Constable of France, d. 1527
|
|
+-------------------------+-----+------------------+
| | |
Anthony, Duke of Vendôme Charles, Cardinal Louis, Prince
==Joan d'Albret, Queen of of Bourbon of Condé
| Navarre, d. 1562
|
|
_Henry IV_
_1589-1610_
==(1)Margaret of France
==(2)Mary de' Medici
______________________________________________________________________
Claude, Duke of Guise, d. 1527
|
|
+------------------------+--+------------+
| | |
| | |
Francis, Duke of Guise Charles, Cardinal Mary==James V
d. 1563 of Lorraine | of Scotland
| |
| Mary, Queen
| of Scots
|
+-----------------------+--------------------+
| | |
Henry, Duke of Guise Charles, Duke of Louis, Cardinal of
d. 1588 Mayenne Guise, d. 1588
[Transcriber's note: "d." has been used here as a substitute
for the "dagger" symbol (Unicode U+2020) that signifies the
person's year of death.]
{210}
SECTION 3. THE WARS OF RELIGION. 1559-1598
[Sidenote: Francis II, 1559-60]
Henry II was followed by three of his sons in succession, each of them,
in different degrees and ways, a weakling. The first of them was
Francis II, a delicate lad of fifteen, who suffered from adenoids.
Child as he was he had already been married for more than a year to
Mary Stuart, a daughter of James V of Scotland and a niece of Francis
of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. As she was the one passion of
the morose and feeble king, who, being legally of age was able to
choose his own ministers, the government of the realm fell into the
strong hands of "the false brood of Lorraine." Fearing and hating
these men above all others the Huguenots turned to the Bourbons for
protection, but the king of Navarre was too weak a character to afford
them much help. Finding in the press their best weapon the Protestants
produced a flood of pamphlets attacking the Cardinal of Lorraine as
"the tiger of France."
A more definite plan to rid the country of the hated tyranny was that
known as the Conspiracy of Amboise. Godfrey de Barry, Sieur de la
Renaudie, pledged several hundred Protestants to go in a body to
present a petition to the king at Blois. How much further their
intentions went is not known, and perhaps was not definitely formulated
by themselves. The Venetian ambassador spoke in a contemporary
dispatch of a plot to kill the cardinal and also the king if he would
not assent to their counsels, and said that the conspirators relied, to
justify this course, on the {211} declaration of Calvin that it was
lawful to slay those who hindered the preaching of the gospel. Hearing
of the conspiracy, Guise and his brother were ready. They transferred
the court from Blois to Amboise, by which move they upset the plans of
the petitioners and also put the king into a more defensible castle.
Soldiers, assembled for the occasion, met the Huguenots as they
advanced in a body towards Amboise, [Sidenote: The tumult of Amboise,
March 1560] shot down La Renaudie and some others on the spot and
arrested the remaining twelve hundred, to be kept for subsequent trial
and execution. The suspicion that fastened on the prince of Condé, a
brother of the king of Navarre, was given some color by his frank
avowal of sympathy with the conspirators. Though the Guises pressed
their advantage to the utmost in forbidding all future assemblies of
heretics, the tumult of Amboise was vaguely felt, in the sultry
atmosphere of pent-up passions, to be the avant-courier of a terrific
storm.
The early death of the sickly king left the throne to his brother
Charles IX, a boy of nine. [Sidenote: Charles IX, 1560-74] As he was
a minor, the regency fell to his mother, Catharine de' Medici, who for
almost thirty years was the real ruler of France. [Sidenote: Policy of
Catharine de' Medici] Notwithstanding what Brantôme calls "ung
embonpoint très-riche," she was active of body and mind. Her large
correspondence partly reveals the secrets of her power: much tact and
infinite pains to keep in touch with as many people and as many details
of business as possible. Her want of beauty was supplied by gracious
manners and an elegant taste in art. As a connoisseur and an
indefatigable collector she gratified her love of the magnificent not
only by beautiful palaces and gorgeous clothes, but in having a store
of pictures, statues, tapestries, furniture, porcelain, silver, books,
and manuscripts.
A "politique" to her fingertips, Catharine had neither sympathy nor
patience with the fanatics who {212} would put their religion above
peace and prosperity. Surrounded by men as fierce as lions, she showed
no little of the skill and intrepidity of the tamer in keeping them,
for a time, from each others' throats. Soon after Charles ascended the
throne, she was almost hustled into domestic and foreign war by the
offer of Philip II of Spain to help her Catholic subjects against the
Huguenots without her leave. She knew if that were done that, as she
scrawled in her own peculiar French, "le Roy mon fils nave jeames
lantyere aubeysance," [1] and she was determined "que personne ne pent
nous brouller en lamitie en la quele je desire que set deus Royaumes
demeurent pendant mauye." [2] Through her goggle eyes she saw clearly
where lay the path that she must follow. "I am resolved," she wrote,
"to seek by all possible means to preserve the authority of the king my
son in all things, and at the same time to keep the people in peace,
unity and concord, without giving them occasion to stir or to change
anything." Fundamentally, this was the same policy as that of Henry
IV. That she failed where he succeeded is not due entirely to the
difference in ability. In 1560 neither party was prepared to yield or
to tolerate the other without a trial of strength, whereas a generation
later many members of both parties were sick of war.
[Sidenote: December 13, 1560]
Just as Francis was dying, the States General met at Orleans. This
body was divided into three houses, or estates, that of the clergy,
that of the nobles, and that of the commons. The latter was so
democratically chosen that even the peasants voted. Whether they had
voted in 1484 is not known, but it is certain that they did so in 1560,
and that it was in the interests of the crown to let them vote is shown
by the increase in {213} the number of royal officers among the
deputies of the third estate. The peasants still regarded the king as
their natural protector against the oppression of the nobles.
The Estates were opened by Catharine's minister, Michael de L'Hôpital.
Fully sympathizing with her policy of conciliation, he addressed the
Estates as follows: [Sidenote: February 24, 1561] "Let us abandon those
diabolic words, names of parties, factions and seditions:--Lutherans,
Huguenots, Papists; let us not change the name of Christians."
Accordingly, an edict was passed granting an amnesty to the Huguenots,
nominally for the purpose of allowing them to return to the Catholic
church, but practically interpreted without reference to this proviso.
But the government found it easier to pass edicts than to restrain the
zealots of both parties. The Protestants continued to smash images;
the Catholics to mob the Protestants. Paris became, in the words of
Beza, "the city most bloody and murderous among all in the world."
Under the combined effects of legal toleration and mob persecution the
Huguenots grew mightily in numbers and power. Their natural leader,
the King of Navarre, indeed failed them, for he changed his faith
several times, his real cult, as Calvin remarked, being that of Venus.
His wife, Joan d'Albret, however, became an ardent Calvinist.
At this point the government proposed a means of conciliation that had
been tried by Charles V in Germany and had there failed. The leading
theologians of both confessions were summoned to a colloquy at Poissy.
[Sidenote: Colloquy of Poissy, August, 1561] Most of the German
divines invited were prevented by politics from coming, but the noted
Italian Protestant Peter Martyr Vermigli and Theodore Beza of Geneva
were present. The debate turned on the usual points at issue, and was
of course indecisive, {214} though the Huguenots did not hesitate to
proclaim their own victory.
[Sidenote: January, 1562]
A fresh edict of toleration had hardly been issued when civil war was
precipitated by a horrible crime. Some armed retainers of the Duke of
Guise, coming upon a Huguenot congregation at Vassy in Champagne,
[Sidenote: Massacre of Vassy, March 1, 1562] attacked them and murdered
three hundred. A wild cry of fury rose from all the Calvinists;
throughout the whole land there were riots. At Toulouse, for example,
fighting in the streets lasted four days and four hundred persons
perished. It was one of the worst years in the history of France. A
veritable reign of terror prevailed everywhere, and while the crops
were destroyed famine stalked throughout the land. Bands of robbers
and ravishers, under the names of Christian parties but savages at
heart, put the whole people to ransom and to sack. Indeed, the Wars of
Religion were like hell; the tongue can describe them better than the
imagination can conceive them. The whole sweet and pleasant land of
France, from the Burgundian to the Spanish frontier, was widowed and
desolated, her pride humbled by her own sons and her Golden Lilies
trampled in the bloody mire. Foreign levy was called in to supply
strength to fratricidal arms. The Protestants, headed by Condé and
Coligny, raised an army and started negotiations with England. The
Catholics, however, had the best of the fighting. They captured Rouen,
defended by English troops, and, under Guise, defeated the Huguenots
under Coligny at Dreux. [Sidenote: December 19, 1562]
[Sidenote: February 18, 1563]
Two months later, Francis of Guise was assassinated by a Protestant
near Orleans. Coligny was accused of inciting the crime, which he
denied, though he confessed that he was glad of it. [Sidenote: Edict
of Amboise March 19, 1563] The immediate beneficiary of the death of
the duke was not the Huguenot, {215} however, so much as Catharine de'
Medici. Continuing to put into practise her policy of tolerance she
issued an edict granting liberty of conscience to all and liberty of
worship under certain restrictions. Great nobles were allowed to hold
meetings for divine service according to the reformed manner in their
own houses, and one village in each bailiwick was allowed to have a
Protestant chapel.
How consistently secular was Catharine's policy became apparent at this
time when she refused to publish the decrees of the Council of Trent,
fearing that they might infringe on the liberties of the Gallican
church. In this she had the full support of most French Catholics.
She continued to work for religious peace. One of her methods was
characteristic of her and of the time. She selected "a flying
squadron" of twenty-four beautiful maids of honor of high rank and low
principles to help her seduce the refractory nobles on both sides. In
many cases she was successful. Condé, in love with one--or possibly
with several--of these sirens, forgot everything else, his wife, his
party, his religion. His death in 1569 threw the leadership of the
Huguenots into the steadier and stronger grasp of Coligny.
But such means of dealing with a profoundly dangerous crisis were of
course but the most wretched palliatives. The Catholic bigots would
permit no dallying with the heretics. In 1567 they were strong enough
to secure the disgrace of L'Hôpital and in the following year to extort
a royal edict unconditionally forbidding the exercise of the reformed
cult. The Huguenots again rebelled and in 1569 suffered two severe
defeats [Sidenote: Huguenots defeated] at Jarnac and at Moncontour.
The Catholics were jubilant, fully believing, as Sully says, that at
last the Protestants would have to submit. But nothing is more
remarkable than the apparently slight effect of military success or
failure on the {216} strength and numbers of the two faiths. "We had
beaten our enemies over and over again," cried the Catholic soldier
Montluc in a rage, "we were winning by force of arms but they triumphed
by means of their diabolical writings."
The Huguenots, however, did not rely entirely on the pen. Their
stronghold was no longer in the north but was now in the south and
west. The reason for this may be partly found in the preparation of
the soil for their seed by the medieval heresies, but still more in the
strong particularistic spirit of that region. The ancient provinces of
Poitou and Guienne, Gascony and Languedoc, were almost as conscious of
their southern and Provençal culture as they were of their French
citizenship. The strength of the centralizing tendencies lay north of
the Loire; in the south local privileges were more esteemed and more
insisted upon. While Protestantism was persecuted by the government at
Paris it was often protected by cities of the south. [Sidenote: La
Rochelle] The most noteworthy of these was La Rochelle on the Atlantic
coast near Bordeaux. Though coming late to the support of the
Reformation, its conversion was thorough and lasting. To protect the
new religion it successfully asserted its municipal freedom almost to
the point of independence. Like the Dutch Beggars of the Sea its armed
privateers preyed upon the commerce of Catholic powers, a mode of
warfare from which the city derived immense booty.
The Huguenots tried but failed to get foreign allies. Neither England
nor Germany sent them any help. [Sidenote: Battle of Mons, July 17,
1572] Their policy of supporting the revolt of the Low Countries
against Spain turned out disastrously for themselves when the French
under Coligny were defeated at Mons by the troops of Philip.
The Catholics now believed the time ripe for a decisive blow. Under
the stimulus of the Jesuits they {217} had for a short time been
conducting an offensive and effective propaganda. Leagues were formed
to combat the organizations of the Huguenots, armed "Brotherhoods of
the Holy Spirit" as they were called. The chief obstacle in their path
seemed to be a small group of powerful nobles headed by Coligny.
Catharine and the Guises resolved to cut away this obstacle with the
assassin's knife. Charles, who was personally on good terms with
Coligny, hesitated, but he was too weak a youth to hold out long.
There seems to be good reason to believe that all the queen dowager and
her advisers contemplated was the murder of a few leaders and that they
did not foresee one of the most extensive massacres in history.
Her first attempt to have Coligny assassinated [Sidenote: August 22,
1572] aroused the anger of the Huguenot leaders and made them more
dangerous than before. A better laid and more comprehensive plan was
therefore carried out on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day. [Sidenote:
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, August 24, to October 3] Early in the
evening of August 23, Henry of Guise, a son of Duke Francis, and
Coligny's bitterest personal enemy, went with armed men to the house of
the admiral and murdered him. From thence they proceeded to the houses
of other prominent Huguenots to slay them in the same manner. News of
the man-hunt spread through the city with instant rapidity, the mob
rose and massacred all the Huguenots they could find as well as a
number of foreigners, principally Germans and Flemings. De Thou says
that two thousand were slain in Paris before noon of August 24. A
general pillage followed.
The king hesitated to assume responsibility for so serious a tumult.
