamond cut diamond neither 
was foolish enough to depreciate the other. The 
prince knew that Granvelle was Machiavelli resur- 
rected. The cardinal, not even affecting to under- 
rate Orange, wrote Philip soon after his departure 
for Spain : " 'T is a man of profound genius, vast 
ambition — dangerous, acute, politic. "| 

"With all their caution it was impossible that 
two men so widely at variance in motive and pur- 
pose should long be able to mask their feelings 
behind a decayed intimacy ; and indeed it was not 
many weeks after Egmont's escapade at the coun- 
cil-board that these "good friends" announced 
their enmity. 

Orange was hereditary burgrave of Antwerp, a 
connection which entitled him to a potential voice 
in the municipality. The selection of the magis- 
trates was at this moment an important matter, as 
the city was in hot opposition to the bishopric's 
usurpation. At such an hour, Granvelle, riding 
rough-shod over the rights of the prince, presumed 
to nominate the political foes of the burgrave ; and 

^ "Si leonina pellis nou satis est, viilpiua addenda." 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 285. t Ibid., p. 284. 



228 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

then, without consultation, coolly confirmed them 
in the magistracy by a fiat of the consulta. Not 
pausing here, the minister carried his impudence 
still farther by selecting Orange as one of the com- 
missioners who were to see that the decree was 
carried into effect. This audacity exhausted the' 
patience of the prince. "Tell the duchess," sneered 
he with a cold smile, on being handed the commis- 
sion, whidi he returned unopened, " that I am not 
her lackey; she may send some other on her 
errands."* 

Then, repairing to the council. Orange bitterly 
resented Granvelle's insolence, stabbing the smooth 
churchman with such cutting words that he too lost 
temper, and rushing from the chamber with un- 
prelatical iniprecations on his lips, vowed hence- 
forth to droj) all communication with these grand 
seignors.t 

Concealment was at an end, and Orange, with 
his accustomed promptitude, acted. On the 23d of 
July, 1561, he addressed an epistle to Philip, which 
was also signed by Egmont. Complaining of Gran- 
velle's impudence, and of his bold usurpation of 
authority — to the complete disfranchisement of the 
other counsellors, who were held responsible for 
the secret decisions of the consulta — the missive 
closed by requesting the king either to curb the 
cardinal by forcing him to admit all to the deliber- 
ations and decisions of the council of state, or to 

« Bakh, V. d. Brink. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 286. 
t Ibid. 



AGITATION. 220 

accept the resignation of liis servants Orange and 
Egmont.* 

Philip received these lines in the secrecy of his 
cabinet at Madrid, and cursed the writers. But he 
replied blandly enough that he thanked the nobles 
for their zeal : " I will answer more at large," said 
he, " on the return of Count Horn."t Horn was 
admiral of the Netherlands, and had escorted Philip 
to Spain.l A man of haughty and somewhat sullen 
temper, brave and honest, but overbearing and 
quarrelsome,§ Horn had incurred the enmity of 
the cardinal by contemptuously rejecting the suit 
of a brother of the prelate, who aspired to the hand 
of the admiral's sister.H His own hatred for Horn 
the wily favorite succeeded in planting in Philip's 
breast, and we shall ere long see what bloody fruit 
it bore. 

The voluminous minister took care to despatch 
a dozen manuscript quartos of news to Madrid 
every twenty-four hours ; and thus the royal scribe 
was kept freshly familiar with events at Brussels, 
always, however, from Granvelle's stand-point. Of 
course the opposition which was made to the new 
bishoprics received a copious recital. " Your maj- 
esty," wrote he in one of his tri-daily epistles, 
" there is the same kind of talk now about the bish- 
oprics which brought about the recall of the Span- 

* Correspondauce cle Philippe II., torn. 1, pp. 195, I'JG. 
t Ibid., p. 197. I Meteren, Hist, des Pays-Bas. 

§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 100. 
II La deduction de rinuocence du Comte de Horn. 



230 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

isli troops."* On another occasion Granve.le 
cliargecl and primed "the master" with an answer 
to a letter which was about to be sent him in oj^po- 
sition to the new-modelled abbeys. "When they 
say the scheme is contrary to the charters of the 
states, tell them, sire" — it was so he wrote — " that 
you have consulted those learned in the laws, and 
have convinced yourself that the project is perfectly 
constitutional; wherefore command Orange and the 
rest to use their influence to promote the success of 
the good work."t Happily for Philip this letter 
reached him just before the arrival at Madrid of 
the deputation sent out by the estates of Brabant 
to solicit his abandonment of the innovation. The 
king listened patiently, and then rejoined by reciting 
to them wdth great accuracy the lesson which he had 
privately received from the ubiquitous cardinal.:|: 

But while dissembling in public, Philip opened 
his heart to Granvelle in his correspondence. " 'T is 
no time to temporize," said he ; " we must chastise 
with rigor, with severity. These rascals can only 
be made to do right through fear, and not always 
even by that means."§ 

Even thus early nothing kept Philip from send- 
ing an army into the Netherlands to enforce his 
wishes with the iron hand, save the exhausted state 
of the royal finances. The home exchequer was 
dismal enough — looked blue as indigo. 

* Papiers cl'Etat, torn. 6, p. 261. 

t Ibid., pp. 463, 464. J Motlej^ vol. 1, p. 291. 

§ Papiers cl'Etat de Grauvelle, torn. 6, p. 421. 



AGITATION. 231 

Nor was the financial horizon brighter in the 
Netherlands. The cardinal was constantly ham- 
pered and cramped by the constitutional opposition 
of the states, who very naturally grudged money 
which was to be forged into fetters for their limbs. 
This " meddling " provoked Granvelle's ire. " Sire," 
[wrote he to Philip, " we are often in such embar- 
rassment as not to know where to look for ten duc- 
ats. These are very vile things, this authority 
which the dei^uties assume, this audacity with which 
they say whatever they think projDer, these impu- 
dent conditions which they affix to any proposition 
for supplies."* The cardinal j)rotested that he had 
in vain attempted to convince them of their error ; 
but they remained perverse. f 

It was while the royal exchequer was thus dis- 
ordered that the keen Venetian ambassador, Suri- 
ano, discovered that the Spanish court had a plan 
for debasing the coin. He hastened to communi- 
cate the news to the doge : " Your highness, a skil- 
ful chemist named Malen has discovered a certain 
powder, of which one ounce, mixed with six ounces 
of quicksilver, will make six ounces of silver. 'T is 
a source of revenue hitherto kept secret, on account 
of the opposition of the states and the theologicftl 
scruples of the king. In an exigency it may be 
used."J 

Now need we marvel that the royal counterfeiter, 
with bankruptcy before him and a chaos of debts 

'■^ rapiers cl'Etat, torn. G, pp. 178-180. 

f Motley, uhi sup. | Snriauo, MS. 



232 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

behind, resolved to exhaust the resources of his chi- 
canery before launching an army upon the Nether- 
lands ? 

Philip loved to manoeuvre and deceive, and in 
this crisis he forbore to j)ress the installation of the 
new bishops upon those sees which manifested an 
invincible repugnance to their reception, muttering, 
" All in time ; all in good time ;" but he confirmed 
those prelates who had gotten possession of their 
dioceses.* Meanwhile, the resistance which the 
abbeys made to the royal innovation compelled a 
compromise, by which it was arranged that the 
prelates were to receive an annual stipend from the 
revenues of the abbots, who were to retain the 
remainder of the ecclesiastical funds, and to 'be 
elected, as before, by and from among the monks 
of the religious houses.t In the very face of advan- 
cing despotism, the voice of the people had cried, 
" Halt." 

••' Biaudt, vol. 1, p. 134. Davies, vol. 1, p. 510. 

f Iloofd, Nederl. Hist., book 1. Hooper, JRec. et Mem., chap. 8. 



THE INQUISITION. 233 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE INQUISITION. 

Various voices have united to assure us that the 
Inquisition was the chief agent of that Pharisaical 
tyranny which frenzied the Netherlands. No ques- 
tion but that it was an occasion of the" brooding 
revolt. Strada, himself a loyalist and a Jesuit, 
affirms it in these words : " One thing most of all 
troubled and exasperated, and opened a door of 
war in the Low Countries ; at first a suspicion, and 
then an endeavor of setting up an Inquisition 
against heresy."* 

What wast the Inquisition? what its motive? 
what its origin ? what its methods ? what its instru- 
ments? what its influence? An analysis shall an- 
swer. It can only be limned in the sternest colors ; 
but we must not forget that nature's sternest painter 
has been crowned the best. 

* Strada, Hist, of the Low Country Wars, p. 32. 

f It were more fit to inquire what is the Inquisition? since 
that abhorrent paganism is to-day as active and as vicioiis as evei; ; 
still plotting to resurrect the blackest dogmas of the dark ages ; 
still the most dangerous, implacable, and ubiquitous enemy of 
civil and religioiis Protestantism, and only so far changed by the 
lapse of ages as to cloak its purpose yet more closely in deceit 
and fraud than it was wont before, if that be possible. Biit Satan 
is Satan still, whether towering in the clouds or ' ' squat like a 
toad." All who would study this subject are referred especially 
to the able work of Michel t't and Qiieuet, "The Jesuits," and to 
Achilli's "Dealings with the Jesuits." 



234: THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Christianity was instituted as a means to an end. 
The end was the salvation of souls ; the means, 
what else could they be but the propagation of the 
gospel ?* Christ proclaimed it by the sea of Gali- 
lee; St. Peter was fettered for it in the Roman 
dungeons; St. Paul pleaded for it from the summit 
of Mars' hill, in the face of assembled and incredu- 
lous Athens; and the precious seed they scattered 
took such deep root, that no heathen madness of 
Tiberius, no pagan rage of Caligula, no ferocity of 
Nero, no Coliseum fights under the declining em- 
pire, could destroy the harvest. 

But success is a harder test than misfortune, 
and prosperity is more corrupting than adversit}-. 
The church of Christ, long scourged and scorned, 
at length assumed the purple, and ascended the 
throne of the Ca3sars. Dizzy and debauched by 
the transformation, the whilom disciples of the cat- 
acombs put on paganism with the mantle of the 
emperors, and the prediction of the apostle was ful- 
filled : " Some shall depart from the faith, giving 
heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; 
speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience 
seared with a hot iron."t 

Heedless of faith and forgetful of charity, church- 
men began to arrogate to themselves unwarranted 
and impious powers, distorting the Scriptures into 
sanctioning their selfish ends, and foisting sacrile- 

<> Matt. 4 : 23 ; 9 : 35 ; Mark 1 : 14 ; 11 : 5 ; 14 :9 ; 16 :15 ; Luke 
4 : IS ; 9:6; Acts 10 : 10 ; Horn. 10 : 15, etc. 
t 1 Tim. 4 : 1, 2. 



THE INQUISITION. 235 

gious dogmas into tlie blameless text of the apos- 
tles. Clirist became an alien; was replaced by 
saints; faith was smothered by a code of works; 
and images and relics, canvas daubs, and filthy 
rags, and pieces of thumb-nails, were worshipped 
as very God. Good men still lived and labored — 
Tertullian, and Origen, and Justin the martyr. 
The Greek and Latin churches were yet united, and 
clasped hands in the persons of Ambrosius and 
Athanasius, of Augustine and Ohrysostom of the 
golden lips, as they are made to do under the magnif- 
icent altar of St. Peter's cathedral; where four colos- 
sal bronze statues, each twenty-four palms high, and 
labelled with their names, sustain lightly, and as if 
in triumph, the pulpit of the papacy, splendid with 
gilded metal and matchless sculpture. But these 
fathers were powerless to stem the torrent of abuse. 
Some of them, indeed, shared the grossest errors 
of their times. Often Christians were stayed from 
inveighing against acknowledged usurpations by a 
dread of exciting scandal : as in that terrific scene 
which Beckford has drawn for us in his " Hall of 
Eblis," where the crowd runs round, each man with 
an incurable wound in his bosom-, and agrees not 
to speak of it; they went about keeping their hands 
pressed on the secret sore, with an understood 
agreement that it should never be mentioned, lest 
the church should come to pieces at the talismanic 
word. 

In the East and in the West flaunted unrebuked 
corruption. Nothing was proscribed but virtue. 



236 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

When Cliristianity became paganized, naturally it 
did not scruple to use heathen weapons. And here 
mark, that the rise of Christian persecution was con- 
temporaneous with the fatal divergence of Chris- 
tianity from that path of humility and faith and 
charity in which Jesus had appointed it to walk, 
with its assumption of worldly ]3rerogatives, and 
with its ambitious and nnscriptural arrogance. 

It was the Nicene council, convoked by Constan- 
tino in the fourth century, which first pronounced 
formal and extra-ecclesiastical judgment upon all 
who refused to subscribe to its decrees, sentencing 
such "heretics" to banishment.* In support of 
this usurpation, the emperor himself issued an edict 
ordaining death to " every one who should conceal 
any of Arius' books, -and not commit them to the 
flames ;"t and a little later he fulminated another 
decree, by which the Arians were dej)rived of their 
churches, and prohibited from assembling even in 
private houses. 'I 

Punishments still more severe were afterwards 
inflicted on those whose opinions the council had 
been pleased to condemn; and from pecuniary 
mulcts they proceeded to the forfeiture of goods, to 
banishment, and to slaughter. It was a policy 
actively pursued under the early Christian empe- 
rors — by Theodosius II., by Valentinian III., by 

* Guerin, Hist, des Conciles. Laiulon, Councils of Holy 
Catholic Church. 

f Guerin, Hist, des Conciles. 

I Ibid. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of Eoman Etnpiro. 



THE INQUISITION. 237 

Marcian, and by Justinian J-' And upon tlie acces- 
sion of Galens, an emperor of the Arian school, 
these long-tortured schismatics took in their turn a 
terrible revenge upon the orthodox.t The entire 
century which passed between the reign of Constan- 
tine and the division of the empire among the chil- 
dren of Theodosius, was spent in the proscription 
of opinion. Arianism, Manichseism, Paganism, Eo- 
manism, but never Christianity, became successively 
the religion of the court, according to the opinion 
adopted by the reigning prince ; and in this rage of 
sect against sect the interests of this world and the 
next were alike forgotten ; the decay of the empire 
was accelerated ; and before the close of the fiftli 
century God moved a barbarian horde to wash out 
in blood the robber band at Kome which murdered 
and poisoned in his holy name. I 

Out of the chaos which succeeded the downfall 
of the empire, Kome evoked a new order — forced 
Europe to kneel before a hierarchy as absolute as 
the priest-caste of ancient Egypt, as arrogant as 
the Druids of Gaul. As captive Greece is said to 
have subdued her Eoman conqueror, so Eome, in 
her own turn of servitude, cast the fetters of a moral 
captivity upon the fierce invaders of the north.§ 

Almost as far back as ecclesiastical testimonies 
can carry us, the bishops of Eome had been ven- 

- Guerin, Hist, cles Conciles. t Ibitl- 

J Hist, of the Inquisition. Published by J. Stockdale, London, 
1810, Hallam, Hist. Middle Ages, in loco. 

§ Hallam, Hist, of Middle Ages, vol. 2, p. 217. 



238 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

erated as liigli iu rank among the rulers of the 
church. The nature of this distinction is doubtless 
a very controverted subject ; but it is reduced by 
some moderate Romanists to little more at the out- 
set than an honorary precedency attached to the 
see of Eome in consequence of its apostolic founda- 
tion and its imperial dignity.* It was the Western 
complement of the patriarchates of Antioch, Alex- 
andria, and afterwards of Constantinople in the 
East. A difference of rituals and discipline, to- 
gether with the bickerings born of mutual ambition, 
begat the schism which definitively separated the 
Latin and the Greek churches in the ninth centuiy.f 
But Eome, foiled in the Orient, only redoubled her 
exertions to cement an Occidental empire. 

Starting with a kind of general ecclesiastical 
supervision, admitted as an attribute of their pri- 
macy,| the Latin bishojDS eventually broadened their 
see into the popedom — that Sinai of the middle ages 
which shot raj-s of flame from the brow of Hilde- 
brand into the hearts of prostrate peoples. But the 
papacy was a growth, not a creation. When the 
bishops were merged in the popes, retaining noth- 
ing of Christianity but the name with which to con- 
jure, they busied themselves wholly, tirelessly, iu the 
usurpation of temporal and spiritual power. When 
they could not bully, they wheedled. Step by step 
they walked to dominion. The infallibility of the 

« Hallam, Hist, of the Middle Ages, vol. 2, p. 225. Cyprian, 
De Unitate Ecclesice. f Neal, Eastern Chnrcb. 

J Hallam, uhi sup. 



THE INQUISITION. 239 

holy see was claimed and acknowledged. Tlie con- 
fessional was set up and submitted to. The church 
councils, creatures of the popes, composed a grand 
ecclesiastical code, under the title of canons, which 
should bind all true believers ; and Christendom 
consented to be bound. Claims long disputed, or 
half preferred, began gradually to assume a definite 
shape ; and nations too ignorant to compare prece- 
dents, too credulous to discriminate principles, 
yielded to assertions confidently made by the au- 
thority which they most respected — which explains 
how it was that Gregory I. succeeded in establish- 
ing the appellant jurisdiction of the see of Rome.* 
So much and such uninterrupted success made 
the holy see audacious. Not satisfied with these 
spiritual usurpations, the pontiffs began to foray 
on the border lands of the ecclesiastical and civil 
realms. Little by little they acquired political 
rights, until, in the end, the pope snatched the chil- 
dren of the church from the civil jurisdiction, and 
assumed to set up or depose kings by virtue of the 
jus divinum of the church. f In a rude and igno- 
rant age, the holy see was irresistible through the 
intellectual superiority of its children, who monop- 
olized learning and were the only schoolmasters. 
In a turbulent and chaotic time, the popes were 
half omnipotent through unity of purpose and a 
clear design. In this paralysis of society, any 
kuiglit-errant of truth who might venture to draw 

* Gregorii Opera, torn. 2, p. 783. Edit. Benedict. 
•f See Hallam, Middle Ages, A.rt. Eccl. Power, passim. 



240 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

up a catalogue of grievances and to clamor for 
redress, was certain to be silenced. 

The appetite of Rome for riches was as insatia- 
ble as her appetite for supremacy; for she knew 
that wealth was the guarantee of power. " Many 
of the peculiar and prominent characteristics of 
mediaeval faith and discipline," as Hallam tells us, 
" were either introduced or sedulously promoted 
for purposes of fraud. To such an end conspired 
the veneration of relics, the worship of images, the 
idolatry of saints, the canonization of martyrs, the 
religious inviolability of sanctuaries, the consecra- 
tion of cemeteries, the sale of indulgences, and the 
twin absurdities of purgatory and of masses for the 
relief of the dead. A creed thus contrived, opera- 
ting upon the minds of ignorant races, lavish though 
rapacious, devout though dissolute, naturally caused 
a flood of oj)ulence to pour in upon the church."* 

To these sources of revenue were added the fee 
simple of the territory which bordered upon Home, 
which the popes partly purchased and partly stole 
when the barbarians new-modelled the map of 
Europe : pious donations from superstitious death- 
beds, moneys paid from time to time by warring 
monarchs to secure the friendship of the successors 
of St. Peter, and a score of ecclesiastical imposts 
collected on the various pretests of aiding the poor 
and propagating the gospel.t 

Such, in rude outhne, was the rise of the papacy, 
by ambitious worldliness, by sordid fraud ; and this 
^ Hallam, xd antea. f Hist, of the Inquisition, p. 3S. 



THE INQUISITION. 2il 

•unscrupulous system of aggraudizement was cun- 
ningly, unremittingly, uniformly pursued for up- 
wards of eleven centuries by the holy see, until 
cajoled or overawed Christendom made obeisance 
to the pontiff as the arbiter of this life and of the 
life to come. 

Authority gained by violence and fraud can 
only be sustained by violence and fraud. "Do 
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? 
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; 
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Where- 
fore by their fruits ye shall know them."* It was 
to preserve a power which was the evil fruit of a 
series of usurpations eleven hundred years long, 
that Eome had recourse to the Inquisition. The 
holy see had commenced in its infant days to ban 
"heresy" — meaning by that epithet not to stigma- 
tize scriptural error, but to brand opposition to the 
arrogance of clerical government. Such "heresy" 
the papacy was eager to stamp out by remorseless 
persecution. The Inquisition was merely persecu- 
tion systematized — reduced to rules and supplied 
with a code; therefore the Inquisition was a fact, 
before it had a recognized existence; and we may 
see its spirit in the resolutions of the Nicene coun- 
cil, in the edicts of the Christian Coesars, in the 
canons of the church, and in the decretals of the 
popes ages before it had " a local habitation and a 
name." 

The Inquisition has had three phases, each a 
«- Matt. 7:1G, 17, 20. 

Dutcli Rer. 11 



242 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

development — the episcopal, tlie papal, the Spanish. 
The episcopal was the embryonic phase. 

A variety of concurrent circumstances, the com- 
mand of Christ, and the necessities of an insular 
and persecuted society,* gave the primitive Chris- 
tian pastors an arbitrative authority in church 
affairs ; and even after Christianity became the 
religion of the empire, Christians continued to feel 
a strong aversion to appeals to the imperial tribu- 
nals for the settlement of their mutual differences. 
This trait was among the first to mirror the corrup- 
tion which entered ecclesiasticism when the apostles 
were laid asleep. Selfishness and ambition led the 
early bishops to stretch this arbitrative jurisdiction 
to unwonted lengths; in which design Constantice 
powerfully assisted them by issuing an edict which 
directed the civil magistrate to enforce the execu- 
tion of episcopal sentences.! 

A little later, another decree was trumped up, 
annexed to the Theodosiau code, and ascribed to^ 
Constantino, which went farther, and extended the 
jurisdiction of the bishops to all causes, ecclesiasti- 
cal or lay, which the parties in litigation, or either 
of them, chose to refer to their tribunal, even when 
suit had been already commenced in a secular 
court. J 

This gross forgery§ was*[3almed off upon Charle- 
magne as a legitimate institute, and he legalized 

« Discourse of Flet;ry. Institutions du Droit Ecclesiastique. 

t Ibid. 

X HiilLim. vol. 2. pp. 213. ^ Ibid. 



THE INQUISITION. 213 

it by repeating all its absurd and enormous provis- 
ions in one of bis capitularies.* For a time this 
bastard prerogative, thus legitimatized by fraud, 
was permitted to sleep ; but at last it was awakened 
to give countenance to the coercive control which 
\he holy see began to claim over the clergy in civil 
as in criminal suits ; to sanction the complete with- 
drawal of ecclesiastics from the secular jurisdiction, 
and to cloak the ceaseless efforts which were being 
made to subject the temporal power to the spiritual 
sovereignty of the pontiffs.t 

From these claims to an assumption of the right 
to punish all offences against religion was bat a 
step, and it was soon taken. Such offences were 
tried before the metropolitan of the diocese in which 
they occurred, and the secular arm was invoked to 
enforce the sentence of the prelate-judge.'! 

This was the earliest form of procedure against 
ecclesiastical offenders — the form of the Episcopal 
Inquisition. It was this germ which eventually 
expanded into the Papal Inquisition. 

.Innocent III., whose thunders stunned Philtp 
Augustus and John, surnamed Lackland, the inglo- 
rious usurper of .the EngHsh crown; whose auda- 
cious pride had laid France under an interdict, 
because Phihp repudiated his wife lugelburge, and 
absolved England from the oath of fidelity because 
John did not, as he thought, pay sufficient respect 

•-■ Hallani, vol. 2, p. 213. Baluzzi, Capitularia, torn. 1, d. 985. 
I Hallain, Middle Ages, Art. Eccl. Power, passim. 
J Limbook, Hist. Inq., liber 1, chap. 10 



24:4 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

to the lights of the clergy; this pope, whose in- 
trigues and whose arms had seized upon the sov- 
ereignty of Umbria, of La Marcha, of Ancona, of 
Orbitello, of Viterbo, and of the entire Eomagna; 
whose despotism had robbed the Eoman senate of 
its ancient rights, and made it a subservient hercT 
of slaves ; whose enterprising rashness had rav- 
ished from the German emperors the honorary 
prerogatives which they held in the capital of the 
Christian world, the remains of the power of Char- 
lemagne, that benefactor of the holy see, so out- 
raged in the persons of his successors — Innocent 
III. it was, whose pontificate, fatal to the human 
race, witnessed the establishment and enforced the 
recognition of the Papal Inquisition ; and gave birth 
to the Dominicans, the kindlers of so many perse- 
cuting fires, and to the Franciscans, those lazy 
blood-suckers who fattened on the wealth of states 
and on the toils of the unfortunate.* 

In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the 
southern slopes of France were inhabited by the 
Provencals, a race pacific, learned, wealthy, astute.t 
Wedded to the Yaudois tenets, which bore the 
impress of the apostolic teachings, the Proven9als 
scouted the pretensions of Rome, refuted the papal 
missionaries from their open Bibles, and offered 
prayer to God without the mediation of saints and 
priests. Criminals buying Paradise for money; 
monks spending the revenues thus gotten in gaming- 

- Hist, of the Inquisition, pp. 42, 43. 

t Vide Hist, of the Huguenots, chap. 2, Am. T. Soc, 18CG. 



THE INQUISITION. 215 

houses, in taverns, in brothels ; and popes lavishing- 
the funds of the church on their wines and stables 
and hawks and mistresses — all this seemed to their 
unsophisticated minds to be a gross violation of 
the Divine law, and tliey searched in vain to find a 
warrant for it in the Scriptures.* 

Pope Innocent undertook to enlighten them by 
the fagot and the stake. An inquisitorial commis- 
sion, headed by a Spanish monk called Dominic, 
wliose name w^as afterwards enrolled among the 
Roman saints, advanced into the heretical prov- 
inces armed with authority to convert the erring, 
ascertain their numbers, spy out the disposition of 
the Proven9als, spur the lagging magistrates to the 
performance of their penal duties, and sound the 
views of the local prelates to see if haply they 
might not be infected with Yaudoisism.f This, at 
the outset, was the extent of their power; they 
were only a kind of peripatetic inquisition on the 
old Episcopal pattern. 

A very short sojourn in Languedoc convinced 
these inquisitors of the hopelessness of their mis- 
sion. The heresy was deeply rooted and wide- 
spread. The Vaudois overmatched them at con- 
troversy. When they appealed to the bishops, and 
urged the sentence of the incorrigible, lukewarm 
prelates often hesitated to pronounce a verdict ; 
when they did, sympathizing magistrates defeated 
its execution by legal quibbling.| 

"'- Limbock, Hist. Inq. Hist. Hngueiiots, id nntea. f Ibid. 
J Sisiuoudi, Hist, of the Albigenses. Limbock. Hist. Inq. 



2^6 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

This resistance angered Innocent ; and breath- 
ing fire and slaughter, he launched a crusade upon 
the sunn}' Provengal plains, and at once erected 
the ancient ecclesiastical superintendence into a 
separate, independent, irresponsible tribunal, which 
he called the Inquisition.* Then, to make sure that 
no human sensibility, no natural tenderness, should 
thwart the frightful severity of this horrid court, 
whose jurisdiction covered all offences against reli- 
gion, he took it out of the hands of the bishops, 
who, by the ties of civil life, were still too much 
attached to hiimanity for his purpose; and con- 
signed it to the monks, a half-denaturalized horde, 
who had abjured the feelings of men, and sworn 
themselves into unquestioning subserviency to the 
holy see.f 

Years passed, and this court, which had reduced 
murder to a fine art, having completed the butchery 
of the Vaudois, passed into Germany, into Italy, 
into France, into Spain; finding few states bold 
enough to bar its entrance, marking its pathway 
with ghastly heaps of dead men's bones. 

But frightful as it was, the papal inquisition 
was only the half-way house of fanaticism — only a 
milestone, showing how far persecution had trav- 
elled; the Spanish type was the end of the jour- 
ney — necessarily the end, for weary bigotry could 
take no farther step. 

In the eighth century, the Saracens, attracted 

* Sismondi, Hist, of the Albigeuse.s. Limbock, Hist. Inq. 
t Schiller. 



THE INQUISITION. 247 

by tlie smiling aud fertile soil of the ancient Iberia, 
crossed from Arabia and tore Spain from the bar- 
barian hands of the Visigoths, to whom Honorius 
had surrendered it.* Bringing with them the Ori- 
ent splendor of the Ottoman empire, the Moors 
gradually changed the rudeness of the forests into 
the polish of the Arabian courts ; and the African 
cloak and the Tunisian albornos, the Koran and 
the Moslem cimetar, heralded a civilization as ro- 
mantic as it was unique.t The land itself was 
transformed, Avrought up to wonderful prosperity, 
embroidered with gardens, sheeted with grain- 
fields, clothed with orchards and vineyards from 
sterile mountain-top to verdant valley 4 Letters 
too were ardently cultivated, philosophy had its 
schools, poetry had its disciples, and the Morisco 
universities of Cordova and Seville were thronged 
by Occidental as well as by Eastern students, anx- 
ious to acquaint themselves with the Magian and 
Chaldean lore.§ Christian Spain, entrenched in 
the northern mountains, grew a degree less bar- 
barous by imitation ; until at last the polished infi- 
dels insensibly imparted their burning civilization 
to the primitive tribes — gave them every thing 
except their altars. 

But the Spaniards, while animated by the exam- 
ple of the Moors, bitterly resented their intrusion 

« Flavian, Hist, of the Moor.s of Spain. Murphy, Mahome- 
tan Empii'e in Spain. 

f Irving, Conquest of Grenada. Trescott, Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella. X Ibid. 

§ Ibid. Sismondi, Literature of the South of Europe. 



248 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

into tlie peninsula; and an incessant conflict was 
tlie result, a conflict which became a chronic cru- 
sade, and which culminated, towards the close of 
the fifteenth century, in the total overthrow of the 
alien domination in the reign of Ferdinand and 
Isabella.* 

The Moriscoes were given their choice between 
exile and conversion to the Roman faith; and it 
was to enforce this decree that the Inquisition was 
invoked.! Thousands of faithful Mahometans re- 
passed the straits of Gibraltar into Africa; but other 
thousands, detained by a passionate attachment to 
their homes — for the Moors had been seated in 
Spain eight hundred years, a period longer than 
that which has elapsed since the Norman conquest 
of Great Britain — purchased remission from the 
dreadful necessity of expatriation by a show of con- 
version, and continued to serve Mahomet at Chris- 
tian altars. 

But " so long as pra3'ers were offered towards 
Mecca, Granada was not subdued ; so long as the 
dusky proselyte was a Christian only in public, and 
became again a Moslem in the retirement of his 
own dwelling, he was secured neither to the throne 
nor to the Roman see. It was no longer deemed 
sufficient to compel a perverse people to adopt the 
exterior forms of a new faith, or to wed them to the 
victorious church by the weak bands of ceremoni- 
als ; the object was to extirpate the roots of the old 
creed, and to subdue the obstinate bias which, by 
■» Prescott, uhi supra. f Limbock, Hist. Liq. 



THE INQUISITION. 249 

the slow operation of centuries, had been phinted 
in the Moriscoe manners and language and laws, 
and by the enduring influence of dear, familiar 
objects was still maintained in its pristine vigor."* 

The Papal Inquisition was found unequal to this 
task; therefore the old forms Avere new-modelled 
and wrought up to perfection, and the Spanish In- 
quisition was the result — an institution invested 
with the fcost comj)lete apparatus for inflicting 
human misery and for appalling the human imagi- 
nation. 

It owed its existence to two monks — Torque- 
mada, a Dominican, and Ximenes^ a Cordelier, each 
in turn the confessor of Queen Isabella, the first in 
her childhopd, the other after her ascension of the 
throne. t Singularly enough, the motive of this 
" couple " in the hunt for heresy was not fanati- 
cism. 

Torquemada was inspired by a malignant hate 
of the Moors begotten of an amour at Cordova, 
where his inamorita was snatched away from him 
by a fascinating Moslem and carried off in triumph 
to Granada.:]: The revenge for which he agonized 
was reinforced b}^ ambition. Desirous of drawing 
to himself the favors of the pope, and of securing an 
oftice independent of the oscillating favor of the 
king, he used his influence with Isabella so well 

«• Schiller, p. 395. 

t Llorente, Hist, of the Inq. Prescott, Ferd. and I.sabelhi. 
J Hist, of the luquisitiou, i)iiblished by J. J. Stockdale, Lou- 
don, 1810. 



250 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

that, " squat like a toad " at her ear, he persuaded 
her into the adoption of the most horrid features 
of the new inquisition by alarming her for her sal- 
vation, and was himself the first Moloch to be 
placed upon this pedestal of blood.* 

Ximenes had a somewhat similar motive for his 
support of the Spanish inquisition. A prelate of 
imperious, sordid, and cruel temper, he had aspired 
to become prime-minister of Spain, and he attained 
the dignity — a success which made him detested by 
the nobles whose pomp he eclipsed, hated by the 
people whom he oppressed, and bitterly reviled by 
the monks whose manners he had attempted to 
reform. So circumstanced, he saw safety alone in 
countenancing the Inquisition ; in doing which his 
great object was, not to extirpate heresy, not to 
burn Jews — heretical opinions were of small impor- 
tance to him, and he would have preferred to let 
the Shylocks live that he might plunder them when 
they were rich — but to secure a weapon which he 
could silently, unexpectedly plunge into the hearts 
of his foes, and to have at his beck a tribunal whose 
authority might assail the throne itself, if need 
were — a court possessing the power, in the name of 
God, to penetrate into every corner of Spain, and 
ferret out those victims whom he had resolved to 
sacrifice to his security.f Torquemada regarded the 
Inquisition merely as a ladder up which he could 
climb to vengeance, and the highest honors of the 

" Hist, of the luquisition, piablislied by J. J. Stockdale, Lon- 
dou. 1810. t Hist, of the Inquisition, p. 113, et seq. 



THE INQUISITION. 251 

church; Ximeues used it as a rampart to guard 
those dignities which he had abeady grasped. 

Thus it was that the spiteful ambition of a Do- 
minican, and the selfish pride of a Cordelier, begot 
and nourished the most frightful and the latest form 
of the Inquisition. The pious caprice of a woman, 
the spite of a licentious monk, the venomous wiles 
of a cardinal, the speculations of a priest-^such 
were the wheels on which rolled the destiny of 
Christendom in those "good old times" of which 
poets sing. 

So much shall sufiice to show the triple origin 
of the Inquisition. But no acquaintance with its 
motive and its origin can paint it to our minds; if 
we would know what it was, we must see it at work. 

The Inquisition was a machine for inquiring into 
men's thoughts, and a court of punishment when 
that examination proved unsatisfactory. Naturally 
it affected mystery, like the cuckoo in the fable, 
delivered its oracular decrees from its hole in the 
rock; for Home was perfect master of the art of 
dramatic effect, and the popes knew Avell that a 
secret, mysterious, always impending danger is the 
most freezing of horrors. 

This hell, invented by priests, had its head-quar- 
ters at Home, in what was blasphemously styled the 
" Holy Office," an office holy only by that classical 
figure of speech which names a thing from some- 
thing which it lacks, as the dreadful fates were said 
to be merciful because they were without mercy ; or 
like that kindred extravagance which that remark- 



'252 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

able traveller in China, the Abb6 Hue, relates of a 
gloomy hole in which he was lodged, pestered by 
mosquitoes and exhaling noisome vapors, where 
light and air entered only through a single narrow 
aperture, but called by Chinese pride, " The Hotel 
of the Beatitudes." 

The Inquisition was, as we have seen, a tribunal 
owning allegiance to no temporal authority, supe- 
rior to all other courts — -a bench of monks without 
appeal, having its familiars in every house, diving 
into the secrets of every fireside, judging and exe- 
cuting without responsibility, condemning not deeds, 
but thoughts, and affecting to descend into the indi- 
vidual conscience for the purpose of inquiry and 
punishment." 

It professed to believe that the end sanctifies 
the means ; and it was built upon one princijDle — 
mutual surveillance, mutual denunciation, perfect 
contempt for human nature. Society was reduced 
to a vast and terrible espionage. Comrades were 
compelled to spy upon each other, observe every 
action, note every unguarded expression of familiar 
conversation. Every priest was an informer, and 
tlie confessor was spied upon by his penitent — police 
and counter-police. A woman often served as a 
spy upon two different men by turns, men mad with 
jealousy of each other — hell beneath hell. Where 
is the Dante who would have found that out ?t 

"Worse still : with regard to these denunciations, 

" Motley, vol. 1, p. 323. 

f Michelet and Quinet, The Jesuits, p. 50. 



THE INQUISITION. 253 

the Inquisition declared tliat it was the positive, 
bounden duty of every one to become an accuser in 
matters of offence against rehgion. Children were 
bidden to denounce their parents, wives their hus- 
bands, servants their masters ; and there are mul- 
titudes of well-authenticated instances of such- 
frightful domestic treachery — treason robed as 
pious duty, and performed under penalty of excom- 
munication ;* for the law was, according to the 
decrees of numbers of the popes, that whoever be- 
came acquainted with an offence against the faith, 
whether from personal knowledge or from hearsay, 
was bound, within fifteen days, to bring forward an 
accusation before an inquisitor, or the vicar of the 
hol}^ office ; or, where these were not present, before 
a bishop ;t otherwise the crime, whatever it might 
be, attached not only to the principal and his accom- 
plices, but also to all who knew it and did not 
reveal it.:|: 

And in order to facilitate denunciation, the 
Inquisition withheld the names of the accusers 
from the accused, and practiced the most careful 
secrecy in that vital matter — a procedure which 
often sunk the holy office into the mere vehicle on 
which private vengeance rode to secure triumph ; 
for it was a bounty on denunciation, and men might 
safely gratify their personal grudges where they 
were not brought face to face with their victims.§ 

* Achilli, Dealings with the Inquisition, p. 84. New York, 1851. 
f Ibid. Llorente, Hist, of the Inquisition. f Ibid. 

§ Hist, of the Inq. Achilli, a converted Komanist, formerly 



254 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Moreover, since society was an incarnate spy, and 
since to know of an offence and not to denounce it 
was to be guilty of it, awful fear transformed thou- 
sands into accusers that they might themselves 
escape denunciation ; for even inanimate objects 
seemed endowed with prescience — ^every wall, every 
building, every tree was a head and face hearing 
and seeing, for ever hidden, sealed, immovable. 

What the inquisitors could not learn by terror, 
they wormed out of men and women by compla- 
cence. Assuming the role of everybody's friend, 
they invited all who desired office, all Avho wished 
for help, to apply to them. Masters were supplied 
Avith valets, families Avere supplied witli servants, all 
without charge ; and when the courteous, zealous 
gentlemen, who asked nothing for their services, 
and who chatted so pleasantly, desired to know the 
news, was it possible to resist the inclination to 
detail the transactions and to recite the gossip of 
society?* 

Sworn to the degradation of the understanding 
and the murder of the intellect, the agents employ- 
ed by the Inquisition were terror and infamy. 
Every evil passion was in its pay ; its snare was set 
in every joy of life. It prostrated all the instincts 
of humanity before it ; it yielded all the ties which 
men held most sacred. A heretic forfeited all claims 

high in office at Rome, and cognizant of the facts, gives instances 
of this kind, as also of the denunciation of husbands by their 
wives — facts which came within his own observation. See pp. 
85, 80, et seq. 

* Achilli, ut antea. 



THE INQUISITION. 255 

upon the race ; the most trivial iufidelity to Rome 
divested him of the rights of human nature. A 
modest doubt of the infaUibiUty of the pope met 
Avith the punishment of parricide and the infamy of 
sodomy : its sentences resembled the frightful cor- 
ruption of the plague, which turns the most healthy 
Jbody into rapid putrefaction. Even the inanimate 
things belonging to a heretic were accursed ; its 
decrees were enforced against pictures and against 
corpses, so that the grave itself was no asylum from 
its tremendous arm,* 

The code of the Inquisition, with all the punish- 
ments for every supposed crime, together with the 
mode of conducting the trial so as to elicit the guilt 
of the accused — all this is contained in a large man- 
uscript volume, in folio, carefully preserved by the 
head of the holy office, and styled Praxis Sacrce 
Romance. Inquisitionis, and sometimes Libro Negro, 
the Black Book, because it has a cover of that color ; 
or, as an inquisitor once said, Libro Necro, "the book 
of the dead."t 

Let us open this horrid volume and acquaint 
ourselves with what Tacitus called " the secrets of 
the kingdom" — arcana imperii. Concerning the 
method of conducting a process, we read these 
words in the Black Book : 

= Schiller. 

f In the revolutiou of 1818, wheu the holy office -was entered 
iiucl rifled by the mob, this book was discovered, and Achilli actu- 
ally held it in his hands. The explanation given in the text is the 
•ne made to him by one of the inqiiisitors on that occasion. VkU, 
Dealings with the Inquisition," pp. 12-81. 



256 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

" With respect to the examination and the duty 
of the examiners, either the prisoner confesses 
and is proved guilty by his own confession, or he 
does not confess and is equally guilty on the evi- 
dence of witnesses. If a prisoner confesses the 
whole of what he is accused of, he is unquestion- 
ably guilty of the whole ; but if he confesses only a 
part, he ought still to be regarded as guilty of the 
Avhole, since what he has confessed proves him to 
be capable of guilt as to the other points of the 
accusation. And here the precept is to be kept in 
view : ' no one is obliged to condemn himself ' — nemo 
iendur se ipsum prodere. Nevertheless, the judge 
should do all in his power to induce the culprit 
to confess, since confession tends to the glory of 
God. And as the respect due to the glory of God 
requires that no one particular should be omitted, 
the judge is bound to put in force not only the 
ordinary means which the Inquisition affords, but 
whatever may enter his thoughts as fitting to 
lead to confession. Bodily torture has ever been 
found the most salutary and efficient means of 
leading to spiritual repentance. Therefore the 
choice of the most befitting mode of torture is 
left to the judge of the Inquisition, who deter- 
mines according to the age, sex, and constitution 
of the prisoner. He will be prudent in its use, 
always being mindful at the same time to procure 
what is required — the confession of the delinquent. 
If, notwithstanding all the means employed, the 
unfortunate wretch denies his guilt, he is to be con- 



THE INQUISITION. 267 

sidered as a victim of tlie devil, and as such, de- 
serves no compassion from the servants of God, nor 
the pity or indulgence of holy mother church : he is 
a son of perdition. Let him perish, then, among 
the damned, and let his place be no longer found 
among the living."* 

This astounding page is followed by another, in 
which the mode of attaining a conviction is given 
in sickening detail. " The rack was the court of 
justice ; the criminal's only advocate was his forti- 
tude; for the nominal counsellor, who was permitted 
no communication with the prisoner, and was fur- 
nished neither with documents nor with power to 
procure rebutting evidence, was a puppet, aggra- 
vating the lawlessness of the proceedings by the 
mockery of legal forms. The unhappy victim, 
arrested on suspicion, accused perhaps by his son 
or father or wife ; consigned to a cell, and broken 
by famine and misery and confinement ; knowing 
that one unknown witness could send him to the 
rack, and two could consign him to the fire, was 
summoned at last to confess. If he was innocent, 
he had nothing to confess ; yet the law held him 
guilty, and refused to give him an opportunity to 
prove his innocence, an avowal of which was an 
invocation of the rack. The torture took place at 
midnight, in a gloomy dungeon dimlj'- lighted by 
torches. The victim — whether man, matron, or 
tender virgin — was stripped naked, and stretched 
on the wooden bench. Water, weights, fires, pulleys, 
» Cited in Achilli, pp. 82, 83. 



258 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

screws — all the infernal apparatus by which the 
sinews could be strained without cracking, the 
bones crushed Avithout breaking, and the body- 
racked exquisitely without giving up its ghost, was 
there put in operation. The executioners, envel- 
oped in black robes from head to foot, with eyes 
glaring through holes cut in the hoods which muf- 
fled their faces, practiced successively all the forms 
of torture which the deviHsh ingenuity of the monks 
had invented."* 

If from the quivering lips of the mangled victim 
no confession could be wrung, he was sentenced to 
be burfied alive. The presumptuous arrogance of 
this decree could only be surpassed by the inhu- 
manity with which it was executed. By coupling 
the ludicrous with the terrible, and by amusing the 
eye with the strangeness of the spectacle, it weak- 
ened compassion by the gratification of another 
feeling ; it drowned sympathy in derision and con- 

tempt.t 

Usually "the number of condemned prisoners 
was allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of vic- 
tims might grace each gala-day. The act of faith — 
auto dafe — was a noted festival. The monarch, the 
high functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, 
the populace, regarded it as an inspiring and de- 
lightful j.-ecreation. When the appointed morning 
arrived, the victims were taken from their dun- 
geons. Each one was attired in a yellow robe 
without sleeves, like a herald's coat, covered with 

e Motley, vol. 1, p. 323. t Schiller. 



THE INQUISITION. 259 

figures of black devils. A large conical paper mitre 
was placed upon each head, surmounted by a hu- 
man figure, around whiph played lambent flames, 
and ghastly demons flitted. Each mouth was pain- 
fully gagged, so that it could neither be opened nor 
shut. Thus accoutred, and just as the prisoners 
left their cells, a breakfast, consisting of every deli- 
cacy, was placed before them, and they were urged 
with ironical pohteness to satisfy their hunger. All 
were then led forth into the public square. The 
procession was formed with pomp. It was headed 
by little school-children, who were immediately fol- 
lowed by the band of prisoners, attired horribly yet 
ludicrously. Then came the magistracy and the 
nobles, the prelates, and the dignitaries of the 
church. The holy inquisitors, with their ofiicials 
and familiars, followed on horseback, with the 
blood -red flag of the holy office waving above 
them, blazoned on either side with the portraits 
of Pope Alexander and King Ferdinand, the pair 
of brothers who had established the new form of 
the Inquisition. After the procession came the 
rabble. 

"When all had reached the scafl'old, a sermon 
was preached to the assembled multitude. It was 
filled with laudations of the holy tribunal, and with 
blasphemous revilings of the condemned heretics. 
Then the sentences were read to the individual vic- 
tims ; after which the clergy chanted the fifty-first 
psalm, the whole vast throng joining in one tre- 
mendous miserere. If a priest was among the cul- 



260 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

prits, lie was stripped of the canonicals which he 
had hitherto worn, while his hands, lips, and shaven 
crown were scraped with a. bit of glass, by which 
process the oil of his consecration was supposed 
to be removed. He was then thrust into the com- 
mon herd. Then all mounted the scaffold, where 
the executioner stood ready to conduct them to the 
fire blazing just at hand ; and into his hands the 
inquisitors delivered their charge, with an ironical 
request that he would deal with them tenderly and 
without blood-letting or injury. Then those who 
remained steadfast to the last were burned at the 
stake ; and they who in the last extremity renounced 
their ' errors,' were strangled before being cast into 
the flames."* 

On these occasions the king was often present ; 
he sat with uncovered head, in a lower chair than 
that of the grand-inquisitor, to whom he yielded 
precedence. Who, then, would not tremble before 
a tribunal at which even majesty must humble 
itself ?t These scenes were repeated again and 
again and again. In the eighteen years of Torque- 
mada's administration, ten thousand two hundred 
and twenty individuals were burned alive, ninety- 
seven thousand three hundred and twenty-one were 
punished with infamy, confiscation of proj)erty, and 
perpetual imprisonment; making a grand total of 
one hundred and fourteen thousand four hundred 
and one families destroyed by this single friar.^ 

« Motley, vol. ], pp. 322, 323. t Scliiller. p. 397. 

% Llorente, Hist. Span. Inq., torn. 1, p. 280. 



THE INQUISITION. 261 

The tremendous horror of the Inquisition is 
deepened by a consideration of its instruments. 
The whole tribe of the inquisitori were base and 
sordid and cruel and licentious to a proverb.'- 
Rome took no notice of the scandal which their 
conduct provoked, but winked at personal immo- 
rahty to obtain that which constitutes her moral 
code — wealth and dominion; for dealing in im- 
moral acts, immoral agents are necessar3% Would 
an honest man do for an inquisitor? Would a fol- 
lower of Christ, who said, in speaking of man and 
wife, " Whom God hath joined let not man put 
asunder" — would such a one sow discord between 
them, and demoralize the wife to make her betray 
her own husband ? To be an inquisitor, it was 
essential that the heart should be hardened to 
humanity, deadened to every social feeling by long 
monastic discipline, and that the conscience should 
be fatally debauched. t 

The Inquisition recruited its ranks by bribery, 
that patent opiate for scruples. 'T is related of the 
Jesuit cardinal Palavicini that, being chosen by the 
holy see to write the history of the council of Trent, 
in opposition to the account penned by Paolo Sarpi, 
and promised a red hat as his reward, the church- 
man grieved over the many lies he would have to 
invent; but comforted himself by sending for the 
insignia of his future dignity, which he shook in his 
hand with a sigh, exclaiming, "Ah, how much I 
endure on your account" — oh, quant icm per te patior. 

* Achilli. ,. t Acbilli, p. 101. 



262 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Precisely so, though possibly with fewer sighs, did 
the inquisitori fill their ranks. 

But when the '= Society of Jesus" was organized, 
the children of Loyola did from love what others 
had done from hope of gain or from ambition. 
Created expressly to combat heresy, nullities when 
not fighting, the Jesuits — whom Michel6t terms 
"the counter-revolution"" — were spies by nature, 
infamous from habit, and inquisitors by choice. 
The Dominicans did indeed retain the ostensible 
control of the holy office, but the sons of Dominic 
were merely its automatons— the Jesuits were its 
soul. 

Loyola's book of Spiritual Exercises, that physi- 
ology of ecstasy, that formula of sanctity, was the 
new school of discipline. Do you know what dis- 
tinguished Loyola from the ascetics of the past? 
This, that he was able coldly, logically to observe 
himself, to analyze his feelings when in that state 
of ravishment which ordinarily excludes the very 
idea of reflection. Imposing upon his disciples as 
operations acts which with him had been spontane- 
ous, he asked but thirty days — "triginta dies" — to 
break the will and to subdue the reason, as Karey 
conquered an unruly horse. Jesuitism developed 
itself as the inquisitor's counterpart ; one dislo- 
lated the body, the other dislocated thought and 
racked the soul.f 

The marseiUaise of the counter-revolution was 

■" Michelet, The Jesuits, p. 8. 

t Qmnet, The Jesuits. «■ 



THE INQUISITION. 263 

the rosary.* Chanting this the Jesuits wriggled 
everj-where, reducing souls after their master's 
method, planting convents of the Sacred Heart as 
auxiliary societies, and seducing lovely and brilliant 
women to repeat their 'lies, and to twist society into 
their toils. They will show you in Venice a picture 
in which, upon a rich, sombre carpet, a beautiful 
rose lies withering near a skull, and in the skull 
moves at pleasure a graceful viper. Does it typify 
the Jesuits, those vipers of the mind ? 

If now we look at the influence of the Inquisi- 
tion, we shall find it as deadly as the poisoned 
bowl which its agents so frequently employed. It 
blighted all virtues ; it stabbed civilization ; for it 
tore away mutual confidence and disorganized so- 
ciety. The scourge of those states which had the 
weakness to adopt it, it was also the corrupter of 
provinces which had attempted to resist its en- 
trance. Thus, Germany, always opposed to ifc, yet 
experienced the curse of this secret tribunal ; whose 
seat always concealed, whose emissaries ever un- 
known, caused the monarch to tremble on his throne, 
the peasant to shiver in his cot. This terrible court, 
always felt, never unveiled, saddened the lives of all 
who lived within its vortex.f 

-•' Christ said, " Wlien ye pray, use not vaiu repetitious. After 
this mauuer therefore pray ye : Our Father," etc. Matt. 6 : 7-13. 
But this rosary is a repetition of fifteen Pater Xosters, with one 
hundred and fifty Ave Marias; and it is said that the Virgin her- 
self taught this stupid form of devotion' to Domenico di' Gusman. 
This is certain, he was the promoter of it, and left it as a heritage 
to his order. f Hist, of the Inq., Stockdale's ed., p. 89. 



264 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

This terror extended even to the civil autliorities, 
whose members were not exempt from the inquisi- 
torial censure ; the base apprehension stifled the 
high spirit of the magistrates. Uncertain whether 
a courageous resistance to the arbitrary will of the 
monks would be favorably interpreted by the princes 
from whom they derived their powers; fearful of 
being sacrificed either to some political interest 
which they were unable to foresee, or to that abject 
dependence in which Rome habitually kept the 
European sovereigns, they suffered their fellow- 
citizens to be racked and burned; and looked on 
serenely, preferring their own security to the sacred 
obligation of protecting the innocent, and to that 
generous courage .which might have ruined but 
must have immortalized them.* They did not heed 
L'Hopital's exclamation, "To lose liberty! good 
God, what remains there to lose after that is 



gone 



It. was in Spain that the Inquisition was most 
active and untrammelled; and it is there that its 
malignant desolation is most perceptible. The iso- 
lation of society — death in life, the sterility of gen- 
ius, the ignorance, the sombre mood, the hideous 
morals, the furtive suspicion — these are the fruits 
of the Spanish Inquisition. 

Such, in its motive, in its origin, in its methods, 
in its instruments, and in its influence was the Inqui- 
sition. It was the Spanish form which had crossed 
the ocean with Pizarro and Cortez, and taught the 

* Hist, of the luq , Stockdale's ed., p. 89. 



THE INQUISITION. 2G5 

Incas of Peru and the Montezumas of Mexico to 
shudder at the name of Christianity.* It was the 
Sf)anish form which the holy see had invoked when 
the reformers said, " the church meddles with the 
world, and teaches us our business. Very well ; we 
will teach it God."t It was the Spanish form which 
Philip II. had determined to plant in the Nether- 
lands as an antidote for heresy.:]: 

* Hist, of the Inq., Stock, ed., cliap. 7, passim. 

\ Miclielet, Schiller. f Meteren, Vanclervynckt, 



12 



266 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 
CHAPTEE XYII. 

THE EDICTS. 

In one form or anotlier the Inquisition had been 
long seated in the Netherlands, existing not as a 
tentative but as a permanent institution. The ear- 
lier persecutions were acts of episcopal inquisition, 
performed by the various diocesan inquisitors.^' 

In the beginning of the sixteenth centur}^ the 
Ehine fi'om Germany and the Mouse from France 
flooded the Low Countries with the pamphlets of 
Luther and the tracts of Calvin ; and the Emperor 
Charles found the existing Romish dykes insuffi- 
cient to bar out the heretical inundation. Csesar 
applied to Adrian YI., who then wore the tiara, for 
aid. It was granted; and in 1522 an inquisitor, 
commissioned from Eome and aided by a band of 
priestly coadjutors, entered Brabant.f A little 
later, Clement YII. sent two additional pontifician 
censors of the faith into the states, basing the 
Inquisition upon this triumvirate; but his succes- 
sor, Paul III., reduced the number to two, and 
these were in office when Pliihp put on his father's 
crown.:}: 

This brace of censors proved viciously active. 
Not satisfied with domestic cruelty, they had burned 

« Strada, p. 33. EenomdcFrancia MS. 

t Ibid. ScbiUer, Motley. Metereii. t Schiller, p. 398. 



THE EDICTS. 267 

William Tyndale with bis Englisli Bibles at Vil- 
varde, in 1536; and a decade later, their emissa- 
ries tortured that, army of exiles, thirty thousand 
strong,* whom Mary Tudor's rasping fanaticism had 
driven to seek an asylum in Holland and Brabant, 
into which they smuggled their Protestant books 
in their bales of merchandise.t 

The provincial inquisition, like Janus, had two 
faces. It was papal, because the' censors bore the 
pontifical imprimatur ; it was episcopal, because its 
sentences might only be enforced by the civil au- 
thorities.:]; Thus far it had been always administered 
by natives ; and it was a degree less barbarous, and 
many degrees less obnoxious than the Spanish tri- 
bunal, because the imperial edicts, issued from time 
to time, and known to every one, served as the rules 
of its decisions.! 

A variety of reasons made Phihp anxious to 
replace this form of the holy office with the Spanish 
tribunal. Severe as it was, it did not affright the 
states into orthodoxy. Its publicity robbed terror 
of its worst stings. Its connection with the civil 
courts half paralyzed its arm. Celerity, certainty, 
lack of pity, mysterious secresy — these were the 
characteristics of that awful tribunal which had 
cramped Spain and cursed Portugal and cowered 
Italy and frenzied France and wracked pagans into 
churchmen at Goa in the Indies. It alone was 
esteemed by Philip to be fit and able to dragoon 

« ytrada, p. 36. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 70. f Ibid. 

X Van der Haer, p. 175. Brandt, vol. 1. § Schiller, p. 398. 



268 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

the Netlierlaiids into tlie clnal despotism which was 
his goal.""' 

The new bishoprics scheme was a vast stride 
towards the consummation of this purpose ; hence 
Phihp's earnestness in pressing its adoption ; hence 
the popular determination to defeat it. The text 
of the edict which decreed this innovation had used 
the word "inquisitor." Granvelle, with habitual 
slyness, wished to have it expunged. If the Inqui- 
sition could be planted, why startle people by the 
use of unpopular phrases ? " People are afraid of 
the new bishoprics," it was so that ho wrote to 
Perez, Philip's secretary, "on account of that clause 
providing that of nine canons one shall be an inquis- 
itor. I suggest instead that the canons shall be 
obliged to assist the bishop as he may command, 
which would suffice, because a bishop is an ordinary 
inquisitor. 'T is best to expunge words that give 
offeuce."t But Philip stickled for the letter of the 
law, and the cardinal's rose-water was not sprin- 
kled over the text. 

The half-defeat of the king's attempt to inaugu- 
rate his bishops, gave the reform fresh impetus. 
The number of its proselytes increased in propor- 
tion as the popular fear abated, and many avowed 
themselves Protestants before they well understood 
what they professed.:}: The zeal of such disciples 
was not always tempered by discretion nor in ac- 
cordance with knowledge, and their wild antics 

* Schiller, p. 398. f Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 276. 

X Bmidt, vol. 1, p. 134. 



THE EDICTS. 269 

stirred constant tumults, the op]irobrinm of whicli 
good men, better grounded in the faith, were com- 
pelled to bear. One of these charlatan reformers 
set himself up in Touruay as a worker of miracles ; 
others appeared in Lille and in Valenciennes.* 

Nevertheless, there were many earnest and hon- 
est and able Christians in the states, whose faith 
was immovably grounded on the Bible, and these 
seized every opportunity to propagate their opin- 
ions. And now tracts were everywhere distributed 
and everywhere read; preachers openly addressed 
conventicles; the people by tens of thousands as- 
sembled in broad daylight, and marching in pro- 
cession to and from their churches, chanted the 
psalms of David in the translation of Marot.f 

This open defiance of the edicts, at length pro- 
voked the vengeance of the government. "Philip 
himself, ever occupied with details, from his palace 
in Spain," as Motley tells us, " sent frequent infor- 
mations against the humblest individuals in the 
Netherlands. It is curious to observe the minute 

^" Schiller, Meteren, Vuudervyuckt. 

f Meteren, Strada, Eenom. de Francia. 

Cle'meut Marot, a Freuch poet of celebrity iu liis day, was born 
in Cohors iu ]49o. For some time valet-de-chambre to Francis I., 
he followed that knight-erraut king in his Italian campaign, was 
captured with him at Pavia, and shared his imi^risonment at Ma- 
drid. Keleased earlier than Francis, he returned to France, where 
he was imprisoned on a charge of heresy preferred bj' Diana de 
Poictiers, whom he had offended. The king released him, but he 
was again imprisoned, and again released. He died very misera- 
bly in Turin, in September, 1.144. Marot's most famous composi- 
tion was a translation in French of the Psalms of David, which 
was very popular with the reformers. Vide Am. Cyc. 



270 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

reticulations of tyranny wliicli he had begun ah-eady 
to spin about a whole people, while cold, venomous, 
and patient, he watched his victims from the centre 
of his web. He forwarded particulars to the regent 
and to the cardinal concerning a variety of men and 
women, sending their names, ages, personal appear- 
ance, occupations, and residence, together with di- 
rections for their immediate immolation. Even the 
inquisitors of Seville were set to work to increase, 
by means of their branches in the provinces, the 
royal information on this all-important subject. 
' There are but few of us left in the world ' — it was 
so that he moralized in a letter to Granvelle — ' who 
care for religion. 'T is necessary, therefore, for us 
to take the .greater heed for Christianity. We must 
lose all, if need be, in order to do our duty ; in fine,' 
he added, with his usual tautology, ' it is right that 
a man should do his duty.' "* 

Granvelle at once responded, bewailing the cold- 
ness and lack of heart which the Netherland judici- 
ary exhibited in the service of the cannibal church. 
" I find that the civil officers go into the matter of 
executing the edicts with reluctance, which, I be- 
lieve, is caused by their fear of displeasing the pop- 
ulace," he said: adding, "when they do act, they 
do it but lukewarmly ; and when these matters ai-e 
not taken in hand with the necessary liveliness, the 
fruit desired is not gathered. We do not fail to 
exhort and to command them to do their work. 
Viglius and Barlaiment display laudable zeal; but 
* Motley, vol. 1, p. 279. 



THE EDICTS. 271 

as for the councillors of Brabant, they are for ever 
prating of tlie constitutional rights of their prov- 
ince, and deserve much less commendation."- 

The governant was at her wits' end. Philip 
sent her lists of heretics, and said, "Burn me these." 
The people persistently interposed ; the magistrates 
would not stir ; the nobility were either timidly neu- 
tral or actively hostile, assuring her that "it was 
no good time to move this stone again, at which 
they had so often stumbled."t The states that 
had slipped the Eomish bridle under Charles V., 
and would not suffer Philip himself, when he was 
at Brussels, to put it on again — should they now 
halter themselves, called by a woman's voice ? 

Maru-aret determined to use coercive measures. 
An inquisitorial campaign was organized, and one 
of the pontifical censors, named Peter Titelmann, 
was selected to head it. This wretch was repre- 
sented by his contemporaries as a grotesque, yet 
terrible goblin, careering through the country by 
night and by day; alone, on horseback; smiting 
the trembling peasants on the head with a great 
club ; spreading dismay far and wide ; dragging sus- 
pected persons from their firesides or their beds ; 
thrusting them into dungeons ; and torturing, stran- 
gling, and burning men for idle words or suspected 
thoughts — for, by his own confession, he never 
waited for deeds.^: 

On one occasion, three reformers. Christian de 

« Papiers d'Etat de Grauyelle, torn. G, p. 208, et seq. 

t Sti-ada, p. 34. t Motley, vol. 1, pp. 332, 333. 



272 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

Queker, Jacob Dieussaut, and Joan Koniags, who 
had formerly taken shelter in England under Eliza- 
beth's throne, where they had connected themselves 
with the Dutch congregation in London, were appre- 
hended by Titelmann in the Low Countries, whither 
they had come to trade. On being interrogated, 
they confessed their heresy and gloried in it ; which 
procured their speedy sentence to be burned alive. 

Another of Master Titelmann's exploits was to 
hack an Anabaptist to death with seven blows of a 
rusty sword, in the presence of his wife, who was 
so horror-stricken that she died on the spot before 
her hapless husband.^" 

The secular sheriff, familiarly called Red-Eod, 
from the color of his wand of office, met Titelmann 
upon the highway one day, and thus addressed him : 
"Master Inquisitor, how can you risk your precious 
bones in this Avay alone, or at most with an atten- 
dant or two, arresting people on every side, while 
I dare not attempt to execute my office, except at 
the head of a strong force, armed in proof; and 
then only at peril of my life?" "Alack, Red-Rod," 
was the jocose reply, " you deal with bad people. 
I have nothing to fear, for I seize only the innocent 
and virtuous, who make no resistance, and let them- 
selves be taken like lambs." " Mighty w^ell," re- 
torted the sheriff; " but if you arrest all the good 
people and I all the bad, 'tis difficult to say who in 
the world is to escape chastisement." The censor's 
rejily has not been recorded ; but there is no reason 
* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 167. 



THE EDICTS. 273 

to doubt that he proceeded, like a strong man, to 
run his course.* 

When Philip heard of Titehnann's activity and 
success, he wrote back blithely, " After all, where- 
fore introduce the Spanish Inquisition ? The Netli- 
erland tribunal is much more pitiless than that of 
Spain."-!- 

Granvelle himself has borne unintentional wit- 
ness to the courage of the Netherland Christians. 
" 'T is quite a laughable matter," wrote he, " that 
the king should send us information from Spain by 
which we are to hunt up heretics here, as if we did 
not know of thousands already. Would that I had 
as many doubloons of annual income as there are 
public and avowed heretics in the provinces.":}: 

Titelmann had boasted to Eed-Rod of the pacific 
temper of his victims ; the people were not always 
equally calm and non-resistant. At Valenciennes, 
in 1562, two preachers were arrested as teachers of 
heresy. After a summary trial they were sentenced 
to be burned alive. It was necessary, however, be- 
fore executing them, to obtain the stadtholder's 
signature. The marquis of Berghen, one of the 
patriot nobles, was governor of the Walloon prov- 
inces, and he constantly absented himself from his 
post, because he liked not to be the right hand of 
the inquisition. 

The administration was specially anxious to shed 

« Motlej', vol. 1. Bnindt, vol. 1. 
t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 2(J7. 
I Ibid., p. 210. Papiers d'Etat. 

12* 



274 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

the blood of the Valeucieunes ministers; conse- 
quently, after the lapse of seven months, the gov- 
ernant wrote to remonstrate with Berghen on his 
prolonged absence from his provinces. "Madam," 
was the fine retort^ " it suits neither my station nor 
my character to play the part of an executioner."'-^ _ 

For this Granvelle denounced him to the king. 
" The marquis says openly," wrote he, " that 't is 
not right to shed blood for matters of faith. With 
such men to aid us, your majesty can judge how 
much progress we are like to make in rooting out 
this heresy."t 

Meantime, determined not to be balked of an 
auto da/e, the cardinal despatched letter after letter 
to the magistrates of Yalenciennes, to proceed with 
the execution without awaiting the return of the 
truant stadtholder.'l 

This they were reluctant to do. Finally, how- 
ever, the convicted preachers were taken from jail 
and conveyed to the market-place to be burned. 
Attended by an excited crowd, chanting the psalms 
of David under the very noses of the inquisitors, the 
victims passed on. Just as they were being strapj)ed 
to the stake a rush was made, at a signal given by an 
old woman Avho threw her shoe towards the fagots, 
and nothing but the adroitness of the guard prevent- 
ed the prisoners from an immediate rescue. As it 
was, they were huddled up and hustled back to jail. 

'^ Memoires de Grauvelle, torn. 1, p. 304. 

f Papiers d'Etat, torn. 7, p. 75. 

I Dom I'Eresque, torn. 1, p. 302, et seq. 



THE EDICTS. 275 

The magistrates were dismayed ; the inquisitors 
were frightened ; the people were at white-heat. At 
last the vast throng surged towards the prison. 
"You should have seen this vile populace," wrote 
an unfriendly eye-witness, " mo\'ing, pausing, recoil- 
ing, sweeping forward, swaying to and fro like the 
waves of the sea when it is agitated by contending 
winds."* There was no long indecision. With a 
wild shout the people stormed the jail, rescued the 
ministers, and hurried them away into safe retreats ; 
then the crowd melted away into individual frag- 
ments and dribbled homeward. And this went into 
history as " the day of the ill-burning."t 

When this news reached Brussels, the court was 
furious. 'An army was despatched to avenge the 
outraged majesty of the laws, and the governant 
demanded a propitiatory offering in the shape of 
the heads of the ringleaders of the Valenciennes 
emeute, which she obtained.:!: 

It was noticeable that after this event, Titelmann 
fell to imitating Ked-Eod, for he increased his body- 
guard, and armed his familiars cap-d-pie. 

The northern provinces, Holland, Zealand, 
Utrecht, Friesland, werc*almost unanimously Prot- 
estant,§ and this circumstance caused an immigra- 
tion thitherward. It is impossible for despotism to 
gag public opinion. The most biting statute is not 
executive against the popular pulse-beat, unless its 

■=■ Valenciennes MS. Cited in Mo tie}', vol. 1, p. 345. 

\ Ibid. X Renom. de Francia, Strada. 

§ Vclius Hooru, book '6. 



276 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

fingers are swords and its feet are cannon. So here 
the feeling of the people and the bias of the magis- 
tracy constantly united to oppose the Inquisition — 
not a town whose burgher government did not find 
or create opportunities to nullify the penal edicts.* 

As an antidote to this disease, the administra- 
tion, on the 29th of March, 1562, issued a new pla- 
card commanding " that none of the inhabitants of 
the Low Countries should be allowed to come and 
settle in any of the towns or villages of the hereti- 
cal provinces, unless they brought with them a cer- 
tificate signed by the parish priest and the civil 
magistrate of their former habitation, attesting that 
they had been reported good papists, and were not 
tainted nor suspected of heresy. "t Tli£ punish- 
ment for forging or using such a certificate unlaw- 
fully was death.:]: Moreover, it was decreed that 
"censors and magistrates were strictly to inquire 
not only into the character of those who for the 
future should come and dwell in any of these towns 
and villages, but also of such as had settled there 
at any time during the preceding four years, in case 
there should be just cause of suspecting them; and 
all persons were obliged* to prove that their chil- 
dren had been baptized according to the rites of 
the Komisli church."§ 

Hand in hand with this edict went a letter, writ- 
ten by Margaret herself, requiring its publication, 
together with the former decrees, and bidding the 

* Davies, vol. 1, p. 515. t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 143. 

X Ibid. § Ibid 



THE EDICTS. 277 

people to go to mass on Sundays and holidays as 
the rules of holy mother church prescribed* — all 
absentees to be punished at the discretion of the 
inquisitors. t 

The efforts of the magistrates to shield their 
Protestant fellow-citizens from tlie effects of these 
'decrees were various and unceasing. On one occa- 
sion the municipality of Hoorn was accused, by one 
Dirk, a hot-headed, meddlesome priest, of remiss- 
ness in the punishment of heretics, and Avorse still, 
of inducing them to attend mass once or twice for 
appearance' sake, and then appealing to that fact 
as evidence of their orthodoxy; while often, when 
it was known that certain Protestants had been 
denounced to the holy office, these were snatched 
from punishment by a timely warning, and provided 
with a place of safe concealment.^ 

A commissioner was at once despatched to Hoorn 
by the council of state, with authority to investigate 
this charge. On his arrival, the burgomasters re- 
ceived him with great courtesy, and took him by 
turns to their homes, where he was entertained so 
effectually, that the only movement he was able to 
make was, " from bed to table, and from table to 
bed." Having spent a week in this way, during 
which he had heard no accusation — for all who 
came to give him information were rejjulsed either 
on pretext of the commissioner's being at table or 
in bed — he returned to the council lauding the reli- 

e Bninclt, vol. 1, p. 143. t Ibid. 

X Velius Hoolu, book 3, bl. 155. 



278 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

gious disposition of the good citizens of Hoorn to 
the skies: "Not one lisp of heresy have I heard 
during my whole tarry," said he.* 

Just previous to the publication of Margaret's 
edict, several of the Netlierland Protestants got 
together and di'ew up a treatise in French, under 
the title of, " A Confession of the Faith generally 
maintained by Believers dispersed throughout the 
Low Countries, who desire to live according to the 
Purity of the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."t 
It was sent to Geneva for Calvin's approval, which 
it received; whereupon it was compressed a little, 
and then printed in Dutch and German. 

This confession, consisting of thirty-seven arti- 
cles, was the antithesis of popery. It differed from 
tliat of Augsburg chiefly in its reading of the Lord's 
Supper; from that of the Anabaptists, in the doc- 
trines of baptism, the incarnation, and the religious 
authorit}^ of the civil magistrate ; and from others, 
in the point of predestination. Since it was in sub- 
stantial agreement with the confession of the re- 
formed French churches, those who adopted it 
styled themselves, iu imitation of the Huguenots, 
" The Dutch Reformed church.":]: Before this, the 
reformed of the Low Countries had adopted the 
London longer and shorter catechisms as standards 
in matters of faith, regulating their morals by the 
rules of the Scriptures; now they rallied under the 
banner of their own confession. § 

* Velius Hoorn, book 3, bl. 155. ^ 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 142. J Ibid. § Ibid. 



MINES AND COUNTER-MINES. 279 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 

MINES AND COUNTER-MINES. 

It was a x^atent fact that a crisis impended in- 
the Netherlands. As a man in the midst of ava- 
lanches, by a^ loud word, may bring one thundering 
down upon him, so now all saw that an exclamation 
might precipitate revolt. The wrath of a nation 
is never impersonal ; it must vent itself upon some 
individual. In the Loav Countries this individual 
was Granvelle. To the people he seemed to be, as 
he was, the incarnation of all they hated. This 
feeling added tenfold to the bitterness with which 
he Avas assailed. by the nationahty he had come to 
stab. 

In spite of his pride, and notwithstanding his 
courage — qualities in which no one excelled him — 
the cardinal bent at times beneath the crushing 
weight of popular odium. He pressed Philip to 
return to Brussels. " It is a common notion here," 
he wrote to the royal secretary, Perez, " that they 
are anxious in Spain to sacrifice the Low Countries. 
The lords talk so freely, that any moment I fear an 
insurrection. For God's sake, persuade the king to 
come, or it will lie heavy on his conscience.''* No 
reply was vouchsafed. A little later, Granvelle 
wrote again : " It is three months since I have 
received a line from Madrid. We know as little of 

--' Cor. cle Philippe 11. , torn. 1, p. 213. 



280 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

Spain here as of the Indies, Such silence is dan- 
gerous, and may cost the master dear."* 

Granvelle, however much he might fret at " the 
master's " course in his Spanish letters, bated no 
jot of his hauteur in public ; and carried it with as 
high a hand as ever at the council board, disdain- 
ing to make an effort to placate resentment. He 
owned a villa just outside the gates of Brussels, 
which the populace nicknamed " The Smithy," in 
derision of his attributed ancestry.f There, sur- 
rounded by all that was beautiful in art and luxuri- 
ous in wealth, the hated politician dwelt, occupying 
himself in transacting the public business, corre- 
sponding constantly with the Spanish court, and 
giving dinners to the lesser gentry — a class he had 
patronized since his breach with ^the nobles, and 
urgently recommended to the king, hinting that 
high military and civil offices bestowed upon these 
would lower the pride of the grandees.:]: "It makes 
me laugh," wrote he to Philip, " to see the great 
seigneurs absenting themselves from my dinners; 
nevertheless, I can always get plenty of guests at 
my table, gentlemen and counsellors. I sometimes 
even invite citizens, in order to gain their good- 
will."§ 

While the cardinal was making merry over the 
absence of the seigneurs from his table, the disaffect- 

» Correspouclance de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 199. 
■j- Vandervynckt, torn. 1, p. 164. 
X Dom I'Eresque, torn. 2, p. 53. 
§ Papicrs d'Etat, toin. (i, ]). 552. 



MINES AND COUNTER-MINES. 281 

ed lords were busied in consolidating a league, whose 
avowed object was the expulsion of Granvelle from 
the Netherlands.* The greater, and most of the 
lesser nobles, bottoming their measures upon the 
patriotism of the masses, commenced, early in 1562, 
an able and open constitutional opposition to the 
minister and his absolute policy. TJiere was noth- 
ing underhand in this, because, as Motley has re- 
minded us, " the Netherlands did not constitute an 
absolute monarchy — did not even constitute a mon- 
archy. The provinces knew no king. Philip was 
king of Spain, Naples, Jerusalem ; but he was only 
duke of Brabant, count of Flanders, lord of Freis- 
land : hereditary chief, under various^titles, of sev- 
enteen states, each one of which, although not re- 
publican, possessed a constitution as sacred as, and 
much more ancient than, the prerogatives of the 
crown ; charters, too, whose infraction, by Philip's 
own oath, absolved his subjects from all allegiance, 
left them absolutely independent of his sceptre. 
Resistance, therefore, to the bold absolutism of the 
Spanish court was logical, loyal, constitutional ; not 
a cabal, no secret league, as Granvelle had the 
effrontery to term it; but a legitimate exercise of 
powers which belonged of old to those who wielded 
them, and which only an unrighteous innovation 
could destroy."! 

At the head of the opposition, by right of pre- 
eminent genius and the tacit assent of the nation, 

* Prescott, Hist, of Tbilip II., vol. 1, p. 521. Papiers d Etat. 
t Motley, vol. 1, p. 3o3. 



282 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

stood the gre'at statesman whom God had commis- 
sioned to lead that Israel out of the house of bon- 
dage through the Eed sea of war, the Prince of 
Orange. Imperturbable, wary, subtle, prescient, it 
was hopeless to outwit him — it was impossible to 
administer an opiate to his vigilance. Men were 
the pawns, knights, bishops, and castles of Will- 
iam's chess — Europe was his board. 

The fanatic king, not content with being deaf 
to the admonitions of justice, amused himself by 
applying fresh irritants to the galled back of the 
people, forgetful of the fact that, if maddened, the 
"vile animal" might balk and throw him from the 
saddle. Wheai PhiHp espoused Isabella of France, 
he promised the queen-mother, Catharine de' Med- 
ici, to assist her against the Huguenots, whenever 
she might solicit aid.^ In 1562, France had an- 
other attack of her chronic disease, civil war. The 
Huguenots, officered by Cond6 and Coligny, once 
a^ain sounded to saddle in defence of edicts which 
granted them liberty of worship, but which the 
Fi-ench court, issuing such permits only under the 
pressure of compulsion, always hastened to recall 
upon regaining confidence.t It was not long ere 
the queen-mother was driven to the wall, and re- 
duced to extremity — seeming about to expire, as a 
poisoned rat dies of rage in its hole. Her shriek 
for aid reminded Philip of his promise; he com- 
manded Margaret of Parma to despatch the native 

« Prescott, vol. 1. Stracla. 

t Hist, of the Huguenots, Am. Tract See, 1866. 



MINES AND COUNTER-MINES. 283 

bands of the Netlierlands to the camp of Catharine 
de' Medici with all speed.* 

The governant received this order with amaze- 
ment. Its ludicrovis audacity paralyzed Granvelle 
himself. " Why," cried Viglius, startled out of his 
eloquent commonplaces, " obedience would be sui- 
cide;" and BarHament rounded the sentence with 
his " Amen."t The Protestants of that age consti- 
tuted a kind of federative repubHc — formed a spe- 
cies of secret association ramifying throughout Eu- 
rope, yet so closely united that a blow struck at it 
in any member instantly vibrated to every other.]: 
The relationship between the Huguenots and the 
reformed of the Low Countries was especially inti- 
mate and cordial. Any attempt to wheel the na- 
tional cavalry into Hue against Conde and Cohgny 
would, as the consulta knew, cause an outbreak in 
Brussels itself. When the royal mandate was read 
at the council-board, there was not a voice which 
did not urge delay until the king could be apprized 
of the danger of his move.§ Margaret was in a 
dilemma. She dared not act, for she feared the 
people ; she dreaded delay, for she feared " the mas- 
ter." Doubt tied her hands. While still undecided, 
a sudden express came from Madrid, in which Philip 
chided the delay, and bade the governant send off 
the auxiliaries without further pause.H Margaret 
summoned Granvelle to her side and showed him 
the missive. " What shall I do ?" queried she. 

« Strada, p. CO. f I^ii^^- i Prescott, Schiller. 

§ Strada, uU sup. II Ibid. Cor. de Philippe n. 



284 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

The facile minister blandly answered, " 'T is im- 
possible to send the horsemen into France. Change 
the name and keep the substance of his majesty's 
desires by substituting money for men."* 

The advice was followed ; and after a heated de- 
bate in the council-chamber, the compromise was 
assented to, and the money was voted. Philip sent 
fifteen hundred troopers from Spain to Catharine's 
assistance on being told of *ihis transaction by the 
cardinal, drawing upon the states to pay the cost.f 
Thus the industry of the Protestant Netherlands 
was taxed that the Huguenots might be persecuted 
by the court of Prance. 

Taking this manoeuvre as an index that affairs 
were rapidly drifting from bad to worse, the people 
clamored for the convocation of the states-general. 
Orange and Egmont pressed Margaret to heed this 
request — pressed it so earnestly that she was obhged 
to confess that Philip had expressly charged her 
not to call an assembly of the states-general in his 
absence. I 

" Well, then," was the reply, " we pray your high- 
ness to convene the knights of the Golden Fleece, 
and take counsel with them." The governant as- 
sented, and the order assembled at Brussels, in 
May, 1562.§ Yiglius addressed them in a long 
and eloquent speech, in which he discussed the 
troubled condition of the provinces, alluded to some 
of the causes, and suggested various remedies. 

* Strada, pp. GO, 61. Prescott, Motley. t Ibid, 

t Strada, p. GO. Vaudervyuckt. § Ibid. 



MINES AND COUNTEK-MINES. 285 

On the adjournment of the order for the day, 
each knight was handed an invitation from the 
Prince of Orange to attend a caucus in the evening 
at Nassau-house.* Just after nightfall the motley 
gathering was called to order, and a furious debate 
ensued. Motives were aspersed, epithets were ban- 
died, and a fierce verbal assault upon the cardinal 
was as furiously repelled. Towards midnight the 
heated knights separated, having decided upon no 
programme.'!' 

Some days later the adjourned meeting of the 
order was held. The passionate discussions of the 
caucus were revived, but finally it was decreed that 
two things should be done: an application should 
be made to the individual states for a subsidy, of 
which the goveruant stood in sad need; a special 
envoy should be despatched to Spain.:!: Then the 
knights dissolved. 

The monetary request was preferred to the prov- 
inces seriatim, and rejected by each ;§ so there was 
an end of one half of the advice of the knights of 
the Golden Fleece. The other half was acted upon ; 
Margaret selected the seigneur de Monti^ny, a gen- 
tleman of talent and patriotism, for the Spanish 
mission.II "He will make an excellent decoy-duck," 
thought she. 

It was certain that Moutigny would recite the 

story of the disaffected; he was not trusted to tell 

* Hoofd, torn. 1, p. 40. Hopper, Kec. and Mem., torn. 4, p. 25. 
t Ibid. t Vita Viglii, p. 36. 

§ Ibid. Vandervj'nckt, Meteren. 
[| Strada, \x 09. Vaiideivj-nckt. 



286 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

that of the administratiou. While he was packing 
his bag, a budget was secretly prepared between 
Margaret and Griinvelle, and despatched to Philip 
by a special courier, to prepare him for his coming 
interview with the envoy.* 

Let us seat ourselves beside the king in the royal 
cabinet, and read a line of the correspondence. 
" Your majesty," wrote the cardinal, " this talk 
about the Inquisition is all a pretext. 'T is only to 
throw dust into the eyes of the vulgar, and to per- 
suade them into tumultuous demonstrations, while 
the real cause of this breeze is that the nobles 
choose that your majesty should do nothing with- 
out their permission and through their lianxls."t 

Philip faithfully conned these words, and then 
awaited the arrival of Montigny with complacent 
tranquillity. The seigneur reached Madrid in the 
summer of 1562. He was received graciously, given 
two audiences, and bidden to speak freely. " What 
is the cause of this disturbance? what the origin 
of these complaints?" asked the king. "Sire," was 
the frank reply, " the discontent arises partly from 
the clandestine manner in which the new episco- 
pates were brought in without the knowledge, ad- 
vice, and consent of the states, bringing in their 
train an inquisition alien to our tastes and habits ; 
and partly from the universal hatred in which the 
cardinal is held — hatred so implacable that yet 
greater tumults are to be apprehended.":]: 

^- Strada, uhl sitjy. f Papiers d'Etat, torn. 4, pp. 560, 570. 

t Strada, p. 71. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 143. ; 



MINES AND COUNTEK-MINES. 287 

Philip, who was as really the plenipotentiary of 
Granyelle as Montigny was of Margaret, retorted 
by repeating the instructions of his ministerial men- 
tor, and closed with an expression of his fraternal 
sentiments towards the Netherlands." Nothing 
definite, nothing satisfactory was said; and when 
the envoy, after being petted and feted, was sent 
home in the winter of 1562, he carried back with 
him nothing but a dreary package of equivoques — 
words without meaning; the mere bait for gud- 
geons.f 

The nobles felt aggrieved, but they were not 
surprised; for Orange was in constant receipt of 
intelligence, through secret channels, of what passed 
in Madrid4 But so far were they from being dis- 
heartened by this failure, that they only drew the 
bands of their confederacy against Granvelle more 
closely; binding themselves either to remove the 
cardinal from office or to absent themselves from 
the council board, where they sat as stupid nulli- 
ties.§ 

It was the pet purpose of the court to dissolve 
this league; and for that, what means so fit as to 
sow distrust and to awaken jealousy among the 
confederates? Ere Montigny had reached Madrid, 
Philip had sent urgent and profuse directions to 
Margaret and the cardinal to consummate this good 
work. " By no means suffer private assemblies 
among the nobles," he wrote, "but find out some 

<:■ Schiller, p. 439. \ Ibid., Alotley, Meteren. 

t Schiller, p. 440. § Ibid., Prescott, Motlej-. 



28B THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

expedient whereby the union of these men, packed 
together to disquiet the state, may be handsomely 
dissolved. Above all, set spies upon the prince of 
Orange and his counsels ; yet continue to keep him 
at court, and under your eyes."* 

It was deemed especially necessary to estrange 
Egmont and Orange, the twin pillars of the league. 
Equal in fame and in popularity, though fatally 
dissimilar in character and intellect, one was the 
Ajax, the other the Ulysses of the patriot cause. 
What better augury of the success of their party 
could be asked than that afiforded by the union of 
wisdom in council with audacious skill in execu- 
tion? 

Their alienation was not esteemed difficult to 
compass. The hot-headed, frank, imprudent soldier 
had always felt a lingering jealousy of Orange's 
influence and superior acumen. "We will play 
upon that string," said Granvelle; "we will say 
that the prince leads him by the nose." And the 
cardinal, who entertained a profound contempt for 
Egmont's political talent, as well he might, wrote 
Philip : " The count is weak and vain — a wreath of 
smoke. He means honestly, but abler men pervert 
liim."t Then he essayed to wean Egmont from 
Orange by cajolery and judicious flattery. He men- 
tioned him to the king in terms of vague commen- 
dation. He strove to humiliate Orange and to pla- 
cate Egmont at the same time, by paying the count 

• 

» Cited in Strada, p. 70. 

f Papiers d'Etat, toin. 7, j"). 1W. 



MINES AND COUNTEEMINES. 289 

a large instalment of Lis back salary, while award- 
ing the prince an insignificant sum * Then look- 
ing wdder, he moved the governant to send the 
duke of Aerschot, an avowed enemy of the prince, 
as extraordinary ambassador to Frankfort, to be 
present at the election of a Roman emperor, though 
it was known that Orange was entitled to, and 
expected and desired that honor ; thus attempting 
to suborn patriotism by showing what a splendid 
reward hatred to the j)rince might win.t 

But these pitiful manoeuvres failed. Orange 
went to Frankfort in his private capacity, saying, 
"We shall be stronger one day" — an enigmatic 
phrase which puzzled the court, but with which 
Granvelle hastened to acquaint the king4 As for 
the relations between Egmont and the prince, they 
remained undisturbed. Each knew that he was 
now indispensable to the other; a common peril 
and a common purpose united them by a bond of 
fellowship which their hearts would never have fur- 
nislied.§ Across this Medician campaign of the 
court was written one word — " Defeat." 

* Dom TEresqiie, torn. 2, pp. 41-45. 

t Scliiller, p. 439. 

X Correspondance de Philippe II., torn. 1, pp. 241, 242. 

§ Scliiller, ubl sup. 



13 



290 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

GKANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL. 

In the beginning of 1563, the Netherlands seem- 
ed on the high road to ruin. Bankruptcy was in 
the vice-regal exchequer. Trade was at a halt. 
Swarms of inquisitors were scouring the provinces, 
and burning heretics from the Meuse to the Zujder 
Zee. A vague fear chilled all hearts. Twenty thou- 
sand religious refugees had crossed from the states 
into England.* 

Grieved and alarmed, the grandees determined 
to make another effort to persuade Philip to redress 
these evils ; and though all were at this time Eo- 
manists, they were a unit in branding the Inquisi- 
tion as an infamous tribunal, impatiently endured, 
but never accepted by the people.t 

On the eleventh of March, 1563, Orange, Eg- 
mont, and Horn signed a letter to the king, which 
consisted of a fact and a deduction. The fact was, 
that the cardinal was odious to all classes of the 
nation : the deduction was, that the government 
could no longer be carried on by him without immi- 
nent danger of ruinous convulsions.^ 

Most of the nobles assented to this epistle ; but 

* Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. '247. 

t Vandervynckt, Metereu. t Motley, vol. 1, p. 380. 



GEANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL. 201 

few dared affix tlieir signatures to it. Grauvelle 
M-as the Mentor of the king — powerful, unscrupu- 
lous ; Philip was known to be treacherous and 
unforgiving. " It may end badlj," said Berghen 
and Montignj". Egmont and Horn, men of reckless 
daring, dashed down their names without counting 
or caring for the cost — signed as one w^ould have 
led his fleet into action, and as the other would 
have charged a hostile squadron on the battle-plain. 
It is probable that Orange alone fully appreciated 
the abyss on whose edge this open and recorded 
opposition to the cardinal placed the triumvirate.* 
The letter had been written secretly, and it was 
sent ostensibly to Charles de Tisnacq, a Belgian 
and Philip's procurator at Madrid for the business 
of the Low Countries, who was requested to hand 
it to the king.t Spite of this precaution, the secret 
leaked out — perhaps through the lips of Count 
Aremberg, who had been solicited to sign it and 
had refused, and who was openly charged by Eg- 
mont with betraying it.:t Granvelle hastened to 
" The Smithy," and dashed off a few lines to the 
king, informing him of this last move of Orange, 
bidding him expect the missive at an early day, and 
as usual, directing him how to reply to it. He 
repeated, for the hundredth time, his opinion that 
the nobles were inspired, not by patriotism, but by 
mere lust of authority ; and he pretended to fear 
lest power should be concentrated in the nation, 
instead of being safely diffused throughout the 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 380. j Strada, p. 73. J Ibid. 



292 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

hands of one man — Philip.'^' A special messenger 
placed these lines in the king's hands before the 
March letter of the grandees reached him, and he 
was on his gnard.t 

Nearly three months elapsed ere Philip deigned 
to notice the note of the triumvirs. "When at last 
he did reply, it was briefly and to this effect : " I 
thank yon for your zeal and affection to the state 
and me ; but you send me no specifications against 
Granvelle. 'T is not my custom to remove my min- 
isters from office without proof against them. Some 
of you, then, come over to Spain and acquaint me 
with the facts.":}: 

" ' Will you walk into my parlor ?' said the spider 
to the fly." The flies begged to be excused. And 
though Philip, in a private note to Margaret, indi- 
cated that Egmont, as being the most tractable, 
was the fly whom he should be glad to see, inform- 
ing her at the same time that his only object was 
to deride the nobles and to gain time,§ Egmont 
politely declined the invitation.il 

Naturally, Philip's meagre response embittered 
the grandees by its very adroitness. " 'T is a cold 
and bad reply to send after such long delay," wrote 
Louis of Nassau, the prince's brother ; " 't is easy to 
see that the letter came from the cardinal's smithy. 
In truth, it is a vile business, if we are to be gov- 

* Papiers d'Etat, torn. 7. 

t His letter -was dated April 6, 15G3. 

t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 251. § Ibid. 

II Ibid., pp. 255-2 -iO. 



GRANVELLE'S WITHDEAWAL. 293 

erned by one person. Nevertheless, the gentlemen 
are wide awake, for they trust the red fellow not a 
bit more than he deserves."* 

After some consultation, Orange, Egmont, and 
Horn resolved to address Philip again. " We are 
surprised," wrote they, " that yoiir majesty has 
thought our representations so unworthy of atten- 
tion. 'Tis not as accusers of the minister, but as 
councillors of your majesty that we speak. As to 
our omission of specifications against Granvelle, 
we had imagined that our fidelity and past services 
would witness to the truth of Avhat we charged. 
The present state of the provinces would not per- 
mit us to leave home on so long a journey as is that 
to Spain, even did not honor hold us from consent- 
ing to travel so far merely to lodge a complaint 
against such a man as Granvelle. In case your 
majesty does not see fit to comply wi|h our request 
for the cardinal's dismission from office, we pray 
you to excuse us from farther attendance at the 
council-board, where we are powerless to serve your 
interests, and only appear contemptible in our own 
sight."! To this same eftect were two private let- 
ters to the king, written by Counts Egmont and 
Horn, which went out about the same time.:}: 

This done, the grandees waited upon the gover- 
nant, and handing her a formal protest against the 
prevailing policj^ predicted inevitable ruin to the 

a Cited iu Motley, vol. 1, p. 383. 

I Cor. de Guillaume le Tacit., torn. 2, p. 42, et seq. 

X Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1. 



294 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

common weal, unless Granvelle was removed; and 
while expressing a determination to serve in their 
respective governments to the best of their abilities, 
avowed their purpose to withdraw from the council 
of state.* Orange, Egmont, and Horn were as good 
as their word; they disappeared from the council, 
and left it to the minister and his two shadows, 
Viglius and Barliament.f 

"We will consider your representations; mean- 
while, do you attend at the council as before," wrote 
the king after long delay to the seigneurs in answer 
to their last budget. But the triumvirs paid no 
heed to the mandate. | 

It seems that Philip had transmitted his corre- 
spondence with the grandees to the duke of Alva, 
with a request for his opinion. This was that brute's 
reply: "Every time that I see the despatches of 
these three FJemish seigneurs, my rage is so ex- 
cited, that if I did not exert myself to the utmost 
to repress it, I should express the sentiments of a 
madman. "§ After this wild exordium, he gave this 
advice : " If you cannot take off their heads, dissem- 
ble. I prescribe this treatment not as a remedy, 
but as a j)alliative, because just now only weak 
medicines can be employed; one day we can pro- 
ceed to vigorous chastisement.il 

This was counsel after the king's own heart. It 
was destined to bear bloody fruit at no distant day. 

« Hoofcl, torn. 2, p. 43. f Motley. $ Schiller, p. 442. 

§ Cited in Prescott, vol. 1, pp. 537, 538; aud in Motley, vol. 1, 
p. 387. II Prescott, Motley, ut antea. 



GRANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL. 295 

This long skirmish of pens was succeeded in the 
Netherlands by a war of wit. A tremendous assault 
was made upon Granvelle through the medium of 
caricatures and petty comedies. The provinces 
teemed with lampoons and pasquinades.* History 
has preserved a number of these witticisms, which 
add color to the picture of the times, as the value 
of amber is enhanced by the insect it preserves. 

The general respect for the cardinal had sunk 
so low, that on one occasion a caricature was pub- 
licly placed in his hand by a pretended petitioner, 
which represented a hen with Granvelle's face, seat- 
ed upon a i)ile of eggs, out of which she was hatch- 
ing a brood of bishops. Some of these were chip- 
ping the shell, some thrusting forth an arm, some 
a leg, while others were running about with mitres 
on their heads — all bearing a ludicrous resemblance 
to various prelates recently installed. Above the 
cardinal's head loomed Satan, in the act of saying : 
" This is my dear son, listen to him."t 

The comedians, too, ridiculed the minister in 
the public plays. The tyranny which was able to 
drown a nation in blood and tears was powerless to 
prevent the people from laughing bitterly at their 
oppressors.:}: Indeed, spite of the king's command 
that the authors of these satires should be pun- 
ished, Margaret feared to stir a step in the business, 
so hazardous did she esteem it to gag the guffaw.§ 

Nor did the comedy seem to tire the actors ; the 

" Hoofd, book 1. Strada. f Hoofd, torn. 2, p. 42. 

X Motley, vol. 1, p. 349. § Hoofd, Strada. 



296 TUE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

nobles themselves began to share in the sport. Two 
of them especially, Brederode, " a madman, if there 
ever was one," as a contemporary calls him,* and 
" Eobert de la Marck, a descendant of the famous 
' Wild Boar of Ardennes,' a man brave to temerity, 
but sanguinary and depraved, were most untiring 
in their efforts to make Granvelle ridiculous." 

Granvelle's red hat was a new crime in the eyes 
of Brussels; consequently most of the wits seized 
upon that hated badge as a target. One evening 
the lord of Grobbendonck, Philip's receiver of cus- 
toms, gave a supper to a number of the Flemish 
nobles. After a while the conversation drifted upon 
the expensive habits of the aristocracy, particularly 
as exhibited in the liveries of the nobilit}'. These 
were showy and costlj", intimating by colors the 
families to which they belonged — a fashion inaugu- 
rated by Granvelle, and a radical departure from 
the simpler German custom. 

At this feast it was proposed, by Berghen per- 
haps, or possibly by Montigny, that all should agree 
to adopt a more modest and a uniform apparel. 
The idea was well received. " Who shall select a 
pattern?" demanded one. "Let us cast the dice 
for it," said another. This was done, and the lot 
fell upon Egmont. 

The next morning Brussels was surprised to see 
the count's retainers clothed in a new livery of a 
dark gray color, and very coarse, as a contrast to 
the fineness of Granvelle's dress. Upon each sleeve 

« Poutus Payeii, MS. 



GEANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL. 297 

was embroidered the figure of a head and a fool's 
cap. The head was marvellously like that of the 
cardinal, and the cap, being red, was thought to 
resemble a cardinal's hat. Some, indeed, imagined 
that the fool's cap was intended to remind Gran- 
velle, who had often styled the nobles zanies and 
lunatics, that now, as of old, a Brutus might be 
found lurking under the costume of a fool. 

This "fool's cap livery," as it was called, was 
received' with acclamation. Everybody adopted it; 
not a tailor in Brussels whose stock of frieze-cloth 
was not exhausted. The governant herself laughed 
at the joke, and sent Philip some specimens of the 
coats ; but eventually she intervened, and persuaded 
Egmont to invent another emblem less obnoxious 
to the court. The count acceded, and that device 
was succeeded by a bundle of arrows similarly em- 
broidered ; and this was afterwards adopted as the 
device of the seven united provinces.* 

Granvelle bore up bravely under these assaults ; 
yet they galled him. He wrote Perez: "My hair 
has turned so white, you would not recognize me."t 
He was then but forty-six. Like a pestilential va- 
por, the infamy of universal reprobation hung over 
him. Philosophy itself could afford him no refuge. 
A stranger in the land; alone among millions of 
enemies ; uncertain of his tools ; supported only by 
the arm of distant royalty; what wonder that his 
hair turned gray ? 

* Vita Viglii, torn. 2, p. 33. Stratla, p. 78. Vauder Haer. 
t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 26S. 
13* 



298 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

" If his majesty comes not soon to Brussels, I 
must withdraw," wrote he to Perez, in whose sym- 
pathetic ear he was wont to pour his complaints.* 
And now the governant herself, heretofore the car- 
dinal's fast friend, began to desire his withdrawal. 
The repeated complaints against the extent of the 
minister's power must have convinced her at last 
that she was a cipher ; perhaps, too, she began to 
fear that the abhorrence which attached to him 
would soon include herself, and that his longer tarry 
would indeed provoke a revolt. Possibly she may 
have felt cramped by Granvelle's superior acumen, 
and esteemed herself competent, schooled by his 
long tuition, to control in person.! 

Be all this as it may, it is certain that a cool- 
ness had grown up betvv^een these two, and that the 
duchess of Parma had commenced to coquette with 
the patriot nobles, with Egmont especially,:}: At 
last, Margaret concluded to send her secretary and 
confidant, Thomas Armenteros, a man of fine ad- 
dress, but of low origin and deceitful character,§ on 
a special mission to Madrid, for the purpose of pro- 
curing the cardinal's recall.il 

Quitting Brussels in the autumn of 1563, he 
reached Madrid, and presented the voluminous let- 
ters of Margaret to the king; and then cunningly 
pronounced a vague eulogium upon Granvelle's tal- 

« Cor. cTe Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 274. 

•f Scliiller, Prescott, Van^er Haer. 

X Memoires de GranveUe, torn. 2. Strada. 

§ Motley. II Ibid., Prescott, Meteren. 



GEANVELLE'S WITHDRAWAL. 299 

euts and services, into wliicli lie interwove *tlie real 
facts wliich called for his retirement.* 

Philip was nonplused. Policy demanded Gran- 
velle's dismissal; pride called for his retention. He 
had recourse to his usual tactics — he postponed a 
decision, trusting that time might help him at the 
crucial moment. Armenteros was detained on one 
pretext or another until January, 1564; then, since 
there seemed no help for it, Philip sent him back 
loaded with letters and instructions, and in this 
mail-bag was a note to Granvelle. " On considera- 
tion," he wrote, " I deem it best that you should 
leave the Low Countries for some daj'S, and go to 
Burgundy to see your mother, with the consent of 
the duchess of Parma. In this way, both my au- 
thority and your reputation will be preserved."t 

This letter was concealed from every one but 
Margaret, and Granvelle continued to appear and 
to act as always for some weeks after its receipt.:]: 
Privately, however, the cardinal began to prepare 
for exile ; because, though he knew that " the mas- 
ter" intended to retain him at Brussels, and so 
would not dismiss him, he was keen enough to see 
that his rule was over in the Netherlands. 

One day, according to arrangement, he asked 
permission of the governant to visit his aged moth- 
er, whom he had not seen for fourteen years. " Cer- 
tainly," said Margaret. On the 13th of March, 
1564, the minister quitted Brussels ostensibly upon 

Schiller. t Mem. de Granvelle, torn. 2, p. 55. 

1 Motley, Prescott, Meteren. 



300 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

this visit, promising gayly to be back shortly. "Not 
good-by, but au revoir" cried he.* 

This was exile; but the facile cardinal, uncon- 
quered even in his fall, over-awed the shouts which, 
as he well knew, quivered on the lips of the hostile 
city, by giving to his exit the air of a brief pleasure 
jaunt.f 

* Archives de la Maison d'Orange, Nassau, torn. 1, p. 266. This 
date has been disputed. 'T is probable, however, that the chronol- 
ogy of the Prince of Orange is correct. 

t For a time Granvelle resided in Burgundy, on his patrimo- 
nial estate at Besan§on. "After the death of Pius IV. he went to 
Kome, to be present at the election of a new pope, and at the 
same time to discharge some commissions of his master, whose 
confidence in him remained iinbroken. Soon after, Philip made 
him viceroy of Naples, where he succumbed to the seductions of 
the climate ; and the spirit which no vicissitudes could bend, vo- 
luptuousness overcame. He was sixty-two years old when the 
king allowed him to visit Spain, where he continued with unlim- 
ited powers to administer the affairs of Spanish-Italy. A gloomy 
old age and the self-satisfied pride of sexagenarian administration 
made him a harsh and rigid jiidge of the opinions of others, a 
slave of custom, and a tedious panegyrist of past times. But the 
policy of the closing century had ceased to be the policy of the 
opening one. A new and younger ministry was soon weary of 
so imperioiis a superintendent, and Philiji himself began to shun 
the aged councillor, who found nothing worthy of praise but the 
deeds of his father. Nevertheless, when the conquest of Portugal 
called Philip to Lisbon, he confided to the cardinal the care of his 
Spanish territories. Finally, in the year 1589, on an Italian tour 
in the iovnx of Mantua, in the seventy-third year of his life, Gran- 
velle terminated his long existence in the full enjoyment of his 
glory, and after possessing for forty years the uninterrupted confi- 
dence of his king." Schiller, p. 449. 

For an interesting account of Granvelle's state papers, see Pres- 
cott, vol. 1, pp. 550, 551. Motley says Granvelle died in 1586, at 
the age of seventy, vol. 1, p. 421. 



4» 
JUGGLING. 301 



CHAPTER XX. 

JUGGLING. 



As the waves of a tempest-lashed sea swell and 
toss long after the subsidence of the storm, so the 
Netherlands, passion-lashed by Granvelle, surged 
and seethed long after his quiet disappearance.* 
" Is it really true ?" was the query on all lips ; " has 
Monsieur Eed Hat gone for good?" 

That was the very riddle. Some held that the 
cardinal's departure for Besancon was a mere ruse, 
a temporary withdrawal, which, rightly read, meant 
an armed return. This \ie^v Granvelle was careful 
to countenance, and his frequent letters to Viglius 
and Barlaiment and Aerschot were filled with art- 
ful allusions to his speedy reappearance at Brus- 
sels.* 

This fear bridled joy. " They say," wrote Bred- 
erode, " that the red fellow is to be back, and that 
Barlaiment is to meet him at Namur. The devil 
after the two would be a good chase. "t Orange 
felt convinced that the minister's retirement was 
practical exile ; but with the caution which was his 
second nature, he had his wily foeman closely 
watched. " 'T is a sly and cunning bird that wo 
deal with," said he ; " one that sleeps neither day 

« Papiers d'Etat, tom. 8. Vita Viglii, Vanclervynckt. 
f Groen v. Prinst. Arch., tom. 1. p. 305. 



302 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. ' 

nor night wlien prey is to be gotten. We must be 
on our guard."* 

However, clays, weeks, months passed, and the 
cardinal did not coine ; at last men said, " Good ; 
he is a thing of the past. He lay heav}^ on the 
stomach of the nation, and we vomited him up." 

Simultaneously with Granvelle's exit, the gran- 
dees reentered the council of state, wrote to assure 
the king of their loyalty, received gracious letters 
over the royal autograph in reply; and then, easing 
Mare-aret of the burden of business under which 
she staggered, sat tied to their desks by emulous 
industry all day and every day into the " wee sma' 
hours ayant the twar."t 

As for the governant, she seemed born into a 
new world. All paid devoted court to her : the 
nobles were full of zeal and submission ; the peo- 
were obliging in temper. :|; For the first time, Mar- 
garet knew what it was to reign ; and in propor- 
tion as she was enamored of this new power, she 
cursed the priestly task-master who had so long 
withheld her from it. " The duchess cannot hear 
your name mentioned without an indignant blush," 
wrote Morillon to Granvelle, his friend and patron; 
" 'T is easy to tell what 's o'clock."§ One day Mar- 
garet was heard to exclaim, " Thank heaven, I have 
but one son ; since, if I had a second, he must have 

* Groen v. Prinst. Arch., torn. 1, pp. 226, 259. 

t Vita Viglii, Meteren, Schiller. 

X Schiller, p. 450. Motley. 

§ Papiers d'Etat, torn. 8, pp. 92, 91, 131. 



JUGGLING. 303 

been an ecclesiastic, and as vile as priests always 
are. " 

Surely Peter Titelmann ought to have expostu- 
lated with the duchess. 

