Maastricht, an important strategical position in the present province of
Limburg. Maastricht contained thirty-four thousand inhabitants, and
there was a garrison of a thousand soldiers within its walls. On the
12th of March 1579 Parma laid siege to the town with an army of twenty
to twenty-five thousand men, and completely enclosed it. Two or three
thousand peasants of both sexes, whose homes had been ravaged, managed
to get in before it was surrounded, and they were of great service in
the defence. The resistance was desperate, men and women fighting side
by side whenever breaches were made in the walls and the soldiers tried
to enter, as also in excavating passages by which the Spanish mines were
destroyed. The carnage on both sides was frightful. On one occasion five
hundred soldiers were hurled into the air and killed by a single
explosion of a mine. An attempt to relieve the town was made by the
prince of Orange, but it failed, for it was impossible to raise an army
strong enough for the purpose. At last, on the 29th of June, Maastricht
was taken, and then an indiscriminate massacre followed. On the first
day four thousand men and women were butchered, and their dead bodies
were flung into the streets. Three days the massacre continued, and then
the few survivors fled from their old homes and tried to find a refuge
in the country. Maastricht was depopulated, and after everything of
value had been removed, it was repeopled by strangers.
Possession of Mechlin was obtained by Parma through the treachery of its
governor De Bours, who introduced Spanish troops secretly, but six
months later it was recovered by surprise by Van der Tympel, governor of
Brussels.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
Another serious disaster befel the patriot cause in the far north. In
November 1579 Joris Lalain, count of Renneberg, stadholder of Groningen
and its dependency Drenthe, sold himself to Parma for office and a sum
of money. During the night of the 3rd of March 1580 he caused all the
leading men of the patriot party in the town of Groningen to be arrested
in their beds and committed to prison, and before dawn on the 4th his
adherents were in possession of the town. The States tried to recover
the place, and a small army laid siege to it, but Parma sent a stronger
force to the north, by which the patriots were almost annihilated. Then
for some time there was a series of petty operations in the Frisian
districts, in which nothing decisive was effected on either side, but
much property was destroyed, and much misery was caused.
In 1580 Philippe II added Portugal to his dominions. At the time there
was no thought that by this union the Portuguese possessions in the
eastern seas would be laid open to conquest by the Netherlands, but that
was the result. Before the close of the century the provinces within the
Union of Utrecht were destined to become the foremost sea power of the
world, and then the addition of Portugal to their foes was simply the
addition of a vast amount of valuable spoil for them to gather. Meantime
much that is interesting and instructive was to transpire in the
provinces.
On the 15th of March 1580 Philippe, by advice of Cardinal Granvelle,
issued a ban declaring the prince of Orange an outlaw, and offering
twenty-five thousand crowns of gold, pardon for any crime however great,
and a title of nobility to anyone who should assassinate him. He was
regarded as the very soul of the struggle for liberty of conscience and
political freedom, as indeed he was, and if he could be got out of the
way, the king believed that the fourteen still defiant provinces would
return like Artois, Hainaut, and Lille to the Catholic church and to
perfect obedience.
[Sidenote: Election of the Duke of Anjou as Sovereign.]
This was the final grievance which led to the absolute renunciation of
the sovereignty of Philippe by the disaffected provinces. Hitherto,
though they were fighting against him, all acts of government were
carried out in his name except in Holland and Zeeland, but on the 26th
of July 1581 their estates, assembled at the Hague, formally and
solemnly abjured him. His seals were broken, and every one was absolved
from oaths of allegiance taken to him.
But there was no intention on the part of the people to change the form
of their government, what they desired was to preserve their ancient
charters, not to destroy them. The bond of union between the provinces
was that one individual had been sovereign of them all, and now that
Philippe had been abjured they must choose another in his stead, or
break into fragments. The general choice fell upon the prince of Orange,
but he emphatically refused to accept the position, because he would not
have it said that personal ambition had influenced his conduct. Holland
and Zeeland, however, would have no other, and after much hesitation he
consented to become their head temporarily. The archduke Matthias, who
was of no account, laid down his office as governor-general, and shortly
afterwards retired to Germany.
