infinite glory in arms, had manifested so much gentleness and disposition
to conciliate. They doubted not that he would, if he possessed the
power, have guided the royal councils to better and more generous
results, and protested that they would not have delayed to throw
themselves into his arms, had they been assured that he was authorized to
admit that which alone could form the basis of a successful negotiation--
religious freedom. They would in such case have been willing to close
with him, without talking about other conditions than such as his
Highness in his discretion and sweetness might think reasonable.
Moreover, as they observed in conclusion, they were precluded, by their
present relations with France, from entering into any other negotiation;
nor could they listen to any such proposals without deserving to be
stigmatized as the most lewd, blasphemous, and thankless mortals, that
ever cumbered the earth.
Being under equal obligations both to the Union and to France, they
announced that Parma's overtures would be laid before the French
government and the assembly of the States-General.
A day was to come, perhaps, when it would hardly seem lewdness and
blasphemy for the Netherlanders to doubt the extraordinary justice and
wisdom of the French King. Meantime, it cannot be denied that they were
at least loyal to their own engagements, and long-suffering where they
had trusted and given their hearts.
Parma replied by another letter, dated December 3rd. He assured the
citizens that Henry III. was far too discreet, and much too good a friend
to Philip II., to countenance this rebellion. If he were to take up
their quarrel, however, the King of Spain had a thousand means of foiling
all his attempts. As to the religious question--which they affirmed to
be the sole cause of the war--he was not inclined to waste words upon
that subject; nevertheless, so far as he in his simplicity could
understand the true nature of a Christian, he could not believe that it
comported with the doctrines of Jesus, whom they called their only
mediator, nor with the dictates of conscience, to take up arms against
their lawful king, nor to burn, rob, plunder, pierce dykes, overwhelm
their fatherland, and reduce all things to misery and chaos, in the name
of religion.
Thus moralizing and dogmatizing, the Prince concluded his letter, and so
the correspondence terminated. This last despatch was communicated at
once both to the States-General and to the French government, and
remained unanswered. Soon afterwards the Netherlands and England, France
and Spain, were engaged in that vast game of delusion which has been
described in the preceding chapters. Meantime both Antwerp and Parma
remained among the deluded, and were left to fight out their battle on
their own resources.
Having found it impossible to subdue Antwerp by his rhetoric, Alexander
proceeded with his bridge. It is impossible not to admire the steadiness
and ingenuity with which the Prince persisted in his plans, the courage
with which he bore up against the parsimony and neglect of his sovereign,
the compassionate tenderness which he manifested for his patient little
army. So much intellectual energy commands enthusiasm, while the
supineness on the other side sometimes excites indignation. There is
even a danger of being entrapped into sympathy with tyranny, when the
cause of tyranny is maintained by genius; and of being surprised into
indifference for human liberty, when the sacred interests of liberty are
endangered by self-interest, perverseness, and folly.
Even Sainte Aldegonde did not believe that the bridge could be completed.
His fears were that the city would be ruined rather by the cessation of
its commerce than by want of daily food. Already, after the capture of
Liefkenshoek and the death of Orange, the panic among commercial people
had been so intense that seventy or eighty merchants, representing the
most wealthy mercantile firms in Antwerp, made their escape from the
place, as if it had been smitten with pestilence, or were already in the
hands of Parma. All such refugees were ordered to return on peril of
forfeiting their property. Few came back, however, for they had found
means of converting and transferring their funds to other more secure
places, despite the threatened confiscation. It was insinuated that
Holland and Zeeland were indifferent to the fate of Antwerp, because in
the sequel the commercial cities of those Provinces succeeded to the vast
traffic and the boundless wealth which had been forfeited by the
Brabantine capital. The charge was an unjust one. At the very
commencement of the siege the States of Holland voted two hundred
thousand florins for its relief; and, moreover, these wealthy refugees
were positively denied admittance into the territory of tho United
States, and were thus forced to settle in Germany or England. This
cessation of traffic was that which principally excited the anxiety of
Aldegonde. He could not bring himself to believe in the possibility of a
blockade, by an army of eight or ten thousand men, of a great and wealthy
city, where at least twenty thousand citizens were capable of bearing
arms. Had he thoroughly understood the deprivations under which
Alexander was labouring, perhaps he would have been even more confident
as to the result.