At the same time Margaret endeavored to under- 
mine the cardinalists in Philip's esteem.^ "They 
are a vile set, Granvelle, Yiglius, and the rest," so 
she wrote in effect ; " they loved to fish in troubled 
waters, and aimed at anarchy that they might con- 
trol. They opposed the convocation of the states- 
general for fear their accounts might be scrutinized, 
and their frauds, injustice, simony, and rapine, ooze 
out."t 

The Prince of Orange had at this hour a three- 
fold purpose — the convocation of the states-general, 
the abolition of the religious edicts, and the merging 
of the councils of justice and finance in the council 
of state-t " This achieved," said WiUiam, " and I 
defeat the absolute policy of the Spaniard, and lift 
the council of state into supreme control — make it 
dispenser of justice, holder of the public purse, and 
agent for foreign affairs."§ 

It was a statesmanlike programme, but it was 
certain that Philip would never assent to its first 
and second points, since they robbed him of his 
most esteemed prerogatives — the power to perse- 
cute and the power to domineer; and as for the 
last item, the whole cardinalist party, led by Viglius 

'-■ Papiers d'Etat, torn. 8, p. 132. 

f Correspondance de riiilippe II., torn. 1, p. 295. 

I Ibid., p. 329. Motley, Prescott. 

§ Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, torn. 2. 



304 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

and Barlaimeiit and Aerscliot and Mansfield and 
Aremberg — natives of the Netherlands all, and men 
of wide influence, though just now eclipsed in the 
governant's saloons— denounced it as an attempt 
to concentrate revolutionary authority in an irre- 
sponsible, uncontrollable senate, fashioned after the 
Venetian Council of Ten, dwarfing the monarch into 
a mere doge.* 

Notwithstanding the much -lauded probit}^ of 
Barlaiment, and the "honor" of Viglius, the 
finance and privy councils over which they respec- 
tively presided were sinks of corruption. t Indeed 
the most barefaced depravity existed in every 
branch of the administration. Justice was sunk 
into the trade of hucksters— law w^as an article of 
merchandise.:!: Nothing could be obtained Avithout, 
every thing could be had for, money. Life, liberty, 
and religion were insured at certain rates ; for gold, 
murderers went unhung and malefactors were set 
free ; the government itself plundered the nation by 
a public lottery.§ Ten per cent, a year was the 
Sermon on the Mount to Brussels. 

Of course tliis frightful malversation gave rise 
to mutual accusations of venality and fraud. Some 
said, "It is the cardinalists ;" some, "It is the no- 
bles;" others, "It is the governant." Sooth to say, 
all were guilty. The grandees, impoverished by 
habits of luxury into which they had been persist- 

«> Motley, vol. 1, p. 441. Papiers cVEtat, de Granvelle, torn. 7, 
p. 186. t Motley, iihl sup. t '^^^^ 

§ Schiller, p. 455. 



JUGGLING. 305 

eutly hired, ami thus relaxed in their morals, were 
thankful for a chance to thrust their itching fingers 
into the pockets of the nation.* Those who had 
just been oustecWwere no whit more conscientious 
about reaping a florin harvest, and Yiglius had 
taken priests' orders in his old age that he might 
become provost of the church of St. Basau at 
Ghent.t 

Most flagitious of all was Margaret herself. Her 
secretary, Armenteros — whose intimacy with his 
mistress procured for him the name of " Madame's 
barber," in allusion to the goveruant's famous 
moustache, and to the historical influence enjoyed 
by the barbers of the duke of Savoy and of Louis 
XI.:t: — carried on a shameless trafiic in benefices, 
honors, ofiices, patents, privileges, reducing bribery 
to an art, simony to a science, and roguery to a 
school ; and he divided the spoils of this disgrace- 
ful commerce with the regent.§ " The duchess' has 
gone into the business of vending places to the high- 
est bidders, with the bit between her teeth," reported 
Morillon to his exiled patron. || When the gover- 
nant was auctioneer, is it to be wondered at that 
the bidding was brisk? 

The bravest stemmers of this torrent of corrup- 
tion were almost swamped by it — Orange himself 
opposed it in vain. " It soon became evident," 

* Schiller, p. 455. 

f Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle, torn. 8, p. 320. 

X Motley, vol. 1, p. 443. 

§ Ibid. Groeii v. Priust., Arch, et Con-esp., torn. 1, p. 405. 

II Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle, torn. 7, p. 635. 



306 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

remarks Motley, " that as desperate a straggle was 
to be made with this many-headed monster of ini- 
quity, as with the cardinal by whom it had been so 
long fed and pampered."* • 

Not many months elapsed ere the effects of this 
venality and rapine were seen and felt in the disor- 
ganization of society. Margaret was aroused from 
her delicious trance by the clamors of a mutinous 
arm}^, eager for the payment of its long arrears,t 
by the boisterous petitions of the burghers demand- 
ing justice,^ and by the daily receipt of letters from 
the king, complaining of the growth of heresy, and 
commanding that renewed recourse be had to the 
fagot and the stake.§ 

The reformed, " instant in season and out of 
season " in God's service, had indeed availed them- 
selves of the opportunity afltbrded by the unsettled 
state of the provinces to proclaim the gospel. The 
Calvinists in the territories which bordered upon 
France, the Anabaptists in the north, the Lutherans 
on the German frontier — all were busy, all ubiqui- 
tous.! Even the Jews, outlawed and surrendered 
to persecution by all mediaeval sects, now swarmed 
in the cities of the Netherlands unracked, un- 
burned.l Granvelle, before his fall, had written 
to Philip, " 'T is more than a year since a single 
arrest on a charge of heresy has been made in 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 441. 

f Schiller, p. 458. Meteren, Vaudervynckt. 

X Ibid. § Ibid. Strada, p. 83. 

II Trescott, vol. 1, p. 556. H Ibid. 



JUGGLING. 307 

Brussels;"* and since the exit of the cardinal, pub- 
lic opinion had quite drawn the sting from the ven- 
omous edicts. The Inquisition was an object of 
contempt as well as of hatred ;t and the inqnisitori 
were compelled to memorialize the king for protec- 
tion and support.:}: The burgomasters of Bruges 
flung a number of their own officers into prison, 
and kept them on bread and water for several 
weeks, as a punishment for an attempt to lay hands 
upon a heretic.§ 

Philip's anger was fanned to white-heat. Scores 
of letters, brimful of minute descriptions of sus- 
pected individuals, were forwarded from Madrid to 
Brussels by special couriers ;|1 and spurred forward 
by the absolute command of the king, the reluctant 
govern ant once more unleashed the hounds of per- 
secution. T 

In the summer of 1564, an effort was made to 
burn a reformer in the market-place of Antwerp. 
One Fabricius, a converted Carmelite friar, who 
had quitted the cloister, married, and settled in 
Antwerp as pastor of a reformed congregation, Avas 
arrested, racked by the inquisitors, that an accusa- 
tion of his secret associates might be wrung from 
*liis tortured lips; and at last, when it was found 

^ Correspondance de Philippe II., torn. 1, -p. 210. 
f Vita Viglii, Vandervj'iickt. 

I Correspondance de Philijipe II., torn. 1, p. 353. 
§ Strada, p. 84. 

II Ibid., p. 83. Correspondance de Philippe II. _. torn. 1, p. 
327, d alibi. 

II Brandt, vol. 1, -p. HG. Strada, ubi sup. 



308 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

that no "confession" could be extorted from him, 
sentenced to tlie^take." 

As lie was led out to die, a multitude of excited 
spectators surged round the executioners ; and from 
the sidewalk, the doorways, the balconies on his 
route, sympathizing voices shouted, "Take courage, 
Fabricius, and endure manfully to the last."t When 
the stake was reached, and the "victim was lashed to 
it, a shower of stones, cast from unseen hands, fell 
upon the pile, driving the executioner from his post 
just as the fire was kindled. Determined, however, 
not to be deprived of his prey, he stabbed the mar- 
tyr to the heart ere he fled, so that Avlien the crowd 
rushed to release Fabricius from the flames he was 
already dead.:}: 

Antwerp was mutinous throughout the night, 
and in the gray of the next morning the city was 
found to be placarded with verses written in blood, 
which announced that Fabricius' death would be 
avenged. Indeed, that same day a woman, who 
was accused of having betrayed the martyr to the 
Inquisition, was publicly stoned, and would have 
been killed, had she not taken refuge in a neigh- 
bor's house, where she was hidden from the mob.§ 

When the news of this riot reached Madrid,* 
Philip was enraged. "S'death, madame," wrote he 
to Margaret, " unearth these vermin, and move 
heaven aud earth to punish them."il The governant 

* Brandt, ubi sup. 

t Bnaudt, vol. 1, p. 146, et seq. Strada, p. 84. 

I Ibid. § Ibid. || Strada, Prescott. 



JUGGLING. 309 

heard, but stood powerless. To have punished all 
the guilty would have been to flay Antwerp, for the 
whole city was the rioter. One of the stone-casters 
was hung; the rest it was impossible to identify.* 

Scenes of outrage which went off more smoothly 
than this at Antwerp, were now enacted through- 
out the Netherlands. The people cursed ; the states 
protested. Flanders solemnly memorialized the 
king against Peter Titelmann, and forwarded to 
Madrid a vivid list of his enormities.f The seign- 
iors were conjured to intervene ; Margaret was 
beseeched to curb this wretch. Neither the nobles 
nor the governant dared move. " May I perish," 
wrote Marillon to Granvelle, "if the duchess does 
not stand in exceeding awe of Titelmann.":}: Eg- 
mont himself, the hero of Gravellines and St. Quen- 
tin, was more than suspected of trembling before 
this blood-smeared butcher of the Inquisition.§ 

As for Philip, instead of reproof, he bestowed 
the royal benediction upon Titelmann; they were 
congenial souls. So far was he from mitigating the 
horrors of the new crusade against reform, that he 
instructed the governant to publish throughout the 
Netherlands, and to enforce, the decrees of the 
Council of Trent. II 

This memorable synod, first called by Paul III. 

•■- Strada, Prescott. 

•j- Brandt, vol. 1. Corresp. de Philippe 11., torn. 1. Papiers 
d'Etat. X Papiei'S d'Etat, torn. 8, p. 425. 

§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 434. 

II Strada, p. 84. et seq. Hopper, Rec. et Mem. Corresp. de 
Philii^pe II. 



310 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

in 1537, and continued tlirougli twenty-one twad- 
dling years, had finally effected a sine die adjourn- 
ment in December, 1563.* Its avowed purpose was 
the settlement of disputed points of orthodoxy. The 
tedious labors of these doctors, instead of purifying 
the Eomish church from its corruptions, had only 
reduced its errors to greater definiteness and pre- 
cision, and invested them with the sanction of au- 
thority. All the subtleties of its teachings, all the 
arts and usurpations on which the see of St. Peter 
was based, and which had rested hitherto largely 
upon arbitrary usage, were now enacted into laws, 
and fi-amed as a system. 

The decrees of the Council of Trent contained 
many provisions which were deadly to the preroga- 
tives of the European sovereigns, and which were 
meant to restore the temporal supremacy of Eome,t 
Against several of these Philip had earnestly pro- 
tested, while the decision was pending; but he was 
defeated, and on this account Europe expected that 
he would follow the example of France, and reject 
the decrees.:]: This belief became a certainty in 
most minds when Pius V. settled a question of pre- 
cedence between the Castilian and the French am- 
bassadors at the papal court, in favor of France.§ 

But Philip could not remain at feud with Pome. 
" In matters of faith," wrote he to the duchess of 
Parma, " I am always ready to sacrifice my private 

* Fra Paolo Sarpi, Hist, du Concile de Trente. 

t Ibid. X Prescott, vol. 1, p. 570.- Strada, p. 85. 

§ Strada, uhi supra. 



JUGGLING. 311 

feelings to the common wecal."* Early in 1564, he 
had ordered the decrees to be received as law in 
Spain ;t now he assured the governant that they 
must be obeyed in the Netherlands. " No excep- 
tions are permissible," added he. " What is law in 
Madrid must be law in Brussels."! 

The announcement of Philip's determination 
surprised Christendom, and provoked a storm of 
indignation in the Netherlands. Now again, as in 
the days when the new bishoprics won the anathe- 
ma of the states, all classes united in denouncing 
these abhorrent decrees. " They contravene our 
charters," said the provinces. " They conflict with 
our immunities," cried the clergy. " They murder 
conscience," affirmed the reformers.§ 

Margaret convened her council in dismay. 
" What shall I do ?" queried she. " Proclaim the 
canons," said Viglius.ll '* Send an envoy to Ma- 
drid to lay the grievances of the nation before the 
king, and to submit what we think the most effect- 
ual remedy," advised Orange.H The prince carried 
the day, and Egmont was selected for the mission,- * 
" I will go," said the handsome soldier — all the 
more readily because he had a list of personal 
favors to crave of Philip.tt 

Viglius drew up Egmont's instructions.]::!; The 

^ Strada, ubi supra. f Ibid. 

t Correspondance de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 328. 

§ Meteren, Prescott. || Groeu v. Priust, Arch., etc., torn. 1. 

\\ Prescott, vol. 1, p. 571. Strada. 

** Strada. Papiers d'Etat, torn. 8. ft Prescott, ubi sup. 

±1 Ibid, Motley. 



312 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

priuce esteemed them timid and pointless. When 
the rough draiight was presented for the action of 
the council, he rose and rolled out one of the most 
massive and impassioned speeches of his life.* 

As William poured out his eloquence, he bore 
conviction on the tide of his rapid invective ; and 
as he closed his address at seven in the evening, 
with the affirmation that he " could not look on 
with pleasure while princes strove to govern the 
souls of men, and to take away their liberty of con- 
science," the council adjourned.t 

Viglius was astounded. He piqued himself on 
his rhetoric, and he feared for his laurels. It was 
necessary to surpass the declamation of Orange, if 
he wished to obliterate the impression of the patriot 
orator. Perplexed and despairing, he tossed in his 
bed till dawn without closing his eyes ; then, on ris- 
ing to dress, he was stretched senseless by a stroke 
of apoplexy.;!: • 

It was some weeks ere Viglius was able to 
resume his place at the council-board. His smooth 
tongue was paralyzed, his limbs were rigid. Mean- 
time his seat was filled by his friend and fellow- 
countryman Joachim Hopper, like himself, a Frisian 
doctor of ancient blood and extensive acquire- 
ments.§ Motley tells us that Hopper was "the 
projector of that ultra-Eomanist university, which, 
at Philip's desire, was successfully organized at 

- Siimmarized iu Motley, vol. 1, pp. 455, 456. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 456. ' J Vita Viglii. 

§ Motley, ithi sup. 



JUGGLING. 313 

Douay in 155G, iu order that a Freucb university 
might be furnished for Walloon students, as a sub- 
stitute for the seductive and poisonous Paris. For 
the rest, Hopper was a man of mere routine — often 
employed by Philip in weighty affairs, but never 
entrusted with the secret at the bottom of them. 
His mind was a confused one, and his style was 
inexpressibly involved and tedious. ' Poor Master 
Hopper,' said Granvelle, 'did not write the best 
French in the world ; and though learned in letters, 
he knew little of statesmanship.' His manners 
W'ere as cringing as his intellect was narrow. He 
never opposed Margaret, so that his colleagues 
called him ' Councillor Yes Madame ;' and he did 
his best to be friends with all the world."" 

Hopper new-modelled Egmout's instructions, 
so that they echoed the sentiments of tlie prince's 
speech.t The governant gave them to the envoy, 
sayiug, "I pray you impress upon his majesty the 
importance of what is herein writ, the impossibility 
of- enforcing the edicts in their present severity, the 
refractory spirit of the people, the exhaustion of 
the exchequer, and the necessity which should seem 
to dictate the abrogation of the Tridentine canons, 
as also the necessity of sending me precise instruc- 
tions how to act."i 

" Ptely upon me, madame," responded Egmont„ 
On the thirtieth of January, 1565, the gallant envoy 
embarked for. Spain ;§ a few days later he entered 

o Motley, vol. 1, p. 457. f Vita Viglii, p. 41. 

t Ibid. § Papiers d'Etat, toiu. 9. 

Dutch Bef. 14 



314 THE DUTCH REFORMATIOxN". 

tlie lion's den. This time the beast's mouth was 
closed. Philip understood the giddy, open-hearted, 
vain soldier wliom the states had deputed to wait 
upon him. "I shall receive Egmont graciously," 
wrote he to the duchess." He knew that the ego- 
tistic envoy could be easily cozened ; and he deter- 
mined to juggle, not to growl. 

AccordiDgly, Egmont received the most cordial 
and royal of welcomes. His tarry was one pro- 
longed fete. Never before in Castilian halls had 
subject been so received by king. The courtiers 
of Madrid seemed to have conquered their ancient 
grudge against the Flemings ; and they too buried 
the envoy in their hearts — feasted him, courted him, 
and deferred to him.f 

Phihp took his guest to see the foundation- 
stones of the Escurial — the memorial of that battle 
of St. Quentin of which Egmont was the hero ; and 
though it was February, he insisted upon showing 
him the beauties of his summer retreat in the Sego- 
vian forest. I Nor did the crafty monarch neglect 
to confer upon his " good cousin " more solid fa- 
vors. Egmont was something of a spendthrift, and 
his estates were mortgaged. "I will remit all royal 
dues," said the debonnaire and liberal mouarch.§ 
Fifty thousand golden florins were handed him; 
altogether his journey was worth a hundred thou- 
sand crowns.ll 

^ Prescott, vol. 1, p. 576. 

t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 349. Papiers d'Etat, torn. 9. 

t Ibid. ' § Ibid. || Papiers d'Etat, torn. 9, p. 385. 



JUGGLING. 315 

So much kindness, such judicious flattery, quite 
won Egmont's heart, and completely vanquished his 
acumen. Business was scarcely thought of; and 
when it was referred to, a few plausible, non-com- 
mittal, double-meaning words easily satisfied the 
tyro diplomat; or, if he seemed inclined to press 
any disagreeable question, a well-turned compli- 
ment, an invitation to dine out, or a request for an 
opinion upon a new cut for a collar, could always 
lure the volatile count into pleasanter discourse * 

Back of this royal courtesy lay deadly earnest- 
ness. Philip had considered deeply the despatches 
of the governant, and he had decided not to swerve 
a hand's breadth from his former policy. To rein- 
force and to sanctify this purpose, he summoned a 
council of the most eminent theologians in Madrid ; 
and after explaining the condition of the Nether- 
lands to them, put this question : " Am I justified 
in granting religious toleration to the provinces?" 

From the form of the query, the conclave imagin- 
ed that Philip desired an affirmative decision ; and 
thinking to please him, their easy virtue led them 
to respond, "Yes, sire, considering the critical situ- 
ation of tlie Netherlands and the imminent danger 
of revolt, if care and prudence be not used, we think 
you might be justified in decreeing liberty of wor- 
ship." " S' death," cried Philip, in a rage ; " I did 
not call you to learn what I migJd do, but what I 
ought to do." The sycophantic churchmen, finding 
that they had mistaken the cue, promptly faced 

« Schiller, Van dcr H.-ver, Meteren, Strada. 



316 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

about, and indignantly vetoed the idea of tolera- 
tion.-^ 

Then followed a notable instance of fanaticism, 
or of hypocrisy. Prostrating himself before a cru- 
cifix, the king exclaimed, " I implore thy divine maj- 
esty, Kuler of all things, that thou keep me deter- 
mined as I am now never to become nor to be called 
the lord of those who reject thee-for their Lord."t 

All these determinations were carefully concealed 
from Egmont; and when, after a delightful sojourn 
at the Spanish court, he prepared to return to 
Brussels, he really thought that he had been com- 
pletely successful in his mission, avowed himself 
the most contented man in the world, and construed 
Phihp's gracious phrases to mean that nothing had 
been denied to his brilliant diplomacy.:]: 

"Here, my dear count," said the monarch at 
their parting interview, " here is a packet of sealed 
instructions for the governant. You will hand it to 
her, when you reach Brussels."! The cozened en- 
voy took it with a smile, nothing doubting that it 
tallied with the verbal assurances which the royal 
juggler had given him. 

Early in April, 1565, the count rode gayly into 
Brussels,!! received a warm welcome home, announced 
his success at Madrid, handed the royal despatches 
to the duchess, and kissed his countess with the 
consciousness of having done a good deed bril- 
liantly. 

■s Strada, p. 89. f I^iid. t Schiller, Motley, Prescott. 

§ Hopper, Eec. et Mem. || Hoofd, Hopper, Van der Haer. 



JUGGLING. 317 

A few days after his return, Egmont was sum- 
moned to attend a session of tlie council of state. 
The sealed instructions were opened and read. This 
was their substance : " I have reached no decision 
as it regards the proposed change in the councils. 
Concerning the edicts, there must be no change in 
them. I would rather lose a hundred thousand 
lives, if I had so many, than allow a single altera- 
tion in religion. This, however, you may do: ap- 
point a commission, consisting of three bishops and 
a number of jurists, to advise with the members of 
the council of state as to the best means of instruct- 
ing the people in their spiritual concerns. More- 
over, since public executions of heretics do but 
afford them an opportunity of boastfully displaying 
a foolhardy courage, and of deluding the common 
herd by an affectation of the glory of martj-rdom, I 
urge you to devise means for putting in force the 
final sentence of the Inquisition with secret de- 
spatch, thereby depriving the condemned of the 
honor of their obduracy."* 

Egmont was astounded. " These specious favors, 
then, which were lavished upon me," exclaimed he 
loudly and bitterly, "were nothing but an artifice to 
expose me to the ridicule of my fellow-citizens, and to 
destroy my good name. If this is the fashion after 
which his majesty keeps the promises which he made 
me in Spain, let who will take my offices; for my 
part, I will prove, by my retirement from public 
affairs, that I have no share in this breach of faith."t 
« Cor. de Phil. II., torn. 1, p. 347, et seq. f Schiller, p. 467. 



318 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Orange was indignant, but not surprised. He 
had suspected that Egmont would be outwitted, and 
now he accused his friend of neglecting the public 
business in the pursuit of private ends and pleas- 
ures. " Count," said he, " you have been deluded 
by Spanish cunning. Self-love and vanity have 
blinded your penetration. You have forgotten the 
general welfare for your own advantage."* 

The rebuke was sharp, but it was merited. 

Worst of all in Egmont's eyes, he lost caste with 
the people. They too echoed the charge of the 
prj^ice of Orange, and cursed the king's instructions 
as establishing a more bitter code than the existing 
one.f Philip could have adopted no surer method 
of breaking Egmont's popular credit than by gib- 
beting him at the cross-road of public opinion as a 
traitor or a dupe. 

It has been said that "Prudence is only fear 
with a wise cloak on." On this occasion Prudence 
caught cold without her cloak. 

« Schiller, p. 4C7. Papiers d'Etat, torn. 9, p. 345. 
f Prescott. vol. 1, pp. 583, 584. 



THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 319 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 

As tlie year 1565 sped ou, absolutism became 
more pronounced ; protestation grew more emphatic. 
The country at large was feverishly excited. Spe- 
cial couriers hastened hither and thither freighted 
with weighty mail-bags, covering every high-road 
with dust flung from the heels of their flying horses. 
Margaret was in daily communication with the 
king. The patriot nobles interchanged incessant 
letters. Granvelle, from his quiet retreat at Besau- 
9on, maintained a busy corresj)ondence with his 
partisans in Flanders and Brabant, forwarding vivid 
summaries of his epistolary gleanings — and some- 
times the original notes themselves — to Madrid.* 

In July,t 1565, a mixed conclave of ecclesiastics 
and civilians was convened at Brussels, pursuant to 
the roj'al mandate, to deliberate upon the fittest 
"mode of instructing the people in their spiritual 
concerns.":}: It was composed of six divines and 
three gentlemen of the long robe fi'om the courts of 
justice, reinforced by Barliament and Viglius,§ who 
had so far recovered from his recent apo2:(lexy as to 
be able to resume his duties. The governant asked, 

« Prescott, vol. 1, p. 588. 

t Brandt says on the 25tli of May. See vol. 1, p. 154. 

t Chapter XX., p. 313. § Braudt, iihl sup. 



320 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

" Gentlemen, ought any change to be made in the 
punishment of heresy?" The lawyers, those profes- 
sional fishers in troubled waters, those thriveis on 
discord, responded : " Madame, we favor the repeal 
of the death penalty for heretical offences." The 
clergy, those preachers of peace, those pleaders for 
charity, snarled angrily, "Your highness, we stoutly 
maintain the contrary opinion."* Viglius was espe- 
cially vehement in his eulogy ui:)on the auto da fc 
principle. " I can find no words sufficiently harsh," 
cried he, "in which to characterize those who would 
abolish such a vital safeguard."t 

Of course, the prelates carried their point. It 
was decided that no change was permissible, save 
perhaps some mitigation of the punishment of 
those who, without being heretics or sectaries, 
might bring themselves within the provisions of the 
edicts " through curiosity, nonchalance, or other- 
Avise." Such offenders, it was hinted, might be 
" whipped with rods, fined, banished, or subjected 
to similar penalties of a lighter nature.":!^ From 
which it should seem that those theologians were 
disposed to pardon curiosity and nonchalance in 
the reformed proselytes; while they had nothing 
for the just and conscience-tied but the rack and the 
stake. Rome could forgive every thing except — 
honesty. It is a pregnant page of history. 

« Papiers d'Etat, torn. 9. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 471. 
t Ibid., torn. 9, p. 408. 

X Hopper, Rec. et Mem., pp. 48, 49. Cited iu Motlej', vol. 1, 
p. 472. 



THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 321 

The conclave put this decision in writing on the 
eve of adjournment. Margaret presented it to the 
council of state. " What shall I do with it ?" que- 
ried she. " 'T is no a£fair of ours," replied the cau- 
tious councillors ; " his majesty has not demanded 
our opinion."*^ The sentiments of the patriot sei- 
gneurs were well known, but they did not deem it 
necessary to volunteer a statement of views which 
they knew were asked only to commit them. "Fa- 
bius was a wise general," said Orange; "he knew 
how to wait and watch. "t 

Early in July, the governant forwarded the pro- 
ceedings of the commission to Madrid for the king's 
inspection, and to him she repeated the question 
which she had put to the council of state, " What 
shall I do with this decision?" The interrogator 
had no better success in the royal cabinet than in 
the council chamber at Brussels. Philip had taken 
refuge in taciturnity. 

Meantime, public opinion, less cautious than the 
nobles, less taciturn than the king, made its com- 
ments on the deliberations of the conclave. The 
doctors were pelted with opjirobrious epithets. 
Free-spoken Bred erode expressed the universal 
feeling, when he said, " As for those blackguards of 
bishops, I would the race were extinct, like that of 
green dogs."| 

« Hopper, Kec. et Mem., pp. 48, 49. Cited iu Motley, vol. 1, 
p. 472. 

f Lives of the Princes of the House of Orange, William the 
Silent. I Groen V. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 1, p. 382. 

14* 



322 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Viglius was agitated, but he still plumed liim- , 
self on the result of the conclave's labors. " Many 
here seek to abolish the chastisement of heres}^" 
so he wrote to Granvelle. "If they gain their 
point, actum est de religione CatJiolica; for as most of 
the people are ignorant fools, the heretics will soon 
be the great majority, if they are not kept in the 
true path by fear of punishment."- It is a notable 
admission ; but is it not fair to inquire, What must 
men think of a church which confesses that it can 
only bind its disciples to its faith by fettering their 
bodies in brute fear ? What must be the nature of 
a faith which permits its exponents to esteem such 
a course permissible ? 

As for the ignorance of the heretics, that was 
even then a point on which doctors disagreed. At 
a feast, Montigny once asked a strange cavalier, 
" Prithee, friend, are there not many Huguenots in 
Burgundy?" "Nay," was the reply; "nor should 
we j)ermit them there." " Is 't so ?" was the retort ; 
" then there can be but very few people of intelli- 
gence in that province, for those who have any wit 
are mostly Huguenots."t 

There was at this time something ominous in 
the temper of the provinces. The wildest rumors 
were afoot. " The king is recruiting an army for 
our subjugation," said some.| "Bauds already 
hang on the German border," aiffirmed others.§ 

« Groen v. Prinst, Archives, etc., torn. 1, p, 370. 

t Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle, torn. 7, pp. 187, 188. 

J Arch, de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 2, p. 33. § Ibid. 



THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 323 

Gaunt famine, frequent forerunner of revolution, 
stalked through the land.* " Bread ! bread !" shout- 
ed the rabble. Bread was doled out, and Marga- 
ret vehemently proclaimed that the reports of her 
royal brother's belligerent intentions were false.! 
Apprizing Philip of them, she requested him to 
brand them as the lies of the seditious. 

The king was silent. 

In June, 1565, an event occurred which stirred 
new tumults. Isabella of Spain, journeying with 
the duke of Alva as her chaperon, met at Bayonne 
the queen-mother of France, Catharine de' Medici. I 
Ostensibly, it was the visit of a long-absent daugh- 
ter to her mother; really, it was an interview to 
concoct an international massacre of the French 
and Low Country heretics.§ Spite of the tact of 
Isabella and the adroitness of the duke, this object 
was not attained, as we may learn from Alva's report 
to Philip ; because Catharine, true to her policy of 
governing through the division of her foes, would 
not destroy the balance of the hostile factions in 
France by exterminating the Huguenots.il St. Bar- 
tholomew was only possible when the reformers 
ceased to promote the ambition of the wily dowa- 
ger — and that time was still seven years off. 

AYrong in their estimate of the result, the Neth- 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 378. 
t Archives etc., ubi siqjva. 

X Davihi, Guerre Civili di Francia, torn. 1. p. 348. Milano, 1807. 
§ Ibid. , Brantome, (Euvres, torn. 5, p. 58, et seq. 
\\ Alva'.s letters are cited in Pafiiers d'Etat de Grauvelle, torn. 
9, p. '181, et seq. 



32J: THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

erlanders were right in their opinion of the object 
of this sinister interview ; all held it to be a plot 
against the liberties of their country.* The gover- 
nant was more than ever alarmed, "I implore 
you, sire, bestir yourself, and contradict this ru-' 
mor," wrote she to Philip, in a letter j&lled with an 
account of the popular apprehension of the mean- 
ing of the mutiny at Bayonne. 

Philip made no response. 

Every day the gloom grew deeper around Mar- 
garet's throne. There were incessant conflicts be- 
tween the inquisitors, bent on executing the edicts, 
and the magistrates, who exhausted the armory of 
the law in their efforts to defeat persecution.'!- The 
people were crazed with rage. Nothing was thought 
of but the edicts. "And he terms this a mitiga- 
tion," said they, "this new order that heretics shall 
be executed, not by public burning, as heretofore, 
but secretly, at midnight, in their dungeons, while 
the inquisitors hold the heads of their victims 
between their knees and slowly suffocate them in 
tubs of water.";|: " Can there be viler slavery," 
demanded some, " than to lead a trembling life in 
the midst of spies and informers, who register every 
Avord we speak, note every look, and put the worst 
construction upon every action ?"§ 

"Well, then," said a magistrate of Amsterdam 
when asked on one occasion to cooperate with the 

» Hopper, Kec. et Mem. Hoofd, Metereu. 

t Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 353. 

I Motley, vol. 1, p. 475. § Brandt, vol. 1, p. 154. 



THE DRAGON'S TEETH. 325 

inquisitors in the execution of the edicts, " when I 
appear before the tribunal of God, I shall do well 
to have one of your placards in my hand, to observe 
how far it will bear me out in the persecutions."" 

In the streets, in the shops, in the taverns, in 
the fields; at market, at church, at funerals, at wed-^ 
dings; in the noble's castle, at the farmer's fireside, 
in the mechanic's garret, upon the merchant's ex- 
change — everj'where the Inquisition w^as the one 
perpetual subject of shuddering conversation. f 

The press, too, was invoked. Never since Kos- 
ter formed his type had printing been pressed into 
such relentless, unceasing service. J Tracts were 
thrown off which treated of the reciprocal obliga- 
tions of the king and the states ;§ pamphlets were 
widely circulated which boldly pointed out the 
perfidy of Philip ;|| the Netherlands were placarded 
with satirical verses — lampoons on the bishops, on 
the inquisitors, on the governant, on the king him- 
self;^ notes were affixed to the palace gates of 
Orange and of Egmont which summoned them to 
enter the lists against the tyrant — " Rome awaits 
her Brutus," such was their tenor ;** wild insurrec- 
tionary songs wailed through the streets, ft the pa 
Iras of an earlier and grander struggle than that of 
revolutionary France in 1791 ; for this did not com- 
mit moral suicide by attempting to depose God. 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 154. f Motley, vol. 1, p. 473. 

J Arch, de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau. Hoofd, Prescott. 
§ Vandervj-nckt, Troiibles des Pays-Bas, torn. 1, p. 97. 
II Ibid. Meteren. •[ Ibid. Hoofd. 

~'^ Archives, etc., Supplement, p. 22. ft Hoofd, Metereu. 



326 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

Pale, sleepless, affrighted, Margaret reported 
these things to her royal brother, and again prayed 
him to intervene. 

Philip was heedless. 

At last, the inquisitors themselves were cowed. 
They united their prayers to those of Margaret. 
" Sire," wrote one of them, Michael de Bay, " be 
merciful, and dismiss us, or else come to our sup- 
port."* 

This despairing cry touched Philip's heart. 
" The Inquisition in danger !" exclaimed he ; " this 
must be seen to." On the 17tli of October, 1565, 
he who had been deaf to the prayers of Margaret 
of Parma, indifferent to the wail of an agonized 
people, yielded to the entreaties of an inquisitor, 
and addressed that memorable letter to the duchess, 
from the Segovian forest, which determined the fate 
of the Netherlands.t 

The royal rescript was to this effect : 

" I am surprised at the tumult which you report 
as rife in the Low Countries — surprised at the 
course of the people — indignant at the conduct of 
the nobles. Whatever interpretation Count Egmont 
may have given to my verbal communications, it 
never entered my mind to think of altering in any, 
the slightest degree, the penal statutes which the 
emperor my father published in the provinces 
thirty-five years agone. Those edicts I hereby 
order to be henceforth rigidly enforced. The In- 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p, 353. 
f Hopper, Ecc. et Mem. Strada, Prescott. 



THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 327 

quisition must receive active support from the sec- 
ular arm. The decrees of the council of Trent must 
be at once, and irrevocably and unconditionally ac- 
knowledged throughout the Netherlands. I acqui- 
esce fully in the opinion of the conclave of bishops 
and canonists, as to the sufficiency of the Tridentine 
decrees as guides in all points of reformation and 
instruction ; but I do not concur with them touch- 
ing the mitigation of punishment which they pro- 
pose in consideration of the age, sex, and character 
of offenders; I esteem my edicts quite merciful 
enough as they stand."* 

Here at last was something frank, decisive, un- 
mistakeable. For once Philip had spoken his mind, 
the oracle had uttered its message without recourse 
to subterfuge. Surprised and agitated, Margaret 
opened a private note addressed to herself, hoping 
to find some loophole through which to escape from 
the necessity of immediate obedience to this stern 
mandate. It was useless. Never before had the king- 
expressed his meaning so clearly. So with the whole 
budget ; a few lines to Egmont, and responsive ejDis- 
tles to the inquisitors, left no doubt as to the mon- 
arch's determination " to frame mischief by a law." 

The council of state was instantly convened. The 
despatches from Spain were read. " God knows 
what wry faces were made by us on learning this 
absolute will of his majesty," affirmed Viglius.f 
But even Yiglius feared to obey the royal mandate. 

* Summarized in Schiller, p. 471. 

t Arch, de la Maisou d'Orauge-Nassau, torn. 1, n. 442. 



328 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Bising gravely from his seat, lie said, " Your higli- 
ness, it would be the height of folly in us to think 
of ^promulgating the royal edict at this perilous 
juncture. Let us apprize his majesty of the situa- 
tion, and meantime suspend all action."" 

All were astonished at such advice from such a 
person. But the sensation was yet greater when 
Orange rose to oppose delay. "The royal will," 
said he, " is much too clearly and precisely stated ; 
't is too plainly the result of long and mature delib- 
eration for us to venture to delay its proclamation." 
"I take the risk; I assume all; I oppose myself to 
the king's displeasure," interposed Vigiius. " What," 
continued the prince — " what have the many repre- 
sentations already made effected? Of what avail 
was the embassy so recently despatched? And 
Avhat, then, do we wait for? Shall we bring upon 
ourselves the whole weight of the king's displeas- 
ure, by determining at our own peril to render him 
an unasked service — a service for which it is certain 
he will never thank us ?"t 

These short, sharp interrogations frightened the 
duchess into obedience to the royal mandate. " His 
majesty's decision must be proclaimed,":): faltered 
she, certain that she walked over a precipice which- 
ever path she followed, but dreading Philip even 
more than the mob. The die was cast; and as the 
council adjourned, Orange tapped Horn upon the 

* Cited in Schiller, ubi sup. 

f Meteren, torn. 2. Bor, torn. 1. Schiller. 

I Ibid. Vita Viglii. 



THE DEAGON'S TEETH. 329 

slioulcler, and whispered, " Now we shall soon see 
a national tragedy."* 

On this occasion Vigiius and the prince seem- 
iDgly changed roles; the spur became the check, 
the check became the sj)ur. But really there was 
no inconsistency ; each was true to his faith. Vig- 
iius demanded delay in the interest of absolutism, 
imperilled by action; Orange urged action in the 
interest of libertj^ jeoparded by delay. "All may 
yet be gained," thought Vigiius, "if we can suspend, 
perhaps mitigate the rigor of the law, till this tem- 
]3est be stilled." "Now," thought Orange, "the 
provinces are shut up to resistance by despair. 
Delay will enable the tyrant by secret negotiation 
and intrigue to win stealthly what would be denied 
to force. The same purpose will inspire Spanish 
politics, only the method of action will become 
more subtle and occult. We are prepared now — 
no postponement; extremity alone can combine 
great masses in unity of purpose, and move a na- 
tion to bold action." 

It should seem, therefore, that the adroit abso- 
lutist and the sagacious patriot chief merely changed 
their language, not their principles, their tactics, 
nor their purpose. 

When it was proclaimed that the canons of Trent, 
the existing edicts, and the Inquisition were to be 
received and obeyed throughout the provinces, the 
decree was answered by a howl of execration. f The 
people were ready for any method of resistance, as 
* Vita Viglii, p. 45. 'f Motley, vol. 1, p. 482. Vita Viglii. 



330 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

William knew they would be. "The Netherlands 
are not so stupid," many were heard to say, " as 
not to know right well what is due from the subject 
to the sovereign, and from the king to the people. 
Perhaps means may yet be found to repel force with 
force."* Pamphlets, handbills, pasquils " snowed in 
the streets."'!- The justice and the policy of armed 
resistance to tyranny were openly inculcated. :t 
Every honest soul, every patriotic heart was com- 
pelled to assume the Phrygian cap. 

The Brabantine cities solemnly denounced the 
royal proclamation as a bold usurpation.! "We 
entrench ourselves behind our constitution," cried 
Antwerp and Brussels and Louvain and Herzogeu- 
busch; we appeal to the law." Margaret ordered 
the council of Brabant to search the archives of 
the province for precedents. The lawyers looked. 
"Well," queried the governant, "what do you find?" 
The canonists hesitated and equivocated. "Answer 
me distinctly," said the duchess. " We can find no 
precedent for the Inquisition," was the reply.ll Bra- 
bant was jubilant. " Then we will have none of it," 
shouted the sturdy burghers. Margaret acquiesced, 
and that province was declared free of the holy 
• ofiice.l 

Other states followed this example. Eminent 
lawyers counselled disobedience to the edicts.-* 
Montigny, Berghen, Mansfeld flatly refused to en- 

'■■' Schiller, p. 474. f Motley, uU sup. 

t- Hoofd, Metereu. § Hopper, Eec. et Mem., p. G3, ei seq. 
II Ibid., p. 64. Hoofd, torn. 2, p. 69. II Ibid. 

«» Vita Viglii. Bor. 



THE DRAGON'S TEETH. 331 

force the decrees Avitbin tlieir stadtliolde'rates. Or- 
ange retired to his town of Breda in Holland, where, 
in observant repose, he watched the drift of events.* 
"Without kindling a war," wrote he to the duchess, 
" it is absolutely impossible to comply with his maj- 
esty's orders within my government. If obedience 
is insisted upon, I must beg that my place may be 
supplied by some other, fitter to meet the royal 
expectations. As the case now stands, I have no 
alternative but either to disobey the king, or to 
betray my country and disgrace myself."t 

Of all the patriot seigneurs, Egmont alone re- 
mained in Brussels — Egmont, ever vacillating be- 
tween the republic and the throne, ever wearying 
himself in the vain attempt to unite the good citi- 
zen with the obedient subject.:}: Margaret, fearful 
of displeasing the king by declaring for either fac- 
tion, now turned for sympathy and support to Eg- 
mont, who belonged to both and to neither of the 
conflicting parties.§ 

So ended the memorable year 1565. " It was 
the last of peace and happiness," sighs Strada.H 
Yes, the last of a peace which had subserviency for 
its father and fanaticism for its mother ; the last of 
a happiness in which inquisitori were the sole par- 
ticipants — which was builded upon murder, and 
cemented in the blood of martyrs. 

« Schiller, p. 476. Meteren. f Ibid. $ Ibid. 

^ Schiller. || Strada, p. 97. 



332 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

CHAPTEE XXII. 

"THE BEGGARS." 

In the afternoon of a day in the early spring of 
1566, Margaret of Parma, lounging in her conncil- 
chamber, Avas listening half -inattentively to a drowsy 
discussion of routine affairs. The meeting was infor- 
mal. Egmont was seated at the board; and among 
the councillors towered the stately form of the prince 
of Orange, who had been called to town for a day or 
two by business. " Well," said the duchess with a 
light laugh, in response to some inquiry, "I think — " 

The sentence was checked in the utterance by 
the precipitate appearance of Count Meglien, an 
ultraraontanist with liberal proclivities, who burst 
into the apartment pale, nervous, breathless. "Par- 
don me," said he, replying to the mute look of inter- 
rogation turned upon him by the councillors; "but 
I beg you to postpone Avhat matters are before 
the board ; I have an important announcement to 
make." Then addressing the governant, he con- 
tinued : " Madame, I have just received information 
from one whom I trust, and who is, moreover, an 
affectionate servant of the king — though, tongue- 
tied by promise, I may not give his name— that a 
very extensive conspiracy of heretics has been 
formed both within and without the Netherlands ; 
that the leaguers have a force of thirty-five thou- 



"THE BEGGAES." 333 

sand men, horse and foot, now ready for action ; 
and that they are about to take arms, unless they 
are assured of an immediate and formal concession 
of entire liberty of conscience. Within a week, fif- 
teen hundred cavaliers will appear, to demand so 
much, here in Brussels, before your highness."^' 

This startling announcement was confirmed by 
Egmont. " So also speaks my information ; but with 
this addition, that these men are leagued to revolu- 
tionize the government," said he. " Here, madame," 
he continued, " are the precise words of the new- 
fledged cabal."t 

Margaret was speechless with astonishment. 
"Your highness," drily interposed the prince, 
" there is a modicum of truth in what you hear, 
but dame Eumor has absurdly exaggerated the 
story. 'T is not an armed league against the 
throne, though certes it may groAV to that, but an 
organized protest against the Inquisition.":]: 

A stormy and indecisive debate ensued. " I 
shall order an immediate assembly of the nota- 
bles," said the duchess ; whereupon she retired to 
her cabinet, to report this new danger to Philip. 
" Sire," she wrote, " the time has come for you to 
take up arms, or to make large concessions."§ 

What did this rumor mean? What were the 
facts which spawned it ? 

Some months previous to this scene in the comi- 

» Hooftl, torn. 2, pp. 71, 72. Hopper, Kec. et Mem., p. G9, 
et seq. t Hopper, Kec. et Mem., p. 70. 

I Ibid. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 509. 



334 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

cil-cliamber, in the feverish November of 1565, a 
double wedding was celebrated at Brussels with 
lavish magnificence. The fated Montigny espoused 
a princess of the noble house of d'Espinay, and was 
to be called ere long to leave his bridal-chamber for 
an imprisonment which ended in a bloody death ; and 
Margaret's son, Alexander of Parma, who had come 
back with Egmont from Spain, where he had been 
educated, married the j'oung and beautiful Donna 
Maria of Portugal.* 

All the world crowded up to Brussels to witness 
the fetes. The ancient halls of the old dukes of Bra- 
bant, in whose palace the regent resided, were 
thronged by the loveliest women and the courtliest 
nobles of the age — soldiers, poets, artists, giddy 
with gayety. Smiles which cost a diamond each, 
wit which was paid a handful of gold a mof, abounded. 
Jousts and feastings made ultramontanism oblivi- 
ous for an hour of the brooding revolt ; the peal of 
merry marriage-bells drowned for an instant the 
wail of national despair. 

In the midst of this mad revelry, while the cour- 
tiers and the triflers of the clubs floated themselves 
in dinner-stories and the gossip of the town, a sober 
company of twenty gentlemen were listening to a 
sermon in the palace of Count Culemberg.f The 
preacher was Francis Junius, a dissenting minister 
then settled in Alitwerp, and now in Brussels by 
invitation. Young, eloquent, scholarly, Junius had 

•"■ Strada, p. 92, et seq. 

f Brandt, vol. 1, p. 162. Vita Junii, p. 14, et seq. 



"THE BEGGARS." 335 

studied divinity sitting at the feet of Calvin at Ge- 
neva, and he had proved his faith after the apos- 
tolic pattern, " in much patience, in afHictious, in 
necessities, in distresses;"* on one occasion advo- 
cating the doctrines of the Reformation with seren- 
ity in a room overlooking the Antwerp market- 
place, where at tliat very moment several of his 
parishioners were being martyred, while the light of 
the flames in which their bodies were sheeted flick- 
ered up through the glass windows of the conven- 
ticle.t 

Now in Culemb erg-house, Junius preached with 
his accustomed power. A grave conversation fol- 
lowed his sermon, and it was decided that a league 
should be formed against the Inquisition.:}: 

A little later this purpose was matured by a 
secret gathering at the baths of Spa. A paper 
call the "Compromise" was drawn up, by which its 
signers bound themselves to oppose the holy office, 
and to defend each other against all the consequen- 
ces of this resistance. § 

The original copy of this covenant bore but 
three names, those of Brederode, Charles Mans- 
feld, and Louis of Nassau ;|| but it was speedily 
translated into half a dozen different tongues, and 
distributed throughout the provinces by scores of 
deft hands. Within sixty days, two thousand names 

•~ 2 Cor. 6 : 4. ■ j Brandt, uhi sup. 

:j: Brandt, Vita Juuii, ut antea. 

§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 494. 

11 Ibid. Archives et Correspondance, torn. 2, p. 2, et seq. 



336 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

were appended to the muster-roll of patriotism.* 
The signatures represented all classes — nobles, 
burghers, merchants, reformers, Eomanists, priests, 
men of all creeds and of none, various lives flooded 
into one bj common anxieties. Ostensibly, it was 
a league against the Inquisition ; the motives were 
not the same with all, but the pretext was similar. 
The papists desired to compass by it a mere miti- 
gation of the too cruel edicts ; the Protestants aimed 
through it at toleration ; traders esteemed it a good 
business investment ; the needy and turbulent hailed 
it as synonymous with anarchy ; a few keen souls 
recognized it as a step towards revolution. f This 
was the strength and the weakness of the union ; 
the strength, for it gave it numbers ; the weakness, 
because it rested on an abnormal, heterogeneous 
basis, sure to crumble in a crucial hour. But these 
were its halcyon days. To sign the " Compromise " 
became the rage. It received the imprimatur of 
fashion, one of the most potent of forces ; and this 
blind Samson gave it the highest and the subtlest 
of social distinctions. 

At this time the movement was officered by 
three individuals, Brederode, Louis of Nassau, and 
Sainte Aldegonde,']: men variously able and eminent. 
Sainte Aldegonde especially, was one of the most 
beautiful characters of his time; and his motto, 

* Correspomlance de Philippe II., torn. I, p. 400. StracLi. 

1 Schiller, p. 384, 

X Strada, Metereu, Vandervynckt, Van der Haer. 



"THE BECtGAES." 337 

"Hepos ailleurs,'" seemed to indicate that the Sidney 
of the Netherlands, content with " rest hereafter," 
lent his earthl}^ career to the stormy service of man- 
kind. 

Below Brederode and Nassau and Sainte Alde- 
gonde stood Van Hammes, or " Golden Fleece," as 
he was styled from his connection with that order, 
whose king-at-arms he was, bluff, honest, tireless, 
and Count Culemburg, and Charles Mansfeld, who 
soon fell off, and a host of others inferior in po- 
sition, but not in activit}^ to the chiefs of the 
league.* 

The grandees were not among the signers of 
the " Compromise."! Orange would not identify 
his name with a movement officered by such a blun- 
dering swaggerer as Brederode ; he reserved him- 
self for a higher hour. Besides, he was still in the 
nominal confidence of the king, in whose name 
he held his stadtholderates. Horn followed the 
prince's lead. Egmont feared to compromise his 
relations with the court. But though the seigneurs 
thus held themselves aloof, the leaguers well knew 
that their protest against the subjection of the an- 
cient liberties of the Netherlands to the fanatical 
whims of a junta of foreigners sitting a*t Madrid 
awoke an echo in the hearts of the patriot lords ; 
while tlie}^ gained fresh confidence from the refusal 
of the stadtholders to enforce the execution of the 
inquisitorial laws, and to countenance a human bou- 

* Correspondance de Philippe II., torn. 1. 
t Ibid., Stmda, Prescott. 



338 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

fire of sixty tlioiisand victims ;- and from the acces- 
sion to their ranks of the rehitives, friends, and 
retainers of the great famihes. If Orange was not 
a leaguer, Nassau was ; if Egmout stood aside, his 
secretary was deep in the plot.t 

Nor was the prince averse to using the league 
as a counter in his game. He was aware that states- 
manship wastes no strength — utilizes all elements. 
He also knew, none better, that Philip was inflexi- 
bly bent upon the establishment of the Inquisition. 
The tortuous politics of Madrid were an open book 
to him. The real views, the secret purposes, the 
minutice of the plans of the king were regularly for- 
warded to William by spies — the eyes and ears of 
princes — in his pay and in Philip's service.;!: Thus 
it was that Machiavelli the patriot outwitted Machi- 
avelli the tyrant. 

With the heart of Philip in his hand. Orange 
knew that to defeat his wily opponent's plots, it was 
necessary to make the most of all the elements of 
opposition in the Netherlands ; therefore he watched 
the league. 

Early in March, 1566, he was informed that the 
leaguers were about to assemble at Breda for the 

■™ Corresp. de PhiliiDpe II. 

t Schiller, Proces Criminels des Comtes d'Egmont. 

X There was one man especially who was very useful to Orange 
in this capacity, a certain John of Castile, clerk to Andi-eas de las 
Layas, the king's secretary ; he, for a pension of three hundi-ed 
crowns, betrayed to the prince all the secrets of his master ; and 
as nearly all the affairs of the Netherlands were entrusted to the 
hands of his master, the spy had ample means of acquiring the 
fullest, most valuable information. Bor., book \(\, bl. 288. 



"THE BEGGAKS." 339 

purpose of drawing up a petition to the regent 
against the holy office.* Under pretence of an invi- 
tation to a grand dinner —for it was a peculiarity 
of the Netherlands that there the most elaborate 
schemes were either hidden under a platter or cra- 
dled at banquets — the prince summoned a number 
of the seigneurs to meet him at the same time and 
place.f At his table, Horn, Egmont, Berghen, 
Montigny, and the rest, met Brederode and a dep- 
utation of the league. A conference ensued, which 
was soon adjourned to the town of Hoogstraaten. 

Orange had a twofold object in this meeting; 
he wished to persuade the magnates to demand the 
convocation of the states-general, and he desired 
to win the leaguers to moderate the tone of their 
forthcoming petition. | He failed to compass his 
first purpose ; the seigneurs, alarmed at the league, 
would not cooperate with it, even to the extent of 
asking for the states-general.§ He w^as more suc- 
cessful with the Covenanters ; in obedience to his 
request, they softened the tone, but adhered to the 
object, of their petition.il 

So much for the inception of the "compromise ;" 
and this was the situation when Margaret was ap- 
prized of its existence by Count Meghen. 

True to her promise, the governant jDublished a 
call for a convention of the notables ; and letters 
were sent to Orange and Horn urgently requesting 

" Motlej% vol. 1, p. 50G. Stracla. f I^itl. 

J Ibid. § Motley, vol. 1, p. 507. 

11 Ibid. 



340 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

tliem to resume their seats in tlie council of state.* 
Other portents besides the league made the duchess 
tremble. The Netherlands seemed on the eve of 
depopulation. Thirty thousand refugees had quit- 
ted the provinces and taken shelter under the 
throne of Elizabeth.f Trade itself was an emigrant. 
From time immemorial, silk and woollen stuffs had 
formed the staple of an immense export trade from 
the Low Countries to England. Now the current 
was turned. The wise policy of Britain encouraged 
the immigration of the Netherlands handicraftsmen. 
Norwich and Sandwich were especially assigned to 
them ; and the cunning islanders soon acquired the 
secret of their craft. " The Low Countries," wrote 
Assonleville to Granvelle, " are the Indies of the 
English, who make war upon our purses as the 
French, some years ago, made war upon our 
towns."! This was sad ; but it was natural that 
commerce and manufactures should hasten to es- 
cape from a doomed land.§ 

On the 28th of March, 1566, the notables assem- 
bled at Brussels.ll " Gentlemen," said Margaret, 
" I have summoned you that you may prevent, by 
your counsels and endeavors, the impending evils. 
And the first question which I have to ask is, Shall 
this petition be received ?"1F 

Barlaiment opposed its reception. "What need," 

» Braudt, vol. 1, p. 163 ; Strada, Schiller, 
f Assonleville to Gi-anvelle, in Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, 
p. 392. t Ibid. § Motley. 

II Cor. de Philiijpe II., torn. 1, p. 403, el seq. 
fl[ Strada, p. 103. 



"THE BEGGAES." 341 

queried he, "that so many people should deliver one 
petition ? Let us either close the ports — which I 
favor ; or else admit but one man with this paper, 
and if he carry himself contumaciously, let him be 
forthwith punished."* 

Orange rose and rebuked this truculent lan- 
guage. " Let the petitioners be admitted to an 
audience," said he. " Treat them with respect. 
Many of them are my friends — some of them my 
relations ; and there is no reason for refusing to 
gentlemen of their rank a right wdiich belongs to 
the poorest plebeian in the land."t 

The ultramontanists supported Barlaiment; the 
patriots sided with the prince. Finall}^, it was de- 
cided to receive the petitioners, who were to come 
unarmed ; and at nightfall the assembly adjourned 
till the morrow.:!: 

On the following morning, the notables reassem- 
bled. The governant again opened the session with 
a speech, in which she apologized for the edicts, 
affirmed that the seigneurs had approved them, but 
asserted that she had no wish to influence the suf- 
frage of the lieges. " And now," concluded she, 
" the question is. What answer shall be made to the 
petition ?"§ 

Opinions were divided. The courtiers favored 
war ; the patriots urged concession ; Margaret in- 
clined to temporize until the royal will could be 

* Strada, p. 103. 

t Ibid., Van der Haer, Poutus Payeu MS. 

J Strada, uhi sup. § Ibid. 



342 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

ascertained. But an appeal to arms was absurd, 
since the leaguers Avere prepared for it, while the 
court exchequer was empty, and it was suspected 
that the few troops in the king's pay had been sub- 
orned. As for delay, it was suggested that the con- 
federates would hardly permit themselves to be 
amused instead of answered. Orange pleaded 
boldly, convincingly, unanswerably for concession. 
Rising gravely, he said : 

"Would to heaven I had been so happy as to 
have gained credence at the outset, when I foretold 
what has now come to pass. Then the last meas- 
ures would not have been first invoked, nor would 
errorists have been made desperate by the extre- 
mest expedients. Would not that physician be 
thought out of his wits, who, instead of using gentle 
medicines in the commencement of disease, should 
begin by burning or cutting off the infected part ? 

" Now, on one point we are unanimous : we all 
wish to secure religion — but we differ as to the 
means. The Inquisition is one way. There are 
two kinds of Inquisition : the one is exercised in 
the name of the pope, and the other has been long 
practised by the bishops. To this last, men are in 
some measure reconciled by the force of custom ; 
and considering how well we are now provided with 
bishops in these states, it would seem that this sort 
should alone suffice. As to the other, the repug- 
'jnance of the people is manifest. This must be 
appeased, if we would not have it burst into rebel- 
lion. With the recent death of Pius IV., the full 



"THE BEGGABS." 343 

powers of tlie papal inquisitors have expired ; tlie 
new pontiff lias, as yet, sent no ratification of tlieir 
authority. Now, therefore, is the time when it can 
be suspended without wrong to any part3^ 

" So, too, with the edicts : the exigency which 
evoked them has passed. Heed not me, but listen 
to experience ; and does not that teach that perse- 
cution increases error ? and that the severity of the 
punishment is a temptation to the sin? The Neth- 
erlands have, of late years, been a school, in which, 
if we have not been extremely inattentive, w^e might 
have learned the folly of persecution. Have not 
many been drawn fi'om the church by the contem- 
plation of the heroism and serenity of those who 
have received the death-sentence as an invitation 
to a wedding, running with joy to the fiery trial ? 
Such spectacles work on popular comr)assion, excite 
universal sympathy, and create a suspicion that the 
truth must certainl}^ be found where so much con- 
stancy and fortitude are found. 

" Now, these are the bitter j^ills which have 
been administered to patients in England and in 
France, and now here with us ; but with what suc- 
cess? Let the incredible progress Avhich the new 
religion has made respond. Well might it be said 
by the Christians of old that ' the blood of the mar- 
tyrs is the seed of the church.' The emperor Julian, 
the most formidable enemy whom Christianity ever 
saw% was sensible of this truth. He had recourse, 
therefore, to the weapons of ridicule and contempt; 
and these he found far more effective than the 



344 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

use of force. Force makes no impression on the 
conscience — serves, in sootli, but to awaken zeal ; 
wliich liberty, ease, and idleness soon lay asleep. 

" The Greek empire was, at different periods, 
infected with various heresies. Arius taught errors 
in the reign of Constantino ; Hetius, in that of Con- 
stance ; and Nestorius under Theodosius. No such 
punishments were inflicted, either on the heresiarchs 
themselves, or on their disciples, as are now prac- 
tised in the Netherlands. Banishment was the 
penalty ; and though there were blood-edicts, they 
were only in tcrrorem. Yet where are all those 
false opinions now? Heresy is like iron in its na- 
ture : if it rests, it rusts ; but he who rubs it, whets 
it. If it is neglected, it loses its novelt}-, and with 
that its attractiveness. "Why have not we content- 
ed ourselves with similar measures? Surely exam- 
ple is the best and safest of guides. 

" But what need to go to pagan antiquity for 
guidance and example ? A precedent is at hand : 
Charles V., the greatest of kings, himself taught by 
experience, for some years before his abdication 
abandoned the blood-path of persecution and adoj^t- 
ed milder curbs for heresy. The king of Sj^ain, 
our prince, seemed inclined, at one time, to walk in 
the steps of the great emperor, his father, and to 
make trial of gentler expedients. Through the in- 
fluence of ecclesiastics, he has changed his views : 
let these men answer for their conduct, if they can. 
For my own part, I am satisfied that it is impossi- 
ble to root out the new creed in these provinces 



"THE BEGGARS." 345 

without also plucking up the foundations of the 
state. 

" I conclude with reminding your highness, and 
you, seigneurs, of the connection which subsists be- 
tween the French reformers and the Flemish Prot- 
estants. Beware, lest in acting the part of the 
French Romanists towards them, they be driven to 
play the Huguenots with us. Then, adieu pros- 
perity, farewell peace ; for our country would be 
plunged into the horrors of a civil war."* 

This massive plea beat down all opposition : it 
was decided in advance that concessions should be 
niade.t 

On the 3d of April, 15G6, in the gray of the 
evening, the petitioners entered Brussels. At the 
head of two hundred cavaliers rode Brederode ; 
and as the horsemen wheeled slowly through the 
streets, they were Avildly cheered by the symx^athetic 
populace.^ Twelve hours later, Culemberg and 
Yan den Berg came into town, bringing with them 
a hundred more cavaliers to swell the retinue of 
the league. § 

Two days afterwards, the confederates, three 
hundred strong, met at Culemberg House, and 
there forming in procession, marched two abreast 
up the straight, handsome street to the summit of 
the hill where stood the ancient palace of the Bra- 

* Bergundias, Hist. Belg., lib. 2. Vide Braudt, vol. 1, p. 1G4 

f Strada, p. 106. Hopper. 

J Bor., torn. 2, p. 58. Cor. de Philippe IL 

§ Ibid. 

15* 



346 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

bantine dukes, and where Margaret was to give 
tliem audience.* And now again, as the petitioners, 
young, titled, and splendidly attired, pressed for- 
ward, the thronging masses greeted those whom 
they esteemed the deliverers of the laud with deaf- 
ening shouts of welcome and Godspeed. t 

The palace was soon reached ; and there, seated 
on her throne of state and surrounded by the Neth- 
erland grandees, was the governant, waiting to 
receive her unwelcome visitors. Brederode, alwaj^s 
unabashed, opened the interview with a low obei- 
sance and a few commonplaces. Then the petition 
was read. It made two demands. The duchess 
was requested to send an envoy to Madrid humbly 
to implore the king to abolish the edicts; mean- 
time, she was asked to suspend the Inquisition un- 
til Philip's pleasure should be known, and until new 
ordinances, made by the king with the advice and 
consent of the states-general duly assembled, should 
be established. 'I 

Margaret listened with emotion, and promised 
to return an answer after consultation with her 
councillors.§ The petitioners withdrew. 

An excited debate ensued. Orange defended the 
confederates against the charge of being seditious 
rebels. Egmont, on being asked his opinion, shrug- 
ged his shoulders, and said, " It will be necessary 
for me to leave court for a space, as I Avish to visit 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 512. f Ibid. 

J See the petition in Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 161, 165. 
§ Hopper, Eec. et Mem. Motley. 



"THE BEGGARS." 347 

the baths of Aix for an inflammation which I have 
in the leg."* Barlaiment was in a passion ; and it 
was now that he uttered that taunt which gave a 
name to the patriot party, destined to become as 
immortal as that given to the French reformers 
when they were stigmatized as " Huguenots." 
"Madame," said he, "is it possible that you can 
entertain fears of these gueiix\ — beggars ? Is it not 
obvious that they are broken spendthrifts plotting 
for gain in anarchy? They have not wisdom 
enough to manage their own estates ; how, then, 
shall they teach your highness how to govern the 
country? By the living God, if my advice were 
taken, they should have a cudgel for a commentary. 
I would send them down the steps of the palace 
much faster than they mounted them. "J This 
advice was congenial to Margaret, but she dared 
not follow it. 

On the morning of the 6tli of April, the confed- 
erates came before the regent for an answer to their 
request. It was written on the margin of the peti- 
tion, and was to this effect : " Her highness has no 
authority to suspend the edicts ; but she will de- 
spatch envoys to acquaint his majesty with your 
demands. Meantime she will order all inquisitors 
to proceed modestly and discreetly in their office. "§ 

The petitioners took the paper, and retired to 

* Pontus Payen MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 515. 
t The word cjueux means not only a beggar, but a sturdy beg- 
gar. Vide Brandt, ubi sup. 

X Pontus Payen MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 515. 
§ Groen v. Prinst., torn. 2, p. 84. et »eq. Bor. Strada. 



348 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

consult. They were not satisfied with the reply.* 
It was characterized as a quibble — as an evasion. 
On the 8th of April, Brederode and his comrades 
once more craved audience of the duchess. They^ 
were admitted. " Madame," asked Brederode, " is 
this all that you can say?" "It is," was the curt 
reply ; " I will send envoys to the king ; and here 
before me are instructions already drawn up, ready 
to be transmitted to the inquisitori. I can do* no 
more." "At least permit our request to be print- 
ed," said Brederode. " It shall be so," replied the 
duchess. " Will you not also declare that we have 
done nothing inconsistent with loyalty to the king?" 
queried the pertinacious spokesman. Margaret's 
lip curled. " Of that I cannot judge," said she ; 
" time must determine. "t 

Forced to rest content with these assurances, 
the leaguers chose four directors for the manage- 
ment of their affairs, who were to remain in Brus- 
sels ; and at the same time, local committees were 
appointed to see that the peace was kept in the 
provinces, and to insure that the governant should 
keep her promises : | then they prepared to sep- 
arate. 

Before the separation, however, Brederode, who 
thought that an object was never consummated 
until it was crowned by a dinner, invited the three 
hundred to a banquet at Culemburg House.§ As 

* Hopper, Bor. t Ibid. Strada, p. 108. 

J Brandt, vol. 1, p. 16G. Bor. Hopper. 
§ Strada. Bentivoglio, torn. 2. Hopper. 



"THE BEGGARS." 349 

was usual when Brederode was host, there was a 
wild carouse. After the most sumptuous of dinners, 
the wine began to flow, and the noble bacchanals 
never wearied of drinking the health of the cause, 
of Brederode, of Egmont, of Orange. 

Drunk with wine and hot with patriotic fervor, 
the company began to canvass the prospects of the 
league, when some one asked, " What shall be the 
name of our union ?" With drunken gravity Brede- 
rode rose. "I am prej^ared to answer tbat ques- 
tion," hiccoughed he. "'Tis said that good Bar- 
laiment styled us gueux in open council. Beggars 
for our rights we are : let us accept the name. We 
will contend with the Inquisition, but remain loyal 
to the king, even till compelled to wear the beggar's 
sack. Gentlemen, pledge me the beggars — Vivent 
les giieuxT 

The mad-brained company sprang to their feet 
and drained their goblets in honor of the toast with 
boisterous excitement. Tlien, for the first time, 
and on the tipsy lips of reckless nobles, was heard 
the famous cry which was to ring over land and 
sea, amid blazing cities, on blood-stained decks, 
through the smoke and carnage of many a stricken 
field. 

Brederode's humor was not yet exhausted. Seiz- 
ing a leathern wallet and a wooden bowl, the regu- 
lar appurtenances of the mendicants of the time, he 
slung the first about his neck, and again drained the 
bowl to the cry of " Vimnt les guenx .'" Each guest 
in turn donned the beggar's knapsack and took the 



350 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

bowl ; and wlien the circuit of the table had been 
made, wallet and bowl were suspended to a pillar 
of the hall. The rites bj which the league received 
its name were completed by the repetition of an 
impromptu distich, which Avas solemnly chanted by 
all, as each in succession threw salt into his goblet, 
and placed himself under the suspended symbol of 
the brotherhood : 

" By this salt, by this bread, by this wallet we sweai-, 

These beggars ne'er will change, though the world should stare." 

The wassail was at its wildest when Orange and 
Horn and Egmont entered the apartment in search 
of Hoogstraaten, whom they wished to carry away 
with them. They were at once surrounded and 
compelled to drink to the health of the beggars — 
which they did, not knowing what the pledge meant. 
Their presence brought the festivities to a prema- 
ture close, and the riotous cavaliers staggered off 
to bed.* 

What they had resolved upon while drunk, the 
confederates prepared to perform when sober. They 
knew the value of a striking and original name. In 
the epithet gucux their opponents had given them 
precisely what they wanted. The word " beggars," 
while it cloaked their entesprise in humility, was at 
the same time appropriate to them as petitioners. 
What, then, could be better than to adopt this 

'• This scene is narrated in full by most contemporaneous 
chroniclers. An account of it is also given by JSIotley — vol. 1, 
pp. 519-523— and by Prescott. . 



"THE BEGGAES." 351 

name of gueux, and to borrow from it the tokens of 
the association ? 

" In a few daj^s," says Schiller, " the town of 
Brussels swarmed with ash-gray garments, cut in 
the true mendicant fashion. Every leaguer clothed 
his family and put his retainers in this dress. Some 
carried wooden bowls thinly overlaid with plates of 
silver, cups of the same pattern, and wooden knives; 
in short, the whole paraphernalia of the beggar 
tribe, which they either fixed about their hats or 
wore suspended from their girdles. Round the neck 
the titled 'beggars' hung a golden or silver coin 
afterwards called the ' Guesen penny,' on one side 
of which was the effigy of the king, with the inscrip- 
tion, ' True to the king ;' and on the reverse were 
seen two hands folded, holding a wallet, with the 
words, ' Even to the beggar's scrip.' "* 

It was a jest which hid a growl. 

• Schiller, p. 496. 



352 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

FIELD -PEE ACHING. 

While the leaguers were still streaming home 
from the Brussels reudezvous, Margaret, seated in 
her cabinet, was sketching a pen-picture of all that 
had occurred for Philip's eye. With pre-Eaphael- 
ite precision, she omitted nothing ; the most trivial 
gossip was daubed upon the canvas, even to a rep- 
resentation of Brederode eating capons at Antwerp 
on Good Friday ; the accuracy of which, by-the-by, 
" the great beggar," as he was called, stoutly denied. 
" They who say so," said he, " lie miserably and 
wickedly, twenty-four feet down in their throats."* 

When this budget of facts and scandal was safely 
off, the duchess assembled her most confidential 
councillors to consult with her upon a plan which 
she had hatched for the mitigation of the edicts, in 
such shape as to keep the mean between the royal 
wishes and the popular demands.! Viglius — who 
had recently received Philip's permission to resign 
his seat at the council-board, though ordered to 
discharge the duties of his office pending the arri- 
val of his successor, Charles de Tisnacq, then in 

* Groen v. Prinst, Arcliivos, etc., torn. 2, pp. 98, 99. 
f Bor., torn. 1. .Strada. Vita Viglii. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 353 

Spain* — was requested by tlie governant to draw 
up the form. The pedantic doctor wilHuglj com- 
pHed. Fearful lest his labor should, like the hom- 
ilies of the fictitious bishop of Granada, smack of 
the apoplexy which had laid him senseless, and 
anxious that this last service should be his chef- 
iVceiivrc, he painfully elaborated fifty-three articles, 
which were run into a legal mould by Chancellor 
d'Assonleville, and named "The Moderation. "f 

In reality, this misnamed " moderation " was a 
mere substitution of the halter for the stake.! When 
a rumor of its preparation and purport leaked into 
the ears of the people, as it did while it was still 
under discussion in the council-chamber, they killed 
it ere it was born, by a witticism. " This * modera- 
tion' " said they, with a play upon words, the same 
in Dutch as in English, " is a ' murderation.' "§ 

Unaware or heedless of this sarcasm, the duchess 
continued to occupy herself with her project. "The 
question is," said Margaret, " whether it is best to 
promulgate the 'moderation' at once, or first to 
submit it to the king for his approval." The coun- 
cillors held that it would be presumptuous to publish 
it without the royal sanction, but they advised her 
highness to submit it to the states for their approval, 
and when this was granted to send it to Madrid.il 

Of course, the proposed " moderation " should 

•"- Vita Viglii, p. 45. 

t Bor., torn. 1. Meteren, torn. 2. Hoofd, torn. 3. 

X Motley, vol. 1, p. 527. 

§ Meteren, torn. 2, p. 38. Hoofd, Brandt. 

II Hoofd, Schiller. 



354 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

have been submitted to the states - general ; but 
Philip had vetoed the convocation of the national 
assembly, therefore the governant had recourse to 
a stratagem. She laid it secretly before the indi- 
vidual provinces, commencing with those which were 
smallest, and whose franchises were least liberal — 
Artois, Namur, Luxemburg — and when these assent- 
ed, Flanders and Brabant were cozened into sub- 
serviency.* As for the northern states, Holland, 
Utrecht, Zealand, and the rest, where the spirit of 
independence was high and vigilant, they were not 
consulted ;t it was forwarded to Philip without 
their assent. 

Margaret had promised the petitioners to ac- 
credit an envoy to Madrid, armed with authority to 
demand the abolition of the Inquisition in the name 
of the nation. She selected Berghen, who, on ac- 
count of the delicacy of the embassage, begged for 
a coadjutor. Montigny was chosen, and he at last 
gave a reluctant assent to act. J The instructions 
of these ambassadors were made out in accordance 
with the " moderation " scheme,§ and Montigny set 
out for Spain on the 29th of May. Berghen was 
detained for some weeks b}' a bruised thigh, hurt by 
a tennis-ball; but he too eventually quitted Brussels 
for the Segovian forest, where Philip spent his sum- 
mers. 11 

This mission, undertaken with reluctance and 

« Hoofd, SchiUer. f Ibid., Brandt, Metereu. 

t Hoofd, torn. 3. Strada, p. 113. Schiller. § Ibid, 

II Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 426. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 355 

half-staj'ed by accident, was destined to end in a 
double tragedy ; the hapless seigneurs went forward, 
one to be mm'dered the other to die on a foreign 
shore. But the shadow of this doom did not imme- 
diately fall upon them. Philip knew how to wait; 
and he received the envoys graciousl}',* though at 
the same time contriving to delay them in Spain until 
lie was ready to throw off the mask — playing with 
his victims as a spider dallies with the fly he has 
entangled in his web, and ending all b}^ the fatal 
pounce. 

While the victim ambassadors were journej'ing 
to their graves, the march of events in the country 
they were to see no more went forward with a steady 
step. The summer of 1566 marked a new epoch. 
Up to this time the record had been one of fanat- 
ical tyranny on the part of the court, of patient 
endurance on the part of the reformed, of constitu- 
tional opposition on the part of the middle classes, 
of petulant, spasmodic resistance on the part of the 
lesser nobles, of persistent protest on the part of the 
grandees. Now the reformed no longer demanded 
their rights ; they took them. Hitherto they had 
met stealthily at midnight, rendezvoused in the 
depths of the Netherland forests, skulked into upper 
chambers to worship God. At last, despairing of 
governmental recognition, and emboldened by the 
outspoken sympathy of the leaguers and by the 
covert protection of the seigneurs, they threw off 
disguise and began to meet publicly. " If we are 
<' Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 426. Hopper. 



356 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

to be murdered," said they, " we will sliow the Inqui- 
sition how many it will have to burn and hang and 
banish."" 

The confidence of the reformed was yet more 
increased by a declaration, forged by a party of 
reckless gueux, which guaranteed that no one should 
be molested on account of religion, pending the an- 
swer of the king to the recent demands of the con- 
federates, and which purported to have been signed 
by the knights of the Golden Fleece.f The knights 
themselves promptly branded this paper as spuri- 
ous, and the duchess made every effort to expose the 
fraud. It was useless ; the report had served its 
purpose, and, to borrow Strada's quaint metaphor, 
" Wool that had been dii:)ped in ink was incapable of 
another dye.":j: 

Forbidden to assemble in chapels and banned in 
the haunts of men, the Netherland Protestants were 
compelled, when they decided to convene openly, to 
stream forth from the gates of their cities into the 
adjacent meadows to erect their altars. "Space," 
said Newton, " is the sensorium of the Deity." The 
Low Country reformers recognized this truth long 
before the great Englishman put it into words, and 
the intuition begat field-preaching. 

These out-of-door conventicles were first held in 
Western Flanders; thence the custom passed into 
Brabant, and from there it spread into all the other 
provinces with such rapidity that, by the middle of 

■"' Davies, vol. 1, p. 526, 

t Strada, p. 112, et seq. t Ibid. 



FIELD-PEEACHING. 357 

July, 156G, there was not a lowland city Avliicli did 
not have its camp-meetings as regularly attended as 
the popish masses ; while the audiences, small at 
the outset, soon swelled to tens of thousands.* The 
devotion of the faithful, the curiosity of the care- 
less, the novelty of the spectacle, every motive con- 
spired to recruit a multitude of auditors ; and while 
the devout were strengthened and comforted, many 
a roysterer who had slipped into the throng only to 
laugh or to scoff at a comedy richer than the play- 
house could present, returned with conviction hid- 
den in his heart : for the human mind cannot be 
isolated on a glass cricket ; the lightning of thought 
strikes when least expected. Here in these open- 
air cathedrals, grander than St. Peter's, vaster than 
a score of Notre Dames, whose vaulted roof was the 
empyrean, whose blazing tapers were the unquench- 
ed stars, whose cushioned auditorium was God's own 
grecn-sward — here thousands of wear}^, sinful hearts 
found rest in Jesus ; here hundreds of couples were 
united in marriage ; here multitudes were hallowed 
to God's service. 

The field-preachers were men eminently deser- 
ving of respect. Though outlawed and hunted 
down, walking always in " the valley of the shadow 
of death," and in constant danger of the halter and 
the stake, they had cast fear from out their hearts, 
and they proclaimed the gospel with an ardor as 
fiery as that of Peter, with a faith as rapt as that of 
the seer of the apocalyptic vision. Some among 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 171. Vita Jnuii. 



358 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

them there were, indeed, Avhose zeal was little tem- 
pered with discretion, and some too who were un- 
lettered and of lowly station — dyers, curriers, hat- 
ters — disciples who, thinking they had a call to 
preach, carried the rude and boisterous manners of 
their trades into the pulpit, and incurred the dis- 
dainful contempt of the learned by their extrava- 
gance and occasional license. But to men who, 
girt by duty, dare and suffer greatly, much may be 
pardoned. 

Besides, these humble laborers were not the 
only workers in the vineyard ; nor, indeed, were 
they the majority. In the ranks of the reformed 
clergy there were men of the finest aesthetic culture, 
of the most graceful accomplishments, and of the 
grandest eloquence — converted monks, like Luther, 
and ripe scholars, graduated at Geneva.* These, 
to the widow's mite of the homely preachers, add- 
ed the splendid dower of their dedicated genius. 
There was Peter Dathenus, who preached night and 
day with prodigious effect at various places in 
Western Flanders ;t there was Hermann Strycker, 
another monk who had renounced his vows to be- 
come a successful preacher of the Reformation — a 
man of stormy eloquence, who statedly addressed 
eight thousand auditors in the neighborhood of 
Ghent ;■]: and there were the accomplished Ambrose 
Wille, and Marnier, Guy de Bray, and Francis 
Junius — whom Scaliger called " the greatest of all 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 170, ei seq., passim. Vita Junii. Hoold. 
t Ibid. Motley, vol. 1, p. 533. t Ibid. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 359 

theologians since apostolic claj'S ;"" and Peregrine 
de la Grange, scion of a noble Provengal family, 
with the fiery blood of southern France in his 
veins, brave as his nation, a troubadour and a Vau- 
dois by right of inheritance, learned, eloquent, 
enthusiastic ; who galloped to his field, preaching 
on horseback, and fired a pistol-shot as a signal 
for his congregation to give attention :t these and 
many more there were, who lent lustre and dignity 
to the cause they had espoused. 

The assemblies which these men addressed grew 
vaster every day. On Sundays and holidays there 
was always preaching in the environs of the large 
towns.t. The authorities gazed on these gatherings 
with open-mouthed amazement. The boldness of 
the heretics stupefied them. At length, however, 
they essa^'ed to disperse the meetings. On one 
occasion, a magistrate of Ghent undertook to dis- 
turb a great assembly convened almost within sound 
of the iron tongue of Pvoland. Mounting a horse 
and seizing a naked sword and a pistol, he rode in 
among the multitude and made an eftbrt to arrest 
the preacher. The people were unarmed, but their 
zeal soon furnished them with extemporized weap- 
ons. A storm of stones fell upon the interloper ; 
and sorely bruised, he put spurs to his courser and 
sped back to the protection of tlie city wal]s.§ 

After this rencontre, the reformed went to their 

<'■ Cited in Motley, ubi sup. f Motley, ^^t anteu. 

X Hoofd, Strada, Vita Junii, Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1. 
§ Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 171, 172. 



360 THE DUTCH KEFOKMATION. 

conventicles armed. Pikes, staves, liatcliets, guns, 
the most motley weapons were impressed ; sentinels 
were stationed at tlie different avenues of approach ; 
bands of horsemen scoured the plains between the 
rendezvous and the city ; and a kind of camp was 
formed and rudely intrenched behind carts. When 
these precautions were taken, a rough staging was 
erected in the centre of the ground, and covered 
with an awning. The preacher mounted this pul- 
pit ; and the hearers, grouping themselves about 
it — the women and children in froat, the men be- 
hind, the patrol in the outer circle — sermons were 
listened to, x^ra-yers were offered, and psalms were 
sung by ten thousand voices in the mother-tongue, 
until the welkin rang with the rude harmony." 
Either the sermons were better in those days than 
in ours, or the listeners were more easily satisfied ; 
for it was common for an audience to sit four unin- 
terrupted hours in rapt, unflagging attention to a 
favorite minister.! Nor were the pastors fierce 
inveighers against law and order; often they 
breathed the most Christian spirit, and even while 
groaning under the cross, they prayed for all con- 
ditions of men — for themselves, for their friends, 
for the government which hunted and bound them, 
for the king whose face was turned on them in 
fanatical anger.:j: 

But these men were resolute to maintain their 
rights. Before the services commenced, hawkers 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 172. Hoofd. 

t Ibid., d seq., j^osshn. t Ibid. 



FIELD-PEEACHING. 361 

sold tlie prohibited books ; and when sometimes a 
cry Avas raised that the militia were approaching, 
the stern reply was, as each man grasped his weap- 
on, " Let them come ; we are ready to receive 
them."* When the exercises were concluded, the 
camp was broken up, and the multitude quietly 
dispersed at the city gates.t 

Such was field-preaching in the Netherlands in 
the year 1566. This scene was everywhere repro- 
duced — at Valenciennes, at Ghent, at Amsterdam, 
at Haarlem, at the Hague ; it was the locality alone 
that shifted.:}: 

But Antwerp was the great centre of these de- 
monstrations.§ Here there were three dominant 
sects : the Lutherans, who were the wealthiest ; the 
Anabaptists, who were the most quiet ; the Calvin- 
ists, who were the most numerous and active.il 
Widely at variance on minor points of faith, they 
were a unit against persecution ; and though they 
sometimes assailed each other with rancor, an allu- 
sion to the common foe melted all differences into 
cordial union. 

The Calvinists were especially identified with 
the field-preaching. Ambrose Wille and Peregrine 
de la Grange often assembled twenty thousand 
people to listen to them at the bridge of Eronville, 
just without Antwerp gates.! After the sermon, 

« Brandt, vol. p. 172. Hoofd. t I^id. 

+ Cor. de Philippe II. 

§ Bor., torn. 2. Strada, p. 117. 

II Schiller, p. 505. Motley, vol. 1, pp. 537, 538. 

IT Keuom de Francia, MS. Cited in Prescott, vol. 2, p. 31. 



362 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

the reformers openly escorted their preachers b&ck 
to town, and gave them hospitable entertainment, 
defying interference.* 

The gueux witnessed this outburst with secret 
pleasure. " There will soon be a hard nut to crack," 
said Louis of Nassau. " The king will never permit 
the preaching ; the people will never give it up, if 
it costs them their necks. There 's a hard pufi' 
coming upon the country before long."t The court 
beheld the movement with mingled awe and anger. 
Margaret smeared the provinces with placards re- 
citing the freezing penalties which awaited heresy ; 
put a price upon the heads of the prominent preach- 
ers ; offered a reward of six hundred florins to who- 
ever should bring an offender to punishment ; and 
sent message after message to the municipalities, 
whom she ordered to disperse the mass-meetings 
by calling out the. citizen train-bands.:]: But this 
war of proclamations was futile ; men who had not 
feared to brave the Inquisition, were not to be 
frightened by parchment ^'«/.s. With other weapons 
the duchess could not fight. Without money and 
without troops, she could only rave — though she 
did, indeed, attemjit to exorcise the spirit which 
was abroad by " public prayers, processions, fasts, 
sermons, and exhortations ;"§ all, however, with- 
out effect, as she afterwards assured the king.H 

* Ibid. Strada, uhi sup. 

■j- Groen V. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2, p. 208. 

j Strada, p. 117. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 173. 

§ Cor. de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 84. 

II Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 432. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 3G3 

As for the magistrates, tliey received these 
orders with manj expressions of zeal; but they 
were as powerless as the governant. How could 
the guild militia of the cities, the crossbowmeu of 
St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the sword- 
players of St. Christopher, be ordered out to sup- 
press the preaching, when they had themselves 
gone to the preaching? Often, indeed, these very 
magistrates were the pillars of the templ6 they were 
bidden to pull down — might be seen listening ap- 
provingly to the preachers they had received orders 
to arrest.* 

Meantime, grown . bolder from impunity, the 
reformed began to clamor for legal recognition. At 
Antwerp, they waited upon the magistrates and 
formally demanded the appropriation of some 
chapel to their worship within the gates of the 
city.f The authorities were in a dilemma : they 
dared not say yes, and they feared to say no. The 
town was feverishly excited. Trade, proverbially 
timid, was at a stand-still. Merchants, fearful of a 
riot, locked and double-barred their shops. The 
streets were ominously crowded. Margaret was 
informed of the sinister situation of the commercial 
capital of Europe. " Hasten to our relief," cried 
the vested interests of Antwerp. " I fear to stir," 
was the laconic response. " At least send the 
prince of Orange," said frightened conservatism. 
The prince was reluctant to go : he preferred watch- 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 535. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 27. 
f Braudt, ubi suj). 



364 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

fulness to action at this crisis. The governant dis- 
liked to send him ; already over-powerful, she feared 
that he might win new laurels. But the danger was 
imminent; the burghers were clamorous; Orange 
was hereditary burgrave of the imj^erilled city, and 
he seemed the only person able to subdue sedition : 
so the reluctance of the prince and the jealousy of 
the duchess were alike overborne, and William set 
out for Antwerp.* 

On entering the perturbed town, he at once ad- 
dressed himself to business. Consultations were 
held with every department of the municipality; no 
one was neglected, no one was wronged. Orange 
worked to restore quiet with restless energy and 
profound tact. His task was no easy one ; animos- 
ities were kindled, fears were rife, rumors of the 
coming of a mercenary garrison were on every lip. 
But eventually he prevailed ; mutual confidence was 
restored, and the reformed consented to waive their 
right of worship within the corporation limits, out 
of the especial respect they bore the prince, on con- 
dition that they were protected in the fields.t It 
was evident that there was to be no outbreak in 
Antwerp while Orange remained. 

This brilliant success won the cap-iu-hand con- 
gratulations of the court. " This seigneur is very 
skilful in the management of great affairs," said 
Assonleville.'l Margaret was profusely complimen- 

« Hoofd, torn. 2, p. 87. Strada, p. 118. Brandt. 

t Meteren, folio 42. Brandt, Yol. 1, pp. 173-17C. Straxla. 

t Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 542. 



FIELD-PEEACHING. 365 

tary.* Philip himself wrote to assure "William of 
his grateful satisfaction and of his undiminished 
confidence ;t a message which the shrewd prince 
valued at its exact worth. At this very time the 
duchess was avenging herself upon the saviour of 
Antwerp, by assuring the king that Orange was a 
traitor at heart. " I am thoroughly aware," wrote 
she, " that this ' good friend ' aims at self-aggran- 
dizement through these tumults.":]: 

While the prince was thus busied at Antwerp, 
the governant received a fresh shock. She was told 
that the gueux had published a call for a convention 
at the town of St. Trond, in the bishoi^ric of Liege. 
In the middle of July, the leaguers, to the number 
of two thousand, assembled in stormy conclave.§ 
Scenting danger in the reticence of Philip, who had 
as yet returned no reply to their petition, and un- 
decided how to shape their future course, they now 
met for mutual counsel.!! Two questions were espe- 
cially debated : whether they were safe in case tho 
king should resent their action, and whether they 
ought to ask for ampler liberty than was demanded 
in the petition against the Inquisition. IF Touching 
the first point, the conventionalists voted to require 
the regent to insure their security.** As regards 
the second question, opinions differed, and no defi- 

«- Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 5i2. 

■f CoiTesp. de Guillaume le Tacit. , torn. 2, pp. 170, 171. 

X \'ide Strada, p. 121. 

§ Ibid. Ai'cLives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 2, p. 171. 

II Ibid. Schiller, Prescott. 

H Strada, p. 119. Vandervyuckt. Ov ibid. 



366 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

nite decision was reached.* Those who were Ro- 
manists said: ""We can go no farther; the Inqui- 
sition is bad, but toleration is infinitely worse." 
Those who were Protestants replied: "You mis- 
take the halfway-house for the end of the journey." 
This discussion revealed the weakness of the gueux, 
laid bare the substratum of radical disagreement; 
showed each party the purpose of the other. The 
stancher papists, led by Charles Manfeld, at once 
renounced the league. t 

No whit discouraged by this bolt, the confeder- 
ates continued their deliberations. The longer they 
talked and the oftener they shouted, Vivent les gueux, 
the more radical they grew, until at last they decided 
upon two things : in answer to memorials presented 
to them by the reformed, they formally granted the 
protection of the league to all religionists pending 
the decision of the states-general:]: — an act which 
openly identified the gueux with the sectaries; and 
they subsidized a force of German men-at-arms, con- 
sisting of four thousand horse and forty companies 
of foot, to be at their disposal in case of need.§ 

Apprized by her spies of these doings at St. 
Trond, Margaret summoned Egmont from his stadt- 
holderate in Flanders, and called Orange from his 
post at Antwerp, to meet and remonstrate with the 
gueux leaders. II A conference was held at the village 

* Strada, p. 119. Vandervynckt. Groen v. Prinst. , Archives, 
etc. t Ibid. 

X Groen, Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassaii, torn. 2, p, 
159. § Ibid., p. 167. 

II Strada, p. 119, d seq. Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 367 

of Duffel, iu the vicinage of Antwerp.* "Where- 
fore this new move?" demanded the governant 
through the Hps of the two seigneurs — upon whom, 
bj-the-b}-, she always fell back at critical mo- 
ments. 

Brederode, Culemburg, and the rest of the dep- 
utation replied in a strain of rare boldness : " Know 
then, messieurs envoys, that the pledges of her 
highness were a clever farce; that she has played 
us false ; that the ' moderation ' was a mockery ; 
that the letters to the Inquisition were waste-pa- 
per; that a price has been set upon the heads of 
preachers, as if they w^ere wild beasts; that the 
ambassadors are still unanswered ; that the states- 
general are still unconvened ; and that the govern- 
ment has driven the people to despair, not the 
gueuxyj 

This crimination and recrimination could have 
but one result ; the seigneurs returned to Brussels 
to report their failure.!. ^^^ ^^^^ leaguers did not 
rest here ; a paper was drawn up in solemn vindi- 
cation of their conduct ; and this, Louis of Nassau, 
accompanied by a dozen friends who were irrever- 
ently styled " Count Louis' twelve disciples,"§ set 
out to deUver to the governant.i Nassau laid the 
document before her highness in council. In it the 

o Strada, p. 120. 

\ l\Iotley, vol. 1, p. 548. Vandervynckt. 

X Groen v. Priust, Arch., etc. Meteren. 

§ Strada, p. 120. 

II Ibid Vandervynckt, Bentivoglio. 



368 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

gueux disclaimed all desire for pardon ; what they 
had done deserved only honor ; they demanded 
security, because that was a guaranty of their right 
of petition. As for the rest, two things would sat- 
isfy them— the convocation of the states-general, 
and an agreement on the part of her highness to 
take no important step Avithout the guidance of 
Orange, Egmont, and Horn.* 

The tone of this memorial is much more haughty 
than that of the petition. It marks the progress of 
opinion in the Netherlands, and shows that in rev- 
olutions, concessions which would be deemed amply 
satisfactory at the outset, if too long withheld, but 
serve to whet the appetite of demand. 

To this audacious paper Margaret returned an 
evasive reply. " Madame," said the leaguers, " do 
not drive us to violence ; if you do, you will find 
that we are not without assured friends, both here 
and abroad."t With this sinister threat on their 
lips, the gueux deputies quitted Brussels. The gov- 
ernant at once wrote Philip to Implore him to come 
to some sjDeedy decision. " The sectaries go armed, 
and the league is with them," so ran her letter ; 
" nothing remains but for the two to band together 
and sack towns and churches.":]: 

Cornered by obstinate necessity, Philip was 
again compelled to act. Summoning his council- 
lors to consult with him at the grove of Segovia, he 

^' Hoofcl, torn. 2, p. 98. Hopper, p. 94, et seq. 
f Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2, p. 167. 
i Corresp. de Marguerite d'Aiitriche, ]). 121. 



FIELD-PEEACHING. 369 

laid the situation of the Netherlands before them, 
and solicited their opinion of the fittest means to 
stifle the smoking embers of mutiny. Many and 
protracted were the sittings of the council, incredi- 
ble was the number of the notes which the royal 
clerk made, fatally slow was the haste of all.* 

The councillors agreed in thinking that the Low 
Country grandees were plotting to secure the inde- 
pendence of the provinces. They read this fact in 
the legible writing of four events : the pressure for 
Granvelle's recall ; the mission of Egmont to Madrid 
to urge the mitigation of the penal statutes ; the 
league of the gueux ; and the present embassy of 
Burghen and Montiguy to demand the abolition of 
the Inquisition, the adoption of the " Moderation," 
and the proclamation of an amnesty for the past. 
Nevertheless the royal advisers counselled Philip 
to bend to the storm until he was ready to breast 
it, and, meantime, to depart at once for Brus- 
sels.! 

The king pleaded that the stormy season of the 
year Avas approaching, and suggested that the gueux 
might oppose his landing in the Netherlands, unless 
he should be accompanied by an armed force ; and 
for these reasons he esteemed it best to postpone 
his visit to Brussels until the spring of 1567. J As 
for the rest, he accepted the advice of his council- 

" Hopper, then in Spain, was a member of this council, and he 
has reported its doings in his Eecueil et Memorial, pp. 81 , 87. 
t Hopper, Eec. et Mem., uhi sup. 
% Corresp. de Marg. d'Antrichc, p. 100, et seq. 



370 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

lors in the most literal sense. Retiring to liis cab- 
inet, lie addressed a letter to Margaret, under date 
of July 31, 1566, to tliis effect : " I consent to the 
abolition of the papal Inquisition in the Nether- 
lands ; substitute for it the episcopal form. The 
plan of ' moderation ' is far too mild. 'T is equiva- 
lent to a concession of toleration within the domi- 
ciles of individuals. Veto ! Draw up some new 
form more careful of the faith, and send it here to 
be weighed and considered ere it becomes a law. 
In respect to a general pardon, as I abhor rigor, I 
am content that it should be extended to whom- 
soever you choose, always excepting those already 
condemned; and under a solemn pledge, moreover, 
that the nobles at once abandon their league, and 
henceforth heartily support the government."^ 

This was the mouse which the long-laboring 
mountain had brought forth — this was the panacea 
esteemed fit and able to cure the national com- 
plaint. 

But even these meagre and absurd " conces- 
sions " were not sincerely granted ; they were a 
mere jumble of unmeaning words, meant to cheat 
the public mind. Four daj^s afterwards, Philip 
wrote privately to the duchess, peremptorily and 
absolutely forbidding her to consent to a meeting 
of the states-general ; jet he commanded her on no 
account to make this mandate known, but to lead 
all to imagine that the national assembly would 
soon be convened.t At the same time he bade 

<* CoiTesp. cle Marg. d'Aiitriclie, p. 100, ct seq. f Ibid. 



FIELD-PREACHING. 371 

Margaret prepare secretly for war; and he trans- 
mitted to her three hundred thousand gold florins 
with which to recruit an army of ten thousand foot 
and three thousand liorsc^ By the same carrier, 
the most gracious and seductive letters were sent 
to the ultramontane nobles of the provinces. t 

But the masterpiece of kingcraft remained be- 
hind. While the ink was hardly dry on the parch- 
ment which recited the vojal concessions, Philip 
enacted a characteristic comed}'. "Call a notary," 
said he ; and one soon appeared. " Now summon 
Alva and two legists;" they entered the apartment. 
" Gentlemen," said the king, " I hereby solemnly 
protest that the amnesty which I have proclaimed 
in the Low Countries was not made of my own free 
will ; therefore I do not feel bound by it, but reserve 
to myself the right to punish the authors and abet- 
tors of sedition in the provinces." A document to 
this effect was drawn up and signed by the king 
and by the three witnesses whom he had sum- 
moned. | 

Nor was this all. Making a confessor of the 
pope, he explained to his holiness, through the 
mouth of E-equesens, the Spanish ambassador at 
Eome, that the recent roj-al decisions would not 
liave been made without consultation with the Vat- 
ican, had not time pressed. " Assure his holiness," 
wrote Philip to the envoy, "that as for the aboli- 

* Corresp. de Marg. d'Autriclie, p. 100, et seq. 

t Ibid., pp. lOG-lld. 

X Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 413,- 



372 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

tion of the Inquisition, it cannot be abolished with- 
out the consent of the pope, by whose authority it 
was estabhshed. This, however, must be said in 
confidence. As to the edicts, bid the pontiff to 
beheve that I never will approve any scheme which 
shall favor the guilty by diminishing in the slight- 
est degree the penalties of their crimes. Let this 
also be considered as secret. Concerning the 
grant of pardon, assure the holy father that it will 
never be extended to offenders against religion. 
Briefly, say that the pope may be sure that I will 
consent to nothing that can prejudice religion ; that 
I deprecate force, as it would involve the ruin of 
the Netherlands; spite of which, however, I will 
march in person, without regard to my own peril 
and though it should cost me the provinces, but I 
will bring my vassals to submission; for I would 
rather lose a hundred lives than reign a lord over 
heretics."" 

Doubtless Pius V. listened and approved as 
Philip thus unburdened his bosom in the confes- 
sional of the Vatican; nor was the shrift likely to 
bring down a heavy penance |fom one who held 
sternly to the orthodox maxim of " No faith is to 
be kept with heretics."'!" 

Philip II., dissembling and treacherous every- 
where else, was plain and sincere at Eome. Yet 
even on this occasion he told a lie — which deceived 
nobody. He had said, " I will march in person to 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 445, ei seq. 
t Prescott, vol. 2, p. 49. 



FIELD-PIIEACHING. 373 

subdue revolt;" but it was an open secret that lib 
had no intention of going to the Netherlands. " I 
feel it in my bones," said Granvelle, divining public 
opinion as rheumatics foretell a change of weather, 
"that nobody in Eome believes in his majesty's 
journey to the provinces."* This much-talked-of 
visit was the standing joke of the Madrid wits. 
Philip's graceless son, Don Carlos, scribbled one 
day this title on the cover of a blank book : " The 
Great and Admirable Voyages of King Philip II. ;" 
and within, for the contents, he wrote : " From Ma- 
drid to the Pardo, from the Pardo to the Escurial, 
from the Escurial to Aranjuez."t 

Of course, this trickery of the king was hidden 
from its destined victims. The royal concessions 
professed to be hona fide. But they reached Brus- 
sels too late. While Philip had been walking in 
leaden shoes, the reform had assumed a new phase, 
and one which necessitated war. Men may be over- 
reached, but it is impossible to outwit ideas. This 
was not a case at law; it was revolution. 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., xihi sup. f Prescott, uhi sup. 



374 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE IMAGE-BREAKERS. 

The field conventicles of 156G were to the Neth- 
erlands, in fact, though not in motive, what the 
Whig clubs were to our fathers in '76, what the 
Jacobin clubs were to the French revolutionists, 
what the secret societies are to the Republicans of 
modern Europe — the forums of the disaffected. 
Under the bitterest of legal bans, ostracized in the 
towns, anathematized in the churches of the domi- 
nant faith, the reformers were forced to listen to 
the gospel message in the open air ; and they occu- 
pied the intervals before, between, and after the 
sermons in conversation upon the injustice of a rule 
which sentenced them to herd for worship in moor- 
land or forest, like bands of outlaws, and condemned 
them to live as exiles under the shadow of their 
homes. Often the preachers themselves contrasted 
these stealthy gatherings of the disciples with the 
pompous and law-protected ceremonials of the big- 
ots who adhered to Rome ; and, wandering off from 
spiritual themes, they commented on the towering- 
cathedrals where the papists swung their censers 
and told their beads in the haughty ease of a mag- 
nificent but intolerant devotion, and inveighed 
against the legalized impiety whicli knelt to adore 
marble effigies and pictured saints. As they lis- 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEKS. 375 

teued to descvij^tions of such blasphera}^ fiery and 
ill-regulated spirits cliafed and shivered with impa- 
tient horror. When they returned from the field 
meetings, and saw the gay processions and the au- 
thorized temples of their persecutors, these seemed 
to cast contempt on their proscribed belief. Every 
image which they met, every cross set up upon the 
highway, appeared to be a trophy erected over the 
humiliation of their faith, and put on the aspect of 
an abiding insult to God, who had proclaimed from 
the awful summit of Mount Sinai : " Thou shalt not 
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness 
of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in 
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the 
earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, 
nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jeal- 
ous God."* To the untutored minds of some, the 
papal image-worship seemed a constant and flagi- 
tious transgression of this commandment, and for- 
getful of that other mandate of the Most High : 
" Vengeance is mine, I will repa}^,"! zealots cried, 
" Come, then, let us break these idols." 

The Low Cpuntries were crowded with churches 
and chapels and monasteries and convents. Some 
of these v/ere the creations of days which ante- 
dated Charlemagne— huge Gothic piles where da}-- 
liglit melted into poetic gloom, fitted with storied 
windows glowing in brilliant and forgotten colors, 
over which bereaved art still weeps, and where the 
effulgent robes of priests chanting the mass in a 
o Exod. 20 : d. 5. f Rom. 12 : 19. 



376 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

language as dead as .their piety, the breathing of 
choral music unearthly sweet, and the suffocating 
odors of myrrh and spikenard suggestive of the 
oriental scenery and imagery of Holy Writ, com- 
bined to bewilder and bewitch the senses; others 
were born of the Benaissance : all were profusely 
adorned by the gifts of wealthy penitence, which 
had thus purchased absolution for crime ; all were 
flushed with paintings from a school which in time 
and merit had precedence of its sister mu-series of 
art in Germany ; and all were peopled with 
statues.* 

When the image-breakers looked about them, 
they said, "Lo, here is no lack of religious houses 
to despoil, of paintings to rend, of idols to behead." 

Upon Assumption eve, on the 14th of August, 
1566, while the papists were busied in completing 
the arrangements for the processions and the grand 
salaams with which they celebrated the ascension of 
the madonna, rites peculiarly offensive to the Prot- 
estants, the wild work began. Suddenly, without 
concert, without warning, a frantic band of three 
hundred iconoclasts, rudely armecj with staves, 
hatchets, hammers, and ropes — weapons fitter for 
spoliation than for fight— threw themselves upon 
the blasphemous relics and marbles and paintings 
in the districts of lower Flanders between the river 
Lys and the West sea.f Their purpose was not 

s:- Motley, vol. 1, p. 552. 

t Strada, p. 121. Hoofd, torn. 3. Bor, torn. 2. Hopper, Eec. 
et Mem. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES. 377 

plimder, but demolition ; tliougli, as in all similar 
outbreaks, the zealots were reinforced by an aban- 
donee! mob of thieves and prostitutes and impish 
boys without principle in the onset, eager only for 
what they could pick up. 

First, the highway crosses and the roadside im- 
ages were assailed ;* then, gaining courage as they 
increased in number, the destroj^ers broke into the 
hamlets and towns about St. Omer, ransacking 
churches, rifling chapels, sacking convents, defacing 
pictures, overturning images, demolishing shrines, 
burning monastic libraries, trampling with unsan- 
dalled feet upon the sacred treasures of the Roman 
crypts. On, on, on they rushed, swift as the wind, 
destructive as the tempest, meeting with no resist- 
ance, for the law was surprised and dazed ; mo- 
lesting no human being, for they warred alone 
upon artistic sacrilege — upon pictures, and im- 
ages, and buildings associated in their minds with 
the remorseless persecution of half a century, and 
which had thus grown human and hateful.f 

Through the frightened gates of St, Omer they 
sped to Ypres. There again they spoiled the reli- 
gious houses; and entering the cathedral, they 
mounted on ladders to the pictured walls, and ham- 
mered them to pieces, hewed the altars and pews 
to bits with axes, stripped the pulpits of their orna- 
ments, and carried off the holy vessels of silver and 

* Brandt, vol. 1. p. 191. Meteren, bom. 2. 
f Schiller, Revolt of the Neth., vol. 2, p. 3., Bohn's edition- 
Motley, vol. 1. 



378 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

gold and precious stones.* From Ypres, the mad- 
ness quickly spread to Menin, to Comines, to Lille, 
to Oudcnarde; in the space of seventy summer hours 
four hundred churches were gutted in the single 
province of Flanders.t Drunk with success, crazy 
with license, the iconoclasts now passed the Lys, 
and dividing into two bands, some hastened on to 
Douay, others sped towards Secklyn. Before the 
gates of Secklyn their march was for the first time 
contested. A few resolute knights charged the 
motley and undisciplined invaders and routed the 
whole force, driving many into the neighboring 
bogs, drowning some in the river, and carrying 
others into the tow'n in triumph. | 'Tis a signal 
illustration of what composed determination can 
achieve. 

Reports of this unique insurrection against mar- 
ble saints and painted effigies soon travelled to 
Antw'erp. " It is frightful sacrilege," said the 
papist burghers, crossing themselves. "Idols ought 
to be removed from our sight as well as from our 
hearts ; but this should be a voluntary act, not the 
work of mobs," commented the vast majority of the 
reformers. " Riot will soon sw^eep through our 
streets, torch in hand : 't is time to bar our shop- 
doors," stammered startled traders, trembling for 
their coffers. "Ah, if it only would, it would be 

* Schiller, Eevolt of the Neth., vol. 2, p. 3., Bohn's editiou. 
Motley, vol. 1. Strada, p. 122. 

f Strada, p. 127. Cor. de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 183. 
J Strada, p. 122. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 192. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES. 379 

a capital diversion," drawled careless idlers, wearj 
of all common forms of amusements. Tliere were 
some hot-heads who panted to imitate the image- 
breakers of the provinces. " These idol-smiters," 
said they, " ought to have twins in Antwerp. The 
town cannot sweep the dirt out of itself : let us 
wash its face." 

The orderly classes of all sects feared a tumult, 
but no measures were taken to prevent one.* Hap- 
pily, the prince of Orange was in the city — a fact 
which 4veut' far to preserve the peace.f As was 
usual in the gala days of Assumption week, Ant- 
werp Avas thronged with strangers:}: — merchants 
with an eye to business, roysterers intent on pleas- 
ure, rustics with bewildered mien, all of whom had 
come up ostensibly to witness the fetes ; but it was 
suspected that unquiet spirits with another purpose 
lurked under the tunics of the traders, under the 
slashed doublets of the rakes, under the modest 
russet of the peasants. 

The grand procession which was annually form- 
ed to conduct a colossal image of the Virgin Mary 
around the city, paraded now as aforetime, spite of 
the fact that, at such a moment, the pageant was 
exactly fitted to increase the irritation of the peo- 
ple. § However no riot occurred, though the popu- 
lace, grown weary of antiquated mummery, hissed, 
and hooted, and jeered as Our Lady passed. "Lit- 

* Brandt, uhi sup. Hoofd, torn. 3. f Bor., torn. 2, p. 81. 
J Brandt, vol. 1, p. 192. Hopper, Eec. et Mem., p. OG. 
§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 357. 



