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Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan · English · Gutenberg #10583 · 806,273 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Holland: The History of the Netherlands

Author: Thomas Colley Grattan

Contributor: Julian Hawthorne


        
Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #10583]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Robert J. Hall


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLLAND: THE HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS ***

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF ALVA DEPOSES MARGARET OF PARMA]




HOLLAND

THE HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS


BY THOMAS COLLEY GRATTAN

WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
BY THE SALIAN FRANKS

B.C. 50--A.D. 250

Extent of the Kingdom--Description of the People--Ancient State
of the Low Countries--Of the High Grounds--Contrasted with the
present Aspect of the Country--Expedition of Julius Cæsar--The
Belgæ--The Menapians--Batavians--Distinguished among the Auxiliaries
of Rome--Decrease of national Feeling in Part of the Country--
Steady Patriotism of the Frisons and Menapians--Commencement of
Civilization--Early Formation of the Dikes--Degeneracy of those
who became united to the Romans--Invasion of the Netherlands
by the Salian Franks.


CHAPTER II

FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND
BY THE FRENCH

A.D. 250--800

Character of the Franks--The Saxon Tribes--Destruction of the
Salians by a Saxon Tribe--Julian the Apostate--Victories of Clovis
in Gaul--Contrast between the Low Countries and the Provinces of
France--State of Friesland--Charles Martell--Friesland converted
to Christianity--Finally subdued by France.


CHAPTER III

FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND

A.D. 800--1000

Commencement of the Feudal System in the Highlands--Flourishing State
of the Low Countries--Counts of the Empire--Formation of the Gilden
or Trades--Establishment of popular Privileges in Friesland--In
what they consisted--Growth of Ecclesiastical Power--Baldwin of
Flanders--Created Count--Appearance of the Normans--They ravage the
Netherlands--Their Destruction, and final Disappearance--Division
of the Empire into Higher and Lower Lorraine--Establishment of
the Counts of Lorraine and Hainault--Increasing Power of the
Bishops of Liege and Utrecht--Their Jealousy of the Counts; who
resist their Encroachments.


CHAPTER IV

FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE

A.D. 1018--1384

Origin of Holland--Its first Count--Aggrandizement of Flanders--Its
growing Commerce--Fisheries--Manufactures--Formation of the County
of Guelders, and of Brabant--State of Friesland--State of the
Provinces--The Crusades--Their good Effects on the State of the
Netherlands--Decline of the Feudal Power, and Growth of the Influence
of the Towns--Great Prosperity of the Country--The Flemings take
up Arms against the French--Drive them out of Bruges, and defeat
them in the Battle of Courtrai--Popular Success in Brabant--Its
Confederation with Flanders--Rebellion of Bruges against the
Count, and of Ghent under James d' Artaveldt--His Alliance with
England--His Power, and Death--Independence of Flanders--Battle
of Roosbeke--Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, obtains the
Sovereignty of Flanders.


CHAPTER V

FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS
TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR

A.D. 1384--1506

Philip succeeds to the Inheritance of Brabant--Makes War on England
as a French Prince, Flanders remaining neuter--Power of the Houses
of Burgundy and Bavaria, and Decline of Public Liberty--Union of
Holland, Hainault, and Brabant--Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and
Hainault--Flies from the Tyranny of her Husband, John of Brabant,
and takes Refuge in England--Murder of John the Fearless, Duke of
Burgundy--Accession of his Son, Philip the Good--His Policy--Espouses
the Cause of John of Brabant against Jacqueline--Deprives her
of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand--Continues his Persecution,
and despoils her of her last Possession and Titles--She marries
a Gentleman of Zealand, and Dies--Peace or Arras--Dominions of
the House of Burgundy equal to the present Extent of the Kingdom
of the Netherlands--Rebellion of Ghent--Affairs of Holland and
Zealand--Charles the Rash--His Conduct in Holland--Succeeds his
Father--Effects of Philip's Reign on the Manners of the People--
Louis XI.--Death of Charles, and Succession of Mary--Factions
among her Subjects--Marries Maximilian of Austria--Battle of
Guinegate--Death of Mary--Maximilian unpopular--Imprisoned by
his Subjects--Released--Invades the Netherlands--Succeeds to
the Imperial Throne by the Death of his Father--Philip the Fair
proclaimed Duke and Count--His wise Administration--Affairs of
Friesland--Of Guelders--Charles of Egmont--Death of Philip the
Fair.


CHAPTER VI

FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
THE EMPEROR CHARLES V

A.D. 1506--1555

Margaret of Austria invested with the Sovereignty--Her Character
and Government--Charles, Son of Philip the Fair, created Duke of
Brabant and Count of Flanders and Holland--The Reformation--Martin
Luther--Persecution of the Reformers--Battle of Pavia--Cession of
Utrecht to Charles V.--Peace of Cambray--The Anabaptists' Sedition
at Ghent--Expedition against Tunis and Algiers--Charles becomes
possessed of Friesland and Guelders--His increasing Severity
against the Protestants--His Abdication and Death--Review--Progress
of Civilization.


CHAPTER VII

FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS

A.D. 1555--1566

Accession of Philip II.--His Character and Government--His Wars
with France, and with the Pope--Peace with the Pope--Battle of St.
Quentin--Battle of Gravelines--Peace of Câteau-Cambresis--Death
of Mary of England--Philip's Despotism--Establishes a Provisional
Government--Convenes the States--General at Ghent--His Minister
Granvelle--Goes to Zealand--Embarks for Spain--Prosperity revives--
Effects of the Provisional Government--Marguerite of Palma--
Character of Granvelle--Viglius de Berlaimont--Departure of the
spanish Troops--Clergy--Bishops--National Discontent--Granvelle
appointed Cardinal--Edict against Heresy--Popular Indignation--
Reformation--State of Brabant--Confederacy against Granvelle--
Prince of Orange--Counts Egmont and Horn join the Prince against
Granvelle--Granvelle recalled--Council of Trent--Its Decrees
received with Reprobation--Decrees against Reformers--Philip's
Bigotry--Establishment of the Inquisition--Popular Resistance.


CHAPTER VIII

COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION

A.D. 1566

Commencement of the Revolution--Defence of the Prince of
Orange--Confederacy of the Nobles--Louis of Nassau--De
Brederode--Philip de St. Aldegonde--Assembly of the Council of
State--Confederates enter Brussels--Take the Title of _Gueux_--Quit
Brussels, and disperse in the Provinces--Measures of Government--
Growing Power of the Confederates--Progress of the Reformation--
Field Preaching--Herman Stricker--Boldness of the Protestants--
Peter Dathen--Ambrose Ville--Situation of Antwerp--The Prince
repairs to it, and saves it--Meeting of the Confederates at St.
Trond---The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont treat with them--
Tyranny of Philip and Moderation of the Spanish Council--Image
Breakers--Destruction of the Cathedral, of Antwerp--Terror of
Government--Firmness of Viglius--Arbitration between the Court
and the People--Concessions made by Government--Restoration of
Tranquillity.


CHAPTER IX

TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS

A.D. 1566--1573

Philip's Vindictiveness and Hypocrisy--Progress of
Protestantism--Gradual Dissolution of the Conspiracy--Artifices
of Philip and the Court to disunite the Protestants--Firmness of
the Prince of Orange--Conference at Termonde--Egmont abandons
the Patriot Cause--Fatal Effects of his Conduct--Commencement
of Hostilities--Siege of Valenciennes--Protestant Synod at
Antwerp--Haughty Conduct of the Government--Royalists Repulsed
at Bois-le-duc--Battle of Osterweel, and Defeat of the
Patriots--Antwerp again saved by the Firmness and Prudence of
the Prince of Orange--Capitulation of Valenciennes--Success of
the Royalists--Death of De Brederode--New Oath of Allegiance;
Refused by the Prince of Orange and others--The Prince resolves
on voluntary Banishment, and departs for Germany--His Example is
followed by the Lords--Extensive Emigration--Arrival of the Duke of
Orleans--Egmont's Humiliation--Alva's Powers--Arrest of Egmont and
others---Alva's first Acts of Tyranny--Council of Blood--Recall of
the Government--Alva's Character--He summons the Prince of Orange,
who is tried by Contumacy--Horrors committed by Alva--Desolate State
of the Country--Trial and Execution of Egmont and Horn--The Prince
of Orange raises an Army in Germany, and opens his first Campaign
in the Netherlands--Battle of Heiligerlee--Death of Adolphus of
Nassau--Battle of Jemminghem--Success and skilful Conduct of
Alva--Dispersion of the Prince of Orange's Army--Growth of the naval
Power of the Patriots--Inundation in Holland and Friesland--Alva
reproached by Philip--Duke of Medina-Celi appointed Governor--Is
attacked, and his fleet destroyed by the Patriots--Demands his
Recall--Policy of the English Queen, Elizabeth--The Dutch take
Brille--General Revolt in Holland and Zealand--New Expedition of
the Prince of Orange--Siege of Mons--Success of the Prince--Siege
of Haarlem--Of Alkmaer--Removal of Alva--Don Luis Zanega y Requesens
appointed Governor-General.


CHAPTER X

TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT

A.D. 1573--1576

Character of Requesens--His conciliating Conduct--Renews the
War against the States--Siege of Middleburg--Generosity of the
Prince of Orange--Naval Victory--State of Flanders--Count Louis of
Nassau--Battle of Mookerheyde--Counts Louis and Henry slain--Mutiny
of the Spanish Troops--Siege of Leyden--Negotiations for Peace at
Breda--The Spaniards take Zuriczee--Requesens dies--The Government
devolves on the Council of State--Miserable State of the Country,
and Despair of the Patriots--Spanish Mutineers--The States-General
are convoked, and the Council arrested by the Grand Bailiff of
Brabant--The Spanish Mutineers sack and capture Maestricht, and
afterward Antwerp--The States-General assemble at Ghent and assume
the Government--The Pacification of Ghent.


CHAPTER XI

TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE

A.D. 1576--1580

Don John of Austria, Governor-General, arrives in the
Netherlands--His Character and Conduct--The States send an Envoy
to Elizabeth of England--She advances them a Loan of Money--The
Union of Brussels--The Treaty of Marche-en-Famenne, called the
Perpetual Edict--The impetuous Conduct of Don John excites the
public Suspicion--He seizes on the Citadel of Namur--The Prince
of Orange is named Protector of Brabant--The People destroy the
Citadels of Antwerp and other Towns--The Duke of Arschot is named
Governor of Flanders--He invites the Archduke Mathias to accept
the Government of the Netherlands--Wise Conduct of the Prince of
Orange--Ryhove and Hembyse possess themselves of supreme Power at
Ghent--The Prince of Orange goes there and establishes Order--The
Archduke Mathias is installed--The Prince of Parma arrives in
the Netherlands, and gains the Battle of Gemblours--Confusion
of the States-General--The Duke of Alencon comes to their
Assistance--Dissensions among the Patriot Chiefs--Death of Don
John of Austria--Suspicions of his having been Poisoned by Order of
Philip II.--The Prince of Parma is declared Governor-General--The
Union of Utrecht--The Prince of Parma takes the Field--The Congress
of Cologne rendered fruitless by the Obstinacy of Philip--The
States-General assemble at Antwerp, and issue a Declaration of
National Independence--The Sovereignty of the Netherlands granted
to the Duke of Alencon.


CHAPTER XII

TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE

A.D. 1580--1584

Proscription of the Prince of Orange--His celebrated Apology--Philip
proposes sending back the Duchess of Parma as Stadtholderess--Her
son refuses to act jointly with her, and is left in the exercise
of his Power--The Siege of Cambray undertaken by the Prince of
Parma, and gallantly defended by the Princess of Epinoi--The
Duke of Alencon created Duke of Anjou--Repairs to England, in
hopes of marrying Queen Elizabeth--He returns to the Netherlands
unsuccessful, and is inaugurated at Antwerp--The Prince of Orange
desperately wounded by an Assassin--Details on John Jaureguay
and his Accomplices--The People suspect the French of the Crime--
Rapid Recovery of the Prince, who soon resumes his accustomed
Activity--Violent Conduct of the Duke of Anjou, who treacherously
attempts to seize on Antwerp--He is defeated by the Townspeople--
His Disgrace and Death--Ungenerous Suspicions of the People against
the Prince of Orange, who leaves Flanders in Disgust--Treachery
of the Prince of Chimay and others--Treason of Hembyse--He is
executed at Ghent--The States resolve to confer the Sovereignty
on the Prince of Orange--He is murdered at Delft--Parallel between
him and the Admiral Coligny--Execution of Balthazar Gerard, his
Assassin--Complicity of the Prince of Parma.


CHAPTER XIII

TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA

A.D. 1584--1592

Effects of William's Death on the History of his Country--Firm
Conduct of the United Provinces--They reject the Overtures of
the Prince of Parma--He reduces the whole of Flanders--Deplorable
Situation of the Country--Vigorous Measures of the Northern
States--Antwerp besieged--Operations of the Siege--Immense Exertions
of the Besiegers--The Infernal Machine--Battle on the Dike of
Couvestien--Surrender of Antwerp--Extravagant Joy of Philip II.--The
United Provinces solicit the Aid of France and England--Elizabeth
sends them a supply of Troops under the Earl of Leicester--He returns
to England--Treachery of some English and Scotch Officers--Prince
Maurice commences his Career--The Spanish Armada--Justin of Nassau
blocks up the Prince of Parma in the Flemish Ports--Ruin of the
Armada--Philip's Mock Piety on hearing the News--Leicester
dies--Exploits and Death of Martin Schenck--Breda surprised--The
Duke of Parma leads his Army into France--His famous Retreat--His
Death and Character.


CHAPTER XIV

TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILLIP II.

A.D. 1592--1599

Count Mansfield named Governor-General--State of Flanders and
Brabant--The Archduke Ernest named Governor-General--Attempts
against the Life of Prince Maurice--He takes Groningen--Death of
the Archduke Ernest--Count Fuentes named Governor-General--He takes
Cambray and other Towns--Is soon replaced by the Archduke Albert
of Austria--His high Reputation--He opens his first Campaign in
the Netherlands--His Successes--Prince Maurice gains the Battle
of Turnhout--Peace of Vervins--Philip yields the Sovereignty of
the Netherlands to Albert and Isabella--A new Plot against the
Life of Prince Maurice--Albert sets out for Spain, and receives
the News of Philip's Death--Albert arrives in Spain, and solemnizes
his Marriage with the Infanta Isabella--Review of the State of
the Netherlands.


CHAPTER XV

TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA

A.D. 1599--1604

Cardinal Andrew of Austria Governor--Francisco Mendoza, Admiral
of Aragon, invades the neutral States of Germany--His atrocious
Conduct--Prince Maurice takes the Field--His masterly
Movements--Sybilla of Cleves raises an Army, which is, quickly
destroyed--Great Exertions of the States-General--Naval Expedition
under Vander Goes--Its complete Failure--Critical Situation of the
United Provinces--Arrival of the Archduke in Brussels--Success
of Prince Maurice--His Expedition into Flanders--Energy of the
Archduke--Heroism of Isabella--Progress of Albert's Army--Its
first Success--Firmness of Maurice--The Battle of Nieuport--Total
Defeat of the Royalists--Consequences of the Victory--Prince
Maurice returns to Holland--Negotiations for Peace--Siege of
Ostend--Death of Elizabeth of England--United Provinces send
Ambassadors to James I.--Successful Negotiations of Barneveldt
and the Duke of Sully in London--Peace between England and
Spain--Brilliant Campaign between Spinola and Prince Maurice--Battle
of Roeroord--Naval Transactions--Progress of Dutch Influence in
India--Establishment of the East India Company.


