FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS
A.D. 1555--1566
It has been shown that the Netherlands were never in a more
flourishing state than at the accession of Philip II. The external
relations of the country presented an aspect of prosperity and
peace. England was closely allied to it by Queen Mary's marriage
with Philip; France, fatigued with war, had just concluded with it
a five years truce; Germany, paralyzed by religious dissensions,
exhausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were
too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and nothing
appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was
something dangerous and alarming in the situation of the Low
Countries; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection
between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded
till the mischief was beyond remedy.
From the time that Charles V. was called to reign over Spain,
he may be said to have been virtually lost to the country of
his birth. He was no longer a mere duke of Brabant or Limberg,
a count of Flanders or Holland; he was also king of Castile,
Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, of Naples, and of Sicily. These various
kingdoms had interests evidently opposed to those of the Low
Countries, and forms of government far different. It was scarcely
to be doubted that the absolute monarch of so many peoples would
look with a jealous eye on the institutions of those provinces
which placed limits to his power; and the natural consequence was
that he who was a legitimate king in the south soon degenerated
into a usurping master in the north.
But during the reign of Charles the danger was in some measure
lessened, or at least concealed from public view, by the apparent
facility with which he submitted to and observed the laws and
customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far
different, and the results too obvious. Uninformed on the Belgian
character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the
language, no sympathy attached him to the people. He brought
with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner,
without one of the kindly or considerate feelings of a compatriot.
Spain, where this young prince had hitherto passed his life, was
in some degree excluded from European civilization. A contest of
seven centuries between the Mohammedan tribes and the descendants
of the Visigoths, cruel, like all civil wars, and, like all those
of religion, not merely a contest of rulers, but essentially of
the people, had given to the manners and feelings of this unhappy
country a deep stamp of barbarity. The ferocity of military
chieftains had become the basis of the government and laws. The
Christian kings had adopted the perfidious and bloody system of
the despotic sultans they replaced. Magnificence and tyranny,
power and cruelty, wisdom and dissimulation, respect and fear,
were inseparably associated in the minds of a people so governed.
They comprehended nothing in religion but a God armed with
omnipotence and vengeance, or in politics but a king as terrible
as the deity he represented.
Philip, bred in this school of slavish superstition, taught that he
was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading
tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible
and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to
appear superior to those beyond whom his station had placed him,
he was insensible to the affections which soften and ennoble
human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea--that of
his greatness; he had but one ambition--that of command; but
one enjoyment--that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting
selfishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter
melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing,
which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood
were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal
which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty;
and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest
contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.
Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration
and unusual self-command; the first revealing to him the views
of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of
counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself. Although
ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning. He wanted
courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of
wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar
to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at
the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the
bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.
Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced
utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. His
father had already sapped its foundations, by encouraging foreign
manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the
hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad.
His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the
nation to religious discords and hatred. Philip soon enlarged
on what Charles had commenced, and he unmercifully sacrificed
the well-being of a people to the worst objects of his selfish
ambition.
Philip had only once visited the Netherlands before his accession
to sovereign power. Being at that time twenty-two years of age, his
opinions were formed and his prejudices deeply rooted. Everything
that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both. The
frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression
of popular rights sounded like the voice of rebellion. Even the
magnificence displayed in his honor offended his jealous vanity.
From that moment he seems to have conceived an implacable aversion
to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he
could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism.
The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his
subjects. His haughty severity and vexatious etiquette revolted
their pride as well as their plain dealing; and the moral qualities
of their new sovereign were considered with loathing. The commercial
and political connection between the Netherlands and Spain had
given the two people ample opportunities for mutual acquaintance.
The dark, vindictive dispositions of the latter inspired a deep
antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty
rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to
embody all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which
he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to
make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent
consideration for a few points of political interest and individual
privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts
against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct
had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the
despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them
an easier prey.
Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce
such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states
to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid
by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining
a great step toward his designs, as it superseded the necessity
of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of
the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to
Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious
but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in
dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards
and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France;
and although he did not remove from their employments the
functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new
appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.
In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip
was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of
France, and by Pope Paul IV. A prince less obstinate than Philip
would in such circumstances have renounced, or at least postponed,
his designs against the liberties of so important a part of his
dominions, as those to which he was obliged to have recourse
for aid in support of this double war. But he seemed to make
every foreign consideration subservient to the object of domestic
aggression which he had so much at heart.
