in Holland as a means of accomplishing his twofold aim, the punishment
of "disbelievers" and the despoiling of the Dutch burghers'
treasure-chests. Little wonder that even this sturdy folk drew back
from the thought in horror. They were not a people to submit to such
barbarities as they had already proved, by giving shelter to foreign
exiles. When the Inquisition was first inaugurated in Spain, and men
first stretched upon the rack as heretics, Holland had opened her
doors to the fugitives, who fled alike from the wrath of kings and
priests. All over the world, with its darkness and superstition, its
cruelty, its flames, its racks and thumbscrews, men of independent
minds had secretly turned their thoughts toward little Holland, and
their steps toward the seaports where the Dutch merchants bought and
sold the treasures of the sea. So, now, there developed in the
Netherlands a united protest, representing tens of thousands of
people, who deserted the churches ruled by the officials of the
Inquisition. These protestors went into the open air beyond the city
walls where they sang songs, and listened to the preaching of the
reformed ministers. Soon the Roman Catholics under the guidance of the
Spanish army, and the Protestants under William of Orange, stood over
against one another like two castles with cannon shotted to the
muzzle. And finally the storm broke, and the protestors went into the
churches their own hands had built, and covered the floor with rubbish
of broken statues, effigies, and images, cleansing the walls with axe
and hammer and broom, and leaving only the pulpit for the teacher, and
the plain pews for the worshippers.
The spark which finally set aflame the powder-magazine of men's hearts
was the entrance into Holland, in 1567, of the Duke of Alva, at the
head of twenty thousand of Spain's finest troops. Bloody Alva was the
most accomplished and capable general in Europe. He had been
victorious in campaigns in Africa, Italy, France and Germany. He has
been called the most bloodthirsty man who ever led troops to battle,
and he was sent to Holland to satiate his wolfish instincts. His army
included 6,000 horsemen, notorious for the cruelty with which they had
butchered their captives in the Italian campaigns. Alva promised to
turn these human wolves loose upon the sheep of Holland. Having
arrived in Antwerp and established himself in the citadel, his first
act was to organize the "Bloody Council." This monster, whose cruelty
was never equalled by any savage beast, announced that if in the Roman
era the Emperor contented himself with the heads of a few leaders,
leaving the multitude in safety, _he_ would order the death of the
multitude, naming a few who were to be permitted to live. Soon the
streets were filled with dead bodies. Not content with hanging,
burning, and beheading the leaders, Alva hung the corpses beside the
road as a warning against free-thinking.
In seven brief years this man brought charges of heresy, treason and
insubordination against 30,000 inhabitants. He boasted that he had
executed 18,600, while the number of those who had perished by battle,
siege, starvation and butchery defied all computation. And the more
the people rebelled, the more cruel were the methods he devised to
torment them. To the gallows he added the stake and the sword. Men
were beheaded, roasted before slow fires, pitched to death with hot
tongs, broken on the wheel, flayed alive. On one occasion the skins of
leaders were stripped from the living bodies and stretched upon drums
for beating at the funeral march of their brethren to the gallows. The
barbarities committed during the sacking of starving villages, Motley
tells us are beyond belief. "Unborn infants were torn from the living
bodies of their mothers; women and children were violated by
thousands; whole populations burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers,
and every mode which cruelty in its wanton ingenuity could desire."
Such was the administration of the man of whom it was said: "He
possessed no virtues, while the few vices he had were colossal." To
Philip, Bloody Alva explained his failure to subdue the Hollanders by
the statement that his "rule had been too merciful."
Over against this human monster, with his implacable hatreds and his
bestial cruelties, stands William of Orange, the champion of liberty
and the saviour of the Netherlands. By a strange coincidence, the
first vivid picture we have of this prince who gave up a life of ease
and luxury to defend the rights of his fellow men, is the scene at the
abdication of Charles V, when, in the presence of a great multitude at
Brussels, that ruler turned over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to
his son, young Philip II of Spain. William of Orange was then a youth
of twenty-two, a stadtholder, or imperial governor, of three rich
provinces, and the commander of the official army on the French
frontier.