CHAPTER XVI

TO THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT

A.D. 1600--1619

Spinola proposes to invade the United Provinces--Successfully
opposed by Prince Maurice--The Dutch defeated at Sea--Desperate
Conduct of Admiral Klagoon--Great naval Victory of the Dutch,
and Death of their Admiral Heemskirk--Overtures of the Archdukes
for Peace--How received in Holland--Prudent Conduct of
Barneveldt--Negotiations opened at The Hague--John de Neyen,
Ambassador for the Archdukes--Armistice for Eight Months--Neyen
attempts to bribe D'Aarsens, the Greffier of the States-General--His
Conduct disclaimed by Verreiken, Counsellor to the Archdukes--Great
Prejudices in Holland against King James I. and the English,
and Partiality toward France--Rupture of the Negotiations--They
are renewed--Truce for Twelve Years signed at Antwerp--Gives
great Satisfaction in the Netherlands--Important Attitude of
the United Provinces--Conduct of the Belgian Provinces--Disputes
relative to Cleves and Juviers--Prince Maurice and Spinola remove
their Armies into the contested states--Intestine Troubles in
the United Provinces--Assassination of Henry IV. of France--His
Character--Change in Prince Maurice's Character and Conduct--He
is strenuously opposed by Barneveldt--Religious Disputes--King
James enters the Lists of Controversy--Barneveldt and Maurice
take Opposite sides--The cautionary Towns released from the
Possession of England--Consequences of this Event--Calumnies
against Barneveldt--Ambitious Designs of Prince Maurice--He is
baffled by Barneveldt--The Republic assists its Allies with Money
and Ships--Its great naval Power--Outrages of some Dutch Sailors in
Ireland--Unresented by King James--His Anger at the manufacturing
Prosperity of the United Provinces--Excesses of the Gomarists--The
Magistrates call out the National Militia--Violent Conduct of
Prince Maurice--Uncompromising Steadiness of Barneveldt--Calumnies
against him--Maurice succeeds to the Title of Prince of Orange,
and Acts with increasing Violence--Arrest of Barneveldt and his
Friends--Synod of Dort--Its Consequences--Trial, Condemnation,
and Execution of Barneveldt--Grotius and Hoogerbeets sentenced
to perpetual Imprisonmemt--Ledenburg commits Suicide.


CHAPTER XVII

TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE

A.D. 1619--1625

The Parties Of Arminianism quite subdued--Emigrations--Grotius
resolves to attempt an Escape from Prison--Succeeds in his
Attempt--He repairs to Paris, and publishes his "Apology"--Expiration
of the Twelve Years' Truce--Death of Philip III. And of the Archduke
Albert--War in Germany--Campaign between Prince Maurice and
Spinola--Conspiracy against the Life of Prince Maurice--Its
Failure--Fifteen of the Conspirators executed--Great Unpopularity
of Maurice--Death of Maurice.


CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER

A.D. 1625--1648

Frederick Henry succeeds his Brother--Charles I. King of England--War
between France and England--Victories of Admiral Hein--Brilliant
Success of Frederick Henry--Fruitless Enterprise in Flanders--Death
of the Archduchess Isabella--Confederacy in Brabant--Its Failure,
and Arrest of the Nobles--Ferdinand, Prince-Cardinal,
Governor-General--Treaty between France and Holland--Battle of
Avein--Naval Affairs--Battle of the Downs--Van Tromp--Negotiations
for the Marriage of Prince William with the Princess Mary of
England--Death of the Prince-Cardinal--Don Francisco de Mello
Governor-General--Battle of Rocroy--Gallantry of Prince
William--Death of Cardinal Richelieu and of Louis XIII.--English
Politics--Affairs of Germany--Negotiations for Peace--Financial
Embarrassment of the Republic--The Republic negotiates with
Spain--Last Exploits of Frederick Henry--His Death, and
Character--William II. Stadtholder--Peace of Munster--Resentment
of Louis XIII.--Peace of Westphalia--Review of the Progress of
Art, Science, and Manners--Literature-- Painting--Engraving--
Sculpture--Architecture--Finance--Population--Commercial
Companies--Manners.


CHAPTER XIX

FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN

A.D. 1648--1678

State of the Republic after the Peace of Munster--State of
England--William II. Stadtholder--His ambitious Designs and Violent
Conduct--Attempts to seize on Amsterdam--His Death--Different
Sensations caused by his Death--The Prerogatives of the Stadtholder
assumed by the People--Naval War with England--English Act of
Navigation--Irish Hostilities--Death of Tromp--A Peace with
England--Disturbed State of the Republic--War with Denmark--Peace
concluded--Charles II. restored to the English Throne--Declares
War against Holland--Naval Actions--Charles endeavors to excite all
Europe against the Dutch--His Failure--Renewed Hostilities--De Ruyter
defeated--Peace of Breda--Invasion of Flanders by Louis XIV.--He
overruns Brabant and Flanders--Triple League, 1668--Perfidious
Conduct of Charles II.--He declares War against Holland, etc.,
as does Louis XIV.--Unprepared State of United Provinces--William
III. Prince of Orange--Appointed Captain-General and High
Admiral--Battle of Solebay--The French Invade the Republic--The
States-General implore Peace--Terms demanded by Louis XIV. and
by Charles II.--Desperation of the Dutch--The Prince of Orange
proclaimed Stadtholder--Massacre of the De Witts--Fine Conduct of
the Prince of Orange--He takes the Field--Is reinforced by Spain,
the Emperor, and Brandenburg--Louis XIV. forced to abandon his
Conquests--Naval Actions with the English--A Peace, 1674--Military
Affairs--Battle of Senef--Death of De Ruyter--Congress for Peace
at Nimeguen--Battle of Mont Cassel--Marriage of the Prince of
Orange--Peace of Nimeguen.


CHAPTER XX

FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT

A.D. 1678--1713

State of Europe subsequently to the Peace of Nimeguen--Arrogant
Conduct of Louis XIV.--Truce for Twenty Years--Death of Charles
II. of England--League of Augsburg--The Conduct of William--He
invades England--James II. Deposed--William III. proclaimed King of
England--King William puts himself at the Head of the Confederacy
against Louis XIV., and enters on the War--Military Operations--Peace
of Ryswyk--Death of Charles II. of Spain--War of Succession--Death
of William III.--His Character--Duke of Marlborough--Prince
Eugene--Successes of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain and
Portugal--Louis XIV. solicits Peace--Conferences for Peace--Peace
of Utrecht--Treaty of the Barrier.


CHAPTER XXI

FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

A.D. 1713--1794

Quadruple Alliance--General Peace of Europe--Wise Conduct of the
Republic--Great Danger from the bad State of the Dikes--Death
of the Emperor Charles VI.--Maria Theresa Empress--Her heroic
Conduct--Battle of Dettingen--Louis XV. invades the
Netherlands--Conferences for Peace at Breda--Battle of
Fontenoy--William IV. Stadtholder and Captain-General--Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle--Death of the Stadtholder, who is succeeded by his
Son William V.--War of Seven Years--State of the Republic--William
V. Stadtholder--Dismemberment of Poland--Joseph II. Emperor--His
attempted Reforms in Religion--War with England--Sea-Fight on
the Doggerbank--Peace with England, 1784--Progress of Public
Opinion in Europe, in Belgium, and Holland--Violent Opposition
to the Stadtholder--Arrest of the Princess of Orange--Invasion
of Holland by the Prussian Army--Agitation in Belgium--Vander
Noot--Prince Albert of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria
Theresa joint Governors-General--Succeeded by Count
Murray--Riots--Meetings of the Provisional States--General
Insurrection--Vonckists--Vander Mersch--Takes the Command of
the Insurgents--His Skilful Conduct--He gains the Battle of
Turnhout--Takes Possession of Flanders--Confederation of the
Belgian Provinces--Death of Joseph II.--Leopold Emperor--Arrest
of Vander Mersch--Arrogance of the States-General of Belgium--The
Austrians overrun the Country--Convention at The Hague--Death
of Leopold--Battle of Jemmappes--General Dumouriez--Conquest of
Belgium by the French--Recovered by the Austrians--The Archduke
Charles Governor-General--War in the Netherlands--Duke of York--The
Emperor Francis--The Battle of Fleurus--Incorporation of Belgium
with the French Republic--Peace of Leoben--Treaty of Campo-Formio.


CHAPTER XXII

FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE
PRINCE OF ORANGE

A.D. 1794--1818

Pichegru invades Holland--Winter Campaign--The Duke of York vainly
resists the French Army--Abdication of the Stadtholder--Batavian
Republic--War with England--Unfortunate Situation of Holland--Naval
Fight--English Expedition to the Helder--Napoleon Bonaparte--Louis
Bonaparte named King of Holland--His popular Conduct--He abdicates
the Throne--Annexation of Holland to the French Empire--Ruinous
to the Prosperity of the Republic--The people desire the Return
of the Prince of Orange--Confederacy to effect this Purpose--The
Allied Armies advance toward Holland--The Nation rises to throw
off the Yoke of France--Count Styrum and his Associates lead
on that Movement, and proclaim the Prince of Orange, who lands
from England--His first Proclamation--His second Proclamation.


CHAPTER XXIII

FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE-SOVEREIGN OF THE
NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

A.D. 1813--1815

Rapid Organization of Holland--The Constitution formed--Accepted by
the People--Objections made to it by some Individuals--Inauguration
of the Prince-Sovereign--Belgium is occupied by the Allies--Treaty
of Paris--Treaty of London--Formation of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands--Basis of the Government--Relative Character and
Situation of Holland and Belgium--The Prince-Sovereign of Holland
arrives in Belgium as Governor-General--The fundamental Law--Report
of the Commissioners by whom it was framed--Public Feeling in
Holland, and in Belgium--The Emperor Napoleon invades France,
and Belgium--The Prince of Orange takes the Field--The Duke of
Wellington--Prince Blucher--Battle of Ligny--Battle of Quatre
Bras--Battle of Waterloo--Anecdote of the Prince of Orange, who
is wounded--Inauguration of the King.


SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER (A.D. 1810--1899).




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HOLLAND

  The Duke of Alva Deposes Margaret of Parma.

  Storming the Barricades at Brussels During the Revolution of 1848.

  William the Silent of Orange.

  A Holland Beauty.




CHAPTER I

FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
BY THE SALIAN FRANKS

B.C. 50--A.D. 200

The Netherlands form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on
the borders of the ocean, opposite to the southeast coast of
England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those
of Hanover. The country is principally composed of low and humid
grounds, presenting a vast plain, irrigated by the waters from
all those neighboring states which are traversed by the Rhine,
the Meuse, and the Scheldt. This plain, gradually rising toward
its eastern and southern extremities, blends on the one hand
with Prussia, and on the other with France. Having, therefore,
no natural or strongly marked limits on those sides, the extent
of the kingdom could only be determined by convention; and it must
be at all times subject to the arbitrary and varying influence
of European policy. Its greatest length, from north to south, is
about two hundred and twenty English miles; and its breadth,
from east to west, is nearly one hundred and forty.

Two distinct kinds of men inhabit this kingdom. The one occupying
the valleys of the Meuse and the Scheldt, and the high grounds
bordering on France, speak a dialect of the language of that
country, and evidently belong to the Gallic race. They are called
Walloons, and are distinguished from the others by many peculiar
qualities. Their most prominent characteristic is a propensity
for war, and their principal source of subsistence the working
of their mines. They form nearly one-fourth of the population of
the whole kingdom, or about one million three hundred thousand
persons. All the rest of the nation speak Low German, in its
modifications of Dutch and Flemish; and they offer the distinctive
characteristics of the Saxon race--talents for agriculture,
navigation, and commerce; perseverance rather than vivacity;
and more courage than taste for the profession of arms. They
are subdivided into Flemings--those who were the last to submit
to the House of Austria; and Dutch--those who formed the republic
of the United Provinces. But there is no difference between these
two subdivisions, except such as has been produced by political
and religious institutions. The physical aspect of the people
is the same; and the soil, equally law and moist, is at once
fertilized and menaced by the waters.

The history of this last-mentioned portion of the nation is
completely linked to that of the soil which they occupy. In remote
times, when the inhabitants of this plain were few and uncivilized,
the country formed but one immense morass, of which the chief
part was incessantly inundated and made sterile by the waters of
the sea. Pliny the naturalist, who visited the northern coasts,
has left us a picture of their state in his days. "There," says
he, "the ocean pours in its flood twice every day, and produces
a perpetual uncertainty whether the country may be considered as
a part of the continent or of the sea. The wretched inhabitants
take refuge on the 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 subsist on the fish left by the
refluent waters, and which they catch in nets formed of rushes
or seaweed. Neither tree nor shrub is visible on these shores.
The drink of the people is rain-water, which they preserve with
great care; their fuel, a sort of turf, which they gather and
form with the hand. And yet these unfortunate beings dare to
complain against their fate, when they fall under the power and
are incorporated with the empire of Rome!"

The picture of poverty and suffering which this passage presents
is heightened when joined to a description of the country. The
coasts consisted only of sand-banks or slime, alternately overflowed
or left imperfectly dry. A little further inland, trees were
to be found, but on a soil so marshy that an inundation or a
tempest threw down whole forests, such as are still at times
discovered at either eight or ten feet depth below the surface.
The sea had no limits; the rivers no beds nor banks; the earth
no solidity; for according to an author of the third century
of our era, there was not, in the whole of the immense plain,
a spot of ground that did not yield under the footsteps of
man.--Eumenius.

It was not the same in the southern parts, which form at present
the Walloon country. These high grounds suffered much less from
the ravages of the waters. The ancient forest of the Ardennes,
extending from the Rhine to the Scheldt, sheltered a numerous though
savage population, which in all things resembled the Germans, from
whom they derived their descent. The chase and the occupations of
rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and
less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen
of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a
tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of
the country; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining
parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have
traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an existence
which any other people must have considered insupportable.

This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the
inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present
situation of the country. The high grounds, formerly so preferable,
are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards
their agriculture; while the ancient marshes have been changed
by human industry into rich and fertile tracts, the best parts
of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the
ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation
which once reigned where we now see the most richly cultivated
fields, the most thriving villages, and the wealthiest towns
of the continent, the imagination must go back to times which
have not left one monument of antiquity and scarcely a vestige
of fact.

The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of
a patient and industrious population struggling against every
obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being; and, in
this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements
in those places where they offered the greatest resistance. This
extraordinary result was due to the hardy stamp of character
imprinted by suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for
their foe; to the nature of their country, which presented no
lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the justice,
and the liberty nourished among men left to themselves, and who
found resources in their social state which rendered change neither
an object of their wants nor wishes.

About half a century before the Christian era, the obscurity
which enveloped the north of Europe began to disperse; and the
expedition of Julius Cæsar gave to the civilized world the first
notions of the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Cæsar, after
having subjugated the chief part of Gaul, turned his arms against
the warlike tribes of the Ardennes, who refused to accept his
alliance or implore his protection. They were called Belgæ by
the Romans; and at once pronounced the least civilized and the
bravest of the Gauls. Cæsar there found several ignorant and poor
but intrepid clans of warriors, who marched fiercely to encounter
him; and, notwithstanding their inferiority in numbers, in weapons,
and in tactics, they nearly destroyed the disciplined armies of
Rome. They were, however, defeated, and their country ravaged
by the invaders, who found less success when they attacked the
natives of the low grounds. The Menapians, a people who occupied
the present provinces of Flanders and Antwerp, though less numerous
than those whom the Romans had last vanquished, arrested their
progress both by open fight and by that petty and harassing
contest--that warfare of the people rather than of the soldiery--so
well adapted to the nature of the country. The Roman legions
retreated for the first time, and were contented to occupy the
higher parts, which now form the Walloon provinces.

