The Spanish troops in Flanders--Don Juan sent to Flanders--His
projects for invading England--Mutiny of the Spanish troops in
Flanders--The Spanish fury--Evacuation of Flanders by the Spanish
troops--Perez’s plot against Don Juan--The murder of Escobedo--Don
Juan seizes Namur--Renewal of the war--The battle of
Gemblours--Desperation of Don Juan--His death--Alexander Farnese.
Requesens, the Governor of the Netherlands, had died whilst his policy
of conciliation was as yet incomplete. The Catholic Flemings had been to
a great extent reconciled by promises of concessions and through their
jealousy of the Protestant Dutchmen, but the new governor had been
surrounded with insuperable difficulties from the first, legacies from
the Duke of Alba. Most of the seamen were disloyal, and the Flemish
clergy were disaffected, but withal Requesens had not been unsuccessful
amongst the peoples of the Walloon and southern states. No
blandishments, however, could win over the stubborn Dutchmen, now that
they were fighting for the faith and were supported by English and
French Protestants, as well as by the questionable German levies, who
generally turned tail at the critical moment. The Spaniards were beaten
out of their last foothold on Walcheren by the destruction of Julian
Romero’s relieving fleet, and the indomitable determination of the
citizens of Leyden overcame attack after a year of siege; but, worst of
all, the clamour of the Catholic Flemings that they should be relieved
of the presence of the mutinous, murderous, unpaid Spanish soldiery
could not be complied with, although promised, for there was no money to
pay the troops, and they would not budge without it. Philip, in despair,
at one time decided either to drown or burn all the revolting cities of
the Netherlands--burning he thought preferable, as it would seem less
cruel--but Requesens told him that his army was a mutinous mob, who
would not do either without pay. Attempts then were made to come to
terms with Orange, but without success, for, said Requesens, they are
not fighting for their heresy but for their independence. In despair at
last, Requesens died on March 5, 1576. The Spanish troops were more
mutinous than ever now, mere bandits most of them, and Philip was made
to understand clearly by his most faithful adherents in Flanders that
unless these ruffians were withdrawn, Brabant and Hainhault, Artois and
Flanders would follow Holland and Zeeland, and slip out of his grasp.
Philip bent to the inevitable, and ordered Don Juan to go to Flanders as
governor to carry out the policy of pacification at almost any cost. He
was instructed to proceed direct to his new post, and doubtless Philip
congratulated himself upon so good an opportunity of removing without
offence his ambitious brother from the neighbourhood of the
Mediterranean. Escobedo, his mentor, was warned strictly before he left
Spain that there must be no nonsense. Peace _must_ be made with the
Flemings at all sacrifice and the Spanish troops withdrawn from the
country. Don Juan’s ambition, however, was bounded by no frontiers, and
the pope (Gregory XIII.) had sent instructions to his nuncio to urge a
new plan upon Philip, namely, that he should allow Don Juan to invade
England from Flanders, liberate and marry the captive Queen of Scots,
and rule over a Catholic kingdom of Great Britain. Philip, as was his
wont, was vaguely benevolent to a plan which did not originate with
himself, but had no intention of allowing his policy to be dictated or
forced by others. Suddenly, to his dismay, Don Juan himself, in
disobedience to orders, came to Spain instead of going direct to
Flanders, the idea being doubtless to add his influence to that of the
pope and to prevail upon Philip to adopt his new plans. The king gently
evaded his brother’s importunities and his claims to be treated as an
imperial prince, and without losing temper dispatched Don Juan as soon
as possible on his uncongenial mission. But in his secret way he was
offended at the prince’s disobedience and the attempts to force his
hand, and thenceforward kept a sharp eye and a tight rein on Don Juan
and his adviser Escobedo. False Perez in the meanwhile wormed himself
into the confidence of Don Juan, and learnt that, in despite of the
king, he intended to swoop down upon the coast of England with the
Spanish troops which were to be withdrawn from Flanders.
But the loss of time by Don Juan’s disobedience and stay in Madrid was
fatal. Soon after Requesens’ death the Council of State, nominated by
Philip as temporary governors of Flanders, found themselves face to
face with a great crisis. The Spanish and Italian troops rebelled for
want of pay and broke into open mutiny, plundering friends and foes
without distinction. The council consisted mostly of Flemish and Walloon
Catholics, and was profoundly divided in sight of the murderous excesses
of the king’s soldiers. Brussels was held in the interests of the
council by Walloon troops, but they were surrounded by Spanish mutineers
outside. During the panic-stricken attempts of the council to bribe the
mutineers into obedience, a plot was formed by Barlemont, one of the
councillors, to admit the Spaniards into the city; but it was
discovered, and Barlemont deprived of the keys. Massacres were reported
at Alost and other towns; the excesses of the mutineers grew worse and
worse. Flemings of all sorts, Catholic and Protestant, lost patience,
and swore they would stand no more of it, but would fight for their
lives and homes. The council was forced to side with the Flemings,
except the Spanish member Rodas, who assumed alone the character of
Philip’s representative, and henceforward the Spanish army of
cut-throats, with their commanders, Sancho de Avila, Vargas, Mondragon,
and Romero, harried, burnt, and killed right and left.
