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MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 5.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855
ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUCHESS MARGARET.
1559-1560 [CHAPTER I.]
Biographical sketch and portrait of Margaret of Parma--The state
council--Berlaymont--Viglius--Sketch of William the Silent--Portrait
of Antony Perrenot, afterwards Cardinal Granvelle--General view of
the political, social and religious condition of the Netherlands--
Habits of the aristocracy--Emulation in extravagance--Pecuniary
embarrassments--Sympathy for the Reformation, steadily increasing
among the people, the true cause of the impending revolt--Measures
of the government.--Edict of 1550 described--Papal Bulls granted to
Philip for increasing the number of Bishops in the Netherlands--
Necessity for retaining the Spanish troops to enforce the policy of
persecution.
Margaret of Parma, newly appointed Regent of the Netherlands, was the
natural daughter of Charles the Fifth, and his eldest born child. Her
mother, of a respectable family called Van der Genst, in Oudenarde, had
been adopted and brought up by the distinguished house of Hoogstraaten.
Peculiar circumstances, not necessary to relate at length, had palliated
the fault to which Margaret owed her imperial origin, and gave the child
almost a legitimate claim upon its father's protection. The claim was
honorably acknowledged. Margaret was in her infancy placed by the
Emperor in the charge of his paternal aunt, Margaret of Savoy, then
Regent of the provinces. Upon the death of that princess, the child was
entrusted to the care of the Emperor's sister, Mary, Queen Dowager of
Hungary, who had succeeded to the government, and who occupied it until
the abdication. The huntress-queen communicated her tastes to her
youthful niece, and Margaret soon outrivalled her instructress. The
ardor with which she pursued the stag, and the courageous horsemanship
which she always displayed, proved her, too, no degenerate descendant of
Mary of Burgundy. Her education for the distinguished position in which
she had somewhat surreptitiously been placed was at least not neglected
in this particular. When, soon after the memorable sack of Rome, the
Pope and the Emperor had been reconciled, and it had been decided that
the Medici family should be elevated upon the ruins of Florentine
liberty, Margaret's hand was conferred in marriage upon the pontiff's
nephew Alexander. The wretched profligate who was thus selected to mate
with the Emperor's eldest born child and to appropriate the fair demesnes
of the Tuscan republic was nominally the offspring of Lorenzo de Medici
by a Moorish slave, although generally reputed a bastard of the Pope
himself. The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp at Naples, where
the Emperor rode at the tournament in the guise of a Moorish warrior.
At Florence splendid festivities had also been held, which were troubled
with omens believed to be highly unfavorable. It hardly needed, however,
preternatural appearances in heaven or on earth to proclaim the marriage
ill-starred which united a child of twelve years with a worn-out
debauchee of twenty-seven. Fortunately for Margaret, the funereal
portents proved true. Her husband, within the first year of their wedded
life, fell a victim to his own profligacy, and was assassinated by his
kinsman, Lorenzino de Medici. Cosmo, his successor in the tyranny of
Florence, was desirous of succeeding to the hand of Margaret, but the
politic Emperor, thinking that he had already done enough to conciliate
that house, was inclined to bind to his interests the family which now
occupied the papal throne. Margaret was accordingly a few years
afterwards united to Ottavio Farnese, nephew of Paul the Third. It was
still her fate to be unequally matched. Having while still a child been
wedded to a man of more than twice her years, she was now, at the age of
twenty, united to an immature youth of thirteen. She conceived so strong
an aversion to her new husband, that it became impossible for them to
live together in peace. Ottavio accordingly went to the wars, and in
1541 accompanied the Emperor in his memorable expedition to Barbary.
Rumors of disaster by battle and tempest reaching Europe before the
results of the expedition were accurately known, reports that the Emperor
had been lost in a storm, and that the young Ottavio had perished with
him, awakened remorse in the bosom of Margaret. It seemed to her that he
had been driven forth by domestic inclemency to fall a victim to the
elements. When, however, the truth became known, and it was ascertained
that her husband, although still living, was lying dangerously ill in the
charge of the Emperor, the repugnance which had been founded upon his
extreme youth changed to passionate fondness. His absence, and his
faithful military attendance upon her father, caused a revulsion in her
feelings, and awakened her admiration. When Ottavio, now created Duke of
Parma and Piacenza, returned to Rome, he was received by his wife with
open arms. Their union was soon blessed with twins, and but for a
certain imperiousness of disposition which Margaret had inherited from
her father, and which she was too apt to exercise even upon her husband,
the marriage would have been sufficiently fortunate.
