Chapter 13

WILLIAM THE SILENT

In the year 1560 two horsemen were riding in the Forest of Vincennes in France, followed by a splendid retinue. It could be seen from their costume and bearing that they were officials of high rank and large following--and indeed they were no less personages than Henry the Second, the King of France, and a Prince from the Netherlands named William of Orange, a powerfully built young man of commanding appearance and great nobility of demeanor.

The Netherlands which were ruled by the King of Spain, had been at war with France and William had been sent to the French court as a hostage while peace was being arranged. He was brave, generous, handsome and wealthy, and gained the respect and liking of all that knew him, wherever he happened to be. But his heart was as heavy as lead while the French King was talking to him, for Henry the Second was telling him of a secret scheme by which all people in the Netherlands who did not believe in the Catholic religion were to be wiped out by fire and sword.

"Everything has been arranged," said Henry triumphantly, "and the King of Spain has agreed with me to carry out the affair in the Low Countries as shall be done in France. The ancient edicts are to be brought forth again. The Holy Inquisition is to be revived in its greatest severity, and before long there will be no place in Spain, France or the Low Countries where a heretic may lay his head in safety."

Now Henry of France was very foolish when he spoke this way to Prince William of Orange. He believed that because the Prince had been commander of the army of King Philip of Spain that he was in the complete confidence of the Spanish King--but this was not the case. Although William had been brought up in the Catholic faith he was a Protestant at heart, and came from a Protestant family. He had only turned to the Catholic religion because it had been necessary for him to be of that faith to become the ruler of the Principality of Orange,--and even if his own father and mother had not been Protestants, William would never have consented to the hanging and burning of innocent people because they happened to believe in a religion that was slightly different from his own. His blood ran cold with horror when he heard what the King of France and the King of Spain were planning--but in spite of what he heard he had presence of mind enough to listen quietly without showing any sign of the rebellion and anger that were in his heart. He knew that he could aid the Protestants and the Netherlands far more if the powerful monarchs who were in league against them did not realize that they would have him to reckon with as one of their enemies, but from that time on Prince William determined not to rest until the last Spanish soldier had been driven from his country and the people were allowed to worship God in their own way.

Still William said nothing. He pretended to be greatly interested in the measures that he had learned of and expressed no disapproval of their severity. The King of France never learned what an error he had made. But William, from his attitude on this matter and the way that he conducted himself, gained the nickname of "William the Silent" which clung to him throughout his life and has been attached to him in history ever since.

William was well liked in the Netherlands or the "Low Countries" as they were then called. He was the son of a nobleman, Count William of Nassau, and succeeded to the principality of Orange on the death of his cousin Réné of Nassau who was killed in battle. Réné was an ardent Catholic, and stipulated that to gain the principality William would have to be brought up in the Catholic faith. So young William went to the Court of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Spain and Germany, and became a page in Charles' establishment in the city of Brussels.

When a youth of eighteen William married a girl of high birth named Anne of Edgemont and lived happily with her until he went to the wars with the Spanish army. He did not like military life, but none the less he did so well that before he was twenty-one he was made a General. His record was creditable to the utmost, but through all his life William never showed any great military ability. He was slow to come to decisions and too deliberate to make a military leader of the highest order.

When William returned to the Netherlands after his sojourn in the French court he was made Governor of the principalities of Zeeland, Utrecht and Holland. And here, in his efforts to help the Protestants from the harsh decrees that were being carried out against them, he first came in collision with the cruel and cold-blooded Philip of Spain.

Philip believed in the instrument of justice called the Holy Inquisition and for years this had been in operation in his own kingdom of Spain. It was a body of Priests and wise men who judged and condemned all persons who were accused of heresy, as any difference from the Catholic religion was called. The punishments dealt out by the Holy Inquisition were most severe and brought great suffering. For the Inquisition employed the most inhuman tortures, not only for those who were convicted of guilt, but also for unfortunate people who were accused, maintaining that under torture nobody could refrain from telling the truth, nor conceal any wickedness that he had ever committed. As a result of this, confessions were often wrung from innocent people, who could not support the agony of torture, preferring to be punished for crimes they had not committed than to bear it. And this punishment was almost invariably to be hanged or burned alive at the stake.

