out from Holland by private enterprise, were forcing their way to the
South Sea through the terrible strait between Patagonia and Fire Land;
then supposed the only path around the globe. For the tortuous mountain
channel, filled with whirlpools and reefs, and the home of perpetual
tempest, which had been discovered in the early part of the century by
Magellan, was deemed the sole opening pierced by nature through the
mighty southern circumpolar continent. A few years later a daring
Hollander was to demonstrate the futility of this theory, and to give his
own name to a broader pathway, while the stormy headland of South
America, around which the great current of universal commerce was
thenceforth to sweep, was baptized by the name of the tranquil town in
West Friesland where most of his ship's company were born.
Meantime the seven ships under command of Jacob Mahu, Simon de Cordes,
and Sebald de Weerdt; were contending with the dangers of the older
route. The expedition sailed from Holland in June, 1598, but already the
custom was forming itself of directing those navigators of almost unknown
seas by explicit instructions from those who remained on shore, and who
had never navigated the ocean at all. The consequence on this occasion
was that the voyagers towards the Straits of Magellan spent a whole
summer on the coast of Africa, amid pestiferous heats and distracting
calms, and reached the straits only in April of the following year.
Admiral Mahu and a large proportion of the crew had meantime perished of
fevers contracted by following the course marked out for them by their
employers, and thus diminished in numbers, half-stripped of provisions,
and enfeebled by the exhausting atmosphere of the tropics, the survivors
were ill prepared to confront the antarctic ordeal which they were
approaching. Five months longer the fleet, under command of Admiral de
Cordes, who had succeeded to the command, struggled in those straits,
where, as if in the home of Eolus, all the winds of heaven seemed holding
revel; but indifference to danger, discipline, and devotion to duty
marked the conduct of the adventurers, even as those qualities had just
been distinguishing their countrymen at the other pole. They gathered no
gold, they conquered no kingdoms, they made few discoveries, they
destroyed no fleets, yet they were the first pioneers on a path on which
thereafter were to be many such achievements by the republic.
At least one heroic incident, which marked their departure from the
straits, deserves to be held in perpetual remembrance. Admiral de Cordes
raised on the shore, at the western mouth of the channel, a rude memorial
with an inscription that the Netherlanders were the first to effect this
dangerous passage with a fleet of heavy ships. On the following day, in
commemoration of the event, he founded an order of knighthood. The chief
officers of the squadron were the knights-commanders, and the most
deserving of the crew were the knights-brethren. The members of the
fraternity made solemn oath to De Cordes, as general, and to each other,
that "by no danger, no necessity, nor by the fear of death, would they
ever be moved to undertake anything prejudicial to their honour, to, the
welfare of the fatherland, or to the success of the enterprise in which
they were engaged; pledging themselves to stake their lives in order,
consistently with honour, to inflict every possible damage on the
hereditary enemy, and to plant the banner of Holland in all those
territories whence the King of Spain gathered the treasures with which he
had carried on this perpetual war against the Netherlands."
Thus was instituted on the desolate shores of Fire Land the order of
Knights of the Unchained Lion, with such rude solemnities as were
possible in those solitudes. The harbour where the fleet was anchored
was called the Chevaliers' Bay, but it would be in vain to look on modern
maps for that heroic appellation. Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
know the honest knights of the Unchained Lion no more; yet to an
unsophisticated mind no stately brotherhood of sovereigns and patricians
seems more thoroughly inspired with the spirit of Christian chivalry than
were those weather-beaten adventurers. The reefs and whirlwinds of
unknown seas, polar cold, Patagonian giants, Spanish cruisers, a thousand
real or fabulous dangers environed them. Their provisions were already
running near exhaustion; and they were feeding on raw seal-flesh, on
snails and mussels, and on whatever the barren rocks and niggard seas
would supply, to save them from absolutely perishing, but they held their
resolve to maintain their honour unsullied, to be true to each other and
to the republic, and to circumnavigate the globe to seek the proud enemy
of their fatherland on every sea, and to do battle with him in every
corner of the earth. The world had already seen, and was still to see,
how nobly Netherlanders could keep their own. Meantime disaster on
disaster descended on this unfortunate expedition. One ship after
another melted away and was seen no more. Of all the seven, only one,
that of Sebald de Weerdt, ever returned to the shores of Holland.
