CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.[230]

§ 1. _The Political Situation._

It was not until 1581 that the _United Provinces_ took rank as a Protestant nation, notwithstanding the fact that the Netherlands furnished the first martyrs of the Reformation in the persons of Henry Voes and John Esch, Augustinian monks, who were burnt at Antwerp (July 31st, 1523).

"As they were led to the stake they cried with a loud voice that they were Christians; and when they were fastened to it, and the fire was kindled, they rehearsed the twelve articles of the Creed, and after that the hymn _Te Deum laudamus_, which each of them sang verse by verse alternately until the flames deprived them both of voice and life."[231]

The struggle for religious liberty, combined latterly with one for national independence from Spain, lasted therefore for almost sixty years.

When the lifelong duel between Charles the Bold of Burgundy and Louis XI. of France ended with the death of the former on the battlefield under the walls of Nancy (January 4th, 1477), Louis was able to annex to France a large portion of the heterogeneous possessions of the Dukes of Burgundy, and Mary of Burgundy carried the remainder as her marriage portion (May 1477) to Maximilian of Austria, the future Emperor. Speaking roughly, and not quite accurately, those portions of the Burgundian lands which had been _fiefs_ of France went to Louis, while Mary and Maximilian retained those which were _fiefs_ of the Empire. The son of Maximilian and Mary, Philip the Handsome, married Juana (August 1496), the second daughter and ultimate heiress of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, and their son was Charles V., Emperor of Germany (b. February 24th, 1500), who inherited the Netherlands from his father and Spain from his mother, and thus linked the Netherlands to Spain. Philip died in 1506, leaving Charles, a boy of six years of age, the ruler of the Netherlands. His paternal aunt, Margaret, the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, governed in the Netherlands during his minority, and, owing to Juana's illness (an illness ending in madness), mothered her brother's children. Margaret's regency ended in 1515, and the earlier history of the Reformation in the Netherlands belongs either to the period of the personal rule of Charles or to that of the Regents whom he appointed to act for him.

The land, a delta of great rivers liable to overflow their banks, or a coast-line on which the sea made continual encroachment, produced a people hardy, strenuous, and independent. Their struggles with nature had braced their faculties. Municipal life had struck its roots deeply into the soil of the Netherlands, and its cities could vie with those of Italy in industry and intelligence. The southern provinces were the home of the Trouvères.[232] Jan van-Ruysbroec, the most heart-searching of speculative Mystics, had been a curate of St. Gudule's in Brussels. His pupil, Gerard Groot, had founded the lay-community of the Brethren of the Common Lot for the purpose of spreading Christian education among the laity; and the schools and convents of the Brethren had spread through the Netherlands and central Germany. Thomas à Kempis, the author of the _Imitatio Christi_, had lived most of his long life of ninety years in a small convent at Zwolle, within the territories of Utrecht. Men who have been called "Reformers before the Reformation," John Pupper of Goch and John Wessel, both belonged to the Netherlands. Art flourished there in the fifteenth century in the persons of Hubert and Jan van Eyck and of Hans Memling. The Chambers of Oratory (_Rederijkers_) to begin with probably unions for the performance of miracle plays or moralities, became confraternities not unlike the societies of _meistersänger_ in Germany, and gradually acquired the character of literary associations, which diffused not merely culture, but also habits of independent thinking among the people.

Intellectual life had become less exuberant in the end of the fifteenth century; but the Netherlands, nevertheless, produced Alexander Hegius, the greatest educational reformer of his time, and Erasmus the prince of the Humanists. Nor can the influence of the Chambers of Oratory have died out, for they had a great effect on the Reformation movement.[233]

When Charles assumed the government of the Netherlands, he found himself at the head of a group of duchies, lordships, counties, and municipalities which had little appearance of a compact principality, and he applied himself, like other princes of his time in the same situation, to give them a unity both political and territorial. He was so successful that he was able to hand over to his son, Philip II. of Spain, an almost thoroughly organised State. The divisions which Charles largely overcame reappeared to some extent in the revolt against Philip and Romanism, and therefore in a measure concern the history of the Reformation. How Charles made his scattered Netherland inheritance territorially compact need not be told in detail. Friesland was secured (1515); the acquisition of temporal sovereignty over the ecclesiastical province of Utrecht (1527) united Holland with Friesland; Gronningen and the lands ruled by that turbulent city placed themselves under the government of Charles (1536); and the death of Charles of Egmont (1538), Count of Gueldres, completed the unification of the northern and central districts. The vague hold which France kept in some of the southern portions of the country was gradually loosened. Charles failed in the south-east. The independent principality of Lorraine lay between Luxemburg and Franche-Comté, and the Netherland Government could not seize it by purchase, treaty, or conquest. One and the same system of law regulated the rights and the duties of the whole population; and all the provinces were united into one principality by the reorganisation of a States General, which met almost annually, and which had a real if vaguely defined power to regulate the taxation of the country.

But although political and geographical difficulties might be more or less overcome, others remained which were not so easily disposed of. One set arose from the fact that the seventeen provinces were divided by race and by language. The Dutchmen in the north were different in interests and in sentiment from the Flemings in the centre; and both had little in common with the French-speaking provinces in the south. The other was due to the differing boundaries of the ecclesiastical and civil jurisdictions. When Charles began to rule in 1515, the only territorial see was Arras. Tournai, Utrecht, and Cambrai became territorial before the abdication of Charles. But the confusion between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction may be seen at a glance when it is remembered that a great part of the Frisian lands were subject to the German Sees of Münster, Minden, Paderborn, and Osnabrück; and that no less than six bishops, none of them belonging to the Netherlands, divided the ecclesiastical rule over Luxemburg. Charles' proposals to establish six new bishoprics, plans invariably thwarted by the Roman Curia, were meant to give the Low Countries a national episcopate.

§ 2. _The Beginnings of the Reformation._

The people of the Netherlands had been singularly prepared for the great religious revival of the sixteenth century by the work of the _Brethren of the Common Lot_ and their schools. It was the aim of Gerard Groot, their founder, and also of Florentius Radevynszoon, his great educational assistant, to see "that the root of study and the mirror of life must, in the first place, be the Gospel of Christ." Their pupils were taught to read the Bible in Latin, and the Brethren contended publicly for translations of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongues. There is evidence to show that the Vulgate was well known in the Netherlands in the end of the fifteenth century, and a translation of the Bible into Dutch was published at Delft in 1477[234]. Small tracts against Indulgences, founded probably on the reasonings of Pupper and Wessel, had been in circulation before Luther had nailed his _Theses_ to the door of All Saints' church in Wittenberg. Hendrik of Zutphen, Prior of the Augustinian Eremite convent at Antwerp, had been a pupil of Staupitz, a fellow student with Luther, and had spread Evangelical teaching not only among his order, but throughout the town.[235] It need be no matter for surprise, then, that Luther's writings were widely circulated in the Netherlands, and that between 1513 and 1531 no fewer than twenty-five translations of the Bible or of the New Testament had appeared in Dutch, Flemish, and French.

When Aleander was in the Netherlands, before attending the Diet of Worms he secured the burning of eighty Lutheran and other books at Louvain;[236] and when he came back ten months later, he had regular literary _auto-da-fés_. On Charles' return from the Diet of Worms, he issued a proclamation to all his subjects in the Netherlands against Luther, his books and his followers, and Aleander made full use of the powers it gave. Four hundred Lutheran books were burnt at Antwerp, three hundred of them seized by the police in the stalls of the booksellers, and one hundred handed over by the owners; three hundred were burnt at Ghent, "part of them printed here and part in Germany," says the Legate; and he adds that "many of them were very well bound, and one gorgeously in velvet." About a month later he is forced to confess that these burnings had not made as much impression as he had hoped, and that he wishes the Emperor would "burn alive half a dozen Lutherans and confiscate their property." Such a proceeding would make all see him to be the really Christian prince that he is.[237]

Next year (1522) Charles established the Inquisition within the seventeen provinces. It was a distinctively civil institution, and this was perhaps due to the fact that there was little correspondence between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the Netherlands; but it must not be forgotten that the Kings of Spain had used the Holy Office for the purpose of stamping out political and local opposition, and also that the civil courts were usually more energetic and more severe than the ecclesiastical. The man appointed was unworthy of any place of important trust. Francis van de Hulst, although he had been the Prince's counsellor in Brabant, was a man accused both of bigamy and murder, and was hopelessly devoid of tact. He quarrelled violently with the High Court of Holland; and the Regent, Margaret of Austria, who had resumed her functions, found herself constantly compromised by his continual defiance of local privileges. He was a "wonderful enemy to learning," says Erasmus. His colleague, Nicolas van Egmont, a Carmelite monk, is described by the same scholar as "a madman with a sword put into his hand who hates me worse than he does Luther." The two men discredited the Inquisition from its beginning. Erasmus affected to believe that the Emperor could not know what they were doing.