380 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

tie Maiy, little Mary, your hour has come. 'Tis 
your last promenade : the city is tired of you'*'^ — 
such was the ribald salute which greeted the bediz- 
zened and eflfulgent madonna. It was evident that 
insurrection was at hand ; its avant-courier had 
already arrived, for the masses had begun to jest. 
The spectacle ended somewhat abruptly ; and when 
Antwerp went to bed that night, it congratulated 
itself that the day had ended without a riot.t 

In the morning, Orange left the city for Brus- 
sels, whither he had been summoned to attend an 
extraordinary session of the council of state.:]: He 
departed much against his will. " Madame," v/rote 
he to Margaret, " it will be dangerous for me to 
quit my post at this juncture."§ "It is necessary," 
was the reply.ll William had not been gone many 
hours when a noisy assemblage gathered in front o£ 
the far-famed cathedral — next to St. Peter's at 
Eome the most magnificent church in Christen- 
dom. It was customary to deposit the effigy of the 
Virgin in the centre of this edifice after the pro- 
cession of the Assumption, that it might, in that 
conspicuous station, receive the adoration of the 
faithful. Now, as a measure of precaution. Our 
Lady was huddled into the choir, half out of sight ; 
so that when the throng entered the cathedral they 

* Bor., torn. 2, p. 81. Strada, p. 123. Metereii, torn. 2. 
f Motley, vbi sup. 

X Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 99. Bor., uhi sup. 
§ Cor. de Giiillaume le Tacitarne, torn. 2, p. 188. 
II Cor. de Marguerite d'Autriche. Groeu v. Prinst., Ai'chives, 
etc., torn. 2, p. 236. 



THE IMAGE-BREAKEES. 381 

at once missed the image, until, peering about, they 
discovered it in its new station." Derisive laugh- 
ter greeted this bo-peep concealment. " Little 
Mary, little Mary," shouted the jokers, " art thou 
terrified so early ? Hast thou flown to thy nest so 
soon? Dost think thyself beyond the reach of 
harm ? Beware, little Mary ; thine hour is fast 
approaching." The sub-base of this chorus of 
light raillery was the incessant shout of " Vivent les 
gueiix,'" while innumerable voices hoarsely com- 
manded the image to join in the beggars' cry.t 

Presently there was a scuffle. An elfish lad, 
having ascended the pulpit, commenced to mimic 
the tones and gestures of the monkish preachers, a 
proceeding in exact harmony with the feelings of 
the riotous audience ; but which so exasperated a 
papist waterman, who was present as an indignant 
spectator, that he rushed up to the altar, and col- 
laring the interloper, flung him headlong to the mar- 
ble floor of the cathedral. " Vivent Ics gueux,'' shout- 
ed the crowd ; and angered by this rude interrup- 
tion of their amusement, they surged forward, and 
began lustily to belabor the courageous mariner. 
The waterman did not lack adherents, and blows 
were interchanged with a vim and science worthy 
of the gladiators of the pagan coliseum. In the 
midst of this heady brawl the rabble rout Avere 
driven from the church by the cry of " The officers 
are coming, the officers are coming." Ere long 

■-■ Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 99. Strada, p. 124. Hopper, Kec. etMem. 
t Ibid. Motley, vol. 1, p. 557, et seq. 



382 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

silence reigned in the profaned cathedral, and the 
sacristans closed the gates for the night.* 

In the midst of this tumult, the cit}^ magistrates 
were seated in solemn conclave in the great hall 
of the Hotel de Ville.t Left without a helms- 
man by the departure of the prince, they were 
rocked rudderless in the wind of doubt. Without 
practical authority, accustomed to lean in stormy 
crises ujDon sturdier arms, and fearful of making 
bad worse by premature action, they knew not 
what to do. They were aware that a proclamation 
would be waste paper without men-at-arms to en- 
force it ; but they feared to appeal to the guild 
militia, lest these should fraternize with the mob ; 
while to call in the aid of mercenaries, even had 
this been possible, they esteemed sure to add fresh 
fuel to the fire. Thus circumstanced, the city 
fathers contented themselves with sending a cou- 
rier to apprize Orange that the danger he had fore- 
seen had come. This done, they retired to their 
homes and put on their night-caps, in the futile 
hope that the storm they knew not how to lay 
would blow over by the morrow.:]: 

But it did not ; for on the afternoon of the fol- 
lowing day§ the crowd gathered again about the 
doors of the cathedral, and became more clamorous 
than ever. The church itself was filled with a bois- 

* Hoofd, uU sup. Meteren, fol. xc. Bor., torn. 2, p. 83. Strada, 
uhi sup. 

t Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 99. Bor., torn. 2, p. 83, d seq. 

t Ibid. § August 21st. Strada, p. 124. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES. 383 

terous multitude. The air was heavy with laughter, 
and jests, and shouts of " Vivent les (juenx.'" About 
one old woman, especially, who was seated as usual 
beneath the choir to sell wax tapers and to receive 
oblations, a flock of boys were grouped, teasing and 
baiting her to the top of their bent. " Madame," 
said they, " your consecrated wares are out of date ; 
your idolatrous traffic must end in your starvation." 
Provoked by this reckless chaffer, the hucksteress 
began to pelt her tormentors with whatever missiles 
she could lay hands on, and the hubbub increased 
apace.* The sacristans, scenting mischief, essayed 
to clear the church ; but their efforts were vain.f 
They called in the magistrates, who endeavored in 
their turn to evoke order out of chaos. " Retire, 
retire," shouted i\iej, flourishing their staves of 
office. " Nay," was the reply ; " we have a mind to 
stay and hear the hymn of Salve Begina." "There 
will be no vespers to-day," said the officials. " In- 
deed," was the retort ; " then we will stay and sing 
Our Lady's lullaby ourselVes :" and one of Marot's 
psalms was struck up.| 

Foiled here, the magistrates had recourse to 
stratagem. Pretending to retire, they shut all the 
doors of the cathedral save one, through wliich they 
hoped that the rioters would follow them into the 
street. § A few did so, but the mass remained. 
Beaten again, they once more entered the edifice, 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 192. 

t Metereu, folio 2, p. 40. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 192, et seq. 

t rbiil- § Brandt, nhi sup. 



384 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

and fell to expostulation.* But the multitude were 
crazed with license, and they hustled the alarmed 
dignitaries through the single open door, while a 
new crowd burst through the closed portals into the 
cathedral. t Once more the officials aiDproached the 
church; but terrified by the wild, insurrectionary 
choruses which echoed from within, and convinced 
of the folly of unai-med intervention, they conclu- 
ded to leave the fated cathedral; and retiring 
to the stadthouse, they barricaded that against 
assault.! 

These few trifles, drifting before the event, were • 
the heralds of the outbreak.§ When night had fairly 
fallen, the image-breakers commenced their carni- 
val. As the great clock in the belfry tolled the hour 
of eight, they chanted a German psalm ; and then, 
as if the weird music were the formal opening of 
their raid, they sprang upon the long-menaced image 
of the Virgin, tore off her embroidered robes, and 
rolled the dumb idol in the dust amid frantic shouts 
of " Vivent les gueux .'" i! This served but to whet 
the fury of the image-breakers. Snatching the wax 
tapers from the altars, they struck a flickering light, 
which served but to make the darkness visible, caus- 
ing the vast arena of the dusky church, painted with 
shapes of terror, of gloom, and of weird grandeur, to 
glint fitfully out in the solemn shadow. Nimbly, inde- 

" Brandt, ubi sitp. Strada, p. 124. f Ibid. 

X Brandt, ubi sup. Bor., torn. 2, p^D. 83, 84. 

§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 5G0. 

II Strada, ubi sup. Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 100. 



THE IMAGE- BREAKEES. 385 

fatigably, audaciously the destroyers worked, bring- 
ing into requisition . axes, bludgeons, sledge-liam- 
mers, ladders, pulleys, ropes, and levers, all of whicli 
tbey bad carried concealed under. tbeir clotbes.* 
Huge statues of saints, wbicb stood in niclies in tlie 
walls, were unfastened, burled from tbeir pedestals, 
and backed in pieces ; tbe marvellously-painted win- 
dows were shattered ; tbe walls were defiiced ; scores 
of pictures, tbe choicest specimens of the Flemish 
pencil, were cut into shreds ; tbe seventy altars were 
hewn to bits, and rifled of tbe sacred plate ; the 
famous organ, the finest then extant, was demol- 
ished, while the air resounded with choruses wilder 
than any its keyboard bad ever sounded. Above 
tbe choir there was one matchless group, Christ 
nailed upon a massive crucifix, with tbe two thieves 
banging on either hand ; the Avhole rested upon a 
single column, but rose arch upon arch, pillar upon 
pillar, to the sheer height of three hundred feet, 
until the head of Christ was lost in the cloudy 
vault.t This dizzy masterpiece was scaled, and 
tbe image of the Redeemer was thrown down, but 
tbe two thieves were left to bang, as if they alone 
were fit subjects for tbe human chisel.:]; In this 
sacrilege there was so much concord and forecast, 
that it seemed as if each rifler bad been allotted his 
separate task ;§ and so swiftly and cunningly did all 
labor, that ere midnight struck the wreck was com- 

« Hoofd, tom.S, p. 100, et seq. Strada, p. 124. 

t Motley, vol. 1, p. 563. 

X Strada, uU sup. § Ibid. 



386 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

plete — the richest temple in the world had been 
reduced to a mere empty shell.* 

Although the cathedral was crowded throughout 
these orgies, the majority were there as passive, 
though sympathetic spectators ; the spoliation was 
accomplished by a band of men, women, and chil- 
dren, numbering at the most but a hundred indi- 
viduals.t We may well marvel at the utterness of 
the desecration which they wrought in those few 
brief hours of the midsummer night; nor is it the 
least remarkable fact of the congeries of wonders, 
that though thej toiled in a darkness feebly dis- 
pelled by tapers, no one of the whole vast throng- 
was injured by the random blows of the iconoclasts 
or by the falling masses of timber, metal, and stone. ']: 

"When all was over, the image-breakers regaled 
themselves by draining the wine prepared for the 
altar from the pyxes and chalices, and by greasing 
their shoes with the holy oil, to show their con- 
tempt for the chrism.§ Then, snatching fresh tapers 
from the vestry storehouse, they pourecl out into the 
streets, and startled the drows}^ city from its slum- 
ber by the flaming light of their torches, and by 
resounding shouts of " Vivent les gueux .'"|1 On 
they swept, smiting every image of the Virgin, every 

"~ Bor., torn. 2, p. 84. Beutivoglio, torn. 2, p. 3G. 

•j- Strada, p. 125. Corresp. de Marg. d'Autriche, p. 183. 

X strada, uh'i sup. Strada thinks this "no light argument that, 
with God's permission, the work was done under the immediate 
direction of demons from hell." Strada, p. 125. 

§ Ibid. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 193. 

II Ibid. Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 103. Bor., tom. 2, p. 85. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES, 387 

sculptured saint, every cross wliicli tliey passed. 
Keinforced by some scores of " lewd fellows of the 
baser sort," intent on plunder, tliey broke into tlie 
other rehgious houses of Antwerp. "When morning- 
dawned, thirty churches had been sacked within 
the city walls." Entering the monasteries, they 
routed the monks out of bed, tore up their ecclesi- 
astical robes, trampled the mass-wafers and the 
sacrament-bread under foot, daubed the books of 
the monkish libraries with butter to make them 
blaze merrily, and then threw them into the fire ; 
and finally, descending into the cellars, and broach- 
ing every cask which they could find, they drank 
their fill from the consecrated chalices, and then 
poured out in one grand flood all the old ale and 
wine with which these holy men had been wont to 
solace their retirement from generation to genera- 
tion.t The convents also were invaded ; and while 
the hapless nuns huddled on their dresses and flut- 
tered out into the midnight streets in quest of an 
asjdum unmolested — for they had come to destroy, 
not to insult —the iconoclasts wreaked their ven- 
geance on the ecclesiastical paraphernalia.:}^ 

"While this mischief was afoot, the trembling 
citizens of Antwerp remained close shut up in their 
dwellings, or ventured, at the most, but to peer tim- 
idly out upon the street from their barred windows. 
Ignorant of the strength of the rioters, whose num- 

« Motley, vol. 1, p. 5G4. 

•}• Brandt, vol. 1, p. 193. Strada, p. 12G. Motley, ut anlea, 

J Strada, iibi fiup. 



388 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ber their imagination stretched portentously, with- 
out leaders, furnished with no rallying-spots, and 
surprised at midnight, the last thing which the hon- 
est burghers thought of was, to sally out and resist 
the spoilers. The papists suspected that it was a 
Protestant plot for their slaughter, and so dared not 
stir ; the reformers feared to move abroad, lest they 
should be confounded with the image-breakers.* 
Thus tied by terror, the city stood still, while a hun- 
dred zealots, aided by as many more thieves and 
prostitutes, grown bold from impunity, raged up 
and down unmolested through three days and 
nights.t 

But eventually the citizens, apprized of the 
insignificant number of the rioters, and fearful that 
the sack might be diverted from the religious houses 
to private mansions, degenerating from fanaticism 
to a raid for plunder, sallied forth ; and, as if they 
meant to revenge the commonwealth, shut all the 
city gates save one, through which the image-break- 
ers scampered to pour out their fury upon the adja- 
cent towns, where they reenacted the scenes of their 
sacrilegious free-boot in Antwerp. | Presently a few 
ventured to return. Entering the cathedral, they saw 
tliat they had neglected to erase the roj^al arms and 
the escutcheons of the Knights of the Golden Fleece 
emblazoned on the walls. While busied in com- 
pleting their vandalism, they were charged by sev- 
eral knights who had hastily collected a handful of 

« Bor., torn. 2, p. 89. Stracla, p. 125. Hopper, p. 97. 
t Ibitl. Hoofil, torn. 3, p. 101. t .Stmda, p. 12f!. 



THE IMAGE-BKEAKEES. 389 

their followers for that purpose. Kesoliition easily 
dispersed the band ; teu or twelve of them were ar- 
rested ; while a gallows, erected on a rise of gi'oiind, 
admonished Antwerp that the riot was suppressed * 
A homoeopathic dose of this stern phj-sic stayed the 
distemper. 

What the sun is to the solar system, that was 
Antwerp to the Lowland cities — the vivifying and 
the fructifying centre. Whatever word was spoken 
there, was certain to awaken an answering echo in 
the provinces ; it struck the key-note in every march. 
So now the iconomachy spread out from the streets 
of the metropolis east, west," north, south, convuls- 
ing the country from the banks of the Scheldt to 
the Zuyder Zee, as well surprising religion as the 
land. The image-breakers travelled with the swift- 
ness of the wind, appearing almost simultaneously 
in widely distant places, shattering the consecrated 
trophies of Amsterdam, and Leyden, and Graven- 
hage at the same time that their comrades were 
sacking Breda, and Bois-le-Duc, and Bergen-op- 
Zoom.t The ubiquitous destroyers were rarely re- 
sisted ; the audacity of their onslaught paralyzed 
the arm of opposition. At Mechlin, less than a 
hundred persons destroyed the ecclesiastical treas- 
iires of the town in the very teeth of the grand 
council, under the eyes of the astonished magis- 
trates.:}: 

■•■' Prescott, vol. 2, p. 60. Strada, uU sup. 
f Hoofd, torn. 3. Bor., torn. 2. Hopper. 
t Poutus Payen, MS., cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 5G5. 



390 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

In some towns, the magistrates themselves de- 
molished the obnoxious ornaments, to prevent the 
mob from doing so ; and when they plumed them- 
selves upon their foresight, Viglius shrugged his 
shoulders and said, " They liave been wisely mad — 
insaniehant cum ratione."'^ 

At Ghent, the iconoclasts had the assurance to 
send delegates to the city senate with this message : 
" We have been ordered to take the images out of 
the churches, as has been done elsewhere. If we 
are not opposed, all shall be done quietly and with 
as little injury as possible ; otherwise we shall 
storm the churches. 'It would be wise in jou to 
take the initiative in this work, by ordering the offi- 
cers of the law to break the idols. In that case, we 
shall look on with folded arms."t The naivete of 
this demand astounded the magistrates ; but upon 
reflection they concluded to comply with it, think- 
ing thus to restrain excess. Accordingly, a band 
of city messengers marched from church to church, 
from monastery to monastery, toppling over images, 
tearing books and paintings, and breaking organs 
to pieces. Throughout Ghent, and for six miles 
about it, this lawful spoliation took place; and 
when it was finished, the city fell quietly to its em- 
ployments again.;}: Haarlem, Dorfc, and Rotterdam, 
averted the storm by a kindred procedure.§ 

The Valenciennes magistrates were less comjila- 
cent ; so the image-breakers assumed the task. 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 191. t I^^icl-. Schiller. 

% Brandt, uhi sup, § Brandt, vol. 1, p. 201. 



THE IMAGE-BREAKERS. 391 

" ' The traged}',' as au eye-wituess calls it,, was per- 
formed upon St. Bartholomew's day. It was, how- 
ever, only a tragedy of statues. Hardly as many 
senseless stones were victims as there were to be 
living Huguenots sacrificed in a single city on a St. 
Bartliolomew's day which was fast approaching ; 
for in the Yalenciennes 'tragedy' not a human 
being was injured."* 

The "scene at Tournay was the counterpart' of 
that at Antwerp. Ecclesiasticism was completely 
gutted of its treasures — nothing was spared, noth- 
ing was overlooked ; even the bowels of the earth, 
in which the churchmen had concealed the most 
valuable badges of their creed, were ripped open 
by the shrewd spoilers, keen to discover the hid- 
den idols.t 

While burrowing in the vaults of the cathedral, 
they turned up an embalmed body in a state of 
l^erfect preservation. It was dragged from the cof- 
fin, and recognized as the corpse of Duke Adol- 
phus of Guelderland, who had been dead for nigh 
a century. His career had been stormy and crim- 
inal : one of his deeds especially, something unnat- 
ural in its wickedness, had been preserved by tra- 
dition ; and now, after the lapse of a Imndred 
years, was as fresh in men's minds as his undecay- 
ed remains were in the opened vault. Ambitious 
and turbulent, Duke Adolphus had essayed to ex- 
tort from the grasp of his aged father, Duke Arnol- 

- Motley, vol. 1, p. 569. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, pp, 198, 199. 



392 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

dus, a crown wliicli must soon, in the course of 
nature, have fallen to him. One night he laid -vio- 
lent hands upon the old patrician, and dragging 
him from his bed, forced him, clad only in his 
night-dress and barefooted, to walk in the bitter 
winter cold twenty-live miles, from Grave to Buren, 
while he rode by his father's side on horseback. 
There he flung the venerable victim into a dungeon, 
where he was left to rot to death. For this abhor- 
rent crime, Charles the Bold disinherited the brute, 
flinging him, in his turn, into prison. After some 
years, he was released by the seditious citizens of 
Ghent, who forced him to lead them in a raid upon 
Tournay. In a meUe beneath the walls of that 
city, Duke Adolphus was slain, and there interred. 
Now, after the passage of so many years, fanaticism 
desecrated the grave in order to expose once more 
to execration the features of a parricide. " He who 
has offered violence to one who brought him into 
the world, is not worthy to rest in the earth," said 
the stern avengers ; and they sported with the dead 
duke's bones, laid out in mockery on the floor of 
the cathedral.* It has been well called a startling 
act of posthumous justice. 

It is not necessary to detail farther the deeds 
of the iconomachy — no need to mention all the 
churches spoiled, all the idols demolished, all the 
nunneries set open, all the abbeys sacked, all the 
libraries burned : enough is here for truth, and 
there is sufficient to deplore. The image-breakers 
<s Brandt, vol. 1, p. 199. Scldller. 



THE IMAGE-BREAKEES. 393 

were abroad less than a fortnight ; yet such was 
their celerity, and such their discipline, that of the 
seventeen provinces but four — Limburg, Naniur, 
Luxemburg, and a part of Hainaulfc — came out of 
the storm unharmed.* In all the rest the destruc- 
tion was so utter, that Strada compares it to the 
ruin caused by that historic earthquake, which, in 
the reign of Tiberius Caesar, swallowed up twelve 
of the Roman cities.f 

And indeed, much of the injury inflicted was 
irremediable. The silver, the gold, the precious 
stones which were lost, might be replaced. Four 
hundred thousand ducats might go far towards the 
restoration of the rifled splendor of Antwerp cathe- 
dral, which was considered to have been damaged to 
that amount.:j: But what wealth could re-collect the 
yellow and time-worn parchments of the consumed 
library of Vicoque? What hand could block out 
anew the desecrated marbles of Angelo's chisel? 
What pencil could retrace the tattered beauties of 
the antique masters? Surely Art has a right to 
weep for her lost children. 

But art alone may be permitted to moan — hu- 
manity deplores no victims. None but ecclesiastical 
property was wrecked — not a private house was 
touched, not a public building was sacked ; and it 
is a singular fact that throughout the tumult, the 
iconoclasts outraged no woman, and slew no oppo- 
nent. It was a massacre of images — vandalism, 

* Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 103. + Strada, p. 126. 

J Strada, uhl sup. 



394 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

but not bloodthirstiness. Who, then, shall venture 
to compare this havoc among stocks and marbles 
and canvas to the human ravages of the Inquisi- 
tion ? 'T is an instructive illustration of the radical 
difference between Eome and the Reformation. 
Protestantism in its most frantic mood beheaded 
images ; the Inquisition in its most placid temper 
slew men. 

Nor were the image-breakers a profligate rab- 
ble — " the lowest dregs of an abandoned populace," 
as many chroniclers of their acts have asserted. It 
is indeed true that their camp-followers, to borrow 
a military figure, were thieves and prostitutes, strug- 
gling merely for what they could filch, taking ad- 
vantage of the tumult to plunder ; but the chief 
actors in the drama were honest, though mistaken 
zealots. The guiding helm of the iconomachy was 
conscience — conscience awry and fanaticised ; but 
still conscience. A thoughtful writer has reminded 
us that while " an educated nation without relioion 
is like a skeleton bearing a lamp with light but no 
force; a people with the religious instinct strongly 
developed is like a giant smitten blind, avIio rushes 
wildly on, impelled by a resistless motor, but tow- 
ards no noble goal."'"' This was the hapless pre- 
dicament of these spoilers ; ignorant and frenzied, 
they " saw as through a glass, darkly." 

But that the iconoclasts were honest there is 
abundant evidence. Their moderation in every 
thing save the ecclesiastical spoliation, proves it. 

« Bayue, Cluistian Life, p. 527. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKERS. 395 

"Everywhere," observes Motley, "tliey left heaps 
of costly embroidery, of gold and silver plate, of 
glittering jewels, lying unheeded on the floor ; feel- 
ing instinctively that a great passion would be con- 
taminated by admixture with paltry motives. In 
Flanders, a company of them hanged one of their 
own number for stealing articles to the value of five 
shillings. In Valenciennes they were offered a 
round sum if they would refrain from demolishing 
the churches — a proposal which tbey rejected with 
disdain. At Tournay, the floor of the cathedral 
was strewn wdtli ' pearls and precious stones, with 
chalices and rich reliquaries ;' but the ministers of 
the reformed religion, in company with the city 
magistrates, came to the spot and found no difli- 
cult}', though utterly powerless to curb the tumult, 
in taking quiet possession of the wreck. ' We had 
every thing of value,' says Procureur-Gendral De la 
Barre, ' carefully inventoried, weighed, locked in 
chests, and placed under a strict guard in the pris- 
on of Halle, to which one set of keys, were given to 
the ministers and another to the magistrates.' "* 

In many instances, the image-breakers volun- 
tarily restored to the municipal authorities rich 
collections of plate ;t and when any of the valu- 
ables were appropriated, these were gathered into 
heaps and delivered to their preachers, w^ho caused 
them to be melted down and distributed among the 

« Motley, vol. 1, pp. 571, 572. 

t Meteren, book 2, folio 43. Hoofd, toui. 3, pp. 98, U'J. Braudt, 
vol. 1, p. 195. 



396 THE DUTCH EEI^OEMATION. 

most needy of tlie sectaries.* The destruction it- 
self was discriminating. At Bois-le-Duc every mar- 
ble saint was martyred, but two brazen statues of 
Moses and David were left untouclied — these wer^ 
not idolatrous.t In the mcUe at Antwerp, a Car- 
melite monk who had lain for twelve weary years' 
in the dungeon of the Barefoot monastery, on a 
charge of heresy, was liberated.;]: 

But even had all this been otherwise, the icono- 
clasts were an insignificant faction — here a hundred, 
and there a score ;§ and the odium of their pranks 
ought not to fall upon the Netherland Protestants. 
The reformed preachers—Wille, Strycker, Junius, 
and the rest — labored iudefatigably to quell the 
riots.ll The gueux pronounced the outbreak insen- 
sate and flagitious.TT The whole body of the re- 
formers formally disavowed it.** " I do not think 
it strange," says the famous Dutch historian Hoofd, 
" since there are good and bad men in all sects, 
that the vilest of the reformed showed their temper 
by these extravagances; nor tliat others fed their 
eyes with a sport that grew up to a plague, which 
they thought the papal clergy had justly deserved 
by the rage of their persecutions. 'Tis probable 
that many did not trouble themselves overmuch 

« Eeuom. de Fraucia. Cited in Prescott, vol. 2, p. G4. 
t Brandt, Vol. 1, p. 197. % Ibid., p. 193. 

§ Strada, p. 125. Eenom. de Fraucia, MS., torn. 1, chap. 20. 
Pontus Payen, MS. 

II Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 19i-22l, passim. De la Barre, MS. 
«i| Groan v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2, pp. 261, 265, 483. 
*'^- Brandt, uhi sup. Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 102. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES. 397 

about the mattei*, hoping that one madness might 
cure the other, and thus order come from confusion. 
But the generaHtj of the reformed certainly behaved 
nobly, by censuring results "svhich they esteemed 
good and proper, because these were brought about 
by improper methods."* 

Some one has said that fools and wise men are 
not two separate nations, with a sea rolling between 
them, but neighbors on a common border land, 
where many dwell whose nationality it is difficult 
to decide on. The image-breakers seemed to prove 
it, for, as Yiglius said, they were wisely mad. A 
church which believed that it could chain the future 
under the past, deified images ; the iconomachy was 
the scoffing answer of a faction half awake to the 
truth. Thus it is that fanaticism breeds fanaticism. 

After all, there was a profound philosoj)hy at 
the bottom of the image-breaking. It has been 
customary to bewail the fact that the first steps of 
the Eeformation were taken on the ruins of art, and 
that the reforming so readily degenerated into the 
destructive principle ; though eminent historians 
have found a compensation in the good done by 
breaking the fetters of the intellect, and opening a 
free range in those domains of science to which 
access hitherto had been denied. t Doubtless, this 
was the fact ; nevertheless, destruction has its part 
in God's law of progress, as countless analogies in 
nature avouch. 

* Cited in Brandt, vol. 1, p. 194. 

t See Frescott, vol. 2, p. 64 ; and Motley, vol. 1, p. 552. 



398 THE DUTCH BEFORMATION. 

But, rightly read, the iconomachy was not a cru- 
sade against art as art. The image-breakers had no 
quarrel with the breathing canvas of the master 
artists — with the Hfedike statues of the antique 
sculptors, considered as mere artistic trophies : it 
was their idea; it was that subtle something which 
these represented; it was the madonna and the 
saints who had entered into and made them instinct 
with idolatrous life, and the uses to which they were 
put, that awakened their ire and provoked their 
assault. 

In assailing the art of that epoch, the iconoclasts 
struck at what it stood for — smote the jailer who 
had imprisoned the spirit of beauty ; for it is Rus- 
kin, the most fascinating writer on the ethics of art 
in our English letters, who assures us that " art is 
always the expression of natural life and character; 
that every nation's vice or virtue is written in it— 
the soldiership of early Greece, the sensuality of 
late Italy, the visionary religion of Tuscany, the 
splendid but human beauty of Yenice."* 

The image-breakers were the contemporaries of 
the Eevivalists, and they recognized the covert 
atheism of their art by intuition. Nor must the 
argument which educes this be esteemed metaphys- 
icah What we can see is but the bone and muscle 
of wonder ; what we think is its soul. Tlie eye of 
imagination sweeps a wider horizon than the glasses 
of astronom3^t 

* Ruskin, Crown of Wild Olive, Lecture on Traffic, p. 55. 
t Hunt, Lieu, Women, and Books, vol. 1, p. 9. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKERS. 313 

Now ignorance never stops to reason ; it divines 
and acts, " ThougLt widens, but lames ; action 
narrows, but animates," is a profound apothegm of 
Goethe. The iconomachy was no murder of art ; 
it was bhnd Samson dragging down the temple on 
the heads of the Philistines ; it was Baconian induc- 
tion and Platonic ardor. 

We have looked upon the bloodless " massacre 
of the innocents" in the provinces; how was the 
report of this catastrophe without a victim received 
by the court at Brussels ? With tears and impre- 
cations. The government oscillated between resent- 
ment and dismay. When the first tidings came, 
most of the grandees were in town, summoned 
thither by the duchess to attend an important meet- 
ing of the state council.* Margaret at once con- 
vened them. " Seigneurs," said she, " 'tis commonly 
reported that these villanies are committed, some 
of you not only not resisting, but being also privy 
and assistant in the plot. What is fit to be done by 
men of honor, look you to that ; for what concerns 
myself, I religiously profess that no man's menaces 
shall persuade me to mix the new figments of these 
heretics with the ancient and orthodox religion. 
Nay, if the king himself, upon whose grace and 
pleasure I depend, should grant the Low Country- 
men to be of what religion they list — which how far 
it is from his majesty's intention none can be igno- 
rant — I would instantly quit the land, because I 
would not be the agent or interpreter of such iudul- 

« Straila, p. 127. Vita Viglii, Iloofd. 



400 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

gence. Look not, then, to fright me with great 
names, and so enforce my consent to unjust de- 
mands.""'^ 

Evidently the duchess was in a belhcose mood; 
events soon " tamed th*e shrew." 

Orange opposed harsh measures, and advised 
conciliation. His practical statesmanship never 
mistook the look of an argument for the proof of it. 
•'Look, madame," said he, "the reformed number 
upwards of two hundred thousand armed men; their 
temper is now sullen ; but grant them to meet safely 
and peaceably in those places where they have 
been wont to assemble, and they are instantly trans- 
formed into loyal citizens. Disarm them by such a 
coup cVetat. What else can we do ? Here are no 
mercenaries; and for the guild militia-men, they 
will not enforce the placards against their co-reli- 
gionists."! 

" It would ring the death-knell of our holy 
faith," replied the duchess.:]: " Your highness," 
chimed in Egmont, " first let us save the state ; 
when that is done, it will be time enough to think 
of religion. "§ "Nay," cried the regent heatedly, 
" faith demands our first care ; for the ruin of reli- 
gion would be a greater evil than the loss of the 
provinces. "il " Those who have any thing in them 
to lose will probably think otherwise," was Eg- 
mont's dry retort.^ 

« Given in Strada, p. 128. f Brandt, vol. 1, p. 204. 

X Cor. de Marg. d'Autriche, p. 188. § Prescott, vol. 2, p. G7. 
II Ibid. Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 449. ^ Ibid. 



THE IMAGE-BREAKEKS. 401 

But the seigneurs argued in vain ; for several 
days the governant remained inflexible. Mean- 
time, the riot broadened portentously. Gossips told 
of the Avild deeds done in Flanders ; news came of 
the sack of Antwerp cathedral ; the city grew pale 
as it listened to accounts, somewhat exaggerated, as 
is dame Rumor's wont, of the outbreaks at Amster- 
dam, at Valenciennes, at Tournay. The whole coun- 
try seemed ablaze; every breeze that swept over 
Brussels wafted the frantic choruses of the image- 
breakers into Margaret's ears. The doubt and anx- 
iety of the unhappy duchess brought on a fever ; 
she tossed on her couch in a delirium of anguish.* 
But when she was told that Brussels stood next on 
the red list of the iconoclasts, fear conquered dis- 
ease, and she determined to forsake the capital.f 

She selected Mons, a strongly fortified town in 
Hainault, whose citizens were sturdy papists, as an 
asylum ;:j: and when this choice was made, ordered 
the preparations for her flight to be pushed forward 
with the utmost secresy and celerity. At three 
o'clock in the morning of the 22d of August, Orange, 
Egmont, Hoogstraaten, Horn, and Mansfeld were 
aroused from their slumbers by a summons to re- 
pair at once to the governant's residence.§ When 
the drowsy seigneurs reached the palace, they were 
surprised to find that Margaret, attended by Bar- 
laiment, Aerschot, and Noircarmes, was equipped 

"■ Con-esp. de Marg. d'Autricbe, p. 191. 

t Strada, p. 129. Vita Viglii, pp. 47, 48. f Ibid. 

§ Motley, vol. 1, p. 573. 



402 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

for fliglit, while lier waiting-women and lacqueys 
with mules and hackneys already harnessed stood 
waiting in the court-yard for the order to set out.* 

"Yes," said the duchess, in response to the mute 
looks of inquiry which her guests directed upon her, 
" his grace of Aerschot has offered me the protec- 
tion of the stout walls of Mons. I shall there abide 
the subsidence of the rebellion,"! 

The enormous blunder of such a step as the 
regent's flight before the threats of a few score of 
rioters, was perceived by all. " Madame," said 
Orange, " if you thus abandon the government, it 
will be necessary at once to summon the states-gen- 
eral, that measures may be taken to preserve the 
country."! " If you quit Brussels for Mons," cried 
the fiery Egmont, " I will inuster forty thousand 
men and besiege Mons in person. "§ " Your high- 
ness, tarry here," pleaded Horn ; " nowhere else can 
you be so safe. I pledge my word that, if neces- 
sity occurs, I will escort you in safety from the city, 
or lose my life in the attempt."|l 

But so great was Margaret's trepidation, that she 
was deaf to reason, until Viglius entered the apart- 
ment and told her that the burghers had learned of 
her intended departure and defeated the plan by 
closing and guarding the gates.*!! Thus a prisoner 
in the capital, the duchess was compelled to relin- 

* Motley, vol. 1, p. 573. Corresp. de Marg. cl'Autricbe, 
p. 188. t Ibid. 

% Prescott, vol. 2, p. G9. Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, 
p. 454. § Ibid. 

II Motley, ubi sup. Strada, p. 129. H Vita Viglii, p. 48. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEES. 403 

quisli her madcap jaunt ; and at length, somewhat 
cahned by the promises of protection which the 
grandees uttered, she consented to retire to her 
apartment; while Orange, Egmont, and the rest 
went to the stadthouse to convene the citizens and 
concert measures for the security of Brussels.* 

Mansfeld was appointed captain-general of the 
city ; the seigneurs agreed to serve under him, and 
there was not the ghost of a disturbance.! Never- 
theless, Margaret suffered a relapse. At seven 
o'clock in the evening of this same day, she once 
more summoned the nobles to her palace, and in- 
formed them that she had certain information that 
the churches would be sacked that night ; that Vig- 
lius, Barliament, and Aremberg would be slain ; and 
that she herself with Egmont would be taken pris- 
oners.:}: Then turning fiercely upon Horn, she re- 
proached him for hindering her flight, and bade him 
redeem his promise by cutting his way through the 
burgher guard at the Brussels posterns.§ Finally, 
the regent was again calmed ; and the night passed 
without disturbance.il 

It was evident, however, that something must be 
done beyond soothing the silly fears of a fevered 
woman. Margaret herself at length recognized the 
necessity of action. On the 25tli of August, not- 
withstanding her oath never to be the agent of in- 

* Vita Vigli, p. 48. Prescott, Motley. f Ibid. 

X Bor., torn. 2, p. 85. Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 107. 
§ Letter of Horn to Moutigny. Cited in Motley, vol. 1, p. 575. 
II Hoofd. Bor., ubi sup. Cor. de Marg. d'Autriche, p. 19G. 



404 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

diligence to heretics, she signed a paper which bur- 
ied the past in oblivion ; guaranteed the right of the 
reformers to assemble for worship in places already 
dedicated as altars, pending the decision of Philip 
and the states-general ; and exacted in return a 
promise of peaceable behavior on the part of the 
Protestants, and on the part of the gueiix a renun- 
ciation of their league so long as the accord was 
faithfully observed by the government.* 

To this agreement all parties appended their 
signatures ; and while the ink on the parchment was 
still wet, couriers sped with it in all directions to 
proclaim it law.t 

This was, thus far, the high-water mark of con- 
cession. The governant shed tears of shame and 
resentment as she scrawled her name at its bottom. 
On retiring to her cabinet, she at once Avrote to 
Philip an account of what she had been obliged to 
do. " Alas, sire " — it was so that the letter ran — 
"believe not that the execrable deed is mine. I 
beseech and conjure you not to make it good.":}: 

Thus deliberately did the duchess perjure her- 
self, thus without a scruple did she counsel dishonor. 
Such meanness was in her blood. Her father, the 
emperor, had once and again pawned his word only 
to break it. Her brother, the king, had called in a 
notary to bear solemn witness that he repudiated 

■''■ Meteren, folio 45. Corresi?. de Phili^jpe II., torn. 1, p. 144. 
Brandt, vol. 1, p. 204. Strada, p. 130. f Ibid. 

J Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 453. Strada gives a tran- 
ginript of this letter at p. 130. 



THE IMAGE-BEEAKEKS. 405 

an absurd list of concessions, because events had 
wruug them from him against his wilL In the six- 
teenth century this was diplomacy; in the nine- 
teenth century it would be swindling. The bas- 
tard duchess had learned moralit}^ from the lips of 
Ignatius Loyola. This is not the only incident in 
her career which proves that the lessons of the Jes- 
uit were not barren labor. 

It would be idle to speculate as to the effect of 
the accord had it been honest ; that consideration 
must be remitted to what mediaeval Scotchmen 
called the media scientia — the science which treats 
of how affairs would have fallen out, had it not been 
for the happening of certain other things. 

However, as they separated, each to return to 
his post, most of the seigneurs pocketed the paper 
complacently; they esteemed it certain to cure the 
diseased land. " Presto !" cried they ; " we are 
well." But, alas, the patient was not convalescent"; 
this Avas the hectic flush of fever, not the roseate 
hue of health. 



4:06 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE EEAGTION. 

The accord, tlioiigli wrung from the reluctant 
hand of the frightened governant, was one of the 
most popular state papers ever published in the 
Netherlands ; for the masses, always credulous, ever 
charitable in the construction of doubtful acts, 
believed it to be at once the death-warrant of the 
Inquisition and the guaranty of plenary toleration. 
Consequently, the grudged concessions, more potent 
than the exhortatory chatter of the bewildered mag- 
istrates, more efficacious than, the mandatory let- 
ters of Margaret, went far to restore tranquillity. 

But the cessation of image-breaking, though gen- 
eral, was not universal. Local outbreaks occurred 
here and there — isolated evidences of tli^ subsiding 
convulsion. To complete the pacification, the gran- 
dees cut short their conferences at Brussels and in- 
stantly set out for their respective stadtholderates, 
following hard upon the couriers who sped before to 
announce the accord. Orange reentered Antwerp; 
Hoogstraaten repaired to Mechlin ; Megen returned 
to Guelders ; Egmont went to Flanders ; Horn, in the 
absence of his brother-in-law Moutigny, entangled 
in the Sjpanisli web at Madrid, hastened to Tournay, 
the seat of that hapless seigneur's government.-' 

At Antwerp, wearied insurrection had sobbed 

'■^ Bor., torn. 2, p. 84, et seq. Poutus Payen, MS. 



THE EEACTION. 407 

itself to sleep ; therefore the duty of the prince was 
not repression, but conservation. Soon after his 
arrival, the burgomasters, emboldened by his pres- 
ence, and to display their zeal, hung three of the 
rioters whom they had captured.* To prevent fur- 
ther bloodshed, AVilliam hastily arranged terms of 
agreement between all parties on the basis of the 
accord, and labored with tireless energy to exorcise 
the spirit of discord that still lingered in the city. 
After protracted negotiations, the reformers, Avho 
had possessed themselves of the despoiled churches, 
were persuaded to surrender them to the Koman- 
ists; but, in return, each of the Protestant sects 
received permission to erect a chapel in a specified 
quarter of the town. At the same time, armed 
attendance upon sermons was prohibited; and 
preachers of all creeds were forbidden to assail 
then" adversaries from the pulpit, or to enter upon 
controverted points — at least beyond what ethics 
and the doctrine inculcated made unavoidable. Into 
this convention, which was to hold good until the 
king, with the consent of the states-general, deter- 
mined otherwise, the well-satisfied citizens of Ant- 
werp entered; with the proviso that if the final 
decision of the government should nullify this set- 
tlement, its ratifiers might submit, or be free to quit 
the provinces, with their families and properties, at 
their option: meantime, all the well-disposed were 
taken under the protection of the city.f 

* Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 102. Groen y. Priust., Areb., etc. 
t Bor., torn. 2, p. 98, et seq. Hoofd, torn. 3, p. 111. 



408 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

The clause of this plan which permitted the 
reformed to meet for worship within Antwerp gates, 
displeased the regent. To her letter of remon- 
strance, Orange replied by offering to resign.* 

Nothing was farther from Margaret's intention 
than to permit the prince to retire; he was not to 
be spared at this crisis. Accordingly, the politic 
princess made haste to mollify the offended seign- 
eur, by verbally approving a measure which had 
awakened her secret resentment.f 

But Orange was not deceived; he was aware 
that this whole chapter of events would be offen- 
sive reading to Philip. While the concessions which 
quieted Antwerp still awaited the endorsement of 
the burghers, he gave a dinner to Sir Thomas Gre- 
sham, the English ambassador resident in the me- 
tropolis. " In all his talk," reported the English- 
man, " the j)rince said to me, ' I know that this will 
nothing content the king.' ":t^ 

Still, William relaxed no effort to restore order, 
nobly true to himself and to his promise to the 
regent, made on the ratification of the accord. In 
pursuance of this purpose, now that Antwerp was 
" sitting clothed and in its right mind," he started 
for the north, to placate Utrecht and Holland. His 
presence was required; for the Dutch, though less 
easy to excite than the Flemings and Brabanters, 

'• Hoofd, nhi sup. Brautlt, vol. 1, p. 206. 
t Prescott, vol. 2, p. 72. Strada, pp. 130, 131. 
t Bnrgon, torn. 2, page 161. Cited in Motley, volume 2, page 
18. 



THE EEACTION. 400 

were, wlieu aroused, much more diiScult to appease. 
Even as lie journeyed, reports of their wild doings 
reached his ears. 

The bruited approach of Orange appeased these 
unseemly tumults ; and when the statesman-prince 
reached the insurgent districts, his wise and pacific 
measures disarmed riot. In Amsterdam, in Ley- 
den, in Utrecht, at the Hague, law and order were 
reestablished on the basis of the liberal Antwerp 
agreement.* The genius of Peace seemed to clasp 
hands with William as he sped through the coun- 
try to the borders of the Zuyder Zee. 

Equally active was Hoogstraaten at Mechlin. 
The young and fiery seigneur construed the conces- 
sions of the prince into precedents, and he employed 
the same means to conciliate and tranquillize the 
turbulent citizens of Granvelle's former see.t His 
success was added evidence of the policy of justice. 
From the enjoyment of these peaceful triumphs, he 
was called by Margaret to take charge of Antwerp 
in the absence of Orange.:}; 

Guelders, less happy than Holland and Bra- 
bant, was dragooned into submission by weapons 
forged in a ruder armory than that of justice. The 
bigoted Count Megen was stadtholder of that prov- 
ince, and he supjiressed the conventicles of the 
reformed, banished the evangelical preachers, and 
hacked right and left without stint or mercy, in 

■■•' Bor., torn. 2, p. 101, et seq. Hoofd, torn. 3. 
t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 20G. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 74. 
I Motley, vol. 1, p. 58. 

Diitcli Kef. 18 



410 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

the very teeth of the accord of August.* The 
duchess rubbed her hands gleefully. " There is 
one man at least," said she, " who knows his duty, 
and does not pester me with demands for conces- 
sion." "Aye," cried Viglius, "would that we had 
his twin in Holland." Probably that bit of bog 
turned up to dry did not reciprocate the senti- 
ment. 

Egmont was in Flanders. The shuttlecock sol- 
dier, who was "every thing by turns and nothing 
long," now had a fit of ultra loyalty. Envious of 
Megen's laurels and of the smiles with which the 
court rewarded severity, he aspired to become that 
"twin" for whom Viglius sighed. Besides, he was 
a fervent Komanist, and in his eyes the image- 
breaking was the unj)ardonable sin. " Sooner or 
later, we must take up arms to briug these reform- 
ers to reason," said he; "else they will lay down 
the law for us."t 

It was in this spirit of unscrupulous partisanship 
that Egmont acted — swooping to vengeance, not 
aiming at pacification. At the head of a small band 
of men-at-arms — for the jealousy of Margaret would 
not grant him more than an insignificant comple- 
ment of soldiers;[: — he scoured Flanders and Artois, 
suppressing conventicles, imprisoning the reformed 
pastors, executing what image-breakers he could 
ferret out, and banishing immense numbers of the 

" Schiller, p. 11. Hoofcl. Pontus Pay en, MS. 

t Pontus Payeu, MS. 

X Correspoudance de Philij^pc II., torn. 1. p. 459 



THE REACTION. 411 

suspected.* This raid met no resistance ; for though 
his force was small, his name was a host, notwith- 
standing the fact that he had dropped the haton of 
GraveHnes and St. Quentin, to clutch the inquisito- 
rial staff of Peter Titelmann. 

Nor did the famous soldier's newborn zeal flag ; 
it did not even balk at dishonor. Against the char- 
ters of the town, he introduced a garrison of mer- 
cenaries into Ghent.! Against the most precious 
clauses of the accord, he suppressed the preachings 
in places where they had been long established. | 
Against the record of his past, he pushed the gueux 
to desert the cause which they had pledged them- 
selves to uphold, and to join with him in the Span- 
ish hunt.§ 

Profound was the sensation which this conduct 
caused. Various were the comments. At court, it 
was regarded as the shrewd manoeuvre of a half- 
proscribed offender to regain the royal favor. At 
Brederode's feasts, it was branded as the flagitious 
abandonment of the popular party — an opinion 
which was strengthened by the fact that Egmont's 
secretary, Bakkerzeel, one of the earliest of the 
leaguers, and influential with his master to a prov- 
erb, was now enacting the part of a persecutor with 
edaf. "Amid all the perplexities of the duchess 
regent," observes a contemporaneous historian of 
the court, " this Virtuous princess was consoled by 

«' Pontus Payen, MS. Motley, vol. 1, p. 12, el seq. Prescott, 
vol. 2, p. 74. t Schiller, p. 12. Hooftl, torn. 3. 

X Ibid. Motley, ubi sujy. § Ibiil- 



412 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

the exploits of Bakkerzeel, a gentleman in Count 
Egmont's service. On one occasion lie hanged 
twenty-nine heretics at a single heat."* Doubtless 
the true explanation of Egmont's conduct is, that 
he was a volatile, vain, enthusiastic blunderer in 
politics, whose zeal was wont to run away with his 
discretion, making him to-day a champion of the 
people, to-morrow a contender for autocracy. 

However this may be, it is certain that Egmont 
speedily filled Flanders and Artois with the tearful 
wives and moaning children of men whose heads 
had fallen beneath the axe of the executioner, or 
who had crossed the sea to esca^^e the devouring 
wrath of the "lost leader."t The sight of these 
things moved Louis of Nassau to expostulate with 
Egmont ; but it does not appear that the honest 
words of this "reproving Nathan" were eflectual in 
curbing his merciless rigor.:}: 

Tournay, one of the first of the cities to gird up 
its loins in the iconomachy, was one of the last to 
disarm. Count Horn met with manifold discour- 
agements in his efforts to restore order. Entering 
the town at great personal risk, he found six thou- 
sand citizens in armed possession of the streets; 
while the governor, Maulbais, with a few sullen and 
sulky retainers, were cooped up in the citadel.§ 

Instead of taking up his residence in the half- 

<5 Kenom.de Francia, MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 13. 
t Green v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2, p. 296, eiseq. Hoofd, 
torn. 3. X Groen v. Priust. , ubi sup. 

§ Brandt, vol. 1. p. 207. 



THE REACTION. 413 

starved castle, Horn lodged with a Protestant mer- 
cliant in the city — a shrewd, but generous confi- 
dence, which won the good will of the ^Deople at the 
outset, though the papists complained bitterly of the 
condescension* Then, like Hoogstraaten, taking 
Orange as his model, he strove to quiet Tournay 
by deahng justly with all sects. But the reformed 
were suspicious, Maulbais was crabbed, and the 
governant constantly intervened to thwart a fair 
accommodation. Horn — an honest, blunt, above- 
board kind of man, with no special gifts as a diplo- 
mat — was infinitely fretted by the quibbling, the 
contradiction, the counter-orders which met him at 
every step. Towards his goal, hoAvever, he still 
walked, though he went by hitches. 

When the vacation of the usurped churches was 
demanded of the reformed, they acceded; but, 
speaking through the lips of Councillor Tassin, they 
requested permission to build chapels without the 
city walls at the town's expense, since at the most 
moderate computation, two thirds of the citizens were 
dissenters ; notwithstanding which, all the churches 
erected for the use of the people were to be surren- 
dered to the exclusive use of the minority.!' 

On this point there was a compromise; the 
reformed were permitted to build meeting-houses 
in three spots beyond Tournay gates; but their 
demand upon the city treasury was somewhat heat- 
edly refused, on the ground that "Romanists could 

•-■ Gorresp. de Philippe II., toiu. 1, p. 4GG, et seq. Groen v. 
Priu.st., Archives, etc. t Motley, vol. 2, p. 21. 



414 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

not be expected to contribute towards the mainte- 
nance of heresy, especially since they had just been 
so exasperated by the image-breaking."* 

After much wrangling, this agi-eement was as- 
sented to, and the duchess put upon it the seal of 
her acceptance. 

And now, for a few short doys, the Netherlands 
reposed in the lap of Toleration — a compulsory and 
grudging nurse. Everywhere rude but substan- 
tial chapels were run up with incredible rapidity. 
Young and old, gentle and simple assisted in this 
pious labor ; even women carried stones, and some- 
times sacrificed their jewels to accelerate the work.t 
In many of the cities, the reformed did not scruj)le 
to impress into the service of their buildings the 
shattered images and broken crucifixes and mon- 
umental tablets of the desecrated cathedrals of 
Eome.:|: Great was the scandal which this uuAvise 
procedure occasioned among the papists, doubly 
angered at the demolition of their shrines and at 
the heretical use to which the consecrated fraa- 
ments were put. 

While the grandees, assisted by the gucux, were 
thus actively successful in tranquillizing the prov- 
inces, what was the course of Margaret? Two 
words paint it — treachery and dissimulation. For 
a space, the frightened duchess seemed bent upon 
the honest enforcement of the accord; but as the 

« Motley, vol. 2, p. 21. 

t Schiller, p. 19. Prescott, vol. 2. p. 7i. 

X De la Barre, MS., p. 44, d seq. Cited iu Motley, vol. 2, p. 21. 



THE EEACTION. 41o 

colossus of revolt dwarfed back into peaceful stat- 
ure, her courage rose, and she began to meddle and 
to prevaricate, to question and to undo. 

The fact was, that the image-breaking had com- 
pletely severed the connection, feeble at best, be- 
tween the governant and the popular part3^ From 
that moment the duchess ceased to coquette witli 
the patriot nobles whom she had pretended to favor 
since the exile of Granvelle. But she v\-as cautious ; 
for she knew that tranquilli|y was the desideratum, 
and she was aware that that could only be secured 
by a seeming deference to the opinions and the acts 
of the popular leaders. This for a time she 3d elded, 
though she let no opportunity slip that could ena- 
ble her to balk their purposes or to embarrass their 
plans. 

At the same time, the wily duchess began to 
court the long-neglected partisans of the king — 
Aremberg, Megen, Noircarmes, and the rest. One 
morning she sent for Viglius. " Mr. President," 
said she, when that octogenarian doctor stood 
before her, " we have been too long estranged ; I 
acknowledge my mistake. Prithee, give me thy 
counsel once more." Viglius was surprised ; but he 
responded, " Madame, are you prepared to carry out 
the well-known wishes of the king?" "Aye, with 
all my heart," was the reply. " Well then," said 
Viglius, "put the same question to each member of 
your cabinet." The governant obeyed, and this 
touchstone revealed the unalloyed loyalty of three 
seigneurs — Mansfeld, Barlaiment, and Aerschot. 



416 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Witli these an alliance was extemporized, and the 
duohess again found herself at the head of a party 
composed of congenial souls.* 

Another thing helped to raise Margaret's long- 
drooping courage; she had received those letters 
fi'om Philip which placed money in her hands, and 
empowered her to recruit an army.f As usual, the 
royal concession had come post factum ; but the 
three hundred thousand florins were welcome, even 
at the eleventh hour. 

The pupil of Loyola began to intrigue. By 
shrewd management, she obtained from Charles 
IX. of France a proclamation which forbade his 
subjects to assist the Low Country heretics ; and 
this was meant as a menace to the Huguenots, 
whose sympathy with their provincial brothers in 
the faith was notorious.^ Flushed with this suc- 
cess, the elated duchess turned to Germany, at that 
time the recruiting-ground of Europe, and impor- 
tuned the emperor for armed aid, while she essayed 
to unlock the hearts of the lesser Germanic poten- 
tates with a golden key. The Komanists among 
them readily yielded, and agreed to belt on their 
swords; the electors of Triers and Mentz offering 
free passage through their territories to the merce- 
nary troopers.§ But there were some locks which 
were not to be picked ; the landgrave of Hesse was 
one; the duke of Wurtemberg was another; and 
the count Palatin was a third ; all of whom refused 

* This conversation is detailed in the Vita Viglii, p. 47. 
+ Ante, pp. 370, 371. | Strada, p. 13-4. § Ibid. 



THE REACTION. 417 

to move, on account of their Protestantism.* The 
emperor liimself attempted to dissuade Margaret 
from these levies, o£feriug to mediate between the 
late insurgents and the throne.f "No," said Mar- 
garet, " we will make no terms with an armed fac- 
tion without arms ourselves." The emperor gave 
way, and the royal recruiting-masters plied their 
trade without interference.:}: 

Against Horn, Margaret was especially incensed. 
That seigneur had recently ventured to comply with 
the demand of the Tournay reformers for permis- 
sion to meet within the walls of their city, since 
winter was at hand and their field-chapels could 
not be comi^leted before spring, while the frequent 
storms made camp-meetings impossible.§ Horn re- 
luctantly set aside the Clothiers' Hall for their use 
until their temples were finished ; coupling the grant, 
however, with a proviso that it should be subject to 
the regent's revocation.il 

When her assent to this arrangement was asked, 
the duchess was beside herself with rage, "Never," 
exclaimed she, "shall the interiolr of Tournay be 
profaned by these heretical rites."TF In the middle 
of October, 1566, Horn was recalled to Brussels.** 

As her confidence increased, the governaut made 
greater efforts to retrace the humiliating path up 
which circumstances had led her. She did not ven- 

* Strada, p. 134. + Ibid., p. 133. 

J Ibid. Hopper, Eec. et Mem. 
§ Motley, vol. 2, p. 21. De la Barre, MS. 
II Ibid., Frappeu's Snjiplemcut, torn. 2, p. 40G. 
II Frai^peii, uhi sup., p. 499, et seq. •* Ibid. 

18* 



418 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ture to revoke the accord ; but she defined it so nar- 
rowly that it became that "letter of the law which 
killeth." For instance, the essence of the com- 
pact of the 25tli of August was, that the preaching 
of the reformed religion should be tolerated wher- 
ever it had been established previously to that date. 
Yet now this was construed not to cover the per- 
formance of such rites as baptism, marriage, and 
burial — the necessary concomitants of preaching.* 
In this same autumn of 15G6, she fulminated an 
edict, reciting the terrible penalties of the law 
against all offenders in this way ; and this unscru- 
pulous paper she formally commanded the author- 
ities to euforce.t 

Orange was indignant at this juggling, and he 
loudly complained of it, as also of the efforts of the 
regent to undermine his character at Madrid. 'J: The 
duchess endeavored to mollify him. She specially 
commissioned Assouleville to assure her "cousin of 
Orange" that "she had always loved and honored 
him as her good son ;" and at the same time she 
wrote Hoogstraalen in a similar siren strain. § But 
the long-headed prince was not to be hoodwinked. 
" Madame," retorted he, " I am not so frivolous as 
to believe in your having used language to my dis- 
credit, without being certain of the fact — as I shall 
shortly prove by evidence."!! 

* Prescott, vol. 2, p. 96. Strada. f Strada. 

I Motley, vol. 2, p. 54. 

§ La Defense du Comte de Hocstrate, p. 91. 

II Cor. de Gnillaume le Taciturne, torn. 2, p. 233, et seq. 



THE REACTION. 410 

At bottom, Orange cared little for the estrange- 
ment of the duchess ; he expected it, for he knew 
the radical differences which divided them. Still 
he would not permit Margaret to believe that she 
could cheat him. Horn also viewed this coolness 
with sullen indifference. It was Egmont, who could 
only live in the sunshine of the court, that took this 
exclusion from the royal confidence most to heart. 
" They tell me," wrote Morillon to Granvelle, " that 
it is quite incredible how old and gray Egmont has 
become."* 

Of course, this whole momentous chapter of 
events had been closely read by Philip. Accounts 
of the image-breaking had reached Madrid with the 
usual expedition of evil news — that fastest of all 
travellers. The tidings found the king stretched 
upon a tertian-fever bed at his Segovian retreat ; 
but, if we may credit Morillon, rage proved strongei* 
than disease, and losing for once his habitual self- 
command, he leaped from his couch, and tearing 
his beard in a paroxysm of frenzy, cried, " It shall, 
cost them dear : by the soul of my father I swear 
it — it shall cost them dear."t 

Soon, however^ regaining the reins of his tem- 
per, he curbed its expression, determined to let 
deeds speak for him. Never again was his serenity 
disturbed, though his eyes devoured letter after let- 
ter full of the details of the iconomachy. Indeed, 
more potent than the royal' leeches, the news seem- 

'<^ Archives de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassan, Siipplcuicut, p. 3(J. 
t Gaoliartl, Aualectes Bclgiqncs, p. 2.j'l. 



420 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ed to shock liim into health ; and though enfeebled 
by the sickness, he at once summoned his council- 
lors to convene, attending personally upon their 
discussions : so superior is the spirit to the weak- 
nesses of the body.* 

Prejudice is the most plausible of special plead- 
ers. The Castilian ministers assembled at Segovia 
imagining that the image-breaking was a national 
act ; and in their investigations they scanned the 
facts fi-om the standpoint of that belief, twisted the 
evidence into that meaning. They held the icono- 
clasts to have been the mere tools of abler rogues : 
they were moved by the sectaries ; the sectaries 
were inspired by the gueux; the gueux were the 
creatures of the leading seigneurs — Orange, Eg- 
mout, Horn.f Thus all were branded as guilty, 
while the chief responsibility was strapped upon the 
shoulders of the men who had been most instru- 
mental in evoking order out of chaos. 

In this the advisers of the king were agreed; 
but when they came to discuss the policy to be 
adopted, there Avere two opinions at the council- 
board. There were still, as at PhiHp's accession,! 
two rivals in the royal favor — Euy Gomez prince 
of Eboli, and the duke of Alva. No two characters 
could be more antipodal in disposition, habit, inter- 
est. Eboli was a man of peace ; Alva was a man 
of war. Eboli Avas pacific and temporizing, and 
these were the arts by which he had acquired influ- 

* Hopper, Eec. et Mem., p. lO'Jl. 

t ILii'l- % Ante, p. 14:9. 



THE REACTION. 421 

ence ; Alva was ferocious and uncompromising, and 
these were the means by which he had become a 
power in the state. Eboli, true to his character 
and also to his policy — for commotion was his 
rival's element, and in it he was ruler — was ever the 
advocate of mildness and delay. Alva, true to his 
character and also to his policy — for in a calm his 
rival was supreme — always counselled vengeance 
and expedition. " Thus it is," philosophizes Strada, 
" that most men form their opinions ; and the vote 
which nature extorts, we think is given to the cause, 
when indeed we give it to our humor."* 

These councillors of opposite ideas were now 
wrangling in Philip's presence. Eboli urged his 
master to set out in person for the Netherlands, not 
in warlike panoply, but accompanied only by such 
a retinue as should look down opposition and befit 
the royal dignity. Alva made no objection to the 
king's departure, but clamored for the equipment 
of an arm}^ which should be empowered to chastise 
the states. 

Evidently Alva was a surgeon of the heroic 
school, t 

Usually, the procrastinating and tortuous policy 
of Eboli was that most congenial to the kindred 
soul of Philip ; but now his dark and sullen temper 
was in arms, and he panted, for revenge. There- 
fore Alva's advice was taken; the king decided to 

* strada, vol. 2, p. 23. 

f Ibid., d seq. Braudt, vol. 1, pp. 2G0, 2GL 



422 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

equip au army for tlie subjugation of the provinces, 
and the iron duke was himself selected to head the 
crusade.* 

However, he infused into this policy something 
of his own spirit, for he insisted upon keeping the 
decision secret.f He preferred to advance by crook- 
ed ways, even when straight ones were the best. 
He mistook dissimulation 'for diplomacy. The 
throat of the provinces was to be cut, but the poli- 
tic assassin meant to steal in on tiptoe and creep 
round behind. In pursuance of this plan, the ac- 
cepted advice of Alva was hidden behind the scenes, 
while before the footlights Philip played the part 
of a benignant pacificator. Not before the spring 
of 1567 could the arrangements for the invasion of 
the Netherlands be completed; it was necessary to 
bridge over six months with treachery. 

Accordingly, Alva was sent to Paris, ostensibly 
as the Spanish ambassador, but really for the pur- 
pose of persuading Catharine de' Medici to open 
a path through France for Philip's avengers of the 
faith. J The king himself began to make noisy prep- 
arations for his supposititious voyage to the states — 
long promised, much derided, never credited. But 
nov/ the laughers were cheated into the belief that 
this time his majesty was in earnest, so formal was 
his haste, so profuse were his arrangements for a 
speedy departure. Nevertheless, the biographer of 
the Farneses avers that this Avas but a cleverly 

•~- Stradii, vol. 2, p. 23. Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 2(J0, 2!;i. 

f Strada, nhi sup. I Strada. 



THE REACTION. 42:] 

enacted comeclj^ uot serious at the bottom.* Cer- 
tain it is that the voyage of the royal actor must be 
set down in continuation of D'Israeli's chapter of 
" Events that never took Phice." 

While his cozened lacqueys were busied in pack- 
ing trunks which they were for ever destined, on 
one pretext or another, to unpack again, Philip was 
in active correspondence with madame of Parma.' 
She also was his dupe, for she devoutly believed in 
the certainty of the king's speedy arrival at Brus- 
sels, and constantly proclaimed it.t • 

In the autumn of 1566, Philip addressed two 
letters to Margaret. In the first of these, which 
was meant to be made public, he announced his 
own restoration to health and the birth of an infan- 
ta, closing with the affirmation of his purpose to 
set out for the states at an early day, and with the 
assertion of " his intention to treat his subjects like 
a good and clement prince, not to ruin them by redu- 
cing them into servitude." " I shall exercise only 
humanity, sweetness, and grace, avoiding all harsh- 
ness,"! said his Machiavellian majesty King Philip 
II., who had already proscribed the whole nation. 
In the other note, which was private, he urged the 
governant to strain every nerve in the enrolment 
of the German levies, and to let slip no opportunity 
to effect the dissolution of the cjueux ; and for this 
purpose he sent her a batch of letters, overflowing 
with kind expressions and artful flattery, to distri- 

« Strada. t H^i'^^- 

\ Corresp. dc ilarg. d'Autiielu'. p. '20 i. 



424 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

bute among tlie leaguers as she deemed best.* Not 
one allusion did lie make to the accord; he dared 
not, at present, annul it; and he Avas still less dis- 
posed to acknowledge its validity ; so he obeyed the 
English statesman's rule, and when he had nothing 
to say, he said nothing.f 

Margaret received these despatches but to credit 
nnd obey them. She was already doing her utmost 
to recruit an army; she was determined to break up 
the union of les gueux. In this work, circumstances 
were her allies. The country had outgrown the 
league. Internal dissensions had enfeebled it. At 
St. Trond many of the Romanists had shaken off 
the dust from their feet against it. The iconoma- 
chy had wholly robbed it of ultramontauist support. 
The conduct of the leaguers in siding with the court 
against the image-breakers had deprived it also of 
the confidence of the sectaries. | Thus undermined 
with both parties, it was sure to fall an easy prey to 
the snares of the "'overnant. 

And it must be confessed that Margaret played 
her game shrewdly. She made brave use of the 
royal letters. They were directed with an apj^ear- 
ance of jn'ofound secrecy to a variety of individuals, 
and then made to miscarry, so as to fall into the 
wrong hands. In this way the seeds of distrust 
were quickly sown. Many of the confederates be- 
gan to doubt the honesty of those of their brothers 

* Cor. de Marg. d'Autricbe, p. 20G. Schiller, p. 18. 

f Scliiller, uhl sup. 

X Vide Relatione di M. H. Tiepalo, MS., 15G7. 



THE BEACTION. 425 

to whom sucli brilliant offers were made ; and those 
who had received no such promises commenced to 
importune the duchess for pardon. A scrub-race 
for court favor ensued. A general rumor of the 
impending visit of the king made those who knew 
that his presence would augur no good to them all 
the more eager to accept what conditions they could 
get. A brief campaign completely discomfited the 
league, and madame rested on her laurels, confident 
that it was definitively broken as a nucleus of politi- 
cal oifence."" A few of its members, like Brederode, 
and Louis of Nassau, and St. Aldegonde, were still 
untamed ; but these were powerless, for they were 
robbed of prestige. 

Margaret next essayed to lasso the seigneurs to 
her feet. Egmont was brought to the ground ; but 
Hoogstraaten and Horn and Orange were too wary 
to be caught. 

The prince was perfectly famihar with the whole 
programme which had been decided on at Madrid ; 
his eyes had scanned the book which Philip thought 
that he had sealed. By a system of espionage sin- 
gularly perfect, he held all Europe under surveill- 
ance, and could fix his eye at pleasure on tlie most 
distant courts, or so place his ear that it should 
catch the faintest whispered secrets of the Spanish 
despot.t Doubtless, there was no high morality in 
the employment of these Protean pryers into the 
most secret consultations and resolutions of crowned 

« Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 2, p. 282. Tiepalo, ut 
antea., f Prcscott, vol. 2, p. 84. Stiuda. 



426 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

heads — eaves-droppers and disguises, the sum of 
whose life was to know and not to be known ; but 
the use of spies was a part of the machinery of 
diplomacy in the sixteenth century. William had 
acquired the art in the school of Machiavelli. It 
was the intelligence thus gained which enabled him 
to fathom the dark depths of the policy of the most 
tortuous of kings. Without this intelligence he 
would have groped in the gloom — there would have 
been no equality in his struggle with the royal in- 
quisitor. And this may be said for him, that while 
Philip spied for despotism, lie spied to secure the 
liberation of his country. 

Just now William's spies were unusually busy. 
These ubiquitous agents of his secret service con- 
stantly forwarded to him copies, and sometimes the 
originals of Margaret's private letters to the king, 
together with extracts from the minutes of the royal 
cabinet. From time to time, the pilfered papers 
were made public; the governant was astounded to 
learn that manuscripts weighty with state secrets, 
which she imagined safely buried in the hidden 
recesses of the king's escritoire, were passed from 
hand to hand by the gaping burghers of her own 
capitaL " Sire," complained she to Philip, " the 
contents of my despatches are known in JFlanders 
almost as soon as at Madrid ; and not only copies, 
but the original autographs circulate in Brussels. 
Be pleased to burn my letters after reading them, if 
you cannot keep them without danger.""- 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 474. * 



THE REACTION. 427 

The naivete of the king's reply is hiughable. 
" This of which you complain is impossible. I 
always keep my papers locked, and tlie key lies in 
my pocket."* The idea seemed not to occur to this 
man, who was rather the chief of a bureau of secret 
police than a monarch, that the arts which he prac- 
tised upon others, might possibly by others be prac- 
tised upon him. But they were. "Men of leisure," 
affirmed Orange, "may occupy themselves in philo- 
sophical pursuits, and with the secrets of nature; 
as for me, it is my business to study the hearts of 
kings."t 

Made .aware by this " study " of what was in 
Philip's heart, and conscious of the imminent peril 
in which the Netherlands stood. Orange was anx- 
ious to concert some plan of resistance. Feeling 
that the hour for action had dawned, he sent a pri- 
vate courier to acquaint Egmont with the impend- 
ing danger, proposing, with his cooperation and with 
that of Horn, to convene the states-general, and if 
the national representatives j)roved propitious, to 
risk preparations against Alva's coming raid.J 

On the 3d of October, 1566, before an answer to 
this proposal could be received. Orange, Egmont, 
Horn, Louis of Nassau, and Hoogstraaten met at 
Dendermonde in Flanders, to chat over what had 
best be done, in person.§ Here two important let- 

"'' Corresp. cle Philippe II., torn. 1. p. 491. 

f Strada. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 41. 

X Green v. Prinst., Arcliive.s, etc., torn. 2, p. 326. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, p. 134. Cor. do Ginllanmc le Tacit., torn. 2. 



428 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

ters were read and considered. One was from Mon- 
tigny, the Netherland envoy, held in duress at Ma- 
drid. Addressing his brother-in-laAv, Count Horn, 
he wrote : " Nothing can be in worse odor than are 
our affairs at the court of Castile. The great lords 
in particular are considered the source of all the 
mischief. Violent counsels are altogether in the 
ascendant, and the storm may burst upon yon soon- 
er than you think. Nothing remains but to fly 
from it prudently, or to face it bravely.'"'" The 
other was an intercepted letter from Alva, then in 
France, to the duchess of Parma. The duke gave 
a circumstantial account of the approadjing inva- 
sion of the provinces, for which purpose the king- 
was busily levying an army, asserted that the seign- 
eurs were marked out for heavy punishment, and 
cautioned Margaret in the meantime so to regulate 
her deportment as to persuade all that the past had 
been forgiven and forgotten.t 

" Now, gentlemen," queried Orange, " with these 
facts before us, what ought we to do ?" 

" I counsel an immediate appeal to arms," cried 
Louis of Nassau. " At all risks, the king should 
never be permitted to dragoon the country into ser- 
vitude." "I say amen to that," said Hoogstraaten. 
Horn was silent. Egmont repudiated the idea of re- 
volt, and his emphatic protest broke up the confer- 
ence. Orange did not pronounce himself, for he 
knew that Egmont's popularity and military prestige 
made his cooperation essential to the success of any 
• Bentivoglio, p. 118. f Cor. de Phil. II., torn. 1, p. 485. 



THE REACTION. 420 

scheme of armed resistance. A feast closed this 
interview ; after which the seigneurs mounted horse 
and separated — separated in both senses, for the 
old community of interest was lost.* 

Had the Dendermonde meeting resulted, as 
Orange meant it should, in a firm coalition against 
Philij), the history of a decade v/ould have been 
differently written. That it did not so eventuate, 
was the fault of Egmont.f The count was a brill- 
iant cavalry officer — the Mui-at of the sixteenth cen- 
tury — but he utterly lacked prevision, while his van- 
ity was so great that he would not credit those 
whose sight was keener. Besides, he was a cour- 
tier by nature, and he felt the incongruity of his 
recent position as a liberal leader — a position into 
which circumstances, acting upon an impulsive and 
sympathetic nature, had drifted him. His con- 
science acquitted him of any purpose to wrong the 
king ; and judging Philip by himself, he felt sure 
of having won the royal forgiveness for what venial 
sins he had committed, by his honest conduct in 
restoring order. He was not the stuff of which rev- 
olutionists are made, for he was terrified by words, 
and he was turned from his purpose by a glance at 
his family. He had feelings, not principles. Ho 
was unduly anxious about appearances ; belonged 
to that class of whom Wendell Phillips has said, 

» Bentivoglio, pp. 123-128. Bor., torn. 2, p. 108. Hoofd, torn. 
3, p. 114. 

. f Horn, in his "Justification," refers the faihire to Egmont. 
Vitle Proces de Home, Frappen's Supi:)lement. 



430 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

" tliej creep ' prudently ' iuto nameless graves, while 
higher spirits. forget themselves into immortality." 
He had none of the unconsciousness of greatness 
which will not let the heart turn to examine the 
crimson of its own currents. So Egmont shook 
hands with Orange, meaning henceforth to "smother 
his prejudices,"' and like the jockeys at Epsom, to 
sweat down the truth till it could ride equal weight 
with any rascal. Still, with all his credulity, Alva's 
letter somewhat disturbed him, and on reaching 
Brussels he showed a copy of it to the governant. 
Margaret was surprised, but Egmont did not fright 
her confidence into a blush ; she pronounced the epis- 
tle to be a forgery.* The count was not convinced 
of her sincerit}'. " This is a woman educated at 
Kome," said he; "there is no faith to be given 
her."t Happy would it have been for Egmont had 
he held to that belief. 

Horn did not commit himself at Dendermonde ;X 
but it is probable that, had Egmont pronounced 
for war, no objections would have come from him. 
However, as affairs had turned out, his hands were 
left clean of any thing which smelt of treason — if 
any attempt to protect the ancient, well-understood, 
and chartered privileges of the Netherlands against 
a forsworn foreign despot may be so designated. 
But Horn was sour and moody. Of a proud and 
ambitious temper, his pride had been outraged, and 
his ambition had been thwarted with pertinacious 

* Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 2, p. 400, et seq. 
t Ibid. X Proces de Home, in Fiappen's Supplement 



THE REACTION. 431 

malignity by a court iu wliosc service lie liad grown 
gray. He had spent four hundred thousand florins 
in the royal service without recompense, although 
it was well known that this expenditure had obliged 
him to pawn his massive family-plate, and had cov- 
ered his estates ten feet deep Avith mortgages.* 
This was but one of many griefs ; and recently, to 
the sum total of his discontent, the shabby treat- 
ment, the unscrupulous calumniation with which 
Margaret rewarded efforts which averted the " Sicil- 
ian vespers" from Tournay had been added.t 

"Wrathful and ruined, Horn determined no longer 
to serve a perfidious court. In a letter which he 
now wrote to Philip, he resigned his honors, and 
after reciting the indignities which had driven him 
to take this step, added: " It is not the regent, but 
your majesty, of whom I complain; for it is you, 
sire, who have compelled me to dance attendance 
at the court of Brussels. Henceforth I shall not 
discuss my conduct with, the duchess, for it is not 
my way to treat of affairs of honor with ladies.":!: 

Having unwittingly dug his grave with these 
plain-dealing words — for to-morrow is a fog into 
which no one can see — Horn retired to his mort- 
gaged "growlery" at Weert, severed his connection 
with all parties, and like Diogenes, asked only a 
fee simple of the sunshine. § " Well," said he, " I 

* Reuom. de Fraucia, MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 37. 

t Bnd. 

X Frappen's Supplement, toin. 2, p. 501, et seq. 

§ Ibid. Vide Proces dc Home. 



432 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

can turn hermit for the rest of my days, as well as 
the emperor Charles."* 

The obstinate credulity of Egmont and the sul- 
len retirement of Horn left Orange isolated at this 
critical hour — robbed him of his most prominent 
supporters ; for though Hoogstraaten and Louis of 
Nassau and St. Aldegonde were devoted, they had 
not the influence in the land Avhich the recusant 
seigneurs possessed. Nothing remained but to wait 
and watch. Retiring into the north, he paused at 
Utrecht. Here he addressed a pamphlet to the 
authorities of the province, in which he urged the 
necessity of religious toleration, as demanded by 
Christian charity, by the spirit of the age, and by 
the policy of cosmopolite states, inhabited by sects 
of all denominations ; and he concluded by recom- 
mending that a petition of this tenor be laid before 
the throne; not probablj^ from any belief that it 
would be heeded by Philip, but from the effect it 
would have in strengthening the principles of eccle- 
siastical freedom in the minds of his fellow-coun- 

trymen.t 

This x>aper, which was ably and strikingly ar- 
gued, marked an epoch in William's life, for it was 
his first written offering to the spirit of Christianity 
since his conversion to the religious tenets of the 
Reformation. In a letter to the landgrave of Hesse, 
in November, 1566, he announced this momentous 

- Frapijeu, uU su}:)., p. 506. 

f Prescott, vol. 2, p. 73. Archives et Correspondance, torn. 2, 
pp. 430, 431. 



THE KEACTION. 43:] 

change in liis creed.* Doubtless the principles 
planted in his infant heart by his pions jiarents at 
the old Dillenberg castle, and the seeds of doubt 
sown by recent events in the Netherlands, combined 
to flower iuto Protestantism in his mind. The im- 
pressions of childhood are proverbially lasting ; and 
the ashes of the countless innocents, martyred for 
no crime but that of dissent from Rome, spoke 
trumpet-toned to thoughtful and enlightened souls. 
William saw the ligament which united the Siamese 
twins of Rome and Sjiain — the Chcmg of the Vati- 
can to the Eng of Madrid. Then too his family — 
his aged mother, still alive, his brothers, his sisters, 
his wife, were of the reformed faith. Thus the ties 
of kindred, every pulsation of his patriotic heart, 
the manifold influences of the time, moved the tru- 
ant prince to face Zionward. Now that he had 
done so, another link was forged in the chain which 
wedded him to the liberal party of the provinces. 

The reformed had taken advantage of the inter- 
val of quiet which succeeded the iconomachy, to 
methodize the formulas of their worship, hitherto 
somewhat loose and unsettled. In many of the cit- 
ies consistories — a kind of sabred parliament, com- 
posed of ecclesiastical senators and magistrates — 
were instituted ; and these were subordinated to a 
controlling assembly, which sat at Antwerp.! Thus 
the republic of religion was reduced to order, in 

•-' Prescott, Tol. 2, p. 93. Dumout, Corps Diplomatique, torn. 
5, part 1, p. 392, 

t Strada, p. 138. Brandt. 

Tintcli ncr. 2Q 



434 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

obedience to heaven's first law, and provided with 
a mouth-piece through which its wishes might find 
utterance. 

But, unhappily, the Protestants of that day did 
not com^Drehend the golden rule of modern Chris- 
tian fellowship — fraternization in the fundamental 
principles of the gospel, charity in all besides. In 
the Low Countries, sects at absolute agreement on 
vital tenets waged bitter, war on minor points of 
faith ; a fact prophetical of ruin when the common 
enemy was in the field.* In Germany, the princes 
were Lutherans ; in the provinces, the Calvinists 
were the dominant denomination. They were at 
open feud. From time to time good men essayed 
to bring about a truce, but in the main, their efforts 
were without success.f 

Under these circumstances, each sect was left to 
shift for itself, sole guardian of its interests. At 
Antwerp, the reformed endeavored to buy toleration. 
Through Hoogstraaten, they sent a petition to Mar- 
garet, offering to pay three hundred thousand flor- 
ins into the royal treasury, if only they might be 
guaranteed immunity of worship. But now at Brus- 
sels, as always at Madrid, there was one passion 
yet stronger than avarice, and that was bigotry. 
The disdainful court would vouchsafe no answer to 
the memorial.:]: 

Margaret was now occupied day and night in the 

« Prescott, vol. 2, p. 94. Hoofd, torn. 3. 

f Strada, p. 138. Archives de la Maison d'Orauge-Nassau, 
torn. 2, p. 455. | Strada, p. 140. 



THE REACTION. 433 

*' study of revenge."* Feeling that her star was 
once more in the ascendant, she lost the humility 
that had characterized her actions while the image- 
breakers were abroad. The divisions of the foes, 
the jingling of PhiliiD's gold, the sight of her recruits, 
all combined to elate her, " Now," said she, " I am 
strong enough to work my wall;" and immediately 
this woman, who already knew all the points in the 
compass of deceit, began to add to that knowledge 
the maxims of a bolder roguery. She sent Duke 
Eric, of Brunswick, into Holland at the head of an 
armed force.f She formally revoked the accord.^ 
She kept Egmont busy in forcing the cities of Flan- 
ders and Artois to receive her mercenary garri- 
sons.§ Not under the imperial sceptre of Charles 
V. had such bold stretches of arbitrary power been 
hazarded. 

Great was the excitement which this conduct 
caused, and it provoked an ill-regulated, spasmodic, 
fragmentary resistance : foredoomed to an unhappy 
end by the apostacy of Egmont, who was viciously 
active against his old companions ; by the neutral- 
ity of Horn, who could not be coaxed to leave his 
lair ; and by the prudence of Orange, who stood 
aloof because he saw that the Netherlands, para- 
lyzed by division, were not yet ready for a national 
rising, the only one which could be efficient. The 

• Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 496. 
t Groen V. Priust., Ai'chives^tc. , torn. 2, pp. 322-32G. 
J Corresp. de Guillaume le Tacit., torn. 2, ]). 351, et seq. 
§ Motley, vol. 2, p. 44. 



436 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

cities were the first to protest ; tliose of Hainault 
were especially out-spoken in their determination 
not to open their gates for the reception of the 
hated mercenaries.* Horn had been succeeded in 
the stadtholderate of that province by Philip de 
Noircarmes, a courtier by profession and a butcher 
from instinct.f This personage had a peculiar 
aptitude for making bad matters worse, as he 
soon made manifest. Abandoning the policy of 
justice, which his honest predecessor had inau- 
gurated, he embraced the more congenial methods 
of trickery and violence in his dealings with the 
reformed. 

Noircarmes, in common with Aremberg, Aer- 
schot, Megen, and Egmont, had been ordered to 
hunt up or invent pretexts for the introduction of 
garrisons into all places suspected of favoring the 
new doctrines.:]: It was work to his taste. On the 
21st of November, 1566, he galloped across the 
country to Valenciennes at the head of an unusu- 
ally strong cavalcade, and pausing before the city 
gates, summoned the citizens to receive a garrison 
as a punishment for their flagitious conduct in cele- 
brating the Lord's Supper within the corporate 
limits.§ The cautious burghers asked time for con- 
sideration ; whereupon Noircarmes fired a volley of 
oaths into their faces, and rode off, protesting that 

« Prescott, vol. 2, p. 97. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 207. 

t Motley, vol. 2, p. 73. ♦ 

:j: Prescott, ubl sup. Eenom. de Fraucia, MS. Hoofd, torn. 3. 

§ l^.randt, rthi sup. 



THE REACTION. 437 

they would have themselves to blame for whatever 
mischief might befall them.* 

The townsfolk at once met at the stadthoiise in 
anxious consultation. The magistrates urged com- 
pliance with the regent's requisition ; but " the peo- 
ple, whose ears were chained to the tongues of tlieir 
preachers," on being informed by those eminent 
divines, Guy de Bray and Peregrine de la Grange, 
then resident at Yalenciennes, that the result of 
acquiescence would be the suppression of their 
worship, voted to bar out the conscience-chaining 
soldiers.f One of the city councillors said to La 
Grange : "If you fear for your life we will guarantee 
you a safe conduct from our walls. Exert your all- 
powerful eloquence to win an assent to the demand 
of her highness." "Nay, friend," was the stout 
reply, "I care not unduly for myself — I am in God's 
hands; but may I grow mute as a fish, may the 
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth before I 
persuade my people to accept a garrison of cruel 
mercenaries, by whom their rights of conscience 
are to be trampled on.":{: It was evident that if 
the foreign spearmen entered Valenciennes, it must 
be through breaches in the walls. La Grange was 
not a Jesuit, doing wrong that good might come. 
Two negatives make an affirmative; but he knew 
that two vices do not make a virtue. And if he 
gave counsel which brought the city to ruin, it was 
precisely the crime which ^schines charged upon 

* Brandt, ut antea. t I^"^- Valenciennes, MS. 

t Corrcsp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 5G1, note. 



438 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Demostlienes in the Athenian foriim, and over 
whicli posterity has written the word " rej)udiation." 

On the 17th* of December, 1566, Valenciennes — 
so named from its Roman founder, the emperor 
Valentiniant — was declared by Margaret to be re- 
bellious and in a state of siege.:}: The city had long 
been considered by the court as " a hotbed of here- 
sy," and though it had been originally founded as 
a city of refuge, it was thought wofully to have 
abused its privileges in affording an asylum to dis- 
senters.! For this high crime the duchess ached 
to scourge it, and accordingly Noircarmes was now 
sent with a strong force to administer the chastise- 
ment.ll At the same time, its nearness to the French 
border and the Huguenot character of its inhabit- 
ants had impelled Philip to give the governant an 
order to proceed with circumspection — to exhaust 
artifice before resorting to violence.^ 

While Noircarmes was digging his trenches, 
Yalenciennes was busy in strengthening its natu- 
rally fine fortifications, and in issuing appeals for 
aid. The few remaining members of the giicux, 
heeding the appeal, at once set themselves in mo- 
tion. Count Louis of Nassau passed into Germany 
to recruit an army.*" Brederode drew up a rcmon- 

* Brandt says on the 14tli iust. — vol. 1, p. 207. 
t Guicciardiui, Belg. Des., p. 458, el seq. 

I Valencieuues, MS. Brandt, vol. 1, x^. 207. Hoofd. Pontus 
*T*ayeu, MS. § Motley, vol. 2, p. 45. 

II Bor., torn. 3, p. 13G. Brandt, id anlea. 
^ Strada, vol. 2, pp. 8, 9. 

^« Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 3. 



THE REACTION. 439 

strance wliicli be iuteuded to preseut to the gover- 
nant in person, at the head of four hundred knights.- 
Margaret, who was tired of petitions, on being told 
of this determination, sent him this message : " If 
you come to Brussels on such an errand, I shall 
oiiut the city gates in your'face."t But Brederode 
could not be beaten at the game of bluff, and spite 
of all, he succeeded in laying his memorial at the 
regent's feet.:}: Her reply was blunt and haughty 
enough — fit twin to her message : " I wonder what 
kind of nobles these are who, after requesting, only 
a twelvemonth back, to be saved merely from the 
Inquisition, now presume to clamor for liberty to 
preach in the cities. Know, then, that the gueux 
are disbanded, and that the accord is cancelled. 
As for you and your companions, sir count, you 
will do well to go to your homes at once. Meddle 
less with pubHc affairs and attend more to your 
own. Disobey at your peril. "§ 

Thus with disdainful hauteur an^l sinister threats 
did the duchess respond to a paper which ventured 
to remind her of her straits and her pledges. 

Meantime, Brederode's seed had sprouted. A raff 
of fugitives, under the command of young Marnix 
of Thoulouse, a brother of St. Aldegonde, fresh from 
. college, with no title but his courage to leadership, 
made a descent on the island of Walcheren, a place 
of strategic importance. Eepelled by the vigilance 
of tHe islanders, Marnix reembarked, and sailing 

« Bor., torn. 3, p. US. Strada, vol. 1, p. 142. 

t Vide Prescott, vol. 2, p. 99. 

X Ibid. , p. 100. Strada, uhi sup. Cor. de Philippe II. 

f Strada. p. 143. Meteren. vol. 2. folio 47. 



i40 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

up the Scheldt, again left his boats at the hamlet of 
Austruweel, under the shadow of Antwerp walls.* 
The unhappy boy landed only to meet his death; 
for on the 12th of March, 1567, his undisciplined 
levies Avere surprised and literally butchered by 
Beauvoir, commander of the regent's body-guard. t 
This slaughter — for it was not a battle — stirred a 
three days' tumult in Antwerp, which was finally 
appeased without bloodshed by the courageous en- 
ergy and tact of the Prince of Orange.J 

Some months before the tragedy of Austruweel, 
Noircarmes was told that several stragghng bands 
of the gueiix, mustering in the aggregate upwards 
of three thousand men, had appeared in the vicin- 
ity of Tournay with the twofold object of protect- 
ing that city, which had refused a garrison, and 
creatine; a diversion in favor of Valenciennes. The 
ferocious soldier, among whose faults slothfulness 
Avas not numbered, at once Avithdrew a moiety of 
his troops fror^, the Valenciennes trenches, and 
speeding to meet the foe, assailed the unsuspecting 
camp of the confederates with exceeding fury. 
The guenx made a gallant effort to breast the onset ; 
mechanics, rustics, students, fought hke braA^e men, 
long and Avell ; but the contest was too unequal, 
and in the end the battle became a massacre. § 
Pausing but to complete the rout, Noircarmes 

« Stracla, vol. 2, pp. 3, 4. Bor., torn. 3, p. 157. 
f Ibid. Metereu, torn. 2, folio 45. 
% Ibid. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 127, d seq. 

§ Green v. Priust., Archives, etc., torn. 3, pp. 7, 8. Hoofd. 
Strada. 



THE REACTION. 441 

tliundered up to the gates of Tournay, and com- 
pelled the town, no longer capable of resistance, 
to throw open its posterns and shout him a wel- 
come. He garrisoned the citadel, suppressed the 
reformed worship, broke up the consistory, banish- 
ed the preachers, reestablished Komanism, and then 
hastened back to Valenciennes to press the siege 
with redoubled vigor.* 

This victory made Brussels sweat with joyful 
wine and jubilant gluttony ; multitudinous were the 
feasts, countless were the drunken orgies with 
which the courtiers celebrated it. " I saw Barlai- 
ment just go by my window," wrote Schwartz to 
William ; " he was coming from Aerschot's dinner 
with a face as red as the cardinal's new hat."t 

Noircarmes left banqueting to the carpet- 
knights ; and, freed from all danger of hostile inter- 
ference by the recent crushing victories, concen- 
trated his whole mind upon the reduction of Valen- 
ciennes. The rough soldier's pluck had been sup- 
plemented by the rare military skill of Egmont, a 
new-comer in the camp;| and now, under their 
united supervision, the hapless town was girt closer 
and yet closer by the grim cordon of mercenary 
spearmen. The beleaguered citizens fought with 
the energy of desperation ;§ but on what field was 
untutored devotion ever known to conquer science ? 
At length a terrific cannonade laid half the place in 

2> Strada, pp. 7, 8. 

f Archives et Correspondance. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 49. 
I Valeuciciiues, MS. ■^ Ibid. Strada, vol. 2, p. 7, d acq. 
19* 



442 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ruins, and battered a dozen fatal breaches in the 
walls. Noircarmes, sword in hand, was about to 
lead his men-at-arms in a wild assault, when, to 
escape the horrors of a sack, the gallant city struck 
its flag, surrendering at discretion.* 

On the 2d of April, 1567, exactly four months 
after the commencement of the siege, the victori- 
ous cohorts of the king trooped through the blood- 
stained and shattered streets of Avhat had been the 
most prosperous commercial town on the whole 
French border.f Now fallen from its high estate, 
Valenciennes was deprived of its ancient immuni- 
ties, sentenced to defray the expenses of its sub- 
jugation, and compelled to provide quarters for a 
X3ermanent garrison of eight battalions of imperious 
soldiers.:]: 

Nor did Noircarmes rest satisfied with this hu- 
miliation. He tore down the chajDels and abolished 
the worship of the reformed religion, decreed that 
henceforth none but the Koman service should be 
celebrated within or without the city gates; and to 
give emphasis to his decree, led out a host of vic- 
tims to die.§ Among the suiferers were La Grange, 
and De Bray. " Citizens," cried La Grange, as he 
stood upon the ladder of the gibbet, " I am slain for 
having preached the pure word of God to a Chris- 
tian people in a Christian land." "Friends," ech- 

•-- Strada, vol. 2, p. 10. Bor., torn. 3, p. 142. 

f Valenciennes, MS. 

X Strada, uhi sup. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 129. 

§ Bor., torn. 3, p. 142. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 129. Valenciennes, MS. 



THE REACTION. U3 

oed De Bray, " this also is my sole offence." Ere 
tliey had finished sj^eaking, the eager executioner 
launched both into eternity.* 

The keys of Valenciennes opened the gates of 
every city in the Netherlands. Oudenarde, Ghent, 
Ypres, Tornhut, became servilely submissive.f Me- 
gen dropped garrisons into the towns of Guelders.]: 
Aremberg cantoned his soldiers on the inhabitants 
of Groningen and rriesland.§ Soon throughout the 
provinces there was neither the power nor the pur- 
pose of resistance. 

Emboldened by the success which had thus far 
attended her diplomacy and by the triumphant 
progress of her arms, Margaret determined to de- 
mand of the whole round of governmental function- 
aries the taking of a new and sweeping oath of alle- 
giance — extra-judicial, unprecedented. This meas- 
ure had been uppermost in her mind since the early 
weeks of 1566, when it was formally discussed and 
approved at the council-board.]] The test-oath 
itself, while binding all who took it to uphold the 
Eoman church, to punish sacrilege, to extirpate 
heresy, to yield ready, unquestioning, unqualified 
obedience to the king's commands, of whatever na- 
ture they might be, decreed deprivation of office as 
the penalty of non-subscription.TT 

This pledge, a kind of verbal inquisition, was 

» Brandt, Hist, des MartjTS, folios CGI, GG2. 
f Metereu, torn. 2, folio 45. Strada, vol. 2, pp. 13-23. 
X Ibid. § Ibid. 

11 Strada, vol. 2, p. 11. Bor., Meteren. IT Ibid. 



444 THE DUTCH KEFOKMATION. 

exacted by the governant, not as a test of temper, 
for slie could well distinguish between the king's 
friends and foes ; not as a bond for the insincere, 
for she knew that these could not be tied ; but as a 
decent pretext for the dismissal from power of the 
disaffected who might refuse to sully their lips by a 
false vow, and as an excuse for the execution of 
whoever should take and then break the oath.* 
And she was especially induced to cast this pru- 
dent anchor to windward at this time, by the late 
arrival of an express from Madrid, which api3rized 
her that the duke of Alva was about to embark for 
the Netherlands as the avanf-courier of Philip. f 

The oath was taken, with more or less willing- 
ness, by Aerschot, and Barlaimont, and Megen, and 
Egmont, and by Count Mansfeld, the new " facto- 
tum at Brussels," whose name led this bead-roll of 
court saints. :[: Four seigneurs — Brederode, Horn, 
Hoogstraaten, and Orange — spurned it with indig- 
nation. Brederode, who held an insignificant mili- 
tary command, threw up his commission in disgust. 
Horn, who had already resigned his honors, sent 
word from "VVeert that the demand on him was use- 
less. Hoogstraaten asked Margaret to relieve him 
of the lieutenant-generalship of Antwerp. Orange 
promptly tendered the resignation of his many dig- 
nities. § 

As for Brederode, and Horn, and Hoogstraaten, 
their pleas were answered with laconic disdain ; but 
Orange was still too influential to alienate ; so the 

« Stiada, vol. 2, p. 11. t Ibitl. t Ibiel. ^ Ibid. 



THE REACTION. 445 

duchess coaxed, wheedled, and bulHed by turns, witli 
a resolute purpose of persuading the prince to lay 
his head in the lap of Delilah ; but all in vain." 

Berti, Margaret's private secretary, ventured to 
expostulate, and referred to the prince's honor, 
which would be impugned, and to his motives, 
which would be misconstrued. " Say no more," 
interrupted Orange ; " I am determined to quit the 
provinces ; I will await better days in another land. 
Leave me to care for my honor ; and as for my mo- 
tives, I leave their vindication to posterity. "f 

The wil}^ secretary was at his wit's end ; but as 
he was about to bow himself out of William's pres- 
ence, he made one last effort. " I pray you, sir," 
said he, " ere you leave the Netherlands, talk this 
business over with Egmont and such others of the 
seigneurs as you may select." To this the prince 
readily assented ; and the village of Willebrock, on 
the Kapel, between Brussels and Antwerp, was 
named as the place of conference.:]: 

Here, on the first of April, 1567, Egmont, accom- 
panied by Count Mansfeld and Berti, met his high- 
ness of Nassau.§ Notwithstanding their dissimilar- 
ity of character and position, Egmont and Orange 
Avere warm personal friends, and each now exerted 
himself to the utmost to win over the other to his 
way of thinking. The prince knew that the leading 

** Eenom. de Francia. Corresp. de Guillaiime le Tacit., torn. 2. 
Grocn v. Prinst., Archives, etc., torn. 3, pp. 43, 48. 

f Strada, vol. 2, p. 13. Corresp. de Guillaume le Tacit., pp. 
354-117. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 130. 

X Ibid., p. 14. Cor. de Gi;il. le Tac, torn. 2, p, 41G. § Tbid. 



446 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

seigneurs had been proscribed at Madrid — that 
Alva's coming meant death to all. Had he not 
read the programme in black and white? "Count," 
said lie, " fly before the coming storm ; bide it out 
with me in Germany." 

But Egmont was deaf to his friend's arguments. 
To him the prophetic warning of Orange seemed to 
come from a sad and dispirited heart. Above his 
head the sky still smiled. Never before had he been 
so courted by the duchess; and popularity is the 
best prism to see fancies by. Besides, for him, 
exile was pecuniary ruin. A Fleming, all his estates 
lay in the provinces ; nor was he the man to accept 
beggary for a principle. Then, too, he was a sin- 
cere Komanist, and his creed tied him to the throne. 
Orange, on the contrary, was a Protestant. A moi- 
ety of his heritage was without the confines of the 
states. If he passed into Germany, he went not 
into exile, but to the home of his ancestors — to the 
warm greeting of leal kinsmen and devoted co-reli- 
gionists. Every motive urged William to depart 
for a season ; most motives persuaded Egmont to 
remain. Therefore neither could shake the deter- 
mination of the other. 

"It will cost you your provincial estates. Orange, 
if you persist in your purpose," said the count, as 
he led the prince aside into the embrasure of a 
window. " And you your life, Egmont, if you change 
not yours," was the grave reply. Orange added : 
" To me it will at least be some consolation in nij 
misfortunes, that I desired in deed, as well as in 



THE EEACTION. Ul 

word, to help my country and my. friends in the 
hour of need ; but you, my friend, you are dragging 
friends and country with you to destruction." 

" Nay," said Egmont, " you will never persuade 
me to see things in the gloomy light in which they 
appear to your mournful prudence. The king is 
good and just; if I have erred, I will retrieve the 
past, and then throw myself on the royal clem- 
ency." 

" Well, then," cried Orange, " trust if you will to 
Philip's gratitude ; but my soul presages — may God 
grant that I be deceived — that you, Egmont, will 
be the bridge across which the Spaniards will pass 
to the destruction of our country." Then, clasping 
Egmont to his heart, wdiile tears dimmed his eyes, 
he gazed at him long, as if the sight were to serve 
for the remainder of his life ; and so they parted, 
one to go hoodwinked to the scaffold in a few brief 
months, the other to reserve himself for the glori- 
ous duties of the future.* 

While Egmont hastened back to Brussels, to 
dispel the light cloud which the interview at Wille- 

« Strada, vol. 2, p. 11. .Beutivoglio, torn. 3, p. 55. Hoofd, 
torn. 4, p. 130. 

"Hoofd alludes to a rumor, according to whlcli Egmont said 
to Orange at parting : ' Adieu, landless prince ! ' being answered 
by his friend, ' Adieu, headless count ! ' The stoi-y has been often 
repeated, yet nothing could well be more insipid than such an 
invention. Hoofd observes that the whole conversation was re- 
ported by a person whom the Calvinists had concealed in the chim- 
ney of the apartment where the interview took place. It would 
have been difficult to credit such epigrams even had the historian 
himself been in the chimney." Motley, vol. 2, pp. 88, 89, note. 



448 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

brock had cast upon the horizon of his mind, bj 
sunning himself with fresh abandon in Margaret's 
favor, the wiser prince occupied himself in pushing 
the preparations for his expatriation. Time pressed. 
The minutes now were full of scaffolds. Already 
"William had been warned by his wife's kinsman, 
the landgrave of Hesse, to " beware of Alva." " I 
know him well," added the acute old man; "let 
him not smear your mouth with honey."* It was a 
blunder which Orange Avas not likely to fall into. 
A few daj's after the abortive conference with Eg- 
mont, he set out for Breda.f There he paused for 
a space to settle his private affairs and to indite 
farewell letters to Philip, to the governant, to Horn, 
to Egmont. As if aware of the monumental impor- 
tance which these missives were to assume for pos- 
terity, William drew them up in Latin.:}: In that to 
the king, he once more resigned his offices — the gov- 
ernant had refused to accept the tender — announced 
his intention of repairing to Germany, explained 
the reasons on which he based this action, and con- 
cluded thus : " I shall alwaj's be ready to place my- 
self and my property at your majesty's orders in 
every thing which I believe conducive to your true 
service."§ In that to Margaret, he wrote a few 
polite commonplaces, and subscribed himself " her 
liiglmess' most faithful servant."ll In that to Horn, 

=-• Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 3, p. 42. 
t April 11. X Motley, vol. 2, p. 89. 

§ Archives et Correspoudauce, torn. 3, p. G4, et seq. 
II Strada, vol. 2, p. 14. 



THE REACTION. 449 

he said : " I am unable louger to connive at the 
sins daily committed against my country and my 
conscience. Believe me, the government has been 
accustoming us to panniers, only that we may ac- 
cept more patiently the saddle and bridle. My back 
is not strong enough to bear the weight already 
imposed. I prefer exile to slavery."- In that to 
Egmont, he again affirmed that he was acting, not 
from caprice, but deliberately, conscientiously, and 
in pursuance of a long-settled plan. " For yourself, 
Egmont," he added, " I beg you to believe that you 
have no more sincere friend than I am. My love 
for you has struck such deep root into my heart, 
that it can be lessened by no distance of time and 
place ; and I pray you in return to maintain the old 
feeling towards me."t 

On the 22d of April, 1567, the prince bade fare- 
well to the Netherlands for a season, and, accom- 
panied by his whole family — with the exception of 
his eldest son, the count of Buren, who was left to 
pursue his studies at the University of Louvaine, 
sheltered, as his father thought, by the privileges of 
Brabant^ — departed for the ancestral seat of the 
Nassaus at Dillenburg.§ 

While Orange was leaving Breda, Sound-and- 
fury Brederode was preparing to quit Amsterdam. 
For the last tvro months he had spent his time be- 

■-" Ai'chives, etc., uhi swp. 

f Ai-chives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 3, p. 70. 

X Strada, vol. 2, p. 14. 

§ Iliid. Archives ct Correspondance, torn. 3, p. 73. 



450 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION, 

tween that city and his town of Viana, causing riot 
and debauchery to rave and leer wherever he ap- 
peared. An annoyance to all parties, he was shun- 
ned by all. "Wealthy Protestants were especially 
wary of him, for they had no confidence in his capa- 
city to do any thing but demand contributions to 
tlie patriot cause, and then distil their money into 
drink.* He made much mischief, but did little 
good. Indeed, what could be expected of a man 
whose pot companions were outlaws and vaga-, 
bonds — swaggering nobles disguised as sailors, and 
bankrupt tradesmen ?t Not from these shriekers 
of " Vivent les gueux .'" — these haunters of taverns 
and frequenters of bagnios, was emancipation to 
come. 

Alarmed by the tone wdiich affairs were taking, 
Brederode had requested Egmont to intercede for 
him with the duchess. " Offer her carte hlanclie as 
to terms," wrote " the great beggar."$ This late 
submission was rejected by Margaret with disdain; 
so that there was nothing left for it but flight. But 
this historic Mark Tapley was never so hapjDy as 
when he was miserable. On tlie 25th of April, 
1567, he summoned his adherents to meet him at 
his Amsterdam hotel to say good-by; and at mid- 
night, after a wild carouse, he, too, embarked for 
Germany, being escorted to 'the water's edge by a 

« Bor., torn. 3, p. IGl. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 127. 
t Ibid. Motley, Tol. 2, p. 92. 

X MS. letter of Granvelle to Alva. Bibl. de Bourg. Cited in 
Motley, vol. 2, p. 93. Strada, vol. 2, p. 19. 



THE REACTION. 451 

body-guard of tipsy followers bearing lighted torch- 
es and chanting bacchanalian songs.* Such was 
"the great beggar's" exit. Within a twelvemonth 
afterwards, Brederode drank himself to death while 
busied in Westphalia in recruiting an army of inva- 
sion — " dying as the fool dieth."t 

The departure of Orange and the flight of Bre- 
derode were the signal for a general exodus. 
Hoogstraaten, Count Louis of Nassau, and Culem- 
burg, with a host of others, followed William into 
Germany,:}: grouping themselves about their self- 
exiled chief by a law kindred to that which mar- 
shals the heavenly bodies around the sun — attrac- 
tion. Those of the seigneurs who remained, made 
haste to imitate Egmont's example; even Horn 
succumbed and took the oath.§ 

Everyv^^llere the reformed were cowed and panic- 
struck; everywhere the papists were jubilant and 
aggressive. Egmont, Noircarmes, Aerschot, Megen, 
were constantly in the saddle scouring the provin- 
ces, and hanging, burning, drowning such of the 
sectaries as had not already sought safety in flight.H 
The fickle masses, whose sympathies are ever with 
success, became as hotly Eomau as they had been 
Protestant. The cities volunteered to suppress her- 
esy. Mobs took it upon themselves, without await- 
ing the verdict of the civil tribunals, to j)unish the 

^ Vita Viglii, p. 51. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 135. 

t Strada, vol. 2, p. 20. Bor., Hoofd. 

J Prescott, vol. 2, p. 128. Meteren, Bor. 

§ Cor. de Marg. d'Autriclie, p. 238. || Ibid., p. 235. 



452 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

iconoclasts and to nproot tlieir monuments ; accord- 
ingly, up and down they roamed, from Valenciennes 
to Amsterdam, assailing, gutting, demolishing the 
newly erected chapels of the Reformation, and dec- 
orating every cross-road with a gibbet shaped from 
the ruins of their sack, on which they hung "here- 
tics " with scoffs and jeers.* 

While these licensed spoilers were thus amu- 
sing themselves, Margaret, the chief mobocrat, was 
making a formal entry into Antwerp at the head of 
sixteen companies of men-at-arms.f The long un- 
broken metropolis had taken the bit and was now 
pulling in the traces of the court. The sectaries 
had been ousted ; the city was swept clean of them ; 
and now the duchess herself was come to secure 
this new prize for the king.| 

In the midst of her triumphs — while heretics 
were being hung and the Roman churches Avere 
being swept and garnished for the reception of sev- 
en other devils worse than the first — a deputation 
from the Lutheran princes of Germany waited upon 
her, and entreated her to grant liberty of worship 
to their provincial brothers of the Confession of 
Augsburg; but the masculine duchess whistled them 
down the wind with little ceremony§ — as they de- 
served, for their narrowness in pleading merely for 
^he toleration of their sect while Protestantism at 
large was in the valley of humiliation. 

