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 THE 
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 RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC: 
 
 A HISTORY.
 
 THE RISE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE DUTCH REPUBLIC: 
 
 A HISTORY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS,'' AND 
 "THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARXEVELD.'' 
 
 A NEW EDITION, IN THEEE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAM W. GIBBINGS, 18 BURY STREET, W.C. 
 EXETER : J. G. COMMIN. 
 
 1889.
 
 Library 
 
 ISfe 
 
 IM85 
 
 v.l 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 THE Rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be re- 
 garded as one of the leading events of modern times. 
 Without the birth of this great commonwealth, the 
 various historical phenomena of the sixteenth and 
 following centuries must have either not existed, or 
 have presented themselves under essential modifica- 
 tions. Itself an organised protest against ecclesiastical 
 tyranny and universal empire, the Republic guarded 
 with sagacity, at many critical periods in the world's 
 history, that balance of power which, among civilised 
 states, ought always to be identical with the scales of 
 Divine justice. The splendid empire of Charles the 
 Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty. It is 
 a consolation to watch afterwards the gradual but 
 triumphant resurrection of its spirit. From the hand- 
 breadth of territory called the provinces of Holland 
 rises a power which wages eighty years' warfare with 
 the most potent empire upon earth, and which, during 
 the progress of the struggle, becoming itself a mighty 
 state, and binding about its own slender form a zone 
 of the richest possessions of earth, from pole to tropic t 
 
 finally dictates its decrees to the empire of Charles* 
 VOL. i.
 
 d PEEFACE. 
 
 So mucli is each individual state but a member of 
 one great international commonwealth, and so close is 
 the relationship between the whole human family, that 
 it is impossible for a nation, even while struggling for 
 itself, not to acquire something for all mankind. The 
 maintenance of the right by the little provinces of 
 Holland and Zealand in the sixteenth, by Holland 
 and England united in the seventeenth, and by the 
 United States of America in the eighteenth centuries, 
 forms but a single chapter in the great volume of. 
 human fate 5 for the so-called revolutions of Holland, 
 England, and America, are all links of one chain. 
 
 To the Dutch Eepublic, even more than to Florence 
 at an earlier day, is the world indebted for practical 
 instruction in that great science of political equili- 
 brium which must always become more and more 
 important as the various states of the civilised world 
 are pressed more closely together, and as the struggle 
 for pre-eminence becomes more feverish. Courage 
 and skill in political and military combinations 
 enabled William the Silent to overcome the most 
 powerful and unscrupulous monarch of his age. The 
 same hereditary audacity and fertility of genius placed 
 the destiny of Europe in the hands of William's 
 great-grandson, and enabled him to mould into an 
 impregnable barrier the various elements of oppo- 
 sition to the overshadowing monarchy of Louis XIV. 
 As the schemes of the Inquisition and the unparalleled 
 tyranny of Philip, in one century, led to the establish- 
 ment of the Eepublic of the United Provinces, so, in
 
 PEEFACB. Til 
 
 the next, the revocation of the Nantes' Edict and the 
 invasion of Holland were avenged by the elevation of 
 the Dutch stadtholder upon the throne of the sti- 
 pendiary Stuarts. 
 
 To all who speak the English language, the history 
 of the great agony through which the Eepublic of 
 Holland was ushered into life must have peculiar 
 interest, for it is a portion of the records of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race essentially the same, whether in 
 Friesland, England, or Massachusetts. 
 
 A great naval and commercial commonwealth, 
 occupying a small portion of Europe, but conquering 
 a wide empire by the private enterprise of trading 
 companies, girdling the world with its innumerable 
 dependencies in Asia, America, Africa, Australia 
 exercising sovereignty in Brazil, Guiana, the West 
 Indies, New York, at the Cape of Good Hope, in 
 Hindostan, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, New Holland 
 must always be looked upon with interest by English- 
 men, as in a great measure the precursor in their 
 own scheme of empire. For America the spectacle 
 is one of still deeper import. The Dutch Eepublic 
 originated in the opposition of the rational elements 
 of human nature to sacerdotal dogmatism and perse- 
 cution in the courageous resistance of historical and 
 chartered liberty to foreign despotism. " To main- 
 tain," not to overthrow, was the device of the 
 Washington of the sixteenth century, as it was the 
 aim of our own hero and his great contemporaries. 
 
 The great Western Eepublic, therefore in whose
 
 Vlll PEEFACE. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon veins flows much of that ancient and 
 kindred blood received from the nation once ruling a 
 noble portion of its territory, and tracking its own 
 political existence to the same parent spring of tem- 
 perate human liberty must look with affectionate 
 interest upon the trials of the elder commonwealth. 
 These volumes recite the achievement of Dutch in- 
 dependence, for its recognition was delayed till the 
 acknowledgment was superfluous and ridiculous. 
 The existence of the Eepublic is properly to be 
 dated from the Union of Utrecht in 1581, while the 
 final separation of territory into independent and 
 obedient provinces, into the Commonwealth of the 
 United States and the Belgian provinces of Spain, 
 was in reality effected by William the Silent, with 
 whose death, three years subsequently, the heroic 
 period of the history may be said to terminate. At 
 this point these volumes close. Another series, with 
 less attention to minute details, and carrying the 
 story through a longer range of years, will paint the 
 progress of the Eepublic in its palmy days, and 
 narrate the establishment of its external system of 
 dependencies and its interior combinations for self- 
 government and European counterpoise. The lessons 
 of history and the fate of free states can never be 
 sufficiently pondered by those upon whom so large 
 and heavy a responsibility for the maintenance of 
 rational human freedom rests. 
 
 I have only to add, that this work is the result of 
 conscientious research, and of an earnest desire to
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 arrive at the truth. I have faithfully studied all the 
 important contemporary chroniclers and later histo- 
 rians Dutch, Flemish, French, Italian, Spanish, or 
 German. Catholic and Protestant, Monarchist and 
 Republican, have been consulted with the same 
 sincerity. The works of Bor (whose enormous but 
 indispensable folios form a complete magazine of 
 contemporary state-papers, letters and pamphlets, 
 blended together in mass, and connected by a chain 
 of artless but earnest narrative), of Meteren, De 
 Thou, Burgundius, Heuterus, Tassis, Viglius, Hoofd, 
 Haraeus, Van der Haer, Grotius of Van der Vynckt, 
 Wagenaer, Van Wyn, De Jonghe, Kluit, Van 
 Kampen, Dewez, Kappelle, Bakhuyzen, Groen van 
 Prinsterer of Ranke, and Raumer, have been as 
 familiar to me as those of Mendoza, Carnero, Cabrera, 
 Herrera, Ulloa, Bentivoglio, Perez, Strada. The 
 manuscript relations of those Argus-eyed Venetian 
 envoys, who surprised so many courts and cabinets 
 in their most unguarded moments, and daguerreo- 
 typed their character and policy for the instruction of 
 the crafty Republic, and whose reports remain such 
 an inestimable source for the secret history of the 
 sixteenth century, have been carefully examined 
 especially the narratives of the caustic and accom- 
 plished Badovaro, of Suriano, and Michele. It is 
 unnecessary to add, that all the publications of M. 
 Gachard particularly the invaluable correspondence 
 of Philip II. and of William the Silent, as well as the 
 w Archives et Correspondance " of the Orange Nassau
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 family, edited by the learned and distinguished Groen 
 van Prinsterer, have been my constant guides through 
 the labyrinth of Spanish and Netherland politics. 
 The large and most interesting series of pamphlets 
 known as " The Duncan Collection," in the Eoyal 
 Library at the Hague, has also afforded a great 
 variety of details, by which I have endeavoured to 
 give colour and interest to the narrative. Besides 
 these, and many other printed works, I have also 
 had the advantage of perusing many manuscript 
 histories, among which may be particularly men- 
 tioned the works of Pontus Payen, of Renom de 
 France, and of Pasquier de la Barre ; while the vast 
 collection of unpublished documents in the Eoyal 
 Archives of the Hague, of Brussels, and of Dresden, 
 has furnished me with much new matter of great 
 importance. I venture to hope that many years 
 of labour, a portion of them in the archives of those 
 countries whose history forms the object of my 
 study, will not have been entirely in vain ; and that 
 the lovers of human progress, the believers in the 
 capacity of nations for self-government and self- 
 improvement, and the admirers of disinterested 
 human genius and virtue, may find encouragement 
 for their views in the detailed history of an heroic 
 people in its most eventful period, and in the life and 
 death of the great man whose name and fame are 
 identical with those of his country. 
 
 No apology is offered for this somewhat personal 
 statement. When an unknown writer asks the
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 attention of the public upon an important theme, 
 he is not only authorised, but required, to show 
 that by industry and earnestness he has entitled 
 himself to a hearing. The author, too, keenly feels 
 that he has no further claims than these, and he 
 therefore most diffidently asks for his work the in- 
 dulgence of his readers. 
 
 I would take this opportunity of expressing my 
 gratitude to Dr Klemm, Hofrath and Chief Librarian 
 at Dresden, and to Mr Von Weber, Ministerial-rath 
 and Head of the Royal Archives of Saxony, for the 
 courtesy and kindness extended to me so uniformly 
 during the course of my researches in that city. I 
 would also speak a word of sincere thanks to Mr 
 Campbell, Assistant-Librarian at the Hague, for his 
 numerous acts of friendship during the absence of his 
 chief, M. Holtrop. To that most distinguished critic 
 and historian, M. Bakhuyzen van den Brinck, Chief 
 Archivist of the Netherlands, I am under deep obli- 
 gations for advice, instruction, and constant kindness, 
 during my residence at the Hague ; and I would also 
 signify my sense of the courtesy of Mr Charter- 
 Master de Schwane, and of the accuracy with which , 
 copies of MSS. in the archives were prepared for me > 
 by his care. Finally, I would allude in the strongest 
 language of gratitude and respect to M. Gachard, 
 Archivist-General of Belgium, for his unwearied 
 courtesy and manifold acts of kindness to me during 
 my studies in the Eoyal Archives of Brussels.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL 1 
 
 PABB 
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, ..... 1 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PHILIP THE SECOND IN THE NETHERLANDS. 1555-1559. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE OPENING AND CLOSING SCENB. 
 
 Abdication of Charles resolved upon Brussels in the sixteenth century 
 Hall of the Palace described Portraits of prominent individuals pre- 
 sent at the ceremony Formalities of the abdication Universal emotion 
 Remarks upon the character and career of Charles His retirement 
 at Juste, i Pp. 95-131 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 ST. QUENTIN AND GRAVELINE8. 
 
 Sketch of Philip the Second Characteristics of Mary Tudor Portrait of 
 Philip His council Rivalry of Ruy Gomez and Alva Character of 
 Ruy Gomez Queen Mary of Hungary Sketch of Philibert of Savoy 
 Truce of Vaucelles Secret treaty between the Pope and Henry IT. 
 Rejoicings in the Netherlands on account of the peace Purposes 
 of Philip Re-enactment of the edict of 1550 The King's dissimula- 
 tion "Request" to the provinces Infraction of the truce in Italy 
 Character of Pope Paul IV. Intrigues of Cardinal Caraffa War 
 against Spain resolved upon by France Campaign in Italy Amicable 
 siege of Rome Peace with the Pontiff Hostilities on the Flemish 
 border Coligny foiled at Douay Sacks Lens Philip in England 
 Queen Mary engages in the war Philip's army assembled at Givet 
 Portrait of Count Egmont The French army under Coligny and 
 Montmorency Siege of St. Quentin Attempts of the Constable to
 
 xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 relieve the City Battle of St. Quentm Hesitation and timidity of 
 Philip City of St. Quentin taken and sacked Continued indecisios 
 of Philip His army disbanded Campaign of the Duke of Guise- 
 Capture of Calais Interview between Cardinal de Lorraine and the 
 Bishop of Arras Secret Combinations for a league between France 
 and Spain against heresy Languid movements of Guise Foray of 
 De Thermos on the Flemish frontier Battle of Gravelines Popularity 
 of Egmont Enmity of Alva, .... Pp. 132-195 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 PHILIP'S FAREWELL TO THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 Secret negotiations for peace Two fresh armies assembled, but inactive 
 Negotiations at Cercamp Death of Mary Tudor Treaty of Cateau 
 Cambresis Death of Henry II. Policy of Catharine de Medici 
 Revelations by Henry II. to the Prince of Orange Funeral of 
 Charles V. in Brussels Universal joy in the Netherlands at the res- 
 toration of peace Organisation of the Government by Philip, and pre- 
 parations for his departure Appointment of Margaret of Parma as 
 Eegent of the Netherlands Three Councils The consulta The stadt- 
 holders of the different provinces Dissatisfaction caused by the foreign 
 troops Assembly of the Estates at Ghent to receive the parting in- 
 structions and farewell of the King Speech of the Bishop of Arras 
 Bequest for three millions Fierce denunciation of heresy on the part of 
 Philip Strenuous enforcement of the edicts commanded Eeply by the 
 States of Artois Unexpected conditions Eage of the King Similar 
 conduct on the part of the other provinces Eemonstrance in the name 
 of States-General against the foreign soldiery Formal reply on the part 
 of the crown Departure of the King from the Netherlands Autos- 
 da-f in Spain, ...... Pp. 19G-217 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUCHESS MARGARET. 1559-1567. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 SOWING THE WIND. 
 
 Biographieal sketch and portrait of Margaret of Parma The state council 
 Berlaymont Viglius Sketch of William the Silent Portrait of 
 Anthony Perrenot, afterwards Cardinal Grnvelle General view of
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 the political, social, and religious condition of the Netherlands Habita 
 of the aristocracy Emulation in extravagance Pecuniary embarrass- 
 men t 8 Sympathy for the Eeformation steadily increasing among the 
 people the true cause of the impending revolt Measures of the 
 Government Edict of 1550 described Papal Bulls granted to Philip 
 for increasing the number of Bishops in the Netherlands Neces- 
 sity for retaining the Spanish troops to enforce the policy of persecu- 
 tion, ' Pp. 218-260 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TACITURN AGAINST KING, CARDINAL, AND ELECTOR. 
 
 Agitation in the Netherlands The ancient charters resorted to as barriers 
 against the measures of government " Joyous entrance " of Brabant 
 Constitution of Holland Growing unpopularity of Anthony Per- 
 renot, Archbishop of Mechlin Opposition to the new bishoprics, by 
 Orange, Egmont, and other influential nobles Fury of the people at 
 the continued presence of the foreign soldiery Orange resigns the 
 command of the legion The troops recalled Philip's personal atten- 
 tion to the details of the persecution Perrenot becomes Cardinal do 
 Granvelle All the power of government in his hands His increasing 
 unpopularity Animosity and violence of Egmont towards the Car- 
 dinal Relations between Orange and Granvelle Ancient Friendship 
 gradually changing to enmity Eenewal of the magistracy at Ant- 
 werp Quarrel between the Prince and Cardinal Joint letter of 
 Orange and Egmont to the King Answer of the King Indignation 
 of Philip against Count Horn Secret correspondence between the 
 King and Cardinal Remonstrances against the new bishoprics 
 Philip's private financial statements Penury of the Exchequer in 
 Spain and in the provinces Plan for debasing the coin Marriage of 
 William the Silent with the Princess of Lorraine circumvented 
 Negotiations for his matrimonial alliance with Princess Anna of 
 Saxony Correspondence between Granvelle and Philip upon the 
 subject Opposition of Landgrave Philip and of Philip the Second 
 Character and Conduct of Elector Augustus Mission of Count 
 Schwartzburg Communications of Orange to the King and to Duchess 
 Margaret Characteristic letter of Philip Artful conduct of Granvelle 
 and of the Regent Visit of Orange to Dresden Proposed "note"' 
 of Elector Augustus Refusal of the Prince Protest of the Land- 
 grave against the marriage Preparations for the wedding at Leipzig 
 Notarial instrument drawn up on the marriage day Wedding cere- 
 monies and festivities Entrance of Granvelle into Mechlin as Arch- 
 bishop Compromise in Brabant between the abbeys and bishops, 
 
 Pp. 261-310
 
 XVi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE HOLT INQUISITION. 
 
 The Inquisition the great cause of the revolt The three varieties of the 
 institution The Spanish Inquisition described The Episcopal Inqui- 
 sition in the Netherlands The Papal Inquisition established in the 
 provinces by Charles V. His instructions to the inquisitors They 
 are renewed by Philip Inquisitor Titelmann Instances of his 
 manner of proceeding Spanish and Netherland Inquisitions com- 
 pared Conduct of Granvelle Faveau and Mallart condemned at 
 Valenciennes " Journe des maubrules " Severe measures at Valen- 
 ciennes Attack of the Rhetoric Clubs upon Granvelle G-ranvelle's 
 insinuations against Egmont and Simon Renard Timidity of Viglius 
 Universal hatred towards the Cardinal Buffoonery of Brederode and 
 Lumey Courage of Granvelle Philip taxes the Netherlands for the 
 suppression of the Huguenots in France Meeting of the Knights of the 
 Fleece Assembly at the house of Orange Demand upon the estates for 
 supplies Montigny appointed envoy to Spain Open and determined 
 opposition to Granvelle Secret representations by the Cardinal to Philip, 
 concerning Egmont and other Seigniors Line of conduct traced out for 
 the King Montigny's representations to Spain Unsatisfactory result of 
 his mission, Pp. 311-360 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A MORTAL COMBAT AND FATAL TRIUMPH. 
 
 Joint letter to Philip, from Orange, Egmont, and Horn Egmont's quarre 
 with Aerschot and with Aremberg Philip's answer to the three noblea 
 His instructions to the Duchess Egmont declines the King's invi- 
 tation to visit Spain Second letter of the three seigniors Mission of 
 Armenteros Letter of Alva Secret letters of Granvelle to Philip 
 The Cardinal's insinuations and instructions His complaints as to 
 the lukewarmness of Berghen and Montigny in the cause of the 
 Inquisition Anecdotes to their discredit privately chronicled bf 
 Granvelle Supposed necessity for the King's presence in the pro- 
 vinces Correspondence of Lazarus Schwendi Approaching crisis 
 Anxiety of Granvelle to retire Banquet of Caspar Schetz Invention 
 of the foolscap livery Correspondence of the Duchess and of the 
 Cardinal with Philip upon the subject Entire withdrawal of the 
 three seigniors from the state council The King advises with Alva 
 concerning the recall of Granvelle Elaborate duplicity of Philip's 
 arrangements His secret note to the Cardinal His dissembling 
 letters to others Departure of Granvelle from the Netherlands
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Various opinions as to its cause Ludicrous conduct of Brederode 
 and Hoogstraaten Fabulous statements in Granvelle's correspond- 
 ence concerning his recall Universal mystification The Cardinal 
 deceived by the King Granvelle in retirement His epicureanism- 
 Fears in the provinces as to his return Universal joy at his depar- 
 ture Eepresentations to his discredit made by the Duchess to Philip 
 Her hypocritical letters to the Cardinal Masquerade at Count Mans- 
 feld's Chantonnay's advice to his brother Eeview of Granvelle's 
 administration and estimate of his character, . Pp. 331-406 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TDK HARVEST KIPEMXO. 
 
 Bcturn of the three seigniors to the state-council Policy of Orange Cor- 
 rupt character of the government Efforts of the Prince in favour of 
 reform Influence of Armenteros Painful situation of Viglius His 
 anxiety to retire Secret charges against him transmitted by the 
 Duchess to Philip Cminous signs of the times Attention of Philip 
 to the details of persecution Execution of Fabricius, and tumult at 
 Antwerp Horrible cruelty towards the Protestants Eemonstrance 
 of the Magistracy of Bruges and of the four Flemish estates against 
 Titelmann Obduracy of Philip Council of Trent Quarrel for pre- 
 cedence between the French and Spanish envoys Order for the pub- 
 lication of the Trent decrees in the Netherlands Opposition to the 
 measure Reluctance of the Duchess Egmont accepts a mission to 
 Spain Violent debate in the council concerning his instructions 
 Eemarkable speech of Orange Apoplexy of Viglius Temporary ap- 
 pointment of Hopper Departure of Egmont Disgraceful scene at 
 Cambray Character of the Archbishop Egmont in Spain Flattery 
 and bribery Council of doctors Vehement Declarations of Philip 
 His instructions to Egmont at his departure Proceedings of Orange 
 in regard to his principality Egmont's report to the state-council 
 concerning his mission His vain-glory Renewed orders from Philip 
 to continue the Persecution Indignation of Egmont Habitual dis- 
 simulation of the King Reproof of Egmont by Orange Assembly of 
 doctors in Brussels Result of their deliberations transmitted to 
 Philip Universal excitement in the Netherlands New punishment 
 for heretics Interview at Bayonne between Catharine de Medici and 
 her daughter, the Queen of Spain Mistaken views upon this subject 
 Diplomacy of Alva Artful Conduct of Catharine Stringent letters 
 from Philip to the Duchess with regard to the Inquisition Consterna- 
 tion of Margaret and of Viglius New proclamation of the Edicts, the 
 Inquisition, and the Council of Trent Fury of the people Resistance 
 of the leading seigniors and of the Brabant Council Brabant declared
 
 XVlii CONTENTS. 
 
 free of the Inquisition Prince Alexander of Parma betrothed to Donna 
 Maria of Portugal Her portrait Expensive preparations for the 
 nuptials Assembly of the Golden Fleece Oration of Viglius Wedding 
 of Prince Alexander, . . . . .Pp. 407-457 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COMPROMISE AND MODERATION. 
 
 Francis Junius His sermon at Culemburg House The Compromise 
 Portraits of Sainte Aldegonde, of Louis of Nassau, of " Toison d'Or," of 
 Charles Mansfeld Sketch of the Compromise Attitude of Orange 
 His letters to the Duchess Signers of the Compromise Indiscretion 
 of the Confederates Espionage over Philip by Orange Dissatisfaction 
 of the seigniors Conduct of Egmont Despair of the People Emigra- 
 tion to England Its effects The Request Meeting at Breda and 
 Hoogstraaten Exaggerated statements concerning the Request in the 
 state-council Hesitation of the Duchess Assembly of notables Debate 
 concerning the Request and the Inquisition Character of Brederode 
 Arrival of the Petitioners in Brussels Presentation of the Request 
 Emotion of Margaret Speech of Brederode Sketch of the Request 
 Memorable sarcasm of Berlaymont Deliberation in the state-council 
 Apostille to the Request Answer to the Apostille Reply of the 
 Duchess Speech of D'Esquerdes Response of Margaret Memo- 
 rable banquet at Culemburg House Name of " the beggars " adopted 
 Orange, Egmont, and Horn break up the riotous meeting Costume of 
 " the beggars " Brederode at Antwerp Horrible execution at Oudenarde 
 Similar cruelties throughout the provinces Project of "Moderation" 
 Religious views of Orange His resignation of all his offices not accepted 
 The " Moderation " characterised Egmont at Arras Debate on the 
 "Moderation" Vacillation of Egmont Mission of Montigny and 
 Berghen to Spain Instructions to the envoys Secret correspondence 
 of Philip with the Pope concerning the Netherland Inquisition and the 
 edicts Field-preaching in the provinces Modet at Ghent Other 
 preachers characterised Excitement at Tournay Peter Gabriel at 
 Harlem Field-preaching near Antwerp Embarrassment of the Regent 
 Excitement at Antwerp Pensionary Wesenbeck sent to Brussels 
 Orange at Antwerp His patriotic course Misrepresentation of the 
 Duchess Intemperate zeal of Dr. Rythovius Meeting at St. Trond 
 Conference at Duffel Louis of Nassau deputed to the Regent Unsatisfac- 
 tory negotiations, ..... Pp. 458-515
 
 CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE FIRST WHIRLWIND. 
 
 Ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands The image-breaking Descrip- 
 tion of Antwerp Cathedral Ceremony of the Ommegang Precursory 
 disturbances Iconoclasts at Antwerp Incidents of the image-breaking 
 in various cities Events at Tournay Preaching of Wille Disturbance 
 by a little* boy Churches sacked at Tournay Disinterment of Duke 
 Adolphus of Gueldres Iconoclasts defeated and massacred at Anchin 
 Bartholomew's Day at Valenciennes General characteristics of the image- 
 breaking Testimony of contemporaries as to the honesty of the rioters 
 Consternation of the Duchess Projected flight to Mons Advice of Horn 
 and other seigniors Accord of 25th August, , , Pp. 516-544
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE north-western corner of the vast plain which extends 
 from the German Ocean to the Ural Mountains, is occupied 
 by the countries called the Netherlands. This small triangle, 
 enclosed between France, Germany, and the sea, is divided 
 by the modern kingdoms of Belgium and Holland into two 
 nearly equal portions. Our earliest information concerning 
 this territory is derived from the Romans. The wars waged 
 by that nation with the northern barbarians have rescued the 
 damp island of Batavia, with its neighbouring morasses, from 
 the obscurity in which they might have remained for ages, 
 before anything concerning land or people would have been 
 made known by the native inhabitants. Julius Cassar has 
 saved from oblivion the heroic savages who fought against 
 his legions in defence of their dismal homes with ferocious 
 but unfortunate patriotism ; and the great poet of England, 
 learning from the conqueror's Commentaries the name of 
 the boldest tribe, has kept the Nervii, after almost twenty 
 centuries, still fresh and familiar in our ears. 
 
 Tacitus, too, has described with singular minuteness the 
 struggle between the people of these regions and the power of 
 Rome, overwhelming, although tottering to its fall ; and has, 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 moreover, devoted several chapters of his work upon Germany 
 to a description of the most remarkable Teutonic tribes of 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 Geographically and ethnographically, the Low Countries 
 belong both to Gaul and to Germany. It is even doubtful to 
 which of the two the Batavian island, which is the core of the 
 whole country, was reckoned by the Romans. It is, however, 
 most probable that all the land, with the exception of Fries- 
 land, was considered a part of Gaul. 
 
 Three great rivers the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheld 
 had deposited their slime for ages among the dunes and 
 sandbanks heaved up by the ocean around their mouths. A 
 delta was thus formed, habitable at last for man. It was by 
 nature a wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage 
 forests were interspersed among lagoons and shallows ; a dis- 
 trict lying partly below the level of the ocean at its higher 
 tides, subject to constant overflow from the rivers, and to 
 frequent and terrible inundations by the sea. 
 
 The Rhine, leaving at last the regions where its storied 
 lapse, through so many ages, has been consecrated alike by 
 nature and art by poetry and eventful truth flows reluc- 
 tantly through the basalt portal of the Seven Mountains into 
 the open fields which extend to the German Sea. After 
 entering the vast meadow, the stream divides itself into two 
 branches, becoming thus the two-horned Rhine of Virgil, and 
 holds in these two arms the island of Batavia. 
 
 The Meuse, taking its rise in the Vosges, pours itself 
 through the Ardennes Wood, pierces the rocky ridges upon 
 the south-eastern frontier of the Low Countries, receives the 
 Sambre in the midst of that picturesque anthracite basin 
 where now stands the city of Nornur, and then moves toward 
 the north, through nearly the wliole length of the country, 
 till it mingles its waters with the Rhine. 
 
 The Scheld, almost exclusively a Belgian river, after leaving 
 its fountains in Picardy, flows through the present provinces 
 of Flanders and Hainault. In Csesar's time it was suffocated
 
 NATURAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. 3 
 
 before reaching the sea in quicksands and thickets, which 
 long afforded protection to the savage inhabitants against 
 the Roman arms, and which the slow process of nature and 
 the untiring industry of man have since converted into the 
 archipelago of Zealand and South Holland. These islands 
 were unknown to the Romans. 
 
 Such were the rivers which, with their numerous tributaries, 
 coursed through the spongy land. Their frequent overflow, 
 when forced back upon their currents by the stormy sea, ren- 
 dered the country almost uninhabitable. Here, within a h:ili- 
 submerged territory, a race of wretched ichthyophagi dwelt 
 upon terpen, or mounds, which they had raised, like beavers, 
 above the almost fluid soil. Here, at a later day, the same race 
 chained the tyrant Ocean and his mighty streams into subser- 
 viency, forcing them to fertilise, to render commodious, to cover 
 with a beneficent network of veins and arteries, and to bind by 
 watery highways with the furthest ends of the world, a country 
 disinherited by nature of its rights. A region, outcast of ocean 
 and earth, wrested at last from both domains their richest 
 treasures. A race, engaged for generations in stubborn conflict 
 with the angry elements, was unconsciously educating itself for 
 its great struggle with the still more savage despotism of man. 
 
 The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests. 
 An extensive belt of woodland skirted the sea-coast, reaching 
 beyond the mouths of the Rhine. Along the outer edge of this 
 barrier, the dunes cast up by the sea were prevented by the 
 close tangle of thickets from drifting further inward, and thus 
 formed a breastwork which time and art were to strengthen. 
 The groves of Haarlem and the Hague are relics of this ancient 
 forest. The Badahuenna Wood, horrid with Druidio sacrifices, 
 extended across the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. 
 The vast Hercynian forest, nine days' journey in breadth, closed 
 in the country on the German side, stretching from the banks 
 of the Rhine to the remote regions of the Dacians, in such 
 vague immensity (says the conqueror of the whole country) that 
 no German, after travelling sixty days, had ever reached, or
 
 4 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 even heard of, its commencement. On the south, the famous 
 groves of Ardennes, haunted by faun and satyr, embowered 
 the country, and separated it from Celtic Gaul. 
 
 Thus inundated by mighty rivers, quaking beneath the level 
 of the ocean, belted about by hirsute forests, this low land, 
 nether land, hollow land, or Holland, seemed hardly deserving 
 the arms of the all-accomplished Roman. Yet foreign tyranny 
 from the earliest ages, has coveted this meagre territory as lust- 
 fully as it has sought to wrest from their native possessors 
 those lands with the fatal gift of beauty for their dower ; while 
 the genius of liberty has inspired as noble a resistance to op- 
 pression here as it ever aroused in Grecian or Italian breasts. 
 
 II. 
 
 It can never be satisfactorily ascertained who were the abo- 
 riginal inhabitants. The record does not reach beyond Caesar's 
 epoch, and he found the territory on the left of the Rhine 
 mainly tenanted by tribes of the Celtic family. That large 
 division of the Indo-European group which had already over- 
 spread many portions of Asia Minor, Greece, Germany, the Bri- 
 tish Islands, France and Spain, had been long settled in Belgic 
 Gaul, and constituted the bulk of its population. Checked in 
 its westward movement by the Atlantic, its current began to 
 flow backwards towards its fountains, so that the Gallic portion 
 of the Netherland population was derived from the original 
 race in its earlier wanderings and from the later and refluent 
 tide coming out of Celtic Gaul. The modern appellation of the 
 Walloons points to the affinity of their ancestors with the Gallic, 
 Welsh, and Gaelic family. The Belgae were in many respects a 
 superior race to most of their blood-allies. The}'' were, accord- 
 ing to Ca?sar's testimony, the bravest of all the Celts. This 
 may be in part attributed to the presence of several German 
 tribes, who, at this period, had already forced their way across 
 the Rhine, mingled their qualities with the Belgic material, and 
 lent an additional mettle *o the Celtic blood. The heart of the
 
 THE EARLY INHABITANTS. 5 
 
 country was thus inhabited by a Gallic race, but the frontiers 
 had been taken possession of by Teutonic Tribes. 
 
 When the Cimbri and their associates, about a century before 
 our era, made their memorable onslaught upon Rome, the only 
 inhabitants of the Rhine island of Batavia, who were probably 
 Celts, joined in the expedition. A recent and tremendous inun- 
 dation had swept away their miserable homes, and even the 
 trees of the forest, and had thus rendered them still more dis- 
 satisfied with their gloomy abodes. The island was deserted 
 of its population. At about the same period a civil dissension 
 among the Chatti a powerful German race within the Her- 
 cynian forest resulted in the expatriation of a portion of the 
 people. The exiles sought a new home in the empty Rhine 
 island, called it " Bet-auw" or " good-meadow," and were 
 themselves called, thenceforward, Batavi, or Batavians. 
 
 These Batavians, according to Tacitus, were the bravest of 
 all the Germans. The Chatti, of whom they formed a portion, 
 were a pre-eminently warlike race. " Others go to battle," 
 says the historian, tl these go to war." Their bodies were 
 more hardy, their minds more vigorous, than those of other 
 tribes. Their young men cut neither hair nor beard till they 
 had slain an enemy. On the field of battle, in the midst of 
 carnage and plunder, they, for the first time, bared their faces. 
 The cowardly and sluggish, only, remained unshorn. They 
 wore an iron ring, too, or shackle upon their necks until they 
 had performed the same achievement, a symbol which they then 
 threw away as the emblem of sloth. The Batavians were ever 
 spoken of by the Romans with entire respect. They conquered 
 the Belgians, they forced the free Frisians to pay tribute, but 
 they called the Batavians their friends. The tax-gatherer 
 never invaded their island. Honourable alliance united them 
 with the Romans. It was, however, the alliance of the giant 
 and the dwarf. The Roman gained glory and empire, the 
 Batavian gained nothing but the hardest blows. The Batavian 
 cavalry became famous throughout the Republic and the 
 Emoire. Thev were the favourite troops of Caasar, and with
 
 6 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 reason, for it was their valour which turned the tide of battle 
 at Pharsalia. From the death of Julius down to the times 
 of Vespasian, the Batavian legion was the imperial body- 
 guard, the Batavian island the basis of operations in the 
 Eoman wars with Gaul, Germany, and Britain. 
 
 Beyond the Batavians, upon the north, dwells the great Fri- 
 sian family, occupying the regions between the Rhine and Ems. 
 The Zuyder Zee and the Dollart, both caused by the terrific 
 inundations of the thirteenth century, and not existing at this 
 period, did not then interpose boundaries between kindred tribes. 
 All formed a homogeneous nation of pure German origin. 
 
 Thus, the population of the country was partly Celtic, partly 
 German. Of these two elements, dissimilar in their tenden- 
 cies and always difficult to blend, the Netherland people has 
 ever been compounded. A certain fatality of history has 
 perpetually helped to separate still more widely these con- 
 stituents, instead of detecting and stimulating the elective 
 affinities which existed. Religion, too, upon all great historical 
 occasions, has acted as the most powerful of dissolvents. 
 Otherwise, had so many valuable and contrasted characteristics 
 been early fused into a whole, it would be difficult to shew a 
 race more richly endowed by nature for dominion and pro- 
 gress than the Belgo-Germanic people. 
 
 Physically the two races resembled each other. Both were 
 of vast stature. The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers 
 as a band of pigmies. The German excited astonishment by 
 his huge body and muscular limbs. Both were fair, with 
 fierce blue eyes, but the Celt had yellow hair floating over his 
 shoulders, and the German long locks of fiery red, which he 
 even dyed with woad to heighten the favourite colour, and 
 wore twisted into a war-knot upon the top of his head. 
 Here the German's love of finery ceased. A simple tunic 
 fastened at his throat with a thorn, while his other 
 garments defined and gave full play to his limbs, completed 
 his costume. The Gaul, on the contrary, was so fond of 
 dress that the Romans divided his race respectively into
 
 GAULS AND GERMANS. 7 
 
 long-haired, breeched, and gowned Gaul, (Gallia comata, 
 braccata, togata). He was fond of brilliant and parti-coloured 
 clothes, a taste which survives in the Highlander's costume. He 
 covered his neck and arms with golden chains. The simple and 
 ferocious German wore no decoration save his iron ring, from 
 which his first homicide relieved him. The Gaul was irascible r 
 furious in his wrath, but less formidable in a sustained conflict 
 with a powerful foe. " All the Gauls are of very high stature," 
 says a soldier who fought under Julian (Amm. Marcel, xv. 12. 
 1). " They are white, golden-haired, terrible in thefierceness of 
 their eyes, greedy of quarrels, bragging, and insolent. A band 
 of strangers could not resist one of them in a brawl, assisted by 
 his strong blue-eyed wife, especially when she begins gnash- 
 ing her teeth, her neck swollen, brandishing her vast and snowy 
 arms, and kicking with her heels at the same time to deliver 
 her fisticuffs, like bolts from the twisted strings of a catapult. 
 The voices of many are threatening and formidable. They are 
 quick to anger, but quickly appeased. All are clean in their 
 persons ; nor among them is ever seen any man or woman, as 
 elsewhere, squalid in ragged garments. At all ages they are apt 
 for military service. The old man goes forth to the fight with 
 equal strength of breast, with limbs as hardened by cold and 
 assiduous labour, and as contemptuous of all dangers, as the 
 young. Not one of them, as in Italy is often the case, was ever 
 known to cut off his thumbs to avoid the service of Mars." 
 
 The polity of each race differed widely from that of the other. 
 The government of both maybe said to have been republican, 
 but the Gallic tribes were aristocracies, in which the influence 
 of clanship was a predominant feature ; while the German sys- 
 tem, although nominally regal, was in reality democratic. In 
 Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while 
 the people, says Caasar, were all slaves. The knights or nobles 
 were all trained to arms. Each went forth to battle, followed 
 t)y his dependents, while a chief of all the clans was appointed 
 to take command during the war. The prince or chief governor 
 was elected annually, but only by the nobles. The people had
 
 8 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 no rights at all, and were glad to assign themselves as slaves to 
 any noble who was strong enough to protect them. In peace 
 the Druids exercised the main functions of government. They 
 decided all controversies, civil and criminal. To rebel against 
 their decrees was punished by exclusion from the sacrifices a 
 most terrible excommunication, through which the criminal 
 was cut off from all intercourse with his fellow-creatures. 
 
 With the Germans the sovereignty resided in the great 
 assembly of the people. There were slaves, indeed, but in small! 
 number, consisting either of prisoners of war or of those unfor- 
 tunates who had forfeited their liberty in games of chance. 
 Their chieftains, although called by the Romans princes and 
 kings, were, in reality, generals chosen by universal suffrage. 
 Elected in the great assembly to preside in war, they were raised 
 on the shoulders of martial freemen, amid wild battle cries and 
 the clash of spear and shield. The army consisted entirely of 
 volunteers, and the soldier was for life infamous who deserted 
 the field while his chief remained alive. The same great 
 assembly elected the village magistrates, and decided upon all 
 important matters both of peace and war. At the full of the 
 moon it was usually convoked. The nobles and the popular 
 delegates arrived at irregular intervals, for it was an incon- 
 venience arising from their liberty, that two or three days were 
 often lost in waiting for the delinquents. All state affairs were 
 in the hands of this fierce democracy. The elected chieftains 
 had rather authority to persuade than power to command. 
 
 The Gauls were an agricultural people. They were not 
 without many arts of li fe. They had extensive flocks and herds, 
 and they even exported salted provisions as far as Rome. The 
 truculent German, Ger-mann, Heer-mann, War-man, con- 
 sidered carnage the only useful occupation, and despised 
 agriculture as enervating and ignoble. It was base, in his 
 opinion, to gain by sweat what was more easily acquired by 
 blood. The land was divided annually by the magistrates, 
 certain farms being assigned to certain families, who were 
 forced to leave them at the expiration of the year. They
 
 THE TWO EACES CONTRASTED. 9 
 
 cultivated as a common property the lands allotted by the 
 magistrates ; but it was easier to summon them to the battle- 
 field than to the plough. Thus they were more fitted for the 
 roaming and conquering life which Providence was to assign 
 to them for ages, than if they had become more prone to root 
 themselves in the soil. The Gauls built towns and villages. 
 The German built his solitary hut where inclination prompted. 
 Close neighbourhood was not to his taste. 
 
 In their system of religion the two races were most widely 
 contrasted. The Gauls were a priest-ridden race. Their Druids 
 were a dominant caste, presiding even over civil affairs, while 
 in religious matters their authority was despotic. What were 
 the principles of their wild theology will never be thoroughly 
 ascertained, but we know too much of its sanguinary ritea. 
 The imagination shudders to penetrate those shaggy forests 
 ringing with the death-shrieks of ten thousand human victims. 
 
 O o * 
 
 and with the hideous hymns chanted by smoke and blood- 
 stained priests to the savage gods whom they served. 
 
 The German, in his simplicity, had raised himself to a purer 
 belief than that of the sensuous Roman or the superstitious 
 Gaul. He believed in a single, supreme, almighty God, All- 
 Vater or All-Father. This divinity was too sublime to be 
 incarnated or imaged, too infinite to be enclosed in temples 
 built with hands. Such is the Roman's testimony to the lofty 
 conception of the German. Certain forests were consecrated 
 to the unseen God, whom the eye of reverent faith could alone 
 behold. Thither, at stated times, the people repaired to 
 worship. They entered the sacred grove with feet bound to- 
 gether, in token of submission. Those who fell were forbidden 
 to rise, but dragged themselves backwards on the ground. 
 Their rites were few and simple. They had no caste of priests, 
 nor were they, when first known to the Romans, accustomed to 
 offer sacrifice. It must be confessed that in a later age, a single 
 victim, a criminal or a prisoner, was occasionally immolated. 
 The purity of their religion was soon stained by their Celtic 
 neighbourhood. In the course of the Roman dominion it
 
 10 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 became contaminated, and at last profoundly depraved. The 
 fantastic intermixture of Roman mythology with the gloomy 
 but modified superstition of Romanised Celts, was not favour- 
 able to the simple character of German theology. The entire 
 extirpation, thus brought about, of any conceivable system of 
 religion, prepared the way for a true revelation. Within that 
 little river territory, amid those obscure morasses of the Rhine 
 and Scheld, three great forms of religion the sanguinary 
 superstition of the Druid, the sensuous polytheism of the 
 Roman, the elevated but dimly-groping creed of the German 
 stood for centuries, face to face, until, having mutually 
 debased and destroyed each other, they all faded away in the 
 pure light of Christianity. Thus contrasted were Gaul and 
 German in religious and political systems. The difference was 
 no less remarkable in their social characteristics. The Gaul 
 was singularly unchaste. The marriage state was almost un- 
 known. Many tribes lived in most revolting and incestuous 
 concubinage ; brethren, parents, and children having wives 
 in common. The German was loyal as the Celt was dissolute. 
 Alone among barbarians, he contented himself with a single 
 wife, save that a few dignitaries, from motives of policy, were 
 permitted a larger number. On the marriage day the German 
 offered presents to his bride not the bracelets and golden 
 necklaces with which the Gaul adorned his fair-haired concu- 
 bine, but oxen and a bridled horse, a sword, a shield, and a 
 spear symbols that thenceforward she was to share his 
 labours and to become a portion of himself. 
 
 They differed, too, in the honours paid to the dead. The 
 funerals of the Gauls were pompous. Both burned the 
 corpse ; but the Celt cast into the flames the favourite ani- 
 mals, and even the most cherished slaves and dependents of 
 the master. Vast monuments of stone or piles of earth were 
 raised above the ashes of the dead. Scattered relics of the 
 Celtic age are yet visible throughout Europe, in these huge 
 but unsightly memorials. 
 
 The German was not ambitious at the grave. He threw
 
 EAELT HISTORY. 11 
 
 neither garments nor odours upon the funeral pyre, but the 
 arms and the war-horse of the departed were burned and buried 
 with him. The turf was his only sepulchre, the memory of 
 his valour his only monument. Even tears were forbidden 
 to the men. ll It was esteemed honourable," says the his- 
 torian, " for women to lament, for men to remember." 
 
 The parallel need be pursued no further. Thus much it was 
 necessary to recall to the historical student concerning the 
 prominent characteristics by which the two great races of the 
 land were distinguished : characteristics which time has rather 
 hardened than effaced. In the contrast and the separation lies 
 the key to much of their history. Had Providence permitted a 
 fusion of the two races, it is possible, from their position, and 
 from the geographical and historical link which they would 
 have afforded to the dominant tribes of Europe, that a world- 
 empire might have been the result, different in many respects 
 from any which has ever arisen. Speculations upon what 
 might have been are idle. It is well, however, to ponder the 
 many misfortunes resulting from a mutual repulsion, which, 
 under other circumstances and in other spheres, has been 
 exchanged for mutual attraction and support. 
 
 It is now necessary to sketch rapidly the political transfor- 
 mations undergone by the country, from the early period 
 down to the middle of the sixteenth century ; the epoch when 
 the long conflict commenced out of which the Batavian 
 republic was born. 
 
 III. 
 
 The earliest chapter in the history of the Netherlands was 
 written by their conqueror. Celtic Gaul is already in the 
 power of Rome ; the Belgic tribes, alarmed at the approaching 
 danger, arm against the universal tyrant. Inflammable, quick 
 to strike, but too fickle to prevail against so powerful a foe, they 
 hastily form a league of almost every clan. At the first blow 
 of Ccesar's sword, the frail confederacy falls asunder like a rope
 
 12 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 of sand. The tribes scatter in all directions. Nearly all are 
 soon defeated, and sue for mercy. The Nervii, true to the 
 German blood in their veins, swear to die rather than surrender. 
 They, at least, are worthy of their cause. Caesar advances 
 against them at the head of eight legions. Drawn up on the 
 banks of the Sambre, they await the Roman's approach. In 
 three days' march Caesar comes up with them, pitches his 
 camp upon a steep hill sloping down to the river, and sends 
 some cavalry across. Hardly have the Roman horsemen crossed 
 the stream, than the Nervii rush from the wooded hill-top, 
 overthrow horse and rider, plunge in one great mass into the 
 current, and, directly afterwards, are seen charging up the hill 
 into the midst of the enemy's force. " At the same moment," 
 says the conqueror, " they seemed in the wood, in the river, and 
 within our lines." There is a panic among the Romans, but it 
 is brief. Eight veteran Roman legions, with the world's victor 
 at their head, are too much for the brave but undisciplined 
 Nervii. Snatching a shield from a soldier, and otherwise un- 
 armed, Caesar throws himself into the hottest of the fight. The 
 battle rages foot to foot and hand to hand ; but the hero's skill, 
 with the cool valour of his troops, proves invincible as ever. 
 The Nervii, true to their vow, die, but not a man surrenders. 
 They fought upon that day till the ground was heaped with 
 their dead, while, as the foremost fell thick and fast, their com- 
 rades, says the Roman, sprang upon their piled-up bodies, and 
 hurled their javelins at the enemy as from a hill. They fought 
 like men to whom life without liberty was a curse. They were 
 not defeated, but exterminated. Of many thousand fighting 
 men went home but five hundred. Upon reaching the place of 
 refuge where they had bestowed their women and children, 
 Caesar found, after the battle, that there were but three of their 
 senators left alive. So perished the Nervii. Caesar commanded 
 his legions to treat with respect the little remnant of the tribe 
 which had just fallen to swell the empty echo of his glory, 
 and then, with hardly a breathing pause, he proceeded to 
 annihilate the Aduatici, the Menapii, and the Morini.
 
 STRUGGLES WITH ROME. 13 
 
 Gaul being thus pacified, as, with sublime irony, he expresses 
 himself concerning a country some of whose tribes had been 
 annihilated, some sold as slaves, and others hunted to their 
 lairs like beasts of prey, the conqueror departed from Italy. 
 Legations for peace from many German races to Rome were 
 the consequence of these great achievements. Among others 
 the Batavians formed an alliance with the masters of the 
 world. Their position was always an honourable one. They 
 were justly proud of paying no tribute, but it was, perhaps, 
 because they had nothing to pay. They had few cattle, they 
 could give no hides and horns like the Frisians, and they were 
 therefore allowed to furnish only their blood. From this time 
 forth their cavalry, which was the best of Germany, became re- 
 nowned in the Roman army upon every battle-field of Europe. 
 
 It is melancholy, at a later moment, to find the brave Bata- 
 vians distinguished in the memorable expedition of Germanicus 
 to crush the liberties of their German kindred. They are for 
 ever associated with the sublime but misty image of the great 
 Hermann, the hero, educated in Rome, and aware of the 
 colossal power of the empire, who yet, by his genius, valour, 
 and political adroitness, preserved for Germany her nation- 
 ality, her purer religion, and perhaps even that noble lan- 
 guage which her late-flowering literature has rendered so 
 illustrious but they are associated as enemies, not as friends. 
 
 Galba, succeeding to the purple upon the suicide of Nero, 
 dismissed the Batavian life-guards to whom he owed his eleva- 
 tion. He is murdered. Otho and Vitellius contend for the 
 succession, while all eyes are turned upon the eight Batavian 
 regiments. In their hands the scales of empire seems to rest. 
 They declare for Vitellius, and the civil war begins. Ofcho is 
 defeated ; Vitellius acknowledged by Senate and people. Fear- 
 ing, like his predecessors, the imperious turbulence of the 
 Batavian legions, he, too, sends them into Germany. It was 
 the signal for a long and extensive revolt, which had well-nigh, 
 overturned the Roman power in Gaul and Lower Germany.
 
 34 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Claudius Civilis was a Batavian of noble race, who had served 
 twenty-five years in the Roman armies. His Teutonic name 
 has perished, for, like most savages who become denizens of a 
 civilised state, he had assumed an appellation in the tongue of 
 his superiors. He was a soldier of fortune, and had fought 
 wherever the Roman eagles flew. After a quarter of a century's 
 service he was sent in chains to Rome, and his brother exe- 
 cuted, both falsely charged with conspiracy. Such were the 
 triumphs adjudged to Batavian auxiliaries. He escaped with 
 life, and was disposed to consecrate what remained of it to a 
 nobler cause. Civilis was no barbarian. Like the German 
 hero Arminius, he had received a Roman education, and had 
 learned the degraded condition of Rome. He knew the in- 
 famous vices of her rulers ; he retained an unconquerable love 
 for liberty, and for his own race. Desire to avenge his own 
 wrongs was mingled with loftier motives in his breast. He 
 knew that the sceptre was in the gift of the Batavian soldiery. 
 Galba had been murdered, Otho had destroyed himself, and 
 Vitellius, whose weakly gluttony cost the empire more gold 
 than would have fed the whole Batavian population and con- 
 verted their whole island-morass into fertile pastures, was 
 contending for the purple with Vespasian, once an obscure 
 adventurer like Civilis himself, and even his friend and com- 
 panion in arms. It seemed a time to strike a blow for freedom. 
 
 By his courage, eloquence, and talent for political combina- 
 tions, Civilis effected a general confederation of all the Nether- 
 land tribes, both Celtic and German. For a brief moment 
 there was a united people, a Batavian commonwealth. He 
 found another source of strength in German superstition. On 
 the banks of the Lippe, near its confluence with the Rhine, 
 dwelt the Virgin Velleda, a Bructerian weird woman, who 
 exercised vast influence over the warriors of her nation. 
 Dwelling alone in a lofty tower, shrouded in a wild forest, 
 she was revered as an oracle. Her answers to the demands of
 
 THE REVOLT OF CIVILIS. 15 
 
 her worshippers concerning future events were delivered only 
 to a chosen few. To Civilis, who had formed a close friend- 
 ship with her, she promised success, and the downfall of the 
 Iloman world. Inspired by her prophecies, many tribes of 
 Germany sent large subsidies to the Batavian chief. 
 
 The details of the revolt have been carefully preserved by 
 Tacitus, and form one of his grandest and most elaborate 
 pictures. The spectacle of a brave nation, inspired by the 
 soul of one great man and rising against an overwhelming 
 despotism, will always speak to the heart, from generation to 
 generation. The battles, the sieges, the defeats, the indomi- 
 table spirit of Civilis, still flaming most brightly when the 
 clouds are darkest around him, have been described by the 
 great historian in his most powerful manner. The high-born 
 Roman has thought the noble barbarian's portrait a subject 
 worthy his genius. 
 
 The struggle was an unsuccessful one. After many victories 
 and many overthrows, Civilis was left alone. The Gallic 
 tribes fell off, and sued for peace. Vespasian, victorious over 
 Vitellius, proved too powerful for his old comrade. Even the 
 Batavians became weary of the hopeless contest, while fortune, 
 after much capricious hovering, settled at last upon the Roman 
 side. The imperial commander Cerialis seized the moment 
 when the cause of the Batavian hero was most desperate to 
 send emissaries among his tribe, and even to tamper with the 
 mysterious woman whose prophecies had so inflamed his 
 imagination. These intrigues had their effect. The fidelity 
 of the people was sapped ; the prophetess fell away from her 
 worshipper, and foretold ruin to his cause. The Batavians 
 murmured that their destruction was inevitable, that one 
 nation could not arrest the slavery which was destined for the 
 whole world. How large a part of the human race were the 
 Batavians? What were they in a contest with the whole 
 Roman empire? Moreover, they were not oppressed with 
 tribute. They were only expected to furnish men and valour 
 to their proud allies. It was the next thing to liberty. If
 
 3 t? THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 they were to have rulers, it was better to serve a Roman 
 emperor than a German witch. 
 
 Tims murmured the people. Had Civilis been successful, he 
 would have been deified ; but his misfortunes, at last, made him 
 odious in spite of his heroism. But the Batavian was not a 
 man to be crushed, nor had he lived so long in the Roman 
 service to be outmatched in politics by the barbarous Germans. 
 He was not to be sacrificed as a peace-offering to revengeful 
 Rome. Watching from beyond the Rhine the progress of 
 defection and the decay of national enthusiasm, he determined 
 to be beforehand with those who were now his enemies. He 
 accepted the offer of negotiation from Cerialis. The Roman 
 general was eager to grant a full pardon, and to re-enlist so 
 brave a soldier in the service of the empire. 
 
 A colloquy was agreed upon. The bridge across the 
 Nabalia was broken asunder in the middle, and Cerialis and 
 Civilis met upon the severed sides. The placid stream by 
 which Roman enterprise had connected the waters of the 
 Rhine with the lake of Flevo flowed between the imperial 
 commander and the rebel chieftain. 
 
 Here the story abruptly terminates. The remainder of the 
 Roman's narrative is lost, and upon that broken bridge the 
 form of the Batavian hero disappears for ever. His name fades 
 from history ; not a syllable is known of his subsequent career ; 
 everything is buried in the profound oblivion which now steals 
 over the scene where he was the most imposing actor. 
 
 The soul of Civilis had proved insufficient to animate a whole 
 people ; yet it was rather owing to position than to any per- 
 sonal inferiority, that his name did not become as illustrious as 
 that of Hermann. The German patriot was neither braver nor 
 wiser than the Batavian, but he had the infinite forests of his 
 fatherland to protect him. Every legion which plunged into 
 those unfathomable depths was forced to retreat disastrously, or 
 io perish miserably. Civilis was hemmed in by the ocean ; his 
 country, long the basis of Roman military operations, was
 
 REVOLTS AGAINST ROME AND SPAIN COMPARED. 1? 
 
 accessible by river and canal. The patriotic spirit which he 
 had for a moment raised had abandoned him ; his allies had 
 deserted him ; he stood alone and at bay, encompassed by 
 the hunters, with death or surrender as his only alternative. 
 Under such circumstances, Hermann could not have shown 
 more courage or conduct, nor have terminated the impossible 
 struggle with greater dignity or adroitness. 
 
 The contest of Civilis with Rome contains a remarkable fore- 
 shadowing of the future conflict with Spain, through which the 
 Batavian Republic, fifteen centuries later, was to be founded. 
 The characters, the events, the amphibious battles, desperate 
 sieges, slippery alliances, the traits of generosity, audacity, and 
 cruelty, the generous confidence, the broken faith, seem so 
 closely to repeat themselves, that history appears to present 
 the selfsame drama played over and over again, with but a 
 change of actors and of costume. There is more than a 
 fanciful resemblance between Civilis and William the Silent, 
 two heroes of ancient German stock, who had learned the arts 
 of war and peace in the service of a foreign and haughty 
 world-empire. Determination, concentration of purpose, con- 
 stancy in calamity, elasticity almost preternatural, self-denial, 
 consummate craft in political combinations, personal fortitude, 
 and passionate patriotism, were the heroic elements in both. 
 The ambition of each was subordinate to the cause which he 
 served. Both refused the crown, although each, perhaps, 
 contemplated, in the sequel, a Batavian realm of which he 
 would have been the inevitable chief. Both offered the throne 
 to a Gallic prince, for Classicus was but the prototype of 
 Anjou, as Brinno of Brederode, and neither was destined, in 
 this world, to see his sacrifices crowned with success. 
 
 The characteristics of the two great races of the land por- 
 trayed themselves in the Roman and the Spanish struggle with 
 much the same colours. The Southrons, inflammable, petulant, 
 audacious, were the first to assault and to defy the imperial 
 power in both revolts ; while the inhabitants of the northern 
 provinces, slower to be aroused, but of more enduring wr,ifJi, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 were less ardent at the commencement, but, alone, steadfast 
 at the close of the contest. In both wars the southern Celts 
 fell away from the league, their courageous but corrupt chief- 
 tains having been purchased with imperial gold to bring about 
 the abject submission of their followers ; while the German 
 Netherlands, although eventually subjugated by Koine, after 
 a desperate struggle, were successful in the great conflict with 
 Spain, and trampled out of existence every vestige of her 
 authority. The Batavian republic took its rank among the 
 leading powers of the earth ; the Belgic provinces remained 
 Roman, Spanish, Austrian property. 
 
 V. 
 
 Obscure but important movements in the regions of eternal 
 twilight, revolutions, of which history has been silent, in the 
 mysterious depths of Asia, outpourings of human rivers along 
 the sides of the Altai Mountains, convulsions up-heaving 
 remote realms and unknown dynasties, shock after shock 
 throbbing throughout the barbarian world, and dying upon 
 the edge of civilisation, vast throes which shake the earth as 
 precursory pangs to the birth of a new empire as dying 
 symptoms of the proud but effete realm which called itself 
 the world ; scattered hordes of sanguinary, grotesque savages 
 pushed from their own homes, and hovering with vague 
 purposes upon the Roman frontier, constantly repelled and 
 perpetually reappearing in ever-increasing swarms, guided 
 thither by a fierce instinct, or by mysterious laws, such are 
 the well-known phenomena Avhich precede the fall of Western 
 Rome. Stately, externally powerful, although undermined 
 and putrescent at the core, the death-stricken empire still 
 dashed back the assaults of its barbarous enemies. 
 
 During the long struggle intervening between the age of 
 Vesuasian and that of Odoacer, during all the preliminary 
 ethnographical revolutions which preceded the great people's 
 wandering, the Netherlands remained subject provinces. Their
 
 INVASIONS OP THE NETHERLANDS. 19 
 
 country was upon the high road which led the Goths to Kome. 
 Those low and barren tracts were the outlying marches of the 
 empire. Upon that desolate beach broke the first surf from the 
 rising ocean of German freedom which was soon to overwhelm 
 Rome. Yet, although the ancient landmarks were soon well- 
 nigh obliterated, the Netherlands still remained faithful to the 
 empire, Batavian blood was still poured out for its defence. 
 
 By the middle of the fourth century, the Franks and Alle- 
 manians alle-manner, all-men a mass of united Germans, 
 are defeated by the emperor Julian at Strasburg, the Bata- 
 vian cavalry, as upon many other great occasions, saving the 
 day for despotism. This achievement, one of the last in which 
 the name appears upon historic record, was therefore as 
 triumphant for the valour as it was humiliating to the true 
 fame of the nation. Their individuality soon afterwards dis- 
 appears, the race having been partly exhausted in the Roman 
 service, partly merged in the Frank and Frisian tribes who 
 occupy the domains of their forefathers. 
 
 For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, 
 but the swarming nations are now in full career. The Nether- 
 lands are successively or simultaneously trampled by Franks, 
 Vandals, Alani, Suevi, Saxons, Frisians, and even Sclavo- 
 nians, as the great march of Germany to universal empire, 
 which her prophets and bards had foretold, went majestically 
 forward. The fountains of the frozen north were opened, the 
 waters prevailed, but the ark of Christianity floated upon the 
 flood. As the deluge assuaged, the earth had returned to 
 chaos, the last pagan empire had been washed out of existence, 
 but the faltering infancy of Christian Europe had begun. 
 
 After the wanderings had subsided, the Netherlands are 
 
 o / 
 
 found with much the same ethnological character. The Frank 
 dominion has succeeded the Roman, the German stock pre- 
 ponderates over the Celtic, but the national ingredients, 
 although in somewhat altered proportions, remain essentially 
 as before. The old Belgae, having become Romanised in 
 tongue and customs, accept the new empire of the Franks.
 
 20 THE KISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 That people, however, pushed from its hold of the Rhine by 
 thickly-thronging hordes of Gepidi, Quadi, Sarmati, Heruli, 
 Saxons, Burgundians, moves towards the south and west. As 
 the empire falls before Odoacer, they occupy Celtic Gaul with 
 the Belgian portion of the Netherlands, while the Frisians, 
 into which ancient German tribe the old Batavian element 
 lias melted, not to be extinguished, but to renew its exist- 
 ence, the " free Frisians," whose name is synonymous with 
 liberty, nearest blood relations of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 now occupy the northern portion, including the whole future 
 European territory of the Dutch republic. 
 
 The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history 
 of the Netherlands. The Frisians struggle, for several cen- 
 turies, against their dominion, until eventually subjugated 
 by Charlemagne. They even encroach upon the Franks in 
 Belgic-Gaul, who are determined not to yield their posses- 
 sions. Moreover, the pious Merovingian faineans desire to 
 plant Christianity among the still pagan Frisians. Dagobert, 
 son of the second Clotaire, advances against them as far as 
 the Weser, takes possession of Utrecht, founds there the first 
 Christian church in Friesland, and establishes a nominal 
 dominion over the whole country. 
 
 Yet the feeble Merovingians would have been powerless 
 against rugged Friesland, had not their dynasty already 
 merged in that puissant family of Brabant, which long 
 wielded their power before it assumed their crown. It was 
 Pepin of Heristal, grandson of the Netherlander, Pepin of 
 Lanclen, who conquered the Frisian Radbod (A.D. G92) and 
 forced him to exchange his royal for the ducal title. 
 
 It was Pepin's bastard, Charles the Hammer, whose tremen- 
 dous blows completed his father's work. The new mayor of the 
 palace soon drove the Frisian chief into submission, and even 
 into Christianity. A bishop's indiscretion, however, neu- 
 tralized the apostolic blows of the mayor. The pagan Radbod 
 had already immersed one of his royal legs in the baptismal 
 font, when a thought struck him. " Where are my dead fore-
 
 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 
 
 fathers at present?" he said, turning suddenly upon Bishop- 
 Wolfran. " In hell, with all other unbelievers," was the im- 
 prudent answer. " Mighty well," replied Radbod, removing his 
 leg, " then will I rather feast with my ancestors in the halls of 
 Woden, than dwell with your little starveling band of Christians 
 in heaven." Entreaties and threats were unavailing. The 
 Frisian declined positively a rite which was to cause an eternal 
 separation from his buried kindred, and he died as he had lived, 
 a heathen. His son, Poppo, succeeding to the nominal sove- 
 reignty,did not actively oppose the introduction of Christianity 
 among his people, but himself refused to be converted. Rebel- 
 ling against the Frank dominion, he was totally routed by 
 Charles Martell in a great battle (A.D. 750), and perished with 
 a vast number of Frisians. The Christian dispensation, thus 
 enforced, was now accepted by these northern pagans. The com- 
 mencement of their conversion had been mainly the work of 
 their brethren from Britain. The monk Wilfred was followed 
 in a few years by the Anglo-Saxon Willibrod. It was he who 
 destroyed the images of Woden in Walcheren, abolished his 
 worship, and founded churches in North Holland. Charles 
 Martell rewarded him with extensive domains about Utrecht, 
 together with many slaves and other chattels. Soon afterwards 
 he was consecrated Bishop of all the Frisians. Thus rose the 
 famous episcopate of Utrecht. Another Anglo-Saxon, Win- 
 frecl, or Bonifacius, had been equally active among his Frisian 
 cousins. His crozier had gone hand in hand with the battle- 
 axe. Bonifacius followed close upon the track of his orthodox 
 coadjutor Charles. By the middle of the eighth century, 
 some hundred thousand Frisians had been slaughtered, and as 
 many more converted. The hammer which smote the Saracens 
 at Tours was at last successful in beating the Netherlander 
 into Christianity. The labours of Bonifacius through Upper 
 and Lower Germany were immense ; but he, too, received great 
 material rewards. He was created Archbishop of Mayence, 
 and, upon the death of Willibrod, Bishop of Utrecht. Faith- 
 fill to his mission, however, he met, heroically, a martyr's
 
 22 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLTC. 
 
 death at the hands of the refractory pagans at Dokkum. Thus 
 was Christianity established in the Netherlands. 
 
 Under Charlemagne, the Frisians often rebelled, making 
 common cause with the Saxons. In 785, A.D., they were, 
 however, completely subjugated, and never rose again until the 
 epochof their entire separation from the Frank empire. Charle- 
 magne left them their name of free Frisians, and the property 
 in their own land. The feudal system never took root in their 
 soil. " The Frisians," says their statute book, " shall be free, as 
 long as the wind blows out of the clouds and the world stands." 
 They agreed, however, to obey the chiefs whom the Frank 
 monarch should appoint to govern them, according to their 
 own laws. Those laws were collected, and are still extant. 
 The vernacular version of their Asega book contains their 
 customs, together with the Frank additions. The general 
 ancient statutes of Charlemagne were, of course, in vigour 
 also ; but that great legislator knew too well the importance 
 attached by all mankind to local customs, to allow his imperial 
 capitulars to interfere, unnecessarily, with the Frisian laws. 
 
 Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall 
 of Home, were united under one crown imperial. They had 
 already been once united, in their slavery, to Rome. Eight 
 centuries pass away, and they are again united, in subjection, 
 to Charlemagne. Their union was but in forming a single link 
 in the chain of a new realm. The reign of Charlemagne had at 
 last accomplished the promise of the sorceress Velleda and other 
 soothsayers. A German race had re-established the empire of 
 the world. The Netherlands, like the other provinces of the 
 great monarch's dominion, were governed by crown-appointed 
 functionaries, military and judicial. In the north-eastern or 
 Frisian portion, however, the grants of land were never in the 
 form of revocable benefices or feuds. With this important 
 exception, the w r hole country shared the fate, and enjoyed the 
 general organisation of the empire. 
 
 But Charlemagne came an age too soon. The chaos which 
 had brooded over Europe since the dissolution of the Roman
 
 EISE AND FALL OF CHARLEMAGNE'S BEALM. 23 
 
 world, was still too absolute. It was not to bo fashioned into 
 permanent forms, even by his bold and constructive genius. A 
 soil, exhausted by the long culture of pagan empires, was to lie 
 fallow for a still longer period. The discordant elements out of 
 which the Emperor had compounded his realm, did not coalesce 
 during his lifetime. They were only held together by the 
 vigorous grasp of the hand which combined them. When 
 the great statesman died, his empire necessarily fell to pieces. 
 Society had need of further disintegration before it could begin 
 to reconstruct itself locally. A new civilisation was not to be 
 improvised by a single mind. When did one man ever civilise 
 a people ? In the eighth and ninth centuries there was not even 
 a people to be civilised. The construction of Charles was, of 
 necessity, temporary. His empire was supported by columns, 
 which fell prostrate almost as soon as the hand of the architect 
 was cold. His institutions had not struck down into the soil. 
 There were no extensive and vigorous roots to nourish, from 
 below, a flourishing empire through time and tempest. 
 
 Moreover, the Carlovingian race had been exhausted by 
 producing a race of heroes like the Pepins and the Charleses. 
 The family became, soon, as contemptible as the ox-drawn, 
 long-haired " do-nothings " whom it had expelled ; but it is 
 not our task to describe the fortunes of the Emperor's ignoble 
 descendants. The realm was divided, sub-divided, at times 
 partially reunited, like a family farm, among monarchs incom- 
 petent alike to hold, to delegate, or to resign the inheritance 
 of the great warrior and law -giver. The meek, bald, fat, 
 stammering, simple Charles, or Lewis, who successively sat 
 upon his throne princes, whose only historic individuality 
 consists in these insipid appellations had not the sense to 
 comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of their ancestor. 
 
 Charles the Simple was the last Carlovingian who governed 
 Lotharingia, in which were comprised most of the Netherlands 
 and Friesland. The German monarch, Henry the Fowler, at 
 that period called King of the East Franks, as Charles of the 
 West Franks, acquired Lotharingia by the treaty of Bonn,
 
 24 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 Charles reserving the sovereignty over the kingdom during 
 his lifetime. In 925, A.D., however, the Simpleton having 
 been imprisoned and deposed by his own subjects, the Fowler 
 was recognised King of Lotharingia. Thus the Netherlands 
 passed out of France into Germany, remaining still provinces 
 of a loose, disjointed empire. 
 
 This is the epoch in which the various dukedoms, earldoms 
 and other petty sovereignties of the Netherlands became 
 hereditary. It was in the year 922 that Charles the Simple 
 presented to Count Dirk the territory of Holland, by letters 
 patent. This narrow hook of land, destined, in future ages, 
 to be the cradle of a considerable empire, stretching through 
 both hemispheres, was thenceforth the inheritance of Dirk's 
 descendants. Historically, therefore, he is Dirk L, Count of 
 Holland. 
 
 Of this small sovereign and his successors, the most power- 
 ful foe, for centuries, was the Bishop of Utrecht, the origin of 
 whose greatness has been already indicated. Of the other 
 Netherland provinces, now hereditary, the first in rank was 
 Lotharingia, once the kingdom of Lothaire, now the dukedom 
 of Lorraine. In 965 it was divided into Upper and Lower 
 Lorraine, of which the lower duchy alone belonged to the 
 Netherlands. Two centuries later, the Counts of Louvain, then 
 occupying most of Brabant, obtained a permanent hold of 
 Lower Lorraine, and began to call themselves Dukes of Bra- 
 bant. The same principle of local independence and isolation 
 which created these dukes, established the hereditary power of 
 the counts and barons who formerly exercised jurisdiction 
 under them and others. Thus arose sovereign counts of 
 Namur, Hainault, Limburg, Zutphen, Dukes of Luxemburg 
 and Gueldres, Barons of Mechlin, Marquesses of Antwerp, and 
 others ; all petty autocrats. The most important of all, after 
 the house of Lorraine, were the Earls of Flanders ; for the bold 
 foresters of Charles the Great had soon wrested the sovereignty 
 of their little territory from his feeble descendants, as easily as 
 Baldwin, with the iron arm, had deprived the bald Charles of
 
 SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 his daughter. Holland, Zelaml, Utrecht, Overyssel, Gronin- 
 gen, Drenthe, and Friesland, (all seven being portions of 
 Friesland in a general sense,) were crowded together upon a 
 little desolate corner of Europe ; an obscure fragment of 
 Charlemagne's broken empire. They were afterwards to con- 
 stitute the United States of the Netherlands, one of the most 
 powerful republics of history. Meantime, for century after 
 century, the Counts of Holland and the Bishops of Utrecht 
 were to exercise divided sway over the territory. 
 
 Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and 
 patches of sovereignty. The separate history of such half- 
 organised morsels is tedious and petty. Trifling dynasties, 
 where a family or two were everything, the people nothing, 
 leave little worth recording. Even the most devout of 
 genealogists might shudder to chronicle the long succession 
 of so many illustrious obscure. 
 
 A glance, however, at the general features of the govern- 
 mental system now established in the Netherlands, at this 
 important epoch in the world's history, will show the trans- 
 formations which the country, in common with other portions 
 of the western world, had undergone. 
 
 In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman 
 forms have faded away. An entirely new polity has succeeded. 
 No great popular assembly asserts its sovereignty, as in the 
 ancient German epoch ; no generals and temporary kings are 
 chosen by the nation. The elective power had been lost under 
 the Romans, who, after conquest, had conferred the adminis- 
 trative authority over their subject provinces upon officials 
 appointed by the metropolis. The Franks pursued the same 
 coui*se. In Charlemagne's time the revolution is complete. 
 Popular assemblies and popular election entirely vanish. 
 Military, civil, and judicial officers dukes, earls, margraves, 
 and others are all king's creatures, knegten des konings, pueri 
 rcgis, and so remain, till they abjure the creative power, and 
 set up their own. The principle of Charlemagne, that his 
 officers should govern according to local custom, helps them.
 
 26 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 to achieve their own independence, while it preserves all that 
 is left of national liberty and law. 
 
 The counts, assisted by inferior judges, hold diets from time 
 to time thrice, perhaps, annually. They also summon assem- 
 blies in case of war. Thither are called the great vassals, who, 
 in turn, call their lesser vassals, each armed with " a shield, a 
 spear, a bow, twelve arrows, and a cuirass." Such assemblies, 
 convoked in the name of a distant sovereign, whose face his 
 subjects had never seen, whose language they could hardly 
 understand, were very different from those tumultuous mass- 
 meetings, where boisterous freemen, armed with the weapons 
 they loved the best, and arriving sooner or later, according to 
 their pleasure, had been accustomed to elect their generals and 
 magistrates, and to raise them upon their shields. The people 
 are now governed, their rulers appointed by an invisible hand. 
 Edicts, issued by a power, as it were, supernatural, demand im- 
 plicit obedience. The people, acquiescing in their own anni- 
 hilation, abdicate not only their political but their personal 
 rights. On the other hand, the great source of power diffuses 
 less and less of light and warmth. Losing its attractive and 
 controlling influence, it becomes gradually eclipsed, while its 
 satellites fly from their prescribed bounds, and chaos and dark- 
 ness return. The sceptre, stretched over realms so wide, re- 
 quires stronger hands than those of degenerate Carlovingians. 
 It breaks asunder. Functionaries become sovereigns, with 
 hereditary, not delegated, right to own the people, to tax their 
 roads and rivers, to take tithings of their blood and sweat, to 
 harass them in all the relations of life. There is no longer 
 a metropolis to protect them from official oppression. Power, 
 the more subdivided, becomes the more tyrannical. The sword 
 is the only symbol of law, the cross is a weapon of offence, the 
 bishop is a consecrated pirate, and every petty baron a burglar; 
 while the people, alternately the prey of duke, prelate and 
 seignor, shorn and butchered like sheep, esteem it happiness to 
 eell themselves into slavery, or to huddle beneath the castle 
 walls of some little potentate, for the sake of his wolfish protec-
 
 TARIFF UPON CRIMES. 27 
 
 tion. Here they build hovels, which they surround from time 
 to time with palisades and muddy entrenchments ; and here, 
 in these squalid abodes of ignorance and misery, the genius of 
 liberty, conducted by the spirit of commerce, descends at last 
 to awaken mankind from its sloth and cowardly stupor. A 
 longer night was to intervene, however, before the dawn of day. 
 The crown-appointed functionaries had been, of course, 
 financial officers. They collected the revenue of the sovereign, 
 one-third of which slipped through their fingers into their 
 own coffers. Becoming sovereigns themselves, they retain these 
 funds for their private emolument. Four principal sources 
 yielded this revenue : royal domains, tolls and imposts, direct 
 levies, and a pleasantry called voluntary contributions or bene- 
 volences. In addition to these supplies were also the proceeds 
 of fines. Taxation upon sin was, in those rude ages, a consi- 
 derable branch of the revenue. The old Frisian laws consisted 
 almost entirely of a discriminating tariff upon crimes. Nearly 
 all the misdeeds which man is prone to commit were punished 
 by a money-bote only. Murder, larceny, arson, rape all 
 offences against the person were commuted for a definite price. 
 There were few exceptions, such as parricide, which was fol- 
 lowed by loss of inheritance ; sacrilege and the murder of a 
 master by a slave, which were punished with death. It is a 
 natural inference that, as the royal treasury was enriched by 
 these imposts, the sovereign would hardly attempt to check the 
 annual harvest of iniquity by which his revenue was increased. 
 Still, although the moral sense is shocked by a system which 
 makes the ruler's interest identical with the wickedness of his 
 people, and holds out a comparative immunity in evil-doing 
 for the rich, it was better that crime should be punished by 
 money rather than not be punished at all. A severe tax, which 
 the noble reluctantly paid, and which the penniless culprit com- 
 muted by personal slavery, was sufficiently unjust as well as 
 absurd, yet it served to mitigate the horrors with which tumult, 
 rapine, and murder enveloped those early days. Gradually, as 
 the light of reason broke upon the dark ages, the most noxious
 
 28 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH BEPUBLIO. 
 
 features of the system were removed, while the general 
 sentiment of reverence for law remained. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Five centuries of isolation succeed. In the Netherlands, as 
 throughout Europe, a thousand obscure and slender rills are 
 slowly preparing the great stream of universal culture. Five 
 dismal centuries of feudalism : during which period there is 
 little talk of human right, little obedience to divine reason. 
 Eights there are none, only forces ; and, in brief, three great 
 forces, gradually arising, developing themselves, acting upon 
 each other, and upon the general movement of society. 
 
 The sword the first, for a time the only force : the force of 
 iron. The "land's master," having acquired the property in the 
 territory and in the people who feed thereon, distributes to his 
 subalterns, often but a shade beneath him in power, portions of 
 his estate, getting the use of their faithful swords in return. 
 Vavasours subdivide again to vassals, exchanging land and 
 cattle, human or other, against fealty, and so the iron chain of 
 a military hierarchy, forged of mutually inter-dependent links, 
 is stretched over each little province. Impregnable castles, 
 here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom, 
 dot the level surface of the country. Mail-clad knights, with 
 their followers, encamp permanently upon the'soil. The for- 
 tunate fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system ; 
 superstition and ignorance give currency to the delusion. Thus 
 the grace of God, having conferred the property in a vast por- 
 tion of Europe upon a certain idiot in France, makes him com- 
 petent to sell large fragments of his estate, and to give a divine, 
 and, therefore, most satisfactory title along with them ; a great 
 convenience to a man, who had neither power, wit, nor will to 
 keep the property in his own hands. So the Dirks of Holland 
 get a deed from Charles the Simple, and, although the grace of 
 God does not prevent the royal grantor himself from dying a 
 miserable, discrowned captive, the conveyance to Dirk is none
 
 THE THREE FORCES. 29 
 
 the less hallowed by almighty fiat. So the Roberts and Guys, 
 the Johns and Baldwins, become sovereigns in Hainault, Bra- 
 bant, Flanders, and other little districts, affecting supernatural 
 sanction for the authority which their good swords have won 
 and are ever ready to maintain. Thus organised, the force of 
 iron asserts and exerts itself. Duke, count, seignor and vassal, 
 knight and squire, master and man, swarm and struggle amain. 
 A wild, chaotic, sanguinary scene. Here, bishop and baron 
 contend, centuries long, murdering human creatures by ten 
 thousands for an acre or two of swampy pasture ; there, 
 doughty families, hugging old musty quarrels to their heart, 
 buffet each other from generation to generation ; and thus they 
 go on, raging and wrestling among themselves, with all the 
 world, shrieking insane war-cries which no human soul ever 
 understood red caps and black, white hoods and grey, Hooks 
 and Kabbelj a ws, dealing destruction, building castles and burn- 
 ing them, tilting at tourneys, stealing bullocks, roasting Jews, 
 robbing the highways, crusading now upon Syrian sands 
 against Paynim dogs, now in Frisian quagmires against Albi- 
 genses, Stedingers, and other heretics plunging about in blood 
 and fire, repenting at idle times, and paying their passage 
 through purgatory with large slices of ill-gotten gains placed in 
 the ever-extended dead-hand of the Church ; acting, on the 
 whole, according to their kind, and so getting themselves civil- 
 ised or exterminated, it matters little which. Thus they play 
 their part, those energetic men-at-arms ; and thus one great 
 force, the force of iron, spins and expands itself, century after 
 century, helping on, as it whirls, the great progress of society 
 towards its goal, wherever that may be. 
 
 Another force the force clerical the powers of clerks, arises: 
 the might of educated mind measuring itself against brute vio- 
 lence , a force embodied, as often before, as priestcraft the 
 strength of priests : craft meaning, simply, strength in our old 
 mother-tongue. This great force, too, develops itself variously, 
 being sometimes beneficent, sometimes malignant. Priesthood 
 works out its task, age after age ; now smoothing penitent
 
 30 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 death-beds, consecrating graves, feeding the hungry, clothing 
 the naked, incarnating the Christian precepts in an age of 
 rapine and homicide, doing a thousand deeds of love and 
 charity among the obscure and forsaken deeds of which 
 there shall never be human chronicle, but a leaf or two, 
 perhaps, in the recording angel's book; hiving precious 
 honey from the few flowers of gentle art which bloom upon 
 a howling wilderness ; holding up the light of science over a 
 stormy sea ; treasuring in convents and crypts the few fossils 
 of antique learning which become visible, as the extinct 
 Megatherium of an elder world reappears after the gothic 
 deluge; and now, careering in helm and hauberk with the 
 other ruffians, bandying blows in the thickest of the fight, blast- 
 ing with bell, book, and candle its trembling enemies, while 
 sovereigns, at the head of armies, grovel in the dust and offer 
 abject submission for the kiss of peace ; exercising the same con- 
 jury over ignorant baron and cowardly hind, making the fiction 
 of apostolic authority to bind and loose, as prolific in acres as 
 the other divine right to have and hold ; thus the force of 
 cultivated intellect, wielded by a chosen few and sanctioned 
 by supernatural authority, becomes as potent as the sword. 
 
 A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even- 
 more potent than the rest : the power of gold. Even iron yields 
 to the more ductile metal. The importance of municipalities, 
 enriched by trade begins to be felt. Commerce, the mother of 
 Netherland freedom, and eventually its destroyer even as in 
 all human history the vivifying becomes afterwards the dissolv- 
 ing principle commerce changes insensibly and miraculously 
 the aspect of society. Clusters of hovels become towered cities ; 
 the green and gilded Hanse of commercial republicanism coils 
 itself around the decaying trunk of feudal despotism. Cities 
 leagued with cities throughout and beyond Christendom em- 
 pire within empire bind themselves closer and closer in the 
 electric chain of human sympathy, and grow stronger and 
 stronger by mutual support. Fishermen and river raftsmen 
 become ocean adventurers and merchant princes. Commerce
 
 RISE OF MUNICIPAL POWER. 31 
 
 plucks up half-drowned Holland by the locks, and pours gold 
 into her lap. Gold wrests power from iron. Needy Flemish 
 weavers become mighty manufacturers. Armies of workmen, 
 fifty thousand strong, tramp through the swarming streets. 
 Silkmakers, clothiers, brewers, become the gossips of kings, 
 lend their royal gossips vast sums, and burn the royal notes of 
 hand in fires of cinnamon wood; Wealth brings strength, 
 strength confidence. Learning to handle cross-bow and dagger, 
 
 o <_? OO * 
 
 the burghers fear less the baronial sword, finding that their own 
 will cut as well, seeing that great armies flowers of chivalry 
 can ride away before them fast enough at battles of spurs and 
 other encounters. Sudden riches beget insolence, tumults, civic 
 broils. Internecine quarrels, horrible tumults stain the streets 
 with blood, but education lifts the citizens more and more out 
 of the original slough. They learn to tremble as little at priest- 
 craft as at swordcraft, having acquired something of each. 
 Gold in the end, unsanctioned by right divine, weighs up the 
 other forces, supernatural as they are. And so, struggling 
 along their appointed path, making cloth, making money, mak- 
 ing treaties with great kingdoms, making war by land and sea, 
 ringing great bells, waving great banners, they, too these in- 
 solent, boisterous burghers accomplish their work. Thus, the 
 mighty power of the purse develops itself, and municipal liberty 
 becomes a substantial fact. A fact, not a principle ; for the old 
 theorem of sovereignty remains undisputed as ever. Neither 
 the nation, in mass, nor the citizens, in class, lay claim to 
 human rights. All upper attributes legislative, judicial, ad- 
 ministrative remain in the land-master's breast alone. It is 
 an absurdity, therefore, to argue with Grotius concerning the 
 unknown antiquity of the Batavian Republic. The republic 
 never existed at all till the sixteenth century, and was only 
 born after long yeajs of agony. The democratic instincts of 
 the ancient German savages were to survive in the breasts of 
 their cultivated descendants, but an organised, civilised re- 
 publican polity had never existed. The cities, as they grew in 
 strength, never claimed the right to make the laws, or to share
 
 32 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 in the government. As a matter of fact, they did make the 
 laws, and shared, beside, in most important functions of sove- 
 reignty, in the treaty-making power especially. Sometimes by 
 bargains, sometimes by blood, by gold, threats, promises, or 
 good hard blows, they extorted their charters. Their codes, 
 statutes, joyful entcances, and other constitutions, were dictated 
 by the burghers and sworn to by the monarch. They were 
 concessions from above ; privileges, private laws ; fragments, 
 indeed, of a larger liberty, but vastly better than the slavery 
 for which they had been substituted ; solid facts instead of 
 empty abstractions, which in those practical and violent days, 
 would have yielded little nutriment ; but they still rather 
 sought to reconcile themselves, by a rough, clumsy fiction, with 
 the hierarchy which they had invaded, than to overturn the 
 system. Thus the cities, not regarding themselves as represen- 
 tatives or aggregations of the people, became fabulous person- 
 ages, bodies without souls, corporations which had acquired 
 vitality and strength enough to assert their existence. As per- 
 sons, therefore gigantic individualities they wheeled into 
 the feudal ranks and assumed feudal powers and responsibilities. 
 The city of Dort, of Middleburg, of Ghent, of Louvain, was 
 a living being, doing fealty, claiming service, bowing to its 
 lord, struggling with its equals, trampling upon its slaves. 
 
 Thus, in these obscure provinces, as throughout Europe, in a 
 thousand remote and isolated corners, civilisation builds itself 
 up, synthetically and slowly. Thus, impelled by great and 
 conflicting forces, now obliquely, now backward, now upward, 
 yet, upon the whole, onward, the new society moves along its 
 predestined orbit, gathering consistency and strength as it goes; 
 society, civilisation, perhaps, but hardly humanity. The people 
 has hardly begun to extricate itself from the clods in which it 
 lies buried. There are only nobles, priests, and, latterly, cities. 
 In the northern Netherlands, the degraded condition of the 
 mass continued longest. Even in Friesland, liberty, the dearest 
 blessing of the ancient Frisians, had been forfeited in a variety 
 of ways. Slavery was both voluntary and compulsory. Paupers
 
 CONDITION OF SLAVES. 33 
 
 sold themselves that they might escape starvation. The timid 
 sold themselves that they might escape violence. These 
 voluntary sales, which were frequent, were usually made to 
 cloisters and ecclesiastical establishments ; for the condition 
 of Church slaves was preferable to that of other serfs. Per- 
 sons worsted in judicial duels, shipwrecked sailors, vagrants, 
 strangers, criminals unable to pay the money-bote imposed 
 upon them, were all deprived of freedom ; but the prolific 
 source of slavery was war. Prisoners were almost universally 
 reduced to servitude. A free woman who intermarried with a 
 slave condemned herself and offspring to perpetual bondage. 
 Among the Ripuarian Franks, a free woman thus disgracing 
 herself was girt with a sword and a distaff. Choosing the one 
 she was to strike her husband dead ; choosing the other, she 
 adopted the symbol of slavery, and became a chattel for life. 
 
 The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak 
 and timid persons into servitude. They fled, by throngs, to 
 church and monastery, and were happy, by enslaving them- 
 selves, to escape the more terrible bondage of the sea-kings. 
 During the brief dominion of the Norman Godfrey, every 
 free Frisian was forced to wear a halter around his neck. 
 The lot of a Church slave was freedom in comparison. To 
 kill him was punishable by a heavy fine. He could give 
 testimony in court, could inherit, could make a will, could 
 even plead before the law, if law could be found. The number 
 of slaves throughout the Netherlands was very large ; the 
 number belonging to the bishopric of Utrecht, enormous. 
 
 The condition of those belonging to laymen was much 
 more painful. The Lyf-eigene, or absolute slaves, were the 
 most wretched. They were mere brutes. They had none of 
 the natural attributes of humanity, their life and death were 
 in the master's hands, they had no claim to a fraction of their 
 own labour or its fruits, they had no marriage, except under 
 conditions of the infamous jus primcB noctis. The villagers, 
 or villeins, were the second class, and less forlorn. They 
 oould commute the labour due to their owner by a fiied 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 34 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. 
 
 sum of money, after annual payment of which, the villein 
 worked for himself. His master, therefore, was not his 
 absolute proprietor. The chattel had a beneficial interest in 
 a portion of his own flesh and blood. 
 
 The crusades made great improvement in the condition of 
 the serfs. He who became a soldier of the cross was free upon 
 his return, and many were adventurous enough to purchase 
 liberty at so honourable a price. Many others were sold or 
 mortgaged by the crusading knights, desirous of converting 
 their property into gold, before embarking upon their enter- 
 prise. The purchasers or mortgagees were in general churches 
 and convents, so that the slaves, thus alienated, obtained at 
 least a preferable servitude. The place of the absent serfs was 
 supplied by free labour, so that agricultural and mechanical 
 occupations, now devolving upon a more elevated class, became 
 less degrading, and, in process of time, opened an ever-widening 
 sphere for the industry and progress of freemen. Thus a people 
 began to exist. It was, however, a miserable people, with per- 
 sonal but no civil rights whatever. Their condition, although 
 better than servitude, was almost desperate. They were taxed 
 beyond their ability, while priest and noble were exempt. They 
 had no voice in the apportionment of the money thus contri- 
 buted. There was no redress against the lawless violence to 
 which they were perpetually exposed. In the manorial courts, 
 the criminal sat in judgment upon his victim. The functions of 
 highwaymen and magistrate were combined in one individual. 
 
 By degrees, the class of freemen, artisans, traders, and the 
 like, becoming the more numerous, built stronger and better 
 houses outside the castle gates of the " land's master," or the 
 burghs of the more powerful nobles. The superiors, anxious 
 to increase their own importance, favoured the progress of 
 the little boroughs. The population, thus collected, began to 
 divide themselves into guilds. These were soon afterwards 
 erected by the community into bodies corporate ; the estab- 
 lishment of the community, of course, preceding the incor- 
 poration of the guilds. These communities were created by
 
 EARLY CHARTERS. 35 
 
 charters or Keuren granted by the sovereign. Unless the 
 earliest concessions of this nature have perished, the town 
 charters of Holland or Zeland are nearly a century later than 
 those of Flanders, France, and England. 
 
 The oldest Keur, or act of municipal incorporation, in the 
 provinces afterwards constituting the republic, was that 
 granted by Count William the First of Holland and Countess 
 Joanna of Flanders, as joint proprietors of Walcheren, to the 
 town of Middleburg. It will be seen that its main purport is 
 to promise, as a special privilege to this community, law, in 
 place of the arbitrary violence, by which mankind, in general, 
 were governed by their betters. 
 
 " The inhabitants," ran the charter, "are, taken into protec- 
 tion by both Counts. Upon fighting, maiming, wounding, strik- 
 ing, scolding ; upon peace-breaking, upon resistance to peace- 
 makers and to the judgment of Schepens ; upon contemning 
 the Ban, upon selling spoiled wine, and upon other misdeeds, 
 fines are imposed for behoof of the Count, the city, and some- 
 times of the Schepens. ... To all Middleburgers one kind 
 of law is guaranteed. Every man must go to law before the 
 Schepens. If any one being summoned and present in Wal- 
 cheren does not appear, or refuses submission to sentence, he 
 shall be banished, with confiscation of property. Schout or 
 Schepen denying justice to a complaint shall, until reparation, 
 hold no tribunal again. ... A burgher having a dispute 
 with an outsider (buiten maim), must summon him before the- 
 Schepens. An appeal lies from the Schepens to the Count* 
 No one can testify but a householder. All alienation of real 
 estate must take place before the Schepens. If an outsider has- 
 a complaint against a burgher, the Schepens and Schout must 
 arrange it. If either party refuses submission to them, they 
 must ring the town bell, and summon an assembly of all the 
 burghers to compel him. Any one ringing the town bell, except 
 by general consent, and any one not appearing when it tolls, 
 are liable to a fine. No Micldleburger can be arrested or held 
 in durance within FJanders or Holland, except for crime."
 
 So THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 This document was signed, sealed, and sworn to by the 
 two sovereigns in the year 1217. It was the model on which 
 many other communities, cradles of great cities, in Holland 
 and Zcland, were afterwards created. 
 
 These charters are certainly not very extensive, even for tho 
 privileged municipalities which obtained them, when viewed 
 from an abstract stand-point. They constituted, however, a 
 very great advance from the stand-point at which humanity 
 actually found itself. They created, not for all inhabitants, 
 but for great numbers of them, the right, not to govern them- 
 selves, but to be governed by law. They furnished a local 
 administration of justice. They provided against arbitrary 
 imprisonment. They set up tribunals, where men of burgher 
 class were to sit in judgment. They held up a shield against 
 arbitrary violence from above and sedition from within. They 
 ^encouraged peace-makers, punished peace-breakers. They 
 .guarded the fundamental principle, ut sua tenerent, to the verge 
 
 of absurdity; forbidding a freeman, without a freehold, from 
 testifying a capacity not denied even to a country slave. 
 
 Certainly all this was better than fist-law and courts-manorial. 
 -For thecommencementof the thirteenth century it was progress. 
 
 The Schout and Schepens, or chief magistrate and alder- 
 men, were originally appointed by the sovereign. In process 
 of time, the election of these municipal authorities was con- 
 ceded to the communities. This inestimable privilege, how- 
 ever, after having been exercised during a certain period by 
 the whole body of citizens, was eventually monopolised by the 
 municipal government itself, acting in common with the deans 
 of the various guilds. 
 
 Thus organised and inspired with the breath of civic life, 
 the communities of France and Holland began to move rapidly 
 forward. More and more they assumed the appearance of 
 prosperous little republics. For this prosperity they were in- 
 debted to commerce, particularly with England and the Baltic 
 nations, and to manufactures, especially of wool. 
 
 The trade between England and the Netherlands had existed
 
 TRADING CITIES OF THE NETHERLANDS. 37 
 
 for ages, and was still extending itself, to the great advantage 
 of both countries. A dispute, however, between the merchants 
 of Holland and England, towards the year 1275, caused a 
 privateering warfare, and a ten years' suspension of inter- 
 course. A reconciliation afterwards led to the establishment 
 of the English wool staple at Dort. A subsequent quarrel 
 deprived Holland of this great advantage. King Edward 
 refused to assist Count Florence in a war with the Flemings, 
 and transferred the staple from Dort to Bruges and Mechlin. 
 
 The trade of the Netherlands with the Mediterranean and 
 the East was mainly through this favoured city of Bruges, 
 which already, in the thirteenth century, had risen to the first 
 rank in the commercial world. It was the resting-place for 
 the Lombards, and other Italians, the great entrepot for their 
 merchandise. It now became, in addition, the great market- 
 place of English wool, and the woollen fabrics of all the 
 Netherlands, as well as for the drugs and spices of the East. 
 It had, however, by no means reached its apogee, but was to 
 culminate with Venice, and to sink with her decline. When 
 the overland Indian trade fell off with the discovery of the 
 Cape passage, both cities withered. Grass grew in the fair 
 and pleasant streets of Bruges, and sea- weed clustered about 
 the marble halls of Venice. At this epoch, however, both 
 were in a state of rapid and insolent prosperity. 
 
 The cities, thus advancing in wealth and importance, were 
 no longer satisfied with being governed according to law, and 
 began to participate, not only in their own, but in the general 
 government. Under Guy the First of Flanders, the towns ap- 
 peared regularly, as well as the nobles, in the assembly of the 
 provincial estates, (1286-1289, A.D.) In the course of the 
 following century, the six chief cities, or capitals, of Holland 
 (Dort, Harlem, Delft, Leyden, Gouda, and Amsterdam) 
 acquired the right of sending their deputies regularly to the 
 estates of the provinces. These towns, therefore, with the 
 nobles, constituted the parliamentary power of the nation. 
 They also acquired letters patent from the Count, allowing
 
 38 THE RISE OF TEE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 them to choose their burgomasters and a limited number of 
 councillors or senators, (Vroedschappen.) 
 
 Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed daily 
 stronger. A great physical convulsion in the thirteenth century 
 came to add its influence to the slower process of political revo- 
 lution. Hitherto there had been but one Friesland, including 
 Holland and nearly all the territory of the future republic. A 
 slender stream alone separated the two great districts. The low 
 lands along the Vlie, often threatened, at last sank in the waves. 
 The German ocean rolled in upon the inland lake of Flevo. The 
 stormy Zuyder Zee began its existence by engulfing thousands 
 of Frisian villages, with all tlieir population, and by spreading 
 a chasm between kindred peoples. The political, as well as 
 the geographical, continuity of the land was obliterated by this 
 tremendous deluge. The Hollanders were cut off from their 
 relatives in the east by as dangerous a sea as that which divided 
 them from their Anglo-Saxon brethren in Britain. The de- 
 puties to the general assemblies at Aurich could no longer 
 undertake a journey grown so perilous. West Friesland became 
 absorbed in Holland. East Friesland remained a federation of 
 rude but self-governed maritime provinces, until the brief and 
 bloody dominion of the Saxon dukes led to the establishment 
 of Charles the Fifth's authority. Whatever the nominal sove- 
 reignty over them, this most republican tribe of Netherlander, 
 or of Europeans, had never accepted feudalism. There was 
 an annual congress of the whole confederacy. Each of the 
 seven little states, on the other hand, regulated its own internal 
 affairs. Each state was subdivided into districts, each district 
 governed by a Griet-mann (great man, select man) and assist- 
 ants. Above all these district officers was a Podesta, a magis- 
 trate identical in name and functions with the chief officer of 
 the Italian republics. There was sometimes but one Podesta; 
 sometimes one for each province. He was chosen by the people, 
 took oath of fidelity to the separate estates, or, if Podesta- 
 general, to the federal diet, and was generally elected for a 
 limited term, although sometimes for life. He was assisted by
 
 REPUBLICAN RUDIMENTS. 9 
 
 a board of eighteen or twenty councillors. The deputies to the 
 . general congress were chosen by popular suffrage in Easter- 
 week. The clergy were not recognised as a political estate. 
 
 Thus, in those lands which a niggard nature had apparently 
 condemned to perpetual poverty and obscurity, the principle of 
 reasonable human freedom, without which there is no national 
 prosperity or glory worth contending for, was taking deepest 
 and strongest root. Already, in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, Friesland was a republic, except in name; Holland, 
 Flanders, Brabant, had acquired a large share of self-govern- 
 ment. The powerful commonwealth, at a later period to be 
 evolved out of the great combat between centralised tyranny 
 and the spirit of civil and religious liberty, was already fore- 
 shadowed. The elements of which that important republic was 
 to be compounded were germinating for centuries. Love of 
 freedom, readiness to strike and bleed at any moment in her 
 cause, manly resistance to despotism, however overshadowing, 
 were the leading characteristics of the race in all regions or 
 periods, whether among Frisian swamps, Dutch dykes, the 
 gentle hills and dales of England, or the pathless forests of 
 America. Doubtless, the history of human liuerty in Holland 
 and Flanders, as everywhere else upon earth where there has 
 been such a history, unrolls many scenes of turbulence and 
 bloodshed ; although these features have been exaggerated by 
 prejudiced historians. Still, if there were luxury and insolence, 
 sedition and uproar, at any rate there was life. Those violent 
 little commonwealths had blood in their veins. They were 
 compact of proud, self-helping, muscular vigour. The most 
 sanguinary tumults which they ever enacted in the face of day, 
 were better than the order and silence born of the midnight 
 darkness of despotism. That very unruliness was educating the 
 people for their future work. Those merchants, manufacturers, 
 country squires, and hard-fighting barons, all pent up in a 
 narrow corner of the earth, quarrelling with each other, and 
 with all the world for centuries, were keeping alive a national 
 pugnacity of character, for which there was to be a heavy de-
 
 40 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH RE1 UBLIO. 
 
 mand in the sixteenth century, and without which the father- 
 land had perhaps succumbed in the most unequal conflict ever 
 waged by man against oppression. 
 
 To sketch the special history of even the leading Netherland 
 provinces during the five centuries which we have thus rapidly 
 sought to characterise is foreign to our purpose. By holding 
 the clue of Holland's history, the general maze of dynastic 
 transformations throughout the country may, however, be 
 swiftly threaded. From the time of the first Dirk to the 
 close of the thirteenth century there were nearly four hundred 
 years of unbroken male descent, a long line of Dirks and 
 Florences. This iron-handed, hot-headed, adventurous race, 
 placed as sovereign upon its little sandy hook, making ferocious 
 exertions to swell into larger consequence, conquering a mile 
 or two of morass or barren furze, after harder blows and 
 bloodier encounters than might have established an empire 
 under more favourable circumstances, at last dies out. The 
 Countship falls to the house of Avennes, Counts of Hainault. 
 Holland, together with Zeland, which it had annexed, is thus 
 joined to the province of Hainault. At the end of another 
 half century the Hainault line expires. William the Fourth 
 died childless in 1355. His death is the signal for the out- 
 break of an almost interminable series of civil commotions. 
 These two great parties, known by the uncouth names of Hook 
 and Kabbeljaw, come into existence, dividing noble against 
 noble, city against city, father against son, for some hundred 
 and fifty years, without foundation upon any abstract or intel- 
 ligible principle. It may be observed, however, that, in the 
 sequel, and as a general rule, the Kabbeljaw, or cod-fish party 
 represented the city or municipal faction, while the Hooks,, 
 (fish-hooks,) that were to catch and control them, were ther 
 nobles ; iron and audacity against brute number and weight. 
 
 Duke William of Bavaria, sister's son of William the Fourth, 
 gets himself established in 1354. He is succeeded by his 
 brother Albert ; Albert, by his son William. William, who 
 had married Margaret of Burgundy, daughter of Philip tho
 
 PHILIP THE GOOD. 41 
 
 Bold, dies in 1417. The goodly heritage of these three Nether- 
 land provinces descends to his daughter Jacqueline, a damsel 
 of seventeen. Little need to trace the career of the fair and 
 ill-starred Jacqueline. Few chapters of historical romance have 
 drawn more frequent tear?. The favourite heroine of ballad 
 and drama, to Netherlander she is endued with the palpable 
 form and perpetual existence of the Iphigenias. Mary Stuarts, 
 Joans of Arc, or other consecrated individualities. Exhausted 
 and broken-hearted, after thirteen years of conflict with her 
 own kinsmen, consoled for the cowardice and brutality of 
 three husbands by the gentle and knightly spirit of the fourth, 
 dispossessed of her father's broad domains, degraded from 
 the rank of sovereign to be lady forester of her own provinces 
 by her cousin, the bad Duke of Burgundy, Philip, surnamed 
 " the Good," she dies at last, and the good cousin takes 
 undisputed dominion of the land. (1437.) 
 
 VII. 
 
 The five centuries of isolation are at an end. The many 
 obscure streams of Netherland history are merged in one 
 broad current. Burgundy has absorbed all the provinces, 
 which, once more, are forced to recognise a single master. 
 A century and a few years more succeed, during which this 
 house and its heirs are undisputed sovereigns of the soil. 
 
 Philip the Good had already acquired the principal Nether- 
 lands, before dispossessing Jacqueline. He had inherited, 
 beside the two Burgundies, the counties of Flanders and 
 Artois. He had purchased the county of Namur, and had 
 usurped the duchy of Brabant, to which the duchy of Lim- 
 burg, the marquisate of Antwerp, and the barony of Mechlin, 
 had already been annexed. By his assumption of Jacqueline's 
 dominions, he was now lord of Holland, Zeland, and Hainault, 
 and titular master of Friesland. He acquired Luxemburg a 
 few years later. 
 
 Lord of so many opulent cities and fruitful provinces, he felt
 
 42 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 himself equal to the kings of Europe. Upon his marriage 
 with Isabella of Portugal, he founded, at Bruges, the celebrated 
 order of the Golden Fleece. What could be more practical or 
 more devout than the conception ? Did not the Lamb of God, 
 suspended at each knightly breast, symbolise at once the 
 woollen fabrics to which so much of Flemish wealth and Bur- 
 gundian power was owing, and the gentle humility of Christ, 
 which was ever to characterise the order ? Twenty-five was 
 the limited number, including Philip himself as grand master. 
 The chevaliers were emperors, kings, princes, and the most 
 illustrious nobles of Christendom ; while a leading provision, 
 at the outset, forbade the brethren, crowned heads excepted, 
 to accept or retain the companionship of any other order. 
 
 The accession of so potent and ambitious a prince as the 
 good Philip boded evil to the cause of freedom in the Nether- 
 lands. The spirit of liberty seemed to have been typified in the 
 fair form of the benignant and unhappy Jacqueline, and to be 
 buried in her grave. The usurper, who had crushed her out of 
 existence, now strode forward to trample upon all the laws and 
 privileges of the provinces which had formed her heritage. 
 
 At his advent, the municipal power had already reached an 
 advanced stage of development. The burgher class controlled 
 the government, not only of the cities, but often of the pro- 
 vinces, through its influence in the estates. Industry and 
 wealth had produced their natural results. The supreme 
 authority of the sovereign and the power of the nobles were 
 balanced by the municipal principle which had even begun to 
 preponderate over both. All three exercised a constant and 
 salutary check upon each other. Commerce had converted 
 slaves into freemen, freemen into burghers, and the burghers 
 were acquiring daily a larger practical hold upon the govern- 
 ment. The town councils were becoming almost omnipotent. 
 Although with an oligarchical tendency which at a later 
 period was to be more fully developed, they were now com- 
 posed of large numbers of individuals, who had raised them- 
 selves, by industry and intelligence, out of the popular masses.
 
 PEOGEESS OF LIBEETY CHECKED. 43 
 
 There was an unquestionably republican tone to the institu- 
 tions. Power, actually, if not nominally, was in the hands 
 of many who had achieved the greatness to which they had 
 not been born. 
 
 The assemblies of the estates were rather diplomatic than 
 representative. They consisted, generally, of the nobles and 
 of the deputations from the cities. In Holland, the clergy 
 had neither influence nor seats in the parliamentary body. 
 Measures were proposed by the stadtholder, who represented 
 the sovereign. A request, for example, of pecuniary accom- 
 modation, was made by that functionary, or by the count 
 himself in person. The nobles then voted upon the demand, 
 generally as one body, but sometimes by heads. The measure 
 was then laid before the burghers. If they had been specially 
 commissioned to act upon the matter, they voted, each city as 
 a city, not each deputy individually. If they had received no 
 instructions, they took back the proposition to lay before the 
 councils of their respective cities, in order to return a decision 
 at an adjourned session, or at a subsequent diet. It will be 
 seen, therefore, that the principle of national popular represen- 
 tation was but imperfectly developed. The municipal deputies 
 acted only under instructions. Each city was a little inde- 
 pendent state, suspicious not only of the sovereign and nobles, 
 but of its sister cities. This mutual jealousy hastened the 
 general humiliation now impending. The centre of the system 
 waxing daily more powerful, it more easily unsphered these 
 feebler and mutually repulsive bodies. 
 
 Philip's first step, upon assuming the government, was to 
 issue a declaration, through the council of Holland, that the 
 privileges and constitutions, which he had sworn to as Ruward, 
 or guardian, during the period in which Jacqueline had still 
 retained a nominal sovereignty, were to be considered null and 
 void, unless afterwards confirmed by him as count. At a single 
 blow he thus severed the whole knot of pledges, oaths, and other 
 political complications, by which he had entangled himself dur- 
 ing his cautious advance to power. He was now untrammelled
 
 44 THE KISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. 
 
 again. As the conscience of the smooth usurper was, thence- 
 forth, the measure of provincial liberty, his subjects soon found 
 it meted to them more sparingly than they wished. From this 
 point, then, through the Burgundian period, and until the rise 
 of the republic, the liberty of the Netherlands, notwithstanding 
 several brilliant but brief luminations, occurring at irregular 
 intervals, seemed to remain in almost perpetual eclipse. 
 
 The material prosperity of the country had, however, vastly 
 increased. The fisheries of Holland had become of enormous 
 importance. The invention of the humble Beukelzoon of 
 Biervliet had expanded into a mine of wealth. The fisheries, 
 too, were most useful as a nursery of seamen, and were already 
 indicating Holland's future naval supremacy. The fishermen 
 were the militia of the ocean, and their prowess was attested in 
 the war with the Hanseatic cities, which the provinces of Hol- 
 land and Zeland, in Philip's name, but by their own unassisted 
 exertions, carried on triumphantly at this epoch. Then came 
 into existence that race of cool and daring mariners who, in 
 after-times, were to make the Dutch name illustrious through- 
 out the world the men whose fierce descendants, the "beggars 
 of the sea," were to make the Spanish empire tremble the men 
 whose later successors swept the seas with brooms at the mast- 
 head, and whose ocean battles with their equally fearless English 
 brethren often lasted four uninterrupted days and nights. 
 
 The main strength of Holland was derived from the ocean, 
 from whose destructive grasp she had wrested herself, but 
 in whose friendly embrace she remained. She was already 
 placing securely the foundations of commercial wealth and 
 civil liberty upon those shifting quicksands which the Roman 
 doubted whether to call land or water. Her submerged 
 deformity, as she floated, mermaid-like, upon the waves, was 
 to be forgotten in her material splendour. Enriched with 
 the spoils of every clime, crowned with the divine jewels of 
 science and art, she was, one day, to sing a siren song of 
 freedom, luxury, and power. 
 
 As with Holland) so with Flanders, Brabant, and the other
 
 INVENTION OP FEINTING. 45 
 
 leading provinces. Industry and wealth, agriculture, com- 
 merce, and manufactures were constantly augmenting. The 
 natural sources of power were full to overflowing, while the 
 hand of despotism was deliberately sealing the fountain. 
 
 For the house of Burgundy was rapidly culminating and as 
 rapidly curtailing the political privileges of the Netherlands. 
 The contest was, at first, favourable to the cause of arbitrary 
 power; but little seeds were silently germinating, which, in the 
 progress of their development, were one day to undermine the 
 foundations of tyranny, and to overshadow the world. The 
 early progress of the religious reformation in the Netherlands 
 will be outlined in a separate chapter. Another great principle 
 was likewise at work at this period. At the very epoch when 
 the greatness of Burgundy was most swiftly ripening, another 
 weapon was secretly forging, more potent in the great struggle 
 for freedom than any which the wit or hand of man has ever 
 devised or wielded. When Philip the Good, in the full blaze of 
 his power, and flushed with the triumphs of territorial aggran- 
 disement, was instituting at Bruges the order of the Golden 
 Fleece, " to the glory of God, of the blessed Virgin, and of the 
 holy Andrew, patron saint of the Burgundian family," and 
 enrolling the names of the kings and princes who were to be 
 honoured with its symbols, at that very moment an obscure 
 citizen of Harlem, one Lorenz Coster, or Lawrence the Sexton, 
 succeeded in printing a little grammar, by means of moveable 
 types. The invention of printing was accomplished, but it 
 was not ushered in with such a blaze of glory as heralded the 
 contemporaneous erection of the Golden Fleece. The humble 
 setter of types did not deem emperors and princes alone worthy 
 his companionship. His invention sent no thrill of admiration 
 throughout Christendom, and yet, what was the good Philip 
 of Burgundy, with his Knights of the Golden Fleece, and all 
 their effulgent trumpery, in the eye of humanity and civilisa- 
 tion, compared with the poor sexton and his wooden types ? l 
 
 1 The question of the time and I printing should be referred, has been 
 place to which the invention of | often discussed. It is not probable
 
 4(5 
 
 TUB EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 Philip died in February 1467. The details of his life and 
 career do not belong to our purpose. The practical tendency 
 of his government was to repress the spirit of liberty, while 
 especial privileges, extensive in nature, but limited in time, 
 were frequently granted to corporations. Philip, in one day, 
 conferred thirty charters upon as many different bodies of 
 citizens. These were, however, grants of monopoly, not con- 
 cessions of rights. He also fixed the number of city councils, 
 or Vroedschappen in many Netherland cities, giving them per- 
 mission to present a double list of candidates for burgomasters 
 and judges, from which he himself made the appointments, 
 He was certainly neither a good nor a great prince, but he pos- 
 sessed much administrative ability. His military talents were 
 considerable, and he was successful in his wars. He was an 
 adroit dissembler, a practical politician. He had the sense to 
 comprehend that the power of a prince, however absolute, must 
 depend upon the prosperity of his subjects. He taxed severely 
 the wealth, but he protected the commerce and the manufac- 
 ture of Holland and Flanders. He encouraged art, science, 
 and literature. The brothers John and Hubert Van Eyck were 
 attracted by his generosity to Bruges, where they painted many 
 pictures. John was even a member of the duke's council. 
 The art of oil-painting was carried to great perfection by 
 Hubert's scholar, John of Bruges. An incredible number of 
 painters, of greater or less merit, flourished at this epoch in the 
 Netherlands, herald of that great school which, at a subsequent 
 period, was to astonish the world with brilliant colours, pro- 
 found science, startling effects, and vigorous reproductions of 
 nature. Authors, too, like Olivier de la March and Philippe de 
 Comines, who, in the words of the latter, " wrote not for the 
 amusement of brutes and people of low degree, but for princes 
 and other persons of quality ; " these and other writers, with 
 
 that it will ever be settled to the 
 entire satisfaction of Holland and 
 Germany. The Dutch claim that 
 moveable types were first used at 
 Harlem, liking the timft variously 
 
 between the years 1423 and 1440. 
 The first and very faulty editions of 
 Lorenz are religiously preserved at 
 Harlem.
 
 CHARLES THE BOLD. 47 
 
 aims as lofty, flourished at the court of Burgundy, and were 
 rewarded by the duke with princely generosity. Philip re- 
 modelled and befriended the university of Louvain. He 
 founded at Brussels the Burgundian library, which became 
 celebrated thoughout Europe. He levied largely, spent pro- 
 fusely, but was yet so thrifty a housekeeper, as to leave four 
 hundred thousand crowns of gold, a vast amount in those 
 days, besides three million marks' worth of plate and furni- 
 ture, to be wasted like water in the insane career of his son. 
 
 The exploits of that son require but few words of illustration. 
 Hardly a chapter of European history or romance is more 
 familiar to the world than the one which records the meteoric 
 course of Charles the Bold. The propriety of his title was 
 never doubtful. No prince was ever bolder, but it is certain 
 that no quality could be less desirable at that particular mo- 
 ment in the history of his house. It was not the quality to 
 confirm a usurping family in its ill-gotten possessions. Re- 
 newed agressions upon the rights of others justified retaliation 
 and invited attack. Justice, prudence, firmness, wisdom of 
 internal administration, were desirable in the son of Philip 
 and the rival of Louis. These attributes the gladiator lacked 
 entirely. His career might have been a brilliant one in the old 
 days of chivalry. His image might have appeared as imposing 
 as the romantic forms of Baldwin Bras de Fer or Godfrey of 
 Bouillon, had he not been misplaced in history. Nevertheless, 
 he imagined himself governed by a profound policy. He had 
 one dominant idea, to make Burgundy a kingdom. From the 
 moment when, with almost the first standing army known to- 
 history, and with coffers well filled by his cautious father's 
 economy, he threw himself into the lists against the crafty Louis, 
 down to the day when he was found dead, naked, deserted, and 
 with his face frozen into a pool of blood and water, he faith- 
 fully pursued this thought. His ducal cap was to be exchanged 
 for a kingly crown, while all the provinces which lay beneath 
 the Mediterranean and the North Sea, and between France and 
 Germany, were to be united under his sceptre. The Nether-
 
 48 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 lands, with their wealth, had been already appropriated, and 
 their freedom crushed. Another land of liberty remained ; 
 physically, the reverse of Holland, but stamped with the same 
 courageous nationality, the same ardent love of human rights. 
 Switzerland was to be conquered. Her eternal battlements 
 of ice and granite were to constitute the great bulwark of his 
 realm The world knows well the result of the struggle between 
 the lord of so many duchies and earldoms and the Alpine 
 mountaineers. With all his boldness, Charles was but an 
 indifferent soldier. His only merit was physical courage. He 
 imagined himself a consummate commander, and, in conver- 
 sation with his jester, was fond of comparing himself to 
 Hannibal. t( We are getting well Hannibalised to-day, my 
 lord," said the bitter fool, as they rode off together from the 
 disastrous defeat of Gransen. Well " Hannibalised," he was, 
 too, at Gransen, at Murten, and at Nancy. He followed in 
 the track of his prototype only to the base of the mountains. 
 
 As a conqueror, he was singularly unsuccessful ; as a politi- 
 cian, he could outwit none but himself; it was only as a tyrant 
 within his own ground that he could sustain the character 
 which he chose to enact. He lost the crown, which he might 
 have secured, because he thought the emperor's son unworthy 
 the heiress of Burgundy ; and yet, after his father's death, her 
 marriage with that very Maximilian alone secured the posses- 
 sion of her paternal inheritance. Unsuccessful in schemes of 
 conquest, and in political intrigue, as an oppressor of the 
 Netherlands, he nearly carried out his plans. Those provinces 
 he regarded merely as a bank to draw upon. His immediate 
 intercourse with the country was confined to the extortion of 
 vast requests. These were granted with ever-increasing reluc- 
 tance by the estates. The new taxes and excises, which the 
 sanguinary extravagance of the duke rendered necessary, could 
 seldom be collected in the various cities without tumult, sedi- 
 tion, and bloodshed. Few princes were ever a greater curso 
 to the people whom they were allowed to hold as property. He 
 nearly succeeded in establishing a centralised despotism upon
 
 DEATH OF CHARLES. 49 
 
 the ruins of the provincial institutions. His sudden death 
 alone deferred the catastrophe. His removal of the supreme 
 court of Holland from the Hague to Mechlin, and his mainte- 
 nance of a standing army, were the two great measures by 
 which he prostrated the Netherlands. The tribunal had been 
 re-modelled by his father; the expanded authority which 
 Philip had given to a bench of judges dependent upon himself, 
 was an infraction of the rights of Holland. The court, how- 
 ever, still held its sessions in the country; and the sacred 
 privilege de non evocando the right of every Hollander to 
 be tried in his own land, was, at least, retained. Charles 
 threw off the mask; he proclaimed that this council com- 
 posed of his creatures, holding office at his pleasure should 
 have supreme jurisdiction over all the charters of the provinces; 
 that it was to follow his person, and derive all authority from 
 his will. The usual seat of the court he transferred to Mechlin. 
 It will be seen in the sequel, that the attempt, under Philip 
 the Second, to enforce its supreme authority, was a collateral 
 cause of the great revolution of the Netherlands. 
 
 Charles, like his father, administered the country by stadt- 
 holders. From the condition of flourishing self-ruled little 
 republics, which they had, for a moment, almost attained, they 
 became departments of an ill-assorted, ill-conditioned, ill-go- 
 verned realm, which was neither commonwealth nor empire, 
 neither kingdom nor duchy; and which had no homoge- 
 neousness of population, no affection between ruler and people, 
 small sympathies of lineage or of language. 
 
 His triumphs were but few, his fall ignominious. His 
 father's treasure was squandered, the curse of a standing army 
 fixed upon his people, the trade and manufactures of the 
 country paralysed by his extortions, and he accomplished 
 nothing. He lost his life in the forty-fourth year of his age 
 (1477), leaving all the provinces, duchies, and lordships, 
 which formed the miscellaneous realm of Burgundy, to his 
 only child, the Lady Mary. Thus already the countries 
 which Philip had wrested from the feeble hand of Jacqueline, 
 
 VOL. i. D
 
 50 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 had fallen to another female. Philip's own granddaughter, as 
 young, fair, and unprotected as Jacqueline, was now sole 
 mistress of those broad domains. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A crisis, both for Burgundy and the Netherlands, succeeds. 
 Within the provinces there is an elastic rebound, as soon as the 
 pressure is removed from them by the tyrant's death. A sud- 
 den spasm of liberty gives the whole people gigantic strength. 
 In an instant they recover all, and more than all, the rights 
 which they had lost. The cities of Holland, Flanders, and 
 other provinces call a convention at Ghent. Laying aside their 
 musty feuds, men of all parties Hooks and Kabbeljaws, patri- 
 cians and people move forward in phalanx to recover their 
 national constitutions. On the other hand, Louis the Eleventh 
 seizes Burgundy, claiming the territory for his crown, the heiress 
 for his son. The situation is critical for the Lady Mary. As 
 usual in such cases, appeals are made to the faithful commons. 
 Oaths and pledges are showered upon the people, that their 
 loyalty may be refreshed and grow green. The congress meets 
 at Ghent. The Lady Mary professes much, but she will keep 
 her vow. The deputies are called upon to rally the country 
 around the duchess, and to resist the fraud and force of Louis. 
 The congress is willing to maintain the cause of its young mis- 
 tress. The members declare, at the same time, very roundly, 
 "that the provinces have been much impoverished and oppressed 
 by the enormous taxation imposed upon them by the ruinous 
 wars waged by Duke Charles from the beginning to the end of 
 his life." They rather require " to be relieved than additionally 
 encumbered." They add that, " for many years past, there has 
 been a constant violation of the provincial and municipal char- 
 ters, and that they should be happy to see them restored. 
 
 The result of the deliberations is the formal grant by Duchess 
 Mary of the " Groot Privilegie," or Great Privilege, the Magna 
 Charta of Holland. Although this instrument was afterwards 
 violated, and indeed abolished, it became the foundation of the
 
 THE "GKEAT PKIVILEGE." 51 
 
 republic. It was a recapitulation and recognition of ancient 
 rights, not an acqiiisition of new privileges. It was a restora- 
 tion, not a revolution. Its principal points deserve attention 
 from tliose interested in the political progress of mankind. 
 
 " The duchess shall not marry without consent of the estates 
 of her provinces. All offices in her gift shall be conferred on 
 natives only. No man shall fill two offices. No office shall be 
 farmed. The ' Great Council and Supreme Court of Holland' 
 is re-established. Causes shall be brought before it on appeal 
 from the ordinary courts. It shall have no original jurisdic- 
 tion of matters within the cognisance of the provincial and 
 municipal tribunals. The estates and cities are guaranteed in 
 their right not to be summoned to justice beyond the limits of 
 their territory. The cities, in common with all the provinces 
 of the Netherlands, may hold diets as often, and at such places, 
 as they choose. No new taxes shall be imposed but ~by consent of 
 the provincial estates. Neither the duchess nor her descend- 
 ants shall begin either an offensive or defensive war vnthout 
 consent of the estates. In case a war be illegally undertaken, 
 the estates are not bound to contribute to its maintenance. 
 In all public and legal documents, the Netherland language 
 shall be employed. The commands of the duchess shall be 
 invalid if conflicting with the privileges of a city. The seat 
 of the Supreme Council is transferred from Mechlin to the 
 Hague. No money shall be coined, nor its value raised or 
 lowered, but by consent of the estates. Cities are not to be 
 compelled to contribute to requests which they have not 
 voted. The sovereign shall come in person before the estates, 
 to make his request for supplies." 
 
 Here was good work. The land was rescued at a blow from 
 the helpless condition to which it had been reduced. This 
 summary annihilation of all the despotic arrangements of 
 Charles was enough to raise him from his tomb. The law, the 
 sword, the purse, were all taken from the hand of the sovereign, 
 and placed within the control of parliament. Such sweeping 
 reforms, if maintained, would restore health to the body politic,
 
 52 . THE EISE OP THE DUTCH RErUBLIC. 
 
 They gave, moreover, an earnest of what was one day to arrive. 
 Certainly, for the fifteenth century, the "Great Privilege" was 
 a reasonably liberal constitution. Where else upon earth, at 
 that day, was there half so much liberty as was thus guaranteed ? 
 The congress of the Netherlands, according to their Magna 
 Charta, had power to levy all taxes, to regulate commerce and 
 manufactures, to declare war, to coin money, to raise armies 
 and navies. The executive was required to ask for money in 
 person, could appoint only natives to office, recognised the right 
 of disobedience in his subjects if his commands should conflict 
 with law, and acknowledged himself bound by decisions of 
 courts of justice. The cities appointed their own magistrates, 
 held diets at their own pleasure, made their local by-laws, and 
 saw to their execution. Original cognisance of legal matters 
 belonged to the municipal courts, appellate jurisdiction to the 
 supreme tribunal, in which the judges were appointed by the 
 sovereign. The liberty of the citizen against arbitrary im- 
 prisonment was amply provided for. The jus de non evo 
 cando, the habeas corpus of Holland, was re-established. 
 
 Truly, here was a fundamental law which largely, roundly, 
 and reasonably recognised the existence of a people with hearts, 
 heads, and hands of their own. It was a vast step in advance 
 of natural servitude, the dogma of the dark ages. It was a 
 noble and temperate vindication of natural liberty, the doctrine 
 of more enlightened days. To no people in the world more 
 than to the stout burghers of Flanders and Holland, belongs 
 the honour of having battled audaciously and perennially in 
 fcehalf of human rights. 
 
 Similar privileges to the great charter of Holland are granted 
 to many other provinces ; especially to Flanders, ever ready to 
 stand forward in fierce vindication of freedom. For a season 
 all is peace and joy ; but the duchess is young, weak, and a 
 woman. There is no lack of intriguing politicians, reactionary 
 councillors. There is a cunning old king in the distance, lying 
 in wait, seeking what he can devour. A mission goes from tho 
 estates to France. The well-known tragedy of Imbrecourt and
 
 THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN. 53 
 
 Hugonet occurs. Envoys from the states, they dare to accept 
 secret instructions from the duchess to enter into private nego- 
 tiations with the French monarch, against their colleagues 
 against the great charter against their country. Louis betrays 
 them, thinking that policy the more expedient. They are 
 seized in Ghent, rapidly tried, and as rapidly beheaded by the 
 enraged burghers. All the entreaties of the Lady Mary, who, 
 dressed in mourning garments, with dishevelled hair, unloosed 
 girdle, and streaming eyes, appears at the town-house and 
 afterwards in the market-place, humbly to intercede for her 
 servants, are fruitless. There is no help for the juggling di- 
 plomatists. The punishment was sharp. Was it more severe 
 and sudden than that which betrayed monarchs usually inflict? 
 Would the Flemings, at that critical moment, have deserved 
 their freedom had they not taken swift and signal vengeance 
 for this first infraction of their newly-recognised rights ? Had 
 it not been weakness to spare the traitors who had thus stained 
 the childhood of the national joy at liberty regained ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Another step, and a wide one, into the great stream of 
 European history. The Lady Mary espouses the Archduke 
 Maximilian. The Netherlands are about to become Habsburg 
 property. The Ghenters reject the pretensions of the Dauphin, 
 and select for husband of their duchess the very man whom 
 her father had so stupidly rejected. It had been a wiser choice 
 for Charles the Bold than for the Netherlanders. The marria && 
 
 O 
 
 takes place on the 18th August, 1477. Mary of Burgundy 
 passes from the guardianship of Ghent Burghers into that of 
 the emperor's son. The crafty husband allies himself with the 
 city party, feeling where the strength lies. He knows that the 
 voracious Kabbeljaws have at last swallowed the Hooks, and 
 run away with them. Promising himself future rights of re- 
 consideration, he is liberal in promises to the municipal party. 
 In the meantime he is governor and guardian of hia wife and
 
 54 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 her provinces. His children are to inherit the Netherlands and 
 all that therein is. What can be more consistent than laws of 
 descent, regulated by right divine ? At the beginning of the 
 century, good Philip dispossesses Jacqueline, because females 
 cannot inherit. At its close, his granddaughter succeeds to the 
 property, and transmits it to her children. Pope and emperor 
 maintain both positions with equal logic. The policy and 
 promptness of Maximilian are as effective as the force and 
 fraud of Philip. 
 
 The Lady Mary falls from her horse and dies. Her son, 
 Philip, four years of age, is recognised as successor. Thus the 
 house of Burgundy is followed by that of Austria, the fifth and 
 last family which governed Holland, previously to the erection 
 of the republic. Maximilian is recognised by provinces as 
 governor and guardian, during the minority of his children. 
 Flanders alone refuses. The burghers, ever prompt in action, 
 take personal possession of the child Philip, and carry on the 
 government in his name. A commission of citizens and nobles 
 thus maintain their authority against Maximilian for several 
 years. In 1488, the archduke, now king of the Romans, with a 
 small force of cavalry, attempts to take the city of Bruges, but 
 the result is a mortifying one to the Roman king. The citizens 
 of Bruges take him. Maximilian, with several councillors, is 
 kept a prisoner in a house on the market-place. The magis- 
 trates are all changed, the affairs of government conducted in 
 the name of the young Philip alone. Meantime, the estates of 
 the other Netherlands assemble at Ghent ; anxious, unfortu- 
 nately, not for the national liberty, but for that of the Roman 
 king. Already Holland, torn again by civil feuds, and blinded 
 by the artifices of Maximilian, had deserted, for a season, the 
 great cause to which Flanders has remained so true. At last a 
 treaty is made between the archduke and the Flemings. Maxi- 
 milian is to be regent of the other provinces ; Philip, under 
 guardianship of a council, is to govern Flanders. Moreover, 
 a congress of all the provinces is to be summoned annually, to 
 provide for the general welfare. Maximilian signs and swears
 
 POLICY OP MAXIMILIAN. 55 
 
 to the treaty on the 16th May, 1488. He swears, also, to 
 dismiss all foreign troops within four days. Giving hostages 
 for his fidelity, he is set at liberty. What are oaths and 
 hostages when prerogative and the people are contending ? 
 Emperor Frederick sends to his son an army under the Duke 
 of Saxony. The oaths are broken, the hostages left to their 
 fate. The struggle lasts a year, but, at the end of it, the 
 Flemings are subdued. What could a single province effect, 
 when its sister states, even liberty-loving Holland, had basely 
 abandoned the common cause ? A new treaty is made (Oct. 
 1489). Maximilian obtains uncontrolled guardianship of his 
 son, absolute dominion over Flanders and the other provinces. 
 The insolent burghers are severely punished for remembering 
 that they had been freemen. The magistrates of Ghent, Bruges, 
 and Ypres, in black garments, ungirdled, bare-headed, and 
 kneeling, are compelled to implore the despot's forgiveness, 
 and to pay three hundred thousand crowns of gold as its price. 
 After this, for a brief season, order reigns in Flanders. 
 
 The course of Maximilian had been stealthy, but decided. 
 Allying himself with the city party, he had crushed the nobles. 
 The power thus obtained he then turned against the burghers. 
 Step by step he had trampled out the liberties which his wife 
 and himself had sworn to protect. He had spurned the 
 authority of the " Great Privilege," and all other charters. 
 Burgomasters and other citizens had been beheaded in great 
 numbers for appealing to their statutes against the edicts of 
 the regent, for voting in favour of a general congress accord- 
 ing to the unquestionable law. He had proclaimed that all 
 landed estates should, in lack of heirs male, escheat to his own 
 exchequer. He had debased the coin of the country, and 
 thereby authorised unlimited swindling on the part of all his 
 agents, from stadtholders down to the meanest official. If 
 such oppression and knavery did not justify the resistance of 
 the Flemings to the guardianship of Maximilian, it would be 
 difficult to find any reasonable course in political affairs, save 
 abject submission to authority.
 
 56 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 In 1493, Maximilian succeeds to the imperial throne, at the 
 death of his father. In the following year his son, Philip the 
 Fair, now seventeen years of age, receives the homage of the 
 different states of the Netherlands. He swears to maintain 
 only the privileges granted by Philip and Charles of Burgundy, 
 or their ancestors, proclaiming null and void all those which 
 might have been acquired since the death of Charles. Holland, 
 Zeland, and the other provinces, accept him upon these con- 
 ditions, thus ignominiously, and without a struggle, relinquish- 
 ing the Great Privilege, and all similar charters. 
 
 Friesland is, for a brief season, politically separated from the 
 rest of the country. Harassed and exhausted by centuries of 
 warfare, foreign and domestic, the free Frisians, at the sugges- 
 tion or command of the Emperor Maximilian, elect the Duke of 
 Saxony as their Podesta. The sovereign prince, naturally prov- 
 ing a chief magistrate far from democratic, gets himself acknow- 
 ledged, or submitted to, soon afterwards, as legitimate sovereign 
 of Friesland. Seventeen years afterwards, Saxony sells the sove- 
 reignty to the Austrian house for 350,000 crowns. This little 
 country, whose statutes proclaimed her to be "free as the wind 
 as long as it blew," whose institutions Charlemagne had ho- 
 noured and left unmolested, who had freed herself with ready 
 poniard from Norman tyranny, who never bowed her neck to 
 feudal chieftain, nor to the papal yoke, now driven to madness 
 and suicide by the dissensions of her wild children, forfeits at 
 last her independent existence. All the provinces are thus 
 united in a common servitude, and regret, too late, their supine- 
 ness at a moment when their liberties might yet have been 
 vindicated. Their ancient and cherished charters are at the 
 mercy of an autocrat, and liable to be superseded by his edicts. 
 
 In 1496, the momentous marriage of Philip the Fair with 
 Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile and 
 Aragon, is solemnised. Of this union, in the first year of the 
 Century, is born the second Charlemagne, who is to unite Spain 
 and the Netherlands, together with so many vast and distant 
 realms, under a single scentre. Six years afterwards, (Septem-
 
 THE TWO CHARLEM AGNES. 57 
 
 ber 25, 1506,) Philip dies at Burgos. A handsome profligate, 
 devoted to his pleasures, and leaving the cares of state to his 
 ministers, Philip, " croit-conseil," is the bridge over which 
 the house of Hahsburg passes to almost universal monarchy, 
 but, in himself, is nothing. 
 
 X. 
 
 Two prudent marriages, made by Austrian Archdukes within 
 twenty years, have altered the face of the earth. The stream, 
 which we have been tracing from its source, empties itself at 
 last into the ocean of a Avorld-empire. Count Dirk the First, 
 lord of a half-submerged corner of Europe, is succeeded by 
 Count Charles the Second of Holland, better known as Charles 
 the Fifth, King of Spain, Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Milan, 
 Emperor of Germany, Dominator in Asia and Africa, autocrat 
 of half the world. The leading events of his brilliant reign are 
 familiar to every child. The Netherlands now share the fate 
 of so large a group of nations, a fate to these provinces, most 
 miserable. The weddings of Austria Felix 1 were not so prolific 
 of happiness to her subjects as to herself. It can never seem 
 just or reasonable that the destiny of many millions of human 
 beings should depend upon the marriage settlements of one 
 man with one woman, and a permanent prosperous empire can 
 never be reared upon so frail a foundation. The leading 
 thought of the first Charlemagne was a noble and a useful one, 
 nor did his imperial scheme seem chimerical, even although 
 time, wiser than monarchs or lawgivers, was to prove it imprac- 
 ticable. To weld into one great whole the various tribes of 
 Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Lombards, Burgundians, and others, 
 still in their turbulent youth, and still composing one great 
 Teutonic family ; to enforce the mutual adhesion of naturally 
 coherent masses, all of one lineage, one language, one history, 
 and which were only beginning to exhibit their tendencies to 
 insulation ; to acquiesce in a variety of local laws and customs, 
 
 1 " Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube," etc. etc.
 
 58 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 while an iron will was to concentrate a vast but homogeneous 
 people into a single nation ; to raise up from the grave of cor- 
 rupt and buried Rome a fresh, vigorous, German, Christiaf 
 empire ; this was a reasonable and manly thought. Far 
 different the conception of the second Charlemagne. To force 
 into discordant union tribes which, for seven centuries, had 
 developed themselves into hostile nations, separated by geo- 
 graphy and history, customs and laws ; to combine many 
 millions under one sceptre, not because of natural identity, but 
 for the sake of composing one splendid family property ; to 
 establish unity by annihilating local institutions, to supersede 
 popular and liberal charters by the edicts of a central despotism, 
 to do battle with the whole spirit of an age, to regard the souls 
 as well as the bodies of vast multitudes as the personal property 
 of one individual, to strive for the perpetuation in a single house 
 of many crowns, which accident had blended, and to imagine 
 the consecration of the whole system by placing the pope's 
 triple diadem for ever on the imperial head of the Habsburgs ; 
 all this was not the effort of a great, constructive genius, 
 but the selfish scheme of an autocrat. 
 
 The union of no two countries could be less likely to prove 
 advantageous or agreeable than that of the Netherlands and 
 Spain. They were widely separated geographically, while in 
 history, manners, and politics, they were utterly opposed to 
 each other. Spain, which had but just assumed the form of a 
 single state by the combination of all its kingdoms, with its 
 haughty nobles descended from petty kings, and arrogating 
 almost sovereign powers within their domains, with its fierce 
 enthusiasm for the Catholic religion, which in the course of 
 long warfare with the Saracens, had become the absorbing 
 characteristic of a whole nation, with its sparse population 
 scattered over a wide and stern country, with a military spirit 
 which led nearly all classes to prefer poverty to the wealth 
 attendant upon degrading pursuits of trade Spain, with her 
 gloomy, martial, and exaggerated character, was the absolute 
 contrast f the Netherlands
 
 INTERNATIONAL MALIGNITY. 59 
 
 These provinces had been rarely combined into a whole, but 
 there was natural affinity in their character, history, and posi- 
 tion. There was life, movement, bustling activity everywhere. 
 An energetic population swarmed in all the flourishing cities 
 which dotted the surface of a contracted and highly culti- 
 vated country. Their ships were the carriers for the world : 
 their merchants, if invaded in their rights, engaged in vigo- 
 rous warfare with their own funds and their own frigates ; 
 their fabrics were prized over the whole earth ; their burghers 
 possessed the wealth of princes, lived with royal luxury, and 
 exercised vast political influence ; their love of liberty was 
 their predominant passion. Their religious ardour had not been 
 fully awakened ; but the events of the next generation were to 
 prove that in no respect more than in the religious sentiment 
 were the two races opposed to each other. It was as certain 
 that the Netherlander would be fierce reformers, as that the 
 Spaniards would be uncompromising persecutors. Unhallowed 
 was the union between nations thus utterly contrasted. 
 
 Philip the Fair and Ferdinand had detested and quarrelled 
 with each other from the beginning. The Spaniards and 
 Flemings participated in the mutual antipathy, and hated 
 each other cordially at first sight. The unscrupulous avarice 
 of the Netherland nobles in Spain, their grasping and venal 
 ambition, enraged and disgusted the haughty Spaniards. This 
 international malignity furnishes one of the keys to a proper 
 understanding of the great revolt in the next reign. 
 
 The provinces, now all united again under an emperor, 
 were treated, opulent and powerful as they were, as obscure 
 dependencies. The regency over them was entrusted by 
 Charles to his near relatives, who governed in the interest of 
 his house, not of the country. His course towards them upon 
 the religious question will be hereafter indicated. The political 
 character of his administration was typified, and, as it were, 
 dramatised, on the occasion of the memorable insurrection at 
 Ghent. For this reason, a few interior details concerning 
 that remarkable event seem requisite.
 
 60 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Ghent was, in all respects, one of the most important cities 
 in Europe. Erasmus, who as a Hollander and a courtier, was 
 not likely to be partial to the turbulent Flemings, asserted 
 that there was no town in all Christendom to be compared to 
 it for size, power, political constitution, or the culture of its 
 inhabitants. It was, said one of its inhabitants at the epoch 
 of the insurrection, rather a commonwealth than a city. The 
 activity and wealth of its burghers were proverbial. The 
 bells were rung daily, and the drawbridges over the many 
 arms of the river intersecting the streets were raised, in order 
 that all business might be suspended, while the armies of 
 workmen were going to or returning from their labours. As 
 early as the fourteenth century, the age of the Arteveldes, 
 Froissart estimated the number of fighting men whom Ghent 
 could bring into the city at eighty thousand. The city, by 
 its jurisdiction over many large but subordinate towns, dis- 
 posed of more than its own immediate population, which has 
 been reckoned as high as two hundred thousand. 
 
 Placed in the midst of well-cultivated plains, Ghent was sur- 
 rounded by strong walls, the external circuit of which measured 
 nine miles. Its streets and squares were spacious and elegant, 
 its churches and other public buildings numerous and splendid. 
 The sumptuous church of Saint John or Saint Bavon, where 
 Charles the Fifth had been baptized, the ancient castle whither 
 Baldwin Bras de Fer had brought the daughter of Charles the 
 Bold, the city hall with its graceful Moorish front, the well- 
 known belfry, where for three centuries had perched the dragon 
 sent by the Emperor Baldwin of Flanders from Constantinople, 
 and where swung the famous Roland, whose iron tongue had 
 -called the citizens, generation after generation, to arms, whether 
 to win battles over foreign kings at the head of their chivalry, 
 or to plunge their swords in each other's breasts, were all con- 
 spicuous in the city, and celebrated in the land. Especially the 
 bell was the object of the burghers' affection, and, gene-
 
 CONSTITUTION OF GHENT. 61 
 
 rally, of the sovereign's hatred; while to all it seemed, as it were, 
 a living historical personage, endowed with the human powers 
 and passions which it had so long directed and inflamed. 
 
 The constitution of the city was very free. It was a little 
 republic in all but name. Its population was divided into 
 fifty-two guilds of manufacturers and into thirty- two tribes of 
 weavers ; each fraternity electing annually or biennially its own 
 deans and subordinate officers. The senate, which exercised 
 functions legislative, judicial, and administrative, subject, of 
 course, to the grand council of Mechlin and to the sovereign 
 authority, consisted of twenty-six members. These were ap- 
 pointed partly from the upper class, or the men who lived upon 
 their means, partly from the manufacturers in general, and 
 partly from the weavers. They were chosen by a college of 
 eight electors, who were appointed by the sovereign on nomi- 
 nation by the citizens. The whole city, in its collective 
 capacity, constituted one of the four estates (Membra) of the 
 province of Flanders. It is obvious that so much liberty of 
 form and of fact, added to the stormy character by which its 
 citizens were distinguished, would be most offensive in the eyes of 
 Charles, and that the delinquencies of the little commonwealth 
 would be represented in the most glaring colours by all those 
 quiet souls who preferred the tranquillity of despotism to the 
 turbulence of freedom. The city claimed, moreover, the gene- 
 ral provisions of the " Great Privilege " of the Lady Mary. the 
 Magna Charta, which, according to the monarchical party, had 
 been legally abrogated by Maximilian. The liberties of the town- 
 had also been nominally curtailed by the " calf skin " (Kalf 
 Vel). By this celebrated document, Charles the Fifth, then 
 fifteen years of age, had been made to threaten with condio-n 
 punishment all persons who should maintain that he had sworn 
 at his inauguration to observe any privileges or charters 
 claimed by the Ghenters before the peace of Cadsand. 
 
 The immediate cause of the discontent, the attempt to force* 
 from Flanders a subsidy of four hundred thousand caroli, as 
 the third part of the twelve hundred thousand granted by the
 
 62 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 states of the Netherlands, and the resistance of Ghent, in oppo- 
 sition to the other three members of the province, will, of course, 
 be judged differently, according as the sympathies are stronger 
 with popular rights or with prerogative. The citizens claimed 
 that the subsidy could only be granted by the unanimous con- 
 sent of the four estates of the province. Among other proofs 
 of this their unquestionable right, they appealed to a muni- 
 ment, which had never existed, save in the imagination of the 
 credulous populace. At a certain remote epoch, one of the 
 Counts of Flanders, it was contended, had gambled away his 
 countship to the Earl of Holland, but had been extricated from 
 his dilemma by the generosity of Ghent. The burghers of the 
 town had paid the debts and redeemed the sovereignty of their 
 lord, and had thereby gained, in return, a charter, called the 
 Bargain of Flanders (Koop van Flandern). Among the pri- 
 vileges granted by this document was an express stipulation 
 that no subsidy should ever be granted by the province with- 
 out the consent of Ghent. This charter would have been con- 
 clusive in the present emergency, had it not laboured under the 
 disadvantage of never having existed. It was supposed by 
 many that the magistrates, some of whom were favourable to 
 government, had hidden the document. Lieven Pyl, an ex- 
 senator, was supposed to be privy to its concealment. He was 
 also, with more justice, charged with an act of great baseness 
 and effrontery. Deputed by the citizens to carry to the Queen 
 Regent their positive refusal to grant the subsidy, he had, on 
 the contrary, given an answer, in their name, in the affirma- 
 tive. For these delinquencies, the imaginary and the real, he 
 was inhumanly tortured and afterwards beheaded. " I know, 
 my children," said he upon the scaffold, " that you will be 
 grieved when you have seen my blood flow, and that you will 
 regret me when it is too late." It does not appear, however, 
 that there was any especial reason to regret him, however san- 
 guinary the punishment which had requited his broken faith. 
 The mischief being thus afoot, the tongue of Roland and the 
 easily-excited spirits of the citizens, soon did the rest. Ghent
 
 INSURRECTION AT GHENT. 63 
 
 broke forth into open insurrection. They had been willing to 
 enlist and pay troops under their own banners, but they had 
 felt outraged at the enormous contribution demanded of them 
 for a foreign war, undertaken in the family interests of their 
 distant master. They could not find the " Bargain of Flanders," 
 but they got possession of the odious " calf skin," which was 
 solemnly cut in two by the dean of the weavers. It was then 
 torn in shreds by the angry citizens, many of whom paraded 
 the streets with pieces of the hated document stuck in their 
 caps, like plumes. From these demonstrations they proceeded 
 to intrigues with Francis the First. He rejected them, and gave 
 notice of their overtures to Charles, who now resolved to quell 
 the insurrection at once. Francis wrote, begging that the Em- 
 peror would honour him by coming through France; "wishing 
 to assure you," said he, " my lord and good brother, by this 
 letter, written and signed by my hand, upon my honour, and 
 on the faith of a prince, and of the best brother you have, that 
 in passing through my kingdom every possible honour and hos- 
 pitality will be offered you, even as they could be to myself." 
 Certainly the French King, after such profuse and voluntary 
 pledges, to confirm which he, moreover, offered his two sons 
 and other great individuals as hostages, could not, without 
 utterly disgracing himself, have taken any unhandsome advan- 
 tage of the Emperor's presence in his dominions. The reflec- 
 tions often made concerning the high-minded chivalry of 
 Francis, and the subtle knowledge of human nature displayed 
 by Charles upon the occasion, seem, therefore, entirely super- 
 fluous. The Emperor came to Paris. (e Here," says a citizen 
 of Ghent at the time, who has left a minute account of the 
 transaction upon record, but whose sympathies were ludicrously 
 \vith the despot and against his own townspeople, " here the 
 Emperor was received as if the God of Paradise had descended." 
 On the 9th of February, 1540, he left Brussels; on the 14th he 
 came to Ghent. His entrance into the city lasted more than six 
 hours. Four thousand lancers, one thousand archers, five thou- 
 sand halberdmen and musqueteers composed his body-guard.
 
