BRUSSELS
After the third day of tourney had completed the marriage festivities,
the Prince of Orange, his bride, and their train—swelled now by Anne's
attendants—set out for Brussels.
Vanderlinden was among the magnificent assembly who wished them
God-speed, and he found occasion to hand Rénèe le Meung a charm in the
shape of the figure seven cut in jade and set with little studs of gold.
This would, he said, keep her from harm while she resided in Brussels,
for seven was the lucky number of that city which was under the direct
influence of the seven planets, and owned seven churches, seven gates,
and seven senators.
Rénèe thanked him with tears in her eyes and a sad smile on her lips as
she turned to leave the land that had been a refuge, even if in exile,
and set her face towards her own country which was so full of peril for
her and contained unutterable memories.
Already, from those in the Prince's train and from such Saxons as had
been in Brussels, she had heard much of the state of affairs in the Low
Countries. The Inquisition, which the late Emperor had established in
the Netherlands, had always been resisted, notably in Brabant (into two
of the provinces it had never been introduced), with such effect that,
though an avowed heretic (as was Rénèe's father) was certain to be
apprehended, yet many who were not of the orthodox faith had managed to
live quietly and unmolested. Now, however, it was being enforced with
great severity by Philip's orders and Granvelle's warm support, and the
chief Inquisitor, Peter Titelmann, was performing his office with the
ruthlessness and cruelty of Torquemada himself.
Every one even suspected of heresy, anyone who did not bow low enough
when the Host passed, anyone who read the Bible or ventured to criticize
the priests or preach any contrary doctrines, was at once seized by
Titelmann, accused before his secret Tribunal from which there was no
appeal, tortured to force a confession, and finally put to death in the
most horrid fashion the monks could devise.
Already this monstrous tyranny was spreading over the Low Countries with
a combined force and power impossible to resist, the religious force of
the Pope, the secular force of the King behind it. Already Titelmann,
Granvelle, the Regent, the King, were rejoicing that they were tearing
up by the roots the seed that Martin Luther had planted; already some of
the most splendid and prosperous towns in Europe were being devastated
with executions, fines, confiscations, and the spectacle of tortured
men, women, and children flung living into the flames with Marot's hymns
on their lips and the light of undiminished faith in their eyes.
And this was only the beginning.
There was no length to which the King was not prepared to go to
re-establish the pure Catholic faith in his dominions. He was willing to
depopulate cities, render barren the countryside, ruin the trade from
which he drew so handsome a revenue, force into revolt the people who
had been his father's faithful subjects—in brief, to utterly destroy and
scatter one of the bravest, most prosperous, most intelligent, most
thrifty nations of Europe rather than see them tainted with the
doctrines of Luther or Calvin.
And to this resolve Cardinal Granvelle gave his enthusiastic support.
Rénèe heard enough of the prelate to realize that he was nearly as
dreaded and disliked as Titelmann himself, and that to him was ascribed
the enforcing of the Inquisition and the creation of the hated new
bishoprics by which the supremacy of the true faith was to be enforced
and the organization of the Inquisition maintained. It was from the
creation of these bishoprics and his own elevation to the See of Mechlin
and then to the Cardinal's Hat, that the growth of the breach between
Anthony Perrenot and his one-time patron, the Prince of Orange, might be
traced; and Rénèe learnt that William, together with Lamoral Egmont,
Prince of Gravern and Stadtholder of Artois and Flanders (abetted by
Philip de Montmorency, Count Hoorne, then at the Spanish Court), had
actually written a letter to Philip protesting against the increasing
insolence and presumption of the Cardinal, and that the King on
receiving the message had warmly defended Granvelle, and so abused Count
Hoorne that that nobleman had hardly been able, from wrath and
amazement, to leave the royal presence. These circumstances, which were
common talk in the Netherlands, and rousing immense interest and
speculation, caused Rénèe to regard her new master with added curiosity,
with a growing respect; from the first moment she had seen him she had
felt his charm, now she began to surmise his power.
