secretly informed that those important personages, Bakkerzeel and
Straalen, with the private secretary of the Admiral, Alonzo de la Loo,
in addition, had been thus successfully arrested. He could with
difficulty conceal his satisfaction, and left the apartment immediately
that the trap might be sprung upon the two principal victims of his
treachery. He had himself arranged all the details of these two
important arrests, while his natural son, the Prior Don Ferdinando,
had been compelled to superintend the proceedings. The plot had been
an excellent plot, and was accomplished as successfully as it bad been
sagaciously conceived. None but Spaniards had been employed in any part
of the affair. Officers of high rank in his Majesty's army had performed
the part of spies and policemen with much adroitness, nor was it to be
expected that the duty would seem a disgrace, when the Prior of the
Knights of Saint John was superintendent of the operations, when the
Captain-General of the Netherlands had arranged the whole plan, and when
all, from subaltern to viceroy, had received minute instructions as to
the contemplated treachery from the great chief of the Spanish police,
who sat on the throne of Castile and Aragon.
No sooner were these gentlemen in custody than the secretary Albornoz was
dispatched to the house of Count Horn, and to that of Bakkerzeel, where
all papers were immediately seized, inventoried, and placed in the hands
of the Duke. Thus, if amid the most secret communications of Egmont and
Horn or their correspondents, a single treasonable thought should be
lurking, it was to go hard but it might be twisted into a cord strong
enough to strangle them all.
The Duke wrote a triumphant letter to his Majesty that very night. He
apologized that these important captures had been deferred so long but,
stated that he had thought it desirable to secure all these leading
personages at a single stroke. He then narrated the masterly manner in
which the operations had been conducted. Certainly, when it is
remembered that the Duke had only reached Brussels upon the 23d August,
and that the two Counts were securely lodged in prison on the 9th of
September, it seemed a superfluous modesty upon his part thus to excuse
himself for an apparent delay. At any rate, in the eyes of the world and
of posterity, his zeal to carry out the bloody commands of his master was
sufficiently swift.
The consternation was universal throughout the provinces when the arrests
became known. Egmont's great popularity and distinguished services
placed him so high above the mass of citizens, and his attachment to the
Catholic religion was moreover so well known, as to make it obvious that
no man could now be safe, when men like him were in the power of Alva and
his myrmidons. The animosity to the Spaniards increased hourly. The
Duchess affected indignation at the arrest of the two nobles, although
it nowhere appears that she attempted a word in their defence, or lifted,
at any subsequent moment, a finger to save them. She was not anxious to
wash her hands of the blood of two innocent men; she was only offended
that they had been arrested without her permission. The Duke had, it is
true, sent Berlaymont and Mansfeld to give her information of the fact,
as soon as the capture had been made, with the plausible excuse that
he preferred to save her from all the responsibility and all the
unpopularity of the measure, Nothing, however, could appease her wrath at
this and every other indication of the contempt in which he appeared to
hold the sister of his sovereign. She complained of his conduct daily to
every one who was admitted to her presence. Herself oppressed by a sense
of personal indignity, she seemed for a moment to identify herself with
the cause of the oppressed provinces. She seemed to imagine herself the
champion of their liberties, and the Netherlanders, for a moments seemed
to participate in the delusion. Because she was indignant at the
insolence of the Duke of Alva to her self, the honest citizens began to
give her credit for a sympathy with their own wrongs. She expressed
herself determined to move about from one city to another, until the
answer to her demand for dismissal should arrive. She allowed her
immediate attendants to abuse the Spaniards in good set terms upon every
occasion. Even her private chaplain permitted himself, in preaching
before her in the palace chapel, to denounce the whole nation as a race
of traitors and ravishers, and for this offence was only reprimanded,
much against her will, by the Duchess, and ordered to retire for a season
to his convent. She did not attempt to disguise her dissatisfaction at
every step which had been taken by the Duke. In all this there was much
petulance, but very little dignity, while there was neither a spark of
real sympathy for the oppressed millions, nor a throb of genuine womanly
emotion for the impending fate of the two nobles. Her principal grief
was that she had pacified the provinces, and that another had now arrived
to reap the glory; but it was difficult, while the unburied bones of many
heretics were still hanging, by her decree, on the rafters of their own
dismantled churches, for her successfully to enact the part of a
benignant and merciful Regent. But it is very true that the horrors of
the Duke's administration have been propitious to the fame of Margaret,
and perhaps more so to that of Cardinal Granvelle. The faint and
struggling rays of humanity which occasionally illumined the course of
their government, were destined to be extinguished in a chaos so profound
and dark, that these last beams of light seemed clearer and more
bountiful by the contrast.
The Count of Hoogstraaten, who was on his way to Brussels, had, by good
fortune, injured his hand through the accidental discharge of a pistol.
