Three of light horse were placed in advance for the first assault--the
centre commanded by himself, the two wings by Count Pontenals and Henrico
Henriquez. The black hussars of Lazarus Schwendi and the Flemish
gendarmes came next. Behind these was the infantry, divided into three
nations, Spanish, German, and Flemish, and respectively commanded by
Carvajal, Monchausen, and Bignicourt. Egmont, having characteristically
selected the post of danger in the very front of battle for himself,
could no longer restrain his impatience. "The foe is ours already," he
shouted; "follow me, all who love their fatherland:" With that he set
spurs to his horse, and having his own regiment well in hand, dashed upon
the enemy. The Gascons received the charge with coolness, and under
cover of a murderous fire from the artillery in front, which mowed down
the foremost ranks of their assailants-sustained the whole weight of the
first onset without flinching. Egmont's horse was shot under him at the
commencement of the action. Mounting another, he again cheered his
cavalry to the attack. The Gascons still maintained an unwavering front,
and fought with characteristic ferocity. The courage of despair inflamed
the French, the hope of a brilliant and conclusive victory excited the
Spaniards and Flemings. It was a wild, hand to hand conflict--general
and soldier, cavalier and pikeman, lancer and musketeer, mingled together
in one dark, confused, and struggling mass, foot to foot, breast to
breast, horse to horse-a fierce, tumultuous battle on the sands, worthy
the fitful pencil of the national painter, Wouvermans. For a long time
it was doubtful on which side victory was to incline, but at last ten
English vessels unexpectedly appeared in the offing, and ranging up soon
afterwards as close to the share as was possible, opened their fire upon
the still unbroken lines of the French. The ships were too distant, the
danger of injuring friend as well as foe too imminent, to allow of their
exerting any important influence upon the result. The spirit of the
enemy was broken, however, by this attack upon their seaward side, which
they had thought impregnable. At the same time, too, a detachment of
German cavalry which had been directed by Egmont to make their way under
the downs to the southward, now succeeded in turning their left flank.
Egmont, profiting by their confusion, charged them again with redoubled
vigor. The fate of the day was decided. The French cavalry wavered,
broke their ranks, and in their flight carried dismay throughout the
whole army. The rout was total; horse and foot; French, Gascon, and
German fled from the field together. Fifteen hundred fell in the action,
as many more were driven into the sea, while great numbers were torn to
pieces by the exasperated peasants, who now eagerly washed out their
recent injuries in the blood of the dispersed, wandering, and wounded
soldiers. The army of De Thermes was totally destroyed, and with it, the
last hope of France for an honorable and equal negotiation. She was now
at Philip's feet, so that this brilliant cavalry action, although it has
been surpassed in importance by many others, in respect to the numbers of
the combatants and the principles involved in the contest, was still, in
regard to the extent both of its immediate and its permanent results, one
of the most decisive and striking which have ever been fought. The
French army engaged was annihilated. Marshal de Thermes, with a wound in
the head, Senarpont, Annibault, Villefon, Morvilliers, Chanlis, and many
others of high rank were prisoners. The French monarch had not much
heart to set about the organization of another army; a task which he was
now compelled to undertake. He was soon obliged to make the best terms
which he could, and to consent to a treaty which was one of the most
ruinous in the archives of France.
The Marshal de Thermes was severely censured for having remained so long
at Dunkerk and in its neighborhood. He was condemned still more loudly
for not having at least effected his escape beyond Gravelines, during the
night which preceded the contest. With regard to the last charge,
however, it may well be doubted whether any nocturnal attempt would have
been likely to escape the vigilance of Egmont. With regard to his delay
at Dunkerk, it was asserted that he had been instructed to await in that
place the junction with the Due de Guise, which had been previously
arranged. But for the criminal and, then, inexplicable languor which
characterized that commander's movements, after the capture of
Thionville, the honor of France might still have been saved.
