BOOK I.

Produced by David Widger

THE WORKS

OF

FREDERICK SCHILLER

Translated from the German

Illustrated

PREFACE TO THE EDITION.

The present is the best collected edition of the important works of

Schiller which is accessible to readers in the English language.

Detached poems or dramas have been translated at various times since

the first publication of the original works; and in several instances

these versions have been incorporated into this collection. Schiller

was not less efficiently qualified by nature for an historian than for

a dramatist. He was formed to excel in all departments of literature,

and the admirable lucidity of style and soundness and impartiality of

judgment displayed in his historical writings will not easily be

surpassed, and will always recommend them as popular expositions of the

periods of which they treat.

Since the publication of the first English edition many corrections and

improvements have been made, with a view to rendering it as acceptable

as possible to English readers; and, notwithstanding the disadvantages

of a translation, the publishers feel sure that Schiller will be

heartily acceptable to English readers, and that the influence of his

writings will continue to increase.

THE HISTORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS was translated by Lieut.

E. B. Eastwick, and originally published abroad for students’ use. But

this translation was too strictly literal for general readers. It has

been carefully revised, and some portions have been entirely rewritten

by the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, who also has so ably translated the

HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.

THE CAMP OF WALLENSTEIN was translated by Mr. James Churchill, and first

appeared in “Frazer’s Magazine.” It is an exceedingly happy version of

what has always been deemed the most untranslatable of Schiller’s works.

THE PICCOLOMINI and DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN are the admirable version of

S. T. Coleridge, completed by the addition of all those passages which

he has omitted, and by a restoration of Schiller’s own arrangement of

the acts and scenes. It is said, in defence of the variations which

exist between the German original and the version given by Coleridge,

that he translated from a prompter’s copy in manuscript, before the

drama had been printed, and that Schiller himself subsequently altered

it, by omitting some passages, adding others, and even engrafting

several of Coleridge’s adaptations.

WILHELM TELL is translated by Theodore Martin, Esq., whose well-known

position as a writer, and whose special acquaintance with German

literature make any recommendation superfluous.

DON CARLOS is translated by R. D. Boylan, Esq., and, in the opinion of

competent judges, the version is eminently successful. Mr. Theodore

Martin kindly gave some assistance, and, it is but justice to state,

has enhanced the value of the work by his judicious suggestions.

The translation of MARY STUART is that by the late Joseph Mellish,

who appears to have been on terms of intimate friendship with Schiller.

His version was made from the prompter’s copy, before the play was

published, and, like Coleridge’s Wallenstein, contains many passages not

found in the printed edition. These are distinguished by brackets. On

the other hand, Mr. Mellish omitted many passages which now form part of

the printed drama, all of which are now added. The translation, as a

whole, stands out from similar works of the time (1800) in almost as

marked a degree as Coleridge’s Wallenstein, and some passages exhibit

powers of a high order; a few, however, especially in the earlier

scenes, seemed capable of improvement, and these have been revised,

but, in deference to the translator, with a sparing hand.

THE MAID OF ORLEANS is contributed by Miss Anna Swanwick, whose

translation of Faust has since become well known. It has been.

carefully revised, and is now, for the first time, published complete.

THE BRIDE OF MESSINA, which has been regarded as the poetical

masterpiece of Schiller, and, perhaps of all his works, presents the

greatest difficulties to the translator, is rendered by A. Lodge, Esq.,

M. A. This version, on its first publication in England, a few years

ago, was received with deserved eulogy by distinguished critics. To the

present edition has been prefixed Schiller’s Essay on the Use of the

Chorus in Tragedy, in which the author’s favorite theory of the “Ideal

of Art” is enforced with great ingenuity and eloquence.

THE HISTORY

OF THE

REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS.

CONTENTS.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

BOOK I.----Earlier History of The Netherlands up to the Sixteenth Century

BOOK II.---Cardinal Granvella

BOOK III.--Conspiracy of the Nobles

BOOK IV.---The Iconoclasts

Trial and Execution of Counts Egmont and Horn

Siege of Antwerp by the Prince of Parma, in the Years 1584 and 1585

THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Many years ago, when I read the History of the Belgian Revolution in

Watson’s excellent work, I was seized with an enthusiasm which political

events but rarely excite. On further reflection I felt that this

enthusiastic feeling had arisen less from the book itself than from the

ardent workings of my own imagination, which had imparted to the

recorded materials the particular form that so fascinated me. These

imaginations, therefore, I felt a wish to fix, to multiply, and to

strengthen; these exalted sentiments I was anxious to extend by

communicating them to others. This was my principal motive for

commencing the present history, my only vocation to write it. The

execution of this design carried me farther than in the beginning I had

expected. A closer acquaintance with my materials enabled me to

discover defects previously unnoticed, long waste tracts to be filled

up, apparent contradictions to be reconciled, and isolated facts to be

brought into connection with the rest of the subject. Not so much with

the view of enriching my history with new facts as of seeking a key to

old ones, I betook myself to the original sources, and thus what was

originally intended to be only a general outline expanded under my hands

into an elaborate history. The first part, which concludes with the

Duchess of Parma’s departure from the Netherlands, must be looked upon

only as the introduction to the history of the Revolution itself, which

did not come to an open outbreak till the government of her successor.

I have bestowed the more care and attention upon this introductory

period the more the generality of writers who had previously treated of

it seemed to me deficient in these very qualities. Moreover, it is in

my opinion the more important as being the root and source of all the

subsequent events. If, then, the first volume should appear to any as

barren in important incident, dwelling prolixly on trifles, or, rather,

should seem at first sight profuse of reflections, and in general

tediously minute, it must be remembered that it was precisely out of

small beginnings that the Revolution was gradually developed; and that

all the great results which follow sprang out of a countless number of

trifling and little circumstances.

A nation like the one before us invariably takes its first steps with

doubts and uncertainty, to move afterwards only the more rapidly for its

previous hesitation. I proposed, therefore, to follow the same method

in describing this rebellion. The longer the reader delays on the

introduction the more familiar he becomes with the actors in this

history, and the scene in which they took a part, so much the more

rapidly and unerringly shall I be able to lead him through the

subsequent periods, where the accumulation of materials will forbid

a slowness of step or minuteness of attention.

As for the authorities of our history there is not so much cause to

complain of their paucity as of their extreme abundance, since it is

indispensable to read them all to obtain that clear view of the whole

subject to which the perusal of a part, however large, is always

prejudicial. From the unequal, partial, and often contradictory

narratives of the same occurrences it is often extremely difficult to

seize the truth, which in all is alike partly concealed and to be found

complete in none. In this first volume, besides de Thou, Strada, Reyd,

Grotius, Meteren, Burgundius, Meursius, Bentivoglio, and some moderns,

the Memoirs of Counsellor Hopper, the life and correspondence of his

friend Viglius, the records of the trials of the Counts of Hoorne and

Egmont, the defence of the Prince of Orange, and some few others have

been my guides. I must here acknowledge my obligations to a work

compiled with much industry and critical acumen, and written with

singular truthfulness and impartiality. I allude to the general history

of the United Netherlands which was published in Holland during the

present century. Besides many original documents which I could not

otherwise have had access to, it has abstracted all that is valuable in

the excellent works of Bos, Hooft, Brandt, Le Clerc, which either were

impossible for me to procure or were not available to my use, as being

written in Dutch, which I do not understand. An otherwise ordinary

writer, Richard Dinoth, has also been of service to me by the many

extracts he gives from the pamphlets of the day, which have been long

lost. I have in vain endeavored to procure the correspondence of

Cardinal Granvella, which also would no doubt have thrown much light

upon the history of these times. The lately published work on the

Spanish Inquisition by my excellent countryman, Professor Spittler of

Gottingen, reached me too late for its sagacious and important contents

to be available for my purpose.

The more I am convinced of the importance of the French history, the

more I lament that it was not in my power to study, as I could have

wished, its copious annals in the original sources and contemporary

documents, and to reproduce it abstracted of the form in which it was

transmitted to me by the more intelligent of my predecessors, and

thereby emancipate myself from the influence which every talented author

exercises more or less upon his readers. But to effect this the work of

a few years must have become the labor of a life. My aim in making this

attempt will be more than attained if it should convince a portion of

the reading public of the possibility of writing a history with historic

truth without making a trial of patience to the reader; and if it should

extort from another portion the confession that history can borrow from

a cognate art without thereby, of necessity, becoming a romance.

WEIMAR, Michaelmas Fair, 1788.

INTRODUCTION.

Of those important political events which make the sixteenth century to

take rank among the brightest of the world’s epochs, the foundation of

the freedom of the Netherlands appears to me one of the most remarkable.

If the glittering exploits of ambition and the pernicious lust of power

claim our admiration, how much more so should an event in which

oppressed humanity struggled for its noblest rights, where with the good

cause unwonted powers were united, and the resources of resolute despair

triumphed in unequal contest over the terrible arts of tyranny.

Great and encouraging is the reflection that there is a resource left us

against the arrogant usurpations of despotic power; that its

best-contrived plans against the liberty of mankind may be frustrated;

that resolute opposition can weaken even the outstretched arm of tyranny;

and that heroic perseverance can eventually exhaust its fearful

resources. Never did this truth affect me so sensibly as in tracing the

history of that memorable rebellion which forever severed the United

Netherlands from the Spanish Crown. Therefore I thought it not unworth

the while to attempt to exhibit to the world this grand memorial of

social union, in the hope that it may awaken in the breast of my reader a

spirit-stirring consciousness of his own powers, and give a new and

irrefragible example of what in a good cause men may both dare and

venture, and what by union they may accomplish. It is not the

extraordinary or heroic features of this event that induce me to describe

it. The annals of the world record perhaps many similar enterprises,

which may have been even bolder in the conception and more brilliant in

the execution. Some states have fallen after a nobler struggle; others

have risen with more exalted strides. Nor are we here to look for eminent

heroes, colossal talents, or those marvellous exploits which the history

of past times presents in such rich abundance. Those times are gone; such

men are no more. In the soft lap of refinement we have suffered the

energetic powers to become enervate which those ages called into action

and rendered indispensable. With admiring awe we wonder at these gigantic

images of the past as a feeble old man gazes on the athletic sports of

youth.

Not so, however, in the history before us. The people here presented to

our notice were the most peaceful in our quarter of the globe, and less

capable than their neighbors of that heroic spirit which stamps a lofty

character even on the most insignificant actions. The pressure of

circumstances with its peculiar influence surprised them and forced a

transitory greatness upon them, which they never could have possessed

and perhaps will never possess again. It is, indeed, exactly this want

of heroic grandeur which renders this event peculiarly instructive; and

while others aim at showing the superiority of genius over chance, I

shall here paint a scene where necessity creates genius and accident

makes heroes.

