a strange transformation. A drowsy placid little village--with a modest
parish spire peeping above a clump of poplars, and with half a dozen
cottages, with storks nests on their roofs, sprinkled here and there
among pastures and orchards--suddenly saw itself changed as it were into
a thriving bustling town; for, saving the white tents which dotted the
green turf in every direction, the aspect of the scene was, for a time,
almost pacific. It was as if, some great manufacturing enterprise had
been set on foot, and the world had suddenly awoke to the hidden
capabilities of the situation.
A great dockyard and arsenal suddenly revealed themselves--rising like an
exhalation--where ship-builders, armourers, blacksmiths, joiners,
carpenters, caulkers, gravers, were hard at work all day long. The din
and hum of what seemed a peaceful industry were unceasing. From Kalloo,
Parma dug a canal twelve miles long to a place called Steeken, hundreds
of pioneers being kept constantly at work with pick and spade till it
was completed. Through this artificial channel--so soon as Ghent and
Dendermonde had fallen--came floats of timber, fleets of boats laden with
provisions of life and munitions of death, building-materials, and every
other requisite for the great undertaking, all to be disembarked at
Kalloo. The object was a temporary and destructive one, but it remains a
monument of the great general's energy and a useful public improvement.
The amelioration of the fenny and barren soil, called the Waesland, is
dated from that epoch; and the spot in Europe which is the most prolific,
and which nourishes the largest proportion of inhabitants to the square
mile, is precisely the long dreary swamp which the Prince thus drained
for military purposes, and converted into a garden. Drusus and Corbulo,
in the days of the Roman Empire, had done the same good service for their
barbarian foes.
At Kalloo itself, all the shipwrights, cutlers, masons, brass-founders,
rope-makers, anchor-forgers, sailors, boatmen, of Flanders and Brabant,
with a herd of bakers, brewers, and butchers, were congregated by express
order of Parma. In the little church itself the main workshop was
established, and all day long, week after week, month after month, the
sound of saw and hammer, adze and plane, the rattle of machinery, the cry
of sentinels, the cheers of mariners, resounded, where but lately had
been heard nothing save the drowsy homily and the devout hymn of rustic
worship.
Nevertheless the summer and autumn wore on, and still the bridge was
hardly commenced. The navigation of the river--although impeded and
rendered dangerous by the forts which Parma held along the banks--was
still open; and, so long as the price of corn in Antwerp remained three
or four times as high as the sum for which it could be purchased in
Holland and Zeeland, there were plenty of daredevil skippers ready to
bring cargoes. Fleets of fly-boats, convoyed by armed vessels, were
perpetually running the gauntlet. Sharp actions on shore between the
forts of the patriots and those of Parma, which were all intermingled
promiscuously along the banks, and amphibious and most bloody encounters
on ship-board, dyke, and in the stream itself, between the wild
Zeelanders and the fierce pikemen of Italy and Spain, were of repeated
occurrence. Many a lagging craft fell into the enemy's hands, when, as a
matter of course, the men, women, and children, on board, were horribly
mutilated by the Spaniards, and were then sent drifting in their boat
with the tide--their arms, legs, and ears lopped off up to the city, in
order that--the dangerous nature of this provision-trade might be fully
illustrated.
Yet that traffic still went on. It would have continued until Antwerp
had been victualled for more than a year, had not the city authorities,
in the plentitude of their wisdom, thought proper to issue orders for its
regulation. On the 25th October (1584) a census was taken, when the
number of persons inside the walls was found to be ninety thousand. For
this population it was estimated that 300,000 veertell, or about 900,000
bushels of corn, would be required annually. The grain was coming in
very fast, notwithstanding the perilous nature of the trade; for wheat
could be bought in Holland for fifty florins the last, or about fifteen
pence sterling the bushel, while it was worth five or six florins
the veertel, or about four shillings the bushel, in Antwerp.
