Part 5

Peace having been concluded, in 1559 the king prepared to return to Spain, where his surroundings would be much more congenial. He appointed Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of the emperor Charles the Fifth and consequently his own half sister, regent of the Netherlands, but all real authority was confided to the bishop of Arras, afterwards widely known as Cardinal Granvelle. This man was a staunch absolutist in politics, and could be depended upon to carry out the king’s wishes to the utmost of his ability. And the dearest wish of the king was to extirpate the new doctrines in religion, which he clearly saw would tend to produce a far more liberal system of government than he approved of. Among the appointments made before he left was that of William prince of Orange to be stadholder of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht, but subject to the authority of the duchess of Parma, who was to be guided by the bishop of Arras.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

Against the entreaties and protests of the estates, Philippe left in the Netherlands four thousand Spanish soldiers, the most highly disciplined troops in Europe at that time.

Previous to this date, excepting the sovereign bishop of Liege,[21] whose territory was independent and therefore not then included in the provinces, there had only been four bishops in the whole of the Netherlands: one in Utrecht in what is now the kingdom of Holland, one at Tournai in the present kingdom of Belgium, and two at Arras and Cambrai in territory since annexed to France. Philippe obtained from the pope a bull increasing the number to three archbishops and fifteen bishops, of whom one archbishop at Utrecht and six bishops at Haarlem, Middelburg, Leeuwarden, Groningen, Deventer, and ’s Hertogenbosch, were to be stationed in the northern provinces, now the kingdom of Holland. Each was to have inquisitors serving under him.

[Sidenote: Dissatisfaction of the People.]

These measures gave intense dissatisfaction to the whole body of the people, nobles, burghers, and artisans alike. There was not a single Protestant noble in the country at the time, and the great majority of the people were still adherents of the Roman church, but Catholics and Calvinists alike were opposed to persecution in matters of faith and to the erection of ecclesiastical power upon the ruins of civil liberty. Still the king[22] would not yield, and the people were as yet indisposed to resist in arms. Perhaps they did not know their own strength, and over-estimated that opposed to them. There was no such thing either as political union among them. Seventeen states jealous of each other, and each important state containing rival towns, presented to a despot a field that could be easily worked. Still greater suffering was needed before the people could unite against the murderous hand that was raised to crush them.

After a time the Spanish soldiers, who were needed elsewhere, were withdrawn, but matters went on no better afterwards. The whole hatred of the country was turned against Cardinal Granvelle, who was believed to be the instigator of all the evil, and at length the duchess Margaret grew to detest him also, so that Philippe was obliged to recall him. He left the Netherlands in March 1564, and after a short period of retirement, was employed by the king in still higher offices.

The government of the duchess Margaret was corrupt, though perhaps not more so than that of some other administrations of the time. Offices were sold to the highest bidder by her secretary, and she as well as he profited by such transactions. Under such circumstances the courts of law were venal, and judgment in civil cases was usually in favour of him who had the longest purse. A man who had to pay a large sum of money for his office was obliged to try to recover his capital by some means, and as that could not be done honestly, he was open to receive bribes. In the great agony caused by the inquisition, however, this evil was hardly considered as one of importance, and is only casually referred to by the chroniclers of the time.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The great number of persons burnt, buried alive, and strangled by the inquisitors had the opposite effect to that which King Philippe intended. Instead of stamping out the reformation, its doctrines were spreading more rapidly month after month, until mass meetings of thousands of people were openly held in the fields outside the towns to listen to the preaching of some earnest and eloquent reformer. The men on such occasions usually went armed and determined to defend their pastors and themselves, but if need should be, they were ready to face death in its most appalling forms for the sake of what they believed to be truth.

Another effect of the inquisition was to destroy the material prosperity of the country. Flanders had long been the leading cloth manufactory of Europe, it was there that wool, imported chiefly from England, was converted by spinning wheels and handlooms into the choicest cloths. Nowhere else were spinning, weaving, dyeing, and pressing so well understood or so skilfully practised as in the Flemish towns. But now persecution drove those industrious artisans out of the country. They fled to England, where Queen Elizabeth permitted them to settle, and it was they who in East Anglia gave to the country that adopted and protected them the preëminence in woollen manufactures which she retains to this day. A very few years later, instead of exporting raw wool and importing cloth, England was sending to Flanders the products of Anglo-Flemish looms. This was not the only industry that persecution drove from the provinces to other lands, but it was the most important.

[Sidenote: Destruction of Church Property.]