The first victim was Cornelius Graphæus, town clerk of Antwerp, a poet and Humanist, a friend of Erasmus; and his offence was that he had published an edition of John Pupper of Goch's book, entitled the _Liberty of the Christian Religion_, with a preface of his own. The unfortunate man was set on a scaffold in Brussels, compelled to retract certain propositions which were said to be contained in the preface, and obliged to throw the preface itself into a fire kindled on the scaffold for the purpose. He was dismissed from his office, declared incapable of receiving any other employment, compelled to repeat his recantation at Antwerp, imprisoned for two years, and finally banished.[238]

The earliest deaths were those of Henry Voes and John Esch, who have already been mentioned. Their Prior, Hendrik of Zutphen, escaped from the dungeon in which he had been confined. Luther commemorated them in a long hymn, entitled _A New Song of the two Martyrs of Christ burnt at Brussels by the Sophists of Louvain_:

"Der erst recht wol Johannes heyst, So reych an Gottes hulden Seyn Bruder Henrch nach dem geyst, Eyn rechter Christ on schulden: Vonn dysser welt gescheyden synd, Sye hand die kron erworben, Recht wie die frumen gottes kind Fur seyn wort synd gestorben, Sein Marter synd sye worden."[239]

Charles issued proclamation after proclamation, each of increasing severity. It was forbidden to print any books unless they had been first examined and approved by the censors (April 1st, 1524). "All open and secret meetings in order to read and preach the Gospel, the Epistles of St. Paul, and other spiritual writings," were forbidden (Sept. 25th, 1525), as also to discuss the Holy Faith, the Sacraments, the Power of the Pope and Councils, "in private houses and at meals." This was repeated on March 14th, 1526, and on July 17th there was issued a long edict, said to have been carefully drafted by the Emperor himself, forbidding all meetings to read or preach about the Gospel or other holy writings in Latin, Flemish, or Walloon. In the preamble it is said that ignorant persons have begun to expound Scripture, that even regular and secular clergy have presumed to teach the "errors and sinister doctrines of Luther and his adherents," and that heresies are increasing in the land. Then followed edicts against unlicensed books, and against monks who had left their cloisters (Jan. 28th, 1528); against the possession of Lutheran books, commanding them upon pain of death to be delivered up (Oct. 14th, 1529); against printing unlicensed books--the penalties being a public whipping on the scaffold, branding with a red-iron, or the loss of an eye or a hand, at the discretion of the judge (Dec. 7th, 1530); against heretics "who are more numerous than ever," against certain books of which a long list is given, and against certain hymns which increase the zeal of the heretics (Sept. 22nd, 1540); against printing and distributing unlicensed books in the Italian, Spanish, or English languages (Dec. 18th, 1544); warning all schoolmasters about the use of unlicensed books in their schools, and giving a list of those only which are permitted (July 31st, 1546). The edict of 1546 was followed by a long list of prohibited books, among which are eleven editions of the Vulgate printed by Protestant firms, six editions of the Bible and three of the New Testament in Dutch, two editions of the Bible in French, and many others. Lastly, an edict of April 29th, 1550, confirmed all the previous edicts against heresy and its spread, and intimated that the Inquisitors would proceed against heretics "notwithstanding any privileges to the contrary, which are abrogated and annulled by this edict." This was a clear threat that the terrible Spanish Inquisition was to be established in the Netherlands, and provoked such remonstrances that the edict was modified twice (Sept. 25th, Nov. 5th) before it was finally accepted as legal within the seventeen provinces.

All these edicts were directed against the Lutheran or kindred teaching. They had nothing to do with the Anabaptist movement, which called forth a special and different set of edicts. It seems against all evidence to say that the persecution of the Lutherans had almost ceased during the last years of Charles' rule in the Netherlands, and Philip II. could declare with almost perfect truth that his edicts were only his father's re-issued.

The continuous repetition and increasing severity of the edicts revealed not merely that persecution did not hinder the spread of the Reformed faith, but that the edicts themselves were found difficult to enforce. What Charles would have done had he been able to govern the country himself it is impossible to say. He became harder and more intolerant of differences in matters of doctrine as years went on, and in his latest days is said to have regretted that he had allowed Luther to leave Worms alive; and he might have dealt with the Protestants of the seventeen provinces as his son afterwards did. His aunt, Margaret of Austria, who was Regent till 1530, had no desire to drive matters to an extremity; and his sister Mary, who ruled from 1530 till the abdication of Charles in 1555, was suspected in early life of being a Lutheran herself. She never openly joined the Lutheran Church as did her sister the Queen of Denmark, but she confessed her sympathies to Charles, and gave them as a reason for reluctance to undertake the regency of the Netherlands. It may therefore be presumed that the severe edicts were not enforced with undue stringency by either Margaret of Austria or by the widowed Queen of Hungary. There is also evidence to show that these proclamations denouncing and menacing the unfortunate Protestants of the Netherlands were not looked on with much favour by large sections of the population. Officials were dilatory, magistrates were known to have warned suspected persons to escape before the police came to arrest them; even to have given them facilities for escape after sentence had been delivered. Passive resistance on the part of the inferior authorities frequently interposed itself between the Emperor and the execution of his bloodthirsty proclamations. Yet the number of Protestant martyrs was large, and women as well as men suffered torture and death rather than deny their faith.

The edicts against conventicles deterred neither preachers nor audience. The earliest missioners were priests and monks who had become convinced of the errors of Romanism. Later, preachers were trained in the south German cities and in Geneva, that nursery of daring agents of the Reformed propaganda. But if trained teachers were lacking, members of the congregation took their place at the peril of their lives. Brandt relates how numbers of people were accustomed to meet for service in a shipwright's yard at Antwerp to hear a monk who had been "proclaimed":

"The teacher, by some chance or other, could not appear, and one of the company named Nicolas, a person well versed in Scripture, thought it a shame that such a congregation, hungering after the food of the Word, should depart without a little spiritual nourishment; wherefore, climbing the mast of a ship, he taught the people according to his capacity; and on that account, and for the sake of the reward that was set upon the preacher, he was seized by two butchers and delivered to the magistrates, who caused him to be put into a sack and thrown into the river, where he was drowned."[240]

§ 3. _The Anabaptists._

The severest persecutions, however, before the rule of Philip II., were reserved for those people who are called the Anabaptists.[241] We find several edicts directed against them solely. In February 1532 it was forbidden to harbour Anabaptists, and a price of 12 guilders was offered to informants. Later in the same year an edict was published which declared "that all who had been rebaptized, were sorry for their fault, and, in token of their repentance, had gone to confession, would be admitted to mercy for that time only, provided they brought a certificate from their confessor within twenty-four days of the date of the edict; those who continued obdurate were to be treated with the utmost rigour of the laws" (Feb. 1533). Anabaptists who had abjured were ordered to remain near their dwelling-places for the space of a year, "unless those who were engaged in the herring fishery" (June 1534). In 1535 the severest edict against the sect was published. All who had "seduced or perverted any to this sect, or had rebaptized them," were to suffer death by fire; all who had suffered themselves to be rebaptized, or who had harboured Anabaptists, and who recanted, were to be favoured by being put to death by the sword; women were "only to be buried alive."[242]

To understand sympathetically that multiform movement which was called in the sixteenth century _Anabaptism_, it is necessary to remember that it was not created by the Reformation, although it certainly received an impetus from the inspiration of the age. Its roots can be traced back for some centuries, and its pedigree has at least two stems which are essentially distinct, and were only occasionally combined. The one stem is the successions of the _Brethren_, a mediæval, anti-clerical body of Christians whose history is written only in the records of Inquisitors of the mediæval Church, where they appear under a variety of names, but are universally said to prize the Scriptures and to accept the Apostles' Creed.[243] The other existed in the continuous uprisings of the poor--peasants in rural districts and the lower classes in the towns--against the rich, which were a feature of the later Middle Ages.[244]

So far as the Netherlands are concerned, these popular outbreaks had been much more frequent among the towns' population than in the rural districts. The city patriciate ordinarily controlled the magistracy; but when flagrant cases of oppression arose, all the judicial, financial, and other functions of government were sure to be swept out of their hands in an outburst of popular fury. So much was this the case, that the real holders of power in the towns in the Netherlands during the first half of the sixteenth century were the artisans, strong in their trade organisations. They had long known their power, and had been accustomed to exert it. The blood of a turbulent ancestry ran in their veins--of men who could endure for a time, but who, when roused by serious oppression, had been accustomed to defend themselves, and to give stroke for stroke. It is only natural to find among the artisans of the Flemish and Dutch towns a curious mingling of sublime self-sacrifice for what they believed to be the truth, of the mystical exaltation of the martyr occasionally breaking out in hysterical action, and the habit of defending themselves against almost any odds.

So far as is known, the earliest Anabaptist martyrs were Jan Walen and two others belonging to Waterlandt. They were done to death in a peculiarly atrocious way at The Hague in 1527. Instead of being burnt alive, they were chained to a stake at some distance from a huge fire, and were slowly roasted to death. This frightful punishment seems to have been reserved for the Anabaptist martyrs. It was repeated at Haarlem in 1532, when a woman was drowned and her husband with two others was roasted alive. Some time in 1530, Jan Volkertz founded an Anabaptist congregation in Amsterdam which became so large as to attract the attention of the authorities. The head of the police (_schout_) in the city was ordered to apprehend them. Volkertz delivered himself up voluntarily. The greater part of the accused received timely warning from the _schout's_ wife. Nine were taken by night in their beds. These with their pastor were carried to The Hague and beheaded by express order of the Emperor. He also commanded that their heads should be sent to Amsterdam, where they were set on poles in a circle, the head of Volkertz being in the centre. This ghastly spectacle was so placed that it could be seen from the ships entering and leaving the harbour. All these martyrs, and many others whose deaths are duly recorded, were followers of Melchior Hoffman. Hoffman's views were those of the "Brethren" of the later Middle Ages, the _Old Evangelicals_ as they were called. In a paper of directions sent to Emden to assist in the organisation of an Anabaptist congregation there, he says:

"God's community knows no head but Christ. No other can be endured, for it is a brother- and sisterhood. The teachers have none who rule them spiritually but Christ. Teachers and ministers are not lords. The pastors have no authority except to preach God's Word and punish sins. A bishop must be elected out of his community. Where a pastor has thus been taken, and the guidance committed to him and to his deacon, a community should provide properly for those who help to build the Lord's house. When teachers are thus found, there is no fear that the communities will suffer spiritual hunger. A true preacher would willingly see the whole community prophesy."