"Arrayed in armour inlaid with gold," says the historian, "with a
steel helmet under his left arm, he looked the picture of noble
manhood." Beside him, as he fronted the assemblage, stood young
Philip, a youth of twenty-eight, dressed in velvet and gold, but
physically ill-shapen and already an object of dislike and distrust.
Impressive indeed the contrast between these two young men, destined
in a few short years to be pitted against each other like gladiators
in the long struggle for liberty. "The one had a genius for
government, the other possessed a talent for misgovernment. William of
Orange had a passion for toleration; Philip II had a passion for
crushing every form of toleration." Sovereign at twenty-eight, Philip
was already a prey to that consuming ambition which, with his fierce
bigotry, was soon to win him universal hatred.
How different this young prince William, with his godlike physique,
his perfect balance of heart and intellect, his conscience that could
not endure the thought of tyranny. Little wonder that men loved him.
In person most elegant, in manners most accomplished, he had been
educated by his mother, Juliana of Stolberg, a woman of rare abilities
and deeply religious character. As a _grand seigneur_, with great
estates and a brilliant retinue, he had known every temptation of
wealth and luxury. But neither the flattery of his friends nor the
adulation of his followers had sapped his manhood. He was already a
seasoned soldier, and almost at once he was to win fame as a
diplomatist. We see him serving at the head of his troops throughout
one more campaign; then, at the age of twenty-six, acting as one of
the three plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. Sent to
France as hostage for the fulfillment of this treaty, we find him the
cynosure of all men's eyes at the greatest and most brilliant court of
the day. Little here to warn those arch-plotters, Henry of France and
Philip of Spain, that he was soon to become their deadliest foe. Yet
already he was meditating rebellion against the horrors they were
planning. And soon he was to give up all thoughts of court
distinction, and go forth to organize peasants and rebels into an
army, besieging his own castle in the cause of liberty.
It was while he was still at the French court that the incident took
place which gave him his title of William the Silent. The peace
between Henry and Philip had just been concluded, with one purpose in
view as advised by cardinals and priests. "Both sovereigns were to
massacre the Protestants in their dominions, and in the Netherlands
the Spanish troops were to be employed for this special purpose." The
Duke of Alva was in the secret, and King Henry supposed that William
of Orange was also. One day while hunting, with William riding at his
side, Henry of France unfolded the horrible scheme. The young prince
heard him without a word. He had not been told of the project, but he
betrayed his ignorance by no sign of speech or gesture. Henry assumed
that he approved of the awful butchery. No man was ever more
grievously in error. From that moment William of Orange knew that his
call had come, from that hour he meditated his withdrawal from the
political parties of the guilty leaders. And when at length the martyr
fires were kindled in Holland, and the Inquisition, under Bloody
Alva, began its hellish tasks of "Church discipline" William of Orange
sold his plate and jewels, abandoned the great estates he had
inherited, and throwing in his lot with the common people, went to the
defense of the Netherlands in the struggle for liberty of thought.
William had already intervened, at the risk of his life, on more than
one occasion of strife and bloodshed. But the harshness with which the
laws against heretics were now carried out, the presence of Spanish
troops, the filling up of ministerial offices by Spaniards and other
foreigners was stirring the whole country, and presently his own son,
studying at the University of Louvain, was seized and carried off to
Spain. William himself was outlawed and his property confiscated.
Finding that he had been for years the real head of the movement for
liberty, Alva, as Governor-General, now set a price upon his head. It
was the darkest hour of the long struggle. In constant danger of
assassination, in constant fear of betrayal, unable to convince his
own people that the contest could never be won, William wandered from
place to place, a fugitive and an exile.
But he never once lost heart or capitulated to despair. In that hour
he seemed to have the strength of ten. He was at once general,
statesman, diplomat, financier and saviour of his people. Like David,
he went through the forest collecting outlaws and men who had
grievances; he organized a score of bands to prey upon the Spanish
army; he developed a system of secret service by which he kept spies
in Alva's citadel and informed his people of the enemy plans. He
raised a little army--saw it defeated--raised another, and saw the
crafty Alva refuse to fight until he was forced to allow it to
disband. In seven years he organized four such armies, only to be
overwhelmed again and again by force of numbers. With peasants armed
with pikes and pistols he fought veterans who had guns, cannons and
6,000 horses. Attempt after attempt was a failure, but he would not
confess defeat. When all seemed lost, he wrote to his brother, "With
God's help, I am determined to go on." And at length, in the face of
defeat on land, he turned to the sea and, organizing his little fleet
of "Beggars," became a terror to the Spanish galleons.