By the influence of Orange the worthless duke of Anjou was chosen
sovereign of the other twelve provinces. He was a brother of the king of
France, who promised to assist him with money and men to defend the
country against Spain. It was believed that he was about to wed Queen
Elizabeth of England, and she certainly did all that she could to favour
his election by the estates. He agreed to all the conditions required of
him, though they bound him to constitutional government as closely as
the king of England is bound to-day. He would have agreed to anything at
all, in fact, but his promise, or his signature, or his oath was of no
value whatever. Fortunately for England his insignificant person and his
repulsive features prevented the great queen from espousing him.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
He was in England when the final arrangements were made, but on the 10th
of February 1582 he arrived at Flushing with a brilliant train of
English and French noblemen. The queen had requested that he might be
treated with the same respect as herself, and so he was received with
all possible honour. On the 17th of the same month he reached Antwerp,
and was inaugurated with much ceremony as sovereign duke of Brabant. In
July he was installed at Bruges as sovereign count of Flanders, and at
the same time the estates of Gelderland formally accepted him as duke of
that province, and those of Friesland pledged him obedience as their
lord. He did not visit the other provinces in order to be installed with
ceremony, but took up his residence at Antwerp, and was generally
accepted as sovereign. To support him he had a strong French army, which
was supposed to be a movable force, while troops raised by the States
were stationed as garrisons in the towns.
The prince of Parma meantime was far from idle. Reinforcements of
Spanish and Italian troops were constantly arriving, until at the end of
August 1582 he was at the head of an army fully sixty thousand strong
and largely composed of veteran soldiers. Using the obedient provinces
of Artois and Hainaut as a base of operations, he sent out detachments
to surprise cities that were not thoroughly on their guard, and as he
had bribed many of the nobles, he was always well-informed on this
point. So he got possession among various places of Oudenarde in
Flanders on the 5th of July 1582, and a little later of Steenwyk in
Friesland, of Eindhoven in Brabant, and of Nieuwpoort in Flanders.
The duke of Anjou had sworn to maintain the constitutions of the
provinces and freedom of conscience, but the brother of the king of
France and the son of Catherine of Medici could not long bear restraint.
He wished to make himself an absolute sovereign and to suppress
Protestantism, and without reflecting what the consequence must be of
attempting to oppose Parma and the people of the Netherlands at the same
time, on the 15th of January 1583 by his order detachments of French
troops took possession of Dunkirk, Ostend, Dixmuyde, Denremonde, Alost,
and Vilvoorde, and ejected the Netherlands garrisons. A similar attempt
upon Bruges failed, as the city authorities closed the gates in time
against the French soldiers.
[Sidenote: Treachery of Anjou.]
The duke resided in Antwerp, and at Borgerhout close by there was a camp
of French troops. On the 17th of January at mid-day he rode through the
gate leading to Borgerhout, when his bodyguard attacked the burgher
watch, killed every man of them, and took possession of the archway and
the drawbridge. Six hundred cavalry and three thousand infantry from
Borgerhout then poured into the city, where they divided, and some began
to plunder. But the burghers sprang quickly to arms, the leading
sections of the French were overwhelmed, and those behind commenced to
retreat in a panic. The burghers pressed on, killed over two thousand of
the French, and made prisoners of all the others. Fewer than a hundred
burghers lost their lives on this occasion.
Anjou fled with the remainder of his troops from Borgerhout, but a dyke
was cut in his passage, and another thousand soldiers were drowned. He
succeeded, however, in escaping to a place of safety, where he collected
various scattered detachments about him, and formed a new camp. There he
entered into correspondence with Parma on one side and with the States
on the other, trying to make terms with each.