All parties in politics and in religion find it necessary to adopt an expressive name, under which their adherents can rally, and it was at this time that the opponents of despotic government took to themselves the renowned title of Beggars, that was to be heard as a war cry on land and sea long years afterwards. On the 8th of April 1566 three hundred gentlemen presented a petition to the duchess Margaret, when a member of her council spoke of them as beggars. That evening at a banquet Count Brederode proposed that the title should be adopted, which was enthusiastically agreed to by those present, and quickly spread over the provinces. At first it had no religious signification, for both Catholics and Protestants who favoured the preservation of constitutional rights termed themselves Gueux, but in course of time it was applied almost exclusively to the adherents of the reformed or Calvinistic faith.

In such circumstances as those in which the Netherlands were then placed, excesses are usually committed by the most fanatical section of the suffering party, and it was so in this instance. In August 1566 a disorderly mob took possession of the great cathedral of Antwerp, one of the most beautiful and stately buildings in Europe, threw down all the statues in it, broke the stained glass windows, demolished the ornaments of every kind, and generally wrecked the interior of the edifice. Only a few hundred men were actually engaged in the work of destruction, but many thousands looked on with indifference, and many more with satisfaction, accounting the decorations of the cathedral as symbols of the terrible inquisition. This example was followed throughout the southern provinces, and a great number of churches were treated in the same manner as Antwerp cathedral had been. Yet there was not a single instance of violence offered to any individual, or of plunder of any article whatever. The gold and silver implements of the churches were battered and made useless, but were then thrown on the floors and left.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The fury of Philippe was now thoroughly aroused, and means were forwarded to the regent Margaret to raise a body of troops and suppress disorder. The most powerful of the southern nobles ranged themselves on the side of despotism. On the 13th of March 1567 a body of three thousand Beggars who were posted near Antwerp was utterly annihilated, and on the 23rd of the same month the ancient city of Valenciennes, which had defied the government, was taken and reduced to submission. The factions in Antwerp were ready to spring at each other’s throats, but were induced by the prince of Orange to keep the peace. The regent Margaret agreed to conditions which gave the Protestants some protection, but her word was not to be depended upon, and much less was that of King Philippe, who was the very incarnation of deceit and treachery. For a few weeks now there was an appearance of calm, but it was only the prelude to the most terrible storm that ever swept over any portion of modern Europe.

Ten thousand veteran Spanish troops, the most highly disciplined and best armed soldiers in the world, were sent by Philippe as the nucleus of a powerful army to subjugate the Netherlands. At their head was the bloodthirsty duke of Alva, then sixty years of age, whose life had been spent in war, and who was the most skilful strategist of his day. Alva! what a curse rests upon his name in all countries where men set a value upon justice and freedom! As pitiless as Tshaka in South Africa, as treacherous as Dingan, he stands out in the history of the Netherlands as a cold-blooded murderer, a malignant fiend in human form. His commission as the king’s captain-general was issued on the 31st of January 1567, and his instructions were in keeping with his disposition and character.

The nucleus or advance guard of the army was assembled in Italy, and marched by way of Mont Cenis and through Savoy, Burgundy, and Lorraine to Thionville, then a town of the Netherlands, now included in France. In August 1567 it crossed the border, and continued its march to Brussels, meeting with no opposition on the way. Alva at once placed garrisons in the principal towns, and commenced the erection of fortresses to overawe them, the principal of which was the famous citadel of Antwerp. He sent letters to the different cities, signed by the king, commanding them to render absolute obedience to him. The next step was the arrest and close confinement of as many of the nobles as he could get hold of who had at any time opposed any arbitrary act of the sovereign. The counts Egmont and Hoorn were entrapped by letters to them from the king, praising their conduct and declaring his confidence in them. Conscious of having done no wrong, and lulled into a feeling of security by these assurances from Philippe, they placed themselves in the power of Alva, and found themselves his prisoners.

[Sidenote: Proceedings of the Duke of Alva.]

Then was established that murderous mockery of a tribunal, known as the Council of Blood. It was composed of a number of creatures of Alva, some of whom were Flemish nobles of the worst type ready to pour out the blood of their countrymen at his bidding, others Spaniards of the same character. It dispensed with legal formalities, and made nought of charters and privileges. The whole population of the Netherlands was at its mercy. Its agents sent in lists of names, and with hardly a pretence of examination, men, scores of men at a time, were sentenced to confiscation of all their property and death on the scaffold. This infamous Council of Blood met for the first time on the 20th of September 1567 in an apartment of Alva’s residence in Brussels. His intention was to crush out all opposition to absolutism, to exterminate all adherents of the reformed religion, and to raise a large revenue by confiscation of property.

