provinces during his residence at Rome, now expressed himself with
exultation. He had predicted, with cold malice, the immediate results
of the campaign, and was sanguine enough to believe the contest over,
and the Prince for ever crushed. In his letters to Philip he had taken
due notice of the compliments paid to him by Orange in his Justification,
in his Declaration, and in his letter to the Emperor. He had declined to
make any answer to the charges, in order to enrage the Prince the more.
He had expressed the opinion, however, that this publication of writings
was not the business of brave soldiers, but of cowards. He made the same
reflection upon the alleged intrigues by Orange to procure an embassy on
his own behalf from the Emperor to Philip--a mission which was sure to
end in smoke, while it would cost the Prince all credit, not only in
Germany but the Netherlands. He felt sure, he said, of the results of
the impending campaign. The Duke of Alva was a man upon whose
administrative prudence and military skill his sovereign could implicitly
rely, nor was there a person in the ranks of the rebels capable of,
conducting an enterprise of such moment. Least of all had the Prince of
Orange sufficient brains for carrying on such weighty affairs, according
to the opinion which he had formed of him during their long intercourse
in former days.
When the campaign had been decided, and the Prince had again become an
exile, Granvelle observed that it was now proved how incompetent he and
all his companions were to contend in military skill with the Duke of
Alva. With a cold sneer at motives which he assumed, as a matter of
course, to be purely selfish, he said that the Prince had not taken the
proper road to recover his property, and that he would now be much
embarrassed to satisfy his creditors. Thus must those ever fall, he
moralized, who would fly higher than they ought; adding, that henceforth
the Prince would have enough to do in taking care of madam his wife, if
she did not change soon in humor and character.
Meantime the Duke of Alva, having despatched from Cateau Cambresis a
brief account of the victorious termination of the campaign, returned in
triumph to Brussels. He had certainly amply vindicated his claim to be
considered the first warrior of the age. By his lieutenants he had
summarily and rapidly destroyed two of the armies sent against him; he
had annihilated in person the third, by a brilliantly successful battle,
in which he had lost seven men, and his enemies seven thousand; and he
had now, by consummate strategy, foiled the fourth and last under the
idolized champion of the Netherlands, and this so decisively that,
without losing a man, he had destroyed eight thousand rebels, and
scattered to the four winds the remaining twenty thousand. Such signal
results might well make even a meeker nature proud. Such vast and
fortunate efforts to fix for ever an impregnable military tyranny upon a
constitutional country, might cause a more modest despot to exult. It
was not wonderful that the haughty, and now apparently omnipotent Alva,
should almost assume the god. On his return to Brussels he instituted a
succession of triumphant festivals. The people were called upon to
rejoice and to be exceeding glad, to strew flowers in his path, to sing
Hosannas in his praise who came to them covered with the blood of those
who had striven in their defence. The holiday was duly called forth;
houses, where funeral hatchments for murdered inmates had been
perpetually suspended, were decked with garlands; the bells, which had
hardly once omitted their daily knell for the victims of an incredible
cruelty, now rang their merriest peals; and in the very square where so
lately Egmont and Horn, besides many other less distinguished martyrs,
had suffered an ignominious death, a gay tournament was held, day after
day, with all the insolent pomp which could make the exhibition most
galling.
But even these demonstrations of hilarity were not sufficient. The
conqueror and tamer of the Netherlands felt that a more personal and
palpable deification was necessary for his pride. When Germanicus had
achieved his last triumph over the ancient freedom of those generous
races whose descendants, but lately in possession of a better organized
liberty, Alva had been sent by the second and the worse Tiberius to
insult and to crush, the valiant but modest Roman erected his trophy upon
the plains of Idistavisus. "The army of Tiberius Caesar having subdued
the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe, dedicate this monument to
Mars, to Jupiter, and to Augustus." So ran the inscription of
Germanicus, without a word of allusion to his own name. The Duke of
Alva, on his return from the battle-fields of Brabant and Friesland,
reared a colossal statue of himself, and upon its pedestal caused these
lines to be engraved: "To Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva,
Governor of the Netherlands under Philip the Second, for having
extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion, secured
justice, established peace; to the King's most faithful minister this
monument is erected."