Various considerations pointed her out to Philip as a suitable person for
the office of Regent, although there seemed some mystery about the
appointment which demanded explanation. It was thought that her birth
would make her acceptable to the people; but perhaps, the secret reason
with Philip was, that she alone of all other candidates would be amenable
to the control of the churchman in whose hand he intended placing the
real administration of the provinces. Moreover, her husband was very
desirous that the citadel of Piacenza, still garrisoned by Spanish
troops, should be surrendered to him. Philip was disposed to conciliate
the Duke, but unwilling to give up the fortress. He felt that Ottavio
would be flattered by the nomination of his wife to so important an
office, and be not too much dissatisfied at finding himself relieved for
a time from her imperious fondness. Her residence in the Netherlands
would guarantee domestic tranquillity to her husband, and peace in Italy
to the King. Margaret would be a hostage for the fidelity of the Duke,
who had, moreover, given his eldest son to Philip to be educated in his
service.
She was about thirty-seven years of age when she arrived in the
Netherlands, with the reputation of possessing high talents, and a proud
and energetic character. She was an enthusiastic Catholic, and had sat
at the feet of Loyola, who had been her confessor and spiritual guide.
She felt a greater horror for heretics than for any other species of
malefactors, and looked up to her father's bloody edicts as if they had
been special revelations from on high. She was most strenuous in her
observance of Roman rites, and was accustomed to wash the feet of twelve
virgins every holy week, and to endow them in marriage afterwards.--Her
acquirements, save that of the art of horsemanship, were not remarkable.
Carefully educated in the Machiavellian and Medicean school of politics,
she was versed in that "dissimulation," to which liberal Anglo-Saxons
give a shorter name, but which formed the main substance of statesmanship
at the court of Charles and Philip. In other respects her accomplishments
were but meagre, and she had little acquaintance with any language but
Italian. Her personal appearance, which was masculine, but not without
a certain grand and imperial fascination, harmonized with the opinion
generally entertained of her character. The famous moustache upon her
upper lips was supposed to indicate authority and virility of purpose,
an impression which was confirmed by the circumstance that she was liable
to severe attacks of gout, a disorder usually considered more appropriate
to the sterner sex.
Such were the previous career and public reputation of the Duchess
Margaret. It remains to be unfolded whether her character and
endowments, as exemplified in her new position, were to justify the
choice of Philip.
The members of the state council, as already observed, were Berlaymont,
Viglius, Arras, Orange, and Egmont.
The first was, likewise, chief of the finance department. Most of the
Catholic writers described him as a noble of loyal and highly honorable
character. Those of the Protestant party, on the contrary, uniformly
denounced him as greedy, avaricious, and extremely sanguinary. That he
was a brave and devoted soldier, a bitter papist, and an inflexible
adherent to the royal cause, has never been disputed. The Baron himself,
with his four courageous and accomplished sons, were ever in the front
ranks to defend the crown against the nation. It must be confessed,
however, that fanatical loyalty loses most of the romance with which
genius and poetry have so often hallowed the sentiment, when the
"legitimate" prince for whom the sword is drawn is not only an alien in
tongue and blood, but filled with undisguised hatred for the land he
claims to rule.
Viglius van Aytta van Zuichem was a learned Frisian, born, according to
some writers, of "boors' degree, but having no inclination for boorish
work". According to other authorities, which the President himself
favored, he was of noble origin; but, whatever his race, it is certain
that whether gentle or simple, it derived its first and only historical
illustration from his remarkable talents and acquirements. These in
early youth were so great as to acquire the commendation of Erasmus.
He had studied in Louvain, Paris, and Padua, had refused the tutorship
Philip when that prince was still a child, and had afterwards filled a
professorship at Ingolstadt. After rejecting several offers of promotion
from the Emperor, he had at last accepted in 1542 a seat in the council
of Mechlin, of which body he had become president in 1545. He had been
one of the peace commissioners to France in 1558, and was now president
of the privy council, a member of the state council, and of the inner and
secret committee of that board, called the Consults. Much odium was
attached to his name for his share in the composition of the famous edict
of 1550. The rough draught was usually attributed to his pen, but he
complained bitterly, in letters written at this time, of injustice done
him in this respect, and maintained that he had endeavored, without
success, to induce the Emperor to mitigate the severity of the edict.
One does not feel very strongly inclined to accept his excuses, however,
when his general opinions on the subject of religion are remembered. He
was most bigoted in precept and practice. Religious liberty he regarded
as the most detestable and baleful of doctrines; heresy he denounced as
the most unpardonable of crimes.