Whatever might have been the faults of De Thermes or of Guise, there
could be little doubt as to the merit of Egmont. Thus within eleven
months of the battle of Saint Quentin, had the Dutch hero gained another
victory so decisive as to settle the fate of the war, and to elevate his
sovereign to a position from which he might dictate the terms of a
triumphant peace. The opening scenes of Philip's reign were rendered as
brilliant as the proudest days of the Emperor's career, while the
provinces were enraptured with the prospect of early peace. To whom,
then, was the sacred debt of national and royal gratitude due but to
Lamoral of Egmont? His countrymen gladly recognized the claim. He
became the idol of the army; the familiar hero of ballad and story; the
mirror of chivalry, and the god of popular worship. Throughout the
Netherlands he was hailed as the right hand of the fatherland, the
saviour of Flanders from devastation and outrage, the protector of the
nation, the pillar of the throne.
The victor gained many friends by his victory, and one enemy. The
bitterness of that foe was likely, in the future, to outweigh all the
plaudits of his friends. The Duke of Alva had strongly advised against
giving battle to De Thermes. He depreciated the triumph after it had
been gained, by reflections upon the consequences which would have
flowed, had a defeat been suffered instead. He even held this language
to Egmont himself after his return to Brussels. The conqueror, flushed
with his glory, was not inclined to digest the criticism, nor what he
considered the venomous detraction of the Duke. More vain and arrogant
than ever, he treated his powerful Spanish rival with insolence, and
answered his observations with angry sarcasms, even in the presence of
the King. Alva was not likely to forget the altercation, nor to forgive
the triumph.
There passed, naturally, much bitter censure and retort on both sides
at court, between the friends and adherents of Egmont and those who
sustained the party of his adversary. The battle of Gravelines was
fought over daily, amid increasing violence and recrimination, between
Spaniard and Fleming, and the old international hatred flamed more
fiercely than ever. Alva continued to censure the foolhardiness which
had risked so valuable an army on a single blow. Egmont's friends
replied that it was easy for foreigners, who had nothing at risk in the
country, to look on while the fields of the Netherlands were laid waste,
and the homes and hearths of an industrious population made desolate, by
a brutal and rapacious soldiery. They who dwelt in the Provinces would
be ever grateful to their preserver for the result. They had no eyes for
the picture which the Spanish party painted of an imaginary triumph of De
Thermos and its effects. However the envious might cavil, now that the
blow had been struck, the popular heart remained warm as ever, and
refused to throw down the idol which had so recently been set up.
1558-1559 [CHAPTER III.]
Secret negotiations for peace--Two fresh armies assembled, but
inactive--Negotiations at Cercamp--Death of Mary Tudor--Treaty of
Cateau Cambresis--Death of Henry II.--Policy of Catharine de Medici
--Revelations by Henry II. to the Prince of Orange--Funeral of
Charles V. in Brussels--Universal joy in the Netherlands at the
restoration of peace--Organization of the government by Philip, and
preparations for his departure--Appointment of Margaret of Parma as
Regent of the Netherlands--Three councils--The consulta--The
stadholders of the different provinces--Dissatisfaction caused by
the foreign troops--Assembly of the Estates at Ghent to receive the
parting instructions and farewell of the King--Speech of the Bishop
of Arras--Request for three millions--Fierce denunciation of heresy
on the part of Philip--Strenuous enforcement of the edicts
commanded--Reply by the States of Arthois--Unexpected conditions--
Rage of the King--Similar conduct on the part of the other
provinces--Remonstrance in the name of States--General against the
foreign soldiery--Formal reply on the part of the crown--Departure
of the King from the Netherlands--Autos--da--fe in Spain.
