PHILIP'S INFLEXIBILITY.
Philip's Duplicity.--His Procrastination.--Despatches from
Segovia.--Effect on the Country.--The Compromise.--Orange and Egmont.
1565, 1566.
Shortly after Egmont's return to Brussels, Margaret called a meeting of
the council of state, at which the sealed instructions brought by the
envoy from Madrid were opened and read. They began by noticing the
count's demeanor in terms so flattering as showed the mission had proved
acceptable to the king. Then followed a declaration, strongly expressed
and sufficiently startling. "I would rather lose a hundred thousand
lives, if I had so many," said the monarch, "than allow a single change
in matters of religion."[652] He, however, recommended that a commission
be appointed, consisting of three bishops with a number of jurists, who
should advise with the members of the council as to the best mode of
instructing the people, especially in their spiritual concerns. It might
be well, moreover, to substitute some secret methods for the public
forms of execution, which now enabled the heretic to assume to himself
the glory of martyrdom, and thereby produce a mischievous impression on
the people.[653] No other allusion was made to the pressing grievances
of the nation, though, in a letter addressed at the same time to the
duchess, Philip said that he had come to no decision as to the council
of state, where the proposed change seemed likely to be attended with
inconvenience.[654]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S DUPLICITY.]
This, then, was the result of Egmont's mission to Madrid! This the
change so much vaunted in the policy of Philip! "The count has been the
dupe of Spanish cunning," exclaimed the prince of Orange. It was too
true; and Egmont felt it keenly, as he perceived the ridicule to which
he was exposed by the confident tone in which he had talked of the
amiable dispositions of the Castilian court, and by the credit he had
taken to himself for promoting them.[655]
A greater sensation was produced among the people; for their
expectations had been far more sanguine than those entertained by
William, and the few who, like him, understood the character of Philip
too well to place great confidence in the promises of Egmont. They
loudly declaimed against the king's insincerity, and accused their envoy
of having shown more concern for his private interests than for those of
the public. This taunt touched the honor of that nobleman, who bitterly
complained that it was an artifice of Philip to destroy his credit with
his countrymen; and the better to prove his good faith, he avowed his
purpose of throwing up at once all the offices he held under
government.[656]
The spirit of persecution, after a temporary lull, now again awakened.
But everywhere the inquisitors were exposed to insult, and met with the
same resistance as before; while their victims were cheered with
expressions of sympathy from those who saw them led to execution. To
avoid the contagion of example, the executions were now conducted
secretly in the prisons.[657] But the mystery thus thrown around the
fate of the unhappy sufferer only invested it with an additional horror.
Complaints were made every day to the government by the states, the
magistrates, and the people, denouncing the persecutions to which they
were exposed. Spies, they said, were in every house, watching looks,
words, gestures. No man was secure, either in person or property. The
public groaned under an intolerable slavery.[658] Meanwhile, the
Huguenot emissaries were busy as ever in propagating their doctrines;
and with the work of reform was mingled the seed of revolution.
The regent felt the danger of this state of things, and her impotence to
relieve it. She did all she could in freely exposing it to Philip,
informing him at the same time of Egmont's disgust, and the general
discontent of the nation, at the instructions from Spain. She ended, as
usual, by beseeching her brother to come himself, if he would preserve
his authority in the Netherlands.[659] To these communications the royal
answers came but rarely; and, when they did come, were for the most part
vague and unsatisfactory.
"Everything goes on with Philip," writes Chantonnay, formerly minister
to France, to his brother Granvelle,--"Everything goes on from
to-morrow to to-morrow; the only resolution is, to remain
irresolute.[660] The king will allow matters to become so entangled in
the Low Countries, that, if he ever should visit them, he will find it
easier to conform to the state of things than to mend it. The lords
there are more of kings than the king himself.[661] They have all the
smaller nobles in leading-strings. It is impossible that Philip should
conduct himself like a man.[662] His only object is to cajole the
Flemish nobles, so that he may be spared the necessity of coming to
Flanders."