=-- Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 208-260. Hoofd, torn. 4. Strada, ut antea. 

t Strada, vol. 2, pp. 17, 18. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 254, 

J Ibid. ' § Strada, uhi sujx 



THE REACTION. 453 

So iser was Margaret from any idea of relaxing 
her severity, that on the 24th of May, 1567, she 
issued an edict which revived the code of the days 
of Granvelle, and smelt of blood in every letter. It 
was an ordinance of such searching cruelty, that it 
was quite impossible for any Protestant who had 
committed an overt act to escape its penalties;* and 
Margaret hastened to despatch a copy to Madrid 
for the king's inspection. Imagine her surprise on 
receiving, a little later, these lines from Philip: 
" This act is indecorous, illegal, and altogether 
repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity ; it must 
be instantly revoked."t " What !" thought her high- 
ness, "have I gone too far?" But on reading the 
king's missive through, she found that his objections 
were not based on the severity, but upon the over- 
leniency of her frightful edict. " Not only those who 
have obtruded their heresy upon the public, but those 
who have been heretics in their secret thoughts, 
must be hunted out and executed,":j: wrote his maj- 
esty. Margaret had not yet completed her educa- 
tion in the school of persecution, and Philip would 
not give her a diploma. 

Nevertheless, "feeble" as the king declared it, 
the edict had half-depopulated the states — driven 
men from the country "in great heaps," in the 
homely phrase of an old chronicler.§ And the emi- 
gration became so frightful, that both foreigners 

* Vide the edict given iu full in Bor., torn. 3, p, 170, el seq. 
t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 551. J Ibid. 

§ Bor., torn. 3, p. 171. 



454 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

and natives were forbidden even to travel, bv a 
proclamation which decreed death as the penalty of 
disobedience.* 

" Thus," says Strada, with gratulatory empha- 
sis, "the fire kindled by the people's discontent, 
blown to a flame by the bellows in the reformed 
pulpits, fed by the emulation 'of the lords, and scat- 
tered by the faction of the gueux, was so damped 
and extinguished by the governant, that religion 
and obedience were everywhere restored ; the here- 
tics being fitly punished, while the leaguers became 
gueux indeed, whose emblem was in fact and not in 
jest, poverty and an empty wallet."t The court 
had a right to felicitate itself; but its creatures 
were mistaken in supposing that the revolution was 
suppressed — it was but postponed. 

The image -breaking had produced reaction; 
and reform, demoralized by excess, needed a fresh 
baptism of blood and suffering ere God would i)er- 
mit it to set its seal upon the future. 

« Bor., torn. 3, p. 175. + Strada, vol. 2, pp. 20, 21. 



ALVA. 455 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 

ALVA. 

In the spring of 1567, tlie duchess of Parma was 
able to forward to Madrid tidings of the full success 
of her covj)s cVefat. The abrogation of the tolerant 
edicts, the dissolution of the gueux, the subjugation 
of the insurgent cities, the flight of the chief inno- 
vators, beggars for then- bread at foreign courts, 
the suppression of the Protestant worship, the res- 
toration of the Roman church to its pristine author- 
ity — these were the spoils of her yictorj. 

The future of reform did, indeed, look black. 
Betrayed by the excesses of fanatics, stabbed by 
the selfishness and inconstancy of the nobles, Hb- 
erty lay at the last gasp— a fact which shows the 
absurdity of that charge of the Eomanist histori- 
ans, that the revolution was stirred by the uneasy 
ambition of the grandees ; a class who, in the out- 
set, obeyed, instead of exciting, the popular move- 
ment, and who later, by their vacillation and dis- 
sensions, brought the cause they had espoused to 
temporary ruin. 

After acquainting the king with the pacification 
of the states, Margaret folded her hands and await- 
ed the royal guerdon with complacent patience. 
But Philip "remembered to forget" her claims. 
In the quiet councils of the imperial will, it had 



456 THP^ DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

been decided to shift tlie governmeut of the prov- 
inces into sterner haads. The definitive nature of 
the regent's restored order was doubted at Madrid. 
The gain was thought to be but transient ; for the 
causes of the recent outbreaks yet existed. The 
ancient charters had been overridden, but they 
were still unannulled. The tenets of the Keforma- 
tion had been smeared with blood, but they still 
commanded reverence. Both were sure to breed 
new tumults. 

Philiii called to mind how his pious ancestors 
had acted under somewhat similar circumstances. 
The Moors, professing to acquiesce in the conquest 
and to receive the faith of their foemen, neverthe- 
less continued to adore Mahomet in their secret 
hearts, praying towards Mecca when alone ; where- 
upon the ministry of the Spanish Inquisition was 
invoked. Evidently the monarch esteemed this an 
act worthy of imitation. 

Accordingly, the pacification which the gover- 
nant vaunted did not alter the purpose of Philip to 
despatch Alva into the Low Countries booted and 
spurred for conquest ; on the contrary, persuaded 
that Margaret was treading upon hot ashes, he was 
urged by the news to fresh exertions in the raising 
and equipping of an army of invasion. All the 
while, however, the king, maj-hap for reasons simi- 
lar to those ascribed by Tacitus to Tiberius under 
somewhat analogous circumstances,* continued to 

* Coeterum, lit jam jamque iterus, legit comites, couqnisivit 
impedimenta, adomavit uaves : mox hiemem, aut uegotia varia 



ALVA. 457 

give out that Alva was to act merely as the herald 
of his own approach.* 

lu Spain the din of warlike preparation recalled 
the stirring days of the paladin emperor. The con- 
tagious epidemic infected all classes. Even those 
who had pleaded against a resort to arms at first, 
now, seeing that Philip had decided upon hostili- 
ties, with the ready tact of courtiers hailed that pol- 
icy with louder vivas than its original advocates. 
Huy Gomez perceived that the expedition would 
at least remove his rival from court, and engage 
him in difficulties which might ha]3ly prove- ruinous 
to his fame ; while Alva was content to leave his 
competitor behind, in whatsoever degree of place 
and favor, because, as it troubled him to see the 
king value his merits less than the other's person, 
so he was ambitious of some employment where 
war and the field might put a difi'erence between 
those whom peace and the court had equalled.f 

Thus from one motive or another opposition had 
hushed its voice, and the levies went briskly on. 
The viceroys of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Lom- 
bardy were ordered to despatch the veteran troojps, 
rusty from inaction in the garrisons of their respec- 
tive territories, to the rendezvous in Piedmont, 
where Alva was to meet them, and supply their 
places with the raw Castilian recruits whom he 
brought out.:}: Money was sent to the Netherlands, 

cansatns primo prudentes, deiu vulgum, diiitissime pl•o^incias 
fefellit." Taciti Annales, torn. 1, cap. 47. 

* Strada, torn. 2, p. 25. t Hjic^- § Ibid. 

nntrh Rcf. 20 



458 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

that the regent might hold in readiness those men- 
at-arms who had just dragooned the provinces into 
submission." And " since the invasion resembled 
both a crusade against the infidel and a treasure- 
hunting foray into the golden Indies, achievements 
b} which Spanish chivalry had so often illustrated 
itself; since the banner of the cross was to be re- 
planted upon the conquered battlements of three 
hundred heretical cities, and a torrent of wealth 
richer than ever flowed from Mexican or Peruvian 
mines was to pour into the royal and ecclesiastical 
exchequers from the perennial fountains of confis- 
cation," it was fitting that the Spanish clergy, and 
especially the monks of the Inquisition, should con- 
tribute richly towards the expenses of this holy war.i- 

Alva was the Pizarro of the new crusade — ^a fact 
which exhibited ahke the animus and the purpose 
of the king. 

Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, duke of Alva, was 
the heir of an ancient Castilian house which claimed 
descent from the Byzantine emperors.:]: Born in 
1508, and orphaned in his fifth year by the death of 
his father, slain by the African Moors at the siege 
of Gelves, he was adopted by his paternal grandfa- 
ther, famous as the conqueror of Navarre, and nursed 
on the breast of two ideas : a passion for war and a 
hatred of whatever bore the countenance of heresy.§ 

="■ Schiller, Eevolt of tlie Netlaerlauds. 

t Prescott, Tol. 2, p. 149. Meteren, Hist. desPays-Bas, fol. 52. 
X Hist de Ferdinand- Alvarez, Due d'Albe, p. 3 ; Paris, 1099. 
§ Ibid. Conde de la Koca's Life, etc., of Alva. 



ALVA. 459 

Donning liis armor at an early age, the skilful 
gallantry of young Alvarez speedily attracted the 
attention of the long-headed, though still bojdsh 
emperor. These two soon became sworn compan- 
ions-in-arms, and for a quarter of a century the sol- 
dier was the strong right hand of Charles V. Al- 
ways in harness, and studying war as a science in the 
camp of Caesar, the nascent captain rose rapidly in 
his profession until, at the siege of Metz, in 1552, 
he held the haton of generalissimo." 

Before this, in 1527, he had succeeded to the 
titles and the large patrimonial estates of the house 
of Toledo ; and though his duchy yielded a com- 
l^aratively small revenue, the rigid economy of the 
thrifty financier, which bordered upon niggardli- 
ness, together with what booty he could pick up in 
his campaigns — no inconsiderable source of gain — 
mated him with the wealthiest of the European 
nobles.t 

As a soldier, Alva was singularly successful. 
He was scientific, he was adroit, and he was cau- 
tious to a proverb. t- Like his Eoman prototype, 
his delays had often saved the monarchy. Perhaps 
the success of his mihtary career was OAnng more to 
the fact that he knew as well how to wait as how to 
strike — that, in an age when war was practised as 

* Hist, de Ferdinand-Alvarez, Due d'Albe, p. 3 ; Paris, 1G09. 
Conde delaEoca'sLife, etc., of Alva. Brantome, Horn, Illiist., etc. 

t Ibid. 

X "Caution was his most prominemt trait ; in which, even as a 
boy, he was a match for any graybeard in the army." Prescott, 
vol. 1, p. 163. 



460 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

a street-fight is now waged, on rough-and-tumble 
principles, he was a thorough master of the science 
of offence and defence — than to his intuitive military 
genius. Indeed, Alva was not a genius, he was 
merely a consummate pedant. He was a hard stu- 
dent of war, but he originated nothing. Some one 
has said that most people's ideas are adopted chil- 
dren ; few brains can raise a family of their own. 
Alva was Fabius Cunctator resurrected. 

The soldierly qualities of this vivified copy of the 
dead were well known and appreciated throughout 
Europe. His cunning, his caution, his stealth, his 
discipline, his venom, made him the least desirable 
of antagonists, and won for him a reputation so sin- 
ister that his very name caused men to shudder; 
for his military qualities were but the outcome of 
his personal character. Hard, uncompromising, 
miserly, ferocious, patiently vindictive — such was 
his temper; and his manner, stern and overbearing 
from the practice of the camp, was the exact reflex 
of his mind. 

As a politician, Alva possessed neither experi- 
ence nor talent. Yet because he had expunged 
from his vocabulary the word mercy, because he 
was a bigot in religion, because he was an absolu- 
tist in politics — good qualities which counterbal- 
anced all defects in his master's mind — Philip had 
selected him as the fittest of his satellites to organ- 
ize murdei- in the Netherlands. 

The famous captain was at this time in his 
sixtieth year, but hale and hearty as in middle 



ALVA. . 461 

life * His tall, lean person, hardened by ex^DOSure and 
preserved by habitual temperance, seemed good yet 
for many a warlike bout, and gave him a striking 
martial air — though dark and sinister eyes, a yel- 
low complexion, black hair which resembled the 
" quills on the back of a fretful porcupine," and a 
mottled beard which flowed, cascade-like, over the 
breast in a double stream,! did not- impart to him 
the aspect of an Alcibiades or an Apollo. 

On the 15th of April, 1567, Alva had a last inter- 
view with PhiHp at Aranjuez, receiving instructions 
so copious and minute, that he complained of them 
as hampering his actions beyond any programme 
of procedure which the emperor himself had ever 
marked out for his guidauce.:|: A few days later,§ 
he embarked at Carthagena, where a fleet of thirty- 
six galleys, commanded by the Genoese admiral, 
Andrew Doria, had awaited him, and set sail for 
Italy, whence he was to cross the Alps into the 
Low Countries — a path rendered necessary by the 
refusal of Charles IX. to give him passage through 
France, under pretext that the Huguenots would 
misconstrue the courtesy.il 

Landing at Genoa, after a somewhat protracted 
voyage, Alva was pinched by the gout, brought on 
by the sea air, and this in its turn was aggravated 

« Badavaro, MS. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 119. 

f Ibid. X Documentos Ineditos, torn. 4, p. 354. 

§ Prescott says on the 27th of April. Vol. 2, p. 153. Schiller 
says on the 5th of May. Vol. 2, p. 66. Bohn's ed. Motley says on 
the 10th of May. Vol. 2, p. 110. Strada gives no date. 

II Strada, torn. 2, p. 20. 



462 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

by an attack of tertian ague, wliicli laid him on a 
sick-bed for a week.* 

Upon being apprized of the duke's ilhiess, Mar- 
garet of Parma made a desperate effort to bar out 
the invaders by a direct appeal to the king, ere the 
hostile trumpets should resound from beyond the 
Alps. Perfectly well acquainted with the imperious 
temper of Alva, thoroughly familiar with his arro- 
gance, she was convinced that his mere presence at 
Brussels with the king's commission in his pocket, 
whatever might be its ostensible tenor, really meant 
that she was to be practically superseded, however 
high-sounding might be the titles which she re- 
tained. At the best, she was to have a yoke-fel- 
low in authority — one, too, whose hauteur made 
Granvelle's arrogance seem tame in comparison ; 
and even this seemed a grievance, accustomed as 
she had been to sipping the sweets of autocratic 
power. 

Moreover, the governant felt especially sore at 
the duke's warlike incoming at this moment, be- 
cause now, after years of toil and mortification and 

•" Analogoiis to the conflict of authorities just cited, is the dis- 
agreement regarding the x>^<^cs at which Alva was laid up by this 
sickness. Strada says it was at Milan. Tom. 2, p. 27. Motley 
tells us that it was at Nice. Vol. 2, p. 110. Davies affirms that it 
was at Genoa. Vol. 1, p. 546. Prescott leads us to suppose that 
it was at Asti. Vol. 2, p. 154. When such doctors disagree, who 
shall decide? So, too, in the matter of the Genoese galleys in 
which Alva sailed. Prescott says these were thirty-six in num- 
der. Vol. 2, p. 153. Motley says thirty-seven. Vol. 2, p. 110. 
Not very important matters, but worth stating correctly, if given 
at all. 



ALVA. 463 

patient intrigue, she had at length pacified the 
states, only to see another reap the glory and eat 
the ripe fruit of her weary planting. Her indigna- 
tion was very natural ; nor did she scruple to remon- 
strate with the king. Repeated and angry were the 
letters with Avhich she had freighted the Spanish 
mail-bags ever since she had learned of Alva's inva- 
sive preparations. Now, once more, notwithstand- 
ing previous snubbings, she seized this opportunity 
of the duke's sickness to despatch another earnest 
protest against the crusade as at once a personal 
indignity and an injury to the state. " I am sur- 
prised, sire," it was so she wrote, " that j-ou should 
have decided on so important a measure, one likely 
to be attended with such fatal results, without con- 
sulting me and against my uniform advice. But 
since you have withdrawn your confidence from me, 
and seeing that things are in such a good state — 
the royal authority more firmly established than in 
the time of Charles V. — and because you seem 
willing to permit another to reap the credit of my 
fatigue and danger, I pray you to accept my resig- 
nation."* 

On the same day tlie duchess wrote to Alva, 
imploring him to await the farther orders of the 
king in Italy ;t but it was the gout, more potent 
than Margaret's flurried letters, that held the sol- 
dier at Milan and at Asti. As for Philip, he sent 
the seigneur de Bill}^, Margaret's envoy, back to 

* Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, pp. 523, 532. 
t Motley, vol. 2, p. 112. Strada, torn. 2, p. 29. 



464: THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

Brussels with tins message : " Do you think uo moie 
of resignation. My army comes into the Low Coun- 
tries for no other end but to establish peace."* At 
this same time Euy Gomez acquainted the regent 
with the recent death of the Marquis of Berghen, 
Montigny's colleague in the hapless embassy to 
Spain.t Contemporaneous Europe believed that 
his life was abridged by the poisoner's bowl.ij: 

In the meantime, Alva, now convalescent, mus- 
tered and reviewed his veterans at Alexandria de 
Palla, and thence marched with them to San Am- 
brosio, a rendezvous just at the chilly foot of the 
Italian Alps.§ Here there was another and a final 
review; after which the men-at-arms were divided 
into three corps — the first, led by Alva himself, 
started at once across the frozen heights of Mount 
Cenis to wind down through Burgundy and Lor- 
raine into the Netherlands, an Al^^ine path trodden 
sixteen centuries before, according to tradition, by 
Hannibal ; the second advanced a day later, with 
orders to bivouac nightly in the camp occupied 
twenty-four hours earlier by the vanguard ; and the 
third in its turn was to put an equal space of time 
between its march and that of its predecessor ;!l a 
treble advance cunningly devised to jeopard but one 
division at a time in the icy fastnesses of the moun- 

« Strada, torn. 2, p. 27. t I^i^l- 

I Ibid. Prescott does not seem to credit this rumor ; but Stra- 
da refers to it, saying : " I mean not to affirm it otherwise than as 
a conjecture." Tom. 2, p. 28. 

§ B. de Mendoza. Guerras de los Payses baxos, folio 30. 

II B. do Mendoza, ui antea. 



ALVA. 465 

tain, where a few sturdy chamois hunters might 
have easily surprised and slaughtered an armed 
host. " What could not the lion do if he were the 
monkey also ?" queries the Chinese proverb. Alva 
was both — a lion in prowess, a monkey in. finesse. 

The invading force was small, numbering but fifty 
men over ten thousand* — an army in miniature, but 
it was absolutely 23erfect in equipment and disci- 
pline. Composed of picked soldiers, men trained 
under the eye of Alva, and inured to victory beneath 
the banner of Charles Y., no more compact and vet- 
eran-like array had answered to the roll-call since 
the days of the old Macedonian phalanx.f Hardy, 
practised, confident, each man was a host, and each 
carried himself with the air of a prince. Each com- 
pany of foot was flanked by a body of musketeers, 
armed with a weapon now for the first time brought 
into field service. Each of these was attended by 
a servant, who bore his musket for him on the march, 
and they were so richly habited and so gracefully 
arrogant, that all yielded them the deference usu- 
ally paid to ofl&cers alone. J 

But the oddest sight of all was a corps of two 
thousand women — Italian prostitutes, as regularly 
enrolled and drilled as the men-at-arms, whose ap- 
pointments and discipline received the enthusiastic 
commendation of Brantome.§ "For their pres- 
ence," said Alva, "I have the authority of the Athe- 

" Dociimentos luetlitos, torn. 4, p. 382. 

t Brantome, Grandes Caijitaines eti*angers, etc. — Due d'Albc. 
X Ibid. 1^ Brantome;, id antea 

20* 



466 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

niau general Ipliicrates, who awarded the prize of 
valor to the pleasure-loving and rapacious soldier."* 
A Greek precedent always sufficed for him, and 
though driven by the necessity of expedition to 
dispense with artillery, and by the high price of 
provisions in the Alps to reduce his force to the 
smallest possible number, he preferred to count a 
few regiments less rather than leave behind the 
wantons who gave to the army the aspect of a bac- 
chanalian procession, contrasting strangely with 
the gloomy seriousness and pretended sanctity of 
its aim.t 

However, the presence of the courtesans did not 
relax the iron discipline of the troops ; and it is cer- 
tainly a remarkable illustration of the repressive 
skill of Alva, that, throughout his march, and in an 
age when soldier and license were synonyms, no 
woman was insulted, no peasant was plundered, no 
untoward accident occurred4 

Thus, ill the pleasant month of Jtine, and by 
short marches, Alva scaled the Alps, trod over 
Savoy, crossed the Spanish corner of Burgundy, 
passed through Lorraine, and in the early' daj^s of 
August, entered the Low Countries, molesting none 
and himself unopposed — though the allied army of 
Geneva, called to arms by the prayer of Pius Y. 
that Alva should destroy their city as a " nest of 
devils and apostates,"§ and a French army of obser- 

* Cited in Schiller, vol. 2, p. G7, Bolin's ed. f I^^id. 

I Strada, torn. 2, p. 31. 

§ Leti, Vita di Filippe IL, torn. 1, p. 489. 



ALVA. 467 

vation, bung on his skirts, carefully abstaining from 
all hostile acts, and aiming only to cover their 
respective frontiers.^' 

At Thionville, the duke, who was accompanied 
by a glittering cortege of distinguished officers — by 
Paciotti, by Yitelli, by Mandragone, by his sons 
Fre'derick and Ferdinand de Toledo,t was met by 
Noircames and Barlaiment, who gave him a cordial 
welcome for themselves, and a formal one for Mar- 
garet.:!: Advancing thence towards the capital, he 
was greeted from time to time by numbers of the 
Flemish grandees. Among the rest came Egmont, 
as anxious as the common herd to conciliate the 
new viceroy by a show of friendship. 

"Behold the arch-heretic !" exclaimed Alva in a 
stage whisper to one of his staff officers, as Egmont 
came into his presence. The Fleming paused, 
changed color, and seemed quite thrown off his bal- 
ance. Alva, however, quickly resumed his mask, 
and embracing his illustrious dupe, he laughed 
away his insolent greeting as an excellent jest.§ 
But with all his caution, he found it impossible not 
to coin his thoughts into words and put them in 
circulation. To the welcoming congratulations of 
the sycophantic grandees, he responded brusquely : 
"Well, welcome or not, 'tis all one; here I am."il 

This impudent reception should have opened 

* Dc Thou, Hist, du Due d'Albe. Metereu. 

I Documentos Ineditos, torn. 4. B. de Meudoza. 

X Strada, torn. 2, p. 31. Hoofd, torn. 4. 

§ Meteren, Hist, des Pays-Bas, folio 53. Bor., torn. 4, p. 1S2. 

ji Metereu, uhi sup. 



4:68 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

Egmout's eyes to the precipice on whose brink he 
tottered ; and it would, had he not been determined 
to be bhnd. Like an infatuated gamester, he had 
decided to sit out the unequal and tricky game — to 
await tlie hazardous casting of the die. According-l 
ly, he affected to regard the insults of the Spanish 
captain as the most sportive of hon mots, presented 
him with a couple of beautiful horses, the finest of 
his stud and accompanied him on the route to Brus- 
sels.* Thus it was that William's prophecy was ful- 
filled, and Egmont was the " bridge over which the 
Spaniards passed into the Netherlands to destroy 
them." The hero of St. Quentin sank to be the coz- 
ened tool of his own future executioner. " Scrape a 
Russian, and you will find a Tartar," said Napoleon. 
Strip Egmont of his gilding, and you see an idiot. 

On the 22d of August, 1567, Alva entered Brus- 
sels. The streets were deserted, not a viva was 
shouted.t Not the plague itself had ever hushed 
the city to such frightful stillness. Nor was it in 
the capital alone that silence reigned : everywhere 
trade was suspended. The exodus, enormous before, 
was now ruinous. " Upon the very rumor of a for- 
eign army," wrote Margaret to tlie king, " diverse 
tradesmen and merchants at once departed from 
us ; and now, since Alva has entered the states, the 
highways are choked with fugitives — trade flying 
because no money can bo made here now, while 
there must be assessments and great taxes ; popu- 

* Hooftl, torn. 4, p. 150. Metercu, ul anlea 
■j- Prescott, vol. 2, p. 1G3. 



ALVA. 469 

lation going out because men think these forces are 
come to be their executioners."* 

Alva was serenely indifferent to the hatred 
which his name evoked. Like most military men, 
especially in that age, he despised a mercantile 
community ; and this led him to underrate the race 
whom he had come to peel and butcher. " I have 
tamed men of iron in my day," said he with a sneer ; 
" shall I not easily crush these men of butter ?"t 
He saw in the Low-Countrymen not an enemy but 
a prey ; and it was with a confident smile that he 
had said to Philip, " I will make treasure flow 
from the Netherlands into Spain in a stream a javd 
deep."$ The speech was characteristic of the man. 
But has not some wit said that dogmatism is pup- 
pyism come to maturity ? 

Without pausing .to rearrange his dress, dusty 
and travel-stained, Alva hastened to wait upon the 
govern ant. At the gates of her palace an unseemly 
7nelee occurred, caused by the refusal of Margaret's 
body-guard of archers to permit the duke's halber- 
diers to enter the court.§ At length, however, 
Alva was admitted to the audience-chamber. His 
reception was freezing. Quite in the centre of the 
apartment, with Barlaiment and Aerschot and Eg- 
mont grouped about her, stood the regent ; nor 
would she break the statuesque rigidity of her jMse 
by taking a single step forward to meet the unwel- 

* Strada, torn. 2, p. 27. t Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 148. 

% Cited in Motlej', vol. 2, p. 103. 

§ Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. G31. 



170 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

come duke.* Alva was more complaisant. Doffing 
his steel bonnet, lie begged, " with Castilian but 
empty courtesy," to be permitted to lay liis army 
and himself at the feet of the sister of his king.f 
Margaret, in recognition of Alva's right as a Span- 
ish grandee to remain covered even in the pres- 
ence of royalty, insisted upon his resuming his bon- 
net ; after which a stiff and formal conversation of 
half an hour's duration took place, marked on the 
governant's side by an affectation of imperial hau- 
teur ; on the duke's, by an assumed deference which 
ill disguised a contemptuous sense of his supreme 
importance.! Throughout the interview, all re- 
mained standing.§ 

" May I ask, my lord duke," queried the regent, 
" what may be the nature and extent of your pow- 
ers?" "Eeall}'," was the cool response, "I do not 
exactly recollect. I will look over my papers, and 
let you know at my earliest convenience."!! Appa- 
rently, Margaret was unmoved by these words, for 
she said, " I commend his majesty's intention ; all 
may be well in case peace, newly restored to the 
. states, be not, like a tender plant, spoiled by dig- 
ging too deep about it."ir With this, icy adieux 
were passed, and Alva retired to his headquarters 
at Culemberg House** — the mansion in whose din- 

•'' MendiYil's Acct. in Docnmentos Ineditos, torn. 4, p. 398. 

f Ibid. I Vandervynckt, torn. 2, p. 53. 

§ Ibid. Cor. de Philippe II., uhi sup. 

II Vandervynckt, ut aniea. 

IT Strada, torn. 2, p. 32. 

** Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1. 



ALVA. 471 

ing-hall the gueux had received their name at 
Brederode's mad revel. 

The day after this interchange of empty con- 
gratulations, Alva had an official interview with the 
governant and the council of state, at which he ex- 
hibited his commissions. By one of these he was 
appointed captain-general of the Netherlands, with 
supreme power in all military spheres.* By another, 
these duties were enlarged and so defined as to 
lodge in the hands of the captain-general full 
authority to displace and replace magistrates and 
governors, and to examine into the causes of the late 
tumults, and to punish the participants — a commis- 
sion which raised Alva to the level of an autocrat.f 

These instruments were produced and inspected 
by the regent in council ; but the wily duke kept 
a third and yet more important commission, which 
expressly invested him with the supreme authority 
in civil as well as in military affairs, and enjoined 
all persons, Margaret included, to obey the viceroy 
as the king himself,:!: in abeyance ; replying to the 
regent's question, " Have you any farther instruc- 
tions?" "Yes, more than can be opened at one 
meeting ; but which, according to future exigencies, 
I shall impart to your liighness."§ 

Although these instructions were careful to 

'" Ibid., torn. 2. Appeudix, No. 88. This was dated Decern, 
ber 1, 15G6. 

j- Documentos Ineditos, torn. 4, f)p. 3S8-39G. This was dated 
January 31, 1507. 

% Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2. Appendix No. 102. This was 
dated on the 1st of March, 15G7. § Strada, torn. 2, p. 32. 



472 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

state that Margaret's authority was to remain 
unimpafrecl — tliat Alva was merely placed " in cor- 
respondence with his majesty's dear sister of Par- 
ma"* — the governant well knew that she had been 
superseded, and she felt esj)ecially humiliated by 
this juggling method of depriving her of the sceptre. 
Many and bitter were her complaints of the afiront 
put on her by the king; nor was she at all carefid 
nito whose ears she poured the story of her wrongs : 
least of all was she reticent with Philip. "I disclaim 
all jealousy of the extraordinary powers conferred 
upon the captain-general," wrote she to her royal 
brother ; " but I think, sire, that you should have 
dismissed me before depriving me of honor."t 

After the exhibition of his credentials, Alva pro- 
ceeded to canton his troops. The Milanese brigade 
was .quartered in the suburbs of Brussels.^: The 
cavalry, upwards of eighteen hundred strong,§ was 
encamped at a convenient point, ten leagues from 
the capital.ll The other divisions of the army Avere 
saddled upon the larger cities of the provinces — 
Antwerjj, Ghent, and the rest' — whose authorities 
were at the same time required to transfer the keys 
of their respective municipalities to the hands of 
the captain-general.TT 

These preliminary acts revealed the spirit of the 

duke, as the careless prattle of a petulant child 

* Bor., torn. 4, p. 182. 

f StracLa, uhi svp. $ Meteren, Bor., Prescott. 

§ Dociimentos Ineditos, torn. 4, p. 382. 

II Hist, du Due d'Albe. Meteren. 

U Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 150. Bor., torn. 4, p. 184. 



ALVA. 473 

reveals family secrets. Aside from Lis deeds, tho 
mere presence of the man was ominous of evil. 
Was it not Alva wlio had advised the armed inva- 
sion of the Netherlands? AVas it not Alva who 
had urged Philip to seize the pretext of the icono- 
machy to break the seals of the provincial char- 
ters — those badges of the weakness of his ancestors, 
those disgraceful chains upon the prince, those ^ 
safeguards of heresy? Was it not Alva who had 
advocated the placing a sharp curb in the bridled 
mouth of the conquered states ? And lo ! this wild 
beast in armor had arrived with his veteran cohorts. 
Surely there was room for dismal apprehension. 



4:74 THE DUTCH llEFORMATION. 

f 

CHAPTEE XXVII. 

THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 

It required no acumeu to understand the mo- 
tives wliicli had pushed the new captain-general 
into Brussels, and the purpose of Iris comiug; both 
were palpable to the jnost stupid of dullards. The 
rooting out of heresy, the rigid enforcement of the 
Inquisition, the abrogation of the trophied privile- 
ges of the people, the degradation of the Nether- 
lands into satrapies, chained to the feet of an alien 
and absolute monarch, and governed by a junta of 
foreigners sitting at the other end of Europe, with 
no voice in their own affairs, after the pattern of 
Sicily and the wretched Italian states* — such was 
the well-known programme. 

To facilitate the work, Philip had clothed Alva 
with autocratic powers ; the Spanish Inquisition had 
banned the provinces at large, Romanists as well as 
Protestants, these as guilty of treason by supiue- 
ness, those as traitors by the commission of overt 
acts,t and the pontiff had absolved the king from 
his coronation oath:]: — sanctifying usurpation and 
blasphemy and perjury by a henedicite muttered 
from the mock chair of St. Peter. 

Denounced by the king, the Low-Countrymen 

* Confessions of Counsellor Louis del Kio. Cited in Motley, 
vol. 2, p. 118, note. f Schiller, vol. 2, p. 77, Bolm's ed. 

} Bor., Hutthen, Stuk., torn. 1, bl. 6. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. ttTS 

were held to have forfeited fill civil rights; con- 
demned by the Inquisition, they were esteemed to 
possess no religious privileges; sentenced by the 
pope, they were thought to have parted with all 
hope, with every claim to mercy here and hereafter. 
Very naturally, Alva considered that this threefold 
reprobation denaturalized his victims, and afforded 

him 

' ' Ample space and verge enough 
The characters of hell to trace." 

In all the backstair whisperings at Madrid, it 
had been regarded as essential to the execution of 
the royal plot, that the leading seigneurs of the 
Netherlands, those of them at least who had espous- 
ed the liberal cause, whether now repentant or not, 
should be brought at the earliest possible moment 
to trial, and through that door to confiscation and 
the block, in order that at one fell blow opposition 
to the king's will might be punished, and the citi- 
zens be robbed of their natural leaders.* On the 
black Hst were the names of Orange, Egmont, Horn, 
Hoogstraaten, St. Aldegonde, and a host of lesser 
luminaries in the Low Country constellation. To a 
critioal observer, nothing is superficial. " In what 
part of that letter did you discover irresolution ?" 
demanded a king of the wisest of living diplomats. 
" In the ns and r/s," was the reply. So the keener 
of the grandees had discovered the symptoms of a 
bloody disease from their diagnosis of the days 
which ante-dated Alva's march, and gone out in 

** Confessions of Del Kyo, ut antea. 



476 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

time; but many remained, against the counsel of 
the wiser ones, and these were now to pay the pen- 
alty of their thrice-sodden folly. 

No sooner had the duke made known so much of 
his commission as sufficed to give him the supreme 
control ; replaced the doubtful Walloon troops with 
his own trusty veterans ; strung the keys of the 
larger cities to his girdle, and set Paciotti, the 
most eminent of the medijeval engineers, to work in 
constructing new fortresses, than he proceeded to 
arrange for the arrest of the doomed nobles, all of 
whom he wished to cage by a coiqj de main. It was 
this consideration which had inspired his courtes}^ 
to Egmont — this which had thus far shielded that 
blinded courtier from imprisonment. Alva had 
determined to make a decoy-duck of his infatuated 
dupe. 

In the pursuance of this plan, the captain-gen- 
eral, assisted by his sons and by Chiappiu Yitelh, 
Gabriel de Terbelloni, with others of his officers, 
kept Egmont occupied by an incessant round of 
fetes and masquerades and plays, that the heads- 
man's hour might have time to ripen.* The count 
wearied himself in this treacherous pleasure; while, 
according to Alva's calculation, scores of nobles 
who had quitted the capital to watch the actions of 
the duke at a safe distance, w;ere completely gulled 
by the courtesy extended to Egmont, and began to 
straggle back to Brussels.f 

It was some time before Horn could be per- 
*» Schiller, vol. 2, p. 74, Bolin's ed. f Ibid. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 477 

suaded to trust his person in the enemy's camp; 
but at length the numberless flattering and urgent 
invitations of Alva, suj)ported by the assurances of 
E2;mont, who undertook that his friend should be 
no worse used than he himself,-' overcame his stub- 
born scruples, and he quitted Weert for the capital.f 
Even Hoogstraaten set out for Brussels ; but Alva 
mournfully informed the king that he "could not 
flatter himself with the hope of William's return, "J 

Meantime, the city remained sullen and gloomy. 
Over its proverbial gaj'ety a "blanket of the dark" 
seemed to have been thrown. The public haunts 
were deserted ; the places of amusement were closed ; 
only foreign faces were seen upon the streets. The 
awful shadow of impending calamity rested over 
the metropolis.§ It was in vain that Alva strove to 
amuse the burghers and to dissipate the gloom. 
At such a moment only fools could be won to laugh ; 
but among the laughers were the cozened grandees 
and the foreign courtiers who buzzed in the treach- 
erous sunshine of Culemberg-house. 

At length the hour struck. Alva, convinced* that 
further delay could give him no more victims but 
'might snatch from his hands some of those already 
in his x^ower, sprang the trap. On the 9th of Sep- 
tember, 1567, Egmont and Horn were invited to 
wait upon the captain-general for the purpose of 
chatting over a plan for the erection of a citadel at 

* Strada, torn. 2, p. 32. 

t Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 563, 564. Meteren, Hoofd. 

X Cor. de Pliilippe n., torn. 1, p. 578. § Schiller, uU sup. 



478 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

Antwerp/^ Quitting the dinner-table of Fernando 
de Toledo, the seigneurs walked to the duke's resi- 
dence in company. Alva received them graciousl}^ 
and at once engaged them in a discussion with th(i 
engineer Paciotti, which occupied them until even- 
ing had fallen. t Then, as they were about to sep- 
arate, Egmont was requested by Sanchio d'Avila, 
captain of the duke's halberdiers, to step for an 
instant into an adjoining apartment. Upon enter- 
ing the room he was asked to surrender his sword. 
Astounded by the demand, the count could only 
gaze upon the officer with open mouth ; but upon a 
repetition of the order, he recovered his composure, 
and tendering the blade, said, "Take it, sir cap- 
tain ; it has rendered the king some service in times 
past. "I The illustrious prisoner was at once sur- 
rounded by a company of Spanish musketeers, who 
hurried him into an upper story of the building, 
where, in a chamber hung with black, barricaded, 
with daylight excluded, and dimly lighted by can- 
dles,§ he was left isolated to await transportation 
to a* sterner dungeon. 

A few moments after the arrest of Egmont, 
Horn, too, was captured just as he was emerging* 
from Alva's court-yard into the street.ll Satisfied 
of the futility of resistance, he calmly yielded, 
merely asking if Egmont had met the same fate. 
"Yes," was the reply. "'Tis Avell," responded 

•-- Pontus Payen, MS. f Motley, vol. 2, p. 124. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 33. § Motley, ^tU sup. 

II Strada, uhi sup. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 479 

Horn; "I have suffered myself to be guided by 
him, and 'tis but fair that I should share his des- 
tiny."* 

Just previous to the enactment of this drama, 
Backerzeel, Egmont's secretary, and Antony Van 
Straalen, burgomaster of Antwerp, a friend and 
correspondent of Orange, and one of the most pop- 
ular, as he was one of the wealthiest citizens of the 
metropolisjt fell into a somewhat similar ambus- 
cade, and were brought prisoners into Brussels.:]: 
Soon afterwards, Alva had the residences of these 
gentlemen searched from turret to foimdation stone. 
All the papers found were seized, inventoried, and 
placed in his hands.§ " Thus," says Motley, " if 
amid their most secret communications, or that of 
their correspondents, a single treasonable thought 
should be lurking, it was to go hard but it might be 
twisted into a cord strong enough to strangle them 
all."|| To be sure, these prisoners, together with 
most of their fellow-citizens who were still at large, 
had received the double pardon of the regent and 
of the king for whatever offences they might have 
committed. But had not Philip called a notary to 
bear formal witness that this pardon was wrung 
from him while under moral duress ? And had not 
the sovereign pontiff solemnly absolved him from 
all oaths? The king considered swindling to be 

* VandervjTickt, torn. 1, p. 223. Documeutos lueditos, torn. 
4, p. 418. t Strada, torn. 2, p. 33. 

X Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 150. Strada, torn. 2, p. 33. Bor., torn. 4, 
p. 184. § Cor. de riiilippe II., torn. 1, p. 038. 

II Motley, vol. 2, p. 120. 



480 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

statesmanship ; the holy father named perjury 
religion. 

A fortnight after the arrest, Egmont and Horn 
were conducted to Ghent by an escort of three 
thousand Spanish infantry, where they were held 
in rigorous confinement to await the farce which 
their captor called a trial.* Happily for himself, 
Hoogstraaten, already on the road to Brussels, had 
been momentarily detained by an accident at a 
wayside inn. There he learned the fate of those 
who had "put their trust in princes." As he had 
no craving for martyrdom, he at once faced about 
and crossed the border into Germany,! whence he 
ought not to have ventured. 

Alva was extraordinarily elated by his success, 
and he at once wrote out a gloating account of 
his scientific manoeuvres for Philip's eye. :|; The 
king shared in the viceroy's joy, and sent him back 
the warmest of congratulatory letters.§ Cardinal 
Granvelle, who was at this time in Rome, seemed 
less delighted. " Has the duke taken Blonsieur le 
Taciturne ?'" queried he, referring to Orange by the 
nickname which he had come to bear. "Not so," 
answered his informant. The churchman shrugged 
his shoulders. "If that one fish has escaped the 
net, the duke's draught is nothing worth," quoth he.ll 

Peter Titelmann, the once famous inquisitor, who 

''■ Meteren, Schiller, Hoofd. 

t Strada, torn. 2, pp. 32, 33. Bor., torn. 4, p. 185. 

X Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 637. § Ibid., p. G66. 

II Strada, torn. 2, p. 33. Meteren, folio. 50. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 481 

now, grown old and infirm, was living on tlie mem- 
ory of liis pious past and on the blood-money which 
had repaid his devotion, shared in Granvelle's opin- 
ion. " Is wise William a prisoner ?" asked he on 
hearing of Alva's haul. On being told that he was 
not, he said mournfully: "Then will our joy be 
brief. Woe unto us for the wrath to come from 
Germany !"* 

The duchess of Parma bitterly resented the fla- 
grant contempt of her authority manifested by these 
arrests, made without consultation with her — nay, 
without a suspicion on her part that they were to 
occur.f But from the fact that she made no effort 
to secure the release of the prisoners, nor spoke one 
good word in their favor, it is safe to conclude that 
she quarrelled less with the deed than with the 
manner of its accomplishment. However, so great 
was her indignation that, heedless of Alva's expla- 
nation that he concealed his purpose at the king's 
command, in order to save her from the odium 
which it might reflect on \\cv,\. she at one despatched 
an envoy to Madrid to solicit her dismissal from an 
office whose title alone she possessed, while another 
had usurped the sceptre.§ While awaiting Philip's 
response, Margaret absented herself as much as 
possible from the council-board, and passed the 
days in hawking and the chase — sports of which 
the masculine governant was passionately fond.H 

« Cited iu Motley, vol. 2, p. 130. f Strada, torn. 2, ix 34. 
J Ibid. Bor., torn. 4, p. 185. § Strada, ubi sup. 

II Documeutos Ineditos, torn. 4, p. 391). 

nutcii Ref. 2 1 



482 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

The consternation caused by Alva's act was 
nnprecedented. Men of all parties were alarmed. 
"If Egmont and Horn, preeminent by position, 
active in suiDpressing the tumults, and Romanists 
witlial, are not secure, wlio can be safe ?" This was 
tlie question wliicli each white-lipped Netherlander 
put to his neighbor; and as no one could give a 
satisfactory answer, emigration again rose to flood- 
tide; to the one hundred thousand refugees who 
had left the states on learning of the duke's armed 
invasion, twenty thousand more Avere now added 
by the panic caused by the imprisonment of these 
seigneurs.* Alva stirred the regent to renew her 
edict against emigration ;t but though this was for- 
mally proclaimed, though death was the well-known 
penalty for an unsuccessful attempt to pass the ports, 
and notwithstanding the fact that ten of the richest 
merchants of Tournay had been seized as they were 
about to cross the water into England, and pun- 
ished by the confiscation of their estates,:]: hundreds 
still continued to slip away, contented to lose their 
property, if only they might save their lives.§ 

Among these later refugees was an honest church- 
man named Thomas Tillius. Convinced of the 
errors of Rome and spurred by conscience, he for- 
sook his rich abbey of St. Bernard, near Antwerp, 
with a revenue of seventy thousand guildersil jjo- 

« Watsou, Life of Philip II. , p. 116. Meteren, Schiller, Brandt, 
vol 1, p. 2G0. t Strada, uhl sup. Doc. lued., uhl sup. 

I Strada, uhl siqj. § Ibid. 

II Guilder, a Diitch coiu of the value of twenty stivers, about 
thirty-eight cents of our money. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 483 

annum, and fled into the duchy of Cleves, taking 
with him, to defray the expenses of the way, but 
four hundred guilders in coin. Having gained an 
asyhim, he threw off his frock, married, and became 
a minister of the emancipated gospel ; first at Haar- 
lem, then at Delft, where he died.* 

Alva affected to care little for this exodus, which 
impoverished the Low Countries, and enriched 
France and Great Britain. " They say many are 
leaving the provinces," wrote he to Philii^. " ' Tis 
hardly worth while to arrest them. The repose of 
the nation is not to be assured by beheading those 
Avho are led astray by others."t So much for the 
philosophy. The fact was, that prodigious exer- 
tions were made to hold back would-be outgoers. 
The people were transformed into a police force to 
catch emigrants. If any passed the sea, all were held 
guilty of that neglect which the law brands as fraud. 

But the Aaron's sefpent among the captain-gen- 
eral's designs, was a settled determination to en- 
slave the Netherlands. He meant to metamorphose 
Philip from a mere duke of Brabant, from a simple 
count of Flanders — the only titles by which he had 
a right to reign in the Low Countries — into an irre- 
sponsible despot, absolute without the assent of the 
states, minus even the Dei gratia. He labored to 
inoculate the provinces with Spain. This was the 
hidden loadstone which always operated on the 
needle of his compass, 

«- Brandt, vol. 1, p, 200. 

f Corrcsp. dc Philippe IT., tnm. 1, p. 576. 



434: THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Kegarding the charters as the mischievous source 
of independence in the Netherlands, and convinced 
that an observance on his part of the forms and cus- 
toms of the land would minister to the popular re- 
spect for these fundamental laws, the duke had from 
the outset studiously treated the honored parch- 
ments as invalidated by sedition, and given the 
established methods of procedure a contemptuous 
go-by. He had akeady snared his titled prey, and 
was now ready to make a quarry of the nation. 
But though prepared to investigate the causes of 
the recent troubles, and to execute the vengeance 
of his king upon the actors in that scene, he would 
not invoke the aid of the existing tribunals, whose 
forms were too dilatory, whose checks were too 
numerous, whose judges might prove over-honest : 
against all precedent, in the teeth of the statutes 
"in such case made and provided," he erected a 
tribunal of his own, unique; unheard-of, which he 
called the " Council of Troubles," and to which he 
gave cognizance of all judicial offences originating 
in the tumults.* 

This abhorrent court, which was speedily nick- 
named the " Council of Blood" by the citizens, was 
a mere board of registry for the formal recording of 
Alva's edicts ; it was a bench, not of judges, but of 
special pleaders, met to make out a case, not to sum 
up the testimony. So profound was the captain- 
general's contempt for law, that he did not even 

*■ Corresxi. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 637. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 
261. Bor., torn. 4, p. 185. Strada, torn. 2, p. 41. 



THE COUNCIL OF BLOOD. 485 

deigu to give this brood of jackals a legal cloak bj 
procuring for them letters j)atent from the king, or 
by himself granting them commissions ; so that the 
blood-council was in fact merely an informal club, 
sxercising the most tremendous functions at the 
verbal bidding of a satrapj-' 

This monstrous tribunal was composed of twelve 
judges — "the most learned, upright men, and of the 
purest lives, to be found in the states," as Alva 
informed his royal master.f Who were these me- 
diaeval Solomons? These immaculate blood-suck- 
ers, what were their names? Juan de Vargas, a 
S2:)anisli legist, an outlaw over whom two criminal 
suits were hanging in Castile,| was one. Louis del 
Rio, one of those clever, serviceable knaves whom 
troublous times are sure to vomit up, was another. 
Aremberg, an unscrupulous fanatic, was a third. 
Noircarmes, smeared with Valenciennes gore, was a 
fourth. Barlaiment, who, imlike the French phi- 
losopher's idea of an educated man, " ivas satisfied 
to survey the universe from his parish belfry," was 
a fifth. Sweep in half a dozen absolutist lawyers, 
men accustomed to running with volunteer haste to 
do the dirty work of "lewd fellows of the baser 
sort" — jurists after whose health thieves asked 
before they began to steal — and we have analyzed 
the new chamber of iuquisitors.§ 

=■' Notice sur le Cons, des Troubles, par M. Gachard, p. 7. 
Cited by Motley, vol. 2, p. 137. 

I Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 576. 

i Pfescott, vol. 2, p. 189. 

§ The names of the board were : Count Aremberg. Noircarmes, 



486 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

This precious and liiglily honorable list of names 
was suggested by YigHus — who had wit enough, 
however, to keep his own from the number.- Tlie 
vicious activity of this octogenarian, the wide scope 
of his influence, always baneful, ever exerted to de- 
feat the right, recalls the criticism upon Lord Eldon : 
" No one ever did his race so much good as Eldon 
liveventedy\ 

The duke's junta was armed with tremendous 
powers; but he had managed so shrewdly as not to 
cede a single element of his autocracy. For, as the 
council was his creature in its institution, so its sen- 
tences were stillborn unless vivified by his revision 
and assent. :j: Indeed, at the outset the sittings were 
held at his residence, and he presided in person. § 

On the 20th of Sei3tember, 1567, the council met 
for the first time.jl The members were sworn to 
secrecy, pledged to denounce any of their number 
who should violate that oath, made to affirm their 
solemn adherence to Home, and requested always 
to decide according to their convictions.T This cer- 
emony perfected the machinery of slaughter. Noth- 
ing remained but to collect the victims. 

Barlaiment, Hadrian Nicolai, chancellor of Gueklers, Jacol) Mor- 
tens and Peter Asset, presidents of Artois and Flanders, Jacob 
Ilassels and Jolin de la Porte, coiinsellors of Ghent, Louis del 
llio, doctor of theology, John du Bois, king's advocate, and De la 
Torre, court secretary. Schiller, vol. 2, p. 79, Bohu's ed. 

« Vigl. ad Happ., epist. 27 et 28. 

t W. Phillips, Letters, Speeches, etc. 

% Gachard, Notice, etc. Cited in Motlej^ vol. 2, p. 137. 

§ Prescott, vol. 2, p. 195. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 2G0. 

II Gachard, uhi sup. If Ibid. 



AT WORK. 487 

CHAPTEE XXVIII. 

AT WORK. 

And now commenced the most iniquitous and 
wholesale persecution which history records, the 
wildest and most indiscriminate massacre known 
among men. Not the brutal proscriptions of Sjdla ; 
not Cinna's reckless waste of human life ; not Mari- 
us' violation of the rights of property, can mate it; 
for these men fought their way into Eome after a 
hard struggle as incensed victors, while Alva in a 
time of peace sauntered unopposed into the Low 
Countries, to butcher in cold blood. They were 
hot-headed, ruthless citizens with cruel wrongs to 
be as cruelly avenged ; he was a cool, methodical 
slaughterer, whose heart was soured by no private 
griefs. The pencil which essays to paint the pic- 
ture of his deeds should be dipped in the blood he 
spilled. 

Of course, the instrument of the captain-general 
in this work was the new tribunal ; taking from his 
shoulders a load of details, yet vital only through 
the point of his pen. The blood-judges, as indif- 
ferent as their master to the forms of law, hedged 
themselves in with no set of subtle rules. Since 
their sole duty was proscription, they adopted only 
such brief, rough regulations as were essential to 
that end. It was certain that a court whose juris- 
diction was as broad as the provinces must have 



488 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

an immense pressure of business ; and to prevent 
disorder, this was distributed into several depart- 
ments, over which specified judges were installed. 
Thus two of the twelve were instructed to devote 
themselves to the collection of evidence against the 
grandees then in exile — Orange, Culemberg, Brede- 
rode ; while two others had charge of the causes 
which arose within the states ; and so on.* 

The labors of the junta were lightened and sim- 
plified by another arrangement. Provincial com- 
mittees were appointed and empowered to try all 
minor causes, and even to pronounce sentence — 
taking care always to forward to headquarters min- 
utes of their action. t These processes were then 
revised by the. twelve, and submitted to the exam- 
ination of Vargas and Del Eio, who alone Avere em- 
powered to vote.:|: Even their decision was invalid 
until endorsed by Alva.§ When the duke's signa- 
ture was obtained, the judgment of the court was 
executed. Alva reserved the final decision to him- 
self, because, as he frankly told Philip, "Lawyers 
are unwilling to decide any case except upon the 
evidence, while measures of state policy are not to 
be regulated by the laws."il It is very probable 
that this consideration had a tendency to persuade 
him to erect this illegal, exceptional council on the 
ruins of the regular tribunals. 

* Bulletins de I'Academie Eoyale de Belgique, torn. 16, part 2, 
p. 58. Cited in Prescott, vol. 2, p. 191. 

t Prescott, vol. 2, p. 192. % Brandt, vol. 1, p. 260. Gaclaard. 

§ Bulletins de rAcademie Eoyale de Belgique, torn. IG, par. 2, 
p. 52, note. ii ibid. 



AT WORK. 489 

As showing how httle respect was paid by these 
judges to the barest requirements of justice, it may 
be stated that a single document as often lodged 
information against a hundred men as against one ; 
and if these denunciations — which were seldom 
read, so numerous were they — resulted in an ad- 
verse verdict, as they usually did, the whole hun- 
dred or the one, as the case might be, suffered 
death Avithin forty-eight hours after conviction.* 
Such was the method of procedure of the Council 
of Blood ; felt to be especially severe by the Netli- 
erlanders, used to the fair and open and above- 
board code prescribed by their charters : " No citi- 
zen shall be tried outside of his own province ;" 
"no foreigner shall sit on the judicial bench."i" 
This was the voice of the constitutions of the states. 
Alva's bench, on his mere ijjse dixit, not only sum- 
moned men and women from every province befq^ro 
its bar; but was composed of members, all of whom 
were either Spaniards by birth, or S23aniards by 
the yet stronger nativity of the soul. It was a 
copy of the Inquisition in lay binding. If it 
be possible to weigh and adjudge demerit, Alva, 
inquisitor-general of the Low Countries, was a 
blacker character than Espinosa, inquisitor-general 
of Spain. 

The initial measure of the blood-judges was the 
issuing a declaration, in which treason was so de- 
fined as to make it a moral certainty that all were 

• Motley, Yol. 2, p. 143. 

f Compare Bor., torn. 1, p. 19 ; Mctereu, torn. 1, p. 28, el scq. 

21* 



4:90 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

traitors. To have subscribed or presented any 
petition against the neAV bishops, the edicts, and 
the Inquisition ; to have suffered or been privy to 
the exercise of the reformed rehgion ; to have neg- 
lected to oppose heresy from the start ; to have 
countenanced the petitions of the gueux, whether 
from fear or favor ; to have submitted to the spoH- 
ation of the iconoclasts ; to have said or thought 
that the Council of Troubles was obliged to con- 
form with the charters, the cause of all the evils 
that had befallen the nation ; to have asserted or 
insinuated that the king had no right to cancel the 
privileges of the states if he thought fit, or that he 
was not relieved from all his oaths and promises of 
•pardon — was held to be conspiracy against the 
divine and human majesties.* 

It was upon this occasion that Vargas pronounc- 
ed; his famous decision: '' HcBretici faxerunt templa, 
honi nihil faxerunt contra ; ergo clehent omnes fcitihu- 
lare^'\ — language which is an equal crime against 
syntax and humanity. For the benefit of Vargas, 
who was ignorant of the vernacular tongue, the 
proceedings of the court were conducted in Latin, 
then the common language of learned Europe. Yet 
even in the Latin he used expressions " that would 
have made Quintilian stare and gasp," and, as in 
the instance cited, frequently got intoxicated on 

'■* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 260. 

f The heretics have broken open the churches ; the orthodox 
did nothing to hinder: therefore they ought all to be hung together. 
Vide Brandt, uhi sup. 



AT WORK. 491 

paragraphs of his own brewing ; at which the witty 
citizens laughed, feehng half avenged of their 
wrongs by the opportunity of ridicule afforded 
them by the shockingly bad taste of their persecu- 
tor in the tongue of the old Komaus. 

Under this ruling of Vargas, the inquisitors and 
the commissioners — the "couple" in this hunt — at 
once went to work. All who were known to have 
participated in the tumults were seized a V ouirance.'^ 
Then, with terrible industry, the less well-defin- 
ed offenders were ferreted out. Suspicion was 
considered to be a synonym for proof. Circum- 
stances the most innocent were twisted awry until 
they disclosed unthought-of guilt. Had this man 
been thought to favor reform ? waste no time in the 
farther investigation of his case, but proceed to 
sentence the atrocious wretch. Had this woman's 
cousin been connected with the gueux? let the rack 
be her cross-examiner. Worst of all, secret denun- 
ciations abounded, informations from all sources 
being invited, nay commanded; so that the woes of 
the wretched victims were inflamed to frenzy by a 
suspicion that their undoing might have been work- 
ed by the deposition of parents, wives, husbands, 
children, i" 

With thrifty prevision, the captain-general had 
covered the land with multitudinous prisons against 
this day of wrath ;:]: but notwithstanding this, and 
in spite of the frightful draughts of the executioner, 

* HoofcT, torn. 4, p. 157, et seq. Metereii. Gachaicl. 

t Ibid. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 192. % Schiller, v. 2, p. 81, Bohu's cd. 



i92 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

the gates of death were kept full of sufferers. No 
distinctions of age, sex, and condition were made. 
Maidens in the May of youth ; boys not yet freed 
from parental control ; men in middle age ; women 
in the autumn of life ; patriarchs hoary with three 
score years and ten — none were spared.* 

Nimbly worked the deft fingers of the local 
magistrates, assorting and filing informations. 
Swiftly and incessantly rode the couriers who bore 
this freight of death to be inspected by the junta at 
Brussels. Busy were the rack of the inquisitor and 
the axe of the wearied headsman. 

The sittings of the blood-judges often lasted 
seven hours in a day,t so indefatigable were these 
honorable men. During the first three months, 
Alva presided in person ; but afterwards, being 
pressed by other business, and feeling that his con- 
fidence would not be abused, he inducted Vargas 
into his seat at the board, retaining, however, his 
revisory powers. | As a matter of fact, this reser- 
vation amounted to nothing, for Vargas understood 
the wishes of the duke so well, and was so ener- 
getic, unwearied, and unscrupulous that his sen- 
tences were always confirmed.§ " Tliis man at 
least is j^outhfully active in your service, sire," 
wrote the delighted captain-general to Philip of 
this congenial sj)irit.|l 

* Brandt, vol. 1. p. £61. Hoofd, torn. 4. Watsou, p. 118. 
f Bulletins do TAcademie Eoj'ale de Belgique, torn. 16, par. 2, 
p. 57. t I1^i^^- Prescott, vol. 2, p. 195. 

§ Brandt, vol. 1, p. 260. || Cor. do Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 583. 



AT WORK. 493 

To be sure, men of all parties united to hoot the 
iniquitous character of this " wise and upright 
judge."* Unquestionably, he was an escaped crim- 
inal under Spanish law.f There was no denying 
that he had violated an orphan girl whose guardian 
he was.! But what then? " Because thou art vir- 
tuous shall there be no more cakes and ale?" In 
Alva's estimation, these peccadilloes were condoned 
by his present usefulness. To cut away the gan- 
grene of heresy, it was necessary to have a knife 
like Yargas.§ The captain-general was not the 
man to sacrifice a serviceable tool to a sentiment. 

But though the duke patronized Vargas on 
account of his acquaintance with that code of by- 
laws which constitutes a useful rogue, several of his 
brother judges were embittered by his arrogant 
behavior; not that they deprecated his cruelties, 
but because his prominence belittled their impor- 
tance. Accordiugly, seven or eight of them, in imi- 
tation of Alva, habitually absented themselves from 
the sittings of the court — a procedure the sole eflect 
of which was to enhance the influence of Vargas, Del 
Rio, Blasere, and Hassels, the four who remained.il 
" They made," as one of the discontented judges 
complained to Granvelle, " but one head under a 
single cap."T[ 

As illustrating the careless ferocity of this quar- 

'•> Schiller, vol. 2, p. 79. 

f Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 152. Meteren, folio 5-i. 

J Ibid. § Brandt, %ibl snp. Davies, vol. 1, p. 550. 

II Levesque, Memoires de Granvelle, torn. 2. pp. 91. ^ Ibid. 



494 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

tette, it is related of Hassels, who liad been attor- 
ney-general of Ghent under Charles V., that he was 
in the habit of dozing away his hours at the coun- 
cil-table, paying no attention whatever to the cause 
on trial, and ignorant often of the name of the pris- 
oner. Nevertheless, when his opinion was demand- 
ed, he would start from his dog-nap and shout with 
great fervor : " To the gallows with him ! to the 
gallows with him !"" so much a matter of course 
w'as conviction. 

Vargas was equally careless. On one occasion 
a- case was called up for trial after the execution of 
the prisoner. A cursory review of the papers showed 
him to have been innocent. "Never mind," said 
Vargas with a cheerful smile, " it will be all the 
better for him when he takes his trial in the other 

world."t 

Before these brutes, "half monkey and half 
tiger," as Voltaire «aid of the judges of Calais, the 
citizens of the states continued to be dragged in 
crowds. There was no cessation in the slaughter. 
There was no gradation of offences. Confiscation 
of estates succeeded by the death of the culprit — 
this was the common form,:]; Hanging, beheading, 
quartering, and burning human beings were the 

* "Ad patibulum, ad patibulum!" Hoofd, torn. 14, p. 59-4. 
Brandt, Aiibe'ri. In the year 1578, this wretch himself met the 
fate he had been so ready to award to others, being hnug to a tree 
in that year by the people of Ghent, then in insurrection. Vide 
Mcteren, folio 161. 

t Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 191. Brandt, vol. 1. 

t Meteren, folio 49, pasaim. Hoofd, torn. 4, ixtsaiin. Schiller 



AT WOEK. 495 

ordinary occupations of a thousand laborers.* Ev- 
ery day produced fresli objects of pity and mourn- 
ing. The noise of the bloody passing-bell was con- 
tinually heard, telling as it tolled of the martyrdom 
of this one's cousin and of that one's wife, and ring- 
ing dismal peals in the hearts of the survivors.t 
The land was crowded with gibbets; the trees by 
the wayside were loaded with corpses. Statues in 
"the streets of towns, private door-posts, fences in 
the fields, all had their quota of mutilated carcass- 
es.| The very atmosphere was impregnated with 
the awful odor of the grave. The living walked 
among the dead as in a charnel-house.§ Humanity 
seemed to have suffered shipwreck, the hulk being 
abandoned to those friohtful underwriters, the 
worms. 

While the blood-judges were thus torturing the 
Netherlands, France, almost equally unhappy, was 
torn by civil warll — one half of- the nation striving 
to cut the throats of the other half in the name of 
religion. The Komanists led by the Guises, the 
Huguenots officered by Conde and Coligny— these 
were the disputants ; and the question was whether 
there were such things as rights of conscience. The 
Guises said No ; the Protestant chiefs said Yes. As 
very many of those Low-Countrymen who had been 
driven into exile by the events which succeeded the 

<> Schiller, vol. 2, p. 81, Bolm's edit. 

f J3raudt, vol. 1, p. 261. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 153. 

t Ibid. Histoire des Martyrs, p. 449. § Ibid. 

ij Do Thou. Hist, of the Huguenots, Am. Tract Soc, 18GG 



496 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

iconomacliy, or had become fugitives under Alva's 
rule, said Yes, too, they volunteered to aid Cond^ 
and Coligny in maintaining that belief, doing yeo- 
manly service in innumerable warlike bouts. 

One day the French ambassador at Brussels 
waited upon the duchess of Parma to complain of 
these campaigners." Her highness promptly issued 
an edict denouncing as outlaws and punishing with 
confiscation of their goods all absentees without 
permission. t A little later, this act was supple- 
mented by another which forbade any communica- 
tion to be held with the exiles under the same pen- 
alty.:!; Nevertheless, the fugitives neither deserted 
Conde nor returned to their homes. Whereupon 
Catharine de' Medici, hard pressed by the Hugue- 
nots, urged Alva to send some of his veterans to 
prop her falling cause. " If you do not," added 
she, "I must succumb; and I disculpato myself in 
advance before God and Christian princes for the 
peace I shall be forced to make."§ 

Alva wrote this reply, finely illustrative of the 
nature of the man: "Make no coijcessions ; conces- 
sions must be either spiritual or temporal. If sjm-- 
itual, they Avould be opposed to God's prerogatives; 
if temporal, to the rights of the king. Better to 
reign over a ruined land, which is true to the divine 
and human majesties, than over one left unharmed 
for the benefit of the devil and his followers, the 
heretics. "II 

* Strada, torn. 2, p. 34. f Ibid. Davies, vol. 1, p. 554. 

X Ibid. § Cor. de Phil. II., torn. 1, p. GOi. || Ibid., p. G09. 



AT WORK. 497 

Having spokeu, the captain-general proceeded 
to act. In the last days of November, 1567, after 
innumerable masses chanted through three days,* 
Count Aremberg left Cambray at the head of thirty- 
five hundred men-at-arms to reinforce the Guises. 
His expedition was successful; the Romanists won 
the fight. But the queen-mother of France signed 
a treaty Avith Cond6 which angered Alva, and Arem- 
berg was soon ordered to report at Brussels for 
home service.t 

In the meantime, the duchess of Parma, more 
and more nettled by her position at Brussels, which 
was " a remarkable combination of the fiction of 
i:)ower with the reality of political nonentity," as 
Grote says of the state of modern British sover- 
eigns, never ceased importuning Philip for per- 
mission to resign the apocryphal honors of the 
regency. At length, the royal procrastinator, per- 
suaded that Margaret had served out her useful- 
ness and was now an obstacle in the pathway of 
the captain-general, condescended to heed her 
prayer. Early in November, 1567, despatches were 
received from Spain, in which Ruy Gomez, factotum 
at Madrid, assured her highness that the king con- 
sented, though reluctantly, to her retirement.! A 
few days later, Philip himself penned half a dozen 
cold, formal *lines to his sister, acknowledging his 
obhgations in set phrase, and promising to in- 
crease her pension from eight thousand florins a 

•-■ Strada, uhi sup. \ Ibid. , p. 35. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 20G. 

J Dociunentos Ineditos, torn. 4, p. 481. 



498 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

3^ear, the present amount, to fourteen thousand 
florins.* 

Margaret at once prepared to quit the Nether- 
lands. She had requested the king to permit her to 
convene the states-general for the purpose of deliv- 
ering in their presence a farewell address, in un- 
conscious imitation of the emperor's abdication; but 
Philip, whom the sternest necessity had not sufficed 
to compel to convoke that detested body, returned 
a prompt, curt veto.f Her highness was conse- 
quently obliged to announce the dissolution of her 
official connection with the provinces in a public 
letter.:}: The duke of Alva was at the same time 
proclaimed as her successor in the regency.§ 

The states listened to this news in trembling 
dismay. Time was when the duchess had been 
regarded as the personification of severity; but 
since Alva's butcheries commenced, the masses had 
learned to look back upon her rule as quite mild 
and pacific. Now she was considered to be the sole 
breakwater between terra firma and the devouring 
flood of the captain-general. This feeling cropped 
out in multitudinous expressions of regret for her 
departure, in a hearty request that she might soon 
return to resume her robes of office, and in the yet 
more touching form of silver-sorrow — Brabant vo- 
ting her highness the snug sum of twenty-five thou- 

* Cor. de Philippe II., torn. '2, Appendix, No. 119. 

t Prescott, vol. 2, p. 210. Schiller, vol. 2, p. 84, Bohu's ed. 

X Strada, torn. 2, p. 3G. 

§ Ibid., p. 35. Cor. de Philippe IL, torn. 2, p. 680. 



AT WOEK. 499 

sand florins, Flanders eYincing its esteem by a vote 
of the still more comfortable snm of thirty thousand 
florins.* 

Having nothing now to lose by frankness, 
cheered by these tokens of the national good-will, 
and perhaps touched by the sufferings of the citi- 
zens — for, after all, she was a woman — Margaret, 
on the eve of her departure, addressed Philip in 
these words, showing that, when not biased by self- 
interest, she could comprehend the principles of 
statesmanship : " Sire, the subjects of these provin- 
ces cannot be terrified into obedience. They who 
so advise you, do it — I wish I may be in error — to 
the ruin of your name and of the states, and will 
occasion fresh commotions and final desolation. 
Wherefore, as mercy is a divine attribute, so, too, 
be you merciful, desiring rather the repentance than 
the punishment of those who ei'r."t 

The advice was good ; but a king like Philip was 
Httle likely to be much afiected by it. 

In the latter days of December, 1567, after a 
reign of eight years,:t^ her highness bade the Neth- 
erlands farewell. Escorted by Alva to the borders 
of Brabant, she was accompanied thence by Count 
Mansfeld and a suite of Flemish gentlemen into the 
heart of Germany.§ Margaret made a much better 
figure in these closing days, than she had in the 
opening months of her residence at Brussels. Her 

■"' Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 6. 

t Stradii, torn. 2, pp. 3G, 37. t Fi'om 1559 to 15G7. 

§ Prescott, vol. 2, p. 212. 



500 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

exit was touching; for she left leal and mourning 
hearts behind her. On the dismal backgroimd of 
Alva, she went out robed in light— almost angelic, 
in the estimation of her contemporaries. But the 
standpoint of Alva is not a proper one from which 
to view the merits of the governant's politics. Pos- 
terity, uninfluenced by the proximity of her suc- 
cessor, sees with clearer e^-es ; and the verdict which 
the muse of history pronounces is, that the bastard 
daughter of Charles Y. was a woman weak, treach- 
erous, and cruel — qualities, perhaps, which might 
be looked for in a pupil of Ignatius Loyola. 

Possessed now of the title as well as the author- 
ity of governor, and freed from the presence of 
Margaret, who might criticise, even though she 
were powerless to curb his actions, Alva assumed 
the tone and exercised the authority of an irrespon- 
sible despot. He assumed his honors, and com- 
menced the new year with a procedure against 
Orange. On the 19th of January, 1568, William, 
Louis of Nassau, Count Culemb^rg, and the rest of 
the grandees were cited by the blood-judges to ap- 
pear before their bar within twenty-eight days after 
the date of the citation, to answer to an indictment 
for treason, under pain of the confiscation of their 
estates with perpetual banishment.* 

Of course, neither Orange nor his friends were 
besotted enough to make their appearance before 
the illustrious Vargas, skilful Del Eio, and sleej)y 

"~' Archives cle la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 3, j). 119. 
Documentos lueditos, torn. 4, p. 428, et seq. 



AT WOEK. 501 

Hassels. Bat the prince, addressing the procura- 
tor-general in reply to the summons, pleaded to the 
jurisdiction of the Council of Troubles, claiming 
that, as a knight of the Golden Fleece, he could 
only be tried by his peers, the knights, solemnly 
convened, with the sanction of at least six of the 
brothers, and under the superintendence of Philip, 
sitting as grand-master."'^" The retort was cautious; 
for William had no desire to precipitate events, sure 
that Alva would do that; and it was technical — that 
the summons was illegal and an outrage. 

Alva did put himself as indisputably in the wrong 
as the prince had foreseen he would ; for, galled by 
the contemptuous tone of his antagonist, and hound- 
ed on by Granvelle,t he seized William's eldest son, 
Philip, count of Buren, a lad of thirteen, who was a 
student at Louvain, and in violation of time-hon- 
ored franchises which exempted undergraduates 
from arrest, no matter upon what pretext, sent him 
a prisoner into Spain,:j: thinking to keep a hold 
upon the father through his anxiety for the safety 
of his heir. 

--• Bor., torn. 4, p. 222, ei seq. Auberi, Hist, de Hollande, p. 25. 

f Corresj). de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 701. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 42. Vaudervjnckt, torn. 2, p. 261. The 
boy was detained in Spain twenty-eight years, and trained up 
in the strictest school of Eomanism. When at length, in 1595, he 
visited the Netherlands, he was a complete Spaniard— gloomy. 
Jesuitical, denationalized. Dying in 1615, at Brussels, his brother 
Maurice succeeded to his titles, and inherited the Orange-Nassau 
estates, as he had from infancy possessed the heroic qualities of 
their great blood. Vide Lives of the Princes of Orange— Philip, 
William of Nassau. 



502 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

This kidnapping stirred wide-spread reproba- 
tion. William formally protested against it as in 
palpable conflict witli the charter-law of the states.* 
A deputation of the college dons went up to Brus- 
sels to remonstrate with Yargas on this insult to 
their privileges. That eminent jurisconsult dis- 
missed them with contempt. " Non curamus vestros 
'privilegios"\ exclaimed he ; and the sentence has 
been admired for its Latinity for three hundred 
years. What cared Alva for the franchises of the 
provinces ? Was not the nation a mass of convicts? 
Were not the states a vast prison-house, of which 
he was the keeper and his sword the "key ? 

While the kidnapping of the count of Buren was 
the topi-c of common but whispered conversation, 
news came from Spain which fanned the excitement 
to a redder flame ; it was rumored that Philip had 
imprisoned his son and the heir to his throne, Don 
Carlos ; and it was asserted that Montigny had been 
arrested for high treason.:]: For once Dame Humor 
hawked the truth. Don Carlos and Montigny were 
upon the king's red list. Don Carlos had excited 
the jealousy, Montigny had provoked the wrath, of a 
monarch who could not pronounce the word forgive- 
ness; therefore, one was soon to fall, as some say, 
beneath the dagger of his own father ;§ the other by 
the hand of a secret executioneril — making a double 

* Prescott, vol. 2, p. 202. f Vanclervjiickt, uhi sup. 

J Strada, torn. 2, p. 42. Docnmeutos lueditos, torn. 4, p. 52" 
§ Lloronte, Hist, de I'liiquisition, p. 171, el seq. Cabrera, Fili 
Segiindo, lib. 7, cap. 22. 

II Docnmento,s lueditos, torn. 4, p. 5G0, d seq. 



AT WORK. 503 

tragedy, wilder than any of which romaucists ever 
dreamed. 

But the Netherlands needed not to await the 
opening of the foreign budget to " sup full of hor- 
rors." Through all these months the frightful cru- 
elties of the blood-judges were continued. Every 
day the executions took a wider sweep. " I would 
have every man feel that any day his house may 
fall about his ears,"* wrote Alva to the hing. Of 
this benevolent wish he made a fact. Men of all 
creeds and of none felt equally insecure. The Eo- 
manists themselves, the most sturdy and devoted 
of them, shuddered and rubbed their necks, to be 
sure that their heads still rested upon their shoul- 
ders as they glanced towards Egmont's prison at 
Ghent. " The fury of the persecution spreads such 
horror throughout the nation," said Orange at the 
time, " that thousands, and among them some of the 
principal papists, have fled the country where tyr- 
anny is directed against all."t 

The blood-judges flooded the land with cita- 
tions ; but so certainly did conviction follow an 
appearance at their bar, that few responded, while 
such as did not were condemned to exile and to suf- 
fer the confiscation of their estates for contumacy ; 
or if caught, they were beheaded without trial..! 
Those who, strong in iuno«cnce, ventured to brave 
an examination, were inevitably doomed. § In 

* Corresp. de PhilipiDe II. , torn. 2, p. i. 

f Corre.sp. de Guillaume le Taciturue, torn. 3, p. 14. 

X Da\des, vol. 1, p. 552. Schiller. § Ibid. 



504 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

batches of forty, fifty, and eyen a Imndred, men 
women and cliildren were led out to indiscrimi- 
nate death. On one occasion ninety-five miscellane- 
neous individuals, collected from various parts of 
Flanders, were butchered in company.* At another 
time forty-six of the citizens of Malines were decap- 
itated.f On the 4th of January, 1568, eighty-four 
persons, charged with participating in the tumults, 
were executed togetlier in the public square at Va- 
lenciennes4 

Or, if you will have some individual instances, 
take these, culled at haphazard from the mass: 
"Wilham Bardes, an old man of seventy, and an 
ex-magistrate of Amsterdam, was accused upon 
uncertain evidence based on inuendoes, of having 
encouraged the guciix. He was arrested, racked, 
and whipped with rods for this atrocious offence — of 
which it seems he was not guilty, for he was acquit- 
ted after a punishment which was so severe that he 
became an idiot.§ 

One of this man's fellow-townsmen, Peter de 
"Witt, was beheaded because, during a commotion at 
Amsterdam, he had persuaded a rioter not to shoot 
one of the magistrates — which was regarded as 
proof that he had influence with the rebels.il 

In 1566, in the heat of the iconomachy, a certain 
woman named Madame Juriaen had smitten a wood- 

«■ Meteren, folio 45. Hoofd, torn. 4, p. 157. f I^"^- 

% Bulletins de I'Academie Eoj-ale de Belgique, torn. 16, i^ar. 2, 
p. 02. § Brandt, vol. 1, p. 2G3. 

II Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 183. 



AT WOEK. 505 

image of the Madonna witli her shpper — an action 
which her maid, who witnessed it, did not denounce. 
For this crime both were drowned by the hangman 
in a hogshead of water placed upon the scaffold.* 

These are simple instances. Multiply this indi- 
vidual agony by tliree millions, and that into all 
the relations of husband and wife, of father and 
child, and that again b}' the continuance of months; 
then count, if possible, the pulse-beat of this fever- 
ish horror. 

Innumerable as were the victims, Alva was 
always striving to invent more rapid processes of 
destruction. At the close of the carnival of 1568, 
he made a notable haul. As that was a season of 
wine-bibbing and jollity, he calculated on arresting 
an immense number of persons overcome by the 
wassail. Happily the scheme leaked out, and many 
of the doomed ones fled ; but upwards of five hun- 
dred burghers were dragged from their beds to the 
block.t 

The vast majority of all these sufferers were 
Protestant preachers and laymen — men easily ap- 
prehended, because they were too honest to deny 
their faith. For offenders of this class no punish- 
ment was sufficiently dreadful — the gibbet, the rack, 
drowning, the stake, all Avere invoked.:}: These mar- 
tyrs, obscure men, who " built not fame, but god- 
like souls," endured their pangs with indomitable 

- Er.iildt ; cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 145. 
f liranclt, uU sup. Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2. Appen- 
dix, p. GCO. f Reidauus, Annales, p. fi. 
nutcii K.r 22 



506 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

courage.* They lifted up tlieir eyes to heaven, and 
cared little for what persecution could do unto 
them, paying scant attention to the jeers of the yile 
mob and to the denunciation of the blood-judges as 
law-breakers; for they were solaced by conscience, 
which makes the weakest strong, and they heard in 
their sovds the approving echo of the law of laws. 
On the hearts of such men cruelty itself breaks all 
its teeth. 

When it was seen with what constancy and alac- 
rity these victims suffered, never ceasing to pray for 
their tormentors, and to give God the glory, con- 
fessing their faith in the midst of the flames, Alva 
had a machine invented for the purpose of silencing 
such dangerous preachers. The tip of each suffer- 
er's tongue was seared with a red-hot iron, and then 
while thus swollen compressed between two pieces 
of flat metal screwed fast together. Thus secured, 
the tongue would wriggle about with the pain of 
burning, yielding a hollow sound much like the 
tyrant of Sicily's bra^ien bell, the contrivance of 
Periilus, and which was first experienced by the 
inventor himself.t 

Once, at an auto dafe of these tongue-tied mar- 
tyrs, a friar in the crowd exclaimed : " Hark how 
they sing! should they not be made to dance also?"| 

Alva had promised the king to make treasure 
Ifctw from the Netherlands into Sj^ain in a stream a 

yard wide. With an eye to the fulfilment of this 

* 

« Eeidanus, Annales, p. G. Brant, vol. 1, p. 2G0, et seq. 
t Brandt, vol. 1. p. 275, J Ibid. 



AT WOEK. 507 

promise, lie especially directed the blood-judges to 
ascertain tlie wealth of the suspected.* The hint 
"was acted on. As poverty was no protection, so 
wealth was an unpardonable crime. Many a rich 
citizen, convicted of a hundred thousand florins, 
found himself tied to a horse's tail, and so dragged 
without trial to the gallows.f The estates of absen- 
tees without leave had long since been declared to 
have escheated to the crown. From these snap- 
judgments there was no appeal, though the mis- 
chief worked was incalculable, since it affected a 
host of others besides those directly interested — 
such as innocent creditors, to satisfy whose claims 
no allotment was made, hospitals, eleemosynary 
institutions, widows, and orphans, who were by 
knavish evasions deprived of the sources of their 
income — the purses of the rich. J 

Moreover, though these wholesale proscriptions 
sufficed to ruin trade and to depopulate the towns — 
in Ghent half the houses are said to have stood 
empty§ — they did not even pay the expenses of 
Alva's administration, to say nothing of that stream 
of treasure which was to have flowed into Spain. |i 
The duke was constantly embarrassed. More than 
once he was obliged to beg a loan from Philip.l 
By the most shame -faced extortion, by the most 

S5 Prescott, vol. 2, p. 221. 

t Meteren, folio 50. Cited in jMotley, vol. 2, p. 159. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 2G1. 

§ Vaudervynckt, torn. 2, p. 247. 

II Prescott, uhi sup., p. 230, et seq. 

ir Cor. de Philippe II., toiu 1, p. 590. 



508 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

open robbery, despotism could not pay its way, 
even with the coffers of the Indies of Europe at its 
command. Yet aforetime fair taxation, with the 
sums voted, as occasion called, by the states-gene- 
ral, had kept the sovereign in funds. Surely hon- 
esty is the best jDoHcy. 

However, this blunderer in finance mistook 
bloodthirstiness for statesmanship, and he was too 
thick-skulled to be convinced even by the teachings 
of experience. Accordingly, he went on assailing 
the most sacred rights of individuals, enforcing his 
arbitrary will even in the circle of domestic life. 
Hitherto the reformers had strengthened their party 
by intermarriages with the most influential families 
in the states, " I will scoop out the spring which 
feeds that stream," said the duke ; and he issued an 
edict forbidding all Netherlanders, of whatever 
rank or office, to marry without his prior permis- 
sion, under penalty of death and the confiscation of 
property* — an act of grievous and unheard-of tyr- 
anny. A little later, the hated decrees of the 
Council of Trent were imposed upon the Low 
Countries by the "I say so" of this enterprising 
satrap,t whose strength, however, consisted in the 
fact that he always represented his master's will. 

Such searching despotism was certain to engen- 
der evil. It had already transformed the naturally 
jovial, boisterous, and out-spoken Netherlander into 
a sullen, moody, and dispirited conspirator, brood- 

* Schiller, vol. 2, p. 80, Eohn's ed. 
t Brandt, vol. l,p. 2G(i. 



AT WOEK. 509 

iug over the memory of his violated cliarters. In- 
deed, at this very time the extensive and tangled 
forests of West Flanders were filled with outlaws 
bereaved of kindred and of country and fanaticized 
Ly their wrongs, who were banded together for the 
purpose of waging an unsparing guerilla war upon 
the oppressor." Sallying from their untamed cov- 
erts at unexpected moments, these " wild beg- 
gars" — gueux sauvages, as they were named — car- 
ried dismay and death into all habitations known 
to be unfriendly to their mystic brotherhood. They 
esteemed the monasteries and ecclesiastics to be 
the primal causes of their woes ; consequently they 
let slix? no opportunity to sack the religious houses, 
and never passed by a chance to rob, maltreat, and 
maim the Koman clergy. Many were the convents 
whose plate and wine and game they confiscated ; 
many were the priests whose ears they cropped and 
whose noses they slit. Sometimes, borrowing Alva's 
tactics, they dragged monks to forest scaffolds at 
the tails of their horses — i)leading in justification 
of these deeds the lex talionis. The duke attempted 
to bridle the excesses of the freebooters by making 
each parish responsible for the safety of its clergy ; 
but under this arrangement the highways became 
unsafe for any priest to tread. Whereupon Alva 
sent some men-at-arms to hunt them out ; and by 
these veterans the wild beggars were for a time 
suppressed.! 

* Vandervyuckt. Braudt. uh'i sup. Grotius. 

t Vandervyuckt, torn. 2, p. 450. Bor., torn. 4, p. 225. 



510 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

While this tragical comedy was being enacted 
in the forests of West Flanders, the Netherland 
masses were calling upon the prince of Orange, 
since the imprisonment of Egmont the acknowl- 
edged chieftain of the states, to intervene in their 
behalf with the armed hand.^ "William was willing 

' ' to take 
Occasion by the hand; and make 
The bounds of freedom wider j'et." 

He only doubted the success of an immediate ris- 
ing, fearing that the time was not quite ripe. How- 
ever, the people clamored and the exiles argued 
until he professed his willingness to take the field ; 
and in his case it was known that the paper cur- 
rency of profession would be redeemed by the 
minted gold of practice. With Orange, to resolve 
was to act, and he began to enroll volunteers. The 
tap of liberty's recruiting-drum was heard. The 
hour was at hand when the senseless mediaeval can- 
non were to think, when the newly-invented mus- 
kets were to be loaded with ideas. War itself 
seemed to " smooth its wrinkled front " as it took 
the championship of such a cause. 

* Archives de la Maisou d'Orauge-Nassau, Supplement, p. 87. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 511 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

LIBEETY'S DRUM-TAP. 

Some one has said that it is as good for men as 
for beasts to be turned out to grass occasionally. 
Rest is a honey to be sipped — not gluttonously, but 
for refreshment. Apparently, William of Orange 
thought that he had earned a title to this recreative 
beatitude ; for though he had now been a refugee 
above a twelvemonth, he continued to reside at 
Dillenberg Castle, and seemed engrossed by the 
enjoyment of the charming ruralities of Nassau. 

However, exile is not conducive to peace of 
mind. Although the self-centred and reticent prince 
made few confidants, content to elaborate his plans 
in the quiet council-chamber of his own soul, it was 
more than suspected that neither he nor his illus- 
trious following had passed into Germany to enjo}' 
a life of indolence. Simulated acquiescence might 
be the policy of these men : it was well known that 
it could not be their intention to submit to outlawry 
without a struggle for the retention of their rights. 

Those observers who held these views were cor- 
rect. Orange especially, behind that imperturba- 
bility which masked his purpose, was restless and 
unhappy. At home though he was in Nassau, sur- 
rounded by kith and kin, and lapped in luxury, the 
;;reat-hearted statesman could not feel at ease 



512 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

while every Netherland breeze that swept over the 
ancient stronghold of his race was heavy with the 
shrieks of the tortured, and with the death-cries of 
martyrs. That placid selfishness, that covert infi- 
delity called optimism was not numbered among 
the tenets of his creed ; and he was aware that 
Alva's rule ought not to claim submission. But he 
also knew — none better — that unless prefaced by 
all just concessions, by the trial of every fair means 
to keep the peace, a sanguinary appeal to the God 
of battles was a crime against humanity — that war, 
a confession that culture and religion were in some 
sort a failure, needed the most momentous and sol- 
emn justification. 

Conscience is virtue's forum. To satisfy his 
conscience, William, though hopeless of success, 
determined to exhaust all peaceful methods of re- 
dressing the wrongs of the provinces before invo- 
king the stern arbitrament of the sword. Accord- 
ingly, he moved the magistrates of Antwerp, whose 
manner from the moment of Alva's arrival at Brus- 
sels had been excessively obsequious, to interpose 
in favor of several of theu- fellow-townsmen who had 
been illegally imprisoned. This they did "with 
bated breath and whispered humbleness." " Well, 
well," retorted the governor-general in a tone which 
made the burghers shiver, "I am amazed that 
there should still be men in Antwerp so bold and 
impudent as to dare to plead with me for mercy to 
heretics. Have a care for the future, else I will 
hang you all for an examj^le. Know this, that his 



LIBEETY'S DRUM-TAP. 513 

majesty will speedily sweeji these territories as 
clean as the palm of my Land, if that be necessary 
to extirpate heresy."* 

Kebuffed through the magistrates, Orange next 
employed the august intercession of the German 
emperor, Maximilian. Early in March, 1568, Max- 
imilian addressed a letter to Philip, in the name of 
the electors of the empire, in which, after intima- 
ting that the Netherlands had a right, as members 
of the Germanic body, to demand justice in the 
spirit of their charters, he warned his royal cousin 
that, without a cessation of the cruelties enacted 
by Alva, it would be impossible to restrain the 
Protestant princes of Germany from a combination 
which might deprive him of every acre of land in . 
the Low Countries.f 

Philip's purpose was not to be shaken; but he 
condescended to vindicate his conduct. "What I 
have done," wrote he in reply to Maximilian, "has 
been for the welfare of the provinces and for the 
defence of the holy faith. Nor would I do other- 
wise, though I should risk the sovereignty of the 
Netherlands — no, though the world should fall in 
ruins around me."| 

This was decisive. Before such a declaration, 
diplomacy stood disarmed. An incentive to war, 
this double failure was also William's justification 
for it. The prince felt that now duty as well as 

"-■ Brandt, vol. 1, p. 205. Watson, Life of Philip II., p. 119. 
t Cor. de Philippe IL, torn. 2, p. 15. 
t Corrcsp. du Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 27. 
22* 



514 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

inclination bade liim "storm tlie liouse of fame," 
that religion and liberty might 

' ' Sit on no precarious throne, 
Nor borrow leave to be." 

Orange knew the frightful risk which war necessi- 
tated. Yet it was with the calm conviction of a 
statesman, not with the reckless desperation of a 
political gamester, that he prepared to stake wealth, 
reputation, family, life itself, upon the hazardous 
die of battle. 

When the prince sat down to count up the 
chanees of his success, he could not fail to acknowl- 
edge that the odds were greatly against him. Alva 
was the most experienced captain in Europe. Both 
the Indies were his treasure-house. He was already 
entrenched in the Netherlands. Behind him stood 
the king, clothed in a "divine right" which the medi- 
aeval masses were not sufficiently enlightjned to rid- 
icule. The engineering skill of Paciotti had already 
strongly fortified the frontier towns. If the Span- 
ish army was small, it was composed of veterans, 
completely (equipped, and formed to be the nucleus 
of a larger force, which might be recruited in a week. 

Orange, on his part, was a tyro in war when 
compared with Alva. The jjrivate contributions of 
half-ruined refugees must form his exchequer. It 
was his part to assail. No " divine right " was sui> 
posed to hallow his Quixotism ; no skilful engineers 
were in his pay; no veterans were to assemble be- 
neath his banner ; and yet the statesman-soldier did 
not hesitate. Evidently the captain of revolution- 



LIBERTY'S DEUM-TAP. 515 

ary France did not inherit the idea that " God sides 
with the strongest battalions" from the hberator of 
Hohand. 

But after all, William was not so weak as ho 
seemed on the first look. All generous minds were 
sure to be his allies ; all Protestant purses were his 
in such a cause. Christian Europe was his recruit- 
ing ground. The fanaticism of the persecutor work- 
ed in his behalf. All whom the Reformation had 
emancipated, all whom the Inquisition had men- 
aced, were his from sympath}-. The Netherlands 
themselves, if he could reach them, would yield him 
both 2nen and means; for states like these act and 
endure with gigantic energy whenever pressing 
emergencies call forth their powers, and a skilful 
and provident administration elicits their resour- 
ces — when conscience arms and genius shows the 
way. 

Strengthened by some such reflections as these, 
and imploring God's aid, the heroic refugee began 
to weave the web of his policy. Not Philip himself 
could mate him in industrious subtlety; while to 
that he added the higher qualities of prescience 
and tact and management — a genius for all work. 
Never before had he labored as he labored now. 
Swift, secret, incapable of fatigue, this powerful and 
patient intellect sped to and fro, disentangling the 
perplexed skein where all seemed so hopelessly con- 
fused, and gradually unfolding broad schemes of a 
symmetrical and regenerated polity.* 

« Motley, vol. 2, p. 182. 



516 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

William's chief anxiety at this hour was the ob- 
taining foreign countenance; for he saw that, scat- 
tered and peeled as the refugees were, it would be 
impossible for them to take the initial steps tow- 
ards success without the active good-will and sup- 
port of outside powers. . Assistance and recogni- 
tion — these were what the good cause required ; and 
his painstaking statesmanship had conciliated wide- 
spread respect for the spirit and the prospects of 
the Netherland opposition to Philip II. At the 
English court no foreigner stood as well with the 
maiden queen as did the nascent liberator." Among 
the Huguenots, no name was more frequently upon 
all lips than that of the sworn friend of Coligny.f 
In Germany, the prince was peerless.l 

So wisely had Orange managed that, ere any 
overt act was committed, Protestant England, Hu- 
guenot France, and reformed Germany had all, 
more or less openl}^, promised to support their 
brothers in the Low Countries.§ England was 
prompted to do this, because William had persuad- 
ed Elizabeth that Great Britain was bound to act 
to the Reformation the part which Philip *played 
towards the Romanist reaction. The Huguenots 
were incited, by the ties of a common creed and a 
kindred interest, to crijjple Spain. The German 
princes were kindled by the reflection that Alva's 

- Motley, ut aniea. t De Thou, torn. 6, p. 36. 

J Meteren, folio 57. Motley, uU sup. 

§ Bor., torn. 4, p. 227. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 103, d seq. Watsou, 
p. 123. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 517 

rule would ruiu the lowlaucl cities, with whose trade 
the prosperity of their towns was inseparably con- 
nected; by the fact that the Netherlanders were 
their co-religionists ; and by a fear that when King 
Philip had completed the subjection of the lower 
provinces, he would employ his veterans against the 
liberties of Upper Germany — an adjacent and most 
inviting field,* The diplomat who could play so 
cunningly on all these chords, awakening such vari- 
ous responses, might safely be considered a danger- 
ous opponent even by the Machiavellis of the Span- 
ish cabinet in the sixteenth century. 

Unwittingly, Philip himself had aided Orange 
by his haughty refusal of Maximilian's proffered 
mediation. So bitter was the anger of the smaller 
Germanic potentates, that they did not deign to 
conceal their sympathy for the Netherlands ; while 
the count palatine of the Khine, the duke of Wir- 
temberg, and the landgrave of Hesse announced 
their purpose to support WiUiam in the fieldi' — to 
all which breaches of neutrality the emperor was 
deaf, dumb, and blind from pique. 

In these days the brother of Orange, Count 
Louis of Nassau, was the most active and service- 
able of his supporters. As William was styled the 
brain, so Louis was called the stout right arm of 
the revolt.^ This knight-errant had long fretted at 
his enforced inactivity. Now that the hour had 

■"• Watson, iibi sup. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 237. 

+ Watsou, p. 123. Metereu, Hooftl. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 237. 

t Motley, vol. 2, p. 183. 



518 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

struck for resistance to religions tj'ranny, ke re- 
membered Lis Genevan training and was happy. 
Every word he spoke smelt of gunpowder. 

On the 6th of April, 1568, the prince of Orange 
invested Count Louis with authority to enroll and 
equip an army for service against Alva. Ho based 
the right to do this upon somewhat peculiar 
ground — fidelity to the king. The fiction of loyalty, 
the idea that the monarch could do no wrong, but 
that it Avas his counsellors who were to be chastised 
for whatever ills occurred; all this was craftily 
maintained, for William knew the value of having 
the old forms upon his side. This explains the 
phraseology of the commission, which ran thus: 
" To show our love for the king and his hereditary 
provinces; to prevent the desolation which hangs 
over the states by the ferocity of the Spaniards ; to 
maintain the privileges sworn to by his present 
majesty and by his predecessors; to prevent the 
extirpation of the pure word and service of God by 
the edicts; to save the sons and daughters of the 
land from abject slavery — we have requested our 
dearly beloved brother Louis Nassau to recruit as 
many men-at-arms as he may deem fit."* 

Under this commission — and duplicates of it 
had been granted to Hoogstraateu, Van der Berg, 
and the restf — Count Louis and his friends began 
at once to solicit volunteers and to enroll mercena- 
ries. But now, as always in such undertakings, the 
patriots were sadly hampered by want of money. 
* Bor., torn. 4, p. 233, d scq. f Ibid., p. 234. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 519 

Two hundred tliousaud florins, at the very least, 
were necessary to the getting an army on its feet ;* 
much more woukl be required to fight out a cam- 
paign. Where was the Mexico, where tlie Peru to 
supj^ly this sum ? 

The precious personal effects of the prince of 
Orange were the Golconda whence much of it Avas 
extracted. William pawned his jewels, sent his 
plate to the mint, sold his tapestry, parted with his 
furniture,! and still had not enough; for " the orna- 
ments of a palace " as an old chronicler reminds 
us, "yield but little for the necessities of war.":}: 
But this princely generosity provoked emulation. 
Count John of Nassau mortgaged his estates in aid 
of the good cause. § Count Louis threw his quota 
into the general fund. Culemberg, Hoogstraaten, 
Van der Berg, and the rest contributed their share, 
until one hundred thousand florins were raised from 
the donations of these refugee seigneurs, all of 
whom were half-bankrupted by outlaAvry.il 

Nor were the grandees the sole donors. The 
Protestants of Antwerp, of Haarlem, of Leyden, and 
of others of the Low Country cities, contributed 
towards the achievement of their emancipation ; 
and the refugee merchants in England laid their 

* Areliives de la Maisou d'Orauge-Nassau. Supplement, p. S8, 

f Hoofd, torn. 5, 13. 1G3. Keidauus, Anuales, p. 6. 

X Eeidanus, uhl sup. , § Hoofd, uhi sup. 

II William coutributed 50,000 florins, Culemberg 30,000, Van 
der Berg 30,000, Hoogstraaten 30,000, the dowager countess of 
Horn 10,000, Louis Nassau 10,000, and others in less proportion. 
FiJe Villar's confession in Corresp. de Philiijpc II., torn. 2, p. 757. 



520 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

gifts upon the altar.* In this way another hundred 
thousand ilorms wore jDOured into the lean exche- 
quer of revolt.'!" 

With tliese moneys, the outcome of much gen- 
erous self-sacrifice, an irregular and incongruous 
army was levied — free lances, enthusiasts, veterans, 
and raw recruits ranged side by side in the gro- 
tesque ranks.:]^ These sudden levies of peaceful 
husbandmen and careless mercenaries, how were 
they to Avithstand the terrible onset of Alva's ma- 
chine-like cohorts? To human eyes, the matching 
of those against these, was like bombarding Gib- 
raltar with lumps of trembling jelly. Yet it was 
with these, and such as these, that the patriots 
were obliged to fight. 

By the middle of April, 1568, this preliminary 
work of raising money and enrolUng soldiers was 
done,§ and as well done as might be, if the circum- 
stances are considered. It only remained to enter 
the Netherlands sword in hand. Orange had de- 
cided upon a tripartite invasion, with the twofold 
purpose of distracting the attention of the gover- 
nor-general and of inviting a general rising in the 
states.!! Louis Nassau at the head of a force, partly 
Flemish but chiefly German, was to j)lant the stand- 
ard of revolt in the northern provinces of Gronin- 
gen and Friesland — the immemorial home of the 

* Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 164.- Villar's Coufessiou, nU sup. 
t Ibid. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 237. 

t Prescott, ubl siqj. § Metcrcn, Hoofd, Bor. 

Ij Strada, torn. 2, p. 4G. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 521 

spirit of independence.* Hoogstraaten, accom- 
panied by numbers of the banished seigneurs, was 
to enter the provinces through the gates of Maes- 
tricht and scour the land between the rivers Meuse 
and Ilhine.t A corps of Huguenots, under the 
seigneur de Cocqueville, was to master Artois, and 
thence to beat up Alva's southern quarters.'! Orange 
held himself in reserve in the duchy of Cleves, that 
he might complete the organization of his force, 
not 3'et ready for action, and that he might be pre- 
pared to support whatever division should call for 
aid.§ 

Such was the plan of campaign adopted by the 
patriot chiefs — a comprehensive scheme which 
bears unmistakably the impress of William's astute 
intellect. 

Towards the latter part of April, the seigneur de 
Villars, who had replaced Hoogstraaten, crossed 
the frontiers of Juliers with a following of three 
thousand men. Alva, who was never to be caught 
napping, promptly despatched Don Sanclio d'Avila 
with sixteen hundred veterans to parry the assault. 
Forty-eight hours later, De Villars was a prisoner, 
his troops either stiff in death or scattered in wild 
rout.ll 

De Cocqueville fared no better. Taking the 
field a month later than De Villars, he crossed the 

'C- Mendoza, Comment., folio 39. Bor., torn. 4, p. 233, et seq. 
■f Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 1G4. Mendoza and Bor., id antea. 
t Ibid. § Ibid. 

II De Thou, Hist. Uuiverselle, torn. 5, p. 443. Mendoza, uhi sup. 



522 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

Frencli border into the bailiwick of Hesdin, in Ar- 
'tois, with a muster twenty-five hundred strong. 
Here, the count de Eoeulx met him, and buffeted 
him back over the frontier. On the 18th of July, 
Mareschal de Coss6, governor of Picardy, came 
upon the rabble rout at the village of St. Yalery, 
and dealt De Cocqueville the finishing blow.* 

Those who were captured in these abortive ex- 
peditions neither expected nor received mercy. De 
Cocqueville was carried to Paris and beheaded by 
Charles IX., in requital of the assistance recently 
rendered him by Aremberg.t Whatever Nether- 
landers were taken with that hapless gentleman were 
handed over to the Spanish headsman at Brussels.^ 
De Yillars' head had fallen ere the effort of De 
Cocqueville w^as made.§ 

In the meantime, Louis Nassau had entered 
Groningen. The Frenchman in league , with Alva, 
and triumphant on the southern border ; the Span- 
iard flushed with success in the middle provinces ; 
the patriots in arms and advancing in the north — 
such was the political situation on the 1st of May, 
1568. 

Crossing Groningen at his leisure, Count Louis 
paused from time to time, to set up his standard 
and to invite the cooperation of the sj'mpathetic 
masses. Upon one side of his banner the worcTs 

* De Thou, Hist. Universelle, torn. 5, p. 443. Mencloza, uhi svp. 
Eor., torn. 4, p. 234. Strada, torn. 2, pp. 46, 47. • 

t Strada, torn. 2, pp. 46, 47. J Bor., torn. 4, p. 238. 

§ De Cocqueville took the field near the end of June. Villuis 
was executed on the 2d of June. 



LIBEKTY'S DRUM-TAP. 523 

"Now or Never" were emblazoned, and on the 
other the device was, "Freedom for Fatherkind 
and Libert}^ of Conscience "''^ -- mottoes which 
awakened the enthnsiasm of the hardy Dutchmen, 
and attracted hundreds of valiant but ill-armed and 
undisciplined rustics to the liberal army. 

On the western w^olds of Frisia, the stronghold 
of Wedde, a residence of Count Aremberg, stadt- 
holder of the province, was surprised.f Thence 
Nassau pushed on to Appingedam, on the tide- 
waters of the Dollart, a bay created by an inunda- 
tion which had swallowed thirty-three villages at a 
gulp.:!: Piesting here for a space, the patriot cap- 
tain improved that opportunity to lay the neigh- 
boring city of Groningen under contribution. The 
prudent burghers, anxious to please Nassau and 
not to anger Alva, refused to admit the count's 
men-at-arms, but bought off for a time the menaced 
assault by a present of good Datch guilders ;§ 
which came timely, for Nassau's mercenaries were 
already mutinous. 11 Ere Count Louis resumed his 
march, Adolphus Nassau, a younger brother of his 
devoted house, rode into camp at the head of three 
hundred cavaliers, a much-needed and very wel- 
come reinforcement.TF 

While rebellion was thus making headway, Alva, 
who had been apprized of the new peril by lieuten- 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 2G7. t Motley, vol. 2, p. 18G. 

% Strada, uhi sup. § Bor., torn. 4, p. 235. 
II Prescott, vol. 2, p, 242. 

^ Mendoza, Comeutarios, folio 4G. Bor., uhi sup. 



524: THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

aut-governor GroesLeck of Fiiesland, was prepar- 
ing to cope with it. " Be you not taken napping, 
seigneur stadtliolder," wrote lie to Groesbeck on 
the 30tli of April ; " but keep your eyes well open 
until the arrival of succor, which is on the wa3^"* 

This done, Aremberg, who had just returned 
from France, was ordered to set out for the north 
without pause. " Your own regiment, some squad- 
rons of cavalry, and Braccamonte's Sardinian legion 
shall follow 3'ou with all speed," said the governor- 
general.t At the same time, Alva had an interview 
with Count Megen, stadtliolder of Guelders. To 
Megen he intrusted a park of artillery, three com- 
panies of light horse, and five vauderas+ of infan- 
tiy — fifteen hundred men in all — bidding him coop- 
erate with Aremberg.§ The wary old soldier 
cautioned both to beware of undervaluing the foe ; 
and " above all," added he, " do nothing except in 
concert. Together, you have four thousand picked 
veterans — enough to disperse this peasant gang : 
but be not over-confident."|l 

Worn by anxiety and lame with gout, Aremberg 
Avas fitter for an invalid's couch than for the saddle. 
Nevertheless, obedient to orders, he mounted horse 
and galloped wath all speed towards the front. At 
Harlingen, on the 18tli of May, he was joined by 
his entire division — upwards of three thousand sea- 
s' Cor. de Due d'Albe. Cited iu Motley, vol. 2, p. 187. 
t Ibid. 

J One of Alva's vauderas counted one hundi-ed and seventy 
men on an average. 

§ Mendoza, uhl sup, \\ Ibid. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 525 

Koned campaigners." Count Megen, delayed by 
the untimely insubordination of his corps, clamor- 
ous for back pay, was a day's march in the rear.f 

For the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts 
of Nassau, though with no desire to precipitate a 
battle until his coadjutor should come up, Arem- 
berg at once struck his tents at Harlingen, pushed 
quickly through the streets of Groningen, and on 
the 22d of May, came upon Count Louis' vanguard 
at Appiugedam.:]: The Spanish advance, too fiery 
to be controlled, charged the patriot pickets and 
drove them in pell-mell. Then, as night was nigh, 
farther fighting was postponed by mutual consent, 
and both armies bivouacked. 

Louis Nassau was dissatisfied with his position 
at Appingedam. He knew his raw and mutinous 
following to be inferior to the foe in all save num- 
bers. Equity required that what his men lacked in 
morale, they should counterbalance by position. 
Accordingly, his camp-master was commanded to 
keep the watch-fires brightly ablaze till midnight; 
but at that time the patriot army retreated three 
leagues to the south of the twilight bivouac, along 
the Wold-weg„ forest-road, a narrow cause^vay 
through a swamp. On a wooded knoll, hard by 
the abbey of Heiliger-lee — the " Holy Lion," which 
gave its name to the ensuing battle — Count Louis 
halted and prepared to fight.§ 

- Bor., torn. 4, p. 235. Mencloza. f Ibid. 

X Strada, torn. 2, p. 47. Bor., uhi sup. 
§ Ibid. Motley, vol. 2, p. 189. 



526 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

This position was more to Nassau's mind, for it 
was one of extraordinary strength. In his rear 
loomed the abbey, girt by a dense wood ; on his 
left stood a scraggy hill; on his right, and sweeping 
round to the front, there was a swamp, divided into 
squares by impassable ditches whence peat had 
been taken for fuel, leaving a fallacious and grass- 
like scum afloat upon the pools to simulate the turf 
that had been removed." On the knoll, high and 
dry. Count Louis' men-at-arms were drawn up in 
two squares, rather deep than wide, to defend the 
only approach to their position, the causeway, 
which crept serpent-like through the circumjacent 
bogs.t . 

On the morning of the 23d of Ma}', Aremberg 
awoke to find that his opponent had given him the 
slip. He at once sounded the advance, though 
still, recalling Alva's orders, determined not to join 
battle until reinforced by Megen. When he dis- 
covered Nassau posted before the Heiliger-lee, the 
astute soldier was confirmed in his purpose to 
await the arrival of his colleague.:]: Did he not 
know the admirable strength of the enemy's posi- 
tion ? Was he not well acquainted with the treach- 
erous nature of the ground — one great sweep of 
traps and pitfalls ? 