But the persecution, with its peculiar atrocities, had been acting in its usual way on the Anabaptists of the Netherlands. They had been tortured on the rack, scourged, imprisoned in dungeons, roasted to death before slow fires, and had seen their women drowned, buried alive, pressed into coffins too small for their bodies till their ribs were broken, others stamped into them by the feet of the executioners. It is to be wondered at that those who stood firm sometimes gave way to hysterical excesses; that their leaders began to preach another creed than that of passive resistance; that wild apocalyptic visions were reported and believed?

Melchior Hoffman had been imprisoned in Strassburg in 1533, and a new leader arose in the Netherlands--Jan Matthys, a baker of Haarlem. Under his guidance an energetic propaganda was carried on in the Dutch towns, and hundreds of converts were made. One hundred persons were baptized in one day in February (1534); before the end of March it was reported that two-thirds of the population in Monnikendam were Anabaptists; and a similar state of matters existed in many of the larger Dutch towns. Deventer, Zwolle, and Kampen were almost wholly Anabaptist. The Government made great exertions to crush the movement. Detachments of soldiers were divided into bands of fifteen or twenty, and patrolled the environs of the cities, making midnight visitations, and haling men and women to prison until the dungeons were overcrowded with captured Anabaptists.

Attempts were made by the persecuted to leave the country for some more hospitable place where they could worship God in peace in the way their consciences directed them. East Friesland had once been a haven, but was so no longer. Münster offered a refuge. Ships were chartered,--thirty of them,--and the persecuted people proposed to sail round the north of Friesland, land at the mouth of the Ems, and travel to Münster by land.[245] The Emperor's ships intercepted the little fleet, sank five of the vessels with all the emigrants on board, and compelled the rest to return. The leaders found on board were decapitated, and their heads stuck on poles to warn others. Hundreds from the provinces of Guelderland and Holland attempted the journey by land. They piled their bits of poor furniture and bundles of clothes on waggons; some rode horses, most trudged on foot, the women and children, let us hope, getting an occasional ride on the waggons. Soldiers were sent to intercept them. The leaders were beheaded, the men mostly imprisoned, and the women and children sent back to their towns and villages.

Then, and not till they had exhausted every method of passive resistance, the Anabaptists began to strike back. They wished to seize a town already containing a large Anabaptist population, and hold it as a city of refuge. Deventer, which was full of sympathisers, was their first aim. The plot failed, and the burgomaster's son Willem, one of the conspirators, was seized, and with two companions beheaded in the market-place (Dec. 25th, 1534). Their next attempt was on Leyden. It was called a plot to burn the town. The magistrates got word of it, and, by ordering the great town-clock to be stopped, disconcerted the plotters. Fifteen men and five women were seized; the men were decapitated, and the women drowned (Jan. 1535). Next month (Feb. 28th, 1535), Jan van Geelen, leading a band of three hundred refugees through Friesland, was overtaken by some troops of soldiers. The little company entrenched themselves, fought bravely for some days, until nearly all were killed. The survivors were almost all captured and put to death, the men by the sword, and the women by drowning. One hundred soldiers fell in the attack. A few months later (May 1535), an attempt was made to seize Amsterdam. It was headed by van Geelen, the only survivor of the skirmish in Friesland. He and his companions were able to get possession of the Stadthaus, and held it against the town's forces until cannon were brought to batter down their defences.

In the early days of the same year an incident occurred which shows how, under the strain of persecution, an hysterical exaltation took possession of some of these poor people. It is variously reported. According to Brandt, seven men and five women having stript off their clothes, as a sign, they said, that they spoke the naked truth, ran through the streets of Amsterdam, crying _Woe! Woe! Woe!_ The Wrath of God! They were apprehended, and slaughtered in the usual way. The woman in whose house they had met was hanged at her own door.

The insurrections were made the pretext for still fiercer persecutions. The Anabaptists were hunted out, tortured and slain without any attempt being made by the authorities to discriminate between those who had and those who had not been sharers in any insurrectionary attempt. It is alleged that over thirty thousand people were put to death in the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V. Many of the victims had no connection with Anabaptism whatsoever; they were quiet followers of Luther or of Calvin. The authorities discriminated between them in their proclamations, but not in the persecution.

§ 4. _Philip of Spain and the Netherlands._

How long the Netherlands would have stood the continual drain of money and the severity of the persecution which the foreign and religious policy of Charles enforced upon them, it is impossible to say. The people of the country were strongly attached to him, as he was to them. He had been born and had grown from childhood to manhood among them. Their languages, French and Flemish, were the only speech he could ever use with ease. He had been ruler in the Netherlands before he became King of Spain, and long before he was called to fill the imperial throne. When he resolved to act on his long meditated scheme of abdicating in favour of his son Philip, it was to the Netherlands that he came. Their nobles and people witnessed the scene with hardly less emotion than that which showed itself in the faltering speech of the Emperor.

The ceremony took place in the great Hall of the palace in Brussels (Oct. 25th, 1555), in presence of the delegates of the seventeen provinces. Mary, the widowed Queen of Hungary, who had governed the land for twenty-five years, witnessed the scene which was to end her rule. Philip, who was to ruin the work of consolidation patiently planned and executed by his father and his aunt, was present, summoned from his uncongenial task of eating roast beef and drinking English ale in order to conciliate his new subjects across the Channel, and from the embarrassing endearments of his elderly spouse. The Emperor, aged by toil rather than by years, entered the Hall leaning heavily on his favourite page and trusty counsellor, the youthful William, Prince of Orange, who was to become the leader of the revolt against Philip's rule, and to create a new Protestant State, the United Provinces.

The new lord of the Netherlands was then twenty-eight. In outward appearance he was a German like his father, but in speech he was a Spaniard. He had none of his father's external geniality, and could never stoop to win men to his ends. But Philip II. was much liker Charles V. than many historians seem willing to admit. Both had the same slow, patient industry--but in the son it was slower; the same cynical distrust of all men; the same belief in the divine selection of the head of the House of Hapsburg to guide all things in State and Church irrespective of Popes or Kings--only in the son it amounted to a sort of gloomy mystical assurance; the same callousness to human suffering, and the same utter inability to comprehend the force of strong religious conviction. Philip was an inferior edition of his father, succeeding to his father's ideas, pursuing the same policy, using the same methods, but handicapped by the fact that he had not originated but had inherited both, and with them the troubles brought in their train.

Philip II. spent the first four years of his reign in the Netherlands, and during that short period of personal rule his policy had brought into being all the more important sources of dissatisfaction which ended in the revolt. Yet his policy was the same, and his methods were not different from those of his father. In one respect at least Charles had never spared the Netherlands. That country had to pay, as no other part of his vast possessions was asked to do, the price of his foreign policy, and Charles had wrung unexampled sums from his people.

When Philip summoned the States General (March 12th, 1556) and asked them for a very large grant (Fl. 1,300,000), he was only following his father's example, and on that occasion was seeking money to liquidate the deficit which his father had bequeathed. Was it that the people of the Netherlands had resolved to end the practice of making them pay for a foreign policy which had hitherto concerned them little, or was it because they could not endure the young Spaniard who could not speak to them in their own language? Would Charles have been refused as well as Philip? Who can say?

When Philip obtained a Bull from Pope Paul IV. for creating a territorial episcopate in the Netherlands, he was only carrying out the policy which his father had sketched as early as 1522, and which but for the shortness of the pontificate of Hadrian VI. would undoubtedly have been executed in 1524 without any popular opposition. Charles' scheme contemplated six bishoprics, Philip's fourteen; that was the sole difference; and from the ecclesiastical point of view Philip's was probably the better. Why then the bitter opposition to the change in 1557? Most historians seem to think that had Charles been ruling, there would have been few murmurs. Is that so certain? The people feared the institution of the bishoprics, because they dreaded and hated an Inquisition which would override their local laws, rights, and privileges; and Charles had been obliged to modify his "Placard" of 1549 against heresy, because towns and districts protested so loudly against it. During these early years Philip made no alterations on his father's proclamations against heresy. He contented himself with reissuing the "Placard" of 1549 as that had been amended in 1550 after the popular protests. The personality of Philip was no doubt objectionable to his subjects in the Netherlands, but it cannot be certainly affirmed that had Charles continued to reign there would have been no widespread revolt against his financial, ecclesiastical, and religious policy. The Regent Mary had been finding her task of ruling more and more difficult. A few weeks before the abdication, when the Emperor wished his sister to continue in the Regency, she wrote to him:

"I could not live among these people even as a private citizen, for it would be impossible 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."

