THE REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.[230]
§ 1. _The Political Situation._
It was not until 1581 that the _United Provinces_ took rank as a
Protestant nation, notwithstanding the fact that the Netherlands
furnished the first martyrs of the Reformation in the persons of Henry
Voes and John Esch, Augustinian monks, who were burnt at Antwerp (July
31st, 1523).
"As they were led to the stake they cried with a loud voice that
they were Christians; and when they were fastened to it, and the
fire was kindled, they rehearsed the twelve articles of the Creed,
and after that the hymn _Te Deum laudamus_, which each of them sang
verse by verse alternately until the flames deprived them both of
voice and life."[231]
The struggle for religious liberty, combined latterly with one for
national independence from Spain, lasted therefore for almost sixty
years.
When the lifelong duel between Charles the Bold of Burgundy and Louis
XI. of France ended with the death of the former on the battlefield
under the walls of Nancy (January 4th, 1477), Louis was able to annex to
France a large portion of the heterogeneous possessions of the Dukes of
Burgundy, and Mary of Burgundy carried the remainder as her marriage
portion (May 1477) to Maximilian of Austria, the future Emperor.
Speaking roughly, and not quite accurately, those portions of the
Burgundian lands which had been _fiefs_ of France went to Louis, while
Mary and Maximilian retained those which were _fiefs_ of the Empire. The
son of Maximilian and Mary, Philip the Handsome, married Juana (August
1496), the second daughter and ultimate heiress of Isabella and
Ferdinand of Spain, and their son was Charles V., Emperor of Germany (b.
February 24th, 1500), who inherited the Netherlands from his father and
Spain from his mother, and thus linked the Netherlands to Spain. Philip
died in 1506, leaving Charles, a boy of six years of age, the ruler of
the Netherlands. His paternal aunt, Margaret, the daughter of the
Emperor Maximilian, governed in the Netherlands during his minority,
and, owing to Juana's illness (an illness ending in madness), mothered
her brother's children. Margaret's regency ended in 1515, and the
earlier history of the Reformation in the Netherlands belongs either to
the period of the personal rule of Charles or to that of the Regents
whom he appointed to act for him.
The land, a delta of great rivers liable to overflow their banks, or a
coast-line on which the sea made continual encroachment, produced a
people hardy, strenuous, and independent. Their struggles with nature
had braced their faculties. Municipal life had struck its roots deeply
into the soil of the Netherlands, and its cities could vie with those of
Italy in industry and intelligence. The southern provinces were the
home of the Trouvères.[232] Jan van-Ruysbroec, the most heart-searching
of speculative Mystics, had been a curate of St. Gudule's in Brussels.
His pupil, Gerard Groot, had founded the lay-community of the Brethren
of the Common Lot for the purpose of spreading Christian education among
the laity; and the schools and convents of the Brethren had spread
through the Netherlands and central Germany. Thomas à Kempis, the author
of the _Imitatio Christi_, had lived most of his long life of ninety
years in a small convent at Zwolle, within the territories of Utrecht.
Men who have been called "Reformers before the Reformation," John Pupper
of Goch and John Wessel, both belonged to the Netherlands. Art
flourished there in the fifteenth century in the persons of Hubert and
Jan van Eyck and of Hans Memling. The Chambers of Oratory
(_Rederijkers_) to begin with probably unions for the performance of
miracle plays or moralities, became confraternities not unlike the
societies of _meistersänger_ in Germany, and gradually acquired the
character of literary associations, which diffused not merely culture,
but also habits of independent thinking among the people.