His letters of August 24 to various governors of provinces and to
ambassadors spoke only of a fray between Guise and Coligny, and stated
that he wished to preserve order. But with these very {218} letters he
sent messengers to all quarters with verbal orders to kill all the
leading Protestants. On August 27 he again wrote of it as "a great and
lamentable sedition" originating in the desire of Guise to revenge his
father on Coligny. The king said that the fury of the populace was
such that he was unable to bring the remedy he wished, and he again
issued directions for the preservation of order. But at the same time
he declared that the Guises had acted at his command to punish those
who had conspired against him and against the old religion. In fact,
he gave out a rapid series of contradictory accounts and orders, and in
the meantime, from August 25 to October 3 terrible series of massacres
took place in almost all the provinces. [Sidenote: Other massacres]
Two hundred Huguenots perished at Meaux, from 500 to 1000 at Orleans, a
much larger number at Lyons. It is difficult to estimate the total
number of victims. Sully, who narrowly escaped, says that 70,000 were
slain. Hotman, another contemporary, says 50,000. Knowing how much
figures are apt to be exaggerated even by judicious men, we must assume
that this number is too large. On the other hand the lowest estimate
given by modern Catholic investigators, 5000, is certainly too small.
Probably between 10,000 and 20,000 is correct. Those who fell were the
flower of the party.
Whatever may have been the precise degree of guilt of the French
rulers, which in any case was very grave, they took no pains to conceal
their exultation over an event that had at last, as they believed,
ground their enemies to powder. In jubilant tone Catharine wrote to
her son-in-law, Philip of Spain, that God had given her son the king of
France the means "of wiping out those of his subjects who were
rebellious to God and to himself." Philip sent his hearty
congratulations and heard a Te Deum sung. The pope struck a medal
{219} with a picture of an avenging angel and the legend, "Ugonotorum
strages," and ordered an annual Te Deum which was, in fact, celebrated
for a long time. But on the other hand a cry of horror arose from
Germany and England. Elizabeth received the French ambassador dressed
in mourning and declared to him that "the deed had been too bloody."
Though the triumph of the Catholics was loudly shouted, it was not as
complete as they hoped. The Huguenots seemed cowed for a moment, but
nothing is more remarkable than the constancy of the people.
Recantations were extremely few. The Reformed pastors, nourished on
the Old Testament, saw in the affliction that had befallen them nothing
but the means of proving the faithful. Preparations for resistance
were made at once in the principal cities of the south. [Sidenote:
Siege of La Rochelle] La Rochelle, besieged by the royal troops,
evinced a heroism worthy of the cause. While the men repulsed the
furious assaults of the enemy the women built up the walls that
crumbled under the powerful fire of the artillery. A faction of
citizens who demanded surrender was sternly suppressed and the city
held out until relief came from an unhoped quarter. The king's
brother, Henry Duke of Anjou, was elected to the throne of Poland on
condition that he would allow liberty of conscience to Polish
Protestants. In order to appear consistent the French government
therefore stopped for the moment the persecution of the Huguenots. The
siege of La Rochelle was abandoned and a treaty made allowing liberty
of worship in that city, in Nîmes and Montauban and in the houses of
some of the great nobles.
In less than two years after the appalling massacre the Protestants
were again strong and active. A chant of victory sounded from their
dauntless ranks. More than ever before they became republican in
principle. {220} Their pamphleteers, among them Hotman, fiercely
attacked the government of Catharine, and asserted their rights.
Charles was a consumptive. The hemorrhages characteristic of his
disease reminded him of the torrents of blood that he had caused to
flow from his country. Broken in body and haunted by superstitious
terrors the wretched man died on May 30, 1574. [Sidenote: Henry III,
1547-89] He was succeeded by his brother, Henry III, recently elected
king of Poland, a man of good parts, interested in culture and in
study, a natural orator, not destitute of intelligence. His mother's
pet and spoiled child, brought up among the girls of the "flying
squadron," he was in a continual state of nervous and sensual
titillation that made him avid of excitement and yet unable to endure
it. A thunderstorm drove him to hide in the cellar and to tears. He
was at times overcome by fear of death and hell, and at times had
crises of religious fervour. But his life was a perpetual debauch,
ever seeking new forms of pleasure in strange ways. He would walk the
streets at night accompanied by gay young rufflers in search of
adventures. He had a passion for some handsome young men, commonly
called "the darlings," whom he kept about him dressed as women.
His reign meant a new lease of power to his mother, who worshipped him
and to whom he willingly left the arduous business of government. By
this time she was bitterly hated by the Huguenots, who paid their
compliments to her in a pamphlet entitled _A wonderful Discourse on the
Life, Deeds and Debauchery of Catharine de' Medici_, perhaps written in
part by the scholar Henry Estienne. She was accused not only of crimes
of which she was really guilty, like the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
but of having murdered {221} the dauphin Francis, her husband's elder
brother, and others who had died natural deaths, and of having
systematically depraved her children in order to keep the reins of
authority in her own hands.
Frightened by the odium in which his mother was held, Henry III thought
it wise to disavow all part or lot in St. Bartholomew and to concede to
the Huguenots liberty of worship everywhere save in Paris and in
whatever place the court might be for the moment.
So difficult was the position of the king that by this attempt to
conciliate his enemies he only alienated his friends. The bigoted
Catholics, finding the crown impotent, began to take energetic measures
to help themselves. In 1576 they formed a League to secure the benefit
of association. [Sidenote: The League] Henry Duke of Guise drew up
the declaration that formed the constituent act of the League. It
proposed "to establish the law of God in its entirety, to reinstate and
maintain divine service according to the form and manner of the holy,
Catholic and apostolic church," and also "to restore to the provinces
and estates of this kingdom the rights, privileges, franchises, and
ancient liberties such as they were in the time of King Clovis, the
first Christian king." This last clause is highly significant as
showing how the Catholics had now adopted the tactics of the Huguenots
in appealing from the central government to the provincial privileges.
It is exactly the same issue as that of Federalism versus States'
Rights in American history; the party in power emphasizes the national
authority, while the smaller divisions furnish a refuge for the
minority.
The constituency of the League rapidly became large. The declaration
of Guise was circulated throughout the country something like a monster
petition, and those who wished bound themselves to support it. The
{222} power of this association of Catholics among nobles and people
soon made it so formidable that Henry III reversed his former policy,
recognized the League and declared himself its head.
[Sidenote: Estates General of Blois]
The elections for the States General held at Blois in 1576 proved
highly favorable to the League. The chief reason for their
overwhelming success was the abstention of the Protestants from voting.
In continental Europe it has always been and is now common for
minorities to refuse to vote, the idea being that this refusal is in
itself a protest more effective than a definite minority vote would be.
To an American this seems strange, for it has been proved time and
again that a strong minority can do a great deal to shape legislation.
But the Huguenots reasoned differently, and so seated but one
Protestant in the whole assembly, a deputy to the second, or noble,
estate. The privileged orders pronounced immediately for the
enforcement of religious unity, but in the Third Estate there was a
warm debate. John Bodin, the famous publicist, though a Catholic,
pleaded hard for tolerance. As finally passed, the law demanded a
return to the old religion, but added the proviso that the means taken
should be "gentle and pacific and without war." So impossible was this
in practice that the government was again obliged to issue a decree
granting liberty of conscience and restricted liberty of worship.
[Sidenote: 1577]
Under the oppression of the ruinous civil wars the people began to grow
more and more restless. The king was extremely unpopular. Perhaps the
people might have winked even at such outrages against decency as were
perpetrated by the king had not their critical faculties been sharpened
by the growing misery of their condition. The wars had bankrupted both
them and the government, and the desperate expedients of the latter to
raise money only increased the poverty {223} of the masses. Every
estate, every province, was urged to contribute as much as possible,
and most of them replied, in humble and loyal tone, but firmly, begging
for relief from the ruinous exactions. The sale of offices, of
justice, of collectorships of taxes, of the administration, of the
army, of the public domain, was only less onerous than the sale of
monopolies and inspectorships of markets and ports. The only
prosperous class seemed to be the government agents and contractors.
In fact, for the first time in the history of France the people were
becoming thoroughly disaffected and some of them semi-republican in
feeling.
[Sidenote: 1584]
The king had no sons and when his only remaining brother died a new
element of discord and perplexity was introduced in that the heir to
the throne, Henry of Navarre, was a Protestant. Violent attacks on him
were published in the pamphlet press. The League was revived in
stronger form than before. Its head, Guise, selected as candidate for
the throne the uncle of Henry of Navarre, Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon,
a stupid and violent man of sixty-four. The king hastened to make
terms with the League and commanded all Protestants to leave the
country in six months. At this point the pope intervened to strengthen
his cause by issuing the "Bull of Deprivation" [Sidenote: 1585]
declaring Henry of Navarre incapable, as a heretic, of succeeding to
the throne. Navarre at once denounced the bull as contrary to French
law and invalid, and he was supported both by the Parlement of Paris
and by some able pamphleteers. Hotman published his attack on the
"vain and blind fulmination" of the pontiff.
[Sidenote: Battle of Coutras, October 20, 1587]
An appeal to arms was inevitable. At the battle of Coutras, the
Huguenots, led by Henry of Navarre, won their first victory. While
this increased {224} Navarre's power and his popularity with his
followers, the majority of the people rallied to the League. In the
"war of the three Henrys" as it was called, the king had more to fear
from Henry of Guise than from the Huguenot. Cooped up at the Tuileries
the monarch was under so irksome a restraint that he was finally
obliged to regain freedom by flight, on May 12, 1588. The elections
for the States General gave an enormous majority to the League. In an
evil hour for himself the king resorted again to that much used weapon,
assassination. By his order Guise was murdered. "Now I am king," he
wrote with a sigh of relief. But he was mistaken. The League, more
hostile than ever, swearing to avenge the death of its captain, was now
frankly revolutionary.
It continued to exercise its authority under the leadership of a
Committee of Sixteen. These gentlemen purged the still royalist
Parlement of Paris. By the hostility of the League the king was forced
to an alliance with Henry of Navarre. This is interesting as showing
how completely the position of the two leading parties had become
reversed. The throne, once the strongest ally of the church, was now
supported chiefly by the Huguenots who had formerly been in rebellion.
Indeed by this time "the wars of religion" had become to a very large
extent dynastic and social.
On August 1, 1589, the king was assassinated by a Dominican fanatic.
His death was preceded shortly by that of Catharine de' Medici.
[Sidenote: Henry IV, 1589-1610]
Henry IV was a man of thirty-five, of middle stature, but very hardy
and brave. He was one of the most intelligent of the French kings,
vigorous of brain as of body. Few could resist his delicate
compliments and the promises he knew how to lavish. The glamour of his
personality has survived even until now. In a song still popular he is
called "the gallant king who knew {225} how to fight, to make love and
to drink." He is also remembered for his wish that every peasant might
have a fowl in his pot. His supreme desire was to see France, bleeding
and impoverished by civil war, again united, strong and happy. He
consistently subordinated religion to political ends. To him almost
alone is due the final adoption of tolerance, not indeed as a natural
right, but as a political expedient.
The difficulties with which he had to contend were enormous. The
Catholics, headed by the Duke of Mayenne, a brother of Guise, agreed to
recognize him for six months in order that he might have the
opportunity of becoming reconciled to the church. But Mayenne, who
wished to be elected king by the States General, soon commenced
hostilities. The skirmish at Arques between the forces of Henry and
Mayenne, resulting favorably to the former, was followed by the battle
of Ivry. [Sidenote: Battle of Ivry, March 14, 1590] Henry, with two
thousand horse and eight thousand foot, against eight thousand horse
and twelve thousand foot of the League, addressed his soldiers in a
stirring oration: "God is with us. Behold his enemies and ours; behold
your king. Charge! If your standards fail you, rally to my white
plume; you will find it on the road to victory and honor." At first
the fortune of war went against the Huguenots, but the personal courage
of the king, who, with "a terrible white plume" in his helmet led his
cavalry to the attack, wrested victory from the foe.
[Sidenote: Siege of Paris]
From Ivry Henry marched to Paris, the headquarters of the League. With
thirteen thousand soldiers he besieged this town of 220,000
inhabitants, garrisoned by fifty thousand troops. With their usual
self-sacrificing devotion, the people of Paris held out against the
horrors of famine. The clergy aroused the fanaticism of the populace,
promising heaven to those who died; women protested that they would eat
{226} their children before they would surrender. With provisions for
one month, Paris held out for four. Dogs, cats, rats, and grass were
eaten; the bones of animals and even of dead people were ground up and
used for flour; the skins of animals were devoured. Thirteen thousand
persons died of hunger and twenty thousand of the fever brought on by
lack of food. But even this miracle of fanaticism could not have saved
the capital eventually, but for the timely invasion of France from the
north by the Duke of Parma, who joined Mayenne on the Marne. Henry
raised the siege to meet the new menace, but the campaign of 1591 was
fruitless for both sides.
[Sidenote: Anarchy]
France seemed to be in a state of anarchy under the operation of many
and various forces. Pope Gregory XIV tried to influence the Catholics
to unite against Henry, but he was met by protests from the Parlements
in the name of the Gallican Liberties. The "Politiques" were ready to
support any strong _de facto_ government, but could not find it. The
cities hated the nobles, and the republicans resented the "courteous
warfare" which either side was said to wage on the other, sparing each
other's nobles and slaughtering the commons.
[Sidenote: 1593]
At this point the States General were convoked at Paris by the League.