In 1559 (Aug. 26th), Philip left the Netherlands never to return. He had selected Margaret of Parma, his half-sister, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V., for Regent. Margaret had been born and brought up in the country; she knew the language, and she had been so long away from her native land that she was not personally committed to any policy nor acquainted with the leaders of any of the parties.

The power of the Regent, nominally extensive, was in reality limited by secret instructions.[246] She was ordered to put in execution the edicts against heresy without any modification; and she was directed to submit to the advice given her by three Councils, a command which placed her under the supervision of the three men selected by Philip to be the presidents of these Councils. The Council of State was the most important, and was entrusted with the management of the whole foreign and home administration of the country. It consisted of the Bishop of Arras (Antoine Perronet de Granvelle, afterwards Cardinal de Granvelle);[247] the Baron de Barlaymont, who was President of the Council of Finance; Vigilius van Aytta, a learned lawyer from Friesland, "a small brisk man, with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, fat round rosy cheeks, and flowing beard," who was President of the Privy Council, and controlled the administration of law and justice; and two of the Netherland nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Prince of Gavre, and William, Prince of Orange. The two nobles were seldom consulted or even invited to be present. The three Presidents were the _Consulta_, or secret body of confidential advisers imposed by Philip upon his Regent, without whose advice nothing was to be attempted. Of the three, the Bishop of Arras (Cardinal de Granvelle) was the most important, and the government was practically placed in his hands by his master. Behind the _Consulta_ was Philip II. himself, who in his business room in the Escurial at Madrid issued his orders, repressing every tendency to treat the people with moderation and humanity, thrusting aside all suggestions of wise tolerance, and insisting that his own cold-blooded policy should be carried out in its most objectionable details. It was not until the publication of de Granvelle's State Papers and Correspondence that it came to be known how much the Bishop of Arras has been misjudged by history, how he remonstrated unavailingly with his master, how he was forced to put into execution a sanguinary policy of repression which was repugnant to himself, and how Philip compelled him to bear the obloquy of his own misdeeds. The correspondence also reveals the curiously minute information which Philip must have privately received, for he was able to send to the Regent and the Bishop the names, ages, personal appearance, occupations, residence of numbers of obscure people whom he ordered to execution for their religious opinions.[248] No rigour of persecution seemed able to prevent the spread of the Reformation.[249]

The Government--Margaret and her _Consulta_--offended grievously not merely the people, but the nobility of the Netherlands. The nobles saw their services and positions treated as things of no consequence, and the people witnessed with alarm that the local charters and privileges of the land--charters and rights which Philip at his coronation had sworn to maintain--were totally disregarded. Gradually all classes of the population were united in a silent opposition. The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont became almost insensibly the leaders.

They had been dissatisfied with their position on the Council of State; they had no real share in the business; the correspondence was not submitted to them, and they knew such details only as Granvelle chose to communicate to them. Their first overt act was to resign the commissions they held in the Spanish troops stationed in the country; their second, to write to the King asking him to relieve them of their position on the Council of State, telling him that matters of great importance were continually transacted without their knowledge or concurrence, and that in the circumstances they could not conscientiously continue to sustain the responsibilities of office.[250]

The opposition took their stand on three things, all of which hung together--the presence of Spanish troops on the soil of the Netherlands, the cruelties perpetrated in the execution of the _Placards_ against heresy, and the institution of the new bishoprics in accordance with the Bull of Pope Paul IV., reaffirmed by Pius IV. in 1560 (Jan.). The common fighting ground for the opposition to all the three was the invasion of the charters and privileges of the various provinces which these measures necessarily involved, and the consequent violation of the King's coronation oath.

Philip had solemnly promised to withdraw the Spanish troops within three or four months after he left the country. They had remained for fourteen, and the whole land cried out against the pillage and rapine which accompanied their presence. The people of Zeeland declared that they would rather see the ocean submerge their country--that they would rather perish, men, women, and children, in the waves--than endure longer the outrages which these mercenaries inflicted upon them. They refused to repair the Dykes. The presence of these troops had been early seen to be a degradation to his country by William of Orange.[251] At the States General held on the eve of Philip's departure, he had urged the Assembly to make the departure of the troops a condition of granting subsidies, and had roused Philip's wrath in consequence. He now voiced the cry of the whole country. It was so strong that Granvelle sent many an urgent request to the King to sanction their removal; and at length he and the Regent, without waiting for orders, had the troops embarked for Madrid.

The rigorous repression of heresy compelled the Government to override the charters of the several provinces. Many of these charters contained very strong provisions, and the King had sworn to maintain them. The constitution of Brabant, known as the _joyeuse entrée_ (_blyde inkomst_), provided that the clergy should not be given unusual powers; and that no subject, nor even a foreign resident, could be prosecuted civilly or criminally except in the ordinary courts of the land, where he could answer and defend himself with the help of advocates. The charter of Holland contained similar provisions. Both charters declared that if the Prince transgressed these provisions the subjects were freed from their allegiance. The inquisitorial courts violated the charters of those and of the other provinces. The great objection taken to the increase of the episcopate, according to the provisions of the Bulls of Paul IV. and of Pius IV., was that it involved a still greater infringement of the chartered rights of the land. For example, the Bulls provided that the bishops were to appoint nine canons, who were to assist them in all inquisitorial cases, while at least one of them was to be an Inquisitor charged with ferreting out and punishing heresy. This was apparently their great charm for Philip II. He desired an instrument to extirpate heretics. He knew that the Reformation was making great progress in the Netherlands, especially in the great commercial cities. "I would lose all my States and a hundred lives if I had them," he wrote to the Pope, "rather than be the lord of heretics."

The opposition at first contented itself with protesting against the position and rule of Granvelle, and with demanding his recall. Philip came to the reluctant conclusion to dismiss his Minister, and did so with more than his usual duplicity. The nobles returned to the Council, and the Regent affected to take their advice. But they were soon to discover that the recall of the obnoxious Minister did not make any change in the policy of Philip.

The Regent read them a letter from Philip ordering the publication and enforcement of the Decrees of the Council of Trent in the Netherlands.[252] The nobles protested vehemently on the ground that this would mean a still further invasion of the privileges of the provinces. After long deliberation, it was resolved to send Count Egmont to Madrid to lay the opinions of the Council before the King. The debate was renewed on the instructions to be given to the delegate. Those suggested by the President, Vigilius, were colourless. Then William the Silent spoke out. His speech, a long one, full of suppressed passionate sympathy with his persecuted fellow-countrymen, made an extraordinary impression. It is thus summarised by Brandt:

That they ought to speak their minds freely; that there were such commotions and revolutions on account of religion in all the neighbouring countries, that it was impossible to maintain the present régime, and think to suppress disturbances by means of _Placards_, Inquisitions, and Bishops; that the King was mistaken if he proposed to maintain the Decrees of the Council of Trent in these Provinces which lay so near Germany, where all the Princes, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, have justly rejected them; that it would be better that His Majesty should tolerate these things as other Princes were obliged to do, and annul or else moderate the punishments proclaimed in the _Placards_; that though he himself had resolved to adhere to the Catholic religion, yet he could not approve that Princes should aim at dominion over the souls of men, or deprive them of the freedom of their faith and religion.[253]

The instructions given to Egmont were accordingly both full and plain-spoken.

Count Egmont departed leisurely to Madrid, was well received by Philip, and left thoroughly deceived, perhaps self-deceived, about the King's intentions. He had a rude awakening when the sealed letter he bore was opened and read in the Council. It announced no real change in policy, and in the matter of heresy showed that the King's resolve was unaltered. A despatch to the Regent (Nov. 5th, 1565) was still more unbending. Philip would not enlarge the powers of the Council in the Netherlands; he peremptorily refused to summon the States General; and he ordered the immediate publication and enforcement of the Decrees of the Council of Trent in every town and village in the seventeen provinces. True to the policy of his house, the Decrees of Trent were to be proclaimed in _his_ name, not in that of the Pope. It was the beginning of the tragedy, as William of Orange remarked.

The effect of the order was immediate and alarming. The Courts of Holland and Brabant maintained that the Decrees infringed their charters, and refused to permit their publication. Stadtholders and magistrates declared that they would rather resign office than execute decrees which would compel them to burn over sixty thousand of their fellow-countrymen. Trade ceased; industries died out; a blight fell on the land. Pamphlets full of passionate appeals to the people to put an end to the tyranny were distributed and eagerly read. In one of them, which took the form of a letter to the King, it was said:

"We are ready to die for the Gospel, but we read therein, 'Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' We thank God that even our enemies are constrained to bear witness to our piety and innocence, for it is a common saying: 'He does not swear, for he is a Protestant. He is not an immoral man, nor a drunkard, for he belongs to the new sect'; yet we are subjected to every kind of punishment that can be invented to torment us."[254]

The year 1566 saw the origin of a new confederated opposition to Philip's mode of ruling the Netherlands. Francis Du Jon, a young Frenchman of noble birth, belonging to Bourges, had studied for the ministry at Geneva, and had been sent as a missioner to the Netherlands, where his learning and eloquence had made a deep impression on young men of the upper classes. His life was in constant peril, and he was compelled to flit secretly from the house of one sympathiser to that of another. During the festivities which accompanied the marriage of the young Alexander of Parma with Maria of Portugal, he was concealed in the house of the Count of Culemburg in Brussels. On the day of the wedding he preached and prayed with a small company of young nobles, twenty in all. There and at other meetings held afterwards it was resolved to form a confederacy of nobles, all of whom agreed to bind themselves to support principles laid down in a carefully drafted manifesto which went by the name of the _Compromise_. It was mainly directed against the Inquisition, which it calls a tribunal opposed to all laws, divine and human. Copies passed from hand to hand soon obtained over two thousand signatures among the lower nobility and landed gentry. Many substantial burghers also signed. The leading spirits in the confederacy were Louis of Nassau, the younger brother of the Prince of Orange, then a Lutheran; Philip de Marnix, lord of Sainte Aldegonde, a Calvinist; and Henry Viscount Brederode, a Roman Catholic. The confederates declared that they were loyal subjects; but pledged themselves to protect each other if any of them were attacked.

