This eBook was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 31
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1578
By John Lothrop Motley
1855
PART VI.
ALEXANDER OF PARMA
1578-1584.
CHAPTER I.
Birth, education, marriage, and youthful character of Alexander
Farnese--His private adventures--Exploits at Lepanto and at
Gemblours--He succeeds to the government--Personal appearance and
characteristics--Aspect of affairs--Internal dissensions--Anjou at
Mons--John Casimir's intrigues at Ghent--Anjou disbands his
soldiers--The Netherlands ravaged by various foreign troops--Anarchy
and confusion in Ghent--Imbize and Ryhove--Fate of Hessels and
Visch--New Pacification drawn up by Orange--Representations of Queen
Elizabeth--Remonstrance of Brussels Riots and image-breaking in
Ghent--Displeasure of Orange--His presence implored at Ghent, where
he establishes a Religious Peace--Painful situation of John Casimir
--Sharp rebukes of Elizabeth--He takes his departure--His troops
apply to Farnese, who allows them to leave the country--Anjou's
departure and manifesto--Elizabeth's letters to the states-general
with regard to him--Complimentary addresses by the Estates to the
Duke--Death of Bossu--Calumnies against Orange--Venality of the
malcontent grandees--La Motte's treason--Intrigues of the Prior of
Renty--Saint Aldegonde at Arras--The Prior of St. Vaast's exertions
--Opposition of the clergy in the Walloon provinces to the taxation
of the general government--Triangular contest--Municipal revolution
in Arras led by Gosson and others--Counter-revolution--Rapid trials
and executions--"Reconciliation" of the malcontent chieftains--
Secret treaty of Mount St. Eloi: Mischief made by the Prior of
Renty--His accusations against the reconciled lords--Vengeance taken
upon him--Counter movement by the liberal party--Union of Utrecht--
The Act analyzed and characterized.
A fifth governor now stood in the place which had been successively
vacated by Margaret of Parma, by Alva, by the Grand Commander, and by Don
John of Austria. Of all the eminent personages to whom Philip had
confided the reins of that most difficult and dangerous administration,
the man who was now to rule was by far the ablest and the best fitted for
his post. If there were living charioteer skilful enough to guide the
wheels of state, whirling now more dizzily than ever through "confusum
chaos," Alexander Farnese was the charioteer to guide--his hand the only
one which could control.
He was now in his thirty-third year--his uncle Don John, his cousin Don
Carlos, and himself, having all been born within a few months of each
other. His father was Ottavio Farnese, the faithful lieutenant of
Charles the Fifth, and grandson of Pope Paul the Third; his mother was
Margaret of Parma, first Regent of the Netherlands after the departure of
Philip from the provinces. He was one of the twins by which the reunion
of Margaret and her youthful husband had been blessed, and the only one
that survived. His great-grandfather, Paul, whose secular name of
Alexander he had received, had placed his hand upon the new-born infant's
head, and prophesied that he would grow up to become a mighty warrior.
The boy, from his earliest years, seemed destined to verify the
prediction. Though apt enough at his studies, he turned with impatience
from his literary tutors to military exercises and the hardiest sports.
The din of arms surrounded his cradle. The trophies of Ottavio,
returning victorious from beyond the Alps, had dazzled the eyes of his
infancy, and when but six years of age he had witnessed the siege of his
native Parma, and its vigorous defence by his martial father. When
Philip was in the Netherlands--in the years immediately succeeding the
abdication of the Emperor--he had received the boy from his parents as a
hostage for their friendship. Although but eleven years of age,
Alexander had begged earnestly to be allowed to serve as a volunteer on
the memorable day of Saint Quentin, and had wept bitterly when the amazed
monarch refused his request.--His education had been, completed at
Alcala, and at Madrid, under the immediate supervision of his royal
uncle, and in the companionship of the Infante Carlos and the brilliant
Don John. The imperial bastard was alone able to surpass, or even to
equal the Italian prince in all martial and manly pursuits. Both were
equally devoted to the chase and to the tournay; both longed impatiently
for the period when the irksome routine of monkish pedantry, and the
fictitious combats which formed their main recreation, should be
exchanged for the substantial delights of war. At the age of twenty he
had been affianced to Maria of Portugal; daughter of Prince Edward,
granddaughter of King Emanuel, and his nuptials with that peerless
princess were; as we have seen, celebrated soon afterwards with much pomp
in Brussels. Sons and daughters were born to him in due time, during his
subsequent residence in Parma. Here, however, the fiery and impatient
spirit of the future illustrious commander was doomed for a time to fret
under restraint, and to corrode in distasteful repose. His father, still
in the vigor of his years, governing the family duchies of Parma and
Piacenza, Alexander had no occupation in the brief period of peace which
then existed. The martial spirit, pining for a wide and lofty sphere of
action, in which alone its energies could be fitly exercised, now sought
delight in the pursuits of the duellist and gladiator. Nightly did the
hereditary prince of the land perambulate the streets of his capital,
disguised, well armed, alone, or with a single confidential attendant.