 64 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 all armed to the teeth and ready for combat. The Emperor 
 rode in their midst, surrounded by " cardinals, archbishops, 
 bishops, and other great ecclesiastical lords," so that the terrors 
 of the Church were combined with the panoply of war to 
 affright the souls of the turbulent burghers. A brilliant train 
 of u dukes, princes, earls, barons, grand masters, and seignors, 
 together with most of the Knights of the Fleece," were, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of the same eye-witness, in attendance 
 upon his Majesty. This unworthy son of Ghent was in ec- 
 stasies with the magnificent display on the occasion. There was 
 such a number of " grand lords, members of sovereign houses, 
 bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, going about the 
 streets, that," as the poor soul protested with delight, " there 
 was nobody else to be met with." Especially the fine clothes 
 of these distinguished guests excited his warmest admiration. 
 It was wonderful to behold, he said, " the nobility and great 
 richness of the princes and seignors, displayed as well in their 
 beautiful furs, martins and sables, as in the great chains of 
 fine gold which they wore twisted round their necks, and the 
 pearls and precious stones in their bonnets and otherwise, which 
 they displayed in great abundance. It was a very triumphant 
 thing to see them thus richly dressed and accoutred." 
 
 An idea may be formed of the size and wealth of the city at 
 this period, from the fact that it received and accommodated 
 sixty thousand strangers, with their fifteen thousand horses, 
 upon the occasion of the Emperor's visit. Charles allowed a 
 month of awful suspense to intervene between his arrival and 
 vengeance. Despair and hope alternated during the interval. 
 On the 17th of March, the spell was broken by the execution 
 of nineteen persons, who were executed as ringleaders. On 
 the 29th of April he pronounced sentence upon the city. The 
 hall where it was rendered was open to all comers, and graced 
 by the presence of the Emperor, the Queen Regent, and the 
 great functionaries of Court, Church, and State. The decree, 
 now matured, was read at length. It annulled all the charters, 
 privileges, and laws of Ghent. It confiscated all its public pro-
 
 GHENT CHASTISED. C5 
 
 perty, rents, revenues, houses, artillery, munitions of war, and, 
 in general, everything which the corporation, or the traders, 
 each and all, possessed in common. In particular, the great 
 bell Roland was condemned and sentenced to immediate re- 
 moval. It was decreed that the four hundred thousand florins, 
 which had caused the revolt, should forthwith be paid, to- 
 gether with an additional fine by Ghent of one hundred and. 
 fifty thousand, besides six thousand a year for ever after. In 
 place of their ancient and beloved constitution, thus annihilated 
 at a blow, was promulgated a new form of municipal govern- 
 ment of the simplest kind : according to which, all officers were 
 in future to be appointed by himself; and the guilds to be 
 reduced to half their number, shorn of all political power, 
 and deprived entirely of self-government. It was, moreover, 
 decreed that the senators, their pensionaries, clerks, and secre- 
 taries, thirty notable burghers, to be named by the Emperor, 
 with the great dean and second clean of the weavers, all dressed 
 in black robes, without their chains, and bare-headed, should 
 appear upon an appointed day, in company with fifty persons 
 from the guilds, and fifty others, to be arbitrarily named, in 
 their shirts, with halters upon their necks. This large number 
 of deputies, as representatives of the city, were then to fall 
 upon their knees before the Emperor, say in a loud and intel- 
 ligible voice, by the mouth of one of their clerks, that they 
 were extremely sorry for the disloyalty, disobedience, infrac- 
 tion of laws, commotions, rebellion, and high treason, of which 
 they had been guilty, promise that they would never do the 
 like again, and humbly implore him, for the sake of the Passion 
 of Jesus Christj to grant them mercy and forgiveness. 
 
 The third day of May was appointed for the execution of the 
 sentence. Charles, who was fond of imposing exhibitions, and 
 prided himself upon arranging them with skill, was deter- 
 mined that this occasion should be long remembered by all 
 burghers throughout his dominions who might be disposed to 
 insist strongly upon th^ir municipal rights. The streets were 
 alive with troops : cavalry and infantry in great numbers keep- 
 
 VOL. I. e
 
 66 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 ing strict guard at every point throughout the whole extent of 
 the city ; for it was known that the hatred produced by the 
 sentence was most deadly, and that nothing but an array of 
 invincible force could keep these hostile sentiments in check. 
 The senators in their black mourning robes, the other deputies 
 in linen sheets, bare-headed, with halters upon their necks, pro- 
 ceeded, at the appointed hour, from the senate-house to the 
 imperial residence. High on his throne, with the Queen 
 Regent at his side, surrounded by princes, prelates, and nobles, 
 guarded by his archers and halberdiers, his crown on his head 
 and his sceptre in his hand, the Emperor, exalted, sat. The 
 senators and burghers, in their robes of humiliation, knelt in 
 the dust at his feet. The prescribed words of contrition and 
 of supplication for mercy were then read by the pensionary, 
 all the deputies remaining upon their knees, and many of them 
 crying bitterly with rage and shame. ll What principally 
 distressed them," said the honest citizen, whose admiration 
 for the brilliant accoutrement of the princes and prelates has 
 been recorded, " was to have the halter on their necks, which 
 they found hard to bear, and, if they had not been compelled, 
 they would rather have died than submit to it." 
 
 As soon as the words had been all spoken by the pensionary, 
 the Emperor, whose cue was now to appear struggling with 
 mingled emotions of reasonable wrath and of natural benignity, 
 performed his part with much dramatic effect. " He held him- 
 self coyly for a little time," says the eye-witness, " without say- 
 ing a word ; deporting himself as though he were considering 
 whether or not he would grant the pardon for which the culprits 
 had prayed." Then the Queen Regent enacted her share in the 
 show. Turning to his Majesty, " with all reverence, honour, 
 and humility, she begged that he would concede forgiveness, 
 in honour of his nativity, which had occurred in that city." 
 
 Upon this the Emperor " made a fine show of benignity,'* 
 and replied " very sweetly," that in consequence of his " fra- 
 ternal love for her, by reason of his being a gentle and virtuous 
 prince, who preferred mercy to the rigour of justice, and in
 
 RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA. 67 
 
 view of their repentance, he would accord his pardon to the 
 citizens." 
 
 The Netherlands, after this issue to the struggle of Ghent, 
 were reduced, practically, to a very degraded condition. The 
 form of local self-government remained, but its spirit, when 
 invoked, only arose to be derided. The supreme court of 
 Mechlin, as in the days of Charles the Bold, was again placed 
 in despotic authority above the ancient charters. Was it 
 probable that the lethargy of provinces, which had reached so 
 high a point of freedom only to be deprived of it at last, could 
 endure for ever ? Was it to be hoped that the stern spirit of 
 religious enthusiasm, allying itself with the keen instinct of 
 civil liberty, would endue the provinces with strength to throw 
 off the Spanish yoke ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 It is impossible to comprehend the character of the great 
 Netherland revolt in the sixteenth century without taking a 
 rapid retrospective survey of the religious phenomena exhibited 
 in the provinces. The introduction of Christianity has been 
 already indicated. From the earliest times, neither prince, 
 people, nor even prelates were very dutiful to the Pope. As 
 the papal authority made progress, strong resistance was often 
 made to its decrees. The Bishops of Utrecht were dependent 
 for their wealth and territory upon the good will of the Em- 
 peror. They were the determined opponents of Hildebrand, 
 warm adherents of the Hohenstaufers Ghibelline rather than 
 Guelph. Heresy was a plant of early growth in the Nether- 
 lands. As early as the beginning of the twelfth century, the 
 notorious Tanchelyn preached at Antwerp, attacking the 
 authority of the Pope and of all other ecclesiastics ; scoffing 
 at the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church. Unless his 
 character and career have been grossly misrepresented, he 
 was the most infamous of the many impostors who have so 
 often disgraced the cause of religious reformation. By more 
 than four centuries, he anticipated the licentiousness and
 
 68 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 greediness manifested by a series of false prophets, and wag 
 the first to turn both the stupidity of a populace and the 
 viciousncss of a priesthood to his own advancement an 
 ambition which afterwards reached its most signal expression 
 in the celebrated John of Ley den. 
 
 The impudence of Tanchelyn and the superstition of his fol- 
 lowers seem alike incredible. All Antwerp was his harem. 
 He levied, likewise, vast sums upon his converts, and whenever 
 he appeared in public, his apparel and pomp were befitting 
 an emperor. Three thousand armed satellites escorted his 
 steps, and put to death all who resisted his commands. So 
 grovelling became the superstition of his followers that they 
 drank of the water in which he had washed, and treasured it as 
 a divine elixir. Advancing still further in his experiments 
 upon human credulity, he announced his approaching marriage 
 with the Virgin Mary, bade all his disciples to the wedding, 
 and exhibited himself before an immense crowd in company 
 with an image of his holy bride. He then ordered the people 
 io provide for the expenses of the nuptials and the dowryof 
 liis wife, placing a coffer upon each side of the image, to 
 receive the contributions of either sex. Which is the most 
 wonderful manifestation in the history of this personage 
 the audacity of the impostor, or the bestiality of his victims ? 
 His career was so successful in the Netherlands that he had 
 the effrontery to proceed to Rome, promulgating what he 
 called his doctrines as he went. He seems to have been assas- 
 sinated by a priest in an obscure brawl, about the year 1J 15. 
 
 By the middle of the twelfth century, other and purer here- 
 eiarchs had arisen. Many Netherlander became converts to 
 the doctrines of Waldo. From that period until the appearance 
 of Luther, a succession of sects Waldcnses, Albigenses, Per- 
 fectists, Lollards, Poplicans, Arnaldists, Bohemian Brothers 
 waged perpetual but unequal warfare with the power and de- 
 pravity of the Church, fertilising with their blood the future 
 field of the Reformation. Nowhere was the persecution of 
 heretics more relentless than in the Netherlands. Suspected
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL OPPEESSION. 69 
 
 persons were subjected to various torturing but ridiculous 
 ordeals. After such trial, death by fire was the usual, but, 
 perhaps, not the most severe form of execution. In Flanders, 
 monastic ingenuity had invented another most painful punish- 
 ment for Waldenses and similar malefactors. A criminal whoso 
 guilt had been established by the hot iron, hot ploughshare, 
 boiling kettle, or other logical proof, was stripped and bound 
 to the stake ; he was then flayed, from the neck to the navel, 
 while swarms of bees were let loose to fasten upon his bleeding 
 flesh and torture him to a death of exquisite agony. 
 
 Nevertheless heresy increased in the face of oppression. The 
 Scriptures translated by Waldo into French, were rendered 
 into Netherland rhyme, and the converts to the Vaudois doc- 
 trine increased in numbers and boldness. At the same time 
 the power and luxury of the clergy were waxing daily. The 
 bishops of Utrecht, no longer the defenders of the people 
 against arbitrary power, conducted themselves like little popes. 
 Yielding in dignity neither to king nor kaiser, they exacted 
 homage from the most powerful princes of the Netherlands. 
 The clerical order became the most privileged of all. The 
 accused priest refused to acknowledge the temporal tribunals. 
 The protection of ecclesiastical edifices was extended over all 
 criminals and fugitives from justice a beneficent result in 
 those sanguinary ages, even if its roots were sacerdotal pride. 
 To establish an accusation against a bishop, seventy-two wit- 
 nesses were necessary ; against a deacon, twenty-seven ; against 
 an inferior dignitary, seven ; while two were sufficient to con- 
 vict a layman. The power to read and write helped the clergy 
 to much wealth. Privileges and charters from petty princes, 
 gifts and devises from private persons, were documents which 
 few, save ecclesiastics, could draw or dispute. Not content, 
 moreover, with their territories and their tithings, the church- 
 men perpetually devised new burthens upon the peasantry. 
 Ploughs, sickles, horses, oxen, all implements of husbandry, 
 were taxed for the benefit of those who toiled not, but who 
 gathered into barns. In the course of the twelfth century, many
 
 70 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 religious houses, richly endowed with lands and other property, 
 were founded in the Netherlands. Was hand or voice raised 
 against clerical encroachment the priests held over in readi- 
 ness a deadly weapon of defence a blasting anathema was 
 thundered against their antagonist, and smote him into submis- 
 sion. The disciples of Him who ordered His follower? to bless 
 their persecutors, and to love their enemies, invented such 
 Christian formulas as these : "In the name of the Father, the 
 Son, the Holy Grhost, the blessed Virgin Mary, John the 
 Baptist, Peter and Paul, and all other saints in Heaven, do we 
 curse and cut off from our Communion him who has thus rebelled 
 against us. May the curse strike him in his house, barn, bed, 
 field, path, city, castle. May he be cursed in battle, accursed 
 in praying, in speaking, in silence, in eating, in drinking, in 
 sleeping. May he be accursed in his taste, hearing, smell, and 
 all his senses. May the curse blast his eyes, head, and his 
 body, from the crown to the soles of his feet. I conjure you, 
 Devil, and all your imps, that you take no rest until you have 
 brought him to eternal shame ; till he is destroyed by drowmno- 
 or hanging, till he is torn to pieces by wild beasts, or consumed 
 by fire. Let his children become orphans, his wife a widow. 
 I command you, Devil, and all your imps, that even as I now 
 blow out these torches, you do immediately extinguish the 
 light from his eyes. So be it so be it. Amen. Amen." 
 So speaking, the curser was wont to blow out two waxen 
 torches which he held in his hand, and, with this practical 
 illustration, the anathema was complete. 
 
 Such insane ravings, even in the mouth of some impotent 
 beldame, were enough to excite a shudder, but in that dreary 
 epoch, these curses from the lips of clergymen were deemed 
 sufficient to draw down celestial lightning upon the head, not 
 of the blasphemer, but of his victim. Men who trembled neither 
 at sword nor fire, cowered like slaves before such horrid impreca- 
 tions.uttered by tongues gifted, as it seemed, with superhuman 
 power. Their fellow-men shrunk from the wretches thus blasted, 
 and refused communication with them as unclean and abhorred.
 
 DAWN OF THE EEFOEMATION. 71 
 
 By the end of the thirteenth century, however, the clerical 
 power was already beginning to decline. It was not the 
 corruption of the Church, but its enormous wealth, which 
 engendered the hatred with which it was by many regarded. 
 Temporal princes and haughty barons began to dispute the 
 right of ecclesiastics to enjoy vast estates, while refusing the 
 burthen of taxation, and unable to draw a sword for the com- 
 mon defence. At this period, the Courts of Flanders, of 
 Holland, and other Netherland sovereigns, issued decrees, for- 
 bidding clerical institutions from acquiring property, by devise, 
 gift, purchase, or any other mode. The downfall of the rapacious 
 and licentious Knights Templars in the provinces and through- 
 out Europe, was another severe blow administered at the same 
 time. The attacks upon Church abuses redoubled in boldness, 
 as its authority declined. Towards the end of the fourteenth 
 century, the doctrines of Wicklif had made great progress in 
 the land. Early in the fifteenth, the executions of Huss and 
 Jerome of Prague produced the Bohemian rebellion. The 
 Pope proclaims a crusade against the Hussites. Knights and 
 prelates, esquires and citizens, enlist in the sacred cause, 
 throughout Holland and its sister provinces ; but many 
 Netherlander who had felt the might of Ziska's arm, come 
 back, feeling more sympathy with the heresy which they had 
 attacked, than with the Church for which they had battled. 
 
 Meantime the restrictions imposed by Netherland sove- 
 reigns upon clerical rights to hold or acquire property, become 
 more stern and more general. On the other hand, with tho 
 invention of printing, the cause of Eeformation takes a 
 colossal stride in advance. A bible, which before had cost 
 five hundred crowns, now cost but five. The people acquire 
 the power of reading God's word, or of hearing it read, for 
 themselves. The light of truth dispels the clouds of supersti- 
 tion, as by a new revelation. The Pope and his monks are 
 found to bear very often but faint resemblance to Jesus and 
 His apostles. Moreover, the instinct of self-interest sharpens 
 the eye of the public. Many greedy priests, of lower rank,
 
 2 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 liad turned shopkeepers in the Netherlands, and were growing 
 rich by selling their wares, exempt from taxation, at a lower 
 rate than lay hucksters could afford. The benefit of clergy, 
 thus taking the bread from the mouths of many, excited jea- 
 lousy ; the more so as, besides their miscellaneous business, the 
 reverend traders have a most lucrative branch of commerce 
 from which other merchants are excluded. The sale of abso- 
 lutions was the source of large fortunes to the priests. The 
 enormous impudence of this traffic almost exceeds belief. 
 Throughout the Netherlands, the price current of the wares thus 
 offered for sale was published in every town and village. God's 
 pardon for crimes already committed, or about to be committed, 
 was advertised according to a graduated tariff. Thus, poison- 
 ing, for example, was absolved for eleven ducats, six livres 
 tournois. Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres, 
 three ducats. Perjury came to seven livres and three carlines. 
 Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper. Even a 
 parricide could buy forgiveness at God's tribunal at one ducat, 
 four livres, eight carlines. Henry de Montfort, in the year 1448, 
 purchased absolution for that crime at that price. Was it 
 strange that a century or so of this kind of work should produce 
 a Luther ? Was it unnatural that plain people, who loved the 
 ancient Church, should rather desire to see her purged of such 
 blasphemous abuses, than to hear of St. Peter's dome rising a 
 little nearer to the clouds on these proceeds of commuted crime? 
 At the same time, while ecclesiastical abuses are thus aug- 
 menting, ecclesiastical power is diminishing, in the Nether- 
 lands. The Church is no longer able to protect itself against 
 the secular arm. The halcyon days of ban, book, and candle 
 are gone. In 1459, Duke Philip of Burgundy prohibits the 
 churches from affording protection to fugitives. Charles the 
 Bold, in whose eyes nothing is sacred save war and the 
 means of making it, lays a heavy impost upon all clerical pro- 
 perty. Upon being resisted, he enforces collection with the 
 armed hand. The sword and the pen, strength and intellect, no 
 longer the exclusive servants or instruments of priestcraft, are
 
 ERASMUS. 73 
 
 both in open revolt. Charles the Bold storms one fortress, 
 Doctor Grandfort of Groningen batters another. This learned 
 Frisian, called " the light of the world," friend and com- 
 patriot of the great Eudolph Agricola, preaches throughout 
 the provinces, uttering bold denunciations of ecclesiastical 
 error. He even disputes the infallibility of the Pope, denies 
 the utility of prayers for the dead, and inveighs against the 
 whole doctrine of purgatory and absolution. 
 
 With the beginning of the sixteenth century, the great Refor- 
 mation was actually alive. The name of Erasmus of Rotterdam 
 was already celebrated ; the man who, according to Grotius, 
 "so well showed the road to a reasonable reformation." But if 
 Erasmus showed the road, he certainly did not travel far upon 
 it himself. Perpetual type of the quietist, the moderate man, he 
 censured the errors of the Church with discrimination and gen- 
 tleness, as if Borgianism had not been too long rampant at Rome, 
 as if men's minds throughout Christendom were not too deeply 
 stirred to be satisfied with mild rebukes against sin, especially 
 when the mild rebuker was in receipt of livings and salaries 
 from the sinner. Instead of rebukes, the age wanted reforms. 
 The sage of Rotterdam was a keen observer, a shrewd satirist, 
 but a moderate moralist. He loved ease, good company, the 
 soft repose of princely palaces, better than a life of martyrdom 
 and a death at the stake. He was not of the stuff of which 
 martyrs are made, as he handsomely confessed on more than 
 one occasion. " Let others affect martyrdom," he said ; " for 
 myself I am unworthy of the honour." And at another time, 
 " I am not of a mind," he observed, " to venture my life for 
 the truth's sake; all men have not strength to endure the mar- 
 tyr's death. For myself, if it came to the point, I should do no 
 better than Simon Peter." Moderate in all things, he would 
 have liked, he said, to live without eating and drinking, although 
 he never found it convenient to do so, and he rejoiced when 
 advancing age diminished his tendency to other carnal pleasures 
 in which he had moderately indulged. Although awake to the 
 abuses of the Church, he thought Luther going too fast and too
 
 74 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 far. He began by applauding ended by censuring the monk 
 of Wittenberg. The Reformation might have been delayed for 
 centuries had Erasmus and other moderate men been the only 
 reformers. He will long be honoured for his elegant Latinity. 
 In the republic of letters, his efforts to infuse a pure taste, a 
 sound criticism, a love for the beautiful and the classic, in place 
 of the owlish pedantry which had so long flapped and hooted 
 through mediaeval cloisters, will always be held in grateful 
 reverence. In the history of the religious Reformation, his 
 name seems hardly to deserve the commendations of Grotius. 
 
 As the schism yawns, more and more ominously, throughout 
 Christendom, the Emperor naturally trembles. Anxious to save 
 the state, but being no antique Roman, he wishes to close the 
 gulf, but with more convenience to himself. He conceives the 
 highly original plan of combining Church and Empire under 
 one crown. This is Maximilian's scheme for Church refor- 
 mation. An hereditary papacy, a perpetual pope-emperor, the 
 Charlemagne and Hildebrand systems united and simplified 
 thus the world may yet be saved. " Nothing more honourable, 
 nobler, better, could happen to us," writes Maximilian to 
 Paul Lichtenstein, (16th Sept. 1511,) "than to re-annex the 
 said popedom which properly belongs to us to our empire. 
 Cardinal Adrian approves our reasons and encourages us to 
 proceed, being of opinion that we should not have much 
 trouble with the cardinals. It is much to be feared that the 
 Pope may die of his present sickness. He has lost his appe- 
 tite, and fills himself with so much drink that his health is 
 destroyed. As such matters cannot be arranged without 
 money, we have promised the cardinals, whom we expect to 
 bring over, 300,000 ducats, which we shall raise from the 
 Fuggers, and make payable in Rome upon the appointed day." 
 
 These business-like arrangements he communicates, two days 
 afterwards, in a secret letter to his daughter Margaret, and al- 
 ready exults at his future eminence, both in this world and the 
 next. " We are sending Monsieur de Gurce," he says, " to 
 make an agreement with the Pope, that we may be taken as
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 75 
 
 coadjutor, in order that, upon his death, we may be sure of the 
 papacy, and afterwards, of becoming a saint. After my de- 
 cease, therefore, you will be constrained to adore me, of which 
 I shall be very proud. I am beginning to work upon the car- 
 dinals, in which affair two or three hundred thousand ducats 
 will be of great service." The letter was signed, " From the 
 hand of your good father, Maximilian, future Pope." 
 
 These intrigues are not destined, however, to be successful. 
 Pope Julius lives two years longer ; Leo the Tenth succeeds ; 
 and, as Medici are not much prone to Church reformation, 
 some other scheme, and perhaps some other reformer, may be 
 wanted. Meantime, the traffic in bulls of absolution becomes 
 more horrible than ever. Money must be raised to supply the 
 magnificent extravagance of Rome. Accordingly, Christians 
 throughout Europe are offered, by papal authority, guarantees 
 of forgiveness for every imaginable sin, "even for the rape 
 of God's mother, if that were possible," together with a 
 promise of life eternal in Paradise, all upon payment of the 
 price affixed to each crime. The Netherlands, like other 
 countries, are districted and farmed for the collection of this 
 papal revenue. Much of the money thus raised remains in the 
 hands of the vile collectors. Sincere Catholics, who love and 
 honor the ancient religion, shrink with horror at the spectacle 
 offered on every side. Criminals buying Paradise for money, 
 monks spending the money thus paid in gaming-houses, 
 taverns, and brothels ; this seems to those who have studied 
 their Testaments, a different scheme of salvation from the one 
 promulgated by Christ. There has evidently been a departure 
 from the system of earlier apostles. Innocent conservative 
 souls are much perplexed ; but, at last, all these infamies 
 arouse a giant to do battle with the giant wrong. Martin 
 Luther enters the lists, all alone, armed only with a quiver 
 filled with ninety-five propositions, and a bow which can send 
 them all over Christendom with incredible swiftness. Within 
 a few weeks the ninety-five propositions have flown through 
 Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and are found in Jerusalem.
 
 76 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH HEPUBLIO. 
 
 At the beginning, Erasmus encourages the bold friar. So 
 long as the axe is not laid at the foot of the tree which bears 
 the poisonous but golden fruit, the moderate man applauds 
 the blows. t( Luther's cause is considered odious," writes 
 Erasmus to the Electors of Saxony, " because he has, at the 
 same time, attacked the bellies of the monks and the bulls of 
 the Pope." He complains that the zealous man had been 
 attacked with railing, but not with argument. He foresees 
 that the work will have a bloody and turbulent result, but 
 imputes the principal blame to the clergy. " The priests talk,'* 
 said he, " of absolution in such terms that laymen cannot 
 stomach it. Luther has been for nothing more censured 
 than for making little of Thomas Aquinas ; for wishing to 
 diminish the absolution traffic ; for having a low opinion of 
 mendicant orders, and for respecting scholastic opinions lesa 
 than the gospel. All this is considered intolerable heresy.'* 
 
 Erasmus, however, was offending both parties. A swarm of 
 monks were already buzzing about him for the bold language 
 of his Commentaries and Dialogues. He was called Errasmus 
 for his errors Arasmus because he would plough up sacred 
 things Erasinus because he had written himself an ass Be- 
 hemoth, Antichrist, and many other names of similar import. 
 Luther was said to have bought the deadly seed in his barn. 
 The egg had been laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther. On 
 the other hand, he was reviled for not taking side manfully 
 with the reformer. The moderate man received much denun- 
 ciation from zealots on either side. He soon clears himself, 
 however, from all suspicions of Lutheranism. He is appalled 
 at the fierce conflict which rages far and wide. He becomes 
 querulous as the mighty besom sweeps away sacred dust and 
 consecrated cobwebs. " Men should not attempt everything 
 at once," he writes, " but rather step by step. That which men 
 cannot improve they must look at through the fingers. If the 
 godlessness of mankind requires such fierce physicians as 
 Luther, if man cannot be healed with soothing ointments and 
 cooling drinks, let us hope that Gcd will comfort, as recent-
 
 IMPERIAL EDICTS. 77 
 
 ant, those whom he has punished as rebellious. If the dove of 
 Christ not the owl of Minerva would only fly to us, some 
 measure might be put to the madness of mankind." 
 
 Meantime the man, whose talk is not of doves and owls, the 
 fierce physician, who deals not with ointments and cooling 
 draughts, strides past the crowd of gentle quacks to smite the 
 foul disease. Devils, thicker than tiles on house-tops, scare 
 him not from his work. Bans and bulls, excommunications 
 and decrees, are rained upon his head. The paternal Emperor 
 sends down dire edicts, thicker than hail upon the earth. The 
 Holy Father blasts and raves from Rome. Louvain doctors de- 
 nounce, Louvain hangmen burn, the bitter blasphemous books. 
 The immoderate man stands firm in the storm, demanding 
 argument instead of illogical thunder; shews the hangman and 
 the people too, outside the Elster gates at Wittenberg, that 
 papal bulls will blaze as merrily as heretic scrolls. What need 
 of allusion to events which changed the world which every 
 child has learned to the war of Titans, uprooting of hoary 
 trees and rock-ribbed hills, to the Worms Diet, Peasant wars, 
 the Patmos of Eisenach, and huge wrestlings with the Devil? 
 
 Imperial edicts are soon employed to suppress the Reforma- 
 tion in the Netherlands by force. The provinces, unfortu- 
 nately, are the private property of Charles, his paternal 
 inheritance ; and most paternally, according to his view of the 
 matter, does he deal with them. Germany cannot be treated 
 thus summarily not being his heritage. " As it appears," says 
 the edict of 1521, "that the aforesaid Martin is not a man, but 
 a devil under the form of a man, and clothed in the dress of a 
 priest, the better to bring the human race to hell and damna- 
 tion, therefore all his disciples and converts are to be punished 
 with death and forfeiture of all their goods." This was suc- 
 cinct "and intelligible. The bloody edict, issued at Worms, 
 without even a pretence of sanction by the estates, was carried 
 into immediate effect. The papal inquisition was introduced 
 into the provinces to assist its operations. The bloody work, 
 for which the reign of Charles is mainly distinguished in the
 
 78 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBUO. 
 
 Netherlands, now began. In 1523, July 1st, two Augustine 
 monks were burned at Brussels, the first victims to Luther- 
 anism in the provinces. Erasmus observed, with a sigh, that 
 " two had been burned at Brussels, and that the city now 
 began strenuously to favour Lutheranism." 
 
 Pope Adrian the Sixth, the Nether! and boat -maker's son 
 and the Emperor's ancient tutor, was sufficiently alive to the 
 sins of churchmen. The humble scholar of Utrecht was, at 
 least, no Borgia. At the diet of Nuremberg, summoned to 
 put down Luther, the honest Pope declared roundly, through 
 the Bishop of Fabriane, that "these disorders had sprung 
 from the sins of men, more especially from tlie sins of priests 
 and prelates. Even in the holy chair," said he, "many hor- 
 rible crimes have been committed. Many abuses have grown 
 up in the ecclesiastical state. The contagious disease, spread- 
 ing from the head to the members from the Pope to lesser 
 prelates has spread far and wide, so that scarcely any one is 
 to be found who does right, and who is free from infection. 
 Nevertheless, the evils have become so ancient and manifold, 
 that it will be necessary to go step by step." 
 
 In those passionate days the ardent reformers were as much 
 outraged by this pregnant confession as the ecclesiastics. It 
 would indeed be a slow process, they thought, to move step 
 by step in the Reformation, if between each step a whole 
 century was to intervene. In vain did the gentle pontiff call 
 upon Erasmus to assuage the stormy sea with his smooth 
 rhetoric. The sage of Rotterdam was old and sickly ; his day 
 was over. Adrian's head, too, languishes beneath the triple 
 crown but twenty months. He dies 13th Sept. 1523, having 
 arrived at the conviction, according to his epitaph, that the 
 greatest misfortune of his life was to have reigned. 
 
 Another edict, published in the Netherlands, forbids all 
 private assemblies for devotion ; all reading of the Scriptures, 
 all discussions within one's own doors concerning faith, the 
 
 O ' 
 
 sacraments, the papal authority, or other religious matter, under 
 penalty of death. The edicts were no dead letter. The fires
 
 THE ANABAPTISTS. 79 
 
 were kept constantly supplied with human fuel, by monks 
 who knew the art of burning reformers, better than that of 
 arguing with them. The scaffold was the most conclusive of 
 syllogisms, and used upon all occasions. Still the people 
 remained unconvinced. Thousands of burned heretics had 
 not made a single convert. 
 
 A fresh edict renewed and sharpened the punishment for 
 reading the Scriptures in private or public. At the same time, 
 the violent personal altercation between Luther and Erasmus 
 upon predestination, together with the bitter dispute between 
 Luther and Zwingli concerning the real presence, did more to 
 impede the progress of the Reformation than ban or edict, 
 sword or fire. The spirit of humanity hung her head, finding 
 that the bold reformer had only a new dogma in place of the 
 old ones, seeing that Dissenters, in their turn, were sometimes 
 as ready as Papists, with axe, faggot, and excommunication. 
 In 1526, Felix Mants, the Anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich, 
 in obedience to Zwingli's pithy formula Qui iterum mergit 
 mergatur. Thus the Anabaptists, upon their first appearance, 
 were exposed to the fires of the Church, and the water of the 
 Zwinglians. 
 
 There is no doubt that the Anabaptist delusion was so ridi- 
 culous and so loathsome, as to palliate, or at least render intel- 
 ligible, the wrath with which they were regarded by all parties. 
 The turbulence of the sect was alarming to constituted autho- 
 rities, its bestiality disgraceful to the cause of religious refor- 
 mation. The leaders were among the most depraved of human 
 creatures, as much distinguished for licentiousness, blasphemy, 
 and cruelty, as their followers for grovelling superstition. The 
 evil spirit driven out of Luther seemed, in orthodox eyes, to 
 have taken possession of a herd of swine. The Germans, 
 Muncer and Hoffman, had been succeeded, as chief prophets, 
 by a Dutch baker, named Matthiszoon, of Harlem ; who 
 announced himself as Enoch. Chief of this man's disciples was 
 the notorious John Boccold of Leyden. Under the government 
 of this prophet, the Anabaptists mastered the city of Munster.
 
 80 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 Here they confiscated property, plundered churches, violated 
 females, murdered men who refused to join the gang, and, in 
 brief, practised all the enormities which humanity alone can 
 conceive or perpetrate. The prophet proclaimed himself King 
 of Sion, and sent out apostles to preach his doctrines in Ger- 
 many and the Netherlands. Polygamy being a leading article 
 of the system, he exemplified the principle by marrying four- 
 teen wives. Of these the beautiful widow of Matthiszoon was 
 chief, was called the Queen of Sion, and wore a golden crown. 
 The prophet made many fruitless efforts to seize Amsterdam 
 and Leyden. The armed invasion of the Anabaptists was re- 
 pelled, but their contagious madness spread. The plague broke 
 forth in Amsterdam. On a cold winter's night (February 1535) 
 seven men and five women, inspired by the Holy Ghost, threw 
 off their clothes and rushed naked and raving through the 
 streets, shrieking, " Wo, wo, wo ! the wrath of God, the wrath 
 of God ! " When arrested, they obstinately refused to put on 
 clothing. " We are," they observed, " the naked truth." In 
 a day or two, these furious lunatics, who certainly deserved a 
 madhouse rather than the scaffold, were all executed. The 
 numbers of the sect increased with the martyrdom to which 
 they were exposed, and the disorder spread to every part of 
 the Netherlands. Many were put to death in lingering tor- 
 ments, but no perceptible effect was produced by the chas- 
 tisement. Meantime the great chief of the sect, the prophet 
 John, was defeated by the forces of the Bishop of Munster, 
 who recovered his city, and caused the " King of Sion " to 
 be pinched to death with red-hot tongs. 
 
 Unfortunately the severity of government was not wreaked 
 alone upon the prophet and his mischievous crew. Thousands 
 and ten thousands of virtuous well-disposed men and women, 
 who had as little sympathy with anabaptistical as with Roman 
 depravity, w r ere butchered in cold blood, tinder the sanguinary 
 rule of Charles, in the Netherlands. In 1533, Queen Dowager 
 Mary of Hungary, sister of the Emperor, Regent of the pro- 
 vinces, the " Christian widow " admired by Erasmus, wrote to
 
 INSTITUTIONS IN THEIR LAST FORM. gl 
 
 her brother that " in her opinion all heretics, whether re- 
 pentant or not, should be prosecuted with such severity as 
 that error might be at once extinguished, care being only 
 taken that the provinces were not entirely depopulated." With 
 this humane limitation the " Christian widow " cheerfully set 
 herself to superintend as foul and wholesale a system of murder 
 as was ever organised. In 1535 an imperial edict was issued 
 at Brussels, condemning all heretics to death ; repentant males 
 to be executed with the sword, repentant females to be buried 
 alive, the obstinate of both sexes to be burned. This and 
 similar edicts were the law of the land for twenty years, and 
 rigidly enforced. Imperial and papal persecution continued 
 its daily deadly work with such diligence, as to make it 
 doubtful whether the limits set by the Regent Mary might 
 not be overstepped. In the midst of the carnage, the Emperor 
 sent for his son Philip, that he might receive the fealty of the 
 Netherlands as their future lord and master. Contempora- 
 neously a new edict was published at Brussels (29th April, 
 1549), confirming and re-enacting all previous decrees in 
 their most severe provisions. Thus stood religious matters in. 
 the Netherlands at the epoch of the imperial abdication. 
 
 XIIL 
 
 The civil institutions of the country had assumed their last 
 provincial form in the Burgundo- Austrian epoch. As already 
 stated, their tendency, at a later period a vicious one, was to 
 substitute fictitious personages for men. A chain of corpora- 
 tions was wound about the liberty of the Netherlands ; yet that 
 liberty had been originally sustained by the system in which it 
 one day might be strangled. The spirit of local self-government, 
 always the life-blood of liberty, was often excessive in its mani- 
 festations. The centrifugal force had been too much developed, 
 and, combining with the mutual jealousy of corporations, had 
 often made the nation weak against a common foe. Instead of 
 popular rights there were state rights, for the large cities, with 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 .82 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 extensive districts and villages under their government, were 
 rather petty states than municipalities. Although the supreme 
 legislative and executive functions belonged to the sovereign, 
 yet each city made its by-laws, and possessed, besides, a body of 
 statutes and regulations, made from time to time by its own 
 authority and confirmed by the prince. Thus a large portion, 
 at least, of the nation shared practically in the legislative func- 
 tions, which, technically, it did not claim ; nor had the require- 
 ments of society made constant legislation so necessary, as that 
 to exclude the people from the work was to enslave the country. 
 There was popular power enough to effect much good, but it was 
 widely scattered, and, at the same time, confined in artificial 
 forms. The guilds were vassals of the town, the towns vassals 
 of the feudal lord. The guild voted in the " broad council " of 
 the city as one person ; the city voted in the estates as one per- 
 son. The people of the United Netherlands was the personage 
 yet to be invented. It was a privilege, not a right, to exercise 
 a handiwork, or to participate in the action of government. 
 Yet the mass of privileges was so large, the shareholders so 
 numerous, that practically the towns were republics. The 
 government was in the hands of a large number of the people. 
 Industry and intelligence led to wealth and power. This was 
 great progress from the general servitude of the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries, an immense barrier against arbitrary rule. 
 Loftier ideas of human rights, larger conceptions of commerce, 
 have taught mankind, in later days, the difference between liber- 
 ties and liberty, between guilds and free competition. At the 
 same time it was the principle of mercantile association, in the 
 middle ages, which protected the infant steps of human freedom 
 and human industry against violence and wrong. Moreover, at 
 this period the tree of municipal life was still green and vigorous. 
 The healthful flow of sap from the humblest roots to the most 
 verdurous branches indicated the internal soundness of the core, 
 and provided for the constant development of exterior strength. 
 The road to political influence was open to all, not by right of 
 birth, but through honourable exertion of heads and hands.
 
 ANTWEKP, 83 
 
 The chief city of the Netherlands, the commercial capital of 
 Jie world, was Antwerp. In the north and east of Europe, the 
 Hanseatic league had withered with the revolution in commerce. 
 At the south, the splendid marble channels, through which the 
 overland India trade had been conducted from the Mediter- 
 ranean by a few stately cities, were now dry, the great aqueducts 
 ruinous and deserted. Verona, Venice, Nuremberg, Augsburg, 
 Bruges, were sinking ; but Antwerp, with its deep and conve- 
 nient river, stretched its arm to the ocean, and caught the 
 golden prize as it fell from its sister cities' grasp. The city 
 was so ancient, that its genealogists, with ridiculous gravity, 
 ascended to a period two centuries before the Trojan war, and 
 discovered a giant, rejoicing in the classic name of Antigonus, 
 established on the Scheld. This patriarch exacted one-half 
 the merchandise of all navigators who passed his castle, and 
 was accustomed to amputate and cast into the river the right 
 hands of those who infringed this simple tariff. Thus Hand- 
 werpen, hand-throwing, became Jwu?erp,and hence, two hands 
 in the escutcheon of the city were ever held up in heraldic 
 attestation of the truth. The giant was, in his turn, thrown 
 into the Scheld by a hero named Brabo, from whose exploits 
 Brabant derived its name ; " de quo Brabonica tellus." But 
 for these antiquarian researches, a simpler derivation of the 
 name would seem an werf, " on the wharf." It had now- 
 become the principal entrepot and exchange of Europe. The 
 Fuggers, Velsens, Ostetts, of Germany, the Gualterotti and 
 Bonvisi of Italy, and many other great mercantile houses, 
 were there established. No city, except Paris, surpassed it in 
 population, none approached it in commercial splendour. Its 
 government was very free. The sovereign, as Marquis of Ant- 
 werp, was solemnly sworn to govern according to the ancient 
 charters and laws. The stadtholder, as his representative, shared 
 his authority with the four estates of the city. The Senate of 
 eighteen members was appointed by the stadtholder out of a 
 quadruple number nominated by the Senate itself and by the 
 fourth body, called the Borgery. Half the board was thus re-
 
 81 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 newcd annually. It exercised executive and appellate judicial 
 functions, appointed two burgomasters, and two pensionaries 
 or legal councillors, and also selected the lesser magistrates or 
 officials of the city. The board of ancient or ex-senators held 
 their seats ex ojficio. The twenty-six ward-masters, appointed, 
 two from each ward, by the Senate on nomination by the wards, 
 formed the third estate. Their especial business was to enrol 
 the militia, and to attend to its mustering and training. The 
 deans of the guilds, fifty-four in number, two from each guild, 
 selected by the Senate, from a triple list of candidates pre- 
 sented by the guilds, composed the fourth estate. This 
 influential body was always assembled in the broad-council of 
 the city. Their duty was likewise to conduct the examination 
 of candidates claiming admittance to any guild and offering 
 specimens of art or handiwork, to superintend the general 
 affairs of the guilds, and to regulate disputes. 
 
 There were also twoimportant functionaries, representing the 
 king in criminal and civil matters. The Vicarius capitalis, 
 Scultetus, Schout, Sheriff, or Margrave, took precedence of all 
 magistrates. His business was to superintend criminal arrests, 
 trials, and executions. The Vicarius civilis was called the 
 Amman, and his office corresponded with that of the Podesta 
 in the Frisian and Italian republics. His duties were nearly 
 similar in civil, to those of his colleague in criminal matters. 
 
 These four branches, with their functionaries and dependents, 
 composed the commonwealth of Antwerp. Assembled together 
 in council, they constituted the great and general court. No 
 tax could be imposed by the sovereign, except with consent of 
 the four branches, all voting separately. 
 
 The personal and domiciliary rights of the citizens were 
 scrupulously guarded. The Schout could only make arrests 
 with the Burgomaster's warrant, and was obliged to bring the 
 accused, whhin three days, before the judges, whose courts 
 were open to the public. 
 
 The condition of the population was prosperous. There were 
 but few poor, and those did not seek, but were sought by the
 
 ESTATES-GENERAL. 85 
 
 almoners. The schools were excellent and cheap. It was 
 difficult to find a child of sufficient age who could not read, 
 write, and speak at least two languages. The sons of the 
 wealthier citizens completed their education at Louvain, 
 Douay, Paris, or Padua. 
 
 The city itself was one of the most beautiful in Europe. 
 Placed upon a plain along the banks of the Scheld, shaped like 
 a bent bow with the river for its string, it enclosed within its 
 walls some of the most splendid edifices in Christendom. The 
 world-renowned church of Notre-Dame; the stately Exchange, 
 where five thousand merchants daily congregated ; prototype 
 of all similar establishments throughout the world ; the capa- 
 cious mole and port, where twenty-five hundred vessels were 
 often seen at once, and where five hundred made their daily 
 entrance or departure, were all establishments which it would 
 have been difficult to rival in any other part of the world. 
 
 From what has already been said of the municipal institu- 
 tions of the country, it maybe inferred that the powers of the 
 estates-general were limited. The members of that congress 
 were not representatives chosen by the people, but merely a 
 few ambassadors from individual provinces. This individuality 
 was not always composed of the same ingredients. Thus, 
 Holland consisted of two members or branches the nobles and 
 the six chief cities ; Flanders of four branches the cities, name- 
 ly, of Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and the " freedom of Bruges ;" 
 Brabant of Louvain, Brussels, Bois le Due, and Antwerp, four 
 great cities, without representation of nobility or clergy ; 
 Zeland, of one clerical person, the Abbot of Middelburg, one 
 noble, the Marquis of Veer and Vliessingen, and six chief 
 cities ; Utrecht, of three branches the nobility, the clergy, 
 and five cities. These and other provinces, constituted in simi- 
 lar manner, were supposed to be actually present at the diet 
 when assembled. The chief business of the states-general was 
 financial ; the sovereign, or his stadtholder, only obtaining 
 supplies by making a request in person, while any single city, 
 as branch of a province, had a right to refuse the grant.
 
 8b THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Education had felt the onward movement of the country and 
 the times. The whole system was, however, pervaded by the 
 monastic spirit, which had originally preserved all learning from 
 annihilation, but which now kept it wrapped in the ancient 
 cere-cloths, and stiffening in the stony sarcophagus of a by gone 
 age. The University of Louvain was the chief literary insti- 
 tution in the provinces. It had been established in 1423 by 
 Duke John IV. of Brabant. Its government consisted of a 
 President and Senate, forming a close corporation, which had 
 received from the founder all his own authority, and the right 
 to supply its own vacancies. The five faculties of law, canon 
 law, medicine, theology, and the arts were cultivated at the in- 
 stitution. There was, besides, a high school for undergraduates, 
 divided into four classes. The place reeked with pedantry, and 
 the character of the university naturally diffused itself through 
 other scholastic establishments. Nevertheless, it had done and 
 was doing much to preserve the love for profound learning, 
 while the rapidly advancing spirit of commerce was attended 
 by an ever increasing train of humanising arts. 
 
 The standard of culture in those flourishing cities was ele- 
 vated, compared with that observed in many parts of Europe. 
 The children of the wealthier classes enjoyed great facilities 
 for education in all the great capitals. The classics, music, 
 and the modern languages, particularly the French, were 
 universally cultivated. Nor was intellectual cultivation con- 
 fined to the higher orders. On the contrary, it was diffused 
 to a remarkable degree among the hard-working artizans and 
 handicraftsmen of the great cities. 
 
 For the principle of association had not confined itself exclu- 
 sively to politics and trade. Besides the numerous guilds by 
 which citizenship was acquired in the various cities, were many 
 other societies for mutual improvement, support or recreation. 
 The great secret architectural or masonic brotherhood of Ger- 
 many, that league to which the artistic and patient completion
 
 GUILDS OF RHETORIC. 87 
 
 of the magnificent works of Gothic architecture in the middle 
 ages is mainly to be attributed, had its branches in Nether 
 Germany, and explains the presence of so many splendid and 
 elaborately finished churches in the provinces. There were also 
 military sodalities of musketeers, cross-bowmen, archers, 
 swordsmen in every town. Once a year these clubs kept holi- 
 day, choosing a king, who was selected for his prowess and skill 
 in the use of various weapons. These festivals, always held with 
 great solemnity and rejoicing, were accompanied by many exhi- 
 bitions of archery and swordmanship. The people were not 
 likely, therefore, voluntarily to abandon that privilege and duty of 
 freemen, the right to bear arms, and the power to handle them. 
 Another and most important collection of brotherhoods were 
 the so-called guilds of Rhetoric, which existed, in greater or 
 less number, in all the principal cities. These were associations 
 of mechanics, for the purpose of amusing their leisure with 
 poetical effusions, dramatic and musical exhibitions, theatrical 
 processions, and other harmless and not inelegant recreations. 
 Such chambers of rhetoric came originally in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury from France. The fact that in their very title they con- 
 founded rhetoric with poetry and the drama, indicates the 
 meagre attainments of these earlier " Reclerykers." In the out- 
 set of their career they gave theatrical exhibitions. " King 
 Herod and his Deeds " was enacted in the cathedral at Utrecht 
 in 1418. The associations spread with great celerity through- 
 out the Netherlands, and as they were all connected with each 
 other, and in habits of periodical intercourse, these humble links 
 of literature were of great value in drawing the people of the 
 provinces into closer union. They became likewise important 
 political engines. As early as the time of Philip the Good, 
 their songs and lampoons became so offensive to the arbitrary 
 notions of the Burgundian government, as to cause the societies 
 to be prohibited. It was, however, out of the sovereign's power 
 permanently to suppress institutions which already partook of 
 the character of the modern periodical press combined with 
 functions resembling the show and licence of the Athenian
 
 88 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 drama. Viewed from the stand-point of literary criticism, their 
 productions were not very commendable, and perhaps smacked 
 of the hammer, the yard-stick, and the pincers. Yet, if the 
 style of these lucubrations was often depraved, the artizans 
 rarely received a better example from the literary institutions 
 above them. It was not for guilds of mechanics to give the 
 tone to literature, nor were their efforts in more execrable taste 
 than the emanations from the pedants of Louvain. The " Rhe- 
 toricians " are not responsible for all the bad taste of their 
 generation. The gravest historians of the Netherlands often 
 relieved their elephantine labours by the most asinine gambols, 
 and it was not to be expected that these bustling weavers and 
 cutlers should excel their literary superiors in taste or elegance. 
 
 Philip the Fair enrolled himself as a member in one of these 
 societies. It may easily be inferred, therefore, that they had 
 already become bodies of recognised importance. The rhetori- 
 cal chambers existed in the most obscure villages. The number 
 of yards of Flemish poetry annually manufactured and con- 
 sumed throughout the provinces almost exceeds belief. The 
 societies had regular constitutions. Their presiding officers 
 were called kings, princes, captains, archdeacons, or rejoiced 
 in similar high-sounding names. Each chamber had its 
 treasurer, its buffoon, and its standard-bearer for public pro- 
 cessions. Each had its peculiar title or blazon, as the Lily, 
 the Marigold, or the Violet, with ari appropriate motto. By 
 the year 1493, the associations had become so important, that 
 Philip the Fair summoned them all to a general assembly at 
 Mechlin. Here they were organised, and formally incor- 
 porated under the general supervision of an upper or mother 
 society of Rhetoric, consisting of fifteen members, and called 
 by the title of " Jesus with the balsam flower." 
 
 The sovereigns were always anxious to conciliate these in- 
 fluential guilds by becoming members of them in person. Like 
 the players, the Rhetoricians were the brief abstract and 
 chronicle of the time, and neither prince nor private person 
 desired their ill report It had, indeed, been Philip's intention
 
 LAND-JEWELS. 89 
 
 to convert them into engines for the arbitrary purposes of his 
 house, but fortunately the publicly-organised societies were not 
 the only chambers. On the contrary, the unchartered guilds 
 were the most numerous and influential. They exercised a 
 vast influence upon the progress of the religious reformation, 
 and the subsequent revolt of the Netherlands. They ridiculed, 
 with their farces and their satires, the vices of the clergy. 
 They dramatised tyranny for public execration. It was also 
 not surprising, that among the leaders of the wild Anabaptists 
 who disgraced the great revolution in Church and State by their 
 hideous antics, should be found many who, like David of Delft, 
 John of Leyden, and others, had been members of rhetorical 
 chambers. The genius for mummery and theatrical exhibi- 
 tions, transplanted from its sphere, and exerting itself for 
 purposes of fraud and licentiousness, was as baleful in its 
 effects as it was healthy in its original manifestations. Such 
 exhibitions were but the excrescences of a system which had 
 borne good fruit. These literary guilds befitted and denoted a 
 people which was alive, a people which had neither sunk to 
 sleep in the lap of material prosperity, nor abased itself in the 
 sty of ignorance and political servitude. The spirit of liberty 
 pervaded these rude but not illiterate assemblies, and her fair 
 proportions were distinctly visible, even through the somewhat 
 grotesque garb which she thus assumed. 
 
 The great leading recreations which these chambers afforded 
 to themselves and the public, were the periodic jubilees which 
 they celebrated in various capital cities. All the guilds of 
 rhetoric throughout the Netherlands were then invited to 
 partkae and to compete in magnificent processions, brilliant 
 costumes, living pictures, charades, and other animated, 
 glittering groups, and in trials of dramatic and poetic skill, 
 all arranged under the superintendence of the particular 
 association which, in the preceding year, had borne away the 
 prize. Such jubilees were called " Land-jewels." 
 
 From the amusements of a people may be gathered much 
 that is necessary for a proper estimation of its character. No
 
 90 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 unfavourable opinion can be formed as to the culture of a 
 nation whose weavers, smiths, gardeners, and traders found the 
 favourite amusement of their holidays in composing and enact- 
 ing tragedies or farces, reciting their own verses, or in personi- 
 fying moral and aesthetic sentiments by ingeniously-arranged 
 groups, or gorgeous habiliments. The cramoisy velvets and 
 yellow satin doublets of the court, the gold-brocaded mantles 
 of priests and princes are often but vulgar drapery of little his- 
 toric worth. Such costumes thrown around the swart figures 
 of hard-working artizans, for literary and artistic purposes, 
 have a real significance, and are worthy of a closer examina- 
 tion. Were not these amusements of the Netherlands as 
 elevated and humanising as the contemporary bull-fights and 
 autos-da-fe of Spain ? What place in history does the gloomy 
 bigot merit who, for the love of Christ, converted all these 
 gay cities into shambles, and changed the glittering proces- 
 sions of their Land-jewels into fettered marches to the scaffold? 
 Thus fifteen ages have passed away, and in the place of a 
 horde of savages, living among swamps and thickets, swarm 
 three millions of people, the most industrious, the most 
 prosperous, perhaps the most intelligent under the sun. Their 
 cattle, grazing on the bottom of the sea, are the finest in 
 Europe, their agricultural products of more exchangeable value 
 than if nature had made their land to overflow with wine and 
 oil. Their navigators are the boldest, their mercantile marine 
 the most powerful, their merchants the most enterprising in 
 the world. Holland and Flanders, peopled by one race, vie 
 with each other in the pursuits of civilisation. The Flemish 
 skill in the mechanical and in the fine arts is unrivalled. Bel- 
 gian musicians delight and instruct other nations. Belgian 
 pencils have, for a century, caused the canvas to glow with 
 colours and combinations never seen before. Flemish fabrics 
 are exported to all parts of Europe, to the East and West 
 Indies, to Africa. The splendid tapestries, silks, linens, as well 
 as the more homely and useful manufactures of the Nether- 
 lands, are prized throughout the world. Most ingenious, as
 
 RESULTS. 91 
 
 they had already been described by the keen-eyed Caesar, in 
 imitating the arts of other nations, the skilful artificers of the 
 country, at Louvain, Ghent, and other places, reproduce the 
 shawls and silks of India with admirable accuracy. 
 
 Their national industry was untiring ; their prosperity un- 
 exampled ; their love of liberty indomitable ; their pugnacity 
 proverbial. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by tem- 
 perament, the Netherlander were yet the most belligerent 
 and excitable population of Europe. Two centuries of civil 
 war had but thinned the ranks of each generation without 
 quenching the hot spirit of the nation. 
 
 The women were distinguished by beauty of form and 
 vigour of constitution. Accustomed from childhood to con- 
 verse freely with all classes and sexes in the daily walks of 
 life, and to travel on foot or horseback from one town to 
 another without escort and without fear, they had acquired 
 manners more frank and independent than those of women 
 in other lands, while their morals were pure and their de- 
 corum undoubted. The prominent part to be sustained by 
 the women of Holland in many dramas of the revolution 
 would thus fitly devolve upon a class enabled by nature and 
 education to conduct themselves with courage. 
 
 Within the little circle which encloses the seventeen pro- 
 vinces are 208 walled cities, many of them among the most 
 stately in Christendom, 150 chartered towns, 6,300 villages, 
 with their watch-towers and steeples, besides numerous other 
 more insignificant hamlets ; the whole guarded by a belt of 
 sixty fortresses of surpassing strength. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thus in this rapid sketch of the course and development of 
 the Netherland nation during sixteen centuries, we have seen it 
 ever marked by one prevailing characteristic, one master-passion 
 the love of liberty, the instinct of self-government. Largely 
 compounded of the bravest Teutonic elements, Batavian and
 
 92 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 Frisian, the race ever battles to the death with tyranny, 
 organises extensive revolts in the age of Vespasian, maintains a 
 partial independence, even against the sagacious dominion of 
 Charlemagne, refuses in Friesland to accept the papal yoke or 
 feudal chain, and, throughout the dark ages, struggles resolutely 
 towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns 
 a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. 
 With the advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the 
 commons has reached so high a point that it is able to measure 
 itself, undaunted, with the spirit of arbitrary rule, of which that 
 engrossing and tyrannical house is the embodiment. For more 
 than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, goes on ; 
 Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian, 
 Charles V., in turn, assailing or undermining the bulwarks 
 raised, age after age, against the despotic principle. The com- 
 bat is ever renewed. Liberty, often crushed, rises again and 
 again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, 
 in the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the 
 genius of religious freedom, comes to participate in the great 
 conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charle- 
 magne, assails the new combination with unscrupulous, unfor- 
 giving fierceness. Venerable civic magistrates, haltered, grovel 
 in sackcloth and ashes ; innocent religious reformers burn in 
 holocausts. By the middle of the century the battle rages 
 more fiercely than ever. In the little Netherland territory, 
 Humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stands at bay and 
 defies the hunters. The two great powers have been gathering 
 strength for centuries. They are soon to be matched in a 
 longer and more determined combat than the world had ever 
 seen. The emperor is about to leave the stage. The provinces, 
 so passionate for nationality, for municipal freedom, for reli- 
 gious reformation, are to become the property of an utter 
 stranger ; a prince foreign to their blood, their tongue, their 
 religion, their whole habits of life and thought. 
 
 Such was the political, religious, and social condition of a na- 
 tion who were now to witness a new and momentous spectacle.
 
 PART I. 
 
 PHILIP THE SECOND IN THE NETHERLANDS. 
 1555-1559.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OPENING AND CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 Abdication of Charles resolved upon Brussels in the sixteenth century- 
 Hall of the palace described Portraits of prominent individuals present 
 at the ceremony Formalities of the abdication Universal emotion 
 Remarks upon the character and career of Charles His retirement at 
 Juste. 
 
 ON the 25th day of October 1555, the estates of the Nether- 
 lands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels. 1 
 They had been summoned to be the witnesses and the guaran- 
 tees cf the abdication which Charles V. had long before resolved 
 upon, and which he was that day to execute. The emperor, 
 like many potentates before and since, was fond of great poli- 
 tical spectacles. He knew their influence upon the masses of 
 mankind. Although plain, even to shabbiness, in his own cos- 
 tume, and usually attired in black, 2 no one ever understood 
 better than he how to arrange such exhibitions in a striking 
 and artistic style. We have seen the theatrical and imposing 
 manner in which he quelled the insurrection at Ghent, and 
 nearly crushed the life for ever out of that vigorous and turbu- 
 lent little commonwealth. The closing scene of his long and 
 energetic reign he had now arranged with profound study, and 
 with an accurate knowledge of the manner in which the requi- 
 site effects were to be produced. The termination of his own 
 
 1 Eml. VanMeteren. Historien der 
 Nederlanden, i. f. 16. Pieter Bor. 
 Nederlanclshe Oorlogen, i. f . 3. 
 
 2 Illiberaiior quoque quam tantum 
 decebat Cffisarem est habitus ves- 
 
 titus fere popularis, colore atro ob- 
 lectabatur. Ponti Heuteri Eerum 
 Austriacarum Hist. (Lovanii, 1643,) 
 xiv. 346 a.
 
 96 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 career, the opening of his beloved Philip's, were to be drama- 
 tized in a manner worthy the august character of the actors, and 
 the importance of the great stage where they played their parts. 
 The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that day to- 
 wards Brussels ; for an imperial abdication was an event which 
 had not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom. 
 
 The gay capital of Brabant, of that province which rejoiced 
 in the liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the 
 " joyful entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing 
 show. Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, 
 and at that day numbered about one hundred thousand inhabi- 
 tants. 1 Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already 
 two hundred years old. 8 Unlike most Netherland cities, lying 
 usually upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an 
 abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure, culti- 
 vated gardens, shady groves, fertile corn-fields, flowed round it 
 like a sea. The foot of the town was washed by the little river 
 Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the- 
 steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an 
 amphitheatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the auda- 
 cious and exquisi tely embroidered tower of the town-house, three 
 hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needle-work 
 in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of 
 that lace which has for centuries been synonymous with the city, 
 and rearing itself above a fa9ade of profusely decorated and bro- 
 caded architecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned by 
 the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive 
 and thickly-wooded park on the left, and by the stately man- 
 sions of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemberg, and other 
 Flemish grandees on the right. 8 The great forest of Soignies, 
 dotted with monasteries and convents, swarming with every 
 variety of game, whither the citizens made their summer pilgri- 
 mages, and where the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, 
 
 1 Lnd. Guicciardini. Belgii De- 
 seript. (Amst. 1660,) p. 110, sqq. 
 * Ibid. Compare Les Delices des 
 
 Pays Bas, par le Pere Griffet (Liego, 
 1769), i. 193, sqq. 
 3 Guicc., Le Pere Griffet, ubi sup.
 
 1555.] BKUSSELS. 97 
 
 extended to within a quarter a mile of the city walls. 1 The 
 population, as thrifty, as intelligent, as prosperous as that of 
 any city in Europe, was divided into fifty-two guilds of 
 artizaus, among which the most important were the ar- 
 mourers, whose suits of mail would turn a musket-ball ; the 
 gardeners, upon whose gentler creations incredible sums were 
 annually lavished ; and the tapestry- workers, whose gorgeous 
 fabrics were the wonder of the world. 2 Seven principal 
 churches, of which the most striking was that of St. Gudule, 
 with its twin towers, its charming fa9ade, and its magnifi- 
 cently-painted windows, adorned the upper part of the city. 
 The number seven was a magic number in Brussels, and was 
 supposed at that epoch, during which astronomy was in its in- 
 fancy and astrology in its prime, to denote the seven planets 
 which governed all things terrestrial by their aspects and in- 
 fluences. 3 Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient 
 castles, supplied the stock from which the seven senators were 
 selected who composed the upper council of the city. There 
 were seven great squares, seven city gates, and upon the 
 occasion of the present ceremony it was observed by the lovers 
 of wonderful coincidences that seven crowned heads * would 
 be congregated under a single roof in the liberty-loving city. 
 The palace where the states-general were upon this occasion 
 convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since 
 the days of John the Second, who had built it about the year 
 1300. It was a.spacious and convenient building, but not dis- 
 tinguished for the beauty of its architecture. In front was a 
 large open square, enclosed by an iron railing ; in the rear an 
 extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest trees, and con- 
 taining gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game preserves, 
 fountains and promenades, race-courses and archery grounds. 5 
 The main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, 
 
 1 Guicciardini. Le Pere Griffet, 
 *n sup. 
 
 1 Ghiicciardini, p. 120. 
 8 Ibid., p. 111. Le Pere Griffet. 
 * Em. Van Meteren, i. f. 17. La 
 VOL. I. i 
 
 Pere Griffet, i. 196. Vander Vynckt 
 Nederl. Beroerten, (Amst. 1823,) i, 
 109. Guicciardini, 110. 
 5 Guicc., 116, s<iq. Griffett, i, 196,
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The haff 
 was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, and the 
 richness of its decorations. 1 It was the place where the chap- 
 ters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. 2 Its 
 walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, repre- 
 senting the life and achievements of Gideon the Midianite, and 
 giving particular prominence to the miracle of the " fleece of 
 wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, 3 the greatpatron 
 of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there 
 were various additional embellishments of flowers and votive 
 garlands. At the western end a spacious platform or stage, 
 with six or seven steps, hud been constructed, below which was 
 a range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. 4 
 Upon the stage there were rows of seats, covered with 
 tapestry, upon the right hand and upon the left. These were 
 respectively to accommodate the knights of the order and the 
 guests of high distinction. 6 In the rear of these were other 
 benches, for the members of the three great councils. 6 In the 
 centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, decorated with the 
 arms of Burgundy, beneath which were placed three gilded 
 
 1 Eecoeil, par forme de Memoires 
 des actes et choses le plus notables 
 quy sont advennes es Pays Bas, mis 
 et redigees par escript par Pasquier de 
 la Barre, natif de Tournay. (MS. in 
 the royal archives of Brussels, f. 5.) 
 This very curious manuscript, which 
 we shall often have occasion to cite in 
 the course of this volume, was dis- 
 covered a few years since among 
 some account-books in the archives 
 of Belgium. Its author was pro- 
 cureur-gene>al at Tournay, until 
 deprived of his office, in Feb. 1567, 
 by Noircarmes. The MS. is full of 
 curious and important details for the 
 eventful year 1566. Vide Gachard. 
 Notice d'un Manuscrit concernant 
 1'Hist. de Tournay. Com. Eoy. 
 d'Hist., t. i. No. 1, 2eme Serie du 
 Compte Eendu. 
 
 3 Four days before the abdication, 
 namely, on the 21st October, Charles 
 iad held a council of the Fleece, at 
 
 which eleven knights had been pre- 
 sent. To these personages he had 
 made the first formal communication 
 of his intention of conceding all his 
 realms to his son. At the same time, 
 he intimated that, being chief of 
 the order of the Golden Fleece, as 
 sovereign of Burgundy and the Nether- 
 lands, he wished to divest himself of 
 that dignity in favour of Philip. 
 The king then retired from the 
 council. The knights held a for- 
 mal discussion upon the subject, con- 
 cluding by approving unanimously the 
 appointment. Philip then re-entered 
 the apartment, and was congratulated 
 upon his new office. Inventaire de 
 la Toison d'Orj Brussels Archives 
 MS., torn. i. 
 
 3 DelaBarreMS.,ubisup. Judges, 
 chap. vi. 
 
 4 Gachard. Analectes Belgiques, 
 (Paris, 1830,) p. 70-106. 
 
 Ibid. Ibid.
 
 1555.] 
 
 THE AUDIENCE. 
 
 99 
 
 arm-chairs. 1 All the seats upon the platform were vacant, but 
 the benches below, assigned to the deputies of the provinces, 
 were already filled. Numerous representatives from all the 
 states but two Gelderland and Overyssel had already taken 
 their places. Grave magistrates, in chain and gown, and 
 executive officers, in the splendid civic uniforms for which the 
 Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat within 
 the space allotted. The remainder of the hall was crowded 
 with the more favoured portion of the multitude which had 
 been fortunate enough to procure admission to the exhibition. 
 The archers and hallebardiers of the bodyguard kept watch at 
 all the doors. 2 The theatre was filled the audience was 
 eager with expectation the actors were yet to arrive. As the 
 clock struck three, the hero of the scene appeared. Caesar, as 
 he was always designated in the classic language of the day, 
 entered, leaning on the shoulder of William of Orange. 8 They 
 came from the chapel, and were immediately followed by 
 Philip the Second and Queen Mary of Hungary. The 
 Archduke Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and other great 
 personages, came afterwards, accompanied by a glittering 
 throng of warriors, councillors, governors, and Knights of 
 the Fleece. 4 
 
 Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity in 
 the Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the student of 
 the epoch, seemed to have been grouped as if by premeditated 
 design upon this imposing platform, where the curtain was to 
 fall for ever upon the mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, 
 and where the opening scene of the long and tremendous tra- 
 gedy of Philip's reign was to be simultaneously enacted. There 
 was the Bishop of Arras, soon to be known throughout Christ- 
 endom by the more celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle, the 
 
 1 Gachard. Analectes Belgiques, 
 (Paris, 1830,) p. 70-106. 
 
 2 Ibid. Compare Pont. Heut., xiv. 
 336. 
 
 3 Ibid., ubi sup. Van Meteren, i. 
 10. 
 
 4 Gachard. Anal. Belg., ubi ^up. 
 Pont. Heut., xiv. 336. Wilhelmus 
 Goclelaevus. Historiola de Abdica- 
 tione Imperil a Carolo V., etc. etc. 
 Apud Schardii Her. Germ. Scriptorer. 
 torn. -ii. 638-654.
 
 100 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 1555. 
 
 serene and smiling priest whose subtle influence over the desti- 
 nies of so many individuals then present, and over the fortunes 
 of the whole land, was to be so extensive and so deadly. There 
 was that flower of Flemish chivalry, the lineal descendant of 
 ancient Frisian kings, already distinguished for his bravery in 
 many field.*, but not having yet won those two remarkable vic- 
 tories which were soon to make the name of Egmont like the 
 sound of a trumpet throughout the whole country. Tall, mag- 
 nificent in costume, with dark flowing hair, soft brown eye, 
 smooth cheek, a slight moustache, and features of almost femi- 
 nine delicacy ; such was the gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Eg- 
 mont. 1 The Count of Horn, too, with bold, sullen face, and 
 fanshaped beard a brave, honest, discontented, quarrelsome, 
 unpopular man ; those other twins in doom the Marquis 
 Berghen and the Lord of Montigny ; the Baron Berlaymont, 
 brave, intensely royal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, 
 but who, at least, never served but one party ; the Duke of 
 Arschot, who was to serve all, essay to rule all, and to betray 
 all a splendid seignor, magnificent in cramoisy velvet, but a 
 poor creature, who traced his pedigree from Adam, 2 according 
 to the family monumental inscriptions at Louvain, but who 
 was better known as grand-nephew of the emperor's famous 
 tutor, Chievres ; the bold, debauched Brederode, with handsome 
 reckless face and turbulent demeanour; the infamous Noir- 
 carmes, whose name was to be covered with eternal execration, 
 for aping towards his own compatriots and kindred as much of 
 Alva's atrocities and avarice as he was permitted to exercise ; 
 the distinguished soldiers, Meghen and Aremberg these, with 
 many others whose deeds of arms were to become celebrated 
 throughout Europe, were all conspicuous in the brilliant crowd. 
 There, too, was that learned Frisian, President Viglius, crafty, 
 
 1 In the royal gallery at Amster- 
 dam there are very good original 
 portraits of Egmont, Horn, Alva, 
 Orange and all his brothers, be- 
 sides many other contemporary pic- 
 tured. 
 
 a " Amplius ibi, res miranclo; : 
 marmorea principum Croyorum monu- 
 menta, ibi genealogiam Ducum de 
 Areschot ah Adamo usque ad prrc- 
 eentes," etc. Gruicciardini, p. 1U3, 
 (art. Lovanium.)
 
 1555.] 
 
 CONSPICUOUS PERSONAGES. 
 
 101 
 
 plausible adroit, eloquent a small, brisk man, with long 
 yellow hair, glittering green eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, 
 and flowing beard. 1 Foremost among the Spanish grandees, 
 and close to Philip, stood the famous favourite Ruy Gomez, 
 or as he was familiarly called " Re y Gomez " 3 (King and 
 Gomez), a man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and 
 beard, gleaming eyes, a face pallid with intense application, 
 and slender but handsome figure ; 3 while in immediate attend- 
 ance upon the Emperor was the immortal Prince of Orange. 
 
 Such were a few only of the most prominent in that gay 
 throng, whose fortunes, in part, it will be our duty to nar- 
 rate ; how many of them passing through all this glitter to a 
 dark and mysterious doom ! some to perish on public 
 scaffolds, some by midnight assassination ; others, more for- 
 tunate, to fall on the battle-field nearly all, sooner or later, 
 to be laid in bloody graves ! 
 
 All the company present had risen to their feet as the Em- 
 peror entered. By his command, all immediately afterwards 
 resumed their places. The benches at either end of the plat- 
 form were accordingly filled with the royal and princely 
 personages invited with the Fleece Knights, wearing the 
 insignia of their order, with the members of the three great 
 councils, and with the governors. The Emperor, the King, 
 and the Queen of Hungary, were left conspicuous in the centre 
 of the scene. As the whole object of the ceremony was to pre- 
 sent an impressive exhibition, it is worth our while to examine 
 minutely the appearance of the two principal characters. 
 
 1 Vita Viglii fib Aytta Zuicbemi ab 
 ipso Viglio Scripta. Apud Hoynck 
 T. Papendrecbt, i. 1-33. Levens- 
 beschryving beroemede Ned. Mannen 
 und Vrouwen, iv. 75-82. Prosopo- 
 grapbia Viglii. Ex. Suf. Petri Decade 
 xii. de Script. Frisice apud Hoynck. 
 
 2 " Ma il titolo principale cbe gli 
 vien dato e di Ee i Gomez et non di 
 Eui Gomez, percbe non par cbe sia 
 etato mai alcun uomo del mondo con 
 alcun principe di tanta autorita et 
 cosi amato dal suo signer com egh 
 
 da questo Ee." Eelazione del Cl. 
 Fed. Badovaro ritornato ambascia- 
 tore della Ser. Eep. Venetiana, 1'anno 
 1557. MS. Bibl. de Bourgogne, No. 
 6085 bis. 
 
 3 "Euy Gomez d'eta di 39 anni, 
 di mediocre statura, ha occbi pieni 
 di ep'o, di pelo barba nero e riccio, 
 di eottil ossatura, di gagliarda com- 
 plessione, ma par debole forse per 
 1'incredibile fatiche cbe egli sostiena, 
 le quale lo fanno molto pallido," etc. 
 Badovaro MS.
 
 102 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months 
 old; but he was already decrepit with premature old age. He 
 was of about the middle height, and had been athletic and well- 
 proportioned. Broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, thin 
 in the flank, very muscular in the arms and legs, he had been 
 able to match himself with all competitors in the tourney and 
 the ring, and to vanquish the bull with his own hand in the 
 favourite national amusement of Spain. He had been able in the 
 field to do the duty of captain and soldier, to endure fatigue and 
 exposure, and every privation except fasting. 1 These personal 
 advantages were now departed. Crippled in hands, knees, 
 and legs, he supported himself with difficulty upon a crutch, 
 with the aid of an attendant's shoulder. 2 In face he had 
 always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not im- 
 proved his physiognomy. His hair, once of a light colour, 
 was now white with age, close clipped and bristling ; his beard 
 was gray, coarse, and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and 
 commanding ; the eye was dark blue, with an expression both 
 majestic and benignant. His nose was aquiline but crooked. 
 The lower part of his face was famous for its deformity. The 
 under lip, a Burgundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted 
 as the duchy and county, was heavy and hanging ; the lower 
 jaw protruding so far beyond the upper, that it was impos- 
 sible for him to bring together the few fragments of teeth 
 which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an 
 intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which 
 he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more 
 arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now 
 seemed hardly human, but rather an original deformity. 3 
 
 1 Pont. Heut. xiv. 346 a. Com- 
 pare Relazione di Marino Cavalli in 
 Alberi, ser. i. vol. ii. 209 ; Badovaro 
 Relazione, MS. 
 
 "Hostem non semel propria maim 
 feriens." Pont. Heut. 
 
 "Ha amazzato il toro," etc. Marino 
 Cavalli. 
 
 3 Pont. Heut. xiv. 339. 
 
 8 Pont. Heut. xiv. 346. Badovaro 
 
 MS. "Ha il fronte spatioso, gli 
 occbi celesti, il naso aquilino al- 
 quanto torto, la mascella inferiore 
 lunga e larga onde avviene che ella 
 non puo con giungere i denti et nel 
 finir le parole non e ben intesa. Ha 
 pochi denti dinanti et fracidi, le 
 carni belle, la barba corta, spinosa et 
 canuta." 
 
 Comp. Gasp. Contarini apud Al-
 
 1505.] 
 
 CETAKLES AND PHILIP. 
 
 103 
 
 So much for the father. The son, Philip the Second, was a 
 small meagre man, much below the middle height, with thin 
 leo-s, a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of an habi- 
 tual invalid. 1 He seemed so little, upon his first visit to his 
 aunts, the Queens Eleanor and Mary, 8 accustomed to look 
 upon proper men in Flanders and Germany, that he was fain 
 to win their favour by making certain attempts in the tourna- 
 ment, 8 in which his success was sufficiently problematical. 
 il His body," says his professed panegyrist, " was but a human 
 cage, in which, however brief and narrow, dwelt a soul to 
 whose flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven was too con- 
 tracted." 4 The same wholesale admirer adds, that " his aspect 
 was so reverend, that rustics who met him alone in a wpod, 
 without knowing him, bowed down with instinctive venera- 
 tion." s In face he was the living image of his father, 6 having 
 the same broad forehead, and blue eye, with the same aquiline, 
 but better proportioned, nose. In the lower part of the coun- 
 tenance, the remarkable Burgundian deformity was likewise 
 reproduced. He had the same heavy, hanging lip, with a vast 
 mouth, and monstrously protruding lower jaw. 7 His com- 
 
 beri, ser. i. vol. ii. p. GO : " Tutta 
 la mascella inferiore e tanto lungha 
 cbe non pare naturale ma pare 
 posticcia, onde avviene eke non puo, 
 cbiudendo la bocca congiungere le 
 denti inferior! con li superiori, ma 
 gli rimane spazio della grossezza d'un 
 dente, onde nel parlare, massime nel 
 finire della clausula, balbutiare qual 
 cbe parola la quale spesso non s'intende 
 molto bene." 
 
 1 Badovaro MS. " E di statura 
 piccolo et membri minuti la sua 
 complessione e flemmatica et inalen- 
 conica." Relazione del Mag. M. 
 <5iovan. Micbele. Venuto Ambasc. 
 
 d'Ingbilterra, d'anno 1557. " 
 
 infermo e valetudinario non solo, 
 percbe sia naturalmente debile, et 
 persona di poca, anzi di nejsuno ex- 
 ercitio," etc. MS. Bib. de Bourg., 
 No. 6093. 
 
 " Aunque less parecio pequefio 
 
 de cuerpo acostumbradas a ver los 
 Alemannes," etc. Cabrera. Vita de 
 Felipe Segundo, Rey de Espafia (Mad. 
 1619). lib. i. 12. 
 
 3 Cabrera, ubi sup. 
 
 4 " Como si f uera el cuerpo umana 
 jaula quo por mas breve i mas es- 
 trecba no la abita animo a cuyo buelo 
 sea pequeua la redondar del cielo." 
 Cabrera, i. 12. 
 
 5 " que de los rusticos quo ni 
 
 le conoscieron ni vieron en compania 
 e solo en una selva, juzgandole degno 
 de toda veneration, era saludado con 
 reverencia." Cabrera, i. 4. 
 
 6 " L'istessa imagine e intento dell' 
 Imperatore suo padre, conformissimo 
 di carne et di faccia et lineauiente con 
 quella bocca et labro pendente piu 
 dall altro et con tutte 1'altre qualita 
 del Imp. ma da minor statura." 
 Micbele MS. 
 
 7 Michele MS. and Badoraro M3.
 
 104 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUELIC. [1555 
 
 plexion was fair, his hair light and thin, his beard yellow, 
 short, and pointed. 1 He had the aspect of a Fleming, but 
 the loftiness of a Spaniard. 8 His demeanour in public was 
 still, silent, almost sepulchral. He looked habitually on the 
 ground when he conversed, was chary of speech, embarrassed, 
 and even suffering in manner. 3 This was ascribed partly to 
 a natural haughtiness, which he had occasionally endeavoured 
 to overcome, and partly to habitual pains in the stomach, 
 occasioned by his inordinate fondness for pastry. 4 
 
 Such was the personal appearance of the man who was 
 about to receive into his single hand the destinies of half 
 the world; whose single will was, for the future, to shape 
 the fortunes of every individual then present, of many 
 millions more in Europe, America, and at the ends of the 
 earth, and of countless millions yet unborn. 
 
 The three royal personages being seated upon chairs placed 
 triangularly under the canopy, 5 such of the audience as 
 had seats provided for them now took their places, and the 
 proceedings commenced. Philibcrt de Bruxelles, a member 
 of the privy council of the Netherlands, arose at the Emperor's 
 command, and made a long oration. 8 He spoke of the Empe- 
 ror's warm affection for the provinces, as the land of his birth.; 
 of his deep regret that his broken health and failing powers, 
 both of body and mind, compelled him to resign his sovereignty 
 and to seek relief for his shattered frame in a more genial cli- 
 
 "II labro di sotto grosso cbe gli , qnanto d'animo timido et quanto 
 clesdic6 al quant o fronte grande e agli effettL delle temperanza elle 
 
 bella, gl'occbl di color celeste et assai 
 grande," etc. etc. 
 
 1 " Porta la barba corta, pontuta 
 di pelo bianco et biondo et ha ap- 
 parenza di fiamengo ma altiero percbe 
 sta su le maniere di Spagnuolo." 
 BadovaroMS. 
 
 2 Badoyaro MS. 
 
 3 ''Manon guarda ordinariamente 
 cbi negotia et tien gli occbi bassi in 
 terra." Badovaro MS. 
 
 accede nel mangiare qualita di ci bi, 
 spetialmento intorno a pasticci." 
 Badovaro MS. 
 
 <( e pastisce doglie di stomaco 
 
 e dei fiancbi." Ibid. 
 ' spessissimo sotto posto alle 
 
 dolori di stomacbo." Giov. 
 
 Michele MS. 
 
 8 Godelaevus. De Abdicatione, etc. 
 p. 640. 
 
 Si come la nature, ba fatto Sua 6 Gacbard. Anal. Belg. 81-102. 
 
 M. di corpo debole cosi 1'ba fatto al 
 
 P. Bor. i. 3.
 
 1555.] OPENING HARANGUE. 105 
 
 mate. 1 Caesar's gout was then depicted in energetic language, 
 which must have cost him a twinge as he sat there and listened 
 to the councillor's eloquence. " "Tis a most truculent execu- 
 tioner," said Philibert : " it invades the whole body, from the 
 crown of the head to the soles of the feet, leaving nothing un- 
 touched. It contracts the nerves with intolerable anguish, it 
 enters the bones, it freezes the marrow, it converts the lubricat- 
 ing fluids of the joint into chalk, it pauses not until, having 
 exhausted and debilitated the whole body, it has rendered all 
 its necessary instruments useless, and conquered the mind by 
 immense torture." 2 Engaged in mortal struggle with such an 
 enemy, Caesar felt himself obliged, as the councillor proceeded 
 to inform his audience, to change the scene of the contest from 
 the humid air of Flanders to the warmer atmosphere of Spain. 
 He rejoiced, however, that his son was both vigorous and ex- 
 perienced, and that his recent marriage with the Queen of 
 England had furnished the provinces with a most valuable 
 alliance. 9 He then again referred to the Emperor's boundless 
 love for his subjects, and concluded with a tremendous, but 
 superfluous, exhortation to Philip on the necessity of main- 
 taining the Catholic religion in its purity. After this long 
 harangue, which has been fully reported by several historians 
 who were present at the ceremony, the councillor proceeded to 
 read the deed of cession, by which Philip, already sovereign 
 of Sicily, Naples, Milan, and titular king of England, France, 
 and Jerusalem, now received all the duchies, marquisates, earl- 
 doms, baronies, cities, towns, and castles of the Burgundian 
 property, including, of course, the seventeen Netherlands.* 
 
 As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration 
 throughout the assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, that 
 in the present great danger upon the frontiers from the belli- 
 
 1 Eor. i. 3, 4. Pont,. Heut. xiv. 
 336-338. Godelaevus, G40, 642. 
 
 2 Pont. Heut. 336. The historian 
 was present at the ceremony, and 
 gives a very full report of the 
 speeches, all of which he had heard. 
 His imagination may have assisted 
 
 his memory in the task. The other 
 reporters of the councillor's harangue 
 have reduced this pathological flight 
 of rhetoric to a very small com- 
 
 pass 
 
 3 Pont. Heut , uM sup. 
 * Godelaovus, G40, 641.
 
 106 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. p555. 
 
 gerent King of France and his warlike and restless nation, the 
 provinces should be left without their ancient and puissant de- 
 fender. 1 The Emperor then rose to his feet. Leaning on his 
 crutch, he beckoned from his seat the personage upon whose 
 arm he had leaned as he entered the hall a tall, handsome youth 
 of twenty-two came forward a man whose name from that 
 time forward, and as long as history shall endure, has been, and 
 will be, more familiar than any other in the mouths of Nether- 
 landers. At that day he had rather a southern than a German 
 or Flemish appearance. He had a Spanish cast of features, 
 dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical. His head was small, and 
 well plaoedupon his shoulders. His hair was dark brown, as were 
 also his moustache and peaked beard. His forehead was lofty, 
 spacious, and already prematurely engraved with the anxious 
 lines of thought. His eyes were full, brown, well opened, and 
 expressive of profound reflection. 8 He was dressed in the mag- 
 nificent apparel for which the Netherlander were celebrated 
 above all other nations, and which the ceremony rendered 
 necessary. His presence being considered indispensable at this 
 great ceremony, he had been summoned but recently from the 
 camp on the frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the Em- 
 peror had appointed him to command his army in chief, against 
 such antagonists as Admiral Coligny and the Due de Nevers. 3 
 Thus supported upon his crutch and upon the shoulder of 
 William of Orange, 4 the Emperor proceeded to address the 
 states, by the aid of a closely- written brief which he held in his 
 hand. 6 He reviewed rapidly the progress of events from his 
 seventeenth year up to that day. He spoke of his nine expedi- 
 tions into Germany, six to Spain, seven to Italy, four to France, 
 
 1 Pont. Heut. xiv. 339, sqq. 
 
 8 The most satisfactory portrait of 
 the prince during the early part of 
 his career, is one belonging to the 
 private collection of the late King of 
 Holland, William IV., at the Hague. 
 
 3 Apologie ou Defense de tres II- 
 lustre Prince Guillaume, Prince d'O- 
 
 range. Sylvius, 1581, pp. 29, 20, 31. | delaevus, 642. 
 
 4 " Surgens igitur, efc in pede 
 stans, dextra ob imbecillitatem sci- 
 pioni, sinistra huruero Guliehm Nas- 
 sauvii, Aurantii principis." Pont. 
 Heut. 338. 
 
 5 " Et membranula eorum qua& 
 ad senatuin referre statuisset capite 
 continente memoriam adjuvans." Go-
 
 555.] 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S ADDRESS. 
 
 107 
 
 ten to the Netherlands, two to England, as many to Africa, and 
 of his eleven voyages by sea. He sketched his various wars, 
 victories, and treaties of peace, assuring his hearers that the 
 welfare of his subjects and the security of the Roman Catholic 
 religion had ever been the leading objects of his life. As long 
 as God had granted him health, he continued, only enemies 
 could have regretted that Charles was living and reigning ; but 
 now that his strength was but vanity, and life fast ebbing away, 
 his love for his dominion, his affection for his subjects, and his 
 regard for their interests, required his departure. Instead of 
 a decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he presented them 
 with a sovereign in the prime of life and the vigour of health. 
 Turning toward Philip, he observed, that for a dying father to 
 bequeath so magnificent an empire to his son was a deed worthy 
 of gratitude, but that when the father thus descended to the 
 grave before his time, and by an anticipated and living burial 
 sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the gran- 
 deur of his son, the benefit thus conferred was surely far greater. 
 He added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, 
 should Philip conduct himself in his administration of the pro- 
 vinces with a wise and affectionate regard to their true interests. 
 Posterity would applaud his abdication, should his son prove 
 worthy of his bounty ; and that could only be by living in the 
 fear of God, and by maintaining law, justice, and the Catholic 
 religion in all their purity, as the true foundation of the realm. 
 In conclusion, he entreated the estates, and, through them, the 
 nation, to render obedience to their new prince, to maintain 
 concord and to preserve inviolate the Catholic faith ; begging 
 them, at the same time, to pardon him all errors or offences 
 which he might have committed towards tnem during his reign, 
 and assuring them that he should unceasingly remember their 
 obedience and affection in his every prayer to that Being to 
 whom the remainder of his life was to be dedicated. 1 
 
 1 Pont. Heut. xiv. 338, 339. Go- 
 delaevus, 640-42. Gachard. Anal. 
 Eelg., 81-102. Compare Bor, i. 4, 
 
 5 ; Van Meteren, i. 16 ; Fam. Strada 
 de Bello Belgico (Rom. 1653), L 
 9,7.
 
 103 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 {1555. 
 
 Such brave words as these, so many vigorous asseverations 
 of attempted performance of duty, such fervent hopes expressed 
 of a benign administration in behalf of the son, could not but 
 affect the sensibilities of the audience, already excited and 
 softened by the impressive character of the whole display. Sobs 
 were heard throughout every portion of the hall, and tears 
 poured profusely from every eye. The Fleece Knights on the 
 platform, and the burghers in the background were all melted 
 with the same emotion. As for the Emperor himself, he sank 
 almost fainting upon his chair as he concluded his address. An 
 ashy paleness overspread his countenance, and he wept like a 
 child. 1 Even the icy Philip was almost softened, as he rose to 
 perform his part in the ceremony. Dropping upon his knees 
 before his father's feet, he reverently kissed his hand. Charles 
 placed his hands solemnly upon his son's head, made the sign 
 of the cross, and blessed him in the name of the Holy Trinity. 1 
 Then raising him in his arms he tenderly embraced him, saying, 
 as he did so, to the great potentates around him, that he felt a 
 sincere compassion for the son on whose shoulders so heavy a 
 weight had just devolved, and which only a life-long labour 
 would enable him to support. 3 Philip now uttered a few words 
 expressive of his duty to his father and his affection for his 
 people. Turning to the orders, he signified his regret that he 
 was unable to address them either in the French or Flemish 
 language, and was therefore obliged to ask their attention to 
 the Bishop of Arras, who would act as his interpreter.* An- 
 thony Perrenot accordingly arose, and in smooth, fluent, and 
 well-turned commonplaces, expressed at great length the grati- 
 tude of Philip towards his father, with his firm determination 
 to walk in the path of duty, and to obey his father's counsels 
 and example in the future administration of the provinces. 8 
 This long address of the prelate was responded to at equal 
 
 1 Pont. Heut. Meteren, ubi sup. 
 
 2 Godelaevus, 642. 3 Ibid. 
 * Ibid. Pont. Heut. 340. Meteren, 
 16. Bor. i. 5, 6. 
 
 4 Gachard. Anal. Belg., ubi sup. 
 
 Pont. Heut. Bor, Meteren, ubi sup. 
 Godelaevus reports the bishop's speech 
 in six folio columns, of the most 
 flowing commonplace. De Abdicat. 
 642, sqq.
 
 1555.] 
 
 OTHER SPEECHES. 
 
 100 
 
 length by Jacob Mass, member of the council of Brabant, a 
 man of great learning, eloquence and prolixity, who had been 
 selected to reply on behalf of the states-general, and who 
 now, in the name of these bodies, accepted the abdication in 
 an elegant and complimentary harangue. 1 Queen Mary of 
 Hungary, the " Christian widow " of Erasmus, 2 and Regent 
 of the Netherlands during the past twenty-five years, then 
 rose to resign her office, making a brief address expressive of 
 her affection for the people, her regrets at leaving them, and 
 her hopes that all errors which she might have committed 
 during her long administration would be forgiven her. 
 Again the redundant Mass responded, asserting in terms of 
 fresh compliment and elegance the uniform satisfaction of the 
 provinces with her conduct during her whole career. 3 
 
 The orations and replies having now been brought to a close, 
 the ceremony was terminated. The Emperor, leaning on the 
 shoulders of the Prince of Orange and of the Count de Buren,* 
 slowly left the hall, followed by Philip, the Queen of Hungary, 
 and the whole court ; all in the same order in which they had 
 entered, and by the same passage into the chapel. 5 
 
 It is obvious that the drama had been completely successful. 
 It had been a scene where heroic self-sacrifice, touching confi- 
 dence, ingenuous love of duty, patriotism, and paternal affec- 
 tion, upon one side ; filial reverence, with a solemn regard for 
 public duty and the highest interests of the people on the 
 other, were supposed to be the predominant sentiments. The 
 happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object 
 contemplated in the great transaction. All had played well 
 their parts in the past, all hoped the best in the times which 
 were to follow. The abdicating Emperor was looked upon as a 
 hero and a prophet. The stage was drowned in tears. There is 
 not the least doubt as to the genuine and universal emotion 
 
 1 Gachard. Anal. 33elg., ubi sup. 
 Pont. Heut. Bor, ubi sup. Gode- 
 laevus, De Abdicat. 642, sqq. 
 
 2 Het Leven Van Desid. Erasmus 
 Tfederl. Mannen en Vrouwen, -i. 274 
 
 8 Pont. Heut., Godelaevus, Eor, 
 Meteren, ubi sup. 
 4 Godelaevus, 645. 
 6 Gachard. Anal. Belg.
 
 110 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 which was excited throughout the assembly. " Caesar's ora- 
 tion," says Secretary Godelaevus, who was present at the cere- 
 mony, " deeply moved the nobility and gentry, many of whom 
 burst into tears; even the illustrious Knights of the Fleece were 
 melted." 1 The historian, Pontus Heuterus, who, then twenty 
 years of age, was likewise among the audience, attests that 
 11 most of the assembly were dissolved in tears ; uttering the 
 while such sonorous sobs as compelled his Cassarean Majesty 
 and the Queen to cry with them. My own face," he adds, " was 
 certainly quite wet." 2 The English envoy, Sir John Mason, 
 describing in a despatch to his government the scene which he 
 had just witnessed, paints the same picture. " The Emperor," 
 he said, " begged the forgiveness of his subjects if he had ever 
 unwittingly omitted the performance of any of his duties to- 
 wards them. And here," continues the envoy, " he broke into 
 a weeping, whereunto, besides the dolefulness of the matter, I 
 think he was moche provoked by seeing the whole company 
 to do the lyke before ; there beyng in myne opinion not one 
 man in the whole assemblie, stranger or another, that dewring 
 the time of a good piece of his oration poured not out as 
 abundant teares, some more, some lesse. And yet he prayed 
 them to beare with his imperfections, proceeding of his sickly 
 age, and of the mentioning of so tender a matter as the de- 
 parting from such a sort of dere and loving subjects." 3 
 
 And yet what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of 
 the Netherlands that they should weep for him ? His conduct 
 towards them during his whole career had been one of unmiti- 
 gated oppression. What to them were all these forty voyages 
 by sea and land, these journeyings back and forth from Fries- 
 land to Tunis, from Madrid to Vienna ? The interests of the 
 Netherlands had never been even a secondary consideration with 
 their master. He had fulfilled no duty towards them, he had 
 
 1 "Commovit ea Caesaris oratio Pro- 3 Extracts from this despatch are 
 
 ceres et multi in profusissimas erupe- given by J. W. Burgon, Life- and 
 
 runt lachrymas etiam illustres aurei Times of Sir Thomas Grcsham, a 
 
 Velleris equites." Godel. 642. work which contains various docu* 
 
 a Pont. Heut. xiv. 336-339. ments, both rare and important.
 
 1655.] 
 
 MISPLACED EMOTION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 committed the gravest crimes against them. He had regarded 
 them merely as a treasury upon which to draw ; while the sums 
 which he extorted were spent upon ceaseless and senseless wars, 
 which were of no more interest to them than if they had been 
 waged in another planet. Of five millions of gold annually, 
 which he derived from all his realms, two millions came from 
 these industrious and opulent provinces, while but half a million 
 came from Spain and another half from the Indies. 1 The mines 
 of wealth which had been opened by the hand of industry in 
 that slender territory of ancient morass and thicket, 2 contri- 
 buted four times as much income to the imperial exchequer as 
 all the boasted wealth of Mexico and Peru. Yet the artizans, 
 the farmers, and the merchants, by whom these riches were pro- 
 duced, were consulted about as much in the expenditure of the 
 imposts upon their industry as were the savages of America as 
 to the distribution of the mineral treasures of their soil. The 
 rivalry of the houses of Hapsburg and Valois, this was the 
 absorbing theme, during the greater part of the reign which 
 had just been so dramatically terminated. To gain the empire 
 over Francis, to leave to Don Philip a richer heritage than the 
 Dauphin could expect, were the great motives of the unpar- 
 alleled energy displayed by Charles during the longer and the 
 
 1 "Di tutti quest! Suoi Eegni ha 
 sua M. cinque millioni d'oro d'in- 
 trata in tempo di pace, cioe mez 
 della Spagna, mez dalle Indie, uno 
 da Milano et da Sicilia, un altro 
 di Fiandra et dalli paesi bassi un 
 altro" Eelazione del 01. M. Mich. 
 Suriano. MS. Bib. de Bourg., No. 12, 
 871. 
 
 " Le rendite de S. M. (dalli paesi 
 bassi) sono al presente da un millione 
 et 150 ecudi ma in poco piu da 
 cinque anni vengono ad haver con- 
 tribuito i Fiammenghi di straordin- 
 ario quasi otto millioni d'oro e tutto 
 il peso si fuo dir vien portato dalla 
 Fiandra Brabantia, Olanda e Zelanda." 
 Badovaro MS. 
 
 2 Badovaro estimated the annual 
 Talue of butter and cheese produced 
 
 in those meadows which Holland had 
 rescued from the ocean at 800,000 
 crowns, a sum which, making allow- 
 ance for the difference in the present 
 value of money from that which it 
 bore in 1557, would represent nearly 
 eight millions, (MS. Eelazione.) In 
 agriculture, commerce, and manu- 
 factures, the Netherlander were the 
 foremost nation in the world. The 
 fabrics of Arras, Tournay, Brussels, 
 Louvain, Ghent, Bruges, were en- 
 tirely unrivalled. Antwerp was the 
 great commercial metropolis of Chris- 
 tendom, " Aversa," says Badovaro, 
 " e stimata la maggiore piazza del 
 Mondo si puo credere quanto sia 
 la somma si afferma passare 40 mil- 
 lioni d'oro 1'anno, quelli che incon- 
 tanto girano."
 
 112 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. Ji555. 
 
 more successful portion of his career. To crush the Reforma- 
 tion throughout his dominions, was his occupation afterward, 
 till he abandoned the field in despair. It was certainly not 
 desirable for the Netherlanders that they should be thus con- 
 trolled by a man who forced them to contribute so largely to 
 the success of schemes, some of which were at best indifferent, 
 and others entirely odious to them. They paid 1,200,000 
 crowns a year regularly ; they paid in five years an extraordi- 
 nary subsidy of eight millions of ducats, and the states were 
 roundly rebuked by the courtly representatives of their despot, 
 if they presumed to inquire into the objects of the appropriations, 
 or to express an interest in their judicious administration. 1 Yet 
 it may be supposed to have been a matter of indifference to 
 them whether Francis or Charles had won the day at Pavia ; 
 and it certainly was not a cause of triumph to the daily in- 
 creasing thousands of religious reformers in Holland and 
 Flanders, that their brethren had been crushed by the Emperor 
 at Muhlberg. But it was not alone that he drained their trea- 
 sury, and hampered their industry. He was in constant conflict 
 with their ancient and dearly-bought political liberties. Like 
 his ancestor Charles the Bold, he was desirous of constructing 
 a kingdom out of the provinces. He was disposed to place all 
 their separate and individual charters on a Procrustean bed, 
 and shape them all into uniformity, simply by reducing the 
 whole to a nullity. The difficulties in the way, the stout oppo- 
 sition offered by burghers, whose fathers had gained these 
 charters with their blood, and his want of leisure during the 
 vast labours which devolved upon him as the autocrat of so 
 large a portion of the world, caused him to defer indefinitely 
 the execution of his plan. He found time only to crush some 
 of the foremost of the liberal institutions of the provinces in 
 detail. He found the city of Tournay a happy, thriving, self- 
 governed little republic in all its local affairs ; he destroyed its 
 liberties, without a tolerable pretext, and reduced it to the 
 
 * Postea. Granvelle's ComDlaintsu
 
 1555.] EDICTS AND INQUISITION. 113 
 
 condition of a Spanish or Italian provincial town. 1 His 
 memorable chastisement of Ghent for having dared to assert 
 its ancient rights of self-taxation, is sufficiently known to 
 the world, and has been already narrated at length. 3 Many 
 other instances might be adduced, if it were not a superfluous 
 task, to prove that Charles was not only a political despot, but 
 most arbitrary and cruel in the exercise of his despotism. 
 
 But if his sins against the Netherlands had been only those 
 of financial and political oppression, it would be at least con- 
 ceivable, although certainly not commendable, that the inhabi- 
 tants should have regretted his departure. But there are far 
 darker crimes for which he stands arraigned at the bar of his- 
 tory, and it is indeed strange that the man who had committed 
 them should have been permitted to speak his farewell amid 
 blended plaudits and tears. His hand planted the Inquisition 
 in thp Netherlands. Before his day it is idle to say that the- 
 diabolical institution ever had a place there. The isolated cases 
 in which inquisitors had exercised functions proved the absence 
 and not the presence of the system, and will be discussed in a 
 later chapter. Charles introduced and organised a Papal In- 
 quisition, side by side with those terrible " placards " of his 
 invention, which constituted a masked Inquisition even more 
 cruel than that of Spain. The execution of the system was 
 never permitted to languish. The number of Netherlanders 
 who were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive, in obedi- 
 ence to his edicts, and for the offences of reading the Sci-iptures, 
 of looking askance at a graven image, or of ridiculing the actual 
 presence of the body and blood of Christ in a wafer, have been 
 placed as high as one hundred thousand by distinguished autho- 
 rities, and have rarely been put at a lower mark than fifty thou- 
 sand. 3 The Venetian envoy Navigero estimated the victims in 
 
 1 Extraits des Eegistrcs des Con- 
 saux do Tournay, 1472-1581, par 
 M. Gacbard (Bruxelles, 1846), pp. 
 8-13. 
 
 a Introduction to this work. 
 
 3 "Nam post carnificata hominum 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
 non minus centum millia, ex quo ten- 
 tatum an posset incendium hoc san- 
 guine restingui, tanta multitude per 
 IBelgicam insurrexerat, ut publica in- 
 terdum supplicia quoties insignio- 
 reus, aut atrociores cruciatus sedi-
 
 114 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 the provinces of Holland and Friesland alone at thirty thou- 
 sand, and this in 1546, 1 ten years before the abdication, and 
 five before the promulgation of the hideous edict of 1550 ! 
 
 The edicts and the Inquisition were the gift of Charles to 
 the Netherlands, in return for their wasted treasure and their 
 constant obedience. For this, his name deserves to be handed 
 down to eternal infamy, not only throughout the Netherlands, 
 but in every land where a single heart beats for political or 
 religious freedom. To eradicate these institutions after they 
 had been watered and watched by the care of his successor, 
 was the work of an eighty years' war, in the course of which 
 millions of lives were sacrificed. Yet the abdicating Emperor 
 had summoned his faithful estates around him, and stood up 
 before them in his imperial robes for the last time, to tell 
 them of the affectionate regard which he had always borne 
 them, and to mingle his tears with theirs. 
 
 Could a single phantom have risen from one of the many 
 thousand graves where human beings had been thrust alive by 
 his decree, perhaps there might have been an answer to the 
 question propounded by the Emperor amid all that piteous 
 weeping. Perhaps it might have told the man who asked 
 his hearers to be forgiven if he had ever unwittingly offended 
 them, that there was a world where it was deemed an offence 
 to torture, strangle, burn, and drown one's innocent fellow- 
 creatures. The usual but trifling excuse for such enormities 
 cannot be pleaded for the Emperor. Charles was no fanatic. 
 The man whose armies sacked Rome, who laid his sacrilegious 
 hands on Christ's vicegerent, and kept the infallible head of the 
 Church a prisoner to serve his own political ends, was then n 
 bigot. He believed in nothing, save that when the course ot 
 his imperial will was impeded, and the interests of his imperial 
 house in jeopardy, pontiffs were to succumb as well as Ana- 
 
 tione impedirentur." Hugonis Grotii 
 AnnaL, lib. i. 17 (Amst. 1658). 
 
 1 Relazione di Cl. Bernardo Na- 
 vigero, 1546. Correspondence of 
 Charles the Fifth, by Key. W. Brad- 
 
 ford (London, 1850), p. 471. Doubt- 
 less these statistics are inaccurate ; 
 but the very exaggeration indicates 
 the wholesale character of the mas- 
 sacres.
 
 1555.] CHARACTER OP CHARLES. 115 
 
 baptists. It was the political heresy which lurked in the res- 
 tiveness of the religious reformers under dogma, tradition, and 
 supernatural sanction to temporal power, which he was disposed 
 to combat to the death. He was too shrewd a politician not to 
 recognise the connection between aspirations for religious and 
 for political freedom. His hand was ever ready to crush both 
 heresies in one. Had he been a true son of the Church, a faith- 
 ful champion of her infallibility, he would not have submitted 
 to the peace of Passau, so long as he could bring a soldier to 
 the field. Yet he acquiesced in the Reformation for Germany, 
 while the fires for burning the reformers were ever blazing in 
 the Netherlands, where it was death even to allude to the ex- 
 istence of the peace of Passau. Nor did he acquiesce only from 
 compulsion, for long before his memorable defeat by Maurice, 
 he had permitted the German troops, with whose services he 
 could not dispense, regularly to attend Protestant worship per- 
 formed by their own Protestant chaplains. Lutheran preachers 
 marched from city to city of the Netherlands under the im- 
 perial banner, while the subjects of those patrimonial provinces 
 were daily suffering on the scaffold for their nonconformity. 
 The influence of this garrison-preaching upon the progress of 
 the Reformation in the Netherlands is well known. Charles 
 hated Lutherans, but he required soldiers, and he thus helped 
 by his own policy to disseminate what, had he been the fanatic 
 which he perhaps became in retirement, he would have sacri- 
 ficed his life to crush. It is quite true that the growing 
 Calvinism of the provinces was more dangerous, both reli- 
 giously and politically, than the Protestantism of the German 
 princes, which had not yet been formally pronounced heresy, 
 but it is thus the more evident that it was political rather than 
 religious heterodoxy which the despot wished to suppress. 
 
 No man, however, could have been more observant of reli- 
 gious rites. He heard mass daily. He listened to a sermon 
 every Sunday and holiday. He confessed and received the sa- 
 crament four times a-year. He was sometimes to be seen in his 
 tent at midnight, on his knees before a crucifix with eyes and
 
 116 
 
 THE JRISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 hands uplifted. He ate no meat in Lent, and used extraor- 
 dinary diligence to discover and to punish any man, whether 
 courtier or plebeian, who failed to fast during the whole forty 
 days. 1 He was too good a politician not to know the value of 
 broad phylacteries and long prayers. He was too nice an ob- 
 server of human nature not to know how easily mint and cum- 
 min could still outweigh the " weightier matters of law, judg- 
 ment, mercy, and faith ; " as if the founder of the religion 
 which he professed, and to maintain which he had established 
 the Inquisition and the edicts, had never cried woe upon the 
 Pharisees. Yet there is no doubt that the Emperor was at 
 times almost popular in the Netherlands, and that he was never 
 as odious as his successor. There were some deep reasons for 
 this, and some superficial ones ; among others, a singularly 
 fortunate manner. He spoke German, Spanish, Italian, French, 
 and Flemish, and could assume the characteristics of each coun- 
 try as easily as he could use its language. He could be stately 
 with Spaniards, familiar with Flemings, witty with Italians. 
 He could strike down a bull in the ring like a matador at Ma- 
 drid, or win the prize in the tourney like a knight of old ; he 
 could ride at the ring with the Flemish nobles, hit the popinjay 
 with his crossbow among Antwerp artizans, or drink beer and 
 exchange rude jests with the boors of Brabant. For virtues 
 such as these, his grave crimes against God and man, against 
 religion and chartered and solemnly sworn rights, have been 
 palliated, as if oppression became more tolerable because the 
 oppressor was an accomplished linguist and a good marksman. 
 But the great reason for his popularity, no doubt, lay in his 
 
 i " Ha Sua M. in tutti i 
 
 suoi ragionamenti et etti esteriori 
 mostrate haver la fede catt. in s.im- 
 ma osservanza, et in tutta la vita 
 BUS ha udita la messe ogni giorno et 
 
 gran tempo due et hora tre et le 
 
 prediche nei giorni solenni, et in 
 tutte le cose lo feste de la quad- 
 ragesima et alle volte vesperi et altri 
 divini officii et hora si fa ogni giorno 
 leggere la bibbia et come ha usato di 
 
 confesarsi et communicarsi ogni an- 
 no quatro volte e quando alia si 
 
 ritrova al Ingoldstadt et avicinata 
 al exercitio degli protestanti, fit, ve- 
 duta mezza notte nel suo padiglione 
 in ginocchioni avanti un crocifisso 
 con le mani quinte et la quadragcsi- 
 ma innanzi fece una diligenza cstra- 
 ordinaria per intcndere chi nelle corte 
 magnava carne," etc., etc. Badovaro 
 MS.
 
 1655.] 
 
 ENERGY AND COUKAGE. 
 
 117 
 
 military genius. Charles was inferior to no general of his age. 
 " When he was born into the world," said Alva, "he was born 
 a soldier," 1 and the Emperor confirmed the statement and 
 reciprocated the compliment, when he declared that " the three 
 first captains of the age were, himself first, and then the Duke 
 of Alva and Constable Montmorency." 3 It is quite true that 
 all his officers were not of the same opinion, and many were too 
 apt to complain that his constant presence in the field did more 
 harm than good, and "that his Majesty would do much better 
 to stay at home." 3 There is, however, no doubt that he was 
 both a good soldier and a good general. He was constitution- 
 ally fearless, and he possessed great energy and endurance. He 
 was ever the first to arm when a battle was to be fought, and 
 the last to take off his harness. 4 He commanded in person and 
 in chief, even when surrounded by veterans and crippled by 
 the gout. He was calm in great reverses. It was said that he 
 was never known to change colour except upon two occasions : 
 after the fatal destruction of his fleet at Algiers, and in the 
 memorable flight from Innspruck. He was of a phlegmatic, 
 stoical temperament, until shattered by age and disease ; a man 
 without sentiment and without a tear. It was said by Spaniards 
 that he was never seen to weep, even at the death of his nearest 
 relatives and friends, except on the solitary occasion of the depar- 
 ture of Don Ferrante Gonzaga from court. 5 Such atemperament 
 was invaluable in the stormy career to which he had devoted his 
 life. He was essentially a man of action, a military chieftain. 
 "" Pray onlyfor my health and my life," he was accustomed to say 
 
 1 "Pero acuerdesele a V. E. que 
 es hijo do tal padre, qui en naciendo 
 en el raundo nacio soldado." Carta 
 del Duque de Alba al S. Don Juan de 
 Austria. Documentos ineditos para la 
 Historia de Espana, vol. iii. 273-283. 
 
 2 Brantome. Homines Illustres et 
 d-rands Capitaines Estrangers; art. 
 Charles V. 
 
 3 Relazione di B. Navigero apud 
 Bradford Correspondence, p. 450. 
 
 * " E poi aversi voluto tro 
 
 var presente alle rere e essere etato 
 il primo ad armarsi efc ultimo a spo- 
 gliarsi ha dimostrato in sornma d'esser 
 gran capitano d'effetti grandi," etc. etc. 
 Bai'ovaro MS. 
 
 5 " Ho da Spagnuoli sentito 
 
 che ne per alcun accidente di morte 
 di congionta di sangue ne di gran 
 ministri suoi cari e stata veduta 
 piangere, so non alia pirtita delle 
 corte di Don Ferrante Gonzaga." 
 Badovaro MS.
 
 118 
 
 TEE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 to the young officers who came to him from every part of his 
 dominions to serve under his banners, " for so long as I have 
 these I will never leave you idle ; at least in France. I love 
 peace no better than the rest of you. I was born and bred to 
 arms, and must of necessity keep on my harness till I can bear it 
 no longer." * The restless energy and the magnificent tranquil- 
 lity of his character made him a hero among princes, an idol 
 with his officers, a popular favourite everywhere. The prompt- 
 ness with which, at much personal hazard, he descended like a 
 thunderbolt in the midst of the Ghent insurrection ; the juvenile 
 ardour with which the almost bedridden man arose from his 
 sickbed to smite the Protestants atMiihlberg; the grim stoicism 
 with which he saw sixty thousand of his own soldiers perish in 
 the wintry siege of Metz ; all insured him a large measure of 
 that applause which ever follows military distinction, especially 
 when the man who achieves it happens to wear a crown. He 
 combined the personal prowess of a knight of old with the more 
 modern accomplishments of a scientific tactician. He could 
 charge the enemy in person like the most brilliant cavalry 
 officer, and he thoroughly understood the arrangements of a 
 campaign, the marshalling and victualling of troops, and the 
 whole art of setting and maintaining an army in the field." 2 
 
 Yet, though brave and warlike as the most chivalrous of his 
 ancestors, Gothic, Burgundian, or Suabian, he was entirely 
 without chivalry. Fanaticism for the faith, protection for the 
 oppressed, fidelity to friend and foe, knightly loyalty to a cause 
 deemed sacred, the sacrifice of personal interests to great ideas, 
 generosity of hand and heart ; all those qualities which unite 
 with courage and constancy to make up the ideal chevalier, 
 Charles not only lacked but despised. He trampled on the 
 weak antagonist, whether burgher or petty potentate. He was 
 false as water. He inveigled his foes who trusted to imperial 
 
 1 Bractome. Grands Capitaines ; 
 art. Charles Quint. 
 
 2 " Ella ha messosi ad im- 
 
 prese non solo perieolose a difficile 
 ma eke tenerano dell impossibile 
 
 ma nel sostenerli ba mostrato gran in- 
 telligenza e nel fare apparecchio delle 
 cose degli eserciti, nell ordine di metter 
 gli insieme, verdergli marciare, far le 
 battalie finite," etc. etc. Badov. MS.
 
 1555.] SELFISH AIMS. 119 
 
 promises by arts unworthy an emperor or a gentleman. 1 He 
 led about the unfortunate John Frederic of Saxony, in his 
 own language, " like a bear in a chain," ready to be slipped 
 upon Maurice should s( the boy " prove ungrateful. He con- 
 nived at the famous forgery of the prelate of Arras, to which 
 the Landgrave Philip owed his long imprisonment ; a villany 
 worse than many for which humbler rogues have suffered by 
 thousands upon the gallows. 3 The contemporary world knew 
 well the history of his frauds, on scale both colossal and 
 minute, and called him familiarly " Charles qui triche." 3 
 
 The absolute master of realms on which the sun perpetually 
 shone, he was not only greedy for additional dominion, but he 
 was avaricious in small matters, and hated to part with a 
 hundred dollars. 4 To the soldier who brought him the sword 
 and gauntlets of Francis the First, he gave a hundred crowns, 
 when ten thousand would have been less than the customary 
 present ; so that the man left his presence full of desperation. 
 The three soldiers who swam the Elbe, with their swords in 
 their mouths, to bring him the boats with which he passed to 
 the victory of Muhlberg, received from his imperial bounty a 
 doublet, a pair of stockings, and four crowns a-piece. 5 His 
 courtiers and ministers complained bitterly of his habitual 
 niggardliness, and were fain to eke out their slender salaries 
 by accepting bribes from every hand rich enough to bestow 
 them. In truth, Charles was more than anything else a 
 politician, notwithstanding his signal abilities as a soldier. 
 If to have founded institutions which could last, be the test 
 
 1 "In rebus agendis tractan- i la Maison d'Orange Nassau (Leide, 
 disque," says one of his greatest ! 1838), t. v., 63, 65, 66. E. H. Pfeil- 
 contemporary admirers, " simulator ! schmidt, Vor Dreihundert Jahren. 
 egregius, fidei liberioris, privati com- j Blatter der Erinnerung an Kurfiirst 
 modi perquam studiosus, atque . ut uno ! Moritz Von Sachsen (Dresden, 1852), 
 yerbo dicam alter avus maternus Ferdi- j p. 10. Vide postea. 
 
 nandus Catbolicus." Pont. Heut. xiv. 3 Brantome ; art. Charles Quint. 
 346 a. * " Ad alcuni della corte di S. M. 
 
 2 De Thou, Histoire TJniverselle ho inteso dire ella haver paruto natura 
 (Londres, 1734), i. 267, 599. Com- j tale che nel dare cento scudi ha cow- 
 pare Groen Van Prinsterer. Ar- sidcrato troppo minutamcnte,'' tic. 
 chives et Correspondance Inedite de ; Badovaro MS. s Ibid.
 
 120 TEE KISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1555. 
 
 of statesmanship, he was even a .statesman ; for many of his 
 institutions have resisted the pressure of three centuries. 
 But those of Charlemagne fell as soon as his hand was cold, 
 while the works of many ordinary legislators have attained 
 to a perpetuity denied to the statutes of Solon or Lycurgus. 
 Durability is not the test of merit in human institutions. 
 Tried by the only touchstone applicable to governments, their 
 capacity to insure the highest welfare of the governed, we 
 shall not find his polity deserving of much admiration. It is 
 not merely that he was a despot by birth and inclination, nor 
 that he naturally substituted, as far as was practicable, the 
 despotic for the republican element, wherever his hand can be 
 traced. There may be possible good in despotisms, as there 
 is often much tyranny in democracy. Tried, however, ac- 
 cording to the standard by which all governments may be 
 measured, those laws of truth and divine justice which all 
 Christian nations recognise, and which are perpetual, whether 
 recognised or not, we shall find little to venerate in the life- 
 work of the Emperor. The interests of his family, the security 
 of his dynasty, these were his end and aim. The happiness 
 or the progress of his people never furnished even the indirect 
 motives of his conduct, and the result was a baffled policy, 
 and a crippled and bankrupt empire at last. 
 
 He knew men, especially he knew their weaknesses, and he 
 knew how to turn them to account. He knew how much they 
 would bear, and that little grievances would sometimes inflame 
 more than vast and deliberate injustice. Therefore he em- 
 ployed natives mainly in the subordinate offices of his various 
 states, and he repeatedly warned his successor that the haughti- 
 ness of Spaniards, and the incompatibility of their character 
 with the Flemish, would be productive of great difficulties and 
 dangers. 1 It was his opinion that men might be tyrannised 
 more intelligently by their own kindred, and in this perhaps he 
 was right. He was indefatigable in the discharge of business, 
 and if it were possible that half a world could be administered 
 1 Apologie d'Orange, 47, 4S.
 
 1555.] 
 
 CEAELES'S MINISTERS AITD AGENTS. 
 
 121 
 
 as if it were the private property of an individual, the task 
 would have been perhaps as well accomplished by Charles as 
 by any man. He had not the absurdity of supposing it pos- 
 sible for him to attend to the details of every individual affair 
 in every one of his realms ; and he therefore entrusted the 
 stewardship of all specialities to his various ministers and 
 agents. It was his business to know men and to deal with 
 affairs on a large scale, and in this he certainly was superior to 
 his successor. His correspondence was mainly in the hands of 
 Granvelle the elder, who analysed letters received, and fre- 
 quently wrote all but the signatures of the answers. The same 
 minister usually possessed the imperial ear, and farmed it out 
 for his own benefit. In all this there was of course room for 
 vast deception, but the Emperor was quite aware of what was 
 going on, and took a philosophic view of the matter as an in- 
 evitable part of his system. 1 Granvelle grew enormously rich 
 under his eye, by trading on the imperial favour and sparing his 
 Majesty much trouble. Charles saw it all, ridiculed his pecu- 
 lations, but called him his "bed of down." 2 His knowledge of 
 human nature was, however, derived from a contemplation 
 mainly of its weakness, and was therefore one-sided. He was 
 often deceived, and made many a fatal blunder, shrewd politi- 
 cian though he was. He involved himself often in enterprises 
 which could not be honourable nor profitable, and which inflicted 
 damage on his greatest interests. He often offended men who 
 might have been useful friends, and converted allies into ene- 
 mies. " His Majesty," said a keen observer, who knew him 
 well, " has not in his career shown the prudence which was 
 necessary to him. He has often offended those whose love he 
 might have conciliated, converted friends into enemies, and let 
 those perish who were his most faithful partisans." 3 Thus it 
 must be acknowledged that even his boasted knowledge of 
 
 1 Eelazione di Navigero, apud Brad- 
 ford, p. 445. 
 
 2 " Nous avons perdu," wrote the 
 Emperor to Philip, on the elder Grrau- 
 velle's death, "un bon lit cle repo3. ;> 
 
 Dom I'Eresque, M4uaoires pour seryir 
 a 1'Histoire du Card, de Granvello 
 (Paris, 1753), i. 180. 
 3 Badovaro MS.
 
 122 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 human nature and his power of dealing with men was rather 
 superficial and empirical than the real gift of genius. 
 
 His personal habits during the greater part of his life were 
 those of an indefatigable soldier. He could remain in the 
 saddle day and night, and endure every hardship but hunger. 
 He was addicted to vulgar and miscellaneous incontinence. 1 
 He was an enormous eater. He breakfasted at five, on a fowl 
 seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices. After this 
 he went to sleep again. He dined at twelve, partaking always 
 of twenty dishes. He supped twice : at first soon after vespers, 
 and the second time at midnight or one o'clock, which meal 
 was, perhaps, the most solid of the four. After meat he ate a 
 great quantity of pastry and sweetmeats, and he irrigated every 
 repast by vast draughts of beer and wine. 3 His stomach, 
 originally a wonderful one, succumbed after forty years of such 
 labours. His taste, but not his appetite, began to fail, and he 
 complained to his major domo, that all his food was insipid. 
 The reply is, perhaps, among the most celebrated of facetiaB. 
 The cook could do nothing more unless he served his Majesty 
 a pasty of watches. The allusion to the Emperor's passion for 
 horology was received with great applause. Charles " laughed 
 longer than he was ever known to laugh before, and all the 
 courtiers (of course) laughed as long as his Majesty." 3 The 
 success of so sorry a jest would lead one to suppose that the 
 fooling was less admirable at the imperial court than some of 
 the recorded quips of Tribaulet would lead us to suppose. 
 
 1 " et & stato ne piaceri venerei 
 
 di non temperata volunta in ogni parte 
 dove si e trovata con donne di grande 
 et anco di piccola conditione." Bado- 
 varo MS. 
 
 2 "Nel magnare ha sempre S. M. 
 ecceso, et fino al tempo che ella 
 parti di Fiandra per Spagna, la 
 mattina svegliate che alia era, pig- 
 liava una scatola di pistochi, Cappone 
 con latte, zuccaro e epetiarie, dopo il 
 quale tornava a riposare. A mezzo 
 eiorno desinava molto varieta di 
 
 vivande, e poco di po vespro me 
 renda^a, et ad una hora di notte se 
 n'andava a cena, magnando cose tutte 
 da generare humori grossi e viscosi." 
 Badovaro MS. Compare Navi- 
 gero, Relazione, apud Bradford, 
 p. 365. 
 
 3 " una nuora viyanda di 
 
 pasticci di orologii, il che mosse a 
 quel maggior e piu lungo riso che 
 inai sia stato in lei et cosi risero 
 quelli di camera" etc., etc. Bado- 
 varo MS.
 
 1555.] CONCLUDING FORMALITIES. 23 
 
 The transfer of the other crowns and dignitaries to Philip, 
 was accomplished a month afterwards in a quiet manner. 1 
 Spain, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, America, and other portions 
 of the globe, were made over without more display than an 
 ordinary donatio inter vivos. The Empire occasioned some 
 difficulty. It had been already signified to Ferdinand, that his 
 brother was to resign the imperial crown in his favour, and the 
 symbols of sovereignty were accordingly transmitted to him by 
 the hands of William of Orange. 8 A deputation, moreover, of 
 which that nobleman, Vice-Chancellor Seld, and Dr. Wolfgang 
 Haller, were the chiefs, was despatched to signify to the electors 
 of the Empire the step which had been thus resolved upon. A 
 delay of more than two years, however, intervened, occasioned 
 partly by the deaths of three electors, partly by the war which 
 soon broke out in Europe, before the matter was formally 
 acted upon, 3 In February 1553, however, the electors having 
 been assembled in Frankfort, received the abdication of 
 Charles, and proceeded to the election of Ferdinand. 4 That 
 Emperor was crowned in March, and immediately despatched 
 a legation to the Pope to apprise him of the fact. Nothing was 
 less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff. 
 The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter's 
 chair, hated Charles and all his race. He accordingly denied 
 the validity of the whole transaction, without sanction pre- 
 viously obtained from the Pope, to whom all crowns belonged. 
 Ferdinand, after listening, through his envoys, to much 
 ridiculous dogmatism on the part of the Pope, at last with- 
 drew from the discussion, with a formal protest, and was first 
 recognized by CaraftVs successor, Pius IV. 5 
 
 Charles had not deferred his retirement till the end of these 
 disputes. He occupied a private house in Brussels, near the 
 gate of Louvain, until August of the year 1556. On the 27th 
 
 1 Godelaevus, 645, sqq. Van Meteren, 
 i. 17. Bor, i. 6, sqq. 
 
 2 Godelaevus, 646, sqq. Pont. Heut. 
 xiv. 654, sqq. Meteren, 17. 
 
 3 Godelaevus, 646, sqq. 
 
 4 Ibid. 
 
 8 Ibid., 651, sqq.
 
 124 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. [1555. 
 
 of that month, he addressed a letter from Ghent to John of 
 Osnabruck, president of the Chamber of "Spiers, stating his 
 abdication in favour of Ferdinand, and requesting that in the 
 interim the same obedience might be rendered to Ferdinand, 
 as could have been yielded to himself. 1 Ten days later, he ad- 
 dressed a letter to the estates of the Empire, stating the same 
 fact ; and on the 17th September 1556, he set sail from Zeland 
 for Spain. 2 These delays and difficulties occasioned some mis- 
 conceptions. Many persons, who did not admire an abdication, 
 which others, on the contrary, esteemed as an act of unexampled 
 magnanimity, stoutly denied that it was the intention of Charles 
 to renounce the Empire. The Venetian envoy informed his 
 Government that Ferdinand was only to be lieutenant for 
 Charles, under strict limitations, and that the Emperor was to 
 resume the government so soon as his health would allow. 3 
 The Bishop of Arras and Don Juan de Manrique had both as- 
 sured him, he said, that Charles would not, on any account, 
 definitely abdicate. 4 Manrique even asserted that it was a 
 mere farce to believe in any such intention. 5 The Emperor 
 ought to remain to protect his son, by the resources of the Em- 
 pire, against France, the Turks, and the heretics. His very 
 shadow was terrible to the Lutherans, 6 and his form might be 
 expected to rise again in stern reality from its temporary grave. 
 Time has shown the falsity of all these imaginings ; but views 
 thus maintained by those in the best condition to know the 
 truth, prove how difficult it was for men to believe in a transac- 
 tion which was then so extraordinary, and how little consonant 
 it was in their eyes with true propriety. It was necessary to 
 ascend to the times of Diocletian, to find an example of a simi- 
 lar abdication of empire, on so deliberate and extensive a scale, 
 and the great English historian of the Roman Empire has com- 
 pared the two acts with each other. But there seems a vast 
 
 1 Godelaevus, 654, 
 4 Ibid., 645, sqq. 
 3 Badovaro. 
 * Ibid. 
 
 8 " che era cosa di burla a 
 
 crederlo." Ibid. 
 
 6 " Parendo loro che solo 1'ombra 
 eua sia da Luterani temuta." Ibid.
 
 1555.] 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S REVERSES. 
 
 125 
 
 difference bet ween the cases. Both emperors were distinguished 
 soldiers ; both were merciless prosecutors of defenceless Chris- 
 tians; both exchanged unbounded empire for absolute seclusion. 
 But Diocletian was born in the lowest abyss of human degrada- 
 tion the slave and the son of a slave. For such a man, after 
 having reached the highest pinnacle of human greatness, volun- 
 tarily to descend from power, seems an act of far greater mag- 
 nanimity than the retreat of Charles. Born in the purple, hav- 
 ing exercised unlimited authority from his boy hood, and having 
 worn from his cradle so many crowns and coronets, the German 
 Emperor might well be supposed to have learned to estimate 
 them at their proper value. Contemporary minds were busy, 
 however, to discover the hidden motives which could have in- 
 fluenced him, and the world, even yet, has hardly ceased to 
 wonder. Yet it would have been more wonderful, considering 
 the Emperor's character, had he remained. The end had not 
 crowned the work ; it not unreasonably discrowned the work- 
 man. The earlier, and indeed the greater, part of his career 
 had been one unbroken procession of triumphs. The cherished 
 dream of his grandfather, 1 and of his own youth, 2 to add the 
 Pope's triple crown to the rest of the hereditary possessions of 
 his family, he had indeed been obliged to resign. He had too 
 much practical Flemish sense to indulge long in chimeras, but 
 he had achieved the empire over formidable rivals, and he had 
 successively not only conquered, but captured almost every 
 potentate who had arrayed himself in arms against him. Cle- 
 ment and Francis, the Dukes and Landgraves of Cleves, Hesse, 
 Saxony and Brunswick, lie had bound to his chariot wheels ; 
 forcing many to eat the bread of humiliation and captivity, 
 during long and weary years. But the concluding portion of 
 his reign had reversed all its previous glories. His whole career 
 had been a failure. He had been defeated, after all, in most of 
 his projects. He had humbled Francis, but Plenry had most 
 signally avenged his father. He had trampled upon Philip of 
 
 1 Introduction to thii work. 
 
 a Brantome. Hommes Illustres, 
 
 etc. ; art. Charles Quint. Bayle, Diet. 
 Hist, et C'rit.; art. Charles Quint.
 
 126 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 Hesse and Frederic of Saxony, but it had been reserved for 
 Mie of that German race, which he characterised as " dreamy, 
 drunken, and incapable of intrigue," to outwit the man who had 
 outwitted all the world, and to drive before him, in ignominious 
 flight, the conqueror of the nations. The German lad who had 
 learned both war and dissimulation in the court and camp of 
 him who was so profound a master of both arts, was destined to 
 eclipse his teacher on the most august theatre of Christendom. 
 Absorbed at Innspruck with the deliberations of the Trent 
 Council, Charles had not heeded the distant mutterings of the 
 tempest which was gathering around him. While he was pre- 
 paring to crush for ever the Protestant Church, with the arms 
 which a bench of bishops were forging, lo ! the rapid and des- 
 perate Maurice, with long red beard streaming like a meteor in 
 the wind, dashing through the mountain passes, at the head of 
 his Lancers arguments more convincing than all the dogmas 
 of Granvelle ! Disguised as an old woman, 1 the Emperor had 
 attempted, on the 6th April, to escape in a peasant's waggon, 
 from Innspruck into Flanders. Saved for the time by the me- 
 diation of Ferdinand, he had, a few weeks later, after his troops 
 had been defeated by Maurice at Fiissen, again fled at midnight 
 of the 22d May, almost unattended, sick in body and soul, in 
 the midst of thunder, lightning, and rain, along the difficult 
 Alpine passes from Innspruck into Carinthia. His pupil had 
 permitted his escape, only because, in his own language, " for 
 such a bird he had no convenient cage." 3 The imprisoned 
 princes now owed their liberation, not to the Emperor's clem- 
 ency, but to his panic. The peace of Passau, in the following 
 August, crushed the whole fabric of the Emperor's toil, and laid 
 the foundation of the Protestant Church. He had smitten the 
 Protestants at Miihlberg for the last time. On the other hand, 
 the man who had dealt with Rome as if the Pope, not he, had 
 
 1 " in armlicher, man sagt, 
 
 sogar in Frauentracht." Pfeil- 
 schmidt. Vor Dreikundert Jahren, 
 p. 56. 
 
 fur einen solchen Vogel," 
 
 er, "habe er keinen Kafig." 
 Pfeilschmidt, 58.
 
 1555.] 
 
 CAUSES OF THE ABDICATION. 
 
 127 
 
 been the vassal, was compelled to witness, before he departed, 
 the insolence of a pontiff who took a special pride in insulting 
 and humbling his house, and trampling upon the pride of 
 Charles, Philip, and Ferdinand. In France, too, the disastrous 
 siege of Metz had taught him that in the imperial zodiac the 
 fatal sign of Cancer had been reached. The figure of a crab, 
 with the words " plus citra," instead of his proud motto of 
 " plus ultra," scrawled on the walls where he had resided during 
 that dismal epoch, avenged more deeply, perhaps, than the 
 jester thought, the previous misfortunes of France. 1 The Grand 
 Turk, too, Solyman the Magnificent, possessed most of Hun- 
 gary, and held at that moment a fleet ready to sail against 
 Naples, in co-operation with the Pope and France. 2 Thus the 
 Infidel, the Protestant, and the Holy Church were all combined 
 together to crush him. Towards all the great powers of the 
 earth he stood, not in the attitude of a conqueror, but of a dis- 
 appointed, baffled, defeated potentate. Moreover, he had been 
 foiled long before in his earnest attempts to secure the imperial 
 throne for Philip. Ferdinand and Maximilian had both stoutly 
 resisted his arguments and his blandishments. The father had 
 represented the slender patrimony of their branch of the family, 
 compared with the enormous heritage of Philip ; who being, 
 after all, but a man, and endowed with finite powers, might sink 
 under so great a pressure of empire as his father wished to pro- 
 vide for him. 3 Maximilian also assured his uncle that he had 
 as good an appetite for the crown as Philip, and could digest 
 the dignity quite as easily. 4 The son, too, for whom the Em- 
 peror was thus solicitous, had already, before the abdication, 
 repaid his affection with ingratitude. He had turned out all his 
 father's old officials in Milan, and had refused to visit him at Brus- 
 sels, till assured as to the amount of ceremonial respect which 
 the new-made king was to receive at the hands of his father. 5 
 
 1 Histoire du Due d'Albe, i. 3G9, 
 (ed. Paris, 1698.) 
 
 2 Cabrera, i. 32. 
 
 3 " Principem Philippum ko- 
 
 niinem esse finitasque liabere vires 
 
 atque ingenium captumque tantum 
 humanum." Pont. Heut., xii. 301. 
 
 4 Brantome, i. 40, 50. 
 
 5 Dom LEvesque. Mem. de Qrany. 
 i. 24-26. " Get embarras," says the
 
 128 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 Had the Emperor continued to live and reign, he would have 
 found himself likewise engaged in mortal combatwith thatgreat 
 religious movement in the Netherlands which he would not 
 have been able many years longer to suppress, and which he 
 left as a legacy of blood and fire to his successor. Born in the 
 same year with his century, Charles was a decrepit, exhausted 
 man at fifty-five, while that glorious age, in which humanity was 
 to burst for ever the cerements in which it had so long been 
 
 o 
 
 buried, was but awakening to a consciousness of its strength. 
 Disappointed in his schemes, broken in his fortunes, with in- 
 come anticipated, estates mortgaged, all his affairs in confusion; 
 failing in mental powers, and with a constitution hopelessly 
 shattered ; it was time for him to retire. He shewed his keen- 
 ness in recognising the fact that neither his power nor his glory 
 would be increased, should he lag superfluous on the stage 
 where mortification instead of applause was likely to be his por- 
 tion. His frame was indeed but a wreck. Forty years of un- 
 exampled gluttony had done their work. He was a victim to 
 gout, asthma, dyspepsia, gravel. He was crippled in the neck, 
 arms, knees, and hands. He was troubled with chronic cutane- 
 ous eruptions. His appetite remained, while his stomach, un- 
 able longer to perform the task still imposed upon it, occasioned 
 him constant suffering. Physiologists, who know how impor- 
 tant a part this organ plays in the affairs of life, will perhaps 
 see in this physical condition of the Emperor a sufficient expla- 
 nation, if explanation were required, of his descent from the 
 throne. Moreover, it is well known that the resolution to abdi- 
 cate before his death had been long a settled scheme with him. 
 It had been formally agreed between himself and the Empress 
 that they should separate at the approach of old age, and pass 
 the remainder of their lives in a convent and a monastery. 
 He had, when comparatively a young man, been struck 
 by the reply made to him by an aged officer, whose reasons 
 
 Benedictine, " fut la veritable cause 
 do eon abdication et de sa retraicte 
 dans le Convent de Juste. La poli- 
 
 tique s'epuiseroit en vain a en chercber 
 une autre."
 
 1555.] RETIREMENT AT JUSTE. 129 
 
 he had asked for earnestly soliciting permission to retire 
 from the imperial service. It was, said the veteran, that he 
 might put a little space of religious contemplation between 
 the active portion of his life and the grave. 1 
 
 A similar determination, deferred from time to time, Charles 
 had now carried into execution. While he still lingered in 
 Brussels, after his abdication, a comet appeared, to warn him to 
 the fulfilment of his purpose. 2 From first to last, comets and 
 other heavenly bodies were much connected with his evolutions 
 and arrangements. There was no mistaking the motives with 
 which this luminary had presented itself. The Emperor knew 
 very well, says a contemporary German chronicler, that it por- 
 tended pestilence and war, together with the approaching death 
 of mighty princes. (e My fate calls out," 3 he cried, and forthwith 
 applied himself to hasten the preparations for his departure. 
 
 The romantic picture of his philosophical retirement at Juste,, 
 painted originally by Sandoval and Siguenza, reproduced by 
 the fascinating pencil of Strada, and imitated in frequent suc- 
 cession by authors of every age and country, is unfortunately 
 but a sketch of fancy. The investigations of modern writers- 
 have entirely thrown down the scaffolding on which the 
 airy fabric, so delightful to poets and moralists, reposed. The 
 departing Emperor stands no longer in a transparency, robed 
 in shining garments. His transfiguration is at an end. Every 
 action, almost every moment of his retirement, accurately 
 chronicled by those who shared his solitude, have been placed 
 before our eyes, in the most felicitous manner, by able and 
 brilliant writers. 4 The Emperor, shorn of the philosophical 
 
 Strada, i. 18. 
 Godelaevus, 645. 
 
 ingens et lucidum sydus 
 flammiferuin crinem trahens in 
 octavo librae gradu conspici coep- 
 tum at Carolus scions hujus visione 
 magnorum principum interitus eo 
 conspecto. His inquit indiciis, me mea 
 fata vacant" etc. Godelaevus, 645. 
 * Stirling. The Cloister Life of 
 
 Charles V. (London, 1853.) Bak- 
 huyzen van den Brink. Analyse d'un 
 Manuscrit Conteuiporain sur la Re- 
 traite de Charles Quint (Bruxelles, 
 1850.) The Worts of Mignot and 
 Pichot, on the same subject (Paris, 
 1854), and particularly the late pub- 
 lication of M. Gachard, Retraite et 
 Mort de Charles Quint, (Bruxelles, 
 
 1854 ; ) in which last w/w-k the sub- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 robe in which he had been conventionally arrayed for three 
 centuries, shivers now in the cold air of reality. 
 
 So far from having immersed himself in profound and 
 pious contemplation, below the current of the world's events, 
 his thoughts, on the contrary, never were for a moment diverted 
 from the political surface of the times. He read nothing but 
 despatches ; he wrote or dictated interminable ones in reply, as 
 dull and prolix as any which ever came from his pen. He mani- 
 fested a succession of emotions at the course of contemporary 
 affairs, as intense and as varied as if the world still rested in 
 his palm. He was, in truth, essentially a man of action. He 
 had neither the taste nor talents which make a man great in 
 retirement. Not a lofty thought, not a generous sentiment, not 
 a profound or acute suggestion in his retreat, has been recorded 
 from his lips. The epigrams which had been invented for him 
 by fabulists have been all taken away, and nothing has been 
 substituted, save a few dull jests exchanged with stupid friars. 
 So far from having entertained and even expressed that senti- 
 ment of religious toleration, for which he was said to have been 
 condemned as a heretic by the Inquisition, and for which 
 Philip was ridiculously reported to have ordered his father's 
 body to be burned, and his ashes scattered to the winds, 1 he 
 became in retreat the bigot effectually, which during his reign 
 he had only been conventionally. Bitter regrets that he should 
 have kept his word to Luther, as if he had not broken faith 
 enough to reflect upon in his retirement; stern self-reproach for 
 omitting to put to death, while he had him in his power, the 
 man who had caused all the mischief of the age ; fierce in- 
 structions thundered from his retreat to the inquisitors to hasten 
 the execution of all heretics, including particularly his ancient 
 friends, preachers, and almoners, Cazalla and Constantino de 
 
 ject may be considered to have been 
 fairly exhausted, and in which the 
 text of Siguenca, and of the anony- 
 mous manuscript discovered by M. 
 Bakhuyzen, in the greffe of the Court 
 of Appeals at Brussels, are placed in 
 
 full before the reader, so far as they 
 bear on the vexed question as to the 
 celebration by the Emperor of his own 
 obsequies. 
 
 1 Brantome. (Eurres Complete* 
 (Parie, 1822), i. 32.
 
 1555.] CHAELES IN THE CLOISTER. 131 
 
 Fuente ; furious exhortations to Philip as if Philip needed a 
 prompter in such a work that he should set himself to 
 " cutting out the root of heresy with rigour and rude 
 chastisement ; " such explosions of savage bigotry as these, 
 alternating with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with 
 surfeits of sardine omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, 
 pickled partridges, fat capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and 
 flagons of Rhenish, relieved by copious draughts of senna and 
 rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken doctor doomed him as 
 he ate compose a spectacle less attractive to the imagination 
 than the ancient portrait of the cloistered Charles. Unfortu- 
 nately, it is the one which was painted from life.
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 ST. QUENTIN AND GRAVELINES. 
 
 Sketch of Philip the Second Characteristics of Mary Tudor Portrait of 
 Philip His council Rivalry of Buy Gomez and Alva Character of 
 Euy Gomez Queen Mary of Hungary Sketch of Philibert of Savoy 
 Truce of Yaucelles Secret treaty between the Pope and Henry II. 
 Rejoicings in the Netherlands on account of the peace Purposes of 
 Philip Re-enactment of the edict of 1550 The King's dissimulation 
 " Request" to the provinces Infraction of the truce in Italy Character 
 of Pope Paul IV. Intrigues of Cardinal Caraffa War against Spain 
 resolved upon hy France Campaign in Italy Amicable siege of Rome 
 Peace with the Pontiff Hostilities on the Flemish border Coligny 
 foiled at Douay Sacks Lens Philip in England Queen Mary engages 
 in the war Philip's army assembled at Givet Portrait of Count Egmont 
 The French army under Coligny and Montmorency Siege of St. Quentin 
 Attempts of the Constable to relieve the city Battle of St. Quentin 
 Hesitation and timidity of Philip City of St. Quentin taken and sacked 
 Continued indecision of Philip His army disbanded Campaign of the 
 Duke of Guise Capture of Calais Interview between Cardinal de 
 Lorraine and the Bishop of Arras Secret combinations for a league 
 between France and Spain against heresy Languid movements of Guise- 
 Foray of De Thermes on the Flemish frontier Battle of Gravelines 
 Popularity of Egmont Enmity of Alva. 
 
 PHILIP the Second had received the investiture of Milan and the 
 crown of Naples, previously to his marriage with Mary Tudor. 1 
 The imperial crown he had been obliged, much against his will, to 
 forego. The archduchy of Austria, with the hereditary German 
 dependencies of his father's family, had been transferred by the 
 Emperor to his brother Ferdinand, on the occasion of the mar- 
 riage of that prince with Anna, only sister of King Louis of 
 
 1 Pont. Heut.. xix. Godelaevu?. 04a
 
 PHILIP'S YOUTH. 133 
 
 Hungary. 1 Ten years afterwards, Ferdinand (King of Hun- 
 gary and Bohemia since the death of Louis, slain in 1526 at 
 the battle of Mohacz) was elected King of the Romans, and 
 steadily refused all the entreaties afterwards made to him in 
 behalf of Philip, to resign his crown and his succession to the 
 Empire in favour of his nephew. With these diminutions, 
 Philip had now received all the dominions of his father. He 
 was king of all the Spanish kingdoms and of both the Sicilies. 
 He was titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem. 
 He was " Absolute Dominator " in Asia, Africa, and America ; 
 he was Duke of Milan and of both Burgundies, and Here- 
 ditary Sovereign of the seventeen Netherlands. 8 
 
 Thus the provinces had received a new master. A man of 
 foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their lan- 
 guage, nor of any language which the mass of the inhabitants 
 understood, was now placed in supreme authority over them, 
 because he represented through the females, the " good " Philip 
 of Burgundy, who a century before had possessed himself by 
 inheritance, purchase, force or fraud, of the sovereignty in most 
 of those provinces. It is necessary to say an introductory word 
 or two concerning the previous history of the man to whose 
 hands the destiny of so many millions are now entrusted. 
 
