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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 17.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
By John Lothrop Motley
1855
1569-70 [CHAPTER V.]
Quarrel between Alva and Queen Elizabeth of England--Spanish funds
seized by the English government--Non-intercourse between England
and the Netherlands--Stringent measures against heresy--Continued
persecution--Individual cases--Present of hat and sword to Alva from
the Pope--Determination of the Governor--general to establish a
system of arbitrary taxation in the provinces--Assembly of estates
at Brussels--Alva's decrees laid before them--The hundredth, tenth,
and fifth pence--Opposition of Viglius to the project--Estates of
various provinces give a reluctant consent--Determined resistance of
Utrecht--The city and province cited before the Blood Council--
Sentence of confiscation and disfranchisement against both--Appeal
to the King--Difficulty of collecting the new tax--Commutation for
two years--Projects for a pardon-general--Growing disfavour of the
Duke--His desire to resign his post--Secret hostility between the
Governor and Viglius--Altered sentiments of the President--Opinions
expressed by Granvelle--The pardon pompously proclaimed by the Duke
at Antwerp--Character of the amnesty--Dissatisfaction of the people
with the act--Complaints of Alva to the King--Fortunes and fate of
Baron Montigny in Spain--His confinement at Segovia--His attempt to
escape--Its failure--His mock trial--His wife's appeal to Philip--
His condemnation--His secret assassination determined upon--Its
details, as carefully prescribed and superintended by the King--
Terrible inundation throughout the Netherlands--Immense destruction
of life and property in Friesland--Lowestein Castle taken by De
Ruyter, by stratagem--Recapture of the place by the Spaniards--
Desperate resistance and death of De Ruyter.
It was very soon after the Duke's return to Brussels that a quarrel
between himself and the Queen of England took place. It happened thus.
Certain vessels, bearing roving commissions from the Prince of Conde, had
chased into the ports of England some merchantmen coming from Spain with
supplies in specie for the Spanish army in the Netherlands. The trading
ships remained in harbor, not daring to leave for their destination,
while the privateers remained in a neighbouring port ready to pounce upon
them should they put to sea. The commanders of the merchant fleet
complained to the Spanish ambassador in London. The envoy laid the case
before the Queen. The Queen promised redress, and, almost as soon as the
promise had been made, seized upon all the specie in the vessels,
amounting to about eight hundred thousand dollars--[1885 exchange rate]--
and appropriated the whole to her own benefit. The pretext for this
proceeding was twofold. In the first place, she assured the ambassador
that she had taken the money into her possession in order that it might
be kept safe for her royal brother of Spain. In the second place, she
affirmed that the money did not belong to the Spanish government at all,
but that it was the property of certain Genoese merchants, from whom, as
she had a right to do, she had borrowed it for a short period. Both
these positions could hardly be correct, but either furnished an
excellent reason for appropriating the funds to her own use.
The Duke of Alva being very much in want of money, was furious when
informed of the circumstance. He immediately despatched Councillor
d'Assonleville with other commissioners on a special embassy to the Queen
of England. His envoys were refused an audience, and the Duke was taxed
with presumption in venturing, as if be had been a sovereign, to send a
legation to a crowned head. No satisfaction was given to Alva, but a
secret commissioner was despatched to Spain to discuss the subject there.
The wrath of Alva was not appeased by this contemptuous treatment.
Chagrined at the loss of his funds, and stung to the quick by a rebuke
which his arrogance had merited, he resorted to a high-handed measure.
He issued a proclamation commanding the personal arrest of every
Englishman within the territory of the Netherlands, and the seizure of
every article of property which could be found belonging to individuals
of that nation. The Queen retaliated by measures of the same severity
against Netherlanders in England. The Duke followed up his blow by a
proclamation (of March 31st, 1569), in which the grievance was detailed,
and strict non-intercourse with England enjoined. While the Queen and
the Viceroy were thus exchanging blows, the real sufferers were, of
course, the unfortunate Netherlanders. Between the upper and nether
millstones of Elizabeth's rapacity and Alva's arrogance, the poor remains
of Flemish prosperity were well nigh crushed out of existence.
Proclamations and commissions followed hard upon each other, but it was
not till April 1573, that the matter was definitely arranged. Before
that day arrived, the commerce of the Netherlands had suffered, at the
lowest computation, a dead loss of two million florins, not a stiver of
which was ever reimbursed to the sufferers by the Spanish government.
