THE TWELVE YEARS' TRUCE
The truce of 1609-21 was used by the Government and the people to
restore as far as possible the economic prosperity of the Catholic
Netherlands. The relative success with which these efforts were crowned
shows that some energy was left in the country, in spite of the
blockade imposed on her trade and of the emigration of some of her most
prominent sons to the United Provinces. It is a common mistake to
presume that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, all
economic and intellectual life left the Southern provinces and was
absorbed by the Northern. The contrast was indeed striking between the
young republic which was becoming the first maritime Power in Europe
and the mother-country from which it had been torn, and which had
ceased to occupy a prominent rank in European affairs. A medal was
struck, in 1587, showing, on one side, symbols of want and misery,
applied to the Catholic Netherlands, and, on the other, symbols of
riches and prosperity, applied to the Northern Netherlands, whilst the
inscriptions made it clear that these were the punishment of the
impious and the reward of the faithful. But a careful study of the
period would show that her most valuable treasure, the stubborn energy
of her people, did not desert Belgium during this critical period, and
that in a remarkably short time she succeeded in rebuilding her home,
or at least those parts of it which she was allowed to repair.
At the end of the sixteenth century the situation, especially in
Flanders and Brabant, was pitiful. The dikes were pierced, the polders
were flooded and by far the greater part of the cultivated area left
fallow. The amount of unclaimed land was so large in Flanders that the
first new-comer was allowed to till it. Wild beasts had invaded the
country, and only a mile from Ghent travellers were attacked by wolves.
Bands of robbers infested the land, and in 1599 an order was issued to
fell all the woods along roads and canals, in order to render
travelling more secure. In Brabant, many villages had lost more than
half their houses, the mills were destroyed and the flocks scattered.
The conditions in several of the towns were still worse. At Ghent the
famine was so acute among the poor that they even ate the garbage
thrown in the streets. The population of Antwerp, from 100,000 in the
fifteenth century, had fallen to 56,948 in 1645. Lille, on account of
its industry, and Brussels, owing to the presence of the court, were
the only centres which succeeded in maintaining their prosperity. The
excesses of the foreign garrisons, often ill-paid and living on the
population, added still further to the misery. The English traveller
Overbury, who visited the seventeen provinces at the beginning of the
truce, declared that, as soon as he had passed the frontier, he found
"a Province distressed with Warre; the people heartlesse, and rather
repining against their Governours, then revengefull against the
Enemies, the bravery of that Gentrie which was left, and the Industry
of the Merchant quite decayed; the Husbandman labouring only to live,
without desire to be rich to another's use; the Townes (whatsoever
concerned not the strength of them) ruinous; And to conclude, the
people here growing poore with lesse taxes, then they flourish with on
the States side."
[_BLOCKADE_]
The truce had declared the re-establishment of commercial liberty, but
the blockade of the coast remained as stringent as ever. Flushing,
Middleburg and Amsterdam had inherited the transit trade of Antwerp,
now completely abandoned by foreign merchants. In 1609 only two Genoese
and one merchant from Lucca remained in the place, while the last
Portuguese and English were taking their departure. The Exchange was
now so completely deserted that, in 1648, it was used as a library. The
docks were only frequented by a few Dutch boats which brought their
cargo of corn and took away manufactured articles. Any foreign boat
laden for Antwerp was obliged to discharge its cargo in Zeeland, the
Dutch merchant fleet monopolizing the trade of the Scheldt.
The Belgians could not alter this situation themselves. They could only
appeal to Spanish help, and Spain was neither in a situation nor in a
mood to help them. Most of its naval forces had been destroyed during
the Armada adventure, and neither the few galleys brought by Spinola to
Sluis, before the taking of this town by Maurice of Nassau (1604), nor
the privateers from Dunkirk were able to do more than harass Dutch
trade. With the defeat of the reorganized Spanish fleet at the Battle
of the Downs, the last hope of seeing the Dutch blockade raised
vanished. Not only was the Lower Scheldt firmly held, but enemy ships
cruised permanently outside Ostend, Nieuport and Dunkirk. The attempts
made by the Government to counter these measures by the closing of the
land frontier were equally doomed to failure, since the Dutch did not
depend in any way on their Belgian market, while the Belgians needed
the corn imported from the Northern provinces. The extraordinary
indifference of the Spanish kings to the trade of their Northern
possessions is made evident by the fact that, while the treaty of 1609
allowed the Dutch to trade with the Indies, it was only thirty-one
years later that the Belgians received the same permission.
Thwarted in this direction, the activity of the people and of the
Government concentrated on industry and agriculture. Dikes were
rebuilt, marshes drained and cattle brought into the country. Though
trade had been ruined, the raw material remained. The region of
Valenciennes, Tournai and Lille was the first to recover. The wool
which could no longer come through Antwerp was imported from Rouen, a
staple being fixed at St. Omer. In 1597 an enthusiastic contemporary
compared Lille to a small Antwerp. The Walloon provinces had been less
severely tried, and the coal industry, as well as the foundries, in the
Meuse valley soon recovered their former activity. Tapestry-making was
also resumed in Oudenarde and Brussels, copper-working in Malines,
dyeing in Antwerp and linen-weaving in the Flemish country districts.
