THE CONFEDERATES.
Design of the Confederates.--They enter Brussels.--The Petition.--The
Gueux.
1566.
The party of the malecontents in the Netherlands comprehended persons of
very different opinions, who were by no means uniformly satisfied with
the reasonable objects proposed by the compromise. Some demanded entire
liberty of conscience. Others would not have stopped short of a
revolution that would enable the country to shake off the Spanish yoke.
And another class of men without principle of any kind--such as are too
often thrown up in strong political fermentations--looked to these
intestine troubles as offering the means of repairing their own fortunes
out of the wreck of their country's. Yet, with the exception of the
last, there were few who would not have been content to accept the
compromise as the basis of their demands.
The winter had passed away, however, and the confederacy had wrought no
change in the conduct of the government. Indeed, the existence of the
confederacy would not appear to have been known to the regent till the
latter part of February, 1566. It was not till the close of the
following month that it was formally disclosed to her by some of the
great lords.[725] If it was known to her before, Margaret must have
thought it prudent to affect ignorance, till some overt action on the
part of the league called for her notice.
It became, then, a question with the members of the league what was next
to be done. It was finally resolved to present a petition, in the name
of the whole body, to the regent, a measure which, as already intimated,
received the assent, if not the approbation, of the prince of Orange.
The paper was prepared, as it would seem, in William's own house at
Brussels, by his brother Louis; and was submitted, we are told, to the
revision of the prince, who thus had it in his power to mitigate, in
more than one instance the vehemence, or rather violence, of the
expressions.[726]
To give greater effect to the petition, it was determined that a large
deputation from the league should accompany its presentation to the
regent. Notice was given to four hundred of the confederates to assemble
at the beginning of April. They were to come well-mounted and armed,
prepared at once to proceed to Brussels. Among the number thus enrolled,
we find three gentlemen of Margaret's own household, as well as some
members of the companies of _ordonnance_ commanded by the prince, and by
the Counts Egmont, Hoorne, and other great lords.[727]
The duchess, informed of these proceedings, called a meeting of the
council of state and the knights of the Golden Fleece, to determine on
the course to be pursued. The discussion was animated, as there was much
difference of opinion. Some agreed with Count Barlaimont in regarding
the measure in the light of a menace. Such a military array could have
no other object than to overawe the government, and was an insult to the
regent. In the present excited state of the people, it would be attended
with the greatest danger to allow their entrance into the capital.[728]
The prince of Orange, who had yielded to Margaret's earnest entreaties
that he would attend this meeting, took a different view of the matter.
The number of the delegates, he said, only proved the interest taken in
the petition. They were men of rank, some of them kinsmen or personal
friends of those present. Their characters and position in the country
were sufficient sureties that they meditated no violence to the state.
They were the representatives of an ancient order of nobility; and it
would be strange indeed, if they were to be excluded from the right of
petition, enjoyed by the humblest individual.--In the course of the
debate, William made some personal allusions to his own situation,
delivering himself with great warmth. His enemies, he said, had the
royal ear, and would persuade the king to kill him and confiscate his
property.[729] He was even looked upon as the head of the confederacy.
It was of no use for him to give his opinion in the council, where it
was sure to be misinterpreted. All that remained for him was to ask
leave to resign his offices, and withdraw to his estates.[730] Count
Hoorne followed in much the same key, inveighing bitterly against the
ingratitude of Philip. The two nobles yielded, at length, so far to
Margaret's remonstrances, as to give their opinions on the course to be
pursued. But when she endeavored to recall them to their duty by
reminding them of their oaths to the king, they boldly replied, they
would willingly lay down their lives for their country, but would never
draw sword for the edicts or the Inquisition.[731]--William's views in
regard to the admission of the confederates into Brussels were supported
by much the greater part of the assembly, and finally prevailed with the
regent.
[Sidenote: THE CONFEDERATES ENTER BRUSSELS.]
On the third of April, 1566, two hundred of the confederates entered the
gates of Brussels. They were on horseback, and each man was furnished
with a brace of pistols in his holsters, wearing in other respects only
the usual arms of a private gentleman. The Viscount Brederode and Louis
of Nassau rode at their head.[732] They prudently conformed to William's
advice, not to bring any foreigners in their train, and to enter the
city quietly, without attempting to stir the populace by any military
display, or the report of fire-arms.[733] Their coming was welcomed with
general joy by the inhabitants, who greeted them as a band of patriots
ready to do battle for the liberties of the country. They easily found
quarters in the houses of the principal citizens; and Louis and
Brederode were lodged in the mansion of the prince of Orange.[734]
On the following day a meeting of the confederates was held at the hotel
of Count Culemborg, where they listened to a letter which Brederode had
just received from Spain, informing him of the death of Morone, a
Flemish nobleman well known to them all, who had perished in the flames
of the Inquisition.[735] With feelings exasperated by this gloomy
recital, they renewed, in the most solemn manner, their oaths of
fidelity to the league. An application was then made to Margaret for
leave to lay their petition before her. The day following was assigned
for the act; and at noon, on the fifth of April, the whole company
walked in solemn procession through the streets of Brussels to the
palace of the regent. She received them, surrounded by the lords, in the
great hall adjoining the council-chamber. As they defiled before her,
the confederates ranged themselves along the sides of the apartment.