Intellectual life had become less exuberant in the end of the fifteenth
century; but the Netherlands, nevertheless, produced Alexander Hegius,
the greatest educational reformer of his time, and Erasmus the prince of
the Humanists. Nor can the influence of the Chambers of Oratory have
died out, for they had a great effect on the Reformation movement.[233]
When Charles assumed the government of the Netherlands, he found himself
at the head of a group of duchies, lordships, counties, and
municipalities which had little appearance of a compact principality,
and he applied himself, like other princes of his time in the same
situation, to give them a unity both political and territorial. He was
so successful that he was able to hand over to his son, Philip II. of
Spain, an almost thoroughly organised State. The divisions which Charles
largely overcame reappeared to some extent in the revolt against Philip
and Romanism, and therefore in a measure concern the history of the
Reformation. How Charles made his scattered Netherland inheritance
territorially compact need not be told in detail. Friesland was secured
(1515); the acquisition of temporal sovereignty over the ecclesiastical
province of Utrecht (1527) united Holland with Friesland; Gronningen and
the lands ruled by that turbulent city placed themselves under the
government of Charles (1536); and the death of Charles of Egmont (1538),
Count of Gueldres, completed the unification of the northern and central
districts. The vague hold which France kept in some of the southern
portions of the country was gradually loosened. Charles failed in the
south-east. The independent principality of Lorraine lay between
Luxemburg and Franche-Comté, and the Netherland Government could not
seize it by purchase, treaty, or conquest. One and the same system of
law regulated the rights and the duties of the whole population; and all
the provinces were united into one principality by the reorganisation of
a States General, which met almost annually, and which had a real if
vaguely defined power to regulate the taxation of the country.
But although political and geographical difficulties might be more or
less overcome, others remained which were not so easily disposed of. One
set arose from the fact that the seventeen provinces were divided by
race and by language. The Dutchmen in the north were different in
interests and in sentiment from the Flemings in the centre; and both had
little in common with the French-speaking provinces in the south. The
other was due to the differing boundaries of the ecclesiastical and
civil jurisdictions. When Charles began to rule in 1515, the only
territorial see was Arras. Tournai, Utrecht, and Cambrai became
territorial before the abdication of Charles. But the confusion between
civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction may be seen at a glance when it is
remembered that a great part of the Frisian lands were subject to the
German Sees of Münster, Minden, Paderborn, and Osnabrück; and that no
less than six bishops, none of them belonging to the Netherlands,
divided the ecclesiastical rule over Luxemburg. Charles' proposals to
establish six new bishoprics, plans invariably thwarted by the Roman
Curia, were meant to give the Low Countries a national episcopate.
§ 2. _The Beginnings of the Reformation._
The people of the Netherlands had been singularly prepared for the great
religious revival of the sixteenth century by the work of the _Brethren
of the Common Lot_ and their schools. It was the aim of Gerard Groot,
their founder, and also of Florentius Radevynszoon, his great
educational assistant, to see "that the root of study and the mirror of
life must, in the first place, be the Gospel of Christ." Their pupils
were taught to read the Bible in Latin, and the Brethren contended
publicly for translations of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongues. There
is evidence to show that the Vulgate was well known in the Netherlands
in the end of the fifteenth century, and a translation of the Bible into
Dutch was published at Delft in 1477[234]. Small tracts against
Indulgences, founded probably on the reasonings of Pupper and Wessel,
had been in circulation before Luther had nailed his _Theses_ to the
door of All Saints' church in Wittenberg. Hendrik of Zutphen, Prior of
the Augustinian Eremite convent at Antwerp, had been a pupil of
Staupitz, a fellow student with Luther, and had spread Evangelical
teaching not only among his order, but throughout the town.[235] It need
be no matter for surprise, then, that Luther's writings were widely
circulated in the Netherlands, and that between 1513 and 1531 no fewer
than twenty-five translations of the Bible or of the New Testament had
appeared in Dutch, Flemish, and French.
