This eBook was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 21.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
By John Lothrop Motley
1855
1573 [CHAPTER IX.]
Position of Alva--Hatred entertained for him by elevated personages
--Quarrels between him and Medina Coeli--Departure of the latter--
Complaints to the King by each of the other--Attempts at
conciliation addressed by government to the people of the
Netherlands--Grotesque character of the address--Mutinous
demonstration of the Spanish troops--Secret overtures to Orange--
Obedience, with difficulty, restored by Alva--Commencement of the
siege of Alkmaar--Sanguinary menaces of the Duke--Encouraging and
enthusiastic language of the Prince--Preparations in Alkmaar for
defence--The first assault steadily repulsed--Refusal of the
soldiers to storm a second time--Expedition of the Carpenter-envoy--
Orders of the Prince to flood the country--The Carpenter's
despatches in the enemy's hands--Effect produced upon the Spaniards
--The siege raised--Negotiations of Count Louis with France--
Uneasiness and secret correspondence of the Duke--Convention with
the English government--Objects pursued by Orange--Cruelty of De la
Marck--His dismissal from office and subsequent death--Negotiations
with France--Altered tone of the French court with regard to the St.
Bartholomew--Ill effects of the crime upon the royal projects--
Hypocrisy of the Spanish government--Letter of Louis to Charles IX.
--Complaints of Charles IX.--Secret aspirations of that monarch and
of Philip--Intrigues concerning the Polish election--Renewed
negotiations between Schomberg and Count Louis, with consent of
Orange--Conditions prescribed by the Prince--Articles of secret
alliance--Remarkable letter of Count Louis to Charles IX.--
Responsible and isolated situation of Orange--The "Address" and the
"Epistle"--Religious sentiments of the Prince--Naval action on the
Zuyder Zee--Captivity of Bossu and of Saint Aldegonde--Odious
position of Alva--His unceasing cruelty--Execution of Uitenhoove--
Fraud practised by Alva upon his creditors--Arrival of Requesens,
the new Governor-General--Departure of Alva--Concluding remarks upon
his administration.
For the sake of continuity in the narrative, the siege of Harlem has been
related until its conclusion. This great event constituted, moreover,
the principal stuff in Netherland, history, up to the middle of the year
1573. A few loose threads must be now taken up before we can proceed
farther.
Alva had for some time felt himself in a false and uncomfortable
position. While he continued to be the object of a popular hatred as
intense as ever glowed, he had gradually lost his hold upon those who,
at the outset of his career, had been loudest and lowest in their
demonstrations of respect. "Believe me," wrote Secretary Albornoz to
Secretary Cayas, "this people abhor our nation worse than they abhor the
Devil. As for the Duke of Alva, they foam at the mouth when they hear
his name." Viglius, although still maintaining smooth relations with the
Governor, had been, in reality, long since estranged from him. Even
Aerschot, far whom the Duke had long maintained an intimacy half
affectionate, half contemptuous, now began to treat him with a contumely
which it was difficult for so proud a stomach to digest.
But the main source of discomfort was doubtless the presence of Medina
Coeli. This was the perpetual thorn in his side, which no cunning could
extract. A successor who would not and could not succeed him, yet who
attended him as his shadow and his evil genius--a confidential colleague
who betrayed his confidence, mocked his projects, derided his authority,
and yet complained of ill treatment--a rival who was neither compeer nor
subaltern, and who affected to be his censor--a functionary of a purely
anomalous character, sheltering himself under his abnegation of an
authority which he had not dared to assume, and criticising measures
which he was not competent to grasp;--such was the Duke of Medina Coeli
in Alva's estimation.
The bickering between the two Dukes became unceasing and disgraceful.
Of course, each complained to the King, and each, according to his own
account, was a martyr to the other's tyranny, but the meekness manifested
by Alva; in all his relations with the new comer, was wonderful, if we
are to believe the accounts furnished by himself and by his confidential
secretary. On the other hand, Medina Coeli wrote to the King,
complaining of Alva in most unmitigated strains, and asserting that
he was himself never allowed to see any despatches, nor to have the
slightest information as to the policy of the government. He reproached,
the Duke with shrinking from personal participation in military
operations, and begged the royal forgiveness if he withdrew from
a scene where he felt himself to be superfluous.
Accordingly, towards the end of November, he took his departure, without
paying his respects. The Governor complained to the King of this
unceremonious proceeding, and assured His Majesty that never were
courtesy and gentleness so ill requited as his had been by this ingrate
and cankered Duke. "He told me," said Alva, "that if I did not stay in
the field, he would not remain with me in peaceful cities, and he asked
me if I intended to march into Holland with the troops which were to
winter there. I answered, that I should go wherever it was necessary,
even should I be obliged to swim through all the canals of Holland."
After giving these details, the Duke added, with great appearance of
candor and meekness, that he was certain Medina Coeli had only been
influenced by extreme zeal for His Majesty's service, and that, finding,
so little for him to do in the Netherlands, he had become dissatisfied
with his position.