At the time when William was put in control of the three small states that we have spoken of, Philip had left the Low Countries for Spain, and had placed the government of his dominions in the Netherlands in the hands of his half sister, Margaret the Duchess of Parma, and under her rule the cruel measures enacted by Philip against the Protestants were ruthlessly carried out.

As Governor under Philip, William was expected to apply these measures himself, and on one occasion was ordered to put to death certain people who were accused of heresy. Being unwilling to do this he sent them private warning, suffering them to escape before his men came to arrest them; and from this time on he followed a course of action that soon brought him into disfavor with the Duchess of Parma who suspected him of treachery and wrote to the King of Spain accusing William of many crimes.

Greater and greater grew the unrest and dissatisfaction throughout the Netherlands. And one curious sign of this was in the formation of a society of noblemen who called themselves "The Beggars." This organization had come about in the following manner. Three hundred or more noblemen had presented to Margaret a request that the Inquisition be abolished and the edicts against the Protestants revoked. Some of her advisors laughed at the request of the Flemish nobles, referring to them scornfully as "beggars," and the term came to their ears. At once they took the word for their watch cry and dressed themselves in the costume of beggars with wallets and begging bowls, declaring that they would not resume their ordinary dress until their requests had been granted. And this organization did a great deal to fan the opposition to Spain, which was increasing every day throughout the Netherlands, into a flame of rebellion.

Another disturbance soon took place that made the King of Spain more bitterly angry against the Low Countries than any other thing that could have happened. A storm against the Catholic faith swept through the country and churches were sacked and the holy images destroyed in every province. Mobs marched through the streets attired in the sacred vestments of the priests that they had torn from the altar. Stained glass windows were broken with stones; entire churches were ransacked and plundered of everything of value that they contained. The people at last had turned in revolt, and "the image breaking" as this rioting was called, was the first sign of it. And then, or shortly after, William the Silent became a Protestant.

Frightened by the signs of revolt Margaret pretended to consent to the wishes of the nobles and stated that the Inquisition should be abolished in the Netherlands and the edicts against the Protestant religion revoked. And she sent a secret letter to the King of Spain, informing him of what she had done.

Philip was determined on the most bitter vengeance, but until he could bring a powerful army into the Low Countries it suited him to have his subjects there believe that he had actually consented to their demands. So he pretended to agree to what Margaret had granted, and all through the Low Countries the bells rang and the bonfires burned in rejoicing that freedom from persecution had at last been gained.

But Philip had put a nobleman named the Duke of Alva in charge of the army that was to subdue the Netherlands, and could not have chosen a better or surer man to carry out his dark ends. The Duke of Alva was a monster of cruelty, implacable as iron, and possessed of a skill in warfare that few could equal. He had been ordered to seize William of Orange as well as other leaders and bring them to instant execution, and then so to punish the Netherlands that not a trace of the recent rioting or rebellion should remain.

The Netherlands were not then in a position to offer a strong resistance to such a highly organized, well trained army as the Duke of Alva's, but secret preparations were going through the country for a great struggle of which the recent rioting was only the smallest beginning. The Duke of Alva, proud soldier that he was, did not estimate the strength of the Lowlanders at its proper value. He boasted that he had tamed men of iron in his time and could easily tame the men of butter who were now opposed to him. And his first act was to carry out King Philip's demands against the noblemen who were chiefly implicated in the recent uprisings.

These were the Counts Egmont and Horn and rightly or wrongly William of Orange. William himself had been shrewd enough to fly to Germany. He knew Philip and he urged Counts Egmont and Horn to fly with him. But they, foolishly feeling secure in their own country, decided to remain where they were.