So many provinces refused to send deputies that there were only 128
members out of a normal 505. A serial publication by several authors,
called the _Satyre Menippée_, poured ridicule on the pretentious of the
national assembly. Various solutions of the deadlock were proposed.
Philip II of Spain offered to support Mayenne as Lieutenant General of
France if the League would make his daughter, as the heiress through
her mother, Elizabeth of Valois, queen. This being refused, Philip
next proposed that the young Duke of Guise should marry his daughter
{227} and become king. But this proposal also won little support. The
enemies of Henry IV were conscious of his legitimate rights and jealous
of foreign interference; the only thing that stood in the way of their
recognizing him was his heresy.
[Sidenote: Henry's conversion]
Henry, finding that there seemed no other issue to an intolerable
situation, at last resolved, though with much reluctance, to change his
religion. On July 25, 1593, he abjured the Protestant faith, kneeling
to the Archbishop of Bourges, and was received into the bosom of the
Roman church. That his conversion was due entirely to the belief that
"Paris was worth a mass" is, of course, plain. Indeed, he frankly
avowed that he still scrupled at some articles, such as purgatory, the
worship of the saints, and the power of the pope. And it must be
remembered that his motives were not purely selfish. The alternative
seemed to be indefinite civil war with all its horrors, and Henry
deliberately but regretfully sacrificed his confessional convictions on
the altar of his country.
The step was not immediately successful. The Huguenots were naturally
enraged. The Catholics doubted the king's sincerity. At Paris the
preachers of the League ridiculed the conversion from the pulpit. "My
dog," sneered one of them, "were you not at mass last Sunday? Come
here and let us offer you the crown." But the "politiques" rallied to
the throne and the League rapidly melted away. The _Satyre Menippée_,
supporting the interests of Henry, did much to turn public opinion in
his favor.
A further impression was made by his coronation at Chartres in 1594.
When the surrender of Paris followed, the king entered his capital to
receive the homage of the Sorbonne and the Parlement of Paris. The
superstitious were convinced of Henry's sincerity when he touched some
scrofulous persons and they {228} were said to be healed. Curing the
"king's evil" was one of the oldest attributes of royalty, and it could
not be imagined that it would descend to an impostor.
Henry showed the wisest statesmanship in consolidating his power. He
bought up those who still held out against him at their own price,
remarking that whatever it cost it would be cheaper than fighting them.
He showed a wise clemency in dealing with his enemies, banishing only
about 130 persons. Next came absolution by Pope Clement VIII, who,
after driving as hard a bargain as he could, finally granted it on
September 17, 1595.
But even yet all danger was not past. Enraged at seeing France escape
from his clutches, Philip of Spain declared war, and he could still
count on the support of Mayenne and the last remnant of the League.
The daring action of Henry at Fontaine-Française on June 5, 1595, where
with three hundred horse he routed twelve hundred Spaniards, so
discouraged his enemies that Mayenne hastened to submit, and peace was
signed with Spain in 1598. The finances of the realm, naturally in a
chaotic state, were brought to order and solvency by a Huguenot noble,
the Duke of Sully, Henry's ablest minister.
The legal status of the Protestants was still to be settled. It was
not changed by Henry's abjuration, and the king was determined at all
costs to avoid another civil war. [Sidenote: Edict of Nantes, April
13, 1598] He therefore published the Edict of Nantes, declared to be
perpetual and irrevocable. By it liberty of conscience was granted to
all "without being questioned, vexed or molested," and without being
"forced to do anything contrary to their religion." Liberty of worship
was conceded in all places in which it had been practised for the last
two years; _i.e._ in two places in every bailiwick except large towns,
where services were to be held outside the walls, and {229} in the
houses of the great nobles. Protestant worship was forbidden at Paris
and for five leagues (twelve and one-half miles) outside the walls.
Protestants had all other legal rights of Catholics and were eligible
to all offices. To secure them in these rights a separate court of
justice was instituted, a division of the Parlement of Paris to be
called the Edict Chamber and to consist of ten Catholic and six
Protestant judges. But a still stronger guarantee was given in their
recognition as a separately organized state within the state. The king
agreed to leave two hundred towns in their hands, some of which, like
Montpellier, Montauban, and La Rochelle, were fortresses in which they
kept garrisons and paid the governors. As they could raise 25,000
soldiers at a time when the national army in time of peace was only
10,000, their position seemed absolutely impregnable. So favorable was
the Edict to the Huguenots that it was bitterly opposed by the Catholic
clergy and by the Parlement of Paris. Only the personal insistence of
the king finally carried it.
[Sidenote: Reasons for failure of French Protestantism]
Protestantism was stronger in the sixteenth century in France than it
ever was thereafter. During the eighty-seven years while the Edict of
Nantes was in force it lost much ground, and when that Edict was
revoked by a doting king and persecution began afresh, the Huguenots
were in no condition to resist. [Sidenote: 1685] From a total
constituency at its maximum of perhaps a fifth or a sixth of the whole
population, the Protestants have now sunk to less than two per cent.
(650,000 out of 39,000,000). The history of the rise and decline of
the Huguenot movement is a melancholy record of persecution and of
heroism. How great the number of martyrs was can never be known
accurately. Apart from St. Bartholomew there were several lesser
massacres, the wear and tear of a generation of war, and {230} the
unremitting pressure of the law that claimed hundreds of victims a year.
[Sidenote: Hostility of government]
Three principal causes can be assigned for the failure of the
Reformation to do more than fight a drawn battle in France. The first
and least important of these was the steady hostility of the
government. This hostility was assured by the mutually advantageous
alliance between the throne and the church sealed in the Concordat of
Bologna of 1516. But that the opposition of the government, heavily as
it weighed, was not and could not be the decisive force in defeating
Protestantism is proved, in my judgment, by the fact that even when the
Huguenots had a king of their own persuasion they were unable to obtain
the mastery. Had their faith won the support not only of a
considerable minority, but of the actual majority of the people, they
could surely at this time have secured the government and made France a
Protestant state.
[Sidenote: Protestantism came too late]
The second cause of the final failure of the Reformation was the
tardiness with which it came to France. It did not begin to make its
really popular appeal until some years after 1536, when Calvin's
writings attained a gradual publicity. This was twenty years later
than the Reformation came forcibly home to the Germans, and in those
twenty years it had made its greatest conquests north of the Rhine. Of
causes as well as of men it is true that there is a tide in their
affairs which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but which, once
missed, ebbs to defeat. Every generation has a different interest; to
every era the ideals of that immediately preceding become stale and
old-fashioned. The writings of every age are a polemic against those
of their fathers; every dogma has its day, and after every wave of
enthusiam [Transcriber's note: enthusiasm?] a reaction sets in. Thus
it was that the Reformation {231} missed, though it narrowly missed,
the propitious moment for conquering France. Enough had been said of
it during the reign of Francis to make the people tired of it, but not
enough to make them embrace it. By the time that Calvin had become
well known, the Catholics had awakened and had seized many of the
weapons of their opponents, a fresh statement of belief, a new
enthusiasm, a reformed ethical standard. The Council of Trent, the
Jesuits, the other new orders, were only symptoms of a still more
widely prevalent Catholic revival that came, in France, just in the
nick of time to deprive the Protestants of many of their claims to
popular favor.
[Sidenote: Beaten by the Renaissance]
But probably the heaviest weight in the scale against the Reformation
was the Renaissance--far stronger in France than in Germany. The one
marched from the north, while the other was wafted up from Italy. They
met, not as hostile armies but rather--to use a humble, commercial
illustration--as two competing merchants. The goods they offered were
not the same, not even similar, but the appeal of each was of such a
nature that few minds could be the whole-hearted devotees of both. The
new learning and the beauties of Italian art and literature sapped away
the interest of just those intelligent classes whose support was needed
to make the triumph of the Reformation complete. Terrible as were the
losses of the Huguenots by fire and sword, considerable as were the
defections from their ranks of those who found in the reformed Catholic
church a spiritual refuge, still greater was the loss of the Protestant
cause in failing to secure the adherence of such minds as Dolet and
Rabelais, Ronsard and Montaigne, and of the thousands influenced by
them. And a study of just these men will show how the Italian
influence worked and how it grew stronger in its rivalry with the
religious interest. {232} Whereas Marot had found something to
interest him in the new doctrines, Ronsard bitterly hated them.
Passionately devoted, as he and the rest of the Pleiade were, to the
sensuous beauties of Italian poetry, he had neither understanding of
nor patience with dogmatic subtleties. In the Huguenots he saw nothing
but mad fanatics and dangerous fomentors of rebellion. In his
_Discourses on the Evils of the Times_, he laid all the woes of France
at the door of the innovators. And powerfully his greater lyrics
seduced the mind of the public from the contemplation of divinity to
the enjoyment of earthly beauty.
The same intensification of the contrast between the two spirits is
seen in comparing Montaigne with Rabelais. It is true that Rabelais
ridiculed all positive religion, but nevertheless it fascinated him.
His theological learning is remarkable. But Montaigne ignored religion
as far as possible. [Sidenote: Montaigne's aloofness] Nourished from
his earliest youth on the great classical writers, he had no interest
apart from "the kingdom of man." He preferred to remain in the old
faith because that course caused him the least trouble. He had no
sympathy with the Protestants, but he did not hate them, as did
Ronsard. During the wars of religion, he maintained friendly relations
with the leaders of both parties. And he could not believe that creed
was the real cause of the civil strife. "Take from the Catholic army,"
said he, "all those actuated by pure zeal for the church or for the
king and country, and you will not have enough men left to form one
company." It is strange that beneath the evil passions and
self-seeking of the champions of each party he could not see the fierce
flame of popular heroism and fanaticism; but that he, and thousands of
men like him, could not do so, and could not enter, even by
imagination, into the causes {233} which, but a half century earlier,
had set the world on fire, largely explains how the religious issue had
lost its savour and why Protestantism failed in France.
[1] "The king my son will never have entire obedience."
[2] "That no one may embroil us in the friendship in which I desire
that these two kingdoms shall remain during my lifetime."
{234}
CHAPTER V
THE NETHERLANDS
SECTION 1. THE LUTHERAN REFORM
[Sidenote: The Netherlands]
The Netherlands have always been a favorite topic for the speculation of
those philosophers who derive a large part of national character from
geographical conditions. A land that needed reclaiming from the sea by
hard labor, a country situated at those two great outlets of European
commerce, the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt, a borderland between
German and Latin culture, naturally moulded a brave, stubborn, practical
and intelligent people, destined to play in history a part seemingly
beyond their scope and resources.
The people of the Netherlands became, to all intents, a state before they
became a nation. The Burgundian dukes of the fourteenth and fifteenth
century added to their fiefs counties, dukedoms and bishoprics, around
the nucleus of their first domain, until they had forged a compact and
powerful realm. [Sidenote: Philip the Good, 1419-67] Philip the Good,
Duke of Burgundy and lord, under various titles, of much of the
Netherlands, deserved the title of _Conditor Belgii_ by his successful
wars on France and by his statesmanlike policy of centralization. To
foster unity he created the States General--borrowing the name and
function thereof from France--in which all of the seventeen provinces[1]
of the Netherlands were represented on great occasions. Continually
increasing {235} in power with reference to the various localities, it
remained subordinate to the prince, who had the sole right of initiating
legislation. At first it met now in one city, then in another, but after
1530 always convened at Brussels, and always used the French language
officially.
[Sidenote: Charles the Bold, 1467-77]
Charles the Bold completed and yet endangered the work of Philip, for he
was worsted in mortal strife with Louis XI of France and, dying in
battle, left his dominions to his daughter, Mary. [Sidenote: Maximilian,
1477-93] Her husband, the Emperor Maximilian, and her son, Philip the
Handsome, [Sidenote: Philip the Handsome, 1493-1506] added to her realms
those vast dominions that made her grandson, Charles, the greatest
potentate in Europe. Born in Ghent, reared in the Netherlands, and
speaking only the French of the Walloons, Charles was always regarded by
his subjects as one of themselves. He almost completed the unification
of the Burgundian state by the conquest of Tournay from France (1521),
and the annexation of the independent provinces of Friesland (1523),
Overyssel and Utrecht (1528), Groningen (1536) and Guelders (1543).
Liège still remained a separate entity under its prince-bishops. But
even under Charles, notwithstanding a general feeling of loyalty to the
house of Hapsburg, each province was more conscious of its own
individuality than were the people as a whole of common patriotism. Some
of the provinces lay within the Empire, others were vassals of France, a
few were independent. Dutch was regarded as a dialect of German. The
most illustrious Netherlander of the time, Erasmus, in discussing his
race, does not even contemplate the possibility of there being a nation
composed of Dutch and Flemish men. The only alternative that presents
itself to him is whether he is French or German and, having been born at
Rotterdam, he decides in favor of the latter.
{236}
[Sidenote: Classes]
The Burgundian princes found their chief support in the nobility, in a
numerous class of officials, and in the municipal aristocracies. The
nobles, transformed from a feudal caste to a court clique, even though
they retained, as satellites of the monarch, much wealth and power, had
relatively lost ground to the rising pretensions of the cities and of the
commercial class. The clergy, too, were losing their old independence in
subservience to a government which regulated their tithes and forbade
their indulgence-trade. In 1515 Charles secured from Leo X and again in
1530 from Clement VII the right of nomination to vacant benefices. He
was able to make of the bishops his tools and to curtail the freedom,
jurisdiction, and financial privileges of the clergy considerably because
the spiritual estate had lost favor with the people and received no
support from them.
