History United Netherlands, v41, 1584

CHAPTER V., Part 3.

Sainte Aldegonde discouraged--His Critical Position--His

Negotiations with the Enemy--Correspondence with Richardot--

Commotion in the City--Interview of Marnix with Parma--Suspicious

Conduct of Marnix--Deputation to the Prince--Oration of Marnix--

Private Views of Parma--Capitulation of Antwerp--Mistakes of Marnix

--Philip on the Religious Question--Triumphal Entrance of Alexander--

Rebuilding of the Citadel--Gratification of Philip--Note on Sainte

Aldegonde

Sainte Aldegonde's position had become a painful one. The net had been

drawn closely about the city. The bridge seemed impregnable, the great

Kowenstyn was irrecoverably in the hands of the enemy, and now all the

lesser forts in the immediate vicinity of Antwerp-Borght, Hoboken,

Cantecroix, Stralen, Berghen, and the rest--had likewise fallen into his

grasp. An account of grain, taken on the 1st of June, gave an average of

a pound a-head for a month long, or half a pound for two months. This

was not the famine-point, according to the standard which had once been

established in Leyden; but the courage of the burghers had been rapidly

oozing away, under the pressure of their recent disappointments. It

seemed obvious to the burgomaster, that the time for yielding had

arrived.

"I had maintained the city," he said, "for a long period, without any

excessive tumult or great effusion of blood--a city where there was such

a multitude of inhabitants, mostly merchants or artisans deprived of all

their traffic, stripped of their manufactures, destitute of all

commodities and means of living. I had done this in the midst of a great

diversity of humours and opinions, a vast popular license, a confused

anarchy, among a great number of commanders, most of them inexperienced

in war; with very little authority of my own, with slender forces of

ships, soldiers, and sailors; with alight appearance of support from king

or prince without, or of military garrison within; and under all these

circumstances I exerted myself to do my uttermost duty in preserving the

city, both in regard to its internal government, and by force of arms by

land and sea, without sparing myself in any labour or peril.

"I know very well that there are many persons, who, finding themselves

quite at their ease, and far away from the hard blows that are passing,

are pleased to exhibit their wisdom by sitting in judgment upon others,

founding their decision only upon the results. But I demand to be judged

by equity and reason, when passion has been set aside. I claim that my

honour shall be protected against my calumniators; for all should

remember that I am not the first man, nor shall I be the last, that has

been blamed unjustly. All persons employed in public affairs are subject

to such hazards, but I submit myself to Him who knows all hearts, and who

governs all. I take Him to witness that in the affair of Antwerp, as in

all my other actions since my earliest youth, I have most sincerely

sought His glory and the, welfare of His poor people, without regard to

my own private interests."

For it is not alone the fate of Antwerp that is here to be recorded. The

fame of Sainte Aldegonde was now seriously compromised. The character of

a great man must always be closely scanned and scrutinised; protected, if

needful, against calumny, but always unflinchingly held up to the light.

Names illustrious by genius and virtue are History's most precious

treasures, faithfully to be guarded by her, jealously to be watched; but

it is always a misfortune when her eyes are deceived by a glitter which

is not genuine.

Sainte Aldegonde was a man of unquestionable genius. His character had

ever been beyond the reproach of self-seeking or ignoble ambition. He

had multiplied himself into a thousand forms to serve the cause of the

United Netherland States, and the services so rendered had been brilliant

and frequent. A great change in his conduct and policy was now

approaching, and it is therefore the more necessary to examine closely at

this epoch his attitude and his character.

Early in June, Richardot, president of the council of Artois, addressed a

letter to Sainte Aldegonde, by command of Alexander of Parma, suggesting

a secret interview between the burgomaster and the Prince.

On the 8th of June, Sainte Aldegonde replied, in favourable terms,

as to the interview; but observed, that, as he was an official personage,

it was necessary for him to communicate the project to the magistracy of

the city. He expressed likewise the hope that Parma would embrace the

present opportunity for making a general treaty with all the Provinces.

A special accord with Antwerp, leaving out Holland and Zeeland, would,

he said, lead to the utter desolation of that city, and to the

destruction of its commerce and manufactures, while the occasion now

presented itself to the Prince of "winning praise and immortal glory by

bringing back all the country to a voluntary and prompt obedience to his

Majesty." He proposed, that, instead of his coming alone, there should

be a number of deputies sent from Antwerp to confer with Alexander.

On the 11th June, Richardot replied by expressing, his own regrets and

those of the Prince, that the interview could not have been with the

burgomaster alone, but acknowledging the weight of his reasons, and

acquiescing in the proposition to send a larger deputation. Three days

afterwards, Sainte Aldegonde, on private consultation with some

confidential personages, changed his ground; announced his preference

for a private interview, under four eyes, with Parma; and requested that

a passport might be sent. The passport was accordingly forwarded the

same day, with an expression of Alexander's gratification, and with the

offer, on the part of Richardot, to come himself to Antwerp as hostage

during the absence of the burgomaster in Parma's camp at Beveren.

Sainte Aldegonde was accordingly about to start on the following day

(16th of June), but meantime the affair had got wind. A secret

interview, thus projected, was regarded by the citizens as extremely

suspicious. There was much bitter insinuation against the burgomaster--

many violent demonstrations. "Aldegonde, they say, is going to see

Parma," said one of the burghers, "which gives much dissatisfaction,

because, 'tis feared that he will make a treaty according to the appetite

and pleasure of his Highness, having been gained over to the royal cause

by money. He says that it would be a misfortune to send a large number

of burghers. Last Sunday (16th June) there was a meeting of the broad

council. The preachers came into the assembly and so animated the

citizens by demonstrations of their religion, that all rushed from the

council-house, crying with loud voices that they did not desire peace but

war."

This desire was a healthy and a reasonable one; but, unfortunately,

the Antwerpers had not always been so vigorous or so united in their

resistance to Parma. At present, however, they were very furious, so

soon as the secret purpose of Sainte Aldegonde became generally known.

The proposed capitulation, which great mobs had been for weeks long

savagely demanding at the hands of the burgomaster, was now ascribed to

the burgomaster's unblushing corruption. He had obviously, they thought,

been purchased by Spanish ducats to do what he had hitherto been so

steadily refusing. A certain Van Werne had gone from Antwerp into

Holland a few days before upon his own private affairs, with a safe-

conduct from Parma. Sainte Aldegonde had not communicated to him the

project then on foot, but he had permitted him to seek a secret interview

with Count Mansfeld. If that were granted, Van Werne was to hint that in

case the Provinces could promise themselves a religious peace it would be

possible, in the opinion of Sainte Aldegonde, to induce Holland and

Zealand and all the rest of the United Provinces, to return to their

obedience. Van Werne, on his return to Antwerp, divulged these secret

negotiations, and so put a stop to Sainte Aldegonde's scheme of going

alone to Parma. "This has given a bad suspicion to the people," wrote

the burgomaster to Richardot, "so much so that I fear to have trouble.

The broad council has been in session, but I don't know what has taken

place there, and I do not dare to ask."

Sainte Aldegonde's motive, as avowed by himself, for seeking a private

interview, was because he had received no answer to the main point in his

first letter, as to the proposition for a general accord. In order

therefore to make the deliberations more rapid, he had been disposed to

discuss that preliminary question in secret. "But now," said he to

Richardot, "as the affair had been too much divulged, as well by diverse

reports and writings sown about, very inopportunely, as by the arrival

of M. Van Werne, I have not found it practicable to set out upon my road,

without communication with the members of the government. This has been

done, however, not in the way of consultation, but as the announcement of

a thing already resolved upon."

He proceeded to state, that great difficulties had arisen, exactly as he

had foreseen. The magistrates would not hear of a general accord, and it

was therefore necessary that a delay should be interposed before it would

be possible for him to come. He begged Richardot to persuade Alexander,

that he was not trifling with him. "It is not," said he, "from

lightness, or any other passion, that I am retarding this affair. I will

do all in my power to obtain leave to make a journey to the camp of his

Highness, at whatever price it may cost and I hope before long to arrive

at my object. If I fail, it must be ascribed to the humours of the

people; for my anxiety to restore all the Provinces to obedience to his

Majesty is extreme."

Richardot, in reply, the next day, expressed regret, without

astonishment, on the part of Alexander and himself, at the intelligence

thus received. People had such difference of humour, he said, and all

men were not equally capable of reason. Nevertheless the citizens were

warned not to misconstrue Parma's gentleness, because he was determined

to die, with his whole army, rather than not take Antwerp. "As for the

King," said Richardot, "he will lay down all his crowns sooner than

abandon this enterprise." Van Werne was represented as free from blame,

and sincerely desirous of peace. Richardot had only stated to him, in

general terms, that letters had been received from Sainte Aldegonde,

expressing an opinion in favour of peace. As for the royalists, they

were quite innocent of the reports and writings that had so inopportunely

been circulated in the city. It was desirable, however, that the

negotiation should not too long be deferred, for otherwise Antwerp might

perish, before a general accord with Holland and Zeeland could be made.

He begged Sainte Aldegonde to banish all anxiety as to Parma's sentiments

towards himself or the community. "Put yourself, Sir, quite at your

ease," said he. "His Highness is in no respects dissatisfied with you,

nor prone to conceive any indignation against this poor people." He

assured the burgomaster that he was not suspected of lightness, nor of a

wish to delay matters, but he expressed solicitude with regard to the

threatening demonstrations which had been made against him in Antwerp.

"For," said he, "popular governments are full of a thousand hazards, and

it would be infinitely painful to me, if you should come to harm."

Thus it would appear that it was Sainte Aldegonde who was chiefly anxious

to effect the reconciliation of Holland and Zeeland with the King. The

initiative of this project to include all the United Provinces in one

scheme with the reduction of Antwerp came originally from him, and was

opposed, at the outset, by the magistrates of that city, by the Prince of

Parma and his councillors, and, by the States of Holland and Zeeland.

The demonstrations on the part of the preachers, the municipal

authorities, and the burghers, against Sainte Aldegonde and his plan for

a secret interview, so soon as it was divulged, made it impossible to

carry that project into effect.

"Aldegonde, who governs Antwerp," wrote Parma to Philip,

"was endeavouring, eight days ago, to bring about some kind of

negotiation for an accord. He manifested a desire to come hither

for the sake of a personal interview with me, which I permitted. It was

to have taken place last Sunday, 16th of this month, but by reason of a

certain popular tumult, which arose out of these circumstances, it has

been necessary to defer the meeting."

