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 be 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 country 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."

On the 23rd March, 1573, Schomberg had an interview with Count Louis,

which lasted seven or eight hours. In that interview the enterprises of

the Count, "which," said Schomberg, "are assuredly grand and beautiful,"

were thoroughly discussed, and a series of conditions, drawn up partly in

the hand of one, partly in that of the other negotiator; definitely

agreed upon. These conditions were on the basis of a protectorate over

Holland and Zealand for the King of France, with sovereignty over the

other places to be acquired in the Netherlands. They were in strict

accordance with the articles furnished by the Prince of Orange. Liberty

of worship for those of both religions, sacred preservation of municipal

charters, and stipulation of certain annual subsidies on the part of

France, in case his Majesty should not take the field, were the principal

features.

Ten days later, Schomberg wrote to his master that the Count was willing

to use all the influence of his family to procure for Anjou the crown of

Poland, while Louis, having thus completed his negotiations with the

agent, addressed a long and earnest letter to the royal principal. This

remarkable despatch was stamped throughout with the impress of the

writer's frank and fearless character. "Thus diddest thou" has rarely

been addressed to anointed monarch in such unequivocal tones: The letter

painted the favorable position in which the king had been placed

previously to the fatal summer of 1572. The Queen of England was then

most amicably disposed towards him, and inclined to a yet closer

connexion with his family. The German princes were desirous to elect him

King of the Romans, a dignity for which his grandfather had so

fruitlessly contended. The Netherlanders, driven to despair by the

tyranny of their own sovereign, were eager to throw themselves into his

arms. All this had been owing to his edict of religious pacification. How

changed the picture now! Who now did reverence to a King so criminal and

so fallen? "Your Majesty to-day," said Louis, earnestly and plainly, "is

near to ruin. The State, crumbling on every side and almost abandoned, is

a prey to any one who wishes to seize upon it; the more so, because your

Majesty, having, by the late excess and by the wars previously made,

endeavoured to force men's consciences, is now so destitute, not only of

nobility and soldiery but of that which constitutes the strongest column

of the throne, the love and good wishes of the lieges, that your Majesty

resembles an ancient building propped up, day after, day, with piles, but

which it will be impossible long to prevent from falling to the earth."

Certainly, here were wholesome truths told in straightforward style.

The Count proceeded to remind the King of the joy which the "Spaniard,

his mortal enemy," had conceived from the desolation of his affairs,

being assured that he should, by the troubles in France, be enabled to

accomplish his own purposes without striking a blow. This, he observed,

had been the secret of the courtesy with which the writer himself had

been treated by the Duke of Alva at the surrender of Mons. Louis assured

the King, in continuation, that if he persevered in these oppressive

courses towards his subjects of the new religion, there was no hope for

him, and that his two brothers would, to no purpose, take their departure

for England, and, for Poland, leaving him with a difficult and dangerous

war upon his hands. So long as he maintained a hostile attitude towards

the Protestants in his own kingdom, his fair words would produce no

effect elsewhere. "We are beginning to be vexed," said the Count, "with

the manner of negotiation practised by France. Men do not proceed roundly

to business there, but angle with their dissimulation as with a hook."

He bluntly reminded the King of the deceit which he had practised towards

the Admiral--a sufficient reason why no reliance could in future be

placed upon his word. Signal vengeance on those concerned in the

attempted assassination of that great man had been promised, in the royal

letters to the Prince of Orange, just before St. Bartholomew. "Two days

afterwards," said Louis, "your Majesty took that vengeance, but in rather

ill fashion." It was certain that the King was surrounded by men who

desired to work his ruin, and who, for their own purposes, would cause

him to bathe still deeper than he had done before in the blood of his

subjects. This ruin his Majesty could still avert; by making peace in his

kingdom, and by ceasing to torment his poor subjects of the religion.

In conclusion, the Count, with a few simple but eloquent phrases, alluded

to the impossibility of chaining men's thoughts. The soul, being

immortal, was beyond the reach of kings. Conscience was not to be

conquered, nor the religious spirit imprisoned. This had been discovered

by the Emperor Charles, who had taken all the cities and great personages

of Germany captive, but who had nevertheless been unable to take religion

captive. "That is a sentiment," said Louis, "deeply rooted in the hearts

of men, which is not to be plucked out by force of arms. Let your

majesty, therefore not be deceived by the flattery of those who, like bad

physicians, keep their patients in ignorance of their disease, whence

comes their ruin."