Immediately after the fall of Harlem, another attempt was made by Alva to
win back the allegiance of the other cities by proclamations. It had
become obvious to the Governor that so determined a resistance on the
part of the first place besieged augured many long campaigns before the
whole province could be subdued. A circular was accordingly issued upon
the 26th July from Utrecht, and published immediately afterwards in all
the cities of the Netherlands. It was a paper of singular character,
commingling an affectation of almost ludicrous clemency, with honest and
hearty brutality. There was consequently something very grotesque about
the document. Philip, in the outset, was made to sustain towards his
undutiful subjects the characters of the brooding hen and the prodigal's
father; a range of impersonation hardly to be allowed him, even by the
most abject flattery. "Ye are well aware," thus ran the address, "that
the King has, over and over again, manifested his willingness to receive
his children, in however forlorn a condition the prodigals might return.
His Majesty assures you once more that your sins, however black they may
have been, shall be forgiven and forgotten in the plenitude of royal
kindness, if you repent and return in season to his Majesty's embrace.
Notwithstanding your manifold crimes, his Majesty still seeks, like a hen
calling her chickens, to gather you all under the parental wing. The
King hereby warns you once more, therefore, to place yourselves in his
royal hands, and not to wait for his rage, cruelty, and fury, and the
approach of his army."
The affectionate character of the address, already fading towards the end
of the preamble, soon changes to bitterness. The domestic maternal fowl
dilates into the sanguinary dragon as the address proceeds. "But if,"
continues the monarch, "ye disregard these offers of mercy, receiving
them with closed ears, as heretofore, then we warn you that there is no
rigor, nor cruelty, however great, which you are not to expect by laying
waste, starvation, and the sword, in such manner that nowhere shall
remain a relic of that which at present exists, but his Majesty will
strip bare and utterly depopulate the land, and cause it to be inhabited
again by strangers; since otherwise his Majesty could not believe that
the will of God and of his Majesty had been accomplished."
It is almost superfluous to add that this circular remained fruitless.
The royal wrath, thus blasphemously identifying itself with divine
vengeance, inspired no terror, the royal blandishments no affection.
The next point of attack was the city of Alkmaar, situate quite at the
termination of the Peninsula, among the lagunes and redeemed prairies of
North Holland. The Prince of Orange had already provided it with a small
garrison. The city had been summoned to surrender by the middle of
July, and had returned a bold refusal.--Meantime, the Spaniards had
retired from before the walls, while the surrender and chastisement of
Harlem occupied them during the next succeeding weeks. The month of
August, moreover, was mainly consumed by Alva in quelling a dangerous and
protracted mutiny, which broke out among the Spanish soldiers at Harlem--
between three and four thousand of them having been quartered upon the
ill-fated population of that city.
Unceasing misery was endured by the inhabitants at the hands of the
ferocious Spaniards, flushed with victory, mutinous for long arrears of
pay, and greedy for the booty which had been denied. At times, however,
the fury of the soldiery was more violently directed against their own
commanders than against the enemy. A project was even formed by the
malcontent troops to deliver Harlem into the hands of Orange. A party of
them, disguised as Baltic merchants, waited upon the Prince at Delft, and
were secretly admitted to his bedside before he had risen. They declared
to him that they were Spanish soldiers, who had compassion on his cause,
were dissatisfied with their own government, and were ready, upon receipt
of forty thousand guilders, to deliver the city into his hands. The
Prince took the matter into consideration, and promised to accept the
offer if he could raise the required sum. This, however, he found
himself unable to do within the stipulated time, and thus, for want of so
paltry a sum, the offer was of necessity declined.
Various were the excesses committed by the insubordinate troops in every
province in the Netherlands upon the long-suffering inhabitants.
"Nothing," wrote Alva, "had given him so much pain during his forty years
of service." He avowed his determination to go to Amsterdam in order to
offer himself as a hostage to the soldiery, if by so doing he could quell
the mutiny. He went to Amsterdam accordingly, where by his exertions,
ably seconded by those of the Marquis Vitelli, and by the payment of
thirty crowns to each soldier--fourteen on account of arrearages and
sixteen as his share in the Harlem compensation money--the rebellion was
appeased, and obedience restored.
There was now leisure for the General to devote his whole energies
against the little city of Alkmaar. On that bank and shoal, the extreme
verge of habitable earth, the spirit of Holland's Freedom stood at bay.