There was much disappointment felt by the royalist at this unsatisfactory

result. "These bravadoes and impertinent demonstrations on the part of

some of your people," wrote Richardot, ten days later, "will be the

destruction of the whole country, and will convert the Prince's

gentleness into anger. 'Tis these good and zealous patriots, trusting to

a little favourable breeze that blew for a few days past, who have been

the cause of all this disturbance, and who are ruining their miserable

country--miserable, I say, for having produced such abortions as

themselves."

Notwithstanding what had passed, however, Richardot intimated that

Alexander was still ready to negotiate. "And if you, Sir," he concluded,

in his letter to Aldegonde, "concerning whom many of our friends have at

present a sinister opinion, as if your object was to circumvent us, are

willing to proceed roundly and frankly, as I myself firmly believe that

you will do, we may yet hope for a favourable issue."

Thus the burgomaster was already the object of suspicion to both parties.

The Antwerpers denounced him as having been purchased by Spanish gold;

the royalists accused him of intending to overreach the King. It was not

probable therefore that all were correct in their conjectures.

At last it was arranged that deputies should be appointed by the broad

council to commence a negotiation with Parma. Sainte Aldegonde informed

Richardot, that he would (5th July, 1585) accompany them, if his affairs

should permit. He protested his sincerity and frankness throughout the

whole affair. "They try to calumniate me," he said, "as much on one side

as on the other, but I will overcome by my innocence all the malice of my

slanderers. If his Highness should be pleased to grant us some liberty

for our religion, I dare to promise such faithful service as will give

very great satisfaction."

Four days later, Sainte Aldegonde himself, together with M. de Duffel,

M. de Schoonhoven, and Adrian Hesselt, came to Parma's camp at Beveren,

as deputies on the part of the Antwerp authorities. They were

courteously received by the Prince, and remained three days as his

guests. During the period of this visit, the terms of a capitulation

were thoroughly discussed, between Alexander and his councillors upon one

part, and the four deputies on the other. The envoys endeavoured, with

all the arguments at their command, to obtain the consent of the Prince

to three preliminary points which they laid down as indispensable.

Religious liberty must be granted, the citadel must not be reconstructed,

a foreign garrison must not be admitted; they said. As it was the firm

intention of the King, however, not to make the slightest concession on

any one of these points, the discussion was not a very profitable one.

Besides the public interviews at which all the negotiators were present,

there was a private conference between Parma and Sainte Aldegonde which

lasted more than four hours, in which each did his best to enforce his

opinions upon the other. The burgomaster endeavoured to persuade the

Prince with all the eloquence for which he was so renowned, that the

hearts not of the Antwerpers only, but of the Hollanders and Zeelanders,

were easily to be won at that moment. Give them religious liberty, and

attempt to govern them by gentleness rather than by Spanish garrisons,

and the road was plain to a complete reconciliation of all the Provinces

with his Majesty.

Alexander, who knew his master to be inexorable upon these three points,

was courteous but peremptory in his statements. He recommended that the

rebels should take into consideration their own declining strength, the

inexhaustible resources of the King, the impossibility of obtaining

succour from France, and the perplexing dilatoriness of England, rather

than waste their time in idle expectations of a change in the Spanish

policy. He also intimated, obliquely but very plainly, to Sainte

Aldegonde, that his own fortune would be made, and that he had everything

to hope from his Majesty's bounty, if he were now willing to make himself

useful in carrying into effect the royal plans.

The Prince urged these views with so much eloquence, that he seemed,

in his own words, to have been directly inspired by the Lord for this

special occasion! Sainte Aldegonde, too, was signally impressed by

Alexander's language, and thoroughly fascinated-magnetized, as it were

--by his character. He subsequently declared, that he had often

conversed familiarly with many eloquent personages, but that he had never

known a man more powerful or persuasive than the Prince of Parma. He

could honestly say of him--as Hasdrubal had said of Scipio--that Farnese

was even more admirable when seen face to face, than he had seemed when

one only heard of his glorious achievements.

"The burgomaster and three deputies," wrote Parma to Philip, "were here

until the 12th July. We discussed (30th July, 1585) the points and form

of a capitulation, and they have gone back thoroughly satisfied. Sainte

Aldegonde especially was much pleased with the long interview which he

had with me, alone, and which lasted more than three hours. I told him,

as well as my weakness and suffering from the tertian fever permitted,

all that God inspired me to say on our behalf."

Nevertheless, if Sainte Aldegonde and his colleagues went away thoroughly

satisfied, they had reason, soon after their return, to become thoroughly

dejected. The magistrates and burghers would not listen to a proposition

to abandon the three points, however strongly urged to do so by arguments

drawn from the necessity of the situation, and by representations of

Parma's benignity. As for the burgomaster, he became the target for

calumny, so soon as his three hours' private interview became known; and

the citizens loudly declared that his head ought to be cut off, and sent

in a bag, as a present, to Philip, in order that the traitor might meet

the sovereign with whom he sought a reconciliation, face to face, as soon

as possible.

The deputies, immediately after their return, made their report to the

magistrates, as likewise to the colonels and captains, and to the deans

of guilds. Next day, although it was Sunday, there was a session of the

broad council, and Sainte Aldegonde made a long address, in which--as he

stated in a letter to Richardot--he related everything that had passed in

his private conversation with Alexander. An answer was promised to Parma

on the following Tuesday, but the burgomaster spoke very discouragingly

as to the probability of an accord.

"The joy with which our return was greeted," he said, "was followed by a

general disappointment and sadness, so soon as the result was known. The

want of a religious toleration, as well as the refusal to concede on the

other two points, has not a little altered the hearts of all, even of the

Catholics. A citadel and a garrison are considered ruin and desolation

to a great commercial city. I have done what I can to urge the

acceptance of such conditions as the Prince is willing to give, and have

spoken in general terms of his benign intentions. The citizens still

desire peace. Had his Highness been willing to take both religions under

his protection, he might have won all hearts, and very soon all the other

Provinces would have returned to their obedience, while the clemency and

magnanimity of his Majesty would thus have been rendered admirable

throughout the world."

The power to form an accurate conception as to the nature of Philip and

of other personages with whom he was dealing, and as to the general signs

of his times, seems to have been wanting in the character of the gifted

Aldegonde. He had been dazzled by the personal presence of Parma, and he

now spoke of Philip II., as if his tyranny over the Netherlands--which

for twenty years had been one horrible and uniform whole--were the

accidental result of circumstances, not the necessary expression of his

individual character, and might be easily changed at will--as if Nero,

at a moment's warning, might transform himself into Trajan. It is true

that the innermost soul of the Spanish king could by no possibility be

displayed to any contemporary, as it reveals itself, after three

centuries, to those who study the record of his most secret thoughts;

but, at any rate, it would seem that his career had been sufficiently

consistent, to manifest the amount of "clemency and magnanimity" which he

might be expected to exercise.

"Had his Majesty," wrote Sainte Aldegonde, "been willing, since the year

sixty-six, to pursue a course of toleration, the memory of his reign

would have been sacred to all posterity, with an immortal praise of

sapience, benignity, and sovereign felicity."

This might be true, but nevertheless a tolerating Philip, in the year

1585, ought to have seemed to Sainte Aldegonde an impossible idea.

"The emperors," continued the burgomaster, "who immediately succeeded

Tiberius were the cause of the wisdom which displayed itself in the good

Trajan--also a Spaniard--and in Antoninus, Verus, and the rest: If you

think that this city, by the banishment of a certain number of persons,

will be content to abandon the profession of the reformed faith, you are

much mistaken. You will see, with time, that the exile of this religion

will be accompanied by a depopulation and a sorrowful ruin and desolation

of this flourishing city. But this will be as it pleases God. Meantime

I shall not fail to make all possible exertions to induce the citizens to

consent to a reconciliation with his Majesty. The broad council will

soon give their answer, and then we shall send a deputation. We shall

invite Holland and Zeeland to join with us, but there is little hope of

their consent."

Certainly there was little hope of their consent. Sainte Aldegonde was

now occupied in bringing about the capitulation of Antwerp, without any

provision for religious liberty--a concession which Parma had most

distinctly refused--and it was not probable that Holland and Zeeland,

after twenty years of hard fighting, and with an immediate prospect of

assistance from England--could now be induced to resign the great object

of the contest without further struggle.

It was not until a month had elapsed that the authorities of Antwerp sent

their propositions to the Prince of Parma. On the 12th August, however,

Sainte Aldegonde, accompanied by the same three gentlemen who had been

employed on the first mission, and by seventeen others besides, proceeded

with safe-conduct to the camp at Beveren. Here they were received with

great urbanity, and hospitably entertained by Alexander, who received

their formal draft of articles for a capitulation, and referred it to be

reported upon to Richardot, Pamel, and Vanden Burgh. Meantime there were

many long speeches and several conferences, sometimes between all the

twenty-one envoys and the Prince together; on other occasions, more

secret ones, at which only Aldegonde and one or two of his colleagues

were present. It had been obvious, from the date of the first interview,

in the preceding month, that the negotiation would be of no avail until

the government of Antwerp was prepared to abandon all the conditions

which they had originally announced as indispensable. Alexander had not

much disposition and no authority whatever to make concessions.

"So far as I can understand," Parma had written on the 30th July, "they

are very far from a conclusion. They have most exorbitant ideas, talking

of some kind of liberty of conscience, besides refusing on any account to

accept of garrisons, and having many reasons to allege on such subjects."

The discussions, therefore, after the deputies had at last arrived,

though courteously conducted, could scarcely be satisfactory to both

parties. "The articles were thoroughly deliberated upon," wrote

Alexander, "by all the deputies, nor did I fail to have private

conferences with Aldegonde, that most skilful and practised lawyer and

politician, as well as with two or three of the others. I did all in my

power to bring them to a thorough recognition of their errors, and to

produce a confidence in his Majesty's clemency, in order that they might

concede what was needful for the interests of the Catholic religion and

the security of the city. They heard all I had to say without

exasperating themselves, and without interposing any strong objections,

except in the matter of religion, and, still more, in the matter of the

citadel and the garrison. Aldegonde took much pains to persuade me that

it would be ruinous for a great, opulent, commercial city to submit to a

foreign military force. Even if compelled by necessity to submit now,

the inhabitants would soon be compelled by the same necessity to abandon

the place entirely, and to leave in ruins one of the most splendid and

powerful cities in the world, and in this opinion Catholics and heretics

unanimously concurred. The deputies protested, with one accord, that so

pernicious and abominable a thing as a citadel and garrison could not

even be proposed to their constituents. I answered, that, so long as the

rebellion of Holland and Zeeland lasted, it would be necessary for your

Majesty to make sure of Antwerp, by one or the other of those means, but

promised that the city should be relieved of the incumbrance so soon as

those islands should be reduced.