 He was born in May 1527, and was now, therefore, twenty- 
 eight years of age. At the age of sixteen he had been united 
 to his cousin, Maria of Portugal, daughter of John III. and of 
 the Emperor's sister, Donna Catalina. In the following year 
 (1544) he became father of the celebrated and ill-starred Don 
 Carlos, and a widower. 3 In 1548, he had made his first 
 appearance in the Netherlands. He came thither to receive 
 homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and 
 to exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all. 4 Andrew 
 Doria, with a fleet of fifty ships, had brought him to Genoa, 
 whence he had passed to Milan, where he was received with 
 
 1 Pont. Heut., viii. 197, I * Meteren, 13. Wagenaer Vader- 
 
 2 Ibid., x. 240. I landsche Historic, (Amst., 1770,) IT. 
 8 Cabrera, 1. 8. | 294, eqq.
 
 134, 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1500. 
 
 great rejoicing. At Trent he was met by Duke Maurice of 
 Saxony, who -warmly begged his intercession with the Emperor 
 in behalf of the imprisoned Landgrave of Hesse. This boon 
 Philip was graciously pleased to promise, 1 and to keep the pledge 
 as sacredly as most of the vows plighted by him during this 
 memorable year. The Duke of Aerschot met him in Germany 
 with a regiment of cavalry and escorted him to Brussels. A 
 summer was spent in great festivities, the cities of the Nether- 
 lands vying with each other in magnificent celebrations of the 
 ceremonies, by which Philip successively swore allegiance to the 
 various constitutions and charters of the provinces, and received 
 their oaths of future fealty in return. His oath to support all 
 the constitutions and privileges was without reservation, while 
 his father and grandfather had only sworn to maintain the 
 charters granted or confirmed by Philip and Charles of 
 Burgundy. 2 Suspicion was disarmed by these indiscriminate 
 concessions, which had been resolved upon by the unscrupulous 
 Charles to conciliate the goodwill of the people. In view of 
 the pretensions which might be preferred by the Brederode 
 family in Holland, and by other descendants of ancient sovereign 
 races in other provinces, the Emperor, wishing to insure the 
 succession to his sisters in case of the deaths of himself, Philip, 
 and Don Carlos without issue, was unsparing in those promises 
 which he knew to be binding only upon the weak. Philip's 
 oaths were therefore without reserve, and the light-hearted 
 Flemings, Brabantines, and Walloons received him with open 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 13. 
 
 2 The oath which he took in Hol- 
 land was " Well and truly to main- 
 tain all the privileges and freedoms 
 of the nobles, cities, communities, 
 subjects (lay and clerical) of the 
 province of Holland and West 
 Friesland, to them granted by my 
 ancestors, counts and countesses of 
 Holland ; and moreover their cus- 
 toms, traditions, usages, and rights, 
 (gewoonte, herkomen, usantien en 
 rechten,) all and several which they 
 now have and use." The oath in 
 
 Brabant was "To support all the 
 privileges," etc. etc.; and the same 
 form, without conditions and excep- 
 tions, was adopted in the other pro- 
 vinces; whereas his father and grand- 
 father had sworn only to maintain 
 the limited privileges conceded by 
 the usurping house of Burgundy. 
 Vide Groot Plakkaat Boek, iv. 3, 
 :ii. 20; Blyde Inkommst v. Filip, 
 apud Mieris, Nederl. Voorst, iii. 222 ; 
 Wagenaer Vaderl. Hist., iv. 294-7, 
 and y. 328-341.
 
 1555.] MAEY TUDOR. 135 
 
 arms. In Valenciennes the festivities which attended his 
 entrance were on a most gorgeous scale, but the "joyous 
 entrance " arranged for him at Antwerp was of unparalleled 
 magnificence. 1 A cavalcade of the magistrates and notable 
 burghers, a all attired in cramoisj velvet," attended by lackeys 
 in splendid liveries, and followed by four thousand citizen 
 soldiers in full uniform, went forth from the gates to receive 
 him. Twenty-eight triumphal arches, which alone, according 
 to the thrifty chronicler, had cost 26,800 Carolus guldens, were 
 erected in the different streets and squares, and every possible 
 demonstration of affectionate welcome was lavished upon the 
 Prince and the Emperor. 8 The rich and prosperous city, un- 
 conscious of the doom which awaited it in the future, seemed 
 to have covered itself with garlands to honour the approach of 
 its master. Yet icy was the deportment with which Philip 
 received these demonstrations of affection, and haughty the 
 glance with which he looked down upon these exhibitions of 
 civic hilarity, as from the height of a grim and inaccessible 
 tower. The impression made upon the Netherlander was any- 
 thing but favourable, and when he had fully learned the futility 
 cf the projects on the Empire which it was so difficult both 
 for his father and himself to resign, he returned to the more 
 congenial soil of Spain. In 1554 he had again issued from 
 the peninsula to marry the Queen of England, a privilege which 
 his father had graciously resigned to him. He was united to 
 Mary Tudor at Winchester, on the 25th July of that year, and 
 if congeniality of tastes could have made a marriage happy, 
 that union should have been thrice blessed. To maintain the 
 supremacy of the Church seemed to both the main object of 
 existence; to execute unbelievers, the most sacred duty imposed 
 by the Deity upon anointed princes ; to convert their kingdoms 
 into a hell, the surest means of winning heaven for themselves. 
 It was not strange that the conjunction of two such wonders of 
 superstition in one sphere should seem portentous in the eyes 
 of the English nation. Philip's mock efforts in favour of 
 1 Meteren, i. f. 13. Ibid.
 
 J36 THE EISB OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 certain condemned reformers, and his pretended intercessions 
 in favour of the Princess Elizabeth, failed entirely of their 
 object. The Parliament refused to confer upon him more than 
 a nominal authority in England. His children, should they be 
 born, mio-ht be sovereigns ; he was but husband of the Queen; 
 of a woman who could not atone by her abject but peevish 
 fondness for himself, and by her congenial blood-thirstiness 
 towards her subjects, for her eleven years' seniority, deficiency 
 in attractions, and incapacity to make him the father of a 
 line of English monarchs. It almost excites compassion even 
 for Mary Tudor, when her passionate efforts to inspire him 
 with affection are contrasted with his impassiveness. Tyrant, 
 bigot, murderess though she was, she was still woman, and she 
 lavished upon her husband all that was not ferocious in her 
 nature. Forbidding prayers to be said for the soul of her 
 father, 1 hating her sister and her people, burning bishops, 
 bathing herself in the blood of heretics, to Philip she was all 
 submissiveness and feminine devotion. It was a most singular 
 contrast, Mary the Queen of England and Mary the wife of 
 Philip. Small, lean and sickly, painfully near-sighted, yet with 
 an eye of fierceness and fire ; her face wrinkled by care and 
 evil passions still more than by time ; with a big man's voice, 
 whose harshness made those in the next room tremble; 2 yet 
 
 1 De Thou, ii. 419. [ observing that, " even at her 
 
 2 " E la regina Maria cli statura ! present age, she is not entirely to be 
 piccoladi persona roagra et delica' a j abhorred for her ugliness, without 
 adesso cavate qualche crespe ; any regard to her rank of Queen." 
 causate piu dagli affanr.i che dall eta I " In somma e donna honesta ne mai 
 ha gli occhi vivi che inducono non j per brutezza etiam in questa eta non 
 solo reverenza ma timore verso chi I considerate il grado di regina d'essi re 
 li move, se bena la vista molto corta abhorrita." As the Venetian was 
 non potendo leggere ne far altro ee \ exceedingly disposed to be compli- 
 non si inette con la vista vicinissima | mentary, it must be confessed that 
 a quello che voglia leggere o ben the eulogy does not appear redun- 
 dircernere ha la voce grossa et alta ! dant. Compare Cabrera "Era la 
 
 quassi d'uomo, ei che quando parla e 
 sempre sentita gran pezzo di lon- 
 tano." Eelazione di Giov. Michele, 
 venuto Anibr. d'Inghilterra, 1557; 
 
 Regna pequena de cuerpo, flaca, con. 
 vista corta en vivos < jos que ponian 
 acatamiento grave mesurada la 
 
 MS. The envoy sums up the per- 1 210. 
 sonal attractions of her Majesty by | 
 
 m Tie de muer ; "
 
 1655.] 
 
 PHILIP IN ENGLAND. 
 
 137 
 
 feminine in her tastes, skilful with her needle, fond of 
 embroidery work, striking the lute with a touch remarkable 
 for its science and feeling, speaking many languages, including 
 Latin, with fluency and grace; 1 most feminine, too, in her 
 constitutional sufferings, hysterical of habit, shedding floods of 
 tears daily at Philip's coldness, undisguised infidelity, and 
 frequent absence from England 2 she almost awakens com- 
 passion, and causes a momentary oblivion of her identity. 
 
 Her subjects, already half maddened by religious persecution, 
 were exasperated still further by the pecuniary burthens which 
 k]\e imposed upon them to supply the King's exigencies, and 
 she unhesitatingly confronted their frenzy, in the hope of win- 
 ning a smile from him. When at last her chronic maladies 
 had assumed the memorable form which caused Philip and 
 Mary to unite in a letter to Cardinal Pole, announcing not the 
 expected\mi the actual birth of a prince, but judiciously leaving 
 the date blank, 3 the momentary satisfaction and delusion of 
 the Queen was unbounded. The false intelligence was trans- 
 mitted everywhere. Great were the joy and the festivities in 
 the Netherlands, where people were so easily made to rejoice 
 and keep holiday for anything. " The Regent, being in 
 Antwerp," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham to the lords of council, 
 " did cause the great bell to ringe to give to all men to under- 
 stand that the news was trewe. The Queene's highness' mere 
 merchants caused all our Inglishe ships to shoote off with such 
 joy and triumph, as by men's arts and pollicey coulde be de- 
 vised and the Regent sent our In^lishe maroners one hundred 
 
 1 " E instrutta di cinque lingue 
 quattro d'essi parla Nella latina 
 farria sempre ognuno con le risposte 
 che da et con i proposite cho tiene 
 intendentissima oltre 1'esercitio di 
 lavorare rt'ago in ogni sorte di rieamo, 
 anco della musica specialmente 
 sonar di manacordi et di liuto 
 incanta per la velocita del mano e per 
 la maniera di sonare." Michele 
 MS. 
 
 2 Michele Relazione MS. " Per 
 
 rimedio non basta indogli los fogarsi 
 come adesso usa con le lagrime et col 
 piangere." 
 
 3 Burgon (Life and Times of Sir 
 T. Gresham) communicates the let- 
 ter from the State-paper office. 
 "Whereas it hath pleased Almighty 
 God of His infinite goodness to adde 
 unto the great number of other His 
 benefites bestowed upon us the glad- 
 ding of us with the happy deliveria 
 of a prince:" i. 171.
 
 138 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. {1555. 
 
 crownes to drynke." * If bell-ringing and cannon -firing could 
 have given England a Spanish sovereign, the devoutly-wished 
 consummation would have been reached. When the futility of 
 the royal hopes could no longer be concealed, Philip left the 
 country, never to return till his war with France made him 
 require troops, subsidies, and a declaration of hostilities from 
 England. 
 
 The personal appearance of the new sovereign has already 
 been described. His manner was far from conciliatory, and in 
 this respect he was the absolute reverse of his father. Upon 
 his first journey out of Spain, in 1548, into his various domi- 
 nions, he had made a most painful impression everywhere. 
 " He was disagreeable," says Envoy Suriano, le to the Italians, 
 detestable to the Flemings, odious to the Germans." 
 
 The remonstrances of the Emperor, and of Queen Mary of 
 Hungary, at the impropriety of his manners, had produced, 
 however, some effect, so that on his wedding journey to Eng- 
 land he manifested much " gentleness and humanity, mingled 
 with royal gravity." 3 Upon this occasion, says another Vene- 
 tian, accredited to him, "he had divested himself of that Spanish 
 haughtiness which, when he first came from Spain, had rendered 
 him so odious." 4 The famous ambassador, Badovaro, confirms 
 the impression. " Upon his first journey," he says, "he was 
 esteemed proud, and too greedy for the imperial succession ; 
 but now 'tis the common opinion that his humanity and mo- 
 desty are all which could be desired." 5 These humane qualities, 
 howeverj it must be observed, were exhibited only in the pre- 
 sence of ambassadors and grandees, the only representatives of 
 " humanity " with whom he came publicly and avowedly in 
 contact. 
 
 1 Burgon, i. 169. 
 
 2 " Fu poco grato ad Italiani, in- 
 gratissinio a Fiamenglii et a Tecleschi 
 odioso." Suriano. Relazione MS. 
 
 3 Suriano MS. 
 
 8 " Npl p. passagio euo in Spagna 
 per Italia, Germania et Fiandra era 
 sfimata superba et troppo cupida 
 d'essere coadjutore dell' Imperio ma 
 bora e comune opinione che ella 
 
 * " Havendo persa quella altezza \ habbia in se tutta quello humanita 
 con la quale usci la prima volta ! et modestia che dir si possa." 
 di Spagna et riusci cosi odiosi." i Badovaro MS. 
 MicUele MS.
 
 1555.] 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL DULNESS. 
 
 139 
 
 He was thought deficient in manly energy. He was an 
 infirm valetudinarian, and was considered as sluggish in cha- 
 racter, as deficient in martial enterprise, as timid of tempera- 
 ment, as he was fragile and sickly of frame. 1 It is true, that 
 on account of the disappointment which he occasioned by his 
 contrast to his warlike father, he mingled in some tourna- 
 ments in Brussels, where he was matched against Count 
 Mansfeld, one of the most distinguished chieftains of the age, 
 and where, says his professed panegyrist, "he broke his lances 
 very much to the satisfaction of his father and aunts." 3 
 
 That learned and eloquent author, Estelle Calvete, even filled 
 the greater part of a volume, in which he described the journey 
 of the Prince, with a minute description of these feasts and 
 jousts, 3 but we may reasonably conclude that to the loyal ima- 
 gination of his eulogist Philip is indebted for most of these 
 knightly trophies. It was the universal opinion of unprejudiced 
 contemporaries, that he was without a spark of enterprise. He 
 was even censured for a culpable want of ambition, and for 
 being inferior to his father in this respect ; as if the love of 
 encroaching on his neighbour's dominions, and a disposition to 
 foreign commotions and war, would have constituted additional 
 virtues, had he happened to possess them. Those who were 
 most disposed to think favourably of him, remembered that 
 there was a time when even Charles the Fifth was thought weak 
 and indolent,* and were willing to ascribe Philip's pacific .dis- 
 position to his habitual cholic and side-ache, and to his father's 
 
 1 " Si come la nafura 1'ha fatta 
 di corpo debole cosi 1'ha fatta al 
 quanto d'animo timido." Badovaro 
 ilS. " Non promette quella grand- 
 ezza et generalita d'animo et vivezza 
 di spirito eke ei convenga ad un 
 principe potento come lui e infer- 
 mo o valetudinario da natura ab- 
 horrisce molto la guerra, et andare 
 en persona ne mai egli vi si ridurra 
 so non per gran necessita." llicliele 
 MS "La natura la qual inclina 
 piu alia quiete ch' all' essercitio piu 
 
 al riposo ch' al travaglio," etc. 
 Suriano MS. 
 
 2 " Arrojo los troc,os muy en alto 
 con vozeria del pueblo, regocijo 
 del Empcrador o de las Eeynas 
 rompiendo sus lanzas con gallardia 
 i destrez*, agradados de su valor y 
 majestacl estavan co razon su padre 
 y tias." Cabrera, i. 12. 
 
 3 V. Cabrera, i. 12, 13. 
 
 * " Era havuto per sapido et ador- 
 tnentato." Michele MS.
 
 140 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1552; 
 
 inordinate care for him in youth. 1 They even looked forward 
 to the time when he should blaze forth to the world as a con- 
 queror and a hero. These, however, were views entertained by 
 but few ; the general and the correct opinion, as it proved, being, 
 that Philip hated war, would never certainly acquire any per- 
 sonal distinction in the field, and when engaged in hostilities 
 would be apt to gather his laurels at the hands of his generals 
 rather than with his own sword. He was believed to be the 
 reverse of the Emperor. Charles sought great enterprises ; 
 Philip would avoid them. The Emperor never recoiled before 
 threats ; the son was reserved, cautious, suspicious of all men, 
 and capable of sacrificing a realm from hesitation and timidity. 
 The father had a genius for action ; the son a predilection for 
 repose. Charles took " all men's opinions, but reserved his 
 judgment," and acted on it, when matured, with irresistible 
 energy ; Philip was led by others, was vacillating in forming 
 decisions, and irresolute in executing them when formed. 8 
 
 Philip, then, was not considered, in that warlike age, as 
 likely to shine as a warrior. His mental capacity, in general, was 
 likewise not very highly esteemed. His talents were, in truth, 
 very much below mediocrity. His mind was incredibly small. 
 A petty passion for contemptible details characterised him from 
 his youth, and, as long as he lived, he could neither learn to 
 generalise, nor understand that one man, however diligent, 
 could not be minutely acquainted with all the public and private 
 affairs of fifty millions of other men. He was a glutton of work. 
 He was born to write despatches, and to scrawl comments 3 
 
 1 Michele MS. 
 
 3 Suriano MS. 
 
 8 The character of these apostilles, 
 always confused, wordy, and awk- 
 ward, was sometimes very ludicrous ; 
 nor did it improve after his thirty or 
 forty years' daily practice in making 
 them. Thus when he received a 
 letter from France in 1589, narrat- 
 ing the assassination of Henry III., 
 and stating that " the manner in 
 which he had l/>en tilled was that 
 
 a Jacobin monk had given him a 
 pistol-shot in the head," (la fac,on 
 que Ton dit qu'il a ett^ tue, sa ett6 
 par un Jacohin qui lay a donne d'un 
 cou de pistolle dans la tavte,) he 
 scrawled the following luminous com- 
 ment upon the margin. Underlin- 
 ing the word " pistolle," he observed, 
 " this is perhaps some kind of knife; 
 and as for 'tayte,' it can be nothing 
 else but head, which is not tayte, but 
 tete, or teyte, as you very well know,"
 
 1555.] 
 
 OTHER CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 141 
 
 upon those which he received. He often remained at the council- 
 board four or five hours at a time, and he lived in his cabinet. 1 
 He gave audiences to ambassadors and deputies very willingly, 
 listening attentively to all that was said to him, and answering 
 in monosyllables. 2 He spoke no tongue but Spanish, and was 
 sufficiently sparing of that, but he was indefatigable with his 
 pen. He hated to converse, but he could write a letter eighteen 
 pages long, when his correspondent was in the next room, and 
 when the subject was, perhaps, one which a man of talent could 
 have settled with six words of his tongue. The world, in his 
 opinion, was to move upon protocols and apostilles. Events had 
 no right to be born throughout his dominions, without a prepa- 
 ratory course of his obstetrical pedantry. He could never learn 
 that the earth would not rest on its axis, while he wrote a pro- 
 gramme of the way it was to turn. 3 He was slow in deciding, 
 slower in communicating his decisions. He was prolix with his 
 pen, not from affluence, but from paucity of ideas. He took 
 refuge in a cloud of words, sometimes to conceal his meaning, 
 oftener to conceal the absence of any meaning, thus mystify- 
 ing not only others, but himself. To one great purpose, formed 
 early, he adhered inflexibly. This, however, was rather an 
 instinct than an opinion ; born with him, not created by him. 
 The idea seemed to express itself through him, and to master 
 him, rather than to form one of a stock of sentiments which a 
 free agent might be expected to possess. Although at certain 
 times, even this master feeling could yield to the pressure of a 
 
 (quiza de alguna manera de cuchillo, 
 etc. etc.) Gachard. Rapport a M. le 
 Minist. de 1'Interieur, prefixed to 
 Corresp. Philippe II., vol. i., xlix., 
 note 1. It is obvious that a person 
 who made such wonderful com- 
 mentaries as this, and was hard at 
 work eight or nine hours a day for 
 forty years, would leave a prodigious 
 quantity of unpublished matter at his 
 death. 
 
 1 Michele MS. * Badovaro MS. 
 
 3 "De Koning," says one of the 
 most profound and learned of mo- 
 
 dern historical writers, Bakhuysen 
 van den Brink, "Filipe el prudente, 
 zoo als hij zich gaarne hoorde noe- 
 men, beherrschte niet zijn bureau 
 maar zijn bureau beherrschte hem 
 Nooit heeft hij begrepen, dat 
 de geschiedenis niet stil stond, om 
 op zijne beslissing ta wachten, maar, 
 altoos meende hij, dat de gebeart- 
 eniesen haar regt om te gebeuren. 
 verkregen door zijne hand teekening 
 of paraphe." Het Huwelijk van W. 
 Van Oranje met Anna v. Saxen, ( Amst. 
 1853, ) p. 108.
 
 142 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1555. 
 
 predominant self-interest thus showing that even in Philip 
 bigotry was not absolute yet he appeared on the whole the em- 
 bodiment of Spanish chivalry and Spanish religious enthusiasm, 
 in its late and corrupted form. He was entirely a Spaniard. 
 The Burgundian and Austrian elements of his blood seemed to 
 have evaporated, and hisveins were filled alone with the ancient 
 ardourwhich in heroic centuries had animated the Gothiccham- 
 pions of Spain. The fierce enthusiasm for the Cross, which in 
 the long internal warfare against the Crescent, had been the 
 romantic and distinguishing feature of the national character, 
 had degenerated into bigotry. That which had been a nation's 
 glory now made the monarch's shame. The Christian heretic 
 was to be regarded with a more intense hatred than even Moor 
 or Jew had excited in the most Christian ages, and Philip was 
 to be the latest and most perfect incarnation of all this tradi- 
 tional enthusiasm, this perpetual hate. Thus he was likely to 
 be single-hearted in his life. It was believed that his ambition 
 would be less to extend his dominions than to vindicate his title 
 of the Most Catholic King. There could be little doubt enter- 
 tained that he would be, at least, dutiful to his father in this 
 respect, and that the edicts would be enforced to the letter. 
 
 He was by birth, education, and character, a Spaniard, and 
 that so exclusively, that the circumstance would alone have 
 made him unfit to govern a country so totally different in 
 habits and national sentiments from his native land. He was 
 more a foreigner in Brussels, even, than in England. The gay, 
 babbling, energetic, noisy life of Flanders and Brabant was 
 detestable to him. The loquacity of the Netherlander was a 
 continual reproach upon his taciturnity. His education had 
 imbued him, too, with the antiquated international hatred of 
 Spaniard and Fleming, which had been strengthening in the 
 metropolis, while the more rapid current of life had rather 
 tended to obliterate the sentiment in the provinces. 
 
 The flippancy and profligacy of Philip the Handsome, tho 
 extortion and insolence of his Flemish courtiers, had not been 
 forgotten in Spain, nor had Philip the Second forgiven his
 
 1555.1 
 
 PEKSONAL HABITS. 
 
 113 
 
 grandfather for having been a foreigner. And now his mad 
 old grandmother, Johanna, who had for years been chasing 
 cats in the lonely tower where she had been so long imprisoned, 
 had just died ;* and her funeral celebrated with great pomp 
 by both her sons, by Charles at Brussels and Ferdinand at 
 Augsburg, seemed to revive a history which had begun to 
 fade, and to recall the image of Castilian sovereignty which 
 had been so long obscured in the blaze of imperial grandeur. 
 
 His education had been but meagre. In an age when all 
 kings and noblemen possessed many languages, he spoke not a 
 word of any tongue but Spanish, 2 although he had a slender 
 knowledge of French and Italian, which he afterwards learned 
 to read with comparative facility. He had studied a little 
 history and geography, and he had a taste for sculpture, 
 painting, and architecture. 3 Certainly if he had not possessed 
 a feeling for art, he would have been a monster. To have 
 been born in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, to have 
 been a king, to have had Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands 
 as a birthright, and not to have been inspired with a spark 
 of that fire which glowed so intensely in those favoured lands 
 and in that golden age, had indeed been difficult. 
 
 The King's personal habits were regular. He slept much 
 and took little exercise habitually, but he had recently been 
 urged by the physicians to try the effect of the chase as a cor- 
 rective to his sedentary habits. 4 He was most strict in religious 
 observances ; as regular at mass, sermons, end vespers as a 
 monk ; much more it was thought by many good Catholics, 
 than was becoming to his rank and age. s Besides several friars 
 who preached regularly for his instruction, he had daily discus- 
 sions with others on abstruse theological points. 6 He consulted 
 
 1 Do Thou. ii. GG1. 
 
 2 Micliele MS. " Nella eua lingua 
 parla raramente et 1'usa sempre," says 
 Baclovaro concisely : MS. 
 
 3 Baclovaro MS. 4 Ibid. 
 
 6 " Attentissimo alle messi, alii ves- 
 peri ot alle pmliche com' un religioso 
 
 molto piu cLe allo etato et eta sua 
 a molti par che si convenga." Mi- 
 chele MS. 
 
 6 " Oltre certi frati theologi pre- 
 dicant! huomini di stirno, anco altri 
 che ogni di trattano con lui." etc. 
 Michele MS.
 
 144 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [155& 
 
 his confessor most minutely as to all the actions of life, inquiring 
 anxiously whether this proceeding or that were likely to burthen 
 his conscience. 1 He was grossly licentious. It was his chief 
 amusement to issue forth at night disguised, that he might 
 indulge himself in the common haunts of vice. This was his 
 
 o 
 
 solace at Brussels in the midst of the gravest affairs of state. 2 
 He was not illiberal, but, on the contrary, it was thought that 
 he would have been even generous, had he not been straitened 
 for money at the outset of his career. During a cold winter, he 
 distributed alms to the poor of Brussels with an open hand. 8 
 He was fond of jests in private, and would laugh immoderately, 
 when with a few intimate associates, at buffooneries, which he 
 checked in public by the icy gravity of his deportment. 4 He 
 dressed usually in the Spanish fashion, with close doublet, 
 trunk hose, and short cloak, although at times he indulged in 
 the more airy fashions of France and Burgundy, wearing but- 
 tons on his coats and feathers in his hat. 5 He was not thought 
 at that time to be cruel by nature, bub was usually spoken of, 
 in the conventional language appropriated to monarchs, as a 
 prince " clement, benign, and debonnaire." 6 Time was to 
 shew the justice of his claims to such honourable epithets. 
 
 The court was organised during his residence at Brussels on 
 the Burgundian, not the Spanish model, 7 but of the one hun- 
 dred and fifty persons who composed it, nine-tenths of the 
 whole were Spaniards ; the other fifteen or sixteen being of 
 various nations, Flemings, Burgundians, Italians, English, and 
 Germans. 8 Thus it is obvious how soon he disregarded his 
 father's precept and practice 9 in this respect, and began to lay 
 
 1 Michele MS. Badovarp MS. 
 " Dal s uo confessore vuole intendere 
 se il far quella et questa cosa puo 
 aggravar la sua conscienza," etc. 
 
 * " Kelle piaceri dello donne e in- 
 continente, prendendo dilettatione 
 d'andare in maschera la notte et nei 
 tempi de negotii gravi," etc., etc. 
 >3udovnro MS. 
 
 * Liulovara MS. Ibid. 
 
 5 Badovaro MS. Compare Suri- 
 ano MS. " Et veste con tanta poli- 
 tezza e con tanto giuditio che non si 
 puo veder alcuna cosa piu perfetta." 
 
 c Vide, e.g., Archives et Correspon- 
 dance de la M. d'O., ii. 443, 447 (note 
 1), 448, 487. 
 
 7 Badovaro MS. 
 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 9 Apolog. d'Orange, 47, 48.
 
 1555.] THE COUNCIL. 145 
 
 the foundation of that renewed hatred to Spaniards which 
 was soon to become so intense, exuberant, and fatal through- 
 out every class of JSfetherlanders. He esteemed no nation but 
 the Spanish ; with Spaniards he consorted, with Spaniards 
 he counselled, through Spaniards he governed. 1 
 
 His council consisted of five or six Spanish grandees, the 
 famous Ruy Gomez, then Count of Melito, afterwards Prince 
 of Eboli ; the Duke of Alva, the Count de Feria, the Duke of 
 Franca Villa, Don Antonio Toledo, and Don Juan Manrique 
 de Lara. The " two columns," said Suriano, " which sustain 
 this great machine, are Ruy Gomez and Alva, and from their 
 councils depends the government of half the world." 3 The 
 two were ever bitterly opposed to each other. Incessant were 
 their bickerings, intense their mutual hate, desperate and diffi- 
 cult the situation of any man, whether foreigner or native, who 
 had to transact business with the government. If he had se- 
 cured the favour of Gomez, he had already earned the enmity 
 of Alva. Was he protected by the Duke, he was sure to be cast 
 into outer darkness by the favourite. 3 Alva represented the 
 war party, Ruy Gomez the pacific policy more congenial to the 
 heart of Philip. The Bishop of Arras, who, in the opinion of 
 the envoys, was worth them all for his capacity and his expe- 
 rience, was then entirely in the background, rarely entering 
 the council except when summoned to give advice in affairs of 
 extraordinary delicacy or gravity. 4 He was, however, to re- 
 appear most signally in course of the events already preparing. 
 The Duke of Alva, also to play so tremendous a part in the yet 
 unborn history of the Netherlands, was not beloved by Philip. 9 
 He was eclipsed at this period by the superior influence of the 
 favourite ; and his sword, moreover, became necessary in the 
 
 1 Suriano MS. 
 
 a " Queste sono le colonne con 
 
 che si sustenta questa gran' macchina, 
 et dal consiglio di quesfco dipende il 
 goyerno di mezzo 1'mondo," etc. 
 Suriano MS. 
 
 8 Suriano MS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 * "Ma non val tanto alcun degli 
 attri ne tutti insieme quanto Monr. 
 d'Arras solo." Suriano MS. 
 
 5 Suriano MS. Badovaro MS. 
 " II re intrinsecamente non amaya il 
 Duca." Badoyaro.
 
 116 
 
 THE BISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 Italian campaign which was impending. It is remarkable that 
 it was a common opinion, even at that day, that the Duke was 
 naturally hesitating and timid. 1 One would have thought that 
 his previous victories might have earned for him the reputation 
 for courage and skill which he most unquestionably deserved. 
 The future was to develop those other characteristics whicl 
 were to make his name the terror and wonder of the world. 
 
 The favourite, Ruy Gomez da Silva, Count de Melito, was 
 the man upon whose shoulders the great burthen of the state 
 reposed. He was of a family which was originally Portu- 
 guese. He had been brought up with the King, although 
 some eight years his senior, and their friendship dated from 
 earliest youth. It was said that Ruy Gomez, when a boy, had 
 been condemned to death for having struck Philip, who had 
 come between him and another page with whom he was quar- 
 relling. 2 The Prince threw himself passionately at his father's 
 feet and implored forgiveness in behalf of the culprit, with such 
 energy that the Emperor was graciously pleased to spare the 
 life of the future prime minister. 3 The incident was said to 
 have laid the foundation of the remarkable affection which was 
 supposed to exist between the two, to an extent never witnessed 
 before between king and subject. Ruy Gomez was famous for 
 his tact and complacency, and omitted no opportunity of ce- 
 menting the friendship thus auspiciously commenced. He was 
 said to have particularly charmed his master, upon one occasion, 
 by hypocritically throwing up his cards at a game of hazard 
 played for a large stake, and permitting him to win the game 
 with a far inferior hand. 4 The King, learning afterwards the 
 true state of the case, was charmed by the grace and self- 
 denial manifested by the young nobleman. The complacency 
 which the favourite subsequently exhibited in regard to the 
 connection which existed so long and so publicly between his 
 
 1 "Nella guerra," Bays Badovaro, 
 * mo-tra timiditaetpoca intelligenza," 
 
 "e di puochissimo cuore." MS. 
 
 * troppo reservato et cauto et 
 
 quasi timido nell imprese," says 
 Suriano, MS. 
 
 2 Badovaro MS. 3 Ibid. 
 
 * Brantome; art. Philippe II.
 
 1555.] BUY GOMEZ. 147 
 
 wife, the celebrated Princess Eboli, and Philip, placed his power 
 upon an impregnable basis, and secured it till his death. 
 
 At the present moment he occupied the three posts of valet, 
 state councillor, and finance minister. 1 He dressed and un- 
 dressed his master, read or talked him to sleep, called him in 
 the morning, admitted those who were to have private audiences 
 and superintended all the arrangements of the household. 2 
 The rest of the day was devoted to the enormous correspondence 
 and affairs of administration, which devolved upon him as first 
 minister of state and treasury. He was very ignorant. He 
 had no experience or acquirement in the arts either of war or 
 peace, and his early education had been limited. 3 Like his 
 master, he spoke no tongue but Spanish, and he had no litera- 
 ture. He had prepossessing manners, a fluent tongue, a win- 
 ning and benevolent disposition. His natural capacity for 
 affairs was considerable, and his tact was so perfect that he 
 could converse face to face with statesmen, doctors, and 
 generals, upon campaigns, theology, or jurisprudence, without 
 betraying any remarkable deficiency. He was very indus- 
 trious, endeavouring to make up by hard study for his lack of 
 general knowledge, and to sustain with credit the burthen of 
 his daily functions. At the same time, by the King's desire, 
 he appeared constantly at the frequent banquets, masquerades, 
 tourneys and festivities, for which Brussels at that epoch was 
 remarkable. It was no wonder that his cheek was pale, and 
 that he seemed dying of overwork. He discharged his duties 
 cheerfully, however, for in the service of Philip he knew no 
 rest. " After God," said Badovaro, " he knows no object 
 save the felicity of his master." * He was already, as a 
 matter of course, very rich, having been endowed by Philip 
 with property to the amount of twenty-six thousand dollars 
 yearly, and the tide of his fortunes was still at the flood. 6 
 
 1 " Ha tre caricbi del somig- 
 
 liar cli corpo, del consiglier di stato et 
 di contatore maggiore." Badovaro 
 
 MS. 
 
 " Ha cura di vestire e spoliaro sua 
 II di dorinir nella sua camera, di 
 
 sopravedere alle cose di camera et 
 introduttione delle persone," etc. 
 Badovaro MS. 3 Badovaro MS. 
 
 * " Perche dopo Iddio non ha altro 
 oggettoche la felicita sua." 
 
 Badovaro MS. Soriano MS*
 
 J43 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 Such were the two men, the master and the favourite, to 
 whose hands the destinies of the Netherlands were now 
 entrusted. 
 
 The Queen of Hungary had resigned the office of Regent of 
 the Netherlands, as has been seen, on the occasion of the Em- 
 peror's abdication. She was a woman of masculine character, 
 a great huntress before the Lord, a celebrated horsewoman, a 
 worthy descendant of the Lady Mary of Burgundy. Notwith- 
 standing all the fine phrases exchanged between herself and 
 the eloquent Maas, at the great ceremony of the 25th of 
 October, she was, in reality, much detested in the provinces, 1 
 and she repaid their aversion with abhorrence. i( I could not 
 live among these people," she wrote to the Emperor, but a few 
 weeks before the abdication, " even as a private person, for it 
 would be impossible for me to do my duty towards God and 
 my Prince. As to governing them, I take God to witness that 
 the task is so abhorrent to me, that I would rather earn my 
 daily bread by labour than attempt it." a She added, that a 
 woman of fifty years of age, who had served during twenty- 
 five of them, had a right to repose, and that she was more- 
 over " too old to recommence and learn her A. B. C." 3 The 
 Emperor, who had always respected her for the fidelity with 
 which she had carried out his designs, knew that it was hope- 
 less to oppose her retreat. As for Philip, he hated his aunt, 
 .and she hated him, 4 although, both at the epoch of the 
 abdication and subsequently, he was desirous that she should 
 .administer the government. 5 
 
 The new Regent was to be the Duke of Savoy. This wander- 
 ing and adventurous potentate had attached himself to Philip's 
 fortunes, and had been received by the King with as much 
 
 1 "Regina Maria donna di Va- 
 lore ma e odiata da popoli." Ba- 
 dovaro MS. 
 
 a Papiers d'Etat du Cardinal Qran- 
 yelle, iy. 476. "Et peus affirmer a 
 V. M. et prendre Dieu en temoing 
 que lea gouveruer m'est tant abor- 
 
 rible que j'aymerois mieui gaigner ma 
 vie que de in'y mectre." 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 4 " Et il Re di Spagna odia lei, et 
 leilui." Badoyaro MS. 
 
 5 Gachard. Retraite et Mort, etc., 
 i., iL, zli., 341, 357, 417.
 
 1555.] 
 
 PHILIBEET OF SAVOY. 
 
 149 
 
 favour as he had ever enjoyed at the hands of the Emperor. 
 Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, then about twenty-six or seven 
 years of age, was the son of the late unfortunate Duke, by Donna 
 Beatrice of Portugal, sister of the Empress. He was the nephew 
 of Charles, and first cousin to Philip. The partiality of the 
 Emperor for his mother was well known, but the fidelity with 
 which the family had followed the Imperial cause had been pro- 
 ductive of nothing but disaster to the duke. He had been 
 ruined in fortune, stripped of all his dignities and possessions. 
 His son's only inheritance was his sword. The young Prince 
 of Piedmont, as he was commonly called in his youth, sought 
 the camp of the Emperor, and was received with distinguished 
 favour. He rose rapidly in the military service. Acting always 
 upon his favourite motto, " Spoliatis arma supersunt," he had 
 determined, if possible, to carve his way to glory, to wealth, and 
 even to his hereditary estates, by his sword alone. 1 War was 
 not only his passion, but his trade. Every one of his cam- 
 paigns was a speculation, and he had long derived a satisfactory 
 income by purchasing distinguished prisoners of war at a low 
 price from the soldiers who had captured them, and were igno- 
 rant of their rank, and by ransoming them afterwards at an 
 immense advance. 2 This sort of traffic in men was frequent in 
 that age, and was considered perfectly honourable. Marshal 
 Strozzi, Count Mansfeld, and other professional soldiers, derived 
 their main income from the system. 8 They were naturally in- 
 clined, therefore, to look impatiently upon a state of peace as 
 an unnatural condition of affairs which cut off all the profits of 
 their particular branch of industry, and condemned them to 
 both idleness and poverty. The Duke of Savoy had become 
 one of the most experienced and successful commanders of the 
 age, and an especial favourite with the Emperor. He had 
 served with Alva in the campaigns against the Protestants of 
 Germany, and in other important fields. War being his ele- 
 ment, he considered peace as undesirable, although he could 
 
 Brantome. 
 Ibid. 
 
 CEuvres, i. 351, sqq. 
 
 sqq. 
 
 De Thou, iii., liy. xii. 162,
 
 150 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1555. 
 
 recognise its existence. A truce he held, however, to be a 
 senseless paradox, unworthy of the slightest regard. An armis- 
 tice, such as was concluded on the February following the 
 abdication, was, in his opinion, only to be turned to account 
 by dealing insidious and unsuspecting blows at the enemy, some 
 portion of whose population might repose confidence in the 
 plighted faith of monarchs and plenipotentiaries. He had a show 
 of reason for his political and military morality, for he only 
 chose to execute the evil which had been practised upon him- 
 self. His father had been beggared, his mother had died of 
 spite and despair, he himself had been reduced from the rank 
 of a sovereign to that of a mercenary soldier, by spoliations 
 made in time of truce. He was reputed a man of very decided 
 abilities, and was distinguished for headlong bravery. His 
 rashness and personal daring were thought the only drawbacks 
 to his high character as a commander. He had many accom- 
 plishments. He spoke Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian 
 with equal fluency, was celebrated for his attachment to the 
 fine arts, and wrote much and with great elegance. 1 Such 
 had been Philibert of Savoy, the pauper nephew of the 
 powerful Emperor, the adventurous and vagrant cousin of the 
 lofty Philip, a prince without a people, a duke without a 
 dukedom ; with no hope but in warfare, with no revenue but 
 rapine ; the image, in person, of a bold and manly soldier, 
 small, but graceful and athletic, martial in bearing, "wearing 
 his sword under his arm like a corporal," 2 because an internal 
 malady made a belt inconvenient, and ready to turn to swift 
 account every chance which a new series of campaigns might 
 open to him. With his new salary as governor, his pensions, 
 and the remains of his possessions in Nice and Piedmont, he 
 had now the splendid annual income of one hundred thousand 
 crowns, and was sure to spend it all. 3 
 
 It had been the desire of Charles to smooth the commence- 
 
 1 " Paris poco, dice corse buone 
 et e accorte et eagace molto, tiene 
 chiusi i euoi pensieri et ha fama di 
 
 tener cosi quei che li sono detti seg- 
 retanente." Badovaro MS. 
 
 2 Brantome.i.358. 3 Badovaro MS.
 
 1.650.] TEUCE OF VAUCELLES. 151 
 
 ment of Philip's path. He had for this purpose made a vigor- 
 ous effort to undo, as it were, the whole work of his reign, to 
 suspend the operation of his whole political system. The 
 Emperor and conqueror, who had been warring all his lifetime, 
 had attempted, as the last act of his reign, to improvise a peace. 
 But it was not so easy to arrange a pacification of Europe as 
 dramatically as he desired, in order that he might gather his 
 robes about him, and allow the curtain to fall upon his eventful 
 history, in a grand hush of decorum and quiet. During the 
 autumn and winter of 1555, hostilities had been virtually sus- 
 pended, and languid negotiations ensued. For several months 
 armies confronted each other without engaging, and diploma- 
 tists fenced among themselves without any palpable result. At 
 last the peace commissioners, who had been assembled at Vau- 
 celles since the beginning of the year 1556, signed a treaty of 
 truce rather than of peace, upon the 5th of February. 1 It was 
 to be an armistice of five years, both by land and sea, for 
 France, Spain, Flanders, and Italy, throughout all the do- 
 minions of the French and Spanish monarchs. The Pope was 
 expressly included in the truce, which was signed on the part of 
 France by Admiral Coligny and Sebastian 1'Aubespine; on that 
 of Spain, by Count de Lalain, Philibert de Bruxelles, Simon 
 Renard, and Jean Baptiste Sciceio, a jurisconsult of Cremona. 
 During the previous month of December, however, the Pope 
 had concluded with the French monarch a treaty, by which 
 this solemn armistice was rendered an egregious farce. While 
 Henry's plenipotentiaries had been plighting their faith to those 
 of Philip, it had been arranged that France should sustain, by 
 subsidies and armies, the scheme upon which Paul was bent to 
 drive the Spaniards entirely out of the Italian peninsula. 2 The 
 king was to aid the pontiff, and, in return, was to carve thrones 
 for his own younger children out of the confiscated realms of 
 Philip. When was France ever slow to sweep upon Italy with 
 such a hope ? How could the ever-glowing rivalry of Valois 
 
 1 "De Thou, iii. 14, sqq. Meteren, I 8 De Thou, iii. ivii. Meteren, i. 
 i- 17. 1 17, sqq.
 
 152 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [156G. 
 
 and Habsburg fail to burst into a general conflagration, while 
 the venerable vicegerent of Christ stood thus beside them with 
 his fan in his hand ? 
 
 For a brief breathing space, however, the news of the paci- 
 fication occasioned much joy in the provinces. They rejoiced 
 even in a temporary cessation of that long series of campaigns 
 from which they could certainly derive no advantage, and in 
 which their part was to furnish money, soldiers, and battle- 
 fields, without prospect of benefit from any victory, however 
 brilliant, or any treaty, however elaborate. Manufacturing, 
 agricultural, and commercial provinces, filled to the full with in- 
 dustrial life, could not but be injured by being converted into 
 perpetual camps. All was joy in the Netherlands, while at 
 Antwerp, the great commercial metropolis of the provinces and 
 of Europe, the rapture was unbounded. Oxen were roasted 
 whole in the public squares ; the streets, soon to be empurpled 
 with the best blood of her citizens, ran red with wine ; a hun- 
 dred triumphal arches adorned the pathway of Philip as he 
 came thither ; and a profusion of flowers, although it was 
 February, were strewn before his feet. 1 Such was his greeting 
 in the light-hearted city, but the countenance was more than 
 usually sullen with which the sovereign received these demon- 
 strations of pleasure. It was thought by many that Philip had 
 been really disappointed in the conclusion of the armistice, that 
 he was inspired with a spark of that martial ambition for which 
 his panegyrists gave him credit, and that, knowing full well the 
 improbability of a long suspension of hostilities, he was even 
 eager for the chance of conquest which their resumption would 
 aSbrd him. The secret treaty of the Pope was, of course, not 
 so secret but that the hollow intentions of the contracting 
 parties to the truce of Vaucelles were thoroughly suspected; in- 
 tentions which certainly went far to justify the maxims and the 
 practice of the new governor-general of the Netherlands upon 
 the subjects of armistices. Philip, understanding his position, 
 was revolving renewed military projects while his subjects were 
 
 1 Metcren, i. 17, eqcj.
 
 155G.J ULTERIOR PURPOSES. 153 
 
 ringing merry bells and lighting bonfires in the Netherlands. 
 These schemes, which were to be carried out in the immediate 
 future, caused, however, a temporary delay in the great pur- 
 pose to which he was to devote his life. 
 
 The Emperor had always desired to regard the Netherlands 
 as a whole, and he hated the antiquated charters and obstinate 
 privileges which interfered with his ideas of symmetry. Two 
 great machines, the Court of Mechlin and the Inquisition, 
 would effectually simplify and assimilate all these irregular and 
 heterogeneous rights. The civil tribunal was to annihilate 
 all diversities in their laws by a general cassation of all their 
 constitutions, and the ecclesiastical court was to burn out all 
 differences in their religious faith. Between two such mill- 
 stones it was thought that the Netherlands might be crushed 
 into uniformity. Philip succeeded to these traditions. The 
 father had never sufficient leisure to carry out all his schemes, 
 but it seemed probable that the son would be a worthy suc- 
 cessor, at least in all which concerned the religious part of his 
 system. One of the earliest measures of his reign was to re- 
 enact the dread edict of J550. This he did by the express 
 advice of the Bishop of Arras, who represented to him the 
 expediency of making use of the popularity of his father's name 
 to sustain the horrible system resolved upon. 1 As Charles was 
 the author of the edict, it could be always argued that nothing 
 new was introduced ; that burning, hanging, and drowning 
 for religious differences constituted a part of the national 
 institutions ; that they had received the sanction of the wise 
 Emperor, and had been sustained by the sagacity of past gene- 
 rations. Nothing could have been more subtle, as the event 
 proved, than this advice. Innumerable were the appeals made 
 in subsequent years upon this subject, to the patriotism and 
 the conservative sentiments of the Netherlanders. Repeatedly 
 they were summoned tomaintainthe Inquisition, on the ground 
 that it had been submitted to by their ancestors, and that no 
 change had been made by Philip, who desired only to maintain 
 1 Papiers d'Etat du Card. Granvelle, ii. 473, 479.
 
 154 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1555. 
 
 church and crown in the authority which they had enjoyed in 
 the days of his father " of very laudable memory." 
 
 Nevertheless, the King's military plans seemed to interfere 
 for the moment with this cherished object. He seemed to 
 swerve, at starting, from pursuing the goal which he was only 
 to abandon with life. The edict of 1550 was re-enacted and 
 confirmed, and all office-holders were commanded faithfully to 
 enforce it upon pain of immediate dismissal. 1 Nevertheless, 
 it was not vigorously carried into effect anywhere. It was 
 openly resisted in Holland, its proclamation was flatly refused 
 in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. 2 It was 
 strange that such disobedience should be tolerated, but the 
 King wanted money. He was willing to refrain for a season 
 from exasperating the provinces by fresli religious persecution 
 at the moment when he was endeavouring to extort every 
 penny which it was possible to wring from their purses. 3 
 
 The joy, therefore, with which the pacification had been 
 hailed by the people was far from an agreeable spectacle to the 
 King. The provinces would expect that the forces which had 
 been maintained at their expense during the war would be dis- 
 banded, whereas he had no intention of disbanding them. As 
 the truce was sure to be temporary, he had no disposition to 
 diminish his available resources for a war which might be 
 renewed at any moment. To maintain the existing military 
 establishment in the Netherlands, a large sum of money was 
 required, for the pay was very much in arrear. The King had 
 made a statement to the provincial estates upon the subject, 
 but the matter was kept secret during the negotiations with 
 France. The way had thus been paved for the " Request" or 
 " Bede," which he now made to the estates assembled at Brus- 
 sels, in the spring of 1556. It was to consist of a tax of one 
 per cent, (the hundredth penny) upon all real estate, and of two 
 per cent, upon all merchandise ; to be collected in three payments. 
 The request, in so far as the imposition of the proposed tax was 
 concerned, was refused by Flanders, Brabant, Holland, and all 
 
 1 Eor, i. 12. a Ibid., i. 16. 3 Ibid., i. 15, sqq.
 
 1556.] PAUL IV. 155 
 
 the other important provinces ; but, as usual, a moderate, even 
 a generous, commutation in money was offered by the estates. 
 This was finally accepted by Philip, after he had become con- 
 vinced that at this moment, when he was contemplating a 
 war with France, it would be extremely impolitic to insist 
 upon the tax. The publication of the truce in Italy had been 
 long delayed, and the first infractions which it suffered were 
 committed in that country. The arts of politicians, the 
 schemes of individual ambition, united with the short-lived 
 military ardour of Philip, placed that monarch in an eminently 
 false position, that of hostility to the Pope. As was unavoid- 
 able, the secret treaty of December acted as an immediate 
 dissolvent to the truce of February. 
 
 Great was the indignation of Paul Caraffa, when that truce 
 was first communicated to him by the Cardinal de Tournon, on 
 the part of the French Government. 1 Notwithstanding the 
 protestations of France that the secret league was still bind- 
 ing, the pontiff complained that he was likely to be abandoned 
 to his own resources, and to be left single-handed to contend 
 with the vast power of Spain. 
 
 Pope Paul IV., of the house of Caraffa, was, in position, 
 the well-known counterpart of the Emperor Charles. At the 
 very moment when the conqueror and autocrat was exchanging 
 crown for cowl, and the proudest throne of the universe for a 
 cell, this aged monk, as Aveary of scientific and religious seclu- 
 sion as Charles of pomp and power, had abdicated his scholastic 
 pre-eminence, and exchanged his rosary for the keys and sword. 
 A pontifical Faustus, he had become disgusted with the results 
 of a life of study and abnegation, and immediately upon his 
 election appeared to be glowing with mundane passions, and 
 inspired by the fiercest ambition of a warrior. He had rushed 
 from the cloister as eagerly as Charles had sought it. He panted 
 for the tempests of the great external world as earnestly as the 
 conqueror who had so long ridden upon the whirlwind of human 
 affairs sighed for a haven of repose. 2 None of his predecessors 
 
 1 De Thou, iii. 16, Inr. ivii. I 2 " Qu'alors et en ce memo temps il 
 Ueteren. Bor. | ee fit d'estranges metamorphoses plus
 
 150 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1556. 
 
 had been more despotic, more belligerent, more disposed to 
 elevate and strengthen the temporal power of Rome. In the 
 Inquisition he saw the grand machine by which this purpose 
 could be accomplished, 1 and yet found himself for a period the 
 antagonist of Philip ! The single circumstance would have 
 been sufficient, had other proofs been wanting, to make manifest 
 that the part which he had chosen to play was above his genius. 
 Had his capacity been at all commensurate with his ambition, ho 
 might have deeply influenced the fate of the world ; but fortu- 
 nately no wizard's charm came to the aid of Paul Caraffa, and 
 the triple-crowned monk sat upon the pontifical throne, a fierce, 
 peevish, querulous, and quarrelsome dotard ; the prey and the 
 tool of his vigorous enemies and his intriguing relations. His 
 hatred of Spain and Spaniards was unbounded. He raved at 
 them as "heretics, schismatics, accursed of God, the spawn of 
 Jews and Moors, the very dregs of the earth." 2 To play upon 
 such insane passions was not difficult, and a skilful artist stood 
 ever ready to strike the chords thus vibrating with age and 
 fury. The master-spirit and principal mischief-maker of the 
 papal court was the well-known Cardinal Caraffa, once a wild 
 and dissolute soldier, nephew to the Pope. He inflamed the 
 anger of the pontiff by his representations that the rival Louse 
 of Colonna, sustained by the Duke of Alva, now viceroy of 
 Naples, and by the whole Spanish power, thus relieved from 
 the fear of French hostilities, would be free to wreak its ven- 
 geance upon their family. 3 It was determined that the court of 
 France should be held by the secret league. Moreover, the 
 Pope had been expressly included in the treaty of Vaucelles, 
 although the troops of Spain had already assumed a hostile at- 
 titude in the south of Italy. The Cardinal was for immediately 
 
 qu'il re s'en soit dans celles d'Ovide. 
 Que le plus grand mondain et 
 ambitious guerrier se youa et se rend it 
 religieux et le Pape Paul IV. Caraffe, 
 qui avoit este le plus austere theatin, 
 devot et religieux, se rendit ambitieux 
 mondain tt guerrier." Brantorne: art. 
 Charles Quint, 
 
 1 DeThou,iii. 19. 
 
 2 " Heretici, scismatici, et mala- 
 detti di Dio, seme de Giudei et de 
 Marrani feccia del mondo." Navi- 
 gero, Relazione, MS. Bib. de Bourg, 
 No. 6079. 
 
 3 De Thou, iii. 1C, sqq.
 
 1550.] INTEIGUES OF CARAFFA. 157 
 
 proceeding to Paris, there to excite the sympathy of the French 
 monarch for the situation of himself and his uncle. An imme- 
 diate rupture between France and Spain, a rekindling of the 
 war flames from one end of Europe to the other, were necessary 
 to save the credit and the interest of the Caraffas. Cardinal 
 de Tournon, not desirous of so sudden a termination to the 
 pacific relations between his country and Spain, succeeded in 
 detaining him a little longer in Rome. 1 He remained, but not 
 in idleness. The restless intriguer had already formed close 
 relations with the most important personage in France, Diana 
 of Poitiers. 2 This venerable courtesan, to the enjoyment of 
 whose charms Henry had succeeded, with the other regal 
 possessions, on the death of his father, was won by the flat- 
 teries of the wily Caraffa, and by the assiduities of the Guise 
 family. The best and most sagacious statesmen, the Constable 
 and the Admiral, were in favour of peace, for they knew the 
 condition of the kingdom. The Duke of Guise and the Car- 
 dinal Lorraine were for a rupture, for they hoped to increase 
 their family influence by war. Coligny had signed the treaty 
 of Vaucelles, and wished to maintain it, but the influence of 
 the Catholic party was in the ascendant. The result was to 
 embroil the Catholic King against the Pope and against 
 themselves. The Queen was as favourably inclined as the mis- 
 tress to listen to Caraffa, for Catherine de Medici was desirous 
 that her cousin, Marshal Strozzi, should have honourable and 
 profitable employment in some fresh Italian campaigns. 
 
 In the meantime an accident favoured the designs of tho 
 papal court. An open quarrel with Spain resulted from an 
 insignificant circumstance. The Spanish ambassador at Rome 
 was in the habit of leaving the city very often, at an early hour 
 in the morning, upon shooting excursions, and had long enjoyed 
 the privilege of ordering the gates to be opened for him at his 
 pleasure. By accident or design, he was refused permission 
 upon one occasion to pass through the gate as usual. Unwilling 
 to lose his day's sport, and enraged at what he considered an 
 1 De Thou, iii. 19, eqq. a Ibid., ubi sup.
 
 158 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPTJBLIC. [155G. 
 
 indignity, his excellency, by the aid of his attendants, attacked 
 and beat the guard, mastered them, made his way out of the 
 city, and pursued his morning's amusement. 1 The Pope was 
 furious, and Caraffa artfully inflamed his anger. The envoy 
 was refused an audience, which he desired for the sake of 
 offering explanations, and the train being thus laid, it was 
 thought that the right moment had arrived for applying the 
 firebrand. The Cardinal went to Paris post haste. In his 
 audience of the King, he represented that his Holiness had 
 placed implicit reliance upon his secret treaty with his majesty, 
 that the recently-concluded truce with Spain left the pontiff at 
 the mercy of the Spaniard, that the Duke of Alva had already 
 drawn the sword, that the Pope had long since done himself 
 the pleasure and the honour of appointing the French monarch 
 protector of the papal chair in general, and of the Caraffa 
 family in particular, and that the moment had arrived for 
 claiming the benefit of that protection. He assured him, more- 
 over, as by full papal authority, that in respecting the recent 
 truce with Spain, his majesty would violate both human and 
 divine law. Reason and justice required him to defend the 
 pontiff, now that the Spaniards were about to profit by the 
 interval of truce to take measures for his detriment. More- 
 over, as the Pope was included in the truce of Vaucelles, he 
 could not be abandoned without a violation of that treaty 
 itself. 8 The arts and arguments of the Cardinal proved suc- 
 cessful ; the war was resolved upon in favour of the Pope. 3 The 
 Cardinal, by virtue of powers received and brought with him 
 from his Holiness, absolved the King from all obligation to 
 keep his faith with Spain. He also gave him a dispensation from 
 the duty of prefacing hostilities by a declaration of war. Strozzi 
 was sent at once into Italy, with some hastily-collected troops, 
 while the Duke of Guise waited to organise a regular army. 
 
 The mischief being thus fairly afoot, and war let loose again 
 upon Europe, the Cardinal made a public entry into Paris, as 
 
 1 Do Thou, iii., liy. xvii. 19, eqq. [ * Ibid. Bor, i. 15. 
 Ibid., iii. 23-29.
 
 1556.] CAEAFFA IN PARIS. 159 
 
 legate of the Pope. The populace crowded about his mule, as 
 he rode at the head of a stately procession through the streets. 
 All were anxious to receive a benediction from the holy man 
 who had come so far to represent the successor of St. Peter, and 
 to enlist the efforts of all true believers in his cause. He ap- 
 peared to answer the entreaties of the superstitious rabble with 
 fervent blessin gs, while the friends who were nearest him were 
 
 & * 
 
 aware that nothing but gibes and sarcasms were falling from 
 his lips. " Let us fool these poor creatures to their hearts' con- 
 tent, since they will be fools," he muttered, smiling the while 
 upon them benignantly, as became his holy office. 1 Such were 
 the materials of this new combination ; such was the fueKvith 
 which this new blaze was lighted and maintained. Thus were 
 the great powers of the earth Spain, France, England, and 
 the Papacy embroiled, and the nations embattled against each 
 other for several years. The preceding pages show how much 
 national interests, or principles, were concerned in the struggle 
 thus commenced, in which thousands were to shed their life- 
 blond, and millions to be reduced from peace and comfort to 
 suffer all the misery which famine and rapine can inflict. It 
 would no doubt have increased the hilarity of Caraffa, as he 
 made his triumphal entry into Paris, could the idea have been 
 suggested to his mind that the sentiments, or the welfare of the 
 people throughout the great states now involved in his meshes, 
 could have any possible bearing upon the question of peace or 
 war. The world was governed by other influences. The wiles 
 of a cardinal the arts of a concubine the snipe-shooting of 
 an ambassador the speculations of a soldier of fortune the 
 ill-temper of a monk the mutual venom of Italian houses 
 above all, the perpetual rivalry of the two great historical 
 families who owned the greater part of Europe between them 
 as their private property such were the wheels on which rolled 
 the destiny of Christendom. Compared to these, what were 
 great moral and political ideas, the plans of statesmen, the 
 hopes of nations? Time was soon to show. Meanwhile, 
 1 De Tkou, iii. 29, xvii.
 
 160 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 1.1556. 
 
 government continued to be administered exclusively for the 
 benefit of the governors. Meanwhile, a petty war for paltry 
 motives was to precede the great spectacle which was to prove 
 to Europe that principles and peoples still existed, and that a 
 phlegmatic nation of merchants and manufacturers could defy 
 the powers of the universe, and risk all their blood and trea- 
 sure, generation after generation, in a sacred cause. 
 
 It does not belong to my purpose to narrate the details of 
 the campaign in Italy ; neither is this war of politics and 
 chicane of any great interest at the present day. To the 
 military minds of their age, the scientific duel which now took 
 place upon a large scale, between two such celebrated captains 
 as the Dukes of Guise and Alva, was no doubt esteemed the 
 most important of spectacles ; but the progress of mankind in 
 the art of slaughter has stripped so antiquated an exhibition 
 of most of its interest, even in a technical point of view. Not 
 much satisfaction could be derived from watching an old- 
 fashioned game of war, in which the parties sat down before 
 each other so tranquilly, and picked up piece after piece, castle 
 after castle, city after city, with such scientific deliberation as 
 to make it evident that, in the opinion of the commanders, war 
 was the only serious business to be done in the world ; that it 
 was not to be done in a hurry, nor contrary to rule ; and that 
 when a general had a good job under his hands, he ought to 
 know his profession much too thoroughly to hasten through it 
 before he saw his way clear to another. From the point of 
 time, at the close of the year 1556, when that well trained, but 
 not very successful soldier, Strozzi, crossed the Alps, down to 
 the autumn of the following year, when the Duke of Alva made 
 his peace with the Pope, there was hardly a pitched battle, and 
 scarcely an event of striking interest. Alva, as usual, brought 
 his dilatory policy to bear upon his adversary with great effect. 
 He had no intention, he observed to a friend, to stake the whole 
 kingdom of Naples against a brocaded coat of the Duke of 
 Guise. 1 Moreover, he had been sent to the war, as Iluy Gomez 
 1 Do la Boca. Eesultas de la Yida del Duque do Alba, p. 66.
 
 T6G.] CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 1G1 
 
 informed the Venetian ambassador, " with a bridle in his 
 mouth." 1 Philip, sorely troubled in his mind at finding him- 
 self in so strange a position as this hostile attitude to the 
 Church, had earnestly interrogated all the doctors and theolo- 
 gians with whom he habitually took counsel, whether this war 
 with the Pope would not work a forfeiture of his title of the 
 Most Catholic King. 3 The Bishop of Arras and the favourite 
 both disapproved of the war, and encouraged with all their in- 
 fluence the pacific inclinations of the monarch. 3 The doctors 
 were, to be sure, of opinion that Philip, having acted in Italy 
 only in self-defence, and for the protection of his estate, ought 
 not to be anxious as to his continued right to the title on which 
 he valued himself so highly. 4 Nevertheless, such ponderings 
 and misgivings could not but have the effect of hampering the 
 actions of Alva. That general chafed inwardly at what he con- 
 sidered his own contemptible position. At the same time, he 
 enraged the Duke of Guise still more deeply by the forced 
 calmness of his proceedings. Fortresses were reduced, towns 
 taken, one after another, with the most provoking deliberation, 
 while his distracted adversary in vain strove to defy or to 
 delude him into trying the chances of a stricken field. 5 The 
 battle of Saint Quentin, the narrative of which belongs to our 
 subject, and will soon occupy our attention, at last decided the 
 Italian operations. Egmont's brilliant triumph in Picardy ren- 
 dered a victory in Italy superfluous, and placed in Alva's hand 
 the power of commanding the issue of his own campaign. 9 
 The Duke of Guise was recalled to defend the French frontier, 
 which the bravery of the Flemish hero had imperilled, and the 
 Pope was left to make the best peace which he could. All was 
 
 1 " Et come mi disse il Sz. Ruy 
 
 Gomez non si manchera a tal fine di 
 itsare supplication! humili a S. Santita, 
 mendandogli il Duca d'Alva colla 
 coreggia al collo per pacificarla." 
 Badovaro MS. 
 
 a Michele. Eelatione MS. 
 
 3 Badovaro MS. " Non f u 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
 d'opinione che si comincia la guerra 
 col pontefice," etc., etc. 
 
 Compare Suriana MS. " Non 
 
 fu mai d'opinione che si movesse la- 
 guerra con il pap* per non metier in 
 pericolo le cose d'ltalia," etc. 
 
 4 Michele MS. 
 
 6 De Thou, iii. 19, lif. xviii. 
 
 Ibid., iu. 125.
 
 162 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1557 
 
 now prosperous and smiling, and the campaign closed with a 
 highly original and entertaining exhibition. The pontiff's 
 puerile ambition, sustained by the intrigues of his nephew, 
 had involved the French monarch in a war which was contrary 
 to his interests and inclination. Paul now found his ally too 
 sorely beset to afford him that protection upon which he had 
 relied, when he commenced, in his dotage, his career as a war- 
 He was, therefore, only desirous of deserting his friend^ 
 
 nor. 
 
 and of relieving himself from his uncomfortable predicament, 
 by making a treaty with his Catholic Majesty upon the best 
 terms which he could obtain. The King of France, who had 
 gone to war only for the sake of his Holiness, was to be left to 
 fight his own battles, while the Pope was to make his peace 
 with all the world. The result was a desirable one for Philip. 
 Alva was accordingly instructed to afford the holy father a 
 decorous and appropriate opportunity for carrying out his 
 wishes. The victorious general was apprized that his master 
 desired no fruit from his commanding attitude in Italy and the 
 victory of Saint Quentin, save a full pardon from the Pope for 
 maintaining even a defensive war against him. 1 An amicable 
 siege of Rome was accordingly commenced, in the course of 
 which an assault or <l camiciata" on the holy city was arranged 
 for the night of the 26th August 1557. The pontiff agreed to- 
 be taken by surprise, while Alva, through what was to appear 
 only a superabundance of his habitual discretion was to draw- 
 off his troops at the very moment when the victorious assault 
 was to be made. 2 The eminent danger to the holy city, and 
 to his own sacred person thus furnishing the pontiff with an ex- 
 cuse for abandoning his own cause, as well as that of his ally, 
 the Duke of Alva was allowed in the name of his master and 
 himself, to make submission to the Church and his peace with 
 Home. 3 The Spanish general, with secret indignation and dis- 
 
 1 De la Eoca. Kesultas de la Vida, 
 etc., p. 68. 
 
 2 De Thou, iii. 127-129, xriii. 
 Cabrera, lib. IT., o. ad. 160-168. 
 
 Compare Llorente, Hist. Critique de 
 1'Tnquisit., ii. 179-183 ; De la Koca, 
 68-72. 
 
 8 De Thou. Cabrera, ubi sup.
 
 1557.] PEACE WITH THE POPE. 163 
 
 gust, was compelled to humour the vanity of a peevish but 
 imperious old man. Negociations were commenced, and so 
 skilfully had the Duke played his game during the spring 
 and summer, that when he was admitted to kiss the Pope's 
 toe, he was able to bring a hundred Italian towns in his hand 
 as a peace-offering to his Holiness. 1 These he now restoret 7 
 with apparent humility and inward curses, upon the condi 
 tion that the fortification should be razed, and the French al - 
 liance absolutely renounced. Thus did the fanaticism of Philip 
 reverse the relative position of himself and his antagonist. 
 Thus was the vanquished pontiff allowed almost to dictate terms 
 to the victorious general. The king who could thus humble 
 himself to a dotard, while he made himself the scourge of his 
 subjects, deserved that the bull of excommunication which 
 had been prepared should be fulminated. He, at least, was 
 capable of feeling the scathing effects of such anathemas. 
 
 The Duke of Guise, having been dismissed with the pontiffs 
 assurance that he had done little for the interests of his sove- 
 reign, less for the protection of the Church, and least of all for 
 his own reputation, set forth with all speed for Civita Vecchia, 
 to do what he could upon the Flemish frontier to atone for his 
 inglorious campaign in Italy. The treaty between the Pope 
 and the Duke of Alva was signed 2 on the 14th September 
 (1557), and the Spanish general retired for the winter to 
 Milan. Cardinal Caraffa was removed from the French court 
 to that of Madrid, there to spin new schemes for the embroil- 
 ment of nations and the advancement of his own family. Very 
 little glory was gained by any of the combatants in this cam- 
 paign. Neither Spain, France, nor Paul IV. came out of the Ita- 
 lian contest in better condition than that in which they entered 
 upon it. In fact, each of them was a loser. France had made 
 an inglorious retreat, the Pope a ludicrous capitulation, and the 
 only victorious party, the King of Spain, had, during the sum- 
 mer, conceded to Cosmo de Medici the sovereignty of Sienna. 
 Had Venice shown more cordiality towards Philip, and more 
 1 De Thou, iii. 128. a Ibid.
 
 164 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. [1557 
 
 disposition to sustain his policy, it is probable that the Republic 
 would have secured the prize which thus fell to the share of 
 Cosmo. 1 That astute and unprincipled potentate, who could 
 throw his net so well in troubled water, had successfully duped 
 all parties Spain, France, and Rome. The man who had not 
 only not participated in the contest, but who had kept all par- 
 ties and all warfare away from his borders, was the only indivi- 
 dual in Italy who gained territorial advantage from the war. 
 
 To avoid interrupting the continuity of the narrative, the 
 Spanish campaign has been briefly sketched until the autumn 
 of 1557, at which period the treaty between the Pope and 
 Philip was concluded. It is now necessary to go back to the 
 close of the preceding year. 
 
 Simultaneously with the descent of the French troops 
 upon Italy, hostilities had broken out upon the Flemish bor- 
 der. The pains of the Emperor in covering the smouldering 
 embers of national animosities so precipitately, and with a 
 view rather to scenic effect than to a deliberate and well-con- 
 sidered result, were thus set at nought, and within a year 
 from the day of his abdication, hostilities were reopened from 
 ,the Tiber to the German Ocean. The blame of first violating 
 
 o 
 
 .the truce of Vaucelles was laid by each party upon the other 
 with equal justice, for there can be but little doubt that the 
 reproach justly belonged to both. Both had been equally 
 faithless in their professions of amity. Both were equally 
 responsible for the scenes of war, plunder, and misery, which 
 again were desolating the fairest regions of Christendom. 
 
 At the time when the French Court had resolved to con- 
 cede to the wishes of the CarafFa family, Admiral Coligny, 
 who had been appointed governor of Picardy, had received 
 orders to make a foray upon the frontier of Flanders. 
 Before the formal annunciation of hostilities, it was thought 
 desirable to reap all the advantage possible from the perfidy 
 which had been resolved upon. 
 
 It happened that a certain banker of Lucca, an ancient 
 
 1 Suriano M&
 
 1557.] PROJECTS ON THE FLEMISH BORDER. 165 
 
 gambler and debauchee, whom evil courses had reduced from 
 affluence to penury, had taken up his abode upon a hill over- 
 looking the city of Douay. Here he had built himself a her- 
 mit's cell. Clad in sackcloth, with a rosary at his waist, he 
 was accustomed to beg his bread from door to door. His garb 
 was all, however, which he possessed of sanctity, and he had 
 passed his time in contemplating the weak points in the de- 
 fences of the city with much more minuteness than those in his 
 own heart. Upon the breaking out of hostilities in Italy, the 
 instincts of his old profession had suggested to him that a good 
 speculation might be made in Flanders by turning to account 
 as a spy the observations which he had made in his character 
 of a hermit. 1 He sought an interview with Coligny, and laid 
 his propositions before him. The noble admiral hesitated, for 
 his sentiments were more elevated than those of many of his 
 contemporaries. He had, moreover, himself negotiated and 
 signed the truce with Spain, and he shrank from violating it 
 with his own hand before a declaration of war. Still he was 
 aware that a French army was on its way to attack the 
 Spaniards in Italy ; he was under instructions to take the 
 earliest advantage which his position upon the frontier might 
 offer him ; he knew that both theory and practise authorised a 
 general, in that age, to break his fast, even in time of truce, 
 if a tempting morsel should present itself; 2 and, above all, he 
 thoroughly understood the character of his nearest antagonist, 
 the new governor of the Netherlands, Philibert of Savoy, 
 whom he knew to be the most unscrupulous chieftain in 
 Europe. These considerations decided him to take ad vantage 
 of the hermit banker's communication. 
 
 A day was accordingly fixed, at which, under the guidance 
 of this newly-acquired ally, a surprise should be attempted by 
 the French forces, and the unsuspecting city of Douay given 
 over to the pillage of a brutal soldiery. The time appointed was 
 the night of Epiphany, upon occasion of which festival it was 
 
 1 Brantome ; art. Due de Savoie. I Hoofd. Nederl. Historian (Amster- 
 
 2 Do Thou, iii. 78, liv. xviii. P. G [ dam, 1G42.) i. 7.
 
 166 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1557. 
 
 thought that the inhabitants, overcome with sleep and wassail, 
 might be easily overpowered. (6th January 1557.) The plot 
 was a good plot, but the Admiral of France was destined to be 
 foiled by an old woman. This person, apparently the only 
 creature awake in the town, perceived the danger, ran shriek- 
 ing through the streets, alarmed the citizens while it was yet 
 time, and thus prevented the attack. 1 Coligny, disappointed 
 in his plan, recompensed his soldiers by a sudden onslaught 
 upon Lens in Arthois, which he sacked and then levelled with 
 the ground. Such was the wretched condition of frontier 
 cities, standing, even in time of peace, with the ground 
 undermined beneath them, and existing every moment, as it 
 were, upon the brink of explosion. 3 
 
 Hostilities having been thus commenced, the French govern- 
 ment was in some embarrassment. The Duke of Guise, with 
 the most available forces of the kingdom, having crossed the 
 Alps, it became necessary forthwith to collect another army. 
 The place of rendezvous appointed was Pierrepoint, where an 
 army of eighteen thousand infantry and five thousand horse 
 were assembled early in the Spring. 3 In the meantime Philip, 
 finding the war fairly afoot, had crossed to England for the 
 purpose (exactly in contravention of all his marriage stipula- 
 tions) of cajoling his wife and browbeating her ministers into 
 participation in his war with France. This was easily accom- 
 plished. The English nation found themselves accordingly 
 engaged in a contest with which they had no concern, which, as 
 the event proved, was very much against their interests, and in 
 which the moving cause for their entanglement was the devotion 
 of a weak, bad, ferocious woman, for a husband who hated her. 
 A herald sent from England arrived in France, disguised, and 
 was presented to King Henry at Rheims. Here, dropping on 
 one knee, he recited a list of complaints against his Majesty, on 
 behalf of the English Queen, all of them fabricated or exag- 
 gerated for the occasion, and none of them furnishing even a 
 
 1 De Thou. Hoofd, ubi sup: ! 8 De Thou, iii. 148, lir. rviii. 
 
 a Ibid. Ibid.
 
 1557.] 
 
 DECLARATION OP WAR BY ENGLAND. 
 
 167 
 
 decorous pretext for the war which was now formally declared. 1 
 The French monarch expressed his regret and surprise that the 
 firm and amicable relations secured by treaty between the two 
 countries should thus, without sufficient cause, be violated. In 
 accepting the wager of warfare forced upon him, he bade the 
 herald, Norris, inform his mistress that her messenger was 
 treated with courtesy only because he represented a lady, and 
 that had he come from a king, the language with which he 
 would have been gree\ed would have befitted the perfidy mani- 
 fested on the occasion. God would punish this shameless 
 violation of faith, and this wanton interruption to the friend- 
 ship of two great nations. With this the herald was dismissed 
 from the royal presence,- but treated with great distinction, 
 conducted to the hotel of the English ambassador, and presented 
 on the part of the French sovereign, with a chain of gold. 2 
 
 Philip had despatched Ruy Gomez to Spain for the purpose 
 of providing ways and means, while he was himself occupied 
 with the same task in England. 3 He stayed there three 
 months. During this time, he " did more," says a Spanish 
 contemporary, l( than any one could have believed possible with 
 that proud and indomitable nation. He caused them to declare 
 war against France with fire and sword, by sea and land." 1 
 Hostilities having been thus chivalrously and formally estab- 
 lished, the Queen sent an army of eight thousand men, cavalry, 
 infantry, and pioneers, who, " all clad in blue uniform," 5 com- 
 manded by Lords Pembroke and Clinton, with the three sons 
 of the Earl of Northumberland, and officered by many other 
 scions of England's aristocracy, disembarked at Calais, and 
 shortly afterwards joined the camp before Saint Quentin. 6 
 
 Philip meantime had left England, and with more bustle 
 and activity than was usual with him, had given directions 
 for organising at once a considerable army. It was composed 
 
 1 Hoofcl, 1, 7. De Thou, iii. 144. 
 a De Thou. Hoofd, ubi sup. 
 3 Docuraentos Ineditos para la Hist, 
 de Espafla, ix. 487. 
 
 * Documentos Ineditos para la Hist. 
 de Espafla, ix. 487. 
 6 Meteren, i. 18. 
 8 Ibid., ubi eup. Hoofd, i. 8.
 
 1G8 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1557. 
 
 mainly of troops belonging to the Netherlands, with the 
 addition of some German auxiliaries. Thirty-five thousand 
 foot and twelve thousand horse had, by the middle of July, 
 advanced through the province of Namur, and were assem- 
 bled at Givet under the Duke of Savoy, who, as Governor- 
 general of the Netherlands, held the chief command. 1 All 
 the most eminent grandees of the provinces, Orange, Aerschot, 
 Berlaymont, Meghem, Brederode, were present with the 
 troops, but the life and soul of the army, upon this memorable 
 occasion, was the Count of Egmont. 
 
 Lamoral, Count of Egmont, Prince of Gavere, was now in 
 the thirty-sixth year of his age, 2 in the very noon of that 
 brilliant life which was destined to be so soon and so fatally 
 overshadowed. Not one of the dark clouds which were in the 
 future to accumulate around him had yet rolled above his 
 horizon. Young, noble, wealthy, handsome, valiant, he saw 
 no threatening phantom in the future, and caught eagerly at 
 the golden opportunity, which the present placed within his 
 grasp, of winning fresh laurels on a wider and more fruitful 
 field than any in which he had hitherto been a reaper. The 
 campaign about to take place was likely to be an imposing, if 
 not an important one, and could not fail to be attractive to a 
 noble of so ardent and showy a character as Egmont. If there 
 were no lofty principles or extensive interests to be contended 
 for, as there certainly were not, there was yet much that was 
 stately and exciting to the imagination in the warfare which 
 had been so deliberately and pompously arranged. The con- 
 tending armies, although of moderate size, were composed of 
 picked troops, and were commanded by the flower of Europe'* 
 chivalry. Kings, princes, and the most illustrious paladins of 
 Christendom, were arming for the great tournament, to which 
 they had been summoned by herald and trumpet ; and the Ba- 
 'iavian hero, without a crown or even a country, but with as 
 
 1 Meteren,ubisup. Hoofd, ubi sup. 
 De Thou, iii. liv. xix. 
 
 H He was born in 1522 Levensb. 
 
 ber. Nederl. Man. en. rr. V. ; art 
 Egmond.
 
 1557.] 
 
 COUNT EGMONT. 
 
 169 
 
 lofty a lineage as many anointed sovereigns could boast, 
 yas ambitious to distinguish himself in the proud array. 
 
 Upon the north-western edge of the narrow peninsula of 
 North Holland, washed by the stormy waters of the German 
 Ocean, were the ancient castle, town, and lordship, whence 
 Egmont derived his family name, and the title by which he 
 was most familiarly known. He was supposed to trace his 
 descent through a line of chivalrous champions and crusaders, 
 up to the pagan kings of the most ancient of existing Teutonic 
 races. The eighth century names of the Frisian Radbold and 
 Aclgild 1 among his ancestors were thought to denote the anti- 
 quity of a house whose lustre had been increased in later times 
 by the splendour of its alliances. His father, united to Fran- 
 coise de Luxemburg, Princess of Gavere, had acquired by this 
 marriage, and transmitted tohis posterity, many of the proudest 
 titles and richest estates of Flanders. Of the three children 
 who survived him, the only daughter was afterwards united 
 to the Count of Vaudemont, and became mother of Louise de 
 Vaudemont, queen of the French monarch, Henry the Third. 
 Of his two sons, Charles, the elder, had died young and un- 
 married, leaving all the estates and titles of the family to his 
 brother. Lamoral, born in 1522, was in early youth a page of the 
 Emperor. When old enough to bear arms, he demanded and ob- 
 tained permission to follow the career of his adventurous sove- 
 reign. He served his apprenticeship as a soldier in the stormy 
 expedition to Barbary, where, in his nineteenth year, he com- 
 manded a troop of light horse, and distinguished himself under 
 the Emperor's eye for his courage and devotion, doing the duty 
 not only of a gallant commander, but of a hardy soldier. 8 Re- 
 
 1 Levensbe. beroemd. Nederl. v. 1. 
 
 2 " Pour avoir este nourry toute 
 sa Tie entre les armes, soubs ce 
 grand guerrier Charles le Quint, n'es- 
 tant cage quo dix sept ans ou dix 
 liuit ans, quand il commenca son 
 premier apprentissage au voyage de 
 Thunis, conduisant une compaignie 
 de ca^aillerie legere oil il fit loffice 
 
 non seulement de capitaine mais aussy 
 de tres hardy soldat." De la Guerre 
 Civile des Pays Bas, par Pontua 
 Payen. MS. 
 
 We shall often have occasion to 
 cite this manuscript in the course of 
 this volume. It is remarkable that 
 so valuable and interesting a fragment 
 of contemporaneous history should
 
 170 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1557. 
 
 turning, unscathed by the war, flood, or tempest of that memo- 
 rable enterprise, he reached his country by the way of Corsica, 
 Genoa, and Lorraine, and was three years afterwards united 
 (in the year 1545) to Sabina of Bavaria, sister of Frederic, 
 Elector Palatine. The nuptials had taken place at Spiers, and 
 few royal weddings could have been more brilliant. The Empe- 
 ror, his brother Ferdinand, King of the Romans, with the Arch- 
 duke Maximilian, all the imperial electors, and a concourse of 
 the principal nobles of the empire, were present on the occasion. 
 In the following year Charles invested him with the order of 
 the Fleece, at a chapter held at Utrecht. In 1553, he had been 
 at the Emperor's side during the unlucky siege of Metz ; in 
 1554 he had been sent at the head of a splendid embassy to 
 England, to solicit for Philip the hand of Mary Tudor, and had 
 witnessed the marriage in Winchester cathedral, the same year. 
 Although one branch of his house had, in past times, arrived at 
 the sovereignty of Gueldres, and another had acquired the great 
 estates and titles of Buren, which had recently passed, by inter- 
 marriage with the heiress, into the possession of the Prince of 
 Orange, yet the Prince of Gavere, Count of Egmont, was the 
 chief of a race which yielded to none of the great Batavian or 
 Flemish families in antiquity, wealth, or power. Personally, he 
 was distinguished for his bravery, and although he was not yet 
 the idol of the camp, which he was destined to become, nor had 
 yet commanded in chief on any important occasion, he was ac- 
 counted one of the five principal generals in the Spanish ser- 
 Eager for general admiration , he was at the same time 
 
 vice. 
 
 haughty and presumptuous, attempting to combine the charac- 
 
 have remained unpublished. Its au- 
 thor, Pontus Payen, Seigneur des 
 Essarts, was of the royal party, and a 
 very determined Catholic. He was in 
 close relations with many important 
 personages of the times which he 
 describes.and his work con tains striking 
 sketches, characteristic anecdote?, mi- 
 nute traits, which show the keen ob- 
 server of men and things. More than 
 any Netherlander of his day he pos- 
 
 sessed the dramatic power of setting 
 before the eyes of his readers the 
 rnen and scenes familiar to himself. 
 His work is full of colour and in- 
 valuable detail. There are several 
 copies extant in the different libraries 
 of the Netherlands. The one which 
 I have used is that of the Royal 
 Library of the Hague (Fonds Gerard 
 B. 103.) 
 
 1 Suriano MS.
 
 1557.] 
 
 HIS PERSONAL CHAEACTEB. 
 
 171 
 
 ters of an arrogant magnate and a popular chieftain. Terrible 
 and sudden in his wrath, he was yet of inordinate vanity, and 
 was easily led by those who understood his weakness. With 
 a limited education, and a slender capacity for all affairs 1 
 except those relating to the camp, he was destined to be as 
 vacillating and incompetent a statesman as he was prompt and 
 fortunately audacious in the field. A splendid soldier, his evil 
 stars had destined him to tread, as a politician, a dark and 
 dangerous path, in which not even genius, caution, and integ- 
 rity could insure success, but in which rashness alternating 
 with hesitation, and credulity with violence, could not fail to 
 bring ruin. Such was Count Egmont, as he took his place at 
 the head of the King's cavalry in the summer of 1557. 
 
 The early operations of the Duke of Savoy were at first 
 intended to deceive the enemy. The army, after advancing 
 as far into Picardy as the town of Vervins, which they burned 
 and pillaged, made a demonstration with their whole force 
 upon the city of Guise. This, however, was but a feint, by 
 which attention was directed, and forces drawn off from Saint 
 Quentin, which was to be the real point of attack. In the 
 meantime, the Constable of France, Montmorency, arrived 
 upon the 28th July (1557), to take command of the French 
 troops. He was accompanied by the Marechal de Saint Andre 
 and by Admiral Coligny. The most illustrious names of 
 France, whether for station or valour, were in the officers' list 
 of this select army. Nevers and Montpensier, Enghien and 
 Concle, Vendome and Rochefoucauld, were already there, and 
 now the Constable and the Admiral came to add the strength 
 of their experience and lofty reputation to sustain the courage 
 of the troops. The French were at Pierrepoint, a post between 
 Champagne and Picardy, and in its neighbourhood. The 
 Spanish army was at Vervins, and threatening Guise. It had 
 been the opinion in France that the enemy's intention was to 
 invade Champagne, and the Due de Nevers, governor of that 
 
 1 " Peu verse aux lettres, 
 
 grossir et ignorant en matiere 
 
 d'estat, police civile," etc. Pontua 
 Payen MS.
 
 172 
 
 THE JRISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1557, 
 
 province, had made a disposition of his forces suitable for such 
 a contingency. It was the conviction of Montmorency, 
 however, that Picardy was to be the quarter really attacked, 1 
 and that Saint Quentin, which was the most important point 
 at which the enemy's progress, by that route, towards Paris 
 could be arrested, was in imminent danger. The Constable's 
 opinion was soon confirmed by advices received by Coligny. 
 The enemy's army, he was informed, after remaining three 
 days before Guise, had withdrawn from that point, and had 
 invested Saint Quentin with their whole force. 
 
 This wealthy and prosperous city stood upon an elevation 
 rising from the river Somme. It was surrounded by very 
 extensive suburbs, ornamented with orchards and gardens, 
 and including within their limits large tracts of a highly 
 cultivated soil. 2 Three sides of the place were covered by a 
 lake, thirty yards in width, very deep at some points, in 
 others rather resembling a morass, and extending on the 
 Flemish side a half mile beyond the city. 3 The inhabitants 
 were thriving and industrious ; many of the manufacturers 
 and merchants were very rich, for it was a place of much 
 Traffic and commercial importance. 4 
 
 Teligny was in the city with a detachment of the Dauphin's 
 regiment ; Captain Brueuil was commandant of the town. 
 Both informed Coligny of the imminent peril in which they 
 stood. They represented the urgent necessity of immediate 
 reinforcements both of men and supplies. The city, as the 
 Admiral well knew, was in no condition to stand a siege by 
 such an army, and dire were the consequences if so important 
 
 1 De Thou, iii. 149, xix. 
 
 2 "Batalla de San Quintin, Co- 
 piada de un codico MS. de la Bib. 
 del Escorial." Documentos Ineditos, 
 ii. 490. 
 
 The manuscript thus published in 
 the Madrid collection of documents is 
 by an anonymous writer, but one 
 who was present at the siege, which 
 he has well described. His sketch 
 
 is, however, entitled as above, " The 
 Battle of St. Quentin," and its most 
 remarkable feature is, that he docs 
 not once mention the name of Eg- 
 mont as connected with that action. 
 Certainly national rivalry could no 
 further go. 
 
 3 Documentos Ineditos, 491, 492. 
 
 * Ibid.
 
 1557.] CITY OF SAINT QUENTIN. 173 
 
 a place should fall. It was still practicable, they wrote, to in- 
 troduce succour, but every day diminished the possibility of 
 affording effectual relief. Coligny was not the man to let the 
 grass grow under his feet, after such an appeal in behalf of the 
 principal place in his government. The safety of France was 
 dependent upon that of Saint Quentin. The bulwark over- 
 thrown, Paris was within the next stride of an adventurous 
 enemy. The Admiral instantly set out, upon the 2d of August, 
 with strong reinforcements. It was too late. The English 
 auxiliaries, under Lord Pembroke, Clinton, and Grey, had in 
 the meantime effected their junction with the Duke of Savoy, 
 and appeared in the camp before Saint Quentin. The route by 
 which it had been hoped that the much-needed succour could 
 be introduced was thus occupied and rendered impracticable. 
 The Admiral, however, in consequence of the urgent nature of 
 the letters received from Brueuil and Teligny, had outstripped, 
 in his anxiety, the movements of his troops, and had flown 
 before his army. He now shut himself up in the city, 1 
 determined to effect its deliverance by means of his skill and 
 experience, or at least to share its fate. 
 
 A few days were passed in making ineffectual sorties, ordered 
 by Coligny for the sake of reconnoitring the country, and of 
 discovering the most practicable means of introducing supplies. 
 The Constable, meantime, who had advanced with his army to 
 La Fere, was not idle. He kept up daily communications with 
 the beleaguered Admiral, and was determined, if possible, to re- 
 lieve the city. There was, however, a constant succession of 
 disappointments. Moreover, the brave but indiscreet Teligny, 
 who commanded during a temporary illness of the Admiral, saw 
 fit, against express orders, to make an imprudent sortie. He 
 paid the penalty of his rashness with his life. Meantime the 
 garrison was daily growing weaker. Coligny sent out of the 
 city all useless consumers, quartered all the women in the 
 cathedral and other churches, where they were locked in, lest 
 their terror and their tears should weaken the courage of the 
 1 De Thou, iii. 251, xix. Hoofd, i. 8.
 
 174 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1557. 
 
 garrison ; and did all in his power to strengthen the defences 
 of the city, and sustain the resolution of the inhabitants. Af- 
 fairs were growing desperate. It seemed plain that the impor- 
 tant city must soon fall, and with it most probably Paris. One 
 ' of the suburbs was already in the hands of the enemy. At last 
 Coligny discovered a route by w r hich he believed it to be still pos- 
 sible to introduce reinforcements. He communicated the result 
 of his observations to the Constable. Upon one side of the city 
 the lake, or morass, was traversed by a few difficult and narrow 
 pathways, mostly under water, and by a running stream which 
 could only be passed in boats. The Constable in consequence 
 of this information received from Coligny, set out from La Fere 
 upon the 8th of August, with four thousand infantry and two 
 thousand horse. Halting his troops at the village of Essigny, 
 he advanced in person to the edge of the morass, in order to 
 reconnoitre the ground and prepare his plans. The result was 
 a determination to attempt the introduction of men and supplies 
 into the town by the mode suggested. Leaving his troops drawn 
 up in battle array, he returned to La Fere for the remainder of 
 his army, and to complete his preparations. 1 Coligny, in the 
 meantime was to provide boats for crossing the stream. Upon 
 the 10th August, which was the festival of St. Laurence, the 
 Constable advanced with four pieces of heavy artillery, four cul- 
 verines, and four lighter pieces, and arrived at nine o'clock in 
 the morning near the Faubourg d'Isle, which was already in 
 possession of the Spanish troops. The whole army of the Con- 
 stable consisted of twelve thousand German, with fifteen com- 
 panies of French infantry, making in all some sixteen thousand 
 foot, with five thousand cavalry in addition. The Duke of Sa- 
 voy's army lay upon the same side of the town, widely extended, 
 and stretching beyond the river and the morass. Montmor- 
 ency's project was to be executed in full view of the enemy. 
 Fourteen companies of Spaniards were stationed in the faubourg. 
 Two companies had been pushed forward as far as a water-mill 
 which lay in the pathway of the advancing Constable. These 
 1 De Thou, iii. 154. Meteren, i. 18.
 
 1557.] THE CONSTABLE'S PROJECT. 
 
 soldiers stood their ground for a moment, but soon retreated, 
 while a cannonade was suddenly opened by the French upon 
 the quarters of the Duke of Savoy. The Duke's tent was torn 
 to pieces, and he had barely time to hurry on his cuirass, and 
 to take refuge with Count Egmont. 1 The Constable, has- 
 tening to turn this temporary advantage to account at once, 
 commenced the transportation of his troops across the morass. 
 The enterprise was, however, not destined to be fortunate. 
 The number of boats which had been provided was very in- 
 adequate ; moreover, they were very small, and each, as it left 
 the shore, was consequently so crowded with soldiers, that it 
 was in danger of being swamped. Several were overturned, 
 and the men perished. It was found also that the opposite bank 
 was steep and dangerous. Many who had crossed the river 
 were unable to effect a landing, while those who escaped 
 drowning in the water, lost their way in the devious and im- 
 practicable paths, or perished miserably in the treacherous 
 quagmires. Very few effected their entrance into the town, but 
 among them was Andelot, brother of Coligny, with five hun- 
 dred followers. Meantime, a council of officers was held in 
 Egmont's tent. Opinions were undecided as to the course to 
 be pursued under the circumstances. Should an engagement 
 be risked, or should the Constable, who had but indifferently 
 accomplished his project and had introduced but an insig- 
 nificant number of troops into the city, be allowed to withdraw 
 with the rest of his army ? The fiery vehemence of Egmont 
 carried all before it. a Here was an opportunity to measure 
 arms at advantage with the great captain of the age. To 
 reli nquish the prize, which the fortune of war had now placed 
 within reach of their valour, was a thought not to be enter- 
 tained. Here was the great Constable Montmorency, attended 
 by princes of the royal blood, the proudest of the nobility, the 
 very crown and flower of the chivalry of France, and followed 
 by an army of her bravest troops. On a desperate venture he 
 had placed himself within their grasp. Should he go thence 
 
 1 Hoofd, i. 8. Meteren, i. 18. De I a Hoofd, i. 8. Meteren, i. 18. 
 Thou, iii. 157. j
 
 175 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1557. 
 
 alive and unmolested ? The moral effect of destroying such an 
 army would be greater than if it were twice its actual strength. 
 It would be dealing a blow at the very heart of France, from 
 which she could not recover. Was the opportunity to be 
 resigned without a struggle, of laying at the feet of Philip, 
 this his first campaign since his accession to his father's 
 realms, a prize worthy of the proudest hour of the Emperor's 
 reign ? The eloquence of the impetuous Batavian was irresis- 
 tible, and it was determined to cut off the Constable's retreat. 1 
 Three miles from the Faubourg d'Isle, to which that general 
 was now advanced, Wfas a narrow pass or defile, between 
 steep and closely-hanging hills. While advancing through 
 this ravine in the morning, the Constable had observed that 
 the enemy might have it in their power to intercept his 
 return at that point. He had therefore left the Rhinegrave, 
 with his company of mounted carabineers, to guard the pas- 
 sage. Being ready to commence his retreat, he now sent 
 forward the Due de Nevers, with four companies of cavalry, 
 to strengthen that important position, which he feared might 
 be inadequately guarded. The act of caution came too late. 
 This was the fatal point which the quick glance of Egmont 
 had at once detected. As Nevers reached the spot, two 
 thousand of the enemy's cavalry rode through and occupied 
 the narrow passage. Inflamed by mortification and despair, 
 Nevers would have at once charged those troops, although 
 outnumbering his own by nearly four to one. His officers 
 restrained him with difficulty, recalling to his memory the 
 peremptory orders which he had received from the Constable 
 to guard the passage, but on no account to hazard an engage- 
 ment, until sustained by the body of the army. It was a case 
 in which rashness would have been the best discretion. The 
 headlong charge which the Duke had been about to make, 
 might possibly have cleared the path and have extricated the 
 army, provided the Constable had followed up the movement 
 by a rapid advance on his part. As it was, the passage was 
 soon blocked up by freshly advancing bodies of Spanish and 
 1 Hoofd. Meteren, ubi sup.
 
 1557.] THE BATTLE OF SAINT QUENTIN. 177 
 
 Flemish cavalry, while Nevers slowly and reluctantly fell back 
 upon the Prince of Conde, who was stationed with the light 
 horse at the mill where the first skirmish had taken place. 
 They were soon joined by the Constable, with the main body 
 of the army. The whole French force now commenced its re- 
 trograde movement. It was, however, but too evident that they 
 were enveloped. As they approached the fatal pass through 
 which lay their only road to La Fere, and which was now in 
 complete possession of the enemy, the signal of assault was 
 given by Count Egmont. That general himself, at the head of 
 two thousand light horse, led the charge upon the left flank. 
 The other side was assaulted by the Dukes Eric and Henry of 
 Brunswick, each with a thousand heavy dragoons, sustained by 
 Count Horn, at the head of a regiment of mounted gendarmerie. 
 Mansfeld, Lalain, Hoogstraaten, and Vilain, at the same time 
 made a furious attack upon the front. The French cavalry 
 wavered with the shock so vigorously given. The camp fol- 
 lowers, sutlers, and pedlars, panic-struck, at once fled helter- 
 skelter, and in their precipitate retreat, carried confusion and 
 dismay throughout all the ranks of the army. The rout was 
 sudden and total. The onset and the victory were simultaneous. 
 Nevers, riding through a hollow with some companies of 
 cavalry, in the hope of making a detour and presenting a new 
 front to the enemy, was overwhelmed at once by the retreat- 
 ing French and their furious pursuers. The day was lost, 
 retreat hardly possible, yet, by a daring and desperate effort, 
 the Duke, accompanied by a handful of followers, cut his way 
 through the enemy and effected his escape. The cavalry had 
 been broken at the first onset and nearly destroyed. A por- 
 tion of the infantry still held firm, and attempted to continue 
 their retreat. Some pieces of artillery, however, now opened 
 upon them, and before they reached Essigny, the whole army 
 was completely annihilated. The defeat was absolute. Half 
 the French troops actually engaged in the enterprise lost 
 their lives upon the field. The remainder of the army was 
 captured or utterly disorganised. When Nevers reviewed, 
 VOL. i. M
 
 178 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1557. 
 
 at Laon, the wreck of the Constable's whole force, he found 
 some thirteen hundred French, and three hundred German 
 cavalry, with four companies of French infantry remaining 
 out of fifteen, and four thousand German foot remaining of 
 
 * O 
 
 twelve thousand. Of twenty-one or twenty-two thousand re- 
 markably fine and well-appointed troops, all but six thousand 
 had been killed or made prisoners within an hour. The Con- 
 stable himself, with a wound in the groin, was a captive. 
 The Duke of Enghien, after behaving with brilliant valour, 
 and many times rallying the troops, was shot through the body, 
 and brought into the enemy's camp only to expire. The Due 
 de Montpeusier, the Marshal de Saint Andre, the Due de Lon- 
 gueville, Prince Ludovic of Mantua, the Baron Gorton, la 
 Roche Du Mayne, the Rhinegrave, the Counts de Rochefou- 
 cauld, d'Aubigni, de Rochefort, all were taken. The Due de 
 Severs, the Prince of Conde, with a few others, escaped ; al- 
 though so absolute was the conviction that such an escape was 
 impossible, that it was not believed by the victorious army. 
 When Nevers sent a trumpet, after the battle, to the Duke of 
 Savoy, for the purpose of negotiating concerning the prisoners, 
 the trumpeter was pronounced an impostor, and the Duke's let- 
 ter a forgery ; nor was it till after the whole field had been dili- 
 gently searched for his dead body without success, that Nevers 
 could persuade the conquerors that he was still in existence. 1 
 Of Philip's army but fifty lost their lives. 3 Louis of Bre- 
 derode was smothered in his armour ; and the two Counts 
 Spiegelberg and Count Waldeck were also killed. Besides 
 these, no officer of distinction fell. All the French standards 
 and all their artillery but two pieces were taken, and placed 
 before the King, who the next day came into the camp before 
 Saint Quentin. The prisoners of distinction were likewise pre- 
 sented to him in long procession. Rarely had a monarch of 
 Spain enjoyed a more signal triumph than this which Philip 
 now owed to the gallantry and promptness of Count Egmont 3 
 
 * De Thou, iii. 161, 162, ziz. I a Hoofd, i. 8, 9. Meteren, i. 18, 
 
 a Ibid. J eqq. De Thou, iii. 157-160. Bor,
 
 1557.] 
 
 THE VICTOKY. 
 
 170 
 
 While the King stood reviewing the spoils of victory, a light 
 horseman of Don Henrico Manriquo's regiment approached, and 
 presented him with a sword. " I am the man, may it please 
 your Majesty," said the trooper ; " who took the Constable ; 
 here is his sword ; may your Majesty be pleased to give me 
 something to eat in my house." " I promise it," replied Philip ; 
 upon which the soldier kissed his Majesty's hand and retired. 1 
 It was the custom universally recognised in that day, that the 
 king was the king's captive, and the general the general's, but 
 that the man, whether soldier or officer, who took the com- 
 mander-in-chief, was entitled to ten thousand ducats.* Upon 
 this occasion the Constable was the prisoner of Philip, sup- 
 posed to command his own army in person. A certain Spanish 
 Captain Valenzuela, however, disputed the soldier's claim to 
 the Constable's sword. The trooper advanced at once to the 
 Constable, who stood there with the rest of the illustrious pri- 
 soners. " Your excellency is a Christian," said he ; te please to 
 declare upon your conscience and the faith of a cavalier, whether 
 'twas I that took you prisoner. It need not surprise your ex- 
 cellency that I am but a soldier, since with soldiers his Majesty 
 must wage his wars." " Certainly," replied the Constable, 
 " you took me and took my horse, and I gave you my sword. 
 My word, however, I pledged to Captain Valenzuela." It 
 appearing, however, that the custom of Spain did not recog- 
 nise a pledge given to any one but the actual captor, it was 
 arranged that the soldier should give two thousand of his ten 
 thousand ducats to the captain. Thus the dispute ended. 3 
 Such was the brilliant victory of Saint Quentin, worthy to 
 
 i. 10. The Netberland accounts 
 generally give at least four thousand 
 killed of the French army. A co- 
 temporary proclamation for a thanks- 
 giving issued by the government, 
 fourteen days after the battle, state?, 
 however, the number of killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners, on the French 
 side, at forty-eight " companies " of 
 infantry, and five thousand cavalry 
 Van Wyn, Byvoegsels en Anmerkingen 
 
 op Wagenaar Vandcrl. Hist. (Amst. 
 1792) vi. 13-15. 
 
 1 Battalia de San Quintin. Docu- 
 mentos Ineditos, ix. 496. 
 
 2 " Es cosa muy antiqua 
 
 entre gente de guerra quo el general 
 es del general y el Rey del Eey : 
 pero a quien le prende le dan 10,000 
 dueados." Documentos Ineditos. ix. 
 406. 
 
 3 Ibid., ix. 49G, 497.
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1557. 
 
 be placed in the same list with the world -renowned combats 
 of Cre9y and Agincourt. The Flemish frontier was saved for 
 the time from the misery which was now to be inflicted upon 
 the French border. This was sufficient to cause the victory 
 to be hailed as rapturously by the people as by the troops. 
 From that day forth the name of the brave Hollander was 
 like the sound of a trumpet to the army. " Egmont and Saint 
 Quentin " rang through every mouth to the farthest extremity 
 of Philip's realms. 1 A deadly blow was struck to the very 
 heart of France. The fruits of all the victories of Francis 
 and Henry withered. This battle with others which were to 
 follow it, won by the same hand, were soon to compel the 
 signature of one of the most disastrous treaties which had 
 ever disgraced the history of France. 
 
 The fame and power of the Constable faded his misfortunes 
 and captivity fell like a blight upon the ancient glory of the 
 house of Montmorency his enemies destroyed his influence 
 and his popularity. 3 On the other hand, the exultation of 
 Philip was as keen as his cold and stony nature would permit. 
 The magnificent palace-convent of the Escorial, dedicated to 
 the saint on whose festival the battle had been fought, and 
 built in the shape of the gridiron on which the martyr had 
 suffered, was soon afterwards erected in pious commemoration 
 of the event. 3 Such was the celebration of the victory. The 
 reward reserved for the victor was to be recorded on a later 
 page of history. 
 
 The coolness and caution, not to say the pusillanimity of Philip, 
 prevented him from seizing the golden fruits of his triumph. 
 Ferdinand Gonzaga wished the blow to be followed up by an 
 immediate march upon Paris. 4 Such was also the feeling of 
 all the distinguished soldiers of the age. It was unquestion- 
 ably the opinion, and would have been the deed, of Charles, 
 had he been on the field of Saint Quentin, crippled as he was, 
 in the place of his son. He could not conceal his rage and 
 
 1 IToofd, 5. 9. I Hoofd, i. 9. 
 
 3 Do Thou, iii. ICO. De Thou, iii. 162.
 
 1357.] ASSAULT UPON THE CITY. 181 
 
 mortification when he found that Paris had not fallen, and is 
 said to have refused to read the despatches which recorded 
 that the event had not been consummated. 1 There was cer- 
 tainly little of the conqueror in Philip's nature ; nothing 
 which would have led him to violate the safest principles of 
 strategy. He was not the man to follow up enthusiastically 
 the blow which had been struck ; Saint Quentin, still untaken, 
 although defended by but eight hundred soldiers, could not be 
 left behind him; Nevers was still in his front, and although 
 it was notorious that he commanded only the wreck of an 
 army, yet a new one might be collected, perhaps, in time to 
 embarrass the triumphant march to Paris. Out of his super- 
 abundant discretion, accordingly, Philip refused to advance 
 till Saint Quentin should be reduced. 2 
 
 Although nearly driven to despair by the total overthrow of 
 the French in the recent action, Coligny still held bravely out, 
 being well aware that every day by which the siege could be 
 protracted was of advantage to his country. Again he made 
 fresh attempts to introduce men into the city. A fisherman 
 shewed him a submerged path, covered several feet deep with 
 water, through which he succeeded in bringing one hundred 
 and fifty unarmed and half-drowned soldiers into the place. 
 Bis garrison consisted barely of eight hundred men, but the 
 siege was still sustained, mainly by his courage and sagacity, 
 .and by the spirit of his brother Andelot. The company of 
 cavalry, belonging to the Dauphin's regiment, had behaved 
 badly, and even with cowardice, since the death of their com- 
 mander Teligny. The citizens were naturally weary and im- 
 patient of the siege. Mining and countermining continued, till 
 the 21st August. A steady cannonade was then maintained 
 until the 27th. Upon that day, eleven breaches having been 
 made in the walls, a simultaneous assault was ordered at four of 
 them. The citizens were stationed upon the walls, the soldiers 
 
 1 Brantome, i. ii. Hist, du Due 
 d'Albe, ii. 140, The statement is, 
 Tiowever, not corroborated by the 
 contemporary letters of Charles. See 
 
 Gachard, Retraite et Mort of Charlei 
 Quint, i. 169, sqq. Compare Stirling, 
 Cloister Life, 121, 122. 
 8 De Thou, iii. 162, 497. Hoofd, i. 9.
 
 182 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUELIO. 
 
 T1557. 
 
 in tlie breaches. There was a short but sanguinary contest, 
 the garrison resisting with uncommon bravery. Suddenly an 
 entrance was effected through a tower which had been thought 
 sufficiently strong, and which had been left unguarded. Coligny, 
 rushing to the spot, engaged the enemy almost single-handed. 
 He was soon overpowered, being attended by only four men 
 and a page, was made a prisoner by a soldier named Francisco 
 Diaz, and conducted through one of the subterranean mines 
 into the presence of the Duke of Savoy, from whom the captor 
 received ten thousand ducats in exchange for the Admiral's 
 sword. The fighting still continued with great determination 
 in the streets, the brave Andelot resisting to the last. He was, 
 however, at last overpowered, and taken prisoner. Philip, who 
 had, as usual, arrived in the trenches by noon, armed in com- 
 plete harness, with a page carrying his helmet, was met by the 
 intelligence that the city of Saint Quentin was his own. 1 
 
 To a horrible carnage succeeded a sack and a conflagration 
 still more horrible. In every house entered during the first 
 day, every human being was butchered. The sack lasted all that 
 day, and the whole of the following, till the night of the 28th. 
 There was not a soldier who did not obtain an ample share of 
 plunder, and some individuals succeeded in getting possession 
 of two, three, and even twelve thousand ducats each. 2 The 
 women were not generally outraged, but they were stripped 
 almost entirely naked, lest they should conceal treasure which 
 belonged to their conquerors, and they were slashed in the face 
 with knives, partly in sport, partly as a punishment for not 
 giving up property which was not in their possession. The 
 soldiers even cut off the arms of many among these wretched 
 women, 3 and then turned them loose, maimed and naked, into 
 the blazing streets ; for the town, on the 28th, was fired in a 
 hundred places, and was now one general conflagration. The 
 
 1 De Thou, iii. 1G4-171. Hoofd, 
 i. 10. Meteren, 1. 18. Documentos 
 Ineditos, iv. 497-513. 
 
 2 Documentos Ineditoe, ix. 613, 
 eqq. 
 
 3 "Y porque digesen donde tenian 
 los dineros, las daban cucbillados por 
 cara y cabeza y a muchas cortazoa 
 los brazos." Documentos Ineditoa 
 ix. 513, sqq.
 
 1557.] 
 
 CKUELTY TO THE POPULATION. 
 
 183 
 
 streets were already strewn with the corpses of the butchered 
 garrison and citizens ; while the survivors were now burned in 
 their houses. Human heads, limbs, and trunks were mingled 
 among the bricks and rafters of the houses, which were falling 
 on every side. 1 The fire lasted day and night, without an at- 
 tempt being made to extinguish it ; while the soldiers dashed 
 like devils through flame and smoke in search of booty. Bearing 
 lighted torches, they descended into every subterranean vault 
 and receptacle, of which there were many in the town, and in 
 every one of which they hoped to discover hidden treasure. 3 
 The work of killing, plundering, and burning lasted nearly 
 three days and nights. The streets, meanwhile, were encum- 
 bered with heaps of corpses, not a single one of which had been 
 buried since the capture of the town. The remains of nearly all 
 the able-bodied male population, dismembered, gnawed by 
 dogs, 3 or blackened by fire, polluted the midsummer air. The 
 women, meantime, had been again driven into the cathedral, 
 where they had housed during the siege, and where they now 
 crouched together in trembling expectation of their fate. 4 
 
 On the 29th August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Philip 
 issued an order that every woman, without an exception, should 
 be driven out of the city into the French territory. 5 Saint 
 Quentin, which seventy years before had been a Flemish town, 
 was to be re-annexed, and not a single man, woman, or child 
 who could speak the French language, was to remain another 
 hour in the place. The tongues of the men had been effectu- 
 ally silenced. The women, to the number of three thousand 
 five hundred, were now compelled to leave the cathedral and the 
 city. 6 Some were in a starving condition ; others had been des- 
 perately wounded ; all, as they passed through the ruinous 
 
 1 Documentos Ineditos, ix. 515. 
 
 " Quemaron en las casas gran 
 
 cantitad de personas y muebas dellas 
 se vieron de?pues de metado el f uego 
 entre los ladrillos que de ellos son 
 hechas todas las mejores casas, muchas 
 cabczas de hombrea quemadoa y 
 buesos." 
 
 a Documentos Ineditos, ix. 516. 
 
 3 " Y en muchos faltaban 
 
 los pedfizos que los comian los perros 
 de nocbe, y algunos olian mal," etc. 
 Ibid. 
 
 4 Documentos Ineditos, 519, sqq. 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 Ibid.
 
 184 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1557. 
 
 streets of what had been their home, were compelled to tread 
 upon the unburiecl remains of their fathers, husbands, or 
 brethren. To none of these miserable creatures remained a 
 living protector hardly even a dead body which could be 
 recognized ; and thus the ghastly procession of more than 
 three thousand women, many with gaping wounds in the 
 face, many with their arms cut oil and festering, of all ranks 
 and ages, some numbering more than ninety years, bareheaded, 
 with gray hair streaming upon their shoulders ; others with 
 nursing infants in their arms, escorted by a company of heavy- 
 armed troopers, left for ever their native city. All made the 
 dismal journey upon foot, save that carts were allowed to 
 transport the children between the ages of two and six years. 1 
 The desolation and depopulation were now complete. " I 
 wandered through the place, gazing at all this," says a 
 Spanish soldier who was present, and kept a diary of all which 
 occurred, " and it seemed to me that it was another de- 
 struction of Jerusalem. What most struck me was, to find 
 not a single denizen of the town left, who was or who dared to 
 call himself French. How vain and transitory, thought I, are 
 the things of this world I Six days ago what riches were in 
 the city, and now remains not one stone upon another." a 
 
 The expulsion of the w r omen had been accomplished by the 
 express command of Philip, who, moreover, had made no efforts 
 to stay the work of carnage, pillage., and conflagration. The 
 pious King had not forgotten, however, his duty to the saints. 
 As soon as the fire had broken out, he had sent to the cathe- 
 dral, whence he had caused the body of Saint Quentin to be 
 removed, and placed in the royal tent. 3 Here an altar was 
 arranged, upon one side of which was placed the coffin of that 
 holy personage, and upon the other the head of the " glorious 
 
 1 " Cierto a los piadosos bacia de- 
 masiada lastima vellas ir, yer iiyOO 
 mugeivs. Muchaa dellas llevaban 
 cortados los brazos, y inuches con 
 ciichillailas Y habia entre ellas 
 inugeu's do mas de noventa aGo?, sin 
 cqfias las tanas de Juera, llenaa dt 
 
 sangre. Las quo daban a mama* 
 llevaban sus criaturas en BUS brazos/ 
 etc., etc. Documentos Ineditos, ix. 
 516. 
 
 8 Documentos Ineditos, ix 519. 
 
 Ibid., 524-
 
 1557.] 
 
 CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN OP 1557. 
 
 185 
 
 Saint Gregory," (whoever that glorious individual may have 
 been in life,) together with many other relics brought from 
 the church. 1 Within the sacred enclosure many masses were 
 said daily, 2 while all this devil's work was going on without. 
 The saint who had been buried for centuries was comfortably 
 housed and guarded by the monarch, while dogs were gnawing 
 the carcases of the freshly-slain men of Saint Quentin, and 
 troopers were driving into perpetual exile its desolated and 
 mutilated women. 
 
 The most distinguished captives upon this occasion were, 
 of course, Coligny and his brother. Andelot was, however, 
 fortunate enough to make his escape that night under the 
 edge of the tent in which he was confined. The admiral was 
 taken to Antwerp. Here he lay for many weeks sick with a 
 fever. Upon his recovery, having no better pastime, he fell 
 to reading the scriptures. 3 The result was his conversion 
 to Calvinism/ and the world shudders yet at the fate in 
 which that conversion involved him. 
 
 Saint Quentin being thus reduced, Philip was not more 
 disposed to push his fortune. The time was now wasted in 
 the seige of several comparatively unimportant places, so that 
 the fruit of Egmont's valour was not yet allowed to ripen. 
 Early in September, Le Catelet was taken. On the 12th of 
 the same month, the citadel of Ham yielded, after receiving 
 two thousand shots from Philip's artillery, while Nojon, Chan- 
 ley, and some other places of lesser importance, were burned 
 to the ground. After all this smoke and fire upon the frontier, 
 productive of but slender consequences, Philip disbanded 
 his army and retired to Brussels. He reached that city on the 
 12th October. The English returned to their own country. 5 
 The campaign of 1557 was closed without a material result, 
 and the victory of Saint Quentin remained for a season barren. 
 
 In the meantime the French were not idle. The army of the 
 
 1 Documentos Ineditos, in. 624. 
 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 * Meteren, i. 18. 
 
 * Meteren, f. 18. 
 
 9 Hoofd, i. 19. De Thou, iii. 171 
 174, xix.
 
 IbG THE BISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBUC. [1558. 
 
 Constable had been destroyed, but the Due de Guise, who had 
 come post haste from Italy after hearing the news of Saint 
 Quentin, was very willing to organise another. He was 
 burning with impatience both to retrieve his own reputation, 
 which had suffered some little damage by his recent Italian 
 campaign, and to profit by the captivity of his fallen rival the 
 Constable. During the time occupied by the languid and 
 dilatory proceedings of Philip in the autumn, the Duke had 
 accordingly recruited in France and Germany a considerable 
 army. In January (1558) he was ready to take the field. It 
 had been determined in the French cabinet, however, not to 
 attempt to win back the places they had lost in Picardy, but to 
 carry the war into the territory of the ally. It was fated that 
 England should bear all the losses, and Philip appropriate all 
 the gain and glory, which resulted from their united exertions. 
 It was the war of the Queen's husband, with which the Queen's 
 people had no concern, but in which the last trophies of the 
 Black Prince were to be forfeited. On the 1st January 1558, 
 the Due de Guise appeared before Calais. The Marshal 
 Strozzi had previously made an expedition in disguise, to 
 examine the place. The result of his examination was, that 
 the garrison was weak, and that it relied too much upon the 
 citadel. After a tremendous cannonade, which lasted a week, 
 and was heard in Antwerp, the city was taken by assault 1 
 Calais had been originally won after a siege which had lasted a 
 twelvemonth, had been held two hundred and ten years, and 
 was now lost in seven days. Seven days more, and ten thou- 
 sand discharges from thirty-five great guns sufficed for the re- 
 duction of Guines. 2 Thus the last vestige of English dominion, 
 the last substantial pretext of the English sovereign to wear 
 the title and the lilies of France, was lost for ever. King Henry 
 visited Calais, which after two centuries of estrangement 
 had now become a French town again, appointed Paul de 
 Thermes governor of the place, and then returned to Paris 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 19. Do Thou, iii. I 2 Meteren, De Thou, Hoofd, Bor 
 202-209, n. Hoofd, i. 11. Bor, i. 16. | ubi sup.
 
 15CS.J INTERVIEW AT PEEONNE. 187 
 
 to celebrate soon afterwards the marriage of the Dauphin 
 with the niece of the Guises, Mary Queen of Scots. 1 
 
 These events, together with the brief winter campaign oi 
 the Duke, which had raised for an instant the drooping head 
 of France, were destined before long to give a new face to 
 affairs, while it secured the ascendancy of the Catholic party 
 in the kingdom. Disastrous eclipse had come over the house 
 of Montmorency and Coligny, while the star of Guise, brilliant 
 with the conquest of Calais, now culminated to the zenith. 
 
 It was at this period that the memorable interview between 
 the two ecclesiastics, the Bishop of Arras and the Cardinal de 
 Lorraine, took place at Peronne. From this central point com- 
 menced the weaving of that wide-spread scheme, in which the 
 fate of millions was to be involved. The Duchess Christina de 
 Lorraine, cousin of Philip, had accompanied him to Saint Quen- 
 tin. Permission had been obtained by the Due de Guise and 
 his brother, the Cardinal, to visit her at Peronne. The Duchess 
 was accompanied by the Bishop of Arras, and the consequence 
 was a full and secret negotiation between the two priests. 2 It 
 may be supposed that Philip's short-lived military ardour had 
 already exhausted itself. He had mistaken his vocation, and 
 already recognised the false position in which he was now placed. 
 He was contending against the monarch in whom he might find 
 the surest ally against the arch enemy of both kingdoms, and of 
 the world. The French monarch held heresy in horror, while, 
 for himself, Philip had already decided upon his life's mission. 
 
 The crafty Bishop was more than a match for the vain and 
 ambitious Cardinal. That prelate was assured that Philip 
 considered the captivity of Coligny and Montmorency a 
 special dispensation of Providence, while the tutelar genius 
 of France, notwithstanding the reverses sustained by that 
 kingdom, was still preserved. The Cardinal and his brother, 
 it was suggested, now held in their hands the destiny of the 
 kingdom, and of Europe. The interests of both nations, of 
 religion, and of humanity, made it imperative upon them to 
 1 De Thou, iii. 214. a Ibid, iii. 223. Hoofd, i. 12.
 
 188 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1558. 
 
 put an end to this unnatural war, in order that the two mo- 
 narchs might unite hand and heart for the extirpation of heresy. 
 Philip placed full reliance upon the wisdom and discretion 
 of the Cardinal. It was necessary that these negotiations 
 should for the present remain a profound secret ; but in the 
 meantime a peace ought to be concluded with as little delay 
 as possible a result which, it was affirmed, was as heartily 
 desired by Philip as it could be by Henry. The Bishop 
 was soon aware of the impression which his artful suggestions 
 had produced. The Cardinal, inspired by the flattery thus 
 freely administered, as well as by the promptings of his 
 own ambition, lent a willing ear to the Bishop's plans. 1 
 Thus was laid the foundation of a vast scheme, which time 
 was to complete. A crusade with the whole strength of 
 the French and Spanish crowns was resolved upon against 
 their own subjects. The Bishop's task was accomplished. 
 The Cardinal returned to France, determined to effect a 
 peace with Spain. He was convinced that the glory of his 
 house was to be enhanced, and its power impregnably esta- 
 blished, by a cordial co-operation with Philip in his dark 
 schemes against religion and humanity. The negotiations 
 were kept, however, profoundly secret. A new campaign 
 and fresh humiliations were to precede the acceptance by 
 France of the peace which was thus proffered. 
 
 Hostile operations were renewed soon after the interview at 
 Peronne. The Duke of Guise, who had procured five thou- 
 sand cavalry, and fourteen thousand infantry in Germany, 8 
 now, at the desire of the King, undertook an enterprise against 
 Thionville, 8 a city of importance and great strength in 
 Luxemburg, upon the river Moselle. The assault was made 
 upon the 22d June, and the garrison capitulated immediately 
 afterwards. 4 It was a siege conducted in a regular and busi- 
 ness-like way, but the details possess no interest. It was, 
 
 1 De Thou, in. 223-227, K. I * De Thon, iii. 229-235. Meteren, 
 
 a Hoofd, i. 11!. | i. 19. Hoofd, 1. 12, 
 
 De Thou, iii. 229.
 
 1558.] FOEAY OF DE THERMES. 189 
 
 however, signalized by the death of one of the eminent adven- 
 turers of the age, Marshal Strozzi. This brave, but always 
 unlucky, soldier, was slain by a musket-ball while assisting 
 the Duke of Guise whose arm was at that instant resting 
 upon his shoulder to point a gun at the fortress. 1 
 
 After the fall of Thionville, the Due de Guise loitered 
 seventeen days, making no exertion to follow up the success 
 which had attended him at the opening of the campaign. 
 The good fortune of the French was neutralised by the same 
 languor which had marked the movements of Philip after 
 the victory of Saint Quentin. The time, which might have 
 been usefully employed, was wasted by the Duke in trivial 
 business, or in absolute torpor. This may have been the 
 result of a treacherous understanding with Spain, and the 
 first fruits of the interview at Peronne. Whatever the cause, 
 however, the immediate consequences were disaster to the 
 French nation, arid humiliation to the crown. 
 
 It had been the plan of the French cabinet that Marshal de 
 Thermes, who, upon the capture of Calais, had been appointed 
 governor of the city, should take advantage of his position as 
 soon as possible. Having assembled an army of some eight 
 thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, 2 partly Gascons and 
 partly Germans, he was accordingly directed to ravage the 
 neighbouring country, particularly the county of Saint Pol. 
 In the meantime, the Due de Guise, having reduced the cities 
 on the southern frontier, was to move in a northerly direc- 
 tion, make a junction with the Marshal, and thus extend a 
 barrier along the whole frontier of the Netherlands. 
 
 De Thermes set forth from Calais, in the beginning of June, 
 with his newly-organised army. Passing by Gravelines and 
 Bourbourg he arrived before Dunkerk on the 2nd of July. Tho 
 city, which was without a garrison, opened negotiations, during 
 the pendency of which it was taken by assault and pillaged. 
 The town of Saint Winochsberg shared the same fate. De 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 19. I pare .Hoofd, i. 13; De Thou, iii. 233, 
 
 a 13or, i. 16. Meteren, i. 10. Com- | liy. xx.
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUELIC. [1558. 
 
 Thermes, who was a martyr to the gout, was obliged at this 
 point temporarily to resign the command to D'Estonteville, a 
 ferocious soldier, who led the predatory army as far as Nievv- 
 port, burning, killing, ravishing, plundering, as they went. 
 Meantime Philip, who was at Brussels, had directed the Duke 
 of Savoy to oppose the Due de Guise with an army which had 
 been hastily collected and organised at Maubeuge, in the pro- 
 vince of Namur. He now desired, if possible, to attack and 
 cut off the forces of De Thermes before he should extend the 
 hand to Guise, or make good his retreat to Calais. 
 
 Flushed with victory over defenceless peasants, laden with 
 the spoils of sacked and burning towns, the army of De 
 Thermes was already on its homeward march. It was the mo- 
 ment for a sudden and daring blow. Whose arm should deal 
 it ? What general in Philip's army possessed the requisite 
 promptness, and felicitous audacity ; who, but the most bril- 
 liant of cavalry officers, the bold and rapid hero of Saint Quen- 
 tin ? Egmont, in obedience to the King's command, threw 
 himself at once into the field. He hastily collected all the 
 available forces in the neighbourhood. These, with drafts from 
 the Duke of Savoy's army, and with detachments under Mar- 
 shal Bignicourt from the garrisons of Saint Omer, Bethune, 
 Aire, and Bourbourg, soon amounted to ten thousand foot and 
 two thousand horse. 1 His numbers were still further swollen 
 by large bands of peasantry, both men and women, maddened 
 by their recent injuries, and thirsting for vengeance. With 
 these troops the energetic chieftain took up his position directly 
 in the path of the French army. Determined to destroy De 
 Thermes with all his force, or to sacrifice himself, he posted his 
 army at Gravelines, a small town lying near the sea-shore, and 
 about midway between Calais and Dunkerk. The French 
 general was putting the finishing touch to his expedition by 
 completing the conflagration at Dunkerk, and was moving 
 homeward, when he became aware of the lion in his path. 
 Although suffering from severe sickness, he mounted his horse 
 1 Meteren, i. 19. Compare De Thou, iii. 239, xx. ; Bor, i. 16; Hoofd, i. 14.
 
 i558.] BATTLE OP GEAVELINES. 191 
 
 and personally conducted his army to Gravelines. Here he 
 found his progress completely arrested. On that night, which 
 was the 12th July, he held a council of officers. It was deter- 
 mined to refuse the combat offered, and, if possible, to escape 
 at low tide along the sands toward Calais. The next morning 
 he crossed the river Aa, below Gravelines. Egmont, who 
 was not the man, on that occasion at least, to build a golden 
 bridge for a flying enemy, crossed the same stream just above 
 the town, and drew up his whole force in battle array. De 
 Thermes could no longer avoid the conflict thus resolutely 
 forced upon him. Courage was now his only counsellor. 
 Being not materially outnumbered by his adversaries, he had, 
 at least, an even chance of cutting his way through all ob- 
 stacles, and of saving his army and his treasure. The sea 
 was on his right hand, the Aa behind him, the enemy in 
 front. He piled his baggage and waggons so as to form a 
 barricade upon his left, and placed his artillery, consisting of 
 four culverines and three falconets, in front. Behind these 
 he drew up his cavalry, supported at each side by the Gascons, 
 and placed his French and German infantry in the rear. 
 
 Egmont, on the other hand, divided his cavalry into five 
 squadrons. Three of light horse were placed in advance for 
 the first assault the centre commanded by himself, the two 
 wings by Count Pontenals and Henrico Henriquez. The black 
 hussars of Lazarus Schwendi and the Flemish gendarmes came 
 next. Behind these was the infantry, divided into three na- 
 tions, Spanish, German, and Flemish, and respectively com- 
 manded by Carvajal, Monchausen, and Bignicourt. Egmont, 
 having characteristically selected the post of danger in the very 
 front of battle for himself, could no longer restrain his impa- 
 tience. " The foe is ours already," he shouted ; tf follow me, 
 all who love their fatherland." With that he set spurs to his 
 torse, and having his own regiment well in hand, dashed upon 
 the enemy. The Gascons received the charge with coolness, 
 and under cover of a murderous fire from the artillery in 
 front, which mowed clown the foremost ranks of their assailants
 
 Ii*2 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBUO. [1558. 
 
 sustained the whole weight of the first onset without flinch- 
 ing. Egmont's horse was shot under him at the commence- 
 ment of the action. Mounting another, he again cheered hia 
 cavalry to the attack. The Gascons still maintained an un- 
 wavering front, and fought with characteristic ferocity. The 
 courage of despair inflamed the French, the hope of a brilliant 
 and conclusive victory excited the Spaniards and Flemings. It 
 was a wild, hand-to-hand conflict general and soldier, cavalier 
 and pikeman, lancer and musketeer, mingled together in one 
 dark, confused, and struggling mass, foot to foot, breast to 
 breast, horse to horse a fierce, tumultuous battle on the sands. 
 For a long time it was doubtful on which side victory was to 
 incline, but at last ten English vessels unexpectedly appeared 
 in the offing, and ranging up soon afterwards as close to the 
 shore as was possible, opened their fire upon the still unbroken 
 lines of the French. The ships were too distant, the danger of 
 injuring friend as well as foe too imminent, to allow of their 
 exerting any important influence upon the result. The spirit 
 of the enemy was broken, however, by this attack upon their 
 seaward side, which they had thought impregnable. At the 
 same time a detachment of German cavalry which had been 
 directed by Egmont to make its way under the downs to the 
 southward, now succeeded in turning their left flank. Egmont, 
 profiting by their confusion, charged them again with redoubled 
 vigour. The fate of the day was decided. The French cavalry 
 wavered, broke their ranks, and in their flight carried dismay 
 throughout the whole army. The rout was total ; horse and 
 foot, French, Gascon, and German fled from the field together. 
 Fifteen hundred fell in the action, as many more were driven 
 into the sea, while great numbers were torn to pieces by the 
 exasperated peasants, who now eagerly washed out their recent 
 injuries in the blood of the dispersed, wandering, and wounded 
 soldiers. 1 The army of De Thermes was totally destroyed, and 
 with it the last hope of France for an honourable and equal 
 
 1 Mcteren, i. 19. Hoofd, i. 13, I Cabrera, ix. 21; De Thou, iii. 231- 
 14, 15. Bor, i. 1C, 17. Compare | 241.
 
 1558.] POPULARITY OF EGMONT. 103 
 
 negotiation. She was now at Philip's feet, so that this brilliant 
 cavalry action was, in regard to the extent both of its imme- 
 diate and its permanent results, one of the most decisive and 
 striking that have ever been fought. The French army engaged 
 was annihilated. Marshal de Thermes, with a wound in the 
 head, Senarpont, Annibault, Villefon, Morvilliers, Chanlis, 
 and many others of high rank were prisoners. The French 
 monarch had not much heart to set about the organisation of 
 another army ;* a task which he was now compelled to under- 
 take. He was soon obliged to make the best terms which he 
 could, and to consent to a most unfavourable treaty. 
 
 The Marshal de Thermes was severely censured for having 
 remained so long at Dunkerk and in its neighbourhood. He 
 was condemned still more loudly for not having at least 
 effected his escape beyond Gravelines, during the night which 
 preceded the contest. With regard to the last charge, how- 
 ever, it may well be doubted whether any nocturnal attempt 
 would have been likely to escape the vigilance of Egmont. 
 Touching his delay at Dunkerk, it was asserted that he had 
 been instructed to await in that place the junction with the 
 Due de Guise, which had been previously arranged. 2 But for 
 the criminal and, then, inexplicable languor which charac- 
 terised that commander's movements, after the capture of 
 Thionville, the honour of France might still have been saved. 
 
 Whatever might have been the faults of De Thermes or of 
 Guise, there could be little doubt as to the merit of Egmont. 
 Thus within eleven months of the battle of Saint Quentin,. 
 had the Dutch hero gained another victory so decisive as to* 
 settle the fate of the war, and to elevate his sovereign to a 
 position from which he might dictate the terms of a tri- 
 umphant peace. 3 The opening scenes of Philip's reign were 
 rendered as brilliant as the proudest days of the Emperor's 
 career, while the provinces were enraptured with the prospect 
 of early peace. To whom, then, was the sacred iebt of 
 
 1 De Thou, iii. 241, xx. 2 Hoofd, i. 15. De Thou, ubi sup. 3 Ibid. Ibid. 
 yOL. I. N
 
 194 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1558. 
 
 national and royal gratitude due but to Lamoral of Egmont ? 
 His countrymen gladly recognised the claim. He became the 
 idol of the army ; the familiar hero of ballad and story ; the 
 mirror of chivalry, and the god of popular worship. Through- 
 out the Netherlands he was hailed as the right hand of the 
 fatherland, the saviour of Flanders from devastation and out- 
 rage, the protector of the nation, the pillar of the throne. 1 
 
 The victor gained many friends by his victory, and one 
 enemy. The bitterness of that foe was likely, in the future, 
 to outweigh all the plaudits of his friends. The Duke of 
 Alva had strongly advised against giving battle to De 
 Thermes. He depreciated the triumph after it had been 
 gained, by reflections upon the consequences which would 
 have flowed had a defeat been suffered instead. 8 He even 
 held this language to Egmont himself after his return to 
 Brussels. The conqueror, flushed with his glory, was not 
 inclined to digest the criticism, nor what he considered the 
 venomous detraction of the Duke. More vain and arrogant 
 than ever, he treated his powerful Spanish rival with inso- 
 lence, and answered his observations with angry sarcasms, 
 even in the presence of the King. 8 Alva was not likely to 
 forget the altercation, nor to forgive the triumph. 
 
 There passed, naturally, much bitter censure and retort on 
 both sides at court, between the friends and adherents of 
 Egmont and those who sustained the party of his adversary. 
 The battle of Gravelines was fought over daily, amid increas- 
 ing violence and recrimination, between Spaniard and Flem- 
 ing, and the old international hatred flamed more fiercely than 
 ever. Alva continued to censure the foolhardiness which had 
 risked so valuable an army on a single blow. Egmont's friends 
 replied that it was easy for foreigners, who had nothing at risk 
 
 1 Hoofd, i. 15. 
 
 8 Meteren, i. 19. Bor, i 17. 
 Eoofd, i. 15. 
 
 3 " Et provenoit la ditte en- 
 
 netnitife principalement a cause de 
 la Bataille de Grevelinge, w'f donna 
 
 centre son advis et propos haul tains 
 et superbes qu'il (Egmont) lui tint 
 estant de retour victorieur en la 
 ville de Bruxelles en la presence du 
 Roy." Pontui Payen MS., 378. 
 379.
 
 1558.] SPANISH CAVILS. 195 
 
 in the country, to look on while the fields of the Netherlands 
 were laid waste, and the homes and hearths of an industrious 
 population made desolate, by a brutal and rapacious soldiery. 
 They who dwelt in the provinces would be ever grateful 
 to their preserver for the result. 1 They had no eyes for the 
 picture which the Spanish party painted of an imaginary 
 triumph of De Thermes and its effects. However the envious 
 might cavil, now that the blow liad been struck, the popular 
 heart remained warm as ever, and refused to throw down the 
 idol which had so recently been set up. 
 
 Meteren, Bor, Uoofd, ubi sup.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PHILIP'S FAREWELL TO THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 Secret negotiations for peace Two fresh armies assembled, but inactive 
 Negotiations at Cercamp Death of Mary Tudor Treaty of Gateau 
 Cambresis Death of Henry II. Policy of Catharine de Medici 
 Eevelations by Henry II. to the Prince of Orange Funeral of 
 Charles V. in Brussels Universal joy in the Netherlands at the res- 
 toration of peace Organisation of the Government by Philip, and pre- 
 parations for his departure Appointment of Margaret of Parma as- 
 Regent of the Netherlands Three Councils The consulta The stadt- 
 holders of the different provinces Dissatisfaction caused by the foreign 
 troops Assembly of the Estates at G-hent to receive the parting in- 
 structions and farewell of the King Speech of the Bishop of Arras 
 Request for three millions Fierce denunciation of heresy on the part of 
 Philip Strenuous enforcement of the edicts commanded Reply by the 
 States of Artois Unexpected conditions Rage of the King Similar 
 conduct on the part of the other provinces Remonstrance in the name 
 of States-General against the foreign soldiery Formal reply on the part 
 of the crown Departure of the King from the Netherlands Autos- 
 da-fe' in Spain. 
 
 THE battle of Gravelines had decided the question. The 
 intrigues of the two Cardinals at Peronne having been sus- 
 tained by Egmont's victory, all parties were ready for a peace. 
 King Henry was weary of the losing game which he had so 
 long been playing, Philip was anxious to relieve himself from 
 his false position, and to concentrate his whole mind and the 
 strength of his kingdom upon his great enemy the Netherlarid 
 heresy, while the Duke of Savoy felt that the time had at 
 last arrived when an adroit diplomacy might stand him in 
 stead, and place him in the enjoyment of those rights which
 
 1558.] TWO GREAT ARMIES INACTIVE. 197 
 
 the sword had taken from him, and which his own sword had 
 done so much towards winning back. The sovereigns were 
 inclined to peace, and as there had never been a national 
 principle or interest involved in the dispute, it was very cer- 
 tain that peace would be popular everywhere, upon whatever 
 terms it might be concluded. 
 
 Montmorency and the Prince of Orange were respectively 
 empowered to open secret negotiations. 1 The Constable en- 
 tered upon the task with alacrity, because he felt that every 
 day of his captivity was alike prejudicial to his own welfare 
 and the interests of his country. 2 The Guises, who had 
 quarrelled with the Duchess de Valentinois, (Diane de 
 Poitiers,) were not yet powerful enough to resist the influence 
 of the mistress ; while, rather to baffle them than from any 
 loftier reasons, that interest was exerted in behalf of immediate 
 peace. The Cardinal de Lorraine had by no means forgotten 
 the eloquent arguments used by the Bishop of Arras ; but his 
 brother, the Due de Guise, may be supposed to have desired 
 some little opportunity of redeeming the credit of the kingdom, 
 and to have delayed the negotiations until his valour could 
 secure a less inglorious termination to the war. 
 
 A fresh army had, in fact, been collected under his command, 
 and was already organised at Pierrepoint. At the same time, 
 Philip had assembled a large force, consisting of thirty thou- 
 sand foot and fifteen thousand cavalry, with which he had him- 
 self taken the field, encamping towards the middle of August 
 upon the banks of the river Anthies, near the border of 
 Picardy. 3 King Henry, on the other hand, had already arrived 
 in the camp at Pierrepoint, and had reviewed as imposing an 
 army as had ever been at the disposal of a French monarch. 
 When drawn up in battle array, it covered a league and a half 
 of ground, while three hours were required to make its circuit 
 on horseback.* All this martial display was only for effect. 
 The two kings, at the head of their great armies, stood looking 
 
 1 Apologie du P. d'Orange, 49. I s Bor, i. 17. Hoofd, i. 16. Me- 
 a De Thou, iii. 24(5, . | teren, i. 20. * De Thou, iii. 244, xx.
 
 1'Jb THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1558-9. 
 
 at each other while the negotiations for peace were proceeding. 
 An unimportant skirmish or two at the outposts, unattended 
 with loss of life, were the only military results of these great 
 preparations. Early in the autumn all the troops were dis- 
 banded, while the commissioners of both crowns met in open 
 congress at the abbey of Cercamp,near Cambray,by the middle 
 of October. The envoys on the part of Philip were the Prince 
 of Orange, the Duke of Alva, the Bishop of Arras, Ruy Gomez 
 de Silva,the President Viglius; on that of the French monarch, 
 the Constable, the Marshal de Saint Andre, the Cardinal de 
 Lorraine, the Bishop of Orleans, and Claude FAubespine. 1 
 There were also envoys sent by the Queen of England, but as 
 the dispute concerning Calais was found to hamper the nego- 
 tiations at Cercamp, the English question was left to be settled 
 by another congress, and was kept entirely separate from the 
 arrangements concluded between France and Spain. 8 
 
 The death of Queen Mary, on the 17th November, 8 caused 
 a temporary suspension of the proceedings. After the 
 widower, however, had made a fruitless effort to obtain the 
 hand of her successor, and had been unequivocally repulsed,* 
 the commissioners again met in February, 1559, at Cateau 
 Cambresis. The English difficulty was now arranged by 
 separate commissioners, and on the 3d of April a treaty 
 between France and Spain was concluded. 5 
 
 By this important convention, both kings bound themselves 
 to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate by all means in 
 their power, and agreed that an oecumenical council should at 
 once assemble, to compose the religious differences, and to ex- 
 tinguish the increasing heresy in both kingdoms. Furthermore, 
 it was arranged that the conquests made by each country dur- 
 ing the preceding eight years should be restored. Thus all the 
 gains of Francis and Henry were annulled by a single word, 
 and the Duke of Savoy converted, by a dash of the pen, from a 
 
 1 Eor, Hoofd, Meteren, ubi sup. I * Ibid. Ibid. 
 DeThou, iii. 250, xx. * De Thou, iii. 254. 
 
 a Ibid. Ibid. 1 Bor, Meteren, Hoofd, De Thou.
 
 1559.] TREATY OF CATEAU CAMBRESIS. 19'j 
 
 landless soldier of fortune into a sovereign again. Ho was to 
 receive back all his estates, and was, moreover, to marry 
 Henry's sister Margaret, with a dowry of three hundred 
 thousand crowns. Philip, on the other hand, now a second 
 time a widower, was to espouse Henry's daughter Isabella, 
 already betrothed to the Infant Don Carlos, and to receive 
 with her a dowry of four hundred thousand crowns. The 
 restitutions were to be commenced by Henry, and to be 
 completed within three months. Philip was to restore his 
 conquests in the course of a month afterwards. 
 
 Most of the powers of Europe were included by both parties 
 in this treaty : the Pope, the Emperor, all the electors, the Re- 
 publics of Venice, Genoa, and Switzerland, the kingdoms of 
 England, Scotland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden; the duchies 
 of Ferrara, Savoy, and Parma, besides other inferior princi- 
 palities. Nearly all Christendom, in short, was embraced in 
 this most amicable compact, as if Philip were determined that, 
 henceforth and for ever, Calvinists and Mohammedans, Turks 
 and Flemings, should be his only enemies. 
 
 The King of France was to select four hostages from among 
 Philip's subjects, to accompany him to Paris as pledges for 
 the execution of all the terms of the treaty. The royal choice 
 fell upon the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Alva, the Duke 
 of Aerschot, and the Count of Egmont. 
 
 Such was the treaty of Cateau Cambresis. 1 Thus was a 
 termination put to a war between France and Spain, which 
 had been so wantonly undertaken. 
 
 Marshal Monluc wrote that a treaty so disgraceful and dis- 
 astrous had never before been ratified by a French monarch. 3 
 The accumulated plunder of years, which was now disgorged 
 by France, was equal in value to one-third of that kingdom. 
 One hundred and ninety-eight fortified towns were surren- 
 dered, making, with other places of greater or less impor- 
 tance, a total estimated by some writers as high as four 
 
 1 De Thou, iii. 350-355. Hoofd, i. I a De Thou. Meursii Gulielmue 
 19, 20. Bor.i. 17, 18. Meteren, i. 25. | Auriacus, (Leycl., 1621,) p. 6.
 
 200 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 hundred. 1 The principal gainer was the Duke of Savoy, who, 
 after so many years of knight errantry, had regained his 
 duchy, and found himself the brother-in-law of his ancient 
 enemy. 
 
 The well-known tragedy by which the solemnities of this 
 pacification were abruptly concluded in Paris, bore with it an 
 impressive moral. The monarch who, in violation of his plighted 
 word, and against the interests of his nation and the world, had 
 entered precipitately into a causeless war, now lost his life in 
 fictitious combat at the celebration of peace. On the 10th of 
 July, Henry the Second died of the wound inflicted by Mont- 
 gomery in the tournament held eleven days before. 3 Of this 
 weak and worthless prince, all that even his flatterers could 
 favourably urge was his great fondness for war, as if a san- 
 guinary propensity, even when unaccompanied by a spark of 
 military talent, were of itself a virtue. Yet, with his death the 
 kingdom fell even into more pernicious hands, and the fate of 
 Christendom grew darker than ever. The dynasty of Diane de 
 Poitiers was succeeded by that of Catharine de Medici ; the 
 courtesan gave place to the dowager ; and France during the 
 long and miserable period in which she lay bleeding in the grasp 
 of the Italian she-wolf and her litter of cowardly and san- 
 guinary princes might even lament the days of Henry and 
 his Diane. Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third, Francis of 
 Alen9on, last of the Valois race, how large a portion of the 
 fearful debt which has not yet been discharged by half a cen- 
 tury of revolution and massacre was of their accumulation I 
 
 The Duchess of Valentinois had quarrelled latterly with tho 
 house of Guise, and was disposed to favour Montmorency. The 
 King, who was but a tool in her hands, might possibly have 
 been induced, had he lived, to regard Coligny and his friends 
 with less aversion. This is, however, extremely problematical, 
 for it was Henry the Second who had concluded that memorable 
 arrangement with his royal brother of Spain, to arrange for the 
 
 1 Hoofd, i. 20. De Thou, iii. 20. I a De Thou, iii. 307. 
 Joan. Meursii Gul. Aur., p. G.
 
 1559.] REJOICINGS AT ANTWERP. 201 
 
 Huguenot chiefs throughout both realms, a " Sicilian Ves- 
 pers," upon the first favourable occasion. His death and the 
 subsequent policy of the Queen-regent deferred the execution 
 of the great scheme till fourteen years later. Henry had 
 lived long enough, however, after the conclusion of the secret 
 agreement to reveal it to one whose life was to be employed 
 in thwarting this foul conspiracy of monarchs against their 
 subjects. William of Orange, then a hostage for the execu- 
 tion of the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, was the man with 
 whom the King had the unfortunate conception to confer 
 on the subject of the plot. 1 The Prince, who had already 
 gained the esteem of Charles the Fifth by his habitual dis- 
 cretion, knew how to profit by the intelligence and to bide 
 his time ; but his hostility to the policy of the French and 
 Spanish courts was perhaps dated from that hour. 8 
 
 Pending the peace negotiations, Philip had been called upon 
 to mourn for his wife and father. He did not affect grief for 
 the death of Mary Tudor, but he honoured the Emperor's de- 
 parture with stately obsequies at Brussels. The ceremonies 
 lasted two days (the 29th and 30th December, 1558). 
 