The magistrates now committed a folly more stupendous than it seemed
possible for human creatures, under such circumstances, to compass. They
established a maximum upon corn. The skippers who had run their cargoes
through the gauntlet, all the way from Flushing to Antwerp, found on
their arrival, that, instead of being rewarded, according to the natural
laws of demand and supply, they were required to exchange their wheat,
rye, butter, and beef, against the exact sum which the Board of Schepens
thought proper to consider a reasonable remuneration. Moreover, in order
to prevent the accumulation of provisions in private magazines, it was
enacted, that all consumers of grain should be compelled to make their
purchases directly from the ships. These two measures were almost as
fatal as the preservation of the Blaw-garen Dyke, in the interest of the
butchers. Winter and famine were staring the city in the face, and the
maximum now stood sentinel against the gate, to prevent the admission of
food. The traffic ceased without a struggle. Parma himself could not
have better arranged the blockade.
Meantime a vast and almost general inundation had taken place. The
aspect of the country for many miles around was strange and desolate.
The sluices had been opened in the neighbourhood of Saftingen, on, the
Flemish side, so that all the way from Hulst the waters were out, and
flowed nearly to the gates of Antwerp. A wide and shallow sea rolled
over the fertile plains, while church-steeples, the tops of lofty trees,
and here and there the turrets of a castle, scarcely lifted themselves
above the black waters; the peasants' houses, the granges, whole rural
villages, having entirely disappeared. The high grounds of Doel, of
Kalloo, and Beveren, where Alexander was established, remained out of
reach of the flood. Far below, on the opposite side of the river, other
sluices had been opened, and the sea had burst over the wide, level
plain. The villages of Wilmerdonk, Orderen, Ekeren, were changed to
islands in the ocean, while all the other hamlets, for miles around, were
utterly submerged.
Still, however, the Blaw-garen Dyke and its companion the Kowenstyn
remained obstinately above the waters, forming a present and more fatal
obstruction to the communication between Antwerp and Zeeland than would
be furnished even by the threatened and secretly-advancing bridge across
the Scheldt. Had Orange's prudent advice been taken, the city had been
safe. Over the prostrate dykes, whose destruction he had so warmly
urged, the ocean would have rolled quite to the gates of Antwerp, and it
would have been as easy to bridge the North Sea as to control the free
navigation of the patriots over so wide a surface.
When it was too late, the butchers, and colonels, and captains, became
penitent enough. An order was passed, by acclamation, in November, to do
what Orange had recommended in June. It was decreed that the Blaw-garen
and the Kowenstyn should be pierced. Alas, the hour had long gone by.
Alexander of Parma was not the man to undertake the construction of a
bridge across the river, at a vast expense, and at the same time to
permit the destruction of the already existing barrier. There had been a
time for such a deed. The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, who had a castle and
manor on and near the dyke which bore his name, had repeatedly urged upon
the Antwerp magistracy the propriety of piercing this bulwark, even after
their refusal to destroy the outer barrier. Sainte Aldegonde, who
vehemently urged the measure, protested that his hair had stood on end,
when he found, after repeated entreaty, that the project was rejected.
The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, disgusted and indignant, forswore his
patriotism, and went over to Parma. The dyke fell into the hands of the
enemy. And now from Stabroek, where old Mansfeid lay with his army, all
the way across the flooded country, ran the great bulwark, strengthened
with new palisade-work and block-houses, bristling with Spanish cannon,
pike, and arquebus, even to the bank of the Scheldt, in the immediate
vicinity of Fort Lille. At the angle of its junction with the main dyke
of the river's bank, a strong fortress called Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) had
been constructed. That fortress and the whole line of the Kowenstyn were
held in the iron grip of Mondragon. To wrench it from him would be no
child's play. Five new strong redoubts upon the dyke, and five or six
thousand Spaniards established there, made the enterprise more formidable
than it would have been in June. It had been better to sacrifice the
twelve thousand oxen. Twelve thousand Hollanders might now be
slaughtered, and still the dyke remain above the waves.
Here was the key to the fate of Antwerp.