The grey towers of Egmont Castle and of Egmont Abbey rose between the
city and the sea, and there the troops sent by the Prince of Orange were
quartered during the very brief period in which the citizens wavered as
to receiving them. The die was soon cast, however, and the Prince's
garrison admitted. The Spaniards advanced, burned the village of Egmont
to the ground as soon as the patriots had left it, and on the 21st of
August Don Frederic, appearing before the walls, proceeded formally to
invest Allanaar. In a few days this had been so thoroughly accomplished
that, in Alva's language, "it was impossible for a sparrow to enter or
go out of the city." The odds were somewhat unequal. Sixteen thousand
veteran troops constituted the besieging force. Within the city were a
garrison of eight hundred soldiers, together with thirteen hundred
burghers, capable of bearing arms. The rest of the population consisted
of a very few refugees, besides the women and children. Two thousand one
hundred able-bodied men, of whom only about one-third were soldiers, to
resist sixteen thousand regulars.
Nor was there any doubt as to the fate which was reserved for them,
should they succumb. The Duke was vociferous at the ingratitude with
which his clemency had hitherto been requited. He complained bitterly of
the ill success which had attended his monitory circulars; reproached
himself with incredible vehemence, for his previous mildness, and
protested that, after having executed only twenty-three hundred persons
at the surrender of Harlem, besides a few additional burghers since, he
had met with no correspondent demonstrations of affection. He promised
himself, however, an ample compensation for all this ingratitude, in the
wholesale vengeance which he purposed to wreak upon Alkmaar. Already he
gloated in anticipation over the havoc which would soon be let loose
within those walls. Such ravings, if invented by the pen of fiction,
would seem a puerile caricature; proceeding, authentically, from his own,
--they still appear almost too exaggerated for belief. "If I take
Alkmaar," he wrote to Philip, "I am resolved not to leave a single
creature alive; the knife shall be put to every throat. Since the
example of Harlem has proved of no use, perhaps an example of cruelty
will bring the other cities to their senses."
He took occasion also to read a lecture to the party of conciliation in
Madrid, whose counsels, as he believed, his sovereign was beginning to
heed. Nothing, he maintained, could be more senseless than the idea of
pardon and clemency. This had been sufficiently proved by recent events.
It was easy for people at a distance to talk about gentleness, but those
upon the spot knew better. Gentleness had produced nothing, so far;
violence alone could succeed in future. "Let your Majesty," he said, "be
disabused of the impression, that with kindness anything can he done with
these people. Already have matters reached such a point that many of
those born in the country, who have hitherto advocated clemency, are now
undeceived, and acknowledge--their mistake. They are of opinion that not
a living soul should be left in Alkmaar, but that every individual should
be put to the sword." At the same time he took occasion, even in these
ferocious letters, which seem dripping with blood, to commend his own
natural benignity of disposition. "Your Majesty may be certain," he
said, "that no man on earth desires the path of clemency more than I do,
notwithstanding my particular hatred for heretics and traitors." It was
therefore with regret that he saw himself obliged to take the opposite
course, and to stifle all his gentler sentiments.
Upon Diedrich Sonoy, Lieutenant-Governor for Orange in the province of
North Holland, devolved the immediate responsibility of defending this
part of the country. As the storm rolled slowly up from the south, even
that experienced officer became uneasy at the unequal conflict impending.
He despatched a letter to his chief, giving a gloomy picture of his
position. All looked instinctively towards the Prince, as to a God in
their time of danger; all felt as if upon his genius and fortitude
depended the whole welfare of the fatherland. It was hoped, too, that
some resource had been provided in a secret foreign alliance. "If your
princely grace," wrote Sonoy, "have made a contract for assistance with
any powerful potentate, it is of the highest importance that it should be
known to all the cities, in order to put an end to the emigration, and to
console the people in their affliction."
The answer, of the Prince was full of lofty enthusiasm. He reprimanded
with gentle but earnest eloquence the despondency and little faith of his
lieutenant and other adherents. He had not expected, he said, that they
would have so soon forgotten their manly courage. They seemed to
consider the whole fate of the country attached to the city of Harlem.
He took God to witness that--he had spared no pains, and would willingly
have spared no drop of his blood to save that devoted city. "But as,
notwithstanding our efforts," he continued, "it has pleased God Almighty
to dispose of Harlem according to His divine will, shall we, therefore,
deny and deride His holy word? Has the strong arm of the Lord thereby
grown weaker? Has his Church therefore come to caught? You ask if I
have entered into a firm treaty with any great king or potentate, to
which I answer, that before I ever took up the cause of the oppressed
Christians in these provinces, I had entered into a close alliance with
the King of kings; and I am firmly convinced that all who put their trust
in Him shall be saved by His almighty hand. The God of armies will raise
up armies for us to do battle with our enemies sad His own." In
conclusion, he stated his preparations for attacking the enemy by sea as
well as by land, and encouraged his lieutenant and the citizens of the
northern quarter to maintain a bold front before the advancing foe.