From no man's mouth flowed more bitter or more elegant commonplaces than
from that of the learned president against those blackest of malefactors,
the men who claimed within their own walls the right to worship God
according to their own consciences. For a common person, not learned in
law or divinity, to enter into his closet, to shut the door, and to pray
to Him who seeth in secret, was, in his opinion, to open wide the gate of
destruction for all the land, and to bring in the Father of Evil at once
to fly away with the whole population, body and soul. "If every man,"
said he to Hopper, "is to believe what he likes in his own house, we
shall have hearth gods and tutelar divinities, again, the country will
swarm with a thousand errors and sects, and very few there will be, I
fear, who will allow themselves to be enclosed in the sheepfold of
Christ. I have ever considered this opinion," continued the president,
"the most pernicious of all. They who hold it have a contempt for all
religion, and are neither more nor less than atheists. This vague,
fireside liberty should be by every possible means extirpated; therefore
did Christ institute shepherds to drive his wandering sheep back into the
fold of the true Church; thus only can we guard the lambs against the
ravening wolves, and prevent their being carried away from the flock of
Christ to the flock of Belial. Liberty of religion, or of conscience, as
they call it, ought never to be tolerated."
This was the cant with which Viglius was ever ready to feed not only his
faithful Hopper, but all the world beside. The president was naturally
anxious that the fold of Christ should be entrusted to none but regular
shepherds, for he looked forward to taking one of the most lucrative
crooks into his own hand, when he should retire from his secular career.
It is now necessary to say a few introductory words concerning the man
who, from this time forth, begins to rise upon the history of his country
with daily increasing grandeur and influence. William of Nassau, Prince
of Orange, although still young in years, is already the central
personage about whom the events and the characters of the epoch most
naturally group themselves; destined as he is to become more and more
with each succeeding year the vivifying source of light, strength, and
national life to a whole people.
The Nassau family first emerges into distinct existence in the middle of
the eleventh century. It divides itself almost as soon as known into two
great branches. The elder remained in Germany, ascended the imperial
throne in the thirteenth century in the person of Adolph of Nassau and
gave to the country many electors, bishops, and generals. The younger
and more illustrious branch retained the modest property and petty
sovereignty of Nassau Dillenbourg, but at the same time transplanted
itself to the Netherlands, where it attained at an early period to great
power and large possessions. The ancestors of William, as Dukes of
Gueldres, had begun to exercise sovereignty in the provinces four
centuries before the advent of the house of Burgundy. That overshadowing
family afterwards numbered the Netherland Nassaus among its most stanch
and powerful adherents. Engelbert the Second was distinguished in the
turbulent councils and in the battle-fields of Charles the Bold, and was
afterwards the unwavering supporter of Maximilian, in court and camp.
Dying childless, he was succeeded by his brother John, whose two sons,
Henry and William, of Nassau, divided the great inheritance after their
father's death, William succeeded to the German estates, became a convert
to Protestantism, and introduced the Reformation into his dominions.
Henry, the eldest son, received the family possessions and titles in
Luxembourg, Brabant, Flanders and Holland, and distinguished himself as
much as his uncle Engelbert, in the service of the Burgundo-Austrian
house. The confidential friend of Charles the Fifth, whose governor he
had been in that Emperor's boyhood, he was ever his most efficient and
reliable adherent. It was he whose influence placed the imperial crown
upon the head of Charles. In 1515 he espoused Claudia de Chalons, sister
of Prince Philibert of Orange, "in order," as he wrote to his father,
"to be obedient to his imperial Majesty, to please the King of France,
and more particularly for the sake of his own honor and profit."
His son Rene de Nassau-Chalons succeeded Philibert. The little
principality of Orange, so pleasantly situated between Provence and
Dauphiny, but in such dangerous proximity to the seat of the "Babylonian
captivity" of the popes at Avignon, thus passed to the family of Nassau.
The title was of high antiquity. Already in the reign of Charlemagne,
Guillaume au Court-Nez, or "William with the Short Nose," had defended
the little--town of Orange against the assaults of the Saracens. The
interest and authority acquired in the demesnes thus preserved by his
valor became extensive, and in process of time hereditary in his race.
The principality became an absolute and free sovereignty, and had already
descended, in defiance of the Salic law, through the three distinct
families of Orange, Baux, and Chalons.
In 1544, Prince Rene died at the Emperor's feet in the trenches of Saint
Dizier. Having no legitimate children, he left all his titles and
estates to his cousin-german, William of Nassau, son of his father's
brother William, who thus at the age of eleven years became William the
Ninth of Orange. For this child, whom the future was to summon to such
high destinies and such heroic sacrifices, the past and present seemed to
have gathered riches and power together from many sources. He was the
descendant of the Othos, the Engelberts, and the Henries, of the
Netherlands, the representative of the Philiberts and the Renes of
France; the chief of a house, humbler in resources and position in
Germany, but still of high rank, and which had already done good service
to humanity by being among the first to embrace the great principles of
the Reformation.