Along the journey she marked his patience, gentleness, and courtesy with
Anne's unreasonable jealous affection, peevish tempers, and fits of
hysteric gloom. Some of the other women laughed at so much softness, but
Rénèe admired this gentleness in one whom she knew could be masterful
and believed could be fierce, but it had the effect of rousing her
former half-compassionate indifference towards Anne into active dislike.
Never had the sickly bad-tempered girl seemed so hateful to Rénèe as she
did now when plaguing the husband she professed to adore, chattering
over her coming triumphs in Brussels, and boasting of her new rank and
dignities. She seemed to see in the magnificent and tumultuous scene on
to which she was about to enter only a stage on which to display her own
enormous vanity, and her infinite petty questions and speculations as to
her position in relation to the Regent and the ladies of her Court
fatigued Rénèe almost beyond endurance, for the waiting-woman's mind was
full of the great problems now agitating her native country, and of the
coming struggle between Prince and Cardinal, of which Anne was so
entirely in ignorance.
When they reached the beautiful plains of Brabant, and the hill-built
capital, Anne fell ill from the excess of her own spleen and passions,
and it was on a litter that she was carried into her husband's gorgeous
home on the heights of Brussels.
This was an establishment that filled Rénèe with astonishment, and was
indeed much more splendid then even the Saxon Princess had ever
expected.
Situated in the most beautiful part of the ornate and rich city, and
amid the residences of other great nobles, the Nassau palace formed a
fitting scene for the festivals, the hospitality, the pageants provided
by one of the most wealthy and generous Princes in Europe.
The turreted and gabled mansion, crowned by a tower or belfry, and built
in the most elaborate style of Gothic art, stood in fine gardens filled
with statues, fountains, pleasant walks, exotic shrubs, summer-houses,
and fishponds, all laid out at great expense and lavishly maintained.
The rooms, halls, galleries, and cabinets were most handsomely and
luxuriously furnished with all the famous rich splendour of the
Netherlands; tapestries, hangings, pictures by the most renowned
artists; carpets, rugs, objects from the East and the Indies; all the
ornate beauty that taste could desire and wealth execute, distinguished
the dwelling of the Prince of Orange.
The household, with stewards, secretaries, clerks, musicians, chaplains,
falconers, huntsmen, gardeners, cooks, valets, pages, servants, and now
augmented by Anne's women, amounted to over a thousand persons, and one
of the most lavish and famous features of the establishment was the
perpetual banquet kept in one of the halls, from which extravagant
hospitality was indiscriminately extended to all comers at any hour of
the day and night. The dishes, fruits, confectionery, and wines were
constantly replenished, but never removed.
In this household, beside which that of the Elector was simple indeed,
Rénèe felt herself utterly alien and overwhelmed; but during the first
days of her residence there, while in attendance on Anne's nervous
illness, she observed, as closely as she was able, him who had already
so excited her curiosity, namely, the Prince.
She found he was good-tempered with all, loved by all, extravagant,
reckless of his own interests, and very much the master.
From her high window, round which the pigeons flew, she would wait for a
glimpse of those who came to wait on him: Egmont, the Stadtholder of
Artois and Flanders, as magnificent a lord as William himself, and of
almost as proud and ancient descent; Count Hoorne, another great
seigneur, but a sombre and gloomy man; Brederode, handsome, reckless,
usually inflamed with wine; Count Hoorne's brother, the Seigneur de
Montigny; and De la Marck, the Seigneur de Lumey.
And Rénèe soon perceived that these great nobles were all animated with
one object, and that object hatred of Cardinal Granvelle.
How far the Prince was heading these malcontents she could not tell; she
noticed that though he was so gay, and appeared so open, he was not
reckless in speech, and she divined that he was reserved and prudent in
all serious matters; she believed, too, that his position was difficult,
even perilous. If so, certainly his new wife contributed nothing to
soothe either difficulties or perils; indeed, her behaviour would have
hampered any man. In her vanity and arrogance she was ungracious to his
friends; she quarrelled with Egmont's wife, who was the sister of the
Elector Palatine, on the question of precedence; and she chose to
consider herself injured because the Regent kept her waiting when she
first went to pay her duty.