When Aleander was in the Netherlands, before attending the Diet of Worms
he secured the burning of eighty Lutheran and other books at
Louvain;[236] and when he came back ten months later, he had regular
literary _auto-da-fés_. On Charles' return from the Diet of Worms, he
issued a proclamation to all his subjects in the Netherlands against
Luther, his books and his followers, and Aleander made full use of the
powers it gave. Four hundred Lutheran books were burnt at Antwerp, three
hundred of them seized by the police in the stalls of the booksellers,
and one hundred handed over by the owners; three hundred were burnt at
Ghent, "part of them printed here and part in Germany," says the Legate;
and he adds that "many of them were very well bound, and one gorgeously
in velvet." About a month later he is forced to confess that these
burnings had not made as much impression as he had hoped, and that he
wishes the Emperor would "burn alive half a dozen Lutherans and
confiscate their property." Such a proceeding would make all see him to
be the really Christian prince that he is.[237]
Next year (1522) Charles established the Inquisition within the
seventeen provinces. It was a distinctively civil institution, and this
was perhaps due to the fact that there was little correspondence between
the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the Netherlands; but it
must not be forgotten that the Kings of Spain had used the Holy Office
for the purpose of stamping out political and local opposition, and
also that the civil courts were usually more energetic and more severe
than the ecclesiastical. The man appointed was unworthy of any place of
important trust. Francis van de Hulst, although he had been the Prince's
counsellor in Brabant, was a man accused both of bigamy and murder, and
was hopelessly devoid of tact. He quarrelled violently with the High
Court of Holland; and the Regent, Margaret of Austria, who had resumed
her functions, found herself constantly compromised by his continual
defiance of local privileges. He was a "wonderful enemy to learning,"
says Erasmus. His colleague, Nicolas van Egmont, a Carmelite monk, is
described by the same scholar as "a madman with a sword put into his
hand who hates me worse than he does Luther." The two men discredited
the Inquisition from its beginning. Erasmus affected to believe that the
Emperor could not know what they were doing.
The first victim was Cornelius Graphæus, town clerk of Antwerp, a poet
and Humanist, a friend of Erasmus; and his offence was that he had
published an edition of John Pupper of Goch's book, entitled the
_Liberty of the Christian Religion_, with a preface of his own. The
unfortunate man was set on a scaffold in Brussels, compelled to retract
certain propositions which were said to be contained in the preface, and
obliged to throw the preface itself into a fire kindled on the scaffold
for the purpose. He was dismissed from his office, declared incapable of
receiving any other employment, compelled to repeat his recantation at
Antwerp, imprisoned for two years, and finally banished.[238]
The earliest deaths were those of Henry Voes and John Esch, who have
already been mentioned. Their Prior, Hendrik of Zutphen, escaped from
the dungeon in which he had been confined. Luther commemorated them in a
long hymn, entitled _A New Song of the two Martyrs of Christ burnt at
Brussels by the Sophists of Louvain_:
"Der erst recht wol Johannes heyst,
So reych an Gottes hulden
Seyn Bruder Henrch nach dem geyst,
Eyn rechter Christ on schulden:
Vonn dysser welt gescheyden synd,
Sye hand die kron erworben,
Recht wie die frumen gottes kind
Fur seyn wort synd gestorben,
Sein Marter synd sye worden."[239]
Charles issued proclamation after proclamation, each of increasing
severity. It was forbidden to print any books unless they had been first
examined and approved by the censors (April 1st, 1524). "All open and
secret meetings in order to read and preach the Gospel, the Epistles of
St. Paul, and other spiritual writings," were forbidden (Sept. 25th,
1525), as also to discuss the Holy Faith, the Sacraments, the Power of
the Pope and Councils, "in private houses and at meals." This was
repeated on March 14th, 1526, and on July 17th there was issued a long
edict, said to have been carefully drafted by the Emperor himself,
forbidding all meetings to read or preach about the Gospel or other holy
