TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS
A.D. 1566--1573
All the services just related in the common cause of the country
and the king produced no effect on the vindictive spirit of the
latter. Neither the lapse of time, the proofs of repentance, nor
the fulfilment of their duty, could efface the hatred excited
by a conscientious opposition to even one design of despotism.
Philip was ill at Segovia when he received accounts of the excesses
of the image-breakers, and of the convention concluded with the
heretics. Despatches from the stadtholderess, with private advice
from Viglius, Egmont, Mansfield, Meghem, De Berlaimont, and others,
gave him ample information as to the real state of things, and they
thus strove to palliate their having acceded to the convention. The
emperor even wrote to his royal nephew, imploring him to treat his
wayward subjects with moderation, and offered his mediation between
them. Philip, though severely suffering, gave great attention to
the details of this correspondence, which he minutely examined,
and laid before his council of state, with notes and observations
taken by himself. But he took special care to send to them only
such parts as he chose them to be well informed upon; his natural
distrust not suffering him to have any confidential communication
with men.
Again the Spanish council appears to have interfered between
the people of the Netherlands and the enmity of the monarch;
and the offered mediation of the emperor was recommended to his
acceptance, to avoid the appearance of a forced concession to
the popular will. Philip was also strongly urged to repair to
the scene of the disturbances; and a main question of debate was,
whether he should march at the head of an army or confide himself
to the loyalty and good faith of his Belgian subjects. But the
indolence or the pride of Philip was too strong to admit of his
taking so vigorous a measure; and all these consultations ended
in two letters to the stadtholderess. In the first he declared
his firm intention to visit the Netherlands in person; refused
to convoke the states-general; passed in silence the treaties
concluded with the Protestants and the confederates; and finished
by a declaration that he would throw himself wholly on the fidelity
of the country. In his second letter, meant for the stadtholderess
alone, he authorized her to assemble the states-general if public
opinion became too powerful for resistance, but on no account
to let it transpire that he had under any circumstances given
his consent.
During these deliberations in Spain, the Protestants in the
Netherlands amply availed themselves of the privileges they had
gained. They erected numerous wooden churches with incredible
activity. Young and old, noble and plebeian, of these energetic
men, assisted in the manual labors of these occupations; and the
women freely applied the produce of their ornaments and jewels
to forward the pious work. But the furious outrages of the
iconoclasts had done infinite mischief to both political and
religious freedom; many of the Catholics, and particularly the
priests, gradually withdrew themselves from the confederacy,
which thus lost some of its most firm supporters. And, on the
other hand, the severity with which some of its members pursued
the guilty offended and alarmed the body of the people, who could
not distinguish the shades of difference between the love of
liberty and the practice of licentiousness.
The stadtholderess and her satellites adroitly took advantage of
this state of things to sow dissension among the patriots. Autograph
letters from Philip to the principal lords were distributed among
them with such artful and mysterious precautions as to throw the
rest into perplexity, and give each suspicions of the other's
fidelity. The report of the immediate arrival of Philip had also
considerable effect over the less resolute or more selfish; and
the confederation was dissolving rapidly under the operations
of intrigue, self-interest, and fear. Even the Count of Egmont
was not proof against the subtle seductions of the wily monarch,
whose severe yet flattering letters half frightened and half
soothed him into a relapse of royalism. But with the Prince of
Orange Philip had no chance of success. It is unquestionable
that, be his means of acquiring information what they might,
he did succeed in procuring minute intelligence of all that was
going on in the king's most secret council. He had from time to
time procured copies of the stadtholderess's despatches; but
the document which threw the most important light upon the real
intentions of Philip was a confidential epistle to the stadtholderess
from D'Alava, the Spanish minister at Paris, in which he spoke in
terms too clear to admit any doubt as to the terrible example
which the king was resolved to make among the patriot lords.
Bergen and Montigny confirmed this by the accounts they sent
home from Madrid of the alteration in the manner with which they
were treated by Philip and his courtiers; and the Prince of Orange
was more firmly decided in his opinions of the coming vengeance
of the tyrant.
William summoned his brother Louis, the Counts Egmont, Horn,
and Hoogstraeten, to a secret conference at Termonde; and he
there submitted to them this letter of Alava's, with others which
he had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears.
Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William
recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government,
not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the
most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a
death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious
amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to
devote himself wholly to the service of the king, and on no
inducement whatever to risk the perils of rebellion. He expressed
his perfect reliance on the justice and the goodness of Philip
when once he should see the determined loyalty of those whom he
had hitherto had so much reason to suspect; and he extorted the
others to follow his example. The two brothers and Count Horn
implored him in their turn to abandon this blind reliance on
the tyrant; but in vain. His new and unlooked-for profession of
faith completely paralyzed their plans. He possessed too largely
the confidence of both the soldiery and the people to make it
possible to attempt any serious measure of resistance in which
he would not take a part. The meeting broke up without coming to
any decision. All those who bore a part in it were expected at
Brussels to attend the council of state; Egmont alone repaired
thither. The stadtholderess questioned him on the object of the
conference at Termonde: he only replied by an indignant glance,
at the same time presenting a copy of Alava's letter.
The stadtholderess now applied her whole efforts to destroy the
union among the patriot lords. She, in the meantime, ordered
levies of troops to the amount of some thousands, the command
of which was given to the nobles on whose attachment she could
reckon. The most vigorous measures were adopted. Noircarmes,
governor of Hainault, appeared before Valenciennes, which, being
in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined
attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission,
and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate
refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble
of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the
direction of John de Soreas, gathered together in the neighborhood
of Lille and Tournay, with a show of attacking these places. But
the governor of the former town dispersed one party of them; and
Noircarmes surprised and almost destroyed the main body--their
leader falling in the action. These were the first encounters
of the civil war, which raged without cessation for upward of
forty years in these devoted countries, and which is universally
allowed to be the most remarkable that ever desolated any isolated
portion of Europe. The space which we have already given to the
causes which produced this memorable revolution, now actually
commenced, will not allow us to do more than rapidly sketch the
fierce events that succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.
While Valenciennes prepared for a vigorous resistance, a general
synod of the Protestants was held at Antwerp, and De Brederode
undertook an attempt to see the stadtholderess, and lay before
her the complaints of this body; but she refused to admit him into
the capital. He then addressed to her a remonstrance in writing,
in which he reproached her with her violation of the treaties;
on the faith of which the confederates had dispersed, and the
majority of the Protestants laid down their arms. He implored
her to revoke the new proclamations, by which she prohibited them
from the free exercise of their religion; and, above all things,
he insisted on the abandonment of the siege of Valenciennes, and
the disbanding of the new levies. The stadtholderess's reply
was one of haughty reproach and defiance. The gauntlet was now
thrown down; no possible hope of reconciliation remained; and the
whole country flew to arms. A sudden attempt on the part of the
royalists, under Count Meghem, against Bois-le-duc, was repulsed
by eight hundred men, commanded by an officer named Bomberg, in
the immediate service of De Brederode, who had fortified himself
in his garrison town of Vienen.
The Prince of Orange maintained at Antwerp an attitude of extreme
firmness and caution. His time for action had not yet arrived;
but his advice and protection were of infinite importance on
many occasions. John de Marnix, lord of Toulouse, brother of
Philip de St. Aldegonde, took possession of Osterweel on the
Scheldt, a quarter of a league from Antwerp, and fortified himself
in a strong position. But he was impetuously attacked by the
Count de Lannoy with a considerable force, and perished, after
a desperate defence, with full one thousand of his followers.
Three hundred who laid down their arms were immediately after
the action butchered in cold blood. Antwerp was on this occasion
saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens,
and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and
intrepidity of the Prince of Orange. Valenciennes at length
capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and
death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six
hours. The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens
were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited.
Noircarmes promptly followed up his success. Maestricht, Turnhout,
and Bois-le-duc submitted at his approach; and the insurgents
were soon driven from all the provinces, Holland alone excepted.
Brederode fled to Germany, where he died the following year.
The stadtholderess showed, in her success, no small proofs of
decision. She and her counsellors, acting under orders from the
king, were resolved on embarrassing to the utmost the patriot lords;
and a new oath of allegiance, to be proposed to every functionary
of the state, was considered as a certain means for attaining
this object without the violence of an unmerited dismissal. The
terms of this oath were strongly opposed to every principle of
patriotism and toleration. Count Mansfield was the first of the
nobles who took it. The duke of Arschot, Counts Meghem, Berlaimont,
and Egmont followed his example. The counts of Horn, Hoogstraeten,
De Brederode, and others, refused on various pretexts. Every
artifice and persuasion was tried to induce the Prince of Orange
to subscribe to this new test; but his resolution had been for
some time formed. He saw that every chance of constitutional
resistance to tyranny was for the present at an end. The time
for petitioning was gone by. The confederation was dissolved. A
royalist army was in the field; the Duke of Alva was notoriously
approaching at the head of another, more numerous. It was worse than
useless to conclude a hollow convention with the stadtholderess
of mock loyalty on his part and mock confidence on hers. Many
other important considerations convinced William that his only
honorable, safe, and wise course was to exile himself from the
Netherlands altogether, until more propitious circumstances allowed
of his acting openly, boldly, and with effect.