"It is a pity," writes the secretary, Perez, "that the king will manage
affairs as he does, now taking counsel of this man, and now of that;
concealing some matters from those he consults, and trusting them with
others, showing full confidence in no one. With this way of proceeding,
it is no wonder that despatches should be contradictory in their
tenor."[663]
It is doubtless true, that procrastination and distrust were the
besetting sins of Philip, and were followed by their natural
consequences. He had, moreover, as we have seen, a sluggishness of
nature, which kept him in Madrid when he should have been in
Brussels,--where his father, in similar circumstances, would long since
have been, seeing with his own eyes what Philip saw only with the eyes
of others. But still his policy, in the present instance, may be
referred quite as much to deliberate calculation as to his natural
temper. He had early settled it as a fixed principle never to concede
religious toleration to his subjects. He had intimated this pretty
clearly in his different communications to the government of Flanders.
That he did not announce it in a more absolute and unequivocal form may
well have arisen from the apprehension, that, in the present irritable
state of the people, this might rouse their passions into a flame. At
least, it might be reserved for a last resort. Meanwhile, he hoped to
weary them out by maintaining an attitude of cold reserve; until,
convinced of the hopelessness of resistance, they would cease altogether
to resist. In short, he seemed to deal with the Netherlands like a
patient angler, who allows the trout to exhaust himself by his own
efforts, rather than by a violent movement risk the loss of him
altogether. It is clear Philip did not understand the character of the
Netherlander,--as dogged and determined as his own.
Considering the natural bent of the king's disposition, there seems no
reason to charge Granvelle, as was commonly done in the Low Countries,
with having given a direction to his policy. It is, however, certain,
that, on all great questions, the minister's judgment seems to have
perfectly coincided with that of his master. "If your majesty mitigates
the edicts," writes the cardinal, "affairs will become worse in Flanders
than they are in France."[664] No change should be allowed in the
council of state.[665] A meeting of the states-general would inflict an
injury which the king would feel for thirty years to come![666]
Granvelle maintained a busy correspondence with his partisans in the Low
Countries, and sent the results of it--frequently the original letters
themselves--to Madrid. Thus Philip, by means of the reports of the
great nobles on the one hand, and of the Cardinalists on the other, was
enabled to observe the movements in Flanders from the most opposite
points of view.
[Sidenote: HIS PROCRASTINATION.]
The king's replies to the letters of the minister were somewhat scanty,
to judge from the complaints which Granvelle made of his neglect. With
all this, the cardinal professes to be well pleased that he is rid of so
burdensome an office as that of governing the Netherlands. "Here," he
writes to his friend Viglius, "I make good cheer, busying myself with my
own affairs, and preparing my despatches in quiet, seldom leaving the
house, except to take a walk, to attend church, or to visit my
mother."[667] In this simple way of life, the philosophic statesman
seems to have passed his time to his own satisfaction, though it is
evident, notwithstanding his professions, that he cast many a longing
look back to the Netherlands, the seat of his brief authority. "The
hatred the people of Flanders bear me," he writes to Philip, "afflicts
me sorely; but I console myself that it is for the service of God and my
king."[668] The cardinal, amid his complaints of the king's neglect,
affected the most entire submission to his will. "I would go anywhere,"
he writes,--"to the Indies, anywhere in the world,--would even throw
myself into the fire, did you desire it."[669] Philip, not long after,
put these professions to the test. In October, 1565, he yielded to the
regent's importunities, and commanded Granvelle to transfer his
residence to Rome. The cardinal would not move. "Anywhere," he wrote to
his master, "but to Rome. That is a place of ceremonies and empty show,
for which I am nowise qualified. Besides, it would look too much like a
submission on your part. My diocese of Mechlin has need of me; now, if I
should go to Spain, it would look as if I went to procure the aid which
it so much requires."[670] But the cabinet of Madrid were far from
desiring the presence of so cunning a statesman to direct the royal
counsels. The orders were reiterated, to go to Rome. To Rome,
accordingly, the reluctant minister went; and we have a letter from him
to the king, dated from that capital, the first of February, 1566, in
which he counsels his master by no means to think of introducing the
Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.[671] It might seem as if,
contrary to the proverb, change of climate had wrought some change in
the disposition of the cardinal.--From this period, Granvelle, so long
the terror of the Low Countries, disappears from the management of their
affairs. He does not, however, disappear from the political theatre. We
shall again meet with the able and ambitious prelate, first as viceroy
of Naples, and afterwards at Madrid occupying the highest station in the
councils of his sovereign.