If in any case it be allowable to recognize the intervention of

Providence in human affairs it is certainly so in the present history,

its course appears so contradictory to reason and experience. Philip

II., the most powerful sovereign of his line--whose dreaded supremacy

menaced the independence of Europe--whose treasures surpassed the

collective wealth of all the monarchs of Christendom besides--whose

ambitious projects were backed by numerous and well-disciplined armies

--whose troops, hardened by long and bloody wars, and confident in past

victories and in the irresistible prowess of this nation, were eager for

any enterprise that promised glory and spoil, and ready to second with

prompt obedience the daring genius of their leaders--this dreaded

potentate here appears before us obstinately pursuing one favorite

project, devoting to it the untiring efforts of a long reign, and

bringing all these terrible resources to bear upon it; but forced, in

the evening of his reign, to abandon it--here we see the mighty Philip

II. engaging in combat with a few weak and powerless adversaries, and

retiring from it at last with disgrace.

And with what adversaries? Here, a peaceful tribe of fishermen and

shepherds, in an almost-forgotten corner of Europe, which with

difficulty they had rescued from the ocean; the sea their profession,

and at once their wealth and their plague; poverty with freedom their

highest blessing, their glory, their virtue. There, a harmless, moral,

commercial people, revelling in the abundant fruits of thriving

industry, and jealous of the maintenance of laws which had proved their

benefactors. In the happy leisure of affluence they forsake the narrow

circle of immediate wants and learn to thirst after higher and nobler

gratifications. The new views of truth, whose benignant dawn now broke

over Europe, cast a fertilizing beam on this favored clime, and the free

burgher admitted with joy the light which oppressed and miserable slaves

shut out. A spirit of independence, which is the ordinary companion of

prosperity and freedom, lured this people on to examine the authority of

antiquated opinions and to break an ignominious chain. But the stern

rod of despotism was held suspended over them; arbitrary power

threatened to tear away the foundation of their happiness; the guardian

of their laws became their tyrant. Simple in their statecraft no less

than in their manners, they dared to appeal to ancient treaties and to

remind the lord of both Indies of the rights of nature. A name decides

the whole issue of things. In Madrid that was called rebellion which in

Brussels was simply styled a lawful remonstrance. The complaints of

Brabant required a prudent mediator; Philip II. sent an executioner.

The signal for war was given. An unparalleled tyranny assailed both

property and life. The despairing citizens, to whom the choice of

deaths was all that was left, chose the nobler one on the battle-field.

A wealthy and luxurious nation loves peace, but becomes warlike as soon

as it becomes poor. Then it ceases to tremble for a life which is

deprived of everything that had made it desirable. In an instant the

contagion of rebellion seizes at once the most distant provinces; trade

and commerce are at a standstill, the ships disappear from the harbors,

the artisan abandons his workshop, the rustic his uncultivated fields.

Thousands fled to distant lands, a thousand victims fell on the bloody

field, and fresh thousands pressed on. Divine, indeed, must that

doctrine be for which men could die so joyfully. All that was wanting

was the last finishing hand, the enlightened, enterprising spirit, to

seize on this great political crisis and to mould the offspring of

chance into the ripe creation of wisdom. William the Silent, like a

second Brutus, devoted himself to the great cause of liberty. Superior

to all selfishness, he resigned honorable offices which entailed on him

obectionable duties, and, magnanimously divesting himself of all his

princely dignities, he descended to a state of voluntary poverty, and

became but a citizen of the world. The cause of justice was staked upon

the hazardous game of battle; but the newly-raised levies of mercenaries

and peaceful husbandmen were unable to withstand the terrible onset of

an experienced force. Twice did the brave William lead his dispirited

troops against the tyrant. Twice was he abandoned by them, but not by

his courage.

Philip II. sent as many reinforcements as the dreadful importunity of

his viceroy demanded. Fugitives, whom their country rejected, sought a

new home on the ocean, and turned to the ships of their enemy to satisfy

the cravings both of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were now

formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected out of piratical vessels;

out of morasses arose a republic. Seven provinces threw off the yoke at

the same time, to form a new, youthful state, powerful by its waters and

its union and despair. A solemn decree of the whole nation deposed the

tyrant, and the Spanish name was erased from all its laws.

For such acts no forgiveness remained; the republic became formidable

only because it was impossible for her to retrace her steps. But

factions distracted her within; without, her terrible element, the sea

itself, leaguing with her oppressors, threatened her very infancy with a

premature grave. She felt herself succumb to the superior force of the

enemy, and cast herself a suppliant before the most powerful thrones of

Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no

longer protect. At last, but with difficulty--so despised at first was

this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her

opening bloom--a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a

dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in

this new father of his country destiny gave her a traitor, and in the

critical emergency, when the foe was in full force before her very

gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called

to protect. In the midst of the tempest, too, the assassin’s hand tore

the steersman from the helm, and with William of Orange the career of

the infant republic was seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels

fled. But the ship continued to scud along before the storm, and the

swelling canvas carried her safe without the pilot’s help.

Philip II. missed the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor,

and perhaps, also, his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with

despotism in obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were

fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of

glory, and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals

for the coming century. A long, devastating war laid waste the open

country; victor and vanquished alike waded through blood; while the

rising republic of the waters gave a welcome to fugitive industry, and

out of the ruins of despotism erected the noble edifice of its own

greatness. For forty years lasted the war whose happy termination was

not to bless the dying eye of Philip; which destroyed one paradise in

Europe to form a new one out of its shattered fragments; which destroyed

the choicest flower of military youth, and while it enriched more than a

quarter of the globe impoverished the possessor of the golden Peru.

This monarch, who could expend nine hundred tons of gold without

oppressing his subjects, and by tyrannical measures extorted far more,

heaped, moreover, on his exhausted people a debt of one hundred and

forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up

all these treasures, and consumed on the fruitless task the labor of a

royal life. But the Reformation throve amidst the devastations of the

sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the new republic

floated victorious.

This improbable turn of affairs seems to border on a miracle; many

circumstances, however, combined to break the power of Philip, and to

favor the progress of the infant state. Had the whole weight of his

power fallen on the United Provinces there had been no hope for their

religion or their liberty. His own ambition, by tempting him to divide

his strength, came to the aid of their weakness. The expensive policy

of maintaining traitors in every cabinet of Europe; the support of the

League in France; the revolt of the Moors in Granada; the conquest of

Portugal, and the magnificent fabric of the Escurial, drained at last

his apparently inexhaustible treasury, and prevented his acting in the

field with spirit and energy. The German and Italian troops, whom the

hope of gain alone allured to his banner, mutinied when he could no

longer pay them, and faithlessly abandoned their leaders in the decisive

moment of action. These terrible instruments of oppression now turned

their dangerous power against their employer, and wreaked their

vindictive rage on the provinces which remained faithful to him.

The unfortunate armament against England, on which, like a desperate

gamester, he had staked the whole strength of his kingdom, completed his

ruin; with the armada sank the wealth of the two Indies, and the flower

of Spanish chivalry.

But in the very same proportion that the Spanish power declined the

republic rose in fresh vigor. The ravages which the fanaticism of the

new religion, the tyranny of the Inquisition, the furious rapacity of

the soldiery, and the miseries of a long war unbroken by any interval of

peace, made in the provinces of Brabant, Flanders, and Hainault, at once

the arsenals and the magazines of this expensive contest, naturally

rendered it every year more difficult to support and recruit the royal

armies. The Catholic Netherlands had already lost a million of

citizens, and the trodden fields maintained their husbandmen no longer.

Spain itself had but few more men to spare. That country, surprised by

a sudden affluence which brought idleness with it, had lost much of its

population, and could not long support the continual drafts of men which

were required both for the New World and the Netherlands. Of these

conscripts few ever saw their country again; and these few having left

it as youths returned to it infirm and old. Gold, which had become more

common, made soldiers proportionately dearer; the growing charm of

effeminacy enhanced the price of the opposite virtues. Wholly different

was the posture of affairs with the rebels. The thousands whom the

cruelty of the viceroy expelled from the southern Netherlands, the

Huguenots whom the wars of persecution drove from France, as well as

every one whom constraint of conscience exiled from the other parts of

Europe, all alike flocked to unite themselves with the Belgian

insurgents. The whole Christian world was their recruiting ground.

The fanaticism both of the persecutor and the persecuted worked in their

behalf. The enthusiasm of a doctrine newly embraced, revenge, want, and

hopeless misery drew to their standard adventurers from every part of

Europe. All whom the new doctrine had won, all who had suffered, or had

still cause of fear from despotism, linked their own fortunes with those

of the new republic. Every injury inflicted by a tyrant gave a right of

citizenship in Holland. Men pressed towards a country where liberty

raised her spirit-stirring banner, where respect and security were

insured to a fugitive religion, and even revenge on the oppressor. If

we consider the conflux in the present day of people to Holland, seeking

by their entrance upon her territory to be reinvested in their rights as

men, what must it have been at a time when the rest of Europe groaned

under a heavy bondage, when Amsterdam was nearly the only free port for

all opinions? Many hundred families sought a refuge for their wealth in

a land which the ocean and domestic concord powerfully combined to

protect. The republican army maintained its full complement without the

plough being stripped of hands to work it. Amid the clash of arms trade

and industry flourished, and the peaceful citizen enjoyed in

anticipation the fruits of liberty which foreign blood was to purchase

for them. At the very time when the republic of Holland was struggling

for existence she extended her dominions beyond the ocean, and was

quietly occupied in erecting her East Indian Empire.

Moreover, Spain maintained this expensive war with dead, unfructifying

gold, that never returned into the hand which gave it away, while it

raised to her the price of every necessary. The treasuries of the

republic were industry and commerce. Time lessened the one whilst it

multiplied the other, and exactly in the same proportion that the

resources of the Spanish government became exhausted by the long

continuance of the war the republic began to reap a richer harvest. Its

field was sown sparingly with the choice seed which bore fruit, though

late, yet a hundredfold; but the tree from which Philip gathered fruit

was a fallen trunk which never again became verdant.

Philip’s adverse destiny decreed that all the treasures which he

lavished for the oppression of the Provinces should contribute to enrich

them. The continual outlay of Spanish gold had diffused riches and

luxury throughout Europe; but the increasing wants of Europe were

supplied chiefly by the Netherlanders, who were masters of the commerce

of the known world, and who by their dealings fixed the price of all

merchandise. Even during the war Philip could not prohibit his own

subjects from trading with the republic; nay, he could not even desire

it. He himself furnished the rebels with the means of defraying the

expenses of their own defence; for the very war which was to ruin them

increased the sale of their goods. The enormous suns expended on his

fleets and armies flowed for the most part into the exchequer of the

republic, which was more or less connected with the commercial places of

Flanders and Brabant. Whatever Philip attempted against the rebels

operated indirectly to their advantage.