Before he put this plan of voluntary banishment into execution,
he and Egmont had a parting interview at the village of Willebroek,
between Antwerp and Brussels. Count Mansfield, and Berti, secretary
to the stadtholderess, were present at this memorable meeting.
The details of what passed were reported to the confederates
by one of their party, who contrived to conceal himself in the
chimney of the chamber. Nothing could exceed the energetic warmth
with which the two illustrious friends reciprocally endeavored
to turn each other from their respective line of conduct; but
in vain. Egmont's fatal confidence in the king was not to be
shaken; nor was Nassau's penetrating mind to be deceived by the
romantic delusion which led away his friend. They separated with
most affectionate expressions; and Nassau was even moved to tears.
His parting words were to the following effect: "Confide, then,
since it must be so, in the gratitude of the king; but a painful
presentiment (God grant it may prove a false one!) tells me that
you will serve the Spaniards as the bridge by which they will
enter the country, and which they will destroy as soon as they
have passed over it!"
On the 11th of April, a few days after this conference, the Prince
of Orange set out for Germany, with his three brothers and his
whole family, with the exception of his eldest son Philip William,
count de Beuren, whom he left behind a student in the University
of Louvain. He believed that the privileges of the college and
the franchises of Brabant would prove a sufficient protection to
the youth; and this appears the only instance in which William's
vigilant prudence was deceived. The departure of the prince seemed
to remove all hope of protection or support from the unfortunate
Protestants, now left the prey of their implacable tyrant. The
confederation of the nobles was completely broken up. The counts
of Hoogstraeten, Bergen, and Culembourg followed the example of
the Prince of Orange, and escaped to Germany; and, the greater
number of those who remained behind took the new oath of allegiance,
and became reconciled to the government.
This total dispersion of the confederacy brought all the towns
of Holland into obedience to the king. But the emigration which
immediately commenced threatened the country with ruin. England
and Germany swarmed with Dutch and Belgian refugees; and all the
efforts of the stadtholderess could not restrain the thousands
that took to flight. She was not more successful in her attempts to
influence the measures of the king. She implored him, in repeated
letters, to abandon his design of sending a foreign army into
the country, which she represented as being now quite reduced
to submission and tranquillity. She added that the mere report
of this royal invasion (so to call it) had already deprived the
Netherlands of many thousands of its best inhabitants; and that
the appearance of the troops would change it into a desert. These
arguments, meant to dissuade, were the very means of encouraging
Philip in his design. He conceived his project to be now ripe
for the complete suppression of freedom; and Alva soon began
his march.
On the 5th of May, 1567, this celebrated captain, whose reputation
was so quickly destined to sink into the notoriety of an executioner,
began his memorable march; and on the 22d of August he, with
his two natural sons, and his veteran army consisting of about
fifteen thousand men, arrived at the walls of Brussels. The
discipline observed on this march was a terrible forewarning to
the people of the Netherlands of the influence of the general and
the obedience of the troops. They had little chance of resistance
against such soldiers so commanded.
Several of the Belgian nobility went forward to meet Alva, to
render him the accustomed honors, and endeavor thus early to
gain his good graces. Among them was the infatuated Egmont, who
made a present to Alva of two superb horses, which the latter
received with a disdainful air of condescension. Alva's first
care was the distribution of his troops--several thousands of
whom were placed in Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns,
and the remainder reserved under his own immediate orders at
Brussels. His approach was celebrated by universal terror; and
his arrival was thoroughly humiliating to the duchess of Parma.
He immediately produced his commission as commander-in-chief
of the royal armies in the Netherlands; but he next showed her
another, which confided to him powers infinitely more extended
than any Marguerite herself had enjoyed, and which proved to her
that the almost sovereign power over the country was virtually
vested in him.
Alva first turned his attention to the seizure of those patriot
lords whose pertinacious infatuation left them within his reach.