Early in July, 1565, the commission of reform appointed by Philip
transmitted its report to Spain. It recommended no change in the present
laws, except so far as to authorize the judges to take into
consideration the age and sex of the accused, and in case of penitence
to commute the capital punishment of the convicted heretic for
banishment. Philip approved of the report in all particulars,--except
the only particular that involved a change, that of mercy to the
penitent heretic.[672]
At length, the king resolved on such an absolute declaration of his will
as should put all doubts on the matter at rest, and relieve him from
further importunity. On the seventeenth of October, 1565, he addressed
that memorable letter to his sister, from the Wood of Segovia, which may
be said to have determined the fate of the Netherlands. Philip, in this,
intimates his surprise that his letters should appear to Egmont
inconsistent with what he had heard from his lips at Madrid. His desire
was not for novelty in anything. He would have the Inquisition conducted
by the inquisitors, as it had hitherto been, and as by right, divine and
human, belonged to them.[673] For the edicts, it was no time in the
present state of religion to make any change; both his own and those of
his father must be executed. The Anabaptists--a sect for which, as the
especial butt of persecution, much intercession had been made--must be
dealt with according to the rigor of the law. Philip concluded by
conjuring the regent and the lords in the council faithfully to obey his
commands, as in so doing they would render the greatest service to the
cause of religion and of their country,--which last, he adds, without
the execution of these ordinances, would be of little worth.[674]
In a private letter to the regent of nearly the same date with these
public despatches, Philip speaks of the proposed changes in the council
of state as a subject on which he had not made up his mind.[675] He
notices also the proposed convocation of the states-general as a thing,
in the present disorders of the country, altogether
inexpedient.[676]--Thus the king's despatches covered nearly all the
debatable ground on which the contest had been so long going on between
the crown and the country. There could be no longer any complaint of
ambiguity or reserve in the expression of the royal will. "God knows,"
writes Viglius, "what wry faces were made in the council on learning the
absolute will of his majesty!"[677] There was not one of its members,
not even the president or Barlaimont, who did not feel the necessity of
bending to the tempest so far as to suspend, if not to mitigate, the
rigor of the law. They looked to the future with gloomy apprehension.
Viglius strongly urged, that the despatches should not be made public
till some further communication should be had with Philip to warn him of
the consequences. In this he was opposed by the prince of Orange. "It
was too late," he said, "to talk of what was expedient to be done. Since
the will of his majesty was so unequivocally expressed, all that
remained for the government was to execute it."[678] In vain did Viglius
offer to take the whole responsibility of the delay on himself.
William's opinion, supported by Egmont and Hoorne, prevailed with the
regent, too timid, by such an act of disobedience, to hazard the
displeasure of her brother. As, late in the evening, the council broke
up, William was heard to exclaim, "Now we shall see the beginning of a
fine tragedy!"[679]
[Sidenote: EFFECT ON THE COUNTRY.]
In the month of December, the regent caused copies of the despatches,
with extracts from the letters to herself, to be sent to the governors
and the councils of the several provinces, with orders that they should
see to their faithful execution. Officers, moreover, were to be
appointed, whose duty it was to ascertain the manner in which these
orders were fulfilled, and to report thereon to the government.
The result was what had been foreseen. The publication of the
despatches--to borrow the words of a Flemish writer--created a sensation
throughout the country little short of what would have been caused by a
declaration of war.[680] Under every discouragement, men had flattered
themselves, up to this period, with the expectation of some change for
the better. The constantly increasing number of the Reformers, the
persevering resistance to the Inquisition, the reiterated remonstrances
to the government, the general persuasion that the great nobles, even
the regent, were on their side, had all combined to foster the hope that
toleration, to some extent, would eventually be conceded by Philip.[681]
This hope was now crushed. Whatever doubts had been entertained were
dispelled by these last despatches, which came like a hurricane,
sweeping away the mists that had so long blinded the eyes of men, and
laying open the policy of the crown, clear as day, to the dullest
apprehension. The people passed to the extremity of despair. The Spanish
Inquisition, with its train of horrors, seemed to be already in the
midst of them. They called to mind all the tales of woe they had heard
of it. They recounted the atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards in the
New World, which, however erroneously, they charged on the Holy Office.