It would be impossible, without insight into these private and most

important transactions, to penetrate the heart of the mystery which

enwrapped at this period the relations of the great powers with each

other. Enough has been seen to silence for ever the plea, often entered

in behalf of religious tyranny, that the tyrant acts in obedience to a

sincere conviction of duty; that, in performing his deeds of darkness, he

believes himself to be accomplishing the will of Heaven. Here we have

seen Philip, offering to restore the Prince of Orange, and to establish

freedom of religion in the Netherlands, if by such promises he can lay

hold of the Imperial diadem. Here also we have Charles IX. and his

mother--their hands reeking with the heretic-blood of St.

Bartholomew--making formal engagements with heretics to protect heresy

everywhere, if by such pledges the crown of the Jagellons and the hand of

Elizabeth can be secured.

While Louis was thus busily engaged in Germany, Orange was usually

established at Delft. He felt the want of his brother daily, for the

solitude of the Prince, in the midst of such fiery trials, amounted

almost to desolation. Not often have circumstances invested an individual

with so much responsibility and so little power. He was regarded as the

protector and father of the country, but from his own brains and his own

resources he was to furnish himself with the means of fulfilling those

high functions. He was anxious thoroughly to discharge the duties of a

dictatorship without grasping any more of its power than was

indispensable to his purpose. But he was alone on that little isthmus, in

single combat with the great Spanish monarchy. It was to him that all

eyes turned, during the infinite horrors of the Harlem sieges and in the

more prosperous leaguer of Alkmaar. What he could do he did. He devised

every possible means to succor Harlem, and was only restrained from going

personally to its rescue by the tears of the whole population of Holland.

By his decision and the spirit which he diffused through the country, the

people were lifted to a pitch of heroism by which Alkmaar was saved. Yet,

during all this harassing period, he had no one to lean upon but himself.

"Our affairs are in pretty good; condition in Holland and Zealand," he

wrote, "if I only had some aid. 'Tis impossible for me to support alone

so many labors, and the weight of such great affairs as come upon me

hourly--financial, military, political. I have no one to help me, not a

single man, wherefore I leave you to suppose in what trouble I find

myself."

For it was not alone the battles and sieges which furnished him with

occupation and filled him with anxiety. Alone, he directed in secret the

politics of the country, and, powerless and outlawed though he seemed,

was in daily correspondence not only with the estates of Holland and

Zealand, whose deliberations he guided, but with the principal

governments of Europe. The estates of the Netherlands, moreover, had been

formally assembled by Alva in September, at Brussels, to devise ways and

means for continuing the struggle. It seemed to the Prince a good

opportunity to make an appeal to the patriotism of the whole country. He

furnished the province of Holland, accordingly, with the outlines of an

address which was forthwith despatched in their own and his name, to the

general assembly of the Netherlands. The document was a nervous and rapid

review of the course of late events in the provinces, with a cogent

statement of the reasons which should influence them all to unite in the

common cause against the common enemy. It referred to the old affection

and true-heartedness with which they had formerly regarded each other,

and to the certainty that the inquisition would be for ever established

in the land, upon the ruins of all their ancient institutions, unless

they now united to overthrow it for ever. It demanded of the people, thus

assembled through their representatives, how they could endure the

tyranny, murders, and extortions of the Duke of Alva. The princes of

Flanders, Burgundy, Brabant, or Holland, had never made war or peace,

coined money, or exacted a stiver from the people without the consent of

the estates. How could the nation now consent to the daily impositions

which were practised? Had Amsterdam and Middelburg remained true; had

those important cities not allowed themselves to be seduced from the

cause of freedom, the northern provinces would have been impregnable.

"'Tis only by the Netherlands that the Netherlands are crushed," said the

appeal. "Whence has the Duke of Alva the power of which he boasts, but

from yourselves--from Netherland cities? Whence his ships, supplies,

money, weapons, soldiers? From the Netherland people. Why has poor

Netherland thus become degenerate and bastard? Whither has fled the noble

spirit of our brave forefathers, that never brooked the tyranny of

foreign nations, nor suffered a stranger even to hold office within our

borders? If the little province of Holland can thus hold at bay the power

of Spain, what could not all the Netherlands--Brabant, Flanders,

Friesland, and the rest united accomplish?" In conclusion, the

estates-general were earnestly adjured to come forward like brothers in

blood, and join hands with Holland, that together they might rescue the

fatherland and restore its ancient prosperity and bloom.