But the economic upheaval caused by the civil wars had given the
death-blow to the decaying town industries, paralysed by the regime of
the corporations. The coppersmiths of Dinant and Namur were now
completely ruined, and the cloth industry in Ghent had become so
insignificant that, in 1613, the cloth hall of the town was ceded to
the society of the "Fencers of St. Michael." Rural industry and
capitalist organization, which had made such strides at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, had now definitely superseded mediaeval
institutions.
It was on the same lines that the new industries which developed in the
country at the time were organized by their promoters. The manufacture
of silk stuffs started in Antwerp, while the State attempted the
cultivation of mulberry-trees to provide raw material. Similar
attention was devoted by Albert and Isabella to lace-making, which
produced one of the most important articles of export. Glass furnaces
were established in Ghent, Liege and Hainault, paper-works in Huy, the
manufacture of iron cauldrons began in Liege, and soap factories and
distilleries were set up in other places.
[_NEW CANALS_]
The solicitude of the central Government was not limited to industry.
Roads and canals were repaired all over the country and new important
public works were undertaken. Though the project of a Rhine-Scheldt
Canal, favoured by Isabella, had to be given up owing to Dutch
opposition, the canals from Bruges to Ghent (1614), from Bruges to
Ostend (1624-66) and from Bruges to Ypres (1635-39) were completed at
this time. Navigation on the Dendre was also improved, and it was in
1656 that the project was made to connect Brussels with the province of
Hainault by a waterway. This plan was only realized a century later.
The conditions prevailing in the Catholic Low Countries during the
first part of the seventeenth century were, therefore, on the whole,
favourable. With regard to world trade and foreign politics the country
was entirely paralysed, but the activity of the people and the
solicitude of the sovereigns succeeded in realizing the economic
restoration of the country as far as this restoration depended upon
them. The real economic decadence of Belgium did not occur on the date
of the separation, but fifty years later, during the second half of the
seventeenth century, when its exports were reduced by the protective
tariffs of France, when the Thirty Years' War ruined the German market
and when Spain remained the only country open for its produce.
[_SOCIAL LIFE_]
This relative prosperity extended beyond the twelve years of the truce.
For, even when hostilities were resumed, they did not deeply affect the
life of the nation, most of the operations being limited to the
frontier. Some Belgian historians have drawn a very flattering picture
of this period and extolled the personal qualities of Albert and
Isabella. We must, however, realize that, in spite of the archduke's
good intentions, the promises made at the peace of Arras were not kept,
that the States General were only twice assembled and that all the
political guarantees obtained by the patriots from Farnese were
disregarded. Spanish garrisons remained in the country and the
representatives of the people had no control over the expenditure. In
fact, Belgium was nearer to having an absolutist monarchical regime
than it had ever been before. The Council of State was only assembled
to conciliate the nobility, whose loyalty was still further encouraged
by the granting of honours, such as that of the Order of the Golden
Fleece, and entrusting to them missions to foreign countries. The
upper bourgeoisie, on the other hand, were largely permitted to enter
the ranks of the nobility by receiving titles. From 1602 to 1638 no
less than forty-one estates were raised to the rank of counties,
marquisates and principalities, and a contemporary writer complains
that "as many nobles are made now in one year as formerly in a
hundred." It was among these new nobles, or would-be nobles, who
constituted a class very similar to that of the English gentry of the
same period, that the State recruited the officers of its army and many
officials, whose loyalty was, of course, ensured.
No opposition was likely from the ranks of the clergy. The new
bishoprics founded by Philip II had been reconstituted and the bishops
selected by the king exercised strict discipline in their dioceses.
Besides, all religious orders were now united by the necessity of
opposing a common front to the attacks of the Protestants, and they
felt that the fate of the religion was intimately bound up with that of
the dynasty. The principle of the Divine right of Kings was opposed to
the doctrine of the right of the people to choose their monarch
propounded by the Monarchomaques, and Roman Catholics were, by then,
attached to the monarchy just as Calvinists were attached to the
Republic. The experiences of the last century prevented any return to
the situation existing under Charles V, when, on certain questions, the
clergy were inclined to side with the people against the prince. The
close alliance of Church and State had now become an accomplished fact,
and was destined to influence Belgian politics right up to modern
times. The loyalty of the people was even stimulated by this alliance,
the work of public charity being more and more taken from the communal
authorities to be monopolized by the clergy. Attendance at church and,
for children, at catechism and Sunday school was encouraged by
benevolence, the distribution of prizes and small favours, while
religious slackness or any revolutionary tendency implied a loss of all
similar advantages. Here, again, the skilful propaganda against heresy
constituted a powerful weapon in the hands of the State. It must, in
all fairness, be added that charity contributed greatly to relieve the
misery so widespread during the first years of the century, and that
the people were genuinely grateful to such orders as the Recollets and
the Capuchins, who resumed the work undertaken with such enthusiasm by
the Minor Orders in the previous centuries. They visited the prisoners
and the sick, sheltered the insane and the destitute, and even
undertook such public duties as those of firemen. These efforts soon
succeeded in obliterating the last traces of Calvinist and republican
tendencies, which had never succeeded in affecting the bulk of the
population.
As a modern sovereign, bent on increasing the power of the State,
Archduke Albert resented the encroachments of the clergy, as Charles V
had done before him. But he was as powerless to extricate himself from
the circumstances which identified the interests of his internal policy
with those of the Church, as to liberate himself from the severe
restrictions with which the Spanish regime paralysed his initiative in
foreign matters.