"Do they expect," they cried, "that we shall tamely wait here, like the
wretched Indians, to be slaughtered by millions?"[682] Men were seen
gathering into knots, in the streets and public squares, discussing the
conduct of the government, and gloomily talking of secret associations
and foreign alliances. Meetings were stealthily held in the woods, and
in the suburbs of the great towns, where the audience listened to
fanatical preachers, who, while discussing the doctrines of religious
reform, darkly hinted at resistance. Tracts were printed, and widely
circulated, in which the reciprocal obligations of lord and vassal were
treated, and the right of resistance was maintained; and, in some
instances, these difficult questions were handled with decided ability.
A more common form was that of satire and scurrilous lampoon,--a
favorite weapon with the early Reformers. Their satirical sallies were
levelled indifferently at the throne and the Church. The bishops were an
obvious mark. No one was spared. Comedies were written to ridicule the
clergy. Never since the discovery of the art of printing--more than a
century before--had the press been turned into an engine of such
political importance as in the earlier stages of the revolution in the
Netherlands. Thousands of the seditious pamphlets thus thrown off were
rapidly circulated among a people, the humblest of whom possessed what
many a noble in other lands, at that day, was little skilled in,--the
art of reading. Placards were nailed to the doors of the magistrates, in
some of the cities, proclaiming that Rome stood in need of her Brutus.
Others were attached to the gates of Orange and Egmont, calling on them
to come forth and save their country.[683]
Margaret was filled with alarm at these signs of disaffection throughout
the land. She felt the ground trembling beneath her. She wrote again and
again to Philip, giving full particulars of the state of the public
sentiment, and the seditious spirit which seemed on the verge of
insurrection. She intimated her wish to resign the government.[684] She
besought him to allow the states-general to be summoned, and, at all
events, to come in person and take the reins from her hands, too weak to
hold them.--Philip coolly replied, that "he was sorry the despatches
from Segovia had given such offence. They had been designed only for the
service of God and the good of the country."[685]
In this general fermentation, a new class of men came on the stage,
important by their numbers, though they had taken no part as yet in
political affairs. These were the lower nobility of the country; men of
honorable descent, and many of them allied by blood or marriage with the
highest nobles of the land. They were too often men of dilapidated
fortunes, fallen into decay through their own prodigality, or that of
their progenitors. Many had received their education abroad, some in
Geneva, the home of Calvin, where they naturally imbibed the doctrines
of the great Reformer. In needy circumstances, with no better possession
than the inheritance of honorable traditions, or the memory of better
days, they were urged by a craving, impatient spirit, which naturally
made them prefer any change to the existing order of things. They were,
for the most part, bred to arms; and, in the days of Charles the Fifth,
had found an ample career opened to their ambition under the imperial
banners. But Philip, with less policy than his father, had neglected to
court this class of his subjects, who, without fixed principles or
settled motives of action, seemed to float on the surface of events,
prepared to throw their weight, at any moment, into the scale of
revolution.
[Sidenote: THE COMPROMISE.]
Some twenty of these cavaliers, for the most part young men, met
together in the month of November, in Brussels, at the house of Count
Culemborg, a nobleman attached to the Protestant opinions. Their avowed
purpose was to listen to the teachings of a Flemish divine, named
Junius, a man of parts and learning, who had been educated in the school
of Calvin, and who, having returned to the Netherlands, exercised, under
the very eye of the regent, the dangerous calling of the missionary. At
this meeting of the discontented nobles, the talk naturally turned on
the evils of the land, and the best means of remedying them. The result
of the conferences was the formation of a league, the principal objects
of which are elaborately set forth in a paper known as the
"Compromise."[686]
This celebrated document declares that the king had been induced by evil
counsellors,--for the most part foreigners,--in violation of his oath,
to establish the Inquisition in the country; a tribunal opposed to all
law, divine and human, surpassing in barbarity anything ever yet
practised by tyrants,[687] tending to bring the land to utter ruin, and
the inhabitants to a state of miserable bondage. The confederates,
therefore, in order not to become the prey of those who, under the name
of religion, seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of life and
property,[688] bind themselves by a solemn oath to resist the
establishment of the Inquisition, under whatever form it may be
introduced, and to protect each other against it with their lives and
fortunes. In doing this, they protest that, so far from intending
anything to the dishonor of the king, their only intent is to maintain
the king in his estate, and to preserve the tranquillity of the realm.
They conclude with solemnly invoking the blessing of the Almighty on
this their lawful and holy confederation.
Such are some of the principal points urged in this remarkable
instrument, in which little mention is made of the edicts, every other
grievance being swallowed up in that of the detested Inquisition.