At almost the same time the Prince drew up and put in circulation one of

the most vigorous and impassioned productions which ever came from his

pen. It was entitled, an "Epistle, in form of supplication, to his royal

Majesty of Spain, from the Prince of Orange and the estates of Holland

and Zealand." The document produced a profound impression throughout

Christendom. It was a loyal appeal to the monarch's loyalty--a demand

that the land-privileges should be restored, and the Duke of Alva

removed. It contained a startling picture of his atrocities and the

nation's misery, and, with a few energetic strokes, demolished the

pretence that these sorrows had been caused by the people's guilt. In

this connexion the Prince alluded to those acts of condemnation which the

Governor-General had promulgated under the name of pardons, and treated

with scorn the hypothesis that any crimes had been committed for Alva to

forgive. "We take God and your Majesty to witness," said the epistle,

"that if we have done such misdeeds as are charged in the pardon, we

neither desire nor deserve the pardon. Like the most abject creatures

which crawl the earth, we will be content to atone for our misdeeds with

our lives. We will not murmur, O merciful King, if we be seized one after

another, and torn limb from limb, if it can be proved that we have

committed the crimes of which we have been accused."

After having thus set forth the tyranny of the government and the

innocence of the people, the Prince, in his own name and that of the

estates, announced the determination at which they had arrived. "The

tyrant," he continued, "would rather stain every river and brook with our

blood, and hang our bodies upon every tree in the country, than not feed

to the full his vengeance, and steep himself to the lips in our misery.

Therefore we have taken up arms against the Duke of Alva and his

adherents, to free ourselves, our wives and children, from his

blood-thirsty hands. If he prove too strong nor us, we will rather die an

honorable death and leave a praiseworthy fame, than bend our necks, and

reduce our dear fatherland to such slavery. Herein are all our cities

pledged to each other to stand every siege, to dare the utmost, to endure

every possible misery, yea, rather to set fire to all our homes, and be

consumed with them into ashes together, than ever submit to the decrees

of this cruel tyrant."

These were brave words, and destined to be bravely fulfilled, as the life

and death of the writer and the records of his country proved, from

generation unto generation. If we seek for the mainspring of the energy

which thus sustained the Prince in the unequal conflict to which he had

devoted his life, we shall find it in the one pervading principle of his

nature--confidence in God. He was the champion of the political rights of

his country, but before all he was the defender of its religion. Liberty

of conscience for his people was his first object. To establish Luther's

axiom, that thoughts are toll-free, was his determination. The Peace of

Passau, and far more than the Peace of Passau, was the goal for which he

was striving. Freedom of worship for all denominations, toleration for

all forms of faith, this was the great good in his philosophy. For

himself, he had now become a member of the Calvinist, or Reformed Church,

having delayed for a time his public adhesion to this communion, in order

not to give offence to the Lutherans and to the Emperor. He was never a

dogmatist, however, and he sought in Christianity for that which unites

rather than for that which separates Christians. In the course of October

he publicly joined the church at Dort.

The happy termination of the siege of Alkmaar was followed, three days

afterwards, by another signal success on the part of the patriots. Count

Bossu, who had constructed or collected a considerable fleet at

Amsterdam, had, early in October, sailed into the Zuyder Zee,

notwithstanding the sunken wrecks and other obstructions by which the

patriots had endeavored to render the passage of the Y impracticable. The

patriots of North Holland had, however, not been idle, and a fleet of

five-and-twenty vessels, under Admiral Dirkzoon, was soon cruising in the

same waters. A few skirmishes took place, but Bossu's ships, which were

larger, and provided with heavier cannon, were apparently not inclined

for the close quarters which the patriots sought. The Spanish Admiral,

Hollander as he was, knew the mettle of his countrymen in a close

encounter at sea, and preferred to trust to the calibre of his cannon. On

the 11th October, however, the whole patriot fleet, favored by a strong

easterly, breeze, bore down upon the Spanish armada, which, numbering now

thirty sail of all denominations, was lying off and on in the

neighbourhood of Horn and Enkhuyzen. After a short and general

engagement, nearly all the Spanish fleet retired with precipitation,

closely pursued by most of the patriot Dutch vessels. Five of the King's

ships were eventually taken, the rest effected their escape. Only the

Admiral remained, who scorned to yield, although his forces had thus

basely deserted him. His ship, the "Inquisition,"--for such was her

insolent appellation, was far the largest and best manned of both the

fleets. Most of the enemy had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, but four

vessels of inferior size had attacked the "Inquisition" at the

commencement of the action. Of these, one had soon been silenced, while

the other three had grappled themselves inextricably to her sides and

prow. The four drifted together, before wind and tide, a severe and

savage action going on incessantly, during which the navigation of the

ships was entirely abandoned. No scientific gunnery, no military or naval

tactics were displayed or required in such a conflict. It was a

life-and-death combat, such as always occurred when Spaniard and

Netherlander met, whether on land or water. Bossu and his men, armed in

bullet-proof coats of mail, stood with shield and sword on the deck of

the "Inquisition," ready to repel all attempts to board. The Hollander,

as usual, attacked with pitch hoops, boiling oil, and molten lead.

