OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT.
Grounds of Complaint.--The Spanish Troops.--The New
Bishoprics.--Influence on Granvelle.--Opposed by the Nobles.--His
Unpopularity.
1559-1562.
The first cause of trouble, after Philip's departure from the
Netherlands, arose from the detention of the Spanish troops there. The
king had pledged his word, it will be remembered, that they should leave
the country by the end of four months, at farthest. Yet that period had
long since passed, and no preparations were made for their departure.
The indignation of the people rose higher and higher at the insult thus
offered by the presence of these detested foreigners. It was a season of
peace. No invasion was threatened from abroad; no insurrection existed
at home. There was nothing to require the maintenance of an
extraordinary force, much less of one composed of foreign troops. It
could only be that the king, distrusting his Flemish subjects, designed
to overawe them by his mercenaries, in sufficient strength to enforce
his arbitrary acts. The free spirit of the Netherlanders was roused by
these suggestions, and they boldly demanded the removal of the
Spaniards.
Granvelle himself, who would willingly have pleased his master by
retaining a force in the country on which he could rely, admitted that
the project was impracticable. "The troops must be withdrawn," he wrote,
"and that speedily, or the consequence will be an insurrection."[514]
The states would not consent, he said, to furnish the necessary
subsidies while they remained. The prince of Orange and Count Egmont
threw up the commands intrusted to them by the king. They dared no
longer hold them, as the minister added, it was so unpopular.[515]
The troops had much increased the difficulty by their own misconduct.
They were drawn from the great mass, often the dregs, of the people; and
their morals, such as they were, had not been improved in the life of
the camp. However strict their discipline in time of active service, it
was greatly relaxed in their present state of inaction; and they had
full license, as well as leisure, to indulge their mischievous
appetites, at the expense of the unfortunate districts in which they
were quartered.
Yet Philip was slow in returning an answer to the importunate letters of
the regent and the minister; and when he did reply, it was to evade
their request, lamenting his want of funds, and declaring his purpose to
remove the forces so soon as he could pay their arrears. The public
exchequer was undoubtedly at a low ebb; lower in Spain than in the
Netherlands.[516] But no one could believe the royal credit so far
reduced as not to be able to provide for the arrears of three or four
thousand soldiers. The regent, however, saw that, with or without
instructions, it was necessary to act. Several of the members of the
council became sureties for the payment of the arrears, and the troops
were ordered to Zealand, in order to embark for Spain. But the winds
proved unfavorable. Two months longer they were detained, on shore or on
board the transports. They soon got into brawls with the workmen
employed on the dikes; and the inhabitants, still apprehensive of orders
from the king countermanding the departure of the Spaniards, resolved,
in such an event, to abandon the dikes, and lay the country under
water![517] Fortunately, they were not driven to this extremity. In
January, 1561, more than a year after the date assigned by Philip, the
nation was relieved of the presence of the intruders.[518]
Philip's conduct in this affair is not very easy to explain. However
much he might have desired originally to maintain the troops in the
Netherlands, as an armed police on which he could rely to enforce the
execution of his orders, it had become clear that the good they might do
in quelling an insurrection was more than counterbalanced by the
probability of their exciting one. It was characteristic of the king,
however, to be slow in retreating from any position he had taken; and,
as we shall often have occasion to see, there was a certain apathy or
sluggishness in his nature, which led him sometimes to leave events to
take their own course, rather than to shape a course for them himself.
This difficulty was no sooner settled, than it was followed by another
scarcely less serious. We have seen, in a former chapter, the
arrangements made for adding thirteen new bishoprics to the four already
existing in the Netherlands. The measure, in itself a good one, and
demanded by the situation of the country, was, from the posture of
affairs at that time, likely to meet with opposition, if not to occasion
great excitement. For this reason, the whole affair had been kept
profoundly secret by the government. It was not till 1561 that Philip
disclosed his views, in a letter to some of the principal nobles in the
council of state. But, long before that time, the project had taken
wind, and created a general sensation through the country.