But the Spanish veterans, vain from a hundred 
successful battle-fields, filled with contempt for the 

-'> Motley, Yol. 2, p. 191. Prescott, vol. 2, p. 242. Mendoza. 
f Ibid. De Thou, torn. 5, p. 445, et seq. 
i Strada, torn. 2, p. 47. Mendoza, folio 52. 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 527 

disorderly levies of Count Louis, already iu full re- 
treat as they tliouglit, and heated by the pursuit, 
were clamorous for an immediate action. " No," 
said their prudent leader, "I shall not fight until 
Count Megen is by my side."* This peremptory 
refusal caused intense excitement in his camp ; offi- 
cers and soldiers were alike indignant, "Wliy should 
a halt be made merely to allow Megen's loitering 
and mutinous troops, arriving at the eleventh hour, 
to share in the triumph and the spoil ?t " This 
Aremberg is a disloyal coward," said some. " He 
is inclined to play the traitor," cried others. " He 
is a Netherlander himself, and therefore a heretic," 
shouted another chorus. | Aremberg was a brave 
and prudent and skilful captain ; but, unhappily 
for himself, he lacked moral courage — he could 
not stand fire under a battery of taunting tongues. 
In this he was unlike Alva, unlike the foremost sol- 
diers of all ages. " KecoUect that the first foes 
with whom one has to contend are one's own 
troops" — it was so that Alva instructed Don John of 
Austria — "with their clamors for an engagement at 
this moment, and with their murmurs about results 
at another ; with their ' I thought that the battle 
should be fought,' or ' It was my opinion that the 
occasion ought not to be lost.' Your highness Avill 
have ample opportunity to display valor, and will 
never be weak enough to be conquered by the 

* Strada, torn. 2, p. 47. Meudoza, fol. 52. 

t Motley, uhl sup. 

X Brantome, CEuvres, torn. 1, p,382. Strada, torn. 2, p. 47. 



528 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

babble of soldiers."* 'T is a useful lesson, this of 
the responsibility and independence of a general in 
the field, and one necessary to be learned by all 
military men. 

Aremberg had not learned it, though ujDon this 
occasion the ancient jealousy between Netherlander 
and Spaniard extenuated his fault. " Come, then," 
cried he, " let us see whether a Netherlander dare 
not lead where a Spaniard dare follow ;" and with 
a wild huzza, both captain and soldiers flung them- 
selves uj^on the foe.f 

The result w^as precisely that which Aremberg 
had feared. The Spaniards charged, not Nassau's 
rustics, but the mud and water of the morass which 
fronted the abbey of Heiliger-lee. Scores were 
entombed alive in the verdant pools.:!: Hundreds 
were slaughtered by Count Louis' pikemen, as 
they essayed to crawl up the oozy banks from out 
the ditches.§ Dry-shod and unassailed, the patriot 
men-at-arms were busied onlj^ in slaying the entan- 
gled and helpless veterans of Spain. || While Arem- 
berg's main body was thus struggling in the mud. 
Count Louis' cavalry, led by Adolphus Nassau, 
made a detour around the base of the hill which 
had thus far sheltered them from the enemy's fire, 
and falling upon the Spanish rear-guard ere these 
could advance to aid their perishing comrades, rode 
them down, trampled them out of existence, and 

" Docnmentos Ineditos, torn. 3, p. 273, et seq. 

f Brantome, uhi sup. Mendoza, folios 4!», 50. Hoofd. 

X Ibid. Strada, uhi sup. § Ibid. || Ibid., ut aniecu 



LIBERTY'S DRUM-TAP. 521) 

won the battle by a cou20 cle main* But, alas, the 
gallant young cavalry-man — he was but twenty- 
seven— crossed the path of Aremberg in this wild 
gallop ; who, determined not to survive defeat, rush- 
ed with chivalrous ardor to meet his conqueror. 
Each fell by the other's handt— Aremberg among 
the earliest killed on the side of Spain in this grim 
war; Adolphus the first slain of a house destined 
thereafter to lay so many of its children in untimely 
graves. 

Nassau's laurels were dappled with the blood of 
his beloved brother; but nevertheless, great were 
the spoils of his victory. His loss was small, while 
five hundredl of his foemen strewed the battle-plain 
stiff in death. His booty — Aremberg's rich service 
of plate, a sum of money, military stores — was a wel- 
come item in his list of captures ;§ as were also six 
cannon brought by the Spaniards from Groningen, 
and which had been baptized by the lovers of such 
harmony with the notes of the gamut, 7it, re, mi, fa, 
sol, Zrt.il But it had been ordained that when these 
musical pieces piped, the Spaniards were not to 
dance.H 

In the very midst of the rout, Count Megen 
came up, but not soon enough to succor Aremberg.*- 

« Motley, vol. 2, p. 193. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 47. Mendoza, et al. 

t Some accounts say 1,GOO. Vide Meteren, folio 52. Hoofd, 
torn. 5, p. 1G6. Compare Corresp. du Duo d'Albe, p. 3. Men- 
doza, p. 50. 

§ Archives de la Maisou d'Oraugc-Nassau, torn. 3, p. 221. 

II Strada, uU sup. If Motley, ubi sup. 

** Corresp. dn Due d'Albc. pp. 90, 98. 

Piltrh Hi'f. 23 



530 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

Without striving to do so, be gathered what strag- 
glers he could pick up into his train, and by a dex- 
terous movement threw his division into Gronin- 
gen ; whither Nassau followed him after a few days, 
encamping before the town.* 

« Bor., 4, p. 236. 



TRAGEDIES. 531 

CHAPTER XXX. 

TRAGEDIES. 

•Although in the year of grace 1568 there were 
no steam-engines to rush from town to town, sneeze 
out the news, and clash into the horizon ; and al- 
though the hghtning had not been tamed as yet 
into an errand-boy, the report of Aremberg's defeat 
and death sped over Europe with a fleetness almost 
telegraphic. Men viewed the news through the 
eyes of their politics. Orange rejoiced; not on 
account of the material results of Count Louis' suc- 
cess, these were not many, but because of the moral 
effect of a victory won by raw, ill-paid, and half- 
mutinous troops over veterans esteemed invincible. 

Alva was enraged for the same reason ; not be- 
cause of the loss sustained in men and munitions 
of war — though this was felt at such a crisis, and 
the governor-general, like Augustus, called vainly 
on the dead commander for his legions — but on 
account of the prestige acquired by the insurgents, 
certain to animate their allies to fresh exertions, 
sure to inspire the forces of William, nearly ready 
to march to the assistance of the invaders, and 
likely to stir the provinces themselves to widespread 
revolt. " CospettoT exclaimed Alva, "I must take 
the field in person against these insolent beggars."* 

* Mendoza, Comentarios. 



532 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

But before the enactment of that drama, there 
was a prehide to be played. An antidote Vv-as to 
be provided for domestic sedition. The hot blood 
of the governor-general was to be cooled by the 
precipitate execution of a long list of titled victims. 
The battle of Heiliger-lee had been fought on the 
23d of May. On the 28th of May sentence by "de- 
fault was passed upon the prince of Orange, Louis 
Nassau, Culemberg, and the rest — perpetual exile 
and the confiscation of their estates to the use ''" 
the crown.* At the same time Culemberg-house, the 
cradle of Brederode's confederacy, where Alva had 
at first pitched his headquarters — he had moved 
thence to the castle of Brabant upon Margaret's 
retirement — was levelled to the earth. Above the 
ruins a marble column was reared, upon the pedes- 
tal of which were engraved these words in four lan- 
guages : " In this area stood the palace of Florence 
Pallant, count of Culemberg, now razed to execrate 
the damnable conspiracy plotted therein against 
religion, the Roman church, the king's majesty, and 
the country."! 

After witnessing this pageant, the blood-judges 
returned to their meal of vengeance with sharpened 
appetites, sentencing to death, ere they adjourned 
for the day, nineteen prisoners of high rank, guilty 
of having signed the papers of the league.]: On the 

■"■ Sententicn van Alba, ji. 70. Viglii Epist. ad Hop., p 481. 
t Strada, torn. 2, p. 42. Bor., torn. 4, p. 248. 
% Meteren, folio 57. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 167, et seq. Strada, 
torn. 2, p. 48. 



TRAGEDIES. 533 

1st of June these covenanters were beheaded in the 
horse-market at Brussels. Eight of tlieni died Ro- 
manists, and their uncoffined remains were interred 
in unconsecrated ground. The others were heretics ; 
their bodies were tied to stakes, their heads were 
set upon poles, and so left to rot back to dust.* 

On the following morning, aghast Brussels again 
assembled to behold the execution of another batch 
of victims, a dozen in uumber,f among whom was 
Villars, the leader of that division of the invaders 
v.ho were routed on the frontier of Juliers.| On 
the 3d of June, Casembrot of Backerzeel, Egmont's 
confidential secretary, condemned as a whilom mem- 
ber of the beggars' union, was put to the torture — 
he had been racked befo '=' — in the hope that some 
confession which should implicate his master might 
be wrung from his tormented lips.§ He made no 
disclosures; and wliennt became evident that he 
would say nothing to the prejudice of Egmont, Alva 
was so enraged that he bade the executioner tear 
him asunder with wild liorses.H 

Twenty-four hours later, almost before poor 
Backerzeel's muscles had ceased to quiver, two 
close carriages, escorted by ten companies of pike- 
men and arquebusiers and a detachment of lancers, 
entered the capital. It was dusk as the cort(^ge, 

* Strada, ubi sup. Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, 
torn. 3, p. 241. t Bor., Hoofd, xthi sxip. t Ibid. 

§ Bentivoglio, Gucii-a de Fiaiidra, p. 200. 

(1 Bentivoglio, ut aiiiea. This circumstance finds no place in 
the accounts of Backerzeel's execution given by the other contem- 
poraneous historians. Compare Strada, Meteren, Hoofd, et al. 



534 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

defiling tlirougli the streets to tlie music of a dead 
march, halted before the Bread-house — now the 
Maison du Eoi, a picturesque old pile opposite the 
Town-hall, on the great square of Brussels. Here, 
two figures, muffled and carefully attended, alight- 
ed, one from either vehicle, passed quickly up the 
steps, and entered the building; whereupon, the 
men-at-arms broke ranks and prepared to bivouac 
in the square. Rapid as the transit had been, the 
gaping burghers recognized the features of Count 
Horn and the stately form of Egmont in the fading 
twilight of the summer day — recognized them, and 
instantly surmised that they were now in Brussels, 
after an absence of nine months, as guests of the 
headsman.* 

How had these months been passed ? Let us 
ascertain by looking back, for a moment, over the 
shoulder of this history. * 

Two facts are to be borne in mind: first, the 
cases of Egmont and Horn had been judged at 
Madrid, while they were at large and unsuspic- 
ious in the states, and the sentence, signed by 
Philip in blank, had been brought from Spain in 
Alva's portfolio.;'!' second, the seigneurs would have 
been shot at sight by the decree of a drum-head 
court-martial, had it not been deemed safest, on 
account of their high rank and influential position, 
to pretend to base the imported judgment on the 
fraudulent developments of a mock trial. Hence 

» Iloofd, torn. 5, p. 1G8. Monclancct, op. Brantome, (Euvres, 
torn. 1, p. 3G3. t Hool'd, nU sup. 



TRAGEDIES. 535 

the arrest ; hence a formal impeachment. But 
since the verdict was in the pocket of the governor- 
general, the prosecution did not esteem it necessary 
to observe more than the flimsiest forms of what 
might look like law in the eyes of the ignorant — 
law itself being ignored at the very outset by hold- 
ing the jjrisoners to answer at the bar of the blood- 
judges, an abnormal and unknown tribunal. Every 
step taken in such a trial necessarily became a 
cumulative illegality. 

The betrayed grandees were hardly lodged in 
the dungeon-keep at Ghent, when Alva, as greedy 
for gold as for blood, sequestrated their estates, by 
a stroke of the pen reducing them from affluence to 
beggary.* As a consequence, their imprisonment 
was rigorous and necessitous.t Hardest of all, 
they were not allowed to look upon the dear faces 
of their fi-iends and relatives. | 

On the 12th of November, 1567, Vargas, Del 
Kio, and Mr. Secretary Pratz visited the prison- 
house. Where the carcass is, there will the vul- 
tures be. The trio had been empowered by Alva 
to examine and cross-examine Egmont and Horn, 
for the purpose of entrapping them, if possible, into 
an admission of guilt.§ Through five days, the 
wily lawyers questioned and hinted and verbally 
writhed, until the interrogatories filled fifty octavo 
pages, and covered the entire ground of the recent 

■" Bor. Cited iu Prescott, Yol. 2, p. 253. f Ibid. 

I Vide letter of Countess Egmont to Philip in Cor. de Philippe 
II., torn. 2, p. 5. § Bor., torn. 4, p. 190. 



536 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

tumnlts.* Each prisoner was examined separately, 
and, unacquainted Avitli the law, each was at first 
reluctant to answer ; nor would either do so until in- 
formed that, in default of the required replies, each 
was to be proceeded against for contempt of court.f 

With these records, obtained by bullying the 
captives, the inquisitorial attorneys withdrew ; and 
from their report, which each swore to and signed, 
the procurator -general made out the processes 
against the illustrious condemned.'! 

Two months passed ere the counts were again 
disturbed. But on the 10th of January, 15G8, each 
was handed a copy of the accusations filed against 
him by the king's attorney.§ Upon scanning his 
indictment, Egmont found that it contained ninety 
counts ; Horn discovered that his was composed of 
sixty-three counts.il 

As the indictments were substantially alike, they 
may be considered as one document. The general 
charge against both seigneurs was, " that they had 
plotted with the prince of Orange to dispossess the 
king of the Low Countries, and to divide the prov- 
inces among themselves."! The specifications in 
proof were masterpieces of impudent knavery. The 
most frivolous gossip, the most irrelevant circum- 
stances were jumbled together with matters of real 

* Interrogations. Prescott, uhi s^q). 

t La Deduction de I'lnnocence du Coiute de Horne, pp. 36, 37. 

J La Dediictiou, etc., rd antea. 

§ Proces du Comte d'Egmont, Bor., torn. 4, p. 190. 

II Ibid. La Deduction, etc., uhi sup. 

•if Tbid. Stiada, torn. 2, p. -19. 



TRAGEDIES. 537 

moment. The origination of the fool's cap livery 
was placed side by side with the meeting at Den- 
dremond ; the banquet of the gueux at Culemberg- 
house was collocated with the iconomachy; the 
unwilling answers of the prisoners were perverted 
into an acknowledgment of their open adhesion to 
the petitioners against the Inquisition ; and from 
this muddled mass of fact and fiction, an inference 
of treasonable intent was drawn with subtle skill.* 

The procurator-general had been given four 
months in which to elaborate these processes.t 
The counts, ignorant of law, deprived of the assist- 
ance of advocates, forbidden to consult with their 
friends, stripped of their papers, forced to rely on 
their unassisted memory of the events of a passion- 
ate crisis, were summoned to plead in writing to 
these labored and purposely mixed charges within 
five days, from the solitude of their dungeons, under 
penalty of condemnation by default.^ 

Thus menaced, and under protest, Egmont and 
Horn consented to plead. Both excepted to the 
tribunal, " saving to themselves all advai^tages in 
law which excused them from accounting for their 
actions to any save the king, who, sitting as grand- 
master of the brotherhood, was the sole judge of 
the knights of the Golden rieece."§ Then, in 
separate papers — they were not permitted to cou- 

'•' Vide, La Deductiou, etc., and Proces du Comte d'Egmont, 
passim. f Stracla, iCbi sup. 

J La Deductiou de I'lnnoceuce du Conitc de Homo, p. 39. 
Bor., torn 4, p. 195. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, \). 50. rroce.s du Coiiitc d'Egmout. 

23* 



538 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

suit even with each other — both proceeded to a 
critical analysis of the specifications, denying some, 
explaining away the damaging purport of others, 
and indignantly repelling the whole treasonable 
inference.* 

In the meantime, the families of the imprisoned 
counts were indefatigable in their exertions to suc- 
cor the imperilled loved ones. Horn's wife, a 
German lady of high rank, aided by her husband's 
step-mother, the countess-dowager, wrote to the 
knights of the Golden Fleece, in whatever country 
residing, and obtained their written testimony to 
the inalienable right of the accused to be tried by 
their companions of the ordert — evidence of the 
first importance, since a trial by the blood-judges 
was known to be equivalent to a condemnation. < 

Nor was the countess of Egmont less active. 
By birth a duchess of Bavaria, interesting by the 
double claim of beauty and misfortune, the mother 
of eleven beggared children, she, the chiefest orna- 
ment of the court of Brussels in happier hours, was 
momentarily dazed by this calamity. But, pas- 
sionately devoted to the count, every pulsation of 
her heart soon became an effort for the liberation 
of her husband. Upon Egmont's arrest, she had 
taken refuge in a convent. From this retreat her 
incessant appeals moved all Europe to sympathetic 
action in her behalf. Friend and foe alike Avero 

* Stracla, torn. 2, p. 50. Proces cTu Comte cl'Egmont. 
t Supplement il Stracla, torn. 1, p. 2ii. Latin, La Deduction, 
etc., uhi sup 



TRAGEDIES. ' 539 

importuned, and wliat many would not have given 
to save Egmont personally from the block, was 
yielded to the clamorous tears of a mother pleading 
for the father of her children. 

The countess of Egmont had retained Nicholas 
de Landas, himself a Fleece knight, and one of the 
most eminent of the medinoval jurists.* At the 
instigation and in the name of his fair client, this 
honest advocate sent letters by the cart-load to the 
emperor Maximilian, to the German princes, to 
Alva, to Phihp himselff — "letters," says Strada, 
"Avhicli cannot Avell be read by any one without 
commiseration.":!^ In these epistles the countess 
solicited, not Egmont's release, but the removal of 
his cause from the Council of Blood to the legitimate 
tribunal of the Golden Fleece.§ 

The result was that Christendom at large began 
to intercede. The princes of the Roman empire, 
the duchess of Parma, Count Mansfeld, Barlaimont, 
even Granvelle, to whose portrait-painting Egmont 
was largely indebted for his misfortunes, and Max- 
imilian, who "remembered to forget" his recent 
snubbing in such a cause — all addressed Philip 
advising mercy, if they felt it not.Il So infectious 
was the courage of this woman, resolute from de- 
spair, that the timid estates of Brabant x>lucked up 
the heart to petition Alva to transfer these causes 

•~- Prescott, vol. 2, p. 25G. t Ibid. Strada, torn. 2, p. 49. • 

X strada, ubi sup. § Prescott, uhi sup. 

II Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, pp. 588, 599, 614. Strada, uU 
sup. La Deduction de rinnoceucc, etc. . p. G05. 



540 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

to the provincial courts, that the seigneurs might 
enjoy the protection of privileges which were the 
aegis of the meanest citizen.* 

In response to these manifold appeals, Philip, 
so prolific on common occasions, would not deign 
to speak. Alva was quite as reticent, though he 
did grudgingly concede to the counts the right of 
employing counsel.t Each of them retained five 
of the foremost advocates of the day ; and, to the 
credit of the Netherland bar be it said, these law- 
yers labored honestly, tirelessly, skilfully to save 
their clients, though such efforts, if not actually 
dangerovBS, were at least well understood not to lie 
in the path to preferment. But there have been 
attorneys who regarded a quiet conscience more 
than a tyrant's smile. When the emperor Cara- 
calla murdered his own brother, and ordered Papin- 
ian to defend the deed, he went cheerfully to death 
rather than sully his lij)s with the atrocious plea. 
It was in the self-same spirit that these Dutch law- 
yers undertook to do their duty. 

Their first step was to file a plea against the 
jurisdiction. They claimed that there were but 
three tribunals competent to try tlie prisoners. As 
knights of the Golden Fleece, they were privileged 
to be tried by the statutes of that order:]:- — statutes, 
indeed, which conferred on the brotherhood exclu- 
sive jurisdiction over all crimes committed by the 

« Bor., torn. 4, p. 189. 

f La Deduction dc I'lunocence, etc., p. 42, et seq. 

X Bor., torn. 4, p. 195. Proces du Comtc d'Egraout. 



TRAGEDIES. 511 

knights.* Horn, a chief part of whose estates lay 
in Germany, might justly claim to be a subject of 
the Eoman empire, impeachable alone by his peers, 
the electors and princes of that realm. f Egmont, 
the possessor of lands in Brabant, was properly 
amenable to the supreme court of that duchy.:]: 
Here were three legal fountains of power, each suf- 
ficient; the three together, three times sufficient; 
each exuberant, the three together three times exu- 
berant. 

The government began to feel embarrassed. 
It had been thought best to murder Egmont and 
Horn legally; but these masterly pleas against 
the jurisdiction, these skilful invocations of time- 
honored safeguards, had not been counted on. 
Despotism blundered in its maintenance even of 
the show of legality. Alva was tired of the farce. 
" Sire," wrote he to Philip, " pray put a stop to the 
harangues of these excepters by making known 
your decision."§ ^ 

The king complied, though he was careful to 
have his decision confirmed by " men of authority 
and learning ;"|| for, while regardless of the can- 
celled charters of the states, the statutes of the 
Order of the Fleece, a miniature republic whose 
citizens were emperors and kings and princes, were 
not so rudely to be overridden. Nevertheless, he 
was not to be balked of vengeance by parchment 

■= Vide chapters 11, 13, U, 15 of the Order of the Fleece, 
f Bor., uU sup. + j]^jj_ 

§ Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 562. || Ibid., p. 612. 



542 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

prohibitions. In the teeth of the statutes of the 
order, he declared that the immunities of the Fleece 
did not extend to treasonable practices ; and letters- 
patent, antedated eight months, were despatched 
to Alva, which empowered him to try all persons 
charged with treason.* 

Of course these credentials overruled all demur- 
rers to the jurisdiction. The next step of the wary 
advocates was to delay the trial. Suspicious that 
the case had been prejudged, they thought that 
every day the decision was postponed was an oppor- 
tunity won by their clients for escape. f On the Gth 
of May, the procurator-general remonstrated against 
these dilatory proceedings. " Eight months have 
elapsed," said he, " yet the defence have neglected 
to support their case by bringing forward their wit- 
ness. I pray that a day may be named for the close 
of the processes.":]: "Yes," was the reply, "we 
have abundant testimony at hand, but 't is custo- 
mary for the pr(^ecution to take precedence. Where 
are your witnesses ?" 

Alva, conveniently deaf to this retort,' named 
the 8th of May as the day on which the cases should 
terminate.§ On tlie morning of the 2d of June, 
15G8, a parcel of ex-parte papers Avere laid before the 
Council of Blood; and Vargas and Del Hio, judges 
who had acted as prosecuting aitorneys at the out- 

* Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 1, p. 612. 
t Prescott, vol. 2, pp. 267, 2G8. 
X Supplemeut "a Strada, torn. 1, p. 90. 
IJ La Deduction, etc., p. 43. 



TEAGEDIES. 543 

set, pronounced the prisoners — forbidden to adduce 
the testimony in their favor, ignorant of that which 
had been used against them — guilty of treason 
and of connivance at heres}^, and condemned them 
to the block * On the evening of the 4th of May, 
the governor-general went in person to a meeting^ 
of the blood-judges and joyfully approved this find- 
ing, scrawling " Alva" upon the back of it.f 

To apply the word trial to these proceedings 
would be an insult to its honest meaning. The tri- 
bunal was incompetent; the prisoners were long 
without advocates, during which time wily lawyers 
attempted to entrap them into fatal admissions; 
the testimony for the defence was excluded ; the 
government evidence was concealed ; and the causes 
were finally decided before a thousandth part of 
their merits had been placed under the eyes of the 
judges who gave the sentence.:]: 

Yiglius, an encj'clopedical toady, did indeed 
vouch for the legitimacy of the Council of Blood, 
and testify to the honesty of the trial.§ But the 
law maxim is that a witness should be trusted only 
in matters he understands; his evidence therefore 
goes for nothing. 

The accusation and the defence are still extant. 
On the facts, any impartial tribunal would have 
acquitted the counts. It was plain that they had 
noj; approved of the policy of the king at one time ; 

•"- Bor.. torn. 4, p. 239. Strada, torn. 2, p. 51. Meteren, folios 
5--2, 53. t Ibia. X Motley, vol. 2, p. 177. 

§ Cor. Je Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1. 



544 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

it was evident that they had esteemed several of 

Philip's measures to be impracticable ; but there 

"was uo evidence of a design to depose the tyrant. 

On the contrary, it appeared that both had opposed 

projects which squinted towards that end, earning 

the thanks of her highness of Parma for their loyal 

activity in a crucial hour.* Indeed, had Egmont 

and Horn been guilty, it would have been better 

for their posthumous fame. But how could men 

foredoomed hope to prove their innocence in a land 

where there was no law but the court-martial, no 

justice but the sergeant's guard; where usui*pation 

was styled legitimacy, and right was nicknamed 

brigandage ? 

More and more alarmed by the progress which 

Louis Nassau was making in the north, anxious to 

take the field at once, yet determined not to do so 

until Brussels had been scoured with the blood of 

Egmont and Horn, Alva named the day succeeding 

the sentence for the execution of the seigneurs. On 

the 4th of June he summoned the bishop of Ypres 

to the capital to shrive the prisoners. At dusk the 

prelate waited upon the governor-general. Falling 

upon his knees and bursting into tears, he falter- 

ingiy entreated that Egmont might be spared, at 

least that his execution might be deferred. " Eise, 

sir bishop," answered Alva fiercely ; " I did not 

* '• This was so evident, that Pierre Arseiis, presitleut of Artois, 
himself a member of the bloocl-eoimcil, addressed an elaborate 
memoir to Alva, criticising the case by the rules of law, and main- 
taining that Egmont, instead of deserving punishment, was enti- 
tled to a signal reward." Motley, vol. 2, p. 17'J. 



TBAGEDIES. 515 

bring you from Ypres to change or defer the sen- 
tence, but to confess the criminals."^ 

Towards midnight the churchman entered Eg- 
mont's chamber. Arousing the count from a heavy 
sleep, for he had been fatigued by the ride from 
Ghent, the bishop placed a parchment, on which 
the sentence was engi'ossed, in his hands. He 
thought at j&rst that it was an order for his release, 
having been led to hope that the conclusion of his 
trial would result in an acquittal — a delusion in 
which Horn is said to have shared. t Soon discov- 
ering his mistake, he yet read the paper through 
without flinching, though he turned deadly pale.:]: 
"Father," said he, "'tis a terrible sentence. Little 
did I imagine that any offence I had committed 
against God or the king could merit such a punish- 
ment. It is not death that I fear--that is the com- 
mon lot of all. But I shrink from dishonor." Then, 
after a pause, he asked, "Is there indeed no hope?" 
"None," replied the prelate with tearful accent. 
Again Egmont pronounced the sentence cruel and 
unjust ; adding, " But since it is the will of God and 
his majesty, I will try to meet it with patience. I 
venture to hope that my sufferings may so far expi- 
ate my offences that my innocent family be not 
involved in ruin by the confiscation of my estates."^ 
He was told that his property had already escheated 

* Supplement k Strada, torn. 1, p. 259. Bor., Hoofcl. 

f Relacion de la Justitia, MS., cited iu Prescott, vol. 2, -p. 278. 

J Supiilement "a Strada, torn. 1, p. 259. 

§ Ibid. Metercn, folio 5G. Bor., torn, -i, p. 239. 



546 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

to the crown. "Then I will write his majesty," was 
the response ; and seating himself, he penned a few 
lines to Philip, in which, after an affirmation of his 
innocence, he implored the king to take compassion 
upon his wife and children.* 

" Here, father," said he, handing the letter to 
the bishoj), " I charge you, as you value your soul, 
to forward this to his majesty. Send him this ring 
also" — and he drew one of great value from his 
finger — " 't was his own gift to me in happier 
times."t Egmont then remarked with exquisite 
courtesy, " I render thanks botli to God and the 
duke that my last moments are to be consoled by 
such an excellent father confessor. Teach me how 
to meet my end.":]: 

He then confessed himself, and afterwards spent 
some time in prayer. Suddenly a thousand tender 
recollections trooped through his mind, almost un- 
manning him — his unhappy countess, his suffering 
children, his own full enjoyment of an existence 
now about to be cut untimely short. " Alas, alas," 
exclaimed he, "how miserable and frail is our na- 
ture, that, when Ave should think of God alone, we 
are unable to shut out the images of wife and chil- 
dren. "§ 

After a little, he regained his self-possession. 
" What language shall I hold from the scaffold to 

* Supplement h, Strada, torn. 1, p. 259. Meteren, folio 56. 
Bor., torn. 4, p. 239, 

t Supplement a Strada, uhi sup. Corres. de Philippe II., toni. 
2, p. 764. 

X Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 169. § Ibid. 



TEAGEDIES. 547 

the assembled multitude ?" queried be. " I sliould 
advise you to say nothing," replied the prelate. 
" Those at a distance will not hear you ; the Span- 
iards will not understand you. Silence would be 
more dignified." The count acquiesced.* " What 
prayer would be most fitting for my lips at the last 
moment?" was the next question. "None could bo 
fitter," said the bishop, "than that which Christ 
taught the disciples : ' Our Father, which art in 
heaven.' "f Egmont spent the rest of the night in 
prayer, mediiTation, and the arming of his mind to 
suffer. I 

In Horn's apartment there was a similar scene. 
He was quite as much surprised as Egmont by the 
announcement of the verdict, and quite as calm. 
He too passed the hours in the exercises of devo- 
tion. § 

In the mean time, the presence of so many men- 
at-arms in the market-place, and the sight of work- 
men busy in constructing a scafi'old, gave rise to a 
rumor of the execution of the counts on the mor- 
row.ll The countess of Egmont heard of the report 
while on a visit of condolence to the newly-made 
widow of Aremberg. She did not credit it, for she. 
had in her pocket at that very moment a kind letter 
from Maximihan, in which he said, " Be of good 
cheer ; you have naught to fear on your husband's 

« Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 170. Bor., torn. 4, p. 240. 

t Motley, vol. 2, p. 201. % Strada, torn. 2, p. 52. 

§ Con-esp. de Marguerite d'Autriche, j), 252. 

II Metereu, folio 57. 



548 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

account."* Nevertheless, slie waited upon Alva at 
once. " Madame," said the duke with a brutal jest, 
"be not disheartened; your husband will leave his 
prison in the morning." t Beassured, the countess 
•we-pt her thanks, and withdrew. 

On the morrow, Whitsunday, the 5th of June, 
1568,J the prisoners were led out to die. Egmont 
came first. He wore a robe of red damask, and 
over that a black Spanish cloak trimmed with gold 
lace. He had himself cut off the collar of his doub- 
let to facilitate the executioner's duty.>§ His hands 
were untied, and in one of them he carried a white 
handkerchief. His hat was of black silk garnished 
with white and sable plumes. As the stately sol- 
dier emerged from the Bread-house, with the bish- 
op of Ypres and Jidian Bomero, camp-master, on 
either hand, a silence as of death fell upon the vast 
assembly of the citizens — ten thousand hearts could 
be heard to beat. 

As he crossed the square, Egmont repeated por- 
tions of the fifty-first psalm : " Have mercy on me, 
O God." In a moment the scafibld was reached. 
Over its rough surface a black cloth was spread. 
Upon this rested two velvet cushions placed before 
a silver crucifix. At one side stood a small table, 
flanked by two iron spikes. The provost-marshal 
sat below on horseback, with his red rod of ofiico 

<* Supplement a Strada, torn. ] , p. 252. 

t Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 1G9. Hoofd is the sole authority for this 
anecdote. | Strada, torn. 2, p. 52. 

§ Schiller, Execution of Egmout and Horn. 



TRAGEDIES. 549 

in his grasp. The headsman— who was said to 
have been Egmont's footman* — kept out of sight. 
About the scaffold three thousand Spanish sokliers 
were drawn up, no needless precaution; while two 
vauderas of infantry were left to guard the i)alace 
of the duke, and one went the rounds of the city 
while the tragedy was being enacted. t 

On ascending the scaffold, Egmont turned to 
Romero : " Is there no hope ?" said he. The camp- 
master shrugged his shoulders.:}: Egmont clenched 
his teeth ; then with a look of unutterable sadness 
he knelt, pulled the black cap over his eyes, cried 
with a steady voice, "Into thy hands, O Lord, 
I commend my spirit," and calmly awaited the 
death-stroke.§ Loud sobs of anguish alone broke 
the appalling silence ; and for an instant these were 
hushed as the headsman leaped upon the scaffold 
and at a single blow severed the victim's head from 
his shoulders. Before the crowd had recovered 
from its stupor, the love-locks of Egmont dangled 
from one of the iron spikes.H 

Then Horn appeared. With erect form and 
steady step he too mounted the scaffold, saluting 
his acquaintances as he went. Glancing at the 
bloody shroud which had been thrown over the 
remains of his poor friend, he said, " Is it the body 
of the count ?" On receiving an affirmative answer, 
he muttered something in Castilian which was not 

' Strada, torn. 2, p. 52. f Hoofd, torn. 5, r>. 170. 

t Bor., torn. 4, p. 210. Mctcrcn, folio 58. 

§ Ibid. II Ibid. 



550 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

understood. Without farther delay, he knelt, re- 
peated the words, " Into thy hands, O Lord," and 
was beheaded.* As he received the fatal blow, a 
half-smothered shriek rang out fi'om twice ten thou- 
sand voices. His bloody head was set up opposite 
that of his fellow-sufferer. Then ensued a scene 
which baffles description. The enraged populace, 
breaking through the serried ranks of the men-at- 
arms, dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of 
the martyrs, and carefully laid them aside as mon- 
uments of love, or incitements to revenge. Many, 
heedless of the presence of informers, openly threat- 
ened to avenge the counts.t 

As Egmont died, the French ambassador, a 
spectator of the scene, exclaimed, " I have seen his 
head struck off whose valor has twice caused France 
to tremble.":]: Even Alva, looking out from a win- 
dow of the Bread-house, is said to have wept.§ But 
blushes are not always virtue's signals of distress ; 
nor were Alva's tears the children of his sorrow — 
rather they were the progeny of gratified malignity. 

For three houES the heads of the seigneurs 
remained upon the spikes exposed to the gaze of 
the lamenting multitude.!! Then they were taken 
down, and Alva, as it is supposed, despatched the 
ghastly trophies to Madrid for the delectation of 
the king.1I The mutilated trunks were huddled into 

'^ Meteren, uhi sup. Moudaucot, op. Brantome. (Eiivi-es, torn. 
1, p. 3G7. t Strada, torn. 2, pp. 52, 53. % Ibid. 

§ Archives de la Maison d' Orange-Nassau. Supplement, p. 81. 
II Bor., torn. 4, p. 241. Meteren, folio 57. 
% Ibid. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 171. 



TEAGEDIES. 551 

coffins and surrendered to theii- respective families, 
wlio laid them in tlieir ancestral vaults.* 

Sucli was the tragic end of Egmont and Horn. 
Living, they had defrauded not only their country, 
but their own genius. Dead, they were more use- 
ful to humanity, for they became a sentiment. 

« The countess of Egmont lived ten years after the death of 
her husband. For a time Alva paid her a small annuity. Her 
children were eventually reinstated in their rights by Phihi), but 
not iintil after her death. Vide Prescott, vol. 2, pp. 300, 304. 



552 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 

A FEW days after the taking off of Egmont and 
Horn, the governor-general set out for the north to 
chastise Count Louis of Nassau. He would not 
delegate the duty ; when the rent came, he meant 
to be present at the darning. 

Every available veteran in the Spanish pay had 
been ordered to report for active service at the town 
of Deventer, on the southern frontier of Overyssel.* 
By the 10th of July, 1568, when Alva himself reached 
the rendezvous,t seventeen thousand pikemen and 
arquebusiers and three thousand light-cavalrymen 
and dragoons were in the camp, and two-thirds of 
the whole number were experienced sons of Mars.:}: 

As the duke was about to leave Deventer for the 
front, several of his scouts galloped into town and 
reported the patriots just at hand. " We have heard 
their drums and seen their colors," said they. Alva 
Avas astonished ; but with his usual caution he drew 
up his legions in battle array, and at the same time 
sent out a squadron of lancers to reconnoitre. These 
were no sooner in the field than they too saw four 

« Corresp. du Due d'Albe, p. 154. f Mendozn,, p. 5G. 

% Bor., torn. 4, p. 243, et seq. Hoold, torn. 5, p. 174. Com- 
pare Mendoza, pp. 53, 55, and Strada, torn. 2, p. 54. The last two 
writers reduce Alva's force to about 15,000 men. 



DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 553 

banners gallantly displaj^ed ; but on riding closer, 
tliey discovered tliat the "patriots" consisted of 
four wagons covered with canvas and green boughs, 
in one of which a bride, married that morning, and 
not dreaming of war — at least with any one save 
her husband — was riding towards an adjacent vil- 
lage with a retinue of merry-making peasants. 

When the Spanish men-at-arms were informed 
of the nature of their enemy, discipline was momen- 
tarily forgotten in mirth, and a volley of musket- 
shot was fired in honor of the bride. From this 
circumstance a military proverb arose. Thereaf- 
ter, if any Low Country scout showed fear, he was 
asked, " Have you seen the bride ?"* 

The ascetic nature of Alva — in whose constitu- 
tion that portion of the human anatomy popularly 
supposed to be synonymous with feeling, and which 
is situated in the left side of the breast-bone, seems 
to have been left out — was ill-fitted to enjoy such an 
interruption. Sharply rebuking those whose care- 
lessness had occasioned the delay, he sounded an 
advance.! On the 15th of July he halted in the 
streets of Groningen. | After entrenching his 
trooj)S in the suburbs, he himself, without dis- 
mounting, and with but few attendants, rode out to 
reconnoitre. 

Since his victory at Heiliger-lec, Louis Nassau 
had been languidly besieging Groningen. In his 
military chest there was a vacuum abhorred alike 

» Strada, torn. 2, p. 54. f Ibid. 

X Ibid. Bor., torn. 4, p. 235. Mendoza. 

llUICh lii:T. 24 



554 THE DUTCH BEFORMATION. 

by nature and all treasury departments. Various 
measures hit on to coerce a levy from the inhabit- 
ants of the adjacent towns had been substantial 
failures.* The peasantry, friendly at heart, were 
lukewarm from policy. At times actual starvation 
stared the invaders in the face. Of course the mer- 
cenaries became clamorous and turbulent. As a 
consequence, they were inactive. Nevertheless, 
Count Louis, by liberal distributions of promises, 
contrived to hold his soldiers — ten or twelve thou- 
sand men, such as they weret— together, and to 
maintain some show of discipline.:): His position 
under the walls of Groningen was good — on the 
immediate front a deep ditch ; an arrow's flight 
beyond the ditch the river Hunse, spanned by two 
wooden bridges, which pickets were prepared to 
burn at need, thus isolating the patriot camp.§ 

Alva's keen eye could detect no flaw in Nassau's 
position. Still, on rejoining his troops, he ordered 
out five hundred musketeers to skirmish with the 
gueux — less with the hope of beating them from 
their entrenchments than for the purpose of testing 
their strength and holding them in play until the 
Spanish cannon could be unlimbered.il 

To the duke's surprise, before his skirmishers 
had fired a dozen volleys. Count Louis' soldiers, 

=" Corresp. du Due d'Albe, p. 124, et seq. 

f Groen van Prinsterer says they numbered between 7,000 and 
8,000. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 210, note. 
X Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 174. Bor., et al. 
§ Ibid. Strada, nhi sup. 
II Strada, torn. 2, p. 54. Mendoza, Comcntarios, p. 59. 



DISASTKOUS CAMPAIGNING. 555 

conquered by their fears, burned the bridges and 
began precipitately to retreat. The base example 
had been set by the German mercenaries, who, be- 
lieving that Nassau was wilfully withholding their 
arrears, refused to fight at this inauspicious moment, 
unless paid in full. Nassau pleaded and scolded 
and argued by turns; all to no purpose; nothing 
could stay the ebb-tide of the mutineers.""^ 

Meantime the Spaniards, heated by the skir- 
mish and fired by the retirement of the foe, could 
no longer be restrained. Crossing the blazing 
bridges, swimming the rapid river, floundering 
through the ditch, they fiercely assailed the flank 
of the coward invaders. Night alone, now just at 
hand, prevented the retreat from becoming a wild 
rout. As it was, three hundred were slain, while 
as many more were smothered in the abounding 
bogs — the king losing but nine men.f 

On the edge of evening, Alva recalled his pur- 
suing squadrons.. "Lest," said he, " they be en- 
trapped in the blind, cozening holes and pits of 
which this land is full.":!: That very night he sent 
off a courier to Brussels to announce that Nassau's 
forces were hopelessly dispersed; adding, "I shall 
complete my victory on the morrow. "§ 

The duke was mistaken; by masterly general- 
ship. Count Louis managed to regather his scat- 

* Strada, torn. 2, ]). 51. Mendoza, Comentarios, p. 59. Hoofd, 
torn. 5, p. 174. t Strada, uhi sup. Mendoza, p. 62. 

J Strada, uhi sup. 
§ Corresp. du Due d'Albe, pp. ISi, 155. 



656 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

tered coliorts. Witli these, still about ten thousand 
strong, he continued the retreat ; halting finally, at 
the village of Jemmingen, on the border of West 
Friesland, between the Dollart and the river Ems.* 
The new camp was admirably chosen and guarded. 
At their back, the patriots had Embden, a friendly 
city; whence, by the Ems, they might expect pro- 
visions and reinforcements from the prince of Or- 
ange. About them Avere many marshes, always 
haK-submerged, and impassable save by a single 
road on the top of the narrow dyke which over- 
looked the swelling billows, and ran directly into 
the camp and village — an avenue now defended by 
redoubts and ten cannon planted in its mouth.t 
Held by determined men, this position would have 
been impregnable ; but fear can never be sufficiently 
entrenched. 

On the 21st of July, Alva, who never slept out 
an opportunity, appeared before Jemmingen. | Nas- 
sau, suspicious of his troops, and anxious to make 
nature his ally, ordered out a corps of pioneers to 
open the sluices — a manoeuvre which would have 
laid the whole adjacent territory under water ;§ for 
in that artificial country dykes interlace the entire 
landscape, and these are furnished with floodgates, 
by means of which the waters are controlled. 

The wily duke perceived this movement, and 
surmised its purpose. A company of mounted car- 

■=- Strada, ut antea. t Ibid. 

% Ibid. Mendoza, p. C6. Cor. dn Due d'Albe, p. 15G. 
^ Metcreu, folio 51. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 175. 



DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 557 

bineers were at once thrown forward to reclose the 
half-opened sluices; which they did, after a stub- 
born contest.* At this critical moment the German 
mercenaries again mutinied. When they should 
have been in line of battle, they stood clamoring for 
their arrears round Count Louis' tent.t Apprized 
of this unseasonable insubordination by deserters, 
Alva pushed his whole army up the one road to 
the village, cut down the few faithful soldiers who 
attempted to dispute the passage, scrambled over 
the redoubts, and was victorious without a strug- 
gle.| Count Louis' cannon were fired but once, 
and then by his own hand.§ A frightful slaughter 
instantly commenced. Turning their own artillery 
against them, the remorseless duke swept down his 
foemen in platoons. Hundreds of the coward mer- 
cenaries were cut to pieces offering their backs to 
the sword, as slaves do theirs to the master's whip. 
The river too was choked with the flying, most of 
whom were drowned by the weight of their armor ; 
while those who contrived to swim were made tar- 
gets of, and shot like so many ducks by the laugh- 
ing Spaniards.! The citizens of Embden learned 
the issue of the fight long before Alva's couriers 
came into town, by the multitudes of patriot hats 
which floated down the stream ;1 as, many centuries 

» Meteren, folio 51. Hoofcl, torn: 5, p. 175. Meucloza. 
t Stracla, torn. 2, p. 55. 

X Mendoza, Comentarios, pp. 67, 68. Strada, torn. 2, pp. 55, 
56. Meteren, folio 54. 

§ Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 176. || Strada, ubi sup. 

II Ibid. 



558 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

•before, when the Eomaus battled with the Sabines 
on the banks of the Arno, they at Eome, seeing the 
arms of the Sabines floating upon the Tiber, into 
which the Arno empties, forestalled the messengers 
by their jjre-knowledge of the joyful tidings. 

The victory was complete. The Spanish loss 
was not above seventy ; that of the invaders was 
between sis and seven thousand men.* The whole 
camp was Alva's spoil — baggage, provisions, can- 
non ; among the rest the sis musical pieces captured 
at Heiliger-lee, fell into his greedy maw.f TIius 
terribly was Aremberg avenged. 

For a time it was supposed that Nassau had 
perished in the rout, his clothes having been found 
among the spoils of the conflict.:|: His hour had not 
come. Though fighting to the last, death had 
shunned him. When all hope had fled, he stripped 
off his dress, swam the Ems, crossed into Germany, 
and with a handful of travel and blood-stained 
attendants, rejoined the prince of Orange. § 

That very night, ere leaving the battle-ground, 
the fanatic conqueror despatched a messenger to 
acquaint the pontiff with the news ; and upon its 
reception the holy father commanded three succes- 
sive days of thanksgiving to be kept in as many of 
the chiefest churches ; while bonfires, chimes of 
bells, and salvos of artillery betokened, and rang 

o Strada, uU sup. Meteren, folio 55. Bor., torn. 4, p. 245, ei 
seq. Campana, Gucr. di Fiancl., lib. 2, p. 54. -j- Ibid. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 56. 
§ Meteren, folio 55. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 17G. 



DISASTEOUS CAMPAIGNING. 551) 

out, and thundered forth the pious joy of Kome.* 
At the same time, the provinces were ordered to 
celebrate the victory with processions and joy-bells 
and Te Beums.-f Justice had just had its throat 
cut : it was natural that Eomo should celebrate the 
murder with the meretricious mummeries of a spec- 
tacular religion. 

Having thus routed and rejoiced over the inva- 
ders, Alva bethought him of still farther vengeance. 
Had not thousands of the Frieslanders sympathized 
with Nassau ? Had not many of their towns ad- 
hered to him ? Momentarily relaxing his iron dis- 
cipline, the governor-general permitted his men-at- 
arms to spread the wings of their desolation and 
sweep the whole frontier. Jemmingen was fired, 
after the inhabitants, of all ages, of both sexes, had 
been slain, Hermes Bakkereel, the reformed minis- 
ter, being stabbed to the heart in the arms of his 
daughter.:!: Speeding thence, the pitiless victors 
carried death and dishonor in all directions. Maids 
and matrons were ravished before the eyes of 
fathers and husbands. § The water in the ditches 
ran thick with blood. The very earth seemed 
changed to ashes.H 

In this guise Alva marched to Groningen, where 
he forced the unwilling citizens to receive John 
Kniffius, designated bishop of the town in Gran- 

* Strada, uhl sup., p. 57. 

t Davies, vol. 1, p. 5G3. Mendoza. 

X Campana, Guer. di Fiand, lib. 2, p. 55. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 268. 

§ Mendoza and Bor. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 222. 

II Motley, ut aniea. 



560 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

velle's day.* From Groningen, he took liis way 
through Amsterdam to Utrecht, proceeding thence 
to Bois-le-Duci" In all these towns havoc and the 
headsman waited on his footsteps. The iconoclasts 
had been rampant in this whole section, and here it 
was that Brederode had received aid and comfort : 
worst of all, in Alva's eyes, Amsterdam and Utrecht 
and Bois-le-Duc were strongholds of heresy. Against 
all these classes of offenders his anger was inexo- 
rable. Woe betide the man or woman, child or 
adult, upon whom even the shadow of a suspicion 
fell. Any one whom the most searching inquiries 
could connect with the opponents of the Inquisi- 
tion, with the image-breakers, with the guciix, was 
lost beyond a peradventure. At Haarlem, on the 
29th of July, three peasants — one a former soldier 
of Brederode, one a suspected breaker of images, 
one a writer of verses against the pope — were hung.:}: 
At Utrecht, a little later, an aged gentlewoman, the 
Vrow van Diemen, was convicted of having per- 
mitted her son to entertain a reformed preacher 
over night, without denouncing him to the holy 
office. She was herself a Komanist; but her in- 
come of four thousand guilders per annum was an 
unpardonable crime. On being conducted to the 
scaffold, she did not flinch. " Is your sword sharp?" 
asked she, as the executioner prepared to deal her 
Ifche fatal blow ; " because my poor old neck is very 
tough."§ In this same city of Utrecht, another 

* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 270. Strada, torn. 2, p. 58. 

f Brandt, uhi sup. Mendoza. | Brandt, uU sup. § Ibid. 



DISASTEOUS CAMPAIGNING. 561 

lad}^ a widow, was beheaded a month after the 
Vrow van Diemen, because she had encouraged her 
boy to frequent the conventicles of the reformed ; 
though rumor had it at the time that the prosecu- 
ting attorney, to whom she had made heavy loans, 
had taken this " new way to pay old debts."* 

Thus precarious was the hold which the wretch- 
ed Netherlanders had upon existence ; thus strong 
was their inducement so to live that they might in- 
herit mansions inalienable, eternal, when death fore- 
closed its mortgage on their fleshly habitations. 

For Philip, he was fanatically impressed with 
his mission : it was his enthusiasm to personify the 
wrath of God against heretics. For Alva, it was 
his enthusiasm to personify the wrath of Philip.f 

" These were two wits ; one born so, and the other bred ; 
This by the heart, the other by the head." 

From this inquisitorial campaign against un- 
armed men and feeble women, with which he was 
supplementing his victory in the field, Alva was 
soon summoned by other duties. Couriers, con- 
stantly arriving, informed him that revolt, routed in 
the north, was afoot on the borders of the middle 
provinces ; that this time Orange in person was at 
the head of large levies, armed for the liberation of 

the states. :t 

Impressed by the gravity of this news, the gov- 
ernor-general delegated the farther punishment of 
the heretics to the blood-judges and their satellites, 

o Brandt, vol. 1, p. 270. f Motley, vol. 2, p. 178. 

X Strada, torn. 2, p. 58. Mendoza, Bor., Hoofd. 
24* 



562 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

and prepared to cope with this new antagonist. At • 
Utrecht, his son, Don Frederic de Toledo, had met 
him with a large instalment of Spanish doubloons 
and a reinforcement of twenty-five hundred vete- 
rans fresh from Castile.* The money he threw into 
his strong box, the men-at-arms he ordered into 
rank ; and on reviewing his army, was gratified to 
learn that he had thirty thousand foot and seven 
thousand horse in camp.f With this chivalrous 
following, the duke, taking Brussels in his way, push- 
ed towards the menaced frontiers of Juliers and Lim- 
burg in good heart and hope. Finally, he halted 
and intrenched himself at Kaisers-lager, where, 
before the Christian era, Julius Caesar's camp-fires 
had been lighted. :{: Here, with Maestricht on the 
river Meuse sufiiciently near to be defended by his , 
presence, and convenient as a de}M of suppKes, 
Alva decided to await the incoming of the prince, 
as to whose position he was in doubt.§ 

Meantime, AYilliam of Orange, victorious over 
manifold discouragements, was in the field. He 
knew that he was stirring at the eleventh hour, 
that the time was " rotten ripe ;" that he should 
have cooperated with Count Louis by entering the 
middle provinces while Alva was absent in the 
north, and before the trophies won at Heiliger-leo 
were reclutched at Jemmingen ; but alas, the want 

* Strada, uhi sup. 

j De Thoii, torn. 5, p. 462. Otlier aiitliorities reduce this 
force materially. Vide Strada, torn. 2, p. 61. Meudoza, pp. 76, 77. 
X Metereu, folio 56. § Ibid., Campaua, Hoofd, d <illi. 



• DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 563 

of money, felt equally in recruiting troops and in 
enforciug discipline after tliey were enrolled, fatally 
retarded the formation of bis corps ; while Nassau, 
similarly straitened, and therefore imable to retreat 
and stand idle, was forced prematurely into action ; 
with what result we know. 

William's pleadings for funds were pathetic. 
" If you have any love for me," wrote he to his 
friend the landgrave of Hesse, "I beseech you to 
aid me privately with a sum sufficient to meet the 
demands of the army for the first month. "Without 
this I shall be in danger of failing in my engage- 
ments — to me worse than death, to say nothing of 
the ruin which such a failure would bring upon our 
credit and on the cause."* 

The response was not ready. The disasters of 
the patriots had still farther chilled the always 
lukewarm hearts of the prince's allies. The Ger- 
man potentates began to counsel dela3^t Maxi- 
milian forbade the preparations to go on — discov- 
ering the neutrality laws in the light of Alva's 
success.^ 

A victim of that " hope deferred" which "mak- 
etli the heart sick," Wilham nevertheless persisted. 
Doubt is the foe by whose subjection the young 
knight of truth wins his spurs. The statesman 
prince had conquered doubt. He knew that God 
reigned ; therefore he felt certain of success in 

C" Archives de la Maison cVOraDge-Nassau, Sui:>plement, p. 89. 
t Cor. tic Guillaume Ic Taciturne, toni. 3, pp. 1-19. 
X Ibid. 



564 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

heaven's good time — ^he could afford to be patient. 
A firm, honest, enlightened Christian, he had al- 
ready openly announced his adherence to the Refor- 
mation.* Steadfast faith — faith which grew serener 
as the prospect darkened, was his most marked 
trait at this period. Even Count Louis' overthrow 
did not appall him. On learning of the rout, he 
thus wrote his brother: "You may be well assured 
that I have never felt any thing more keenly than 
the pitiable misfortune which has overtaken you, 
for many reasons which you know. Moreover, it 
hinders us much in the levy which we are making, 
and has greatly chilled the hearts of those who 
otherwise would have been ready to assist us. 
Nevertheless, since it is God's will, it is necessary 
to have patience, and not to lose courage ; conform- 
ing ourselves to his divine pleasure, as, for my part, 
I have prayed for strength to do in all things, still 
proceeding with his work with his almighty aid."t 

Not a reproachful, not a grumbling word ; naught 
but the most Christian resignation. What could 
long resist such a spirit? 

The execution of Egmont and Horn was of 
material assistance to Orange. Upper Germany 
was as indignant as the Netherlands. " Sire," said 
the imperial ambassador at Madrid to Philip, 
"Alva's axe is WilHam's best ally."| And so it 
proved; for the elector of Bavaria, Augustus of 
Saxony, landgrave "William, and the rest, threw the 

* Motley, vol. 2, p. 243. f Archives, etc., torn. 3, p. 276. 
X Correspondance de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 37. 



DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 565 

whole weight of then- influence into the patriot 
scale;* though their enthusiasm was evanescent, 
much of their sorrowful anger venting itself in tears 
of ink. 

Such as it was, however, the prince hastened to 
take advantage of it. Eecruiting was pushed with 
increased energy, and with gratifying success. Near 
the end of September, 1568, upwards of twenty- 
eight thousand well-armed men responded to their 
names, as William's camp-master called the roll 
under the eaves of the monastery of Eomersdorf, 
in the province of Treves, the patriot rendezvous.f 
To the German pikemen and arquebusiers — sixteen 
thousand strong — the count palatine, the duke ot 
Wurtemberg, and the city of Strasburg had prom- 
ised four months' pay.| The maintenance of the 
horse — eight thousand riders§ — had been underta- 
ken by the prince, assisted by Count Louis, Hoogs- 
traaten, and some others, whose promises were 
fuller than their purses.H Marcus Perez, too, a 
wealthy and patriotic merchant of Antwerp — un- 
awed by the recent execution of his fellow-towns- 
man, the burgher Croesus, Antony Yan StraalenlF — 
had engaged to pour three hundred thousand crowns 
into the exchequer of the cause, as the contingent 
of the nobles and traders of the states.** 

On the 31st of August, just before completing 

« Stracla, torn. 2, p. 58. 

t Ibid. Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 183. J Strada, ubi sup. 

§ Ibid. But compare Meteren, folio 55. Hoofd, uhi sup., 
Campana, Bentivoglio, et alii. || Strada, itLi sup. 

^ Vide Bor., torn. 4, p. 2-i7, el scq. ** Strada, torn. 2. p. 58. 



566 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

his levies, Orange, at the suggestion of the land- 
grave of Hesse, published the "Justification" — a 
famous document, in which he vindicated himself 
and his cause from the charges of Granvellc, Alva, 
and the king.* 

A few days later, William issued two additional 
state papers — one, a declaration of war against the 
duke of Alva ; the other a proclamation to the peo- 
ple of the Netherlands. In the declaration, after 
adverting to the reintroduction of the Inquisition, 
to the subversion of the charters, to the intolerable 
wrongs of the Low-Countrymen, boors, peasants, 
burghers, and grandees, he said : " We summon all 
honest men to come and help us. Pray God that 
you may take to heart the uttermost need of your 
country, the danger of personal slavery for your- 
selves and your children, and of the overtlirow of 
the evangelical religion. Only with Alva's downfall 
can the states recover their privileges and their 
faith. "t In the proclamation, he announced his 
intention to expel the Spaniards from the provinces, 
and solemnly invoked the aid of the oppressed 
against the tyrant.^ 

Late in September, Orange crossed the Rhine, 
swept along the banks of the Meuse, and tempora- 
rily encamped opposite Alva's entrenchments near 
Maestricht.§ The duke, doubly defended by his 
redoubts and by the river, which he considered 

* Arch, de la Maison d' Orange-Nassau, torn. 3, p. 183, et seq. 
t Bor., torn. 4, p. 253, et seq. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 249. 
J Ibid. § Strada, uhi sup. 



DISASTEOUS CAMPAIGNING. 567 

unfordable, smoothed his beard and smiled deris- 
ively. But "where there's a will there's a way." 
On the night and morning of the 4th and 5th of 
October, the prince, in imitation of Caesar's passage 
of the Ligeris and Cicoris, placed some companies 
of dragoons just above the shallowest of the fords, 
to break the force of the current; then, aided by 
this human dam, commanded his infantry to wade 
silently across the Meuse.'^ It was safely done, 
though the water came up to the necks of the sol- 
diers ;t and Orange stood once more on Netherlaud 
soil, coming not as a revolutionist, but as a cham- 
pion of law. "Pro Lege, Rege, Grege,'' this was the 
motto inscribed upon one side of his banners ; and 
on the reverse was the painting of a pehcan feeding 
her young with her own life-blood.:]: 

Upon being told that the prince had crossed the 
Meuse, Alva was incredulous. " Is the traitor army 
a flock of birds, that it can fly over rivers like the 
Meuse?" queried he.§ And a citizen of Amster- 
dam was scourged at the whipping-post for having 
mentioned the passage as a rumor.H However, 
the duke's own eyes soon convinced him; for, 
marching within cannon-shot of Alva's camp, Will- 
iam formally challenged a battle by beat of drum 
and blare of tirumpet and the waving of defiant 
ensigns.^ With him, a stricken field was an actual 
necessity. His means were slender; his soldiers 

« Stracla, torn. 2, p. 59. Meteren, folio 56. f Ibid. 

X Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 184. § Strada, iM sup. 

II Hoofd, iM sup. ^ Strada, ubl sup. 



568 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

were enlisted for short terms ; upon his arms there 
"was the stigma of defeat; the masses were over- 
awed by the spell of Alva's invincibility ; a victory 
here in the heart of Brabant would be ruinous to 
the governor-general, as greatly hated as feared; 
and if himself beaten, there at least was Germany, 
whence he had come. 

But Alva was too wary to pick up the gauntlet. 
Every motive which prompted Orange to make the 
campaign short and incisive, impelled him to adopt 
his favorite policy of delusion and delay. He knew 
that the result of a battle was doubtful, at best; 
that defeat would rob him of the provinces ; that the 
narrowness of William's finances would not long 
support an army; that winter was hard by; that 
poverty and the frost would fight for him ; that the 
rebel ranks would speedily be thinned by deser- 
tion ; that a rout could no more than anticipate the 
already inevitable dissolution of the invasion : and 
he would rather have the victory slow and secure 
than dubious and bloody.* The duke's plan was 
twofold ; he meant to weary his antagonist by fruit- 
less marches and countermarches ; and he intended 
to compel the patriots to shiver in the open coun- 
try, by protecting all those cities in which they 
might winter and find plunder ;t but jeopard any- 
thing he would not. 

Vainly, therefore, did Orange offer battle. Vain- 
ly did the fiery spirits of the Spaniards chafe at the 
insults showered on them by a foe whom they de- 

* Strada, torn. % p. 61. f Ibid., p. 60. 



DISASTKOUS CAMPAIGNING. 569 

spised. Alva was as indifferent to the one as to 
the other — an unfeeling automaton.* Twenty-nine 
times did the prince change his encampment. 
Twenty-nine times also did the duke remove, keep- 
ing always behind, in front of, or beside his foe. 
Equal was the vigilance of the opposing com- 
manders, equal the skill with which each chose 
his ground. It was Fabius Cunctator against Han- 

nibal.t 

Though Alva was careful to avoid a general 
engagement, the outposts of the two armies, moving 
thus side by side, and especially their respective 
foragers, came incessantly in contact. Success 
inclined sometimes to one side, sometimes to the 
other, in this partisan warfare. On one occasion, 
at the river Geta, Alva's advance under Don Fred- 
eric de Toledo and the fiery Italian Chiappino Yi- 
telli, assailed and routed the rear guard of the 
prince.J In the fight, Hoogstraaten received his 
death- wound. § A faithful fiiend, a gallant soldier, 
he was greatly mourned. A few days afterwards, 
at Le Quesnay, and again at Chateau Cambray, 
William retaliated, achieving two unimportant but 
inspiriting victories.il 

In the meantime, cold weather came on, and the 
necessities of Orange advanced with the season, as 
Alva had foreseen. Of the three hundred thousand 
crowns promised by Marcus Perez, but ten tliou- 

« Strada, torn. 2, pp. 62, 63. 

f Ibid. Mendoza, p. 88, d seq. t Ibid. 

§ Strada, id antea. Mendoza, Bor., Campaua. . || Ibid. 



570 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

sand were sent * Without money, without clothes, 
without provisions, denied admission into the chief 
towns, in the midst of a population secretly friendly 
but afraid to show it, letting "I dare not" wait upon 
"I would," constantly harassed by an unsleeping 
enemy — the condition and prospects of the patriot 
forces became desperate. A small reinforcement of 
Huguenot volunteers, led into camp by the count 
De Genlis, served but to increase the suffering by 
the addition of so many unfed mouths and empty 
pockets, t The troops began to murmur, then to 
mutiny; and in one outbreak William's sword was 
shot from his side.:|: 

Of course, with such a following it was impossi- 
ble to keep the field. The prince made an effort to 
persuade his army to follow him to the assistance 
of Cond6 ; in vain : they had enlisted to fight Alva, 
not to war in France.§ Sad, but not dismayed, ho 
recrossed into Germany, and in November, 1568, 
disbanded his troops at Strasburg.H Money he 
lacked, therefore the arrears of the men-at-arms 
could not be paid at once ; but he mortgaged his 
lordship of Montfort and the principality of Orange 
as security for the debt! — upright and generous to 
the last. This done, and accompanied by Count 
Louis and twelve hundred devoted cavaliers, he 

* Hoofd, torn. 5, j). 183. Bor., torn. 4, p. 251, et seq. 

t Meteren, folio 56. Mendozfi, pp. 87, 88. 

X Strada, torn. 2, p. 61. 

§ De Thou. Motley, vol. 2, p. 263. 

II Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 188. Strada, torn. 2, p. 63. 

^ Arch, de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 3, p. 334, et seq. 



DISASTROUS CAMPAIGNING. 571 

passed iuto France to assist the Huguenots, and 
to concert new measures for tlie liberation of his 
country.* 

" Archives et Correspondance, torn. 3, p. 316. Campan.a, lib. 
■2 pp. 59, Gl. De Thou, Ub. 43, caj). 19. 



572 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTEE XXXII. 

ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 

CoiSTTEMPORANEOUSLY with tlie Campaign in tlie 
Netherlands, and for some months after its disas- 
trous end, the German emperor and Philip II. were 
engaged in a diplomatic game which it will interest 
us to observe. 

On the 22d of September, 1568, the six electors 
of the empire, fierce Protestants, and anxious to 
succor the Low Country evangehcals, addressed a 
solemn memorial to Maximilian, in which, after 
thanking him for his previous interposition, they 
vividly outlined the abhorrent cruelties of the gov- 
ernor-general, and besought their sovereign to re- 
sume his mediation.* 

The suave emperor, persuaded that he had 
nothing to lose thereby, and willing to pleasure the 
princes, acceded. " We will despatch our brother 
the archduke Charles on a special mission to Ma- 
drid," said he, "and he shall represent our wdshes."t 

Within thirty days after the date of the electo- 
rial request, the archduke started to perform this 
duty. In his portmanteau there was an ample let- 
ter of instructions, which a sentence shall summa- 
rize : the negotiator was told to refer to the follow- 
ing of Orange as evidence of his hold on the sym- 
« Cor. de PhUippe IL, torn. 2, p. 791. t Ibid., p. 793. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM, 573 

patliy of the empire, and as proof of the impossi- 
bility of banning liim, as Alva had demanded; to 
request the substitution of clemency for severity in 
the government of the provinces ; and to ask for the 
recall of the foreign mercenaries.* Then, having 
seen his brother off, the emperor sent envoys to the 
rival camps of Alva and the prince to request them 
to await the result of the intervention ere proceed- 
ing with their scientific duel — a proposition which 
each, convinced of the futility of the embassage, 
refused to accept.t 

On the journey to Madrid the archduke Charles 
was told of the sudden death of Queen Isabella — 
poisoned in a fit of jealousy by her royal husband, 
if we may credit the light pages of contemporaneous 
diarists, often indeed mere chroniques scandaleuses-X 

Upon learning this news, Maximilian began to 
think the mediation a mistake. He was the father 
of sixteen children, several of whom were marriage- 
able daugliters.§ Unawed by the phantom which 
arose from Isabella's grave — the supply being so 
much in excess of the demand in the matrimonial 
market, he could not afford to be particular — he at 
once reflected that the king of Spain would make a 
most desirable son-in-law. 

* CorresiJ. cle Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 797. Vide Brandt's Sum- 
mary, vol. 1, p. 276. 

f Instructions of the Ai-chduke Charles, in Correspondance de 
Philippe II., ut antea. 

I Vide the very interesting chapter on Isabella's death in 
Prescott's Philip 11., vol. 2, p. 588, et seq. 

§ Motley, vol. 2, p. 208. 



574 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

AccordiDgly, on tlie 17tli of January, 1569, be- 
fore his plenipotentiary liad opened his letter of 
instructions in Philip's presence, the emperor wrote 
an autograph note to his "beloved cousin," in which 
he averred that he had no wish to vex such a model 
Christian and monarch, and made but a nominal 
intervention. " Whichever way it goes," quoth he, 
" I shall be satisfied."* Had there been any doubt, 
as there was not, "which way it would go," of course 
this disclaimer would have been decisive. 

Upon going again to the archduke's portman- 
teau, we find the key to this complacent letter — 
Maximilian had empowered the ambassador to 
make to the widowed monarch an offer of the con- 
solatory hand of his daughter, the archduchess 
Anne.t To be sure, the emperor had married Phil- 
ip's sister, so that the projDOsed bride was her hus- 
band's niece iX but then there was the pope — a dis- 
pensation from him would set aside the laws of 
nature and make all right. 

The result was that Philip, after snubbing the 
electors for their interference,! and soundly rating 
the emperor for his toleration of heresy,|| gloomily 
accepted the hand of the archduchess Anne, "not 
for his personal gratification, but because the death 
of Don Carlos had left him without a son."1F Per- 
haps also there was another and an unspoken rea- 

* Corresp. de Philippe IT., torn. 2, p. 817. 

\ Ibid., p. 835. % Brandt, vol. 1, p. 289. 

§ Cabreza, Vita de Filipe Segimde, p. 578, et seq. 

II Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 835. IT Ibid. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 575 

son. After this marriage, the king may have 
thought that the prince of Orange would hardly 
venture to make Maximilian's territories his recruit- 
ing-ground. 

While the warp and the woof of the future were 
thus forming in Spain and at the imperial court, 
Alva was entering Brussels with the insolent port 
of an Alexander who could find no fresh worlds to 
conquer. Successful in the north, in the east, in 
the south, in the west; triumphant over the chosen 
champion of liberty, who, bankrupt alike in purse 
and fame, was now a broken fugitive, is it strange 
that the governor-general should have believed im- 
plicitly in the impregnability of the vice-regal throne 
in all time to come ? Even Granvelle, a close ob- 
server of the campaign from the dome of St. Peter's, 
was exultant. " I felt sure of the result," wrote he 
to Philip ; " the duke of Alva is a man upon whose 
administrative prudence and military skill you may 
rely. There is no one in the rebel ranks, least of 
all Orange, who has sufficient brains to organize an 
efficient insurrection. And as £or this same beggar 
prince, he will now be much embarrassed to satisfy 
his creditors."* 

Alva celebrated his victory with magnificent 
fetes. Not the triumphs of the haughtiest of the 
Roman conquerors had ever surpassed the victori- 
ous pomp which this inflated soldier led down his 
" Via Sacra." True, one half of Brussels was sad, 
while the other half was sullen; those sorrowing 
« Corresp. dc Pliilippc II.. torn. 2, pp. 792, 795, 812. 



576 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

for William's defeat, these wisliing tliat some otli^er 
Lad achieved a success in itself desirable.* Never- 
theless, though the whole city was " contracted in 
one brow of woe," all were forced to smile, to sing 
liosannas, to ring joy-bells, to deck out the capital 
in gala flowers — even houses whence funeral hatch- 
ments for murdered inmates were suspended! — to 
witness the joustings in the market-place ; for the 
very square in which Egmont and Horn and a thou- 
sand more had been decapitated was transformed 
into a tilt-yard;! ^^^ ^o listen to Te Deums chanted 
in the churches of a spurious Christianity — of "a 
rehgion," to borrow Sydney Smith's definition of 
Puseyism, " of posture and imposture, of circum- 
flection and genuflection, of bowing to the east and 
courtesyings to the west, with such like absurdities." 

Yet even these demonstrations did not satisfy 
the governor-general. He felt that, as the inaugu- 
rator of this varnished millennium, he was deser- 
ving of some personal recognition, .distinct, pecu- 
liar. What could be fitter to immortalize his actions 
than a statue built of his trophies ? 

Accordingly, he caused the cannon taken at 
Jemmingen to be melted, shaped into a colossal 
efiigy of himself, and set uj) in the citadel at Ant- 
werp.§ This "brazen image" represented Alva 
armed cap-a-pie,\ with right arm uplifted, trampling 

« Strada, torn. 4, p. C4. t Bor., torn. 4, p. 257. 

t Strada, wti sup. . § Ibid. Box., uU sup. 

11 Strada says the head was bare ; 'tis best to be correct in a 
matter of such moment. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 577 

upon a prostrate hybrid with two heads, four arms, 
and one body — signifying two of the three estates 
of the Low Countries; the lords and commons, as 
some said, or Egmont and Horn, according to an- 
other interpretation.* On the pedestal was carved 
this inscription : " To the duke of Alva, the most 
faithful minister of the best of kings, Philip II. of 
Spain, because, extinguishing combustions, chas- 
tising rebellion, restoring religion, executing justice, 
he settled peace in these provinces, this statue is 
erected."t 

Many centuries before the rout at Jemmingen, 
a similar event occurred. In the same province of 
Friesland, Germanicus Cnesar conquered Arminius 
by the banks of the Visargus. The Romans too 
took for their sport the slaying of the swimmers in 
the river. Arminius, like Nassau, fled disguised. 
The field was strewn with corpses. And on the 
return, the Boman erected his monument of spoils 
for posterity to gaze at. But hei'e the parallel 
stops. When the Eoman set up his trophy, his 
modesty led him to omit his name; the arrogant 
Spaniard chiselled in his title. Fame, therefore, 
in that inscription inserted the word Germanicus ; 
but envy in this soon blotted out the name of 
Alva. X 

* Meteren, folio 61. 'Bor., uh'i sup. Strada, uhi sup. 

t Strada. ut antea. Metereu, folio Gl, et alii. 

X " It was wonderful to see ■with what a general hatred and 
envy this statue was looked upon. The Low-Countrymen in- 
wardly fretting, as if they were daily conquered in that monii- 
meut, and the nation daily triumphed over. The very Spaniards 

niitdi n.-:. 25 



578 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

The duke's festivities were soon interrupted by 
au untoward event. Notwithstanding the filchings 
from the confiscated hoards of the heretic traitors, 
Alva had found plunder an uncertain paymaster. 
Improvidence and peculation ate up all he could 
steal. As a consequence, constant draughts were 
made upon the Spanish treasury. Eecently the 
mercenaries, whose pay was many months in arrear, 
had been grumbling — the mercenaries, who Avero 
the main prop, the palladium, of the usurpation. 
Of course the duke had recourse to Philip, who, in 
his turn, almost as necessitous as the governor- 
general, had been obliged to borrow half a million 
of dollars from two banking-houses at Genoa, in 
order to meet the demand.'^ The bankers had con- 
tracted to deliver the loan in silver at Antwerp. It 

themselves were augry at the duke, that chose rather to slug his 
own praises than to hear them spoken by others. Nor was there 
any siibject more freqtient at the court of Spain, the prince of 
Eboli deriding his old rival for styling himself most faithful min- 
ister, because he inverted the honor due to his prince and trans- 
ferred it to himself. Nay, the structure was not very pleasing to 
Philip, by whose command, four years after, it was removed. 
Perhaps the king did it to take away the nation's distaste ; or, 
rather, his own, offended that another should have a monument 
raised out of a victory which his armies had won and his purse 
paid for. It was conjectured that Alva had knowledge of the 
king's displeasure, because the other statue — for he had two cast 
of the same model by the same workman — was not sent into Spain, 
as he at first intended." Strada, tom. 2, pp. 64, Go. 

De Thou, who saw the statue after it was cast do-mi, was '■ as 
much struck by the beauty of the workmanship, as by the insane 
pride of him who ordered it made." Hist. Univ., pp. '171-473. 

- MS., Simaucas, cited by Froude in Hist, of England, vol. 9, 
p. 3r,6. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 579 

was accordingly packed into several chests, divided 
among a number of ships, and despatched from 
Italy by sea.'- 

In the British Channel the precious fleet " fell 
among thieves" in the shape of Huguenot priva- 
teers, commissioned by Cond6 to prey upon Eo- 
mauist merchantmen of whatever nationality.'!' was 
scattered and driven into English ports. The cap- 
tains of the treasure-shijis complained to the Span- 
ish ambassador at the court of St. James of the 
breach of neutrality committed by the corsairs in 
chasing the vessels of a friendly power in English 
waters ; and the ambassador laid the accusation 
before Elizabeth. J The maiden queen listened gra- 
ciously, and offered to send a British man-of-war 
to convoy the fleet to Antwerp — an offer which was 
accepted with many thanks. § 

But at that time, though Elizabeth was in place, 
Cecil — Lord Burghley — was in power. Cecil was 
a statesman in whose brain there were only deep 
soundings — no shoals. A man of w^eighty intellect, 
of profound tact, of unrivaled acumen, as Dryden 
said of Shakespeare, " he needed not the spectacles^ 
of books to read nature, but looked inward and 
found her there." Cecil was a sturdy Protestant 
withal, nor were his sympathies bounded by his 
native island. He had long used his influence with 
his royal mistress in favor of Coligny and of Or- 
ange, both as a statesman and as a Christian; for 

* MS., Simancas, cited by Froiido in Hist, of England, vol. 9, 
p. SCO. t Ibid. ± Ibid. § Ibid. 



580 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

lie was as mucli opposed as a politician to tlie liouse 
of Austria, as lie was as a Protestant to tlie exegesis 
of the Koman tlieologians. 

In these Spanish vessels now at anchor in Brit- 
ish harbors he saw an opportunity at a critical 
moment to aid Orange, to cripple Alva, to provoke 
Philip, and to end the coquette dance of Elizabeth 
on the brink of a precipice. Accordingly, he per- 
suaded the queen to seize and appropriate Alva's 
expected treasure-chests to her own use.'^ 

Philip's ambassador was astonished. Waiting 
upon Elizabeth, he demanded an explanation. She 
gave him two. "I understand that 'tis the prop- 
erty of the Genoese, and as I have occasion for a 
loan, I have borrowed it." " I have taken the 
money in my possession, in order to secure its safe 
delivery at Antwerp." These were her paradoxical 
answers.t The envoy was at liberty to accept 
either or both; like Luther's priest, who, when the 
Komanists told him to pray in one way and the 
Protestants in another, ended by repeating the 
alphabet, and begging each to frame a prayer to 
^tlieir taste. 

The ambassador hastened to apprize Alva of the 
seizure ;:|: and then, remembering that a main source 
of the wealth of the London merchants was the 
Netherland trade, he went on 'Change and told the 
news, in the hope that the impending breach might 
stir a riot that should force the queen to make res- 

« Fronde, Hist, of England, vol. 0, i5. 371, et seq. Meteren. 
folion 57, 58. f Ibid. Bor., torn. 5, p. 272, et srq. } Ibid. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 581 

titutiou.* He informed Philip that the iudiguity 
originated in the determination of Cecil to support 
the prince of Orange, adding: "Half the money 
goes to him to enable him to equip a new army; 
the other half is to be spent in doubling the English 
fleet."t 

When Alva, who was impatiently awaiting the 
money, learned of its seizure, he v/as furious. Once, 
twice did he despatch envoys across the channel to 
wheedle and to bully the court of St. James. -The 
queen snubbed the committees and rebuked the 
duke for venturing to treat with a crowned head. 
" Tell the governor-general that I will discuss this 
question with his master;" such was the message 
which the remonstrants bore back to Brussels.:]: 

This rebuke, which his arrogance merited, tuned 
Alva's indignation to the highest pitch. By a 
formal proclamation he instituted immediate repri- 
sals. . Every English resident in the Netherlands 
was arrested, and every British ship was seized and 
gutted of its cargo, which was sold.§ Elizabeth 
retaliated by swooping upon the persons and estates 
of all Low-Countrj^men living or trading in the 
island.il Whereupon the duke, on the 31st of 
March, 1569, proclaimed a strict non-intercourse 
with Great Britain.1I 

Antwerp grumbled and London was sulky: it 

* Froude, uhl sup., p. 373. 

f Guerau de Espes to Philip, Dec. 27 aud Jau. 1. MS., Siuiau- 
cas, J Meteren, ut antea. Fronde. if 

§ Ibid. Froude, vol. 9, p. 373. || Fronde, Hume, Bor. 

^ Bor., vol. 5, p. 277, d seq. Motley, vol. 2, p. 271). 



582 THE BUTCH EEFORMATION. 

was a quarrel in the upper air, about wliicli they 
knew nothing and cared less. But Alva terrified 
the burghers into silence; and as the immediate 
advantage was largely on the side of the queen, 
Lombard -street became acquiescent. The iron 
grasp of this embargo was not unclenched until the 
spring of 1573,* four years after the seizure of the 
money-chests ; within which time this quarrel made 
England the ally of Orange, as was Cecil's inten- 
tion when he played the trick. 

Interested as the governor-general was in the 
imbroglio with Elizabeth, he did not permit it to 
divert his attention from what he knew to be the 
main end of his presence in the states — the extir- 
pation of heresy. In March, 1569, his past piety 
was honored by the arrival of an ambassador from 
Rome, who presented him with a helmet and a 
sword, both richly set, and inchased with gold and 
precious stones, solemnly consecrated by his Jioli- 
ness, and sent to the duke of Alva as the champion 
of holy church. t 

Elated by this extraordinary present, and anx- 
ious to prove his right to the title conferred upon 
him by Pius V., the duke now redoubled, if that 
were possible, the fury of a persecution which had 
never lagged. The stadtholders of the provinces 
were instructed to see that, " when either the host 
or the holy oil for extreme unction, was carried to 

* Bor., vol. 5, p. 277, et seq. Motlej', vol. 2, p. 279. Camdeu, 
Annals of the Eeign of Elizabeth, book 1, p. 126, ed. 1675. 
f Strada, torn. 2, p. 6i. Meudoza, Comcutarios, ]d. 100. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 583 

the sick, strict notice sliould be taken of the beha- 
-vior of all, in order that those in whom any signs 
of irreverence were discovered might be punished ; 
that all dead bodies denied Christian burial by the 
clergy should be dumped in the gallows-field ; and 
that all midmves should be Romanists, obliged 
tinder oath to give an account within twenty-four 
hours after birth of every child, to the end that the 
curate might proceed to baptism."" This order 
was followed up by a placard, signed by Philip on 
the 19th of May, 1569, repealing all declarations 
and agreements inconsistent with the inquisitorial 
edict of Charles V. in 1550, across which esto per- 
petua was uow written.! The decrees of the Coun- 
cil of Trent were rigidly enforced,:]: especially those 
of them in which the Tridentine fathers enjoined 
the extirpation of heresy; and the evil army of 
priests thundered the accursed message from every 
altar, and breathed it with yet more fatal potency 
in the confessional.§ 

The police of persecution, in greater numbers 
than ever, were set at every street-corner to observe 
and rejiort the behavior of the masses.il These 
spies were nicknamed " sevenpenny men," because 
the wages of their odious work was paid them in 
coin of that value.lT 

From such seed a crop of murder was sure to 

e Brandt, vol. 1, p. 280. t Ibid. 

J Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 5G6. Brandt, vol. l,p. 288. 
§ Froude, Hist, of England, vol. 10, p. 392. 
II Brandt, vol. 1, p. 280. H Ibid. 



584 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

spring. The local records of that era reek with 
perennial barbarities, performed not perfunctorily, 
but con amorc. Now, a batch of Protestant trades- 
men were hung at Bois le Due ; and now, a parcel 
of heretical husbandmen were beheaded at the 
Hague.* Amsterdam, Leyden, Antwerp, Brussels, 
Valenciennes — in each, and at the same time, there 
were dreadful tragedies.f 

As usual, those stigmatized as Anabaptists were 
hunted v,dth pecuhar vindictiveness. On one occa- 
sion, an order was issued for the apprehension of a 
burgher of Asperen named Eichard Willemsou, of 
that persuasion. Knowing that an arrest Avas the 
unfailing herald of death, he fled upon the ice, which 
was yet thin, for it was early winter. After much 
difficulty, he got over it; but an officer who was 
pursuing him was not so successful, for he slipped 
in. "Helj)! help!" shouted the drowning, freezing 
wretch. Willemson paused; there was no one with- 
in sight or hearing save himself. Touched by the 
peril of his pursuer, he recrossed and jeoparded his 
own life to rescue that of a sinking brother. The 
officer, on being fished out of the water, was about 
to let his preserver go, wdien the burgomaster, who 
had come suddenly upon the scene, cried sharply: 
" Sir officer, fulfil your oath." BecoUecting that 
his own neck might pay for it if he let the prisoner 
escape, the officer forced Willemson back to Asj)e- 
reu, where he was soon tried and sentenced to be 
burned alive. He was led out to die on that side of 
* Brandt, vol. 1, p. 278. t l^i^- 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 585 

the town of Aspereu which is next to the village of 
Leerdam. When the fire was kindled, a strong east 
Avind blew the flames away from the upper part of 
his figure, and caused him to suffer the excrucia- 
ting agonies of a lingering death, insomuch that, as 
far off as Leerdam, towards which the wind sat, he 
was heard to cry over seventy times, " O my Lord 
and my God! O my Lord and my God !"* 

Now, as always before when persecution became 
unusually harsh, multitudes left the states, and 
transported their effects and handicrafts to other 
shores — such multitudes that more than a hundred 
thousand houses were left tenantless.t The sight 
of so many empty dwellings frightened the mer- 
chants and traders of the Netherlands. Many of 
these were Eomanists who had no sympathy with 
the reformed, and stood ready to treat the profes- 
sion of Protestantism as an indictable offence. But 
as the publican was nearer the kingdom of heaven 
than the Pharisee, so the manufacturers of Ghent 
and Antwerp, of Brussels and Bruges, were drawn 
from fanaticism by their worldliness; they were 
willing to maintain holy church in all its dignity 
and honor, but relucted at Alva's method of pro- 
cedure, and had no desire to ruin the country and 
themselves by the death or exile of the most skilful 
artificers in Christendom. :1" 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 281. f Ibid., p. 277. 

t Froude, Hist of Euglaud, vol. 9, p. 314. 
In 1603, when Sully visited England, two-thirds of the inhab- 
itants of the town of Canterbury were Netherland refugees. " Thia 
25* 



586 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

The governor-general was supremely indifferent 
to the opinions of the conservative Eomanists of 
the provinces. It was Philip II. whose commission 
he bore ; it was the pope who crowned him with 
honors. Self-interest, equally with fanaticism, im- 
pelled him to steer right on in a course known to 
square with the twin compasses of Madrid and the 
Vatican. 

Accordingly, his measures proceeded from bad 
to worse. While the emigration was at the highest, 
those wives who went to visit their exiled husbands 
were declared to be themselves outlawed by that 
act.* All young men under twenty were forbidden 
peremptorily to study in any university outside of 
the dominions of Philip II., with the single excep- 
tion of the schools at Eome.t 

The press, too, always an ally of the Reforma- 
tion, was, by a placard fulminated in May, 1569, 
put under strict censorship.'! Nothing might be 
published without the imprimatur of Alva. More- 
over, in order that it might be seen how books de- 
meaned themselves, an ecclesiastical committee sat 
in Antwerp, with authority to judge all writings of 
all climes, and to place those which were objection- 
able to Home in an index expurgatorius, in obedience 
to the mandate of the doctors of Trent.§ 

In civil affairs, usurpation kept pace with this 

circi;mstance," remarks he, "accounts for the superior civiHzatiou 
and politeness of the denizens of that phxce." Memoirs, torn. 4, 
lib. U, p. 217. 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 277. Hoofd. f Ibid. 

X Brandt, ubi sap., pp. 277, 287, 295. § Ibid., p. 293. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 587 

etliical oppression. Commissioners, lioimded on by 
the blood-judges, prowled tlirougli the states to fer- 
ret out all who had maintained a correspondence 
with the prince of Orange. The very arm of the 
gibbet began to ache with incessant service. Rare- 
ly did the atrocious farces called trials awaken a 
protest from the cowed provincial bar. Once, how- 
ever, when the magistrates of Leyden were called 
upon to execute an illegal sentence against several 
of their fellow-townsmen, they refused unanimously 
to play the executioner ; nor would they recognize 
the competence of the tribunal of blood to pro- 
nounce judgment within the limits of their munici- 
pality, alleging it to be against their charters, which 
permitted only the schout — an officer appointed by 
the sovereign or his deputy — and the supreme coun- 
cil of Leyden to bring the freemen of the town to 
trial.* " Besides," said they, " we have an old cus- 
tom which forbids that any man suffer death who 
does not own his crime without torture or bands. 
In any case, the culprit can no more than lose 
life and be made to forfeit ten Flemish pounds. 
Whence, then, these arrests and executions? and 
whence these confiscations ?"t A constitutionahst 
would have been puzzled to reply ; but as for Alva, 
had not his echo, Vargas, said, " Non curamus ves- 
tros prlvileglos?''' 

This protest of the Leyden magistrates was not 
answered by imprisonment and the block, only 
because the governor-general was too much occu- 

•» Braudt, p. 277. t I^i*!- 



588 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

pied at tlie time to heed it. The seizure of his 
money-chests by the queen of England had crip- 
pled Alva, as Cecil meant it should. From day to 
day his pecuniary embarrassments increased. The 
ciYil list went unpaid. The men-at-arms became 
vociferous in their demands for the arrears. To 
those pledges had been doled out, and to these the 
rhetoric of victory had been given ; but creditors 
only appreciate the eloquence of cash. Confisca- 
tions came in in driblets. The duke disliked to beg 
again of Philip, since his most "catholic" majesty 
had just ended a costl}^ campaign against those 
home-bred infidels the Moriscoes, and was even 
now arming at great expense to battle with the 
Sultan.* 

Besides, had he not repeatedly assured the king 
that his government in the Low Countries should 
not only itself feed on gold, but also supply the 
royal table at Madrid with ducat- viands ? Were 
not his enemies at court — Kuy Gomez, the fair 
Anna de Mendoza, and the rest, filling Philip's ears 
with sarcastic jests at his failure to keep that 
promise ?t 

Under these circumstances, Alva concluded that 
his exchequer, emptied by war and extravagance, 
must be replenished in the provinces. For thi» 
purpose he decided to substitute for the immemo- 
rial and chartered rights of the states to tax them- 
selves, an irresponsible, wholly arbitrary system of 

* Prescott, Philip II., vol. 3, p. 298. 
j- Vaudervyuckt, torn. 2. p. 118. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 580 

taxation by the crown.* Could this be done — and 
the haughty soldier did not doubt his ability to 
command success — the gain would be twofold ; a 
perpetual fund would be at hand for future occa- 
sions, and the keystone would be knocked out of 
the arch of Netherland rights. 

Then, as in the past, all legal applications for 
money were to be made to the states-general, com- 
posed of three orders — the nobles, the clergy, and 
the commons ; and it was at their option to say Yes, 
or No, to the demand — the veto of any one of the 
branches being equivalent to the dissent of all.f 

To the absolutist ideas of Alva, such a check on 
despotism was rebellion in a chronic form. Irrita- 
tion, as well as the pecuniary pressure, urged him 
to assail it. Accordingly, on the 20th of March, 
1569, he convened the states-general in Brussels,:|: 
their first meeting since the stormy farewell of 
Philip II. in the eventful summer of '59. 

The duke was so confident that he did not deign 
to inaugurate the financial revolution by a measur- 
ably moderate demand in perjietuity, making the 
grant of this a precedent for greater exactions ; with 
arrogant rapacity he claimed of the national repre- 
sentatives the cession to him of the right to impose 
three taxes, two of which were unprecedented. The 
first was an extraordinary tax of one per cent, upon 
all properties, real and personal, to be collected 

* Bor., torn. 5, p. 279. Strada, torn. 2, p. Go. 

f Vide Motley, vol. 1, lutrodiiction. Bentivoglio, lib. 5, p. 82, 

X Bor., torn. 5, p. 279. Bentivoglio, Vaudeivynckt, et alii. 



590 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

immediately. The second was a perpetual tax of 
twenty per cent, upon every transfer of real estate, 
Tlie third was a perj)etual tax of ten per cent, upon 
personal property and all kinds of merchandise, 
payable by the vendor on every sale.* 

This enormous demand, as suicidal as it was 
tyrannical, made the provincial deputies gasp for 
breath. No scientist was needed to demonstrate 
the bankruptcy ; no economist was required to 
figure out the fact ; the veriest financial tyro could 
read ruin in every s^dlable of the decrees. 

The representatives ventured to remonstrate, 
maintaining imanswerably that the proposed taxes 
would strangle trade and exile commerce. "As for 
the hundredth penny," said they, " 'tis exhorbitant, 
but it may be borne for once. But for the twen- 
tieth penny, that is insupportable. Such an assess- 
ment on the full value of real estate, made at every 
transfer, would soon eat up such property. An 
estate may be sold twenty times within a twelve- 
month, in which case twenty per cent, means prac- 
tical confiscation.t 

" And for the tenth pennj'-, that is still worse, 
since besides being a higher rate, it is imposed 
upon articles of merchandise, goods in rapid circu- 
lation. Many of these change hands a dozen times 
a week, so that ten per cent, paid by the vendor at 
each sale would be more than a hundred per cent, 
every seven days. Other commodities are trans- 

« Bor., torn. 5, pp. 280, 281, et seq. 
t Motley, vol. 2, p. 286. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. • 591 

ferred from one person to another, and by him to 
a third, and so to a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, before 
reaching the consumer. As each vendor paid the 
tax, he would add ten per cent, to its original price 
in order to reimburse himself, until a fictitious value 
was reached which would be a prohibition iipon 
purchase. 

" Then, too, most manufactured goods are made 
up of many parts. Before cloth is woven and put 
off the hands of the manufacturer, he must pay a 
tenth part to the seller of wool, of thread, to the 
weaver, to the dyer, until the payment of these 
manifold tenths would run up the price of the com- 
pleted cloth to a fabulous amount — placing it so far 
above the means of ordinary consumers as to drive 
them into foreign and more favored markets. Quick 
transfers and unfettered movements being the nerves 
and muscles of commerce, it would be impossible 
for it long to survive the paralysis of such im- 
posts."* 

So spoke the deputies — strongly and with con- 
vincing logic. Yiglius too lent his name and pen 
to the opposition. The learned doctor was willing 
to spend his eyesight in hunting up musty prece- 
dents for murder, but he would not quietly submit 
to a tax which robbed his cofi"ers of half their 
wealth. "Remember, your highness," said he, 
" that the Netherlands are situated in the heart of 
Europe, with many enterprising nations bordering 

=-= Bor., torn. 5, pp. 281, 282. Strada, torn. 2, p. 65. Motley, 
ut antca. 



592 • THE DUTCH BEFORMATION. 

on them; so that- if trade be discouraged or op- 
pressed, the merchants and manufacturers resident 
here can easily, and certainly will, transport them- 
selves into adjacent lands — a consequence to be 
dreaded from much less burdensome taxation than 
this now proposed, which is such as was never 
before heard of in any commercial state."* 

Alva was both astonished and provoked by this 
opposition in these halcyon days. Nor could ho 
" upon the heat and flame of his distemper sprinkle 
cool patience," He was ignorant of the A B C of 
jDolitical economy, and he was obstinate in propor- 
tion as he was opposed — a man who would slap 
Reason in the face if she said nay to the idlest of 
his whims. " Know then," said he to the remon- 
strants, " that in my own town of Alva in Spain, a 
tax of ten per cent., analogous to this, is paid me 
without complaint, and yields an annual rental of 
some fifty thousand ducats. Let me hear no more, 
therefore, of your inability to pay it. Have it I 
must."t 

" Yes, retorted Viglius, " but there is the widest 
difference between Spain and the Low Countries. 
We are a small nation, dependent ui:)on provisions 
grown outside our limits — traders. Spain is com- 
plete within itself, shut out from want by a fertile 
soil. The people are devoted to agriculture, so 
that what goods are sold pass directly from the 
producer to the consumer with no intervention. 

a Yiglii Comm. dec. Dcu., s. 7, p. 10. 
t Meteren. Beutivoglio, et alii. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM, 593 

Ten per cent, on sales must be comparatiYely easy 
to pay in such a state."* 

Yiglius' advocacy of tlieir cause emboldened the 
people at large to remonstrate. An avalanche of 
petitions rolled down upon the duke. One pam- 
phlet informed him that if he acted Themistocles, 
and to raise money brought two goddesses, Per- 
suasion and Violence, the states would play the 
Andrians, and to prevent payment, interpose as 
many and as potent goddesses, Poverty and Im- 
possibility.t 

" We will yield the hundredth penny," said the 
states-general.:j: " I must have the tenth and twen- 
tieth also," persisted the duke. After a protracted 
struggle, the deputies were bullied into acquies- 
cence, hinging their assent upon a condition prece- 
dent — that the veto of any one of the provinces 
should be held to invalidate the Amen of all the 
rest.§ 

Alva sat down and wrote Philip a jubilant letter, 
in which he announced the assent of the states to 
the taxes, and congratulated his majesty upon the 
gaining of the purse and the possession of an im- 
mense income in perpetuity.il 

Alas, before this assurance was in the mail-bag, 

word came that Utrecht had refused to ratify the 

decrees, offering instead a commutation, first of 

c- Viglii Comm. dec. Deii., ui antea. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 67. 

X Bor., torn. 5, p. 286. Metereu, Hoofd, Campaua. 

§ Bor., ubi sup. Brandt., vol. 1, p. 278. 

II Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 882. 



594 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

seventy tliousand florins, then of two liundred thou- 
sand florins.* This tender was rejected with dis- 
dain, and a renewed demand was made for the 
assent of the province to the imposts.f Utrecht 
again refused ; the clergy, one of the three branches 
of the stadtholderate, declaring that they could not 
agree to the taxes without incurring the censure of 
excommunication, denounced by the pope's bull 
"in ccena Bomini" against those alike who imposed 
assessments upon the revenues of the church and 
those who paid them.:|; 

Alva resolved to try his " short method " with 
these cavillers. A regiment of Italian mercenaries 
was billeted upon the state. The intrepid burghers 
quietly put up with the soldiers, and still refused to 
indorse the decrees.§ Other coercive measures 
were tried, with no better result. And finally the 
incensed duke declared the whole province guilty 
of treason and heresy, abrogated its charters, con- 
fiscated the public funds, took formal possession of 
the archives, and so far as words could do so, blot- 
ted Utrecht from the provincial map.H 

In the mean tin*Ie the whole question was re- 
opened, the other states declaring that the refusal 
of Utreclit to ratify the taxes liad annulled their 
assent.TT Alva coddled and threatened by turns. 
The burghers wheedled and juggled; until the duke, 

^BoY., uU sup., -p. 287. t Ibid. 

I Braudt, vol. 1, p. 279. Hoofd, torn. 5. p. 195. 
§ Hoofd, uU sup. Bor., torn. 5, p. 288. || Ibid., Ibid. 

^ Metercu, Campaua. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 595 

now quite destitute of money, agreed to hold the 
taxes in abeyance for two years, accepting in lieu 
of them a payment of two millions of guilders at 
the end of each twelvemonth.^^ By this compro- 
mise the final struggle was postponed until August, 
1571. " At the expiration of this time events may 
prevent any farther attempt to collect the taxes," 
said the burghers. "Time will reconcile these 
shopkeepers to submissiou," thought the viceroy. 
Neither j^et understood the other. 

It was at this juncture that Philip's affianced 
bride, Anne of Austria, passed through the Neth- 
erlands en route to Spain.f The incestuous match 
had been legalized by Pius V., to the great offence 
of Protestant Europe. The princess was, however, 
well receivea at Brussels, and Alva became an ear- 
nest suitor to the king for leave to escort her to 
Madrid.:]: For various reasons the duke desired to 
retire from the provinces. Of late his Spanish cor- 
respondence had teemed with hints that his favor at 
court was waning — Ruy Gomez required watching. 
Then too he felt that his work was about done in 
the Low Countries ; armed treason had been crush- 
ed; the scaffold had been fed with victims ; heresy 
had been sedulously racked and burned ; confisca- 
tions had emptied the veins of plethoric and haughty 
traders ; all the rest he esteemed certain to be heav- 
iness and a weariness to tlie flesh. § There were no 

* Hooftl, uhi siq). Bor., uhi sup., et seq. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 209. J: Strada, torn. 2, p. 08. 

§ CoiTcsp. dc Philippo II., torn. 2, pp. 890, 908, 1)51, 970, etc. 



598 THE DUTCH REFORMATION, 

more laurels to be gathered. But he pleaded iu 
vain ; Philip was uot yet ready to sign a recall.'-^ 

For some time past the great wigs at Brussels 
and Madrid had been pondering jhe policy of an 
amnesty. Damon Yiglius had urged Pythias Hop- 
per to suggest it to " the master."t And Granvelle, 
convinced that the brutality of the governor-gen- 
eral was playing into the hands of Orange, had 
written from Borne to request his maj.esty to make 
at least a show of pardon.^ Now for many months 
the entire nation had been under the double ban of 
Philip and the Inquisition — all criminals, without a 
claim to fortune, family, or life.§ A discriminating 
act of indemnity might conciliate the Netherland- 
ers ; it would surely tend to propitiate that public 
opinion Avhich had arraigned Spain at the bar of 
Europe. 

Influenced by these considerations, Philip drew 
up four different forms of pardon, tovrards the close 
of 1569, and despatched them to Alva, bidding him 
to select one, and be careful to destroy the rest.|| 

Certainly the duke made no hasty choice, for it 
was not until the midsummer of 1570 that the am- 
nesty was proclaimedlT — a protraction which would 
have lessened the favor of a much greater benefac- 
tion than this proved to be.** 

* Strada, ^lhi siq). j Epist. ad. Joach. Hopperus, pp. 82-110. 

X Coircsp. de Philii^iie II., torn. 2, p. 815. 

§ FtcZe Chapter" XXVII., p. 474. 

II Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 914. 

H Hoofd, torn. 5, p. 201. Strada, torn. 2, p. 67. 

** Strada, iihi sup. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 597 

The promulgation ceremonies were lield in Ant- 
werjo on the 14th of July. All the world of the 
Netherlands had made a pilgrimage to the new 
Mecca to be at the festival. There was a pompous 
parade of gorgeously enrobed ecclesiastics, and this 
was succeeded by no end of Te Deiims." Alva com- 
menced the day by listening to a sermon in Dutch — 
of which he could not understand a word — preached 
by the bishop of Antwerp. Then, richly habited 
and accompanied by his suite and a retinue of 
clergy, the duke marched to the cathedral of Our 
Lady, where a mass was intoned by the archbishop 
of Cambray. Towards the end of the service, the 
prelate read a papal letter of absolution, which 
removed the ban of the Inquisition from all good 
E.omanists.t Taking this clement action as a text, 
the bishop of Arras began to harangue the attentive 
throng ; but in the midst of his eulogium he was 
taken with a sudden qualm, and carried fainting 
from the pulpit — afncde which was not considered 
of auspicious omen 4 

Later in the day, Alva, crowned with his hal- 
lowed helmet and girt with his consecrated sword, 
entered the market-place with an illustrious follow- 
ing of lords and churchmen. Opposite the stadt- 
house stood a bedizened platform, erected for the 
occasion. Upon this the duke, together with his 
attendants, ranged themselves — Alva seating him- 
self " high on a throne of royal state." Then the 

* Bor., torn. 5, p. old. f Stnula, uhi sup., p. 68. 

X Ibid. 



598 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

vast assembly was silenced, and a crier bawled out 
the amnesty, but in sucli a hoarse voice that few 
conld understand him; "which was perhaps an 
accident," says Strada ; " perhaps so ordered by 
his highness, who preferred that the auditors should 
measure the benefit by the pomp rather than by 
the text."* 

However, contrary to the duke's expectation, 
the spectators did nothing but stare at the show. 
Not a huzza was heard in the afternoon, not a bon- 
fire was kindled in the evening.! When the indem- 
nity was read — as it was some days later in the 
printed copies which were thrown off by the gov- 
ernment press — the feeling of the people, cool at 
the outset, went down to zero. 

The act was in three parts — like most genteel 
comedies : a recitation of the sins of the Nether- 
landers, a statement of the terms of pardon, and a 
list of exceptions. What was done by the indem- 
nity was undone by the exceptions, which excluded 
from benefit all reformed preachers, and all who 
had lodged them ; the image-breakers ; those who 
had subscribed the compromise ; those who had 
countenanced the petitions of the nobles in Marga- 
ret's reign ; those affiliated with the giieux; and all 
who had favored the opponents of the king under 
any circumstances, at whatever time.J 

Of course these exceptions included every class 
of offenders, and left only the innocent to be for- 

* strada, ut antea. j Ibid. 

i VUIe the Ipsissima Verba iu Bor., toni. 5, ji. 320, el seq. 



ALVA'S MILLENNIUM. 599 

giveu ;* and equally, of course, the effect iDroduced by 
such a juggle was the opiDOsite of salutary. Yery 
iiiauy Eomanists denounced the act ; for, connected 
by family ties with persons of the reformed belief, 
some of them had performed little offices of kind- 
ness, perhaps sheltered a hunted neighbor, in these 
hard times — deeds which an amnesty proclamation 
pronounced enormous crimes.t Jeers and execra- 
tions were heard on every side. The punsters trans- 
posed the letters of the word ^x«T?o?ir/, and rebap- 
tised the new measure Pandora. The witticism was 
not without classical analogy. The amnesty, like 
the supposititious casket of the gods, on being 
oj^ened, diffused curses instead of blessings.^ 

On the 1st of November, 1570, the distress of 
the masses was increased by a calamity unparal- 
leled since the ark landed on mount Ararat. An 
inundation, caused by a northwest storm, set the 
sea battling through two days with the dykes and 
sluices of the whole Netherland coast.§ The nar- 
row peninsula of Holland was threatened with auni- 
liilation. The great cities of the north were trans- 
formed into islands in mid-ocean. The land became 
a watery waste. At every rising and falling of the 
sea — both tides alike merciless— household goods, 
merchandise, cattle, the broken ribs of ships, all 
were tossed hither and thither, presenting to the 

«- Motley, vol. 2, p. 298. 

t Metereu, Bentivoglio, d alii. 

X Motley, vol. 2, p. 300. 

§ Hoofd, toni. 0. p. 205, ei scq. Eraudt, vol. 1, p. 289. 



600 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

eye a model of tlie flood."" Nor was it iDioperty 
alone that suffered shipwreck. In the single prov- 
ince of Friesland twenty thousand men, women, 
and children were engulfed.f Others of the states 
were proportionably ainicted. Everywhere the des- 
olation was complete. Many of the Flemish towns 
which were not on the coast-line, were invaded by 
the rampant deluge.'^ 

In Friesland, hundreds climbed to the tops of 
hills, and took refuge in church belfries, whence* 
they were taken by boats sent by the magistrates 
to gather up the needy, and to fish out what prop- 
erty might be afloat. Upon the summit of one 
mound, an infant, carried thither in its cradle, was 
discovered fast asleep, in fear neither of shipwreck 
nor the flood.§ When the waves retired, and the 
burghers were at leisure to count up their losses, 
they reckoned the property submerged to be incal- 
culable, and put down the hves destroyed at one 
hundred thousand.il 

In the millennium which Alva had rex3orted, the 
provinces were thus mangled between the upper and 
nether millstones of human cruelty and elemental 
wrath. 

«s Strada, torn. 2, p. G9. t H^i^^- Brandt, uU sup. 

t Hoofd, uhl sup. § Strada, ut antea. 

II Meteren, Hoofd, ut aniea. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. GOl 



CHAPTEE XXXIII. 

PENNIES AS EEVOLUTIONISTS. 

EuPiOPE threo liundrcd years ago, almost as 
markedlj as now-a-days, was a plural unit rather 
than a congeries of isolated states. Widely sepa- 
rated peoples were not then, as now, made neigh- 
bors — cosmopolized, by newspapers and the tele- 
graph. The masses, in our modern sense, were 
indeed but just awakening from the sleep of ages, 
and stood drowsy-eyed. At present, it is not cabi- 
nets, but art, science, literature, opinion, fashion, 
commerce that are the motors of society, moulding 
national character and purpose. In the sixteenth 
century, government, the annals of half a dozen 
dynasties, the cabinets of Eome, Madrid, Paris, 
Brussels, London, covered the whole plane of human 
life — trade, letters, industry, religion ; which explains 
why the old chronicles deal only with governmental 
doings — there was nothing else to record.* 

Still, in the face of this fact, it is true that at the 
Eeformation era the European states were more or 
less intimately allied, some by a union of interests, 
others by the bond of a common faith ; so that it is 
impossible clearly to understand the story of any 
one of the foremost powers of that time without a 
comprehension of the foreign outlook. 

« "Wendell Phillips. Speeches, Lectures, and Letters, p. 306. 

,„„n„ H.U 26 



e02 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

The connection between tlie Netherlands and 
England was especially close. Neighbors by posi- 
tion, cousins by blood, cradled in the f-ame Saxon 
forests, the Dutchman and the Englishman had felt 
an immemorial affection for each other — an affection 
increased to the utmost cordiality when both struck 
off the spiritual shackles of the Vatican, and became 
worshippers at a freer altar. 

The transition from the old creed to the gospel 
theology had been scarce more stormy in the Low 
Countries than in Great Britain ; as the Lollards 
could tell, and as the still recent reign of " bloody 
Mary " avouched. The victory of the Preformation 
left Eomanism large, imposing, puissant, and ill- 
satisfied to accept the result — prone, like Saul, to 
kick against the pricks. 