Repeatedly they effected their entrance to the Admiral's ship, and as

often they were repulsed and slain in heaps, or hurled into the sea. The

battle began at three in the afternoon, and continued without

intermission through the whole night. The vessels, drifting together,

struck on the shoal called the Nek, near Wydeness. In the heat of the

action the occurrence was hardly heeded. In the morning twilight, John

Haring, of Horn, the hero who had kept one thousand soldiers at bay upon

the Diemer dyke, clambered on board the "Inquisition" and hauled her

colors down. The gallant but premature achievement cost him his life. He

was shot through the body and died on the deck of the ship, which was not

quite ready to strike her flag. In the course of the forenoon, however,

it became obvious to Bossu that further resistance was idle. The ships

were aground near a hostile coast, his own fleet was hopelessly

dispersed, three quarters of his crew were dead or disabled, while the

vessels with which he was engaged were constantly recruited by boats from

the shore, which brought fresh men and ammunition, and removed their

killed and wounded. At eleven o'clock, Admiral Bossu surrendered, and

with three hundred prisoners was carried into Holland. Bossu was himself

imprisoned at Horn, in which city he was received, on his arrival, with

great demonstrations of popular hatred. The massacre of Rotterdam, due to

his cruelty and treachery, had not yet been forgotten or forgiven.

This victory, following so hard upon the triumph at Alkmaar, was as

gratifying to the patriots as it was galling to Alva. As his

administration drew to a close, it was marked by disaster and disgrace on

land and sea. The brilliant exploits by which he had struck terror into

the heart of the Netherlanders, at Jemmingen and in Brabant, had been

effaced by the valor of a handful of Hollanders, without discipline or

experience. To the patriots, the opportune capture of so considerable a

personage as the Admiral and Governor of the northern province was of

great advantage. Such of the hostages from Harlem as had not yet been

executed, now escaped with their lives. Moreover, Saint Aldegonde, the

eloquent patriot and confidential friend of Orange, who was taken

prisoner a few weeks later, in an action at Maeslands-luis, was preserved

from inevitable destruction by the same cause. The Prince hastened to

assure the Duke of Alva that the same measure would be dealt to Bossu as

should be meted to Saint Aldegonde. It was, therefore, impossible for the

Governor-General to execute his prisoner, and he was obliged to submit to

the vexation of seeing a leading rebel and heretic in his power, whom he

dared not strike. Both the distinguished prisoners eventually regained

their liberty.

The Duke was, doubtless, lower sunk in the estimation of all classes than

he had ever been before, during his long and generally successful life.

The reverses sustained by his army, the belief that his master had grown

cold towards him, the certainty that his career in the Netherlands was

closing without a satisfactory result, the natural weariness produced

upon men's minds by the contemplation of so monotonous and unmitigated a

tyranny during so many years, all contributed to diminish his reputation.

He felt himself odious alike to princes and to plebeians. With his

cabinet councillors he had long been upon unsatisfactory terms. President

Tisnacq had died early, in the summer, and Viglius, much against his

will, had been induced, provisionally, to supply his place. But there was

now hardly a pretence of friendship between the learned Frisian and the

Governor. Each cordially detested the other. Alva was weary of Flemish

and Frisian advisers, however subservient, and was anxious to fill the

whole council with Spaniards of the Vargas stamp. He had forced Viglius

once more into office, only that, by a little delay, he might expel him

and every Netherlander at the same moment. "Till this ancient set of

dogmatizers be removed," he wrote to Philip, "with Viglius, their chief,

who teaches them all their lessons, nothing will go right. 'Tis of no use

adding one or two Spaniards to fill vacancies; that is only pouring a

flask of good wine into a hogshead of vinegar; it changes to vinegar

likewise. Your Majesty will soon be able to reorganize the council at a

blow; so that Italians or Spaniards, as you choose, may entirely govern

the country."

Such being his private sentiments with regard to his confidential

advisers, it may be supposed that his intercourse with his council during

the year was not like to be amicable. Moreover, he had kept himself, for

the most part, at a distance from the seat of government. During the

military operations in Holland, his head-quarters had been at Amsterdam.

