History of Holland
by George Edmundson · English · Gutenberg #14971 · 1,143,484 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: History of Holland
Author: George Edmundson
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF HOLLAND ***
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C.F. CLAY, MANAGER LONDON:
FETTER LANE, E.C.4
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY }
CALCUTTA} MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
MADRAS }
TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.
OF CANADA, LTD.
TOKYO: MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
HISTORY OF HOLLAND
BY GEORGE EDMUNDSON D.
LITT., F.R.G.S., F.R.HIST.S.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD
HON. MEMBER OF THE DUTCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY, UTRECHT
FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE NETHERLAND SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, LEYDEN
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
GENERAL PREFACE
_The aim of this series is to sketch the history of Modern Europe, with
that of its chief colonies and conquests, from about the end of the
fifteenth century down to the present time. In one or two cases the
story commences at an earlier date; in the case of the colonies it
generally begins later. The histories of the different countries are
described, as a rule, separately; for it is believed that, except in
epochs like that of the French Revolution and Napoleon I, the connection
of events will thus be better understood and the continuity of
historical development more clearly displayed.
The series is intended for the use of all persons anxious to understand
the nature of existing political conditions. 'The roots of the present
lie deep in the past'; and the real significance of contemporary events
cannot be grasped unless the historical causes which have led to them
are known. The plan adopted makes it possible to treat the history of
the last four centuries in considerable detail, and to embody the most
important results of modern research. It is hoped therefore that the
series will be useful not only to beginners but to students who have
already acquired some general knowledge of European History. For those
who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography appended to
each volume will act as a guide to original sources of information and
works of a more special character.
Considerable attention is paid to political geography; and each volume
is furnished with such maps and plans as may be requisite for the
illustration of the text_.
G.W. PROTHERO.
* * * * *
PROLOGUE
The title, "History of Holland," given to this volume is fully justified
by the predominant part which the great maritime province of Holland
took in the War of Independence and throughout the whole of the
subsequent history of the Dutch state and people. In every language the
country, comprising the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht,
Friesland, Gelderland, Overyssel and Groningen, has, from the close of
the sixteenth century to our own day, been currently spoken of as
Holland, and the people (with the solitary exception of ourselves) as
'Hollanders[1].' It is only rarely that the terms the Republic of the
United Provinces, or of the United Netherlands, and in later times the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, are found outside official documents. Just
as the title "History of England" gradually includes the histories of
Wales, of Scotland, of Ireland, and finally of the widespread British
Empire, so is it in a smaller way with the history that is told in the
following pages. That history, to be really complete, should begin with
an account of mediaeval Holland in the feudal times which preceded the
Burgundian period; and such an account was indeed actually written, but
the plan of this work, which forms one of the volumes of a series,
precluded its publication.
The character, however, of the people of the province of Holland, and of
its sister and closely allied province of Zeeland, its qualities of
toughness, of endurance, of seamanship and maritime enterprise, spring
from the peculiar amphibious nature of the country, which differs from
that of any other country in the world. The age-long struggle against
the ocean and the river floods, which has converted the marshes, that
lay around the mouths of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt, by
toilsome labour and skill into fertile and productive soil, has left its
impress on the whole history of this people. Nor must it be forgotten
how largely this building up of the elaborate system of dykes, dams and
canals by which this water-logged land was transformed into the Holland
of the closing decades of the sixteenth century, enabled her people to
offer such obstinate and successful resistance to the mighty power of
Philip II.
The earliest dynasty of the Counts of Holland--Dirks, Floris, and
Williams--was a very remarkable one. Not only did it rule for an
unusually long period, 922 to 1299, but in this long period without
exception all the Counts of Holland were strong and capable rulers. The
fiefs of the first two Dirks lay in what is now known as North Holland,
in the district called Kennemerland. It was Dirk III who seized from the
bishops of Utrecht some swampy land amidst the channels forming the
mouth of the Meuse, which, from the bush which covered it, was named
Holt-land (Holland or Wood-land). Here he erected, in 1015, a stronghold
to collect tolls from passing ships. This stronghold was the beginning
of the town of Dordrecht, and from here a little later the name Holland
was gradually applied to the whole county. Of his successors the most
illustrious was William II (1234 to 1256) who was crowned King of the
Romans at Aachen, and would have received from Pope Innocent IV the
imperial crown at Rome, had he not been unfortunately drowned while
attempting to cross on horseback an ice-bound marsh.
In 1299 the male line of this dynasty became extinct; and John of
Avennes, Count of Hainault, nephew of William II, succeeded. His son,
William III, after a long struggle with the Counts of Flanders,
conquered Zeeland and became Count henceforth of Holland, Zeeland and
Hainault. His son, William IV, died childless; and the succession then
passed to his sister Margaret, the wife of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.
It was contested by her second son William, who, after a long drawn-out
strife with his mother, became, in 1354, Count of Holland and Zeeland
with the title William V, Margaret retaining the county of Hainault.
Becoming insane, his brother Albert in 1358 took over the reins of
government. In his time the two factions, known by the nicknames of "the
Hooks" and "the Cods," kept the land in a continual state of disorder
and practically of civil war. They had already been active for many
years. The Hooks were supported by the nobles, by the peasantry and by
that large part of the poorer townsfolk that was excluded from all share
in the municipal government. The Cods represented the interests of the
powerful burgher corporations. In later times these same principles and
interests divided the Orangist and the States parties, and were
inherited from the Hooks and Cods of mediaeval Holland. The marriages
of Albert's son, William, with Margaret the sister of John the Fearless,
Duke of Burgundy, and of John the Fearless with Albert's daughter,
Margaret, were to have momentous consequences. Albert died in 1404 and
was succeeded by William VI, who before his death in 1417 caused the
nobles and towns to take the oath of allegiance to his daughter and only
child, Jacoba or Jacqueline.[2]
Jacoba, brave, beautiful and gifted, for eleven years maintained her
rights against many adversaries, chief among them her powerful and
ambitious cousin, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Her courage and
many adventures transformed her into a veritable heroine of romance. By
her three marriages with John, Duke of Brabant, with Humphry, Duke of
Gloucester, and, finally, with Frans van Borselen, she had no children.
Her hopeless fight with Philip of Burgundy's superior resources ended at
last in the so-called "Reconciliation of Delft" in 1428, by which, while
retaining the title of countess, she handed over the government to
Philip and acknowledged his right of succession to the Countship upon
her death, which took place in 1436.
G.E.
_November_, 1921
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGES
GENERAL PREFACE v
PROLOGUE vii-ix
CHAP.
I. The Burgundian Netherlands 1-11
II. Habsburg Rule in the Netherlands 12-26
III. The Prelude to the Revolt 27-46
IV. The Revolt of the Netherlands 47-68
V. William the Silent 69-81
VI. The Beginnings of the Dutch Republic 82-109
VII. The System of Government 110-118
VIII. The Twelve Years' Truce 119-126
IX. Maurice and Oldenbarneveldt 127-138
X. From the end of the Twelve Years' Truce
to the Peace of Munster, 1621-1648.
The Stadholderate
of Frederick Henry of Orange 139-158
XI. The East and West India Companies.
Commercial and Economic Expansion 159-185
XII. Letters, Science and Art 186-201
XIII. The Stadholderate of William II.
The Great Assembly 202-211
XIV. Rise of John de Witt.
The First English War 212-224
XV. The Administration of John de Witt, 1654-1665,
from the Peace of Westminster to
the Out-break of the Second English War 225-235
XVI. The last years of De Witt's Administration,
1665-1672. The Second English War.
The Triple Alliance.
The French Invasion 236-250
XVII. War with France and England. William III,
Stadholder. Murder of the brothers De
Witt, 1672 251-257
XVIII. The Stadholderate of William III,
1672-1688 258-273
XIX. The King-Stadholder, 1688-1702 274-284
XX. The War of the Spanish Succession and the
Treaties of Utrecht, 1702-1715 285-297
XXI. The Stadholderless Republic, 1715-1740 298-305
XXII. The Austrian Succession War and William
IV, 1740-1751 306-315
XXIII. The Regency of Anne and of Brunswick,
1751-1766 316-320
XXIV. William V. First Period, 1766-1780 321-326
XXV. Stadholderate of William V (_continued_),
1780-1788. The English War.
Patriot Movement. Civil War. Prussian
Intervention 327-336
XXVI. The Orange Restoration. Downfall of the
Republic, 1788-1795 337-343
XXVII. The Batavian Republic, 1795-1806 344-356
XXVIII. The Kingdom of Holland and the French
Annexation, 1806-1814 357-366
XXIX. The Formation of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands, 1814-1815 367-375
XXX. The Kingdom of the Netherlands--Union
of Holland and Belgium, 1815-1830 376-388
XXXI. The Belgian Revolution. The Separation of
Holland and Belgium, 1830-1842 389-404
XXXII. William I abdicates. Reign of William II.
Revision of the Constitution, 1842-1849 405-410
XXXIII. Reign of William III to the death of
Thorbecke, 1849-1872 411-418
XXXIV. The later reign of William III, and the
Regency of Queen Emma, 1872-1898 419-425
XXXV. The Reign of Queen Wilhelmina, 1898-1917 426-428
EPILOGUE 429-432
BIBLIOGRAPHY 433-444
INDEX 445-464
MAPS
THE NETHERLANDS, _about_ 1550
THE NETHERLANDS, _after_ 1648 AFTER p. 444
CHAPTER I
THE BURGUNDIAN NETHERLANDS
The last duke of the ancient Capetian house of Burgundy dying in 1361
without heirs male, the duchy fell into the possession of the French
crown, and was by King John II bestowed upon his youngest son, Philip
the Hardy, Duke of Touraine, as a reward, it is said, for the valour he
displayed in the battle of Poictiers. The county of Burgundy, generally
known as Franche-Comté, was not included in this donation, for it was an
imperial fief; and it fell by inheritance in the female line to
Margaret, dowager Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Louis II, who was
killed at Crécy. The duchy and the county were soon, however, to be
re-united, for Philip married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Louis de
Male, Count of Flanders, and granddaughter of the above-named Margaret.
In right of his wife he became, on the death of Louis de Male in 1384,
the ruler of Flanders, Mechlin, Artois, Nevers and Franche-Comté. Thus
the foundation was laid of a great territorial domain between France and
Germany, and Philip the Hardy seems from the first to have been
possessed by the ambitious design of working for the restoration of a
powerful middle kingdom, which should embrace the territories assigned
to Lothaire in the tripartite division of the Carolingian empire by the
treaty of Verdun (843). For this he worked ceaselessly during his long
reign of forty years, and with singular ability and courage. Before his
death he had by the splendour of his court, his wealth and his successes
in arms and diplomacy, come to be recognised as a sovereign of great
weight and influence, in all but name a king. The Burgundian policy and
tradition, which he established, found in his successors John the
Fearless (murdered in 1419) and John's son, Philip the Good, men of like
character and filled with the same ambitions as himself. The double
marriage of John with Margaret, the sister of William VI of Holland, and
of William VI with Margaret of Burgundy, largely helped forward their
projects of aggrandisement. Philip the Good was, however, a much abler
ruler than his father, a far-seeing statesman, who pursued his plans
with a patient and unscrupulous pertinacity, of which a conspicuous
example is to be found in his long protracted struggle with his cousin
Jacoba, the only child and heiress of William of Holland, whose
misfortunes and courage have made her one of the most romantic figures
of history. By a mixture of force and intrigue Philip, in 1433, at last
compelled Jacoba to abdicate, and he became Count of Holland, Zeeland
and Hainault. Nor was this by any means the end of his acquisitions.
Joanna, Duchess of Brabant (1355-1404) in her own right, was aunt on the
mother's side to Margaret of Flanders, wife of Philip the Hardy. Dying
without heirs, she bequeathed Brabant, Limburg and Antwerp to her
great-nephew, Anthony of Burgundy, younger brother of John the Fearless.
Anthony was killed at Agincourt and was succeeded first by his son John
IV, the husband of Jacoba of Holland, and on his death without an heir
in 1427, by his second son, Philip of St Pol, who also died childless in
1430. From him his cousin Philip the Good inherited the duchies of
Brabant and Limburg and the marquisate of Antwerp. Already he had
purchased in 1421 the territory of Namur from the last Count John III,
who had fallen into heavy debt; and in 1443 he likewise purchased the
duchy of Luxemburg from the Duchess Elizabeth of Görlitz, who had
married in second wedlock Anthony, Duke of Brabant, and afterwards John
of Bavaria, but who had no children by either of her marriages. Thus in
1443 Philip had become by one means or another sovereign under various
titles of the largest and most important part of the Netherlands, and he
increased his influence by securing in 1456 the election of his
illegitimate son David, as Bishop of Utrecht. Thus a great step forward
had been taken for the restoration of the middle kingdom, which had been
the dream of Philip the Hardy, and which now seemed to be well-nigh on
the point of accomplishment.
The year 1433, the date of the incorporation of Holland and Zeeland in
the Burgundian dominion, is therefore a convenient starting-point for a
consideration of the character of the Burgundian rule in the
Netherlands, and of the changes which the concentration of sovereign
power in the hands of a single ruler brought into the relations of the
various provinces with one another and into their internal
administration. The Netherlands become now for the first time something
more than a geographical expression for a number of petty feudal
states, practically independent and almost always at strife.
Henceforward there was peace; and throughout the whole of this northern
part of his domains it was the constant policy of Philip gradually to
abolish provincialism and to establish a centralised government. He was
far too wise a statesman to attempt to abolish suddenly or arbitrarily
the various rights and privileges, which the Flemings, Brabanters and
Hollanders had wrung from their sovereigns, and to which they were
deeply attached; but, while respecting these, he endeavoured to restrict
them as far as possible to local usage, and to centralise the general
administration of the whole of the "pays de par deçà" (as the Burgundian
dukes were accustomed to name their Netherland dominions) by the
summoning of representatives of the Provincial States to an assembly
styled the States-General, and by the creation of a common Court of
Appeal.
The first time the States-General were called together by Philip was in
1465 for the purpose of obtaining a loan for the war with France and the
recognition of his son Charles as his successor; and from this time
forward at irregular intervals, but with increasing frequency, the
practice of summoning this body went on. The States-General (in a sense)
represented the Netherlands as a whole; and it was a matter of great
convenience for the sovereign, especially when large levies of money had
to be raised, to be enabled thus to bring his proposals before a single
assembly, instead of before a number of separate and independent
provincial states. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that the
States-General had, as such, no authority to act on behalf of these
several provincial states. Each of these sent their deputies to the
General Assembly, but these deputies had to refer all matters to their
principals before they could give their assent, and each body of
deputies gave this assent separately, and without regard to the others.
It was thus but a first provisional step towards unity of
administration, but it did tend to promote a feeling of community of
interests between the provinces and to lead to the deputies having
intercourse with one another and interchanging their views upon the
various important subjects that were brought before their consideration.
The period of disturbance and the weakening of the authority of the
sovereign, which followed the death of Charles the Bold, led to the
States-General obtaining a position of increased importance; and they
may from that time be regarded as forming a regular and necessary part
of the machinery of government in the Burgundian Netherlands. The
States-General however, like the Provincial States, could only meet when
summoned by the sovereign or his stadholder; and the causes for which
they were summoned were such special occasions as the accession of a new
sovereign or the appointment of a new stadholder, or more usually for
sanctioning the requests for levies of money, which were required for
the maintenance of splendid courts and the cost of frequent wars. For
not only the Burgundian princes properly so-called, but even Charles V,
had mainly to depend upon the wealth of the Netherlands for their
financial needs. And here a distinction must be drawn. For solemn
occasions, such as the accession of a new sovereign, or the acceptance
of a newly appointed governor, representatives of all the provinces
(eventually seventeen) were summoned, but for ordinary meetings for the
purpose of money levies only those of the so-called patrimonial or old
Burgundian provinces came together. The demands for tribute on the
provinces acquired later, such as Gelderland, Groningen, Friesland and
Overyssel, were made to each of these provinces separately, and they
jealously claimed their right to be thus separately dealt with. In the
case of the other provinces the States-General, as has been already
stated, could only grant the money after obtaining from each province
represented, severally, its assent; and this was often not gained until
after considerable delay and much bargaining. Once granted, however, the
assessment regulating the quota, which the different provinces had to
contribute, was determined on the basis of the so-called _quotisatie_ or
_settinge_ drawn up in 1462 on the occasion of a tribute for 10 years,
which Charles the Bold, as his father's stadholder in the "pays de par
deçà," then demanded. The relative wealth of the provinces may be judged
from the fact that at this date Flanders and Brabant each paid a quarter
of the whole levy, Holland one sixth, Zeeland one quarter of Holland's
share.
As regards the provincial government the Burgundian princes left
undisturbed the local and historical customs and usages, and each
province had its individual characteristics. At the head of each
provincial government (with the exception of Brabant, at whose capital,
Brussels, the sovereign himself or his regent resided) was placed a
governor, with the title of Stadholder, who was the representative of
the sovereign and had large patronage. It was his duty to enforce
edicts, preserve order, and keep a watchful eye over the administration
of justice. He nominated to many municipal offices, but had little or no
control over finance. The raising of troops and their command in the
field was entrusted to a captain-general, who might not be the same
person as the stadholder, though the offices were sometimes united. In
the northern Netherlands there was but one stadholder for the three
provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, and one (at a somewhat later
date) for Friesland, Groningen, Drente and Overyssel.
The desire of the Burgundian princes to consolidate their dominions into
a unified sovereignty found itself thwarted by many obstacles and
especially by the lack of any supreme tribunal of appeal. It was galling
to them that the _Parlement_ of Paris should still exercise appellate
jurisdiction in Crown-Flanders and Artois, and the Imperial Diet in some
of the other provinces. Already in 1428 Philip had erected the Court of
Holland at the Hague to exercise large powers of jurisdiction and
financial control in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland; and in 1473
Charles the Bold set up at Mechlin the body known as the Great Council,
to act as a court of appeal from the provincial courts. It was to be, in
the Netherlands, what the _Parlement_ of Paris was in France. The Great
Council, which had grown out of the Privy Council attached to the person
of the prince, and which under the direction of the Chancellor of
Burgundy administered the affairs of the government, more particularly
justice and finance, was in 1473, as stated above, re-constituted as a
Court of Appeal in legal matters, a new Chamber of Accounts being at the
same time created to deal with finance. These efforts at centralisation
of authority were undoubtedly for the good of the country as a whole,
but such was the intensity of provincial jealousy and particularism that
they were bitterly resented and opposed.
In order to strengthen the sovereign's influence in the towns, and to
lessen the power of the Gilds, Philip established in Holland, and so far
as he could elsewhere, what were called "vaste Colleges" or fixed
committees of notables, to which were entrusted the election of the town
officials and the municipal administration. These bodies were composed
of a number of the richest and most influential burghers, who were
styled the Twenty-four, the Forty, the Sixty or the Eighty, according
to the number fixed for any particular town. These men were appointed
for life and their successors were chosen by co-option, so that the town
corporations gradually became closed hereditary aristocracies, and the
mass of the citizens were deprived of all voice in their own affairs.
The _Schout_ or chief judge was chosen directly by the sovereign or his
stadholder, who also nominated the _Schepens_ or sheriffs from a list
containing a double number, which was submitted to him.
The reign of Philip the Good was marked by a great advance in the
material prosperity of the land. Bruges, Ghent, Ypres and Antwerp were
among the most flourishing commercial and industrial cities in the
world, and when, through the silting up of the waterway, Bruges ceased
to be a seaport, Antwerp rapidly rose to pre-eminence in her place, so
that a few decades later her wharves were crowded with shipping, and her
warehouses with goods from every part of Europe. In fact during the
whole of the Burgundian period the southern Netherlands were the richest
domain in Christendom, and continued to be so until the disastrous times
of Philip II of Spain. Meanwhile Holland and Zeeland, though unable to
compete with Brabant and Flanders in the populousness of their towns and
the extent of their trade, were provinces of growing importance. Their
strength lay in their sturdy and enterprising sea-faring population. The
Hollanders had for many years been the rivals of the Hanse Towns for the
Baltic trade. War broke out in 1438 and hostilities continued for three
years with the result that the Hanse League was beaten, and henceforth
the Hollanders were able without further let or hindrance more and more
to become the chief carriers of the "Eastland" traffic. Amsterdam was
already a flourishing port, though as yet it could make no pretension of
competing with Antwerp. The herring fisheries were, however, the staple
industry of Holland and Zeeland. The discovery of the art of curing
herrings by William Beukelsz of Biervliet (died 1447) had converted a
perishable article of food into a marketable commodity; and not only did
the fisheries give lucrative employment to many thousands of the
inhabitants of these maritime provinces, but they also became the
foundation on which was to be built their future commercial
supremacy.