But the policy of Cæsar made greater progress than his arms. He
had rather defeated than subdued those who had dared the contest.
He consolidated his victories without new battles; he offered peace
to his enemies, in proposing to them alliance; and he required
their aid, as friends, to carry on new wars in other lands. He
thus attracted toward him, and ranged under his banners, not only
those people situated to the west of the Rhine and the Meuse,
but several other nations more to the north, whose territory he
had never seen; and particularly the Batavians--a valiant tribe,
stated by various ancient authors, and particularly by Tacitus,
as a fraction of the Catti, who occupied the space comprised
between these rivers. The young men of these warlike people, dazzled
by the splendor of the Roman armies, felt proud and happy in
being allowed to identify themselves with them. Cæsar encouraged
this disposition, and even went so far on some occasions as to
deprive the Roman cavalry of their horses, on which he mounted
those new allies, who managed them better than their Italian
riders. He had no reason to repent these measures; almost all
his subsequent victories, and particularly that of Pharsalia,
being decided by the valor of the auxiliaries he obtained from
the Low Countries.

These auxiliaries were chiefly drawn from Hainault, Luxemburg,
and the country of the Batavians, and they formed the best cavalry
of the Roman armies, as well as their choicest light infantry
force. The Batavians also signalized themselves on many occasions,
by the skill with which they swam across several great rivers
without breaking their squadrons ranks. They were amply rewarded
for their military services and hazardous exploits, and were treated
like stanch and valuable allies. But this unequal connection of
a mighty empire with a few petty states must have been fatal to
the liberty of the weaker party. Its first effect was to destroy
all feeling of nationality in a great portion of the population.
The young adventurer of this part of the Low Countries, after
twenty years of service under the imperial eagles, returned to
his native wilds a Roman. The generals of the empire pierced
the forests of the Ardennes with causeways, and founded towns
in the heart of the country. The result of such innovations was
a total amalgamation of the Romans and their new allies; and
little by little the national character of the latter became
entirely obliterated. But to trace now the precise history of
this gradual change would be as impossible as it will be one
day to follow the progress of civilization in the woods of North
America.

But it must be remarked that this metamorphosis affected only
the inhabitants of the high grounds, and the Batavians (who were
in their origin Germans) properly so called. The scanty population
of the rest of the country, endowed with that fidelity to their
ancient customs which characterizes the Saxon race, showed no
tendency to mix with foreigner, rarely figured in their ranks,
and seemed to revolt from the southern refinement which was so
little in harmony with their manners and ways of life. It is
astonishing, at the first view, that those beings, whose whole
existence was a contest against famine or the waves, should show
less inclination than their happier neighbors to receive from
Rome an abundant recompense for their services. But the greater
their difficulty to find subsistence in their native land, the
stronger seemed their attachment; like that of the Switzer to
his barren rocks, or of the mariner to the frail and hazardous
home that bears him afloat on the ocean. This race of patriots
was divided into two separate peoples. Those to the north of
the Rhine were the Frisons; those to the west of the Meuse, the
Menapians, already mentioned.

The Frisons differed little from those early inhabitants of the
coast, who, perched on their high-built huts, fed on fish and
drank the water of the clouds. Slow and successive improvements
taught them to cultivate the beans which grew wild among the
marshes, and to tend and feed a small and degenerate breed of
horned cattle. But if these first steps toward civilization were
slow, they were also sure; and they were made by a race of men
who could never retrograde in a career once begun.

The Menapians, equally repugnant to foreign impressions, made, on
their part, a more rapid progress. They were already a maritime
people, and carried on a considerable commerce with England. It
appears that they exported thither salt, the art of manufacturing
which was well known to them; and they brought back in return
marl, a most important commodity for the improvement of their
land. They also understood the preparation of salting meat, with
a perfection that made it in high repute even in Italy; and,
finally, we are told by Ptolemy that they had established a colony
on the eastern coast of Ireland, not far from Dublin.

The two classes of what forms at present the population of the
Netherlands thus followed careers widely different, during the
long period of the Roman power in these parts of Europe. While
those of the high lands and the Batavians distinguished themselves
by a long-continued course of military service or servitude, those
of the plains improved by degrees their social condition, and fitted
themselves for a place in civilized Europe. The former received
from Rome great marks of favor in exchange for their freedom.
The latter, rejecting the honors and distinctions lavished on
their neighbors, secured their national independence, by trusting
to their industry alone for all the advantages they gradually
acquired.

Were the means of protecting themselves and their country from
the inundations of the sea known and practiced by these ancient
inhabitants of the coast? or did they occupy only those elevated
points of land which stood out like islands in the middle of the
floods? These questions are among the most important presented
by their history; since it was the victorious struggle of man
against the ocean that fixed the extent and form of the country.
It appears almost certain that in the time of Cæsar they did not
labor at the construction of dikes, but that they began to be
raised during the obscurity of the following century; for the
remains of ancient towns are even now discovered in places at
present overflowed by the sea. These ruins often bring to light
traces of Roman construction, and Latin inscriptions in honor
of the Menapian divinities. It is, then, certain that they had
learned to imitate those who ruled in the neighboring countries: a
result by no means surprising; for even England, the mart of their
commerce, and the nation with which they had the most constant
intercourse, was at that period occupied by the Romans. But the
nature of their country repulsed so effectually every attempt at
foreign domination that the conquerors of the world left them
unmolested, and established arsenals and formed communications
with Great Britain only at Boulogne and in the island of the
Batavians near Leyden.

This isolation formed in itself a powerful and perfect barrier
between the inhabitants of the plain and those of the high grounds.
The first held firm to their primitive customs and their ancient
language; the second finished by speaking Latin, and borrowing
all the manners and usages of Italy. The moral effect of this
contrast was that the people, once so famous for their bravery,
lost, with their liberty, their energy and their courage. One of
the Batavian chieftains, named Civilis, formed an exception to
this degeneracy, and, about the year 70 of our era, bravely took
up arms for the expulsion of the Romans. He effected prodigies of
valor and perseverance, and boldly met and defeated the enemy
both by land and sea. Reverses followed his first success, and he
finally concluded an honorable treaty, by which his countrymen
once more became the allies of Rome. But after this expiring effort
of valor, the Batavians, even though chosen from all nations for
the bodyguards of the Roman emperors, became rapidly degenerate;
and when Tacitus wrote, ninety years after Christ, they were
already looked on as less brave than the Frisons and the other
peoples beyond the Rhine. A century and a half later saw them
confounded with the Gauls; and the barbarian conquerors said
that "they were not a nation, but merely a _prey_."

Reduced into a Roman province, the southern portion of the
Netherlands was at this period called Belgic Gaul; and the name
of Belgium, preserved to our days, has until lately been applied
to distinguish that part of the country situated to the south of
the Rhine and the Meuse, or nearly that which formed the Austrian
Netherlands.

During the establishment of the Roman power in the north of Europe,
observation was not much excited toward the rapid effects of this
degeneracy, compared with the fast-growing vigor of the people of
the low lands. The fact of the Frisons having, on one occasion,
near the year 47 of our era, beaten a whole army of Romans, had
confirmed their character for intrepidity. But the long stagnation
produced in these remote countries by the colossal weight of
the empire was broken, about the year 250, by an irruption of
Germans or Salian Franks, who, passing the Rhine and the Meuse,
established themselves in the vicinity of the Menapians, near
Antwerp, Breda and Bois-le-duc. All the nations that had been
subjugated by the Roman power appear to have taken arms on this
occasion and opposed the intruders. But the Menapians united
themselves with these newcomers, and aided them to meet the shock
of the imperial armies. Carausius, originally a Menapian pilot,
but promoted to the command of a Roman fleet, made common cause
with his fellow-citizens, and proclaimed himself emperor of Great
Britain, where the naval superiority of the Menapians left him
no fear of a competitor. In recompense of the assistance given
him by the Franks, he crossed the sea again from his new empire,
to aid them in their war with the Batavians, the allies of Rome;
and having seized on their islands, and massacred nearly the whole
of its inhabitants, he there established his faithful friends the
Salians. Constantius and his son Constantine the Great vainly
strove, even after the death of the brave Carausius, to regain
possession of the country; but they were forced to leave the
new inhabitants in quiet possession of their conquest.




CHAPTER II

FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND

A.D. 250--800

From this epoch we must trace the progress of a totally new and
distinct population in the Netherlands. The Batavians being
annihilated, almost without resistance, the low countries contained
only the free people of the German race. But these people did not
completely sympathize together so as to form one consolidated
nation. The Salians, and the other petty tribes of Franks, their
allies, were essentially warlike, and appeared precisely the same
as the original inhabitants of the high grounds. The Menapians
and the Frisons, on the contrary, lost nothing of their spirit
of commerce and industry. The result of this diversity was a
separation between the Franks and the Menapians. While the latter,
under the name of Armoricans, joined themselves more closely
with the people who bordered the Channel, the Frisons associated
themselves with the tribes settled on the limits of the German
Ocean, and formed with them a connection celebrated under the
title of the Saxon League. Thus was formed on all points a union
between the maritime races against the inland inhabitants; and
their mutual antipathy became more and more developed as the
decline of the Roman empire ended the former struggle between
liberty and conquest.

The Netherlands now became the earliest theatre of an entirely
new movement, the consequences of which were destined to affect
the whole world. This country was occupied toward the sea by
a people wholly maritime, excepting the narrow space between
the Rhine and the Vahal, of which the Salian Franks had become
possessed. The nature of this marshy soil, in comparison with the
sands of Westphalia, Guelders, and North Brabant, was not more
strikingly contrasted than was the character of their population.
The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed
a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption
of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but
made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened
between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank
might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the
Middle Ages. The Saxon (and this name comprehends all the tribes
of the coast from the Rhine as far north as Denmark), uniting in
himself the distinctive qualities of German and navigator, was
moderate and sincere, but implacable in his rage. Neither of
these two races of men was excelled in point of courage; but
the number of Franks who still entered into the service of the
empire diminished the real force of this nation, and naturally
tended to disunite it. Therefore, in the subsequent shock of
people against people, the Saxons invariably gained the final
advantage.

They had no doubt often measured their strength in the most remote
times, since the Franks were but the descendants of the ancient
tribes of Sicambers and others, against whom the Batavians had
offered their assistance to Cæsar. Under Augustus, the inhabitants
of the coast had in the same way joined themselves with Drusus,
to oppose these their old enemies. It was also after having been
expelled by the Frisons from Guelders that the Salians had passed
the Rhine and the Meuse; but, in the fourth century, the two
peoples, recovering their strength, the struggle recommenced,
never to terminate--at least between the direct descendants of
each. It is believed that it was the Varni, a race of Saxons
nearly connected with those of England (and coming, like them,
from the coast of Denmark), who on this occasion struck the decisive
blow on the side of the Saxons. Embarking on board a numerous
fleet, they made a descent in the ancient isle of the Batavians,
at that time inhabited by the Salians, whom they completely
destroyed. Julian the Apostate, who was then with a numerous
army pursuing his career of early glory in these countries,
interfered for the purpose of preventing the expulsion, or at
least the utter destruction, of the vanquished; but his efforts
were unavailing. The Salians appear to have figured no more in
this part of the Low Countries.

The defeat of the Salians by a Saxon tribe is a fact on which no
doubt rests. The name of the victors is, however, questionable.
The Varni having remained settled near the mouths of the Rhine
till near the year 500, there is strong probability that they
were the people alluded to. But names and histories, which may on
this point appear of such little importance, acquire considerable
interest when we reflect that these Salians, driven from their
settlement, became the conquerors of France; that those Saxons
who forced them on their career of conquest were destined to
become the masters of England; and that these two petty tribes,
who battled so long for a corner of marshy earth, carried with
them their reciprocal antipathy while involuntarily deciding
the destiny of Europe.

The defeat of the Franks was fatal to those peoples who had become
incorporated with the Romans; for it was from them that the exiled
wanderers, still fierce in their ruin, and with arms in their hands,
demanded lands and herds; all, in short, which they themselves had
lost. From the middle of the fourth century to the end of the
fifth, there was a succession of invasions in this spirit, which
always ended by the subjugation of a part of the country; and which
was completed about the year 490, by Clovis making himself master
of almost the whole of Gaul. Under this new empire not a vestige
of the ancient nations of the Ardennes was left. The civilized
population either perished or was reduced to slavery, and all
the high grounds were added to the previous conquests of the
Salians.

But the maritime population, when once possessed of the whole
coast, did not seek to make the slightest progress toward the
interior. The element of their enterprise and the object of their
ambition was the ocean; and when this hardy and intrepid race
became too numerous for their narrow limits, expeditions and
colonies beyond the sea carried off their redundant population.
The Saxon warriors established themselves near the mouths of the
Loire; others, conducted by Hengist and Horsa, settled in Great
Britain. It will always remain problematical from what point
of the coast these adventurers departed; but many circumstances
tend to give weight to the opinion which pronounces those old
Saxons to have started from the Netherlands.

Paganism not being yet banished from these countries, the obscurity
which would have enveloped them is in some degree dispelled by the
recitals of the monks who went among them to preach Christianity.
We see in those records, and by the text of some of their early
laws, that this maritime people were more industrious, prosperous,
and happy, than those of France. The men were handsome and richly
clothed; and the land well cultivated, and abounding in fruits,
milk, and honey. The Saxon merchants carried their trade far
into the southern countries. In the meantime, the parts of the
Netherlands which belonged to France resembled a desert. The
monasteries which were there founded were established, according
to the words of their charters, amid immense solitudes; and the
French nobles only came into Brabant for the sport of bear-hunting
in its interminable forests. Thus, while the inhabitants of the
low lands, as far back as the light of history penetrates, appear
in a continual state of improvement, those of the high grounds,
after frequent vicissitudes, seem to sink into utter degeneracy
and subjugation. The latter wished to denaturalize themselves,
and become as though they were foreigners even on their native
soil; the former remained firm and faithful to their country
and to each other.

But the growth of French power menaced utter ruin to this interesting
race. Clovis had succeeded about the year 485 of our era, in
destroying the last remnants of Roman domination in Gaul. The
successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the
Pyrenees to the Rhine. They had continual contests with the free
population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors. In the
commencement of the seventh century, the French king, Clotaire II.,
exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and Westphalia;
and the historians of those barbarous times unanimously relate
that he caused to be beheaded every inhabitant of the vanquished
tribes who exceeded the height of his sword. The Saxon name was
thus nearly extinguished in those countries; and the remnant of
these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either
because they became really incorporated with that nation, or
merely that they recognized it for the most powerful of their
tribes. Friesland, to speak in the language of that age, extended
then from the Scheldt to the Weser, and formed a considerable
state. But the ascendency of France was every year becoming more
marked; and King Dagobert extended the limits of her power even
as far as Utrecht. The descendants of the Menapians, known at
that epoch by the different names of Menapians, Flemings, and
Toxandirans, fell one after another directly or indirectly under
the empire of the Merovingian princes; and the noblest family
which existed among the French--that which subsequently took the
name of Carlovingians--comprised in its dominions nearly the
whole of the southern and western parts of the Netherlands.

Between this family, whose chief was called duke of the Frontier
Marshes (_Dux_Brabantioe_), and the free tribes, united under
the common name of Frisons, the same struggle was maintained as
that which formerly existed between the Salians and the Saxons.
Toward the year 700, the French monarchy was torn by anarchy,
and, under "the lazy kings," lost much of its concentrated power;
but every dukedom formed an independent sovereignty, and of all
those that of Brabant was the most redoubtable. Nevertheless
the Frisons, under their king, Radbod, assumed for a moment the
superiority; and Utrecht, where the French had established
Christianity, fell again into the power of the pagans. Charles
Martell, at that time young, and but commencing his splendid
career, was defeated by the hostile king in the forest of the
Ardennes; and though, in subsequent conquests, he took an ample
revenge, Radbod still remained a powerful opponent. It is related
of this fierce monarch that he was converted by a Christian
missionary; but, at the moment in which he put his foot in the
water for the ceremony of baptism, he suddenly asked the priest
where all his old Frison companions in arms had gone after their
death? "To hell," replied the priest. "Well, then," said Radbod,
drawing back his foot from the water, "I would rather go to hell
with them, than to paradise with you and your fellow foreigners!"
and he refused to receive the rite of baptism, and remained a
pagan.

