TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
A.D. 1580--1584
Philip might be well excused the utmost violence of resentment on
this occasion, had it been bounded by fair and honorable efforts
for the maintenance of his authority. But every general principle
seemed lost in the base inveteracy of private hatred. The ruin
of the Prince of Orange was his main object, and his industry
and ingenuity were taxed to the utmost to procure his murder.
Existing documents prove that he first wished to accomplish this
in such a way as that the responsibility and odium of the act
might rest on the prince of Parma; but the mind of the prince
was at that period too magnanimous to allow of a participation
in the crime. The correspondence on the subject is preserved
in the archives, and the date of Philip's first letter (30th
of November, 1579) proves that even before the final disavowal
of his authority by the United Provinces he had harbored his
diabolical design. The prince remonstrated, but with no effect.
It even appears that Philip's anxiety would not admit of the
delay necessary for the prince's reply. The infamous edict of
proscription against William bears date the 15th of March; and
the most pressing letters commanded the prince of Parma to make
it public. It was not, however, till the 15th of June that he
sent forth the fatal ban.
This edict, under Philip's own signature, is a tissue of invective
and virulence. The illustrious object of its abuse is accused of
having engaged the heretics to profane the churches and break the
images; of having persecuted and massacred the Catholic priests; of
hypocrisy, tyranny, and perjury; and, as the height of atrocity,
of having introduced liberty of conscience into his country! For
these causes, and many others, the king declares him "proscribed
and banished as a public pest"; and it is permitted to all persons
to assail him "in his fortune, person, and life, as an enemy
to human nature." Philip also, "for the recompense of virtue
and the punishment of crime," promises to whoever will deliver
up William of Nassau, dead or alive, "in lands or money, at his
choice, the sum of twenty-five thousand golden crowns; to grant
a free pardon to such person for all former offences of what kind
soever, and to invest him with letters patent of nobility."
In reply to this brutal document of human depravity, William
published all over Europe his famous "Apology," of which it is
enough to say that language could not produce a more splendid
refutation of every charge or a more terrible recrimination against
the guilty tyrant. It was attributed to the pen of Peter de Villiers,
a Protestant minister. It is universally pronounced one of the
noblest monuments of history. William, from the hour of his
proscription, became at once the equal in worldly station, as
he had ever been the superior in moral worth, of his royal
calumniator. He took his place as a prince of an imperial family,
not less ancient or illustrious than that of the House of Austria;
and he stood forward at the supreme tribunal of public feeling
and opinion as the accuser of a king who disgraced his lineage
and his throne.
By a separate article in the treaty with the states, the duke
of Alençon secured to William the sovereignty of Holland and
Zealand, as well as the lordship of Friesland, with his title
of stadtholder, retaining to the duke his claim on the prince's
faith and homage. The exact nature of William's authority was
finally ratified on the 24th of July, 1581; on which day he took
the prescribed oath, and entered on the exercise of his well-earned
rights.
Philip now formed the design of sending back the duchess of Parma
to resume her former situation as stadtholderess, and exercise
the authority conjointly with her son. But the latter positively
declined this proposal of divided power; and he, consequently,
was left alone to its entire exercise. Military affairs made
but slow progress this year. The most remarkable event was the
capture of La Noue, a native of Bretagne, one of the bravest, and
certainly the cleverest, officers in the service of the states,
into which he had passed after having given important aid to
the Huguenots of France. He was considered so important a prize
that Philip refused all proposals for his exchange, and detained
him in the castle of Limburg for five years.
The siege of Cambray was now undertaken by the prince of Parma
in person; while the duke of Alençon, at the head of a large army
and the flower of the French nobility, advanced to its relief, and
soon forced his rival to raise the siege. The new sovereign of the
Netherlands entered the town, and was received with tumultuous joy
by the half-starved citizens and garrison. The prince of Parma sought
an equivalent for this check in the attack of Tournay, which he
immediately afterward invested. The town was but feebly garrisoned;
but the Protestant inhabitants prepared for a desperate defence,
under the exciting example of the princess of Epinoi, wife of the
governor, who was himself absent. This remarkable woman furnishes
another proof of the female heroism which abounded in these wars.
Though wounded in the arm, she fought in the breach sword in hand,
braving peril and death. And when at length it was impossible to
hold out longer, she obtained an honorable capitulation, and
marched out, on the 29th of November, on horseback, at the head
of the garrison, with an air of triumph rather than of defeat.
The duke of Alençon, now created duke of Anjou, by which title
we shall hereafter distinguish him, had repaired to England,
in hopes of completing his project of marriage with Elizabeth.
