TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP II.
A.D. 1592--1599
The duke of Parma had chosen the count of Mansfield for his
successor, and the nomination was approved by the king. He entered
on his government under most disheartening circumstances. The rapid
conquests of Prince Maurice in Brabant and Flanders were scarcely
less mortifying than the total disorganization into which those
two provinces had fallen. They were ravaged by bands of robbers
called Picaroons, whose audacity reached such a height that they
opposed in large bodies the forces sent for their suppression
by the government. They on one occasion killed the provost of
Flanders, and burned his lieutenant in a hollow tree; and on
another they mutilated a whole troop of the national militia,
and their commander, with circumstances of most revolting cruelty.
The authority of governor-general, though not the title, was now
fully shared by the count of Fuentes, who was sent to Brussels by
the king of Spain; and the ill effects of this double viceroyalty
was soon seen, in the brilliant progress of Prince Maurice, and
the continual reverses sustained by the royalist armies. The king,
still bent on projects of bigotry, sacrificed without scruple men
and treasure for the overthrow of Henry IV. and the success of
the League. The affairs of the Netherlands seemed now a secondary
object; and he drew largely on his forces in that country for
reinforcements to the ranks of his tottering allies. A final
blow was, however, struck against the hopes of intolerance in
France, and to the existence of the League, by the conversion
of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion; he deeming theological
disputes, which put the happiness of a whole kingdom in jeopardy,
as quite subordinate to the public good.
Such was the prosperity of the United Provinces, that they had
been enabled to send a large supply, both of money and men, to the
aid of Henry, their constant and generous ally. And notwithstanding
this, their armies and fleets, so far from suffering diminution,
were augmented day by day. Philip, resolved to summon up all
his energy for the revival of the war against the republic, now
appointed the archduke Ernest, brother of the emperor Rodolf,
to the post which the disunion of Mansfield and Fuentes rendered
as embarrassing as it had become inglorious. This prince, of
a gentle and conciliatory character, was received at Brussels
with great magnificence and general joy; his presence reviving
the deep-felt hopes of peace entertained by the suffering people.
Such were also the cordial wishes of the prince; but more than
one design, formed at this period against the life of Prince
Maurice, frustrated every expectation of the kind. A priest of
the province of Namur, named Michael Renichon, disguised as a
soldier, was the new instrument meant to strike another blow
at the greatness of the House of Nassau, in the person of its
gallant representative, Prince Maurice; as also in that of his
brother, Frederic Henry, then ten years of age. On the confession
of the intended assassin, he was employed by Count Berlaimont to
murder the two princes. Renichon happily mismanaged the affair,
and betrayed his intention. He was arrested at Breda, conducted
to The Hague, and there tried and executed on the 3d of June,
1594. This miserable wretch accused the archduke Ernest of having
countenanced his attempt; but nothing whatever tends to criminate,
while every probability acquits, that prince of such a participation.
In this same year a soldier named Peter Dufour embarked in a
like atrocious plot. He, too, was seized and executed before
he could carry it into effect; and to his dying hour persisted
in accusing the archduke of being his instigator. But neither
the judges who tried, nor the best historians who record, his
intended crime, gave any belief to this accusation. The mild and
honorable disposition of the prince held a sufficient guarantee
against its likelihood; and it is not less pleasing to be able
fully to join in the prevalent opinion, than to mark a spirit
of candor and impartiality break forth through the mass of bad
and violent passions which crowd the records of that age.
But all the esteem inspired by the personal character of Ernest
could not overcome the repugnance of the United Provinces to
trust to the apparent sincerity of the tyrant in whose name he
made his overtures for peace. They were all respectfully and
firmly rejected; and Prince Maurice, in the meantime, with his
usual activity, passed the Meuse and the Rhine, and invested
and quickly took the town of Groningen, by which he consummated
the establishment of the republic, and secured its rank among
the principal powers of Europe.
The archduke Ernest, finding all his efforts for peace frustrated,
and all hopes of gaining his object by hostility to be vain, became
a prey to disappointment and regret, and died, from the effects
of a slow fever, on the 21st of February, 1595; leaving to the
count of Fuentes the honors and anxieties of the government,
subject to the ratification of the king. This nobleman began
the exercise of his temporary functions by an irruption into
France, at the head of a small army; war having been declared
against Spain by Henry IV., who, on his side, had despatched the
Admiral de Villars to attack Philip's possessions in Hainault
and Artois. This gallant officer lost a battle and his life in
the contest; and Fuentes, encouraged by the victory, took some
frontier towns, and laid siege to Cambray, the great object of
his plans. The citizens, who detested their governor, the marquis
of Bologni, who had for some time assumed an independent tyranny
over them, gave up the place to the besiegers; and the citadel
surrendered some days later. After this exploit Fuentes returned
to Brussels, where, notwithstanding his success, he was extremely
unpopular. He had placed a part of his forces under the command
of Mondragon, one of the oldest and cleverest officers in the
service of Spain. Some trifling affairs took place in Brabant; but
the arrival of the archduke Albert, whom the king had appointed
to succeed his brother Ernest in the office of governor-general,
deprived Fuentes of any further opportunity of signalizing his
talents for supreme command. Albert arrived at Brussels on the
11th of February, 1596, accompanied by the Prince of Orange, who,
when count of Beuren, had been carried off from the university
of Louvain, twenty-eight years previously, and held captive in
Spain during the whole of that period.