The sluggish progress of this war did the king as much injury as it

benefited the rebels. His army was composed for the most part of the

remains of those victorious troops which had gathered their laurels

under Charles V. Old and long services entitled them to repose; many of

them, whom the war had enriched, impatiently longed for their homes,

where they might end in ease a life of hardship. Their former zeal,

their heroic spirit, and their discipline relaxed in the same proportion

as they thought they had fully satisfied their honor and their duty, and

as they began to reap at last the reward of so many battles. Besides,

the troops which had been accustomed by their irresistible impetuosity

to vanquish all opponents were necessarily wearied out by a war which

was carried on not so much against men as against the elements; which

exercised their patience more than it gratified their love of glory; and

where there was less of danger than of difficulty and want to contend

with. Neither personal courage nor long military experience was of

avail in a country whose peculiar features gave the most dastardly the

advantage. Lastly, a single discomfiture on foreign ground did them

more injury than any victories gained over an enemy at home could profit

them. With the rebels the case was exactly the reverse. In so

protracted a war, in which no decisive battle took place, the weaker

party must naturally learn at last the art of defence from the stronger;

slight defeats accustomed him to danger; slight victories animated his

confidence.

At the beginning of the war the republican army scarcely dared to show

itself in the field; the long continuance of the struggle practised and

hardened it. As the royal armies grew wearied of victory, the

confidence of the rebels rose with their improved discipline and

experience. At last, at the end of half a century, master and pupil

separated, unsubdued, and equal in the fight.

Again, throughout the war the rebels acted with more concord and

unanimity than the royalists. Before the former had lost their first

leader the government of the Netherlands had passed through as many as

five hands. The Duchess of Parma’s indecision soon imparted itself to

the cabinet of Madrid, which in a short time tried in succession almost

every system of policy. Duke Alva’s inflexible sternness, the mildness

of his successor Requescens, Don John of Austria’s insidious cunning,

and the active and imperious mind of the Prince of Parma gave as many

opposite directions to the war, while the plan of rebellion remained the

same in a single head, who, as he saw it clearly, pursued it with vigor.

The king’s greatest misfortune was that right principles of action

generally missed the right moment of application. In the commencement

of the troubles, when the advantage was as yet clearly on the king’s

side, when prompt resolution and manly firmness might have crushed the

rebellion in the cradle, the reigns of government were allowed to hang

loose in the hands of a woman. After the outbreak had come to an open

revolt, and when the strength of the factious and the power of the king

stood more equally balanced, and when a skilful flexible prudence could

alone have averted the impending civil war, the government devolved on a

man who was eminently deficient in this necessary qualification. So

watchful an observer as William the Silent failed not to improve every

advantage which the faulty policy of his adversary presented, and with

quiet silent industry he slowly but surely pushed on the great

enterprise to its accomplishment.

But why did not Philip II. himself appear in the Netherlands? Why did

he prefer to employ every other means, however improbable, rather than

make trial of the only remedy which could insure success? To curb the

overgrown power and insolence of the nobility there was no expedient

more natural than the presence of their master. Before royalty itself

all secondary dignities must necessarily have sunk in the shade, all

other splendor be dimmed. Instead of the truth being left to flow

slowly and obscurely through impure channels to the distant throne, so

that procrastinated measures of redress gave time to ripen ebullitions

of the moment into acts of deliberation, his own penetrating glance

would at once have been able to separate truth from error; and cold

policy alone, not to speak of his humanity, would have saved the land a

million citizens. The nearer to their source the more weighty would his

edicts have been; the thicker they fell on their objects the weaker and

the more dispirited would have become the efforts of the rebels. It

costs infinitely more to do an evil to an enemy in his presence than in

his absence. At first the rebellion appeared to tremble at its own

name, and long sheltered itself under the ingenious pretext of defending

the cause of its sovereign against the arbitrary assumptions of his own

viceroy. Philip’s appearance in Brussels would have put an end at once

to this juggling. In that case, the rebels would have been compelled to

act up to their pretence, or to cast aside the mask, and so, by

appearing in their true shape, condemn themselves. And what a relief

for the Netherlands if the king’s presence had only spared them those

evils which were inflicted upon them without his knowledge, and contrary

to his will. [1] What gain, too, even if it had only enabled him to

watch over the expenditure of the vast sums which, illegally raised on

the plea of meeting the exigencies of the war, disappeared in the

plundering hands of his deputies.

What the latter were compelled to extort by the unnatural expedient of

terror, the nation would have been disposed to grant to the sovereign

majesty. That which made his ministers detested would have rendered the

monarch feared; for the abuse of hereditary power is less painfully

oppressive than the abuse of delegated authority. His presence would

have saved his exchequer thousands had he been nothing more than an

economical despot; and even had he been less, the awe of his person

would have preserved a territory which was lost through hatred and

contempt for his instruments.

In the same manner, as the oppression of the people of the Netherlands

excited the sympathy of all who valued their own rights, it might have

been expected that their disobedience and defection would have been a

call to all princes to maintain their own prerogatives in the case of

their neighbors. But jealousy of Spain got the better of political

sympathies, and the first powers of Europe arranged themselves more or

less openly on the side of freedom.

Although bound to the house of Spain by the ties of relationship, the

Emperor Maximilian II. gave it just cause for its charge against him

of secretly favoring the rebels. By the offer of his mediation he

implicitly acknowledged the partial justice of their complaints, and

thereby encouraged them to a resolute perseverance in their demands.

Under an emperor sincerely devoted to the interests of the Spanish

house, William of Orange could scarcely have drawn so many troops and so

much money from Germany. France, without openly and formally breaking

the peace, placed a prince of the blood at the head of the Netherlandish

rebels; and it was with French gold and French troops that the

operations of the latter were chiefly conducted. [2] Elizabeth of

England, too, did but exercise a just retaliation and revenge in

protecting the rebels against their legitimate sovereign; and although

her meagre and sparing aid availed no farther than to ward off utter

ruin from the republic, still even this was infinitely valuable at a

moment when nothing but hope could have supported their exhausted

courage. With both these powers Philip at the time was at peace, but

both betrayed him. Between the weak and the strong honesty often ceases

to appear a virtue; the delicate ties which bind equals are seldom

observed towards him whom all men fear. Philip had banished truth from

political intercourse; he himself had dissolved all morality between

kings, and had made artifice the divinity of cabinets. Without once

enjoying the advantages of his preponderating greatness, he had,

throughout life, to contend with the jealousy which it awakened in

others. Europe made him atone for the possible abuses of a power of

which in fact he never had the full possession.

If against the disparity between the two combatants, which, at first

sight, is so astounding, we weigh all the incidental circumstances which

were adverse to Spain, but favorable to the Netherlands, that which is

supernatural in this event will disappear, while that which is

extraordinary will still remain--and a just standard will be furnished

by which to estimate the real merit of these republicans in working out

their freedom. It must not, however, be thought that so accurate a

calculation of the opposing forces could have preceded the undertaking

itself, or that, on entering this unknown sea, they already knew the

shore on which they would ultimately be landed. The work did not

present itself to the mind of its originator in the exact form which it

assumed when completed, any more than the mind of Luther foresaw the

eternal separation of creeds when he began to oppose the sale of

indulgences. What a difference between the modest procession of those

suitors in Brussels, who prayed for a more humane treatment as a favor,

and the dreaded majesty of a free state, which treated with kings as

equals, and in less than a century disposed of the throne of its former

tyrant. The unseen hand of fate gave to the discharged arrow a higher

flight, and quite a different direction from that which it first

received from the bowstring. In the womb of happy Brabant that liberty

had its birth which, torn from its mother in its earliest infancy, was

to gladden the so despised Holland. But the enterprise must not be less

thought of because its issue differed from the first design. Man works

up, smooths, and fashions the rough stone which the times bring to him;

the moment and the instant may belong to him, but accident develops the

history of the world. If the passions which co-operated actively in

bringing about this event were only not unworthy of the great work to

which they were unconsciously subservient--if only the powers which

aided in its accomplishment were intrinsically noble, if only the single

actions out of whose great concatenation it wonderfully arose were

beautiful then is the event grand, interesting, and fruitful for us, and

we are at liberty to wonder at the bold offspring of chance, or rather

offer up our admiration to a higher intelligence.

The history of the world, like the laws of nature, is consistent with

itself, and simple as the soul of man. Like conditions produce like

phenomena. On the same soil where now the Netherlanders were to resist

their Spanish tyrants, their forefathers, the Batavi and Belgee, fifteen

centuries before, combated against their Roman oppressors. Like the

former, submitting reluctantly to a haughty master, and misgoverned by

rapacious satraps, they broke off their chain with like resolution, and

tried their fortune in a similar unequal combat. The same pride of

conquest, the same national grandeur, marked the Spaniard of the

sixteenth century and the Roman of the first; the same valor and

discipline distinguished the armies of both, their battle array inspired

the same terror. There as here we see stratagem in combat with superior

force, and firmness, strengthened by unanimity, wearying out a mighty

power weakened by division; then as now private hatred armed a whole

nation; a single man, born for his times, revealed to his fellow-slaves

the dangerous Secret of their power, and brought their mute grief to a

bloody announcement. “Confess, Batavians,” cries Claudius Civilis to

his countrymen in the sacred grove, “we are no longer treated, as

formerly, by these Romans as allies, but rather as slaves. We are

handed over to their prefects and centurions, who, when satiated with

our plunder and with our blood, make way for others, who, under

different names, renew the same outrages. If even at last Rome deigns

to send us a legate, he oppresses us with an ostentatious and costly

retinue, and with still more intolerable pride. The levies are again at

hand which tear forever children from their parents, brothers from

brothers. Now, Batavians, is our time. Never did Rome lie so prostrate

as now. Let not their names of legions terrify you. There is nothing

in their camps but old men and plunder. Our infantry and horsemen are

strong; Germany is allied to us by blood, and Gaul is ready to throw off

its yoke. Let Syria serve them, and Asia and the East, who are used to

bow before kings; many still live who were born among us before tribute

was paid to the Romans. The gods are ever with the brave.” Solemn

religious rites hallowed this conspiracy, like the League of the Gueux;

like that, it craftily wrapped itself in the veil of submissiveness, in

the majesty of a great name. The cohorts of Civilis swear allegiance on

the Rhine to Vespasian in Syria, as the League did to Philip II. The

same arena furnished the same plan of defence, the same refuge to

despair. Both confided their wavering fortunes to a friendly element;

in the same distress Civilis preserves his island, as fifteen centuries

after him William of Orange did the town of Leyden--through an

artificial inundation. The valor of the Batavi disclosed the impotency

of the world’s ruler, as the noble courage of their descendants revealed

to the whole of Europe the decay of Spanish greatness. The same

fecundity of genius in the generals of both times gave to the war a

similarly obstinate continuance, and nearly as doubtful an issue; one

difference, nevertheless, distinguishes them: the Romans and Batavians

fought humanely, for they did not fight for religion.