Here, as the year drew to its close, he had become as unpopular as in

Brussels. The time-serving and unpatriotic burghers, who, at the

beginning of the spring, set up his bust in their houses, and would give

large sums for his picture in little, now broke his images and tore his

portraits from their walls, for it was evident that the power of his name

was gone, both with prince and people. Yet, certainly, those fierce

demonstrations which had formerly surrounded his person with such an

atmosphere of terror had not slackened or become less frequent than

heretofore. He continued to prove that he could be barbarous, both on a

grand and a minute scale. Even as in preceding years, he could ordain

wholesale massacres with a breath, and superintend in person the

executions of individuals. This was illustrated, among other instances,

by the cruel fate of Uitenhoove. That unfortunate nobleman, who had been

taken prisoner in the course of the summer, was accused of having been

engaged in the capture of Brill, and was, therefore, condemned by the

Duke to be roasted to death before a slow fire. He was accordingly

fastened by a chain, a few feet in length, to a stake, around which the

fagots were lighted. Here he was kept in slow torture for a long time,

insulted by the gibes of the laughing Spaniards who surrounded him--until

the executioner and his assistants, more humane than their superior,

despatched the victim with their spears--a mitigation of punishment which

was ill received by Alva. The Governor had, however, no reason to remain

longer in Amsterdam. Harlem had fallen; Alkmaar was relieved; and

Leyden--destined in its second siege to furnish so signal a chapter to

the history of the war--was beleaguered, it was true, but, because known

to be imperfectly supplied, was to be reduced by blockade rather than by

active operations. Don Francis Valdez was accordingly left in command of

the siege, which, however, after no memorable occurrences, was raised, as

will soon be related.

The Duke had contracted in Amsterdam an enormous amount of debt, both

public and private. He accordingly, early in November, caused a

proclamation to be made throughout the city by sound of trumpet, that all

persons having demands upon him were to present their claims, in person,

upon a specified day. During the night preceding the day so appointed,

the Duke and his train very noiselessly took their departure, without

notice or beat of drum. By this masterly generalship his unhappy

creditors were foiled upon the very eve of their anticipated triumph; the

heavy accounts which had been contracted on the faith of the King and the

Governor, remained for the most part unpaid, and many opulent and

respectable families were reduced to beggary. Such was the consequence of

the unlimited confidence which they had reposed in the honor of their

tyrant.

On the 17th of November, Don Luis de Requesens y Cuniga, Grand Commander

of Saint Jago, the appointed successor of Alva, arrived in Brussels,

where he was received with great rejoicings. The Duke, on the same day,

wrote to the King, "kissing his feet" for thus relieving him of his

functions. There was, of course, a profuse interchange of courtesy

between the departing and the newly-arrived Governors. Alva was willing

to remain a little while, to assist his successor with his advice, but

preferred that the Grand Commander should immediately assume the reins of

office. To this Requesens, after much respectful reluctance, at length

consented. On the 29th of November he accordingly took the oaths, at

Brussels, as Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General, in presence of the

Duke of Aerschot, Baron Berlaymont, the President of the Council, and

other functionaries.

On the 18th of December the Duke of Alva departed from the provinces for

ever. With his further career this history has no concern, and it is not

desirable to enlarge upon the personal biography of one whose name

certainly never excites pleasing emotions. He had kept his bed for the

greater part of the time during the last few weeks of his

government--partly on account of his gout, partly to avoid being seen in

his humiliation, but mainly, it was said, to escape the pressing demands

of his creditors. He expressed a fear of travelling homeward through

France, on the ground that he might very probably receive a shot out of a

window as he went by. He complained pathetically that, after all his

labors, he had not "gained the approbation of the King," while he had

incurred "the malevolence and universal hatred of every individual in the

country." Mondoucet, to whom he made the observation, was of the same

opinion; and informed his master that the Duke "had engendered such an

extraordinary hatred in the hearts of all persons in the land, that they

would have fireworks in honor of his departure if they dared."

On his journey from the Netherlands, he is said to have boasted that he

had caused eighteen thousand six hundred inhabitants of the provinces to

be executed during the period of his government. The number of those who

had perished by battle, siege, starvation, and massacre, defied

computation. The Duke was well received by his royal master, and remained

in favor until a new adventure of Don Frederic brought father and son

into disgrace. Having deceived and abandoned a maid of honor, he suddenly

espoused his cousins in order to avoid that reparation by marriage which

was demanded for his offence. In consequence, both the Duke and Don

Frederic were imprisoned and banished, nor was Alva released till a

general of experience was required for the conquest of Portugal. Thither,

as it were with fetters on his legs, he went. After having accomplished

the military enterprise entrusted to him, he fell into a lingering fever,

at the termination of which he was so much reduced that he was only kept

alive by milk, which he drank from a woman's breast. Such was the gentle

second childhood of the man who had almost literally been drinking blood

for seventy years. He died on the 12th December, 1582.