The Burgundian dukes were among the most powerful rulers of their
time--the equals of kings in all but name--and they far surpassed all
contemporary sovereigns in their lavish display and the splendour of
their court. The festival at Bruges in 1430 in celebration of the
marriage of Philip the Good and Isabel of Portugal, at which the Order
of the Golden Fleece was instituted, excited universal wonder; while his
successor, Charles the Bold, contrived to surpass even his father in the
splendour of his espousals with Margaret of York in 1468, and at his
conference with the Emperor Frederick III at Trier in 1473. On this last
occasion he wore a mantle encrusted all over with diamonds.
The foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1430 was an event of
great importance, as marking a step forward on the part of Philip in its
assumption of quasi-regal attributes. The title was very appropriate,
for it pointed to the wool and cloth trade as being the source of the
wealth of Flanders. The Order comprised thirty-one knights, chosen from
the flower of the Burgundian nobles and the chief councillors of the
sovereign. The statutes of the Order set forth in detail the privileges
of the members, and their duties and obligations to their prince. They
had a prescriptive claim to be consulted on all matters of importance,
to be selected for the chief government posts, and to serve on military
councils. The knights were exempt from the jurisdiction of all courts,
save that of their own chapter.
Philip died in 1467 and was succeeded by his son, Charles, who had
already exercised for some years authority in the Netherlands as his
father's deputy. Charles, as his surname _le Téméraire_ witnesses, was
a man of impulsive and autocratic temperament, but at the same time a
hard worker, a great organiser, and a brilliant soldier. Consumed with
ambition to realise that restoration of a great middle Lotharingian
kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, for which
his father had been working during his long and successful reign, he
threw himself with almost passionate energy into the accomplishment of
his task. With this object he was the first sovereign to depart from
feudal usages and to maintain a standing army. He appeared at one time
to be on the point of accomplishing his aim. Lorraine, which divided his
southern from his northern possessions, was for a short time in his
possession. Intervening in Gelderland between the Duke Arnold of
Egmont and his son Adolf, he took the latter prisoner and obtained the
duchy in pledge from the former. Uprisings in the Flemish towns against
heavy taxation and arbitrary rule were put down with a strong hand. In
September, 1474, the duke, accompanied by a splendid suite, met the
emperor Frederick III at Trier to receive the coveted crown from the
imperial hands. It was arranged that Charles' only daughter and heiress
should be betrothed to Maximilian of Austria, the emperor's eldest son,
and the very day and hour for the coronation were fixed. But the
Burgundian had an enemy in Louis XI of France, who was as prudent and
far-seeing as his rival was rash and impetuous, and who was far more
than his match in political craft and cunning. French secret agents
stirred up Frederick's suspicions against Charles' designs, and the
emperor suddenly left Trier, where he had felt humiliated by the
splendour of his powerful vassal.
The duke was furious at his disappointment, but was only the more
obstinately bent on carrying out his plans. But Louis had been meanwhile
forming a strong league (League of Constance, March 1474) of various
states threatened by Charles' ambitious projects. Duke Sigismund of
Austria, Baden, Basel, Elsass, and the Swiss Cantons united under the
leadership of France to resist them. Charles led an army of 60,000 men
to aid the Archbishop of Cologne against his subjects, but spent eleven
months in a fruitless attempt to take a small fortified town, Neuss, in
which a considerable portion of his army perished. He was compelled to
raise large sums of money from his unwilling subjects in the Netherlands
to repair his losses, and in 1475 he attacked Duke Réné of Lorraine,
captured Nancy and conquered the duchy, which had hitherto separated his
Netherland from his French possessions. It was the first step in the
accomplishment of his scheme for the restoration of the Lotharingian
kingdom. In Elsass, however, the populace had risen in insurrection
against the tyranny of the Burgundian governor, Peter van Hagenbach, and
had tried and executed him. Finding that the Swiss had aided the rebels,
Charles now, without waiting to consolidate his conquest of Lorraine,
determined to lead his army into Switzerland. At the head of a
splendidly equipped force he encountered the Confederates near Granson
(March 2, 1476) and was utterly routed, his own seal and order of the
Golden Fleece, with vast booty, falling into the hands of the victors.
A few months later, having recruited and reorganised his beaten army, he
again led them against the Swiss. The encounter took place (June 21,
1476) at Morat and once more the chivalry of Burgundy suffered complete
defeat. Charles fled from the field, half insane with rage and
disappointment, when the news that Duke Réné had reconquered Lorraine
roused him from his torpor. He hastily gathered together a fresh army
and laid siege to Nancy. But in siege operations he had no skill, and in
the depth of winter (January 5, 1477) he was attacked by the Swiss and
Lorrainers outside the walls of the town. A panic seized the
Burgundians; Charles in person in vain strove to stem their flight, and
he perished by an unknown hand. His body was found later, stripped
naked, lying frozen in a pool.
Charles left an only child, Mary, not yet twenty years of age. Mary
found herself in a most difficult and trying situation. Louis XI, the
hereditary enemy of her house, at once took possession of the duchy of
Burgundy, which by failure of heirs-male had reverted to its liege-lord.
The sovereignty of the county of Burgundy (Franche-Comté), being an
imperial fief descending in the female line, she retained; but, before
her authority had been established, Louis had succeeded in persuading
the states of the county to place themselves under a French
protectorate. French armies overran Artois, Hainault and Picardy, and
were threatening Flanders, where there was in every city a party of
French sympathisers. Gelderland welcomed the exiled duke, Adolf, as
their sovereign. Everywhere throughout the provinces the despotic rule
of Duke Charles and his heavy exactions had aroused seething discontent.
Mary was virtually a prisoner in the hands of her Flemish subjects; and,
before they consented to support her cause, there was a universal demand
for a redress of grievances. But Mary showed herself possessed of
courage and statesmanship beyond her years, and she had at this critical
moment in her step-mother, Margaret of York, an experienced and capable
adviser at her side. A meeting of the States-General was at once
summoned to Ghent. It met on February 3, 1477, Mary's 20th birthday.
Representatives came from Flanders, Brabant, Artois and Namur, in the
southern, and from Holland and Zeeland in the northern Netherlands. Mary
saw there was no course open to her but to accede to their demands. Only
eight days after the Assembly met, the charter of Netherland
liberties, called The Great Privilege, was agreed to and signed. By this
Act all previous ordinances conflicting with ancient privileges were
abolished. The newly-established Court of Appeal at Mechlin was replaced
by a Great Council of twenty-four members chosen by the sovereign from
the various states, which should advise and assist in the administration
of government. Mary undertook not to marry or to declare war without the
assent of the States-General. The States-General and the Provincial
States were to meet as often as they wished, without the summons of the
sovereign. All officials were to be native-born; no Netherlander was to
be tried by foreign judges; there were to be no forced loans, no
alterations in the coinage. All edicts or ordinances infringing
provincial rights were to be _ipso facto_ null and void. By placing her
seal to this document Mary virtually abdicated the absolute sovereign
power which had been exercised by her predecessors, and undid at a
stroke the results of their really statesmanlike efforts to create out
of a number of semi-autonomous provinces a unified State. Many of their
acts and methods had been harsh and autocratic, especially those of
Charles the Bold, but who can doubt that on the whole their policy was
wise and salutary? In Holland and Zeeland a Council was erected
consisting of a Stadholder and eight councillors (six Hollanders and two
Zeelanders) of whom two were to be nobles, the others jurists. Wolferd
van Borselen, lord of Veere, was appointed Stadholder.
The Great Privilege granted, the States willingly raised a force of
34,000 men to resist the French invasion, and adequate means for
carrying on the war. But the troubles of the youthful Mary were not yet
over. The hand of the heiress of so many rich domains was eagerly sought
for (1) by Louis of France for the dauphin, a youth of 17 years; (2) by
Maximilian of Austria to whom she had been promised in marriage; (3) by
Adolf, Duke of Gelderland, who was favoured by the States-General.
Adolf, however, was killed in battle. In Flanders there was a party who
favoured the French and actually engaged in intrigues with Louis, but
the mass of the people were intensely averse to French domination. To
such an extent was this the case that two influential officials, the
lords Hugonet and Humbercourt, on whom suspicion fell of treacherous
correspondence with the French king, were seized, tried by a special
tribunal, and, despite the tears and entreaties of the duchess, were
condemned and beheaded in the market-place of Ghent. Maximilian became
therefore the accepted suitor; and on August 19, 1477, his marriage with
Mary took place at Bruges. This marriage was to have momentous
consequences, not only for the Netherlands, but for Europe. The union
was a happy one, but, unfortunately, of brief duration. On March 29,
1482, Mary died from the effects of a fall from her horse, leaving two
children, Philip and Margaret.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
HABSBURG RULE IN THE NETHERLANDS
Maximilian, on the death of Mary, found himself in a very difficult
position. The archduke was a man of high-soaring ideas, chivalrous,
brave even to the point of audacity, full of expedients and never
daunted by failure, but he was deficient in stability of character, and
always hampered throughout his life by lack of funds. He had in 1477 set
himself to the task of defending Flanders and the southern provinces of
the Netherlands against French attack, and not without considerable
success. In 1482, as guardian of his four-year old son Philip, the heir
to the domains of the house of Burgundy, he became regent of the
Netherlands. His authority however was little recognised. Gelderland and
Utrecht fell away altogether. Liège acknowledged William de la Marck as
its ruler. Holland and Zeeland were torn by contending factions.
Flanders, the centre of the Burgundian power, was specially hostile to
its new governor. The burghers of Ghent refused to surrender to him his
children, Philip and Margaret, who were held as hostages to secure
themselves against any attempted infringement of their liberties. The
Flemings even entered into negotiations with Louis XI; and the archduke
found himself compelled to sign a treaty with France (December 23,
1482), one of the conditions being the betrothal of his infant daughter
to the dauphin. Maximilian, however, found that for a time he must leave
Flanders to put down the rising of the Hook faction in Holland, who,
led by Frans van Brederode, and in alliance with the anti-Burgundian
party in Utrecht, had made themselves masters of Leyden. Beaten in a
bloody fight by the regent, Brederode nevertheless managed to seize
Sluis and Rotterdam; and from these ports he and his daring
companion-in-arms, Jan van Naaldwijk, carried on a guerrilla warfare for
some years. Brederode was killed in a fight at Brouwershaven (1490), but
Sluis still held out and was not taken till two years later.
Meanwhile Maximilian had to undertake a campaign against the Flemings,
who were again in arms at the instigation of the turbulent burghers of
Ghent and Bruges. Entering the province at the head of a large force he
compelled the rebel towns to submit and obtained possession of the
person of his son Philip (July, 1485). Elected in the following year
King of the Romans, Maximilian left the Netherlands to be crowned at
Aachen (April, 1486). A war with France called him back, in the course
of which he suffered a severe defeat at Bethune. At the beginning of
1488 Ghent and Bruges once more rebelled; and the Roman king, enticed to
enter Bruges, was there seized and compelled to see his friends executed
in the market-place beneath his prison window. For seven months he was
held a prisoner; nor was he released until he had sworn to surrender his
powers, as regent, to a council of Flemings and to withdraw all his
foreign troops from the Netherlands. He was forced to give hostages as a
pledge of his good faith, among them his general, Philip of Cleef, who
presently joined his captors.
Maximilian, on arriving at the camp of the Emperor Frederick III, who
had gathered together an army to release his imprisoned son, was
persuaded to break an oath given under duress. He advanced therefore at
the head of his German mercenaries into Flanders, but was able to
achieve little success against the Flemings, who found in Philip of
Cleef an able commander. Despairing of success, he now determined to
retire into Germany, leaving Duke Albert of Saxe-Meissen, a capable and
tried soldier of fortune, as general-in-chief of his forces and
Stadholder of the Netherlands. With the coming of Duke Albert order was
at length to be restored, though not without a severe struggle.
Slowly but surely Duke Albert took town after town and reduced province
after province into submission. The Hook party in Holland and Zeeland,
and their anti-Burgundian allies in Utrecht, and Robert de la Marck in
Liège, in turn felt the force of his arm. An insurrection of the
peasants in West Friesland and Kennemerland--the "Bread and Cheese
Folk," as they were called--was easily put down. Philip of Cleef with
his Flemings was unable to make head against him; and, with the fall of
Ghent and Sluis in the summer of 1492, the duke was able to announce to
Maximilian that the Netherlands, except Gelderland, were pacified. The
treaty of Senlis in 1493 ended the war with France. In the following
year, after his accession to the imperial throne, Maximilian retired to
his ancestral dominions in Germany, and his son, Philip the Fair, took
in his hands the reins of government. The young sovereign, who was a
Netherlander by birth and had spent all his life in the country, was
more popular than his father; and his succession to the larger part of
the Burgundian inheritance was not disputed. He received the homage of
Zeeland at Roemerswaal, of Holland at Geertruidenburg, and seized the
occasion to announce the abrogation of the Great Privilege, and at the
same time restored the Grand Council at Mechlin.
In Utrecht the authority of Bishop David of Burgundy was now firmly
re-established; and on his death, Philip of Baden, an obsequious
adherent of the house of Austria, was elected. These results of the
pacification carried out so successfully by Duke Albert had, however,
left Maximilian and Philip deeply in debt to the Saxon; and there was no
money wherewith to meet the claim, which amounted to 300,000 guilders.
After many negotiations extending over several years, compensation was
found for Albert in Friesland. That unhappy province and the adjoining
territory of Groningen had for a long time been torn by internal
dissensions between the two parties, the _Schieringers_ and the
_Vetkoopers_, who were the counterparts of the Hooks and Cods of
Holland. The Schieringers called in the aid of the Saxon duke, who
brought the land into subjection. Maximilian now recognised Albert as
hereditary Podesta or governor of Friesland on condition that the House
of Austria reserved the right of redeeming the territory for 100,000
guilders; and Philip acquiesced in the bargain by which Frisian freedom
was sold in exchange for the cancelling of a debt. The struggle with
Charles of Egmont in Gelderland was not so easily terminated. Not till
1505 was Philip able to overcome this crafty and skilful adversary.
Charles was compelled to do homage and to accompany Philip to Brussels
(October, 1505). It was, however, but a brief submission. Charles made
his escape once more into Gelderland and renewed the war of
independence.
Before these events had taken place, the marriage of Philip with Juana,
the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, had brought
about a complete change in his fortunes. Maximilian, always full of
ambitious projects for the aggrandisement of his House, had planned with
Ferdinand of Aragon a double marriage between their families, prompted
by a common hatred and fear of the growing power of France. The
Archduke Philip was to wed the Infanta Juana, the second daughter of
Ferdinand and Isabel; the Infante Juan, the heir to the thrones of
Aragon and Castile, Philip's sister, Margaret. Margaret had in 1483,
aged then three years, been betrothed to the Dauphin Charles, aged
twelve, and she was brought up at the French Court, and after the death
of Louis XI (August 30, 1483) had borne the title of Queen and had lived
at Amboise with other children of the French royal house, under the care
of the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu. The marriage, however, of Charles VIII
and Margaret was never to be consummated. In August, 1488, the male line
of the Dukes of Brittany became extinct; and the hand of the heiress,
Anne of Brittany, a girl of twelve, attracted many suitors. It was
clearly a matter of supreme importance to the King of France that this
important territory should not pass by marriage into the hands of an
enemy. The Bretons, on the other hand, clung to their independence and
dreaded absorption in the unifying French state. After many intrigues
her council advised the young duchess to accept Maximilian as her
husband, and she was married to him by proxy in March, 1490. Charles
VIII immediately entered Brittany at the head of a strong force and,
despite a fierce and prolonged resistance, conquered the country, and
gained possession of Anne's person (August, 1491). The temptation was
too strong to be resisted. Margaret, after residing in France as his
affianced wife for eight years, was repudiated and finally, two years
later, sent back to the Netherlands, while Anne was compelled to break
off her marriage with Margaret's father, and became Charles' queen. This
double slight was never forgiven either by Maximilian or by Margaret,
and was the direct cause of the negotiations for the double Spanish
marriage, which, though delayed by the suspicious caution of the two
chief negotiators, Ferdinand and Maximilian, was at length arranged. In
August, 1496, an imposing fleet conveyed the Infanta Juana to Antwerp
and she was married to Philip at Lille. In the following April Margaret
and Don Juan were wedded in the cathedral of Burgos. The union was
followed by a series of catastrophes in the Spanish royal family. While
on his way with his wife to attend the marriage of his older sister
Isabel with the King of Portugal, Juan caught a malignant fever and
expired at Salamanca in October, 1497.
The newly-married Queen of Portugal now became the heiress to the crowns
of Aragon and Castile, but she died a year later and shortly afterwards
her infant son. The succession therefore passed to the younger sister,
Juana; and Philip the Fair, the heir of the House of Austria and already
through his mother the ruler of the rich Burgundian domain, became
through his wife the prospective sovereign of the Spanish kingdoms of
Ferdinand and Isabel. Fortune seemed to have reserved all her smiles for
the young prince, when on February 24, 1500, a son was born to him at
Ghent, who received the name Charles. But dark days were soon to follow.
Philip was pleasure-loving and dissolute, and he showed little affection
for his wife, who had already begun to exhibit symptoms of that weakness
of mind which was before long to develop into insanity. However in 1501,
they journeyed together to Spain, in order to secure Juana's rights to
the Castilian succession and also to that of Aragon should King
Ferdinand die without an heir-male.
In November, 1504, Isabel the Catholic had died; and Philip and his
consort at once assumed the titles of King and Queen of Castile, in
spite of the opposition of Ferdinand, who claimed the right of regency
during his life-time. Both parties were anxious to obtain the support of
Henry VII. Already since the accession of Philip the commercial
relations between England and the Netherlands had been placed on what
proved to be a permanently friendly basis by the treaty known as the
_Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. Flanders and Brabant were dependent upon
the supply of English wool for their staple industries, Holland and
Zeeland for that freedom of fishery on which a large part of their
population was employed and subsisted. In reprisals for the support
formerly given by the Burgundian government to the house of York, Henry
had forbidden the exportation of wool and of cloth to the Netherlands,
had removed the staple from Bruges to Calais, and had withdrawn the
fishing rights enjoyed by the Hollanders since the reign of Edward I.
But this state of commercial war was ruinous to both countries; and, on
condition that Philip henceforth undertook not to allow any enemies of
the English government to reside in his dominions, a good understanding
was reached, and the _Magnus Intercursus_, which re-established
something like freedom of trade between the countries, was duly signed
in February, 1496. The treaty was solemnly renewed in 1501, but shortly
afterwards fresh difficulties arose concerning Yorkist refugees, and a
stoppage of trade was once more threatened. At this juncture a storm
drove Philip and Juana, who had set sail in January, 1506, for Spain, to
take refuge in an English harbour. For three months they were hospitably
entertained by Henry, but he did not fail to take advantage of the
situation to negotiate three treaties with his unwilling guest: (1) a
treaty of alliance, (2) a treaty of marriage with Philip's sister, the
Archduchess Margaret, already at the age of 25 a widow for the second
time, (3) a revision of the treaty of commerce of 1496, named from its
unfavourable conditions, _Malus Intercursus_. The marriage treaty came
to nothing through the absolute refusal of Margaret to accept the hand
of the English king.