Every chance passenger of martial aspect whom he encountered in the
midnight streets was forced to stand and measure swords with an unknown,
almost unseen but most redoubtable foe, and many were the single combats
which he thus enjoyed, so long as his incognito was preserved.
Especially, it was his wont to seek and defy every gentleman whose skill
or bravery had ever been commended in his hearing: At last, upon one
occasion it was his fortune to encounter a certain Count Torelli, whose
reputation as a swordsman and duellist was well established in Parma.
The blades were joined, and the fierce combat had already been engaged in
the darkness, when the torch of an accidental passenger gashed full in
the face of Alexander. Torelli, recognising thus suddenly his
antagonist, dropped his sword and implored forgiveness, for the wily
Italian was too keen not to perceive that even if the death of neither
combatant should be the result of the fray, his own position was, in
every event, a false one. Victory would ensure him the hatred, defeat
the contempt of his future sovereign. The unsatisfactory issue and
subsequent notoriety of this encounter put a termination to these
midnight joys of Alexander, and for a season he felt obliged to assume
more pacific habits, and to solace himself with the society of that
"phoenix of Portugal," who had so long sat brooding on his domestic
hearth.
At last the holy league was formed, the new and last crusade proclaimed,
his uncle and bosom friend appointed to the command of the united troops
of Rome, Spain, and Venice. He could no longer be restrained.
Disdaining the pleadings of his mother and of his spouse, he extorted
permission from Philip, and flew to the seat of war in the Levant. Don
John received him with open arms, just before the famous action of
Lepanto, and gave him an, excellent position in the very front of the
battle, with the command of several Genoese galleys. Alexander's
exploits on that eventful day seemed those of a fabulous hero of romance.
He laid his galley alongside of the treasure-ship of the Turkish fleet, a
vessel, on account of its importance, doubly manned and armed. Impatient
that the Crescent was not lowered, after a few broadsides, he sprang on
board the enemy alone, waving an immense two-handed sword--his usual
weapon--and mowing a passage right and left through the hostile ranks for
the warriors who tardily followed the footsteps of their vehement chief.
Mustapha Bey, the treasurer and commander of the ship, fell before his
sword, besides many others, whom he hardly saw or counted. The galley
was soon his own, as well as another, which came to the rescue of the
treasure-ship only to share its defeat. The booty which Alexander's crew
secured was prodigious, individual soldiers obtaining two and three
thousand ducats each. Don John received his nephew after the battle with
commendations, not, however, unmingled with censure. The successful
result alone had justified such insane and desperate conduct, for had he
been slain or overcome, said the commander-in-chief, there would have
been few to applaud his temerity. Alexander gaily replied by assuring
his uncle that he had felt sustained by a more than mortal confidence,
the prayers which his saintly wife was incessantly offering in his behalf
since he went to the wars being a sufficient support and shield in even
greater danger than he had yet confronted.
This was Alexander's first campaign, nor was he permitted to reap any
more glory for a few succeeding years. At last, Philip was disposed to
send both his mother and himself to the Netherlands; removing Don John
from the rack where he had been enduring such slow torture. Granvelle's
intercession proved fruitless with the Duchess, but Alexander was all
eagerness to go where blows were passing current, and he gladly led the
reinforcements which were sent to Don John at the close of the year 1577.
He had reached Luxemburg, on the 18th of December of that year, in time,
as we have seen, to participate, and, in fact, to take the lead in the
signal victory of Gemblours. He had been struck with the fatal change
which disappointment and anxiety had wrought upon the beautiful and
haughty features of his illustrious kinsman. He had since closed his
eyes in the camp, and erected a marble tablet over his heart in the
little church. He now governed in his stead.
His personal appearance corresponded with his character. He had the head
of a gladiator, round; compact, combative, with something alert and
snake-like in its movements. The black, closely-shorn hair was erect and
bristling. The forehead was lofty and narrow. The features were,
handsome, the nose regularly aquiline, the eyes well opened, dark
piercing, but with something dangerous and sinister in their expression.
There was an habitual look askance; as of a man seeking to parry or
inflict a mortal blow--the look of a swordsman and professional fighter.
The lower part of the face was swallowed in a bushy beard; the mouth and
chin being quite invisible. He was of middle stature, well formed, and
graceful in person, princely in demeanor, sumptuous and stately in
apparel. His high ruff of point lace, his badge of the Golden Fleece,
his gold-inlaid Milan armor, marked him at once as one of high degree.
On the field of battle he possessed the rare gift of inspiring his
soldiers with his own impetuous and chivalrous courage. He ever led the
way upon the most dangerous and desperate ventures, and, like his uncle
and his imperial grandfather, well knew how to reward the devotion of his
readiest followers with a poniard, a feather, a riband, a jewel, taken
with his own hands from his own attire.