His father, younger brother of the Emperor's friend Henry, was called
William the Rich. He was, however, only rich in children. Of these he
had five sons and seven daughters by his wife Juliana of Stolberg. She
was a person of most exemplary character and unaffected piety. She
instilled into the minds of all her children the elements of that
devotional sentiment which was her own striking characteristic, and it
was destined that the seed sown early should increase to an abundant
harvest. Nothing can be more tender or more touching than the letters
which still exist from her hand, written to her illustrious sons in hours
of anxiety or anguish, and to the last, recommending to them with as much
earnest simplicity as if they were still little children at her knee, to
rely always in the midst of the trials and dangers which were to beset
their paths through life, upon the great hand of God. Among the mothers
of great men, Juliana of Stolberg deserves a foremost place, and it is no
slight eulogy that she was worthy to have been the mother of William of
Orange and of Lewis, Adolphus, Henry, and John of Nassau.
At the age of eleven years, William having thus unexpectedly succeeded to
such great possessions, was sent from his father's roof to be educated in
Brussels. No destiny seemed to lie before the young prince but an
education at the Emperor's court, to be followed by military adventures,
embassies, viceroyalties, and a life of luxury and magnificence. At a
very early age he came, accordingly, as a page into the Emperor's family.
Charles recognized, with his customary quickness, the remarkable
character of the boy. At fifteen, William was the intimate, almost
confidential friend of the Emperor, who prided himself, above all other
gifts, on his power of reading and of using men. The youth was so
constant an attendant upon his imperial chief that even when interviews
with the highest personages, and upon the gravest affairs, were taking
place, Charles would never suffer him to be considered superfluous or
intrusive. There seemed to be no secrets which the Emperor held too high
for the comprehension or discretion of his page. His perceptive and
reflective faculties, naturally of remarkable keenness and depth, thus
acquired a precocious and extraordinary development. He was brought up
behind the curtain of that great stage where the world's dramas were
daily enacted. The machinery and the masks which produced the grand
delusions of history had no deceptions for him. Carefully to observe
men's actions, and silently to ponder upon their motives, was the
favorite occupation of the Prince during his apprenticeship at court.
As he advanced to man's estate, he was selected by the Emperor for the
highest duties. Charles, whose only merit, so far as the provinces were
concerned, was in having been born in Ghent, and that by an ignoble
accident, was glad to employ this representative of so many great
Netherland houses, in the defence of the land. Before the Prince was
twenty-one he was appointed general-in-chief of the army on the French
frontier, in the absence of the Duke of Savoy. The post was coveted by
many most distinguished soldiers: the Counts of Buren, Bossu, Lalaing,
Aremberg, Meghem, and particularly by Count Egmont; yet Charles showed
his extraordinary confidence in the Prince of Orange, by selecting him
for the station, although he had hardly reached maturity, and was
moreover absent in France. The young Prince acquitted himself of his
high command in a manner which justified his appointment.
It was the Prince's shoulder upon which the Emperor leaned at the
abdication; the Prince's hand which bore the imperial insignia of the
discrowned monarch to Ferdinand, at Augsburg. With these duties his
relations with Charles were ended, and those with Philip begun. He was
with the army during the hostilities which were soon after resumed in
Picardy; he was the secret negotiator of the preliminary arrangement with
France, soon afterwards confirmed by the triumphant treaty of April,
1559. He had conducted these initiatory conferences with the Constable
Montmorency and Marshal de Saint Andre with great sagacity, although
hardly a man in years, and by so doing he had laid Philip under deep
obligations. The King was so inexpressibly anxious for peace that he
would have been capable of conducting a treaty upon almost any terms.
He assured the Prince that "the greatest service he could render him in
this world was to make peace, and that he desired to have it at any price
what ever, so eager was he to return to Spain." To the envoy Suriano,
Philip had held the same language. "Oh, Ambassador," said he, "I wish
peace on any terms, and if the King of France had not sued for it, I
would have begged for it myself."
With such impatience on the part of the sovereign, it certainly
manifested diplomatic abilities of a high character in the Prince,
that the treaty negotiated by him amounted to a capitulation by France.