The confederates met privately at Breda and Hoogstraten (March 1566), and resolved to present a petition to the Regent asking that the King should be recommended to abolish the _Placards_ and the Inquisition, and that the Regent should suspend their operation until the King's wishes were known; also that the States General should be assembled to consider other ordinances dangerous to the country. The Regent had called an assembly of the Notables for March 28th, and it was resolved to present the petition then. The confederation and its _Compromise_ were rather dreaded by the great nobles who had been the leaders of the constitutional opposition, and there was some debate about the presentation of the _Request_. The Baron de Barlaymont went so far as to recommend a massacre of the petitioners in the audience hall; but wiser counsels prevailed. The confederates met and marshalled themselves,--two hundred young nobles,--and marched through the streets to the Palace, amid the acclamations of the populace, to present the _Request_.[255] The Regent was somewhat dismayed by the imposing demonstration, but Barlaymont reassured her with the famous words: "Madame, is your Highness afraid of these beggars (_ces gueux_)?" The deputation was dismissed with fair words, and the promise that although the Regent had no power to suspend the _Placards_ or the Inquisition, there would be some moderation used until the King's pleasure was known.

Before leaving Brussels, three hundred of the confederates met in the house of the Count of Culemburg to celebrate their league at a banquet. The Viscount de Brederode presided, and during the feast he recalled to their memories the words of Barlaymont: "They call us beggars," he said; "we accept the name. We pledge ourselves to resist the Inquisition, and keep true to the King and the beggar's wallet." He then produced the leathern sack of the wandering beggars, strapped it round his shoulder, and drank prosperity to the cause from a beggar's wooden bowl. The name and the emblem were adopted with enthusiasm, and spread far beyond the circle of the confederacy.[256] Everywhere burghers, lawyers, peasants as well as nobles appeared wearing the beggar's sack. Medals, made first of wax set in a wooden cup, then of gold and silver, were adopted by the confederated nobles. On the one side was the effigies of the King, and on the obverse two hands clasped and the beggar's sack with the motto, _Fidelles au Roi jusques à porter la besace_ (beggar's sack).

All these things were faithfully reported by the Regent to Philip, and she besought him either to permit her to moderate the _Placards_ and the Inquisition, or to come to the Netherlands himself. He answered, promising to come, and permitted her some discretion in the matter of repression of heresy.

Meanwhile the people were greatly encouraged by the success, or appearance of success, attending the efforts of the confederates. Refugees returned from France, Germany, and Switzerland. Missioners of the Reformed faith came in great numbers. Field-preachings were held all over the country. The men came armed, planted sentinels, placed their women and children within the square, and thus listened to the services conducted by the excommunicated ministers. They heard the Scriptures read and prayers poured forth in their own tongue. They sang hymns and psalms in French, Flemish, and Dutch. The crowds were so large, the sentinels so wary, the men so well armed, that the soldiers dared not attempt to disperse them. At first the meetings were held at night in woods and desolate places, but immunity created boldness.

"On July 23rd (1566) the Reformed rendezvoused in great numbers in a large meadow not far from Ghent. There they formed a sort of camp, fortifying themselves with their waggons, and setting sentinels at all the roads. Some brought pikes, some hatchets, and others guns. In front of them were pedlars with prohibited books, which they sold to such as came. They planted several along the road whose business it was to invite people to come to the preaching and to show them the way. They made a kind of pulpit of planks, and set it upon a waggon, from which the minister preached. When the sermon was ended, all the congregation sang several psalms. They also drew water out of a well or brook near them, and a child was baptized. Two days were spent there, and then they adjourned to Deinsen, then to Ekelo near Bruges, and so through all West Flanders."[257]

Growing bolder still, the Reformed met in the environs and suburbs of the great towns. Bands of men marched through the streets singing Psalms, either the French versions of Clement Marot or Bèze or the Dutch one of Peter Dathenus. It was in vain that the Regent issued a new _Placard_ against the preachers and the conventicles. It remained a dead letter. In Antwerp, bands of the Reformed, armed, crowded to the preachings in defiance of the magistrates, who were afraid of fighting in the streets. In the emergency the Regent appealed to William of Orange, and he with difficulty appeased the tumults and arranged a compromise. The Calvinists agreed to disarm on the condition that they were allowed the free exercise of their worship in the suburbs although not within the towns.[258]

The confederates were so encouraged with their successes that they thought of attempting more. A great conference was held at St. Trond in the principality of Liège (July 1566), attended by nearly two thousand members. The leader was Louis of Nassau. They resolved on another deputation to the Regent, and twelve of their number were selected to present their demands. These "Twelve Apostles," as the courtiers contemptuously termed them, declared that the persecution had not been mitigated as promised, and not obscurely threatened that if some remedy were not found they might be forced to invoke foreign assistance. The threat enraged the Regent; but she was helpless; she could only urge that she had already made representations to the King, and had sent two members of Council to inform the King about the condition of the country.

It seemed as if some impression had been made on Philip. The Regent received a despatch (July 31st, 1566) saying that he was prepared to withdraw the papal Inquisition from the Netherlands, and that he would grant what toleration was consistent with the maintenance of the Catholic religion; only he would in no way consent to a summoning of the States General.

There was great triumphing in the Netherlands at this news. Perhaps every one but the Prince of Orange was more or less deceived by Philip's duplicity. It is only since the archives of Simancas have yielded their secrets that its depth has been known. They reveal that on Aug. 9th he executed a deed in which he declared that the promise of pardon had been won from him by force, and that he did not mean to keep it, and that on Aug. 12th he wrote to the Pope that his declaration to withdraw the Inquisition was a mere blind. William only knew that the King was levying troops, and that he was blaming the great nobles of the Netherlands for the check inflicted upon him by the confederates.

Long before Philip's real intentions were unmasked, a series of iconoclastic attacks not only gave the King the pretext he needed, but did more harm to the cause of the Reformation in the Low Countries than all the persecutions under Charles V. and his son. The origin of these tumultuous proceedings is obscure. According to Brandt, who collects information from all sides:

"Some few of the vilest of the mob ... were those who began the dance, being hallooed on by nobody knows whom. Their arms were staves, hatchets, hammers, ladders, ropes, and other tools more proper to demolish than to fight with; some few were provided with guns and swords. At first they attacked the crosses and the images that had been erected on the great roads in the country; next, those in the villages; and, lastly, those in the towns and cities. All the chapels, churches, and convents which they found shut they forced open, breaking, tearing, and destroying all the images, pictures, shrines and other consecrated things they met with; nay, some did not scruple to lay their hands upon libraries, books, writings, monuments, and even on the dead bodies in churches and churchyards."[259]

According to almost all accounts, the epidemic, for the madness resembled a disease, first appeared at St. Omer (Aug. 14th, 1566), then at Ypres, and extended rapidly to other towns. It came to a height at Antwerp (16th and 17th Aug. 1566), when the mob sacked the great cathedral and destroyed some of its richest treasures.[260] An eye-witness declared that the rioters in the cathedral did not number more than one hundred men, women, and boys, drawn from the dregs of the population, and that the attacks on the other churches were made by small parties of ten or twelve persons.

These outrages had a disastrous effect on the Reformation movement in the Netherlands, both immediately and in the future. They at once exasperated the more liberal-minded Roman Catholics and enraged the Regent: they began that gradual cleavage which ended in the separation of the Protestant North from the Romanist South. The Regent felt herself justified in practically withdrawing all the privileges she had accorded to the Reformed, and in raising German and Walloon troops to overawe the Protestants. The presence of these troops irritated some of the Calvinist nobles, and John de Marnix, elder brother of Sainte Aldegonde, attempted to seize the Island of Walcheren in order to hold it as a city of refuge for his persecuted brethren. He was unsuccessful; a fight took place not far from Antwerp itself, in which de Marnix was routed and slain (March 13th, 1567).

§ 5. _William of Orange._

Meanwhile William of Orange had come to the conclusion that Philip was meditating the suppression of the rights and liberties of the Low Countries by Spanish troops, and was convinced that the great nobles who had hitherto headed the constitutional opposition would be the first to be attacked. He had conferences with Egmont and Hoorn at Dendermonde (Oct. 3rd, 1566), and at Willebroek (April 2nd, 1567), and endeavoured to persuade them that the only course open to them was to resist by force of arms. His arguments were unavailing, and William sadly determined that he must leave the country and retire to his German estates.