He, however, promptly met the threatened dangers from abroad. He
turned his first attention toward his contest with the pope; and
he extricated himself from it with an adroitness that proved the
whole force and cunning of his character. Having first publicly
obtained the opinion of several doctors of theology, that he
was justified in taking arms against the pontiff (a point on
which there was really no doubt), he prosecuted the war with
the utmost vigor, by the means of the afterward notorious duke
of Alva, at that time viceroy of his Italian dominions. Paul soon
yielded to superior skill and force, and demanded terms of peace,
which were granted with a readiness and seeming liberality that
astonished no one more than the defeated pontiff. But Philip's
moderation to his enemy was far outdone by his perfidy to his
allies. He confirmed Alva's consent to the confiscation of the
domains of the noble Romans who had espoused his cause; and thus
gained a stanch and powerful supporter to all his future projects
in the religious authority of the successor of St. Peter.
His conduct in the conclusion of the war with France was not
less base. His army, under the command of Philibert Emmanuel,
duke of Savoy, consisting of Belgians, Germans, and Spaniards,
with a considerable body of English, sent by Mary to the assistance
of her husband, penetrated into Picardy, and gained a complete
victory over the French forces. The honor of this brilliant affair,
which took place near St. Quintin, was almost wholly due to the
count d'Egmont, a Belgian noble, who commanded the light cavalry;
but the king, unwilling to let anyone man enjoy the glory of
the day, piously pretended that he owed the entire obligation
to St. Lawrence, on whose festival the battle was fought. His
gratitude or hypocrisy found a fitting monument in the celebrated
convent and palace of the Escurial, which he absurdly caused to
be built in the form of a gridiron, the instrument of the saint's
martyrdom. When the news of the victory reached Charles V. in his
retreat, the old warrior inquired if Philip was in Paris? but
the cautious victor had no notion of such prompt manoeuvring; nor
would he risk against foreign enemies the exhaustion of forces
destined for the enslavement of his people.
The French in some measure retrieved their late disgrace by the
capture of Calais, the only town remaining to England of all its
French conquests, and which, consequently, had deeply interested
the national glory of each people. In the early part of the year
1558, one of the generals of Henry II. made an irruption into
western Flanders; but the gallant count of Egmont once more proved
his valor and skill by attacking and totally defeating the invaders
near the town of Gravelines.
A general peace was concluded in April, 1559, which bore the
name of Câteau-Cambresis, from that of the place where it was
negotiated. Philip secured for himself various advantages in the
treaty; but he sacrificed the interests of England, by consenting
to the retention of Calais by the French king--a cession deeply
humiliating to the national pride of his allies; and, if general
opinion be correct, a proximate cause of his consort's death. The
alliance of France and the support of Rome, the important results
of the two wars now brought to a close, were counterbalanced
by the well-known hostility of Elizabeth, who had succeeded to
the throne of England; and this latter consideration was an
additional motive with Philip to push forward the design of
consolidating his despotism in the Low Countries.
To lead his already deceived subjects the more surely into the
snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to
Spain; and created for the period of his absence a provisional
government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian
nobility. He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the
illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to
this provisional government the right of levying taxes during
the temporary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the
influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the
revival of the edicts against heresy, which he had gained the
merit of suspending. These, with many minor details of profound
duplicity, formed the principal features of a plan, which, if
successful, would have reduced the Netherlands to the wretched
state of colonial dependence by which Naples and Sicily were
held in the tenure of Spain.
As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of
government in the hands of the new administration for the period
of the king's absence, the royal hypocrite believed his scheme
secure, and flattered himself he had established an instrument of
durable despotism. The composition of this new government was
a masterpiece of political machinery. It consisted of several
councils, in which the most distinguished citizens were entitled
to a place, in sufficient numbers to deceive the people with a
show of representation, but not enough to command a majority,
which was sure on any important question to rest with the titled
creatures of the court. The edicts against heresy, soon adopted,
gave to the clergy an almost unlimited power over the lives and
fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the
church being men of great respectability and moderation, chosen
by the body of the inferior clergy, these extraordinary powers
excited little alarm. Philip's project was suddenly to replace
these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice, as
soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for
this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority
of the court of Rome.