"Sainte Aldegonde was not discouraged by this statement, but in the hope

of convincing others, or with the wish of showing that he had tried his

best, desired that I would hear him before the council of state. I

granted the request, and Sainte Aldegonde then made another long and very

elegant oration, intended to divert me from my resolution."

It must be confessed--if the reports, which have come down to us of that

long and elegant oration be correct--that the enthusiasm of the

burgomaster for Alexander was rapidly degenerating into idolatry.

"We are not here, O invincible Prince," he said, "that we may excuse, by

an anxious legation, the long defence which we have made of our homes.

Who could have feared any danger to the most powerful city in the

Netherlands from so moderate a besieging force? You would yourself have

rather wished for, than approved of, a greater facility on our part, for

the brave cannot love the timid. We knew the number of your troops, we

had discovered the famine in your camp, we were aware of the paucity of

your ships, we had heard of the quarrels in your army, we were expecting

daily to hear of a general mutiny among your soldiers. Were we to

believe that with ten or eleven thousand men you would be able to block

up the city by land and water, to reduce the open country of Brabant, to

cut off all aid as well from the neighbouring towns as from the powerful

provinces of Holland and Zeeland, to oppose, without a navy, the whole

strength of our fleets, directed against the dyke? Truly, if you had

been at the head of fifty thousand soldiers, and every soldier had

possessed one hundred hands, it would have seemed impossible for you to

meet so many emergencies in so many places, and under so many

distractions. What you have done we now believe possible to do, only

because we see that it has been done. You have subjugated the Scheldt,

and forced it to bear its bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its

current, the fury of the ocean-tides, the tremendous power of the

icebergs, the perpetual conflicts with our fleets. We destroyed your

bridge, with great slaughter of your troops. Rendered more courageous

by that slaughter, you restored that mighty work. We assaulted the great

dyke, pierced it through and through, and opened a path for our ships.

You drove us off when victors, repaired the ruined bulwark, and again

closed to us the avenue of relief. What machine was there that we did

not employ? what miracles of fire did we not invent? what fleets and

floating cidadels did we not put in motion? All that genius, audacity,

and art, could teach us we have executed, calling to our assistance

water, earth, heaven, and hell itself. Yet with all these efforts, with

all this enginry, we have not only failed to drive you from our walls,

but we have seen you gaining victories over other cities at the same

time. You have done a thing, O Prince, than which there is nothing

greater either in ancient or modern story. It has often occurred, while

a general was besieging one city that he lost another situate farther

off. But you, while besieging Antwerp, have reduced simultaneously

Dendermonde, Ghent, Nymegen, Brussels, and Mechlin."

All this, and much more, with florid rhetoric, the burgomaster pronounced

in honour of Farnese, and the eulogy was entirely deserved. It was

hardly becoming, however, for such lips, at such a moment, to sound the

praise of him whose victory had just decided the downfall of religious

liberty, and of the national independence of the Netherlands. His

colleagues certainly must have winced, as they listened to commendations

so lavishly bestowed upon the representative of Philip, and it is not

surprising that Sainte Aldegonde's growing unpopularity should, from that

hour, have rapidly increased. To abandon the whole object of the siege,

when resistance seemed hopeless, was perhaps pardonable, but to offer

such lip-homage to the conqueror was surely transgressing the bounds of

decorum.

His conclusion, too, might to Alexander seem as insolent as the whole

tenor of his address had been humble; for, after pronouncing this solemn

eulogy upon the conqueror, he calmly proposed that the prize of the

contest should be transferred to the conquered.

"So long as liberty of religion, and immunity from citadel and garrison

can be relied upon," he said, "so long will Antwerp remain the most

splendid and flourishing city in Christendom; but desolation will ensue

if the contrary policy is to prevail."

But it was very certain that liberty of religion, as well as immunity

from citadel and garrison, were quite out of the question. Philip and

Parma had long been inexorably resolved upon all the three points.

"After the burgomaster had finished his oration," wrote Alexander to his

sovereign, "I discussed the matter with him in private, very distinctly

and minutely."

The religious point was soon given up, Sainte Aldegonde finding it waste

of breath to say anything more about freedom of conscience. A suggestion

was however made on the subject of the garrison, which the prince

accepted, because it contained a condition which it would be easy to

evade.

"Aldegonde proposed," said Parma, "that a garrison might be admissible

if I made my entrance into the city merely with infantry and cavalry of

nations which were acceptable--Walloons, namely, and Germans--and in no

greater numbers than sufficient for a body-guard. I accepted, because,

in substance, this would amount to a garrison, and because, also, after

the magistrates shall have been changed, I shall have no difficulty in

making myself master of the people, continuing the garrison, and

rebuilding the citadel."

The Prince proceeded to give his reasons why he was willing to accept the

capitulation on what he considered so favourable terms to the besieged.

Autumn was approaching. Already the fury of the storms had driven

vessels clean over the dykes; the rebels in Holland and Zeeland were

preparing their fleets--augmented by many new ships of war and fire-

machines--for another desperate attack upon the Palisades, in which there

was great possibility of their succeeding; an auxiliary force from

England was soon expected; so that, in view of all these circumstances,

he had resolved to throw himself at his Majesty's feet and implore his

clemency. "If this people of Antwerp, as the head, is gained," said he,

"there will be tranquillity in all the members."

These reasons were certainly conclusive; nor is it easy to believe, that,

under the circumstances thus succinctly stated by Alexander, it would

have been impossible for the patriots to hold out until the promised

succour from Holland and from England should arrive. In point of fact,

the bridge could not have stood the winter which actually ensued; for it

was the repeatedly expressed opinion of the Spanish officers in Antwerp,

that the icebergs which then filled the Scheldt must inevitably have

shattered twenty bridges to fragments, had there been so many. It

certainly was superfluous for the Prince to make excuses to Philip for

accepting the proposed capitulation. All the prizes of victory had been

thoroughly secured, unless pillage, massacre, and rape, which had been

the regular accompaniments of Alva's victories, were to be reckoned among

the indispensable trophies of a Spanish triumph.

Nevertheless, the dearth in the city had been well concealed from the

enemy; for, three days after the surrender, not a loaf of bread was to be

had for any money in all Antwerp, and Alexander declared that he would

never have granted such easy conditions had he been aware of the real

condition of affairs.

The articles of capitulation agreed upon between Parma and the deputies

were brought before the broad council on the 9th August. There was much

opposition to them, as many magistrates and other influential personages

entertained sanguine expectations from the English negotiation, and were

beginning to rely with confidence upon the promises of Queen Elizabeth.

The debate was waxing warm, when some of the councillors, looking out of

window of the great hall, perceived that a violent mob had collected in

the streets. Furious cries for bread were uttered, and some meagre-

looking individuals were thrust forward to indicate the famine which was

prevailing, and the necessity of concluding the treaty without further

delay. Thus the municipal government was perpetually exposed to

democratic violence, excited by diametrically opposite influences.

Sometimes the burgomaster was denounced for having sold himself and his

country to the Spaniards, and was assailed with execrations for being

willing to conclude a sudden and disgraceful peace. At other moments he

was accused of forging letters containing promises of succour from the

Queen of England and from the authorities of Holland, in order to

protract the lingering tortures of the war. Upon this occasion the

peace-mob carried its point. The councillors, looking out of window,

rushed into the hall with direful accounts of the popular ferocity;

the magistrates and colonels who had been warmest in opposition suddenly

changed their tone, and the whole body of the broad council accepted the

articles of capitulation by a unanimous vote.

The window was instantly thrown open, and the decision publicly

announced. The populace, wild with delight, rushed through the streets,

tearing down the arms of the Duke of Anjou, which had remained above the

public edifices since the period of that personage's temporary residence

in the Netherlands, and substituting, with wonderful celerity, the

escutcheon of Philip the Second. Thus suddenly could an Antwerp mob pass

from democratic insolence to intense loyalty.

The articles, on the whole, were as liberal as could have been expected.

The only hope for Antwerp and for a great commonwealth of all the

Netherlands was in holding out, even to the last gasp, until England and

Holland, now united, had time to relieve the city. This was,

unquestionably, possible. Had Antwerp possessed the spirit of Leyden,

had William of Orange been alive, that Spanish escutcheon, now raised

with such indecent haste, might have never been seen again on the outside

wall of any Netherland edifice. Belgium would have become at once a

constituent portion of a great independent national realm, instead of

languishing until our own century, the dependency of a distant and a

foreign metropolis. Nevertheless, as the Antwerpers were not disposed to

make themselves martyrs, it was something that they escaped the nameless

horrors which had often alighted upon cities subjected to an enraged

soldiery. It redounds to the eternal honour of Alexander Farnese--when

the fate of Naarden and Haarlem and Maestricht, in the days of Alva, and

of Antwerp itself in the horrible "Spanish fury," is remembered--that

there were no scenes of violence and outrage in the populous and wealthy

city, which was at length at his mercy after having defied him so long.

Civil and religious liberty were trampled in the dust, commerce and

manufactures were destroyed, the most valuable portion of the citizens

sent into hopeless exile, but the remaining inhabitants were not

butchered in cold blood.

The treaty was signed on the 17th August. Antwerp was to return to its

obedience. There was to be an entire amnesty and oblivion for the past,

without a single exception. Royalist absentees were to be reinstated in

their possessions. Monasteries, churches, and the King's domains were to

be restored to their former proprietors. The inhabitants of the city

were to practise nothing but the Catholic religion. Those who refused to

conform were allowed to remain two years for the purpose of winding up

their affairs and selling out their property, provided that during that

period they lived "without scandal towards the ancient religion"--a very

vague and unsatisfactory condition. All prisoners were to be released

excepting Teligny. Four hundred thousand florins were to be paid by the

authorities as a fine. The patriot garrison was to leave the city with

arms and baggage and all the honours of war.

This capitulation gave more satisfaction to the hungry portion of the

Antwerpers than to the patriot party of the Netherlands. Sainte

Aldegonde was vehemently and unsparingly denounced as a venal traitor.