[Bor, iv. 257, 258. Meteren, 61. De Thou, v. 471-473, who saw it
after it was overthrown, and who was "as much struck by the beauty
of the work as by the insane pride of him who ordered it to be
made."]
So pompous a eulogy, even if truthful and merited, would be sufficiently
inflated upon a tombstone raised to a dead chieftain by his bereaved
admirers. What shall we say of such false and fulsome tribute, not to a
god, not to the memory of departed greatness, but to a living, mortal
man, and offered not by his adorers but by himself? Certainly, self-
worship never went farther than in this remarkable monument, erected in
Alva's honor, by Alva's hands. The statue was colossal, and was placed
in the citadel of Antwerp. Its bronze was furnished by the cannon
captured at Jemmingen. It represented the Duke trampling upon a
prostrate figure with two heads, four arms, and one body. The two
heads were interpreted by some to represent Egmont and Horn, by others,
the two Nassaus, William and Louis. Others saw in them an allegorical
presentment of the nobles and commons of the Netherlands, or perhaps an
impersonation of the Compromise and the Request. Besides the chief
inscription on the pedestal, were sculptured various bas-reliefs; and the
spectator, whose admiration for the Governor-general was not satiated
with the colossal statue itself, was at liberty to find a fresh,
personification of the hero, either in a torch-bearing angel or a gentle
shepherd. The work, which had considerable esthetic merit, was executed
by an artist named Jacob Jongeling. It remained to astonish and disgust
the Netherlanders until it was thrown down and demolished by Alva's
successor, Requesens.
It has already been observed that many princes of the Empire had, at
first warmly and afterwards, as the storm darkened around him, with less
earnestness, encouraged the efforts of Orange. They had, both privately
and officially, urged the subject upon the attention of the Emperor, and
had solicited his intercession with Philip. It was not an interposition
to save the Prince from chastisement, however the artful pen of Granvelle
might distort the facts. It was an address in behalf of religious
liberty for the Netherlands, made by those who had achieved it in their
own persons, and who were at last enjoying immunity from persecution.
It was an appeal which they who made it were bound to make, for the
Netherland commissioners had assisted at the consultations by which the
Peace of Passau had been wrung from the reluctant hand of Charles.
These applications, however, to the Emperor, and through him to the King
of Spain, had been, as we have seen, accompanied by perpetual advice to
the Prince of Orange, that he should "sit still." The Emperor had
espoused his cause with apparent frankness, so far as friendly mediation
went, but in the meantime had peremptorily commanded him to refrain from
levying war upon Alva, an injunction which the Prince had as peremptorily
declined to obey. The Emperor had even sent especial envoys to the Duke
and to the Prince, to induce them to lay down their arms, but without
effect. Orange knew which course was the more generous to his oppressed
country; to take up arms, now that hope had been converted into despair
by the furious tyranny of Alva, or to "sit still" and await the result of
the protocols about to be exchanged between king and kaiser. His arms
had been unsuccessful indeed, but had he attended the issue of this
sluggish diplomacy, it would have been even worse for the cause of
freedom. The sympathy of his best friends, at first fervent then
lukewarm, had, as disasters thickened around him, grown at last stone-
cold. From the grave, too, of Queen Isabella arose the most importunate
phantom in his path. The King of Spain was a widower again, and the
Emperor among his sixteen children had more than one marriageable
daughter. To the titles of "beloved cousin and brother-in-law," with
which Philip had always been greeted in the Imperial proclamations, the
nearer and dearer one of son-in-law was prospectively added.
The ties of wedlock were sacred in the traditions of the Habsburg house,
but still the intervention was nominally made. As early as August, 1568,
the Emperor's minister at Madrid had addressed a memorial to the King.