For a very brief time they thought they had decided rightly, for the Duke of Alva was courteous to them. He invited them to his house to dinner and made them his guests--but while they were eating his bread and drinking his wine, an armed guard surrounded his house and the two unfortunate nobles were arrested by the treacherous Spaniard and promptly thrown into prison. They never regained their liberty. After being held as captives for the better part of a year they met their fate courageously on the public scaffold where so many of the bravest and best heads of the Netherlands were falling by the Duke of Alva's orders.

A reign of terror then swept over the Netherlands that has had practically no equal in history. Alva was relentless as flint in every dealing with the people under his charge. To meet the numerous trials that were necessary under his regime he appointed what was called the Council of Troubles--a name that was quickly changed by the people themselves to the Council of Blood, for it never acquitted, never showed mercy. Prisoners were led before it and condemned in batches of a hundred or more at a time, and sometimes prisoners were delivered to the executioners without even the poor formality of a trial that this council afforded.

Nor was this all--for to fill his coffers the Duke of Alva established a system of taxation that if carried out would reduce to beggary every man, woman and child in the Low Countries.

William the Silent was not idle in Germany, where he had fled on the coming of this Spanish tyrant; he was engaged in raising money and enlisting the sympathy of German princes in the cause of his oppressed people. Aided by his brother Louis, who was a fine soldier, he worked day and night to raise an army to march against the Spaniards, and at last was able to send his forces into the Netherlands, while he himself remained with a small reserve ready to support them when necessary.

But although William's brother and the other leaders of his new army were fine soldiers, they failed against the brilliant military genius of the Duke of Alva. At first they seemed partly successful and won a minor victory at a place called Heiliger Lee,--but then the Duke of Alva himself marched against them at the head of a splendid army, and wiped out the forces of his adversary at Jemmingen, killing the wounded and taking no prisoners, but exterminating his foes wherever he met them. And among the dead was William's youngest brother, Adolphus, who had distinguished himself for his bravery.

Then William had to raise another force to supplant the one that had just been destroyed. The German princes were discouraged by his failure and were reluctant about giving their aid; and in his distress he turned to Queen Elizabeth of England, who sympathized with his cause, but could not do anything for him at that time.

At last, however, William succeeded in gathering another army that was even larger than the first one, and placing himself at its head he entered the Netherlands. He was, however, in great straits, for his soldiers were only German mercenaries and William lacked money to pay them. The Duke of Alva knew this and refused to fight, but constantly retreated, knowing well that mutiny would soon break out in William's forces and weaken him far more than any battle. And this proved to be the case. Serious trouble broke out among the German soldiers, and William at last had to disband the army and take refuge in France without money, credit or prestige. He had sold all his personal possessions to support the army and all was lost.

Where he had once been one of the richest noblemen in Europe, he was now so poor that he hardly knew where the next day's dinner was to come from. Alva had confiscated all his Netherland estates, and William had gone heavily into debt to raise his armies. Failure and poverty stared him in the face, and other misfortunes followed him. His first wife had died several years before, and his second wife, a German princess, now went insane.

Crushed on land, there was yet the possibility for William to do something for his oppressed country by attacking his enemies on the sea. It was not long before privateers in his name were harrying the Spanish vessels and swooping down upon the ports held by the Spaniards. These daring seamen took their name from the society that had been formed years before called the "Beggars." And William's sailors now called themselves "The Beggars of the Sea."

They found help and protection in the English ports, for Queen Elizabeth hated the Duke of Alva, and while not willing just then to go to war openly with Spain, she did all in her power to give assistance to Spain's enemies. She allowed the Beggars to obtain men and supplies from England, and did not hesitate to give them ammunition when they required it.

Then a first success came to William's cause like a faint ray of sunlight through heavy clouds, for the Beggars of the Sea captured the fortified town of Brill. And almost immediately after, encouraged by this initial success, the whole of the Netherlands which had been groaning under the Spanish rule rose in rebellion and claimed as their rightful ruler the Prince of Orange. Almost in a night the cities rose and cast off their Spanish yoke, and all through the Low Countries the flag of the Prince of Orange was uplifted.

Alva sent his troops to lay siege to the towns and recapture them, and there followed one of the most terrible periods of warfare that the world has ever known--certainly the most terrible that ever engulfed Belgium until the World War of our own day.