[1] More modern historians, with access to the records of the Spanish

Inquisition and the private communications between Phillip II. and his

various appointees to power in the Netherlands, rebut Shiller’s kind but

naive thought. To the contrary, Phillip II. was most critical of his

envoys lack of severity. See in particular the “Rise of the Dutch

Republic” and the other works of John Motley on the history of the

Netherlands all of which are available at Project Gutenberg.--D.W.

[2] A few French generals who were by and large ineffective; and many

promises of gold which were undelivered.--D.W.

BOOK I.

EARLIER HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS UP TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Before we consider the immediate history of this great revolution, it

will be advisable to go a few steps back into the ancient records of the

country, and to trace the origin of that constitution which we find it

possessed of at the time of this remarkable change.

The first appearance of this people in the history of the world is the

moment of its fall; their conquerors first gave them a political

existence. The extensive region which is bounded by Germany on the

east, on the south by France, on the north and northwest by the North

Sea, and which we comprehend under the general name of the Netherlands,

was, at the time when the Romans invaded Gaul, divided amongst three

principal nations, all originally of German descent, German

institutions, and German spirit. The Rhine formed its boundaries. On

the left of the river dwelt the Belgae, on its right the Frisii, and the

Batavi on the island which its two arms then formed with the ocean. All

these several nations were sooner or later reduced into subjection by

the Romans, but the conquerors themselves give us the most glorious

testimony to their valor. The Belgae, writes Caesar, were the only

people amongst the Gauls who repulsed the invasion of the Teutones and

Cimbri. The Batavi, Tacitus tells us, surpassed all the tribes on the

Rhine in bravery. This fierce nation paid its tribute in soldiers, and

was reserved by its conquerors, like arrow and sword, only for battle.

The Romans themselves acknowledged the Batavian horsemen to be their

best cavalry. Like the Swiss at this day, they formed for a long time

the body-guard of the Roman Emperor; their wild courage terrified the

Dacians, as they saw them, in full armor, swimming across the Danube.

The Batavi accompanied Agricola in his expedition against Britain, and

helped him to conquer that island. The Frieses were, of all, the last

subdued, and the first to regain their liberty. The morasses among

which they dwelt attracted the conquerors later, and enhanced the price

of conquest. The Roman Drusus, who made war in these regions, had a

canal cut from the Rhine into the Flevo, the present Zuyder Zee, through

which the Roman fleet penetrated into the North Sea, and from thence,

entering the mouths of the Ems and the Weser, found an easy passage into

the interior of Germany.

Through four centuries we find Batavian troops in the Roman armies, but

after the time of Honorius their name disappears from history.

Presently we discover their island overrun by the Franks, who again lost

themselves in the adjoining country of Belgium. The Frieses threw off

the yoke of their distant and powerless rulers, and again appearad as a

free, and even a conquering people, who governed themselves by their own

customs and a remnant of Roman laws, and extended their limits beyond

the left bank of the Rhine. Of all the provinces of the Netherlands,

Friesland especially had suffered the least from the irruptions of

strange tribes and foreign customs, and for centuries retained traces of

its original institutions, of its national spirit and manners, which

have not, even at the present day, entirely disappeared.

The epoch of the immigration of nations destroyed the original form of

most of these tribes; other mixed races arose in their place, with other

constitutions. In the general irruption the towns and encampments of

the Romans disappeared, and with them the memorials of their wise

government, which they had employed the natives to execute. The

neglected dikes once more yielded to the violence of the streams and to

the encroachments of the ocean. Those wonders of labor, and creations

of human skill, the canals, dried up, the rivers changed their course,

the continent and the sea confounded their olden limits, and the nature

of the soil changed with its inhabitants. So, too, the connection of

the two eras seems effaced, and with a new race a new history commences.

The monarchy of the Franks, which arose out of the ruins of Roman Gaul,

had, in the sixth and seventh centuries, seized all the provinces of the

Netherlands, and planted there the Christian faith. After an obstinate

war Charles Martel subdued to the French crown Friesland, the last of

all the free provinces, and by his victories paved a way for the gospel.

Charlemagne united all these countries, and formed of them one division

of the mighty empire which he had constructed out of Germany, France,

and Lombardy. As under his descendants this vast dominion was again

torn into fragments, so the Netherlands became at times German, at

others French, or then again Lotheringian Provinces; and at last we find

them under both the names of Friesland and Lower Lotheringia.

With the Franks the feudal system, the offspring of the North, also came

into these lands, and here, too, as in all other countries, it

degenerated. The more powerful vassals gradually made themselves

independent of the crown, and the royal governors usurped the countries

they were appointed to govern. But the rebellions vassals could not

maintain their usurpations without the aid of their own dependants,

whose assistance they were compelled to purchase by new concessions.

At the same time the church became powerful through pious usurpations

and donations, and its abbey lands and episcopal sees acquired an

independent existence. Thus were the Netherlands in the tenth,

eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries split up into several small

sovereignties, whose possessors did homage at one time to the German

Emperor, at another to the kings of France. By purchase, marriages,

legacies, and also by conquest, several of these provinces were often

united under one suzerain, and thus in the fifteenth century we see the

house of Burgundy in possession of the chief part of the Netherlands.

With more or less right Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, had united

as many as eleven provinces under his authority, and to these his son,

Charles the Bold, added two others, acquired by force of arms. Thus

imperceptibly a new state arose in Europe, which wanted nothing but the

name to be the most flourishing kingdom in this quarter of the globe.

These extensive possessions made the Dukes of Burgundy formidable

neighbors to France, and tempted the restless spirit of Charles the Bold

to devise a scheme of conquest, embracing the whole line of country from

the Zuyder Zee and the mouth of the Rhine down to Alsace. The almost

inexhaustible resources of this prince justify in some measure this bold

project. A formidable army threatened to carry it into execution.

Already Switzerland trembled for her liberty; but deceitful fortune

abandoned him in three terrible battles, and the infatuated hero was

lost in the melee of the living and the dead.

[A page who had seen him fall a few days after the battle conducted

the victors to the spot, and saved his remains from an ignominious

oblivion. His body was dragged from out of a pool, in which it was

fast frozen, naked, and so disfigured with wounds that with great

difficulty he was recognized, by the well-known deficiency of some

of his teeth, and by remarkably long finger-nails. But that,

notwithstanding the marks, there were still incredulous people who

doubted his death, and looked for his reappearance, is proved by

the missive in which Louis XI. called upon the Burgundian States to

return to their allegiance to the Crown of France. “If,” the

passage runs, “Duke Charles should still be living, you shall be

released from your oath to me.” Comines, t. iii., Preuves des

Memoires, 495, 497.]

The sole heiress of Charles the Bold, Maria, at once the richest

princess and the unhappy Helen of that time, whose wooing brought misery

on her inheritance, was now the centre of attraction to the whole known

world. Among her suitors appeared two great princes, King Louis XI. of

France, for his son, the young Dauphin, and Maximilian of Austria, son

of the Emperor Frederic III. The successful suitor was to become the

most powerful prince in Europe; and now, for the first time, this

quarter of the globe began to fear for its balance of power. Louis, the

more powerful of the two, was ready to back his suit by force of arms;

but the people of the Netherlands, who disposed of the hand of their

princess, passed by this dreaded neighbor, and decided in favor of

Maximilian, whose more remote territories and more limited power seemed

less to threaten the liberty of their country. A deceitful, unfortunate

policy, which, through a strange dispensation of heaven, only

accelerated the melancholy fate which it was intended to prevent.

To Philip the Fair, the son of Maria and Maximilian, a Spanish bride

brought as her portion that extensive kingmdom which Ferdinand and

Isabella had recently founded; and Charles of Austria, his son, was born

lord of the kingdoms of Spain, of the two Sicilies, of the New World,

and of the Netherlands. In the latter country the commonalty

emancipated themselves much earlier than in other; feudal states, and

quickly attained to an independent political existence. The favorable

situation of the country on the North Sea and on great navigable rivers

early awakened the spirit of commerce, which rapidly peopled the towns,

encouraged industry and the arts, attracted foreigners, and diffused

prosperity and affluence among them. However contemptuously the warlike

policy of those times looked down upon every peaceful and useful

occupation, the rulers of the country could not fail altogether to

perceive the essential advantages they derived from such pursuits. The

increasing population of their territories, the different imposts which

they extorted from natives and foreigners under the various titles of

tolls, customs, highway rates, escort money, bridge tolls, market fees,

escheats, and so forth, were too valuable considerations to allow them

to remain indifferent to the sources from which they were derived..

Their own rapacity made them promoters of trade, and, as often happens,

barbarism itself rudely nursed it, until at last a healthier policy

assumed its place. In the course of time they invited the Lombard

merchants to settle among them, and accorded to the towns some valuable

privileges and an independent jurisdiction, by which the latter acquired

uncommon extraordinary credit and influence. The numerous wars which

the counts and dukes carried on with one another, or with their

neighbors, made them in some measure dependent on the good-will of the

towns, who by their wealth obtained weight and consideration, and for

the subsidies which they afforded failed not to extort important

privileges in return. These privileges of the commonalties increased as

the crusades with their expensive equipment augumented the necessities

of the nobles; as a new road to Europe was opened for the productions of

the East, and as wide-spreading luxury created new wants to their

princes. Thus as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find in

these lands a mixed form of governmeut, in which the prerogative of the

sovereign is greatly limited by the privileges of the estates; that is

to say, of the nobility, the clergy, and the municipalities.

These, under the name of States, assembled as often as the wants of the

province required it. Without their consent no new laws were valid, no

war could be carried on, and no taxes levied, no change made in the

coinage, and no foreigner admitted to any office of government. All the

provinces enjoyed these privileges in common; others were peculiar to

the various districts. The supreme government was hereditary, but the

son did not enter on the rights of his father before he had solemnly

sworn to maintain the existing constitution.

Necessity is the first lawgiver; all the wants which had to be met by

this constitution were originally of a commercial nature. Thus the

whole constitution was founded on commerce, and the laws of the nation

were adapted to its pursuits. The last clause, which excluded

foreigners from all offices of trust, was a natural consequence of the

preceding articles. So complicated and artificial a relation between

the sovereign and his people, which in many provinces was further

modified according to the peculiar wants of each, and frequently of some

single city, required for its maintenance the liveliest zeal for the

liberties of the country, combined with an intimate acquaintance with

them. From a foreigner neither could well be expected. This law,

besides, was enforced reciprocally in each particular province; so that

in Brabant no Fleming, in Zealand no Hollander, could hold office; and

it continued in force even after all these provinces were united under

one government.

