the same time it left the country in a very divided condition. This was
inevitable. The Prince had done all that one man could do to hold the
Netherlands together and unite them perpetually into one body politic,
and perhaps, if he had been inspired by a keener personal ambition, this
task might have been accomplished.--The seventeen provinces might have
accepted his dominion, but they would agree to that of no other
sovereign. Providence had not decreed that the country, after its long
agony, should give birth to a single and perfect commonwealth. The
Walloon provinces had already fallen off from the cause, notwithstanding
the entreaties of the Prince. The other Netherlands, after long and
tedious negotiation with Anjou, had at last consented to his supremacy,
but from this arrangement Holland and Zealand held themselves aloof.
By a somewhat anomalous proceeding, they sent deputies along with those
of the other provinces, to the conferences with the Duke, but it was
expressly understood that they would never accept him as sovereign.
They were willing to contract with him and with their sister provinces--
over which he was soon to exercise authority--a firm and perpetual
league, but as to their own chief, their hearts were fixed. The Prince
of Orange should be their lord and master, and none other. It lay only
in his self-denying character that he had not been clothed with this
dignity long before. He had, however, persisted in the hope that all
the provinces might be brought to acknowledge the Duke of Anjou as their
sovereign, under conditions which constituted a free commonwealth with an
hereditary chief, and in this hope he had constantly refused concession
to the wishes of the northern provinces. He in reality exercised
sovereign power over nearly the whole population, of the Netherlands.
Already in 1580, at the assembly held in April, the states of Holland had
formally requested him to assume the full sovereignty over them, with the
title of Count of Holland and Zealand forfeited by Philip. He had not
consented, and the proceedings had been kept comparatively secret. As
the negotiations with Anjou advanced, and as the corresponding abjuration
of Philip was more decisively indicated, the consent of the Prince to
this request was more warmly urged. As it was evident that the provinces
thus bent upon placing him at their head, could by no possibility be
induced to accept the sovereignty of Anjou--as, moreover; the act of
renunciation of Philip could no longer be deferred, the Prince of Orange
reluctantly and provisionally accepted the supreme power over Holland and
Zealand. This arrangement was finally accomplished upon the 24th of
July, 1581, and the act of abjuration took place two days afterwards.
The offer of the sovereignty over the other united provinces had been
accepted by Anjou six months before.
Thus, the Netherlands were divided into three portions--the reconciled
provinces, the united provinces under Anjou, and the northern provinces
under Orange; the last division forming the germ, already nearly
developed, of the coming republic. The constitution, or catalogue of
conditions, by which the sovereignty accorded to Anjou was reduced to
such narrow limits as to be little more than a nominal authority, while
the power remained in the hands of the representative body of the
provinces, will be described, somewhat later, together with the
inauguration of the Duke. For the present it is necessary that the
reader should fully understand the relative position of the Prince and of
the northern provinces. The memorable act of renunciation--the
Netherland declaration of independence--will then be briefly explained.
On the 29th of March, 1580, a resolution passed the assembly of Holland
and Zealand never to make peace or enter into any negotiations with the
King of Spain on the basis of his sovereignty. The same resolution
provided that his name--hitherto used in all public acts--should be for
ever discarded, that his seal should be broken, and that the name and
seal of the Prince of Orange should be substituted in all commissions and
public documents. At almost the same time the states of Utrecht passed a
similar resolution. These offers were, however, not accepted, and the
affair was preserved profoundly secret. On the 5th of July, 1581, "the
knights, nobles, and cities of Holland and Zealand," again, in an urgent
and solemn manner, requested the Prince to accept the "entire authority
as sovereign and chief of the land, as long as the war should continue."
This limitation as to time was inserted most reluctantly by the states,
and because it was perfectly well understood that without it the Prince
would not accept the sovereignty at all. The act by which this dignity
was offered, conferred full power to command all forces by land and sea,
to appoint all military officers, and to conduct all warlike operations,
without the control or advice of any person whatsoever. It authorized
him, with consent of the states, to appoint all financial and judicial
officers, created him the supreme executive chief, and fountain of
justice and pardon, and directed him "to maintain the exercise only of
the Reformed evangelical religion, without, however, permitting that
inquiries should be made into any man's belief or conscience, or that any
injury or hindrance should be offered to any man on account of his
religion."