It is certain, whatever his motives, that his attitude had completely

changed. For it was not Antwerp alone that he had reconciled or was

endeavouring to reconcile with the King of Spain, but Holland and Zeeland

as well, and all the other independent Provinces. The ancient champion

of the patriot army, the earliest signer of the 'Compromise,' the bosom

friend of William the Silent, the author of the 'Wilhelmus' national

song, now avowed his conviction, in a published defence of his conduct

against the calumnious attacks upon it, "that it was impossible, with a

clear conscience, for subjects, under any circumstances, to take up arms

against Philip, their king." Certainly if he had always entertained that

opinion he must have suffered many pangs of remorse during his twenty

years of active and illustrious rebellion. He now made himself secretly

active in promoting the schemes of Parma and in counteracting the

negotiation with England. He flattered himself, with an infatuation

which it is difficult to comprehend, that it would be possible to obtain

religious liberty for the revolting Provinces, although he had consented

to its sacrifice in Antwerp. It is true that he had not the privilege of

reading Philip's secret letters to Parma, but what was there in the

character of the King--what intimation had ever been given by the

Governor-General--to induce a belief in even the possibility of such a

concession?

Whatever Sainte Aldegonde's opinions, it is certain that Philip had no

intention of changing his own policy. He at first suspected the

burgomaster of a wish to protract the negotiations for a perfidious

purpose.

"Necessity has forced Antwerp," he wrote on the 17th of August--the very

day on which the capitulation was actually signed--"to enter into

negotiation. I understand the artifice of Aldegonde in seeking to

prolong and make difficult the whole affair, under pretext of treating

for the reduction of Holland and Zeeland at the same time. It was

therefore very adroit in you to defeat this joint scheme at once, and

urge the Antwerp matter by itself, at the same time not shutting the door

on the others. With the prudence and dexterity with which this business

has thus far been managed I am thoroughly satisfied."

The King also expressed his gratification at hearing from Parma that the

demand for religious liberty in the Netherlands would soon be abandoned.

"In spite of the vehemence," he said, "which they manifest in the

religious matter, desiring some kind of liberty, they will in the end,

as you say they will, content themselves with what the other cities,

which have returned to obedience, have obtained. This must be done in

all cases without flinching, and without permitting any modification."

What "had been obtained" by Brussels, Mechlin, Ghent, was well known.

The heretics had obtained the choice of renouncing their religion or of

going into perpetual exile, and this was to be the case "without

flinching" in Holland and Zeeland, if those provinces chose to return to

obedience. Yet Sainte Aldegonde deluded himself with the thought of a

religious peace.

In another and very important letter of the same date Philip laid down

his policy very distinctly. The Prince of Parma, by no means such a

bigot as his master, had hinted at the possibility of tolerating the

reformed religion in the places recovered from the rebels, sub silentio,

for a period not defined, and long enough for the heretics to awake from

their errors.

"You have got an expression of opinion, I see," wrote the King to

Alexander, "of some grave men of wisdom and conscience, that the

limitation of time, during which the heretics may live without scandal,

may be left undefined; but I feel very keenly the danger of such a

proposition. With regard to Holland and Zeeland, or any other provinces

or towns, the first step must be for them to receive and maintain alone

the exercise of the Catholic religion, and to subject themselves to the

Roman church, without tolerating the exercise of any other religion, in

city, village, farm-house, or building thereto destined in the fields, or

in any place whatsoever; and in this regulation there is to be no flaw,

no change, no concession by convention or otherwise of a religious peace,

or anything of the sort. They are all to embrace the Roman Catholic

religion, and the exercise of that is alone to be permitted."

This certainly was distinct enough, and nothing had been ever said in

public to induce a belief in any modification of the principles on which

Philip had uniformly acted. That monarch considered himself born to

suppress heresy, and he had certainly been carrying out this work during

his whole lifetime.

The King was willing, however, as Alexander had intimated in his

negotiations with Antwerp, and previously in the capitulation of

Brussels, Ghent, and other places, that there should be an absence of

investigation into the private chambers of the heretics, during the

period allotted them for choosing between the Papacy and exile.

"It may be permitted," said Philip, "to abstain from inquiring as to what

the heretics are doing within their own doors, in a private way, without

scandal, or any public exhibition of their rites during a fixed time.

But this connivance, and the abstaining from executing the heretics,

or from chastising them, even although they may be living very

circumspectly, is to be expressed in very vague terms."

Being most anxious to provide against a second crop of heretics to

succeed the first, which he was determined to uproot, he took pains to

enjoin with his own hand upon Parma the necessity of putting in Catholic

schoolmasters and mistresses to the exclusion of reformed teachers into

all the seminaries of the recovered Provinces, in order that all the boys

and girls might grow up in thorough orthodoxy.

Yet this was the man from whom Sainte Aldegonde imagined the possibility

of obtaining a religious peace.

Ten days after the capitulation, Parma made his triumphal entrance into

Antwerp; but, according to his agreement, he spared the citizens the

presence of the Spanish and Italian soldiers, the military procession

being composed of the Germans and Walloons. Escorted by his body-guard,

and surrounded by a knot of magnates and veterans, among whom the Duke of

Arschot, the Prince of Chimay, the Counts Mansfeld, Egmont, and Aremberg,

were conspicuous, Alexander proceeded towards the captured city. He was

met at the Keyser Gate by a triumphal chariot of gorgeous workmanship,

in which sat the fair nymph Antwerpia, magnificently bedizened, and

accompanied by a group of beautiful maidens. Antwerpia welcomed the

conqueror with a kiss, recited a poem in his honour, and bestowed upon

him the keys of the city, one of which was in gold. This the Prince

immediately fastened to the chain around his neck, from which was

suspended the lamb of the golden fleece, with which order he had just

been, amid great pomp and ceremony, invested.

On the public square called the Mere, the Genoese merchants had erected

two rostral columns, each surmounted by a colossal image, representing

respectively Alexander of Macedon and Alexander of Parma. Before the

house of Portugal was an enormous phoenix, expanding her wings quite

across the street; while, in other parts of the town, the procession was

met by ships of war, elephants, dromedaries, whales, dragons, and other

triumphal phenomena. In the market-place were seven statues in copper,

personifying the seven planets, together with an eighth representing

Bacchus; and perhaps there were good mythological reasons why the god of

wine, together with so large a portion of our solar system, should be

done in copper by Jacob Jongeling, to honour the triumph of Alexander,

although the key to the enigma has been lost.

The cathedral had been thoroughly fumigated with frankincense, and

besprinkled with holy water, to purify the sacred precincts from their

recent pollution by the reformed rites; and the Protestant pulpits which

had been placed there, had been soundly beaten with rods, and then burned

to ashes. The procession entered within its walls, where a magnificent

Te Deum was performed, and then, after much cannon-firing, bell-ringing,

torch-light exhibition, and other pyrotechnics, the Prince made his way

at last to the palace provided for him. The glittering display, by which

the royalists celebrated their triumph, lasted three days' long, the city

being thronged from all the country round with eager and frivolous

spectators, who were never wearied with examining the wonders of the

bridge and the forts, and with gazing at the tragic memorials which still

remained of the fight on the Kowenstyn.

During this interval, the Spanish and Italian soldiery, not willing to be

outdone in demonstrations of respect to their chief, nor defrauded of

their rightful claim to a holiday amused themselves with preparing a

demonstration of a novel character. The bridge, which, as it was well

known, was to be destroyed within a very few days, was adorned with

triumphal arches, and decked with trees and flowering plants; its roadway

was strewed with branches; and the palisades, parapets, and forts, were

garnished with wreaths, emblems, and poetical inscriptions in honour of

the Prince. The soldiers themselves, attired in verdurous garments of

foliage and flower-work, their swart faces adorned with roses and lilies,

paraded the bridge and the dyke in fantastic procession with clash of

cymbal and flourish of trumpet, dancing, singing, and discharging their

carbines, in all the delirium of triumph. Nor was a suitable termination

to the festival wanting, for Alexander, pleased with the genial character

of these demonstrations, repaired himself to the bridge, where he was

received with shouts of rapture by his army, thus whimsically converted

into a horde of fauns and satyrs. Afterwards, a magnificent banquet was

served to the soldiers upon the bridge. The whole extent of its surface,

from the Flemish to the Brabant shore--the scene so lately of deadly

combat, and of the midnight havoc caused by infernal enginery--was

changed, as if by the stroke of a wand, into a picture of sylvan and

Arcadian merry-making, and spread with tables laden with delicate viands.

Here sat that host of war--bronzed figures, banqueting at their ease,

their heads crowned with flowers, while the highest magnates of the army,

humouring them in their masquerade, served them with dainties, and filled

their goblets with wine.

After these festivities had been concluded, Parma set himself to

practical business. There had been a great opposition, during the

discussion of the articles of capitulation to the reconstruction of the

famous citadel. That fortress had been always considered, not as a

defence of the place against a foreign enemy, but as an instrument to

curb the burghers themselves beneath a hostile power. The city

magistrates, however, as well as the dean and chief officers in all the

guilds and fraternities, were at once changed by Parma--Catholics being

uniformly substituted for heretics. In consequence, it was not difficult

to bring about a change of opinion in the broad council. It is true that

neither Papists nor Calvinists regarded with much satisfaction the

prospect of military violence being substituted for civic rule, but

in the first effusion of loyalty, and in the triumph of the ancient

religion, they forgot the absolute ruin to which their own action was now

condemning their city. Champagny, who had once covered himself with

glory by his heroic though unsuccessful efforts to save Antwerp from the

dreadful "Spanish fury" which had descended from that very citadel, was

now appointed governor of the town, and devoted himself to the

reconstruction of the hated fortress. "Champagny has particularly aided

me," wrote Parma, "with his rhetoric and clever management, and has

brought the broad council itself to propose that the citadel should be

rebuilt. It will therefore be done, as by the burghers themselves,

without your Majesty or myself appearing to desire it."

This was, in truth, a triumph of "rhetoric and clever management," nor

could a city well abase itself more completely, kneeling thus cheerfully

at its conqueror's feet, and requesting permission to put the yoke upon

its own neck. "The erection of the castle has thus been determined

upon," said Parma, "and I am supposed to know nothing of the resolution."

A little later he observed that they, were "working away most furiously

at the citadel, and that within a month it would be stronger than it ever

had been before."

The building went on, indeed, with astonishing celerity, the fortress

rising out of its ruins almost as rapidly, under the hands of the

royalists, as it had been demolished, but a few years before, by the

patriots. The old foundations still remained, and blocks of houses,

which had been constructed out of its ruins, were thrown down that the

materials might be again employed in its restoration.

The citizens, impoverished and wretched, humbly demanded that the expense

of building the citadel might be in part defrayed by the four hundred

thousand florins in which they had been mulcted by the capitulation.

"I don't marvel at this," said Parma, "for certainly the poor city is

most forlorn and poverty-stricken, the heretics having all left it."

It was not long before it was very satisfactorily established, that the

presence of those same heretics and liberty of conscience for all men,

were indispensable conditions for the prosperity of the great capital.