Everyone who valued freedom and could flee from the provinces did so now without delay. The neighbouring German states were crowded with refugees, and in many Flemish and Dutch towns industry entirely ceased, for artisans and mechanics had abandoned them in despair. It is highly probable that the larger number of those so-called Germans who settled in South Africa in later years were really descendants of Netherlanders who left their fatherland at this time.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

Margaret of Parma was nominally regent still, but on the 9th of December 1567 she resigned, and the monster Alva became governor-general of the provinces.

The prince of Orange, his brothers Louis and Adolf of Nassau, Count Hoogstraaten, and several other nobles of less note had retired into Germany before the arrival of the Spanish troops. Alva confiscated their property in the Netherlands, but they had possessions beyond the border which he could not reach. They had been faithful subjects of Philippe to this time, though they had striven by peaceful means to preserve the constitutions of the provinces, but now they could not look calmly on while the very life was being trampled out of their country. In April 1568 Orange engaged troops in Germany, and sent three small armies into the Netherlands in hope that the people would rise in a body and assist to drive the Spaniards out. But he was disappointed. The people were for the moment completely cowed. Two of his armies were utterly annihilated by the disciplined Spanish troops, and though the third, commanded by his brother Louis, gained a victory at Heiligerlee, near Winschoten, in the province of Groningen, it led to no substantial result. Count Adolf of Nassau fell in this battle. So the war for freedom began, a war that was carried on without intermission for forty-one years.

Alva with an overpowering force marched against Count Louis, and on the 21st of July 1568 attacked him at Jemmingen, a village on the left bank of the Ems near its entrance into the Dollart, within the German border. It was not so much a battle as a slaughter that followed. Of ten thousand men under his command, the count lost seven thousand slain, and with difficulty made his escape from the disastrous field while the remainder were scattering in every direction. Alva then proceeded to Utrecht, where he reviewed an army of thirty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry, a force that he believed sufficient to overawe the whole of the northern provinces.

[Sidenote: Successes of Alva.]

Early in October the prince of Orange invaded Brabant from Germany with thirty thousand men, of whom nine thousand were cavalry. Many of these were undisciplined refugees, but some were trained German soldiers. Several smaller bands joined the prince subsequently, though not a city opened its gates to him, so great was the terror that Alva inspired. The difficulty of providing food for such a number of men for any length of time was insurmountable, and the Spanish general therefore did not choose to risk an engagement, but watched his opponent closely. On one occasion, on the 20th of October, he was able to cut off a rearguard of three thousand men under Count Hoogstraaten, and nearly exterminated them. Hoogstraaten himself escaped, but died of a wound a few days afterwards. The prince of Orange, disappointed in his expectation of a general rising, and without a single stronghold as a base of operations, was obliged to retreat to Germany and disband his troops. He had spent all the money he could raise, and was heavily in debt. Nothing could have been gloomier than the prospect then before him, but he still cherished hope and trusted in God. He had passed through different stages of religious belief, but did not openly join the Calvinist church until October 1573.

The first campaign in the war of freedom had thus terminated entirely in favour of the Spaniards.

On the 5th of June of this year 1568 an event took place which more than all the blood of humble citizens that had been shed drew the attention of civilised Europe to what was transpiring in the Netherlands. This was the death on the scaffold in the great square of Brussels of the counts Egmont and Hoorn, who had been condemned by the Council of Blood for having been somewhat dilatory in upholding despotism. They were both earnest Catholics, and Egmont in particular had rendered great services to the king. He was the general who had won the victories of Saint Quentin and Gravelines. But the death of these prominent noblemen was resolved upon by Philippe, because it would strike terror into all classes, and would prove that the least hesitation to carry out any of his wishes would meet with the most terrible punishment. All their possessions were confiscated. Their death had no effect upon the patriotic cause, except for the horror which it created abroad, as they were not the men to throw in their lot with William of Orange in resistance to tyranny.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The baron Montigny, brother of Count Hoorn, had been sent with the marquis Berghen to Madrid in May 1566 by the regent Margaret of Parma to represent to Philippe the ruin which the inquisition was bringing upon the Netherlands and the difficulty caused by it to her administration. They were instructed to suggest its abolition and the modification of the king’s edicts. Both of these noblemen were devout Catholics, and were most faithful subjects of their sovereign. They might have reasoned that if his sister and representative was compelled by force of circumstances to pause in the deadly work, they could not be blamed for acting under her instructions. The king received them apparently in a friendly manner. But they were not permitted to return, and after a time were placed in confinement. Berghen died, it was reported of home sickness, but many believed by violent means. Montigny was kept a prisoner more than four years, was then in his absence condemned to death by the Council of Blood for favouring heresy, and on the 16th of October 1570 was strangled privately by order of the king.