Philip and Juana left England for Spain, April 23, to assume the
government of the three kingdoms, Castile, Leon and Granada, which Juana
had inherited from her mother. Owing to his wife's mental incapacity
Philip in her name exercised all the powers of sovereignty, but his
reign was very short, for he was suddenly taken ill and died at Burgos,
September 25, 1506. His hapless wife, after the birth of a posthumous
child, sank into a state of hopeless insanity and passed the rest of her
long life in confinement. Charles, the heir to so vast an inheritance,
was but six years old. The representatives of the provinces, assembled
at Mechlin (October 18), offered the regency of the Burgundian dominions
to the Emperor Maximilian; he in his turn nominated his daughter,
Margaret, to be regent in his place and guardian of his grandson during
Charles' minority, and she with the assent of the States-General took
the oath on her installation as _Mambour_ or Governor-General of the
Netherlands, March, 1507. Margaret was but 27 years of age, and for
twenty-four years she continued to administer the affairs of the
Netherlands with singular discretion, firmness and Statesmanlike
ability. The superintendence and training of the young archduke could
have been placed in no better hands. Charles, who with his three sisters
lived with his aunt at Mechlin, was thus both by birth and education a
Netherlander.
One of the first acts of Margaret was a refusal to ratify the _Malus
Intercursus_ and the revival of the _Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. This
important commercial treaty from that time forward continued in force
for more than a century. The great difficulty that Margaret encountered
in her government was the lack of adequate financial resources. The
extensive privileges accorded to the various provinces and their mutual
jealousies and diverse interests made the task of levying taxes arduous
and often fruitless. Margaret found that the granting of supplies, even
for so necessary a purpose as the raising of troops to resist the raids
of Charles of Gelderland, aided by the French king, into Utrecht and
Holland, was refused. She fortunately possessed in a high degree those
qualities of persuasive address and sound judgment, which gave to her a
foremost place among the diplomatists and rulers of her time. Such was
the confidence that her brilliant abilities inspired that she was
deputed both by the Emperor Maximilian and by Ferdinand of Aragon to be
their plenipotentiary at the Peace Congress that assembled at Cambray in
November, 1508. Chiefly through her exertions the negotiations had a
speedy and successful issue, and the famous treaty known as the League
of Cambray was signed on December 10. By this treaty many of the
disputes concerning the rights and prerogatives of the French crown in
the Burgundian Netherlands were amicably settled; and it was arranged
that Charles of Egmont should be provisionally recognised as Duke of
Gelderland on condition that he should give up the towns in Holland that
he had captured and withdraw his troops within his own borders.
The extant correspondence between Maximilian and Margaret, which is of
the most confidential character, on matters of high policy, is a proof
of the high opinion the emperor entertained of his daughter's
intelligence and capacity. In nothing was his confidence more justified
than in the assiduous care and interest that the regent took in the
education of the Archduke Charles and his three sisters, who had been
placed in her charge. In 1515 Charles, on entering his sixteenth year,
was declared by Maximilian to be of age; Margaret accordingly handed
over to him the reins of government and withdrew for the time into
private life. Her retirement was not, however, to be of long
continuance. On January 23, 1516, King Ferdinand of Aragon died, and
Charles, who now became King of Castile and of Aragon, was obliged to
leave the Netherlands to take possession of his Spanish dominions.
Before sailing he reinstated his aunt as governess, and appointed a
council to assist her. This post she continued to hold till the day of
her death, for Charles was never again able to take up his permanent
residence in the Netherlands. During the first years after his
accession to the thrones of Ferdinand and Isabel he was much occupied
with Spanish affairs; and the death of Maximilian, January 12, 1519,
opened out to him a still wider field of ambition and activity. On June
28 Charles was elected emperor, a result which he owed in no small
degree to the diplomatic skill and activity of Margaret. Just a year
later the emperor visited the Netherlands, where Charles of Gelderland
was again giving trouble, and his presence was required both for the
purpose of dealing with the affairs of the provinces and also for
securing a grant of supply, for he was sorely in need of funds. Margaret
had at his request summoned the States-General to meet at Brussels,
where Charles personally addressed them, and explained at some length
the reasons which led him to ask his loyal and devoted Netherland
subjects for their aid on his election to the imperial dignity. The
States-General on this, as on other occasions, showed no niggardliness
in responding to the request of a sovereign who, though almost always
absent, appealed to their patriotism as a born Netherlander, who had
been brought up in their midst and spoke their tongue. Charles was
crowned at Aachen, October 23, 1520, and some three months later
presided at the famous diet of Worms, where he met Martin Luther face to
face. Before starting on his momentous journey he again appointed
Margaret regent, and gave to her Council, which he nominated, large
powers; the Council of Mechlin, the Court of Holland and other
provincial tribunals being subjected to its superior authority and
jurisdiction. By this action the privileges of the provinces were
infringed, but Charles was resolute in carrying out the centralising
policy of his ancestors, the Dukes of Burgundy, and he had the power to
enforce his will in spite of the protests that were raised. And so
under the wise and conciliatory but firm administration of Margaret
during a decade of almost continuous religious and international
strife--a decade marked by such great events as the rapid growth of the
Reformation in Germany, the defeat and capture of Francis I at Pavia,
the sack of Rome by the troops of Bourbon and the victorious advance of
the Turks in Hungary and along the eastern frontier of the empire--the
Netherland provinces remained at peace, save for the restless intrigues
of Charles of Egmont in Gelderland, and prospered. Their wealth
furnished indeed no small portion of the funds which enabled Charles to
face successfully so many adversaries and to humble the power of
France. The last important act of Margaret, like her first, was
connected with the town of Cambray. In this town, as the representative
and plenipotentiary of her nephew the emperor, she met, July, 1529,
Louise of Savoy, who had been granted similar powers by her son Francis
I, to negotiate a treaty of peace. The two princesses proved worthy of
the trust that had been placed in them, and a general treaty of peace,
often spoken of as "the Ladies' Peace," was speedily drawn up and
ratified. The conditions were highly advantageous to the interests of
Spain and the Netherlands. On November 30 of the following year Margaret
died, as the result of a slight accident to her foot which the medical
science of the day did not know how to treat properly, in the 50th year
of her age and the 24th of her regency.
Charles, who had a few months previously reached the zenith of his power
by being crowned with the iron crown of Lombardy and with the imperial
crown at the hands of Pope Clement VII at Bologna (February 22 and 24,
1530), appointed as governess in Margaret's place his sister Mary, the
widowed queen of Louis, King of Hungary, who had been slain by the Turks
at the battle of Mohacs, August 29, 1526.
Mary, who had passed her early life in the Netherlands under the care of
her aunt Margaret, proved herself in every way her worthy successor. She
possessed, like Margaret, a strong character, statesmanlike qualities
and singular capacity in the administration of affairs. She filled the
difficult post of regent for the whole period of twenty-four years
between the death of Margaret and the abdication of Charles V in 1555.
It was fortunate indeed for that great sovereign that these two eminent
women of his house should, each in turn for one half of his long reign,
have so admirably conducted the government of this important portion of
his dominions, as to leave him free for the carrying out of his
far-reaching political projects and constant military campaigns in other
lands. Two years after Mary entered upon her regency Charles appointed
three advisory and administrative bodies--the Council of State, the
Council of Finance and the Privy Council--to assist her in the
government. The Council of State dealt with questions of external and
internal policy and with the appointment of officials; the Council of
Finance with the care of the revenue and private domains of the
sovereign; to the Privy Council were entrusted the publication of edicts
and "placards," and the care of justice and police.
When Charles succeeded Philip the Fair only a portion of the Netherlands
was subject to his sway. With steady persistence he set himself to the
task of bringing all the seventeen provinces under one sovereign. In
1515 George of Saxe-Meissen sold to him his rights over Friesland. Henry
of Bavaria, who in opposition to his wishes had been elected Bishop of
Utrecht, was compelled (1528) to cede to him the temporalities of the
see, retaining the spiritual office only. Charles thus added the Upper
and Lower _Sticht_--Utrecht and Overyssel--to his dominions. He made
himself (1536) master of Groningen and Drente after a long and obstinate
struggle with Charles of Gelderland, and seven years later he forced
Charles' successor, William of Jülich and Cleves, to renounce in his
favour his claims to Gelderland and Zutphen. During the reign of Charles
V the States-General were summoned many times, chiefly for the purpose
of voting subsidies, but it was only on special and solemn occasions,
that the representatives of all the seventeen provinces were present, as
for instance when Philip received their homage in 1549 and when Charles
V announced his abdication in 1555. The names of the seventeen provinces
summoned on these occasions were Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg,
Gelderland, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Artois, Hainault, Namur, Lille
with Douay and Orchies, Tournay and district, Mechlin, Friesland,
Utrecht, Overyssel with Drente and Groningen. The bishopric of Liège,
though nominally independent, was under the strict control of the
government at Brussels. The relations of Charles' Burgundian domains
to the empire were a matter of no small moment, and he was able to
regulate them in a manner satisfactory to himself. Several times during
his reign tentative attempts were made to define those relations, which
were of a very loose kind. The fact that the head of the house of
Habsburg was himself emperor had not made him any less determined than
the Burgundian sovereigns, his ancestors, to assert for his Netherland
territories a virtual independence of imperial control or obligation.
The various states of which the Netherlands were composed were as much
opposed as the central government at Brussels to any recognition of the
claims of the empire; and both Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary
ventured to refuse to send representatives to the imperial diets, even
when requested to do so by the emperor. At last in 1548, when all the
Netherland provinces had been brought under the direct dominion or
control of one sovereign prince, a convention was drawn up at the diet
of Augsburg, chiefly by the exertions of the Regent Mary and her tried
councillors Viglius and Granvelle, by which the unity of the Netherland
territories was recognised and they were freed from imperial
jurisdiction. Nominally, they formed a circle of the empire,--the
Burgundian circle--and representatives of the circle were supposed to
appear at the diets and to bear a certain share of imperial taxation in
return for the right to the protection of the empire against attacks by
France. As a matter of fact, no representatives were ever sent and no
subsidy was paid, nor was the protection of the empire ever sought or
given.
This convention, which in reality severed the shadowy links which had
hitherto bound the Netherlands to the empire, received the sanction of
the States-General in October, 1548; and it was followed by the issuing,
with the consent of the Estates of the various provinces, of a
"Pragmatic Sanction" by which the inherited right of succession to the
sovereignty in each and every province was settled upon the male and
female line of Charles' descendants, notwithstanding the existence of
ancient provincial privileges to the contrary. In 1549 the emperor's
only son Philip was acknowledged by all the Estates as their future
sovereign, and made a journey through the land to receive homage.
The doctrines of the Reformation had early obtained a footing in
various parts of the Netherlands. At first it was the teaching of Luther
and of Zwingli which gained adherents. Somewhat later the Anabaptist
movement made great headway in Holland and Friesland, especially in
Amsterdam. The chief leaders of the Anabaptists were natives of Holland,
including the famous or infamous John of Leyden, who with some thousands
of these fanatical sectaries perished at Münster in 1535. Between 1537
and 1543 a more moderate form of Anabaptist teaching made rapid progress
through the preaching of a certain Menno Simonszoon. The followers of
this man were called Mennonites. Meanwhile Lutheranism and Zwinglianism
were in many parts of the country being supplanted by the sterner
doctrines of Calvin. All these movements were viewed by the emperor
with growing anxiety and detestation. Whatever compromises with the
Reformation he might be compelled to make in Germany, he was determined
to extirpate heresy from his hereditary dominions. He issued a strong
placard soon after the diet of Worms in 1521 condemning Luther and his
opinions and forbidding the printing or sale of any of the reformer's
writings; and between that date and 1555 a dozen other edicts and
placards were issued of increasing stringency. The most severe was the
so-called "blood-placard" of 1550. This enacted the sentence of death
against all convicted of heresy--the men to be executed with the sword
and the women buried alive; in cases of obstinacy both men and women
were to be burnt. Terribly harsh as were these edicts, it is doubtful
whether the number of those who Suffered the extreme penalty has not
been greatly exaggerated by partisan writers. Of the thousands who
perished, by far the greater part were Anabaptists; and these met their
fate rather as enemies of the state and of society, than as heretics.
They were political as well as religious anarchists.
In the time of Charles the trade and industries of the Netherlands were
in a highly prosperous state. The Burgundian provinces under the wise
administrations of Margaret and Mary, and protected by the strong arm of
the emperor from foreign attack, were at this period by far the richest
state in Europe and the financial mainstay of the Habsburg power.
Bruges, however, had now ceased to be the central market and exchange of
Europe, owing to the silting up of the river Zwijn. It was no longer a
port, and its place had been taken by Antwerp. At the close of the reign
of Charles, Antwerp, with its magnificent harbour on the Scheldt, had
become the "counting-house" of the nations, the greatest port and the
wealthiest and most luxurious city in the world. Agents of the principal
bankers and merchants of every country had their offices within its
walls. It has been estimated that, inclusive of the many foreigners who
made the town their temporary abode, the population of Antwerp in 1560
was about 150,000. Five hundred vessels sailed in and out of her harbour
daily, and five times that number were to be seen thronging her wharves
at the same time.
To the north of the Scheldt the condition of things was not less
satisfactory than in the south, particularly in Holland. The commercial
prosperity of Holland was in most respects different in kind from that
of Flanders and Brabant, and during the period with which we are dealing
had been making rapid advances, but on independent lines. A manufactory
of the coarser kinds of cloth, established at Leyden, had indeed for a
time met with a considerable measure of success, but had fallen into
decline in the time of Mary of Hungary. The nature of his country led
the Hollander to be either a sailor or a dairy-farmer, not an artisan or
operative. Akin though he was in race to the Fleming and the Brabanter,
his instincts led him by the force of circumstances to turn his energies
in other directions. Subsequent history has but emphasised the
fact--which from the fourteenth century onwards is clearly evident--that
the people who inhabited the low-lying sea-girt lands of dyke, canal and
polder in Holland and Zeeland were distinct in character and temper from
the citizens of Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Brussels or Mechlin, who were
essentially landsmen and artisans. Ever since the discovery of the art
of curing herrings (ascribed to William Beukelsz), the herring fishery
had acquired a great importance to the Hollanders and Zeelanders, and
formed the chief livelihood of a large part of the entire population of
those provinces; and many thousands, who did not themselves sail in the
fishing fleets, found employment in the ship and boat-building wharves
and in the making of sails, cordage, nets and other tackle. It was in
this hazardous occupation that the hardy race of skilled and seasoned
seamen, who were destined to play so decisive a part in the coming wars
of independence, had their early training. The herring harvest, through
the careful and scientific methods that were employed in curing the
fish and packing them in barrels, became a durable and much sought for
article of commerce. A small portion of the catch served as a supply of
food for home consumption, the great bulk in its thousands of barrels
was a marketable commodity, and the distribution of the cured herring to
distant ports became a lucrative business. It had two important
consequences, the formation of a Dutch Mercantile Marine, and the growth
of Amsterdam, which from small beginnings had in the middle of the
sixteenth century become a town with 40,000 inhabitants and a port
second only in importance in the Netherlands to Antwerp. From its
harbour at the confluence of the estuary of the Y with the Zuyder Zee
ships owned and manned by Hollanders sailed along the coasts of France
and Spain to bring home the salt for curing purposes and with it wines
and other southern products, while year by year a still larger and
increasing number entered the Baltic. In those eastern waters they
competed with the German Hanseatic cities, with whom they had many
acrimonious disputes, and with such success that the Hollanders
gradually monopolised the traffic in grain, hemp and other "Eastland"
commodities and became practically the freight-carriers of the Baltic.
And be it remembered that they were able to achieve this because many of
the North-Netherland towns were themselves members of the Hanse League,
and possessed therefore the same rights and privileges commercially as
their rivals, Hamburg, Lübeck or Danzig. The great industrial cities of
Flanders and Brabant, on the other hand, not being members of the League
nor having any mercantile marine of their own, were content to transact
business with the foreign agents of the Hanse towns, who had their
counting-houses at Antwerp. It will thus be seen that in the middle of
the sixteenth century the trade of the northern provinces, though as yet
not to be compared in volume to that of the Flemings and Walloons, had
before it an opening field for enterprise and energy rich in
possibilities and promise for the future.
Such was the state of affairs political, religious and economical when
in the year 1555 the Emperor Charles V, prematurely aged by the heavy
burden of forty years of world-wide sovereignty, worn out by constant
campaigns and weary of the cares of state, announced his intention of
abdicating and retiring into a monastery. On October 25, 1555, the act
of abdication was solemnly and with impressive ceremonial carried out
in the presence of the representatives of the seventeen provinces of the
Netherlands specially summoned to meet their sovereign for the last time
in the Great Hall of the Palace at Brussels. Charles took an affecting
farewell of his Netherland subjects and concluded by asking them to
exhibit the same regard and loyalty to his son Philip as they had always
displayed to himself. Much feeling was shown, for Charles, despite the
many and varied calls and duties which had prevented him from residing
for any length of time in the Netherlands, had always been at pains to
manifest a special interest in the country of his birth. The Netherlands
were to him throughout life his homeland and its people looked upon him
as a fellow-countryman, and not even the constant demands that Charles
had made for financial aid nor the stern edicts against heresy had
estranged them from him. The abdication was the more regretted because
at the same time Mary of Hungary laid down her office as regent, the
arduous duties of which she had so long and so ably discharged. On the
following day, October 26, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the members
of the Councils and the deputies of the provinces took the oath of
allegiance to Philip, the emperor's only son and heir; and Philip on his
side solemnly undertook to maintain unimpaired the ancient rights and
privileges of the several provinces.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
THE PRELUDE TO THE REVOLT
Philip at the time of his accession to the sovereignty of the
Netherlands was already King of Naples and Sicily, and Duke of Milan,
and, by his marriage in 1554 to Mary Tudor, King-consort of England, in
which country he was residing when summoned by his father to assist at
the abdication ceremony at Brussels. A few months later (January 16,
1556) by a further act of abdication on the part of Charles V he became
King of Castile and Aragon. It was a tremendous inheritance, and there
is no reason to doubt that Philip entered upon his task with a deep
sense that he had a mission to fulfil and with a self-sacrificing
determination to spare himself no personal labour in the discharge of
his duties. But though he bore to his father a certain physical
likeness, Philip in character and disposition was almost his antithesis.
Silent, reserved, inaccessible, Philip had none of the restless energy
or the geniality of Charles, and was as slow and undecided in action as
he was bigoted in his opinions and unscrupulous in his determination to
compass his ends. He found himself on his accession to power faced with
many difficulties, for the treasury was not merely empty, it was
burdened with debt. Through lack of means he was compelled to patch up
a temporary peace (February 5, 1556) with the French king at Vaucelles,
and to take steps to reorganise his finances.
One of Philip's first acts was the appointment of Emmanuel Philibert,
Duke of Savoy, to the post vacated by his aunt Mary; but it was a
position, as long as the king remained in the Netherlands, of small
responsibility. Early in 1556 he summoned the States-General to Brussels
and asked for a grant of 1,300,000 florins. The taxes proposed were
disapproved by the principal provinces and eventually refused. Philip
was very much annoyed, but was compelled to modify his proposals and
accept what was offered by the delegates. There was indeed from the very
outset no love lost between the new ruler and his Netherland subjects.
Philip had spent nearly all his life in Spain, where he had received
his education and early training, and he had grown up to manhood, in the
narrowest sense of the word, a Spaniard. He was as unfamiliar with the
laws, customs and privileges of the several provinces of his Netherland
dominions as he was with the language of their peoples. He spoke and
wrote only Castilian correctly, and during his four years' residence at
Brussels he remained coldly and haughtily aloof, a foreigner and alien
in a land where he never felt at home. Philip at the beginning of his
reign honestly endeavoured to follow in his father's steps and to carry
out his policy; but acts, which the great emperor with his conciliatory
address and Flemish sympathies could venture upon with impunity, became
suspect and questionable when attempted by the son. Philip made the
great mistake of taking into his private confidence only foreign
advisers, chief among whom was Anthony Perrenot de Granvelle, Bishop of
Arras, a Burgundian by birth, the son of Nicholas Perrenot, who for
thirty years had been the trusted counsellor of Charles V.