The battle of Gravelines had decided the question. The intrigues of the
two Cardinals at Peronne having been sustained by Egmont's victory, all
parties were ready for a peace. King Henry was weary of the losing game
which he had so long been playing, Philip was anxious to relieve himself
from his false position, and to concentrate his whole mind and the
strength of his kingdom upon his great enemy the Netherland heresy, while
the Duke of Savoy felt that the time had at last arrived when an adroit
diplomacy might stand him in stead, and place him in the enjoyment of
those rights which the sword had taken from him, and which his own sword
had done so much towards winning back. The sovereigns were inclined to
peace, and as there had never been a national principle or instinct or
interest involved in the dispute, it was very certain that peace would be
popular every where, upon whatever terms it might be concluded.
Montmorency and the Prince of Orange were respectively empowered to open
secret negotiations. The Constable entered upon the task with alacrity,
because he felt that every day of his captivity was alike prejudicial to
his own welfare and the interests of his country.--The Guises, who had
quarrelled with the Duchess de Valentinois (Diane de Poitiers), were not
yet powerful enough to resist the influence of the mistress; while,
rather to baffle them than from any loftier reasons, that interest was
exerted in behalf of immediate peace. The Cardinal de Lorraine had by no
means forgotten the eloquent arguments used by the Bishop of Arras; but
his brother, the Due de Guise, may be supposed to have desired some
little opportunity of redeeming the credit of the kingdom, and to have
delayed the negotiations until his valor could secure a less inglorious
termination to the war.
A fresh army had, in fact, been collected under his command, and was
already organized at Pierrepoint. At the same time, Philip had assembled
a large force, consisting of thirty thousand foot and fifteen thousand
cavalry, with which he had himself taken the field, encamping towards the
middle of August upon the banks of the river Anthies, near the border of
Picardy. King Henry, on the other hand, had already arrived in the camp
at Pierrepoint, and had reviewed as imposing an army as had ever been at
the disposal of a French monarch. When drawn up in battle array it
covered a league and a half of ground, while three hours were required to
make its circuit on horseback. All this martial display was only for
effect. The two kings, at the head of their great armies, stood looking
at each other while the negotiations for, peace were proceeding. An
unimportant skirmish or two at the out-posts, unattended with loss of
life, were the only military results of these great preparations. Early
in the autumn, all the troops were disbanded, while the commissioners of
both crowns met in open congress at the abbey of Cercamp, near Cambray,
by the middle of October. The envoys on the part of Philip were the
Prince of Orange, the Duke of Alva, the Bishop of Arras, Ruy Gomez de
Silva, the president Viglius; on that of the French monarch, the
Constable, the Marshal de Saint Andre, the Cardinal de Lorraine, the
Bishop of Orleans, and Claude l'Aubespine.
There were also envoys sent by the Queen of England, but as the dispute
concerning Calais was found to hamper the negotiations at Cercamp, the
English question was left to be settled by another congress, and was kept
entirely separate from the arrangements concluded between France and
Spain.
The death of Queen Mary, on the 17th November, caused a temporary
suspension of the proceedings. After the widower, however, had made a
fruitless effort to obtain the hand of her successor, and had been
unequivocally repulsed, the commissioners again met in February, 1559,
at Cateau Cambresis. The English difficulty was now arranged by separate
commissioners, and on the third of April a treaty between France and
Spain was concluded.
By this important convention, both kings bound themselves to maintain the
Catholic worship inviolate by all means in their power, and agreed that
an oecumenical council should at once assemble, to compose the religious
differences, and to extinguish the increasing heresy in both kingdoms.
Furthermore, it was arranged that the conquests made by each country
during the preceding eight years should be restored. Thus all the gains
of Francis and Henry were annulled by a single word, and the Duke of
Savoy converted, by a dash of the pen, from a landless soldier of fortune
into a sovereign again. He was to receive back all his estates, and was
moreover to marry Henry's sister Margaret, with a dowry of three hundred
thousand crowns. Philip, on the other hand, now a second time a widower,
was to espouse Henry's daughter Isabella, already betrothed to the Infant
Don Carlos, and to receive with her a dowry of four hundred thousand
crowns. The restitutions were to be commenced by Henry, and to be
completed within three months. Philip was to restore his conquests in
the course of a month afterwards.