In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely
broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. The
whole of this force, so redoubtable to the fears of despotism,
consisted of only three thousand cavalry. It was now divided
into fourteen companies (or squadrons in the modern phraseology),
under the command of as many independent chiefs, so as to leave
little chance of any principle of union reigning among them. But
the German and Spanish troops in Philip's pay were cantoned on the
frontiers, ready to stifle any incipient effort in opposition to
his plans. In addition to these imposing means for their execution,
he had secured a still more secret and more powerful support: a
secret article in the treaty of Câteau-Cambresis obliged the
king of France to assist him with the whole armies of France
against his Belgian subjects, should they prove refractory. Thus
the late war, of which the Netherlands had borne all the weight,
and earned all the glory, only brought about the junction of the
defeated enemy with their own king for the extinction of their
national independence.
To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened
an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of July,
1559. This meeting of the representatives of the three orders
of the state offered no apparent obstacle to Philip's views. The
clergy, alarmed at the progress of the new doctrines, gathered
more closely round the government of which they required the
support. The nobles had lost much of their ancient attachment
to liberty; and had become, in various ways, dependent on the
royal favor. Many of the first families were then represented by
men possessed rather of courage and candor than of foresight and
sagacity. That of Nassau, the most distinguished of all, seemed
the least interested in the national cause. A great part of its
possessions were in Germany and France, where it had recently
acquired the sovereign principality of Orange. It was only from
the third order--that of the commons--that Philip had to expect
any opposition. Already, during the war, it had shown some
discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners
to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies.
But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would
be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of
the king, and disconcerting his designs.
Anthony Perrenotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, who was considered
as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reality no more
than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly
in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration
was one of cautious deception, and contained the most flattering
assurances of Philip's attachment to the people of the Netherlands.
It excused the king for not having nominated his only son, Don
Carlos, to reign over them in his name; alleging, as a proof
of his royal affection, that he preferred giving them as
stadtholderess a Belgian princess, Madame Marguerite, duchess
of Parma, the natural daughter of Charles V. by a young lady,
a native of Audenarde. Fair promises and fine words were thus
lavished in profusion to gain the confidence of the deputies.
But notwithstanding all the talent, the caution, and the mystery
of Philip and his minister, there was among the nobles one man
who saw through all. This individual, endowed with many of the
highest attributes of political genius, and pre-eminently with
judgment, the most important of all, entered fearlessly into
the contest against tyranny--despising every personal sacrifice
for the country's good. Without making himself suspiciously
prominent, he privately warned some members of the states of
the coming danger. Those in whom he confided did not betray the
trust. They spread among the other deputies the alarm, and pointed
out the danger to which they had been so judiciously awakened.
The consequence was a reply to Philip's demand; in vague and
general terms, without binding the nation by any pledge; and a
unanimous entreaty that he would diminish the taxes, withdraw
the foreign troops, and intrust no official employments to any
but natives of the country. The object of this last request was
the removal of Granvelle, who was born in Franche-Comte.
Philip was utterly astounded at all this. In the first moment
of his vexation he imprudently cried out, "Would ye, then, also
bereave _me_ of my place; I, who am a Spaniard?" But he soon
recovered his self-command, and resumed his usual mask; expressed
his regret at not having sooner learned the wishes of the states;
promised to remove the foreign troops within three months; and
set off for Zealand, with assumed composure, but filled with
the fury of a discovered traitor and a humiliated despot.
A fleet under the command of Count Horn, the admiral of the United
Provinces, waited at Flessingue to form his escort to Spain. At
the very moment of his departure, William of Nassau, prince of
Orange and governor of Zealand, waited on him to pay his official
respects. The king, taking him apart from the other attendant
nobles, recommended him to hasten the execution of several gentlemen
and wealthy citizens attached to the newly introduced religious
opinions. Then, quite suddenly, whether in the random impulse of
suppressed rage, or that his piercing glance discovered William's
secret feelings in his countenance, he accused him with having
been the means of thwarting his designs. "Sire," replied Nassau,
"it was the work of the national states."--"No!" cried Philip,
grasping him furiously by the arm; "it was not done by the states,
but by you, and you alone!"--Schiller. The words of Philip were:
"_No,_no_los_estados_; _ma_vos,_vos,_vos!_" Vos thus used in
Spanish is a term of contempt, equivalent to _toi_ in French.
This glorious accusation was not repelled. He who had saved his
country in unmasking the designs of its tyrant admitted by his
silence his title to the hatred of the one and the gratitude
of the other. On the 20th of August, Philip embarked and set
sail; turning his back forever on the country which offered the
first check to his despotism; and, after a perilous voyage, he
arrived in that which permitted a free indulgence to his ferocious
and sanguinary career.
