Chapter 18

A revolution naturally followed. Otho was compelled to abandon absolute power in order to preserve his crown, and in March 1844 he swore obedience to a constitution prepared by the National Assembly, which put an end to the government of alien rulers under which the Greeks had lived for two thousand years. The destinies of the race were now in the hands of the citizens of liberated Greece. But the attempt was unsuccessful. The corruption of the government and the contracted views of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the constitution to his expulsion in 1862 a period of national stagnation. In October 1862 revolt broke out, and on the 23rd a provisional government at Athens issued a proclamation declaring, in his absence, that the reign of King Otho was at an end.

When Otho and his queen returned in a frigate to the Piraeus they were not allowed to land. Otho appealed to the representatives of the powers, who refused to support him against the nation, and he and his queen took refuge on board H.M.S. Scylla, and left Greece for ever.

The National Assembly held in Athens drew up a new constitution, laying the foundations of free municipal institutions, and leaving the nation to elect their sovereign. Then followed the abortive, though almost unanimous, election as king of Prince Alfred of England. Afterwards the British Government offered the crown to the second son of Prince Christian of Holstein-Glücksburg. On March 30, 1863, he was unanimously elected King of Greece, and the British forces left Corfu on June 2, 1864.

* * * * *

J.L. MOTLEY

The Rise of the Dutch Republic

John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, now part of Boston, on April 15, 1814. After graduating at Harvard University, he proceeded to Europe, where he studied at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen. At the latter he became intimate with Bismarck, and their friendly relations continued throughout life. In 1846 Motley began to collect materials for a history of Holland, and in 1851 he went to Europe to pursue his investigations. The result of his labours was "The Rise of the Dutch Republic--a History," published in 1856. The work was received with enthusiasm in Europe and America. Its distinguishing character is its graphic narrative and warm sympathy; and Froude said of it that it is "as complete as industry and genius can make it, and a book which will take its place among the finest stories in this or any language." In 1861 Motley was appointed American Minister to Austria, where he remained until 1867; and in 1869 General Grant sent him to represent the United States in England. Motley died on May 29, 1877, at the Dorsetshire house of his daughter, near Dorchester.

_I.--Woe to the Heretic_

The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German Ocean to the Ural Mountains is occupied by the countries called the Netherlands. The history of the development of the Netherland nation from the time of the Romans during sixteen centuries is ever marked by one prevailing characteristic, one master passion--the love of liberty, the instinct of self-government. Largely compounded of the bravest Teutonic elements--Batavian and Frisian--the race has ever battled to the death with tyranny, and throughout the dark ages struggled resolutely towards the light, wresting from a series of petty sovereigns a gradual and practical recognition of the claims of humanity. With the advent of the Burgundian family, the power of the commons reached so high a point that it was able to measure itself, undaunted, with the spirit of arbitrary power. Peaceful in their pursuits, phlegmatic by temperament, the Netherlanders were yet the most belligerent and excitable population in Europe.

For more than a century the struggle for freedom, for civic life, went on, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Mary's husband Maximilian, Charles V., in turn assailing or undermining the bulwarks raised age after age against the despotic principle. Liberty, often crushed, rose again and again from her native earth with redoubled energy. At last, in the sixteenth century, a new and more powerful spirit, the genius of religious freedom, came to participate in the great conflict. Arbitrary power, incarnated in the second Charlemagne, assailed the new combination with unscrupulous, unforgiving fierceness. In the little Netherland territory, humanity, bleeding but not killed, still stood at bay, and defied the hunters. The two great powers had been gathering strength for centuries. They were soon to be matched in a longer and more determined combat than the world had ever seen.

On October 25, 1555, the Estates of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels to witness amidst pomp and splendour the dramatic abdication of Charles V. as sovereign of the Netherlands in favour of his son Philip. The drama was well played. The happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only object contemplated in the great transaction, and the stage was drowned in tears. And yet, what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the Netherlands that they should weep for him? Their interests had never been even a secondary consideration with their master. He had fulfilled no duty towards them; he had committed the gravest crimes against them; he was in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-bought political liberties.

