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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 7.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855
1561-1562 [CHAPTER III.]
The inquisition the great cause of the revolt--The three varieties
of the institution--The Spanish inquisition described--The Episcopal
inquisition in the Netherlands--The Papal inquisition established in
the provinces by Charles V.--His instructions to the inquisitors--
They are renewed by Philip--Inquisitor Titelmann--Instances of his
manner of proceeding--Spanish and Netherland inquisitions compared--
Conduct of Granvelle--Faveau and Mallart condemned at Valenciennes--
"Journee des maubrulea"--Severe measures at Valenciennes--Attack of
the Rhetoric Clubs Upon Granvelle--Granvelle's insinuations against
Egmont and Simon Renard--Timidity of Viglius--Universal hatred
toward the Cardinal--Buffoonery of Brederode and Lumey--Courage of
Granvelle--Philip taxes the Netherlands for the suppression of the
Huguenots in France--Meeting of the Knights of the Fleece--Assembly
at the house of Orange--Demand upon the estates for supplies--
Montigny appointed envoy to Spain--Open and determined opposition to
Granvelle--Secret representations by the Cardinal to Philip,
concerning Egmont and other Seigniors--Line of conduct traced out
for the King--Montigny's representations in Spain--Unsatisfactory
result of his mission.
The great cause of the revolt which, within a few years, was to break
forth throughout the Netherlands; was the inquisition. It is almost
puerile to look further or deeper, when such a source of convulsion lies
at the very outset of any investigation. During the war there had been,
for reasons already indicated, an occasional pause in the religious
persecution. Philip had now returned to Spain, having arranged, with
great precision, a comprehensive scheme for exterminating that religious
belief which was already accepted by a very large portion of his
Netherland Subjects. From afar there rose upon the provinces the
prophetic vision of a coming evil still more terrible than any which had
yet oppressed them. As across the bright plains of Sicily, when the sun
is rising, the vast pyramidal shadow of Mount Etna is definitely and
visibly projected--the phantom of that ever-present enemy, which holds
fire and devastation in its bosom--so, in the morning hour of Philip's
reign, the shadow of the inquisition was cast from afar across those warm
and smiling provinces--a spectre menacing fiercer flames and wider
desolation than those which mere physical agencies could ever compass.
There has been a good deal of somewhat superfluous discussion concerning
the different kinds of inquisition. The distinction drawn between the
papal, the episcopal, and the Spanish inquisitions, did not, in the
sixteenth century, convince many unsophisticated minds of the merits of
the establishment in any of its shapes. However classified or entitled,
it was a machine for inquiring into a man's thoughts, and for burning him
if the result was not satisfactory.
The Spanish inquisition, strictly so called, that is to say, the modern
or later institution established by Pope Alexander the Sixth and
Ferdinand the Catholic, was doubtless invested with a more complete
apparatus for inflicting human misery, and for appalling human
imagination, than any of the other less artfully arranged inquisitions,
whether papal or episcopal. It had been originally devised for Jews or
Moors, whom the Christianity of the age did not regard as human beings,
but who could not be banished without depopulating certain districts.
It was soon, however, extended from pagans to heretics. The Dominican
Torquemada was the first Moloch to be placed upon this pedestal of blood
and fire, and from that day forward the "holy office" was almost
exclusively in the hands of that band of brothers. In the eighteen years
of Torquemada's administration; ten thousand two hundred and twenty
individuals were burned alive, and ninety-seven thousand three hundred
and twenty-one punished with infamy, confiscation of property, or
perpetual imprisonment, so that the total number of families destroyed by
this one friar alone amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand four
hundred and one. In course of time the jurisdiction of the office was
extended. It taught the savages of India and America to shudder at the
name of Christianity. The fear of its introduction froze the earlier
heretics of Italy, France, and Ger many into orthodoxy. It was a court
owning allegiance to no temporal authority, superior to all other
tribunals. It was a bench of monks without appeal, having its familiars
in every house, diving into the secrets of every fireside, judging, and
executing its horrible decrees without responsibility. It condemned not
deeds, but thoughts. It affected to descend into individual conscience,
and to punish the crimes which it pretended to discover. Its process was
reduced to a horrible simplicity. It arrested on suspicion, tortured
till confession, and then punished by fire. Two witnesses, and those to
separate facts, were sufficient to consign the victim to a loathsome
dungeon. Here he was sparingly supplied with food, forbidden to speak,
or even to sing to which pastime it could hardly be thought he would feel
much inclination--and then left to himself, till famine and misery should
break his spirit. When that time was supposed to have arrived he was
examined. Did he confess, and forswear his heresy, whether actually
innocent or not, he might then assume the sacred shirt, and escape with
confiscation of all his property. Did he persist in the avowal of his
innocence, two witnesses sent him to the stake, one witness to the rack.