For some time after Philip's departure, the Netherlands continued
to enjoy considerable prosperity. From the period of the Peace
of Câteau-Cambresis, commerce and navigation had acquired new
and increasing activity. The fisheries, but particularly that of
herrings, became daily more important; that one alone occupying
two thousand boats. While Holland, Zealand and Friesland made this
progress in their peculiar branches of industry, the southern
provinces were not less active or successful. Spain and the colonies
offered such a mart for the objects of their manufacture that
in a single year they received from Flanders fifty large ships
filled with articles of household furniture and utensils. The
exportation of woollen goods amounted to enormous sums. Bruges
alone sold annually to the amount of four million florins of
stuffs of Spanish, and as much of English, wool; and the least
value of the florin then was quadruple its present worth. The
commerce with England, though less important than that with Spain,
was calculated yearly at twenty-four million florins, which was
chiefly clear profit to the Netherlands, as their exportations
consisted almost entirely of objects of their own manufacture.
Their commercial relations with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
and the Levant, were daily increasing. Antwerp was the centre of
this prodigious trade. Several sovereigns, among others Elizabeth
of England, had recognized agents in that city, equivalent to
consuls of the present times; and loans of immense amount were
frequently negotiated by them with wealthy merchants, who furnished
them, not in negotiable bills or for unredeemable debentures,
but in solid gold, and on a simple acknowledgment.
Flanders and Brabant were still the richest and most flourishing
portions of the state. Some municipal fêtes given about this time
afford a notion of their opulence. On one of these occasions
the town of Mechlin sent a deputation to Antwerp, consisting
of three hundred and twenty-six horsemen dressed in velvet and
satin with gold and silver ornaments; while those of Brussels
consisted of three hundred and forty, as splendidly equipped, and
accompanied by seven huge triumphal chariots and seventy-eight
carriages of various constructions--a prodigious number for those
days.
But the splendor and prosperity which thus sprung out of the
national industry and independence, and which a wise or a generous
sovereign would have promoted, or at least have established on a
permanent basis, was destined speedily to sink beneath the bigoted
fury of Philip II. The new government which he had established
was most ingeniously adapted to produce every imaginable evil
to the state. The king, hundreds of leagues distant, could not
himself issue an order but with a lapse of time ruinous to any
object of pressing importance. The stadtholderess, who represented
him, having but a nominal authority, was forced to follow her
instructions, and liable to have all her acts reversed; besides
which, she had the king's orders to consult her private council
on all affairs whatever, and the council of state on any matter
of paramount importance. These two councils, however, contained
the elements of a serious opposition to the royal projects, in
the persons of the patriot nobles sprinkled among Philip's devoted
creatures. Thus the influence of the crown was often thwarted, if
not actually balanced; and the proposals which emanated from it
frequently opposed by the stadtholderess herself. She, although
a woman of masculine appearance and habits,[2] was possessed
of no strength of mind. Her prevailing sentiment seemed to be
dread of the king; yet she was at times influenced by a sense
of justice, and by the remonstrances of the well-judging members
of her councils. But these were not all the difficulties that
clogged the machinery of the state. After the king, the government,
and the councils, had deliberated on any measure, its execution
rested with the provincial governors or stadtholders, or the
magistrates of the towns. Almost everyone of these, being strongly
attached to the laws and customs of the nation, hesitated, or
refused to obey the orders conveyed to them, when those orders
appeared illegal. Some, however, yielded to the authority of
the government; so it often happened that an edict, which in one
district was carried into full effect, was in others deferred,
rejected, or violated, in a way productive of great confusion
in the public affairs.
[Footnote 2: Strada.]
Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent
disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had
overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty
that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence
of the restive members, he had left Granvelle the first place
in the administration. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an
eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician,
bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real
head of the government.[3] Next to him among the royalist party
was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman,
attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter
of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of
the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of
the financial department--a stern and intolerant satellite of the
court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which
operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed
the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of
the king were mere subaltern agents.
[Footnote 3: Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and therefore a fair
witness on this point, uses the following words in portraying the
character of this odious minister: _Animum_avidum_invidumque,_ac_
_simultates_inter_principem_et_populos_occulti_foventum_.]
A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent
and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity
was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the
Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired,
and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the country, living
in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess.
Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government
to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards
were removed to Zealand; but instead of being embarked at any of
its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money,
ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting
for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in
every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime
those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple
natives at length declared they would open the sluices of their
dikes; preferring to be swallowed by the waters rather than remain
exposed to the cruelty and rapacity of those Spaniards. Still
the embarkation was postponed; until the king, requiring his
troops in Spain for some domestic project, they took their
long-desired departure in the beginning of the year 1561.
The public discontent at this just cause was soon, however,
overwhelmed by one infinitely more important and lasting. The
Belgian clergy had hitherto formed a free and powerful order in
the state, governed and represented by four bishops, chosen by
the chapters of the towns or elected by the monks of the principal
abbeys. These bishops, possessing an independent territorial
revenue, and not directly subject to the influence of the crown,
had interests and feelings in common with the nation. But Philip
had prepared, and the pope had sanctioned, the new system of
ecclesiastical organization before alluded to, and the provisional
government now put it into execution. Instead of four bishops, it
was intended to appoint eighteen, their nomination being vested
in the king. By a wily system of trickery, the subserviency of
the abbeys was also aimed at. The new prelates, on a pretended
principle of economy, were endowed with the title of abbots of
the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses. Thus not
only would they enjoy the immense wealth of these establishments,
but the political rights of the abbots whom they were to succeed;
and the whole of the ecclesiastical order become gradually
represented (after the death of the then living abbots) by the
creatures of the crown.
The consequences of this vital blow to the integrity of the national
institutions were evident; and the indignation of both clergy
and laity was universal. Every legal means of opposition was
resorted to, but the people were without leaders; the states
were not in session. While the authority of the pope and the king
combined, the reverence excited by the very name of religion, and
the address and perseverance of the government, formed too powerful
a combination, and triumphed over the national discontents which
had not yet been formed into resistance. The new bishops were
appointed; Granvelle securing for himself the archiepiscopal
see of Mechlin, with the title of primate of the Low Countries.
At the same time Paul IV. put the crowning point to the capital
of his ambition, by presenting him with a cardinal's hat.
The new bishops were to a man most violent, intolerant, and it
may be conscientious, opponents to the wide-spreading doctrines
of reform. The execution of the edicts against heresy was confided
to them. The provincial governors and inferior magistrates were
commanded to aid them with a strong arm; and the most unjust and
frightful persecution immediately commenced. But still some of
these governors and magistrates, considering themselves not only
the officers of the prince, but the protectors of the people,
and the defenders of the laws rather than of the faith, did not
blindly conform to those harsh and illegal commands. The Prince
of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, and
the count of Egmont, governor of Flanders and Artois, permitted
no persecutions in those five provinces. But in various places
the very people, even when influenced by their superiors, openly
opposed it. Catholics as well as Protestants were indignant at
the atrocious spectacles of cruelty presented on all sides. The
public peace was endangered by isolated acts of resistance, and
fears of a general insurrection soon became universal.
The apparent temporizing or seeming uncertainty of the champions
of the new doctrines formed the great obstacle to the reformation,
and tended to prolong the dreadful struggle which was now only
commencing in the Low Countries. It was a matter of great difficulty
to convince the people that popery was absurd, and at the same time
to set limits to the absurdity. Had the change been from blind
belief to total infidelity, it would (as in a modern instance)
have been much easier, though less lasting. Men might, in a time
of such excitement, have been persuaded that _all_ religion
productive of abuses such as then abounded was a farce, and that
common sense called for its abolition. But when the boundaries
of belief became a question; when the world was told it ought to
reject some doctrines, and retain others which seemed as difficult
of comprehension; when one tenet was pronounced idolatry, and
to doubt another declared damnation--the world either exploded
or recoiled: it went too far or it shrank back; plunged into
atheism, or relapsed into popery. It was thus the reformation
was checked in the first instance. Its supporters were the
strong-minded and intelligent; and they never, and least of all
in those days, formed the mass. Superstition and bigotry had
enervated the intellects of the majority; and the high resolve
of those with whom the great work commenced was mixed with a
severity that materially retarded its progress. For though personal
interests, as with Henry VIII. of England, and rigid enthusiasm,
as with Calvin, strengthened the infant reformation; the first
led to violence which irritated many, the second to austerity
which disgusted them; and it was soon discovered that the change
was almost confined to forms of practice, and that the essentials
of abuse were likely to be carefully preserved. All these, and
other arguments, artfully modified to distract the people, were
urged by the new bishops in the Netherlands, and by those whom
they employed to arrest the progress of reform.