After three months of almost confident expectation, the virgin
queen, at this time fifty years of age, with a caprice not quite
justifiable, broke all her former engagements; and, happily for
herself and her country, declined the marriage. Anjou burst out
into all the violence of his turbulent temper, and set sail for
the Netherlands. Elizabeth made all the reparation in her power,
by the honors paid him on his dismissal. She accompanied him as
far as Canterbury, and sent him away under the convoy of the earl
of Leicester, her chief favorite; and with a brilliant suite and a
fleet of fifteen sail. Anjou was received at Antwerp with equal
distinction; and was inaugurated there on the 19th of February
as duke of Brabant, Lothier, Limburg, and Guelders, with many
other titles, of which he soon proved himself unworthy. When
the Prince of Orange, at the ceremony, placed the ducal mantle
on his shoulders, Anjou said to him, "Fasten it so well, prince,
that they cannot take it off again!"
During the rejoicings which followed this inauspicious ceremony,
Philip's proscription against the Prince of Orange put forth its
first fruits. The latter gave a grand dinner in the chateau of
Antwerp, which he occupied, on the 18th of March, the birthday
of the duke of Anjou; and, as he was quitting the dining-room,
on his way to his private chamber, a young man stepped forward
and offered a pretended petition, William being at all times of
easy access for such an object. While he read the paper, the
treacherous suppliant discharged a pistol at his head: the ball
struck him under the left ear, and passed out at the right cheek.
As he tottered and fell, the assassin drew a poniard to add suicide
to the crime, but he was instantly put to death by the attendant
guards. The young Count Maurice, William's second son, examined
the murderer's body; and the papers found on him, and subsequent
inquiries, told fully who and what he was. His name was John
Jaureguay, his age twenty-three years; he was a native of Biscay,
and clerk to a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, called Gaspar Anastro.
This man had instigated him to the crime; having received a promise
signed by King Philip, engaging to give him twenty-eight thousand
ducats and other advantages, if he would undertake to assassinate
the Prince of Orange. The inducements held out by Anastro to his
simple dupe, were backed strongly by the persuasions of Antony
Timmerman, a Dominican monk; and by Venero, Anastro's cashier, who
had from fear declined becoming himself the murderer. Jaureguay
had duly heard mass, and received the sacrament, before executing
his attempt; and in his pockets were found a catechism of the
Jesuits, with tablets filled with prayers in the Spanish language;
one in particular being addressed to the Angel Gabriel, imploring
his intercession with God and the Virgin, to aid him in the
consummation of his object. Other accompanying absurdities seem
to pronounce this miserable wretch to be as much an instrument
in the hands of others as the weapon of his crime was in his own.
Timmerman and Venero made a full avowal of their criminality, and
suffered death in the usual barbarous manner of the times. The
Jesuits, some years afterward, solemnly gathered the remains of
these three pretended martyrs, and exposed them as holy relics
for public veneration. Anastro effected his escape.
The alarm and indignation of the people of Antwerp knew no bounds.
Their suspicions at first fell on the duke of Anjou and the French
party; but the truth was soon discovered; and the rapid recovery
of the Prince of Orange from his desperate wound set everything
once more to rights. But a premature report of his death flew
rapidly abroad; and he had anticipated proofs of his importance
in the eyes of all Europe, in the frantic delight of the base,
and the deep affliction of the good. Within three months, William
was able to accompany the duke of Anjou in his visits to Ghent,
Bruges, and the other chief towns of Flanders; in each of which the
ceremony of inauguration was repeated. Several military exploits
now took place, and various towns fell into the hands of the
opposing parties; changing masters with a rapidity, as well as a
previous endurance of suffering, that must have carried confusion
and change on the contending principles of allegiance into the
hearts and heads of the harassed inhabitants.
The duke of Anjou, intemperate, inconstant, and unprincipled,
saw that his authority was but the shadow of power, compared to
the deep-fixed practices of despotism which governed the other
nations of Europe. The French officers, who formed his suite and
possessed all his confidence, had no difficulty in raising his
discontent into treason against the people with whom he had made
a solemn compact. The result of their councils was a deep-laid
plot against Flemish liberty; and its execution was ere-long
attempted. He sent secret orders to the governors of Dunkirk,
Bruges, Termonde, and other towns, to seize on and hold them
in his name; reserving for himself the infamy of the enterprise
against Antwerp. To prepare for its execution, he caused his
numerous army of French and Swiss to approach the city; and they
were encamped in the neighborhood, at a place called Borgerhout.
On the 17th of January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier
than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review
his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his
guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second
drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal
for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had
fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers,
"Courage, courage! the town is ours!" The guard at the gate was
all soon despatched; and the French troops, which waited outside
to the number of three thousand, rushed quickly in, furiously
shouting the war-cry, "Town taken! town taken! kill! kill!" The
astonished but intrepid citizens, recovering from their confusion,
instantly flew to arms. All differences in religion or politics
were forgotten in the common danger to their freedom. Catholics
and Protestants, men and women, rushed alike to the conflict.