His military, abilities--now for the first time to be largely called into
employment--were unquestionably superior to those of Don John; whose name
had been surrounded with such splendor by the World-renowned battle of
Lepanto. Moreover, he possessed far greater power for governing men,
whether in camp or cabinet. Less attractive and fascinating, he was more
commanding than his kinsman. Decorous and self-poised, he was only
passionate before the enemy, but he rarely permitted a disrespectful look
or word to escape condign and deliberate chastisement. He was no schemer
or dreamer. He was no knight errant. He would not have crossed seas and
mountains to rescue a captive queen, nor have sought to place her crown
on his own head as a reward for his heroism. He had a single and
concentrated kind of character. He knew precisely the work which Philip
required, and felt himself to be precisely the workman that had so long
been wanted. Cool, incisive, fearless, artful, he united the
unscrupulous audacity of a condottiere with the wily patience of a
Jesuit. He could coil unperceived through unsuspected paths, could
strike suddenly, sting mortally. He came prepared, not only to smite the
Netherlanders in the open field, but to cope with them in tortuous
policy; to outwatch and outweary them in the game to which his impatient
predecessor had fallen a baked victim. He possessed the art and the
patience--as time was to prove--not only to undermine their most
impregnable cities, but to delve below the intrigues of their most
accomplished politicians. To circumvent at once both their negotiators
and their men-at-arms was his appointed task. Had it not been for the
courage, the vigilance, and the superior intellect of a single
antagonist, the whole of the Netherlands would have shared the fate which
was reserved for the more southern portion. Had the life of William of
Orange been prolonged, perhaps the evil genius of the Netherlands might
have still been exorcised throughout the whole extent of the country.
As for religion, Alexander Farnese was, of course, strictly Catholic,
regarding all seceders from Romanism as mere heathen dogs. Not that he
practically troubled himself much with sacred matters--for, during the
life-time of his wife, he had cavalierly thrown the whole burden of his
personal salvation upon her saintly shoulders. She had now flown to
higher spheres, but Alexander was, perhaps, willing to rely upon her
continued intercessions in his behalf. The life of a bravo in time of
peace--the deliberate project in war to exterminate whole cities full of
innocent people, who had different notions on the subject of image-
worship and ecclesiastical ceremonies from those entertained at Rome, did
not seem to him at all incompatible with the precepts of Jesus. Hanging,
drowning, burning and butchering heretics were the legitimate deductions
of his theology. He was no casuist nor pretender to holiness: but in
those days every man was devout, and Alexander looked with honest horror
upon the impiety of the heretics, whom he persecuted and massacred. He
attended mass regularly--in the winter mornings by torch-light--and would
as soon have foregone his daily tennis as his religious exercises.
Romanism was the creed of his caste. It was the religion of princes and
gentlemen of high degree. As for Lutheranism, Zwinglism, Calvinism, and
similar systems, they were but the fantastic rites of weavers, brewers,
and the like--an ignoble herd whose presumption in entitling themselves
Christian, while rejecting the Pope; called for their instant
extermination. His personal habits were extremely temperate. He was
accustomed to say that he ate only to support life; and he rarely
finished a dinner without having risen three or four times from table to
attend to some public business which, in his opinion, ought not to be
deferred.
His previous connections in the Netherlands were of use to him, and he
knew how to turn them to immediate account. The great nobles, who had
been uniformly actuated by jealousy of the Prince of Orange, who had been
baffled in their intrigue with Matthias, whose half-blown designs upon
Anjou had already been nipped in the bud, were now peculiarly in a
position to listen to the wily tongue of Alexander Farnese. The
Montignys, the La Mottes, the Meluns, the Egmonts, the Aerschots, the
Havres, foiled and doubly foiled in all their small intrigues and their
base ambition, were ready to sacrifice their country to the man they
hated, and to the ancient religion which they thought that they loved.
The Malcontents ravaging the land of Hainault and threatening Ghent, the
"Paternoster Jacks" who were only waiting for a favorable opportunity and
a good bargain to make their peace with Spain, were the very instruments
which Parma most desired to use at this opening stage of his career. The
position of affairs was far more favorable for him than it had been for
Don John when he first succeeded to power. On the whole, there seemed
a bright prospect of success. It seemed quite possible that it would be
in Parma's power to reduce, at last, this chronic rebellion, and to
reestablish the absolute supremacy of Church and King. The pledges of
the Ghent treaty had been broken, while in the unions of Brussels which
had succeeded, the fatal religious cause had turned the instrument of
peace into a sword. The "religion-peace" which had been proclaimed at
Antwerp had hardly found favor anywhere. As the provinces, for an
instant, had seemingly got the better of their foe, they turned madly
upon each other, and the fires of religious discord, which had been
extinguished by the common exertions of a whole race trembling for the
destruction of their fatherland, were now re-lighted with a thousand
brands plucked from the sacred domestic hearth. Fathers and children,
brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, were beginning to wrangle, and
were prepared to persecute. Catholic and Protestant, during the
momentary relief from pressure, forgot their voluntary and most blessed
Pacification, to renew their internecine feuds. The banished Reformers,
who had swarmed back in droves at the tidings of peace and good-will to
all men, found themselves bitterly disappointed. They were exposed in
the Walloon provinces to the persecutions of the Malcontents, in the
Frisian regions to the still powerful coercion of the royal stadholders.