He summoned a meeting of all the members of the council of state
and the knights of the order of the Golden Fleece, to deliberate
on matters of great importance. Counts Egmont and Horn attended,
among many others; and at the conclusion of the council they
were both arrested (some historians assert by the hands of Alva
and his eldest son), as was also Van Straeten, burgomaster of
Antwerp, and Casambrot, Egmont's secretary. The young count of
Mansfield appeared for a moment at this meeting; but, warned by
his father of the fate intended him, as an original member of
the confederation, he had time to fly. The count of Hoogstraeten
was happily detained by illness, and thus escaped the fate of
his friends. Egmont and Horn were transferred to the citadel
of Ghent, under an escort of three thousand Spanish soldiers.
Several other persons of the first families were arrested; and
those who had originally been taken in arms were executed without
delay.
[Illustration: STORMING THE BARRICADES AT BRUSSELS DURING THE
REVOLUTION OF 1848.]
The next measures of the new governor were the reestablishment of
the Inquisition, the promulgation of the decrees of the Council
of Trent, the revocation of the duchess of Parma's edicts, and
the royal refusal to recognize the terms of her treaties with
the Protestants. He immediately established a special tribunal,
composed of twelve members, with full powers to inquire into
and pronounce judgment on every circumstance connected with the
late troubles. He named himself president of this council, and
appointed a Spaniard, named Vargas, as vice-president--a wretch
of the most diabolical cruelty. Several others of the judges
were also Spaniards, in direct infraction of the fundamental
laws of the country. This council, immortalized by its infamy,
was named by the new governor (for so Alva was in fact, though
not yet in name), the Council of Troubles. By the people it was
soon designed the Council of Blood. In its atrocious proceedings
no respect was paid to titles, contracts, or privileges, however
sacred. Its judgments were without appeal. Every subject of the
state was amenable to its summons; clergy and laity, the first
individuals of the country, as well as the most wretched outcasts
of society. Its decrees were passed with disgusting rapidity
and contempt of form. Contumacy was punished with exile and
confiscation. Those who, strong in innocence, dared to brave
a trial were lost without resource. The accused were forced to
its bar without previous warning. Many a wealthy citizen was
dragged to trial four leagues' distance, tied to a horse's tail.
The number of victims was appalling. On one occasion, the town
of Valenciennes alone saw fifty-five of its citizens fall by
the hands of the executioner. Hanging, beheading, quartering and
burning were the every-day spectacles. The enormous confiscations
only added to the thirst for gold and blood by which Alva and his
satellites were parched. History offers no example of parallel
horrors; for while party vengeance on other occasions has led to
scenes of fury and terror, they arose, in this instance, from
the vilest cupidity and the most cold-blooded cruelty.
After three months of such atrocity, Alva, fatigued rather than
satiated with butchery, resigned his hateful functions wholly
into the hands of Vargas, who was chiefly aided by the members
Delrio and Dela Torre. Even at this remote period we cannot repress
the indignation excited by the mention of those monsters, and
it is impossible not to feel satisfaction in fixing upon their
names the brand of historic execration. One of these wretches,
called Hesselts, used at length to sleep during the mock trials
of the already doomed victims; and as often as he was roused
up by his colleagues, he used to cry out mechanically, "To the
gibbet! to the gibbet!" so familiar was his tongue with the sounds
of condemnation.
The despair of the people may be imagined from the fact that,
until the end of the year 1567, their only consolation was the
prospect of the king's arrival! He never dreamed of coming. Even
the delight of feasting in horrors like these could not conquer
his indolence. The good duchess of Parma--for so she was in
comparison with her successor--was not long left to oppose the
feeble barrier of her prayers between Alva and his victims. She
demanded her dismissal from the nominal dignity, which was now
but a title of disgrace. Philip granted it readily, accompanied
by a hypocritical letter, a present of thirty thousand crowns,
and the promise of an annual pension of twenty thousand more.
She left Brussels in the month of April, 1568, raised to a high
place in the esteem and gratitude of the people, less by any
actual claims from her own conduct than by its fortuitous contrast
with the infamy of her successor. She retired to Italy, and died
at Naples in the month of February, 1586.
Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, duke of Alva, was of a distinguished
family in Spain, and even boasted of his descent from one of the
Moorish monarchs who had reigned in the insignificant kingdom of
Toledo. When he assumed the chief command in the Netherlands, he
was sixty years of age; having grown old and obdurate in pride,
ferocity, and avarice. His deeds must stand instead of a more
detailed portrait, which, to be thoroughly striking, should be
traced with a pen dipped in blood. He was a fierce and clever
soldier, brought up in the school of Charles V., and trained
to his profession in the wars of that monarch in Germany, and
subsequently in that of Philip II. against France. In addition
to the horrors acted by the Council of Blood, Alva committed many
deeds of collateral but minor tyranny; among others, he issued
a decree forbidding, under severe penalties, any inhabitant of
the country to marry without his express permission. His furious
edicts against emigration were attempted to be enforced in vain.
Elizabeth of England opened all the ports of her kingdom to the
Flemish refugees, who carried with them those abundant stores of
manufacturing knowledge which she wisely knew to be the elements
of national wealth.
Alva soon summoned the Prince of Orange, his brothers, and all
the confederate lords, to appear before the council and answer
to the charge of high treason. The prince gave a prompt and
contemptuous answer, denying the authority of Alva and his council,
and acknowledging for his judges only the emperor, whose vassal
he was, or the king of Spain in person, as president of the order
of the Golden Fleece. The other lords made replies nearly similar.
The trials of each were, therefore, proceeded on, by contumacy;
confiscation of property being an object almost as dear to the
tyrant viceroy as the death of his victims. Judgments were promptly
pronounced against those present or absent, alive or dead. Witness
the case of the unfortunate marquess of Bergues, who had previously
expired at Madrid, as was universally believed, by poison; and his
equally ill-fated colleague in the embassy, the Baron Montigny,
was for a while imprisoned at Segovia, where he was soon after
secretly beheaded, on the base pretext of former disaffection.
The departure of the duchess of Parma having left Alva undisputed
as well as unlimited authority, he proceeded rapidly in his terrible
career. The count of Beuren was seized at Louvain, and sent prisoner
to Madrid; and wherever it was possible to lay hands on a suspected
patriot, the occasion was not neglected. It would be a revolting
task to enter into a minute detail of all the horrors committed,
and impossible to record the names of the victims who so quickly
fell before Alva's insatiate cruelty. The people were driven to
frenzy. Bands of wretches fled to the woods and marshes; whence,
half famished and perishing for want, they revenged themselves with
pillage and murder. Pirates infested and ravaged the coast; and
thus, from both sea and land, the whole extent of the Netherlands
was devoted to carnage and ruin. The chronicles of Brabant and
Holland, chiefly written in Flemish by contemporary authors,
abound in thrilling details of the horrors of this general
desolation, with long lists of those who perished. Suffice it
to say, that, on the recorded boast of Alva himself, he caused
eighteen thousand inhabitants of the Low Countries to perish by
the hands of the executioner, during his less than six years'
sovereignty in the Netherlands.
The most important of these tragical scenes was now soon to be
acted. The Counts Egmont and Horn, having submitted to some previous
interrogatories by Vargas and others, were removed from Ghent to
Brussels, on the 3d of June, under a strong escort. The following
day they passed through the mockery of a trial before the Council
of Blood; and on the 5th they were both beheaded in the great
square of Brussels, in the presence of Alva, who gloated on the
spectacle from a balcony that commanded the execution. The same day
Van Straeten, and Casambrot shared the fate of their illustrious
friends, in the castle of Vilvorde; with many others whose names
only find a place in the local chronicles of the times. Egmont
and Horn met their fate with the firmness expected from their
well-proved courage.
These judicial murders excited in the Netherlands an agitation
without bounds. It was no longer hatred or aversion that filled
men's minds, but fury and despair. The outbursting of a general
revolt was hourly watched for. The foreign powers, without exception,
expressed their disapproval of these executions. The emperor
Maximilian II., and all the Catholic princes, condemned them.
The former sent his brother expressly to the king of Spain, to
warn him that without a cessation of his cruelties he could not
restrain a general declaration from the members of the empire,
which would, in all likelihood, deprive him of every acre of
land in the Netherlands. The princes of the Protestant states
held no terms in the expression of their disgust and resentment;
and everything seemed now ripe, both at home and abroad, to favor
the enterprise on which the Prince of Orange was determined to
risk his fortune and his life. But his principal resources were
to be found in his genius and courage, and in the heroic devotion
partaken by his whole family in the cause of their country. His
brother, Count John, advanced him a considerable sum of money;
the Flemings and Hollanders, in England and elsewhere, subscribed
largely; the prince himself, after raising loans in every possible
way on his private means, sold his jewels, his plate, and even
the furniture of his houses, and threw the amount into the common
fund.