His forebodings were only too correct. Philip had resolved to send the Duke of Alva to subdue the Netherlands. A force of nine thousand veteran Spanish infantry with thirteen hundred Italian cavalry had been collected from the garrisons of Lombardy and Naples, and Alva began a long, difficult march over the Mt. Cenis and through Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and Luxemburg. William had escaped just in time. When the Duke arrived in Brussels and presented his credentials to the Council of State, it was seen that the King had bestowed on him such extensive powers that Margaret remained Regent in name only. One of his earliest acts was to get possession of the persons of Counts Egmont and Hoorn, with their private secretaries, and to imprison Antony van Straelen, Burgomaster of Antwerp, and a confidential friend of the Prince of Orange. Many other arrests were made; and Alva, having caught his victims, invented an instrument to help him to dispose of them.

By the mere fiat of his will he created a judicial chamber, whose decisions were to override those of any other court of law in the Netherlands, and which was to be responsible to none, not even to the Council of State. It was called the _Council of Tumults_, but is better known by its popular name, _The Bloody Tribunal_. It consisted of twelve members, among whom were Barlaymont and a few of the most violent Romanists of the Netherlands; but only two, Juan de Vargas and del Rio, both Spaniards, were permitted to vote and influence the decisions. Del Rio was a nonentity; but de Vargas was a very stern reality--a man of infamous life, equally notorious for the delight he took in slaughtering his fellow-men and the facility with which he murdered the Latin language! He brought the whole population of the Netherlands within the grip of the public executioner by his indictment: _Hæretici fraxerunt templa, boni nihil faxerunt contra; ergo debent omnes patibulure:_ by which he meant, _The heretics have broken open churches, the orthodox have done nothing to hinder them; therefore they ought all of them to be hanged together._ Alva reserved all final decisions for his own judgment, in order that the work might be thoroughly done. He wrote to the King, "Men of law only condemn for crimes that are proved, whereas your Majesty knows that affairs of State are governed by very different rules from the laws which they have here."

At its earlier sittings this terrible tribunal defined the crime of treason, and stated that its punishment was death. The definition extended to eighteen articles, and declared it to be treason--to have presented or signed any petition against the new bishoprics, the Inquisition, or the _Placards_; to have tolerated public preaching under any circumstances; to have omitted to resist iconoclasm, or field-preaching, or the presentation of the _Request_; to have asserted that the King had not the right to suspend the charters of the provinces; or to maintain that the Council of Tumults had not a right to override all the laws and privileges of the Netherlands. All these things were treason, and all of them were capital offences. Proof was not required; all that was needed was reasonable suspicion, or rather what the Duke of Alva believed to be so. The Council soon got to work. It sent commissioners through every part of the land--towns, villages, districts--to search for any who might be suspected of having committed any act which could be included within their definition of treason. Informers were invited, were bribed, to come forward; and soon shoals of denunciations and evidence flowed in to them. The accused were brought before the Council, tried (if the procedure could be called a trial), and condemned in batches. The records speak of ninety-five, eighty-four, forty-six, thirty-five at a time. Alva wrote to Philip that no fewer than fifteen hundred had been taken in their beds early on Ash-Wednesday morning, and later he announces another batch of eight hundred. In each case he adds, "I have ordered all of them to be executed." In view of these records, the language of a contemporary chronicler does not appeared exaggerated:

"The gallows, the wheel, stakes, trees along the highways, were laden with carcasses or limbs of those who had been hanged, beheaded, or roasted; so that the air which God made for the respiration of the living, was now become the common grave or habitation of the dead. Every day produced fresh objects of pity and of mourning, and the noise of the bloody passing-bell was continually heard, which by the martyrdom of this man's cousin, and the other's brother or friend, rang dismal peals in the hearts of the survivors."[261]

Whole families left their dwellings to shelter themselves in the woods, and, goaded by their misery, pillaged and plundered. The priests had been active as informers, and these _Wild-Beggars_, as they were called, "made excursions on them, serving themselves of the darkest nights for revenge and robbery, punishing them not only by despoiling them of their goods, but by disfiguring their faces, cutting off ears and noses." The country was in a state of anarchy.

Margaret, Duchess of Parma, the nominal Regent of the Netherlands, had found her position intolerable since the arrival of the Duke of Alva, and was permitted by Philip to resign (Oct. 6th, 1567). Alva henceforth was untrammelled by even nominal restraint. A process was begun against the Counts Egmont and Hoorn, and William of Orange was proclaimed an outlaw (Jan. 24th, 1568) unless he submitted himself for trial before the _Council of Tumults_. Some days afterwards, his eldest son, a boy of fifteen and a student in the University of Louvain, was kidnapped and carried off to Spain.[262]

William replied in his famous _Justification of the Prince of Orange against his Calumniators_, in which he declared that he, a citizen of Brabant, a Knight of the Golden Fleece, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, one of the sovereign Princes of Europe (in virtue of the principality of Orange), could not be summoned before an incompetent tribunal. He reviewed the events in the Netherlands since the accession of Philip II., and spoke plainly against the misgovernment caused, he said diplomatically, by the evil counsels of the King's advisers. The _Justification_ was published in several languages, and was not merely an act of defiance to Philip, but a plea made on behalf of his country to the whole of civilised Europe.

The earlier months of 1568 had been spent by the Prince of Orange in military preparations for the relief of his countrymen, and in the spring his army was ready. The campaign was a failure. Hoogstraten was defeated. Louis of Nassau had a temporary success at Heiliger-Lee (May 23rd, 1568), only to be routed at Jemmingen (July 21st, 1568). After William had issued a pathetic but unavailing manifesto to Protestant Europe, a second expedition was sent forth only to meet defeat. The cause of the Netherlands seemed hopeless.

But Alva was beginning to find himself in difficulties. On the news of the repulse of his troops at Heiliger-Lee he had hastily beheaded the Counts Egmont and Hoorn. Instead of striking terror into the hearts of the Netherlanders, the execution roused them to an undying hatred of the Spaniard. He was now troubled by lack of money to pay his troops. He had promised Philip to make gold flow from the Low Countries to Spain; but his rule had destroyed the commerce and manufactures of the country, the source of its wealth. He was almost dependent on subsidies from Spain. Elizabeth of England had been assisting her fellow Protestants in the way she liked best, by seizing Spanish treasure ships; and Alva was reduced to find the money he needed within the Netherlands.

It was then that he proposed to the States General, summoned to meet him (March 20th, 1569), his notorious scheme of taxation, which finally ruined him--a tax of one per cent. (the "hundredth penny") to be levied once for all on all property; a tax of five per cent. (the "twentieth penny") to be levied at every sale or transfer of landed property: and a tax of ten per cent. (the "tenth penny") on all articles of commerce each time they were sold. This scheme of taxation would have completely ruined a commercial and manufacturing country. It met with universal resistance. Provinces, towns, magistrates, guilds, the bishops and the clergy--everyone protested against the taxation. Even Philip's Council at Madrid saw the impossibility of exacting such taxes from a country. Alva swore that he would have his own way. The town and district of Utrecht had been the first to protest. Alva quartered the regiment of Lombardy upon them; but not even the licence and brutality of the soldiers could force the wretched people to pay. Alva proclaimed the whole of the inhabitants to be guilty of high treason; he took from them all their charters and privileges; he declared their whole property confiscated to the King. But these were the acts of a furious madman, and were unavailing. He then postponed the collection of the hundredth and of the tenth pennies; but the need of money forced him on, and he gave definite orders for the collection of the "tenth" and the "twentieth pennies." The trade and manufactures of the country came to a sudden standstill, and Alva at last knew that he was beaten. He had to be satisfied with a payment of two millions of florins for two years.

The real fighting force among the Reformed Netherlanders was to be found, not among the landsmen, but in the sailors and fishermen. It is said that Admiral Coligny was the first to point this out to the Prince of Orange. He acted upon the advice, and in 1569 he had given letters of marque to some eighteen small vessels to cruise in the narrow seas and attack the Spaniards. At first they were little better than pirates,--men of various nationalities united by a fierce hatred of Spaniards and Papists, feared by friends and foes alike. William attempted, at first somewhat unsuccessfully, to reduce them to discipline and order, by issuing with his letters of marque orders limiting their indiscriminate pillage, insisting upon the maintenance of religious services on board, and declaring that one-third of the booty was to be given to himself for the common good of the country. In their earlier days they were allowed to refit and sell their plunder in English ports, but these were closed to them on strong remonstrances from the Court of Spain. It was almost by accident that they seized and held (April 1st, 1572) Brill or Brielle, a strongly fortified town on Voorn, which was then an island at the mouth of the Maas, some twenty miles west or seaward from Rotterdam. The inhabitants were forced to take an oath of allegiance to William as Stadtholder under the King, and the flag of what was afterwards to become the United Provinces was hoisted on land for the first time. It was not William, but his brother Louis of Nassau, who was the first to see the future possibilities in this act. He urged the seizure of Flushing or Vlissingen, the chief stronghold in Zeeland, situated on an island at the mouth of the Honte or western Scheldt, and commanding the entrance to Antwerp. The citizens rose in revolt against the Spanish garrison; the _Sea-Beggars_, as they were called, hurried to assist them; the town was taken, and the Spanish commander, Pachecho, was captured and hanged. This gave the seamen possession of the whole island of Walcheren save the fortified town of Middleburg. Delfshaven and Schiedam were seized. The news swept through Holland, Zeeland, Guelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and town after town declared for William of Orange the Stadtholder. The leaders were marvellously encouraged to renewed exertions.[263] Proclamations in the name of the new ruler were scattered broadcast through the country, and the people were fired by a song said to be written by Sainte Aldegonde, _Wilhelmus van Nassouwe_, which is still the national hymn of Holland. The Prince of Orange thought he might venture on another invasion, and was already near Brussels when the news of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew reached him. His plans had been based on assistance from France, urged by Coligny and promised by Charles IX. "What a sledge-hammer blow (_coup de massue_) that has been," he wrote to his brother; "my only hope was from France."[264] Mons, which Louis had seized in the south with his French troops, had to be abandoned; and William, after some vain efforts, had to disband his troops.