The people looked on it as an attempt to subject them to the same
ecclesiastical system which existed in Spain. The bishops, by virtue of
their office, were possessed of certain inquisitorial powers, and these
were still further enlarged by the provisions of the royal edicts.
Philip's attachment to the Inquisition was well understood, and there
was probably not a child in the country who had not heard of the _auto
da fé_ which he had sanctioned by his presence on his return to his
dominions. The present changes were regarded as part of a great scheme
for introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.[519]
However erroneous these conclusions, there is little reason to doubt
they were encouraged by those who knew their fallacy.
[Sidenote: THE NEW BISHOPRICS.]
The nobles had other reasons for opposing the measure. The bishops would
occupy in the legislature the place formerly held by the abbots, who
were indebted for their election to the religious houses over which they
presided. The new prelates, on the contrary, would receive their
nomination from the crown; and the nobles saw with alarm their own
independence menaced by the accession of an order of men who would
naturally be subservient to the interests of the monarch. That the crown
was not insensible to these advantages is evident from a letter of the
minister, in which he sneers at the abbots, as "men fit only to rule
over monasteries, ever willing to thwart the king, and as perverse as
the lowest of the people."[520]
But the greatest opposition arose from the manner in which the new
dignitaries were to be maintained. This was to be done by suppressing
the offices of the abbots, and by appropriating the revenues of their
houses to the maintenance of the bishops. For this economical
arrangement Granvelle seems to have been chiefly responsible. Thus the
income--amounting to fifty thousand ducats--of the Abbey of Afflighen,
one of the wealthiest in Brabant, was to be bestowed on the
archiepiscopal see of Mechlin, to be held by the minister himself.[521]
In virtue of that dignity, Granvelle would become primate of the
Netherlands.
Loud was the clamor excited by this arrangement among the members of the
religious fraternities, and all those who directly or indirectly had any
interest in them. It was a manifest perversion of the funds from the
objects for which they had been given to the institutions. It was
interfering with the economy of these institutions, protected by the
national charters; and the people of Brabant appealed to the "_Joyeuse
Entrée_." Jurists of the greatest eminence, in different parts of
Europe, were consulted as to the legality of these proceedings. Thirty
thousand florins were expended by Brabant alone in this matter, as well
as in employing an agent at the court of Rome to exhibit the true state
of the affair to his holiness, and to counteract the efforts of the
Spanish government.[522]
The reader may remember, that, just before Philip's departure from the
Netherlands, a bull arrived from Rome authorizing the erection of the
new bishoprics. This was but the initiatory step. Many other proceedings
were necessary before the consummation of the affair. Owing to
impediments thrown in the way by the provinces, and the habitual
tardiness of the court of Rome, nearly three years elapsed before the
final briefs were expedited by Pius the Fourth. New obstacles were
raised by the jealous temper of the Flemings, who regarded the whole
matter as a conspiracy of the pope and the king against the liberties of
the nation. Utrecht, Gueldres, and three other places, refused to
receive their bishops; and they never obtained a footing there.
Antwerp, which was to have been made an episcopal see, sent a commission
to the king to represent the ruin this would bring on its trade, from
the connection supposed to exist between the episcopal establishment and
the Spanish Inquisition. For a year the king would not condescend to
give any heed to the remonstrance. He finally consented to defer the
decision of the question till his arrival in the country; and Antwerp
was saved from its bishop.[523]
In another place we find the bishop obtaining an admission through the
management of Granvelle, who profited by the temporary absence of the
nobles. Nowhere were the new prelates received with enthusiasm, but, on
the contrary, wherever they were admitted, it was with a coldness and
silence that intimated too plainly the aversion of the inhabitants. Such
was the case with the archbishop of Mechlin himself, who made his entry
into the capital of his diocese with not a voice to cheer or to welcome
him.[524] In fact, everywhere the newly elected prelate seemed more like
the thief stealthily climbing into the fold, than the good shepherd who
had come to guard it.