The preceding pages have been written in vain, if an elaborate estimate

be now required of his character. His picture has been painted, as far as

possible, by his own hand. His deeds, which are not disputed, and his

written words, illustrate his nature more fully than could be done by the

most eloquent pen. No attempt has been made to exaggerate his crimes, or

to extenuate his superior qualities. Virtues he had none, unless military

excellence be deemed, as by the Romans, a virtue. In war, both as a

science and a practical art, he excelled all the generals who were

opposed to him in the Netherlands, and he was inferior to no commander in

the world during the long and belligerent period to which his life

belonged. Louis of Nassau possessed high reputation throughout Europe as

a skilful and daring General. With raw volunteers he had overthrown an

army of Spanish regulars, led by a Netherland chieftain of fame and

experience; but when Alva took the field in person the scene was totally

changed. The Duke dealt him such a blow at Jemmingen as would have

disheartened for ever a less indomitable champion. Never had a defeat

been more absolute. The patriot army was dashed out of existence, almost

to a man, and its leader, naked and beggared, though not disheartened,

sent back into Germany to construct his force and his schemes anew.

Having thus flashed before the eyes of the country the full terrors of

his name, and vindicated the ancient military renown of his nation, the

Duke was at liberty to employ the consummate tactics, in which he could

have given instruction to all the world, against his most formidable

antagonist. The country, paralyzed with fear, looked anxiously but

supinely upon the scientific combat between the two great champions of

Despotism and Protestantism which succeeded. It was soon evident that the

conflict could terminate in but one way. The Prince had considerable

military abilities, and enthusiastic courage; he lost none of his

well-deserved reputation by the unfortunate issue of his campaign; he

measured himself in arms with the great commander of the age, and defied

him, day after day, in vain, to mortal combat; but it was equally certain

that the Duke's quiet game was, played in the most masterly manner. His

positions and his encampments were taken with faultless judgment, his

skirmishes wisely and coldly kept within the prescribed control, while

the inevitable dissolution of the opposing force took place exactly as he

had foreseen, and within the limits which he had predicted. Nor in the

disastrous commencement of the year 1572 did the Duke less signally

manifest his military genius. Assailed as he was at every point, with the

soil suddenly upheaving all around him, as by an earthquake, he did not

lose his firmness nor his perspicacity. Certainly, if he had not been so

soon assisted by that other earthquake, which on Saint Bartholomew's Day

caused all Christendom to tremble, and shattered the recent structure of

Protestant Freedom in the Netherlands, it might have been worse for his

reputation. With Mons safe, the Flemish frontier guarded; France

faithful, and thirty thousand men under the Prince of Orange in Brabant,

the heroic brothers might well believe that the Duke was "at their

mercy." The treason of Charles IX. "smote them as with a club," as the

Prince exclaimed in the bitterness of his spirit. Under the

circumstances, his second campaign was a predestined failure, and Alva

easily vanquished him by a renewed application of those dilatory arts

which he so well understood.

The Duke's military fame was unquestionable when he came to the

provinces, and both in stricken fields and in long campaigns, he showed

how thoroughly it had been deserved; yet he left the Netherlands a

baffled man. The Prince might be many times defeated, but he was not to

be conquered. As Alva penetrated into the heart of the ancient Batavian

land he found himself overmatched as he had never been before, even by

the most potent generals of his day. More audacious, more inventive, more

desperate than all the commanders of that or any other age, the spirit of

national freedom, now taught the oppressor that it was invincible; except

by annihilation. The same lesson had been read in the same thickets by

the Nervii to Julius Caesar, by the Batavians to the legions of

Vespasian; and now a loftier and a purer flame than that which inspired

the national struggles against Rome glowed within the breasts of the

descendants of the same people, and inspired them with the strength which

comes, from religious enthusiasm. More experienced, more subtle, more

politic than Hermann; more devoted, more patient, more magnanimous than

Civilis, and equal to either in valor and determination, William of

Orange was a worthy embodiment of the Christian, national resistance of

the German race to a foreign tyranny. Alva had entered the Netherlands to

deal with them as with conquered provinces. He found that the conquest

was still to be made, and he left the land without having accomplished

it. Through the sea of blood, the Hollanders felt that they were passing

to the promised land. More royal soldiers fell during the seven months'

siege of Harlem than the rebels had lost in the defeat of Jemmingen, and

in the famous campaign of Brabant. At Alkmaar the rolling waves of

insolent conquest were stayed, and the tide then ebbed for ever.