Another reached Japan, and although the crew fell into hostile hands, the
great trade with that Oriental empire was begun. In a third--the Blyde
Boodachaft, or Good News--Dirk Gerrits sailed nearer the South Pole than
man had ever been before, and discovered, as he believed, a portion of
the southern continent, which he called, with reason good, Gerrit's Land.
The name in course of time faded from maps and charts, the existence of
the country was disputed, until more than two centuries later the
accuracy of the Dutch commander was recognised. The rediscovered land
however no longer bears his name, but has been baptized South Shetland.
Thus before the sixteenth century had closed, the navigators of Holland
had reached almost the extreme verge of human discovery at either pole.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Military Operations in the Netherlands--Designs of the Spanish
Commander--Siege of Orsoy--Advance upon Rheinberg--Murder of the
Count of Broeck and his garrison--Capture of Rees and Emmerich--
Outrages of the Spanish soldiers in the peaceful provinces--
Inglorious attempt to avenge the hostilities--State of trade in the
Provinces--Naval expedition under van der Does--Arrival of Albert
and Isabella at Brussels--Military operations of Prince Maurice--
Negotiation between London and Brussels--Henry's determination to
enact the Council of Trent--His projected marriage--Queen Elizabeth
and Envoy Caron--Peace proposals of Spain to Elizabeth--Conferences
at Gertruydenberg--Uncertain state of affairs.
The military operations in the Netherlands during the whole year 1598
were on a comparatively small scale and languidly conducted. The States
were exhausted by the demands made upon the treasury, and baffled by the
disingenuous policy of their allies. The cardinal-archduke, on the other
hand, was occupied with the great events of his marriage, of his father-
in-law's death, and of his own succession in conjunction with
his wife to the sovereignty of the provinces.
In the autumn, however, the Admiral of Arragon, who, as has been stated,
was chief military commander during the absence of Albert, collected an
army of twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand cavalry, crossed the
Meuse at Roermond, and made his appearance before a small town called
Orsoy, on the Rhine. It was his intention to invade the duchies of
Clever, Juliers, and Berg, taking advantage of the supposed madness of
the duke, and of the Spanish inclinations of his chief counsellors, who
constituted a kind of regency. By obtaining possession of these
important provinces--wedged as they were between the territory of the
republic, the obedient Netherlands, and Germany--an excellent military
position would be gained for making war upon the rebellious districts
from the east, for crushing Protestantism in the duchies, for holding
important passages of the Rhine, and for circumventing the designs of the
Protestant sons-in-law and daughters of the old Duke of Cleves. Of
course, it was the determination of Maurice and the States-General to
frustrate these operations. German and Dutch Protestantism gave battle
on this neutral ground to the omnipotent tyranny of the papacy and Spain.
Unfortunately, Maurice had but a very slender force that autumn at his
command. Fifteen hundred horse and six thousand infantry were all his
effective troops, and with these he took the field to defend the borders
of the republic, and to out-manceuvre, so far as it might lie in his
power, the admiral with his far-reaching and entirely unscrupulous
designs.
With six thousand Spanish veterans, two thousand Italians, and many
Walloon and German regiments under Bucquoy, Hachincourt, La Bourlotte,
Stanley, and Frederic van den Berg, the admiral had reached the frontiers
of the mad duke's territory. Orsoy was garrisoned by a small company of
"cocks' feathers," or country squires, and their followers.
Presenting himself in person before the walls of the town, with a priest
at his right hand and a hangman holding a bundle of halters at the other,
he desired to be informed whether the governor would prefer to surrender
or to hang with his whole garrison. The cock feathers surrendered.