Philip was in deep distress at the news. Money should be sent; Don Juan
would soon arrive; the offended Flemings should have justice done to
them, and so forth. But the blood-lust of the mutineers could not be
slaked now with fine promises. The council’s troops were defeated again
and again, town after town was ravaged, and at last came the time when
the bands of savage soldiers effected a junction and fell upon the
richest prey of all--the city of Antwerp. On the fatal November 4, 1576,
six thousand mutinous troops, panting for blood and plunder, swooped
down from the citadel on to the town. The citizens had done their best.
Barricades had been raised, the burgesses stood to their arms, and brave
Champigny, the governor,--De Granvelle’s brother, and hitherto a staunch
friend of the Spaniards,--worked heroically. But the Walloons fled,
young Egmont was captured, the citizens, unused to arms, were no match
for the veteran infantry of Sancho de Avila, and Antwerp soon lay a
panting quarry under the claws of the spoiler. Neither age, sex, nor
faith was considered, and when the fury had partly subsided it was found
that 6000 unarmed people, at least, had been slaughtered, 6,000,000
ducats’ worth of property stolen, and as much again burnt. The States
troops were all killed or had fled, and the only armed forces in the
country were the unbridled Spanish mutineers and the troops of Orange.
Flemings of each faith were welded together now against the wreckers of
their homes, and even those nobles who through all the evil past had
stood by Spain were at one with Orange and the Protestants of the north.
Don Juan had posted through France in the guise of a Moorish slave to
prevent delay and discovery, but when he reached Luxembourg he was given
to understand by the States that he could only be received as Philip’s
governor now, on certain terms to be dictated to him. This was gall and
wormwood to the proud young prince. Orange knew all about the fine plans
for the invasion of England, secret though they were thought to be, and
at his instance the States insisted upon the Spanish troops being
withdrawn overland, and not by sea. During the winter of 1576 and early
spring of 1577 Don Juan was kept haggling over the terms upon which he
was to be allowed by the Flemings to assume his governorship. The
States-General were assembled at Ghent, and consulted Orange at every
turn. They said that they had bought their liberty now with their blood,
and were not going to sell it again to a new master. Passionate prayers
from Don Juan and his secretary came to Philip by every post that they
should be allowed to fight it out; imploring requests for money and arms
to beat into “these drunken wineskins of Flemings” a sense of their
duty; often wild, incoherent, half-threatening expressions of disgust
and annoyance at the uncongenial task committed to the victor of
Lepanto. He was a soldier, he said, and could not do it; the more he
gave way the more insolent the Flemings became; a woman or a child could
do the work better than he. Escobedo’s letters to Perez, which of course
were shown to the king, were more desperate still. On February 7, 1577,
he wrote: “Oh, I am ready to hang myself, if I were not hoping to hang
those who injure us so. O Master Perez! how stubborn and hateful these
devils have been in hindering our plan. Hell itself must have spewed
forth this gang to thwart us so.” Don Juan himself was just as violent
in his letters. “O Antonio!” he wrote, “how certain for my sorrow and
misfortune is the frustration of our plans, just as they were so well
thought out and arranged.” Herein, it is clear, was the grievance; and
Philip’s grim face must have darkened as he saw the deceit his brother
sought to practise upon him, and how he was to be dragged by the
ambition of a bastard into a struggle with England, at a time when his
treasury was empty, his own states of Flanders in rebellion, and his
mind bent upon far-reaching combinations, which would all be frustrated
if his hand had thus been forced. Humiliating reconciliation with the
Catholic Flemings was nothing to this; and to his brother’s wild
remonstrance and protest he had but one answer, cold and precise--peace
must be made with any sacrifice, consistent only with his continued
sovereignty. At last by pledging his own honour and credit--for he
insolently told the king that no money could be obtained on
_his_--Escobedo borrowed means sufficient to persuade the troops to
march, and the mutinous rascals who had disgraced the name of soldiers
crossed the frontier to Italy amidst the curses of all Flanders. Then
Don Juan entered Brussels at last with the frantic rejoicing of a people
who had emancipated their country by their firmness. But his own face
was lowering, and rage and disappointment were at his heart. He had been
threatening for months to come back to Spain whether the king liked it
or not, and Perez ceaselessly whispered to Philip that now that the
prince’s ambition had been thwarted in one direction, it would strike
higher in another. We now know that Perez garbled and misrepresented Don
Juan’s words, suppressed portions of his letters, and persuaded Philip
that his brother designed treachery to him in Spain. The reason for this
is obvious. Don Juan and Escobedo had definitely drifted away from the
old party of Ruy Gomez, and his return to Spain would have secured a
preponderance to the Duke of Alba, and probably caused Perez’s
downfall. The principal members of the camarilla now were Perez’s
friends, the Marquis de los Velez and Cardinal Quiroga, both of whom
where in favour of peace; but with Don Juan and Alba present they would
be overruled, especially as Zayas, the other secretary of state, was a
creature of Alba.