The opening of Philip's reign was marked by signal military successes.
War broke out afresh with France, after a brief truce, in 1557. The
French arms however sustained two crushing reverses at St Quentin,
August 10, 1557, and at Gravelines, July 13, 1558. Lamoral, Count of
Egmont, who commanded the cavalry, was the chief agent in winning these
victories. By the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis peace was concluded, in
which the French made many concessions, but were allowed to retain, at
the cost of Philip's ally, the town of Calais which had been captured
from the English by a surprise attack in 1558. By the death of Queen
Mary, which was said to have been hastened by the news of the loss of
Calais, Philip's relations with England were entirely changed, and one
of the reasons for a continuance of his residence in the Netherlands was
removed. Peace with France therefore was no sooner assured than Philip
determined to return to Spain, where his presence was required. He chose
his half-sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, to be regent in place of the
Duke of Savoy. In July he summoned the Chapter of the Order of the
Golden Fleece--destined to be the last that was ever held--to Ghent in
order to announce his intended departure. A little later the
States-General were called together, also at Ghent, for a solemn
leave-taking. On August 26, Philip embarked at Flushing, and quitted the
Netherlands, never again to return.
Philip's choice of Margaret as governess-general was a happy one. She
was a natural daughter of Charles V. Her mother was a Fleming, and she
had been brought up under the care of her aunts, Margaret of Austria and
Mary of Hungary. She resembled those able rulers in being a woman of
strong character and statesmanlike qualities, and no doubt she would
have been as successful in her administration had she had the same
opportunities and the same freedom of action as her predecessors.
Philip, however, though henceforth he passed the whole of his life in
Spain, had no intention of loosening in any way his grasp of the reins
of power or of delegating any share of his sovereign authority. On his
return to Madrid he showed plainly that he meant to treat the Netherland
provinces as if they were dependencies of the Spanish crown, and he
required from Margaret and her advisers that all the details of policy,
legislation and administration should be submitted to him for
supervision and sanction. This necessitated the writing of voluminous
despatches and entailed with a man of his habits of indecision
interminable delays. Margaret moreover was instructed that in all
matters she must be guided by the advice of her three councils. By far
the most important of the three was the Council Of State, which at this
time consisted of five members--Anthony Granvelle, Bishop of Arras;
Baron de Barlaymont; Viglius van Zwychem van Aytta; Lamoral, Count of
Egmont; and William, Prince of Orange. Barlaymont was likewise
president of the Council of Finance and Viglius president of the Privy
Council. By far the most important member of the Council of State, as he
was much the ablest, was the Bishop of Arras; and he, with Barlaymont
and Viglius, formed an inner confidential council from whom alone the
regent asked advice. The members of this inner council, nicknamed the
_Consulta_, were all devoted to the interests of Philip. Egmont and
Orange, because of their great influence and popularity with the people,
were allowed to be nominally Councillors of State, but they were rarely
consulted and were practically shut out from confidential access to the
regent. It is no wonder that both were discontented with their position
and soon showed openly their dissatisfaction.
Egmont, a man of showy rather than of solid qualities, held in 1559 the
important posts of Stadholder of Flanders and Artois. The Prince of
Orange was the eldest of the five sons of William, Count of
Nassau-Dillenburg, head of the younger or German branch of the famous
house of Nassau. Members of the elder or Netherland branch had for
several generations rendered distinguished services to their Burgundian
and Habsburg sovereigns. This elder branch became extinct in the person
of Réné, the son of Henry of Nassau, one of Charles V's most trusted
friends and advisers, by Claude, sister of Philibert, Prince of
Orange-Châlons. Philibert being childless bequeathed his small
principality to Réné; and Réné in his turn, being killed at the siege of
St Dizier in 1544, left by will all his possessions to his cousin
William, who thus became Prince of Orange. His parents were Lutherans,
but Charles insisted that William, at that time eleven years of age,
should be brought up as a Catholic at the Court of Mary of Hungary. Here
he became a great favourite of the emperor, who in 1550 conferred on him
the hand of a great heiress, Anne of Egmont, only child of the Count of
Buren. Anne died in 1558, leaving two children, a son, Philip William,
and a daughter. At the ceremony of the abdication in 1555, Charles
entered the hall leaning on the shoulder of William, on whom, despite
his youth, he had already bestowed an important command. Philip likewise
specially recognised William's ability and gave evidence of his
confidence in him by appointing him one of the plenipotentiaries to
conclude with France the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559. He had also
made him a Knight of the Golden Fleece, a Councillor of State and
Stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Burgundy (Franche-Comté).
Nevertheless there arose between Philip and Orange a growing feeling of
distrust and dislike, with the result that William speedily found
himself at the head of a patriotic opposition to any attempts of the
Spanish king to govern the Netherlands by Spanish methods. The presence
of a large body of Spanish troops in the country aroused the suspicion
that Philip intended to use them, if necessary, to support him in
overriding by force the liberties and privileges of the provinces. It
was largely owing to the influence of Orange that the States-General in
1559 refused to vote the grant of supplies for which Philip had asked,
unless he promised that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from the
Netherlands. The king was much incensed at such a humiliating rebuff and
is reported, when on the point of embarking at Flushing, to have charged
William with being the man who had instigated the States thus to thwart
him.
Thus, when Margaret of Parma entered upon her duties as regent, she
found that there was a feeling of deep dissatisfaction and general
irritation in the provinces; and this was accentuated as soon as it was
found that, though Philip had departed, his policy remained. The spirit
of the absent king from his distant cabinet in Madrid brooded, as it
were, over the land. It was soon seen that Margaret, whatever her
statesmanlike qualities or natural inclination might be, had no real
authority, nor was she permitted to take any steps or to initiate any
policy without the advice and approval of the three confidential
councillors placed at her side by Philip--Granvelle, Viglius and
Barlaymont. Of these Granvelle, both by reason of his conspicuous
abilities and of his being admitted more freely than anyone else into
the inner counsels of a sovereign, as secretive in his methods as he was
suspicious and distrustful of his agents, held the foremost position and
drew upon himself the odium of a policy with which, though it was
dictated from Spain, his name was identified.
Orange and Egmont, with whom were joined a number of other leading
nobles (among these Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn, his brother
the lord of Montigny, the Counts of Meghem and Hoogstraeten and the
Marquis of Berghen), little by little adopted an attitude of increasing
hostility to this policy, which they regarded as anti-national and
tending to the establishment of a foreign despotism in the Netherlands.
The continued presence of the Spanish troops, the severe measures that
were being taken for the suppression of heresy, and a proposal for the
erection of a number of new bishoprics, aroused popular discontent and
suspicion. Orange and Egmont, finding that they were never consulted
except on matters of routine, wrote to Philip (July, 1561) stating that
they found that their attendance at the meetings of the Council of State
was useless and asked to be allowed to resign their posts. Meanwhile,
feeling that the presence of the Spanish troops was a source of weakness
rather than of strength, Margaret and Granvelle were urging upon the
king the necessity of their withdrawal. Neither the nobles nor the
regent succeeded in obtaining any satisfactory response. Orange and
Egmont accordingly absented themselves from the Council, and Margaret
ventured on her own authority to send away the Spanish regiments.
The question of the bishoprics was more serious. It was not a new
question. The episcopal organisation in the Netherlands was admittedly
inadequate. It had long been the intention of Charles V to create a
number of new sees, but in his crowded life he had never found the
opportunity of carrying out the proposed scheme, and it was one of the
legacies that at his abdication he handed on to his son. One of the
first steps taken by Philip was to obtain a Bull from Pope Paul IV for
the creation of the new bishoprics, and this Bull was renewed and
confirmed by Pius IV, January, 1560. Up to this time the entire area of
the seventeen provinces had been divided into three unwieldy
dioceses--Utrecht, Arras and Tournay. The See of Utrecht comprised
nearly the whole of the modern kingdom of the Netherlands. Nor was there
any archiepiscopal see. The metropolitical jurisdiction was exercised by
the three foreign Archbishops of Cologne, Rheims and Treves. Philip now
divided the land into fourteen dioceses (Charles had proposed six) with
three Metropolitans at Mechlin, Utrecht and 'sHertogenbosch[3].
Granvelle, who had obtained the Cardinal's hat, February, 1561, was
appointed Archbishop of Mechlin, and by virtue of this office Primate of
the Netherlands, December, 1561. This new organisation was not carried
out without arousing widespread opposition.
The existing bishops resented the diminution of their jurisdiction and
dignity, and still louder were the protests of the abbots, whose
endowments were appropriated to furnish the incomes of the new sees.
Still more formidable was the hostility of the people generally, a
hostility founded on fear, for the introduction of so many new bishops
nominated by the king was looked upon as being the first step to prepare
the way for the bringing in of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition. Already
the edicts against heretics, which Charles V had enacted and severely
enforced, were being carried out throughout the length and breadth of
the land with increasing and merciless barbarity. Both papal and
episcopal inquisitors were active in the work of persecution, and so
many were the sentences that in many places the civil authorities, and
even some of the stadholders, declined to carry out the executions.
Public opinion looked upon Granvelle as the author of the new bishoprics
scheme and the instigator of the increased activity of the persecutors.
He was accused of being eager to take any measures to repress the
ancient liberties of the Netherland provinces and to establish a
centralised system of absolute rule, in order to ingratiate himself with
the king and so to secure his own advancement. That the cardinal was
ambitious of power there can be no question. But to men of Granvelle's
great abilities, as administrator and statesman, ambition is not
necessarily a fault; and access to the secret records and correspondence
of the time has revealed that the part played by him was far from being
so sinister as was believed. The Bishop of Arras was not consulted about
the bishoprics proposal until after the Papal Bull had been secured, and
at first he was unfavourable to it and was not anxious to become
archbishop and primate. It was his advice which led Margaret to send
away the hated Spanish regiments from Netherland soil; and, far from
being naturally a relentless persecutor, there is proof that neither he
nor the president of the Privy Council, the jurist Viglius, believed in
the policy of harsh and brutal methods for stamping out heretical
opinions. They had in this as in other matters to obey their master, and
allow the odium to fall upon themselves.
To Orange and Egmont, the two leaders of the opposition to Granvelle, a
third name, that of Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn and Admiral of
Flanders, has now to be added. These three worked together for the
overthrow of the Cardinal, but their opposition at this time was based
rather on political than on religious grounds. They all professed the
Catholic faith, but the marriage of Orange in August, 1561, with a
Lutheran, Anne daughter of Maurice of Saxony and granddaughter of
Philip of Hesse, was ominous of coming change in William's religious
opinions. In 1562 the discontent of the nobles led to the formation of a
league against the cardinal, of which, in addition to the three leaders,
the Counts of Brederode, Mansfeld and Hoogstraeten were the principal
members. This league, of which Orange was the brain and moving spirit,
had as its chief aim the removal of Granvelle from office, and then
redress of grievances. It found widespread support. The cardinal was
assailed by a torrent of lampoons and pasquinades of the bitterest
description. But, though Margaret began to see that the unpopularity of
the minister was undermining her position, and was rendering for her the
task of government more and more difficult, Philip was obdurate and
closed his ears. The long distance between Madrid and Brussels and the
procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the
regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her
appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long delay met by
evasive replies.
The discontented nobles in vain tried to obtain redress for their
grievances. In the autumn of 1562 Montigny was sent on a special mission
to Madrid, but returned without effecting anything. Orange, Egmont and
Hoorn thereupon drew up a joint letter containing a bold demand for the
dismissal of Granvelle, as the chief cause of all the troubles in the
land. The king replied by asking that one of them should go in person to
Spain to discuss the grievances with him, and suggesting that Egmont
should be sent. Egmont however was averse to the proposal, and another
and stronger letter signed by the three leaders was despatched to
Madrid. Finding that both Margaret and Granvelle himself were in
agreement with Orange, Egmont and Hoorn in their view of the situation,
Margaret advising, with the cardinal's acquiescence, the necessity of
the minister's removal from his post, Philip determined at last that
Granvelle should leave the Netherlands. But in accordance with the
counsel of Alva, who was opposed on principle to any concession, he
characteristically employed circuitous and clandestine means to conceal
from the world any appearance of yielding to the request of his
subjects. In January, 1564 he sent a letter to the Duchess of Parma
expressing his displeasure at the lords' letter, and saying that they
must substantiate their complaints. The same messenger (Armenteros, the
duchess' secretary) carried another letter for Granvelle headed
"secret," in which the cardinal was told that "owing to the strong
feeling that had been aroused against him, he was to ask permission from
the regent to go away for a short time to visit his mother." About a
week after these letters had reached their destination another courier
brought a reply to the three nobles, which, though written on the same
day as the others, bore a date three weeks later, in which they were
bidden to take their places again in the Council of State, and a promise
was given that the charges against Granvelle after substantiation should
be maturely considered. This letter was delivered on March 1, after
Granvelle had already, in obedience to the king's orders, asked for
leave of absence to visit his mother in Franche-Comté. The cardinal
actually left Brussels on March 13, to the great joy of every class of
the people, never to return.
With the departure of Granvelle, the nobles once more took their seats
on the Council of State. The _Consulta_ disappeared, and the regent
herself appeared to be relieved and to welcome the disappearance of the
man whose authority had overshadowed her own. But the change, though it
placed large powers of administration and of patronage in the hands of
Netherlanders instead of foreigners, did not by any means introduce
purer methods of government. Many of the nobles were heavily in debt;
most of them were self-seeking; offices and emoluments were eagerly
sought for, and were even put up for sale. Armenteros, Margaret's
private secretary (to whom the nickname of _Argenteros_ was given), was
the leading spirit in this disgraceful traffic, and enriched himself by
the acceptance of bribes for the nomination to preferments. It was an
unedifying state of things; and public opinion was not long in
expressing its discontent with such an exhibition of widespread venality
and greed. All this was duly reported to Philip by Granvelle, who
continued, in his retirement, to keep himself well informed of all that
was going on.
Meanwhile by the efforts of Orange, Egmont and Hoorn, chiefly of the
former, proposals of reform were being urged for the strengthening of
the powers of the Council of State, for the reorganisation of finance,
and for the more moderate execution of the placards against heresy.
While discussion concerning these matters was in progress, came an order
from Philip (August, 1564) for the enforcing of the decrees of the
recently concluded Council of Trent. This at once aroused protest and
opposition. It was denounced as an infringement of the fundamental
privileges of the provinces. Philip's instructions however were
peremptory. In these circumstances it was resolved by the Council of
State to despatch Egmont on a special mission to Madrid to explain to
the king in person the condition of affairs in the Netherlands. Egmont
having expressed his willingness to go, instructions were drawn up for
him by Viglius. When these were read at a meeting of the council
convened for the purpose, Orange in a long and eloquent speech boldly
expressed his dissent from much that Viglius had written, and wished
that Philip should be plainly told that it was impossible to enforce the
decrees and that the severity of religious persecution must be
moderated. The council determined to revise the instructions on the
lines suggested by Orange, whose words had such an effect upon the
aged Viglius, that he had that very night a stroke of apoplexy, which
proved fatal.
Egmont set out for Spain, January 15, 1565, and on his arrival was
received by Philip with extreme courtesy and graciousness. He was
entertained splendidly; presents were made to him, which, being
considerably in debt, he gladly accepted; but as regards his mission he
was put off with evasions and blandishments, and he returned home with a
reply from the king containing some vague promises of reform in
financial and other matters, but an absolute refusal to modify the
decrees against heresy. Rather would he sacrifice a hundred thousand
lives, if he had them, than concede liberty of worship in any form. For
some months however no attempt was made to carry out active
persecutions; and the regent meanwhile did her utmost to place before
the king urgent reasons for the modification of his policy, owing to the
angry spirit of unrest and suspicion which was arising in the provinces.
She begged Philip to visit the Netherlands and acquaint himself
personally with the difficulties of a situation which, unless her advice
were taken, would rapidly grow worse and pass beyond her control. Philip
however was deaf alike to remonstrance or entreaty. On November 5, 1565,
a royal despatch reached Brussels in which the strictest orders were
renewed for the promulgation throughout the provinces of the decrees of
the Council of Trent and for the execution of the placards against
heretics, while the proposals that had been made for an extension of the
powers of the Council of State and for the summoning of the
States-General were refused. As soon as these fateful decisions were
known, and the Inquisition began to set about its fell work in real
earnest, the popular indignation knew no bounds. A large number of the
magistrates refused to take any part in the cruel persecution that
arose, following the example of Orange, Egmont, Berghen and others of
the stadholders and leading nobles. A strong spirit of opposition to
arbitrary and foreign rule arose and found expression in the action
taken by a large number of the members of the so-called "lesser
nobility." Many of these had come to Brussels, and at a meeting at the
house of the Count of Culemburg the formation of a league to resist
arbitrary rule was proposed. The leaders were Lewis of Nassau, brother
of the Prince of Orange, Nicolas de Harnes, Philip de Marnix, lord of
Sainte Aldegonde, and Henry, Viscount of Brederode. Other meetings
were held, and a document embodying the principles and demands of the
Confederates was drawn up, known as _the Compromise_, which was widely
distributed among the nobles and quickly obtained large and constantly
increasing support. The signatories of the Compromise, while professing
themselves to be faithful and loyal subjects of the king, denounced the
Inquisition in its every form "as being unjust and contrary to all laws
human and divine"; and they pledged themselves to stand by one another
in resisting its introduction into the Netherlands and in preventing the
carrying-out of the placards against heresy, while at the same time
undertaking to maintain the royal authority and public peace in the
land.
At first the great nobles stood aloof, doubtful what course to pursue.
At the instigation of Orange conferences were held, at which, by his
advice, a petition or _Request_, setting forth the grievances and asking
for redress, should be made in writing for presentation to the regent.
The original draft of this document was the work of Lewis of Nassau.
These conferences, however, revealed that there was a considerable
divergence of views among the leading nobles. Egmont and Meghem were
indeed so alarmed at the character of the movement, which seemed to them
to savour of treason, that they separated themselves henceforth from
Orange and Hoorn and openly took the side of the government. The duchess
after some demur agreed to receive the petition. A body of confederates
under the leadership of Brederode and Lewis of Nassau marched to the
palace, where they were received by Margaret in person. The petitioners
asked the regent to send an envoy to Madrid to lay before the king the
state of feeling among his loyal subjects in the Netherlands, praying
him to withdraw the Inquisition and moderate the placards against
heresy, and meanwhile by her own authority to suspend them until the
king's answer had been received. The regent replied that she had no
power to suspend the Inquisition or the placards, but would undertake,
while awaiting the royal reply, to mitigate their operation.
On the last day of their stay at Brussels, April 8, the confederates
under the presidency of Brederode, to the number of about three hundred,
dined together at the Hotel Culemburg. In the course of the meal
Brederode drew the attention of the company now somewhat excited with
wine to a contemptuous phrase attributed by common report to Barlaymont.
Margaret was somewhat perturbed at the formidable numbers of the
deputation, as it entered the palace court, and it was said that
Barlaymont remarked that "these beggars" (_ces gueux_) need cause her no
fear. Brederode declared that he had no objection to the name and was
quite willing to be "a beggar" in the cause of his country and his king.
It was destined to be a name famous in history. Immediately loud cries
arose from the assembled guests, until the great hall echoed with the
shouts of _Vivent les Gueux_. From this date onwards the confederates
were known as "les gueux," and they adopted a coarse grey dress with the
symbols of beggarhood--the wallet and the bowl--worn as the _insignia_
of their league. It was the beginning of a popular movement, which made
rapid headway among all classes. A medal was likewise struck, which bore
on one side the head of the king, on the other two clasped hands with
the inscription--_Fidèles au roy jusques à la besace_.