He was one of the hostages selected by Henry for the due execution of the
treaty, and while in France made that remarkable discovery which was to
color his life. While hunting with the King in the forest of Vincennes,
the Prince and Henry found themselves alone together, and separated from
the rest of the company. The French monarch's mind was full of the great
scheme which had just secretly been formed by Philip and himself, to
extirpate Protestantism by a general extirpation of Protestants. Philip
had been most anxious to conclude the public treaty with France, that he
might be the sooner able to negotiate that secret convention by which he
and his Most Christian Majesty were solemnly to bind themselves to
massacre all the converts to the new religion in France and the
Netherlands. This conspiracy of the two Kings against their subjects was
the matter nearest the hearts of both. The Duke of Alva, a fellow
hostage with William of Orange, was the plenipotentiary to conduct this
more important arrangement. The French monarch, somewhat imprudently
imagining that the Prince was also a party to the plot, opened the whole
subject to him without reserve. He complained of the constantly
increasing numbers of sectaries in his kingdom, and protested that his
conscience would never be easy, nor his state secure until his realm
should be delivered of "that accursed vermin." A civil revolution, under
pretext of a religious reformation, was his constant apprehension,
particularly since so many notable personages in the realm, and even
princes of the blood, were already tainted with heresy. Nevertheless,
with the favor of heaven, and the assistance of his son and brother
Philip, he hoped soon to be master of the rebels. The King then
proceeded, with cynical minuteness, to lay before his discreet companion
the particulars of the royal plot, and the manner in which all heretics,
whether high or humble, were to be discovered and massacred at the most
convenient season. For the furtherance of the scheme in the Netherlands,
it was understood that the Spanish regiments would be exceedingly
efficient. The Prince, although horror-struck and indignant at the royal
revelations, held his peace, and kept his countenance. The King was not
aware that, in opening this delicate negotiation to Alva's colleague and
Philip's plenipotentiary, he had given a warning of inestimable value to
the man who had been born to resist the machinations of Philip and of
Alva. William of Orange earned the surname of "the Silent," from the
manner in which he received these communications of Henry without
revealing to the monarch, by word or look, the enormous blunder which he
had committed. His purpose was fixed from that hour. A few days
afterwards he obtained permission to visit the Netherlands, where he
took measures to excite, with all his influence, the strongest and most
general opposition to the continued presence of the Spanish troops, of
which forces, touch against his will, he had been, in conjunction with
Egmont, appointed chief. He already felt, in his own language, that "an
inquisition for the Netherlands had been, resolved upon more cruel than
that of Spain; since it would need but to look askance at an image to be
cast into the flames." Although having as yet no spark of religious
sympathy for the reformers, he could not, he said, "but feel compassion
for so many virtuous men and women thus devoted to massacre," and he
determined to save them if he could!' At the departure of Philip he had
received instructions, both patent and secret, for his guidance as
stadholder of Holland, Friesland, and Utrecht. He was ordered "most
expressly to correct and extirpate the sects reprobated by our Holy
Mother Church; to execute the edicts of his Imperial Majesty, renewed by
the King, with absolute rigor. He was to see that the judges carried out
the edicts, without infraction, alteration, or moderation, since they
were there to enforce, not to make or to discuss the law." In his secret
instructions he was informed that the execution of the edicts was to be
with all rigor, and without any respect of persons. He was also reminded
that, whereas some persons had imagined the severity of the law "to be
only intended against Anabaptists, on the contrary, the edicts were to be
enforced on Lutherans and all other sectaries without distinction."
Moreover, in one of his last interviews with Philip, the King had given
him the names of several "excellent persons suspected of the new
religion," and had commanded him to have them put to death. This,
however, he not only omitted to do, but on the contrary gave them
warning, so that they might effect their escape, "thinking it more
necessary to obey God than man."
William of Orange, at the departure of the King for Spain, was in his
twenty-seventh year. He was a widower; his first wife, Anne of Egmont,
having died in 1558, after seven years of wedlock. This lady, to whom
he had been united when they were both eighteen years of age, was the
daughter of the celebrated general, Count de Buren, and the greatest
heiress in the Netherlands. William had thus been faithful to the family
traditions, and had increased his possessions by a wealthy alliance.
He had two children, Philip and Mary. The marriage had been more
amicable than princely marriages arranged for convenience often prove.
The letters of the Prince to his wife indicate tenderness and
contentment. At the same time he was accused, at a later period, of
"having murdered her with a dagger." The ridiculous tale was not even
credited by those who reported it, but it is worth mentioning, as a proof
that no calumny was too senseless to be invented concerning the man whose
character was from that hour forth to be the mark of slander, and whose
whole life was to be its signal, although often unavailing, refutation.
Yet we are not to regard William of Orange, thus on the threshold of his
great career, by the light diffused from a somewhat later period. In no
historical character more remarkably than in his is the law of constant
development and progress illustrated. At twenty-six he is not the "pater
patriae," the great man struggling upward and onward against a host of
enemies and obstacles almost beyond human strength, and along the dark
and dangerous path leading through conflict, privation, and ceaseless
labor to no repose but death. On the contrary, his foot was hardly on
the first step of that difficult ascent which was to rise before him all
his lifetime. He was still among the primrose paths. He was rich,
powerful, of sovereign rank. He had only the germs within him of what
was thereafter to expand into moral and intellectual greatness. He had
small sympathy for the religious reformation, of which he was to be one
of the most distinguished champions. He was a Catholic, nominally, and
in outward observance. With doctrines he troubled himself but little.