Meanwhile the odium of these measures fell on the head of the minister.
No other man had been so active in enforcing them, and he had the credit
universally with the people of having originated the whole scheme, and
proposed it to the sovereign. But from this Philip expressly exonerates
him in a letter to the regent, in which he says, that the whole plan had
been settled long before it was communicated to Granvelle.[525] Indeed,
the latter, with some show of reason, demanded whether, being already
one of four bishops in the country, he should be likely to recommend a
plan which would make him only one of seventeen.[526] This appeal to
self-interest did not wholly satisfy those who thought that it was
better to be the first of seventeen, than to be merely one of four where
all were equal.
Whatever may have been Granvelle's original way of thinking in the
matter, it is certain that, whether it arose from his accommodating
temper, or from his perceptions of the advantages of the scheme being
quickened by his prospect of the primacy, he soon devoted himself, heart
as well as hand, to carry out the royal views. "I am convinced," he
writes, in the spring of 1560, to Philip's secretary, Perez, "that no
measure could be more advantageous to the country, or more necessary for
the support of religion; and if necessary to the success of the scheme,
I would willingly devote to it my fortune and my life."[527]
[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF GRANVELLE.]
Accordingly we find him using all his strength to carry the project
through, devising expedients for raising the episcopal revenues, and
thus occupying a position which exposed him to general obloquy. He felt
this bitterly, and at times, even with all his constancy, was hardly
able to endure it. "Though I say nothing," he writes in the month of
September, 1561, to the Spanish ambassador in Rome, "I feel the danger
of the situation in which the king has placed me. All the odium of these
measures falls on my head; and I only pray that a remedy for the evil
may be found, though it should be by the sacrifice of myself. Would to
God the erection of these bishoprics had never been thought of!"[528]
In February, 1561, Granvelle received a cardinal's hat from Pope Pius
the Fourth. He did not show the alacrity usually manifested in accepting
this distinguished honor. He had obtained it by the private intercession
of the duchess of Parma; and he feared lest the jealousy of Philip might
be alarmed, were it to any other than himself that his minister owed
this distinction. But the king gave the proceeding his cordial sanction,
declaring to Granvelle that the reward was no higher than his desert.
Thus clothed with the Roman purple, primate of the Netherlands, and
first minister of state, Granvelle might now look down on the proudest
noble in the land. He stood at the head of both the civil and the
ecclesiastical administration of the country. All authority centred in
his person. Indeed, such had been the organization of the council of
state, that the minister might be said to be not so much the head of the
government as the government itself.
The affairs of the council were conducted in the manner prescribed by
Philip. Ordinary business passed through the hands of the whole body;
but affairs of moment were reserved for the cardinal and his two
coadjutors to settle with the regent. On such occasions the other
ministers were not even summoned, or, if summoned, such only of the
despatches from Spain as the minister chose to communicate were read,
and the remainder reserved for the _consulta_. When, as did sometimes
happen, the nobles carried a measure in opposition to Granvelle, he
would refer the whole question to the court at Madrid.[529] By this
expedient he gained time for the present, and probably obtained a
decision in his favor at last. The regent conformed entirely to the
cardinal's views. The best possible understanding seems to have
subsisted between them, to judge from the tone of their correspondence
with Philip, in which each of the parties bestows the most unqualified
panegyric on the other. Yet there was a strange reserve in their
official intercourse. Even when occupying the same palace, they are said
to have communicated with each other by writing.[530] The reason
suggested for this singular proceeding is, that it might not appear,
from their being much together, that the regent was acting so entirely
under the direction of the minister. It is certain that both Margaret
and Granvelle had an uncommon passion for letter-writing, as is shown by
the length and number of their epistles, particularly to the king. The
cardinal especially went into a gossiping minuteness of detail, to which
few men in his station would have condescended. But his master, to whom
his letters at this period were chiefly addressed, had the virtue of
patience in an extraordinary degree, as is evinced by the faithful
manner in which he perused these despatches, and made notes upon them
with his own hand.