Margaret seems to have been somewhat disconcerted by the presence of so
martial an array within the walls of her palace. But she soon recovered
herself, and received them graciously.[736]
Brederode was selected to present the petition, and he prefaced it by a
short address. They had come in such numbers, he said, the better to
show their respect to the regent, and the deep interest they took in the
cause. They had been accused of opening a correspondence with foreign
princes, which he affirmed to be a malicious slander, and boldly
demanded to be confronted with the authors of it.[737]--Notwithstanding
this stout denial, it is very possible the audience did not place
implicit confidence in the assertions of the speaker. He then presented
the petition to the regent, expressing the hope that she would approve
of it, as dictated only by their desire to promote the glory of the king
and the good of the country. If this was its object, Margaret replied,
she doubted not she should be content with it.[738] The following day
was named for them again to wait on her, and receive her answer.
The instrument began with a general statement of the distresses of the
land, much like that in the Compromise, but couched in more respectful
language. The petitioners had hoped that the action of the great lords,
or of the states-general, would have led to some reform. But finding
these had not moved in the matter, while the evil went on increasing
from day to day, until ruin was at the gate, they had come to beseech
her highness to lay the subject herself before the king, and implore his
majesty to save the country from perdition by the instant abolition of
both the Inquisition and the edicts. Far from wishing to dictate laws to
their sovereign, they humbly besought her to urge on him the necessity
of convoking the states-general, and devising with them some effectual
remedy for the existing evils. Meanwhile they begged of her to suspend
the further execution of the laws in regard to religion until his
majesty's pleasure could be known. If their prayer were not granted,
they at least were absolved from all responsibility as to the
consequences, now that they had done their duty as true and loyal
subjects.[739]--The business-like character of this document forms a
contrast to the declamatory style of the Compromise; and in its
temperate tone, particularly, we may fancy we recognize the touches of
the more prudent hand of the prince of Orange.
On the sixth, the confederates again assembled in the palace of the
regent, to receive her answer. They were in greater force than before,
having been joined by a hundred and fifty of their brethren, who had
entered the city the night previous, under the command of Counts
Culemborg and Berg. They were received by Margaret in the same courteous
manner as on the preceding day, and her answer was made to them in
writing, being endorsed on their own petition.
She announced in it her purpose of using all her influence with her
royal brother to persuade him to accede to their wishes. They might rely
on his doing all that was conformable to his _natural and accustomed
benignity_.[740] She had herself, with the advice of her council and the
knights of the Golden Fleece, prepared a scheme for moderating the
edicts, to be laid before his majesty, which she trusted would satisfy
the nation. They must however, be aware, that she herself had no power
to suspend the execution of the laws. But she would send instructions to
the inquisitors to proceed with all discretion in the exercise of their
functions, until they should learn the king's pleasure.[741] She trusted
that the confederates would so demean themselves as not to make it
necessary to give different orders. All this she had done with the
greater readiness, from her conviction that they had no design to make
any innovation in the established religion of the country, but desired
rather to uphold it in all its vigor.
To this reply, as gracious in its expressions, and as favorable in its
import, as the league could possibly have expected, they made a formal
answer in writing, which they presented in a body to the duchess, on the
eighth of the month. They humbly thanked her for the prompt attention
she had given to their petition, but would have been still more
contented if her answer had been more full and explicit. They knew the
embarrassments under which she labored, and they thanked her for the
assurance she had given,--which, it may be remarked, she never did
give,--that all proceedings connected with the Inquisition and the
edicts should be stayed until his majesty's pleasure should be
ascertained. They were most anxious to conform to whatever the king,
_with the advice and consent of the states-general_, duly assembled,
should determine in matters of religion,[742] and they would show their
obedience by taking such order for their own conduct as should give
entire satisfaction to her highness.
[Sidenote: MARGARET'S REPLY]
To this the duchess briefly replied, that, if there were any cause for
offence hereafter, it would be chargeable, not on her, but on them. She
prayed the confederates henceforth to desist from their secret
practices, and to invite no new member to join their body.[743]
This brief and admonitory reply seems not to have been to the taste of
the petitioners, who would willingly have drawn from Margaret some
expression that might be construed into a sanction of their proceedings.
After a short deliberation among themselves, they again addressed her by
the mouth of one of their own number, the lord of Kerdes. The speaker,
after again humbly thanking the regent for her favorable answer, said
that it would have given still greater satisfaction to his associates,
if she would but have declared, in the presence of the great lords
assembled, that she took the union of the confederates in good part and
for the service of the king;[744] and he concluded with promising that
they would henceforth do all in their power to give contentment to her
highness.