Meantime, neither in the complacency of his triumph over William of
Orange, nor in the torrent of his wrath against the English Queen, did
the Duke for a moment lose sight of the chief end of his existence in the
Netherlands. The gibbet and the stake were loaded with their daily
victims. The records of the period are foul with the perpetually renewed
barbarities exercised against the new religion. To the magistrates of
the different cities were issued fresh instructions, by which all
municipal officers were to be guided in the discharge of their great
duty. They were especially enjoined by the Duke to take heed that
Catholic midwives, and none other, should be provided for every parish,
duly sworn to give notice within twenty-four hours of every birth which
occurred, in order that the curate might instantly proceed to baptism.
They were also ordered to appoint certain spies who should keep watch at
every administration of the sacraments, whether public or private,
whether at the altar or at death-beds, and who should report for
exemplary punishment (that is to say, death by fire) all persons who made
derisive or irreverential gestures, or who did not pay suitable honor to
the said Sacraments. Furthermore, in order that not even death itself
should cheat the tyrant of his prey, the same spies were to keep watch at
the couch of the dying, and to give immediate notice to government of all
persons who should dare to depart this life without previously receiving
extreme unction and the holy wafer. The estates of such culprits, it was
ordained, should be confiscated, and their bodies dragged to the public
place of execution.
An affecting case occurred in the north of Holland, early in this year,
which, for its peculiarity, deserves brief mention. A poor Anabaptist,
guilty of no crime but his fellowship with a persecuted sect, had been
condemned to death. He had made his escape, closely pursued by an
officer of justice, across a frozen lake. It was late in the winter,
and the ice had become unsound. It trembled and cracked beneath his
footsteps, but he reached the shore in safety. The officer was not so
fortunate. The ice gave way beneath him, and he sank into the lake,
uttering a cry for succor. There were none to hear him, except the
fugitive whom he had been hunting. Dirk Willemzoon, for so was the
Anabaptist called, instinctively obeying the dictates of a generous
nature, returned, crossed the quaking and dangerous ice, at the peril of
his life, extended his hand to his enemy, and saved him from certain
death. Unfortunately for human nature, it cannot be added that the
generosity, of, the action was met by a corresponding heroism. The
officer was desirous, it is true, of avoiding the responsibility of
sacrificing the preserver of his life, but the burgomaster of Asperen
sternly reminded him to remember his oath. He accordingly arrested the
fugitive, who, on the 16th of May following, was burned to death under
the most lingering tortures.
Almost at the same time four clergymen, the eldest seventy years of age,
were executed at the Hague, after an imprisonment of three years. All
were of blameless lives, having committed no crime save that of having
favored the Reformation. As they were men of some local eminence, it
was determined that they should be executed with solemnity. They were
condemned to the flames, and as they were of the ecclesiastical
profession, it was necessary before execution that their personal
sanctity should be removed. Accordingly, on the 27th May, attired in the
gorgeous robes of high mass, they were brought before the Bishop of Bois
le Duc. The prelate; with a pair of scissors, cut a lock of hair from
each of their heads. He then scraped their crowns and the tips of their
fingers with a little silver knife very gently, and without inflicting
the least injury. The mystic oil of consecration was thus supposed to be
sufficiently removed. The prelate then proceeded to disrobe the victims,
saying to each one as he did so, "Eximo tibi vestem justitiae, quem
volens abjecisti;" to which the oldest pastor, Arent Dirkzoon, stoutly
replied, "imo vestem injustitiae." The bishop having thus completed the
solemn farce of desecration, delivered the prisoners to the Blood
Council, begging that they might be handled very gently. Three days
afterwards they were all executed at the stake, having, however, received
the indulgence of being strangled before being thrown into the flames.
It was precisely at this moment, while the agents of the Duke's
government were thus zealously enforcing his decrees, that a special
messenger arrived from the Pope, bringing as a present to Alva a jewelled
hat and sword. It was a gift rarely conferred by the Church, and never
save upon the highest dignitaries, or upon those who had merited her most
signal rewards by the most shining exploits in her defence. The Duke was
requested, in the autograph letter from his Holiness which accompanied
the presents, "to remember, when he put the hat upon his head, that he
was guarded with it as with a helmet of righteousness, and with the
shield of God's help, indicating the heavenly crown which was ready for
all princes who support the Holy Church and the Roman Catholic faith."
The motto on the sword ran as follows, "Accipe sanctum gladium, menus a
Deo in quo dejicies adversarios populi mei Israel."
The Viceroy of Philip, thus stimulated to persevere in his master's
precepts by the Vicegerent of Christ, was not likely to swerve from his
path, nor to flinch from his work. It was beyond the power of man's
ingenuity to add any fresh features of horror to the religious
persecution under which the provinces were groaning, but a new attack
could be made upon the poor remains of their wealth.