The minister occupied a palace in Brussels, and had another residence at
a short distance from the capital.[531] He maintained great pomp in his
establishment, was attended by a large body of retainers, and his
equipage and liveries were distinguished by their magnificence. He gave
numerous banquets, held large _levées_, and, in short, assumed a state
in his manner of living which corresponded with his station, and did no
violence to his natural taste. We may well believe that the great lords
of the country, whose ancestors had for centuries filled its highest
places, must have chafed as they saw themselves thrown into the shade by
one whose fortunes had been thus suddenly forced to this unnatural
height by the sunshine of royal favor. Their indignation was heightened
by the tricky arrangement, which, while it left them ciphers in the
administration, made them responsible to the people for its measures.
And if the imputation to Granvelle of arrogance, in the pride of his
full-blown fortunes, was warranted, feelings of a personal nature may
have mingled with those of general discontent.
But, however they may have felt, the Flemish lords must be allowed not
to have been precipitate in the demonstration of their feelings. It is
not till 1562 that we observe the cardinal, in his correspondence with
Spain, noticing any discourtesy in the nobles, or intimating the
existence of any misunderstanding with them. In the spring of the
preceding year we find the prince of Orange "commending himself
cordially and affectionately to the cardinal's good will;" and
subscribing himself, "your very good friend to command."[532] In four
months after this, on the twenty-third of July, we have a letter from
this "very good friend" and count Egmont, addressed to Philip. In this
epistle the writers complain bitterly of their exclusion from all
business of importance in the council of state. They were only invited
to take part in deliberations of no moment. This was contrary to the
assurance of his majesty when they reluctantly accepted office; and it
was in obedience to his commands to advise him if this should occur that
they now wrote to him.[533] Nevertheless, they should have still
continued to bear the indignity in silence, had they not found that they
were held responsible by the people for measures in which they had no
share.[534]--Considering the arrangement Philip had made for the
_consulta_, one has little reason to commend his candor in this
transaction, and not much to praise his policy. As he did not redress
the evil, his implied disavowal of being privy to it would hardly go for
anything with the injured party. In his answer, Philip thanked the
nobles for their zeal in his service, and promised to reply to them more
at large on the return of Count Hoorne to Flanders.[535]
There is no reason to suppose that Granvelle was ever acquainted with
the fact of the letter having been written by the two lords. The
privilege claimed by the novelist, who looks over the shoulders of his
heroes and heroines when they are inditing their epistles, is also
enjoyed by the historian. With the materials rescued from the mouldering
archives of the past, he can present the reader with a more perfect view
of the motives and opinions of the great actors in the drama three
centuries ago, than they possessed in respect to one another. This is
particularly true of the period before us, when the correspondence of
the parties interested was ample in itself, and, through the care taken
of it, in public and private collections, has been well preserved. Such
care was seldom bestowed on historical documents of this class before
the sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: OPPOSED BY THE NOBLES.]