He was informed of the testimony against him, but never confronted with
the witness. That accuser might be his son, father, or the wife of his
bosom, for all were enjoined, under the death penalty, to inform the
inquisitors of every suspicious word which might fall from their nearest
relatives. The indictment being thus supported, the prisoner was tried
by torture. The rack was the court of justice; the criminal's only
advocate was his fortitude--for the nominal counsellor, who was permitted
no communication with the prisoner, and was furnished neither with
documents nor with power to procure evidence, was a puppet, aggravating
the lawlessness of the proceedings by the mockery of legal forms: The
torture took place at midnight, in a gloomy dungeon, dimly, lighted by
torches. The victim--whether man, matron, or tender virgin--was stripped
naked, and stretched upon the wooden bench. Water, weights, fires,
pulleys, screws--all the apparatus by which the sinews could be strained
without cracking, the bones crushed without breaking, and the body racked
exquisitely without giving up its ghost, was now put into operation. The
executioner, enveloped in a black robe from head to foot, with his eyes
glaring at his victim through holes cut in the hood which muffled his
face, practised successively all the forms of torture which the devilish
ingenuity of the monks had invented. The imagination sickens when
striving to keep pace with these dreadful realities. Those who wish to
indulge their curiosity concerning the details of the system, may easily
satisfy themselves at the present day. The flood of light which has been
poured upon the subject more than justifies the horror and the rebellion
of the Netherlanders.
The period during which torture might be inflicted from day to day was
unlimited in duration. It could only be terminated by confession; so
that the scaffold was the sole refuge from the rack. Individuals have
borne the torture and the dungeon fifteen years, and have been burned at
the stake at last.
Execution followed confession, but the number of condemned prisoners was
allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of victims might grace each great
gala-day. The auto-da fe was a solemn festival. The monarch, the high
functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, the populace regarded it
as an inspiring and delightful recreation. When the appointed morning
arrived, the victim was taken from his dungeon. He was then attired in a
yellow robe without sleeves, like a herald's coat, embroidered all over
with black figures of devils. A large conical paper mitre was placed
upon his head, upon which was represented a human being in the midst of
flames, surrounded by imps. His tongue was then painfully gagged, so
that he could neither open nor shut his mouth. After he was thus
accoutred, and just as he was leaving his cell, a breakfast, consisting
of every delicacy, was placed before him, and he was urged, with ironical
politeness, to satisfy his hunger. He was then led forth into the public
square. The procession was formed with great pomp. It was headed by the
little school children, who were immediately followed by the band of
prisoners, each attired in the horrible yet ludicrous manner described.
Then came the magistrates and nobility, the prelates and other
dignitaries of the Church: the holy inquisitors, with their officials and
familiars, followed, all on horseback, with the blood-red flag of the
"sacred office" waving above them, blazoned upon either side with the
portraits of Alexander and of Ferdinand, the pair of brothers who had
established the institution. After the procession came the rabble. When
all had reached the neighborhood of the scaffold, and had been arranged
in order, a sermon was preached to the assembled multitude. It was
filled with laudations of the inquisition, and with blasphemous revilings
against the condemned prisoners. Then the sentences were read to the
individual victims. Then the clergy chanted the fifty-first psalm, the
whole vast throng uniting in one tremendous miserere. If a priest
happened to be among the culprits, he was now stripped of the canonicals
which he had hitherto worn; while his hands, lips, and shaven crown were
scraped with a bit of glass, by which process the oil of his consecration
was supposed to be removed. He was then thrown into the common herd.
Those of the prisoners who were reconciled, and those whose execution was
not yet appointed, were now separated from the others. The rest were
compelled to mount a scaffold, where the executioner stood ready to
conduct them to the fire. The inquisitors then delivered them into his
hands, with an ironical request that he would deal with them tenderly,
and without blood-letting or injury. Those who remained steadfast to the
last were then burned at the stake; they who in the last extremity
renounced their faith were strangled before being thrown into the flames.
Such was the Spanish inquisition--technically--so called: It was,
according' to the biographer of Philip the Second, a "heavenly remedy,
a guardian angel of Paradise, a lions' den in which Daniel and other just
men could sustain no injury, but in which perverse sinners were torn to
pieces." It was a tribunal superior to all human law, without appeal,
and certainly owing no allegiance to the powers of earth or heaven. No
rank, high or humble, was safe from its jurisdiction. The royal family
were not sacred, nor, the pauper's hovel. Even death afforded no
protection. The holy office invaded the prince in his palace and the
beggar in his shroud. The corpses of dead heretics were mutilated and
burned. The inquisitors preyed upon carcases and rifled graves. A
gorgeous festival of the holy office had, as we have seen, welcomed
Philip to his native land. The news of these tremendous autos-da fe, in
which so many illustrious victims had been sacrificed before their
sovereign's eyes, had reached the Netherlands almost simultaneously with
the bulls creating the new bishoprics in the provinces. It was not
likely that the measure would be rendered more palatable by this
intelligence of the royal amusements.