Two remarkable events took place this year in Spain, and added
to the general odium entertained against Philip's character
throughout Europe. The first was the death of his son Don Carlos,
whose sad story is too well known in connection with the annals
of his country to require a place here; the other was the death
of the queen. Universal opinion assigned poison as the cause;
and Charles IX. of France, her brother, who loved her with great
tenderness, seems to have joined in this belief. Astonishment
and horror filled all minds on the double denouement of this
romantic tragedy; and the enemies of the tyrant reaped all the
advantages it was so well adapted to produce them.
The Prince of Orange, having raised a considerable force in Germany,
now entered on the war with all the well-directed energy by which
he was characterized. The queen of England, the French Huguenots,
and the Protestant princes of Germany, all lent him their aid
in money or in men; and he opened his first campaign with great
advantage. He formed his army into four several corps, intending
to enter the country on as many different points, and by a sudden
irruption on that most vulnerable to rouse at once the hopes and
the co-operation of the people. His brothers Louis and Adolphus,
at the head of one of these divisions, penetrated into Friesland,
and there commenced the contest. The count of Aremberg, governor
of this province, assisted by the Spanish troops under Gonsalvo
de Bracamonte, quickly opposed the invaders. They met on the 24th
of May near the abbey of Heiligerlee, which gave its name to
the battle; and after a short contest the royalists were defeated
with great loss. The count of Aremberg and Adolphus of Nassau
encountered in single combat, and fell by each other's hands.
The victory was dearly purchased by the loss of this gallant
prince, the first of his illustrious family who have on so many
occasions, down to these very days, freely shed their blood for the
freedom and happiness of the country which may be so emphatically
called their own.
Alva immediately hastened to the scene of this first action, and
soon forced Count Louis to another at a place called Jemminghem,
near the town of Embden, on the 21st of July. Their forces were
nearly equal, about fourteen thousand on either side; but all the
advantage of discipline and skill was in favor of Alva; and the
consequence was, the total rout of the patriots with a considerable
loss in killed and the whole of the cannon and baggage. The entire
province of Friesland was thus again reduced to obedience, and
Alva hastened back to Brabant to make head against the Prince
of Orange. The latter had now under his command an army of
twenty-eight thousand men--an imposing force in point of numbers,
being double that which his rival was able to muster. He soon
made himself master of the towns of Tongres and St. Trond, and
the whole province of Liege was in his power. He advanced boldly
against Alva, and for several months did all that manoeuvring
could do to force him to a battle. But the wily veteran knew
his trade too well; he felt sure that in time the prince's force
would disperse for want of pay and supplies; and he managed his
resources so ably that with little risk and scarcely any loss
he finally succeeded in his object. In the month of October the
prince found himself forced to disband his large but undisciplined
force; and he retired into France to recruit his funds and consider
on the best measures for some future enterprise.
The insolent triumph of Alva knew no bounds. The rest of the
year was consumed in new executions. The hotel of Culembourg,
the early cradle of De Brederode's confederacy, was razed to the
ground, and a pillar erected on the spot commemorative of the
deed; while Alva, resolved to erect a monument of his success as
well as of his hate, had his own statue in brass, formed of the
cannons taken at Jemminghem, set up in the citadel of Antwerp,
with various symbols of power and an inscription of inflated
pride.
The following year was ushered in by a demand of unwonted and
extravagant rapacity; the establishment of two taxes on property,
personal and real, to the amount of the hundredth penny (or denier)
on each kind; and at every transfer or sale ten per cent on personal
and five per cent for real property. The states-general, of whom
this demand was made, were unanimous in their opposition, as well
as the ministers; but particularly De Berlaimont and Viglius.
Alva was so irritated that he even menaced the venerable president
of the council, but could not succeed in intimidating him. He
obstinately persisted in his design for a considerable period;
resisting arguments and prayers, and even the more likely means
tried for softening his cupidity, by furnishing him with sums
from other sources equivalent to those which the new taxes were
calculated to produce. To his repeated threats against Viglius
the latter replied, that "he was convinced the king would not
condemn him unheard; but that at any rate his gray hairs saved
him from any ignoble fear of death."
A deputation was sent from the states-general to Philip explaining
the impossibility of persevering in the attempted taxes, which
were incompatible with every principle of commercial liberty.