He had spoken in warm and strong language of the fate of Egmont and Horn,
and had reminded Philip that the executions which were constantly taking
place in the provinces were steadily advancing the Prince of Orange's
cause. On the 22nd September, 1568, the six electors had addressed a
formal memorial to the Emperor. They thanked him for his previous
interposition in favor of the Netherlands, painted in lively colors the
cruelty of Alva, and denounced the unheard-of rigor with which he had
massacred, not only many illustrious seigniors, but people of every
degree. Notwithstanding the repeated assurances given by the King to the
contrary, they reminded the Emperor, that the inquisition, as well as the
Council of Trent, had now been established in the Netherlands in full
vigor. They maintained that the provinces had been excluded from the
Augsburg religious peace, to which their claim was perfect. Nether
Germany was entitled to the same privileges as Upper Germany. They
begged the Emperor to make manifest his sentiments and their own. It
was fitting that his Catholic Majesty should be aware that the princes
of the Empire were united for the conservation of fatherland and of
tranquillity. To this end they placed in the Emperor's hands their
estates, their fortunes, and their lives.
Such was the language of that important appeal to the Emperor in behalf
of oppressed millions in the Netherlands, an appeal which Granvelle had
coldly characterized as an intrigue contrived by Orange to bring about
his own restoration to favor!
The Emperor, in answer, assured the electoral envoys that he had taken
the affair to heart, and had resolved to despatch his own brother, the
Archduke Charles, on a special mission to Spain.
Accordingly, on the 21st October, 1568, the Emperor presented his brother
with an ample letter of instructions. He was to recal to Philip's memory
the frequent exhortations made by the Emperor concerning the policy
pursued in the Netherlands. He was to mention the urgent interpellations
made to him by the electors and princes of the Empire in their recent
embassy. He was to state that the Emperor had recently deputed
commissioners to the Prince of Orange and the Duke of Alva, in order
to bring about, if possible, a suspension of arms. He was to represent
that the great number of men raised by the Prince of Orange in Germany,
showed the powerful support which he had found in the country. Under
such circumstances he was to show that it had been impossible for the
Emperor to decree the ban against him, as the Duke of Alva had demanded.
The Archduke was to request the King's consent to the reconciliation of
Orange, on honorable conditions. He was to demand the substitution of
clemency in for severity, and to insist on the recall of the foreign
soldiery from the Netherlands.
Furnished with this very warm and stringent letter, the Archduke arrived
in Madrid on the 10th December, 1568. A few days later he presented the
King with a copy of the instructions; those brave words upon which the
Prince of Orange was expected to rely instead of his own brave heart and
the stout arms of his followers. Philip having examined the letter,
expressed his astonishment that such propositions should be made to him,
and by the agency, too, of such a personage as the Archduke. He had
already addressed a letter to the Emperor, expressing his dissatisfaction
at the step now taken. He had been disturbed at the honor thus done to
the Prince of Orange, and at this interference with his own rights. It
was, in his opinion, an unheard-of proceeding thus to address a monarch
of his quality upon matters in which he could accept the law from no man.
He promised, however, that a written answer should be given to the letter
of instructions.
On the 20th of January, 1569, that answer was placed in the hands of the
Archduke. It was intimated that the paper was a public one, fit to be
laid by the Emperor, before the electors; but that the King had also
caused a confidential one to be prepared, in which his motives and
private griefs were indicated to Maximilian.
In the more public document, Philip observed that he had never considered
himself obliged to justify his conduct, in his own affairs, to others.
He thought, however, that his example of severity would have been
received with approbation by princes whose subjects he had thus taught
obedience. He could not admit that, on account of the treaties which
constituted the Netherlands a circle of the Empire, he was obliged to
observe within their limits the ordinances of the imperial diet. As to
the matter of religion, his principal solicitude, since his accession to
the crown, had been to maintain the Catholic faith throughout all his
states. In things sacred he could admit no compromise. The Church alone
had the right to prescribe rules to the faithful. As to the chastisement
inflicted by him upon the Netherland rebels, it would be found that he
had not used rigor, as had been charged against him, but, on the,
contrary, great clemency and gentleness. He had made no change in the
government of the provinces, certainly none in the edicts, the only
statutes binding upon princes. He had appointed the Duke of Alva to the
regency, because it was his royal will and pleasure so to appoint him.