And now, with the dismantled and desolate Harlem before their eyes, a
prophetic phantom, perhaps, of their own imminent fate, did the handful
of people shut up within Alkmaar prepare for the worst. Their main hope
lay in the friendly sea. The vast sluices called the Zyp, through which
an inundation of the whole northern province could be very soon effected,
were but a few miles distant. By opening these gates, and by piercing a
few dykes, the ocean might be made to fight for them. To obtain this
result, however, the consent of the inhabitants was requisite, as the
destruction of all the standing crops would be inevitable. The city was
so closely invested, that it was a matter of life and death to venture
forth, and it was difficult, therefore, to find an envoy for this
hazardous mission. At last, a carpenter in the city, Peter Van der Mey
by name, undertook the adventure, and was entrusted with letters to
Sonoy, to the Prince of Orange, and to the leading personages, in several
cities of the province: These papers were enclosed in a hollow walking-
staff, carefully made fast at the top.
Affairs soon approached a crisis within the beleaguered city. Daily
skirmishes, without decisive result; had taken place outside the walls.
At last, on the 18th of September, after a steady cannonade of nearly
twelve hours, Don Frederic, at three in the afternoon, ordered an
assault. Notwithstanding his seven months' experience at Harlem, he
still believed it certain that he should carry Alkmaar by storm. The
attack took place at once upon the Frisian gate and upon the red tower on
the opposite side. Two choice regiments, recently arrived from Lombardy;
led the onset, rending the air with their shouts, and confident of an
easy victory. They were sustained by what seemed an overwhelming force
of disciplined troops. Yet never, even in the recent history of Harlem,
had an attack been received by more dauntless breasts. Every living man
was on the walls. The storming parties were assailed with cannon, with
musketry, with pistols. Boiling water, pitch and oil, molten lead, and
unslaked lime, were poured upon them every moment. Hundreds of tarred
and burning hoops were skilfully quoited around the necks of the
soldiers, who struggled in vain to extricate themselves from these fiery
ruffs, while as fast as any of the invaders planted foot upon the breach,
they were confronted face to face with sword and dagger by the burghers,
who hurled them headlong into the moat below.
Thrice was the attack renewed with ever-increasing rage--thrice repulsed
with unflinching fortitude. The storm continued four hours long. During
all that period, not one of the defenders left his post, till he dropped
from it dead or wounded. The women and children, unscared by the balls
flying in every direction, or by the hand-to-hand conflicts on the
ramparts; passed steadily to and fro from the arsenals to the
fortifications, constantly supplying their fathers, husbands, and
brothers with powder and ball. Thus, every human being in the city that
could walk had become a soldier. At last darkness fell upon the scene.
The trumpet of recal was sounded, and the Spaniards, utterly discomfited,
retired from the walls, leaving at least one thousand dead in the
trenches, while only thirteen burghers and twenty-four of the garrison
lost their lives. Thus was Alkmaar preserved for a little longer--thus
a large and well-appointed army signally defeated by a handful of men
fighting for their firesides and altars. Ensign Solis, who had mounted
the breach for an instant, and miraculously escaped with life, after
having been hurled from the battlements, reported that he had seen
"neither helmet nor harness," as he looked down into the city: only some
plain-looking people, generally dressed like fishermen. Yet these plain-
looking fishermen had defeated the veterans of Alva.
The citizens felt encouraged by the results of that day's work.
Moreover, they already possessed such information concerning the
condition of affairs in the camp of the enemy as gave them additional
confidence. A Spaniard, named Jeronimo, had been taken prisoner and
brought into the city. On receiving a promise of pardon, he had revealed
many secrets concerning the position and intentions of the besieging
army. It is painful to add that the prisoner, notwithstanding his
disclosures and the promise under which they had been made, was
treacherously executed. He begged hard for his life as he was led to the
gallows, offering fresh revelations, which, however, after the ample
communications already made, were esteemed superfluous. Finding this of
no avail, he promised his captors, with perfect simplicity, to go down on
his knees and worship the Devil precisely as they did, if by so doing he
might obtain mercy. It may be supposed that such a proposition was not
likely to gain additional favor for him in the eyes of these rigid
Calvinists, and the poor wretch was accordingly hanged.
The day following the assault, a fresh cannonade was opened upon the
city. Seven hundred shots having been discharged, the attack was
ordered. It was in vain: neither threats nor entreaties could induce the
Spaniards, hitherto so indomitable, to mount the breach. The place
seemed to their imagination protected by more than mortal powers;
otherwise how was it possible that a few half-starved fishermen could
already have so triumphantly overthrown the time-honored legions of
Spain. It was thought, no doubt, that the Devil, whom they worshipped,
would continue to protect his children. Neither the entreaties nor the
menaces of Don Frederic were of any avail. Several soldiers allowed
themselves to be run through the body by their own officers, rather than
advance to the walls; and the assault was accordingly postponed to an
indefinite period.
Meantime, as Governor Sonoy had opened many of the dykes, the land in the
neighbourhood of the camp was becoming plashy, although as yet the
threatened inundation had not taken place. The soldiers were already
very uncomfortable and very refractory. The carpenter-envoy had not been
idle, having, upon the 26th September, arrived at Sonoy's quarters,
bearing letters from the Prince of Orange. These despatches gave
distinct directions to Sonoy to flood the countlv at all risks; rather
than allow Alkmaar to, fall into the enemy's hands. The dykes and
sluices were to be protected by a strong guard, lest the peasants, in
order to save their crops, should repair or close them in the night-time.