The Spanish inquisition had never flourished in any soil but that of the
peninsula. It is possible that the King and Granvelle were sincere in
their protestations of entertaining no intention of introducing it into
the Netherlands, although the protestations of such men are entitled to
but little weight. The truth was, that the inquisition existed already
in the provinces. It was the main object of the government to confirm
and extend the institution. The episcopal inquisition, as we have
already seen, had been enlarged by the enormous increase in the number of
bishops, each of whom was to be head inquisitor in his diocese, with two
special inquisitors under him. With this apparatus and with the edicts,
as already described, it might seem that enough had already been done for
the suppression of heresy. But more had been done. A regular papal
inquisition also existed in the Netherlands. This establishment, like
the edicts, was the gift of Charles the Fifth. A word of introduction is
here again necessary--nor let the reader deem that too much time is
devoted to this painful subject. On the contrary, no definite idea can
be formed as to the character of the Netherland revolt without a thorough
understanding of this great cause--the religious persecution in which the
country had lived, breathed, and had its being, for half a century, and
in which, had the rebellion not broken out at last, the population must
have been either exterminated or entirely embruted. The few years which
are immediately to occupy us in the present and succeeding chapter,
present the country in a daily increasing ferment from the action of
causes which had existed long before, but which received an additional
stimulus as the policy of the new reign developed itself.
Previously to the accession of Charles V., it can not be said that an
inquisition had ever been established in the provinces. Isolated
instances to the contrary, adduced by the canonists who gave their advice
to Margaret of Parma, rather proved the absence than the existence of the
system. In the reign of Philip the Good, the vicar of the inquisitor-
general gave sentence against some heretics, who were burned in Lille
(1448). In 1459, Pierre Troussart, a Jacobin monk, condemned many
Waldenses, together with some leading citizens of Artois, accused of
sorcery and heresy. He did this, however, as inquisitor for the Bishop
of Arras, so that it was an act of episcopal, and not papal inquisition.
In general, when inquisitors were wanted in the provinces, it was
necessary to borrow them from France or Germany. The exigencies of
persecution making a domestic staff desirable, Charles the Fifth, in the
year 1522, applied to his ancient tutor, whom he had placed on the papal
throne.
Charles had, however, already, in the previous year appointed Francis Van
der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Netherlands. This man, whom
Erasmus called a "wonderful enemy to learning," was also provided with a
coadjutor, Nicholas of Egmond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was
characterized by the same authority as "a madman armed with a sword."
The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison,
torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to
cause his sentences to be executed without appeal. He was, however, in
pronouncing definite judgments, to take the advice of Laurens, president
of the grand council of Mechlin, a coarse, cruel and ignorant man, who
"hated learning with a more than deadly hatred," and who might certainly
be relied upon to sustain the severest judgments which the inquisitor
might fulminate. Adrian; accordingly, commissioned Van der Hulst to be
universal and general inquisitor for all the Netherlands. At the same
time it was expressly stated that his functions were not to supersede
those exercised by the bishops as inquisitors in their own sees. Thus
the papal inquisition was established in the provinces. Van der Hulst,
a person of infamous character, was not the man to render the institution
less odious than it was by its nature. Before he had fulfilled his
duties two years, however, he was degraded from his office by the Emperor
for having forged a document. In 1525, Buedens, Houseau and Coppin were
confirmed by Clement the Seventh as inquisitors in the room of Van der
Hulst. In 1531, Ruard Tapper and Michael Drutius were appointed by Paul
the Third, on the decease of Coppin, the other two remaining in office.
The powers of the papal inquisitors had been gradually extended, and they
were, by 1545, not only entirely independent of the episcopal
inquisition, but had acquired right of jurisdiction over bishops and
archbishops, whom they were empowered to arrest and imprison. They had
also received and exercised the privilege of appointing delegates, or
sub-inquisitors, on their own authority. Much of the work was, indeed,
performed by these officials, the most notorious of whom were Barbier, De
Monte, Titelmann, Fabry, Campo de Zon, and Stryen. In 1545, and again in
1550, a stringent set of instructions were drawn up by the Emperor for
the guidance of these papal inquisitors. A glance at their context shows
that the establishment was not intended to be an empty form.