The Duke had been dissatisfied with the results of his financial
arrangements. The confiscation of banished and murdered heretics had not
proved the inexhaustible mine he had boasted. The stream of gold which
was to flow perennially into the Spanish coffers, soon ceased to flow at
all. This was inevitable. Confiscations must, of necessity, offer but
a precarious supply to any treasury. It was only the frenzy of an Alva
which could imagine it possible to derive a permanent revenue from such a
source. It was, however, not to be expected that this man, whose tyranny
amounted to insanity, could comprehend the intimate connection between
the interests of a people and those of its rulers, and he was determined
to exhibit; by still more fierce and ludicrous experiments, how easily a
great soldier may become a very paltry financier.
He had already informed his royal master that, after a very short time,
remittances would no longer be necessary from Spain to support the
expenses of the array and government in the Netherlands. He promised,
on the contrary, that at least two millions yearly should be furnished by
the provinces, over and above the cost of their administration, to enrich
the treasury at home. Another Peru had already been discovered by his
ingenuity, and one which was not dependent for its golden fertility on
the continuance of that heresy which it was his mission to extirpate.
His boast had been much ridiculed in Madrid, where he had more enemies
than friends, and he was consequently the more eager to convert it into
reality. Nettled by the laughter with which all his schemes of political
economy had been received at home, he was determined to show that his
creative statesmanship was no less worthy of homage than his indisputable
genius for destruction.
His scheme was nothing more than the substitution of an arbitrary system
of taxation by the Crown, for the legal and constitutional right of the
provinces to tax themselves. It was not a very original thought, but it
was certainly a bold one. For although a country so prostrate might
suffer the imposition of any fresh amount of tyranny, yet it was doubtful
whether she had sufficient strength remaining to bear the weight after it
had been imposed. It was certain, moreover, that the new system would
create a more general outcry than any which had been elicited even by the
religious persecution. There were many inhabitants who were earnest and
sincere Catholics, and who therefore considered themselves safe from the
hangman's hands, while there were none who could hope to escape the gripe
of the new tax-gatherers. Yet the Governor was not the man to be daunted
by the probable unpopularity of the measure. Courage he possessed in
more than mortal proportion. He seemed to have set himself to the task
of ascertaining the exact capacity of the country for wretchedness. He
was resolved accurately to gauge its width and its depth; to know how
much of physical and moral misery might be accumulated within its limits,
before it should be full to overflowing. Every man, woman, and child in
the country had been solemnly condemned to death; and arbitrary
executions, in pursuance of that sentence, had been daily taking place.
Millions of property had been confiscated; while the most fortunate and
industrious, as well as the bravest of the Netherlanders, were wandering
penniless in distant lands. Still the blows, however recklessly
distributed, had not struck every head. The inhabitants had been
decimated, not annihilated, and the productive energy of the country,
which for centuries had possessed so much vitality, was even yet not
totally extinct. In the wreck of their social happiness, in the utter
overthrow of their political freedom, they had still preserved the
shadow, at least, of one great bulwark against despotism. The king could
impose no tax.
The "Joyeuse Entree" of Brabant, as well as the constitutions of
Flanders, Holland, Utrecht, and all the other provinces, expressly
prescribed the manner in which the requisite funds for government should
be raised. The sovereign or his stadholder was to appear before the
estates in person, and make his request for money. It was for the
estates, after consultation with their constituents, to decide whether or
not this petition (Bede) should be granted, and should a single branch
decline compliance, the monarch was to wait with patience for a more
favorable moment. Such had been the regular practice in the Netherlands,
nor had the reigning houses often had occasion to accuse the estates of
parsimony. It was, however, not wonderful that the Duke of Alva should
be impatient at the continued existence of this provincial privilege.
A country of condemned criminals, a nation whose universal neck might
at any moment be laid upon the block without ceremony, seemed hardly fit
to hold the purse-strings, and to dispense alms to its monarch. The
Viceroy was impatient at this arrogant vestige of constitutional liberty.
Moreover, although he had taken from the Netherlanders nearly all the
attributes of freemen, he was unwilling that they should enjoy the
principal privilege of slaves, that of being fed and guarded at their
master's expense. He had therefore summoned a general assembly of the
provincial estates in Brussels, and on the 20th of March, 1569, had
caused the following decrees to be laid before them.
A tax of the hundredth penny, or one per cent., was laid upon all
property, real and personal, to be collected instantly. This impost,
however, was not perpetual, but only to be paid once, unless, of course,
it should suit the same arbitrary power by which it was assessed to
require it a second time.
A tax of the twentieth penny; or five per cent., was laid upon every
transfer of real estate. This imposition was perpetual.
Thirdly, a tag of the tenth penny, or ten per cent., was assessed upon
every article of merchandise or personal-property, to be paid as often as
it should be sold. This tax was likewise to be perpetual.