The admiral garrisoned and fortified Orsoy as a basis and advanced upon
Rheinberg, first surprising the Count of Broeck in his castle, who was at
once murdered in cold blood with his little garrison.
He took Burik on the 11th October, Rheinberg on the 15th of the same
month, and compounded with Wesel for a hundred and twenty thousand
florins. Leaving garrisons in these and a few other captured places, he
crossed the Lippe, came to Borhold, and ravaged the whole country side.
His troops being clamorous for pay were only too eager to levy black-mail
on this neutral territory. The submission of the authorities to this
treatment brought upon them a reproach of violation of neutrality by the
States-General; the Governments of Munster and of the duchies being
informed that, if they aided and abetted the one belligerent, they must
expect to be treated as enemies by the other.
The admiral took Rees on the 30th October, and Emmerich on the 2nd
November--two principal cities of Cleves. On the 8th November he crossed
into the territory of the republic and captured Deutekom, after a very
short siege. Maurice, by precaution, occupied Sevenaer in Cleves. The
prince--whose difficult task was to follow up and observe an enemy by
whom he was outnumbered nearly four to one, to harass him by skirmishes,
to make forays on his communications, to seize important points before he
could reach them, to impose upon him by an appearance of far greater
force than the republican army could actually boast, to protect the
cities of the frontier like Zutphen, Lochem, and Doesburg, and to prevent
him from attempting an invasion of the United Provinces in force, by
crossing any of the rivers, either in the autumn or after the winter's
ice had made them passable for the Spanish army-succeeded admirably in
all his strategy. The admiral never ventured to attack him, for fear of
risking a defeat of his whole army by an antagonist whom he ought to have
swallowed at a mouthful, relinquished all designs upon the republic,
passed into Munster, Cleves, and Berg, and during the whole horrible
winter converted those peaceful provinces into a hell. No outrage which
even a Spanish army could inflict was spared the miserable inhabitants.
Cities and villages were sacked and burned, the whole country was placed
under the law of black-mail. The places of worship, mainly Protestant,
were all converted at a blow of the sword into Catholic churches. Men
were hanged, butchered, tossed in sport from the tops of steeples,
burned, and buried alive. Women of every rank were subjected by
thousands to outrage too foul and too cruel for any but fiends or Spanish
soldiers to imagine.
Such was the lot of thousands of innocent men and women at the hands of
Philip's soldiers in a country at peace with Philip, at the very moment
when that monarch was protesting with a seraphic smile on his expiring
lips that he had never in his whole life done injury to a single human
being.
In vain did the victims call aloud upon their sovereign, the Emperor
Rudolph. The Spaniards laughed the feeble imperial mandates to scorn,
and spurned the word neutrality. "Oh, poor Roman Empire!" cried John
Fontanus, "how art thou fallen! Thy protector has become thy despoiler,
and, although thy members see this and know it, they sleep through it
all. One day they may have a terrible awakening from their slumbers
. . . . . . . The Admiral of Arragon has entirely changed the
character of the war, recognizes no neutrality, saying that there must be
but one God, one pope, and one king, and that they who object to this
arrangement must be extirpated with fire and sword, let them be where
they may."
The admiral, at least, thoroughly respected the claims of the dead Philip
to universal monarchy.
Maurice gained as much credit by the defensive strategy through which he
saved the republic from the horrors thus aficting its neighbours, as he
had ever done by his most brilliant victories. Queen Elizabeth was
enchanted with the prowess of the prince, and with the sagacious
administration of those republican magistrates whom she never failed to
respect, even when most inclined to quarrel with them. "Never before was
it written or heard of," said the queen, "that so great an extent of
country could be defended with so few troops, that an invasion of so
superior a hostile force could be prevented, especially as it appeared
that all the streams and rivers were frozen." This, she added, was owing
to the wise and far-seeing counsels of the States-General, and to the
faithful diligence of their military commander, who now, as she declared,
deserved the title of the first captain of all Christendom.