The letters of Orange were copied, and, together with fresh
communications from Sonoy, delivered to the carpenter. A note on the
margin of the Prince's letter, directed the citizens to kindle four
beacon fires in specified places, as soon as it should prove necessary to
resort to extreme measures. When that moment should arrive, it was
solemnly promised that an inundation should be created which should sweep
the whole Spanish army into the sea. The work had, in fact, been
commenced. The Zyp and other sluices had already been opened, and a vast
body of water, driven by a strong north-west wind, had rushed in from the
ocean. It needed only that two great dykes should be pierced to render
the deluge and the desolation complete. The harvests were doomed to
destruction, and a frightful loss of property rendered inevitable, but,
at any rate, the Spaniards, if this last measure were taken, must fly or
perish to a man.
This decisive blow having been thus ordered and promised; the carpenter
set forth towards the city. He was, however, not so successful in
accomplishing his entrance unmolested, as he had been in effecting his
departure. He narrowly escaped with his life in passing through the
enemy's lines, and while occupied in saving himself was so unlucky, or,
as it proved, so fortunate, as to lose the stick in which his despatches
were enclosed. He made good his entrance into the city, where, byword of
mouth, he encouraged his fellow-burghers as to the intentions of the
Prince and Sonoy. In the meantime his letters were laid before the
general of the besieging army. The resolution taken by Orange, of which
Don Frederic was thus unintentionally made aware, to flood the country
far and near, rather than fail to protect Alkmaar, made a profound
impression upon his mind. It was obvious that he was dealing with a
determined leader and with desperate men. His attempt to carry the place
by storm had signally failed, and he could not deceive himself as to the
temper and disposition of his troops ever since that repulse. When it
should become known that they were threatened with submersion in the
ocean, in addition to all the other horrors of war, he had reason to
believe that they would retire ignominiously from that remote and
desolate sand hook, where, by remaining, they could only find a watery
grave. These views having been discussed in a council of officers, the
result was reached that sufficient had been already accomplished for the
glory of Spanish arms. Neither honor nor loyalty, it was thought,
required that sixteen thousand soldiers should be sacrificed in a
contest, not with man but with the ocean.
On the 8th of October, accordingly, the siege, which had lasted seven
weeks, was raised, and Don Frederic rejoined his father in Amsterdam.
Ready to die in the last ditch, and to overwhelm both themselves and
their foes in a common catastrophe the Hollanders had at last compelled
their haughty enemy to fly from a position which he had so insolently
assumed.
These public transactions and military operations were not the only
important events which affected the fate of Holland and its sister
provinces at this juncture. The secret relations which had already been
renewed between Louis of Nassau, as plenipotentiary of his brother and
the French court, had for some time excited great uneasiness in the mind
of Alva. Count Louis was known to be as skilful a negotiator as he was
valiant and accomplished as a soldier. His frankness and boldness
created confidence. The "brave spirit in the loyal breast" inspired all
his dealing; his experience and quick perception of character prevented
his becoming a dupe of even the most adroit politicians, while his truth
of purpose made him incapable either of overreaching an ally or of
betraying a trust. His career indicated that diplomacy might be
sometimes successful, even although founded upon sincerity.
Alva secretly expressed to his sovereign much suspicion of France. He
reminded him that Charles IX.; during the early part of the preceding
year, had given the assurance that he was secretly dealing with Louis of
Nassau, only that he might induce the Count to pass over to Philip's
service. At the same time Charles had been doing all he could to succor
Moos, and had written the memorable letter which had fallen into Alva's
hands on the capture of Genlis, and which expressed such a fixed
determination to inflict a deadly blow upon the King, whom the writer was
thus endeavouring to cajole. All this the Governor recalled to the
recollection of his sovereign. In view of this increasing repugnance of
the English court, Alva recommended that fair words should be employed;
hinting, however, that it would be by no means necessary for his master
to consider himself very strictly bound by any such pledges to Elizabeth,
if they should happen to become inconveniently pressing. "A monarch's
promises," he delicately suggested, "were not to be considered so sacred
as those of humbler mortals. Not that the King should directly violate
his word, but at the same time," continued the Duke, "I have thought all
my life, and I have learned it from the Emperor, your Majesty's father,
that the negotiations of kings depend upon different principles from
those of us private gentlemen who walk the world; and in this manner I
always observed that your Majesty's father, who was, so great a gentleman
and so powerful a prince, conducted his affairs." The Governor took
occasion, likewise, to express his regrets at the awkward manner in which
the Ridolfi scheme had been managed. Had he been consulted at an earlier
day, the affair could have been treated much more delicately; as it was,
there could be little doubt but that the discovery of the plot had
prejudiced the mind of Elizabeth against Spain. "From that dust,"
concluded the Duke, "has resulted all this dirt." It could hardly be
matter of surprise, either to Philip or his Viceroy, that the discovery
by Elizabeth of a plot upon their parts to take her life and place the
crown upon the head of her hated rival, should have engendered unamiable
feelings in her bosom towards them. For the moment, however, Alva's
negotiations were apparently successful.
