the aspect of financial affairs in the provinces. He assured him that
"the government was often in such embarrassment as not to know where to
look for ten ducats." He complained bitterly that the states would
meddle with the administration of money matters, and were slow in the
granting of subsidies. The Cardinal felt especially outraged by the
interference of these bodies with the disbursement of the sums which
they voted. It has been seen that the states had already compelled the
government to withdraw the troops, much to the regret of Granvelle.
They continued, however, to be intractable on the subject of supplies.
"These are very vile things," he wrote to Philip, "this authority which
they assume, this audacity with which they say whatever they think
proper; and these impudent conditions which they affix to every
proposition for subsidies." The Cardinal protested that he had in vain
attempted to convince them of their error, but that they remained
perverse.
It was probably at this time that the plan for debasing the coin,
suggested to Philip some time before by a skilful chemist named Malen,
and always much approved of both by himself and Ruy Gomez, recurred to
his mind. "Another and an extraordinary source of revenue, although
perhaps not a very honorable one," wrote Suriano, "has hitherto been kept
secret; and on account of differences of opinion between the King and his
confessor, has been discontinued." This source of revenue, it seemed,
was found in "a certain powder, of which one ounce mixed with six ounces
of quicksilver would make six ounces of silver." The composition was
said to stand the test of the hammer, but not of the fire. Partly in
consequence of theological scruples and partly on account of opposition
from the states, a project formed by the King to pay his army with this
kind of silver was reluctantly abandoned. The invention, however, was so
very agreeable to the King, and the inventor had received such liberal
rewards, that it was supposed, according to the envoy, that in time of
scarcity his Majesty would make use of such coin without reluctance.
It is necessary, before concluding this chapter, which relates the
events of the years 1560 and 1561, to allude to an important affair
which occupied much attention during the whole of this period. This
is the celebrated marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Princess
Anna of Saxony. By many superficial writers; a moving cause of the great
Netherland revolt was found in the connexion of the great chieftain with
this distinguished Lutheran house. One must have studied the characters
and the times to very little purpose, however, to believe it possible
that much influence could be exerted on the mind of William of Orange by
such natures as those of Anna of Saxony, or of her uncle the Elector
Augustus, surnamed "the Pious."
The Prince had become a widower in 1558, at the age of twenty-five.
Granvelle, who was said to have been influential in arranging his first
marriage, now proposed to him, after the year of mourning had expired,
an alliance with Mademoiselle Renee, daughter of the Duchess de Lorraine,
and granddaughter of Christiern the Third of Denmark, and his wife
Isabella, sister of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Such a connexion,
not only with the royal house of Spain but with that of France--for,
the young Duke of Lorraine, brother of the lady, had espoused the
daughter of Henry the considered highly desirable by the Prince. Philip
and the Duchess Margaret of Parma both approved, or pretended to approve,
the match. At the same time the Dowager Duchess of Lorraine, mother of
the intended bride, was a candidate, and a very urgent one, for the
Regency of the Netherlands. Being a woman of restless ambition, and
intriguing character, she naturally saw in a man of William's station
and talents a most desirable ally in her present and future schemes.
On the other hand, Philip--who had made open protestation of his desire
to connect the Prince thus closely with his own blood, and had warmly
recommended the match to the young lady's mother--soon afterwards, while
walking one day with the Prince in the park at Brussels, announced to him
that the Duchess of Lorraine had declined his proposals. Such a result
astonished the Prince, who was on the best of terms with the mother, and
had been urging her appointment to the Regency with all his-influence,
having entirely withdrawn his own claims to that office. No satisfactory
explanation was ever given of this singular conclusion to a courtship,
begun with the apparent consent of all parties. It was hinted that the
young lady did not fancy the Prince; but, as it was not known that a word
had ever been exchanged between them, as the Prince, in appearance and
reputation, was one of the most brilliant cavaliers of the age, and as
the approval of the bride was not usually a matter of primary consequence
in such marriages of state, the mystery seemed to require a further
solution. The Prince suspected Granvelle and the King, who were believed
to have held mature and secret deliberation together, of insincerity.