After the death of Radbod, in 719, Charles Martell, now become
duke of the Franks, mayor of the palace, or by whatever other of
his several titles he may be distinguished, finally triumphed over
the long-resisting Frisons. He labored to establish Christianity
among them; but they did not understand the French language, and
the lot of converting them was consequently reserved for the
English. St. Willebrod was the first missionary who met with
any success, about the latter end of the seventh century; but
it was not till toward the year 750 that this great mission was
finally accomplished by St. Boniface, archbishop of Mayence,
and the apostle of Germany. Yet the progress of Christianity,
and the establishment of a foreign sway, still met the partial
resistance which a conquered but not enervated people are always
capable of opposing to their masters. St. Boniface fell a victim
to this stubborn spirit. He perished a martyr to his zeal, but
perhaps a victim as well to the violent measures of his colleagues,
in Friesland, the very province which to this day preserves the
name.

The last avenger of Friesland liberty and of the national idols
was the illustrious Witikind, to whom the chronicles of his country
give the title of first azing, or judge. This intrepid chieftain
is considered as a compatriot, not only by the historians of
Friesland, but by those of Saxony; both, it would appear, having
equal claims to the honor; for the union between the two peoples
was constantly strengthened by intermarriages between the noblest
families of each. As long as Witikind remained a pagan and a
freeman, some doubt existed as to the final fate of Friesland;
but when by his conversion he became only a noble of the court
of Charlemagne, the slavery of his country was consummated.




CHAPTER III

FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND

A.D. 800--1000

Even at this advanced epoch of foreign domination, there remained
as great a difference as ever between the people of the high
grounds and the inhabitants of the plain. The latter were, like
the rest, incorporated with the great monarchy; but they preserved
the remembrance of former independence, and even retained their
ancient names. In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still
found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not
extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But
in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost.
Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or
towns. They were classified as accessories to inanimate things;
and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin,
they became as it were without recollections or associations;
and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without
ancestry.

The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the
times of Cæsar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest
of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization
had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like
a delicate plant in an ungenial clime; but it seemed to have
sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people
no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the
desperate courage of the warriors of Germany. A race of serfs now
cultivated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests.
The clergy had immense possessions in this country; an act of
the following century recognizes fourteen thousand families of
vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and
Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less
oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but
they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.

The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement
of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had
arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared
in every part of the interior. The Meuse and the Scheldt no longer
joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lands; whether
this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the
accumulation of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers
to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp,
Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The
last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five
churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence,
the extent of the population may be conjectured. The formation of
dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already
well understood, and regulated by uniform custom. The plains
thus reconquered from the waters were distributed in portions,
according to their labor, by those who reclaimed them, except
the parts reserved for the chieftain, the church, and the poor.
This vital necessity for the construction of dikes had given to
the Frison and Flemish population a particular habit of union,
goodwill, and reciprocal justice, because it was necessary to make
common cause in this great work for their mutual preservation.
In all other points, the detail of the laws and manners of this
united people presents a picture similar to that of the Saxons of
England, with the sole exception that the people of the Netherlands
were milder than the Saxon race properly so called--their long
habit of laborious industry exercising its happy influence on
the martial spirit original to both. The manufacturing arts were
also somewhat more advanced in this part of the continent than in
Great Britain. The Frisons, for example, were the only people
who could succeed in making the costly mantles in use among the
wealthy Franks.

The government of Charlemagne admitted but one form, borrowed
from that of the empire in the period of its decline--a mixture
of the spiritual and temporal powers, exercised in the first place
by the emperor, and at second-hand by the counts and bishops. The
counts in those times were not the heads of noble families, as
they afterward became, but officers of the government, removable
at will, and possessing no hereditary rights. Their incomes did
not arise from salaries paid in money, but consisted of lands,
of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their
authority. These lands being situated in the limits of their
administration, each regarded them as his property only for the
time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will. How
unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be
well imagined. The force of possession was, however, frequently
opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though
all civil dignity and the revenues attached to it were but personal
and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage
of the barbarous state of the country in which their isolated
cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render
their power and prerogatives inalienable and real. The force
of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its
centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention
of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the
empire to its limits. Thus it was only by perpetually interposing
his personal efforts, and flying, as it were, from one end to the
other of his dominions, that Charlemagne succeeded in preserving
his authority. As for the people, without any sort of guarantee
against the despotism of the government, they were utterly at
the mercy of the nobles or of the sovereign. But this state of
servitude was quite incompatible with the union of social powers
necessary to a population that had to struggle against the tyranny
of the ocean. To repulse its attacks with successful vigor, a
spirit of complete concert was absolutely required; and the nation
being thus united, and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign
tyrants were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the
sea that broke against the dikes by which it was defied.

From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia,
now become a prosperous commonwealth, formed political associations
to raise a barrier against the despotic violence of the Franks.
These associations were called Gilden, and in the Latin of the
times Gildonia. They comprised, besides their covenants for mutual
protection, an obligation which bound every member to give succor
to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck.
But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the
quick-sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently,
prohibited both by him and his successors. To give a notion of
the importance of this prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is
only necessary to state that the most ancient corporations (all
which had preceded and engendered the most valuable municipal
rights) were nothing more than gilden. Thus, to draw an example
from Great Britain, the corporative charter of Berwick still
bears the title of Charta Gildoniæ. But the ban of the sovereigns
was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden
stood their ground, and within a century after the death of
Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.

This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern
parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland;
for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded
in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it
were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms
of government. The fact is undoubted; but the means which they
employed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great
privilege was the price of their military services; for they held
a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin,
the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of
his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with
the most heroic valor.

These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own
statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some
one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the
freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of
property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign
to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason;
thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and
according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow
limitation of the military services which they owed to the king;
fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct
line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal
articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect,
totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their
privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited,
the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed
down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages
produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta
was the means of founding at a later period in England.

The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority
by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means
the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those
countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and
enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege,
and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages
on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over
the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical
removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more
considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves
more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were
soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts,
used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength
to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the
monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign;
for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors:
France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country
to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole
of the Netherlands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.

In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith,
daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived
her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a
powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain
whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the
frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title,
considerable authority in the country; since the pope on one
occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him,
lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance
into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders.
The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced
to consent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the
title of count, the hereditary government of all the country
between the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was
the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this
Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer
(iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.

The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this
epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But
though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought
then, as at all times, to shake off the yoke, the epoch of their
independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they
obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their
titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds,
and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous
privilege of continuance in their rank. Several foreigners had
gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others
Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the
counts of Holland, and Heriold, a Norman prince who had been
banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known
before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It
designated the pagan inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas.
The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of
those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these
latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands
of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory
descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior
of the country. Flanders alone successfully resisted them during
the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave
chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that
was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions
threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed,
any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respecting the
relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect
data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief
cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly
interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally,
an agreement was entered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the
king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased
on condition of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the
government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period,
the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had
thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration
of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France.
The emperor Charles the Fat, anticipating the consequence of a
rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he
caused him to be assassinated. His followers, attacked on all points
by the people of Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their
destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From
that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually
less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the
coast; and their last expedition appears to have taken place
about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed
in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.

It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hundred and
fifty years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion
and devastation by these northern barbarians, the political state
of the country underwent no important changes. The emperors of
Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of
Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine,
as well as all which they possessed of what is now called France,
and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the
Lotheringian kings. The great difficulty of maintaining subordination
among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958,
to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and
Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole
of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieutenant of
the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled
this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The
other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted
into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald,
were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and
after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year
985, they gained a species of imperfect independence--Lambert
becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Louvain, and
Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.

The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant,
Godfrey, became convinced that the imperial power was too weak
to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country.
He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of
duke to a young prince of the royal house of France; and we thus
see the duchy of Lower Lorraine governed, in the name of the
emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne,
the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis
d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on
as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his
residence. After several years of tranquil government, the death
of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that
time he bravely contended for the crown of his ancestors, against
the usurpation of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in
battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put
to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor
justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously
perished the name of the Carlovingians.

The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vassals once
more in opposition. The German monarch insisted on naming some
creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II.,
count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the
sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance
to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders,
joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to
the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the
only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself
obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin.
The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.

Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to
rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing
up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate
the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no
temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by
the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly
the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power
being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices
of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the
aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather
than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance
and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and
anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every
laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired
new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not
portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved
to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful,
and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of
the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.

Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure
of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times
jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain
from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on
whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new
privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch,
at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts,
little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in
the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first
effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count
of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which
took place at the little village of Stongarde. And five years
later, the count of the Friesland marshes (_comes_Frisonum_
_Morsatenorum_) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop
of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention from the
nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.




CHAPTER IV

FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE

A.D. 1018--1384

The district in which Dordrecht is situated, and the grounds
in its environs which are at present submerged, formed in those
times an island just raised above the waters, and which was called
Holland or Holtland (which means _wooded_ land, or, according to
some, _hollow_ land). The formation of this island, or rather its
recovery from the waters, being only of recent date, the right to
its possession was more disputable than that of long-established
countries. All the bishops and abbots whose states bordered the
Rhine and the Meuse had, being equally covetous and grasping,
and mutually resolved to pounce on the prey, made it their common
property. A certain Count Thierry, descended from the counts
of Ghent, governed about this period the western extremity of
Friesland--the country which now forms the province of Holland;
and with much difficulty maintained his power against the Frisons,
by whom his right was not acknowledged. Beaten out of his own
territories by these refractory insurgents, he sought refuge in
the ecclesiastical island, where he intrenched himself, and founded
a town which is believed to have been the origin of Dordrecht.

This Count Thierry, like all the feudal lords, took advantage
of his position to establish and levy certain duties on all the
vessels which sailed past his territory, dispossessing in the
meantime some vassals of the church, and beating, as we have
stated, the bishop of Utrecht himself. Complaints and appeals
without number were laid at the foot of the imperial throne.
Godfrey of Eenham, whom the emperor had created duke of Lower
Lorraine, was commanded to call the whole country to arms. The
bishop of Liege, though actually dying, put himself at the head
of the expedition, to revenge his brother prelate, and punish
the audacious spoiler of the church property. But Thierry and
his fierce Frisons took Godfrey prisoner, and cut his army in
pieces. The victor had the good sense and moderation to spare
his prisoners, and set them free without ransom. He received
in return an imperial amnesty; and from that period the count
of Holland and his posterity formed a barrier against which the
ecclesiastical power and the remains of the imperial supremacy
continually struggled, to be only shattered in each new assault.
John Egmont, an old chronicler, says that the counts of Holland
were "a sword in the flanks of the bishops of Utrecht."

As the partial independence of the great vassals became consolidated,
the monarchs were proportionally anxious to prevent its perpetuation
in the same families. In pursuance of this system, Godfrey of Eenham
obtained the preference over the Counts Lambert and Robert; and
Frederick of Luxemburg was named duke of Lower Lorraine in 1046,
instead of a second Godfrey, who was nephew and expectant heir to
the first. But this Godfrey, upheld by Baldwin of Flanders, forced
the emperor to concede to him the inheritance of the dukedom.
Baldwin secured for his share the country of Alost and Waas, and the
citadel of Ghent; and he also succeeded in obtaining in marriage
for his son the Countess Richilde, heiress of Hainault and Namur.
Thus was Flanders incessantly gaining new aggrandizement, while
the duchy of Lorraine was crumbling away on every side.

In the year 1066 this state of Flanders, even then flourishing
and powerful, furnished assistance, both in men and ships, to
William the Bastard of Normandy, for the conquest of England.
William was son-in-law to Count Baldwin, and recompensed the
assistance of his wife's father by an annual payment of three
hundred silver marks. It was Mathilda, the Flemish princess and
wife of the conqueror, who worked with her own hands the celebrated
tapestry of Bayeux, on which is embroidered the whole history
of the conquest, and which is the most curious monument of the
state of the arts in that age.

Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superiority over all
the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment
of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer,
after having valiantly repulsed the Normans toward the end of
the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an
industrious and energetic people. They had built towns, cut down
and cleared away forests, and reclaimed inundated lands: above
all things, they had understood and guarded against the danger
of parcelling out their states at every succeeding generation;
and the county of Flanders passed entire into the hands of the
first-born of the family. The stability produced by this state
of things had allowed the people to prosper. The Normans now
visited the coasts, not as enemies, but as merchants; and Bruges
became the mart of the booty acquired by these bold pirates in
England and on the high seas. The fisheries had begun to acquire
an importance sufficient to establish the herring as one of the
chief aliments of the population. Maritime commerce had made such
strides that Spain and Portugal were well known to both sailors
and traders, and the voyage from Flanders to Lisbon was estimated
at fifteen days' sail. Woollen stuffs formed the principal wealth
of the country; but salt, corn, and jewelry were also important
branches of traffic; while the youth of Flanders were so famous for
their excellence in all martial pursuits that foreign sovereigns
were at all times desirous of obtaining bodies of troops from
this nation.

The greatest part of Flanders was attached, as has been seen, to
the king of France, and not to Lorraine; but the dependence was
little more than nominal. In 1071 the king of France attempted
to exercise his authority over the country, by naming to the
government the same Countess Richilde who had received Hainault
and Namur for her dower, and who was left a widow, with sons
still in their minority. The people assembled in the principal
towns, and protested against this intervention of the French
monarch. But we must remark that it was only the population of
the low lands (whose sturdy ancestors had ever resisted foreign
domination) that now took part in this opposition. The vassals
which the counts of Flanders possessed in the Gallic provinces
(the high grounds), and in general all the nobility, pronounced
strongly for submission to France; for the principles of political
freedom had not yet been fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of
those parts of the country. But the lowlanders joined together
under Robert, surnamed the Frison, brother of the deceased count;
and they so completely defeated the French, the nobles and their
unworthy associates of the high ground, that they despoiled the
usurping Countess Richilde of even her hereditary possessions.
In this war perished the celebrated Norman, William Fitz-Osborn,
who had flown to the succor of the defeated countess, of whom
he was enamored.

Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of
France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson
of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced
from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor
and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain,
who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having
successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all
the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of
Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of
Guelders. Finally, in 1086, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant
of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant; and
from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as
it was destined to remain for several centuries.

In the midst of this gradual organization of the various counties,
history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime
people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of
two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which
at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than
these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended
from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder Zee, but not quite
to the Rhine; and it became usual to consider no longer as Frisons
the subjects of the counts of Holland, whom we may now begin
to distinguish as Hollanders or Dutch. The Frison race alone
refused to recognize the sovereign counts. They boasted of being
self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the emperor, and regarding
the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require
obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged
in all things to respect them. But the counts of Holland, the
bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from
time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted
that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that
of the sovereign they represented. The descendants of the Count
Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent
in this assumption of power. Defeat after defeat, however, punished
their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the
pikes of their Frison opponents. The latter had no regular leaders;
but at the approach of the enemy the inhabitants of each canton
flew to arms, like the members of a single family; and all the
feudal forces brought against them failed to subdue this popular
militia.