Detained by this casualty at Cologne, he was informed, before his arrival
at the capital, of the arrest of his two distinguished friends, and
accepted the hint to betake himself at once to a place of Safety.
The loyalty of the elder Mansfeld was beyond dispute even by Alva. His
son Charles had, however, been imprudent, and, as we have seen, had even
affixed his name to the earliest copies of the Compromise. He had
retired, it is true, from all connexion with the confederates, but his
father knew well that the young Count's signature upon that famous
document would prove his death-warrant, were he found in the country.
He therefore had sent him into Germany before the arrival of the Duke.
The King's satisfaction was unbounded when he learned this important
achievement of Alva, and he wrote immediately to express his approbation
in the most extravagant terms. Cardinal Granvelle, on the contrary,
affected astonishment at a course which he had secretly counselled.
He assured his Majesty that he had never believed Egmont to entertain
sentiments opposed to the Catholic religion, nor to the interests of
the Crown, up to the period of his own departure from the Netherlands.
He was persuaded, he said, that the Count had been abused by others,
although, to be sure, the Cardinal had learned with regret what Egmont
had written on the occasion of the baptism of Count Hoogstraaten's child.
As to the other persons arrested, he said that no one regretted their
fate. The Cardinal added, that he was supposed to be himself the
instigator of these captures, but that he was not disturbed by that, or
by other imputations of a similar nature.
In conversation with those about him, he frequently expressed regret that
the Prince of Orange had been too crafty to be caught in the same net in
which his more simple companions were so inextricably entangled. Indeed,
on the first arrival of the news, that men of high rank had been arrested
in Brussels, the Cardinal eagerly inquired if the Taciturn had been
taken, for by that term he always characterized the Prince. Receiving
a negative reply, he expressed extreme disappointment, adding, that if
Orange had escaped, they had taken nobody; and that his capture would
have been more valuable than that of every man in the Netherlands.
Peter Titelmann, too, the famous inquisitor, who, retired from active
life, was then living upon Philip's bounty, and encouraged by friendly
letters from that monarch, expressed the same opinion. Having been
informed that Egmont and Horn had been captured, he eagerly inquired if
"wise William" had also been taken. He was, of course, answered in the
negative. "Then will our joy be but brief," he observed. "Woe unto us
for the wrath to come from Germany."
On the 12th of July, of this year, Philip wrote to Granvelle to inquire
the particulars of a letter which the Prince of Orange, according to a
previous communication of the Cardinal, had written to Egmont on the
occasion of the baptism of Count Hoogstraaten's child. On the 17th of
August, the Cardinal replied, by setting the King right as to the error
which he had committed. The letter, as he had already stated, was not
written by Orange, but by Egmont, and he expressed his astonishment that
Madame de Parma had not yet sent it to his Majesty. The Duchess must
have seen it, because her confessor had shown it to the person who was
Granvelle's informant. In this letter, the Cardinal continued, the
statement had been made by Egmont to the Prince of Orange that their
plots were discovered, that the King was making armaments, that they were
unable to resist him, and that therefore it had become necessary to
dissemble and to accommodate themselves as well as possible to the
present situation, while waiting for other circumstances under which to
accomplish their designs. Granvelle advised, moreover, that Straalen,
who had been privy to the letter, and perhaps the amanuensis, should be
forthwith arrested.
The Cardinal was determined not to let the matter sleep, notwithstanding
his protestation of a kindly feeling towards the imprisoned Count.
Against the statement that he knew of a letter which amounted to a full
confession of treason, out of Egmont's own mouth--a fact which, if
proved, and perhaps, if even insinuated, would be sufficient with Philip
to deprive Egmont of twenty thousand lives--against these constant
recommendations to his suspicious and sanguinary master, to ferret out
this document, if it were possible, it must be confessed that the
churchman's vague and hypocritical expressions on the side of mercy were
very little worth.
Certainly these seeds of suspicion did not fall upon a barren soil.
Philip immediately communicated the information thus received to the Duke
of Alva, charging him on repeated occasions to find out what was written,
either by Egmont or by Straalen, at Egmont's instigation, stating that
such a letter was written at the time of the Hoogstraaten baptism, that
it would probably illustrate the opinions of Egmont at that period, and
that the letter itself, which the confessor of Madame de Parma had once
had in his hands, ought, if possible, to be procured. Thus the very
language used by Granvelle to Philip was immediately repeated by the
monarch to his representative in the Netherlands, at the moment when all
Egmont's papers were in his possession, and when Egmont's private
secretary was undergoing the torture, in order that; secrets might be
wrenched from him which had never entered his brain. The fact that no
such letter was found, that the Duchess had never alluded to any such
document, and that neither a careful scrutiny of papers, nor the
application of the rack, could elicit any satisfactory information on the
subject, leads to the conclusion that no such treasonable paper had ever
existed, save in the imagination of the Cardinal. At any rate, it is no
more than just to hesitate before affixing a damning character to a
document, in the absence of any direct proof that there ever was such a
document at all. The confessor of Madame de Parma told another person,
who told the Cardinal, that either Count Egmont, or Burgomaster Straalen,
by command of Count Egmont, wrote to the Prince of Orange thus and so.