The sovereignty thus pressingly offered, and thus limited as to time, was
finally accepted by William of Orange, according to a formal act dated at
the Hague, 5th of July, 1581, but it will be perceived that no powers
were conferred by this new instrument beyond those already exercised by
the Prince. It was, as it were, a formal continuance of the functions
which he had exercised since 1576 as the King's stadholder, according to
his old commission of 1555, although a vast, difference existed in
reality. The King's name was now discarded and his sovereignty disowned,
while the proscribed rebel stood in his place, exercising supreme
functions, not vicariously, but in his own name. The limitation as to
time was, moreover, soon afterwards secretly, and without the knowledge
of Orange, cancelled by the states. They were determined that the Prince
should be their sovereign--if they could make him so--for the term of his
life.
The offer having thus been made and accepted upon the 5th of July, oaths
of allegiance and fidelity were exchanged between the Prince and the
estates upon the 24th of the same month. In these solemnities, the
states, as representing the provinces, declared that because the King of
Spain, contrary to his oath as Count of Holland and Zealand, had not only
not protected these provinces, but had sought with all his might to
reduce them to eternal slavery, it had been found necessary to forsake
him. They therefore proclaimed every inhabitant absolved from
allegiance, while at the same time, in the name of the population, they
swore fidelity to the Prince of Orange, as representing the supreme
authority.
Two days afterwards, upon the 26th of July, 1581, the memorable
declaration of independence was issued by the deputies of the united
provinces, then solemnly assembled at the Hague. It was called the Act
of Abjuration. It deposed Philip from his sovereignty, but was not the
proclamation of a new form of government, for the united provinces were
not ready to dispense with an hereditary chief. Unluckily, they had
already provided themselves with a very bad one to succeed Philip in the
dominion over most of their territory, while the northern provinces were
fortunate enough and wise enough to take the Father of the country for
their supreme magistrate.
The document by which the provinces renounced their allegiance was not
the most felicitous of their state papers. It was too prolix and
technical. Its style had more of the formal phraseology of legal
documents than befitted this great appeal to the whole world and to all
time. Nevertheless, this is but matter of taste. The Netherlanders were
so eminently a law-abiding people, that, like the American patriots of
the eighteenth century, they on most occasions preferred punctilious
precision to florid declamation. They chose to conduct their revolt
according to law. At the same time, while thus decently wrapping herself
in conventional garments, the spirit of Liberty revealed none the less
her majestic proportions.
At the very outset of the Abjuration, these fathers of the Republic laid
down wholesome truths, which at that time seemed startling blasphemies in
the ears of Christendom. "All mankind know," said the preamble, "that a
prince is appointed by God to cherish his subjects, even as a shepherd to
guard his sheep. When, therefore, the prince--does not fulfil his duty
as protector; when he oppresses his subjects, destroys their ancient
liberties, and treats them as slaves, he is to be considered, not a
prince, but a tyrant. As such, the estates of the land may lawfully and
reasonably depose him, and elect another in his room."
Having enunciated these maxims, the estates proceeded to apply them to
their own case, and certainly never was an ampler justification for
renouncing a prince since princes were first instituted. The states ran
through the history of the past quarter of a century, patiently
accumulating a load of charges against the monarch, a tithe of which
would have furnished cause for his dethronement. Without passion or
exaggeration, they told the world their wrongs. The picture was not
highly colored. On the contrary, it was rather a feeble than a striking
portrait of the monstrous iniquity which had so long been established
over them. Nevertheless, they went through the narrative conscientiously
and earnestly. They spoke of the King's early determination to govern
the Netherlands, not by natives but by Spaniards; to treat them not as
constitutional countries, but as conquered provinces; to regard the
inhabitants not as liege subjects, but as enemies; above all, to
supersede their ancient liberty by the Spanish Inquisition, and they
alluded to the first great step in this scheme--the creation of the new
bishoprics, each with its staff of inquisitors.
They noticed the memorable Petition, the mission of Berghen and Montigny,
their imprisonment and taking off, in violation of all national law, even
that which had ever been held sacred by the most cruel and tyrannical
princes. They sketched the history of Alva's administration; his
entrapping the most eminent nobles by false promises, and delivering them
to the executioner; his countless sentences of death, outlawry, and
confiscation; his erection of citadels to curb, his imposition of the
tenth and twentieth penny to exhaust the land; his Blood Council and its
achievements; and the immeasurable, woe produced by hanging, burning,
banishing, and plundering, during his seven years of residence. They
adverted to the Grand Commander, as having been sent, not to improve the
condition of the country, but to pursue the same course of tyranny by
more concealed ways. They spoke of the horrible mutiny which broke forth
at his death; of the Antwerp Fury; of the express approbation rendered to
that great outrage by the King, who had not only praised the crime, but
promised to recompense the criminals. They alluded to Don John of
Austria and his duplicity; to his pretended confirmation of the Ghent
treaty; to his attempts to divide the country against itself; to the
Escovedo policy; to the intrigues with the German regiments. They
touched upon the Cologne negotiations, and the fruitless attempt of the
patriots upon that occasion to procure freedom of religion, while the
object of the royalists was only to distract and divide the nation.