The position was one of extreme peril. Owing to the jealousy between the
provinces and the cities and to the rivalry between Catholics and
Protestants, they could not stand alone. To pursue the miscreant Anjou
any further would be to incur the hostility of France, and that would
most certainly bring ruin upon the country. Queen Elizabeth wrote
strongly urging a reconciliation with him, and that was also in the
opinion of the prince of Orange the wisest course to adopt. So an
arrangement was made with him, by which on the 28th of March 1583 he
surrendered the cities that he had seized, and the States released their
French prisoners and restored to him the plate and furniture he had left
behind in Antwerp. He was to wait at Dunkirk until some plan could be
devised by which he might be restored to the dignity he had forfeited,
but on the 28th of June he left to visit Paris, and never returned. He
died in France on the 10th of June 1584.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The treachery of Anjou was imitated by more than one of the Netherlands
nobles. On the 22nd of September 1583 the town of Zutphen in Gelderland
was betrayed to the Spaniards by Count Van den Berg, and on the 20th of
May 1584 Bruges in Flanders was given up to Parma by the prince of
Chimay, who was governor of that important city. Then Ypres in Flanders
was besieged and forced to surrender, and as in Bruges all Protestants
were expelled. Most of these took refuge in the northern provinces, so
that the line of separation between the two opposing religions was
constantly becoming more clearly defined.
At this critical time in the history of the provinces the great man
whose name will ever be associated with all that is best and noblest in
their struggle for liberty was taken from them by the pistol of an
assassin. The ban of Philippe II had at last produced the effect for
which it was designed. There had been many attempts to murder the prince
of Orange and secure the king’s reward, but hitherto all had failed. The
most serious of these took place on the 18th of March 1582, when he had
been wounded, at first it was believed mortally, but he had recovered,
though his wife died from the shock. And now, on the 10th of July 1584,
in his own house at Delft he was shot by a fanatic Burgundian Catholic
named Balthazar Gérard, who under pretence of being a Calvinist in
distress had obtained admittance to his service. The Father of his
Country, as he was deservedly called, expired almost immediately. The
murderer was seized, and died under the most excruciating tortures that
the ingenuity of man could devise, but he remained callous to the last.
The sorrowing people laid the corpse of him they had such good reason to
mourn for in the new church at Delft, and raised a stately tomb over it,
where few Dutch speaking South Africans who visit Europe fail to pay
their respects to the memory of the illustrious dead. Thus William of
Orange passed away.
[Sidenote: Murder of the Prince of Orange.]
The real murderer, Philippe the Second of Spain, rewarded the parents of
his tool with patents of nobility and with three seignories or rich
estates in Franche Comté, taken from the confiscated property of his
victim.
For a short time the country was paralysed by the death of its great
leader, but soon in the northern provinces a general resolution was
taken to prosecute the war more vigorously than ever. It now became
almost purely a strife of religion. The prince of Orange had favoured
toleration, but when he was removed the enmity between the Catholics and
the Protestants showed itself so strong that a united country was no
longer possible. It was not recognised at the time, but it can now be
seen, that the position of the dividing line was the object striven for,
and consequently the central provinces, Flanders, Brabant, Mechlin,
Gelderland, and Limburg, where the Teutons and Celts were intermixed,
were to be the principal scene of operations.
The states-general, exercising supreme power, appointed an executive
council to raise forces and carry on the war until a sovereign should be
chosen. This council consisted of eighteen members, four representing
Holland, three Zeeland, three Friesland, three Brabant, two Utrecht,
two Flanders, and one Mechlin. As its president the states-general
appointed Maurits of Nassau, second son of the murdered prince of
Orange, his eldest son Philip having long been a prisoner in Spain. It
was a clumsy instrument for carrying on a war, with a president only
seventeen years of age, and depending for funds upon the states-general,
that it was required to convoke at least twice a year; but it was the
only possible machinery that could be created at the time. The States’
movable army consisted of three thousand infantry and two thousand five
hundred cavalry, the burghers being relied upon for the defence of the
towns.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
On the other side was the astute and active Parma, with a field force of
over eighteen thousand veterans, besides garrisons in all the towns he
had taken. He was provided with gold to bribe the corrupt nobles, and he
was skilful in using it. The disparity between the two parties was so
great that it was not surprising that towns of mixed population should
waver when plausible overtures were made to them, rather than risk being
attacked and treated as Maastricht had been. Dendermonde was the first
to give way. On the 17th of August 1584 it was reconciled to the Spanish
king, and lost for ever to the patriot cause. The fatal example was
followed by Vilvoorde on the 7th of September, and on the 17th of the
same month by the all-important city of Ghent. The terms of
reconciliation were that the municipal institutions were to be
respected, and that the Protestants were to be allowed two years within
which either to conform to the Catholic worship or to dispose of their
property and go into exile. This was at least much better than to be
burnt or buried alive. Emigration to Holland and Zeeland followed on a
very large scale, and before the expiration of the two years Ghent in
particular lost nearly half of its former inhabitants. Thus
Protestantism gained in the north and Catholicism in the south of the
country.