"With regard to the affair of the river Scheldt," wrote Parma to Philip,
"I should like to send your Majesty a drawing of the whole scheme; for
the work is too vast to be explained by letters. The more I examine it,
the more astonished I am that it should have been conducted to this
point; so many forts, dykes, canals, new inventions, machinery, and
engines, have been necessarily required."
He then proceeded to enlighten the King--as be never failed to do in all
his letters--as to his own impoverished, almost helpless condition.
Money, money, men! This was his constant cry. All would be in vain, he
said, if he were thus neglected. "'Tis necessary," said he, "for your
Majesty fully to comprehend, that henceforth the enterprise is your own.
I have done my work faithfully thus far; it is now for your Majesty to
take it thoroughly to heart; and embrace it with the warmth with which an
affair involving so much of your own interests deserves to be embraced."
He avowed that without full confidence in his sovereign's sympathy he
would never have conceived the project. "I confess that the enterprise
is great," he said, "and that by many it will be considered rash.
Certainly I should not have undertaken it, had I not felt certain of your
Majesty's full support."
But he was already in danger of being forced to abandon the whole scheme
--although so nearly carried into effect--for want of funds. "The
million promised," he wrote, "has arrived in bits and morsels, and with
so many ceremonies, that I haven't ten crowns at my disposal. How I am
to maintain even this handful of soldiers--for the army is diminished to
such a mere handful that it would astonish your Majesty--I am unable to
imagine. It would move you to witness their condition. They have
suffered as much as is humanly possible."
Many of the troops, indeed, were deserting, and making their escape,
beggared and desperate, into France, where, with natural injustice, they
denounced their General, whose whole heart was occupied with their
miseries, for the delinquency of his master, whose mind was full of other
schemes.
"There past this way many Spanish soldiers," wrote Stafford from Paris,
"so poor and naked as I ever saw any. There have been within this
fortnight two hundred at a time in this town, who report the extremity of
want of victuals in their camp, and that they have been twenty-four
months without pay. They exclaim greatly upon the Prince of Parma.
Mendoza seeks to convey them away, and to get money for them by all means
he can."
Stafford urged upon his government the propriety of being at least as
negligent as Philip had showed himself to be of the Spaniards. By
prohibiting supplies to the besieging army, England might contribute,
negatively, if not otherwise, to the relief of Antwerp. "There is no
place," he wrote to Walsingham, "whence the Spaniards are so thoroughly
victualled as from us. English boats go by sixteen and seventeen into
Dunkirk, well laden with provisions."
This was certainly not in accordance with the interests nor the
benevolent professions of the English ministers.
These supplies were not to be regularly depended upon however. They were
likewise not to be had without paying a heavy price for them, and the
Prince had no money in his coffer. He lived from hand to mouth, and was
obliged to borrow from every private individual who had anything to lend.
Merchants, nobles, official personages, were all obliged to assist in
eking out the scanty pittance allowed by the sovereign.
"The million is all gone," wrote Parma to his master; "some to Verdugo in
Friesland; some to repay the advances of Marquis Richebourg and other
gentlemen. There is not a farthing for the garrisons. I can't go on a
month longer, and, if not supplied, I shall be obliged to abandon the
work. I have not money enough to pay my sailors, joiners, carpenters,
and other mechanics, from week to week, and they will all leave me in the
lurch, if I leave them unpaid. I have no resource but to rely on your
Majesty. Otherwise the enterprise must wholly fail."
In case it did fail, the Prince wiped his hands of the responsibility.
He certainly had the right to do so.