The consternation in the assembly when these enormous propositions were
heard, can be easily imagined. People may differ about religious dogmas.
In the most bigoted persecutions there will always be many who, from
conscientious although misguided motives, heartily espouse the cause of
the bigot. Moreover, although resistance to tyranny in matters of faith,
is always the most ardent of struggles, and is supported by the most
sublime principle in our nature, yet all men are not of the sterner stuff
of which martyrs are fashioned. In questions relating to the world
above; many may be seduced from their convictions by interest, or forced
into apostasy by violence. Human nature is often malleable or fusible,
where religious interests are concerned, but in affairs material and
financial opposition to tyranny is apt to be unanimous.
The interests of commerce and manufacture, when brought into conflict
with those of religion, had often proved victorious in the Netherlands.
This new measure, however--this arbitrary and most prodigious system of
taxation, struck home to every fireside. No individual, however adroit
or time-serving, could parry the blow by which all were crushed.
It was most unanswerably maintained in the assembly, that this tenth and
twentieth penny would utterly destroy the trade and the manufactures of
the country. The hundredth penny, or the one per cent. assessment on all
property throughout the land, although a severe subsidy, might be borne
with for once. To pay, however, a twentieth part of the full value of a
house to the government as often as the house was sold, was a most
intolerable imposition. A house might be sold twenty times in a year,
and in the course, therefore, of the year be confiscated in its whole
value. It amounted either to a prohibition of all transfers of real
estate, or to an eventual surrender of its price.
As to the tenth penny upon articles of merchandise, to be paid by the
vendor at every sale, the scheme was monstrous. All trade and
manufactures must, of necessity, expire, at the very first attempt to put
it in execution. The same article might be sold ten times in a week, and
might therefore pay one hundred per cent. weekly. An article, moreover,
was frequently compounded of ten, different articles, each of which might
pay one hundred per cent., and therefore the manufactured article, if ten
times transferred, one thousand per cent. weekly. Quick transfers and
unfettered movements being the nerves and muscles of commerce, it was
impossible for it long to survive the paralysis of such a tax. The
impost could never be collected, and would only produce an entire
prostration of industry. It could by no possibility enrich the
government.
The King could not derive wealth from the ruin of his subjects; yet to
establish such a system was the stern and absurd determination of the
Governor-general. The infantine simplicity of the effort seemed
incredible. The ignorance was as sublime as the tyranny. The most
lucid arguments and the most earnest remonstrances were all in vain.
Too opaque to be illumined by a flood of light, too hard to be melted
by a nation's tears, the Viceroy held calmly to his purpose. To the keen
and vivid representations of Viglius, who repeatedly exhibited all that
was oppressive and all that was impossible in the tax, he answered simply
that it was nothing more nor less than the Spanish "alcabala," and that
he derived 50,000 ducats yearly from its imposition in his own city of
Alva.
Viglius was upon this occasion in opposition to the Duke. It is but
justice to state that the learned jurisconsult manfully and repeatedly
confronted the wrath of his superior in many a furious discussion in
council upon the subject. He had never essayed to snatch one brand from
the burning out of the vast holocaust of religious persecution, but he
was roused at last by the threatened destruction of all the material
interests of the land. He confronted the tyrant with courage, sustained
perhaps by the knowledge that the proposed plan was not the King's,
but the Governor's. He knew that it was openly ridiculed in Madrid,
and that Philip, although he would probably never denounce it in terms,
was certainly not eager for its execution. The President enlarged upon
the difference which existed between the condition of a sparsely-peopled
country of herdsmen and laborers in Spain, and the densely-thronged
and bustling cities of the Netherlands. If the Duke collected 50,000
ducats yearly from the alcabala in Alva, he could only offer him his
congratulations, but could not help assuring him that the tax would prove
an impossibility in the provinces. To his argument, that the impost
would fall with severity not upon the highest nor the lowest classes of
society, neither upon the great nobility and clergy nor on the rustic
population, but on the merchants and manufacturers, it was answered by
the President that it was not desirable to rob Saint Peter's altar in
order to build one to Saint Paul. It might have been simpler to suggest
that the consumer would pay the tax, supposing it were ever paid at all,
but the axiom was not so familiar three centuries ago as now.
Meantime, the report of the deputies to the assembly on their return to
their constituents had created the most intense excitement and alarm.