During Alva's governor-generalship of the Neth- 
erlands, Elizabeth was on the English throne ; a 
Protestant queen, but a half-Romanist woman, 
vacillating in action, marvellously overrated as a 
sovereign. Happily for the island, at this the most 
critical period of its history, its safety was in abler 
and more skilful hands than those of the daughter 
of Henry YIII. Cecil was at the helm,* and alert 
Protestantism stood beside him. 

a (< (Tell his majesty,' wrote Don Gueran, the Spanish ambas- 
sador at the court of St. James, to Cayas, ' that Cecil is a lbs cun- 
ning as sin, and the mortal enemy of Spain. He moves in silence 
and falsehood, and what he will do against holy church is only 
limited by his power. The queen's oi:)inion goes for little, and 
Leicester's for less ; Cecil rules all, unopposed, with the pride of 
Lucifer.'" Froude, vol. 10, p. 258. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. 603 

The Romanists, ousted at court, became plot- 
ters almost to a man — three-quarters of the peers 
and half the gentlemen of England.* Reactionist 
outbreaks were the order of the day ; for churchmen, 
who on the Continent preached the divine right of 
kings, believed in Great Britain that obnoxious 
crowned heads might be lawfully deposed.! Nev- 
ertheless, the heretic jorincess retained the sceptre, 
and each baffled conspiracy weakened the papists 
and depleted their purses, while retaliatory legisla- 
tion placed them under a harsh judicial ban. 

In despair of unsupported success, they finally 
appealed to their natural leaders, the pope and the 
European princes, for guidance and aid. The de- 
sideratum was a grand crusade of the Romanist 
powers for the recovery of England. Ridolfi, a 
Florentine long resident in England, was the agent 
through whom the British papists communicated 
with their foreign sympathizers. The abduction or 
assassination of Elizabeth, the liberation of Mary 
of Scotland, then a prisoner in England, and the 
placing the beautiful adulteress upon the throne of 
Great Britain under Romish tutelage — such was 
the object of this the last combined effort of the 
English aristocracy to undo the Reformation.:]: In 
the service of this x)lot, Ridolfi, who gave his name 
to the conspiracy, plied incessantly between Lon- 
don and Rome, Brussels and Madrid. 

* Fronde, uhi sup., p. 1. f Ibid. 

J Corresp. de Philippe 11. , torn. 2, p. 1038. Froude, Hist, of 
England, vol. 10, p. 272. 



604 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

In Febniaiy, 1570, Pius V. licensed the pro- 
posed murder bj excommunicating Elizabeth and 
absolving the lieges of the realm from their alle- 
giance.* This bull — a weapon forged in the armo- 
ry, not of heaven, but of the Vatican — elicited but 
a single response on the Continent, that of Philip 
II,, the one crusader who survived in Europe. 
Maximilian was occupied in hunting up a market 
for his remaining daughters. France was busy in 
maturing the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; besides, 
Catharine de' Medici was angling to catch the 
maiden-queen for one of the French princes. But 
it behooved Philip, the most orthodox of kings, and 
the Spanish nation, the most passionately Eomau- 
ist in the world, to act. Was it not the duty of a 
monarch who was upholding the cross against the 
crescent in the Mediterranean, who was burning 
heresy in the Netherlands, to execute the behest of 
the vicar of God ? 

Philip set about the work with alacrity. Num- 
berless interviews were held with Ilidolfi;t the 
Spanish cabinet formally approved the plot;| and 
Chiappino Vitelli, who had travelled post from the 
Low Countries for the purpose, offered to strike the 
fatal blow.§ 

Alva was at once apprized of this resolution, 
and commanded to give the conspirators all the 

* Froude, uhl sup., p. 10. Camden, Aunals of the Eeigu of 
Queen Elizabeth. f Froiide, uhi sup., p. 250. 

t Ibid., p. 251, el seq. MS., Simancas. 
§ MS. Simancas. Frotide, uhi sup., p. 25G. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. G05 

assistaDce in his power, acting secretly but with 
decision.* 

Many letters had already passed between the 
duke and the king on this subject. The governor- 
general had long been looking for some "ford" by 
which to wade into England ;t and, though he 
lacked confidence in Eidolfi,:}; he promised to stint 
nothing in the preparations against Elizabeth. 
Philip had written : " The end proposed is to kill 
or to capture Elizabeth, to free the queen of Scot- 
land, and to set tipon her head the crown of Eng- 
land. I hope that God, whose cause it is, will 
enlighten and assist us. Be ready to throw six 
thousand arquebusiers into England, two thousand 
into Scotland, and two thousand into Ireland the 
instant the blow is struck. "§ To which the devout 
duke replied : " I highly applaud you for this plot, 
and cannot help rendering infinite thanks to God 
for having made me vassal to such a prince."ll 

But, alas for ultramontanism, this murderous 
" practice " was not to prosper. In the autumn of 
1571, Cecil, "who had his eyes everywhere," suc- 
ceeded in unravelling the intricate web of the con- 
spiracy.! " The affair is upset," said Alva, " and 
there's an end of it."** Nevertheless, Philip be- 
lieved that it was not yet too late. " Angels," wrote 

** Correspoudance de Philippe II., ut antea. 

t Froude, Hist, of England, vol. 10, p. 203. 

J Correspoudance de Philippe II., uhl siq)., p. 1035. 

§ Ibid., p. 1038. II Ibid., p. 1041. 

^ Froude, ubi sup., pp. 154, 301, passim. Bnrnet, Hume. 

** Letter of Alva to Don Juan de Cuniga. MS., Simaucas. 



()06 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

he, "will figlit for the good cause."* But the 
astute duke desh-ed to placate the queeu whom he 
could not stab ; therefore he favored leaving the 
angels to fight it out.f Eventually, the king deci- 
ded to give over the attempt, though not until the 
failure of several assassins set to do the deed forced 
even his opaque intellect to see the madness of 
persistence.:]: 

While the king and the duke were incubating 
the plot against Elizabeth, and before their failure 
in England broke up the nest of the assassins, the 
prince of Orange was again in motion. William 
had spent upwards of a twelvemonth in France, 
doing the Huguenots yeomanlj service at La Char- 
it6, Roche-de-la-Ville, and Poictiers.§ But though 
a volunteer in a foreign service, ho had been no 
unconcerned spectator of passing events in the 
Netherlands. The persecution, the illegal taxes, the 
conspiracy to murder a neighbor sovereign, on the 
pretext of a spurious sanctity and the needs of 
despotism — he saw it all, and felt that duty as well 
as inclination bade him be at hand to checkmate, if 
possible, the royal game. The future was indeed 
but vacancy, but it was vacancy peopled with its 
million possibilities. 

So, in the autumn of 1569, the prince left Count 
Louis to command the horsemen whom he had led 

•-■ Fronde, nhi sup., p. 302. 
t Letter of Alva to Dou Juan, etc., ubi sup. 
J Corresp. de Philij^pe II., torn. 2, p. 1051. 
§ Archives ct Correspoudauce de la Maison d'Orauge-Nassau, 
torn. 3, p. 316, et scq. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. C07 

into France at the end of the disastrous campaign 
of '58, shook hands with Coligny, passed the pick- 
ets of Guise in a peasant's dress, and reached the 
castle of Dillenburg before the snow felL* 

But the beggar prince came back to no such 
reception as was wont to be given him when an 
annual income of two hundred thousand florinsf 
built the 2)ortico of his philanthropy. Old friends 
fell off, and new ones were not easily made. His old 
debtors, the soldiers, too, began to trouble him4 
The great ones insulted him with empty protesta- 
tions of pity. All believed him to be a hopelessly 
ruined man. 

William meant to live down this mistake. He 
was indeed forlornly broken in fortune ; so much so, 
that he was compelled to give his personal atten- 
tion to the homeliest details of a straitened domes- 
tic economy — he, the mate of emperors, the epicure 
whose dainty cuisine had been the envy of Europe.§ 
But what then ? His inheritance had been wasted, 
not in riotous living, as seemed its probable fate at 
one time, but in the sertice of the gospel and of 
liberty. Wasted ? Nay, invested — laid up " where 
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal." 

■~- Archives et Correspondance de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassau, 
torn. 3, p. 322. De Thou, torn. 5, p. 627. 

f Vide Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 115. Even after 
the conliscation of his Netherland estates, his income "was sixty 
thoiisand florins ]3er annum. Wagenaer. Cited in Motley, vol. 
2, p. '243, note. { Archives, etc., uhi sup., p. 355, et seq. 

§ Motley, vol. 2, p. 327. 



608 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

All this William bore as a Christian should, 
without repining, with pious resignation, for he 
knew that God " doeth all things well." Neverthe- 
less, he remembered the grand cause ; and now that 
he was himself unable to sujDport it unaided, he felt 
no hesitation in calling on all upon whom he had 
a claim, to contribute to its Avants. This he did in 
the winter and spring of 1570,* in a series of able 
papers drawn up with a free pen, and used with 
gi'eat effect by those agents whom he employed in 
canvassing for funds. t 

; . In one of these, styled the " Harangue," he 
made this forcible appeal to the reformed : " Our 
enemies sj)are neither money nor labor; will you 
be colder and duller than your foes? Let, then, 
each church, the feeblest congregation, set an ex- 
ample to others. We read that King Saul, when 
he would liberate the men of Jabesli from the hands 
of Nabash, the Ammonite, hewed a yoke of oxen in 
pieces, and sent them as tokens over all Israel, 
saying : ' Ye who will not follow Saul and Samuel, 
with them shall be dealt 'even as with these oxen. 
And the fear of the Lord came upon the people, 
and they came forth, and the men of Jabesh were 
delivered,' You have here the same warning; look 
to it, watch well, ye that despise it, lest the wrath 
of God, which the men of Israel by their speedy 
obedience escaped, descend upon your heads."J 

At the same time, the prince empowered the re- 

« Brandt, vol. 1, p. 285. Bor., torn. G, p. 303, et seq. 

t Ibid. ^ Cited in Bor., ut aniea. 



PENNIES AS llEVOLUTIONISTS. COJ 

formed preachers of the provinces to make weekly 
and monthly collections among their parishioners — 
agents the most powerful and successful by reason 
of their piety, eloquence, and thorough knowledge 
of the disposition and sj'mpathies of the masses.* 
The pastors assured their heafers that all sums con- 
tributed should be used for the expulsion of Alva, 
and the securing of the states in the possession 
of their charters and of the evangelical religion.f 
They acquitted themselves so zealously that those 
who listened to their pleas not only made it a scru- 
ple of conscience not to give either nothing or 
sparingly, but even esteemed themselves not good 
Christians if they did not support the cause with 
the most open-handed generosity ; though the rich- 
est were the slowest and most stinted in their con- 
tributions, and what was gotten came mostly from 
the necessitous pockets of the lower and the middle 
classes.^ 

William made an especial appeal to the body 
then called the Anabaptists, as being the most ill- 
used of the mediaeval sects. In response, one of 
their pastors, Peter Boomgard — he deserves that 
history should remember his name — collected at 
the secret conventicles of his people ten hundred 
and sixty guilders, a large sum for those daj's, and 
placed the money in person in the prince's hands, 
travelling many leagues at jeopard of his life to do 
so. " Take in good part this trifling present from 
your servants," ^aid he ; " esteeming your favor to 

o Brumlt, vol. 1, p. 285. t Ibid. t Ibid., p. 20G. 

26* 



610 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

be greater than the gift, we do not desire to be re- 
paid, though we are poor withal." " What return, 
then, can I make you ?" queried William. " If God 
bestows on you the gOA^ernment of the provinces, 
give us recognition and the protection of the laws," 
was the reply. " That I will," said Orange ; " you 
and all men." Then he gave Boomgard a receii3t 
for the mone}', and also wrote out and signed an 
obligation to bear the Anabaptists harmless in the 
event of his success.-' 

By these and kindred means, the patriot exche- 
quer was at least redeemed from bankruptcy. Best 
of all, every guilder thus obtained was a prayer as 
well as so much silver — a tool of action and a token 
of the set determination of the people to be free. 

William had wisely resolved to make the north- 
ern provinces his next scene of action. f In Hol- 
land, Zealand, Friesland, and the rest, the reformed 
religion had made greater progress than in the 
south ; the inhabitants were more persistent ; the 
spirit of independence was higher. From the na- 
ture of the landscape, intersected by navigable 
rivers, by canals, and by branches of the sea, men 
dreaded less, and were less exposed to the power of 
the Spaniard. It seemed a cluster of states fitted 
by nature and by art to be the Thermopylae of 
Protestantism. 

The prince was in active correspondence with 
the chief men of the north. Paul Buys especially, 

■-= Brandt, vol. 1, p. 295. 

t Bor., torn. 5, p. '280, d seq. Watson, Life of Philip II., p. 165. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. Gil 

the shrewd aud patriotic pensionary of Leyden,* 
sounded for him the current of events, and kept 
him carefully advised of the ebb and flow of opinion 
in the states.f Under the very eyes of the ubiqui- 
tous "sevenpenny men" of Alva, intrigues were set 
afoot, and plans were concerted between the exiled 
seigneur and his domestic allies ; and all was so 
wisely contrived that not a rumor reached the 
governor-general's suspicious ears. From time to 
time, covert attempts were made to capture some 
one or another of the port towns of Holland — now 
Enchuyzen, and now Flushing; but when, from dif- 
ferent causes, these proved abortive, they were 
quietly laid by till Heaven should be more pro- 
pitious. 

One of these attempts, however, had a difiereut 
result. In the dusk of a December day in 1570, 
four men habited as monks of the order of mendi- 
cant Gray Friars, craved shelter for the night at 
the gate of the fortress of Lowenstein. The castlo 
was situated quite on the verge of the isle of Bom- 
mel, a narrow but important jut of land shut in be- 
tween the jaws of the rivers Meuse and Waal ; aud 
it commanded the junction of their waters, and also 
the adjacent cities of Sorcum and Dorcum.:]; 

Hospitality to the children of the church was 
always in order in the castles of King Philip, and 

* A pensionary was the chief municipal officer of the towns of 
Holland and Zealand, 
f Bor., ubl sup., p. 289. 
% Bcntivoglio, lib. 5, p. 87. Cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 317. 



612 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

the mendicants were clieerfully admitted; but on 
being conducted into the j)resence of the castellan 
they proved beggars of an unexpected type. " For 
whom do you hold this fortress ?" suddenly inquired 
one of the intruders, a giant named De Ruyter, and 
an enthusiastic partisan of William. "For his 
majesty King Philip, of course," replied the sur- 
prised commandant. De Euyter's response was a 
pistol-shot. Within ten minutes the four supposed 
monks were in full possession of the castle.* 

An additional number of men, twenty perhaps, 
were then admitted ; and a large reinforcement was 
expected by De Ruyter, which, detained by an ice 
storm, failed to reach Lowenstein.f Meantime, the 
Spanish governor of Bois-le-Duc, apprized of the 
daring deed, despatched a company of veterans to 
retake the place. Presently it was escaladed ; for 
how could such a garrison defend walls which hun- 
dreds should have manned? But De Euyter had 
no idea of surrender. Inch by inch he fought with 
the stubborn valor of a Co3ur-de-Leon ; and finall}^,, 
when pressed back by stress of numbers into the 
citadel, he stooped to the floor, touched a spark to 
a train of powder previously strewn over the apart- 
ment, and like Samson in the temi^le of the Philis- 
tines, brought the tower down in tumultuous ruin 
upon himself and his antagonists.:]^ 

Upon deciding to gain a foothold iii the north, 

* Mendoza, torn. 5, p. 109. 
■ t IbicT., p. 110. Motley, uU sup., p. 118. 
X Ibid. Bor., torn. G, p. 331. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. olo 

Orange had also resolved, in compliance with the 
sage advice of the French admiral Coligny, given 
while the liberator was a sojourner among the 
Huguenots,* as much as might be to transfer hos- 
tilities from the land, where he was over-matched 
by Alva, to the sea, the natural element of the am- 
phibious Hollanders, upon which the gueux would 
be invincible. 

At this period the English channel swarmed 
with corsairs. The prettiest and the fleetest craft 
afloat were manned and ofiicered by mariners who 
took the stars for their patrons and the tables of 
\'atitudo and longitude for a liturgy. At the outset, 
ti 3 privateersmen sailed under letters of marque 
issi ed by Cond6, with the Huguenot flag nailed to 
their masthead ; and they regarded all papists as 
legitimate prey.t Not a Romish merchant in Europe 
or the Indies who " went down to the sea in ships," 
bT"*" '^"'^-0 to grief. Alva rated the injury annually 
(lone by them to Spanish commerce at three hun- 
dred thousand ducats.:|: 

Since the advent of the duke, these rovers had 
been joined by scores of Netherland seamen. Every 
ruined trader, every outlawed seigneur scraped up 
the remnant of his fortune, invested it in a vessel, 
got a commission from Coligny or the queen of 
Navarre, drummed up a crew on the quays of the 

« Du Mauiier, p. 43. 

f Froude, Hist. Eng., vol. 10, p. 77, et seq. 
J Guerau clc Espes to Philip, August 25, 15G8. MS., Siman- 
cas. 



614 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

provincial seaports, and took to privateering against 
Spain for tlie double purpose of amassing wealth 
and avenging wrongs. 

In 1570, forty or fifty sail held the coast from 
the mouth of the Ems to the harbor of Rochelle * 
Spanish galleons, freighted with the fragrant spices 
of the East, with the diamonds of Golconda, with 
the gold of either Ind, were seized at sight and sold 
openly in the favorite harbor of the corsairs at 
Dover.f Sometimes these "beggars of the sea," 
who asked their alms at the cannon's mouth, made 
descents upon the Spanish coast, sacking churches 
and convents, pilfering silver in such amounts that 
its price was depreciated in the European money- 
market, and at their wassails drinking success to 
privateering in wine tapped from monastic casks in 
the consecrated vessels. J: 

For the threefold jourpose of reducing the rovers 
to some degree of order — for, demoralized by the 
license of such a life, they were not always careful 
to discriminate between friend and foe in the exer- 
cise of their powers — of draining off some portion 
of their gains into the needy treasury of the good 
cause, and of employing them against the governor- 
general, the prince of Orange issued letters of 
marque to as many as were willing to receive them, 
and to come under the discipline established for 
his fleet.§ 

« Froude, ubi sup., p. 78. Viinclervyuckt. f Ibid. 

i Froude, vol. 10, p. 240. MS., Simancas. 
§ Bor., torn. 5, p. 289. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 285. 



PENNIES AS KEVOLUTIONISTS. 615 

This code prescribed the strict enforcement of 
the articles of war ; the payment to the prince of a 
fifth part of all gains ; the " providing a chaplain 
for every ship, so that the pure word of God might 
be preached to all the seamen ;" and the reception 
of none save "folk of good name and fame,"- to 
serve as mariners. Nevertheless, colossal abuses, 
impossible to be suppressed in an irregular service, 
hurt the reputation and hampered the usefulness of 
this infant navyt — the germ of those later puissant 
fleets which, under the conduct of Van Tromp, 
swept the sea with brooms lashed to their mast- 
heads, in token of the haughty supremacy of Hol- 
land. 

In the utilizing the privateers, in the collection 
of friendly contributions, and in the maturing a 
comprehensive scheme of invasion, William spent 
the years 1570 and 1571. Meanwhile, Philip's vice- 
roy was proving the prince's unconscious but most 
efficient ally. As the term for which he had arrang- 
ed with the provincial deputies to hold the obnox- 
ious taxes in abeyance verged towards its close, 
Alva prepared to resume his demand for the tenth 
and twentieth pennies. Upon this subject there 
was incessant wrangling at the council-board, the 
duke affirming that the states had assented to the 
imposts, and Viglius, the new tribune of the people, 
or rather of the monied classes, begging to remind 

* Brandt, uhl svp., p. 290. Bor., uU sup., p. 324, et seq. 
f Archives de la Maison d'Oraiige-Nassau, torn. 4, p. G3. MS., 
Siuiaucas. 



GIG THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

his highness that the assent had been nulUfied by 
the failure of the condition-precedent — the concur- 
rence of all voices.* 

This declaration of the learned Frisian always 
threw Alva into a towering rage, and on one occa- 
sion he threatened to chastise a repetition of the 
statement.'!" The menace was soon city gossip ; 
every barber, every old woman in Brussels became 
its publisher.! But Viglius was firm for once — 
guilders were at stake. " I am convinced," said he 
to the governor-general, " that the king will not 
condemn me unheard; but at any rate, my gray 
hairs save me from fear of death. "§ 

On the 31st of July, 1571, Alva decreed the sum- 
mary collection of the taxes.H An unprecedented 
hubbub was the result. The estates of the respec- 
tive provinces, the citizens of the great towns, met 
to protest and to avow their purpose to resist.l^ 
Holland refused to promulgate the edict,*- And 
when the duke appointed collectors and receivers 
of the moneys, those designated refused to serve, 
nor would the magistrates compel them to perform 
the odious duty. At Amsterdam, the aldermen 
shifted the work on the burgomasters, and they 
again upon the aldermen ; so that between the two 
the collection itself went begging. ft In conse- 
quence, the city was fined twenty-five thousand 

* Viglii, Com. dec. Deu., sees. 45, 46. 

t Ibid., sec. 28. J Ibid., sec. 50. § Ibid., sec. 47. 

II ibid., sec. 38. % Bor., torn. 5, p. 345, et seq. 

*'•' Ibid. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 2'JO. ff Brandt, ujbi sup. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. 017 

guilders* — an exaction wliicli increased, if possible, 
the popular rage, and set even the Franciscan 
monks to railing at Alva as an extortionate tyrant.f 
The estates of Holland ordered a fast to be ob- 
served, and had public prayers offered, " that God 
would vouchsafe to soften the hard and cruel heart 
of the duke, to the end that he might hearken to 
reason and equitj."| 

On the 25th of September, 1571, Philip, in com- 
pliance with the reiterated requests of Alva — per- 
haps also because himself not quite pleased with 
the arrogance of the viceroy, commissioned the 
duke of Medina Coeli to succeed him.§ However, 
Alva was bidden to retain the government until the 
arrival of the new governor, who would not be 
ready for some months to sail for the provinces.il 

When a rumor of this news got abroad, the hos- 
tile spirit of the masses increased apace, and while 
the duke was yet in Brussels, even began in imagi- 
nation to celebrate the outgoing of their oppressor. IT 
The weak-knees of the councillors, Viglius, Barlai- 
mont, Aerschot, were marvellously stiffened^ — for 
there is nothing so contemptible in the eyes of 
toadies as a falling courtier. 

Presently, even Alva's haughty spirit was ap- 
palled by the tempestuous wrath of the people. 
He ordered the tax of ten per cent, to be remitted 

* Brandt, ubi sup. f Ibid. J ILid. 

§ Corresp. de Philii^pe II., torn. 2, p, 1055. 

II Ibid., p. 105C. 

II Strada, torn. 2, p. G9. 



618 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

upon raw materials used in manufactures, and on 
four staple articles— wine, beer, corn, and meat.* 
But these immunities, wbich lie regarded as crimi- 
nally condescending, did not tend to reconcile the 
provincials to his illegal and ruinous impost; on the 
contrary, they construed the concession into proof 
of the duke's inability to enforce the law. 

Alva's correspondence with the king began to 
teem with . complaints — to hint the faults, and to 
hesitate dislike of the councillors who had fallen 
away from him at this critical moment ;!• while the 
opposition of the states to the tax was denounced 
as being not in the interest of the fisheries, or of 
trade, or of manufactures, but from a "fear that in 
future they might not be able to dictate the law to 
their sovereign.":]: 

The courtiers at Madrid openl}' scoffed at the 
financial projects of the duke; and Philip felt that 
his mission was the extirpation of heresy, not the 
suppression of commerce ; and he began to be 
uneasy lest the trade of the Low Countiies should 
be hamstrung.§ This uneasiness was increased by 
the reports which the Spanish ambassador at Paris 
forwarded to him early in 1572, after a personal 
visit to Brussels. " Sire," wrote he, " the duke is 
the best hated man in Christendom. This whole 
people are crying, ' Let him begone, let him begone.' 
I do not think it possible to collect the tenth penny 

■^' Bor., torn. 5, p. 345, et seq. Viglii, Com., etc. 

t Cones, de Philippe II., torn. 2, pp. 1095, 1103, etc. 

i Ibid., p. 1003. § Motley, vol. 2, p. 310. 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. G19 

without mining the states."'^ Puzzled, undecided, 
half-hearted, Philip did not give his viceroy's 
method of finance the cordial support which would 
have been the stay of an auto da fe programme. 

Though bereft of sympathy where he most ex- 
pected it, Alva was far from the surrender of his 
pet imposts — feeling rather that his honor was 
staked upon success. Thus far little or nothing 
had been harvested by the gleaners of the assess- 
ments. Nettled, and in want of money, he decided, 
in the spring of 1572, to make a grand levy of the 
tenth penny in Brussels, convinced that his pres- 
ence, backed by the men-at-arms in town, would 
insure the reaping of the tax in the capital, and 
give him a precedent.! 

The citizens learned of the duke's intention, and 
imanimously resolved to cease all traffic. Every 
counting-room was closed, every manufactory was 
locked, every shop was shut ; the bakers forbore to 
bake, the brewers refused to brew, the tapsters 
would not tap, the butchers did not kill, the farm- 
ers' stalls were barred in the market-place, and even 
the innkeepers closed their doors against all cus- 
tom.:!: Brussels looked plague-stricken. "Want was 
in every home. Yet no one thought of submission. 
It was a form of passive resistance against which 
■ cannon were powerless. 

It may seem strange to some that these pennies 

'■' Corresp. de Philippe II., uhi sup., p. 1074. 

t Bor., torn. 6, p. 361. Brandt. 

J Ibid. Stiada, torn. 2, p. 70. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 295. 



G20 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION, 

should prove sucli potent revolutionists where mar- 
tyr-piles and innumerable scaffolds had pleaded 
vainl3% But it should be remembered that events 
are cumulative. The sufferings endured from the 
tj-rannj of Alva, the non-intercourse with England, 
and, finall}^, practical confiscation in the guise of 
taxation, had exasperated the provincials until they 
were prepared to adopt the most desperate retalia- 
tory measures. 

Besides, the most atrocious persecution assails 
but a class, extends but to a certain number of 
individuals. There are thousands whom it does 
not touch, and thousands more who sym23athize 
with the most cruel bigotry. But the tax-gatherer 
knocks at all doors; imposts such as those of Alva 
mortgage the right hand of every man's labor ; 
filching from all pockets and emptying all larders, 
they provoke all to rebel. Cobbett says that civili- 
zation comes through the stomach. Yes ; but often, 
as in this instance, civilization gets no farther than 
the stomach, mistaking the half-way-house for the 
end of the journey. 

When the burghers shut up their shops and 
warehouses, declaring that they had no goods to 
sell, and ought therefore to pay no taxes, the gov- 
ernor-general fell " to cursing like a very drab, a 
Scullion." Such presumption, in the capital, under 
his very eyes, called for chastisement, public, im- 
mediate. Alva made out a list of eighteen princi- 
pal citizens, and sent for Master Carl the hangman. 
" Here, sirrah," said he, handing his ghastly visitor 



PENNIES AS REVOLUTIONISTS. 021 

the names, " see to 't tliat eacli and all of these 
stretch hemp at dawn to-morrow from their own 
sign-posts. Cospetfo! I will carry justice to the 
doors of all."* 

Master Carl bowed and withdrew to make ready 
for this impromptu execution, Don Frederic de 
Toledo hurried off to get Yiglius to sign the death- 
warrants, arousing the reluctant doctor at midnight 
for that purpose. At dawn the soldiers were under 
arms, the hangman stood rope in hand ; when sud- 
denly a courier dashed into the city, and reported 
the caj)ture of Brille, the key-town of the north, by 
the beggars of the sea — an announcement which 
untied the knot of the executioner, and postponed 
the duke's matutinal tragedy.f 

* Bor., torn. G, p. 2G1. Brandt, ut antea. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 70. Vide Meteren, torn. 4, folio 70, and 
Hoofd, torn. C, p. 216. 



622 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTEE XXXiy. 

THE KISING. 

In the year 1572, William de Lumey, Count de 
la Marck, wlio, since the death of his pot companion 
Brederode, had been chief of the roysterers — an 
untamed, ferocious corsair, equally at home in the 
saddle and on the quarter-deck, according to an 
ancient Batavian custom wearing his hair and 
beard unshorn until the death of his cousin Egmont 
should be avenged- — held the rank of admiral in 
the outlaw navy of the prince of Orange.t Between 
the count, the two tenets of whose creed were the 
flaying of priests and the murder of Spaniards, and 
the prince, there could be little sympathy; but De 
la Marck was high in the favor of the privateers- 
men; and what is it that Gibbon says? "A thrifty 
statesmanship utilizes all." 

The worst of it was, that the buccaneer admiral 
was not content to confine his depredations to 
Spanish commerce, but occasionally varied the 
monotony of such privateering by a pounce upon 
friendly or neutral vessels; a course which aliena- 
ted foreign nations, and chilled the sympathy of the 
Netherlanders themselves, whose trade was impe- 

■~- Strada, torn. 2, p. 58. Meteren, torn. 5, folio Ci. Vander- 
vynckt, torn. 2, p. 127. 

t Ibid. Grotius, Auu., lit). 2. p. 49. 



THE RISING. 623 

ded by these piracies.* Indeed, so much offended 
were the maritime powers, that even Sweden and 
Denmark returned a rude nay to WiUiam's request 
that his ships might be permitted to enter their 
ports to victual and repair.! Enghind alone opened 
her harbors to the buccaneers. 

Against this conduct of Great Britain, Alva had 
long protested. In the winter of 1572, he informed 
Elizabeth that her continued protection of the pri- 
vateers would be construed by Philip II. into a 
declaration of war.| As the Netherland trade was 
of great importance to London, and as the money 
quarrel between herseh" and the duke was ripening 
to an agreement, the queen was desirous to avoid 
open hostilities with Spain. Accordingly, she issued 
an order for the expulsion of the corsairs from her 
ports. § 

At this very time De la Marck lay in the straits 
of Dover with a fleet of twenty-six sail, manned by 
six hundred mariners.il Ejected from the last spot 
of laud in Europe where he might set foot, he yet 
hoisted sail with seamanlike nonchalance, prepared 
to scud in whatsoever direction the wind sliovdd 
waft him.U On clearing the harbor, he descried a 
convoy of Spanish traders steering for Antwerp. 
This was fair game, and the privateers at once gave 

'■'■ Bor., torn. 5, p. 289. i 

t Ibid., p. 334, et seq. Hoofd, torn. G, p. 210. 

% Froude, Hist, of England, vol. 10, p. 373, et seq. 

§ Ibid., p. 374. Strada, torn. 2, p. 72. 

II Brandt, vol. 1, p. 295. Compare Motley, vol. 2, p. 351. 

^ Froude. uhi sup. 



624 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

chase, tacldug aucl wearing ship, firing and halloo- 
ing up the channel. Two merchantmen were caught 
and robbed of sixty thousand crowns, the crev.'S 
being drowned'^ — all in true corsair st^de. 

After a few days' cruising, the squadron got 
short of water and provisions; whereupon De la 
Marck decided to trim his course for North Hol- 
land, land, and make a levy on the burghers. On 
the 1st of April, 1572, he dropped anchor in the 
mouth of the river Meuse, opposite and within easy 
eyesight of the town of Brille.t " Ah, ha ! yonder 
are the beggars of the sea," exclaimed the ferryman 
who plied between Brille and the neighbor town of 
Maaslandsluis, on sighting the fleet4 After land- 
ing his passengers, he rowed boldly into the offing 
to speak the strangers, being himself a patriot. 
With little difficulty, the admiral prevailed upon 
this boatman to bear a message to the city magis- 
trates demanding a conference. Kowing back to 
Brille, he elbowed aside the crowd of questioners 
who met him at the landing, and hastening to the 
Stadt-house, where the aldermen were gathered, 
informed them of the count's demand.§ " How 
many men do the privateers carry?" queried the 
city fathers. " Some five thousand in all," was the 
cool but lying answer.il In the face of such a force 
resistance was not to be thought of. But in order 
to gain time for flight, two envoys were sent to hold 

* La Mothe Fenelon, April 14, 1572. Biptches, vol. 4. 
f Bor., torn. 6, p. 3G5, et seq. Hoofd, torn. G, p. 216, et seq. 
t Ibid. § Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 218. || Ibid. 



THE RISING. G25 

the gueux in paiie3% Meantime, the burghers gath- 
ered up their vahiables and hurriedly departed.* 

De la Marck was too impatient to be long coz- 
ened; and suspecting treachery, he landed the major 
part of his old salts, divided them into two parties, 
and advanced to the assault. The town was quick- 
ly taken — the admiral making a bonfire of one gate, 
and then beating down the charred portal with a 
battering-ram in the shape of an old mast.f 

Thus extraordinarily was the first successful 
siege'of the patriots conducted; so rude were the 
hands which laid the foundation-stone of the Dutch 
Republic — for this seemingly unimportant event 
was pregnant with just that result. 

Strangest of all, it was an unintentional success. 
De la Marck meant merely to make a piratical foray 
upon Brille, revictual, plunder the churches, and 
ship the ecclesiastical furniture.'! It was due to 
the long-headed intelligence of the Seigneur de 
Treslong, that the town was definitively held for 
Orange, he pointing out to the admiral the impor- 
tance of the place, its impregnability by land, and 
the advantages certain to accrue from its reten- 
tion.§ 

But though concluding to remain in Brille, De 
la Marck was not to be stayed from an assault upon 
the churches of the place; which were speedily gut- 
ted, the images being broken, and the rich ecclesi- 

« Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 218. Bor., torn. C, p. 3G6. 
t Ibid. Motley, vol. 2, p. 354. 

J Brandt, vol. 1, p. 295. Bor., uhi sup. § Ibid. 

n.itHi i:..f. 27 



626 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

astical vestments appropriated by the spoilers, 
while the murder of thirteen priests who had ne- 
glected to escaj^e, crowned the saturn^dia* 

"No es Jidda, no es nada' — "'tis nothing, a mere 
nothing," said Alva, on hearing the news.t Never- 
theless, he dismissed unharmed the butchers and 
grocers of Brussels, of whom he was about to make 
an example, and prepared to cope with the beggars 
of the sea. At heart the duke was uneasy. He 
knew the importance of the captured town — knew 
that its possession supplied the gueux with 'what 
they especially needed, a seaport citadel. He was 
especially chagrined because the disaster was large- 
ly his own fault, for he had drained off the seaboard 
garrisons, and stationed a host of men-at-arms in 
Utrecht, in order to dragonnade the burghers of 
that province into assenting to the taxes — a meas- 
ure fraught with double mischief, though, to be 
sure, he had considered the corsairs to be fit only 
to war upon unarmed merchantmen. 

However, it was the time for action, not for un- 
availing regret. "Brille must be retaken," cried 
the governor-general ; and straightway Count Bos- 
su, who had acted as stadtholder of Holland since 
William's resignation, was despatched to perform 
the work.:]: Probably Alva thought that, after all, 
it would merely be a second edition of the De Euy- 
ter tragedy at the castle of Lowenstein. 

'■'" Meteren, torn. 4, folio 72. Strada, torn. 2, j). 72. 

t Motley, vol. 2, p. 356. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 295. Bor., Hoofd. 



THE EISING. G27 

At the head of ten companies of veterans gath- 
ered from Utrecht, Bossu made his appearance be- 
fore Brille quite as soon as the privateersmen were 
ready to receive him.* Still, a daring defiance was 
returned to his summons to surrender; though De 
la Marck, uncertain of the citizens and greatly over- 
matched, determined to stand strictly on the defen- 
sive.t 

Brille lay on the island of Voom, just on the 
southern lip of the mouth of the Mouse, whose nav- 
igation it commanded, and the Spaniards crossed to 
it from the mainland in boats. They were permit- 
ted to land unopposed; but scarcely had Bossu 
unlimbered his cannon, when an artisan of Brille 
swam, axe in hand, to the sluice of the Nieuland 
dyke, split it in pieces, and inundated the island.:]: 
At the same time, De Treslong and Captain Rabal 
fired and cut adrift the vessels in which their foe- 
men had crossed the river.§ 

• Appalled by the sight of their burning boats, 
and panic-struck by the rapid rise of the water, 
Bossu's veterans broke rank and fled wildly along 
the bank of the slippery canal, raked at every step 
by the merciless guns of the gueux vomiting fire and 
death from Brille. Many leaped into the turbid 
river and were drowned; others met death from the 
cannon-shot; hundreds were slain; and the survi- 
vors took their route, through streams and marshes, 
over I^ew Beyerland to the city of Dordrecht, where 

'"■ Metereu, Hoofd, et alii i Meteren. 

J Hoofd, torn, fi, p, 220. Bor., torn. 0, p. 3G7. § Ibid. 



628 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

they arrived wet, weary, and routed, only to be 
denied admittance by the jubilant burghers.* 

After the disappearance of the last of his assail- 
ants, the admiral repaired to the market-place of 
Brille, assembled the townsfolk, most of whom had 
returned on the subsidence of their first fear of the 
beggars of the sea, by tap of drum, registered tlieir 
names, made all swear allegiance to the prince of 
Orange as King Philip's legal stadtholder of Hol- 
land; and pledged all to defend the place against 
Pu^Dpet Bossu, and against the duke of Alva, who 
pulled the string which set others dancing.f 

In the meantime, Bossu, shut out of Dordrecht, 
hastened on to Kotterdam with his jaded cohorts. 
Here, too, the citizens were reluctant to open their 
gates, fearing lest tlieir unwelcome guests should 
make too long a tarry, or attempt to collect the 
tenth and twentieth pennies, thus far unpaid.^ Blit 
Bossu's plight was so miserable, he pleaded so hard, 
and promised so stoutly to march directly through 
the city, that the magistrates gave a reluctant order 
for the admission of his soldiers, a corporal's guard 
at a time, with unloaded muskets; which terms 
Bossu signed and sealed.§ 

His words, however, were " as false as dicers' 
oaths;" for no sooner was the first detachment 
within the gate, than assailing and mastering the 

«' Brandt, vol. 1, p. 295. Strada, torn. 2, p. 72. 

t Strada, torn. 2, pp. 72, 73. Hoofd and Bor., ubi sup. 

X Bor., iihi sup., p. 3G8. Brandt, uU sup. Hoofd, Meteren. 

§ Bor., torn. 6, p. 308. 



THE RISING. G29 

burglier guard, they admitted the whole force. Led 
on by Bossu in person, the brutal soldiery at once 
spread through the town, robbing the traders, vio- 
lating the women, massacring the burghers — four 
hundred of whom were quickly murdered.* 

These events, the capture and successful defence 
of Brille, and the infamous treachery at Rotterdam, 
were like sparks dropped in a powder-magazine — 
the states, previously prepared, exploded with a 
detonation which shook Philip at Madrid. Trea- 
son was felt to be a lesser crime than inhumanity. 
Even in Brussels, the wits put treason into puns. 
The beggars of the sea had snatched Brille on All- 
Fools' day, and as Brille is the Flemish for sjjeda- 
cles, a popular couplet was at once struck off: 

" Ou April Fool's day, 
Duke Alva's spectacles were stolen away."t 

The streets, too, were placarded with a caricature 
in which De la Marck was represented stealing the 
duke's spectacles from off his nose, he all the time 
muttering his habitual expression when any thing 
went wrong : " No es nada, no cs nada' — 'tis noth- 
ing, 'tis nothing.:]: The jest was made the keener 
by the fact thai the Dutch had a jeering proverb, 
that when a man was overreached, he was specta- 
cled and snaffled; so that the picture was supposed 
to signify that Alva's severity was now bridled.§ 

«> Bor., torn. 6, p. 3G8. Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 220, seq. Meteren, 
torn. 6, folio m. t Vaudervynckt, torn. 2, p. 142. 

J Ibid. Strada, torn. 2, p. 72. ^ Strada, uhi sup. 



630 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

At stormy crises, an after-dinner speech or an 
epigram will precipitate a revolution. Flushing, a 
wealthy, populous, and important town on the ex- 
treme south point of the island of Walcheren, in the 
Zealand archipelago, the bulwark of the sea, was 
the first to hoist the patriot colors.* The place 
was of vital consequence to Alva, since it command- 
ed the navigation of the Scheldt, as Brille did that 
of the Meuse, two main arteries of trade. Charles 
V. had especially advised his son to see to its secu- 
rity; but the duke had drained off the garrison to 
reinforce the dragonnaders of Utrecht, leaving only 
eighty superannuated Walloons to guard the town.f 
These were quickly put hors du combat by the patriot 
burghers, who thereupon sent off to England, to 
France, to Orange, and to Brille for succor. | 

Ignorant of what had occurred, Alva too late 
bethought him to look to the safety of this key to 
the Scheldt. Ten companies of men-at-arms were 
embarked for Flushing, and Paciotti, the engineer, 
was sent post across the country to complete a cit- 
adel already in process of erection.§ Meantime, 
De Treslong had arrived with two hundred of the 
beggars of the sea, volunteers from other quarters 
had manned the walls, and the town grinned defi- 
ance as the belated Spaniards sailed into port. 
The fleet had hardly cast anchor when the artillery 

* Strada, torn, 2, p. 72. Boi-.j torn. 6, p. 369, et seq. 
t Watson, Life of Philip II., p. 170. 
j Bor., iiU sup., p. 370. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 39G. Hoofd. 
^ Hoofd, torn. G, p. 222. Bor., uU sup., p. 3GD. 



THE RISING. C31 

belched forth its warning. Surprised at their recep- 
tion and ignorant of the number of the insurgents, 
the invaders were panic-struck, and sKpping their 
cables, stood away in disorderly flight for Middle- 
burg, the twin of Flushing.* A few days later, Pa- 
ciotti, unaware of what had passed, and supposing 
the Spaniards to be in possession, entered the town. 
He was seized within an hour after his incoming, 
and hung by Treslong, who thus avenged his brother, 
beheaded by Alva in 1558, and secured the place to 
Orange by making the burghers participants in a 
deed which all knew the duke would never for- 
give.t 

Thus passed the month of April, 1572. Early 
in May, Orange sent Jerome von 't Zeraerts to 
Flushing with a commission as lieutenant-governor 
of the island of Walcheren.| At the same time port 
after port throughout Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, 
and Overyssel rose, expelled, or slew the Spaniards, 
and declared for stadtholder William. On the 4th of 
May, the fishermen of Terveer, in Zealand, hung out 
De la March's banner§ — a scarlet field crossed with 
ten gold pieces, symbolical of the hated tax.ll Soon 
afterwards Enkhuyzen, a chief commercial port of 
Holland — the Spanish arsenal on the Zuyder Zee — * 
placed its name on the bead-roll of revolted cities.lT 

'^ Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 222. Bor., ubi sup., p. 369. ■ 
t Strada, torn. 2, p. 72. Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 225. Bor., Men- 
doza, et alii. J Bor., ubi sup., p. 371. 

§ Ibid. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 296. 
II Strada, ubi sup., i>. 71. 
^ Bor., ubi sup. Braudt, ubi sup. 



632 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

Medenblik, Horn, Alkmaar, Oudenwater, Gouda, fol- 
lowed in the footsteps of Enklmyzen.* When Gouda 
threw off its shackles, one of the burgomasters, long 
a satellite of the blood-judges, ran in a panic to the 
house of a patriot widow, and begged her to conceal 
him. He was huddled into a cupboard. "Am I 
safe here ?" asked he. " Aye, truly. Master Burgo- 
master," replied the widow, " for my husband used 
often to hide in it from you, when you and others 
sought for him, and the keeper of the prison hath 
often stood there before him."t 

The news of this rising in Holland made all 
Protestant Great Britain smile and rub its hands. 
The excitement in London was uncontrollable. A 
flood of money poured out of the reformed churches, 
and streamed across the Channel in the shape of 
powder and guns.J The resident exiles at once set 
out for home, accompanied by hundreds of English 
volunteers. In Parliament, the rising Puritans 
clamored for the expulsion of the Sj)aniards from 
the states, and their cry was echoed by the author- 
itative chorus of the bench of bishops, who called 
upon Elizabeth to declare war and complete the 
work.§ 

In the maiden flush of their triumph, the patri- 
ots reenacted some of the scenes of the iconoma- 
chy ; for they esteemed popery to be to Alva what 
the atmosphere is to human lungs, the medium of 

* Bor., uhisiip., Brandt, uhisiqy., Mondozu, Cabrera. 

t Brandt, idii sup. % Froude, Hist. Eng., vol. 10, p. 376. 

§ Fronde, ut antea. 



THE RISING. t>o8 

life. Images "were once more clemolisliecl, altars 
were again defaced, monks were everywhere ac- 
counted a legitimate prey.* 'T is a sad and bloody 
chapter ; but who set the example ? Tyranny sours 
the oppressor more than the ojDpressed. Do what 
they would, not the harshest of the giieux, not De 
la Marck himself could match the atrocious cruel- 
ties of the blood-judges. 

The burghers of Dort, on wheeling into the 
ranks of the revolt, made a stipidation honorable 
alike to their heads and their hearts, and especially 
remarkable at that passionate era. The agreement 
was, that they might observe their allegiance to 
Philip as count of Holland; that they might be 
secured in the possession of all rights and fran- 
chises; that all degrees and conditions of men, 
whether spiritual or temporal, all monks, nuns, 
magistrates, officials, should continue in the exer- 
cise of their functions free and unmolested; that 
all goods and estates of the ecclesiastical and civil 
spheres should be protected ; and that the churches 
of all sects should be left unharmed.f But even in 
Dort the will was better than the deed; for the 
monastery of the Augustine friars was soon sacked, 
while the troopers stabled their horses in the nun- 
nery of the Beguines.J 

In all the emancipated towns new municipal 
boards, in sympathy with the revolution, were cho- 
eeu by popular vote, and sworn to obey Philip as 

* Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 29G, 297. 

t Ibid., p. 297. i Ibid. 

27* 



G34 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

count or lord paramount, and Orange as his stadt- 
holder — to protect the needy and to judge righteous 
judgment.* Thus the ballot supplemented and 
finely guaranteed the rising — gave dignity to pas- 
sion, and permanence to what might else have been 
an ephemeral outbreak. 

On the 2d of June, 1572, William's deputy, Died- 
rich Sonoy, entered HoUandif The prince, still 
retaining the fiction of obedience to Philip, reas- 
sumed his stadtholderate, and opposed to Alva's 
authority that of his concurrent master, recreated 
by construction into an ally of the beggars of the 
sea ; and this legal fable was stoutly held — formed, 
indeed, .the basis of the provisional government 
until the provinces declared their independance at 
a later day.| 

The tolerant wisdom of the liberator is most 
clearly seen in the glass of his instructions to Sonoy. 
" First of all," said he, " use your utmost power to 
deliver the lieges of Holland from Spanish servi- 
tude, restoring always the ancient charters. Take 
care, farther, that the word of God be freely preach- 
ed within our lines, and that the religion conforma- 
ble to that word be tolerated and published if so be 
any, the meanest, would have it so. Yet by no 
means suffer the Eomanists to be prejudiced for 
their faith's sake ; secure them freely in their wor- 
ship, nor withdraw your protection from them, un- 
less the public safety warrants, and when so directed 

-"Bor., torn. G, p. 375. t I'^i'^- 

X Motlcj', vol. 2, p. 3GS. 



THE EISING. 635 

by me, "with the consent of the local authorities."* 
Such was Protestantism's initial policy. 

Thus at last, on that bleak isthmus, the vivifying 
light of freedom dawned, to stream for many years 
upon struggling and yet half-expiring humanity in 
Europe. The immediate cause of the beneficent 
revolt seemed scarcely adequate to the result. 
" Many times," says Strada, " did William cast the 
dice in the hope to win a commonwealth, yet never 
with success until the occasion of the tribute."f 
And the bishop of Namiir wrote Margaret of Parma : 
" The tenth and twentieth pennies are the price with 
which the prince of Orange hath purchased the 
maritime provinces."! Neither the Jesuit nor the 
prelate remembered that the taxes were but the 
nurse of the infant commonwealth. Its mother was 
the Keformation, its father, God. 

* Bor., iibi sup., et seq. Braudt, vol. 1, p. 298. 

t Strada, torn. 2, p. 71. J Ibid., p. 73. 



636 THE DUTCH EEFOBMATION. 

CHAPTEE XXXV. 

TRIUMPHS ON THIS SIDE AND ON THAT. 

At this Lour, when the finger on the dial of the 
Netherland clock was pointing to the high noon of 
opportunity, the Nassaus were up and doing — Will- 
iam in Germany, focusing coalitions, collecting 
moneys, enrolling troops, manipulating the revolted 
states, dictator of the insurrection ; Count Louis at 
the court of France, cementing a cordial alliance 
Avith Charles IX., as he fondly dreamed, but in real- 
ity the dupe of the masked plotters of St. Barthol- 
omew. 

Paris had become the puzzle of Europe. The 
politics of Catharine de' Medici were a hieroglyph- 
ic of which the astutest diplomats could make 
no sense, read it which way they would. The 
queen-mother seemed playing at political see-saw. 
At one moment " that devilish woman," as Wal- 
singham, the English ambassador at Paris, styled 
her in his correspondence with Cecil,* courted the 
Guises and coquetted with Philip ; at the next, she 
was caressing Coligny, and proclaiming the reestab- 
lishment of the entente cordiale. We understand it 
all now, but it is wisdom after the event. 

Since the dawn of the Keformation, the Protes- 
tants and the ultramontanists had been at deadly 
* Froucle, Hist. Eng., vol. 10, jip. 353, 354. 



TKIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. G37 

feud in France : those agonizing to obtain the right 
legally to worship God ; these absolute in their de- 
termination to reclose the Bible and gag the Hu- 
guenots.* For fifty years success had oscillated 
between the rival camps ; though when the Protes- 
tants had been triumphant, the perfidy of the court 
had always robbed them of the fruits of victory.t 
Recently, reform had seemed at its last gasp — quite 
as death-stricken in France as in the Low Coun- 
tries. Cond^ had fallen on the plains of Jarnac.| 
Coligny had been frightfully routed at Moncontour. 
Nevertheless, the unconquerable soldier was again 
in the saddle ere the lapse of half a twelvemonth — 
in the saddle, and complete victor at Arnay-le-Duc.§ 
"'Tis hopeless," said Catharine; "we must do by 
artifice what it is impossible to achieve by means 
of war."|i A peace was negotiated — or what had 
the look of a righteous and permanent peace ; for 
an amnesty buried the past, religion was left free, 
and both parties were declared equal before thelaw.lT 
Christendom laughed at these terms. The quid 
mines pronounced them a mere Medician make- 
shift, certain to be broken, like half-a-dozen pre- 
vious treaties of a kindred scope, when they had 
served Catharine's turn. And so the Huguenots 
believed. In consequence, they avoided the capital — 

« Hist, of the Huguenots, chap. 10, etseq., passim. Americau 
■ Tract Society, New York, 1866. t Il^i*!- 

t Davila, liv. 4, p. 470. La Noue, p. 659. 
^ De Thou, liv. 4G, torn. 5, p. 638, d seq. 
II Davila, liv. 5, p. 578. 
^ Yie de Coligny, p. o83. Hist, of the Huguenots, pp. 334, 335. 



638 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

tlie queen of Navarre, the Bourbon princes, and 
Coligny making tlieir headquarters within the stout 
walls of Kochelle.* 

It was essential to the success of the court plan, 
that this suspicion should be disarmed, that these 
apprehensions should be laid asleepf that the vic- 
tims should be coaxed to Paris. Little by little, 
man by man, by a series of master-strokes worthy 
of that diplomacy which declared that " the science 
of reigning was the science of lying," the crafty 
Florentine succeeded in petting, in cajoling, and in 
marrying the Huguenots into confidence.f 

Indeed, Catharine schemed so cunningly that 
Europe at large was hoodwinked. ±\. match was 
pending between Elizabeth and the due d'Alenyon, 
which Philip regarded as indicative of the domi- 
nance of the Protestant interest at the court of 
France.:]: Even the pope was duped; and the pros- 
pect of a marriage between an excommunicated 
heretic and a son of holy church set him entreating 
and threatening by turns ; for in his eyes heresy 
was the only crime, the recognition of St. Peter's 
supremacy the single virtue. He offered to make 
Charles IX. " general of the holy league against the 
infidels" and "emperor of Constantinople," if he 
would break off the marital negotiations with Eliz- 
abeth ; " in return for which," wrote Sir Thomas 

« Vie de Coligny, p. 385. De Thou, liv. 47. 
■j- Hist, of the HugueBots, chap. 24, p. 336, passim. 
i Froudo, voh 10, pp. 208, 353; etc. Vide Cor. de Philippe II., 
torn. 2. Strada, toio. 2, p. 73. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. G39 

Smith to Cecil, " Charles ought to make his holi- 
ness caliph of Bagdad — summum imitificcm Bcibij- 
lonkc."* 

In the meantime, the Huguenots were in high 
favor at Paris. In the spring of 1572, the Admiral, 
Jean d'Albr6t, Henrj of Navarre whoso nuptials 
were to be the herald of the tragedy, and young 
Condd — the elite of the party, were in town, forming 
for hajjpy Catharine that collection of enemies' 
heads on a single neck for which the Eoman tyrant 
sighed, that he might strike off all at one blow. 

Cohgny seemed the special pet of the whole 
court. "There are no Egmonts in France," was 
the reply which the prudent chieftain had returned 
to an invitation to visit Paris a httle back.f Now, 
however, even his caution had been cajoled, and he 
was the most frequent of visitors at the Louvre. 
But the great soldier had a purpose : he was bent 
upon the formation of an aggressive league between 
England, France, and the Protestant states of Ger- 
many against Philip II., and in aid of the prince of 
Orange and staggering reform upon the Continent. :|: 

Instigated by Catharine, Charles pretended to 
come into all these plans. "Philip," said he, "is 
the hereditary foeman of the Yalois dynasty, the 
murderer of my sister Isabella ; and as for Alva, 
'tis well to find employment for him and for the 
restless spirits in our own dominions at the same 
time, by sending an army into the Low Countries 

«- Froiicle, vol. 10, p. 355. f Strada, torn. 2, p. 73. 

t De Thou, liv. 51, torn. G, p. 312, et seq. Davila, Eauke, d nlli. 



640 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

to assist our cousin Orange : and you, admiral, 
shall lead our men-at-arms."* 

Coligny at once began recruiting.t At the same 
time he introduced his friend and ally, Louis Nas- 
sau, to the king. Charles received him graciously, 
gave him repeated audiences, promised to furnish 
William with a subsidy of two hundred thousand 
crowns, granted Louis himself permission to make 
an unlimited levy of troops in Frauce,J and plaj^ed 
his part to such perfection that madame la mere 
was all smiles and satisfaction. 

Count Louis was in ecstasies ; Coligny was san- 
guine ; Elizabeth's envoy, Walsingham, did his ut- 
most to forward the pending international mar- 
riage ; and the sagacity of Orange was for once at 
fault, for he too believed implicitly in the good faith 
of the Yalois alliance — why should he not, since his 
coreligionist, the admiral, and his own brother were 
at its head ? 

Both Coligny and Nassau considered the early 
possession of a fortified town in the frontier prov- 
inces essential to the success of the French inva- 
sion of the Netherlands ; essential also to the wel- 
fare of the expedition which William was about to 
set afoot. Such a stronghold Count Louis under- 
took to capture ; and Mons, the strong and popu- 
lous capital of Hainault, was the place on which 
he fixed his eje. 

'■■' De Thou, liv. 51, torn. G, p. 342, et seq. Davila, Kanke, et alii, 

f Strada, torn. 2, p. 73. 

X Dc Thou, torn, o, liv. 50, pp. 279, 280, et scq. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 611 

With tlie couiiivance of Charles IX., who prom- 
ised him succor in case of need,* and assisted by 
La Nou(5, De Genhs, and others of the Huguenot 
chiefs, Nassau secretly but rapidly enrolled five 
hundred light dragoons and a thousand musketeers. 
Then, leaving his allies to recruit a larger force to 
follow him, he on the 23d of May, 1572, dashed 
across the confines of France with these few parti- 
sans, and arrived in the vicinity of Mons in the 
edge of the evening.f In a deej? wood just at hand 
they bivouacked ; while a dozen of the shrewdest 
and trustiest of the band pushed boldly into the 
town, disguised as wine merchants, for the purpose 
of communicating with those of the citizens who 
were patriots, and devising some plan for the open- 
ing of the city gates to their comrades. They en- 
tered the first hostelry they reached ; ordered a 
good supper ; opened a chat with their host ; inquir- 
ed the earliest hour at which the portcullis was 
lowered; learned that the port-warden might be 
bribed to unlock it at almost any time; informed 
the landlord, in explanation of the query, that they 
had some casks of wine without which they wished 
to bring into town bright and early; paid their 
reckoning; chucked the pretty barmaid under the 
chin, and went their way.:): 

A few hours later, they went to the port-warden, 
repeated their story, persuaded him to let down the 

o Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 251. Bor., torn. (!, p. 397. 

t Metercn, folio 71. Hoofd, ubi sujy., p. 237. 

X Beutivoglio, lib. G, ]). 95, d scq. Mcudoza, torn. 5, i^. 121. 



042 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

portcullis, and wlieii tins was done struck tlie poor 
wretch dead ; while Count Louis, who had secreted 
fifty horsemen under the city walls in preparation 
for this event, galloped madly into Mons, shouting, 
" Liberty ! The prince is coming ! Down with 
Alva !"* 

The gallant soldier welluigh lost his prize ere it 
was secured. On quitting the bivouac with his fifty 
troopers, he had ordered the rest of the band to 
march Mons-ward with all speed ; yet it was now 
sunrise, and not one of the partisans had come into 
town. Two or three score of men might surprise, but 
could not hold an unwilling city. Already the hum 
of angry opposition was heard. Fearful of disaster 
in the midst of success, Nassau rode furiously qut 
in search of the missing men-at-arms. He found 
them wandering in the forests ; but quickly conduct- 
ed them out of the labyrinth, and again reached 
Mons, just as the burgher guard began to raise the 
drawbridge. A Huguenot cavalier, Guitoy de 
Chaumont, with ready gallantry, spurred his steed 
upon it, and brought it to the ground ; whereupon 
the partisans rode into town with wild huzzas, and 
Mons was won.f 

In the gray of the morning the astonished burgh- 
ers were summoned to the market-place by the toll- 
ing of the great bell. Here they were addressed by 
De Genlis and by Count Louis. The Huguenot 

* Bentivoglio, lib. G, p. 95, et seq. Mendoza, torn. 5, p. 121. 
De Thou, torn. 6, liv. 51, p. 499. 

t De Thou, Mendoza, Bentivoglio, id aniea. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 613 

assured his auditors that the French were present 
not as conquerors, but as alHes of the prince.* 
Nassau proclaimed his intention to be to hold the 
town, not against Philip II., but in the interest of 
William of Orange, and to secure the defeat of 
Alva.t 

The magistrates looked doubtful, for they feared 
the vengeance of the governor-general, and, after 
the custom of the world, held it better to be knaves 
and gain by it, than to be honest graiis. But the 
citizens were enthusiastic — many of the wealthiest 
of the manufacturers offering to raise and equip 
citizen-companies at their own expense for the 
defence of the place against the inevitable onset of 
the Spaniard. I 

Meantime, how went affairs at Brussels ? Re- 
cent events had taken Alva completely by surprise. 
He had been petitioning for leave to retire from his 
government. According to late despatches from 
Madrid, his successor was already hastening to 
relieve him. He had believed rebellion buried in 
the graves of Horn and Egmont, smothered in the 
mud at Jemmingen, dead on those plains which 
had witnessed the discomfiture of Orange. In the 
citadel at Antwerp loomed the statue erected by 
liimseK to himself as the conqueror and pacificator 
of the Low Countries. And now the Netherlands 
were not conquered ; the great marts of trade were 
nests of maddened hornets ; the maritime provinces 

'•> Motley, vol. 2, p. 371. Vide Bor., torn. 6, p. 377. 

t Ibid. % Motley, uU sup. 



644 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

were in open revolt ; the Huguenots, led by Louis 
Nassau — at that very moment playing at tennis in 
Paris,* according to his spies — were in a stronghold 
within half a day's jaunt of his capital. The news, 
too, came in successive shocks — that from the north 
but twenty-four hours earlier than that from the 
French border.f The taking of Brille had some- 
what prepared him for the storm from the sea ; but 
the land-wind from Mons was entirely unexpected. :|: 
" He tore his beard for spite," saj^s one who saAV 
and spoke to him at the time ; " he seemed to 
despair that things would any more succeed as they 
had done."§ Against Catharine de' Medici the duke 
was especially bitter. "Aye, aye," muttered he, 
" this Florentine has played me false ; but 't will 
not be long ere, instead of Tuscan lihes, she shall 
lie on Spanish thorns."l! 

But it was not in Alva's nature long to despond. 
Now, after the first bewilderment, his courage rose 
with the occasion. War — what was it but his ele- 
ment? For some time, however, he could not 
decide whether to begin the reconquest. of the 
states in Holland or in Hainault. Finally, he con- 
cluded to lay siege to Mons, and postpone the 
northern campaign, because Mons, held by the 
Huguenots, meant the key of the frontier in foreign 
hands. He saw, too, that the city might be easily 

* Bentivoglio, Bor., Hoofcl, et ul'd. 

t Mendoza, torn. 5, p. 120 ; torn. 6, p. 122. 

X Stradii, torn. 2, p. 73. § Vide Fronde, vol. 10, p. 377. 

II Metereu, folio 71, torn. 4. Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 238. 



TRIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 645 

furnisliecl with supplies either by Charles IX., who 
seemed now actuall}^ bent on war with Spain, or by 
the prince of Orange. Delay here might insure the 
permanent planting of the foe in the heart of the 
states — Holland was but an extremity." 

In pursuance of this plan, he left the revolted 
towns to enjoy their freedom for a while, drew off 
the garrisons from Rotterdam and Delft-haven, and 
concentrated his scattered legions at several points 
contiguous to Mons, retaining his hold upon but 
two of the northern cities, both places of strategic 
importance — Amsterdam, the commercial capital of 
Holland, and Middleburg, on the island of Walchc- 
ren.t 

On the 10th of June, 1572, while Alva was busy 
in these preparations for the siege of Mons, his suc- 
cessor, the duke of Medina Coeli, sailed into the 
mouth of the Scheldt.]: He brought with him a fleet 
of forty sail, twenty-five hundred fresh veterans, and 
countless chests of bullion. § When he embarked, 
the news of the revolt had not reached Spain ; he 
was therefore wholly unsuspicious of the changed 
face of affairs. The squadron drifted gayly up the 
river, passing directly under the guns of Flushing, 
when, in an instant, a terrific broadside from the 
town sunk half the fleet.li Then, with a frightful 
yell, the beggars of the sea pounced on their vic- 

*'- Watson, p. 182, seq. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 299. Bor., HooM. 

X Meteren, torn. 4, folio G5. Mencloza, torn. G, p. 127, seq. 

§ Ibid. II Ibid. 



646 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

tims, seized half a million crowns in gold and jew- 
els, and took a thousand prisoners,* all of whom 
were drowned,, in order to force Alva to a more 
humane mode of warfare, since he was wont to 
hang whatever patriots fell into his clutches, t 

From this wholesale slaughter, Medina Cceli 
managed to escape ; but he entered Brussels, a few 
days afterwards, with much less ceremony than he 
had expected.:]: Of course, a transfer of the gov- 
ernment at such an hour was not to be thought of, 
esj)ecially on the heels of this disaster. The new 
governor suspended his commission by his own act, 
and wrote to request Philip to sign his immediate 
recall, offering, meanwhile, to serve in any capacity 
under his highness of Alva. " Nay," retorted the 
duke, " you shall be treated like myself."§ But 
this show of courtesy was all ex officio. 'T was not 
long before the two began to backbite and curse 
each other like a couple of pickpockets. And when, 
a few months later, the king gave Medina Coeli leave 
to retire, he left Brussels without so much as giving 
Alva an empty good-nigJd.W 

Alva was just now so hard pressed that he held 
out the olive-branch to the insurgent provinces. 
On the 24th of June, 1572, he summoned the estates 
of Holland to meet on the 15th of July at the Hague, 
appending to the call a formal agreement to abol- 

* Meteren, torn. 4, folio G5. Mendoza, torn. 6, p. 127, seq. 
Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 239, seq. \ Ibid. 

J Meteren, xibi siip., folio GG. Ai'chives de la Maison d'Orange- 
Nassaii, torn. 3, p. 440. 

§ Motcrcn, torn. 4, folio 71. Bor., 6, p. 393. |! Ibid. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 047 

isli tlio obnoxious pennies, provided the Nether- 
lands would, vote him an annual supply of two mill- 
ions of florins.* 

This was, in the duke, an act of extraordinary 
complacence; but it came too late. The estates 
did. indeed assemble, but in obedience to a request 
from Orange, not from Alva, and at Dort, not at 
the Hague.f As the obedience and the place were 
different, so also was the purpose of the deputies. 
They met in the interest of William, and to declare 
Alva the enemy of the common weal. The prince 
was proclaimed stadthokler of Holland, Zealand, 
and Friesland, legally appointed by Philip II. of 
Spain, and count of Holland; and never removed 
by any competent authority. The duke was de- 
nounced as a usurper in the states, as a traitor to 
the king at Madrid.:|; And whilb Wilham's repre- 
sentative, St, Aldegonde, appeared before the con- 
gress and appealed for funds, exclaiming, " Arouse 
ye, awaken your OAvn zeal and that of your sister 
cities ; seize Opportunity by the locks, for she never 
looked fairer than she does to-day,"§ the enthusi- 
asm was unbounded. Two hundred thousand guil- 
ders were voted on the instant to meet the expenses 
of the pending contest, and five hundred thousand 
more were granted to defray the cost of the prince's 
projected expedition into the middle states,|| "Tru- 
ly," wrote Alva to the king, on hearing of this action, 

•~- Bor., ubi sup., p. 378, et seq. Hoofd, torn. G, p. 242. 

t Ibid. X Ibid. § Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 248, et seq. 

II Tbid., p. 350. Eor., torn, fi, p. 388. 



648 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. • 

" it drives me mad to see the difficulty with which 
your majesty is furnished with supplies, and the lib- 
erality with which these folk place their fortunes, 
yea, their lives, at the disposal of this rebel.' * 

"As to religion," said St, Aldegonde in one of 
his speeches at the Dort congress, "the desire of 
the prince is, that liberty of conscience be allowed 
alike to the Romanists and to those of the evangel- 
ical faith ; and that each j)arty be permitted to 
enjoy its churches and properties secure under an 
equal law, provided no disaflfection to the new regime 
be shown. "t And this too was freely voted by the 
congress.:|: 

At the same time, De la Marck was confirmed 
as admiral on appearing before the deputies and 
exhibiting William's commission. But he was espe- 
cially instructed "*to protect the papists and their 
clergy in future, and to guarantee them in the free 
exercise of their worship, under pain of death to 
their disturbers "§ — instructions which ho swore to 
observe,|| while meaning all the time to nullify them 
in his own conduct, for which he was one day to be 
drummed out of the Dutch service. 

In all these doings the deputies were careful to 
retain Philip's name, as if he were the inspiration 
and the end of all — a necessary fiction until the 
states grew to the stature of a declaration of inde- 
pendence. The make-believe was like a baby 

■~ Corresp. de Philii^pe II., torn. 2, p. 1198. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 298. Bor.. uhl sup. 

X Ibid. § Ibid. II Ibid. 



TKIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. G19 

creeping before it walks. Nevertheless, the estates 
clothed the prince with powers commensurate with 
those of a Eoman dictator* — a pregnant fact be- 
hind the fable. The only agreement exacted from 
him was the mutual pledge that neither would treat 
"vvith the king without the full assent and coopera- 
tion of the other.t Indeed, William himself es- 
teemed his powers too large, and he imposed limits 
upon his own authority in an act supplementary to 
the proceedings of the congress of Dort| — one of the 
few instances in history of a self-abnegating states- 
manship. 

Having thus taken counsel together and deter- 
mined what to do, the deputies adjourned. The 
people received them with open arms. The moneys 
they had voted seemed about to be raised by spon- 
taneous contributions. The clergy opened their 
purse-strings. The mechanic guilds voluntarily 
taxed themselves. The women stripped off their 
costliest jewels and sacrificed their daintiest luxu- 
ries. Old families melted down their plate. All 
appeared to be determined, rather than pay the 
tenth to Alva, to give William the wliole.§ 

While these events were transpiring in the north, 
the duke was pressing the siege of Mons. Frederic 
de Toledo and Chiappino Yitelli, with five thousand 
men, had been sent some time before to begin the 
investment ;|| and Alva himself lingered but to col- 

* Motley, vol. 2, p. 381. f I^itl. Bor., torn. G, p. 388. 

X Motley, uhi sup. § Grotius, Mem., torn. 2, p. 58. 

II Meteren, torn. 4, folios 71, 72. Bor., vhl sup., p. 38^^. 
D„( I, i>r. 28 



650 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION, 

lect large reinforcements before following them to 
the camp.* 

Count Louis was in excellent spirits. Within 
three days after the surprise of Mons, two thousand 
foot had joined him, and ere the end of Ma}^ twenty- 
five hundred volunteers more were at his side ;t ied 
too b}^ the famous Montgomery, whose stout lance 
had unhorsed and unwittingly slain Kiug Henry II., 
some thirteen years before, at the Paris tourna- 
ment. Farther reinforcements too were hastening 
up, and De Genlis had already posted off to Paris 
to conduct to Mons those confederates whom 
Charles IX. had promised, and Coligny was enlist- 
ing along the border.:]: As for funds, Nassau was 
in no pressing want, having seized and confiscated 
large quantities of plate and jewelry and precious 
trinkets, which the neighboring ecclesiastics had 
sent into town for safe-keeping in these troublous 
times, just previous to the incoming of the spoiler.§ 

Don Frederic, therefore, found no cowed oj^po- 
nent, no unknightly foe, on pitching his camp be- 
neath the walls of Mons, the Huguenots conceiving 
it a punctilio of honor to give the Sj)auiards proof 
of their valor before permitting themselves to be 
cooped up W'ithiu the beleagured works. Every 
thing the assailants got was paid for in the cur- 
rency of good hard blows; nor did Don Frederic 

- Meteren, torn. 4, folios 71, 72. Bor., ?(&j siq?., p. 38i. 
t Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 238. 

X Ibid., p. 251. Bor., torn. 6, p. 397. Strada, torn. 2. p. 79. 
^ Bor., uU sup., p. 378. Mendoza, torn. 5, p. 120, et seq., 
el alii. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 051 

succeed in planting his banner in the belfrj of the 
Bethlehem cloister — a strategic point quite beneath 
the bastions of the city — until two assaults had 
given Count Louis a largess. - ^ 

Meantime, De Genlis, having made his levies 
with all haste, was on the march. Eumor gave him 
a force ten thousand strong ; but fact, more prosaic, 
reduced the nuniber to thirty-two hundred foot 
and a thousand horse.t Both Coligny and Nassau 
instructed him to use the utmost caution in his 
advance, and by no means to attempt to throw 
reinforcements into Mons until he had effected a. 
junction with Orange, then about to cross the 
Khine.t 

In the teeth of this warning, the vain and over- 
confident cavalier, impatient of delay, and jealous 
of a partner who must share, if he did not monopo- 
lize, the honor of delivering the besieged, deter- 
mined to force an immediate passage through the 
Spanish ranks. § Toledo and Yitelli were nothing 
loath to fight — nay, they met De Genlis on a circu- 
lar plain, girt with coppices and forests, and dotted 
with farm-houses, at some distance from the gates 
of Mons;ll and charging with fiery valor, surprised 
and routed the Huguenots almost as soon as their 
presence was discovered.^ In this dashing affair, 
the Spaniards lost but thirty men, the French 

ss Strada, uhi siqx, p. 74. f I>e Thou, lib. 54, cap. !). 

J Ibid. Bentivoglio, torn. 5, p. 102. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, p. 74. Bentivoglio and De Thou, ut antea. 

il Ibid. Motley, vol. 2, p. 383. 

IT Strada, uhi sup. Bentivoglio, uhi sup. Hoofd, torn. 6, p. 2.51. 



'o52 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

twelve huudred slain outriglit, besides as mauy 
more murdered by the unfriendly peasants of the ^ 
vicinage." De Genlis himself was taken, sent to 
the citadel of Ant\\erp, and, some months later, 
secretly strangled by the duke of Alva, who gave 
out that his victim died a natural death. t 

Don Frederic, whose name greAV famous from 
this field, returned to camp with ^ying colors, spent 
the day in warlike pomp, and gave public thanks to 
St. Leucadia, patroness of Alva's house. | The 
duke himself was as elated as his son ; and, as 
haughty in ostentation as in action, he despatched 
a special courier to congratulate his majesty upon 
the victory, that both Philip's ears and Spain might 
be filled with the good news.§ 

On the 27th of August, a few days after De 
Genlis' rout, Alva arrived in the camp of the be- 
siegers, bringing with him ten thousand five hun- 
dred cavalry and eleven new-raised regiments of 
German infantryll — a formidable array. The wily 
soldier was well aware that Count Louis looked for 
succor both from Coliguy and the prince. His first 
care, therefore, was so to fortify himself that his 
position should be equally impregnable against 
Nassau's sallies and exterior assailants; and this 
task he accomplished with admirable skill.ll Then 

■■' Strada. ubl sup. Beutivoglio, uU sup. Hoofd, torn. G, p. 
251. Mendoza, torn. 6, p. 139. 

t Corresp. de Philippe II.. torn. 2, p. 1283. 

t Strada, uU sup. § I^id. 

II ilendoza, Davies. Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 588. 

^ Strada, torn. 2, p. 76. Meudoza. 



TRIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 653 

he began to press tlie siege, erecting new batteries, 
mining, assaulting, harassing — putting in practice 
all the arts then known to war, in which he was the 
most thorough and pedantic professor since the 
days of Demetrius Poliarcetes, besieger of cities. 

The defenders of Mons met these efforts with 
equal vigor and with answering prudence. Count 
Louis seemed endowed with prescience, and his 
indefatigable activity was ably seconded by La 
Noue, bras defer, a brilliant Huguenot, who had 
won his fame in the civil wars of France.* 

But what added tenfold energy to the defence 
was a rumor that the prince of Orange was advan- 
cing to the rescue. It was indeed so. William, 
after four years of weary and embarrassed waiting, 
had at last succeeded in recruiting another army, 
and he was now again to enter the arena for God 
and libert}'. 

Early in July, 1572, he passed the Rhine with 
fourteen thousand foot and seven thousand horse, 
Germans, and three thousand Netherlanders.t On 
the 23d of July, he stormed the city of Euremonde ; 
whereupon the mercenaries fell to plundering the 
citizens and murdering the monks.^ William was 
incensed by this deed, but, unhappily, he was so 
deeply in debt to the army as to be unable sharply 
to curb the offenders. His poverty killed discipline. 
Nevertheless, he exhibited his wish by issuing a 

* Mendoza, Watsou, ei aUi. 

f Bor., torn. 6, p. 398. Oompare Strada, uhi sup., p. 78. 

i Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 259, et seq. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 299. 



654: THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. 

jDlacarcl forbidding the ill-treatment of ecclesias- 
tics and decreeing tlie toleration of all sects.* 

Mark the contrast. The hirelings on both sides 
were equally unprincipled, fought alike for what 
they could get in the martial market — as foreigners 
in an indifferent quarrel. Stabbers by trade, they 
were alwa3's panting to <3ry havoc. Yet William 
strained his authority to check license, protecting 
even the arch-heresy of Rome; while Alva just as 
sedulously strove to make his barbarians more bar- 
barous, commanding them to call rape to the aid of 
robbery, and murder to the aid of rape.f 

It was at Kuremonde that the prince was inter- 
cepted by the deputies who brought him the sup- 
plies voted by the congress of DortJ — very welcome 
moneys, for the mercenaries were already demand- 
ing their pay, refusing to budge until they got it.§ 
It was late in August when "William passed through 
Buremonde en route to Mons. He advanced with 
jubilant step. Never had the horizon looked so 
bright. Holland was in open revolt ; England was 
a siih rosa ally; the Belgic provinces were at least 
not hostile, willing to side with the victor; France 
had pronounced in his favor; Coligny only awaited 
the consummation of Navarre's marriage with Mar- 
garet de Valois to take the field — in such a sky 
who could see a cloud ? 

Alas, William, " some trust in chariots and some 

S' Hoofd, torn. 7, 259, d seq. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 299. Bor., 
torn. G, p. 399. t Motley, vol. 2, p. 385. 

t Brindt, vol. 1, p. 299. Bor. § Motley, uhl sup., p: 386. 



TKIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 655 

in liorses;" "now on whom dost thou trust ?"* For 
a moment the statesman-soldier did not rely on 
God — God, more certain than Elizabeth, truer than 
false France. 

As he trod on, the way seemed smooth. Nev- 
elle, Diest, Sichem, Tillemont — town after town 
submitted to him, either out of fear or love.f Un- 
friendly Brussels shut him out, and Louvaine paid 
sixteen thousand crowns for an exemption from 
assault ;:|: but Mechlin welcomed him with such 
cordial good-will that Alva laid up a day of wrath 
against the uuhapj^y citizens.§ 

Making but brief halts, the prince pushed for- 
ward into Hainault. In the beginning of Septem- 
ber, he came in sight of Mons,|| the immediate 
objective point of his long march. But between 
him and Count Louis loomed Alva, and he mar- 
velled at the cunning position of the beleaguerer, 
no less strong for keeping in and mastering the 
garrison, than impregnable to the assaults of those 
who should come to their relief. TT 

One evening, while reconnoitring preparatory 
to an attack upon Alva's intrenchments, William 
beheld the Spanish camp all aglow with bonfires, 
while hilarious shouts, volleys of musketry, the rub- 
a-dub of drums, and the blare of trumpets made 
night hideous with blatant noise. Somewhat sur- 
prised at this uproar, which seemed like a resort to 

- 2 Kings 18 : 20 ; Psa. 20 : 7. f Stracla, torn. 2, p. 75. 

t Ibid. § CoiTesjJ. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 115G. 

II Strada, torn. 2, p. 76. Meiidoza, Bor. ^ Strada, uhi .siq). 



656 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

Chinese tactics, he sent out spies to learn the cause 
of the jubilation. The wild rejoicings of his foe- 
men were not a masquerade ; the prince's pickets 
brought him back news of the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew !* 

The French court had at last thrown off the 
mask, so that the world could read the features of 
its policy. The victims had been collected in the 
shambles of the capital and petted into a feeling 
of security, and were awaiting slaughter. " Que 
voidez-voiis? — What would you?" lisped the queen- 
mother ; " after the blood-letting, a little water will 
wash the smeared pavements. All will pass as the 
last act of the civil war."t 

So, on the eve of the saint's day, after long pre- 
meditation, the deed was done — in a panic, but 
thoroughlj^ The bars of hell's gates were broken, 
and the devils were loose. The mob of Paris lapped 
up Huguenot blood from every gutter. Throughout 
the realm, murder ran side by side with fanaticism, 
that striking where this said, "Stab." Coligny, 
Teligny, Eochefoucault, Lavardin, and seventy 
thousand more,:j: the bravest gentlemen, the best 
citizens of France, lay dead. The brain seemed to 
have been scooped out of the skull, the strong right 
hand appeared to have been lopped from the body 
of French Protestantism. § 

* Stradii, libi sup. \ Martin, Histoire de France, vol. 9, in loco. 

J The number slain has been variously computed at from 
•.'5,000 all the way up to 100,000. Vide De Thou, torn. 6, lib. 2, 
p. 430. Meteren, tom. 4, folio 74, et alii. 

§ Vide Hist, of the Huguenots, chap. 25, passim. 



TRIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES 657 

At Rome, the unlooked-for good news was wel- 
comed with unparalleled rejoicing. The cannon 
thundered from St. Angelo ; honorary medals were 
struck to commemorate the deed ; a day of public 
thanksgiving was set apart ; the holy father went 
in person to render thanks to God, the just Aven- 
ger, in the great church of St. Louis; a bull was 
sent out which promised extraordinary indulgences 
to all who should pray heaven and the saints to 
bless Charles IX. and the devout butchers of his 
realm.* 

But not in the circle of the saints itself could 
Philip's hilarity be matched. " Word reached us 
on the 7th of September of the doings on St. Bar- 
tholomew's day," wrote St. Goard, the French 
envoy at Madrid, to Charles IX. " The king, on 
receiving the intelligence, showed, contrary to his 
usual custom, so much gaj-ety that he seemed more 
delighted than with all the good fortune he had 
ever known before. He called all his familiars 
about him, in order to assure them that your maj- 
esty was his good brother, and that no one else 
deserved the title of Most Christian. So, too, the 
next morning, when I came into his presence, he 
began to laugh."t Certainly, it was laughable. 
He had been regarding Charles as a covert foe, as 
an ally of the enemies of holy church; and he had 
turned out to be a brother butcher of heretics. 
Eager to aid the work of pious murder, and per- 

*"' ytrada, torn. 2, p. 70. Esprit de la Ligne, vol. 2, p. G5. 
t Van Prinst. Cited in Motlcv, vol. 2; p. 390. 
28* 



/ 



658 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

liaps a trifle jealous of the French king's laurels, 
Philip wrote Alva: "I desire that you kill every 
Huguenot you catch. The sooner these noxious 
plants are extirpated, the less fear is there of an- 
other crop."* 

In Great Britain, the first shock of astonishment 
which the news caused was quickly succeeded by 
an outburst of indignation. Nothing but the pres- 
ence of Cecil in London prevented the citizens from 
meting out " Paris justice" to every papist on whom 
they could lay hands. i" The court went into mourn- 
ing; and when the French ambassador, Le Mothe 
Pension, called upon the queen to present his mas- 
ter's letter of extenuation, Elizabeth received him 
in deep black, heard him with cold civility, and de- 
clared that the marital-alliance project was "off.";]: 

On the north side of the Tweed, the popular 
rage ran higher than it did in England. John Knox, 
no longer able to walk unsupported, but still Sun- 
day after Sunday dragging his frail body to the 
church, and there with keen political sagacity inter- 
preting out of the Bible the Scotland of his own 
day — Knox lifted up his voice, "like ten thousand 
trumpets," in denunciation of the " Paris matins."§ 

The apologists of the massacre afiirmed that 
Coligny and his friends were plotting regicide — that 
they were slain by Charles in self-defence.H Con- 

* Bulletins de I'Acad. Eoy. de Belg. Cited iu Motley, ut aiiiea. 
t Fronde, Hist. Eng., vol. 10, p. 4U. 

I Ibid., p. G19. § Ibid., i^p. 443, 444. 

II Vide Strada, torn. 2, p. 70. Hist. Huguenots, pp. 5G9, 570. 



TKIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 659 

temporaneous Europe, though not in full possession 
of the facts as we are, nevertheless forestalled pos- 
terity's denial of this charge. " If the admiral and 
the rest were guilt}^" pithily queried Sir Thomas 
Smith, " why were they not apprehended and tried? 
So is the journeyer slaiAby the robber, so is the 
chicken by the fox, so the hind by the lion, and Abel 
by Cain. Grant that they at Paris were guilt}' — 
that they dreamt treason in their sleep, what did 
the innocent men, women, and children at Lyons? 
What did the sucking babes and their mothers 
at Kouen, at Caen, at Eochelle? Will God 
sleep?"* 

But after the immediate sufferers, it was the 
prince of Orange who was most fatally affected by 
the treachery of the court of France. The alliance 
with Charles IX. was the pivot of his campaign. 
Upon Coligny's coijperation he had absolutely de- 
pended. Supplies from Paris were essential to the 
holding together of. his hirelings. Of thrice ten 
thousand gallant sons religion was now bereaved. 
Of his own bright hopes, not one but this accursed 
deed had taken from him. His very heart was bro- 
ken up, "I am struck as with a sledge-hammer,"! 
said he. At another time he said : " So far from 
being reprehensible that I did not suspect this 
crime, I should rather be chargeable with malig- 
nity had I been capable of such a sinister suspi- 
cion. 'T is not an ordinary thing to conceal such 

* Cited in Froude, vol. 10, p. ■122, seq. 

■j- xircbives de la Miiison d'Orangc-Nassaii, torn. 3.. p. 501. 



660 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

enormous deliberations under the plausible cover 
of a league and marriage festivals."* 

Althougli convinced that the result of the cam- 
paign had been decided by the "Paris matins," 
"William determined to do his utmost, and at least 
deserve success. The only hoj)e for Mons was in 
the possibility that he might, ere the news came to 
the ears of his troops, provoke Alva into a pitched 
battle and come out the victor. Accordingij^, he 
omitted nothing which could gall the haughty spirit 
of his opponent, and tempt him to the field. t 

All in vain. The duke was much too cautious 
to march out of his impregnable entrenchments and 
fight a superfluous combat. He knew, as did the 
prince, that now, as in '68, he had but to remain 
inactive to insure liis triumph. For were not the 
besieged already in despair? Was not Coligny 
dead ? Was not Protestant France paralyzed ? 
Were not the prince's mercenaries, enlisted but for 
three months, half-mutinous *iow, and certain to 
become unmanageable when they came to know 
that nothing was to be looked for from Paris ?| 
So, despite the pleadings of the hot-heads, Alva 
sat still, and continued to batter the walls of Mons.§ 

Still unwilling to quit the vicinage of Mons with- 
out exhausting his means of raising the siege, W^ill- 
iam once and again hurled his massed forces against 
Alva's bastions, but only to be once and again re- 

* Archives de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassaii, torn. 3, p. 501. 
t Motley, vol. 2, p. 396. X H^itl-, seq. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, p. 76. Mendoza. 



TEIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. G61 

pulsed.^' Then, having contrived to convey to Count 
Louis intelHgeuce of his inability to do more, and 
his wish that he should surrender on the best ob- 
tainable terms,t he decamped, retreating through 
Mechhn across the Meuse and towards the Khine.:}: 
On reaching Germany, he once more disbanded his 
useless hirelings, not, however, without grave per- 
sonal danger ; for, maddened by his inability to pay 
them except in the over-due securities of the north- 
ern cities, the brutal mercenaries would have given 
him up to Alva, but for the intervention of their 
oificers.§ 

Late in the autumn of 1572 — alone, defeated, 
quite broken-hearted, his chivalrous brother per- 
haps a prisoner — William set out for Holland. 
"There," wrote he to Count John of Nassau, "there 
I will make my sepulchre. "|| 

On the 19th of September, Mons surrendered. IT 
Kobbed of all hope by the colossal crime of his 
imagined ally and by the departure of the prince. 
Count Louis had nevertheless held out until Alva 
was glad to consent to the most liberal terms of 
capitulation he had ever accorded — the garrison 
being permitted to march out with the honors of 
war, and their lives and estates being secured to the 
burghers, though all Protestants were banished.*^^ 

« Watsou, p. 188. 

f Metereu, torn. 4, folio 75. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 264. 

I Ibid. § Ibid. Bor., torn. 7, p. 408. 

II Groeu van Priust. , Archives, etc. , torn. 4, p. 4. 
II Mendoza, torn. 7, p. 158, et seq. 

** Mcudoza, ut anleu. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. !i(;5. Bor., Metercn. 



662 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

Charles IX. liad bidden his envoy at Brussels, M. 
Mondau'cet, to urge Alva to execute the Huguenots 
who were shut up at Mons* with Count Louis — men 
whom he had himself despatched as allies across 
the border. So, too, as we have seen, spoke Philip. 
Nevertheless, La Noue contrived to get his fellow- 
soldiers included in the articles of capitulation, and 
they all escaped the impending axe of the Spanish 
headsman. Two motives were at the bottom of 
Alva's unwonted generosity — he was anxious to get 
possession of Mons, and he was willing to set oif 
his liberality against the horrid background of St. 
Bartholomew. 

Still, though Count Louis was left to pass into 
Germany and La Nou6 went unhung, Mons was not 
to escape scot-free. Noircarmes, whose exi^erience 
at Valenciennes some years back preeminently fit- 
ted him for such service — Noircarmes was empow- 
ered to create a Commission of Troubles, in imita- 
tion of the duke's Council of Blood at Brussels, 
and to drag before this tribunal whomsoever he 
would for examination and for punishment.f The 
cruelty with which he performed this labor of love 
became traditional. In after days nurses were wont 
to hush their charges by whispering his name. 

As the keys of Valenciennes, in 1567, were said 
to have opened the gates of all the rebel cities in 
that initial outbreak, so now those of Mons were 
found to unlock the doors of the insurgent towns 

* Corresp. de Mondaucet ; cited iu Motley, vol. 2, p. 394. 
t Motley, ubi si(j:>., p. 4.03. 



TKIUMPHS ON BOTH SIDES. 663 

tlirougliout the whole South Netherlands. What 
places had embraced the patriot cause and minis- 
tered to Orange, vied with each other in servile su- 
ing for the despot's pardon. Most were graciously 
permitted to redeem themselves from jDillage and 
the torch by the payment of large sums of money;* 
others were reserved for punishment harsher than a 
mulct in the coin of the realm. 

Among these last was Mechlin. This beautiful 
city was an archiepiscopal see — strongly, almost 
unanimously Bomanist.t Yet it had given William 
a cordial greeting, though just before refusing to 
receive a Spanish garrison. J This atrocious offence 
might not be compounded. " Alva wheeled his legions 
from Mons straight to Mechlin. Then unloosing 
the iron clasp of his discipline, he bade them indem- 
nify themselves for the hardships of their recent life 
in camp by the sack of the helpless citizens, at that 
very moment suppliants at his feet.§ 

The soldiers, to whom heavy arrears were due, 
received the order with a yell of delight ; and while 
a solemn procession Avas winding out of the city 
gates, eager to make the amende honorable, while 
the penitent psalms of attendant churchmen were 
resounding, they threw themselves pell-mell into the 
town, and carried thieving, dishonor, death, and the 
torch to every home.ll Inspired, not by fanaticism — ■ 

* Camiiana, torn. 3, ]p. 97. Bor., torn. 6, p. 409, et seq. 

t Motley, vol. 2, pp. 408, 409. 

J Bor., torn. 6, p. 409, et seq. 

§ Ibid. Metci'cu, torn. 4, folio 76. || Ibid, 



661 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

for liere there were few of the reformed to fleece 
and kill, and friend and foe alike were pillaged* — 
but by a mere love of plunder, and attended by that 
fearful triad, rapine, lust, and murder, these human 
devils ransacked Mechlin for three days and nights, 
respecting nothing, sparing nothing, leaving noth- 
ing, f These soldiers of the saints did not even 
pause at sacrilege. Convents were gutted as well 
as mansions ; nuns were violated equally with ma- 
trons.J Over the outrage the Komanist historians 
themselves hoot and cry. Shame. § 

Alva justified every thing in an elaborate paper 
to the king, and again in a public document.ll The 
effigy at Antwerp was not more brazen than its 
original. He had the effrontery to cover Mechlin 
with the phrase, Pro bono intblico. Then, having 
scourcred Flanders and Brabant back to the shack- 
les which they had so recently thrown off, he said : 
"Now for a warlike bout i' the north," nothing 
doubting that Holland too would soon be forced to 
resume its fetters. 

« Motley, uU sup. \ Ibid. J Ibid. Watsou, p. 190. 

§ Vide Motley, vol. 2, p. G08, note. 

11 Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1185. Bor., id aniea. 



SCENES or HORROR. GG5 

CHAPTEK XXXVI. 

SCENES OF HOKKOE. 

Feom the town of Orsoy, where the mercenaries 
had been mustered out, the prmce of Oraftge rode 
to Kempen, in Overyssel, scudding thence across 
the Zuyder Zee to Eukhuj-zeu."'^ Twice broken, 
hunted, and an outhxw, he brought with him only a 
few domestics and seventy dragoons.f Neverthe- 
less, the cold lagoons of Holland echoed and re- 
echoed to the joyous shouts of welcome which the 
burghers gave him — cordial and admiring as they 
could have been had he come to them covered with 
laurels instead of cypress. 

But neither in regrets nor pageants did William 
waste the time. Every moment was precious. The 
Spaniards were already facing to the north, and 
much still remained to be done ere they could be 
fitly met. Calm, resolute, prescient, he went to 
work. Chaotic masses of details were shaped into 
order by his plastic fingers. Drooping and half- 
hostile magistracies were moulded into patriotic 
organisms. Much space was given to advising 
with and visiting the towns. Indefatigable, the 
prince also made himself ubiquitous. Wherever he 
appeared, determination and enthusiasm followed 
in his footsteps and remained behind. All felt, 

■^ Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 2G5. Bor., torn. G, p. 414, f It)itl. 



666 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

Avitli him, tliat existence without liberty, life -with- 
out religion to assuage its cares, would be value- 
less.* 

Soon after his arrival in the province, Orange 
convened the estates at Haarlem.t Thither he 
went with them to mature the ways and means of 
resistance. AVith him also went up to the assem- 
bly the deputies of twelve cities, now added to the 
original six, which, with the nobles, had immemo- 
rially constituted the provincial legislature.! This 
was a democratic innovation as gracious and popu- 
lar as it was prudent and sagacious. It recognized 
the right of all to a voice in the decision of matters 
which were of general concern. It inspired the 
enfranchised towns to contribute with greater cheer- 
fulness towards the public defence. It made the 
estates themselves more representative, bound the 
people in a more intimate and equitable union, and 
placed the province, like a pyramid, upon its broad- 
est base. 

Unlike some modern conventions, this at Haar- 
lem met not to say, but to do. First, the prince 
was greeted ; then, in secret session, "William ex- 
plained his plan of procedure ; finally, several reg- 
ulations — for the better ordering of the troops, for 
the forbidding any communication with the enemy, 
for the prohibiting the exportation of provisions, 

• 

«'■ Watson, p. 195. 

t Bor., uU sup. Wagenaer, Vader. Hist., torn. G, p. 39G, et seq. 
X Vide Wagenaer, torn. 6, p. 377, et seq. Also Motley, vol. 2, 
p. 377. 



SCENES OF HOREOE. 66^ 

for the confirming the impositions laid by the con- 
gress of Dort upon the masses — were made.* And 
since the existing members of the council of finance 
and of the supreme court of Holland, held under 
the Spaniard, and had retired to Utrecht on the 
revolt of the towns, these faithless stewards were 
declared to have forfeited their offices, which were 
refilled with patriots.f All these acts were done by 
the combined authority of William and the estates, 
without the usual reservation of the king's future 
approbation — without any appeal from Philip drunk 
to Philip sober : so that the exercise of these sover- 
eign powers was, if not the formal, then the virtual 
enfranchisement of Holland.;]: 

After the fall of Mons, the faith of Orange had 
been momentarily eclipsed ; now it shone out the 
brighter for that dijDping of its disk in clouds. 
Here at least were men trusty and resolute to be 
free. God too still reigned — Alva's tactics and St. 
Bartholomew had not deposed Him. "I trust ever," 
wrote the prince to John Nassau, " that the great 
God of battles is with me, and that he will fight in 
the midst of whatever forces I may gather withal."§ 

During all these months — indeed, since the 
revolt of Flushing, Zealand had been the scene of 
active hostilities. The island of Walcheren, espe- 
cially, was a " debatable ground." On its south 
side stood Flushing, the rendezvous of " the beggars 

« Bor., torn. 6, p. 409, et seq. Velius Hooru, torn. 3, p. 200. 
t Ibid. t Ibid. Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 391. 

§ Archives et Corresp., etc., torn. 3, p. 461. 



C68 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

of the sea;" in the north lay Middleburg, held by 
a Spanish garrison, who overawed the townsfolk, 
honest patriots almost to a man.* 

"W^illiam's lieutenant, 'T Zeraerts, was anxious 
to clutch the whole island for the prince. The 
Spaniards, aware of its yital importance to Alva, 
were equally desirous to defend what portion they 
already stood on. Mutual defiances, assaults and 
counter -assaults, single combats, and incessant 
alarms — these, together with hatreds begotten of 
religious differences and antipathies of race, trans- 
formed Walcheren into a miniature pandemonium. t 

Early in the summer of 1572, 'T Zeraerts laid 
close and skilful siege to Middleburg. It was as 
cleverly defended. But the besieged were numer- 
ically weak, and Alva wished, if possible, to relieve 
them. For this purpose, he fitted out two separate 
fleets, both of which were gobbled up by " the beg- 
gars of the sea," who had complete command of the 
waters of the archipelago. | Notwithstanding these 
successes, the patriots were foiled in every eflbrt to 
take Middleburg; and 'T Zeraerts soon found that it 
could not be starved into submission, until Tergoes, 
a town upon the neighbor island of South Beveland, 
whence a plentiful supply of provisions was ob- 
tained by the besieged, should be previously closed 
as a Spanish depot of subsistence.§ 

■-• Watson, f). 172. Eeiitivoglio. 

f Meteren, torn. 4, folio 69. Bor., torn. 6, p. 377, d seq. Hoofd, 
V\'agenaer. % Ibid. Watson, iibi sup. 

§ Bor., torn. G, p. 392. Boutivoglio, Meteren. 



SCENES OF HOPvROK. 660 

Accordingly, he left his trenches before Middle- 
burg, ferried his troops across the little belt of water 
which separated the two islands, and with seven 
thousand men, German, French, and English Prot- 
estants, volunteers, formally invested Tergoes.* 

The governor-general knew that the taking of 
Tergoes would insure the fall of Middleburg, which 
would wrench Zealand from his hand. Therefore 
he ordered Sanchio D'Avila, who commanded at 
Antwerp in his absence before Mons,t to make 
every exertion to raise the siege.J D'Avila ex- 
hausted his ingenuity in the invention of plans 
whereby to achieve this end, now essaying to re- 
lieve Tergoes by land, now by sea, but alwaj's to 
no purpose. 

One day — it Avas in late October — a Flemish mar- 
iner, Captain Plomaert, an ultra-loyalist, waited 
upon D'Avila, and proposed an amphibious scheme 
of relief, unique in the annals of war. 

The river Scheldt, which divides the provinces 
of Brabant and Flanders, throws open its arms, the 
East Scheldt and the West Scheldt, ere reaching the 
sea, and clasps the archipelago of Zealand — islands 
half floating on, half submerged by the circumja- 
cent waters. § Of these islands. South Beveland, of 
which Tergoes was the capital, was the largest. 
Fifty years before, it had formed part of the main- 
land. But in 1532, one of those frightful storms 

* Bor., torn. G, p. 3U2. Bentivofj'lio, Sleteren. 

j- Motlej', vol. 2, p. 413. J Bor., Metereu, et alii. 

fi Motley, uhl su]).. p. 414. 



670 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

peculiar to those coasts, had torn it from the shore 
by drowning ten miles of the intervening territory — 
land which no skill had since been able to regain.* 
The space thus flooded could not be crossed in 
boats eA^en at high-tide, on account of abounding 
flats and shallows ; and at low-water it had always 
been esteemed unfordable because of the miry and 
treacherous bottom, which persons then alive re- 
membered to have seen traversed by three deep 
streams before the overflow.! 

Nevertheless, Plomaert thought it practicable 
for trooj)S to cross this wilderness of water, where 
the average depth was five feet, and where the tide 
rose and fell at least ten feet — to pass from the 
shore, ten miles across, to the island.:}: To satisfy 
himself of the possibility of doing so, he crossed 
and recrossed twice, with a couple of equally hardy 
comrades. Then he offered to lead over reinforce- 
ments to Tergoes.§ 

D'Avila, at his wits' end, listened to this propo- 
sition with delight; and after consultation with his 
companion in arms, Mondragone, he decided to 
make the venture. " I will oflicer the expedition," 
cried Mondragone.il Three thousand men Avere at 
once ordered to Bergen-op-Zoom.*^ Thence Mon- 
dragone led them to Aggier, a village c^uite at the 

* Mendoza, torn. 7, p. 1G6, seq. Bor., uhi sup. Hoofd. 

f Bentivoglio, torn. 6, yy. 110. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 270, et seq. 

% Ibid. Meteren, torn. 4, folios 76, 77. 

§ Ibid. II Ibid., Mendoza. 

IT Bentivoglio, torn. 6, p. 112. Bor.. torn. 6, p. 394. 



SCENES OF HOEEOE. 671 

entrance of the dangerous ford.* Here the veteran 
informed the soldiers of the object of the venture, 
pointed out the difficulty of the route, spoke of the 
glorj sure to result from success, distributed three 
thousand knapsacks filled with biscuit, powder, and 
matches, ordered the adventurers to keep close; 
then at half ebb-tide, amid enthusiastic cheering, 
in single file, and preceded by Plomaert and Mon- 
dragone, all plunged boldly, gayly in, and splashed 
on, on, on towards the distant shore. 

They entered the water at midnight, and for five 
hours they pursued the watery war-path, through 
the bottom of the sea, over the slimy quicksands. 
Not a man of the three thousand, save Plomaert, 
knew the face of the land before the inundation, 
but all did know that if any unforeseen accident 
should retard their j^assage, the incoming tide 
would certainly engulf them. All were aware that 
the patriots might massacre them man by man as 
they essaj'ed to land, numb and fatigued with the 
dark and perilous march. Spite of all, they kept 
cheerily on, and, strange to relate, reached the isl- 
and in the gray of the morning with the loss of but 
nine menf — certainly among the most brilliant feats 
on any martial record. 

Halting but an hour at the dyke of Yersichen, 
some four miles from Tergoes, to breathe, and eat 
a morsel, the Spaniards struck boldly for the camp 

"~" Bor., uhi sup. 

f Bentivoglio, torn. C, p. 112. Mendoza, torn. 7, p. 1G7, Bor., 
torn. G, p. 394. 



672 THE DUTCH REFORMATION 

of the besiegers, wlio, amazed and panic-struck at 
their appearance, waited but to see their banners, 
and then, despite 'T Zeraerts' pleadings, rushed 
wildly to their boats, leaving their camp to be 
plundered by the foe.* Mondragone, after pursu- 
ing and routing the patriot rear-giiard, entered 
Tergoes amid the acclamations of the garrison, 
strengthened its works, reinforced the stronghold, 
left a good store of supplies, and returned to Bra- 
bant to rejoin Alva before Mons.t 

When Orange (?ame into the north, such was still 
the political situation in Zealand — a war of races 
and a war of creeds, fanatical, pitiless, demoniacal. 
By his order, siege was again laid to Middleburg, 
and a close blockade hermetically sealed the place.^' 
At the same time, Zirickzee, and shortly afterwards 
the whole island of Schouwen, expelled the Spaniard 
and flung out the patriot banner.§ 

Meantime, Duke Alva, after scourging the recu- 
sant cities of Brabant and Flanders back to their 
allegiance, retired to rest his weary and gout- 
racked frame at Nimeguen, leaving his son, Don 
Frederic de Toledo to conduct the army into the 
maritime provinces, appointing Amsterdam as the 
rendezvous in Holland, whither, after a few days' 
repose, he meant himself to go.|| 

Making a detour from Mechlin, Don Frederic 

■" Bentivoglio, torn. G, p. 112. Mendoza, torn. 7, p. 1G7. Bor., 
torn. 6, p. 294. * f Il^ic^- 

% Meteren, torn. 4, folio 87. § Ibid. 

II Mendoza, torn. 8, p. 172. Meteren, torn. 4, folio 78. 



SCENES OF HOKHOR. G73 

marclied into Guelderlancl, and thence, facing due 
west, Holland- ward, through the province of Utrecht. 
His object in this circuit was to desiccate the sore 
of rebellion in the northeast ere attempting to medi- 
cine the yet more diseased seaboard. His advance 
was a continued triumph." Upon those towns 
which just before had been enthusiastic for Orange, 
the Spanish bugles acted as did the blowing of the 
rams' horns under the walls of Jericho — they at 
once succumbed. 

One little town, however — Zutphen in Guelder- 
land — had been garrisoned by William. It was 
defended by a wall flanked with bastions and girt 
by a deep ditch. The Yssel washed the fortifica- 
tions on one side, the Berkel on another ; while on 
the two remaining sides the ground was a marshy 
puddle, usually impassable.f But unhappily these 
natural advantages were nullified at this juncture, 
the frost having set in with uncommon severity a 
night or two before the Spaniard demanded en- 
trance. The garrison made but a show of resist- 
ance ; then, convinced of the folly of inviting an 
assault, fled, followed by those of the citizens who 
had been prominently active against Alva.:}: 

Don Frederic, who was just ordering an esca- 
lade, was promptly informed of this fact by the 
burghers, and implored to stay his hand and accept 

* Mendoza, torn. 8, page 172. Meteren, torn. 4, folio 78. 
Strada, torn. 2, p. 77. 

t Hoofd, Bor. Watson, p. 191. 
i Ibid. 
nmcii Ror. 29 



674: THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

a surrender at discretion.* Of this, the son of his 
father, only too glad of a pretext for severity, would 
not hear. Sword in hand, the army entered town ; 
and once in, platoon after platoon broke rank, each 
soldier running off to his individual work of pillage, 
lust, arson, murder. Scores of the unarmed citizens 
were hung on the Zutphen trees ; other scores were 
killed in the streets ; still others at their own 
hearthstones. Finall}^, the assailants, dissatisfied 
with such laggard slaughter, seized five hundred of 
their victims, tied them two by two, and so plunged 
them headlong into the Yssel.f Still worse fared 
the women of the place, and when death came it was 
mercy.:]: "When neither chastity nor life remained, 
the houses were fired, and what had been Zutphen 
was a pile of charred corpses, a heap of ashes.§ 

The smouldering and foetid ruins of Zutphen 
affrighted the whole northeast into immediate sub- 
mission. || Count Van den Burg, the brother-in-law 
of Orange and his lieutenant in those parts, left his 
post and his wife too, in ignominious flight for Ger- 
many.T Megen, the loyalist governor, was kept 
busy receiving deputies from the repentant towns, 
all of whom whimpered " Peccavi."** 

So much achieved, Don Frederic started for 
Amsterdam. Directly in his path stood the town 

« Bor., torn. 6, p. 415. Watson, id antea, 

t Ibid. Metereu and Hoofd, id antea. 

X Ibid. Campana, p. 97. § Ibid. 

II Strada, torn. 2, p. 77. 

«j Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1186. Bor., Meteren, ubisup. 

CO li J have sinned." 



SCENES OF PIOREOE. G75 

of Naarden, just on the border of Holland — accord- 
ing to Mendoza, " the first in that province in which 
heresy built its nest, whence it had taken flight to 
all the neighboring cities."* This "nest" these 
pious children of holy church were naturally desir- 
ous to clean out. Happily for them, Naarden had 
not sent in its submission, and yet more happily, 
when an avant-courrier summoned it to surrender, 
its burghers had replied, " By the help of God, we 
will keep our town, now as ever, to the service of 
the prince of Orange and King Philip."t This 
double crime of heresy and rebellion merited a two- 
fold chastisement, which Don Frederic at once 
moved forward to bestow. 