It is not till long--nearly a year--after the date of the preceding
letter, that anything appears to intimate the existence of a coldness,
much less of an open rupture, between Granvelle and the discontented
nobles. Meanwhile, the religious troubles in France had been fast
gathering to a head; and the opposite factions ranged themselves under
the banners of their respective chiefs, prepared to decide the question
by arms. Philip the Second, who stood forth as the champion of
Catholicism, not merely in his own dominions, but throughout
Christendom, watched with anxiety the struggle going forward in the
neighboring kingdom. It had the deeper interest for him, from its
influence on the Low Countries. His Italian possessions were separated
from France by the Alps; his Spanish, by the Pyrenees. But no such
mountain barrier lay between France and Flanders. They were not even
separated, in the border provinces, by difference of language. Every
shock given to France must necessarily be felt in the remotest corner of
the Netherlands. Granvelle was so well aware of this, that he besought
the king to keep an eye on his French neighbors, and support them in the
maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion. "That they should be
maintained in this is quite as important to us as it is to them. Many
here," he adds, "would be right glad to see affairs go badly for the
Catholics in that kingdom. No noble as yet among us has openly declared
himself. Should any one do so, God only could save the country from the
fate of France."[536]
Acting on these hints, and conformably to his own views, Philip sent
orders to the regent to raise two thousand men, and send them across the
borders to support the French Catholics. The orders met with decided
resistance in the council of state. The great Flemish lords, at this
time, must have affected, if they did not feel, devotion to the
established religion. But they well knew there was too large a leaven of
heresy in the country to make these orders palatable. They felt no
desire, moreover, thus unnecessarily to mix themselves up with the feuds
of France. They represented that the troops could not safely be
dispensed with in the present state of feeling at home; and that, if
they marched against the Protestants of France, the German Protestants
might be expected to march against them.
Granvelle, on the other hand, would have enforced the orders of Philip,
as essential to the security of the Netherlands themselves. Margaret,
thus pressed by the opposite parties, felt the embarrassment of either
course. The alternative presented was, that of disobeying the king, or
of incurring the resentment, perhaps the resistance, of the nation.
Orange and Egmont besought her to convoke the states-general, as the
only safe counsellors in such an emergency. The states had often been
convened on matters of less moment by the former regent, Mary of
Hungary. But the cardinal had no mind to invoke the interference of that
"mischievous animal, the people."[537] He had witnessed a convocation of
the states previous to the embarkation of Philip; and he had not
forgotten the independent tone then assumed by that body. It had been,
indeed, the last injunction of the king to his sister, on no account to
call a meeting of the national legislature till his return to the
country.
But while on this ground Margaret refused to summon the states-general,
she called a meeting of the order of the Golden Fleece, to whom she was
to apply for counsel on extraordinary occasions. The knights of the
order consisted of persons of the highest consideration in the country,
including the governors of the provinces. In May, 1562, they assembled
at Brussels. Before meeting in public, the prince of Orange invited them
to a conference in his own palace. He there laid before them the state
of the country, and endeavored to concert with the members some regular
system of resistance to the exclusive and arbitrary course of the
minister. Although no definite action took place at that time, most of
those present would seem to have fallen in with the views of the prince.
There were some, however, who took opposite ground, and who declared
themselves content with Granvelle, and not disposed to prescribe to
their sovereign the choice of his ministers. The foremost of these were
the duke of Arschot, a zealous Catholic, and Count Barlaimont, president
of the council of finance, and, as we have already seen, altogether
devoted to the minister. This nobleman communicated to Margaret the
particulars of the meeting in the prince's palace; and the regent was
careful to give the knights of the order such incessant occupation
during the remainder of their stay in the capital, as to afford the
prince of Orange no opportunity of pursuing his scheme of
agitation.[538]
Before the assembly of the Golden Fleece had been dissolved, it was
decided to send an envoy to the king to lay before him the state of the
country, both in regard to the religious excitement, much stimulated in
certain quarters by the condition of France, and to the financial
embarrassments, which now pressed heavily on the government. The person
selected for the office was Florence de Montmorency, lord of Montigny, a
cavalier who had the boldness to avow his aversion to any interference
with the rights of conscience, and whose sympathies, it will be
believed, were not on the side of the minister.
Soon after his departure, the vexed question of aid to France was
settled in the council by commuting personal service for money. It was
decided to raise a subsidy of fifty thousand crowns, to be remitted at
once to the French government.[539]
Montigny reached Spain in June, 1562. He was graciously received by
Philip, who, in a protracted audience, gathered from him a
circumstantial account of the condition of the Netherlands. In answer to
the royal queries, the envoy also exposed the misunderstanding which
existed between the minister and the nobles.