Thus was the opposition to the tyrannical measures of the government
organising itself in the spring of 1566. It is a great mistake to
suppose that the majority of those who signed "the Compromise" or
presented "the Request" were disloyal to their sovereign or converts to
the reformed faith. Among those who denounced the methods of the
Inquisition and of the Blood Placards were a large number, who without
ceasing to be Catholics, had been disillusioned by the abuses which had
crept into the Roman Church, desired their removal only to a less degree
than the Protestants themselves, and had no sympathy with the terrible
and remorseless persecution on Spanish lines, which sought to crush out
all liberty of thought and all efforts of religious reform by the stake
and the sword of the executioner. Nevertheless this league of the nobles
gave encouragement to the sectaries and was the signal for a great
increase in the number and activity of the Calvinist and Zwinglian
preachers, who flocked into the land from the neighbouring countries.
Such was the boldness of these preachers that, instead of being
contented with secret meetings, they began to hold their conventicles in
the fields or in the outskirts of the towns. Crowds of people thronged
to hear them, and the authority of the magistrates was defied and
flouted. The regent was in despair. Shortly after the presentation of
the Request it was determined by the advice of the council to send
special envoys to lay before the king once more the serious state of
things. The Marquis of Berghen and Baron Montigny consented with some
demur to undertake the mission, but for various reasons they did not
reach Madrid till some two months later. They were received with
apparent courtesy, and after several conferences the king, on July 31,
despatched a letter to Margaret in which he undertook to do away with
the Papal Inquisition and offered to allow such moderation of the
Placards as did not imply any recognition of heretical opinions or any
injury to the Catholic faith. He refused to consent to the meeting of
the States, but he sent letters couched in most friendly terms to Orange
and Egmont appealing to their loyalty and asking them to support the
regent by their advice and influence. These demonstrations of a
conciliatory temper were however mere temporising. He was playing false.
A document is in existence, dated August 9, in which Philip states that
these concessions had been extorted from him against his will and that
he did not regard himself as bound by them, and he informed the Pope
that the abolition of the Papal Inquisition was a mere form of words.
Meanwhile events were moving fast in the Netherlands. The open-air
preachings were attended by thousands; and at Antwerp, which was one of
the chief centres of Calvinism, disorders broke out, and armed conflicts
were feared. Orange himself, as burgrave of Antwerp, at the request of
the duchess visited the town and with the aid of Brederode and Meghem
succeeded in effecting a compromise between the Catholic and Protestant
parties. The latter were allowed to hold their preachings undisturbed,
so long as they met outside and not within the city walls. The regent
in her alarm was even driven to make overtures to the confederates to
assist her in the maintenance of order. There was much parleying, in
which Orange and Egmont took part; and in July an assembly of the
signatories of the Compromise was called together at St Trond in the
district of Liège. Some two thousand were present, presided over by
Lewis of Nassau. It was resolved to send twelve delegates to Margaret to
lay before her the necessity of finding a remedy for the evils which
were afflicting and disturbing the land. They offered to consult with
Orange and Egmont as to the best means by which they could work together
for the country's good, but hinting that, if no redress was given, they
might be forced to look for foreign aid. Indeed this was no empty
threat, for Lewis had already been in communication with the Protestant
leaders both in France and in the Rhinelands, as to the terms on which
they would furnish armed assistance; and Orange was probably not
altogether in ignorance of the fact. The regent was angry at the tone of
the delegates, whom she received on July 26, but in her present
impotence thought it best to dissemble. She promised to give
consideration to the petition, and summoned a meeting of the Knights of
the Golden Fleece to meet at Brussels on August 18, when she would
decide upon her answer. But, when that date arrived, other and more
pressing reasons than the advice of counsellors compelled her to yield
to the confederates a large part of their demands. On August 23 she
agreed, in return for help in the restoration of order, to concede
liberty of preaching, so long as those who assembled did not bear arms
and did not interfere with the Catholic places of worship and religious
services. Further an indemnity was promised to all who had signed the
Compromise.
The reasons which influenced her were, first the receipt, on August 12,
of the conciliatory letter from the king, to which reference has already
been made, in which he consented to a certain measure of toleration; and
secondly a sudden outburst of iconoclastic fury on the part of the
Calvinistic sectaries, which had spread with great rapidity through many
parts of the land. On August 14, at St Omer, Ypres, Courtray,
Valenciennes and Tournay, fanatical mobs entered the churches destroying
and wrecking, desecrating the altars, images, vestments and works of
art, and carrying away the sacred vessels and all that was valuable. On
August 16 and 17 the cathedral of Antwerp was entered by infuriated and
sacrilegious bands armed with axes and hammers, who made havoc and ruin
of the interior of the beautiful church. In Holland and Zeeland similar
excesses were committed. Such conduct aroused a feeling of the deepest
indignation and reprobation in the minds of all right-thinking men, and
alienated utterly those more moderate Catholics who up till now had been
in favour of moderation. Of the great nobles, who had hitherto upheld
the cause of the national liberties and privileges against the
encroachments of a foreign despotism, many now fell away. Among these
were Aremberg, Meghem and Mansfeld. Egmont hesitated. As might have been
expected, the news of the outrages, when it reached Philip's ears,
filled him with rage and grief; and he is reported to have exclaimed,
"It shall cost them dear. I swear it by the soul of my father." From
this time forward he was determined to visit with exemplary punishment
not only the rioters and the Protestant sectaries, but more especially
the great nobles on whose shoulders he laid the whole blame for the
troubles that had arisen.
He was in no hurry to act, and announced that it was his intention to go
to the Netherlands in person and enquire into the alleged grievances. So
he told his councillors and wrote to Margaret. No one seems to have
suspected his deep-laid scheme for allaying the suspicions of his
intended victims until the right moment came for laying his hands upon
them and crushing all opposition by overwhelming force. Orange alone,
who had his paid spies at Madrid, had a presage of what was coming and
took measures of precaution betimes. An intercepted letter from the
Spanish ambassador at Paris to the Regent Margaret, specifically
mentioned Orange, Egmont and Hoorn as deserving of exemplary punishment;
and on October 3 the prince arranged a meeting at Dendermonde to
consider what should be their course of action. In addition to Egmont
and Hoorn, Hoogstraeten and Lewis of Nassau were present. William and
Lewis urged that steps should be taken for preparing armed resistance
should the necessity arise. But neither Egmont nor Hoorn would consent;
they would not be guilty of any act of disloyalty to their sovereign.
The result of the meeting was a great disappointment to Orange, and this
date marked a turning-point in his life. In concert with his brothers,
John and Lewis, he began to enter into negotiations with several of the
German Protestant princes for the formation of a league for the
protection of the adherents of the reformed faith in the Netherlands.
Now for the first time he severed his nominal allegiance to the Roman
Church, and in a letter to Philip of Hesse avowed himself a Lutheran.
During these same autumn months Philip furnished his sister with
considerable sums of money for the levying of a strong mercenary force,
German and Walloon. Possessed now of a body of troops that she could
trust, Margaret in the spring of 1567 took energetic steps to suppress
all insurrectionary movements and disorders, and did not scruple to
disregard the concessions which had been wrung from her on August 23.
The confederate nobles, satisfied with her promises, had somewhat
prematurely dissolved their league; but one of the most fiery and
zealous among them, John de Marnix, lord of Thoulouse, collected at
Antwerp a body of some 2000 Calvinists and attempted to make himself
master of that city. At Austruweel he was encountered (March 13) by a
Walloon force despatched by Margaret with orders to "exterminate the
heretics." Thoulouse and almost the whole of his following perished in
the fight. In the south at the same time the conventicles were
mercilessly suppressed and the preachers driven into exile.
Margaret now felt herself strong enough to demand that the stadholders
and leading nobles should, on pain of dismissal from their posts, take
an oath "to serve the king and to act for and against whomsoever His
Majesty might order." Egmont took the oath; Hoorn, Hoogstraeten and
Brederode declined to do so and resigned their offices. Orange offered
his resignation, but Margaret was unwilling to accept it and urged him
to discuss the matter first with Egmont and Meghem. The three nobles met
accordingly at Willebroek, April 2. William used his utmost powers of
persuasion in an attempt to convince Egmont that he was courting
destruction. But in vain. He himself was not to be moved from his
decision, and the two friends, who had worked together so long in the
patriot cause, parted, never to meet again. Orange saw that he was no
longer safe in the Netherlands and, on April 22, he set out from Breda
for the residence of his brother John at Dillenburg. Here in exile he
could watch in security the progress of events, and be near at hand
should circumstances again require his intervention in the affairs of
the Netherlands.
Orange did not take this extreme step without adequate cause. At the
very time that he left the Netherlands Philip was taking leave of the
Duke of Alva, whom he was despatching at the head of a veteran force to
carry out without pity or remorse the stern duty of expelling heresy
from the provinces and punishing all those, and especially the leaders,
who had ventured to oppose the arbitrary exercise of the royal
authority. He had for some time been preparing this expedition. He still
kept up the pretence that he was coming in person to enquire into the
alleged grievances, but he never had the slightest intention of quitting
Madrid. Alva sailed from Cartagena (April 27) for Genoa, and proceeded
at once to draw together from the various Spanish garrisons in Italy a
picked body of some 12,000 men. With these he set out in June for his
long march across the Alps and through Burgundy, Lorraine and Luxemburg.
His progress, jealously watched by the French and Swiss, met with no
opposition save for the difficulties of the route. He entered the
Netherlands on August 8, with his army intact. A number of notables,
amongst whom was Egmont, came to meet him on his way to Brussels. He
received them, more particularly Egmont, with every appearance of
graciousness. Alva as yet bore only the title of Captain-General, but
the king had bestowed on him full powers civil and military; and the
Duchess of Parma, though still nominally regent, found herself reduced
to a nonentity. Alva's first step was to place strong Spanish garrisons
in the principal cities, his next to get the leaders who had been marked
for destruction into his power. To effect this he succeeded by fair and
flattering words in securing the presence of both Egmont and Hoorn at
Brussels. Under the pretence of taking part in a consultation they were
(September 9) invited to the duke's residence and on their arrival
suddenly found themselves arrested. At the same time their secretaries
and papers were seized, and Antony van Stralen, the burgomaster of
Antwerp, was placed under arrest. These high-handed actions were the
prelude to a reign of terror; and Margaret, already humiliated by
finding herself superseded, requested her brother to accept her
resignation. On October 6 the office of Governor-General was conferred
upon Alva; and shortly afterwards the duchess left the Netherlands and
returned to Parma.
Alva had now the reins of power in his hand, and with a relentless zeal
and cold-blooded ferocity, which have made his name a by-word, he set
about the accomplishment of the fell task with which his master had
entrusted him. He had to enforce with drastic rigour all the penalties
decreed by the placards against heretics and preachers, and to deal
summarily with all who had taken any part in opposition to the
government. But to attempt to do this by means of the ordinary courts
and magistrates would consume time and lead to many acquittals. Alva
therefore had no sooner thrown off the mask by the sudden and skilfully
planned arrest of Egmont and Hoorn, than he proceeded to erect an
extraordinary tribunal, which had no legal standing except such as the
arbitrary will of the duke conferred upon it. This so-called Council of
Troubles, which speedily acquired in popular usage the name of the
Council of Blood, virtually consisted of Alva himself, who was president
and to whose final decision all cases were referred, and two Spanish
lawyers, his chosen tools and agents, Juan de Vargas and Louis del
Rio. The two royalist nobles, Noircarmes and Barlaymont, and five
Netherland jurists also had seats; but, as only the Spaniards voted, the
others before long ceased to attend the meetings. The proceedings indeed
were, from the legal point of view, a mere travesty of justice. A whole
army of commissioners was let loose upon the land, and informers were
encouraged and rewarded. Multitudes of accused were hauled before the
tribunal and were condemned by batches almost without the form of a
trial. For long hours day by day Vargas and del Rio revelled in their
work of butchery; and in all parts of the Netherlands the executioners
were busy. It was of no use for the accused to appeal to the charters
and privileges of their provinces. All alike were summoned to Brussels;
_non curamus privilegios vestros_ declared Vargas in his ungrammatical
Latin. Hand in hand with the wholesale sentences of death went the
confiscation of property. Vast sums went into the treasury. The whole
land for awhile was terror-stricken. All organised opposition was
crushed, and no one dared to raise his voice in protest.
The Prince of Orange was summoned to appear in person before the council
within six weeks, under pain of perpetual banishment and confiscation of
his estates. He refused to come, and energetically denied that the
council had any jurisdiction over him. The same sentence was passed upon
all the other leaders who had placed themselves out of reach of Alva's
arm--Sainte Aldegonde, Hoogstraeten, Culemburg, Montigny, Lewis of
Nassau and others. Unable to lay hands upon the prince himself, the
governor-general took dastardly advantage of William's indiscretion in
leaving his eldest son at Louvain to pursue his studies at the
university. At the beginning of 1568 Philip William, Count of Buren in
right of his mother, was seized and sent to Madrid to be brought up at
the court of Philip to hate the cause to which his father henceforth
devoted his life. Already indeed, before the abduction of his son,
Orange from his safe retreat at Dillenburg had been exerting himself to
raise troops for the invasion of the Netherlands. He still professed
loyalty to the king and declared that in the king's name he wished to
restore to the provinces those liberties and privileges which Philip
himself had sworn that he would maintain. The difficulty was to find the
large sum of money required for such an enterprise, and it was only by
extraordinary efforts that a sufficient amount was obtained. Part of
the money was collected in Antwerp and various towns of Holland and
Zeeland, the rest subscribed by individuals. John of Nassau pledged his
estates, Orange sold his plate and jewels, and finally a war-chest of
200,000 florins was gathered together. It was proposed to attack the
Netherlands from three directions. From the north Lewis of Nassau was to
lead an army from the Ems into Friesland; Hoogstraeten on the east to
effect an entrance by way of Maestricht; while another force of
Huguenots and refugees in the south was to march into Artois. It was an
almost desperate scheme in the face of veteran troops in a central
position under such a tried commander as Alva. The last-named French
force and that under Hoogstraeten were easily defeated and scattered by
Spanish detachments sent to meet them. Lewis of Nassau was at first more
successful. Entering Groningen at the head of eight or nine thousand
undisciplined troops he was attacked, May 23, in a strong position
behind a morass by a Spanish force under the Count of Aremberg,
Stadholder of Friesland, at Heiligerlee. He gained a complete victory.
Aremberg himself was slain, as was also the younger brother of Lewis,
Adolphus of Nassau. The triumph of the invaders was of short duration.
Alva himself took in hand the task of dealing with the rebels. At the
head of 15,000 troops he drove before him the levies of Nassau to
Jemmingen on the estuary of the Ems, and here with the loss of only
seven men he completely annihilated them. Lewis himself and a few others
alone escaped by throwing themselves into the water and swimming for
their lives.
The action at Heiligerlee, by compelling the governor-general to take
the field, had hastened the fate of Egmont and Hoorn. After their arrest
the two noblemen were kept in solitary confinement in the citadel of
Ghent for several months, while the long list of charges against them
was being examined by the Council of Troubles--in other words by Vargas
and del Rio. These charges they angrily denied; and great efforts were
made on their behalf by the wife of Egmont and the dowager Countess of
Hoorn. Appeals were made to the governor-general and to Philip himself,
either for pardon on the ground of services rendered to the State, or at
least for a trial, as Knights of the Golden Fleece, before the Court of
the Order. The Emperor Maximilian himself pleaded with Philip for
clemency, but without avail. Their doom had been settled in advance, and
the king was inflexible. Alva accordingly determined that they should
be executed before he left Brussels for his campaign in the north. On
June 2, the council, after refusing to hear any further evidence in the
prisoners' favour, pronounced them guilty of high treason; and Alva at
once signed the sentences of death. Egmont and Hoorn the next day were
brought by a strong detachment of troops from Ghent to Brussels and were
confined in a building opposite the town hall, known as the Broodhuis.
On June 5, their heads were struck off upon a scaffold erected in the
great square before their place of confinement. Both of them met their
death with the utmost calmness and courage. The effect of this momentous
stroke of vengeance upon these two patriot leaders, both of them good
Catholics, who had always professed loyalty to their sovereign, and one
of whom, Egmont, had performed distinguished services for his country
and king, was profound. A wave of mingled rage and sorrow swept over the
land. It was not only an act of cruel injustice, but even as an act of
policy a blunder of the first magnitude, which was sure to bring, as it
did bring, retribution in its train.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS
The complete failure of the expeditions of Hoogstraeten and of Lewis of
Nassau was a great discouragement to the Prince of Orange. Nevertheless
after receiving the news of Jemmingen he wrote to his brother, "With
God's help I am determined to go on." By great exertions he succeeded in
gathering together a heterogeneous force of German and Walloon
mercenaries numbering about 18,000 men, and with these in the beginning
of October he crossed the frontier. But to maintain such a force in the
field required far larger financial resources than William had at his
disposal. Alva was aware of this, and, as the prince made his way into
Brabant, he followed his steps with a small body of veteran troops,
cutting off supplies and stragglers, but declining battle. The
mercenaries, debarred from plunder and in arrears of pay, could not be
kept together more than a few weeks. In November Orange withdrew into
France and disbanded the remnants of his army. In disguise he managed to
escape with some difficulty through France to Dillenburg. His brothers,
Lewis and Henry, joined the Huguenot army under Coligny and took part in
the battles of Moncontour and Jarnac.
Alva was now apparently supreme in the Netherlands; and crowds of
refugees fled the country to escape the wholesale persecutions of the
Council of Blood. Alva however, like his predecessor and indeed like all
Spanish governors engaged in carrying out the policy of Philip II, was
always hampered by lack of funds. The Spanish treasury was empty. The
governor-general's troops no less than those of Orange clamoured for
their regular pay, and it was necessary to find means to satisfy them.
The taxes voted for nine years in 1559 had come to an end. New taxes
could only be imposed with the assent of the States-General. Alva,
however, after his victory at Jemmingen and the dispersion of the army
of Orange, felt himself strong enough to summon the States-General and
demand their assent to the scheme of taxation which he proposed. The
governor-general asked for (1) a tax of five per cent., the "twentieth
penny," on all transfers of real estate, (2) a tax of ten per cent., the
"tenth penny," on all sales of commodities. These taxes, which were an
attempt to introduce into the Netherlands the system known in Castile as
_alcabala_, were to be granted in perpetuity, thus, as the duke hoped,
obviating the necessity of having again to summon the States-General. In
addition to these annual taxes he proposed a payment once for all of one
per cent., "the hundredth penny," on all property, real or personal.
Such a demand was contrary to all precedent in the Netherlands and an
infringement of time-honoured charters and privileges; and even the
terror, which Alva's iron-handed tyranny had inspired, did not prevent
his meeting with strong opposition. The proposals had to be referred to
the provincial estates, and everywhere difficulties were raised. All
classes were united in resistance. Petitions came pouring in protesting
against impositions which threatened to ruin the trade and industries of
the country. Alva found it impossible to proceed.
The "hundredth penny" was voted, but instead of the other taxes, which
were to provide a steady annual income, he had to content himself with a
fixed payment of 2,000,000 guilders for two years only. The imposition
of these taxes on the model of the _alcabala_ had been part of a scheme
for sweeping away all the provincial jurisdictions and rights and
forming the whole of the Netherlands into a unified state, as
subservient to despotic rule as was Castile itself. A greater
centralisation of government had been the constant policy of the
Burgundian and Habsburg rulers since the time of Philip the Good, a
policy to be commended if carried out in a statesmanlike and moderate
spirit without any sudden or violent infringement of traditional
liberties. The aim of Philip of Spain as it was interpreted by his
chosen instrument, the Duke of Alva, was far more drastic. With Alva and
his master all restrictions upon the absolute authority of the sovereign
were obstacles to be swept remorselessly out of the way; civil and
religious liberty in their eyes deserved no better fate than to be
suppressed by force. Alva's experience was that of many would-be tyrants
before and since his day, that the successful application of force is
limited by the power of the purse. His exchequer was empty. Philip was
himself in financial difficulties and could spare him no money from
Spain. The refusal of the provincial estates of the Netherlands to
sanction his scheme of taxation deprived him of the means for imposing
his will upon them. His reign of terror had produced throughout the land
a superficial appearance of peace. There were at the beginning of 1570
no open disturbances or insurrectionary movements to be crushed, but the
people were seething with discontent, and the feeling of hatred aroused
by the presence of the Spanish Inquisition and the foreign soldiery and
by the proceedings of the Council of Blood was, day by day, becoming
deeper and more embittered.