The frequent result of these collisions was the refusal of the
Frisons to recognize any authority whatever but that of the national
judges. Each canton was governed according to its own laws. If
a difficulty arose, the deputies of the nation met together on
the borders of the Ems, in a place called "the Trees of Upstal"
(_Upstall-boomen_), where three old oaks stood in the middle of
an immense plain. In this primitive council-place chieftains
were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose
the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary
authority.

It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with
the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled
those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up
within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling
in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We
read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of
Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor
who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look elsewhere
for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust
the whole stock of the monastery.

In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively
opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days.
The Frisons successfully resisted the payment of tithes; and as a
punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted
upon them repeated inundations. They forced their priests to
marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought
for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesiastical
decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did
not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth
in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling
themselves _Vri-Vriesen_, Free-Frisons.

No nation is more interested than England in the examination of
all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in
its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was
there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first
developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment
in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits,
we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may
we enter on many mysteries of social government which the most
learned find a difficulty in solving. What were the rights of
the nobles in their connection with these freemen? What ties of
reciprocal interest bound the different cantons to each other?
What were the privileges of the towns?--These are the minute
but important points of detail which are overshadowed by the
grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in
fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little
knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it
were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the
history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic
nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to
the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of
Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the vague and
imposing title of "the great Frison," applied to some popular
leader. All this confusion tends to prove, on the authority of the
historians of the epoch, and the charters so carefully collected
by the learned, that this question, now so impossible to solve,
was even then not rightly understood--what were really those
fierce and redoubtable Frisons in their popular and political
relations? The fact is, that liberty was a matter so difficult
to be comprehended by the writers of those times that Froissart
gave as his opinion, about the year 1380, that the Frisons were
a most unreasonable race, for not recognizing the authority and
power of the great lords.

The eleventh century had been for the Netherlands (with the exception
of Friesland and Flanders) an epoch of organization; and had nearly
fixed the political existence of the provinces, which were so long
confounded in the vast possessions of the empire. It is therefore
important to ascertain under what influence and on what basis
these provinces became consolidated at that period. Holland and
Zealand, animated by the spirit which we may fairly distinguish
under the mingled title of Saxon and maritime, countries scarcely
accessible, and with a vigorous population, possessed, in the
descendants of Thierry I., a race of national chieftains who
did not attempt despotic rule over so unconquerable a people. In
Brabant, the maritime towns of Berg-op-Zoom and Antwerp formed, in
the Flemish style, so many republics, small but not insignificant;
while the southern parts of the province were under the sway of
a nobility who crushed, trampled on, or sold their vassals at
their pleasure or caprice. The bishopric of Liege offered also
the same contrast; the domains of the nobility being governed
with the utmost harshness, while those prince-prelates lavished on
their plebeian vassals privileges which might have been supposed
the fruits of generosity, were it not clear that the object was
to create an opposition in the lower orders against the turbulent
aristocracy, whom they found it impossible to manage single-handed.
The wars of these bishops against the petty nobles, who made their
castles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the
foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain
that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than
those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences
preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the
old romance writers. But in all the rest of the Netherlands,
excepting the provinces already mentioned, no form of government
existed, but that fierce feudality which reduced the people into
serfs, and turned the social state of man into a cheerless waste
of bondage.

It was then that the Crusades, with wild and stirring fanaticism,
agitated, in the common impulse given to all Europe, even those
little states which seemed to slumber in their isolated independence.
Nowhere did the voice of Peter the Hermit find a more sympathizing
echo than in these lands, still desolated by so many intestine
struggles. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, took the
lead in this chivalric and religious frenzy. With him set out
the counts of Hainault and Flanders; the latter of whom received
from the English crusaders the honorable appellation of Fitz
St. George. But although the valor of all these princes was
conspicuous, from the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem by
Godfrey of Bouillon in 1098, until that of the Latin empire of
Constantinople by Baldwin of Flanders in 1203, still the simple
gentlemen and peasants of Friesland did not less distinguish
themselves. They were, on all occasions, the first to mount the
breach or lead the charge; and the pope's nuncio found himself
forced to prohibit the very women of Friesland from embarking
for the Holy Land--so anxious were they to share the perils and
glory of their husbands and brothers in combating the Saracens.

The outlet given by the crusaders to the overboiling ardor of
these warlike countries was a source of infinite advantage to
their internal economy; under the rapid progress of civilization,
the population increased and the fields were cultivated. The
nobility, reduced to moderation by the enfeebling consequences
of extensive foreign wars, became comparatively impotent in their
attempted efforts against domestic freedom. Those of Flanders and
Brabant, also, were almost decimated in the terrible battle of
Bouvines, fought between the Emperor Othon and Philip Augustus,
king of France. On no occasion, however, had this reduced but
not degenerate nobility shown more heroic valor. The Flemish
knights, disdaining to mount their horses or form their ranks for
the repulse of the French cavalry, composed of common persons,
contemptuously received their shock on foot and in the disorder
of individual resistance. The brave Buridan of Ypres led his
comrades to the fight, with the chivalric war-cry, "Let each
now think of her he loves!" But the issue of this battle was
ruinous to the Belgians, in consequence of the bad generalship
of the emperor, who had divided his army into small portions,
which were defeated in detail.

While the nobility thus declined, the towns began rapidly to
develop the elements of popular force. In 1120, a Flemish knight
who might descend so far as to marry a woman of the plebeian
ranks incurred the penalty of degradation and servitude. In 1220,
scarcely a serf was to be found in all Flanders. The Countess Jane
had enfranchised all those belonging to her as early as 1222.
In 1300, the chiefs of the gilden, or trades, were more powerful
than the nobles. These dates and these facts must suffice to mark
the epoch at which the great mass of the nation arose from the
wretchedness in which it was plunged by the Norman invasion, and
acquired sufficient strength and freedom to form a real political
force. But it is remarkable that the same results took place in
all the counties or dukedoms of the Lowlands precisely at the
same period. In fact, if we start from the year 1200 on this
interesting inquiry, we shall see the commons attacking, in the
first place, the petty feudal lords, and next the counts and the
dukes themselves, often as justice was denied them. In 1257,
the peasants of Holland and the burghers of Utrecht proclaimed
freedom and equality, drove out the bishop and the nobles, and
began a memorable struggle which lasted full two hundred years.
In 1260, the townspeople of Flanders appealed to the king of
France against the decrees of their count, who ended the quarrel
by the loss of his county. In 1303, Mechlin and Louvain, the chief
towns of Brabant, expelled the patrician families. A coincidence
like this cannot be attributed to trifling or partial causes,
such as the misconduct of a single count, or other local evil;
but to a great general movement in the popular mind, the progress
of agriculture and industry in the whole country, superinducing
an increase of wealth and intelligence, which, when unrestrained
by the influence of a corrupt government, must naturally lead
to the liberty and the happiness of a people.

The weaving of woollen and linen cloths was one of the chief
sources of this growing prosperity. A prodigious quantity of
cloth and linen was manufactured in all parts of the Netherlands.
The maritime prosperity acquired an equal increase by the carrying
trade, both in imports and exports. Whole fleets of Dutch and
Flemish merchant ships repaired regularly to the coasts of Spain
and Languedoc. Flanders was already become the great market for
England and all the north of Europe. The great increase of population
forced all parts of the country into cultivation; so much so,
that lands were in those times sold at a high price, which are
to-day left waste from imputed sterility.

Legislation naturally followed the movements of those positive
and material interests. The earliest of the towns, after the
invasion of the Normans, were in some degree but places of refuge.
It was soon however, established that the regular inhabitants
of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any
servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who
might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was
considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about
the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of
regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges
and magistrates, and attached to their authority the old custom of
ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the summons
of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assemblage or
service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal
of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population
of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of
the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made
war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the
chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for
life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary struggles,
almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen,
forced to tear themselves from every association of home and
its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the
contest; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of
that still greater to be found in a prolonged struggle. It is this
that it may be remarked, during the memorable conflicts of the
thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights
advised their counts or dukes to grant or demand a truce, the
citizen militia never knew but one cry--"To the charge!"

Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation,
when it became forced to take up arms against enemies still more
redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned
their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king
of France, began to repent of their newly-formed allegiance,
and to be weary of the master they had chosen. Two citizens of
Bruges, Peter de Koning, a draper, and John Breydel, a butcher,
put themselves at the head of their fellow-townsmen, and completely
dislodged the French troops who garrisoned it. The following year
the militia of Bruges and the immediate neighborhood sustained
alone, at the battle of Courtrai, the shock of one of the finest
armies that France ever sent into the field. Victory soon declared
for the gallant men of Bruges; upward of three thousand of the
French chivalry, besides common soldiers, were left dead on the
field. In 1304, after a long contested battle, the Flemings forced
the king of France to release their count, whom he had held prisoner.
"I believe it rains Flemings!" said Philip, astonished to see them
crowd on him from all sides of the field. But this multitude
of warriors, always ready to meet the foe, were provided for
the most part by the towns. In the seigniorial system a village
hardly furnished more than four or five men, and these only on
important occasions; but in that of the towns every citizen was
enrolled as a soldier to defend the country at all times.

The same system established in Brabant forced the duke of that
province to sanction and guarantee the popular privileges, and
the superiority of the people over the nobility. Such was the
result of the famous contract concluded in 1312 at Cortenbergh,
by which the duke created a legislative and judicial assembly to
meet every twenty-one days for the, provincial business; and to
consist of fourteen deputies, of whom only four were to be nobles,
and ten were chosen from the people. The duke was bound by this
act to hold himself in obedience to the legislative decisions
of the council, and renounced all right of levying arbitrary
taxes or duties on the state. Thus were the local privileges
of the people by degrees secured and ratified; but the various
towns, making common cause for general liberty, became strictly
united together, and progressively extended their influence and
power. The confederation between Flanders and Brabant was soon
consolidated. The burghers of Bruges, who had taken the lead in
the grand national union, and had been the foremost to expel
the foreign force, took umbrage in 1323 at an arbitrary measure
of their count, Louis (called of Cressy by posthumous nomination,
from his having been killed at that celebrated fight), by which
he ceded to the count of Namur, his great-uncle, the port of
Ecluse, and authorized him to levy duties there in the style of
the feudal lords of the high country. It was but the affair of
a day to the intrepid citizens to attack the fortress of Ecluse,
carry it by assault, and take prisoner the old count of Namur.
They destroyed in a short time almost all the strong castles of
the nobles throughout the province; and having been joined by
all the towns of western Flanders, they finally made prisoners
of Count Louis himself, with almost the whole of the nobility,
who had taken refuge with him in the town of Courtrai. But Ghent,
actuated by the jealousy which at all times existed between it and
Bruges, stood aloof at this crisis. The latter town was obliged
to come to a compromise with the count, who soon afterward, on a
new quarrel breaking out, and supported by the king of France,
almost annihilated his sturdy opponents at the battle of Cassel,
where the Flemish infantry, commanded by Nicholas Zannekin and
others, were literally cut to pieces by the French knights and
men-at-arms.

This check proved the absolute necessity of union among the rival
cities. Ten years after the battle of Cassel, Ghent set the example
of general opposition; this example was promptly followed, and
the chief towns flew to arms. The celebrated James d'Artaveldt,
commonly called the brewer of Ghent, put himself at the head of
this formidable insurrection. He was a man of a distinguished
family, who had himself enrolled among the guild of brewers, to
entitle him to occupy a place in the corporation of Ghent, which
he soon succeeded in managing and leading at his pleasure. The
tyranny of the count, and the French party which supported him,
became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail
them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law,
Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt,
and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native
city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable. The
Flemings had sworn allegiance to the crown of France; and they
revolted at the idea of perjury, even from an extorted oath.
But to overcome their scruples, Artaveldt proposed to acknowledge
the claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown. The
Flemings readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed
Count Louis of Cressy and his French partisans; and then joined,
with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had
landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's
army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English
fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior
force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive
of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of
fighting, until a Flemish squadron, hastening to the aid of the
English, fixed the fate of the combat by the utter defeat of
the enemy.

A truce between the two kings did not deprive Artaveldt of his
well-earned authority. He was invested with the title of ruward,
or conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and governed the whole
province with almost sovereign sway. It was said that King Edward
used familiarly to call him "his dear gossip"; and it is certain
that there was not a feudal lord of the time whose power was
not eclipsed by this leader of the people. One of the principal
motives which cemented the attachment of the Flemings to Artaveldt
was the advantage obtained through his influence with Edward for
facilitating the trade with England, whence they procured the
chief supply of wool for their manufactories. Edward promised
them seventy thousand sacks as the reward of their alliance. But
though greatly influenced by the stimulus of general interest,
the Flemings loved their domestic liberty better than English
wool; and when they found that their ruward degenerated from a
firm patriot into the partisan of a foreign prince, they became
disgusted with him altogether; and he perished in 1345, in a
tumult raised against him by those by whom he had been so lately
idolized. The Flemings held firm, nevertheless, in their alliance
with England, only regulating the connection by a steady principle
of national independence.

Edward knew well how to conciliate and manage these faithful
and important auxiliaries during all his continental wars. A
Flemish army covered the siege of Calais in 1348; and, under
the command of Giles de Rypergherste, a mere weaver of Ghent,
they beat the dauphin of France in a pitched battle. But Calais
once taken, and a truce concluded, the English king abandoned
his allies. These, left wholly to their own resources, forced
the French and the heir of their count, young Louis de Male,
to recognize their right to self-government according to their
ancient privileges, and of not being forced to give aid to France
in any war against England. Flanders may therefore be pronounced
as forming, at this epoch, both in right and fact, a truly
independent principality.

But such struggles as these left a deep and immovable sentiment
of hatred in the minds of the vanquished. Louis de Male longed
for the re-establishment and extension of his authority; and
had the art to gain over to his views not only all the nobles,
but many of the most influential guilds or trades. Ghent, which
long resisted his attempts, was at length reduced by famine; and
the count projected the ruin, or at least the total subjection,
of this turbulent town. A son of Artaveldt started forth at this
juncture, when the popular cause seemed lost, and joining with
his fellow-citizens, John Lyons and Peter du Bois, he led seven
thousand resolute burghers against forty thousand feudal vassals.
He completely defeated the count, and took the town of Bruges,
where Louis de Male only obtained safety by hiding himself under
the bed of an old woman who gave him shelter. Thus once more
feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.

The consequences of this event were immense. They reached to the
very heart of France, where the people bore in great discontent
the feudal yoke; and Froissart declares that the success of the
people of Gheut had nearly overthrown the superiority of the
nobility over the people in France. But the king, Charles VI.,
excited by his uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, took arms
in support of the defeated count, and marched with a powerful army
against the rebellious burghers. Though defeated in four successive
combats, in the latter of which, that of Roosbeke, Artaveldt
was killed, the Flemings would not submit to their imperious
count, who used every persuasion with Charles to continue his
assistance for the punishment of these refractory subjects. But
the duke of Burgundy was aware that a too great perseverance would
end, either in driving the people to despair and the possible
defeat of the French, or the entire conquest of the country and
its junction to the crown of France. He, being son-in-law to
Louis de Male, and consequently aspiring to the inheritance of
Flanders, saw with a keen glance the advantage of a present
compromise. On the death of Louis, who is stated to have been
murdered by Philip's brother, the duke of Berri, be concluded
a peace with the rebel burghers, and entered at once upon the
sovereignty of the country.




CHAPTER V

FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS,
TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR

A.D. 1384--1506

Thus the house of Burgundy, which soon after became so formidable
and celebrated, obtained this vast accession to its power. The
various changes which had taken place in the neighboring provinces
during the continuance of these civil wars had altered the state
of Flanders altogether. John d'Avesnes, count of Hainault, having
also succeeded in 1299 to the county of Holland, the two provinces,
though separated by Flanders and Brabant, remained from that
time under the government of the same chief, who soon became
more powerful than the bishops of Utrecht, or even than their
formidable rivals the Frisons.