The archduke Albert, fifth son of the emperor Maximilian II., and
brother of Rodolf, stood high in the opinion of Philip, his uncle,
and merited his reputation for talents, bravery, and prudence. He
had been early made archbishop of Toledo, and afterward cardinal;
but his profession was not that of these nominal dignities. He was
a warrior and politician of considerable capacity; and had for
some years faithfully served the king, as viceroy of Portugal. But
Philip meant him for the more independent situation of sovereign
of the Netherlands, and at the same time destined him to be the
husband of his daughter Isabella. He now sent him, in the capacity
of governor-general, to prepare the way for the important change;
at once to gain the good graces of the people, and soothe, by
this removal from Philip's too close neighborhood, the jealousy
of his son, the hereditary prince of Spain. Albert brought with
him to Brussels a small reinforcement for the army, with a large
supply of money, more wanting at this conjuncture than men. He
highly praised the conduct of Fuentes in the operations just
finished; and resolved to continue the war on the same plan, but
with forces much superior.
He opened his first campaign early; and, by a display of clever
manoeuvring, which threatened an attempt to force the French to
raise the siege of La Fere, in the heart of Picardy, he concealed
his real design--the capture of Calais; and he succeeded in its
completion almost before it was suspected. The Spanish and Walloon
troops, led on by Rone, a distinguished officer, carried the
first defences: after nine days of siege the place was forced to
surrender; and in a few more the citadel followed the example.
The archduke soon after took the towns of Ardres and Hulst; and by
prudently avoiding a battle, to which he was constantly provoked by
Henry IV., who commanded the French army in person, he established
his character for military talent of no ordinary degree.
He at the same time made overtures of reconciliation to the United
Provinces, and hoped that the return of the Prince of Orange
would be a means of effecting so desirable a purpose. But the
Dutch were not to be deceived by the apparent sincerity of Spanish
negotiation. They even doubted the sentiments of the Prince of
Orange, whose attachments and principles bad been formed in so
hated a school; and nothing passed between them and him but mutual
civilities. They clearly evinced their disapprobation of his
intended visit to Holland; and he consequently fixed his residence
in Brussels, passing his life in an inglorious neutrality.
A naval expedition formed in this year by the English and Dutch
against Cadiz, commanded by the earl of Essex, and Counts Louis
and William of Nassau, cousins of Prince Maurice, was crowned
with brilliant success, and somewhat consoled the provinces for
the contemporary exploits of the archduke. But the following
year opened with an affair which at once proved his unceasing
activity, and added largely to the reputation of his rival, Prince
Maurice. The former had detached the count of Varas, with about
six thousand men, for the purpose of invading the province of
Holland; but Maurice, with equal energy and superior talent,
followed big movements, came up with him near Turnhout, on the
24th of January, 1597; and after a sharp action, of which the
Dutch cavalry bore the whole brunt, Varas was killed, and his
troops defeated with considerable loss.
This action may be taken as a fair sample of the difficulty with
which any estimate can be formed of the relative losses on such
occasions. The Dutch historians state the loss of the royalists,
in killed, at upward of two thousand. Meteren, a good authority,
says the peasants buried two thousand two hundred and fifty;
while Bentivoglio, an Italian writer in the interest of Spain,
makes the number exactly half that amount. Grotius says that
the loss of the Dutch was four men killed. Bentivoglio states
it at one hundred. But, at either computation, it is clear that
the affair was a brilliant one on the part of Prince Maurice.
This was in its consequences a most disastrous affair to the
archduke. His army was disorganized, and his finances exhausted;
while the confidence of the states in their troops and their
general was considerably raised. But the taking of Amiens by
Portocarrero, one of the most enterprising of the Spanish captains,
gave a new turn to the failing fortunes of Albert. This gallant
officer, whose greatness of mind, according to some historians,
was much disproportioned to the smallness of his person, gained
possession of that important town by a well-conducted stratagem,
and maintained his conquest valiantly till he was killed in its
defence. Henry IV. made prodigious efforts to recover the place,
the chief bulwark on that side of France; and having forced
Montenegro, the worthy successor of Portocarrero, to capitulate,
granted him and his garrison most honorable conditions. Henry,
having secured Amiens against any new attack, returned to Paris
and made a triumphal entry into the city.