The Bishop was said to have expressed the opinion, that although the
friendship he bore the Prince would induce him to urge the marriage,
yet his duty to his master made him think it questionable whether it
were right to advance a personage already placed so high by birth,
wealth, and popularity, still higher by so near an alliance with his
Majesty's family. The King, in consequence, secretly instructed the
Duchess of Lorraine to decline the proposal, while at the same time he
continued openly to advocate the connexion. The Prince is said to have
discovered this double dealing, and to have found in it the only
reasonable explanation of the whole transaction. Moreover, the Duchess
of Lorraine, finding herself equally duped, and her own ambitious scheme
equally foiled by her unscrupulous cousin--who now, to the surprise of
every one, appointed Margaret of Parma to be Regent, with the Bishop for
her prime minister--had as little reason to be satisfied with the
combinations of royal and ecclesiastical intrigue as the Prince of Orange
himself. Soon after this unsatisfactory mystification, William turned
his attentions to Germany. Anna of Saxony, daughter of the celebrated
Elector Maurice, lived at the court of her uncle, the Elector Augustus.
A musket-ball, perhaps a traitorous one, in an obscure action with Albert
of Brandenbourg, had closed the adventurous career of her father seven
years before. The young lady, who was thought to have inherited much of
his restless, stormy character, was sixteen years of age. She was far
from handsome, was somewhat deformed, and limped. Her marriage-portion
was deemed, for the times, an ample one; she had seventy thousand rix
dollars in hand, and the reversion of thirty thousand on the death of
John Frederic the Second, who had married her mother after the death of
Maurice. Her rank was accounted far higher in Germany than that of
William of Nassau, and in this respect, rather than for pecuniary
considerations, the marriage seemed a desirable one for him. The man
who held the great Nassau-Chalons property, together with the heritage
of Count Maximilian de Buren, could hardly have been tempted by 100,000
thalers. His own provision for the children who might spring from the
proposed marriage was to be a settlement of seventy thousand florins
annually. The fortune which permitted of such liberality was not one to
be very materially increased by a dowry which might seem enormous to
many of the pauper princes of Germany. "The bride's portion," says a
contemporary, "after all, scarcely paid for the banquets and magnificent
festivals which celebrated the marriage. When the wedding was paid for,
there was not a thaler remaining of the whole sum." Nothing, then, could
be more puerile than to accuse the Prince of mercenary motives in seeking
this alliance; an accusation, however, which did not fail to be brought.
There were difficulties on both sides to be arranged before this marriage
could take place. The bride was a Lutheran, the Prince was a Catholic.
With regard to the religion of Orange not the slightest doubt existed,
nor was any deception attempted. Granvelle himself gave the most entire
attestation of the Prince's orthodoxy. "This proposed marriage gives me
great pain," he wrote to Philip, "but I have never had reason to suspect
his principles." In another letter he observed that he wished the
marriage could be broken off; but that he hoped so much from the virtue
of the Prince that nothing could suffice to separate him from the true
religion. On the other side there was as little doubt as to his creed.
Old Landgrave Philip of Hesse, grandfather of the young lady, was
bitterly opposed to the match. "'Tis a papist," said he, "who goes to
mass, and eats no meat on fast days." He had no great objection to his
character, but insurmountable ones to his religion. "Old Count William,"
said he, "was an evangelical lord to his dying day. This man is a
papist!" The marriage, then, was to be a mixed marriage. It is
necessary, however, to beware of anachronisms upon the subject.