The eyes of the great powers of Europe were now more intently fixed upon
the Netherlands than ever before, but it was difficult to assist them.
Neither Germany, France, nor England was willing to enter openly into
war with the powerful Spanish empire in order to preserve constitutional
government and Calvinistic doctrine. The states actually offered the
sovereignty of the provinces to the contemptible Henry III, who sat upon
the throne of France, if he would pledge his word to maintain their
charters and their religion, and he declined to accept the offer, though
he had every reason to be hostile to Spain. Elizabeth of England
favoured a joint protectorate of the Netherlands by France and herself,
but was naturally unwilling to see them absorbed by her neighbour, and
was not inclined to assist them alone. And so in their time of greatest
need they had only themselves to depend upon.
[Sidenote: Designs of the Prince of Parma.]
It was fortunate for the northern provinces that Parma was not receiving
reinforcements, or the whole country would soon have been overrun.
Philippe was closely engaged in fomenting civil war in France and in
planning the conquest of England, subjects which occupied his mind and
drew upon his purse to such an extent that he neglected the Netherlands
and failed to furnish money to maintain and pay even the limited number
of soldiers he had there. He was the real head of the so-called holy
league, that under the nominal leadership of the duke of Guise was in
arms to establish absolutism and extirpate Protestantism in Europe.
Parma was left mainly to his own resources, but he possessed military
and diplomatic ability of the highest order, and could do with his
slender army what ordinary generals could not have done with forces
twice as strong.
If he could obtain possession of Brussels and Antwerp the backbone of
the rebellion would be broken, he believed, and in the autumn of 1584 he
commenced operations to that end. His plan was to construct a fortified
bridge over the Schelde below Antwerp, which would prevent succour
being sent up the river from Zeeland, and thus the cities would be
starved out, for the open country was in his hands. There was one way by
which this plan could be frustrated, and that was by cutting the great
dykes and letting the sea roll over the land, but the patriots hesitated
to destroy so much property. When at last they tried to do it they were
too late, for Parma had fortified the dykes and held them with an iron
hand. During the winter of 1584-5 famine was so severe in Brussels that
people died of hunger, and on the 13th of March 1585 the city
capitulated. Mechlin held out until the 19th of July, when it too fell.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The siege of Antwerp was one of the most celebrated events in the
history of the Netherlands. The city was then much less populous than it
had formerly been, but it still contained ninety thousand inhabitants,
the most turbulent though the most energetic and industrious in Europe.
It was the most important commercial city in the country. If there had
been union of counsel and obedience to a single authority, Antwerp need
not have feared anything that Parma with his eleven or twelve thousand
soldiers could do, but all was discord and confusion within the walls.
And without was one strong clear-headed man, with a genius for war, in
command of soldiers devoted to him, a man who could construct a strong
fortified bridge seven hundred and thirty-two metres in length over a
deep tidal river in the winter season and in the face of a far superior
number of combatants, a feat deemed by most people utterly impossible
until it was accomplished. The sufferings of Antwerp were less than
those of Leyden, but on the 17th of August 1585 the city capitulated.
Life and property were to be respected, a ransom of only £33,000 was to
be paid, no other than the Roman Catholic worship was to be publicly
observed, but Protestants were allowed two years in which to dispose of
their property and leave.
Immediately a stream of emigration set out towards the north. Amsterdam
especially benefited by refugee merchants and artisans from Antwerp
settling there, and very shortly became the first commercial city of
Europe. Middelburg too and many other towns of Holland and Zeeland
received a large access of population from the fugitive Protestants of
Brabant and Flanders. The old cities immediately lost their former
importance, Antwerp sank into a small place, the citadel was rebuilt and
a foreign garrison was stationed in it, but beyond the soldiers and the
members of the Company of Jesus who were stationed there as instructors
of the young, no new residents were attracted to take the place of the
Protestants who moved away.