But the duchess of Parma did not trust this delicate affair to the
representations of Montigny. She wrote herself to her brother, in
Italian, which, when she would give her own views on matters of
importance, she used instead of French, ordinarily employed by the
secretaries. In Italian she expressed herself with the greatest fluency,
and her letters in that language, for the purpose of secrecy, were
written with her own hand.
[Sidenote: OPPOSED BY THE NOBLES.]
The duchess informed the king of the troubles that had arisen with the
nobles; charging Orange and Egmont, especially, as the source of them.
She accused them of maliciously circulating rumors that the cardinal had
advised Philip to invade the country with an armed force, and to cut off
the heads of some five or six of the principal malecontents.[540] She
paid a high tribute to the minister's loyalty, and his talent for
business; and she besought the king to disabuse Montigny in respect to
the common idea of a design to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into
the country, and to do violence to its institutions.
The war was now openly proclaimed between the cardinal and the nobles.
Whatever decorum might be preserved in their intercourse, there was no
longer any doubt as to the hostile attitude in which they were hereafter
to stand in respect to each other. In a letter written a short time
previous to that of the regent, the cardinal gives a brief view of his
situation to the king. The letter is written in the courageous spirit of
one who does not shrink from the dangers that menace him. After an
observation intimating no great confidence in the orthodoxy of the
prince of Orange, he remarks: "Though the prince shows me a friendly
face, when absent he is full of discontent. They have formed a league
against me," he continues, "and threaten my life. But I have little fear
on that score, as I think they are much too wise to attempt any such
thing. They complain of my excluding them from office, and endeavoring
to secure an absolute authority for your majesty. All which they repeat
openly at their banquets, with no good effect on the people. Yet never
were there governors of the provinces who possessed so much power as
they have, or who had all appointments more completely in their own
hands. In truth, their great object is to reduce your majesty and the
regent to the condition of mere ciphers in the government."
"They refuse to come to my table," he adds, "at which I smile. I find
guests enough in the gentry of the country, the magistrates, and even
the worthy burghers of the city, whose good-will it is well to
conciliate against a day of trouble. These evils I bear with patience,
as I can. For adversity is sent by the Almighty, who will recompense
those who suffer for religion and justice." The cardinal was fond of
regarding himself in the light of a martyr.
He concludes this curious epistle with beseeching the king to come soon
to the Netherlands; "to come well attended, and with plenty of money;
since, thus provided, he will have no lack of troops, if required to act
abroad, while his presence will serve to calm the troubled spirits at
home."[541] The politic minister says nothing of the use that might be
made of these troops at home. Such an intimation would justify the
charges already brought against him. He might safely leave his master to
make that application for himself.
In December, 1562, Montigny returned from his mission, and straightway
made his report to the council of state. He enlarged on the solicitude
which Philip had shown for the interests of the country. Nothing had
been further from his mind than to introduce into it the Spanish
Inquisition. He was only anxious to exterminate the growing heresy from
the land, and called on those in authority to aid in the good work with
all their strength. Finally, though pressed by want of funds, he
promised, so soon as he could settle his affairs in Spain, to return to
Flanders.--It was not unusual for Philip to hold out the idea of his
speedy return to the country. The king's gracious reception seems to
have had some effect on Montigny. At all events, he placed a degree of
confidence in the royal professions, in which the sceptical temper of
William was far from acquiescing. He intimated as much to his friend,
and the latter, not relishing the part of a dupe, which the prince's
language seemed to assign to him, retorted in an angry manner; and
something like altercation took place between the two lords, in the
presence of the duchess. At least, such is the report of the
historians.[542] But historians in a season of faction are not the best
authorities. In the troubles before us we have usually a safer guide in
the correspondence of the actors.
By Montigny despatches were also brought from Philip for the duchess of
Parma. They contained suggestions as to her policy in reference to the
factious nobles, whom the king recommended to her, if possible, to
divide by sowing the seeds of jealousy among them.[543] Egmont was a
stanch Catholic, loyal in his disposition, ambitious, and vain. It would
not be difficult to detach him from his associates by a show of
preference, which, while it flattered his vanity, would excite in them
jealousy and distrust.