Indeed, the translations of the "Compromise," which soon appeared, in
various languages, usually bore the title of "League of the Nobles of
Flanders against the Spanish Inquisition."[689]
It will hardly be denied that those who signed this instrument had
already made a decided move in the game of rebellion. They openly
arrayed themselves against the execution of the law and the authority of
the crown. They charged the king with having violated his oath, and they
accused him of abetting a persecution which, under the pretext of
religion, had no other object than the spoil of its victims. It was of
little moment that all this was done under professions of loyalty. Such
professions are the decent cover with which the first approaches are
always made in a revolution.--The copies of the instrument differ
somewhat from each other. One of these, before me, as if to give the
edge of personal insult to their remonstrance, classes in the same
category "the vagabond, the priest, and the _Spaniard_."[690]
Among the small company who first subscribed the document, we find names
that rose to eminence in the stormy scenes of the revolution. There was
Count Louis of Nassau, a younger brother of the prince of Orange, the
"_bon chevalier_," as William used to call him,--a title well earned by
his generous spirit and many noble and humane qualities. Louis was bred
a Lutheran, and was zealously devoted to the cause of reform, when his
brother took but a comparatively languid interest in it. His ardent,
precipitate temper was often kept in check, and more wisely directed, by
the prudent counsels of William; while he amply repaid his brother by
his devoted attachment, and by the zeal and intrepidity with which he
carried out his plans. Louis, indeed, might be called the right hand of
William.
Another of the party was Philip de Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde. He was
the intimate friend of William of Orange. In the words of a Belgian
writer, he was one of the beautiful characters of the time;[691]
distinguished alike as a soldier, a statesman, and a scholar. It is to
his pen that the composition of the "Compromise" has generally been
assigned. Some critics have found its tone inconsistent with the sedate
and tranquil character of his mind. Yet St. Aldegonde's device, "_Repos
ailleurs_,"[692] would seem to indicate a fervid imagination and an
impatient spirit of activity.
But the man who seems to have entered most heartily into these first
movements of the revolution was Henry, viscount of Brederode. He sprung
from an ancient line, boasting his descent from the counts of Holland.
The only possession that remained to him, the lordship of Viana, he
still claimed to hold as independent of the king of Spain, or any other
potentate. His patrimony had been wasted in a course of careless
indulgence, and little else was left than barren titles and
pretensions,--which, it must be owned, he was not diffident in vaunting.
He was fond of convivial pleasures, and had a free, reckless humor, that
took with the people, to whom he was still more endeared by his sturdy
hatred of oppression. Brederode was, in short, one of those busy,
vaporing characters, who make themselves felt at the outset of a
revolution, but are soon lost in the course of it; like those ominous
birds which with their cries and screams herald in the tempest that soon
sweeps them out of sight for ever.
Copies of the "Compromise," with the names attached to it, were soon
distributed through all parts of the country, and eagerly signed by
great numbers, not merely of the petty nobility and gentry, but of
substantial burghers and wealthy merchants, men who had large interests
at stake in the community. Hames, king-at-arms of the Golden Fleece, who
was a zealous confederate, boasted that the names of two thousand such
persons were on his paper.[693] Among them were many Roman Catholics;
and we are again called to notice, that in the outset this Protestant
revolution received important support from the Catholics themselves, who
forgot all religious differences in a common hatred of arbitrary power.
[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE COUNTRY.]
Few, if any, of the great nobles seem to have been among the number of
those who signed the "Compromise,"--certainly none of the council of
state. It would hardly have done to invite one of the royal
councillors--in other words, one of the government--to join the
confederacy, when they would have been bound by the obligations of their
office to disclose it to the regent.
But if the great lords did not become actual parties to the league, they
showed their sympathy with the object of it, by declining to enforce the
execution of the laws against which it was directed. On the
twenty-fourth of January, 1566, the prince of Orange addressed, from
Breda, a letter to the regent, on the occasion of her sending him the
despatches from Segovia, for the rule of his government in the
provinces. In this remarkable letter, William exposes, with greater
freedom than he was wont, his reasons for refusing to comply with the
royal orders. "I express myself freely and frankly," he says, "on a
topic on which I have not been consulted; but I do so, lest by my
silence I may incur the responsibility of the mischief that must ensue."