As the two privileged classes surrendered their powers to the monarch,
the third estate was coming into its own. Not until the war of
independence, however, was it able to withstand the combination of
bureaucracy and plutocracy that made common cause with the central
government against the local rights of the cities and the customary
privileges of the gilds. Almost everywhere the prince was able, with the
tacit support of the wealthier burghers, to substitute for the officers
elected by the gilds his own commissioners. [Sidenote: Revolt of Ghent]
But this usurpation, together with a variety of economic ills for which
the commoners were inclined, quite wrongly, to blame the government,
caused general discontent and in one case open rebellion. The gilds of
Ghent, a proud and ancient city, suffering from the encroachments of
capitalism and from the decline of the Flemish cloth industry, had long
asserted among their rights that of each gild to refuse to pay one of the
taxes, any one it chose, levied by the government. [Sidenote: 1539] The
attempt {237} of the government to suppress this privilege caused a
rising which took the characteristically modern form of a general strike.
The regent of the Netherlands, Mary, yielded at first to the demands of
the gilds, as she had no means of coercion convenient. Charles was in
Spain at the time, but hurried northward, being granted free passage
through France by the king who felt he had an interest in aiding his
fellow monarch to put down rebellious subjects. Early in 1540 Charles
entered Ghent at the head of a sufficient army. He soon meted out a
sanguinary punishment to the "brawlers" as the strikers were called,
humbled the city government, deprived it of all local privileges,
suppressed all independent corporations, asserted the royal prerogative
of nominating aldermen, and erected a fortress to overawe the burghers.
Thus the only overt attempt to resist the authority of Charles V, apart
from one or two insignificant Anabaptist riots, was crushed.
In matters of foreign policy the people of the Netherlands naturally
wished to be guided in reference to their own interests and not to the
larger interests of the emperor's other domains. Wielding immense
wealth--during the middle decades of the sixteenth century Antwerp was
both the first port and the first money-market of Europe--and cherishing
the sentiment that Charles was a native of their land, they for some time
sweetly flattered themselves that their interests were the center around
which gravitated the desires and needs of the Empire and of Spain.
Indeed, the balance of these two great states, and the regency of
Margaret of Austria, [Sidenote: Margaret of Austria, Regent, 1522-31] a
Hapsburg determined to give the Netherlands their due, for a time allowed
them at least the semblance of getting their wishes. But when Charles's
sister, Mary of Hungary, succeeded Margaret as regent, she was too
entirely {238} dependent on her brother, and he too determined to consult
larger than Burgundian interests, to allow the Netherlands more than the
smallest weight in larger plans. The most that she could do was to
unify, centralize and add to the provinces, and to get what commercial
advantages treaties could secure. Thus, she redeemed Luxemburg from the
Margrave of Baden to whom Maximilian had pawned it. Thus, also, she
negotiated fresh commercial treaties with England and unified the
coinage. But with all these achievements, distinctly advantageous to the
people she governed, her efforts to increase the power of the crown and
the necessity she was under of subordinating her policy to that of
Germany and Spain, made her extremely unpopular.
The relationship of the Netherlands to the Empire was a delicate and
important question. Though the Empire was the feudal suzerain of most of
the Burgundian provinces, Charles felt far more keenly for his rights as
an hereditary, local prince than for the aggrandizement of his Empire,
and therefore tried, especially after he had left Austria to his brother
Ferdinand, [Sidenote: September 7, 1522] to loosen rather than to
strengthen the bond. Even as early as 1512, when the Imperial Diet
demanded that the "common penny" be levied in the Netherlands, Charles's
council aided and abetted his Burgundian subjects in refusing to pay it.
In 1530 the Netherlands, in spite of urgent complaints from the Diet,
completely freed itself from imperial jurisdiction in the administration
of justice. Matters became still more complicated when Utrecht,
Friesland, Groningen and Guelders, formerly belonging to the Westphalian
district of the Empire, were annexed by Charles as Burgundian prince.
Probably he would not have been able to vindicate these acts of power,
had not his victory at Mühlberg [Sidenote: 1547] freed him from the {239}
restraints of the imperial constitution. A convention was made at the
next Diet of Augsburg, [Sidenote: Convention of June 26, 1548] providing
that henceforth the Netherlands should form a separate district, the
"Burgundian circle," of the Empire, and that their prince, as such,
should be represented in the Diet and in the Imperial Supreme Court.
Taxes were so apportioned that in time of peace the Netherlands should
contribute to the imperial treasury as much as did two electors, and in
time of war as much as three. This treaty nominally added to the Empire
two new counties, Flanders and Artois, and it gave the whole Netherlands
the benefit of imperial protection. But, though ratified by the States
General promptly, the convention remained almost a dead letter, and left
the Netherlands virtually autonomous. As long as they were unmolested
the Netherlands forgot their union entirely, and when, under the pressure
of Spanish rule, they later remembered and tried to profit by it, they
found that the Empire had no wish to revive it.
[Sidenote: Reformation]
The general causes of the religious revolution were the same in the Low
Countries as in other lands. The ground was prepared by the mystics of
the earlier ages, by the corruption of and hatred for the clergy, and buy
the Renaissance. The central situation of the country made it especially
open to all currents of European thought. Printing was early introduced
from Germany and expanded so rapidly in these years [Sidenote: 1525-55]
that no less than fifty new publishing houses were erected. As Antwerp
was the most cosmopolitan of cities, so Erasmus was the most nearly the
citizen of the world in that era. The great humanist, who did so much to
prepare for the Reformation, spent in his native land just those early
years of its first appearance when he most favored Luther.
{240} A group to take up with the Wittenberg professor's doctrines were
the Augustinians, many of whom had been in close relations with the Saxon
friaries. One of them, James Probst, had been prior of Wittenberg where
he learned to know Luther well [Sidenote: 1515] and when he became prior
of the convent at Antwerp he started a rousing propaganda in favor of the
reform. [Sidenote: 1518] Another Augustinian, Henry of Zütphen, made
his friary at Dordrecht the center of a Lutheran movement. Hoen at the
Hague, Hinne Rode at Utrecht, Gerard Lister at Zwolle, Melchior Miritzsch
at Ghent, were soon in correspondence with Luther and became missionaries
of his faith. His books, which circulated among the learned in Latin,
were some of them translated into Dutch as early as 1520.
The German commercial colony at Antwerp was another channel for the
infiltration of the Lutheran gospel. [Sidenote: 1520-1] The many
travelers, among them Albert Dürer, brought with them tidings of the
revolt and sowed its seeds in the soil of Flanders and Holland.
Singularly enough, the colony of Portuguese Jews, the Marranos as they
were called, became, if not converts, at least active agents in the
dissemination of Lutheran works.
[Sidenote: Catholic answers]
A vigorous counter-propaganda was at once started by the partisans of the
pope. This was directed against both Erasmus and Luther and consisted
largely, according to the reports of the former, in the most violent
invective. Nicholas of Egmont, "a man with a white pall but a black
heart" stormed in the pulpit against the new heretics. Another man
interspersed a sermon on charity with objurgations against those whom he
called "geese, asses, stocks, and Antichrists." [Sidenote: 1533] One
Dominican said he wished he could fasten his teeth in Luther's throat,
for he would not fear to go to the Lord's supper with that blood on his
{241} mouth. It was at Antwerp, a little later, that were first coined,
or at least first printed, the so celebrated epigrams that Erasmus was
Luther's father, that Erasmus had laid the eggs and Luther had hatched
the chickens, and that Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius and Erasmus were
the four soldiers who had crucified Christ.
The principal literary opposition to the new doctrines came from the
University of Louvain. Luther's works were condemned by Cologne, and
this sentence was ratified by Louvain. [Sidenote: August 30, 1519] A
number of the leading professors wrote against him, [Sidenote: November
7] among them the ex-professor Adrian of Utrecht, recently created Bishop
of Tortosa and cardinal, and soon to be pope.
The conservatives, however, could do little but scold until the arrival
of Charles V in June 1520, and of the papal nuncio Aleander in September.
The latter saw Charles immediately at Antwerp and found him already
determined to resist heresy. Acting under the edict procured at that
time, though not published until the following March 22, Aleander busied
himself by going around and burning Lutheran works in various cities and
preaching against the heresy. [Sidenote: October, 1520] He found far
more opposition than one would think probable, and the burning of the
books, as Erasmus said, removed them from the bookstores only, not from
the hearts of the people. The nuncio even discovered, he said, at this
early date, heretics who denied the real presence in the eucharist:
evidently independent spirits like Hoen who anticipated the doctrine
later taken up by Carlstadt and Zwingli.
The validity of the Edict of Worms was affirmed for the Burgundian
provinces. The edict was read publicly at Antwerp [Sidenote: July 13,
1521] while four hundred of Luther's books were burnt, three hundred
confiscated from the shops and one hundred brought by the people. {242}
Whereas spiritual officers were at first employed, civil magistrates now
began to act against the innovators. In the beginning, attention was
paid to municipal privileges, but these soon came to be disregarded, and
resistance on any pretext was treated as rebellion and treason. The
first persons to be arrested were the Prior of Antwerp, Probst,
[Sidenote: 1522] who recanted, but later escaped and relapsed, and two
other intimate friends of Erasmus.
[Sidenote: The Inquisition]
Charles wished to introduce the Spanish inquisition, but his councillors
were all against it. Under a different name, however, it was exactly
imitated when Francis van der Hulst was appointed chief inquisitor by the
state, [Sidenote: April 23, 1522] and was confirmed by a bull of Adrian
VI. [Sidenote: June 1, 1523] The original inquisitorial powers of the
bishops remained, and a supreme tribunal of three judges was appointed in
1524.
[Sidenote: Martyrs, July 1, 1523]
The first martyrs, Henry Voes and John Esch of Brussels, said Erasmus,
made many Lutherans by their death. Luther wrote a hymn on the subject
and published an open letter to the Christians of the Netherlands.
[Sidenote: 1524] Censorship of the press was established in Holland in
vain, for everything goes to show that Lutheranism rapidly increased.
Popular interest in the subject seemed to be great. Every allusion to
ecclesiastical corruption in speeches or in plays was applauded.
Thirty-eight laborers were arrested at Antwerp for assembling to read and
discuss the gospel. [Sidenote: 1525] Iconoclastic outbreaks occurred in
which crucifixes were desecrated. In the same year an Italian in Antwerp
wrote that though few people were openly Lutheran many were secretly so,
and that he had been assured by leading citizens that if the revolting
peasants of Germany approached Antwerp, twenty thousand armed men would
rise in the city to assist them. [Sidenote: July 31] When a Lutheran
was drowned in the Scheldt, {243} the act precipitated a riot. In 1527
the English ambassador wrote Wolsey from the Netherlands that two persons
out of three "kept Luther's opinions," and that while the English New
Testament was being printed in that city, repeated attempts on his part
to induce the magistrates to interfere came to nothing. Protestant works
also continued to pour from the presses. The Bible was soon translated
into Dutch, and in the course of eight years four editions of the whole
Bible and twenty-five editions of the New Testament were called for,
though the complete Scriptures had never been printed in Dutch before.
[Sidenote: October 14, 1529]
Alarmed by the spread of heresy, attributed to too great mildness, the
government now issued an edict that inaugurated a reign of terror. Death
was decreed not only for all heretics but for all who, not being
theologians, discussed articles of faith, or who caricatured God, Mary,
or the saints, and for all who failed to denounce heretics known to them.
While the government momentarily flattered itself that heresy had been
stamped out, at most it had been driven under ground. One of the effects
of the persecution was to isolate the Netherlands from the Empire
culturally and to some small extent commercially.
But heresy proved to be a veritable hydra. From one head sprang many
daughters, the Anabaptists, [Sidenote: Anabaptists] harder to deal with
than their mother. For while Lutheranism stood essentially for passive
obedience, and flourished nowhere save as a state church, Anabaptism was
frankly revolutionary and often socialistic. Melchior Hoffmann, the most
striking of their early leaders, a fervent and uneducated fanatic, driven
from place to place, wandered from Sweden and Denmark to Italy and Spain
[Sidenote: 1530-1533] preaching chiliastic and communistic ideas. Only
for three years was he much in the Netherlands, but it was there that he
won his greatest {244} successes. Appealing, as the Anabaptists always
did, to the lower classes, he converted thousands and tens of thousands
of the very poor--beggars, laborers and sailors--who passionately
embraced the teaching that promised the end of kings and governments and
the advent of the "rule of the righteous." Mary of Hungary was not far
wrong when she wrote that they planned to plunder all churches, nobles,
and wealthy merchants, in short, all who had property, and from the spoil
to distribute to every individual according to his need. [Sidenote:
October 7, 1531] A new and severer edict would have meant a general
massacre, had it been strictly enforced, but another element entered into
the situation. The city bourgeoisies that had previously resisted the
government, now supported it in this one particular, persecution of the
Anabaptists. When at Amsterdam [Sidenote: 1534] the sectaries rose and
very nearly mastered the city, death by fire was decreed for the men, by
water for the women. From Antwerp they were banished by a general edict
especially aimed at them supplemented by massacres in the northern
provinces. [Sidenote: June 24, 1535] After the crisis at Münster,
though the Anabaptists continued to be a bugbear to the ruling classes,
their propaganda lost its dangerously revolutionary character. Menno
Simons of Friesland, after his conversion in 1536, became the leader of
the movement and succeeded in gathering the smitten people into a large
and harmless body. The Anabaptists furnished, however, more martyrs than
did any other sect.