But though she was behaving like a fretful child, she could not fail to
be an important pawn in the great game that was beginning to be played
in the Netherlands, and Rénèe wondered who would try to rouse her to a
sense of her position, for at present she was showing capricious favour
to the Cardinal's party by patronizing the wives of his creatures,
Aerschot and Barlaymont.
The warning, or advice, came most unexpectedly from Sabina of Bavaria,
Countess of Egmont, Princess of Gravern—the lady whose only previous
acquaintance with Anne had been haughty disputes as to their order of
precedency.
But Egmont's wife was not the woman to endanger her husband's interests
by feminine vanities; she came personally to offer her friendship to
Anne and to instil the good counsel the Saxon Princess so sorely needed.
Anne, though tolerably flattered at the visit, received her rival with
the haughtiness she deemed due to her station, retaining with her Rénèe
and a little German girl who waited on her, and barely rising when the
Countess (she was generally known, as was her husband, by her prouder
title of Egmont) entered her presence.
Rénèe had been told by her mistress that Sabina of Bavaria was an old
woman, ill-favoured, but the waiting-woman found that the Countess was
as splendid as Anne was mean, as courtly as Anne was rude, as
fascinating as Anne was unattractive. After the first few moments of
commonplace compliments, it was plain that the Princess of Orange did
not know how to behave; she sat in the window-seat eating nuts, which
she held in the lap of her brilliant blue satin gown, and the shells of
which she cast from her window.
The Countess of Egmont, leaning back in her dark chair, her delicate
tired face framed in the high rich ruff, her soft hair threaded with
pearls, in all graceful, composed, and gracious, surveyed the Princess
through half-closed long eyes and, seeing that all subtlety would be
wasted on Anne, came directly to the point.
"Your Highness has already some knowledge of how matters stand in
Brussels?" she asked.
"None at all," replied Anne flippantly.
"Naturally Your Highness has had little opportunity," said the Countess
pleasantly. "I have been some while at the Court and can enlighten you
on some particulars."
"It is best for ladies not to meddle in these matters," remarked Anne.
"Truly, we women play a poor small part in these great affairs," smiled
the other lady. "None the less we may be of some use and help. You have
observed the great discontent there is against Cardinal Granvelle, how
all the seigneurs are against him, especially your lord and mine?"
"The Prince does not talk business with me," said Anne.
The Countess bit her pretty lip.
"I speak as a sister of a Protestant to a Protestant," she continued.
"Your ladies are of the Reformed Faith?" she added, glancing at Rénèe
and the other girl.
"Oh yes," said the Princess, roused at last, "but I assure Your Grace
that we shall give no trouble. I have promised to live Catholicly, and I
will keep my word."
"I did not mean to speak of that," returned the Countess gently, "only
to say that his princely Highness, your husband, has always been
considered too lenient to those of the Reformed Faith, has always Count
Louis with him, and continually others of his relations who are
Lutheran, and this has been used as a handle against him by the
Cardinalists, and will be even more so now that he has a Protestant
wife."
"And what is the upshot of this speech?" asked Anne, hardly pretending
to disguise her impatience.
Egmont's wife replied with the serene grandeur that was so infinitely
patient.
"To explain I must weary Your Highness with some business. Cardinal
Granvelle is already endeavouring to enforce the Inquisition in the
Netherlands—some hundreds have already suffered under his instigation.
Now the late Emperor, and the Queen Mary, the late Regent, did promise
this should not be, and to break those oaths is against the conscience
of many good Catholics and of most of the great lords, save only
Aerschot, Barlaymont, and Meghem, who fawn on the Cardinal; but
Granvelle wishes to enforce the edicts issued by the late Emperor
against heretics, and this the seigneurs consider a fatal course. So
there is a powerful party against this priest, and a letter has already
been writ to the King against him."
"I hear he is very upstart and of low birth," remarked Anne, who was
incapable of grasping the wide aspects of the question put before her.