They were empowered to inquire, proceed against, and chastise all
heretics, all persons suspected of heresy, and their protectors.
Accompanied by a notary, they were to collect written information
concerning every person in the provinces, "infected or vehemently
suspected." They were authorized to summon all subjects of his Majesty,
whatever their rank, quality, or station, and to compel them to give
evidence, or to communicate suspicions. They were to punish all who
pertinaciously refused such depositions with death. The Emperor
commanded his presidents, judges, sheriffs, and all other judicial and
executive officers to render all "assistance to the inquisitors and their
familiars in their holy and pious inquisition, whenever required so to
do," on pain of being punished as encouragers of heresy, that is to say,
with death. Whenever the inquisitors should be satisfied as to the
heresy of any individual, they were to order his arrest and detention by
the judge of the place, or by others arbitrarily to be selected by them.
The judges or persons thus chosen, were enjoined to fulfil the order,
on pain of being punished as protectors of heresy, that is to say, with
death, by sword or fire. If the prisoner were an ecclesiastic, the
inquisitor was to deal summarily with the case "without noise or form in
the process--selecting an imperial councillor to render the sentence of
absolution or condemnation." If the prisoner were a lay person, the
inquisitor was to order his punishment, according to the edicts, by the
council of the province. In case of lay persons suspected but not
convicted of heresy, the inquisitor was to proceed to their chastisement,
"with the advice of a counsellor or some other expert." In conclusion,
the Emperor ordered the "inquisitors to make it known that they were not
doing their own work, but that of Christ, and to persuade all persons of
this fact." This clause of their instructions seemed difficult of
accomplishment, for no reasonable person could doubt that Christ, had he
re-appeared in human form, would have been instantly crucified again, or
burned alive in any place within the dominions of Charles or Philip. The
blasphemy with which the name of Jesus was used by such men to sanctify
all these nameless horrors, is certainly not the least of their crimes.
In addition to these instructions, a special edict had been issued on
the 26th April, 1550, according to which all judicial officers, at the
requisition of the inquisitors, were to render them all assistance in
the execution of their office, by arresting and detaining all persons
suspected of heresy, according to the instructions issued to said
inquisitors; and this, notwithstanding any privileges or charters to the
contrary. In short, the inquisitors were not subject to the civil
authority, but the civil authority to them. The imperial edict empowered
them "to chastise, degrade, denounce, and deliver over heretics to the
secular judges for punishment; to make use of gaols, and to make arrests,
without ordinary warrant, but merely with notice given to a single
counselor, who was obliged to give sentence according to their desire,
without application to the ordinary judge."
These instructions to the inquisitors had been renewed and confirmed by
Philip, in the very first month of his reign (28th Nov. 1555). As in
the case of the edicts, it had been thought desirable by Granvelle to
make use of the supposed magic of the Emperor's name to hallow the whole
machinery of persecution. The action of the system during the greater
part of the imperial period had been terrible. Suffered for a time to
languish during the French war, it had lately been renewed with
additional vigor. Among all the inquisitors, the name of Peter Titelmann
was now pre-eminent. He executed his infamous functions throughout
Flanders, Douay, and Tournay, the most thriving and populous portions of
the Netherlands, with a swiftness, precision, and even with a jocularity
which hardly seemed human. There was a kind of grim humor about the man.
The woman who, according to Lear's fool, was wont to thrust her live eels
into the hot paste, "rapping them o' the coxcombs with a stick and crying
reproachfully, Wantons, lie down!" had the spirit of a true inquisitor.
Even so dealt Titelmann with his heretics writhing on the rack or in the
flames. Cotemporary chronicles give a picture of him as of some
grotesque yet terrible goblin, careering through the country by night or
day, alone, on horseback, smiting the trembling peasants on the head with
a great club, spreading dismay far and wide, dragging suspected persons
from their firesides or their beds, and thrusting them into dungeons,
arresting, torturing, strangling, burning, with hardly the shadow of
warrant, information, or process.
The secular sheriff, familiarly called Red-Rod, from the color of his
wand of office, meeting this inquisitor Titelmann one day upon the high
road, thus wonderingly addressed him--"How can you venture to go about
alone, or at most with an attendant or two, arresting people on every
side, while I dare not attempt to execute my office, except at the head
of a strong force, armed in proof; and then only at the peril of my
life?"
"Ah! Red-Rod," answered Peter, jocosely, "you deal with bad people.
I have nothing to fear, for I seize only the innocent and virtuous, who
make no resistance, and let themselves be taken like lambs."
"Mighty well," said the other; "but if you arrest all the good people
and I all the bad, 'tis difficult to say who in the world is to escape
chastisement." The reply of the inquisitor has not been recorded, but
there is no doubt that he proceeded like a strong man to run his day's
course.