Lutheranism also continued to spread. The edict of 1540 confesses as
much while providing new and sterner penalties against those who even
interceded for heretics. The fact is that the inquisition as directed
against Lutherans was thoroughly unpopular and was resisted in various
provinces on the technical ground of local privileges. The Protestants
managed {245} to keep unnoticed amidst a general intention to connive at
them, and though they did not usually flinch from martyrdom they did not
court it. The inquisitors were obliged to arrest their victims at the
dead of night, raiding their houses and hauling them from bed, in order
to avoid popular tumult. [Sidenote: 1543] When Enzinas printed his
Spanish Bible at Antwerp the printer told him that in that city the
Scriptures had been published in almost every European language,
doubtless an exaggeration but a significant one. Arrested and imprisoned
at Brussels for this cause, Enzinas received while under duress visits
from four hundred citizens of that city who were Protestants. To control
the book trade an oath was exacted of every bookseller [Sidenote: 1546]
not to deal in heretical works and the first "Index of prohibited books,"
drawn up by the University of Louvain, was issued. A censorship of plays
was also attempted. This was followed by an edict of 1550 requiring of
every person entering the Netherlands a certificate of Catholic belief.
As Brabant and Antwerp repudiated a law that would have ruined their
trade, it remained, in fact, a dead letter.
Charles's policy of repression had been on the whole a failure, due
partly to the cosmopolitan culture of the Netherlands and their
commercial position making them open to the importation of ideas as of
merchandise from all Europe. It was due in part to the local jealousies
and privileges of the separate provinces, and in part to the strength of
certain nobles and cities. The persecution, indeed, had a decidedly
class character, for the emperor well knew Protestant nobles whom he did
not molest, while the poor seldom failed to suffer. And yet Charles had
accomplished something. Even the Protestants were loyal, strange to say,
to him personally. The number of martyrs in his reign has been estimated
at barely one thousand, {246} but it must be remembered that for every
one put to death there were a number punished in other ways. And the
body of the people was still Catholic, even in the North. It is
noteworthy that the most popular writer of this period, as well as the
first to use the Dutch tongue with precision and grace, was Anna Bijns, a
lay nun, violently anti-Lutheran in sentiment. [Sidenote: Anna Bijns,
1494-1575]
[1] Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, Guelders, Flanders, Artois, Hainaut,
Holland, Zeeland, Malines, Namur, Lille, Tournay, Friesland, Utrecht,
Overyssel and Groningen.
SECTION 2. THE CALVINIST REVOLT
When Charles V, weary of the heaviest scepter ever wielded by any
European monarch from Charlemagne to Napoleon, sought rest for his soul
in a monk's cell, he left his great possessions divided between his
brother Ferdinand and his son Philip. To the former went Austria and
the Empire, to the latter the Burgundian provinces and Spain with its
vast dependencies in the New World.
[Sidenote: Spain and the Netherlands]
The result of this was to make the Netherlands practically a satellite
of Spain. Hitherto, partly because their interests had largely
coincided with those of the Empire, partly because by balancing Germany
against Spain they could manage to get their own rights, they had found
prosperity and had acquired a good deal of national power. Indeed,
with their wealth, their central position, and growing strength as
province after province was annexed, and their consciousness that their
ruler was a native of Flanders, their pride had been rather gratified
than hurt by the knowledge that he possessed far larger dominions.
[Sidenote: Abdication of Charles] But when Charles, weeping copiously
and demanding his subjects' pardon, descended from the throne supported
by the young Prince of Orange, [Sidenote: October 25, 1555] and when
his son Philip II had replied to his father in Spanish, even those
present had an uneasy feeling that the situation had changed for the
worse, and that the Netherlands were being handed over from a
Burgundian to a Spanish ruler. From {247} this time forth the
interests and sentiments of the two countries became more and more
sharply divergent, and, as the smaller was sacrificed to the larger, a
conflict became inevitable. The revolt that followed within ten years
after Philip had permanently abandoned the Netherlands to make his home
in Spain [Sidenote: 1559] was first and foremost a nationalist revolt.
Contrasted with the particularistic uprising of 1477 it evinced the
enormous growth, in the intervening century, of a national
self-consciousness in the Seventeen Provinces.
[Sidenote: Religious issue]
But though the catastrophe was apparently inevitable from political
grounds, it was greatly complicated and intensified by the religious
issue. Philip was determined, as he himself said, either to bring the
Netherlands back to the fold of Rome or "so to waste their land that
neither the natives could live there nor should any thereafter desire
the place for habitation." And yet the means he took were even for his
purpose the worst possible, a continual vacillation between timid
indulgence and savage cruelty. Though he insisted that his ministers
should take no smallest step without his sanction, he could never make
up his mind what to do, waited too long to make a decision and then,
with fatal fatuity, made the wrong one.
[Sidenote: Calvinism]
At the same time the people were coming under the spell of a new and to
the government more dangerous form of Protestantism. Whereas the
Lutherans had stood for passive obedience and the Anabaptists for
revolutionary communism, the Calvinists appealed to the independent
middle classes and gave them not only the enthusiasm to endure
martyrdom but also--what the others had lacked--the will and the power
to resist tyranny by force. Calvin's polity, as worked out in Geneva,
was a subordination of the state to the church. His reforms were
thorough and consciously social and political. Calvinism in all lands
aroused {248} republican passions and excited rebellion against the
powers that be. This feature was the more prominent in the Netherlands
[Sidenote: 1545] in that its first missionaries were French exiles who
irrigated the receptive soil of the Low Countries with doctrines
subversive of church and state alike. The intercourse with England,
partly through the emigration from that land under Mary's reign, partly
through the coming and going of Flemings and Walloons, also opened
doors to Protestant doctrine.
At first the missionaries came secretly, preaching to a few specially
invited to some private house or inn. People attended these meetings
disguised and after dark. First mentioned in the edict of 1550, nine
years later the Calvinists drew up a _Confessio Belgica_, as a sign and
an aid to union. Calvin's French writings could be read in the
southern provinces in the original. Though as early as 1560 some
nobles had been converted, the new religion undoubtedly made its
strongest appeal, as a contemporary put it, "to those who had grown
rich by trade and were therefore ready for revolution." It was among
the merchants of the great cities that it took strongest root and from
the middle class spread to the laborers; influenced not only by the
example of their masters, but sometimes also by the policy of
Protestant employers to give work only to co-religionists. In a short
time it had won a very considerable success, though perhaps not the
actual majority of the population. Many of the poor, hitherto
Anabaptists, thronged to it in hopes of social betterment. Many
adventurers with no motive but to stir the waters in which they might
fish joined the new party. But on the whole, as its appeal was
primarily moral and religious, its constituency was the more
substantial, progressive, and intelligent part of the community.
The greatest weakness of the Protestants was their {249} division.
Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist continued to compete for the
leadership and hated each other cordially. The Calvinists themselves
were divided into two parties, the "Rekkelijken" or "Compromisers" and
the "Preciesen" or "Stalwarts." Moreover there were various other
shades of opinion, not amounting quite to new churches. The pure
Erasmians, under Cassander, advocated tolerance. More pronounced was
the movement of Dirck Volckertszoon Coornheert [Sidenote: Coornheert,
1522-90] a merchant of Amsterdam who, in addition to advising his
followers to dissimulate their views rather than to court martyrdom,
rejected the Calvinist dogma of predestination and tried to lay the
emphasis in religion on the spirit of Jesus rather than on either dogma
or ritual.
Though the undertow was slowly but surely carrying the Low Countries
adrift from Spain, for the moment their new monarch, then at the age of
twenty-eight, seemed to have the winds and waves of politics all in his
favor. He was at peace with France; he had nothing to fear from
Germany; his marriage with Mary of England made that country, always
the best trader with the Netherlands, an ally. His first steps were to
relieve Mary of Hungary of her regency and to give it to Emanuel
Philibert, to issue a new edict against heresy and to give permission
to the Jesuits to enter the Low Countries. [Sidenote: 1556]
The chief difficulties were financial. The increase in the yield of
the taxes in the reign of Charles had been from 1,500,000 guilders[1]
to 7,000,000 guilders. In addition to this, immense loans had
exhausted the credit of the government. The royal domain was
mortgaged. As the floating debt of the Provinces rose rapidly the
{250} government was in need of a grant to keep up the army. The only
way to meet the situation was to call the States General. [Sidenote:
March, 1556] When they met, they complained that they were taxed more
heavily than Spain and demanded the removal of the Spanish troops, a
force already so unpopular that William of Orange refused to take
command of it. In presenting their several grievances one province
only, Holland, mentioned the religious question to demand that the
powers of the inquisitors be curtailed. To obtain funds Philip was
obliged to promise, against his will, to withdraw the soldiers. This
was only done, under pressure, on January 10, 1561.
[Sidenote: 1559]
Philip had left the Netherlands professing his intention of returning,
but hoping and resolving in his heart never to do so. His departure
made easier the unavoidable breach, but the struggle had already begun.
Wishing to leave a regent of royal blood Philip appointed Margaret of
Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V. Born in 1522, she had been
married at the age of fourteen to Alexander de' Medici, a nephew of
Clement VII; becoming a widow in the following year she was in 1538
married to Ottavio Farnese, a nephew of Paul III, at that time only
fourteen years old. Given as her dower the cities of Parma and
Piacenza, she had become thoroughly Italian in feeling.
[Sidenote: Anthony Perrenot Cardinal Granvelle, 1517-86]
To guide her Philip left, besides the Council of State, a special
"consulta" or "kitchen cabinet" of three members, the chief of whom was
Granvelle. The real fatherland of this native of the Free County of
Burgundy was the court. As a passionate servant of the crown and a
clever and knowing diplomat, he was in constant correspondence with
Philip, recommending measures over the head of Margaret. His acts made
her intensely unpopular and her attempts to coax and cozen public
opinion only aroused suspicion.
{251}
[Sidenote: Egmont, 1522-68]
Three members in the Council of State, Granvelle and two others, were
partisans of the crown; three other members may be said to represent
the people. One of them was Lamoral Count of Egmont, the most
brilliant and popular of the high nobility. Though a favorite of
Charles V on account of his proved ability as a soldier, his frankness
and generosity, he was neither a sober nor a weighty statesman. The
popular proverb, "Egmont for action and Orange for counsel," well
characterized the difference between the two leading members of the
Council of State. William, prince of Orange, lacking the brilliant
qualities of Egmont, far surpassed him in acumen and in strength of
character. From his father, William Count of Nassau-Dillenburg,
[Sidenote: William the Silent, 1533-84] he inherited important estates
in Germany near the Netherlands, and by the death of a cousin he
became, at the age of eleven, Prince of Orange--a small, independent
territory in southern France--and Lord of Breda and Gertruidenberg in
Holland. With an income of 150,000 guilders per annum he was by far
the richest man in the Netherlands, Egmont coming next with an income
of 62,000. William was well educated. Though he spoke seven languages
and was an eloquent orator, he was called "the Silent" because of the
rare discretion that never revealed a secret nor spoke an imprudent
word. In religion he was indifferent, being first a Catholic, then a
Lutheran, then a Calvinist, and always a man of the world. His broad
tolerance found its best, or only, support in the Erasmian tendencies
of Coornheert. His second wife, Anne of Saxony, having proved
unfaithful to him, he married, while she was yet alive, Charlotte of
Bourbon. This act, like the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, was approved by
Protestant divines. Behind them Egmont and Orange had the hearty
support of the patriotic and well educated native nobility. {252} The
rising generation of the aristocracy saw only the bad side of the reign
of Charles; they had not shared in his earlier victories but had
witnessed his failure to conquer either France or Protestantism.
[Sidenote: New bishoprics]
In order to deal more effectively with the religious situation
Granvelle wished to bring the ecclesiastical territorial divisions into
harmony with the political. Hitherto the Netherlands had been partly
under the Archbishop of Cologne, partly under the Archbishop of Rheims.
But as these were both foreigners Granvelle applied for and secured a
bull creating fourteen new bishoprics and three archbishoprics,
[Sidenote: March 12, 1559] Cambrai, Utrecht, and Malines, of which the
last held the primacy. His object was doubtless in large part to
facilitate the extirpation of heresy, but it was also significant as
one more instance of the nationalization of the church, a tendency so
strong that neither Catholic nor Protestant countries escaped from it.
In this case all the appointments were to be made by the king with
consent of the pope. The people resented the autocratic features of a
plan they might otherwise have approved; a cry was raised throughout
the provinces that their freedom was infringed upon, and that the plan
furnished a new instrument to the hated inquisition.
[Sidenote: February, 1561]
Granvelle, more than ever detested when he received the cardinal's hat,
was dubbed "the red devil," "the archrascal," "the red dragon," "the
Spanish swine," "the pope's dung." In July Egmont and Orange sent
their resignations from the Council of State to Philip, saying that
they could no longer share the responsibility for Granvelle's policy,
especially as everything was done behind their backs. Philip, however,
was slow to take alarm. For the moment his attention was taken up with
the growth of the Huguenot party in France and his efforts centered on
helping the French Catholics against them. But the Netherlands were
{253} importunate. In voicing the wishes of the people the province of
Brabant, with the capital, Brussels, the metropolitan see, Malines, and
the university, Louvain, took as decided a lead as the Parlement of
Paris did in France. The estates of Brabant demanded that Orange be
made their governor. The nobles began to remember that they were
legally a part of the Empire. The marriage of Orange, on August 26,
1561, with the Lutheran Anne of Saxony, was but one sign of the
_rapprochment_. Though the prince continued to profess Catholicism, he
entertained many Lutherans and emphasized as far as possible his
position as vassal of the Empire. Philip, indeed, believed that the
whole trouble came from the wounded vanity of a few nobles.