The Spanish soldiery were necessary for the thorough chastisement of the
rebels, and could not be at present removed. As to the Prince of Orange,
whose case seemed the principal motive for this embassy, and in whose
interest so much had been urged, his crimes were so notorious that it was
impossible even to attempt to justify them. He had been, in effect, the
author of all the conspiracies, tumults, and seditious which had taken
place in the Netherlands. All the thefts, sacrileges, violations of
temples, and other misdeeds of which these provinces had been the
theatre, were, with justice, to be imputed to him. He had moreover,
levied an army and invaded his Majesty's territories. Crimes so enormous
had closed the gate to all clemency. Notwithstanding his respect for the
intercession made by the Emperor and the princes of the Empire, the King
could not condescend to grant what was now asked of him in regard to the
Prince of Orange. As to a truce between him and the Duke of Alva, his
Imperial Majesty ought to reflect upon the difference between a sovereign
and his rebellious vassal, and consider how indecent and how prejudicial
to the King's honor such a treaty must be esteemed.
So far the public letter, of which the Archduke was furnished with a
copy, both in Spanish and in Latin. The private memorandum was intended
for the Emperor's eyes alone and those of his envoy. In this paper the
King expressed himself with more warmth and in more decided language.
He was astonished, he said, that the Prince of Orange, in levying an army
for the purpose of invading the states of his natural sovereign, should
have received so much aid and comfort in Germany. It seemed incredible
that this could not have been prevented by imperial authority. He had
been pained that commissioners had been sent to the Prince. He regretted
such a demonstration in his favor as had now been made by the mission of
the Archduke to Madrid. That which, however, had caused the King the
deepest sorrow was, that his Imperial Majesty should wish to persuade him
in religious matters to proceed with mildness. The Emperor ought to be
aware that no human consideration, no regard for his realms, nothing in
the world which could be represented or risked, would cause him to swerve
by a single hair's breadth from his path in the matter of religion. This
path was the same throughout all his kingdoms. He had ever trod in it
faithfully, and he meant to keep in it perpetually. He would admit
neither counsel nor persuasion to the contrary, and should take it ill if
counsel or persuasion should be offered. He could not but consider the
terms of the instructions given to the Archduke as exceeding the limits
of amicable suggestion. They in effect amounted to a menace, and he was
astonished that a menace should be employed, because, with princes
constituted like himself, such means could have but little success.
On the 23rd of January, 1569, the Archduke presented the King with a
spirited reply to the public letter. It was couched in the spirit of the
instructions, and therefore need not be analysed at length. He did not
believe that his Imperial Majesty would admit any justification of the
course pursued in the Netherlands. The estates of the Empire would never
allow Philip's reasoning concerning the connexion of those countries with
the Empire, nor that they were independent, except in the particular
articles expressed in the treaty of Augsburg. In 1555, when Charles the
Fifth and King Ferdinand had settled the religious peace, they had been
assisted by envoys from the Netherlands. The princes of the Empire held
the ground, therefore, that the religious peace, which alone had saved a
vestige of Romanism in Germany, should of right extend to the provinces.
As to the Prince of Orange, the Archduke would have preferred to say
nothing more, but the orders of the Emperor did not allow him to be
silent. It was now necessary to put an end to this state of things in
Lower Germany. The princes of the Empire were becoming exasperated. He
recalled the dangers of the Smalcaldian war--the imminent peril in which
the Emperor had been placed by the act of a single elector. They who
believed that Flanders could be governed in the same manner as Italy and
Spain were greatly mistaken, and Charles the Fifth had always recognised
that error.
This was the sum and substance of the Archduke's mission to Madrid, so
far as its immediate objects were concerned. In the course, however, of
the interview between this personage and Philip, the King took occasion
to administer a rebuke to his Imperial Majesty for his general negligence
in religious matters. It was a matter which lay at his heart, he said,
that the Emperor, although, as he doubted not, a Christian and Catholic
prince, was from policy unaccustomed to make those exterior
demonstrations which matters of faith required. He therefore begged the
Archduke to urge this matter upon the attention of his Imperial Majesty.