Fascinating the story of how this term, "the Beggars," came to be the
watchword of the Hollanders' revolt. One day when the clouds were at
their blackest, the nobles of Brussels rode in a body to the Duchess
Margaret to beseech the withdrawal of the Spanish troops. They came
plainly dressed and unarmed, and marching four abreast into the
council chamber, petitioned her to suspend the Inquisition. While
Margaret, deeply touched, shed tears over the piteous appeal, one of
her counsellors, named Berlaymont, spoke scornfully of the petitioners
as "a troop of beggars." The dropping of that single word was like the
dropping of a spark into a powder-magazine. That night a banquet was
held, with three hundred nobles present, and "Long live the Beggars!"
rose on every side. Born of a jibe, the name "Beggars" caught the
imagination of the people; the revolt spread like wild-fire, and
henceforth the phrase became a battle-cry, which was to ring out on
every bloody field of the long struggle.
But the battle was only begun. Though the spring of 1572 brought hope,
the hope was quickly dashed by the news of the terrible massacre of
St. Bartholomew in France. Charles IX had aligned himself with Philip
of Spain and was seeking to exterminate the Protestants. And Bloody
Alva now redoubled his cruelties in Holland. With incredible ferocity,
he attacked and captured the city of Naarden, butchering every man,
woman, and child, and razing every building to the ground. Haarlem
was next marked for destruction. The garrison, numbering less than two
thousand men, was reinforced by Catherine van Hasselaar and her corps
of three hundred women, who handled spade and pick, hot water and
blazing hoops of tar during the assaults. Alkmaar came next. Sixteen
thousand Spaniards under Don Frederic, Alva's son, began the siege,
expecting the town to fall as Haarlem had. But the hated foreigners
were met in the breaches by women, boys and girls, who fought with
pick, stones, fire and hot water for a full month.
When the brutal Spanish troops threatened to beat the patriots down by
sheer force of numbers, the peasants cut their dikes, flooded their
own fields and homes and renewed the attack upon the Spaniards from
the branches of their orchards and the tops of their houses. Clinging
to the dikes by their finger-tips, these people fought their way back
into the marshes, where the ground was more solid beneath their feet.
No pen can describe and no brush can paint the scenes of this and the
other sieges that followed. The history of heroism holds no more
impressive spectacle than the sight of these patriots who, in the hour
when the siege was suddenly lifted, left their dead in the streets
and went staggering toward the church to give thanks to God and swear
anew their hatred of tyranny before their lips had even tasted bread.
The struggle went on for a score of years. Driven out of their homes,
with no shelter of tent or stable, fleeing constantly from the enemy,
hiding under the slough grass and digging holes in the frozen sand,
the patriots perished by the thousands. In winter, when the frost was
bitter, and Alva looked out upon ice on every side, he ordered
thousands of pairs of skates, that his men might the more easily hunt
down the fugitives. At the climax of the struggle William the Silent,
worn with excessive labours, his health undermined by weeks and months
spent in the swamps and in the dikes, was stricken with fever and all
but died. When the illness was at its height and he was only a
skeleton, too weak to hold his pen in his hand, able only to whisper
dispatches to his messengers, came the news that Leyden, already
besieged for months, and now plague-stricken, was about to surrender.
The Spaniards were determined to win this defiant city, for it was the
very heart of Holland and the most beautiful city in the Netherlands.
It lay below the level of the ocean, protected by great dikes, and
its canals, shaded on either side by lime trees, poplars, and
willows, were crossed by one hundred and forty-five bridges. Its
houses were beautiful, its public square spacious, its churches
imposing. The Spanish commander had built sixty-six forts around the
city and so severe was the blockade that no succour by land was
possible. There were no troops in the town, save a small corps of
freebooters and five companies of the burgher guards. "The sole
reliance of the city was on the stout hearts of its inhabitants within
the walls, and on the sleepless energy of William the Silent without."