 If the mourning for the dead Emperor was but a mummery 
 and a masquerade, there was, however, heartiness and sincerity 
 in the rejoicing which now burst forth like a sudden illu- 
 mination throughout the Netherlands, upon the advent of 
 peace. All was joy in the provinces, but at Antwerp, the 
 metropolis of the land, the enthusiasm was unbounded. Nine 
 days were devoted to festivities. Bells rang their merriest 
 peals, artillery thundered, beacons blazed, the splendid cathe- 
 dral spire flamed nightly with three hundred burning cressets, 
 the city was strewn with flowers and decorated with triumphal 
 arches ; the Guilds of Rhetoric amazed the world with their 
 gorgeous processions, glittering dresses, and bombastic versifi- 
 cation ; the burghers all, from highest to humblest, were feasted 
 and made merry ; wine flowed in the streets, and oxen were 
 roasted whole ; prizes on poles were climbed for, pigs were 
 
 1 Apologie d'Orange, 53, 54. " Ibid,
 
 2U2 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 hunted blindfold, men and women raced in sacks; and, in short, 
 for nine days there was one universal and spontaneous demon- 
 stration of hilarity in Antwerp and throughout the provinces. 1 
 
 But with this merry humour of his subjects, the sovereign 
 had but little sympathy. There was nothing in his character 
 or purposes which owed affinity with any mood of this jocund 
 and energetic people. Philip had not made peace with all 
 the world that the Netherlander might climb up on poles, or 
 ring bells, or strew flowers in his path for a little holiday 
 time, and then return to their industrious avocations again. 
 He had made peace with all the world that he might be free to 
 combat heresy ; and this arch enemy had taken up its strong- 
 hold in the provinces. The treaty of Gateau Cambresis left 
 him at liberty to devote himself to that great enterprise. He 
 had never loved the Netherlands ; a residence in these consti- 
 tutional provinces was extremely irksome to him, and he was 
 therefore anxious to return to Spain. From the depths of his 
 cabinet he felt that he should be able to direct the enterprise 
 he was resolved upon, and that his presence in the Nether- 
 lands would be superfluous and disagreeable. 
 
 The early part of the year 1559 was spent by Philip in 
 organising the government of the provinces, and in making 
 the necessary preparations for his departure. The Duke of 
 Savoy, being restored to his duchy, had, of course, no more 
 leisure to act as Regent of the Netherlands ; and it was neces- 
 sary, therefore, to fix upon his successor in this important 
 post at once. There were several candidates. The Duchess, 
 Christina of Lorraine had received many half promises of the 
 appointment, which she was most anxious to secure ; the 
 Emperor was even said to desire the nomination of the Arch- 
 duke Maximilian, a step which would have certainly argued 
 more magnanimity upon Philip's part than the world could 
 give him credit for ; and besides these regal personages, the high 
 nobles of the land, especially Orange and Egmont, had hopes ot 
 obtaining the dignity. The Prince of Orange, however, was too 
 1 Metoroc, i. 23. 24.
 
 1559.] CANDIDATES FOE THE REGENCY. 203 
 
 sagacious to deceive himself long, and became satisSed very 
 soon that no Netherlander was like!}' to be selected for Regent. 
 He therefore threw his influence in favour of the Duchess 
 Christina, whose daughter, at the suggestion of the Bishop of 
 Arras, he was desirous of obtaining in marriage. The King 
 favoured for a time, or pretended to favour, both the appoint- 
 ment of Madame de Lorraine and the marriage project of the 
 Prince. 1 Afterwards, however, and in a manner which was 
 accounted both sudden and mysterious, it appeared that the 
 Duchess and Orange had both been deceived, and that the King 
 and Bishop had decided in favour of another candidate, whose 
 claims had not been considered before very prominent. 8 This 
 was the Duchess Margaret of Parma, natural daughter of 
 Charles the Fifth. 8 A brief sketch of this important personage, 
 so far as regards her previous career, is reserved for the follow- 
 ing chapter ; for the present it is sufficient to state the fact of 
 the nomination. In order to afford a full view of Philip's 
 political arrangements before his final departure from the 
 Netherlands, we defer until the same chapter an account of the 
 persons who composed the boards of council organised to assist 
 the new Regent in the government. These bodies themselves 
 were three in number : a state and privy council and one of 
 finance.* They were not new institutions, having been originally 
 established by the Emperor, and were now arranged by his 
 successor upon the same nominal basis upon which they had 
 before existed. The finance council, which had superin- 
 tendence of all matters relating to the royal domains and to the 
 annual budgets of the government, was presided over by Baron 
 Berlaymont. 3 The privy council, of which Viglius was presi- 
 dent, was composed of ten or twelve learned doctors, and was 
 especially intrusted with the control of matters relating to 
 
 1 Vide Bakknyzen v. d. Brink. . Belgicorum (Lovanii, 1640), i. p. 127. 
 Het Huwelijk van W. Van Oranje, Strada do Bel. Belg. i. 34, 35-42; 
 7, sqq. Reifi'enberg. Correspondance Meteren, i. 24. 
 do Marguerite d'Autriche, (Bruxelles, 
 
 1842), p. 272. 
 
 2 Bakhuyzfn, p. 8. Compare Flor. 
 Varuler JHaer do initiis tumultuum 
 
 Strada, Vander Haer, Meteren, 
 
 ubi sup. 
 
 Meteren, 24. Hoofd, i. 23. 
 Meteren, Hoofd, Vandor Vinckt.
 
 204 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, [1559. 
 
 law, pardons, and the general administration of justice. The 
 state council, which was far the most important of the three 
 boards, was to superintend all high affairs of government, 
 war, treaties, foreign intercourse, internal and interprovinciai 
 affairs. The members of this council were the Bishop of 
 Arras, Viglius, Berlaymont, the Prince of Orange, Count 
 Egmont, to which number were afterwards added the Seigneur 
 de Glayon, the Duke of Aersehot, and Count Horn. 1 The 
 last-named nobleman, who was Admiral of the Provinces, 
 had, for the present, been appointed to accompany the King 
 to Spain, there to be specially intrusted with the administra- 
 tion of affairs relating to the Netherlands. 2 He was destined. 
 
 O ' 
 
 however, to return at the expiration of two years. 
 
 With the object, as it was thought, of curbing the power 
 of the great nobles, it had been arranged that the three 
 councils should be entirely distinct from each other, that the 
 members of the state council should have no participation in 
 the affairs of the other two bodies ; but, on the other hand, 
 that the finance and privy councillors; as well as the Knights 
 of the Fleece should have access to the deliberations of the 
 state council. 3 In the course of events, however, it soon 
 became evident that the real power of the government was 
 exclusively in the hands of the consulta, a committee of three 
 members of the state council, by whose deliberations the 
 Regent was secretly instructed to be guided on all important 
 occasions. The three, Viglius, Berlaymont, and Arras, who 
 composed the secret conclave or cabinet, were in reality but 
 one. The Bishop of Arras was in all three, and it o three 
 together constituted only the Bishop of Arras. 
 
 There was no especial governor or stadtholder appointed for 
 the province of Brabant, where the Regent was to reside and 
 to exercise executive functions in person. The stadtholders for 
 the other provinces were, for Flanders and Artois, the Count 
 of Egmont ; for Holland, Zeland, and Utrecht, the Prince of 
 
 Hoofd, i. 23. Meteren, i. 24. | * Hoofd, Meteren, ubi sup. 
 Vauder Vynckt,i. 149.
 
 1559.] BANDES D'OKDONNANCE. 20a 
 
 Orange ; for Gueldres and Zutfen, the Count of Meghem ; for 
 Friesland, Groningen, and Overyssel, Count Aremberg ; for 
 Hainault, Valenciennes, and Cambray, the Marquis of 
 Berghen ; for Tournay and Tournaisis, Baron Montigny ; for 
 Namur, Baron Berl ay mont ; for Luxemburg, Count Mansfeld; 
 forByssel,Douay,and Orchies, the Baron Coureires. 1 All these 
 stadtholders were commanders-in-chief of the military forces 
 in their respective provinces. With the single exception of 
 Count Egmont, in whose province of Flanders the stadt- 
 holders were excluded from the administration of justice, 2 all 
 were likewise supreme judges in the civil and criminal 
 tribunal. 3 The military force of the Netherlands in time of 
 peace was small, for the provinces were jealous of the presence 
 of soldiery. The only standing army which then legally 
 existed in the Netherlands were the Bandes d'Ordonnance, a 
 body of mounted gendarmerie amounting in all to three 
 thousand men which ranked among the most accomplished 
 and best-disciplined cavalry of Europe.* They were divided 
 into fourteen squadrons, each under the command of a stadt- 
 holder, or of a distinguished noble. Besides these troops, 
 however, there still remained in the provinces a foreign force, 
 amounting in the aggregate to four thousand men.* These 
 soldiers were the remainder of those large bodies which year 
 after year had been quartered upon the Netherlands during 
 the constant warfare to which they had been exposed. Living 
 upon the substance of the country, paid out of its treasury, 
 and as offensive by their licentious and ribald habits of life as 
 were the enemies against whom they were enrolled, these 
 troops had become an intolerable burden to the people. They 
 were now disposed in different garrisons, nominally to protect 
 the frontier. As a firm peace, however, had now been con- 
 cluded between Spain and France, and as there was no 
 pretext for compelling the provinces to accept this protection, 
 the presence of a foreign soldiery strengthened a suspicion that 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 24. Hoofd, i. 22. I Meteren, 24. Ibid, 
 
 Hoofd, 22. | Bor, i. 29. Meteren.
 
 206 
 
 THE EISB OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [15JO. 
 
 they were to be used in the onslaught which was preparing 
 against the religious freedom and the political privileges of the 
 country. They were to be the nucleus of a larger army, it 
 was believed, by which the land was to be reduced to a state 
 of servile subjection to Spain. A low, constant, but generally 
 unheeded murmur of dissatisfaction and distrust upon this 
 subject was already perceptible throughout the Netherlands ; l 
 a warning presage of the coming storm. 
 
 All the provinces were now convoked for the 7th of August 
 (1559) at Ghent, there to receive the parting communication 
 and farewell of the King. 8 Previously to this day, however, 
 Philip appeared in person upon several solemn occasions to 
 impress upon the country the necessity of attending to the 
 great subject with which his mind was exclusively occupied. 3 
 He came before the great council of Mechlin,* in order to 
 address that body with his own lips upon the necessity of 
 supporting the edicts to the letter, and of trampling out every 
 vestige of heresy, wherever it should appear, by the imme- 
 diate immolation of all heretics, whoever they might be. 
 
 He likewise caused the estates of Flanders to be privately 
 assembled, that he might harangue them upon the same great 
 topic. In the latter part of July he proceeded to Ghent, 
 where a great concourse of nobles, citizens, and strangers had 
 
 O <r t O 
 
 already assembled. Here, in the last week of the month, the 
 twenty-third chapter of the Golden Fleece was held with 
 much pomp, and with festivities which lasted three days. 
 The fourteen vacancies which existed were filled with the 
 names of various distinguished personages. With this last 
 celebration the public history of Philip the Good's ostentatious 
 and ambitious order of knighthood was closed. The subse- 
 quent nominations were made ex indultu apostolico, and with- 
 out the assembling of a chapter. 8 
 
 Bor, i. 19. Meteren, 24. 
 
 2 Meteren, 24. 
 
 3 Joach. Hopperus. Eecueil et Me- 
 morial des TroubleB des Pays Eas, 
 (apud Hojnckt, ii.,) p. 20. 
 
 * Joach. Hopperus. Compare 
 Gachard, Collection des Documents 
 Inedits concernant 1'Histoire de la 
 Belgique (Bruxelles, 1833) i. 313-337. 
 
 8 Vander Vynckt, i. 135.
 
 1559.] FAEEWELL ADDRESS. 207 
 
 The estates having duly assembled upon the day prescribed. 
 Philip, attended by Margaret of Parma, the Duke of Savoy, 
 and a stately retinue of ambassadors and grandees, made his 
 appearance before them. After the customary ceremonies had 
 been performed, the Bishop of Arras arose and delivered, in the 
 name of his sovereign, an elaborate address of instructions and 
 farewells. In this important harangue, the states were in- 
 formed that the King had convened them in order that they 
 might be informed of his intention of leaving the Netherlands 
 immediately. He would gladly have remained longer in his 
 beloved provinces, had not circumstances compelled his depar- 
 ture. His father had come hither for the good of the country in 
 the year 1543, and had never returned to Spain, except to die. 
 
 Upon the King's accession to the sovereignty he had arranged 
 a truce of five years, which had been broken through by the 
 faithlessness of France. He had, therefore, been obliged, not- 
 withstanding his anxiety to return to a country where his pre- 
 sence was so much needed, to remain in the provinces till he 
 had conducted the new war to a triumphant close. In doing 
 this he had been solely governed by his intense love for the 
 Netherlands, and by his regard for their interests. All the 
 money which he had raised from their coffers had been spent 
 for their protection. Upon this account his Majesty expressed 
 his confidence that the estates would pay an earnest attention 
 to the " Request " which had been laid before them, the more 
 so, as its amount, three millions of gold florins, would all be 
 expended for the good of the provinces. After his return to 
 Spain he hoped to be able to make a remittance. The Duke of 
 Savoy, he continued, being obliged, in consequence of the for- 
 tunate change in his affairs, to resign the government of the 
 Netherlands, and his own son, Don Carlos, not yet being suffi- 
 ciently advanced in years to succeed to that important office, 
 his Majesty had selected his sister, the Duchess Margaret of 
 Parma, daughter of the Emperor, as the most proper person for 
 Regent. As she had been born in the Netherlands, and had 
 always entertained a profound affection for the provinces, ho
 
 208 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 felt a firm confidence that she would prove faithful both to their 
 interests and his own. As at this moment many countries, and 
 particularly the lands in the immediate neighbourhood, were 
 greatly infested by various " new, reprobate, and damnable 
 sects ;" as these sects, proceeding from the foul fiend, father 
 of discord, had not failed to keep those kingdoms in perpetual 
 dissension and misery, to the manifest displeasure of God 
 Almighty, his Majesty was desirous to avert such terrible 
 evils from his "own realms, according to his duty to the Lord 
 God, who would demand reckoning from him hereafter for the 
 wellbeing of the provinces ; as all experience proved that change 
 of religion ever brought desolation and confusion to the com- 
 monweal; aslow persons, beggars, and vagabonds, under colour 
 of religion, were accustomed to traverse the land for the pur- 
 pose of plunder and disturbance; as his Majesty was most 
 desirous of following in the footsteps of his lord and father ; 
 as it would be well remembered what the Emperor had said to 
 him upon the memorable occasion of his abdication ; therefore 
 his Majesty had commanded the Regent Margaret of Parma, 
 for the sake of religion and the glory of God, accurately and 
 exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made by 
 his imperial Majesty, and renewed by his present Majesty, for 
 tJie extirpation of all sects and heresies. All governors, coun- 
 cillors, and others having authority, were also instructed to do 
 their utmost to accomplish this great end. 1 
 
 The great object of the discourse was thus announced in the 
 most impressive manner, and with all that conventional rhetoric 
 of which the Bishop of Arras was considered a consummate 
 master. Not a word was said on the subject which was nearest 
 the hearts of the Netherlander the withdrawal of the Spanish 
 troops. 2 Not a hint was held out that a reduction of the taxa- 
 
 1 See the Speech in Bor, i. 19-21. 
 Compare Gachard, Docum. Iiied. i. 
 313-322. 
 
 2 Bentivoglio. Guerra di Fiandra, 
 i. 9, (Opere, Parigi, 1648,) gives a 
 different report, which ends with a 
 
 distinct promise on the part of the 
 King to dismiss the troops as soon 
 
 as possible: " in segno di che 
 
 spetiahnente havrebhe quanto prima, 
 e fatti nscire i presidij stranieri dalle 
 fortezze e levata ogn' insolita contri-
 
 1559.] 
 
 ANSWERS TO ROYAL ADDRESS. 
 
 tion, under which the provinces had so long been groaning, 
 was likely to take place ; but, on the contrary, the King had 
 demanded a new levy of considerable amount. A few well- 
 turned paragraphs were added on the subject of the adminis- 
 tration of justice si without which the republic was a dead 
 body without a soul " in the Bishop's most approved style, 
 and the discourse concluded with a fervent exhortation to the 
 provinces to trample heresy and heretics out of existence, 
 and with the hope that the Lord God, in such case, would 
 bestow upon the Netherlands health and happiness. 1 
 
 After the address had been concluded, the deputies, accord- 
 ing to ancient form, requested permission to adjourn, that the 
 representatives of each province might deliberate among them- 
 selves on the point of granting or withholding the Request 
 for the three millions. 3 On the following day they again 
 assembled in the presence of the King, for the purpose of re- 
 turning their separate answers to the propositions. 3 The 
 address first read was that of the estates of Artois.* The 
 chairman of the deputies from that province read a series of 
 resolutions, drawn up, says a contemporary, " with that ele- 
 gance which characterised all the public acts of the Artesians, 
 bearing witness to the vivacity of their wits." 6 The depu- 
 ties spoke of the extreme affection which their province had 
 
 butione al paese." It is almost super- 
 fluous to state that the Cardinal is 
 no authority for speeches, except, 
 indeed, for those which were never 
 made. Long orations by generals 
 upon the battle-field, by royal per- 
 sonages in their cabinets, by con- 
 spirators in secret conclave, are 
 reported by him with much minute- 
 ness, and none can gainsay the 
 accuracy with which these har- 
 angues, which never had any exist- 
 ence, except in the author's imagi- 
 nation, are placed before the reader. 
 Bentivoglio's stately and graceful 
 style, elegant descriptions, and 
 general acquaintance with his sub- 
 ject, will always make his works 
 attractive, but the classic and cou- 
 
 VOL. I. < 
 
 ventional system of inventing long 
 speeches for historical characters, has 
 fortunately gone out of fashion. It 
 is very interesting to know what an 
 important personage really did say 
 or write upon remarkable occasions j 
 but it is less instructive to be told 
 what the historian thinks might have 
 been a good speech or epistle for him 
 to utter or indite. 
 
 1 Bor, ubi sup. 
 
 2 Pontus Payen MS., 14-18. 
 
 3 Ibid. * Ibid. 
 
 5 " En termes fort eiegan* 
 
 comme sont ordinairement les actea 
 et depeches qui se font aux assem- 
 blees desdicts Etats rendans bon tes- 
 moignage de la vivacite dea espirit* 
 d'Artois." Ibid,
 
 210 TEE RISE OF THE DUTCH KEPTJBLIC. [1559. 
 
 always borne to his Majesty and to the Emperor. They had 
 proved it by the constancy with which they had endured the 
 calamities of war so long, and they now cheerfully consented 
 to the Request, so far as their contingent went. They were 
 willing to place at his Majesty's disposal, not only the re- 
 mains of their property, but even the last drop of their blood. 
 
 As the eloquent chairman reached this point in his discourse, 
 Philip, who was standing with his arm resting upon Egmont's 
 shoulder, listening eagerly to the Artesian address, looked 
 upon the deputies of the province with a smiling face, 1 ex- 
 pressing by the unwonted benignity of his countenance the 
 satisfaction which he received from these loyal expressions of 
 affection, and this dutiful compliance with his Request. 3 
 
 The deputy, however, proceeded to an unexpected conclu- 
 sion, by earnestly entreating his Majesty, as a compensation 
 for the readiness thus evinced in the royal service, forthwith 
 to order the departure of all foreign troops then in the Nether- 
 lands. Their presence, it was added, was now rendered 
 completely superfluous by the ratification of the treaty of 
 peace so fortunately arranged with all the world. 
 
 At this sudden change in the deputy's language, the King, 
 no longer smiling, threw himself violently upon his chair of 
 state, where he remained, brooding with a gloomy counte- 
 nance upon the language which had been addressed to him. 
 It was evident, said an eye-witness, that he was deeply 
 offended. He changed colour frequently, so that all present 
 "could remark, from 1 the working of his face, how much 
 his mind was agitated." 3 
 
 The rest of the provinces were even more explicit than the de- 
 puties of Artois. All had voted their contingents to the Re- 
 quest, but all had made the withdrawal of the troops an express 
 antecedent condition to the payment of their respective quotas. 4 
 
 The King did not affect to conceal his rage at these condi- 
 tions, exclaiming bitterly to Count Egmont and other seignors 
 near the throne, that it was very easy to estimate, by these 
 
 ? Pontus Pajen MS., 14-18. Ibid. Ihid. * Jl>ii
 
 155'J.] 
 
 TEE EOYAL KAGE. 
 
 211 
 
 proceedings, the value of the protestations made by the 
 provinces of their loyalty and affection. 1 
 
 Besides, however, the answers thus addressed by the sepa- 
 rate states to the royal address, a formal remonstrance had 
 also been drawn np in the name of the States-General, and 
 signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and many of 
 the leading patricians of the Netherlands. This document, 
 which was formally presented to the King before the adjourn- 
 ment of the assembly, represented the infamous " pillaging, 
 insults, and disorders" daily exercised by the foreign soldiery ; 
 stating that the burthen had become intolerable, and that the 
 inhabitants of Marienburg, and of many other large towns and 
 villages, had absolutely abandoned their homes rather than 
 remain any longer exposed to such insolence and oppression. 2 
 
 The King, already enraged, was furious at the presentation 
 of this petition. He arose from his seat, and rushed impetu- 
 ously from the assembly, demanding of the members as he 
 went, whether he too, as a Spaniard, was expected imme- 
 diately to leave the land, and to resign all authority over it. 3 
 The Duke of Savoy made use of this last occasion in which 
 he appeared in public as Regent, violently to rebuke the 
 estates for the indignity thus offered to their sovereign. 4 
 
 It could not be forgotten, however, by nobles and burghers, 
 who had not yet been crushed by the long course of oppression 
 which was in store for them, that there had been a day when 
 Philip's ancestors had been more humble in their deportment 
 in the face of the provincial authorities. His great grand- 
 father, Maximilian, kept in durance by the citizens of Bruges; 
 his great-grandmother, Mary of Burgundy, with streaming 
 eyes and dishevelled hair, supplicating in the market-place 
 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. 14-18. Com- 
 pare Vancler Haer, i. 108-110; Wage- 
 naer, Vaclerl. Hist vi.52. 
 
 2 Mel eren, i. 24. Bor, i. 22. Wage- 
 naer, vi. 48-52. " Kemontrance 
 adresse au roy par les etats generaulx 
 pour le renvoi des troupes etrangeres 
 et pour que les affaires fu.ssent 
 
 administrees de 1'avi des Seigneurs." 
 Gachard. Documents Incdits, i. 
 323-325. 
 
 3 Wagenaer, vi. 62. Compare 
 Vancler Haer "Subiratum de secle 
 He. em surrerisse et eo digresso," 
 etc. viii. 10. 
 
 * Vandsr Haer, ubi sup.
 
 212 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 for the lives of her treacherous ambassadors, were wont to hold 
 a less imperious language to the delegates of the states. 
 
 This burst of ill-temper on the part of the monarch was 
 succeeded by a different humour. It was still thought advi- 
 sable to dissemble, and to return rather an expostulatory than 
 a peremptory answer to the remonstrance of the States-Gene- 
 ral. Accordingly, a paper of a singular tone was, after the 
 delay of a few days, sent into the assembly. In this message 
 it was stated that the King was not desirous of placing 
 strangers in the government a fact which was proved by the 
 appointment of the Duchess Margaret ; that the Spanish in- 
 fantry was necessary to protect the land from invasion ; that 
 the remnant of foreign troops only amounted to three or four 
 thousand men, who claimed considerable arrears of pay, but 
 that the amount due would be forwarded to them immediately 
 after his Majesty's return to Spain. It was suggested that 
 the troops would serve as an escort for Don Carlos when he 
 should arrive in the Netherlands, although the King would 
 have been glad to carry them to Spain in his fleet, had he 
 known the wishes of the estates in time. He would, however, 
 pay for their support himself, although they were to act solely 
 for the good of the provinces. He observed, moreover, that 
 he had selected two seignors of the provinces, the Prince of 
 Orange and Count Egmont, to take command of these foreign 
 troops, and he promised faithfully, that, in the course of three 
 or four months at furthest, they should all be withdrawn. 1 
 
 On the same day in which the estates had assembled at 
 Ghent, Philip had addressed an elaborate letter to the grand 
 council of Mechlin, the supreme court of the provinces, and to 
 the various provincial councils and tribunals of the whole 
 country. 2 The object of the communication was to give his 
 final orders on the subject of the edicts, and for the execution 
 
 1 "Reponse du Roy a la Remon- 
 trance," etc. Documents Inedits, i. 
 326-329. 
 
 2 Lettre de Phil. II. au grand c?n- 
 seil de Malines par laquelle il lui fait 
 
 connaitre son intention eur le fait 
 de la religion et de 1'extirpation des 
 heresies, 8 Aout, 1559. Documents 
 Inedits, i. 332-33a
 
 1659.] THE FINAL REPLY OP PHILIP. 213 
 
 of all heretics in the most universal and summary manner. 
 He gave stringent and unequivocal instructions that these 
 decrees for burning, strangling, and burying alive, should be 
 fulfilled to the letter. He ordered all judicial officers and 
 magistrates ft to be curious to inquire on all sides as to the 
 execution of the placards," stating his intention that " the 
 utmost rigour should be employed without any respect of 
 persons," and that not only "the transgressors should bo 
 proceeded against, but also the judges who should prove re- 
 miss in their prosecution of heretics." ' He alluded to a false 
 opinion that had gained currency, that the edicts were only 
 intended against Anabaptists. Correcting this error, he 
 stated that they were to be " enforced against all sectaries, 
 without any distinction or mercy, who might be spotted 
 merely with the errors introduced by Luther." a 
 
 The King, notwithstanding the violent scenes in the assembly, 
 took leave of the estates at another meeting with apparent 
 cordiality. His dissatisfaction was sufficiently manifest, but 
 it expressed itself principally against individuals. His dis- 
 pleasure at the course pursued by the leading nobles, particu- 
 larly by the Prince of Orange, was already no secret. 
 
 Philip, soon after the adjournment of the assembly, had com- 
 pleted the preparations for his departure. At Middelburg he 
 was met by the agreeable intelligence that the Pope had con- 
 sented to issue a bull for the creation of the new bishoprics 
 which he desired for the Netherlands. 3 This important subject 
 will be resumed in another chapter ; for the present we accom- 
 pany the King to Flushing, whence the fleet was to set sail for 
 Spain. He was escorted thither by the Duchess Regent, the 
 
 " Que vous soyez curieulx 
 
 pour vous enquerir si a tous costelz 
 1'execution se fera centre ceulx qui 
 y centre viendront laquelle execu- 
 tion nous entendons et voulons so 
 
 les juges qui vouldroient user de 
 dissimulation et connivance," etc., 
 etc. 355. 
 
 a " Centre ceulx qui pour- 
 
 roient estre seullement entachez des 
 
 face avec toute rigueur et sans y j articles et erreurs introduitz et SOUB- 
 respeeter personne qui que ce soit, et tenus par le diet Luthere." 337. 
 de proceder non seullement contre 3 Hopper, Rec. et Mem., p. 21, 
 le transgresseurs mais aussi contre c. ii.
 
 214 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 Duke of Savoy, and by many of the most eminent personages 
 of the provinces. 1 Among others, William of Orange was in 
 attendance to witness the final departure of the King, and to 
 pay him his farewell respects. As Philip was proceeding on 
 board the ship which was to bear him for ever from the 
 Netherlands, his eyes lighted upon the Prince. His displeasure 
 could no longer be restrained. With angry face he turned 
 upon him, and bitterly reproached him for having thwarted 
 all his plans by means of his secret intrigues. William replied 
 with humility that everything which had taken place had been 
 done through the regular and natural movements of the states. 
 Upon this the King, boiling with rage, seized the Prince by 
 the wrist, and, shaking it violently, exclaimed in Spanish, 
 " No los estados, ma vos, vos, vos ! " Not the estates, but 
 you, you, you ! repeating thrice the word lf vos," which is as 
 disrespectful and uncourteous in Spain as " toi " in French. 2 
 
 After this severe and public insult, the Prince of Orange 
 did not go on board his Majesty's vessel, but contented him- 
 self with wishing Philip, from the shore/ a fortunate journey. 
 It may be doubted, moreover, whether he would not have 
 made a sudden and compulsory voyage to Spain had he 
 ventured his person in the ship, and whether, under the cir- 
 cumstances, he would have been likely to effect as speedy a 
 return. His caution served him then as it was destined to do 
 on many future occasions, and Philip left the Netherlands 
 with this parting explosion of hatred against the man who, 
 as he perhaps instinctively felt, was destined to circumvent 
 his measures and resist his tyranny to the last. 
 
 The fleet, which consisted of ninety vessels, so well provi- 
 sioned that, among other matters, fifteen thousand capons were 
 put on board, according to the Antwerp chronicler,* set sail 
 upon the 26th August (155 i)) from Flushing. 5 The voyage 
 
 1 Vander Vynckt, i. 140. I gentleman present at the scene, a 
 
 8 Me'moires de 1'Aubery du Mau- | friend of the Prince of Orange. 
 
 rier, (Maurier, 1680,) p. 9, who re- 3 Ibid. 
 
 lates the anecdote upon the autho- * Metereri, i. 25. 
 
 rity of his father, who had it from a ' Ibid.
 
 1559.] 
 
 AUTOS-DA-FE UPON PHILIP'S EETUEN. 
 
 215 
 
 proved tempestuous, so that much of the rich tapestry and 
 other merchandise which had been accumulated by Charles and 
 Philip was lost. Some of the vessels foundered ; to save others 
 it was necessary to lighten the cargo, and "to enrobe the roar- 
 in o- waves with the silks," for which the Netherlands were so 
 
 ' 
 
 famous ; so that it was said that Philip and his father had im- 
 poverished the earth only to enrich the ocean. 1 The fleet had 
 been laden with much valuable property, because the King had 
 determined to fix for the future the wandering capital of his 
 dominions in Spain. Philip landed in safety, however, at 
 Laredo, on the 8th September. 8 His escape from imminent 
 peril confirmed him in the great purpose to which he had con- 
 secrated his existence. He believed himself to have been re- 
 served from shipwreck only because a mighty mission had 
 been confided to him ; and lest his enthusiasm against heresy 
 should languish, his eyes were soon feasted , upon his arrival 
 in his native country, with the spectacle of an auto-da-fd. 
 
 Early in January of this year, the King being persuaded that 
 it was necessary everywhere to use additional means to check 
 the alarming spread of Lutheran opinions, had written to the 
 Pope for authority to increase, if that were possible, the strin- 
 gency of the Spanish Inquisition. The pontiff, nothing loth, 
 had accordingly issued a bull directed to the Inquisitor- 
 General, Valdez, by which he was instructed to consign to 
 the flames all prisoners whatever, even those who were not 
 accused of having " relapsed." 3 Great preparations had been 
 made to strike terror into the hearts of heretics by a series of 
 horrible exhibitions, in the course of which the numerous 
 victims, many of them persons of high rank, distinguished 
 learning, and exemplary lives, who had long been languishing 
 in the dungeons of the holy office, were to be consigned to 
 the flames. 4 The first auto-da-fe had been consummated at 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 25. Hoofd, i. 27. evil," says Llorente, "this alone would 
 Compare Cabrera, v. 235. be sufficient to consign their names to 
 
 a Bor, i. 22. eternal infamy." 
 
 ^ 8 " Had the King and the Inqui- 4 Cabrera, v. 235, sqq. Llorente, 
 eitor never committed any other Hist. Crit. de 1'Inquis., ii. rviii.
 
 216 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 Valladolid on the 21st May (1559) in the absence of the 
 King, of course, but in the presence of the Royal family and 
 the principal notabilities, civil, ecclesiastical, and military. 
 The Princess Regent, seated on her throne close to the scafFold > 
 had held on high the holy sword. The Archbishop of Seville, 
 followed by the ministers of the Inquisition and by the 
 victims, had arrived in solemn procession at the " cadahalso," 
 where, after the usual sermon in praise of the holy office 
 and in denunciation of heresy, he had administered the oath 
 to the Infante, who had duly sworn upon the crucifix to 
 maintain for ever the sacred Inquisition and the apostolic 
 decrees. The Archbishop had then cried aloud, " So may God 
 prosper your Highnesses and your estates ; " 1 after which the 
 men and women who formed the object of the show had been 
 cast into the flames. 2 It being afterwards ascertained that 
 the King himself would soon be enabled to return to Spain, 
 the next festival was reserved as a fitting celebration for his 
 arrival. Upon the 8th October, accordingly, another auto-da-fe 
 took place at Valladolid. The King, with his sister and his 
 son, the high officers of state, the foreign ministers, and all the 
 nobility of the kingdom, were present, together with an im- 
 mense concourse of soldiery, clergy, and populace. The sermon 
 was preached by the Bishop of Cuen9a. When it was finished, 
 Inquisitor-General Valdez cried with a loud voice, " God, 
 make speed to help us ! " 3 The King then drew his sword. 
 Valdez, advancing to the platform upon which Philip was seated, 
 proceeded to read the protestation: " Your Majesty swears by 
 the cross of the sword, whereon your royal hand reposes, that 
 you will give all necessary favour to the holy office of the Inqui- 
 sition against heretics, apostates, and those who favour them, 
 and will denounce and inform against all those who, to your 
 royal knowledge, shall act or speak against the faith." 4 The 
 King answered aloud, tl I swear it," and signed the paper. The 
 oath was read to the whole assembly by an officer of the In- 
 
 1 Cabrera, IT. 209. I 3 " Domine adjuva noe." Cabre? 
 
 8 Ibid. ra v. 235. Ibid.
 
 1559.] 
 
 NUPTIAL TORCHES. 
 
 217 
 
 quisition. Thirteen distinguished victims were then burned 
 alive before the monarch's eyes, besides one body which a 
 friendly death had snatched from the hands of the holy office, 
 and the effigy of another person who had been condemned, 
 although not yet tried, or even apprehended. Among the 
 sufferers was Carlos de Sessa, a young noble of distinguished 
 character and abilities, who said to the King as he passed by 
 the throne to the stake, " How can you thus look on and 
 permit me to be burned ? " Philip then made the memor- 
 able reply, carefully recorded by his historiographer and 
 panegyrist : ft I would carry the wood to burn my own son 
 withal, were he as wicked as you." * 
 
 In Seville, immediately afterwards, another auto-da-fe was 
 held, in which fifty living heretics were burned, besides the 
 bones of Dr. Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, once the friend, 
 chaplain, and almoner of Philip's father. This learned and 
 distinguished ecclesiastic had been released from a dreadful 
 dungeon by a fortunate fever. The holy office, however, not 
 content with punishing his corpse, wreaked also an impotent 
 and ludicrous malice upon his effigy. A stuffed figure, attired 
 in his robes, and with its arms extended in the attitude which 
 was habitual with him in prayer, was placed upon the scaffold 
 among the living victims, and then cast into the flames, that 
 bigotry might enjoy a fantastic triumph over the grave. 
 
 Such were the religious ceremonies with which Philip 
 celebrated his escape from shipwreck, and his marriage 
 with Isabella of France, immediately afterwards solemnised. 
 These human victims, chained and burning at the stake, were 
 the blazing torches which lighted the monarch to his nuptial 
 couch. 2 
 
 1 " Yo traere lena para quemar a 
 mi hijo si fuere tan malo como vos.'' 
 Cabrera, v. 236. 
 
 2 Hoofd, i. 27. Meteren, i. 25. 
 Bor, i. 23. De Thou, iii. 410-413, 
 
 xxiii. Cabrera, iv. 209, and T. 235, 
 sqq. Compare Llorente, (Hist. Crit. 
 de 1'Inquis. ii. iriii. xx. and xxi.,) 
 wbo bas corrected many errors made 
 by preceding historians.
 
 PART II. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUCHESS MARGARET. 
 1559-1567.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BOWING THE WIND. 
 
 Biographical sketch and portrait of Margaret of Parma The state council 
 Berlaymont Viglius Sketch of William the Silent Portrait of 
 Anthony Perrenot, afterwards Cardinal Granvelle General view of 
 the political, social, and religious condition of the Netherlands Habits 
 of the aristocracy Emulation in extravagance Pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments Sympathy for the Reformation steadily increasing among the 
 people, the true cause of the impending revolt Measures of the 
 Government Edict of 1550 described Papal Bulls granted to Philip 
 for increasing the number of Bishops in the Netherlands Neces- 
 sity for retaining the Spanish troops to enforce the policy of persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 MARGARET of Parma, newly appointed Regent of the Nether- 
 lands, was the natural daughter of Charles the Fifth, and his 
 eldest born child. Her mother, of a respectable family called 
 Van der Genst, in Oudenarde, had been adopted and brought 
 up by the distinguished house of Hoogstraaten. Peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, not necessary to relate at length, had palliated the 
 fault to which Margaret owed her imperial origin, and gave the 
 child almost a legitimate claim upon its father's protection. 
 The claim was honourably acknowledged. Margaret was in 
 her infancy placed by the Emperor in the charge of his paternal 
 aunt, Margaret of Savoy, then regent of the provinces. Upon 
 the death of that princess, the child was intrusted to the care of 
 the Emperor's sister, Mary, Queen Dowager of Hungary, who 
 had succeeded to the government, and who occupied it until the 
 abdication. The huntress-queen communicated her tastes to 
 her youthful niece, and Margaret soon outrivalled her instruo-
 
 222 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH KEPTJBLIO. [1559. 
 
 tress. The ardour with which she pursued the stag, and the 
 courageous horsemanship which she always displayed, proved 
 her, too, no degenerate descendant of Mary of Burgundy. 
 Her education for the distinguished position in which she had 
 somewhat surreptitiously been placed, was at least not neglected 
 in this particular. When, soon after the memorable sack of 
 Home, the Pope and the Emperor had been reconciled, and it 
 had been decided that the Medici family should be elevated 
 upon the ruins of Florentine liberty, Margaret's hand was con- 
 ferred in marriage upon the pontiff's nephew, Alexander. The 
 wretched profligate who was thus selected to mate with the 
 Emperor's eldest-born child, and to appropriate the fair de- 
 mesnes of the Tuscan republic, was nominally the offspring of 
 Lorenzo de Medici by a Moorish slave, although generally re 
 puted a bastard of the Pope himself. The nuptials were cele- 
 brated with great pomp at Naples, where the Emperor rode at 
 the tournament in the guise of a Moorish warrior. At Florence 
 splendid festivities had also been held, which were troubled with 
 omens believed to be highly unfavourable. It hardly needed, 
 however, preternatural appearances in heaven or on earth to 
 proclaim the marriage ill-starred, which united a child of twelve 
 years with a worn-out debauchee of twenty-seven. Fortunately 
 for Margaret the funeral portents proved true. Her husband, 
 within the first year of their wedded life, fell a victim to his 
 own profligacy, and was assassinated by his kinsman, Lorenzino 
 de Medici. Cosmo, his successor in the tyranny of Florence, 
 was desirous of succeeding to the hand of Margaret, but the 
 politic Emperor, thinking that he had already done enough to 
 conciliate that house, was inclined to bind to his interests the 
 family which now occupied the papal throne. Margaret was 
 accordingly, a few years afterwards, united to Ottavio Farnese, 
 nephew of Paul the Third. It was still her fate to be un- 
 equally matched. Having, while still a child, been wedded to 
 a man of more than twice her years, she was now, at the age 
 of twenty, united to an immature youth of thirteen. She con- 
 ceived so strong an aversion to her new husband, that it
 
 1559.) MARGARET OF PARMA. 223 
 
 became impossible for them to live together in peace. Ottavio 
 accordingly went to the wars, and in 1541 accompanied the 
 Emperor in his memorable expedition to Barbary. 
 
 Rumours of disaster by battle and tempests reaching Eu- 
 rope before the results of the expedition were accurately known, 
 reports that the Emperor had been lost in a storm, and that 
 the young Ottavio had perished with him, awakened remorse 
 in the bosom of Margaret. It seemed to her that he had been 
 driven forth by domestic inclemency to fall a victim to the ele- 
 ments. When, however, the truth became known, and it was 
 ascertained that her husband, although still living, was lying 
 dangerously ill in the charge of the Emperor, the repugnance 
 which had been founded upon his extreme youth changed to 
 passionate fondness. His absence, and his faithful military 
 attendance upon her father, caused a revulsion in her feelings, 
 and awakened her admiration. When Ottavio, now created 
 Duke of Parma and Piacenza, returned to Rome, he was 
 received by his wife with open arms. Their union was soon 
 blessed with twins, and but for a certain imperiousness of 
 disposition which Margaret had inherited from her father, 
 and which she was too apt to exercise even upon her husband, 
 the marriage would have been sufficiently fortunate. 1 
 
 Various considerations pointed her out to Philip as a suit- 
 able person for the office of Regent, although there seemed 
 some mystery about the appointment which demanded expla- 
 nation. It was thought that her birth would make her accept- 
 able to the people ; but, perhaps, the secret reason with Philip 
 was, that she alone of all other candidates would be amenable 
 to the control of the churchman in whose hand he intended 
 placing the real administration of the provinces. Moreover, 
 her husband was very desirous that the citadel of Piacenza, 
 still garrisoned by Spanish troops, should be surrendered to 
 him. Philip was disposed to conciliate the Duke, but un- 
 willing to give up the fortress. He felt that Ottavio would 
 be flattered by the nomination of his wife to so important 
 1 Strada, i. 35-41.
 
 221 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559 
 
 an office, and be nottoo much dissatisfied at finding himself re- 
 lieved for a time from her imperious fondness. Her residence 
 in the Netherlands would guarantee domestic tranquillity to 
 her husband, and peace in Italy to the king. Margaret would 
 be a hostage for the fidelity of the Duke, who had, moreover, 
 given his eldest son to Philip to be educated in his service. 
 
 She was about thirty-seven years of age when she arrived 
 in the Netherlands, with the reputation of possessing high 
 talents, and a proud and energetic character. 1 She was an 
 enthusiastic Catholic, and had sat at the feet of Loyola, who 
 Lad been her confessor and spiritual guide. She felt a greater 
 horror for heretics than for any other species of malefactors, 
 and looked up to her father's bloody edicts as if they had 
 been special revelations from on high. She was most 
 strenuous in her observance of Roman rites, and was accus- 
 tomed to wash the feet of twelve virgins every holy week, and 
 to endow them in marriage afterwards. 2 Her acquirements, 
 save that of the art of horsemanship, were not remarkable. 
 
 Carefully educated in the Machiavellian and Medicean 
 school of politics she was versed in that ll dissimulation,* to 
 which liberal Anglo-Saxons give a shorter name, but which 
 formed the main substance of statesmanship at the court of 
 Charles and Philip. In other respects her accomplishments 
 were but meagre, and she had little acquaintance with any 
 language but Italian. Her personal appearance, which was 
 masculine, but not without a certain grand and imperial fasci- 
 nation, harmonised with the opinion generally entertained of 
 her character. The famous moustache upon her upper lip 3 
 was supposed to indicate authority and virility of purpose, 
 an impression which was confirmed by the circumstance that 
 she was liable to severe attacks of gout, a disorder usually 
 considered more appropriate to the sterner sex.* 
 
 Such were the previous career and public reputation of the 
 
 * Strada, i. 42. a Ibid. 
 
 * " Nee deertvt aliqua mento BU- 
 fwriorique labello barbula, ex qua 
 
 virilis ei non magis species quara 
 auctontas conciliabatur." Strada, i. 
 42. * Ibid.
 
 1559.1 BERLAYMONT AND VIGLIU3. 225 
 
 Duchess Margaret. It remains to be unfolded whether her 
 character and endowments, as exemplified in her new position, 
 were to justify the choice of Philip. 
 
 The members of the state council, as already observed, were 
 Berlaymont, Viglius, Arras, Orange, and Egmont. 
 
 The first was, likewise, chief of the finance department. 
 Most of the Catholic writers described him as a noble of loyal 
 and highly honourable character. Those of the Protestant 
 party, on the contrary, uniformly denounced him as greedy, 
 avaricious, and extremely sanguinary. That he was a brave 
 and devoted soldier, a bitter Papist, and an inflexible adherent 
 to the royal cause, has never been disputed. The Baron 
 himself, with his four courageous and accomplished sons, were 
 ever in the front ranks to defend the crown against the 
 nation. It must be confessed, however, that fanatical loyalty 
 loses most of the romance with which genius and poetry have 
 so often hallowed the sentiment, when the t( legitimate " 
 prince for whom the sword is drawn is not only an alien in 
 tongue and blood, but filled with undisguised hatred for the 
 land he claims to rule. 
 
 Viglius van Ay tta van Zuichem was a learned Frisian, born, 
 according to some writers, of" boors' degree, but having no in- 
 clination for boorish work." According to other authorities, 
 which the President himself favoured, he was of noble origin ; 
 but whatever his race, it is certain that, whether gentle or sim- 
 ple, it derived its first and only historical illustration from his 
 remarkable talents and acquirements. These in early youth 
 were so great as to acquire the commendation of Erasmus. He 
 had studied in Louvain, Paris, and Padua, had refused the 
 tutorship of Philip when that prince was still a child, and had 
 afterwards filled a professorship at Ingolstadt. After rejecting 
 several offers of promotion from the Emperor, he had at last 
 accepted, in 1542, a seat in the council of Mechlin, of which 
 body he had become president in 1545. He had been one 
 of the peace commissioners to France in 1558, and was now 
 1 Lovensbesch. KcderL Man. en Vrouwen, ir. 75. 
 
 VOL. r. p
 
 226 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [I55U. 
 
 president of the privy council, a member of the state council, 
 and of the inner and secret committee of that board, called the 
 Consulta. Much odium was attached to his name for his 
 share in the composition of the famous edict of 1550. The 
 rough draught was usually attributed to his pen, but he com- 
 plained bitterly, in letters written at this time, of injustice 
 done him in this respect, and maintained that he had endea- 
 voured, without success, to induce the Emperor to mitigate 
 the severity of the edict. One does not feel very strongly in- 
 clined to accept his excuses, however, when his general opinions 
 on the subject of religion are remembered. He was most 
 bigoted in precept and practice. Religious liberty he re- 
 garded as the most detestable and baleful of doctrines ; heresy 
 he denounced as the most unpardonable of crimes. 
 
 From no man's mouth flowed more bitter or more elegant 
 commonplaces than from that of the learned president against 
 those blackest of malefactors, the men who claimed within 
 their own walls the right to worship God according to their own 
 consciences. For a common person, not learned in law or 
 divinity, to enter into his closet, to shut the door, and to pray 
 to Him who seeth in secret, was, in his opinion, to open wide 
 the gate of destruction for all the land, and to bring in the 
 Father of Evil at once to fly away with the whole population, 
 body and soul. " If every man," said he to Hopper, " is to 
 believe what he likes in his own house, we shall have hearth 
 gods and tutelar divinities l again, the country will swarm with 
 a thousand errors and sects, and very few there will be, I fear, 
 who will allow themselves to be enclosed in the sheepfold of 
 Christ. I have ever considered this opinion," continued the 
 president, " the most pernicious of all. They who hold it have 
 a contempt for all religion, and are neither more nor less than 
 atheists. This vague, fireside liberty should be by every possi- 
 ble means extirpated ; therefore did Christ institute shepherds 
 to drive his wandering sheep back into the fold of the true 
 Chur-jh ; thus only can we guard the lambs against the raven- 
 1 " iarcs lemuresque," etc. Ep. ad Hopp, 421.
 
 1559.] 
 
 THE NASSAU FAMILY. 
 
 227 
 
 ing wolves, and prevent them being carried away from the 
 flock of Christ to the flock of Belial. Liberty of religion or of 
 conscience, as they call it, ought never to be tolerated." l 
 
 This was the cant with which Viglius was ever ready to feed 
 not only his faithful Hopper, but all the world beside. The 
 president was naturally anxious that the fold of Christ should 
 be intrusted to none but regular shepherds, for he looked 
 forward to taking one of the most lucrative crooks into his 
 own hand, when he should retire from his secular career. 
 
 It is now necessary to say a few introductory words con- 
 cerning the man who, from this time forth, begins to rise 
 upon the history of his country with daily increasing grandeur 
 and influence. William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, al- 
 though still young in years, is already the central person- 
 age about whom the events and the characters of the epoch 
 most naturally group themselves ; destined as he is to become 
 more and more with each succeeding year the vivifying source 
 of light, strength, and national life to a whole people. 
 
 The Nassau family first emerges into distinct existence in 
 the middle of the eleventh century. It divides itself almost as 
 soon as known into two great branches. The elder remained 
 in Germany, ascended the imperial throne in the thirteenth 
 century in the person of Adolph of Nassau, and gave to the 
 country many electors, bishops, and generals. The younger 
 and more illustrious branch retained the modest property and 
 petty sovereignty of Nassau Dillenbourg, but at the same time 
 transplanted itself to the Netherlands, where it attained at an 
 early period to great power and large possessions. The ances- 
 tors of William, as Dukes of Gueldres, had begun to exercise 
 sovereignty in the provinces four centuries before the advent 
 of the house of Burgundy. 2 That overshadowing family after- 
 wards numbered the Netherland Nassaus amon its most 
 
 1 Viglii Epist. ad Joach. Hoppe- 
 rum, pp. 421, 422. Compare Vit. 
 Viglii ab ipso Viglio Script, (apud 
 Hoyack, i.) 1-33; Yi^lii Epist. Se- 
 
 lect, ad Diversos, cxlviii. ; Leveneb. 
 Nederl. Man. en Vrouw., iv. 75-82; 
 Vandrr Vynckt, i. 127. 
 2 Apologie d'Orange 42.
 
 223 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 staunch and powerful adherents. Engelbertthe Second was dis 
 tinguished in the turbulent councils and in the battlefields of 
 Charles the Bold, and was afterwards the unwavering supporter 
 of Maximilian, in court and camp. Dying childless, he was 
 succeeded by his brother John, whose two sons, Henry and 
 William of Nassau, divided the great inheritance after their 
 father's death. William succeeded to the German estates, 
 became a convert to Protestantism, and introduced the Refor- 
 mation into his dominions. Henry, the eldest son, received 
 the family possessions and titles in Luxembourg, Brabant, 
 Flanders, and Holland, and distinguished himself as much as 
 his uncle Engelbert, in the service of the Burgundo-Austrian 
 house. The confidential friend of Charles the Fifth, whose 
 governor he had been in that Emperor's boyhood, he was ever 
 his most efficient and reliable adherent. It was he whose in- 
 fluence placed the imperial crown upon the head of Charles. 1 
 In 1515 he espoused Claudia de Chalons, sister of Prince 
 Philibert of Orange, "in order," as he wrote to his father, 
 il to be obedient to his imperial Majesty, to please the King of 
 France, and more particularly for tJie sake of his own honour 
 andprojit."* His son Rene de Nassau- Chalons succeeded Phili- 
 bert. The little principality of Orange, so pleasantly situated 
 between Provence and Dauphiny,but in such dangerous proxi- 
 mity to the seat of the "Babylonian captivity" of the Popes at 
 Avignon, thus passed to the family at Nassau. The title was 
 of high antiquity. Already in the reign of Charlemagne Guil- 
 laume au Court-Nez, or " William with the Short Nose," had 
 defended the little town of Orange against the assaults of the 
 Saracens. The interest and authority acquired in the demesnes 
 
 1 " (Test lui qui a mis la 
 
 couronne imjieriale sur la teste de 
 
 1'Empereur 
 
 il persuada les electeurs de preferer 
 1'Empereur au Roi de France. 
 Et comme il est notoire 4 un cha- 
 cun que ceste couronne imperiale 
 a e.=te le pont qui par apres a 
 faiot passage a 1'Empereur pour 
 
 tant de conquestes," etc. Apologie, 
 23. 
 
 a " Om geeoirsam te zyn der 
 
 Keis. Maj. ende ooc om te wille te 
 zyn den Conic van Vrancryk ende 
 sonrferling om myner eeren en de 
 pronffyts wille." Arnoldi, Hist. Denk. 
 p. 187. Groen v. Prinateror, Archives, 
 etc., i. 64*. note 2.
 
 1659.] 
 
 HIGH FORTUNES OF ORANGE. 
 
 229 
 
 thus preserved by his valour became extensive, and in process 
 of time hereditary in his race. The principality became an 
 absolute and free sovereignty, 1 and had already descended, 
 in defiance of the Salic law, through the three distinct 
 families of Orange, Baux, and Chalons. 
 
 In 1544, Prince Rene died at the Emperor's feet in the 
 trenches of Saint Dizier. Having no legitimate children he 
 left all his titles and estates to his cousin-german, William of 
 Nassau, son of his father's brother William, who thus at the 
 age of eleven years became William the Ninth of Orange. 
 For this child whom the future was to summon to such high 
 destinies and such heroic sacrifices, the past and present 
 seemed to have gathered riches and power together from 
 many sources. He was the descendant of the Othos, the 
 Engelberts, and the Henries, of the Netherlands, the repre- 
 sentative of the Philiberts and the Renes of France; the chief 
 of a house, humbler in resources and position in Germany, 
 but still in high rank, and which had already done good 
 service to humanity by being among the first to embrace 
 the great principles of the Reformation. 
 
 Hisfathe:', younger brother of the Emperor's friend, Henry, 
 was called William the Rich he was, however, only rich in 
 children. Of these he had five sons and seven daughters by 
 his Avife Juliana of Stolberg. She was a person of most 
 exemplary character and vmaffected piety. She instilled into 
 the minds of all her children the elements of that devotional 
 sentiment which was her own striking characteristic, and it 
 was destined that the seed sown early should increase to an 
 abundant harvest. Nothing can be more tender or more 
 touching than the letters which still exist from her hand, 
 written to her illustrious sons in hours of anxiety or anguish, 
 and to the last, recommending to them with as much earnest 
 
 1 " Et moins m'a il (I'Empe- 
 
 reur) pea favoriser en inon princi- 
 paulte d'Oiange, on il n'avoit rien a 
 eoir ni lui m prince quelconque, le 
 
 tenant en souverainete nue et absolue, 
 ce quo pen d autres seigneurs pourront 
 dire." Apologie, 15.
 
 230 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 simplicity as if they were still little children at her knee, to 
 rely always, in the midst of the trials and dangers which were 
 to beset their paths through life, upon the great hand of God. 
 Among the mothers of great men, Juliana of Stolberg de- 
 serves a foremost place, and it is no slight eulogy that she 
 was worthy to have been the mother of "William of Orange 
 and of Lewis, Aclolphus, Henry, and John of Nassau. 
 
 At the age of eleven years, William having thus unexpectedly 
 succeeded to such great possessions, was sent from his father's 
 roof to be educated in Brussels. No destiny seemed to lie 
 before the young prince but an education at the Emperor's 
 court, to be followed by military adventures, embassies, vice- 
 royalties, and a life of luxury and magnificence. At a very 
 early age he came, accordingly, as a page into the Emperor's 
 family. Charles recognised, with his customary quickness, the 
 remarkable character of the boy. At fifteen, William was the 
 intimate, most confidential friend of the Emperor, who prided 
 himself, above all other gifts, on his power of reading and 
 using men. The youth was so constant an attendant upon his 
 imperial chief, that even when interviews with the highest 
 personages, and upon the gravest affairs, were taking place, 
 Charles would never suffer him to be considered superfluous or 
 intrusive. There seemed to be no secrets which the Emperor 
 held too high for the comprehension or discretion of his page. 
 His perceptive and reflective faculties, naturally of remarkable 
 keenness and depth, thus required a precocious and extraordi- 
 nary development. He was brought up behind the curtain of 
 that great stage where the world's dramas were daily enacted. 
 The machinery and the masks which produced the grand 
 delusions of history had no deceptions for him. Carefully to 
 observe men's actions, and silently to ponder upon their mo- 
 tives, was the favourite occupation of the Prince during his 
 apprenticeship at court. As he advanced to man's estate, he 
 was selected by the Emperor for the highest duties. Charles, 
 whose only merit, so far as the provinces were concerned, was 
 in having been born in Ghent, and that by an ignoble accident,
 
 1559.] WILLIAM'S EARLY DISTINCTION. 231 
 
 was glad to employ this representative of so many great 
 Netherland houses in the defence of the land. Before the 
 Prince was twenty-one he was appointed general-in-chief of 
 the army on the French frontier, in the absence of the Duke 
 of Savoy. The post was coveted by many most distinguished 
 soldiers the Counts of Buren, Bossu, Lalain, Aremberg, 
 Megliem, and particularly by Count Egmont ;* yet Charles 
 showed his extraordinary confidence in the Prince of Orange 
 by selecting him for the station, although he had hardly 
 reached maturity and was moreover absent in France. The 
 young Prince acquitted himself of his high command in a 
 manner which justified his appointment. 
 
 It was the Prince's shoulder upon which the Emperor 
 leaned at the abdication ; the Prince's hand which bore the 
 imperial insignia of the discrowned monarch to Ferdinand, 
 at Augsburg. With these duties relations with Charles 
 were ended, and those with Philip begun. He was with the 
 army during the hostilities which were soon after resumed in 
 Picardy ; he was the secret negotiator of the preliminary 
 arrangement with France, soon afterwards confirmed by the 
 triumphant treaty of April 1559. He had conducted these 
 initiatory conferences with the Constable Montmorency and 
 Marshal de Saint Andre with great sagacity, although hardly 
 a man in years, and by so doing he laid Philip under deep 
 obligations. The King was so inexpressibly anxious for peace, 
 that he would have been capable of conducting a treaty upon 
 almost any terms. He assured the Prince that l( the greatest 
 service he could render him in this world was to make peace, 
 and that he desired to have it at any price whatever, so eager 
 was he to return to Spain." 8 To the envoy Suriano, Philip 
 had held the same language. " Oh, Ambassador," said he, 
 " I wish peace on any terms, and if the King of France had 
 not sued for it, I would have begged for it myself." 3 
 
 With such impatience on the part of the sovereign, it certainly 
 
 1 Apologia, 29. s " Se ben era cosi poco 
 
 8 Apologie d'Orange, 49. I honore?olo fu gran cosa quella ch' io
 
 232 
 
 THE RISE OF TEE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 manifested diplomatic abilities of a high character in the Prince, 
 that the treaty negotiated by him amounted to a capitulation 
 by France. He was one of the hostages selected by Henry for 
 the due execution of the treaty, and while in France made 
 that remarkable discovery which was to colour his life. While 
 hunting with the King in the forest of Vincennes, the Prince 
 and Henry found themselves alone together, and separated from 
 the rest of the company. The French monarch's mind was 
 full of the great scheme which had just secretly been formed by 
 Philip and himself, to extirpate Protestantism by a general ex- 
 tirpation of Protestants. Philip had been most anxious to 
 conclude the public treaty with France, that he might be the 
 sooner able to negotiate that secret convention by which he and 
 his Most Christian Majesty were solemnly to bind themselves to 
 massacre all the converts to the new religion in France and the 
 Netherlands. This conspiracy of the two Kings against their 
 subjects was the matter nearest the hearts of both. The Duke 
 of Alva, a fellow hostage with William of Orange, was the 
 plenipotentiary to conduct this more important arrangement. 
 The French monarch, somewhat imprudently imagining thatthe 
 Prince was also a party to the plot, opened the whole subject 
 to him without reserve. He complained of the constantly-in- 
 creasing number of sectaries in his kingdom, and protested that 
 his conscience would never be easy, nor his state secure, until 
 his realm should be delivered of '* that accursed vermin." A 
 civil revolution, under pretext of a religious reformation, w^as 
 his constant apprehension, particularly since so many notable 
 personages in the realm, and even princes of the blood, were 
 already tainted with heresy. Nevertheless, with the favour of 
 Heaven, and the assistance of his son and brother Philip, he 
 hoped soon to be master of the rebels. The King then pro- 
 ceeded, with cynical minuteness, to lay before his discreet 
 companion the particulars of the royal plot, and the manner in 
 
 eerissi cl Settembre passato che mi 
 disse S. M., nell'esercito con queste 
 parole 6 eimili; o Imbasciatore, io 
 
 TOglio pace in ogni modo e s'il Re 
 di Francia no ^llave^8e domandata, 
 la domanderei io." Suriano MS.
 
 1559.] WILLIAM THE SILENT. 233 
 
 which all heretics, whether high or humblo, were to bo dis- 
 covered and massacred at the most convenient season. For 
 the furtherance of the scheme in the Netherlands, it was 
 understood that the Spanish regiments would be exceedingly 
 efficient. The Prince, although horror-struck and indignant 
 at the Royal revelations, held his peace, and kept his counte- 
 nance. The King was not aware that, in opening this 
 delicate negociation to Alva's colleague and Philip's pleni- 
 potentiary, he had given a warning of inestimable value to 
 the man who had been born to resist the machinations of 
 Philip and ofAlva. William of Orange earned the surname 
 of " the Silent," from the manner in which he received these 
 communications of Henry without revealing to the monarch, 
 by word or look, the enormous blunder which he had com- 
 mitted. His purpose was fixed from that hour. A few days 
 afterwards he obtained permission to visit the Netherlands, 
 where he took measures to excite, with all his influence, tho 
 strongest and most general opposition to the continued 
 presence of the Spanish troops, 1 of which forces, much 
 against his will, he had been, in conjunction with Egmoiit, 
 appointed chief. He already felt, in his own language, that 
 "an Inquisition for the Netherlands had been resolved upon 
 more cruel than that of Spain ; since it would need but to look 
 askance at an image to be cast into the flames." 3 Although 
 having as yet no spark of religious sympathy for the re- 
 formers, be could not, he said, " but feel compassion for so 
 many virtuous men and women thus devoted to massacre,"* 
 and he determined to save them if he could. At the de- 
 parture of Philip he had received instructions, both patent 
 and secret, for his guidance as a stadtholder of Holland, 
 Friesland, and Utrecht. He was ordered " most expressly 
 to correct and extirpate the sects reprobated by our Holy 
 Mother Church ; to execute the edicts of his Imperial Majesty 
 renewed by the King, with absolute rigour. He was to see 
 that the judges carried out the edicts, without infraction, alte- 
 ration) or moderation, since they were there to enforce, not to 
 1 Pontus Payen MS., 8-13. a Apologie, 54. Apologio, 53.
 
 234 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 make or to discuss the law." In his secret instructions he was 
 informed that the execution of the edicts was to be with all 
 rigour, and without any respect of persons. He was also re- 
 minded that, whereas some persons had imagined the severity 
 of the law " to be only intended against Anabaptists, on the 
 contrary, the edicts were to be enforced on Lutherans and all 
 other sectaries without distinction." 1 Moreover, in one of 
 his last interviews with Philip, the King had given him the 
 names of several " excellent persons suspected of the new re- 
 ligion," and had commanded him to have them put to death. 
 This, however, he not only omitted to do, but, on the con- 
 trary, gave them warning, so that they mi'ght effect their 
 escape, thinking it more necessary to obey God than man." a 
 
 William of Orange, at the departure of the King for Spain, 
 was in his twenty-seventh year. He was a widower ; his first 
 wife, Anne of Egmont, having died in 1558, after seven years 
 of wedlock. This lady, to whom he had been united when 
 they were both eighteen years of age, was the daughter of the 
 celebrated general, Count de Buren, and the greatest heiress 
 in the Netherlands. William had been thus faithful to the 
 family traditions, and had increased his possessions by a 
 wealthy alliance. He had two children, Philip and Mary. 
 The marriage had been more amicable than princely marriages 
 arranged for convenience often prove. The letters of the 
 Prince to his wife indicate tenderness and contentment. 3 At 
 the same time he was accused, at a later period, of a having 
 murdered her with a dagger." 4 The ridiculous tale was not 
 even credited by those who reported it, but it is worth men- 
 tioning, as a proof that no calumny was too senseless to be 
 invented concerning the man whose character was from that 
 hour forth to be the mark of slander, and whose whole life 
 was to be its signal, although often unavailing, refutation. 8 
 
 Yet we are not to regard William of Orange, thus on the 
 
 12. 
 
 Archives et Correspondance i. 41, 
 
 * Apologie, 80. 
 
 s ArcliivesetCorre^ondance, i.1-29. 
 
 4 VYillH'luiB von Oranien Ehe mit 
 
 Anna v. Sachsen, von Dr. K. W. Botti 
 ger (Leipzig. 1836). 
 
 * For the history of William of 
 Orange up to the period of Philip's 
 departure from the .Netherlands, see
 
 1559.] 
 
 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 235 
 
 threshold of his great career, by the light diffused from a some- 
 what later period. In no historical character more remarkably 
 than in his is the law of constant development and progress 
 illustrated. At twenty-six he is not the "pater patrice" the 
 great man struggling upward and onward against a host of 
 enemies and obstacles almost beyond human strength, and 
 along tho dark and dangerous path leading through conflict, 
 privation, and ceaseless labour to no repose but death. On the 
 contrary, his foot was hardly on the first step of that difficult 
 ascent which was to rise before him all his lifetime. He was 
 still among the primrose paths. He was rich, powerful, of 
 sovereign rank. He had only the germs within him of what 
 was thereafter to expand into moral and intellectual greatness. 
 He had small sympathy for the religious reformation, of which 
 he was to be one of the most distinguished champions. He 
 was a Catholic, nominally, and in outward observance. With 
 doctrines he troubled himself but little. He had given orders 
 to enforce conformity to the ancient Church, not with blood- 
 shed, yet with comparative strictness, in his principality of 
 Orange. 1 Beyond the compliance with rites and forms, thought 
 indispensable in those days to a personage of such high degree, 
 he did not occupy himself with theology. He was a Catholic, 
 as Egmont and Horn, Berlaymont and Mansfeld, Montigny and 
 even Brederode, were Catholic. It was only tanners, dyers, and 
 apostate priests who were Protestants at that day in the Nether- 
 lands. His determination to protect a multitude of his harm- 
 less inferiors from horrible deaths did not proceed from sym- 
 pathy with their religious sentiments, but merely from a 
 generous and manly detestation of murder. He carefully 
 averted his mind from sacred matters. If, indeed, the seed 
 implanted by his pious parents were really the germ of his 
 
 Groen v. Prinsterer, 1-30 and 54*; 
 <3acLard, Corresp. do Guillaume le 
 Taciturne (Bruxelles), tome i. ; 
 Apologio d'Orange, 1-54; Vander 
 Haer, cap. rv. 183, sqq. Compare 
 Strada, ii. 75-84; Bentivoglio ; 
 
 Guerre di Fiandra, i, 5, 6 ; Hoofd, 
 i. 22; Joan. Meursii; Gulielmus 
 Auriacus, 1-7 ; Levensbesck. Ne- 
 derl. Man. en Vrouwen, vi. 172- 
 179. 
 1 Archives et Corresp. i. 203*.
 
 236 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 future conversion to Protestantism, it must be confessed that 
 it lay dormant a long time. But his mind was in other 
 pursuits. He was disposed for an easy, joyous, luxurious, 
 princely life. Banquets, masquerades, tournaments, the 
 chase, interspersed with the routine of official duties, civil and 
 military, seemed likely to fill out his life. His hospitality, like 
 his fortune, was almost regal. While the King and the foreign 
 envoys were still in the Netherlands, his house, the splendid 
 Nassau palace of Brussels, was ever open. He entertained 
 for the monarch, who was, or who imagined himself to be, too 
 poor to discharge his own duties in this respect, but he enter- 
 tained at his own expense. 1 This splendid household was still 
 continued. Twenty-four noblemen and eighteen pages of 
 gentle birth officiated regularly in his family. His establish- 
 ment was on so extensive a scale that upon one day twenty- 
 eight master cooks were dismissed, for the purpose of dimin- 
 ishing the family expenses, and there was hardly a princely 
 house in Germany which did not send cooks to learn their busi- 
 ness in so magnificent a kitchen. 3 The reputation of his table 
 remained undiminished for years. We find at a later period 
 that Philip, in the course of one of the nominal reconciliations 
 which took place several times between the monarch and 
 William of Orange, wrote that, his head cook being dead, he 
 begged the Prince to "make him a present of his chief cook, 
 Master Herman, who was understood to be very skilful." 8 
 
 In this hospitable mansion the feasting continued night and 
 day. From early morning till noon the breakfast-tables were 
 spread with wines and luxurious viands in constant succession, 
 to all comers, and at every moment/ The dinner and supper 
 were daily banquets for a multitude of guests. The highest 
 nobles were not those alone who were entertained. Men of 
 lower degree were welcomed with a charming hospitality, which 
 made them feel themselves at their ease. 5 Contemporaries of all 
 
 * Apologi, 26, 27. 
 
 Vander Haer, 182. 
 
 Corresp. de Gi.ill. le Tacit., . 80. 
 
 4 Vunder Haer, 182. 
 8 " A la verite e'estoit un person- 
 age d'un* meryeilleuse viYacii
 
 MAGNIFICENT HOUSEKEEPING. 
 
 237 
 
 parties unite in eulogising the winning address and gentle 
 manners of the Prince. " Never," says a most bitter Catholic 
 historian, " did an arrogant or indiscreet word fall from his 
 lips. He, upon no occasion, manifested anger to his servants, 
 however much they might be in fault, but contented himself 
 with admonishing them graciously, without menace or insult. 
 He had a gentle and agreeable tongue, with which he could 
 turn all the gentlemen at court any way he liked. He was 
 beloved and honoured by the whole community." 1 His man- 
 ner was graceful, familiar, caressing, and yet dignified. He 
 had the good breeding which comes from the heart, refined 
 into an inexpressible charm from his constant intercourse, 
 almost from his cradle, with mankind of all ranks. 
 
 It may be supposed that this train of living was attended 
 with expense. Moreover, he had various other establishments 
 in town and country, besides his almost royal residence in 
 Brussels. He was ardently fond of the chase, particularly of 
 the knightly sport of falconry. In the country he " consoled 
 himself by taking every day a heron in the clouds." 3 His 
 falconers alone cost him annually fifteen hundred florins, after 
 he had reduced their expenses to the lowest possible point. 3 
 He was much in debt, even at this early period, and with his 
 princely fortune. " We come of a race," he wrote carelessly 
 to his brother Louis, " who are som'ewhat bad managers in 
 our young days, but when we grow older we do better, like 
 our late father : sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et 
 in secula seculorum. My greatest difficulty," he adds, " as 
 usual, is on account of the falconers." 4 
 
 His debts already amounted, according to Granvelle's state- 
 ment, to eight or nine hundred thousand florins.* He had 
 embarrassed himself, not only through his splendid extrava- 
 
 d'cspvit, lequel sur tous antres tenoit 
 table magnifique, oil les pet its com- 
 pagnons estojent autant bienvenus 
 que les grands." Pontus Payen 
 MS. 
 
 1 Pontus Fajen MS. 
 
 9 Letter to Count Louis de Nassau, 
 Archives, etc., i. 179. 
 
 3 Archives et Correspondance, i. 
 196. * Ibid. 
 
 6 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 51, Archives, 
 etc., i. 08.
 
 238 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 gnnce, by which all the world about him were made to par- 
 take of his wealth, but by accepting the high offices to which 
 he had been appointed. When general-in-chief on the 
 frontier, his salary was three hundred florins monthly ; " not 
 enough," as he said, " to pay the servants in his tent," 1 his 
 necessary expenses being twenty-five hundred florins, as 
 appears by a letter to his wife. 3 His embassy to carry the 
 crown to Ferdinand, and his subsequent residence as a hostage 
 for the treaty in Paris, were also very onerous, and he received 
 no salary ; according to the economical system in this respect 
 pursued by Charles and Philip. In these two embassies or 
 missions alone, together with the entertainments offered by 
 him to the court and to foreigners, after the peace at Brussels, 
 the Prince spent, according to his own estimate, one million 
 five hundred thousand florins. 8 He was, however, although 
 deeply, not desperately involved, and had already taken active 
 measures to regulate and reduce his establishment. His 
 revenues were vast, both in his own right and in that of his 
 deceased wife. He had large claims upon the royal treasury 
 for service and expenditure. He had, besides, ample sums to 
 receive from the ransoms of the prisoners of St. Quentin and 
 Gravelines, having served in both campaigns. The amount to 
 be received by individuals from this source may be estimated 
 from the fact that Count Horn, by no means one of the most 
 favoured in the victorious armies, had received from Leonor 
 d'Orleans, Due de Longueville, a ransom of eighty thousand 
 crowns. 4 The sum due, if payment were enforced, from the 
 prisoners assigned to Egmont, Orange, and others, must have 
 been very large. Granvelle estimated the whole amount at two 
 millions ; adding, characteristically, " that this kind of specu- 
 lation was a practice " which our good old fathers, lovers of 
 
 1 Apologie, 27. | deniers, entre lesquels Messiro Leonor 
 
 3 Archives et Correspondance, i. 16. I d'Orleans Due de Longueville paia 
 
 4 i 
 
 Apologie, 27. 
 
 De Ean9ons des prison- 
 niers fran9ois, prisonniers prins aux 
 batailles de S. Quintin et Gravelin- 
 ges qui portcrt*.t a uuo infinite des 
 
 comptant au Compte de Homes qur.- 
 trevingt mil Escus penzes mainte- 
 nant si le Compte d'Egmont ayoit eu 
 moyen de faire sea besoignes," eta. 
 Pontus Payen MS.
 
 1&59.] 
 
 DEBTS AND RESOURCES. 
 
 239 
 
 virtue, would not have found laudable. 1 In this the church- 
 man was right, but he might have added that the " lovers of 
 virtue" would have found it as little "laudable" for ecclesiastics 
 to dispose of the sacred offices in their gift, for carpets, tapestry, 
 and annual payments of certain per centages upon the cure of 
 souls. 9 If the profits respectively gained by military and cleri- 
 cal speculators in that day should be compared, the disadvan- 
 tage would hardly be found to lie with those of the long robe. 
 Such, then, at the beginning of 1560, was William of Orange 
 a generous, stately, magnificent, powerful grandee. As a 
 military commander, he had acquitted himself very creditably 
 of highly important functions at an early age. Nevertheless, 
 it was the opinion of many persons that he was of a timid 
 temperament. 3 He was even accused of having manifested an 
 unseemly panic at Philippeville, and of having only been re- 
 strained by the expostulations of his officers from abandoning 
 both that fortress and Charlemont to Admiral Coligny, who 
 had made his appearance in the neighbourhood, merely at the 
 head of a reconnoitring party. 4 If the story were true, it would 
 be chiefly important as indicating that the Prince of Orange 
 was one of the many historical characters, originally of an 
 excitable and even timorous physical organisation, whom moral 
 courage and a strong will have afterwards converted into 
 dauntless heroes. Certain it is that he was destined to con- 
 front open danger in every form, that his path was to lead 
 through perpetual ambush, yet that his cheerful confidence and 
 tranquil courage were to become not only unquestionable, but 
 proverbial. 5 It may be safely asserted, however, that the story 
 was an invention, to be classed with those fictions which made 
 
 1 " Chose a la verite mal 
 
 eeante, et que nos bons vieux peres, 
 amateurs de la vertu, n'eussent trouve 
 louable." Archives et Correspondance, 
 i. 38. 
 
 2 V. G-achard. Correspondance de 
 Philippe II. sur les affaires de3 
 Pays-Eag, (Brui., 1848,) i. 318- 
 320. 
 
 8 " D'unnaturelcraintif,comme 
 
 il avoit souventes fois monstre durant 
 la guerre de Prance." Pontus Payen 
 MS. 
 
 4 Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 * " Soevis tranquillus in undis," was 
 the motto often engraved upon the 
 medals struck at different periods in 
 bis honour.
 
 240 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 him the murderer of his first wife, a common conspirator 
 against Philip's crown and person, and a crafty malefactor in 
 general, without a single virtue. It must be remembered that 
 even the terrible Alva, who lived in harness almost from the 
 cradle to the grave, was, so late as at the period with which we 
 are now occupied, censured for timidity, and had been accused 
 in youth of flat cowardice. 1 He despised the insinuation, which 
 for him had no meaning. There is no doubt, too, that caution 
 was a predominant characteristic of the Prince. It was one 
 of the chief sources of his greatness. At that period, perhaps 
 at any period, he would have been incapable of any such bril- 
 liant and dashing exploits as had made the name of Egmont so 
 famous. It had even become a proverb, "the counsel of Orange, 
 the execution of Egmont ; " 2 yet we shall have occasion to see 
 how far this physical promptness which had been so felicitous 
 on the battlefield was likely to avail the hero of St. Quentin 
 in the great political combat which was approaching. 
 
 As to the talents of the Prince, there was no difference of 
 opinion. His enemies never contended the subtlety and 
 breadth of his intellect, his adroitness and capacity in con- 
 ducting state affairs, his knowledge of human nature, and the 
 profoundness of his views. In many respects it must be con- 
 fessed that his surname of the Silent, like many similar appel- 
 lations, was a misnomer. William of Orange was neither 
 " silent " nor " taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will 
 be for ever associated with the name of a man who, in private, 
 was the most affable, cheerful, and delightful of companions, 
 and who on many great public occasions was to prove himself, 
 both by pen and speech, the most eloquent man of his age. 
 His mental accomplishments were considerable. He had 
 studied history with attention, and he spoke and wrote with 
 facility Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Spanish. 
 
 The man, however, in whose hands the administration of 
 the Netherlands was in reality placed, was Anthony Perrenot, 
 then Bishop of Arras, soon to be known by the more celebrated 
 1 Eadoraro MS. Suriano MS. * Pontus Payen MS.
 
 1559.] ANTHONY PERRENOT. 241 
 
 title of Cardinal Granvelle. He was the chief of the Consulta, 
 or secret council of three, by whose deliberations the Duchess 
 Regent was to beg overned. His father, Nicholas Perrenot, 
 of an obscure family in Burgundy, had been long the favour- 
 ite minister and man of business to the Emperor Charles. 
 Anthony, the eldest of thirteen children, was born in 1517. 
 He was early distinguished for his talents. He studied at 
 D61e, Padua, Paris, and Louvain. At the age of twenty he 
 spoke seven languages with perfect facility, while his acquain- 
 tance with civil and ecclesiastical laws was considered prodi- 
 gious. At the age of twenty-three he became a canon of 
 Liege Cathedral. The necessary eight quarters of gentility pro- 
 duced upon that occasion have accordingly been displayed by 
 his panegyrists in triumphant refutation of that theory which 
 gave him a blacksmith for his grandfather. 1 At the same 
 period, although he had not reached the requisite age, the 
 rich bishopric of Arras had already been prepared for him by 
 his father's care. Three years afterwards, in 1543, he distin- 
 guished himself by a most learned and brilliant harangue be- 
 fore the Council of Trent, which display so much charmed the 
 Emperor, that he created him councillor of state. A few years 
 afterwards he rendered the unscrupulous Charles still more 
 valuable proofs of devotion and dexterity by the part he 
 played in the memorable imprisonment of the Landgrave of 
 Hesse and the Saxon Dukes. He was therefore constantly 
 employed in embassies and other offices of trust and profit. 
 
 There was no doubt as to his profound and varied learning, 
 nor as to his natural quickness and dexterity. He was ready- 
 witted, smooth and fluent of tongue, fertile in expedients, coura- 
 geous, resolute. He thoroughly understood the art of manag- 
 ing men, particularly his superiors. He knew how to govern 
 under the appearance of obeying. He possessed exquisite 
 tact in appreciating the characters of those far above him in 
 rank and beneath him in intellect. He could accommodate 
 
 1 Dotn 1'Evesque, Mernoires pour I vello (Paris, 1753), ii. 146-293. Com- 
 servir a 1'Histoire du Cardinal Gran- [ pare Strada, ii. 60. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 himself with great readiness to the idiosyncrasies of sovereigns. 
 He was a chameleon to the hand which fed him. In his inter- 
 course with the King, he coloured himself, as it were, with 
 the King's character. He was not himself, but Philip ; not 
 the sullen, hesitating, confused Philip, however, but Philip 
 endowed with eloquence, readiness, facility. The King ever 
 found himself anticipated with the most delicate obsequious- 
 ness, beheld his struggling ideas change into winged words 
 without ceasing to be his own. No flattery could be more 
 adroit. The bishop accommodated himself to the King's 
 epistolary habits. The silver-tongued and ready debater sub- 
 stituted protocols for conversation, in deference to a monarch 
 who could not speak. He corresponded with Philip, with Mar- 
 garet of Parma, with every one. He wrote fol ios to the D uchess 
 when they were in the same palace. He would write letters 
 forty pages long to the King, and send off another courier on 
 the same day with two or three additional despatches of iden- 
 tical date. Such prolixity enchanted the King, whose greedi- 
 ness for business epistles was insatiable. The painstaking 
 monarch toiled, pen in hand, after his wonderful minister in vain. 
 Philip was only fit to be the bishop's clerk ; yet he imagined 
 himself to be the directing and governing power. He scrawled 
 apostilles in the margins to prove that he had read with atten- 
 tion, and persuaded himself that he suggested when he scarcely 
 even comprehended. The bishop gave advice and issued in- 
 structions when he seemed to be only receiving them. He was 
 the substance while he affected to be the shadow. These tactics 
 were comparatively easy, and likely to be triumphant, so long 
 as he had only to deal with inferior intellects, like those of 
 Philip and Margaret. When he should be matched against 
 political genius and lofty character combined, it was possible 
 that his resources might not prove so all-sufficient. 
 
 His political principles were sharply defined in reality, but 
 smoothed over by a conventional and decorous benevolence of 
 language, which deceived vulgar minds. He was a strict ab- 
 solutist. His deference to arbitrary power was profound and
 
 1559.] 
 
 ADROIT ABSOLUTISM. 
 
 213 
 
 slavish. God and the te master," as he always called Philip, 
 he professed to serve with equal humility. " It seems to me," 
 said he, in a letter of this epoch, " that I shall never be able 
 to fulfil the obligation of slave which I owe to your majesty, 
 to whom I am bound by so firm a chain ; at any rate I shall 
 never fail to struggle for that end with sincerity." ] 
 
 As a matter of course he was a firm opponent of the national 
 rights of the Netherlands. He had strenuously warned Philip 
 against assembling the States-General before his departure for 
 the sake of asking them for supplies. He earnestly deprecated 
 allowing the constitutional authorities any control over the 
 expenditures of the government, and averred that this practice 
 under the Regent Mary had been the cause of endless trouble. 2 
 It may easily be supposed that other rights were as little to his 
 taste as the claim to vote the subsidies, a privilege which was 
 in reality indisputable. Men who stood forth in the defence of 
 the provincial constitutions were, in his opinion, mere dema- 
 gogues and hypocrites; their only motive being to curry favour 
 with the populace. Yet these charters were, after all, suffi- 
 ciently limited. The natural rights of man were topics which 
 had never been broached. Man had only natural wrongs. None 
 ventured to doubt that sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed 
 of God. The rights of the Netherlands were special, not gene- 
 ral ; plural, not singular ; liberties, not liberty ; " privileges," 
 not maxims. They were practical, not theoretical ; historical, 
 not philosophical. Still, such as they were, they were facts, 
 acquisitions. They had been purchased by the blood and toil 
 of brave ancestors ; they amounted however open to criticism 
 upon broad humanitarian grounds, of which few at that day 
 had ever dreamed to a solid, substantial dyke against the 
 arbitrary power which was ever chafing and fretting to destroy 
 its barriers. No men were more subtle or more diligent in 
 
 1 "Y jamas me parecera que bas- 
 taria para que yo puedo cumplir con 
 la obligacion de esclavo en que me ha 
 puesto V. II. atando me con tan firme 
 catena ; a lo menos so que no me f alta 
 
 ny me faltara de acertar en las 
 cosas del servicio .... con 
 limpiezayamor," etc. Papiers d'Etat. 
 vi. 96. 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, ri. 27.
 
 244 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [155ft 
 
 corroding the foundation of these bulwarks than the disciples 
 of Granvelle. Yet one would have thought it possible to 
 tolerate an amount of practical freedom so different from the 
 wild, social speculations which, in later days, have made 
 both tyrants and reasonable lovers of our race tremble with 
 apprehension. The Netherlander claimed, mainly, the right 
 to vote the money which was demanded in such enormous 
 profusion from their painfully-acquired wealth; they were 
 also unwilling to be burned alive if they objected to tran- 
 substantiation. Granvelle was most distinctly of an opposite 
 opinion upon both topics. He strenuously deprecated the 
 interference of the states with the subsidies, and it was by 
 his advice that the remorseless edict of 1550, the Emperor's 
 ordinance of blood and fire, was re-enacted as the very first 
 measure of Philip's reign. 1 Such were his sentiments as to 
 national and popular rights by representation. For the people 
 itself "that vile and mischievous animal called the people," 2 
 as he expressed it he entertained a cheerful contempt. 
 
 His aptitude for managing men was very great ; his capa- 
 city for affairs incontestable ; but it must be always under- 
 stood as the capacity for the affairs of absolutism. He was 
 a clever, scheming politician, an adroit manager ; it remained 
 to be seen whether he had a claim to the character of a states- 
 man. His industry was enormous. He could write fifty letters 
 a day with his own hand. He could dictate to half a dozen 
 amanuenses at once, on as many different subjects, in as many 
 different languages, and send them all away exhausted. 
 
 He was already rich. His income from his see and other 
 livings was estimated, in 1557, at ten thousand dollars ; his 
 property in ready money, " furniture, tapestry, and the like," 
 at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 3 When it is con- 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 478-479. 
 
 2 " tan ruin animal ccmo es 
 
 elpueblo." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 367. 
 
 3 Vive honoratament la puo fare, 
 havendo tra 1'entrata temporale chi 
 se ritrova nelle Borgogna e quelle 
 del vescoYado et altri benefitij piu 
 
 di 10,000 scudi di entrata, e tra 
 gioje, arjjento, tappezzerie con altri 
 mobili e denari contanto piu di 250,000 
 scudi, et e opinione de giuditiosi 
 che riuscira Cardinale," etc. Bado- 
 varo MS*
 
 1559.] INDUSTRY REWARDED. 245 
 
 sidered that, as compared with our times, these sums represent 
 a revenue of a hundred thousand, and a capital of two millions 
 and a half in addition, it may be safely asserted that the prelate 
 had at least made a good beginning. Besides his regular in- 
 come, moreover, he had handsome receipts from that simony 
 which was reduced to a system, and which gave him a liberal 
 profit, generally in the shapo of an annuity, upon every bene- 
 fice which he conferred. He was, however, by no means 
 satisfied. His appetite was as boundless as the sea ; he was 
 still a shameless mendicant of pecuniary favours and lucrative 
 offices. Already, in 1552, the Emperor had roundly re- 
 buked his greediness. " As to what you say of getting no 
 * merced ' nor ' ayuda de costa,' " said he, " 'tis merced and 
 ayuda de costa quite sufficient, when one has fat benefices, 
 pensions, and salaries, with which a man might manage to 
 support himself." 1 The bishop, however, was not easily 
 abashed, and he was at the epoch which now occupies us, 
 earnestly and successfully soliciting from Philip the lucrative 
 abbey of Saint Armand. Not that he would have accepted 
 this preferment, " could the abbey have been annexed to any 
 of the new bishoprics ; " a on the contrary, he assured the 
 King that " to carry out so holy a work as the erection of 
 those new sees, he would willingly have contributed even out 
 of his own miserable pittance." 3 It not .being considered 
 expedient to confiscate the abbey to any particular bishop, 
 Philip accordingly presented it to the prelate of Arras, 
 together with a handsome sum of money in the shape of an 
 " ayuda de costa " beside. The thrifty bishop, who foresaw 
 the advent of troublous times in the Netherlands, however, 
 took care in the letters by which he sent his thanks to in- 
 struct the King to secure the money upon crown property 
 in Arragon, Naples, and Sicily, as matters in the provinces 
 were beginning to look very precarious.* 
 
 1 Groen y. Prinsterer. Archives, 
 etc., i. 189*. 
 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 31. 
 
 ' Mas quo de la roiseria que 
 
 8 I 
 
 yo tengo holgaria que se tomasse para 
 cumplimento de tan sancta obra." 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 21.
 
 246 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1559. 
 
 Such, at the commencement of the Duchess Margaret's 
 administration, were the characters and the previous histo- 
 ries of the persons into whose hands the Netherlands were 
 intrusted. None of them have been prejudged. Their 
 characters have been sketched, not according to subsequent 
 developments, but as they appeared at the opening of this 
 important epoch. 
 
 The aspect of the country and its inhabitants offered many 
 sharp contrasts, and revealed many sources of future trouble. 
 
 The aristocracy of the Netherlands was excessively extrava- 
 gant, dissipated, and already considerably embarrassed in cir- 
 cumstances. It had been the policy of the Emperor and of 
 Philip to confer high offices, civil, military, and diplomatic, 
 upon the leading nobles, by which enormous expenses were 
 entailed upon them, without any corresponding salaries. The 
 case of Orange has been already alluded to, and there were 
 many other nobles less able to afford the expense, who had been 
 indulged with these ruinous honours. During the war, there 
 had been, however, many chances of bettering broken fortunes. 
 Victory brought immense prizes to the leading officers. The 
 ransoms of so many illustrious prisoners as had graced the 
 triumphs of Saint Queutin and Gravelines had been extremely 
 profitable. These sources of wealth had now been cut off ; yet 
 on the departure of the King from the Netherlands, the luxury 
 increased instead of diminishing. " Instead of one court," said 
 a contemporary, " you would have said that there were fifty." ' 
 Nothing could be more sumptuous than the modes of life in 
 Brussels. The household of Orange has been already painted. 
 That of Egmont was almost as magnificent. A rivalry in hos- 
 pitality and in display began amongst the highest nobles, and 
 extended to those less able to maintain themselves in the con- 
 test. During the war there had been the valiant emulation of 
 the battle-field ; gentlemen had vied with each other how best 
 to illustrate an ancient name with deeds of desperate valour, 
 to repair the fortunes of a ruined house with the spoils of war. 
 
 1 Pontu3 Payen, 1L3.
 
 1559.] EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE ARISTOCRACY. 247 
 
 They now sought to surpass each other in splendid extrava- 
 gance. It was an eager competition who should build the 
 stateliest palaces, have the greatest number of noble pages and 
 gentlemen in waiting, the most gorgeous liveries, the most hos- 
 pitable tables, the most scientific cooks. There was also much 
 depravity as well as extravagance. The morals of high society 
 were loose. Gaming was practised to a frightful extent. 
 Drunkenness was a prevailing characteristic of the higher 
 classes. Even the Prince of Orange himself, at this period, 
 although never addicted to habitual excess, was extremely con- 
 vivial in his tastes, tolerating scenes and companions not likely 
 at a later day to find much favour in his sight. " We kept 
 Saint Martin's joyously," he wrote at about this period to his 
 brother, " and in the most jovial company. Brederode was 
 one day in such a state that I thought he would certainly die, 
 but he has now got over it." l Count Brederode, soon after- 
 wards to become so conspicuous in the early scenes of the 
 revolt, was, in truth, most notorious for his performances in 
 these banqueting scenes. He appeared to have vowed as un- 
 compromising hostility to cold water as to the Inquisition, and 
 always denounced both with the same fierce and ludicrous 
 vehemence. Their constant connexion with Germany at that 
 period did not improve the sobriety of the Netherland nobles. 
 The aristocracy of that country, as is well known, were most 
 <* potent at potting." " When the German finds himself 
 sober," said the bitter Badovaro, " he believes himself to bo 
 ill." Gladly, since the peace, they had welcomed the oppor- 
 tunities afforded for many a deep carouse with their Nether- 
 land cousins. The approaching marriage of the Prince of 
 Orange with the Saxon princess an episode which will soon 
 engage our attention gave rise to tremendous orgies. Count 
 Schwartzburg, the Prince's brother-in-law, and one of the ne- 
 gotiators of the marriage, found many occasions to strengthen 
 the bonds of harmony between the countries by indulgence of 
 these common tastes. " I have had many princes and counts 
 1 Archives et Correspondance, i. 185.
 
 248 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1559. 
 
 at my table," he wrote to Orange, " where a good deal more 
 was drunk than eaten. The Rhinegrave's brother fell down 
 dead after drinking too much malvoisie ; but we have had him 
 balsamed and sent home to his family." 1 
 
 These disorders among the higher ranks were in reality so 
 extensive as to justify the biting remark of the Venetian : 
 " The gentlemen intoxicate themselves every day," said he, 
 " and the ladies also; but much less than the men." a His 
 remarks as to the morality, in other respects, of both sexes 
 were equally sweeping, and not more complimentary. 
 
 If these were the characteristics of the most distinguished 
 society, it may be supposed that they were reproduced with 
 more or less intensity throughout all the more remote but con- 
 centric circles of life, as far as the seductive splendour of the 
 court could radiate. The lesser nobles emulated the grandees, 
 and vied with each other in splendid establishments, banquets, 
 masquerades, and equipages. Their estates, in consequence, 
 were mortgaged, deeply and more deeply ; then, after a few 
 years, sold to the merchants, or rich advocates, and other gen- 
 tlemen of the robe, to whom they had been pledged. The more 
 closely ruin stared the victims in the face, the more heedlessly 
 did they plunge into excesses. Many of the nobles being thus 
 embarrassed, and some even desperate, in their condition, it was 
 thought that they were desirous of creating disturbances in the 
 commonwealth that the payment of just debts might be avoided, 
 that their mortgaged lands might be wrested by main force 
 from the low-born individuals who had become possessed of 
 them, that in particular, the rich abbey lands held by idle 
 priests might be appropriated to the use of impoverished gen- 
 tlemen, who could turn them to so much better account. 3 It is 
 quite probable that interested motives such as these were not 
 entirely inactive among a comparatively small class of gentle- 
 men. The religious reformation in every land of Europe de- 
 
 93. 
 
 1 Archives et Correspon dance, i. 
 
 Ma nel here s'imbriacono 
 
 ogni giorno, et le donne ancora, ma 
 molto meno degli uomini," etc. 
 3 PontusPajenMS.
 
 1659.] 
 
 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 249 
 
 rived a portion of its strength from the opportunity it afforded 
 to potentates and great nobles for helping themselves to Church 
 property. No doubt many Netherlanders thought that their 
 fortunes might be improved at the expense of the monks, and 
 for the benefit of religion. Even without apostasy from the 
 mother Church, they looked with longing eyes on the wealth 
 of her favoured and indolent children. They thought that the 
 King would do well to carve a round number of handsoma 
 military commanderlss out of the abbey lands, whose posses- 
 sors should be bound to military service after the ancient 
 manner of fiefs, so that a splendid cavalry, headed by the 
 gentlemen of the country, should be ever ready to mount and 
 ride at the royal pleasure, in place of a horde of lazy epicureans, 
 telling beads and indulging themselves in luxurious vice. 1 
 
 Such views were entertained ; such language often held. 
 These circumstances and sentiments had their influence amon" 
 
 O 
 
 the causes which produced the great revolt now impending. 
 Care should be taken, however, not to exaggerate that influ- 
 ence. It is a prodigious mistake to refer this great historical 
 event to sources so insufficient as the ambition of a few great 
 
 O 
 
 nobles, and the embarrassments of a larger number of needy 
 gentlemen. The Netherland revolt was not an aristocratic, 
 but a popular, although certainly not a democratic movement. 
 It was a great episode the longest, the darkest, the bloodiest, 
 the most important episode in the history of the religious 
 reformation in Europe. The nobles, so conspicuous upon the 
 surface at the outbreak, only drifted before a storm which 
 they neither caused nor controlled. 
 
 For the state of the people was very different from the con- 
 dition of the aristocracy. The period of martyrdom had lasted 
 
 1 " Ne tenoient autres pro- 
 
 pos a table que de reformer, 1'es'at, 
 ecclesiastique, signamment lea riches 
 abbayes, Bcavoir vous convient, leur 
 ostant les grands biens qui esto- 
 yent cause, si qu'ils disoyent, de 
 leur mauvaise vie et les eriger en 
 croisades que Ton poldroit conferer 
 
 a une infinite des pauvres gentil- 
 hommes, qui seraient ten us de faire 
 service ... . au lieu d'ung tas 
 de faineans vivans a 1'epicurienne, Ton 
 auroit toujours une belle cavallerie a 
 la main . . . . au proffict du Roy 
 et soulagement du pays," etc., etc. 
 Pontus 1'aytc, ilij.
 
 250 TFT3 EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 long and was to last longer ; but there were symptoms that it 
 might one day be succeeded by a more active stage of popular 
 disease. The tumults of the Netherlands were long in ripen- 
 ing; when the final outbreak came, it would have been more 
 philosophical to inquire, not why it had occurred, but how it 
 could have been so long postponed. During the reign of 
 Charles, the sixteenth century had been advancing steadily 
 in strength as the once omnipotent Emperor lapsed into decre- 
 pitude. That extraordinary century had not dawned upon the 
 earth only to increase the strength of absolutism and supersti- 
 tion. The new world had not been discovered, the ancient 
 world reconquered, the printing-press perfected, only that the 
 Inquisition might reign undisturbed over the fairest portions 
 of the earth, and chartered hypocrisy fatten upon its richest 
 lands. It was impossible that the most energetic and quick- 
 witted people of Europe should not feel sympathy with the great 
 effort made by Christendom to shake off the incubus which had 
 so long paralysed her hands and brain. In the Netherlands, 
 where the attachment to Rome had never been intense, where 
 in the old times the Bishops of Utrecht had been rather 
 Ghibelline than Guelph, where all the earliest sects of dis- 
 senters Waldenses, Lollards, Hussites had found numerous 
 converts and thousands of martyrs, it was inevitable that there 
 should be a response from the popular heart to the deeper 
 agitation which now reached to the very core of Christendom. 
 The people were numerous, industrious, accustomed for cen- 
 turies to a state of comparative civil freedom, and to a lively 
 foreign trade, by which their minds were saved from the stagna- 
 tion of bigotry. It was natural that they should begin to gene- 
 ralise, and to pass from the concrete images presented them in tho 
 Flemish monasteries to the abstract character of Rome itself. 
 The Flemings, above all their other qualities, were a commer- 
 cial nation. Commerce was the mother of their freedom, so 
 far as they had acquired it in civil matters. It was struggling 
 to give birth to a larger liberty, to freedom of conscience. 
 The provinces were situated in the very heart of Europe. The
 
 1559.] CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 251 
 
 blood of a world-wide traffic was daily coursing through the 
 thousand arteries of that water-inwoven territory. There 
 was a mutual exchange between the Netherlands and all the 
 world; and ideas were as liberally interchanged as goods. 
 Truth was imported as freely as less precious merchandise. 
 The psalms of Marot were as current as the drugs of Molucca 
 or the diamonds of Borneo. The prohibitory measures of a 
 despotic government could not annihilate this intellectual 
 trade, nor could bigotry devise an effective quarantine to ex- 
 clude the religious pest which lurked in every bale of merchan- 
 dise, and was wafted on every breeze from East and West. 
 
 The edicts of the Emperor had been endured, but not ac- 
 cepted. The horrible persecution under which so many thou- 
 sands had sunk had produced its inevitable result. Fertilised 
 by all this innocent blood, the soil of the Netherlands became 
 as a watered garden, in which liberty, civil and religious, was 
 to flourish perennially. The scaffold had its daily victims, 
 but did not make a single convert. The statistics of these 
 crimes will perhaps never be accurately adjusted ; but those 
 who love horrible details may find ample material. The 
 chronicles contain the lists of these obscure martyrs ; but 
 their names, hardly pronounced in their lifetime, sound bar- 
 barously in our ears, and will never ring through the trumpet 
 of fame. Yet they were men who dared and suffered as much 
 as men can dare and suffer in this world, and for the noblest 
 cause which can inspire humanity. Fanatics they certainly 
 were not, if fanaticism consists in show without correspond- 
 ing substance. For them all was terrible reality. The Em- 
 peror and his edicts were realities ; the axe, the stake, were 
 realities ; and the heroism with which men took each other by 
 the hand and walked into the flames, or with which women 
 sang a song of triumph while the grave-digger was shovelling 
 the earth upon their living faces, was a reality also. 
 
 Thus, the people of the Netherlands were already pervaded, 
 throughout the whole extent of the country, with the expanding 
 spirit of religious reformation. It was inevitable that sooner
 
 253 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 or later an explosion was to arrive. They were placed between 
 two great countries, where the new principles had already taken 
 root. The Lutheranism of Germany and the Calvinism of 
 France had each its share in producing the Netherland revolt, 
 but a mistake is often made in estimating the relative propor- 
 tion of these several influences. The Reformation first entered 
 the provinces, not through the Augsburg, but the Huguenot 
 gate. The fiery field-preachers from the south of France first 
 inflamed the excitable hearts of the kindred population of the 
 south-western Netherlands. The Walloons were the first to re- 
 bel against, and the first to reconcile themselves with, papal 
 Rome, exactly as their Celtic ancestors, fifteen centuries earlier, 
 had been foremost in the revolt against imperial Rome, and 
 precipitate in their submission to her overshadowing power. 
 The Batavians, slower to be moved, but more steadfast, re- 
 tained the impulse which they received from the same source 
 which was already agitating their " Welsh " compatriots. 
 There were already French preachers at Valenciennes and Tour- 
 nay, to be followed, as we shall have occasion to see, by many 
 others. Without undervaluing the influence of the German 
 Churches, and particularly of the garrison-preaching of the 
 German military chaplains in the Netherlands, it may be 
 safely asserted that the early Reformers of the provinces were 
 mainly Huguenots in their belief. The Dutch Church became, 
 accordingly, not Lutheran, but Calvinistic, and the founder 
 of the commonwealth hardly ceased to be a nominal Catholic 
 before he became an adherent to the same creed. 
 
 In the meantime, it is more natural to regard the great 
 movement, psychologically speaking, as a whole, whether it 
 revealed itself in France, Germany, the Netherlands, England,or 
 Scotland. The policy of governments, national character, indi- 
 vidual interests, and other collateral circumstances, modified the 
 result; but the great cause was the same; the source of all tho 
 movements was single. The Reformation in Germany had been 
 adjourned for half a century by the Augsburg religious peace, 
 just concluded. It was held in suspense in France through the
 
 1659.] CONDITION OP THE PEOPLE. 253 
 
 Machiavellian policy which Catherine de Medici had just 
 adopted, and was for several years to prosecute, of balancing 
 one party against the other, so as to neutralise all power but 
 her own. The great contest was accordingly transferred to the 
 Netherlands, to be fought out for the rest of the century, while 
 the whole of Christendom was to look anxiously for the result. 
 From the East and from the West the clouds rolled away, leav- 
 ing a comparatively bright and peaceful atmosphere, only that 
 they might concentrate themselves with portentous blackness 
 over the soil of the Netherlands. In Germany, the princes, not 
 the people, had conquered Rome, and to the princes, not the 
 people, were secured the benefits of the victory the spoils of 
 churches, and the right to worship according to conscience. 
 The people had the right to conform to their ruler's creed, or to 
 depart from his land. Still, as a matter of fact, many of the 
 princes being reformers, a large mass of the population had 
 acquired the privilege for their own generation and that of 
 their children to practise that religion which they actually 
 approved. This was a fact, and a more comfortable one than 
 the necessity of choosing between what they considered wicked 
 idolatry and the stake the only election left to their Netherland 
 brethren. In France, the accidental splinter from Mont- 
 gomery's lance had deferred the Huguenot massacre for a 
 dozen years. During the period in which the Queen Regent 
 was resolved to play her fast and loose policy, all the persua- 
 sions of Philip and the arts of Alva were powerless to induce 
 her to carry out the scheme which Henry had revealed to 
 Orange in the forest of Vincennes. When the crime came at 
 last, it was as blundering as it was bloody ; at once premedi- 
 tated and accidental ; the isolated execution of an inter-regal 
 conspiracy, existing for half a generation, yet exploding 
 without concert ; a wholesale massacre, but a piecemeal plot. 
 
 The aristocracy and the masses being thus, from a variety 
 of causes, in this agitated and dangerous condition, what were 
 the measures of the Government ? 
 
 The edict of 1550 had been re-enacted immediately after
 
 254 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1559. 
 
 Philip's accession to sovereignty. It is necessary that the 
 reader should be made acquainted with some of the leading 
 provisions of this famous document, thus laid down above all 
 the constitutions as the organic law of the land. A few plain 
 facts, entirely without rhetorical varnish, will prove more 
 impressive in this case than superfluous declamation. The 
 American will judge whether the wrongs inflicted by Laud 
 and Charles upon his Puritan ancestors were the severest that 
 a people had to undergo, and whether the Dutch Republic 
 does not track its source to the same high religious origin as 
 that of our own commonwealth. 
 
 " No one," said the edict, 1 " shall print, write, copy, keep, 
 conceal, sell, buy or give in churches, streets, or other places, 
 any book or writing made by Martin Luther, John Ecolampa- 
 dius, Ulrich Zwinglius, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, or other 
 heretics reprobated by the Holy Church ; . . . . nor break, nor 
 otherwise injure the images of the holy virgin, or canonised 
 saints ; . . . . nor in his house hold conventicles, or illegal 
 gatherings, or be present at any such in which the adherents of 
 the above-mentioned heretics teach, baptize, and form conspira- 
 cies against the Holy Church and the general welfare 
 
 Moreover, we forbid," continues the edict, in name of the sove- 
 reign, " all lay persons to converse or dispute concerning the 
 Holy Scriptures, openly or secretly, especially on any doubtful 
 or difficult matters, or to read, teach, or expound the Scriptures, 
 unless they have duly studied theology and been approved by 
 some renowned university ; .... or to preach secretly, or 
 openly, or to entertain any of the opinions of the above-men- 
 tioned heretics ; .... on pain, should any one be found to 
 have contravened any of the points above-mentioned, as pertur- 
 bators of our state and of the general quiet, to be punished in 
 the following manner." And how were they to be punished ? 
 What was the penalty inflicted upon the man or woman who 
 owned a hymn-book, or who hazarded the opinion in private, 
 that Luther was not quite wrong in doubting the power of a 
 1 The text of the edict is given by Bor, i. 7-12.
 
 1559.] EDICT OF 1550. 255 
 
 monk to sell for money the licence to commit murder or incest ; 
 or upon the parent, not being a Roman Catholic doctor of 
 divinity, who should read Christ's Sermon on the Mount to 
 his children in his own parlour or shop ? How were crimes 
 like these to be visited upon the transgressor ? Was it by 
 reprimand, fine, imprisonment, banishment, or by branding 
 on the forehead, by the cropping of the ears or the slitting of 
 nostrils, as was practised upon the Puritan fathers of New 
 England for their nonconformity? It was by a sharper 
 chastisement than any of these methods. The Puritan fathers 
 of the Dutch Republic had to struggle against a darker doom. 
 
 The edict went on to provide 
 
 " That such perturbators of the general quiet are to be 
 executed, to wit : the men with the sword and the women to 
 be buried alive, if they do not persist in their errors ; if they 
 do persist in them, then they are to be executed with nre ; all 
 their property in both cases being confiscated to the crown." 
 
 Thus, the clemency of the sovereign permitted the repentant 
 heretic to be beheaded or buried alive, instead of being burned. 
 
 The edict further provided against all misprision of heresy 
 by making those who failed to betray the suspected liable to 
 the same punishment as if suspected or convicted themselves : 
 (s we forbid," said the decree, ll all persons to lodge, enter- 
 tain, furnish with food, fire, or clothing, or otherwise to 
 favour any one holden or notoriously suspected of being a 
 heretic ; . . . . and any one failing to denounce any such, we 
 ordain shall be liable to the above-mentioned punishments." 
 
 The edict went on to provide, " that if any person, being 
 not convicted of heresy or error, but greatly suspected thereof, 
 and therefore condemned by the spiritual judge to abjure such 
 heresy, or by the secular magistrate to make public fine and 
 reparation, shall again become suspected or tainted with 
 heresy although it should not appear that he has contravened 
 or violated any one of our above-mentioned commands never- 
 theless, we do will and ordain that such person shall be 
 considered as relapsed, and, as such, be punislied with loss of
 
 255 TEE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [>559. 
 
 life and property, without any hope of moderation or miti- 
 gation of the above-mentioned penalties." 
 
 Furthermore, it was decreed, that " the spiritual judges, 
 desiring to proceed against any one for the crime of heresy, 
 shall request any of our sovereign courts or provincial 
 councils to appoint any one of their college, or such other 
 adjunct as the council shall select, to preside over the pro- 
 ceedings to be instituted against the suspected. All who 
 know of any person tainted with heresy are required to 
 denounce and give them up to all judges, officers of the 
 bishops, or others having authority on the premises, on pain 
 of being punished according to the pleasure of the judge. 
 Likewise, all shall be obliged, who know of any place where 
 such heretics keep themselves, to declare them to the autho- 
 rities, on pain of being held as accomplices, and punished as 
 such heretics themselves would be if apprehended." 
 
 In order to secure the greatest number of arrests by a 
 direct appeal to the most ignoble, but not the least powerful 
 principle of human nature, it was ordained t{ that the in- 
 former, in case of conviction, should be entitled to one-half the 
 property of the accused, if not more than one hundred pounds 
 Flemish ; if more, then ten per cent, of all such excess." 
 
 Treachery to one's friends was encouraged by the provision 
 ' that if any man being present at any secret conventicle, 
 shall afterwards come forward and betray his fellow-members 
 of the congregation, he shall receive full pardon." 
 
 In order that neither the good people of the Netherlands, 
 nor the judges and inquisitors should delude themselves with 
 the notion that-these fanatic decrees were only intended to in- 
 spire terror, not for practical execution, the sovereign continued 
 to ordain " to the end that the judges and officers may have 
 no reason, under pretext that the penalties are too great and 
 heavy, and only devised to terrify delinquents, to punish them 
 less severely than they deserve that the culprits be really 
 punished by the penalties above declared ; forbidding all judges 
 to alter or moderate the penalties in any manner; forbidding
 
 1559.] ITS EE-ENACTMENT. 257 
 
 any one, of whatsoever condition, to ask of its, or of any one 
 having authority, to grant pardon, or to present any petition 
 in favour of such heretics, exiles, or fugitives, on penalty of 
 being declared for ever incapable of civil and military office, 
 and of being arbitrarily punished besides." 
 
 Such were the leading provisions of this famous edict, 
 originally promulgated in 1550 as a recapitulation and con- 
 densation of all the previous ordinances of the Emperor upon 
 religious subjects. By its style and title it was a perpetual 
 edict, and, according to one of its clauses, was to be published 
 for ever, once in every six months, in every city and village 
 of the Netherlands. It had been promulgated at Augsburg, 
 where the Emperor was holding a diet, upon the 25th of 
 September. Its severity had so appalled the Dowager Queen 
 of Hungary, that she had made a journey to Augsburg, ex- 
 pressly to procure a mitigation of some of its provisions. 1 
 The principal alteration which she was able to obtain of the 
 Emperor was, however, in the phraseology only. As a con- 
 cession to popular prejudice, the words (l spiritual judges " 
 were substituted for tl inquisitors," wherever that expression 
 had occurred in the original draft. 2 
 
 The edict had been re-enacted by the express advice of the 
 Bishop of Arras, immediately on the accession of Philip. The 
 prelate knew the value of the Emperor's name ; he may have 
 thought, also, that it would be difficult to increase the sharp- 
 ness of the ordinances. <; I advised the King," says Gran- 
 velle, in a letter written a few years later, " to make no change 
 in the placards, but to proclaim the text drawn up by the 
 Emperor, republishing the whole as the King's edict, with 
 express insertion of the phrase, ' Carolus,' etc. I recommended 
 this lest men should calumniate his Majesty as wishing to 
 introduce novelties in the mutter of religion." 3 
 
 1 Viglii Epist. ad diversos, cslviii. 
 Brandt, Historie der Eeformatie in 
 en omtrent de Nederlanden, (Am c t., 
 1677,) i. 163, b. iii. Grotii Ann. i. 17. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 a Brandt. Eeformatie, ubi sup. Bor. 
 
 7-12. 
 
 8 Papiera d'Etat, ix. 178, 479.
 
 258 THE EISE OP TDE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 This edict, containing the provisions which have been laid 
 before the reader, was now to be enforced with the utmost 
 rigour ; every official personage, from the stadtholders down r 
 having received the most stringent instructions to that effect, 
 under Philip's own hand. This was the first gift of Philip 
 and of Granvelle to the Netherlands; of the monarch who 
 said of himself that he had always, " from the beginning of 
 his government, followed the path of clemency, according to 
 his natural disposition, so well known to all the world ;" ' 
 of the prelate who said of himself, " that he had ever com- 
 bated the opinion that anything could be accomplished by 
 terror, death, and violence." 2 
 
 During the period of the French and Papal war, it has been 
 seen that the execution of these edicts had been permitted to 
 slacken. It was now resumed with redoubled fury. Moreover, 
 a new measure had increased the disaffection and dismay of the 
 people, already sufficiently filled with apprehension. As an 
 additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion, it 
 had been thought desirable that the number of bishops should 
 be increased. There were but four sees in the Netherlands, 
 those of Arras, Cambray, Tournay, and Utrecht. That of 
 Utrecht was within the archiepiscopate of Cologne ; the other 
 three were within that of Rheims. 3 It seemed proper that the 
 prelates of the Netherlands should owe no extra-provincial 
 allegiance. It was likewise thought that three millions of souls 
 
 f^ CJ 
 
 required more than four spiritual superintendents. At any 
 rate, whatever might be the interest of the flocks, it was certain 
 that those broad and fertile pastures would sustain more than 
 the present number of shepherds. The wealth in the religious 
 houses in the provinces was very great. The abbey of Afflig- 
 hem alone had a revenue of fifty thousand florins, and there 
 were many others scarcely inferior in wealth. 4 But these insti 
 tutions were comparatively independentboth of King and Pope. 
 Electing their own superiors from time to time, in nowise 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst. Archives, etc., 1 3 Wagenaer, vi. 62, C3. 
 ix. 46. a Archives, etc., i, 187*. | * Eor, i. 23.
 
 1559.] BULL OF THE BISHOPRICS. 259 
 
 desirous of any change by which their ease might be disturbed 
 and their riches endangered, the honest friars were not likely 
 to engage in any very vigorous crusade against heresy, nor 
 for the sake of introducing or strengthening Spanish institu- 
 tions, which they knew to be abominated by the people, to take 
 the risk of driving all their disciples into revolt and apostacy. 
 Comforting themselves with an Erasmian philosophy , which they 
 thought best suited to the times, they were ae little likely as the 
 Sage of Rotterdam himself would have been, to make martyrs 
 of themselves for the sake of extirpating Calvinism. The 
 abbots and monks were, in political matters, very much under 
 the influence of the great nobles, in whose company they oc- 
 cupied the benches of the upper house of the States- General. 
 Dr. Francis Sonnius had been sent on a mission to the 
 Pope, for the purpose of representing the necessity of an in- 
 crease in the episcopal force of the Netherlands. Just as the 
 King was taking his departure, the commissioner arrived,, 
 bringing with him the Bull of Paul the Fourth, dated May 18, 
 1559. This was afterwards confirmed by that of Pius the 
 Fourth, in January of the following year. 1 The document 
 stated 2 that " Paul the Fourth, slave of slaves, wishing to 
 provide for the welfare of the provinces and the eternal sal- 
 vation of their inhabitants, had determined to plant in that 
 fruitful field several new bishoprics. The enemy of mankind 
 being abroad," said the Bull, li in so many forms at that 
 particular time, and the Netherlands, then under the sway of 
 that beloved son of his holiness, Philip the Catholic, being 
 compassed about with heretics and schismatic nations, it was. 
 believed that the eternal welfare of the land was in great dan- 
 ger. At the period of the original establishment of cathedral 
 churches, the provinces had been sparsely peopled ; they had 
 now become filled to overflowing, so that the original ecclesias- 
 tical arrangement did not suffice. The harvest was plentiful, 
 but the labourers were few." 
 
 In consideration of these and other reasons, three arch- 
 1 Eor, i. 24, sqq. 2 See the document in Bor, i. 24-26-
 
 2CO THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1559. 
 
 bishoprics were accordingly appointed. That of Mechlin was 
 to be principal, under which were constituted six bishoprics, 
 those, namely, of Antwerp, Bois le Due, Rurmond, Ghent, 
 Bruges, and Ypres. That of Cambray was second, with the 
 four subordinate dioceses of Tournay, Arras, Saint Omer, and 
 Namur. The third archbishopric was that of Utrecht, with 
 the five sees of Haarlem, Middelburg, Leeu warden, Gronin- 
 gen, and Deventer. 1 
 
 The nomination of these important offices was granted to 
 the King, subject to confirmation by the Pope. Moreover, it 
 was ordained by the Bull that " each bishop should appoint 
 nine additional prebendaries, who were to assist him in the 
 matter of the Inquisition throughout his bishopric, two of 
 whom were themselves to be inquisitors" 
 
 To sustain these two great measures, through which Philip 
 hoped once and for ever to extinguish the Netherland heresy, 
 it was considered desirable that the Spanish troops still re- 
 maining in the provinces should be kept there indefinitely. 8 
 
 The force was not large, amounting hardly to four thousand 
 men, but they were unscrupulous, and admirably disciplined. 
 As the entering wedge, by which a military and ecclesiastical 
 despotism was eventually to be forced into the very heart of 
 the land, they were invaluable. The moral effect to be hoped 
 from the regular presence of a Spanish standing army during 
 a time of peace in the Netherlands could hardly be exagge- 
 rated. Philip was therefore determined to employ every 
 argument and subterfuge to detain the troops. 
 
 1 Bor, i. 24-26. Beutiyoglio, i. 10, * Peat:* Payen MS.
 
 THE TACITUEN AGAINST KINO-, CARDINAL, AND ELECTOR. 
 
 Agitation in the Netherlands The ancient charters resorted to as barriers 
 against the measures of government " Joyous entrance " of Brabant 
 Constitution of Holland Growing unpopularity of Anthony Per- 
 renot, Archbishop of Mechlin Opposition to the new bishoprics, by 
 Orange, Egmont, and other influential nobles Fury of the people at 
 the continued presence of the foreign soldiery Orange resigns the 
 command of the legion The troops recalled Philip's personal atten- 
 tion to the details of the persecution Perrenot becomes Cardinal de 
 Granvelle All the power of government in his hands His increasing 
 unpopularity Animosity and violence of Egmont towards the Car- 
 dinal Eelations between Orange and Granvelle Ancient Friendship 
 gradually changing to enmity Renewal of the magistracy at Ant- 
 werp Quarrel between the Prince and Cardinal Joint letter of 
 Orange and Egmont to the King Answer of the King Indignation 
 of Philip against Count Horn Secret correspondence between the 
 King and Cardinal Remonstrances against the new bishoprics 
 Philip's private financial sta'ements Penury of the Exchequer in 
 Spain and in the provinces Plan for debasing the coin Marriage of 
 William the Silent with the Princess of Lorraine circumvented 
 Negotiations for his matrimonial alliance with Princess Anna of 
 Saxony Correspondence between Granvelle and Philip upon the 
 subject Opposition of Landgrave Philip and of Philip the Second 
 Character and Conduct of Elector Augustus Mission of Count 
 Schwartzburg Communications of Orange to the King and to Duchess 
 Margaret Characteristic letter of Philip Artful conduct of Granvelle 
 and of the Regent Visit of Orange to Dresden Proposed "note" 
 of Elector Augustus Refusal of the Prince Protest of the Land- 
 grave against the marriage Preparations for the wedding at Leipzig 
 Notarial instrument drawn up on the marriage day Wedding cere- 
 monies and festivities Entrance of Granvelle into Mechlin as Arch- 
 bishop Compromise in Brabant between the abbeys and bishops. 
 
 THE years 1560 and 15 G.I were mainly occupied with the
 
 262 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1560. 
 
 agitation and dismay produced by the causes set forth in the 
 preceding chapter. 
 
 Against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, the new 
 bishoprics and the foreign soldiery, the Netherlanders appealed 
 to their ancient constitutions. These charters were called 
 " handvests " in the vernacular Dutch and Flemish, because 
 the sovereign made them fast with his hand. As already stated, 
 Philip had made them faster than any of the princes of his 
 house had ever done, so far as oath and signature could accom- 
 plish that purpose, both as hereditary prince in 1549, and as 
 monarch in 1555. The reasons for the extensive and uncon- 
 ditional manner in which he swore to support the provincial 
 charters, have been already indicated. 
 
 Of these constitutions, that of Brabant, known by the title 
 of the joyeuse entrfa, blyde inkomst, or blythe entrance, 
 furnished the most decisive barrier against the present whole- 
 sale tyranny. First and foremost, the "joyous entry " pro- 
 vided, " that the prince of the land should not elevate the 
 clerical state higher than of old has been customary and 
 by former princes settled ; unless by consent of the other 
 two estates, the nobility and the cities." 1 
 
 Again, " the prince can prosecute no one of his subjects, nor 
 any foreign resident, civilly or criminally, except in the ordinary 
 and open courts of justice in the province, where the accused 
 may answer and defend himself with the help of advocates." a 
 
 Further, " the prince shall appoint no foreigners to office 
 in Brabant." 3 
 
 Lastly, " should the prince, by force or otherwise, violate 
 any of these privileges, the inhabitants of Brabant, after 
 regular protest entered, are discharged of their oaths of alle- 
 giance, and as free, independent, and unbound people, may 
 conduct themselves exactly as seems to them best." 4 
 
 Such were the leading features, so far as they regarded the 
 
 1 Die Blyde Inkomste dem Her- 
 tochdom v. Brabant, by Philippus, 
 Conink v. Hispanien solennlick 
 geschworen. Gedruckt tot Cuelen, 
 
 1564. Compare Bor, i. 19 ; Meteren, 
 i. 28. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Ibid. Compare Apologia d' 
 Orange, 6U, 70.
 
 1560.]' VIOLATIONS OP THE CONSTITUTIONS. 263 
 
 points now at issue, of that famous constitution which was so 
 highly esteemed in the Netherlands, that mothers came to the 
 province in order to give birth to their children, who might 
 thus enjoy, as a birthright, the privileges of Brabant. Yet 
 the charters of the other provinces ought to have been as 
 effective against the arbitrary course of the government. 1 
 " No foreigner," said the constitution of Holland, " is eligible 
 as councillor, financier, magistrate, or member of a court. 
 Justice can be administered only by the ordinary tribunals 
 and magistrates. The ancient laws and customs shall remain 
 inviolable. Should the prince infringe any of these provi- 
 sions, no one is bound to obey him." 2 
 
 These provisions, from the Brabant and Holland charters, 
 are only cited as illustrative of the general spirit of the 
 provincial constitutions. Nearly all the provinces possessed 
 privileges equally ample, duly signed and sealed. So far as 
 ink and sealing-wax could defend a land against sword and 
 fire, the Netherlands were impregnable against the edicts and 
 the renewed episcopal inquisition. Unfortunately, all history 
 shews how feeble are barriers of paper or lambskin, even when 
 hallowed with a monarch's oath, against the talent of regal 
 and ecclesiastical absolutism. It was on the reception in the 
 provinces of the new and confirmatory Bull concerning the 
 bishoprics, issued in January, 1560, that the measure became 
 known, and the dissatisfaction manifest. The discontent was 
 inevitable and universal. The ecclesiastical establishment, 
 which was not to be enlarged or elevated but by consent of 
 the estates, was suddenly expanded into three archiepisco- 
 pates and fifteen bishoprics. 
 
 The administration of justice, which was only allowed in free 
 and local courts, distinct for each province, was to be placed, so 
 far as regarded the most important of human interests, in the 
 hands of bishops and their creatures, many of them foreigners, 
 and most of them monks. The lives and property of the whole 
 population were to be at the mercy of these utterly irrespon- 
 1 Bor, ubi sup. Meteren, 28, 29. . * Ibid. Ibid.
 
 204 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1560. 
 
 sible conclaves. All classes were outraged. The nobles were 
 offended because ecclesiastics, perhaps foreign ecclesiastics, 
 were to be empowered to sit in the provincial estates and to 
 control their proceedings, in place of easy, indolent, ignorant 
 abbots and friars, who had generally accepted the influence of 
 the great seigniors. 1 The priests were enraged because the 
 religious houses were thus taken out of their control, and con- 
 fiscated to a bench of bishops, usurping the places of those 
 superiors who had formerly been elected by and among them- 
 selves. The people were alarmed because the monasteries, al- 
 though not respected nor popular, were at least charitable 2 and 
 without ambition to exercise ecclesiastical cruelty ; while, on 
 the other hand, by the new episcopal arrangements, a force of 
 thirty new inquisitors was added to the apparatus for enforc- 
 ing orthodoxy already established. The odium of the measure 
 was placed upon the head of that churchman, already appointed 
 Archbishop of Mechlin, and soon to be known as Cardinal 
 Granvelle. From this time forth, this prelate began to be re- 
 garded with a daily increasing aversion. He was looked upon 
 as the incarnation of all the odious measures which had been 
 devised; as the source of that policy of absolutism which revealed 
 itself more and more rapidly after the King's departure from 
 the country. It was for this reason that so much stress was 
 laid by popular clamour upon the clause prohibiting foreigners 
 from office. Granvelle was a Buro-uudian ; his father had 
 
 O * 
 
 passed most of his active life in Spain, while both he and his 
 more distinguished son were identified in the general mind 
 with Spanish politics. To this prelate, then, were ascribed 
 the edicts, the new bishoprics, and the continued presence of 
 the foreign troops. The people were right as regarded the 
 first accusation. They were mistaken as to the other charges. 
 The king had not consulted Anthony Perrenot with regard 
 to the creation of the new bishoprics. The measure which had 
 been successively contemplated by Philip " the Good," by 
 Charles the Bold, and by the Emperor Charles, had now been 
 1 Popiers d'Etat, v. 309. Hoofd, i. 29, 30. Bor, i. 19. Meteren, i. 28.
 
 15GO.] 
 
 GRANVELLE'S COURSE. 
 
 265 
 
 carried out by Philip the Second, without the knowledge of the 
 new Archbishop of Mechlin. The King had for once been able 
 to deceive the astuteness of the prelate, and had concealed from 
 him the intended arrangement, until the arrival of Sonnius 
 with the Bulls. Granvelle gave the reasons for this mystery 
 w ith much simplicity. " His Majesty knew," he said, " that I 
 should oppose it, as it was more honourable and lucrative to be 
 one of four than one of eighteen." 1 In fact, according to his own 
 statement, he lost money by becoming Archbishop of Mechlin 
 and ceasing to be Bishop of Arras. 3 For these reasons, he de- 
 clined, more than once, the proffered dignity, and at last only 
 accepted it from fear of giving offence to the King, and after 
 having secured compensation for his alleged losses. In the 
 same letter (of 29th May, 1560) in which he thanked Philip 
 for conferring upon him the rich abbey of Saint Armand, which 
 lie had solicited, in addition to the " merced " in ready money, 
 concerning the safe investment of which he had already sent 
 directions, he observed that he was now willing to accept the 
 archbishopric of Mechlin ; notwithstanding the odium attached 
 to the measure, notwithstanding his feeble powers, and notwith- 
 standing that, during the life of the Bishop of Tournay, who 
 was then in rude health, he could only receive three thousand 
 ducats of the revenue, giving up Arras and gaining nothing in 
 Mechlin ; notwithstanding all this, and a thousand other things 
 besides, he assured his Majesty that "since the royal desire was 
 so strong that he should accept, he would consider nothing so 
 difficult that he would not at least attempt it. " 3 Having made 
 up his mind to take the see and support the new arrangements, 
 he was resolved that his profits should be as large as possible. 
 
 a " Et Ton a voulu persuader 
 
 aucuns que je fusse auteur de ceste 
 
 nmivellite et par sa lettre sa 
 
 M. me dit que 1'on me faisoit grand 
 tort, confessant que en ceste nego- 
 tiation elle s'estoit cache de moy 
 
 d'aultaut que les aultres et 
 
 trois evesquea que nous estions lira 
 ct moy le contredisior.s, comme il 
 estoi: vrajseinb able, pour que il est 
 
 plus honorable estre un de quatre 
 que ung de dix-sept." Memoir of 
 G-ranvelle in Groen v. Prinst. Ar- 
 chives, etc., i. 76. See also Archives, 
 etc , viii. 54. 
 
 2 " Et quant au prouffit j'e 
 
 feroy apparior qu'an revenu que je y 
 ay receu perte notable." Ibid. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, ?i. 96, 98.
 
 266 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1560. 
 
 We have seen how he had already been enabled to indemnify 
 himself. We shall find him soon afterwards importuning the 
 King for the Abbey of Afflighem, the enormous revenue of 
 which the prelate thought would make another handsome 
 addition to the rewards of his sacrifices. At the same time, he 
 was most anxious that the people, and particularly the great 
 nobles, should not ascribe the new establishment to him, as 
 they persisted in doing. " They say that the episcopates were 
 devised to gratify my ambition," he wrote to Philip two yeats 
 later ; " whereas your Majesty knows how steadily I refused 
 the see of Mechlin, and that I only accepted it in order not to 
 live in idleness, doing nothing for God and your Majesty." 1 
 He therefore instructed Philip, on several occasions, to make 
 it known to the government of the Regent, to the seigniors, 
 and to the country generally, that the measure had been 
 arranged without his knowledge ; that the Marquis Berghen 
 had known of it first, and that the prelate had, in truth, been 
 kept in the dark on the subject until the arrival of Sonnius 
 with the Bulls. The King, always docile to his minister, 
 accordingly wrote to the Duchess the statements required, 
 in almost the exact phraseology suggested ; taking pains to 
 repeat the declaration on several occasions, both by letter 
 and by word of mouth, to many influential persons. 9 
 
 The people, however, persisted in identifying the Bishop 
 with the scheme. They saw that he was the head of the new 
 institutions ; that he was to receive the lion's share of the con- 
 fiscated abbeys, and that he was foremost in defending and 
 carrying through the measure, in spite of all opposition. That 
 opposition waxed daily more bitter, till the Cardinal, notwith- 
 standing that he characterised the arrangement to the King as 
 " holy work," 3 and warmly assured Secretary Perez that he 
 would contribute his fortune, his blood, and his life to its 
 success, 4 was yet obliged to exclaim in the bitterness of his 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, v. 552 502. 
 Correspondance de Philippe U., 
 
 I. 207. 
 
 8 " Tan sancta obra." Papiers 
 d'Etat, vi. 3. 
 
 * Corresp. de Philippe IT, i. 189.
 
 1566.] OKANGE LEADS THE OPPOSITION. 267 
 
 spirit, " Would to God that the erection of these new sees 
 had never been thought of! Amen ! Amen I " z 
 
 Foremost in resistance was the Prince of Orange. Although 
 a Catholic, he had no relish for the horrible persecution which 
 had been determined upon. The new bishoprics he char- 
 acterised afterwards as parts "of one grand scheme for es- 
 tablishing the cruel Inquisition of Spain ; the said bishops 
 to serve as inquisitors, burners of bodies, and tyrants of 
 conscience : two prebendaries in each see being actually- 
 constituted inquisitors." 2 For this reason he omitted no re- 
 monstrance on the subject to the Duchess, to Granvelle, and 
 by direct letters to the King. His efforts were seconded by 
 Egmont, Berghen, and other influential nobles. Even Ber- 
 laymont was at first disposed to side with the opposition, but 
 upon the argument used by the Duchess, that the bishoprics 
 and prebends would furnish excellent places for his sons and 
 other members of the aristocracy, he began warmly to sup- 
 port the measure. 3 Most of the labour, however, and all the 
 odium of the business fell upon the Bishop's shoulders. There 
 was still a large fund of loyalty left in the popular mind, which 
 not even forty years of the Emperor's dominion had con- 
 sumed, and which Philip was destined to draw upon as pro- 
 digally, as if the treasure had been inexhaustible. For these 
 reasons it still seemed most decorous to load all the hatred 
 upon the minister's back, and to retain the consolatory formula 
 that Philip was a prince "clement, benign, and debonair." 
 
 The Bishop, true to his habitual conviction, that words, with 
 the people, are much more important than things, was disposed 
 to have the word " inquisitor" taken out of the text of the 
 new decree. He was anxious at this juncture to make things 
 pleasant, and he saw no reason why men should be un- 
 necessarily startled. If the Inquisition could be practised., and 
 the heretics lurned, he was in favour of its being done com- 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 341. " 
 
 Plugiera a Dios que jamas se luiviera 
 pensado en esta erection deslas ygle- 
 
 sias. Amen ! Amen ! " 
 
 2 Apologie, 92, 23. 
 
 3 Papiers d Etat. vi. 332.
 
 2G8 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH RE PUBLIC. 
 
 [15GO. 
 
 fortably. The word " inquisitor " was unpopular, almost in- 
 decent. It was better to suppress the terra and retain the 
 thing. " People are afraid to speak of the new bishoprics," 
 he wrote to Perez, " on account of the clause providing that 
 of nine canons one shall be inquisitor. Hence people fear the 
 Spanish Inquisition." 1 He, therefore, had written to the 
 King to suggest instead, that the canons or graduates should 
 be obliged to assist the Bishop, according as he might command. 
 Those terms would suffice, because, although not expressly 
 stated, it was clear that the Bishop was an ordinary inquisitor ; 
 but it icas necessary to expunge words that gave offence* 
 
 It was difficult, however, with all the Bishop's eloquence and 
 dexterity, to construct an agreeable Inquisition. The people 
 did not like it in any shape, and there were indications, not to 
 be mistaken, that one day there would be a storm which it 
 would be beyond human power to assuage. At present the 
 people directed its indignation only upon a part of the 
 machinery devised for their oppression. The Spanish troops 
 were considered as a portion of the apparatus by which the 
 new bishoprics and the edicts were to be forced into execution. 
 Moreover, men were weary of the insolence and the pillage 
 which these mercenaries had so long exercised in the land. 
 When the King had been first requested to withdraw then, we 
 have seen that he had burst into a violent passion. He had 
 afterwards dissembled. Promising, at last, that they should all 
 be sent from the country within three or four months after his 
 departure, he had determined to use every artifice to detain them 
 in the provinces. He had succeeded by various subterfuges, in 
 keeping them there fourteen months; but it was at last evident 
 that their presence would no longer be tolerated. Towards 
 the close of 1560 they were quartered in Walcheren and Brill. 
 The Zelanders, however, had become so exasperated by their 
 presence that they resolutely refused to lay a single hand upon 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 200. 
 
 2 " Pues aunque no ee dv^a claro es 
 
 que el obispo es inquisidor ordinario, 
 fino que es menester qui'ar las pala- 
 bras que ofenden." Ibid.
 
 1560.] POPULAR EAGE AGAINST THE MERCENARIES. 269 
 
 the dykes, which, as usual at that season, required great 
 repairs. 1 Rather than see their native soil profaned any 
 longer by these hated foreign mercenaries, they would see it 
 sunk for ever in the ocean. They swore to perish men, 
 women, and children together in the waves, rather than 
 endure longer the outrages which the soldiery daily inflicted. 
 Such was the temper of the Zelanders that it was not thought 
 wise to trifle with their irritation. The Bishop felt that it 
 was no longer practicable to detain the troops, and that all the 
 pretexts devised by Philip and his government had become 
 ineffectual. In a Session of the State Council, held on the 
 25th October, 1560, 2 he represented in the strongest terms to 
 the Regent the necessity for the final departure of the troops, 
 Viglius, who knew the character of his country men, strenuously 
 seconded the proposal. Orange briefly but firmly expressed 
 the same opinion, declining any longer to serve as com- 
 mander of the legion, an office which, in conjunction with 
 Egmont, he had accepted provisionally with the best of 
 motives, and on the pledge of Philip that the soldiers should 
 be withdrawn. The Duchess urged that the order should at 
 least be deferred until the arrival of Count Egmont, then in 
 Spain, but the proposition was unanimously negatived. 3 
 
 Letters were accordingly written, in the name of the 
 Regent, to the King. It was stated that the measure could no 
 longer be delayed, that the provinces all agreed in this point, 
 that so long as the foreigners remained, not a stiver should be 
 paid into the treasury; that if they had once set sail, the 
 necessary amount for their arrears would be furnished to the 
 government ; but that if they should return, it was probable 
 that they would be resisted by the inhabitants with main 
 force, and that they would only be allowed to enter the cities 
 through a breach in their walls. 4 It was urged, moreover, 
 that three or four thousand Spaniards would not be sufficient 
 to coerce all the provinces, and that there was not money 
 
 1 Bor, i. 18-22. Strada, iii. 87. i. 330, 331. 3 Ibid. 
 
 a See a process verbal of this Ses- 4 Archives et Correspondance, i. 
 eion in Gachard, Documentos Inedits, | 02.
 
 270 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1560. 
 
 enough in the royal exchequer to pay the wages of a single 
 company of the troops. 1 " It cuts me to the heart," wrote the 
 Bishop to Philip, " to see the Spanish infantry leave us j but 
 go they must. Would to God that we could devise any pre- 
 text, as your Majesty desires, under which to keep them here ! 
 We have tried all means humanly possible for retaining them, 
 but I see no way to do it without putting the provinces in 
 manifest danger of sudden revolt." a 
 
 Fortunately for the dignity of the government, or for the 
 repose of the country, a respectable motive was found for 
 employing the legion elsewhere. The important loss which 
 Spain had recently met with in the capture of Zerby, made a 
 reinforcement necessary in the army engaged in the Southern 
 service. Thus, the disaster in Barbary at last relieved the 
 Netherlands of the pest which had afflicted them so long. 3 
 For a brief breathing space the country was cleared of foreign 
 mercenaries. 
 
 The growing unpopularity of the royal government, still 
 typified, however, in the increasing hatred entertained for the 
 Bishop, was not materially diminished by the departure of the 
 Spaniards. The edicts and the bishoprics were still there, even 
 if the soldiers were gone. The churchman worked faithfully 
 to accomplish his master's business. Philip, on his side, was 
 industrious to bring about the consummation of his measures. 
 Ever occupied with details, the monarch, from his palace in 
 Spain, sent frequent informations against the humblest indi- 
 viduals in the Netherlands. It is curious to observe the minute 
 reticulations of tyranny which he had begun already to spin 
 about a whole people, while cold, venomous, and patient, he 
 watched his victims from the centre of his web. He forwarded 
 
 1 Meteren, i. 24. Bor. i. 18-22. 
 Strncla, iii. 87-89. 
 
 2 "En el alma siento ver partir la 
 infanteria Espauola." Papiers d'Etat, 
 vi. 25. 
 
 " Confer! con su Alt. eobre el 
 negocio de la queclada aqui de los 
 Espafiolea, y se ban intendado todas 
 las vias humanamente possibiles, 
 
 | mas enfin no reo forma ny camino 
 que, sin poner estos estados en mani- 
 fiesto peligro de subita rebuelta, ee 
 puede dit'erir la execucion de su 
 yda, si el tiempo lo consiente." 
 Green v. Prinst. Archives, etc., i. 
 61. 
 
 3 Meteren, i. 24. Bor, i. 18-22. 
 Strada, iii. 87-89.
 
 1560.] THE INQUISITOR-KINO. 271 
 
 particular details to the Duchess and Cardinal concerning a 
 variety of men and women, sending their names, ages, personal 
 appearance, occupations, and residence, together with direc- 
 tions for their immediate immolation. 1 Even the inquisitors 
 of Seville were set to work to increase, by means of their 
 branches or agencies in the provinces, the royal information on 
 this all-important subject. " There are but few of us left in 
 the world," he moralised in a letter to the Bishop, (l who care 
 for religion. 'Tis necessary, therefore, for us to take the 
 oreater heed for Christianity. We must lose our all, if need 
 
 O / / 
 
 be, in order to do our duty; for in fine," added he, with his 
 usual tautology, " it is right that a man should do his duty." 2 
 Granvelle as he must now be called, for his elevation to the 
 cardinalship will be immediately alluded to wrote to assure 
 the King that every pains would be taken to ferret out and 
 execute the individuals complained of. 3 He bewailed, however, 
 the want of heartiness on the part of the Netherland inquisitors 
 and judges. " I find," said he, " that alljudicial officers go into 
 the matter of executing the edicts with reluctance, which I 
 believe is caused by their fear of displeasing the populace. 
 When they do act they do it but languidly, and when these 
 matters are not taken in hand with the necessary liveliness, the 
 fruit desired is not gathered. We do not fail to exhort and to 
 command them to do their work." * He added that Vio-Kus and 
 
 o 
 
 Berlaymont displayed laudable zeal, but that he could not say 
 
 1 Strada, iv. 142 " - G-uber- , vacasse : inquirenclisque Tiominibus 
 natricem doceret rationem haereticos \plcruinq. obscuris sollicitudine etiam 
 intercipiendi ; eorum tunquam yes- j in privato cive admiranda cogitatio- 
 tigia et cubilia ipse monstraret : nem manumque flexisse." Compare 
 
 etiam indice (quos habco regiis littcris 
 inclusos) en diligentia confcctos, ita 
 cuj usque conditione vicinia, estate, 
 statura ad ungucm explicads." The 
 Jesuit can hardly find words strong 
 enough to express his admiration for 
 the diligence thus displayed by the 
 King; "ut miro profecto sit," ho 
 continues, " principem in tarn multas 
 
 Hoofd, i. 3 
 
 Y quan pocos ay ya en 
 
 el mundo que curen, della religion y 
 assi los pocos que quedamos ea 
 menester que tengamos mas cuydado 
 de la Christiandad y si fuere menes- 
 ter lo perdamos todo por hazer en 
 e;to lo que devemos; pcro en fin ea 
 bien que hombre haga lo que devo." 
 
 distractum diversumque Regnorum Papiers d'Etat, vi. 149. 
 
 c'iras, huic rei quasi per otium , 3 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 208-210. * Ibid.
 
 272 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 
 
 J.15GO 
 
 as much for the Council of Brabant. Those councillors were 
 " for ever prating," said he, " of the constitutional rights of 
 their province, and deserved much less commendation." ' 
 
 The popularity of the churchman, not increased by these 
 desperate exertions to force an inhuman policy upon an un- 
 fortunate nation, received likewise no addition from his new 
 elevation in rank. During the latter part of the year 1560, 
 Margaret of Parma, who still entertained aprofound admiration 
 of the prelate, and had not yet begun to chafe under his 
 smooth but imperious dominion, had been busy in preparing 
 for him a delightful surprise. Without either his knowledge 
 or that of the King, she had corresponded with the Pope, and 
 succeeded in obtaining, as a personal favour to herself, the 
 Cardinal's hat for Anthony Perrenot. 2 In February, 1561, 
 Cardinal Borromeo wrote to announce that the coveted dignity 
 had been bestowed. 3 The Duchess hastened, with joyous 
 alacrity, to communicate the intelligence to the Bishop, but was 
 extremely hurt to find that he steadily refused to assume his 
 new dignity, until he had written to the King to announce the 
 appointment, and to ask his permission to accept the honour. 4 
 The Duchess, justly wounded at his refusal to accept from her 
 hands the favour which she, and she only, had obtained for him, 
 endeavoured in vain to overcome his pertinacity. She repre- 
 sented that although Philip was not aware of the application or 
 the appointment, he was certain to regard it as an agreeable 
 surprise. 8 She urged, moreover, that his temporary refusal 
 would be misconstrued at Eome, where it would certainly 
 excite ridicule, and very possibly give offence in the highest 
 quarter. 8 The Bishop was inexorable. He feared, says his 
 panegyrist, that he might one day be on worse terms than at 
 present with the Duchess, and then she might reproach him 
 with her former benefits J He feared also that the King might, 
 
 1 Con fclegar & cada passo sn 
 joyeuso entree." Papiers d'Etat, vi. 
 208-210. 
 
 2 Strada, iii. 03. Dom I'ETesque 
 Memoires, i. 256-264. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 296, 297. 
 
 4 Strada, iii. 93. Dom 1'Evesque, 
 258. 
 
 5 Strada. Dom 1'Evesque, ubi sup. 
 
 6 Dom 1'Evesque, i. 258. * Ibid.
 
 1561.] THE CAEDINAL'S HAT. 273 
 
 in consequence of the step, not look with satisfaction upon 
 him at some future period, when he might stand in need of 
 his favours. 1 He wrote, accordingly, a most characteristic 
 letter to Philip, in which he informed him that he had been, 
 honoured with the Cardinal's hat. He observed that many 
 persons were already congratulating him, but that before he- 
 made any demonstration of accepting or refusing, he waited' 
 for his Majesty's orders ; upon his will he wished ever to 
 depend. He also had the coolness, under the circumstances, 
 to express his conviction that " it was his Majesty who had 
 secretly procured this favour from his Holiness."* 
 
 The King received the information very graciously, ob- 
 serving in reply, that although he had never made any sug- 
 gestion of the kind, he had " often thought upon the subject." 3 
 The royal command was of course at once transmitted, that 
 the dignity should be accepted ; by special favour, moreover, 
 the Pope dispensed the new Cardinal from the duty of going 
 to Home in person, and despatched his chamberlain, Theo- 
 philus Friso, to Brussels, with the red hat and tabbard. 4 
 
 The prelate having thus reached the dignity to which he had 
 long aspired, did not grow more humble in his deportment, or 
 less zealous in the work through which he had already gained 
 so much wealth and preferment. His conduct with regard to- 
 the edicts and bishoprics had already brought him into relations 
 which were far from amicable with his colleagues in the council. 
 More and more he began to take the control of affairs into his 
 own hand. The consulta, or secret committee of the state coun- 
 cil, constituted the real government of the country. Here the 
 most important affairs were decided upon without the concur- 
 rence of the other seigniors, Orange, Egmont, and Glayon, 
 who, at the same time, Avere held responsible for the action of 
 government. The Cardinal Avas smooth in manner, plausible of 
 speech, generally even-tempered, but he Avas overbearing and 
 
 1 ])om 1'Evesque, i. 258. 
 