Above all others, Brabant enjoyed the highest degree of freedom. Its

privileges were esteemed so valuable that many mothers from the adjacent

provinces removed thither about the time of their accouchment, in order

to entitle their children to participate, by birth, in all the

immunities of that favored country; just as, says Strada, one improves

the plants of a rude climate by removing them to the soil of a milder.

After the House of Burgundy had united several provinces under its

dominion, the separate provincial assemblies which, up to that time, had

been independent tribunals, were made subject to a supreme court at

Malines, which incorporated the various judicatures into one body, and

decided in the last resort all civil and criminal appeals. The separate

independence of the provinces was thus abolished, and the supreme power

vested in the senate at Malines.

After the death of Charles the Bold the states did not neglect to avail

themselves of the embarassment of their duchess, who, threatened by

France, was consequently in their power. Holland and Zealand compelled

her to sign a great charter, which secured to them the most important

sovereign rights. The people of Ghent carried their insolence to such a

pitch that they arbitrarily dragged the favorites of Maria, who had the

misfortune to displease them, before their own tribunals, and beheaded

them before the eyes of that princess. During the short government of

the Duchess Maria, from her father’s death to her marriage, the commons

obtained powers which few free states enjoyed. After her death her

husband, Maximilian, illegally assumed the government as guardian of his

son. Offended by this invasion of their rights, the estates refused to

acknowledge his authority, and could only be brought to receive him as a

viceroy for a stated period, and under conditions ratified by oath.

Maximilian, after he became Roman Emperor, fancied that he might safely

venture to violate the constitution. He imposed extraordinary taxes on

the provinces, gave official appointments to Burgundians and Germans,

and introduced foreign troops into the provinces. But the jealousy of

these republicans kept pace with the power of their regent. As he

entered Bruges with a large retinue of foreigners, the people flew to

arms, made themselves masters of his person, and placed him in

confinement in the castle. In spite of the intercession of the Imperial

and Roman courts, he did not again obtain his freedom until security had

been given to the people on all the disputed points.

The security of life and property arising from mild laws, and, an equal

administration of justice, had encouraged activity and industry. In

continual contest with the ocean and rapid rivers, which poured their

violence on the neighboring lowlands, and whose force it was requisite

to break by embankments and canals, this people had early learned to

observe the natural objects around them; by industry and perseverance to

defy an element of superior power; and like the Egyptian, instructed by

his Nile, to exercise their inventive genius and acuteness in

self-defence. The natural fertility of their soil, which favored

agriculture and the breeding of cattle, tended at the same time to

increase the population. Their happy position on the sea and the great

navigable rivers of Germany and France, many of which debouched on their

coasts; the numerous artificial canals which intersected the land in all

directions, imparted life to navigation; and the facility of internal

communication between the provinces, soon created and fostered a

commercial spirit among these people.

The neighboring coasts, Denmark and Britain, were the first visited by

their vessels. The English wool which they brought back employed

thousands of industrious hands in Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp; and as

early as the middle of the twelfth century cloths of Flanders were

extensively worn in France and Germany. In the eleventh century we find

ships of Friesland in the Belt, and even in the Levant. This

enterprising people ventured, without a compass, to steer under the

North Pole round to the most northerly point of Russia. From the

Wendish towns the Netherlands received a share in the Levant trade,

which, at that time, still passed from the Black Sea through the Russian

territories to the Baltic. When, in the thirteenth century, this trade

began to decline, the Crusades having opened a new road through the

Mediterranean for Indian merchandise, and after the Italian towns had

usurped this lucrative branch of commerce, and the great Hanseatic

League had been formed in Germany, the Netherlands became the most

important emporium between the north and south. As yet the use of

the compass was not general, and the merchantmen sailed slowly and

laboriously along the coasts. The ports on the Baltic were, during the

winter months, for the most part frozen and inaccessible. Ships,

therefore, which could not well accomplish within the year the long

voyage from the Mediterranean to the Belt, gladly availed themselves of

harbors which lay half-way between the two.

With an immense continent behind them with which navigable streams kept

up their communication, and towards the west and north open to the ocean

by commodious harbors, this country appeared to be expressly formed for

a place of resort for different nations, and for a centre of commerce.

The principal towns of the Netherlands were established marts.

Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, French, Britons, Germans, Danes, and

Swedes thronged to them with the produce of every country in the world.

Competition insured cheapness; industry was stimulated as it found a

ready market for its productions. With the necessary exchange of money

arose the commerce in bills, which opened a new and fruitful source of

wealth. The princes of the country, acquainted at last with their true

interest, encouraged the merchant by important immunities, and neglected

not to protect their commerce by advantageous treaties with foreign

powers. When, in the fifteenth century, several provinces were united

under one rule, they discontinued their private wars, which had proved

so injurious, and their separate interests were now more intimately

connected by a common government. Their commerce and affluence

prospered in the lap of a long peace, which the formidable power of

their princes extorted from the neighboring monarchs. The Burgundian

flag was feared in every sea, the dignity of their sovereign gave

support to their undertakings, and the enterprise of a private

individual became the affair of a powerful state. Such vigorous

protection soon placed them in a position even to renounce the Hanseatic

League, and to pursue this daring enemy through every sea. The

Hanseatic merchants, against whom the coasts of Spain were closed,

were compelled at last, however reluctantly, to visit the Flemish fairs,

and purchase their Spanish goods in the markets of the Netherlands.

Bruges, in Flanders, was, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the

central point of the whole commerce of Europe, and the great market of

all nations. In the year 1468 a hundred and fifty merchant vessels were

counted entering the harbor of Sluys it one time. Besides the rich

factories of the Hanseatic League, there were here fifteen trading

companies, with their countinghouses, and many factories and merchants’

families from every European country. Here was established the market

of all northern products for the south, and of all southern and

Levantine products for the north. These passed through the Sound, and

up the Rhine, in Hanseatic vessels to Upper Germany, or were transported

by landcarriage to Brunswick and Luneburg.

As in the common course of human affairs, so here also a licentious

luxury followed prosperity. The seductive example of Philip the Good

could not but accelerate its approach. The court of the Burgundian

dukes was the most voluptuous and magnificent in Europe, Italy itself

not excepted. The costly dress of the higher classes, which afterwards

served as patterns to the Spaniards, and eventually, with other

Burgundian customs, passed over to the court of Austria, soon descended

to the lower orders, and the meanest citizen nursed his person in velvet

and silk.

[Philip the Good was too profuse a prince to amass treasures;

nevertheless Charles the Bold found accumulated among his effects,

a greater store of table services, jewels, carpets, and linen than

three rich princedoms of that time together possessed, and over and

above all a treasure of three hundred thousand dollars in ready

money. The riches of this prince, and of the Burgundian people,

lay exposed on the battle-fields of Granson, Murten and Nancy.

Here a Swiss soldier drew from the finger of Charles the Bold, that

celebrated diamond which was long esteemed the largest in Europe,

which even now sparkles in the crown of France as the second in

size, but which the unwitting finder sold for a florin. The Swiss

exchanged the silver they found for tin, and the gold for copper,

and tore into pieces the costly tents of cloth of gold. The value

of the spoil of silver, gold, and jewels which was taken has been

estimated at three millions. Charles and his army had advanced to

the combat, not like foes who purpose battle, but like conquerors

who adorn themselves after victory.]

Comines, an author who travelled through the Netherlands about the

middle of the fifteenth century, tells us that pride had already

attended their prosperity. The pomp and vanity of dress was carried by

both sexes to extravagance. The luxury of the table had never reached

so great a height among any other people. The immoral assemblage of

both sexes at bathing-places, and such other places of reunion for

pleasure and enjoyment, had banished all shame--and we are not here

speaking of the usual luxuriousness of the higher ranks; the females of

the common class abandoned themselves to such extravagances without

limit or measure.

But how much more cheering to the philanthropist is this extravagance

than the miserable frugality of want, and the barbarous virtues of

ignorance, which at that time oppressed nearly the whole of Europe!

The Burgundian era shines pleasingly forth from those dark ages, like

a lovely spring day amid the showers of February. But this flourishing

condition tempted the Flemish towns at last to their ruin; Ghent and

Bruges, giddy with liberty and success, declared war against Philip the

Good, the ruler of eleven provinces, which ended as unfortunately as it

was presumptuously commenced. Ghent alone lost many thousand men in an

engagement near Havre, and was compelled to appease the wrath of the

victor by a contribution of four hundred thousand gold florins. All the

municipal functionaries, and two thousand of the principal citizens,

went, stripped to their shirts, barefooted, and with heads uncovered, a

mile out of the town to meet the duke, and on their knees supplicated

for pardon. On this occasion they were deprived of several valuable

privileges, all irreparable loss for their future commerce. In the year

1482 they engaged in a war, with no better success, against Maximilian

of Austria, with a view to, deprive him of the guardianship of his son,

which, in contravention of his charter, he had unjustly assumed. In

1487 the town of Bruges placed the archduke himself in confinement, and

put some of his most eminent ministers to death. To avenge his son the

Emperor Frederic III. entered their territory with an army, and,

blockading for ten years the harbor of Sluys, put a stop to their entire

trade. On this occasion Amsterdam and Antwerp, whose jealousy had long

been roused by the flourishing condition of the Flemish towns, lent him

the most important assistance. The Italians began to bring their own

silk-stuffs to Antwerp for sale, and the Flemish cloth-workers likewise,

who had settled in England, sent their goods thither; and thus the town

of Bruges lost two important branches of trade. The Hanseatic League

had long been offended at their overweening pride; and it now left them

and removed its factory to Antwerp. In the year 1516 all the foreign

merchants left the town except only a few Spaniards; but its prosperity

faded as slowly as it had bloomed.

Antwerp received, in the sixteenth century, the trade which the

luxuriousness of the Flemish towns had banished; and under the

government of Charles V. Antwerp was the most stirring and splendid

city in the Christian world. A stream like the Scheldt, whose broad

mouth, in the immediate vicinity, shared with the North Sea the ebb and

flow of the tide, and could carry vessels of the largest tonnage under

the walls of Antwerp, made it the natural resort for all vessels which

visited that coast. Its free fairs attracted men of business from all

countries.

[Two such fairs lasted forty days, and all the goods sold there

were duty free.]

The industry of the nation had, in the beginning of this century,

reached its greatest height. The culture of grain, flax, the breeding

of cattle, the chase, and fisheries, enriched the peasant; arts,

manufactures, and trade gave wealth to the burghers. Flemish and

Brabantine manufactures were long to be seen in Arabia, Persia, and

India. Their ships covered the ocean, and in the Black Sea contended

with the Genoese for supremacy. It was the distinctive characteristic

of the seaman of the Netherlands that he made sail at all seasons of the

year, and never laid up for the winter.