"That is no matter," smiled Sabina; "he is favourite at Madrid. And _he_
rules the Netherlands, not Madame Parma."
"I heard the Seigneur Brederode speak of him the other day," said Anne,
with an affected laugh. "He made some fine jests on him! He said he wore
those fox-tails in his cap as a memory of the old fox, as he called
Granvelle, and frequented the masks in a Cardinal's gown to do His
Eminence a spite!"
"The Seigneur Brederode is reckless," returned the Countess gravely,
"and does us little good."
"Oh, I think he is amusing," said Anne perversely. "He told me some fine
stories of the Cardinal," and she laughed coarsely.
Sabina knit her brows.
"Beware of laughing at the Seigneur Brederode's tales," she said. "I
tell you his pastimes are dangerous."
Anne shrugged her shoulders as she replied—
"What has your princely Grace to say at the end of this?"
Egmont's wife flushed; she was not used to the rudeness she was so
patiently enduring from this ill-bred girl.
"I wish Your Highness to be one of us," she said, "to help us. To be
ductile, circumspect, to submit to the Regent—to give no confidences to
Aerschot's wife."
"She is my husband's kinswoman," interrupted Anne.
"She is of the Cardinal's party," flashed the Countess, "and they are
none of them to be trusted. I appeal to you," she added with dignity,
"to stand by us, who are standing by those of your faith. I tell you,
King Philip is only waiting for the decision of the Council at Trent to
force all his subjects into conformity with the ancient faith—yea, even
at the price of depopulating the Netherlands. I tell you no liberty, no
charter, no privilege will be safe, nay, not 'the joyous entry' itself,
and we must all turn into persecutors—scourgers in Granvelle's hand—or
be ruined."
Anne was now a little frightened; she dimly wondered what her own
position would be if all these fearful edicts against heretics were
enforced.
"What can I do?" she asked foolishly.
"Bear yourself discreetly—flatter the Regent, eschew the Cardinalists—do
not encourage Seigneur Brederode."
"I am sure no one takes any notice of what I do," returned Anne. In her
heart she was sorry she was not an orthodox Catholic; the sufferings of
fellow-heretics did not move her in the least, but she was alarmed at
the thought of being involved in any of their misfortunes.
"The actions of the daughter of the Prince who forced the Peace of
Passau from the late Cæsar must always be important."
Anne was flattered at this; she was always inordinately proud of her
famous father, while not sympathizing in the least with the principles
or the actions that had made him glorious.
"I will do what I can in the matters you tell me of," she said, "but it
was never my husband's wish that I should be troubled with grave
business of any kind."
Sabina took this ungracious concession as the utmost she was likely to
get; she rose, feeling that the whole interview had been rather useless.
Anne rose too, and as she stood, the bright cruel light of the window
over her, the other woman noted afresh how crooked she was, how sickly,
how plain, and was sorry.
And over Anne's shoulder she glanced into the gardens which showed
through the open casement, and saw the Prince playing tennis in the
sunlit court; his gay spirits, his splendid health, his pleasant
handsomeness formed a bitter contrast with his wife. The Countess, with
the generosity of the woman who has everything, felt sorry indeed for
this woman who had nothing but a position she could not hold, and a
husband she could not please.
The ladies parted, and Anne called for wine and sugar, mixed herself a
sweet drink, and presently fell into a flushed sleep in the window-seat.
She was still asleep when the Prince came up from his game.
He looked at her in silence, rather sternly, rejected Rénèe's offer to
wake her, and went away.
The waiting-woman kept her distasteful vigil during the rest of the long
sunny afternoon. The little German girl crept away; the sounds of the
palace came dimly through the shut doors, without the pigeons flew to
and fro with a sharp flap of wings, and Rénèe sat motionless, with
locked hands and compressed lips, her mind and soul in the struggle
between Granvelle who stood for the tyranny of Philip and the power of
Rome, and the great nobles who stood for the liberty of the Netherlands
and the protection of the wretched heretics.