The accomplished soldier struggled hopelessly, with the wild and

passionate hatred which his tyranny had provoked. Neither his legions nor

his consummate strategy availed him against an entirely desperate people.

As a military commander, therefore, he gained, upon the whole, no

additional laurels during his long administration of the Netherlands. Of

all the other attributes to be expected in a man appointed to deal with a

free country, in a state of incipient rebellion, he manifested a signal

deficiency. As a financier, he exhibited a wonderful ignorance of the

first principles of political economy. No man before, ever gravely

proposed to establish confiscation as a permanent source of revenue to

the state; yet the annual product from the escheated property of

slaughtered heretics was regularly relied upon, during his

administration, to replenish the King's treasury, and to support the war

of extermination against the King's subjects. Nor did statesman ever

before expect a vast income from the commerce of a nation devoted to

almost universal massacre. During the daily decimation of the people's

lives, he thought a daily decimation of their industry possible. His

persecutions swept the land of those industrious classes which had made

it the rich and prosperous commonwealth it had been so lately; while, at

the same time, he found a "Peruvian mine," as he pretended, in the

imposition of a tenth penny upon every one of its commercial

transactions. He thought that a people, crippled as this had been by the

operations of the Blood Council; could pay ten per cent., not annually

but daily; not upon its income, but upon its capital; not once only, but

every time the value constituting the capital changed hands. He had

boasted that he should require no funds from Spain, but that, on the

contrary, he should make annual remittances to the royal treasury at

home, from the proceeds of his imposts and confiscations; yet,

notwithstanding these resources, and notwithstanding twenty-five millions

of gold in five years, sent by Philip from Madrid, the exchequer of the

provinces was barren and bankrupt when his successor arrived. Requesens

found neither a penny in the public treasury nor the means of raising

one.

As an administrator of the civil and judicial affairs of the country,

Alva at once reduced its institutions to a frightful simplicity. In the

place of the ancient laws of which the Netherlanders were so proud, he

substituted the Blood Council. This tribunal was even more arbitrary than

the Inquisition. Never was a simpler apparatus for tyranny devised, than

this great labor-saving machine. Never was so great a quantity of murder

and robbery achieved with such despatch and regularity. Sentences,

executions, and confiscations, to an incredible extent, were turned out

daily with appalling precision. For this invention, Alva is alone

responsible. The tribunal and its councillors were the work and the

creatures of his hand, and faithfully did they accomplish the dark

purpose of their existence. Nor can it be urged, in extenuation of the

Governor's crimes, that he was but the blind and fanatically loyal slave

of his sovereign. A noble nature could not have contaminated itself with

such slaughter-house work, but might have sought to mitigate the royal

policy, without forswearing allegiance. A nature less rigid than iron,

would at least have manifested compunction, as it found itself converted

into a fleshless instrument of massacre. More decided than his master,

however, he seemed, by his promptness, to rebuke the dilatory genius of

Philip. The King seemed, at times, to loiter over his work, teasing and

tantalising his appetite for vengeance, before it should be gratified:

Alva, rapid and brutal, scorned such epicureanism. He strode with

gigantic steps over haughty statutes and popular constitutions; crushing

alike the magnates who claimed a bench of monarchs for their jury, and

the ignoble artisans who could appeal only to the laws of their land.

From the pompous and theatrical scaffolds of Egmont and Horn, to the

nineteen halters prepared by Master Karl, to hang up the chief bakers and

brewers of Brussels on their own thresholds--from the beheading of the

twenty nobles on the Horse-market, in the opening of the Governor's

career, to the roasting alive of Uitenhoove at its close-from the block

on which fell the honored head of Antony Straalen, to the obscure chair

in which the ancient gentlewoman of Amsterdam suffered death for an act

of vicarious mercy--from one year's end to another's--from the most

signal to the most squalid scenes of sacrifice, the eye and hand of the

great master directed, without weariness, the task imposed by the

sovereign.

No doubt the work of almost indiscriminate massacre had been duly mapped

out. Not often in history has a governor arrived to administer the

affairs of a province, where the whole population, three millions strong,

had been formally sentenced to death. As time wore on, however, he even

surpassed the bloody instructions which he had received. He waved aside

the recommendations of the Blood Council to mercy; he dissuaded the

monarch from attempting the path of clemency, which, for secret reasons,

Philip was inclined at one period to attempt. The Governor had, as he

assured the King, been using gentleness in vain, and he was now

determined to try what a little wholesome severity could effect. These

words were written immediately after the massacres at Harlem.