He had given orders to enforce conformity to the ancient Church, not with
bloodshed, yet with comparative strictness, in his principality of
Orange. Beyond the compliance with rites and forms, thought
indispensable in those days to a personage of such high degree, he did
not occupy himself with theology. He was a Catholic, as Egmont and Horn,
Berlaymont and Mansfeld, Montigny and even Brederode, were Catholic. It
was only tanners, dyers and apostate priests who were Protestants at that
day in the Netherlands. His determination to protect a multitude of his
harmless inferiors from horrible deaths did not proceed from sympathy
with their religious sentiments, but merely from a generous and manly
detestation of murder. He carefully averted his mind from sacred
matters. If indeed the seed implanted by his pious parents were really
the germ of his future conversion to Protestantism, it must be confessed
that it lay dormant a long time. But his mind was in other pursuits.
He was disposed for an easy, joyous, luxurious, princely life. Banquets,
masquerades, tournaments, the chase, interspersed with the routine of
official duties, civil and military, seemed likely to fill out his life.
His hospitality, like his fortune, was almost regal. While the King and
the foreign envoys were still in the Netherlands, his house, the splendid
Nassau palace of Brussels, was ever open. He entertained for the
monarch, who was, or who imagined himself to be, too poor to discharge
his own duties in this respect, but he entertained at his own expense.
This splendid household was still continued. Twenty-four noblemen and
eighteen pages of gentle birth officiated regularly in his family. His
establishment was on so extensive a scale that upon one day twenty-eight
master cooks were dismissed, for the purpose of diminishing the family
expenses, and there was hardly a princely house in Germany which did not
send cooks to learn their business in so magnificent a kitchen. The
reputation of his table remained undiminished for years. We find at
a later period, that Philip, in the course of one of the nominal
reconciliations which took place several times between the monarch and
William of Orange, wrote that, his head cook being dead, he begged the
Prince to "make him a present of his chief cook, Master Herman, who was
understood to be very skilful."
In this hospitable mansion, the feasting continued night and day. From
early morning till noon, the breakfast-tables were spread with wines and
luxurious viands in constant succession, to all comers and at every
moment.--The dinner and supper were daily banquets for a multitude of
guests. The highest nobles were not those alone who were entertained.
Men of lower degree were welcomed with a charming hospitality which made
them feel themselves at their ease. Contemporaries of all parties unite
in eulogizing the winning address and gentle manners of the Prince.
"Never," says a most bitter Catholic historian, "did an arrogant or
indiscreet word fall from his lips. He, upon no occasion, manifested
anger to his servants, however much they might be in fault, but contented
himself with admonishing them graciously, without menace or insult.
He had a gentle and agreeable tongue, with which he could turn all the
gentlemen at court any way he liked. He was beloved and honored by the
whole community." His manner was graceful, familiar, caressing, and yet
dignified. He had the good breeding which comes from the heart, refined
into an inexpressible charm from his constant intercourse, almost from
his cradle, with mankind of all ranks.
It may be supposed that this train of living was attended with expense.
Moreover, he had various other establishments in town and country;
besides his almost royal residence in Brussels. He was ardently fond of
the chase, particularly of the knightly sport of falconry. In the
country he "consoled himself by taking every day a heron in the clouds."
His falconers alone cost him annually fifteen hundred florins, after he
had reduced their expenses to the lowest possible point. He was much in
debt, even at this early period and with his princely fortune. "We come
of a race," he wrote carelessly to his brother Louis, "who are somewhat
bad managers in our young days, but when we grow older, we do better,
like our late father: 'sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in
secula seculorum'. My greatest difficulty," he adds, "as usual, is on
account of the falconers."
His debts already amounted, according to Granvelle's statement, to
800,000 or 900,000 florins. He had embarrassed himself, not only through
his splendid extravagance, by which all the world about him were made to
partake of his wealth, but by accepting the high offices to which he had
been appointed. When general-in-chief on the frontier, his salary was
three hundred florins monthly; "not enough," as he said, "to pay the
servants in his tent," his necessary expenses being twenty-five hundred
florins, as appears by a letter to his wife. His embassy to carry the
crown to Ferdinand, and his subsequent residence as a hostage for the
treaty in Paris, were also very onerous, and he received no salary;
according to the economical system in this respect pursued by Charles and
Philip. In these two embassies or missions alone, together with the
entertainments offered by him to the court and to foreigners, after the
peace at Brussels, the Prince spent, according to his own estimate,
1,500,000 florins. He was, however, although deeply, not desperately
involved, and had already taken active measures to regulate and reduce
his establishment. His revenues were vast, both in his own right and in
that of his deceased wife. He had large claims upon the royal treasury
for service and expenditure. He had besides ample sums to receive from
the ransoms of the prisoners of St. Quentin and Gravelines, having served
in both campaigns. The amount to be received by individuals from this
source may be estimated from the fact that Count Horn, by no means one
of the most favored in the victorious armies, had received from Leonor
d'Orleans, Due de Loggieville, a ransom of eighty thousand crowns. The
sum due, if payment were enforced, from the prisoners assigned to Egmont,
Orange, and others, must have been very large. Granvelle estimated the
whole amount at two millions; adding, characteristically, "that this kind
of speculation was a practice" which our good old fathers, lovers of
virtue, would not have found laudable. In this the churchman was right,
but he might have added that the "lovers of virtue" would have found it
as little "laudable" for ecclesiastics to dispose of the sacred offices
in their gift, for carpets, tapestry, and annual payments of certain
percentages upon the cure of souls. If the profits respectively gained
by military and clerical speculators in that day should be compared, the
disadvantage would hardly be found to lie with those of the long robe.