A period of languor and exhaustion succeeded. The armies of the States
had dwindled to an effective force of scarcely four or five thousand men,
while the new levies came in but slowly. The taxation, on the other
hand, was very severe. The quotas for the provinces had risen to the
amount of five million eight hundred thousand florins for the year 1599,
against an income of four millions six hundred thousand, and this deficit
went on increasing, notwithstanding a new tax of one-half per cent. on
the capital of all estates above three thousand florins in value, and
another of two and a half per cent. on all sales of real property. The
finances of the obedient provinces were in a still worse condition, and
during the absence of the cardinal-archduke an almost universal mutiny,
occasioned by the inability of the exchequer to provide payment for the
troops, established itself throughout Flanders and Brabant. There was
much recrimination on the subject of the invasion of the Rhenish duchies,
and a war of pamphlets and manifestos between the archduke's Government
and the States-General succeeded to those active military operations by
which so much misery had been inflicted on the unfortunate inhabitants of
that border land. There was a slight attempt on the part of the Princes
of Brunswick, Hesse, and Brandenburg to counteract and to punish the
hostilities of the Spanish troops committed upon German soil. An army
--very slowly organized, against the wishes of the emperor, the bishops,
and the Catholic party--took the field, and made a feeble demonstration
upon Rheinberg and upon Rees entirely without result and then disbanded
itself ingloriously.
Meantime the admiral had withdrawn from German territory, and was amusing
himself with a variety of blows aimed at vital points of the republic.
An excursion into the Isle of Bommel was not crowned with much success.
The assault on the city was repulsed. The fortress of Crevecoeur was,
however, taken, and the fort of St. Andrew constructed--in spite of the
attempts of the States to frustrate the design--at a point commanding the
course of both the Waal and the Meuse. Having placed a considerable
garrison in each of those strongholds, the admiral discontinued his
labours and went into winter-quarters.
The States-General for political reasons were urgent that Prince Maurice
should undertake some important enterprise, but the stadholder, sustained
by the opinion of his cousin Lewis William, resisted the pressure. The
armies of the Commonwealth were still too slender in numbers and too
widely scattered for active service on a large scale, and the season for
active campaigning was wisely suffered to pass without making any attempt
of magnitude during the year.
The trade of the provinces, moreover, was very much hampered, and their
revenues sadly diminished by the severe prohibitions which had succeeded
to the remarkable indulgence hitherto accorded to foreign commerce.
Edicts in the name of the King of Spain and of the Archdukes Albert and
Isabella, forbidding all intercourse between the rebellious provinces and
the obedient Netherlands or any of the Spanish possessions, were met by
countervailing decrees of the States-General. Free trade with its
enemies and with all the world, by means of which the commonwealth had
prospered in spite of perpetual war, was now for a season destroyed, and
the immediate results were at once visible in its diminished resources.
To employ a portion of the maritime energies of the Hollanders and
Zeelanders, thus temporarily deprived of a sufficient field, a naval
expedition of seventy-five war vessels under Admiral van der Does was
fitted out, but met with very trifling success. They attacked and
plundered the settlements and forts of the Canary Islands, inflicted much
damage on the inhabitants, sailed thence to the Isle of St. Thomas, near
the equator, where the towns and villages were sacked and burned, and
where a contagious sickness broke out in the fleet, sweeping off in a
very brief period a large proportion of the crew. The admiral himself
fell a victim to the disease and was buried on the island. The fleet put
to sea again under Admiral Storm van Wena, but the sickness pursued the
adventurers on their voyage towards Brazil, one thousand of them dying at
sea in fifteen days. At Brazil they accomplished nothing, and, on their
homeward voyage, not only the new commander succumbed to the same
contagion, but the mortality continued to so extraordinary an extent
that, on the arrival of the expedition late in the winter in Holland,
there were but two captains left alive, and, in many of the vessels, not
more than six sound men to each. Nothing could be more wretched than
this termination of a great and expensive voyage, which had occasioned
such high hopes throughout the provinces; nothing more dismal than the
political atmosphere which surrounded the republic during the months
which immediately ensued. It was obvious to Barneveld and the other
leading personages, in whose hands was the administration of affairs,
that a great military success was absolutely indispensable, if the
treacherous cry of peace, when peace was really impossible, should
not become universal and fatal.