On the first of May, 1573, the articles of convention between England and
Spain, with regard to the Netherland difficulty, had been formally
published in Brussels. The Duke, in communicating the termination of
these arrangements, quietly recommended his master thenceforth to take
the English ministry into his pay. In particular he advised his Majesty
to bestow an annual bribe upon Lord Burleigh, "who held the kingdom in
his hand; for it has always been my opinion," he continued, "that it was
an excellent practice for princes to give pensions to the ministers of
other potentates, and to keep those at home who took bribes from nobody."
On the other hand, the negotiations of Orange with the English court were
not yet successful, and he still found it almost impossible to raise the
requisite funds for carrying on the war. Certainly, his private letters
showed that neither he nor his brothers were self-seekers in their
negotiations. "You know;" said he in a letter to his brothers, "that my
intention has never been to seek my private advantage. I have only
aspired for the liberty of the country, in conscience and in polity,
which foreigners have sought to oppress. I have no other articles to
propose, save that religion, reformed according to the Word of God,
should be permitted, that then the commonwealth should be restored to its
ancient liberty, and, to that end, that the Spaniards and other soldiery
should be compelled to retire."
The restoration of civil and religious liberty, the, establishment of the
great principle of toleration in matters of conscience, constituted the
purpose to which his days and nights were devoted, his princely fortune
sacrificed, his life-blood risked. At the same time, his enforcement of
toleration to both religions excited calumny against him among the
bigoted adherents of both. By the Catholics he was accused of having
instigated the excesses which he had done everything in his power to
repress. The enormities of De la Marck, which had inspired the Prince's
indignation, were even laid at the door of him who had risked his life to
prevent and to chastise them. De la Marck had, indeed, more than
counterbalanced his great service in the taking of Brill, by his
subsequent cruelties. At last, Father Cornelius Musius, pastor of Saint
Agatha, at the age of seventy-two, a man highly esteemed by the Prince of
Orange, had been put to torture and death by this barbarian, under
circumstances of great atrocity. The horrid deed cost the Prince many
tears, aroused the indignation of the estates of Holland, and produced
the dismission of the perpetrator from their service. It was considered
expedient, however, in view of his past services, his powerful
connexions, and his troublesome character, that he should be induced
peaceably to leave the country.
It was long before the Prince and the estates could succeed in ridding
themselves of this encumbrance. He created several riots in different
parts of the province, and boasted, that he had many fine ships of war
and three thousand men devoted to him, by whose assistance he could make
the estates "dance after his pipe." At the beginning of the following
year (1574), he was at last compelled to leave the provinces, which he
never again troubled with his presence. Some years afterwards, he died
of the bite of a mad dog; an end not inappropriate to a man of so rabid a
disposition.
While the Prince was thus steadily striving for a lofty and generous
purpose, he was, of course, represented by his implacable enemies as a
man playing a game which, unfortunately for himself, was a losing one.
"That poor prince," said Granvelle, "has been ill advised. I doubt now
whether he will ever be able to make his peace, and I think we shall
rather try to get rid of him and his brother as if they were Turks. The
marriage with the daughter of Maurice, 'unde mala et quia ipse talis',
and his brothers have done him much harm. So have Schwendi and German
intimacies. I saw it all very plainly, but he did not choose to believe
me."
Ill-starred, worse counselled William of Orange! Had he but taken the
friendly Cardinal's advice, kept his hand from German marriages and his
feet from conventicles--had he assisted his sovereign in burning heretics
and hunting rebels, it would not then have become necessary "to treat him
like a Turk." This is unquestionable. It is equally so that there would
have been one great lamp the less in that strait and difficult pathway
which leads to the temple of true glory.
The main reliance of Orange was upon the secret negotiations which his
brother Louis was then renewing with the French government. The Prince
had felt an almost insurmountable repugnance towards entertaining any
relation with that blood-stained court, since the massacre of Saint
Bartholomew. But a new face had recently been put upon that transaction.
Instead of glorying, in their crime, the King and his mother now assumed
a tone of compunction, and averred that the deed had been unpremeditated;
that it had been the result of a panic or an ecstasy of fear inspired by
the suddenly discovered designs of the Huguenots; and that, in the
instinct of self-preservation, the King, with his family and immediate
friends, had plunged into a crime which they now bitterly lamented. The
French envoys at the different courts of Europe were directed to impress
this view upon the minds of the monarchs to whom they were accredited.