When therefore Escobedo rushed over to Spain in July 1577 to arrange
about the payment of the loan he had guaranteed, Perez, after making two
unsuccessful attempts to poison him, had him stabbed one night (March
31, 1578) in the streets of Madrid. Perez asserted that the king had
authorised him to have the deed done six months before, and in this, no
doubt, he told the truth. In any case, great events followed upon this
apparently unimportant crime, as will be related in the proper place.
The Spanish troops had marched out of Flanders in the spring of 1577,
and before many weeks had passed Don Juan again found his position
intolerable. The tone of the Catholic Flemings had quite changed now.
They were loyal and cordial to him, but they let him see that they had
the whip hand, and meant to keep it. His plans had all miscarried; his
brother was cold and irresponsive and kept him without money; he was
isolated, powerless, and heartsick, and determined to end it. Margaret
de Valois, Catharine de Medici’s daughter, had gone to Hainhault on a
pretended visit to the waters of Spa, but really to sound the Catholic
Flemings about their accepting her brother Alençon for their sovereign.
Don Juan feigned the need to receive her, but he had plotted with
Barlemont to get together a force of Walloons upon whom he could depend.
They were hidden in a monastery, and after the prince had hastily
greeted Margaret, he suddenly collected his men, threw himself into the
fortress of Namur, and defied the States. Then began a fresh war, in
which Orange himself for the first time since his rebellion became the
arbiter of the Catholic Flemish States. Here was a fresh blow to Philip.
It was evident that his brother was one of those flighty, vaguely
ambitious, turbulent people, who are the worst possible instruments of
an absolute ruler. For over three months no letter reached Don Juan from
the king, whilst he chafed in Namur. “If,” he wrote to a friend, “God in
His goodness does not protect me, I do not know what I shall do, or what
will become of me. I wish to God I could, without offending my
conscience or my king, dash my brains out against a wall, or cast myself
over a precipice. They neglect me even to the extent of not answering my
letters.” In the meanwhile Orange entered Brussels in triumph, and
Catholics and Protestants made common cause for a time. But not for
long. The extreme Catholic party, under the Duke of Arschot, invited
secretly Philip’s young nephew and brother-in-law, the Archduke Mathias,
to assume the sovereignty of Flanders. The young prince--he was only
twenty, and a fool--escaped from Vienna and arrived at Brussels on
October 26, 1577. This was a blow to Don Juan in Namur, to Orange in
Brussels, and to Philip in Madrid. Philip met the danger at first by
masterly inactivity--in fact the solution might have been made not
altogether distasteful to him; Orange cleverly took the young archduke
under his wing, patronised, adopted, and disarmed him; and Don Juan
busied himself in his fortress settling with his friends outside the
recruiting of a Catholic force, whilst he was still quarrelling with the
States by letter. But by the end of October the Protestants in the
south, encouraged by the turn of affairs and the presence of Orange in
Brussels, turned upon their Catholic fellow-townsmen in Ghent, Bruges,
and elsewhere, and sought to avenge the cruelties perpetrated upon them
in the past by the Catholic Church. The Duke of Arschot and the
representatives of the Catholic States were seized and imprisoned whilst
in session at Ghent, and everywhere the Protestants and Orange seemed to
be sweeping the board. This was too much for Philip. The Archduke
Mathias as tributary sovereign under him of a Catholic Flanders, he
might have accepted, but the Prince of Orange and the Lutherans
paramount from Zeeland to the French frontier he could not stomach. So
the veteran Spanish and Italian infantry who had scourged Flanders
before, were recalled, under Alexander Farnese, the son of Margaret, who
had been the ruler of Flanders when the dissensions began, to the help
of Don Juan and to crush the Protestants. When Alexander and his troops
approached Namur, Orange and Mathias, side by side, were entering
Brussels in state. Elizabeth had insisted upon Orange being made
lieutenant-general with the real power, as a condition of her continued
aid to the States, for she was quite determined upon two points--first,
that no matter what union was effected between the States, the Catholic
party should never be paramount; and secondly, that the French should
not gain a footing there except under her patronage. She had some fear
on this latter point, for Catharine de Medici had long been intriguing
to obtain the sovereignty for her young son Alençon, who was already on
the frontier with a force of Huguenots, whilst the Guises had been
actively helping Don Juan in his recruiting of Catholics. When Parma had
arrived, and Don Juan’s new levies were ready, he marched out of Namur
on the last day of January 1578. The States troops, mostly Netherlanders
and German mercenaries, mustered 20,000 men, and Don Juan’s forces about
the same number. The prince, with Parma, led the centre of the latter
with the pope’s sacred banner floating over their heads. The same spirit
that had led him against the infidel inspired him now, and the banner
testified to it, for it bore the words under a crucifix: “Under this
emblem I vanquished the Turks; under the same will I conquer the
heretics.” And he did so, for on the plain of Gemblours the States
troops under De Goigny, with Egmont, Bossu, Champigny, La Marck, and
Arschot’s brother Havré, were routed completely, without loss on the
Spanish side. The honour of the day belongs to Alexander Farnese, who
with a dashing cavalry charge broke the enemy at a critical moment, the
only men who made any real resistance being the Scottish levies, 600
strong, under Colonel Balfour. These were saved from the carnage by Don
Juan’s intercession, but of the rest 6000 men were killed in fight, and
the prisoners hanged to a man.