Persecution begat counter-persecution. The city of Ghent became the
centre of a system of insurrection, by which all the laws of God and man
were outraged under the pretence of establishing a larger liberty in
civil and religious matters. It was at Ghent that the opening scenes,
in Parma's administration took place. Of the high-born suitors for the
Netherland bride, two were still watching each other with jealous eyes.
Anjou was at Mons, which city he had secretly but unsuccessfully
attempted to master for, his, own purposes. John Casimir was at Ghent,
fomenting an insurrection which he had neither skill to guide, nor
intelligence to comprehend. There was a talk of making him Count of
Flanders,--and his paltry ambition was dazzled by the glittering prize.
Anjou, who meant to be Count of Flanders himself, as well as Duke or
Count of all the other Netherlands, was highly indignant at this report,
which he chose to consider true. He wrote to the estates to express his
indignation. He wrote to Ghent to offer his mediation between the
burghers and the Malcontents. Casimir wanted money for his troops. He
obtained a liberal supply, but he wanted more. Meantime, the mercenaries
were expatiating on their own account throughout the southern provinces;
eating up every green leaf, robbing and pillaging, where robbery and
pillage had gone so often that hardly anything was left for rapine. Thus
dealt the soldiers in the open country, while their master at Ghent was
plunging into the complicated intrigues spread over that unfortunate city
by the most mischievous demagogues that ever polluted a sacred cause.
Well had Cardinal Granvelle, his enemy, William of Hesse, his friend and
kinsman, understood the character of John Casimir. Robbery and pillage
were his achievements, to make chaos more confounded was his destiny.
Anjou--disgusted with the temporary favor accorded to a rival whom he
affected to despise--disbanded his troops in dudgeon, and prepared to
retire to France. Several thousand of these mercenaries took service
immediately with the Malcontents under Montigny, thus swelling the ranks
of the deadliest foes to that land over which Anjou had assumed the title
of protector. The states' army, meanwhile, had been rapidly dissolving.
There were hardly men enough left to make a demonstration in the field,
or properly to garrison the more important towns. The unhappy provinces,
torn by civil and religious dissensions, were overrun by hordes of unpaid
soldiers of all nations, creeds, and tongues-Spaniards, Italians,
Burgundians, Walloons, Germans, Scotch and English; some who came to
attack and others to protect, but who all achieved nothing and agreed in
nothing save to maltreat and to outrage the defenceless peasantry and
denizens of the smaller towns. The contemporary chronicles are full of
harrowing domestic tragedies, in which the actors are always the insolent
foreign soldiery and their desperate victims.
Ghent energetic, opulent, powerful, passionate, unruly Ghent--was now the
focus of discord, the centre from whence radiated not the light and
warmth of reasonable and intelligent liberty, but the bale-fires of
murderous licence and savage anarchy. The second city of the
Netherlands, one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities of
Christendom, it had been its fate so often to overstep the bounds of
reason and moderation in its devotion to freedom, so often to incur
ignominious chastisement from power which its own excesses had made more
powerful, that its name was already becoming a bye-word. It now, most
fatally and for ever, was to misunderstand its true position. The Prince
of Orange, the great architect of his country's fortunes, would have made
it the keystone of the arch which he was laboring to construct. Had he
been allowed to perfect his plan, the structure might have endured for
ages, a perpetual bulwark against, tyranny and wrong. The temporary and
slender frame by which the great artist had supported his arch while
still unfinished, was plucked away by rude and ribald hands; the keystone
plunged into the abyss, to be lost for ever, and the great work of Orange
remained a fragment from its commencement. The acts of demagogues, the
conservative disgust at licence, the jealousy of rival nobles, the
venality of military leaders, threw daily fresh stumbling-blocks in his
heroic path. It was not six months after the advent of Farnese to power,
before that bold and subtle chieftain had seized the double-edged sword
of religious dissension as firmly as he had grasped his celebrated brand
when he boarded the galley of Muatapha Bey, and the Netherlands were cut
in twain, to be re-united nevermore. The separate treaty of the Walloon
provinces was soon destined to separate the Celtic and Romanesque
elements from the Batavian and Frisian portion of a nationality, which;
thoroughly fused in all its parts, would have formed as admirable a
compound of fire and endurance as history has ever seen.