He was the most active of all the agents in the religious persecution at
the epoch of which we are now treating, but he had been inquisitor for
many years. The martyrology of the provinces reeks with his murders.
He burned men for idle words or suspected thoughts; he rarely waited,
according to his frank confession, for deeds. Hearing once that a
certain schoolmaster, named Geleyn de Muler, of Audenarde, "was addicted
to reading the Bible," he summoned the culprit before him and accused him
of heresy. The schoolmaster claimed, if he were guilty of any crime,
to be tried before the judges of his town. "You are my prisoner," said
Titelmann, "and are to answer me and none other." The inquisitor
proceeded accordingly to catechize him, and soon satisfied himself of the
schoolmaster's heresy. He commanded him to make immediate recantation.
The schoolmaster refused. "Do you not love your wife and children?"
asked the demoniac Titelmann. "God knows," answered the heretic, "that
if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I would give it all only to
have them with me, even had I to live on bread and water and in bondage."
"You have then," answered the inquisitor, "only to renounce the error of
your opinions."--" Neither for wife, children, nor all the world, can I
renounce my God and religious truth," answered the prisoner. Thereupon
Titelmann sentenced him to the stake. He was strangled and then thrown
into the flames.
At about the same-time, Thomas Calberg, tapestry weaver, of Tournay,
within the jurisdiction of this same inquisitor, was convicted of having
copied some hymns from a book printed in Geneva. He was burned alive.
Another man, whose name has perished, was hacked to death with seven
blows of a rusty sword, in presence of his wife, who was so horror-
stricken that she died on the spot before her husband. His crime, to be
sure, was anabaptism, the most deadly offence in the calendar. In the
same year, one Walter Kapell was burned at the stake for heretical
opinions. He was a man of some property, and beloved by the poor people
of Dixmuyde, in Flanders, where he resided, for his many charities.
A poor idiot, who had been often fed by his bounty, called out to the
inquisitor's subalterns, as they bound his patron to the stake, "ye are
bloody murderers; that man has done no wrong; but has given me bread to
eat." With these words, he cast himself headlong into the flames to
perish with his protector, but was with difficulty rescued by the
officers. A day or two afterwards, he made his way to the stake, where
the half-burnt skeleton of Walter Kapell still remained, took the body
upon his shoulders, and carried it through the streets to the house of
the chief burgomaster, where several other magistrates happened then to
be in session. Forcing his way into their presence, he laid his burthen
at their feet, crying, "There, murderers! ye have eaten his flesh, now
eat his bones!" It has not been recorded whether Titelmann sent him to
keep company with his friend in the next world. The fate of so obscure a
victim could hardly find room on the crowded pages of the Netherland
martyrdom.
This kind of work, which went on daily, did not increase the love of the
people for the inquisition or the edicts. It terrified many, but it
inspired more with that noble resistance to oppression, particularly to
religious oppression, which is the sublimest instinct of human nature.
Men confronted the terrible inquisitors with a courage equal to their
cruelty: At Tournay, one of the chief cities of Titelmann's district,
and almost before his eyes, one Bertrand le Blas, a velvet manufacturer,
committed what was held an almost incredible crime. Having begged his
wife and children to pray for a blessing upon what he was about to
undertake, he went on Christmas-day to the Cathedral of Tournay and
stationed himself near the altar. Having awaited the moment in which the
priest held on high the consecrated host, Le Blas then forced his way
through the crowd, snatched the wafer from the hands of the astonished
ecclesiastic, and broke it into bits, crying aloud, as he did so,
"Misguided men, do ye take this thing to be Jesus Christ, your Lord and
Saviour?" With these words, he threw the fragments on the ground and
trampled them with his feet.
[Histoire des Martyrs, f. 356, exev.; apud Brandt, i. 171,172.
It may be well supposed that this would be regarded as a crime of
almost inconceivable magnitude. It was death even to refuse to
kneel in the streets when the wafer was carried by. Thus, for
example, a poor huckster, named Simon, at Bergen-op-Zoom, who
neglected to prostrate himself before his booth at the passage of
the host, was immediately burned. Instances of the same punishment
for that offence might be multiplied. In this particular case, it
is recorded that the sheriff who was present at the execution was so
much affected by the courage and fervor of the simple-minded victim,
that he went home, took to his bed, became delirious, crying
constantly, Ah, Simon! Simon! and died miserably, "notwithstanding
all that the monks could do to console him."]
The amazement and horror were so universal at such an appalling offence,
that not a finger was raised to arrest the criminal. Priests and
congregation were alike paralyzed, so that he would have found no
difficulty in making his escape. Ho did not stir, however; he had come
to the church determined to execute what he considered a sacred duty,
and to abide the consequences. After a time, he was apprehended.