During this year Prince Maurice took a number of towns in rapid
succession; and the states, according to their custom, caused
various medals, in gold, silver, and copper, to be struck, to
commemorate the victories which had signalized their arms.
Philip II., feeling himself approaching the termination of his
long and agitating career, now wholly occupied himself in
negotiations for peace with France. Henry IV. desired it as
anxiously. The pope, Clement VIII., encouraged by his exhortations
this mutual inclination. The king of Poland sent ambassadors to
The Hague and to London, to induce the states and Queen Elizabeth
to become parties in a general pacification. These overtures
led to no conclusion; but the conferences between France and
Spain went on with apparent cordiality and great promptitude,
and a peace was concluded between these powers at Vervins, on
the 2d of May, 1598.
Shortly after the publication of this treaty, another important
act was made known to the world, by which Philip ceded to Albert
and Isabella, on their being formally affianced--a ceremony which
now took place--the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Netherlands.
This act bears date the 6th of May, and was proclaimed with all
the solemnity due to so important a transaction. It contained
thirteen articles; and was based on the misfortunes which the
absence of the sovereign had hitherto caused to the Low Countries.
The Catholic religion was declared that of the state, in its full
integrity. The provinces were guaranteed against dismemberment.
The archdukes, by which title the joint sovereigns were designated
without any distinction of sex, were secured in the possession,
with right of succession to their children; and a provision was
added, that in default of posterity their possessions should
revert to the Spanish crown. The infanta Isabella soon sent her
procuration to the archduke, her affianced husband, giving him
full power and authority to take possession of the ceded dominions
in her name as in his own; and Albert was inaugurated with great
pomp at Brussels, on the 22d of August. Having put everything in
order for the regulation of the government during his absence, he
set out for Spain for the purpose of accomplishing his spousals,
and bringing back his bride to the chief seat of their joint power.
But before his departure he wrote to the various states of the
republic, and to Prince Maurice himself, strongly recommending
submission and reconciliation. These letters received no answer;
a new plot against the life of Prince Maurice, by a wretched
individual named Peter Pann, having aroused the indignation of
the country, and determined it to treat with suspicion and contempt
every insidious proposition from the tyranny it defied.
Albert placed his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of Austria, at the
head of the temporary government, and set out on his journey;
taking the little town of Halle in his route, and placing at
the altar of the Virgin, who is there held in particular honor,
his cardinal's hat as a token of his veneration. He had not made
much progress when he received accounts of the demise of Philip
II., who died, after long suffering, and with great resignation,
on the 13th of September, 1598, at the age of seventy-two. Albert
was several months on his journey through Germany; and the
ceremonials of his union with the infanta did not take place
till the 18th of April, 1599, when it was finally solemnized in
the city of Valencia in Spain.
This transaction, by which the Netherlands were positively erected
into a separate sovereignty, seems naturally to make the limits
of another epoch in their history. It completely decided the
division between the northern and southern provinces, which,
although it had virtually taken place long previous to this period,
could scarcely be considered as formally consummated until now.
Here then we shall pause anew, and take a rapid review of the
social state of the Netherlands during the last half century,
which was beyond all doubt the most important period of their
history, from the earliest times till the present.
It has been seen that when Charles V. resigned his throne and
the possession of his vast dominions to his son, arts, commerce,
and manufactures had risen to a state of considerable perfection
throughout the Netherlands. The revolution, of which we have traced
the rise and progress, naturally produced to those provinces
which relapsed into slavery a most lamentable change in every
branch of industry, and struck a blow at the general prosperity,
the effects of which are felt to this very day. Arts, science,
and literature were sure to be checked and withered in the blaze
of civil war; and we have now to mark the retrograde movements
of most of those charms and advantages of civilized life, in
which Flanders and the other southern states were so rich.
The rapid spread of enlightenment on religious subjects soon
converted the manufactories and workshops of Flanders into so
many conventicles of reform; and the clear-sighted artisans fled
in thousands from the tyranny of Alva into England, Germany, and
Holland--those happier countries, where the government adopted and
went hand in hand with the progress of rational belief. Commerce
followed the fate of manufactures. The foreign merchants one
by one abandoned the theatre of bigotry and persecution; and
even Antwerp, which had succeeded Bruges as the great mart of
European traffic, was ruined by the horrible excesses of the
Spanish soldiery, and never recovered from the shock. Its trade,
its wealth, and its prosperity, were gradually transferred to
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the towns of Holland and Zealand; and
the growth of Dutch commerce attained its proud maturity in the
establishment of the India Company in 1596, the effects of which
we shall have hereafter more particularly to dwell on.