The ancient spirit of Flanders seemed to animate all. Workmen,
armed with the instruments of their various trades, started from
their shops and flung themselves upon the enemy. A baker sprang
from the cellar where he was kneading his dough, and with his
oven shovel struck a French dragoon to the ground. Those who
had firearms, after expending their bullets, took from their
pouches and pockets pieces of money, which they bent between
their teeth, and used for charging their arquebuses. The French
were driven successively from the streets and ramparts, and the
cannons planted on the latter were immediately turned against
the reinforcements which attempted to enter the town. The French
were everywhere beaten; the duke of Anjou saved himself by flight,
and reached Termonde, after the perilous necessity of passing
through a large tract of inundated country. His loss in this
base enterprise amounted to one thousand five hundred; while
that of the citizens did not exceed eighty men. The attempts
simultaneously made on the other towns succeeded at Dunkirk and
Termonde; but all the others failed.
The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly
great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled
and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between
the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the
former from excess, and the latter from execration. The disgraced
and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as
they were hypocritical; and his brother, the king of France, sent
a special envoy to intercede for him. But it was the influence of
William that screened the culprit from public reprobation and
ruin, and regained for him the place and power which he might
easily have secured for himself, had he not prized the welfare
of his country far above all objects of private advantage. A new
treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station,
with renewed security against any future treachery on his part. He
in the meantime retired to France, to let the public indignation
subside; but before he could assume sufficient confidence again to
face the country he had so basely injured his worthless existence
was suddenly terminated, some thought by poison--the common solution
of all such doubtful questions in those days--in the month of June
in the following year. He expired in his twenty-ninth year.
A disgusting proof of public ingratitude and want of judgment
was previously furnished by the conduct of the people of Antwerp
against him who had been so often their deliverer from such various
dangers. Unable to comprehend the greatness of his mind, they
openly accused the Prince of Orange of having joined with the
French for their subjugation, and of having concealed a body
of that detested nation in the citadel. The populace rushed to
the place, and having minutely examined it, were convinced of
their own absurdity and the prince's innocence. He scorned to
demand their punishment for such an outrageous calumny; but he was
not the less afflicted at it. He took the resolution of quitting
Flanders, as it turned out, forever; and he retired into Zealand,
where he was better known and consequently better trusted.
In the midst of the consequent confusion in the former of these
provinces, the prince of Parma, with indefatigable vigor, made
himself master of town after town; and turned his particular
attention to the creation of a naval force, which was greatly
favored by the possession of Dunkirk, Nieuport, and Gravelines.
Native treachery was not idle in this time of tumult and confusion.
The count of Renneberg, governor of Friesland and Groningen,
had set the basest example, and gone over to the Spaniards. The
prince of Chimay, son of the duke of Arschot, and governor of
Bruges, yielded to the persuasions of his father, and gave up
the place to the prince of Parma. Hembyse also, amply confirming
the bad opinion in which the Prince of Orange always held him,
returned to Ghent, where he regained a great portion of his former
influence, and immediately commenced a correspondence with the
prince of Parma, offering to deliver up both Ghent and Termonde.
An attempt was consequently made by the Spaniards to surprise
the former town; but the citizens were prepared for this, having
intercepted some of the letters of Hembyse; and the traitor was
seized, tried, condemned, and executed on the 4th of August, 1584.
He was upward of seventy years of age. Ryhove, his celebrated
colleague, died in Holland some years later.
But the fate of so insignificant a person as Hembyse passed almost
unnoticed, in the agitation caused by an event which shortly
preceded his death.
From the moment of their abandonment by the duke of Anjou, the
United Provinces considered themselves independent; and although
they consented to renew his authority over the country at large,
at the solicitation of the Prince of Orange, they were resolved
to confirm the influence of the latter over their particular
interests, which they were now sensible could acquire stability
only by that means. The death of Anjou left them without a sovereign;
and they did not hesitate in the choice which they were now called
upon to make. On whom, indeed, could they fix but William of
Nassau, without the utmost injustice to him, and the deepest
injury to themselves? To whom could they turn, in preference to
him who had given consistency to the early explosion of their
despair; to him who first gave the country political existence,
then nursed it into freedom, and now beheld it in the vigor and
prime of independence? He had seen the necessity, but certainly
overrated the value, of foreign support, to enable the new state
to cope with the tremendous tyranny from which it had broken.
He had tried successively Germany, England and France. From the
first and the last of these powers he had received two governors,
to whom he cheerfully resigned the title. The incapacity of both,
and the treachery of the latter, proved to the states that their
only chance for safety was in the consolidation of William's
authority; and they contemplated the noblest reward which a grateful
nation could bestow on a glorious liberator. And is it to be
believed that he who for twenty years had sacrificed his repose,
lavished his fortune, and risked his life, for the public cause,
now aimed at absolute dominion, or coveted a despotism which
all his actions prove him to have abhorred? Defeated bigotry
has put forward such vapid accusations. He has been also held
responsible for the early cruelties which, it is notorious, he
used every means to avert, and frequently punished. But while
these revolting acts can only be viewed in the light of reprisals
against the bloodiest persecution that ever existed, by exasperated
men driven to vengeance by a bad example, not one single act of
cruelty or bad faith has ever been made good against William,
who may be safely pronounced one of the wisest and best men that
history has held up as examples to the species.