Finally, they commented with sorrow and despair upon that last and
crowning measure of tyranny--the ban against the Prince of Orange.
They calmly observed, after this recital, that they were sufficiently
justified in forsaking a sovereign who for more than twenty years had
forsaken them. Obeying the law of nature--desirous of maintaining the
rights, charters, and liberties of their fatherland--determined to escape
from slavery to Spaniards--and making known their decision to the world,
they declared the King of Spain deposed from his sovereignty, and
proclaimed that they should recognize thenceforth neither his title nor
jurisdiction. Three days afterwards, on the 29th of July, the assembly
adopted a formula, by which all persons were to be required to signify
their abjuration.
Such were the forms by which the united provinces threw off their
allegiance to Spain, and ipso facto established a republic, which was to
flourish for two centuries. This result, however, was not exactly
foreseen by the congress which deposed Philip. The fathers of the
commonwealth did not baptize it by the name of Republic. They did not
contemplate a change in their form of government. They had neither an
aristocracy nor a democracy in their thoughts. Like the actors in our
own great national drama, these Netherland patriots were struggling to
sustain, not to overthrow; unlike them, they claimed no theoretical
freedom for humanity--promulgated no doctrine of popular sovereignty:
they insisted merely on the fulfilment of actual contracts, signed
sealed, and sworn to by many successive sovereigns. Acting, upon the
principle that government should be for the benefit of the governed, and
in conformity to the dictates of reason and justice, they examined the
facts by those divine lights, and discovered cause to discard their
ruler. They did not object to being ruled. They were satisfied with
their historical institutions, and preferred the mixture of hereditary
sovereignty with popular representation, to which they were accustomed.
They did not devise an a priori constitution. Philip having violated the
law of reason and the statutes of the land, was deposed, and a new chief
magistrate was to be elected in his stead. This was popular sovereignty
in fact, but not in words. The deposition and election could be legally
justified only by the inherent right of the people to depose and to
elect; yet the provinces, in their Declaration of Independence, spoke of
the divine right of kings, even while dethroning, by popular right, their
own King!
So also, in the instructions given by the states to their envoys charged
to justify the abjuration before the Imperial diet held at Augsburg,
twelve months later, the highest ground was claimed for the popular right
to elect or depose the sovereign, while at the same time, kings were
spoken of as "appointed by God." It is true that they were described, in
the same clause, as "chosen by the people"--which was, perhaps, as exact
a concurrence in the maxim of Vox populi, vox Dei, as the boldest
democrat of the day could demand. In truth, a more democratic course
would have defeated its own ends. The murderous and mischievous pranks
of Imbize, Ryhove, and such demagogues, at Ghent and elsewhere, with
their wild theories of what they called Grecian, Roman, and Helvetian
republicanism, had inflicted damage enough on the cause of freedom, and
had paved the road for the return of royal despotism. The senators
assembled at the Hague gave more moderate instructions to their delegates
at Augsburg. They were to place the King's tenure upon contract--not an
implied one, but a contract as literal as the lease of a farm. The house
of Austria, they were to maintain, had come into the possession of the
seventeen Netherlands upon certain express conditions, and with the
understanding that its possession was to cease with the first condition
broken. It was a question of law and fact, not of royal or popular
right. They were to take the ground, not only that the contract had been
violated, but that the foundation of perpetual justice upon which it
rested; had likewise been undermined. It was time to vindicate both
written charters and general principles. "God has given absolute power
to no mortal man," said Saint Aldegonde, "to do his own will against all
laws and all reason." "The contracts which the King has broken are no
pedantic fantasies," said the estates, "but laws planted by nature in the
universal heart of mankind, and expressly acquiesced in by prince and
people." All men, at least, who speak the English tongue, will accept
the conclusion of the provinces, that when laws which protected the
citizen against arbitrary imprisonment and guaranteed him a trial in his
own province--which forbade the appointment of foreigners to high office
--which secured the property of the citizen from taxation, except by the
representative body--which forbade intermeddling on the part of the
sovereign with the conscience of the subject in religious matters--when
such laws had been subverted by blood tribunals, where drowsy judges
sentenced thousands to stake and scaffold without a hearing by
excommunication, confiscation, banishment-by hanging, beheading, burning,
to such enormous extent and with such terrible monotony that the
executioner's sword came to be looked upon as the only symbol of justice
--then surely it might be said, without exaggeration, that the complaints
of the Netherlanders were "no pedantic fantasies," and that the King had
ceased to perform his functions as dispenser of God's justice.