Meantime, the grass was growing and the cattle were grazing in the
streets of Ghent, where once the tramp of workmen going to and from their
labor was like the movement of a mighty army. The great majority of the
burghers were of the Reformed religion, and disposed to make effectual
resistance to the Malcontents, led by the disaffected nobles. The city,
considering itself the natural head of all the southern country, was
indignant that the Walloon provinces should dare to reassert that
supremacy of Romanism which had been so effectually suppressed, and to
admit the possibility of friendly relations with a sovereign who had been
virtually disowned. There were two parties, however, in Ghent. Both
were led by men of abandoned and dangerous character. Imbize, the worse
of the two demagogues, was inconstant, cruel, cowardly, and treacherous,
but possessed of eloquence and a talent for intrigue. Ryhove was a
bolder ruffian--wrathful, bitter, and unscrupulous. Imbize was at the
time opposed to Orange, disliking his moderation, and trembling at his
firmness. Ryhove considered himself the friend of the Prince. We have
seen that he had consulted him previously to his memorable attack upon
Aerschot, in the autumn of the preceding year, and we know the result of
that conference.
The Prince, with the slight dissimulation which belonged less to his
character than to his theory of politics, and which was perhaps not to be
avoided, in that age of intrigue, by any man who would govern his fellow-
men, whether for good or evil, had winked at a project which he would not
openly approve. He was not thoroughly acquainted, however, with the
desperate character of the man, for he would have scorned an instrument
so thoroughly base as Ryhove subsequently proved. The violence of that
personage on the occasion of the arrest of Aerschot and his colleagues
was mildness compared with the deed with which he now disgraced the cause
of freedom. He had been ordered out from Ghent to oppose a force of
Malcontents which was gathering in the neighbourhood of Courtray; but he
swore that he would not leave the gates so long as two of the gentlemen
whom he had arrested on the twenty-eighth of the previous October, and
who yet remained in captivity, were still alive. These two prisoners
were ex-procurator Visch and Blood-Councillor Hessels. Hessels, it
seemed, had avowed undying hostility to Ryhove for the injury sustained
at his hands, and he had sworn, "by his grey beard," that the ruffian
should yet hang for the outrage. Ryhove, not feeling very safe in the
position of affairs which then existed, and knowing that he could neither
trust Imbize, who had formerly been his friend, nor the imprisoned
nobles, who had ever been his implacable enemies, was resolved to make
himself safe in one quarter at least, before he set forth against the
Malcontents. Accordingly, Hessels and Visch, as they sat together in
their prison, at chess, upon the 4th of October, 1578, were suddenly
summoned to leave the house, and to enter a carriage which stood at the
door. A force of armed men brought the order, and were sufficiently
strong to enforce it. The prisoners obeyed, and the coach soon rolled
slowly through the streets, left the Courtray gate, and proceeded a short
distance along the road towards that city.
After a few minutes a halt was made. Ryhove then made his appearance at
the carriage-window, and announced to the astonished prisoners that, they
were forthwith to be hanged upon a tree which stood by the road-side. He
proceeded to taunt the aged Hessels with his threat against himself, and
with his vow "by his grey beard." "Such grey beard shalt thou never live
thyself to wear, ruffian," cried Hessels, stoutly-furious rather than
terrified at the suddenness of his doom. "There thou liest, false
traitor!" roared Ryhove in reply; and to prove the falsehood, he
straightway tore out a handful of the old man's beard, and fastened it
upon his own cap like a plume. His action was imitated by several of his
companions, who cut for themselves locks from the same grey beard, and
decorated themselves as their leader had done. This preliminary ceremony
having been concluded, the two aged prisoners were forthwith hanged on a
tree, without-the least pretence of trial or even sentence.
Such was the end of the famous councillor who had been wont to shout
"ad patibulum" in his sleep. It was cruel that the fair face of civil
liberty showing itself after years of total eclipse, should be insulted
by such bloody deeds on the part of her votaries. It was sad that the
crimes of men like Imbize and Ryhove should have cost more to the cause
of religious and political freedom than the lives of twenty thousand such
ruffians were worth. But for the influence of demagogues like these,
counteracting the lofty efforts and pure life of Orange, the separation
might never have occurred between the two portions of the Netherlands.
The Prince had not power enough, however, nor the nascent commonwealth
sufficient consistency, to repress the disorganizing tendency of a
fanatical Romanism on the one side, and a retaliatory and cruel
ochlocracy on the other.
Such events, with the hatred growing daily more intense between the
Walloons and the Ghenters, made it highly important that some kind
of an accord should be concluded, if possible. In the country, the
Malcontents, under pretence of protecting the Catholic clergy, were
daily abusing and plundering the people, while in Ghent the clergy were
maltreated, the cloisters pillaged, under the pretence of maintaining
liberty. In this emergency the eyes of all honest men turned naturally
to Orange.