He then briefly, and in a decided tone, touches on the evils of the
Inquisition,--introduced, as he says, contrary to the repeated pledges
of the king,--and on the edicts. Great indulgence had been of late shown
in the interpretation of these latter; and to revive them on a sudden,
so as to execute them with their ancient rigor, would be most
disastrous. There could not be a worse time than the present, when the
people were sorely pressed by scarcity of food, and in a critical state
from the religious agitations on their borders. It might cost the king
his empire in the Netherlands, and throw it into the hands of his
neighbors.[694]
"For my own part," he concludes, "if his majesty insists on the
execution of these measures, rather than incur the stain which must rest
on me and my house by attempting it, I will resign my office into the
hands of some one better acquainted with the humors of the people, and
who will be better able to maintain order in the country."[695]
In the same tone several of the other provincial governors replied to
Margaret, declaring that they could never coolly stand by and see fifty
or sixty thousand of their countrymen burned to death for errors of
religion.[696] The regent was sorely perplexed by this desertion of the
men on whom she most relied. She wrote to them in a strain of
expostulation, and besought the prince, in particular, not to add to the
troubles of the time, by abandoning his post, where the attachment of
the people gave him such unbounded influence.[697]
The agitations of the country, in the mean time, continued to increase.
There was a scarcity of bread,--so often the forerunner of
revolution,--and this article had risen to an enormous price. The people
were menaced with famine, which might have led to serious consequences,
but for a temporary relief from Spain.[698]
Rumors now began to be widely circulated of the speedy coming of Philip,
with a large army, to chastise his vassals; and the rumors gained easy
credit with those who felt they were already within the pale of
rebellion. Duke Eric of Brunswick was making numerous levies on the
German borders, and it was generally believed that their destination was
Flanders. It was in vain that Margaret, who ascertained the falsehood of
the report, endeavored to undeceive the people.[699]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S INFLEXIBILITY.]
A short time previously, in the month of June, an interview had taken
place, at Bayonne, between the queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, and
her daughter, Isabella of Spain. Instead of her husband, Isabella was
accompanied at this interview by the counsellor in whom he most trusted,
the duke of Alva. The two queens were each attended by a splendid
retinue of nobles. The meeting was prolonged for several days, amidst a
succession of balls, tourneys, and magnificent banquets, at which the
costly dress and equipage of the French nobility contrasted strangely
enough with the no less ostentatious simplicity of the Spaniards. This
simplicity, so contrary to the usual pomp of the Castilian, was in
obedience to the orders of Philip, who, foreseeing the national
emulation, forbade the indulgence of it at a foolish cost, which in the
end was severely felt by the shattered finances of France.
Amid the brilliant pageants which occupied the public eye, secret
conferences were daily carried on between Catherine and the duke of
Alva. The results were never published, but enough found its way into
the light to show that the principal object was the extermination of
heresy in France and the Netherlands. The queen-mother was for milder
measures,--though slower not less sure. But the iron-hearted duke
insisted that to grant liberty of conscience was to grant unbounded
licence. The only way to exterminate the evil was by fire and sword! It
was on this occasion that, when Catherine suggested that it was easier
to deal with the refractory commons than with the nobles, Alva replied,
"True, but ten thousand frogs are not worth the head of a single
salmon."[700]--an ominous simile, which was afterwards remembered
against its author, when he ruled over the Netherlands.[701]
The report of these dark conferences had reached the Low Countries,
where it was universally believed that the object of them was to secure
the coöperation of France in crushing the liberties of Flanders.[702]
[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE COUNTRY.]