During the wars which desolated these opposing territories, in
consequence of the perpetual conflicts for superiority, the power
of the various towns insensibly became at least as great as that
of the nobles to whom they were constantly opposed. The commercial
interests of Holland, also, were considerably advanced by the
influx of Flemish merchants forced to seek refuge there from the
convulsions which agitated their province. Every day confirmed
and increased the privileges of the people of Brabant; while at
Liege the inhabitants gradually began to gain the upper hand,
and to shake off the former subjection to their sovereign bishops.

Although Philip of Burgundy became count of Flanders, by the
death of his father-in-law, in the year 1384, it was not till
the following year that he concluded a peace with the people
of Ghent, and entered into quiet possession of the province.
In the same year the duchess of Brabant, the last descendant
of the duke of that province, died, leaving no nearer relative
than the duchess of Burgundy; so that Philip obtained in right
of his wife this new and important accession to his dominions.
But the consequent increase of the sovereign's power was not,
as is often the case, injurious to the liberties or happiness
of the people. Philip continued to govern in the interest of the
country, which he had the good sense to consider as identified
with his own. He augmented the privileges of the towns, and
negotiated for the return into Flanders of those merchants who
had emigrated to Germany and Holland during the continuance of
the civil wars. He thus by degrees accustomed his new subjects,
so proud of their rights, to submit to his authority; and his
peaceable reign was only disturbed by the fatal issue of the
expedition of his son, John the Fearless, count of Nevers, against
the Turks. This young prince, filled with ambition and temerity,
was offered the command of the force sent by Charles III. of France
to the assistance of Sigismund of Hungary in his war against
Bajazet. Followed by a numerous body of nobles, he entered on
the contest, and was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks
at the battle of Nicopolis. His army was totally destroyed, and
himself only restored to liberty on the payment of an immense
ransom.

John the Fearless succeeded in 1404 to the inheritance of all
his father's dominions, with the exception of Brabant, of which
his younger brother, Anthony of Burgundy, became duke. John, whose
ambitious and ferocious character became every day more strongly
developed, now aspired to the government of France during the
insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little
with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired
to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in
his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent
to the rivalry of England and France, which now began so fearfully
to affect the latter kingdom, forced their ambitious count to
declare their province a neutral country; so that the English
merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of
Flanders, and the Flemings equally well received in England,
while the duke made open war against Great Britain in his quality
of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably
the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction
between the prince and the people.

Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely
restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles
of the province to take part in the quarrels of France; and he
suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in
the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this
event, for the militia of the country had not followed their
duke and his nobles to the war; and a national council was now
established, consisting of eleven persons, two of whom were
ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners.
This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted
the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the
young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself
upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could
not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game
of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his
claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over
Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated
the demand with derision.

The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which
now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the
history of the time by two striking and characteristic incidents.
At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb
her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token
of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her
rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In
the same year (1404) the widow of Albert, count of Holland and
Hainault, finding herself in similar circumstances, required of
the bailiff of Holland and the judges of his court permission to
make a like renunciation. The claim was granted; and, to fulfil
the requisite ceremony, she walked at the head of the funeral
procession, carrying in her hand a blade of straw, which she
placed on the coffin. We thus find that in such cases the reigning
families were held liable to follow the common usages of the
country. From such instances there required but little progress
in the principle of equality to reach the republican contempt for
rank which made the citizens of Bruges in the following century
arrest their count for his private debts.

The spirit of independence had reached the same point at Liege.
The families of the counts of Holland and Hainault, which were at
this time distinguished by the name of Bavaria, because they were
only descended from the ancient counts of Netherland extraction in
the female line, had sufficient influence to obtain the nomination
to the bishopric for a prince who was at the period in his infancy.
John of Bavaria--for so he was called, and to his name was afterward
added the epithet of "the Pitiless"--on reaching his majority,
did not think it necessary to cause himself to be consecrated a
priest, but governed as a lay sovereign. The indignant citizens
of Liege expelled him, and chose another bishop. But the Houses
of Burgundy and Bavaria, closely allied by intermarriages, made
common cause in his quarrel; and John, duke of Burgundy, and
William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, brother of the bishop,
replaced by force this cruel and unworthy prelate.

This union of the government over all the provinces in two families
so closely connected rendered the preponderance of the rulers
too strong for that balance hitherto kept steady by the popular
force. The former could on each new quarrel join together, and
employ against any particular town their whole united resources;
whereas the latter could only act by isolated efforts for the
maintenance of their separate rights. Such was the cause of a
considerable decline in public liberty during the fifteenth century.
It is true that John the Fearless gave almost his whole attention
to his French political intrigues, and to the fierce quarrels
which he maintained with the House of Orleans. But his nephew,
John, duke of Brabant, having married, in 1416, his cousin
Jacqueline, daughter and heiress of William IV., count of Holland
and Hainault, this branch of the House of Burgundy seemed to get
the start of the elder in its progressive influence over the
provinces of the Netherlands. The dukes of Guelders, who had
changed their title of counts for one of superior rank, acquired
no accession of power proportioned to their new dignity. The
bishops of Utrecht became by degrees weaker; private dissensions
enfeebled Friesland; Luxemburg was a poor, unimportant dukedom;
but Holland, Hainault, and Brabant formed the very heart of the
Netherlands; while the elder branch of the same family, under
whom they were united, possessed Flanders, Artois, and the two
Burgundies. To complete the prosperity and power of this latter
branch, it was soon destined to inherit the entire dominions
of the other.

A fact the consequences of which were so important for the entire
of Europe merits considerable attention; but it is most difficult
to explain at once concisely and clearly the series of accidents,
manoeuvres, tricks, and crimes by which it was accomplished. It
must first be remarked that this John of Brabant, become the
husband of his cousin Jacqueline, countess of Holland and Hainault,
possessed neither the moral nor physical qualities suited to
mate with the most lovely, intrepid, and talented woman of her
times; nor the vigor and firmness required for the maintenance
of an increased, and for those days a considerable, dominion.
Jacqueline thoroughly despised her insignificant husband; first
in secret, and subsequently by those open avowals forced from
her by his revolting combination of weakness, cowardice, and
tyranny. He tamely allowed the province of Holland to be invaded
by the same ungrateful bishop of Liege, John the Pitiless, whom
his wife's father and his own uncle had re-established in his
justly forfeited authority. But John of Brabant revenged himself
for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic persecutions so
odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection.
Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest
with a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels,
where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under
the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of
his fame and power.

England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European
affairs. John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of
his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the
bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and
in his presence. Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor
of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge
his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he
married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to
the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent
of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI. But besides
the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip
also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline,
his cousin. As soon as he had learned that this princess, so
well received in England, was taking measures for having her
marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester,
also the brother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the
appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented by a
double anxiety. He, in the first place, dreaded that Jacqueline
might have children by her projected marriage with Gloucester (a
circumstance neither likely nor even possible, in the opinion of
some historians, to result from her union with John of Brabant:
Hume, vol. iii., p. 133), and thus deprive him of his right of
succession to her states; and in the next, he was jealous of
the possible domination of England in the Netherlands as well
as in France. He therefore soon became self-absolved from all
his vows of revenge in the cause of his murdered father, and
labored solely for the object of his personal aggrandizement.
To break his connection with Bedford; to treat secretly with
the dauphin, his father's assassin, or at least the witness and
warrant for his assassination; and to shuffle from party to party
as occasion required, were movements of no difficulty to Philip,
surnamed "the Good." He openly espoused the cause of his infamous
relative, John of Brabant; sent a powerful army into Hainault,
which Gloucester vainly strove to defend in right of his affianced
wife; and next seized on Holland and Zealand, where he met with
a long but ineffectual resistance on the part of the courageous
woman he so mercilessly oppressed. Jacqueline, deprived of the
assistance of her stanch but ruined friends,[1] and abandoned
by Gloucester (who, on the refusal of Pope Martin V. to sanction
her divorce, had married another woman, and but feebly aided
the efforts of the former to maintain her rights), was now left
a widow by the death of John of Brabant. But Philip, without a
shadow of justice, pursued his designs against her dominions,
and finally despoiled her of her last possessions, and even of
the title of countess, which she forfeited by her marriage with
Vrank Van Borselen, a gentleman of Zealand, contrary to a compact
to which Philip's tyranny had forced her to consent. After a career
the most checkered and romantic which is recorded in history, the
beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacqueline found repose and
happiness in the tranquillity of private life, and her death
in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from
Philip's thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which
he drowned his remorse. As if fortune had conspired for the rapid
consolidation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of
St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of
Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province;
and his dominions soon extended to the very limits of Picardy,
by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become
Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance
with France.

[Footnote 1: We must not omit to notice the existence of two
factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated
the whole population of Holland and Zealand. One bore the title
of _Hoeks_ (fishing-hooks); the other was called _Kaabel-jauws_
(cod-fish). The origin of these burlesque denominations was a
dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish
took the hook or the hook the cod-fish? This apparently frivolous
dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel; and the partisans
of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either
side, and assumed different badges of distinction. The _Hoeks_,
partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the _Kaabeljauws_ wore
gray ones. In Jacqueline's quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she
was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492
that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck
a final blow to the dissensions of both.]

Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so
extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain
from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though
almost nominal, rights as lord paramount. He next purchased the
title of the duchess of Luxemburg to that duchy; and thus the
states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to
that of the existing kingdom of the Netherlands. For although on
the north and east they did not include Friesland, the bishopric
of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south
and west they comprised French Flanders, the Boulonnais, Artois,
and a part of Picardy, besides Burgundy. But it has been already
seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the
maritime provinces. Flanders in particular, the most populous
and wealthy, strictly preserved its republican institutions.
Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and
each maintained its individual authority over its respective
territory, with great indifference to the will or the wishes of
the sovereign duke. Philip, however, had the policy to divide
most effectually these rival towns. After having fallen into
the hands of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt
to surprise, and who massacred numbers of his followers before
his eyes, he forced them to submission by the assistance of the
citizens of Ghent, who sanctioned the banishment of the chief
men of the vanquished town. But some years later Ghent was in
its turn oppressed and punished for having resisted the payment
of some new tax. It found no support from the rest of Flanders.
Nevertheless this powerful city singly maintained the war for
the space of two years; but the intrepid burghers finally yielded
to the veterans of the duke, formed to victory in the French
wars. The principal privileges of Ghent were on this occasion
revoked and annulled.

During these transactions the province of Holland, which enjoyed
a degree of liberty almost equal to Flanders, had declared war
against the Hanseatic towns on its own proper authority. Supported
by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united
to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the
pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce,
and soon forced them to submission. Philip in the meantime contrived
to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety.
Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic character, he conducted
himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed
his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given
to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least. Age
and exhaustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration
which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of
some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant
over any.

Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that
ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine
right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become
his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely
to look well in the sight of Heaven. This son was Charles, count of
Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash.
He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen
of despotism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of
that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important
successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of
dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a
word, conducted himself as an absolute master. Soon afterward he
broke out into open opposition to his father, who had complained of
this undutiful and impetuous son to the states of the provinces,
venting his grief in lamentations instead of punishing his people's
wrongs. But his private rage burst forth one day in a manner as
furious as his public expressions were tame. He went so far as
to draw his sword on Charles and pursue him through his palace;
and a disgusting yet instructive spectacle it was, to see this
father and son in mutual and disgraceful discord, like two birds
of prey quarrelling in the same eyry; the old count outrageous
to find he was no longer undisputed sovereign, and the young
one in feeling that he had not yet become so. But Philip was
declining daily. Yet even when dying he preserved his natural
haughtiness and energy; and being provoked by the insubordination
of the people of Liege, he had himself carried to the scene of
their punishment. The refractory town of Dinant, on the Meuse,
was utterly destroyed by the two counts, and six hundred of the
citizens drowned in the river, and in cold blood. The following
year Philip expired, leaving to Charles his long-wished-for
inheritance.

The reign of Philip had produced a revolution in Belgian manners;
for his example and the great increase of wealth had introduced
habits of luxury hitherto quite unknown. He had also brought into
fashion romantic notions of military honor, love, and chivalry;
which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility,
contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and
extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which
was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds
of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion
for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a
contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest
of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted
to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit so fair
an opportunity for levying new taxes on his people. And it is
undoubted that the splendor of his court and the immorality of
his example were no slight sources of corruption to the countries
which he governed.

In this respect, at least, a totally different kind of government
was looked for on the part of his son and successor, who was by
nature and habit a mere soldier. Charles began his career by
seizing on all the money and jewels left by his father; he next
dismissed the crowd of useless functionaries who had fed upon,
under the pretence of managing, the treasures of the state. But
this salutary and sweeping reform was only effected to enable the
sovereign to pursue uncontrolled the most fatal of all passions,
that of war. Nothing can better paint the true character of this
haughty and impetuous prince than his crest (a branch of holly),
and his motto, "Who touches it, pricks himself." Charles had
conceived a furious and not ill-founded hatred for his base yet
formidable neighbor and rival, Louis XI. of France. The latter
had succeeded in obtaining from Philip the restitution of some
towns in Picardy; cause sufficient to excite the resentment of
his inflammable successor, who, during his father's lifetime,
took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary
struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a
combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand
in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and
intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles
was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that
ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness;
Louis the most subtle, dissimulating, and treacherous king that
ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad
faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was
unequal only in respect to this difference of character; for
France, subdivided as it still was, and exhausted by the wars
with England, was not comparable, either as regarded men, money,
or the other resources of the state, to the compact and prosperous
dominions of Burgundy.

Charles showed some symptoms of good sense and greatness of mind,
soon after his accession to power, that gave a false coloring to
his disposition, and encouraged illusory hopes as to his future
career. Scarcely was he proclaimed count of Flanders at Ghent,
when the populace, surrounding his hotel, absolutely insisted
on and extorted his consent to the restitution of their ancient
privileges. Furious as Charles was at this bold proof of
insubordination, he did not revenge it; and he treated with equal
indulgence the city of Mechlin, which had expelled its governor
and razed the citadel. The people of Liege, having revolted against
their bishop, Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with
the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but
he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event,
in February, 1468, he concluded with Edward IV. of England an
alliance, offensive and defensive, against France.

The real motive of this alliance was rivalry and hatred against
Louis. The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war
against the duke of Brittany, Charles's old ally in the short
contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength
with his rival after he became king. The present union between
England and Burgundy was too powerful not to alarm Louis; he
demanded an explanatory conference with Charles, and the town
of Peronne in Picardy was fixed on for their meeting. Louis,
willing to imitate the boldness of his rival, who had formerly
come to meet him in the very midst of his army, now came to the
rendezvous almost alone. But he was severely mortified and near
paying a greater penalty than fright for this hazardous conduct.
The duke, having received intelligence of a new revolt at Liege
excited by some of the agents of France, instantly made Louis
prisoner, in defiance of every law of honor or fair dealing. The
excess of his rage and hatred might have carried him to a more
disgraceful extremity, had not Louis, by force of bribery, gained
over some of his most influential counsellors, who succeeded in
appeasing his rage. He contented himself with humiliating, when
he was disposed to punish. He forced his captive to accompany him
to Liege, and witness the ruin of this unfortunate town, which
he delivered over to plunder; and having given this lesson to
Louis, he set him at liberty.