But Alva would not abandon his design till he had forced every
province into resistance, and the king himself commanded him to
desist. The events of this and the following year, 1570, may
be shortly summed up; none of any striking interest or eventual
importance having occurred. The sufferings of the country were
increasing from day to day under the intolerable tyranny which
bore it down. The patriots attempted nothing on land; but their
naval force began from this time to acquire that consistency
and power which was so soon to render it the chief means of
resistance and the great source of wealth. The privateers or
corsairs, which began to swarm from every port in Holland and
Zealand, and which found refuge in all those of England, sullied
many gallant exploits by instances of culpable excess; so much
so that the Prince of Orange was forced to withdraw the command
which he had delegated to the lord of Dolhain, and to replace
him by Gislain de Fiennes: for already several of the exiled
nobles and ruined merchants of Antwerp and Amsterdam had joined
these bold adventurers; and purchased or built, with the remnant
of their fortunes, many vessels, in which they carried on a most
productive warfare against Spanish commerce through the whole
extent of the English Channel, from the mouth of the Embs to
the harbor of La Rochelle.
One of those frightful inundations to which the northern provinces
were so constantly exposed occurred this year, carrying away
the dikes, and destroying lives and properly to a considerable
amount. In Friesland alone twenty thousand men were victims to this
calamity. But no suffering could affect the inflexible sternness of
the duke of Alva; and to such excess did he carry his persecution
that Philip himself began to be discontented, and thought his
representative was overstepping the bounds of delegated tyranny.
He even reproached him sharply in some of his despatches. The
governor replied in the same strain; and such was the effect of
this correspondence that Philip resolved to remove him from his
command. But the king's marriage with Anne of Austria, daughter
of the emperor Maximilian, obliged him to defer his intentions
for a while; and he at length named John de la Cerda, duke of
Medina-Celi, for Alva's successor. Upward of a year, however,
elapsed before this new governor was finally appointed; and he
made his appearance on the coast of Flanders with a considerable
fleet, on the 11th of May, 1572. He was afforded on this very
day a specimen of the sort of people he came to contend with;
for his fleet was suddenly attacked by that of the patriots,
and many of his vessels burned and taken before his eyes, with
their rich cargoes and considerable treasures intended for the
service of the state.
The duke of Medina-Celi proceeded rapidly to Brussels, where
he was ceremoniously received by Alva, who, however, refused
to resign the government, under the pretext that the term of
his appointment had not expired, and that he was resolved first
to completely suppress all symptoms of revolt in the northern
provinces. He succeeded in effectually disgusting La Cerda, who
almost immediately demanded and obtained his own recall to Spain.
Alva, left once more in undisputed possession of his power, turned
it with increased vigor into new channels of oppression. He was soon
again employed in efforts to effect the levying of his favorite
taxes; and such was the resolution of the tradesmen of Brussels,
that, sooner than submit, they almost universally closed their
shops altogether. Alva, furious at this measure, caused sixty of
the citizens to be seized, and ordered them to be hanged opposite
their own doors. The gibbets were actually erected, when, on the
very morning of the day fixed for the executions, he received
despatches that wholly disconcerted him and stopped their completion.
To avoid an open rupture with Spain, the queen of England had
just at this time interdicted the Dutch and Flemish privateers
from taking shelter in her ports. William de la Marck, count of
Lunoy, had now the chief command of this adventurous force. He
was distinguished by an inveterate hatred against the Spaniards,
and had made a wild and romantic vow never to cut his hair or
beard till he had avenged the murders of Egmont and Horn. He was
impetuous and terrible in all his actions, and bore the surname
of "the wild boar of the Ardennes." Driven out of the harbors of
England, he resolved on some desperate enterprise; and on the
1st of April he succeeded in surprising the little town of Brille,
in the island of Voorn, situate between Zealand and Holland. This
insignificant place acquired great celebrity from this event,
which may be considered the first successful step toward the
establishment of liberty and the republic.
Alva was confounded by the news of this exploit, but with his
usual activity he immediately turned his whole attention toward
the point of greatest danger. His embarrassment, however, became
every day more considerable. Lunoy's success was the signal of a
general revolt. In a few days every town in Holland and Zealand
declared for liberty, with the exception of Amsterdam and Middleburg,
where the Spanish garrisons were too strong for the people to
attempt their expulsion.