To all this the duchess simply replied, she had no doubt of it. When
again pressed by the persevering deputy to express her opinion of this
assembly, she bluntly answered, she could form no judgment in the
matter.[745]--She gave pretty clear evidence, however, of her real
opinion, soon after, by dismissing the three gentlemen of her household
whom we have mentioned as having joined the league.[746]
As Margaret found that the confederates were not altogether satisfied
with her response to their petition, she allowed Count Hoogstraten, one
of her councillors, to inform some of them, privately, that she had
already written to the provinces to have all processes in affairs of
religion stayed until Philip's decision should be known. To leave no
room for distrust, the count was allowed to show them copies of the
letters.[747]
The week spent by the league in Brussels was a season of general
jubilee. At one of the banquets given at Culemborg House, where three
hundred confederates were present, Brederode presided. During the repast
he related to some of the company, who had arrived on the day after the
petition was delivered, the manner in which it had been received by the
duchess. She seemed at first disconcerted, he said, by the number of the
confederates, but was reassured by Barlaimont, who told her "they were
nothing but a crowd of beggars."[748] This greatly incensed some of the
company,--with whom, probably, it was too true for a jest. But
Brederode, taking it more good-humoredly, said that he and his friends
had no objection to the name, since they were ready at any time to
become beggars for the service of their king and country.[749] This
sally was received with great applause by the guests, who, as they drank
to one another, shouted forth, "_Vivent les Gueux!_"--"Long live the
beggars!"
Brederode, finding the jest took so well,--an event, indeed, for which
he seems to have been prepared,--left the room, and soon returned with a
beggar's wallet, and a wooden bowl, such as was used by the mendicant
fraternity in the Netherlands. Then, pledging the company in a bumper,
he swore to devote his life and fortune to the cause. The wallet and the
bowl went round the table; and, as each of the merry guests drank in
turn to his confederates, the shout arose of "_Vivent les Gueux!"_ until
the hall rang with the mirth of the revellers.[750]
It happened that at the time the prince of Orange and the Counts Egmont
and Hoorne were passing by on their way to the council. Their attention
was attracted by the noise, and they paused a moment, when William, who
knew well the temper of the jovial company, proposed that they should go
in, and endeavor to break up their revels. "We may have some business of
the council to transact with these men this evening," he said, "and at
this rate they will hardly be in a condition for it." The appearance of
the three nobles gave a fresh impulse to the boisterous merriment of the
company; and as the new-comers pledged their friends in the wine-cup, it
was received with the same thundering acclamations of "_Vivent les
Gueux!_"[751] This incident, of so little importance in itself, was
afterwards made of consequence by the turn that was given to it in the
prosecution of the two unfortunate noblemen who accompanied the prince
of Orange.
Every one knows the importance of a popular name to a faction,--a _nom
de guerre_, under which its members may rally and make head together as
an independent party. Such the name of "_Gueux_" now became to the
confederates. It soon was understood to signify those who were opposed
to the government, and, in a wiser sense, to the Roman Catholic
religion. In every language in which the history of these acts has been
recorded,--the Latin, German, Spanish, or English,--the French term
_Gueux_ is ever employed to designate this party of malecontents in the
Netherlands.[752]
[Sidenote: THE GUEUX.]
It now became common to follow out the original idea by imitations of
the different articles used by mendicants. Staffs were procured, after
the fashion of those in the hands of the pilgrims, but more elaborately
carved. Wooden bowls, spoons, and knives became in great request, though
richly inlaid with silver, according to the fancy or wealth of the
possessor. Medals resembling those stuck by the beggars in their bonnets
were worn as a badge; and the "Gueux penny," as it was called,--a gold
or silver coin,--was hung from the neck, bearing on one side the effigy
of Philip, with the inscription, "_Fidèles au roi_;" and on the other,
two hands grasping a beggar's wallet, with the further legend, "_jusques
à porter la besace_;"--"Faithful to the king, even to carrying the
wallet."[753] Even the garments of the mendicant were affected by the
confederates, who used them as a substitute for their family liveries;
and troops of their retainers, clad in the ash-gray habiliments of the
begging friars, might be seen in the streets of Brussels and the other
cities of the Netherlands.[754]
On the tenth of April, the confederates quitted Brussels, in the orderly
manner in which they had entered it; except that, on issuing from the
gate, they announced their departure by firing a salute in honor of the
city which had given them so hospitable a welcome.[755] Their visit to
Brussels had not only created a great sensation in the capital itself,
but throughout the country. Hitherto the league had worked in darkness,
as it were, like a band of secret conspirators. But they had now come
forward into the light of day, boldly presenting themselves before the
regent, and demanding redress of the wrongs under which the nation was
groaning. The people took heart, as they saw this broad ægis extended
over them to ward off the assaults of arbitrary power. Their hopes grew
stronger, as they became assured of the interposition of the regent and
the great lords in their favor; and they could hardly doubt that the
voice of the country, backed as it was by that of the government, would
make itself heard at Madrid, and that Philip would at length be
compelled to abandon a policy which menaced him with the loss of the
fairest of his provinces.--They had yet to learn the character of their
sovereign.