descended upon the Netherlands. It was now the hand of God which smote
the unhappy country, already so tortured by the cruelty of war. An
inundation, more tremendous than any which had yet been recorded in those
annals so prolific in such catastrophes, now swept the whole coast from
Flanders to Friesland. Not the memorable deluge of the thirteenth
century, out of which the Zuyder Zee was born; not that in which the
waters of the Dollart had closed for ever over the villages and churches
of Groningen; not one of those perpetually recurring floods by which the
inhabitants of the Netherlands, year after year, were recalled to an
anxious remembrance of the watery chaos out of which their fatherland had
been created, and into which it was in daily danger of resolving itself
again, had excited so much terror and caused so much destruction. A
continued and violent gale from the north-west had long been sweeping the
Atlantic waters into the North Sea, and had now piled them upon the
fragile coasts of the provinces. The dykes, tasked beyond their
strength, burst in every direction. The cities of Flanders, to a
considerable distance inland, were suddenly invaded by the waters of the
ocean. The whole narrow peninsula of North Holland was in imminent
danger of being swept away for ever. Between Amsterdam and Meyden, the
great Diemer dyke was broken through in twelve places. The Hand-bos, a
bulwark formed of oaken piles, fastened with metal clamps, moored with
iron anchors, and secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces
like packthread. The "Sleeper," a dyke thus called, because it was
usually left in repose by the elements, except in great emergencies,
alone held firm, and prevented the consummation of the catastrophe.
Still the ocean poured in upon the land with terrible fury. Dort,
Rotterdam, and many other cities were, for a time, almost submerged.
Along the coast, fishing vessels, and even ships of larger size, were
floated up into the country, where they entangled themselves in groves
and orchards, or beat to pieces the roofs and walls of houses. The
destruction of life and of property was enormous throughout the maritime
provinces, but in Friesland the desolation was complete. There nearly
all the dykes and sluices were dashed to fragments; the country, far and-
wide, converted into an angry sea. The steeples and towers of inland
cities became islands of the ocean. Thousands of human beings were swept
out of existence in a few hours. Whole districts of territory, with all
their villages, farms, and churches, were rent from their places, borne
along by the force of the waves, sometimes to be lodged in another part
of the country, sometimes to be entirely engulfed. Multitudes of men,
women, children, of horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were
struggling in the waves in every direction. Every boat, and every
article which could serve as a boat, were eagerly seized upon. Every
house was inundated; even the grave-yards gave up their dead. The living
infant in his cradle, and the long-buried corpse in his coffin, floated
side by side. The ancient flood seemed about to be renewed. Everywhere,
upon the top of trees, upon the steeples of churches, human beings were
clustered, praying to God for mercy, and to their fellow-men for
assistance. As the storm at last was subsiding, boats began to ply in
every direction, saving those who were still struggling in the water,
picking fugitives from roofs and tree-tops, and collecting the bodies of
those already drowned. Colonel Robles, Seigneur de Billy, formerly much
hated for his Spanish or Portuguese blood, made himself very active in
this humane work. By his exertions, and those of the troops belonging to
Groningen, many lives were rescued, and gratitude replaced the ancient
animosity. It was estimated that at least twenty thousand persons were
destroyed in the province of Friesland alone. Throughout the
Netherlands, one hundred thousand persons perished. The damage alone
to property, the number of animals engulfed in the sea, were almost
incalculable.
These events took place on the 1st and 2nd November, 1570. The former
happened to be the day of All Saints, and the Spaniards maintained loudly
that the vengeance of Heaven had descended upon the abode of heretics.
The Netherlanders looked upon the catastrophe as ominous of still
more terrible misfortunes in store for them. They seemed doomed to
destruction by God and man. An overwhelming tyranny had long been
chafing against their constitutional bulwarks, only to sweep over them at
last; and now the resistless ocean, impatient of man's feeble barriers,
had at last risen to reclaim his prey. Nature, as if disposed to put to
the blush the feeble cruelty of man, had thus wrought more havoc in a few
hours, than bigotry, however active, could effect in many years.
Nearly at the close of this year (1570) an incident occurred,
illustrating the ferocious courage so often engendered in civil
contests. On the western verge of the Isle of Bommel, stood the
castle of Lowestein. The island is not in the sea. It is the narrow
but important territory which is enclosed between the Meuse and the Waal.
The castle, placed in a slender hook, at the junction of the two rivers,
commanded the two cities of Gorcum and Dorcum, and the whole navigation
of the waters. One evening, towards the end of December, four monks,
wearing the cowls and robes of Mendicant Grey Friars, demanded
hospitality at the castle gate. They were at once ushered into the
presence of the commandant, a brother of President Tisnacq. He was
standing by the fire, conversing with his wife. The foremost monk
approaching him, asked whether the castle held for the Duke of Alva
or the Prince of Orange. The castellian replied that he recognized no
prince save Philip, King of Spain. Thereupon the monk, who was no other
than Herman de Ruyter, a drover by trade, and a warm partisan of Orange,
plucked a pistol from beneath his robe, and shot the commandant through
the head. The others, taking advantage of the sudden panic, overcame all
the resistance offered by the feeble garrison, and made themselves
masters of the place. In the course of the next day they introduced into
the castle four or five and twenty men, with which force they diligently
set themselves to fortify the place, and secure themselves in its
possession. A larger reinforcement which they had reckoned upon, was
detained by the floods and frosts, which, for the moment, had made the
roads and fivers alike impracticable.
Don Roderigo de Toledo, governor of Bois le Duc, immediately despatched
a certain Captain Perea, at the head of two hundred soldiers, who were
joined on the way by a miscellaneous force of volunteers, to recover the
fortress as soon as possible. The castle, bathed on its outward walls by
the Waal and Meuse, and having two redoubts, defended by a double
interior foss, would have been difficult to take by assaults had the
number of the besieged been at all adequate to its defence. As matters
stood, however, the Spaniards, by battering a breach in the wall with
their cannon on the first day, and then escalading the inner works with
remarkable gallantry upon the second, found themselves masters of the
place within eight and forty hours of their first appearance before its
gates. Most of the defenders were either slain or captured alive. De
Ruyter alone had betaken himself to an inner hall of the castle, where he
stood at bay upon the threshold. Many Spaniards, one after another, as
they attempted to kill or to secure him, fell before his sword, which he
wielded with the strength of a giant. At last, overpowered by numbers,
and weakened by the loss of blood, he retreated slowly into the hall,
followed by many of his antagonists. Here, by an unexpected movement,
he applied a match to a train of powder, which he had previously laid
along the floor of the apartment. The explosion was instantaneous. The
tower, where the contest was taking place, sprang into the air, and De
Ruyter with his enemies shared a common doom. A part of the mangled
remains of this heroic but ferocious patriot were afterwards dug from the
ruins of the tower, and with impotent malice nailed upon the gallows at
Bois le Duc. Of his surviving companions, some were beheaded, some were
broken on the wheel, some were hung and quartered--all were executed.
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