Petition after petition, report after report, poured in upon the
government. There was a cry of despair, and almost of defiance, which
had not been elicited by former agonies. To induce, however, a more
favorable disposition on the part of the Duke, the hundredth penny, once
for all, was conceded by the estates. The tenth and twentieth
occasioned--severe and protracted struggles, until the various assemblies
of the patrimonial provinces, one after another, exhausted, frightened,
and hoping that no serious effort would be made to collect the tax,
consented, under certain restrictions, to its imposition.--The principal
conditions were a protest against the legality of the proceeding, and the
provision that the consent of no province should be valid until that of
all had been obtained. Holland, too, was induced to give in its
adhesion, although the city of Amsterdam long withheld its consent;
but the city and province of Utrecht were inexorable. They offered
a handsome sum in commutation, increasing the sum first proposed from
70,000 to 200,000 florins, but they resolutely refused to be saddled with
this permanent tax. Their stout resistance was destined to cost them
dear. In the course of a few months Alva, finding them still resolute in
their refusal, quartered the regiment of Lombardy upon them, and employed
other coercive measures to bring them to reason. The rude, insolent,
unpaid and therefore insubordinate soldiery were billeted in every house
in the city, so that the insults which the population were made to suffer
by the intrusion of these ruffians at their firesides would soon, it was
thought, compel the assent of the province to the tax. It was not so,
however. The city and the province remained stanch in their opposition.
Accordingly, at the close of the year (15th. December, 1569) the estates
were summoned to appear within fourteen days before the Blood Council.
At the appointed time the procureur-general was ready with an act of
accusation, accompanied, as was usually the case, with a simultaneous
sentence of condemnation. The indictment revived and recapitulated all
previous offences committed in the city and the province, particularly
during the troubles of 1566, and at the epoch of the treaty with Duchess
Margaret. The inhabitants and the magistrates, both in their individual
and public capacities, were condemned for heresy, rebellion, and
misprision. The city and province were accordingly pronounced guilty
of high treason, were deprived of all their charters, laws, privileges,
freedoms, and customs, and were declared to have forfeited all their
property, real and personal, together with all tolls, rents, excises, and
imposts, the whole being confiscated to the benefit of his Majesty.
The immediate execution of the sentence was, however, suspended, to allow
the estates opportunity to reply. An enormous mass of pleadings,
replies, replications, rejoinders, and apostilles was the result, which
few eyes were destined to read, and least of all those to whom they were
nominally addressed. They were of benefit to none save in the shape of
fees which they engendered to the gentlemen of the robe. It was six
months, however, before the case was closed. As there was no blood to
be shed, a summary process was not considered necessary. At last, on the
14th July, the voluminous pile of documents was placed before Vargas. It
was the first time he had laid eyes upon them, and they were, moreover,
written in a language of which he did not understand a word. Such,
however, was his capacity for affairs, that a glance only at the outside
of the case enabled him to form his decision. Within half an hour
afterwards, booted and spurred, he was saying mass in the church of Saint
Gudule, on his way to pronounce sentence at Antwerp. That judgment was
rendered the same day, and confirmed the preceding act of condemnation.
Vargas went to his task as cheerfully as if it had been murder. The act
of outlawry and beggary was fulminated against the city and province, and
a handsome amount of misery for others, and of plunder for himself, was
the result of his promptness. Many thousand citizens were ruined, many
millions of property confiscated.
Thus was Utrecht deprived of all its ancient liberties, as a punishment
for having dared to maintain them. The clergy, too, of the province,
having invoked the bull "in Coena Domini," by which clerical property was
declared exempt from taxation, had excited the wrath of the Duke. To
wield so slight a bulrush against the man who had just been girded with
the consecrated and jewelled sword of the Pope, was indeed but a feeble
attempt at defence. Alva treated the Coena Domini with contempt, but he
imprisoned the printer who had dared to-republish it at this juncture.
Finding, moreover, that it had been put in press by the orders of no less
a person than Secretary La Torre, he threw that officer also into prison,
besides suspending him from his functions for a year.
The estates of the province and the magistracy of the city appealed to
his Majesty from the decision of the Duke. The case did not directly
concern the interests of religion, for although the heretical troubles of
1566 furnished the nominal motives of the condemnation, the resistance to
the tenth and twentieth penny was the real crime for which they were
suffering. The King, therefore, although far from clement, was not
extremely rigorous. He refused the object of the appeal, but he did not
put the envoys to death by whom it was brought to Madrid. This would
have certainly been the case in matters strictly religious, or even had
the commissioners arrived two years before, but even Philip believed,
perhaps, that for the moment almost enough innocent blood had been shed.
At any rate he suffered the legates from Utrecht to return, not with
their petition, granted, but at least with their heads upon their
shoulders. Early in the following year, the provinces still remaining
under martial law, all the Utrecht charters were taken into the
possession of government, and deposited in the castle of Vredenberg.
It was not till after the departure of Alva, that they were restored;
according to royal command, by the new governor, Requesens.