One of the main sources of supply was the city of Hertogenbosch, or Bois-
le-Duc. It was one of the four chief cities of Brabant, and still held
for the King, although many towns in its immediate neighbourhood had
espoused the cause of the republic. The States had long been anxious to
effect a diversion for the relief of Antwerp, by making an attack on
Bois-le-Duc. Could they carry the place, Parma would be almost
inevitably compelled to abandon the siege in which he was at present
engaged, and he could moreover spare no troops for its defence. Bois-le-
Duc was a populous, wealthy, thriving town, situate on the Deeze, two
leagues above its confluence with the Meuse, and about twelve leagues
from Antwerp. It derived its name of `Duke's Wood' from a magnificent
park and forest, once the favourite resort and residence of the old Dukes
of Brabant, of which some beautiful vestiges still remained. It was a
handsome well-built city, with two thousand houses of the better class,
besides more humble tenements. Its citizens were celebrated for their
courage and belligerent skill, both on foot and on horseback. They were
said to retain more of the antique Belgic ferocity which Caesar had
celebrated than that which had descended to most of their kinsmen. The
place was, moreover, the seat of many prosperous manufactures. Its
clothiers sent the products of their looms over all Christendom, and its
linen and cutlery were equally renowned.
It would be a most fortunate blow in the cause of freedom to secure so,
thriving and conspicuous a town, situated thus in the heart of what
seemed the natural territory of the United States; and, by so doing, to
render nugatory the mighty preparations of Parma against Antwerp.
Moreover, it was known that there was no Spanish or other garrison within
its walls, so that there was no opposition to be feared, except from the
warlike nature of the citizens.
Count Hohenlo was entrusted, early in January, with this important
enterprise. He accordingly collected a force of four thousand infantry,
together with two hundred mounted lancers; having previously
reconnoitered the ground. He relied very much, for the success of the
undertaking, on Captain Kleerhagen, a Brussels nobleman, whose wife was a
native of Bois-le-Duc, and who was thoroughly familiar with the locality.
One dark winter's night, Kleerhagen, with fifty picked soldiers, advanced
to the Antwerp gate of Bois-le-Duc, while Hohenlo, with his whole force,
lay in ambuscade as near as possible to the city.
Between the drawbridge and the portcullis were two small guard-houses,
which, very carelessly, had been left empty. Kleerhagen, with his fifty
followers, successfully climbed into these lurking-places, where they
quietly ensconced themselves for the night. At eight o'clock of the
following morning (20th January) the guards of the gate drew up the
portcullis, and reconnoitered. At the same instant, the ambushed fifty
sprang from their concealment, put them to the sword, and made themselves
masters of the gate. None of the night-watch escaped with life, save one
poor old invalided citizen, whose business had been to draw up the
portcullis, and who was severely wounded, and left for dead. The fifty
immediately summoned all of Rohenlo's ambuscade that were within hearing,
and then, without waiting for them, entered the town pell-mell in the
best of spirits, and shouting victory! victory! till they were hoarse. A
single corporal, with two men, was left to guard the entrance. Meantime,
the old wounded gate-opener, bleeding and crippled, crept into a dark
corner, and laid himself down, unnoticed, to die.
Soon afterwards Hohenlo galloped into the town, clad in complete armour,
his long curls floating in the wind, with about two hundred troopers
clattering behind him, closely followed by five hundred pike-men on foot.
Very brutally, foolishly, and characteristically, he had promised his
followers the sacking of the city so soon as it should be taken. They
accordingly set about the sacking, before it was taken. Hardly had the
five or six hundred effected their entrance, than throwing off all
control, they dispersed through the principal streets, and began bursting
open the doors of the most opulent households. The cries of "victory!"
"gained city!" "down with the Spaniards!" resounded on all sides. Many
of the citizens, panic-struck, fled from their homes, which they thus
abandoned to pillage, while, meantime, the loud shouts of the assailants
reached the ears of the sergeant and his two companies who had been left
in charge of the gate. Fearing that they should be cheated of their
rightful share in the plunder, they at once abandoned their post, and set
forth after their comrades, as fast as their legs could carry them.