But Granvelle saw deeper. [Sidenote: 1561] When the Estates of
Brabant stopped the payment of the principal tax or "Bede," [2] and
when the people of Brussels took as a party uniform a costume derived
from the carnival, a black cloak covered with red fool's heads, the
cardinal, whose red hat was caricatured thereby, stated that nothing
less than a republic was aimed at. This was true, though in the
anticipation of the nobles, at least, the republic should have a
decidedly aristocratic character. But Granvelle had no policy to
propose but repression. In order to prevent condemned heretics from
preaching and singing on the scaffold a gag was put into their mouths.
How futile a measure! The Calvinists no longer disguised, but armed--a
new and significant fact--thronged to their conventicles. Emigration
continued on a large scale. By 1556 it was estimated that thirty
thousand Protestants from the Low Countries were settled in or near
London. Elizabeth encouraged them to come, assigning them {254}
Norwich as a place of refuge. [Sidenote: 1563] She also began to tax
imports from the Netherlands, a blow to which Philip replied by
forbidding all English imports.
[Sidenote: Revolt]
Hitherto the resistance to the government had been mostly passive and
constitutional. But from 1565 may be dated the beginning of the revolt
that did not cease until it had freed the northern provinces forever
from Spanish tyranny. The rise of the Dutch Republic is one of the
most inspiring pages in history. Superficially it has many points of
resemblance with the American War of Independence. In both there was
the absentee king, the national hero, the local jealousies of the
several provinces, the economic grievances, the rising national feeling
and even the religious issue, though this had become very small in
America. But the difference was in the ferocity of the tyranny and the
intensity of the struggle. The two pictures are like the same
landscape as it might be painted by Millet and by Turner: the one is
decent and familiar, the other lurid and ghastly. With true
Anglo-Saxon moderation the American war was fought like a game or an
election, with humanity and attention to rules; but in Holland and
Belgium was enacted the most terrible frightfulness in the world; over
the whole land, mingled with the reek of candles carried in procession
and of incense burnt to celebrate a massacre, brooded the sultry miasma
of human blood and tears. On the one side flashed the savage sword of
Alva and the pitiless flame of the inquisitor Tapper; on the other were
arrayed, behind their dykes and walls, men resolved to win that freedom
which alone can give scope and nobility to life.
[Sidenote: The Intellectuals]
And in the melée those suffered most who would fain have been
bystanders, the humanists. Persecuted by both sides, the
intellectuals, who had once deserted the Reform now turned again to it
as the lesser of the two {255} evils. They would have been glad to
make terms with any church that would have left them in liberty, but
they found the whips of Calvin lighter than the scorpions of Philip.
Even those who, like Van Helmont, wished to defend the church and to
reconcile the Tridentine decrees with philosophy, found that their
labors brought them under suspicion and that what the church demanded
was not harmony of thought but abnegation of it.
The first act of the revolt may be said to be a secret compact, known
as the Compromise, [Sidenote: The Compromise, 1565] originally entered
into by twenty nobles at Brussels and soon joined by three hundred
other nobles elsewhere. The document signed by them denounced the
Edicts as surpassing the greatest recorded barbarity of tyrants and as
threatening the complete ruin of the country. To resist them the
signers promised each other mutual support. In this as in subsequent
developments the Calvinist minority took the lead, but was supported by
strong Catholic forces. Among the latter was the Prince of Orange, not
yet a Protestant. His conversion really made little difference in his
program; both before and after it he wanted tolerance or reconciliation
on Cassander's plan of compromise. He would have greatly liked to have
seen the Peace of Augsburg, now the public law of the Empire, extended
to the Low Countries, but this was made difficult even to advocate
because the Peace of Augsburg provided liberty only for the Lutheran
confession, whereas the majority of Protestants in the Netherlands were
now Calvinists. For the same reason little help could be expected from
the German princes, for the mutual animosity that was the curse of the
Protestant churches prevented their making common cause against the
same enemy.
As the Huguenots--for so they began to be called in Brabant as well as
in France--were as yet too few {256} to rebel, the only course open was
to appeal to the government once more. A petition to make the Edicts
milder was presented to Margaret in 1566. One of her advisers bade her
not to be afraid of "those beggars." Originating in the scorn of
enemies, like so many party names, the epithet "Beggars" (Gueux)
presently became the designation and a proud one, of the nobles who had
signed the Compromise and later of all the rebels.
Encouraged by the regent's apparent lack of power to coerce them, the
Calvinist preachers became daily bolder. Once again their religion
showed its remarkable powers of organization. Lacking nothing in
funds, derived from a constituency of wealthy merchants, the preachers
of the Reformation were soon able to forge a machinery of propaganda
and party action that stood them in good stead against the greater
numbers of their enemies. Especially in critical times, discipline,
unity, and enthusiasm make headway against the deadly hatred of enemies
and the deadlier apathy and timidity of the mass of mankind. It is
true that the methods of the preachers often aroused opposition.
[Sidenote: Iconoclasm]
The zeal of the Calvinists, inflamed by oppression and encouraged by
the weakness of the government, burst into an iconoclastic riot,
[Sidenote: August 11, 1566] first among the unemployed at Armentières,
but spreading rapidly to Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and then to the
northern provinces, Holland and Zeeland. The English agent at Brussels
wrote: "Coming into Oure Lady Church, yt looked like hell wher were
above 1000 torches brannyng and syche a noise as yf heven and erth had
gone together with fallyng of images and fallyng down of costly works."
Books and manuscripts as well as pictures were destroyed. The cry
"Long live the Beggars" resounded from one end of the land to the {257}
other. But withal there was no pillage and no robbery. The gold in
the churches was left untouched. Margaret feared a _jacquerie_ but,
lacking troops, had to look on with folded hands at least for the
moment. By chance there arrived just at this time an answer from
Philip to the earlier petition of the Beggars. The king promised to
abolish the Spanish inquisition and to soften the edicts. Freedom of
conscience was tacitly granted, but the government made an exception,
as soon as it dared, of those who had committed sacrilege in the recent
riots. These men were outlawed.
[Sidenote: Civil war]
No longer fearing a religious war the Calvinists started it themselves.
Louis of Nassau, a brother of Prince William, hired German mercenaries
and invaded Flanders, where he won some slight successes. In Amsterdam
the great Beggar Brederode entered into negotiations with Huguenots and
English friends. The first battle between the Beggars and the
government troops, [Sidenote: March 13, 1567] near Antwerp, ended in a
rout for the former.
Philip now ordered ten thousand Spanish veterans, led by Alva, to march
from Italy to the Netherlands. Making their way through the Free
County of Burgundy and Lorraine they entered Brussels on August 9,
1567. [Sidenote: Alva 1508-83] Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of
Alva, had won experience and reputation as a soldier in the German
wars. Though self-controlled and courtly in manner, his passionate
patriotism and bigotry made him a fit instrument to execute Philip's
orders to make the Netherlands Spanish and Catholic. He began with no
uncertain hand, building forts at Antwerp and quartering his troops at
Brussels where their foreign manners and Roman piety gave offence to
the citizens. On September 9 he arrested the counts of Egmont and
Horn, next to Orange the chief leaders of the patriotic party. Setting
up a tribunal, called the Council of {258} Troubles, to deal with cases
of rebellion and heresy, he inaugurated a reign of terror. He himself
spent seven hours a day in this court trying cases and signing
death-warrants. Not only heretics were punished but also agitators and
those who had advocated tolerance. Sincere Catholics, indeed, noted
that the crime of heresy was generally the mere pretext for dealing
with patriots and all those obnoxious to the government. [Sidenote:
Executions] For the first time we have definite statistics of the
numbers executed. For instance, on January 4, 1568, 48 persons were
sentenced to death, on February 20, 37; on February 21, 71; on March
20, 55; and so on for day after day, week in and week out. On March 3
at the same hour throughout the whole land 1500 men were executed. The
total number put to death during the six years of Alva's administration
has been variously estimated at from 6,000 to 18,000. The lower number
is probably nearer the truth, though not high enough. Emigration on a
hitherto unknown scale within the next thirty or forty years carried
400,000 persons from the Netherlands. Thousands of others fled to the
woods and became freebooters. The people as a whole were prostrated
with terror. The prosperity of the land was ruined by the wholesale
confiscations of goods. Alva boasted that by such means he had added
to the revenues of his territories 500,000 ducats per annum.
William of Orange retired to his estates at Dillenburg not to yield to
the tyrant but to find a _point d'appui_ from which to fight. Wishing
to avoid anything that might cause division among the people he kept
the religious issue in the background and complained only of foreign
tyranny. He tried to enlist the sympathies of the Emperor Maximilian
II and to collect money and men. William's friend Villiers invaded the
Burgundian State near Maastricht and Louis of Nassau marched with
troops into Friesland. {259} [Sidenote: April, 1568] By this time
Alva had increased his army by 10,000 German cavalry and both the rebel
leaders were severely defeated.
This triumph was followed by an act of power and defiance on Alva's
part sometimes compared to the execution of Louis XVI by the French
Republicans. Hitherto the sufferers from his reign of blood had not in
any case been men of the highest rank. The first execution of nobles
took place at Brussels on June 1, that of the captured Villiers
followed on June 2, and that of Egmont and Horn on June 5.
Orange himself now took the field with 25,000 troops, a motley
aggregate of French, Flemish, and Walloon Huguenots and of German
mercenaries. But he had no genius for war to oppose to the veterans of
Alva. Continually harassed by the Spaniards he was kept in fear for
his communications, dared not risk a general engagement and was
humiliated by seeing his retreat, in November, turned into a rout.
[Sidenote: July 16, 1570]
Finding that severity did not pacify the provinces, Alva issued a
proclamation that on the face of it was a general amnesty with pardon
for all who submitted. But he excepted by name several hundred
emigrants, all the Protestant clergy, all who had helped them, all
iconoclasts, all who had signed petitions for religious liberty, and
all who had rebelled. As these exceptions included the greater portion
of those who stood in need of pardon the measure proved illusory as a
means of reconciliation. Coupled with it were other measures,
including the prohibition to subjects to attend foreign universities,
intended to put a check on free trade in ideas.
[Sidenote: Taxation]
Alva's difficulties and the miseries of the unhappy land entrusted to
his tender mercies were increased by want of money. Notwithstanding
the privilege of {260} granting their own taxes the States General were
summoned [Sidenote: March 21, 1569] and forced to accept new imposts of
one per cent. on all property real and personal, ten per cent. on the
sale of all movable goods and five per cent. on the sale of real
estate. These were Spanish taxes, exorbitant in any case but
absolutely ruinous to a commercial people. A terrible financial panic
followed. Houses at Antwerp that had rented for 300 gulden could now
be had for 50 gulden. Imports fell off to such an extent that at this
port they yielded but 14,000 gulden per annum instead of 80,000 as
formerly. The harbor was filled with empty boats; the market drugged
with goods of all sorts that no one would buy.
[Sidenote: Beggars of the Sea]
The cause of the patriots looked hopeless. Orange, discredited by
defeat, had retired to Germany. At one time, to avoid the clamors of
his troops for pay, he was obliged to flee by night from Strassburg.
But in this dark hour help came from the sea. Louis of Nassau, not
primarily a statesman like his brother but a passionate crusader for
Protestantism, had been at La Rochelle and had there seen the excellent
work done by privateers. In emulation of his French brethren he
granted letters of marque to the sailors of Holland and Zeeland.
Recruits thronged to the ships, Huguenots, men from Liège, and the
laborers of the Walloon provinces thrown out of work by the commercial
crisis. These men promptly won striking successes in preying on
Spanish commerce. Their many and rich prizes were taken to England or
to Emden and sold. Often they landed on the coasts and attacked small
Catholic forces, or murdered priests. On the night of March 31-April
1, 1572, these Beggars of the Sea seized the small town of Brielle on a
large island at the mouth of the Meuse not far from the Hague. This
success was immediately followed by the insurrection of Rotterdam and
Flushing. The war was conducted with combined {261} heroism and
frightfulness. Receiving no quarter the Beggars gave none, and to
avenge themselves on the unspeakable wrongs committed by Alva they
themselves at times massacred the innocent. But their success spread
like wildfire. The coast towns "fell away like beads from a rosary
when one is gone." Fortifications in all of them were strengthened
and, where necessary, dykes were opened. Reinforcements also came from
England.
[Sidenote: Revolution]
By this time the revolt had become a veritable revolution. It found
its battle hymn in the Wilhelmuslied and its Washington in William of
Orange. As all the towns of Holland save Amsterdam were in his hands,
in June the provincial Estates met--albeit illegally, for there was no
one authorized to convene them--assumed sovereign power and made
William their Stat-holder. They voted large taxes and forced loans
from rich citizens, and raised money from the sale of prizes taken at
sea. All defect in prescriptive and legal power was made up by the
popularity of the prince, deeply loved by all classes, not only on
account of his affability to all, even the humblest, but still more
because of confidence in his ability. Never did his versatility,
patience and skill in management shine more brightly. Among the troops
raised by the patriots he kept strict discipline, thus making by
contrast more lurid the savage pillage by the Spaniards. He kept far
from fanatics and swashbucklers of whom there were plenty attracted to
the revolt. His master idea was to keep the Netherlands together and
to free them from the foreigner. Complete independence of Spain was
not at first planned, but it soon became inevitable.