It was certainly a very different instruction from that which they had at
first received. Their cue had originally been to claim a full meed of
praise and thanksgiving in behalf of their sovereign for his meritorious
exploit. The salvos of artillery, the illuminations and rejoicings, the
solemn processions and masses by which the auspicious event had been
celebrated, mere yet fresh in the memory of men. The ambassadors were
sufficiently embarrassed by the distinct and determined approbation which
they had recently expressed. Although the King, by formal proclamation,
had assumed the whole responsibility, as he had notoriously been one of
the chief perpetrators of the deed, his agents were now to stultify
themselves and their monarch by representing, as a deplorable act of
frenzy, the massacre which they had already extolled to the echo as a
skilfully executed and entirely commendable achievement.
To humble the power of Spain, to obtain the hand of Queen Elizabeth for
the Duke d'Alencon, to establish an insidious kind of protectorate over
the Protestant princes of Germany, to obtain the throne of Poland for the
Duke of Anjou, and even to obtain the imperial crown for the house of
Valois--all these cherished projects seemed dashed to the ground by the
Paris massacre and the abhorrence which it had created. Charles and
Catharine were not slow to discover the false position in which they had
placed themselves, while the Spanish jocularity at the immense error
committed by France was visible enough through the assumed mask of holy
horror.
Philip and Alva listened with mischievous joy to the howl of execration
which swept through Christendom upon every wind. They rejoiced as
heartily in the humiliation of the malefactors as they did in the
perpetration of the crime. "Your Majesty," wrote Louis of Nassau, very
bluntly, to King Charles, "sees how the Spaniard, your mortal enemy,
feasts himself full with the desolation of your affairs; how he laughs,
to-split his sides, at your misfortunes. This massacre has enabled him
to weaken your Majesty more than he could have done by a war of thirty
years."
Before the year had revolved, Charles had become thoroughly convinced of
the fatal impression produced by the event. Bitter and almost abject
were his whinings at the Catholic King's desertion of his cause.
"He knows well," wrote Charles to Saint Goard, "that if he can terminate
these troubles and leave me alone in the dance, he will have leisure and
means to establish his authority, not only in the Netherlands but
elsewhere; and that he will render himself more grand and formidable than
he has ever been. This is the return they render for the good received
from me, which is such as every one knows."
Gaspar de Schomberg, the adroit and honorable agent of Charles in
Germany, had at a very early day warned his royal master of the ill
effect of the massacre upon all the schemes which he had been pursuing,
and especially upon those which referred to the crowns of the Empire and
of Poland. The first project was destined to be soon abandoned. It was
reserved neither for Charles nor Philip to divert the succession in
Germany from the numerous offspring of Maximilian; yet it is instructive
to observe the unprincipled avidity with which the prize was sought by
both. Each was willing to effect its purchase by abjuring what were
supposed his most cherished principles. Philip of Spain, whose mission
was to extirpate heresy throughout his realms, and who, in pursuance of
that mission, had already perpetrated more crimes, and waded more deeply
in the blood of his subjects, than monarch had often done before; Philip,
for whom his apologists have never found any defence, save that he
believed it his duty to God rather to depopulate his territories than to
permit a single heretic within their limits--now entered into secret
negotiations with the princes of the Empire. He pledged himself, if they
would confer the crown upon him, that he would withdraw the Spaniards
from the Netherlands; that he would tolerate in those provinces the
exercise of the Reformed religion; that he would recognize their union
with the rest of the German Empire, and their consequent claim to the
benefits of the Passau treaty; that he would restore the Prince of Orange
"and all his accomplices" to their former possessions, dignities, and
condition; and that he would cause to be observed, throughout every realm
incorporated with the Empire, all the edicts and ordinances which had
been constructed to secure religious freedom in Germany. In brief,
Philip was willing, in case the crown of Charlemagne should be promised
him, to undo the work of his life, to reinstate the arch-rebel whom he
had hunted and proscribed, and to bow before that Reformation whose
disciples he had so long burned, and butchered. So much extent and no
more had that religious, conviction by which he had for years had the
effrontery to excuse the enormities practised in the Netherlands. God
would never forgive him so long as one heretic remained unburned in the
provinces; yet give him the Imperial sceptre, and every heretic, without
forswearing his heresy, should be purged with hyssop and become whiter
than snow.
Charles IX., too, although it was not possible for him to recal to life
the countless victims of the Parisian wedding, was yet ready to explain
those murders to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind. This had
become strictly necessary. Although the accession of either his Most
Christian or Most Catholic Majesty to the throne of the Caesars was a
most improbable event, yet the humbler elective, throne actually vacant
was indirectly in the gift of the same powers. It was possible that the
crown of Poland might be secured for the Duke of Anjou. That key unlocks
the complicated policy of this and the succeeding year. The Polish
election is the clue to the labyrinthian intrigues and royal
tergiversations during the period of the interregnum. Sigismund
Augustus, last of the Jagellons, had died on the 7th July; 1572. The
prominent candidates to succeed him were the Archduke Ernest, son of
the Emperor, and Henry of Anjou. The Prince of Orange was not forgotten.