When the new route by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, and the East

India trade of Portugal undermined that of the Levant, the Netherlands

did not feel the blow which was inflicted on the Italian republics. The

Portuguese established their mart in Brabant, and the spices of Calicut

were displayed for sale in the markets of Antwerp. Hither poured the

West Indian merchandise, with which the indolent pride of Spain repaid

the industry of the Netherlands. The East Indian market attracted the

most celebrated commercial houses from Florence, Lucca, and Genoa; and

the Fuggers and Welsers from Augsburg. Here the Hanse towns brought the

wares of the north, and here the English company had a factory. Here

art and nature seemed to expose to view all their riches; it was a

splendid exhibition of the works of the Creator and of the creature.

Their renown soon diffused itself through the world. Even a company of

Turkish merchants, towards the end of this century, solicited permission

to settle here, and to supply the products of the East by way of Greece.

With the trade in goods they held also the exchange of money. Their

bills passed current in the farthest parts of the globe. Antwerp, it is

asserted, then transacted more extensive and more important business in

a single month than Venice, at its most flourishing period, in two whole

years.

In the year 1491 the Hanseatic League held its solemn meetings in this

town, which had formerly assembled in Lubeck alone. In 1531 the

exchange was erected, at that time the most splendid in all Europe, and

which fulfilled its proud inscription. The town now reckoned one

hundred thousand inhabitants. The tide of human beings, which

incessantly poured into it, exceeds all belief. Between two hundred and

two hundred and fifty ships were often seen loading at one time in its

harbor; no day passed on which the boats entering inwards and outwards

did not amount to more than five hundred; on market days the number

amounted to eight or nine hundred. Daily more than two hundred

carriages drove through its gates; above two thousand loaded wagons

arrived every week from Germany, France, and Lorraine, without reckoning

the farmers’ carts and corn-vans, which were seldom less than ten

thousand in number. Thirty thousand hands were employed by the English

company alone. The market dues, tolls, and excise brought millions to

the government annually. We can form some idea of the resources of the

nation from the fact that the extraordinary taxes which they were

obliged to pay to Charles V. towards his numerous wars were computed at

forty millions of gold ducats.

For this affluence the Netherlands were as much indebted to their

liberty as to the natural advantages of their country. Uncertain laws

and the despotic sway of a rapacious prince would quickly have blighted

all the blessings which propitious nature had so abundantly lavished on

them. The inviolable sanctity of the laws can alone secure to the

citizen the fruits of his industry, and inspire him with that happy

confidence which is the soul of all activity.

The genius of this people, developed by the spirit of commerce, and by

the intercourse with so many nations, shone in useful inventions; in the

lap of abundance and liberty all the noble arts were carefully

cultivated and carried to perfection. From Italy, to which Cosmo de

Medici had lately restored its golden age, painting, architecture, and

the arts of carving and of engraving on copper, were transplanted into

the Netherlands, where, in a new soil, they flourished with fresh vigor.

The Flemish school, a daughter of the Italian, soon vied with its mother

for the prize; and, in common with it, gave laws to the whole of Europe

in the fine arts. The manufactures and arts, on which the Netherlanders

principally founded their prosperity, and still partly base it, require

no particular enumeration. The weaving of tapestry, oil painting, the

art of painting on glass, even pocketwatches and sun-dials were, as

Guicciardini asserts, originally invented in the Netherlands. To them

we are indebted for the improvement of the compass, the points of which

are still known by Flemish names. About the year 1430 the invention of

typography is ascribed to Laurence Koster, of Haarlem; and whether or

not he is entitled to this honorable distinction, certain it is that the

Dutch were among the first to engraft this useful art among them; and

fate ordained that a century later it should reward its country with

liberty. The people of the Netherlands united with the most fertile

genius for inventions a happy talent for improving the discoveries of

others; there are probably few mechanical arts and manufactures which

they did not either produce or at least carry to a higher degree of

perfection.

Up to this time these provinces had formed the most enviable state in

Europe. Not one of the Burgundian dukes had ventured to indulge a

thought of overturning the constitution; it had remained sacred even to

the daring spirit of Charles the Bold, while he was preparing fetters

for foreign liberty. All these princes grew up with no higher hope than

to be the heads of a republic, and none of their territories afforded

them experience of a higher authority. Besides, these princes possessed

nothing but what the Netherlands gave them; no armies but those which

the nation sent into the field; no riches but what the estates granted

to them. Now all was changed. The Netherlands had fallen to a master

who had at his command other instruments and other resources, who could

arm against them a foreign power.

[The unnatural union of two such different nations as the Belgians

and Spaniards could not possibly be prosperous. I cannot here

refrain from quoting the comparison which Grotius, in energetic

language, has drawn between the two. “With the neighboring

nations,” says he, “the people of the Netherlands could easily

maintain a good understanding, for they were of a similar origin

with themselves, and had grown up in the same manner. But the

people of Spain and of the Netherlands differed in almost every

respect from one another, and therefore, when they were brought

together clashed the more violently. Both had for many centuries

been distinguished in war, only the latter had, in luxurious

repose, become disused to arms, while the former had been inured to

war in the Italian and African campaigns; the desire of gain made

the Belgians more inclined to peace, but not less sensitive of

offence. No people were more free from the lust of conquest, but

none defended its own more zealously. Hence the numerous towns,

closely pressed together in a confined tract of country; densely

crowded with a foreign and native population; fortified near the

sea and the great rivers. Hence for eight centuries after the

northern immigration foreign arms could not prevail against them.

Spain, on the contrary, often changed its masters; and when at last

it fell into the hands of the Goths, its character and its manners

had suffered more or less from each new conqueror. The people thus

formed at last out of these several admixtures is described as

patient in labor, imperturbable in danger, equally eager for riches

and honor, proud of itself even to contempt of others, devout and

grateful to strangers for any act of kindness, but also revengeful,

and of such ungovernable passions in victory as so regard neither

conscience nor honor in the case of an enemy. All this is foreign

to the character of the Belgian, who is astute but not insidious,

who, placed midway between France and Germany, combines in

moderation the faults and good qualities of both. He is not easily

to be imposed upon, nor is he to be insulted with impunity. In

veneration for the Deity, too, he does not yield to the Spaniard;

the arms of the Northmen could not make him apostatize from

Christianity when he had once professed it. No opinion which the

church condemns had, up to this time, empoisoned the purity of his

faith. Nay, his pious extravagance went so far that it became

requisite to curb by laws the rapacity of his clergy. In both

people loyalty to their rulers is equally innate, with this

difference, that the Belgian places the law above kings. Of all

the Spaniards the Castilians require to be, governed with the most

caution; but the liberties which they arrogate for themselves they

do not willingly accord to others. Hence the difficult task to

their common ruler, so to distribute his attention, and care

between the two nations that neither the preference shown to the

Castilian should offend the Belgian, nor the equal treatment of the

Belgian affront the haughty spirit of the Castilian.”--Grotii

Annal. Belg. L. 1. 4. 5. seq.]

Charles V. was an absolute monarch in his Spanish dominions; in the

Netherlands he was no more than the first citizen. In the southern

portion of his empire he might have learned contempt for the rights of

individuals; here he was taught to respect them. The more he there

tasted the pleasures of unlimited power, and the higher he raised his

opinion of his own greatness, the more reluctant he must have felt to

descend elsewhere to the ordinary level of humanity, and to tolerate any

check upon his arbitrary authority. It requires, indeed, no ordinary

degree of virtue to abstain from warring against the power which imposes

a curb on our most cherished wishes.

The superior power of Charles awakened at the same time in the

Netherlands that distrust which always accompanies inferiority. Never

were they so alive to their constitutional rights, never so jealous of

the royal prerogative, or more observant in their proceedings. Under,

his reign we see the most violent outbreaks of republican spirit, and

the pretensions of the people carried to an excess which nothing but the

increasing encroachments of the royal power could in the least justify.

A Sovereign will always regard the freedom of the citizen as an

alienated fief, which he is bound to recover. To the citizen the

authority of a sovereign is a torrent, which, by its inundation,

threatens to sweep away his rights. The Belgians sought to protect

themselves against the ocean by embankments, and against their princes

by constitutional enactments. The whole history of the world is a

perpetually recurring struggle between liberty and the lust of power and

possession; as the history of nature is nothing but the contest of the

elements and organic bodies for space. The Netherlands soon found to

their cost that they had become but a province of a great monarchy. So

long as their former masters had no higher aim than to promote their

prosperity, their condition resembled the tranquil happiness of a

secluded family, whose head is its ruler. Charles V. introduced them

upon the arena of the political world. They now formed a member of that

gigantic body which the ambition of an individual employed as his

instrument. They ceased to have their own good for their aim; the

centre of their existence was transported to the soul of their ruler.

As his whole government was but one tissue of plans and manoeuvres to

advance his power, so it was, above all things, necessary that he should

be completely master of the various limbs of his mighty empire in order

to move them effectually and suddenly. It was impossible, therefore,

for him to embarrass himself with the tiresome mechanism of their

interior political organization, or to extend to their peculiar

privileges the conscientious respect which their republican jealousy

demanded. It was expedient for him to facilitate the exercise of their

powers by concentration and unity. The tribunal at Malines had been

under his predecessor an independent court of judicature; he subjected

its decrees to the revision of a royal council, which he established in

Brussels, and which was the mere organ of his will. He introduced

foreigners into the most vital functions of their constitution, and

confided to them the most important offices. These men, whose only

support was the royal favor, would be but bad guardians of privileges

which, moreover, were little known to them. The ever-increasing

expenses of his warlike government compelled him as steadily to augment

his resources. In disregard of their most sacred privileges he imposed

new and strange taxes on the provinces. To preserve their olden

consideration the estates were forced to grant what he had been so

modest as not to extort; the whole history of the government of this

monarch in the Netherlands is almost one continued list of imposts

demanded, refused, and finally accorded. Contrary to the constitution,

he introduced foreign troops into their territories, directed the

recruiting of his armies in the provinces, and involved them in wars,

which could not advance even if they did not injure their interest, and

to which they had not given their consent. He punished the offences of

a free state as a monarch; and the terrible chastisement of Ghent

announced to the other provinces the great change which their

constitution had already undergone.

The welfare of the country was so far secured as was necessary to the

political schemes of its master; the intelligent policy of Charles would

certainly not violate the salutary regiment of the body whose energies

he found himself necessitated to exert. Fortunately, the opposite

pursuits of selfish ambition, and of disinterested philanthropy, often

bring about the same end; and the well-being of a state, which a Marcus

Aurelius might propose to himself as a rational object of pursuit, is

occasionally promoted by an Augustus or a Louis.