Then Alva came out from Brussels to wreak a fearful vengeance on Mons, Mechlin, Tergoes, Naarden, Haarlem, and Zutphen. The terms of the capitulation of Mons were violated. Mechlin was plundered and set on fire by the Spanish troops. The Spanish commander sent against Zutphen had orders to burn every house, and to slay men, women, and children. Haarlem was invested, resisted desperately, and then capitulated on promise of lenient treatment. When the Spaniards entered they butchered in cold blood all the Dutch soldiers and some hundreds of the citizens; and, tying the bodies two and two together, they cast them into the Haarlem lake. It seemed as if the Papists had determined to exterminate the Protestants when they found that they could not convert them.

Some towns, however, held out. Don Frederick, the son of Alva and the butcher of Haarlem, was beaten back from the little town of Alkmaar. The _Sea-Beggars_ met the Spanish fleet sent to crush them, sank or scattered the ships, and took the Admiral prisoner. The nation of fishermen and shopkeepers, once the scorn of Spain and of Europe for their patient endurance of indignities, were seen at last to be a race of heroes, determined never again to endure the yoke of the Spaniard. Alva had soon to face a soldiery mutinous for want of pay, and to see all his sea approaches in the hands of Dutch sailors, whom the strongest fleets of Spain could not subdue. The iron pitiless man at last acknowledged that he was beaten, and demanded his recall. He left Brussels on Dec. 18th, 1573, and did not again see the land he had deluged with blood during a space of six years. Like all tyrants, he had great faith in his system, even when it had broken in his hand. Had he been a little more severe, added a few more drops to the sea of blood he had spilled, all would have gone well. The only advice he could give to his successor was, to burn down every town he could not garrison with Spanish troops.

The new Spanish Regent was Don Louis Requesens-y-Zuniga, a member of the higher nobility of Spain, and a Grand Commander of the Knights of Malta. He was high-minded, and of a generous disposition. Had he been sent to the Netherlands ten years sooner, and allowed to act with a free hand, the history of the Netherlands might have been different. His earlier efforts at government were marked by attempts to negotiate, and he was at pains to give Philip his reasons for his conduct.

"Before my arrival," he wrote, "I could not comprehend how the rebels contrived to maintain fleets so considerable, while your Majesty could not maintain one. Now I see that men who are fighting for their lives, their families, their property, and their false religion, in short, for their own cause, are content if they receive only rations without pay."

He immediately reversed the policy of Alva: he repealed the hated taxes; dissolved the Council of Blood, and published a general amnesty. But he could not come to terms with the "rebels." William of Orange refused all negotiation which was not based on three preliminary conditions--freedom of conscience, and liberty to preach the Gospel according to the Word of God; the restoration of all the ancient charters; and the withdrawal of all Spaniards from all posts military and civil. He would accept no truce nor amnesty without these. "We have heard too often," he said, "the words _Agreed_ and _Eternal_. If I have your word for it, who will guarantee that the King will not deny it, and be absolved for his breach of faith by the Pope?" Requesens, hating the necessity, had to carry on the struggle which the policy of his King and of the Regents who preceded him had provoked.

The fortune of war seemed to be unchanged. The patriots were always victorious at sea and tenacious in desperate defence of their fortified towns when they were besieged, but they went down before the veteran Spanish infantry in almost every battle fought on land. In the beginning of 1574 two fortresses were invested. The patriots were besieging Middleburg, and the Spaniards had invested Leyden. The _Sea-Beggars_ routed the Spanish fleet in a bloody fight in the mouth of the Scheldt, and Middleburg had to surrender. Leyden had two months' respite owing to a mutiny among the Spanish soldiers, but the citizens neglected the opportunity thus given them to revictual their town. It was again invested (May 26th), and hardly pressed. Louis of Nassau, leading an army to its assistance, was totally routed at Mookerheide, and he and his younger brother Henry were among the slain. The fate of Leyden seemed to be sealed, when William suggested to the Estates of Holland to cut the dykes and let in the sea. The plan was adopted. But the dykes took long to cut, and when they were opened and the water began to flow in slowly, violent winds swept it back to the sea. Within Leyden the supply of food was melting away; and the famished and anxious burghers, looking over the plain from the steeples of the town, saw help coming so slowly that it seemed as if it could arrive only when it was too late. The Spaniards knew also of the coming danger, and, calculating on the extremities of the townsfolk, urged on them to surrender, with promises of an honourable capitulation. "We have two arms," one of the defenders on the walls shouted back, "and when hunger forces us we will eat the one and fight you with the other." Four weary months passed amidst indescribable sufferings, when at last the sea reached the walls. With it came the patriotic fleet, sailing over buried corn fields and gardens, piloted through orchards and villages. The Spaniards fled in terror, for the _Sea-Beggars_ were upon them, shouting their battle-cry, "Sooner Turks than Papists." Townsmen and sailors went to the great church to offer thanksgiving for the deliverance which had been brought them from the sea. When the vast audience was singing a psalm of deliverance, the voices suddenly ceased, and nothing was heard but low sobbing; the people, broken by long watching and famine, overcome by unexpected deliverance, could only weep.

The good news was brought to Delft by Hans Brugge, who found William in church at the afternoon service. When the sermon was ended, the deliverance of Leyden was announced from the pulpit. William, weak with illness as he was, rode off to Leyden at once to congratulate the citizens on their heroic defence and miraculous deliverance. There he proposed the foundation of what became the famous University of Leyden, which became for Holland what Wittenberg had been to Germany, Geneva to Switzerland, and Saumur to France.

The siege of Leyden was the turning-point in the war for independence. The Spanish Regent saw that a new Protestant State was slowly and almost imperceptibly forming. His troops were almost uniformly victorious in the field, but the victories did not seem to be of much value. He decided once more to attempt negotiation. The conferences came to nothing. The utmost that Philip II. would concede was that the Protestants should have time to sell their possessions and leave the country. The war was again renewed, when death came to relieve Requesens of his difficulties (March 1575). His last months were disgraced by the recommendation he made to his master to offer a reward for the assassination of the Prince of Orange.

The history of the next few years is a tangled story which would take too long to tell. When Requesens died the treasury was empty, and no public money was forthcoming. The Spanish soldiers mutinied, clamouring for their pay. They seized on some towns and laid hold on the citadel of Antwerp. Then occurred the awful pillage of the great city, when, during three terrible November days, populous and wealthy Antwerp suffered all the horrors that could be inflicted upon it.

The sudden death of Requesens had left everything in confusion; and leading men, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, conceived that advantage should be taken of the absence of any Spanish Governor to see whether all the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands could not combine on some common programme which would unite the country in spite of their religious differences. Delegates met together at Ghent (Oct. 28th, 1576) and drafted a treaty. A meeting of States General for the southern provinces was called to assemble at Brussels in November, and the members were discussing the terms of the treaty when the news of the "Spanish Fury" at Antwerp reached them. The story of the ghastly horrors perpetrated on their countrymen doubtless hastened their decision, and the treaty was ratified both by the States General and by the Council of State. The _Pacification of Ghent_ cemented an alliance between the southern provinces represented in the States General which met at Brussels and the northern provinces of Holland and Zeeland. Its chief provisions were that all should combine to drive the Spanish and other foreign troops out of the land, and that a formal meeting of delegates from all the seventeen provinces should be called to deliberate upon the religious question. In the meantime the Roman Catholic religion was to be maintained; the _Placards_ were to be abolished; the Prince of Orange was declared to be the Governor of the seventeen provinces and the Admiral-General of Holland and Zeeland; and the confiscation of the properties of the houses of Nassau and Brederode was rescinded.

Don John of Austria had been appointed by Philip Regent of the Netherlands, and was in Luxemburg early in November. His arrival there was intimated to the States General, who refused to acknowledge him as Regent unless he would approve of the _Pacification of Ghent_ and swear to maintain the ancient privileges of the various provinces. Months were spent in negotiations, but the States General were unmovable. He yielded at length, and made his State entry into Brussels on May 1st, 1577. When once there he found himself overshadowed by William, who had been accepted as leader by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. But Philip with great exertions had got together an army of twenty thousand veteran Spanish and Italian troops, and sent them to the Netherlands under the command of Alexander Farnese, the son of the former Regent, Margaret Duchess of Parma. The young Duke of Parma was a man of consummate abilities, military and diplomatic, and was by far the ablest agent Philip ever had in the Low Countries. He defeated the patriotic army at Gemblours (Jan. 31st, 1578), and several towns at once opened their gates to Parma and Don John. To increase the confusion, John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine, invaded the land from the east at the head of a large body of German mercenary soldiers to assist the Calvinists; the Archduke Matthias, brother of the Emperor Rudolph, was already in the country, invited by the Roman Catholics; and the Duke of Anjou had invaded the Netherlands from the south to uphold the interests of those Romanists who did not wish to tolerate Protestantism but hated the Spaniards. These foreigners represented only too well the latent divisions of the country--divisions which were skilfully taken advantage of by the Duke of Parma. After struggling in vain for a union of the whole seventeen provinces on the basis of complete religious toleration, William saw that his task was hopeless. Neither the majority of the Romanists nor the majority of the Protestants could understand toleration. Delegates of the Romanist provinces of Hainault, Douai, and Artois met at Arras (Jan. 5th, 1579) to form a league which had for its ultimate intention a reconciliation with Spain on the basis of the _Pacification of Ghent_, laying stress on the provision for the maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion. Thus challenged, the northern provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelderland, and Zutphen met at Utrecht (Jan. 29th, 1579), and formed a league to maintain themselves against all foreign Princes, including the King of Spain. These two leagues mark the definite separation of the Romanist South from the Protestant North, and the creation of a new Protestant State, the United Provinces. William did not sign the Treaty of Utrecht until May 3rd.