This condition of affairs was duly reported to the king at Madrid; and
there was no lack of councillors at his side who were unfriendly to Alva
and eager to make the most of the complaints against him. Among these
enemies was Ruy Gomez, the king's private secretary, who recommended a
policy of leniency, as did Granvelle, who was now at Naples. Philip
never had any scruples about throwing over his agents, and he announced
his intention of proclaiming an amnesty on the occasion when Anne of
Austria, his intended bride and fourth wife, set sail from Antwerp for
Spain. The proclamation was actually made at Antwerp by the
governor-general in person, July 16, 1570. It was a limited declaration
of clemency, for six classes of offenders were excepted, and it only
extended to those who within two months made their peace with the
Catholic Church and abjured the Reformed doctrines.
During the years 1570-71 there were however few outward signs of the
gradual undermining of Alva's authority. There was sullen resentment and
discontent throughout the land, but no attempt at overt resistance. The
iron hand of the governor-general did not relax its firm grasp of the
reins of power, and the fear of his implacable vengeance filled men's
hearts. He ruled by force, not by love; and those who refused to submit
had either to fly the country or to perish by the hands of the
executioner. Nevertheless during these sad years the Prince of Orange
and Lewis of Nassau, in spite of the apparent hopelessness of the
situation, were unremitting in their efforts to raise fresh forces.
William at Dillenburg exerted himself to the uttermost to obtain
assistance from the Protestant princes of the Rhineland. With the
Calvinists he was, however, as yet strongly suspect. He himself was held
to be a lukewarm convert from Catholicism to the doctrines of Augsburg;
and his wife was the daughter and heiress of Maurice of Saxony, the
champion of Lutheranism. William's repudiation of Anne of Saxony for her
repeated infidelities (March, 1571) severed this Lutheran alliance.
The unfortunate Anne, after six years' imprisonment, died insane in
1577. At the same time the closest relations of confidence and
friendship sprang up between Orange and the well-known Calvinist writer
and leader, Philip de Marnix, lord of Sainte Aldegonde. This connection
with Sainte Aldegonde ensured for William the support of the Calvinists;
and secret agents of the prince were soon busily at work in the
different parts of the provinces promising armed assistance and
collecting levies for the raising of an invading force. Foremost among
these active helpers were Jacob van Wesenbeke, Diedrich Sonoy and Paul
Buys; and the chief scene of their operations were the provinces of
Holland and Zeeland, already distinguished for their zeal in the cause
of freedom. The amount of cash that was raised was, however, for some
time very small. There was goodwill in plenty, but the utter failure of
the prince's earlier efforts had made people despair.
These earlier efforts had indeed, on land, been disastrous, but they
had not been confined entirely to land operations. Orange, in his
capacity as a sovereign prince, had given _letters of marque_ to a
number of vessels under the command of the lord of Dolhain. These
vessels were simply corsairs and they were manned by fierce fanatical
sectaries, desperadoes inflamed at once by bitter hatred of the papists
and by the hope of plunder. These "Beggars of the Sea" (_Gueux de mer_),
as they were called, rapidly increased in number and soon made
themselves a terror in the narrow seas by their deeds of reckless daring
and cruelty. William tried in vain to restrain excesses which brought
him little profit and no small discredit. It was to no purpose that he
associated the lord of Lumbres in the chief command with Dolhain. Their
subordinates, William de Blois, lord of Treslong, and William de la
Marck, lord of Lumey, were bold, unscrupulous adventurers who found it
to their interest to allow their unruly crews to burn and pillage, as
they lusted, not only their enemies' ships in the open sea, but churches
and monasteries along the coast and up the estuaries that they infested.
The difficulty was to find harbours in which they could take refuge and
dispose of their booty. For some time they were permitted to use the
English ports freely, and the Huguenot stronghold at La Rochelle was
also open to them as a market. Queen Elizabeth, as was her wont, had no
scruple in conniving at acts of piracy to the injury of the Spaniard;
but at last, at the beginning of 1572, in consequence of strong
representations from Madrid, she judged it politic to issue an order
forbidding the Sea-Beggars to enter any English harbours. The pirates,
thus deprived of the shelter which had made their depredations possible,
would have been speedily in very bad case, but for an unexpected and
surprising stroke of good fortune. It chanced that a large number of
vessels under Lumbres and Treslong were driven by stress of weather into
the estuary of the Maas; and finding that the Spanish garrison of Brill
had left the town upon a punitive expedition, the rovers landed and
effected an entry by burning one of the gates. The place was seized and
pillaged, and the marauders were on the point of returning with their
spoil to their ships, when at the suggestion of Treslong it was
determined to place a garrison in the town and hold it as a harbour of
refuge in the name of the Prince of Orange, as Stadholder of Holland. On
April 1, 1572, the prince's flag was hoisted over Brill, and the
foundation stone was laid of the future Dutch republic.
William himself at first did not realise the importance of this capture,
and did not take any steps to express his active approval; but it was
otherwise with his brother Lewis, who was at the time using his utmost
endeavours to secure if not the actual help, at least the connivance, of
Charles IX to his conducting an expedition from France into the
Netherlands. Lewis saw at once the great advantage to the cause of the
possession of a port like Brill, and he urged the Beggars to try and
gain possession of Flushing also, before Alva's orders for the
strengthening of the garrison and the defences had been carried out.
Flushing by its position commanded the approach by water to Antwerp.
When the ships of Lumbres and Treslong appeared before the town, the
inhabitants rose in revolt, over-powered the garrison, and opened the
gates. This striking success, following upon the taking of Brill,
aroused great enthusiasm. The rebels had now a firm foothold both in
Holland and Zeeland, and their numbers grew rapidly from day to day.
Soon the whole of the island of Walcheren, on which Flushing stands, was
in their hands with the exception of the capital Middelburg; and in
Holland several important towns hoisted the flag of revolt and
acknowledged the Prince of Orange as their lawful Stadholder. From
Holland the rebellion spread into Friesland. Finally on June 19 an
assembly of the Estates of Holland was, at the instance of Dordrecht,
convened to meet in that town. There was but one representative of the
nobility present at this meeting, whose legality was more than doubtful,
but it included deputies of no less than twelve out of the fourteen
towns which were members of the Estates. The prince sent Ste Aldegonde
as his plenipotentiary. The step taken was practically an act of
insurrection against the king. William had resigned his stadholdership
in 1568 and had afterwards been declared an outlaw. Bossu had been by
royal authority appointed to the vacant office. The Estates now formally
recognised the prince as Stadholder of the king in Holland, Zeeland,
West Friesland and Utrecht; and he was further invested with the supreme
command of the forces both by land and sea and was charged with the duty
of protecting the country against foreign oppression or invasion by
foreign troops. Ste Aldegonde in the name of the prince announced his
acceptance of the posts that had been conferred on him and declared that
he desired, as a condition of such acceptance, that the principle of
religious freedom and liberty of worship should be conceded to
Catholics and Protestants alike. To this the Estates assented. Orange
took an oath to maintain the towns in the rights and privileges of which
they had been deprived by Alva and not to enter into any negotiations or
conclude any treaty with Spain without their consent. The Court of
Holland for the administration of justice was reconstituted and a
Chamber of Finance erected. The question of finance was indeed crucial,
for the new stadholder asked for a subsidy of 100,000 crowns a month for
the support of the army he had raised for the invasion of Brabant; and
the Estates agreed to take measures for appropriating certain taxes for
the purpose, an undertaking which had, however, in this time of present
distress small likelihood of effectual result.
The course of events indeed in the months which followed this historic
gathering at Dordrecht was not encouraging to those who had thus dared
somewhat prematurely to brave the wrath of Philip and the vengeance of
Alva. Lewis of Nassau had for some time been engaged in raising a
Huguenot force for the invasion of the southern Netherlands. The news of
the capture of Brill and Flushing stirred him to sudden action. He had
collected only a small body of men, but, with characteristic impetuosity
he now led these across the frontier, and, before Alva was aware of his
presence in Hainault, had captured by surprise Valenciennes and Mons
(May 24). It was a rash move, for no sooner did the news reach the
governor-general than he sent his son, Don Frederick of Toledo, at the
head of a powerful force to expel the invader. Don Frederick quickly
made himself master of Valenciennes and then proceeded (June 3) to lay
siege to Mons, where Lewis, in hopes that relief would reach him,
prepared for an obstinate defence. These hopes were not without
foundation, for he knew that, beyond the Rhine, Orange with a
considerable army was on the point of entering the Netherlands from the
east, and that the Huguenot leader, Genlis, was leading another force
from France to his succour. William at the head of 20,000 German and
3000 Walloon mercenaries actually entered Gelderland (July 7), captured
Roeremonde and then marched into Brabant. Here (July 19) the news
reached him of the complete defeat and annihilation of the raw levies of
Genlis by Toledo's veteran troops. Hampered by lack of funds William
now, as throughout his life, showed himself to be lacking in the higher
qualities of military leadership. With an ill-paid mercenary force time
was a factor of primary importance, nevertheless the prince made no
effort to move from his encampment near Roeremonde for some five weeks.
Meanwhile his troops got out of hand and committed many excesses, and
when, on August 27, he set out once more to march westwards, he found to
his disappointment that there was no popular rising in his favour.
Louvain and Brussels shut their gates, and though Mechlin, Termonde and
a few other places surrendered, the prince saw only too plainly that his
advance into Flanders would not bring about the relief of Mons. All his
plans had gone awry. Alva could not be induced to withdraw any portion
of the army that was closely blockading Mons, but contented himself in
following Orange with a force under his own command while avoiding a
general action. And then like a thunderclap, September 5, the news of
the massacre of St Bartholomew was brought to the prince, and he knew
that the promise of Coligny to conduct 12,000 arquebusiers to the
succour of Lewis could not be redeemed. In this emergency William saw
that he must himself endeavour to raise the siege. He accordingly
marched from Flanders and, September 11, encamped at the village of
Harmignies, a short distance from Mons. In the night six hundred
Spaniards, each of whom to prevent mistakes wore a white shirt over his
armour, surprised the camp. The prince himself was awakened by a little
dog that slept in his tent and only narrowly escaped with his life,
several hundred of his troops being slain by the _Camisaders_. He was
now thoroughly discouraged and on the following day retreated first to
Mechlin, then to Roeremonde, where on September 30 the ill-fated
expedition was disbanded. The retirement from Harmignies decided the
fate of Mons. Favourable conditions were granted and Lewis of Nassau,
who was ill with fever, met with chivalrous treatment and was allowed to
return to Dillenburg.
William now found himself faced with something like financial ruin.
Mercenary armies are very costly, and by bitter experience he had learnt
the futility of opposing a half-hearted and badly disciplined force to
the veteran troops of Alva. He resolved therefore to go in person to
Holland to organise and direct the strong movement of revolt, which had
found expression in the meeting of the Estates at Dordrecht. His agents
had long been busy going about from town to town collecting funds in the
name of the prince and encouraging the people in their resistance to the
Inquisition and to foreign tyranny. William's declaration that
henceforth he intended to live and die in their midst and to devote
himself with all his powers to the defence of the rights and liberties
of the land met with willing and vigorous support throughout the greater
part of Holland, West Friesland and Zeeland; and contributions for the
supply of the necessary ways and means began to flow in. It was,
however, a desperate struggle to which he had pledged himself, and to
which he was to consecrate without flinching the rest of his life. If,
however, the prince's resolve was firm, no less so was that of Alva.
Alva had his enemies at the Spanish court, always ready to excite
distrust against the duke in the mind of the suspicious king. In July,
1572, the Duke of Medina-Coeli had been sent from Spain to enquire into
the state of affairs in the Netherlands; probably it was intended that
he should take over the administration and supersede the
governor-general. On his arrival, however, Medina-Coeli quickly saw that
the difficulties of the situation required a stronger hand than his, and
he did not attempt to interfere with Alva's continued exercise of
supreme authority. The governor-general, on his side, knew well what was
the meaning of this mission of Medina-Coeli, and no sooner was the army
of Orange dispersed than he determined, while the reins of power were
still in his hands, to visit the rebellious towns of the north with
condign vengeance.
At the head of a powerful force, Frederick of Toledo marched northwards.
Mechlin, which had received Orange, was given over for three days to
pillage and outrage. Then Zutphen was taken and sacked. Naarden, which
had, though without regular defences, dared to resist the Spaniards, was
utterly destroyed and the entire population massacred. Amsterdam, one of
the few towns of Holland which had remained loyal to the king, served as
a basis for further operations. Although it was already December and the
season was unfavourable, Toledo now determined to lay siege to the
important town of Haarlem. Haarlem was difficult of approach. It was
protected on two sides by broad sheets of shallow water, the Haarlem
lake and the estuary of the Y, divided from one another by a narrow neck
of land. On another side was a thick wood. It was garrisoned by 4000
men, stern Calvinists, under the resolute leadership of Ripperda and
Lancelot Brederode. An attempt to storm the place (December 21) was
beaten off with heavy loss to the assailants; so Toledo, despite the
inclemency of the weather, had to invest the city. Another desperate
assault, January 31, disastrously failed, and the siege was turned into
a blockade. The position, however, of the besiegers was in some respects
worse than that of the besieged; and Toledo would have abandoned his
task in despair had not his father ordered him at all costs to proceed.
William meanwhile made several efforts to relieve the town. Bodies of
skaters in the winter, and when the ice disappeared, numbers of boats
crossed over the Haarlem lake from Leyden and managed to carry supplies
of food into the town, and resistance might have been indefinitely
prolonged had not Bossu put a stop to all intercourse between Haarlem
and the outside world by convoying a flotilla of armed vessels from the
Y into the lake. Surrender was now only a question of time. On July
11,1573, after a relieving force of 4000 men, sent by Orange, had been
utterly defeated, and the inhabitants were perishing by famine, Toledo
gained possession of Haarlem. The survivors of the heroic garrison were
all butchered, and Ripperda and Brederode, their gallant leaders,
executed. A number of the leading citizens were likewise put to death,
but the town was spared from pillage on condition of paying a heavy
fine. The siege had lasted seven months, and the army of Toledo, which
had suffered terribly during the winter, is said to have lost twelve
thousand men.
Alva in his letters to the king laid great stress on the clemency with
which he had treated Haarlem. It had been spared the wholesale
destruction of Zutphen and Naarden, and the duke hoped that by this
exhibition of comparative leniency he might induce the other rebel towns
to open their gates without opposition. He was deceived. On July 18
Alkmaar was summoned to surrender, but refused. Alva's indignation knew
no bounds, and he vowed that every man, woman and child in the
contumacious town should be put to the sword. The threat, however, could
not at once be executed. Toledo's army, debarred from the sack of
Haarlem, became mutinous through lack of pay. Until they received the
arrears due to them, they refused to stir. Not till August 21 was Don
Frederick able to invest Alkmaar with a force of 16,000 men. The
garrison consisted of some 1300 burghers with 800 troops thrown into the
town by Sonoy, Orange's lieutenant in North Holland. Two desperate
assaults were repulsed with heavy loss, and then the Spaniards proceeded
to blockade the town. Sonoy now, by the orders of the prince, gained the
consent of the cultivators of the surrounding district to the cutting of
the dykes. The camps and trenches of the besiegers were flooded out; and
(October 8) the siege was raised and the army of Don Frederick retired,
leaving Alkmaar untaken. Within a week another disaster befell the
Spanish arms. Between Hoorn and Enkhuizen the fleet of Bossu on the
Zuyder Zee was attacked by the Sea-Beggars and was completely defeated.
Bossu himself was taken prisoner and was held as a hostage for the
safety of Ste Aldegonde, who fell into the hands of the Spaniards about
month later.
This naval victory, following upon the retreat from Alkmaar,
strengthened greatly the efforts of Orange and gave fresh life to the
patriot cause. It likewise marked the end of the six years of Alva's
blood-stained rule in the Netherlands. Weary and disappointed, always
hampered by lack of funds, angry at the loss of the king's confidence
and chafing at the evidence of it in the presence of Medina-Coeli at his
side, the governor-general begged that he might be relieved of his
functions. His request was granted, October 29. The chosen successor was
the Grand Commander, Don Luis de Requesens, governor of Milan. It was
only with much reluctance that Requesens, finding the king's command
insistent and peremptory, accepted the charge.
The Grand Commander was indeed far from being a suitable man for dealing
with the difficult situation in the Netherlands, for he was a Spanish
grandee pure and simple and did not even speak French. Even the
loyalists received him coolly. He knew nothing of the country, and
whatever his ability or disposition it was felt that he would not be
allowed a free hand in his policy or adequate means for carrying it out.
That his temper was conciliatory was quickly shown. An amnesty was
proclaimed for political offenders except three hundred persons (among
these Orange and his principal adherents), and pardon to all heretics
who abjured their errors. He went even further than this by entering
into a secret exchange of views with William himself through Ste
Aldegonde as an intermediary, in the hope of finding some common
meeting-ground for an understanding. But the prince was immovable.
Unless freedom of worship, the upholding of all ancient charters and
liberties and the removal of Spaniards and all foreigners from any share
in the government or administration of the land were granted, resistance
would be continued to the last. These were conditions Requesens had no
power even to consider.
Orange during this time was on his side using all his diplomatic ability
to gain help for the oppressed Netherlanders from France and England.
But Charles IX had his own difficulties and was in too feeble health (he
died May, 1574) to take any decided step, and Queen Elizabeth, though
she connived at assistance being given to the rebel cause on strictly
commercial terms, was not willing either to show open hostility to
Philip or to support subjects in revolt against their sovereign.
William's position appeared well-nigh desperate, for at the opening of
the year 1574 his authority was only recognised in a few of the towns of
Holland and in some of the Zeeland islands, and the Spaniards had sent a
large force to invest Leyden. He had, however, made up his mind to cast
in his lot with the brave Hollanders and Zeelanders in their gallant
struggle against overwhelming odds. To identify himself more completely
with his followers, the prince, October, 1573, openly announced his
adhesion to Calvinism. There are no grounds for doubting his sincerity
in taking this step; it was not an act of pure opportunism. His early
Catholicism had probably been little more than an outward profession,
and as soon as he began to think seriously about religious questions,
his natural bent had led him first to the Lutheran faith of his family,
and then to the sterner doctrines, which had gained so firm a foothold
in the towns of Holland and Zeeland. Nevertheless William, though
henceforth a consistent Calvinist, was remarkable among his
contemporaries for the principles of religious toleration he both
inculcated and practised. He was constitutionally averse to religious
persecution in any form, and by the zealots of his party he was
denounced as lukewarm; but throughout his life he upheld the right of
the individual, who was peaceful and law-abiding, to liberty of opinion
and freedom of worship.
The year 1574 opened favourably. By a remarkable feat of arms the
veteran Spanish commander Mondragon had, October, 1572, reconquered
several of the Zeeland islands. His men on one occasion at ebb-tide
marched across the channel which lies between South Beveland and the
mainland, the water reaching up to their necks. The patriot forces had
since then recovered much of the lost ground, but Middelburg was
strongly held, and so long as the Spaniards had command of the sea, was
the key to the possession of Zeeland. On January 29, 1574, the
Sea-Beggars under Boisot attacked the Spanish fleet near Roemerswaal and
after a bloody encounter gained a complete victory. The siege of
Middelburg was now pressed and Mondragon surrendered, February 18. The
prince at once set to work to create a patriot government in the
province. Four towns had representatives, Middelburg, Zierikzee, Veere
and Flushing. William himself acquired by purchase the marquisate of
Flushing and thus was able to exercise a preponderating influence in the
Provincial Estates, all of whose members were required to be Calvinists
and supporters of the rebel cause.