An awful calamity, but not by the hand of man, overtook the Northern Netherlands in the year 1570. In a gale of tremendous violence on the first and second of November of this year the sea was driven high upon the coast, the dykes burst in many places, and the waters poured over the land. Fully a hundred thousand persons were drowned, and property to an immense amount was destroyed.

[Sidenote: Imposition of Heavy Taxes.]

And now came another trouble. Alva had been disappointed in his expectations of an abundant revenue from the confiscation of property, for much as he gathered by that means, the cost of maintenance of his army and the charges of his administration were so enormous that his treasury was always empty, and creditors had become clamorous. To remedy this defect, he imposed taxes of one per cent of the value of all property in the country, to be paid only once, of five per cent transfer duty on all land and houses sold thereafter, and of ten per cent on every movable article that should be sold. This last tax was regarded by the people as equivalent to a prohibition to carry on trade of any kind, it affected every one, and in many of the towns the shops as well as the wholesale stores, even the breweries, the butcheries, and the bakeries were closed. The streets swarmed with mendicants, and riots were only suppressed by military force. If he had tried to compel the people to take part with William of Orange, the governor-general could not have devised a more efficient plan.

II.

THE WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS TO THE UNION OF UTRECHT.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

Many of the men who had been obliged to leave their homes had turned to the sea for refuge. Legitimate commerce could not absorb them all, even if it had been flourishing as formerly, and so in their desperate condition they became buccaneers. The prince of Orange took advantage of this, and issued a commission to a reckless fugitive noble named William de la Marck to act as his admiral and attack Spanish ships wherever he could find them. De la Marck was a distant relative of Egmont, and had sworn not to clip his hair or beard till he had avenged the count’s death. In March 1572 he was lying at anchor at Dover with a fleet of twenty-four vessels, when by order of Queen Elizabeth all supplies of provisions were refused to him. He was then compelled to do something desperate at once, or starve, so he resolved to sail to Enkhuizen, and try to get possession of that port. The wind failed him, however, so on the 1st of April he put into the Maas and anchored in front of Brill (Brielle), a walled and fortified town on the island of Voorne. The Spanish garrison had just been sent to Utrecht. The Sea Beggars were only a few hundred in number, but Pieter Koppelstok, who was sent by De la Marck to demand the surrender of the town, when questioned as to their strength replied about five thousand. The authorities and adherents of the government fled in fear, and the half-famished rovers battered in the gates and took possession of the place. This was the beginning of the second campaign against the Spaniards.

It could not be expected that the Sea Beggars, after their wrongs and their sufferings, would act very gently with their opponents, but the ferocity which they displayed on this occasion cannot be excused or passed lightly over. They broke all the altars, statues, and ornaments in the churches, dressed themselves in clerical robes, and barbarously put to death thirteen priests and monks who had not been able to make their escape. A Spanish force was sent from Utrecht to recover Brill, but was beaten off with considerable loss. De la Marck was then of opinion that the place should be abandoned, but Captain Treslong, whose father had once been governor of the town, induced him to continue to hold it and to rally the patriots around him there, who quickly came in and joined him.

[Sidenote: Successes of the Sea Beggars.]

As soon as intelligence of the repulse of the Spaniards from Brill reached Flushing (Vlissingen), that important town declared for the prince of Orange, and sent to De la Marck to beg for assistance. Two hundred Sea Beggars, all in clerical garments, were thereupon forwarded in three vessels, and quickly reached their destination. Here also an act of inexcusable barbarity took place. The engineer who had constructed the citadel of Antwerp, Pacheco by name, had just arrived in Flushing to erect a fortress there. He was seized and at once hanged with two other Spanish officers. With the town half the island of Walcheren went over to the patriot cause, and very shortly a strong force of Beggars, aided by some French soldiers and English volunteers, assembled there to protect it.

The example thus set was speedily followed by most of the towns that were not overawed by powerful Spanish garrisons in the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland. Amsterdam, Middelburg, Goes, Arnemuide, Utrecht, and a few others were too strongly garrisoned to be able to rise. In some of the towns the change was made without bloodshed, in others the most barbarous cruelties were practised on both sides, for passion had taken the place of reason and charity. The revolted towns declared that they remained faithful to King Philippe as count of Holland, etc., that the ancient charters conferring rights and privileges were restored, that there was perfect freedom for both the Roman Catholic and Reformed religions, that they accepted the prince of Orange as stadholder for the sovereign of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and that they repudiated the duke of Alva, the inquisition, and the tax on commerce.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]