The Emperor, despite this solemn mission, had become more than
indifferent before his envoy had reached Madrid. For this indifference
there were more reasons than one. When the instructions had been drawn
up, the death of the Queen of Spain had not been known in Vienna. The
Archduke had even been charged to inform Philip of the approaching
marriages of the two Archduchesses, that of Anne with the King of France,
and that of Isabella with the King of Portugal. A few days later,
however, the envoy received letters from the Emperor, authorizing him to
offer to the bereaved Philip the hand of the Archduchess Anne.
[Herrera (lib. xv. 707) erroneously states that the Archduke was,
at the outset, charged with these two commissions by the Emperor;
namely, to negotiate the marriage of the Archduchess Anne with
Philip, and to arrange the affairs of the Netherlands. On the
contrary, he was empowered to offer Anne to the King of France,
and had already imparted his instructions to that effect to Philip,
before he received letters from Vienna, written after the death of
Isabella had become known. At another interview, he presented this
new matrimonial proposition to Philip. These facts are important,
for they indicate how completely the objects of the embassy, the
commencement of which was so pretentious, were cast aside, that a
more advantageous marriage for one of the seven Austrian
Archduchesses might be secured.--Compare Correspondance de Philippe]
The King replied to the Archduke, when this proposition was made, that if
he had regard only to his personal satisfaction, he should remain as he
was. As however he had now no son, he was glad that the proposition had
been made, and would see how the affair could be arranged with France.
Thus the ill success of Orange in Brabant, so disheartening to the German
princes most inclined to his cause, and still more the widowhood of
Philip, had brought a change over the views of Maximilian. On the 17th
of January, 1569, three days before his ambassador had entered upon his
negotiations, he had accordingly addressed an autograph letter to his
Catholic Majesty. In this epistle, by a few, cold lines, he entirely
annihilated any possible effect which might have been produced by the
apparent earnestness of his interposition in favor of the Netherlands.
He informed the King that the Archduke had been sent, not to vex him, but
to convince him of his friendship. He assured Philip that he should be
satisfied with his response, whatever it might be. He entreated only
that it might be drawn up in such terms that the princes and electors to
whom it must be shown, might not be inspired with suspicion.
The Archduke left Madrid on the 4th of March, 1569. He retired, well
pleased with the results of his mission, not because its ostensible
objects had been accomplished, for those had signally failed, but because
the King had made him a present of one hundred thousand ducats, and had
promised to espouse the Archduchess Anne. On the 26th of May, 1569, the
Emperor addressed a final reply to Philip, in which he expressly approved
the King's justification of his conduct. It was founded, he thought,
in reason and equity. Nevertheless, it could hardly be shown, as it was,
to the princes and electors, and he had therefore modified many points
which he thought might prove offensive.
Thus ended "in smoke," as Granvelle had foretold, the famous mission of
Archduke Charles. The Holy Roman Emperor withdrew from his pompous
intervention, abashed by a rebuke, but consoled by a promise. If it were
good to be guardian of religious freedom in Upper and Nether Germany, it
was better to be father-in-law to the King of Spain and both the Indies.
Hence the lame and abrupt conclusion.
Cardinal Granvelle had been very serviceable in this juncture. He had
written to Philip to assure him that, in his, opinion, the Netherlands
had no claim, under the transaction of Augsburg, to require the
observance within their territory of the decrees of the Empire. He
added, that Charles the Fifth had only agreed to the treaty of Passau to
save his brother Ferdinand from ruin; that he had only consented to it as
Emperor, and had neither directly nor indirectly included the Netherlands
within its provisions. He stated, moreover, that the Emperor had revoked
the treaty by an act which was never published, in consequence of the
earnest solicitations of Ferdinand.
It has been seen that the King had used this opinion of Granvelle in the
response presented to the Archduke. Although he did not condescend to an
argument, he had laid down the fact as if it were indisputable. He was
still more delighted to find that Charles had revoked the treaty of
Passau, and eagerly wrote to Granvelle to inquire where the secret
instrument was to be found. The Cardinal replied that it was probably
among his papers at Brussels, but that he doubted whether it would be
possible to find it in his absence. Whether such a document ever
existed, it is difficult to say. To perpetrate such a fraud would have
been worthy of Charles; to fable its perpetration not unworthy of the
Cardinal. In either case, the transaction was sufficiently high-handed
and exceedingly disgraceful.
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