With all the bloodshed at Mons, and Naarden, and Mechlin, and by the

Council of Tumults, daily, for six years long, still crying from the

ground, he taxed himself with a misplaced and foolish tenderness to the

people. He assured the King that when Alkmaar should be taken, he would,

not spare a "living soul among its whole population;" and, as his parting

advice, he recommended that every city in the Netherlands should be

burned to the ground, except a few which could be occupied permanently by

the royal troops. On the whole, so finished a picture of a perfect and

absolute tyranny has rarely been presented to mankind by history, as in

Alva's administration of the Netherlands.

The tens of thousands in those miserable provinces who fell victims to

the gallows, the sword, the stake, the living grave, or to living

banishment, have never been counted; for those statistics of barbarity

are often effaced from human record. Enough, however, is known, and

enough has been recited in the preceding pages. No mode in which human

beings have ever caused their fellow-creatures to suffer, was omitted

from daily practice. Men, women, and children, old and young, nobles and

paupers, opulent burghers, hospital patients, lunatics, dead bodies, all

were indiscriminately made to furnish food for-the scaffold and the

stake. Men were tortured, beheaded, hanged by the neck and by the legs,

burned before slow fires, pinched to death with red hot tongs, broken

upon the wheel, starved, and flayed alive. Their skins stripped from the

living body, were stretched upon drums, to be beaten in the march of

their brethren to the gallows. The bodies of many who had died a natural

death were exhumed, and their festering remains hanged upon the gibbet,

on pretext that they had died without receiving the sacrament, but in

reality that their property might become the legitimate prey of the

treasury. Marriages of long standing were dissolved by order of

government, that rich heiresses might be married against their will to

foreigners whom they abhorred. Women and children were executed for the

crime of assisting their fugitive husbands and parents with a penny in

their utmost need, and even for consoling them with a letter, in their

exile. Such was the regular course of affairs as administered by the

Blood Council. The additional barbarities committed amid the sack and

ruin of those blazing and starving cities, are almost beyond belief;

unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women

and children were violated by thousands; and whole populations burned and

hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in its wanton

ingenuity, could devise. Such was the administration, of which Vargas

affirmed, at its close, that too much mercy, "nimia misericordia," had

been its ruin.

Even Philip, inspired by secret views, became wearied of the Governor,

who, at an early period, had already given offence by his arrogance. To

commemorate his victories, the Viceroy had erected a colossal statue, not

to his monarch, but to himself. To proclaim the royal pardon, he had

seated himself upon a golden throne. Such insolent airs could be ill

forgiven by the absolute King. Too cautious to provoke an open rupture,

he allowed the Governor, after he had done all his work, and more than

all his work, to retire without disgrace, but without a triumph. For the

sins of that administration, master and servant are in equal measure

responsible.

The character of the Duke of Alva, so far as the Netherlands are

concerned, seems almost like a caricature. As a creation of fiction, it

would seem grotesque: yet even that hardy, historical scepticism, which

delights in reversing the judgment of centuries, and in re-establishing

reputations long since degraded to the dust, must find it difficult to

alter this man's position. No historical decision is final; an appeal to

a more remote posterity, founded upon more accurate evidence, is always

valid; but when the verdict has been pronounced upon facts which are

undisputed, and upon testimony from the criminal's lips, there is little

chance of a reversal of the sentence. It is an affectation of

philosophical candor to extenuate vices which are not only avowed, but

claimed as virtues.

[The time is past when it could be said that the cruelty of Alva, or

the enormities of his administration, have been exaggerated by party

violence. Human invention is incapable of outstripping the truth

upon this subject. To attempt the defence of either the man or his

measures at the present day is to convict oneself of an amount of

ignorance or of bigotry against which history and argument are alike

powerless. The publication of the Duke's letters in the

correspondence of Simancas and in the Besancon papers, together with

that compact mass of horror, long before the world under the title

of "Sententien van Alva," in which a portion only of the sentences

of death and banishment pronounced by him during his reign, have

been copied from the official records--these in themselves would be

a sufficient justification of all the charges ever brought by the

most bitter contemporary of Holland or Flanders. If the

investigator should remain sceptical, however, let him examine the

"Registre des Condamnes et Bannia a Cause des Troubles des Pays

Bas," in three, together with the Records of the "Conseil des

Troubles," in forty-three folio volumes, in the Royal Archives at

Brussels. After going through all these chronicles of iniquity, the

most determined historic, doubter will probably throw up the case.]