A strong party were in favor of compassing his election, as the most
signal triumph which Protestantism could gain, but his ambition had not
been excited by the prospect of such a prize. His own work required all
the energies of all his life. His influence, however, was powerful, and
eagerly sought by the partisans of Anjou. The Lutherans and Moravians in
Poland were numerous, the Protestant party there and in Germany holding
the whole balance of the election in their hands.
It was difficult for the Prince to overcome his repugnance to the very
name of the man whose crime had at once made France desolate, and
blighted the fair prospects under which he and his brother had, the year
before, entered the Netherlands. Nevertheless; he was willing to listen
to the statements by which the King and his ministers endeavoured, not
entirely without success, to remove from their reputations, if not from
their souls; the guilt of deep design. It was something, that the
murderers now affected to expiate their offence in sackcloth and ashes--
it was something that, by favoring the pretensions of Anjou, and by
listening with indulgence to the repentance of Charles, the siege of
Rochelle could be terminated, the Huguenots restored to freedom of
conscience, and an alliance with a powerful nation established, by aid of
which the Netherlands might once more lift their heads. The French
government, deeply hostile to Spain, both from passion and policy,
was capable of rendering much assistance to the revolted provinces.
"I entreat you most humbly, my good master," wrote Schomberg to Charles
IX., "to beware of allowing the electors to take into their heads that
you are favoring the affairs of the King of Spain in any manner
whatsoever. Commit against him no act of open hostility, if you think
that imprudent; but look sharp! if you do not wish to be thrown clean out
of your saddle. I should split with rage if I should see you, in
consequence of the wicked calumnies of your enemies, fail to secure the
prize."
Orange was induced, therefore, to accept, however distrustfully, the
expression of a repentance which was to be accompanied with healing
measures. He allowed his brother Louis to resume negotiations with
Schomberg, in Germany. He drew up and transmitted to him the outlines
of a treaty which he was willing to make with Charles. The main
conditions of this arrangement illustrated the disinterested character
of the man. He stipulated that the King of France should immediately
make peace with his subjects, declaring expressly that he had been abused
by those, who, under pretext of his service, had sought their own profit
at the price of ruin to the crown and people. The King should make
religion free. The edict to that effect should be confirmed by all the
parliaments and estates of the kingdom, and such confirmations should be
distributed without reserve or deceit among all the princes of Germany.
If his Majesty were not inclined to make war for the liberation of the
Netherlands, he was to furnish the Prince of Orange with one hundred
thousand crowns at once, and every three months with another hundred
thousand. The Prince was to have liberty to raise one thousand cavalry
and seven thousand infantry in France. Every city or town in the
provinces which should be conquered by his arms, except in Holland or
Zealand, should be placed under the sceptre, and in the hands of the King
of France. The provinces of Holland and Zealand should also be placed
under his protection, but should be governed by their own gentlemen and
citizens. Perfect religious liberty and maintenance of the ancient
constitutions, privileges, and charters were to be guaranteed "without
any cavilling whatsoever." The Prince of Orange, or the estates of
Holland or Zealand, were to reimburse his Christian Majesty for the sums
which he was to advance. In this last clause was the only mention which
the Prince made of himself, excepting in the stipulation that he was to
be allowed a levy of troops in France. His only personal claims were
to enlist soldiers to fight the battles of freedom, and to pay their
expense, if it should not be provided for by the estates. At nearly
the same period, he furnished his secret envoys, Luinbres and Doctor
Taijaert, who were to proceed to Paris, with similar instructions.
The indefatigable exertions of Schomberg, and the almost passionate
explanations on the part of the court of France, at length produced their
effect. "You will constantly assure the princes," wrote the Duke of
Anjou to Schomberg, "that the things written, to you concerning that
which had happened in this kingdom are true; that the events occurred
suddenly, without having been in any manner premeditated; that neither
the King nor myself have ever had any intelligence with, the King of
Spain, against those of the religion, and that all is utter imposture
which is daily said on this subject to the princes."
Count Louis required peremptorily, however, that the royal repentance
should bring forth the fruit of salvation for the remaining victims. Out
of the nettles of these dangerous intrigues his fearless hand plucked the
"flower of safety" for his down-trodden cause. He demanded not words,
but deeds, or at least pledges. He maintained with the agents of Charles
and with the monarch himself the same hardy scepticism which was
manifested by the Huguenot deputies in their conferences with Catharine
de Medicis. "Is the word of a king," said the dowager to the
commissioners, who were insisting upon guarantees, "is the word of a king
not sufficient?"--"No, madam," replied one of them, "by Saint
Bartholomew, no!" Count Louis told Schomberg roundly, and repeated it
many times, that he must have in a very few days a categorical response,
"not to consist in words alone, but in deeds, and that he could not, and
would not, risk for ever the honor of his brother, nor the property;
blood, and life of those poor people who favored the cause."