In the panic thus spread throughout the country, the more timid or
prudent, especially of those who dwelt in the seaports, began to take
measures for avoiding these evils by emigration. They sought refuge in
Protestant states, and especially in England, where no less than thirty
thousand, we are told by a contemporary, took shelter under the sceptre
of Elizabeth.[703] They swarmed in the cities of London and Sandwich,
and the politic queen assigned them also the seaport of Norwich as their
residence. Thus Flemish industry was transferred to English soil. The
course of trade between the two nations now underwent a change. The silk
and woollen stuffs, which had formerly been sent from Flanders to
England, became the staple of a large export-trade from England to
Flanders. "The Low Countries," writes the correspondent of Granvelle,
"are the Indies of the English, who make war on our purses, as the
French, some years since, made war on our towns."[704]
Some of the Flemish provinces, instead of giving way to despondency,
appealed sturdily to their charters, to rescue them from the arbitrary
measures of the crown. The principal towns of Brabant, with Antwerp at
their head, intrenched themselves behind their _Joyeuse Entrée_. The
question was brought before the council; a decree was given in favor of
the applicants, and ratified by the regent; and the free soil of Brabant
was no longer polluted by the presence of the Inquisition.[705]
The gloom now became deeper round the throne of the regent. Of all in
the Netherlands, the person least to be envied was the one who ruled
over them. Weaned from her attachment to Granvelle by the influence of
the lords, Margaret now found herself compelled to resume the arbitrary
policy which she disapproved, and to forfeit the support of the very
party to which of late she had given all her confidence. The lords in
the council withdrew from her, the magistrates in the provinces thwarted
her, and large masses of the population were arrayed in actual
resistance against the government. It may seem strange that it was not
till the spring of 1566 that she received positive tidings of the
existence of the league, when she was informed of it by Egmont, and some
others of the council of state.[706] As usual, the rumor went beyond the
truth. Twenty or thirty thousand men were said to be in arms, and half
that number to be prepared to march on Brussels, and seize the person of
the regent, unless she complied with their demands.[707]
For a moment Margaret thought of taking refuge in the citadel. But she
soon rallied, and showed the spirit to have been expected in the
daughter of Charles the Fifth. She ordered the garrisons to be
strengthened in the fortresses throughout the country. She summoned the
companies of _ordonnance_ to the capital, and caused them to renew their
oaths of fidelity to the king. She wrote to the Spanish ministers at the
neighboring courts, informed them of the league, and warned them to
allow no aid to be sent to it from the countries where they resided.
Finally, she called a meeting of the knights of the Golden Fleece and
the council of state, for the twenty-seventh of March, to deliberate on
the perilous situation of the country. Having completed these
arrangements, the duchess wrote to her brother, informing him exactly of
the condition of things, and suggesting what seemed to her counsellors
the most effectual remedy. She wrote the more freely, as her love of
power had yielded to a sincere desire to extricate herself from the
trials and troubles which attended it.[708]
There were but two courses, she said, force or concession.[709] The
former, to say nothing of the ruin it would bring on the land, was
rendered difficult by want of money to pay the troops, and by the want
of trustworthy officers, to command them. Concessions must consist in
abolishing the Inquisition,--a useless tribunal where sectaries swarmed
openly in the cities,--in modifying the edicts, and in granting a free
pardon to all who had signed the Compromise, provided they would return
to their duty.[710] On these terms, the lords of the council were
willing to guaranty the obedience of the people. At all events, they
promised Margaret their support in enforcing it. She would not express
her own preference for either of the alternatives presented to Philip;
but would faithfully execute his commands, whatever they might be, to
the best of her ability.--Without directly expressing her preference, it
was pretty clear on which side it lay. Margaret concluded by earnestly
beseeching her brother to return an immediate answer to her despatches
by the courier who bore them.
[Sidenote: ORANGE AND EGMONT.]
The person who seems to have enjoyed the largest share of Margaret's
confidence, at this time, was Egmont. He remained at Brussels, and still
kept his seat in council after William had withdrawn to his estates in
Breda. Yet the prince, although he had left Brussels in disgust, had not
taken part with the confederates; much less--as was falsely rumored, and
to his great annoyance--put himself at their head.[711] His brother, it
is true, and some of his particular friends, had joined the league. But
Louis declares that he did so without the knowledge of William. When the
latter, a fortnight afterwards, learned the existence of the league, he
expressed his entire disapprobation of it.[712] He even used his
authority, we are told, to prevent the confederates from resorting to
some violent measures, among others the seizure of Antwerp, promising
that he would aid them to accomplish their ends in a more orderly
way.[713] What he desired was, to have the states-general called
together by the king. But he would not assume a hostile attitude, like
that of the confederates, to force him into this unpalatable
measure.[714] When convened, he would have had the legislature, without
transcending its constitutional limits, remonstrate, and lay the
grievances of the nation before the throne.