The inquisitor demanded if he repented of what he had done. He
protested, on the contrary, that he gloried in the deed, and that he
would die a hundred deaths to rescue from such daily profanation the name
of his Redeemer, Christ. He was then put thrice to the torture, that he
might be forced to reveal his accomplices. It did not seem in human
power for one man to accomplish such a deed of darkness without
confederates. Bertrand had none, however, and could denounce none.
A frantic sentence was then devised as a feeble punishment for so much
wickedness. He was dragged on a hurdle, with his mouth closed with an
iron gag, to the market-place. Here his right hand and foot were burned
and twisted off between two red-hot irons. His tongue was then torn out
by the roots, and because he still endeavored to call upon the name of
God, the iron gag was again applied. With his arms and legs fastened
together behind his back, he was then hooked by the middle of his body to
an iron chain, and made to swing to and fro over a slow fire till he was
entirely roasted. His life lasted almost to the end of these ingenious
tortures, but his fortitude lasted as long as his life.
In the next year, Titelmann caused one Robert Ogier, of Ryssel, in
Flanders, to be arrested, together with his wife and two sons. Their
crime consisted in not going to mass, and in practising private worship
at home. They confessed the offence, for they protested that they could
not endure to see the profanation of their Saviour's name in the
idolatrous sacraments. They were asked what rites they practised in
their own house. One of the sons, a mere boy, answered, "We fall on our
knees, and pray to God that he may enlighten our hearts, and forgive our
sins. We pray for our sovereign, that his reign may be prosperous, and
his life peaceful. We also pray for the magistrates and others in
authority, that God may protect and preserve them all." The boy's simple
eloquence drew tears even from the eyes of some of his judges; for the
inquisitor had placed the case before the civil tribunal. The father and
eldest son were, however, condemned to the flames. "Oh God!" prayed the
youth at the stake, "Eternal Father, accept the sacrifice of our lives,
in the name of thy beloved Son."--"Thou liest, scoundrel!" fiercely
interrupted a monk, who was lighting the fire; "God is not your father;
ye are the devil's children." As the flames rose about them, the boy
cried out once more, "Look, my father, all heaven is opening, and I see
ten hundred thousand angels rejoicing over us. Let us be glad, for we
are dying for the truth."--" Thou liest! thou liest !" again screamed
the monk; "all hell is opening, and you see ten thousand devils thrusting
you into eternal fire." Eight days afterwards, the wife of Ogier and his
other son were burned; so that there was an end of that family.
Such are a few isolated specimens of the manner of proceeding in a single
district of the Netherlands. The inquisitor Titelmann certainly deserved
his terrible reputation. Men called him Saul the persecutor, and it was
well known that he had been originally tainted with the heresy which he
had, for so many years, been furiously chastising. At the epoch which
now engages our attention, he felt stimulated by the avowed policy of the
government to fresh exertions, by which all his previous achievements
should be cast into the shade. In one day he broke into a house in
Ryssel, seized John de Swarte, his wife and four children, together with
two newly-married couples, and two other persons, convicted them of
reading the Bible, and of praying in their own doors, and had them all
immediately burned.
Are these things related merely to excite superfluous horror? Are the
sufferings of these obscure Christians beneath the dignity of history?
Is it not better to deal with murder and oppression in the abstract,
without entering into trivial details? The answer is, that these things
are the history of the Netherlands at this epoch; that these hideous
details furnish the causes of that immense movement, out of which a great
republic was born and an ancient tyranny destroyed; and that Cardinal
Granvelle was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not open
their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise. Because the
great lords "owed their very souls"--because convulsions might help to
pay their debts, and furnish forth their masquerades and banquets--
because the Prince of Orange was ambitious, and Egmont jealous of the
Cardinal--therefore superficial writers found it quite natural that the
country should be disturbed, although that "vile and mischievous animal,
the people," might have no objection to a continuance of the system which
had been at work so long. On the contrary, it was exactly because the
movement was a popular and a religious movement that it will always
retain its place among the most important events of history. Dignified
documents, state papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more value than
the lambskin on which they are engrossed. Ten thousand nameless victims,
in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may build up great states
and alter the aspect of whole continents.
The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it was well for the cause of
the right that, as in the early hours of English liberty, the crown and
mitre were opposed by the baron's sword and shield. Had all the
seigniors made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting
their breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty
would have been still more desperate. Nevertheless they were directed
and controlled, under Providence, by humbler, but more powerful agencies
than their own. The nobles were but the gilded hands on the outside of
the dial--the hour to strike was determined by the obscure but weighty
movements within.