Among the various causes of the general confusion, the situation
of Brabant gave to that province a peculiar share of suffering.
Brussels, its capital, being the seat of government, had no
particular chief magistrate, like the other provinces. The executive
power was therefore wholly confided to the municipal authorities
and the territorial proprietors. But these, though generally
patriotic in their views, were divided into a multiplicity of
different opinions. Rivalry and resentment produced a total want
of union, ended in anarchy, and prepared the way for civil war.
William of Nassau penetrated the cause, and proposed the remedy
in moving for the appointment of a provincial governor. This
proposition terrified Granvelle, who saw, as clearly as did his
sagacious opponent in the council, that the nomination of a special
protector between the people and the government would have paralyzed
all his efforts for hurrying on the discord and resistance which
were meant to be the plausible excuses for the introduction of
arbitrary power. He therefore energetically dissented from the
proposed measure, and William immediately desisted from his demand.
But he at the same time claimed, in the name of the whole country,
the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone was
competent to decide what was just, legal, and obligatory for
each province and every town. Governors, magistrates, and simple
citizens, would thus have some rule for their common conduct;
and the government would be at least endowed with the dignity
of uniformity and steadiness. The ministers endeavored to evade
a demand which they were at first unwilling openly to refuse.
But the firm demeanor and persuasive eloquence of the Prince
of Orange carried before them all who were not actually bought
by the crown; and Granvelle found himself at length forced to
avow that an express order from the king forbade the convocation
of the states, on any pretext, during his absence.
The veil was thus rent asunder which had in some measure concealed
the deformity of Philip's despotism. The result was a powerful
confederacy, among all who held it odious, for the overthrow of
Granvelle, to whom they chose to attribute the king's conduct; thus
bringing into practical result the sound principle of ministerial
responsibility, without which, except in some peculiar case of
local urgency or political crisis, the name of constitutional
government is but a mockery. Many of the royalist nobles united
for the national cause; and even the stadtholderess joined her
efforts to theirs, for an object which would relieve her from
the tyranny which none felt more than she did. Those who composed
this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great
variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic
spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as
an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride.
The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him
as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is
doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange
clearly saw that they were putting themselves in direct and personal
opposition to the king himself. William alone, clear-sighted
in politics and profound in his views, knew, in thus devoting
himself to the public cause, the adversary with whom he entered
the lists.
This great man, for whom the national traditions still preserve
the sacred title of "father" (Vader-Willem), and who was in truth
not merely the parent but the political creator of the country,
was at this period in his thirtieth year. He already joined the
vigor of manhood to the wisdom of age. Brought up under the eye
of Charles V., whose sagacity soon discovered his precocious
talents, he was admitted to the councils of the emperor at a
time of life which was little advanced beyond mere boyhood. He
alone was chosen by this powerful sovereign to be present at
the audiences which he gave to foreign ambassadors, which proves
that in early youth he well deserved by his discretion the surname
of "the taciturn." It was on the arm of William, then twenty
years of age, and already named by him to the command of the
Belgian troops, that this powerful monarch leaned for support on
the memorable day of his abdication; and he immediately afterward
employed him on the important mission of bearing the imperial
crown to his brother Ferdinand, in whose favor he had resigned
it. William's grateful attachment to Charles did not blind him
to the demerits of Philip. He repaired to France, as one of the
hostages on the part of the latter monarch for the fulfilment
of the peace of Câteau-Cambresis; and he then learned from the
lips of Henry II., who soon conceived a high esteem for him,
the measures reciprocally agreed on by the two sovereigns for
the oppression of their subjects. From that moment his mind was
made up on the character of Philip, and on the part which he
had himself to perform; and he never felt a doubt on the first
point, nor swerved from the latter.
But even before his patriotism was openly displayed, Philip had
taken a dislike to one in whom his shrewdness quickly discovered
an intellect of which he was jealous. He could not actually remove
William from all interference with public affairs; but he refused
him the government of Flanders, and opposed, in secret, his projected
marriage with a princess of the House of Lorraine, which was
calculated to bring him a considerable accession of fortune,
and consequently of influence. It may be therefore said that
William, in his subsequent conduct, was urged by motives of personal
enmity against Philip. Be it so. We do not seek to raise him
above the common feelings of humanity; and we should risk the
sinking him below them, if we supposed him insensible to the
natural effects of just resentment.