By the middle of the year 1569, Alva wrote to the King, with great
cheerfulness of tone, announcing that the estates of the provinces had
all consented to the tax. He congratulated his Majesty upon the fact
that this income might thenceforth be enjoyed in perpetuity, and that it
would bring at least two millions yearly into his coffers, over and above
the expenses of government. The hundredth penny, as he calculated, would
amount to at least five millions.
He was, however, very premature in his triumph, for the estates were not
long in withdrawing a concession which had either been wrung from them by
violence or filched from them by misrepresentation. Taking the ground
that the assent of all had been stipulated before that of any one should
be esteemed valid, every province now refused to enforce or to permit the
collection of the tenth or the twentieth penny within their limits. Dire
were the threatenings and the wrath of the Viceroy, painfully protracted
the renewed negotiations with the estates. At last, a compromise was
effected, and the final struggle postponed. Late in the summer it was
agreed that the provinces should pay two millions yearly for the two
following years, the term to expire in the month of August, 1571. Till
that period, therefore, there was comparative repose upon the subject.
The question of a general pardon had been agitated for more than a year,
both in Brussels and Madrid. Viglius, who knew his countrymen better
than the Viceroy knew them, had written frequently to his friend Hopper,
on the propriety of at once proclaiming an amnesty. There had also been
many conferences between himself and the Duke of Alva, and he had
furnished more than one draught for the proposed measure. The President
knew full well that the point had been reached beyond which the force of
tyranny could go no further. All additional pressure, he felt sure,
could only produce reaction, the effect of which might be to drive the
Spaniards from the Netherlands. There might then be another game to
play. The heads of those who had so assiduously served the government
throughout its terrible career might, in their turn, be brought to the
block, and their estates be made to enrich the Treasury. Moreover, there
were symptoms that Alva's favor was on the wane. The King had not been
remarkably struck with the merits of the new financial measures, and had
expressed much, anxiety lest the trade of the country should suffer.
The Duke was known to be desirous of his recal. His health was broken,
he felt that he was bitterly detested throughout the country, and he was
certain that his enemies at Madrid were fast undermining his credit. He
seemed also to have a dim suspicion that his mission was accomplished in
the Netherlands; that as much blood had been shed at present as the land
could easily absorb. He wrote urgently and even piteously to Philip, on
the subject of his return. "Were your Majesty only pleased to take me
from this country," he said, "I should esteem it as great a favor as if
your Majesty had given me life." He swore "by the soul of the Duchess,"
that he "would rather be cut into little pieces" than retire from his
post were his presence necessary, but he expressed the opinion that
through his exertions affairs had been placed in such train that they
were sure to roll on smoothly to the end of time. "At present, and for
the future," he wrote, "your Majesty is and will be more strictly obeyed
than any of your predecessors;" adding, with insane self-complacency,
"and all this has been accomplished without violence." He also assured
his Majesty as to the prosperous condition of financial affairs. His tax
was to work wonders. He had conversed with capitalists who had offered
him four millions yearly for the tenth penny, but he had refused, because
he estimated the product at a much higher figure. The hundredth penny
could not be rated lower than five millions. It was obvious, therefore,
that instead of remitting funds to the provinces, his Majesty would,
for the future, derive from them a steady and enormous income. Moreover,
he assured the King that there was at present no one to inspire anxiety
from within or without. The only great noble of note in the country was
the Duke of Aerschot, who was devoted to his Majesty, and who, moreover,
"amounted to very little," as the King well knew. As for the Prince of
Orange, he would have business enough in keeping out of the clutches of
his creditors. They had nothing to fear from Germany. England would do
nothing as long as Germany was quiet; and France was sunk too low to be
feared at all.
Such being the sentiments of the Duke, the King was already considering
the propriety of appointing his successor. All this was known to the
President. He felt instinctively that more clemency was to be expected
from that successor, whoever he might be; and he was satisfied,
therefore, that he would at least not be injuring his own position by
inclining at this late hour to the side of mercy. His opposition to the
tenth and twentieth penny had already established a breach between
himself and the Viceroy, but he felt secretly comforted by the reflection
that the King was probably on the same side with himself. Alva still
spoke of him, to be sure, both in public and private, with approbation;
taking occasion to commend him frequently, in his private letters,
as a servant upright and zealous, as a living register, without whose
universal knowledge of things and persons he should hardly know which
way to turn. The President, however, was growing weary of his own
sycophancy. He begged his friend Joachim to take his part, if his
Excellency should write unfavorably about his conduct to the King. He
seemed to have changed his views of the man concerning whose "prudence
and gentleness" he could once turn so many fine periods. He even
expressed some anxiety lest doubts should begin to be entertained
as to the perfect clemency of the King's character. "Here is so much
confiscation and bloodshed going on," said he, "that some taint of
cruelty or avarice may chance to bespatter the robe of his Majesty."