William, assuring them of deliverance, had implored them to hold out
at least three months, and they had "relied on his calm and
unflinching soul as on a rock of adamant." They were unaware of his
illness, for he had said nothing of it in his messages, knowing that
it would cast a deeper shadow on the city.
When the word reached him that the besieged could hold out no longer,
he decided once more to call in the aid of the sea. Leyden lay fifteen
miles from the ocean, but the ocean could be brought to Leyden, and
though he had no army with which to overwhelm the besiegers he still
had his veteran "Beggars" and a tiny fleet of vessels. He determined
to sacrifice the neighbouring countryside, with its houses and
villages, its fields and flocks, if only he might save the heroic city
and its defenders. On a day in August, the great sluices were opened
and the ocean began to pour in over the land. While he still lay
desperately ill, waiting for the rising of the waters, his agents were
busy assembling a fleet of flat-bottomed boats laden with herring and
bread for the starving people.
Meanwhile, within the city all was silence and death. Pestilence
stalked everywhere and the inhabitants fell like grass beneath the
scythe. The only communication was by carrier pigeons, and only the
messages from William kept up the hearts of the defenders. The scenes
of tragedy within the walls are not to be described. And by a stroke
of evil fate the wind, blowing steadily in the wrong direction,
delayed the rising of the waters.
Even in its despair, the city was sublime. At the climax of its
sufferings, a committee waited on the burgomaster to advise surrender.
He was a tall, haggard, imposing figure, with dark visage and
commanding eyes. He waved his broad-leafed hat for silence, and then,
to use Motley's words, gave answer, "What would ye, my friends, why
do ye murmur, that we do not break our vows, and surrender the city
to the Spaniards--a fate more terrible than the agony which she now
endures? I tell you I have made an oath before the city, and may God
give me strength to keep my oath! I can die but once; whether by your
hands, the enemy's, or by the hand of God. My own fate is indifferent
to me; not so that of the city entrusted to my care. I know that I
shall starve, if not soon relieved, but starvation is preferable to
the dishonourable death which is the only alternative. Your menaces
move me not; my life is at your disposal; here is my sword, plunge it
into my breast; and divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease
your hunger, but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive."
Then came a gale from the northwest, and when the waters were piled up
in huge waves, the ocean swept across the ruined dikes. The flotilla
of the "Beggars," that had waited outside, unable to advance, a
painted fleet upon a painted ocean, now surged forward in a wild rush
to save the city. Spaniards by the hundreds sank beneath the deepening
and treacherous flood. The fortress of Alva was destroyed. At midnight
the enemy deserted their redoubts and fled, and at daybreak the ships
of William the Silent came through the canals. Soldiers threw bread to
the starving citizens, and two hours later every living person who
could walk made his way to the church to sing a hymn of deliverance,
during which the multitude broke down and wept like children. The day
following, the wind shifted to the east, and blew a tempest. "It was,"
says the historian, "as if the waters having done their work of
redemption, had been rolled back by an omnipotent hand, and when four
days had passed the land was bare again, and the reconstruction of the
dikes well advanced."
Such was the spirit of William the Silent, and his followers. The
eventual outcome was inevitable. At length the Spaniards came to see
that victory could be bought at one price and one price
alone--extermination. From Spain came overtures to William of Orange.
His reply is historic: "Peace only upon three conditions: (1) Freedom
of worship, (2) A land dedicated to liberty, (3) All Spaniards in
civil and military employment to be withdrawn forever." In April,
1576, an act of Union was agreed and signed at Delft, by which supreme
authority was conferred upon him. In September of that year William
entered Brussels in triumph, as the acknowledged leader of all the
Netherlands, Catholic and Protestant alike. And at length, at Utrecht,
a federal republic was established, with a written constitution--that
republic which was to exist for two hundred years under the motto "by
concord little things become great." William's struggle was over and
the battle won.