Its downfall was instantaneous. The merchants and industrious artisans

all wandered away from the place which had been the seat of a world-wide

traffic. Civilisation and commerce departed, and in their stead were the

citadel and the Jesuits. By express command of Philip, that order,

banished so recently, was reinstated in Antwerp, as well as throughout

the obedient provinces; and all the schools and colleges were placed

under its especial care. No children could be thenceforth instructed

except by the lips of those fathers. Here was a curb more efficacious

even than the citadel. That fortress was at first garrisoned with

Walloons and Germans. "I have not yet induced the citizens," said Parma,

"to accept a Spanish garrison, nor am I surprised; so many of them

remembering past events (alluding to the 'Spanish fury,' but not

mentioning it by name), and observing the frequent mutinies at the

present time. Before long, I expect, however, to make the Spaniards as

acceptable and agreeable as the inhabitants of the country themselves."

It may easily be supposed that Philip was pleased with the triumphs that

had thus been achieved. He was even grateful, or affected to be

grateful, to him who had achieved them. He awarded great praise to

Alexander for his exertions, on the memorable occasions of the attack

upon the bridge, and the battle of the Kowenstyn; but censured him

affectionately for so rashly exposing his life. "I have no words,"

he said, "to render the thanks which are merited for all that you have

been doing. I recommend you earnestly however to have a care for the

security of your person, for that is of more consequence than all the

rest."

After the news of the reduction of the city, he again expressed

gratification, but in rather cold language. "From such obstinate

people," said he, "not more could be extracted than has been extracted;

therefore the capitulation is satisfactory." What more he wished to

extract it would be difficult to say, for certainly the marrow had been

extracted from the bones, and the dead city was thenceforth left to

moulder under the blight of a foreign garrison and an army of Jesuits.

"Perhaps religious affairs will improve before long," said Philip.

They did improve very soon, as he understood the meaning of improvement.

A solitude of religion soon brought with it a solitude in every other

regard, and Antwerp became a desert, as Sainte Aldegonde had foretold

would be the case.

The King had been by no means so calm, however, when the intelligence

of the capitulation first reached him at Madrid. On the contrary, his

oldest courtiers had never seen him exhibit such marks of hilarity.

When he first heard of the glorious victory at Lepanto, his countenance

had remained impassive, and he had continued in the chapel at the

devotional exercises which the messenger from Don John had interrupted.

Only when the news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew first reached him,

had he displayed an amount of cheerfulness equal to that which he

manifested at the fall of Antwerp. "Never," said Granvelle, "had the

King been so radiant with joy as when he held in his hand the despatches

which announced the capitulation." The letters were brought to him after

he had retired to rest, but his delight was so great that he could not

remain in his bed. Rushing from his chamber, so soon as he had read

them, to that of his dearly-beloved daughter, Clara Isabella, he knocked

loudly at the door, and screaming through the keyhole the three words,

"Antwerp is ours," returned precipitately again to his own apartment.

It was the general opinion in Spain, that the capture of this city had

terminated the resistance of the Netherlands. Holland and Zeeland would,

it was thought, accept with very little hesitation the terms which Parma

had been offering, through the agency of Sainte Aldegonde; and, with the

reduction of those two provinces, the Spanish dominion over the whole

country would of course become absolute. Secretary Idiaquez observed,

on drawing up instructions for Carlo Coloma, a Spanish financier then

departing on special mission for the Provinces, that he would soon come

back to Spain, for the Prince of Parma was just putting an end to the

whole Belgic war.

Time was to show whether Holland and Zeeland were as malleable as

Antwerp, and whether there would not be a battle or two more to fight

before that Belgic war would come to its end. Meantime Antwerp was

securely fettered, while the spirit of commerce--to which its unexampled

prosperity had been due--now took its flight to the lands where civil and

religious liberty had found a home.

=====================================

NOTE on MARNIX DE SAINTE ALDEGONDE.

As every illustration of the career and character of this eminent

personage excites constant interest in the Netherlands, I have here

thrown together, in the form of an Appendix, many important and entirely

unpublished details, drawn mainly from the Archives of Simancas, and from

the State Paper Office and British Museum in London.

The ex-burgomaster seemed determined to counteract the policy of those

Netherlanders who wished to offer the sovereignty of the Provinces to the

English Queen. He had been earnestly in favour of annexation to France,

for his sympathies and feelings were eminently French. He had never been

a friend to England, and he was soon aware that a strong feeling of

indignation--whether just or unjust--existed against him both in that

country and in the Netherlands, on account of the surrender of Antwerp.

"I have had large conference with Villiers," wrote Sir John Norris to

Walsingham, "he condemneth Ste. Aldegonde's doings, but will impute it to

fear and not to malice. Ste. Aldegonde, notwithstanding that he was

forbidden to come to Holland, and laid for at the fleet, yet stole

secretly to Dort, where they say he is staid, but I doubt he will be

heard speak, and then assuredly he will do great hurt."

It was most certainly Sainte Aldegonde's determination, so soon as the

capitulation of Antwerp had been resolved upon, to do his utmost to

restore all the independent Provinces to their ancient allegiance.

Rather Spanish than English was his settled resolution. Liberty of

religion, if possible--that was his cherished wish--but still more

ardently, perhaps, did he desire to prevent the country from falling

into the hands of Elizabeth.

"The Prince of Parma hath conceived such an assured hope of the fidelity

of Aldegonde," wrote one of Walsingham's agents, Richard Tomson, "in

reducing the Provinces, yet enemies, into a perfect subjection, that the

Spaniards are so well persuaded of the man as if he had never been

against them. They say, about the middle of this month, he departed for

Zeeland and Holland, to prosecute the effect of his promises, and I am

the more induced to believe that he is become altogether Spanish, for

that the common bruit goeth that he hastened the surrendering of the town

of Antwerp, after he had intelligence of the coming of the English

succours."

There was naturally much indignation felt in the independent Provinces,

against all who had been thought instrumental in bringing about the

reduction of the great cities of Flanders. Famars, governor of Mechlin,

Van den Tympel, governor of Brussels, Martini, who had been active in

effecting the capitulation of Antwerp, were all arrested in Holland.

"From all that I can hear," said Parma, "it is likely that they will be

very severely handled, which is the reason why Ste. Aldegonde, although

he sent his wife and children to Holland, has not ventured thither

himself: It appears that they threaten him there, but he means now to go,

under pretext of demanding to justify himself from the imputations

against him. Although he tells me freely that, without some

amplification of the concessions hitherto made on the point of religion,

he hopes for no good result, yet I trust that he will do good offices in

the meantime, in spite of the difficulties which obstruct his efforts.

On my part, every exertion will be made, and not without hope of some

fruit, if not before, at least after, these people have become as tired

of the English as they were of the French."

Of this mutual ill-feeling between the English and the burgomaster, there

can be no doubt whatever. The Queen's government was fully aware of his

efforts to counteract its negotiation with the Netherlands, and to bring

about their reconciliation with Spain. When the Earl of Leicester--as

will soon be related--arrived in the Provinces, he was not long in

comprehending his attitude and his influence.

"I wrote somewhat of Sir Aldegonde in putting his case," wrote Leicester,

"but this is certain, I have the copy of his very letters sent hither to

practise the peace not two days before I came, and this day one hath told

me that loves him well, that he hates our countrymen unrecoverably. I am

sorry for it."

On the other hand, the Queen was very indignant with the man whom she

looked upon as the paid agent of Spain. She considered him a renegade,

the more dangerous because his previous services had been so illustrious.

"Her Majesty's mislike towards Ste. Aldegonde continueth," wrote

Walsingham to Leicester, "and she taketh offence that he was not

restrained of his liberty by your Lordship's order." It is unquestionable

that the exburgomaster intended to do his best towards effecting the

reconciliation of all the Provinces with Spain; and it is equally certain

that the King had offered to pay him well, if he proved successful in his

endeavours. There is no proof, however, and no probability that Sainte

Aldegonde ever accepted or ever intended to accept the proffered bribe.

On the contrary, his whole recorded career ought to disprove the

supposition. Yet it is painful, to find him, at this crisis, assiduous

in his attempts to undo the great work of his own life, and still more

distressing to find that great rewards were distinctly offered to him

for such service. Immense promises had been frequently made no doubt to

William the Silent; nor could any public man, in such times, be so pure

that an attempt to tamper with him might not be made: but when the

personage, thus solicited, was evidently acting in the interests of the

tempters, it is not surprising that he should become the object of grave

suspicion.

"It does not seem to me bad," wrote Philip to Parma, "this negotiation

which you have commenced with Ste. Aldegonde, in order to gain him, and

thus to employ his services in bringing about a reduction of the islands

(Holland and Zeeland). In exchange for this work, any thing which you

think proper to offer to him as a reward, will be capital well invested;

but it must not be given until the job is done."

But the job was hard to do, and Sainte Aldegonde cared nothing for the

offered bribe. He was, however, most strangely confident of being able

to overcome, on the one hand, the opposition of Holland and Zeeland to

the hated authority of Spain, and, on the other, the intense abhorrence

entertained by Philip to liberty of conscience.

Soon after the capitulation, he applied for a passport to visit those two

Provinces. Permission to come was refused him. Honest men from Antwerp,

he was informed, would be always welcome, but there was no room for him.

There was, however--or Parma persuaded himself that there was--

a considerable party in those countries in favour of reconciliation

with Spain. If the ex-burgomaster could gain a hearing, it was thought

probable that his eloquence would prove very effective.

"We have been making efforts to bring about negotiations with Holland

and Zeeland," wrote Alexander to Philip. "Gelderland and Overyssel

likewise show signs of good disposition, but I have not soldiers enough

to animate the good and terrify the bad. As for Holland and Zeeland,

there is a strong inclination on the part of the people to a

reconciliation, if some concession could be made on the religious

question, but the governors oppose it, because they are perverse, and

are relying on assistance from England. Could this religious concession

be made, an arrangement could, without doubt, be accomplished, and more

quickly than people think. Nevertheless, in such a delicate matter, I am

obliged to await your Majesty's exact instructions and ultimatum."

He then proceeded to define exactly the position and intentions of the

burgomaster.

"The government of Holland and Zeeland," he said, "have refused a

passport to Ste. Aldegonde, and express dissatisfaction with him for

having surrendered Antwerp so soon. They know that he has much credit

with the people and with the ministers of the sects, and they are in much

fear of him because he is inclined for peace, which is against their

interests. They are, therefore, endeavouring to counteract my

negotiations with him. These have been, thus far, only in general terms.