He also confessed that he had occasionally read in history of greater
benignity than was now exercised against the poor Netherlanders. Had the
learned Frisian arrived at these humane conclusions at a somewhat earlier
day, it might perhaps have been better for himself and for his
fatherland. Had he served his country as faithfully as he had served
Time, and Philip, and Alva, his lands would not have been so broad, nor
his dignities so numerous, but he would not have been obliged, in his old
age; to exclaim, with whimsical petulance, that "the faithful servant is
always a perpetual ass."
It was now certain that an act of amnesty was in contemplation by the
King. Viglius had furnished several plans, which, however, had been
so much disfigured by the numerous exceptions suggested by Alva, that
the President could scarce recognize his work. Granvelle, too, had
frequently urged the pardon on the attention of Philip. The Cardinal
was too astute not to perceive that the time had arrived when a continued
severity could only defeat its own work. He felt that the country could
not be rendered more abject, the spirit of patriotism more apparently
extinct. A show of clemency, which would now cost nothing, and would
mean nothing, might be more effective than this profuse and wanton
bloodshed.
He saw plainly that the brutality of Alva had already overshot the mark.
Too politic, however, openly to reprove so powerful a functionary, he
continued to speak of him and of his administration to Philip in terms
of exalted eulogy. He was a "sage seignior," a prudent governor, one on
whom his Majesty could entirely repose. He was a man of long experience,
trained all his life to affairs, and perfectly capable of giving a good
account of everything to which he turned his hands. He admitted,
however, to other correspondents, that the administration of the sage
seignior, on whom his Majesty could so implicitly rely, had at last
"brought that provinces into a deplorable condition."
Four different forms of pardon had been sent from Madrid, toward the
close of 1569. From these four the Duke was to select one, and carefully
to destroy the other three. It was not, however, till July of the
following year that the choice was made, and the Viceroy in readiness to
announce the pardon. On the 14th of that month a great festival was held
at Antwerp, for the purpose of solemnly proclaiming the long expected
amnesty. In the morning, the Duke, accompanied by a brilliant staff, and
by a long procession of clergy in their gorgeous robes, paraded through
the streets of the commercial capital, to offer up prayers and hear mass
in the cathedral. The Bishop of Arras then began a sermon upon the
blessings of mercy, with a running commentary upon the royal clemency
about to be exhibited. In the very outset, however, of his discourse,
he was seized with convulsions, which required his removal from the
pulpit; an incident which was not considered of felicitous augury. In
the afternoon, the Duke with his suite appeared upon the square in front
of the Town House. Here a large scaffolding or theatre had been erected.
The platform and the steps which led to it were covered with scarlet
cloth. A throne, covered with cloth of gold, was arranged in the most
elevated position for the Duke. On the steps immediately below him were
placed two of the most beautiful women in Antwerp, clad in allegorical
garments to represent righteousness and peace. The staircase and
platform were lined with officers, the square was beset with troops, and
filled to its utmost verge with an expectant crowd of citizens. Toward
the close of a summer's afternoon, the Duke wearing the famous hat and
sword of the Pope, took his seat on the throne with all the airs of
royalty. After a few preliminary ceremonies, a civil functionary,
standing between two heralds; then recited the long-expected act of
grace. His reading, however, was so indistinct, that few save the
soldiers in the immediate vicinity of the platform could hear a word of
the document.
This effect was, perhaps, intentional. Certainly but little enthusiasm
could be expected from the crowd, had the text of the amnesty been heard.
It consisted of three parts--a recitation of the wrongs committed, a
statement of the terms of pardon, and a long list of exceptions. All the
sins of omission and commission, the heresy, the public preaching, the
image-breaking, the Compromise, the confederacy, the rebellion, were
painted in lively colors. Pardon, however, was offered to all those who
had not rendered themselves liable to positive impeachment, in case they
should make their peace with the Church before the expiration of two
months, and by confession and repentance obtain their absolution.
The exceptions, however, occupied the greater part of the document.
When the general act of condemnation had been fulminated by which all
Netherlanders were sentenced to death, the exceptions had been very few,
and all the individuals mentioned by name. In the act of pardon, the
exceptions comprehended so many classes of inhabitants, that it was
impossible for any individual to escape a place in, some one of the
categories, whenever it should please the government to take his life.
Expressly excluded from the benefit of the act were all ministers,
teachers, dogmatizers, and all who had favored and harbored such
dogmatizers and preachers; all those in the least degree implicated in
the image-breaking; all who had ever been individually suspected of
heresy or schism; all who had ever signed or favored the Compromise or
the Petition to the Regent; all those who had taken up arms, contributed
money, distributed tracts; all those in any manner chargeable with
misprision, or who had failed to denounce those guilty of heresy. All
persons, however, who were included in any of these classes of exceptions
might report themselves within six months, when, upon confession of their
crime, they might hope for a favorable consideration of their case.