The Prince of Orange, who had been ou the watch for a favorable
moment, now entered Brabant at the head of twenty thousand men,
composed of French, German, and English, and made himself master
of several important places; while his indefatigable brother
Louis, with a minor force, suddenly appeared in Hainault, and,
joined by a large body of French Huguenots under De Genlis, he
seized on Mons, the capital of the province, on the 25th of May.
Alva turned first toward the recovery of this important place,
and gave the command of the siege to his son Frederic of Toledo,
who was assisted by the counsels of Noircarmes and Vitelli; but
Louis of Nassau held out for upward of three months, and only
surrendered on an honorable capitulation in the month of September;
his French allies having been first entirely defeated, and their
brave leader De Genlis taken prisoner. The Prince of Orange had
in the meantime secured possession of Louvain, Ruremonde, Mechlin,
and other towns, carried Termonde and Oudenarde by assault, and
made demonstrations which seemed to court Alva once more to try
the fortune of the campaign in a pitched battle. But such were
not William's real intentions, nor did the cautious tactics of
his able opponent allow him to provoke such a risk. He, however,
ordered his son Frederic to march with all his force into Holland,
and he soon undertook the siege of Haerlem. By the time that Mons
fell again into the power of the Spaniards, sixty-five towns
and their territories, chiefly in the northern provinces, had
thrown off the yoke. The single port of Flessingue contained
one hundred and fifty patriot vessels, well armed and equipped;
and from that epoch may be dated the rapid growth of the first
naval power in Europe, with the single exception of Great Britain.
It is here worthy of remark, that all the horrors of which the
people of Flanders were the victims, and in their full proportion,
had not the effect of exciting them to revolt; but they rose up
with fury against the payment of the new taxes. They sacrificed
everything sooner than pay these unjust exactions--_Omnia_dabant_,
_ne_decimam_darant_. The next important event in these wars
was the siege of Haerlem, before which place the Spaniards were
arrested in their progress for seven months, and which they at
length succeeded in taking with a loss of ten thousand men.
The details of this memorable siege are calculated to arouse
every feeling of pity for the heroic defenders, and of execration
against the cruel assailants. A widow, named Kenau Hasselaer,
gained a niche in history by her remarkable valor at the head of
a battalion of three hundred of her townswomen, who bore a part
in all the labors and perils of the siege. After the surrender,
and in pursuance of Alva's common system, his ferocious son caused
the governor and the other chief officers to be beheaded; and
upward of two thousand of the worn-out garrison and burghers
were either put to the sword, or tied two and two and drowned
in the lake which gives its name to the town. Tergoes in South
Beveland, Mechlin, Naerden, and other towns, were about the same
period the scenes of gallant actions, and of subsequent cruelties
of the most revolting nature as soon as they fell into the power
of the Spaniards. Strada, with all his bigotry to the Spanish
cause, admits that these excesses were atrocious crimes rather
than just punishments: _non_poena,_sed_flagitium_. Horrors like
these were sure to force reprisals on the part of the maddened
patriots. De la Marck carried on his daring exploits with a cruelty
which excited the indignation of the Prince of Orange, by whom
he was removed from his command. The contest was for a while
prosecuted with a decrease of vigor proportioned to the serious
losses on both sides; money and the munitions of war began to
fail; and though the Spaniards succeeded in taking The Hague,
they were repulsed before Alkmaer with great loss, and their
fleet was almost entirely destroyed in a naval combat on the
Zuyder Zee. The count Bossu, their admiral, was taken in this
fight, with about three hundred of his best sailors.
Holland was now from one end to the other the theatre of the
most shocking events. While the people performed deeds of the
greatest heroism, the perfidy and cruelty of the Spaniards had
no bounds. The patriots saw more danger in submission than in
resistance; each town, which was in succession subdued, endured
the last extremities of suffering before it yielded, and victory
was frequently the consequence of despair. This unlooked-for
turn in affairs decided the king to remove Alva, whose barbarous
and rapacious conduct was now objected to even by Philip, when
it produced results disastrous to his cause. Don Luis Zanega y
Requesens, commander of the order of Malta, was named to the
government of the Netherlands. He arrived at Brussels on the
17th of November, 1573; and on the 18th of that following month,
the monster whom he succeeded set out for Spain, loaded with the
booty to which he had waded through oceans of blood, and with
the curses of the country, which, however, owed its subsequent
freedom to the impulse given by his intolerable cruelty. He repaired
to Spain; and after various fluctuations of favor and disgrace
at the hands of his congenial master, he died in his bed, at
Lisbon, in 1582, at the advanced age of seventy-four years.