writings in Latin, Flemish, or Walloon. In the preamble it is said that
ignorant persons have begun to expound Scripture, that even regular and
secular clergy have presumed to teach the "errors and sinister doctrines
of Luther and his adherents," and that heresies are increasing in the
land. Then followed edicts against unlicensed books, and against monks
who had left their cloisters (Jan. 28th, 1528); against the possession
of Lutheran books, commanding them upon pain of death to be delivered up
(Oct. 14th, 1529); against printing unlicensed books--the penalties
being a public whipping on the scaffold, branding with a red-iron, or
the loss of an eye or a hand, at the discretion of the judge (Dec. 7th,
1530); against heretics "who are more numerous than ever," against
certain books of which a long list is given, and against certain hymns
which increase the zeal of the heretics (Sept. 22nd, 1540); against
printing and distributing unlicensed books in the Italian, Spanish, or
English languages (Dec. 18th, 1544); warning all schoolmasters about the
use of unlicensed books in their schools, and giving a list of those
only which are permitted (July 31st, 1546). The edict of 1546 was
followed by a long list of prohibited books, among which are eleven
editions of the Vulgate printed by Protestant firms, six editions of the
Bible and three of the New Testament in Dutch, two editions of the Bible
in French, and many others. Lastly, an edict of April 29th, 1550,
confirmed all the previous edicts against heresy and its spread, and
intimated that the Inquisitors would proceed against heretics
"notwithstanding any privileges to the contrary, which are abrogated and
annulled by this edict." This was a clear threat that the terrible
Spanish Inquisition was to be established in the Netherlands, and
provoked such remonstrances that the edict was modified twice (Sept.
25th, Nov. 5th) before it was finally accepted as legal within the
seventeen provinces.
All these edicts were directed against the Lutheran or kindred teaching.
They had nothing to do with the Anabaptist movement, which called forth
a special and different set of edicts. It seems against all evidence to
say that the persecution of the Lutherans had almost ceased during the
last years of Charles' rule in the Netherlands, and Philip II. could
declare with almost perfect truth that his edicts were only his father's
re-issued.
The continuous repetition and increasing severity of the edicts revealed
not merely that persecution did not hinder the spread of the Reformed
faith, but that the edicts themselves were found difficult to enforce.
What Charles would have done had he been able to govern the country
himself it is impossible to say. He became harder and more intolerant of
differences in matters of doctrine as years went on, and in his latest
days is said to have regretted that he had allowed Luther to leave Worms
alive; and he might have dealt with the Protestants of the seventeen
provinces as his son afterwards did. His aunt, Margaret of Austria, who
was Regent till 1530, had no desire to drive matters to an extremity;
and his sister Mary, who ruled from 1530 till the abdication of Charles
in 1555, was suspected in early life of being a Lutheran herself. She
never openly joined the Lutheran Church as did her sister the Queen of
Denmark, but she confessed her sympathies to Charles, and gave them as a
reason for reluctance to undertake the regency of the Netherlands. It
may therefore be presumed that the severe edicts were not enforced with
undue stringency by either Margaret of Austria or by the widowed Queen
of Hungary. There is also evidence to show that these proclamations
denouncing and menacing the unfortunate Protestants of the Netherlands
were not looked on with much favour by large sections of the population.
Officials were dilatory, magistrates were known to have warned suspected
persons to escape before the police came to arrest them; even to have
given them facilities for escape after sentence had been delivered.
Passive resistance on the part of the inferior authorities frequently
interposed itself between the Emperor and the execution of his
bloodthirsty proclamations. Yet the number of Protestant martyrs was
large, and women as well as men suffered torture and death rather than
deny their faith.
The edicts against conventicles deterred neither preachers nor audience.