The investment of Leyden by the Spaniards threatened however, now
that Haarlem had fallen, to isolate South Holland and Zeeland; and
William did not feel himself strong enough to make any serious attempt
to raise the siege. Lewis of Nassau therefore, with the help of French
money, set himself to work with his usual enthusiastic energy to
collect a force in the Rhineland with which to invade the Netherlands
from the east and effect a diversion. At the head of 7000 foot and
3000 horse--half-disciplined troops, partly Huguenot volunteers,
partly German mercenaries--he tried to cross the Meuse above Maestricht
with the intention of effecting a junction with the Prince of Orange.
He was accompanied by John and Henry of Nassau, his brothers, and
Christopher, son of the Elector Palatine. He found his course blocked
by a Spanish force under the command of Sancho d'Avila and Mondragon.
The encounter took place on the heath of Mook (April 14) and ended in
the crushing defeat of the invaders. Lewis and his young brother,
Henry, and Duke Christopher perished, and their army was completely
scattered. The death of his brothers was a great grief to William.
Lewis had for years been his chief support, and the loss of this
dauntless champion was indeed a heavy blow to the cause for which he
had sacrificed his life. He was only thirty-six years of age, while
Henry, the youngest of the Nassaus, to whom the Prince was deeply
attached, was but a youth of twenty-four.
The invasion of Lewis had nevertheless the result of raising the siege
of Leyden; but only for a time. After the victory at Mook the Spanish
troops were free to continue the task of reconquering rebel Holland for
the king. On May 26 a strong force under Valdez advanced to Leyden and
completely isolated the town by surrounding it with a girdle of forts.
The attack came suddenly, and unfortunately the place had not been
adequately provisioned. So strong was the position of the Spaniards that
the stadholder did not feel that any relieving force that he could send
would have any chance of breaking through the investing lines and
revictualling the garrison. In these circumstances he summoned, June 1,
a meeting of the Estates of Holland at Rotterdam and proposed, as a
desperate resource, that the dykes should be cut and the land submerged,
and that the light vessels of the Sea-Beggars under Boisot should sail
over the waters, attack the Spanish forts and force an entrance into the
town. After considerable opposition the proposal was agreed to and the
waters were allowed to flow out upon the low-lying fields, villages and
farms, which lie between the sea, the Rhine, the Waal and the Maas.
Unfortunately the season was not favourable, and though the water
reached nearly to the higher land round Leyden on which the Spanish
redoubts were erected, and by alarming Valdez caused him to press the
blockade more closely, it was not deep enough even for the light-draught
vessels, which Boisot had gathered together, to make their way to the
town. So the month of August passed and September began. Meanwhile the
prince, who was the soul of the enterprise, was confined to his sick-bed
by a violent attack of fever, and the pangs of famine began to be
cruelly felt within the beleaguered town. A portion of the citizens were
half-hearted in the struggle, and began to agitate for surrender and
even sent out emissaries to try to make terms with the Spanish
commander. But there were within Leyden leaders of iron resolution, the
heroic Burgomaster Pieter Adriaanzoon van der Werf; the commandant of
the garrison, Jan van der Does; Dirk van Bronkhorst, Jan van Hout and
many others who remained staunch and true in face of the appalling agony
of a starving population; men who knew the fate in store for them if
they fell into the enemy's hands and were determined to resist as long
as they had strength to fight. At last in mid-September faint hopes
began to dawn. William recovered, and a fierce equinoctial gale driving
the flood-tide up the rivers gradually deepened the waters up to the
very dyke on which the entrenchments of the besiegers stood. Urged on by
Orange, Boisot now made a great effort. Anxiously from the towers was
the approach of the relieving fleet watched. The town was at the very
last extremity. The people were dying of hunger on every side. Some
fierce combats took place as soon as the Sea-Beggars, experts at this
amphibious warfare, arrived at the outlying Spanish forts, but not for
long. Alarmed at the rising of the waters and fearing that the fleet of
Boisot might cut off their escape, the Spaniards retreated in the night;
and on the morning of October 3 the vessels of the relieving force,
laden with provisions, entered the town. The long-drawn-out agony was
over and Leyden saved from the fate of Haarlem, just at the moment when
further resistance had become impossible. Had Leyden fallen the
probability is that the whole of South Holland would have been
conquered, and the revolt might have collapsed. In such a narrow escape
well might the people of the town see an intervention of Providence on
their behalf. The prince himself hastened to Leyden on the following
day, reorganised the government of the town and in commemoration of this
great deliverance founded the University, which was to become in the
17th century one of the most famous seats of learning in Europe.
The successful relief of Leyden was followed by a mutiny of the army of
Valdez. They were owed long arrears of pay, had endured great hardships,
and now that they saw themselves deprived of the hope of the pillage
of the town, they put their commander and his officers under arrest and
marched under a leader elected by themselves into Utrecht. Other
mutinies occurred in various parts of the southern provinces, for
Requesens had no funds, and it was useless to appeal to Philip, for the
Spanish treasury was empty. This state of things led to a practical
cessation of active hostilities for many months; and Requesens seized
the opportunity to open negotiations with Orange. These were, however,
doomed to be fruitless, for the king would not hear of any real
concessions being made to the Protestants. The position of William was
equally beset with difficulties, politically and financially. In the
month following the relief of Leyden he even threatened to withdraw from
the country unless his authority were more fully recognised and adequate
supplies were furnished for the conduct of the war. The Estates
accordingly, November 12, asked him to assume the title of Regent or
Governor, with "absolute might, authority and sovereign control" of the
affairs of the country. They also voted him an allowance of 49,000
guilders a month; but, while thus conferring on the man who still
claimed to be the "Stadholder of the king" practically supreme power,
the burgher-corporations of the towns were very jealous of surrendering
in the smallest degree that control over taxation which was one of their
most valued rights. The exercise of authority, however, by the prince
from this time forward was very great, for he had complete control in
military and naval matters, and in the general conduct of affairs he
held all the administrative threads in his own hands. He had become
indispensable, and in everything but name a sovereign in Holland and
Zeeland.
The first part of 1575 was marked by a lull in warlike operations, and
conferences were held at Breda between envoys of Orange and Requesens,
only to find that there was no common ground of agreement. The marriage
of the prince (June 24) with Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke
of Montpensier, was a daring step which aroused much prejudice against
him. The bride, who was of the blood-royal of France, had been Abbess of
Jouarre, but had abjured her vows, run away and become a Calvinist. This
was bad enough, but the legality of the union was rendered the more
questionable by the fact that Anne of Saxony was still alive. On all
sides came protests--from Charlotte's father, from John of Nassau, and
from Anne's relations in Saxony and Hesse. But William's character was
such that opposition only made him more determined to carry out his
purpose. The wedding was celebrated at Brill with Calvinist rites. The
union, whether legitimate or not, was undoubtedly one of great
happiness.
Meanwhile the governor-general, unable to obtain any financial help from
Spain, had managed to persuade the provinces, always in dread of the
excesses of the mutinous soldiery, to raise a loan of 1,200,000 guilders
to meet their demands for arrears of pay. Requesens was thus enabled to
put in the late summer a considerable army into the field and among
other successes to gain possession of the Zeeland islands, Duiveland and
Schouwen. On September 27 a force under the command of the veteran
Mondragon waded across the shallow channels dividing the islands, which
fell into their hands. Zierikzee, the chief town of Schouwen, made a
stout resistance, but had at length to surrender (July, 1576). This
conquest separated South Holland from the rest of Zeeland; and, as
Haarlem and Amsterdam were in the hands of the Spaniards, the only
territory over which the authority of Orange extended was the low-lying
corner of land between the Rhine and the Maas, of which Delft was the
centre.
The situation again appeared well-nigh desperate, and the stadholder
began to look anxiously round in the hope of obtaining foreign
assistance. It was to the interest of both France and England to assist
a movement which distracted the attention and weakened the power of
Spain. But Henry III of France was too much occupied with civil and
religious disturbances in his own country, and Elizabeth of England,
while receiving with courtesy the envoys both of Orange and Requesens,
gave evasive replies to both. She was jealous of France, and pleased to
see the growing embarrassment of her enemy Philip, but the Tudor queen
had no love either for rebels or for Calvinists. While refusing
therefore openly to take the side of the Hollanders and Zeelanders, she
agreed to give them secret help; and no obstacle was placed in the way
of the English volunteers, who had already since 1572 been enlisting in
the Dutch service. It was at this time that those English and Scottish
Brigades were first formed which remained for nearly two centuries in
that service, and were always to be found in the very forefront of the
fighting throughout the great war of Liberation.
On March 4, 1576, Requesens died; and in the considerable interval
that elapsed before the arrival of his successor, the outlook for the
patriot cause became distinctly brighter. The Estates of Holland and
Zeeland met at Delft (April 25, 1576); and the assembly was noteworthy
for the passing of an Act of Federation. This Act, which was the work of
Orange, bound the two provinces together for common action in defence of
their rights and liberties and was the first step towards that larger
union, which three years later laid the foundations of the Dutch
Republic. By this Act sovereign powers were conferred upon William; he
was in the name of the king to exercise all the prerogatives of a ruler.
It required all his influence to secure the insertion of articles (1)
extending a certain measure of toleration to all forms of religious
worship that were not contrary to the Gospel, (2) giving authority to
the prince in case of need to offer the Protectorate of the federated
provinces to a foreign prince. Orange knew only too well that Holland
and Zeeland were not strong enough alone to resist the power of Spain.
His hopes of securing the support of the other provinces, in which
Catholics were in the majority, depended, he clearly saw, on the
numerous adherents to the ancient faith in Holland and Zeeland being
protected against the persecuting zeal of the dominant Calvinism of
those provinces. In any case--and this continued to be his settled
conviction to the end of his life--the actual independence of the whole
or any portion of the Netherlands did not seem to him to lie within the
bounds of practical politics. The object for which he strove was the
obtaining of substantial guarantees for the maintenance of the ancient
charters, which exempted the provinces from the presence of foreign
officials, foreign tribunals, foreign soldiery and arbitrary methods of
taxation. As Philip had deliberately infringed all those privileges
which he had sworn to maintain, it was the duty of all patriotic
Netherlanders to resist his authority, and, if resistance failed to
bring redress, to offer the sovereignty with the necessary restrictions
to some other prince willing to accept it on those conditions and
powerful enough to protect the provinces from Spanish attack. In order
to grasp the principles which guided William's policy during the next
few years it is essential to bear in mind (1) that he sought to bring
about a union of all the Netherland provinces on a basis of toleration,
(2) that he did not aim at the erection of the Netherlands into an
independent State.
On the death of Requesens the Council of State had assumed temporary
charge of the administration. There had for some time been growing
dissatisfaction even amongst the loyalist Catholics of the southern
provinces at the presence and over-bearing attitude of so many Spanish
officials and Spanish troops in the land and at the severity of the
religious persecution. Representations were made to the king by the
Council of State of the general discontent throughout the country, of
the deplorable results of the policy of force and repression, and urging
the withdrawal of the troops, the mitigation of the edicts, and the
appointment of a member of the royal house to the governorship. To these
representations and requests no answer was sent for months in accordance
with Philip's habitual dilatoriness in dealing with difficult affairs of
State. He did, however, actually nominate in April his bastard brother,
Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, as Requesens'
successor. But Don John, who was then in Italy, had other ambitions, and
looked with suspicion upon Philip's motives in assigning him the
thankless task of dealing with the troubles in the Low Countries.
Instead of hurrying northwards, he first betook himself to Madrid where
he met with a cold reception. Delay, however, so far from troubling
Philip, was thoroughly in accordance with the whole bent of his
character and policy. For six months Don John remained in Spain, and it
was a half-year during which the situation in the Netherlands had been
to a very large extent transformed.
The position of Orange and his followers in Holland and Zeeland in the
spring of 1576 had again darkened. In June the surrender of Zierikzee to
Mondragon was a heavy blow to the patriot cause, for it gave the
Spaniards a firm footing in the very heart of the Zeeland archipelago
and drove a wedge between South Holland and the island of Walcheren.
This conquest was, however, destined to have important results of a very
different character from what might have been expected. The town had
surrendered on favourable terms and pillage was forbidden. Baulked of
their expected booty, the Spanish troops, to whom large arrears of pay
were due, mutinied. Under their own "eletto" they marched to Aalst,
where they were joined by other mutineers, and soon a large force was
collected together, who lived by plunder and were a terror to the
country. The Council declared them to be outlaws, but the revolted
soldiery defied its authority and scoffed at its threats. This was a
moment which, as Orange was quick to perceive, was extremely favourable
for a vigorous renewal of his efforts to draw together all the provinces
to take common action in their resistance to Spanish tyranny. His agents
and envoys in all parts of the Netherlands, but especially in Flanders
and Brabant, urged his views upon the more influential members of the
provincial estates and upon leading noblemen, like the Duke of Aerschot
and other hitherto loyal supporters of the government, who were now
suspected of wavering. His efforts met with a success which a few months
earlier would have been deemed impossible. The conduct of the Spanish
troops, and the lack of any central authority to protect the inhabitants
against their insolence and depredations, had effected a great change
in public opinion. In Brussels Baron de Héze (a god-child of the prince)
had been appointed to the command of the troops in the pay of the
Estates of Brabant. De Héze exerted himself to arouse popular opinion in
the capital in favour of Orange and against the Spaniards. To such an
extent was he successful that he ventured, Sept. 21, to arrest the whole
of the Council of State with the exception of the Spanish member Roda,
who fled to Antwerp. William now entered into direct negotiations with
Aerschot and other prominent nobles of Flanders and Brabant. He took a
further step by sending, at the request of the citizens of Ghent, a
strong armed force to protect the town against the Spanish garrison in
the citadel. In the absence of any lawful government, the States-General
were summoned to meet at Brussels on September 22. Deputies from
Brabant, Flanders and Hainault alone attended, but in the name of the
States-General they nominated Aerschot, Viglius and Sasbout as
Councillors of State, and appointed Aerschot to the command of the
forces, with the Count of Lalaing as his lieutenant. They then, Sept.
27, approached the prince with proposals for forming a union of all the
provinces. As a preliminary it was agreed that the conditions, which had
been put forward by William as indispensable--namely, exclusion of all
foreigners from administrative posts, dismissal of foreign troops, and
religious toleration--should be accepted. The proposals were gladly
received by William, and Ghent was chosen as the place where nine
delegates from Holland and Zeeland should confer with nine delegates
nominated by the States-General as representing the other provinces.
They met on October 19. Difficulties arose on two points--the
recognition to be accorded to Don John of Austria, and the principle of
non-interference with religious beliefs. Orange himself had always been
an advocate of toleration, but the representatives of Holland and
Zeeland showed an obstinate disinclination to allow liberty of Catholic
worship within their borders; and this attitude of theirs might, in
spite of the prince's efforts, have led to a breaking-off of the
negotiations, had not an event occurred which speedily led to a sinking
of differences on the only possible basis, that of mutual concession and
compromise.
The citadel of Antwerp was, during this month of October, garrisoned by
a body of mutinous Spanish troops under the command of Sancho d'Avila,
the victor of Mook. Champagney, the governor, had with him a body of
German mercenaries under a certain Count Oberstein; and at his request,
such was the threatening attitude of the Spaniards, the States-General
sent Havré with a reinforcement of Walloon troops. On Sunday, November
4, the garrison, which had been joined by other bands of mutineers,
turned the guns of the citadel upon the town and sallying forth attacked
the forces of Champagney. The Germans offered but a feeble resistance.
Oberstein perished; Champagney and Havré took refuge on vessels in the
river; and the Spaniards were masters of Antwerp. The scene of massacre,
lust and wholesale pillage, which followed, left a memory behind it
unique in its horror even among the excesses of this blood-stained time.
The "Spanish Fury," as it was called, spelt the ruin of what, but a
short time before, had been the wealthiest and most flourishing
commercial city in the world.
The news of this disaster reached the States-General, as they were in
the act of considering the draft proposals which had been submitted to
them by the Ghent conference. At the same time tidings came that Don
John, who had travelled through France in disguise, had arrived at
Luxemburg. They quickly therefore came to a decision to ratify the pact,
known as the _Pacification of Ghent,_ and on November 8 it was signed.
The _Pacification_ was really a treaty between the Prince of Orange and
the Estates of Holland and Zeeland on the one hand, and the
States-General representing the other provinces. It was agreed that the
Spanish troops should be compelled to leave the Netherlands and that the
States-General of the whole seventeen provinces, as they were convened
at the abdication of Charles V, should be called together to decide upon
the question of religious toleration and other matters of national
importance. Meanwhile the placards against heresy were suspended, and
all the illegal measures and sentences of Alva declared null and void.
His confiscated property was restored to Orange, and his position, as
stadholder in Holland and Zeeland, acknowledged. Don John was informed
that he would not be recognised as governor-general unless he would
consent to dismiss the Spanish troops, accept the Pacification of Ghent,
and swear to maintain the rights and privileges of the Provinces.
Negotiations ensued, but for a long time to little purpose; and Don
John, who was rather an impetuous knight-errant than a statesman and
diplomatist, remained during the winter months at Namur, angry at his
reception and chafing at the conditions imposed upon him, which he dared
not accept without permission from the king. In December the
States-General containing deputies from all the provinces met at
Brussels, and in January the Pacification of Ghent was confirmed, and a
new compact, to which the name of the Union of Brussels was given, was
drawn up by a number of influential Catholics. This document, to which
signatures were invited, was intended to give to the Pacification of
Ghent the sanction of popular support and to be at the same time a
guarantee for the maintenance of the royal authority and the Catholic
religion. The Union of Brussels was generally approved throughout the
southern provinces, and the signatories from every class were numbered
by thousands. Don John, who was at Huy, saw that it was necessary to
temporise. He was willing, he declared, to dismiss the foreign troops
and send them out of the country and to maintain the ancient charters
and liberties of the provinces, provided that nothing was done to
subvert the king's authority or the Catholic faith. Finally, on February
12, a treaty called "The Perpetual Edict," a most inappropriate name,
was signed, and the States-General acknowledged Don John as
governor-general. The agreement was principally the work of Aerschot and
the loyalist Catholic party, who followed his leadership, and was far
from being entirely acceptable to Orange. He had no trust in the good
faith of either Philip or his representative, and, though he recommended
Holland and Zeeland to acquiesce in the treaty and acknowledge Don John
as governor-general, it was with the secret resolve to keep a close
watch upon his every action, and not to brook any attempt to interfere
with religious liberty in the two provinces, in which he exercised
almost sovereign power and with whose struggles for freedom he had
identified himself.
The undertaking of Don John with regard to the Spanish troops was
punctually kept. Before the end of April they had all left the country;
and on May 1 the new governor-general made his state entry into
Brussels. It was to outward appearances very brilliant. But the hero of
Lepanto found himself at once distrusted by the Catholic nobles and
checkmated by the influence and diplomacy of the ever watchful William
of Orange. Chafing at his impotence, and ill-supported by the king, who
sent no reply to his appeals for financial help, Don John suddenly left
the capital and, placing himself at the head of a body of Walloon
troops, seized Namur. Feeling himself in this stronghold more secure, he
tried to bring pressure on the States-General to place in his hands
wider powers and to stand by him in his efforts to force Orange to
submit to the authority of the king. His efforts were in vain. William
had warned the States-General and the nobles of the anti-Spanish party
in Brabant and Flanders that Don John was not to be trusted, and he now
pointed to the present attitude of the governor-general, as a proof that
his suspicions were well-founded. Indeed the eyes of all true patriots
began to turn to the prince, who had been quietly strengthening his
position, not only in Holland and Zeeland, where he was supreme, but
also in Utrecht and Gelderland; and popular movements in Brussels and
elsewhere took place in his favour. So strongly marked was the Orange
feeling in the capital that the States-General acceded to the general
wish that the prince should be invited to come in person to Brussels.
Confidence was expressed by Catholics no less than by Protestants that
only under his leadership could the country be delivered from Spanish
tyranny. A deputation was sent, bearing the invitation; but for a while
William hesitated in giving an affirmative reply. On September 23,
however, he made his entry into Brussels amidst general demonstrations
of joy and was welcomed as "the Restorer and Defender of the
Father-land's liberty." Thus, ten years after he had been declared an
outlaw and banished, did the Prince of Orange return in triumph to the
town which had witnessed the execution of Egmont and Hoorn. It was the
proudest day of his life and the supreme point of his career.