I have sought to induce him to perform the offices required, without

giving him reason to expect any concession as to the exercise of

religion. He persuades himself that, in the end, there will be some

satisfaction obtained upon this point, and, under this impression he

considers the peace as good as concluded, there remaining no doubt as to

other matters. He has sent his wife to Zeeland, and is himself going to

Germany, where, as he says, he will do all the good service that he can.

He hopes that very shortly the Provinces will not only invite, but

implore him to come to them; in which case, he promises me to perform

miracles."

Alexander then proceeded to pay a distinct tribute to Sainte Aldegonde's

motives; and, when it is remembered that the statement thus made is

contained in a secret despatch, in cipher, to the King, it may be assumed

to convey the sincere opinion of the man most qualified to judge

correctly as to this calumniated person's character.

"Ste. Aldegonde offers me wonders," he said, "and I have promised him

that he shall be recompensed very largely; yet, although he is poor, I do

not find him influenced by mercenary or selfish considerations, but only

very set in opinions regarding his religion."

The Prince had however no doubt of Sainte Aldegonde's sincerity, for

sincerity was a leading characteristic of the man. His word, once given,

was sacred, and he had given his word to do his best towards effecting a

reconciliation of the Provinces with Spain, and frustrating the efforts

of England. "Through the agency of Ste. Aldegonde and that of others"

wrote Parma, "I shall watch, day and night, to bring about a reduction of

Holland and Zeeland, if humanly possible. I am quite persuaded that they

will soon be sick of the English, who are now arriving, broken down,

without arms or money, and obviously incapable of holding out very long.

Doubtless, however, this English alliance, and the determination of the

Queen to do her utmost against us, complicates matters, and assists the

government of Holland and Zeeland in opposing the inclinations of their

people."

Nothing ever came of these intended negotiations. The miracles were

never wrought, and even had Sainte Aldegonde been as venal as he was

suspected of being--which we have thus proof positive that he was not--

he never could have obtained the recompense, which, according to Philip's

thrifty policy, was not to be paid until it had been earned. Sainte

Aldegonde's hands were clean. It is pity that we cannot render the same

tribute to his political consistency of character. It is also certain

that he remained--not without reason--for a long time under a cloud. He

became the object of unbounded and reckless calumny. Antwerp had fallen,

and the necessary consequence of its reduction was the complete and

permanent prostration of its commerce and manufactures. These were

transferred to the new, free, national, independent, and prosperous

commonwealth that had risen in the "islands" which Parma and Sainte

Aldegonde had vainly hoped to restore to their ancient servitude. In a

very few years after the subjugation of Antwerp, it appeared by

statistical documents that nearly all the manufactures of linen, coarse

and fine cloths, serges, fustians, tapestry, gold-embroidery, arms-work,

silks, and velvets, had been transplanted to the towns of Holland and

Zeeland, which were flourishing and thriving, while the Flemish and

Brabantine cities had become mere dens of thieves and beggars. It was in

the mistaken hope of averting this catastrophe--as melancholy as it was

inevitable and in despair of seeing all the Netherlands united, unless

united in slavery, and in deep-rooted distrust of the designs and policy

of England, that this statesman, once so distinguished, had listened to

the insidious tongue of Parma. He had sought to effect a general

reconciliation with Spain, and the only result of his efforts was a

blight upon his own illustrious name.

He published a defence of his conduct, and a detailed account of the

famous siege. His apology, at the time, was not considered conclusive,

but his narrative remains one of the clearest and most trustworthy

sources for the history of these important transactions. He was never

brought to trial, but he discovered, with bitterness, that he had

committed a fatal error, and that his political influence had passed

away. He addressed numerous private epistles to eminent persons,

indignantly denying the imputations against his character, and demanding

an investigation. Among other letters he observed in one to Count

Hohenlo, that he was astonished and grieved to find that all his faithful

labours and sufferings in the cause of his fatherland had been forgotten

in an hour. In place of praise and gratitude, he had reaped nothing but

censure and calumny; because men ever judged, not by the merits, but by

the issue. That common people should be so unjust, he said, was not to

be wondered at, but of men like Hohenlo be had hoped better things. He

asserted that he had saved Antwerp from another "Spanish fury," and from

impending destruction--a city in which there was not a single regular

soldier, and in which his personal authority was so slight that he was

unable to count the number of his masters. If a man had ever performed a

service to his country, be claimed to have done so in this capitulation.

Nevertheless, he declared that he was the same Philip Marnix, earnestly

devoted to the service of God, the true religion, and the fatherland;

although he avowed himself weary of the war, and of this perpetual

offering of the Netherland sovereignty to foreign potentates. He was now

going, he said, to his estates in Zeeland; there to turn farmer again;

renouncing public affairs, in the administration of which he had

experienced so much ingratitude from his countrymen. Count Maurice and

the States of Holland and Zeeland wrote to him, however, in very plain

language, describing the public indignation as so strong as to make it

unsafe for him to visit the country.

The Netherlands and England--so soon as they were united in policy--were,

not without reason, indignant with the man who had made such strenuous

efforts to prevent that union. The English were, in truth, deeply

offended. He had systematically opposed their schemes, and to his

prejudice against their country, and distrust of their intentions, they

attributed the fall of Antwerp. Envoy Davison, after his return to

Holland, on the conclusion of the English treaty, at once expressed his

suspicions of the ex-burgomaster, and the great dangers to be apprehended

from his presence in the free States. "Here is some working underhand,"

said he to Walsingham, "to draw hither Sainte Aldegonde, under a pretext

of his justification, which--as it has hitherto been denied him--so is

the sequel suspected, if he should obtain it before they were well

settled here, betwixt her Majesty and them, considering the manifold

presumptions that the subject of his journey should be little profitable

or advantageous to the state of these poor countries, as tending, at the

best, to the propounding of some general reconcilement." It was

certainly not without substantial grounds that the English and

Hollanders, after concluding their articles of alliance, felt uneasy at

the possibility of finding their plans reversed by the intrigues of a man

whom they knew to be a mediator between Spain and her revolted Provinces,

and whom they suspected of being a venal agent of the Catholic King.

It was given out that Philip had been induced to promise liberty of

religion, in case of reconciliation. We have seen that Parma was at

heart in favour of such a course, and that he was very desirous of

inducing Marnix to believe in the possibility of obtaining such a boon,

however certain the Prince had been made by the King's secret letters,

that such a belief was a delusion. "Martini hath been examined," wrote

Davison, "who confesseth both for himself and others, to become hither

by direction of the Prince of Parma and intelligence of Sainte Aldegonde,

from whom he was first addressed by Villiers and afterwards to others for

advice and assistance. That the scope of this direction was to induce

them here to hearken to a peace, wherein the Prince of Parma promiseth

them toleration of religion, although he confesseth yet to have no

absolute power in that behalf, but hath written thereof to the King

expressly, and holdeth himself assured thereof by the first post, as I

have likewise been advertised from Rowland York, which if it had been

propounded openly here before things had been concluded with her Majesty,

and order taken for her assurance, your honour can judge what confusion

it must of necessity have brought forth."

At last, when Marnix had become convinced that the toleration would not

arrive "by the very next mail from Spain," and that, in truth, such a

blessing was not to be expected through the post-office at all, he felt

an inward consciousness of the mistake which he had committed. Too

credulously had he inclined his ear to the voice of Parma; too

obstinately had he steeled his heart against Elizabeth, and he was now

the more anxious to clear himself at least from the charges of corruption

so clamorously made against him by Holland and by England. Conscious of

no fault more censurable than credulity and prejudice, feeling that his

long fidelity to the reformed religion ought to be a defence for him

against his calumniators, he was desirous both to clear his own honour,

and to do at least a tardy justice to England. He felt confident that

loyal natures, like those of Davison and his colleagues at home, would

recognize his own loyalty. He trusted, not without cause, to English

honour, and coming to his manor-house of Zoubourg, near Flushing, he

addressed a letter to the ambassador of Elizabeth, in which the strong

desire to vindicate his aspersed integrity is quite manifest.

"I am very joyous," said he, "that coming hither in order to justify

myself against the false and malignant imputations with which they charge

me, I have learned your arrival here on the part of her Majesty, as well

as the soon expected coming of the Earl of Leicester. I see, in truth,

that the Lord God is just, and never abandons his own. I have never

spared myself in the service of my country, and I would have sacrificed

my life, a thousand times, had it been possible, in her cause. Now, I am

receiving for all this a guerdon of blame and calumny, which is cast upon

me in order to cover up faults which have been committed by others in

past days. I hope, however, to come soon to give you welcome, and to

speak more particularly to you of all these things. Meantime demanding

my justification before these gentlemen, who ought to have known me

better than to have added faith to such villanous imputations, I will

entreat you that my definite justification, or condemnation, if I have

merited it, may be reserved till the arrival of Lord Leicester."

This certainly was not the language of a culprit, Nevertheless, his words

did not immediately make a deep impression on the hearts of those who

heard him. He had come secretly to his house at Zoubourg, having

previously published his memorable apology; and in accordance with the

wishes of the English government, he was immediately confined to his own

house. Confidence in the intention of a statesman, who had at least

committed such grave errors of judgment, and who had been so deeply

suspected of darker faults, was not likely very soon to revive. So far

from shrinking from an investigation which would have been dangerous,

even to his life, had the charges against his honour been founded in

fact, he boldly demanded to be confronted with his accusers, in order

that he might explain his conduct before all the world. "Sir,

yesternight, at the shutting of the gates," wrote Davison to Walsingham,

transmitting the little note from Marnix, which has just been cited--

"I was advertised that Ste. Aldegonde was not an hour before secretly

landed at the head on the other side the Rammekens, and come to his house

at Zoubourg, having prepared his way by an apology, newly published in

his defence, whereof I have as yet recovered one only copy, which

herewith I send your honour. This day, whilst I was at dinner, he sent

his son unto me, with a few lines, whereof I send you the copy,

advertising me of his arrival (which he knew I understood before),

together with the desire he had to see me, and speak with me, if the

States, before whom he was to come to purge himself of the crimes

wherewith he stood, as he with, unjustly charged, would vouchsafe him so

much liberty. The same morning, the council of Zeeland, taking knowledge

of his arrival, sent unto him the pensioner of Middelburgh and this town,

to sound the causes of his coming, and to will him, in their behalf, to

keep his house, and to forbear all meddling by word or writing, with any

whatsoever, till they should further advise and determine in his cause.