Lutherans were not yet formally denounced as heretics. On the contrary,
it was exactly at this epoch that the Pope was inviting the Protestant
princes of Germany to the Trent Council, where the schism was to be
closed, and all the erring lambs to be received again into the bosom of
the fold. So far from manifesting an outward hostility, the papal
demeanor was conciliating. The letters of invitation from the Pope to
the princes were sent by a legate, each commencing with the exordium,"
To my beloved son," and were all sent back to his Holiness,
contemptuously, with the coarse jest for answer, "We believe our mothers
to have been honest women, and hope that we had better fathers." The
great council had not yet given its decisions. Marriages were of
continual occurrence, especially among princes and potentates, between
the adherents of Rome and of the new religion. Even Philip had been most
anxious to marry the Protestant Elizabeth, whom, had she been a peasant,
he would unquestionably have burned, if in his power. Throughout
Germany, also, especially in high places, there was a disposition to
cover up the religious controversy; to abstain from disturbing the ashes
where devastation still glowed, and was one day to rekindle itself. It
was exceedingly difficult for any man, from the Archduke Maximilian down,
to define his creed. A marriage, therefore; between a man and woman of
discordant views upon this topic was not startling, although in general
not considered desirable.
There were, however, especial reasons why this alliance should be
distasteful, both to Philip of Spain upon one side, and to the Landgrave
Philip of Hesse on the other. The bride was the daughter of the elector
Maurice. In that one name were concentrated nearly all the disasters,
disgrace, and disappointment of the Emperor's reign. It was Maurice who
had hunted the Emperor through the Tyrolean mountains; it was Maurice who
had compelled the peace of Passau; it was Maurice who had overthrown the
Catholic Church in Germany, it was Maurice who had frustrated Philip's
election as king of the Romans. If William of Orange must seek a wife
among the pagans, could no other bride be found for him than the daughter
of such a man?
Anna's grandfather, on the other hand, Landgrave Philip, was the
celebrated victim to the force and fraud of Charles the Fifth. He saw
in the proposed bridegroom, a youth who had been from childhood, the
petted page and confidant of the hated Emperor, to whom he owed his long
imprisonment. He saw in him too, the intimate friend and ally--for the
brooding quarrels of the state council were not yet patent to the world
--of the still more deeply detested Granvelle; the crafty priest whose
substitution of "einig" for "ewig" had inveigled him into that terrible
captivity. These considerations alone would have made him unfriendly to
the Prince, even had he not been a Catholic.
The Elector Augustus, however, uncle and guardian to the bride, was not
only well-disposed but eager for the marriage, and determined to overcome
all obstacles, including the opposition of the Landgrave, without whose
consent he was long pledged not to bestow the hand of Anna. For this
there were more than one reason. Augustus, who, in the words of one of
the most acute historical critics of our day, was "a Byzantine Emperor of
the lowest class, re-appearing in electoral hat and mantle," was not firm
in his rights to the dignity he held. He had inherited from his brother,
but his brother had dispossessed John Frederic. Maurice, when turning
against the Emperor, who had placed him in his cousin's seat, had not
thought it expedient to restore to the rightful owner the rank which he
himself owed to the violence of Charles. Those claims might be
revindicated, and Augustus be degraded in his turn, by a possible
marriage of the Princess Anna, with some turbulent or intriguing German
potentate. Out of the land she was less likely to give trouble. The
alliance, if not particularly desirable on the score of rank, was, in
other worldly respects, a most brilliant one for his niece. As for the
religious point, if he could overcome or circumvent the scruples of the
Landgrave, he foresaw little difficulty in conquering his own conscience.
The Prince of Orange, it is evident, was placed in such a position, that
it would be difficult for him to satisfy all parties. He intended that
the marriage, like all marriages among persons in high places at that
day, should be upon the "uti possidetis" principle, which was the
foundation of the religious peace of Germany. His wife, after marriage
and removal to the Netherlands, would "live Catholically;" she would be
considered as belonging to the same Church with her husband, was to give
no offence to the government, and bring no suspicion upon himself, by
violating any of the religious decencies. Further than this, William,
who at that day was an easy, indifferent Catholic, averse to papal
persecutions, but almost equally averse to long, puritanical prayers and
faces, taking far more pleasure in worldly matters than in ecclesiastical
controversies, was not disposed to advance in this thorny path. Having a
stern bigot to deal with, in Madrid, and another in Cassel, he soon
convinced himself that he was not likely entirely to satisfy either, and
thought it wiser simply to satisfy himself.