 * Papiers d'Etat, vi. 296, 297. 
 
 3 Dom 1'Evesque, i. 25G-2J1. Pa- 
 piers d'Etat, vi. 302, 303. 
 
 4 Dom 1'Evi sque. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 274 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. T1561. 
 
 blandly insolent. Accustomed to control royal personages under 
 the garb of extreme obsequiousness, he began, in his inter- 
 course with those of less exalted rank, to omit a portion of the 
 subserviency while claiming a still more undisguised authority. 
 To nobles like Egmont and Orange, who looked down upon the 
 son of Nicholas Perrenot and Nicola Bonvalot as a person 
 immeasurably beneath themselves in the social hierarchy, this 
 conduct was sufficiently irritating. The Cardinal, placed as 
 far above Philip, and even Margaret, in mental power as he 
 was beneath them in worldly station, found it comparatively 
 easy to deal with them amicably. With such a man as Egmont 
 it was impossible for the churchman to maintain friendly 
 relations. The Count, who, notwithstanding his romantic ap- 
 pearance, his brilliant exploits, and his interesting destiny, was 
 but a commonplace character, soon conceived a mortal aver- 
 sion to Granvelle. A rude soldier, entertaining no respect for 
 science or letters, ignorant and overbearing, he was not the 
 man to submit to the airs of superiority which pierced daily 
 more and more decidedly through the conventional exterior of 
 the Cardinal. Granvelle, on the other hand, entertained a 
 gentle contempt for Egmont, which manifested itself in all his 
 private letters to the King, and was sufficiently obvious in his 
 deportment. There had also been distinct causes of ani- 
 mosity between them. The governorship of Hesdin having 
 become vacant, Egmont, backed by Orange and other nobles, 
 had demanded it for the Count de Roeulx, a gentleman of the 
 Croy family, who, as well as his father, had rendered many 
 important services to the Crown. 1 The appointment was, 
 however, bestowed, through Granvelle's influence, upon the 
 Seigneur d'Helfault, 2 a gentleman of mediocre station and 
 character, who was thought to possess no claims whatever 
 to the office. Egmont, moreover, desired the Abbey of Trulle 
 for a poor relation of his own ; but the Cardinal, to whom 
 nothing in this way ever came amiss, had already obtained 
 the King's permission to appropriate the abbey to himself. 3 
 Egmont was now furious against the prelate, and omitted 
 v Nonius Payen MS. a Ibid. ' Dom 1'Equseye Memoires, i. 231 .
 
 1561.] 
 
 VIOLENCE OF EGMONT. 
 
 275 
 
 no opportunity of expressing Iris aversion, both in his presence 
 and behind his back. On one occasion, at least, his wratb 
 exploded in something more than words. Exasperated bj 
 Granvelle's polished insolence in reply to his own violent 
 language, he drew his dagger upon him in the presence of the 
 Regent herself, " and," says a contemporary, " would cer- 
 tainly have sent the Cardinal into the next world had he notbeen 
 forcibly restrained by the Prince of Orange and other persons 
 present, who warmly represented to him that such griefs were 
 to be settled by deliberate advice, not by choler." 1 At the same 
 time, while scenes like these were occurring in the very bosom 
 of the state council, Granvelle, in his confidential letters to 
 Secretary Perez, asserted warmly that all reports of a want of 
 harmony between himself and the other seigniors and coun- 
 cillors were false, and thafc thebestrelations existedamong them 
 all. It was not his intention, before it should be necessary, to 
 let the King doubt his ability to govern the council according 
 to the secret commission with which he had been invested. 
 
 His relations with Orange were longer in changing from 
 friendship to open hostility. In the Prince the Cardinal met 
 his match. He found himself confronted by an intellect as 
 subtle, an experience as fertile in expedients, a temper as even, 
 and a disposition sometimes as haughty as his own. He never 
 affected to undervalue the mind of Orange. " 'Tis a man of 
 profound genius, vast ambition dangerous, acute, politic," he 
 wrote to the King at a very early period. The original relations 
 between himself and the Prince had been very amicable. It 
 hardly needed the prelate's great penetration to be aware that 
 the friendship of so exalted a personage as the youthful heir 
 to the principality of Orange, and to the vast possessions of the 
 Chalons-Nassau house in Burgundy and the Netherlands, would 
 be advantageous to the ambitious sou of the Burgundian Coun- 
 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. Vancler 
 Haer alludes to, but discredits, a simi- 
 lar story, according to which Egmont 
 gave the Cardinal, publicly, a box 
 on the ear. " Ut vulgi serinonibus 
 
 cliu fama, valuerit, quse Cardinnlcm 
 ab Egmondano alapa percussum mcn- 
 tiretur." i. ISO, 181. Do luitiia 
 Turn. Belg.
 
 276 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. (1661. 
 
 cillor Gran veil e. The young man was the favourite of the 
 Emperor from boyhood ; his high rank and his remarkable 
 talents marked him indisputably for one of the foremost men 
 of the coming reign. Therefore it was politic in Perrenot to 
 seize every opportunity of making himself useful to the Prince. 
 He busied himself with securing, so far as it might be 
 necessary to secure, the succession of William to his cousin's 
 principality. It seems somewhat ludicrous for a merit to be 
 made not only for Granvelle but for the Emperor, that the 
 Prince should have been allowed to take an inheritance which 
 the will of Rer.e de Nassau most unequivocally conferred, and 
 tvhich no living creature disputed. 1 Yet, because some of the 
 crown lawyers had propounded the dogma that " the son of a 
 heretic ought not to succeed," it was gravely stated, as an im- 
 mense act of clemency upon the part of Charles the Fifth, that 
 he had not confiscated the whole of the young Prince's heritage. 
 In return Granvelle's brother Jerome had obtained the gover- 
 norship of the youth, upon whose majority he had received an 
 honourable military appointment from his attached pupil. The 
 prelate had afterwards recommended the marriage with the 
 Count de Buren's heiress, and had used his influence with the 
 Emperor to overcome certain objections entertained by Charles, 
 that the Prince, by this great accession of wealth, might be 
 growing too powerful. 2 On the other hand, there were always 
 many poor relations and dependants of Granvelle, eager to be 
 benefited by Orange's patronage, who lived in the Prince's 
 household, or received handsome appointments from his gene- 
 rosity. 3 Thus, there had been great intimacy, founded upon 
 various benefits mutually conferred ; for it could hardly be 
 asserted that the debt of friendship was wholly upon one side. 
 When Orange arrived in Brussels from a journey, he 
 would go to the Bishop's before alighting at his own house. 4 
 
 Apologie d'Orange, 15-20. 
 Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 Vous eussiez veu lors ii sa 
 
 d'hotel, un Bordet son cousin, sou 
 grand ecuyer, autre une infinite do 
 communications secretes et familieres." 
 
 nrnison un Abbe de Saverney frere | Pontus Payen, MS. 
 dudt. Cardinal le Eervir de maistre j * Hoofd, i. 21, 22.
 
 1561.J GRANVELLE'S RELATIONS WITH ORANGE. 277 
 
 When the churchman visited the Prince, he entered his bed- 
 chamber without ceremony before he had risen ; for it was 
 William's custom, through life, to receive intimate acquaint- 
 ances, and even to attend to important negotiations of state, 
 while stiil in bed. 
 
 The show of this intimacy had lasted longer than its sub- 
 stance. Granvelle was the most politic of men, and the Prince 
 had not served his apprenticeship at the court of Charles the 
 Fifth to lay himself bare prematurely to the criticism or the 
 animosity of the Cardinal with the recklessness of Horn and 
 Egmont. An explosion came at last, however, and very soon 
 after an exceedingly amicable correspondence between the 
 two upon the subject of an edict of religious amnesty which 
 Orange was preparing for his principality, and which Gran- 
 velle had recommended him not to make too lenient. 1 A few 
 weeks after this, the Antwerp magistracy was to be renewed. 
 The Prince, as hereditary burgrave of that city, was entitled 
 to a large share of the appointing power in these political 
 arrangements, which at the moment were of great importance. 
 The citizens of Antwerp were in a state of excitement on the 
 subject of the new bishops. They openly, and in the event 
 successfully, resisted the installation of the new prelate for 
 whom their city had been constituted a diocese. The Prince 
 was known to be opposed to the measure, and to the whole 
 system of ecclesiastical persecution. When the nominations 
 for the new magistracy came before the Regent, she disposed 
 of the whole matter in the secret consulta, without the know- 
 ledge, and in a manner opposed to the views, of Orange. He 
 was then furnished with a list of the new magistrates, and was 
 informed that he had been selected as commissioner along 
 with Count Aremberg, to see that the appointments were 
 carried into effect. The indignation of the Prince was extreme. 
 
 O 
 
 He had already taken offence at some insolent expressions 
 
 upon this topic which the Cardinal had permitted himself. 
 
 He now sent back the commission to the Duchess, adding, it 
 
 1 Correspondance de Guill. le Tacit., ii. 15-22.
 
 278 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1551. 
 
 was said, that he was not her lackey, and that she might send 
 some one else with her errands. The words were repeated in 
 the state council. There was violent altercation Orange 
 vehemently resenting his appointment merely to carry out de- 
 cisions in which he claimed an original voice. His ancestors, 
 he said, had often changed the whole of the Antwerp magis- 
 tracy by their own authority. It was a little too much that 
 this matter, as well as every other state affair, should be con- 
 trolled by the secret committee of which the Cardinal was the 
 chief. Granvelle, on his side, was also in a rage. He flung 
 from the council-chamber, summoned the Chancellor of Bra- 
 bant, and demanded, amid bitter execrations against Orange, 
 what common and obscure gentleman there might be, whom he 
 could appoint to execute the commission thus refused by the 
 Prince and by Aremberg. He vowed that in all important 
 matters he would, on future occasions, make use of nobles less 
 inflated by pride, and more tractable than such grand seigniors. 
 The Chancellor tried in vain to appease the churchman's wrath, 
 representing that the city of Antwerp would be highly offended 
 at the turn things were taking, and offering his services to 
 induce the withdrawal, on the part of the Prince, of the lan- 
 guage which had given so much offence. The Cardinal was 
 inexorable and peremptory. " I will have nothing to do with 
 the Prince, Master Chancellor," said he, " and these are mat- 
 ters which concern you not." Thus the conversation ended, 
 and thus began the open state of hostilities between the great 
 nobles and the Cardinal, which had been brooding so long. 1 
 
 On the 23d July 1561, a few weeks after the scenes lately de- 
 scribed, the Count of Egmont and the Prince of Orange ad- 
 dressed a joint letter to the King. They reminded him in this 
 despatch that they had originally been reluctant to take office in 
 the state-council, on account of their previous experience of the 
 manner in which business had been conducted during the admi- 
 nistration of the Duke of Savoy. They had feared that important 
 matters of state might be transacted without their concurrence. 
 
 Bakh. T. d. Brink." Ilet Huwelijik Tan W. v. Oranjc," etc.. po. 47. '18.
 
 1561.] THE JULY LETTER. 279 
 
 The King had, however, assured them when in Zeland, that 
 all affairs would be uniformly treated in full council. If the 
 contrary should ever prove the case, he had desired them to 
 give him information to that effect, that he might instantly 
 apply the remedy. They accordingly now gave him that in- 
 formation. They were consulted upon small matters : momen- 
 tous affairs were decided upon in their absence. Still they 
 would not even now have complained had not Cardinal Gran- 
 velle declared that all the members of the state-council were 
 to be held responsible for its measures, whether they were 
 present at its decisions or not. Not liking such responsibility, 
 they requested the King either to accept their resignation, or 
 to give orders that all affairs should be communicated to the 
 whole board, and deliberated upon by all the councillors. 1 
 
 In a private letter, written some weeks later (August 15), 
 Egmont begged secretary Erasso to assure the King that 
 their joint letter had not been dictated by passion, but by 
 zeal for his service. It was impossible, he said, to imagine 
 the insolence of the Cardinal, or to form an idea of the 
 absolute authority which he arrogated. 2 
 
 In truth, Granvelle, with all his keenness, could not see 
 that Orange, Egmont, Berghen, Montigny, and the rest, were 
 no longer pages and young captains of cavalry, while he was 
 the politician and the statesman. 8 By six or seven years the 
 senior of Egmont, and by sixteen years of Orange, he did 
 not divest himself of the superciliousness of superior wisdom, 
 not unjust nor so irritating when they had all been boys. In 
 his deportment towards them, and in the whole tone of hij 
 private correspondence with Philip, there was revealed, almost 
 in spite of himself, an affectation of authority, against which 
 Egmont rebelled, and which the Prince was not the man to 
 acknowledge. Philip answered the letter of the two nobles 
 in his usual procrastinating manner. The Count of Horn, 
 who was about leaving Spain (whither he had accompanied 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., I a Ibid. 
 L 195. 196. | 8 Bakkuyzen, 44, 45.
 
 1280 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1501. 
 
 the King) for the Netherlands, would be intrusted with the 
 resolution which he should think proper to take upon the 
 subject suggested. In the meantime, he assured them that 
 he did not doubt their zeal in his service. 1 
 
 As to Count Horn, Granvelle had already prejudiced the 
 King against him. Horn and the Cardinal had never been 
 friends. A brother of the prelate had been an aspirant for the 
 hand of the Admiral's sister, and had been somewhat con- 
 temptuously rejected. 3 Horn, a bold, vehement, and not very 
 good-tempered personage, had long kept no terms with Gran- 
 velle, and did not pretend a friendship which he had never 
 felt. Granvelle had just written to instruct the King that 
 Horn was opposed bitterly to that measure which was nearest 
 the King's heart the new bishoprics. He had been using 
 strong language, according to the Cardinal, in opposition to 
 the scheme, while still in Spain. He therefore advised that 
 his Majesty, concealing of course the source of the information, 
 and speaking, as it were, out of the royal mind itself, should 
 expostulate with the Admiral upon the subject. 3 Thus 
 prompted, Philip was in no gracious humour when he re- 
 ceived Count Horn, then about to leave Madrid for the Nether- 
 lands, and to take with him the King's promised answer to 
 the communication of Orange and Egmont. His Majesty had 
 rarely been known to exhibit so much anger towards any per- 
 son as he manifested upon that occasion. After a few words 
 from the Admiral, in which he expressed his sympathy with 
 the other Netherland nobles, and his aversion to Granvelle, 
 in general terms, and in reply to Philip's interrogatories, the 
 King fiercely interrupted him : " What! miserable man ! " 
 he vociferated, " you all complain of this Cardinal and always 
 in vague language. Not one of you, in spite of all my ques- 
 tions, can give me a single reason for your dissatisfaction." 4 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe H., 
 L197. 
 
 2 La Deduction de 1'Innocence du 
 Comte de Home. 
 
 * Papiera d Etat, yi. 332. 
 
 * " Quoi malheureux ! Vous vous 
 plaignez tous de cet homme, et n'y 
 a personne quoy quo je demande qui 
 m'en saiche dire la cause." Papicrs 
 d'Etats, viii. 443.
 
 1561.] 
 
 GRANVELLE'S COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 281 
 
 With this the royal wrath boiled over in such unequivocal 
 terms that the Admiral changed colour, and was so confused 
 with indignation and astonishment that he was scarcely able 
 to find his way out of the room. 1 
 
 This was the commencement of Granvelle's long mortal 
 combat with Egmont, Horn, and Orange. This was the first 
 answer which the seigniors were to receive to their remon- 
 strances against the churchman's arrogance. Philip was enraged 
 that any opposition should be made to his coercive measures, 
 particularly to the new bishoprics, the " holy work " which the 
 Cardinal was ready to "consecrate his fortune and his blood " to 
 advance. Granvelle fed his master's anger by constant commu- 
 nications as to the efforts made by distinguished individuals to 
 delay the execution of the scheme. Assonville had informed 
 him, he wrote, that much complaint had been made on the sub- 
 ject by several gentlemen, at a supper of Count Egmont's. It 
 was said that the King ought to have consulted them all, and 
 the state councillors especially. The present nominees to the 
 new episcopates were good enough, but it would be found, 
 they said, that very improper personages would be afterwards 
 appointed. The estates ought not to permit the execution of 
 the scheme. In short, continued Granvelle, " there is the same 
 kind of talk which brought about the recal of the Spanish 
 troops" a A few months later, he wrote to inform Philip that a 
 petition against the new bishoprics was about to be drawn up 
 by " the two lords." They had two motives, according to the 
 Cardinal, for this step; first, to let the King know that he could 
 do nothing without their permission ; secondly, because in the 
 states assembly they were then the cocks of the u-alk? They 
 did not choose, therefore, that in the clerical branch of the 
 estates anybody should be above the abbots, whom they could 
 frighten into doing whatever they chose.* At the end of the 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, viii. 443. 
 a Ibid., vi. 261. 
 
 3 " Conio son los gallos de los esta- 
 dos." Papiers d Etat, vi. 307. 
 
 * " No querrian quo en el primer 
 
 bra^o que es el de los prelados huviesse 
 quien entendiesse y ]as osasse con- 
 tradecir, que hazen de ios abades 
 frayles lo que quieren, poniendo les 
 miedo." Ibid.
 
 282 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPTJBjjIO. [156L 
 
 year, Granvelle again wrote to instruct his sovereign how to 
 reply to the letter, which was about to be addressed to him by 
 the Prince of Orange and the Marquis Berghen on the subject 
 of the bishoprics. They would tell him, he said, that the in- 
 corporation of the Brabant abbeys into the new bishoprics 
 was contrary to the constitution of the "joyful entrance." 
 Philip was, however, to make answer that he had consulted the 
 universities, and those learned in the laws, and had satisfied 
 himself that it was entirely constitutional. He was therefore 
 advised to send his command that the Prince and Marquis 
 should use all their influence to promote the success of the 
 measure. 1 Thus fortified, the King was enabled .not only to 
 deal with the petition of the nobles, but also with the deputies 
 from the estates of Brabant, who arrived about this time at 
 Madrid. To these envoys, who asked for the appointment of 
 royal commissioners, with whom they might treat on the subject 
 of the bishoprics, the abbeys, and the "joyful entrance," the 
 King answered proudly, " that in matters which concerned 
 the service of God, he was his own commissioner." 2 He 
 afterwards, accordingly, recited to them, with great accuracy, 
 the lessons which he had privately received from the ubi- 
 quitous Cardinal. 
 
 Philip was determined that no remonstrance from great 
 nobles or from private citizens should interfere with the 
 thorough execution of the grand scheme on which he was re- 
 solved, and of which the new bishoprics formed an important 
 part. Opposition irritated him more and more, till his hatred 
 of the opponents became deadly ; but it, at the same time, con- 
 firmed him in his purpose. " 'Tis no time to temporise," he 
 wrote to Granvelle ; "we must inflict chastisement with full 
 rigour and severity. These rascals can only be made to dc 
 right through fear, and not always even by that means." * 
 
 At the same time, the royal finances did not admit of any 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 463, 464. 
 
 2 " Yo lea inande responder que por 
 eer del servicio do Dios, lo queria yo 
 mesmo." Papiers d'Etat, vi. 504. 
 
 3 " En las de la religion no se 
 
 ufre temporizar sino castigarlos con 
 todo rigor y serenidad, que estos vella- 
 cos sino es por miedo no bazen cosa 
 buena y aun con el, no todas vezes." 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 421.
 
 1561.] 
 
 A DISMAL EXCHEQUER. 
 
 283 
 
 very active measures, at the moment to enforce obedience to a 
 policy which was already so bitterly opposed. A rough esti- 
 mate, made in the King's own handwriting, of the resources 
 and obligations of his exchequer, a kind of balance sheet for 
 the years 15GO and 1561, drawn up much in the same manner 
 as that in which a simple individual would make a note of his 
 income and expenditure, gave but a dismal picture of his pecu- 
 niary condition. It served to show how intelligent a financier 
 is despotism, and how little available are the resources of a 
 mighty empire when regarded merely as private property, 
 particularly when the owner chances to have the vanity of 
 attending to all details himself. " Twenty millions of ducats," 
 began the memorandum, 1 " will be required to disengage my 
 revenues. But of this/' added the King, with whimsical 
 pathos for an account-book, " we will not speak at present, 
 as the matter is so entirely impossible." * He then proceeded 
 to enter the various items of expense which were to be met 
 during the two years ; such as so many millions due to the 
 Fuggers (the Rothschilds of the sixteenth century), so many 
 to merchants in Flanders, Seville, and other places, so much 
 for Prince Doria's galleys, so much for three years' pay due to 
 his guards, so much for his household expenditure, so much for 
 the tuition of Don Carlos and Don Juan d'Austria, so much 
 for salaries of ambassadors and councillors mixing personal 
 and state expenses, petty items and great loans, in one singular 
 jumble, but arriving at a total demand upon his purse of ten 
 million nine hundred and ninety thousand ducats. 
 
 To meet this expenditure he painfully enumerated the funds 
 upon which he could reckon for the two years. His ordinary 
 rents and taxes being all deeply pledged, he could only calcu- 
 late from that source upon two hundred thousand ducats. 
 The Indian revenue, so called, was nearly spent ; still it might 
 yield him four hundred and twenty thousand ducats. The 
 
 1 The document is in the Papiers 
 d'Etat de Granyelle, (vi. 156-165,) and 
 is entitled, "Memorial do las Fianan- 
 as de Espafia en los aQos 1560 et 
 
 1561." 
 
 2 " Pero desto non se tracta 
 
 a^ora como de cosa tarn impossible." 
 Ibid.
 
 284 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 quicksilver mines would produce something, but so little as 
 hardly to require mentioning. As to the other mines, they were 
 equally unworthy of notice, being so very uncertain, and not 
 doing as well as they were wont. The licences accorded by the 
 crown to carry slaves to America were put down at fifty thou- 
 sand ducats for the two years. The product of the <: crozada " 
 and "cuarta," or money paid to him in small sums by indivi- 
 duals, with the permission of his Holiness, for the liberty of ab- 
 staining from the Church fasts, was estimated at five hundred 
 thousand ducats. These and a few more meagre items only suf- 
 ficed to stretch his income to a total of one million three hundred 
 and thirty thousand for the two years, against an expenditure cal- 
 culated at near eleven millions. " Thus, there are nine millions, 
 less three thousand ducats, deficient," he concluded, ruefully, 
 (and making a mistake in his figures in his own favour of six hun- 
 dred and sixty-three thousand besides,) " which I may look for 
 in the sky, or try to raise by inventions already exhausted." 
 
 Thus, the man who owned all America and half of Europe 
 could only raise a million ducats a year from his estates. 
 The possessor of all Peru and Mexico could reckon on *' no- 
 thing worth mentioning" from his mines, and derived a pre- 
 carious income mainly from permissions granted his subjects to 
 carry on the slave-trade, and to eat meat on Fridays. This was 
 certainly a gloomy condition of affairs for a monarch on the 
 threshold of a war which was to outlast his own life and that 
 of his children ; a war in which the mere army expenses were 
 to be half a million florins monthly, in which about seventy per 
 cent, of the annual disbursements was to be regularly embezzled 
 or appropriated by the hands through which it passed, and in 
 which for every four men on paper, enrolled and paid for, only 
 one, according to the average, was brought into the field. 2 
 
 / O O * O 
 
 Granvelle, on the other hand, gave his master but little con- 
 
 1 " Que se ban de buscar del ayre 
 y do invenciones que estan ya tan 
 buscadas coino alia." Papiers d'Etat, 
 vi. 150-165. I 
 
 1 Simon Stvl. D a Opkomst en j 
 
 EL ei der Vereenigde Nedprlanden, 
 (Amst., 1773,) p. 119. Compare 
 Rfidani Belgarum Annales, (Lugd. 
 Hat. 1633.) lib. ii.
 
 1561.] PLAN FOB DEBASING THE COIN. 285 
 
 solation from the aspect of financial affairs in the provinces. 
 He assured him that " the government was often in such em- 
 barrassment as not to know where to look for ten ducats." l 
 He complained bitterly that the states would meddle with the 
 administration of money matters, and were slow in the grant- 
 ing of subsidies. The Cardinal felt especially outraged by the 
 interference of these bodies with the disbursement of the sums 
 which they voted. It has been seen that the states had 
 already compelled the government to withdraw the troops, 
 much to the regret of Granvelle. They continued, however, 
 to be intractable on the subject of supplies. " These are very 
 vile things," he wrote to Philip, " this authority which they 
 assume, this audacity with which they say whatever they 
 think proper ; and these impudent conditions which they 
 affix to every proposition for subsidies." 3 The Cardinal pro- 
 tested that he had in vain attempted to convince them of their 
 error, but that they remained perverse. 
 
 It was probably at this time that the plan for debasing the 
 coin, suggested to Philip some time before by a skilful chemist 
 named Malen, and always much approved of both by himself 
 and Ruy Gomez, recurred to his mind. "Another and an ex- 
 traordinary source of revenue, although perhaps not a very 
 honourable one," wrote Suriano, " has hithertobeen kept secret; 
 and on account of differences of opinion between the King and 
 his confessor, has been discontinued." This source of revenue, 
 it seemed, was found in "a certain powder, of which one ounce 
 mixed with six ounces of quicksilver would make six ounces of 
 silver." The composition was said to stand the test of the 
 hammer, but not of the fire. Partly in consequence of theo- 
 logical scruples, and partly on account of opposition from the 
 states, a project formed by the King to pay his army witli this 
 kind of silver was reluctantly abandoned. The invention, how- 
 ever, was so very agreeable to the King, and the inventor had 
 
 cosa 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 180. 
 
 " Y es tambien may ruin 
 
 le authoridad que ban tornado 
 
 y la osada de dezir lo que se les an- 
 
 que 
 lo 
 
 toja y de proponer condiciones tan 
 desaforadas a que se los va opiniendo 
 quanfo le puede," etc., etc. Papiers 
 d'Etat, vi. 178-180.
 
 286 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 received sucli liberal rewards, that it was supposed, according 
 to the envoy, that in time of scarcity his Majesty would 
 make use of such coin without reluctance. 1 
 
 It is necessary before concluding this chapter, which relates 
 the events of the years 1560 and 1561, to allude to an impor- 
 tant affair which occupied much attention during the whole of 
 this period. This is the celebrated marriage of the Prince of 
 Orange with the Princess Anna of Saxony. By many superfi- 
 cial writers, a moving cause of the great Netherland revolt was 
 found in the connexion of the great chieftain with this distin- 
 <mished Lutheran house. One must have studied the characters 
 
 c5 
 
 and the times to very little purpose, however, to believe it pos- 
 sible that much influence could be exerted on the mind of 
 William of Orange by such natures as those of Anna of Saxony 
 or of her uncle the Elector Augustus, surnamed " the Pious." 
 The Prince had become a widower in 1558, at the age of 
 twenty-five. Granvelle, who was said to have been influential 
 in arranging his first marriage, now proposed to him, after the 
 year of mourning had expired, an alliance with Mademoiselle 
 Ren ee, 2 daughter of the Duchess de Lorraine, and granddaughter 
 of Christiern the Third of Denmark, and his wife Isabella, sister 
 of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Such a connexion, not only 
 with the royal house of Spain, but with that of France for the 
 young Duke of Lorraine, brother of the lady, had espoused the 
 daughter of Henry the Second was considered highly desirable 
 by the Prince. Philip and the Duchess Margaret of Parma 
 
 1 ' N'e un altra straordinaria 
 
 laqual periodic e poco honorevole ha 
 pero tenuta secreta quest 6 una in- 
 dustria cbe fu principiata gia due 
 anni et piu con titolo di zecca ben 
 conosciuta d'alcuni di questa citta 
 ma non fu continuata essendo occorsi 
 certi disparcri fra lui (Phil . 2) et 
 il eonfessore per lo mani del quale 
 pa?so tutto qucsta prattica. Si trovi 
 poi per un Tedesco Malines che le 
 messe in opera et con un oncia di certa 
 sua pulvere et fei d'argento Tivo fa 
 eei oncie d'argento che sta al tocco et 
 
 al martello ma non al fuoco et fa 
 qualche opinione di valersene diquella 
 sorte d'argento in pagar 1'essercito : 
 ma li stati non hanno voluto con- 
 sentire perche con quest occasione 
 tutto il buono oro si saria portato 
 
 in altri priesi ma quest inven- 
 
 tione e tnolto grata al Re et a Ruy 
 Gomes, -dene presentato largamente 
 quello ch' 1' ha rittrovato, si puo cre- 
 dere ch' in tempo di qualche stretteza, 
 sua M. se ne Valeria senza rispetto." 
 Suriano MS. 
 2 Pontus Payen MS.
 
 1561.] 
 
 THE SAXON MARRIAGE. 
 
 287 
 
 both approved, or pretended to approve, the match. At tin 
 same time the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, mother of tha 
 intended bride, was a candidate, and a very urgent one, for 
 the Regency of the Netherlands. Being a woman of restless am- 
 bition and intriguing character, she naturally saw in a man of 
 William's station and talents a most desirable ally in her pre- 
 sent and future schemes. On the other hand, Philip who had 
 made open protestation of his desire to connect the Prince thus 
 closely with his own blood, 1 and had warmly recommended the 
 match to the young lady's mother soon afterwards, while 
 walking one day with the Prince in the park at Brussels, 2 an- 
 nounced to him that the Duchess of Lorraine had declined 
 his proposals. 3 Such a result astonished the Prince, who was on 
 the best terms with the mother, and had been urging her ap- 
 pointment to the Regency with all his influence, having entirely 
 withdrawn his own claims to that office. No satisfactory ex- 
 planation was ever given of this singular conclusion to a court- 
 ship, begun with the apparent consent of all parties. It was 
 hinted that the young lady did not fancy the Prince ; * but, as 
 it was not known that a word had ever been exchanged between 
 them, as the Prince, in appearance and reputation, was one of 
 the most brilliant cavaliers of the age, and as the approval of 
 the bride was not usually a matter of primary consequence in 
 such marriages of state, the mystery seemed to require a further 
 solution. The Prince suspected Granvelle and the King, who 
 were believed to have held mature and secret deliberation to- 
 gether, of insincerity. The Bishop was said to have expressed 
 the opinion, that although the friendship he bore the Prince 
 would induce him to urge the marriage, yet his duty to his 
 
 1 " Que V. Mte m'eust es- 
 
 cript, par ses lettres, le desir que 
 icelie avoit tou jours eu de sa gran- 
 deur et que, desirant 1'allier 
 plus pres de son sang, icelie avoit 
 instance, telle qu'il sc,avoit, pour pro- 
 curer son mariage avec la fille ainee 
 de Madame de Lorraine, comrne il se 
 pouroit souvenir." Letter of Mar- 
 
 garet of Parma in Reiffenberg. Cor- 
 respondance de Marg. d'Autricbe, pp. 
 271 272 
 
 2 'Reiffenberg, pp.273, 274. 3 Ibid. 
 
 * " Mais comme 1'affaire 
 
 trainait en longueur et comme aucuns 
 disent qu'il n'estoit a la bonne grace 
 de la demoiselle." Pontus Pay en 
 MS.
 
 283 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 master made him think it questionable whether it were right to 
 advance a personage already placed so high by birth, wealth, 
 and popularity, still higher by so near an alliance with his Ma- 
 jesty's family. 1 The King, in consequence, secretly instructed 
 the Duchess of Lorraine to decline the proposal, while at the 
 same time he continued openly to advocate the connexion. 2 The 
 Prince is said to have discovered this double dealing, and to 
 have found in it the only reasonable explanation of the whole 
 transaction. 8 Moreover, the Duchess of Lorraine, finding her- 
 self equally duped, and her own ambitious schemes equally foiled 
 by her unscrupulous cousin who now, to the surprise of every 
 one, appointed Margaret of Parma to be Regent, with the 
 Bishop for her prime minister had as little reason to be satis- 
 fied with the combinations of royal and ecclesiastical intrigue 
 as the Prince of Orange himself. Soon after this unsatisfactory 
 mystification, William turned his attentions to Germany. Anna 
 of Saxony, daughter of the celebrated Elector Maurice, lived at 
 the court of her uncle, the Elector Augustus. A musket-ball, 
 perhaps a traitorous one, in an obscure action with Albert of 
 Brandenbourg, had closed the adventurous career of her father 
 seven years before. 4 The young lady, who was thought to have 
 inherited much of his restless, stormy character, was sixteen 
 years of age. She was far from handsome, was somewhat de- 
 formed, and limped. 5 Her marriage-portion was deemed, for 
 the times, an ample one ; she had seventy thousand rix-dollars 
 in hand, and the reversion of thirty thousand on the death of 
 
 1 "Granvelle antwoordde, dat de 
 vriendscbap de by den Prinse droegh, 
 hem dryven zoude, om bet aan te 
 raaden indien de trouw, die by zynen 
 meester schuldigh was, niet bed en - 
 kelyk vond een persoonadje, onder- 
 steunt von oovergroote acbbaarheit, 
 en gunst der Landtzaaten, door't be- 
 huwen ran zoo naa een bloedt ver- 
 wandtschap zyner Mujesteit, in top 
 te trekken." Hoofd. i. 35. This 
 was precisely tbe same argument 
 used by tbe Emperor Charles against 
 the marriage with Mademoiselle de 
 
 Buren, and successfully combated by 
 Granyelle. 
 
 2 Hoofd, i. 35. 
 
 3 Ibid. Compare Bakbuyzen v. d. 
 Brink ; Het Huwelijk, etc., 8, 9, 10, 
 to whose publication on ibis most 
 intricate subject every candid historical 
 student must feel the deepest sense of 
 obligation. 
 
 4 Pfeilscbmidt, p. 64. 9-11 July 
 1553. 
 
 5 " Ungeschickten Leibes, 
 
 wabrscbeinlich etwas hiiikend." Eot- 
 liger, p. 87.
 
 1561.J DIFFICULTIES ABOUT THE MARRIAGE. 289 
 
 John Frederic the Second, who had married her mother after 
 the death of Maurice. 1 Her rank was accounted far higher in 
 Germany than that of William of Nassau, and in this respect, 
 rather than for pecuniary considerations, the marriage seemed 
 a desirable one for him. The man who held the great Nassau- 
 Chalons property, together with the heritage of Count Maxi- 
 milian de Buren, could hardly have been tempted by 100,000 
 thalers. His own provision for the children who might spring 
 from the proposed marriage was to be a settlement of seventy 
 thousand florins annually. 8 The fortune which permitted of 
 such liberality was not one to be very materially increased by 
 a dowry which might seem enormous to many of the pauper 
 princes of Germany. " The bride's portion," says a contempo- 
 rary, " after all, scarcely paid for the banquets and magnificent 
 festivals which celebrated the marriage. When the wedding 
 was paid for, there was not a thaler remaining of the whole 
 sum." s Nothing, then, could be more puerile than to accuse 
 the Prince of mercenary motives in seeking this alliance ; 
 an accusation, however, which did not fail to be brought. 
 
 There were difficulties on both sides to be arranged before 
 this marriage could take place. The bride was a Lutheran, the 
 Prince was a Catholic. With regard to the religion of Orange 
 not the slightest doubt existed, nor was any deception attempted. 
 Granvelle himself gave the most entire attestation of the Prince's 
 orthodoxy. " This proposed marriage gives me great pain," he 
 wrote to Philip, " but I have never had reason to suspect his 
 principles." * In another letter he observed that he wished the 
 marriage could be broken off; but that he hoped so much from 
 the virtue of the Prince, that nothing could suffice to separate 
 him from the true religion. 5 On the other side, there was as 
 
 1 Bottiger, 86. ! de ces nopces paves lui estoit res^e 
 
 2 Ibid., 93. Compare Bakhuyzen, boni pas im dalclre tant seuleraent du 
 p. 15. dot et portement de sa fernuie." Pon- 
 
 3 " C'este Allemande qui ne luy 
 avoit porte en mariage quo cent a 
 six vingt mille daldres, qui a grande 
 
 peine avoit eu peu suffir pour payer 5 Archives, etc., i. 70. "Yotodavia 
 ies banquets, festins et magnificences espero de la bondad y virtud del prin- 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
 tus Payen MS. 
 
 4 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., i. 
 52.
 
 290 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1501. 
 
 little doubt as to his creed. Old Landgrave Philip of Hesse> 
 grandfather of the young lady, was bitterly opposed to the 
 match. " 'Tis a Papist," said he, " who goes to mass, and 
 eats no meat on fast-days." l He had no great objection to his 
 character, but insurmountable ones to his religion. " Old Count 
 William," said he, "was an evangelical lord to his dying day. 
 This man is a Papist." a The marriage, then, was to be a mixed 
 marriage. It is necessary, however, to beware of anachronisms 
 upon the subject. Lutherans were not yet formally denounced 
 as heretics. On the contrary, it was exactly at this epoch 
 the Pope was inviting the Protestant princes of Germany to the 
 Trent Council, where the schism was to be closed, and all the 
 erring lambs to be received again into the bosom of the fold. 
 So far from manifesting an outward hostility, the papal de- 
 meanour was conciliating. The letters of invitation from the 
 Pope to the princes was sent by a legate, each commencing 
 with the exordium, " To my beloved son," and were all sent 
 back to his Holiness, contemptuously, with the coarse jest for 
 answer, " We believe our mothers to have been honest women 
 and hope that we had better fathers." ' The great council had 
 not yet given its decisions. Marriages were of continual occur- 
 rence, especially among princes and potentates, between the 
 adherents of Rome and of the new religion. Even Philip had 
 been most anxious to marry the Protestant Elizabeth, whom, 
 had she been a peasant, he would unquestionably have burned, 
 if in his power. Throughout Germany, also, especially in high 
 places, there was a disposition to cover up the religious contro- 
 versy ;* to abstain from disturbing the ashes where devastation 
 still glowed, and was one day to rekindle itself. It was exceed- 
 ingly difficult for any man, from the Archduke Maximilian 
 down, to define his creed. A marriage, therefore, between a 
 man and woman of discordant views upon this topic was not 
 startling, although in general not considered desirable. 
 
 cipe que no bastara todo esto para 
 apartarle cle la verdadera religion." 
 
 1 Bakliuyzen, 34. 
 
 ' V. Rommel, Philipp der Gros- 
 
 miitViisje, iii. 319, sqq.; cited by Groen 
 van Prinsterer, i. 59. 
 
 3 Groen T. Prinst, .Archives, eta, 
 * Bakhuyzen, 2Q-2&.
 
 1561.] DISSATISFACTION WITH THE ALLIANCE. 291 
 
 There were, however, especial reasons why this alliance 
 should be distasteful, both to Philip of Spain upon one side, 
 and to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse on the other. The 
 bride was the daughter of the Elector Maurice. In that one 
 name were concentrated nearly all the disasters, disgrace, and 
 disappointment of the Emperor's reign. It was Maurice who 
 had hunted the Emperor through the Tyrolean mountains ; it 
 was Maurice who had compelled the peace of Passau ; it 
 was Maurice who had overthrown the Catholic Church in 
 Germany ; it was Maurice who had frustrated Philip's elec- 
 tion as King of the Romans. If William of Orange must 
 seek a wife among the pagans, could no other bride be found 
 for him than the daughter of such a man ? 
 
 Anna's grandfather, on the other hand, Landgrave Philip, 
 was the celebrated victim to the force and fraud of Charles the 
 Fifth. He saw in the proposed bridegroom a youth who had 
 been from childhood the petted page and confidant of the hated 
 Emperor, to whom he owed his long imprisonment. He saw in 
 him, too, the intimate friend and ally for the brooding quarrels 
 of the state-council were not yet patent to the world of the 
 still more deeply-detested Granvelle ; the crafty priest whose 
 substitution of "einig" for "ewig"had inveigled him into that 
 terrible captivity. These considerations alone would have made 
 him unfriendly to the Prince, even had he not been a Catholic. 
 The Elector Augustus, however, uncle and guardian to the 
 bride, was not only well-disposed but eager for the marriage, 
 and determined to overcome all obstacles, including the opposi- 
 tion of the Landgrave, without whose consent he had been long 
 pledged not to bestow the hand of Anna. For this there was 
 more than one reason. Augustus, who, in the words of one of 
 the most astute historical critics of our day, was "a Byzantine 
 Emperor of the lowest class, reappearing in electoral hat and 
 mantle," 1 was not firm in his rights to the dignity he held. He 
 had inherited from his brother, but his brother had dispossessed 
 John Frederick. Maurice, when turning against the Emperor, 
 1 Bakbuyzen, Het Huwelijlc, etc., p. 14,
 
 292 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 who had placed him in his cousin's seat, had not thought it 
 expedient to restore to the rightful owner the rank which he 
 himself owed to the violence of Charles. Those claims might 
 be re-vindicated, and Augustus be degraded in his turn, by a 
 possible marriage of the Princess Anna with some turbulent or 
 intriguing German potentate. Out of the land she was less 
 likely to give trouble. The alliance if not particularly desirable 
 on the score of rank, was, in other worldly respects, a most 
 brilliant one for his niece. As for the religious point, if he 
 could overcome or circumvent the scruples of the Landgrave, 
 he foresaw little difficulty in conquering his own conscience. 
 
 The Prince of Orange, it is evident, was placed in such a 
 position, that it would be difficult for him to satisfy all 
 parties. He intended that the marriage, like all marriages 
 among persons in high places at that day, should be upon the 
 " uti possidetis " principle, which was the foundation of the 
 religious peace of Germany. His wife, after marriage and 
 removal to the Netherlands, would <l live Catholically ; " she 
 would be considered as belonging to the same Church with 
 her husband, was to give no offence to the government, and 
 bring no suspicion upon himself, by violating any of the 
 religious decencies. Further than this, William, who at that 
 day was an easy, indifferent Catholic, averse to papal perse- 
 cutions, but almost equally aver se to long puritanical prayers 
 and faces, taking far more pleasure in worldly matters than 
 in ecclesiastical controversies, was not disposed to advance 
 in this thorny path. Having a stern bigot to deal with in 
 Madrid, and another in Cassel, he soon convinced himself 
 that he was not likely entirely to satisfy either, and thought 
 it wiser simply to satisfy himself. 
 
 Early in 1560, Count Gun therde Schwartzburg, betrothed to 
 the Prince's sister, Catharine, together with Colonel George von 
 Holl, were despatched to Germany to open the marriage nego- 
 tiations. They found the Elector Augustus already ripe and 
 anxious for the connexion. It was easy for the envoys to satisfy 
 all his requirements on the religious question. If, as the Elector
 
 1561.] NEGOTIATIONS. 293 
 
 afterwards stated to the Landgrave, they really promised that 
 the young lady should be allowed to have an evangelical 
 preacher in her own apartments, together with the befitting 
 sacraments, 1 it is very certain that they travelled a good way 
 out of their instructions, for such concessions were steadily 
 refused by William 3 in person. It is, however, more probablo 
 that Augustus, whose slippery feet were disposed to slide 
 smoothly and swiftly over this dangerous ground, had repre- 
 sented the Prince's communications under a favourable gloss 
 of his own. At any rate, nothing in the subsequent pro- 
 ceedings justified the conclusions thus hastily formed. 
 
 The Landgrave Philip, from the beginning, manifested his 
 repugnance to the match. As soon as the proposition had 
 been received by Augustus, that potentate despatched Hans 
 von Carlowitz to the grandfather at Cassel. The Prince of 
 Orange, it was represented, was young, handsome, wealthy, 
 a favourite of the Spanish monarch ; the Princess Anna, on 
 the other hand, said her uncle, was not likely to grow 
 straighter or better proportioned in body, nor was her 
 crooked and perverse character likely to improve with years. 
 It was therefore desirable to find a settlement for her as soon 
 as possible. 3 The Elector, however, would decide upon 
 nothing without the Landgrave's consent. 
 
 To this frank, and not very flattering statement, so far as 
 the young lady was concerned, the Landgrave answered 
 stoutly and characteristically. The Prince was a Spanish 
 subject, he said, and would not be able to protect Anna in 
 her belief, who would sooner or later become a fugitive : he 
 was but a Count in Germany, and no fitting match for an 
 Elector's daughter ; 4 moreover, the lady herself ought to be 
 consulted, who had not even seen the Prince. If she were 
 crooked in body, as the Elector stated, it was a shame to 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 82, 83. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 8 " Hans von Karlowitz sollte vor- 
 B'ellen dasz dio Prinzessin in ihrein 
 Alter schwerlich ail geradem Wuchse 
 
 und proportion des Leibes zuncbmen 
 werde. dabei von einer seltsamen 
 Gemiitbsart und bartem Sinne sei, und 
 man daher billig auf ibre Versorgung 
 bedacbt sein miisse." Bottiger, 93. 
 4 Bottiger, 94.
 
 294 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 expose her ; to conceal it, however, was questionable, as the 
 Prince might complain afterwards, that a straight Princess had 
 been promised, and' a crooked one fraudulently substituted, 1 
 and so on, through a great deal more of such quaint casuistry, 
 in which the Landgrave was accomplished. The amount of 
 his answer, however, to the marriage proposal was an un- 
 equivocal negative, from which he never wavered. 
 
 In consequence of this opposition, the negotiations were 
 for a time suspended. Augustus implored the Prince not 
 to abandon the project, promising that every effort should 
 be made to gain over the Landgrave, hinting that the old 
 man might f( go to his long rest soon," and even suggesting 
 that if the worst came to the worst, he had bound himself 
 to do nothing without the knowledge of the Landgrave, but 
 was not obliged to wait for his consent.* 
 
 O 
 
 On the other hand, the Prince had communicated to the 
 King of Spain the fact of the proposed marriage. He had also 
 held many long conversations with the Regent and with Gran- 
 velle. In all these interviews he had uniformly used one lan- 
 guage; his future wife was to lf live as a Catholic," 8 and if that 
 point were not conceded, he would break off the negotiations. 
 He did not pretend that she was to abjure her Protestant faith. 
 The Duchess, in describing to Philip the conditions, as 
 sketched to her by the Prince, stated expressly that Augustus of 
 Saxony was to consent that his niece tc should live Catholically 
 after the marriage," 4 but that it was quite improbable that "be- 
 fore the nuptials she should be permitted to abjure her errors, 
 
 1 "DanunoberderKurfiir-t melde, 
 dasz sie eineu ungeschickten Leib 
 hatte, go ware es schimpflich, ihin 
 solcbes seben zu lassen, zu verbergen 
 aber um deswillen bedentlich, weil 
 er alsdann sngen durfte, dasz man ibm 
 eine woblegebildate Prinzessin an- 
 geriihmt, eine ungescbickte aber lis- 
 tig^rweise nngehiingt hatte," etc. 
 Bottiger, 94. 
 
 2 *' Dan im vortragk stunde 
 
 nichts anders dan obnevorwissen, und 
 nicht ohno vorwilligung, derwegen die 
 
 vorwilligung bei ikr. Ch. Gu. allein 
 stunde,' etc. Archives et Correspon- 
 dance, i. 88. 
 
 " Ce raisonnement," observes M. 
 Groen van Prinsterer, very judiciously, 
 Ci a 1'air d'un subterfuge peu honor- 
 able." Ibid. 
 
 * " De sorte que le Prince fust 
 as=eure d'eulx qu'elle vivroit catho- 
 licquement se uiariant avec lui." 
 Letter of Margaret of Parma. Rcif- 
 fenb., 2(H. 
 
 * Reiffenberg, 261.
 
 1601.] PHILIP'S LETTER. 295 
 
 and receive necessary absolution, according to the rules of 
 tho Church." 1 The Duchess, while stating her full confidence 
 in the orthodoxy of the Prince, expressed at the same time her 
 fears that attempts might be made in the future by his new 
 connexions " to pervert him to their depraved opinions." 5 
 
 A silence of many months ensued on the part of the sove- 
 reign, during which he was going through the laborious 
 process of making up his mind, or rather of having it made 
 up for him by people a thousand miles off. In the autumn 
 Granvelle wrote to say that the Prince was very much sur- 
 prised to have been kept so long waiting for a definite reply to 
 his communications, made at the beginning of the year, con- 
 cerning his intended marriage, and to learn at last that his 
 Majesty had sent no answer, upon the ground that the match 
 had been broken off; the fact being that the negotiations 
 were proceeding more earnestly than ever. 8 
 
 Nothing could be more helpless and more characteristic than 
 the letter which Philip sent, thus pushed for a decision. " You 
 wrote me," said he, " that you had hopes that this matter of the 
 Prince's marriage would go no further, and seeing that you did 
 not write oftener on the subject, I thought certainly that it had 
 been terminated. This pleased me not a little, because it was 
 the best thing that could be done. Likewise," continued the 
 most tautological of monarchs, " I was much pleased that it 
 should be done. Nevertheless," he added, " if the marriage is 
 to be proceeded with, 1 really don't know what to say about it, 
 except to refer it to my sister, inasmuch as a person being upon 
 the spot can see better what can be done with regard to it ; 
 whether it be possible to prevent it, or whether it be best, if 
 there be no remedy, to give permission. But if there be a 
 remedy, it would be better to take it, because," concluded 
 the King, pathetically, " I don't see how the Prince could 
 think of marrying with the daughter of the man who did to 
 his Majesty, now in glory, that which Duke Maurice did." * 
 
 1 Eeiffenberg, 264. 2 Ibid., 2G5. I * " Vos me scriyistes quo teniades 
 * Papiers d'Etat, vi. 169, 170. | esperan^a que no passaria adelanta
 
 296 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [156). 
 
 Armed with this luminous epistle, which, if it meant any- 
 thing, meant a reluctant affirmation to the demand of the Prince 
 for the royal consent, the Regent and. Granvelle proceeded to 
 summon William of Orange, and to catechise him in a manner 
 most galling to his pride, and with a latitude not at all justified 
 by any reasonable interpretation of the royal instructions. 1 
 They even informed him that his Majesty had assembled (l cer- 
 tain persons learned in cases of conscience, and versed in 
 theology," according to whose advice a final decision, not yet 
 possible, would be given at some future period. 2 This assembly 
 of learned conscience-keepers and theologians had no existence 
 save in the imaginations of Granvelle and Margaret. The 
 King's letter, blind and blundering as it was, gave the Duchess 
 the right to decide in the affirmative on her own responsibility ; 
 yet fictions like these formed a part of the tl dissimulation " 
 which was accounted profound statesmanship by the disciples 
 of Machiavelli. The Prince, however irritated, maintained his 
 steadiness, assured the Regent that the negotiation had ad- 
 vanced too far to be abandoned, and repeated his assurance 
 that the future Princess of Orange was " to live as a Catholic." 
 
 In December 1560, William made a visit to Dresden, 
 where he was received by the Elector with great cordiality. 
 This visit was conclusive as to the marriage. The appearance 
 and accomplishments of the distinguished suitor made a 
 profound impression upon the lady. Her heart was carried 
 by storm. Finding, or fancying herself, very desperately 
 enamoured of the proposed bridegroom, she soon manifested 
 as much eagerness for the marriage as did her uncle, 
 and expressed herself frequently with the violence which 
 
 la platica del casamiento del Principe hazer en el, o si se podra estorvar, 
 d'Orange, y con ver que no se me y quando no huviere otro remedio, 
 Ecrivia Luas delta, yo pense cierto que dar la licencia: mas quando le hu- 
 havia cessado, de que no holgava poco viesse, seria lo mejor tornar le porque 
 per que fuera lo mejor y lo que yo ; no se oomo pueda parecer casarse el 
 nolgaria, harto que se biziesse : mas princ?pe con hija del que hize con 
 si todavia passa adelante no se que j su majestad, que haya gloria, lo que 
 me dezir en ello. eino remitirlo a mi | el Duque Mauricio." Papiers d'Etat, 
 hermana, pues como quien esta solve | vi. 175, 17C>. 
 1 negocio, vera mejor lo que se podra ; ' Bakhuyzen, 41, 42. * Ibid,
 
 1561.] 
 
 OBSTINACY OF KNUTTEL. 
 
 belonged to heo* character. " What God had decreed," she 
 said, " the devil should not hinder." 1 
 
 The Prince was said to have exhibited much diligence in 
 
 O 
 
 his attention to the services of the Protestant Church during 
 
 O 
 
 his visit at Dresden. 2 As that visit lasted, however, but ten 
 or eleven days, there was no great opportunity for showing 
 much zeal." 3 
 
 At the same period one William Knuttel was despatched by 
 Orange on the forlorn hope of gaining the old Landgrave's 
 consent, without making any vital concessions. " Will the 
 Prince," asked the Landgrave, " permit my grand-daughter to 
 have an evangelical preacher in the house ? " " No," an- 
 swered Knuttel. tl May she at least receive the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper in her own chamber, according to the 
 Lutheran form ? " " No," answered Knuttel, " neither in 
 Breda, nor anywhere else in the Netherlands. If she impera- 
 tively requires such sacraments, she must go over the border 
 for them, to the nearest Protestant sovereign." 4 
 
 Upon the 14th April, 1561, the Elector, returning to the 
 charge, caused a little note to be drawn up on the religious 
 point, which he forwarded, in the hope that the Prince would 
 copy and sign it. He added a promise that the memorandum 
 should never be made public to the signer's disadvantage. 5 At 
 the same time he observed to Count Louis, verbally, " that he 
 had been satisfied with the declarations made by the Prince 
 when in Dresden, upon all points, except that concerning 
 religion. He therefore felt obliged to beg for a little agree- 
 ment in writing." 6 " By no means ! by no means ! " inter- 
 rupted Louis, promptly, at the very first word ; tf the Prince 
 can give your Electoral Highness no such assurance. 'Twould 
 
 1 "Was Gott auserseben werde 
 cler Teufel nicht wehren." Bottiger, 
 101. 
 
 2 Bottiger. 95. 
 
 3 Bakhuyzen, 62. 4 Ibid., 63. 
 5 Archives et Correspondance, i. 
 
 98. 
 
 " So yiel die piincten belangt do 
 
 sich der Prinz gegen mich erkleret 
 hat allhie zu Dresen, bin ich init im 
 gar wol zu friden und la-z es auch 
 darbey bleiben ausgcnommen so viel 
 die religion belanget, go inusz ich eine 
 kleine versehreibung ven im habi'n." 
 Archives, etc., i. 100. Letter of Louis 
 de Nassau.
 
 298 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 be risking, life, honour, and fortune to do so, as your grace is 
 well aware." 1 The Elector protested that the declaration, 
 if signed, should never come into the Spanish monarch's 
 hands, and insisted upon sending it to the Prince. 8 Louis, 
 in a letter to his brother, characterised the document as 
 "singular, prolix, and artful," and strongly advised the 
 Prince to have nothing to do with it.* 
 
 This note, which the Prince was thus requested to sign, and 
 which his brother Louis thus strenuously advised him not to 
 sign, the Prince never did sign. Its tenor was to the following 
 effect : " The Princess, after marriage, was neither by menace 
 nor persuasion, to be turned from the true and pure Word of 
 God, or the use of the sacrament according to the doctrines of 
 the Augsburg Confession. The Prince was to allow her to 
 read books written in accordance with the Augsburg Confession. 
 The Prince was to permit her, as often annually as she required 
 it, to go out of the Nethei'lands to some place where she could 
 receive the sacrament according to the Augsburg Confession. 
 In case she were in sickness or perils of childbirth, the Prince, if 
 necessary, would call to her an evangelical preacher, who might 
 administer to her the holy sacrament in her chamber. The 
 children who might spring from the marriage were to be in- 
 structed as to the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession."* 
 
 Even if executed this celebrated memorandum would hardly 
 have been at variance with the declarations made by the Prince 
 to the Spanish government. He had never pretended that his 
 bride was to become a Catholic, but only to live as a Catholic. 
 All that he had promised, or was expected to promise, was that 
 his wife should conform to the law in the Netherlands. The 
 paper, in a general way, recognised that law. In case of abso- 
 lute necessity, however, it was stipulated that the Princess should 
 have the advantage of private sacraments. This certainly would 
 
 1 Archives et Correspondence, i. 
 100, 101. 
 
 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 The note has been often pub- 
 
 lished : V. e. g. Groen v. Prinst., 
 Archives et Correspondance, i. 102, 
 103. Bakhuyzen, Het Huwelijk, etc., 
 75, 76.
 
 1561.] 
 
 DECLARATION OP THE PRINCE. 
 
 2DD 
 
 have been a mortal offence in a Calvinist or Anabaptist, but for 
 Lutherans, the practice had never been so strict. Moreover, 
 the Prince already repudiated the doctrines of the edicts, and 
 rebelled against the command to administer them within his 
 government. A general promise, therefore, made by him 
 privately, in the sense of the memorandum drawn up by the 
 Elector would have been neither hypocritical nor deceitful, 
 but worthy the man who looked over such grovelling heads as 
 Granvelle and Philip on the one side, or Augustus of Saxony 
 on the other, and estimated their religious pretences at exactly 
 what they were worth. A formal document, however, techni- 
 cally according all these demands made by the Elector, would 
 certainly be regarded by the Spanish government as a very 
 culpable instrument. The Prince never signed the note, 1 but 
 as we shall have occasion to state in its proper place, he 
 gave a verbal declaration, favourable to its tenor, but in 
 very vague and brief terms, before a notary, on the day of 
 the marriage. 
 
 If the reader be of opinion that too much time has been 
 expended upon the elucidation of this point, he should remember 
 that the character of a great and good man is too precious a 
 possession of history to be lightly abandoned. It is of no great 
 consequence to ascertain the precise creed of Augustus of 
 Saxony, or of his niece ; it is of comparatively little moment t<? 
 
 1 This has always been a disputed 
 question. The opinion more gene- 
 rally entertained, particularly by the 
 enemies of William, is that he did 
 sign it. M. Bakhuyzen (82, sqq.) 
 almost alone, maintains the contrary, 
 against many distinguished publicists ; 
 and, after a strong chain of circum- 
 stantial evidence to make his position 
 as firm as a negative usually can 
 be made, arrives at the conclusion 
 that a signed and sealer) document 
 to that effect never will be found 
 {p. 86). I am fortunately able to 
 attest the accuracy of his & priori 
 argument, and to prove the nega- 
 tive by positive and indisputable 
 evidence, According to the text of [ 
 
 a notarial instrument executed on 
 the 24th of August, 1561, between 
 four and five P.M., just before the 
 marriage ceremony (a document, still 
 existing in the Eoyal Archives at 
 Dresden, and published in the first 
 edition of this work), the Elector 
 testified that tbe Prince never would 
 and never did consent to make such 
 an holographic, signed and sealed 
 ins'rument as tbe one in question. 
 Wbntever may be the opinion formed 
 as to the general nature of the trans- 
 action, no one henceforth can pretend 
 that the Prince of Orange executed 
 the document in the manner in which 
 he was requested to execute it. V. 
 postea.
 
 300 
 
 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 fix the point at which William of Orange ceased to be an 
 honest but liberal Catholic, and opened his heart to the light 
 of the Reformation ; but it is of very grave interest that his 
 name should be cleared of the charge of deliberate fraud and 
 hypocrisy. It has therefore been thought necessary to prove 
 conclusively that the Prince never gave, in Dresden or Cassel, 
 any assurance inconsistent with his assertions to King and 
 Cardinal. The whole tone of his language and demeanour on 
 the religious subject was exhibited in his reply to the 
 Electress, who, immediately after the marriage, entreated 
 that he would not pervert her niece from the paths of the true 
 religion. '' She shall not be troubled," said the Prince, " with 
 such melancholy things. Instead of holy writ, she shall read 
 * Amadis de Gaule,' and such books of pastime which discourse 
 de amore ; and instead of knitting and sewing, she shall learn 
 to dance agalliarde, and such curtoisies as are the mode of our 
 country, and suitable to her rank." ' 
 
 The reply was careless, flippant, almost contemptuous. It 
 is very certain that William of Orange was not yet the 
 " father William " he was destined to become grave, self- 
 sacrificing, deeply religious, heroic ; but it was equally evident 
 from this language that he had small sympathy, either in 
 public or private, with Lutheranism or theological controversy. 
 Landgrave William was not far from right when he added, in 
 nis quaint style, after recalling this well-known reply, " Your 
 grace will observe, therefore, that when the abbot has dice 
 in his pocket, the convent will play." 3 
 
 1 Extracts from this letter (of 
 Landgrave William, son of Philip) 
 have been published by Bottiger and 
 others. I quote from the original 
 in the Royal Archives at Dresden, 
 partly in the handwriting of the 
 Landgrave : " Was er nun darauff E. 
 L. Gemahlin geantwortett das ist 
 beydenn E. L. bewusst, nemblich, 
 das er sio mit den melancolischen 
 Dingen nicht bemuhen wollte, son- 
 dern dos sie ann staVt der heyligen 
 Bchrift Amadis de Gaulo una der- 
 
 gleichen Kurzweilige Bucher, die de 
 Amore tractirten lesenn, und an 
 statt strickens undt nabenns ein 
 Galliarde tantzenn lernen solte und 
 dergleichen curtoisie, wie solche 
 etwa der Landt preucblich undt wol 
 stendig." 
 
 2 Md. Dresden Archives. "Nunn 
 haben E. L. zuerachten, wann der Aptt 
 werffel tregtt, das dem convent daa 
 spielenn erleubtt." The Landgrave 
 was always as full of homely proverbs 
 as Sancho Panza.
 
 1561.] 
 
 OPPOSITION OF THE LANDGRAVE. 
 
 301 
 
 So groat was the excitement at the little court of Cassel, that 
 many Protestant princes and nobles declared that " they would 
 sooner give their daughters to a boor or a swineherd than to a 
 Papist." 1 The Landgrave was equally vigorous in his protest, 
 drawn up in due form on the 26th April, 1561. He was not 
 used, he said, " to flatter or to tickle with a fox- tail." 2 He was 
 sorry if his language gave offence, nevertheless <{ the marriage 
 was odious, and that was enough." 3 He had no especial objec- 
 tion to the Prince, " who, before the world, was a brave and 
 honourable man." He conceded that his estates were large, 
 
 o / 
 
 although he hinted that his debts also were ample ; allowed that 
 he lived in magnificent style, had even heard " of one of his 
 banquets, where all the tablecloths, plates, and everything else, 
 were made of sugar,"* but thought he might be even a little 
 too extravagant ; concluding, after a good deal of skimble- 
 skamble of this nature, with, " protesting before God, the world, 
 and all pious Christians, that he was not responsible for the mar- 
 riage, but only the Elector Augustus and others, who therefore 
 would one day have to render account thereof to the Lord."' 
 Meantime the wedding had been fixed to take place on Sun- 
 day, the 24th August, 1561. This was St. Bartholomew's, a 
 nuptial day which was not destined to be a happy one in the 
 sixteenth century. The Landgrave and his family declined to 
 be present at the wedding, but a large and brilliant company 
 fvere invited. The King of Spain sent a bill of exchange to 
 the Regent, that she might purchase a ring worth three thousand 
 crowns, as a present on his part to the bride. 6 Besides this 
 liberal evidence that his opposition to the marriage was with- 
 drawn, he authorised his sister to appoint envoys from among 
 the most distinguished nobles to represent him on the occasion. 
 The Baron de Montigny, accordingly, with a brilliant company 
 of gentlemen, was deputed by the Duchess, although she 
 
 1 V. Eommel in Bottiger, 102. 
 
 2 " Wir nitgewondt sein zue fucbs- 
 echwentzen oder zue sckmeickeln." 
 Bottiger, 104. 
 
 3 "Es 1st aber Odiosum, darurnb 
 
 wollen wirs dissmals bleiben lassen." 
 Ibid. * Ibid., 104. 
 
 5 Ibid., 106. 
 
 6 Correspondance de Marguerite 
 d'Autriche, 184.
 
 302 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1501. 
 
 declined sending all the governors of the provinces, according 
 to the request of the Prince. 1 The marriage was to take place 
 at Leipsic. A slight picture of the wedding festivities, derived 
 entirely from unpublished sources, may give some insight into 
 the manners and customs of high life in Germany and the 
 Netherlands at this epoch. 2 
 
 The Kings of Spain and Denmark were invited, and were 
 represented by special ambassadors. The Dukes of Bruns- 
 wick, Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, the Elector and Margraves of 
 Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Cologne the Dukes of Cleves, 
 the Bishops of Naumburg, Meneburg, Meissen, with many 
 other potentates, accepted the invitations, and came generally 
 in person, a few only being represented by envoys. The town- 
 councils of Erfurt, Leipsic, Magdeburg, and other cities, were 
 also bidden. The bridegroom was personally accompanied by 
 his brothers, John, Adolphus, and Louis ; by the Burens, the 
 Leuchtenbergs, and various other distinguished personages. 
 
 As the electoral residence at Leipsic was not completely 
 finished, separate dwellings were arranged for each of the 
 sovereign families invited, in private houses, mostly on the 
 market-place. Here they were to be furnished with provisions 
 by the Elector's officials, but they were to cook for themselves. 
 For this purpose all the princes had been requested to bring 
 their own cooks and butlers, together with their plate and 
 kitchen utensils. The sovereigns themselves were to dine daily 
 with the Elector at the town-house, but the attendants and suite 
 were to take their meals in their own lodgings. A brilliant col- 
 lection of gentlemen and pages, appointed by the Elector to wait 
 at his table, were ordered to assemble at Leipsic on the 22d, the 
 guests having been all invited for the 23d. Many regulations 
 were given to these noble youths, that they might discharge 
 their duties with befitting decorum. Among other orders, they 
 
 1 Corresp. de M. d'Autriche, 288. 
 
 2 There are many papers and docu- 
 ments in the Royal Archives of Dresden 
 relating to this celebrated marriage. 
 The collection which 1 have principally 
 
 consulted for the following account is 
 entitled, "Acta des Prinzen tzu Ura- 
 nieun und Frawlein Annen tzu Saxen 
 Be\ lager, 1501." It is entirely un- 
 published.
 
 1 561/1 
 
 ARRANGEMENTS FOR SAFETY. 
 
 303 
 
 received particular injunctions that they were to abstain from 
 all drinking among themselves, and from all riotous conduct 
 whatever, while the sovereigns and potentates should be at 
 dinner. " It would be a shameful indecency," it was urged, 
 " if the great people sitting at table should be unable to hear 
 themselves talk on account of the screaming of the attend- 
 ants." 1 This provision did not seem unreasonable. They 
 were also instructed that if invited to drink by any personage 
 at the great tables, they were respectfully to decline the 
 challenge, and to explain the cause after the repast. 
 
 Particular arrangements were also made for the safety of 
 the city. Besides the regular guard of Leipsic, two hundred 
 and twenty arqucbusiers, spearsmen, and halberdmen were 
 ordered from the neighbouring towns. These were to be all 
 dressed in uniform ; one arm, side, and leg in black, and the 
 other in yellow, according to a painting distributed before- 
 hand to the various authorities. As a mounted patrole, 
 Leipsic had a regular force of two men. These were now 
 increased to ten, and received orders to ride with their 
 lanterns up and down all the streets and lanes, to accost all 
 persons whom they might find abroad without lights in their 
 hands, to ask them their business in courteous language, 
 and at the same time to see generally to the peace and safety 
 of the town. 8 Fifty arquebusiers were appointed to protect 
 the town-house, and a burgher watch of six hundred were dis- 
 tributed in different quarters, especially to guard against fire. 
 
 1 "Dasz dieselben in dem Essge- 
 mache auf dem Rathause des Zut- 
 rinkens und alien Geschrei wahrend 
 der ordentlichen Mahlzeiten sich en- 
 tlmlten sollten, indem dies nieht allien 
 Uimrclnung und Mangel in der Auf- 
 warlung verursache, sondern auch es 
 dii schimpjlichcr Uibelstand sei, wenn 
 (tie fremden Herrschaften an der 
 Ta el vor dem Geschrei der Umstehen- 
 den ihr eignes wort nichthoren konn- 
 ten," etc. MS. Dresden Archives, ubi 
 
 up. 
 
 "Als Reuterwacke hette der 
 
 Rath zu Leipzig zwei Mann, die=e 
 wurden bis auf zehen mann gebracht, 
 um mit ihren Leuchten die eine 
 Gasse auf die andere ab zu reiten 
 und die sich auf den Gassen ohne 
 Licht treffen lassen mit glimpflichcn 
 Worten zu Rede zu stellcn, dabei 
 auch auf das Feuergute Acht zu 
 haben." MS. Dresden Archives, ubi 
 sup. 
 
 The regulations have a remarkable 
 resemblance to Dogberry's instruu^ni 
 to his watch.
 
 304 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 On Saturday, the clay before the wedding, the guests had 
 arrived at Leipsic, and the Prince of Orange, with his friends, 
 at Meneburg. On Sunday, the 24th August, the Elector, at 
 the head of his guests and attendants, in splendid array, rode 
 forth to receive the bridegroom. His cavalcade numbered 
 four thousand. William of Orange had arrived, accompanied 
 by one thousand mounted men. The whole troop now entered 
 the city together, escorting the Prince to the town-house. 
 Here he dismounted, and was received on the staircase by 
 tho Princess Anna, attended by her ladies. She immediately 
 afterwards withdrew to her apartments. 
 
 It was at this point, between four and five P.M., that the 
 Elector and Electress, with the bride and bridegroom, accom- 
 panied also by the Dame Sophia von Militz and the Council- 
 lors Hans von Ponika and Ubrich Woltersdorff upon one side, 
 and by Count John of Nassau and Henrich von Wiltberg upon 
 the other, as witnesses, appeared before Wolf Seidel, notary, in 
 a corner room of the upper storey of the town-house. One of 
 the councillors, on the part of the Elector, then addressed the 
 bridegroom. He observed that his highness would remember, 
 no doubt, the contents of a memorandum or billet, sent by 
 the Elector on the 14th April, of that year, by the terms of 
 which the Prince was to agree that he would, neither by threat 
 nor persuasion, prevent his future wife from continuing in the 
 Augsburg Confession ; that he would allow her to go to places, 
 where she might receive the Augsburg sacraments; that in case 
 of extreme need she should receive them in her chamber; and 
 that the children who might spring from the marriage should 
 be instructed as to the Augsburg doctrines. As however, con- 
 tinued the councillor, his highness the Prince of Orange has, for 
 various reasons, declined giving any such agreement in writing, 
 as therefore it had been arranged that before the marriage cere- 
 mony the Prince should, in the presence of the bride and other 
 witnesses, make a verbal promise on the subject, and as the 
 parties were now to be immediately united in marriage, there- 
 fore the Elector had no doubt that the Prince would make no
 
 1561.] THE NOTARIAL INSTRUMENT. 305 
 
 objection in presence of those witnesses to give his consent to 
 maintain the agreements comprised in the memorandum or 
 note. The note was then read. Thereupon, the Prince 
 answered verbally: " Gracious Elector, I remember the writing 
 which you sent me on the 14th April. All the points just 
 narrated by the Doctor were contained in it. I now state to 
 your highness that I will keep it all as becomes a prince, and 
 conform to it." Thereupon he gave the Elector his hand. 1 
 
 What now was the amount and meaning of this promise 
 on the part of the Prince ? Almost nothing. He would 
 conform to the demands of the Elector, exactly as he had 
 hitherto said he would conform to them. Taken in connexion 
 with his steady objections to sign and seal any instrument on 
 the subject with his distinct refusal to the Landgrave 
 (through Knuttel) to allow the Princess an evangelical 
 preacher or to receive the sacraments in the Netherlands 
 with the vehement, formal, and public protest, on the part of 
 the Landgrave, against the marriage with the Prince's de- 
 clarations to the Elector at Dresden, which were satisfactory 
 on all points save the religious point what meaning could 
 this verbal promise have, save that the Prince would do exactly 
 as much with regard to the religious question as he had 
 always promised, and no more ? This was precisely what did 
 happen. There was no pretence on the part of the Elector, 
 afterwards, that any other arrangement had been contem- 
 plated. The Princess lived Catholically from the moment of 
 her marriage, exactly as Orange had stated to the Duchess 
 Margaret, and as the Elector knew would be the case. The 
 first and the following children born of the marriage were 
 baptized by Catholic priests, with very elaborate Catholic cere- 
 monies, and this with the full consent of the Elector, who sent 
 deputies and officiated as sponsor on one remarkable occasion. 
 
 1 " Gnediger ckurfurst, icb. kann 
 mich des echreibens des mir, e.g., 
 dieser sacbeu halben under obebe- 
 rneltcm dato gabcn freundtlich und 
 \vol erinnern, das alle die punct so der 
 her Doctor itzunt erzeit doriiine 
 VOL. I U 
 
 begriffen, und tbu, e.g., hiemit zue 
 sagenn das ich solchs alles furstlich 
 wil balden und dem nach kommen, 
 und bat solchs hierauf S. Ch. G. mit 
 band gebenden treu bewilligtt und 
 zugesagt." MS. Dresden Archives.
 
 306 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 Who, of all those guileless lambs, then, Philip of Spain, the 
 Elector of Saxony, or Cardinal Granvelle, had been deceived 
 by the language or actions of the Prince ? Not one. It 
 may be boldly asserted that the Prince, placed in a transition 
 epoch, both of the age and of his own character, surrounded 
 by the most artful and intriguing personages known to his- 
 tory, and involved in a network of most intricate and difficult 
 circumstances, acquitted himself in a manner as honourable 
 as it was prudent. It is difficult to regard the notarial in- 
 strument otherwise than as a memorandum, filed rather by 
 Augustus than by William, in order to put upon record, for 
 his own justification, his repeated though unsuccessful efforts 
 to procure from the Prince a regularly signed, sealed, and 
 holographic act, upon the points stated in the famous note. 
 
 After the delay occasioned by these private formalities, the 
 bridal procession, headed by the court musicians, followed by 
 the court marshals, councillors, great officers of state, and 
 the electoral family, entered the grand hall of the town- 
 house. The nuptial ceremony was then performed by " the 
 Superintendent Doctor Pfeffinger." Immediately afterwards, 
 and in the same hall, the bride and bridegroom were placed 
 publicly upon a splendid gilded bed, with gold-embroidered 
 curtains, the Princess being conducted thither by the Elector 
 and the Electress. Confects and spiced drinks were then 
 served to them and to the assembled company. After this 
 ceremony they were conducted to their separate chambers to 
 dress for dinner. Before they left the hall, however, Mar- 
 grave Hans of Brandenburg, on the part of the Elector of 
 Saxony, solemnly recommended the bride to her husband, ex- 
 horting him to cherish her with faith and affection, and " to 
 leave her undisturbed in the recognised truth of the holy 
 gospel and the right use of the sacraments." 1 
 
 Five round tables were laid in the same hall immediately 
 
 1 " Sie bei der erkannten dcrllch bleiben lessen wolle." MS 
 
 Wahrheit des beiligen Evangelii und Dresden Archives. Acta des P. z- 
 
 dem rech'en Branch und Genuss der Omnien et Frawlein Annen tzu Saxen 
 
 hochwiirdigen Sacrauiente unvehin- Bejlager, 1561.
 
 1301.] 
 
 MARRIAGE AND BENEDICTION. 
 
 307 
 
 afterwards each accommodating ten guests. As soon as the 
 first course of twenty-five dishes had been put upon the chief 
 table, the bride and bridegroom, the Elector and Electresa, the 
 Spanish and Danish envoys and others, were escorted to it, and 
 the banquet began. During the repast, the Elector's choir and 
 all the other bands discoursed the " merriest and most in- 
 genious music." The noble vassals handed the water, the nap- 
 kins, and the wine, and everything was conducted decorously 
 and appropriately. As soon as the dinner was brought to a 
 close, the tables were cleared away, and the ball began in the 
 same apartment. Dances, previously arranged, were performed, 
 after which "confectsand drinks" were again distributed, and 
 the bridal pair were then conducted to the nuptial chamber. 
 
 The wedding, according to the Lutheran custom of the epoch, 
 had thus taken place, not in a church, 1 but in a private dwell- 
 ing; the hall of the town-house representing, on this occasion, 
 the Elector's own saloons. On the following morning, how- 
 ever, a procession was formed at seven o'clock to conduct the 
 newly-married couple to the church of St. Nicholas, there to 
 receive an additional exhortation and benediction. 2 Two 
 separate companies of gentlemen, attended by a great number 
 of " fifers, drummers, and trumpeters," escorted the bride and 
 the bridegroom, " twelve counts, wearing each a scarf of the 
 Princess Anna's colours, with golden garlands on their heads 
 and lighted torches in their hands " preceding her to the 
 choir, where seats had been provided for the more illustrious 
 portion of the company. The church had been magnificently 
 decked in tapestry, and, as the company entered, a full 
 orchestra performed several fine motettos. After listening to 
 a long address from Dr. Pfeffinger, and receiving a blessing 
 
 1 MS. Dresden Archives, ubi sup. 
 
 2 Bottiger, in bis instructive and 
 able work, has fallen into an error 
 upon this point in stating that the 
 marriage (Traung) took place in the 
 Nicholas Church upon the 25th of 
 August. The marriage, as we have 
 Eeen, was in the city hall, upon the 
 
 preceding day. The bridal pair went 
 upon the Monday following, to the 
 church, for the benediction. That day 
 was called the " hochzeitliche Ehren- 
 tag," the day in honour of the wed- 
 ding. MS. Dresden Archives. Acta 
 des P. z. Oranien, etc. , Bey lager, 1561. 
 Compare Bottiger, 109.
 
 308 
 
 TEE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 before the altar, the Prince and Princess of Orange returned, 
 with their attendant processions, to the town-house. 
 
 After dinner, upon the same and the three following days, a 
 tournament was held. The lists were on the market place, on 
 the side nearest the town-house ; the Electress and the other 
 ladies looking down from balcony and window to (t rain 
 influence and adjudge the prize." The chief hero of these 
 jousts, according to the accounts in the Archives, was the 
 Elector of Saxony. He " comported himself with such es- 
 pecial chivalry " that his far-famed namesake and remote 
 successor, Augustus the Strong, could hardly have evinced 
 more knightly prowess. On the first day he encountered 
 George von Wiedebach, and unhorsed him so handsomely 
 that the discomfited cavalier's shoulder was dislocated. On 
 the following day he tilted with Michael von Denstedt, and 
 was again victorious, hitting his adversary full in the target, 
 and " bearing him off over his horse's tail so neatly, that the 
 knight came down, heels over head, upon the earth." 1 
 
 OnWednesday, there was what was called the palliatourney. 2 
 The Prince of Orange, at the head of six bands, amounting in 
 all to twenty-nine men; the Margrave George of Brandenburg, 
 with seven bands, comprising thirty-four men ; and the Elector 
 Augustus, with one land of four men, besides himself, all en- 
 tered the lists. Lots were drawn for the "gate of honour," and 
 gained by the Margrave, who accordingly defended it with his 
 band. Twenty courses were then run between these champions 
 and the Prince of Orange, with his men. The Brandenburgs 
 broke seven lances, the Prince's party only six, so that Orange 
 was obliged to leave the lists discomfited. The ever- victorious 
 Augustus then took the field, and ran twenty courses against 
 the defenders, breaking fourteen spears to the Brandenburgs' 
 ten. The Margrave, thus defeated, surrendered the "gate of 
 honour " to f he Elector, who maintained it the rest of the day 
 
 1 " Uncl ihn so gescliwind 
 
 Ictlig hintern Schwantz herabgerannt 
 <las er eLer niit dem Eopfe als mit 
 leiu Fuessen zur Erde gekomiuen 
 
 ist. " MS. Dresden Archives, ubi 
 sup. 
 
 * "Pallia Eennen." MS. ubi 
 sup.
 
 15G1.J TILTING AND MUMMING. 309 
 
 against all comers. It is fair to suppose, although the fact is 
 not recorded, that the Elector's original band had received some 
 reinforcement. Otherwise, it would be difficult to account for 
 these constant victories, except by ascribing more than mortal 
 strength, as well as valour, to Augustus and his four champions. 
 His party broke one hundred and fifty-six lances, of which 
 number the Elector himself broke thirty-eight and a half. He 
 received the first prize, but declined other guerdons adjudged 
 to him. The reward for the hardest hitting was conferred on 
 Wolf Yon Schonberg, " who thrust Kurt Von Arnim clean 
 out of the saddle, so that he fell against the barriers." 1 
 
 On Thursday was the riding at the ring. The knights who 
 partook of this sport wore various strange garbs over their 
 armour. Some were disguised as hussars, some as miners, 
 some as lansquenettes ; others as Tartars, pilgrims, fools, bird- 
 catchers, hunters, monks, peasants, or Netherland cuirassiers. 
 Each party was attended by a party of musicians, attired in 
 similar costume. Moreover, Count Gunter Von Schwartzburg 
 made his appearance in the lists, accompanied " by five 
 remarkable giants of wonderful proportions and appearance, 
 very ludicrous to behold, who performed all kinds of odd 
 antics on horseback." 
 
 The next day there was a foot tourney, followed in the even- 
 ing by " mummeries," or masquerades. These masques were 
 repeated on the following evening, and afforded great entertain- 
 ment. The costumes were magnificent, " with golden and pearl 
 embroidery," the dances were very merry and artistic, and the 
 musicians, who formed a part of the company, exhibited 
 remarkable talent. These " mummeries " had been brought 
 by William of Orange from the Netherlands, at the express 
 request of the Elector, on the ground that such matters were 
 much better understood in the provinces than in Germany. 
 
 Such is a slight sketch of the revels by which this ill-fated 
 Bartholomew marriage was celebrated. While William of 
 Orange was thus employed in Germany, Granvelle seized the 
 
 * IIS. ubi sup.
 
 310 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 opportunity to make his entry into the city of Mechlin, as arch- 
 bishop ; believing that such a step would be better accom- 
 plished in the absence of the Prince from the country. 1 The 
 Cardinal found no one in the city to welcome him. None of 
 ihe great nobles were there. 8 The people looked upon the 
 procession with silent hatred. No man cried, God bless him. 
 He wrote to the king that he should push forward the whole 
 matter of bishoprics as fast as possible, adding the ridiculous 
 assertion that the opposition came entirely from the nobility, 
 and that " if the seigniors did not talk so much, not a man of 
 the people would open his mouth on the subject." 3 
 
 The remonstrances offered by the three estates of Brabant 
 against the scheme had not influenced Philip. He had replied 
 in a peremptory tone. He had assured them that he had no 
 intention of receding, and that the province of Brabant ought 
 to feel itself indebted to him for having given them prelates 
 instead of abbots to take care of their eternal interests, and 
 for having erected their religious houses into episcopates. 4 
 The abbeys made what resistance they could, but were soon 
 fain to come to a compromise with the bishops, who, according 
 to the arrangement thus made, were to receive a certain por- 
 tion of the abbey revenues, while the remainder was to belong 
 to the institutions, together with a continuance of their right 
 to elect their own chiefs, subordinate, however, to the appro- 
 bation of the respective prelates of the diocese. 5 Thus was 
 the episcopal matter settled in Brabant. In many of the 
 other bishoprics the new dignitaries were treated with dis- 
 respect, as they made their entrance into their cities, while 
 they experienced endless opposition and annoyance on attempt- 
 ing to take possession of the revenue assigned to them. 
 
 24. 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 332. 
 Hopper, Eec. et Mem., ciii. 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 332. "Si 
 
 no Lablaran tanto los eeuores, ne 
 bablara hombre del pueblo nada." 
 
 4 Bor, i. '28. 
 
 8 Hoofd, L 37. Bor. Hopper, 29.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HOLY INQUISITION. 
 
 The Inquisition the great cause of the revolt The three varieties of the 
 institution The Spanish Inquisition described The Episcopal Inqui- 
 sition in the Netherlands The Papal Inquisition established in the 
 provinces by Charles V. His instructions to the inquisitors They 
 are renewed by Philip Inquisitor Titelmann Instances of his 
 manner of proceeding Spanish and Netherland Inquisitions com- 
 pared Conduct of Granvelle Faveau and Mallart condemned at 
 Valenciennes "Jour nee des maubrules" Severe measures at Valen- 
 ciennes Attack of the Rhetoric Clubs upon Granvelle Granvelle' s 
 insinuations against Egtnont and Simon Renard Timidity of Viglius 
 Universal hatred towards the Cardinal Buffoonery of Brederode and 
 Lumey Courage of Granvelle Philip taxes the Netherlands for the 
 suppression of the Huguenots in Prance Meeting of the Knights of the 
 Fleece Assembly at the house of Orange Demand upon the estates for 
 supplies Montigny appointed envoy to Spain Open and determined 
 opposition to Granvelle Secret representations by the Cardinal to Philip, 
 concerning Egmont and other Seigniors Line of conduct traced out for 
 the King Montigny's representations in Spain Unsatisfactory result of 
 his mission. 
 
 THE great cause of the revolt which, within a few years, was 
 to break forth throughout the Netherlands, was the inquisi- 
 tion. It is almost puerile to look further or deeper, when 
 such a source of convulsion lies at the very outset of any 
 investigation. During the war there had been, for reasons 
 already indicated, an occasional pause in the religious perse- 
 cution. Philip had now returned to Spain, having arranged, 
 with great precision, a comprehensive scheme for exter- 
 minating that religious belief which was already accepted by 
 a very large portion of his l^etherland siibjects. From afar
 
 312 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 there rose upon the provinces the prophetic vision of a coming 
 evil still more terrible than any which had yet oppressed them. 
 As across the bright plains of Sicily, when the sun is rising, 
 the vast pyramidal shadow of Mount Etna is definitely and 
 visibly projected the phantom of that ever-present enemy, 
 which holds fire and devastation in its bosom so, in the 
 morning hour of Philip's reign, the shadow of the inquisition 
 was cast from afar across those warm and smiling provinces 
 a spectre menacing fiercer flames and wider desolation 
 than those which mere physical agencies could ever compass. 
 
 There has been a good deal of somewhat superfluous dis- 
 cussion concerning the different kinds of inquisition. The 
 distinction drawn between the papal, the episcopal, and the 
 Spanish inquisitions, did not, in the sixteenth century, con- 
 vince many unsophisticated minds of the merits of the estab- 
 lishment in any of its shapes. However classified or entitled 
 it was a machine for inquiring into a man's thoughts, and for 
 burning him if the result was not satisfactory. 
 
 The Spanish Inquisition, strictly so called, that is to say, the 
 modern or later institution established by Pope Alexander the 
 Sixth and Ferdinand the Catholic, was doubtless invested with 
 a more complete apparatus for inflicting human misery, and for 
 appalling human imagination, than any of the other less artfully 
 arranged inquisitions, whether papal or episcopal. It had been 
 originally devised for Jews or Moors, whom the Christianity of 
 the age did not regard as human beings, but who could not be 
 banished without depopulating certain districts . It was soon, 
 however, extended from pagans to heretics. The Dominican 
 Torquemadawas the first Moloch to be placed upon this pedestal 
 of blood and fire, and from that day forward the " Holy Office" 
 was almost exclusively in the hands of that band of brothers. 
 In the eighteen years of Torquemada's administration, ten 
 thousand two hundred and twenty individuals were burned 
 alive, and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and twenty-one 
 punished with infamy, confiscation of property, or perpetual 
 imprisonment, so that the total number of families destroyed
 
 1561.] INQUISITORIAL ROUTINE. 313 
 
 by this one friar alone amounted to one hundred and fourteen 
 thousand four hundred and one. 2 In course of time the juris- 
 diction of the office was extended. It taught the savages of 
 India and America to shudder at the name of Christianity. The 
 fear of its introduction froze the earlier heretics of Italy, France, 
 and Germany into orthodoxy. It was a court owing allegiance 
 to no temporal authority, superior to all other tribunals. It was 
 a bench of monks without appeal, having its familiars in every 
 house, diving into the secrets of every fireside, judging and 
 executing its horrible decrees without responsibility. It con- 
 demned not deeds, but thoughts. It -affected to descend into 
 individual conscience, and to punish the crimes which it pre- 
 tended to discover. Its process was reduced to a horrible sim- 
 plicity. It arrested on suspicion, tortured till confession, and 
 then punished by fire. Two witnesses, and those to separate 
 facts, were sufficient to consign the victim to a loathsome dun- 
 geon. Here he was sparingly supplied with food, forbidden to 
 speak, or even to sing to which pastime it could hardly be 
 thought he would feel much inclination and then left to him- 
 self, till famine and misery should break his spirit. When that 
 time was supposed to have arrived he was examined. Did he 
 confess, and forswear his heresy, whether actually innocent or 
 not, he might then assume the sacred shirt, and escape with 
 confiscation of all his property. Did he persist in the avowal of 
 his innocence, two witnesses sent him to the stake, one witness 
 to the rack. He was informed of the testimony against him, 
 but never confronted with the witness. That accuser might be 
 his son, father, or the wife of his bosom, for all were enjoined, 
 under the death-penalty, to inform the inquisitors of every sus- 
 picious word which might fall from their nearest relatives. The 
 indictment being thus supported, the prisoner was tried by 
 torture. The rack was the court of justice ; the criminal's only 
 advocate was his fortitude for the nominal counsellor, who 
 was permitted no communication with the prisoner, and was 
 furnished neither with documents nor with power to procure 
 1 Llorente, i. 280.
 
 314 TEE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1501. 
 
 evidence, was a puppet, aggravating the lawlessness of the 
 proceedings by the mockery of legal forms. The torture took 
 place at midnight, in a gloomy dungeon, dimly lighted by 
 torches. The victim whether man, matron, or tender virgin 
 was stripped naked and stretched upon the wooden bench. 
 Water, weights, fires, pulleys, screws all the apparatus by 
 which the sinews could be strained without cracking, the bones 
 bruised without breaking, and the body racked exquisitely 
 without giving up its ghost was now put into operation. The 
 executioner, enveloped in a black robe from head to foot, with 
 his eyes glaring at his victim through holes cut in the hood 
 which muffled his face, practised successively all the forms of 
 torture which the devilish ingenuity of the monks had 
 invented. The imagination sickens when striving to keep 
 pace with these dreadful realities. Those who wish to indulge 
 their curiosity concerning the details of the system, may 
 easily satisfy themselves at the present day. The flood of 
 light which has been poured upon the subject more than 
 justifies the horror and the rebellion of the Netherlander. 
 
 The period during which torture might be inflicted from day 
 to day was unlimited in duration. It could only be terminated 
 by confession ; so that the scaffold was the sole refuge from the 
 rack. Individuals have borne the torture and the dungeon 
 fifteen years, and have been burned at the stake at last. 
 
 Execution followed confession, but the number of condemned 
 prisoners was allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of victims 
 might grace each great gala-day. The auto-da-fe was a solemn 
 festival. The monarch, the high functionaries of the land, the 
 reverend clergy, the populace, regarded it as an inspiring and 
 delightful recreation. When the appointed morning arrived, 
 the victim was taken from his dungeon. He was then attired in 
 a yellow robe without sleeves, like a herald's coat, embroidered 
 all over with black figures of devils. A large conical paper 
 mitre was placed upon his head, upon which was i ^presented a 
 human being in the midst of flames, surrounded by imps. His 
 tongue was then painfully gagged* so that he could neither open
 
 1531.] AUTOS-DA-FE. 315 
 
 nor shut his mouth. After he was thus accoutred, and just as 
 he was leaving his cell, a breakfast, consisting of every deli- 
 cacy, was placed before him, and he was urged, with ironical 
 politeness, to satisfy his hunger. He was then led forth into 
 the public square. The procession was formed with great 
 pomp. It was headed by the little school children who were 
 immediately followed by the band of prisoners, each attired in 
 the horrible yet ludicrous manner described. Then came the 
 magistrates and nobility, the prelates and other dignitaries of 
 the Church : the holy inquisitors, with their officials and 
 familiars, followed, all on horseback, with the blood-red flag of 
 the " sacred office " waving above them, blazoned upon either 
 side with the portraits of Alexander and of Ferdinand, the 
 pair of brothers who had established the institution. After the 
 procession came the rabble. When all had reached the neigh- 
 bourhood of the scaffold, and had been arranged in order, a 
 sermon was preached to the assembled multitude. It was- 
 filled with laudations of the inquisition, and with blasphemous 
 revilings against the condemned prisoners. Then the sen- 
 tences were read to the individual victims. Then the clergy 
 chanted the fifty-first psalm, the whole vast throng uniting in 
 one tremendous miserere. If a priest happened to be among 
 the culprits, he was now stripped of the canonicals which he 
 had hitherto worn, while his hands, lips, and shaven crown 
 were scraped with a bit of glass, by which process the oil of 
 his consecration was supposed to be removed. He was then 
 thrown into the common herd. Those of the prisoners who 
 were reconciled, and those whose execution was not yet ap- 
 pointed, were now separated from the others. The rest were 
 compelled to mount a scaffold, where the executioner stood 
 ready to conduct them to the fire. The inquisitors then de- 
 livered them into his hands, with an ironical request that he 
 would deal with them tenderly, and without blood-letting or 
 injury. Those who remained steadfast to the last were then 
 burned at the stake ; they who in the last extremity renounced 
 their faith were strangled before being thrown into the flames.
 
 316 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 Such was tlio Spanish Inquisition, technically so called. It 
 was, according to the biographer of Philip the Second, a "hea- 
 venly remedy, a guardian angel of Paradise, a lion's den in 
 which Daniel and other just men could sustain no injury, but 
 in which perverse sinners were torn to pieces." 1 It was a tri- 
 bunal superior to all human law, without appeal, and certainly 
 owing no allegiance to the powers of earth or heaven. No 
 rank, high or humble, was safe from its jurisdiction. The royal 
 family were not sacred, nor the pauper's hovel. Even death 
 afforded no protection. The Holy Office invaded the prince in 
 his palace and the beggar in his shroud. The corpses of dead 
 heretics were mutilated and burned. The inquisitors preyed 
 upon carcases and rifled graves. A gorgeous festival of the 
 Holy Office had, as we have seen, welcomed Philip to his na- 
 tive land. The news of these tremendous autos-da-fe, in which 
 so many illustrious victims had been sacrificed before their 
 sovereign's eyes, had reached the Netherlands almost simulta- 
 neously with the bulls creating the new bishoprics in the pro- 
 vinces. It was not likely that the measure would be rendered 
 more palatable by this intelligence of the royal amusements. 2 
 The Spanish Inquisition had never flourished in any soil but 
 that of the peninsula. It is possible that the King and Gran- 
 velle were sincere in their protestations of entertaining no in- 
 tention of introducing it into the Netherlands, although the 
 protestations of such men are entitled to but little weight. 
 The truth was, that the Inquisition existed already in the pro- 
 vinces. It was the main object of the government to confirm 
 and extend the institution. The Episcopal Inquisition, as we 
 have already seen, had been enlarged by the enormous increase 
 in the number of bishops, each of whom was to be head inquisitor 
 in his diocese, with two special inquisitors under him. With 
 
 1 "Lagos de los leones do Daniel Gonsalvo Mnntano and Giorgio Ni- 
 
 que a los justos no hazen mal, si 
 despedacjan los obstinacies impeni- 
 tentes pecadores, rcmcdio del cielo i 
 Anfftl de la (jiuirda del Paraiso," etc. 
 Cabrera, v. 2-">6. 
 
 a Dor, iii. 113-119; who had used 
 the works of his contemporaries, 
 
 grino; Hoofd, i. 30-34. Compare 
 Llorente, Hist. Grit, de 1'Inquis., 
 particularly i. chap. 8 and 9, and iv. 
 c. 46; Vander Vynckt, i. 200-238; 
 Hopper, p. ii. c. 9; Grot. Ann., i, 
 14, In.
 
 1561.] PAPAL INQUISITION IN THE PEOVINCES. 
 
 this apparatus and with the edicts, asalready described, itmight 
 seem that enough had already been done for the suppression of 
 heresy. But more had been done. A regular Papal Inquisi- 
 tion also existed in the Netherlands. This establishment, like 
 the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth. A word of intro- 
 duction is here again necessary nor let the reader deem that 
 too much time is devoted to this painful subject. On the con- 
 trary, no definite idea can be formed as to the character of the 
 Netherland revolt without a thorough understanding of this 
 great cause the religious persecution in which the country 
 had lived, breathed, and had its being, for half a century, and 
 in which, had the rebellion not broken out at last, the popula- 
 tion must have been either exterminated or entirely embruted. 
 The few years which are immediately to occupy us in the 
 present and succeeding chapter, present the country in a daily 
 increasing ferment from the action of causes which had existed 
 Ions: before, but which received an additional stimulus as the 
 
 O ' 
 
 policy of the new reign developed itself. 
 
 Previously to the accession of Charles V., it cannot be said 
 that an inquisition had ever been established in the provinces. 
 Isolated instances to the contrary, adduced by the canonists 
 who gave their advice to Margaret of Parma, 1 rather proved 
 the absence than the existence of the system. In the reign of 
 
 1 Histoire des causes de la desun- script folio volumes. It was written 
 ion, revoltes et alterations des Pays- , mainly from the papers of Council- 
 Bas depuis 1'abclication de Charles lor d'Assonleville. The almost corn- 
 Quint en 1555 jusqu'a la mort clu plete revelations of state secrets in 
 Prince de Parme en 1592. Par Mes- the inestimable publications of the 
 sire Eenom de France, Chevalier, Seig- | Simancas correspondence, by M. 
 neur de Noyelles, President d'Artois Gachard has deprived the work, 
 
 MS. Bibl. de Bourgogne, i. ch. 5 et7. 
 
 This important historical work, by 
 
 a noble of the Wall on province?, 
 
 however, of a large portion of its 
 value. On the subject of national 
 politics and the general condition of 
 
 and a contemporary of the events ! the country, the writer cannot for a 
 he describes, has never been pub- | moment be compared to Bor, in eru- 
 lished. The distinguished M. Du- dition, patience, or fulness of detail, 
 mortier, of the "Commission Eoyale He is a warm Catholic, but his style 
 d'Histoire," has long promised an , has not a tithe of the vividly descrip- 
 edition, which cannot fail to be as , tive and almost dramatic power of 
 satisfactory as learning and experi- Pontus Pa* en, another contemporary 
 ence can make it. The work is of , Catholic historian, who well deserves 
 considerable length, in five manu- publication.
 
 318 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH BEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 Philip the Good, the vicar of the inquisitor-general gave sen- 
 tence against some heretics, who were burned in Lille, 
 (1448.) In 1459, Pierre Troussart, a Jacobin monk, con- 
 demned many Waldenses, together with some leading citizens 
 of Artois, accused of sorcery and heresy. He did this, how- 
 ever, as inquisitor for the Bishop of Arras, so that it was an 
 act of Episcopal, and not Papal Inquisition. 1 In general, 
 when inquisitors were wanted in the provinces, it was neces- 
 sary to borrow them from France or Germany. The exigen- 
 cies of persecution making a domestic staff desirable, Charles 
 the Fifth, in the year 1522, applied to his ancient tutor, whom 
 he had placed on the papal throne. 2 
 
 Charles had, however, already, in the previous year, appointed 
 Francis Van der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Nether- 
 lands. 3 This man, whom Erasmus called a " wonderful enemy 
 to learning," was also provided with a coadjutor, Nicholas of 
 Egrnond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was characterised 
 by the same authority as " a madman armed with a sword." 
 The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest,impri- 
 son, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of 
 law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal. 4 
 He was, however, in pronouncing definite judgments, to take 
 theadvice of Laurens, president of the grand council of Mechlin, 
 a coarse, cruel, and ignorant man, who "hated learning with a 
 more than deadly hatred," 6 and who might certainly be relied 
 upon to sustain the severest judgments which the inquisitor 
 might fulminate. Adrian accordingly commissioned Van der 
 Hulst to be universal and general inquisitor for all the Nether- 
 lands. 6 At the same time it was expressly stated that his 
 functions were not to supersede those exercised by the bishops 
 as inquisitors in their own sees. Thus the Papal Inquisition 
 
 I Ecnom de France MS., ubi sup. 
 
 II Ibid. Introduction to Gachard, 
 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 vol. i. 
 
 3 By commission, 23d April, 1552. 
 G-achurd, Introd. Philippe Ii., cix. 
 
 * Gachard. Introduction, etc., 
 cix. 
 
 5 Expression of Erasmus. Brandt. 
 Eeformatie, i. 93. 
 
 6 By brief, June, 1523. Gauhard. 
 Ictrod. Philippe II., i. cxi.
 
 1501.] 
 
 EARLY FUNCTIONARIES. 
 
 319 
 
 was established in the provinces. Van der Hulst, a person of 
 infamous character, was not the man to render the institution 
 less odious than it was by its nature. Before he had fulfilled 
 his duties two years, however, he was degraded from his office 
 by the Emperor for having forged a document. 1 In 1525, 
 Buedens, Houseau, and Coppin,were confirmed by Clement the 
 Seventh as inquisitors in the room of Van der Hulst. In 
 1537 Ruard Tapper and Michael Druitus were appointed by 
 Paul the Third, on the decease of Coppin, the other two re- 
 maining in office. The powers of the papal inquisitors had been 
 gradually extended, and they were, by 1545, not only entirely 
 independent of the Episcopal inquisition,but had acquired right 
 of jurisdiction over bishops and archbishops, whom they were 
 empowered to arrest and imprison. They had also received 
 and exercised the privilege of appointing delegates or sub-in- 
 quisitors, on their own authority. Much of the work was, 
 indeed, performed by these officials, the most notorious of whom 
 were Barbier, De Monte, Titelmann, Fabry, Campo de Zon, 
 and Stryen. 3 In 1545, and again in 1550, a stringent set of 
 instructions was drawn up by the Emperor for the guidance 
 of these papal inquisitors. A glance at their context shews 
 that the establishment was not intended to be an empty form. 
 They were empowered to inquire, proceed against, and chas- 
 tise all heretics, all persons suspected of heresy, and their pro- 
 tectors. 3 Accompanied by a notary, they were to collect written 
 information concerning every person in the provinces, " in- 
 fected or vehemently suspected." They were authorised to 
 summon all subjects of his Majesty, whatever their rank, qua- 
 lity, or station, and to compel them to give evidence, or to 
 communicate suspicions. They were to punish all who per- 
 tinaciously refused such depositions with death. The Emperor 
 commanded his presidents, judges, sheriffs, and all other judi- 
 cial and executive officers to render all " assistance to the in- 
 quisitors and their familiars in their holy and pious inquisi- 
 
 1 Grachard. Introduction Philippe 
 II., i. cxi. 2 Ibid., cxir. 
 
 3 See the instructions in Yander 
 Haer, i. 161-175.
 
 320 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561- 
 
 tion, whenever required so to do," on pain of being punished as 
 encouragers of heresy that is to say with death. Whenever 
 the inquisitors should be satisfied as to the heresy of any in- 
 dividual, they were to order his arrest and detention by the 
 Judge of the place, or by others arbitrarily to be selected by 
 them. The judges or persons thus chosen were enjoined to ful- 
 fil the order, on pain of being punished as protectors of heresy 
 that is to say, with death, by sword or fire. If the prisoner 
 were an ecclesiastic, the inquisitor was to deal summarily with 
 the case, " without noise or form in the process selecting an 
 imperial councillor to render the sentence of absolution or con- 
 demnation. 1 If the prisoner were a lay person, the inquisitor 
 was to order his punishment, according to the edicts, by the 
 council of the province. In case of lay persons suspected but 
 not convicted of heresy, the inquisitor was to proceed to their 
 chastisement, '* with the advice of a councillor or some other 
 expert." In conclusion, the Emperor ordered " the inquisitors 
 to make it known that they were not doing their own work, 
 but that of Christ, and to persuade all persons of this fact." 2 
 This clause of their instruction seemed difficult of accomplish- 
 ment, for no reasonable person could doubt that Christ, had 
 he re-appeared in human form, would have been instantly 
 crucified again, or burned alive in any place within the 
 dominions of Charles or Philip. The blasphemy with which 
 the name of Jesus was used by such men to sanctify all these 
 nameless horrors is certainly not the least of their crimes. 
 
 In addition to these instructions, a special edict had been 
 issued on the 26th April, 1550, according to which all judicial 
 officers, at the requisition of the inquisitors, were to render them 
 all assistance in the execution of their office, by arresting and 
 detaining all persons suspected of heresy, according to the in- 
 structions issued to said inquisitors; and this, notwithstanding 
 any privilege* or charters to the contrary? In short, the in- 
 " Sumrnatin et de piano sine figura | deant, se non quse sua sunt, sadqure 
 
 ci strepitu judicii et processu in-truc- 
 to," etc. V under Haer, 108. 
 
 8 " In hoc pracipu laborabunt dicti 
 inquisitores ut omi.ibus pcrsua- 
 
 sunt Christ i quaerere, hoc solum 
 conartes.'' V. d. Haer, 173. 
 
 3 Brandt, Hist. Keformatie, i. 158.
 
 1561.] IMPERIAL INSTRUCTIONS. 
 
 quisitors were not subject to the civil authority, but the civil 
 authority to them. The imperial edict empowered them " to 
 chastise, degrade, denounce, and deliver over heretics to the 
 secular judges for punishment ; to make use of gaols, and to 
 make arrest, without ordinary warrant, but merely with 
 notice given to a single counsellor, who was obliged to give 
 sentence according to their desire, without application to the 
 ordinary judge." 
 
 These instructions to the inquisitors had been renewed and 
 confirmed by Philip, in the very first month of his m^n, 2 (28th 
 Nov. 1555.) As in the case of the edicts, it had been thought 
 desirable by Granvelle to make use of the supposed magic of 
 the Emperor's name to hallow the whole machinery of perse- 
 cution. The action of the system during the greater part of 
 the imperial period had been terrible. Suffered for a time to 
 languish during the French war, it had lately been renewed 
 with additional vigour. Among all the inquisitors, the name 
 of Peter Titelmann was now pre-eminent. He executed his 
 infamous functions throughout Flanders, Douay, and Tournay, 
 the most thriving and populous portions of the Netherlands, 
 with a swiftness, precision, and even with a jocularity, which 
 hardly seemed human. There was a kind of grim humour 
 about the man. Contemporary chronicles give a picture of 
 him as of some grotesque yet terrible goblin, careering 
 through the country by night or day, alone, on horseback, 
 smiting the trembling peasants on the head with a great club, 
 spreading dismay far and wide, dragging suspected persons 
 from their firesides or their beds, and thrusting them into 
 dungeons, arresting, torturing, strangling, burning, with 
 hardly the shadow of warrant, information, or process. 8 
 
 The secular sheriff, familiarly called Red- Rod, from the 
 colour of his wand of office, meeting this inquisitor Titelmann 
 one day upon the high road, thus wonderingly addressed him; 
 
 maim. Compare the brilliantly-writ- 
 ten episode of Professor Altmeyer : 
 " line succureale du tribunal de sang," 
 
 1 Meteren ii. 37. 
 a Vander Haer, 175. 
 3 Brandt i. 228; 178, et passim. 
 Kock, vaderl. Worterbuch ; art. Titel- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Brux. 1853,) pp. 37, 38.
 
 322 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 <l How can you venture to go about alone, or at most with an 
 attendant or two, arresting people on every side, while I dare 
 not attempt to execute my office, except at the head of a strong 
 force, armed in proof; and then only at the peril of my life ? '* 
 
 " Ah ! Red-Rod," answered Peter, jocosely, " you deal 
 with bad people. I have nothing to fear, for I seize only the 
 innocent and virtuous, who make no resistance, and let them- 
 selves be taken like lambs." 
 
 l( Mighty well," said the other ; " but if you arrest all the 
 good people and I all the bad, 'tis difficult to say who in the 
 world is to escape chastisement." * The reply of the inquisitor 
 has not been recorded, but there is no doubt that he proceeded 
 like a strong man to run his day's course. 
 
 He was the most active of all the agents in the religious per- 
 secution at the epoch of which we are now treating, but he had 
 been inquisitor for many years. The martyrology of the pro- 
 vinces reeks with his murders. He burned men for idle words 
 or suspected thoughts ; he rarely waited, according to his frank 
 confession, for deeds. Hearing once that a certain schoolmaster, 
 named Geleyn de Muler, of Audenarde, l( was addicted to reading 
 the Bible" he summoned the culprit before him and accused 
 him of heresy. The schoolmaster claimed, if he were guilty of 
 any crime, to be tried before the judges of his town. " You are 
 my prisoner," said Titelmann, "and aretoanswer me, and none 
 other." The inquisitor proceeded accordingly to catechise him, 
 and soon satisfied himself of the schoolmaster's heresy. He 
 commanded him to make immediate recantation. The school- 
 master refused. " Do you not love your wife and children? " 
 asked the demoniac Titelmann. " God knows," answered the 
 heretic, ** that if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I 
 would give it all only to have them with me, even had I to 
 live on bread and water and in bondage." " You have, then," 
 answered the inquisitor, " only to renounce the error of your 
 opinions." "Neither for wife, children, nor all the world, can I 
 renounce my God and religious truth," answered the prisoner. 
 
 Brandt. Hist, der Reformatie, i. 228.
 
 1561.J PETER TITELMANN'S EXPLOITS. 323 
 
 Thereupon Titelmann sentenced him to the stake. He was 
 strangled, and then thrown into the flames. 1 
 
 At about the same time, Thomas Calberg, tapestry weaver of 
 Tournay, within the jurisdiction of the same inquisitor, was 
 convicted of having copied some hymns from a book printed in 
 Geneva. He was burned alive. 8 Another man, whose name 
 has perished, was hacked to death with seven blows of a rusty 
 sword, in presence of his wife, who was so horror-stricken that 
 she died on the spot before her husband. 3 His crime, to be 
 sure, was Anabaptism, the most deadly offence in the calendar. 
 In the same year, one Walter Kapell was burned at the stake 
 for heretical opinions. 4 He was a man of some property, and 
 beloved by the poor people of Dixmuyde, in Flanders, where 
 he resided, for his many charities. A poor idiot, who had been 
 often fed by his bounty, called out to the inquisitor's subalterns, 
 as they bound his patron to the stake, ' ' Ye are bloody murderers ; 
 that man has done no wrong ; but has given me bread to eat." 
 With these words, he cast himself headlong into the flames to 
 perish with his protector, but was with difficulty rescued by the 
 officers. 8 A day or two afterwards, he made his way to the 
 stake, where the half-burnt skeleton of Walter Kapell still 
 remained, took the body upon his shoulders, and carried it 
 through the streets to the house of the chief burgomaster, 
 where several other magistrates happened then to be in session. 
 Forcing his way into their presence, he laid his burden at 
 their feet, crying, (f There, murderers ! ye have eaten his flesh, 
 now eat his bones ! " It has not been recorded whether 
 Titelmann sent him to keep company with his friend in the 
 next world. The fate of so obscure a victim could hardly find 
 room on the crowded pages of the Netherland martyrdom. 
 
 This kind of work, which went on daily, did not increase the 
 love of the people for the inquisition or the edicts. It terrified 
 many, but it inspired more with that noble resistance to oppres- 
 
 1 Hist, des Martyrs, f . 227, ckvii. ; 
 pud Brandt, i. 178. 2 Brandt, 1. 169. 
 
 3 Hist, der Doopsg. Mart., p. 229 ; 
 apud Brandt, i. 167, 
 
 * Hist ver Doopsg. Mart., 229, ii. 
 849; apud Brandt,!. 167. 
 5 Ibid. 
 8 Idid,
 
 324 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 sion, particularly to religious oppression, which is the subliinest 
 instinct of human nature. Men confronted the terrible inquisi- 
 tion with a courage equal to their cruelty. At Tournay, one of 
 the chief cities of Titelmann's district, and almost before his 
 eyes, one Bertrand le Bias, a velvet manufacturer, committed 
 what was held an almost incredible crime. Having begged his 
 wife and children to pray for a blessing upon what he was about 
 to undertake, he went on Christmas-day to the Cathedral of 
 Tournay, and stationed himself near the altar. Having awaited 
 the moment in which the priest held on high the consecrated 
 host, Le Bias then forced his way through the crowd, snatched 
 the wafer from the hands of the astonished ecclesiastic, and 
 broke it into bits, crying aloud, as he did so, ft Misguided men, 
 do ye take this thing to be Jesus Christ, your Lord, and 
 Saviour ? " With these words he threw the fragments on 
 the ground, and trampled them with his feet. 1 The amazement 
 and horror was so universal at such an appalling offence, that 
 not a finger was raised to arrest the criminal. Priests and con- 
 gregation were alike paralysed, so that he would have found no 
 difficulty in making his escape. He did not stir, however; he 
 had come to the church determined to execute what he con- 
 sidered a sacred duty, and to abide the consequences. After a 
 time he was apprehended. The inquisitor demanded if he re- 
 pented of what he had done. He protested, on the contrary, 
 that he gloried in the deed, and that he would die a hundred 
 deaths to rescue from such daily profanation the name of his 
 
 1 Histoire des Martyrs, f. 356, might be multiplied. In this par- 
 cxcv. ; apud Brandt, i. 171, 172. It ticular case, it is recorded that the 
 may be well supposed that this sheriff who was present at the ex- 
 would be regarded as a crime of al- | ecution was so much affected by the 
 moit inconceivable magnitude. It : courage and fervour of the siin pie- 
 
 was dea'h even to refuse to kneel 
 in the streets when the wafer was 
 carried by. Thus, for example, a 
 poor huckster, named Simon, at 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, who neglected to 
 
 minded victim, that he went home, 
 took to his bed, became deli- 
 rious, crying constantly, Ah, Si- 
 mon ! Simon ! and died miserably, 
 '' notwithstanding all that the 
 
 prostrate himself before his booth | monks could do to console him." 
 at the passage of the host, was | Hist, der Doopsg. Mart., ii. 849 t 
 immediately burned. Instances of ecus. ; apud Brandt, i. 167* 
 the same punishment for that offence I
 
 1502.] 
 
 HOKRID DEATH OF LE BLAS. 
 
 325 
 
 Redeemer, Christ. Ho was then put thrice to the torture, that 
 he might be forced to reveal his accomplices. It did not seem 
 in human power for one man to accomplish such a deed of 
 darkness without confederates. Bertrand had none, however, 
 and could denounce none. A frantic sentence was then devised 
 as a feeble punishment for so much wickedness. He was 
 dragged on a hurdle, with his mouth closed with an iron gag, 
 to the market-place. Here his right hand and foot were burned 
 and twisted off between two red-hot irons. His tongue was 
 then torn out by the root, and because he still endeavoured to 
 call upon the name of God, the iron gag was again applied. 
 With his arms and legs fastened together behind his back, he 
 was then hooked by the middle of his body to an iron chain, 
 and made to swing to and fro over a slow fire till he was en- 
 tirely roasted. His life lasted almost to the end of these 
 ingenious tortures, but his fortitude lasted as long as his life. 
 In the next year, Titelmann caused one Robert Ogier, of Rys- 
 sel, in Flanders, to be arrested, together with his wife and 
 two sons. Their crime consisted in not going to mass, and 
 practising private worship at home. They confessed the offence, 
 for they protested that they could not endure to see the profan- 
 ation of their Saviour's name in the idolatrous sacraments. 
 They were asked what rites they practised in their own house. 
 One of the sons, a mere boy, answered, " We fall on our knees, 
 and pray to God that He may enlighten our hearts, and for- 
 give our sins. We pray for our sovereign, that his reign may 
 be prosperous, and his life peaceful. We also pray for the 
 magistrates and others in authority, that God may protect and 
 preserve them all." The boy's simple eloquence drew tears 
 even from the eyes of some of his judges ; for the inquisitor 
 had placed the case before the civil tribunal. The father and 
 the eldest son were, however, condemned to the flames. " 
 God 1 " prayed the youth at the stake, " Eternal Father, ac- 
 
 1 Hist, des Martyrs, 356, cxcv. ; 
 apud Brandt, 5. 171, 172 -De la 
 Barre. Kecueil des actes et clioses 
 
 plus notables qui eont advenues 4 
 Pays-Bas. MS. in the Brussels Ar- 
 chives, f . 16.
 
 326 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1562. 
 
 eept the sacrifice of our lives, in the name of thy beloved Son," 
 " Thou liest, scoundrel ! " fiercely interrupted a monk, who 
 was lighting the fire ; " God is not your father ; ye are the 
 devil's children." As the flames rose about them, the boy cried 
 out once more, " Look, my father, all heaven is opening, and 
 I see ten hundred thousand angels rejoicing over us. Let us 
 be glad, for we are dying for the truth.'* " Thou liest ! thou 
 liest 1 " again screamed the monk ; " all hell is opening, and 
 you see ten thousand devils thrusting you into eternal fire." 
 Eight days afterwards, the wife of Ogier and his other son 
 were burned ; so that there was an end of that family. 1 
 
 Such are a few isolated specimens of the manner of pro- 
 ceeding in a single district of the Netherlands. The in- 
 quisitor Titelmann certainly deserved his terrible reputation. 
 Men called him Saul the Persecutor, and it was well known 
 that he had been originally tainted with the heresy which he 
 had for so many years been furiously chastising. 3 At the 
 epoch which now engages our attention, he felt stimulated by 
 the avowed policy of the government to fresh exertions, by 
 which all his previous achievements should be cast into the 
 shade. In one day he broke into a house in Ryssel, seized 
 John de Swarte, his wife and four children, together with 
 two newly-married couples, and two other persons, convicted 
 them of reading the Bible, and of praying in their own doors, 
 and had them all immediately burned. 8 
 
 Are these things related merely to excite superfluous horror ? 
 Are the sufferings of these obscure Christians beneath the dignity 
 of history? Is it not better to deal with murder and oppression 
 in the abstract, without entering into trivial details ? The answer 
 is that these things are the history of the Netherlands at this 
 epoch ; that these hideous details furnish the causes of that 
 immense movement, out of which a great republic was born 
 and an ancient tyranny destroyed ; and that Cardinal Granvelle 
 
 Hist, des Martyrs 233, 385, 
 387, 387 ; apud Brandt, i. 193-197. 
 a Jacobus Kok. Vaderlandsche 
 
 "Woordenboek, fc. 27; art. Titel 
 mann. 
 3 Brandt, i. 259.
 
 1562.] CAUSE AND EFFECT. 327 
 
 was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not 
 open their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise. 
 Because the great lords " owed their very souls " l because 
 convulsions might help to pay their debts, and furnish forth 
 their masquerades and banquets because the Prince of Orange 
 was ambitious, and Egmont jealous of the Cardinal therefore 
 superficial writers found it quite natural that the country should 
 be disturbed, although that a vile and mischievous animal, the 
 people," might have no objection to a continuance of the system 
 which had been at work so long. On the contrary, it was 
 exactly because the movement was a popular and a religious 
 movement that it will always retain its place among the most 
 important events of history. Dignified documents, state 
 papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more value than the 
 lambskin on which they are engrossed. Ten thousand name- 
 less victims, in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may 
 build up great states and alter the aspect of whole continents. 
 
 The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it is well for 
 the cause of the right that, as in the early hours of English 
 liberty, the crown and mitre were opposed by the baron's 
 sword and shield. Had all the seigniors made common cause 
 with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting their breasts 
 against the Inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty would 
 have been still more desperate. Nevertheless they were 
 directed and controlled, under Providence, by humbler but 
 more powerful agencies than their own. 
 
 Nor is it, perhaps, always better to rely upon abstract 
 phraseology to produce a necessary impression. Upon some 
 minds, declamation concerning liberty of conscience and reli- 
 gious tyranny makes but a vague impression, while an effect 
 may be produced upon them, for example, by a dry, concrete, 
 cynical entry in an account book, such as the following, 
 taken at hazard from the register of municipal expenses at 
 Tournay, during the years with which we are now occupied : ' 
 
 1 Papiera d'Etat, vii. 51. "Devon I 2 Gachard. Rapport concernant lea 
 odes el alnW j Archives do Lille, 87.
 
 328 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. . [1662. 
 
 " To Mr. Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, 
 twice, Jean de Lannoy, ten sous. 
 
 " To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, 
 sixty sous. For having thrown his cinders into the river, 
 eight sous." l 
 
 This was the treatment to which thousands had been 
 subjected in the provinces. Men, women, and children, were 
 burned, and their " cinders " thrown away, for idle words 
 against Rome, spoken years before, 2 for praying alone in 
 their closets, for not kneeling to a wafer when they met it in 
 the streets, 8 for thoughts to which they had never given 
 utterance, but which, on inquiry, they were too honest to 
 deny. Certainly with this work going on year after year in 
 every city in the Netherlands, and now set into renewed and 
 vigorous action by a man who wore a crown only that he 
 might the better torture his fellow-creatures, it was time that 
 the very stones in the streets should be moved to mutiny. 
 
 Thus it may be seen of how much value were the protesta- 
 tions of Philip and of Granvelle, on which much stress has 
 latterly been laid, that it was not their intention to introduce 
 the Spanish Inquisition. With the edicts and the Netherland 
 Inquisition, such as we have described them, the step was 
 hardly necessary. 
 
 In fact, the main difference between the two institutions con- 
 sisted in the greater efficiency of the Spanish in discovering 
 such of its victims as were disposed to deny their faith. 
 Devised originally for more timorous and less conscientious 
 infidels who were often disposed to skulk in obscure places, 
 and to renounce without really abandoning their errors, it was 
 provided with a set of venomous familiars who glided through 
 every chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside. The 
 secret details of each household in the realm being therefore 
 known to the Holy Office and to the monarch, no infidel or 
 heretic could escape discovery. This invisible machinery was 
 
 1 Gacbard. Rapport concernant I * Brandt, i. 243. 
 lea Archives do Lille, 87. 3 Ibid., i. passim.
 
 15C2.J 
 
 THE NETHERLAND INQUISITION. 
 
 329 
 
 less requisite for the Netherlands. There was comparatively 
 little difficulty in ferreting out the "vermin" 1 to use the 
 expression of a Walloon historian of that age so that it was 
 only necessary to maintain in good working order the apparatus 
 for destroying the noxious creatures when unearthed. The 
 heretics of the provinces assembled at each other's houses to 
 practise those rites described in such simple language by 
 Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible penalties 
 by the edicts. The inquisitorial system of Spain was hardly 
 necessary for men who had but little prudence in concealing, 
 and no inclination to disavow their creed. "It is quite a 
 laughable matter," wrote Granvelle, who occasionally took a 
 comic view of the inquisition, "that the King should send us 
 depositions made in Spain by which we are to hunt for heretics 
 here, as if we did not know of thousands already. Would that 
 I had as many doubloons of annual income," he added, "as 
 there are public and professed heretics in the provinces." 2 No 
 doubt the inquisition was in such eyes a most desirable 
 establishment. fl To speak without passion," says the Walloon, 
 " the inquisition well administered is a laudable institution, 
 and not less necessary than all the other offices of spirituality 
 and temporality belonging both to the bishops and to the com- 
 missioners of the Roman see." 8 The Papal and Episcopal 
 establishments, in co-operation with the edicts, were enough, 
 if thoroughly exercised and completely extended. The edicts 
 alone were sufficient. " The edicts and the inquisition are one 
 and the same thing," * said the Prince of Orange. The circum- 
 stance, that the civil authorities were not as entirely super- 
 seded by the Netherland as by the Spanish system, was rather 
 a difference of form than of fact. We have seen that the secu- 
 lar officers of justice were at the command of the inquisitors. 
 Sheriff, gaoler, judge, and hangman, were all required, under 
 
 1 Renom de France, i. 13. MS. 
 
 8 " Si lo osasse dezir, es cosa de 
 risa embiarnos deposiciones que se 
 
 hazen ay delante, etc. y tuvicsse 
 
 yo tettos doblones de a 10 de renU 
 
 como los hay publicos hereges." etc. 
 Papiers d'JEtat. vii. 105-107. 
 
 3 Renoin de France, i. 8. MS. 
 
 4 Groen v. P. Arckiys et Cornea- 
 pondance, iii. 29.
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1662 
 
 the most terrible penalties, to do their bidding. The reader 
 knows what the edicts were. He knows also the instructions to 
 the corps of Papal inquisitors, delivered by Charles and Philip. 
 He knows that Philip, both in person and by letter, had done 
 his utmost to sharpen those instructions, during the latter 
 portion of his sojourn in the Netherlands. Fourteen new 
 bishops, each with two special inquisitors under him, had also 
 been appointed to carry out the great work to which the 
 sovereign had consecrated his existence. The manner in which 
 the hunters of heretics performed their office has been exem- 
 plified by slightly sketching the career of a single one of the 
 sub-inquisitors, Peter Titelmann. The monarch and his minis- 
 ters scarcely needed, therefore, to transplant the peninsular 
 exotic. Why should they do so? Philip, who did not often 
 say a great deal in a few words, once expressed the whole 
 truth of the matter in a single sentence : " Wherefore intro- 
 duce the Spanish Inquisition? " said he; " the Inquisition of 
 the Netherlands is much more pitiless than that of Spain. " 1 
 
 Such was the system of religious persecution commenced 
 by Charles, and perfected by Philip. The King could not 
 claim the merit of the invention, which justly belonged to 
 the Emperor. At the same time, his responsibility for the 
 unutterable woe caused by the continuance of the scheme 
 is not a jot diminished. There was a time when the whole 
 system had fallen into comparative desuetude. It was utterly 
 abhorrent to the institutions and the manners of the Nether- 
 landers. Even a great number of the Catholics in the pro- 
 vinces were averse to it. Many of the leading grandees, 
 every one of whom was Catholic, were foremost in denouncing 
 its continuance. In short, the inquisition had been partially 
 endured, but never accepted. Moreover, it had never been 
 introduced into Luxemburg or Groningen." In Gelderland it 
 had been prohibited by the treaty 8 through which that province 
 
 1 " D'ailleurs I'lnquisition des 
 Pays-Bas est plus im pi toy able quo 
 celle d'Espagne." Letter to Mar- 
 garet of Parma* Correspondance 
 
 de Philippe II., i. 207. 
 
 8 Gachard. Introduction to Philippe 
 H.,i. 123, iy. 
 
 * Ibid.
 
 1662.] UNPOPULARITY OF GEAN7ELLB. 331 
 
 had been annexed to the Emperor's dominions, and it had been 
 uniformly and successfully resisted in Brabant. Therefore, 
 although Philip, taking the artful advice of Granvelle, had 
 sheltered himself under the Emperor's name by re-enacting, 
 word for word, his decrees, and re-issuing his instructions, ho 
 cannot be allowed any such protection at the bar of history. 
 
 Already, in the beginning of 1562, Granvelle was extremely 
 unpopular. "The Cardinal is hated of all men," wrote 
 Sir Thomas Gresham. 1 The great struggle between him and 
 the leading nobles had already commenced. The people justly 
 identified him with the whole infamous machinery of persecu- 
 tion, which he had either originated or warmly made his own. 
 Viglius and Berlaymont were his creatures. With the other 
 members of the state-council, according to their solemn state- 
 ment, already recorded, he did not deign to consult, while he 
 affected to hold them responsible for the measures of the 
 administration. Even the Regent herself complained that 
 the Cardinal took affairs quite out of her hands, and that he 
 decided upon many important matters without her cogni- 
 sance. 3 She already began to feel herself the puppet which 
 it had been intended she should become; she already felt a 
 diminution of the respectful attachment for the ecclesiastic 
 which had inspired her when she procured his red hat. 
 
 Granvelle was, however, most resolute in carrying out the 
 intentions of his master. We have seen how vigorously he had 
 already set himself to the inauguration of the new bishoprics, 
 despite of opposition and obloquy. He was now encouraging or 
 rebuking the inquisitors in their "pious office" throughout all 
 the provinces. Notwithstandinghis exertions, however, heresy 
 continued to spread. In the Walloon provinces the infection 
 was most prevalent, while judges and executioners were appalled 
 by the mutinous demonstrations which each successive sacrifice 
 provoked. The victims were cheered on their way to the 
 scaffold. The hymns of Marot were sung in the very faces of 
 the inquisitors. Two ministers, Faveau and Mallart, were 
 1 Burgon, ii. 267. ' Papiers d'Etat, vi. 643-545.
 
 332 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1502. 
 
 particularly conspicuous at this moment at Valenciennes. The 
 governor of the province, Marquis Berghen, was constantly 
 absent, for he hated with his whole soul the system of persecu- 
 tion. For this negligence Granvelle denounced him secretly and 
 perpetually to Philip. 1 " The Marquis says openly," said the 
 Cardinal, " that 'tis not right to shed blood for matters of 
 faith. With such men to aid us, your Majesty can judge how 
 much progress we can make." 8 It was, however, important, in 
 Granvelle's opinion, that these two ministers at Valenciennes 
 should be at once put to death. They were avowed heretics, and 
 they preached to their disciples, although they certainly were 
 not doctors of divinity. Moreover, they were accused, most 
 absurdly, no doubt, of pretending to work miracles. It was 
 said that, in presence of several witnesses, they had undertaken 
 to cast out devils ; and they had been apprehended on an 
 accusation of this nature. 3 Their offence really consisted in 
 reading the Bible to a few of their friends. Granvelle sent 
 Philibert de Bruxelles to Valenciennes to procure their im- 
 mediate condemnation and execution. 4 He rebuked the judges 
 and inquisitors, he sent express orders to Marquis Berghen to 
 repair at once to the scene of his duties. The prisoners were 
 condemned in the autumn of 1561. The magistrates were, 
 however, afraid to carry the sentence into effect 8 Granvelle 
 did not cease to censure them for their pusillanimity, and wrote 
 almost daily letters accusing the magistrates of being themselves 
 the cause of the tumults by which they were appalled.. The 
 
 1 Dora 1'Evesque. Me'moires, L 
 302-308. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 75. 
 
 8 Histoire des choses lea plus 
 memorables qui ee sont passees en 
 In ville et Compte de Valenciennes 
 depuis le commencement des troubles 
 des Pays-Bas sous le regne de Phil. 
 II., jusqu' a 1'annee 1621." MS. 
 (Collect. Gerard.) 
 
 This is a contemporary manuscript 
 belonging to the Gerard collection iu 
 the Royal Library at the Hague. 
 Its author was a citizen of Valen- 
 
 ciennes, and a personal witness of 
 most of the events which he de- 
 scribes. He appears to have attained 
 to a great age, as he minutely nar- 
 rates, from personal observation, 
 many scenes which occurred before 
 1566, and his work is continued till 
 the year 1621. It is a mere sketch, 
 without much literary merit, but 
 containing many local anecdotes of 
 interest. Its anonymous author was 
 a very sincere Catholic. 
 
 * Dom 1'Evesque, i. 302-308. 
 
 ' Ibid. Valenciennes MS.
 
 1562.] FAVEAU AND MALLART. 333 
 
 popular commotion was, however, not lightly to be braved. 
 Six or seven months long the culprits remained in confinement, 
 while daily and nightly the people crowded the streets, hurling 
 threats and defiance at the authorities, or pressed about the 
 prison windows, encouraging their beloved ministers, and 
 promising to rescue them in case the attempt should be made 
 to fulfil the sentence. 1 At last Granvelle sent down a peremp- 
 tory order to execute the culprits by fire. On the 27th of April 
 1562, Faveau and Mallart were accordingly taken from their 
 gaol and carried to the market-place, where arrangements had 
 been made for burning them. Simon Faveau, as the executioner 
 was binding him to the stake, uttered the invocation," OEternal 
 Father ! " ' A woman in the crowd, at the same instant, took 
 off' her shoe, and threw it at the funeral pile. 3 This was a 
 preconcerted signal. A movement was at once visible in the 
 crowd. Men in great numbers dashed upon the barriers which 
 had been erected in the square around the place of execution. 
 Some seized the faggots, which had been already lighted, and 
 scattered them in every direction ; some tore up the pavements, 
 others broke in pieces the barriers. The executioners were 
 prevented from carrying out the sentence, but the guard were 
 enabled, with great celerity and determination, to bring off the 
 culprits and to place them in their dungeon again. The 
 authorities were in doubt and dismay. The inquisitors were 
 for putting the ministers to death in prison, and hurling their 
 heads upon the street. Evening approached while the officials 
 were still pondering. The people, who had been chanting the 
 Psalms of David through the town, without having decided 
 what should be their course of action, at last determined to 
 rescue the victims. A vast throng, after much hesitation, ac- 
 cordingly directed their steps to the prison. " You should have 
 seen this vile populace," says an eye-witness, 4 " moving, paus- 
 ing, recoiling, sweeping forward, swaying to and fro like the 
 waves of the sea when it is agitated by contending winds." 
 
 1 Dom 1' Evesque, i. 302-308. I 3 Valenciennes MS. 
 Valenciennes MS. a Ibid. 1 * Ibid.
 
 334 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 The attack was vigorous, the defence was weak, for the autho- 
 rities had expected no such fierce demonstration, notwithstand- 
 ing the menacing language which had been so often uttered. 
 The prisoners were rescued, and succeeded in making their es- 
 cape from the city. The day in which the execution had been 
 thus prevented was called, thenceforward, the te day of the ill- 
 burned," 1 (Journee des mau-brulez.) One of the ministers, 
 however, Simon Faveau, not discouraged by this near ap- 
 proach to martyrdom, persisted in his heretical labours, and was, 
 a few years afterwards, again apprehended. " He was then," 
 says the chronicler, cheerfully, " burned well and handsomely " 
 in the same place whence he had been formerly rescued.* 
 
 This desperate resistance to tyranny was for a moment suc- 
 cessful, because, notwithstanding the murmurs and menaces 
 by which the storm had been preceded, the authorities had 
 not believed the people capable of proceeding to such lengths. 
 Had not the heretics in the words of Inquisitor Titelmann 
 allowed themselves, year after year, to be taken and slaughtered 
 like lambs ? The consternation of the magistrates was soon 
 succeeded by anger. The government at Brussels was in a 
 frenzy of rage when informed of the occurrence. A bloody 
 vengeance was instantly prepared, to vindicate the insult to the 
 inquisition. On the 29th of April, detachments of Bossu's 
 and of BerghenVbandof ordonnance " were sent into Valen- 
 ciennes, together with a company of the Duke of Aerschot's 
 regiment. The prisons were instantly filled to overflowing with 
 men and women arrested for actual or suspected participation 
 in the tumult. Orders had been sent down from the capital to 
 make a short process and a sharp execution of all the criminals. 
 On the 16th of May, the slaughter commenced. Some were 
 burned at the stake, some were beheaded ; the number of victims 
 was frightful. " Nothing was left undone by the magistrates," 
 says an eye- witness, with great approbation, "which could serve 
 
 1 Valenciennes MS. I brulcz' nyant este rattrappe* fust 
 
 a " Le 28 Mars, 1568. Simon brule bien et beau & Valenciennes." 
 Faveau qui avait este un des ' man- \ Valenciennes MS.
 
 I562.J RHETORIC AGAINST TYRANNY. 335 
 
 for the correction and amendment of the poor people." l It 
 was long before the judges and hangmen rested from their 
 labours. When at last the havoc was complete, it might be 
 supposed that a sufficient vengeance had been taken for the 
 " day of the ill-burned," and an adequate amount of " amend- 
 ment " provided for the " poor people." 
 
 Such scenes as these did not tend to increase the loyalty of 
 the nation, nor the popularity of the government. On Gran- 
 velle's head was poured a daily increasing torrent of hatred. 
 He was looked upon in the provinces as the impersonation of 
 that religious oppression which became every moment more 
 intolerable. The King and the Eegent escaped much of the 
 odium which belonged to them, because the people chose to be- 
 stow all their maledictions upon the Cardinal. There was, how- 
 ever, no great injustice in this embodiment. Granvelle was the 
 government. As the people of that day were extremely reverent 
 to royalty, they vented all their rage upon the minister, while 
 maintaining still a conventional respect for the sovereign. The 
 prelate had already become the constant butt of the " Rhetoric 
 Chambers." These popular clubs for the manufacture of home- 
 spun poetry and street farces out of the raw material of public 
 sentiment, occupied the place which has been more effectively 
 filled, in succeeding ages, and in free countries, by the daily 
 press. Before the invention of that most tremendous weapon 
 which liberty has ever wielded against tyranny, these humble 
 but influential associations shared with the pulpit the only 
 power which existed of moving the passions or directing the 
 opinions of the people. They were eminently liberal in their 
 tendencies. The authors and the actors of their comedies, poems, 
 and pasquils were mostly artizans or tradesmen, belonging to 
 the class out of which proceeded the early victims, and the later 
 soldiers of the Reformation. Their bold farces and truculent 
 satire had already effected much in spreading among the people 
 a detestation of Church abuses. They were particularly severe 
 upon monastic licentiousness. " These corrupt comedians, 
 1 Valenciennes MS.
 
 336 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 called rhetoricians," says the "Walloon contemporary already 
 cited, " afforded much amusement to the people. Always some 
 poor little nuns or honest monks were made a part of the farce. 
 It seemed as if the people could take no pleasure except in ridi- 
 culing God and the Church." 1 The people, however, persisted 
 in the opinion that the ideas of a monk and of God were 
 not inseparable. Certainly the piety of the early reformers was 
 sufficiently fervent, and had been proved by the steadiness with 
 which they confronted torture and death, but they knew no 
 measure in the ridicule which they heaped upon the men by 
 whom they were daily murdered in droves. The rhetoric come- 
 dies were not admirable in an aesthetic point of view, but they 
 were wrathful and sincere. Therefore they cost many thousand 
 lives, but they sowed the seed of resistance to religious tyranny, 
 to spring up one day in a hundredfold harvest. It was natural 
 that the authorities should have long sought to suppress those 
 perambulating dramas. " There was at that time," wrote 
 honest Eichard Clough to Sir Thomas Gresham, " syche 
 playes (of Retery ke) played thet hath cost many a 1000 man's 
 lyves, for in these plays was the Word of God first opened in 
 thys country, Weche playes were and are forbidden moche 
 more strictly than any of the bookes of Martin Luther." a 
 
 These rhetoricians were particularly inflamed against Gran- 
 velle. They were personally excited against him, because he 
 had procured the suppression of their religious dramas. " These 
 rhetoricians who made farces and street plays," wrote the Car- 
 dinal to Philip, " are particularly angry with me, because two 
 years ago Iprevented them from ridiculing the holyScriptures." 3 
 Nevertheless, these institutions continued to pursue their oppo- 
 sition to the course of the government. Their uncouth gambols, 
 their awkward but stunning blows rendered daily service to the 
 cause of religious freedom. Upon the newly-appointed bishops* 
 they poured out an endless succession of rhymes and rebuses, 
 epigrams, caricatures, and extravaganzas. Poems were pasted 
 
 1 Eenom de Franoe MS. i. c. 6. I 3 Papiers d'Etat, ri. 552-562. 
 3 Burgon, i. 377-391. * Hooid.i. 38.
 
 1562.] TEAGEDY AND FARCE. 337 
 
 upon the wails of every house, and passed from hand to hand. 
 Farces were enacted in every street ; the odious ecclesiastics 
 figuring as the principal buffoons. These representations 
 gave so much offence, that renewed edicts were issued to 
 suppress them. 1 The prohibition was resisted, and even 
 ridiculed in many provinces, particularly in Holland. 8 The 
 tyranny which was able to drown a nation in blood and tears, 
 was powerless to prevent them from laughing most bitterly at 
 their oppressors. The tanner, Cleon, was never belaboured 
 more soundly by the wits of Athens, than the prelate by these 
 Flemish " rhetoricians." With infinitely less Attic salt, but 
 with as much heartiness as Aristophanes could have done, the 
 popular rhymers gave the minister ample opportunity to un- 
 derstand the position which he occupied in the Netherlands. 
 One day a petitioner placed a letter in his hand and vanished. 
 It contained some scurrilous verses upon himself, together 
 with a caricature of his person. In this he was represented 
 as a hen seated upon a pile of eggs, out of which he was 
 hatching a brood of bishops. Some of these were clipping the 
 shell, some thrusting forth an arm, some a leg, while others 
 were running about with mitres on their heads, all bearing 
 whimsical resemblance to various prelates who had been 
 newly appointed. Above the Cardinal's head the devil was 
 represented hovering, with these words issuing from his mouth : 
 " This is my beloved Son, listen to him, my people." ' 
 
 There was another lampoon of a similar nature, which was 
 so well executed, that it especially excited Granvelle's anger. 
 It was a rhymed satire of a general nature, like the rest, but 
 so delicate, and so stinging, that the Cardinal ascribed it to 
 his old friend and present enemy, Simon Renard. This man, 
 a Burgundian by birth, and college associate of Granvelle, 
 had been befriended both by himself and his father.* Aided 
 
 1 Repert. der Plakaten, Bl. 96. 
 Wagenaer, vi. 76. 
 
 2 Wagenaer, yi. 76. sqq. 
 
 5 "Hie est films raeus, ilium audite," 
 etc. Hoofd, ii. 42. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 * Groen v. Prinsterer. Archives 
 et Co rrespon dance, i. 177*, sqq. 
 Dom 1'Evesque. M^inoires, etc., i. 
 97, sqq.
 
 338 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 by their patronage and his own abilities, he had arrived at 
 distinguished posts ; having been Spanish envoy both in 
 France and England, and one of the negotiators of the truce 
 of Vaucelles. He had latterly been disappointed in his 
 ambition to become a councillor of state, and had vowed 
 vengeance upon the Cardinal, to whom he attributed his ill 
 success. He was certainly guilty of much ingratitude, for he 
 had been under early obligations to the man in whose side 
 he now became a perpetual thorn. 1 It must be confessed, on 
 the other hand, that Granvelle repaid the enmity of his old 
 associate with a malevolence equal to his own, and if Renard 
 did not lose his head as well as his political station, it was not 
 for want of sufficient insinuation on the part of the minister. 3 
 Especially did Granvelle denounce him to " the master " 
 as the perverter of Egmont, while he usually described 
 that nobleman himself as weak, vain, " a friend of smoke," * 
 easily misguided, but in the main well-intentioned and loyal. 
 At the same time, with all these vague commendations, 
 he never omitted to supply the suspicious King with an 
 account of every fact or every rumour to the Count's dis- 
 credit. In the case of this particular satire, he informed 
 Philip that he could swear it came from the pen of Renard, 
 although, for the sake of deception, the rhetoric comedians had 
 been employed. 4 He described the production as filled with 
 " false, abominable, and infernal things," 5 and as treating not 
 only himself, but the Pope and the whole ecclesiastical order 
 with as much contumely as could be shown in Germany. He 
 then proceeded to insinuate, in the subtle manner which was 
 peculiarly his own, that Egmont was a party to the publica- 
 tion of the pasquil. Renard visited at that house, he said, 
 and was received there on a much more intimate footing than 
 was becoming. Eight days before the satire was circulated, 
 there had been a conversation in Egmont's house, of a nature 
 
 d'Etat, vii. 115. 
 
 4 P piers d'Etat, vi. 552-562. 
 
 5 " Cosas fal?as, abominables y in- 
 females." Ibid. 
 
 1 Dom I'Evesque, ubi sup. 
 a Papiere dEtat, vi. 568, 569, 
 &52-5G2. 
 * "Ea amigo de humo.'' Papiers
 
 1062.] HOSTILITY OP THE NOBLES. 339 
 
 exactly similar to tho substance of the pamphlet The 
 man in whose hands it was first seen, continued Grauvelle, 
 was a sword cutler, a godson of the Count. 1 This person said 
 that he had torn it from the gate of the City Hall, but God 
 grant, prayed the Cardinal, that it was not he who had first 
 posted it up there. 'Tis said that Egmont and Mansfeld, he 
 added, have sent many times to the cutler to procure copies 
 of the satire, all which augments the suspicion against them." 
 With the nobles he was on no better terms than with the 
 people. The great seigniors, Orange, Egmont, Horn, and others, 
 openly avowed their hostility to him, and had given their reasons 
 to the King. Mansfeld and his son at that time were both 
 with the opposition. Aerschot and Aremberg kept aloof from 
 the league which was forming against the prelate, but had small 
 sympathy for his person. Even Berlaymont began to listen to 
 overtures from the leading nobles, who, among other induce- 
 ments, promised to supply his children with bishoprics. There 
 were none truly faithful and submissive to the Cardinal but 
 such men as the Prevot Morillon, who had received much ad- 
 vancement from him. This distinguished pluralist waspopularly 
 called " double A, B, C," to indicate that he had twice as many 
 benefices as there were letters in the alphabet. 8 He had, how- 
 ever, no objection to more, and was faithful to the dispensing 
 power. The same course was pursued by Secretary Bave, 
 Esquire Bordey , and other expectants and dependants. Viglius, 
 always remarkable for his pusillanimity, was at this period 
 already anxious to retire. The erudite and opulent Frisian 
 preferred a less tempestuous career. He was in favour of the 
 edicts, but he trembled at the uproar which their literal exe- 
 cution was daily exciting, for he knew the temper of his coun- 
 trymen. On the other hand, he was too sagacious not to know 
 the inevitable consequences of opposition to the will of Philip. 
 He was, therefore, most eager to escape the dilemma. He was 
 a scholar, and could find more agreeable employment among 
 
 1 "Un espadero ahijado de M. 
 d'Eginont," etc. Ibid. 
 
 a Papiers d'Etat, vi. 552-562. 
 
 a Letter of Duchess of Parma to 
 Philip. Correspondance de Philippe 
 II., i. 318-320.
 
