FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
A.D. 1506--1555
Philip being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become
mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from
jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted
to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret
stadtholderess of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven
years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria,
already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first
husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract
of marriage before its consummation; her second, the Infante
of Spain, died immediately after their union; and her third,
the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of
wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved
by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very
moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey
into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.
"Ci-git Margot la genre demoiselle,
Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."
"Here gentle Margot quietly is laid,
Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid."
She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the
Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances
allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority
against the threats of France; and she carried on in person all
the negotiations between Louis XII., Maximilian, the pope Julius
II., and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice.
These negotiations took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret,
if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her
letters, was more than once on the point of having serious
differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII.
But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on
this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the
rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the
interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up
some places in Holland which he illegally held.
From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised
the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the
Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern
parts of the country were still kept down by their various
dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The
Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of
Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and
finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The
consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start
in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become
common to the whole nation.
A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret,
and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and
Belgian army, in which Maximilian figured as a spectator (taking
care to be paid by England), marched for the destruction of
Therouenne, and defeated and dispersed the French at the battle
of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a separate
peace; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made Margaret and
the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He
pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the country to
recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town; while
the duke of Saxony at length renounced to another his unjust claim
on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.
About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the
Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated
duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased
the presumed right of Saxony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In
the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in
right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal
power--a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles
procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard
of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on
him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance
on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected
by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in
Germany. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances
of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of
the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole diocese, and
the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular.
It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced
the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of
the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated
Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation.
While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself
a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates
to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.
We may here remark that, during the government of the House of
Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable
disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of
the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the
enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The
Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight
obstacle in the opposition of a slavish and ignorant clergy,
and its progress was all at once prodigious. The refusal of the
dignity of emperor by Frederick "the Wise," duke of Saxony, to
whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly
favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and
Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands,
both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum
deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy
hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism. At
length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson
of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate
rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a
while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.
From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign
of so many states, having to establish his authority at the two
extremities of Europe, could not efficiently occupy himself in
resisting the doctrines which, despite their dishonoring epithet
of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great
part of the Continent. While Charles vigorously put down the
revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so
that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his
impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered
the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safeguard
of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly venturing to appear
and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany
assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee
of the emperor; unlike the celebrated and unfortunate John Huss;
who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of
Sigismund, in the year 1415.
Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the
Low Countries, where his authority was undisputed, he proscribed
the heretics, and even violated the privileges of the country
by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their
pursuit and punishment. This imprudent stretch of power fostered
a rising spirit of opposition; for, though entertaining the best
disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and
loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a
mighty revolution gradually began to be developed.
Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power,
and they now became implacable personal enemies. Young, ambitious,
and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue
in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short
but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over
to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest
of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impression on
Henry VIII.; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle
against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. War was
declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it
for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately
bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the
triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial
troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the
Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during
the war; for the French cruisers having, on repeated occasions,
taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources
of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable
distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which
desolated these provinces in 1524.
While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the
Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flourish, in spite
of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died,
his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his
new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism;
and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice
of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of
his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the
city of Utrecht, redoubled his hostility at this intelligence;
and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay
down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured
an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term
of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray,
between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August,
1529.
This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the
inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils
caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but
in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little,
however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite
the people against each other on the score of religious dissension.
The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of
all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural
decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in
the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of
the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem;
and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his
disciples to preach in the neighboring countries. Mary, sister
of Charles V., and queen-dowager of Hungary, the stadtholderess
of the Netherlands, proposed a crusade against this fanatic; which
was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged
by impunity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from
the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion
for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they
marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their
sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution,
they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly
against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without
mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions
that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon
held out at Munster, which was besieged by the bishop and the
neighboring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married
no less than seventeen women, had gained considerable influence
over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and
imprisoned in an iron cage--an event which undeceived the greater
number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.
The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rapidly and
uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic
of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their
goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and
India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to
Bruges as the general mart of commerce, and was the most opulent
town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred
and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city voluntarily
incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles
V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool
annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from
England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold.
Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on
whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition
with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the
south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general
burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than
Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen
out of twenty-one parts of the general contribution; and all
the rest combined but eight. A search for further or minuter
proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the
country would be superfluous.
The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles
of Guelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of
exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people
recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles
rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in
Spain, and leaving to his sister the regulation of those distant
provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of
inflicting a terrible example upon them. The people of Ghent,
suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds
they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to
march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their
quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected
this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the moment when
Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary
reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring
resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take
into his own hands the settlement of this affair--trusting to
the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the
confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Ghent, taken
by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor,
when he appeared before the walls; and the city was punished
with extreme severity. Twenty-seven leaders of the sedition were
beheaded; the principal privileges of the city were withdrawn,
and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles
met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so
prospered under his sway, and was so flattered by the greatness of
the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished,
that his acts of despotic harshness were borne without a murmur. But
in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently;
and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest
in the different divisions of the nation.
Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all
his other subjects on the occasion of two expeditions which Charles
undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces
furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of
all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did
not lead him to do anything in return as peculiarly favorable
to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great
advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Guelders on
the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter,
which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars of
the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look
for a futurity of union and peace; and thus the latter years of
Charles promised better for his country than his early ones,
though he obtained less success in his new wars with France,
which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either
side.
Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities
against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species
of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward
the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings
between his only son Philip and Mary of England, whom he had
induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young
prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the
victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis I.,
and the successful dissimulation of Maurice, elector of Saxony,
by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated.
Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and
must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating
the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels
as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the
25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence
of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens
of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense
assemblage of nobility from various countries. Charles resigned
the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans;
and all the rest of his dominions to his son. Soon after the
ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain.
He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of
Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February,
1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the
fifty-ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence,
contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a
melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.
The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the
first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks
the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a
presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined
as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose
in these countries during a period of one thousand years. The
extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the
state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch
at which we are now arrived must be referred to, to judge of
the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the
dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand
system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles
V. The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other
considerations, the cause of the growth of liberty in the
Netherlands. The Reformation opened the minds of men to that
intellectual freedom without which political enfranchisement is
a worthless privilege. The invention of printing opened a thousand
channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out
from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the
whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct
of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to
the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made
subservient to those great principles of policy in which society
began to perceive its only chance of durable good. Manufactures
attained a state of high perfection, and went on progressively
with the growth of wealth and luxury. The opulence of the towns
of Brabant and Flanders was without any previous example in the
state of Europe. A merchant of Bruges took upon himself alone
the security for the ransom of John the Fearless, taken at the
battle of Nicopolis, amounting to two hundred thousand ducats.
A provost of Valenciennes repaired to Paris at one of the great
fairs periodically held there, and purchased on his own account
every article that was for sale. At a repast given by one of the
counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates the seats they
occupied were unfurnished with cushions. Those proud burghers
folded their sumptuous cloaks and sat on them. After the feast
they were retiring without retaining these important and costly
articles of dress; and on a courtier reminding them of their
apparent neglect, the burgomaster of Bruges replied, "We Flemings
are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner!"
The meetings of the different towns for the sports of archery were
signalized by the most splendid display of dress and decoration.
The archers were habited in silk, damask, and the finest linen,
and carried chains of gold of great weight and value. Luxury
was at its height among women. The queen of Philip the Fair of
France, on a visit to Bruges, exclaimed, with astonishment not
unmixed with envy, "I thought myself the only queen here; but
I see six hundred others who appear more so than I."
The court of Phillip the Good seemed to carry magnificence and
splendor to their greatest possible height. The dresses of both
men and women at this chivalric epoch were of almost incredible
expense. Velvet, satin, gold, and precious stones seemed the
ordinary materials for the dress of either sex; while the very
housings of the horses sparkled with brilliants and cost immense
sums. This absurd extravagance was carried so far that Charles
V. found himself forced at length to proclaim sumptuary laws
for its repression.
The style of the banquets given on grand occasions was regulated
on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given
at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations
entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new
crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly
fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness
(Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but
unluckily too long to find a place in our pages.
Such excessive luxury naturally led to great corruption of manners
and the commission of terrible crimes. During the reign of Philip de
Male, there were committed in the city of Ghent and its outskirts, in
less than a year, above fourteen hundred murders in gambling-houses
and other resorts of debauchery. As early as the tenth century,
the petty sovereigns established on the ruins of the empire of
Charlemagne began the independent coining of money; and the various
provinces were during the rest of this epoch inundated with a most
embarrassing variety of gold, silver, and copper. Even in ages of
comparative darkness, literature made feeble efforts to burst
through the entangled weeds of superstition, ignorance, and war.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, history was greatly
cultivated; and Froissart, Monstrelet, Olivier de la Marche, and
Philip de Comines, gave to their chronicles and memoirs a charm
of style since their days almost unrivalled. Poetry began to be
followed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish,
and French languages; and even before the institution of the
Floral Games in France, Belgium possessed its chambers of rhetoric
(_rederykkamers_) which labored to keep alive the sacred flame
of poetry with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost
every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing
several at once.
The arts in their several branches made considerable progress
in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architecture was greatly
cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of
the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age.
Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution,
make them still speaking monuments of the stern magnificence
and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the
Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music
into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree.
The first musicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other
professors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy
for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.
Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth century,
sprung at once into a new existence from the invention of John Van
Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental
discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe,
and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius
which has bequeathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting
on glass, polishing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry,
were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands
in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new
channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world
by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful
impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for
its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles
V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle
for the productions of all the nations of the earth. Its port
was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet
was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain
admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of
Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and
served greatly to the spread of knowledge, although it degenerated
into the hotbed of those fierce disputes which stamped on theology
the degradation of bigotry, and drew down odium on a study that,
if purely practiced, ought only to inspire veneration.
Charles V. was the first to establish a solid plan of government,
instead of the constant fluctuations in the management of justice,
police, and finance. He caused the edicts of the various sovereigns,
and the municipal usages, to be embodied into a system of laws; and
thus gave stability and method to the enjoyment of the prosperity
in which he left his dominions.