The secret impulses of conduct can never be known beyond the
individual's own breast; but actions must, however questionable,
be taken as the tests of motives. In all those of William's
illustrious career we can detect none that might be supposed to
spring from vulgar or base feelings. If his hostility to Philip
was indeed increased by private dislike, he has at least set an
example of unparalleled dignity in his method of revenge; but in
calmly considering and weighing, without deciding on the question,
we see nothing that should deprive William of an unsullied title
to pure and perfect patriotism. The injuries done to him by Philip
at this period were not of a nature to excite any violent hatred.
Enough of public wrong was inflicted to arouse the patriot, but
not of private ill to inflame the man. Neither was William of
a vindictive disposition. He was never known to turn the knife
of an assassin against his royal rival, even when the blade hired
by the latter glanced from him reeking with his blood. And though
William's enmity may have been kept alive or strengthened by the
provocations he received, it is certain that, if a foe to the
king, he was, as long as it was possible, the faithful counsellor
of the crown. He spared no pains to impress on the monarch who
hated him the real means for preventing the coming evils; and
had not a revolution been absolutely inevitable, it is he who
would have prevented it.
Such was the chief of the patriot party, chosen by the silent
election of general opinion, and by that involuntary homage to
genius which leads individuals in the train of those master-minds
who take the lead in public affairs. Counts Egmont and Horn,
and some others, largely shared with him the popular favor. The
multitude could not for some time distinguish the uncertain and
capricious opposition of an offended courtier from the determined
resistance of a great man. William was still comparatively young;
he had lived long out of the country; and it was little by little
that his eminent public virtues were developed and understood.
The great object of immediate good was the removal of Cardinal
Granvelle. William boldly put himself at the head of the confederacy.
He wrote to the king, conjointly with Counts Egmont and Horn,
faithfully portraying the state of affairs. The duchess of Parma
backed this remonstrance with a strenuous request for Granvelle's
dismission. Philip's reply to the three noblemen was a mere tissue
of duplicity to obtain delay, accompanied by an invitation to
Count Egmont to repair to Madrid, to hear his sentiments at large
by word of mouth. His only answer to the stadtholderess was a
positive recommendation to use every possible means to disunite
and breed ill-will among the three confederate lords. It was
difficult to deprive William of the confidence of his friends,
and impossible to deceive him. He saw the trap prepared by the
royal intrigues, restrained Egmont for a while from the fatal
step he was but too well inclined to take, and persuaded him and
Horn to renew with him their firm but respectful representations;
at the same time begging permission to resign their various
employments, and simultaneously ceasing to appear at the court
of the stadtholderess.
In the meantime every possible indignity was offered to the cardinal
by private pique and public satire. Several lords, following
Count Egmont's example, had a kind of capuchon or fool's-cap
embroidered on the liveries of their varlets; and it was generally
known that this was meant as a practical parody on the cardinal's
hat. The crowd laughed heartily at this stupid pleasantry; and
the coarse satire of the times may be judged by a caricature,
which was forwarded to the cardinal's own hands, representing him
in the act of hatching a nest full of eggs, from which a crowd
of bishops escaped, while overhead was the devil _in_propriâ_
_personâ_, with the following scroll: "This is my well-beloved
son--listen to him!"
Philip, thus driven before the popular voice, found himself forced
to the choice of throwing off the mask at once, or of sacrificing
Granvelle. An invincible inclination for manoeuvring and deceit
decided him on the latter measure; and the cardinal, recalled
but not disgraced, quitted the Netherlands on the 10th of March,
1564. The secret instructions to the stadtholderess remained
unrevoked; the president Viglius succeeded to the post which
Granvelle had occupied; and it was clear that the projects of
the king had suffered no change.
Nevertheless some good resulted from the departure of the unpopular
minister. The public fermentation subsided; the patriot lords
reappeared at court; and the Prince of Orange acquired an increasing
influence in the council and over the stadtholderess, who by his
advice adopted a conciliatory line of conduct--a fallacious but
still a temporary hope for the nation. But the calm was of short
duration. Scarcely was this moderation evinced by the government,
when Philip, obstinate in his designs, and outrageous in his
resentment, sent an order to have the edicts against heresy put
into most rigorous execution, and to proclaim throughout the
seventeen provinces the furious decree of the Council of Trent.