 340 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 his books. He had accumulated vast wealth, and was desirous 
 to retain it as long as possible. He had a learned head and was 
 anxious to keep it upon his shoulders. These simple objects 
 could be better attained in a life of privacy. The post of pre- 
 sident of the privy council and member of the " Consulta " 
 was a dangerous one. He knew that the King was sincere in 
 his purposes. He foresaw that the people would one day be 
 terribly in earnest. Of ancient Frisian blood himself, he 
 knew that the spirit of the ancient Batavians and Frisians 
 had not wholly deserted their descendants. He knew that 
 they were not easily roused, that they were patient, but that 
 they would strike at last and would endure. He urgently 
 solicited the King to release him, and pleaded his infirmities 
 of body in excuse. 1 Philip, however, would not listen to his 
 retirement, and made use of the most convincing arguments 
 to induce him to remain. Four hundred and fifty annual 
 florins, secured by good reclaimed swamps in Friesland, two 
 thousand more in hand, with a promise of still larger emolu- 
 ments when the King should come to the Netherlands, were 
 reasons which the learned doctor honestly confessed himself 
 unable to resist. 8 Fortified by these arguments, he remained 
 at his post, continued the avowed friend and adherent of 
 Granvelle, and sustained with magnanimity the invectives of 
 nobles and people. To do him justice, he did what he could 
 to conciliate antagonists and to compromise principles. If it 
 had ever been possible to find the exact path between right 
 and wrong, the President would have found it, and walked in 
 it with respectability and complacency. 
 
 In the council, however, the Cardinal continued to carry it 
 with a high hand ; turning his back on Orange and Egmont, 
 and retiring with the Duchess and President to consult, after 
 every session. Proud and important personages, like the Prince 
 and Count, could ill brook such insolence ; moreover, they sus- 
 pected the Cardinal of prejudicing the mind of their sovereign 
 against them. A report was very current, and obtained almost 
 universal belief, that Granvelle had expressly advised his Majesty 
 1 Vit. Viglii, Ixrvi. p. 36. Ibid.
 
 1502.] 
 
 THE QUARREL GEOWS HOTTER. 
 
 341 
 
 to take off the heads of at least half a dozen of the principal 
 nobles in the land. This was an error : " These two seigniors," 
 wrote the Cardinal to Philip, " have been informed that I have 
 written to your Majesty, that you will never be master of these 
 provinces without taking off at least half a dozen heads, and 
 that because it would bo difficult, on account of the probable 
 tumults which such a course would occasion, to do it here, your 
 Majesty means to call them to Spain and do it there. Your 
 Majesty can judge whether such a thing has ever entered my 
 thoughts. I have laughed at it as a ridiculous invention. 
 This gross forgery is one of Renard's." * The Cardinal further 
 stated to his Majesty that he had been informed by these same 
 nobles that the Duke of Alva, when a hostage for the treaty 
 of Cateau Cambresis, had negotiated an alliance between the 
 crowns of France and Spain for the extirpation of heresy by 
 the sword. He added, that he intended to deal with the 
 nobles with all gentleness, and that he should do his best to 
 please them. The only thing which he could not yield was 
 the authority of his Majesty ; to sustain that, he would sacri- 
 fice his life, if necessary. 2 At the same time Granvelle care- 
 fully impressed upon the King the necessity of contradicting 
 the report alluded to, a request which he took care should also 
 be made through the Regent in person. 8 He had already, both 
 in his own person and in that of the Duchess, begged for a 
 formal denial, on the King's part, that there was any inten- 
 tion of introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Nether- 
 lands, and that the Cardinal had counselled, originally, the 
 bishoprics. 4 Thus instructed, the King accordingly wrote to 
 Margaret of Parma to furnish the required contradictions. In 
 so doing, he made a pithy remark. " The Cardinal had not 
 counselled the cutting off the half a dozen heads," said the 
 
 O ' 
 
 monarch, u but perhaps it would not be so bad to do it." ' 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 568, 509. 
 Compare Correspondance de Philippe 
 II., i. 202, 203. 
 
 2 Correspondance de Philippe II.. 
 . 204, 205. 
 
 8 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 202, 203. * Ibid., 202, 207. 
 
 5 " Aunque quiza no seria mal ha- 
 zello." Correspondance de Philippe 
 IL, i. 207.
 
 342 THE RISE OF TEE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1502. 
 
 The contradictions, however sincere, were not believed by the 
 persons most interested. Nearly all the nobles continued to 
 regard the Cardinal with suspicion and aversion. Many of the 
 ruder and more reckless class vied with the rhetoricians and 
 popular caricaturists in the practical jests which they played 
 off almost daily against the common foe. Especially Count 
 Brederode, " a madman, if there ever were one," 1 as a con- 
 temporary expressed himself, was most untiring in his efforts 
 to make Granvelle ridiculous. He went almost nightly to 
 masquerades, dressed as a cardinal or a monk ; 2 and as he was 
 rarely known to be sober on these or any other occasions, the 
 wildness of his demonstrations may easily be imagined. He 
 was seconded on all these occasions by his cousin Robert de la 
 Marck, Seigneur de Lumey, a worthy descendant of the famous 
 " Wild Boar of Ardennes ; " a man brave to temerity, but 
 utterly depraved, licentious, and sanguinary. These two men, 
 both to be widely notorious, from their prominence in many of 
 the most striking scenes by which the great revolt was ushered 
 in, had vowed the most determined animosity to the Cardinal, 
 which was manifested in the reckless buffooning way which 
 belonged to their characters. Besides the ecclesiastical cos- 
 tumes in which they always attired themselves at their fre- 
 quent festivities, they also wore fox -tails in their hats instead 
 of plumes. 8 They decked their servants also with the same 
 ornaments ; openly stating, that by these symbols they meant 
 to signify that the old fox Granvelle, and his cubs, Viglius, 
 Berlaymont, and the rest, should soon be hunted down by 
 them, and the brush placed in their hats as a trophy. 4 
 
 Moreover, there is no doubt that frequent threats of personal 
 violence were made against the Cardinal. Granvelle informed 
 the King that his life was continually menaced by the nobles, 
 but that he feared them little, for he believed them too prudent 
 to attempt anything of the kind. 5 There is no doubt, when his 
 position with regard to the upper and lower classes in the 
 
 x " Personage escervclle si oncques | 8 Pontus Payen MS. * Ibid, 
 
 en fut." Pontus Payen MS. a Ibid, j 5 Papiors d'Etat, vi. 552-562.
 
 15G2.] 
 
 GKANVELLE'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 343 
 
 country is considered, that there was enough to alarm a timid 
 man ; but Granvelle was constitutionally brave. He was accused 
 of wearing a secret shirt of mail, 1 of living in perpetual trepi- 
 dation, of having gone on his knees to Egmont and Orange,* of 
 having sent Richardot, Bishop of Arras, to intercede for him in 
 the same humiliating manner with Egmont. 8 All these stories 
 were fables. Bold as he was arrogant, he affected at this time 
 to look down with a forgiving contempt on the animosity of the 
 nobles. He passed much of his time alone, writing his eternal 
 despatches to the King. He had a country-house, called La 
 Fontaine, surrounded by beautiful gardens, a little way outside 
 the gates of Brussels, where he generally resided, and whence, 
 notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends, he often 
 returned to town, after sunset, alone, or with but a few attend- 
 ants. 4 He avowed that he feared no attempts at assassination, 
 for, if the seigniors took his life, they would destroy the best 
 friend they ever had. 8 This villa, where most of his plans were 
 matured and his state papers drawn up, was called by the 
 people, in derision of his supposed ancestry, " The Smithy." * 
 Here, as they believed, was the anvil upon which the chains of 
 their slavery were forging ; here, mostly deserted by those who 
 had been his earlier associates, he assumed a philosophical de- 
 meanour, which exasperated, without deceiving his adversaries. 
 Over the great gate of his house he had placed the marble 
 statue of a female. It held an empty wine-cup in one hand, 
 and an urn of flowing water in the other. 7 The single word 
 te Durate " was engraved upon the pedestal. 8 By the motto, 
 which was his habitual device, he was supposed, in this appli- 
 cation, to signify that his power would outlast that of the 
 nobles, and that, perennial and pure as living water, it would 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 426. 
 a Ev. Eeydani, Ann., i. 4. 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 449, 450. 
 
 4 Pcmtus Payen MS. 
 
 5 " Respondit constamment avecq 
 une face joieuse, a quel propos voules 
 yous quo je me garde des seigneurs, 
 il n'y a pas un d'eutre eux a qui je 
 
 n'ay fait plaisir et service. S'ils me 
 tuent, au noui de Dieu, je serai quieta 
 de vivre, et eui d'un tres bon amy, 
 qu'ils regretteront un jour lament* 
 ablement." Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 8 Vander Vynckt, i. 164. 
 
 7 Hoofd, i. 39. 
 
 Ibid.
 
 344 TEE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1502. 
 
 flow tranquilly on, long after the wine of their life had been 
 drunk to the lees. The fiery extravagance of his adversaries 
 and the calm and limpid moderation of his character, thus 
 symbolised, were supposed to convey a moral lesson to the 
 world. The hieroglyphics, thus interpreted, were not relished 
 by the nobles all avoided his society, and declined his invita- 
 tions. He consoled himself with the company of the lesser 
 gentry, 1 a class which he now began to patronise, and which 
 he urgently recommended to the favour of the King, 3 hinting 
 that military and civil offices bestowed upon their inferiors 
 would be a means of lowering the pride of the grandees. 8 
 He also affected to surround himself with even humbler 
 individuals. i( It makes me laugh," he wrote to Philip, " to 
 see the great seigniors absenting themselves from my dinners ; 
 nevertheless, I can always get plenty of guests at my table, 
 gentlemen and councillors. I sometimes invite even citizens, 
 in order to gain their good will." * 
 
 The Regent was well aware of the anger excited in the 
 breasts of the leading nobles by the cool manner in which they 
 had been thrust out of their share in the administration of 
 affairs. She defended herself with acrimony in her letters to 
 the King, 5 although a defence was hardly needed in that 
 quarter for implicit obedience to the royal commands. She 
 confessed her unwillingness to consult with her enemies. 6 She 
 avowed her determination to conceal the secrets of the govern- 
 ment from those who were capable of abusing her confidence. 
 She represented that there were members of the council 
 who would willingly take advantage of the trepidation which 
 she really felt, and which she should exhibit if she expressed 
 iherself without reserve before them. 7 For this reason she 
 confined herself, as Philip had always intended, exclusively to 
 the Consulta. 8 It was not difficult to recognise the hand 
 which wrote the letter thus signed by Margaret of Parma. 
 
 Strado, iii. 116, 117. 
 
 6 Ibid. 
 
 7 Ibid. 
 
 Ibid. Compare Green v. Prin* 
 terer. ArchiTes, i. 117, 118. 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ubi sup. 
 
 a Dom 1'Evesque, ii. 53. ' Ibid. 
 
 4 " Y aim burgeses que yo llamo 
 per ganarles la voluntad." Papiers 
 d'Etat, vi. 552-562.
 
 1002.] DILEMMA OF THE DUCHESS. 345 
 
 Both nobles and people were at this moment irritated by 
 another circumstance. The civil war having again broken out 
 in France, Philip, according to the promise made by him to 
 Catherine de Medici, when he took her daughter in marriage, 
 was called upon to assist the Catholic party with auxiliaries. 
 He sent three thousand infantry, accordingly, which he had 
 levied in Italy, as many more collected in Spain, and gave 
 immediate orders that the Duchess of Parma should despatch 
 at least two thousand cavalry from the Netherlands. 1 Great 
 was the indignation in the council when the commands were 
 produced. Sore was the dismay of Margaret. It was im- 
 possible to obey the King. The idea of sending the famous 
 mounted gendarmerie of the provinces to fight against the 
 French Huguenots could not be tolerated for an instant. The 
 " band of ordonnance " were very few in number, and were 
 to guard the frontier. They were purely for domestic pur- 
 poses. It formed no part of their duty to go upon crusades in 
 foreign lands ; still less to take a share in a religious quarrel, 
 and least of all to assist a monarch against a nation. These 
 views were so cogently presented to the Duchess in council, 
 that she saw the impossibility of complying with her brother's 
 commands. She wrote to Philip to that effect. Meantime, 
 another letter arrived out of Spain, chiding her delay, and 
 impatiently calling upon her to furnish the required cavalry at 
 once. 2 The Duchess was in a dilemma. She feared to provoke 
 another storm in the council, for there was already sufficient 
 wrangling there upon domestic subjects. She knew it was 
 impossible to obtain the consent, even of Berlaymont and 
 Viglius, to such an odious measure as the one proposed. She 
 was, however, in great trepidation at the peremptory tone of 
 the King's despatch. Under the advice of Granvelle, she had 
 recourse to a trick. A private and confidential letter of Philip 
 was read to the council, but with alterations suggested and 
 interpolated by the Cardinal. The King was represented as 
 being furious at the delay, but as willing that a sum of money 
 Strada, iii. 102, 103. Ibid., iii. 104.
 
 346 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 should be furnished instead of the cavalry, as originally 
 required. 1 This compromise, after considerable opposition, 
 was accepted. The Duchess wrote to Philip, explaining and 
 apologising for the transaction. The King received the sub- 
 stitution witli as good a grace as could have been expected, 
 and sent fifteen hundred troopers from Spain to his Medicean 
 mother-in-law, drawing upon the Duchess of Parma for the 
 money to pay their expenses. Thus was the industry of the 
 Netherlands taxed that the French might be persecuted by 
 their own monarch. 2 
 
 The Regent had been forbidden, by her brother, to convoke 
 the states-general ; a body which the Prince of Orange, sus- 
 tained by Berghen, Montigny, and other nobles, was desirous 
 of having assembled. It may be easily understood that Gran- 
 velle would take the best care that the royal prohibition should 
 be enforced. The Duchess, however, who, as already hinted, 
 was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable under the 
 Cardinal's dominion, was desirous of consulting some larger 
 council than that with which she held her daily deliberations. 
 A meeting of the Knights of the Fleece was accordingly sum- 
 moned. They assembled in Brussels in the month of May 
 11562. 3 The learned Viglius addressed them in a long and 
 eloquent speech, in which he discussed the troubled and dange- 
 rous condition of the provinces, alluding to some of its causes, 
 and suggested various remedies. It may be easily conceived, 
 however, that the Inquisition was not stated among the causes, 
 nor its suppression included among the remedies. A discourse, 
 in which the fundamental topic was thus conscientiously 
 omitted, was not likely, with all its concinnities, to make much 
 impression upon the disaffected knights, or to exert a soothing 
 influence upon the people. The orator was, however, delighted 
 with his own performance. He informs us, moreover, that 
 the Duchess was equally charmed, and that she protested she 
 had never in her whole life heard anything more " delicate, 
 more suitable, or more eloquent." * The Prince of Orange, 
 1 Strada, iii. 104. a Ibid. 8 Ibid., 118. Vit. Viglii, 36. * Vit. Viglii, 3d.
 
 I5G2.] PRIVATE DELIBERATION. 347 
 
 however, did not sympathise with her admiration. The Presi- 
 dent's elegant periods produced but little effect upon his mind. 
 The meeting adjourned, after a few additional words from the 
 Duchess, in which she begged the knights to ponder well the 
 causes of the increasing discontent, and to meet her again, 
 prepared to announce what, in their opinion, would be the 
 course best adapted to maintain the honour of the King, the 
 safety of the provinces, and the glory of God. 1 
 
 Soon after the separation of the assembly, the Prince of 
 Orange issued invitations to most of the knights, to meet at his 
 house for the purpose of private deliberation. 8 The President 
 and Cardinal were not included in these invitations. The meet- 
 ing was, in fact, what we should call a caucus, rather than a 
 general gathering. Nevertheless, there were many of the 
 government party present men who differed from the Prince, 
 and were inclined to support Granvelle. The meeting was a 
 stormy one. Two subjects were discussed. The first was the 
 proposition of the Duchess, to investigate the general causes of 
 the popular dissatisfaction ; the second was an inquiry how it 
 could be rendered practicable to discuss political matters in 
 future a proceeding now impossible, in consequence of the 
 perverseness and arrogance of certain functionaries, and one 
 which, whenever attempted, always led to the same inevitable 
 result. This direct assault upon the Cardinal produced a 
 furious debate. His enemies were delighted with the opportu- 
 nity of venting their long-suppressed spleen. They indulged 
 in savage invectives against the man whom they so sincerely 
 hated. His adherents, on the other hand Boss'u, Berlaymont, 
 Courieres were as warm in his defence. They replied by 
 indignant denials of the charge against him, and by bitter in- 
 sinuations against the Prince of Orange. They charged him 
 with nourishing the desire of being appointed governor of Bra- 
 bant, an office considered inseparable from the general stadt- 
 holderate of all the provinces. 3 They protested for themselves 
 
 3 Groen v. Prinst., i. 147, Bq<J 
 Strada. 
 
 1 Hopper, Rec. et Mem., iv. 25. 
 3 Hoofd, i. 40. Vit. Viglii. Hop- 
 
 per, ubi sup.
 
 348 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 that they were actuated by no ambitious designs that they 
 were satisfied with their own position, and not inspired by 
 jealousy of personages more powerful than themselves. 1 It is 
 obvious that such charges and recriminations could excite no 
 healing result, and that the lines between Cardinalists and their 
 opponents would be defined in consequence more sharply than 
 ever. The adjourned meeting of the Chevaliers of the Fleece 
 took place a few days afterwards. 2 The Duchess exerted her- 
 self as much as possible to reconcile the contending factions, 
 without being able, however, to apply the only remedy which 
 could be effective. The man who was already fast becoming 
 the great statesman of the country knew that the evil was 
 beyond healing, unless by a change of purpose on the part of 
 the government. The Regent, on the other hand, who it 
 must be confessed never exhibited any remarkable proof of 
 intellectual ability during the period of her residence in the 
 Netherlands, was often inspired by a feeble and indefinite hope 
 that the matter might be arranged by a compromise between 
 the views of conflicting parties. Unfortunately, the Inquisi- 
 tion was not a fit subject for a compromise. 
 
 Nothing of radical importance was accomplished by the 
 Assembly of the Fleece. It was decided that an application 
 should be made to the different states for a grant of money ; 3 
 and that, furthermore, a special envoy should be despatched to 
 Spain. It was supposed by the Duchess and her advisers that 
 more satisfactory information concerning the provinces could be 
 conveyed to Philip by word of mouth than by the most elabo- 
 rate epistles. 4 The meeting was dissolved after these two mea- 
 sures had been agreed upon. Doctor Vigilus, upon whom 
 devolved the duty of making the report and petition to the 
 states, proceeded to draw up the necessary application. This 
 he did with his customary elegance, and, as usual, very much 
 to his own satisfaction. 5 On returning to his house, however, 
 after having discharged his duty, he was very much troubled at 
 
 1 Hoofd, i. 40, 41. Hopper. Vit. I 3 Vit. Viglii, 36. 
 Viglii, ubi sup. * Strada. iii. 119. 
 
 * Hopper. Vit. Viglii, ubi sup. * Vit. Viglii, ubi sup.
 
 1562.] ENVOY TO SPAIN. 349 
 
 finding that a large mulberry-tree, which stood in his garden, 
 had been torn up by the roots in a violent hurricane. The dis- 
 aster was considered ominous by the President, and he was 
 accordingly less surprised then mortified, when he found, sub- 
 sequently, that his demand upon the orders had remained as 
 i'ruitless as his ruined tree. 1 The tempest which had swept 
 his garden he considered typical of the storm which was soon 
 to rage through the land, and he felt increased anxiety to 
 reach a haven while it was yet comparatively calm. 
 
 The estates rejected the Request for supplies, on various 
 grounds ; among others, that the civil war was drawing to a 
 conclusion in France, and that less danger was to be appre- 
 hended from that source then had lately been the case. Thus, 
 the " cup of bitterness," of which Granvelle had already com- 
 plained, was again commended to his lips, and there was 
 more reason then ever for the government to regret that the 
 national representatives had contracted the habit of meddling 
 with financial matters. 3 
 
 Florence de Montmorency, Seigneur de Montigny, was se- 
 lected by the Regent for the mission which had been decided 
 upon for Spain. This gentleman was brother to Count Horn, 
 but possessed of higher talents and a more amiable character 
 than those of the Admiral. He was a warm friend of Orange, 
 and a bitter enemy to Granvelle. He was a sincere Catholic, 
 but a determined foe to the Inquisition. His brother had de- 
 clined to act as envoy.* This refusal can excite but little 
 surprise, when Philip's wrath at their parting interview is 
 recalled, and when it is also remembered that the new mission 
 would necessarily lay bare fresh complaints against the Car- 
 dinal, still more extensive than those which had produced the 
 former explosion of royal indignation. Montigny, likewise, 
 would have preferred to remain at home, but he was over- 
 ruled. It had been written in his destiny that he should go 
 twice into the angry lion's den, and that he should come forth 
 once, alive. 
 
 1 Vit. Viglii, ubi sup. I 3 Correspondance de Philippe IL, 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 543-545, & 27. | i. 202, 203, (note.)
 
 350 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1562. 
 
 Thus it has been shewn that there was an open, avowed 
 hostility on the part of the grand seigniors and most of the 
 lesser nobility to the Cardinal and his measures. The people 
 fully and enthusiastically sustained the Prince of Orange in his 
 course. There was nothing underhand in the opposition made 
 to the government. The Netherlands did not constitute an 
 absolute monarchy. They did not even constitute a monarchy. 
 There was no king in the provinces. Philip was king of 
 Spain, Naples, Jerusalem, but he was only Duke of Brabant, 
 Count of Flanders, Lord of Friesland, hereditary chief, in 
 short, under various titles, of seventeen states, each one of 
 which, although not republican, possessed constitutions as sacred 
 as, and much more ancient than, the crown. 1 The resistance to 
 the absolutism of Granvelle and Philip was, therefore, logical, 
 legal, constitutional. It was no cabal, no secret league, as the 
 Cardinal had the effrontery to term it, but a legitimate exer- 
 cise of powers which belonged of old to those who wielded them, 
 and which only an unrighteous innovation could destroy. 
 
 Granvelle's course was secret and subtle. During the whole 
 course of the proceedings which have beenjust described, he was 
 in daily confidential correspondence with the King, besides being 
 the actual author of the numerous despatches which were sent 
 with the signature of the Duchess. He openly asserted his right 
 to monopolise all the powers of the government ; he did his 
 utmost to force upon the reluctant and almost rebellious people 
 the odious measures which the King had resolved upon, while 
 in his secret letters he uniformly represented the nobles who 
 opposed him as being influenced, not by an honest hatred of 
 oppression, and attachment to ancient rights, but by resentment 
 and jealousy of their own importance. He assumed, in his let- 
 ters to his master, that the absolutism already existed of right 
 
 1 "On respondra qu'il est Roi : et 
 je dis au contraire quo ce nora de 
 Roi m'est incognu. Qu'il le soit en 
 Castillo ou Arragon, a Naples, aux 
 Indes et par tout ou il commande 
 a plaisir: qu'il le soit s'il veult en 
 Jerusalem, paisible Dominateur en 
 
 Asie et Afrique, tant y a que je ne 
 cognoi en ce pa'is qu'un Due et un 
 Compte, duquel la puissance est lira- 
 itee selon nos privileges lesquels il a 
 jure' a la joieuse entre'e," etc. Apo- 
 logie d' Orange, 39, 40.
 
 1562.) 
 
 INSINUATIONS AGAINST THE NOBLES. 
 
 351 
 
 and in fact, which it was the intention of Philip to establish. 
 While he was depriving the nobles, the states, and the nation 
 of their privileges, and even of their natural rights, (a slender 
 heritage in those days,) he assured the King that there was 
 an evident determination to reduce his authority to a cipher. 
 
 The estates, he wrote, had usurped the whole administration 
 of the finances, 1 and had farmed it out to Anthony Van Straalen 
 and others, who were making enormous profits in the business. 2 
 "The seigniors," he said, tl declare at their dinner-parties that 
 I wish to make them subject to the absolute despotism of your 
 Majesty. In point of fact, however, they really exercise a great 
 deal more power than the governors of particular provinces ever 
 did before ; and it lacks but little that Madame and your Ma- 
 jesty should become mere ciphers, while the grandees monopolise 
 the whole power. 3 This," he continued, " is the principal mo- 
 tive of their opposition to the new bishoprics. They were angry 
 that your Majesty should have dared to solicit such an arrange- 
 ment at Rome, without first obtaining their consent* They 
 wish to reduce your Majesty's authority to so low a point that 
 you can do nothing unless they desire it. Their object is the 
 destruction of the royal authority and of the administration of 
 justice, in order to avoid the payment of their debts ; telling 
 the creditors constantly that they have spent their all in your 
 Majesty's service, and that they have never received recompense 
 or salary. This they do to make your Majesty odious" 5 
 
 As a matter of course, he attributed the resistance on the 
 part of the great nobles, every man of whom was Catholic, to 
 base motives. They were mere demagogues who refused to 
 burn their fellow-creatures, not from any natural repugnance 
 to the task, but in order to curry favour with the populace. 
 " This talk about the Inquisition," said he, (t is all a pretest. 
 'Tis only to throw dust in the eyes of the vulgar, and to per- 
 
 1 "Por hayer usurpado los de los 
 estados la administracion de los di- 
 neros." Papiers d'Etat, yi. 543-545. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 8 " Y no nos f altar ia otra cosa sine 
 
 q Madama y aunque V. M., estu- 
 viessen aqui por ci/ra, y que ellos 
 biziesen todo." Papiera d'Etat, ri, 
 552-562i 
 * Ibid. * Ibid.
 
 352 
 
 THE JBISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1562. 
 
 suade them into tumultuous demonstrations, while the real 
 reason is, that they choose that your Majesty should do nothing 
 without their permission, and through their hands." l 
 
 He assumed sometimes, however, a tone of indulgence toward 
 the seigniors who formed the main topics of his letters an 
 affectation which might, perhaps, have offended them almost as 
 much as more open and sincere denunciation. He could forgive 
 offences against himself. It was for Philip to decide as to their 
 merits or crimes so far as the Crown was concerned. His lan- 
 guage often was befitting a wise man who was speaking of very 
 little children. tl Assonlevillehas told me, as coming from Eg- 
 mont," he wrote, "that many of the nobles are dissatisfied with 
 me ; hearing from Spain that I am endeavouring to prejudice 
 your Majesty against them." Certainly the tone of the Cardi- 
 nal's daily letters would have justified such suspicion, could the 
 nobles have seen them. Granvelle begged the King, however, 
 to disabuse them iipon this point. " Would to God," said he 
 piously, " that they all would decide to sustain the authority of 
 your Majesty, and to procure such measures as tend to the ser- 
 vice of God and the security of the states. May I cease to 
 exist if I do not desire to render good service to the very least 
 of these gentlemen. Your Majesty knows that, when they do 
 anything for the benefit of your service, I am never silent. 
 Nevertheless, thus they are constituted. I hope, however, that 
 this flurry will blow over, and that when your Majesty comes, 
 they will all be found to deserve rewards of merit." a 
 
 Of Egmont, especially, he often spoke in terms of vague, but 
 somewhat condescending commendation. He never manifested 
 resentment in his letters, although, as already stated, the Count 
 had occasionally indulged, not only in words, but in deeds of ex- 
 treme violence against him. But the Cardinal was too forgiving 
 a Christian, or too keen a politician not to pass by such offences, 
 
 1 " No es Sino color para el vulgo 
 a quien persuaden estar cosas para 
 procurar alboroto, pero la yerdadera 
 causa de los que presuiuen entender 
 mas es, que arriba digo y no querer 
 
 que V. M. pueda nada sino con su 
 participacion y por su mauo." 
 Papiers d'Etat, yi. 569. 570. 
 2 Papiers d'Etat, yi. 535.
 
 1562.] DAMNABLE INSINUATIONS. 353 
 
 so long as there was a chance of so great a noble's remaining or 
 becoming his friend. He accordingly described him, in gene- 
 ral, as a man whose principles, in the main, were good, but who 
 was easily led by his own vanity and the perverse counsels of 
 others. He represented him as having been originally a warm 
 supporter of new bishoprics, and as having expressed satisfac- 
 tion that two of them, those of Bruges and Ypres, should 
 have been within his own stadtholderate. 1 He regretted, how. 
 ever, to inform the King that the Count was latterly growing 
 lukewarm, perhaps from fear of finding himself separated from 
 the other nobles. 2 On the whole, he was tractable enough, 
 
 ' O 7 
 
 said the Cardinal, if he were not easily persuaded by the vile ; 
 but one day, perhaps, he might open his eyes again. 3 Not- 
 withstanding these vague expressions of approbation, which 
 Granvelle permitted himself in his letters to Philip, he never 
 failed to transmit to the monarch every fact, every rumour, 
 every inuendo which might prejudice the royal mind against 
 that nobleman, or against any of the noblemen, whose charac- 
 ters he at the same time protested he was most unwilling to 
 injure. It is true that he dealt mainly by insinuation, while he 
 was apt to conclude his statements with disclaimers upon his 
 own part, and with hopes of improvement in the conduct of the 
 seigniors. At this particular point of the timehefurnishedPhilip 
 with a long and most circumstantial account of a treasonable 
 correspondence which was thought to be going on between the 
 leading nobles and the future Emperor, Maximilian. 4 The nar- 
 rative was a good specimen of the masterly style of inuendo in 
 which the Cardinal excelled, and by which he was often enabled 
 to convince his master of the truth of certain statements while 
 affecting to discredit them. He had heard a story, he said, 
 which he felt bound to communicate to his Majesty, although 
 he did not himself implicitly believe it. He felt him.self the 
 more bound to speak upon the subject, because it. tallied exactly 
 with intelligence which he had received from another source. 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 533. I 3 Ibid., vii 4i/, 46. 
 
 8 Ibid. I * Ibid., vi. 535-638. 
 
 VOL. L Z
 
 354 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1502 
 
 The story was, 1 that one of these seigniors (the Cardinal did 
 not know which, for he had not yet thought proper to investi- 
 gate the matter) had said that rather than consent that the 
 King should act in this matter of the bishoprics against the 
 privileges of Brabant, the nobles would elect for their sovereign 
 some other prince of tJie blood. This, said the Cardinal, was 
 perhaps a fantasy rather than an actual determination. Count 
 Egmont, to be sure, he said, was constantly exchanging 
 letters with the King of Bohemia (Maximilian), and it was 
 supposed, therefore, that he was the prince of the blood who 
 was to be elected to govern the provinces. It was determined 
 that he should be chosen King of the Romans, by fair means 
 or by force, that he should assemble an army to attack 
 the Netherlands, that a corresponding movement should be 
 made within the states, and that the people should bo 
 made to rise, by giving them the reins in the mutter of reli- 
 gion. The Cardinal, after recounting all the particulars of 
 this fiction, with great minuteness, added, with apparent 
 frankness, that the correspondence between Egmont and 
 Maximilian did not astonish him, because there had been much 
 intimacy between them in the time of the late Emperor. He 
 did not feel convinced, therefore, from the frequency of the 
 letters exchanged, that there was a scheme to raise an army 
 to attack the provinces and to have him elected by force. On 
 the contrary, Maximilian could never accomplish such a 
 scheme without the assistance of his imperial father the Emperor, 
 who Granvelle was convinced would rather die than be mixed 
 op with such villany against Philip. 3 Moreover, unless the 
 people should become still more corrupted by the bad counsels 
 constantly given them, the Cardinal did not believe that any 
 of the great nobles had the power to dispose in this way of 
 the provinces at their pleasure. Therefore, he concluded that 
 the story was to be rejected as improbable, although it had 
 come to him directly from the house of the said Count 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 535-538. I morir que kitentar tanta vellaqueria 
 
 a "Y antes eligeria S. M. 0. el | contra V. M. " Ibid.
 
 1662.] 
 
 MASTER AND PUPIL. 
 
 355 
 
 Egmont. 1 It is remarkable that, at the commencement of 
 his narrative, the Cardinal had expressed his ignorance of the 
 name of the seignior who Avas hatching all this treason, while 
 at the end of it he gave a local habitation to the plot in the 
 palace of Egmont. It is also quite characteristic that he 
 should add that, after all, he considered that nobleman one 
 of the most honest of all, if appearances did not deceive* 
 
 It maybe supposed, however, that all these details of a plot 
 which was quite imaginary, were likely to produce more 
 effect upon a mind so narrow and so suspicious as that of 
 Philip, than could the vague assertions of the Cardinal, that 
 in spite of all, he would dare be sworn that he thought the 
 Count honest, and that men should be what they seemed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the conspiracy, which according to Gran- 
 velle's letters had been formed against him, notwithstanding 
 that his life was daily threatened, he did not advise the King 
 at this period to avenge him by any public explosion of wrath. 
 He remembered, he piously observed, that vengeance belonged 
 to God, and that He would repay. 3 Therefore he passed over 
 insults meekly, because that comported best with his Majesty's 
 service. Therefore, too, he instructed Philip to make no demon- 
 stration at that time, in order not to damage his own affairs. 
 He advised him to dissemble, and to pretend not to know what 
 was going on in the provinces. 4 Knowing that his master looked 
 to him daily for instructions, always obeyed them with entire 
 docility, and, in fact, could not move a step in Netherlaad 
 matters without them, he proceeded to dictate to him the terms 
 in which he was to write to the nobles, and especially laid down 
 rules for his guidance in his coming interviews with the Seigneur 
 de Montigny. 8 Philip, whose only talent consisted in the 
 capacity to learn such lessons with laborious effort, was at this 
 juncture particularly in need of tuition. The Cardinal instructed 
 
 1 " Aunque me clezian que 
 
 salia do la casa propria del dicho 
 oonde." Papiers d'Etat, vi. 535-538. 
 
 a "Por uno de los mas claros y de 
 quieu pudiesse V. M. mas confiar 
 
 si las aparencias no me cganan. 
 Ibid. 
 
 3 Ibid., 552-562. * Ibid. 
 
 6 Ibirl. Correspondance de Philippe 
 II., i. 219,
 
 356 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1562. 
 
 him, accord I ngly, that he was to disabuse all men of the im- 
 pression that the Spanish Inquisition was to be introduced into 
 the provinces. He was to write to the seigniors, promising to 
 pay them their arrears of salary ; he was to exhort them to do 
 all in their power for the advancement of religion and mainten- 
 ance of the royal authority ; and he was to suggest to them 
 that, by his answer to the Antwerp deputation, it was proved 
 that there was no intention of establishing the Inquisition of 
 Spain, under pretext of the new bishoprics. 1 The King was, 
 furthermore, to signify his desire that all the nobles should 
 exert themselves to efface this false impression from the popular 
 mind. He was also to express himself to the same effect 
 concerning the Spanish Inquisition, the bishoprics, and the 
 religious question, in the public letters to Madame de Parmn, 
 which were to be read in full council. 8 The Cardinal also 
 renewed his instructions to the King as to the manner in which 
 the Antwerp deputies Avere to be answered, by giving them, 
 namely, assurances that to transplant the Spanish Inquisition 
 into the provinces would be as hopeless as to attempt its 
 establishment in Naples. 8 He renewed his desire that Philip 
 -should contradict the story about the half dozen heads, 4 and 
 he especially directed him to inform Montigny that Berghen 
 had known of the new Bishoprics before the Cardinal. This, 
 urged Granvelle, was particularly necessary, because the 
 seigniors were irritated that so important a matter should 
 have been decided upon without their advice, and because the 
 Marquis Berghen was now the " cock of the opposition." 5 
 
 At about the same time, it was decided by Granvelle and the 
 Regent, in conjunction with the King, to sow distrust and 
 jealousy among the nobles, by giving greater "mercedes"to 
 ome than to others, although large sums were really due to 
 
 1 Papiersd'Etat, vi. 552-562. Cor- 
 respondance de Philippe II ., i. 219. 
 
 a Ibid. 
 
 3 Papiers d Etat, vi. 564. 
 
 " Qiie yo haya es cripto a 
 
 V . M. que no cortando les las cabecns 
 
 y a otros basta media dozena no sera 
 
 sefior destos estados y V. M. pueda 
 
 juzgar si jamas tel cosa me deve haver 
 pa^ado por el pensamiento." Ibid., 
 568, 569. 
 
 6 Corres. de Philippe II., i. 219.
 
 1502.] 
 
 MONTIGNY IN SPAIN. 
 
 357 
 
 all. In particular, the attempt was made in this paltry manner, 
 to humiliate William of Orange. 1 A considerable sum was 
 paid to Egmont, and a trifling one to the Prince, in conside- 
 ration of their large claims upou the treasury. 3 Moreover, the 
 Duke of Aerschot was selected as envoy to the Frankfort diet, 
 where the King of the Romans was to be elected, with the 
 express intention, as Margaret wrote to Philip, of creating 
 divisions among the nobles, as he had suggested. The Duchess 
 at the same time informed her brother that, according to Ber- 
 laymont, the Prince of Orange was revolving some great 
 design, prejudicial to his Majesty's service. 3 
 
 Philip, who already began to suspect that a man who thought 
 so much must be dangerous, was eager to find out the scheme 
 over which William the Silent was supposed to be brooding, 
 and wrote for fresh intelligence to the Duchess. Neither Mar- 
 garet nor the Cardinal, however, could discover anything 
 against the Prince, who, meantime, although disappointed of 
 the mission to Frankfort, had gone to that city in his private 
 capacity saying that he had been heard to say, " One day we 
 shall be the stronger." * Grranvelle and Madame de Parma 
 both communicated this report upon the same day, but this 
 was all they were able to discover of the latent plot.' 
 
 In the autumn of this year (1562) Montigny made his visit 
 to Spain, as confidential envoy from the Regent. The King 
 being fully prepared as to the manner in which he was to deal 
 with him, received the ambassador with great cordiality. He 
 informed him in the course of their interviews, that Granvelle 
 had never attempted to create prejudice against the nobles, that 
 he was incapable of the malice attributed to him, and that even 
 were it otherwise, his evil representations against other public 
 servants would produce no effect. 9 The King furthermore 
 
 1 Strada, iii. 121. Dom I'Evesque, 
 ii. 41-45. 
 
 2 Dora I'Evesque. Stracla. ubi sup. 
 Corres. de Philippe II., i. 225. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 " Qua algun dia serian los mas 
 
 fuertes." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 5. 
 Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 
 
 211, 242. 
 
 8 Ibid. Ibid. 
 
 8 Correspondance de Philippe II. 
 i. 130. Strada, ii. 122, 123.
 
 358 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1562. 
 
 protested that he had no intentions of introducing the Spanish 
 Inquisition into the Netherlands, and that the new bishops 
 were not intended as agents for such a design, but had been 
 appointed solely with a view of smoothing religious difficulties 
 in the provinces, and of leading his people back into the fold 
 of the faithful. He added, that as long ago as his visit to 
 England for the purpose of espousing Queen Mary he had 
 entertained the project of the new episcopates, as the Marquis 
 Berghen, with whom he had conversed freely upon the subject, 
 could bear witness. 1 With regard to the connexion of Gran- 
 velle with the scheme, he assured Montigny that the Cardinal 
 had not been previously consulted, but had first learned the 
 plan after the mission of Sonnius. 8 
 
 Such was the purport of the King's communications to the 
 envoy, as appears from memoranda in the royal hand writing 
 and from the correspondence of Margaret of Parma. Philip's 
 exactness in conforming to his instructions is sufficiently 
 apparent, on comparing his statements with the letters pre- 
 viously received from the omnipresent Cardinal. Beyond the 
 limits of those directions the King hardly hazarded a syllable. 
 He was merely the plenipotentiary of the Cardinal, as Montigny 
 of the Regent. So long as Granvelle's power lasted, he was 
 absolute and infallible. Such, then, was the amount of satis- 
 faction derived from the mission of Montigny. There was to 
 be no diminution of the religious persecution, but the people 
 were assured, upon royal authority, that the Inquisition, by 
 which they were daily burned and beheaded, could not be 
 logically denominated the Spanish Inquisition. In addition 
 to the comfort, whatever it might be, which the nation could 
 derive from this statement, they were also consoled with the 
 information that Granvelle was not the inventor of the 
 bishoprics. Although he had violently supported the mea- 
 sure as soon as published, secretly denouncing as traitors 
 and demagogues, all those who lifted their voices against 
 it, although he was the originator of the renewed edicts, 
 1 Corres. de Philippe II., i. 230. Strada, ii. 122. 123. a Ibid.
 
 1562.] 
 
 EESULTS OF HIS MISSION. 
 
 359 
 
 although he took, daily, personal pains that this Netherland 
 Inquisition, tl more pitiless than the Spanish," should be en- 
 forced in its rigour, and although he, at the last, opposed the 
 slightest mitigation of its horrors, he was to be represented 
 to the nobles and the people, as a man of mild and unpre- 
 judiced character, incapable of injuring even his enemies. " I 
 will deal with the seigniors most blandly," the Cardinal had 
 written to Philip, " and will do them pleasure, even if they 
 do not wish it, for the sake of God and your Majesty." l It 
 was in this light, accordingly, that Philip drew the picture of 
 his favourite minister to the envoy. Montigny, although 
 somewhat influenced by the King's hypocritical assurances of 
 the benignity with which he regarded the Netherlands, was, 
 nevertheless not to be deceived by this flattering portraiture 
 of a man whom he knew so well and detested so cordially as 
 he did Granvelle. Solicited by the King, at their parting 
 interview, to express his candid opinion as to the causes of the 
 dissatisfaction in the provinces, Montigny very frankly and 
 most imprudently gave vent to his private animosity towards 
 the Cardinal. He spoke of his licentiousness, greediness, 
 ostentation, despotism, and assured the monarch that nearly 
 all the inhabitants of the Netherlands entertained the same 
 opinion concerning him. He then dilated upon the general 
 horror inspired by the Inquisition, and the great repugnance 
 felt to the establishment of the new episcopates. These three 
 evils, Granvelle, the Inquisition, and the bishoprics, he main- 
 tained were the real and sufficient causes of the increasing 
 
 O 
 
 popular discontent. 2 Time was to reveal whether the open- 
 hearted envoy was to escape punishment ibr his frankness, 
 and whether vengeance for these crimes against Granvelle 
 and Philip were to be left wholly, as the Cardinal had lately 
 suggested, in the hands of the Lord. 
 
 Montigny returned late in December. 8 His report concern- 
 
 1 "Yo usare bon ellos toda blan- 
 dura, y les bare plazer en quanto 
 pudiere aunque no quieran para 
 servicio de I)ios e de V. M." 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vi. 573. 
 
 2 Strada, iii. 122, 123. Corres- 
 pondance de Philippe II., i. 2;jlJ. 
 
 3 Strada, iii. 12o.
 
 360 THE BISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1502. 
 
 ing the resnlts of his mission was made in the state council, 
 and was received with great indignation. 1 The professions of 
 benevolent intentions on the part of the sovereign made no 
 impression on the mind of Orange, who w-as already in the 
 habit of receiving secret information from Spain with regard 
 to the intentions of the government. He knew very well that 
 the plot revealed to him by Henry the Second in the wood of 
 Vincennes was still the royal programme, so far as the Spanish 
 monarch was concerned. Moreover, his anger was heightened 
 by information received from Montigny that the names of 
 Orange, Egmont, and their adherents, were cited to him as he 
 passed through France as the avowed defenders of the Huge- 
 nots, in politics and religion.* The Prince, who was still a 
 sincere Catholic, while he hated the persecutions of the Inqui- 
 sition, was furious at the statement. A violent scene occurred 
 in the council. Orange openly denounced the report as a new 
 slander of Granvelle, while Margaret defended the Cardinal 
 and denied the accusation, but at the same time endeavoured 
 with the utmost earnestness to reconcile the conflicting 
 parties. 8 
 
 It had now become certain, however, that the government 
 could no longer be continued on its present footing. Either 
 Granvelle or the seigniors must succumb. The Prince of 
 Orange was resolved that the Cardinal should fall, or that he 
 would himself withdraw from all participation in the affairs of 
 government. In this decision he was sustained by Egmont, 
 Horn, Montigny, Berghen, and the other leading nobles. 
 
 J Strada,iii. 123. Ibid. s lbid.
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 A MORTAL COMBAT AND FATAL TRIUMPH. 
 
 Joint letter to Philip, from Orange, Egmont, and Horn Egmont's quarrel 
 with Aerschot and with Aremberg Philip's answer to the three nobles 
 His instructions to the Duchess Egmont declines the King's invi- 
 tation to visit Spain Second letter of the three seigniors Mission of 
 Armenteros Letter of Alva Secret letters of Granvelle to Philip 
 The Cardinal's insinuations and instructions His complaints as to 
 the lukewarmne?s of Berghen and Montigny in the cause of the 
 Inquisition Anecdotes to their discredit privately chronicled by 
 Granvelle Supposed necessity for the King's presence in the pro- 
 vinces Correspondence of Lazarus Schwendi Approaching crisis 
 Anxiety of Granvelle to retire Banquet of Caspar Schetz Invention 
 of the foolscap livery Correspondence of the Duchess and of the 
 Cardinal with Philip upon the subject Entire withdrawal of the 
 three seigniors from the state council The King advises with Alva 
 concerning the recall of Granvelle Elaborate duplicity of Philip's 
 arrangements His secret note to the Cardinal His dissembling 
 letters to others Departure of Granvelle from the Netherlands 
 Various opinions as to its cause Ludicrous conduct of Brederocle 
 and Hoogstraaten Fabulous statements in Granvelle's correspond- 
 ence concerning his recall Universal mystification The Cardinal 
 deceived by the King Granvelle in retirement His epicureanism 
 Fears in the provinces as to his return "Universal joy at his depar- 
 ture Representations to his discredit made by the Duchess to Philip 
 Her hypocritical letters to the Cardinal Masquerade at Count Mans- 
 f eld's Chantonnay's advice to his brother Review of Granvelle's 
 administration and estimate of his character. 
 
 ON the llth of March, 1563, Orange, Horn, and Egmont 
 united in a remarkable letter to the King. 1 They said that as 
 their longer "taciturnity" might cause the ruin of his 
 
 1 Correspondance de Guillaume le Tacit., ii. 35-39.
 
 362 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1563. 
 
 Majesty's affairs, they were at last compelled to break silence. 
 They hoped that the King would receive with benignity a 
 communication which was pure, frank, and free from all pas - 
 sion. The leading personages of the province, they continued, 
 having thoroughly examined the nature and extent of Cardinal 
 Granvelle's authority, had arrived at the conclusion that 
 everything was in his hands. This persuasion, they said, was 
 rooted in the hearts of all His Majesty's subjects, and par- 
 ticularly in their own, so deeply, that it could not be eradi- 
 cated as long as the Cardinal remained. The King was 
 therefore implored to consider the necessity of remedying the 
 evil. The royal affairs, it was affirmed, would never be suc- 
 cessfully conducted so long as they were intrusted to Granvelle, 
 because he was so odious to so many people. If the danger 
 were not imminent, they should not feel obliged to write to his 
 Majesty with so much vehemence. It was, however, an affair 
 which allowed neither delay nor dissimulation. They therefore 
 prayed the King, if they had ever deserved credence in things 
 of weight, to believe them now. By so doing, his Majesty 
 would avoid great mischief. Many grand seigniors, governors, 
 and others, had thought it necessary to give this notice, in 
 order that the King might prevent the ruin of the country. 
 If, however, his Majesty were willing, as they hoped, to avoid 
 discontenting all for the sake of satisfying one, it was possible 
 that affairs might yet prosper. That they might not be thought 
 influenced by ambition or by hope of private profit, the writers 
 asked leave to retire from the state-council. Neither their 
 reputation, they said, nor the interests of the royal service 
 would permit them to act with the Cardinal. They professed 
 themselves dutiful subjects and Catholic vassals. Had it not 
 been for the zeal of the leading seigniors, the nobility, and 
 other well-disposed persons, affairs would not at that moment 
 be so tranquil; the common people having been so much 
 injured, and the manner of life pursued by the Cardinal not 
 being calculated to give more satisfaction than was afforded by 
 his unlimited authority. In conclusion, the writers begged
 
 1563.J THE IDES OF MARCH. 363 
 
 his Majesty not to throw the blame upon them, if mischance 
 should follow the neglect of this warning. 
 
 This memorable letter was signed by Guillaume do Nassau, 
 Lamoral d'Egmont, and Philippes de Montmorency, (Count 
 Horn). It was despatched under cover to Charles de Tisnacq, 1 
 a Belgian, and procurator for the affairs of the Netherlands at 
 Madrid, a man whose relations with Count Egmont were of a 
 friendly character. It was impossible, however, to keep the 
 matter a secret from the person most interested. The Cardinal 
 wrote to the King the day before the letter was written, and 
 many weeks before it was sent, to apprise him that it was 
 coming, and to instruct him as to the answer he was to make. 3 
 Nearly all the leading nobles and governors had adhered to the 
 substance of the letter, save the Duke of Aerschot, Count Arem- 
 berg,and Baron Berlaymont. The Duke and Count had refused 
 to join the league ; violent scenes having occurred upon the 
 subject between them and the leaders of the opposition party. 
 Egmont, being with a large shooting party at Aerschot's country 
 place, Beaumont had taken occasion to urge the Duke to join 
 in the general demonstration against the Cardinal, arguing the 
 matter in the rough, off-hand, reckless manner which was 
 habitual with him. His arguments offended the nobleman 
 thus addressed, who was vain and irascible. He replied by 
 affirming that he was a friend to Egmont, but he would not 
 have him for his master. He would have nothing to do, he 
 said, with their league against the Cardinal, who had never 
 given him cause for enmity. He had no disposition to dictate 
 to the King as to his choice of ministers, and his Majesty was 
 quite right to select his servants at his own pleasure. The 
 Duke added, that if the seigniors did not wish him for a 
 friend, it was a matter of indifference to him. Not one of 
 them was his superior ; he had as large a band of noble fol- 
 lowers and friends as the best of them, and he had no disposi- 
 tion to accept the supremacy of any nobleman in the land 
 The conversation carried on in this key soon became a quarrel, 
 > Strada, iii. 120. a Papiers d'Etat, vii. 11-3?,,
 
 364 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [15GS 
 
 and from words the two gentlemen would soon have come to 
 
 o 
 
 blows, but for the interposition of Aremberg and Robles, who 
 were present at the scene. The Duchess of Parma, narrating 
 the occurrence to the King, added that a duel had been the 
 expected result of the affair, but that the two nobles had 
 eventually been reconciled. 1 It was characteristic of Aerschot 
 that he continued afterward to associate with the nobles upon 
 friendly terms, while maintaining an increased intimacy with 
 the Cardinal. 2 
 
 The gentlemen who sent the letter were annoyed at the pre- 
 mature publicity which it seemed to have attained. Orange 
 had in vain solicited Count Aremberg to join the league and 
 had quarrelled with him in consequence. 3 Egmont, in the 
 presence of Madame de Parma, openly charged Aremberg 
 with having divulged the secret which had been confided to 
 him. The Count fiercely denied that he had uttered a syllable 
 on the subject to a human being ; but added that any commu- 
 nication on his part would have been quite superfluous, while 
 Egmont and his friends were daily boasting of what they were 
 to accomplish. Egmont reiterated the charge of a breach of 
 faith by Aremberg. That nobleman replied by laying his 
 hand upon his sword, denouncing as liars all persons who 
 should dare to charge him again with such an offence, and 
 offering to fight out the quarrel upon the instant. Here, 
 again, personal combat was, with much difficulty, averted. 4 
 
 Egmont, rude, reckless, and indiscreet, was already making 
 manifest that he was more at home on a battle-field than in a 
 political controversy where prudence and knowledge of human 
 nature were as requisite as courage. He was at this period 
 more liberal in his sentiments than at any moment of his life. 
 Inflamed by his hatred of Granvelle, and determined to compass 
 the overthrow of that minister, he conversed freely with all 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 5, 11-21. 
 Correspondunce de Philippe II., i. 
 241, 242. Strada, iii. 124. 
 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 11-21. 
 " Converse con ellos, y ellos con el, 
 
 con muy buena cara, y ny mas ny 
 menos el conmiao y yo con el." 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 18, 19. 
 
 4 Ptrada, iii. 126. Correspondance 
 de Philippe II., i. 218.
 
 1503.] CONSEQUENCES OF THE MA.BCH LETTER. 
 
 365 
 
 kinds of people, sought popularity among the burghers, and 
 descanted to every one with much imprudence upon the neces- 
 sity of union for the sake of liberty and the national good. 1 
 The Regent, while faithfully recording in her despatches every- 
 thing of this nature which reached her ears, expressed her 
 astonishment at Egmont's course, because, as she had ofter: 
 taken occasion to inform the King, she had always considered 
 the Count most sincerely attached to his Majesty's service. 2 
 
 Berlaymont, the only other noble of prominence who did 
 not approve the llth of March letter, was at this period 
 attempting to " swim in two waters," and, as usual in such 
 cases, found it very difficult to keep himself afloat. He had 
 refused to join the league, but he stood aloof from Granvelle. 
 On a hope held out by the seigniors that his son should be 
 made Bishop of Liege, he had ceased during a whole year 
 from visiting the Cardinal, and had never spoken to him 
 at the council-board. 3 Granvelle, in narrating these circum- 
 stances to the King, expressed the opinion that Berlaymont, 
 by thus attempting to please both parties, had thoroughly 
 discredited himself with both. 4 
 
 The famous epistle, although a most reasonable and manly 
 statement of an incontrovertible fact, was nevertheless a docu- 
 ment which it required much boldness to sign. The minister 
 at that moment seemed omnipotent, and it was obvious that 
 the King was determined upon a course of political and reli- 
 gious absolutism. It is, therefore, not surprising that, al- 
 though many sustained its principles, few were willing to affix 
 their names to a paper which might prove a death-warrant to 
 the signers. Even Montigny and Berghen, although they had 
 been active in conducting the whole cabal, if cabal it could be 
 called, refused to subscribe the letter. 5 Egmont and Horn 
 were men of reckless daring, but they were not keen-sighted 
 enough to perceive fully the consequences of their acts. Orange 
 was often accused by his enemies of timidity, but none ever 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 248. a Ibid. 
 
 8 Tapiers d'Etat, vii. 11-21. 
 
 2. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Corresponaance de Philippe IL,
 
 366 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1563 
 
 doubted his capacity to look quite through the deeds of men 
 His political foresight enabled him to measure the dangerous 
 precipice which they were deliberately approaching, while the 
 abyss might perhaps be shrouded to the vision of his compa- 
 nions. He was too tranquil of nature to be hurried, by pas- 
 sion, into a grave political step, which in cooler moments he 
 might regret. He resolutely, therefore, and with his eyes 
 open, placed himself in open and recorded enmity with the 
 most powerful and dangerous man in the whole Spanish realm, 
 and incurred the resentment of a King who never forgave. 
 
 Philip answered the letter of the three nobles on the 
 6th June following. In this reply, 1 which was brief, he 
 acknowledged the zeal and affection by which the writers had 
 been actuated. He suggested, nevertheless, that, as they had 
 mentioned no particular cause for adopting the advice con- 
 tained in their letter, it would be better that one of them 
 should come to Madrid to confer with him. Such matters, 
 he said, could be better treated by word of mouth. He might 
 thus receive sufficient information to enable him to form a 
 decision, for, said he in conclusion, it was not his custom to 
 aggrieve any of his ministers without cause. 3 
 
 This was a fine phrase, but under the circumstances of its 
 application, quite ridiculous. There was no question of aggriev- 
 ing the minister. The letter of the three nobles was very simple. 
 It consisted of a fact and a deduction. The fact stated was, 
 that the Cardinal was odious to all classes of the nation. The 
 deduction drawn was, that the government could no longer be 
 carried on by him without imminent danger of ruinous convul- 
 sions. The fact was indisputable. The person most interested 
 confirmed it in his private letters. "'Tis said," wrote Granvelle 
 to Philip, " that grandees, nobles, and people, all abhor me, nor 
 am I surprised to find that grandees, nobles, and people are all 
 openly against me, since each and all have been invited to join 
 in the league." 3 The Cardinal's reasons for the existence of 
 
 1 Corregpondance de Guillaume le 
 Tacit., ii. 41, 42. 
 1 Ibid. " Car ce n'est pas ma 
 
 coustume de grever aucunsde mes 
 ministres saus cause." 
 
 8 " Que agora grandes y nobles y
 
 15G3.] PHILIP'S MEAGRE REPLY. 367 
 
 the unpopularity, which he admitted to the full, have no bear- 
 ing upon the point in the letter. The fact was relied upon to 
 sustain a simple, although a momentous inference. It was 
 for Philip to decide upon the propriety of the deduction, and 
 to abide by the consequences of his resolution when taken. 
 As usual, however, the monarch was not capable of making 
 up his mind. He knew very well that the Cardinal was 
 odious and infamous, because he was the willing impersona- 
 tion of the royal policy. Philip was, therefore, logically called 
 upon to abandon the policy or to sustain the minister. He 
 could make up his mind to do neither the one nor the other. 
 In the meantime a well-turned period of mock magnanimity 
 had been furnished him. This he accordingly transmitted as 
 his first answer to a most important communication upon a 
 subject which, in the words of the writers, "admitted neither 
 of dissimulation or delay." To deprive Philip of dissimula- 
 tion and delay, however, was to take away his all. 
 
 At the same time that he sent his answer to the nobles, he 
 wrote an explanatory letter to the Regent. He informed her 
 that he had received the communication of the three seigniors, 
 but instructed her that she was to appear to know nothing of 
 the matter until Egmont should speak to her on the subject. 
 He added that, although he had signified his wish to the three 
 nobles, that one of them, without specifying which, should 
 come to Madrid, he in reality desired that Egmont, who 
 seemed the most tractable of the three, should be the one 
 deputed. The King added that his object was to divide the 
 nobles, and to gain time. 1 
 
 It was certainly superfluous upon Philip's part to inform his 
 sister that his object was to gain time. It was, however, suffi- 
 ciently puerile to recommend to his sister an affectation of 
 ignorance on a subject concerning which nobles had wrangled, 
 and almost drawn their swords in her presence. This, how- 
 ever, was the king's statemanship when left to his unaided 
 
 pueblo me abliorrecian," etc. Papiers I * Corrc^pondance de Philippe II., 
 d'Etat, vii. 11-21. I i. 251.
 
 368 '.THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1563. 
 
 exertions. In order more fully to divide the nobles, the King 
 also transmitted to Egmont a private note, in his own hand- 
 writing, expressing his desire that he should visit Spain in per- 
 son, that they might confer together upon the whole subject. 2 
 These letters, as might be supposed, produced anything but 
 a satisfactory effect. The discontent and rage of the gentlemen 
 who had written or sustained the llth of March communica- 
 tion was much increased. The answer was, in truth, no answer 
 at all. " 'Tis a cold and bad reply," wrote Louis of Nassau, 
 " to send after so long a delay. 'Tis easy to see that the letter 
 came from the Cardinal's smithy. In summd, it is a vile 
 business if the gentlemen are all to be governed by one person. 
 
 I hope to God his power will come soon to an end. Never- 
 theless," added Louis, " the gentlemen are all wide awake, 
 for they trust the red fellow not a bit more than he deserves." 1 
 
 The reader has already seen that the letter was indeed from 
 
 II the Cardinal's smithy," Granvelle having instructed his 
 master how to reply to the seigniors before the communication 
 had been despatched. 
 
 The Duchess wrote immediately to inform her brother that 
 Egmont had expressed himself willing enough to go to Spain, 
 but had added that he must first consult Orange and Horn. 8 
 As soon as that step had been taken, she had been informed 
 that it was necessary for them to advise with all the gentlemen 
 who had sanctioned their letter. The Duchess had then tried 
 in vain to prevent such an assembly, but finding that, even if 
 forbidden, it would still take place, she had permitted the 
 meeting in Brussels, as she could better penetrate into their 
 proceedings there, than if it should be held at a distance. 
 She added, that she should soon send her secretary Armenteros 
 to Spain, that the King might be thoroughly acquainted with 
 what was occurring. 4 
 
 Egmont soon afterwards wrote to Philip, declining to visit 
 
 1 Strada, iii. 127. Hopper Eec. et 
 Mem., 33. Hoofd, ii. 42, 43. 
 
 2 Groeu v. Prinst. Archives, etc., 
 IG4, 165. 
 
 8 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 255-259. 
 * Ibid.
 
 I5G3.] ZGMONT DECLINES AN INVITATION TO SPAIN. 369 
 
 Spain expressly on account of the Cardinal. He added, that he 
 was ready to undertake thejourney, should the King command 
 his presence for any other object. 1 The same decision was 
 formally communicated to the Regent by those Chevaliers of 
 the Fleece who had approved the llth of March letter Mon- 
 tigny, Berghen, Meghem, Mansfeld, Ligne, Hoogstraaten, 
 Orange, Egmont, and Horn. The Prince of Orange, speak- 
 ing in the name of all, informed her that they did not con- 
 sider it consistent with their reputation, nor with the interest 
 of his Majesty, that any one of them should make so long and 
 troublesome a journey, in order to accuse the Cardinal. For 
 any other purpose, they all held themselves ready to go to 
 Spain at once. The Duchess expressed her regret at this 
 resolution. The Prince replied by affirming that in all their 
 proceedings they had been governed, not by hatred of Gran- 
 velle, but by a sense of duty to his Majesty. It was now, he 
 added, for the King to pursue what course it pleased him. a 
 
 Four days after this interview with the Regent, Orange, 
 Egmont, and Horn addressed a second letter to the King. 3 In 
 this communication they stated that they had consulted with 
 all the gentlemen with whose approbation their first letter had 
 been written. As to the journey of one of them to Spain, as 
 suggested,, they pronounced it very dangerous for any seignior 
 to absent himself, in the condition of affairs which then existed. 
 It was not a sufficient cause to go thither on account of Gran- 
 vellc. They disclaimed any intention of making themselves 
 parties to a process against the Cardinal. They had thought 
 that their simple, brief announcement would have sufficed to 
 induce his Majesty to employ that personage in other places, 
 where his talents would be more fruitful. As to " aggrieving 
 the Cardinal without cause," there was no question of aggriev- 
 ing him at all, but of relieving him of an office which could 
 not remain in his hands without disaster. As to no " par- 
 ticular cause having been mentioned," they said the omission 
 
 1 Correspoudance de Philippe II., 3 Corresponclance de Giullaume 
 i. 2.; 3-259. ' a Ibid. le Tacit., ii. 42-47. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 370 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1663. 
 
 was from no lack of many such. They had charged none, 
 however, because, from their past services and their fidelity to 
 his Majesty, they expected to be believed on their honour, 
 without further witnesses or evidence. They had no intention 
 of making themselves accusers. They had purposely abstained 
 from specifications. If his Majesty should proceed to ampler 
 information, causes enough would be found. It was better, how- 
 ever, that they should be furnished by others than by themselves. 
 His Majesty would then find that the public and general com- 
 plaint was not without adequate motives. They renewed their 
 prayer to be excused from serving in the council of state, in 
 order that they might not be afterwards inculpated for the 
 faults of others. Feeling that the controversy between them- 
 selves -and the Cardinal de Granvelle in the state council pro- 
 duced no fruit for his Majesty's affairs, they preferred to yield 
 to him. In conclusion, they begged the King to excuse the sim- 
 plicity of their letters, the rather that they were not by nature 
 great orators, but more accustomed to do well than to speak 
 well, which was also more becoming to persons of their quality. 1 
 
 On the 4th of August, Count Horn also addressed a private 
 letter to the King, written in the same spirit as that which 
 characterised the joint letter just cited. He assured his 
 Majesty that the Cardinal could render no valuable service to 
 the crown on account of the hatred which the whole nation 
 bore him, but that, as far as regarded the maintenance of the 
 ancient religion, all the nobles were willing to do their duty. a 
 
 The Regent now despatched, according to promise, her pri- 
 vate secretary, Thomas de Armenteros, to Spain. His instruc- 
 tions, 3 which were very elaborate, shewed that Granvelle was 
 not mistaken when he charged her with being entirely changed 
 in regard to him, and when he addressed her a reproachful 
 letter, protesting his astonishment that his conduct had become 
 
 1 "D'autant que ne sommes point 
 de nature grans orateurs ou haran- 
 gueurs, et plus accoustumez a bien 
 faire que a bien dire, comme aussy 
 il cesc mieulx scant a gens de notre 
 
 qualite." Correspondanca de Guil- 
 laume le Tacit., ii. 42-47. 
 
 2 Correspondence de Philippe II., 
 i. 261, 262. 
 
 3 Ibid.. 265-267.
 
 1563.] MISSION OF ARMENTEROS. 371 
 
 suspicious, and his inability to divine the cause of the weariness 
 and dissatisfaction which she manifested in regard to him. 1 
 
 Armenteros, a man of low, mercenary, and deceitful character, 
 but a favourite of the Regent, and already beginning to acquire 
 that influence over her mind which was soon to become so 
 predominant, was no friend of the Cardinal. It was not pro- 
 bable that he would diminish the effect of that vague censure 
 mingled with faint commendation which characterised Mar- 
 garet's instruction by any laudatory suggestions of his own. 
 He was directed to speak in general terms of the advance of 
 heresy, and the increasing penury of the exchequer. He was 
 to request two hundred thousand crowns towards the lottery, 
 which the Regent proposed to set up as a financial scheme. 
 He was to represent that the Duchess had tried, unsuccess- 
 fully, every conceivable means of accommodating the quarrel 
 between the Cardinal and the seigniors. She recognised 
 Granvelle's great capacity, experience, zeal, and devotion 
 for all which qualities she made much of him while on the 
 other hand she felt that it would be a great inconvenience, 
 and might cause a revolt of the country, were she to retain 
 him in the Netherlands against the will of the seigniors. 
 These motives had compelled her, the messenger was to add, 
 to place both views of the subject before the eyes of the King. 
 Armenteros was, furthermore, to narrate the circumstances of 
 the interviews which had recently taken place between herself 
 and the leaders of the opposition party. 4 
 
 From the tenor of these instructions, it was sufficiently 
 obvious that Margaret of Parma was not anxious to retain 
 the Cardinal, but that, on the contrary, she was beginntng 
 already to feel alarm at the dangerous position in which she 
 found herself. A few days after the three nobles had despatched 
 their last letter to the King, they had handed her a formal 
 remonstrance. In this document they stated their conviction 
 that the country was on the high road to ruin, both as regarded 
 his Majesty's service and the common weal. The exchequer 
 1 Dom 1'Evesque, ii. 41-45. a Correspondance de Philippe II., ubi sup.
 
 372 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1563. 
 
 was bare, the popular discontent daily increasing, the fortresses 
 on the frontier in a dilapidated condition. It was to be ap- 
 prehended daily that merchants and other inhabitants of the 
 provinces would be arrested in foreign countries, to satisfy the 
 debts owed by his Majesty. To provide against all these evils 
 butonecourse, it was suggested, remained to thegovernment 
 to summon the states-general, and to rely upon their counsel 
 and support. The nobles, however, forbore to press this point, 
 by reason of the prohibition which the Regent had received 
 from the King. They suggested, however, that such an inter- 
 diction could have been dictated only by a distrust created 
 between his Majesty and the estates by persons having no love 
 for either, and who were determined to leave no resource by 
 which the distress of the country could be prevented. The 
 nobles, therefore, begged her highness not to take it amiss if, 
 so long as the King was indisposed to make other arrange- 
 ments for the administration of the provinces, they should 
 abstain from appearing at the state-council. They preferred 
 to cause the shadow at last to disappear, which they had so 
 long personated. In conclusion, however, they expi essed their 
 determination to do their duty in their several governments, 
 and to serve the Regent to the best of their abilities. 1 
 
 After this remonstrance had been delivered, the Prince of 
 Orange, Count Horn, and Count Egmont abstained entirely 
 from the sessions of the state-council. She was left alone 
 vrith the Cardinal, whom she already hated, and with his 
 two shadows, Viglius and Berlaymont. 
 
 Armenteros, after a month spent on his journey, arrived 
 in Spain, and was soon admitted to an audience by Philip. 
 In his first interview, which lasted four hours, 3 he read to the 
 King all the statements and documents with which he had come 
 
 o 
 
 provided, and humbly requested a prompt decision. Such a 
 result was of course out of the question. Moreover, the Cortes 
 of Tarragon, which happened then to be in session, and which 
 
 4 Hoofd, ii. 43 Compare Corre- I 50 (note by M. Gachard). 
 epondance de Guillaume le Tacit., iii. | a Strada, iii, 130.
 
 J553.] REMONSTKANCE OF THE THEEE SEIGNIORS. 373 
 
 required the royal attention, supplied the monarch with a fresh 
 excuse for indulging in his habitual vacillation. 1 Meantime, by 
 way of obtaining additional counsel in so grave an emergency, 
 he transmitted the letters of the nobles, together with the other 
 papers, to the Duke of Alva, and requested his opinion on the 
 subject. 3 Alva replied with the roar of a wild beast. 
 
 " Every time," he wrote, "that I see the despatches of those 
 three Flemish seigniors, my rage is so much excited, that if I 
 did not use all possible efforts to restrain it, my sentiments 
 would seem those of a madman." 3 After this exordium, he 
 proceeded to express the opinion that all the hatred and com- 
 plaints against the Cardinal had arisen from his opposition to 
 the convocation of the states-general. With regard to persons 
 who had so richly deserved such chastisement, he recommended 
 "that their heads should be taken off; but, until this could 
 be done, that the King should dissemble with them." He ad- 
 vised Philip not to reply to their letters, but merely to intimate 
 through the Regent, that their reasons for the course proposed 
 by them did not seem satisfactory. He did not prescribe 
 this treatment of the case as " a true remedy, but only as a 
 palliative; because for the moment only weak medicines 
 could be employed, from which, however, but small effect 
 could be anticipated." * As to recalling the Cardinal, " as 
 they had the impudence to propose to his Majesty," the Duke 
 most decidedly advised against this step. In the meantime, 
 and before it should be practicable to proceed " to that vigo- 
 rous chastisement already indicated," he advised separating 
 the nobles as much as possible by administering flattery and 
 deceitful caresses to Egmont, who might be entrapped more 
 easily than the others. 
 
 Strada, iii. 130. 
 
 8 Corresp. do Philippe IT., i. 271. 
 "Cada vez que veo los despachos 
 
 frcnetico," etc, etc. G. T. Prinst., 
 Archives, etc., i. 175-177. 
 
 : Que no se pueden aplicar 
 
 de aqueilos trea sefiores me muevan j sino niedicinas muy flojas y dudando 
 la colera, de manera que si no pro- j mucho de la operacion que podran 
 curasse iiLiieho templaiia, creo pare- j hazer." G. v. Prinst., Archives, 
 ceria a V. M. mi opinion de hombre ; etc., i. 175-177.
 
 374 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1563. 
 
 Here, at least, was a man who knew his own mind. Here 
 was a servant who could be relied upon to do his master's 
 bidding whenever this master should require his help. The 
 vigorous explosion of wrath with which the Duke thus re- 
 sponded to the first symptoms of what he regarded as rebellion, 
 gave a feeble intimation of the tone which he would assume 
 when that movement should have reached a more advanced 
 stage. It might be guessed what kind of remedies he would 
 one day prescribe in place of the tl mild medicines " in which 
 he so reluctantly acquiesced for the present. 
 
 While this had been the course pursued by the seigniors, 
 the Eegent and the King, in regard to that all-absorbing 
 subject of Netherland politics the struggle against Granvelle 
 the Cardinal, in his letters to Philip, had been painting the 
 situation by minute daily touches, in a manner of which his 
 pencil alone possessed the secret. 
 
 Still maintaining the attitude of an injured but forgiving 
 Christian, he spoke of the nobles in a tone of gentle sorrow. 
 He deprecated any rising of the royal wrath in his behalf; he 
 would continue to serve the gentlemen, whether they would or 
 no ; he was most anxious lest any considerations on his account 
 should interfere with the King's decision in regard to the course 
 to be pursued in the Netherlands. At the same time, notwith- 
 standing these general professions of benevolence towards the 
 nobles, he represented them as broken spendthrifts, wishing to 
 create general confusion in order to escape from personal 
 liabilities ; as conspirators who had placed themselves within 
 the reach of the attorney-general; 1 as ambitious malcontents 
 who were disposed to overthrow the royal authority, and to sub- 
 stitute an aristocratic republic upon its ruins. He would say 
 nothing to prejudice the King's mind against these gentlemen, 
 but he took care to omit nothing which could possibly accom- 
 plish that result. He described them as systematically opposed 
 to the policy which he knew lay nearest the King's heart, and 
 as determined to assassinate the faithful minister who was so 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 18, 19, sqq.
 
 1563.] MINIATURE PAINTING BY GSAN7ELLB. 375 
 
 resolutely carrying it out, if his removal could be effected in 
 no other way. He spoke of the state of religion as becoming 
 moro and more unsatisfactory, and bewailed the difficulty 
 with which he could procure the burning of heretics ; diffi- 
 culties originating in the reluctance of men from whose 
 elevated rank better things might have been expected. 
 
 As Granvelle is an important personage, as his character has 
 been alternately the subject of much censure and of more ap- 
 plause, and as the epoch now described was the one in which 
 the causes of the great convulsion were rapidly germinating, it 
 is absolutely necessary that the reader should be placed in a 
 position to study the main character, as painted by his own 
 hand ; the hand in which were placed, at that moment, the 
 destinies of a mighty empire. It is the historian's duty, there- 
 fore, to hang the picture of his administration fully in the light. 
 At the moment when the llth of March letter was despatched, 
 the Cardinal represented Orange and Egmont as endeavouring 
 by every method of menace or blandishment to induce all 
 the grand seigniors and petty nobles to join in the league 
 against himself. They had quarrelled with Aerschot and Arem- 
 berg, they had more than half seduced Berlaymont, and they 
 stigmatised all who refused to enter into their league as cardi- 
 nalists and familiars of the inquisition. 1 He protested that he 
 should regard their ill-will with indifference, were he not con- 
 vinced that he was himself only a pretext, and thattheir designs 
 were really much deeper.* Since the return of Montigny, the 
 seigniors had established a league which that gentleman and his 
 brother, Count Horn, had both joined. He would say nothing 
 concerning the defamatory letters and pamphlets of which he 
 was the constant object, for he wished no heed taken of matters 
 which concerned exclusively himself. Notwithstanding this 
 disclaimer, however, he rarely omitted to note the appearance 
 of all such productions for his Majesty's especial information. 
 " It was better to calm men's spirits," he said, " than to excite 
 them." As to fostering quarrels among the seigniors, as the 
 Toners d'Etat, 5, 11-21 ; 18, 10. sqq. a Ibid.
 
 376 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1503. 
 
 King had recommended, that was hardly necessary, for 
 discord was fast sowing its own seeds. " It gave me much 
 pain," he said, with a Christian sigh, (e to observe that such 
 dissensions had already risen, and unfortunately on his 
 account." 1 He then proceeded circumstantially to describe 
 the quarrel between Aerschot and Egmont, already narrated 
 by the Regent, omitting in his statement no particular which 
 could make Egmont reprehensible in the royal eyes. He like- 
 wise painted the quarrel between the same noble and Arem- 
 berg, to which he had already alluded in previous letters to the 
 King, adding that many gentlemen, and even the more prudent 
 part of the people, were dissatisfied with the course of the 
 grandees, and that he was taking underhand but dexterous 
 means to confirm them in such sentiments. 8 He instructed 
 Philip how to reply to the letter addressed to him, but begged 
 his Majesty not to hesitate to sacrifice him if the interests of 
 his crown should seem to require it. 8 
 
 With regard to religious matters, he repeatedly deplored 
 that, notwithstanding his own exertions and those of Madame 
 de Parma, things were not going on as he desired, but, on 
 the contrary, very badly " For the love of God and the 
 service of the holy religion," he cried out fervently, u put 
 your royal hand valiantly to the work, otherwise we have only 
 to exclaim, Help, Lord, for we perish ! " * Having uttered this 
 pious exhortation in the ear of a man who needed no stimulant 
 in the path of persecution, he proceeded to express his regrets 
 that the judges and other officers were not taking in hand 
 the chastisement of heresy with becoming vigour. 5 
 
 Yet, at that very moment Peter Titelmann was raging 
 through Flanders, tearing whole families out of bed and burn- 
 ing them to ashes, with such utter disregard to all laws or 
 forms as to provoke in the very next year a solemn protest 
 
 1 "Pero pesa me quo la primera 
 causa tome t'undaraento sobre lo que 
 me toca." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 6, 
 11-21 ; 18, 19, gqq. 
 
 a " Y yo procure diestramente y 
 
 so mano de informalos conio con- 
 viene," etc. Papiers d'Etat, vii. 5, 
 11-21 ; 18, 19, eqq. 
 
 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., vii. 83. 
 
 Ibid., vii. 33.
 
 1563.] BERGHEN AND MONTIGNY. 377 
 
 from the four estates of Flanders ; and Titelmann was but 
 one of a dozen inquisitors. 
 
 Granvelle, however, could find little satisfastion in the exer- 
 tions of subordinates so long as men in high station were 
 remiss in their duties. The Marquis Berghen, he informed 
 Philip, shewed but little disposition to put down heresy in 
 Valenciennes, while Montigny was equally remiss at Tournay. 1 
 They were often heard to say, to any who chose to listen, that 
 it was not right to inflict the punishment of death for matters 
 of religion. 2 This sentiment, uttered in that age of cruelty, 
 and crowning the memory of those unfortunate nobles with 
 eternal honour, was denounced by the churchman as criminal, 
 and deserving of castigation. He intimated, moreover, that 
 these pretences of clemency were mere hypocrisy, and that 
 self-interest was at the bottom of their compassion. " 'Tis 
 very black," said he, 8 "when interest governs; but these 
 men are all in debt, so deeply that they owe their very souls. 
 They are seeking every means of escaping from their obliga- 
 tions, and are most desirous of creating general confusion." 
 As to the Prince of Orange, the Cardinal asserted that he 
 owed nine hundred thousand florins, and had hardly twenty- 
 five thousand a-year clear income, while he spent ninety 
 thousand, having counts, barons, and gentlemen in great 
 numbers, in his household.* At this point, he suggested that 
 it might be well to find employment for some of these grandees 
 in Spain and other dominions of his Majesty, adding that 
 perhaps Orange might accept the vice-royalty of Sicily. 4 
 
 Resuming the religious matter, a few weeks later, he ex- 
 pressed himself a little more cheerfully. " We have made so 
 much outcry," said he, " that at last Marquis Berghen has been 
 forced to burn a couple of heretics at Valenciennes. Thus, it 
 is obvious," moralised the Cardinal, tf that if he were really 
 willing to apply the remedy in that place, much progress might 
 be made ; but that we can do but little so long as he remains 
 
 1 Papiersd'Etat,vii. 45-51. a Ibid. I todos el alma y cada dia gastan 
 3 " Yes la negraquando domina el mas," etc., etc. Ibid. * Ibid, 
 
 intere.-se y no me espanto quo doyen i * Papiers d'Etat, vii. 5L
 
 378 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [15G3. 
 
 in the government of the provinces and refuses to assist us,," 1 
 In a subsequent letter he again uttered complaints against the 
 Marquis and Montigny, who were evermore his scapegoats 
 and bugbears. Berghen will give us no aid, he wrote, despite 
 of all the letters we send him. He absents himself for private 
 and political reasons. Montigny has eaten meat in Lent, as 
 the Bishop of Tournay informs me. a Both he and the 
 Marquis say openly that it is not right to shed blood for 
 matters of faith, so that the King can judge how much can be 
 effected with such coadjutors. 3 Berghen avoids the persecu- 
 tion of heretics, wrote the Cardinal again, a month later, to 
 Secretary Perez. He has gone to Spa for his health, although 
 those who saw him last say he is fat and hearty.* Granvelle 
 added, however, that theyhadatlast "burned one morepreacher 
 alive." The heretic, he stated, had feigned repentance to save 
 his life, but finding that, at any rate, his head would be cut 
 off as a dogmatiser, he retracted his recantation. " So," con- 
 cluded the Cardinal, complacently, lc they burned him." 8 
 
 He chronicled the sayings and doings of the principal per- 
 sonages in the Netherlands, for the instruction of the King, 
 with great regularity, insinuating suspicions when unable to 
 furnish evidence, and adding charitable apologies, which he 
 knew would have but small effect upon the mind of his cor- 
 respondent. Thus he sent an account of a "very secret meet- 
 ing," held by Orange, Egmont, Horn, Montigny, and Berghen, 
 at the abbey of La Forest, 8 near Brussels, adding, that he did not 
 know what they had been doing there, and was at a loss what to 
 suspect. He would be most happy, he said, to put the best in- 
 terpretation upon their actions, but he could not help remem- 
 bering with great sorrow the observation so recently made by 
 
 1 " Y ee ba gridado tanto 
 
 quo al cabo el Marques de Berghes 
 ha hecho quemar dos hereges en 
 
 Valencianes sin ruydo que si 
 
 de veras se quiriesse atender el re- 
 medio de aquella tierra mucho se 
 podria aprovechar ; pero no lo pod- 
 remos hazer uiicntras esti on quel 
 
 govierno si el no quiere ny de otra 
 manera que por su meno." Papiers 
 d'Etat, 69. 
 
 2 Ibid., rii. 75. a Ibid. 
 
 * "Bueno y gordo." Ibid, Yii. 
 105. 
 
 5 " Y assi le quemaron." Ibid. 
 
 c Ibid., Yii. 69.
 
 15G3.] THE CARDINAL'S SCAPEGOATS. 379 
 
 Orange to Montigny, that one day they should be stronger. 
 Later in the year, the Cardinal informed the King that the 
 same nobles were holding a conference at Weerdt, that he had 
 not learned what had been transacted there, but thought the 
 affair very supicious. 1 Philip immediately communicated 
 the intelligence to Alva, together with an expression of 
 Granvelle's fears and of his own, that a popular outbreak 
 would be the consequence of the continued presence of the 
 minister in the Netherlands." 
 
 The Cardinal omitted nothing in the way of anecdote or 
 inuendo, which could injure the character of the leading nobles, 
 with the exception, perhaps, of Count Egmont. With this im- 
 portant personage, whose character he well understood, he 
 seemed determined, if possible, to maintain friendly relations. 
 There was a deep policy in this desire, to which we shall advert 
 hereafter. The other seigniors were described in general terms 
 as disposed to overthrow the royal authority. They were bent 
 upon Granvelle's downfall as the first step, because, that being 
 accomplished, the rest would follow as a matter of course. 3 
 "They intend," saidhe, *' to reduce the state into the form of a 
 republic, in which the King shall have no power except to do 
 their bidding." * He added, that he saw with regret so many 
 German troops gathering on the borders ; for he believed them 
 to be in the control of the disaffected nobles of the Nether- 
 lands. 5 Having made this grave insinuation, he proceeded in 
 the same breath to express his anger at a statement said to 
 have been made by Orange and Egmont, to the effect that he 
 had charged them with intending to excite a civil commotion, 
 an idea, he added, which had never entered his head. 6 In 
 the same paragraph, he poured into the most suspicious ear 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 266. Corres- 
 pondance de Philippe II., i. 275. 
 
 3 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 277. 
 
 3 "Quieren dar eii mi primero 
 porque hecho esto va lo demas su 
 passo." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 167. 
 
 4 " Y querrian reduzir esto en 
 forma de republics, en la qual no 
 
 pudiesse el Bey sino que elloa 
 quisiessen." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 165. 
 
 * Ibid. Compare G. v. Prinst., 
 Archives, etc. ; supplement, 74-16. 
 
 6 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 167 "Pro- 
 curavan de lavantar estos pueblos 
 
 lo quele jamas me passo por 
 
 consamiento."
 
 380 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G3. 
 
 that ever listened to a tale of treason, his conviction that the 
 nobles were planning a republic by the aid of foreign troops, 
 and uttered a complaint that these nobles had accused him of 
 suspecting them. As for the Prince of Orange, he was de- 
 scribed as eternally boasting of his influence in Germany, and the 
 great things which he could effect by means of his connexions 
 there, " so that," added the Cardinal, "we hear no other song," 
 
 He had much to say concerning the projects of these gran- 
 dees to abolish all the councils, but that of state, of which 
 body they intended to obtain the entire control. Marquis 
 Berghen was repesented as being at the bottom of all these 
 intrigues. The general and evident intention was to make a 
 thorough change in the form of government. 1 The Marquis 
 meant to command in everything, and the Duchess would soon 
 have nothing to do in the provinces as regent for the King. 
 In fact, Philip himself would be equally powerless, fe for," 
 said the Cardinal, " they will have succeeded in putting your 
 Majesty completely under guardianship." a He added, more- 
 over, that the seigniors, in order to gain favour with the 
 people and with the estates, had allowed them to acquire so 
 much power, that they would respond to any request for sub- 
 sidies by a general popular revolt. " This is the simple truth," 
 said Granvelle, " and moreover, by the same process, in a 
 very few days there will likewise be no religion left in the 
 land." ! When the deputies of some of the states, a few 
 weeks later, had been irregularly convened in Brussels, for 
 financial purposes, the Cardinal informed the monarch, that 
 the nobles were endeavouring to conciliate their good-will, by 
 offering them a splendid series of festivities and banquets. 
 
 He related various anecdotes which came to his ears from 
 time to time, all tending to excite suspicions as to the loyalty 
 and orthodoxy of the principal nobles. A gentleman coming 
 from Burgundy had lately, as he informed the King, been din- 
 ing with the Prince of Orange, with whom Horn and Montigny 
 
 1 " En fin el punto es que quer- 
 rian mudar esta forma de gOYierno." 
 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 186. 187. 
 
 a *' Pues hayrian acabado da 
 
 poner la en tutela." Ibid. 
 8 Ibid.
 
 1363.] BEKGHEX'S IMPRUDENCE. 381 
 
 were then lodging. At table, Montigny called out in a very 
 loud voice to the strange cavalier, who was seated at a great 
 distance from him, to ask if there were many Huguenots in 
 Burgundy. No, replied the gentleman, nor would they be 
 permitted to exist there. Then there can be very few people 
 of intelligence in that province, returned Montigny, for those 
 who have any wit are mostly all Huguenots. 1 The Prince of 
 Orange here endeavoured to put a stop to the conversation, 
 saying that the Burgundians were very right to remain as they 
 were; upon which Montigny affirmed that he had heard masses 
 enough lately to last him for three months. 8 These things 
 may be jests, commented Granvelle, but they are very bad 
 ones ; 3 and 'tis evident that such a man is an improper instru- 
 ment to remedy the state of religious affairs in Tournay. 
 
 At another large party, the King was faithfully informed by 
 the same chronicler, 4 that Marquis Bergen had been teasing 
 the Duke of Aerschot very maliciously, because he would not 
 join the league. The Duke had responded as he had formerly 
 done to Egmont, that his Majesty was not to receive laws from 
 his vassals ; adding, that, for himself, he meant to follow in the 
 loyal track of his ancestors, fearing God and honouring the 
 king. In short, said Granvelle, he answered them with so much 
 wisdom, that although they had never a high opinion of his 
 capacity, they were silenced. This conversation had been going 
 on before all the servants, the Marquis being especially voci- 
 ferous, although the room was quite full of them. As soon as 
 the cloth was removed, and while some of the lackeys still 
 remained, Berghen had resumed the conversation. He said 
 he was of the same mind as his ancestor John of Berghen had 
 been, who had once told the King's grandfather, Philip the 
 Fair, that if his Majesty was bent on his own perdition, lie 
 had no disposition to ruin himself. If the present monarch 
 means to lose these provinces by governing them as he did 
 govern them, the Marquis affirmed that he had no wish to 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, 187, 188. a Ibid. I malas me pareceji." Ibid'. 
 
 8 " Devian de ser burlas pero j * Papiers d'Etat, yii. 190-194.
 
 382 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1563. 
 
 lose the little property that he himself possessed in the country. 
 " But if," argued the Duke of Aerschot, " the King abso- 
 lutely refuse to do what you demand of him ; what then ? " 
 " Par la cordieu I " responded Berghen, in a rage, '* we will 
 let him see ! " whereupon all became silent 1 
 
 Granvelle implored the King to keep these things entirely 
 to himself; adding that it was quite necessary for his Majesty 
 to learn in this manner what were the real dispositions of the 
 gentlemen of the provinces. It was also stated in the same 
 letter, that a ruffian Genoese, who had been ordered out of 
 the Netherlands by the Regent, because of a homicide he had 
 committed, was kept at Weert, by Count Horn, for the pur- 
 pose of murdering the Cardinal. 2 
 
 He affirmed that he was not allowed to request the expulsion 
 of the assassin from the Count's house ; but that he would take 
 care, nevertheless, that neither this ruffian nor any other should 
 accomplish his purpose. A few weeks afterwards, expressing 
 his joy at the contradiction of a report that Philip had himself 
 been assassinated, Granvelle added : "I too, who am but a worm 
 in comparison, am threatened on so many sides, that many must 
 consider me already dead. Nevertheless I will endeavour, with 
 God's help, to live as long as I can, and if they kill me, I hope 
 they will not gain everything."' Yet, with characteristic 
 Jesuitism, the Cardinal could not refrain, even in the very 
 letter in which he detailed the rebellious demonstrations of 
 Berghen, and the murderous schemes of Horn, to protest that 
 he did not say these things " to prejudice his Majesty against 
 any one, but only that it might be known to what a height tho 
 impudence was rising." * Certainly the King and the eccle- 
 siastic, like the Roman soothsayers, would have laughed in 
 each other's face, could they have met, over the hollowness of 
 
 1 "'Que seria?' respondi& el 
 Marques con colera 'par la condieu, 
 nous luy ferona voir ! ' Sobre que 
 callaron todos." Papiers d'Etat, vii. 
 190-194. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 8 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 284. 
 
 4 "No digo esto parer alterar a 
 V. M. contra nadie, mas solo paraqua 
 conosca que crece la desverguenija." 
 etc. Papiers d'Etat, vii. 190-194.
 
 1563.1 
 
 THE MORAL POINTED. 
 
 383 
 
 such demonstrations. Granvelle's letters were filled, for the 
 greater part, with pictures of treason, stratagem, and bloody 
 intentions, fabricated mostly out of reports, table-talk, dis- 
 jointed chat in the careless freedom of domestic intercourse, 
 while at the same time a margin was always left to express 
 his own wounded sense of the injurious suspicions uttered 
 against him by the various subjects of his letters. " God 
 knows," said he to Perez, " that I always speak of them with 
 respect, which is more than they do of me. But God forgive 
 them all. In times like these, one must hold one's tongue. 
 One must keep still, in order not to stir up a hornet's nest." 1 
 
 In short, the Cardinal, little by little, during the last year 
 of his residence in the Netherlands, was enabled to spread a 
 canvas before his sovereign's eye, in which certain prominent 
 figures, highly coloured by patiently accumulated touches, were 
 represented as driving a whole nation, against its own will, 
 into manifest revolt. The estates and the people, he said, were 
 already tired of the proceedings of the nobles, and those per- 
 sonages would find themselves very much mistaken in thinkino- 
 that men who had anything to lose would follow them, when 
 they began a rebellion against his Majesty. 3 On the whole, he 
 was not desirous of prolonging his own residence, although, to 
 do him justice, he was not influenced by fear. He thought, or 
 affected to think, that the situation was one of a factitious 
 popular discontent, procured by the intrigues of a few ambi- 
 tious Catilines and Cethegi, not a rising rebellion such as the 
 world had never seen, born of the slowly awakened wrath of a 
 whole people, after the martyrdom of many years. The remedy 
 that he recommended was that his Majesty should come in 
 person to the provinces. The Monarch would cure the whole 
 disorder as soon as he appeared, said the Cardinal, by merely 
 making the sign of the cross. 3 Whether, indeed, the rapidly- 
 increasing cancer of national discontent would prove a mere 
 
 1 Corresponclance de Philippe II., 
 i. 291. " Por no irritar crabrones." 
 a Papiers d'Etat, vii. 2G4. 
 
 8 "Y con su presencia se podrian 
 remediar sanctiguando." Pu piers 
 d'Etat, rii, 264.
 
 384 THE EISK OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G3. 
 
 king's evil, to be healed by the royal touch, as many persons 
 besides Granvelle believed, was a point not doomed to be 
 tested. From that day forward Philip began to holdouthopes 
 that he would come to administer the desired remedy, but 
 even then it was the opinion of good judges, that he would 
 give millions rather than make his appearance in the Nether- 
 lands. 1 It was even the hope of William of Orange that the 
 King would visit the provinces. He expressed his desire, in 
 a letter to Lazarus Schwendi, that his sovereign should come 
 in person, that he might see whether it had been right to sow 
 so much distrust between himself and his loyal subjects. 3 The 
 Prince asserted that it was impossible for any person not on 
 the spot to imagine the falsehoods and calumnies circulated by 
 Granvelle and his friends, accusing Orange and his associates 
 of rebellion and heresy, in the most infamous manner in the 
 world. He added, in conclusion, that he could write no more, 
 for the mere thought of the manner in which the government 
 of the Netherlands was carried on filled him with disgust and 
 rage. 3 This letter, together with one in a similar strain from 
 Egmont, was transmitted by the valiant and highly intellec- 
 tual soldier to whom they were addressed, to the King of 
 Spain, with an entreaty that he would take warning from the 
 bitter truths which they contained. The colonel, who was a 
 most trusty friend of Orange, wrote afterwards to Margaret 
 of Parma, in the same spirit, warmly urging her to modera- 
 tion in religious matters. This application highly enraged 
 Morillon, the Cardinal's most confidential dependant, who 
 accordingly conveyed the intelligence to his already departed 
 chief, exclaiming in his letter, " What does the ungrateful 
 baboon mean by meddling with our affairs? A pretty 
 state of things, truly, if kings are to choose or retain their 
 ministers at the will of the people ; little does he know of 
 the disasters which would be caused by a relaxation of the 
 edicts." * In the same sense, the Cardinal, just before his 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ii. 184. 
 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 8 Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 90. 
 
 4 " De quoi ee meslo cet ingrat 
 baboin," etc. Papiers d'Efat, viii, 
 427.
 
 1533.] THE BARON OF GROBBENDOXCK. 385 
 
 ileparture which was now imminent, wrote to warn his sove- 
 reign of the seditious character of the men who were then 
 placing their breasts between the people and their butchers. 
 
 It is sufficiently obvious from the picture which we have now 
 presented of the respective attitudes of Granvelle, of the seig- 
 niors, and of the nation, during the whole of the year 15G3, 
 and the beginning of the following year, that a crisis was fast 
 approaching. Granvelle was, for the moment, triumphant ; 
 Orange, Egmont, and Horn had abandoned the state-council ; 
 1'hilip could not yet make up his mind to yield to the storm, 
 and Alva howled defiance at the nobles and the whole people of 
 the Netherlands. Nevertheless, Margaret of Parma was utterly 
 weary of the minister, the Cardinal himself was most anxious to 
 be gone, and the nation for there was a nation, however "vilo 
 the animal " might be was becoming daily more enraged at 
 die presence of a man in whom, whether justly or falsely, it 
 beheld the incarnation of the religious oppression under which 
 they groaned. Meantime, at the close of the year, a new inci- 
 dent came to add to the gravity of the situation. Caspar Schetz, 
 Baron of Grobbendonck, gave a great dinner-party in the month 
 af December 1563. 1 This personage, whose name was prominent 
 for many years in the public affairs of the nation, was one of 
 the four brothers who formed a very opulent and influential 
 mercantile establishment. He was the King's principal factor 
 and financial agent. He was one of the great pillars of the 
 Bourse at Antwerp. He was likewise a tolerable scholar, a 
 detestable poet, an intriguing politician and a corrupt financier. 
 He was regularly in the pay of Sir Thomas Gresham, to whom 
 he furnished secret information, for whom he procured deferen- 
 tial favours, and by whose government he was rewarded by 
 gold chains and presents of hard cash, bestowed as secretly as 
 the equivalent was conveyed adroitly. 2 Nevertheless, although 
 his venality was already more than suspected, and although his 
 peculations during his long career became so extensive that ho 
 was eventually prosecuted by government, and died before the 
 
 1 Hoofd, i. 30- a Burgon, 3G3 3G7. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B
 
 386 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1563. 
 
 process was terminated, the Lord of Grobbendonck was often 
 employed in most delicate negotiations, and, at the present 
 epoch, was a man of much importance in the Netherlands. 
 
 The treasurer-general accordingly gave his memorable ban- 
 quet to a distinguished party of noblemen. The conversation, 
 during dinner, turned, as was inevitable, upon the Cardinal. 
 His ostentation, greediness, insolence, were fully canvassed. 
 The wine flowed freely, as it always did in those Flemish 
 festivities the brains of the proud and reckless cavaliers 
 became hot with excitement, while still the odious ecclesiastic 
 was the topic of their conversation, the object alternately of 
 fierce invective or of scornful mirth. The pompous display 
 which he affected in his equipages, liveries, and all the appur- 
 tenances of his household, had frequently excited their derision, 
 and now afforded fresh matter for their ridicule. The customs 
 of Germany, the simple habiliments in which the retainers of 
 the greatest houses were arrayed in that country, were con- 
 trasted with the tinsel and glitter in which the prelate pranked 
 himself. It was proposed, by way of shewing contempt for 
 Granvelle, that a livery should be forthwith invented, as 
 different as possible from his in general effect, and that all the 
 gentlemen present should indiscriminately adopt it for their own 
 menials. Thus would the people, whom the Cardinal wished to 
 dazzle with his finery, learn to estimate such gauds at their 
 true value. It was determined that something extremely plain, 
 And in the German fashion, should be selected. At the same 
 time, the company, now thoroughly inflamed with wine, and 
 possessed by the spirit of mockery, determined that a symbol 
 should be added to the livery, by which the universal con- 
 tempt for Granvelle should be expressed. The proposition 
 was hailed with acclamation, but who should invent the hiero-- 
 glyphical costume? All were reckless and ready enough, 
 but ingenuity of device was required. At last it was deter- 
 mined to decide the question by hazard. Amid shouts ot 
 hilarity the dice were thrown. Those men were staking their 
 lives, perhaps, upon the issue, but the reflection gave only a
 
 1563.] THE FOOL'S-CAP LIVERY. 387 
 
 keener zest to the gamo. Egmont won. 1 It was the most 
 fatal victory which he had ever achieved, a more deadly prize 
 even than the trophies of St. Quentin and Gravelingen. 
 
 In a few days afterwards, the retainers of the house of 
 Egmont surprised Brussels by making their appearance in a 
 new livery. Doublet and hose of the coarsest gray, and long 
 hanging sleeves, without gold or silver lace, and having but a 
 single ornament, comprised the whole costume. An emblem 
 which seemed to resemble a monk's cowl, or a fool's cap and 
 bells, was embroidered upon each sleeve. The device pointed 
 at the Cardinal, as did, by contrast, the affected coarseness of 
 the dress. There was no doubt as to the meaning of the hood, 
 
 o / 
 
 but they who saw in the symbol more resemblance to the 
 jester's cap, recalled certain biting expressions which Granvelle 
 had been accustomed to use. He had been wont, in the days 
 of his greatest insolence, to speak of the most eminent nobles 
 as zanies, lunatics, and buffoons. The embroidered fool's cap 
 was supposed to typify the gibe, and to remind the arrogant 
 priest that a Brutus, as in the olden time, might be found 
 lurking in the costume of a fool. 3 However witty or appro- 
 priate the invention, the livery had an immense success. 
 According to agreement, the nobles who had dined with the 
 treasurer ordered it for all their servants. Never did a new 
 dress become so soon the fashion. The unpopularity of the 
 minister assisted the quaintness of the device. The fool's-cap 
 livery became the rage. Never was such a run upon the 
 haberdashers, mercers, and tailors, since Brussels had been a 
 city. All the frieze-cloth in Brabant was exhausted. All the 
 serge in Flanders was clipped into monastic cowls. The 
 Duchess at first laughed with the rest, but the Cardinal took 
 care that the King should be at once informed upon the sub- 
 ject. The Regent was, perhaps, not extremely sorry to see the 
 man ridiculed whom she so cordially disliked, and she accepted 
 the careless excuses made on the subject by Egmont and by 
 Orange without severe criticism. She wrote to her brother 
 4 Hoof d, i. 39, 40. Strada, IT. 132, 133. Bentiroglio, M7. Strada.
 
 388 TEE RISE OF THE DUTCH BEPUBLIC. fl56). 
 
 that, although the gentlemen had been influenced by no evil 
 intention, she had thought it best to exhort them not to push 
 the jest too far. 1 Already, however, she found that two 
 thousand pairs of sleeves 2 had been made, and the most she 
 could obtain was, that the fools' caps, or monks' hoods, should 
 in future be omitted from the livery. 3 A change was accord- 
 ingly made in the costume, at about the time of the Cardinal's 
 departure. A bundle of arrows, or in some instances a wheat- 
 sheaf, was substituted for the cowls. 4 Various interpretations 
 were placed upon this new emblem. According to the nobles 
 themselves, it denoted the union of all their hearts in the 
 King's service, while their enemies insinuated that it was 
 obviously a symbol of conspiracy. 5 The costume thus amended 
 was worn by the gentlemen themselves, as well as by their 
 servants. Kgmont dined at the Regent's table, after the 
 Cardinal's departure, in a camlet doublet, with hanging 
 sleeves, and buttons stamped with the bundle of arrows. 6 
 
 For the present the Cardinal affected to disapprove of the 
 fashion only from its rebellious tendency. The fools' caps and 
 cowls, he meekly observed to Philip, were the least part of 
 the offence, for an injury to himself could be easily forgiven. 
 The wheat-sheaf and the arrow -bundles, however, were very 
 vile things, for they betokened and confirmed the existence 
 of a conspiracy, such as never could be tolerated by a prince 
 who had any regard for his own authority. 7 
 
 This incident of the livery occupied the public attention, and 
 inflamed the universal hatred during the latter months of the 
 minister's residence in the country. Meantime the three seig- 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., | 7 "Muy ruin pnnto es el de la 
 j. 294-297. 2 Ibid. J Ibid, librea que ban sacado aquellos seuores 
 
 * Papiers d'Etat, vii. 455. I y BUS adherent* no por la invencion 
 
 mip. 
 
 Strada. Hoofd. Bentiyoglio, ubi 
 Portant une cabotte a leur mode 
 
 de las cabe$as de locos y capiro'es 
 que es lo menos, sino porque parece 
 dar confirmacion de liga cosa no 
 
 de camelot sans unde, garnie de I 9ufridera debaxo de un principe que 
 fcoutons d'argeat, avec flesches, et le tenga cuenta con su authoridad en 
 bonnet de mesmes boutons d'argent." stis estados." Papiers d'Etat, fii. 
 G. Y. Prinst., Archives, etc., i. 263. 503.
 
 1564.] A COMPLICATED FALSEHOOD. 389 
 
 niors liad become very impatient at receiving no answer to 
 their letter. Margaret of Parma was urging her brother to give 
 them satisfaction, repeating to him their bitter complaints that 
 their characters and conduct were the subject of constant mis- 
 representation to their sovereign, and picturing her own isolated 
 condition. She represented herself as entirely deprived of the 
 support of those great personages, who, despite her positive 
 assurances to the contrary, persisted in believing that they were 
 held up to the King as conspirators, and were in danger of being 
 punished as traitors. 1 Philip, on his part, was conning Gran- 
 velle's despatches, filled with hints of conspiracy, and holding 
 council with Alva, who had already recommended the taking 
 off' several heads for treason. The Prince of Orange, who 
 already had secret agents in the King's household, and was sup- 
 plied with copies of the most private papers in the palace, knew 
 better than to be deceived by the smooth representations of the 
 Regent. Philip had, however, at last begun secretly to yield. 
 He asked Alva's advice, 1 whether on the whole it would not be 
 better to let the Cardinal leave the Netherlands, at least for a 
 time, on pretence of visiting his mother in Burgundy, and to 
 invite Count Egmont to Madrid, by way of striking one link 
 from the chain, as Granvelle had suggested. The Duke had 
 replied that he had no doubt of the increasing insolence of the 
 three seigniors, as depicted in the letters of the Duchess Mar- 
 garet, nor of their intention to make the Cardinal their first 
 victim ; it being the regular principle in all revolts against 
 the sovereign, to attack the chief minister in the first place. 
 He could not, however, persuade himself that the King should 
 yield and Granvelle be recalled. Nevertheless, if it were to 
 be done at all, he preferred that the Cardinal should go to 
 Burgundy without leave asked either of the Duchess or ot 
 Philip, and that he should then write, declining to return, on 
 the ground that his life was not safe in the Netherlands. 3 
 
 & 
 
 After much hesitation, the monarch at last settled upon a 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 275, 270, 283. 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 273, 291, 31C. 
 Ibid., vii. 2S9-291.
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1564. 
 
 plan, which recommended itself through the extreme duplicity 
 by which it was marked, and the complicated system of small 
 deceptions which it consequently required. The King, who 
 was never so thoroughly happy or at home as when elaborating 
 the ingredients of a composite falsehood, now busily employed 
 himself in his cabinet. He measured off, in various letters 
 to the Regent, to the three nobles, to Egmont alone, and to 
 Granvelle, certain proportionate parts of his whole plan, which, 
 taken separately, were intended to deceive, and did deceive, 
 nearly every person in the world, not only in his own genera- 
 tion, but for three centuries afterwards, but which, arranged 
 synthetically, as can now be done, in consequence of modern 
 revelations, formed one complete and considerable lie, the 
 observation of which furnishes the student with a lesson in 
 the political chemistry of those days, which was called 
 Machiavellian statesmanship. The termination of the Gran- 
 velle regency is, moreover, most important, not only for the 
 grave and almost interminable results to which it led, but for 
 the illustration which it affords of the inmost characters of the 
 Cardinal and "his master." 
 
 The courier who was to take Philip's letters to the three 
 nobles was detained three weeks, in order to allow Armenteros, 
 who was charged with the more important and secret despatches 
 for the Duchess and Granvelle, to reach Brussels first. All 
 the letters, however, were ready at the same time. The letter 
 of instructions for Armenteros enjoined upon that envoy to tell 
 the Eegent that the heretics were to be cl astised with renewed 
 vigour, that she was to refuse to convoke the states-general 
 under any pretext, and that if hard pressed, she was to refer 
 directly to the King. With regard to Granvelle, the secre- 
 tary was to state that his Majesty was still deliberating, and 
 that the Duchess would be informed as to the decision when 
 it should be made. He was to express the royal astonish- 
 ment that the seigniors should absent themselves from 
 the state council, with a peremptory intimation that they 
 should immediately return to their posts. As they had
 
 1564.] 
 
 THE HEAET OP THE MYSTERY. 
 
 391 
 
 specified no particularities against the Cardinal, the King 
 would still reflect upon the subject. 1 
 
 He also wrote a private note to the Duchess, stating that he 
 had not yet sent the letters for the three nobles, because he 
 wished that Armenteros should arrive before their courier.* 
 He, however, enclosed two notes for Egmont, 3 of which 
 Margaret was to deliver that one which, in her opinion, was, 
 under the circumstances, the best. In one of these missives 
 the King cordially accepted, and in the other he politely de- 
 clined, Egmont's recent offer to visit Spain. He also for- 
 warded a private letter in his own handwriting to the 
 Cardinal. Armenteros, who travelled but slowly on account 
 of the state of his health, arrived in Brussels towards the end 
 of February. Five or six days afterwards on the 1st 
 March, namely, 4 the courier arrived bringing the despatches 
 for the seigniors. In his letter to Orange, Egmont, and 
 Horn, the King expressed his astonishment at their resolution 
 to abstain from the state-council. Nevertheless, said he, 
 imperatively, fail not to return thither, and to shew how 
 much more highly you regard my service and the good of 
 the country than any other particularity whatever. 5 As to 
 Granvelle, continued Philip, since you will not make any 
 specifications, my intention is to think over the matter longer, 
 in order to arrange it as may seem most fitting. 6 
 
 This letter was dated February 19 (1564), 7 nearly a month 
 later therefore than the secret letter to Granvelle, brought by 
 Armenteros, although all the despatches had been drawn up 
 at the same time, and formed parts of the same plan. In 
 this brief note to Granvelle, however, lay the heart of the 
 whole mystery. 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 j. 285, 286. 
 
 3 Correspondance de Guillaume le 
 Tacife., ii. 67, 68. 
 
 3 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 284, 285. 
 
 * " Sur la chute du Cardinal de 
 Granvelle." Par M. Gachard (Bul- 
 
 letins de 1' Academic Eoyale de Bel- 
 gique, xvi., No. 6), p. 22. 
 
 6 Cor. de G. le Tacit., ii. 67, 68. 
 
 8 "Puisque vous ne voulez dire 
 les particularit^s, mon intention est 
 d'y penser encoirea pour y pourveoif 
 comrne il conviendra." Ibid. 
 
 7 Ibid.
 
 392 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1564. 
 
 "1 have reflected much," wrote the King, l( on all that you 
 have written me during these last few months, concerning the 
 ill-will borne you by several personages. I notice also your 
 suspicions that if a revolt breaks out, they will commence with 
 your person, thus taking occasion to proceed from that point to 
 the accomplishment of their ulterior designs. I have particu- 
 larly taken into consideration the notice received by you from 
 the curate of Saint Gudule, as well as that which you have 
 learned concerning the Genoese who is kept at Weert ; all which 
 has given me much anxiety, as well from my desire for the 
 preservation of your life, in which my service is so deeply 
 interested, as for the possible results if anything should happen 
 to you, which God forbid. I have thought, therefore, that it 
 would be well, in order to give time and breathing space to 
 the hatred and rancour which those persons entertain towards 
 you, and in order to see what course they will take in preparing 
 the necessary remedy for the provinces, for you to leave the 
 country for some days, in order to visit your mother, and this 
 with the knowledge of the Duchess, my sister, and with her 
 permission, which you will request, and which I have written 
 to her that she must give, without allowing it to appear that 
 you have received orders to that effect from me. You will also 
 beg her to write to me requesting my approbation of what she 
 is to do. By taking this course neither my authority nor yours 
 will suffer prejudice; and according to the turn which things 
 may take, measures may be taken for your return when ex- 
 pedient, and for whatever else there may be to arrange." l 
 
 Thus, in two words, Philip removed the unpopular minister 
 for ever. The limitation of his absence had no meaning, and 
 was intended to have none. If there was not strength enough 
 to keep the Cardinal in his place, it was not probable that the 
 
 1 Tbe text of this famous note is 
 given in a paper extracted from the 
 "Bulletins de 1'Academie Royale de 
 Bruxelles," torn. xii. pp. 9, 10, by 
 M. G-achard. That acute historical 
 uiveitig itor, to whom the discovery of 
 
 this secret billet is due, well remarks : 
 " L' Academic comprendra la joie quo 
 me fit 6prouver cette de'couverte ; oe 
 sont la des jouissances qui dedom- 
 magent de bien des fatigues, de bien 
 des ennuis." P. 9.
 
 1564.1 
 
 GRAKVELLE'S EXIT. 
 
 393 
 
 more difficult task of reinstating him after bis fall would be 
 very soon attempted. It seemed, however, to be dealing 
 more tenderly with Granvelle's self-respect thus to leave a 
 vague opening for a possible return, than to send him an 
 unconditional dismissal. 
 
 Thus, while the King refused to give any weight to the 
 representations of the nobles, and affected to be still deliberat- 
 ing whether or not he should recall the Cardinal, he had in 
 reality already recalled him. All the minute directions 
 according to which permission was to be asked of the 
 Duchess to take a step which had already been prescribed by 
 the monarch, and Philip's indulgence craved for obeying his 
 own explicit injunctions, were fulfilled to the letter. 
 
 As soon as the Cardinal received the royal order, he privately 
 made preparations for his departure. The Regent, on the other 
 hand, delivered to Count Egmont the one of Philip's two letters 
 in which that gentleman's visit was declined, 1 the Duchess 
 believing that, in the present position of affairs, she should 
 derive more assistance from him than from the rest of the 
 seigniors. As Granvelle, however, still delayed his departure, 
 even after the arrival of the second courier, she was again placed 
 in a situation of much perplexity. The three nobles considered 
 Philip's letter to them extremely (e dry and laconic," 2 and 
 Orange absolutely refused to comply with the order to re-enter 
 the state-council. At a session of that body on the 3d of 
 March, where only Granvelle, Viglius, and Berlaymont were 
 present, Margaret narrated her fruitless attempts to persuade 
 the seigniors into obedience to the royal orders lately transmitted, 
 and asked their opinions. The extraordinary advice was then 
 given, that tf she should let them champ the bit a little while 
 longer, and afterwards see what was to be done." a Even at 
 the last moment, the Cardinal, reluctantto acknowledge himself 
 beaten, although secretly desirous to retire, was inclined for a 
 
 1 Corresp. de Phil. II., i. 291-293. les laisser encoires quelque peu ronger 
 
 8 Corrtspondance de Guillaume Je le f rain sur cecy et apres regarder." 
 
 Tacit., ii. 09, 70. Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 
 
 a " Sur quoy sembla qu'elle devroit 294-297.
 
 394 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUELIO. 
 
 [1564. 
 
 parting struggle. The Duchess, however, being now armed 
 with the King's express commands, and having had enough of 
 holding the reins while such powerful and restive personages 
 were tl champing the bit," insisted privately that the Cardinal 
 should make his immediate departure known. 1 Pasquinades 
 and pamphlets were already appearing daily, each more bitter 
 than the other ; the livery was spreading rapidly through all 
 classes of people, and the seigniors most distinctly refused to 
 recede from their determination of absenting themselves from 
 the council so long as Granvelle remained. 2 There was no 
 help for it, and on the 13th of March 3 the Cardinal took his 
 departure. Notwithstanding the mystery of the whole pro- 
 ceeding, however, William of Orange was not deceived. He 
 felt certain that the minister had been recalled, and thought it 
 highly improbable that he would ever be permitted to return. 
 i Although the Cardinal talks of coming back again soon," 
 wrote the Prince to Schwartzburg, " we nevertheless hope that, 
 as he lied about his departure, so he will also spare the truth 
 in his present assertions." 4 This was the general conviction, 
 so far as the question of the minister's compulsory retreat was 
 concerned, of all those who were in the habit of receiving their 
 information and their opinions from the Prince of Orange. 
 Many even thought that Granvelle had been recalled with 
 indignity, and much against his will. " When the Cardinal," 
 wrote Secretary Lori ch to Count Louis, "received the King's 
 order to go, he growled like a bear, and kept himself alone in 
 his chamber for a time, making his preparations for depar- 
 ture. He says he shall come back in two months, but some 
 of us think they will be two long months, which will eat them- 
 selves lip like money borrowed of the Jews." 5 A wag, 
 moreover, posted a large placard upon the door of Granvelle's 
 palace in Brussels as soon as the minister's departure was 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 294-297. 
 
 a Ibid. 
 
 3 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 i. 219. * Ibid., 277. 
 
 8 Ibid., 228, 229. "Halt er ge- 
 
 brombt wie ein bar etc., etc. es 
 
 werden zwen lange monat sein und, 
 gleic-h der Juden wuchcr ufliaufen und 
 sich selber Tersichern. : '
 
 15G4.] GENTEEL COMEDY. 395 
 
 known with the inscription, in large letters, " For sale, im- 
 mediately." 1 In spite of the royal ingenuity, therefore, 
 many shrewdly suspected the real state of the case, although 
 but very few actually knew the truth. 
 
 The Cardinal left Brussels with a numerous suite, stately 
 equipages, and much parade. The Duchess provided him with 
 her own mules and with a sufficient escort, for the King had 
 .'expressly enjoined that every care should be taken against 
 any murderous attack. There was no fear of such assault, 
 however, for all were sufficiently satisfied to see the minister 
 depart. Brederode and Count Hoogstraaten were standing 
 together, looking from the window of a house near the gate 
 of Caudenberg, to feast their eyes with the spectacle of their 
 enemy's retreat As soon as the Cardinal had passed 
 through that gate, on his way to Namur, the first stage of his 
 journey, they rushed into the street, got both upon one horse, 
 Hoogstraaten, who alone had boots on his legs, taking the 
 saddle, and Brederode the croup, and galloped after the Car- 
 dinal, with the exultation of school-boys. 2 Thus mounted, 
 they continued to escort the Cardinal on his journey. At one 
 time, they were so near his carriage while it Avas passing through 
 a ravine, that they might have spoken to him from the heights 
 above, where they had paused to observe him ; but they pulled 
 the capes of their cloaks over their faces and suffered him to 
 pass unchallenged. u But they are young folk," said the Car- 
 dinal, benignantly, after relating all these particulars to the 
 Duchess, ll and one should pay little regard to their actions." 
 He added, that one of Egmont's gentlemen dogged the party 
 on the journey, lodging in the same inns with them, appa- 
 rently in the hope of learning something from their conversa- 
 tion or proceedings. If that were the man's object, however, 
 Granvelle expressed the conviction that he was disappointed, 
 as nothing could have been more merry than the whole com- 
 pany, or more discreet than their conversation. 3 
 
 The Cardinal began at once to put into operation the system 
 Pontus Payen MS. a Papiers d'Etat, vii. 426. 3 Ibid., yii. 409, 410
 
 396 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15C.4. 
 
 of deception, as to his departure, which had been planned by 
 Philip. The man who had been ordered to leave the Nether- 
 lands by the King, and pushed into immediate compliance 
 with the royal command by the Duchess, proceeded to address 
 letters both to Philip and Margaret. He wrote from Namur 
 to beg the Regent that she would not fail to implore his 
 Majesty graciously to excuse his having absented himself for 
 private reasons at that particular moment. 1 He wrote to 
 Philip from Besanc.on, stating that his desire to visit his 
 mother, whom he had not seen for nineteen years, and his 
 natal soil, to which he had been a stranger during the same 
 period, had induced him to take advantage of his brother's 
 journey to accompany him for a few days into Burgundy. 2 
 He had, therefore, he said, obtained the necessary permission 
 from the Duchess, who had kindly promised to write very par- 
 ticularly by the first courier, to beg his Majesty's approval of 
 the liberty which they had both taken. 3 He wrote from the 
 same place to the Regent again, saying that some of the nobles 
 pretended to have learned from Armenteros that the King 
 had ordered the Cardinal to leave the country and not return ; 
 all which, he added, was a very false Rena::desque invention, 
 at which he did nothing but laugh. 4 
 
 As a matter of course, his brother, in whose company he 
 was about to visit the mother whom he had not seen for the 
 past nineteen years, was as much mystified as the rest of the 
 world. 5 Chantonnay was not aware that anything but the 
 alleged motives had occasioned the journey, nor did he know 
 that his brother would perhaps have omitted to visit their 
 common parent for nineteen years longer had he not received 
 the royal order to leave the Netherlands. 
 
 Philip, on the other side, had sustained his part in the farce 
 with much ability. Viglius, Berlaymont, Morillon, and all the 
 lesser cardinalists were entirely taken in by the letters which 
 were formally dispatched to the Duchess in reply to her own 
 
 1 Papiers d'E'at, vii. 409, 410. I * Ibid., vii. 501. 
 
 Ibid., vii. 483, 484. 3 Ibid. Ibid., is. 5G. r >.
 
 1564.] MYSTIFICATION. 397 
 
 and the Cardinal's notification. " I cannot take it amiss," 
 wrote the King, " that you have given leave of absence to 
 Cardinal de Granvelle, for two or three months, according to 
 the advices just received from you, that he may attend to some 
 private affairs of his own." l As soon as these letters had 
 been read in the council, Viglius faithfully transmitted 
 them to Granvello for that personage's enlightenment ; adding 
 his own innocent reflection, that " this was very different 
 language from that held by some people, that your most 
 illustrious lordship had retired by order of his Majesty." a 
 Morillon also sent the Cardinal a copy of the same passage in 
 the royal despatch, saying, very wisely, " I wonder what they 
 will all say now, since these letters have been read in council."* 
 The Duchess, as in duty bound, denied flatly, on all occasions, 
 that Armenteros had brought any letters recommending or 
 ordering the minister's retreat* She conscientiously displayed 
 the letters of his Majesty, proving the contrary, and yet, said 
 Viglius, it was very hard to prevent people talking as they 
 liked. 5 Granvelle omitted no occasion to mystify every one 
 of his correspondents on the subject, referring, of course, to 
 the same royal letters which had been written for public 
 reading, expressly to corroborate these statements. " You 
 see by his Majesty's letters to Madame de Parma," said he to 
 Morillon, " how false is the report that the King had ordered 
 me to leave Flanders, and in what confusion those persons 
 find themselves who fabricated the story.'" It followed 
 of necessity that he should carry out his part in the royal 
 programme, but he accomplished his task so adroitly, and 
 with such redundancy of zeal, as to show his thorough sym- 
 pathy with the King's policy. He dissembled with better 
 grace, even if the King did it more naturally. Nobody was 
 too insignificant to be deceived, nobody too august. Emperor 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 603-G38. 
 
 2 Ibid. Letter of Viglius to Gran- 
 Vtlle, 9th May, 156i. 
 
 3 Ibid., 638. 
 
 * " La Duchesse renia fort et ferme 
 quo Arinenteros avait apporte aucuues 
 
 let' res de vostre restraicte, et monstroit 
 bien par les dernieres lettres de S. 
 Maj. le contraire," etc. Ibid. 
 
 5 Ibid. 
 
 8 Ibid., Tiii. 108.
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1564. 
 
 Ferdinand fared no better than " Esquire " Bordey. " Some of 
 those who hate me," he wrote to the potentate, " have circulated 
 the report that I had been turned out of the country, and was 
 never to return. This story has ended in smoke, since the 
 letters written by his Majesty to the Duchess of Parma on the 
 subject of the leave of absence which she had given me." 1 
 Philip himself addressed a private letter to Granvelle, of course 
 that others might see it, in which he affected to have just learned 
 that the Cardinal had obtained permission from the Regent u to 
 make a visit to his mother, in order to arrange certain family 
 matters," and gravely gave his approbation to the step. 2 At 
 the same time it was not possible for the King to resist the 
 temptation of adding one other stroke of dissimulation to his 
 own share in the comedy. Granvelle and Philip had deceived 
 all the world, but Philip also deceived Granvelle. The Car- 
 dinal made a mystery of his departure to Pollwiller, Yiglius, 
 Morillon, to the Emperor, to his own brother, and also to the 
 King's secretary, Gonzalo Perez ; but he was not aware that 
 Perez, whom he thought himself deceiving as ingeniously as 
 he had done all the others, had himself drawn up the letter of 
 recall, which the King had afterwards copied out in his own 
 hand and marked le secret and confidential." 3 Yet Granvelle 
 might have guessed that in such an emergency Philip would 
 hardly depend upon his own literary abilities. 
 
 Granvelle remained month after month in seclusion, doing 
 his best to philosophise. Already, during the latter period of 
 his residence in the Netherlands, he had lived in a comparative 
 and forced solitude. His house had been avoided by those 
 power- worshippers whose faces are rarely turned to the setting 
 sun. He had, in consequence, already, before his departure, 
 begun to discourse on the beauties of retirement, the fatigues 
 of greatness, and the necessity of repose for men broken with 
 the storms of state. 4 A great man was like a lake, he said, to 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 113. 
 
 2 Ibid., 218, 219. 
 
 8 M. Gachard. Bull, de 1'Acad. 
 Roy., xii. 11. 
 
 4 " Optandum homini laboribus 
 fracto requietem," etc., etc. Strada, 
 iv. 135.
 
 15S4.] GRANVELLE IN RETIREMENT. 399 
 
 which a thirsty multitude habitually resorted till the waters 
 were troubled, sullied, and finally exhausted. 1 Power looked 
 more attractive in front than in the retrospect. That which 
 men possessed was ever of less value than that which they 
 hoped.* In this fine strain of eloquent commonplace the 
 falling minister had already begun to moralise upon the vanity 
 of human wishes. When he was establised at his charming 
 retreat at Burgundy, he had full leisure to pursue the theme. 
 He remained in retirement till his beard grew to his waist,* 
 having vowed, according to report, that he would not shave 
 till recalled to the Netherlands. If the report were true, said 
 some of the gentlemen in the provinces, it would be likely to 
 grow to his feet.* He professed to wish himself blind and 
 deaf, 6 that he might have no knowledge of the world's events^ 
 described himself as buried in literature, and fit for no busi- 
 ness save to remain in his chamber, fastened to his books, or 
 occupied with private affairs and religious exercises. 6 He 
 possessed a most charming residence at Orchamps, where he 
 spent a great portion of his time. In one of his letters to 
 Vice-Chancellor Seld, he described the beauties of this retreat 
 with much delicacy and vigour : " I am really not as badly 
 off here," said he, " as I should be in the Indies. I am in 
 sweet places where I have wished for you a thousand times, 
 for I am certain that you would think them appropriate for 
 philosophy and worthy the habitation of the Muses. Here 
 are beautiful mountains, high as heaven, fertile on all their 
 sides, wreathed with vineyards and rich with every fruit; 
 here are rivers flowing through charming valleys, the waters 
 clear as crystal, filled with trout, breaking into numberless 
 cascades. Here are umbrageous groves, fertile fields, lovely 
 meadows ; on the one side great warmth, on the other side 
 delectable coolness, despite the summer's heat. Nor is there 
 any lack of good company, friends, and relations, with, as you 
 well know, the very best wines in the world." 7 
 
 1 Strada, iv. 135. 2 Ibid. 6 Ibid., viii. 91, 102. Groen T. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 218, 219. Prinst. Arcbives. i. 428. 
 
 * Ibid. 8 Ibid., viii. 91. 7 Papiers d'Etat. viii. 115.
 
 400 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1564. 
 
 Thus, it is obvious that the Cardinal was no ascetic. His 
 hermitage contained other appliances save those for study and 
 devotion. His retired life was, in fact, that of a voluptuary, 
 His brother, Chantonnay, reproached him with the sumptuous- 
 ness and disorder of his establishment. 1 He lived in " good 
 and jo} r ous cheer." He professed to be thoroughly satisfied 
 with the course things had taken, knowing that God was above 
 all, and would take care of all. He avowed his determination 
 to extract pleasure and profit even from the ill-will of his adver- 
 saries. " Behold my philosophy," he cried, "to live joyously as 
 possible, laughing at the world, at passionate people, and at all 
 their calumnies." a It is evident that his philosophy, if it had 
 any real existence, was sufficiently Epicurean. It was, how- 
 ever, mainly compounded of pretence, like his whole nature 
 and his whole life. Notwithstanding the mountains high as 
 heaven, the cool grottos, the trout, and the Burgundy, concern- 
 ing which lie descanted so eloquently, he soon became most 
 impatient of his compulsory seclusion. His pretence of " com- 
 posing himself as much as possible to tranquillity and repose," 3 
 could deceive none of the intimate associates to whom he ad- 
 dressed himself in that edifying vein. While he affected to be 
 blind and deaf to politics, he had eyes and ears for nothing else. 
 Worldly affairs were his element, and he was shipwrecked upon 
 ths charming solitude which he affected to admire. He was 
 most anxious to return to the world again, but he had diffi- 
 cult cards to play. His master was even more dubious than 
 usual about everything. Granvelle was ready to remain in 
 Burgundy as long as Philip chose that he should remain there. 
 He was also ready to go to " India, Peru, or into the fire," 
 whenever his King should require any such excursion, or to 
 return to the Netherlands, confronting any danger which 
 might lie in his path. 4 It is probable that he nourished 
 for a long time a hope that the storm would blow over in the 
 provinces, and his resumption of power become possible. 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 i. 428. (Note.) 
 a Ibid., 210. 
 
 i. 311. 
 
 Papiers d'Etat, viii. 91. 
 
 Ibid., viii. 103. Green v. Prinst*
 
 1564.] SCHOOL BROKE LOOSE. 40l 
 
 William of Orange, although more than half convinced that 
 QO attempt would be made to replace the minister, felt it neces- 
 sary to keep strict watch on his movements. " We must be on 
 our guard," said he, " and not be deceived. Perhaps they mean 
 to put us asleep, in order the better to execute their designs. 
 For the present things are peaceable, and all the world is 
 rejoiced at the departure of that good Cardinal." 1 The Prince 
 never committed the error of undervaluing the talents of his 
 great adversary, and he felt the necessity of being on the alert 
 in the present emergency. " 'Tis a sly and cunning bird that 
 we are dealing with," said he, " one that sleeps neither day nor 
 night if a blow is to be dealt to us." a Honest Brederode, after 
 solacing himself with the spectacle of his enemy's departure, 
 soon began to suspect his return, and to express himself on the 
 subject, as usual, with ludicrous vehemence. " They say the 
 red fellow is back again," he wrote to Count Louis, " and that 
 Berlaymont has gone to meet him at Namur. The devil after 
 the two would be a good chase." s Nevertheless, the chances of 
 that return became daily fainter. Margaret of Parma hated 
 the Cardinal with great cordiality. She fell out of her servi- 
 tude to him into far more contemptible hands, but for a brief 
 interval she seemed to take a delight in the recovery of her 
 freedom. According to Viglius, the court, after GranvehVs 
 departure, was like a school of boys and girls when the peda- 
 gogue's back is turned. 4 He was very bitter against the 
 Duchess for her manifest joy at emancipation. 5 The poor Pre- 
 sident was treated with the most marked disdain by Margaret, 
 who also took pains to show her dislike to all the cardinalists. 
 Secretary Armenteros forbade Bordey, who was Granvelle's 
 cousin and dependant, from] even speaking to him in public. 6 
 The Regent soon became more intimate with Orange and 
 Eo-mont than she had ever been with the Cardinal. She was 
 made to see and, seeing, she became indignant the cipher 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archiyes, i. 227, 
 
 228. 
 
 a Ibid., 250. a Ibid., i. 305. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
 * Vit. Viglii, 38. 
 
 5 Ibid. 
 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, yii. 503.
 
 402 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G4. 
 
 which she had really been during his administration. " One 
 can tell what's o'clock," 1 wrote Morillon to the fallen minister, 
 " since she never writes to you nor mentions your name." 
 As to Armenteros, with whom Granvelle was still on friendly 
 relations, he was restless in his endeavours to keep the once 
 powerful priest from rising again. Having already wormed 
 himself into the confidence of the Regent, he made a point 
 of showing to the principal seigniors various letters, in which 
 she had been warned by the Cardinal to put no trust in 
 them. " That devil," said Armenteros, " thought he had got 
 into Paradise here : but he is gone, and we shall take care 
 that he never returns." 2 It was soon thought highly proba- 
 ble that the King was but temporising, and that the voluntary 
 departure of the minister had been a deception. Of course, 
 nothing was accurately known upon the subject. Philip had 
 taken good care of that, but meantime the bets were very 
 high that there would be no restoration. Men thought if 
 there had been any royal favour remaining for the great man, 
 that the Duchess would not be so decided in her demeanour 
 on the subject. They saw that she was scarlet with indigna- 
 tion whenever the Cardinal's name was mentioned. 3 They 
 heard her thank Heaven that she had but one son, because if 
 she had had a second, he must have been an ecclesiastic, and 
 as vile as priests always were. 4 They witnessed the daily con- 
 tumely which she heaped upon poor Viglius, both because ho 
 was a friend of Granvelle, and was preparing in his old age to 
 take orders. The days were gone, indeed, when Margaret was 
 so filled with respectful affection for the prelate, that she 
 could secretly correspond with the Holy Father at Rome, and 
 solicit the red hat for the object of her veneration. She now 
 wrote to Philip, stating that she was better informed as to 
 affairs in the Netherlands than she had ever formerly been. 
 She told her brother that all the views of Granvelle and of his 
 followers, Viglius with the rest, had tended to produce a revo- 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, viii. 132 "Quo 
 
 son Alteze devient rouge comine escar- 
 
 L'on peult facillement 
 
 P 
 
 quelle Leure il esr," etc., etc. Papiers 
 d'Etat, viii. 92-94. 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 late quand Ton parle de V. S.," etc. 
 Paoiers d'Etat ?iii. 1G2.
 
 1564.] CONFLICTING STATEMENTS. 403 
 
 lution which they hoped that Philip would find in full opera- 
 tion when he should come to the Netherlands. It was their 
 object, she said, to fish in troubled waters, and to attain that 
 aim, they had ever pursued the plan of gaining the exclusive 
 control of all affairs. That was the reason why they had ever 
 opposed the convocation of the states-general. They feared 
 that their boohs would be read, and their frauds, injustice, 
 simony and rapine discovered. 1 This would be the result, if 
 tranquillity were restored to the country, and therefore thev 
 had done their best to foment and maintain discord. The 
 Duchess soon afterwards entertained her royal brother with 
 very detailed accounts of various acts of simony, peculation, 
 and embezzlement committed by Viglius, which the Cardinal 
 had aided and abetted, and by which he had profited. 2 These 
 revelations are inestimable in a historical point of view. They 
 do not raise our estimate of Margaret's character, but they 
 certainly give us a clear insight into the nature of the 
 Granvelle administration. At the same time it was charac- 
 teristic of the Duchess, that while she was thus painting the 
 portrait of the Cardinal for the private eye of his sovereign, 
 she should address the banished minister himself in a secret 
 strain of condolence, and even of penitence. She wrote to 
 assure Granvelle that she repented extremely having adopted 
 the views of Orange. She promised that she would state 
 publicly everywhere that the Cardinal was an upright man, 
 intact in his morals and his administration, a most zealous 
 and faithful servant of the King. 3 She added that she recog- 
 nised the obligations she was under to him, and that she loved 
 him like a brother. 4 She affirmed that if the Flemish seigniors 
 had induced her to cause the Cardinal to be deprived of the 
 government, she was already penitent, and that her fault 
 deserved that the King, her brother, should cut off her head, 
 for having occasioned so great a calamity. 5 
 
 1 Correspond, de Philippe II., i. 
 311-314. 
 
 2 Ibid., i. 318-320. 
 
 8 Dom 1'Evesque, ii. 71. * Ibid. 
 
 5 Dom 1'Evosque, ubi sup. He 
 cites the MS. collection entitled " Me- 
 inoires de Granvelle, ' ' torn, xniii. p. 67.
 
 404 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G4. 
 
 There was certainly discrepancy between the language thus 
 used simultaneously by the Duchess to Granvelle and to 
 Philip, but Margaret had been trained in the School of 
 Machiavelli, and had sat at the feet of Loyola. 
 
 The Cardinal replied with equal suavity, protesting that 
 such a letter from the Duchess left him nothing more to 
 desire, as it furnished him with an " entire and perfect justi- 
 fication " of his conduct. 1 He was aware of her real sentiments, 
 no doubt, but he was too politic to quarrel with so important 
 a personage as Philip's sister. 
 
 An incident which occurred a few months after the 
 minister's departure, served to show the general estimation in 
 which he was held by all ranks of the Netherlanders. Count 
 Mansfeld celebrated the baptism of his son, Philip Oetavian,. 
 by a splendid series of festivities at Luxemburg, the capital of 
 his government. Besides the tournaments and similar sports, 
 with which the tipper classes of European society were accus- 
 tomed at that day to divert themselves, there was a grand 
 masquerade, to which the public were admitted as spectators. 
 In this " mummery " the most successful spectacle was that 
 presented by a group arranged in obvious ridicule of 
 Granvelle. A figure dressed in cardinal's costume, with the 
 red hat upon his head, came pacing through the arena upon 
 horseback. Before him marched a man attired like a hermit, 
 with long white beard, telling his beads upon a rosary, which 
 he held ostentatiously in his hands. Behind the mounted 
 Cardinal came the Devil, attired in the usual guise considered 
 appropriate to the Prince of Darkness, who scourged both 
 horse and rider with a whip of fox-tails, causing them to 
 scamper about the lists in great trepidation, to the immense 
 delight of the spectators. The practical pun upon Simon 
 Renard's name embodied in the fox-tail, with the allusion 
 to the effect of the manifold squibs perpetrated by that most 
 bitter and lively enemy upon Granvelle, were understood and 
 relished by the multitude. Nothing could be more hearty 
 
 * Pom I'Eyesque, ii. 71, 72. MSmoires de Granvelle, torn, xxxiii. p. 95.
 
 1564.] 
 
 THE CARDINALISTS ROUTED. 
 
 405 
 
 than the blows bestowed upon the minister's representative, 
 except the applause with which this satire, composed of 
 actual fustigation, was received. The humorous spectacle 
 absorbed all the interest of the masquerade, and was frequently 
 repeated. It seemed difficult to satisfy the general desire to 
 witness a thorough chastisement of the culprit. 1 
 
 The incident made a great noise in the country. The 
 cardinalists felt naturally very much enraged, but they were 
 in a minority. No censure came from the government at 
 Brussels, and Mansfeld was then, and for a long time after- 
 wards, the main pillar of royal authority in the Netherlands. 
 It was sufficiently obvious that Granvelle, for the time at 
 least, was supported by no party of any influence. 
 
 Meantime he remained in his seclusion. His unpopularity 
 did not, however, decrease in his absence. More than a year 
 after his departure, Berlaymont said the nobles detested the 
 Cardinal more than ever, and would eat him alive if they caught 
 him. 3 The chance of his returning was dying gradually out. 
 At about the same period Chantonnay advised his brother to 
 show his teeth. 3 He assured Granvelle that he was too quiet 
 in his disgrace, reminded him that princes had warm affections 
 when they wished to make use of people, but that when they 
 could have them too cheaply, they esteemed them but little ; 
 making no account of men whom they were accustomed to see 
 under their feet. He urged the Cardinal, in repeated letters, 
 to take heart again, to make himself formidable, and to rise 
 from his crouching attitude. All y ,he world say, he remarked, 
 that the game is up between the King and yourself, and before 
 long every one will be laughing at you, and holding you for a 
 dupe. 4 
 
 Stung or emboldened by these remonstrances, and weary of 
 his retirement, Granvelle at last abandoned all intention of 
 returning to the Netherlands, and towards the end of 1565, 
 
 1 Papiersd'Etat,viii. 76,77; 92-94. 
 
 a Ibid., is. 235. 
 
 8 " Monstrer le visage et les 
 
 dents," etc. Papiers d'Etat, ii. 186, 
 187. 
 4 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 184-137.
 
 406 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. [1504 
 
 departed to Rome, where he participated in the election of 
 Pope Pius Y. Five years afterwards he was employed by 
 Philip to negotiate the treaty between Spain, Rome, and 
 Venice, against the Turk. He was afterwards Viceroy of 
 Naples and in 1575 he removed to Madrid to take an active 
 part in the management of the public business, " the disorder 
 of which," says the Abbe Boisot, " could be no longer 
 arrested by men of mediocre capacity." 1 He died in that 
 city on the 21st September, 1586, at the age of seventy, and 
 was buried at Basanc.on. a 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat. Notice preliminaire de M. Ch. Weisz. a Ibid.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HARVEST RIPENING 
 
 Return of the three seigniors to the state-council Policy of Orange Cor 
 rupt character of the Government Efforts of the Prince in favour of 
 reform Influence of Armenteros Painful situation of Viglius Hid 
 anxiety to retire Secret charges against him transmitted by tho 
 Duchess to Philip Ominous signs of the times Attention of Philip 
 to the details of persecution Execution of Fabricius, and tumult at 
 Antwerp Horrible cruelty towards the Protestants Remonstrance 
 of the Magistracy of Bruges and of the four Flemish estates against 
 Titelmann Obduracy of Philip Council of Trent Quarrel for pre- 
 cedence between the French and Spanish envoys Order for the pub- 
 lication of the Trent decrees in the Netherlands Opposition to the 
 measure Reluctance of the Duchess Egmont accepts a mission to 
 Spain Violent debate in the council concerning his instructions 
 Remarkable speech of Orange Apoplexy of Viglius Temporary ap- 
 pointment of Hopper Departure of Egmont Disgraceful scene at 
 Cambray Character of the Archbishop Egmont in Spain Flattery 
 and bribery Council of doctors Vehement declarations of Philip 
 His instructions to Egmont at his departure Proceedings of Orange 
 in regard to his principality Egmont's report to the state-council 
 concerning his mission His vain-glory Renewed orders from Philip 
 to continue the persecution Indignation of Egmont Habitual dis- 
 simulation of the King Reproof of Egmont by Orange Assembly of 
 doctors in Brussels Result of their deliberations transmitted to 
 Philip Universal excitement in the Netherlands New punisbment 
 for heretics Interview at Bayonne between Catharine de Medici and 
 her daughter, the Queen of Spain Mistaken views upon this subject 
 Diplomacy of Alva Artful Conduct of Catharine Stringent letters 
 from Philip to the Duchess with regard to the Inquisition Consterna- 
 tion of Margaret and of Viglius New proclamation of the Edicts, the 
 Inquisition, and the Council of Trent Fury of the people Resistance 
 of the leading seigniors and of the Brabant Council Brabant declared
 
 408 
 
 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. 
 
 [1561. 
 
 free of the Inquisition Prince Alexander of Parma betrothed to Donna 
 Maria of Portugal Her portrait Expensive preparations for the 
 nuptials Assembly of the Golden Fleece Oration of Viglius Wedding 
 of Prince Alexander. 
 
 THE remainder of the year, fn the spring of which the Cardinal 
 had left the Netherlands, was one of anarchy, confusion, and 
 corruption. At first there had been a sensation of relief. 
 Philip had exchanged letters o.? exceeding amity with Orange, 
 Egmont, and Horn. These three seigniors had written, imme- 
 diately upon Granvelle's re treat, to-assure the King of their will- 
 ingness to obey the royal commands, and to resume their duties 
 at the state-council. 1 They had, however, assured the Duchess 
 that the reappearance of the Cardinal in the country would be 
 the signal for their instantaneous withdrawal. 8 They appeared 
 at the council daily, working with the utmost assiduity often till 
 late into the night. Orange had three great objects in view, 3 by 
 attaining which the country, in his opinion, might yet be saved, 
 and the threatened convulsions averted. These were to convoke 
 the states-general, to moderate or abolish the edicts, and to sup- 
 press the council of finance and the privy council, leaving only 
 the council of state. The two first of these points, if gained, 
 would, of course, subvert the whole absolute policy whichPhilip 
 and Granvelle had enforced: it was, therefore, hardly probable 
 that any impression would be made upon the secret determina- 
 tion of the government in these respects. As to the council of 
 state, the limited powers of that body, under the administra- 
 tion of the Cardinal, had formed one of the principal complaints 
 against that minister. The justice and finance councils wero 
 sinks of iniquity. The most barefaced depravity reigned su- 
 preme. A gangrene had spread through the whole government. 
 The public functionaries were notoriously and outrageously 
 venal. The administration of justice had been poisoned at tho 
 fountain, and the people were unable to slake their daily thirst 
 
 1 Corrcspondance de Guillaume le 
 Tacit., ii. VI, 72. 
 
 2 Correspondanco de Philippe II., 
 
 i. 294-297. 
 
 3 Groen v. Primt. Archives, etc., 
 i. 222, 223.
 
 15C4.] 
 
 CORRUPTION. 
 
 409 
 
 at the polluted stream. There was no law but the law of the 
 longest purse. The highest dignitaries of Philip's appoint- 
 ment had become the most mercenary hucksters that ever 
 converted the temple of justice into a den of thieves. Law 
 was an article of merchandise, sold by judges to the highest 
 bidder. A poor customer could obtain nothing but stripes and 
 imprisonment, or if tainted with suspicion of heresy, the faggot 
 or the sword; but for the rich everything was attainable. 
 Pardons forthe mostatrocious crimes, passports, safe-conducts 
 offices of trust and honour, were disposed of at auction to tho 
 highest bidder. 1 Against all this sea of corruption did the 
 brave William of Orange set his breast, undaunted and un- 
 flinching. His honour was ever untarnished by even a breath 
 of suspicion. The Cardinal could accuse him of pecuniary 
 embarrassment, by which a large proportion of his revenues 
 were necessarily diverted to the liquidation of his debts, but 
 he could not suggest that the Prince had ever freed himself 
 from difficulties by plunging his hands into the public 
 treasury, when it might easily have been opened to him. 
 