Meantime affairs were not much more cheerful in the obedient provinces.
Archduke Albert arrived with his bride in the early days of September,
1599, at Brussels, and was received with great pomp and enthusiastic
rejoicings. When are pomp and enthusiasm not to be obtained by imperial
personages, at brief notice and in vast quantities, if managers
understand their business? After all, it may be doubted whether the
theatrical display was as splendid as that which marked the beginning of
the Ernestian era. Schoolmaster Houwaerts had surpassed himself on that
occasion, and was no longer capable of deifying the new sovereign as
thoroughly as he had deified his brother.
Much real discontent followed close upon the fictitious enthusiasm. The
obedient provinces were poor and forlorn, and men murmured loudly at the
enormous extravagance of their new master's housekeeping. There were one
hundred and fifty mules, and as many horses in their sovereign's stables,
while the expense of feeding the cooks; lackeys, pages, and fine
gentlemen who swelled the retinue of the great household, was estimated,
without, wages or salaries, at two thousand florins a day. Albert
had wished to be called a king, but had been unable to obtain the
gratification of his wish. He had aspired to be emperor, and he was at
least sufficiently imperial in his ideas of expense. The murmurers were
loftily rebuked for their complaints, and reminded of the duty of
obedient provinces to contribute at least as much for the defence of
their masters as the rebels did in maintenance of their rebellion.
The provincial estates were summoned accordingly to pay roundly for the
expenses of the war as well as of the court, and to enable the new
sovereigns to suppress the military mutiny, which amid the enthusiasm
greeting their arrival was the one prominent and formidable fact.
The archduke was now thirty-nine years of age, the Infanta Isabella six
years younger. She was esteemed majestically beautiful by her courtiers,
and Cardinal Bentivoglio, himself a man of splendid intellect, pronounced
her a woman of genius, who had grown to be a prodigy of wisdom, under the
tuition of her father, the most sagacious statesman of the age. In
attachment to the Roman faith and ritual, in superhuman loftiness of
demeanour, and in hatred of heretics, she was at least a worthy child of
that sainted sovereign. In a moral point of view she was his superior.
The archdukes--so Albert and Isabella were always designated--were a
singularly attached couple, and their household, if extravagant and
imperial, was harmonious. They loved each other--so it was believed--
as sincerely as they abhorred heretics and rebels, but it does not appear
that they had a very warm affection for their Flemish subjects. Every
characteristic of their court was Spanish. Spanish costume, Spanish
manners, the Spanish tongue, were almost exclusively predominant, and
although the festivals, dances, banquets, and tourneys, were all very
magnificent, the prevailing expression of the Brabantine capital
resembled that of a Spanish convent, so severely correct, so stately, and
so grim, was the demeanour of the court.
The earliest military operations of the stadholder in the first year of
the new century were successful. Partly by menace; but more effectually
by judicious negotiation. Maurice recovered Crevecoeur, and obtained the
surrender of St. Andrew, the fort which the admiral had built the
preceding year in honour of Albert's uncle. That ecclesiastic, with whom
Mendoza had wrangled most bitterly during the whole interval of Albert's
absence, had already taken his departure for Rome, where he soon
afterwards died. The garrisons of the forts, being mostly Walloon
soldiers, forsook the Spanish service for that of the States, and were
banded together in a legion some twelve hundred strong, which became
known as the "New Beggars," and were placed under the nominal command of
Frederick Henry of Nassau, youngest child of William the Silent. The
next military event of the year was a mad combat, undertaken by formal
cartel, between Breaute, a young Norman noble in the service of the
republic, and twenty comrades, with an equal number of Flemish warriors
from the obedient provinces, under Grobbendonck. About one half of the
whole number were killed, including the leaders, but the encounter,
although exciting much interest at the time, had of course no permanent
importance.