In former times there had been something of these feelings betwixt
Egmont and the prince of Orange. At least there had been estrangement.
This might, in some degree, be referred to the contrast in their
characters. Certainly no two characters could be more strongly
contrasted with each other. Egmont, frank, fiery, impulsive in his
temper, had little in common with the cool, cautious, and calculating
William. The showy qualities of the former, lying on the surface, more
readily caught the popular eye. There was a depth in William's character
not easy to be fathomed,--an habitual reserve, which made it difficult
even for those who knew him best always to read him right. Yet the
coolness between these two nobles may have arisen less from difference
of character than from similarity of position. Both, by their rank and
services, took the foremost ground in public estimation, so that it was
scarcely possible they should not jostle each other in the career of
ambition. But however divided formerly, they were now too closely united
by the pressure of external circumstances to be separated by the subtle
policy of Philip. Under the influence of a common disgust with the
administration and its arbitrary measures, they continued to act in
concert together, and, in their union, derived benefit from the very
opposition of their characters. For what better augury of success than
that afforded by the union of wisdom in council with boldness in
execution?
The consequences of the troubles in France, as had been foreseen, were
soon visible in the Low Countries. The Protestants of that time
constituted a sort of federative republic, or rather a great secret
association, extending through the different parts of Europe, but so
closely linked together that a blow struck in one quarter instantly
vibrated to every other. The Calvinists in the border provinces of the
Low Countries felt, in particular, great sympathy with the movements of
their French brethren. Many Huguenots took shelter among them. Others
came to propagate their doctrines. Tracts in the French tongue were
distributed and read with avidity. Preachers harangued in the
conventicles; and the people, by hundreds and thousands, openly
assembled, and, marching in procession, chanted the Psalms of David in
the translation of Marot.[544]
[Sidenote: RESISTANCE TO THE EDICTS.]
This open defiance of the edicts called for the immediate interposition
of the government. At Tournay two Calvinist preachers were arrested,
and, after a regular trial, condemned and burned at the stake. In
Valenciennes two others were seized, in like manner, tried, and
sentenced to the same terrible punishment. But as the marquis of Bergen,
the governor of the province, had left the place on a visit to a
distant quarter, the execution was postponed till his return. Seven
months thus passed, when the regent wrote to the marquis, remonstrating
on his unseasonable absence from his post. He had the spirit to answer,
that "it neither suited his station nor his character to play the part
of an executioner."[545] The marquis of Bergen had early ranged himself
on the side of the prince of Orange, and he is repeatedly noticed by
Granvelle, in his letters, as the most active of the malecontents. It
may well be believed he was no friend to the system of persecution
pursued by the government. Urged by Granvelle, the magistrates of the
city at length assumed the office of conducting the execution
themselves. On the day appointed, the two martyrs were escorted to the
stake. The funeral pile was prepared, and the torch was about to be
applied, when, at a signal from one of the prisoners, the multitude
around broke in upon the place of execution, trampled down the guards
and officers of justice, scattered the fagots collected for the
sacrifice, and liberated the victims. Then, throwing themselves into a
procession, they paraded the streets of the city, singing their psalms
and Calvinistic hymns.
Meanwhile the officers of justice succeeded in again arresting the
unfortunate men, and carrying them back to prison. But it was not long
before their friends, assembling in greater numbers than before, stormed
the fortress, forced the gates, and, rescuing the prisoners, carried
them off in triumph.