Charles V. was perfectly aware that commerce was the strength of the

nation, and that the foundation of their commerce was liberty. He

spared its liberty because he needed its strength. Of greater political

wisdom, though not more just than his son, he adapted his principles to

the exigencies of time and place, and recalled an ordinance in Antwerp

and in Madrid which he would under other circumstances have enforced

with all the terrors of his power. That which makes the reign of

Charles V. particularly remarkable in regard to the Netherlands is the

great religious revolution which occurred under it; and which, as the

principal cause of the subsequent rebellion, demands a somewhat

circumstantial notice. This it was that first brought arbitrary power

into the innermost sanctuary of the constitution; taught it to give a

dreadful specimen of its might; and, in a measure, legalized it, while

it placed republican spirit on a dangerous eminence. And as the latter

sank into anarchy and rebellion monarchical power rose to the height of

despotism.

Nothing is more natural than the transition from civil liberty to

religious freedom. Individuals, as well as communities, who, favored by

a happy political constitution, have become acquainted with the rights

of man, and accustomed to examine, if not also to create, the law which

is to govern them; whose minds have been enlightened by activity, and

feelings expanded by the enjoyments of life; whose natural courage has

been exalted by internal security and prosperity; such men will not

easily surrender themselves to the blind domination of a dull arbitrary

creed, and will be the first to emancipate themselves from its yoke.

Another circumstance, however, must have greatly tended to diffuse the

new religion in these countries. Italy, it might be objected, the seat

of the greatest intellectual culture, formerly the scene of the most

violent political factions, where a burning climate kindles the blood

with the wildest passions--Italy, among all the European countries,

remained the freest from this change. But to a romantic people, whom a

warm and lovely sky, a luxurious, ever young and ever smiling nature,

and the multifarious witcheries of art, rendered keenly susceptible of

sensuous enjoyment, that form of religion must naturally have been

better adapted, which by its splendid pomp captivates the senses, by its

mysterious enigmas opens an unbounded range to the fancy; and which,

through the most picturesque forms, labors to insinuate important

doctrines into the soul. On the contrary, to a people whom the ordinary

employments of civil life have drawn down to an unpoetical reality, who

live more in plain notions than in images, and who cultivate their

common sense at the expense of their imagination--to such a people that

creed will best recommend itself which dreads not investigation, which

lays less stress on mysticism than on morals, and which is rather to be

understood then to be dwelt upon in meditation. In few words, the Roman

Catholic religion will, on the whole, be found more adapted to a nation

of artists, the Protestant more fitted to a nation of merchants.

On this supposition the new doctrines which Luther diffused in Germany,

and Calvin in Switzerland, must have found a congenial soil in the

Netherlands. The first seeds of it were sown in the Netherlands by the

Protestant merchants, who assembled at Amsterdam and Antwerp. The

German and Swiss troops, which Charles introduced into these countries,

and the crowd of French, German, and English fugitives who, under the

protection of the liberties of Flanders, sought to escape the sword of

persecution which threatened them at home, promoted their diffusion. A

great portion of the Belgian nobility studied at that time at Geneva, as

the University of Louvain was not yet in repute, and that of Douai not

yet founded. The new tenets publicly taught there were transplanted by

the students to their various countries. In an isolated people these

first germs might easily have been crushed; but in the market-towns of

Holland and Brabant, the resort of so many different nations, their

first growth would escape the notice of government, and be accelerated

under the veil of obscurity. A difference in opinion might easily

spring up and gain ground amongst those who already were divided in

national character, in manners, customs, and laws. Moreover, in a

country where industry was the most lauded virtue, mendicity the most

abhorred vice, a slothful body of men, like that of the monks, must have

been an object of long and deep aversion. Hence, the new religion,

which opposed these orders, derived an immense advantage from having the

popular opinion on its side. Occasional pamphlets, full of bitterness

and satire, to which the newly-discovered art of printing secured a

rapid circulation, and several bands of strolling orators, called

Rederiker, who at that time made the circuit of the provinces,

ridiculing in theatrical representations or songs the abuses of their

times, contributed not a little to diminish respect for the Romish

Church, and to prepare the people for the reception of the new dogmas.

The first conquests of this doctrine were astonishingly rapid. The

number of those who in a short time avowed themselves its adherents,

especially in the northern provinces, was prodigious; but among these

the foreigners far outnumbered the natives. Charles V., who, in this

hostile array of religious tenets, had taken the side which a despot

could not fail to take, opposed to the increasing torrent of innovation

the most effectual remedies. Unhappily for the reformed religion

political justice was on the side of its persecutor. The dam which, for

so many centuries, had repelled human understanding from truth was too

suddenly torn away for the outbreaking torrent not to overflow its

appointed channel. The reviving spirit of liberty and of inquiry, which

ought to have remained within the limits of religious questions, began

also to examine into the rights of kings. While in the commencement

iron fetters were justly broken off, a desire was eventually shown to

rend asunder the most legitimate and most indispensable of ties. Even

the Holy Scriptures, which were now circulated everywhere, while they

imparted light and nurture to the sincere inquirer after truth, were the

source also whence an eccentric fanaticism contrived to extort the

virulent poison. The good cause had been compelled to choose the evil

road of rebellion, and the result was what in such cases it ever will be

so long as men remain men. The bad cause, too, which had nothing in

common with the good but the employment of illegal means, emboldened by

this slight point of connection, appeared in the same company, and was

mistaken for it. Luther had written against the invocation of saints;

every audacious varlet who broke into the churches and cloisters, and

plundered the altars, called himself Lutheran. Faction, rapine,

fanaticism, licentiousness robed themselves in his colors; the most

enormous offenders, when brought before the judges, avowed themselves

his followers. The Reformation had drawn down the Roman prelate to a

level with fallible humanity; an insane band, stimulated by hunger and

want, sought to annihilate all distinction of ranks. It was natural

that a doctrine, which to the state showed itself only in its most

unfavorable aspect, should not have been able to reconcile a monarch who

had already so many reasons to extirpate it; and it is no wonder,

therefore, that be employed against it the arms it had itself forced

upon him.

Charles must already have looked upon himself as absolute in the

Netherlands since he did not think it necessary to extend to these

countries the religious liberty which he had accorded to Germany.

While, compelled by the effectual resistance of the German princes, he

assured to the former country a free exercise of the new religion, in

the latter he published the most cruel edicts for its repression. By

these the reading of the Evangelists and Apostles; all open or secret

meetings to which religion gave its name in ever so slight a degree; all

conversations on the subject, at home or at the table, were forbidden

under severe penalties. In every province special courts of judicature

were established to watch over the execution of the edicts. Whoever

held these erroneous opinions was to forfeit his office without regard

to his rank. Whoever should be convicted of diffusing heretical

doctrines, or even of simply attending the secret meetings of the

Reformers, was to be condemned to death, and if a male, to be executed

by the sword, if a female, buried alive. Backsliding heretics were to

be committed to the flames. Not even the recantation of the offender

could annul these appalling sentences. Whoever abjured his errors

gained nothing by his apostacy but at farthest a milder kind of death.

The fiefs of the condemned were also confiscated, contrary to the

privileges of the nation, which permitted the heir to redeem them for a

trifling fine; and in defiance of an express and valuable privilege of

the citizens of Holland, by which they were not to be tried out of their

province, culprits were conveyed beyond the limits of the native

judicature, and condemned by foreign tribunals. Thus did religion guide

the hand of despotism to attack with its sacred weapon, and without

danger or opposition, the liberties which were inviolable to the secular

arm.

Charles V., emboldened by the fortunate progress of his arms in Germany,

thought that he might now venture on everything, and seriously meditated

the introduction of the Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands. But the

terror of its very name alone reduced commerce in Antwerp to a

standstill. The principal foreign merchants prepared to quit the city.

All buying and selling ceased, the value of houses fell, the employment

of artisans stopped. Money disappeared from the hands of the citizen.

The ruin of that flourishing commercial city was inevitable had not

Charles V. listened to the representations of the Duchess of Parma, and

abandoned this perilous resolve. The tribunal, therefore, was ordered

not to interfere with the foreign merchants, and the title of Inquisitor

was changed unto the milder appellation of Spiritual Judge. But in the

other provinces that tribunal proceeded to rage with the inhuman

despotism which has ever been peculiar to it. It has been computed that

during the reign of Charles V. fifty thousand persons perished by the

hand of the executioner for religion alone.

When we glance at the violent proceedings of this monarch we are quite

at a loss to comprehend what it was that kept the rebellion within

bounds during his reign, which broke out with so much violence under his

successor. A closer investigation will clear up this seeming anomaly.

Charles’s dreaded supremacy in Europe had raised the commerce of the

Netherlands to a height which it had never before attained. The majesty

of his name opened all harbors, cleared all seas for their vessels, and

obtained for them the most favorable commercial treaties with foreign

powers. Through him, in particular, they destroyed the dominion of the

Hanse towns in the Baltic. Through him, also, the New World, Spain,

Italy, Germany, which now shared with them a common ruler, were, in a

measure, to be considered as provinces of their own country, and opened

new channels for their commerce. He had, moreover, united the remaining

six provinces with the hereditary states of Burgundy, and thus given to

them an extent and political importance which placed them by the side of

the first kingdoms of Europe.

[He had, too, at one time the intention of raising it to a kingdom;

but the essential points of difference between the provinces, which

extended from constitution and manners to measures and weights,

soon made him abandon this design. More important was the service

which he designed them in the Burgundian treaty, which settled its

relation to the German empire. According to this treaty the

seventeen provinces were to contribute to the common wants of the

German empire twice as much as an electoral prince; in case of a

Turkish war three times as much; in return for which, however, they

were to enjoy the powerful protection of this empire, and not to be

injured in any of their various privileges. The revolution, which

under Charles’ son altered the political constitution of the

provinces, again annulled this compact, which, on account of the

trifling advantage that it conferred, deserves no further notice.]