What evidence was this upon which to found a charge of high treason
against a man whom Granvelle affected to characterize as otherwise
neither opposed to the Catholic religion, nor to the true service of the
King? What vulpine kind of mercy was it on the part of the Cardinal,
while making such deadly insinuations, to recommend the imprisoned victim
to clemency?
The unfortunate envoys, Marquis Bergen and Baron Montigny, had remained
in Spain under close observation. Of those doomed victims who, in spite
of friendly remonstrances and of ominous warnings, had thus ventured into
the lion's den, no retreating footmarks were ever to be seen. Their
fate, now that Alva had at last been despatched to the Netherlands,
seemed to be sealed, and the Marquis Bergen, accepting the augury in its
most evil sense, immediately afterwards had sickened unto death. Whether
it were the sickness of hope deferred, suddenly changing to despair, or
whether it were a still more potent and unequivocal poison which came to
the relief of the unfortunate nobleman, will perhaps never be ascertained
with certainty. The secrets of those terrible prison-houses of Spain,
where even the eldest begotten son, and the wedded wife of the monarch,
were soon afterwards believed to have been the victims of his dark
revenge, can never perhaps be accurately known, until the grave gives
up its dead, and the buried crimes of centuries are revealed.
It was very soon after the departure of Alva's fleet from Carthagena,
that the Marquis Bergen felt his end approaching. He sent for the Prince
of Eboli, with whom he had always maintained intimate relations, and whom
he believed to be his disinterested friend. Relying upon his faithful
breast, and trusting to receive from his eyes alone the pious drops of
sympathy which he required, the dying noble poured out his long and last
complaint. He charged him to tell the man whom he would no longer call
his king, that he had ever been true and loyal, that the bitterness of
having been constantly suspected, when he was conscious of entire
fidelity, was a sharper sorrow than could be lightly believed, and that
he hoped the time would come when his own truth and the artifices of his
enemies would be brought to light. He closed his parting message by
predicting that after he had been long laid in the grave, the
impeachments against his character would be, at last, although too late,
retracted.
So spake the unhappy envoy, and his friend replied with words of
consolation. It is probable that he even ventured, in the King's name,
to grant him the liberty of returning to his home; the only remedy, as
his physicians had repeatedly stated, which could possibly be applied to
his disease. But the devilish hypocrisy of Philip, and the abject
perfidy of Eboli, at this juncture, almost surpass belief. The Prince
came to press the hand and to close the eyes of the dying man whom he
called his friend, having first carefully studied a billet of most minute
and secret instructions from his master as to the deportment he was to
observe upon this solemn occasion and afterwards. This paper, written in
Philip's own hand, had been delivered to Eboli on the very day of his
visit to Bergen, and bore the superscription that it was not to be read
nor opened till the messenger who brought it had left his presence. It
directed the Prince, if it should be evident Marquis was past recovery,
to promise him, in the King's name, the permission of returning to the
Netherlands. Should, however, a possibility of his surviving appear,
Eboli was only to hold out a hope that such permission might eventually
be obtained. In case of the death of Bergen, the Prince was immediately
to confer with the Grand Inquisitor and with the Count of Feria, upon the
measures to be taken for his obsequies. It might seem advisable, in that
event to exhibit the regret which the King and his ministers felt for his
death, and the great esteem in which they held the nobles of the
Netherlands. At the same time, Eboli was further instructed to confer
with the same personages as to the most efficient means for preventing
the escape of Baron Montigny; to keep a vigilant eye upon his movements,
and to give general directions to governors and to postmasters to
intercept his flight, should it be attempted. Finally, in case of
Bergen's death, the Prince was directed to despatch a special messenger,
apparently on his own responsibility, and as if in the absence and
without the knowledge of the King, to inform the Duchess of Parma of the
event, and to urge her immediately to take possession of the city of
Bergen-op-Zoom, and of all other property belonging to the Marquis, until
it should be ascertained whether it were not possible to convict him,
after death, of treason, and to confiscate his estates accordingly.