This temperate mode of proceeding did not suit the hot blood of the
younger confederates. "Your brother," writes Hames to Louis, "is too
slow and lukewarm. He would have us employ only remonstrance against
these hungry wolves; against enemies who do nothing in return but
behead, and banish, and burn us. We are to do the talking, and they the
acting. We must fight with the pen, while they fight with the
sword."[715]
The truth was, that William was not possessed of the fiery zeal which
animated most of the Reformers. In his early years, as we have seen, he
had been subjected to the influence of the Protestant religion at one
period, and of the Roman Catholic at another. If the result of this had
been to beget in him something like a philosophical indifference to the
great questions in dispute, it had proved eminently favorable to a
spirit of toleration. He shrunk from that system of persecution which
proscribed men for their religious opinions. Soon after the arrival of
the despatches from Segovia, William wrote to a friend: "The king
orders, not only obstinate heretics, but even the penitent, to be put to
death. I know not how I can endure this. It does not seem to me that
such measures are either Christian-like or practicable."[716] In another
letter he says: "I greatly fear these despatches will drive men into
rebellion. I should be glad, if I could, to save my country from ruin,
and so many innocent persons from slaughter. But when I say anything in
the council, I am sure to be misinterpreted. So I am greatly perplexed;
since speech and silence are equally bad."[717]
Acting with his habitual caution, therefore, he spoke little, and seldom
expressed his sentiments in writing. "The less one puts in writing," he
said to his less prudent brother, "the better."[718] Yet when the
occasion demanded it, he did not shrink from a plain avowal of his
sentiments, both in speaking and writing. Such was the speech he
delivered in council before Egmont's journey to Spain; and in the same
key was the letter which he addressed to the regent on receiving the
despatches from Segovia. But, whatever might be his reserve, his real
opinions were not misunderstood. He showed them too plainly by his
actions. When Philip's final instructions were made known to him by
Margaret, the prince, as he had before done under Granvelle, ceased to
attend the meetings of the council, and withdrew from Brussels.[719] He
met in Breda, and afterwards in Hoogstraten, in the spring of 1566, a
number of the principal nobles, under cover, as usual, of a banquet.
Discussions took place on the state of the country, and some of the
confederates who were present at the former place were for more violent
measures than William approved. As he could not bring them over to his
own temperate policy, he acquiesced in the draft of a petition, which,
as we shall see in the ensuing chapter, was presented to the
regent.[720] On the whole, up to the period at which we are arrived, the
conduct of the prince of Orange must be allowed to have been wise and
consistent. In some respects it forms a contrast to that of his more
brilliant rival, Count Egmont.
This nobleman was sincerely devoted to the Roman Catholic faith. He was
stanch in his loyalty to the king. At the same time he was ardently
attached to his country, and felt a generous indignation at the wrongs
she suffered from her rulers. Thus Egmont was acted on by opposite
feelings; and, as he was a man of impulse, his conduct, as he yielded
sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other of these influences,
might be charged with inconsistency. None charged him with insincerity.
There was that in Egmont's character which early led the penetrating
Granvelle to point him out to Philip as a man who by politic treatment
might be secured to the royal cause.[721] Philip and his sister, the
regent, both acted on this hint. They would hardly have attempted as
much with William. Egmont's personal vanity made him more accessible to
their approaches. It was this, perhaps, quite as much as any feeling of
loyalty, which, notwithstanding the affront put on him, as he conceived,
by the king, induced him to remain at Brussels, and supply the place in
the councils of the regent which William had left vacant. Yet we find
one of Granvelle's correspondents speaking of Egmont as too closely
united with the lords to be detached from them. "To say truth," says the
writer, "he even falters in his religion; and whatever he may say to-day
on this point, he will be sure to say the contrary to-morrow."[722] Such
a man, who could not be true to himself, could hardly become the leader
of others.
[Sidenote: DESIGN OF THE CONFEDERATES.]
"They put Egmont forward," writes the regent's secretary, "as the
boldest, to say what other men dare not say."[723] This was after the
despatches had been received. "He complains bitterly," continues the
writer, "of the king's insincerity. The prince has more _finesse_. He
has also more credit with the nation. If you could gain him, you will
secure all."[724] Yet Philip did not try to gain him. With all his
wealth, he was not rich enough to do it. He knew this, and he hated
William with the hatred which a despotic monarch naturally bears to a
vassal of such a temper. He perfectly understood the character of
William. The nation understood it too; and, with all their admiration
for the generous qualities of Egmont, it was to his greater rival that
they looked to guide them in the coming struggle of the revolution.