For a moment there was a prospect of help from Coligny's policy of
prosecuting a war with Spain, but these hopes were destroyed by the
defeat of the French Huguenots near Mons [Sidenote: July 17, 1572] and
by the massacre of Saint {262} Bartholomew. [Sidenote: August 24,
1572] Freed from menace in this quarter and encouraged by his
brilliant victory, Alva turned north with an army now increased to
40,000 veterans. First he took Malines and delivered it to his
soldiers for "the most dreadful and inhuman sack of the day" as a
contemporary wrote. The army then marched to Guelders and stormed
Zutphen under express orders from their general "not to leave one man
alive or one building unburnt." "With the help of God," as Alva
piously reported, the same punishment was meted out to Naarden. Then
he marched to the still royalist Amsterdam from which base he proceeded
to invest Haarlem. The siege was a long and hard one for the
Spaniards, harassed by the winter weather and by epidemics. Alva wrote
Philip that it was "the bloodiest war known for long years" and begged
for reinforcements. [Sidenote: July 12, 1573] At last famine overcame
the brave defenders of the city and it capitulated. Finding that his
cruelty had only nerved the people to the most desperate resistance,
and wishing to give an example of clemency to a city that would
surrender rather than await storming, Alva contented himself with
putting to death to the last man 2300 French, English, and Walloon
soldiers of the garrison, and five or six citizens. He also demanded a
ransom of 100,000 dollars[3] in lieu of plunder. Not content with this
meager largess the Spanish troops mutinied, and only the promise of
further cities to sack quieted them. The fortunes of the patriots were
a little raised by the defeat of the Spanish fleet in the Zuiderzee by
the Beggars on October 12, 1573.
[Sidenote: Requesens]
For some time Philip had begun to suspect that Alva's methods were not
the proper ones to win back the affectionate loyalty of his people.
Though he hesitated long he finally removed him late in 1573 and {263}
appointed in his stead Don Louis Requesens. Had Philip come himself he
might have been able to do something, for the majority professed
personal loyalty to him, and in that age, as Shakespeare reminds us,
divinity still hedged a king. But not having the decision to act in
person Philip picked out a favorite, known from his constant attendance
on his master as "the king's hour-glass," in whom he saw the slavishly
obedient tool that he thought he wanted. The only difference between
the new governor and the old was that Requesens lacked Alva's ability;
he had all the other's narrowly Spanish views, his bigotry and
absolutism.
Once arrived in the provinces committed to his charge, he had no choice
but to continue the war. But on January 27, 1574, Orange conquered
Middelburg and from that date the Spanish flag ceased to float over any
portion of the soil of Holland or Zeeland. In open battle at Mook,
however, [Sidenote: April 14, 1574] the Spanish veterans again achieved
success, defeating the patriots under Louis of Nassau, who lost his
life. The beginning of the year saw the investment of Leyden in great
force. The heroism of the defence has become proverbial. When, in
September, the dykes were cut to admit the sea, so that the vessels of
the Beggars were able to sail to the relief of the city, the siege was
raised. It was the first important military victory for the patriots
and marks the turning-point of the revolt. Henceforth the Netherlands
could not be wholly subdued.
Requesens summoned the States General and offered a pardon to all who
would submit. But the people saw in this only a sign of weakness. A
flood of pamphlets calling to arms replied to the advances of the
government. Among the pamphleteers the ablest was Philip van Marnix,
[Sidenote: Marnix, 1538-98] a Calvinist who turned his powers of satire
against Spain and the Catholic {264} church. William of Orange, now a
Protestant, living at Delft, inspired the whole movement. Requesens,
believing that if he were out of the way the revolt would collapse,
like Alva offered public rewards for his assassination. That there was
really no common ground was proved at a conference between the two
foes, broken off without result. In the campaign of 1575 the Spanish
army again achieved great things, taking Oudewater, Schoonhoven and
other places. But the rebels would not give up.
[Sidenote: March 5, 1576]
The situation was changed by the death of Requesens. Before his
successor could be appointed events moved rapidly. After taking
Zierikzee on June 29, the Spanish army turned to Aalst, quartered the
soldiers on the inhabitants, and forced the loyal city to pay the full
costs of their maintenance. If even the Catholics were alienated by
this, the Protestants went so far as to preach that any Spaniard might
be murdered without sin. In the concerted action against Spain the
Estates of Brabant now took the leading part; meeting at Brussels they
intimidated the Council of State and raised an army of 3000 men. By
this time Holland and Zeeland were to all intents and purposes an
independent state. The Calvinists, strong among the native population,
were recruited by a vast influx of immigrants from other Provinces
until theirs became the dominant religion. Holland and Zeeland pursued
a separate military and financial policy. Alone among the provinces
they were prosperous, for they had command of the rich sea-borne
commerce.
The growth of republican theory kept pace with the progress of the
revolt. Orange was surrounded by men holding the free principles of
Duplessis-Mornay and corresponding with him. Dutchmen now openly
voiced their belief that princes were made for the sake of their
subjects and not subjects for the sake {265} of princes. Even though
they denied the equal rights of the common people they asserted the
sovereignty of the representative assembly. The Council of State,
having assumed the authority of the viceroy during the interim, was
deluged with letters petitioning them to shake off the Spanish yoke
entirely. But, as the Council still remained loyal to Philip, on
September 4 its members were arrested, a _coup d'état_ planned in the
interests of Orange and doubtless with his knowledge. It was, of
course, tantamount to treason. The Estates General now seized
sovereign powers. Still protesting their loyalty to the monarch's
person and to the Catholic religion, they demanded virtual independence
and the withdrawal of the Spanish troops. To enforce their demands
they collected an army and took possession of several forts. But the
Spanish veterans never once thought of giving way. Gathering at
Antwerp where they were besieged by the soldiers of the States General,
[Sidenote: November 4, 1576] they attacked and then scattered the bands
sent against them and proceeded to sack Antwerp like a captured town.
In one dreadful day 7000 of the patriots, in part soldiers, in part
noncombatants, perished. The wealth of the city was looted. The army
of occupation boasted as of a victory of this deed of blood, known to
the Netherlanders as "the Spanish fury."
Naturally, such a blow only welded the provinces more firmly together
and steeled their temper to an even harder resistance. Its immediate
result was a treaty, known as the Pacification of Ghent, between the
provinces represented in the States General on the one hand and Holland
and Zeeland on the other, for the purposes of union and of driving out
the foreigner. The religious question was left undecided, save that
the northern provinces agreed to do nothing for the present against the
Roman church. But, as {266} heretofore, the Calvinists, now inscribing
"Pro fide et patria" on their banners, were the more active and
patriotic party.
[Sidenote: Don John, 1547-78]
On May 1, 1577, the new Governor-General, Don John of Austria, entered
Brussels. A natural son of Charles V, at the age of twenty-four he had
made himself famous by the naval victory of Lepanto, and his name still
more celebrated in popular legend on account of his innumerable amours.
That he had some charm of manner must be assumed; that he had ability
in certain directions cannot be denied; but his aristocratic hauteur,
his contempt for a nation of merchants and his disgust at dealing with
them, made him the worst possible person for the position of Governor.
Philip's detailed instructions left nothing to the imagination: the
gist of them was to assure the Catholic religion and obedience of his
subjects "as far as possible," to speak French, and not to take his
mistresses from the most influential families, nor to alienate them in
any other way. After force had been tried and failed the effect of
gentleness was to be essayed. Don John was to be a dove of peace and
an angel of love.
But even if a far abler man had been sent to heal the troubles in the
Netherlands, the breach was now past mending. In the States General,
as in the nation at large, there were still two parties, one for Orange
and one for Philip, but both were determined to get rid of the devilish
incubus of the Spanish army. The division of the two parties was to
some extent sectional, but still more that class division that seems
inevitable between conservatives and liberals. The king still had for
him the clergy, the majority of the nobles and higher bourgeoisie; with
William were ranged the Calvinists, the middle and lower classes and
most of the "intellectuals", lawyers, men of learning and those
publicists known as the "monarchomachs." Many of {267} these were
still Catholics who wished to distinguish sharply between the religious
and the national issue. At the very moment of Don John's arrival the
Estates passed a resolution to uphold the Catholic faith.
[Sidenote: February, 1577]
Even before he had entered his capital Don John issued the "Perpetual
Edict" agreeing to withdraw the Spanish troops in return for a grant of
600,000 guilders for their pay. He promised to respect the privileges
of the provinces and to free political prisoners, including the son of
Orange. In April the troops really withdrew. The small effect of
these measures of conciliation became apparent when the Estates General
voted by a majority of one only to recognize Don John as their
Statholder. [Sidenote: May 12] So little influence did he have that
he felt more like a prisoner than a governor; he soon fled from his
capital to the fortress of Namur whence he wrote urging his king to
send back the troops at once and let him "bathe in the blood of the
traitors."
William was as much pleased as John was enraged at the failure of the
policy of reconciliation. While the majority of the states still hoped
for peace William was determined on independence at all costs. In
August he sent a demand to the representatives to do their duty by the
people, for he did not doubt that they had the right to depose the
tyrant. Never did his prospects look brighter. Help was offered by
Elizabeth and the tide of republican feeling began to rise higher. In
proportion as the laborers were drawn to the party of revolt did the
doctrine of the monarchomachs become liberal. No longer satisfied with
the democracy of corporations and castes of the Middle Ages, the people
began to dream of the individualistic democracy of modern times.
The executive power, virtually abandoned by Don John, now became
centered in a Committee of {268} Eighteen, nominally on fortifications,
but in reality, like the French Committee of Public Safety, supreme in
all matters. This body was first appointed by the citizens of
Brussels, but the States General were helpless against it. It was
supported by the armed force of the patriots and by the personal
prestige of Orange. His power was growing, for, with the capitulation
of the Spanish garrison at Utrecht he had been appointed Statholder of
that province. When he entered Brussels on September 23, he was
received with the wild acclamations of the populace. Opposition to him
seemed impossible. And yet, even at this high-water mark of his power,
his difficulties were considerable. Each province was jealous of its
rights and, as in the American Revolution, each province wished to
contribute as little as possible to the common fund. Moreover the
religious question was still extremely delicate. Orange's permission
to the Catholics to celebrate their rites on his estates alienated as
many Protestant fanatics as it conciliated those of the old religion.
[Sidenote: Archduke Matthew]
The Netherlands were not yet strong enough to do without powerful
foreign support, nor was public opinion yet ripe for the declaration of
an independent republic. Feeling that a statholder of some sort was
necessary, the States General petitioned Philip to remove Don John and
to appoint a legitimate prince of the blood. This petition was perhaps
intentionally impossible of fulfilment in a way agreeable to Philip,
for he had no legitimate brother or son. But a prince of the House of
Hapsburg offered himself in the person of the Archduke Matthew, a son
of the Emperor Maximilian, recently deceased. [Sidenote: October 12,
1576] Though he had neither ability of his own nor support from his
brother, the Emperor Rudolph II, and though but nineteen years old, he
offered his services to the Netherlands and immediately went thither.
With high statecraft William {269} drew Matthew into his policy, for he
saw that the dangers to be feared were anarchy and disunion. In some
cities, notably Ghent, where another Committee of Eighteen was
appointed on the Brussels model, the lowest classes assumed a
dictatorship analagous to that of the Bolsheviki in Russia. At the
same time the Patriots' demand that Orange should be made Governor of
Brabant was distasteful to the large loyalist element in the
population. William at once saw the use that might be made of Matthew
as a figure-head to rally those who still reverenced the house of
Hapsburg and who saw in monarchy the only guarantee of order at home
and consideration abroad. Promptly arresting the Duke of Aerschot, a
powerful noble who tried to use Matthew's name to create a separate
faction, Orange induced the States General first to decree Don John an
enemy of the country [Sidenote: December 7, 1577] and then to offer the
governorship of the Netherlands to the archduke, at the same time
begging him, on account of his youth, to leave the administration in
the hands of William. After Matthew's entry into Brussels [Sidenote:
January 18, 1578] the States General swore allegiance to this puppet in
the hands of their greatest statesman.
Almost immediately the war broke out again. Both sides had been busy
raising troops. At Gembloux Don John with 20,000 men defeated about
the same number of Patriot troops. [Sidenote: January 31] But this
failed to clarify a situation that tended to become ever more
complicated. Help from England and France came in tiny dribblets just
sufficient to keep Philip's energies occupied in the cruel civil war.
But the vacancy, so to speak, on the ducal throne of the Burgundian
state, seemed to invite the candidacy of neighboring princes and a
chance of seriously interesting France came when the ambition of
Francis, Duke of Anjou, was stirred to become ruler of the Low
Countries. William attempted also to make {270} use of him. In return
for the promise to raise 12,000 troops, Anjou received from the States
General the title of "Defender of the Freedom of the Netherlands
against the tyranny of the Spaniards and their allies." The result was
that the Catholic population was divided in its support between Matthew
and Anjou, and that Orange retained the balance of influence.