In 1581, Philip made a last attempt to overcome his indomitable antagonist. He published the Ban against him, denouncing him as a traitor and an enemy of the human race, and offering a reward of twenty-five thousand crowns and a patent of nobility to anyone who should deliver him to the King dead or alive. William answered in his famous _Apology_, which gives an account of his whole career, and contains a scathing exposure of Philip's misdeeds. The _Apology_ was translated into several languages, and sent to all the Courts of Europe. Brabant, Flanders, Utrecht, Guelderland, Holland, and Zeeland answered Philip by the celebrated Act of Abjuration (July 26th, 1581), in which they solemnly renounced allegiance to the King of Spain, and constituted themselves an independent republic.

The date of the abjuration may be taken as the beginning of the new era, the birth of another Protestant nation. Its young life had been consecrated in a baptism of blood and fire such as no other nation in Europe had to endure. Its Declaration of Independence did not procure immediate relief. Nearly thirty years of further struggle awaited it; and it was soon to mourn the loss of its heroic leader. The rewards promised by Philip II. were a spur to the zeal of Romanist fanatics. In 1582 (March 18th), Juan Jaureguy, a Biscayan, made a desperate attempt at assassination, which for the moment was thought to be successful. The pistol was so close to the Prince that his hair and beard were set on fire, and the ball entering under the right ear, passed through the palate and out by the left jaw. Two years later (July 9th, 1584), William fell mortally wounded by Balthasar Gerard, whose heirs claimed the reward for assassination promised by Philip, and received part of it from the King. The Prince's last words were: "My God, have mercy on my soul and on these poor people."

The sixteenth century produced no nobler character than that of William, Prince of Orange. His family were Lutherans, but they permitted the lad to be brought up in the Roman Catholic religion--the condition which Charles v. had imposed before he would consent to give effect to the will of René, Prince of Orange,[265] who, dying at the early age of twenty-six, had left his large possessions to his youthful cousin, William of Nassau. In an intolerant age he stands forth as the one great leader who rose above the religious passions of the time, and who strove all his life to secure freedom of conscience and right of public worship for men of all creeds.[266] He was a consistent liberal Roman Catholic down to the close of 1555. His letter (January 24th, 1566) to Margaret of Parma perhaps reveals the beginnings of a change. He called himself "a good Christian," not a "good Catholic." Before the end of that year he had said privately that he was ready to return to the faith of his childhood and subscribe the Augsburg Confession. During his exile in 1568 he had made a daily study of the Holy Scriptures, and, whatever the exact shade of his theological opinions, had become a deeply religious man, animated with the lofty idea that God had called him to do a great work for Him and for His persecuted people. His private letters, meant for no eyes but those of his wife or of his most familiar friends, are full of passages expressing a quiet faith in God and in the leadings of His Providence.[267] During the last years of his life the teachings of Calvin had more and more taken hold on his intellect and sympathy, and he publicly declared himself a Calvinist in 1573 (October 23rd). A hatred of every form of oppression was his ruling passion, and he himself has told us that it was when he learnt that the Kings of France and Spain had come to a secret understanding to extirpate heresy by fire and sword, that he made the silent resolve to drive "This vermin of Spaniards out of his country."[268]

The Protestant Netherlands might well believe themselves lost when he fell under the pistol of the assassin; but he left them a legacy in the persons of his confidential friend Johan van Oldenbarneveldt and of his son Maurice. Oldenbarneveldt's patient diplomatic genius completed the political work left unfinished by William; and Maurice,[269] a lad of seventeen at his father's death, was acknowledged only a few years afterwards as the greatest military leader in Europe. The older man in the politician's study, and the boy-general in the field, were able to keep the Spaniards at bay, until at length, in 1607 (October), a suspension of arms was agreed to. This resulted in a truce for twelve years (April 9th, 1609), which was afterwards prolonged indefinitely. The Dutch had won their independence, and had become a strong Protestant power whose supremacy at sea was challenged only by England.

Notwithstanding the severity of the persecutions which they endured, the Protestants of the Netherlands organised themselves into churches, and as early as 1563 the delegates from the various churches met in a synod to settle the doctrine and discipline which was to bind them together. This was not done without internal difficulties. The people of the Netherlands had received the Evangelical faith from various sources, and the converts tenaciously clung to the creed and ecclesiastical system with which they were first acquainted. The earliest Reformation preachers in the Low Countries were followers of Luther, and many of them had been trained at Wittenberg. Lutherans were numerous among the lesser nobility and the more substantial burghers. Somewhat later the opinions of Zwingli also found their way into the Netherlands, and were adopted by many very sincere believers. The French-speaking provinces in the south had been evangelised for the most part by missioners trained under Calvin at Geneva, and they brought his theology with them. Thus Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin had all attached followers in the Low Countries. The differences found expression, not so much in matters of doctrine as in preferences for different forms of Church government; and although they were almost overcome, they reappeared later in the contest which emerged in the beginning of the seventeenth century about the relation which ought to subsist between the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities. In the end, the teaching of Geneva displaced both Lutheranism and Zwinglianism, and the Reformed in the Netherlands became Calvinist in doctrine and discipline.

Accordingly, most of the churches were early organised on the principles of the churches in France, with a minister and a consistory of elders and deacons; and when delegates from the churches met to deliberate upon an organisation which would bind all together, the system which was adopted was the Presbyterian or Conciliar. The meeting was at Emden (1569), as it was too dangerous to assemble within the jurisdiction of the Government of the Netherlands. It was resolved that the Church should be ruled by _consistories, classes_, and _synods_. This Conciliar organisation, thus adopted at Emden in 1569, might not have met with unanimous support had not the Reformed been exposed to the full fury of Alva's persecution. The consistorial system of the Lutheran Church, and the position which Zwingli assigned to the magistracy, are possible only when the civil government is favourably disposed towards the Church within the land which it rules; but Presbyterianism, as France, Scotland, and the Netherlands have proved, is the best suited for "a Church under the Cross." Nor need this be wondered at, for the Presbyterian or Conciliar is the revival of the government of the Church of the early centuries while still under the ban of the Roman Empire.[270]

A synod which met at Dordrecht (Dort) in 1572 revised, enlarged, and formally adopted the articles of this Emden synod or conference.

Two peculiarities of the Dutch organisation ought to be explained. The _consistory_ or kirk-session is the court which rules the individual congregation in Holland as in all other Presbyterian lands; but in the Dutch Church all Church members inhabiting a city are regarded as one congregation; the ministers are the pastors of the city, preaching in turn in all its buildings set apart for public worship, and the people are not considered to be specially attached to any one of the buildings, nor to belong to the flock of any one of the ministers; and therefore there is one consistory for the whole city. This peculiarity was also seen in the early centuries. Then it must be noticed that, owing to the political organisation of the United Provinces, it was difficult to arrange for a National Synod. The civil constitution was a federation of States, in many respects independent of each other, who were bound to protect each other in war, to maintain a common army, and to contribute to a common military treasury. When William of Orange was elected Stadtholder for life, one of the laws which bound him was that he should not acknowledge any ecclesiastical assembly which had not the approval of the civil authorities of the province in which it proposed to meet. This implied that each province was entitled to regulate its own ecclesiastical affairs. There could be no meeting of a National Synod unless all the United Provinces gave their approval. Hence the tendency was to prevent corporate and united action.

According to the articles of Emden, and the revised and enlarged edition approved at Dordrecht in 1572, it was agreed that office-bearers in the Church were to sign the _Confession of Faith_. This creed had been prepared by Guido de Brès (born at Mons in 1540) in 1561, and had been revised by several of his friends. It was based on the Confession of the French Church, and was originally written in French. It was approved by a series of Synods, and was translated into Dutch, German, and Latin. It is known as the Belgic Confession. Its original title was, _A Confession of Faith, generally and unanimously maintained by Believers dispersed throughout the Low Countries who desire to live according to the purity of the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ._[271] The Church also adopted the _Heidelberg Catechism_[272] for the instruction of the young.

The long fight against Spain and the Inquisition had stimulated the energies of the Church and the people of the Netherlands, and their Universities and theological schools soon rivalled older seats of learning. The University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575; Franecker, ten years later, in 1585; and there followed in rapid succession the Universities of Gronningen (1612), Utrecht (1636), and Harderwyk (1648). Dutch theologians and lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century for their learning and acumen.