Philip had had enough of his turbulent brother. He had promised the
envoys from the Catholic States that he should be withdrawn, and it was
privately understood when Alexander Farnese was appointed to go thither
that he should succeed the prince. But the latter for the present still
continued in command, reducing the towns of South Flanders one after the
other, and again issuing a proclamation in Philip’s name offering peace
to the States, on condition of the recognition of the Spanish
sovereignty and the predominance of the Catholic religion. The latter
condition meant the extermination of the Protestants by fire and sword,
and Orange could never accept it.
By the pacification of Ghent, which Don Juan had in principle confirmed,
religious toleration had been secured, and the States refused to go back
from that position, and again demanded the withdrawal of the
impracticable governor. Philip was, in fact, at his wits’ end what to do
with his brother. Perez had succeeded in persuading the king that Don
Juan’s object was to raise a revolution in Spain and try to grasp the
crown. He could not, therefore, be allowed to come back freely, nor
would the States endure him longer on any terms. He himself felt the
position to be an impossible one, and his letters to his private friends
in Madrid constantly hint at suicide as the only way out of the
difficulty, for he knew now that his faithful secretary Escobedo had
been assassinated in Madrid, and anticipated a similar shameful end for
himself. War to the knife against the States was his only resource, for
he was no diplomatist, but Philip, over his head, left no stone unturned
to try to tempt Orange to abandon his cause. Orange had a restive team
to drive, what with the Catholic majority and nobles, the Protestant
Dutchmen, the extreme Puritans, like Saint Aldegonde; Elizabeth of
England, the French Huguenots, the German mercenaries, and poor Mathias,
now an acknowledged failure. Nothing but the most consummate
statesmanship would serve him, and that he employed. Philip’s
temptations and Don Juan’s storming were equally disregarded. Alençon
and the Frenchmen were invited across the frontier to replace Mathias as
sovereign, and Havré was sent to Elizabeth to assure her that, unless
she helped the States effectually with men and money, they would be
obliged to accept the Frenchmen. This they knew she would never stand.
She disarmed Catharine de Medici with fresh approaches for a marriage
with Alençon, whilst she threatened to help Philip if the French were
allowed to set foot in Flanders except under her auspices. She smiled
upon Philip’s new ambassador Mendoza, and so managed that very shortly
Alençon had to retrace his steps to France, and the States had to look
to her alone for assistance, which she doled out judiciously, and so
kept them firm against the Spaniards. All through the spring and summer
of 1578 Don Juan struggled in toils from which he had not wit enough to
free himself. Heartrending appeals to his brother for guidance, for
money to organise a sufficient force to crush the States for good and
for all, prayers to be allowed to retire, were met with cold
irresponsiveness by Philip, prompted by Perez’s slanders, for Don Juan
must be ruined or Perez himself must fall. At last his chafing spirit
wore out his body. Constant fevers beset him, and in his letters to his
friends he began to predict that his days were drawing to an end,
whatever doctors might say. By the end of September he was delirious,
and on October 1 he died of malignant fever. There were naturally
whispers of poison, even from his confessor, but the details of his
illness given by the physicians in attendance leave no doubt that he
died a natural death, although his death certainly relieved Philip of an
unendurable position, and allowed Farnese, an infinitely superior man,
to take advantage of the strong Catholic national feeling in Belgium to
separate the nobles and peoples of the south from Orange and the
Dutchmen, and so eventually to reserve Catholic Flanders to the Spanish
connection for many years to come.