Now it so chanced--although there was no garrison in the town--that forty
Burgundian and Italian lancers, with about thirty foot-soldiers, had come
in the day before to escort a train of merchandise. The Seigneur de
Haultepenne, governor of Breda, a famous royalist commander--son of old
Count Berlaymont, who first gave the name of "beggars" to the patriots-
had accompanied them in the expedition. The little troop were already
about to mount their horses to depart, when they became aware of the
sudden tumult. Elmont, governor of the city, had also flown to the
rescue, and had endeavoured to rally the burghers. Not unmindful of
their ancient warlike fame, they had obeyed his entreaties. Elmont, with
a strong party of armed citizens, joined himself to Haultepenne's little
band of lancers. They fired a few shots at straggling parties of
plunderers, and pursued others up some narrow streets. They were but an
handful in comparison with the number of the patriots, who had gained
entrance to the city. They were, however, compact, united, and resolute.
The assailants were scattered, disorderly, and bent only upon plunder.
When attacked by an armed and regular band, they were amazed. They had
been told that there was no garrison; and behold a choice phalanx of
Spanish lancers, led on by one of the most famous of Philip's Netherland
chieftains. They thought themselves betrayed by Kleerhagen, entrapped
into a deliberately arranged ambush. There was a panic. The soldiers,
dispersed and doubtful, could not be rallied. Hohenlo, seeing that
nothing was to be done with his five hundred, galloped furiously out of
the gate, to bring in the rest of his troops who had remained outside the
walls. The prize of the wealthy city of Bois-le-Duc was too tempting to
be lightly abandoned; but he had much better have thought of making
himself master of it himself before he should present it as a prey to his
followers.
During his absence the panic spread. The States' troops, bewildered,
astonished, vigorously assaulted, turned their backs upon their enemies,
and fled helter-skelter towards the gates, through which they had first
gained admittance. But unfortunately for them, so soon as the corporal
had left his position, the wounded old gate-opener, in a dying condition,
had crawled forth on his hands and knees from a dark hole in the tower,
cut, with a pocket-knife, the ropes of the portcullis, and then given up
the ghost. Most effective was that blow struck by a dead man's hand.
Down came the portcullis. The flying plunderers were entrapped. Close
behind them came the excited burghers--their antique Belgic ferocity now
fully aroused--firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them
with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont
armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The
unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear
the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the
walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were
drowned, and but a very few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau.
sprang over the parapet, and succeeded in swimming the ditch.
Kleerhagen, driven into the Holy Cross tower, ascended to its .roof,
leaped, all accoutred as he was, into the river, and with the assistance
of a Scotch soldier, came safe to land. Ferdinand Truchsess, brother of
the ex-elector of Cologne, was killed. Four or five hundred of the
assailants--nearly all who had entered the city--were slain, and about
fifty of the burghers.
Hohenlo soon came back, with Colonel Ysselstein, and two thousand fresh
troops. But their noses, says a contemporary, grew a hundred feet long
with surprise when they saw the gate shut in their faces. It might have
occurred to the Count, when he rushed out of the town for reinforcements,
that it would be as well to replace the guard, which--as he must have
seen--had abandoned their post.
Cursing his folly, he returned, mavellously discomfited, and deservedly
censured, to Gertruydenberg. And thus had a most important enterprise;
which had nearly been splendidly successful, ended in disaster and
disgrace. To the recklessness of the general, to the cupidity which he
had himself awakened in his followers, was the failure alone to be
attributed. Had he taken possession of the city with a firm grasp at the
head of his four thousand men, nothing could have resisted him;
Haultepenne, and his insignificant force, would have been dead, or his
prisoners; the basis of Parma's magnificent operations would have been
withdrawn; Antwerp would have been saved.
"Infinite gratitude," wrote Parma to Philip, "should be rendered to the
Lord. Great thanks are also due to Haultepenne. Had the rebels
succeeded in their enterprise against Bolduc, I should have been
compelled to abandon the siege of Antwerp. The town; by its strength and
situation, is of infinite importance for the reduction both of that place
and of Brussels, and the rebels in possession of Bolduc would have cut
off my supplies."
The Prince recommended Haultepenne most warmly to the King as deserving
of a rich "merced." The true hero of the day, however--at least the
chief agent in the victory was the poor, crushed, nameless victim who had
cut the ropes of the portcullis at the Antwerp gate.