Deputies went to and fro between Antwerp and Ghent, Three points were
laid down by the Prince as indispensable to any arrangement--firstly,
that the Catholic clergy should be allowed the free use of their
property; secondly, that they should not be disturbed in the exercise of
their religion; thirdly, that the gentlemen kept in prison since the
memorable twenty-eighth of October should be released. If these points
should be granted, the Archduke Matthias, the states-general, and the
Prince of Orange would agree to drive off the Walloon soldiery, and to
defend Ghent against all injury. The two first points were granted, upon
condition that sufficient guarantees should be established for the safety
of the Reformed religion. The third was rejected, but it was agreed that
the prisoners, Champagny, Sweveghem, and the rest--who, after the horrid
fate of Hessels and Visch, might be supposed to be sufficiently anxious
as to their own doom--should have legal trial, and be defended in the
meantime from outrage.
On the 3rd of November, 1578, a formal act of acceptance of these terms
was signed at Antwerp. At the same time, there was murmuring at Ghent,
the extravagant portion of the liberal party averring that they had no
intention of establishing the "religious peace" when they agreed not to
molest the Catholics. On the 11th of November, the Prince of Orange sent
messengers to Ghent in the name of the Archduke and the states-general,
summoning the authorities to a faithful execution of the act of
acceptance. Upon the same day the English envoy, Davidson, made an
energetic representation to the same magistrates, declaring that the
conduct of the Ghenters was exciting regret throughout the world, and
affording a proof that it was their object to protract, not suppress, the
civil war which had so long been raging. Such proceedings, he observed,
created doubts whether they were willing to obey any law or any
magistracy. As, however, it might be supposed that the presence of John
Casimir in Ghent at that juncture was authorized by Queen Elizabeth--
inasmuch as it was known that he had received a subsidy from her--the
envoy took occasion to declare that her Majesty entirely disavowed his
proceedings. He observed further that, in the opinion of her Majesty,
it was still possible to maintain peace by conforming to the counsels
of the Prince of Orange and of the states-general. This, however, could
be done only by establishing the three points which he had laid down.
Her Majesty likewise warned the Ghenters that their conduct would soon
compel her to abandon the country's cause altogether, and, in conclusion,
she requested, with characteristic thriftiness, to be immediately
furnished with a city bond for forty-five thousand pounds sterling.
Two days afterwards, envoys arrived from Brussels to remonstrate, in
their turn, with the sister city, and to save her, if possible, from the
madness which had seized upon her. They recalled to the memory of the
magistrates the frequent and wise counsels of the Prince of Orange. He
had declared that he knew of no means to avert the impending desolation
of the fatherland save union of all the provinces and obedience to the
general government. His own reputation, and the honor of his house, he
felt now to be at stake; for, by reason of the offices which he now held,
he had been ceaselessly calumniated as the author of all the crimes which
had been committed at Ghent. Against these calumnies he had avowed his
intention of publishing his defence. After thus citing the opinion of
the Prince, the envoys implored the magistrates to accept the religious
peace which he had proposed, and to liberate the prisoners as he had
demanded. For their own part, they declared that the inhabitants of
Brussels would never desert him; for, next to God, there was no one who
understood their cause so entirely, or who could point out the remedy so
intelligently.
Thus reasoned the envoys from the states-general and from Brussels, but
even while they were reasoning, a fresh tumult occurred at Ghent. The
people had been inflamed by demagogues, and by the insane howlings of
Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, who had been the
servant and minister both of the Pope and of Orange, and who now hated
each with equal fervor. The populace, under these influences, rose in
its wrath upon the Catholics, smote all their images into fragments,
destroyed all their altar pictures, robbed them of much valuable
property, and turned all the Papists themselves out of the city. The
riot was so furious that it seemed, says a chronicler, as if all the
inhabitants had gone raving mad. The drums beat the alarm, the
magistrates went forth to expostulate, but no commands were heeded till
the work of destruction had been accomplished, when the tumult expired at
last by its own limitation.
Affairs seemed more threatening than ever. Nothing more excited the
indignation of the Prince of Orange than such senseless iconomachy. In
fact, he had at one time procured an enactment by the Ghent authorities,
making it a crime punishable with death. He was of Luther's opinion,
that idol-worship was to be eradicated from the heart, and that then the
idols in the churches would fall of themselves. He felt too with
Landgrave William, that "the destruction of such worthless idols was ever
avenged by torrents of good human blood." Therefore it may be well
supposed that this fresh act of senseless violence, in the very teeth of
his remonstrances, in the very presence of his envoys, met with his stern
disapprobation. He was on the point of publishing his defence against
the calumnies which his toleration had drawn upon him from both Catholic
and Calvinist. He was deeply revolving the question, whether it were not
better to turn his back at once upon a country which seemed so incapable
of comprehending his high purposes, or seconding his virtuous efforts.