Nor is it, perhaps, always better to rely upon abstract phraseology, to
produce a necessary impression. Upon some minds, declamation concerning
liberty of conscience and religious tyranny makes but a vague impression,
while an effect may be produced upon them, for example by a dry,
concrete, cynical entry in an account book, such as the following, taken
at hazard from the register of municipal expenses at Tournay, during the
years with which we are now occupied:
"To Mr. Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, twice, Jean
de Lannoy, ten sous.
"To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, sixty sous.
For having thrown his cinders into the river, eight sous."
This was the treatment to which thousands, and tens of thousands, had
been subjected in the provinces. Men, women, and children were burned,
and their "cinders" thrown away, for idle words against Rome, spoken
years before, for praying alone in their closets, for not kneeling to
a wafer when they met it in the streets, for thoughts to which they had
never given utterance, but which, on inquiry, they were too honest to
deny. Certainly with this work going on year after year in every city
in the Netherlands, and now set into renewed and vigorous action by a man
who wore a crown only that he might the better torture his fellow-
creatures, it was time that the very stones in the streets should be
moved to mutiny.
Thus it may be seen of how much value were the protestations of Philip
and of Granvelle, on which much stress has latterly been laid, that it
was not their intention to introduce the Spanish inquisition. With the
edicts and the Netherland inquisition, such as we have described them,
the step was hardly necessary.
In fact, the main difference between the two institutions consisted in
the greater efficiency of the Spanish in discovering such of its victims
as were disposed to deny their faith. Devised originally for more
timorous and less conscientious infidels who were often disposed to skulk
in obscure places and to renounce without really abandoning their errors,
it was provided with a set of venomous familiars who glided through every
chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside. The secret details of
each household in the realm being therefore known to the holy office and
to the monarch, no infidel or heretic could escape discovery. This
invisible machinery was less requisite for the Netherlands. There was
comparatively little difficulty in ferreting out the "vermin"--to use the
expression of a Walloon historian of that age--so that it was only
necessary to maintain in good working order the apparatus for destroying
the noxious creatures when unearthed. The heretics of the provinces
assembled at each other's houses to practise those rites described in
such simple language by Baldwin Ogier, and denounced under such horrible
penalties by the edicts. The inquisitorial system of Spain was hardly
necessary for men who had but little prudence in concealing, and no
inclination to disavow their creed. "It is quite a laughable matter,"
wrote Granvelle, who occasionally took a comic view of the inquisition,
"that the King should send us depositions made in Spain by which we are
to hunt for heretics here, as if we did not know of thousands already.
Would that I had as many doubloons of annual income," he added, "as there
are public and professed heretics in the provinces." No doubt the
inquisition was in such eyes a most desirable establishment. "To speak
without passion," says the Walloon, "the inquisition well administered is
a laudable institution, and not less necessary than all the other offices
of spirituality and temporality belonging both to the bishops and to the
commissioners of the Roman see." The papal and episcopal establishments,
in co-operation with the edicts, were enough, if thoroughly exercised and
completely extended. The edicts alone were sufficient. "The edicts and
the inquisition are one and the same thing," said the Prince of Orange.
The circumstance, that the civil authorities were not as entirely
superseded by the Netherland, as by the Spanish system, was rather a
difference of form than of fact. We have seen that the secular officers
of justice were at the command of the inquisitors. Sheriff, gaoler,
judge, and hangman, were all required, under the most terrible penalties,
to do their bidding. The reader knows what the edicts were. He knows
also the instructions to the corps of papal inquisitors, delivered by
Charles and Philip: He knows that Philip, both in person and by letter,
had done his utmost to sharpen those instructions, during the latter
portion of his sojourn in the Netherlands. Fourteen new bishops, each
with two special inquisitors under him, had also been appointed to carry
out the great work to which the sovereign had consecrated his existence.
The manner in which the hunters of heretics performed their office has
been exemplified by slightly sketching the career of a single one of the
sub-inquisitors, Peter Titelmann. The monarch and his minister scarcely
needed, therefore, to transplant the peninsular exotic. Why should they
do so? Philip, who did not often say a great deal in a few words, once
expressed the whole truth of the matter in a single sentence: "Wherefore
introduce the Spanish inquisition?" said he; "the inquisition of the
Netherlands is much more pitiless than that of Spain."