The Netherlanders dealt with facts. They possessed a body of laws,
monuments of their national progress, by which as good a share of
individual liberty was secured to the citizen as was then enjoyed in any
country of the world. Their institutions admitted of great improvement,
no doubt; but it was natural that a people so circumstanced should be
unwilling to exchange their condition for the vassalage of "Moors or
Indians."
At the same time it may be doubted whether the instinct for political
freedom only would have sustained them in the long contest, and whether
the bonds which united them to the Spanish Crown would have been broken,
had it not been for the stronger passion for religious liberty, by which
so large a portion of the people was animated. Boldly as the united
states of the Netherlands laid down their political maxima, the quarrel
might perhaps have been healed if the religious question had admitted of
a peaceable solution. Philip's bigotry amounting to frenzy, and the
Netherlanders of "the religion" being willing, in their own words, "to
die the death" rather than abandon the Reformed faith, there was upon
this point no longer room for hope. In the act of abjuration, however,
it was thought necessary to give offence to no class of the inhabitants,
but to lay down such principles only as enlightened Catholics would not
oppose. All parties abhorred the Inquisition, and hatred to that
institution is ever prominent among the causes assigned for the
deposition of the monarch. "Under pretence of maintaining the Roman
religion," said the estates, "the King has sought by evil means to bring
into operation the whole strength of the placards and of the Inquisition
--the first and true cause of all our miseries."
Without making any assault upon the Roman Catholic faith, the authors of
the great act by which Philip was for ever expelled from the Netherlands
showed plainly enough that religious persecution had driven them at last
to extremity. At the same time, they were willing--for the sake of
conciliating all classes of their countrymen--to bring the political
causes of discontent into the foreground, and to use discreet language
upon the religious question.
Such, then, being the spirit which prompted the provinces upon this great
occasion, it may be asked who were the men who signed a document of such
importance? In whose-name and by what authority did they act against the
sovereign? The signers of the declaration of independence acted in the
name and by the authority of the Netherlands people. The estates were
the constitutional representatives of that people. The statesmen of that
day discovering, upon cold analysis of facts, that Philip's sovereignty
was, legally forfeited; formally proclaimed that forfeiture. Then
inquiring what had become of the sovereignty, they found it not in the
mass of the people, but in the representative body, which actually
personated the people. The estates of the different provinces--
consisting of the knights, nobles, and burgesses of each--sent,
accordingly, their deputies to the general assembly at the Hague; and by
this congress the decree of abjuration was issued. It did, not occur to
any one to summon the people in their primary assemblies, nor would the
people of that day, have comprehended the objects of such a summons.
They were accustomed to the action of the estates, and those bodies
represented as large a number of political capacities as could be
expected of assemblies chosen then upon general principles. The hour had
not arrived for more profound analysis of the social compact. Philip was
accordingly deposed justly, legally formally justly, because it had
become necessary to abjur a monarch who was determined not only to
oppress; but to exterminate his people; legally, because he had
habitually violated the constitutions which he had sworn to support;
formally, because the act was done in the name of the people, by the body
historically representing the people.
What, then, was the condition of the nation, after this great step had
been taken? It stood, as it were, with its sovereignty in its hand,
dividing it into two portions, and offering it, thus separated, to two
distinct individuals. The sovereignty of Holland and Zealand had been
reluctantly accepted by Orange. The sovereignty of the united provinces
had been offered to Anjou, but the terms of agreement with that Duke had
not yet been ratified. The movement was therefore triple, consisting of
an abjuration and of two separate elections of hereditary chiefs; these
two elections being accomplished in the same manner, by the
representative bodies respectively of the united provinces, and of
Holland and Zealand. Neither the abjuration nor the elections were acted
upon beforehand by the communities, the train-bands, or the guilds of the
cities--all represented, in fact, by the magistrates and councils of
each; nor by the peasantry of the open country--all supposed to be
represented by the knights and nobles. All classes of individuals,
however; arranged in various political or military combinations, gave
their acquiescence afterwards, together with their oaths of allegiance.
The people approved the important steps taken by their representatives.
Without a direct intention on the part of the people or its leaders to
establish a republic, the Republic established itself. Providence did
not permit the whole country, so full of wealth intelligence, healthy
political action--so stocked with powerful cities and an energetic
population, to be combined into one free and prosperous commonwealth.
The factious ambition of a few grandees, the cynical venality of many
nobles, the frenzy of the Ghent democracy, the spirit of religious
intolerance, the consummate military and political genius of Alexander
Farnese, the exaggerated self-abnegation and the tragic fate of Orange,
all united to dissever this group of flourishing and kindred provinces.