By all this he flattered the national pride of this people. Moreover,

by the incorporation of Gueldres, Utrecht, Friesland, and Groningen with

these provinces, he put an end to the private wars which had so long

disturbed their commerce; an unbroken internal peace now allowed them to

enjoy the full fruits of their industry. Charles was therefore a

benefactor of this people. At the same time, the splendor of his

victories dazzled their eyes; the glory of their sovereign, which was

reflected upon them also, had bribed their republican vigilance; while

the awe-inspiring halo of invincibility which encircled the conqueror of

Germany, France, Italy, and Africa terrified the factious. And then,

who knows not on how much may venture the man, be he a private

individual or a prince, who has succeeded in enchaining the admiration

of his fellow-creatures! His repeated personal visits to these lands,

which he, according to his own confession, visited as often as ten

different times, kept the disaffected within bounds; the constant

exercise of severe and prompt justice maintained the awe of the royal

power. Finally, Charles was born in the Netherlands, and loved the

nation in whose lap he had grown up. Their manners pleased him, the

simplicity of their character and social intercourse formed for him a

pleasing recreation from the severe Spanish gravity. He spoke their

language, and followed their customs in his private life. The

burdensome ceremonies which form the unnatural barriers between king and

people were banished from Brussels. No jealous foreigner debarred

natives from access to their prince; their way to him was through their

own countrymen, to whom he entrusted his person. He spoke much and

courteously with them; his deportment was engaging, his discourse

obliging. These simple artifices won for him their love, and while

his armies trod down their cornfields, while his rapacious imposts

diminished their property, while his governors oppressed, his

executioners slaughtered, he secured their hearts by a friendly

demeanor.

Gladly would Charles have seen this affection of the nation for himself

descend upon his son. On this account he sent for him in his youth from

Spain, and showed him in Brussels to his future subjects. On the solemn

day of his abdication he recommended to him these lands as the richest

jewel in his crown, and earnestly exhorted him to respect their laws and

privileges.

Philip II. was in all the direct opposite of his father. As ambitious

as Charles, but with less knowledge of men and of the rights of man, he

had formed to himself a notion of royal authority which regarded men as

simply the servile instruments of despotic will, and was outraged by

every symptom of liberty. Born in Spain, and educated under the iron

discipline of the monks, he demanded of others the same gloomy formality

and reserve as marked his own character. The cheerful merriment of his

Flemish subjects was as uncongenial to his disposition and temper as

their privileges were offensive to his imperious will. He spoke no

other language but the Spanish, endured none but Spaniards about his

person, and obstinately adhered to all their customs. In vain did the

loyal ingenuity of the Flemish towns through which he passed vie with

each other in solemnizing his arrival with costly festivities.

[The town of Antwerp alone expended on an occasion of this kind two

hundred and sixty thousand gold florins.]

Philip’s eye remained dark; all the profusion of magnificence, all the

loud and hearty effusions of the sincerest joy could not win from him

one approving smile.

Charles entirely missed his aim by presenting his son to the Flemings.

They might eventually have endured his yoke with less impatience if he

had never set his foot in their land. But his look forewarned them what

they had to expect; his entry into Brussels lost him all hearts. The

Emperor’s gracious affability with his people only served to throw a

darker shade on the haughty gravity of his son. They read in his

countenance the destructive purpose against their liberties which, even

then, he already revolved in his breast. Forewarned to find in him a

tyrant they were forearmed to resist him.

The throne of the Netherlands was the first which Charles V. abdicated.

Before a solemn convention in Brussels he absolved the States-General of

their oath, and transferred their allegiance to King Philip, his son.

“If my death,” addressing the latter, as he concluded, “had placed you

in possession of these countries, even in that case so valuable a

bequest would have given me great claims on your gratitude. But now

that of my free will I transfer them to you, now that I die in order to

hasten your enjoyment of them, I only require of you to pay to the

people the increased obligation which the voluntary surrender of my

dignity lays upon you. Other princes esteem it a peculiar felicity to

bequeath to their children the crown which death is already ravishing

from then. This happiness I am anxious to enjoy during my life. I wish

to be a spectator of your reign. Few will follow my example, as few

have preceded me in it. But this my deed will be praised if your future

life should justify my expectations, if you continue to be guided by

that wisdom which you have hitherto evinced, if you remain inviolably

attached to the pure faith which is the main pillar of your throne. One

thing more I have to add: may Heaven grant you also a son, to whom you

may transmit your power by choice, and not by necessity.”

After the Emperor had concluded his address Philip kneeled down before

him, kissed his hand, and received his paternal blessing. His eyes for

the last time were moistened with a tear. All present wept. It was an

hour never to be forgotten.

This affecting farce was soon followed by another. Philip received the

homage of the assembled states. He took the oath administered in the

following words: “I, Philip, by the grace of God, Prince of Spain, of

the two Sicilies, etc., do vow and swear that I will be a good and just

lord in these countries, counties, and duchies, etc.; that I will well

and truly hold, and cause to be held, the privileges and liberties of

all the nobles, towns, commons, and subjects which have been conferred

upon them by my predecessors, and also the customs, usages and rights

which they now have and enjoy, jointly and severally, and, moreover,

that I will do all that by law and right pertains to a good and just

prince and lord, so help me God and all His Saints.”

The alarm which the arbitrary government of the Emperor had inspired,

and the distrust of his son, are already visible in the formula of this

oath, which was drawn up in far more guarded and explicit terms than

that which had been administered to Charles V. himself and all the Dukes

in Burgundy. Philip, for instance, was compelled to swear to the

maintenance of their customs and usages, what before his time had never

been required. In the oath which the states took to him no other

obedience was promised than such as should be consistent with the

privileges of the country. His officers then were only to reckon on

submission and support so long as they legally discharged the duties

entrusted to them. Lastly, in this oath of allegiance, Philip is simply

styled the natural, the hereditary prince, and not, as the Emperor had

desired, sovereign or lord; proof enough how little confidence was

placed in the justice and liberality of the new sovereign.

PHILIP II., RULER OF THE NETHERLANDS.

Philip II. received the lordship of the Netherlands in the brightest

period of their prosperity. He was the first of their princes who

united them all under his authority. They now consisted of seventeen

provinces; the duchies of Brabant, Limburg, Luxembourg, and Gueldres,

the seven counties of Artois, Hainault, Flanders, Namur, Zutphen,

Holland, and Zealand, the margravate of Antwerp, and the five lordships

of Friesland, Mechlin (Malines), Utrecht, Overyssel, and Groningen,

which, collectively, formed a great and powerful state able to contend

with monarchies. Higher than it then stood their commerce could not

rise. The sources of their wealth were above the earth’s surface, but

they were more valuable and inexhaustible and richer than all the mines

in America. These seventeen provinces which, taken together, scarcely

comprised the fifth part of Italy, and do not extend beyond three

hundred Flemish miles, yielded an annual revenue to their lord, not much

inferior to that which Britain formerly paid to its kings before the

latter had annexed so many of the ecclesiastical domains to their crown.

Three hundred and fifty cities, alive with industry and pleasure, many

of them fortified by their natural position and secure without bulwarks

or walls; six thousand three hundred market towns of a larger size;

smaller villages, farms, and castles innumerable, imparted to this

territory the aspect of one unbroken flourishing landscape. The nation

had now reached the meridian of its splendor; industry and abundance had

exalted the genius of the citizen, enlightened his ideas, ennobled his

affections; every flower of the intellect had opened with the

flourishing condition of the country. A happy temperament under a

severe climate cooled the ardor of their blood, and moderated the rage

of their passions; equanimity, moderation, and enduring patience, the

gifts of a northern clime; integrity, justice, and faith, the necessary

virtues of their profession; and the delightful fruits of liberty,

truth, benevolence, and a patriotic pride were blended in their

character, with a slight admixture of human frailties. No people on

earth was more easily governed by a prudent prince, and none with more

difficulty by a charlatan or a tyrant. Nowhere was the popular voice so

infallible a test of good government as here. True statesmanship could

be tried in no nobler school, and a sickly artificial policy had none

worse to fear.

A state constituted like this could act and endure with gigantic energy

whenever pressing emergencies called forth its powers and a skilful and

provident administration elicited its resources. Charles V. bequeathed

to his successor an authority in these provinces little inferior to that

of a limited monarchy. The prerogative of the crown had gained a

visible ascendancy over the republican spirit, and that complicated

machine could now be set in motion, almost as certainly and rapidly as

the most absolutely governed nation. The numerous nobility, formerly so

powerful, cheerfully accompanied their sovereign in his wars, or, on the

civil changes of the state, courted the approving smile of royality.

The crafty policy of the crown had created a new and imaginary good, of

which it was the exclusive dispenser. New passions and new ideas of

happiness supplanted at last the rude simplicity of republican virtue.

Pride gave place to vanity, true liberty to titles of Honor, a needy

independence to a luxurious servitude. To oppress or to plunder their

native land as the absolute satraps of an absolute lord was a more

powerful allurement for the avarice and ambition of the great, than in

the general assembly of the state to share with the monarch a hundredth

part of the supreme power. A large portion, moreover, of the nobility

were deeply sunk in poverty and debt. Charles V. had crippled all the

most dangerous vassals of the crown by expensive embassies to foreign

courts, under the specious pretext of honorary distinctions. Thus,

William of Orange was despatched to Germany with the imperial crown, and

Count Egmont to conclude the marriage contract between Philip and Queen

Mary. Both also afterwards accompanied the Duke of Alva to France to

negotiate the peace between the two crowns, and the new alliance of

their sovereign with Madame Elizabeth. The expenses of these journeys

amounted to three hundred thousand florins, towards which the king did

not contribute a single penny. When the Prince of Orange was appointed

generalissimo in the place of the Duke of Savoy he was obliged to defray

all the necessary expenses of his office. When foreign ambassadors or

princes came to Brussels it was made incumbent on the nobles to maintain

the honor of their king, who himself always dined alone, and never kept

open table. Spanish policy had devised a still more ingenious

contrivance gradually to impoverish the richest families of the land.

Every year one of the Castilian nobles made his appearance in Brussels,

where he displayed a lavish magnificence. In Brussels it was accounted

an indelible disgrace to be distanced by a stranger in such munificence.

All vied to surpass him, and exhausted their fortunes in this costly

emulation, while the Spaniard made a timely retreat to his native

country, and by the frugality of four years repaired the extravagance of

one year. It was the foible of the Netherlandish nobility to contest

with every stranger the credit of superior wealth, and of this weakness

the government studiously availed itself. Certainly these arts did not

in the sequel produce the exact result that had been calculated on; for

these pecuniary burdens only made the nobility the more disposed for

innovation, since he who has lost all can only be a gainer in the

general ruin.

The Roman Church had ever been a main support of the royal power, and it

was only natural that it should be so. Its golden time was the bondage

of the human intellect, and, like royalty, it had gained by the

ignorance and weakness of men. Civil oppression made religion more

necessary and more dear; submission to tyrannical power prepares the

mind for a blind, convenient faith, and the hierarchy repaid with usury

the services of despotism. In the provinces the bishops and prelates

were zealous supporters of royalty, and ever ready to sacrifice the

welfare of the citizen to the temporal advancement of the church and the

political interests of the sovereign.

Numerous and brave garrisons also held the cities in awe, which were

at the same time divided by religious squabbles and factions, and

consequently deprived of their strongest support--union among

themselves. How little, therefore, did it require to insure this

preponderance of Philip’s power, and how fatal must have been the folly

by which it was lost.