Meantime, the citizens, in want of arms, ammu- 
nition, a garrison — every warlike store — and there- 
fore ill-prepared to repel an assault, immediately 
sent agents to purchase powder on the credit of the 
estates of Holland ; wTote to Sanoy, William's dep- 
uty, for aid ; and solicited Berthold Eutes, one of 
De la Marck'"s sea-beggars, then at Vianen, to throw 
his privateersmen into their citadel without delay.:}: 
In return, nothing was obtained but fair words§ — 
very inefficient weapons with which to defend 
weak walls and unarmed bastions. 

As the Spaniards were now close by, and as 
there was no prospect of succor, nothing remained 
for the inhabitants to do save to effect an honorable 

* Meudoza, torn. 8, p. 173. 

t Bor., torn. G, p. 417. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 27G. 

X Iljid. § IbicL 



676 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

capitulation, if that were still possible. Accord- 
ingly, on the 1st of December, 1572, they despatch- 
ed two of the most influential of their number to 
Don Frederic's camp to surrender the place.* The 
messengers were refused admission to the tent of 
the commander, and ordered to return and expect 
his reply at the gates of Naarden.t Alarmed by 
this ominous answer, one of the deputies seized the 
first opportunity to leap from the sled in which both 
travelled, saying to his companion, "Adieu; I think 
I will not go back just now." The other, who could 
not so readily forsake his family and his fellow- 
citizens, returned alone.l 

At Bussem, a mile and a half from Naarden, 
the Spanish advance halted just at dark. Here 
they were met by another envoy, who was com- 
manded to reenter the town, collect a deputation 
fully empowered to surrender the place, and retiirn 
to confer with Don Frederic at daybreak. This he 
did, coming out bright and early the next morning 
with four other citizens, one of whom was Lambert 
Hortensius, a Koman priest, rector of a Latin school, 
a man eminent in medi£eval letters. § Before reach- 
ing camp, the Spanish captain, Julian Romero, met 
them, commissioned, as he said, by Don Frederic 
to settle the terms of capitulation. With him, there- 
fore, the envoys agreed that Naarden should admit 
the Spaniards on the express condition that the 

•"- Bor., torn. G, p. 417. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 276. 

t Bor., iibi siqj. 

t Bor., td antea. (^ Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 278. 



SCENES OF HORROR. 677 

lives aud properties of the inliabitauts sliould be 
secure ; that the burghers should take a new oath 
of allegiance to the king; and that one hundred 
soldiers should be permitted to take out of town so 
much spoil as they could carry — "in order," said 
Eomero, " to satisfy the troops."* The treaty was 
a verbal one ; but it was confirmed by the custom- 
ary form of joining hands, the ceremony by which 
the estates and William had recently promised 
fidelity to each other, and one deemed an ample 
security by these primitive and faithful men.t Hav- 
ing thus plighted his word, Don Julian entered the 
city, followed by six hundred musketeers.:]: 

While the deputies were treating with Romero, 
the housewives were busy preparing a feast for 
their guests, to which all soon sat down, Don Julian 
being entertained with especial honor by a wealthy 
senator. § 

On rising from the table, Don Julian ordered 
the great bell to ring a summons for the townsfolk 
to gather in the guild-hall to take the oath. Five 
hundred of them obeyed the call ; a few, seized 
with a vagiie suspicion went to secrete themselves.il 
Suddenly a priest, who had been pacing to and fro 
in front of the guUd-hall, flung open the door and 
shouted to the crowded audience, " Prepare for in- 
stant death! "IT 

° Hoofd, p. 277. Bor., ublsup. 

■j- Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 1, p. 593. 

J Bor., Hoofd, ubi sup. 

§ Hoofd, ubi sup. Motley, vol. 2, pp. 420, 421. 

il Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 278. Bor., torn. 7, p. 416, ctseq. 1i Ibid. 



678 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

These talismanic words conjured up unthouglit- 
of horrors. The musketeers, gorged with dainties, 
fired a volley into the midst of their defenceless 
entertainers, and then, with a frightful yell, sprang 
in upon them with sword and dagger. Before five 
minutes had elapsed the building was on fire and 
five hundred men were corpses. 

"Inflamed, but not satiated," says the fullest 
historian of the massacre, " the Spaniards then 
rushed into the streets, thirsty for fresh horrors. 
The houses were rifled of their contents, and the 
citizens were forced to carry the booty to the camj5, 
being then struck dead as their reward. The town 
too was fired in every direction that the skulkers 
might be singed from their hiding-places. As fast 
as they came forth they were put to death by their 
impatient foes. Some were pierced with rapiers; 
some were chopped to pieces with axes ; some 
were surrounded in the burning streets by groups 
of laughing soldiers, intoxicated, not with wine but 
with blood, who tossed them to and fro with their 
lances and derived a wild amusement fi'om their 
dying agonies. Those who attempted resistance 
were crimped alive like fishes, and left to gasp 
themselves to death in lingering torture. The sol- 
diers becoming more and more insane as the foul 
work went on, opened the veins of their victims and 
drank their blood as if it had been wine. Some of 
the burghers were temporarily spared, that they 
might witness the violation of their wives and 
daughters, being then butchered in company with 



SCENES OF HORROfi. 679 

these still more unhappy sufferers. Miracles of 
brutality were accomplisliecL Neither church nor 
hearth was sacred. Men were slain, women were 
outraged at the altars, in the streets, in their bla- 
zing homes."'^ 

In such a mass of horror, it seems superfluous 
to mention individual cases ; the pen falters at its 
task. Nevertheless, where exaggeration is impos- 
sible, extenuation is base,- reluctance crime. The 
life of Lambert Hortensius was spared, since he 
was a priest ; but his son, organist of the chief 
church, Avas slain, his heart being torn out before 
his father's eyes.f A smith named Hubert Will- 
iamson,! snatching up a three-legged stool in one 
hand and wielding a sword in the other, bravely 
defended the entrance to his house for some time, 
killing a number of his assailants. At last, wound- 
ed and overpowered, he sank to the floor, dropping 
his rude shield ; but he had sufficient strength left 
to grasp with his toil-hardened hands the blades of 
two swords pointed at his breast. The swords were 
drawn back, severing all his fingers ; and the hero 
was then slain. At his side, through the whole 
scene, knelt his daughter^ vainly begging for her 

* Motley, vol. 2, p. 421, et seq., after Hoofd and Bor. 

t Hoofd, ut anted. 

I "Those of the Hollanders who were not noble had at this 
time no surnames. Some were distinguished by the name of the 
trade they followed, or sometimes by personal or mental qualities, 
or by their birthplace ; others added son to the Christian name of 
their fathers or ancestors. The nobles took their names from their 
estates." Davies, vol. 1, p. 39G, note. 



680 THE-DUTCH EEFOBMATION. 

father's life. "Wlien lie was dead, the soldiers flung 
her 23arent'<s yet quivering fingers in her face. 

Of the entire population, not sixty remained 
alive.* And when all was over, Don Frederic, with 
impious barbarity — barbarity without a parallel in 
the annals of the most savage nations — forbade 
these few forlorn survivors to bury their dishon- 
ored dead. In the ruined streets, the corpses 
were left for three weeks to putrefy.f 

Thus was Naarden dashed out of existence — 
quiet, happy Naarden, whose denizens for long 
years had been glad to carry into practice the 
counsel of the prophet to the Israelites : " Pray for 
the peace of the city in which 3'ou dwell ; for in the 
peace thereof ye shall have peace.":]: 

Alva not only endorsed the massacre — he gloated 
over it. " The army cut the throats of all," wrote he 
to Philip, "not a mother's son was left alive. 'T was 
a permission of God that these people should have 
undertaken to defend a city so weak that only her- 
etics would have attempted such a thing."§ Such 
was the pious comment of a man who believed that 
the more he burned on earth of that which holy 
church proscribed, the less would he himself burn 
in hell. 

•" Hoofd, td antea. Meteren, torn. 4, folio 78. 

t Ibid. Bor., torn. 7, p. 419. 

t Jer. 29 : 7, French version. 

§ Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1186. 



HEROISM. 081 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

HEEOISM. 

At Naardeu Duke Alva oversliot his mark. He 
meant here, as elsewhere to conquer by terror. But 
this massacre had an effect upon Holland and Zea- 
land exactly the reverse of that produced by the 
sack of Mechlin upon Flanders and Brabant; of 
that consequent upon the slaughter at Zutpheu, in 
Guelderlffcad, Utrecht, Overyssel, Groningen, and 
Friesland. The seaboard was never farther than 
i^w from all thought of yielding. In the glass of 
the past, all saw that submission was certain to undo 
them." Had not Mechlin surrendered? and Zut- 
phen ? and Naarden ? Despair itself cried. Fight.* 

But the outlook was gloomy. Holland and 
Zealand — sandbanks and floating islands — were 
absolutel}^ without allies. Even England stood 
aloof; for what sane politician could believe that a 
few towns, haK-a-dozen marshy isles, with a popu- 
lation to be counted by thousands, could resist suc- 
cessfully the first miUtary power in Europe ?t 

Besides, these scant towns were not united. The 
most important of them and the wealthiest, Amster- 
dam, adhered to Spain ; less, indeed, from inclina- 
tion than from necessity, for the governor-general 

* Stradii, torn. 2, i>. 78. Bor. and Hooftl, ut antea. 
t Froude. Hist, of Eug., vol. 10, p. 427. 
2i)* 



G82 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

had takeD the double precaution to keep ultra Eo- 
manists in the magistracy, and to billet a strong 
garrison upon the cit}'.* Then, too, trade is pro- 
verbially selfish, and trade was the breath of this 
town's nostrils. At this very hour the fire of per- 
secution was blazing furiously in the market-place ; 
and, to use the fine words of Sir Thomas Brown, 
" saints were called to maintain their faith in 
the noble way of martyrdom, serving God in the 

flames."t 

In the face of these manifold discouragements, 
the Hollanders continued their preparations for 
resistance. They meant, if possible, to imike their 
position, strong by nature, impregnable. They 
intended that every ford of a canal should bs^ 
battle-ground, that every passage of a river should 
require an army to force it, that every siege should 
demand a campaign to finish it. 

From the smoking ruins of Naarden Don Frede- 
ric led his butchers directly to Amsterdam.:|: Hither, 
after a little, came Alva from Nimeguen. The duke 
intended to make Amsterdam the base of his attem^^t 
to reconquer the northwest. It was upon the adjoin- 
ing city of Haarlem that he decided next to swoop. 

A combination of circumstances influenced this 
choice. Haarlem was the most important of the 
Holland towns nest to Amsterdam. Its defences 
were weak. It was situated quite in the centre of 
the province. As Diedrich Sanoy, William's deputy, 

=■' Watson, p.- 191. t ^^'^<-^^ Brandt, vol. 1, p. 301. 

I Bor., torn. 7, p. 420, et seq. 



HEROISM. 683 

Avas at this time at Enkhiiyzen, in the north, while 
the prince himself was stationed at Delft, in the 
south, its possession by the Spaniards would iso- 
late these chiefs and cut the revolted states clean 
in two.* 

Alva began operations by ordering the magis- 
trates of Amsterdam to send a deputation to the 
menaced city, to inform the burghers of his pur- 
pose, exhort them promptly to submit, and pledge 
their official word that mercy should be the guer- 
don of non-resistance.t The message threw Haar- 
lem into consternation. Nine-tenths of the citizens 
were stanchly patriotic, but they knew the weakness 
of their walls — much less stout than their hearts; 
they were aware that all warlike |^ores were lack- 
ing ; and as they gazed on their wives and children, 
they doubted. Taking advantage of the hesitation, 
three of their magistrates went secretly to treat 
with the duke. I In their absence, Wybant Eip- 
perda, William's governor of the town, convened 
the citizens in the market-place. In a few vivid, 
eloquent phrases the dauntless soldier pictured the 
necessity of resistance, affirmed that surrender would 
but add Haarlem to the fatal list of dashed-out 
towns, and cried : " Eemember Mechlin, Zutphen, 
Naarden. Accept no terms from men who have 
shown themselves so cruelly perfidious. Much 
more is to be dreaded from submission than from a 

« Bor., torn. 7, p. 420, et seq. 

t Davies, Hist, of Hoi., vol. 1, p. 595. 

% Bor., ut aniea. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 282. 



{iS4: THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

resolute defence. If we must die, let us at least 
fall sword iu hand."" 

These words were decisive. Eeassured and 
quite won over, all shouted : " Yes, yes ; no peace 
with the Spaniard. Our gates shall not swing open 
to the piping of the butclier-dulve."t Two of the 
magistrates — one had been prudent enough to re- 
main in Amsterdam — were arrested on their return 
from the enemy's camp, tried, convicted, and hung 
for treason. And when, a few days afterwards, a 
messenger came from Alva to urge a surrender at 
discretion, he too was put to death, as an emphatic 
announcement that the city would listen to no terms 
of agreement.:]: 

Orange, on jjping apprized of the heroic deter- 
mination of Haarlem, promised the gallant burgh- 
ers all possible assistance, left Delft, and fixed his 
residence at Sassenheim, on the south end of Haar- 
lem lake, that he might be at hand, and despatched 
St. Aldegonde to put the municipality in possession 
of the patriots, and to substitute the reformed for 
the Eomisli creed — fresh evidence of the resolution 
of the populace. § 

At this juncture an event occurred which the 
patriots construed into a favorable augury. Half-a- 
dozen ships, managed by " the beggars of the sea," 
had recently been frozen up off Amsterdam. Alva 

* Bor., ut untea. Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 282. Meteren, torn. 4, 
folio 78. t Hoofd, iihi sup. Bor., uU sup. 

i Hoofd, uhi sup., p. 284. 
§ Mendoza, torn. 7, p. 173. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 301. 



HEROISM. G85 

sent out upon the ice a body of veteran musketeers 
to capture the frost-bound intruders. The crews, 
however, first cut a trench around their httle fleet, and 
then, scudding out upon the frozen sea on skates, 
joined battle with the astonished foe. Trained from 
infancy to such sports- — for in that amphibious 
land all were skaters — the assailed sped hither and 
thither with winged feet, flew on the foe with drawn 
sabres, and were away again ere the clumsy and 
slipping Spaniards could take aim. In a brilliant 
and unique skirmish, they completely routed the 
duke's veterans, several hundred of whom were 
stretched dead upon the ice. The survivors made 
their way, chop-fallen and bleeding, back to Am- 
sterdam." 

Within twenty- four hours a flood and a sudden 
thaw released the patriot vessels, which spread sail 
and made for Enkhuyzen, while a frost immediately 
and strangely succeeding, put God's veto upon pur- 
suit.! Alva was surprised at these novel manoeu- 
vres. " Sure," said he, " 't is a thing never heard 
of before to-day : a body of arquebusiers thus fight- 
ing upon a frozen sea."| But the duke was an apt 
scholar, even when the foe were his teachers. He 
at once ordered seven thousand pairs of skates; and 
soon his men-at-arms came to be quite at home 
upon the ice.§ 

This slippery combat was the prelude of th 
siege. On the 10th of December, 1572, Don Frt 

* Mcndoza, ut aniea. \ Motley, vol. 2, p. 428. 

J Cited iu Motley, ubl nup, § Motley, viti sup. 



686 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

eric marched through Amsterdam gates with flying 
colors to "chastise" Haarlem.* 

A glance at the map will give a clearer idea of 
the site of Haarlem than the most elaborate descrip- 
tion. It lay just on the eastern edge of that narrow 
isthmus, scarcely five miles broad, wdiicli unites 
north and south Holland, and separates the waters 
of the Zuyder Zee from the German ocean. Due 
east, ten miles off, was Amsterdam, naturally divi- 
ded from its sister city by an expanse of inland 
water, but connected with it by an artificial cause- 
way.t Directly south, at about the same distance, 
lay Leyden, whose broad canal ran up to the walls 
of Haarlem, forming the commercial channel be- 
tween the two. I The Haarlem meer too, an im- 
mense sheet of water covering seventy square miles 
of surface, stretched away from Haarlem almost to 
Lej'den, with which it was connected by a little 
stream. 'Tis important to note this topography 
because it is the hinge uj)Ou which the whole siege 
turned. 

As for the city itself, it then contained about 
forty thousand inhabitants, and was moated and 
surrounded by a wall, old, tottering, and of such 
extent as to require a large force properly to defend 
it.§ It was a sightly place, with broad avenues 
embroidered with lofty trees ; houses singularly 
picturesque, with sharply-pointed gables, such as 

* Ibid., 23. 431. Bor., Mendoza, et al. 

t Meteren, Bentivoglio, Bor. J Ibid. 

§ Bor., torn. G, p. 422. Meudoza. 



HEEOISM. 687 

we are accustomed to see in old Flemish paintings ; 
and in its centre loomed the ancient church of St. 
Bavon, a vast Gothic structure, with a prodigiously 
high square dome, visible over leagues of land and 
sea, and seeming to gather the whole town under 
its sacred and protective wings.* 

Hither, through the December sleet, came the 
Spanish army, at least thirty thousand strong,f bent 
on plunder, thirsty for blood, and looking for an 
easy victory. To oppose this force, Haarlem had, 
at the outset, but a thousand men-at-arms, though 
to this number a reinforcement of five hundred and 
fifty Netherlanders was shortly added.:]: At no 
time during the siege could Wybant Ripperda count 
above four thousand eifective soldiers. § 

In passing from Amsterdam to Haarlem, Don 
Frederic crossed the causeway between the two 
cities, which ran along the top of a dyke and about 
midway was bridged over the channel which con- 
nected the Y, an inlet of the Zuyder Zee, with the 
Haarlem meer. Here were situated sluices and 
gauge-posts for regulating the height of the water — 
sluices which, if opened, would inundate the adja- 
cent territory. There Avas nothing like this high- 
way in the world, save that in far-away America, 
at the ancient city of Mexico, through the lake of 
Teztuco, celebrated, like this, as the battle-ground 
of Spanish invaders. 

■=■ Motlej', Tol. 2, p. 430. Vide also "A Tour in Hollaud," etc., 
by W. Chambers. 

t Campaua, Guer. di Fiand. , lib. 3, p. 100. Motley, uhi sup. , p. 429. 
I Daviosj vol. 1, i>, 500. vj Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 285. 



G88 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

On the Haarlem side of this dyke stood the fort 
of Sparendam, in which Ripperda had stationed 
three hundred men, with orders to open the sluices 
and flood the country — a manoeuvre which would 
have proved fatal to the besiegers by cutting oif 
their connection with Amsterdam, their base of 
operations, whence came all their supplies ; but, 
unhappily, the frost, by freezing up the sluices, ren- 
dered this attempt fruitless, and Don Frederic's 
advance escaladed the fort and took permanent 
possession of this vital point. Then, sweeping past 
Sparendam, the 8j)aniards soon reached Haarlem 
and completely encircled it.* 

Don Frederic's initial labors were facihtated by 
a dense frozen fog which hung over the town, under 
whose cover he stationed his troops, dug his trench- 
es, and arranged his artillery.t The besieged too, 
sheltered by the same icy curtain, sent out myriads 
of skaters and scores of sleds to bring up from 
Leyden provisions and warlike materiel against their 
time of need.J 

The Spaniard was hardly in position ere he 
learned that De la March, under orders from 
Orange, was advancing with three thousand men 
to reinforce the scant garrison of Haarlem. Ro- 
mero, Noircarmes, and Bossu were detached with a 
strong corps cTarmee to intercept his march. In the 
middle of December they met the famous sea beg- 

* Mendoza, torn. 8, p. IT'l. Bor., torn. 6, p. 422. 
t Ibid. Meteren, torn. 4, folio 79. 
t Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 285. 



HEKOISM. 689 

gar, cut his levies to pieces, and then hastened back 
to camp to press the siege.* 

On the 18th of December, 1572, Don Frederic 
opened fire upon the cross-gate, the principal en- 
trance of Haarlem, and continued the bombard- 
ment through three days. Sadly shattered were 
the rotten walls ; but the whole populace rushed to 
repair the breaches, fiJHng the holes made by the 
Spanish cannon with earth, stone, huge blocks of 
wood, and marble images torn from the Eomish 
churches of the city.f When the besiegers saw the 
use to which these sculptured saints were put, they 
were filled with horror. Strange, that men should 
entertain so much more respect for breathless effi- 
gies of holy things than for the bodies of their 
fellows — living images of God4 

Supposing that he had by this prolonged can- 
nonade beaten a practicable breach, Don Frederic, 
on the morning of the 22d of December, gave orders 
for an assault. Through the previous night, the 
stir in camp had given to the burghers " dreadful 
note of preparation," and they were at their posts. 
Eomero led the escaladers, who rushed impetuously 
forward, imagining the victory certain, and intent 
less on fighting than on pillage. They found no 
Mechlin, no Zutphen, no Naarden here. The daunt- 
less citizens met them with an ardor equal to their 
own. While the great bell of St. Bavon clanged 

« Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 28G. Bor., torn. G, p. 42i. 

t Bentivoglio, torn. 7, p. 121. Stratla, torn. 2, p. 78 

t Slotley, vol. 2, p. 433, et seq. 



690 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

the alarm to bring up succor, those abeady^n the 
ramparts fiercely grappled wi'th the over-confident 
foe, upon whose heads they hurled live coals, boil- 
ing oil, huge stones — any thing, every thing which 
could maim or kill. Blind, staggering, decimated, 
the astonished Spaniards ere long turned back and 
fled, leaving four hundred of their number lifeless 
" i' the imminent, deadly breach."* Twenty of their 
most gallant officers were slain, and Romero him- 
self lost an eye.f 

This rude reception of his "invincibles" con- 
vinced Don Frederic that his task M'as to be no 
halcyon gala. He gave orders for a more regular 
investment of the place, began to mine and proceed- 
ed more circumspectly. :|: 

Meantime, the prince of Orange neglected no 
opportunity to assist and supply the wants of 
the besieged. Immediately after this foiled as- 
sault, he collected some wagon-loads of munitions, 
seven field-pieces, and tsvo thousand men, sending 
them forward under charge of Batenburg§ ■ — an 
officer who had recently replaced De la Marck, 
dismissed and sent out of the province by Will- 
iam and the estates on account of his mutinous 
behavior and ferocity. || 

* Mendoza, torn. 9, p. 178, et seq. Hoofd, uhi sup., et alii. 

f Meudoza and Bor. , ut antea. % Ibid. 

§ Hoofd, torn. 7, p. 290. Bor., torn. 6, p. 431. 

II De la Marck was an able and enterprising partisan, and bis 
loss -was severely felt by Holland. But bis cruelties, committed 
cbiefly on priests, bad become so freqi:ent and atrocious as to 
make bim generally abbori'ed. No bonorable man could wink at 



HEROISM. 691 

Batenburg was as unsuccessful as liis prede- 
cessor. On nearing Haarlem, lie lost himself in a 
thick mist, led his men directly into the camp of 
the enemv, and was entrapped by his own blunder. 
Though he with a few score more escaped, his 
force was massacred, his provisions stored in the 
Spanish larder.* 

Batenburg's lieutenant, De Koning, was among 
those captured. Don Frederic struck off his head, 
and shot it into Haarlem girt with these words: 
"Accept the head of Philip Koning, for he came to 
reinforce your city.'' The exasperated citizens re- 
plied by a jest equally cruel. Decapitating eleven 
Spaniards, they j)ut their heads into a cask, and at 
night rolled it into the beleaguer's trenches, with 
this direction: "The burghers of Haarlem send 
these ten heads to Duke Alva in payment of the 
ten -penny tax ; and since they have been long in 
his debt, add the eleventh head as interest."t 

Varied by these ghastly pleasantries the siege 
went on. In the Spanish pay were three thousand 
miners from the bishopric of Liege, whose business 
it was to sap the foundation of the walls of Haarlem. 
" As fast, however, as Don Frederic mined," says 

at his deeds— deeds which placed him beside Alva and Vargas. 
Though often reproved by the estates, he would not mend his eon- 
duct, and at length he came to defy the authoritj'^ of the estates 
and of the prince himself to dictate his actions. Then he was im- 
prisoned ; but ultimately, at William's solicitation, permitted to 
retire from Holland with his property. Some years later, he died 
at Leyden of the bite of a mad dog. Vide Bor., torn. 6, p. 425, 
et seq. Hoofd, tom. 7, pp. 288, 289. Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 300, 302. 
® Hoofd, id)i sup. f Ibid. Strada, tom. 2, p. 78. 



cm THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

the historian, " the citizens countermined. Span- 
iard and Netherlander met daily in deadly combat 
within the bowels of the earth. Frequent and des- 
perate were the struggles within gangways so nar- 
row that only daggers could be used, so obscure 
that the dim lanterns hardly lighted the death- 
stroke. They seemed the conflicts not of men, but 
of evil spirits. Nor were these hand-to-hand bat- 
tles all. Often a shower of heads, limbs, mutilated 
trunks, the mangled remains of hundreds of human 
beings, spouted from the earth as from an invisible 
volcano. Still the Spaniards toiled on with undi- 
minished zeal, and still the besieged, undismayed, 
delved below their w^orks, and checked their advance 
by sword and spear and horrible explosions."* 

Don Frederic especially directed his exertions 
against the Cross-gate, thinking that his securing 
it would open a pathway into the town. Aware of 
its weakness, and convinced of the impossibility of 
holding it, the citizens, secretly, but with great 
celerity, went to work constructing a ravelin of 
massive stone just behind it. All through the bit- 
ter winter nights men, women, even little children, 
labored at this task, until, unknown to the foe, a 
bastion was completed inside the menaced, crum- 
bling portal of far greater strength than the Cross- 
gate itself.t 

William was in constant communication with the 

* Motlej', vol. 2, p. 436 ; after the contemporaneous account of 
P. Sterlinex. 

t Mendoza, torn, i, p. 188. Bor., torn. 6, pp. 431, 432. 



HEKOISM. 693 

city. On the 28tli of January, 1573, one hundred 
and seventy sleds, laden with powder and bread — 
that to destroy, and this to. support life — glided 
across the frozen surface of the meer into Haarlem, 
under the convoy of four hundred volunteers." 

Three days later, Don Frederic, marking the 
crippled state of the Cross-gate, determined to make 
a grand assault. "This time," thought he, "suc- 
cess is certain to mount the walls with me." At 
midnight, on the 51st of January, a strong band of 
escaladers threw themselves with sudden fury upon 
the half-ruined rampart. The sentinels, though 
taken by surprise, were not dismayed. Toppling 
over the scaling-ladders of their assailants, and at 
the same time sounding the alarm, they held the 
foe in play until the burghers came to the rescue. 
After a hard struggle, in which the townsfolk dex- 
terously encircled the necks of the Spaniards with 
hoops smeared with pitch and set on fire, and 
pelted them with stones, with clubs, with fire- 
brands, defending themselves with .musket and 
sabre, the besieged pretended to give way, and 
retired behind the new raveHn.t At dawn, Don 
Frederic descried the Spanish banner floating 
above the Cross- gate. Supposing that all was 
over, he galloped up— when lo, the ravelin IX 

Chagrined and angered, he returned to camp, 
and, after matins, ordered a general assault. On 
came the veteran battalions with steady ranks and 

» Bor., torn. 6, p. 432 t Hoofd, torn. 7. p. 293. 

J Ibiil., Mencloza. 



694 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

loud liuzzas. They Lad just scrambled to the sum- 
mit of the Cross-gate, and were about to precipi- 
tate themselves upon the ravelin, when a frightful 
explosion flung the deserted bastion, together with 
what seemed a fourth part of Don Frederic's army, 
into mid air.* The Cross-gate had been under- 
mined by the citizens ere being abandoned, and 
they had awaited this opportunity to blow it up.i" 
When the smoke rolled off, hundreds of mangled 
wretches were seen stretched upod*the plain, whence 
came distressful groans and fierce imprecations. 
Aghast at the unforeseen disaster, the survivors 
beat a hasty retreat, seeking shelter behind their 
outworks. I 

So greatly dismayed were many of the Span- 
iards by the destructive failure of these two elabo- 
rate assaults, that they began to clamor against the 
continued prosecution of the siege. *' Our miseries 
are greater than those of the besieged," said they. 
" On account of the difiiculties of the communica- 
tion with Amsterdam, we suffer from a perpetual 
scarcity of provisions ; and the severity of the season 
slays more than the sword of these burghers. We 
shall never take the town, or if we do, it will leave 
us no army with which to reduce other places."§ 

Don Frederic himself took this view, sending 
Mendoza to ask Alva to sign a recall.il The duke 



•'-• Mendoza, toiu. 9, p. 18-i, seq. Bor., uhi sup. 
t Bor., and Mendoza, ut aniea. J Ibid. 

§ Bentivoglio, torn. 7, p. 12-i, et seq. Mendoza, torn. 9, pp. 
ISri.- ISO. II Mendoza, ubi sup., p. 192. 



HEEOISM. 095 

was enraged. " I am sick and unable to go in per- 
son to the camp," wrote lie in reply; "but if you 
do not hold on to success, consider yourself no 
longer son of mine. Should you fall, I will drag 
myself into the saddle ; and when we have both 
perished, your mother the duchess shall come from 
Spain to carry on the siege.""-^ This' answer was 
decisive. Don Frederic spoke no more of a recall. 
Soon afterwards he was strongly reinforced, and 
giving up all hope of taking Haarlem by assault, he 
determined to starve it into submission. f 

With the opening of spring the asj)ect of affairs 
changed. Alva had been busy all the winter build- 
ing a fleet at Amsterdam. Towards the end of 
February, when the ice broke up, his admiral, 
Count Bossu, launched these vessels in the Haar- 
lem meer, and saihng to the south, severed all com- 
munication with Leydeu, whence the besieged drew 
all their supplies of men and stores. :|: 

In imitation of this manoeuvre, the prince of 
Orange attempted, unsuccessfully, to cut asunder 
Amsterdam and Don Frederic's camp.§ Foiled in 
this, he next got a patriot flotilla on the meer, with 
which he hoped to chase off Bossu. || After much 
preliminary skirmishing, the hostile fleets joined 
battle, and for the first and last time throughout 
the war,!" "the beggars of the sea" were completely 

Mendoza, uU sup., p. 192. \ Ibid. 

Bor., torn. 6, p. 43G. 
§ Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 300. Bor., torn. C, p. 437. 
II Bor., wilt sup. Hoofd, xibi sup., pp. 306, 307. 
IT Strada, torn. 2, p. 73. 



696 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION, 

defeated — themselves cliased off by Bossu,* who 
thus became absokite master of the lake. 

This untoward event reduced Haarlem to the 
verge of despah\ Men, money, provisions began 
to fail. The inhabitants were put on short alloAv- 
ance— a pound of bread a day for each man, a malt 
cake for the women and children. f Yet they strug- 
gled on as vigorously and indefatigably as at the 
outset. Nor were they content merely to hold 
their walls. Sallies were of nightly occurrence. 
Once, a thousand of the besieged drove in the 
pickets of the beleaguerer, burned three hundred 
tents, took seven pieces of artillery, gutted the 
camp larder, slew eight hundred of the foe ; and 
then, lighted home by the blaze of Don Frederic's 
fired outposts, returned to Haarlem with a loss of 
but four men, to erect on the ramparts a colossal 
funeral mound, on which was this inscription, writ 
in letters which might have been read from Am- 
sterdam : " Haarlem is the graveyard of the Span- 
iards.":}: 

Even the women became soldiers. Kanan Has- 
selaar, a widow of rank and fortune and unsjDotted 
fame, organized a corps of three hundred matrons, 
who, retaining the dress of their sex, labored at all 
hours with spade and pickaxe in repairing breaches, 
with sword and matchlock in defending the walls, 
and figured too in most of the nocturnal sallies, no 
less to the encouragement of the burghers than to 

« Bor., and Hoofd, ubi siij). f Ibid. 

X Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 302. 



HEROISM. G97 

the admiration of the besiegers.* Knowing the fate 
which awaited them should the city fall, they pre- 
ferred death to dishonor — kindred in this to the 
heroines of all ages. "These townsfolks," wrote 
Don Frederic, " do as much as the best soldiers in 
the world could do."t And Alva assured Philip, 
"Never was a place defended with such skill and 
bravery as Haarlem.":]: 

Meantime, famine, the Spaniard's most potent 
ally, marched into town ; starvation, which no hero- 
ism could push out, stood on the threshold of each 
house. § The burghers, powerless against this foe, 
did their utmost to provoke assaults from the be- 
siegers, hoping to forget the cravings of hunger in 
incessant combats. But though they put their pris- 
oners to death in sight of Don Frederic's camp, 
appeared upon the walls decked out in the gor- 
geous robes of the Komish church, and offered 
every imaginable insult to the effigies of all the 
saints in the calendar,!! that wily soldier was not to 
be tempted into another escalade. He knew his 
advantage, knew from experience the fatality of 
measuring swords with despair, knew that he had 
but to maintain his position, and let starvation 
conquer for his decimated army. 

Under this policy, the sufferings of the citizens 

became each day more terrible. As the month of 

•~' Meteren, torn. 4, folio 79. Strada, torn. 2, p. 74. 
f Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1217. 
t Ibid., p. 1198. 

§ Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 309. Bor., torn. 6, p. 437. 
II Strada, nJA sup. 
Dutch Rcl. o'l 



698 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

June wore away, tliey were reduced to subsist upon 
rape and hemp seed ; then upon the flesh of dogs, 
cats, and vermin, and finally the tanned hides of 
oxen and horses were greedily devoured.- 

All this time Orange was doing what it was in 
his power to do. By means of carrier-pigeons he 
still encouraged the besieged to hold out, and com- 
municated to them his various plans to relieve their 
wants. One day a couple of these winged posts, 
tired with flying, lighted upon a tent in Don Fred- 
eric's camp. A soldier, ignorant of the stratagem, 
shot one of them for sport, Avhen the mystery of the 
letters was discovered. After this accident, no 
pigeon could fly over the beleaguerer without im- 
minent danger of death, and thus many of Will- 
iam's projects became known at the wrong head- 
quarters, t 

Early in July, the prince, thinking that while 
there was any hope there was every hope, got afoot 
one more expedition. Troops there were none, but 
Delft, Eotterdam, Gouda — a host of friendly towns, 
volunteered to equip their train-bands for the pur- 
pose of relieving Haarlem.^ Orange announced 
his intention to head this essay in person.§ The 
estates, however, would not permit it. " Your life 
is of more value than many cities," cried all ; " if 
you fall, we are indeed undone."|| With great reluc- 
tance William consented to intrust the conduct of 

='- Hoofd and Bor., ubi sup. \ Strada, torn. 2, p. 74. 

% Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 310. Bor., torn. G, p. 439. 

§ Hoofd, uhi sup,, i>. 311. || Ibid. Bor., iihi sup. 



HEKOISM. 691) 

the expedition to Batenberg, who soon after set 
out with five thousand men — undisciplined and ill- 
armed levies.* But alack, the whole Spanish army 
fell upon him just beneath the Haarlem bastions, 
and he himself, together with the major part of his 
raw force made but a breakfast for Don Frederic, 
all being slain.f 

It was the beginning of the end. The prince's 
resources were exhausted; those of the burghers 
had long ago touched the saddest bottom. " Well, 
then," said the citizens, " we can die but once. Let 
us form ourselves into a square, place our wives and 
children in the centre, fire the town, and sally forth 
to cut our way through the Spanish camp, or per- 
ish in the attempt.":]: 

This heroic idea was of a piece with the defence ; 
and when Don Frederic was told of it, as he soon 
was, he feared that the fruits of his victory would 
escape him. Accordingly, he sent to offer terms to 
the besieged, solemnly assuring them that ample 
forgiveness should attend surrender.§ The burgh- 
ers were incredulous — had they not memories? But 
a large portion of the garrison, the Germans espe- 
cially, favored submission.il On the 12th of July, 
1573, after a resistance of above seven months, a 
formal surrender was signed. Alva granted an am- 
nesty to all but fifty-seven of the citizens, agreed to 

- Bor., torn. G, p. 4i0. 

t Ibid. Meteren, torn. 4, folio 80, et alii. 

X Bor., vJji sup. Mendoza, torn. 9, p. 204. 

§ Bor., torn. 6, p. 413. Mendoza, ut aniea, et cd. || Ibid. 



700 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

dismiss the Germans mill armed, and commuted tlie 
plunder for two hundred and forty thousand guil- 
ders* — honorable terms had they been observed. 

But the Spaniards had no sooner passed Haar- 
lem gates than they again demonstrated the ab- 
surdity of reliance on their word. Pillage they did 
not, because the promised moneys were not in town ; 
but murder was a safe pastime. Eipperda, Lance- 
lot van Brederode — all the heroes of the long de- 
fence, were at once beheaded.t Within the space 
of eight days after the surrender, two thousand per- 
sons were butchered in cold blood.J 

Such v>^as the fate of Haarlem. But the victory 
was not cheaply bought. Many of his ablest offi- 
cers, and thirteen thousand of his choicest vete- 
rans§ — this was the price which Alva paid for the 
stout old town. 

* Bor., and Hoofd, uhi sup., et alii 

t Ibid. Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 303, 304. 

I Campana, Giier. di Fiand., lib. 4, p. 112. Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 
315, et seq., et al. 

§ Hoofd, uhi siq). Bor., torn. 6, p. 444. Compare Meudoza, 
torn. 9, p. 20G, and Cabrera, torn. 10, p. 759. Strada, torn. 2, 
p. 70. 



THE HOEIZON BRIGHTENS. 701 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE PATEIOT HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 

The capture of Haarlem caused little exultation 
in the Spanish camp ; all looked upon it as a Cad- 
mean victory. Alva was a " pendulum betwixt a 
smile and tear." He was inside the town; but at 
what woeful cost of men and means and time ! If 
seven months, thirty thousand soldiers, and a dead- 
list thirteen thousand long were requisite to the 
taking- the weakest place in Holland, how many 
months, how many men, how many lives must be 
sacrificed in reducing other and stouter cities? in 
conquering the whole pro^sdnce ? As the glum duke 
essayed to make the calculation, these burghers, of 
whom he had been wont to say, "I wiU smother 
them in their own butter," rose many degrees in his 
estimation. It now seemed as if Spain, and both 
the Indies besides, would be beggared before half 
these plebeian heads could be got inside the firkin. 
Already twenty-five milHons of florins had been sent 
from Madrid to meet the expenses of the captain* 
who had promised to make gold run in a current a 
yard deep from, not to, the Netherlands — twenty- 
. five millions of florins in addition to what immensQ 
sums had been dug from the mine of confiscation 
and got from the imposition of gigantic taxes.'!' 

* Motley, vol. 2, jj. 4GG. t Il^iii- 



702 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

Yet the lagoons still lield out; and Alva, like the 
daughters of the horse-leech, was always crying; 
" Give, give." 

Somewhat daunted by these facts, the duke de- 
termined to do by his pen what he had been unable 
to achieve by force of arms. On the 26th of July, 
1573, he issued a monitory circular in the form of 
a royal address. " Notwithstanding your manifold 
crimes" — so ran the text of this appeal to these 
"men of butter"— "his majesty still seeks, like a 
hen calling her chickens, to gather you all under 
the maternal wing." But in the next line this bill- 
ing and cooing is followed by an outburst of char- 
acteristic brutality: "If ye disregard this offer of 
mercy as heretofore, then understand that there is 
no rigor, no cruelty so great, but you may expect it. 
Waste, starvation, the sabre shall utterly depopu- 
late the land, and cause it to be occupied again by 
strangers."" 

But in this case the pen was not mightier than 
the SAVord. Threats and banislmients were alike 
laughed to scorn by the incorrigible " men of but- 
ter." 

While Alva still snarled under this failure, a 
mishap occurred which yoked alarm to his chagrin. 
The soldiery, disappointed in their expectation of 
pillaging Haarlem, sore from their recent losses, 
^nd exasperated by the non-payment of their long 
arrears, rose in sudden, furious mutiny.t Quarter- 
n's Bor., torn. G, pp. 445, 44G. 
t Ibid., p. 444. Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 317. 



THE HORIZON BEIGHTENS. 703 

ing themselves at will upon tlie wretclied citizens of 
Haarlem, their Kcense and greedy rage speedily com- 
pleted the spoliation of the town.* Don Frederic, 
the duke himself, the most strict of disciplinarians, 
remonstrated, promised, threatened in vain. In» 
deed, in the teeth of their efforts, the insubordina- 
tion spread from Holland into all the other states. 
Outlasting the entire month of August, the outbreak 
was only quelled in the end by the intercession of 
Chiappino Vitelli, the pet of the army, who, with 
much ado, prevailed upon the mutineers to accept 
thirty crowns apiece, and relapse into obedient 
automata.f 

This mutiny was regarded by the Hollanders as 
a God-given opportunity. "While Alva was occu- 
pied in composing domestic jars, they had space in 
which to^ecover from the half-desj)air into which 
they had been thrown by the successful leaguer of 
Haarlem. Orange had not lost his serenity. He 
had suffered, but he took that to 1* his lot. His 
faith nothing could shake. " I had hoped to send 
you better news," wrote he to Count Louis just 
after the capitulation ; " nevertheless, since it has 
pleased the Allwise to order otherAvise, we must 
conform ourselves to the Divine will; but I take 
God to witness that I did all within my power to 
succor the fallen city."| A few daj^s afterwards he 
wrote again, to inform his brother that the Zealand- 

'-- Bor., torn. 5, p- Hi. Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 317. 

f Corresp. de PhilipiDe II., torn. 2, p. 12(iO. 

f Groen v. Prinst, Archives, etc., torn. 4, p. 175. 



704 THE DUTCH EEFOBMATION. 

ers had captured the castle of Eammeldns, a famous 
fortress ou the island of Walcheren. " I hope," 
added he, " that this will reduce the pride of our 
enemies, who, since the surrender of Haarlem, have 
seemed to think that they were about to swallow us 
alive."* 

It was understood throughout the province that 
Alckmaar, a town in North Holland, was to be Alva's 
next point of attack. The inhabitants of that sec- 
tion were uneasy at the prospect of the unequal 
combat, and Diedrich Sanoy, who was in command 
there, wrote William that many were preparing to 
fly. " Nothing," said he, " but a hope that your 
princely grace has formed an alliance with some 
powerful potentate stays the emigration. If this 
be indeed so, I pray you let me know, that I may 
publish it."t » 

" Be comforted," rejilied William, in a strain of 
the grandest eloquence. " Though God hath per- 
mitted the town of Haarlem to suffer, men ought not 
therefore to renounce or discredit his divine word. 
Will any maintain from this that Jehovah's arm is 
shortened? Are his church and people ruined by 
the fall of one city ? Charity excites pity for those 
of Haarlem ; but the blood of martyrs is the seed 
of the church. Therefore the people of this state, 
remembering the enemy's intention, and observing 
that he trampleth on all laws human and divine, 
should the more courageously and steadily appear 

* Groeu v. Priust., Arcliives, etc., torn. 4, p. 171. 
t Bor., torn. 6, p. 4:i&, et seq. 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 705 

in defence of this so righteous cause. You ask if I 
have conckided any alliance with other princes. 
Yea, and thrice yea. I have made a strict alliance 
with the Prince of princ.es — with Him Avho never 
forsakes those who trust in him. He will assuredly, 
at the last, confound both his and our opponents."* 

By these words the godly prince touched that 
deep chord of enthusiasm which had lain unstrung 
till now, causing it to vibrate in " a seven-fold cho- 
rus of halleluias and harping symphonies." The 
voice of complaint was hushed. All sprang up to 
renew the struggle. Everywhere stores were col- 
lected, ammunition was heaped up, fortifications 
were repaired and strengthened. Orange " smote 
the rock of the national resources, and abundant 
streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the 
corpse of public credit, and it sprang upon its feet." 
The seizure of ecclesiastical property, the sale of 
licenses and permits to trading-vessels — the most 
unpopular measures were acquiesced in without a 
murmur :i' had not William affirmed that God him- 
self demanded the sacrifice ? 

Meantime Don Frederic, having got his men 
once more in hand, moved forward, sixteen thou- 
sand strong, to the siege of Alckmaar. Having, by 
the capture of Haarlem, split Holland in two, it now 
remained to subjugate the north end of the prov- 
ince ; then the conquest of the south would com- 
plete the work. On the 21st of August, 1573, the 

* Bor., torn. C, p. 447, el seq. ■ Brandt, vol. 1, p. 304. 
t Davies, vol. 1, p. G03. 

30* 



706 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

place Avas formally invested — so closely girt that, in 
in Alva's phrase, " it was impossible for a sparrow 
to enter or go out of the city."* This time the duke 
meant to make clean work. Nettled by the con- 
temptuous rejection of his pacific overtures, he wrote 
Phihp : " If I take Alckmaar, I am resolved not to 
leave a single creature alive ; the knife shall be put 
to every throat. Since the example of Haarlem has 
proved useless, perhaps an example of cruelty will 
bring the other cities to their senses." f 

Alva felt certain of the speedy fall of the men- 
aced town. Within its walls there was a garrison 
of but eight hundred men, supplemented by thirteen 
hundred raw and ill-armed burghers — twenty-one 
^ hundred in all, to oppose Don Frederic's sixteen 
thousand veterans.:!^ 

Don Frederic, like his father, was bent on ma- 
king short w^ork of the siege. On the 18th of Sep- 
tember he opened fire, continued the bombardment 
for twelve hours, knocked numberless holes in the 
walls, and then ordered a grand assault. § The esca- 
lade, gallantly attempted upon two sides at once, 
was as gallantly met. Here, as before at Haarlem, 
unslaked lime, molten lead, boiling water, tarred 
and burning hoops, were used to repel the foe; 
and as fast as any mounted the ramparts, they 
were faced by the unflinching garrison, and hnrled 
bleeding, lifeless, back into the gaping moat. The 

* Corresp. de Philippe 11. , torn. 2, p. 126i. f Ibid. 

t Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 321. Wagenaer. 

§ Hoofd, uhl Slip., p. 323. Mendoza, torn. 10, ]). 217, ei seq. 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 707 

whole populace swarmed to the walls ; women and 
little girls, never shrinking from the fight even 
where it was most deadly, passed to and fro, sup- 
plying their husbands, brothers, fathers with stones, 
and burning missiles, and loaded muskets, encour- 
aging their defenders by the unceasing labors of 
devoted womanhood.* Once, twice, thrice was the 
attack repulsed ; once, twice, thrice did the enraged 
assailants return to the assault, until, convinced 
that success was impossible, and disheartened by. 
the fall of night, they fled back to their trenches, 
leaving a thousand of their dead to choke up the 
breaches.f 

" As I looked down into the city," said one of the 
Spauiards who had mounted the ramparts for an 
instant, only to be plunged headlong from the bat- 
tlements, " I saw neither helmet nor harness ; only 
some plain-looking people dressed like fishermen.":]; 
Such were the men who had just foiled the elaborate 
assault of veterans trained to war in the school of 
the duke of Alva.§ 

After a rest of twelve or fifteen hours, Don 
Frederic reopened fire upon Alckmaar ; after which 
he again ordered an assault. But the "invinci- 
bles" had had enough of it. When their ofiicers 
shouted "form," when the bugles sounded the 
charge, not a soldier stirred. Numbers of them 
were sabred by their infuriated captains : in vain, 

* Hoofd, p. 324. f Ibicl. Comj)are Mendoza, uU sup. 

% Hoofd ; cited iu Motley, vol. 2, p. 468. 
§ Motley, ubi sup. 



708 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

the rest were neither to be coaxed nor driven to the 
wall.* 

The burghers soon heard of this, gleaning the 
full particulars from Jeronimo de Arcibu, a Spaniard 
whom they took in a sally. This prisoner made 
other disclosures on being promised his hfe — a 
promise which was not kept, to the displeasure of 
many, who were of the opinion that pledges given 
even to a foeman ought sacredly to be observed. 
-On being led out to die, Arcibu beg'ged hard for 
a reprieve. "Spare my life," cried he, "and I too 
will believe in the devil whom you v»^orship."t A 
child of the mass, he really thought that all heretics 
made a god of Satan, every man of them crying, 
" Evil, be thou my good." 

Disappointed in his hope of escalading Alck- 
maar,Don Frederic prepared to starve it into submis- 
sion, esteeming the siege another Haarlem. But one 
day his pickets intercepted a letter from Orange to 
the besieged, in which the prince affirmed his pur- 
pose to succor the town by opening the sluices and 
laying the adjacent lands under water.| The har- 
vests would be submerged, much property would be 
destroyed, many lives might be lost ; but the Span- 
iard would be driven either to decamj) or to go 
down before the deluge. 

Don Frederic was startled by the imminence of 
the peril. For some weeks, the heavy autumnal 

« Hoofcl, torn. 8, p. 324. 

f Brandt, vol. 1, p. 305. Hoofd, uh'i sup. 

X Hoofd, uhi sup., p. 325. Mcudozft, torn. 10, p. 219, et seq. 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 709 

rains had been falling ; his camp was already a 
puddle ; his legions were insubordinate ; and now 
he was menaced by a flood, certain to wash him 
out of existence. Menaced? nay, the work had 
been commenced. Driven by a strong northwest 
wind, vast bodies of water were at that moment 
pouring through the opened sluices, splashing 
through and running over the surrounding net- 
work of canals — hurried towards Alckmaar by 
every breeze.* 

• Don Frederic waited no longer. Breaking up his 
camp on the 8th of October, seven weeks after the 
investment of the town, he fled rather than retreat- 
ed to Amsterdam, rejoining his father, and putting 
the troops, exhausted and demorahzed, into winter 
quarters.! 

Nor did Alva, at this juncture, fare better at sea 
than on the. land. For some time, a patriot flotilla 
had floated off the mouth of the river V, blocka- 
ding Amsterdam, to revenge the assistance lent the 
Spaniard by its burghers in the leaguer of Haar- 
lem. So closely was the harbor watched, that the 
smallest craft might not scud through the fleet into 
or from the Zuyder Zee, whether inward or outward 
bound.:j: The embargo created great discontent on 
the Amsterdam quays, and was a sad blow at com- 
merce, the life of a trading town. 

The duke, provoked at the effrontery of the sea 

* Hoofd and Mendoza, ut antea. 

t Ibid. Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1280. Metereu. 

JBor., Hoofd. 



710 THE DUTCH KEFOBMATION. 

beggars in blockading Amsterdam while he was 
himself in command, equipped a squadron with the 
utmost expedition, and sent Bossu to chase them off. 
On the 11th of October, 1573, the Spanish admiral 
bore down upon the patriot armada, cleared for 
action, his guns grinning through the open port- 
holes. Dirkzoon, the Dutch commander, wanted 
no second invitation to engage, and a broadside 
from his galley commenced the action. The two 
fleets were about equal in number — twenty-five or 
thirty on each side;" but the Spanish vessels were 
the larger, and carried heavier cannon. f The en- 
gagement was sharp and prolonged, outlasting 
eight hours. For a while the scales of battle hung 
even ; but at last the Hollanders closed with the foe, 
carried several of the royalist ships by the board, 
sank two of them, stranded three more, which 
were eventually taken, and dispersed the rest.:}: 

Bossu long disdained to yield, fighting his ves- 
sel — which, with some bravado, he styled " The 
Inquisition" — until every one of the thirty-two 
guns was dismounted, and the crew, three hundred 
strong at the outset, was reduced to fifteen men ; 
then, conscious that he had done his utmost to re- 
deem the day, he struck his colors and gave up his 
sword, being carried by the victorious gueux into 
Horn.§ 

?> Motley, vol. 2, pp. 490, 491. 

f Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 326, ei seq. Bor., torn. 6, p. 455. 

X Ibid., et seq. '■ 

§ Ibid. Meudoza, torn. 10, p. 214. Strada, torn. 2, p. 81. 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 711 

This signal victory, coming, as it did, close upon 
the repulse of the Spaniard at Alckmaar, made 
Holland jubilant ; and when, in the midst of the 
rejoicing, news came that William's partisans had 
surprised Gertruydenberg, which commanded the 
Meuse and gave the patriots a free entrance into 
Brabant,* it seemed as if the blessings invoked by 
the prince upon his country had been dropped from 
the pitying heavens. A feeling of deep, religious 
gratitude to God, who had, as in the days of the 
psalmist, " with his arm redeemed his people," suc- 
ceeded the first outburst of gratulation. The estates, 
giving official voice to this emotion, hastened to 
appoint a day of solemn thanksgiving, which was 
duly observed in all the churches of the prov- 
ince.t 

This succession of disasters visibly affected 
Alva. " Injuries," wrote Granvelle to a client who 
had complained to him of the neglect with which 
the king's best friends were treated at Brussels ; 
"injuries, like pills, should be swallowed without 
ckewing, that we may not taste their bitterness "|-— 
a noble maxim if the motive had been noble. But 
the duke was neither sufiiciently Spartan nor suf- 
ficiently sycophantic to gvilp down these reverses 
without making a Avry face. He had been about to 
sit down to the siege of Leyden, which he meant to 
preface by the executioji of St. Aldegondc — that 

* "Watson, p. 211. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 305. 

-j- Watson, uhi sup. 

J Lavesque. Mem. de Granvelle, torn. 2, p. 9G. 



712 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

eminent personage, master of the deepest mysteries 
of state, having been taken recently by his forces 
at Maeslandsluis* — when this news came to post- 
pone the siege, and also to stop the proposed 
murder; William sending the duke word that what- 
ever measure was dealt out to St. Aldegonde, sliould 
be requited to Bossu.f 

While the patriot arms were thus crowned with 
unwonted triumph, the prince's j)eu was also active, 
Alva, unable to obtain any farther remittances from 
Spain, and equally unable to exact the twentieth 
and tenth pennies, was driven at this crisis to the 
irksome and now hazardous measure of convening 
the states-general of the provinces, in order to ob- 
tain from them the vote of a subsidy with which to 
carry on the war.:j: The national deputies assem- 
bled in Brussels early in September, 1573 ;§ where- 
upon Orange, in his own name and in that of the 
estates of Holland and Zealand, drew up and de- 
spatched to them an earnest exhortatory manifesto. 
" The Spaniards came," said he, " to reduce us, our 
wives, our children, into vassalage. Worst of all, 
they expect us to be accountable to them for our 
souls and consciences, over which they wish to 
tyrannize at pleasure; though some among them 
hardly know that there is a God in heaven, and 
have scarce ever heard of the Son of God, our only 

" Cor. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1283. Meteren, torn. 4, fol. 85. 
t Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 331. -. 

X Bor., torn. G, p. 459. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 305. 
§ Ibid. 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 713 

Saviour. Yet these pagans assume to object to our 
faith and practice, seeking, under that pretence, 
to enslave us to their Inquisition, used in Spain 
against Moors, Jews, and apostate Christians. 
Now, because we will not bow the knee to Baal, 
Alva endeavors to persuade you that we are rebels ; 
hoping thereby to separate you from us 3'our 
brothers, and to make joii the tools of his insolence, 
the executioners of his cruelty, the defenders of his 
impious desires. But, fellow-countrymen, do you 
rather unite with and assist us in opposing this bad 
steward of the king. 'T is only by the Netherlands 
that the Netherlands can be subdued. Whence 
hath the duke the power of which he boasts, but 
from yourselves? Whence his ships, supplies, 
moneys, weapons, soldiers ? From the Netherland 
cities. Why has poor Netherland become degen- 
erate and bastard? Wist ye not that our fore- 
fathers never brooked the tyranny of foreign na- 
tions, nor suffered aliens even to hold office within 
our borders? If this little strip of land called 
Holland, if a marshy archipelago like Zealand, can 
thus hold at bay the power of Spain, what could 
not all the Netherlands accomplish ? As for our- 
selves, we intend to perish one town after another, 
man by man, rather than submit to Alva's tyranny 
over the soul and over the Bbd}-."^-" 

These ringing words were prodigiously effective ; 
and though the states-general were not prepared to 
make common cause with Orange, they did refuse 
* Bor., torn. 5, p. 159, el seq. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 305. 



714 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

to advance a penny to refill the empty exchequer of 
the viceroy,* and the object of the manifesto was 
so far gained. 

Encouraged by this success, William next indi- 
ted an " epistle" to the king — not so much with the 
hope of touching Philip, as for the purpose of pla- 
cing his cause before the world. "We contend, 
sire," wrote he, "for nothing less than our ancient 
franchises and freedom of conscience. We do not 
desire to shake off our allegiance to your majesty ; 
but only that our consciences may be preserved free 
before the Lord our God, that we may be permitted 
to hear his holy Avord, and walk in his command- 
ments, so that we may be able to give an account 
of our souls to the Supreme Judge at the last day. 
This, Alva denies us in your name ; therefore have 
we taken up arms, therefore do we strive to free 
ourselves from his bloodthirsty hands. If he prove 
too strong for us, we can at least die honorably, 
leaving a praiseworthy name and an unconquered 
fatherland. Herein are all our cities pledged to 
each other and to God, to stand every siege, to 
dare the utmost, to endure all imaginable miseries ; 
yea, rather to set fire to our homes and give back 
these toil-won lands to the sea, than ever to submit 
our souls to a Satanic yoke."t 

Soon after the pulRlication of this letter, the 
dauntless advocate of Luther's axiom, that "thought 
is toll-free," publicly united with the Reformed 

« Bor., Hoofd. 

f Bor., torn. 6, p. 469, et seq. Brandt, ut aniea. 



THE HOEIZON BRIGHTENS. 715 

Dutch cliurcli at Dort, in order that his testimony 
and his Hfe might be of a piece.* 

Meantime, galled by his losses, aware that the 
towns of Holland had been deUvered from imme- 
diate peril, and convinced that his continued resi- 
dence at Amsterdam would be a practical imprison- 
ment, since the giieux, surrounding the city on all 
sides, eflfectually barred communication with the 
southern provinces,! Alva determined to leave the 
laffunes and return to Brussels. But so much had 
he suffered in prestige, so bitterly was he hated, and 
above all, so ruinously had he run in debt to the 
burghers, that he feared an insurrection might stay 
an open departure. Accordingly, he resorted to 
stratagem. One day in November, he gave notice 
by sound of trumpet, that all to whom he was 
indebted should attend him the next morning to re- 
ceive their dues ; then this free-liver on the money 
of other men, who was prodigal not within the com- 
pass of a guinea, this hero of a hundred battles, 
cheated his creditors by skulking out of Amsterdam 
under cover of the night| — certainly not a dignified 
proceeding on the part of his highness, the gover- 
nor-general of the Low Countries. 

Since Medina Coeli had peeped into the coun- 
try, and then, observing the chaos, sHpped out, 
leaving the burden of affairs on the shoulders of 
him whom he had come to relieve, the duke had 

« Archives de la Maison d'Orauge-Nassau, torn. 4, p. 220. 

f Velius Hoorn, book 3, bl. 221, et seq. 

X Hoofd, torn. 8, pp. 329, 330. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 305. 



716 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

never ceased importuning the king for leave to retire 
from the vice-regal throne. Now Philip, marking 
the general shipwreck of his interests in the Neth- 
erlands, again acceded, commissioning on this occa- 
sion, as Alva's successor, Don Luis de Eequesens, 
grand commander of the order of St. lago.* 

The new governor arrived at Brussels on the 
17th of November, 1573 ;t upon which event, Alva 
wrote to "kiss his majesty's feet;" preparing 
meantime to follow the salute with all speed. On 
the 18th of December, he left the states never to 
return, amid the smothered curses of all classes ;| 
though, as the Romans said of Augustus Caesar, 
that he should either not have been born or not 
have died, the ultra-loyalists affirmed that the duke 
ought either not to have entered the provinces, or 
not to have departed at that time, in eclipse, when 
the patriot horizon was all ablaze with success.§ 

e Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 331. Bor., torn. 6, p. i"i. t rbid. 

J Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1291. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 

306. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, p. 81. On reaching Madrid, Alva -was well 
received by the king, residing at court until Don Frederic brought 
both himself and his father into disgrace. Having betrayed one of 
the queen's maids of honor, he suddenly married his cousin, to 
avoid that reparation by espousal which was claimed ; whereupon 
Philip banished and imprisoned Don Frederic, and Alva also be- 
cause he had advised the baseness. Some years later, when he 
undertook the conquest of Portugal, the king required the old sol- 
dier's sword once more, and he was intrusted with the chief com- 
mand of the Spanish army ; which caused Alva to wonder that, for 
the conquest of a kingdom, his majesty should have use of a fet- 
tered general. He managed the war with his accustomed skill, 
subdued the Portuguese, and annexed their land to Spain. But 
having overtoiled himself in this campaigning, he soon after fell 



THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS. 717 

He weut out, taking with liim his ferocious 
son, Don Frederic de Toledo, and jackal Vargas, 
and "Egypt was glad when they departed." On 
the homeward journey, Alva boasted that during 
his five years' rule eighteen thousand six hundred 
citizens had been done to death by the headsman ;* 
and this in addition to the myriads of both sexes, of 
all ages, who had perished in battle and siege, by 
famine, by massacre, and at the stake, put to death 
in the wantonness of impunity — a phantom host 
whose number may not be computed. Yet, though 
perfectly familiar with the details of this dead-list — 
wl© knew it better? — Vargas complained pathet- 
ically that over-clemency was the rock upon which 
the administration of the duke was wrecked.t Alva 
himself seemed to think so, for he wrote the king : 
" Err no more in that direction, sire ; burn to the 
ground every city in the Low Countries except here 
and there one, which can be permanently garri- 
soned.":!: 

But thoroughly brutal as he was, absolutely lost 
to all compassion, 't is certain that the butcher duke 
did not exceed his instructions§ — never ran without 
his message, even though he returned without his 
answer. As the image of the murderer is said to 

ill at Lisbon, and died on the 12th of Decembei-, 1582. Vide Strada, 
torn. 2, p. 81, et seq. Vie du Due d'Albe, in loco. 

« Hoofd, torn. 8, p. 332. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 306. Bor., torn. 
6, p. 47i. 

t Meteren, torn. 4, folio 86. Brandt, ut aniea. 

t Coiresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 127G. 

§ Strada, torn. 2, p. 82. 



718 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

be stamped upon and reflected by tlie retina of the 
victim's eye, so in the denouncing orbs of these cru- 
elties Phihp's face glints into sight, cold, pitiless, 
.approving. 

Of Alva's character it were superfluous to speak ; 
he had none. His acts are before us, and they tell 
the story. His merits may be summed up with 
jiidicial fairness in the words — a consummate sol- 
dier. Yet despite his military skill, he took the 
provinces from the duchess of Parma in seeming 
repose, and left them in open and successful revolt. 
All his victories were defeats ; every patriot defeat 
a victory; for liberty is vital in every part,, and dftn- 
not die but by annihilation. 

As a statesman, he was despicable ; as a finan- 
cier, crazy. Unlike Granvelle, he did not even 
understand the politics of despotism. Finding his 
party strong, he left it broken in utter shameless- 
ness. Succeeding to a treasure-house measurably 
full, he left it defeated, in hopeless bankruptcy. 
His whims replaced the ancient charters of the 
Netherlands; his confiscations replaced legitimate 
finance. 

Alva knew only to destroy. His last act was, to 
roast alive, over a slow fire, Uitenhaave, a Protes- 
tant gentleman of Ghent. His whole rule was a 
hunt for plunder. Even the soldiery were accus- 
tomed to take, without a " by your leave," whatever 
they fancied from the burghers upon whom they 
were billeted ; for had they not been taught to think 
that the Netherlanders had forfeited all rights by 



THE HOEIZON BRIGHTENS. 719 

tlieir rebellion against that brace of divinities, Pliilip 
and the pope ? The duke had won fame elsewhere ; 
here, only infamy. The blood of martyrs blighted 
his laurels. When he departed, humanity thanked 
God that it had one enemy the less. 



720 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

CHAPTEE XXXIX. 

THE GEAND COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 

In awarding Alva's relinquished sceptre to Ee- 
quesens, liis majesty of Spain gave evidence of an 
altered policy, but not of a changed purpose. 
Having, now for above five years, moved bishops, 
knights, and castles across the 3ihess-board of the 
provinces with no definite result, he meant to use 
this viceroy as a counter in a new game for the 
same stake. ^ 

Eequesens was a man of engaging manners, but 
of mediocre parts. He brought with him into the 
Netherlands an estabhshed reputation. As gov- 
ernor of Milan, he was esteemed by Philip to have 
been alike firm and prudent — a kind of military 
Machiavelli.* In the Levant, in manifold fightings 
with the Turk, and especially at the battle of Le- 
panto — a splendid victory, but barren as the waves 
on which the conquering galleys rode — he had won 
some fame. And though, like his predecessor, a 
soldier, he was, unlike the duke, at least human and 
accessible. 

His reception at Brussels was cordial. Wea- 
ried of the brutal monotony of Alva's rule, the peo- 
ple felt that any change must bring relief.! Still, it 

* Strada, torn. 3, p. 1. 

t Bor., torn. 7, p. 477. Strada, uVi sup. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 721 

was whispered that this sniiHug stranger knew how 
to be cruel, and the suspicion was strengthened by 
mntterings which swept seaward from Milan, and 
by the recollection of his.crucifixions of the Moris- 
coes in Grenada." Besides, since the sovereignty 
of the house of Austria began over the Nether- 
lands, had it not been customary to seat a prince of 
the blood as governor-general in the capital ? Yet 
the new-comer was but a " gentleman of cloak and 
sword."t 

As for Requesens, it was his cue to court popu- 
larity and to play the part of a conciliator. Not 
that he really felt kindly towards the states ; he dis- 
tinctly averred that, at heart, he approved of Alva's 
severities.:]: He only assumed the part because the 
king, unsuccessful in the field, had determined, if 
possible, to resort once more to guile.§ 

He began his administration by punishing the 
insolencies of several mutinous bands of men-at- 
arms, living at free-commons upon the provinces, as 
was their wont. The citizens applauded. Next he 
hurled Duke Alva's statue from its pedestal in Ant- 
werp citadel. The burghers shouted themselves 
hoarse. II 

Elated and self-confident, Requesens imagined 
from these demonstrations that the people might be 

■'- Prescott, Hist, of Philip II., vol. 3, in loco. Watson, Life of 
Philip II. 

f Corresx). de Mondoucet et Charles IX. Cited in Motley, vol. 

2, p. 512. t Corresp. de Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1291. 

§ Strada, torn. 3, p. 1. Motley, vol. 2, pp. 5U, 519. 
II Strada, uhi sup. 

Dutch Kef. 31 



722 THE DUTCH REFOBMATION. 

made clay in his hands, to be fashioned after any 
pattern which he might select. " Sire," wrote he to 
Philip at this juncture, " religion has naught to do 
with this struggle. 'T is tut a trumped-up fulcrum 
for demagogues to rest their levers on in their at- 
tempt to overthrow your majesty's authority. Grant 
me to pardon penitent heretics, and to reconcile 
them to holy church, permit me to send into per- 
petual exile a few of the obstinate, with some small 
portion of their estates; and we shall have peace."* 

Such was the new governor-general's diagnosis 
of the Netherland disease ; a diagnosis based upon 
a huzza and a few vivas — symptoms occasioned, too, 
by the curbing the free lances and the toppling 
over a hated effigy; a diagnosis which at once 
stamped the viceroy as a quack in jDolitics. Alva, 
Philip himself, could have told him better. 

However, as the war was as yet in mid-career, 
Kequesens wished, before applying his panacea, to 
signalize his advent by some exploit which should 
at once sustain his fame and advance him in the 
estimation of the king. He thought that an am- 
nesty would attract more attention if set off against 
the background of a victory. 

An opportunity to " sound the clarion, fill the 
fife," was not lacking. For twenty-four months 
past, the patriots had been besieging Middleburg, 
grimly persistent to clutch it for Orange. With as 
stern determination, stout old Mondragone held it 
for the king. Various attempts made by Alva to 
» Corresp. de Philippe II., uhi sup., p. 1293. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 723 

succor the town — tlio last in the archipelago which 
floated the Spanish banner — had been thwarted by 
the Dutch fleet. Now, reduced to famine-rations, 
Mondragoue sent word to Brussels that, unless re- 
lieved at once, he must surrender.* 

Such an announcement, from such a soldier, 
meant all it said. Requesens had essayed to per- 
suade the besiegers to raise the leaguer, promising 
in that event to purge their treason with the hys- 
sop of a royal pardon. Deaf to this offer, the Zea- 
landers only drew their lines more closely about the 
starving city.f 

The governor-general hastened to Antwerp, rig- 
ged out a flotilla, freighted it with provisions, crowd- 
ed it with soldiers, gave the command of seventy- 
five vessels to his admijfal, De Glimes, and to Ro- 
mero, intrusted thirty ships to Sanchio D'Avila, 
ordered those to sail towards Middleburg by one 
passage, these by another, and then passed on to 
the village of Schakerloo, in order to witness from 
its quays the triumphant raising of the siege.:]: 

The patriots, apprized betimes of the expedition, 
prepared to defeat it. Orange himself came over 
from Holland to ofl&cer " the beggars of the sea."§ 
He, like Eequesens, divided his armada, upwards of 
a hundred ships, into two squadrons, retained the 
command of one, and gave the chieftainship of the 

-■ Bor., torn. 7, p. 479. Strada, torn. 3, p. 1. 
J Strada, uhi sup. 

X Meteren, torn. 5, folio 88. Hoofd, torn. 9, p. 335. Mendoza, 
torn. 9, p. 225. § Ibid. 



721 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

otlier to Boisot, the skilful admiral of Zealand, 
whom he ordered to grapple with T>e Glimes and 
Komero, remaining off Middleburg in person to deal 
with D'Avila.'^ 

On the 27tli of January, 1574, De Glimes and 
Romero hove in sight, and Boisot lifted anchor and 
bore down to meet tliemf with forty men-of-war. 
Both fleets cleared for action, and broadsides given 
and returned commenced the engagement. It was 
short, decisive. For a time the enveloping smoke 
hid all. When this rolled up, ten of the Spanish 
vessels were seen to have been sunk.:j: A little later 
the Zealanders, pursuing their favorite tactics, car- 
ried what ships still contended by the board, killed 
De Glimes, slew twelve hundred of the enemy's ma- 
rines, took Bomero's gallej', forced that veteran to 
swim ashore for his life, and in sight of watching 
Bequesens, scattered the remainder of his armada 
in wild flight.§ 

The prince did not go into action; for D'Avila, 
informed of the utter route of the companion-fleet, 
■w^ore ship, and put back to Antwerp, chased almost 
into port by the victorious gueiix.W 

The mortified viceroy at once returned to Brus- 
sels, and Middleburg surrendered. William grant- 
ed terms of remarkable liberality, as a merited rec- 
ognition of the stubborn gallantry of the defence, 

* Bor., book 7, p. 479. 

t Ibid. Hoofd, book 9, p. 335, et seq. 

% Ibid. Mendoza, torn. 11, p. 22G, seq. 

§ Bor., Hoofd, uhl siq). Meteren, book 5, folio 89. || Ibid. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 725 

permitting the garrison to march out with arms and 
baggage, the priests to pass over to the mainland ; 
granting a pardon to the citizens, on condition that 
the J took the oath to him as stadtholder, and paid 
a subsidy of three hundred thousand florins, two- 
thirds of which he afterwards remitted ; and freeing 
Moudragone on a parole which required him, within 
two months, either to secure the release of St. Alde- 
gonde or to return himself as a prisoner-of-war,* 

By the acquisition of Middleburg, the patriots 
gained the island of Walcheren, freed all Zealand, 
and swept the whole seaboard clear of foes. So much 
was achieved, too, by a volunteer navy. The siege 
and the repeated attempts to raise it, had cost the 
king seven millions of florins, in addition to the pay 
of the men-at-arms ;t and if such were the footing 
up of one item in the budget of expense, is it strange 
that the aggregate should mortgage the gold-mines 
of Peru and Mexico and empty the home-treasury? 

Contrary wise, the gueux had no regular fund 
from which to draw. Fighting for God and the 
fatherland, they scorned to put their hands into the 
necessitous pockets of the state — the unselfish " beg- 
gars of the sea" left that for the mercenaries whom 
Orange was forced from time to time to recruit. 
Usually they subsisted upon the free-will ofierings 
of their fellow-citizens of the towns off which they 
chanced to anchor. When this resource failed, 
they gave chase to any Spanish merchantman which 

* Meudoza, torn. 1), p. 229. Hoofd, torn. 9, p. 338. Bor. , d al. 
t Davies, vol. 2, p. 3. 



726 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

might cross their watery path, wringing their sup- 
port at the sword's point from the enemy. When 
their lookouts could descry no Spaniard, and their 
larder was at low ebb, men and officers alike were 
content to live for weeks at a time upon the salt-her- 
ring, a staple export of their country. Nor were 
they more terrified by death than by privation and 
hunger. If menaced by capture, they always pre- 
ferred to blow up their ships rather than strike their 
flag to the hated foreigner.* What had such men 
to fear? What human power could reduce such 
combatants to vassalage ? 

Eequesens himself soon came to understand this. 
"Before my arrival," wrote he to Philip, "I could 
not comprehend how the impoverished rebels could 
maintain such considerable fleets, while your maj- 
esty could hardly support a single squadron. It ap- 
pears, however, that men who are fighting for their 
lives, their firesides, their properties, their false reli- 
gion, for their own cause, in a word, are content to 
receive rations only, without asking for pay."t 

But this nation of mariners, unconquerable at 
sea, were unable to cope with their oppressor on 
the land. Patient to sufi'er, dauntless in defence, 
they yet lacked the experience and the discipline 
essential to success in offensive warfare. Conse- 
quently the prince was driven to enroll armies out- 
side of his own boundary lines. This was the 
vulnerable spot in the heel of that Achilles ; for 

* Davies, vol. 2, p. 3. Metereu, book 5, folio 99. 
t Corresp. cle Philippe II., torn. 2, p. 1291. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 727 

men who spill their blood for hire estimate a cause 
by the value of its gold-setting. 

But in war armies are essential, and William 
was at this time doing his utmost to raise' one. He 
had applied for aid to Elizabeth, though vainly at 
the moment ; for her majesty had but recently re- 
opened commercial intercourse with Spain,* and 
she feared that long interrupted trade would balk 
at any fresh quarrel. t 

Some time since diplomatic relations, broken off 
by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, had been re- 
newed with France. It was not without grave 
doubt that Orange permitted himself again to clasp 
in amity hands red with the blood of the slaugh- 
tered Huguenots.l But of late Charles IX. had 
professed bitterly to lament that crime, and he had 
humbly courted a reconciliation not only with the 
prince, but with the Protestant powers of Europe.§ 
Of course the motive which inspired this move was 
patent. Everybody knew that the queen-mother 
still v.-islied to obtain the marital alliance with 
England, and that she was equally anxious to see 
Anjou elected king of Poland. II As Orange was 
thought to be influential in both these quarters, his 
cooperation was a desideratum.'^ William was 
aware that private griefs ought not to be allowed 

* On the 1st of May, 1573. 

t Hume, Hist, of Eng. Bor. % Motley, vol. 2, p. 476. 

§ Archives cle la Maison cVOrauge-Nassau, torn. 4, par. 2. De 
Thou, et alii. 

II De Thou, Davila. Hist, of Huguenots. 
H Motley, iM sup., p. 483. 



728 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

to stand in the way of public 'necessities ; and 
finally he consented to trade help for help. 

Between Gaspar de Schomberg, the keen but 
honorable agent of the French court in Germany, 
and Count Louis, a treaty was negotiated and sign- 
ed. Under this instrument, Charles IX. bound 
himself to guarantee toleration to the Huguenots — 
without which the prince refused to act — to permit 
Count Louis to levy a thousand horse and seven 
thousand foot in France for service in the prov- 
inces, and to contribute to the patriot exchequer a 
hundred thousand crowns, money in hand, and an 
equal sum quarterly.* In return, William prom- 
ised, in the name of the estates, to place under the 
protection of the French throne whatever towns 
might be taken outside of Holland and Zealand, to 
reimburse his royal ally for the sums advanced, and 
if possible to obtain the hand of Elizabeth for 
D'Alencon, and for Anjou the crown of the Jagel- 
lons.f 

With this treaty and the French moneys in his 
pocket. Count Louis began to recruit in Germany, 
the customary chattel-soldier market. Three thou- 
sand riders and six thousand arqnebusiers were soon 
enrolled.:!: Late in February, 1574, Count Louis, at 
the head of this force, and accompanied by his broth- 
er Henry, a boy of twenty -four, and by Prince Cliris- 

« Ai-chives de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 4, p. 116, et seq. 
t Ibid. 

J Meteren, torn. 5, folio 90. Compare Strada, torn. 3, p. 3 ; 
Mendoza, torn. 9, p. 231. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 721) 

toplier, sou of the elector palatiu, a leal friend of 
the good cause, passed tlie Rhiue and opened the 
campaign.* Count Louis' plan was, first, to pounce 
upon the imj)ortant town of Maestricht ; or, that 
failing, to cross the Meuse at the fords of Stochem, 
push thence directly into Holland, form a junction 
with William at Delft, and then throw their united 
armies as a barrier between the revolted states and 
any invasion from the south.f 

Eequesens, listening through the ears of his spies, 
soon heard the din of Count Louis' preparations. 
Acting promptly, he too began to make a levy in 
the lesser German states.']: Nor did he neglect to 
put his house in order by reinforcing the garrisons 
of Valenciennes, of Ghent, of Antwerp, and espe- 
cially of Maestricht — in all which the prince had 
many partisans. § The greater part of his troops 
had gone into winter quarters, sore from recent de- 
,feat, sidky because unpaid. By liberal promises of 
spoil and the speedy payment of their arrears, they 
were finally prevailed on to take the field ; and as 
the viceroy had decided to remain at Antwerp with 
Chiappino Yitelli, to watch and thwart a rumored 
outbreak in favor of Orange, Sanchio D'Avila was 
ordered to take the saddle and beat off the inva- 
sion.ll 

Count Louis, moving with alacrity, pitched his 

s> Bor., book 7, pp. 489, 490. 

f Archives, etc. , uhi sup. , p. 246, et seq. 

X Beutivoglio, De Thou. § Mendoza, torn. 9, p. 230. 

II Ibid. Bor., torn. 7, p. 488. 

31* 



730 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

camp ou the banks of the Meuse, opposite Maes- 
triclit, in tlie early days of April, only to find his 
purposed "pounce" forestalled by the presence of 
the Spaniard.* Then, in pursuance of the pre- 
concerted plan, he folded his tents and started to 
meet the prince, who, meantime, had massed six 
thousand men, and was now advancing to expedite 
the j unction. t 

Anxious to foil this union, D'Avila moved down 
the left bank of the Meuse with extraordinary 
rapidity, crossed the river at Mook-heath, a hamlet 
on the confines of the duchy of Cleves, and finding 
that he had been successful in outmarching his op- 
ponent, flung his army across Count Louis' path- 
way, calmly awaiting his upcoming.:]: 

On the 13th of April, 1574, Count Louis came 
upon the scene. He saw at a glance that a battle 
was inevitable — a battle not of his own seeking, for 
which he was ill-prepared. His forces did, indeed, 
somewhat outnumber those of the Spaniard ; but 
D'Avila was being reinforced from hour to hour, 
and Mendoza, Braccamonte, Mondragone were al- 
ready with him ; while the patriot ranks, weakened 
by desertion, were, as usual ou the eve of an engage- 
ment, broken by a mutiny of the hirelings, clamor- 
ous for their wages. § Under these circumstances, 
a postponement of the struggle could only make 
bad worse ; and Nassau saw that it would be impos- 

« Mendoza, ubi sup., p. 233. t Eor., Hoofd. 

t Mendoza, uU sup., p. 239. Bor., torn. 7, p. 490. 
§ Meteren, book 5, folio 91. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 731 

sible to give his wary foeman the slij) — knew that 
no herring drawn across the scent could throw hira 
off. 

Therefore he spent the night in strengthening 
his position by girting the camp with a deep trench. 
In the morning he formed in hne of battle, and 
braced himself to bear the shock.* D'Avila, bright 
and early, massed his columns and moved to the 
attack. In a moment the Spaniards leaped the 
trench, and each singling out his antagonist, pushed 
the fight with resolute purpose. For a little, all 
was enraged confusion — glittering casques, clanging 
swords, blood-smeared faces ; then the scene chang- 
ed, and the hireling infantry of Count Louis was de- 
scried quite trampled down and dashed in pieces.f, 

Count Louis, charging at the head of his riders, 
momentarily turned the tide ; but the Spanjard, 
regfithering his scattered cavaliers, and freshly rein- 
forced, thundered down upon the exhausted patriot 
horsemen, and hopelessly routed them. Nassau, 
disdaining to fly, called his young brother to his 
side, was joined by Duke Christopher, and the 
dauntless companions-in-arms i^lunged anew into 
the fight — plunged in never to come out ; never 
more was either of them seen ; nor, though all bore 
witness to their gallantry, could any tell the precise 
manner of their fall.| It was only known that 

« Bentivoglio, torn. 8, p. 142, et seq. Mendoza, torn. 9, p. 239. 
t Meteren and Mendoza, uU sup., et seq. Hoofd, book 9, p. 350. 
I Bentivoglio, Hoofd, Mendoza, uhi sup. Strada, torn. 3, p. 
3, et alri. 



732 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

somewhere on the battle-field, strewed with four 
thousand corpses, lay the intrepid trio, the noblest 
spoils of D'Avila's victory. 

Of itself, the defeat at Mook-heath was a disas- 
ter to the patriots; these deaths made it the sad- 
dest of calamities. In Count Louis, preeminently, 
the states lost the stanchest of champions ; and 
William was bereaved at once of the most devoted 
of brothers and of the trustiest of assistants. The 
others were lamented ; he was missed. 

Count Louis was one of those men who inspire 
friendship and compel respect. He did not possess ex- 
traordinary parts, but he was greatly good. Promj^t, 
incisive, fertile in resources, self-reliant, enterpri- 
sing — he was all this, and more. As a soldier, his 
chief defect was a lack of prudence. He seemed 
always to think that nothing could be more indis- 
creet than discretion. 'T is this trait, perhaps, 
which explains his frequent failures in the tented 
field. Nevertheless, his military skill was highly 
rated by contemporaries, and he had measured 
swords with some of the foremost warriors of that 
age. 

As a politician too, he was esteemed ; and at 
that time, when Machiavelli was thought to be the 
model of a diplomat, he was an honest negotiator, 
and successful withal, though never stooping to a 
lie for help, and never angling with dissimulation as 
Avith a hook. A Christian soldier, he had learned 
his divinity at Calvin's feet ; a steadfast reformer, 
he understood the why and the Avherefore of the 



THE COMMANDEE OF ST. lAGO. 733 

war. With such a character, and so equipped, all 
generous souls might well bemoan his untimely 
taking-off. 

Young Henry Nassau was but just entering upon 
the stage of action — now cut off in the May of life, 
as his brother in the mellow ripeness of near middle 
age. Sadly grieved must have been their widowed 
mother, who still lived in Germany : called, some 
years back, to mourn for her son Adolphus, and 
now weeping over the unknown graves of two 
more of her children. Happily, she knew where 
to look for consolation in this bitter hour, and had 
learned to say, " Father, not my will, but thine be 
done." 

As for Duke Christopher, his father, who was a 
Christian of the John Knox type, felt proud that he 
had died in the bed of honor, contending for Jeho- 
vah's. cause. " 'T were better thus," said he, " than 
for the boy to have passed his time in idleness, 
which is the devil's pillow."'- 

Immediately upon the reception of the melan- 
choly news from Mook-heath, the prince of Orange 
faced about and marched back to Holland, know- 
ing his inability to keep the field against the vic- 
torious Spaniard.'!- He looked for an eager pur- 
suit. Such was D'Avila's purpose, but an unex- 
pected occurrence held him back: his troops, to 
whom thirty-six months' arrears were due, muti- 
nied on the battle-field. "Pay us in full," cried 

■■' Arcliives et Cor., torn. 4, p. 367. 

f Metereu, book 5, folio 91. De Thou, Bentivoglio. 



734 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

they, " or we Avill not advance a step."^ Though 
lavish of i3romises before the fight, now that the 
day was won, Don Sancho was unable to comply 
with the demand. The furious soldiers drove him 
out of camp, elected another commander from the 
ranks, and started for Antwerp, intending to live at 
free commons upon the burghers of that wealthy 
city until paid. On the 26th of April they entered 
the metropolis, and halted in the great square. 
Requesens attempted to harangue them. " Dollars, 
not speeches," shouted the armed mob.t As he, like 
D'Avila, was flush of promises but scant of funds, the 
troops left him haranguing vacancy and proceeded 
to quarter themselves upon the town, seeking the 
most famous kitchens and the most sumptuous apart- 
ments; seating themselves at the tables of bishop 
and burgomaster, margrave and merchant, eager, 
like Offellius Bibulus, to gluttouize and to guzzle.:}: 

Some weeks passed ere the viceroy succeeded 
in reducing his insubordinate followers again to 
order ; nor did he master the mutineers until they 
had mastered him by obliging him to mulct the 
townsfolk in the sum of four hundred thousand 
crowns in gold and as much more in merchandise, 
with which to settle the king's debt, linking there- 
with a full pardon. § 

As Kequesens rejected all the measures which 
Charapigny, governor of Antwerp in the absence of 

* Meteren, uhi sup. Bor., book 7, p. 49-±. Strada, torn. 3, p. 4. 
+ Ibid. J Ibid. 

§ Bor., ubi siq). Bentivoglio, torn. 8, p. 1-19. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 735 

D'Avila, bad proposed for the security of the city, 
forcing him, in compliance with the demand of the 
mutineers, to quit the citadel with his Walloons, he 
was, perhajis not unjustly, accused of conniving at 
the outbreak for the purjoose of extorting a contri- 
bution from the Brabanters.* 

The governor-general was persuaded that the 
Hollanders could only be met with success upon 
their chosen element, the water. Kecently, he had 
equipped a flotilla to take the place of that sunk off 
Middleburg. When the insubordinate troops arri- 
ved, these ships lay moored at Antwerp quays. 
Fearing that they might be seized as security by 
the soldiers, he ordered their commander, Adol- 
phus Hanstede, to sail down the Scheldt and cast 
anchor below the town. But in clearing Scjdla he 
ran into Charybdis. The patriot admiral Boisot, 
learning of the change of station, slipped unsus- 
pected into the river, assailed the Spaniard, sunk 
fourteen of his vessels, captured Hanstede, and j^ut 
the surprised crews to the sword, t In several of 
the gallej'S vast amounts of plate and valuables had 
been stowed, to rescue the treasure from the pillage 
of the mutineers ; and this too was transferred to the 
prince's exchequer.:]: It was a brilliant victory, crip- 
pling to Requesens, who intended shortly to employ 
this armada in the recovery of Zealand ; and thus 
it proved a set-off to the misery of Mook-heath. 

« Stratia, torn. 3, p. 6. Bor., Hoofd, ctalil. 

t Hoofd, book 9, p. 359, et seq. Beutivoglio, torn. 8, p. 149. 

X Bor., book 7, p. 513. 



736 THE DUTCH REFOBMATION. 

At the very moment that Boisot was making this 
havoc in the Scheldt, PhiKp, thinking with Reque- 
seus that it was essential to his cause to gain a foot- 
hold on the sea, was fitting out a flotilla with which 
he meant to cooperate with his viceroy's squadron 
and annihilate the privateersmen.* Every dock- 
yard in Spain was kept busy in building vessels. 
And still farther to increase his fleet, his piratical 
majesty not only seized what merchant vessels from 
the Netherlands were in his ports, but likewise 
pressed into his service traders belonging to Emb- 
den and the Hanse towns. In this way, a large 
force was collected— three hundred ships, laden 
with fifteen thousand soldiers.f 

The cjiteux on being apprized of the impending 
expedition, prepared, with their wonted energy, to 
defend themselves. The archipelago was on the 
qui vive. In all the chief er ports, watch was kept 
day and night ; the wealthier inhabitants volun- 
tarily subscribed loans for the equipment of twenty 
additional men-of-war; along the whole stormy 
coastline the buoys and beacons were carefully 
removed, and the fishermen were forbidden to go 
out in a west wind, lest, haply, they might be 
seized by the Spaniard, and compelled to con- 
duct his fleet through the intricate and dangerous 
channels, impossible to pass without experienced 
guides.^ 

* Bor. , book 7, p. 524, et seq. 

t Bor. , ut aniea. 

% Toid. Davics, Hist, of Holhiud, vol. 2, p. 7. 



THE COMMANDER OF ST. lAGO. 737 

In anticipation of this difficult}^, Philip had im- 
ported fifty skilful native pilots ; but they all toot 
the first opportunity to desert, as did thirty-seven 
of the pressed merchant ships, whose business it 
was to turn an honest penny, not to meddle with 
edged tools." 

Just as the armament was about to sail from 
the ba}^ of Bisca}^, a frightful plague, which no 
Aaron standing between the living and the dead 
was found to stay, broke out among the crews and 
carried to the grave ten thousand men — among the 
rest, Don Pedro di Menendez, the valiant and able 
admiral of the king. Unable to recruit another 
force to fill this gap, unable also to find another 
captain of sufficient skill and experience to carry 
out what remained of the stricken armada, and in- 
formed of the destruction of Eequesens' auxiliaries 
by Boisot, Philip was compelled at the last moment 
to abandon the enterprise,! which, to the devout, 
seemed a special interposition of Providence in be- 
half of menaced Holland. 

In the meantime, the viceroy, having appeased 
his mutinous followers, thought it now expedient to 
proclaim an amnesty, the measure which he esteem- 
ed a certain cure-all. All offenders, except a few 
score clergymen who were named, were informed 
one bright day in the summer of 1574 that they 
were pardoned, but on condition that within sixty 
days, they should go to confession and receive abso- 

* Davies, Hist, of Holland, vol. 2, p. 7. 
t Bor. , Davies, ui anlea. 



738 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

lution from a ^Driest.* Gregory XIII. confirmed 
tlie act by a special bull for the benefit of tlie 
penitents.t 

Neyertlieless, the Netherlanders, thinking them- 
selves more sinned against than sinning ; conrin- 
ced, moreover, that to accept the pardon was to 
concede the victory by giving up the very point at 
issue — their right to worship God at the altar of 
the Reformation — and readier to go to the grave 
than to mass, united to scout the amnest3^ But 
two men were found willing to bow the knee to 
BaaL:]: Had the masses been anxious to enter the 
Roman fold the}- would have distrusted the sheep- 
dog, whose life thus far had been spent in worry- 
ing the lambs, and whose fangs were not yet clean- 
ed of wool. 

=:-= Meteren, book 5, folio 93. Hoofcl, book 9, p. 3G8. Pub- 
lished June Gth, 1574. 

t Brandt, vol. 1, p. 310. Bor., book 7, p. 510. 
J Bor., ubi sup., p. 516. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 739 

CHAPTEE XL. 

"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 

Leyden, one of the most elegant and airy of me- 
disBval cities, was, in 1574, a thrifty, well-to-do town 
of forty thousand souls. Lying in the fat bottom- 
lands of Lower Holland, as in a cradle, it had Delft, 
Gouda, and the Hague but a few hours' walk away, 
while Kotterdam upon the left, Haarlem on the right, 
were within easy reach. 

The whole neighboring country was a labj'rinth 
of canals and rivulets — the garden of the state ; and 
the good burghers were justly proud of these pas- 
tures, which their persistent skill hadP reclaimed 
from the sea and fattened into fertile beauty. 
Through the centre of the town the old Rhine 
poured sluggishly towards its sandy death-bed on 
the coast ; for though once the main channel of 
that classic stream, it had been depleted by the 
distribution of its Avaters into innumerable artificial 
currents, created to irrigate all Ehynland. These 
canals divided the site of Leyden into a multitude 
of little islands, tied together by a hundred and 
forty-five bridges of hammered stone, which were 
equally subservient to the picturesqueness of the 
place and to the convenience of the citizens. The 
coup (Toiil was not unlike that 

"Where Venice sate in state, throned on hor hundred isles." 



74:0 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

LejTlen was an important town, from its position 
and on its own account, and the Spaniards had long 
coveted the prize. Alva, on running away from de- 
feat and his creditors at Amsterdam, had left behind 
him Francesco di Valdez, with orders to invest the 
place f which that obedient soldier was doing when 
Count Louis' invasion obliged the duke's successor 
to summon him off to defend the frontier.f Now, 
having hacked Nassau to pieces and gotten the reins 
again upon the neck of the army, Eequesens deci- 
ded to resume the leaguer. 

On the 26th of May, 1574, Valdez, with eight 
thousand companion vultures, once more swooped 
to batten iipon Leyden.'J: Mindfal of Haarlem and 
of Alckmaar, and informed that the townsfolk were 
ill-provisioned — had not above three months' sup- 
plies withift their walls — the Spaniard resolved to 
forego escalades, to jeopard nothing by precipita- 
tion, but to isolate the place, and then faminize it 
into giving him a welcome.§ In pursuance of this 
plan, all avenues of communication with the outer 
world were blocked up, the neighbor towns of Maes- 
landsluis, Ylaardingen, and the Hague were seized 
and transformed into Spanish citadels, and Leydeu 
itself was shut in by a circular chain of sixty-two 
redoubts which ran quite round the city.ll This 
done, the self-satisfied beleaguerer smiled grimly, 

* Bor., book 6, p. 472. 

t Hoofd, book 9, p. 344. Meudoza, torn. 9, p. 232, seq. 
X Bor., book 7, p. 504. • >§ Ibid. Meudoza, et alii. 

II Bentivoglio, torn. 8, p. 152. Bor., Hoofd. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 741 

pattered an ave maria, and qnietly sat down to see 
his victims starve. 

The town was poorly enough prepared to outlive 
a siege. Orange had once and again urged the 
burghers to employ the interim between the depart- 
ure and return of Valdez in strengthening the gar- 
rison and crowding in supplies; "for," added he 
sagaciously, " the Spaniard will soon reappear."* 
But the easy-going townsfolk doubted the prophecy, 
refused to look beyond the pleasant now, and heeded 
not the warning. The consequence was, that on 
the second coming of Valdez Leyden was only ordi- 
narily provisioned, and stood absolutely ungarri- 
soned. Its sole reliance, under God, was upon its 
own train-bands and the cooperating efforts of stadt- 
holder William. i" 

Nevertheless, the citizens, wasting no time in 
regretting carelessness after the event, made haste 
to organize a manful resistance. What provisions 
there were the authorities purchased, and began to 
husband betimes, placing all upon a strict allow- 
ance — a pound of meat and half a pound of bread per 
day to a full-grown man, and to the rest a pro rata 
amount.J John Van der Does, geigneur de Nord- 
wyck, was appoirted military commandant.§ A 
consummate scholar, he was equally renowned as a 
soldier, poet, and liistorian.il He was of gentle birth 

■^" Bor., ubi sup., p. 502. 
f Ibid., p. 505. Hoofd, uhl sup., p. 302. 
X Meteren, book 5, folio 94. Hoofd, Bor. 
§ Bor., book 7, p. 505. Mendoza, torn. 12, p. 254. Hoofd, 
book 9, p. 362. \\ Ibid. 



742 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

witlial; though, stamped with nature's signet, he 
would have been noble in despite of blood, had each 
of his fellows agreed to say with Sir Philip Sidney, 
" I am no herald to inquire into men's pedigrees ; 
it sufficeth me if I know their virtues." 

Yaldez had hardly gotten into position, when 
several royalist Netlierlanders in his camp opened 
a correspondence with their rebellious friends within 
the city, whom they urged to give up the keys to the 
Spaniard, and trust to his mercy. Yaldez himself 
invited the besieged to yield, and take shelter under 
the cegis of his majesty's amnesty. To all which 
the scholarly commandant replied by sending back 
a letter, in which he cited a single pat line from the 
Latin poet : 

'Fistula dulce eanit, voliicrem dum decipit auceps."* 

Orange, by means of carrier-pigeons, constantly 
flitting to and fro, sent frequent messages to the 
citizens, encouraging them to hold steadfast in the 
defence, and assuring them of his intention to ex- 
haust the resources of the province in effecting their 
deliverance. "Keflect," said he, "that you contend 
not for yourselves alone, but for us all."t The zeal 
of the besieged was greatly inflamed by these mis- 
sives. Not content to stand idly on tlie ramparts, 
they made desperate sorties from time to time, car- 
rying consternation and death into the ranks of the 
beleaguer. Eventually, however, the cautious com- 

'' ' ' The fowler plays sweet notes upon his pipe, while he 
spreads his net for the bird." Hoofd. book 10, p. 3G4. Meteren, 
ubi Slip. f Bor. , book 7, p. 505. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 743 

mandant forbade his followers to pass the gates, 
because these conflicts would, little by little, weaken 
the defenders, already too few to man the walls.* 
After this, the days passed without either sortie or 
assault ; no animating sound of war, no martial strife 
serving to beguile the weary time. For Valdez, true 
to his policy, closely hugged his trenches, and de- 
clined attack.f 

By the middle of August, notwithstanding the 
careful husbanding of the provisions, want began 
to make itself felt in Leyden. The meat and bread 
were eaten up ; nothing remained but a slender 
stock of malt-cake. " If not soon assisted," wrote 
the citizens to the prince, " human strength can do 
no more. The malt-cake will I^st four days ; after 
that, starvation stares us in the face."J 

"William replied encouragingly, "Expect succor 
hourly, until it comes."§ All the time he had been 
busy. At the outset he labored to recruit a force 
equal to the task of raising the leaguer. Foiled in 
this, he determined to reenact the scene at Alck- 
maar, and invoke the ocean against the beleaguei'er. 
By flooding Bhynland, the Spaniard would j)roba- 
bly be driven to decamp; at all events, a patriot 
fleet might be floated into Leyden with a plentiful 
store of rations and men.H It was a desperate proj- 
ect, but Orange was a desperate man. 

* Hoofd, book 9, p. 366. Bor., book 7, p. 552. 

f Mendoza, Bentivoglio. 

X Jan Frugliers ; cited in Motley, vol. 2, p. 560. 

§ Ibid. |] Hoofd, uhi sup. Meteren, book 5, folio 94. 



744 • THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

He convened the states at Delft, and laid his 
plan before them. The deputies were in doubt. 
Nothing could be more alien to the feelings of the 
Hollanders than such an act. To drain their lands, 
to filch fresh territories from the sea, to preserve 
the dykes — these were objects to the Dutch of con- 
stant attention, of immense expense ; and now it 
was proposed to inundate the very garden of the 
province, to wash seven hundred thousand guilders 
out of existence ; for the damage certain to be done 
w^as estimated at that sum.* But at length the 
luminous eloq.uence of the prince convinced the 
doubters of the necessity of the spoliation. " Better 
a drowned land than a slavish laud," was the unan- 
imous cry.f A fuifd was formally subscribed for 
the accomplishment of the work; the men, the 
ladies, the children of the devoted state freely con- 
tributed their plate, their jewels, their toys ; all 
classes applied themselves to the demolition of bar- 
riers upon which the national existence depended; 
laboring with an ardent industry equal to that em- 
ployed in the annual repair of the self-same bul- 
warks. J 

In the midst of these exertions, commenced early 
in July, Orange was stricken down by fever.§ Quite 
worn out by anxiety, by the recent loss of his broth- 
ers at Mook-heath, and by over-exertion — for it was 
• a trait of his always to mix his work with his brains — 

<-' Strada, torn. 3, p. 7. 

t Hoofd, id anted. Meteren, ut aniea. 

X Ibid. § Motlej', vol. 2, pp. 560-503. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 745 

he lay for some weeks tossiug iu delirium, with death 
for a bed-fellow. His sickness paralyzed the exer- 
tions of the estates ; all Holland seemed to hold its 
breath. Towards the end of August, the fever left 
the illustrious x^atient, and he improved the first 
hour of his convalescence to resume the interrupted 
preparations for the rehef of Leyden.* The physi- 
cians protested, but to no purpose. " I fear not," 
wrote he to John Nassau; " God will ordain for me 
all which is necessary for my good and my salva- 
tion. He will load me with no more afflictions than 
the fragility of nature can sustain. "f 

The waters of the Yssel and the Meuse, which 
bounded two sides of the alluvial quadrangle which 
it w^as proposed to flood, had already begun to pour 
through the opened sluices and to tumble over the 
demoHshed dykes. Soon the whole basin between 
Eotterdam, Delft, Gouda, and Leyden was filled.^ 
In the beginning of September, two hundred flat- 
boats, built for the occasion, w^ere launched, armed, 
laden with provisions, and manned by eight hvm- 
dred Zealanders — ferocious, battle-scarred warriors, 
wearing a crescent embroidered on their hats, with 
the motto, "Rather the Turk than the Pope"§— 
whom Boisot, the leader of the fleet, had brought 
with him from the Archipelago.il 

With ringing cheers, the strange flotilla pushed 

•-• Motley, vol. 2, pp. 500-563. 

t Ai-chives et Corresp., torn. 5, p. 53. 

t Bor., book 7, p. 552. Hoofd, book 9, p. 375. 

§ Hoofd, book 9, p. 374. Bor., book 7, p. 552. || Ibid. 

Dutfli Rcf. 32 



7iG THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

out upon the extemporized lake, and made for Lej-- 
den. Once, twice was its progress stayed by inter- 
vening dykes, from Avliicli the enemy, in full posses- 
sion, were gallantly dislodged by Boisot's beggars." 
But, alas, when but a few miles distant from the 
starving town, the entire fleet, which drew but two 
feet of water, grounded. The waves, diffusing them- 
selves over a broad expanse, sufficed only to make 
a few puddles ahead of Boisot. Nothing more could 
be done until the tide should rise.f Worst of -all, 
this could not happen until the wind, then blowing 
steadily from the northeast, and thereby holding 
the waters of the Meuse and the Zaetermccr — a 
little lake about midway between that river and the 
city — in their beds, veered to another point of the 
compass.'! Ere that occurred, the town might be 
taken or be driven to surrender, which would ren- 
der the vast sacrifice utterly unavailing. 

Meantime, Avith succor within easy ej-esight, 
Leyden was a prey to the worst horrors of famine. 
The larder had long been empty of all wholesome 
edibles. Now there was no food so odious that it 
was not esteemed a dainty. Some ate vine-leaves 
mixed with salt and starch ; others boiled the foliage 
of trees, devoured roots and chaff, and chopped the 
skins of animals in a little milk; women veiled their 
faces, that their misery might not be seen, and seat- 
ing themselves on heaps of refuse, searched eagerly 
for bones, dried fish -skins, and the vilest offal; 

- Eor., uhl sup., p. 554. Iloofil, nhi siq)., p. 37G, seq. 

t Ibid., pp. 552, 551. Ibid., p. 375. % Ibid., Ibid., ei seq. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 7i7 

young girls ate the lap-clogs with which they had 
been wont to play.* The plague, famine's hench- 
man, was at hand, making many a merry meal on 
the skeleton victims — eating up eight thousand of 
the inhabitants. Those who survived could barely 
drag their attenuated limbs to the ramparts; and 
often, on returning from their watch, they came 
back to find their wives and children dead, their 
homes desolate.f 

Hardest of all to bear were the taunts of those 
few citizens who sided with the foe : " Ah ha ! where 
now are your relievers ? where linger these beggars 
of whom ye wdst?":|; Once the burgomaster, Van 
der Werf, was surrounded in the street by a starving 
mob, clamorous for food or a capitulation. Mount- 
ing the steps of the church of St. Pancreas, the 
magistrate, whose tall, haggard, but imposing fig- 
ure and unquailing eye commanded instant atten- 
tion, shouted : " What would ye, friends ? Why do 
ye murmur that we do not break our vows and sur- 
render? — a fate more horrible than the agony we 
now endure. I tell you I have made an oath to 
hold the town ; and may God give me strength to 
keep my oath. I can die but once, whether by 
your hands, or the enemy's, or by the stroke of my 
Maker. My ov/u fate is indifferent to me ; not so 
that of the city intrusted to my care. I know that 
we shall starve, unless soon relieved ; but starvation 
is preferable to the dishonorable death which seems 

■~- Bor. , book 7, p. 556. f Ibid., id antea. 

X Ibid., p. .O.n. Hoofd, book !>, p. 371. 



718 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

tlie sole alternative. If my death can serve you, 
take it. Here is my sword : cut my body into mor- 
sels, and divide it amongst you."* 

These words kindled new enthusiasm in all 
hearts. The murmurs ceased. All exchanged fresh 
vows ; consecrated themselves anew to the defence ; 
and the feeblest women cried: "Yes, yes, death by 
starvation before submission. "t At that very mo- 
ment Valdez, who had never ceased to urge capitu- 
lation, sent a fresh summons into town. In reply, 
all rushed to the ramparts, and shouted back : " Ye 
call us rat-eaters and dog-eaters, and 't is true. So 
long, then, as ye hear a dog bark or a cat mew with- 
in our walls, know that Leyden still holds out. Nay, 
when all save ourselves have perished, we will de- 
vour our own left arms, leaving our right to defend 
our wives, our liberty, and our religion. Should 
God, in his justice, doom us to destruction,' hope 
not even then to take the town ; for when the last 
hour comes, we will fire our houses and die to- 
gether — any thing, every thing, before submission 
to tyranny and antichrist. "| 

Before such a spirit, the Spaniard himself began 
to feel uneasy. Moreover, the water was rising in 
the camp. Nothing but the repeated assurances of 
those natives who stood beside him that the ex- 
pected deluge was a miracle beyond the prince's 
power to work, kept Valdez at his post.§ 

" Metercn, book 5, folio 94. Hooftl, uhi sup., p, 379, et seq. 
f Ibid. J Mcteren and Hoofd, ut antea. 

§ Bor.,book7, p. 551. 



•'FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 749 

The end was nearer than any knew. On the 
29th of September, the long obstinate wind changed, 
and getting into the right quarter, blew the refluent 
waters forward. A feAV hours later, the dry land 
was swallowed by the sea, and the stranded patriot 
armada Avas once more afloat and sailing on.* So 
eager were the wild Zealanders to get at the city, 
that when shallows were to be passed, they dashed 
into the water, and by sheer strength shouldered 
their vessels through. Soon the girdling redoubts 
of the Spaniard were reached, and one after another 
captured ;i- for though the forces of Yaldez outnum- 
bered Boisot's seamen ten to one, both wind and 
water fought with these, while those were appalled 
by the fierce onset of the ocean. 

By the 1st of October, but two of the enemy's 
forts remained untaken, those of Zaeterwoude and 
of Lammen ; these, however, were the most impor- 
tant and the strongest of the chain. | At midnight, 
in the soughing of the equinoctial gale, Boisot again 
slipped cable, and scudded out to assail these bar- 
riers. Midway, he met a fleet equipped by Valdez 
to stay his farther progress. In the height of the 
storm, in the inky darkness, the foes joined bat- 
tle, the flash of the Zealanders' cannon lightiug 
up the black waste of waters at frequent intervals, 
and showing that the sentinel vessels of the Span- 
iard were being steadily pushed back. At last the 
patriot artillery roared out a triumph ; but day 

* Bor., book 7, p. 557. f Ibid, 

t Hoofd, Bor. , Mendoza. 