 It was soon, however, sufficiently obvious that as desperate 
 a struggle was to be made with the many-headed monster of 
 corruption as with the Cardinal by whom it had been so long 
 fed and governed. The Prince was accused of ambition and 
 intrigue. It was said that he was determined to concentrate all 
 the powers of government in the state council, which was thus 
 to become an omnipotent and irresponsible senate, while the 
 King would be reduced to the condition of a Venetian Doge. a 
 It was, of course, suggested that it was the the aim of Orange to 
 govern the new Tribunal of Ten. No doubt the Prince was 
 ambitious. Birth, wealth, genius, and virtue could not have 
 been bestowed in such eminent degree on any man without 
 carrying with them the determination to assert their value. 
 But he practised no arts to arrive at the supremacy which he 
 
 1 Ilooftl, ii. 48, 49. Hopper, Rec. pour abolir la puissance du Roy et le 
 etMem., 40. Vit. Viglii, 38,39. rendre semblable a, un ducqdo Veniso," 
 
 2 " Comme par un coup d'essay etc. Pontus Payen MS. 
 pensa d'abolir le conseil prire
 
 410 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. [1564. 
 
 felt must always belong to him, whatever might be his nomi- 
 nal position in the political hierarchy. He was already, 
 although but just turned of thirty years, vastly changed from 
 the brilliant and careless grandee, as he stood at the hour of 
 the imperial abdication. He was becoming careworn in face, 
 thin of figure, sleepless of habit. The wrongs of which he 
 was the daily witness, the absolutism, the cruelty, the rotten- 
 ness of the government, had marked his face with premature 
 furrows. They say that the Prince is very sad," wrote 
 Morillon to Granvelle ; "and 'tis easy to read as much in his face. 
 They say he cannot sleep." 1 Truly might the monarch have 
 taken warning that here was a man who was dangerous, and 
 who thought too much. lt Sleek -headed men, and such as 
 slept o' nights," would have been more eligible functionaries, 
 no doubt, in the royal estimation, but, for a brief period, the 
 King was content to use, to watch, and to suspect the man 
 who was one day to be his great and invincible antagonist. 
 He continued assiduous at the council, and he did his best, by 
 entertaining nobles and citizens at his hospitable mansion, to 
 cultivate good relations with large numbers of his countrymen. 
 He soon, however, had become disgusted with the court. 
 Egmont was more lenient to the foul practices which prevailed 
 there, and took almost a childish pleasure in dining at the 
 table of the Duchess, dressed, as were many of the younger 
 nobles, in short camlet doublet with the wheat-sheaf buttons. 
 The Prince felt more unwilling to compromise his personal 
 dignity by countenancing the flagitious proceedings and the 
 contemptible supremacy of Armenteros, and it was soon very 
 obvious, therefore, that Egmont was a greater favourite at court 
 than Orange. At the same time the Count was also diligently 
 cultivating the good graces of the middle and lower classes in 
 Brussels, shooting with the burghers at the popinjay, calling 
 every man by his name, and assisting atjovial banquets in town- 
 house or guild-hall. The Prince, although at times a necessary 
 partaker also in these popular amusements, could find small 
 cause for rejoicing in the aspect of affairs. When his business 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 434.
 
 1564.] ARMENTEROfr. 411 
 
 led him to the palace, he was sometimes forced to wait in the 
 ante-chamber for an hour, while Secretary Armenteros was 
 engaged in private consultation with Margaret upon the most 
 important matters of administration. 1 It could not be other- 
 wise than galling to the pride and offensive to the patriotism of 
 the Prince, to find great public transactions intrusted to such 
 hands. Thomas de Armenteros was a mere private secretary a 
 simple clerk. He had no right to have cognisance of important 
 affairs, which could only come before his Majesty's sworn 
 advisers. He was, moreover, an infamous peculator. He was 
 rolling up a fortune with great rapidity by his shameless traffic 
 in benefices, charges, offices, whether of church or state. His 
 name of Armenteros was popularly converted into Argenteros, 2 
 in order to symbolise the man who was made of public money. 
 His confidential intimacy with the Duchess procured for him 
 also the name of " Madame's barber," 3 in allusion to the famous 
 ornaments of Margaret's upper lip, and to the celebrated 
 influence enjoyed by the barbers of the Duke of Savoy and of 
 Louis the Eleventh, This man sold dignities and places of high 
 responsibility at public auction. 4 The Regent not only connived 
 at these proceedings, which would have been base enough, but 
 she was full partner in the disgraceful commerce. Through the 
 agency of the Secretary, she, too, was amassing a large private 
 fortune. 5 " The Duchess has gone into the business of vending 
 places to the highest bidders," said Morillon, " with the bit 
 between her teeth.'" The spectacle presented at the council- 
 board was often sufficiently repulsive not only to the cardinal- 
 ists, who were treated with elaborate insolence, but to all men 
 who loved honour and justice, or who felt an interest in the 
 
 1 Papier s d'Etat, vii. 593. 
 
 2 Ibid., yiii. 650 ; ix. 339. 
 
 3 Ibid., viii. 650. 
 
 4 Ibid., vii. 635-678. Groen v. 
 Prinst., Archives et Correspondance, 
 i. 405, 406. 
 
 5 "Mesmes aucuns, pour la rendre 
 odieuse au peuple semoyent un bruit 
 qu'elle ainassoit un grand tbresor de 
 derniers du Roy, oultre une infinite 
 
 d'or et d'argent qu'elle tiroit subtile- 
 ment des offices, benefices, et remissions 
 qu'elle faisoit vendre soubs main en 
 beaux deniers comptant par le dit 
 Armenteros." Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 Tbe correspondence of the time 
 proves that the story was no calumny, 
 but an indisputable fact. 
 
 6 '' Son Alteze y vat bride avallee." 
 Papiers d Et.it. Vii. 635.
 
 412 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1504. 
 
 prosperity of government. There was nothing majestic in tho 
 appearance of the Duchess, as she sat conversing apart with 
 Armenteros,whispering, pinching, giggling, or disputing,while 
 important affairs of state were debated, concerning which the 
 Secretary had no right to be informed. 1 It was inevitable that 
 Orange should be offended to the utmost by such proceedings, 
 although he was himself treated with comparative respect. As 
 for the ancient adherents of Granvelle, the Bordeys, Baves, and 
 Morillons, they were forbidden by the favourite even to salute 
 him in the streets. Berlaymont was treated by the Duchess 
 with studied insult. " What is the man talking about ?" she 
 would ask with languid superciliousness, if he attempted to 
 express his opinion in the state-council. 2 Viglius, whom Ber- 
 laymont accused of doing his best, without success, to make his 
 peace with the seigniors, was in even still greater disgrace than 
 his fellow-cardinalists. He longed, he said, to be in Burgundy 
 drinking Granvelle's good wine. 3 His patience under the daily 
 insults which he received from the government made him 
 despicable in the eyes of his own party. He was described by 
 his friends as pusillanimous to an incredible extent, timid from 
 excess of riches, afraid of his own shadow. 4 He was becoming 
 
 ' O 
 
 exceedingly pathetic, expressing frequently a desire to depart 
 and end his days in peace. His faithful Hopper sustained and 
 consoled him, but even Joachim could not sooth his sorrows 
 when he reflected that after all the work performed by himseli 
 and colleagues, "they had only been beating the bush for 
 others," 5 while their own share in the spoils had been withheld. 
 Nothing could well be more contumelious than Margaret's 
 treatment of the learned Frisian. When other councillors were 
 summoned to a session at three o'clock, the President was 
 
 1 " L'aultre jour, Van der Aa me 2 Fapiers d'Etat, ix. 233. 
 diet avec larmes qu'il ne ecavoit plus 8 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc. 
 
 comporter les termes que Ton y tint : i. 223. 
 
 parlant a 1'oreille, riant, picquant, * Papiers d'Etat, Tiii. 267, 311. 
 debatantetdonnantsouventdeslourdes 6 " Qu'on aurat battu le bui?son 
 
 attaches, et quand Hostilio y est aussi pour la noblesse," Papiers d'Etar, Tiii 
 
 present pour escoulter." Papiers 57, 58. 
 d'tttet. viii. 57,58.
 
 15C4.J 'POOR flOLlUS." 413 
 
 invited at four. It was quite impossible for him to have an 
 audience of the Duchess, except in the presence of the inevi- 
 table Armenteros. He was not allowed to open his mouth, 
 even when he occasionally plucked up heart enough to attempt 
 the utterance of his opinions. His authority was completely 
 dead. Even if he essayed to combat the convocation of tho 
 states-general by the arguments which the Duchess, at his 
 suggestion, had often used for the purpose, he was treated with 
 the same indifference. " The poor President," wrote Granvelle 
 to the King's chief secretary, Gonzalo Perez, " is afraid, as I 
 hear, to speak a word, and is made to write exactly what they 
 tell him." At the same time, the poor President, thus mal- 
 treated and mortified, had the vanity occasionally to imagine 
 himself a bold and formidable personage. The man whom his 
 most intimate friends described as afraid of his own shadow, 
 described himself to Granvelle as one who went his own gait, 
 speaking his mind frankly upon every opportunity, and com- 
 pelling people to fear him a little, even if they did not lovo 
 him. But the Cardinal knew better than to believe in this 
 magnanimous picture of the doctor's fancy. 1 
 
 Viglius was anxious to retire, but unwilling to have the 
 appearance of being disgraced. He felt instinctively, although 
 deceived as to the actual facts, that his great patron had been 
 defeated and banished. He did not wish to be placed in the 
 same position. He was desirous, as he piously expressed him- 
 self, of withdrawing from the world, tc that he might balance 
 his accounts with the Lord, before leaving the lodgings of life.' 3 
 He was, however, disposed to please " the master " as well as 
 the Lord. He wished to have the royal permission to depart 
 in peace. In his own lofty language, he wished to be sprinkled 
 on taking his leave " with the holy water of the court." More- 
 over, he was fond of his salary, although he disliked the sar- 
 casms of the Duchess. Egmont and others had advised him 
 to abandon the office of President to Hopper, in order, as he was 
 getting feeble, to reserve his whole strength for the state- 
 
 1 Papisra d'Etat, viii. 77-91, 190, 266, 372, 377, 409, 410, 425, 42G, 619.
 
 414 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15C4 
 
 council. Viglius did not at all relish the proposition. He said 
 that by giving up the seals, and with them the rank and salary 
 which they conferred, he should become a deposed saint. He 
 had no inclination, as long as he remained on the ground at 
 all, to part with those emoluments and honours, and to be 
 converted merely into the " ass of the state-council." l He 
 had, however, with the sagacity of an old navigator, already 
 thrown out his anchor into the best holding-ground during 
 the storms which he foresaw were soon to sweep the state. 
 Before the close of the year which now occupies us, the 
 learned doctor of laws had became a doctor of divinity 
 also ; and had already secured, by so doing, the wealthy 
 prebend of Saint Bavon of Ghent. 2 This would be a consola- 
 tion in the loss of secular dignities, and a recompense for the 
 cold looks of the Duchess. He did not scruple to ascribe the 
 pointed dislike which Margaret manifested towards him to the 
 awe in which she stood of his stern integrity of character. 
 The true reason why Armenteros and the Duchess disliked 
 him was because, in his own -words, " he was not of their 
 mind with regard to lotteries, the sale of offices, advancement 
 to abbeys, and many other things of the kind, by which they 
 were in such a hurry to make their fortunes." Upon another 
 occasion he observed, in a letter to Granvelle, that " all 
 offices were sold to the highest bidder, and that the cause of 
 Margaret's resentment against both the Cardinal and himself 
 was, that they had so long prevented her from making the 
 profit which she was now doing from the sale of benefices, 
 offices, and other favours." 3 
 
 The Duchess, on her part, characterised the proceedings and 
 policy, both past and present, of the cardinalists as factious, 
 corrupt, and selfish in the last degree. She assured her brother 
 that the simony, rapine, and dishonesty of Granvelle, Viglius, 
 and all their followers, had brought affairs into the ruinous 
 condition which was then but too apparent. They were doing 
 
 1 "Etdemelaissercontenterd'estre 2 Corr. de Philippe II., ii. 318-320. 
 1'asne du conseil-d'etat." Papiers 3 Groen T. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 d'Etat, Tiii. 192. j i. 265; 405, 406.
 
 15641 
 
 MARGARET AGAINST THE CARDINALISTS. 
 
 415 
 
 their best, she said, since the Cardinal's departure, to shew, 
 by their sloth and opposition, that they were determined to 
 allow nothing to prosper in his absence. To quote her own 
 vigorous expression to Philip (t Viglius made her suffer the 
 pains of hell." 1 She described him as perpetually resisting 
 the course of the administration, and she threw out dark sus- 
 picions, not only as to his honesty but his orthodoxy. Philip 
 lent a greedy ear to these scandalous hints concerning the late 
 omnipotent minister and his friends. It is an instructive 
 lesson in human history to look through the cloud of dissimu- 
 lation in which the actors of this remarkable epoch were ever 
 enveloped, and to watch them all stabbing fiercely at each 
 other in the dark, with no regard to previous friendship, or 
 even present professions. It is edifying to see the Cardinal, 
 with all his genius and all his grimace, corresponding on 
 familiar terms with Armenteros, who was holding him up to 
 obloquy upon all occasions ; to see Philip inclining his ear in 
 pleased astonishment to Margaret's disclosures concerning the 
 Cardinal, whom he was at the very instant assuring of his un- 
 climinished confidence ; 2 and to see Viglius, the author of the 
 edict of 1550, and the uniform opponent of any mitigation in 
 its horrors, silently becoming involved, without the least sus- 
 picion of the fact, in the meshes of Inquisitor Titelmann. 
 
 Upon Philip's eager solicitations for further disclosures, 
 Margaret accordingly informed her brother of additional facts 
 communicated to her, after oaths of secrcsy had been ex- 
 changed by Titelmann and his colleague del Canto. They had 
 assured her, she said, that there were grave doubts touching 
 the orthodoxy of Viglius. He had consorted with heretics 
 during a large portion of his life, and put many suspicious 
 persons into office. As to his nepotism, simony, and fraud, 
 there was no doubt at all. fie had richly provided all his 
 friends and relations in Friesland with benefices. He had 
 become in his old age a priest and churchman, in order to 
 
 1 Corresp. do Philippe II., i. 314. 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, vii. 593 ; viii. 
 
 91-94. Corr. de Philippe II., i. 
 309-317.
 
 416 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1504. 
 
 snatch the provostship of Saint Bavon, although his infirmities 
 did not allow him to say mass, or even to stand erect at the 
 altar. The inquisitors had further accused him of having stolen 
 rings, jewels, plate, linen, beds, tapestry, and other furniture, 
 from the establishment, all which property he had sent to 
 Friesland, and of having seized one hundred thousand florins 
 in ready money which had belonged to the last Abbe an act 
 consequently of pure embezzlement. The Duchess afterwards 
 transmitted to Philip an inventory of the plundered property, 
 including the furniture of nine houses, and begged him to 
 command Viglius to make instant restitution. 1 If there be 
 truth in the homely proverb, that in case of certain quarrels 
 honest men recover their rights, it is perhaps equally certain 
 that when distinguished public personages attack each other, 
 historians may arrive at the truth. Here certainly are edify- 
 ing pictures of the corruption of the Spanish regency in the 
 Netherlands, painted by the President of the state-council, 
 and of the dishonesty of the President painted by the Regent. 
 A remarkable tumult occurred in October of this year at 
 Antwerp. A Carmelite monk, Christopher Smith, commonly 
 called Fabricius, had left a monastery in Bruges, adopted the 
 principles of the Reformation, and taken to himself a wife. He 
 had resided for a time in England ; but, invited by his friends, 
 he had afterwards undertaken the dangerous charge of gospel- 
 teacher, in the commercial metropolis of the Netherlands. He 
 was, however, soon betrayed to the authorities by a certain 
 bonnet-dealer, popularly called Long Margaret who had pre- 
 tended, for the sake of securing the informer's fee, to be a 
 convert to his doctrines. He was seized, and immediately put 
 to the torture. He manfully refused to betray any members 
 of his congregation as manfully avowed and maintained his 
 religious creed. He was condemned to the flames, and during 
 the interval which preceded his execution, he comforted his 
 friends by letters of advice, religious consolation and encourage- 
 ment, which he wrote from his dungeon; He sent a message 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, i. 314-320; 350, 351.
 
 15C1.] EXECUTION OP FABEICIUa 417 
 
 to the woman who had betrayed him, assuring her of his 
 forgiveness, and exhorting her to repentance. His calmness, 
 wisdom, and gentleness, excited the admiration of all. When, 
 therefore, this humble imitator of Christ was led through the 
 streets of Antwerp to the stake, the popular emotion was at 
 once visible. To the multitude who thronged about the 
 executioners with threatening aspect, he addressed an urgent 
 remonstrance that they would not compromise their own safety 
 by a tumult in his cause. He invited all, however, to remain 
 steadfast to the great truth for which he was about to lay down 
 his life. The crowd, as they followed the procession of hang- 
 men, halberdsmen, and magistrates, sang the hundred and 
 thirtieth psalm in full chorus. As the victim arrived upon the 
 market-place he knelt upon the ground, to pray for the last 
 time. He was, however, rudely forced to rise by the execu- 
 tioner, who immediately chained him to the stake, and fastened 
 a leathern strap around his throat. At this moment the popular 
 indignation became uncontrollable, and stones were showered 
 upon the magistrates and soldiers, who, after a slight resist- 
 ance, fled for their lives. The foremost of the insurgents 
 dashed into the enclosed arena, to rescue the prisoner. It was 
 too late. The executioner, even as he fled, had crushed the 
 victim's head with a sledge hammer, and pierced him through 
 and through with a poniard. Some of the bystanders maintained 
 afterwards that his fingers and lips were seen to move, as if in 
 feeble prayer, for a little time longer, until as the fire mounted 
 he fell into the flames. For the remainder of the day, after 
 the fire had entirely smouldered to ashes, the charred and 
 half-consumed body of the victim remained on the market- 
 place, a ghastly spectacle to friend and foe. It was afterwards 
 bound to a stone and cast into the Schelcl. Such was the doom 
 of Christopher Fabricius, for having preached Christianity in 
 Antwerp. During the night an anonymous placard, written 
 with blood, was posted upon the wall of the Town House, stating 
 that there were men in the city who would signally avenge his 
 murder. Nothing was done, however, towards the accom- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 D
 
 418 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1564. 
 
 plisliment of the threat. The King, when he received the 
 intelligence of the transaction, was furious with indignation, 
 and wrote savage letters to his sister, commanding instant 
 vengeance to be taken upon all concerned in so foul a riot. 
 As one of the persons engaged had, however, been arrested 
 and immediately hanged, and as the rest had effected their 
 escape, the affair was suffered to drop. 1 
 
 The scenes of outrage, the frantic persecutions, were fast 
 becoming too horrible to be looked upon by Catholic or 
 Calvinist. The prisons swarmed with victims, the streets were 
 thronged with processions to the stake. The population of 
 thriving cities, particularly in Flanders, were maddened by the 
 spectacle of so much barbarity inflicted, not upon criminals, 
 but usually upon men remarkable for propriety of conduct and 
 blameless lives. It was precisely at this epoch that the burgo- 
 nrasters, senators, and council of the city of Bruges (all 
 Catholics) humbly represented to the Duchess Regent that 
 Peter Titelmann, Inquisitor of the Faith, against all forms of 
 law, was daily exercising inquisition among the inhabitants, 
 not only against those suspected or accused of heresy, but 
 against all, however untainted their characters ; that he was 
 daily citing before him whatever persons he liked, men or 
 women, compelling them by force to say whatever it pleased 
 him ; that he was dragging people from their houses, and even 
 from the sacred precincts of the church ; often in revenge for 
 verbal injuries to himself, always under pretext of heresy, and 
 without form or legal warrant of any kind. They therefore 
 begged that he might be compelled to make use of preparatory 
 examinations, with the co-operation of the senators of the 
 city, to suffer that witnesses should make their depositions 
 without being intimidated by menace, and to conduct all his 
 subsequent proceedings according to legal forms, which he 
 had uniformly violated publicly declaring that he would 
 govern himself according to his own pleasure. 8 
 
 3 Brandt, i. 278, 279. Papiers 
 d'Etat, viii, 434, 438. Correspondents 
 
 1 Strada, ir. 143, 144. Hist, des 
 Martyrs apud Brandt, i. 262-264. 
 Compare Papiers d'Etat, viii. 440-443. 
 
 de Philippe II., i. 329-331.
 
 REMONSTRANCES AGAINST TITELMANN. 
 
 419 
 
 The four estates of Flanders having, in a solemn address to 
 the King, represented the same facts, concluded their brief but 
 vigorous description of Titelmann's enormities by calling upon 
 Philip to suppress these horrible practices, so manifestly in 
 violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to sup- 
 port. 1 It may be supposed that the appeal to Philip would be 
 more likely to call down a royal benediction than the reproof 
 solicited upon the inquisitor's head. In the privy council, the 
 petition and remonstrances were read, and, in the words of the 
 President, " found to be in extremely bad taste." 2 In the 
 debate which followed, Viglius and his friends recalled to the 
 Duchess, in earnest language, the decided will of the King, 
 which had been so often expressed. A faint representation 
 was made, on the other hand, of the dangerous consequences, 
 in case the people were driven to a still deeper despair. The 
 result of the movement was but meagre. The Duchess an- 
 nounced that she could do nothing in the matter of the request 
 until further information, but that meantime she had charged 
 Titelmann to conduct himself in his office "with discretion and 
 modesty."' The discretion and modesty, however, never ap- 
 peared in any modification of the inquisitor's proceedings, and 
 he continued unchecked in his infamous career until his death, 
 which did not occur till several years afterwards. In truth, 
 Margaret was herself in mortal fear of this horrible personage 
 He besieged her chamber-door almost daily, before she had 
 risen, insisting upon audiences which, notwithstanding her 
 repugnance to the man, she did not dare refuse. " May I 
 perish," said Morillon, " if she does not stand in exceeding 
 awe of Titelmann." 4 Under such circumstances, sustained by 
 the King in Spain, the Duchess in Brussels, the privy coun- 
 cil, and by a leading member of what had been thought the 
 
 1 Brandt, ubi sup. 
 
 * Papiers d'E'tat, viii. 434. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, viii. 439. " De 
 Be conduyre en 1'exercice de son 
 office avec toute discretion, modestie 
 et respect." 
 
 * " Dispeream," writes Morillon 
 to Granvelle, "si ipsa non timeat 
 Titelmannum at del Campo qui indies 
 etiam ilia invita, ante fores cubiculi 
 ejus versantur," etc. Papiers d'Etat, 
 viii. 425, 426.
 
 420 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1564 
 
 liberal party, it was not difficult for the inquisition to main- 
 tain its ground, notwithstanding the solemn protestations of 
 the estates and the suppressed curses of the people. 
 
 Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in 
 the matter of the great religious persecution, was more deter- 
 mined as to his course than ever. He had already, as early as 
 August of this year, despatched orders to the Duchess that the 
 decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and en- 
 forced throughout the Netherlands. 1 The memorable quarrel 
 as to precedency between the French and Spanish delegates 
 had given some hopes of a different determination. Neverthe- 
 less, those persons who imagined that, in consequence of this 
 quarrel of etiquette, Philip would slacken in his allegiance to 
 the Church, were destined to be bitterly mistaken. He 
 informed his sister that, in the common cause of Christianity. 
 
 ' */ / 
 
 he should not be swayed by personal resentments. 8 How, 
 indeed, could a different decision be expected ? His envoy at 
 Rome, as well as his representatives at the council, had univer- 
 sally repudiated all doubts as to the sanctity of its decrees. " To 
 doubt the infallibility of the council as some have dared to do," 
 said Francis de Vargas, " and to think it capable of error, is 
 the most devilish heresy of all. Nothing could so much disturb 
 and scandalise the world as such a sentiment. Therefore the 
 Archbishop of Granada told, very properly, the Bishop of 
 Tortosa, that if he should express suchan opinion in Spain, they 
 would burn him." 8 These strenuous notions were shared by 
 the King. Therefore, although all Europe was on tip-toe with 
 expectation to see how Philip would avenge himself for the 
 slight put upon his ambassador, Philip disappointed all Europe. 
 In August 3564, he wrote to the Duchess Regent that the 
 decrees were to be proclaimed and enforced without delay. 
 They related to three subjects the doctrines to be inculcated 
 by the Church, the reformation of ecclesiastical morals, and the 
 education of the people. General police regulations were issued 
 
 1 Strada, iv. 147. Hopper, Eec. et I a Strada, uM sup. 
 Mem., 51, sqq. | s Papiers d'Etat, yi. 518.
 
 1504.] COUNCIL OP TRENT- 421 
 
 at the same time, by which heretics were to bo excluded from 
 all share in the usual conveniences of society, and were, in 
 fact, to be strictly excommunicated. Inns were to receive no 
 guests, schools no children, alms-houses no paupers, grave- 
 yards no dead bodies, unless guests, children, paupers, and 
 dead bodies were furnished with the most satisfactory proofs 
 of orthodoxy. Midwives of unsuspected Roman isn were 
 alone to exercise their functions, and were bound to give 
 notice within twenty-four hours of every birth which occurred ; 
 the parish clerks were as regulai'ly to record every such addi- 
 tion to the population, and the authorities to see that Catholic 
 baptism was administered in each case with the least possible 
 delay. Births, deaths, and marriages could only occur with 
 validity under the shadow of the Church. No human being 
 could consider himself born or defunct unless provided with a 
 priest's certificate. The heretic was excluded, so far as eccle- 
 siastical dogma could exclude him, from the pale of humanity, 
 from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation. 
 
 The decrees contained many provisions which not only con- 
 flicted with the privileges of the provinces, but with the prero- 
 gatives of the sovereign. For this reason many of the lords 
 in council thought that at least the proper exceptions should 
 be made upon their promulgation. This was also the opinion 
 of the Duchess ; but the King, by his letters of October and 
 November (1564), expressly prohibited any alteration in the 
 ordinances, and transmitted a copy of the form according to 
 which the canons had been published in Spain, together with 
 the expression of his desire that a similar course should be 
 followed in the Netherlands. 1 Margaret of Parma was in 
 great embarrassment. It was evident that the publication 
 could no longer be deferred. Philip had issued his commands, 
 but grave senators and learned doctors of the university had 
 advised strongly in favour of the necessary exceptions. The 
 extreme party, headed by Viglius, were in favour of carrying 
 out the royal decisions. They were overruled, and the Duchess 
 
 1 Strada. iv. 148.
 
 422 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1561. 
 
 was induced to attempt a modification, if her brother's per- 
 mission could be obtained. The President expressed the 
 opinion that the decrees, even with the restrictions proposed, 
 would "give no contentment to the people, who, moreover, had 
 no right to meddle with theology." The excellent Viglius 
 forgot, however, that theology had been meddling altogether 
 too much with the people to make it possible that the public 
 attention should be entirely averted from the subject. Men 
 and women who might be daily summoned to rack, stake, and 
 scaffold in the course of these ecclesiastical arrangements, and 
 whose births, deaths, marriages, and position in the next world, 
 were now to be formally decided upon, could hardly be taxed 
 with extreme indiscretion if they did meddle with the subject. 
 In the dilemma to which the Duchess was reduced, she 
 again bethought herself of a special mission to Spain. At the 
 end of the year (1564), it was determined that Egmont should 
 be the envoy. Montigny excused himself on account of private 
 affairs; Marquis Berghen "because of his indisposition and 
 corpulence." 2 There was a stormy debate in council after 
 Egmont had accepted the mission and immediately before his 
 departure. Viglius had been ordered to prepare the Count's 
 instructions. Having finished the rough draught, he laid it 
 before the board. 3 The paper was conceived in general terms, 
 and might mean anything or nothing. No criticism upon its 
 language was, however, offered until it came to the turn of 
 
 DO* * 
 
 Orange to vote upon the document. Then, however, William 
 the Silent opened his lips, and poured forth a long and vehe- 
 ment discourse, such as he rarely pronounced, but such as few 
 except himself could utter. There was no shuffling, no disguise, 
 no timidity in his language. He took the ground boldly that 
 the time had arrived for speaking out. The object of sending 
 an envoy of high rank and European reputation like the Count 
 of Egmont, was to tell the King the truth. Let Philip know 
 it now. Let him be unequivocally informed that this whole 
 
 i, 321. 
 
 Grocn v. Prhuv., Archives, etc., 
 
 a Papiers d'Etat, viii. 61f>. 
 3 Vit. Viglii, 41.
 
 1564.] SPEECH OF ORANGE. 423 
 
 machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old 
 hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors, and informers, must once 
 and for ever be abolished. Their day was over. The Nether- 
 lands were free provinces, they were surrounded by free 
 countries, they were determined to vindicate their ancient 
 privileges. Moreover, his Majesty was to be plainly informed 
 of the frightful corruption which made the whole judicial and 
 administrative system loathsome. The venality which notori- 
 ously existed everywhere on the bench, in the council 
 chamber, in all public offices, where purity was most essential 
 was denounced by the Prince in scathing terms. He tore 
 the mask from individual faces and openly charged the 
 Chancellor of Brabant, Engelbert Maas, with knavery and 
 corruption. He insisted that the King should be informed of 
 the necessity of abolishing the two inferior councils, and of 
 enlarging the council of state by the admission often or twelve 
 new members selected for their patriotism,purity, and capacity. 
 Above all, it was necessary plainly to inform his Majesty that 
 the canons of Trent, spurned by the whole world, even by the 
 Catholic Princes of Germany, could never be enforced in the 
 Netherlands, and that it would be ruinous to make the 
 attempt. He proposed and insisted that the Count of Egmont 
 should be instructed accordingly. He avowed in conclusion 
 that he was a Catholic himself and intended to remain in the 
 faith, but that he could not look on with pleasure when 
 princes strove to govern the souls of men, and to take away 
 their liberty in matters of conscience and religion. 1 
 
 Here certainly was no daintiness of phraseology, and upon 
 these leading points, thus slightly indicated, William of Orange 
 poured out his eloquence, bearing conviction upon the tide of 
 his rapid invective. His speech lasted till seven in the evening, 
 when the Duchess adjourned the meeting. The council broke 
 up, the Regent went to supper, but the effect of the discourse 
 upon nearly all the members was not to be mistaken. Viglius 
 was in a state of consternation, perplexity, and despair. He 
 1 Yit Viglii, 41, 42.
 
 424 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1564. 
 
 felt satisfied that, with perhaps the exception of Berlaymont, 
 all who had listened or should afterwards listen to the power- 
 ful arguments of Orange would be inevitably seduced or 
 bewildered. The President lay awake, tossing and tumbling 
 in his bed, recalling the Prince's oration, point by point, and 
 endeavouring to answer it in order. It was important, he felt, 
 to obliterate the impression produced. Moreover, as we have 
 often seen, the learned Doctor valued himself upon his logic. 
 It was absolutely necessary, therefore, that in his reply next 
 day his eloquence should outshine that of his antagonist. The 
 President thus passed a feverish and uncomfortable night, 
 pronouncing and listening to imaginary harangues. With 
 the dawn of day he arose and proceeded to dress himself. 
 The excitement of the previous evening, and the subsequent 
 sleeplessness of his night had, however, been too much for his 
 feeble and slightly superannuated frame. Before he had 
 finished his toilet, a stroke of apoplexy stretched him sense- 
 less upon the floor. His servants, when they soon after- 
 wards entered the apartment, found him rigid, and to all 
 appearance dead. 1 After a few days, however, he recovered 
 his physical senses in part, but his reason remained for a 
 longer time shattered, and was never perhaps fully restored 
 to its original vigour. 
 
 This event made it necessary that his place in the council 
 should be supplied. Viglius had frequently expressed inten- 
 tions of retiring a measure to which he could yet never fully 
 make up his mind. His place was now temporarily supplied 
 by his friend and countryman, Joachim Hopper, like himself, 
 a Frisian doctor of ancient blood and extensive acquirements, 
 well versed in philosophy and jurisprudence, a professor of 
 Louvain, and a member of the Mechlin council. He was like- 
 wise the original founder and projector of Douay University 
 an institution which, at Philip's desire, he had successfully 
 organised in 1556, in order that a French university might be 
 furnished for Walloon youth, as a substitute for the seductive 
 
 1 Vit. Viglii, 42.
 
 15C5.] EGMONT'S MISSION. 425 
 
 and poisonous Parish For the rest, Hopper was a mere man 
 of routine. He was often employed in private affairs by Philip, 
 without being intrusted with the secret at the bottom of them. 
 His mind was a confused one, and his style inexpressibly 
 involved and tedious. "Poor Master Hopper," said Granvelle, 
 " did not write the best French in the world ; may the Lord 
 forgive him ! Ho was learned in letters, but knew very little 
 of great affairs." His manners were as cringing as his 
 intellect was narrow. He never opposed the Duchess, so- 
 that his colleagues always called him Councillor " Yes, 
 Madam," and he did his best to befriends with all the world. 1 
 
 In deference to the arguments of Orange, the instructions 
 for Egmont were accordingly considerably modified from the 
 original draughts of Viglius. As drawn up by the new Presi- 
 dent, they contained at least a few hints to his Majesty as to 
 the propriety of mitigating the edicts and extending some 
 mercy to his suffering people. 8 The document was, however, 
 not very satisfactory to the Prince, nor did he perhaps rely 
 very implicitly upon the character of the envoy. 
 
 Egmont set forth upon his journey early in January (1565). 
 He travelled in great state. He was escorted as far as Cambray 
 by several nobles of his acquaintance, who improved the occa- 
 sion by a series of tremendous banquets, during the Count's 
 sojourn, which was protracted till the end of January. The 
 most noted of these gentlemen were Hoogstraaten, Brederode, 
 the yoimger Mansfeld, Culemburg, and Noircarmes. Before 
 they parted with the envoy, they drew up a paper, which they 
 signed with their blood, and afterwards placed in the hands 
 of his Countess. In this document they promised, on account 
 of their " inexpressible and very singular affection " for 
 Egmont, that if, during his mission to Spain, any evil should 
 befall him, they would, on their faith as gentlemen and 
 cavaliers of honour, take vengeance therefore upon the Cardinal 
 Granvelle, or upon all who should be the instigators thereof. 3 
 
 1 Vit. Viglii, 42. Levensb. ]S T cderl. 
 Man en Vrouwen, iv. 105-111. Groen 
 T. PrinsL, Archives, v. bio. Dom 
 
 1'Evesque, i. 91. 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Given v. P., Archives, etc., i' 
 
 345, from ArnoUli, Hist. DenknurJ.
 
 426 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO, 
 
 [1565. 
 
 "Wherever Brederode was, there, it was probable, would be 
 much severe carousing. Before the conclusion, accordingly, of 
 the visit to Cambray, that ancient city rang with the scandal 
 created by a most uproarious scene. A banquet was given to 
 Egmont and his friends in the citadel. Brederode, his cousin 
 Lumey, and the other nobles from Brussels, were all present. 
 The Archbishop of Cambray, a man very odious to the liberal 
 party in the provinces, was also bidden to the feast. During 
 the dinner, this prelate, although treated with marked respect 
 by Egmont, was the object of much banter and coarse pleasantry 
 by the ruder portion of the guests. Especially, these convivial 
 gentlemen took infinite pains to overload him with challenges 
 to huge bumpers of wine it beingthought desirable, if possible, 
 to place the Archbishop under the table. This pleasantry was 
 alternated with much rude sarcasm concerning the new bishop- 
 rics. The conversation then fell upon other topics among 
 others, naturally upon the mission of Count Egmont. Brede- 
 rode observed that it was a very hazardous matter to allow so 
 eminent a personage to leave the land at such a critical period. 
 Should anything happen to the Count, the Netherlands would 
 sustain an immense loss. The Archbishop, irritated by the 
 previous conversation, ironically requested the speaker to be 
 comforted, " because," said he, "it will always be easy to find a 
 newEgmont." Upon this, Brederode, beside himself with rage, 
 cried out vehemently, " Are we to tolerate such language from 
 this priest ? " Culemburg, too, turning upon the offender, ob- 
 served, " Your observation would be much more applicable to 
 your own case. If you were to die, 'twould be easy to find five 
 hundred of your merit to replace you in the see of Cambray." 
 
 nago 282. It is remarkable that 
 after the return of the Count from 
 Spain, Hoogstraaten received this 
 singular bond from the Countess, 
 and gave it to Mansfeld to be burned 
 m his presence. Mansfeld, however, 
 advised keeping it, on account of 
 Noircarmes, whose signature was at- 
 tached to the document, and whom 
 he knew to be so false and deceitful 
 
 a man that it might be well to havo 
 it within their power at some future 
 day to reproach him therewith. 
 Ibid. It will be seen in the sequel 
 that Noircarmes more than justified 
 the opinion of Mansfeld, but that 
 the subsequent career of Mansfeld 
 himself did not entitle him to re- 
 proach any of Philip's noble hang- 
 men.
 
 1565.] SCENE AT CAMBRAY. 427 
 
 The conversation was, to say the least, becoming personal. The 
 Bishop, desirous of terminating this keen encounter of wits, 
 lifted a goblet full of wine and challenged Brederode to drink. 
 That gentleman declined the invitation. After the cloth had 
 been removed, the cup circulated more freely than ever. The 
 revelry became fast and furious. One of the younger gentle- 
 men who was seated near the Bishop snatched the bonnet of 
 that dignitary from his head, and placed it upon his own. 
 He then drained a bumper to his health, and passed the 
 goblet and the cap to his next neighbour. Both circulated 
 till they reached the Viscount Ghent, who rose from his seat 
 and respectfully restored the cap to its owner. Brederode 
 then took a large " cup of silver and gold," filled it to the 
 brim, and drained it, to the confusion of Cardinal Granvelle 
 stigmatising that departed minister, as he finished, by p.n 
 epithet of more vigour than decency. He then called upon 
 all the company to pledge him to the same toast, and de- 
 nounced as cardinalists all those who should refuse. 
 
 The Archbishop, not having digested the affronts which had 
 been put upon him already, imprudently ventured himself once 
 more into the confusion, and tried to appeal to the reason of the 
 company. He might as well have addressed the crew of Comus. 
 He gained nothing but additional insult. Brederode advanced 
 upon him with threatening gestures. Egmont implored the 
 prelate to retire, or at least not to take notice of a nobleman so 
 obviously beyond the control of his reason. The Bishop, how- 
 ever, insisted mingling reproof, menace, and somewhat impe- 
 rious demands that the indecent Saturnalia should cease. It 
 would have been wiser for him to retire. Count Hoogstraaten, 
 a young man, and small of stature, seized the gilt laver, in 
 which the company had dipped their fingers before seating 
 themselves at table ; " Be quiet, be quiet, little man," said 
 Egmont, soothingly, doing his best to restrain the tumult. 
 u Little man, indeed," responded the Count, wrathfully; "I 
 would have you to know that never did little man spring from 
 my vace." With those words he hurled the basin, water and
 
 425 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1505. 
 
 nil, at the head of the Archbishop. Hoogstraaten had no doubt 
 manifested his bravery before that day ; he was to display, on 
 future occasions, a very remarkable degree of heroism ; but it 
 must be confessed that the chivalry of the noble house of La- 
 laing was not illustrated by this attack upon a priest. The 
 Bishop was sprinkled by the water, but not struck by the vessel. 
 Young Mansfeld, ashamed of the outrage, stepped forward to 
 apologise for the conduct of his companions, and to soothe the 
 insulted prelate. That personage, however, exasperated, very 
 naturally, to the highest point, pushed him rudely away, crying, 
 ' : Begone, begone! who is this boy that is preaching to me ? " 
 Whereupon Mansfeld, much irritated, lifted his hand towards 
 the ecclesiastic, and snapped his fingers contemptuously in his 
 face. Some even said that he pulled the archiepiscopal nose, 
 others that he threatened his life with a drawn dagger. Nothing 
 could well have been more indecent or more cowardly than the 
 conduct of these nobles upon this occasion. Their intoxication, 
 together with the character of the victim, explained, but cer- 
 tainly could not palliate, the vulgarity of the exhibition. It was 
 natural enough that men like Brederode should find sport in 
 this remarkable badgering of a bishop, but we see with regret 
 the part played by Hoogstraaten in the disgraceful scene. 
 
 The prelate, at last, exclaiming that it appeared that he had 
 been invited only to be insulted, left the apartment, accom- 
 panied by Noircarmes and the Viscount of Ghent, and threat- 
 ening that all his friends and relations should be charged with 
 his vengeance. The next day a reconciliation was effected, as 
 well as such an arrangement was possible, by the efforts of 
 Egmont, who dined alone with the prelate. In the evening, 
 Hoogstraaten, Culemburg, and Brederode, called upon the 
 Bishop, with whom they were closeted for an hour, and the 
 party separated on nominal terms of friendship. 1 
 
 This scandalous scene, which had been enacted not only before 
 many guests, but in presence of a host of servants, made neces- 
 sarily a great sensation throughout the country. There could 
 1 Pon. Payen MS. Papiers d'Etat, viii. 681-088; ix. 1C, 17. Van. Haer, 270-28a
 
 15G5.] 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OP CAMERA?. 
 
 420 
 
 hardly bo much difference of opinion among respectable people 
 as to the conduct of the noblemen who had thus disgraced 
 themselves. Even Brederode himself, who retained, as was 
 natural, but a confused impression of the transaction, seemed 
 in the days which succeeded the banquet, to be in doubt 
 whether he and his friends had merited any great amount of 
 applause. He was, however, somewhat self-contradictory, 
 although always vehement in his assertions on the subject. 
 At one time he maintained after dinner of course that he 
 would have killed the Archbishop if they had not been forcibly 
 separated ; at other moments he denounced as liars all persons 
 who should insinuate that he had committed or contemplated 
 any injury to that prelate; offering freely to fight any man 
 who disputed either of his two positions. 1 
 
 The whole scene was dramatised, and represented in mas- 
 querade at a wedding festival given by Councillor d'Asson- 
 leville, on the marriage of Councillor Hopper's daughter, one 
 of the principal parts being enacted by a son of the President- 
 judge of Artois. 2 It may be supposed that if such eminent 
 personages, in close connexion with the government, took 
 part in such proceedings, the riot must have been considered 
 of a very pardonable nature. The truth was, that the Bishop 
 was a cardinalist, and therefore entirely out of favour with 
 the administration. He was also a man of treacherous, 
 sanguinary character, and detested by the people. He had 
 done his best to destroy heresy in Valenciennes by fire and 
 sword. " I will say one thing," said he in a letter to Gran- 
 velle, which had been intercepted, " since the pot is un- 
 covered, and the whole cookery known, we had best push 
 forward and make an end of all the principal heretics, whether 
 rich or poor, without regarding whether the city will be entirely 
 ruined by such a course. Such an opinion I should declare 
 openly were it not that we of the ecclesiastical profession are 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ii. 16, 17- 
 a Ibid., 17. Pierre Arset, President 
 of Artois, was afterwards a member 
 
 of that infamous tribunal called the 
 Council of Troubles, and popularly, 
 " of Blood."
 
 430 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 accused of always crying out blood." 1 Such was the prelate's 
 theory. His practice may be inferred from a specimen of his 
 proceedings which occurred at a little later day. A citizen of 
 Cambray, -having been converted to the Lutheran Confession 
 went to the Archbishop, and requested permission to move 
 out of the country, taking his property with him. The 
 petitioner having made his appearance in the forenoon, was 
 requested to call again after dinner, to receive his answer. 
 The burgher did so, and was received, not by the prelate, 
 but by the executioner, who immediately carried the Lutheran 
 to the market-place, and cut off his head. 8 It is sufficiently 
 evident that a minister of Christ, with such propensities, 
 could not excite any great sympathy, however deeply 
 affronted he might have been at a drinking-party, so long as 
 any Christians remained in the land. 
 
 Egmont departed from Cambray upon the 30th January, his 
 friends taking a most affectionate farewell of him,and Brederode 
 assuring him, with a thousand oaths, that he would forsake Grod 
 for his service. 3 His reception at Madrid was most brilliant. 
 When he made his first appearance at the palace, Philip rushed 
 from his cabinet into the grand hall of reception, and fell upon 
 his neck, embracing him heartily, before the Count had time to 
 drop upon his knee and kiss the royal hand. 4 During the whole 
 period of his visit he dined frequently at the King's private 
 table,an honour rarely accorded by Philip, and was feasted and 
 flattered by all the great dignitaries of the court as never a 
 subject of the Spanish crown had been before. All vied with 
 each other in heaping honours upon the man whom tho King 
 was determined tc honour, 5 Philip took him out to drive daily 
 in his own coach, sent him to see the wonders of the new 
 Escorial, which he was building to commemorate the battle of 
 St. Quentin, and, although it was still winter, insisted upon 
 shewing him the beauties of his retreat in the Segovian forest. 6 
 
 o o 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 i. 180, 181. 
 
 2 Ibid., ii. 4n8, 459. Letter from 
 William of Orange to Landgrave 
 William of Hesse. 
 
 8 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 16, 17, 
 4 Pontus Payen MS. 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 8 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 349.
 
 1565.] 
 
 EGMONT IN SPAIN. 
 
 431 
 
 Granvelle's counsels as to the method by which the e( friend of 
 smoke," was so easily to be gained, had not fallen unheeded in 
 his royal pupil's ears. The Count was lodged in the house of 
 Ruy Gomez, who soon felt himself able, according to previous 
 assurances to that effect, contained in a private letter of Armen- 
 teros, to pursuade the envoy to any course which Philip might 
 command. 1 Flattery without stint was adminstered. More 
 solid arguments to convince the Count that Philip was the 
 most generous and clement of princes were also employed with 
 great effect. The royal dues upon the estate of Gaasbecque, 
 lately purchased by Egmont, were remitted. 2 A mortgage 
 upon his Seigneurie of Ninove 3 was discharged, and a con- 
 siderable sum of money presented to him in addition. Alto- 
 gether, the gifts which the ambassador received from the royal 
 bounty amounted to one hundred thousand crowns. 4 
 
 Thus feasted, flattered, and laden with presents, it must be 
 admitted that the Count more than justified the opinions ex- 
 pressed in the letter of Armenteros, that he was a man easily 
 governed by those who had credit with him. Egmont hardly 
 broached the public matters which had brought him to Madrid. 
 Upon the subject of the edicts, Philip certainly did not dissemble, 
 however loudly the envoy may have afterwards complained at 
 Brussels. In truth, Egmont, intoxicated by the incense offered 
 to him at the Spanish court, was a different man from Egmont 
 in the Netherlands, subject to the calm but piercing glance and 
 the irresistible control of Orange. Philip gave him no reason 
 to suppose that he intended any change in the religious system 
 of the provinces, at least in any sense contemplated by the li- 
 beral party. On the contrary, a council of doctors and eccle- 
 siastics was summoned, 5 at whose deliberations the Count was 
 invited to assist ; on which occasion the King excited general 
 admiration by the fervour of his piety and the vehemence of 
 his ejaculations. Falling upon his knees before a crucifix, in 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 343, 344. 
 
 2 Pontu3 Payen MS. 
 
 3 Corres. de Phil. II., i. 347, 313. 
 
 4 Papiers d'Etat, ir. 385. 
 s Strada, iv. 152.
 
 432 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 the midst of the assembly, he prayed that God would keep him 
 perpetually in the same mind, and protested that he would never 
 call himself master of those who denied the Lord God. 1 Such 
 an exhibition could leave but little doubt in the minds of those 
 who witnessed it as to the royal sentiments, nor did Egmont 
 make any effort to obtain any relaxation of those religious 
 edicts which he had himself declared worthy of approbation, 
 and fit to be maintained. 8 As to the question of enlarging 
 the state-council, Philip dismissed the subject with a few 
 vague observations which Egmont, not very zealous on the 
 subject at the moment, perhaps misunderstood. The punish- 
 ment of heretics by some new method, so as to secure the pains 
 but to take away the glories of martyrdom, was also slightly 
 discussed ; and here again Egmont was so unfortunate as 
 to misconceive the royal meaning, and to interpret an addi- 
 tional refinement of cruelty into an expression of clemency. 
 On the whole, however, there was not much negotiation be 
 tween the monarch and the ambassador. When the Count 
 spoke of business, the King would speak to him of his daugh- 
 ters, and of his desire to see them provided with brilliant 
 marriages. 3 As Egmont had eight girls, besides two sons, it 
 was natural that he should be pleased to find Philip taking so 
 much interest in looking out husbands for them. The King 
 spoke to him, as hardly could be avoided, of the famous fool's- 
 cap livery. The Count laughed the matter off as a jest, pro- 
 testing that it was a mere foolish freak, originating at the wino 
 table, and asseverating, with warmth, that nothing disrespect- 
 ful or disloyal to his Majesty had been contemplated upon that 
 or upon any other occasion. Had a single gentleman uttered 
 tin undutiful word against the King, Egmont vowed he would 
 have stabbed him through and through upon the spot, had he 
 been his own brother. 4 These warm protestations were answered 
 by a gentle reprimand as to the past by Philip, and with a 
 firm caution as to the future. " Let it be discontinued entirely, 
 
 1 Stracla, iv. 152. I 3 Bentivogiio, ii. 24. 
 
 * Papiers d'Eiat, is. 217. * Strada, iy. l&J.
 
 1565.] INSTRUCTIONS TO EGMONT. 433 
 
 Count," said the King, as the two were driving together 
 in the royal carriage. 1 Egmont expressed himself in hand- 
 some terms concerning the Cardinal, 8 in return for the 
 wholesale approbation quoted to him in regard to his own 
 character, from the private letters of that sagacious personage 
 to his Majesty. Certainly, after all this, the Count might 
 suppose the affair of the livery forgiven. 
 
 Thus amicably passed the hours of that mission, the preli- 
 minaries for which had called forth so much eloquence from the 
 Prince of Orange and so nearly carried off with apoplexy the 
 President Viglius. On his departure, Egmont received a letter 
 of instructions from Philip as to the report which he was to 
 make, upon his arrival in Brussels, to the Duchess. After many 
 things personally flattering to himself, the envoy was directed 
 to represent the King as overwhelmed with incredible grief at 
 hearing the progress made by the heretics, but as immutably de- 
 termined to permit no change of religion within his dominions, 
 even were he to die a thousand deaths in consequence. The 
 King, he was to state, requested the Duchess forthwith to 
 assemble an extraordinary session of the council, at which cer- 
 tain bishops,theological doctors,and very orthodox lawyers, were 
 to assist, in which under pretence of discussing the Council of 
 Trent matter, it was to be considered whether there could not be 
 some u new way devised for executing heretics ; not indeed one 
 by which any deduction should be made from their sufferings 
 (which certainly was not the royal wish, nor likely to be grate- 
 ful to God or salutary to religion), but by which all hopes of 
 glory that powerful incentive to their impiety might be 
 precluded." 3 With regard to any suggested alterations in the 
 council of State, or in the other two councils, the King was to 
 be represented as unwilling to form any decision until he should 
 hear, at length, from the Duchess Regent upon the subject. 
 
 Certainly here was a sufficient amount of plain speaking 
 upon one great subject, and very little encouragement with 
 
 1 "Conde, no se haga 
 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 277. 
 a Papiers d'Etat, ix. 
 
 3 Strada, iv. 153, sqq. Corres- 
 pondance de Philippe II., i. i>47. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E 
 
 Hopper, Rec. et Meiu., 16.
 
 43* THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, [15C5 
 
 regard to the other. Yet Egmont, who immediately after 
 receiving these instructions set forth upon his return to the 
 Netherlands, manifested nothing but satisfaction. Philip pre- 
 sented to him, as his travelling companion, the young Prince 
 Alexander of Parma, then about to make a visit to his mother 
 in Brussels, and recommended the youth, afterwards destined 
 to play so prominent a part in Flemish history, to his peculiar 
 care. 3 Egmont addressed a letter to the King from Valladolid, 
 in which he indulged in ecstasies concerning the Escorial and 
 the wood of Segovia, and declared that he was returning to 
 the Netherlands " the most contented man in the world." 2 
 
 He reached Brussels at the end of April. Upon the 5th of 
 May he appeared before the council, and proceeded to give an 
 account of his interview with the King, together with a state- 
 ment of the royal intentions and opinions. These were already 
 sufficiently well-known. Letters, written after the envoy's de- 
 parture, had arrived before him, in which, while in the main 
 presenting the same views as those contained in the instructions 
 to Egmont, Philip had expressed his decided prohibition of the 
 project to enlarge the state-council, and to suppress the autho- 
 rity of the other two. 3 Nevertheless, the Count made his report 
 according to the brief received at Madrid, and assured his 
 hearers that the King was all benignity, having nothing so 
 much at heart as the temporal and eternal welfare of the pro- 
 vinces. The siege of Malta, he stated, would prevent the 
 royal visit to the Netherlands for the moment, but it waa 
 deferred only for a brief period. To remedy the deficiency in 
 the provincial exchequer, large remittances would be made 
 immediately from Spain. To provide for the increasing diffi- 
 culties of the religious question, a convocation of nine learned 
 and saintly personages was recommended, who should devise 
 some new scheme by which the objections to the present system 
 of chastising heretics might be obviated. 4 
 
 It is hardly necessary to state that so meagre a result to 
 the mission of Egmont was not likely to inspire the hearts 
 
 Strncla, ir. 155. 
 
 Corresporulance de Philippe II., 
 
 340. 
 
 3 Strada, iv. 154. 
 
 4 Hopper, Ree. et Mem., 44-47. 
 Hoofd. ii. 50-52.
 
 1565.] EGMONT'S EEPORT. 
 
 of Orange and his adherents with much confidence. No 
 immediate explosion of resentment, however, occurred. The 
 general aspect for a few days was peaceful. Egmont mani- 
 fested much contentment with the reception which he met with 
 in Spain, and described the King's friendly dispositions 
 towards the leading nobles in lively colours. He went to his 
 government immediately after his return, assembled the states 
 of Artois, in the city of Arras, and delivered his letters sent 
 to that body by the King. He made a speech on this occa- 
 sion, 1 informing the estates that his Majesty had given orders 
 that the edicts of the Emperor were to be enforced to the 
 letter ; adding that he had told the King, freely, his own 
 opinion upon the subject, in order to dissuade him from that 
 which others were warmly urging. He described Philip as 
 the most liberal and debonair of princes ; his council in Spain 
 as cruel and sanguinary. Time was to show whether the 
 epithets thus applied to the advisers were not more applicable 
 to the monarch than the eulogies thus lavished by the blind 
 and predestined victim. It will also be perceived that this 
 language, used before the estates of Artois, varied materially 
 from his observation to the Dowager Duchess of Aerschot, de- 
 nouncing as enemies the men who accused him of having 
 requested a moderation of the edicts. In truth, this most 
 vacillating, confused, and unfortunate of men scarcely com- 
 prehended the purport of his recent negotiations in Spain, nor 
 perceived the drift of his daily remarks at home. He was, 
 however, somewhat vain-glorious immediately after his return, 
 and excessively attentive to business. " He talks like a king," 
 said Morillon, spitefully, " negotiates night and day, and makes 
 all bow before him." 3 His house was more thronged with 
 petitioners, courtiers, and men of affairs, than even the palace 
 of the Duchess. He avowed frequently that he would devote 
 his life and his fortune to the accomplishment of the King's 
 commands, and declared his uncompromising hostility to all 
 who should venture to oppose that loyal determination. 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ix. S1G. a Pontua Payen MS,
 
 436 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 It was but a very short time, however, before a total change 
 was distinctly perceptible in his demeanour. These halcyon 
 days were soon fled. The arrival of fresh letters from Spain 
 gave unequivocal evidence of the royal determination, if, 
 indeed, any doubt could be rationally entertained before. The 
 most stringent instructions to keep the whole machinery of 
 persecution constantly at work were transmitted to the Duchess, 
 and aroused the indignation of Orange and his followers. 
 They avowed that they could no longer trust the royal word, 
 since, so soon after Egmont's departure, the King had written 
 despatches so much at variance with his language, as reported 
 by the envoy. There was nothing, they said, clement and 
 debonair in these injunctions upon gentlemen of their position 
 and sentiments to devote their time to the encouragement of 
 hangmen and inquisitors. The Duchess was unable to pacify 
 the nobles. Egmont was beside himself with rage. With his 
 usual recklessness and wrath he expressed himself at more 
 than one session of the state-council in most unmeasured 
 terms. His anger had been more inflamed by information 
 which he had received from the second son of Berlaymont, a 
 young and indiscreet lad, who had most fortunately communi- 
 cated many secrets which he had learned from his father, but 
 which were never intended for Egmont's ear. 1 
 
 Philip's habitual dissimulation had thus produced much 
 unnecessary perplexity. It was his custom to carry on corres- 
 pondence through the aid of various secretaries, and it was his 
 invariable practice to deceive them all. Those who were upon 
 the most confidential terms with the monarch, were most sure 
 to be duped upon all important occasions. It has been seen 
 that even the astute Gran veil e could not escape this common 
 lot of all who believed their breasts the depositories of the royal 
 secrets. Upon this occasion Gonzalo Perez and Ruy Gomez 
 complained bitterly that they had known nothing of the letters 
 which had recently been despatched from Valladolid, while 
 Tisnacq and Courterville had been ignorant of the communiea- 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe IT., i. 355, 356.
 
 1505.] 
 
 CONFUSION. 
 
 437 
 
 tions forwarded by the hands of Egmont. They avowed that 
 the King created infinite trouble by thus treating his affairs 
 in one way with one set of councillors and in an opposite 
 sense with the others, thus dissembling with all, and added 
 that Philip was now much astonished at the dissatisfaction 
 created in the provinces by the discrepancy between the 
 French letters brought by Egmout and the Spanish letters 
 since despatched to the Duchess. As this was his regular 
 manner of transacting business, not only for the Netherlands, 
 but for all his dominions, they were of opinion that such con- 
 fusion and dissatisfaction might well be expected. 1 
 
 After all, however, notwithstanding the indignation of Eg- 
 mont, it must be confessed that ho had been an easy dupe. He 
 had been dazzled by royal smiles, intoxicated by court incense, 
 contaminated by yet baser bribes. He had been turned from 
 the path of honour and companionship of the wise and noble 
 to do the work of those who were to compass his destruction. 
 The Prince of Orange reproached him to his face with having 
 forgotten, when in Spain, to represent the views of his associates 
 and the best interests of the country, while he had well remem- 
 bered his own private objects, and accepted the lavish bounty 
 of the King. 2 Egmont, stung to the heart by the reproof, 
 from one whom he honoured and who wished him well, became 
 sad and sombre for a long time, abstained from the court and 
 from society, and expressed frequently the intention of re- 
 tiring to his estates. 3 He was, however, much governed by 
 his secretary, the Seigneur de Bakkerzeel,* a man of restless, 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 358. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 345. "II 
 y a ette parole picante du Prince 
 d'Orange centre le Comte d'Egmont 
 conime s'il n'auroit rien oblie de son 
 particulier ; mais bien de ce qui 
 conccrnoit des seigneurs, dont d'Ejj- 
 inont at este aggravid et ne fu%t jcucli 
 en court ny en la procession." 
 Letter of Morillon to Granvelle, of 
 date 22d June 15(55. 
 
 " Le Prince d'Orange ne so pou- 
 
 voit abstenir d'user des mots 
 
 picquants contre le Comte d'Egmont 
 qu'il n'avoit fait aultre chose en 
 Espagne quo remphr en bourse, et 
 que ies 50,000 pistolets que luy avoit 
 donne le Eoy luy avojent faict 
 oublier les causses de son voyage 63 
 charges de sa legation." Pontus 
 Payen MS. Compare Bentivoglio, 
 ii. 24, 25. 
 
 3 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 3SO. 
 
 * Papiers d'Etat, ir. 459. Letter 
 of Bare to Granvelle. Correspond-
 
 438 
 
 TEE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1565. 
 
 intriguing, and deceitful character, who at this period exer- 
 cised as great influence over the Count as Armenteros 
 continued to maintain over the Duchess, whose unpopularity 
 from that and other circumstances was daily increasing. 1 
 
 In obedience to the commands of the King the canons of 
 Trent had been published. They were nominally enforced at 
 Cambray, but a fierce opposition was made by the clergy 
 themselves to the innovation in Mechlin, Utrecht, and many 
 other places. This matter, together with other more vitally 
 important questions, came before the assembly of bishops and 
 doctors, which, according to Philip's instructions, had been 
 convoked by the Duchess. The opinion of the learned theo- 
 loo-ians was, on the whole, that the views of the Trent 
 
 O / * 
 
 Council, with regard to reformation of ecclesiastical morals and 
 popular education, was sound. There was some discordancy 
 between the clerical and lay doctors upon other points. The 
 seigniors, lawyers, and deputies from the estates, were all in 
 favour of repealing the penalty of death for lieretical offences 
 of any kind. President Viglius, Avith all the bishops and doctors 
 of divinity, including the prelates of St. Omer, Namur, and 
 Ypres, and four theological professors from Louvain, stoutly 
 maintained the contrary opinions.* The President especially 
 declared himself vehemently in favour of the death punish- 
 ment, and expressed much anger against those who were in 
 favour of its abolition. 3 The Duchess, upon the second day of 
 the assembly, propounded formally the question, whether any 
 change was to be made in the chastisement of heretics ? The 
 
 O 
 
 Prince of Orange, wi th Counts Horn and Egmont, had, however, 
 declined to take part in the discussions, on the ground that it 
 was not his Majesty's intention that state councillors should 
 deliver their opinions before strangers, but that persons from 
 outside had been summoned to communicate their advice to the 
 coimcil. 4 The seigniors having thus washed their hands of the 
 
 ance de Philippe II., i. 365, 366. 
 Armenteros to (Jr. Perez. 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, i. 
 425. 
 
 2 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 408. 
 
 3 Ibid. "Y respondio con mucho 
 animo contra un tal opinion." 
 
 4 Hopper, Rec. et Mein., 47.
 
 1565.] ORTHODOX COUNCIL. 439 
 
 matter, the doctors came to a conclusion with great alacrity. It 
 was their unanimous opinion that it comported neither with the 
 service of God nor the common weal to make any change in 
 the punishment, except, perhaps, in the case of extreme youth ; 
 but that, on the contrary, heretics were only to be dealt with 
 by retaining the edicts in their rigour, and by courageously 
 chastising the criminals. 1 After sitting for the greater part 
 of six days, the bishops and doctors of divinity reduced their 
 sentiments to writing, and affixed their signatures to the 
 document. Upon the great point of the change suggested in 
 the penalties of heresy, it was declared that no alteration was 
 advisable in the edicts, which had been working so well for 
 thirty-five years." At the same time, it was suggested that 
 " some persons, in respect to their age and quality, might be 
 executed or punished more or less rigorously than others ; some 
 by death, some by galley slavery, some by perpetual banishment 
 and entire confiscation of property." The possibility was also 
 admitted of mitigating the punishment of those who, icithout 
 leing heretics or sectaries, might bring themselves within the 
 provisions of the edicts, l( through curiosity, nonchalance, or 
 otherwise." Such offenders, it was hinted, might be " whipped 
 with rods, fined, banished, or subjected to similar penalties of 
 a lighter nature." 8 It will be perceived by this slight sketch 
 of the advice thus offered to the Duchess, that these theo- 
 logians were disposed very carefully to strain the mercy which 
 they imagined possible in some cases, but which was to drop 
 only upon the heads of the just. Heretics were still to be 
 dealt with, so far as the bishops and presidents could affect 
 their doom, with unmitigated rigour. 
 
 When the assembly was over, the Duchess, thus put in 
 possession of the recorded wisdom of these special councillors, 
 asked her constitutional advisers what she was to do with it. 
 Orange, Egmont, Horn,Mansfeld, replied, however, that it was 
 not their affair, and that their opinion had not been demanded 
 by his Majesty in the premises. 4 The Duchess accordingly 
 
 1 Hopper, Eec. et Mem., 48. * Ibid., 48, 49. s Ibid. * Ibid.
 
 440 THE KISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 transmitted to Philip the conclusions of the assembly, together 
 with the reasons of the seigniors for refusing to take part in 
 its deliberations. The sentiments of Orange could hardly be 
 doubtful, however, nor his silence fail to give offence to the 
 higher powers. He contented himself for the time with 
 keeping his eyes and ears open to the course of events, but he 
 watched well. He had " little leisure for amusing himself," 
 
 o / 
 
 as Brederode suggested. That free-spoken individual looked 
 upon the proceedings of the theological assembly with pro- 
 found disgust. " Your letter," he wrote to Count Louis, " is 
 full of those blackguards of bishops and presidents. I would 
 the race were extinct, like that of green dogs. They will 
 always combat with the arms which they have ever used, 
 remaining to the end avaricious, brutal, obstinate, ambitious, 
 et cetera. I leave you to supply the rest." : 
 
 Thus, then, it was settled beyond peradventure that there 
 was to be no compromise with heresy. The King had willed it. 
 The theologians had advised it. The Duchess had proclaimed 
 it. It was supposed that without the axe, the fire, and the rack, 
 the Catholic religion would be extinguished, and that the 
 whole population of the Netherlands would embrace the 
 Reformed Faith. This was the distinct declaration of Viglius , 
 in a private letter to Granvelle. " Many seek to abolish the 
 chastisement of heresy," said he; "if they gain this point, 
 actum est de religione Catholicd: for, as most of the people 
 are ignorant fools, the heretics will soon be the great majority, 
 if by fear of punishment they are not kept in the true path." 2 
 
 The uneasiness, the terror, the wrath of the people, seemed 
 rapidly culminating to a crisis. Nothing was talked of but the 
 edicts and the Inquisition. Nothing else entered into the 
 minds of men. In the streets, in the shops, in the taverns, in 
 the fields ; at market, at church, at funerals, at weddings; in 
 the noble's castle, at the farmer's fireside, in the mechanic's 
 garret, upon the merchant's exchange, there was but one per- 
 petual subject of shuddering conversation. It was better, men 
 
 1 Groen T. Priust., Arcbiyes, etc., i. 382. a Ibid., i. 370, 371.
 
 1565.] UNIVERSAL EXCITEMENT. 441 
 
 began to whisper to each other, to die at once than to live in 
 perpetual slavery. It was better to fall with arms in hand 
 than to be tortured and butchered by the inquisition. Who 
 could expect to contend with such a foe in the dark ? 
 
 They reproached the municipal authorities with lending 
 themselves as instruments to the institution. They asked 
 magistrates and sheriffs how far they would go in their defence 
 before God's tribunal for the slaughter of his creatures, if they 
 could only answer the Divine arraignment by appealing to the 
 edict of 1550. 1 On the other hand, the inquisitors were 
 clamorous in abuse of the languor and the cowardice of the 
 secular authorities. They wearied the ear of the Duchess with 
 complaints of the difficulties which they encountered in the 
 execution of their functions of the slight alacrity on the part 
 of the various officials to assist them in the discharge of their 
 
 O 
 
 duties. Notwithstanding the express command of his Majesty 
 to that effect, they experienced, they said, a constant deficiency 
 of that cheerful co-operation which they had the right to claim, 
 and there was perpetual discord in consequence. They had 
 been empowered by papal and by royal decree to make use of 
 the gaols, the constables, the whole penal machinery of each 
 province ; yet the officers often refused to act, and had even 
 dared to close the prisons. Nevertheless, it had been intended, 
 as fully appeared by the imperial and royal instructions to the 
 inquisitors, that their action through the medium of the provin- 
 cial authorities should be unrestrained. Not satisfied with these 
 representations to the Regent, the inquisitors had also made a 
 direct appeal to the King. Judocus Tiletanus and Michael de 
 Bay addressed to Philip a letter from Louvain. They repre- 
 sented to him that they were the only two left of the five 
 inquisitors-general appointed by the Pope for all the Nether- 
 lands, the other three having been recently converted into 
 bishops. Daily complaints, they said, were reaching them of 
 the prodigious advance of heresy ; but their own office was 
 becoming so odious, calumniated, and exposed to so much re- 
 1 Hoofd, ii. 65.
 
 442 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1505. 
 
 sistance, that they could not perform its duties without personal 
 danger. They urgently demanded from his Majesty, therefore, 
 additional support and assistance. 1 Thus the Duchess, exposed 
 at once to the rising wrath of a whole people, and to the shrill 
 blasts of inquisitorial anger, was tossed to and fro, as upon a 
 stormy sea. The commands of the King, too explicit to be tam- 
 pered with, w T ere obeyed. The theological assembly had met 
 and given advice. The Council of Trent was here and there 
 enforced. The edicts were republished and the inquisitors 
 encouraged. Moreover, in accordance with Philip's suggestion, 
 orders were now given that the heretics should be executed at 
 midnight in their dungeons, by binding their heads between 
 their knees, and then slowly suffocating them in tubs of water. 2 
 Secret drowning was substituted for public burning, in order 
 that the heretic's crown of vain-glory, which was thought to 
 console him in his agony, might never be placed upon his head. 
 
 In the course of the summer, Margaret wrote to her brother 
 that the popular frenzy was becoming more and more intense. 
 The people were crying aloud, she said, that the Spanish 
 Inquisition, or a worse than Spanish Inquisition, had been 
 established among them by means of bishops and ecclesiastics. 3 
 She urged Philip to cause the instructions for the inquisitors 
 to be revised. Egmont, she said, was vehement in express- 
 ing his dissatisfaction at the discrepancy between Philip's 
 language to him by word of mouth, and that of the royal 
 despatches on the religious question. The other seigniors 
 were even more indignant. 
 
 While the popular commotion in the Netherlands was thus 
 fearfully increasing, another circumstance came to add to the 
 prevailing discontent. The celebrated interview between 
 Catherine de Medici and her daughter, the Queen of Spain, 
 occurred in the middle of the month of June, at Bayonne. The 
 darkest suspicions as to the results to humanity of the plots to 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 353. 
 
 2 Meteren, ii. SOd. Brandt, 
 Reformatie, i. v. 278. Compare de 
 
 Thou, v. xl. 206; Hopper, Bee. 
 Mem., 56, 57. 
 
 3 Correspondance de Philippe 
 i. 360-364.
 
 15C5.] THE BAYONNE INTERVIEW. 443 
 
 be engendered in this famous conference between the repre- 
 sentatives of France and Spain were universally entertained. 
 These suspicions were most reasonable, but they were never- 
 theless mistaken. The plan for u concerted action to extermi- 
 nate the heretics in both kingdoms had, as it was perfectly 
 well known, been formed long before this epoch. It was also 
 no secret that the Queen Regent of France had been desirous of 
 meeting her son-in-law, in order to confer with him upon 
 important matters, face to face. Philip, however, had latterly 
 been disinclined for the personal interview with Catharine. 1 
 As his wife was most anxious to meet her mother, it was never- 
 theless finally arranged that Queen Isabella should make the 
 journey; but he excused himself, on account of the multiplicity 
 of his affairs, from accompanying her in the expedition. The 
 Duke of Alva was, accordingly, appointed to attend the Queen 
 to Bayonne. Both were secretly instructed by Philip to leave 
 nothing undone in the approaching interview toward obtainino- 
 the hearty co-operation of Catharine de Medici in a general 
 and formally-arranged scheme for the simultaneous extermi- 
 nation of all heretics in the French and Spanish dominions. 
 
 Alva's conduct in this diplomatic commission was stealthy in 
 the extreme. His letters 2 reveal a subtlety of contrivance and 
 delicacy of handling, such as the world has not generally 
 reckoned among his characteristics. All his adroitness, as well 
 as the tact of Queen Isabella, by whose ability Alva declared 
 himself to have been astounded, proved, however, quite power- 
 less before the steady fencing of the wily Catherine. The Queen 
 .Regent, whose skill the Duke, even while defeated, acknow- 
 ledged to his master, continued firm in her design to maintain 
 
 O ' O 
 
 her own power by holding the balance between Guise and 
 Montmorency, between Leaguer and Huguenot. So long as 
 her enemies could be employed in exterminating each other, 
 she was willing to defer the extermination of the Huguenots. 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 i. 380, 311. 
 
 2 These remarkable letters are 
 published i the Papiers d'Etat, du 
 
 Card. Granvelle, ix. 281-330, and 
 reveal the whole truth concerning 
 the famous conference cf Bayonne.
 
 44 i THE EISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1565. 
 
 The great massacre of St. Bartholomew was to sleep for seven 
 years longer. Alva was, to be sure, much encouraged at first 
 by the language of the French princes and nobles who were 
 present at Bayoune. Monluc protested that " they might saw 
 the Queen Dowager in two before she would become Hugue- 
 not." l Montpensier exclaimed that " he would be cut in pieces 
 for Philip's services that the Spanish monarch was the only 
 hope for France," and embracing Alva with fervour, he affirmed 
 that if his body were to be opened at that moment, the name 
 of Philip would be found imprinted upon his heart. 3 The 
 Duke, having no power to proceed to an autopsy, physical, or 
 moral, of Montpensier's interior, was left somewhat in the 
 dark, notwithstanding these ejaculations. His first conversa- 
 tion with the youthful King, however, soon dispelled his hopes. 
 He found immediately, in his own words, " that Charles the 
 Ninth had been doctored." 3 To take up arms, for religious 
 reasons, against his own subjects, the monarch declared to be 
 ruinous and improper. It was obvious to Alva that the royal 
 pupil had learned his lesson for that occasion. It was a pity 
 for humanity that the wisdom thus hypocritically taught him 
 could not have sunk into his heart. The Duke did his best to 
 bring forward the plans and wishes of his royal master, but 
 without success. The Queen Regent proposed a league of the 
 two Kings and the Emperor against the Turk, and wished to 
 arrange various matrimonial alliances between the sons and 
 daughters of the three houses. Alva expressed the opinion 
 that the alliances were already close enough, while, on the 
 contrary, a secret league against the Protestants would make 
 all three families the safer. Catharine, however, was not to 
 be turned from her position. She refused even to admit that 
 the Chancellor de 1'Hopital was a Huguenot, to which the 
 Duke replied that she was the only person in her kingdom who 
 held that opinion. She expressed an intention of convoking 
 
 1 " Se dexaria asserrar que hazerse 
 ugonota." Papiers d'Etat, ubi sup. 
 
 2 "Que por V. M. se dexaria 
 hacer pedazos y que si le abri- 
 
 asen el cora^on le hallarian escripto 
 el nombre de V. II." Ibid. 
 
 3 " Como es, descubri lo que le 
 tenian predicado." Ibid.
 
 15G5.] THE INQUISITION SUSTAINED. 445 
 
 an assembly of doctors, and Alva ridiculed in his letters to 
 Philip the affectation of such a proceeding. In short, she 
 made it sufficiently evident, that the hour for the united action 
 of the French and Spanish sovereigns against their subjects 
 had not struck, so that the famous Bayonne conference termi- 
 nated without a result. It seemed not the less certain, how- 
 ever, in the general opinion of mankind, that all the particulars 
 of a regular plot had been definitely arranged upon this occa- 
 sion, for the extermination of the Protestants, and the error 
 has been propagated by historians of great celebrity of all 
 parties, down to our own days. The secret letters of Alva, 
 however, leave no doubt as to the facts. 
 
 In the course of November, fresh letters from Philip arrived 
 in the Netherlands, confirming everything which he had pre- 
 viously written. He wrote personally to the inquisitors-general, 
 Tiletanus and De Bay, encouraging them, commending them, 
 promising them his support, and urging them not to be deterred 
 by any consideration from thoroughly fulfilling their duties. 
 He wrote Peter Titelmann a letter, in which he applauded the 
 pains taken by that functionary to remedy the ills which reli- 
 gion was suffering, assured him of his gratitude, exhorted him 
 to continue in his virtuous course, and avowed his determi- 
 nation to spare neither pains, expense, nor even his own life, 
 to sustain the Catholic faith. To the Duchess he wrote at 
 great length, and in most unequivocal language. He denied 
 that what he had written from Valladolid was of different 
 meaning from the sense of the despatches by Egmont. With 
 regard to certain Anabaptist prisoners, concerning whose fate 
 Margaret had requested his opinion, he commanded their 
 execution, adding that such was his will in the case of all, 
 whatever their quality, who could be caught. That which the 
 people said in the Netherlands touching the inquisition he 
 pronounced extremely distasteful to him. That institution 
 which had existed under his predecessors, he declared more 
 necessary than ever ; nor would he suffer it to be discredited. 
 He desired his sister to put no faith in idle talk, as to the
 
 446 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 inconveniences likely to flow from the rigour of the inqui- 
 sition. Much greater inconveniences would be the result 
 if the inquisitors did not proceed with their labours, and 
 the Duchess was commanded to write to the secular judges, 
 enjoining upon them to place no obstacles in the path, but 
 to afford all the assistance which might be required. 1 
 
 To Egmont, the King wrote with his own hand, applaud- 
 ing much that was contained in the recent decisions of the 
 assembly of bishops and doctors of divinity, and commanding 
 the Count to assist in the execution of the royal determination. 
 In affairs of religion, Philip expressed the opinion that dis- 
 simulation and weakness were entirely out of place. 2 
 
 When these decisive letters came before the state-council, the 
 consternation was extreme. The Duchess had counted, in spite 
 of her inmost convictions, upon less preremptory instructions. 
 The Prince of Orange, the Count of Egmont, and the Admiral, 
 were loud in their denunciations of the royal policy. There 
 was a violent and protracted debate. The excitement spread 
 at once to the people. Inflammatory hand-bills were circulated. 
 Placards were posted every night upon the doors of Orange 
 Egmont. and Horn, calling upon them to come forth boldly as 
 champions of the people and of liberty in religious matters. 3 
 Banquets were held daily at the houses of the nobility, in which 
 the more ardent and youthful of their order, with brains excited 
 by wine and anger, indulged in flaming invectives against the 
 o-overnment, and interchanged vows to protect each other and 
 the cause of the oppressed provinces. Meanwhile the privy 
 council, to which body the Duchess had referred the recent 
 despatches from Madrid, made a report upon the whole subject 
 to the state-council, during the month of November, sustaining 
 the royal views, and insisting upon the necessity of carrying 
 them into effect. The edicts and inquisition having been so 
 vigorously insisted upon by the King, nothing was to be clone 
 but to issue new proclamations throughout the country, together 
 
 1 Correspondance do Philippe II. , I a Ibid., i. 375. 
 i. 309-373. ' Hoofd, ii. 65.
 
 15C5.) CONDUCT OF VIGLIUS. 4i7 
 
 with orders to bishops, councils, governors, and judges, that 
 every care should be taken to enforce them to the full. 1 
 
 This report came before the state-council, and was sustained 
 by some of its members. The Prince of Orange expressed the 
 same uncompromising hostility to the inquisition which he 
 had always manifested, but observed that the commands of 
 the King were so precise and absolute, as to leave no pos- 
 sibility of discussing that point. There was nothing to be 
 done, he said, but to obey, but he washed his hands of the 
 fatal consequences which he foresaw. 8 There was no longer 
 any middle course between obedience and rebellion. This 
 opinion, the soundness of which could scarcely be disputed, 
 was also sustained by Egmont and Horn. 
 
 Viglius, on the contrary, nervous, ngitated, and appalled, 
 was now disposed to temporise. He observed that if the 
 seigniors feared such evil results, it would be better to prevent 
 rather than to accelerate the danger which would follow the 
 proposed notification to the governors and municipal authori- 
 ties throughout the country, on the subject of the inquisition. 
 To make haste, was neither to fulfil the intentions, nor to serve 
 the interests of the King, and it was desirable " to avoid 
 emotion and scandal." Upon these heads the President 
 made a very long speech, avowing, in conclusion, that if his 
 Majesty should not find the course proposed agreeable, he was 
 ready to receive all the indignation upon his own head. 3 
 
 Certainly, this position of the President was somewhat in- 
 consistent with his previous course. He had been most violent 
 in his denunciations of all who should interfere with the exe- 
 cution of the great edict of which he had been the original 
 draughtsman. He had recently been ferocious in combating 
 the opinion of those civilians in the assembly of doctors who 
 had advocated the abolition of the death penalty against heresy. 
 He had expressed with great energy his private opinion, that 
 the ancient religion would perish if the machinery of persecu- 
 tion were taken away ; yet he now for the first time seemed to 
 
 1 Hopper, 58, 50. a Ibid., 59.
 
 448 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1565. 
 
 hear or to heed the outcry of a whole nation, and to tremble 
 at the sound. Now that the die had been cast, in accordance 
 with the counsels of his whole life now that the royal com- 
 mands, often enigmatical and hesitating, were at last too 
 distinct to be misconstrued, and too peremptory to be tampered 
 with the President imagined the possibility of delay. The 
 health of the ancient Frisian had but recently permitted him 
 to resume his seat at the council board. His presence there 
 was but temporary, for he had received from Madrid the 
 acceptance of his resignation, accompanied with orders to 
 discharge the duties of President l until the arrival of his 
 successor, Charles de Tisnacq. Thus, in his own language, 
 the Duchess was still obliged to rely for a season " upon her 
 ancient Palinurus." a a necessity far from agreeable to her, for 
 she had lost confidence in the pilot. It may be supposed that 
 he was anxious to smooth the troubled waters during the brief 
 period in which he was still to be exposed to their fury ; but 
 he poured out the oil of his eloquence in vain. Nobody sus- 
 tained his propositions. The Duchess, although terrified at 
 the probable consequences, felt the impossibility of disobeying 
 the deliberate decree of her brother. A proclamation was 
 accordingly prepared, by which it was ordered that the 
 Council of Trent, the edicts and the inquisition, should be 
 published in every town and village in the provinces imme- 
 diately, and once in six months for ever afterwards. 8 The 
 deed was done, and the Prince of Orange, stooping to the ear 
 of his next neighbour, as they sat at the council-board, whis- 
 pered that they were now about to witness the commencement 
 of the most extraordinary tragedy which had ever been 
 enacted. 4 The prophecy was indeed a proof that the Prince 
 could read the future, but the sarcasm of the President, that 
 the remark had been made in a tone of exultation, 5 was belied 
 by every action of the prophet's life. 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., * " Visuros nos brevi egregias tra- 
 442. Vit. Viglii, 45. goedise initium." Vit. Vigilii, 55. 
 
 2 Vit. Viglii, 45. 5 " Quasi laetus' gloriabunduE<jue. 
 8 Bor, i. 32, 33. Meteren, ii. 37. Ibid.
 
 1065.] PUEY OP THE PEOPLE. 449 
 
 The fiat went forth. In the market-place of every town and 
 village of the Netherlands, the inquisition was again formally 
 proclaimed. Every doubt which had hitherto existed as to 
 the intention of the government was swept away. 
 
 No argument was thenceforward to be permissible as to the 
 constitutionality of the edicts as to the compatibility of their 
 provisions with the privileges of the land. The cry of a 
 people in its agony ascended to heaven. The decree was 
 answered with a howl of execration. The flames of popular 
 frenzy * arose lurid and threatening above the house-tops of 
 every town and village. The impending conflict could no 
 longer be mistaken. The awful tragedy which the great 
 watchman in the land had so long predicted, was seen sweep- 
 ing solemnly and steadily onward. The superstitious eyes of 
 the age saw ominous indications in the sky. Contending 
 armies trampled the clouds ; blood dropped from heaven ; the 
 exterminating angel rode upon the wind. 
 
 There was almost a cessation of the ordinary business of 
 mankind. Commerce was paralysed. Antwerp shook as with 
 an earthquake. A chasm seemed to open, in which her 
 prosperity and her very existence were to be for ever engulphed. 
 The foreign merchants, manufacturers, and artisans, fled from 
 her gates as if the plague was raging within them. Thriving 
 cities were likely soon to be depopulated. The metropolitan 
 heart of the whole country was almost motionless. 2 
 
 Men high in authority sympathised with the general indig- 
 nation. The Marquis Berghen, the younger Mansfeld, the 
 Baron Montigny, openly refused to enforce the edicts within 
 their governments. Men of eminence inveighed boldly and 
 bitterly against the tyranny of the government, and counselled 
 disobedience. The Netherlands, it was stoutly maintained, 
 were not such senseless brutes as to be ignorant of the mutual 
 relation of prince and people. They knew that the obligation 
 
 feu, d'auparayant cache soulz lea 
 
 1 "Depuis icelles publiees par 
 lettres de S. A. aux evesques, con- 
 iauli et bonnes villes, c'est chose 
 incroyable quelles flammes jecta le 
 
 cendres," etc., etc. Hopper, Bee. et 
 Mem., 62, 
 
 VOL. I. 2 P 
 
 8 Hoofd, ii. 68. Bor, i. 34, 35.
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH KEPUBLIb. 
 
 [1&G&. 
 
 of a king to his vassals was as sacred as the duties of the 
 subjects to the sovereign. 1 
 
 The four principal cities of Brabant first came forward in 
 formal denunciation of the outrage. An elaborate and conclu- 
 sive document was drawn up in their name, and presented to 
 the Regent. 2 It set forth that the recent proclamation 
 violated many articles in the "joyous entry." That ancient 
 constitution had circumscribed the power of the clergy, and 
 the jealousy had been felt in old times as much by the sove- 
 reign as the people. No ecclesiastical tribunal had therefore 
 been allowed, excepting that of the Bishop of Cambray, whose 
 jurisdiction was expressly confined to three classes of cases 
 those growing out of marriages, testaments, and mortmains. 
 
 It would be superfluous to discuss the point at the present 
 day, whether the directions to the inquisitors and the publica- 
 tion of the edicts conflicted with the "joyous entrance." To take 
 a man from his house and burn him, after a brief preliminary 
 examination, was clearly not to follow the letter and spirit of the 
 Brabantine habeas corpus, by which inviolability of domicile and 
 regular trials were secured and sworn to by the monarch; yet 
 such had been the uniform practice of inquisitors throughout 
 the country. The petition of the four cities was referred by the 
 Regent to the Council of Brabant. The chancellor, or presi- 
 dent judge of that tribunal, was notoriously corrupt a creature 
 of the Spanish government. His efforts to sustain the policy 
 of the administration were, however, vain. The Duchess 
 ordered the archives of the province to be searched for prece- 
 dents, and the council to report upon the petition.* The case 
 was too plain for argument or dogmatism, but the attempt was 
 made to take refuge in obscurity. The answer of the council 
 was hesitating and equivocal.* The Duchess insisted upon 
 
 1 Hopper, 62. 
 
 Hopper, 63, eqq. Bor, i. 35. 
 Meteren, ii. 37. Boofd, ii. 68, 69. 
 Supplement a l*Hi-t. des Guerres 
 Ciyiles du Pere F. Strada, par 
 Foppenfl, Amst., 1729,) vol. ii. 291, 
 
 292. Letter of Margaret of Parma. 
 
 8 Strada, v. 168. Hoofd, ii. 69. 
 Hopper, ubi sup. 
 
 * Bor, i. 39, 40. Hoofd. Hopper, 
 ubi sup.
 
 1565,1 BRABANTINE DETERMINATION. 451 
 
 a distinct and categorical answer to the four cities. Thus 
 pressed, the Council of Brabant declared roundly that no inqui- 
 sition of any kind had ever existed in the provinces. 1 It was 
 impossible that any other answer could be given, but Viglius, 
 with his associates in the privy council, were extremely angry 
 at the conclusion. 2 The concession was, however, made, notwith- 
 standing the bad example which, according to some persons, the 
 victory thus obtained by so important a province would afford 
 to the people in the other parts of the country. Brabant was 
 declared free of the Inquisition. 8 Meanwhile the pamphlets, 
 handbills, pasquils, and other popular productions, were mul- 
 tiplied. To use a Flemish expression, they " snowed in the 
 street." They were nailed nightly on all the great houses in 
 Brussels.* Patriots were called upon to strike, speak, redress. 
 Pungent lampoons, impassioned invectives, and earnest remon- 
 strances, were thrust into the hands of the Duchess. The pub- 
 Mcations, as they appeared, were greedily devoured by the 
 people. " We are willing," it was said, in a remarkable letter 
 to the King, " to die for the Gospel, but we read therein, 'Ren- 
 der unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which 
 is God's.' We thank God that our enemies themselves are 
 compelled to bear witness to our piety and patience; so 
 that it is a common saying, ' He swears not, he is a Protest- 
 ant ; he is neither a fornicator nor a drunkard ; he is of the 
 new sect.' Yet, notwithstanding these testimonials to our 
 character, no manner of punishment has been forgotten by 
 which we can possibly be chastised." 5 This statement of the 
 moralit} 7 of the Puritans of the Netherlands, was the justifica- 
 tion of martyrs not the self-glorification of Pharisees. The 
 fact was incontrovertible. There tenets were rigid, but their 
 lives were pure. They belonged generally to the middling 
 and lower classes. They were industrious artisans, who de- 
 sired to live in the fear of God and in honour of their King. 
 
 1 Hopper, 64. Bor. Hoofd, ubi 
 
 Blip 
 
 Hopper, ubi sup. 
 
 * Hopper, 65. 
 
 4 Bor, ii. 53. Hoofd, ii. 70, 71. 
 
 * Bor, i. 43-50.
 
 452 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1565. 
 
 They were protected by nobles and gentlemen of high position, 
 very many of whom came afterwards warmly to espouse the 
 creed which at first they had only generously defended. Their 
 whole character and position resembled, in many features, 
 those of the English Puritans, who three quarters of a century 
 afterwards, fled for refuge to the Dutch Republic, and thence 
 departed to establish the American Republic. The difference 
 was, that the Netherlander were exposed to a longer perse- 
 cution, and a far more intense martyrdom. 
 
 Towards the end of the year (1565) which was closing in 
 such universal gloom, the contemporary chronicles are en- 
 livened with a fitful gleam of sunshine. The light enlivens 
 only the more elevated regions of the Flemish world, but it is 
 pathetic to catch a glimpse of those nobles, many of whose 
 lives were to be so heroic, and whose destinies so tragic, as 
 
 7 O 7 
 
 amid the shadows projected by coming evil they still found 
 time for the chivalrous festivals of the land and epoch. A 
 splendid tournament was held at the Chateau d'Antoing to 
 celebrate the nuptials of Baron Montigny with the daughter 
 of Prince d'Espinoy. Orange, Horn, and Hoogstraaten were 
 the challengers, and maintained themselves victoriously against 
 all comers, Egmont and other distinguished knights being 
 among the number. 1 
 
 Thus brilliantly and gaily moved the first hours of that 
 marriage which before six months had fled was to be so darkly 
 terminated. The doom which awaited the chivalrous bride- 
 groom in the dungeon of Samancas was ere long to be 
 recorded in one of the foulest chapters of Philip's tyranny. 
 
 A still more elaborate marriage festival, of which the hero 
 was, at a later day, to exercise a most decisive influence over 
 the fortunes of the land, was celebrated at Brussels before the 
 close of the year. It will be remembered that Alexander, 
 Prince of Parma, had accompanied Egmont on his return from 
 Spain in the month of April. The Duchess had been de- 
 lighted with the appearance of her SOB, then twenty years oi 
 
 1 Archives et Correspondance, i. 421. Pasq. de la Barre MS.
 
 1565.] THE PRINCE OF PARMA. 453 
 
 age, but already an accomplished cavalier. She had expressed 
 her especial pleasure in finding him so thoroughly a Spaniard 
 u in manner, costume, and conversation," that it could not be 
 supposed he had ever visited any other land, or spoken any 
 other tongue than that of Spain. 1 
 
 The nobles of the Flemish court did not participate in the 
 mother's enthusiasm. It could not be denied that he was a 
 handsome and gallant young prince ; but his arrogance was so 
 intolerable as to disgust even those most disposed to pay 
 homage to Margaret's son. He kept himself mainly in haughty 
 retirement, dined habitually alone in his own apartments, and 
 scarcely honoured any of the gentlemen of the Netherlands with 
 his notice. 2 Even Egmont, to whose care he had been espe- 
 cially recommended by Philip, was slighted. If, occasionally, he 
 honoured one or two of the seigniors with an invitation to his 
 table, he sat alone in solemn state at the head of the board,, 
 while the guests, to whom he scarcely vouchsafed a syllable, 
 were placed on stools without backs, below the salt. 8 Such in- 
 solence, it may be supposed, was sufficiently galling to men of 
 the proud character, but somewhat reckless demeanour, which 
 distinguished the Netherland aristocracy. After a short time 
 they held themselves aloof, thinking it sufficient to endure such 
 airs from Philip. The Duchess at first encouraged the young 
 Prince in his haughtiness, but soon became sad as she wit- 
 nessed its effects. It was the universal opinion that the young 
 Prince was a mere compound of pride and emptiness. "There 
 is nothing at all in the man," 4 said Chantonnay. Certainly 
 the expression was not a fortunate one. Time was to show 
 that there was more in the man than in all the governors des- 
 patched successively by Philip to the Netherlands ; but the 
 proof was to be deferred to a later epoch. Meantime, his 
 mother was occupied and exceedingly perplexed with his ap- 
 proaching nuptials. He had been affianced early in the year to 
 
 1 Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 351. 
 
 2 Papiers d'Etat, ii. 224. 
 
 3 Ibid. " Au bas boult de la table 
 KU ecabeaux." 
 
 * Groen v. Prin^t., Archives, etc., i. 
 394. " Certes jusques a maintenant 
 nihil est in homine je ne 89ay que ca 
 sera ayec le temps."
 
 454 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1505. 
 
 the Princess Donna Maria of Portugal. It was found neces- 
 sary, therefore, to send a fleet of several vessels to Lisbon, to 
 fetch the bride to the Netherlands, 1 the wedding being ap- 
 pointed to take place in Brussels. This expense alone was con- 
 siderable, and the preparations for banquets, jousts, and other 
 festivities, were likewise undertaken on so magnificent a scale 
 that the Duke, her husband, was offended at Margaret's 
 extravagance. 2 The people, by whom she was not beloved, 3 com- 
 mented bitterly on the prodigalities which they were witness- 
 ing in a period of dearth and trouble. 4 Many of the nobles 
 mocked at her perplexity. To crown the whole, the young 
 Prince was so obliging as to express the hope, in his mother's 
 hearing, that the bridal fleet, then on its way from Portugal, 
 might sink, with all it contained, to the bottom of the sea. 5 
 
 The poor Duchess was infinitely chagrined by all these cir- 
 cumstances. The " insane and outrageous expenses" fl in which 
 die nuptials had involved her, the rebukes of her husband, the 
 sneers of the seigniors, the undutiful epigrams of her son, the 
 ridicule of the people, affected her spirits to such a degree, 
 harassed as she was with grave matters of state, that she kept 
 her room for days together, weeping hour after hour in the 
 most piteous manner. Her distress was the town talk; 7 never- 
 theless, the fleet arrived in the autumn, and brought the youth- 
 ful Maria to the provinces. This young lady, if the faithful 
 historiographer of the Farnese house is to be credited, was the 
 paragon of princesses. 8 She was the daughter of Prince Ed- 
 ward, and granddaughter of John the Third. She was young 
 and beautiful ; she could talk both Latin and Greek, besides 
 being well versed in philosophy, mathematics, and theology.^' 
 
 1 Papiers d'Etat, ix. 218. 
 8 Ibid., ix. 385, 386, 601. 
 3 Archives et Correspondance, i. 
 425. 
 * Ibid., ix. 601. 
 
 5 Ibid., ix. 386. " Le jeune homme 
 eciente matre diet qu'il vouldroit que 
 tout ce que vad et reviendra demeurast 
 au fond de la mer." 
 
 6 " La folle et oultrageuse depense 
 
 des nopces," etc. P. d'Etat, ix. 601. 
 
 7 " Quo Ton scjait a parler par toute 
 la ville de ceste plorerie." Ibid. 
 
 8 Srrada, iv. 157-162. 
 
 9 Ibid. " Prsedicabaturque una 
 ingenio omnia comprehendre : La- 
 tina lingua expedite ac perbene loqui: 
 Graecas litteras proximo callere : pbi- 
 losophiam non ignorare : Mathematico- 
 rum disciplinas apprime nosse : divina
 
 1565.] 
 
 A MODEL PRINCESS. 
 
 455 
 
 She had the Scriptures at her tongue's end, both the old dispen- 
 sation and the new, and could quote from the Fathers with the 
 promptness of a bishop. She was so strictly orthodox that, on 
 being compelled by stress of weather to land in England, she 
 declined all communication with Queen Elizabeth on account 
 of her heresy. She was so eminently chaste that she could 
 neither read the sonnets of Petrarch, nor lean on the arm of a 
 gentleman. 1 Her delicacy upon such points, was, indeed, 
 carried to such excess, that upon one occasion, when the ship 
 which was bringing her to the Netherlands was discovered to 
 be burning, she rebuked a rude fellow who came forward to 
 save her life, assuring him that there was less contamination 
 in the touch of fire than in that of man.* Fortunately the 
 flames were extinguished, and the Phoenix of Portugal was per- 
 mitted to descend, unburned, upon the bleak shores of Flanders. 
 The occasion, notwithstanding the recent tears of the 
 Duchess, and the arrogance of the Prince, was the signal fov 
 much festivity among the courtiers of Brussels. It was also 
 the epoch from which movements of a secret and important 
 character were to be dated. The chevaliers of the Fleece were 
 assembled, and Viglius pronounced before them one of his 
 most classical orations. He had a good deal to say concerning 
 the private adventures of Saint Andrew, patron of the Order, 
 and went into some details of a conversation which that vene- 
 rated personage had once held with the proconsul JEgeas. 8 
 The moral which he deduced from his narrative was the 
 necessity of union among the magnates for the maintenance 
 of the Catholic faith ; the nobility and the Church being the 
 two columns upon which the whole social fabric reposed.* 
 
 utriusque Testament! oracula in promp- 
 tu habere." 
 
 This Princess, in her teens, might 
 already exclaim, with the venerable 
 Fastus : 
 " Habe nun Philosophic 
 
 Juristerei und Medicin 
 Und leider ach : Theologie 
 
 Durch etudirt mit heissem Be- 
 miihen," etc. 
 
 The panegyrists of royal houses in 
 the sixteenth century were not accus- 
 tomed to do their work by halves. 
 
 1 Strada, iv. 157-162. 
 
 * u Tu vero, inquit, manum 
 actutum abstine : quasi non minus ab 
 hujus,quam a flainmaruin tactu limeret 
 sibi," etc. Ibid. 
 
 3 Vit. Viglii, 44. 
 
 4 Ibid.
 
 456 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1565. 
 
 It is to be feared that the President became rather prosy upon 
 the occasion. Perhaps his homily, like those of the fictitious 
 Archbishop of Granada, began to smack of the apoplexy from 
 which he had so recently escaped. Perhaps, the meeting 
 being one of hilarity, the younger nobles became restive under 
 the infliction of a very long and a very solemn harangue. At 
 any rate, as the meeting broke up, there was a good deal of 
 jesting on the subject. De Hammes, commonly called 
 "Toison d'Or," councillor and king-at-arms of the Order, 
 said that the President had been seeing visions and talking 
 with Saint Andrew in a dream. Marquis Berghen asked for 
 the source whence he had derived such intimate acquaintance 
 with the ideas of the Saint. The President took these remarks 
 rather testily, and, from trifling, the company became soon 
 earnestly engaged in a warm discussion of the agitating 
 topics of the day. It soon became evident to Viglius that De 
 Hammes and others of his comrades had been dealing with 
 dangerous things. He began shrewdly to suspect that the 
 popular heresy was rapidly extending into higher regions; but 
 it was not the President alone who discovered how widely the 
 contamination was spreading. The meeting, the accidental 
 small talk, which had passed so swiftly from gaiety to gravity, 
 the rapid exchange of ideas, and the free-masonry by which 
 intelligence upon forbidden topics had been mutually conveyed 
 became events of historical importance. Interviews between 
 nobles, who, in the course of the festivities produced by the 
 Montigny and Parma marriages, had discovered that they 
 entertained a secret similarity of sentiment upon vital ques- 
 tions, became of frequent occurrence. 1 The result to which 
 such conferences led will be narrated in the following chapter. 
 Meantime, upon the llth November 1565, the marriage of 
 Prince Alexander and Donna Maria was celebrated with great 
 solemnity by the Archbishop of Cambray, in the chapel of the 
 court at Brussels. On the following Sunday the wedding 
 banquet was held in the great hall, where, ten years pre- 
 1 Bor, ii. 63. Hoofd, ii. 70, 71.
 
 1565.] 
 
 PARMA'S NUPTIALS. 
 
 457 
 
 viously, the memorable abdication of the bridegroom's imperial 
 grandfather had taken place. The walls were again hung with 
 the magnificent tapestry of Gideon, while the knights of the 
 Fleece, with all the ether grandees of the land, were assem- 
 bled to grace the spectacle. 1 The King was represented by his 
 envoy in England, Don Guzman de Silva, who came to 
 Brussels for the occasion, and who had been selected for this 
 duty because, according to Armentcros, " he was endowed, 
 beside his prudence, with so much witty gracefulness with 
 ladies in matters of pastime and entertainment." 2 Early in 
 the month of December, a famous tournament was held in the 
 great market-place of Brussels, the Duke of Par"ma, the Duke 
 of Aerschot, and Count Egmont being judges of the jousts. 
 Count Mansfeld was the challenger, assisted by his son 
 Charles, celebrated among the gentry of the land for his- 
 dexterity in such sports. To Count Charles was awarded 
 upon this occasion the silver cup from the lady of the lists. 
 Count Bossu received the prize for breaking best his lances ; 
 the Seigneur de Beauvoir for the most splendid entrance ; 
 Count Louis of Nassau, for having borne himself most gal- 
 lantly in the melde. On the same evening the nobles, to- 
 gether with the bridal pair, were entertained at a splendid 
 supper given by the city of Brussels, in the magnificent 
 Hotel de Ville. On this occasion the prizes gained at the 
 tournament were distributed, amid the applause and hilarity 
 of all the revellers. 8 
 
 Thus, with banquet, tourney, and merry marriage bells^ 
 with gaiety gilding the surface of society, while a deadly 
 hatred to the inquisition was eating into the heart of the 
 nation, and while the fires of civil war were already kindling,, 
 of which no living man was destined to witness the extinction, 
 ended the year 1565. 
 
 1 De la Barre MS., 57. 
 
 2 " Tiene tambien gracia y donaire 
 con las damas en las cosas de passa- 
 
 tiempo y entretenimiento." Corres- 
 pondance de Philippe II., i. 365, 366. 
 8 De la Barre MS.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COMPKOMISE AND MODERATION. 
 
 Francis Junius His sermon at Culemburg House The Compromise* 
 Portraits of Sainte Aldegonde, of Louis of Nassau, of " Toison d'Or," o 
 Charles Mansfeld Sketch of the Compromise Attitude of Orange 
 His letters to the Duchess Signers of the Compromise Indiscretion 
 of the Confederates Espionage over Philip by Orange Dissatisfaction 
 of the seigniors Conduct of Egmont Despair of the People Emigra- 
 tion to England Its effects The Request Meeting at Breda and 
 Hoogstraaten Exaggerated statements concerning the Request in the 
 state-council Hesitation of the Duchess Assembly of notables Debate 
 concerning the Request and the Inquisition Character of Brederode 
 Arrival of the Petitioners in Brussels Presentation of the Request 
 Emotion of Margaret Speech of Brederode Sketch of the Request 
 Memorable sarcasm of Berlaymont Deliberation in the state-council-* 
 Apostille to the Request Answer to the Apostille Reply of the 
 Duchess Speech of D'Esquerdes Response of Margaret Memo- 
 rable banquet at Culemburg House Name of " the beggars " adopted 
 Orange, Egmont, and Horn break up the riotous meeting Costume of 
 "the beggars" Brederode at Antwerp Horrible execution at Oudenarde 
 Similar cruelties throughout the provinces Project of " Moderation" 
 Religious views of Orange His resignation of all his offices not accepted 
 The "Moderation " characterised Egmont at Arras Debate on the 
 "Moderation" Vacillation of Egmout Mission of Montigny and 
 Berghen to Spain Instructions to the envoys Secret correspondence 
 of Philip with the Pope concerning the Netherland Inquisition and the 
 edicts Field-preaching in the provinces Modet at Ghent Othe r 
 preachers characterised Excitement at Tournay Peter Gabriel at 
 Harlem Field-preaching near Antwerp Embarrassment of the Regent 
 Excitement at Antwerp Pensionary Wesenbeck sent to Brussels 
 Orange at Antwerp His patriotic course Misrepresentation of the 
 Duchess Intemperate zeal of Dr. Rythovius Meeting at Sk Trend 
 Conference at Duffel Louis of Nassau deputed to the Regent Unsatisfao 
 tory negotiations. 
 
 THE most remarkable occurrence in the earlier part of the year 
 1566 was the famous Compromise. This documents by which
 
 1566.] FRANCIS JUNTOS, 459 
 
 ihe signers pledged themselves to oppose the inquisition, and 
 to defend each other against all consequences of such a resist* 
 ance, was probably the work of Philip de Marnix, Lord of Sainte 
 Aldegonde. Much obscurity, however, rests upon the origin of 
 this league. Its foundations had already been laid in the latter 
 part of the preceding year. The nuptials of Parma with the 
 Portuguese princess had been the cause of much festivity, not 
 only in Brussels, but at Antwerp. The great commercial 
 metropolis had celebrated the occasion by a magnificent ban- 
 quet. There had been triumphal arches, wreaths of flowers, 
 loyal speeches, generous sentiments, in the usual profusion. 
 The chief ornament of the dinner-table had been a magnificent 
 
 O 
 
 piece of confectionery, setting elaborately forth the mission of 
 Count Mansfeld with the fleet to Portugal to fetch the bride 
 from her home, with exquisitely finished figures in sugar 
 portraits, it is to be presumed of the principal personages as 
 they appeared during the most striking scenes of the history. 1 
 At the very moment, however, of these delectations, a meeting 
 was held at Brussels of men whose minds were occupied with 
 sterner stuff than sugar-work. On the wedding-day of Parma, 
 Francis Junius, a dissenting minister then residing at Antwerp, 
 was invited to Brussels to preach a sermon in the house of 
 Count Culemburg on the horse-market, (now called Little 
 Sablon,) before a small assembly of some twenty gentlemen. 8 
 This Francis Junius, born of a noble family in Bourges, was 
 the pastor of the secret French congregation of Huguenots at 
 Antwerp. He was very young, having arrived from Geneva, 
 where he had been educated, to take charge of the secret 
 church, when but just turned of twenty years. 3 He was, how- 
 ever, already celebrated for his learning, his eloquence, and his 
 courage. Towards the end of 1565, it had already become 
 known that Junius was in secret understanding with Louis of 
 Nassau, to prepare an address to government on the subject of 
 the inquisition and edicts. Orders were given for his arrest. 
 
 1 Meteren, ii. "6. I Junii ab ipso conscripta, f. 15, apud 
 
 3 Brandt, . 289, sqq. Ex vita F. | Brandt. 3 Vit. Junii, 14, 15, 16.
 
 460 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1560. 
 
 A certain painter of Brussels affected conversion to the new 
 religion, that he might gain admission to the congregation, and 
 afterwards earn the reward of the informer. He played his 
 part so well that he was permitted to attend many meetings, 
 in the course of which he sketched the portrait of the preacher, 
 and delivered it to the Duchess Regent, together with minute 
 statements as to his residence and daily habits. Nevertheless, 
 with all this assistance, the government could not succeed in 
 laying hands on him. He escaped to Breda, and continued 
 his labours in spite of persecution. The man's courage may be 
 estimated from the fact that he preached on one occasion a 
 sermon, advocating the doctrines of the Reformed Church, with 
 his usual eloquence, in a room overlooking the market-place, 
 where, at the very instant, the execution by fire of several 
 heretics was taking place, while the light from the flames in 
 which the brethren of their faith were burning, was flickering 
 through the glass windows of the conventicle. 1 Such was 
 the man who preached a sermon in Culemburg Palace on 
 Parma's wedding-day. The nobles who listened to him were 
 occupied with grave discourse after conclusion of the religious 
 exercises. Junius took no part in their conversation, but in 
 his presence it was resolved that a league against the l( bar- 
 barous and violent inquisition " should be formed, and that 
 confederates should mutually bind themselves, both within and 
 without the Netherlands, to this great purpose. 8 Junius in 
 giving this explicit statement, has not mentioned the names of 
 the nobles before whom he preached. It may be inferred that- 
 some of them were the more ardent and the more respectable 
 among the somewhat miscellaneous band by whom the Com- 
 promise was afterwards signed. 
 
 At about the same epoch, Louis of Nassau, Nicolas de 
 Hammes, and certain other gentlemen, met at the baths of 
 iSpa. At this secret assembly, the foundations of the Com- 
 promise were definitely laid. 8 A document was afterwards 
 
 1 Vit. Junii, f . 16, apud Brandt, 290. I a This appears from the sentence 
 3 Ibid., p. 15, apud Brandt, 289. | pronounced against de Hammes (Toi
 
 1500.] 
 
 SAINTE ALDEGONDE. 
 
 drawn up, which was circulated for signatures in the early part 
 of 1566. It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that this 
 memorable paper was simultaneously signed and sworn to at 
 any solemn scene like that of the declaration of American 
 Independence, or like some of the subsequent transactions in 
 the Netherland revolt arranged purposely for dramatic effect. 
 Several copies of the Compromise were passed secretly from 
 hand to hand, and in the course of two months some two 
 thousand signatures had been obtained. 1 The original copy 
 bore but three names, those of Brederode, Charles de Mansfeld, 
 and Louis of Nassau. 2 The composition of the paper is usually 
 ascribed to Sainte Aldegonde, although the fact is not indis- 
 putable. 3 At any rate, it is very certain that he was one of 
 the originators and main supporters of the famous league. 
 
 Sainte Aldegonde was one of the most accomplished men of 
 his age. He was of ancient nobility, as he proved by an 
 abundance of historical heraldic evidence, in answer to a scurri- 
 lous pamphlet, in which he had been accused, among other 
 delinquencies, of having sprung from plebeian blood. Having 
 established his " extraction from true and ancient gentlemen of 
 Savoy, paternally and maternally," he rebuked his assailants in 
 manly strain. u Even had it been that I was without nobility 
 of birth," said he, "I should be none the less or more a virtuous 
 or honest man ; nor can any one reproach me with having failed 
 in the point of honour or duty. What greater folly than to 
 boast of the virtue or gallantry of others, as do many nobles 
 who, having neither a grain of virtue in their souls nor a drop 
 
 son d'Or) by the Blood-Council on the 
 17th May, 15(58. " Charge" d 'avoir 
 este ung des autheurs de la seditieuse 
 et pernicieuse conjuration et ligue 
 des confederez (qu'ils appellent Com- 
 promis) et dicelle premierement 
 avoir jecte les fondemens a la fon- 
 taine de Spa, avecq le Compte Loys 
 de Nassau et aultres et apres environ 
 le mois de Decembre, 1565, 1'arreste 
 la signe et jure en ceste ville de 
 Uruxello en sa maison et a icelle 
 
 attire et induict plusieurs aultres.' 
 Registre des Condamnes at Bannis 
 a cause des Troubles dej Pay-Bas 
 dep. 1'an 1568 a 1572. Chambre 
 des Comptes, iii. MS. in the Brussels 
 Archives. 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 400. 
 
 2 Archives et Correspondance, ii. 
 2-7. 
 
 3 G-roen v. Prinst., Archives et Cor- 
 respondance, ii. lei.
 
 462 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1800. 
 
 of wisdom in their brains, are entirely useless to their country ! 
 Yet there are such men, who, because their ancestors have 
 done some valorous deed, think themselves fit to direct the 
 machinery of a whole country, having from their youth learned 
 nothing but to dance and to spin like weathercocks with their 
 heads as well as their heels." 1 Certainly Sainte Aldegonde 
 had learned other lessons than these. He was one of the many- 
 sided men who recalled the symmetry of antique patriots. He 
 was a poet of much vigour and imagination, a prose writer, 
 whose style wassurpassed by that of none of his contemporaries, 
 a diplomatist in whose tact and delicacy William of Orange 
 afterwards reposed in the most difficult and important negotia- 
 tions, an orator whose discourses on many great public occa- 
 sions attracted the attention of Europe, a soldier whose bravery 
 was to be attested afterwards on many a well- fought field ; a 
 theologian so skilful in the polemics of divinity, that, as it will 
 hereafter appear, he was more than a match for a bench of 
 bishops upon their own ground : and a scholar so accomplished, 
 that, besides speaking and writing the classical and several 
 modern languages with facility, he had also translated for popu- 
 lar use the Psalms of David into vernacular verse, and at a very 
 late period of his life was requested by the states-general of the 
 republic to translate all the Scriptures a work, the fulfilment 
 of which was prevented by his death. 8 A passionate foe to the 
 inquisition and to all the abuses of the ancient Church, an 
 ardent defender of civil liberty, it must be admitted that he 
 partook also of the tyrannical spirit of Calvinism. He never 
 rose to the lofty heights to which the spirit of the great founder 
 of the commonwealth was destined to soar, but denounced 
 the great principle of religious liberty for all consciences as 
 godless. He was now twenty-eight years of age, having been 
 born in the same year with his friend Louis of Nassau. 
 
 & tin libelle fameux 
 nagueres publi6 contre Monseigneur 
 le Prince d'Orange et intitule Let- 
 tres d'un geutilhomme vray patriote, 
 
 etc. Faicte du Mon. de 8. Aide- 
 gonde. Anvers : cbez Giles van dee 
 Bade, 1579. 
 1 G. T. Pr., Arch., etc., iii. 412, 413.
 
 1566.] 
 
 COUNT LOUIS. 
 
 463 
 
 His device, " Repos ailleurs," 1 finely typified the restless, 
 agitated, and laborious life to which he was destined. 
 
 That other distinguished leader of the newly-formed league, 
 Count Louis, was a true knight of the olden time, the very 
 mirror of chivalry. Gentle, generous, pious ; making use, in 
 his tent before the battle, of the prayers which his mother 
 sent him from the home of his childhood, 8 yet fiery in the 
 field as an ancient crusader doing the work of general and 
 soldier with desperate valour, and against any numbers 
 cheerful and steadfast under all reverses, witty and jocund in 
 social intercourse, animating with his unceasing spirits the 
 graver and more foreboding soul of his brother ; he was the 
 man to whom the eyes of the most ardent among the Nether- 
 land Reformers were turned at this early epoch, the trusty 
 staff upon which the great Prince of Orange was to lean till 
 it was broken. As gay as Brederode, he was unstained by 
 his vices, and exercised a boundless influence over that reck- 
 less personage, who often protested that he would "die a poor 
 soldier at his feet." 8 The career of Louis was destined to be 
 short, if reckoned by years ; but if by events, it was to attain 
 almost a patriarchal length. At the age of nineteen he had 
 taken part in the battle of St. Quentin, and when once the 
 war of freedom opened, his sword was never to be sheathed. 
 His days were filled with life, and when he fell into his 
 bloody but unknown grave, he was to leave a name as dis- 
 tinguished for heroic valour and untiring energy as for spot- 
 less integrity. He was small of stature, but well formed ; 
 athletic in all knightly exercises, with agreeable features, a dark 
 laughing eye, close-clipped brown hair, and a peaked beard. 
 
 " Golden Fleece," as Nicholas de Hammes was universally 
 denominated, was the illegitimate scion of a noble house.* He 
 was one of the most active of the early adherents to the league, 
 kept the list of signers in his possession, and scoured the 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 13. 412, 413. 
 3 Ibid., ii. 260, 309. 
 
 8 Ibid., ii. 416. 
 
 4 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 i. 399 ; note 2-
 
 464 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15GG. 
 
 country daily to procure new confederates. 1 At the public 
 preachings of the reformed religion, which soon after this epoch 
 broke forth throughout the Netherlands as by a common 
 impulse, he made himself conspicuous. He was accused of 
 wearing, on such occasions, the ensigns of the Fleece about his 
 neck, in order to induce ignorant people to believe that they 
 might themselves legally follow, when they perceived a member 
 of that illustrious fraternity to be leading the way. 8 As De 
 Hammes w as only an official or servant of that Order, but not 
 a companion, the seduction of the lieges by such false pretences 
 was reckoned among the most heinous of his offences. He was 
 fierce in his hostility to the government, one of those fiery 
 spirits whose premature zeal was prejudicial to the cause of 
 liberty, and disheartening to the cautious patriotism of Orange. 
 He was for smiting at once the gigantic atrocity of the Spanish 
 dominion, without waiting for the forging of the weapons by 
 which the blows were to be dealt. He forgot that men and 
 money were as necessary as wrath, in a contest with the most 
 tremendous despotism of the world. " They wish," he wrote to 
 Count Louis, " that we should meet these hungry wolves with 
 remonstrances, using gentle words, while they are burning 
 and cutting off heads. Be it so then. Let us take the pen 
 let them take the sword. For them deeds, for us words. We 
 shall weep, they will laugh. The Lord be praised for all; but 
 I cannot write this without tears." 3 This nervous language 
 painted the situation and the character of the writer. 
 
 As for Charles Mansfeld, he soon fell away from the league 
 which he had embraced originally with excessive ardour. 4 
 
 By the influence of the leaders many signatures were obtained 
 during the first two months of the year. The language of the 
 document was such that patriotic Catholics could sign it as 
 honestly as Protestants. It inveighed bitterly against the 
 tyranny of " a heap of strangers," who, influenced only by 
 
 1 Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 400. 
 Strada, v. 172. 
 
 3 Begistre des Condamues MS., ubi 
 
 sup. 
 
 8 Green v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 ii. 36, 37. 
 
 4 Cor. de Phil. II., 303-306, 422. 
 Qroen y. Prinst., Arch., etc., ii. 4.0y.
 
 15G6.] THE LANGUAGE OP THE COMPROMISE. 465 
 
 private avarico and ambition, were making use of an affected 
 zeal for the Catholic religion, to persuade the King into a vio- 
 lation of his oaths. It denounced the refusal to mitigate the 
 Severity of the edicts. It declared the Inquisition, which it 
 seemed the intention of government to fix permanently upon 
 them, as " Iniquitous, contrary to all laws, human and divine, 
 surpassing the greatest barbarism which was ever practised by 
 tyrants, and as redounding to the dishonour of God and to the 
 total desolation of the country." The signers protested, there- 
 fore, that, " having a due regard to their duties as faithful 
 vassals of his Majesty, and especially as noblemen and in 
 order not to be deprived of their estates and their lives by those 
 who, under pretext of religion, wished to enrich themselves by 
 plunder and murder," they had bound themselves to each other 
 by holy covenant and solemn oath to resist the Inquisition. 
 They mutually promised to oppose it in every shape, open or 
 covert, under whatever mask it might assume, whether bearing 
 the name of Inquisition, placard, or edict, " and to extirpate 
 and eradicate the thing in any form, as the mother of all 
 iniquity and disorder." They protested before God and man, 
 that they would attempt nothing to the dishonour of the Lord, 
 or to the diminution of the King's grandeur, majesty, or 
 dominion. They declared, on the contrary, an honest purpose 
 to " maintain the monarch in his estate, and to suppress all 
 seditions, tumults, monopolies, and factions." They engaged 
 to preserve their confederation, thus formed, for ever invio- 
 lable, and to permit none of its members to be persecuted in 
 any manner, in body or goods, by any proceeding founded on 
 the Inquisition, the edicts, or the present league. 1 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that the Compromise was, in its 
 origin, a covenant of nobles. It was directed against the 
 foreign influence by which the Netherlands were exclusively 
 governed, and against the Inquisition, whether Papal, Epis- 
 copal, or by edict. There is no doubt that the country was 
 
 1 The Compromise has been often Arch., etc., ii. 2, sqq. Foppensi, Sup, 
 printed. Vide, e.g., Groen v. Prinst., a Strada, ii. 299, sqq. Bor, ii. 53, 54. 
 
 VOL. i. 2o
 
 466 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G6. 
 
 controlled entirely by Spanish masters, and that it was 
 intended to reduce the ancient liberty of the Netherlands 
 into subjection to a junta of foreigners sitting at Madrid. 
 Nothing more legitimate could be imagined than a consti- 
 tutional resistance to such a policy. 
 
 The Prince of Orange had not been consulted as to the 
 formation of the league. 1 It was sufficiently obvious to 
 its founders that his cautious mind would find much to 
 censure in the movement. His sentiments with regard to 
 
 O 
 
 the Inquisition and the edicts were certainly known to all 
 men. In the beginning of this year, too, he had addressed 
 a remarkable letter 8 to the Duchess, in answer to her written 
 commands to cause the Council of Trent, the Inquisition, 
 and the edicts, in accordance with the recent commands of 
 the King, to be published and enforced throughout his go- 
 vernment. Although his advice on the subject had not been 
 asked, he expressed his sense of obligation to speak his mind 
 on the subject, preferring the hazard of being censured for 
 his remonstrance, to that of incurring the suspicion of con- 
 nivance at the desolation of the land by his silence. He left 
 the question of reformation in ecclesiastical morals untouched, 
 as not belonging to his vocation. As to the Inquisition, he 
 most distinctly informed her Highness that the hope which 
 still lingered in the popular mind of escaping the permanent 
 establishment of that institution, had alone prevented the 
 utter depopulation of the country, with entire subversion of 
 its commercial and manufacturing industry. With regard to 
 the edicts he temperately but forcibly expressed the opinion 
 that it was very hard to enforce those placards now in their 
 rigour, when the people were exasperated, and the misery 
 universal, inasmuch as they had frequently been modified on 
 former occasions. The King, he said, could gain nothing but 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., ii. 11, 15. 
 
 a 24th January 1566. The letter 
 is published by Groen v. Prinsterer, 
 Archives, etc., ii. 16-21, and in Bor, 
 33, 34. It may be found also in 
 Gtichard, Correspondance de Q-uil- 
 
 laumo le Tacifc, ii. 106, sqq., and 
 in Keiffenbergr, Correspondance de 
 Marg. d'Autriche, 16-20. 
 
 The original, entirely in the hand 
 writing of the Prince, is in the Ar 
 chives of the State Council, at Brussels
 
 1566.] THE SIGNERS OF THE DOCUMENT. 457 
 
 difficulty for himself, and would be sure to lose the affection of 
 nis subjects by renewing the edicts, strengthening the Inquisi- 
 tion, and proceeding to fresh executions, at a time when the 
 people, moved by the example of their neighbours, were natur- 
 ally inclined to novelty. Moreover, when, by reason of the 
 daily -increasing prices of grain, a famine was impending over 
 the land, no worse moment could be chosen to enforce such a 
 policy. In conclusion, he observed that he was ai all times 
 desirous to obey the commands of his Majesty and her High- 
 ness, and to discharge the duties of " a good Christian." The 
 use of the latter term is remarkable, as marking an epoch in 
 the history of the Prince's mind. A year before he would have 
 said a good Catholic, but it was during this year that his mind 
 began to be thoroughly pervaded by religious doubt, and that 
 the great question of the Reformation forced itself, not only 
 as a political, but as a moral problem upon him, which he felt 
 that he could not much longer neglect instead of solving. 
 
 Such were the opinions of Orange. He could not, however, 
 safely intrust the sacred interests of a commonwealth to such 
 hands as those of Brederode however deeply that enthusi- 
 astic personage might drink the health of "Younker William," 
 as he affectionately denominated the Prince or to " Golden 
 Fleece," or to Charles Mansfeld, or to that younger wild boar 
 of Ardennes, Robert de la Marck. In his brother and in Sainte 
 Aldegonde he had confidence, but he did not exercise over 
 them that control which he afterwards acquired. His conduct 
 towards the confederacy was imitated in the main by the other 
 great nobles. The covenanters never expected to obtain the 
 signatures of such men as Orange, Egmont, Horn, Meghem, 
 Berghen, or Montigny ; nor were those eminent personages 
 ever accused of having signed the Compromise, although some of 
 them were afterwards charged with having protected those who 
 did affix their names to the document. The confederates were 
 originally found among the lesser nobles. Of these some were 
 sincere Catholics, who loved the ancient Church but hated the 
 Inquisition ; some were fierce Calvinists or determined Luther-
 
 468 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1563. 
 
 ans ; some were troublous and adventurous spirits, men of 
 broken fortunes, extravagant habits, and boundless desires, who 
 no doubt thought that the broad lands of the Church, with their 
 stately abbeys, would furnish much more fitting homes and 
 revenues for gallant gentlemen than for lazy monks. 1 All were 
 young, few had any prudence or conduct, and the history of 
 the league more than justified the disapprobation of Orange. 
 The nobles thus banded together achieved little by their confe- 
 deracy. They disgraced a great cause by their orgies, almost 
 ruined it by their inefficiency ; and when the rope of sand 
 which they had twisted fell asunder, the people had gained 
 nothing, and the gentry had almost lost the confidence of the 
 nation. These remarks apply to the mass of the confederates 
 and to some of the leaders. Louis of Nassau and Sainte 
 Aldegonde were ever honoured and trusted as they deserved. 
 
 Although the language of the Compromise spoke of the 
 Jeaguers as nobles, yet the document was circulated among 
 burghers and merchants also, many of whom, according to the 
 satirical remark of a Netherland Catholic, may have been 
 influenced by the desire of writing their names in such aristo- 
 cratic company, and some of whom were destined to expiate 
 such vain-glory upon the scaffold. 2 
 
 With such associates, therefore, the profound and anxious 
 mind of Orange could have little in common. Confidence 
 expanding as the number increased, their audacity and turbu- 
 lence grew with the growth of the league. The language at 
 their wild banquets was as hot as the wine which confused 
 their heads ; yet the Prince knew that there was rarely a festi- 
 val in which there did not sit some calm, temperate Spaniard, 
 watching with quiet eye and cool brain the extravagant de- 
 meanour, and listening with composure to the dangerous avowals 
 or bravadoes of these revellers, with the purpose of transmit- 
 ting a record of their language or demonstrations to the Inmost 
 sanctuary of Philip's cabinet at Madrid. 8 The Prince knew, 
 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. * Ibid. I rent au plus beau de leurs tables par 
 
 * " Les faisant eeoir le plus sou- I une courioise maniere de faire qua
 
 15G6.] 
 
 PHILIP BETRAYED. 
 
 too, that the King was very sincere in his determination 
 to maintain the Inquisition, however dilatory his proceedings 
 might appear. He was well aware that an armed force might 
 be expected ere long to support the royal edicts. Already the 
 Prince had organised that system of espionage upon Philip, by 
 which the champion of his country was so long able to circum- 
 vent its despot. The King left letters carefully locked in his 
 desk at night, and unseen hands had forwarded copies of them 
 to William of Orange before the morning. He left memoranda 
 in his pockets on retiring to bed, and exact transcripts of those 
 papers found their way, likewise, ere he rose, 1 to the same 
 watchman in the Netherlands. No doubt that an inclination 
 for political intrigue was a prominent characteristic of the 
 Prince, and a blemish upon the purity of his mortal nature ; yet 
 the dissimulating policy of his age he had mastered only that 
 he might accomplish the noblest purposes to which a great and 
 good man can devote his life the protection of the liberty and 
 the religion of a whole people against foreign tyranny. His 
 intrigue served his country, not a narrow personal ambition, 
 and it was only by such arts that he became Philip's master, 
 instead of falling at once, like so many great personages, a 
 blind and infatuated victim. No doubt his purveyors of secret 
 information were often destined fearfully to atone for their 
 contraband commerce, but they who trade in treason must 
 expect to pay the penalty of their traffic. 
 
 Although, therefore, the great nobles held themselves aloof 
 from the confederacy, yet many of them gave unequivocal signs 
 
 nous a^ons de caresser les Grangers; 
 By tost que le vin estoit rnonte au 
 oerveau de nos seigneurs et gentils- 
 hommes parloient librement a leur 
 accoustumee de toutes choses, des- 
 oouvrant par grande siniplesee ce 
 qu ils avoient au cceur, sans con- 
 sideYer que ces oiseaux estoyent a 
 leurs tables, lesquels demeurans tous- 
 joura en cervelle notoyent diligem- 
 ment le propos des convivans, jutques 
 a remarquer leurs con tenants, pour 
 en foire rapport a cenains commis 
 
 qu'ils appelloyent auditeura." Pon- 
 tus Payen MS. liv. i. 
 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. "Entra 
 aultres, par le Secretaire Van den 
 Esse, lequel, abusant de la privaulte 
 du Roy ron maistre, avoit (comma 
 aulcuns veullent dire) este si teme- 
 raire de fureter sa poche, pendant 
 qu'il estoit au lict, et lire les lettrea 
 secretes qu'il recevoit de Madame 
 de Parme et du Cardinal faisant 
 apres entendre le contenu au Priuee 
 d'Orange," etc., etc.
 
 470 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. [156ft. 
 
 of their dissent from the policy adopted by government. Mar- 
 quis Berghen wrote to the Duchess, resigning his posts, on the 
 ground of his inability to execute the intention of the King in 
 the matter of religion. Meghem replied to the same sum- 
 mons by a similar letter. Egmont assured her that he would 
 have placed his offices in the King's hands in Spain, could he 
 have foreseen that his Majesty would form such resolutions as 
 had now been proclaimed. The sentiments of Orange were 
 avowed in the letter to which we have already alluded. His 
 opinions were shared by Montigny, Culemburg, and many 
 others. The Duchess was also almost reduced to desperation. 
 The condition of the country was frightful. The most deter- 
 mined loyalists, such as Berlaymont, Viglius, and Hopper, ad- 
 vised her not to mention the name of Inquisition in a confer- 
 ence which she was obliged to hold with a deputation from 
 Antwerp. 1 She feared, all feared, to pronounce the hated word. 
 She wrote despairing letters to Philip, describing the condition 
 of the land and her own agony in the gloomiest colours. Since 
 the arrival of the royal orders, she said, things had gone from 
 bad to worse. The King had been ill-advised. It was useless 
 to tell the people that the Inquisition had always existed in 
 the Provinces. They maintained that it was a novelty ; that 
 the institution was a more rigorous one than the Spanish 
 Inquisition, which, said Margaret, " was most odious, as the 
 King knew." 8 It was utterly impossible to carry the edicts 
 into execution. Nearly all thegovernors of provinces had told 
 her plainly that they would not help to burn fifty or sixty 
 thousand Netherlanders. 8 Thus bitterly did Margaret of Parma 
 bewail the royal decree ; not that she had any sympathy for the 
 victims, but because she felt the increasing danger to the exe- 
 cutioner. One of two things it was now necessary to decide 
 upon concession or armed compulsion. Meantime, while 
 Philip was slowly and secretly making his levies, his sister, as 
 well as his people, was on the rack. Of all the seigniors, not 
 one was placed in so painful a position as Egmont. His mili- 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 386, 387, 397. a Ibid. Ibid.
 
 1566.] 
 
 EMIGRATION OF THE NETEERLANDER8. 
 
 471 
 
 tary reputation and his popularity made him too important a 
 personage to be slighted, yet he was deeply mortified at the 
 lamentable mistake which he had committed. He now 
 averred that he would never take arms against the King, but 
 that he would go where man should never see him more. 1 
 
 Such was the condition of the nobles, greater and less. That 
 of the people could not well be worse. Famine reigned in the 
 land. 3 Emigration, caused not by over-population, but by 
 persecution, was fast weakening the country. It was no wonder 
 that not only foreign merchants should be scared from the great 
 commercial cities by the approaching disorders, but that every 
 industrious artizan who could find the means of escape should 
 seek refuge among strangers, wherever an asylum could be 
 found. That asylum was afforded by Protestant England, who 
 received these intelligent and unfortunate wanderers with cordi- 
 ality, and learned with eagerness the lessons in mechanical skill 
 which they had to teach. Already there were thirty thousand 
 emigrant Netherlander established in Sandwich, Norwich, and 
 other places, assigned to them by Elizabeth. 3 It had always, 
 however, been made a condition of the liberty granted to these 
 foreigners for practising their handiwork, that each house 
 should employ at least one English apprentice. 4 " Thus," said 
 a Walloon historian, splenetically, " by this regulation, and by 
 means of heavy duties on foreign manufactures, have the 
 English built up their own fabrics and prohibited those of the 
 Netherlands. Thus have they drawn over to their own country 
 our skilful artizans to practise their industry, not at home 
 but abroad, and our people are losing the means of earn 
 ing their livelihood. Thus has cloth-making, silk-making, and 
 the art of dyeing declined in this country, and would have 
 been quite extinguished but by our wise counter vailing edicts." 6 
 
 1 Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 391. 
 
 3 Pasquier de la Barre, MS., 8ro. 
 Correspondance de Philippe II., i. 392. 
 
 3 Ibid. 
 
 * Renom de France, MS. "Efc 
 affin de faire croistre ces mestiers et 
 
 artifices en Angleterre, nul de ceulx 
 qui se eont retires illecq ont peu 
 faire mestiers s'ils n'avoient appren- 
 tisseurs Anglois, un pour ie momgs." 
 i. c. iv. 
 
 6 Renom de France, MS., ubi sup.
 
 472 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 L l566. 
 
 The writer, who derived most of his materials and his wisdom 
 from the papers of Councillor d'Assonleville, could hardly doubt 
 that the persecution to which these industrious artizans, whose 
 sufferings he affected to deplore, had been subjected, must have 
 had something to do with their expatriation ; but he preferred 
 to ascribe it wholly to the protective system adopted by England. 
 In this he followed the opinion of his preceptor. " For a long 
 time," said Assonleville, "the Netherlands have been the 
 Indies to England ; as long as she has them, she needs no 
 other. The French try to surprise our fortresses and cities ; 
 the English make war upon our wealth and upon the purses of 
 the people." 1 Whatever the cause, however, the current of 
 trade was already turned. The cloth-making of England was 
 already gaining preponderance over that of the Provinces. 
 Vessels now went every week from Sandwich to Antwerp, 
 laden with silk, satin, and cloth, manufactured in England, 
 while as many, but a few years before, had borne the Flemish 
 fabrics of the same nature from Antwerp to England. 8 
 
 It might be supposed by disinterested judges that persecu- 
 tion was at the bottom of this change in commerce. The 
 Prince of Orange estimated that up to this period fifty thousand 
 persons in the Provinces had been put to death in obedience 
 to the edicts. 8 He was a moderate man, and accustomed to 
 weigh his words. As a new impulse had been given to the 
 system of butchery ; as it was now sufficiently plain that, tl if 
 the father had chastised his people with a scourge, the son 
 held a whip of scorpions ; " * as the edicts were to be enforced 
 with renewed vigour it was natural that commerce and 
 manufactures should make their escape out of a doomed land 
 as soon as possible, whatever system of tariffs might be 
 adopted by neighbouring nations. 
 
 A new step had been resolved upon early in the month of 
 March by the confederates. A petition, or " Request," was 
 
 1 Correspondance de Philippe II., 
 l. 382. 
 3 Ibid., i. ^92. 
 
 8 Groen v. Prinst., Archires, etc., 
 ii. 22. 
 * Apologie d'Orange, 58.
 
 1660.] CONFERENCES OF ORANGE AND THE NOBLES. 473 
 
 drawn up, which was to be presented to the Duchess Regent 
 in a formal manner by a large number of gentlemen belonging 
 to the league. This movement was so grave, and likely to be 
 followed by such formidable results, that it seemed absolutely 
 necessary for Orange and his friends to take some previous 
 cognisance of it before it was finally arranged. The Prince 
 had no power, nor was there any reason why he should have 
 the inclination, to prevent the measure, but he felt it his duty 
 to do what he could to control the vehemence of the men who 
 were moving so rashly forward, and to take from their mani- 
 festo, as much as possible, the character of a menace. 
 
 For this end, a meeting, ostensibly for social purposes and 
 " good cheer," was held, in the middle of March, at Breda, and 
 afterwards adjourned to Hoogstraaten. To these conferences 
 Orange invited Egmont, Horn, Hoogstraaten, Berghen, Meg- 
 hem, Montigny, and other great nobles. Brederode, Tholouse, 
 Boxtel, and other members of the league, were also present. 1 
 The object of the Prince in thus assembling his own immediate 
 associates, governors of provinces, and knights of the Fleece, 
 as well as some of the leading members of the league, was two- 
 fold. It had long been his opinion that a temperate and loyal 
 movement was still possible, by which the impending convul- 
 sions might be averted. The line of policy which he had 
 marked out required the assent of the magnates of the land, and 
 looked towards the convocation of the States- General. It was 
 natural that he should indulge in the hope of being seconded 
 by the men who were in the same political and social position 
 with himself. All, although Catholics, hated the Inquisition. 
 As Viglius pathetically exclaimed, " St. Paul himself would 
 have been unable to persuade these men that good fruit was to 
 be gathered from the Inquisition in the cause of religion."* 
 St. Paul could hardly be expected to reappear on earth for 
 
 1 Groen T. Prinst., Archive*, etc., 
 ii. 38, sqq. Correspondance de 
 Philippe II., i. 397, 398, 399. 
 Foppi-ns, Supplement, i. 78, 79 (Pro- 
 ves d Eginont). Compare Bentivoglio, 
 
 ii. 27 ; Wagenaer, vi. 133, 134 ; Vander 
 Haer, 305, sqq. ; Apologie d'Orange, 
 56, sqq. 
 * Vigl. Epist. ad Hoppeium, 359.
 
 47-1 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1560. 
 
 such a purpose. Meantime, the arguments of the learned 
 President had proved powerless, either to convince the nobles 
 that the institution was laudable, or to obtain from the Duchess 
 a postponement in the publication of the late decrees. The 
 Prince of Orange, however, was not able to bring his usual 
 associates to his way of thinking. The violent purposes of the 
 leaguers excited the wrath of the more loyal nobles. Their 
 intentions were so dangerous, even in the estimation of the 
 Prince himself, that he felt it his duty to lay the whole subject 
 before the Duchess, although he was not opposed to the pre- 
 sentation of a modest and moderate Request. 1 Meghem was 
 excessively indignant at the plan of the confederates, which he 
 pronounced an insu'lt to the government, a treasonable attempt 
 to overawe the Duchess, by a " few wretched vagabonds." 3 
 He swore that (t he would break every one of their heads, if 
 the King would furnish him with a couple of hundred thou- 
 sand florins." : Orange quietly rebuked this truculent lan- 
 guage, by assuring him both that such a process would be 
 more difficult than he thought, and that he would also find 
 many men of great respectability among the vagabonds. 
 
 The meeting separated at Hoogstraaten without any useful 
 result ; but it was now incumbent upon the Prince, in his own 
 judgment, to watch, and in a measure to superintend, the pro- 
 ceedings of the confederates. By his care the contemplated 
 Request was much altered, and especially made more gentle 
 in its tone. Meghem separated himself thenceforth entirely 
 from Orange, and ranged himself exclusively upon the side ot 
 government. Egmont vacillated, as usual, satisfying neither 
 the Prince nor the Duchess. 4 
 
 Margaret of Parma was seated in her council-chamber very 
 soon after these occurrences, attended both by Orange and 
 Egmont, when the Count of Meghem entered the apartment. 
 With much precipitation, he begged that all matters then before 
 the board might be postponed, in order that he might make an 
 important announcement. He then stated that he had received 
 1 Ap.d'Orange, 58. a V.Haer,306. " Pauci nebulonea." * Ibid. * Ibid.SOa
 
 15CC.] MEGHEM'S EIDICULOUS EXAGGERATIONS. 475 
 
 information from a gentleman on whose word he could rely 
 a very affectionate servant of the King, but whose name he 
 had promised not to reveal that a very extensive conspiracy 
 of heretics and sectaries had been formed, both within and 
 without the Netherlands ; that they had already a force of 
 thirty-five thousand men, foot and horse, ready for action ; 
 that they were about to make a sudden invasion, and to 
 plunder the whole country, unless they immediately received 
 a formal concession of entire liberty of conscience ; and that 
 within six or seven days, fifteen hundred men-at-arms would 
 make their appearance before her Highness. 1 These ridiculous- 
 exaggerations of the truth were confirmed by Egmont, who 
 said that he had received similar information from persons 
 whose names he was not at liberty to mention, but from whose 
 statements he could announce that some great tumult might 
 be expected every day. He added that there were among the 
 confederates many who wished to change their sovereign, and 
 that the chieftains and captains of the conspiracy were al* 
 appointed. 3 The same nobleman also laid before the council a 
 copy of the compromise, 8 the terms of which famous document 
 scarcely justified the extravagant language with which it had 
 been heralded. The Duchess was astounded at these commu- 
 nications. She had already received, but probably not yet read, 
 a letter from the Prince of Orange upon the subject in which 
 a moderate and plain statement of the actual facts was laid 
 down, which was now reiterated by the same personage by 
 word of mouth. 4 An agitated and inconclusive debate fol- 
 lowed, in which, however, it sufficiently appeared, as the 
 Duchess informed her brother, that one of two things must be 
 done without further delay. The time had arrived for the 
 government to take up arms or to make concessions. 
 
 In one of the informed meetings of councillors, now held 
 almost daily on the subject of the impending Request, Arem- 
 
 1 Hopper, Bee. et Mem., 69, sqq. 
 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 293, eqq. 
 Houfd, ii. 71, 72. 
 
 2 Foppene, Supplement, 293, sqq. 
 
 (Letter of Margaret of Parma to 
 
 Philip H.) 'Hopper, 70. 
 
 * Foppenu, Supp., 293, sqq. (Letter 
 
 of Margaret of Parma). Hopper, 7(X
 
 476 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 berg, Meghem, and Berlaymont, maintained that the door 
 should be shut in the face of the petitioners, -without taking 
 any further notice of the petition. Berlaymont suggested, 
 also, that if this course were not found advisable, the next 
 best thing would be to allow the confederates to enter the 
 palace with their Bequest, and then to cut them to pieces to 
 the very last man, by means of troops to be immediately 
 ordered from the frontiers. 1 Such sanguinary projects were> 
 indignantly rebuked by Orange. He maintained that the 
 confederates were entitled to be treated with respect. Many 
 of them, he said, were his friends some of them his relations 
 and there was no reason for refusing to gentlemen of their 
 rank a right which belonged to the poorest plebeian in the 
 land. Egmont sustained these views of the Prince as earnestly 
 as he had on a previous occasion appeared to countenance the 
 more violent counsels of Meghem. 8 
 
 Meantime, as it was obvious that the demonstration on the 
 part of the confederacy was soon about to be made, the 
 Duchess convened a grand assembly of notables, in which not 
 only all the state and privy councillors, but all the governors 
 and knights of the Fleece were to take part. On the 28th of 
 March, 3 this assembly was held, at which the whole subject of 
 the Request, together with the proposed modification of the 
 edicts and abolition of the Inquisition, was discussed. The 
 Duchess also requested the advice of the meeting, whether it 
 would not be best for her to retire to some other city, like 
 Mons, which she had selected as her stronghold in case of 
 extremity. The decision was, that it would be a high-handed 
 proceeding to refuse the right of petition to a body of gentle- 
 men, many of them related to the greatest nobles in the land ; 
 but it was resolved that they should be required to make their 
 
 1 Pontus Payen, ii., MS. "Les 
 Comtes do Megne, d'Aremberg, et 
 S. de Berlaymont estoyent d'advis 
 de leur fermer la porte au visiage 
 
 ou bien les laisser au Palais, et 
 
 puis les faire tailler en pieces par 
 lea gens de guerre que Ton feroit 
 
 venir des frontieree." Compare 
 Vander Haer, 307, 308. 
 
 2 Pontus Paj en MS. V. Haer, 308. 
 
 3 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 304- 
 318. (Letter of Margaret of Parma, 
 3d April 1565.) Correspoudanca 
 de Philippe II, i. 403-406.
 
 1566.] COUNT BREDERODE. 477 
 
 appearance without arms. As to the contemplated flight of 
 the Duchess, it was urged, with much reason, that such a step 
 would cast disgrace upon the government, and that it would be a 
 sufficiently precautionary measure to strengthen the guards at 
 the city gates not to prevent the entrance of the petitioners, 
 but to see that they were unaccompanied by an armed force. 
 
 It had been decided that Count Brederode should present the 
 petition to the Duchess at the head of a deputation of about 
 three hundred gentlemen. The character of the nobleman 
 thus placed foremost on such an important occasion has been 
 sufficiently made manifest. He had no qualities whatever but 
 birth and audacity to recommend him as a leader for a political 
 party. It was to be seen that other attributes were necessary 
 to make a man useful in such a position, and the Count's 
 deficiencies soon became lamentably conspicuous. He was 
 the lineal descendant and representative of the old Sovereign 
 Counts of Holland. Five hundred years before his birth, his 
 ancestor Sikko, younger brother of Dirk the Third, had died, 
 leaving two sons, one of whom was the first Baron of Brede- 
 rode. 1 A descent of five centuries in unbroken male succession 
 from the original sovereigns of Holland, gave him a better 
 genealogical claim to the Provinces than any which Philip of 
 Spain could assert through the usurping house of Burgundy. 
 In the approaching tumults he hoped for an opportunity of 
 again asserting the ancient honours of his name. He was a 
 sworn foe to Spaniards, and to " water of the fountain. " ! But 
 a short time previously to this epoch, he had written to Louis of 
 Nassau, then lying ill of a fever, in order gravely to remonstrate 
 with him on the necessity of substituting wine for water on all 
 occasions, 3 and it will be seen in the sequel that the wine-cup 
 was the great instrument on which he relied for effecting the 
 deliverance of the country. Although " neither bachelor nor 
 chancellor,"* as he expressed it, he was supposed to be 
 endowed with ready eloquence and mother wit.' Even these 
 
 Wagenaer, ii. 150. 
 