The revolting cruelty and illegality of the first edicts were
already admitted. As to the decrees of this memorable council,
they were only adapted for countries in submission to an absolute
despotism. They were received in the Netherlands with general
reprobation. Even the new bishops loudly denounced them as unjust
innovations; and thus Philip found zealous opponents in those on
whom he had reckoned as his most servile tools. The stadtholderess
was not the less urged to implicit obedience to the orders of the
king by Viglius and De Berlaimont, who took upon themselves an
almost menacing tone. The duchess assembled a council of state,
and asked its advice as to her proceedings. The Prince of Orange
at once boldly proposed disobedience to measures fraught with
danger to the monarchy and ruin to the nation. The council could
not resist his appeal to their best feelings. His proposal that
fresh remonstrances should be addressed to the king met with
almost general support. The president Viglius, who had spoken
in the opening of the council in favor of the king's orders, was
overwhelmed by William's reasoning, and demanded time to prepare
his reply. His agitation during the debate, and his despair of
carrying the measures against the patriot party, brought on in
the night an attack of apoplexy.
It was resolved to despatch a special envoy to Spain, to explain
to Philip the views of the council, and to lay before him a plan
proposed by the Prince of Orange for forming a junction between
the two councils and that of finance, and forming them into one
body. The object of this measure was at once to give greater
union and power to the provisional government, to create a central
administration in the Netherlands, and to remove from some obscure
and avaricious financiers the exclusive management of the national
resources. The Count of Egmont, chosen by the council for this
important mission, set out for Madrid in the month of February,
1565. Philip received him with profound hypocrisy; loaded him
with the most flattering promises; sent him back in the utmost
elation: and when the credulous count returned to Brussels, he
found that the written orders, of which he was the bearer, were
in direct variance with every word which the king had uttered.
These orders were chiefly concerning the reiterated subject of
the persecution to be inflexibly pursued against the religious
reformers. Not satisfied with the hitherto established forms of
punishment, Philip now expressly commanded that the more revolting
means decreed by his father in the rigor of his early zeal, such
as burning, living burial, and the like, should be adopted; and
he somewhat more obscurely directed that the victims should be no
longer publicly immolated, but secretly destroyed. He endeavored,
by this vague phraseology, to avoid the actual utterance of the word
"inquisition"; but he thus virtually established that atrocious
tribunal, with attributes still more terrific than even in Spain;
for there the condemned had at least the consolation of dying
in open day, and of displaying the fortitude which is rarely
proof against the horror of a private execution. Philip had thus
consummated his treason against the principles of justice and the
practices of jurisprudence, which had heretofore characterized
the country; and against the most vital of those privileges which
he had solemnly sworn to maintain.
His design of establishing this horrible tribunal, so impiously
named "holy" by its founders, had been long suspected by the
people of the Netherlands. The expression of those fears had
reached him more than once. He as often replied by assurances
that he had formed no such project, and particularly to Count
d'Egmont during his recent visit to Madrid. But at that very time
he assembled a conclave of his creatures, doctors of theology,
of whom he formally demanded an opinion as to whether he could
conscientiously tolerate two sorts of religion in the Netherlands.
The doctors, hoping to please him, replied, that "he might, for
the avoidance of a greater evil." Philip trembled with rage,
and exclaimed, with a threatening tone, "I ask not if I _can_,
but if I _ought_." The theologians read in this question the
nature of the expected reply; and it was amply conformable to
his wish. He immediately threw himself on his knees before a
crucifix, and raising his hands toward heaven, put up a prayer
for strength in his resolution to pursue as deadly enemies all
who viewed that effigy with feelings different from his own. If
this were not really a sacrilegious farce, it must be that the
blaspheming bigot believed the Deity to be a monster of cruelty
like himself.
Even Viglius was terrified by the nature of Philip's commands;
and the patriot lords once more withdrew from all share in the
government, leaving to the duchess of Parma and her ministers the
whole responsibility of the new measures. They were at length put
into actual and vigorous execution in the beginning of the year
1566. The inquisitors of the faith, with their familiars, stalked
abroad boldly in the devoted provinces, carrying persecution
and death in their train. Numerous but partial insurrections
opposed these odious intruders. Every district and town became
the scene of frightful executions or tumultuous resistance. The
converts to the new doctrines multiplied, as usual, under the
effects of persecution. "There was nowhere to be seen," says a
contemporary author, "the meanest mechanic who did not find a
weapon to strike down the murderers of his compatriots." Holland,
Zealand and Utrecht alone escaped from those fast accumulating
horrors. William of Nassau was there.