[Sidenote: Protestant schism]
The insuperable difficulty in the way of success for the policy of this
great man was still the religious one. Calvinism had been largely
drawn off to Holland and Zeeland, and Catholicism remained the religion
of the great majority of the population in the other provinces. At
first sight the latter appeared far from being an intractable force.
In contrast with the fiery zeal of the Calvinists on the one hand and
of the Spaniards on the other, the faith of the Catholic Flemings and
Walloons seemed lukewarm, an old custom rather than a living
conviction. Most were shocked by the fanaticism of the Spaniards, who
thus proved the worst enemies of their faith, and yet, within the
Netherlands, they were very unwilling to see the old religion perish.
When the lower classes at Ghent assumed the leadership they rather
forced than converted that city to the Calvinist confession. Their
acts were taken as a breach of the Pacification of Ghent and threatened
the whole policy of Orange by creating fresh discord. To obviate this,
William proposed to the States General a religious peace on the basis
of the _status quo_ with refusal to allow further proselyting.
[Sidenote: July, 1578] But this measure, acceptable to the Catholics,
was deeply resented by the Calvinists. It was said that one who
changed his religion as often as his coat must prefer human to divine
things and that he who would tolerate Romanists must himself be an
atheist.
[Sidenote: Division of the Netherlands]
It was therefore, a primarily religious issue, and no difference of
race, language or material interest, {271} that divided the Netherlands
into two halves. For a time the common hatred of all the people for
the foreigner welded them into a united whole; but no sooner was the
pressure of the Spanish yoke even slightly relaxed than the mutual
antipathy of Calvinist and Catholic showed itself. If we look closely
into the causes why the North should become predominantly Protestant
while the South gradually reverted to an entirely Catholic faith, we
must see that the reasons were in part racial, in part geographical and
in part social. Geographically and linguistically the Northern
provinces looked for their culture to Germany, and the Southern
provinces to France. Moreover the easy defensibility of Holland and
Zeeland, behind their moats, made them the natural refuge of a hunted
sect and, this tendency once having asserted itself, the polarization
of the Netherlands naturally followed, Protestants being drawn and
driven to their friends in the North and Catholics similarly finding it
necessary or advisable to settle in the South. Moreover in the
Southern provinces the two privileged classes, clergy and nobility,
were relatively stronger than in the almost entirely bourgeois and
commercial North. And the influence of both was thrown into the scale
of the Roman church, the first promptly and as a matter of course, the
second eventually as a reaction from the strongly democratic tendency
of Calvinism. In some of the Southern cities there ensued at this time
a desperate struggle between the Protestant democracy and the Catholic
aristocracy. The few Protestants of gentle birth in the Walloon
provinces felt ill at ease in company with their Dutch co-religionists
and were called by them "Malcontents" because they looked askance at
the political principles of the North.
[Sidenote: January 1579]
The separatist tendencies on both sides crystallized as some of the
Southern provinces signed a league at {272} Arras on January 5 for the
protection of the Catholic religion. On the 29th this was answered by
the Union of Utrecht, signed by the representatives of Holland,
Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, Guelders, Zutphen, and the city of Ghent,
binding the said provinces to resist all foreign tyranny. Complete
freedom of worship was granted, a matter of importance as the Catholic
minority was, and has always remained, large. By this act a new state
was born. Orange still continued to labor for union with the Southern
provinces, but he failed. A bitter religious war broke out in the
cities of the South. At Ghent the churches were plundered anew.
[Sidenote: 1581] At Brussels and Antwerp the Protestant proletariat
won a temporary ascendancy and Catholic worship was forbidden in both
cities. A general emigration from them ensued. Under the stress of
the religious war which was also a class war, the last vestiges of
union perished. The States General ceased to have power to raise taxes
or enforce decrees, and presently it was no more regarded.
Even William of Orange now abandoned his show of respect for the
monarch and became wholly the champion of liberty and of the people.
[Sidenote: 1580] The States General recognized Anjou as their prince,
but at the same time drew up a very republican constitution. The
representatives of the people were given not only the legislative but
also the executive powers, including the direction of foreign affairs.
The States of the Northern Provinces formally deposed Philip,
[Sidenote: Deposition of Philip, 1581] who could do nothing in reply.
A proclamation had already been issued offering 25,000 dollars and a
patent of nobility to anyone who would assassinate Orange who was
branded as "a traitor and rascal" and as "the enemy of the human race."
[Sidenote: October 1, 1578]
Don John, having died unlamented, was succeeded by Alexander Farnese, a
son of the ex-regent Margaret {273} of Parma. [Sidenote: Farnese,
1545-92] Though an Italian in temperament he united a rare diplomatic
pliability with energy as a soldier. Moreover, whereas his
predecessors had despised the people they were sent to govern and had
hated the task of dealing with them, he set his heart on making a
success. By this time the eyes of all Europe were fixed on the
struggle in the Low Countries and it seemed a worthy achievement to
accomplish what so many famous soldiers and statesmen had failed in.
It is doubtless due to the genius of Farnese that the Spanish yoke was
again fixed on the neck of the southern of the two confederacies into
which the Burgundian state had spontaneously separated. Welcomed by a
large number of the signers of the Treaty of Arras, [Sidenote: 1579] he
promptly raised an army of 31,000 men, mostly Germans, attacked and
took Maastricht. A sickening pillage followed in which no less than
1700 women were slaughtered. Seeing his mistake, on capturing the next
town, Tournai, he restrained his army and allowed even the garrison to
march out with the honors of war. Not one citizen was executed, though
an indemnity of 200,000 guilders was demanded. His clemency helped his
cause more than his success in arms.
[Sidenote: Conquest of the South]
Slowly but surely his campaign of conquest progressed. It was a war of
sieges only, without battles. Bruges was taken after a long
investment, and was mildly treated. [Sidenote: 1584] Ghent
surrendered and was also let off with an indemnity but without bloody
punishment. After a hard siege Antwerp capitulated. [Sidenote: 1585]
Practically the whole of the Southern confederacy had been reduced to
obedience to the king of Spain. The Protestant religion was forbidden
by law but in each case when a city was conquered the Protestants were
given from two to four years either to become reconciled or to emigrate.
{274} But the land that was reconquered was not the land that had
revolted. A ghastly ruin accompanied by a numbing blight on thought
and energy settled on the once happy lands of Flanders and Brabant.
The civil wars had so wasted the country that wolves prowled even at
the gates of great cities. The _coup de grace_ was given to the
commerce of Antwerp by the barring of the Scheldt by Holland. Trade
with the East and West Indies was forbidden by Spain until 1640.
[Sidenote: Freedom of the North]
But the North, after a desperate struggle and much suffering,
vindicated its freedom. Anjou tried first to make himself their
tyrant; [Sidenote: January 17, 1583] his soldiers at Antwerp attacked
the citizens but were beaten off after frightful street fighting. The
"French fury" as it was called, taught the Dutch once again to distrust
foreign governors, though the death of Anjou relieved them of fear.
[Sidenote: June, 1584]
But a sterner foe was at hand. Having reduced what is now called
Belgium, Farnese attacked the Reformation and the republicans in their
last strongholds in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. The long war, of a
high technical interest because of the peculiar military problems to be
solved, was finally decided in favor of the Dutch. The result was due
in part to the heroic courage of the people, in part to the highly
defensible nature of their country, saved time and again by that great
ally, the sea.
[Sidenote: July 10, 1584]
A cruel blow was the assassination of Orange whose last words were "God
have pity on this poor people." His life had been devoted to them in
no spirit of ambition or vulgar pride; his energy, his patience, his
breadth had served the people well. And at his death they showed
themselves worthy of him and of the cause. Around his body the Estates
of Holland convened and resolved to bear themselves manfully {275}
without abatement of zeal. Right nobly did they acquit themselves.
[Sidenote: 1586, Leicester]
The bad ending of a final attempt to get foreign help taught the Dutch
Republic once and for all to rely only on itself. Robert Dudley, Earl
of Leicester, Elizabeth's favorite, was inaugurated as Governor
General. His assumption of independent power enraged his royal
mistress, whereas the Dutch were alienated by the suspicion that he
sacrificed their interests to those of England, and by his military
failures. In less than two years he was forced to return home.
[Sidenote: 1587]
[Sidenote: Oldenbarneveldt, 1547-1619]
Under the statesmanlike guidance of John van Oldenbarneveldt, since
1586 Pensionary of Holland, a Republic was set up founded on the
supremacy of the Estates. Under his exact, prudent, and resolute
leadership internal freedom and external power were alike developed.
Though the war continued long after 1588 the defeat of the Armada in
that year crippled Spain beyond hope of recovery and made the new
nation practically safe.
[Sidenote: The Dutch Republic]
The North had suffered much in the war. The frequent inundation of the
land destroyed crops. Amsterdam long held out against the rest of
Holland in loyalty to the king, but she suffered so much by the
blockade of the Beggars of the Sea and by the emigration of her
merchants to nearby cities, that at last she gave in and cast her lot
with her people. From that time she assumed the commercial hegemony
once exercised by Antwerp. Recovering rapidly from the devastations of
war, the Dutch Republic became, in the seventeenth century, the first
sea-power and first money-power in the world. She gave a king to
England and put a bridle in the mouth of France. She established
colonies in America and in the East Indies. With her celebrated new
university of Leyden, with {276} publicists like Grotius, theologians
like Jansen, painters like Van Dyke and Rembrandt, philosophers like
Spinoza, she took the lead in many of the fields of thought. Her
material and spiritual power, her tolerance and freedom, became the
envy of the world.
[1] The guilder, also called the "Dutch pound," at this time was worth
40 cents intrinsically. Money had many times the purchasing power that
it has in 1920.
[2] The word, meaning "prayer," indicated, like the English
"benevolence" and the French "don gratuit," that the tax had once been
voluntarily granted.
[3] The dollar, or Thaler, is worth 75 cents, intrinsically.
{277}
CHAPTER VI
ENGLAND
SECTION 1. HENRY VIII AND THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 1509-47
[Sidenote: Henry VIII, 1509-47]
"The heavens laugh, the earth exults; all is full of milk and honey and
nectar." With these words the accession of Henry VIII was announced to
Erasmus by his pupil and the king's tutor, Lord Mountjoy. This lover
of learning thought the new monarch would be not only Octavus but
Octavius, fostering letters and cherishing the learned. There was a
general feeling that a new era was beginning and a new day dawning
after the long darkness of the Middle Age with its nightmares of Black
Deaths and Peasants' Revolts and, worst of all, the civil war that had
humbled England's power and racked her almost to pieces within.
It was commonly believed that the young prince was a paragon: handsome,
athletic, learned, generous, wise, and merciful. That he was fond of
sports, strong and in early life physically attractive, is well
attested. The principal evidences of his learning are the fulsome
testimony of Erasmus and his work against Luther. But it has been
lately shown that Erasmus was capable of passing off, as the work of a
powerful patron, compositions which he knew to be written by Latin
secretaries; and the royal author of the _Defence of the Seven
Sacraments_, which evinces but mediocre talent, received much
unacknowledged assistance.
If judged by his foreign relations Henry's statesmanship was
unsuccessful. His insincerity and perfidy often overreached
themselves, and he was often {278} deceived. Moreover, he was
inconstant, pursuing no worthy end whatever. England was by her
insular location and by the nearly equal division of power on the
Continent between France and the emperor, in a wonderfully safe and
advantageous place. But, so far was Henry from using this gift of
fortune, that he seems to have acted only on caprice.
[Sidenote: Domestic policy]
In domestic policy Henry achieved his greatest successes, in fact, very
remarkable ones indeed. Doubtless here also he was favored by fortune,
in that his own ends happened in the main to coincide with the deeper
current of his people's purpose, for he was supported by just that
wealthy and enterprising bourgeois class that was to call itself the
people and to make public opinion for the next three centuries. In
time this class would become sufficiently conscious of its own power to
make Parliament supreme and to demand a reckoning even from the crown,
but at first it needed the prestige of the royal name to conquer the
two privileged classes, the clergy and the nobility. The merchants and
the moneyed men only too willingly became the faithful followers of a
chief who lavishly tossed to them the wealth of the church and the
political privileges of the barons. And Henry had just one strong
quality that enabled him to take full advantage of this position; he
seemed to lead rather than to drive, and he never wantonly challenged
Parliament. The atrocity of his acts was only equaled by their
scrupulous legality.
On Henry's morals there should be less disagreement than on his mental
gifts. Holbein's faithful portraits do not belie him. The
broad-shouldered, heavy-jowled man, standing so firmly on his widely
parted feet, has a certain strength of will, or rather of boundless
egotism. Francis and Charles showed themselves persecuting, and were
capable of having a {279} defaulting minister or a rebel put to death;
but neither Charles nor Francis, nor any other king in modern times,
has to answer for the lives of so many nobles and ministers, cardinals
and queens, whose heads, as Thomas More put it, he kicked around like
footballs.
[Sidenote: Empson and Dudley executed, April 25, 1509]
The reign began, as it ended, with political murder. The miserly Henry
VII had made use of two tools, Empson and Dudley, who, by minute
inquisition into technical offences and by nice adjustment of fines to
the wealth of the offender, had made the law unpopular and the king
rich. Four days after his succession, Henry VIII issued a proclamation
asking all those who had sustained injury or loss of goods by these
commissioners, to make supplication to the king. The floodgates of
pent-up wrath were opened, and the two unhappy ministers swept away by
an act of attainder.