The exciting and romantic enterprises of the Portuguese and Spanish
navigators in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries roused all
the ardor of other nations for those distant adventures; and the
people of the Netherlands were early influenced by the general
spirit of Europe. If they were not the discoverers of new worlds,
they were certainly the first to make the name of European respected
and venerated by the natives.
Animated by the ardor which springs from the spirit of freedom
and the enthusiasm of success, the United Provinces labored for
the discovery of new outlets for their commerce and navigation.
The government encouraged the speculations of individuals, which
promised fresh and fertile sources of revenue, so necessary for
the maintenance of the war. Until the year 1581 the merchants of
Holland and Zealand were satisfied to find the productions of
India at Lisbon, which was the mart of that branch of trade ever
since the Portuguese discovered the passage by the Cape of Good
Hope. But Philip II., having conquered Portugal, excluded the United
Provinces from the ports of that country; and their enterprising
mariners were from that period driven to those efforts which
rapidly led to private fortune and general prosperity. The English
had opened the way in this career; and the states-general having
offered a large reward for the discovery of a northwest passage,
frequent and most adventurous voyages took place. Houtman, Le
Maire, Heemskirk, Ryp, and others, became celebrated for their
enterprise, and some for their perilous and interesting adventures.
The United Provinces were soon without any rival on the seas.
In Europe alone they had one thousand two hundred merchant ships
in activity, and upward of seventy thousand sailors constantly
employed. They built annually two thousand vessels. In the year
1598, eighty ships sailed from their ports for the Indies or
America. They carried on, besides, an extensive trade on the coast
of Guinea, whence they brought large quantities of gold-dust;
and found, in short, in all quarters of the globe the reward of
their skill, industry, and courage.
The spirit of conquest soon became grafted on the habits of trade.
Expedition succeeded to expedition. Failure taught wisdom to
those who did not want bravery. The random efforts of individuals
were succeeded by organized plans, under associations well
constituted and wealthy; and these soon gave birth to those eastern
and western companies before alluded to. The disputes between
the English and the Hanseatic towns were carefully observed by
the Dutch, and turned to their own advantage. The English
manufacturers, who quickly began to flourish, from the influx
of Flemish workmen under the encouragement of Elizabeth, formed
companies in the Netherlands, and sent their cloths into those
very towns of Germany which formerly possessed the exclusive
privilege of their manufacture. These towns naturally felt
dissatisfied, and their complaints were encouraged by the king
of Spain. The English adventurers received orders to quit the
empire; and, invited by the states-general, many of them fixed
their residence in Middleburg, which became the most celebrated
woollen market in Europe.
The establishment of the Jews in the towns of the republic forms
a remarkable epoch in the annals of trade. This people, so outraged
by the loathsome bigotry which Christians have not blushed to
call religion, so far from being depressed by the general
persecution, seemed to find it a fresh stimulus to the exertion
of their industry. To escape death in Spain and Portugal they
took refuge in Holland, where toleration encouraged and just
principles of state maintained them. They were at first taken
for Catholics, and subjected to suspicion; but when their real
faith was understood they were no longer molested.
Astronomy and geography, two sciences so closely allied with and
so essential to navigation, flourished now throughout Europe.
Ortilius of Antwerp, and Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde, were two
of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century; and the
reform in the calendar at the end of that period gave stability
to the calculations of time, which had previously suffered all
the inconvenient fluctuations attendant on the old style.
Literature had assumed during the revolution in the Netherlands
the almost exclusive and repulsive aspect of controversial learning.
The university of Douay, installed in 1562 as a new screen against
the piercing light of reform, quickly became the stronghold of
intolerance. That of Leyden, established by the efforts of the
Prince of Orange, soon after the famous siege of that town in
1574, was on a less exclusive plan--its professors being in the
first instance drawn from Germany. Many Flemish historians succeeded
in this century to the ancient and uncultivated chroniclers of
preceding times; the civil wars drawing forth many writers, who
recorded what they witnessed, but often in a spirit of partisanship
and want of candor, which seriously embarrasses him who desires
to learn the truth on both sides of an important question. Poetry
declined and drooped in the times of tumult and suffering; and the
chambers of rhetoric, to which its cultivation had been chiefly
due, gradually lost their influence, and finally ceased to exist.
In fixing our attention on the republic of the United Provinces
during the epoch now completed, we feel the desire, and lament the
impossibility, of entering on the details of government in that most
remarkable state. For these we must refer to what appears to us the
best authority for clear and ample information on the prerogative
of the stadtholder, the constitution of the states-general, the
privileges of the tribunals and local assemblies, and other points
of moment concerning the principles of the Belgic confederation.[4]
[Footnote 4: See Cerisier, Hist. Gen. des Prov. Unies.]