750 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

j)eepecl above the horizon ere the admiral could 
moor his ships broadside to the Zaeterwoude re- 
doubt.* 

The Spaniards, however, had no appetite for the 
breakfast prepared for them. Without waiting to 
fire a gun, they rushed from the citadel, and poured 
in a dense mass across the fast -crumbling dyke 
which stretched away towards the Hague. Boisot's 
cannon belched forth rapid death as the frightened 
fugitives hastened past, while the wild Zealanders 
sprang after them with boat-hook and dagger, and 
transfixed many with harpoons, hurled with accu- 
racy acquired in polar chases after far different 
prey. Upwards of twelve hundred of them fell in 
this frightful passage of the dyke ; the rest reached 
the Hague.t 

But one fort now separated the flotilla from Ley- 
den gates — Lammen — and towards that the jubilant 
seamen scudded. This too, on being reached, was 
found to have been evacuated in the night. Yaldez 
himself had taken to flight, and his favorite fortress 
was left with a garrison of one little boy and a white 
flag.J 

The armada at once headed for the city, float- 
ing through groves, among the branches of quiet 
orchards, over submerged villages, quite up to the 
walls where stood the spent and dying, but rejoi- 
cing heroes of the siege. Five minutes more, and 

c- Hoofd, uU sup., p. 383. Meudoza, torn. 12, p. 2Gi. 
t Ibid. Bor., uU sup., p. 558. 
X Ibid. Motley, vol. 2, p. 573. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 751 

the town was saved — plenty again reigued in Ley- 
den.* 

Boisot entered the place on the morning of the 
3d of October, 1574, four mouths after the begin- 
ning of the siege.f The stout admiral's first act 
on stepping from his galley was, .to head a solemn 
procession to the great church of Leyden, where all 
bent in devout gratitude before Him w^ho had so 
marvellously snatched the city from the jaws of 
death. . After thanks had been rendered "to that 
God v/ho had made them a sea upon the dry laud," 
ten thousand voices joined in a thanksgiving psalm, 
broken ere the close by sobs and halleluias.:}: 

Then the vast audience adjourned, to make pro- 
vision for the sick, and to distribute the supplies; 
of which some ate so greedily as to find in the midst 
of i^lenty, that death spared them by famine. § A 
note was speedily sent to the prince, informing him 
that Leyden was succored. William received it 
while at church in Delft, and rising, with tearful 
eyes read the good news aloud.ll 

Soon afterwards he crossed over to the town, 
though still very weak from his recent illness, that 
he might in person thank the citizens for their ex- 
traordinary courage and fortitude. Not contenting 
himself with empty words, he sent boats and wag- 
ons throughout the province to collect charitable 
contributions for the impoverished townsfolk. All 

- Bor., lloofd, Metcren, ct alii. f Ibid. 

I Meteren, book 5, folio 95. Hoofd, book 9, p. 38G. Bor., 
book 7, p. 5G0. § Ibid. [] Ibid. 



752 THE DUTCH EEFORMATION. 

connected with the defence and succor Avere suitably 
rewarded, and Boisot was presented with a medal 
suspended from a massive chain of gold.* Even 
the carrier-doves, those faithful posts, w^ere grate- 
fully remembered, being kex)t with great care while 
they lived, embalmed after death, and placed in the 
stadthouse, where t]iey still repose.f 

Two incidents which marked the siege were 
esteemed by the burghers as special interpositions 
of Providence in their favor. On the very night 
Valdez retreated, twenty roods of the wall of Ley- 
den suddenly fell — which, two days before, would 
have been fatal to the town, but served now only to 
accelerate the flight of the Spaniard, who imagined 
the crash to indicate a desperate sortie of the citi- 
zen train-bands. And the day after the town was 
relieved, the wind, returning to the northeast, drove 
back the rampant waters of the Mouse and the 
Yssel into their wonted channels, thereby enabling 
the burghers to repair the dykes, reclose the sluices, 
and again reclaim their fertile pastures.:]: 

Still farther to mark his appreciation of the her- 
oism of Leyden, the prince of Orange proposed to 
the burghers either to found a university within 
their walls, or to grant them permission to hold an 
annual fair without taxation. With honorable pref- 
erence, the academy was chosen ; but the estates, 
judging that the traders and the illiterate had shown 

■■' Bor. , tibl suj). 

f Vide Chambers, Tour in Holland, etc., art. Leyden. 

t Davies, vol. 2, p. M. 



"FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH." 753 

themselves no less strenuous than the wealthy and 
the educated m the defence of their fatherland, de- 
creed both. 

Such was the origin of the famous University of 
Lej'den, the Oxford of Holland, alma mate}' of the 
grandest bead-roll of alumni in the world, where 
Grotius studied, where Scaliger raised letters to the 
stars, where Boerhaave revolutionized the theory of 
medicine, and where John Robinson, the venerable 
pastor of our pilgrim fathers, won wide fame in 
disputation with Episcopius. 



32* 



751 THE DUTCH REFOBMATION. 

CHAPTEE XLI. 

DIPLOMATIC "PEACTICE." 

While the siege of Leyden was yet pending, 
but more perceptibly after its miraculous close, a 
secret fencing-match was going on between the 
diplomats. Orange was as closely besieged by let- 
ter-writers as the town by the Spaniard's men-at- 
arms, and with much the same result. 

Kequesens was still anxious to end the revolt by 
a pen-stroke. All through these months his quill 
was as busy as his sword, and active for the 
same purpose. He yet believed, notwithstanding 
the contemptuous rejection of the royal amnesty, 
in the possibility of getting the states to bite at the 
hook, and that too without baiting it with any 
measure which should concede, on the angler's 
side, the points at issue. 

Early in 1574, St. Aldegonde had emerged from 
his dungeon on parole and repaired to Delft, armed 
by the viceroy with power to negotiate what was 
called a peace ; but he had been carefully instruct- 
ed that two questions were to be omitted from dis- 
cussion — his majesty's prerogative, and freedom of 
Avorship.* As these were precisely the questions in 
conflict, a parley which commenced by the declina- 
tion of one of the parties to consider them was 

* Cor. de Guillaume Ic Tacituruo, torn. 3, p. 400, ci scq. Bor., 
book 7, p. 53L 



DIPLOMATIC "PRACTICE. " 755 

death-marked from the outset. However, the dis- 
tinguished euvoj performed his mission, held inter- 
views with Orange and the estates, and was, of 
course, unsuccessful ; whereupon he returned to 
Brussels and reentered prison, whence he did not 
again emerge till autumn, when events struck off 
his shackles.* He took back with him an elab- 
orate paper, drawn up in the name of the acting 
government of the revolted provinces, and address- 
ed to the king of Spain, in which three conditions- 
precedent to a pacification were announced: his 
majesty's recall of the exiles, the reestablishment 
of the ancient charters, and the proclaiming an 
equality between religious creeds, each free from 
each.f This document was offensive both to Re- 
quesens and to Philip, though it was merely the 
counter-statement of earnest men, made in reply to 
an absurd proposal — to have been expected, like 
the kicking of an overloaded gun. 

Champagny, the viceroy's confidential agent, 
wrote Junius de Jonge, a learned and astute repre- 
sentative o^ William the Silent, that the king could 
not be expected to give ear to such idle words. 
" Indeed, quotha !" was the retort ; " if he does 
prove deaf to our petitions, we will tell him, as the 
old Eoman matron told the emperor Adrian, ' The 
potentate who has no time to attend to the inter- 
ests of his subjects, has not the leisure to be a 
sovereign.' "i 

* Cor. dc Guillaiime, etc., uhl sup. 

t Bor., book 7, p. 535, et seq. J Ibid., p. 536, scq. 



75G THE BUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

But the grand commander would not take No 
for an answer. Some months later, he deputed a 
batch of new negotiators to seek out the jDrince and 
treat secretly with him upon the matter of his par- 
don and reconciliation with his majesty.* Orange 
was wont to say, "A friend is cheaply bought by a 
bow;"t and therefore he received these tempters, 
one after another, with grave courtesy. He was, 
however, somewhat plain-spoken in these encoun- 
ters of wit. " I cannot treat without the coopera- 
tion of the estates," said he ; " and if I could, I 
should require no pardon, for I have done nothing 
which demands forgiveness. Besides, we can give 
no credit to the words which come to us from Ma- 
drid, we have been too often cheated. There are 
the provincial deputies, speak to them. You re- 
mind me that the king is powerfvil, and that I am 
weak. Yes, I know that his majesty is very mighty ; 
but there is a sovereign yet more resistless^ even 
God the Creator, who, as I humbly hope, is on my 
side.J 

The discomfited diplomats next waited upon the 
estates. " You attempt to reap where you have not 
sown," said the deputies, " when you talk of pardon 
without prefacing it b.y the recall of the troops, the 
convening the states-general, and a guaranty of the 
toleration of the reformed faith."§ 

c Bor., book 7, p. 585. Cor. de Guillaume le Tacituiue, torn 
3, p. 403, et seq. t I>i^ Maurier, p. 167. 

J Cor. de Gnillaume, etc., uUsup., pp. 378-380. 

§ Bor., book 7, p. 5G5, el seq. Gachard, Cor., etc., torn. 3, j 
403, seq. 



DIPLOMATIC "PRACTICE." 757 

"William and his friends of the revolutionary 
junta were sincerely anxious to " beat their swords 
into ploughshares and their spears into pruning- 
hooks ;" but they craved an honorable peace, which 
should not renounce the most precious objects of 
the war, make every dollar spent a swindle, and 
render every life lost a public murder. Across all 
the Spanish plans of accommodation thus far open- 
ed the word dishonor was most plainly written. The 
pet policy of Eequesens, which looked to recon- 
ciling the provinces by forcing the Protestants into 
exile, was peculiarly obnoxious. In a letter to John 
Nassau, the prince wrote, "There are no papists 
left in Holland, except a few ecclesiastics, so much 
has the number of the reformed been augmented 
through the singular grace of God. 'T is therefore 
out of the question to suppose that a measure doom- 
ing all who are not Eomanists to exile can be en- 
tertained. We cannot desert our altars ; nor will 
we consent voluntarily to abandon for ever prop- 
erty, friends, and fatherland. Such a peace would 
be i^oor and pitiable indeed."* 

As for the king, he was weary of the war, which 
was a constantly-increasing drain upon his excheq- 
uer ; for the viceroy found it impossible either to 
coax or to coerce the Netherlands into granting any 
adequate fund for the support of the struggle, and 
so was forced to get his dishonored drafts cashed in 
Madrid.t Nevertheless Philip, whose mind bigotry 
strait-laced, was as far as ever from a willingness 

« Aicliives ct Con-csp., torn. 5, p. 73. [ Ibid., pp. 28-32. 



758 THE DUTCH BEFOKMATION. 

to " remove violence and spoil, and execute judg- 
ment and justice."'* 

Thus, thougli both Orange and the king desired 
peace, one could not and the other would not make 
the requisite concessions. At this juncture, the 
emperor Maximilian once more stirred himself to 
accommodate the quarrel ; this time with an ear- 
nest wish to succeed, for he feared, unless a pacifi- 
cation could be negotiated, fliat the German elec- 
tors would depart from the house of Austria and 
openly take the field for their Protestant cousins in 
the states.t 

Having received authority from Philip to medi- 
ate, he transferred his powers to Count Schwartz- 
burg, William's brother-in-law, and despatched him 
post to Dort to confer Avith his illustrious ldusman.| 
The prince received him graciously, and out of 
respect to the emperor consented to empower a 
number of his fi'iends to treat with the royal nego- 
tiators. § At the same time, he was too sagacious 
to expect much from this convention ; and he has- 
tened to remind the estates of Holland and Zealand, 
then in session, that peace, though desirable, might 
be more dangerous than war. " Thei'efore," added 
he, " let us stand to arms, push all warlike prepara- 
tions with vigor, and sign no treaty inconsistent 
Avith our charters and with the claims of God."j| 

On the 3d of March, 1575, the peace congress 

•'• Motley, vol. 3, pp. 11, 12. f Archives ct Cor., torn. 5, p. 81. 
% Bor., Wagenaer, Hoofd, d al. § Ibid. 

II Bor., book 8, p. 595, scq. 



DIPLOMATIC "PEACTIGE." 75'J 

met at Breda — St. Aldegonde, Boisofc, Junius de 
Jonge, and Paul Buys being present for the states ; 
while four ultramontane diplomats appeared for 
Philip. The patriot quartette opened the proceed- 
ings by demanding the withdrawal of the foreign 
troops ; the convocation of the states-general ; the 
legal recognition of the reformed religion as then 
established ; leave for William and the estates to 
place garrisons wherever they might think neces- 
sary ; the restoration of their estates and titles to 
those who had suftered during the war ; the remo- 
val of the new bishops ; the expulsion of the Jesuits 
from the Low Countries, as " a pestilent race, desi- 
rous of tumult ;" an acknowledgment of the right 
of the estates to meet at Avill, and on the death of 
Orange to appoint another stadtholder by their own 
act over Holland and Zealand ; and security for the 
fulfilment of these terms.* 

The royal envoys took up and scanned this pro- 
gramme, drew their pens across those clauses which 
touched upon rehgion, and replied, "Mayhap all 
else might be arranged, but we insist on the suprem- 
acy of the mother church, conceding permission to 
those who cannot conform thereto to retire from 
the Netherlands any time within six months ; and we 
likewise claim the surrender to his majesty of all war- 
like materiel, and require the placing six of your chief- 
est towns in his hands as pledges of good faith."t 

«■ FJde Bor., book 8,.p. 598, d seq. Mctcreu, book 5, folios 
108, 109. Bentivoglio, torn. 9. 

J Beutivoylio, liv. 9, ah initio. Mcturuu, Bur., id antca. 



7G0 THE DUTCH KErOKMATION. 

This response was, of course, unsatisfactory ; for 
religion was the main point at issue. Of what use, 
then, would be the restoration of the ancient fran- 
chises if the whole population of the states were to 
be expatriated ? However, anxious to step to the 
verge of honor, St. Aldegonde said, " We will refer 
the question of toleration to the states-general, if 
you wish it ; but more we cannot do. Nor will we 
disarm, nor yet give up our towns, for that would 
be like the silly sheep in the fable, who gave up their 
watchdogs to the wolves."* 

These differences of opinion proved fatal to an 
accommodation — the patriot delegates would not 
desert their faith, the ultramontauists would not 
concede toleration ; and though they continued to 
harangue each other for nine months, referring this 
claim and that exception, now to the estates, and 
now to Madrid, in the fall of 1575 they separated 
with increased bitterness, these charging those, 
those these, with the whole fault of failure.f 

To the prince, this negotiation was not so fruit- 
less as it might seem. It had, at least, the effect 
of justifying his cause at the bar of Europe ;| it 
served also to conciliate the favor of the southern 
provinces, to whom the projjosal of referring the 
question of toleration to the states-general appeared 
both judicious and equitable ; Avliile they were 
equally pleased by that clause in the patriot de- 
mand which called for the departure of the Spanish 

^- Bor., uhi siip. f Ibid. , p. G12. 

J Davies, vol. 2, p. 18. 



DIPLOMATIC "PEACTICE." 761 

hirelings.* Besides, like all discussions of first 
principles, the conference opened to the masses the 
closed book of communal rights. John Nassau had 
been fearful that the plausible mean-nothings of the 
king's advocates might cheat the Hollanders into 
assenting to some proposition which should lead 
them unwittingly to " lay bare their own backs to 
the rod, and bring fagots for their own funeral 
piles."'!' On the contrary, the people, enhghtened 
from Breda, became more resolute than ever never 
to submit. "Spanish faith" they held to be a 
synouyme for " Punic faith." All saw that swords 
were in King Philip's lips, and that it was in his 
programme to reclose the Bible, "pervert the 
prophets and purloin the psalms," and crucify 
Christ anew in the persons of his elect. 

On the 4th of June, 1575, some weeks before 
the final adjournment of the diplomats, an act of 
union between Holland and Zealand was solem- 
nized.:]: It was a germ destined to bud soon in the 
important confederacy of seven provinces at Utrecht, 
and to flower eventually in the Dutch Eepublic. 
By the articles of this initial union, the prince of 
Orange was intrusted with the supreme direction of 
affairs, charged with the regulation of the state 
expenses, and especially directed to maintain the 
reformed evangelical religion, and to su]jpress Eo- 
mamsm.§ 

" Davics, ul antea. 

+ Aa-chives, etc., torn. 5, p. 131, et seq. 

I "Wagenaer, book 7, p. 19. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 313. § Ibid. 



7o2 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Against this last enactment tlie prince at first 
protested; and through his efforts, the word Ko- 
manism was replaced by the phrase, "religion 
at variance with the gospel," which left the door 
open for a toleration.* Still popery was for a time 
prohibited, though the interdict was not meant 
to be definitive, but was done under martial law, 
and made lasting while the war continued, or so 
long as the general safety should warrant. " For," 
explained William, in speaking of this act at a later 
day, " they who at first judged it for the best of all 
that one creed equally with another should be toler- 
ated, were afterwards obliged, by the bold attempts, 
cunning devices, and treacheries of the papists who 
had insinuated themselves into place and power, 
and then striven to undo the state, to suspend the 
Eomish worship ; more esiDecially since those who 
practised it, the priests particularly, had sworn alle- 
giance to an outside power, the pope, laying greater 
stress upon their oaths to hini than on others taken 
to our polity. And it was a manifest injustice for 
these folk to enjoy our privileges, and then take 
advantage of them to reduce the land into a spirit- 
ual thraldom hateful to the commonwealth."f 

Surely such a measure, so necessitated and with 
such limitations, was radically difierent from the 
truculent bigotry which, in time of profound peace, 
with no martial law to justify it, assumed to ransack 
non-conforming consciences by means of thumb- 

* Wagenacr, uhisitp., p. 22. Arcliives, etc., torn. 5, p. 272. 
t Apology of Orange, cited in Brandt, vol. 1, pp. 307, 308. 



DIPLOMATIC "PEACTICE." 703 

screws and autos-da-fe. Besides, iu tliis case, though 
expelled the churches, the papists were permitted 
to hear mass iu their owu homes ; nor were those 
magistrates who were Komauists ejected from their 
offices, unless, indeed, the ballots of their adversa- 
ries ousted them iu the elections. Some, however, 
remained in office until death released them.* 

This prohibition was but once washed in blood. 
^\'illiam's deputy in North Holland, Diedrich Sanoy, 
discovered, or thought he discovered, a plot of pa- 
pists to fire several of the towns under his care, iu 
aid of an impending invasion of the Spaniards ; 
whereupon, in imitation of the Blood -council at 
Brussels, he set up an extraordinary court, before 
which he dragged the accused, and endeavored to 
rack from their tortured lips what was styled a con- 
fession, in true inquisitorial fashion.f Before these 
imitators of Juan Vargas had committed many mur- 
ders, the prince learned of the mischief, and at once 
broke the tribunal, and liberated several of the vic- 
tims. J This prompt action brought him honor in 
all men's eyes, and it was a general saying that 
" the prince embraced all the good of whatsoever 
persuasion, with fatherly tenderness and impartial 
justice." § 

The recent angry ending of the peace-congress, 
and now the union of Holland and Zealand, laid the 

- Brandt, uhi sup., p. 108. 

t Ibid., p. 315. Bor., torn. 8, p. 623, seq. Hoofd, book 10, 
p. 412. X Ibid. 

§ Brandt, vol. 1, p. 316. 



7C4 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION, 

last ghost of lioj^e that any reconcihation was to be 
looked for with-^ijain. Under these circumstances, 
and considering the vast disparity between these 
little provinces and the mighty, many-sided power 
which Philip wielded, William and the estates felt 
justified in offering the sovereignty which his maj- 
esty had forfeited, and which they at this time rep- 
resented, to some potentate who should promise to 
defend and to guarantee the national liberties. 
Some time before, Orange, in one of his interviews 
with the "Artful Dodgers" sent by Eequesens to 
overreach him, had hinted at the possibility of this 
action, saying : " The land is a beautiful damsel, 
who certainly will not be found to lack suitors able 
and wilhng to champion her against the world."* 

The "damsel" had now come of marriageable 
age — ceased to be s^femme covert — and it was time 
to assert her independence of the whilom guardian. 
The first week in October, 1575, the estates met at 
Delft, and voted, formally and unanimously, to de- 
pose Philip II., drop from all public papers the 
long -retained fiction of allegiance, and lodge in 
William's hands the power of selecting the succes- 
sor of the cast-off monarch.f 

Here was a " new thing under the sun" — a na- 
tional diet made ux3 of plain burghers and a few 
small nobles, representatives of a little land half 
bogs and the rest marshes, solemnly assembling to 
vote their sovereign, monarch of half the world, off 

* Corresp. de Guillaume le Tacit., torn. 3, p. 387. 
t Wagenaer, book 7, p. 81. Bor., book 8, p. 651. 



DIPLOMATIC "PRACTICE." 765 

the throne, for good and sufficient reasons — blast- 
ing the dogma of regal divinity with the lightning 
of democratic ballots. 

The question now was, To whom shall the sov- 
ereignty be transferred? The prince leaned per- 
sonally towards France. He had been recently 
divorced from the crazy and profligate Anne of 
Saxony, whereupon he had espoused an escaped 
nun, Charlotte de Bourbon, a daughter of the royal 
house of France, and a lady of piety and talent, 
who drew him towards her fatherland.* But to this 
alliance there were grave objections. The treaty 
cemented by poor Count Louis with Charles IX. 
was " off" since that monarch's death, some months 
back. The accession of Henry III. had reconvulsed 
the kingdom, and it was thought that but little real 
j)rotection could be expected fi'om a power torn by 
internecine broils. 

As for Germany, it was a mere congeries of 
independent principalities — a purely nominal state, 
whose emperor was doubly related to the deposed 
king. An excellent market to buy soldiers in, a 
good powder-magazine, Germany was neither able 
nor inclined to defend the provinces. 

Upon the whole, a union with England seemed 
most feasible. Such a connection might be bot- 
tomed upon mutual advantages, the best bonds of 
a definitive connection. Great Britain claimed to 
be a bulwark of Protestantism. Between the states 
md her there was an essential uniformity of faith. 
- Eor., book 8, p. 600, scq. Hume, Camden. 



7(10 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

The genius of both peoples was maritime; while the 
reciprocal conveniences of trade, the mastery which 
would thus be acquired at sea, and the readiness 
with which Denmark and the Hanse towns would 
enter into an alliance with the united nations gave 
promise of puissance not to be gainsaid. 

Late in December, 1575, Orange despatched a 
trio of envoys to negotiate with Elizabeth. The 
maiden queen received them cordially, but feared 
equally to accept or to refuse their offer. Accept- 
ance would embroil her with Philip, and expose her 
to danger from the side* of Scotland; refusal might 
drive the provinces into the arms of France, and 
thereby strengthen the Gaul at the Briton's expense. 
It was a dilemma whose either horn was full of dan- 
ger. Therefore her majesty temporized — a species 
of political coquetry in which she was an adept. 
After a dalliance of many months at the court of 
St. James, the envoys of the prince returned home 
to report the substantial failure of their mission.* 

Meantime Kequesens was pressing the war with 
renewed vigor. He was, indeed, much hampered 
by a want of funds, and by the sharp denials and 
prolix remonstrances with which the obedient prov- 
inces invariably met his requests for money.f The 
troops, too, ill-paid as usual, frequently frustrated 
his favorite schemes by untimely insubordination. 
And once those soldiers whom the deluge had driv- 

* Camden, Hist, of Queen Elizabeth, book 2, pp, 207-210. 
Eor,, book 8, p. 062 ; book 9, p. Gu7. Metcren, book 5, folio 101. 
t Bor., book 7, pp. 502, .'JTG, 577, 583. 



DIPLOMATIC "PEACTICE." 7G7 

en from the walls of Leyden broke into such savage 
niutinj, that the viceroy was obliged to grant to the 
inhabitants of the region which they undertook to 
lay under contribution leave to wear arms in their 
own defence — a somewhat dangerous precedent.* 
Nevertheless, aided by the skilful swords of Hierges 
and Vitelli, the Spaniard met with no mean success 
in the work of conquest, smiting into submission 
town after tov/u on the confines of Holland.t 

But while these triumphs crowned the efforts of 
Eequeseus, a parallel success attended the patriots 
at sea, the giieux seizing and burning twelve ships 
built at Antwerp for coastwise warfare, and shortly 
afterwards, falling upon and sinking another ro}'- 
alist fleet— part of that equipped for conquest b}'' 
the king, but stayed in the Bay of Biscay by the 
plague,! ^^ ^^16 crews were trimming sail fo]- Dun- 
kirk harbor. § 

Nettled by these losses, stirred to action by the 
complaints of the Antwerp merchants that their 
commerce was clogged by the forays of the patriot 
Zealanders, and more than ever convinced of the 
absolute necessity of opening the closed jaws of the 
Scheldt, the grand commander determined to make 
one more effort to reanuex the Archipelago. 

His objective point was Zierickzee, the capital 
of the island of Schouwen. The island lay between 

* Bor., book 7, p. 581. Canipaua, lib. 5, p. 156. 
t Hoofd, book 10, p. 42-4, seq. Bor., book 8, p. G4G 
X Chap. XXXIX., pp. 73G, soq. 
§ Bor., Davies, vol 2, p. 23. 



708 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

Zealand and Holland, and the town looked out upon 
the ocean ; its possession by the Spaniard would 
at once provide him with what he lacked in this 
outer territory — a safe harbor — and enable him to 
sever the easiest avenue of intercommunication be- 
tween the revolted provinces.* 

Having decided where to strike, the how was 
the next thing to be determined. The grand com- 
mander knew not how to solve this problem, for the 
estuaries and lagoons swarmed with the flatboats of 
" the beggars of the sea." Finally, a party of rene- 
gade Zealanders volunteered to point out a path.t 

Three islands — Tholen, Duiveland, and Schou- 
wen — formed the northern barrier of the archipel- 
ago. Tholen, which adjoins the mainland, already 
held for Spain. Between this island and its neigh- 
bor, Duiveland, stretched a shallow bay, eight 
miles wide ; and Duiveland again was separated 
from Schouwen by a frith about half as broad. In 
imitation of the feat of Mondragone in relieving 
Turgoes three years before, it was proposed to 
wade across to Zierickzee — the renegades vouching 
for the fordability of the intermediate waters at 
ebb tide.:}: 

After some little hesitation, Kequesens resolved 
to make the venture, although this expedition was 
much more desperate than that of Mondragone, 
more daring than Caesar's fording of the ThaDies 

•» Bor., Hoofa, Strada. 

t Meudoza, torn. 14, p. 282. Beutivoglio, torn. 9, p. 1G5. 

X Il)id. 



DIPLOMATIC "PRACTICE." 701) 

many ages earlier ; for in those no obstacle but the 
waves was to be surmounted,, whereas here, Orange, 
apprehending some such essaj^, had crowded the 
waters with his most audacious seamen, and placed 
upon the islands themselves strong bands to beat 
back the invaders, should they make the passage 
through his fleet.* 

Nevertheless, the Spaniards, who loved nothing 
better than to cope Vitli what seemed impossibili- 
ties, received the proposal to face these manifold 
dangers with enthusiastic cheers. On the 27th of 
September, 1575, the force, eight or ten thousand 
strong, weighed anchor from Antwerp and sailed 
down the Scheldt to Bergen-op-Zoom. Disembark- 
ing, they were ferried thence to the island of Tho- 
len ; whence three thousand men, headed by a 
picked corps of two hundred pioneers, crossed in 
boats to Philipsland, a half- submerged and desert 
islet hard by Tholen.f 

Here the peril began ; here the water was to be 
entered. At midnight, at neap tide, the adven- 
turers stri]oped off their clothes, retaining naught 
but their shoes and trousers, slung their knapsacks 
around their necks, shouldered their pikes and mus- 
kets, and after a brief harangue from Requesens, 
plunged into the ford.:]: Those who looked on com- 
miserated them as devoted to assured death, es- 

• Mendoza, tom.l4, 1). 282. Bentivoglio, torn. 9, p. 165. Strada, 
torn. 3, p. 12. 

t Meudoza, Bentivoglio, id antea. Bor., book 8, p. G50. 
t Hoofd, book 10, p. 428. Bentivoglio, uhi sup. 
nutcii Ri'f. 33 



770 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

posed as they were, first to tlie cruel waters, then 
to the guns of the rebel fleet, with no other gabions to 
defend them than their bodies, and at last, to the ar- 
quebuses of the waiting garrison upon the island.* 

At the outset, the sky was overcast ; but sud- 
denly the darksome night was lit up by burning 
meteors until the blind heavens blazed again — a 
prodigy repeated at intervals until dawn.t The 
Spaniards hailed the display as an auspicious omen. 
"See, fellow-soldiers," shouted Osorio di Alloa, 
captain of the advance, " the army of the sky joins 
forces with us, leading us to victory and boding 
revenge upon our foes.":j: Animated by this hope 
of celestial aid, all splashed on over the narrow 
ridge of submerged sand, marching three abreast, 
with the hissing waters at their throats. 

About midway, they came upon the patriot 
fleet stranded purposely across the ford. A mad, 
weird fight at once began, though the combatants 
could hardly see each other, save when, for a mo- 
ment, the northern lights kindled the heavens, or 
the cannon spat fitful fire from their mouths. The 
Zealanders, not content to do battle from their 
ships, dashed into the waves to grapple with their 
antagonists, whom they transfixed with their har- 
poons, or dragged from the sea-road with boat- 
hooks, or brained with flails.§ Several hundred of 
the royalists perished in these fights, either done to 

■'•■• Stracla, torn. 3, p. 10, seq. 

t Ibid., p. 11. Mendoza, torn. l-i. 

X Strada, uhi suj). § Mendoza, torn. 14, p. 285. 



DIPLOMATIC "PRACTICE." 771 

deatli bj the fury of the gueux or sucked into the 
surrounding whirl-pits.- The rearguard, affrighted 
by the onset of the beggars, and observing that the 
tide was rising, faced about and waded back ;t but 
the van pushed resohitely on, sli^Dping by their as- 
sailants in the darkness, or fighting their way past 
the wooden rocks and through the human tempest 
to the shore of Duiveland, up which they scrambled 
just at dawn.:|: 

Here they were met by ten companies of French, 
English, and Scotch auxiliaries, upon whom the 
"sea monsters" dashed, although numb and giddy 
with six hours' prior conflict with the water. They 
had no alternative but to win a victory or perish ; 
so they won a victory, routing the allies, and killing 
their commander, Charles Boisot, brother of the 
valiant admiral of Zealand§ — from which it should 
seem that the best weapon to conquer by is the 
necessity of conquering. 

Presently the patriot flotilla, imagining that the 
whole Spanish force had passed the ford, made sail 
for Zierickzee to warn its citizens of the impending 
siege — a blunder of which Requesens hastened to 
take advantage by ferrying the rest of his troops 
across the deserted estuary to Duiveland, where 
mutual congratulations were exchanged. || 

"Without further adventure, the arm}'', led this 

* Strada, torn. 3, p. 12. 

f Meudoza, xihi sup. Hoofd, book 10, p. 429. 

X Ibid. Strada, uhi sup., p. 13. 

§ Bor., book 8, p. G19. Bentivoglio, torn. 10, p. 1G8. 

II Strada, uhi sup. 



772 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

time by Mondragone, passed the fritli from Duive- 
laud to Sclioiiwen ; and pausing but to reduce two 
intermediate villages — one of which, Benunenede, 
detained them by a gallant resistance of three 
weeks* — pressed forward to lay siege to Zierickzee. 
By the end of October the place was formally in- 
vested ;t but since the burghers were well supplied 
with stores and resolute withal, the beleaguerers 
saw that success was only' to be won by a recourse 
to the tedious and ruinous expedient of blockading, 
and that Zierickzee was to be another Haarlem. 

Orange was inexpressibly grieved by this unex- 
pected chapter of events. The toils seemed tight- 
ening about the good cause. Holland and Zealand 
were now separated. No foreign power could be 
enlisted to give needed aid : England, France, Ger- 
many were alike deaf to the pleading voices of self- 
interest and of humanity. The prince himself mo- 
mentarily despaired. It was at this time that he 
announced the desperate but sublime resolution to 
freight what vessels he could collect with the citi- 
zens and the moveable property of the lost provin- 
ces, burn the windmills, pierce the dykes, open the 
sluices, give back brave Holland to the sea, and 
seek with his dauntless colonists a new home in 
some virgin land where Madrid and the Vatican 
were names unknown.:]: 

=»' Meteren, book 5, folio 103. Meursii Aiiriacus, p. 147. 

t Bor., book 8, p. G52. Mendoza, torn. 14, p. 293, seq. Ben- 
tivoglio, et alii. 

%Bor.,ubisup., p. GG4. Hoofd, book 10, p. 443. Wagenaer, 
book 7, 1). 88, seq. 



DIPLOMATIC "PKACTICE." 773 

Happily for mankind, tlie sacrifice was not de- 
manded. When all human helpers failed, God de- 
scended on the scene. In February, 1576, Vitelli, 
the ablest and most dreaded of the Spanish cap- 
tains, fell from his litter and was killed.* On the 
5th of March, in the same year, Kequesens also 
sickened of a fever in the trenches before Zierick- 
zee, and died.f His decease radically changed the 
aspect of affairs. The dawn of a brighter day rose 
from his grave among tl;ie marshes. 

'^ Strada, torn. 3, p. 13, et seq. 

t Ibid., p. 15. Hoofd, xM sup., p. 436, ei seq. Bor., ubi sup., 
pp. 6G3-GC.3. 



771 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTEE XLII. 

THE GHENT PACIFICATION, 

Intrinsically, the demise of Eequesens, great 
merely by position, was of little consequence ; for 
" pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps." 
But adventitious circumstances imparted unlooked- 
for importance to the event. Dying suddenly, the 
grand commander had been thereby prevented from 
naming a successor, which letters-patent in his pos- 
session empowered him to do. Therefore, as the 
custom was at such junctures, the council of state 
seated itself in the vacant executive chair, to await 
his majesty's nomination of another viceroy. 

Such nomination the king, doubtful upon whom 
to bestow the honor, and constitutionally predis- 
posed to procrastinate, was as yet unwilling to make. 
Therefore he sent the counsellors full authority to 
rule ad interim.'^ Aerschot, Barlaimont, and Vig- 
lius composed the regnant junta ; but presently sev- 
.era,l others were taken in, among the rest, Jerome 
di Ehoda, one of the blood-judges, added hj royal 
diploma as a kind of overseer of his fellows, t 

The arrangement was a fatal blunder, a make- 

'shift of Hopper's advising; for Philip had taken 

counsel with the paltering and time-serving keeper 

of the seals. "'Tis a devout man, that poor Mas- 

«? Meteren, book 5, folio 104. Bor., book 9, p. GG3, f Ibid 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 775 

ter Hopper," observed Granvelle, " but rather fitted 
for Platonic researches than for afiah's of state."* 
The interests of the king demanded that his repre- 
sentative at Brussels should focus regal divinity; 
instead of which, this many-headed administration 
was the most opaque of bodies. At this critical 
hour, the welfare of absolutism called for the pres- 
ence in the Netherlands of a viceroy able either to 
command or to conciliate esteem ; instead of which, 
the state council was a stench in all men's nostrils ; 
in those of the seigneurs, because they despised to 
be ruled by a committee of their peers ; of the burgh- 
ers, because bigoted Aerschot, "Hispaniolized" 
Barlaimont, and octogenarian Vigiius were gener- 
ally supposed to be politically dead and buried. 
Nothing could have bgen more inopportune for des- 
potism than such a graveyard government ; nor 
more opportune, as the sequel showed, for liberty. 

For a time, however, all went smoothly. The 
counsellors vigorously prosecuted the plan of oper- 
ations which Eequesens had sketched out, press- 
ing especially the siege of Zierickzee, The change 
occurred in March, 1576, and until midsummer the 
island-city was the pivot of affairs. In the trenches 
before its walls were stationed the major part of the 
Spanish forces — all save those absent in the garri- 
sons of the larger cities of the provinces. Orange, 
too, hovered near, organizing to relieve the town.t 
His efforts were fruitless, or worse ; for in one of 

- Archives et Corrcsp., torn. 5, p. 374. 

t Archives de la Maisou d'Orauge-Nassau, torn. 5, p. 3G5. 



776 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

them Boisot, hero of the raising of the siege of 
Leyden, and of a score of sea-fights besides, was 
drowned." 

Finally the prince, his means exhausted, in- 
structed the gallant citizens to surrender, if they 
could do so u23on honorable terms. They at once 
opened a parley with Mondragone, who commanded 
the besiegers ; and he, in turn, sent off to Brussels, 
to inform the counsellors of their offer, and to re- 
quest instructions. The coterie were at first unwil- 
ling to permit him to accept the proposed terms, as 
they feared his troops would mutiny for their pay 
promised them when they should have taken Zie- 
rickzee. But Mondragone painted in such vivid 
colors the want and discontent in camp, that he 
was given carte hlanche in the jnatter.f 

On the 21st of June, after a resistance of above 
eight months, the city struck its flag, the garrison 
being permitted to march out with the honors of 
war, the burghers redeeming themselves from pil- 
lage by the payment of two hundred thousand 
guilders.:]: 

The fall of Zierickzee was followed by the pre- 
cise consequences which the counsellors had dread- 
ed. The veterans, enraged by the non-payment of 
their arrears, chagrined at the escape of Zierickzee 
from sack, incensed against the impecunious gov- 
ernment, determined, as aforetime, to take the law 

■'' Archives de la Maisou d'Orange-Nassau, torn. 5, p. 365. 
Hoofd, book 10, p. 440. 

t Bor., book 9, p. 678. Hoofd, xM sup. | Ibid. Meteren. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 777 

into their own hands. King Philip owed them 
moneys, but the provinces belonged to him, there- 
fore they were a legitimate prey. Such was the 
syllogism by which the mutineers justified them- 
selves. 

Assembling, they deposed Mondragone, chose 
a captain, swore mutual fidelity over the sacred 
host, left a few of their companions to hold their 
hard-won conquest, and then, abandoning the island, 
marched tumultuously into Brabant, eating the land 
bare as they advanced — a swarm of human locusts.* 
The frightened counsellors despatched Count 
Mansfeld to treat with the mutineers, arming him 
for the encounter with all but the one thing need- 
ful — gold. He was met with jeers. " What is it 
you say about tarnishing our glory?" shouted the 
armed mob. " We have had enough of it. Glory 
can't be put into our pockets, nor will it fill our 
stomach s."t Other mediators fared no better, be- 
ing met with the ultimatum, " Money, or a city as 
security."! Not receiving either satisfaction, they 
swarmed oif again, menacing first Mechlin, then 
Brussels, and finally swooping upon Alost, in Flan- 
ders, a rich old town about equidistant from Ant- 
werp and from the capital. § 

Thus far the Spanish officers — Romero, D'Avila, 
Mondragone — had frowned upon the mutiny, which 
they were, nevertheless, thought by the populace 

•-■ Bor., book 9, p. G79, et seq. MencToza, torn. 15, p. 300. 
•j- Mendoza, ubi sup. t Tbu\. Eor., xih'i sup., p. 692. 

§ Ibid. Beutivoglio, torn. 9, p. 173. 
33* 



778 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

to favor in their secret hearts. In one of Chrjsos- 
tom's homilies, the mind upon which first imjDres- 
sions have been made is compared to a pahmpsest 
parchment, in which, however carefully reprepared, 
the old lines and characters are sure to appear 
peeping through the new writing. So in the tabula 
rasa of the captains, the Netherlanders imagined 
they could see beneath the denunciation of the mu- 
tiny the letters of a substantial sympathy with the 
brigands. In ever-j)resent danger from the exas- 
perated masses, hated strangers in a foreign land, 
and drawn towards the soldiery by the double mag- 
net of esprit du corps, and a common peril, they at 
last gave in their adherence to the outbreak, which 
thus became general throughout the provinces.* 
This accession gave the mutineers prestige, and at 
the same time placed in their hands the citadels of 
Antwerp, Ghent, Valenciennes, and Utrechtf — for- 
tresses which, like the gigantic helmet in the fic- 
tion, hung suspended in mid-air, as if ready to 
crush the dwarfed towns below. 

Meantime the excitement was on the increase. 
The masses, of all sects and parties, began to arm, 
impelled by a common hatred of the mutineers. 
On the 26th of July, the council of state formally 
banned the soldiery — made it legal for any man to 
slay them at sight ;| and this was followed, on the 
2d of August, by a yet more stringent edict.§ Next 

" Mendoza, torn. 15, p. 301. Bor., Hooftl, ut aniea. 

t Ibid. Cabrera, tora. 11, p. 864, seq. J Bor., book 11, p. 693, 

§ Ibid. Hoofd, book 10, p. 445. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 779 

the counsellors commenced enrolling troops. " They 
sa}^," wrote the Spaniard Verdugo to a friend, " that 
'tis to put down the mutiny, but I assure you 'tis 
to attack us all."" Between the patriot levies and 
roving bands of the brigands the bloodiest collis- 
ions were of daily occurrence.f The whole land 
seemed a camp. Anticipation, spendthrift of the 
future, could imagine nothing sadder ; memory, 
miser of the past, could find in the heaps of its rec- 
ollections nothing worse than the existing situation. 
On getting news of this commotion in the hith- 
erto obedient provinces, the prince of Orange had 
travelled post to Middleburg, that he might be near 
the scene of action, ready to reap the harvest of 
this wild sowing.:]: He left Holland in comparative 
repose, the inhabitants occupied in repairing the 
ravages of war; for, physically, the provinces sat 
desolate — seemed quite undone. The dykes were 
down, the cattle swept away, the land half-sub- 
merged; the country called for recreation.§ But 
no one despaired, and all went to work — reaping 
more from sterility than tyrants could from the 
fattest valleys. Politically, there were changes for 
the better. The union recently cemented between 
HolJtiud and Zealand, whose tenure was from sis 
months to sis mouths, had been renewed and made 
closer in the spring of 1576, and repubhcanized 

'~' Cited iu Motlej', vol. 3, p. 79. 

f Hoofd, uhisiip., p. 459. Strada, torn. 3, p. 18, seq. 

I Bor., ubl sup., p. C94. 

§ Wagenaer, book 7, p. 158, d scq. 



780 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

withal; for tlie confederacy was a group of virtu- 
ally independent cities and nobles, represented in 
tlie diet by deputies of tlieir own electing.* Will- 
iam ruled as stadtliolder, and possessed large pow- 
ers of peace and war, joint control witli tlie estates 
of tlie magistracies and courts of justice, and abso- 
lute supremacy over the army and the fleets.f 

The little commonwealth was poor; for years 
of single-handed warfare with the mightiest cap- 
tains of the foremost military power of Europe had 
decimated population and half ruined trade. Nev- 
ertheless, here probity supplied the place of wealth. 
The word of these men was held to be as good as 
their bond, and either was never known to be pro- 
tested. Within the borders of Holland and Zealand, 
patriot mutinies, scenes analogous to those which the 
prince was watching from the walls of Middleburg, 
were quite unknown. At Haarlem, at Alckmaar, at 
Leydeii, at Zierickzee, when specie had failed the 
citizens in the long sieges, they issued promissory 
notes or coined money of tin, which the foreign sol- 
diers, in their pay, received without complaint ; nor 
was such traffic as remained embarrassed by want 
of confidence in a circulating medium wholly desti- 
tute of intrinsic value. Behind every piece of pa- 
per currency, in every tin coin, the holder saw the 
pledged faith of the commonwealth, and knew that 
no plea of distress, no complaint of extortion, no 
claim of usury would be interposed to bar eventual 
redemption — there stood the promise, certain to be 

* Vide Articles of Uuioii, in Bor., book 9, p. G20. f Ibid. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 781 

fulfilled, unless William and the estates went down.* 
It was this integrity and the boundless confidence 
which it inspired, that enabled this impoverished 
nook of land to protract the contest with Spain to 
the ultimate exhaustion of the Croesus at Madrid. 
Philip conducted his exchequer upon opposite prin- 
ciples. On one occasion he had incurred a debt of 
some fifteen millions of ducats to Spanish and Ger- 
man merchants. He paid his creditors by obtain- 
ing* from the pope a dispensation which permitted 
him to revoke his engagements, "lest," said he, "I 
should be ruined by usury while combating her- 
esy."!" Is it strange that the soldiers of the royal 
repudiator should demand their wages, not in prom- 
ises, but in current coin of the realm ? 

When they could not get this, they mutinied — 
as they were now doing in Flanders and Brabant. 
But while these provinces suffered from the mutiny, 
Holland, happily out of reach of the marauders, 
gained by it ; for the garrisons of those towns 
within its borders of which the Spaniard had pos- 
sessed himself now deserted their posts and hur- 
ried south to join their insurgent comrades.| Thus 
by the laches of the conqueror, Haarlem, Naarden, 
Sparrendam, and the Hague reverted to the state, 
never again to bow in vassalage to a foreign j)ower. 
Amsterdam, however, still adhered to the royalists, 
which caused the patriots infinite vexation, and 

^ Davies. Hist, of Holland, vol. 2, p. 32, seq. 

f Metercn, book 5, folio 116. 

% Brandt, vol. 1, p. 325. Bor., Hoofd, et alii. 



782 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

crippled the union." But upon the whole, liberty 
and religion were regnant in the confederacy. 

It was William's purpose to evoke a similar 
order from the southern chaos. He aspired to 
unite the seventeen provinces in one great political 
brotherhood. Hitherto the presence in Brussels, 
first of Alva, then of Requesens, and fatal differ- 
ences of religion — Holland and Zealand unani- 
mously Protestant, the sister-states at least half 
Eomanistt — had prevented this "consummafion 
devoutly to be wished." The latter impediment 
still existed ; but the prevailing disorders had al- 
ready drawn all into closer relations with each 
other, tiding over, at least for the moment, the 
quarrel of creeds. Men of all parties were now 
clamoring for the expulsion of the foreign brigands ; 
and as the provinces had been akin in their whilom 
constitutions, so at this hour all seemed inclined to 
use the crisis in effecting a restoration of the ancient 
government.! 

These were the rocks of William's hope. Put- 
ting himself in active communication with the mal- 
contents at Brussels, at Antwerp, at Ghent, he be- 
gan to labor with a swift subtlety which no ken of 
common intelligence could follow, precipitating and 
moulding events months before his agency was 
suspected by the uninitiated. In multitudinous ap- 
peals to the respective estates and to influential 
individuals, he touched the chords of national 

* Motley, Tol. 3, p. 56, seq. f De Thou, liv. 62. 

X Motley, vol. 3, pp. 56, 83, 84. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 783 

feeling with skilful fingers, drawing forth a stormy, 
revolutionary chorus.* In the autumn of 1576, the 
result became manifest. The southern provinces 
appointed delegates to confer with the representa- 
tives of Holland and Zealand in a grand interpro- 
vincial congress summoned to meet in Ghent.f 

Meantime the burghers of Brussels, convinced 
that several members of the council of state were 
secretly encouraging the mutineers, determined 
upon a coup d'etat. On the 5th of September, 1576, 
a revolutionary committee burst in upon the coun- 
sellors in full session, and placed that antiquated 
gathering under arrest— laid them up among otlier 
fossils in the museum of history. | At the same 
time the Blood Council, which even since the re- 
tirement of Alva had been spasmodically active, 
was suspended, and that too became an antique.§ 
A few days afterwards, Aerschot and two or three 
others of the counsellors, who had of late assumed 
the Phrygian cap, were liberated and permitted to 
resume their nominal functions under surveillance ;ii 
the existence of the council of state, in some shape, 
being essential, since it alone was competent to 
sprinkle executive action with the rose-water of 
legality. Some weeks jirevious to this scene, one of 

« FicZe the letters in Bor., book 9, pp. G95, G96, 702, seq. 

t Boi-., uhisitp., pp. 703, 718, seq. 

X Ibid., p. 712. Meteren, book 5, folio 197. Archives de la 
Maisou d'Orange-Nassau, etc., torn. 5, p. 408. 

§ Aixhives et Corresp., torn. 5, p. 406. 

11 Motlej', uU sup., p. 92. Davics, vol. 2, p. 34. Meteren, 
book G, folios 120, 121. 



784 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

the counsellors, Jerome cli Ehoda, scenting danger, 
had escaped to Antwerp. Now, claiming that his 
companions were in duress, he set up his person as 
all that remained of the outraged majesty of Spain, 
counterfeited the royal seal, and gave to the muti- 
neers the sanction of the law.* Thus, as in a for- 
mer centurj^ there had been two popes — one at 
Rome, the other at Ayignon, both claiming to be 
the undoubted successor of St. Peter — so now in 
the Netherlands there were two representatives of 
his majesty, and men were privileged to take their 
choice. 

On the 19th of October, 1576, the interprovin- 
cial congress held its opening session at Ghent. f 
The citadel, built to curb, not to protect the town, 
was held by the mutineers, somewhat to the alarm 
of the delegates, whose first act was to solicit aid 
from William for its reduction. :|: He willingly re- 
sponded by sending twenty-eight companies of foot ; 
who, assisted by the burgher train-bands, at once 
besieged the castle, which was ably commanded by 
the amazonian wife of Mondragone,. in that veter- 
an's absence. § Thus the congress commenced its 
deliberations to the warlike music of a cannonade. 

While these events were afoot, the brigands 
were astir. On the 20th of October, the opulent 
town of Maestricht was escaladed and sacked— 



fi> Hoofd, book 30, p. 449. Bor., book 9, p. 705. 
f Bor., ubi sup., p. 719, seq. Meteren, book 6, folio 3. 
i Meteren, book 6, folio 108. Bor., ubi sup., p. 716. 
§ Meteren, ubi sup. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 785 

stabbing, drowning, burning, and ravishing filling 
up the measure of its woe.* About two weeks later, 
what is called the "Spanish fury" occurred at Ant- 
werp. The citadel which commanded that magnif- 
icent city was held by Don Sanchio D'Avila, in the 
interest of the mutineers. For some time past the 
citizens, supported by what levies they had been able 
to mass, had held the garrison in close confinement. 
Don Sanchio managed to send word to Alost, the 
headquarters of the mutineers, of his precarious con- 
tion. "March to my relief," wrote he, "else we 
must lose our hold on the riches of these smug and 
gold-footed burghers."t The message was effect- 
ual. Alost was speedily emptied of the pirate horde ; 
all swarmed off to succor their imperilled comrade. 
The citizens, apprized of their coming, rushed to 
the city-gates, resolute to defend their plethoric 
warehouses and their hearths. A furious fight en- 
sued. But the undisciplined valor of the multitude 
proved no match for the trained skill of the muti- 
neers. At dusk the assailants, aided by a despe- 
rate sortie of D'Avila from the citadel and by the 
treason of the German troops in the pay of the 
townsfolk, forced their way through the well-defend- 
ed portals, and early evening saw them in full pos- 
session of the commercial metropolis of Europe.:}: 

Humanity shudders at the rest. Antwerp was 
fired in a hundred different quarters ; and, lighted by 

« Meteren, ubl sup., folio 109. Strada, torn. 3, p. 21. 
t Meteren, book 7, folio 110. Hoofd, Bor., et alii. 
t Mendoza, torn. 15, p. 315. Meteren, uM sup. 



786 THE DUTCH BEFOEMATION. 

these frightful torches, the brigands spread through- 
out the town, intent equally on robbery, rape, and 
murder. Eaging up and down like devils loosed, 
they spared neither crippled age nor blooming 
youth; neither the feeble matron, the helpless 
maid, nor the wailing babe. Houses and churches 
vomited blood. Not shrieks, nor sobs, nor prayers 
could move the pity of the pitiless.* Every man- 
sion, every warehouse was ransacked from garret 
to cellar. The houses of the foreign merchants, of 
the clergy, of the patricians, of the mechanics were 
alike gutted in the fierce democracy of the sack.t 

Details need not soil these pages. It shall suf- 
fice to note that, with a loss to themselves of less 
than two hundred men, the Spaniards slew upwards 
of eight thousand of the burghers, burned five hun- 
dred of the costliest buildings in the world, pock- 
eted six millions of dollars in gold, and destroyed 
property to twice that value.J Afterwards, being 
thus handsomely in funds, and become desirous of 
aping the despised and plundered merchants, they 
sauntered daily into the exchange, like men accus- 
tomed to affairs, wasting their gains in gambling at 
the Bourse, or melting their blood-spotted gold into 
coats-of-mail.§ 

Such was the holiday of the soldiers of the saints 
in Antwerp, The image of Him who said, "Love 

■"- Bor.,book9, p. 731. 

f Campana, lib. 5, p. 1C5. De Thou,, Bor., Hoofd, at muUi alii, 
t Hoofd, book 9, p. 463. Bor., ubi sup. Strada, torn 3. 
§ Motley, vol. 3, p. 117. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 787 

your enemies" and the gentle face of the Madonna 
were supposed to smile from heaven upon deeds 
which might cause a shudder in the depths of hell." 
Di Khoda stood forth as the apologist of the infa- 
my. " I wish your majesty much good of the vic- 
tory," wrote he to Philip ; " 't is a very great one, 
and the damage to the city is enormous."t What 
the king thought is not known ; but if silence gives 
consent, he too may be ranked among the pipus 
cynics who rejoiced. 

The "Spanish fury" had one good result — it 
decided the action of the congress at Ghent. On 
the 8th of November, 1576, four days after the mas- 
sacre, St. Aldegonde, with eight others, commission- 
ers for Holland and Zealand, and the deputies of 
the southern and middle provinces, put their hands 
and seals to a paper by which it was unanimously 
agreed : 

That all should pardon the past offences of all. 

That, for the future, the Netherlands should 
constitute an offensive and defensive alliance — in 
all else, each state to retain its individuality. 

That the Spaniards should be expelled Avithout 
delay. 

That all edicts against heresy and all acts of 
inquisition should be suspended. 

That in the Eomanist provinces the prevailing 
creed should suffer no injury by word or deed. 

That in Holland and Zealand the established 
faith should be guaranteed. 

■-■ Mctley, vol. 3, p. 106. f Cited in Bor., book 9, p. 737, scq 



788 THE DUTCH BEPOEMATION. 

That every vexed question arising under the 
compact should be subject to the decision of the 
states-general.* 

Such, in rough outHne, was the famous " Pacifi- 
cation of Ghent;" and these were the chief of the 
twenty-five articles which it contained, other clauses 
bearing in the main upon individual interests. By 
it, the Low Countries were united, somewhat loosely 
indeed, but still united, and pledged to drive out 
the brigands. The Reformation was recognized in 
the states in which it was dominant, and in the fif- 
teen ultramontane provinces it was tacitly acqui- 
esced in, since the inquisitorial decrees were abro- 
gated. With the return of the exiled Protestants, 
the gospel theology might haply become regnant 
in the south, as it was already in the north. As 
the pigeons, in their jourueyings, carry in their 
crops precious cargoes of undigested seed — as the 
swallows pack the interstices of their feathers with 
tiny, close-pressed bales of insects, blessing with 
their visits islands far distant from any mainland, 
where they drop their freight, and thus become the 
scatterers of myriad generations of insect life, plant- 
ers of mighty forests — so the reformers hoped that 
here the seed with which their lives were freighted 
might fall into good ground, and bring forth a thou- 
sand fold. 

While the deputies were in the act of signing 
the treaty, they were informed that the castle of 

* Vide the articles in Bor., book 9, p. 738, et seq. Meteren, 
book 6, folio 112, et al. 



THE GHENT PACIFICATION. 789 

Glieut had surrendered at discretion ;* and shortly 
afterwards word was brought that the city of Zie- 
rickzee, with the whole island of Schouweu, had 
again shaken off the recently -imposed yoke of 
Spain, and rehoisted the patriot banner.f Thus 
closed this memorable day, amid universal gratu- 
lation, the cheering of all parties save the muti- 
neers, and both creeds,^ and the peal of jubilant, 
merry-making bells. 

In the midst of the excitement attending these 
occurrences, Don John of Austria, whom Philip 
had at length selected as governor-general of the 
Low Countries, arrived at Luxemburg. § Disguised 
as a Moorish slave in the train of a Castilian gran- 
dee, he had travelled with all speed to ripacli his 
post — only at last to arrive too late, as was the 
common fortune of Spanish haste.ll This was the 
Odyssey, as the Pacification was the Iliad, of the 
epoch. 

•"- Bor., iM sup., ID. 727. Mendoza, torn. 16, p. 326. 

t Bor., uhi sup. Hoofd, book 11, id. 470. 

X Strada, torn. 3, p. 21. 

§ Hoofd, ut aniea, p. 472. Bor., ut antea. 

II Strada, torn. 3, p. 19. 



790 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

CHAPTEK XLIII. 

PRAISE GOD. 

In deputing Don John of Austria to govern tha 
proTinces, Philip had for once deferred to the prej- 
udice of the Netherlanders against foreign rulers ; 
for though their new yiceroy bore a Spanish brand, 
he was not a Spaniard. His romantic story was 
known of all men. Like Margaret of Parma, the 
offspring of one of the many illicit loves of Charles 
v., his reputed mother was Dame Barbara Blam- 
berg, who, before the emperor honored by dishon- 
oring her, had been a washerwoman of Eatisbon.* 
Becognized as a son by Charles and as a brother 
by Philip, the imperial bastard had been liberally 
educated ; and now, at thirty-one, stood haloed 
with fame won at Lepanto, and in campaigns against 
both Ottoman and Moriscoe. 

Elegant and graceful in person and deportment, 
lively, facetious, affable, Don John was the curled 
darling of chivalry. Events were soon to show that 
he lacked prudence, patience, self-command, and 
dexterity in managing the passions and prejudices, 
of men — the precise qualities which the times and 
his role demanded in the states. Prom his advent 
great results were looked for both at Madrid and 
at the Vatican. He himself dreamed of a glory 
surpassing that of Lepanto and the Alpuxarras; 

* Strada, torn. 5, p. 16, et seq. 



PRAISE GOD. 791 

for his appointment had a double meaning. After 
subduing the Netherlands, the pope had stipulated 
with Philip that the conqueror should pass into 
England and Hberate and wed the captive queen of 
Scots, with Great Britain for her dowry, which 
would be a plausible title for the house of Austria 
to base a war upon for the dethroning of Elizabeth.* 
The hero meant, therefore, to placate the provinces 
in a summary and ostentatious fashion; then to 
plume his wings for a flight at the higher quarry. 

Unhappily for the impatient and passionate 
dreamer, he had first to encounter the prince of 
Orange — an antipodal character, untimely aged at 
forty-three, who knew not seems, but inquired for 
the is ; spare of figure, plain in apparel, benignant 
but haggard of countenance, with temples bared by 
thought as much as by the helmet, earnest, devout 
in manner, in his ov>'n phrase " Calvus ct Calvin- 
■26fo."t "What chance of success had the knight 
errant in his impending joust with the foremost 
statesman of the age? 

Don John's instructions were brief but preg- 
nant : " You will bring about a j)acification, if pos- 
sible," said the king; "always maintaining, how- 
ever, the absolute authority of the croAvn and the 
exclusive exercise of the Eoman faith. "J How the 
paradox of conciliation without concession was to 
be accomplished, his majesty did not deign to say ; 

* Strada, torn. 3, p. 18. f Motley, vol. 3, p. 146. 

X lustniccion Secreta, MS. Cited iu Motley, uhi sup., pp, 
14G, 117. 



792 THE DUTCH REFOEMATION. 

but the viceroy seems not to have noticed the omis 
sion. 

On reaching Luxemburg, Don John's first act 
was formally to apprize the states-general, then in 
session at Brussels under call of the recent congress 
at Ghent, and what remained of the council of state, 
of his arrival. "I shall not go on to the capital," 
added he, " until I receive hostages for your peace- 
able behavior, a guard for my own security, and 
the command of the army and navy. I am inclined 
to peace ; but if you fail in these respects, you will 
find me no less prepared for war."* 

This message, made up of an announcement, a 
demand, and a threat, perplexed the patriot gov- 
ernment ; and embarrassment soon became fore- 
boding, for intercepted letters showed that both 
Philip and Don John were in active corresj^ondence 
with the mutineers, whose conduct was approved, 
whose faithfulness was applauded.f 

Upon ascertaining this fact, the states-general 
applied to Orange for advice. It was readily given. 
In a letter, varying through every key in which 
human wisdom could be sung, the prince exhorted 
the national representatives to be firm, cautious, 
incisive. " Above all," wrote he, " make no treaty 
with Don John ; take no step towards his reception 
without swearing him to the observance of these 
conditions-precedent : the maintenance of the Ghent 
pacification in its entirety, the recall of the Span- 

<* Vide his letter in Bor., book 10, p. 761. 
t Davies, vol. 2, p. 40. 



PKAISE GOD. 793 

isli troops, no fresli battalions to be recruited witli- 
out the consent of tlie states-general, the demoli- 
tion of the citadels, the recognition of the charters, 
the assembly of the states-general at pleasure.""' 

The deputies promptly determined to heed this 
counsel, remembering that they who prorogue the 
honesty of to-day till to-morrow, will probably pro- 
rogue to-morrow to eternity. Towards the end of 
November, 1576, a committee waited upon his high- 
ness at Luxemburg to present the programme 
which Orange had sketched as a sine qua non.f 
Tedious and indecisive negotiations ensued. Each 
looked askance at the other, the Netherland diplo- 
mats stoutly adhering to their ultimatum, Don John 
offering to guarantee any thing except the essential 
points — eager, in Burke's phrase, to " mortgage his 
injustice as a^pawn for his fidelity." 

Meantime, the states-general were preparing for 
the worst issue. The sieur de Sweveghem was ac- 
credited to England, and other envoys passed into 
France and into Germany to solicit aid or to cement 
alhances. At all these courts they were graciously 
received, Elizabeth especially acting with unwonted 
frankness and alacrity. She advanced one hundred 
thousand pounds in negotiable paper, hinging the 
loan upon the fair conditions that the pacification 
should be adhered to, and that no treaty should be 
made with Don John without her assent.:]: 

•» Vide Bor., book 10, p. 747, et seq. 

f Ibid., p. 7G2, seq. Wagenaer, Vanclervynckt, et alii, 

% Camdeu, book 2, p. 215, Metercn, book G, folio 128, seq. 

Dutch Rel. 34 



794 THE DUTCH EEFOKMATION. 

Nor were tlie patriots less active at liome. Ou 
the oth of Januar}', 1577, the "Union of Brussels" 
v/as formed.* This pact covered the same ground 
as the pacification ; but whereas that was a diplo- 
matic convention, subscribed by the deputies of the 
contracting parties the states, this was a popular 
agreement, signed by the people at large — nobles, 
ecclesiastics, citizens, peasants, convened for the 
purpose of giving to the demands put forth at 
Ghent the broad authority of democratic sanction. f 

At the same time the states-general, as evidence 
of the sincerity of their desire for peace and the 
statu quo, got the council of state to declare that 
there was nothing in the text of the pacification 
hostile to the prerogative of his majesty, and pro- 
cured from the pedant doctors of Louvain an elab- 
orate opinion that the treaty did not conflict with 
the supremacy of holy church. | • These papers, 
plentifully garnished with exclamation points — the 
crutches upon which lame rhetoric habitually hob- 
bles — were forwarded to the viceroy, whose scruples 
they were expected to satisfy. § 

Thus supported, and assisted by mediators sent 
by the new German emperor Eudolph, who now 
succeeded his father, the trimmer Maximilian, re- 
cently deceasedjll the patriots resumed negotiations 
with Don John. For some weeks the interviews 



<* Bor., book 10, p. 769. f Ibid. Meteren,book G, folio 116. 

X Bor., uU sup., pp. 7CG, 7G8.' 

§ Ibid. Hoofd, book 11, p. 478. 

II He died on the 12th of October, 1576. 



PEAISE GOD. 705 

■were bickering aud stormy ; but in the end, con- 
vinced that only so could lie hope for success, and 
fearful that longer delay might cause the voyage 
into England to slip out of his hands, Don John 
decided to accede to the ultimatum of the obstinate 
provinces, thinking that, once recognized, it would 
be easy for him to find or invent some clause in the 
agreement through which he could drive the coach 
and six of absolutism.* Still with an eye to Great 
Britain, however, he insisted upon a proviso that 
the troops should depart by sea.f In the first flush 
of triumph, the states-general conceded so much ; 
but suspecting, on reflection, that some unknown 
danger lurked under a stipulation so strenuously 
urged, they withdrew their assent, pleading the 
expense and delay which the providing ships for 
ten thousand men would necessitate.:]: Protracted 
and heated negotiations resulted; but finally, the 
patriots again carried their point. Don John 
agreed to the exit of the army by land, and with 
a secret sigh, deferred the darling aud roman- 
tic project which had lured him to the Nether- 
lands.§ 

On the 17th of February, 1577, the provinces 
were officially apprized of the successful close of 
the conferences by the "perpetual edict," which 
pledged Don John to the maintenance of the paci- 
fication of Ghent,|| and which, a few weeks later, his 

«- Bor., book 10, p. 775. f Ibid, 

t Davies, vol. 2, p. 43. § Bor., 1)ook 10, p. 486. 

II Ibid. Metoren, book G, folios 117, 118. 



70G THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

majesty formally approved in a decree fulminated 
from Madrid.'^ 

Nevertheless, Orange viewed the treaty and its 
royal endorsement with absolute disdain. "Why? 
Because he saw the trickery by which both were 
inspired. " Call him wise," says Lavater, " whose 
actions are a clear because to a clear why.'" In a 
solemn manifesto he warned the states-general of 
the insidious danger that threatened the new policy. 
" New men come out of Spain, not new purposes ; 
for in that shop intents are always cast in the same 
mould," wrote he. " Be not cajoled by empty prot- 
estations and blotted parchments. Vigilance and 
determination — these are alone trustworthy ; palla- 
diums these."t He refused to sign the " perpetual 
edict," as did also the maritime provinces ; nor did 
he remit his warlike preparations.:]: Some better 
bulwark against the returning tide of tyranny was 
needed than the hollow promise of a necessitous 
vicero}^, the solemn saws of a timid council of state, 
and the quiddities from Louvain.§ Events were 
soon to prove the accuracy of his proj)hetic ken. 

At the outset, however, affairs tripped smoothly 
along. In the last days of June, the Spanish bat- 
talions departed, marching through the crowds of 
jubilant spectators who lined the way to see them 
off with sulky, half-mutinous mien, and comforted 

* Vandervyuckt, book 2, p. 232. Strada, torn. 4, p. 30. 
f Strada, uhi sup., p. 33. Compare the letter in Bor., nbi sup., 
p. 790. :j: Bor., Hoofd, Vaudervj'uckt, et aUL 

§ Motley, vol. 3, p. 107, seq. 



PRAISE GOD. 797 

by the reflection that the war, now raked up in em- 
bers, would ere long burst forth in fresh flame, when 
they would be recalled to extinguish it * They 
went out laden w^ith the spoils of ten years' rapine, 
boasting that within six months they had slain 
thirty thousand Netherlanders, with a loss to them- 
selves which was not perceptible by the light of 
their camp-fires.t The popular rejoicings were 
dampened by the memory of this slaughter, by the 
fear that their exit was but a feint, and by the fact 
that ten thousand German mercenaries, whose ar- 
rears the states-general had not been able to pay, 
still held the provincial strongholds for the king.:]: 

On the 1st of May, Don John made his ofiicial 
entry into Brussels, amid the extravagant plaudits 
of the populace, never so happy as on a show-day, 
and only less excitable and volatile than the giddy 
Parisians. It was, as Dry den sang of the Eestoration, 

" A very merry, dancing, drinking, 
Laughing, quaffing, and imthinking time." 

In the midst of the revelry, Yiglius " shuffled off 
this mortal coil "§— dying not much regTctted by 
any faction. A man of prodigious acquisitions, 
learned in both laws, the adroitest of politicians, 
he was an egotist who Uved for liimself alone; he 
was left therefore to be the chief mourner at his 
own funeral. He had been prominent in public 
affairs now for forty years, yet had never allowed 

* Strada, torn. 4, p. 32. f Grotius, Ann., lib. 7, p. 70. 

% Hoofd, hook 11. Bor., book 10. 
§ He died May 8, 1577. 



7:38 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

himself to be betrayed into an lionest act. He had 
doubtless been honest once, and he was for ever 
tradinsf on that fact; but some one has said that 
the worst of all knaves are those who can mimic 
their former honesty. Like Martial's lawyer — Iras 
et verba locant — he was in the habit of hiring out his 
words and auger, proportioning both to the amount 
of the fee. He was accustomed to say, "A good 
lawyer is a bad Christian," and his own life did not 
give the lie to the device. 

In Holland and Zealand, the citizens took ad- 
vantage of the present hour of sunshine to recon- 
struct their dykes, and generally to rehabilitate the 
laud. In obedience to the popular invitation, the 
prince, accompanied by his wife, Charlotte de Bour- 
bon, made a tour through these little states at this 
juncture, for the purpose of marking the progress 
of internal improvement, making suggestions, pro- 
moting a closer union between the towns, concili- 
ating jarring interests, and strengthening the reso- 
lution of the masses to sustain, if need were, a 
renewal of the war. He was everywhere received 
with tears of gladness and shouts of welcome. And 
as he passed from village to village, there was one 
continued cry of, " Father William has come ! F-ather 
WilHam has come!""" This crown of a nation's 
gratitude was the only one which the liberator cared 
to place upon his brow. 

At the request of the burgomaster of Utrecht, 
he visited that ancient Episcopal see, reestablishing 
e Iloofd, book 12, p. 520. Bor., book 10, p. 830 



PEAISE GOD. 799 

thereby the entente cordiale which ere long impelled 
that province to adhere to the seaboard confed- 
eracy.* 

Meanwhile affairs at Brussels were drifting tow- 
ards that imbroglio which the astute prince had 
predicted. Don John, galled by the limitations 
imposed ujDon his authority, was making resolute 
efforts to break through the meshes. He had al- 
ready tampered with the German hirelings,! and 
he had even gone so far as to make overtures to 
Orange — overtures which, it is needless to add, 
were received with merited contempt.:]: The states- 
general, apprized of these machinations, viewed the 
governor-general with daily increasing suspicion. 
" These people," said he, " are beginning to abhor 
me, and I abhor them already."§ At length, feel- 
ing sure of the mercenaries, he determined to bring 
matters to a crisis. Repairing to Namur on pre- 
tence of welcoming Marguerite de Valois, the fair 
and frail wife of Henry of Navarre, who was pass- 
ing through that town en route to the baths of Spa, 
he made a sudden attack upon the citadel of that 
city, and took it, exclaiming, " This is the first day 
of my regency, "li 

Thence he despatched a letter to the states- 

* Hoofd, book 12, p. 520. Eor., book 10, p. 830. Wagenaer, 
book 7. • f Ibid. 

J Vide CoiTcsp. do Guillanroe le Taciturue, vol. 3, preface, p. 
liv. , seq. 

§ Cartas del S. Dou Juan, MS., cited in Motley, vol. 3, p. I!i2. 
Strada, torn. 4. 

11 Jlctcrcn, book 7, folio 122. Beutivoglio, torn. 10, p, 191:, seq. 



800 THE DUTCH REFOKMATION. 

f^eneral, alleging, in apology for this action, the 
existence of a plot to seize his person. "I will 
return to the capital," wrote he, " when you agree 
to reestablish me in the rights of the governor-gen- 
eralship, abolish the Pacification of Ghent, and de- 
clare war against Orange and his nests of heresy in 
Holland and Zealand."-=<- 

This truculent epistle reconvulsed the proTinces. 
For a while, indeed, the states-general were irreso- 
lute and inclined to temporize. They deprecated 
the return of war — trade was Avhite-lipped at the 
thought. They were without an army. The Ger- 
mans were in Don John's pay, and they held the 
citadels from Valenciennes to Breda. These con- 
siderations made them half-minded to concede ev- 
er}^ thing except warfare with the prince; and a 
profuse interchange of protocols, of propositions 
and counter-propositions, of crimination and re- 
crimination, was the resultt — a parchment babel. 

Before any thing decisive had come out of this 
confusion of tongues, a discovery was made which 
necessitated war. Just prior to his instalment at 
Brussels, Don John and his confidential secretary, 
Escovedo, had written in cipher to Philip, request- 
ing moneys and a fresh supply of troops against the 
time when the farce of reconciliation should end, 
and the tragedy of force, the only cure-all, should 
begin; "for," added they, "whatever we may seein 
to think, our real opinion is that the diseased part 

* Bor., book 11, p. 835, seq. Metereii, uhl sup. 
t Vide Motley, vol. 3, pp. 2U-'2,75, pasfiim 



PRAISE GOD. 801 

of the Netherlands must be cut off." As it fell out, 
the courier lost this packet in transitu, and it was 
picked up on the heath of Bordeaux, and handed 
to Henry of Navarre, who sent it to Orange. The 
prince had the letters deciphered, and then he de- 
spatched them to the states-general.* Perceiving, 
therefore, the slight security Avhicli any contract 
with Don John would afford, the national repre- 
sentatives at once suspended negotiations, and be- 
gan to prepare for war. 

The first thing to be done was, to expel the Ger- 
mans. As the patriots were without troops, they 
determined to fight with gold — to bribe the hire- 
lings from the land. At Antwerp, whose citadel 
Avas Don John's pillow, the first essay was made. 
After much running to and fro, the burghers finally 
prevailed upon the mercenaries to evacuate the 
town in consideration of a hundred and fifty thou- 
sand guilders, cash in hand. The parties were about 
to close the bargain, the last parley was being held, 
the merchants stood by with large purses full of 
gold to pay the price, when suddenly a patriot flo- 
tilla sailed up the Scheldt, and fired three broad- 
sides among the barricades of the soldiers. With' 
a shout of, "The gueux! the gueuxf the Germans 
scattered and fled pell-mell, leaving their baggage 
and the fat purses behind. "Within five minutes, 
Antwerp was free from a garrison which had vexed 
and pillaged it for twelve weary years.t ' 

» Hoofd, book 12, p. r)l6. De Thou, lib. Gl, cap. 7. 
■f Bor, book 11, p. 855. HootU, uhl sup., ]i. 522. 



802 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

The work thus auspiciously commenced was 
thriftily pursued, and by the autumn of 1577, the 
provinces were swept clean of the Germans by the 
bloodless broom of burgher coin.* As a measure 
of security for the future, the liberated towns deter- 
mined to destroy those " nests of tyranny," the cit- 
adels. Antwerp set the example. While occupied 
in the demolition, the citizens found, lying in an 
obscure crypt, the statue of Alva, which Kequesens 
had thrown down. The hated effigy was first drag- 
ged through the streets for general inspection and 
outrage, and then dashed in pieces by a thousand 
sturdy sledge-hammers.f Soon afterwards Ghent, 
Valenciennes, Utrecht took a similar holiday, razmg 
the castles amid hoarse vivas.'l 

In September, 1577, Orange was urgently invi- 
ted by the states-general to visit the capital, and 
give them the aid of his personal presence.§ Alone, 
and against the advice of his more timorous friends, 
he immediately started on what John Nassau styled 
"the gallows-journey to Brussels,"|| On the 23d 
of the month he entered the town, whose pavement 
had been so long unfamiliar to his feet, where Var- 
gas had proscribed him, hailed by the mercurial 
and boisterous populace as friend and deliverer.^ 

He found three parties in the state — the adhe- 

« Metereu, Hoofd, Bor. f Strada, torn, i, p. 909. 

X Meteren, book 7, folio 12.5. Hoofd, book 12, p. 524:. 
§ Ibid. Bor., 11, p. 871. 
II Archives et Corresp., torn. 6, p. 215. 

II Hoofd, ubi sup., p. 528. Meteren, book 7, folio 126, Bor., 
vbi sup., p. 873. 



PRAISE GOD. 803 

rents of Don John, commonly called the " Johan- 
ists;" the nobles, led by Aerschot, whom events 
had taught to hate the Spaniard, but who were 
even more jealous of the prince, who stood aloof 
from the people, and were intent upon harvesting 
from the troubles a crop of self-aggrandizement, 
careless of the commonweal; and the patriots, his 
partisans, the great middle class, embracing the 
wealth and the political capacity of the Belgic 
provinces — the controlling power when Pilate and 
Herod were not at agreement.* 

As a counterpoise to the preponderating influ- 
ence of William, Aerschot and his compeers resolved 
to set up a new governor-general, who should be 
their creature, whose hands might be the hands of 
Esau, but whose voice should be the voice of Jacob. 
Secretly, without consultation with the states-gen- 
eral, they opened a corresiDondence with the arch- 
duke Matthias, brother of the German emperor, a 
mild and pliant boy of twenty.t His April blood 
was fired by the thought of the proposed honor, 
and eagerly closing with the offer, he set out in 
disguise at midnight from Vienna, without Ca3sar's 
knowledge, travelling post to Maestricht, where he 
arrived at the end of October, 1577.| 

When the states-general got news of his ad- 
vent they were both surprised and angered ; indeed 
they were about summarily to eject the youthful 

* Motley, vol. 3, p. 219. 

f Bor., book. 11, p. 898, seq. Campami, lib. 6, p. 191. 

X Ibid, noofcl, book 12, p. 530. 



804: THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

interloper. The keen good sense of Orange averted 
the impending blow. This stumbling-block which 
the jealousy of his opponents had rolled into his path, 
he meant to transform into an additional stepping- 
stone towards his goal. On his genius alone, as 
Ariadne on her clue, had he to rely in threading the 
doubtful and dubious mazes of this labyrinth ; but 
his genius was equal to the emergency. 

He foresaw the advantages which might arise 
from the rivalship into which Matthias had entered 
with his kinsman, Don John. He thought it possi- 
ble that armed men might spring from the dragon's 
teeth of enmity thus sown between the German and 
Spanish offshoots of the house of Austria. He es- 
teemed it well too that the Romanist grandees had, 
by taking the initiative in this scheme, for ever 
alienated the ousted viceroy. 

William, therefore, fell cordially into the plot, 
persuaded the states-general into voting Aerschot's 
supposed puppet into the governor-generalship, 
after reducing his authority to a nullity by checks 
and balances, and by this magnificent management, 
took Matthias wholly into his own possession, gain- 
ing one piece more in the great game which he was 
playing against his antagonist of the Escurial.'-' 

At this juncture, Aerschot having got a hoist 
with his own petard, was appointed stadtholder of 
Flanders, with his headquarters at Ghent, whither, 
on the 20th of October, 1577, he repaired.! Here, 

* Motley, vol. 3, pp. 276, 277, 281, seq. 

t Vandervynckt, book 2, p. 27G. Metcieu, book 7, folio 126. 



PKAISE GOD. 805 

in the very stronghold of his power, a fresh morti- 
fication awaited him. He found two demagogues, 
Ryhave and Hembyse, omnipotent in the town, one 
holding the civil, the other the military sword, while 
twenty thousand resolute and well-armed men form- 
ed the bodyguard of the oligarchs.* Protestantism 
too Avas in full possession of the churches. Aer- 
schot was an ultra aristocrat and a bigoted Roman- 
ist, and he speedily assumed the task of righting 
this double wrong. A bitter conflict of authority 
ensued. " I will have these anarchs hanged," ex- 
claimed the enraged stadtholder ; " yes, even though 
Orange himself were at their back." 

These words caused an immediate outbreak. 
That same night, Eyhave summoned the captains 
of his bands, and quickly assembling the burghers, 
proverbially prone to rioting, marched to the hotel 
of his excellency, dragged him from his bed, gave 
him scant time to dress, carried him through the 
midnight streets now ablaze with torches, and 
plunged him into prison, whither he was soon fol- 
lowed by his trembling retinue.f 

William, on being told the story, hurried off to 
Ghent, quieted the tumult, and persuaded the in- 
censed Ghentese to liberate their captive.:]: But 
the indignity annihilated Aerschot's political im- 
portance. 

On returning to Brussels, the prince found that 

* Vandervynckt, uhi sup. , ei seq. Bor. , et al. 
■f Hooftl, book 12, p. 535. Meteren, ubi sup. 
t Bor., book 11, pp. 905-916. 



80G THE DUTCH BEFOEMATION. 

he had been, in his absence, nominated "ruward'* 
of Brabant, an office which had long been in dis- 
use^ — the governor-general being stadtholder of that 
province ex qfficio — but which carried with it dicta- 
torial powers. The first use which he made of this 
augmented authority was to promote what the old 
chroniclers style the "nearer union of Brussels," 
under which the notables again pledged themselves 
to mutual support, and which rewelded such links 
of the Ghent pacification as recent events Jiad 
broken.* 

At the same time,t the states-general formally 
deposed Don John of Austria, banned him as a 
public enemy, ordered him to quit the provinces 
without delay, and branded as traitors all who 
should acknowledge his forfeited authority.:}: A 
solemn justification of this act was written in seven 
different languages, and presented at all the courts 
of Europe.§ 

This decisive step was followed by an embassy 
to solicit the alliance of England. Elizabeth, always 
jealous of Netherland negotiations with any other 
court, had been somewhat estranged by the treaty 
with Matthias. The envoys related to her the cir- 
cumstances of his incoming; but she would do 
nothing until she received a pledge that Orange 
should be installed as heu tenant-governor of the 
states.ll This being readily accorded, she, for the 

* Motley, vol. 3, p. 299. t December 7, 1577. 

X Bor., book 11, p. 916. Metereu. § Bor., uU sup., p. 881. 

11 Ibid., p. 903. Camden, book 2, p. 221. 



PRAISE GOD. 807 

first time, entered into a coalition with the Low 
Countries as an independent power, engaging to 
send over fifteen thousand men-at-arms and a hun- 
dred thousand pounds, but on condition that the 
states-general should not make peace without her 
consent, and should agree to give her, if need were, 
similar assistance.* It was a thrifty bargain ; but 
it openly compromised the coy political coquette. 

On tlie 18th of January, 1578, Matthias made 
his formal entry into the capital, receiving an ova- 
tion. f He Avas at once placed at the prow of the 
ship of state as figure-head, while William, as lieu- 
tenant-governor, took the helm. 

Meantime, Don John was at Namur watching 
these proceedings with grim complacency, for he 
saw that at last the pen was to be superseded by 
the sword, and he was thoroughly at home in the 
saddle. " Now, sire," wrote he to the king, '• noth- 
ing will do but to pick up the gauntlet." Philip 
reluctantly assented, for he had been anxious to 
carry his point by artifice ; and Christendom once 
more rang with warlike preparations. But suspect- 
ing that the brilliant bastard had ulterior designs 
upon the Spanish crown — his ambassador at Paris 
had recently discovered a secret league between 
Don John and the duke of Guise, whereby they 
pledged themselves to "protect" France and Cas- 
tile, which meant the reducing their sovereigns to 
a state of tutelage:]: — he had resolved never to en- 

* Camden, book 2, p. 221. f Mcteren, Bar., Hoofd. 

t Dc Thou, lib. Gl, cap. 8. 



808 THE DUTCH KEFOEMATION. 

trust an army to the sole command of Lepauto's 
hero. Therefore he now appointed Alexander Far- 
nese, one of the ablest soldiers of any age, general- 
issimo of the royal levies, and sent him to lead back 
from Italy those veterans over whose sulky outward 
march the provinces had rejoiced.* 

Farnese effected a junction with Don John at 
Namur. Their united muster was twenty thousand 
strong — seasoned campaigners, officered under 
themselves by Mendoza, Mondragone, Mansfeld.f 
For the purpose of affrighting the consciences of 
those Komauists who were in the patriot service, 
the pope had blessed this host, and fulminated a 
bull analogous to those which had stirred the cru- 
sades in the bj^gone time.| Don John's banner 
bore a crucifix with the inscription, " By this sign 
I have conquered the Turks, and by this sign I will 
conquer the heretics."§ Philip, not to be outdone 
by his holiness, accompanied the bull with a decree, 
which prorogued the states-general, annulled the 
pacification of Ghent, and cashiered the Nether- 
land magnates.il 

The states had put into the field a force apjjrox- 
imating the Spanish in numbers, but in all else 
immeasurably inferior ; " made up," as John Nas- 
sau expressed it, " of very few patriots, but plenty 

^' Strada, torn. 4, p. 41. Both tlie original Latin editions of 
Strada, and an English translation — London, 1G50 — have been 
used as convenience dictated ; which will explain diversities in tho 
citations. j Ihid., et seq. 

X Meteren, book 8, folio 148. Brandt, vol. 1, p. 333. 

§ Ibid. II Bor., book 12, p. 939, d seq. 



PRAISE GOD. 809 

of priests, with no lack of inexperienced lads ; some 
looking for distinction, the rest for pelf."* 

On the 31st of January, 1578, these so different 
arrays fell upon each other at Gemblours, on the . 
confines of Brabant.t Farnese's dash decided the 
day within fifty minutes. Conjecturing from the 
sway of the crossed and -tangled pikes of the raw 
patriot levies that their line of battle was disorder- 
ed, he caught a lance from his captain of horse, and 
turning to an aid, said, " Go tell Don John that 
Farnese, remembering the Eoman, has plunged 
into the gulf, hoping to bring thence a certain and 
glorious victory."! Then, followed by a train of 
gallant cavaliers, he launched himself upon the 
quaking battalions of the states. "With a loss to him- 
self of twelve men, to the provinces of six thousand, 
he sent his pasteboard foemeu whirling in utter 
rout through Gemblours quite up to the walls of 
the panic-stricken capital§ — another proof of the 
invincibility of disciplined enthusiasm. 

Thinking that the Spaniard would next assail 
Brussels, the prince i^ut Matthias in his pocket and 
retired to Antwerp, with the states-general for a 
retinue.il Don John was desirous of doing so ; but, 
fearful of dulling the alacrity of the soldiery by a 
long siege, he decided to postpone that pleasure. 
Therefore, giving the insurgent capital the go-by, 

~' Archives de la Maisou d'Orange, etc., torn. 6, p. 227. 
t Strada, torn. 4, p. -50. t Ibid., p. 51. 

§ Ibid. Hoofd, book. 13, p. 459. Cabrera, torn. 12, p. 968, seq. 
11 Strada, ubi sup. Metereu. 



810 THE DUTCH REFORMATION. 

ho Jiiarclied hither and thither, stringing Neville, 
and Louvaiu, and Mechlin, " that sweet city with 
the dreaming spires," to his saddle-bow.*'" 

These reverses were severely felt by the patri- 
ots ; but they were more than counter-balanced 
by the accession of the wealthy and influential city 
of Amsterdam to the good cause, which at this 
eleventh hour came into the vineyard, a welcome 
laborer.t Encouraged by this occurrence. Orange 
pushed recruiting with fi-esli vigor, re-collected the 
troops dispersed by Farnese's prowess, and placed 
affairs upon a broad war footing.ij: 

The remodelled army was inferior, even in num- 
bers, to the force of the Spaniard. Its commander. 
Count Bossu — who, like Aerschot and Havre and 
Lelain, had recently passed over to the states — was 
therefore ordered to remain on the defensive and 
await reinforcements now looked for from England 
and from Germany, § Don John, anxious to crush 
this muster before the incoming of the expected 
auxiliaries, presently moved up to attack Bossu, 
entrenched at Rymenant. The assault was bloodily 
repulsed, chiefly by the valor of a regiment of bon- 
nie Scots ; whereupon the royalists retired to Na- 
mur, fortified their camp, and, like Cimon, fell to 
whistling for want of thought.il 

William seized this opportunity to settle the dis- 
ordered internal affairs of the provinces. The sole 

* Strada, uhl sup. Meteren. f 13or. , book 12, p, 926. 

X Hoofd, book 13, p. 581. § Bor., book 12, p. 912, seq. 

II Ibid., p. 987. Hoofd, book 13, p. 584. 



PEAISE GOD, 811 

point of union was a hatred of the Sj)amard; in all 
else the heterogeneous masses were at odds; city 
ranged against city, sect raving against sect, anar- 
chy everywhere rampant. The religious quarrel 
was especially pronounced. Where the Romanists 
were a majorit}-, they meted and peeled those of 
the Protestant faith ; where the reformed were 
all-powerful, they barred the papists from their 
churches and razed convents. 

As a panacea for these ills, the prince got the 
states-general to proclaim " a religious peace," 
whereby toleration was made the law of the laud.* 
This measure, meant to promote harmony, merely 
stirred a wilder chaos; for parchment law is Avorse 
than useless, unless supported by public oi^iniou. 
There was at this time no party in the states suffi- 
ciently enhghtened to observe the golden rule of 
agreement in disagreement; William alone had 
mounted to that Christian height. Even St. Alde- 
gonde favored disfranchising the papists, and also 
the Anabaptists, whom Oi'auge had admitted to 
citizenship in Holland.f "To all my dissenting 
arrows," wrote that able diplomat, " the prince op- 
posed this shield of tolerance.":]: Peter Dathenus, 
one of the foremost of the reformed divines, on 
this very account denounced William as a godless 
man, shrieking from the pulpit, " The prince cares 
nothing for religion."! And now John Nassau, 
though favoring a religious peace in the papist 

* Mctcren, book 8, folio 142. Bor., uhl sup., p. 974, seq. 

t Brauclt, vol. 1, p. 330, seq. J Ibid. p. 332. § IbicL, vol 1. 



812 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

provinces, could see no reason for extending it into 
the Protestant states. The reformers eyerywhere 
were much of this opinion, scouting the new law, 
and in its very face expelling swarms of priests and 
monks from Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and Antwerp,* 
The Romanists were even more violent in their op- 
position to the toleration, going so far as to with- 
hold their contributions from the necessitous mili- 
tary chest.f 

At this juncture Prince John Casimir, an ardent 
German Protestant, entered the Netherlands at the 
head of seven thousand liorse and eight thousand 
foot, Elizabeth's promised contingent.:]: His pres- 
ence added fresh fuel to the flame. The Walloon 
regiments in the patriot service broke into open 
mutiny, assuming the name of "Malcontents;" and 
as a foil to the count palatine, the states of Hai- 
nault, Artois, and French Planders, unanimously 
papist, formally incited their co-religionist, the 
duke d'Alenyon, to come to their assistance.§ The 
states-general, hoping thereby to placate the Wal- 
loons, sanctioned this action, invested D'Alen9on 
with the sounding title of " Protector of the liber- 
ties of the Low Countries," and welcomed the force, 
twelve thousand strong, which he led in, with as- 
sumed cordiaHty.il 

* Meteren, book 8, folio 152. Bor., De Thou, et al. 
t De Thou, lib. 57, cap. 15. Strada, torn. 4. 
t Meteren, ubl sup., folio 155. Hoofd, book 13, p. 584. 
^ DeThoxi, uhi sup. Vandervynckt. 

II De Thou, ubi sup. VandervjTickt. Compare Motley, vol. 3, 
pp. 337, 341. 



PRAISE GOD. 813 

Casimir, jealous of D'Aleu90ii, fell back on 
Ghent, and ignoring the Spaniard, made common 
cause with the turbulent Ghentese against the Wal- 
loons. D'xyen9on halted in Hainault and rested 
on his arms, afraid to move. This then was the 
situation — an army of forty thousand men, ill-paid 
and disorganized, commanded by three generals of 
equal authority, of different nations, and of clash- 
iug interests: Casimir, idle in Ghent; D'Alen9on, 
at a stand-still on the southern frontier ; Bossu, en- 
trenched at Eymenant; the Spaniard watchful at 
Namur; distrust and dissension in all the camps, 
and worse still, rampant among the masses.* 

This poise of affairs was too abnormal to last. 
On the 1st of October, 1578, Don John of Austria, 
after a week's sickness, died at Namur,t from mor- 
tification at his loss of prestige,X as some said, but 
according to others, poisoned by Philip's order, 
who thus rid himself of a brother who stood too 
near the throne. § A little later in the autumn, 
D'Alen9on disbanded his levies, and returned in 
disgust to Paris. |l Soon afterwards Casimir too, 
after marching up the hill, marched down again, 
like the French king in the nursery-ballad, and re- 
paired to England to explain his conduct to the 
maiden queen.lF 

These events were the signal for new complica- 

* Davies, vol. 2, p. 70, seq: Bor., Metereii. 

t Stracla, torn. 5, p. IG. J Bor., Hoofcl, Meteren. 

§ Bentivoglio, Herrera, Cabrera, et alii. 

II Bor., book 12, p. 12. H Ibid., book 13, p. 13, seq. 



814 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

tions. The Walloon provinces — Freucli Flanders, 
Hainault, Artois, Arras, Lisle, Douay — deserted by 
D'Alencon, and now wholly alienated by differences 
of faith from the patriot cause, formed a confeder- 
acy with each other, pledging themselves to stand 
by the king, to adhere to holy church, and to resist 
the religious peace.* Farnese, who had succeeded 
Don John in the nominal governor-generalship of 
the Netherlands, hastened to take advantage of the 
schism. As Phihp of Macedon had refuted the 
wisdom of Athens with golden syllogisms, thereby 
confounding her statesmen, striking her orators 
dumb, and finally arguing the " fierce democracie " 
out of their liberty, so the wily Italian ere long 
effected a reconciliation between these backsliders 
and Madrid, with ducat -reasons.f For vv'hat is it 
that Addison says ? " A man who is furnished with 
arguments from the mint v/iil convince his antago- 
nists much sooner than one who draws them from 
philosophy." 

This defection rang the death-knell of the entente 
cordiale. What human wit could do, William had 
done, to mould irreconcilable elements into concord. 
The moderation, the prudence, the skill, the self- 
abnegation of his rule — not even Komanist tele- 
scopes could discern a spot on the disc of the rec- 
ord. But the odds were too great. A love of the 
fatherland was the single point of adhesion between 
the congeries of states. In all else, not the waves 
of the sea were more inconstant, not Euripus was 

c Bor., book 13, p. 10. f Motley, vol. 3, p. 390, seq. 



PRAISE GOD, 815 

more uncertain. Upon this point (Tappui the prince 
had seized, hoping that the sentiment of nationality 
might be potent enough to charm down discord, 
subordinate the quarrel of creeds, and transform 
the dependencies of a distant despotism into self- 
governing republics. For a space, William was 
successful. Under the stimulus of passionate re- 
sentment, the provinces seemed drawn irresistibly 
towards union — as we are told that bystanders were 
drawn by the contagion of passion to join in the 
wild dances of the Grecian Ma3nads. But it was 
impossible that permanent crystallization should 
take place where so strong a dissolvent as Boman- 
ism existed. In the end, bigotry proved stronger 
than patriotism, and now nothing remained of the 
various attempts at union save the memory and a 
few despised statutes — the ghost of pacification 
walking after the death of the body. 

As an offset to this Belgic secession, William 
turned to the north, and began to spin the web of a 
new confederacy. It had long been a favorite proj- 
ect of his to unif}^ the states of Holland, Zealand, 
Friesland, Gruningen, Overyssel, Utrecht, and Guel- 
derland — seven provinces substantially homogene- 
ous, similar in race, language, customs, habits, inter- 
est, preexisting incitements to brotherhood. The 
old alliance between Holland and Zealand supplied 
a nucleus. The imperilled pacification of Ghent 
form^ed a pretext. So the prince put the diplomats 
to work. They hunted up a musty pact between 
Holland and Utrecht, wliich l)ore tlie date of 1534, 



816 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

cleaned it of cobwebs, and declared it still binding.* 
Then Guelderland was taken in hand. As this prov- 
ince commanded the entrance of four of the cLiefest 
of the Netherland rivers — the Rhine, the Waal, the 
Meuse, the Yssel — and formed a frontier to the pro- 
jected commonwealth, its securing was of vital im- 
portance ;t otherwise, Friesland, Groningen, and 
Overyssel might reluct. After some manoeuvring, this 
was achieved. Then, on the 23d of January, 1579, 
the deputies of the respective states met at Utrecht, 
and solemnly cemented the immortal union, which 
bore the name of that famous town, basing it upon 
these four broad principles : the perpetual alliance 
of the seven provinces — one state against all foes, 
but each in its internal government independent of 
the rest ; the common expense to be met by taxes 
laid upon the common purse; local disputes to be 
adjudicated by the ordinary tribunals, interprovin- 
cial quarrels by the states-general; and toleration 
in religious differences, Protestant and Romanist 
alike free to worship God each at his chosen altar.:]: 
Such, briefly sketched, was the union of Utrecht. 
Into its nice checks and balances we need not go. 
Suffice it to say that, whether we consider the crit- 
ical juncture at which it was effected, or the results 
with which it was pregnant, it may be regarded as 
a masterpiece of enlightened and successful states- 
manship. By it, a moiety of the Netherlands res- 
cued their existence from impending death. By it, 

* Bor., book 10, p. 893, seq. f Davies, vol. 2, p. 74. 

% See the Articles of Uinou in Eor., book 13, pp. 26-30. 



PRAISE GOD. 817 

the Dutcli Eepublic came into being — a union closer 
than the Swiss confederacy, less democratic than 
the Achaian league ; like the United States, a plu- 
ral unit. 

Above all, this act thenceforth guaranteed the 
Reformation in the United Provinces; made it an 
accomplished fact ; provided the hunted Bible with 
an asylum in continental Europe ; bade it, like the 
angel in the apocalypse, go forth with bow and 
crown, conquering and to conquer. 

By the union of Utrecht, Philip II. received 
notice that even his nominal sovereignty was abol- 
ished in the maritime provinces. Furious thereat, 
he commanded Farnese to take the field and press 
the war with all possible rigor. The consummate 
soldier hastened to obey ; and fighting simultane- 
ously with a sword of gold and a sword of steel — 
both ahke sharp in his hands — he made brave prog- 
ress. Maestricht was escaladed and sacked ; Mech- 
lin and Bois-le-Duc bowed anew to take the Span- 
ish yoke. 

In March, 1579, a new attempt was made to 
effect a reconciHation between the provinces and 
his majesty. The diplomats met at Cologne, and 
held a prolonged council, which resulted in noth- 
ing save an immense bill of expenses. The king 
was resolute in demanding the extirpation of Prot- 
estantism ; the states were determined in requiring 
toleration. Late in the year, the conference broke 
up amid mutual curses. 

Dutch Ref. 25 



818 THE DUTCH KEFORMATION. ^ 

The new year was inaugurated by the renuncia- 
tion of the sovereignty of Spain by the states-gen- 
eral of the Netherlands. The archduke Mathius 
was politely sent back to Germany, and the duke 
D'Alen9on was voted into the sovereignty, but on 
such terms as guaranteed the virtual independence 
of the land. D'Alen9on's rule was neither long nor 
prosperous. Disgusted by the narrow boundaries 
set to his authority, he early began to scheme for 
an absolute sceptre. On the ceremony of his instal- 
lation, Orange had placed the ducal mantle upon 
his shoulders. "Fasten it well, prince," said the 
Frenchman, in a stage aside, " so that they can't 
take it off again." He was soon to learn that he 
asked an impossibility. After an attempt to cap- 
ture Antwerp in the interest of his idea, which 
failed, he was compelled to retire into France, 
where he shortly died. The provinces at once re- 
sumed their sovereignty, and in 1583, decided to 
vest the supreme power in the prince of Orange. 

Some years before, Philip had formally banned 
William, set a price upon his head, and invoked the 
stiletto of the bravo to abridge his life. Orange 
replied by publishing his famous "apology" — a 
paper which recites the story of his contest with 
Spain, and forms one of the grandest vindications 
ever penned. Nevertheless the royal act of out- 
lawry was to bear bitter fruit. Already repeated 
attempts had been made to assassinate the illus- 
trious offender, one of which wellnigh proved fatal. 
On the 10th of July, 1584, the sands in his glass of 



PRAISE GOD. 819 

life ran out — not naturally, but by the breaking of 
the glass. A wretch named Balthazar Gerard, who 
had taken service with him for that purpose, shot 
the liberator as he left the dining-room of his pal- 
ace at Delft. Falling into the arms of an attend- 
ant, he cried faintly in French, " God pity me ! I 
am sadly wounded. God have mercy on my soul, 
and on this unhappy nation." Soon after he ex- 
pired, and "flights of angels sang him to his rest." 

It were superfluous to pronounce the eulogy of 
such a man — his whole life was a panegyric. Cer- 
tainly history presents no better specimen of disin- 
terested and entire manhood. Humanity is richer 
for his living : the world is heir to the inheritance 
of his example. 

With the fall of Orange, a new epoch opened 
for the Netherlands. The animation of the drama 
seems suspended, for the central hero dies out of it. 
A new generation appear upon the stage ; and, as 
Grattan has it, "the stirring impulse of slavery 
breaking its chains yields to the colder inspiration 
of independence maintaining its rights." 

But the war ceased not. Farnese fought now 
with fresh enthusiasm ; and the people, greater 
than any individual, rallied to defend what had 
been thus far achieved. Prince Maurice of Nassau, 
a boy of eighteen, was inducted into the stadthold- 
erate just vacated by his father's death ; and tl""~ 
was the commencement of his long, stirring, ai 
successful career. 

It was Farnese's plan to separate those provi 



820 THE DUTCH EEFOEMATION. 

ces tied together by the union of Utrecht from the 
Belgic states ; and in this he was slowly succeeding. 
Ypres, Termonde, Ghent, Brussels, succumbed, one 
after another, ere William had been in the grave a 
twelvemonth ; and when, in 1585, Antwerp was 
taken by the Spaniard after one of the most famous 
sieges in military history, the desired separation 
was substantially secured — the Belgic and the 
Dutch were to be thenceforth alien and often inim- 
ical nationalities. 

Leaving the reconquered states of southern 
Netherlands, forlorn beyond description, the genius 
of independence retired to the nascent republic in 
the north ; and preferring destruction rather than 
submission, continued to resist, bulwarked by the 
Dutch morasses, bucklered by the unconquerable 
will of a people set " never to submit nor yield." 

From the year 1585 onward to the close of the 
sixteenth century, the history of the Low Countries 
is a stirring record of battle and siege and diplo- 
matic ruse, in which success inclined now to one 
side, now to the other, though the united provinces 
made perceptible progress towards independence 
and the position of a first-rate power. On the sea 
they were without a rival; in Europe alone they 
had twelve hundred merchant ships, manned by 
seventy thousand sailors, constantly employed. Two 
thousand vessels were annually built ; and in the 
year 1598, eighty ships sailed from their ports for 
America and the Indies. They carried on an active 
trade on the coast of Guinea, whence large quauti- 



PEAISE GOD. 821 

ties of gold-dust were brought ; and, indeed, all 
quarters of the globe yielded them the reward of 
their commercial industry, skill, and daring. At 
this time, too, England was the close ally of the 
Dutch, making common cause against the Span- 
iard ; while Maurice of Nassau led the trained co- 
horts of the republic from victory to victory. 

In September, 1598, Philip II. died, bequeath- 
ing to his successor the legacy of the Dutch war. 
But upon his demise, Belgium was erected into an 
independent sovereignty, under Philip's daughter, 
the infanta Isabella, and her husband, Albert of 
Austria. In 1609 a truce for twelve years was sign- 
ed betw^een Spain and the republic at Antwerp, and 
the Dutch made use of this interval of peace to 
recuperate their resources, renew their alliances 
with foreign powers, and si3read the expanding 
interests of their commercial enterprise. It was at 
this time that the famous East India Company was 
organized — a company which carried the name and 
fame of the republic to the remotest corners of the 
earth, and annexed continents as coffers wherein to 
garner honest gains. It was at this time too that 
the synod of Dort was held, which settled the eccle- 
siastical affairs of Holland ; that the Pilgrim Fa- 
thers of New England were domesticated at Ley- 
den ; and that the internal religious dissensions be- 
gan which were one day to work the ruin of the 
commonwealth. 

In 1621 war with Spain was renewed ; and just 
before the thirty years' war in Germany began, so 



822 THE DUTCH REFORMATION! 

that tlie whole coutinent was now ablaze. A dance 
of death Avhich lasted a quarter of a century ensued. 
And ere peace came in continental Europe, England 
"was rent by the civil war of the Boundheads and 
the Cavaliers. 

It was not until 1648 that peace was declared 
between Spain and Holland ; but at that date, after 
a conflict of eighty years, the Spaniard acknowl- 
edged the independence of the Dutch, and by the 
treaty of Munster definitively yielded all claim upon 
the sovereignty of the republic. A few months 
later the peace of Westphalia was signed, and Eu- 
rope at lai'ge was pacified. 

A brilliant epoch succeeded for Holland. In 
■wealth, in commerce, in navigation, in letters, in 
painting, the Dutch were preeminent. Their tra- 
ding companies outranked all rivals — were alike 
puissant in the orient and in the Occident. Their 
navy, ofiicered by Van Tromp and De Euyter, 
maintained the dominion of the sea ; and headed 
by William of Orange, afterwards William III. of 
England, the republic actually humbled the haughty 
power of Louis XIV. 

But after a hundred years of such supremacy, 
internal religious conflicts began to undermine this 
prosperity — a commonwealth impregnable to out- 
ward attack, consolidated in war, born of battle, 
gradually crumbled away self-consumed. Calvin- 
ists on one side, Arminians on the other, contended 
to their mutual undoing ; and when, in 1793, the 
republican army of France swept into the Nether- 



PBAISE GOD. 823 

lands, the ancient liberties of the country fell pros- 
trate before the invasion. The Batavian repubhc 
was formed by foreign dictation ; and from this 
time till the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, Hol- 
land was dragged an unwilling victim in French 
chains. For, to quote the striking language of La- 
fayette, " the tyranny of 1793 was no more a repub- 
lic than the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a 
religion." 

After the battle of Waterloo, the Netherlands 
were reconstructed by the allies, Belgium and Hol- 
land being united in one kingdom. It was, perhaps, 
a well-meant arrangement, but it was short-sighted ; 
for the Dutch and the Belgians, now widely sepa- 
rated in the lapse of time, dissimilar in language, 
customs, and rehgion, soon quarrelled ; and, in 1830, 
the heterogeneous kingdom fell apart, Holland be- 
coming a constitutional monarchy, as it is in our day. 

And now, familiar with the facts, with our eyes 
upon the record, shall we marvel that Holland, 
cradled in the morasses — bred up between two grave 
and holy nurses, the doctrine and discipline of the 
gospel — went on from success to success, invincible 
alike on land and sea, belting the globe with its 
dependencies, and reaping a hundred-fold even in 
material fields, in return for the precious seeds of 
its losses? That blessing which God breathed over 
the tents of Jacob through the reluctant lips of the 
old prophet, descended also upon this Israel: 
"Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he 
that curseth thee." 



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D. D. Part I. The Evidences of Eevealed Eeligion. Large 
12mo ; paper, 40 cts. 

BIBLE TEXT-BOOK. With colored Maps, Index, and 
Tables. 40 cts. 

THE. BIBLE READER'S HELP. Very helpful for Sabbath- 
schools. 35 cts. 

YOUTH'S BIBLE STUDIES. Complete in six parts. 175 
engravings. In a set, with case. $2 50. 

GALLAUDET'S YOUTH'S SCRIPTURE BIOGRAPHY. 

Finely illustrated. Eleven volumes in a case. $4 50. 

And for Sale at Ne-w England Branch, 104: Wasliington- 
strect, BOSTON; 1408 Cliestnut-strcct, PHILiADELiPHIA; 45 
Madison-strcct. CIIKIAGO ; and in otlicr cities and towns. 



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