The earliest missioners were priests and monks who had become convinced
of the errors of Romanism. Later, preachers were trained in the south
German cities and in Geneva, that nursery of daring agents of the
Reformed propaganda. But if trained teachers were lacking, members of
the congregation took their place at the peril of their lives. Brandt
relates how numbers of people were accustomed to meet for service in a
shipwright's yard at Antwerp to hear a monk who had been "proclaimed":
"The teacher, by some chance or other, could not appear, and one of the
company named Nicolas, a person well versed in Scripture, thought it a
shame that such a congregation, hungering after the food of the Word,
should depart without a little spiritual nourishment; wherefore,
climbing the mast of a ship, he taught the people according to his
capacity; and on that account, and for the sake of the reward that was
set upon the preacher, he was seized by two butchers and delivered to
the magistrates, who caused him to be put into a sack and thrown into
the river, where he was drowned."[240]
§ 3. _The Anabaptists._
The severest persecutions, however, before the rule of Philip II., were
reserved for those people who are called the Anabaptists.[241] We find
several edicts directed against them solely. In February 1532 it was
forbidden to harbour Anabaptists, and a price of 12 guilders was offered
to informants. Later in the same year an edict was published which
declared "that all who had been rebaptized, were sorry for their fault,
and, in token of their repentance, had gone to confession, would be
admitted to mercy for that time only, provided they brought a
certificate from their confessor within twenty-four days of the date of
the edict; those who continued obdurate were to be treated with the
utmost rigour of the laws" (Feb. 1533). Anabaptists who had abjured were
ordered to remain near their dwelling-places for the space of a year,
"unless those who were engaged in the herring fishery" (June 1534). In
1535 the severest edict against the sect was published. All who had
"seduced or perverted any to this sect, or had rebaptized them," were to
suffer death by fire; all who had suffered themselves to be rebaptized,
or who had harboured Anabaptists, and who recanted, were to be favoured
by being put to death by the sword; women were "only to be buried
alive."[242]
To understand sympathetically that multiform movement which was called
in the sixteenth century _Anabaptism_, it is necessary to remember that
it was not created by the Reformation, although it certainly received an
impetus from the inspiration of the age. Its roots can be traced back
for some centuries, and its pedigree has at least two stems which are
essentially distinct, and were only occasionally combined. The one stem
is the successions of the _Brethren_, a mediæval, anti-clerical body of
Christians whose history is written only in the records of Inquisitors
of the mediæval Church, where they appear under a variety of names, but
are universally said to prize the Scriptures and to accept the Apostles'
Creed.[243] The other existed in the continuous uprisings of the
poor--peasants in rural districts and the lower classes in the
towns--against the rich, which were a feature of the later Middle
Ages.[244]
So far as the Netherlands are concerned, these popular outbreaks had
been much more frequent among the towns' population than in the rural
districts. The city patriciate ordinarily controlled the magistracy; but
when flagrant cases of oppression arose, all the judicial, financial,
and other functions of government were sure to be swept out of their
hands in an outburst of popular fury. So much was this the case, that
the real holders of power in the towns in the Netherlands during the
first half of the sixteenth century were the artisans, strong in their
trade organisations. They had long known their power, and had been
accustomed to exert it. The blood of a turbulent ancestry ran in their
veins--of men who could endure for a time, but who, when roused by
serious oppression, had been accustomed to defend themselves, and to
give stroke for stroke. It is only natural to find among the artisans of
the Flemish and Dutch towns a curious mingling of sublime self-sacrifice
for what they believed to be the truth, of the mystical exaltation of
the martyr occasionally breaking out in hysterical action, and the habit
of defending themselves against almost any odds.