The authority of one author has been produced to prove that,
during the lifetime of his brother Louis, offers were made to
him by France of the sovereignty of the northern provinces, on
condition of the southern being joined to the French crown. That
he ever accepted those offers is without proof; that he never
acted on them is certain. But he might have been justified in
purchasing freedom for those states which had so well earned
it, at the price even of a qualified independence under another
power, to the exclusion of those which had never heartily struggled
against Spain. The best evidence, however, of William's real views
is to be found in the Capitulation, as it is called; that is to
say, the act which was on the point of being executed between him
and the states, when a base fanatic, instigated by a bloody tyrant,
put a period to his splendid career. This capitulation exists at
full length, but was never formally executed. Its conditions
are founded on the same principles, and conceived in nearly the
same terms, as those accepted by the duke of Anjou; and the whole
compact is one of the most thoroughly liberal that history has
on record. The prince repaired to Delft for the ceremony of his
inauguration, the price of his long labors; but there, instead
of anticipated dignity, he met the sudden stroke of death.
On the 10th of July, as he left his dining-room, and while he
placed his foot on the first step of the great stair leading to
the upper apartments of his house, a man named Balthazar Gerard
(who, like the former assassin, waited for him at the moment of
convivial relaxation), discharged a pistol at his body. Three
balls entered it. He fell into the arms of an attendant, and
cried out faintly, in the French language, "God pity me! I am
sadly wounded--God have mercy on my soul, and on this unfortunate
nation!" His sister, the countess of Swartzenberg, who now hastened
to his side, asked him in German if he did not recommend his
soul to God? He answered, "Yes," in the same language, but with
a feeble voice. He was carried into the dining-room, where he
immediately expired. His sister closed his eyes; his wife, too,
was on the spot--Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny,
and widow of the gallant count of Teligny, both of whom were also
murdered almost in her sight, in the frightful massacre of St.
Bartholomew. We may not enter on a description of the afflicting
scene which followed; but the mind is pleased in picturing the
bold solemnity with which Prince Maurice, then eighteen years
of age, swore--not vengeance or hatred against his father's
murderers--but that he would faithfully and religiously follow
the glorious example he had given him.
Whoever would really enjoy the spirit of historical details should
never omit an opportunity of seeing places rendered memorable by
associations connected with the deeds, and especially with the
death, of great men; the spot, for instance, where William was
assassinated at Delft; the old staircase he was just on the point
of ascending; the narrow pass between that and the dining-hall
whence he came out, of scarcely sufficient extent for the murderer
to held forth his arm and his pistol, two and a half feet long.
This weapon, and its fellow, are both preserved in the museum
of The Hague, together with two of the fatal bullets, and the
very clothes which the victim wore. The leathern doublet, pierced
by the balls and burned by the powder, lies beside the other
parts of the dress, the simple gravity of which, in fashion and
color, irresistibly brings the wise, great man before us, and
adds a hundred-fold to the interest excited by a recital of his
murder.
There is but one important feature in the character of William
which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances
of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the
same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall
despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate,
indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When
he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated
into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought
up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his
profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His
whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian
principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and
that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of
the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal
toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as
subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious
liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down
his life. His assassin was taken alive, and four days afterward
executed with terrible circumstances of cruelty, which he bore
as a martyr might have borne them. He was a native of Burgundy,
and had for some months lingered near his victim, and insinuated
himself into his confidence by a feigned attachment to liberty,
and an apparent zeal for the reformed faith. He was nevertheless
a bigoted Catholic and, by his own confession, he had communicated
his design to, and received encouragement to its execution from,
more than one minister of the sect to which he belonged. But his
avowal criminated a more important accomplice, and one whose
character stands so high in history that it behooves us to examine
thoroughly the truth of the accusation, and the nature of the
collateral proofs by which it is supported. Most writers on this
question have leaned to the side which all would wish to adopt,
for the honor of human nature and the integrity of a celebrated
name. But an original letter exists in the archives of Brussels,
from the prince of Parma himself to Philip of Spain, in which he
admits that Balthazar Gerard had communicated to him his intention
of murdering the Prince of Orange some months before the deed was
done; and he mixes phrases of compassion for "the poor man" (the
murderer) and of praise for the act; which, if the document be
really authentic, sinks Alexander of Parma as low as the wretch
with whom he sympathized.