Such was the system of religious persecution commenced by Charles,
and perfected by Philip. The King could not claim the merit of the
invention, which justly belonged to the Emperor. At the same time, his
responsibility for the unutterable woe caused by the continuance of the
scheme is not a jot diminished. There was a time when the whole system
had fallen into comparative desuetude. It was utterly abhorrent to the
institutions and the manners of the Netherlanders. Even a great number
of the Catholics in the provinces were averse to it. Many of the leading
grandees, every one of whom was Catholic were foremost in denouncing its
continuance. In short, the inquisition had been partially endured, but
never accepted. Moreover, it had never been introduced into Luxemburg or
Groningen. In Gelderland it had been prohibited by the treaty through
which that province had been annexed to the emperor's dominions, and it
had been uniformly and successfully resisted in Brabant. Therefore,
although Philip, taking the artful advice of Granvelle, had sheltered
himself under the Emperor's name by re-enacting, word for word, his
decrees, and re-issuing his instructions, he can not be allowed any such
protection at the bar of history. Such a defence for crimes so enormous
is worse than futile. In truth, both father and son recognized
instinctively the intimate connexion between ideas of religious and of
civil freedom. "The authority of God and the supremacy of his Majesty"
was the formula used with perpetual iteration to sanction the constant
recourse to scaffold and funeral pile. Philip, bigoted in religion, and
fanatical in his creed of the absolute power of kings, identified himself
willingly with the Deity, that he might more easily punish crimes against
his own sacred person. Granvelle carefully sustained him in these
convictions, and fed his suspicions as to the motives of those who
opposed his measures. The minister constantly represented the great
seigniors as influenced by ambition and pride. They had only disapproved
of the new bishoprics, he insinuated, because they were angry that his
Majesty should dare to do anything without their concurrence, and because
their own influence in the states would be diminished. It was their
object, he said, to keep the King "in tutelage"--to make him a "shadow
and a cipher," while they should themselves exercise all authority in the
provinces. It is impossible to exaggerate the effect of such suggestions
upon the dull and gloomy mind to which they were addressed. It is easy,
however, to see that a minister with such views was likely to be as
congenial to his master as he was odious to the people. For already, in
the beginning of 1562, Granvelle was extremely unpopular. "The Cardinal
is hated of all men," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham. The great struggle
between him and the leading nobles had already commenced. The people
justly identified him with the whole infamous machinery of persecution,
which had either originated or warmly made his own. Viglius and
Berlaymont were his creatures. With the other members of the state
council, according to their solemn statement, already recorded, he did
not deign to consult, while he affected to hold them responsible for the
measures of the administration. Even the Regent herself complained that
the Cardinal took affairs quite out of her hands, and that he decided
upon many important matters without her cognizance. She already began to
feel herself the puppet which it had been intended she should become;
she already felt a diminution of the respectful attachment for the
ecclesiastic which had inspired her when she procured his red hat.
Granvelle was, however, most resolute in carrying out the intentions of
his master. We have seen how vigorously he had already set himself to
the inauguration of the new bishoprics, despite of opposition and
obloquy. He was now encouraging or rebuking the inquisitors in their
"pious office" throughout all the provinces. Notwithstanding his
exertions, however, heresy continued to spread. In the Walloon provinces
the infection was most prevalent, while judges and executioners were
appalled by the mutinous demonstrations which each successive sacrifice
provoked. The victims were cheered on their way to the scaffold. The
hymns of Marot were sung in the very faces of the inquisitors. Two
ministers, Faveau and Mallart, were particularly conspicuous at this
moment at Valenciennes. The governor of the province, Marquis Berghen,
was constantly absent, for he hated with his whole soul the system of
persecution. For this negligence Granvelle denounced him secretly and
perpetually to Philip, "The Marquis says openly," said the Cardinal,
"that 'tis not right to shed blood for matters of faith. With such men
to aid us, your Majesty can judge how much progress we can make." It was,
however, important, in Granvelle's opinion, that these two ministers at
Valenciennes should be at once put to death. They were avowed heretics,
and they preached to their disciples, although they certainly were not
doctors of divinity. Moreover, they were accused, most absurdly, no
doubt, of pretending to work miracles. It was said that, in presence of
several witnesses, they had undertaken to cast out devils; and they had
been apprehended on an accusation of this nature.
["Histoire des choses les plus memorables qui se sent passees en la
ville et Compte de Valenciennes depuis le commencement des troubles
des Pays-Bas sons le regne de Phil. II., jusqu' a l'annee 1621."--
MS. (Collect. Gerard).--This is a contemporary manuscript belonging
to the Gerard collection in the Royal Library at the Hague. Its
author was a citizen of Valenciennes, and a personal witness of most
of the events which he describes. He appears to have attained to a
great age, as he minutely narrates, from personal observation, many
scenes which occurred before 1566, and his work is continued till
the year 1621. It is a mere sketch, without much literary merit,
but containing many local anecdotes of interest. Its anonymous
author was a very sincere Catholic.]