From both projects he was dissuaded; and although bitterly wronged by
both friend and foe, although, feeling that even in his own Holland,
there were whispers against his purity, since his favorable inclinations
towards Anjou had become the general topic, yet he still preserved his
majestic tranquillity, and smiled at the arrows which fell harmless at
his feet. "I admire his wisdom, daily more and more," cried Hubert
Languet; "I see those who profess themselves his friends causing him more
annoyance than his foes; while, nevertheless, he ever remains true to
himself, is driven by no tempests from his equanimity, nor provoked by
repeated injuries to immoderate action."
The Prince had that year been chosen unanimously by the four "members"
of Flanders to be governor of that province, but had again declined the
office. The inhabitants, notwithstanding the furious transactions at
Ghent, professed attachment to his person, and respect for his authority.
He was implored to go to the city. His presence, and that alone, would
restore the burghers to their reason, but the task was not a grateful
one. It was also not unattended with danger; although this was a
consideration which never influenced him, from the commencement of his
career to its close. Imbize and his crew were capable of resorting to
any extremity or any ambush; to destroy the man whom they feared and
hated. The presence of John Casimir was an additional complication; for
Orange, while he despised the man, was unwilling to offend his friends.
Moreover, Casimir had professed a willingness to assist the cause, and
to, defer to the better judgment of the Prince: He had brought an army
into the field, with which, however, he had accomplished nothing except a
thorough pillaging of the peasantry, while, at the same time, he was loud
in his demands upon the states to pay his soldiers' wages. The soldiers
of the different armies who now overran the country, indeed, vied with
each other in extravagant insolence. "Their outrages are most
execrable," wrote Marquis Havre; "they demand the most exquisite food,
and drink Champagne and Burgundy by the bucketfull." Nevertheless, on
the 4th of December, the Prince came to Ghent. He held constant and
anxious conferences with the magistrates. He was closeted daily with
John Casimir, whose vanity and extravagance of temper he managed with
his usual skill. He even dined with Imbue, and thus, by smoothing
difficulties and reconciling angry passions, he succeeded at last in
obtaining the consent of all to a religious peace, which was published on
the 27th of December, 1578. It contained the same provisions as those of
the project prepared and proposed during the previous summer throughout
the Netherlands. Exercise of both religions was established; mutual
insults and irritations--whether by word, book, picture, song, or
gesture--were prohibited, under severe penalties, while all persons were
sworn to protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life. The
Catholics, by virtue of this accord, re-entered into possession of their
churches and cloisters, but nothing could be obtained in favor of the
imprisoned gentlemen.
The Walloons and Malcontents were now summoned to lay down their arms;
but, as might be supposed, they expressed dissatisfaction with the
religious peace, proclaiming it hostile to the Ghent treaty and the
Brussels union. In short, nothing would satisfy them but total
suppression of the Reformed religion; as nothing would content Imbize
and his faction but the absolute extermination of Romanism. A strong
man might well seem powerless in the midst of such obstinate and
worthless fanatics.
The arrival of the Prince in Ghent was, on the whole, a relief to John
Casimir. As usual, this addle-brained individual had plunged headlong
into difficulties, out of which he was unable to extricate himself. He
knew not what to do, or which way to turn. He had tampered with Imbue
and his crew, but he had found that they were not the men for a person of
his quality to deal with. He had brought a large army into the field,
and had not a stiver in his coffers. He felt bitterly the truth of the
Landgrave's warning--"that 'twas better to have thirty thousand devils at
one's back than thirty thousand German troopers, with no money to give
them;" it being possible to pay the devils with the sign of the cross,
while the soldiers could be discharged only with money or hard knocks.
Queen Elizabeth, too, under whose patronage he had made this most
inglorious campaign, was incessant in her reproofs, and importunate in
her demands for reimbursement. She wrote to him personally, upbraiding
him with his high pretensions and his shortcomings. His visit to Ghent,
so entirely unjustified and mischievous; his failure to effect that
junction of his army with the states' force under Bossu, by which the
royal army was to have been surprised and annihilated; his having given
reason to the common people to suspect her Majesty and the Prince of
Orange of collusion with his designs, and of a disposition to seek their
private advantage and not the general good of the whole Netherlands; the
imminent danger, which he had aggravated, that the Walloon provinces,
actuated by such suspicions, would fall away from the "generality" and
seek a private accord with Parma; these and similar sins of omission and
commission were sharply and shrewishly set forth in the Queen's epistle.
'Twas not for such marauding and intriguing work that she had appointed
him her lieutenant, and furnished him with troops and subsidies. She
begged him forthwith to amend his ways, for the sake of his name and
fame, which were sufficiently soiled in the places where his soldiers had
been plundering the country which they came to protect.
The Queen sent Daniel Rogers with instructions of similar import to the
states-general, repeatedly and expressly disavowing Casimir's proceedings
and censuring his character. She also warmly insisted on her bonds.