Early in 1560, Count Gunther de Schwartzburg, betrothed to the Prince's
sister Catharine, together with Colonel George Von Holl, were despatched
to Germany to open the marriage negotiations. They found the Elector
Augustus already ripe and anxious for the connexion. It was easy for the
envoys to satisfy all his requirements on the religious question. If, as
the Elector afterwards stated to the Landgrave, they really promised that
the young lady should be allowed to have an evangelical preacher in her
own apartments, together with the befitting sacraments, it is very
certain that they travelled a good way out of their instructions, for
such concessions were steadily refused by William in person. It is,
however, more probable that Augustus, whose slippery feet were disposed
to slide smoothly and swiftly over this dangerous ground, had represented
the Prince's communications under a favorable gloss of his own. At any
rate, nothing in the subsequent proceedings justified the conclusions
thus hastily formed.
The Landgrave Philip, from the beginning, manifested his repugnance to
the match. As soon as the proposition had been received by Augustus,
that potentate despatched Hans yon Carlowitz to the grandfather at
Cassel. The Prince of Orange, it was represented, was young, handsome,
wealthy, a favorite of the Spanish monarch; the Princess Anna, on the
other hand, said her uncle was not likely to grow straighter or better
proportioned in body, nor was her crooked and perverse character likely
to improve with years. It was therefore desirable to find a settlement
for her as soon as possible. The Elector, however, would decide upon
nothing without the Landgrave's consent.
To this frank, and not very flattering statement, so far as the
young lady was concerned, the Landgrave answered stoutly and
characteristically. The Prince was a Spanish subject, he said, and would
not be able to protect Anna in her belief, who would sooner or later
become a fugitive: he was but a Count in Germany, and no fitting match
for an Elector's daughter; moreover, the lady herself ought to be
consulted, who had not even seen the Prince. If she were crooked in
body, as the Elector stated, it was a shame to expose her; to conceal it,
however, was questionable, as the Prince might complain afterwards that a
straight princess had been promised, and a crooked one fraudulently
substituted,--and so on, though a good deal more of such quaint
casuistry, in which the Landgrave was accomplished. The amount of his
answer, however, to the marriage proposal was an unequivocal negative,
from which he never wavered.
In consequence of this opposition, the negotiations were for a time
suspended. Augustus implored the Prince not to abandon the project,
promising that every effort should be made to gain over the Landgrave,
hinting that the old man might "go to his long rest soon," and even
suggesting that if the worst came to the worst, he had bound himself to
do nothing without the knowledge of the Landgrave, but was not obliged to
wait for his consent.
On the other hand, the Prince had communicated to the King of Spain the
fact of the proposed marriage. He had also held many long conversations
with the Regent and with Granvelle. In all these interviews he had
uniformly used one language: his future wife was to "live as a Catholic,"
and if that point were not conceded, he would break off the negotiations.
He did not pretend that she was to abjure her Protestant faith. The
Duchess, in describing to Philip the conditions, as sketched to her by
the Prince, stated expressly that Augustus of Saxony was to consent that
his niece "should live Catholically after the marriage," but that it was
quite improbable that "before the nuptials she would be permitted to
abjure her errors, and receive necessary absolution, according to the
rules of the Church." The Duchess, while stating her full confidence in
the orthodoxy of the Prince, expressed at the same time her fears that
attempts might be made in the future by his new connexions "to pervert
him to their depraved opinions."
A silence of many months ensued on the part of the sovereign, during
which he was going through the laborious process of making up his mind,
or rather of having it made up for him by people a thousand miles off.
In the autumn Granvelle wrote to say that the Prince was very much
surprised to have been kept so long waiting for a definite reply to his
communications, made at the beginning of the year concerning his intended
marriage, and to learn at last that his Majesty had sent no answer, upon
the ground that the match had been broken off; the fact being, that the
negotiations were proceeding more earnestly than ever.