Most of the powers of Europe were included by both parties in this
treaty: the Pope, the Emperor, all the Electors, the republics of Venice,
Genoa and Switzerland, the kingdoms of England, Scotland, Poland,
Denmark, Sweden; the duchies of Ferrara, Savoy and Parma, besides other
inferior principalities. Nearly all Christendom, in short, was embraced
in this most amicable compact, as if Philip were determined that,
henceforth and forever, Calvinists and Mahometans, Turks and Flemings,
should be his only enemies.
The King of France was to select four hostages from among Philip's
subjects, to accompany him to Paris as pledges for the execution of all
the terms of the treaty. The royal choice fell upon the Prince of
Orange, the Duke of Alva, the Duke of Aerschot, and the Count of Egmont.
Such was the treaty of Cateau Cambresis. Thus was a termination put to
a war between France and Spain, which had been so wantonly undertaken.
Marshal Monluc wrote that a treaty so disgraceful and disastrous had
never before been ratified by a French monarch. It would have been
difficult to point to any one more unfortunate upon her previous annals;
if any treaty can be called unfortunate, by which justice is done and
wrongs repaired, even under coercion. The accumulated plunder of years,
which was now disgorged by France, was equal in value to one third of
that kingdom. One hundred and ninety-eight fortified towns were
surrendered, making, with other places of greater or less importance, a
total estimated by some writers as high as four hundred. The principal
gainer was the Duke of Savoy, who, after so many years of knight-
errantry, had regained his duchy, and found himself the brother-in-law of
his ancient enemy.
The well-known tragedy by which the solemnities of this pacification were
abruptly concluded in Paris, bore with it an impressive moral. The
monarch who, in violation of his plighted word and against the interests
of his nation and the world, had entered precipitately into a causeless
war, now lost his life in fictitious combat at the celebration of peace.
On the tenth of July, Henry the Second died of the wound inflicted by
Montgomery in the tournament held eleven days before. Of this weak and
worthless prince, all that even his flatterers could favorably urge was
his great fondness for war, as if a sanguinary propensity, even when
unaccompanied by a spark of military talent, were of itself a virtue.
Yet, with his death the kingdom fell even into more pernicious hands, and
the fate of Christendom grew darker than ever. The dynasty of Diane de
Poitiers was succeeded by that of Catharine de Medici; the courtesan gave
place to the dowager; and France during the long and miserable period in
which she lay bleeding in the grasp of the Italian she-wolf and her
litter of cowardly and sanguinary princes--might even lament the days of
Henry and his Diana. Charles the Ninth, Henry the Third, Francis of
Alencon, last of the Valois race--how large a portion of the fearful debt
which has not yet been discharged by half a century of revolution and
massacre was of their accumulation.
The Duchess of Valentinois had quarrelled latterly with the house of
Guise, and was disposed to favor Montmorency. The King, who was but a
tool in her hands, might possibly have been induced, had he lived, to
regard Coligny and his friends with less aversion. This is, however,
extremely problematical, for it was Henry the Second who had concluded
that memorable arrangement with his royal brother of Spain, to arrange
for the Huguenot chiefs throughout both realms, a "Sicilian Vespers,"
upon the first favorable occasion. His death and the subsequent policy
of the Queen-Regent deferred the execution of the great scheme till
fourteen years later. Henry had lived long enough, however, after the
conclusion of the secret agreement to reveal it to one whose life was to
be employed in thwarting this foul conspiracy of monarchs against their
subjects. William of Orange, then a hostage for the execution of the
treaty of Cateau Cambresis, was the man with whom the King had the
unfortunate conception to confer on the subject of the plot. The Prince,
who had already gained the esteem of Charles the Fifth by his habitual
discretion, knew how to profit by the intelligence and to bide his time;
but his hostility to the policy of the French and Spanish courts was
perhaps dated from that hour.