In defence thereof, he fell into large and particular discourse with the

deputies, accusing his enemies of malice and untruth, offering himself to

any trial, and to abide what punishment the laws should lay upon him, if

he were found guilty of the crimes imputed to him. Touching the cause of

his coming, he pretended and protested that he had no other end than his

simple justification, preferring any hazard he might incur thereby, to

his honour and good fame." As to the great question at issue, Marnix

had at last become conscious that he had been a victim to Spanish

dissimulation, and that Alexander Fainese was in reality quite powerless

to make that concession of religious liberty, without which a

reconciliation between Holland and Philip was impossible. "Whereas,"

said Davison, "it was supposed that Ste. Aldegonde had commission from

the Prince of Parma to make some offer of peace, he assured them of the

contrary as a thing which neither the Prince had any power to yield unto

with the surety of religion, or himself would, in conscience, persuade

without it; with a number of other particularities in his excuse; amongst

the rest, allowing and commending in his speech, the course they had

taken with her Majesty, as the only safe way of deliverance for these

afflicted countries--letting them understand how much the news thereof--

specially since the entry of our garrison into this place (which before

they would in no sort believe), hath troubled the enemy, who doth what he

may to suppress the bruit thereof, and yet comforteth himself with the

hope that between the factions and partialities nourished by his

industry, and musters among the towns, especially in Holland and Zeeland

(where he is persuaded to find some pliable to a reconcilement) and the

disorders and misgovernment of our people, there will be yet occasion

offered him to make his profit and advantage. I find that the gentleman

hath here many friends indifferently persuaded of his innocency,

notwithstanding the closing up of his apology doth make but little for

him. Howsoever it be, it falleth out the better that the treaty with her

Majesty is finished, and the cautionary towns assured before his coming,

which, if he be ill affected, will I hope either reform his judgment or

restrain his will. I will not forget to do the best I can to sift and

decipher him yet more narrowly and particularly."

Thus, while the scales had at length fallen from the eyes of Marnix, it

was not strange that the confidence which he now began to entertain in

the policy of England, should not be met, at the outset, with a

corresponding sentiment on the part of the statesman by whom that policy

was regulated. "Howsoever Ste. Aldegonde would seem to purge himself,"

said Davison, "it is suspected that his end is dangerous. I have done

what I may to restrain him, so nevertheless as it may not seem to come

from me." And again--"Ste. Aldegonde," he wrote, "contimieth still our

neighbor at his house between this and Middelburg; yet unmolested. He

findeth many favourers, and, I fear, doth no good offices. He desireth

to be reserved till the coming of my Lord of Leicester, before whom he

pretends a desired trial."

This covert demeanour on the part of the ambassador was in accordance

with, the wishes of his government. It was thought necessary that Sainte

Aldegonde should be kept under arrest until the arrival of the Earl, but

deemed preferable that the restraint should proceed from the action of

the States rather than from the order of the Queen. Davison was

fulfilling orders in attempting, by underhand means, to deprive Marnix,

for a time, of his liberty. "Let him, I pray you, remain in good safety

in any wise," wrote Leicester, who was uneasy at the thought of so

influential, and, as he thought, so ill-affected a person being at large,

but at the same time disposed to look dispassionately upon his past

conduct, and to do justice, according to the results of an investigation.

"It is thought meet," wrote Walsingham to Davison, "that you should do

your best endeavour to procure that Ste. Aldegonde may be restrained,

which in mine opinion were fit to be handled in such sort, as the

restraint might rather proceed from themselves than by your solicitation.

And yet rather than he should remain at liberty to practise underhand,

whereof you seem to stand in great doubt, it is thought meet that you

should make yourself a partizan, to seek by all the means that you may to

have him restrained under the guard of some well affected patriot until

the Earl's coming, at what time his cause may receive examination."

This was, however, a result somewhat difficult to accomplish; for twenty

years of noble service in the cause of liberty had not been utterly in

vain, and there were many magnanimous spirits to sympathize with a great

man struggling thus in the meshes of calumny. That the man who

challenged rather than shunned investigation, should be thrown into

prison, as if he were a detected felon upon the point of absconding,

seemed a heartless and superfluous precaution. Yet Davison and others

still feared the man whom they felt obliged to regard as a baffled

intriguer. "Touching the restraint of Ste. Aldegonde," wrote Davison to

Lord Burghley, "which I had order from Mr. Secretary to procure

underhand, I find the difficulty will be great in regard of his many

friends and favourers, preoccupied with some opinion of his innocence,

although I have travailled with divers of them underhand, and am promised

that some order shall be taken in that behalf, which I think will be

harder to execute as long as Count Maurice is here. For Ste.

Aldegonde's affection, I find continual matter to suspect it inclined to

a peace, and that as one notably prejudging our scope and proceeding in

this cause, doth lie in wait for an occasion to set it forward, being, as

it seems, fed with a hope of 'telle quelle liberte de conscience,' which

the Prince of Parma and others of his council have, as he confesseth,

earnestly solicited at the King's hands. This appeareth, in truth, the

only apt and easy way for them to prevail both against religion and the

liberty of these poor countries, having thereby once recovered the

authority which must necessarily follow a peace, to renew and alter the

magistrates of the particular towns, which, being at their devotion, may

turn, as we say, all upside down, and so in an instant being under their

servitude, if not wholly, at the least in a great part of the country,

leaving so much the less to do about the rest, a thing confessed and

looked for of all men of any judgment here, if the drift of our peace-

makers may take effect."

Sainte Aldegonde had been cured of his suspicions of England, and at last

the purity of his own character shone through the mists.

One winter's morning, two days after Christmas, 1585, Colonel Morgan, an

ingenuous Welshman, whom we have seen doing much hard fighting on

Kowenstyn Dyke, and at other places, and who now commanded the garrison

at Flushing, was taking a walk outside the gates, and inhaling the salt

breezes from the ocean. While thus engaged he met a gentleman coming

along, staff in hand, at a brisk pace towards the town, who soon proved

to be no other than the distinguished and deeply suspected Sainte

Aldegonde. The two got at once into conversation. "He began," said

Morgan, "by cunning insinuations, to wade into matters of state, and at

the last fell to touching the principal points, to wit, her Majesty's

entrance into the cause now in hand, which, quoth he, was an action of

high importance, considering how much it behoved her to go through the

same, as well in regard of the hope that thereby was given to the

distressed people of these parts, as also in consideration of that worthy

personage whom she hath here placed, whose estate and credit may not be

suffered to quail, but must be upholden as becometh the lieutenant of

such a princess as her Majesty."

"The opportunity thus offered," continued honest Morgan, "and the way

opened by himself, I thought good to discourse with him to the full,

partly to see the end and drift of his induced talk, and consequently to

touch his quick in the suspected cause of Antwerp." And thus, word for

word, taken down faithfully the same day, proceeded the dialogue that

wintry morning, near three centuries ago. From that simple record--

mouldering unseen and unthought of for ages, beneath piles of official

dust--the forms of the illustrious Fleming and the bold Welsh colonel,

seem to start, for a brief moment, out of the three hundred years of

sleep which have succeeded their energetic existence upon earth. And so,

with the bleak winds of December whistling over the breakers of the North

Sea, the two discoursed together, as they paced along the coast.

Morgan.--"I charge you with your want of confidence in her Majesty's

promised aid. 'Twas a thing of no small moment had it been embraced when

it was first most graciously offered."

Sainte Aldegonde.--"I left not her prince-like purpose unknown to the

States, who too coldly and carelessly passed over the benefit thereof,

until it was too late to put the same in practice. For my own part,

I acknowledge that indeed I thought some further advice would either

alter or at least detract from the accomplishment of her determination.

I thought this the rather because she had so long been wedded to peace,

and I supposed it impossible to divorce her from so sweet a spouse.

But, set it down that she were resolute, yet the sickness of Antwerp was

so dangerous, as it was to be doubted the patient would be dead before

the physician could come. I protest that the state of the town was much

worse than was known to any but myself and some few private persons. The

want of victuals was far greater than they durst bewray, fearing lest the

common people, perceiving the plague of famine to be at hand, would

rather grow desperate than patiently expect some happy event. For as

they were many in number, so were they wonderfully divided: some being

Martinists, some Papists, some neither the one nor the other, but

generally given to be factious, so that the horror at home was equal to

the hazard abroad."

Morgan.--"But you forget the motion made by the martial men for putting

out of the town such as were simple artificers, with women and children,

mouths that consumed meat, but stood in no stead for defence."

Sainte Aldegonde.--"Alas, alas! would you have had me guilty of the

slaughter of so many innocents, whose lives were committed to my charge,

as well as the best? Or might I have answered my God when those

massacred creatures should have stood up against me, that the hope of

Antwerp's deliverance was purchased with the blood of so many simple

souls? No, no. I should have found my conscience such a hell and

continual worm as the gnawing thereof would have been more painful and

bitter than the possession of the whole world would have been pleasant."

Morgan continued to press the various points which had created suspicion

as to the character and motives of Marnix, and point by point Marnix

answered his antagonist, impressing him, armed as he had been in

distrust, with an irresistible conviction as to the loftiness of the

nature which had been so much calumniated.

Sainte Aldegonde (with vehemence).--"I do assure you, in conclusion, that

I have solemnly vowed service and duty to her Majesty, which I am ready

to perform where and when it may best like her to use the same. I will

add moreover that I have oftentimes determined to pass into England to

make my own purgation, yet fearing lest her Highness would mislike so

bold a resolution, I have checked that purpose with a resolution to tarry

the Lord's leisure, until some better opportunity might answer my desire.

For since I know not how I stand in her grace, unwilling I am to attempt

her presence without permission; but might it please her to command my

attendance, I should not only most joyfully accomplish the same, but also

satisfy her of and in all such matters as I stand charged with, and

afterwards spend life, land, and goods, to witness my duty towards her

Highness."

Morgan.--"I tell you plainly, that if you are in heart the same man that

you seem outwardly to be, I doubt not but her Majesty might easily be

persuaded to conceive a gracious opinion of you. For mine own part, I

will surely advertise Sir Francis Walsingham of as much matter as this

present conference hath ministered.

"Hereof," said the Colonel--when, according to his promise, faithfully

recording the conversation in all its details for Mr. Secretary's

benefit," he seemed not only content but most glad. Therefore I beseech

your honour to vouchsafe some few lines herein, that I may return him

some part of your mind. I have already written thereof to Sir Philip

Sidney, lord governor of Flushing, with request that his Excellency the

Earl of Leicester may presently be made acquainted with the cause."

Indeed the brave Welshman was thoroughly converted from his suspicions by

the earnest language and sympathetic presence of the fallen statesman.

This result of the conference was creditable to the ingenuous character

of both personages.