Such, then, at the beginning of 1560, was William of Orange; a generous,
stately, magnificent, powerful grandee. As a military commander, he had
acquitted himself very creditably of highly important functions at an
early age. Nevertheless it was the opinion of many persons, that he was
of a timid temperament. He was even accused of having manifested an
unseemly panic at Philippeville, and of having only been restrained by
the expostulations of his officers, from abandoning both that fortress
and Charlemont to Admiral Coligny, who had made his appearance in the
neighborhood, merely at the head of a reconnoitring party. If the story
were true, it would be chiefly important as indicating that the Prince of
Orange was one of the many historical characters, originally of an
excitable and even timorous physical organization, whom moral courage and
a strong will have afterwards converted into dauntless heroes. Certain
it is that he was destined to confront open danger in every form, that
his path was to lead through perpetual ambush, yet that his cheerful
confidence and tranquil courage were to become not only unquestionable
but proverbial. It may be safely asserted, however, that the story was
an invention to be classed with those fictions which made him the
murderer of his first wife, a common conspirator against Philip's crown
and person, and a crafty malefactor in general, without a single virtue.
It must be remembered that even the terrible Alva, who lived in harness
almost from the cradle to the grave, was, so late as at this period,
censured for timidity, and had been accused in youth of flat cowardice.
He despised the insinuation, which for him had no meaning. There is no
doubt too that caution was a predominant characteristic of the Prince.
It was one of the chief sources of his greatness. At that period,
perhaps at any period, he would have been incapable of such brilliant and
dashing exploits as had made the name of Egmont so famous. It had even
become a proverb, "the counsel of Orange, the execution of Egmont," yet
we shall have occasion to see how far this physical promptness which had
been so felicitous upon the battle-field was likely to avail the hero of
St. Quentin in the great political combat which was approaching.
As to the talents of the Prince, there was no difference of opinion. His
enemies never contested the subtlety and breadth of his intellect, his
adroitness and capacity in conducting state affairs, his knowledge of
human nature, and the profoundness of his views. In many respects it
must be confessed that his surname of The Silent, like many similar
appellations, was a misnomer. William of Orange was neither "silent" nor
"taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will be forever associated
with the name of a man who, in private, was the most affable, cheerful,
and delightful of companions, and who on a thousand great public
occasions was to prove himself, both by pen and by speech, the most
eloquent man of his age. His mental accomplishments were considerable:
He had studied history with attention, and he spoke and wrote with
facility Latin, French, German, Flemish, and Spanish.
The man, however, in whose hands the administration of the Netherlands
was in reality placed, was Anthony Perrenot, then Bishop of Arras, soon
to be known by the more celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle. He was
the chief of the Consults, or secret council of three, by whose
deliberations the Duchess Regent was to be governed. His father,
Nicholas Perrenot, of an obscure family in Burgundy, had been long the
favorite minister and man of business to the Emperor Charles. Anthony,
the eldest of thirteen children, was born in 1517. He was early
distinguished for his talents. He studied at Dole, Padua, Paris, and
Louvain. At, the age of twenty he spoke seven languages with perfect
facility, while his acquaintance with civil and ecclesiastical laws was
considered prodigious. At the age of twenty-three he became a canon of
Liege Cathedral. The necessary eight quarters of gentility produced upon
that occasion have accordingly been displayed by his panegyrists in
triumphant refutation of that theory which gave him a blacksmith for his
grandfather. At the same period, although he had not reached the
requisite age, the rich bishopric of Arras had already been prepared
for him by his father's care. Three years afterwards, in 1543, he
distinguished himself by a most learned and brilliant harangue before
the Council of Trent, by which display he so much charmed the Emperor,
that he created him councillor of state. A few years afterwards he
rendered the unscrupulous Charles still more valuable proofs of devotion
and dexterity by the part he played in the memorable imprisonment of the
Landgrave of Hesse and the Saxon Dukes. He was thereafter constantly
employed in embassies and other offices of trust and profit.