These high-handed measures caused, as may be supposed, great indignation
at the court of the regent. She instantly ordered a levy of three
thousand troops, and, placing them under the marquis of Bergen, sent
them against the insurgents. The force was such as to overcome all
resistance. Arrests were made in great numbers, and the majesty of the
law was vindicated by the trial and punishment of the ringleaders.[546]
"Rigorous and severe measures," wrote Philip, "are the only ones to be
employed in matters of religion. It is by fear only that the
rabble"--meaning by this the Reformers--"can be made to do their duty,
and not always then."[547] This liberal sentiment found less favor in
the Low Countries than in Spain. "One must ponder well," writes the
cardinal to Perez, the royal secretary, "before issuing those absolute
decrees, which are by no means as implicitly received here as they are
in Italy."[548] The Fleming appealed to his laws, and, with all the
minister's zeal, it was found impossible to move forward at the fiery
pace of the Spanish Inquisition.
"It would raise a tumult at once," he writes, "should we venture to
arrest a man without the clearest evidence. No man can be proceeded
against without legal proof."[549] But an insurmountable obstacle in the
way of enforcing the cruel edicts lay in the feelings of the nation. No
law repugnant to such feelings can long be executed. "I accuse none of
the nobles of being heretics," writes the regent to her brother; "but
they show little zeal in the cause of religion, while the magistrates
shrink from their duty from fear of the people."[550] "How absurd is
it," exclaims Granvelle, "for depositions to be taken before the
Inquisition in Spain, in order to search out heretics in Antwerp, where
thousands are every day walking about whom no one meddles with!"[551]
"It is more than a year," he says, "since a single arrest on a charge of
heresy has taken place in that city."[552] Yet whatever may have been
the state of persecution at the present time, the vague dread of the
future must have taken strong hold of people's minds, if, as a
contemporary writes, there were no less than eighteen or twenty thousand
refugees then in England, who had fled from Flanders for the sake of
their religion.[553]
The odium of this persecution all fell on the head of Granvelle. He was
the tool of Spain. Spain was under the yoke of the Inquisition.
Therefore it was clearly the minister's design to establish the Spanish
Inquisition over the Netherlands. Such was the concise logic by which
people connected the name of Granvelle with that of the most dreaded of
tribunals.[554] He was held responsible for the contrivance of the most
unpopular measures of government, as well as for their execution. A
thousand extravagant stories were circulated both of his private and his
political life, which it is probably doing no injustice to the nobles to
suppose they did not take much pains to correct. The favorite of the
prince is rarely the favorite of the people. But no minister had ever
been so unpopular as Granvelle in the Netherlands. He was hated by the
nobles for his sudden elevation to power, and for the servile means, as
they thought, by which he had risen to it. The people hated him, because
he used that power for the ruin of their liberties. No
administration--none certainly, if we except that of the iron Alva--was
more odious to the nation.
[Sidenote: LEAGUE AGAINST GRANVELLE.]
Notwithstanding Granvelle's constancy, and the countenance he received
from the regent and a few of the leading councillors, it was hard to
bear up under this load of obloquy. He would gladly have had the king
return to the country, and sustain him by his presence. It is the burden
of his correspondence at this period. "It is a common notion here," he
writes to the secretary, Perez, "that they are all ready in Spain to
sacrifice the Low Countries. The lords talk so freely, that every moment
I fear an insurrection.... For God's sake, persuade the king to come, or
it will lie heavy on his conscience."[555] The minister complains to the
secretary that he seems to be entirely abandoned by the government at
home. "It is three months," he writes, "since I have received a letter
from the court. We know as little of Spain here as of the Indies. Such
delays are dangerous, and may cost the king dear."[556]--It is clear his
majesty exercised his royal prerogative of having the correspondence all
on one side. At least his own share in it, at this period, was small,
and his letters were concise indeed in comparison with the voluminous
epistles of his minister. Perhaps there was some policy in this silence
of the monarch. His opinions, nay, his wishes, would have, to some
extent, the weight of laws. He would not, therefore, willingly commit
himself. He preferred to conform to his natural tendency to trust to the
course of events, instead of disturbing them by too precipitate action.
The cognomen by which Philip is recognized on the roll of Castilian
princes is "the Prudent."