On the other hand, the opening of the Saftingen Sluice had done Parma's
work for him. Even there, too, Orange had been prophetic. Kalloo was
high and dry, but Alexander had experienced some difficulty in bringing a
fleet of thirty vessels, laden with cannon and other valuable materials,
from Ghent along the Scheldt, into his encampment, because it was
necessary for them, before reaching their destination, to pass in front
of Antwerp. The inundation, together with a rupture in the Dyke of
Borght, furnished him with a watery road; over which his fleet completely
avoided the city, and came in triumph to Kalloo.
Sainte Aldegonde, much provoked by this masterly movement on the part of
Parma, had followed the little squadron closely with some armed vessels
from the city. A sharp action had succeeded, in which the burgomaster,
not being properly sustained by the Zeeland ships on which he relied, had
been defeated. Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon behaved with so little spirit on
the occasion that he acquired with the Antwerp populace the name of "Run-
away Jacob," "Koppen gaet loppen;" and Sainte Aldegonde declared, that,
but for his cowardice, the fleet of Parma would have fallen into their
hands. The burgomaster himself narrowly escaped becoming a prisoner, and
owed his safety only to the swiftness of his barge, which was called the
"Flying Devil."
The patriots, in order to counteract similar enterprises in future, now
erected a sconce, which they called Fort Teligny; upon the ruptured dyke
of Borght, directly in front of the Borght blockhouse, belonging to the
Spaniards, and just opposite Fort Hoboken. Here, in this narrow passage,
close under the walls of Antwerp, where friends and foes were brought
closely, face to face, was the scene of many a sanguinary skirmish, from
the commencement of the siege until its close.
Still the bridge was believed to be a mere fable, a chimaera. Parma, men
said, had become a lunatic from pride. It was as easy to make the
Netherlands submit to the yoke of the Inquisition as to put a bridle on
the Scheldt. Its depth; breadth, the ice-floods of a northern winter,
the neighbourhood of the Zeeland fleets, the activity of the Antwerp
authorities, all were pledges that the attempt would be signally
frustrated.
And they should have been pledges--more than enough. Unfortunately,
however, there was dissension within, and no chieftain in the field, no
sage in the council, of sufficient authority to sustain the whole burthen
of the war, and to direct all the energies of the commonwealth. Orange
was dead. His son, one day to become the most illustrious military
commander in Europe, was a boy of seventeen, nominally captain-general,
but in reality but a youthful apprentice to his art. Hohenlo was wild,
wilful, and obstinate. Young William Lewis Nassau, already a soldier of
marked abilities, was fully occupied in Friesland, where he was
stadholder, and where he had quite enough to do in making head against
the Spanish governor and general, the veteran Verdugo: Military
operations against Zutphen distracted the attention of the States, which
should have been fixed upon Antwerp.
Admiral Treslong, as we have seen, was refractory, the cause of great
delinquency on the part of the fleets, and of infinite disaster to the
commonwealth. More than all, the French negotiation was betraying the
States into indolence and hesitation; and creating a schism between the
leading politicians of the country. Several thousand French troops,
under Monsieur d'Allaynes, were daily expected, but never arrived; and
thus, while English and French partisans were plotting and counter-
plotting, while a delusive diplomacy was usurping the place of
lansquenettes and gun-boats--the only possible agents at that moment to
preserve Antwerp--the bridge of Parma was slowly advancing. Before the
winter had closed in, the preparatory palisades had been finished.
Between Kalloo and Ordam, upon the opposite side, a sandbar had been
discovered in the river's bed, which diminished the depth of the stream,
and rendered the pile-driving comparatively easy. The breadth of the
Scheldt at this passage was twenty-four hundred feet; its depth, sixty
feet. Upon the Flemish side, near Kalloo, a strong fort was erected,
called Saint Mary, in honour of the blessed Virgin, to whom the whole
siege of Antwerp had been dedicated from the beginning. On the opposite
bank was a similar fort, flamed Philip, for the King. From each of these
two points, thus fortified, a framework of heavy timber, supported upon
huge piles, had been carried so far into the stream on either side that
the distance between the ends had at last been reduced to thirteen
hundred feet. The breadth of the roadway--formed of strong sleepers
firmly bound together--was twelve feet, along which block-houses of great
thickness were placed to defend the whole against assault.