Such were the instructions of Philip to Eboli, and precisely in
accordance with the program, was the horrible comedy enacted at the
death-bed of the envoy. Three days after his parting interview with his
disinterested friend, the Marquis was a corpse.--Before his limbs were
cold, a messenger was on his way to Brussels, instructing the Regent to
sequestrate his property, and to arrest, upon suspicion of heresy, the
youthful kinsman and niece, who, by the will of the Marquis, were to be
united in marriage and to share his estate. The whole drama, beginning
with the death scene, was enacted according to order: Before the arrival
of Alva in the Netherlands, the property of the Marquis was in the hands
of the Government, awaiting the confiscation,--which was but for a brief
season delayed, while on the other hand, Baron Montigny, Bergen's
companion in doom, who was not, however, so easily to be carried off
by homesickness, was closely confined in the alcazar of Segovia, never
to leave a Spanish prison alive. There is something pathetic in the
delusion in which Montigny and his brother, the Count Horn, both
indulged, each believing that the other was out of harm's way, the one
by his absence from the Netherlands, the other by his absence from Spain,
while both, involved in the same meshes, were rapidly and surely
approaching their fate.
In the same despatch of the 9th September, in which the Duke communicated
to Philip the capture of Egmont and Horn, he announced to him his
determination to establish a new court for the trial of crimes committed
during the recent period of troubles. This wonderful tribunal was
accordingly created with the least possible delay. It was called the
Council of Troubles, but it soon acquired the terrible name, by which it
will be forever known in history, of the 'Blood-Council'. It superseded
all other institutions. Every court, from those of the municipal
magistracies up to the supreme councils of the provinces, were forbidden
to take cognizance in future of any cause growing out of the late
troubles. The council of state, although it was not formally disbanded,
fell into complete desuetude, its members being occasionally summoned
into Alva's private chambers in an irregular manner, while its principal
functions were usurped by the Blood-Council. Not only citizens of every
province, but the municipal bodies and even the sovereign provincial
estates themselves, were compelled to plead, like humble individuals,
before this new and extraordinary tribunal. It is unnecessary to allude
to the absolute violation which was thus committed of all charters, laws
and privileges, because the very creation of the council was a bold and
brutal proclamation that those laws and privileges were at an end. The
constitution or maternal principle of this suddenly erected court was of
a twofold nature. It defined and it punished the crime of treason.
The definitions, couched in eighteen articles, declared it to be treason
to have delivered or signed any petition against the new bishops, the
Inquisition, or the Edicts; to have tolerated public preaching under any
circumstances; to have omitted resistance to the image-breaking, to the
field-preaching, or to the presentation of the Request by the nobles, and
"either through sympathy or surprise" to have asserted that the King did
not possess the right to deprive all the provinces of their liberties, or
to have maintained that this present tribunal was bound to respect in any
manner any laws or any charters. In these brief and simple, but
comprehensive terms, was the crime of high treason defined. The
punishment was still more briefly, simply, and comprehensively stated,
for it was instant death in all cases. So well too did this new and
terrible engine perform its work, that in less than three months from the
time of its erection, eighteen hundred human beings had suffered death by
its summary proceedings; some of the highest, the noblest, and the most
virtuous in the land among the number; nor had it then manifested the
slightest indication of faltering in its dread career.
Yet, strange to say, this tremendous court, thus established upon the
ruins of all the ancient institutions of the country, had not been
provided with even a nominal authority from any source whatever. The
King had granted it no letters patent or charter, nor had even the Duke
of Alva thought it worth while to grant any commissions either in his own
name or as Captain-General, to any of the members composing the board.
The Blood-Council was merely an informal club, of which the Duke was
perpetual president, while the other members were all appointed by
himself.
Of these subordinate councillors, two had the right of voting, subject,
however, in all cases to his final decision, while the rest of the number
did not vote at all. It had not, therefore, in any sense, the character
of a judicial, legislative, or executive tribunal, but was purely a board
of advice by which the bloody labors of the duke were occasionally
lightened as to detail, while not a feather's weight of power or of
responsibility was removed from his shoulders. He reserved for himself
the final decision upon all causes which should come before the council,
and stated his motives for so doing with grim simplicity. "Two reasons,"
he wrote to the King, "have determined me thus to limit the power of the
tribunal; the first that, not knowing its members, I might be easily
deceived by them; the second, that the men of law only condemn for crimes
which are proved; whereas your Majesty knows that affairs of state are
governed by very different rules from the laws which they have here."
It being, therefore, the object of the Duke to compose a body of men who
would be of assistance to him in condemning for crimes which could not be
proved, and in slipping over statutes which were not to be recognized, it
must be confessed that he was not unfortunate in the appointments which
he made to the office of councillors. In this task of appointment he had
the assistance of the experienced Viglius. That learned jurisconsult,
with characteristic lubricity, had evaded the dangerous honor for
himself, but he nominated a number of persons from whom the Duke
selected his list. The sacerdotal robes which he had so recently and
so "craftily" assumed, furnished his own excuse, and in his letters to
his faithful Hopper he repeatedly congratulated himself upon his success
in keeping himself at a distance from so bloody and perilous a post.