From this period there was a marked and material change in the
conduct of Charles. He had been previously moved by sentiments
of chivalry and notions of greatness. But sullied by his act of
public treachery and violence toward the monarch who had, at
least in seeming, manifested unlimited confidence in his honor,
a secret sense of shame embittered his feelings and soured his
temper. He became so insupportable to those around him that he
was abandoned by several of his best officers, and even by his
natural brother, Baldwin of Burgundy, who passed over to the side
of Louis. Charles was at this time embarrassed by the expense
of entertaining and maintaining Edward IV. and numerous English
exiles, who were forced to take refuge in the Netherlands by
the successes of the earl of Warwick, who had replaced Henry
VI. on the throne. Charles at the same time held out to several
princes in Europe hopes of bestowing on them in marriage his
only daughter and heiress Mary, while he privately assured his
friends, if his courtiers and ministers may be so called, "that
he never meant to have a son-in-law until he was disposed to
make himself a monk." In a word, he was no longer guided by any
principle but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.

In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles
and of the national militia, who only maintained toward him a
forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights
of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts
of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as
their absolute master. When the taxes necessary for the support
and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur,
Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some
of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of
his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the moment when
nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition
he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his
easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais; and thus made
of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block
on his path of conquest.

The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin
of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally,
who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's
presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage
and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders
from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of
it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in
this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their
parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found his justification
on the argument that his father having reigned forty-four years,
he was fully entitled to his share--a fine practical authority
for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this
reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles
cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing
on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul
the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.

After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart
the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands
were considered sufficiently important and consolidated to entitle
their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered
to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his
son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and
repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance
his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter
put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of
a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a
train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial
retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage,
from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law
who might embitter his old age as he had done that of his own
father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon,
and the projected kingdom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.

Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for aggrandizement
and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of
some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and
its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same
time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his
brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recovered possession of England.
But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied
him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its
succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the
dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the
pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping.
This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from
destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous
force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace
with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till
after the treaty was signed, upbraided and abused the English
king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.

Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions,
now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggrandizement, and to
recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately
belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would
be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The
infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying,
abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the
constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his
independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and
who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to
either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine.
Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies
to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive
dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles
that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether
worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the
more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness
raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the
project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions
of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries
traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke
of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.

Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the
rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered.
The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in
the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally
crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached
from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after
this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied
his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had
despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss--a force in which they
were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted
to thirty-four thousand men. They took up a position, skilfully
chosen, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, where they were
attacked by Charles at the head of sixty thousand soldiers of
all ranks. The result was the total defeat of the latter, with
the loss of ten thousand killed, whose bones, gathered into an
immense heap, and bleaching in the winds, remained for above
three centuries; a terrible monument of rashness and injustice
on the one hand, and of patriotism and valor on the other.

Charles was now plunged into a state of profound melancholy;
but he soon burst from this gloomy mood into one of renewed
fierceness and fatal desperation. Nine months after the battle
of Morat he re-entered Lorraine, at the head of an army, not
composed of his faithful militia of the Netherlands, but of those
mercenaries in whom it was madness to place trust. The reinforcements
meant to be despatched to him by those provinces were kept back
by the artifices of the count of Campo Basso, an Italian who
commanded his cavalry, and who only gained his confidence basely
to betray it. Rene, duke of Lorraine, at the head of the confederate
forces, offered battle to Charles under the walls of Nancy; and
the night before the combat Campo Basso went over to the enemy
with the troops under his command. Still Charles had the way
open for retreat. Fresh troops from Burgundy and Flanders were
on their march to join him; but he would not be dissuaded from
his resolution to fight, and he resolved to try his fortune once
more with his dispirited and shattered army. On this occasion the
fate of Charles was decided, and the fortune of Louis triumphant.
The rash and ill-fated duke lost both the battle and his life.
His body, mutilated with wounds, was found the next day, and
buried with great pomp in the town of Nancy, by the orders of
the generous victor, the duke of Lorraine.

Thus perished the last prince of the powerful House of Burgundy.
Charles left to his only daughter, then eighteen years of age,
the inheritance of his extensive dominions, and with them that of
the hatred and jealousy which he had so largely excited. External
spoliation immediately commenced, and internal disunion quickly
followed. Louis XI. seized on Burgundy and a part of Artois, as
fiefs devolving to the crown in default of male issue. Several
of the provinces refused to pay the new subsidies commanded in
the name of Mary; Flanders alone showing a disposition to uphold
the rights of the young princess. The states were assembled at
Ghent, and ambassadors sent to the king of France in the hopes
of obtaining peace on reasonable terms. Louis, true to his system
of subtle perfidy, placed before one of those ambassadors, the
burgomaster of Ghent, a letter from the inexperienced princess,
which proved her intention to govern by the counsel of her father's
ancient ministers rather than by that of the deputies of the
nation. This was enough to decide the indignant Flemings to render
themselves at once masters of the government and get rid of the
ministers whom they hated. Two Burgundian nobles, Hugonet and
Imbercourt, were arrested, accused of treason, and beheaded under
the very eyes of their agonized and outraged mistress, who threw
herself before the frenzied multitude, vainly imploring mercy
for these innocent men. The people having thus completely gained
the upper hand over the Burgundian influence, Mary was sovereign
of the Netherlands but in name.

It would have now been easy for Louis XI. to have obtained for
the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but
interesting princess; but he thought himself sufficiently strong
and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an
alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not
actually rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended
husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick
III.; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his
father's parsimony, that she was obliged to borrow money from
the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite.
Nevertheless he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his
new subjects. They not only supplied all his wants, but enabled
him to maintain the war against Louis XI., whom they defeated at
the battle of Guinegate in Picardy, and forced to make peace on
more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy
provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent
on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian
little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the
school of absolute despotism; and his duchess having met with
a too early death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he
could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to
his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His
power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly
attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and
Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The
turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking
umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether
hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on
his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and
put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent
and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked
as a favor from his rebel subjects of Bruges to be guarded while
a prisoner by them alone. He was then king of the Romans, and
all Europe became interested in his fate. The pope addressed
a brief to the town of Bruges, demanding his deliverance. But
the burghers were as inflexible as factious; and they at length
released him, but not until they had concluded with him and the
assembled states a treaty which most amply secured the enjoyment
of their privileges and the pardon of their rebellion.

But these kind of compacts were never observed by the princes of
those days beyond the actual period of their capacity to violate
them. The emperor having entered the Netherlands at the head of
forty thousand men, Maximilian, so supported, soon showed his
contempt for the obligations he had sworn to, and had recourse
to force for the extension of his authority. The valor of the
Flemings and the military talents of their leader, Philip of
Cleves, thwarted all his projects, and a new compromise was entered
into. Flanders paid a large subsidy, and held fast her rights.
The German troops were sent into Holland, and employed for the
extinction of the Hoeks; who, as they formed by far the weaker
faction, were now soon destroyed. That province, which had been so
long distracted by its intestine feuds, and which had consequently
played but an insignificant part in the transactions of the
Netherlands, now resumed its place; and acquired thenceforth new
honor, till it at length came to figure in all the importance
of historical distinction.

The situation of the Netherlands was now extremely precarious
and difficult to manage, during the unstable sway of a government
so weak as Maximilian's. But he having succeeded his father on the
imperial throne in 1493, and his son Philip having been proclaimed
the following year duke and count of the various provinces at
the age of sixteen, a more pleasing prospect was offered to the
people. Philip, young, handsome, and descended by his mother
from the ancient sovereigns of the country, was joyfully hailed
by all the towns. He did not belie the hopes so enthusiastically
expressed. He had the good sense to renounce all pretensions to
Friesland, the fertile source of many preceding quarrels and
sacrifices. He re-established the ancient commercial relations with
England, to which country Maximilian had given mortal-offence by
sustaining the imposture of Perkin Warbeck. Philip also consulted
the states-general on his projects of a double alliance between
himself and his sister with the son and daughter of Ferdinand,
king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; and from this wise
precaution the project soon became one of national partiality instead
of private or personal interest. In this manner complete harmony
was established between the young prince and the inhabitants of
the Netherlands. All the ills produced by civil war disappeared
with immense rapidity in Flanders and Brabant, as soon as peace
was thus consolidated. Even Holland, though it had particularly
felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely
from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this,
Philip can be scarcely called a good prince: his merits were
negative rather than real. But that sufficed for the nation;
which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to the
resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by
the despotism of the House of Burgundy, and the attempts of
Maximilian to continue the same system.

The reign of Philip, unfortunately a short one was rendered
remarkable by two intestine quarrels; one in Friesland, the other
in Guelders. The Frisons, who had been so isolated from the more
important affairs of Europe that they were in a manner lost sight
of by history for several centuries, had nevertheless their full
share of domestic disputes; too long, too multifarious, and too
minute, to allow us to give more than this brief notice of their
existence. But finally, about the period of Philip's accession,
eastern Friesland had chosen for its count a gentleman of the
country surnamed Edzart, who fixed the headquarters of his military
government at Embden. The sight of such an elevation in an individual
whose pretensions he thought far inferior to his own induced Albert
of Saxony, who had well served Maximilian against the refractory
Flemings, to demand as his reward the title of stadtholder or
hereditary governor of Friesland. But it was far easier for the
emperor to accede to this request than for his favorite to put
the grant into effect. The Frisons, true to their old character,
held firm to their privileges, and fought for their maintenance
with heroic courage. Albert, furious at this resistance, had the
horrid barbarity to cause to be impaled the chief burghers of the
town of Leuwaarden, which he had taken by assault. But he himself
died in the year 1500, without succeeding in his projects of an
ambition unjust in its principle and atrocious in its practice.

The war of Guelders was of a totally different nature. In this
case it was not a question of popular resistance to a tyrannical
nomination, but of patriotic fidelity to the reigning family.
Adolphus, the duke who had dethroned his father, had died in
Flanders, leaving a son who had been brought up almost a captive
as long as Maximilian governed the states of his inheritance.
This young man, called Charles of Egmont, and who is honored in
the history of his country under the title of the Achilles of
Guelders, fell into the hands of the French during the combat
in which he made his first essay in arms. The town of Guelders
unanimously joined to pay his ransom; and as soon as he was at
liberty they one and all proclaimed him duke. The emperor Philip
and the Germanic diet in vain protested against this measure,
and declared Charles a usurper. The spirit of justice and of
liberty spoke more loudly than the thunders of their ban; and the
people resolved to support to the last this scion of an ancient
race, glorious in much of its conduct, though often criminal in
many of its members. Charles of Egmont found faithful friends
in his devoted subjects; and he maintained his rights, sometimes
with, sometimes without, the assistance of France--making up for
his want of numbers by energy and enterprise. We cannot follow this
warlike prince in the long series of adventures which consolidated
his power; nor stop to depict his daring adherents on land, who
caused the whole of Holland to tremble at their deeds; nor his
pirates--the chief of whom, Long Peter, called himself king of
the Zuyder Zee. But amid all the consequent troubles of such a
struggle, it is marvellous to find Charles of Egmont upholding
his country in a state of high prosperity, and leaving it at his
death almost as rich as Holland itself.

The incapacity of Philip the Fair doubtless contributed to cause
him the loss of this portion of his dominions. This prince, after
his first acts of moderation and good sense, was remarkable only
as being the father of Charles V. The remainder of his life was
worn out in undignified pleasures; and he died almost suddenly,
in the year 1506, at Burgos in Castile, whither he had repaired
to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, the king of Spain.




CHAPTER VI

FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.

A.D. 1506--1555

Philip being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become
mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from
jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted
to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret
stadtholderess of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven
years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria,
already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first
husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract
of marriage before its consummation; her second, the Infante
of Spain, died immediately after their union; and her third,
the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of
wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved
by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very
moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey
into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.

  "Ci-git Margot la genre demoiselle,
  Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."

  "Here gentle Margot quietly is laid,
  Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid."

She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the
Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances
allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority
against the threats of France; and she carried on in person all
the negotiations between Louis XII., Maximilian, the pope Julius
II., and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice.
These negotiations took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret,
if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her
letters, was more than once on the point of having serious
differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII.
But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on
this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the
rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the
interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up
some places in Holland which he illegally held.

From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised
the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the
Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern
parts of the country were still kept down by their various
dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The
Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of
Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and
finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The
consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start
in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become
common to the whole nation.

A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret,
and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and
Belgian army, in which Maximilian figured as a spectator (taking
care to be paid by England), marched for the destruction of
Therouenne, and defeated and dispersed the French at the battle
of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a separate
peace; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made Margaret and
the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He
pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the country to
recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town; while
the duke of Saxony at length renounced to another his unjust claim
on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.

About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the
Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated
duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased
the presumed right of Saxony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In
the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in
right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal
power--a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles
procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard
of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on
him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance
on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected
by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in
Germany. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances
of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of
the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole diocese, and
the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular.
It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced
the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of
the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated
Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation.
While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself
a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates
to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.

We may here remark that, during the government of the House of
Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable
disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of
the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the
enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The
Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight
obstacle in the opposition of a slavish and ignorant clergy,
and its progress was all at once prodigious. The refusal of the
dignity of emperor by Frederick "the Wise," duke of Saxony, to
whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly
favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and
Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands,
both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum
deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy
hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism. At
length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson
of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate
rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a
while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.

From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign
of so many states, having to establish his authority at the two
extremities of Europe, could not efficiently occupy himself in
resisting the doctrines which, despite their dishonoring epithet
of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great
part of the Continent. While Charles vigorously put down the
revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so
that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his
impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered
the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safeguard
of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly venturing to appear
and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany
assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee
of the emperor; unlike the celebrated and unfortunate John Huss;
who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of
Sigismund, in the year 1415.

Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the
Low Countries, where his authority was undisputed, he proscribed
the heretics, and even violated the privileges of the country
by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their
pursuit and punishment. This imprudent stretch of power fostered
a rising spirit of opposition; for, though entertaining the best
disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and
loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a
mighty revolution gradually began to be developed.

Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power,
and they now became implacable personal enemies. Young, ambitious,
and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue
in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short
but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over
to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest
of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impression on
Henry VIII.; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle
against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. War was
declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it
for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately
bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the
triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial
troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the
Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during
the war; for the French cruisers having, on repeated occasions,
taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources
of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable
distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which
desolated these provinces in 1524.

While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the
Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flourish, in spite
of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died,
his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his
new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism;
and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice
of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of
his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the
city of Utrecht, redoubled his hostility at this intelligence;
and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay
down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured
an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term
of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray,
between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August,
1529.

This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the
inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils
caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but
in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little,
however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite
the people against each other on the score of religious dissension.
The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of
all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural
decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in
the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of
the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem;
and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his
disciples to preach in the neighboring countries. Mary, sister
of Charles V., and queen-dowager of Hungary, the stadtholderess
of the Netherlands, proposed a crusade against this fanatic; which
was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged
by impunity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from
the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion
for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they
marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their
sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution,
they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly
against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without
mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions
that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon
held out at Munster, which was besieged by the bishop and the
neighboring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married
no less than seventeen women, had gained considerable influence
over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and
imprisoned in an iron cage--an event which undeceived the greater
number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.

The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rapidly and
uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic
of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their
goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and
India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to
Bruges as the general mart of commerce, and was the most opulent
town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred
and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city voluntarily
incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles
V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool
annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from
England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold.
Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on
whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition
with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the
south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general
burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than
Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen
out of twenty-one parts of the general contribution; and all
the rest combined but eight. A search for further or minuter
proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the
country would be superfluous.

The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles
of Guelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of
exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people
recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles
rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in
Spain, and leaving to his sister the regulation of those distant
provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of
inflicting a terrible example upon them. The people of Ghent,
suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds
they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to
march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their
quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected
this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the moment when
Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary
reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring
resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take
into his own hands the settlement of this affair--trusting to
the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the
confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Ghent, taken
by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor,
when he appeared before the walls; and the city was punished
with extreme severity. Twenty-seven leaders of the sedition were
beheaded; the principal privileges of the city were withdrawn,
and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles
met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so
prospered under his sway, and was so flattered by the greatness of
the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished,
that his acts of despotic harshness were borne without a murmur. But
in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently;
and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest
in the different divisions of the nation.

Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all
his other subjects on the occasion of two expeditions which Charles
undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces
furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of
all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did
not lead him to do anything in return as peculiarly favorable
to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great
advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Guelders on
the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter,
which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars of
the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look
for a futurity of union and peace; and thus the latter years of
Charles promised better for his country than his early ones,
though he obtained less success in his new wars with France,
which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either
side.

Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities
against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species
of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward
the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings
between his only son Philip and Mary of England, whom he had
induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young
prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the
victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis I.,
and the successful dissimulation of Maurice, elector of Saxony,
by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated.
Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and
must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating
the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels
as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the
25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence
of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens
of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense
assemblage of nobility from various countries. Charles resigned
the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans;
and all the rest of his dominions to his son. Soon after the
ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain.
He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of
Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February,
1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the
fifty-ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence,
contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a
melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.

The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the
first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks
the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a
presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined
as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose
in these countries during a period of one thousand years. The
extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the
state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch
at which we are now arrived must be referred to, to judge of
the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the
dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand
system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles
V. The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other
considerations, the cause of the growth of liberty in the
Netherlands. The Reformation opened the minds of men to that
intellectual freedom without which political enfranchisement is
a worthless privilege. The invention of printing opened a thousand
channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out
from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the
whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct
of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to
the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made
subservient to those great principles of policy in which society
began to perceive its only chance of durable good. Manufactures
attained a state of high perfection, and went on progressively
with the growth of wealth and luxury. The opulence of the towns
of Brabant and Flanders was without any previous example in the
state of Europe. A merchant of Bruges took upon himself alone
the security for the ransom of John the Fearless, taken at the
battle of Nicopolis, amounting to two hundred thousand ducats.
A provost of Valenciennes repaired to Paris at one of the great
fairs periodically held there, and purchased on his own account
every article that was for sale. At a repast given by one of the
counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates the seats they
occupied were unfurnished with cushions. Those proud burghers
folded their sumptuous cloaks and sat on them. After the feast
they were retiring without retaining these important and costly
articles of dress; and on a courtier reminding them of their
apparent neglect, the burgomaster of Bruges replied, "We Flemings
are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner!"
The meetings of the different towns for the sports of archery were
signalized by the most splendid display of dress and decoration.
The archers were habited in silk, damask, and the finest linen,
and carried chains of gold of great weight and value. Luxury
was at its height among women. The queen of Philip the Fair of
France, on a visit to Bruges, exclaimed, with astonishment not
unmixed with envy, "I thought myself the only queen here; but
I see six hundred others who appear more so than I."

The court of Phillip the Good seemed to carry magnificence and
splendor to their greatest possible height. The dresses of both
men and women at this chivalric epoch were of almost incredible
expense. Velvet, satin, gold, and precious stones seemed the
ordinary materials for the dress of either sex; while the very
housings of the horses sparkled with brilliants and cost immense
sums. This absurd extravagance was carried so far that Charles
V. found himself forced at length to proclaim sumptuary laws
for its repression.

The style of the banquets given on grand occasions was regulated
on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given
at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations
entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new
crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly
fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness
(Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but
unluckily too long to find a place in our pages.

Such excessive luxury naturally led to great corruption of manners
and the commission of terrible crimes. During the reign of Philip de
Male, there were committed in the city of Ghent and its outskirts, in
less than a year, above fourteen hundred murders in gambling-houses
and other resorts of debauchery. As early as the tenth century,
the petty sovereigns established on the ruins of the empire of
Charlemagne began the independent coining of money; and the various
provinces were during the rest of this epoch inundated with a most
embarrassing variety of gold, silver, and copper. Even in ages of
comparative darkness, literature made feeble efforts to burst
through the entangled weeds of superstition, ignorance, and war.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, history was greatly
cultivated; and Froissart, Monstrelet, Olivier de la Marche, and
Philip de Comines, gave to their chronicles and memoirs a charm
of style since their days almost unrivalled. Poetry began to be
followed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish,
and French languages; and even before the institution of the
Floral Games in France, Belgium possessed its chambers of rhetoric
(_rederykkamers_) which labored to keep alive the sacred flame
of poetry with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost
every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing
several at once.

The arts in their several branches made considerable progress
in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architecture was greatly
cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of
the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age.
Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution,
make them still speaking monuments of the stern magnificence
and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the
Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music
into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree.
The first musicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other
professors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy
for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.

Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth century,
sprung at once into a new existence from the invention of John Van
Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental
discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe,
and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius
which has bequeathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting
on glass, polishing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry,
were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands
in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new
channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world
by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful
impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for
its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles
V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle
for the productions of all the nations of the earth. Its port
was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet
was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain
admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of
Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and
served greatly to the spread of knowledge, although it degenerated
into the hotbed of those fierce disputes which stamped on theology
the degradation of bigotry, and drew down odium on a study that,
if purely practiced, ought only to inspire veneration.

Charles V. was the first to establish a solid plan of government,
instead of the constant fluctuations in the management of justice,
police, and finance. He caused the edicts of the various sovereigns,
and the municipal usages, to be embodied into a system of laws; and
thus gave stability and method to the enjoyment of the prosperity
in which he left his dominions.




CHAPTER VII

FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS

A.D. 1555--1566

It has been shown that the Netherlands were never in a more
flourishing state than at the accession of Philip II. The external
relations of the country presented an aspect of prosperity and
peace. England was closely allied to it by Queen Mary's marriage
with Philip; France, fatigued with war, had just concluded with it
a five years truce; Germany, paralyzed by religious dissensions,
exhausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were
too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and nothing
appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was
something dangerous and alarming in the situation of the Low
Countries; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection
between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded
till the mischief was beyond remedy.

From the time that Charles V. was called to reign over Spain,
he may be said to have been virtually lost to the country of
his birth. He was no longer a mere duke of Brabant or Limberg,
a count of Flanders or Holland; he was also king of Castile,
Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, of Naples, and of Sicily. These various
kingdoms had interests evidently opposed to those of the Low
Countries, and forms of government far different. It was scarcely
to be doubted that the absolute monarch of so many peoples would
look with a jealous eye on the institutions of those provinces
which placed limits to his power; and the natural consequence was
that he who was a legitimate king in the south soon degenerated
into a usurping master in the north.

But during the reign of Charles the danger was in some measure
lessened, or at least concealed from public view, by the apparent
facility with which he submitted to and observed the laws and
customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far
different, and the results too obvious. Uninformed on the Belgian
character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the
language, no sympathy attached him to the people. He brought
with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner,
without one of the kindly or considerate feelings of a compatriot.

Spain, where this young prince had hitherto passed his life, was
in some degree excluded from European civilization. A contest of
seven centuries between the Mohammedan tribes and the descendants
of the Visigoths, cruel, like all civil wars, and, like all those
of religion, not merely a contest of rulers, but essentially of
the people, had given to the manners and feelings of this unhappy
country a deep stamp of barbarity. The ferocity of military
chieftains had become the basis of the government and laws. The
Christian kings had adopted the perfidious and bloody system of
the despotic sultans they replaced. Magnificence and tyranny,
power and cruelty, wisdom and dissimulation, respect and fear,
were inseparably associated in the minds of a people so governed.
They comprehended nothing in religion but a God armed with
omnipotence and vengeance, or in politics but a king as terrible
as the deity he represented.

Philip, bred in this school of slavish superstition, taught that he
was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading
tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible
and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to
appear superior to those beyond whom his station had placed him,
he was insensible to the affections which soften and ennoble
human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea--that of
his greatness; he had but one ambition--that of command; but
one enjoyment--that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting
selfishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter
melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing,
which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood
were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal
which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty;
and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest
contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.

Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration
and unusual self-command; the first revealing to him the views
of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of
counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself. Although
ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning. He wanted
courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of
wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar
to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at
the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the
bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.

Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced
utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. His
father had already sapped its foundations, by encouraging foreign
manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the
hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad.
His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the
nation to religious discords and hatred. Philip soon enlarged
on what Charles had commenced, and he unmercifully sacrificed
the well-being of a people to the worst objects of his selfish
ambition.

Philip had only once visited the Netherlands before his accession
to sovereign power. Being at that time twenty-two years of age, his
opinions were formed and his prejudices deeply rooted. Everything
that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both. The
frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression
of popular rights sounded like the voice of rebellion. Even the
magnificence displayed in his honor offended his jealous vanity.
From that moment he seems to have conceived an implacable aversion
to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he
could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism.

The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his
subjects. His haughty severity and vexatious etiquette revolted
their pride as well as their plain dealing; and the moral qualities
of their new sovereign were considered with loathing. The commercial
and political connection between the Netherlands and Spain had
given the two people ample opportunities for mutual acquaintance.
The dark, vindictive dispositions of the latter inspired a deep
antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty
rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to
embody all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which
he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to
make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent
consideration for a few points of political interest and individual
privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts
against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct
had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the
despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them
an easier prey.

Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce
such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states
to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid
by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining
a great step toward his designs, as it superseded the necessity
of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of
the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to
Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious
but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in
dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards
and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France;
and although he did not remove from their employments the
functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new
appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.

In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip
was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of
France, and by Pope Paul IV. A prince less obstinate than Philip
would in such circumstances have renounced, or at least postponed,
his designs against the liberties of so important a part of his
dominions, as those to which he was obliged to have recourse
for aid in support of this double war. But he seemed to make
every foreign consideration subservient to the object of domestic
aggression which he had so much at heart.

He, however, promptly met the threatened dangers from abroad. He
turned his first attention toward his contest with the pope; and
he extricated himself from it with an adroitness that proved the
whole force and cunning of his character. Having first publicly
obtained the opinion of several doctors of theology, that he
was justified in taking arms against the pontiff (a point on
which there was really no doubt), he prosecuted the war with
the utmost vigor, by the means of the afterward notorious duke
of Alva, at that time viceroy of his Italian dominions. Paul soon
yielded to superior skill and force, and demanded terms of peace,
which were granted with a readiness and seeming liberality that
astonished no one more than the defeated pontiff. But Philip's
moderation to his enemy was far outdone by his perfidy to his
allies. He confirmed Alva's consent to the confiscation of the
domains of the noble Romans who had espoused his cause; and thus
gained a stanch and powerful supporter to all his future projects
in the religious authority of the successor of St. Peter.

His conduct in the conclusion of the war with France was not
less base. His army, under the command of Philibert Emmanuel,
duke of Savoy, consisting of Belgians, Germans, and Spaniards,
with a considerable body of English, sent by Mary to the assistance
of her husband, penetrated into Picardy, and gained a complete
victory over the French forces. The honor of this brilliant affair,
which took place near St. Quintin, was almost wholly due to the
count d'Egmont, a Belgian noble, who commanded the light cavalry;
but the king, unwilling to let anyone man enjoy the glory of
the day, piously pretended that he owed the entire obligation
to St. Lawrence, on whose festival the battle was fought. His
gratitude or hypocrisy found a fitting monument in the celebrated
convent and palace of the Escurial, which he absurdly caused to
be built in the form of a gridiron, the instrument of the saint's
martyrdom. When the news of the victory reached Charles V. in his
retreat, the old warrior inquired if Philip was in Paris? but
the cautious victor had no notion of such prompt manoeuvring; nor
would he risk against foreign enemies the exhaustion of forces
destined for the enslavement of his people.

The French in some measure retrieved their late disgrace by the
capture of Calais, the only town remaining to England of all its
French conquests, and which, consequently, had deeply interested
the national glory of each people. In the early part of the year
1558, one of the generals of Henry II. made an irruption into
western Flanders; but the gallant count of Egmont once more proved
his valor and skill by attacking and totally defeating the invaders
near the town of Gravelines.

A general peace was concluded in April, 1559, which bore the
name of Câteau-Cambresis, from that of the place where it was
negotiated. Philip secured for himself various advantages in the
treaty; but he sacrificed the interests of England, by consenting
to the retention of Calais by the French king--a cession deeply
humiliating to the national pride of his allies; and, if general
opinion be correct, a proximate cause of his consort's death. The
alliance of France and the support of Rome, the important results
of the two wars now brought to a close, were counterbalanced
by the well-known hostility of Elizabeth, who had succeeded to
the throne of England; and this latter consideration was an
additional motive with Philip to push forward the design of
consolidating his despotism in the Low Countries.

To lead his already deceived subjects the more surely into the
snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to
Spain; and created for the period of his absence a provisional
government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian
nobility. He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the
illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to
this provisional government the right of levying taxes during
the temporary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the
influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the
revival of the edicts against heresy, which he had gained the
merit of suspending. These, with many minor details of profound
duplicity, formed the principal features of a plan, which, if
successful, would have reduced the Netherlands to the wretched
state of colonial dependence by which Naples and Sicily were
held in the tenure of Spain.

As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of
government in the hands of the new administration for the period
of the king's absence, the royal hypocrite believed his scheme
secure, and flattered himself he had established an instrument of
durable despotism. The composition of this new government was
a masterpiece of political machinery. It consisted of several
councils, in which the most distinguished citizens were entitled
to a place, in sufficient numbers to deceive the people with a
show of representation, but not enough to command a majority,
which was sure on any important question to rest with the titled
creatures of the court. The edicts against heresy, soon adopted,
gave to the clergy an almost unlimited power over the lives and
fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the
church being men of great respectability and moderation, chosen
by the body of the inferior clergy, these extraordinary powers
excited little alarm. Philip's project was suddenly to replace
these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice, as
soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for
this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority
of the court of Rome.

In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely
broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. The
whole of this force, so redoubtable to the fears of despotism,
consisted of only three thousand cavalry. It was now divided
into fourteen companies (or squadrons in the modern phraseology),
under the command of as many independent chiefs, so as to leave
little chance of any principle of union reigning among them. But
the German and Spanish troops in Philip's pay were cantoned on the
frontiers, ready to stifle any incipient effort in opposition to
his plans. In addition to these imposing means for their execution,
he had secured a still more secret and more powerful support: a
secret article in the treaty of Câteau-Cambresis obliged the
king of France to assist him with the whole armies of France
against his Belgian subjects, should they prove refractory. Thus
the late war, of which the Netherlands had borne all the weight,
and earned all the glory, only brought about the junction of the
defeated enemy with their own king for the extinction of their
national independence.

To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened
an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of July,
1559. This meeting of the representatives of the three orders
of the state offered no apparent obstacle to Philip's views. The
clergy, alarmed at the progress of the new doctrines, gathered
more closely round the government of which they required the
support. The nobles had lost much of their ancient attachment
to liberty; and had become, in various ways, dependent on the
royal favor. Many of the first families were then represented by
men possessed rather of courage and candor than of foresight and
sagacity. That of Nassau, the most distinguished of all, seemed
the least interested in the national cause. A great part of its
possessions were in Germany and France, where it had recently
acquired the sovereign principality of Orange. It was only from
the third order--that of the commons--that Philip had to expect
any opposition. Already, during the war, it had shown some
discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners
to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies.
But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would
be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of
the king, and disconcerting his designs.

Anthony Perrenotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, who was considered
as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reality no more
than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly
in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration
was one of cautious deception, and contained the most flattering
assurances of Philip's attachment to the people of the Netherlands.
It excused the king for not having nominated his only son, Don
Carlos, to reign over them in his name; alleging, as a proof
of his royal affection, that he preferred giving them as
stadtholder

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