In short, never was unlucky prince more soundly berated by his superiors,
more thoroughly disgraced by his followers. In this contemptible
situation had Casimir placed himself by his rash ambition to prove before
the world that German princes could bite and scratch like griffins and
tigers as well as carry them in their shields. From this position Orange
partly rescued him. He made his peace with the states-general. He
smoothed matters with the extravagant Reformers, and he even extorted
from the authorities of Ghent the forty-five thousand pounds bond, on
which Elizabeth had insisted with such obduracy. Casimir repaid these
favors of the Prince in the coin with which narrow minds and jealous
tempers are apt to discharge such obligations--ingratitude. The
friendship which he openly manifested at first grew almost immediately
cool. Soon afterwards he left Ghent and departed for Germany, leaving
behind him a long and tedious remonstrance, addressed to the states-
general, in which document he narrated the history of his exploits, and
endeavored to vindicate the purity of his character. He concluded this
very tedious and superfluous manifesto by observing that--for reasons
which he thought proper to give at considerable length--he felt himself
"neither too useful nor too agreeable to the provinces." As he had been
informed, he said, that the states-general had requested the Queen of
England to procure his departure, he had resolved, in order to spare her
and them inconvenience, to return of his own accord, "leaving the issue
of the war in the high and mighty hand of God."
The estates answered this remonstrance with words of unlimited courtesy;
expressing themselves "obliged to all eternity" for his services, and
holding out vague hopes that the monies which he demanded on behalf of
his troops should ere long be forthcoming.
Casimir having already answered Queen Elizabeth's reproachful letter by
throwing the blame of his apparent misconduct upon the states-general,
and having promised soon to appear before her Majesty in person, tarried
accordingly but a brief season in Germany, and then repaired to England.
Here he was feasted, flattered, caressed, and invested with the order of
the Garter. Pleased with royal blandishments, and highly enjoying the
splendid hospitalities of England he quite forgot the "thirty thousand
devils" whom he had left running loose in the Netherlands, while these
wild soldiers, on their part, being absolutely in a starving condition
--for there was little left for booty in a land which had been so often
plundered--now had the effrontery to apply to the Prince of Parma for
payment of their wages. Alexander Farnese laughed heartily at the
proposition, which he considered an excellent jest. It seemed in truth,
a jest, although but a sorry one. Parma replied to the messenger of
Maurice of Saxony who had made the proposition, that the Germans must be
mad to ask him for money, instead of offering to pay him, a heavy sum for
permission to leave the country. Nevertheless, he was willing to be so
far indulgent as to furnish them with passports, provided they departed
from the Netherlands instantly. Should they interpose the least delay,
he would set upon them without further preface, and he gave them notice,
with the arrogance becoming a Spanish general; that the courier was
already waiting to report to Spain the number of them left alive after
the encounter. Thus deserted by their chief, and hectored by the enemy,
the mercenaries, who had little stomach for fight without wages, accepted
the passports proffered by Parma. They revenged themselves for the harsh
treatment which they had received from Casimir and from the states-
general, by singing, everywhere as they retreated, a doggerel ballad
--half Flemish, half German--in which their wrongs were expressed with
uncouth vigor.
Casimir received the news of the departure of his ragged soldiery on the
very day which witnessed his investment with the Garter by the fair hands
of Elizabeth herself. A few days afterwards he left England,
accompanied by an escort of lords and gentlemen, especially appointed for
that purpose by the Queen. He landed in Flushing, where he was received
with distinguished hospitality, by order of the Prince of Orange, and on
the 14th of February, 1579, he passed through Utrecht. Here he conversed
freely at his lodgings in the "German House" on the subject of his
vagabond troops, whose final adventures and departure seemed to afford
him considerable amusement; and he, moreover, diverted his company by
singing, after supper, a few verses of the ballad already mentioned.
O, have you been in Brabant, fighting for the states?
O, have you brought back anything except your broken pates?
O, I have been in Brabant, myself and all my mates.
We'll go no more to Brabant, unless our brains were addle,
We're coming home on foot, we went there in the saddle;
For there's neither gold nor glory got, in fighting for the states.
The Duke of Anjou, meantime, after disbanding his troops, had lingered
for a while near the frontier. Upon taking his final departure, he sent
his resident minister, Des Pruneaux, with a long communication to the
states-general, complaining that they had not published their contract
with himself, nor fulfilled its conditions. He excused, as well as he
could, the awkward fact that his disbanded troops had taken refuge with
the Walloons, and he affected to place his own departure upon the ground
of urgent political business in France, to arrange which his royal
brother had required his immediate attendance. He furthermore most
hypocritically expressed a desire for a speedy reconciliation of the
provinces with their sovereign, and a resolution that--although for their
sake he had made himself a foe to his Catholic Majesty--he would still
interpose no obstacle to so desirable a result.