So far as is known, the earliest Anabaptist martyrs were Jan Walen and
two others belonging to Waterlandt. They were done to death in a
peculiarly atrocious way at The Hague in 1527. Instead of being burnt
alive, they were chained to a stake at some distance from a huge fire,
and were slowly roasted to death. This frightful punishment seems to
have been reserved for the Anabaptist martyrs. It was repeated at
Haarlem in 1532, when a woman was drowned and her husband with two
others was roasted alive. Some time in 1530, Jan Volkertz founded an
Anabaptist congregation in Amsterdam which became so large as to attract
the attention of the authorities. The head of the police (_schout_) in
the city was ordered to apprehend them. Volkertz delivered himself up
voluntarily. The greater part of the accused received timely warning
from the _schout's_ wife. Nine were taken by night in their beds. These
with their pastor were carried to The Hague and beheaded by express
order of the Emperor. He also commanded that their heads should be sent
to Amsterdam, where they were set on poles in a circle, the head of
Volkertz being in the centre. This ghastly spectacle was so placed that
it could be seen from the ships entering and leaving the harbour. All
these martyrs, and many others whose deaths are duly recorded, were
followers of Melchior Hoffman. Hoffman's views were those of the
"Brethren" of the later Middle Ages, the _Old Evangelicals_ as they were
called. In a paper of directions sent to Emden to assist in the
organisation of an Anabaptist congregation there, he says:
"God's community knows no head but Christ. No other can be endured,
for it is a brother- and sisterhood. The teachers have none who
rule them spiritually but Christ. Teachers and ministers are not
lords. The pastors have no authority except to preach God's Word
and punish sins. A bishop must be elected out of his community.
Where a pastor has thus been taken, and the guidance committed to
him and to his deacon, a community should provide properly for
those who help to build the Lord's house. When teachers are thus
found, there is no fear that the communities will suffer spiritual
hunger. A true preacher would willingly see the whole community
prophesy."
But the persecution, with its peculiar atrocities, had been acting in
its usual way on the Anabaptists of the Netherlands. They had been
tortured on the rack, scourged, imprisoned in dungeons, roasted to death
before slow fires, and had seen their women drowned, buried alive,
pressed into coffins too small for their bodies till their ribs were
broken, others stamped into them by the feet of the executioners. It is
to be wondered at that those who stood firm sometimes gave way to
hysterical excesses; that their leaders began to preach another creed
than that of passive resistance; that wild apocalyptic visions were
reported and believed?
Melchior Hoffman had been imprisoned in Strassburg in 1533, and a new
leader arose in the Netherlands--Jan Matthys, a baker of Haarlem. Under
his guidance an energetic propaganda was carried on in the Dutch towns,
and hundreds of converts were made. One hundred persons were baptized in
one day in February (1534); before the end of March it was reported that
two-thirds of the population in Monnikendam were Anabaptists; and a
similar state of matters existed in many of the larger Dutch towns.
Deventer, Zwolle, and Kampen were almost wholly Anabaptist. The
Government made great exertions to crush the movement. Detachments of
soldiers were divided into bands of fifteen or twenty, and patrolled the
environs of the cities, making midnight visitations, and haling men and
women to prison until the dungeons were overcrowded with captured
Anabaptists.
Attempts were made by the persecuted to leave the country for some more
hospitable place where they could worship God in peace in the way their
consciences directed them. East Friesland had once been a haven, but was
so no longer. Münster offered a refuge. Ships were chartered,--thirty of
them,--and the persecuted people proposed to sail round the north of
Friesland, land at the mouth of the Ems, and travel to Münster by
land.[245] The Emperor's ships intercepted the little fleet, sank five
of the vessels with all the emigrants on board, and compelled the rest
to return. The leaders found on board were decapitated, and their heads
stuck on poles to warn others. Hundreds from the provinces of
Guelderland and Holland attempted the journey by land. They piled their
bits of poor furniture and bundles of clothes on waggons; some rode
horses, most trudged on foot, the women and children, let us hope,
getting an occasional ride on the waggons. Soldiers were sent to
intercept them. The leaders were beheaded, the men mostly imprisoned,
and the women and children sent back to their towns and villages.
Then, and not till they had exhausted every method of passive
resistance, the Anabaptists began to strike back. They wished to seize a
town already containing a large Anabaptist population, and hold it as a
city of refuge. Deventer, which was full of sympathisers, was their
first aim. The plot failed, and the burgomaster's son Willem, one of the
conspirators, was seized, and with two companions beheaded in the
market-place (Dec. 25th, 1534). Their next attempt was on Leyden. It was
called a plot to burn the town. The magistrates got word of it, and, by
ordering the great town-clock to be stopped, disconcerted the plotters.