Philip II., whom the Netherlands received as their new master, was a man of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language. In 1548 he had made his first appearance in the Netherlands to receive homage in the various provinces as their future sovereign, and to exchange oaths of mutual fidelity with them all.

One of the earliest measures of Philip's reign was to re-enact the dread edict of 1550. This he did by the express advice of the Bishop of Arras. The edict set forth that no one should print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places any book or writing by Luther, Calvin, and other heretics reprobated by the Holy Church; nor break, or injure the images of the Holy Virgin or canonised saints; nor in his house hold conventicles, or be present at any such, in which heretics or their adherents taught, baptised, or formed conspiracies, against the Holy Church and the general welfare. Further, all lay persons were forbidden to converse or dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures openly or secretly, or to read, teach, or expound them; or to preach, or to entertain any of the opinions of the heretics.

Disobedience to this edict was to be punished as follows. Men to be executed with the sword, and women to be buried alive if they do not persist in their errors; if they do persist in them, then they are to be executed with fire, and all their property in both cases is to be confiscated to the crown. Those who failed to betray the suspected were to be liable to the same punishment, as also those who lodged, furnished with food, or favoured anyone suspected of being a heretic. Informers and traitors against suspected persons were to be entitled on conviction to one-half of the property of the accused.

At first, however, the edict was not vigorously carried into effect anywhere. It was openly resisted in Holland; its proclamation was flatly refused in Antwerp, and repudiated throughout Brabant. This disobedience was in the meantime tolerated because Philip wanted money to carry on the war between Spain and France which shortly afterwards broke out. At the close of the war, a treaty was entered into between France and Spain by which Philip and Henry II. bound themselves to maintain the Catholic worship inviolate by all means in their power, and to extinguish the increasing heresy in both kingdoms. There was a secret agreement to arrange for the Huguenot chiefs throughout the realms of both, a "Sicilian Vespers" upon the first favourable occasion.

Henry died of a wound received from Montgomery in a tournay held to celebrate the conclusion of the treaty, and Catherine de Medici became Queen-Regent of France, and deferred carrying out the secret plot till St. Bartholomew's Day fourteen years after.

_II.--The Netherlands Are, and Will Be, Free_

Philip now set about the organisation of the Netherlands provinces. Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was appointed regent, with three boards, a state council, a privy council, and a council of finance, to assist in the government. It soon became evident that the real power of the government was exclusively in the hands of the Consulta--a committee of three members of the state council, by whose deliberation the regent was secretly to be guided on all important occasions; but in reality the conclave consisted of Anthony Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards Cardinal Granvelle. Stadtholders were appointed to the different provinces, of whom only Count Egmont for Flanders and William of Orange for Holland need be mentioned.

An assembly of the Estates met at Ghent on August 7, 1589, to receive the parting instructions of Philip previous to his departure for Spain. The king, in a speech made through the Bishop of Arras, owing to his inability to speak French or Flemish, submitted a "request" for three million gold florins "to be spent for the good of the country." He made a violent attack on "the new, reprobate and damnable sects that now infested the country," and commanded the Regent Margaret "accurately and exactly to cause to be enforced the edicts and decrees made for the extirpation of all sects and heresies." The Estates of all the provinces agreed, at a subsequent meeting with the king, to grant their quota of the "request," but made it a condition precedent that the foreign troops, whose outrages and exactions had long been an intolerable burden, should be withdrawn. This enraged the king, but when a presentation was made of a separate remonstrance in the name of the States-General, signed by the Prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and other leading patricians, against the pillaging, insults, and disorders of the foreign soldiers, the king was furious. He, however, dissembled at a later meeting, and took leave of the Estates with apparent cordiality.

Inspired by the Bishop of Arras, under secret instructions from Philip, the Regent Margaret resumed the execution of the edicts against heresies and heretics which had been permitted to slacken during the French war. As an additional security for the supremacy of the ancient religion, Philip induced the Pope, Paul IV., to issue, in May, 1559, a Bull whereby three new archbishoprics were appointed, with fifteen subsidiary bishops and nine prebendaries, who were to act as inquisitors. To sustain these two measures, through which Philip hoped once and for ever to extinguish the Netherland heresy, the Spanish troops were to be kept in the provinces indefinitely.