Thus far the work had been comparatively easy. To bridge the remaining
open portion of the river, however, where its current was deepest and
strongest, and where the action of tide, tempest, and icebergs, would be
most formidable, seemed a desperate undertaking; for as the enterprise
advanced, this narrow open space became the scene of daily amphibious
encounters between the soldiers and sailors of Parma and the forces of
the States. Unfortunately for the patriots, it was only skirmishing.
Had a strong, concerted attack, in large force, from Holland and Zeeland
below and from the city above, been agreed upon, there was hardly a
period, until very late in the winter, when it might not have had the
best chances of success. With a vigorous commander against him, Parma,
weak in men, and at his wits' end for money, might, in a few hours, have
seen the labour of several months hopelessly annihilated. On the other
hand, the Prince was ably seconded by his lieutenant, Marquis Richebourg,
to whom had been delegated the immediate superintendence of the bridge-
building in its minutest details. He was never idle. Audacious,
indefatigable, ubiquitous, he at least atoned by energy and brilliant
courage for his famous treason of the preceding year, while his striking
and now rapidly approaching doom upon the very scene of his present
labours, made him appear to have been building a magnificent though
fleeting monument to his own memory.
Sainte Aldegonde, shut up in Antwerp, and hampered by dissension within
and obstinate jealousy without the walls, did all in his power to
frustrate the enemy's enterprise and animate the patriots. Through the
whole of the autumn and early winter, he had urged the States of Holland
and Zeeland to make use of the long winter nights, when moonless and
stormy, to attempt the destruction of Parma's undertaking, but the fatal
influences already indicated were more efficient against Antwerp than
even the genius of Farnese; and nothing came of the burgomaster's
entreaties save desultory skirmishing and unsuccessful enterprises. An
especial misfortune happened in one of these midnight undertakings.
Teligny ventured forth in a row-barge, with scarcely any companions, to
notify the Zeelanders of a contemplated movement, in which their co-
operation was desired. It was proposed that the Antwerp troops should
make a fictitious demonstration upon Fort Ordam, while at the same moment
the States' troops from Fort Lillo should make an assault upon the forts
on Kowenstyn Dyke; and in this important enterprise the Zeeland vessels
were requested to assist. But the brave Teligny nearly forfeited his
life by his rashness, and his services were, for a long time, lost to the
cause of liberty. It had been better to send a less valuable officer
upon such hazardous yet subordinate service. The drip of his oars was
heard in the darkness. He was pursued by a number of armed barges,
attacked, wounded severely in the shoulder, and captured. He threw his
letters overboard, but they were fished out of the water, carried to
Parma, and deciphered, so that the projected attack upon the Kowenstyn
was discovered, and, of necessity, deferred. As for Teligny, he was
taken, as a most valuable prize, into the enemy's camp, and was soon
afterwards thrust into prison at Tournay, where he remained six years--
one year longer than the period which his illustrious father had been
obliged to consume in the infamous dungeon at Mons. Few disasters could
have been more keenly felt by the States than the loss of this brilliant
and devoted French chieftain, who, young as he was, had already become
very dear to the republic; and Sainte Aldegonde was severely blamed for
sending so eminent a personage on that dangerous expedition, and for
sending him, too, with an insufficient convoy.
Still Alexander felt uncertain as to the result. He was determined to
secure Antwerp, but he yet thought it possible to secure it by
negotiation. The enigmatical policy maintained by France perplexed him;
for it did not seem possible that so much apparent solemnity and
earnestness were destined to lead to an impotent and infamous conclusion.
He was left, too, for a long time in ignorance of his own master's secret
schemes, he was at liberty to guess, and to guess only, as to the
projects of the league, he was without adequate means to carry out to a
certain triumph his magnificent enterprise, and he was in constant alarm
lest he should be suddenly assailed by an overwhelming French force. Had
a man sat upon the throne of Henry III., at that moment, Parma's bridge-
making and dyke-fortifying skilful as they were--would have been all in
vain. Meantime, in uncertainty as to the great issue, but resolved to
hold firmly to his purpose, he made repeated conciliatory offers to the
States with one hand, while he steadily prosecuted his aggressive schemes
with the other.