 Green v. Prin., Arch, etc., i. 397. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 * Ibid., ii. 95. 
 8 " Ingenti verbornm factorumque 
 audacia." Vandcr Haer,308.
 
 478 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15G6. 
 
 gifts. However, if he possessed them, were often found want- 
 ing on important emergencies. Of his courage there was no 
 question, but he was not destined to the death either of a 
 warrior or a martyr. Headlong, noisy, debauched, but brave, 
 kind-hearted and generous, he was a fitting representative of 
 his ancestors, the hard-fighting, hard-drinking, crusading, 
 free-booting sovereigns of Holland and Friesland, and would 
 himself have been more at home and more useful in the 
 eleventh century than in the sixteenth. 
 
 It was about six o'clock in the evening, on the third day of 
 April (1566), that the long-expected cavalcade at last entered 
 Brussels. 1 An immense concourse of citizens of all ranks 
 thronged around the noble confederates as soon as they made 
 their appearance. They were about two hundred in number, 
 all on horseback, with pistols in their holsters, and Brede- 
 rode, tall, athletic, and martial in his bearing, with handsome 
 features and fair curling locks upon his shoulders, seemed 
 an appropriate chieftain for that band of Batavian chivalry. 3 
 The procession was greeted with frequent demonstrations of 
 applause as it wheeled slowly through the city till it reached 
 the mansion of Orange Nassau. Here Brederode and Count 
 Louis alighted, while the rest of the company dispersed to 
 different quarters of the town. 
 
 11 They thought that I should not come to Brussels," said 
 Brederode, as he dismounted. " Very well, here I am ; and 
 perhaps I shall depart in a different manner."* In the 
 course of the next day, Counts Culemburg and Van den Berg 
 entered the city with one hundred other cavaliers. 
 
 On the morning of the 5th of April, the confederates were 
 assembled at the Culemburg mansion, which stood on the 
 square called the Sablon, 4 within a few minutes' walk of the 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 58. Foppens, Suppl., ii. 
 337. Cor. de Phil. II., i. 403-406. 
 
 2 "Hy is geweest een man van 
 lange stature, rosagtig van aengesicht, 
 met blondgekrult haar, wel gemackt 
 
 van lijf en van leden ont vert 
 
 eacgt en klock ter wapenen," etc., 
 
 etc. Bor, iii. 168 6. 
 
 3 " Eh bien, j'y suis, et j'en sortirai 
 d'une autre maniere, pout-dire. " Cor. 
 de Phil. II., ii. 403-406. 
 
 4 The site of the Culemburg 
 mansion was after \ v ards occupied 
 by the church of the "Carmos
 
 15C6.] PEOCESSION OP THE PETITIONEES. 479 
 
 palace. A straight handsome street led from the house along 
 the summit of the hill, to the splendid residence of the ancient 
 Dukes of Brabant, then the abode of Duchess Margaret. At a 
 little before noon, the gentlemen came forth, marching on foot, 
 two by two, to the number of three hundred. Nearly all were 
 young, many of them bore the most ancient historical names 
 of their country, every one was arrayed in magnificent costume. 1 
 It was regarded as ominous that the man who led the proces- 
 sion, Philip de Bailleul, was lame. The line was closed by 
 Brederode and Count Louis, who came last, walking arm in 
 arm. An immense crowd was collected in the square in front 
 of the palace, to welcome the men who were looked upon as 
 the deliverers of the land from Spanish tyranny, from the 
 cardinalists, and from the Inquisition. They were received 
 with deafening huzzas and clappings of the hands by the assem- 
 bled populace. As they entered the council-chamber, passing 
 through the great hall, where ten years before the Emperor 
 had given away his crowns, they found the Emperor's 
 daughter seated in the chair of state, and surrounded by the 
 highest personages of the country. The emotion of the Duchess 
 was evident, as the procession somewhat abruptly made its 
 appearance ; nor was her agitation diminished as she observed 
 among the petitioners many relatives and retainers of the 
 Orange and Egmont houses, and saw friendly glances of 
 recognition exchanged between them and their chiefs.* 
 
 As soon as all had entered the senate-room, Brederode ad- 
 vanced, made a low obeisance, and spoke a brief speech. 8 He 
 said that he had come thither with his colleagues to present an 
 humble petition to her Highness. He alluded to the reports 
 which had been rife, that they had contemplated tumult, sedi- 
 tion, foreign conspiracies, and, what was more abominable than 
 all, a change of sovereign. He denounced such statements as 
 calumnies, begged the Duchess to name the men who had thus 
 
 deschausse"s," upon the ruins of * Ihid. 
 
 8 According to Viglius, he read tlie 
 speech : " Ex ecripto pauca prsefatue." 
 
 which a " niaison de detention " has 
 
 risen. 
 
 1 Pontus Payen. ii., MS. 
 
 Ep. ad Hopper, rii. 358.
 
 450 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1560. 
 
 aspersed an honourable and loyal company, and called upon 
 her to inflict exemplary punishment upon the slanderers. 
 With these prefatory remarks he presented the petition. The 
 famous document was then read aloud. 1 Its tone was suf- 
 ficiently loyal, particularly in the preamble, which was filled 
 with protestations of devotion to both King and Duchess. 
 After this conventional introduction, however, the petitioners 
 proceeded to state, very plainly, that the recent resolutions of 
 his Majesty, with regard to the edicts and the Inquisition, were 
 likely to produce a general rebellion. They had hoped, they 
 said, that a movement would be made by the seigniors or by 
 the estates, to remedy the evil by striking at its cause, but they 
 had waited in vain. The danger, on the other hand, was aug- 
 menting every day, universal sedition was at the gate, and they 
 had therefore felt obliged to delay no longer, but come forward 
 the first and do their duty. They professed to do this with 
 more freedom, because the danger touched them very nearly. 
 They were the most exposed to the calamities which usually 
 spring from civil commotion, for their houses and lands, situate 
 in the open fields, were exposed to the pillage of all the world. 
 Moreover, there was not one of them, whatever his condition, 
 who was not liable at any moment to be executed under the 
 edicts, at the false complaint of the first man who wanted to 
 obtain his estate, and who chose to denounce him to the inqui- 
 sitor, at whose mercy were the lives and property of all. They 
 therefore begged the Duchess Regent to despatch an envoy on 
 their behalf who should humbly implore his Majesty to abolish 
 the edicts. In the meantime they requested her Highness to 
 order a general surcease of the Inquisition, and of all execu- 
 tions, until the King's further pleasure was made known, 
 and until new ordinances made by his Majesty with advice 
 and consent of the States- General duly assembled, should be 
 established. The petition terminated, as it had commenced, 
 with expressions of extremo respect and devoted loyalty. 
 
 1 It has been often printed, vide I 89-34. Foppens, Supplement, ii. 31S- 
 t.ff., Groen v. Prinst., Archives, ii. | 323. lior, ii. 58, 59, et mult. al.
 
 1566.] THE "BEGGARS." 481 
 
 The agitation of Duchess Margaret increased very peicep- 
 tibly during the reading of the paper. When it was finished, 
 ehe remained for a few minutes quite silent, with tears rolling 
 down her cheeks. 1 As soon as she could overcome her excite- 
 ment, she uttered a few words to the effect that she would ad- 
 vise with her councillors and give the petitioners such answer 
 as should be found suitable. The confederates then passed out 
 from the council-chamber into the grand hall ; each individual, 
 as he took his departure, advancing towards the Duchess and 
 making what was called the " caracole," in token of reverence. 
 There was thus ample time to contemplate the whole company, 
 and to count the numbers of the deputation.* 
 
 After this ceremony had been concluded, there was much 
 earnest debate in the council. The Prince of Orange addressed 
 a few words to the Duchess, with the view of calming her irri- 
 tation. He observed that the confederates were no seditious 
 rebels, , but loyal gentlemen, well-born, well-connected, and of 
 honourable character. They had been influenced, he said, by 
 an honest desire to save their country from impending danger, 
 not by avarice or ambition. Egmont shrugged his shoulders, 8 
 and observed that it was necessary for him to leave the court 
 for a season, in order to make a visit to the baths of Aix, for 
 an inflammation which he had in his leg.* It was then that 
 Berlaymont, according to the account which has been sanctioned 
 by nearly every contemporary writer, whether Catholic or Pro- 
 testant, uttered the gibe which was destined to become im- 
 mortal, and to give a popular name to the confederacy. " What, 
 Madam ! " he is reported to have cried in a passion, "is it pos- 
 sible that your highness can entertain fears of these beggars ? 
 (gueux.) Is it not obvious what manner of men they are? 
 
 " Madame la Ducbesse se trouva 
 
 da prime face fort troublee de- 
 
 meura bonne espace de temps sans 
 dire mot, ne pouvant contenin lea 
 lurmes que 1'on yoioit couller de sa 
 face, tesmoignage certain ne la tris- 
 tesse qu'enduroit eon esprit." Pon- 
 
 8 " Tournoyans et faisans la cara- 
 cole devant la dite Dame," etc. 
 Pontus Payen, MS. 
 
 3 " En baussant les epaules a 
 I'ltalienne," etc. Pontus Payen MSL 
 Ibid. Compare Foppens, Supple*- 
 
 tus Payen, ii., MS. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 H 
 
 meat, ii. 345, and i. 68.
 
 482 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566 
 
 They have not had wisdom enough to manage their own es- 
 tates, and they are now to teach the King and your Highness 
 how to govern the country ? By the living God, if my advice 
 were taken, their petition should have a cudgel for a com- 
 mentary, and we would make them go down the steps of the 
 palace a great deal faster than they mounted them." l 
 
 The Count of Meghem was equally violent in his language. 
 Aremberg was for ordering " their reverences, the confederates," 
 to quit Brussels without delay. 2 The conversation, carried on 
 in so violent a key, might not unnaturally have been heard by 
 such of the gentlemen as had not yet left the grand hall ad- 
 joining the council-chamber. The meeting of the council was 
 then adjourned for an hour or two, to meet again in the after- 
 noon, for the purpose of deciding deliberately upon the answer 
 to be given to the Request. Meanwhile, many of the confede- 
 rates were swaggering about the streets, talking very bravely of 
 the scene which had just occurred, and it is probable, boasting 
 not a little of the effect which their demonstration would pro- 
 duce. 8 As they passed by the house of Berlaymont, that 
 nobleman, standing at his window in company with Count 
 Aremberg, is said to have repeated his jest. " There go our 
 fine beggars again," said he. tf Look, I pray you, with what 
 bravado they are passing before us 1 " * 
 
 1 "Le S. de Berlaymont pro- 
 
 nonca par grande colere les parolles 
 memorables que firent changer de nom 
 
 aux gentilshommes confe'derez 
 
 Et comment, Madame, rotre Alteze 
 
 at elle crainte de ces gueux? Par 
 
 le Dieu vivant, qui croirait mon con- 
 eeil leur Requests seroit appostillee 
 a belles bastonnades, et les ferions 
 descendre les degres de la court plus 
 vietement qu'ils les ont montes." 
 Pontua Payen, ii., MS. 
 
 2 Pontus Payen, ii., MS. 
 
 8 " Allerent faire la piaffe par la 
 
 yille repartisen diverses bandes," 
 
 etc. Pontus Payen, ii., MS. 
 
 * " Voila nos beaux gueux," dict-il. 
 " Regardez, je vous prie, avec quelle 
 
 bravado ils passent devant nous." 
 Pontus Payen, ii., MS. 
 
 Notwithstanding the scepticism of 
 M. GacLard (Note sur 1'origine du 
 nom de Gueux ; t. xiii. des Bulletins 
 de la Com. Roy d'Histoire), it is pro- 
 bable that the Seigneur de Berlay- 
 mont will retain the reputation of 
 originating the famous name of the 
 "beggars." M. Gachard cites We- 
 Bembeck, Bor, Le Petit, Meteren, 
 among comtemporaries, and Strada 
 and Vander Vy_nckt among later 
 writers, as having sanctioned the 
 anecdote in which the taunt of Ber- 
 laymont is recorded. The learned 
 and acute critic is disposed to ques- 
 tion the acciiracy of the report, both
 
 1566.1 
 
 APOSTILLES AND REJOINDERS. 
 
 483 
 
 On the 6th of April, Brederode, attended by a large number 
 of his companions, again made his appearance at the palace. 
 He then received the petition, which was returned to him with 
 an Apostille or commentary to this effect: Her Highness 
 would despatch an envoy for the purpose of inducing his Ma- 
 jesty to grant the Request. Everything worthy of the King's 
 unaffected (naive) and customary benignity might be expected 
 as to the result. The Duchess had already, with the assistance 
 of the state and privy councillors, knights of the Fleece and 
 governors, commenced a project for moderating the edicts to 
 be laid before the King. As her authority did not allow her to 
 suspend the Inquisition and placards, she was confident that the 
 petitioners would be satisfied with the special application about 
 to be made to the King. Meantime, she would give orders to 
 all inquisitors, that they should proceed " modestly and dis- 
 creetly " in their office, so that no one would have cause to 
 complain. Her Highness hoped likewise that the gentlemen 
 
 upon d priori grounds, and because 
 there is no mention made of the cir- 
 cumstance either in the official or 
 confidential correspondence of Duchess 
 Margaret with the King. It is pos- 
 sible, however, that the Duchess in 
 her agitation did not catch the expres- 
 sion of Berlaymont, or did not under- 
 stand it, or did not think it worth 
 while to chronicle it, if ehe did. It 
 must be remembered that she was 
 herself not very familiar with the 
 French language, and that she was 
 writing to a man who thought that 
 " pistolle meant some kind of knife." 
 She certainly did not and could not 
 report everything said upon that 
 memorable occasion. On the other 
 hand, some of the three hundred 
 gentlemen present might have heard 
 and understood better than Madame 
 de Parma the sarcasm of the finance 
 minister, whether it were uttered upon 
 their arrival in the council-chamber, 
 or during their withdrawal into the 
 hall. The testimony of Pontus 
 Payen a contemporary almost al- 
 ways well informed, and one whose 
 
 position as a Catholic Walloon, noble 
 and official, necessarily brought him 
 into contact with many personages 
 engaged in the transactions which 
 he describes is worthy of much 
 respect. It is to be observed, too, 
 that this manuscript alludes to a re- 
 petition by Berlaymont of his famous 
 sarcasm upon the same day. To the 
 names of contemporary historians, 
 cited by M. Gachard, may be added 
 those of Vander Haer, ii. 314, and 
 of two foreign writers, President de 
 Thou (Hist. Universelle, V. lib. n. 
 21G), and Cardinal Bentivoglio 
 (Fuerra di Fiandra, ii. 32). Hoofd, 
 not a contemporary certainly, but 
 born within four or five years of 
 the event, relates the anecdote, but 
 throws a doubt upon its accuracy, 
 Hist. ii. 77. Those inclined to acquit 
 the Baron of having perpetrated the 
 immortal witticism, will give him the 
 benefit of the doubt if they think 
 it a reasonable sne. That it is so 
 they have the high authority of M 
 Gachard and of the Provost Hoofd.
 
 484 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 on their part would conduct themselves in a loyal and satis- 
 factory manner ; thus proving that they had no intention to 
 make innovations in the ancient religion of the country. 1 
 
 Upon the next day but one, Monday, 8th of April, Brede- 
 rode, attended by a number of the confederates, again made 
 his appearance at the palace, for the purpose of delivering an 
 answer to the Apostille. In this second paper the confederates 
 rendered thanks for the prompt reply which the Duchess had 
 given to their Request, expressed regrets that she did not feel 
 at liberty to suspend the Inquisition, and declared their confi- 
 dence that she would at once give such orders to the inquisi- 
 tors and magistrates that prosecutions for religious matters 
 should cease, until the King's further pleasure should be 
 declared. They professed themselves desirous of maintaining 
 whatever regulations should be thereafter established by his 
 Majesty, with the advice and consent of the states-general, for 
 the security of the ancient religion, and promised to conduct 
 themselves generally in such wise that her Highness would 
 have every reason to be satisfied with them. They, moreover, 
 requested that the Duchess would cause the petition to be 
 printed in authentic form by the government printer. 8 
 
 The admission that the confederates would maintain the 
 ancient religion had been obtained, as Margaret informed her 
 brother, through the dexterous management of Hoogstraaten, 
 without suspicion on the part of the petitioners that the propo- 
 sition for such a declaration came from her. 3 
 
 The Duchess replied by word of mouth to the second address 
 thus made to her by the confederates, that she could not go 
 beyond the Apostille, which she had put on record. She had 
 already caused letters for the inquisitors and magistrates to be 
 drawn up. The minutes for those instructions should be laid 
 before the confederates by Count Hoogstraaten and Secretary 
 
 1 Foppens, 324, sqq. Groen v. 
 Pnnst., ii. 84, sqq. Strada, v. 186. 
 Bor, ii. 59. Hopper, 74, 75. 
 
 * Bor ii. 60. Hopper, 74, 75. 
 
 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, ii. 86, 87. 
 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 333. 
 
 3 Ibid. 339. (Letter of Margaret 
 of Parma.)
 
 156ft.) SPEECH OP D'ESQUERDES. 485 
 
 Berty. As for the printing of their petition, she was willing 
 to grant tneir demand, and would give orders to that effect. 1 
 
 The gentlemen having received this answer, retired into the 
 great hall. After a few minutes' consultation, however, 
 they returned to the council-chamber, where the Seigneur 
 d'Esquerdes, one of their number, addressed a few parting 
 words, in the name of his associates, to the Regent ; conclud- 
 ing with a request that she would declare the confederates to 
 have done no act, and made no demonstration, inconsistent 
 with their duty and with a perfect respect for his Majesty. 
 
 To this demand the Duchess answered somewhat drily that 
 she could not be judge in such a cause. Time and their 
 future deeds, she observed, could only bear witness as to their 
 purposes. As for declarations from her, they must be satis- 
 fied with the Apostille which they had already received. 3 
 
 With this response, somewhat more tart than agreeable, 
 the nobles were obliged to content themselves, and they 
 accordingly took their leave. 
 
 It must be confessed that they had been disposed to slide 
 rather cavalierly over a good deal of ground towards the great 
 object which they had in view. Certainly tlaepetitio principii 
 was a main feature of their logic. They had, in their second 
 address, expressed perfect confidence as to two very considerable 
 concessions. The Duchess was practically to suspend the In- 
 quisition, although she had declared herself without authority 
 for that purpose. The King, who claimed, dejure and de facto ', 
 the whole legislative power, was thenceforth to make laws on 
 religious matters by and with the consent of the states-general. 
 Certainly, these ends were very laudable, and if a civil and reli- 
 gious revolution could have been effected by a few gentlemen 
 going to court in fine clothes to present a petition, and by 
 sitting down to a tremendous banquet afterwards, Brederode 
 and his associates were the men to accomplish the task. Un- 
 fortunately, a sea of blood and long years of conflict lay between 
 
 1 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 335,336. I a Bor, Hoofd, Strada, ubi sup. 
 Bor, ii. GO, 61. I
 
 486 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566. 
 
 the nation and the promised land, which for a moment seemed 
 so nearly within reach. 
 
 Meantime the next important step in Brederode's eyes was 
 a dinner. He accordingly invited the confederates to a 
 magnificent repast which he had ordered to be prepared in 
 the Culemburg mansion. Three hundred guests sat down, 
 upon the 8th of April, to this luxurious banquet, which was 
 destined to become historical. 1 
 
 The board glittered with silver and gold. The wine circu- 
 lated with more than its usual rapidity among the band of noble 
 Bacchanals, who were never weary of drinking the healths of 
 Brederode, of Orange, and Egmont. It was thought that the 
 occasion imperiously demanded an extraordinary carouse, and 
 the political events of the past three days lent an additional 
 excitement to the wine. There was an earnest discussion as to 
 an appropriate name to be given to their confederacy. Should 
 they call themselves the " Society of Concord," the restorers of 
 lost liberty, or by what other attractive title should the league 
 be baptized ? Brederode was, however, already prepared to 
 settle the question. He knew the value of a popular and 
 original name ; he possessed the instinct by which adroit parti- 
 sans in every age have been accustomed to convert the reproach- 
 ful epithets of their opponents into watchwords of honour, and 
 he had already made his preparations for a startling theatrical 
 effect Suddenly, amid the din of voices, he arose, with all his 
 rhetorical powers at command. He recounted to the company 
 
 1 Strada, v. 186-188. Hoofd, ii. 77. . trouverent 300 gentilshommes, lesquels 
 Bentivoglio, ii. 32. Vander Vynckt, se firent appeler gueidx, lie scay 1'occa- 
 i. 265-267. sion pourquoy, aultrement qu'aulcuns 
 
 The manuscript entitled, "Pieces ; disent quo le source et origine en 
 concernant lea troubles des Pays-Bas," j seroit qu'en presentant leur req., un 
 belonging to the Gerard Collection ! chevalier de I'ordre des principaulx 
 in the Archives of the Hague, and j du conseil de eon alteze eust a dire, 
 ascribed to Weyenburg, gives a similar \ ' Madame, ne craignez rien se son* 
 account; furnishing, although Berlay- j G-ueulx et geu8 de petit pouvoir, et 
 mont's name is not actually mentioned, i de fai$t les dita gentilshommes de 
 
 an additional contemporary authority 
 to the accuracy of the commonly- 
 received narrative. " Le Sig. de Brede- 
 rode fit un festin magnifique, ou so 
 
 la ligue s'entre appellerent ordinaire- 
 ment les gueulx.' " Compare Strada, 
 Hoofd, ubi sup.
 
 15GG.] THE BANQUET AT CULEMBUEG HOUSE. 457 
 
 thecbservatioiis which the Seigneur deBerlaymont was reported 
 to have made to the Duchess, upon the presentation of the 
 request, and the name which he had thought fit to apply to them 
 collectively. 1 Most of the gentlemen then heard the memorable 
 sarcasm for the first time. Great was the indignation of all 
 that the state-councillor should have dared to stigmatise as 
 beggars a band of gentlemen with the best blood of the land in 
 their veins. Brederode, on the contrary, smoothing their anger, 
 assured them with good humour that nothing could be more 
 fortunate. " They call us beggars I " said he ; " let us accept 
 the name. We will contend with the Inquisition, but remain 
 loyal to the King, even till compelled to wear the beggar's sack.'' 
 He then beckoned to one of his pages, who brought him a 
 leathern wallet, such as was worn at that day by professional 
 mendicants, together with a large wooden bowl, which also 
 formed part of their regular appurtenances. Brederode imme- 
 diately hung the wallet around his neck, filled the bowl with 
 wine, lifted it with both hands, and drained it at a draught. 
 " Long live the beggars ! " he cried, as he wiped his beard and 
 set the bowl down. " Vivent les gwulx" Then for the first 
 time, from the lips of those reckless nobles rose the famous cry, 
 which was so often to ring over land and sea, amid blazing 
 cities, on blood-stained decks, through the smoke and carnage 
 of many a stricken field. The humour of Brederode was hailed 
 with deafening shouts of applause. The Count then threw the 
 wallet around the neck of his nearest neighbour and handed 
 him the wooden bowl. Each guest, in turn, donned the mendi- 
 cant's knapsack. Pushing aside his golden goblet, each filled 
 the beggar's bowl to the brim, and drained it to the beggars' 
 health. Roars of laughter and shouts of lt Vivent les gueulx 
 shook the walls of the stately mansion, as they were doomed 
 never to shake again. The shibboleth was invented. The con- 
 juration which they had been anxiously seeking was found. 
 Their enemies had provided him with a spell, which was to 
 prove, in after-days, potent enough to start a spirit from palace 
 1 Pontus Payei^ ii. MS.
 
 488 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 or hovel, forest or wave, as the deeds of the " wild beggars," the 
 " wood beggase," and the " beggars of the sea," taught Philip 
 atlast to understand the nation which he had driven to madness. 
 When the wallet and bowl had made the circuit of the table, 
 they were suspended to a pillar in the hall. Each of the com- 
 pany in succession then threw some salt into the goblet, and, 
 placing him under these symbols of the brotherhood, repeated 
 a jingling distich, produced impromptu for the occasion. 
 
 " By this salt, by this bread, by this wallet still, 
 These beggars change not, fret who will." 1 
 
 This ridiculous ceremony completed the rites by which the 
 confederacy received its name ; but the banquet was by no 
 means terminated. The uproar became furious. The younger 
 and more reckless nobles abandoned themselves to revelry, 
 which would have shamed heathen Saturnalia. They renewed 
 to each other, every moment, their vociferous oaths of fidelity 
 to the common cause, drained huge beakers to the beggars' 
 health, turned their caps and doublets inside out, danced 
 upon chairs and tables. 3 Several addressed each other as 
 Lord Abbot, or Reverend Prior, of this or that religious in- 
 stitution, thus indicating the means by which some of them 
 hoped to mend their broken fortunes. 8 
 
 While the tumult was at its height, the Prince of Orange 
 with Counts Horn and Egmont entered the apartment. They 
 had been dining quietly with Mansfeld, who was confined to 
 his house with an inflamed eye, 4 and they were on their way to 
 the council-chamber, where the sessions were now prolonged 
 nightly to a late hour. Knowing that Hoogstraaten, somewhat 
 against his will, had been induced to be present at the banquet, 
 they had come round by the way of Culemburg House, to 
 induce him to retire. 8 They were also disposed, if possible, to 
 
 1 " Par le sel, par le pain, par le 
 
 besache, 
 Les gueulr ne changeront quoy 
 
 qu'on se fache." 
 -PontuB Payen MS. Vander Haer. 
 
 * Vander Haer, 315. 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 * Proces du Comte de Hornes.- 
 Foppens, i. 161. 
 
 4 Ibid., i. 160-162.
 
 1500.] 
 
 THE MEETING BROKEN TTP. 
 
 489 
 
 abridge the festivities which their influence would have been 
 powerless to prevent. 
 
 These great nobles, as soon as they made their appearance, 
 were surrounded by a crew of " beggars," maddened and 
 dripping with their recent baptism of wine, who compelled 
 them to drink a cup amid shouts of " Vivent le roi et les 
 gueulx I " The meaning of this cry they, of course, could not 
 understand, for even those who had heard Berlaymont's con- 
 temptuous remarks, might not remember the exact term which 
 he had used, and certainly could not be aware of the impor- 
 tance to which it had just been elevated. As for Horn, he 
 disliked, and had long before quarrelled with, Brederode, 1 had 
 prevented many persons from signing the Compromise, and, 
 although a guest at that time of Orange, was in the habit of 
 retiring to bed before supper, 2 to avoid the company of many 
 who frequented the house. Yet his presence for a few 
 moments with the best intentions, at the conclusion of this 
 famous banquet, was made one of the most deadly charges 
 which were afterwards drawn up against him by the Crown. 
 The three seigniors refused to be seated, and remained but 
 for a moment, " the length of a Miserere," taking with them 
 Hoogstraaten as they retired. They also prevailed upon the 
 whole party to break up at the same time, so that their 
 presence had served at least to put a conclusion to the dis- 
 graceful riot. When they arrived at the council-chamber they 
 received the thanks of the Duchess for what they had done. 8 
 
 Such was the first movement made by the members of the 
 Compromise. Was it strange that Orange should feel little 
 affinity with such companions? Had he not reason to hesitate, 
 if the sacred cause of civil and religious liberty could only be 
 maintained by these defenders and with such assistance ? 
 
 The " beggars " did not content themselves with the name 
 alone of the time-honoured fraternity of Mendicants, in which 
 
 1 Vander Haer, 315, 316. 
 a "Ne bougea du li<-t quand 1'on 
 disnoit ou eouppoit." Proces de 
 
 Horn es. Foppens, i. 163. 
 * Foppens, Supplement, ubi sup.
 
 490 
 
 THE RISE OF TEE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [15Gb. 
 
 they had enrolled themselves. Immediately after the Culem- 
 burg banquet, a costume for the confederacy was decided 
 upon. These young gentlemen, discarding gold lace and velvet, 
 thought it expedient to array themselves in doublets and hose 
 of ashen gray, with short cloaks of the same colour, all of the 
 coarsest materials. They appeared in this guise in the streets, 
 vith common felt hats on their heads, and beggars' pouches 
 And bowls at their sides. They caused also medals of lead and 
 copper to be struck, bearing upon one side the head of Philip ; 
 upon the reverse two hands clasped within a wallet, with the 
 motto, "Faithful to the King, even to wearing the beggar's 
 sack." 1 These badges they wore around their necks, or as 
 buttons to their hats. As a further distinction they shaved 
 their beards close, excepting their moustachios, which were 
 left long and pendant in the Turkish fashion, 3 that custom, as 
 it seemed, being an additional characteristic of Mendicants. 
 
 Very soon after these events the nobles of the league dis- 
 persed from the capital to their various homes. Brederode rode 
 out of Brussels at the head of a band of cavaliers, who saluted 
 the concourse of applauding spectators with a discharge of their 
 pistols. Forty-three gentlemen accompanied him to Antwerp, 
 where he halted for a night. 3 The Duchess had already sent 
 notice to the magistrates of that city of his intended visit, and 
 warned them to have an eye upon his proceedings. tf The great 
 beggar," 4 as Hoogstraaten called him, conducted himself, how- 
 ever, with as much propriety as could be expected. Four or 
 five thousand of the inhabitants thronged about the hotel where 
 he had taken up his quarters. He appeared at a window with 
 his wooden bowl filled with wine in his hands, and his wallet at 
 his side. He assured the multitude that he was ready to die 
 to defend the good people of Antwerp and of all the Netherlands 
 
 1 Pontus Payen MS. Pieces con- 
 cernant, etc., MS. Comp. Strada; 
 Hoofd; Bentivoglio ; Vander Haer, 
 ubi sup. ; Correspondance de Philippe 
 II., i. 409. 
 
 a " Laissans en dessoubs les narines 
 
 longues mourmerstacques a la turc- 
 quesque." Pieces concernant 1'Hist. 
 des P. B., etc., MS. Comp. Stracla, 
 V. 189. 8 Strada, v. 19. 
 
 * "Le grant geu." Groenv.Prinst,, 
 Archiyes, etc., ii. 184.
 
 ^566.] CHAEGE AGAINST BREDEEODE. 491 
 
 against the edicts of the Inquisition. Meantime he drank their 
 healths, and begged all who accepted the pledge to hold up their 
 hands. The populace, highly amused, held up and clapped their 
 hands as honest Brederode drained his bowl, and were soon 
 afterwards persuaded to retire in great good humour. 1 
 
 These proceedings were all chronicled and transmitted to 
 Madrid. It was also both publicly reported and secretly 
 registered, that Brederode had eaten capons and other meat at 
 Antwerp, upon Good Friday, which happened to be the day of 
 his visit to that city. He denied the charge, however, with 
 ludicrous vehenjence. " They who have told Madame that we 
 ate meat in Antwerp," he wrote to Count Louis, " have lied 
 wickedly and miserably, twenty-four feet down in their 
 throats." a He added that his nephew, Charles Mansfeld, who, 
 notwithstanding the indignant prohibition of his father, had 
 assisted at the presentation of the Request, and was then in 
 his uncle's company at Antwerp, had ordered a capon, which 
 Brederode had countermanded. " They told me afterwards," 
 said he, " that my nephew had broiled a sausage in his 
 chamber. I suppose that he thought himself in Spain, where 
 they allow themselves such dainties." 8 
 
 Let it not be thought that these trifles are beneath the 
 dignity of history. Matters like these filled the whole soul of 
 Philip, swelled the bills of indictment for thousands of higher 
 and better men than Brederode, and furnished occupation as 
 well for secret correspondents and spies as for the most dignified 
 functionaries of government. Capons or sausages on Good 
 Friday, the Psalms of Clement Marot, the Sermon on the Mount 
 in the vernacular, led to the rack, the gibbet, and the stake, but 
 ushered in a war against the Inquisition which was to last for 
 eighty years. Brederode was not to be the hero of that party 
 which he disgraced by his buffoonery. Had he lived, he might, 
 perhaps, like many of his confederates, have redeemed, by his 
 bravery in the field, a character which his orgies had rendered 
 
 1 Strada, v. 191. I i. 410, 411. Groen T. Prinst., Archives, 
 
 2 Correspondance de Philippe H., | etc., ii. 98, 99. Ibid.
 
 492 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566 
 
 despicable. He now left Antwerp for the north of Holland, 
 where, as he soon afterwards reported to Count Louis, " the 
 beggars were as numerous as the sands on the sea-shore." x 
 
 His (t nephew Charles," two months afterwards, obeyed 
 his father's injunction, and withdrew formally from the 
 confederacy. 2 
 
 Meantime the rumour had gone abroad that the Request of 
 the nobles had already produced good fruit, that the edicts were 
 to be mitigated, the Inquisition abolished, liberty of conscience 
 eventually to prevail. " Upon these reports," says a contempo- 
 rary, " all the vermin of exiles and fugitives for religion, as well 
 as those who had kept in concealment, began to lift up their 
 heads and thrust forth their horns." 8 It was known that Margaret 
 of Parma had ordered the inquisitors and magistrates to conduct 
 themselves " modestly and discreetly." It was known that the 
 privy council was hard at work upon the project for " mode- 
 rating " the edicts. Modestly and discreetly I Margaret of 
 Parma, almost immediately after giving these orders, and while 
 the " Moderation "was still in the hands of the lawyers, informed 
 her brother that she had given personal attention to the case of 
 a person who had snatched the holy wafer from the priest's hand 
 atOudenarde. This " quidam,"as she called him for his name 
 was beneath the cognisance of an Emperor's bastard daughter 
 had by her orders received rigorous and exemplary justice. 4 
 And what was the " rigorous and exemplary justice " thus 
 inflicted upon the " quidam ? " The procurator of the neigh- 
 bouring city of Tournay has enabled us to answer. The young 
 man, who was a tapestry weaver, Hans Tiskaen by name," had, 
 upon the 30th of May, thrown the holy wafer upon the ground. 
 For this crime, which was the same as that committed on 
 Christmas-day of the previous year by Bertrand le Bias, at 
 
 1 "Les gens sont par icy seme 
 comme la sable du Ion de la mer." 
 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 130. 
 
 3 Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 421. 
 * Renom de France, MS. 
 
 4 " Si comme ayant commando" 
 quo la justice 80 faict d'un quidam 
 
 a Audenaerde, qui ces jours ayant 
 prinse la saincte hostie consacree hors 
 des mains du prestre, 1'a jectee par 
 terre, duquel s'est faict rigoureuse 
 et exemplaire justice." Reiffenberg, 
 Correspondance Marg. d'Autr., 45. 
 5 Bor, ii. 62.
 
 1566.] MODEEATION. 493 
 
 Tournay, he now met with a similar although not quite so 
 severe a punishment. Having gone quietly home after doing 
 the deed, he was pursued, arrested, and upon the Saturday 
 ensuing taken to the market-place of Oudenarde. Here the 
 right hand with which he had committed the offence was cut 
 off, and he was then fastened to the stake and burned to 
 death over a slow fire. He was fortunately not more than a 
 quarter of an hour in torments, but he persisted in his 
 opinions, and called on God for support to his last breath. 1 
 
 This homely tragedy was enacted at Oudenarde, the birth- 
 place of Duchess Margaret. She was the daughter of the 
 puissant Charles the Fifth, but her mother was only the 
 daughter of a citizen of Oudenarde ; of a " quidam " like the 
 nameless weaver who had thus been burned by her express 
 order. It was not to be supposed, however, that the circum- 
 stance could operate in so great a malefactor's favour. 
 Moreover, at the same moment, she sent orders that a like 
 punishment should be inflicted upon another person then in 
 a Flemish prison, for the crime of anabaptism. a 
 
 The privy council, assisted by thirteen knights of the 
 Fleece, had been hard at work, and the result of their wisdom 
 was at last revealed in a " Moderation " consisting of fifty- 
 three articles.* 
 
 What now was the substance of those fifty-three articles, so 
 painfully elaborated by Viglius, so handsomely drawn up into 
 shape by Councillor d'Assonleville ? Simply to substitute the 
 halter for the fagot. After elimination of all verbiage, this fact 
 was the only residuum. 4 It was most distinctly laid down that 
 all forms of religion except the Roman Catholic were forbidden; 
 that no public or secret conventicles were to be allowed ; that 
 all heretical writings were to be suppressed ; that all curious 
 inquiries into the Scriptures were to be prohibited. Persons 
 who infringed these regulations were divided into two classes 
 
 1 Pasquier de la Barre. Eecoeil, 
 etc., MS. in the Brussels Archives, 
 f. 16vo. 
 
 8 Keiffenberg, Oorrespondance, 45. 
 
 3 Ep. ad Hopper-urn, 459. 
 
 * See the text of the proposed 
 Moderation in fifty-three articles, in 
 Bor. i. f. 64, 65, 60.
 
 494 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566. 
 
 the misleaders and the misled. There was an affectation of 
 granting mercy to persons in the second category, while death 
 was denounced upon those composing the first. It was merely 
 an affectation ; for the rambling statute was so open in all its 
 clauses, that the Juggernaut car of persecution could be driven 
 through the whole of them, whenever such a course should 
 seem expedient. Every man or woman in the Netherlands 
 might be placed in the list of the misleaders, at the discretion 
 of the officials. The pretended mercy to the misguided was a 
 mere delusion. The superintendents, preachers, teachers, min- 
 isters, sermon-makers, deacons, and other officers, were to be 
 executed with the halter, with confiscation of their whole 
 property. So much was very plain. Other heretics, however, 
 who would abjure their heresy before the bishop, might be 
 pardoned for the first offence, but if obstinate, were to be 
 banished. This seemed an indication of mercy, at least to the 
 repentant criminals. But who were these " other " heretics ? 
 All persons who discussed religious matters were to be put to 
 death. All persons, not having studied theology at a 
 " renowned university," who searched and expounded the 
 Scriptures, were to be put to death. All persons in whose 
 houses any act of the perverse religion should be committed, 
 were to be put to death. All persons who harboured or pro- 
 tected ministers and teachers of any sect, were to be put to 
 death. All the criminals thus carefully enumerated were to 
 be executed, whether repentant or not. If, however, they 
 abjured their errors, they were to be beheaded instead of being 
 strangled. Thus it was obvious that almost any heretic might 
 be brought to the halter at a moment's notice. 
 
 Strictly speaking, the idea of death by the halter or the axe 
 was less shocking to the imagination than that of being burned 
 or buried alive. In this respect, therefore, the edicts were 
 softened by the proposed " Moderation." It would, however, 
 always be difficult to persuade any considerable number of 
 intelligent persons, that the infliction of a violent death, by 
 whatever process, on account of religious opinions, was an act
 
 1566.1 DEPARTURE OP MONTIGNY. 495 
 
 of clemency. The Netherlander were, however, to be per- 
 suaded into this belief. The draft of tho new edict was 
 ostentatiously called the " Moderatie," or the lt Moderation." 
 It was very natural, therefore, that the common people, by a 
 quibble, which is the same in Flemish as in English, should 
 call the proposed " Moderation" the " Murderation." 1 The 
 rough mother- wit of the people had already characterised and 
 annihilated the project, while dull formalists were carrying it 
 through the preliminary stages. 
 
 A vote in favour of the project having been obtained from 
 the estates of Artois, Hainault, and Flanders, the instructions 
 for the envoys, Baron Montigny and Marquis Berghen, were 
 made out in conformity to the scheme. 3 Egmont had declined 
 the mission, 8 not having reason to congratulate himself upon 
 the diplomatic success of his visit to Spain in the preceding 
 year. The two nobles who consented to undertake the office 
 were persuaded into acceptance sorely against their will. 
 They were aware that their political conduct since the King's 
 departure from the country had not always been deemed satis- 
 factory at Madrid, but they were, of course, far from suspect- 
 ing the true state of the royal mind. They were both as 
 sincere Catholics and as loyal gentlemen as Granvelle, but 
 they were not aware how continuously, during a long course 
 of years, that personage had represented them to Philip as 
 renegades and rebels. They had maintained the constitu- 
 tional rights of the state, and they had declined to act as 
 executioners for the Inquisition, but they were yet to learn 
 that such demonstrations amounted to high treason. 
 
 Montigny departed, on the 29th May, from Brussels.* He 
 left the bride to whom he had been wedded, amid scenes of 
 festivity, the preceding autumn the unborn child who was 
 never to behold its father's face. He received warnings in 
 Paris, by which he scorned to profit. The Spanish ambassador 
 in that city informed him that Philip's wrath at the recent 
 
 1 Meteren, ii. 38. Hoofd, iii. 81. I Ibid., i. 407. 
 8 Corresp. do Philippe II., i. 412. | * Ibid., 418.
 
 496 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 transactions in the Netherlands was high. He was most 
 significantly requested, by a leading personage in France, to 
 feign illness, or to take refuge in any expedient by which 
 he might avoid the fulfilment of his mission. 1 Such hints 
 had no effect in turning him from his course, and he pro- 
 ceeded to Madrid, where he arrived on the 17th of June. 3 
 
 His colleague in the mission, Marquis Berghen, had been 
 prevented from setting forth at the same time, by an accident 
 which, under the circumstances, might almost seem ominous. 
 Walking through the palace park, in a place where some 
 gentlemen were playing at pall-mall, he was accidentally 
 struck in the leg by a wooden ball. 8 The injury, although 
 trifling, produced so much irritation and fever, that he was 
 confined to his bed for several weeks. It was not until the 
 1st of July 4 that he was able to take his departure from 
 Brussels. Both these unfortunate nobles thus went forth to 
 fulfil that dark and mysterious destiny from which the veil of 
 three centuries has but recently been removed. 
 
 Besides a long historical discourse, in eighteen chapters, 
 delivered by way of instruction to the envoys, Margaret sent a 
 courier beforehand with a variety of intelligence concerning the 
 late events. Alonzo del Canto, one of Philip's spies in the 
 Netherlands, also wrote to inform the King that the two 
 ambassadors were the real authors of all the troubles then 
 existing in the country. ' Cardinal Granvelle, too, renewed his 
 previous statements in a confidential communication to his 
 Majesty, adding that no persons more appropriate could have 
 been selected than Berghen and Montigny, for they knew better 
 than any one else the state of affairs in which they had borne 
 the principal part. 8 Nevertheless, Montigny, upon his arrival 
 in Madrid on the 17th of June, was received by Philip with 
 much apparent cordiality, admitted immediately to an audience, T 
 
 1 Hoofd, iii. 80. 
 
 '* Corresp. de Philippe II., i. 426. 
 8 Ibid., 412. Hoofd, ii. 80. Strada, 
 v. 195. 
 
 Ibid., 428, 429. 
 
 6 Ibid., 410, 411. 
 
 6 Ibid., 417. 
 
 7 Ibid., 436. Hopper, 78, 79, states 
 that the envoys were indulged with 
 almost daily interviews.
 
 iUJ.J IXSTEUCTIONS TO THE ENVOYS. 49? 
 
 and assured in the strongest terms that there was no dis- 
 satisfaction in the royal mind against the seigniors, whatever 
 false reports might be circulated to that effect. In other 
 respects, the result of this, and of his succeeding interviews 
 with the monarch, was sufficiently meagre. 
 
 It could not well be otherwise. The mission of the envoys 
 was an elaborate farce to introduce a terrible tragedy. They 
 were sent to procure from Philip the abolition of the inquisi- 
 tion and the moderation of the edicts. At the very moment, 
 however, of all these legislative and diplomatic arrangements, 
 Margaret of Parma was in possession of secret letters from 
 Philip, which she was charged to deliver to the Archbishop oi' 
 Sorrento, papal nuncio at the imperial court, then on a special 
 visit to Brussels. This ecclesiastic had come to the Nether- 
 lands ostensibly to confer with the Prince of Orange upon the 
 affairs of his principality, to remonstrate with Count Culem- 
 burg, and to take measures for the reformation of the clergy. 
 The real object of his mission, however, was to devise means 
 for strengthening the inquisition, and suppressing heresy in the 
 provinces. Philip, at whose request he had come, had charged 
 him by no means to divulge the secret, as the King was anxious 
 to have it believed that the ostensible was the only business 
 which the prelate had to perform in the country. Margaret 
 accordingly delivered to him the private letters, in which Philip 
 avowed his determination to maintain the inquisition and the 
 edicts in all their rigour, but enjoined profound secrecy upon 
 the subject. 1 The Duchess, therefore, who knew the face of 
 the cards, must have thought it a superfluous task to continue 
 the game, which to Philip's cruel but procrastinating tempe - 
 rament was perhaps a pleasurable excitement. 
 
 The scheme for mitigating the edicts by the substitution of 
 strangling for burning, was not destined, therefore, for much 
 success either in Spain or in the provinces ; but the people by 
 whom the next great movement was made in the drama of the 
 revolt, conducted themselves in a manner to shame the sove- 
 
 1 Eeiffenberg, Corr. do Marg d'Aut., 58-61. Corr. de Philippe IL, i. 422. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I
 
 4IJ8 THE BISE OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIO. [1566. 
 
 reign who oppressed, and the riotous nobles who had under- 
 taken to protect their liberties. 
 
 At this very moment, in the early summer of 1566, many 
 thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen, 
 were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every 
 province, armed with arquebus, javelin, pike, and broadsword. 
 For what purpose were these gatherings ? Only to hear ser- 
 mons and to sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to 
 profane the churches with such rites. This was the first great 
 popular phase of the Netherland rebellion. Notwithstanding 
 the edicts and the inquisition with their daily hecatombs, not- 
 withstanding the special publication at this time throughout 
 the country by the Duchess Eegent, that all the sanguinary 
 statutes concerning religion were in as great vigour as ever,* 
 notwithstanding that Margaret offered a reward of seven hun- 
 dred crowns to the man who would bring her a preacher dead 
 or alive, 2 the popular thirst for the exercises of the Reformed 
 religion could no longer be slaked at the obscure and hidden 
 fountains where their priests had so long privately ministered. 
 
 Partly emboldened by a temporary lull in the persecution, 
 partly encouraged by the presentation of the Request and by 
 the events to which it had given rise, the Reformers now came 
 boldly forth from their lurking places and held their religious 
 meetings in the light of day. The consciousness of numbers 
 and of right had brought the conviction of strength. The 
 audacity of the Reformers was wonderful to the mind of Presi- 
 dent Viglius, who could find no language strong enough with 
 which to characterise and to deplore such blasphemous con- 
 duct. 3 The field-preaching seemed in the eyes of government 
 to spread with the rapidity of a malignant pestilence. The 
 miasma flew upon the wings of the wind. As early as 1562, 
 there had been public preaching in the neighbourhood of 
 Ypres. The executions which followed, however, had for the 
 time suppressed the practice both in that place as well as 
 
 1 Pontus Paycn MS. Pasquier de I 2 Pontus Payen M.S. 
 la Barre MS. 3 Ep. ad Joaeh. Hopperum, 362.
 
 1566.] CAMP MEETINGS. 49S> 
 
 throughout Flanders and the rest of the provinces. It now 
 broke forth as by one impulse from one end of the country to 
 the other. In the latter part of June, Hermann Strycker or 
 Modet, a monk who had renounced his vows to become one of 
 the most popular preachers in the Eeformed Church, addressed 
 a congregation of seven or eight thousand persons in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Ghent. 1 Peter Duthenus, another unfrocked monk, 
 preached at various places in West Flanders, with great effect. 
 A man endowed with a violent, stormy eloquence, intemperate as 
 most zealots, he was then rendering better services to the cause 
 of the Reformation than he was destined to do at later periods. 
 
 But apostate priests were not the only preachers. To the 
 ineffable disgust of the conservatives in Church and State, there 
 were men with little education, utterly devoid of Hebrew, of 
 lowly station, hatters, curriers, tanners, dyers, and the like, 
 who began to preach also; remembering, unseasonably, perhaps, 
 that the early disciples, selected by the Founder of Christianity, 
 had not all been doctors of theology, with diplomas from a 
 te renowned university." But if the nature of such men were 
 subdued to what it worked in, that charge could not be brought 
 against ministers with the learning and accomplishments of 
 Ambrose Wille, Marnier, Guy de Bray, or Francis Junius, the 
 man whom Scaliger called the "greatest of all theologians since 
 the days of the apostles." 2 An aristocratic sarcasm could not 
 be levelled against Peregrine de la Grange, of a noble family 
 in Provence, with the fiery blood of southern France in his 
 veins, brave as his nation, learned, eloquent, enthusiastic, who 
 galloped to his field-preaching on horseback, and fired a pistol- 
 shot as a signal for his congregation to give attention. 3 
 
 On the 28th of June 1566, at eleven o'clock at night, there 
 was an assemblage of six thousand people near Tournay, at the 
 bridge of Ernonville, to hear a sermon from Ambrose "Wille. a 
 man who had studied theology in Geneva, at the feet of Calvin, 
 and who now, with a special price upon his head, 4 was preach- 
 
 Bakhuyzen, 127. De la Earre 
 
 Brandt, 304, 305. 
 
 Bakhuyzen v. d. Brink Het 
 
 Huweiijk, 110. 
 
 MS., f. 16. 
 
 Ibid., f . 18.
 
 500 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1506. 
 
 ing the doctrines he had learned. Two days afterwards, ten 
 thousand people assembled at the same spot, to hear Peregrine 
 de la Grange. Governor Moulbais thundered forth a proclama- 
 tion from the citadel, warning all men that the edicts were as 
 rigorous as ever, and that every man, woman, or child who 
 went to these preachings was incurring the penalty of death. 1 
 The people became only the more ardent and excited. Upon 
 Sunday, the 7th of July, twenty thousand persons assembled 
 at the same bridge to hear Ambrose Wille. One man in three 
 was armed. Some had arquebusses, others pistols, pikes, 
 swords, pitchforks, poniards, clubs. The preacher, for whose 
 apprehension a fresh reward had been offered, was escorted to 
 his pulpit by a hundred mounted troopers. He begged his 
 audience not to be scared from the Word of God by menace ; 
 assured them that although but a poor preacher himself, he 
 held a divine commission ; that he had no fear of death ; that, 
 should he fall, there were many better than he to supply his 
 place, and fifty thousand men to avenge his murder. 4 
 
 The Duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds. She 
 ordered the instant suppression of these armed assemblies and 
 the arrest of the preachers. But of what avail were procla- 
 mations against such numbers with weapons in their hands ? 
 Why irritate to madness these hordes of enthusiasts, who were 
 now entirely pacific, and who marched back to the city, after 
 conclusion of divine service, with perfect decorum? All classes 
 of the population went eagerly to the sermons. The gentry of 
 the place, the rich merchants, the notables, as well as the 
 humbler artizans and labourers, all had received the infection. 
 The professors of the Reformed religion outnumbered the 
 Catholics by five or six to one. On Sundays and other holi- 
 days, during the hours of service, Tournay was literally emptied 
 of its inhabitants. The streets were as silent as if war or pesti- 
 lence had swept the place. The Duchess sent orders, but she 
 sent no troops. The trained-bands of the city, the cross-bow- 
 men of St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the sword- 
 1 De la Barre MS. a Ibid.
 
 15C6.] 
 
 SERMONS IN FIELDS. 
 
 501 
 
 players of St. Christopher, could not be ordered from Tournay 
 to suppress the preaching, for they had all gone to the preach- 
 ing themselves. How idle, therefore, to send peremptory 
 orders without a matchlock to enforce the command. 1 
 
 Throughout Flanders similar scenes were enacted. The 
 meetings were encampments, for the Reformers now came to 
 their religious services armed to the teeth, determined, if 
 banished from the churches, to defend their right to the fields. 
 Barricades of upturned waggons, branches, and planks, were 
 thrown up around the camps. Strong guards of mounted 
 men were stationed at every avenue. Outlying scouts gave 
 notice of approaching danger, and guided the faithful into 
 the enclosure. Pedlars and hawkers plied the trade upon 
 which the penalty of death was fixed, and sold the forbidden 
 hymn-books to all who chose to purchase. 2 A strange and 
 contradictory spectacle ! An army of criminals doing deeds 
 which could only be expiated at the stake ; an entrenched 
 rebellion, bearding the government with pike, matchlock, 
 javelin, and barricade, and all for no more deadly purpose 
 than to listen to the precepts of the pacific Jesus. 
 
 Thus the preaching spread through the Walloon provinces 
 to the northern Netherlands. Towards the end of July, an 
 apostate monk, of singular eloquence, Peter Gabriel by name, 
 was announced to preach at Overeen near Harlem. 3 This was 
 the first field meeting which had taken place in Holland. The 
 people were wild with enthusiasm; the authorities beside them- 
 selves with apprehension. People from the country flocked into 
 the town by thousands. The other cities were deserted, Har- 
 lem was filled to overflowing. Multitudes encamped upon the 
 ground the night before. The magistrates ordered the gates to 
 be kept closed in the morning till long after the usual hour. 
 It was of no avail. Bolts and bars were but small impediments 
 to enthusiasts who had travelled so many miles on foot or 
 
 1 Pe la Barre MS. 
 
 2 Brandt, i. 305. Nic. Eergund. 
 Hist. Belg., iii. 213. 
 
 8 Brandt, K20, 321. Memorien van 
 Laurens Jacq. Keael, f. 20-22, apud 
 Brandt.
 
 502 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566 
 
 horseback to listen to a sermon. They climbed the walls, 
 swam the moat, and thronged to the place of meeting long 
 before the doors had been opened. When these could no 
 longer be kept closed without a conflict, for which the magis- 
 trates were not prepared, the whole population poured out of 
 the city with a single impulse. 1 Tens of thousands were 
 assembled upon the field. The bulwarks were erected as usual, 
 the guards were posted, the necessary precautions taken. 
 But upon this occasion, and in that region, there was but little 
 danger to be apprehended. The multitude of Reformers made 
 the edicts impossible, so long as no foreign troops were there 
 to enforce them. The congregation was encamped and 
 arranged in an orderly manner. The women, of whom there 
 were many, were placed next the pulpit, which, upon this 
 occasion, was formed of a couple of spears thrust into the earth, 
 sustaining a cross-piece, against which the preacher might 
 lean his back. The services commenced with the singing of a 
 psalm by the whole vast assemblage. Clement Marot's verses, 
 recently translated by Dathenus, were then new and popular. 
 The strains of the monarch minstrel, chanted thus in their 
 homely but nervous mother tongue by a multitude who had 
 but recently learned that all the poetry and rapture of devo- 
 tion were not irrevocably coffined with a buried language, or 
 immured in the precincts of a church, had never produced a 
 more elevating effect. No anthem from the world-renowned 
 organ in that ancient city ever awakened more lofty emotions 
 than did those ten thousand human voices ringing from, the 
 grassy meadows in that fervid midsummer noon. When all was 
 silent again, the preacher rose ; a little, meagre man who looked 
 as if he might rather melt away beneath the blazing sunshine 
 of July, than hold the multitude enchained four uninterrupted 
 hours long, by the magic of his tongue. His text was the 
 8th, 9th, and 10th verses of the second chapter of Ephesians; 
 and as the slender monk spoke to his simple audience of 
 God's grace and of faith in Jesus, who had descended from 
 1 Brandt, 320, 321. Mem. ran Laurens Jacq. Eeael, f. 20-22, apud Brandt.
 
 1566.] 
 
 VAST ASSEMBLAGES. 
 
 503 
 
 above to save the lowliest and the most abandoned, if they 
 would put their trust in Him, his hearers were alternately 
 exalted with fervour or melted into tears. He prayed for all 
 conditions of men for themselves, their friends, their enemies, 
 for the government which had persecuted them, for the King 
 whose face was turned upon them in anger. At times, ac- 
 cording to one who was present, not a dry eye was to be seen 
 in the crowd. When the minister had finished, he left his con- 
 gregation abruptly, for he had to travel all night in order to 
 reach Alkmaar, where he was to preach upon the following day. 1 
 
 By the middle of July the custom was established outside 
 all the principal cities. Camp-meetings were held in some 
 places ; as, for instance, in the neighbourhood of Antwerp, 
 where the congregations numbered often fifteen thousand; 2 
 and on some occasions were estimated at between twenty and 
 thirty thousand persons at a time; " very many of them," 
 said an eye-witness, " the best and wealthiest in the town." 8 
 
 The sect to which most of these worshippers belonged was 
 that of Calvin. In Antwerp there were Lutherans, Calvinists, 
 and Anabaptists. The Lutherans were the richer sect,* but 
 the Calvinists the most numerous and enthusiastic. The Prince 
 of Orange at this moment was strenuously opposed both to 
 Calvinism and Anabaptism, but inclining to Lutheranism. 5 
 Political reasons at this epoch doubtless influenced his mind 
 in religious matters. The aid of the Lutheran princes of 
 Germany, who detested the doctrines of Geneva, could hardly 
 be relied upon for the Netherlander, unless they would adopt 
 
 The Prince knew that the 
 
 the Confession of Augsburg. 
 
 1 Brandt, 320-321. Memorien y&n 
 Laurens Jacq. Eeael, f. 20-22, apud 
 Brandt. 
 
 2 Reiffenberg. Correspondance de 
 Marg. d'Autriche, 84. 
 
 3 Let. of Clough, in Burgon, ii. 135. 
 * There were, however, but two 
 
 Lutheran churches in all the Nether- 
 lands, according to the statement of 
 the Prince of Orange. Both were in 
 Antwerp. "Es ist aber zu erbariuen 
 
 das der Calvinismus so'weitt einreis- 
 set und die Augsburgische Confes- 
 sion uberwachsett, das in alien diesen 
 landen seint nur zwo kirchen der Augs- 
 burgischen Confession und die werden 
 in dieser stadt Antorfferhalten." Der 
 andere hauff ist durcbaus Calviniseh. 
 Letter from W. of Orange to Elector 
 Augustus, 1st Sept, 1566. MS. Dres- 
 den Archives. 
 
 8 Gro. T. Prinst, Arch., etc., 157.
 
 504 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1506. 
 
 Emperor, although inclined to the Reformation, was bitterly 
 Averse to Calvinism, and he was, therefore, desirous of healing 
 the schism which existed in the general Reformed Church. 
 To accomplish this, however, would be to gain a greater 
 victory over the bigotry which was the prevailing character- 
 istic of the age than perhaps could be expected. The Prince, 
 from the first moment oi his abandoning the ancient doctrines, 
 was disposed to make the attempt. 1 
 
 The Duchess ordered the magistrates oi Antwerp to put 
 down these mass-meetings by means ot the guild-militia. 
 They replied that at an earlier day such a course might have 
 been practicable, but that the sects had become quite too 
 numerous for coercion. If the authorities were able to prevent 
 the exercises of the Reformed religion within the city, it would 
 be as successful a result as could be expected. To prevent 
 the preaching outside the wall, by means of the burgher 
 force, was an utter impossibility. 8 The dilatoriness of the 
 Sovereign placed the Regent in a frightful dilemma, but it was 
 sufficiently obvious that the struggle could not long be deferred. 
 " There will soon be a hard nut to crack," wrote Count Louis. 
 "The King will never grant the preaching; the people will 
 never give it up, if it cost them their necks. There's a hard 
 puff coming upon the country before long. " 3 The Duchess was 
 not yet authorised to levy troops, and she feared that if she 
 commenced such operations, she should perhaps offend the 
 King, while she at the same time might provoke the people 
 into more effective military preparations than her own. 4 She 
 felt that for one company levied by her, the sectaries could 
 raise ten. Moreover, she was entirely without money, even if 
 she should otherwise think it expedient to enrol an army. 
 
 1 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., ii. 
 454, 455, 473, 480, 489, sqq. 
 
 2 Bor, ii. 69, 70. 
 
 3 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, etc., 
 ii. 208. 
 
 4 "Aussi si je lieve gens pour la 
 guarde et defence de ce dit pays, 
 Ton en treuve plusieurs au contraire 
 
 quo les retiennent en leur clonnank 
 plus grande soulde." Unpublished 
 letter of Margaret of Parma to 
 Philippe IL, in the Correspondence 
 de Philippe IE. avec la Duchesse de 
 Parme, 1566, 1567, No. 104. MS. 
 Archives du Royaume. Papiecs d'Etat.
 
 15G6.] -THE GKREAT BEGGAR." 505 
 
 Meantime sho did what she could with " public prayers, pro- 
 cessions, fasts, sermons, exhortations," and other ecclesiastical 
 machinery which she ordered the bishops to put in motion. 
 Her situation was indeed sufficiently alarming. 
 
 Egmont, whom many of the sectaries hoped to secure as 
 their leader in case of a civil war, 8 showed no disposition to 
 encourage such hopes, but as little to take up arms against the 
 people. He went to Flanders, where the armed assemblages 
 for field preaching had become so numerous that a force of 
 thirty or forty thousand men might be set on foot almost at a 
 moment's warning, and where the conservatives, in a state of 
 alarm, desired the presence of their renowned governor. 3 The 
 people of Antwerp, on their part, demanded William of Orange. 
 The Prince, who was hereditary burgrave of the city, had at 
 first declined the invitation of the magistracy. The Duchess 
 united her request with the universal prayer of the inhabitants. 
 Events meantime had been thickening and suspicion increasing. 
 Meghem had been in the city for several days, much to the 
 disgust of the Reformers, by whom he was hated. Aremberg 
 was expected to join him, and it was rumoured that measures 
 were secretly in progress under the auspices of these two leading 
 cardinalists, for introducing a garrison, together with great 
 store of ammunition, into the city. On the other hand, the 
 " great beggar," Brederode, had taken up his quarters also in 
 Antwerp ; had been daily entertaining a crowd of roystering 
 nobles at his hotel, previously to a second political demonstra- 
 tion which will soon be described, and was constantly parading 
 the street, followed by a swarm of adherents in the beggar 
 livery. The sincere Reformers were made nearly as uncomfort- 
 able by the presence of their avowed friends, as by that of 
 Meghem and Aremberg, and earnestly desired to be rid of them 
 all. Long and anxious were the ponderings of the magistrates 
 upon all these subjects. It was determined, at last, to send a 
 fresh deputation to Brussels, requesting the Regent to order 
 
 1 Correspondence de Marg. d'Au- I 3 Correspondance de M. d'Autriche, 
 triche, 122. a Pontus Payen MS. | lliG.
 
 506 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566 
 
 the departure of Meghem, Aremberg, and Brederode from 
 Antwerp ; remonstrating with her against any plan she might 
 be supposed to entertain of sending mercenary troops into the 
 city ; pledging the word of the senate to keep the peace, 
 meanwhile, by their regular force ; and above all imploring 
 her once more, in the most urgent terms, to send thither the 
 burgrave, as the only man who was capable of saving the 
 city from the calamities into which it was so likely to fall. 1 
 
 The Prince of Orange being thus earnestly besought, both 
 by the government of Antwerp, the inhabitants of that city, and 
 by the Regent herself, 3 at last consented to make the visit so 
 earnestly demanded. On the 13th July, he arrived in Antwerp.* 
 The whole city was alive with enthusiasm. Half its population 
 seemed to have come forth from the gates to bid him welcome, 
 lining the road for miles. The gate through which he was to 
 pass, the ramparts, the roofs of the houses, were packed close 
 with expectant and eager faces. At least thirty thousand per- 
 sons had assembled to welcome their guest. A long cavalcade 
 of eminent citizens had come as far as Berghen to meet him, 
 and to escort him into the city. Brederode, attended by some 
 of the noble confederates, rode at the head of the procession. 
 As they encountered the Prince, a discharge of pistol-shots was 
 fired by way of salute, which was the signal for a deafening 
 shout from the assembled multitude. The crowd thronged 
 
 o 
 
 about the Prince as he advanced, calling him their preserver, 
 their father, their only hope. Wild shouts of welcome rose 
 upon every side, as he rode through the town, mingled with 
 occasional vociferations of " Long life to the beggars." These 
 party cries were instantly and sharply rebuked by Orange, who 
 expressed, in Brederode's presence, the determination that he 
 would make men unlearn that mischievous watchword.* He 
 had, moreover, little relish at that time for the tumultuous 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 73, 74. Meteren ii. 396. 
 
 2 Hopper, 81. 
 
 8 Strada, T. 202. Hoofd, ii 87. 
 Correspond ance de Marg. d'Autriche, 
 87. Correspondance de Guillaume le 
 
 Tacit, 136, 137. 
 
 4 Bor, ii. 76. Strada, v. 203. Hop- 
 per, 91, is no less explicit : " Des 
 quell es le prince se monstroit fort 
 fache et malcontent."
 
 15C6..I CHANGE'S PATRIOTIC COUESB. 50? 
 
 demonstrations of attachment to his person, which were too 
 fervid to be censured, but too unseasonable to be approved. 
 When the crowd had at last been made to understand that 
 their huzzas were distasteful to the Prince, most of the mul- 
 titude consented to disperse, feeling, however, a relief from 
 impending danger in the presence of the man whom they 
 instinctively looked upon as their natural protector. 
 
 The senators had come forth in a body to receive the bur- 
 grave and escort him to the hotel prepared for him. Arrived 
 there, he lost no time in opening the business which had 
 brought him to Antwerp. He held at once a long consultation 
 with the upper branch of the government. Afterwards, day 
 after day, he honestly, arduously, sagaciously laboured to 
 restore the public tranquillity. He held repeated deliberations 
 with every separate portion of the little commonwealth, the 
 senate, the council of ancients, the corporation of ward-masters, 
 the deans of trades. Nor did he confine his communication to 
 these organised political bodies alone. He had frequent inter- 
 views with the officers of the military associations, with the 
 foreign merchant companies, with the guilds of "Rhetoric." 1 
 The chambers of the " Violet " and the " Marigold " were not 
 too frivolous or fantastic to be consulted by one who knew 
 human nature and the constitution of Netherland society so 
 well as did the Prince. Night and day he laboured with all 
 classes of citizens to bring about a better understanding, and 
 to establish mutual confidence. At last by his efforts tran- 
 quillity was restored. The broad council having been assembled, 
 it was decided that the exercise of the Reformed religion 
 should be excluded from the city, but silently tolerated in the 
 suburbs, while an armed force was to be kept constantly in 
 readiness to suppress all attempts at insurrection. The Prince 
 had desired that twelve hundred men should be enlisted and 
 paid by the city, so that at least a small number of disciplined 
 troops might be ready at a moment's warning ; but he found 
 it impossible to carry the point with the council. The magis- 
 1 Bor, ii. 76. Hoofd, ii. 88.
 
 508 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566. 
 
 trates were willing to hold themselves responsible for the 
 peace of the city, but they would have no mercenaries. 1 
 
 Thus, during the remainder of July and the early part of 
 August, was William of Orange strenuously occupied in doing 
 what should have been the Regent's work. He was still 
 regarded both by the Duchess and by the Calvinist party 
 although having the sympathies of neither as the only man in 
 the Netherlands who could control the rising tide of a national 
 revolt. He took care, said his enemies, that his conduct at 
 Antwerp should have every appearance of loyalty ;" a but they 
 insinuated that he was a traitor from the beginning, who was 
 insidiously fomenting the troubles which he appeared to rebuke. 
 No one doubted his genius, and all felt or affected admiration 
 at its display upon this critical occasion. " The Prince of 
 Orange is doing very great and notable services at Antwerp to 
 the King and to the country," said Assonleville. " That seig- 
 nior is very skilful in managing great affairs." 8 Margaret of 
 Parma wrote letters to him filled with the warmest gratitude, 
 expressions of approbation, and of wishes that he could both 
 remain in Antwerp and return to assist her in Brussels. 4 
 Philip, too, with his own pen, addressed him in a letter, in which 
 implicit confidence in the Prince's character was avowed, all 
 suspicion on the part of the Sovereign indignantly repudiated, 
 earnest thanks for his acceptance of the Antwerp mission 
 uttered, and a distinct refusal given to the earnest request 
 made by Orange to resign his offices." The Prince read or 
 listened to all this commendation, and valued it exactly at its 
 proper worth. He knew it to be pure grimace. He was no 
 more deceived by it than if he had read the letter sent by 
 Margaret to Philip, a few weeks later, in which she expressed 
 herself as " thoroughly aware that it was the intention or 
 Orange to take advantage of the impending tumults, for the 
 purpose of conquering the provinces and of dividing the 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 77. Hoofd, iii. 88, 89. 
 
 * Bentivoglio, ii. 37. 
 
 8 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 364. 
 
 4 Correspondance de Guillaurae le 
 Tacit, ii. 148, 149, 164-166. 
 * Ibid., 170, 171.
 
 15CG.] SHERIFFS AND DOCTORS. 500 
 
 whole territory among himself and friends." 1 Nothing could 
 be more utterly false than so vile and ridiculous a statement. 
 
 The course of the Prince had hitherto been, and was still, 
 both consistent and loyal. It was in the monarch's power to 
 convoke the assembly of the states-general, so loudly demanded 
 by the whole nation, to abolish the inquisition, to renounce 
 persecution, to accept the great fact of the Reformation. To 
 do so he must have ceased to be Philip. To have faltered in 
 attempting to bring him into that path, the Prince must have 
 ceased to be William of Orange. Had he succeeded, there 
 would have been no treason and no Republic of Holland. His 
 conduct at the outbreak of the Antwerp troubles was firm and 
 sagacious. Even had his duty required him to put down the 
 public preaching with peremptory violence, he had been 
 furnished with no means to accomplish the purpose. The 
 rebellion, if it were one, was already full-grown. It could 
 not be taken by the throat and strangled with one hand, 
 however firm. 
 
 A report that the High Sheriff of Brabant was collecting 
 troops by command of government, in order to attack the 
 Reformers at their field-preachings, went far to undo the 
 work already accomplished by the Prince. 2 The assemblages 
 swelled again from ten or twelve thousand to twenty-five thou- 
 sand, the men all providing themselves more thoroughly with 
 weapons than before. Soon afterwards the intemperate zeal of 
 another individual, armed to the teeth not, however, like the 
 martial sheriff and his forces, with arquebus and javelin, but 
 with the still more deadly weapons of polemical theology was 
 very near causing a general outbreak. A peaceful and not 
 very numerous congregation were listening to one of their 
 preachers in a field outside the town. Suddenly an unknown 
 individual in plain clothes and with a pragmatical demeanour 
 interrupted the discourse by giving a flat contradiction to some 
 of the doctrines advanced. The minister replied by a rebuke, 
 
 1 Strada, T. 207. I ii. 182. Correspondance de Gruillaum& 
 
 8 Groen T. Prinst., Archives, etc., \ le Tacit, ii. 149, 150.
 
 510 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [15CG. 
 
 and a reiteration of the disputed sentiment. The stranger, 
 evidently versed in ecclesiastical matters, volubly and warmly 
 responded. The preacher, a man of humble condition and 
 moderate abilities, made as good show of argument as he could, 
 but was evidently no match for his antagonist. He was soon 
 vanquished in the wordy warfare. Well he might be, for it 
 appeared that the stranger was no less a personage than Peter 
 Bythovius, a doctor of divinity, a distinguished pedant of 
 Louvain, a relation of a bishop, and himself a church digni- 
 tary. 1 This learned professor, quite at home in his subject, was 
 easily triumphant, while the poor dissenter, more accustomed 
 to elevate the hearts of his hearers than to perplex their heads, 
 sank prostrate and breathless under the storm of texts, glosses, 
 and hard Hebrew roots with which he was soon overwhelmed. 
 The professor's triumph was, however, but short-lived, for 
 the simple-minded congregation, who loved their teacher, 
 were enraged that he should be thus confounded. Without 
 more ado, therefore, they laid violent hands upon the Quixotic 
 knight-errant of the Church, and so cudgelled and belaboured 
 him bodily, that he might perhaps have lost his life in the 
 encounter had he not been protected by the more respectable 
 portion of the assembly. These persons, highly disapproving 
 the whole proceeding, forcibly rescued him from the assailants, 
 and carried him off to town, where the news of the incident 
 at once created an uproar. Here he was thrown into prison 
 as a disturber of the peace, but in reality that he might be 
 personally secure. 3 The next day William of Orange, after 
 administering to him a severe rebuke for his ill-timed exhi- 
 bition of pedantry, released him from confinement, and had 
 him conveyed out of the city. " This theologian," wrote the 
 Prince to Duchess Margaret, " would have done better, 
 methinks, to stay at home ; for I suppose he had no especial 
 orders to perform this piece of work." 3 
 
 Thus, so long as the Prince could remain in the metropolis, 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 81 ; Hoofd, iii. SO. I 3 Correspon 
 
 a Bor, Hoofd, ubi eup. | Tacit, ii. 181.
 
 156G.] CONVENTION AT ST. TBOND. 511 
 
 his firmness prevented the explosion which had so long been 
 expected. His own government of Holland and Zeland, too, 
 demanded his care. The field-preaching hud spread in that 
 region with prodigious rapidity. Armed assemblages, utterly 
 beyond the power of the civil authorities, were taking place 
 daily in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam. 1 Yet the Duchess 
 could not allow him to visit his government in the north. If 
 he could be spared from Antwerp for a day it was necessary 
 that he should aid her in a fresh complication with the con- 
 federated nobles. In the very midst, therefore, of his Antwerp 
 labours, he had been obliged, by Margaret's orders, to meet a 
 committee at Duffel. 8 For in this same eventful month of 
 July a great meeting 8 was held by the members of the Com- 
 promise at St. Trond, in the bishopric of Liege. They came 
 together on the 13th of the month, and remained assembled 
 till the beginning of August. It was a wild, tumultuous 
 convention, numbering some fifteen hundred cavaliers, each 
 with his esquires and armed attendants a larger and more 
 important gathering than had yet been held. Brederode and 
 Count Louis were the chieftains of the assembly, which, as 
 may be supposed from its composition and numbers, was likely 
 to be neither very orderly in its demonstrations nor wholesome 
 in its results. It was an ill-timed movement. The convention 
 was too large for deliberation, too riotous to inspire confidence. 
 The nobles quartered themselves everywhere in the taverns and 
 the farm-houses of the neighbourhood, while large numbers 
 encamped upon the open fields. There was a constant din of 
 revelry and uproar, mingled with wordy warfare, and an 
 occasional crossing of swords. It seemed rather like a congress 
 of ancient savage Batavians, assembled in Teutonic fashion to 
 choose a king amid hoarse shouting, deep drinking, and the 
 clash of spear and shield, than a meeting for a lofty and 
 earnest purpose, by their civilised descendants. A crowd of 
 spectators, landlopers, mendicants, daily aggregated themselves 
 
 Bor, ii. 78-80. Hoofd, iii. 9C-98. 
 Strada, T. 203-206. Hopper, Eec. et 
 
 1 Hoofd, iii. 89, 90. 
 
 2 Correspondance de Guillaume le 
 Tacit, ii. 148, 149. 
 
 Mem., 90-96.
 
 512 TEE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 1566.] 
 
 to the aristocratic assembly, joining with natural unction in 
 the incessant shout of " Vivent ksgueulx!" It was impos- 
 sible that so soon after their baptism the self-styled beggars 
 should repudiate all connexion with the time-honoured 
 fraternity in which they had enrolled themselves. 
 
 The confederates discussed if an exchange of vociferations 
 could be called discussion principally two points : whether, 
 in case they obtained the original objects of their petition, they 
 should pause or move still further onward ; and whether they 
 should insist upon receiving some pledge from the government, 
 that no vengeance should be taken upon them for their previous 
 proceedings. Upon both questions there was much vehemence 
 of argument and great difference of opinion. They, moreover, 
 took two very rash and very grave resolutions to guarantee 
 the people against all violence on account of their creeds, and 
 to engage a force of German soldiery, four thousand horses and 
 forty companies of infantry, by " wart geld,"or retaining wages. 1 
 It was evident that these gentlemen were disposed to go fast 
 and far. If they had been ready in the spring to receive their 
 baptism of wine, the " beggars " were now eager for the baptism 
 of blood. At the same time it must be observed that the levies 
 which they proposed, not to make, but to have at command, 
 were purely for defence. In case the King, as it was thought 
 probable, should visit the Netherlands with fire and sword, 
 then there would be a nucleus of resistance already formed. 
 
 Upon the 18th July, the Prince of Orange, at the earnest re- 
 quest of the Regent, met a committee of the confederated nobles 
 at Duffel. Count Egmont was associated with him in this duty. 
 The conference was not very satisfactory. The deputies from 
 St.Trond, consisting of Brederodc, Culemburg, and others, ex- 
 changed with the two seigniors the old arguments. It was urged 
 upon the confederates that they had made themselves responsible 
 for the public tranquillity so long as the Regent should hold to 
 her promise ; that, as the Duchess had sent two distinguished 
 envoys to Madrid, in order to accomplish, if possible, the wishes of 
 1 Groen v. Prin., Arch., etc., ii. 159, sqq., 107, sqq., 179 ; Pontus Paj-en MS.
 
 1566.] lOUIS'S "TWELVE APOSTLES." 513 
 
 the nobles, it was their duty to redeem their own pledges; that 
 armed assemblages ought to be suppressed by their efforts, 
 rather than encouraged by their example ; and that, if they now- 
 exerted themselves zealously to check the tumults, the Duchess 
 was ready to declare in her own name, and that of his Majesty, 
 that the presentation of the Request had been beneficial. 
 
 The nobles replied that the pledges had become a farce, that 
 the Regent was playing them false, that persecution was as 
 fierce as ever, that the ft Moderation " was a mockery, that 
 the letters recommending " modesty and discretion " to the 
 inquisitors had been mere waste paper, that a price had been 
 set upon the heads of the preachers as if they had been wild 
 beasts, that there were constant threats of invasions from Spain, 
 that the convocation of the states-general had been illegally 
 deferred, that the people had been driven to despair, and that 
 it was the conduct of government, not of the confederates, 
 which had caused the Reformers to throw off previous re- 
 straint, and to come boldly forth by tens of thousands into 
 the fields, not to defy their King, but to worship their God. 1 
 
 Such, in brief, was the conference of Duffel, la conclu- 
 sion, a paper was drawn up which Brederode carried back to 
 the convention, and which it was proposed to submit to the 
 Duchess for her approval. At the end of the month, Louis of 
 Nassau was accordingly sent to Brussels, accompanied by 
 twelve associates, who were familiarly called his twelve 
 apostles. 3 Here he laid before her Highness in council a 
 statement, embodying the views of the confederates. In this 
 paper they asserted that they were ever ready to mount and 
 ride against a foreign foe, but that they would never draw a 
 
 1 Correspondance de Marg. d'Au- 
 'iriche, 129, sqq. Archives et Corres- 
 pondance (Gr. v. Prinst.) 167, sqq. 
 Kenom de France, MS., i. 17. Bor, 
 li. 78-80. Hoofd, iii. 96-98. Com- 
 pare Hopper, 90-96 ; Strada, v. 203- 
 206; Bentivoglio, ii. 34, 35. 
 
 Ibid., 120, sqq. ; 141, sqq. The 
 
 1566. Vide Keiffenberg, Correspond, 
 ubi sup. ; Gachard, Correspondance 
 de Philippe II., 437. According to 
 a letter of Count Louis, however, 
 (Archives et Correspondance, ii. 177- 
 180.) the Request would seem to have 
 been presented upon the 26th of July. 
 
 date appears to be the 30th of July, 
 VOL. I. 2 K 
 
 Strada, v. 205.
 
 514 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH EEPUBLTO. [16C6. 
 
 sword against their innocent countrymen. They maintained 
 that their past conduct deserved commendation, and that in 
 requiring letters of safe conduct in the names both of the 
 Duchess and of the Fleece knights, they were governed not 
 by a disposition to ask for pardon, but by a reluctance with- 
 out such guarantees to enter into stipulations touching the 
 public tranquillity. If, however, they should be assured that 
 the intentions of the Regent were amicable, and that there 
 was no design to take vengeance for the past if, moreover, 
 she were willing to confide in the counsels of Horn. Egmont, 
 
 O * O 7 
 
 and Orange, and to take no important measure without their 
 concurrence if, above all, she would convoke the states- 
 general, then, and then only, were the confederates willing to 
 exert their energies to preserve peace, to restrain popular 
 impetuosity, and banish universal despair. 1 
 
 So far Louis of Nassau and his twelve apostles. It must 
 be confessed that, whatever might be thought of the jus- 
 tice, there could be but one opinion as to the boldness of 
 these views. The Duchess was furious. If the language 
 held in April had been considered audacious, certainly this 
 new request was, in her own words, " still more bitter to 
 the taste, and more difficult of digestion." 3 She therefore 
 answered in a very unsatisfactory, haughty, and ambiguous 
 manner, reserving decision upon their propositions till they 
 had been discussed by the state-council, and intimating that 
 they would also be laid before the knights of the Fleece, who 
 were to hold a meeting upon the 26th of August. 
 
 There was some further conversation without any result. 
 Esquerdes complained that the confederates were the mark of 
 constant calumny, and demanded that the slanderers should be 
 confronted with them and punished. " I understand perfectly 
 well," interrupted Margaret, " you wish to take justice into your 
 own hands, and to be king yourself." s It was further inti- 
 mated by these reckless gentlemen, that if they should be driven 
 
 1 Hopper, 94, 95. Hoofd, iii. 98. 1 a Cor. de Marg. d'Autriche, 142. 
 Strada, v. 205, 206. * Eenom de France, MS., i. 18.
 
 1566.] 
 
 THE ASSEMBLY DISSOLVED. 
 
 515 
 
 by violence into measures of self -protection, they had already 
 secured friends in a certain country. 1 The Duchess, probably 
 astonished at the frankness of this statement, is said to have 
 demanded further explanations. The confederates replied by 
 observing that they had resources both in the provinces and in 
 Germany. The state-council decided that to accept the pro- 
 positions of the confederates would be to establish a triumvi- 
 rate at once, and the Duchess wrote to her brother distinctly 
 advising against the acceptance of the proposal. 3 The assembly 
 at St. Trond was then dissolved, having made violent demon- 
 strations which were not followed by beneficial results, and 
 having laid itself open to various suspicions, most of which 
 were ill-founded, while some of them were just. 
 
 Before giving the reader a brief account of the open and the 
 secret policy pursued by the government at Brussels and 
 Madrid, in consequence of these transactions, it is now neces- 
 sary to allude to a startling series of events, which at this 
 point added to the complications of the times, and exercised a 
 fatal influence upon the situation of the commonwealth. 
 
 1 Le Petit : Grande Chronique de 
 Hollande, 109 a, 1146. Groen T. 
 Prinst., Archives, ii. 167, 168. 
 
 8 Eenom de France, MS., i. 18. 
 Correspondance de Marg. d'Autriche, 
 142.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FIRST WHIRLWIND. 
 
 Ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands The image-breaking 
 Description of Antwerp Cathedral Ceremony of the Ommegang 
 Precursory disturbances Iconoclasts at Antwerp Incidents of the 
 image-breaking in various cities Events at Tournay Preaching of 
 Wille Disturbance by a little boy Churches sacked at Tournay 
 Disinternient of Duke Adolphus of Ghieldres Iconoclasts defeated 
 and massacred at Anchin Bartholomew's day at Valenciennes 
 General characteristics of the image-breaking Testimony of contem- 
 poraries as to the honesty of the rioters Consternation of the 
 Duchess Projected flight to Mons Advice of Horn and other 
 seigniors Accord of 25th August. 
 
 THE Netherlands possessed an extraordinary number of churches 
 and monasteries. Their exquisite architecture and elaborate 
 decoration had been the earliest indication of intellectual cul- 
 ture displayed in the country. In the vast number of cities, 
 towns, and villages which were crowded upon that narrow 
 territory,there had been,from circumstances operating through- 
 out Christendom, a great accumulation of ecclesiastical wealth. 
 The same causes can never exist again which at an early day 
 covered the soil of Europe with those magnificent creations of 
 Christian art. It was in these anonymous but entirely original 
 achievements that Gothic genius, awaking from its long sleep 
 of the dark ages, first expressed itself. The early poetry of 
 the German races was hewn and chiselled in stone. Around 
 the steadfast principle of devotion then so firmly rooted in the 
 soil, clustered the graceful and vigorous emanations of the 
 newly-awakened mind. All that science could invent, all that
 
 1566.] ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE. 517 
 
 art could embody, all that mechanical ingenuity could dare, all 
 that wealth could lavish whatever there was of human energy 
 which was panting for pacific utterance, wherever there stirred 
 the vital principle which instinctively strove to create and to 
 adorn at an epoch when vulgar violence and destructiveness 
 were the general tendencies of humanity, all gathered around 
 these magnificent temples, as their aspiring pinnacles at last 
 pierced the mist which had so long brooded over the world. 
 
 There were many hundreds of churches, more or less remark- 
 able, in the Netherlands. Although a severe criticism might 
 regret to find in these particular productions of the great Ger- 
 manic school a development of that practical tendency which 
 distinguished the Batavian and Flemish branches although it 
 might recognise a departure from that mystic principle which, 
 in its efforts to symbolise the strivings of humanity towards 
 the infinite objects of worship above, had somewhat disregarded 
 the wants of the worshippers below, although the spaces might 
 be too wide and the intercolumniations too empty, except for 
 the convenience of congregations, yet there were, nevertheless, 
 many ecclesiastical masterpieces, which could be regarded as 
 very brilliant manifestations of the Batavian and Belgic mind 
 during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Many were 
 filled with paintings from a school which had precedence in 
 time and merit over its sister nurseries of art in Germany. All 
 were peopled with statues. All were filled with profusely- 
 adorned chapels, for the churches had been enriched generation 
 after generation by wealthy penitence, which had thus pur- 
 chased absolution for crime and smoothed a pathway to heaven. 
 
 And now, for the space of only six or seven summer days 
 and nights, there raged a storm by which all these treasures 
 were destroyed. Nearly every one of these temples was entirely 
 rifled of its contents ; not for the purpose of plunder, but of 
 destruction. Hardly a province or a town escaped. Ark 
 must for ever weep over this bereavement ; Humanity must 
 regret that the reforming is thus always ready to degenerate 
 into the destructive principle ; but it is impossible to censure
 
 518 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [156G. 
 
 very severely the spirit which prompted the brutal, but not 
 ferocious deed. Those statues, associated as they were with 
 the remorseless persecution which had so long desolated the 
 provinces, had ceased to be images. They had grown human 
 and hateful, so that the people arose and devoted them to 
 indiscriminate massacre. 
 
 No doubt the iconoclastic fury is to be regretted ; for such 
 treasures can scarcely be renewed. The age for building and 
 decorating great cathedrals is past. Certainly, our own age, 
 practical and benevolent, if less poetical, should occupy itself 
 with the present, and project itself in the future. To clothe 
 the naked, redeem the criminal, feed the hungry, less by alms 
 and homilies than by preventive institutions and beneficent 
 legislation ; above all, by the diffusion of national education^ 
 to lift a race upon a level of culture hardly attained by a 
 class in earlier times, is as lofty a task as to accumulate piles 
 of ecclesiastical splendour. 
 
 It would be tedious to recount in detail the events which 
 characterised the remarkable image-breaking in the Nether- 
 lands. As Antwerp was the central point in these transac- 
 tions, and as there was more wealth and magnificence in the 
 great cathedral of that city than in any church of northern 
 Europe, it is necessary to give a rapid outline of the events 
 which occurred there. From its exhibition in that place the 
 spirit everywhere will best be shewn. 
 
 The Church of our Lady, which Philip had so recently con- 
 verted into a cathedral, dated from the year 1 1 24, although it 
 may be more fairly considered a work of the fourteenth century. 
 Its college of canons had been founded in another locality by 
 Godfrey of Bouillon. The Brabantine hero, who so romantically 
 incarnated the religious poetry of his age, who first mounted 
 the walls of redeemed Jerusalem, and was its first Christian 
 monarch, but who refused to accept a golden diadem on the 
 spot where the Saviour had been crowned with thorns ; the 
 Fleming who lived and was the epic which the great Italian, 
 centuries afterwards, translated into immortal verse, is thus fitly
 
 IWJC.] ANTWERP CATHEDRAL. 519 
 
 associated with the beautiful architectural poem which was to 
 grace his ancestral realms. The body of the church the inte- 
 rior and graceful perspectives of which were not liable to the 
 reproach brought against many Netherland churches, of assimi- 
 lating themselves already to the municipal palaces which they 
 were to suggest was completed in the fourteenth century. 
 The beautiful facade, with its tower, was not completed till 
 the year 1518. The exquisite and daring spire, the gigantic 
 stem upon which the consummate flower of this architectural 
 creation was to be at last unfolded, was a plant of a whole 
 century's growth. Eising to a height of nearly five hundred 
 feet, over a church of as many feet in length, it worthily re- 
 presented the upward tendency of Gothic architecture. Ex- 
 ternally and internally the cathedral was a true impression of 
 the Christian principle of devotion. Amid its vast accumulation 
 of imagery, its endless ornaments, its multiplicity of episodes, 
 its infinite variety of details, the central, maternal principle was 
 ever visible. Everything pointed upwards, from the spire in 
 the clouds to the arch which enshrined the smallest sculptured 
 saint in the chapels below. It was a sanctuary, not like pagan 
 temples, to enclose a visible deity, but an edifice where 
 mortals might worship an unseen Being in the realms above. 
 
 The church, with the noisy streets of the metropolis eddying 
 around its walls, was a sacred island in the tumultuous main. 
 Through the perpetual twilight, tall columnar trunks in thick 
 profusion grew from a floor chequered with lights and shadows. 
 Each shaft of the forest rose to a preternatural height, the 
 many branches intermingling in the space above, to form a 
 stately canopy. Foliage, flowers, and fruit of colossal luxuri- 
 ance, strange birds, beasts, griffins, and chimeras in endless 
 multitudes, the rank vegetation and fantastic zoology of a 
 fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the serried 
 trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies 
 or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the 
 wind through the forest now the full diapason of the storm, 
 and now the gentle cadence of the evening breeze.
 
 520 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566. 
 
 Internally, the church was rich beyond expression. All that 
 opulent devotion could devise, in wood, bronze, marble, silver, 
 gold, precious jewellery, or sacramental furniture, had been 
 profasely lavished. The penitential tears of centuries hao! in- 
 crusted the whole interior with their glittering stalactites. 
 Divided into five naves, with external rows of chapels, but 
 separated by no screens or partitions, the great temple forming 
 an imposing whole, the effect was the more impressive, the 
 vistas almost infinite in appearance. The wealthy citizens, the 
 twenty-seven guilds, the six military associations, the rhyth- 
 mical colleges, besides many other secular or religious 
 sodalities, had their own chapels and altars. Tombs adorned 
 with the effigies of mailed crusaders and pious dames covered 
 the floor, tattered banners hung in the air, the escutcheons of 
 the Golden Fleece, an order typical of Flemish industry, but 
 of which emperors and kings were proud to be the chevaliers, 
 decorated the columns. The vast and beaiitifully-painted 
 windows glowed with scriptural scenes, antique portraits, 
 homely allegories, painted in those brilliant and forgotten 
 colours which Art has not ceased to deplore. The daylight 
 melting into gloom or coloured with fantastic brilliancy, 
 priests in effulgent robes chanting in unknown language, the 
 sublime breathing of choral music, the suffocating odours 
 of myrrh and spikenard, suggestive of the oriental scenery 
 and imagery of Holy Writ, all combined to bewilder and 
 exalt the senses. The highest and humblest seemed to find 
 themselves upon the same level within those sacred precincts, 
 where even the blood-stained criminal was secure and the 
 arm of secular justice was paralysed. 
 
 But the work of degeneration had commenced. The 
 atmosphere of the cathedral was no longer holy in the 
 eyes of increasing multitudes. Better the sanguinary rites 
 of Belgic Druids, better the yell of slaughtered victims from 
 the " wild wood without mercy " of the pagan forefathers of 
 the nation, than this fantastic intermingling of divine music, 
 glowing colours, gorgeous ceremonies, with all the burning,
 
 <566.] CEREMONY OF THE OMMEGANG. 521 
 
 beheading and strangling work which had characterised the 
 system of human sacrifice for the past half century. 
 
 Such was the church of Notre Dame at Antwerp. Thus 
 indifferent or hostile towards the architectural treasure were 
 the inhabitants of a city, where in a previous age the whole 
 population would have risked their lives to defend what they 
 esteemed the pride and garland of their metropolis. 
 
 The Prince of Orange had been anxiously solicited by the 
 Regent to attend the conference at Duffel. After returning to 
 Antwerp, he consented, in consequence of the urgent entreaties 
 of the senate, to delay his departure until the 18th of August 
 should be past. On the 13th of that month he had agreed 
 with the magistrates upon an ordinance, which was accordingly 
 published, and by which the preachings were restricted to the 
 fields. A deputation of merchants and others waited upon him 
 with a request to be permitted the exercises of the Reformed 
 religion in the city. This petition the Prince peremptorily 
 refused, and the deputies, as well as their constituents acqui- 
 esced in the decision, "out of especial regard and respect for 
 his person." He, however, distinctly informed the Duchess 
 that it would be difficult or impossible to maintain such a 
 position long, and that his departure from the ctiy would 
 probably be followed by an outbreak. He warned her that it 
 was very imprudent for him to leave Antwerp at that particu- 
 lar juncture. Nevertheless, the meeting of the Fleece knights 
 seemed, in Margaret's opinion, imperatively to require his 
 presence in Brussels. She insisted by repeated letters that 
 he should leave Antwerp immediately. 1 
 
 Upon the 18th of August, the great and time-honoured 
 ceremony of the Ommegang occurred. Accordingly, the great 
 procession, the principal object of which was to conduct around 
 the city a colossal image of the Virgin, issued as usual from 
 the door of the cathedral. The image, bedizened and effulgent, 
 was borne aloft upon the shoulders of her adorers, followed by 
 
 1 Bor. ii. 81-83. Hoofd, iii. 90. I i. 188,189. Groen v.Prinst., Archives, 
 Correspondance de Guillaurno le Tacit, j etc., ii. 236, 237.
 
 522 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566* 
 
 the guilds, the military associations, the rhetoricians, the 
 religious sodalities, all in glittering costume, bearing blazoned 
 banners, and marching triumphantly through the streets with 
 sound of trumpet and beat of drum. 1 The pageant, solemn 
 but noisy, was exactly such a show as was most fitted at that 
 moment to irritate Protestant minds and to lead to mischief 
 No violent explosion of ill-feeling, however, took place. The 
 procession was followed by a rabble rout of scoffers, but they 
 confined themselves to words and insulting gestures. a The 
 image was incessantly saluted, as she was borne along the 
 streets, with sneers, imprecations, and the rudest ribaldry. 
 " Mayken ! Mayken ! (little Mary) your hour is come. 'Tis 
 your last promenade. The city is tired of you. " Such were 
 the greetings which the representative of the Holy Virgin 
 received from men grown weary of antiquated mummery. A 
 few missiles were thrown occasionally at the procession as it 
 passed through the city, but no damage was inflicted. When 
 the image was at last restored to its place, and the pageant 
 brought to a somewhat hurried conclusion, there seemed cause 
 for congratulation that no tumult had occurred. 
 
 On the following morning there was a large crowd collected 
 in front of the cathedral. The image, instead of standing in 
 the centre of the church, where, upon all former occasions, if 
 had been accustomed during the week succeeding the ceremony 
 to receive congratulatory visits, was now ignominiously placed 
 behind an iron railing within the choir. It had been deemed 
 imprudent to leave it exposed to sacrilegious hands. The 
 precaution excited derision. Many vagabonds of dangerous 
 appearance, many idle apprentices and ragged urchins were 
 hanging for a long time about the imprisoned image, peeping 
 through the railings, and indulging in many a brutal jest. 
 " Mayken ! Mayken ! they cried, lt art thou terrified so soon ? 
 Hast tiown to thy nest so early ! Dost think thyself beyond 
 the reach of mischief? Beware, Mayken! thine hour is fast 
 approaching I " Others thronged around the balustrade, shout- 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 83. Meteren, ii. 40. Bor, ubi sup.
 
 1566.] PEECUKSOEY DISTUEBANCE3. 523 
 
 ing, " Vivent les gueulx!" and hoarsely commanding the 
 image to join in the beggars' cry. Then, leaving the spot, 
 the mob roamed idly about the magnificent church, sneering 
 at the idols, execrating the gorgeous ornaments, scoffing at 
 crucifix and altar. 
 
 Presently one of the rabble, a ragged fellow of mechanical 
 aspect, in a tattered black doublet and an old straw hat, as- 
 cended the pulpit. Opening a sacred volume which he found 
 there he began to deliver an extemporaneous and coarse carica- 
 ture of a monkish sermon. Some of the bystanders applauded, 
 some cried shame, some shouted, " Long live the beggars ! " 
 some threw sticks and rubbish at the mountebank, some caught 
 him by the legs and strove to pull him from his place. He, 
 on the other hand, manfully maintained his ground, hurling 
 back every missile, struggling with his assailants, and con- 
 tinuing the while to pour forth a malignant and obscene dis- 
 course. At last a young sailor, warm in the Catholic faith, 
 and impulsive as mariners are prone to be, ascended the pulpit 
 from behind, sprang upon the mechanic, and flung him head- 
 long down the steps. The preacher grappled with his enemy 
 as he fell, and both came rolling to the ground. Neither was 
 much injured, but a tumult ensued. A pistol-shot was fired, 
 and the sailor was wounded in the arm. Daggers were drawn, 
 cudgels brandished, the bystanders taking part generally 
 against the sailor, while those who protected him were somewhat 
 bruised and belaboured before they could convey him out of 
 the church. Nothing more, however, transpired that day, 
 and the keepers of the cathedral were enabled to expel the 
 crowd and to close the doors for the night. 1 
 
 o 
 
 Information of this tumult was brought to the senate, then 
 assembled in the H6tel de ville. That body was thrown into 
 a state of great perturbation. In losing the Prince of Orange 
 they seemed to have lost their own brains, and the first measure 
 which they took was to dispatch a messenger to implore his 
 return. In the meantime, it was necessary that they should 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 83. Hoofd, iii. 99. Strada, v. 211. Meteren, 40.
 
 524 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [156& 
 
 do something for themselves. It was evident that a storm was 
 brewing. The pest which was sweeping so rapidly through 
 the provinces would soon be among them. Symptoms of the 
 dreaded visitation were already but too manifest. What pre- 
 caution should they take ? Should they issue a proclamation? 
 Such documents had been too plenty of late, and had lost their 
 virtue. It was the time not to assert but to exercise authority. 
 Should they summon the ward-masters, and order the instant 
 arming and mustering of their respective companies ? Should 
 they assemble the cap tains of the military associations ? Nothing 
 better could have been desired than such measures in cases of 
 invasion or of ordinary tumult, but who should say how deeply 
 the poison had sunk into the body politic ; who should say 
 with how much or how little alacrity the burgher militia would 
 obey the mandates of the magistracy ? It would be better to 
 issue no proclamation unless they could enforce its provisions ; 
 it would be better not to call out the citizen soldiery unless they 
 were likely to prove obedient. Should mercenary troops at this 
 late hour be sent for ? Would not their appearance at this 
 crisis rather inflame the rage than intimidate the insolence of 
 the sectaries ? Never were magistrates in greater perplexity. 
 They knew not what course was likely to prove the safest, and 
 in their anxiety to do nothing wrong, the senators did nothing 
 at all. After along and anxious consultation, the honest burgo- 
 master and his associates all went home to their beds, hoping 
 that the threatening flame of civil tumult would die out of 
 itself, or perhaps that their dreams would supply them with 
 that wisdom which seemed denied to their waking hours. 1 
 
 In the morning, as it was known that no precaution had 
 been taken, the audacity of the Reformers was naturally 
 increased. Within the cathedral a great crowd was at an early 
 hour collected, whose savage looks and ragged appearance 
 denoted that the day and night were not likely to pass away 
 so peacefully as the last The same taunts and imprecations 
 were hurled at the image of the Virgin; the same howling of 
 1 Bor, ii. 83, 84. Hoofd. iii. 99.
 
 1666.] IMAGE-BREAKING AT ANTWERP. 525 
 
 the beggars' cry resounded through the lofty arches. For a 
 few hours, no act of violence was committed, but the crowd 
 increased. A few trifles, drifting as usual, before the event, 
 seemed to indicate the approaching convulsion. A very paltry 
 old woman excited the image-breaking of Antwerp. She had 
 for years been accustomed to sit before the door of the cathe- 
 dral with wax-tapers and wafers, earning a scanty subsistence 
 from the profits of her meagre trade, and by the small coins 
 which she sometimes received in charity. Some of the rabble 
 began to chaffer with this ancient hucksteress. They scoffed 
 at her consecrated wares ; they bandied with her ribald jests, 
 of which her public position had furnished her with a supply ; 
 they assured her that the hour had come when her idolatrous 
 traffic was to be for ever terminated, when she and her 
 patroness, Mary, were to be given over to destruction together. 
 The old woman, enraged, answered threat with threat, and 
 gibe with gibe. Passing from words to deeds, she began to 
 catch from the ground every offensive missile or weapon 
 which she could find, and to lay about her in all directions. 
 Her tormentors defended themselves as they could. Having 
 destroyed her whole stock-in-trade, they provoked others to 
 appear in her defence. The passers-by thronged to the scene ; 
 the cathedral was soon filled to overflowing ; a furious tumult 
 was already in progress. 1 
 
 Many persons fled in alarm to the Town House, carrying 
 information of this outbreak to the magistrates. John Van 
 
 o 
 
 Immerzeel, margrave of Antwerp, was then holding communi- 
 cation with the senate, and awaiting the arrival of the ward- 
 masters, whom it had at last been thought expedient to summon. 
 Upon intelligence of this riot, which the militia, if previously 
 mustered, might have prevented, the senate determined to pro- 
 ceed to the cathedral in a body, with the hope of quelling the 
 mob by the dignity of their presence. The margrave, who was 
 the high executive officer of the little commonwealth, marched 
 down to the cathedral accordingly, attended by the two burgo- 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 83. Hoofd, iii. 100. Meteren, ii. 40.
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [156G. 
 
 masters and all the senators. At first their authority, solicita- 
 tions, and personal influence, produced a good effect. Some of 
 those outside consented to retire, and the tumult partially sub- 
 sided within. As night, however, was fast approaching, many 
 of the mob insisted upon remaining for evening service. They 
 were informed that there would be none that night, and that 
 for once the people could certainly dispense with their vespers. 
 Several persons now manifesting an intention of leaving the 
 cathedral, it was suggested to the senators that if they should 
 lead the way, the populace would follow in their train, and so 
 disperse to their homes. The excellent magistrates took the 
 advice, not caring, perhaps, to fulfil any longer the dangerous 
 but not dignified functions of police-officers. Before departing, 
 they adopted the precaution of closing all the doors of the 
 church, leaving a single one open, that the rabble still remaining 
 might have an opportunity to depart. It seemed not to occur 
 to the senators that the same gate would as conveniently afford 
 an entrance for those without as an egress for those within. 
 
 o 
 
 That unlooked-for event happened, however. No sooner had 
 the magistrates retired than the rabble burst through the single 
 door which had been left open, overpowered the margrave, who, 
 with a few attendants, had remained behind, vainly endeavour- 
 ing by threats and exhortations to appease the tumult, drove 
 him ignominiously from the church, and threw all the other 
 portals wide open. Then the populace flowed in like an angry 
 sea. The whole of the cathedral was at the mercy of the rioters, 
 who were evidently bent on mischief. The wardens and 
 treasurers of the church, after a vain attempt to secure a few 
 of its most precious possessions, retired. They carried the 
 news to (he senators, who, accompanied by a few halberdmen, 
 again ventured to approach the spot. It was but for a 
 moment, however, for appalled by the furious sounds which 
 came from within the church, as if invisible forces were pre- 
 paring a catastrophe which no human power could withstand, 
 the magistrates fled precipitately from the scene. Fearing 
 that the next attack would be upon the Town House, they
 
 1568 IMAGE-BKEAKING AT ANTWERP. 527 
 
 hastened to concentrate at that point their available strength, 
 and left the stately cathedral to its fate. 1 
 
 And now, as the shadows of night were deepening the per- 
 petual twilight of the church, the work of destruction com- 
 menced. Instead of vespers rose the fierce music of a psalm, 
 yelled by a thousand angry voices. It seemed the preconcerted 
 signal for a general attack. A band of marauders flew upon 
 the image of the Virgin, dragged it forth from its receptacle, 
 plunged daggers into its inanimate body, tore off itsje welled and 
 embroidered garments, broke the whole figure into a thousand 
 pieces, and scattered the fragments along the floor. A wild 
 shout succeeded, and then the work which seemed delegated to 
 
 J O 
 
 a comparatively small number of the assembled crowd, went on 
 with incredible celerity. Some were armed with axes, some 
 with bludgeons, some with sledge-hammers ; others brought 
 ladders, pulleys, ropes, and levers. Every statue was hurled 
 from its niche, every picture torn from the wall, every painted 
 window shivered to atoms, every ancient monument shattered, 
 every sculptured decoration, however inaccessible in appear- 
 ance, hurled to the ground. Indefatigably, audaciously, en- 
 dowed, as it seemed, with preternatural strength and nimble- 
 ness, these furious iconoclasts clambered up the dizzy heights 
 shrieking and chattering like malignant apes, as they tore off 
 in triumph the slowly-matured fruit of centuries. In a space 
 of time wonderfully brief, they had accomplished their task. 
 
 A colossal and magnificent group of the Saviour crucified 
 between two thieves adorned the principal altar. The statue of 
 Christ was wrenched from its place with ropes and pulleys, 
 while the malefactors, with bitter and blasphemous irony, were 
 left on high, the only representatives of the marble crowd which 
 had been destroyed. A very beautiful piece of architecture 
 decorated the choir the "repository," as itwas called, in which 
 the body of Christ was figuratively enshrined. This much- 
 admired work rested upon a single column, but rose, arch upon 
 arch, pillar upon pillar, to the height of three hundred feet, till 
 
 1 Bor, ii. 83, 84. Hoofd, iii. 100, s<jfl. Strada, v. 212. Meteren, ii. 40.
 
 528 
 
 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1560. 
 
 quite lost in the vault above. 1 It was now shattered into a 
 million pieces. The statues, images, pictures, ornaments, as 
 they lay upon the ground, were broken with sledge-hammers, 
 hewn with axes, trampled, torn, and beaten into shreds. A 
 troop of harlots, snatching waxen tapers from the altars, stood 
 around the destroyers and lighted them at their work. 
 Nothing escaped their omnivorous rage. They desecrated 
 seventy chapels, forced open all the chests of treasure, covered 
 their own squalid attire with the gorgeous robes of the ecclesi- 
 astics, broke the sacred bread, poured out the sacramental 
 wine into golden chalices, quaffing huge draughts to the beggars' 
 health ; burned all the splendid missals and manuscripts, and 
 smeared their shoes with the sacred oil, with which kings and 
 prelates had been anointed. It seemed that each of these 
 malicious creatures must have been endowed with the streno-th 
 
 O 
 
 of a hundred giants. How else, in the few brief hours of a 
 midsummer night, could such a monstrous desecration have 
 been accomplished by a troop, which, according to all accounts, 
 was not more than one hundred in number. 8 There was a 
 multitude of spectators, as upon all such occasions, but the 
 actual spoilers were very few. 
 
 The noblest and richest temple of the Netherlands was a 
 wreck, but the fury of the spoilers was excited, not appeased. 
 Each seizing a burn ing torch, the whole herd rushed from the 
 cathedral, and swept howling through the streets. (t Long live 
 the beggars ! " resounded through the sultry midnight air, as 
 the ravenous pack flew to and fro, smiting every image of the 
 Virgin, every crucifix, every sculptured saint, every Catholic 
 symbol which they met with upon their path. All night long 
 they roamed from one sacred edifice to another, thoroughly 
 destroying as they went. Before morning they had sacked 
 thirty churches within the city walls. They entered the 
 monasteries, burned their invaluable libraries, destroyed their 
 
 1 Pontus PiyenMS. 
 8 Corr. de Marg. d'Autriche, 183. 
 Compare Hojjper. Kec. et Mem., 97 ; 
 
 Strada, v. 213 ; Hoofd, iii. 101. Bur- 
 gon.ii. 137-141. Bor, ii. 84 ; Meteren, 
 ii. 40 ; Bentivoglio, ii. 35, 36.
 
 1566.] IMAGE-BREAKING. 529 
 
 altars, statues, pictures, and descended into the cellars, broached 
 every cask which they found there, pouring out in one great 
 flood all the ancient wine and ale with which those holy men 
 had been wont to solace their retirement from generation to 
 generation. They invaded the nunneries, whence the occu- 
 pants, panic-stricken, fled for refuge to the houses of their 
 friends and kindred. The streets were filled with monks and 
 nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to 
 escape the claws of these fiendish Calvinists. 1 The terror was 
 imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these trans- 
 actions was, that neither insult nor injury was offered to man 
 or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense 
 amount of property destroyed was appropriated. It was a 
 war, not against the living, but against graven images, nor 
 was the sentiment which prompted the onslaught in the least 
 commingled with a desire of plunder. The principal citizens 
 of Antwerp, expecting every instant that the storm would be 
 diverted from the ecclesiastical edifices to private dwellings, 
 and that robbery, rape, and murder would follow sacrilege,, 
 remained all night expecting the attack, and prepared to de- 
 fend their hearths, even if the altars were profaned. The 
 precaution was needless. It was asserted by the Catholics that 
 the confederates and other opulent Protestants had organised 1 
 this company of profligates for the meagre pittance of ten stivers 
 a-day. On the other hand, it was believed by many that the 
 Catholics had themselves plotted the whole outrage in order to 
 bring odium upon the reformers. Both statements were equally 
 unfounded. The task was most thoroughly performed, but it 
 was prompted by a furious fanaticism, not by baser motives.* 
 Two days and nights longer the havoc raged unchecked 
 through all the churches of Antwerp and the neighbouring 
 
 1 Strada, v. 215. Hoofd. Bor, ubi 
 sup. " Vous eu-siez reu," says Pontus 
 Payen, "lea pauvres nonains aortir 
 tie leurs monasteres ea habits deguisez 
 t lea aucunes a demye couvertes, ae 
 auver en maisons do leurs parene et 
 
 amis, et lea prestrea et M oinea couroient 
 quo a et que la, fuians lea griffes de 
 ces malins reformea," etc., etc. MS., 
 
 liv. ii. 
 
 VOL. I. t L 
 
 8 Burgon, ii. 137-141. Bor, ii. 89. 
 Hoofd, iii. 101. Hopper, 97.
 
 530 THE RISE OP THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566 
 
 villages. Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction. Yet 
 the rage was directed exclusively against stocks and stones. 
 Not a man was wounded nor a woman outraged. Prisoners, 
 indeed, who had been languishing hoplessly in dungeons were 
 liberated. A monk, who had been in the prison of the Barefoot 
 Monastry for twelve years, recovered his freedom. Art was 
 trampled in the dust, but humanity deplored no victims. 1 
 
 These leading features characterised the movement every- 
 where. The process was simultaneous and almost universal. 
 It was difficult to say where it began and where it ended. A 
 few days in the midst of August sufficed for the whole work. 
 The number of churches desecrated has never been counted. 
 In the single province of Flanders, four hundred were sacked. 2 
 In Limburg, Luxemburg, and JSTamur, 3 there was no image- 
 breaking. In Mechlin, seventy or eighty persons accom- 
 plished the work thoroughly, in the very teeth of the grand- 
 council, and of an astonished magistracy. 4 
 
 In Tournay, a city distinguished for its ecclesiastical splen- 
 dour, the Reform had been making great progress during the 
 summer. At the same time the hatred between the two 
 religions had been growing more and more intense. 
 
 On the 22d of August the news reached Tournay that the 
 churches in Antwerp, Ghent, and many other places had been 
 sacked. There was an instantaneous movement towards imi- 
 tating the example on the same evening. Pasquier de la 
 Barre, procureur-general of the city, succeeded by much en- 
 treaty in tranquillising the people for the night. The "guard 
 of terror " was set, and hopes were entertained that the storm 
 might blow over. The expectation was vain. At daybreak next 
 day, the mob swept upon the churches and stripped them to 
 the very walls. Pictures, statues, organs, ornaments, chalices 
 of silver and gold, reliquaries, albs, chasubles, copes, cibories, 
 crosses, chandeliers, lamps, censers, all of richest material, 
 
 * Pontus Payen MS. According to 
 Kenom de France, the work was dono 
 
 1 Meteren, ii. 40. Bor, ii. 84. 
 Strada, v. 215, 216. 
 
 2 Correspondance de Marg. d'Au- 
 triche, 18& 3 Hoofd, iii. 103. 
 
 by thirty or forty "personnes de nulle 
 qualiteV' MS. Lo. 20.
 
 15G6.] 
 
 DUKE ADOLPHUS DISINTERRED. 
 
 531 
 
 glittering with pearls, rubies, and other precious stones, were 
 scattered in heaps of ruin upon the ground. 1 
 
 As the spoilers burrowed among the ancient tombs, they 
 performed, in one or two instances, acts of startling posthumous 
 justice. The embalmed body of Duke Adolphus of Gueldres, 
 last of the Egmonts who had reigned in that province, was 
 dragged from its sepulchre and recognised. 2 Although it had 
 been there for ninety years, it was as uncorrupted, " owing to 
 the excellent spices which had preserved it from decay," 3 as 
 upon the day of burial. Thrown upon the marble floor of the 
 church, it lay several days exposed to the execrations of the 
 multitude.* The Duke had committed a crime against his 
 father, in consequence of which the province which had been 
 ruled by native races had passed under the dominion of Charles 
 the Bold. Weary of waiting for the old Duke's inheritance, he 
 had risen against him in open rebellion. Dragging him from his 
 bed at midnight in the depth of winter, he had compelled the 
 old man, with no covering but his night-gear, to walk with 
 naked feet twenty-five miles over ice and snow from Grave to 
 Buren, while he himself performed the same journey in his 
 company on horseback. He had then thrown him into a 
 dungeon beneath the tower of Buren Castle, and kept him a 
 close prisoner for six months. 5 At last, the Duke of Burgundy 
 summoned the two before his council, and proposed that 
 Adolphus should allow his father 6000 florins annually, with 
 the title of Duke till his death. " He told us," said Comines, 
 " that he would sooner throw the old man head-foremost down 
 a well and jump in himself afterwards. His father had been 
 Duke forty-four years, and it was time for him to retire." 
 Adolphus, being thus intractable, had been kept in prison till 
 
 1 Pasquier de la Barre MS., 33. 
 
 2 Nic. Burgundi Hist. Belg. (In- 
 golstad, 1G29), iii. 315-318. 
 
 3 Pontus Payen MS. 
 * Ibid. 
 
 5 Memoires de PMlipe de Comines 
 (Lond. et Paris, 1747), liv. iv. 194-196. 
 In the Royal Gallery at Berlin is a 
 
 startling picture by Rembrandt, in 
 which the old Duke is represented 
 looking out of the bars of his dungeon, 
 at his son, who is threatening him 
 with uplifted hand and savage face. 
 No subject could be imagined better 
 adapted to the gloomy and sarcastic 
 genius of that painter.
 
 532 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 after the death of Charles the Bold. To the memorable insur- 
 rection of Ghent, in the time of Lady Mary, he owed his 
 liberty. The insurgent citizens took him from prison, and 
 caused him to lead them in the foray against Tournay. 1 Beneath 
 the walls of that city he was slain, and buried under its 
 cathedral. And now, as if his offence had not been sufficiently 
 atoned for by the loss of his ancestral honours, his captivity, and 
 his death, the earth, after the lapse of nearly a century, had 
 cast him forth from her bosom. There, once more beneath the 
 sunlight, amid a ribald crew of a later generation which had 
 still preserved the memory of his sin, lay the body of the more 
 than parricide, whom " excellent spices" had thus preserved from 
 corruption, only to be the markof scorn and demoniac laughter.* 
 A large assemblage of rioters, growing in numbers as they 
 advanced, swept over the province of Tournay, after accom- 
 plishing the sack of the city churches. Armed with halberds 
 hammers, and pitchforks, they carried on the war, day after 
 day, against the images. At the convent of Marchiennes > 
 considered by contemporaries the most beautiful abbey in all 
 the Netherlands, they halted to sing the ten commandments 
 in Marot's verse. Hardly had the vast chorus finished the 
 precept against graven images : 
 
 Tailler ne te feras imaige 
 
 De quelque chose que ce soit, 
 Sy honneur luy fais ou hominaige, 
 
 Bon Dieu jalousie en re9oit, 
 
 when the whole mob seemed seized with sudden madness. 
 Without waiting to complete the Psalm, they fastened upon 
 the company of marble martyrs, as if they had possessed 
 sensibility to feel the blows inflicted. In an hour they had 
 laid the whole in ruins. 3 
 
 Having accomplished this deed, they swept on towards 
 Anchin. Here, however, they were confronted by the Seigneur 
 
 1 Memoires do Philippe de Coraines 
 (Lond. et Paris, 1747), liv. IT. 194- 
 196. 
 
 a Nic. Burgundi, ubi uup. Pontua 
 Payen MS. G. Brandt, i. 355, 356. 
 3 Pontus Payen MS., ii.
 
 16CG.J 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 533 
 
 de 2a Tour, who, at the head of a small company of peasants, 
 attacked the marauders and gained a complete victory. Five 
 or six hundred of them were slain, others were drowned in 
 the river and adjacent swamps, the rest were dispersed. 1 It 
 was thus proved that a little more spirit upon the part of the 
 orderly portion of the inhabitants might have brought about a 
 different result than the universal image-breaking. 
 
 In Valenciennes, " the tragedy," as an eye witness calls it, 
 was performed upon Saint Bartholomew's day. It was, how- 
 ever, only a tragedy of statues. Hardly as many senseless 
 stones were victims as there were to be living Huguenots 
 sacrificed in a single city upon a Bartholomew which was fast 
 approaching. In the Valenciennes massacre not a human 
 being was injured. 
 
 Such in general outline, and in certain individual details, was 
 the celebrated iconom achy of the Netherlands. The movement 
 was a sudden explosion of popular revenge against the symbols 
 of that Church by which the Reformers had been enduring 
 such terrible persecution. It was also an expression of the 
 general sympathy for the doctrines which had taken possession 
 of the national heart. It was the depravation of that instinct 
 which had in the beginning of the summer drawn Calvinists 
 and Lutherans forth in armed bodies, twenty thousand strong, 
 to worship God in the open fields. The difference between 
 the two phenomena was, that the field-preaching was a crime 
 committed by the whole mass of the Reformers ; men, women, 
 and children confronting the penalties of death, by a general 
 determination, while the image-breaking was the act of a small 
 portion of the populace. A hundred persons belonging to the 
 lowest order of society sufficed for the desecration of the 
 Antwerp churches. It was, said Orange, " a mere handful of 
 rabble," who did the deed. 3 Sir Richard Clough saw ten or 
 
 1 P^ntus Payen MS., ii. Hopper, 
 98,99. 
 
 2 " Ein hauffen leichtfertiges ges- 
 inrllins." Groen v. Prinst, Archive.*, 
 ii. '2Q2. "So sind es nuhr gering- 
 
 sclietzige und sch'echte leuthe gewesen 
 die Eolchea ausz eigner bewegung und 
 ungedult der langen zeitt geiibtten 
 unmenscLlichen verfolgung begangen 
 haben.'' Letter of Orange to the Eleo-
 
 5*4 
 
 THE EISE OP THE DUTCH BEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 twelve persons entirely sack church after church, while ten 
 thousand spectators looked on, indifferent or horror-struck. 
 The bands of iconoclasts were of the lowest character, and 
 few in number. Perhaps the largest assemblage was that 
 which ravaged the province of Tournay, but this was so weak 
 as to be entirely routed by a small and determined force. 
 The duty of repression devolved upon both Catholics and 
 Protestants. Neither party stirred. All seemed overcome 
 with special wonder as the tempest swept over the land. 
 
 The ministers of the Reformed religion, and the chiefs of the 
 liberal party, all denounced the image-breaking. Francis 
 Junius 1 bitterly regretted such excesses. Ambrose Wille, pure 
 of #11 participation in the crime stood up before ten thousand 
 Reformers at Tournay even while the storm was raging in the 
 neighbouring cities, and when many voices around him were 
 hoarsely commanding similar depravities to rebuke the out- 
 rages by which a sacred cause was disgraced. 3 The Prince 
 of Orange, in his private letters, deplored the riots, and 
 stigmatised the perpetrators. Even Brederode, while, as 
 Suzerain of his city of Viane, he ordered the images there to 
 be quietly taken from the churches, characterised this popular 
 insurrection as insensate and flagitious. 3 Many of the leading 
 confederates not only were offended with the proceedings, but 
 in their eagerness to chastise the iconoclasts and to escape from 
 a league of which they were weary, began to take severe 
 measures against the ministers and Reformers, of whom they 
 had constituted themselves in April the especial protectors. 
 
 The next remarkable characteristic of these tumults was the 
 almost entire abstinence of the rioters from personal outrage 
 and from pillage. The testimony of a very bitter, but honest 
 Catholic at Valenciennes, is remarkable upon this point. 
 " Certain chroniclers," said he, " have greatly mistaken the 
 character of this image-breaking. It has been said that the Cal- 
 
 tor of Saxony in Archives et Corresp., 
 ii.484. 
 
 1 Groen T. Prin., Ar., ii. 217, 218. 
 
 De la Barre MS. 
 8 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, 
 261, 265, 483. 
 
 o. ii.
 
 1566.J 
 
 HONESTY OF THE RIOTERS. 
 
 535 
 
 vinists killed a hundred priests in this city, cutting some of 
 them into pieces, and burning others over a slow fire. / 
 remember very well everything ivhich happened upon that abomin- 
 able day, and I can affirm that not a single priest was injured. 
 The Huguenots took good care not to injure in any way the 
 living images" l This was the case everywhere. Catholic 
 and Protestant writers agree that no deeds of violence were 
 committed against man or woman. 2 
 
 It would be also very easy to accumulate a vast weight of 
 testimony as to their forbearance from robbery. They de- 
 stroyed for destruction's sake, not for purposes of plunder. 
 Although belonging to the lowest classes of society, they left 
 heaps of jewellery, of gold and silver plate, of costly embroi- 
 dery, lying unheeded upon the ground. They felt instinctively 
 that a great passion would be contaminated by admixture with 
 paltry motives. In Flanders a company of rioters hanged one 
 of their own number for stealing articles to the value of five 
 shillings. 8 In Valenciennes the iconoclasts were offered large 
 
 o o 
 
 sums if they would refrain from desecrating the churches of 
 that city, but they rejected the proposal with disdain. The 
 honest Catholic burgher who recorded the fact, observed that 
 he did so because of the many misrepresentations on the sub- 
 ject, not because he wished to flatter heresy and rebellion.* 
 
 At Tournay, the greatest scrupulousness was observed upon 
 this point. The floor of the cathedral was strewn with 
 ts pearls and precious stones, with chalices and reliquaries of 
 silver and gold ; " but the ministers of the Keformed religion, 
 in company with the magistrates, came to the spot, and found 
 no difficulty, although utterly without power to prevent the 
 storm, in taking quiet possession of the wreck. " We had 
 everything of value," says Procureur-Ge*ne*ral De la Barre, 
 
 1 Histoire des choses les plus meYnor- 
 ables, etc. MS. 
 
 2 See Letter of Clough, already 
 quoted. Compare Strada, v. 215, for 
 proofs of the abstinence from insult of 
 the nuns and other women on this 
 
 memorable occasion. 
 
 3 Burgon, ubi sup. 
 
 8 "Ce n'est pas qu je veuilla 
 flatter la rebellion et 1'heresie, ny la 
 qualifier benigne et debonnaire." 
 Valenciennes MS.
 
 536 
 
 THE EISE OF THE DUTCH KEPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566 
 
 " carefully inventoried, weighed, locked in chests, and placed 
 under a strict guard in the prison of the Halle, to which one 
 set of keys were given to the ministers, and another to the 
 magistrates." l Who will dare to censure in very severe language 
 this havoc among stocks and stones in a land where so many 
 living men and women, of more value than many statues, had 
 been slaughtered by the Inquisition, and where Alva's "Blood 
 Tribunal " was so soon to eclipse even that terrible institution 
 in the number of its victims and the amount of its confiscations ? 
 Yet the effect of the riots was destined to be most disastrous 
 for a time to the reforming party. It furnished plausible ex- 
 cuses for many lukewarm friends of their cause to withdraw 
 from all connexion with it. 8 Egmont denounced the proceed- 
 ings as highly flagitious, and busied himself with punishing 
 the criminals in Flanders. 3 The Regent was beside herself 
 with indignation and terror. Philip, when he heard the news, 
 fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. ft It shall cost them dear I " 
 he cried, as he tore his beard for rage ; " it shall cost them 
 dear ! I swear it by the soul of my father ! " * The Re- 
 formation in the Netherlands, by the fury of these fanatics, 
 was thus made apparently to abandon the high ground upon 
 which it had stood in the early summer. The sublime spec- 
 tacle of the multitudinous field-preaching was sullied by the 
 excesses of the image-breaking. The religious war, before 
 imminent, became inevitable. 
 
 Nevertheless, the first effect of the tumults was a temporary 
 advantage to the Reformers. A great concession was extorted 
 from the fears of the Duchess Regent, who was certainly placed 
 in a terrible position. Her conduct was not heroic, although 
 she might be forgiven for trepidation. Her treachery, how- 
 ever, under these trying circumstances was less venial. At 
 three o'clock in the morning of the 22d of August, 5 Orange, 
 
 1 Pasquier de la Barre MS., f. 33. 
 
 2 Groen v. Prinst., Archives, ii. 
 282. 
 
 3 Pontus Payen MS. 
 
 4 Letter of Morillon to Granvelle, 
 
 29th September, 1566, in Gachard, 
 Anal. Belg. 254. 
 
 6 Correspondance de Marg. d'Au 
 triche, 188 sqq. Letter of Ilorn in 
 Foppens, Supplement, ii. 477, sqq.
 
 156C.] 
 
 CONSTERNATION OF THE DUCHESS. 
 
 537 
 
 Egmont, Horn, Hoogstraaten, Mansfeld, and others were 
 summoned to the palace. They found her already equipped 
 for flight, surrounded by her waiting-women, chamberlains, 
 and lackeys, while the mules and hackneys stood harnessed in 
 the court-yard, and her bodyguard were prepared to mount at 
 a moment's notice. 1 She announced her intention of retreating 
 at once to Mons, in which city, owing to Aerschot's care, she 
 hoped to find refuge against the fury of the rebellion then 
 sweeping the country. Her alarm was almost beyond control. 
 She was certain that the storm was ready to burst upon 
 Brussels, and that every Catholic was about to be massacred 
 before her eyes. Aremberg, Berlaymont, and Noircarmes, 
 were with the Duchess when the other seigniors arrived. 
 
 A party of the Duke of Aerschot's company had been ordered 
 out to escort the projected flight to Mons. Orange, Horn, 
 Egrnont, and Hoogstraaten implored her to desist from her 
 fatal resolution. They represented that such a retreat before a 
 mob would be the very means of ruining the country. They 
 denounced all persons who had counselled the scheme, as 
 enemies of his Majesty and herself. They protested their 
 readiness to die at her feet in her defence, but besought her 
 not to abandon the post of duty in the hour of peril. While 
 they were thus anxiously debating, Viglius entered the chamber. 
 With tears streaming down her cheeks, Margaret turned to the 
 aged President, uttering fierce reproaches and desponding 
 lamentations. Viglius brought the news that the citizens had 
 taken possession of the gates, and were resolved not to permit 
 her departure from the city. He reminded her, according to 
 the indispensable practice of all wise counsellors, that he had 
 been constantly predicting this result. He, however, failed in 
 administering much consolation, or in suggesting any remedy. 
 He was, in truth, in as great a panic as herself; and it was, 
 
 Vit, Viglii, 47, 48. Vigl. Epist. ad 
 Hopperum, 273. 
 
 1 Letter of Horn to Montigny, in 
 Foppene" and in BjYoegsel'B Authent, 
 
 Stukken tot de Hiet. v. P. Bor, i. 91, 
 92. Vit. Viglii, ubi aup. Correspon- 
 dance de Marg. d'Autriche, ubi sup, 
 Corresp. de Philippe IL, i. 452-454.
 
 338 
 
 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 
 
 [1566. 
 
 according to the statement of the Duchess, mainly in order to 
 save the President from threatened danger that she even- 
 tually resolved to make concessions. " Viglius," wrote 
 Margaret to Philip, " is so much afraid of being cut to 
 pieces, that his timidity has become incredible." ' Upon the 
 warm assurance of Count Horn, that he would enable her 
 to escape from the city should it become necessary, or perish 
 in the attempt a promise in which he was seconded by the 
 rest of the seigniors she consented to remain for the day 
 in her palace. 8 Mansfeld was appointed captain-general of 
 the city ; Egmont, Horn, Orange, and the others agreed to 
 serve under his orders ; and all went down together to the 
 Town-House. The magistrates were summoned, a general 
 meeting of the citizens was convened, and the announcement 
 made of Mansfeld's appointment, together with an earnest 
 appeal to all honest men to support the government. The 
 appeal was answered by a shout of unanimous approbation, 
 an enthusiastic promise to live or die with the Regent, and 
 the expression of a resolution to permit neither Reformed 
 preaching nor image-breaking within the city. 8 
 
 Nevertheless, at seven o'clock in the evening, the Duchess 
 again sent for the seigniors. She informed them that she had 
 received fresh and certain information that the churches were 
 to be sacked that very night ; that Viglius, Berlaymont, and 
 Aremberg were to be killed, and that herself and Egmont were 
 to be taken prisoners. She repeated many times that she had 
 been ill-advised, expressed bitter regret at having deferred her 
 flight from the city, and called upon those who had obstructed 
 her plan, now to fulfil their promises. Turning fiercely upon 
 Count Horn, she uttered a volley of reproaches upon his share 
 \n the transaction. " You are the cause," said she, " that I am 
 aow in this position. Why do you not redeem your pledge, 
 una enable me to leave the place at once ? "* Horn replied that 
 
 - Correspondance de Philippe H., i. 
 460,461. 
 
 a Let. Horn to Montigny, ubi sup. 
 
 1 Ibid. 
 * Ibid. 
 
 86, 
 
 Hcofd, iii. 107. Bor, ii.
 
 ACCORD OF 25TH AUGUST. 
 
 539 
 
 lie was ready to do so if she were resolved to stay no longer. 
 He would at the instant cut his way through the guard at the 
 Caudenberg gate, and bring her out in safety, or die in the 
 effort. At the same time, he assured her that he gave no faith 
 vO the idle reports flying about the city, reminded her that 
 nobles, magistrates, and citizens were united in her defence, 
 and, in brief, used the same arguments which had before been 
 used to pacify her alarm. The nobles were again successful 
 in enforcing their counsels, the Duchess was spared the 
 ignominy and the disaster of a retreat before an insurrection 
 which was only directed against statues, and the ecclesiastical 
 treasures of Brussels were saved from sacrilege. 1 
 
 On the 25th August came the crowning act of what the 
 Reformers considered their most complete triumph? and the 
 Regent her deepest degradation. It was found necessary, under 
 the alarming aspect of affairs, that liberty of worship, in places 
 where it had been already established, should be accorded to the 
 new religion. Articles of agreement to this effect were accord- 
 ingly drawn up and exchanged between the government and 
 Louis of Nassau, attended by fifteen others of the confederacy. 
 A corresponding pledge was signed by them, that so long as the 
 Regent was true to her engagement, they would consider their 
 previously existing league annulled, and would assist cordially 
 in every endeavour to maintain tranquillity and support the 
 authority of his Majesty. The important Accord was then duly 
 signed by the Duchess. It declared that the Inquisition wa& 
 abolished, that his Majesty would soon issue a new general 
 edict, expressly and unequivocallyprotecting the nobles against 
 all evil consequences from past transactions, that they were to 
 be employed in the royal service, and that public preaching, 
 according to the forms of the new religion, was to be practised 
 in places where it had already taken place. Letters general 
 were immediately despatched to the senates of all the cities, 
 
 1 Let. Horn to Monti gny, ubi sup. 
 Hoofd, iii. 107. Bor, ii. 85. Corresp. 
 de Marg. d'Autriche, ubi sup. Cor- 
 
 resp. de Philippe II., i. ubi sup. Groen 
 v. Prinst, Archives, ii. 237, 238. 
 Hopper, Rec. et Mem., 99.
 
 540 THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. [1566. 
 
 proclaiming these articles of agreement, and ordering their 
 execution. 1 Thus, for a fleeting moment there was a thrill 
 of joy throughout the Netherlands. The Inquisition was 
 thought for ever abolished the era of religious reformation 
 arrived. 
 
 * Bor, ii. 97, 98. Hoofd, iii. 109. Striwla, v. 222. Hopper, Bee. et Mem., 99-202,
 
 NOTARIAL INSTRUMENT 
 
 CONCERNING THK 
 
 MARRIAGE OF ORANGE WITH ANNE OF SAXONY. 
 
 Ma, ROYAL ARCHIVES, DRESDEN. 
 
 JM nahrnen der heyligen vntzurteilten Dreifaltigkeit, Gottea 
 Vaters, Gottes Sones vnnd Gottes heyligen Geistes Amen. Nach 
 der Geburt vnsers ainigen Heylandes vnd Seligmacliers Jesu Christi. 
 Jm funfft zelienliundert vnd ain vnd sechtzigsten Jare, der virden 
 Koruer tzinstzal, zu latein Jndiction gnant, Bey Regirung des aller 
 durchlauchtigsten grosinechtigsten fursten vnd herren hern Ferdi- 
 nanden erwelten Romischen Kaisers, zcu alien zeitern mehrern des 
 Reichs, Jn Germanien zu Vngern Behem Dalmacien Croacien vnd 
 Sclavonien Konigk vnd Infant zu Hispanien, Ertzhertzog czu Oster- 
 reich Hertzog czu Bergundt zcu Steier Kernten Krain vnnd Wirt- 
 tenbergk Graffen czu Tiroll vnd vnsers allergnedigsten Hen-en, 
 seiner Kay. Mt. Regirung der Romischen, 31. vnd der andernn jm 
 35., Sonntags am tage Bartholomei Apostoli, welcher war der 24. 
 monatstag Augusti, nach beschehnem Stadtlichem einzoug, vff das 
 furstliche beylager zwusclien den durchlauchtigen hochgebornen 
 fursten vnd furstin, Hern Wilhelinen Printzen czu Vranien Graffen 
 zw Nassau Katzenelnbogen Yianden vnd Titz Hern zu Bredau 
 Gubernator in Burgundie Hollandt, Selandt vnd Vtricht, als des 
 Breutigams, vnd freulein Anna, Gcborne Herzogin czu Sachsen vnd 
 Churfurst Moritz hochloblicher gedechtnus einigen tochter, als der 
 Braut. Seint zu Leiptzig vf m Rathaus vffm Obersten Sal in einer 
 Erker Staben zwuschen vier vnd f unff horen nach Mittag in meiner 
 offenbaren Notarien, vnd zu ende benanten geczeugen Kegenwart 
 erschienen. Die obbemelten zwee furstlichen personen, Als der 
 Breutigam vnd Braut, vnd doneben die Durchlauchtigsten Hoch- 
 gebornen Fursten vnd Furstin, Her Augustus Hertzog czu Sachsen, 
 des heiligen R6. Reichs Ertz Marschalh vnd Churfurst LandtgrafF 
 jn Duringen Marggraff czu Meissen vnd Burggraff czu Magdoburgk 
 ampt Frauen Annen gebornen aus koniglichem Stam czu Den-
 
 542 NOTARIAL INSTRUMENT CONCERNING TSE '. 
 
 marken Hertzogin vnd Churfurstin zcu Saclisen vnd Vnnd hat aldo 
 Hochgedachter Churfurst, Hochgedachtem printzen als dem Breuti- 
 gam diese muentliche anzceigung thun lassen. Scin Furstliche 
 gnad wurden sich f reuntlich wissen zu erjnnern, Das in vorlauffener 
 Heuradtshandlunpj zwuschen S. F. gl. hochermett Fraiilein als 
 derselbigen kunftigen ehegemahl bey dem reinen lantern wort 
 Gottes, auch dem branch der hochwirdigen Sacrament Jnhalts der 
 heiligen Apostolischen schrifft vnd jn sunderheit wie solche Crist- 
 liche lehr in der Angspurgischen Confession vorfasset, [dorinne 
 auch jre f. g. ertzogen, vnd durch vorleihung des Almechtigen 
 bestendiglich zuvorharren gedenkt,] jder zceit vnvorhindert sollen 
 bleiben lassen, vnd von solcher jrer Cristlichen Relligion der Augs- 
 purgischen Confession, weder mit gewalt bedrauung noch beredung 
 abfuren oder wendig machen, Jrer F. G. auch vorstatten vnd freunt- 
 lich nachlasse das sie zu jrer selbst notdurfft vnd gelegenheit, die 
 Biicher dorinne solche Cristliche Relligion der Augspurgischen 
 Confession vorfasset vngescheucht lesen moge. Do auch jre F. G. 
 die hochwurdigen Sacramenta nach einsetzung vnsers Seligniachers 
 des Hern Cristi gebrauchen wollen, das s. f. g. so offte solchs jm 
 jare begert wiirdre, jre F. G. an die ortte brengen wollen lassen do 
 sie das Sacrament des leibs vnd bluts vnsers Hern Cristi nach 
 desselben einsetzung, vnd also vnder beider gestallt sicher vnnd one 
 gefahr gebrauchen vnd entpf ahen konne. Vnnd do jre F. G. mit 
 leibs schwacheit befiele, oder kindesnoten were, das s. f., g. vff 
 denselbenfall, einen Evangelischen predicanten zu jren F. G. wollen 
 fordern lassen, der jre F. G. mit Gotes wort trostet vnd das heilig 
 Sacrament, wie obgemelt, ju jrem zimer reiche, Auch die kinder so 
 s. f. gl., mit hochermeltem Fraulein, zceugen wurden, jn solcher 
 Lahr der Augspurgischen Confession truelich sollen vnderwiesen 
 werdenn Alles ferners Jnnhalts einer Nottel So. s. c. f. gl. vnder 
 dem Dato Dresden den virtzehenden Aprilis dieses laufendenn ein 
 vnnd sechtzigsten jares dem Herren printzen zugeschickt. "Weil 
 aber s. f . g., aus etzlichen vorgewantenn vrsachenn bedenken gehapt, 
 Solchs in Schrifften vorfassen zcu lassen, unnd es entlich dohin 
 vorglichen, das s. f . g. solchs Alles also festiglich zu halden Hoch- 
 gedachtem Churfursten czu Sachsen vnd als des Fraiileins nechst 
 bluts vorwantem Yettern vnnd Vater vor der vortrewuung vnd 
 beysetzung, jn kegenwertikeit des Frauleins vnd anderer beiderseits 
 jver Chur vnnd Fui-stlichen gnaden Bedten vnd dienere zcusagen 
 solten. Deme allem nach, vnd weil es durch gnedige Schikunge des 
 Almechtigen so weit khommen, das hochgemelt Fraulein jtzunt 
 tochgedachtem Printzen offentlich Ehelich vortrauet vnd beygesetzt
 
 MARRIAGE OP OKANGffi WITH ANNE OF SAXONY. 543 
 
 eol werden als stellet Hocbgcdacliter Churf urst in. Iceinen zweiffel 
 S. F. G. werden solche zcusage [nernlicb das sie das Fraulein von 
 der waren Cristlicben Relligion, wie dieselbige in der Auggpurgis- 
 cben Confession vorfasset vnd dorinne jre F. G-. erzcogen vnd 
 vnderwiesen wiirden, wider mit bedrauung noch berbedung, abbal- 
 ten, sundern bey derselbenn vnvorbindert bleiben, aucb die biicner 
 dorinnen solcbe Cristlicbe Relligion vorfasset, vngescbeucbt zcu 
 lesen vorstatten desgleicben so offte es jre F. G. begern an die orte 
 bringen wollen lassen do sie das bocbwirdige Sacrament, nacb der 
 einsetzung des Seligmachers vnsers Hern Jesu Cbristi, entpfaben 
 moge, vnd do sie mit leibs scbwacbeit befiele J. F. G. einen Evan- 
 gelischen predicanten vorscbaffen wollen, der sie mit gotes wort, vnd 
 reichung des Sacraments, nacb des Hern Cristi einsetzung troste, 
 Das aucb s. f . g. die kindere, so sie nacb dem willen des almecbtigen 
 mit dem Freulein erzeugen werden jn solcber Cbristlicben Relligion 
 der Augspurgiscben Confession truelich wollen venderweisen lassen.] 
 jtzundt allbier jn beisein des freuleins vnd der Cburfurstin Hoff- 
 meisterin Frauen Soffien von Miltitz witwen, aucb beiderseits Redte, 
 als nemlicb auf des Cburfursten teil Hans von Ponika vff Pomsen 
 Her Vlricb Mordeisen vff Woltersdorff der Recbtenn Doctor vnd 
 Ordinarius zu Leiptzigk, und vff des Hern Printzen seite der "Wol- 
 geborne Her Jobann Graff zu Nassaw vnd Heinricb von Wiltperg 
 Hoffmeister, sein cburfurstlicben Gnaden, mit band vnd munde zcu 
 tbun vnbescbwert sein vnnd demselbigen aucb fiirstlicb vnd treuHcb 
 nacbsetzen. Solcbs gereicbt zu forderst dem Almecbtigen Got zu 
 Ebren, vnnd S. F. G. tbun doran derselbten vortrantem bocbgedacb- 
 tem Freulein Anna, ein freuntlicb angenbemes gefallen. Vnd Sein 
 Cburf Ge. weren es binwider umb S. F. G. freuntlicb zubescbuldenn 
 gantz geneigt vnnd willigk. Yff solcb bescbeben muntlicb vor- 
 halten bat bocbgedacter Printz sicb mit diesen worten vnd antwort 
 vornebmen lassen vnd selbst muntlicb also geredt Gnediger Cbur- 
 fiisrt Icb kann micb des scbreibens das mir e. g. diesersacben 
 balben vnder obebemeltem dato getan freuntlicb vnd wol erjnnern, 
 das alle die punct so der ber doctor itzunt erzelt dorinne begriffen, 
 vnd tbu eur. g. birmit zcu sagenn das icb solcbs alles furstlicb wil 
 balden vnd dem nacb kbommen, vnd bat solcbs birauf S. Cb. G. mit 
 bant gebenden treuen bewilligt vnd zugesagt. 
 
 Hirauff s. cb. g. micb Wolffen Seideln alsbalde 
 Amptswegen requiriren lassen, vnd gnedig geson- 
 nen, das icb biruber eins oder mebroffene Jnstru- 
 menta vorf ertigen solle, birnnib icb dan die edlen 
 ernuesten vnd bocbgelartl Hausen von vff wolters- 
 dorf der Recbten doctor vnd Ordinarien zu Leiptzig, beide
 
 544 NOTARIAL INSTRUMENT, ETC. 
 
 hochennelts Churfiirsten geheimpte Camerredte zn gezettgen 
 requirirt vnd erbetten. Geschehensein diese ding alle, Jm Jar 
 Monat tag stunde vnd stelle wie oben vormeldet. Vnd ich 
 "Wolff Seidell von Sanct Annaberge Meisnischen Bischtums 
 Clericus von beiden gewalten offenbar Schreiber erkunde das 
 ich bey solchem vortragen vnd dorauf ervolgter antwort vnd 
 beschener zusage, zwuschenn obgemelten chur vnd f urstlichen 
 personen selbst personlich gewest vnd solchs also gesehen vnd 
 angehort hirumb ich dan dis offen Jnstrument zum Zeugnus der 
 warheit vorfertiget vnnd mit meiner eigenen hant geschriben, 
 Auch mit vnderschrelbung meines namens vnd zunahmens, vnd 
 meines gewonlichen Notariatzeichens auctorisirt vnd becref tiget. 
 Zcu dem allem ich in Stmderheit requirirt wurden. 
 
 This instrument duly stamped and authenticated is engrossed 
 apon a large sheet of parchment, nearly three feet square.
 
 4
 
 
 f
 

 
 . 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
 
 ffii 
 
 ? 32 09, 3 
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 OH 
 
 186 
 
 MB5 
 
 1889 
 v.l 
 
 IttiSr ? UTHERN REGIONAL LIBflARV FAQIIT 
 
 "MIN III Ml) | || II || | 
 
 A 001 Q14406 i 
 
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