Such, in brief, and stripped of its verbiage, was this amnesty for which
the Netherlands had so long been hoping. By its provisions, not a man or
woman was pardoned who had ever committed a fault. The innocent alone
were forgiven. Even they were not sure of mercy, unless they should
obtain full absolution from the Pope. More certainly than ever would the
accustomed rigor be dealt to all who had committed any of those positive
acts for which so many had already lost their heads. The clause by which
a possibility of pardon was hinted to such criminals, provided they would
confess and surrender, was justly regarded as a trap. No one was
deceived by it. No man, after the experience of the last three years;
would voluntarily thrust his head into the lion's mouth, in order to fix
it more firmly upon his shoulders. No man who had effected his escape
was likely to play informer against himself, in hope of obtaining a
pardon from which all but the most sincere and zealous Catholics were in
reality excepted.
The murmur and discontent were universal, therefore, as soon as the terms
of the act became known. Alva wrote to the King, to be sure, "that the
people were entirely satisfied, save only the demagogues, who could
tolerate no single exception from the amnesty; but he could neither
deceive his sovereign nor himself by such statements." Certainly, Philip
was totally disappointed in the effect which he had anticipated from the
measure. He had thought "it would stop the mouths of many people."
On the contrary, every mouth in the Netherlands became vociferous to
denounce the hypocrisy by which a new act of condemnation had been
promulgated under the name of a pardon. Viglius, who had drawn up an
instrument of much ampler clemency, was far from satisfied with the
measure which had been adopted. "Certainly," he wrote to his confidant,
"a more benignant measure was to be expected from so merciful a Prince.
After four years have past, to reserve for punishment and for execution
all those who during the tumult did not, through weakness of mind, render
as much service to government as brave men might have offered, is
altogether unexampled."
Alva could not long affect to believe in the people's satisfaction. He
soon wrote to the King, acknowledging that the impression produced by the
pardon was far from favorable. He attributed much evil effect to the
severe censure which was openly pronounced upon the act by members of the
government, both in Spain and the Netherlands. He complained that Hopper
had written to Viglius, that "the most severe of the four forms of pardon
transmitted had been selected;" the fact being, that the most lenient one
had been adopted. If this were so, whose imagination is powerful enough
to portray the three which had been burned, and which, although more
severe than the fierce document promulgated, were still entitled acts of
pardon? The Duke spoke bitterly of the manner in which influential
persons in Madrid had openly abominated the cruel form of amnesty which
had been decreed. His authority in the Netherlands was already
sufficiently weakened, he said, and such censure upon his actions from
head-quarters did not tend to improve it. "In truth," he added, almost
pathetically, "it is not wonderful that the whole nation should be ill-
disposed towards me, for I certainly have done nothing to make them love
me. At the same time, such language transmitted from Madrid does not
increase their tenderness."
In short, viewed as a measure by which government, without disarming
itself of its terrible powers, was to pacify the popular mind, the
amnesty was a failure. Viewed as a net, by which fresh victims should be
enticed to entangle themselves, who had already made their way into the
distant atmosphere of liberty, it was equally unsuccessful. A few very
obscure individuals made their appearance to claim the benefit of the
act, before the six months had expired. With these it was thought
expedient to deal gently; but no one was deceived by such clemency.
As the common people expressed themselves, the net was not spread on
that occasion for finches.
The wits of the Netherlands, seeking relief from their wretched condition
in a still more wretched quibble, transposed two letters of the word
Pardona, and re-baptized the new measure Pandora. The conceit was not
without meaning. The amnesty, descending from supernal regions, had been
ushered into the presence of mortals as a messenger laden with heavenly
gifts. The casket, when opened, had diffused curses instead of
blessings. There, however, the classical analogy ended, for it
would have puzzled all the pedants of Louvain to discover Hope
lurking, under any disguise, within the clauses of the pardon.
Very soon after the promulgation of this celebrated act, the new bride
of Philip, Anne of Austria, passed through the Netherlands, on her way
to Madrid. During her brief stay in Brussels, she granted an interview
to the Dowager Countess of Horn. That unhappy lady, having seen her
eldest son, the head of her illustrious house, so recently perish on the
scaffold, wished to make a last effort in behalf of the remaining one,
then closely confined in the prison of Segovia. The Archduchess solemnly
promised that his release should be the first boon which she would
request of her royal bridegroom, and the bereaved countess retired almost
with a hope.