Hohenlo was deeply stung by the disgrace which he had incurred. For a
time he sought oblivion in hard drinking; but--brave and energetic,
though reckless--he soon became desirous of retrieving his reputation by
more successful enterprises. There was no lack of work, and assuredly
his hands were rarely idle.
"Hollach (Hohenlo) is gone from hence on Friday last," wrote Davison to
Walsingham, "he will do what he may to recover his reputation lost in the
attempt, of Bois-le-Duc; which, for the grief and trouble he hath
conceived thereof, hath for the time greatly altered him."
Meantime the turbulent Scheldt, lashed by the storms of winter, was
becoming a more formidable enemy to Parma's great enterprise than the
military demonstrations of his enemies, or the famine which was making
such havoc, with his little army. The ocean-tides were rolling huge ice-
blocks up and down, which beat against his palisade with the noise of
thunder, and seemed to threaten its immediate destruction. But the work
stood firm. The piles supporting the piers, which had been thrust out
from each bank into the stream, had been driven fifty feet into the
river's bed, and did their duty well. But in the space between, twelve
hundred and forty feet in width, the current was too deep for pile-
driving and a permanent bridge was to be established upon boats. And
that bridge was to be laid across the icy and tempestuous flood, in the
depth of winter, in the teeth of a watchful enemy, with the probability
of an immediate invasion from France, where the rebel envoys were known
to be negotiating on express invitation of the King--by half-naked, half-
starving soldiers and sailors, unpaid for years, and for the sake of a
master who seemed to have forgotten their existence.
"Thank God," wrote Alexander, "the palisade stands firm in spite of the
ice. Now with the favour of the Lord, we shall soon get the fruit we
have been hoping, if your Majesty is not wanting in that to which your
grandeur, your great Christianity, your own interests, oblige you. In
truth 'tis a great and heroic work, worthy the great power of your
Majesty." "For my own part," he continued, "I have done what depended
upon me. From your own royal hand must emanate the rest;--men, namely,
sufficient to maintain the posts, and money enough to support them
there."
He expressed himself in the strongest language concerning the danger to
the royal cause from the weak and gradually sinking condition of the
army. Even without the French intrigues with the rebels, concerning
which, in his ignorance of the exact state of affairs, he expressed much
anxiety, it would be impossible, he said, to save the royal cause without
men and money.
"I have spared myself," said the Prince, "neither day nor night. Let
not your Majesty impute the blame to me if we fail. Verdugo also is
uttering a perpetual cry out of Friesland for men--men and money."
Yet, notwithstanding all these obstacles, the bridge was finished at
last. On the 25th February, (1585) the day sacred to Saint Matthew, and
of fortunate augury to the Emperor Charles, father of Philip and
grandfather of Alexander, the Scheldt was closed.
As already stated, from Fort Saint Mary on the Kalloo side, and from Fort
Philip, not far from Ordain on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, strong
structures, supported upon piers, had been projected, reaching,
respectively, five hundred feet into the stream. These two opposite ends
were now connected by a permanent bridge of boats. There were thirty-two
of these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length and twelve in
breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two feet wide, and
all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships, by quadruple hawsers
and chains. Each boat was anchored at stem and stern with loose cables.
Strong timbers, with cross rafters, were placed upon the boats, upon
which heavy frame-work the planked pathway was laid down. A thick
parapet of closely-fitting beams was erected along both the outer edges
of the whole fabric. Thus a continuous and well-fortified bridge, two
thousand four hundred feet in length, was stretched at last from shore to
shore. Each of the thirty-two boats on which the central portion of the
structure reposed, was a small fortress provided with two heavy pieces of
artillery, pointing, the one up, the other down the stream, and manned by
thirty-two soldiers and four sailors, defended by a breastwork formed of
gabions of great thickness.
The forts of Saint Philip and St. Mary, at either end of the bridge, had
each ten great guns, and both were filled with soldiers. In front of
each fort, moreover, was stationed a fleet of twenty armed vessels,
carrying heavy pieces of artillery; ten anchored at the angle towards
Antwerp, and as many looking down the river. One hundred and seventy
great guns, including the armaments of the boats under the bridge of the
armada and the forts, protected the whole structure, pointing up and down
the stream.