There was no doubt as to his profound and varied learning, nor as to his
natural quickness and dexterity. He was ready witted, smooth and fluent
of tongue, fertile in expedients, courageous, resolute. He thoroughly
understood the art of managing men, particularly his superiors. He knew
how to govern under the appearance of obeying. He possessed exquisite
tact in appreciating the characters of those far above him in rank and
beneath him in intellect. He could accommodate himself with great
readiness to the idiosyncrasies of sovereigns. He was a chameleon to
the hand which fed him. In his intercourse with the King, he colored
himself, as it were, with the King's character. He was not himself, but
Philip; not the sullen, hesitating, confused Philip, however, but Philip
endowed with eloquence, readiness, facility. The King ever found himself
anticipated with the most delicate obsequiousness, beheld his struggling
ideas change into winged words without ceasing to be his own. No
flattery could be more adroit. The bishop accommodated himself to
the King's epistolary habits. The silver-tongued and ready debater
substituted protocols for conversation, in deference to a monarch who
could not speak. He corresponded with Philip, with Margaret of Parma,
with every one. He wrote folios to the Duchess when they were in the
same palace. He would write letters forty pages long to the King, and
send off another courier on the same day with two or three additional
despatches of identical date. Such prolixity enchanted the King, whose
greediness for business epistles was insatiable. The painstaking monarch
toiled, pen in hand, after his wonderful minister in vain. Philip was
only fit to be the bishop's clerk; yet he imagined himself to be the
directing and governing power. He scrawled apostilles in the margins to
prove that he had read with attention, and persuaded himself that he
suggested when he scarcely even comprehended. The bishop gave advice and
issued instructions when he seemed to be only receiving them. He was the
substance while he affected to be the shadow. These tactics were
comparatively easy and likely to be triumphant, so long as he had only to
deal with inferior intellects like those of Philip and Margaret. When he
should be matched against political genius and lofty character combined,
it was possible that his resources might not prove so all-sufficient.
His political principles were sharply defined in reality, but smoothed
over by a conventional and decorous benevolence of language, which
deceived vulgar minds. He was a strict absolutist. His deference to
arbitrary power was profound and slavish. God and "the master," as he
always called Philip, he professed to serve with equal humility. "It
seems to me," said he, in a letter of this epoch, "that I shall never be
able to fulfil the obligation of slave which I owe to your majesty, to
whom I am bound by so firm a chain;--at any rate, I shall never fail to
struggle for that end with sincerity."
As a matter of course, he was a firm opponent of the national rights of
the Netherlands, however artfully he disguised the sharp sword of violent
absolutism under a garland of flourishing phraseology. He had
strenuously warned Philip against assembling the States-general before
his departure for the sake of asking them for supplies. He earnestly
deprecated allowing the constitutional authorities any control over the
expenditures of the government, and averred that this practice under the
Regent Mary had been the cause of endless trouble. It may easily be
supposed that other rights were as little to his taste as the claim to
vote the subsidies, a privilege which was in reality indisputable. Men
who stood forth in defence of the provincial constitutions were, in his
opinion, mere demagogues and hypocrites; their only motive being to curry
favor with the populace. Yet these charters were, after all,
sufficiently limited. The natural rights of man were topics which had
never been broached. Man had only natural wrongs. None ventured to
doubt that sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed of God. The rights of
the Netherlands were special, not general; plural, not singular;
liberties, not liberty; "privileges," not maxims. They were practical,
not theoretical; historical, not philosophical. Still, such as they
were, they were facts, acquisitions. They had been purchased by the
blood and toil of brave ancestors; they amounted--however open to
criticism upon broad humanitarian grounds, of which few at that day had
ever dreamed--to a solid, substantial dyke against the arbitrary power
which was ever chafing and fretting to destroy its barriers. No men
were more subtle or more diligent in corroding the foundation of these
bulwarks than the disciples of Granvelle. Yet one would have thought
it possible to tolerate an amount of practical freedom so different
from the wild, social speculations which in later days, have made both
tyrants and reasonable lovers of our race tremble with apprehension.
The Netherlanders claimed, mainly, the right to vote the money which was
demanded in such enormous profusion from their painfully-acquired wealth;
they were also unwilling to be burned alive if they objected to
transubstantiation. Granvelle was most distinctly of an opposite opinion
upon both topics. He strenuously deprecated the interference of the
states with the subsidies, and it was by his advice that the remorseless
edict of 1550, the Emperor's ordinance of blood and fire, was re-enacted,
as the very first measure of Philip's reign. Such were his sentiments as
to national and popular rights by representation. For the people itself
--"that vile and mischievous animal called the people"--as he expressed
it, he entertained a cheerful contempt.
His aptitude for managing men was very great; his capacity for affairs
incontestable; but it must be always understood as the capacity for the
affairs of absolutism. He was a clever, scheming politician, an adroit
manager; it remained to be seen whether he had a claim to the character
of a statesman. His industry was enormous. He could write fifty letters
a day with his own hand. He could dictate to half a dozen amanuenses at
once, on as many different subjects, in as many different languages, and
send them all away exhausted.