"Thus did he," wrote Morgan to Sir Francis, "from point to point, answer

all objections from the first to the last, and that in such sound and

substantial manner, with a strong show of truth, as I think his very

enemies, having heard his tale, would be satisfied. And truly, Sir, as

heretofore I have thought hardly of him, being led by a superficial

judgment of things as they stood in outward appearance; so now, having

pierced deep, and weighed causes by a sounder and more deliberate

consideration, I find myself somewhat changed in conceit--not so much

carried away by the sweetness of his speech, as confirmed by the force of

his religious profession, wherein he remaineth constant, without wavering

--an argument of great strength to set him free from treacherous

attempts; but as I am herein least able and most unworthy to yield any

censure, much less to give advice, so I leave the man and the matter to

your honour's opinion. Only (your graver judgment reserved) thus I

think, that it were good either to employ him as a friend, or as an enemy

to remove him farther from us, being a man of such action as the world

knoweth he is. And to conclude," added Morgan, "this was the upshot

between us."

Nevertheless, he remained in this obscurity for a long period. When,

towards the close of the year 1585, the English government was

established in Holland, he was the object of constant suspicion.

"Here is Aldegonde," wrote Sir Philip Sidney to Lord Leicester from

Flushing, "a man greatly suspected, but by no man charged. He lives

restrained to his own house, and for aught I can find, deals with

nothing, only desiring to have his cause wholly referred to your

Lordship, and therefore, with the best heed I can to his proceedings,

I will leave him to his clearing or condemning, when your Lordship shall

hear him."

In another letter, Sir Philip again spoke of Sainte Aldegonde as "one of

whom he kept a good opinion, and yet a suspicious eye."

Leicester himself was excessively anxious on the subject, deeply fearing

the designs of a man whom he deemed so mischievous, and being earnestly

desirous that he should not elude the chastisement which he seemed to

deserve.

"Touching Ste. Aldegonde," he wrote to Davison, "I grieve that he is at

his house without good guard. I do earnestly pray you to move such as

have power presently to commit a guard about him, for I know he is a

dangerous and a bold man, and presumes yet to carry all, for he hath made

many promises to the Prince of Parma. I would he were in Fort Rammekyns,

or else that Mr. Russell had charge of him, with a recommendation from me

to Russell to look well to him till I shall arrive. You must have been

so commanded in this from her Majesty, for she thinks he is in close and

safe guard. If he is not, look for a turn of all things, for he hath

friends, I know."

But very soon after his arrival, the Earl, on examining into the matter,

saw fit to change his opinions and his language. Persuaded, in spite of

his previous convictions, even as the honest Welsh colonel had been, of

the upright character of the man, and feeling sure that a change had come

over the feelings of Marnix himself in regard to the English alliance,

Leicester at once interested himself in removing the prejudices

entertained towards him by the Queen.

"Now a few words for Ste. Aldegonde," said he in his earliest despatches

from Holland; "I will beseech her Majesty to stay her judgment till I

write next. If the man be as he now seemeth, it were pity to lose him,

for he is indeed marvellously friended. Her Majesty will think, I know,

that I am easily pacified or led in such a matter, but I trust so to deal

as she shall give me thanks. Once if he do offer service it is sure

enough, for he is esteemed that way above all the men in this country for

his word, if he give it. His worst enemies here procure me to win him,

for sure, just matter for his life there is none. He would fain come

into England, so far is he come already, and doth extol her Majesty for

this work of hers to heaven, and confesseth, till now an angel could not

make him believe it."

Here certainly was a noble tribute paid unconsciously, as it were, to the

character of the maligned statesman. "Above all the men in the country

for his word, if he give it." What wonder that Orange had leaned upon

him, that Alexander had sought to gain him, and how much does it add to

our bitter regret that his prejudices against England should not have

been removed until too late for Antwerp and for his own usefulness. Had

his good angel really been present to make him believe in that "work of

her Majesty," when his ear was open to the seductions of Parma, the

destiny of Belgium and his own subsequent career might have been more

fortunate than they became.

The Queen was slow to return from her prejudices. She believed--not

without reason--that the opposition of Ste. Aldegonde to her policy had

been disastrous to the cause both of England and the Netherlands; and it

had been her desire that he should be imprisoned, and tried for his life.

Her councillors came gradually to take a more favourable view of the

case, and to be moved by the pathetic attitude of the man who had once

been so conspicuous.

"I did acquaint Sir Christopher Hatton," wrote Walsingham to Leicester,

"with the letter which Ste. Aldegonde wrote to your Lordship, which,

carrying a true picture of an afflicted mind, cannot but move an honest

heart, weighing the rare parts the gentleman is endowed withal, to pity

his distressed estate, and, to procure him relief and comfort, which Mr.

Vice-Chamberlain (Hatton) bath promised on his part to perform. I

thought good to send Ste. Aldegonde's letter unto the Lord Treasurer

(Burghley), who heretofore has carried a hard conceit of the gentleman,

hoping that the view of his letter will breed some remorse towards him.

I have also prayed his Lordship, if he see cause, to acquaint her Majesty

with the said letter."

But his high public career was closed. He lived down calumny; and put

his enemies to shame, but the fatal error which he had committed, in

taking the side of Spain rather than of England at so momentous a crisis,

could never be repaired. He regained the good opinion of the most

virtuous and eminent personages in Europe, but in the noon of life he

voluntarily withdrew from public affairs. The circumstances just

detailed had made him impossible as a political leader, and it was

equally impossible for him to play a secondary part. He occasionally

consented to be employed in special diplomatic missions, but the serious

avocations of his life now became theological and literary. He sought--

in his own words--to penetrate himself still more deeply than ever with

the spirit of the reformation, and to imbue the minds of the young with

that deep love for the reformed religion which had been the guiding

thought of his own career. He often spoke with a sigh of his compulsory

exile from the field where he had been so conspicuous all his lifetime;

he bitterly lamented the vanished dream of the great national union

between Belgium and Holland, which had flattered his youth and his

manhood; and he sometimes alluded with bitterness to the calumny which

had crippled him of his usefulness. He might have played a distinguished

part in that powerful commonwealth which was so steadily and splendidly

arising out of the lagunes of Zeeland and Holland, but destiny and

calumny and his own error had decided otherwise.

"From the depth of my exile--" he said, "for I am resolved to retire,

I know not where, into Germany, perhaps into Sarmatia, I shall look from

afar upon the calamities of my country. That which to me is most

mournful is no longer to be able to assist my fatherland by my counsels

and my actions." He did not go into exile, but remained chiefly at his

mansion of Zoubourg, occupied with agriculture and with profound study.

Many noble works conspicuous in the literature of the epoch--were the

results of his learned leisure; and the name of Marnix of Sainte

Aldegonde will be always as dear to the lovers of science and letters as

to the believers in civil and religious liberty. At the request of the

States of Holland he undertook, in 1593, a translation of the Scriptures

from the original, and he was at the same time deeply engaged with a

History of Christianity, which he intended for his literary master-piece.

The man whose sword had done knightly service on many a battle-field for

freedom, whose tongue had controlled mobs and senates, courts and

councils, whose subtle spirit had metamorphosed itself into a thousand

shapes to do battle with the genius of tyranny, now quenched the feverish

agitation of his youth and manhood in Hebrew and classical lore. A grand

and noble figure always: most pathetic when thus redeeming by vigorous

but solitary and melancholy hard labor, the political error which had

condemned him to retirement. To work, ever to work, was the primary law

of his nature. Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs" was the

device which he assumed in earliest youth, and to which he was faithful

all his days.

A great and good man whose life had been brim-full of noble deeds,

and who had been led astray from the path, not of virtue, but of sound

policy, by his own prejudices and by the fascination of an intellect even

more brilliant than his own, he at least enjoyed in his retirement

whatever good may come from hearty and genuine labor, and from the high

regard entertained for him by the noblest spirits among his

contemporaries.

"They tell me," said La Noue, "that the Seigneur de Ste. Aldegonde has

been suspected by the Hollanders and the English. I am deeply grieved,

for 'tis a personage worthy to be employed. I have always known him to

be a zealous friend of his religion and his country, and I will bear him

this testimony, that his hands and his heart are clean. Had it been

otherwise, I must have known it. His example has made me regret the

less the promise I was obliged to make, never to bear arms again in the

Netherlands. For I have thought that since this man, who has so much

credit and authority among your people, after having done his duty well,

has not failed to be calumniated and ejected from service, what would

they have done with me, who am a stranger, had I continued in their

employment? The consul Terentius Varro lost, by his fault, the battle of

Canna; nevertheless, when he returned to Rome, offering the remainder of

his life in the cause of his Republic reduced to extremity, he was not

rejected, but well received, because he hoped well for the country.

It is not to be imputed as blame to Ste. Aldegonde that he lost Antwerp,

for he surrendered when it could not be saved. What I now say is drawn

from me by the compassion I feel when persons of merit suffer without

cause at the hands of their fellow citizens. In these terrible tempests,

as it is a duty rigorously to punish the betrayers of their country, even

so it is an obligation upon us to honor good patriots, and to support

them in venial errors, that we may all encourage each other to do the

right."

Strange too as it may now seem to us, a reconciliation of the Netherlands

with Philip was not thought an impossibility by other experienced and

sagacious patriots, besides Marnix. Even Olden-Barneveld, on taking

office as Holland's Advocate, at this period, made it a condition that

his service was to last only until the reunion of the Provinces with

Spain.

There was another illustrious personage in a foreign land who ever

rendered homage to the character of the retired Netherland statesman.

Amid the desolation of France, Duplessis Mornay often solaced himself by

distant communion with that kindred and sympathizing spirit.

"Plunged in public annoyances," he wrote to Sainte Aldegonde, "I find no

consolation, except in conference with the good, and among the good I

hold you for one of the best. With such men I had rather sigh profoundly

than laugh heartily with others. In particular, Sir, do me the honor to

love me, and believe that I honor you singularly. Impart to me something

from your solitude, for I consider your deserts to be more fruitful and

fertile than our most cultivated habitations. As for me, think of me as

of a man drowning in the anxieties of the time, but desirous, if

possible, of swimming to solitude."

Thus solitary, yet thus befriended,--remote from public employment, yet

ever employed, doing his daily work with all his soul and strength,

Marnix passed the fifteen years yet remaining to him. Death surprised

him at last, at Leyden, in the year 1598, while steadily laboring upon

his Flemish translation of the Old Testament, and upon the great

political, theological, controversial, and satirical work on the

differences of religion, which remains the most stately, though

unfinished, monument of his literary genius. At the age of sixty

he went at last to the repose which he had denied to himself on earth.

"Repos ailleurs."