But, all unconsciously, the architect of the new republic was moving
toward his end. Like Moses, if he had led the people out of the
wilderness it was not given him to see the promised land. For years
his steps had been dogged by hired assassins. There had scarcely been
an hour during his long warfare when bribes and gold were not offered
for his death. It was a miracle that he had escaped the dagger, the
club and the cup of poison. He was now fifty-one years of age. His
portraits exhibit him as a man whose lips were locked with iron, whose
face was furrowed with care, his look alert and strained, his air that
"of a man at bay, having staked his life and life's work." And yet he
was one of the most charming of companions, brilliant of address, of
so winning a manner that it was said "every time he took off his hat
he won a subject from the King of Spain."
One morning, while writing at his desk, a young Spaniard who had
forged the seals obtained access to the Prince's writing room. Because
he had been searched by the guard the visitor was without weapon. But
having delivered his forged letter, he asked the Prince for a Bible
and the loan of a few crowns. He received a gift of twelve pieces of
silver, and went into the courtyard, where, with the Prince's own
money, he purchased a pistol from the guard. Thence he returned to
find a hiding place in the dark passageway, and to empty three shots
into the Prince's breast.
With the death of William the Silent the Netherlands lost their
noblest hero, their most sublime patriot, and one of the greatest
leaders of all time. Few are the names worthy to be ranked with that
of this Prince of the blood who gave his wealth, his strength and
finally his life for the cause of liberty. Ruling with a strong hand,
he was not a despot; brave, he was not reckless; giant, he was also
gentle; warring against the Inquisition, with its thumbscrews and
fagots, he held himself back from bloodthirstiness and revenge. The
victim of every kind of attack that hate could devise or malignity
invent, he never degraded himself by meeting hate with hate or crime
with crime. When the long struggle for liberty which he began was
brought to an issue, Spain had buried 350,000 of her sons and allies
in Holland, spent untold millions for the destroying of freedom, and
sunk from the ranks of the first power in Europe to the level of a
fourth-rate country--stagnant in ideas, cruel in government,
superstitious in religion. But brave little Holland had emerged to
serve forever as a rock against tyranny and a refuge from oppression.
IV
OLIVER CROMWELL
(1599-1658)
_And the Rise of Democracy in England_
Society's ingratitude to its heroes and leaders is proverbial. Earth's
bravest souls have been misunderstood in youth, maligned in manhood
and neglected in old age. The fathers slay the prophets, the children
build the sepulchres, and the grandchildren wear deeply the path the
heroes trod. History teems with illustrations of this principle.
Socrates is the wisest prophet, the noblest teacher, the truest
citizen and patriot that Athens ever had, and Athens rewards him with
a cup of poison. In a critical hour Savonarola saves the liberty of
his city, and Florence burns him in the market-place. Cervantes writes
the only world-wide thing in Spanish literature, and for an abiding
place Spain rewards him, not with a mansion, but with a blanket in a
dungeon, feeds him, not upon the apples of Paradise, but on the apples
of Sodom, and gives him to drink, not the nectar of the gods, but
vinegar mingled with gall.
Next to the Bible in influence upon English literature comes the
_Pilgrim's Progress_. England kept John Bunyan in jail at Bedford for
twelve years, as his reward. For some reason, nations reserve their
wreaths of recognition until the heart is broken, until hope is dead,
and the ambitions are in heaven. The history of the other great
leaders, therefore, leads us to expect that the greatest, because the
most typical, Englishman of all time, shall be unique in his obloquy
and shame, as he was signal in his supreme gifts. During his life the
very skies rained lies and cruel taunts; in his death the mildewed
lips of slander took up new falsehoods. In the grave the very dust of
this hero furnished a sure foundation for the temple of liberty, but
his grave was despoiled. With pomp and pageantry Charles the Second
ordered his bones to be exhumed, and the skeleton hung between thieves
at Tyburn to satisfy his hatred. For twelve years Cromwell's skull was
elevated upon a pole above Westminster Hall, where it stood exposed to
the rains of twelve summers and the snows of twelve winters.
And now that two hundred and fifty years have passed away, these
centuries have not availed for extinguishing the fires of hatred and
controversy, or for doing justice to the memory of this man, Oliver
Cromwell, God's appointed king.