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
WILLIAM THE SILENT
The position of William at Brussels after his triumphant entry,
September 23, 1577, was by no means an easy one. His main support was
derived from a self-elected Council of Eighteen, containing
representatives of the gilds and of the citizens. This Council
controlled an armed municipal force and was really master in the city.
In these circumstances the States-General did not venture upon any
opposition to the popular wishes, in other words to William, whose
influence with the masses was unbounded. The States-General, therefore,
under pressure from the Eighteen, informed Don John, October 8, that
they no longer recognised him as governor-general; and the Estates of
Brabant appointed the prince to the office of _Ruward_ or governor of
the province. Meanwhile a fresh factor of disturbance had been
introduced into the troubled scene. Certain of the Catholic nobles
opposed to Spanish rule, but suspicious of Orange, had invited the
twenty year old Archduke Matthias, brother of the emperor, to accept the
sovereignty of the Netherlands. Matthias, who was of an adventurous
spirit, after some parleying agreed. He accordingly left Vienna
secretly, and at the end of October arrived in the Netherlands. Not
content with this counter-stroke, Aerschot went to Ghent to stir up
opposition to the appointment of William as Ruward of Brabant. The
populace however in Ghent was Orangist, and, rising in revolt, seized
Aerschot and a number of other Catholic leaders and threw them into
prison. They were speedily released, but the breach between the Catholic
nobles and the Calvinist stadholder of Holland was widened. William
himself saw in the coming of Matthias a favourable opportunity for
securing the erection of the Netherlands into a constitutional State
under the nominal rule of a Habsburg prince. By his influence,
therefore, the States-General entered into negotiations with the
Archduke; and Matthias finally was recognised (December 8) as governor
on condition that he accepted the Union of Brussels, He was also induced
to place the real power in the hands of Orange with the title of
Lieutenant-General. Matthias made his state entry into Brussels, January
18, 1578. His position appeared to be strengthened by a treaty concluded
with the English queen (January 7) by which Elizabeth promised to send
over a body of troops and to grant a subsidy to the States, for the
repayment of which the towns of Middelburg, Bruges and Gravelines were
to be pledges.
The news however of the step taken by Matthias had had more effect upon
Philip II than the despairing appeals of his half-brother. A powerful
army of tried Spanish and Italian troops under the command of Alexander
Farnese, Prince of Parma, son of the former regent Margaret, was sent to
Flanders. Farnese was Don John's nephew, and they had been brought up
together at Madrid, being almost of the same age. Already Philip had
determined to replace Don John, whose brilliance as a leader in the
field did not compensate for his lack of statesmanlike qualities. In
Farnese, whether by good fortune or deliberate choice, he had at length
found a consummate general who was to prove himself a match even for
William the Silent in all the arts of political combination and
intrigue. At Gembloux, January 31, Don John and Parma fell upon the
levies of the States and gained a complete and almost bloodless victory.
Had Philip supplied his governor-general with the money he asked for,
Don John might now have conquered the whole of the southern Netherlands,
but without funds he could achieve little.
Meanwhile all was confusion. The States-General withdrew from Brussels
to Antwerp; and William, finding that Matthias was useless, began
negotiations with France, England and Germany in the hope of finding in
this emergency some other foreign prince ready to brave the wrath of
Philip by accepting the suzerainty of the Netherlands. The Duke of
Anjou, brother of the French king, was the favoured candidate of the
Catholic party; and William, whose one aim was to secure the aid of a
powerful protector in the struggle against Spain, was ready to accept
him. Anjou at the head of an army of 15,000 men crossed the frontier at
Mons, July 12; and, on the following August 13, a treaty was agreed upon
between him and the States-General, by which the French duke, with the
title of _Defender of the Liberties of the Netherlands_, undertook to
help the States to expel the Spaniards from the Low Countries. But, to
add to the complications of the situation, a German force under the
command of John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine, and in the pay
of Queen Elizabeth, invaded the hapless provinces from the east. The
advent of John Casimir was greeted with enthusiasm by the Calvinist
party; and it required all the skill and sagacity of the Prince of
Orange to keep the peace and prevent the rival interests from breaking
out into open strife in the face of the common enemy. But Don John was
helpless, his repeated appeals for financial help remained unanswered,
and, sick at heart and weary of life, he contracted a fever and died in
his camp at Namur, October 1, 1578. His successor in the
governor-generalship was Alexander of Parma, who had now before him a
splendid field for the exercise of his great abilities.
The remainder of the year 1578 saw a violent recrudescence of religious
bitterness. In vain did Orange, who throughout his later life was a
genuine and earnest advocate of religious toleration, strive to the
utmost of his powers and with untiring patience to allay the suspicions
and fears of the zealots. John Casimir at Ghent, in the fervour of his
fanatical Calvinism, committed acts of violence and oppression, which
had the very worst effect in the Walloon provinces. In this part of the
Netherlands Catholicism was dominant; and there had always been in the
provinces of Hainault, Artois, and in the southern districts generally,
a feeling of distrust towards Orange. The upholding of the principle of
religious toleration by a man who had twice changed his faith was itself
suspect; and Farnese left no means untried for increasing this growing
anti-Orange feeling among the Catholic nobles. A party was formed, which
bore the name of "The Malcontents," whose leaders were Montigny, Lalaing
and La Motte. With these the governor-general entered into negotiations,
with the result that an alliance was made between Hainault, Artois,
Lille, Douay and Orchies (January 6, 1579), called the Union of Arras,
for the maintenance of the Catholic faith, by which these Walloon
provinces and towns expressed their readiness to submit to the king on
condition that he were willing to agree to uphold their rights and
privileges in accordance with the provisions of the Pacification of
Ghent. The Union of Arras did not as yet mean a complete reconciliation
with the Spanish sovereign, but it did mean the beginning of a breach
between the Calvinist north and the Catholic south, which the
statecraft of Parma gradually widened into an impossible chasm. Before
this took place, Anjou, Matthias and John Casimir had alike withdrawn
from the scene of anarchic confusion, in which for a brief time each had
been trying to compass his own ambitious ends in selfish indifference
to the welfare of the people they were proposing to deliver from the
Spanish yoke. The opening of the year 1579 saw Orange and Parma face to
face preparing to measure their strength in a grim struggle for the
mastery.
In the very same month as witnessed the signing of the Union of Arras, a
rival union had been formed in the northern Netherlands, which was
destined to be much more permanent. The real author however of the Union
of Utrecht was not Orange, but his brother, John of Nassau. In March,
1578, John had been elected Stadholder of Gelderland. He, like William,
had devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of Netherland freedom,
but his Calvinism was far more pronounced than his brother's. From the
moment of his acceptance of the stadholdership he set to work to effect
a close union between Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht with Gelderland and
the adjoining districts which lay around the Zuyder Zee. It was a
difficult task, since the eastern provinces were afraid (and not
unjustly) that its much greater wealth would give Holland predominance
in the proposed confederation. Nevertheless it was accomplished, and an
Act of Union was drawn up and signed at Utrecht, January 29, 1579, by
the representatives of Holland, Zeeland, the town and district
(_sticht_) of Utrecht, Gelderland and Zutphen, by which they agreed to
defend their rights and liberties and to resist all foreign intervention
in their affairs by common action as if they were one province, and to
establish and maintain freedom of conscience and of worship within their
boundaries. William does not seem at first to have been altogether
pleased with his brother's handiwork. He still hoped that a
confederation on a much wider scale might have been formed, comprising
the greater part of those who had appended their signatures to the
Pacification of Ghent. It was not until some months had passed and he
saw that his dreams of a larger union were not to be realised, that he
signed, on May 3, the Act of Union drawn up at Utrecht. By this time he
was well aware that Parma had succeeded in winning over the malcontent
nobles to accept his terms. On May 19 the Walloon provinces, whose
representatives had signed the Union of Arras, agreed to acknowledge,
with certain nominal reservations, the sovereignty of Philip and to
allow only Catholic worship. In fact the reconciliation was complete.
Thus, despite the efforts of Orange, the idea of the federation of all
the seventeen provinces on national lines became a thing of the past,
henceforth unattainable. The Netherlands were divided into two camps.
Gradually in the course of 1580 Overyssel, Drente and the greater part
of Friesland gave in their adherence to the Union of Utrecht, and
Groningen and the Ommelanden allied themselves with their neighbours. In
the rest of the Low Countries all fell away and submitted themselves to
the king's authority, except Antwerp and Breda in Brabant, and Ghent,
Bruges and Ypres in Flanders. William felt that Parma was constantly
gaining ground. Defection after defection took place, the most serious
being that of George Lalaing, Count of Renneberg, the Stadholder of
Groningen. Negotiations were indeed secretly opened with William
himself, and the most advantageous and flattering terms offered to him,
if he would desert the patriot cause. But with him opposition to Spain
and to Spanish methods of government was a matter of principle and
strong conviction. He was proof alike against bribery and cajolery, even
when he perceived, as the year 1580 succeeded 1579, that he had no
staunch friends on whom he could absolutely rely, save in the devoted
provinces of Holland and Zeeland.
For things had been going from bad to worse. The excesses and cruelties
committed by the Calvinists, wherever they found themselves in a
position to persecute a Catholic minority, and especially the outrages
perpetrated at Ghent under the leadership of two Calvinist fanatics, De
Ryhove and De Hembyze, although they were done in direct opposition to
the wishes and efforts of Orange, always and at all times the champion
of toleration, did much to discredit him in Flanders and Brabant and to
excite bitter indignation among the Catholics, who still formed the
great majority of the population of the Netherlands. William felt
himself to be month by month losing power. The action he was at last
compelled to take, in rescuing Ghent from the hands of the
ultra-democratic Calvinist party and in expelling De Ryhove and De
Hembyze, caused him to be denounced as "a papist at heart." Indeed the
bigots of both creeds in that age of intolerance and persecution were
utterly unable to understand his attitude, and could only attribute it
to a lack of any sincere religious belief at all. Farnese, meanwhile,
whose genius for Machiavellian statesmanship was as remarkable as those
gifts for leadership in war which entitled him to rank as the first
general of his time, was a man who never failed to take full advantage
of the mistakes and weaknesses of his opponents. At the head of a
veteran force he laid siege in the spring of 1579 to the important
frontier town of Maestricht. He encountered a desperate resistance,
worthy of the defence of Haarlem or of Leyden, and for four months the
garrison held out grimly in the hope of relief. But, despite all the
efforts of Orange to despatch an adequate force to raise the siege, at
last (June 29) the town was carried by assault and delivered up for
three days to the fury of a savage soldiery. By the possession of this
key to the Meuse, Parma was now able to cut off communications between
Brabant and Protestant Germany. Had he indeed been adequately supported
by Philip it is probable that at this time all the provinces up to the
borders of Holland might have been brought into subjection by the
Spanish forces.
The position of William was beset with perils on every side. One by one
his adherents were deserting him; even in the provinces of Holland and
Zeeland he was losing ground. He saw clearly that without foreign help
the national cause for which he had sacrificed everything was doomed. In
this emergency he reopened negotiations with Anjou, not because he had
any trust in the French prince's capacity or sincerity, but for the
simple reason that there was no one else to whom he could turn. As heir
to the throne of France and at this time the favoured suitor of Queen
Elizabeth, his acceptance of the sovereignty of the Netherlands would
secure, so Orange calculated, the support both of France and England. It
was his hope also that the limiting conditions attached to the offer of
sovereignty would enable him to exercise a strong personal control over
a man of weak character like Anjou. The Duke's vanity and ambition were
flattered by the proposal; and on September 19, 1580, a provisional
treaty was signed at Plessis-les-Tours by which Anjou accepted the offer
that was made to him, and showed himself quite ready to agree to any
limitations imposed upon his authority, since he had not any intention,
when once he held the reins of power, of observing them.
The first effect of William's negotiations with Anjou was to alienate
the Calvinists without gaining over the Catholics. Anjou was suspect
to both. The action of the Spanish government, however, at this critical
juncture did much to restore the credit of the prince with all to whom
the Spanish tyranny and the memory of Alva were abhorrent. Cardinal
Granvelle, after fifteen years of semi-exile in Italy, had lately been
summoned to Madrid to become chief adviser to the king. Granvelle
spared no pains to impress upon Philip the necessity of getting rid of
Orange as the chief obstacle to the pacification of the Netherlands, and
advised that a price should be placed upon his life. "The very fear of
it will paralyse or kill him" was the opinion of the cardinal, who ought
to have had a better understanding of the temper and character of his
old adversary. Accordingly at Maestricht, March 15, 1581, "a ban and
edict in form of proscription" was published against the prince, who was
denounced as "a traitor and miscreant, an enemy of ourselves and of our
country"; and all and everywhere empowered "to seize the person and
goods of this William of Nassau, as enemy of the human race." A solemn
promise was also made "to anyone who has the heart to free us of this
pest, and who will deliver him dead or alive, or take his life, the sum
of 25,000 crowns in gold or in estates for himself and his heirs; and we
will pardon him any crimes of which he has been guilty, and give him a
patent of nobility, if he be not noble." It is a document which, however
abhorrent or loathsome it may appear to us, was characteristic of the
age in which it was promulgated and in accordance with the ideas of that
cruel time. The ban was a declaration of war to the knife, and as such
it was received and answered.
In reply to the ban the prince at the close of the year (December 13)
published a very lengthy defence of his life and actions, the famous
_Apology_. To William himself is undoubtedly due the material which the
document embodies and the argument it contains, but it was almost
certainly not written by him, but by his chaplain, Pierre L'Oyseleur,
Seigneur de Villiers, to whom it owes its rather ponderous prolixity and
redundant verbiage. Historically it is of very considerable value,
though the facts are not always to be relied upon as strictly accurate.
The _Apology_ was translated into several languages and distributed to
the leading personages in every neighbouring country, and made a deep
impression on men's minds.
The combined effect of the _Ban_ and _the Apology_ was to strengthen
William's position in all the provinces where the patriot party still
held the upper hand; and he was not slow to take advantage of the strong
anti-Spanish feeling which was aroused. Its intensity was shown by the
solemn Act of Abjuration, July 26, 1581, by which the provinces of
Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Gelderland renounced
their allegiance to Philip II on the ground of his tyranny and misrule.
But after signing this Act it never seems to have occurred to the prince
or to the representatives of the provinces, that these now derelict
territories could remain without a personal sovereign. Orange used all
his influence and persuasiveness to induce them to accept Anjou. Anjou,
as we have seen, had already agreed to the conditions under which he
should, when invited, become "prince and lord" of the Netherlands. In
the autumn of 1581 the position was an ambiguous one. The States-General
claimed that, after the abjuration of Philip, the sovereignty of the
provinces had reverted to them, as the common representative of a group
of provinces that were now sovereign in their own right, and that the
conferring of that sovereignty on another overlord was their
prerogative. The position of Orange was peculiar, for _de facto_ under
one title or another he exercised the chief authority in each one of the
rebel provinces, but in the name of the States-General, instead of the
king. His influence indeed was so great as to over-shadow that of the
States-General, but great as it was, it had to be exerted to the utmost
before that body could be induced to accept a man of Anjou's despicable
and untrustworthy character as their new ruler. William however had
committed himself to the candidature of the duke, through lack of any
fitter choice; and at last both the States-General and the several
provincial Estates (Holland and Zeeland excepted) agreed to confer the
sovereignty upon the French prince subject to the conditions of the
treaty of Plessis-les-Tours.
William himself exercised the powers with which Holland and Zeeland had
invested him in the name of the king, whose stadholder he was, even when
waging war against him. After the Abjuration this pretence could no
longer be maintained. The Estates of Holland and Zeeland had indeed
petitioned Orange to become their count, but he refused the title,
fearing to give umbrage to Anjou. Finding, however, the two provinces
resolute in their opposition to the Valois prince, he consented, July
24, 1581, to exercise provisionally, as if he were count, the powers
of "high supremacy," which had already been conferred upon him.
Meanwhile Anjou was dallying in England, but on receiving through Ste
Aldegonde an intimation that the States could brook no further delay,
he set sail and landed at Flushing. Lord Leicester and a brilliant
English escort accompanied him; and Elizabeth asked the States to
receive her suitor as "her own self." At Antwerp, where he took up his
residence, Anjou was (February 19) solemnly invested with the duchy of
Brabant, and received the homage of his new subjects. He was far from
popular, and William remained at his side to give him support and
counsel. On March 18 (Anjou's birthday) an untoward event occurred,
which threatened to have most disastrous consequences. As Orange was
leaving the dinner-table, a young Biscayan, Juan Jaureguy by name,
attempted his assassination, by firing a pistol at him. The ball entered
the head by the right ear and passed through the palate. Jaureguy was
instantly killed and it was afterwards found that he had, for the sake
of the reward, been instigated to the deed by his master, a merchant
named Caspar Anastro. Anjou, who was at first suspected of being
accessory to the crime, was thus exculpated. It was a terrible wound and
William's life was for some time in great danger; but by the assiduous
care of his physicians and nurses he very slowly recovered, and was
strong enough, on May 2, to attend a solemn service of thanksgiving. The
shock of the event and the long weeks of anxiety were however too heavy
a strain upon his wife, Charlotte de Bourbon, who had recently given
birth to their sixth daughter. Her death, on May 5, was deeply grieved
by the prince, for Charlotte had been a most devoted helpmeet and
adviser to him throughout the anxious years of their married life.
During the whole of the summer and autumn William remained at Antwerp,
patiently trying to smooth away the difficulties caused by the dislike
and suspicion felt by the Netherlanders for the man whom they were asked
to recognise as their sovereign. It was an arduous task, but William, at
the cost of his own popularity, succeeded in getting the duke
acknowledged in July as Lord of Friesland and Duke of Gelderland, and in
August Anjou was solemnly installed at Bruges, as Count of Flanders.
Meanwhile he was planning, with the help of the large French force which
Anjou had undertaken to bring into the Netherlands, to take the
offensive against Parma. The truth is that he and Anjou were really
playing at cross-purposes. Orange wished Anjou to be the
_roi-fainéant_ of a United Netherland state of which he himself should
be the real ruler, but Anjou had no intention of being treated as a
second Matthias. He secretly determined to make himself master of
Antwerp by a sudden attack and, this achieved, to proceed to seize by
force of arms some of the other principal cities and to make himself
sovereign in reality as well as in name. He resented his dependence upon
Orange and was resolved to rid himself of it. With shameless treachery
in the early morning of January 17, 1583, he paid a visit to the prince
in Antwerp, and, with the object of gaining possession of his person,
tried to persuade him to attend a review of the French regiments who
were encamped outside the town. The suspicions of William had however
been aroused, and he pleaded some excuse for declining the invitation.
At midday some thousands of Anjou's troops rushed into the city at the
dinner-hour with loud cries of "Ville gagnée! Tue! Tue!" But the
citizens flew to arms; barricades were erected; and finally the French
were driven out with heavy loss, leaving some 1500 prisoners in the
hands of the town-guard. Many French nobles perished, and the "French
Fury," as it was called, was an ignominious and ghastly failure.
Indignation was wide and deep throughout the provinces; and William's
efforts to calm the excitement and patch up some fresh agreement with
the false Valois, though for the moment partially successful, only added
to his own growing unpopularity.
The prince in fact was so wedded to the idea that the only hope for the
provinces lay in securing French aid that he seemed unable to convince
himself that Anjou after this act of base treachery was impossible. His
continued support of the duke only served to alienate the people of
Brabant and Flanders. The Protestants hated the thought of having as
their sovereign a prince who was a Catholic and whose mother and
brothers were looked upon by them as the authors of the massacre of St
Bartholomew. The Catholics, cajoled by Parma's fair words, and alarmed
by the steady progress of his arms, were already inclining to return to
their old allegiance. The marriage of Orange, April 7, 1583, to Louise,
daughter of the famous Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny, and widow of the
Sieur de Téligny, added to the feelings of distrust and hostility he had
already aroused, for the bride was a Frenchwoman and both her father and
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