[Sidenote: Treaty with Queen Elizabeth.]
During the siege of Antwerp the states-general were making every effort
in their power to obtain assistance from England. Queen Elizabeth
realised the necessity of supporting the Netherlands against Philippe
II, who was her enemy as well as theirs, but she was unwilling to give
more than was absolutely necessary. She had to be on her guard against
other enemies than Spain, and she could not afford to spend money
freely. The states offered her the sovereignty of the provinces, which
she declined, and the negotiations for an alliance were so protracted
that when an agreement was finally arrived at, it was too late to save
Antwerp.
On the 10th of August 1585 a treaty between the queen and the states was
signed, by the terms of which Elizabeth was to furnish and pay during
the war five thousand infantry and one thousand cavalry to assist in the
defence of the provinces,[25] and was to receive the town of Flushing
and the fortress of Rammekens in Zeeland and the town of Brill and two
fortresses in Holland as pledges for the payment of all expenses when
the war was over. She was to provide these places with suitable
garrisons, but was not to interfere in any way with the civil government
or the customs and privileges of the inhabitants.
[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]
The earl of Leicester was appointed lieutenant-general of the English
forces, and with a brilliant staff of nobles landed at Flushing on the
19th of December 1585. The chivalrous and virtuous Sir Philip Sidney was
placed in command of the English garrison of Flushing.
The states-general, realising that under the existing form of government
it was impossible to act with vigour against the enemy, appointed
Leicester governor and captain-general of the united provinces, and on
the 4th of February 1586 he was inaugurated at the Hague in that
capacity. On the 6th a proclamation was issued by the states,[26] giving
him “supreme command and absolute authority over all the affairs of war
by sea and land, ... the administration and direction of government and
justice over all the said united provinces, cities, and associated
members, ... and special power to levy, receive, and administer all the
contributions granted and appointed for carrying on the war.” The queen,
however, was incensed by his acceptance of such extensive power, and he
did not afterwards receive her support as freely as before. In
particular the English soldiers in the Netherlands were left without pay
or proper maintenance, and it might have gone hard with them if Parma’s
forces had not been in the same condition. Philippe, who was hastening
on the preparation of the great armada which he intended for the
invasion and conquest of England, was trying to gain time and conceal
his operations by pretending to enter into negotiations for peace, and
so nothing decisive was done on either side.
What was effected during the year 1586 was more advantageous to the
Spaniards than to the Dutch and English. In January of this year Parma
laid siege to the town of Grave, on the Brabant bank of the Maas, and
though in April the garrison was strengthened and a great quantity of
provisions thrown in by the patriots, on the 7th of June the place was
surrendered by its weak-minded commandant. On the same day Megen and
Batenburg were given up to Parma, and on the 28th of June Venlo
capitulated, when only the towns of Geertruidenberg, Heusden, Bergen op
Zoom, and Willemstad were left in Brabant to the patriot cause. All the
territory south of the lower Schelde had now been recovered by the
Spaniards except a little slip in the north of Flanders and along the
seacoast. This little slip was slightly enlarged, however, by the
seizure on the 17th of July of the fortified town of Axel by a combined
English and Dutch expedition.
[Sidenote: Death of Sir Philip Sidney.]
In Gelderland Nymegen on the Waal and Zutphen on the Yssel with some
villages in the neighbourhood of each were held by the Spaniards, and
Leicester resolved to attempt to get possession of them. On the 12th of
September after a short siege he occupied Doesburg, eight kilometres
from Zutphen, and then proceeded to beleaguer the city. Parma, with six
thousand five hundred soldiers, immediately marched to its relief, and
on the 2nd of October succeeded in forcing a way in with a great convoy
of provisions. In the action when endeavouring to prevent him from doing
so, the chivalrous Sir Philip Sidney received a wound from which he
died. Parma, after strengthening the garrison, marched to disperse some
German troops in the service of the States, and Leicester, having placed
large garrisons in Deventer, Doesburg, and a very strong fort close to
Zutphen, retired to the Hague. On the 24th of November he left the
Netherlands to return to England, but did not resign his office, thus
causing great confusion.