Nothing could be more helpless and more characteristic than the letter
which Philip sent, thus pushed for a decision. "You wrote me," said he,
"that you had hopes that this matter of the Prince's marriage would go
no further, and seeing that you did not write oftener on the subject,
I thought certainly that it had been terminated. This pleased me not a
little, because it was the best thing that could be done. Likewise,"
continued the most tautological of monarchs, "I was much pleased that it
should be done. Nevertheless;" he added, "if the marriage is to be
proceeded with, I really don't know what to say about it, except to refer
it to my sister, inasmuch as a person being upon the spot can see better
what can be done with regard to it; whether it be possible to prevent it,
or whether it be best, if there be no remedy, to give permission. But if
there be a remedy, it would be better to take it, because," concluded the
King, pathetically, "I don't see how the Prince could think of marrying
with the daughter of the man who did to his majesty, now in glory, that
which Duke Maurice did."
Armed with this luminous epistle, which, if it meant any thing, meant a
reluctant affirmation to the demand of the Prince for the royal consent,
the Regent and Granvelle proceeded to summon William of Orange, and to
catechise him in a manner most galling to the pride, and with a latitude
not at all justified by any reasonable interpretation of the royal
instructions. They even informed him that his Majesty had assembled
"certain persons learned in cases of conscience, and versed in theology,"
according to whose advice a final decision, not yet possible, would be
given at some future period. This assembly of learned conscience-keepers
and theologians had no existence save in the imaginations of Granvelle
and Margaret. The King's letter, blind and blundering as it was, gave
the Duchess the right to decide in the affirmative on her own
responsibility; yet fictions like these formed a part of the
"dissimulation," which was accounted profound statesmanship by the
disciples of Machiavelli. The Prince, however irritated, maintained his
steadiness; assured the Regent that the negotiation had advanced too far
to be abandoned, and repeated his assurance that the future Princess of
Orange was to "live as a Catholic."
In December, 1560, William made a visit to Dresden, where he was received
by the Elector with great cordiality. This visit was conclusive as to
the marriage. The appearance and accomplishments of the distinguished
suitor made a profound impression upon the lady. Her heart was carried
by storm. Finding, or fancying herself very desperately enamored of the
proposed bridegroom, she soon manifested as much eagerness for the
marriage as did her uncle, and expressed herself frequently with the
violence which belonged to her character. "What God had decreed," she
said, "the Devil should not hinder."
The Prince was said to have exhibited much diligence in his attention
to the services of the Protestant Church during his visit at Dreaden.
As that visit lasted, however, but ten or eleven days, there was no great
opportunity for shewing much zeal.
At the same period one William Knuttel was despatched by Orange on the
forlorn hope of gaining the old Landgrave's consent, without making any
vital concessions. "Will the Prince," asked the Landgrave, "permit my
granddaughter to have an evangelical preacher in the house?"--"No,"
answered Knuttel. "May she at least receive the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper in her own chamber, according to the Lutheran form?"--" No,"
answered Knuttel, "neither in Breda, nor any where else in the
Netherlands. If she imperatively requires such sacraments, she must
go over the border for them, to the nearest Protestant sovereign."
Upon the 14th April, 1561, the Elector, returning to the charge, caused a
little note to be drawn up on the religious point, which he forwarded, in
the hope that the Prince would copy and sign it. He added a promise that
the memorandum should never be made public to the signer's disadvantage.
At the same time he observed to Count Louis, verbally, "that he had been
satisfied with the declarations made by the Prince when in Dresden, upon
all points, except that concerning religion. He therefore felt obliged
to beg for a little agreement in writing. "By no means! by no means!"
interrupted Louis promptly, at the very first word, "the Prince can give
your electoral highness no such assurance. 'T would be risking life,
honor, and fortune to do so, as your grace is well aware. The Elector
protested that the declaration, if signed, should never come into the
Spanish monarch's hands, and insisted upon sending it to the Prince.
Louis, in a letter to his brother, characterized the document as
"singular, prolix and artful," and strongly advised the Prince to have
nothing to do with it.