Pending the peace negotiations, Philip had been called upon to mourn for
his wife and father. He did not affect grief for the death of Mary
Tudor, but he honored the Emperor's departure with stately obsequies at
Brussels. The ceremonies lasted two days (the 29th and 30th December,
1558). In the grand and elaborate procession which swept through the
streets upon the first day, the most conspicuous object was a ship
floating apparently upon the waves, and drawn by a band of Tritons who
disported at the bows. The masts, shrouds, and sails of the vessel were
black, it was covered with heraldic achievements, banners and emblematic
mementos of the Emperor's various expeditions, while the flags of Turks
and Moors trailed from her sides in the waves below. Three allegorical
personages composed the crew. Hope, "all clothyd in brown, with anker in
hand," stood at the prow; Faith, with sacramental chalice and red cross,
clad in white garment, with her face nailed "with white tiffany," sat on
a "stool of estate" before the mizen-mast; while Charity "in red, holding
in her hand a burning heart," was at the helm to navigate the
vessel. Hope, Faith, and Love were thought the most appropriate symbols
for the man who had invented the edicts, introduced the inquisition, and
whose last words, inscribed by a hand already trembling with death, had
adjured his son, by his love, allegiance, and hope of salvation, to deal
to all heretics the extreme rigor of the law, "without respect of persons
and without regard to any plea in their favor."
The rest of the procession, in which marched the Duke of Alva, the Prince
of Orange, and other great personages, carrying the sword, the globe, the
sceptre, and the "crown imperial," contained no emblems or imagery
worthy of being recorded. The next day the King, dressed in mourning and
attended by a solemn train of high officers and nobles, went again to the
church. A contemporary letter mentions a somewhat singular incident as
forming the concluding part of the ceremony. "And the service being
done," wrote Sir Richard Clough to Sir Thomas Gresham, "there went a
nobleman into the herse (so far as I codde understande, it was the Prince
of Orange), who, standing before the herse, struck with his hand upon the
chest and sayd, 'He is ded.' Then standing styli awhile, he sayd, 'He
shall remayn ded.' And 'then resting awhile, he struck again and sayd,
'He is ded, and there is another rysen up in his place greater than ever
he was.' Whereupon the Kynge's hoode was taken off and the Kynge went
home without his hoode."
If the mourning for the dead Emperor was but a mummery and a masquerade,
there was, however, heartiness and sincerity in the rejoicing which now
burst forth like a sudden illumination throughout the Netherlands, upon
the advent of peace. All was joy in the provinces, but at Antwerp, the
metropolis of the land, the enthusiasm was unbounded. Nine days were
devoted to festivities. Bells rang their merriest peals, artillery
thundered, beacons blazed, the splendid cathedral spire flamed nightly
with three hundred burning cresaets, the city was strewn with flowers and
decorated with triumphal arches, the Guilds of Rhetoric amazed the world
with their gorgeous processions, glittering dresses and bombastic
versification, the burghers all, from highest to humblest, were feasted
and made merry, wine flowed in the streets and oxen were roasted whole,
prizes on poles were climbed for, pigs were hunted blindfold, men and
women raced in sacks, and in short, for nine days long there was one
universal and spontaneous demonstration of hilarity in Antwerp and
throughout the provinces.
But with this merry humor of his subjects, the sovereign had but little
sympathy. There was nothing in his character or purposes which owed
affinity with any mood of this jocund and energetic people. Philip had
not made peace with all the world that the Netherlanders might climb on
poles or ring bells, or strew flowers in his path for a little holiday
time, and then return to their industrious avocations again. He had made
peace with all the world that he might be free to combat heresy; and this
arch enemy had taken up its strong hold in the provinces. The treaty of
Cateau Cambresis left him at liberty to devote himself to that great
enterprise. He had never loved the Netherlands, a residence in these
constitutional provinces was extremely irksome to him, and he was
therefore anxious to return to Spain. From the depths of his cabinet he
felt that he should be able to direct the enterprise he was resolved
upon, and that his presence in the Netherlands would be superfluous and
disagreeable.