Violent agitation took place throughout the whole of the Netherlands during the years 1560 and 1561 against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, and the ruthless manner in which they were enforced in the new bishoprics, and against the continued presence of the foreign soldiery. The people and their leaders appealed to their ancient charters and constitutions. Foremost in resistance was the Prince of Orange, and he, with Egmont, the soldier hero of St. Quentin, and Admiral Horn, united in a remarkable letter to the king, in which they said that the royal affairs would never be successfully conducted so long as they were entrusted to Cardinal Granvelle. Finally, Granvelle was recalled by Philip. But the Netherlands had now reached a condition of anarchy, confusion, and corruption.

The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support. Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter, dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without delay throughout the Netherlands. By these decrees the heretic was excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation. The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for ever be abolished. Their day was over; the Netherlands were free provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.

The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution constantly at work. Fifty thousand persons were put to death in obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to England. Famine reigned in the land. Then followed the revolt of the confederate nobles and the episode of the "wild beggars." Meantime, during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites. The duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the instant suppression of these assemblies and the arrest of the preachers. This brought the popular revolt to a head.

_III.--The Image-Breaking Campaign_

There were many hundreds of churches in the Netherlands profusely adorned with chapels. Many of them were filled with paintings, all were peopled with statues. Commencing on August 18, 1556, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for plunder, but for destruction.

It began at Antwerp, on the occasion of a great procession, the object of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin. The rabble sacked thirty churches within the city walls, entered the monasteries burned their invaluable libraries, and invaded the nunneries. The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of fiendish Calvinists. The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these transactions was that neither insult nor injury was offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense amount of property was appropriated. Similar scenes were enacted in all the other provinces, with the exception of Limburg, Luxemburg, and Namur.

The ministers of the reformed religion, and the chiefs of the liberal party, all denounced the image-breaking. The Prince of Orange deplored the riots. The leading confederate nobles characterised the insurrection as insensate, and many took severe measures against the ministers and reformers. The regent was beside herself with indignation and terror. Philip, when he heard the news, fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. "It shall cost them dear!" he cried. "I swear it by the soul of my father!"

The religious war, before imminent, became inevitable. The duchess, inspired by terror, proposed to fly to Mons, but was restrained by the counsels of Orange, Horn, and Egmont. On August 25 came the crowning act of what the reformers considered their most complete triumph, and the regent her deepest degradation. It was found necessary, under the alarming aspect of affairs, that liberty of worship, in places where it had been already established, should be accorded to the new religion. Articles of agreement to this effect were drawn up and exchanged between the government and Louis of Nassau and fifteen others of the confederacy.

A corresponding pledge was signed by them, that as long as the regent was true to her engagement they would consider their previously existing league annulled, and would cordially assist in maintaining tranquillity, and supporting the authority of his majesty. The important "Accord" was then duly signed by the duchess. It declared that the Inquisition was abolished, that his majesty would soon issue a new general edict, expressly and unequivocally protecting the nobles against all evil consequences from past transactions, and that public preaching according to the forms of the new religion was to be practised in places where it had already taken place.

Thus, for a fleeting moment, there was a thrill of joy throughout the Netherlands. But it was all a delusion. While the leaders of the people were exerting themselves to suppress the insurrection, and to avert ruin, the secret course pursued by the government, both at Brussels and at Madrid, may be condensed into the formula--dissimulation, procrastination, and, again, dissimulation.

The "Accord" was revoked by the duchess, and peremptory prohibition of all preaching within or without city walls was proclaimed. Further, a new oath of allegiance was demanded from all functionaries. The Prince of Orange spurned the proposition and renounced all his offices, desiring no longer to serve a government whose policy he did not approve, and a king by whom he was suspected. Terrible massacres of Protestant heretics took place in many cities.