And now for the first time since his former defeat, the Prince of Orange was able to raise troops to fight once more against the Spaniards. He sent repeated appeals to the cities of the Low Countries, and prepared an army of some twenty thousand German mercenaries that was to be further strengthened by a French force under the French Admiral Coligny. William counted on Coligny's aid to defeat Alva, for Coligny was an ardent Protestant and had many men at his command.

But there befell another check to William's fortunes, and one that was almost fatal to his plans, for under the wicked Catherine de Medici the French Catholics in two days massacred almost every Protestant in France in a slaughter that was called the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Admiral Coligny was among the victims, and all hope of support from that quarter was at an end.

Louis, the brother of William, was being besieged by the Duke of Alva in the city of Mons, and William marched to the relief of the town. He did not strike promptly enough, however, and was routed by a strategem on the part of the Spaniards. In the night a considerable force of the Spanish soldiers stole up to William's camp and fell upon his army, taking it completely by surprise. William himself barely escaped with his life, being awakened by a pet dog in the nick of time, and when the Spaniards were almost in his tent. Leaping to his horse, he galloped madly from the burning camp and escaped, but his army was cut to pieces. Then Alva continued the siege of Mons until Louis had to surrender. The Spaniards, however, for some strange reason allowed Louis to evacuate the town without interference and Louis fled to Dillenburg in Germany, the home of the Nassau family. But in spite of this new defeat and disappointment, the Lowland cities continued their resistance, and nowhere was this stronger than in the province of Holland.

The sieges that followed were among the most terrible in history for the beleaguered towns knew well they could expect no mercy if they were conquered, and held out to the last breath. Their inhabitants ate horses, dogs, old shoes--anything to fill their stomachs and stay the inroads of starvation. Plague broke out among them and in the Spanish forces as well. When the Spaniards captured a town they left not one stone upon another, and the burghers who had opposed them were massacred to a man.

But the Duke of Alva was growing old and suffering from ill health. The universal hatred in which he was held weighed on his spirit. He had written several times asking his recall from the Netherlands, and at last King Philip consented to his request and sent out a Governor named Requesens to take his place. All the Netherlands went wild with joy when the news spread that Alva was leaving and bells were rung and bonfires lit as for some national holiday.

In the meantime William had made his headquarters in the province of Holland and was conducting the war against the Spaniards from that point. The Spaniards were besieging the city of Leyden, which it was necessary for them to capture, but the Netherlanders cut the dykes that restrained the ocean and let the sea sweep over the land, for Leyden was reduced to starvation, and every day people were dying by hundreds within its walls. The rescuers sailed up to the town in ships as the Spaniards fled, bringing bread to the famished people.

William was now the ruler of Holland and had triumphed over the Spaniards. The war dragged after these terrible sieges and both sides would gladly have seen it ended; but the Lowlanders were in no temper to accept half measures. And in the Union of Utrecht, in which a number of the Lowland provinces united against Philip, an important step was taken toward throwing off the Spanish yoke.

William's life was in great danger, for King Philip had offered a reward of twenty-five thousand crowns in gold to any assassin who should strike him down. And although he was under fifty, he appeared like an old man, so great were the troubles with which he had been beset in the course of his life. He was the constant target for the bullet or the dagger of the assassin, and many dogged his tracks as a result of the Spanish proclamation against him.

The end that might have been expected came in the spring of 1584. Already William had once been severely wounded by a would-be murderer, and he was now to receive his death blow. A young man, who claimed to be a Protestant orphaned in the religious persecutions, sought aid from William's secretary, and William himself ordered that twelve crowns be given him. With this money the perfidious assassin bought firearms and ammunition, and gaining entrance to William's home fired three shots into his body. A few minutes later the "father of his country" lay dead.

The work that William had done was far reaching and had a permanent effect on the fortunes of his country. And to-day a song that was sung at the time in his honor is still the national anthem of the Kingdom of Holland. He was a man of a great heart and a great character; and his fame has lived and grown more lustrous up to the present day.