Parma had become really gentle, almost affectionate, towards the
Netherlanders. He had not the disposition of an Alva to smite and to
blast, to exterminate the rebels and heretics with fire and sword, with
the axe, the rack, and the gallows. Provided they would renounce the
great object of the contest, he seemed really desirous that they should
escape further chastisement; but to admit the worship of God according to
the reformed creed, was with him an inconceivable idea. To do so was
both unrighteous and impolitic. He had been brought up to believe that
mankind could be saved from eternal perdition only by believing in the
infallibility of the Bishop of Rome; that the only keys to eternal
paradise were in the hands of St. Peter's representative. Moreover, he
instinctively felt that within this religious liberty which the
Netherlanders claimed was hidden the germ of civil liberty; and though no
bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, it was necessary to destroy it at
once; for of course the idea of civil liberty could not enter the brain
of the brilliant general of Philip II.
On the 13th of November he addressed a letter to the magistracy and
broad-council of Antwerp. He asserted that the instigators of the
rebellion were not seeking to further the common weal, but their own
private ends. Especially had this been the ruling motive with the prince
of Orange and the Duke of Anjou, both of whom God had removed from the
world, in order to manifest to the States their own weakness, and the
omnipotence of Philip, whose, prosperity the Lord was constantly
increasing. It was now more than time for the authorities of the country
to have regard for themselves, and for the miseries of the poor people.
The affection Which he had always felt for the Provinces from which he
had himself sprung and the favours which he had received from them in his
youth, had often moved him to propose measures, which, before God and his
conscience, he believed adequate to the restoration of peace. But his
letters had been concealed or falsely interpreted by the late Prince of
Orange, who had sought nothing but to spread desolation over the land,
and to shed the blood of the innocent. He now wrote once more, and for
the last time, in all fervour and earnestness, to implore them to take
compassion on their own wives and children and forlorn fatherland, to
turn their eyes backward on the peace and prosperity which they had
formerly enjoyed when obedient to his Majesty, and to cast a glance
around them upon the miseries which were so universal since the
rebellion. He exhorted them to close their ears to the insidious tongues
of those who were leading them into delusion as to the benevolence and
paternal sweetness of their natural lord and master, which were even now
so boundless that he did not hesitate once more to offer them his entire
forgiveness. If they chose to negotiate, they would find everything
granted that with right and reason could be proposed. The Prince
concluded by declaring that he made these advances not from any doubt as
to the successful issue of the military operations in which he was
engaged, but simply out of paternal anxiety for the happiness of the
Provinces. Did they remain obstinate, their ultimate conditions would be
rendered still more severe, and themselves, not he, would be responsible
for the misery and the bloodshed to ensue.
Ten days afterwards, the magistrates, thus addressed--after communication
with the broad-council--answered Parma's. 23rd Nov., letter manfully,
copiously, and with the customary but superfluous historical sketch.
They begged leave to entertain a doubt as to the paternal sweetness of a
king who had dealt so long in racks and gibbets. With Parma's own
mother, as they told the Prince, the Netherlanders had once made a
treaty, by which the right to worship God according to their consciences
had been secured; yet for maintaining that treaty they had been devoted
to indiscriminate destruction, and their land made desolate with fire and
sword. Men had been massacred by thousands, who had never been heard in
their own defence, and who had never been accused of any crime, "save
that they had assembled together in the name of God, to pray to Him
through their only mediator and advocate Jesus Christ, according to His
command."
The axis of the revolt was the religious question; and it was impossible
to hope anything from a monarch who was himself a slave of the
Inquisition, and who had less independence of action than that enjoyed by
Jews and Turks, according to the express permission of the Pope.
Therefore they informed Parma that they had done with Philip for ever,
and that in consequence of the extraordinary wisdom, justice, and
moderation, of the French King, they had offered him the sovereignty of
their land, and had implored his protection.