_IV.--Alva the Terrible_

It was determined at last that the Netherland heresy should be conquered by force of arms, and an army of 10,000 picked and veteran troops was dispatched from Spain under the Duke of Alva. The Duchess Margaret made no secret of her indignation at being superseded when Alva produced his commission appointing him captain-general, and begging the duchess to co-operate with him in ordering all the cities of the Netherlands to receive the garrisons which he would send them. In September, 1567, the Duke of Alva established a new court for the trial of crimes committed "during the recent period of troubles." It was called the "Council of Troubles," but will be for ever known in history as the "Blood Council." It superseded all other courts and institutions. So well did this new and terrible engine perform its work that in less than three months 1,800 of the highest, the noblest, and the most virtuous men in the land, including Count Egmont and Admiral Horn, suffered death. Further than that, the whole country became a charnal-house; columns and stakes in every street, the doorposts of private houses, the fences in the fields were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, beheaded. Within a few months after the arrival of Alva the spirit of the nation seemed hopelessly broken.

The Duchess of Parma, who had demanded her release from the odious position of a cipher in a land where she had so lately been sovereign, at last obtained it, and took her departure in December for Parma, thus finally closing her eventful career in the Netherlands. The Duke of Alva took up his position as governor-general, and amongst his first works was the erection of the celebrated citadel of Antwerp, not to protect, but to control the commercial capital of the provinces.

Events marched swiftly. On February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted; and a proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.

The Prince of Orange at last threw down the gauntlet, and published a reply to the active condemnation which had been pronounced against him in default of appearance before the Blood Council. It would, he said, be both death and degradation to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the infamous "Council of Blood," and he scorned to plead before he knew not what base knaves, not fit to be the valets of his companions and himself.

Preparations were at once made to levy troops and wage war against Philip's forces in the Netherlands. Then followed the long, ghastly struggle between the armies raised by the Prince of Orange and his brother, Count Louis of Nassau, who lost his life mysteriously at the battle of Mons, and those of Alva and the other governors-general who succeeded him--Don Louis de Requesens, the "Grand Commander," Don John of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The records of butcheries and martyrdoms, including those during the sack and burning of Antwerp by the mutinous Spanish soldiery, are only relieved by the heroic exploits of the patriotic armies and burghers in the memorable defences of Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmaar, and Mons. At one time it seemed that the Prince of Orange and his forces were about to secure a complete triumph; but the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris brought depression to the patriotic army and corresponding spirit to the Spanish armies, and the gleam faded. The most extraordinary feature of Alva's civil administration were his fiscal decrees, which imposed taxes that utterly destroyed the trade and manufactures of the country.

There were endless negotiations inspired by the States-General, the German Emperor, and the governments of France and England to secure peace and a settlement of the Netherlands affairs, but these, owing mostly to insincere diplomacy, were ineffective.

_V.--The Union of the Provinces_

In the meantime, the union of Holland and Zealand had been accomplished, with the Prince of Orange as sovereign. The representatives of various provinces thereafter met with deputies from Holland and Zealand in Utrecht in January, 1579, and agreed to a treaty of union which was ever after regarded as the foundation of the Netherlands Republic. The contracting provinces agreed to remain eternally united, while each was to retain its particular privileges, liberties, customs, and laws. All the provinces were to unite to defend each other with life, goods, and blood against all forces brought against them in the king's name, and against all foreign potentates. The treaty also provided for religious peace and toleration. The Union of Utrecht was the foundation of the Netherlands Republic, which lasted two centuries.

For two years there were a series of desultory military operations and abortive negotiations for peace, including an attempt--which failed--to purchase the Prince of Orange. The assembly of the united provinces met at The Hague on July 26, 1581, and solemnly declared their independence of Philip and renounced their allegiance for ever. This act, however, left the country divided into three portions--the Walloon or reconciled provinces; the united provinces under Anjou; and the northern provinces under Orange.

Early in February, 1582, the Duke of Anjou arrived in the Netherlands from England with a considerable train. The articles of the treaty under which he was elected sovereign as Duke of Brabant made as stringent and as sensible a constitutional compact as could be desired by any Netherland patriot. Taken in connection with the ancient charters, which they expressly upheld, they left to the new sovereign no vestige of arbitrary power. He was the hereditary president of a representative republic.