Fifteen men and five women were seized; the men were decapitated, and
the women drowned (Jan. 1535). Next month (Feb. 28th, 1535), Jan van
Geelen, leading a band of three hundred refugees through Friesland, was
overtaken by some troops of soldiers. The little company entrenched
themselves, fought bravely for some days, until nearly all were killed.
The survivors were almost all captured and put to death, the men by the
sword, and the women by drowning. One hundred soldiers fell in the
attack. A few months later (May 1535), an attempt was made to seize
Amsterdam. It was headed by van Geelen, the only survivor of the
skirmish in Friesland. He and his companions were able to get possession
of the Stadthaus, and held it against the town's forces until cannon
were brought to batter down their defences.
In the early days of the same year an incident occurred which shows how,
under the strain of persecution, an hysterical exaltation took
possession of some of these poor people. It is variously reported.
According to Brandt, seven men and five women having stript off their
clothes, as a sign, they said, that they spoke the naked truth, ran
through the streets of Amsterdam, crying _Woe! Woe! Woe!_ The Wrath of
God! They were apprehended, and slaughtered in the usual way. The woman
in whose house they had met was hanged at her own door.
The insurrections were made the pretext for still fiercer persecutions.
The Anabaptists were hunted out, tortured and slain without any attempt
being made by the authorities to discriminate between those who had and
those who had not been sharers in any insurrectionary attempt. It is
alleged that over thirty thousand people were put to death in the
Netherlands during the reign of Charles V. Many of the victims had no
connection with Anabaptism whatsoever; they were quiet followers of
Luther or of Calvin. The authorities discriminated between them in their
proclamations, but not in the persecution.
§ 4. _Philip of Spain and the Netherlands._
How long the Netherlands would have stood the continual drain of money
and the severity of the persecution which the foreign and religious
policy of Charles enforced upon them, it is impossible to say. The
people of the country were strongly attached to him, as he was to them.
He had been born and had grown from childhood to manhood among them.
Their languages, French and Flemish, were the only speech he could ever
use with ease. He had been ruler in the Netherlands before he became
King of Spain, and long before he was called to fill the imperial
throne. When he resolved to act on his long meditated scheme of
abdicating in favour of his son Philip, it was to the Netherlands that
he came. Their nobles and people witnessed the scene with hardly less
emotion than that which showed itself in the faltering speech of the
Emperor.
The ceremony took place in the great Hall of the palace in Brussels
(Oct. 25th, 1555), in presence of the delegates of the seventeen
provinces. Mary, the widowed Queen of Hungary, who had governed the land
for twenty-five years, witnessed the scene which was to end her rule.
Philip, who was to ruin the work of consolidation patiently planned and
executed by his father and his aunt, was present, summoned from his
uncongenial task of eating roast beef and drinking English ale in order
to conciliate his new subjects across the Channel, and from the
embarrassing endearments of his elderly spouse. The Emperor, aged by
toil rather than by years, entered the Hall leaning heavily on his
favourite page and trusty counsellor, the youthful William, Prince of
Orange, who was to become the leader of the revolt against Philip's
rule, and to create a new Protestant State, the United Provinces.
The new lord of the Netherlands was then twenty-eight. In outward
appearance he was a German like his father, but in speech he was a
Spaniard. He had none of his father's external geniality, and could
never stoop to win men to his ends. But Philip II. was much liker
Charles V. than many historians seem willing to admit. Both had the
same slow, patient industry--but in the son it was slower; the same
cynical distrust of all men; the same belief in the divine selection of
the head of the House of Hapsburg to guide all things in State and
Church irrespective of Popes or Kings--only in the son it amounted to a
sort of gloomy mystical assurance; the same callousness to human
suffering, and the same utter inability to comprehend the force of
strong religious conviction. Philip was an inferior edition of his
father, succeeding to his father's ideas, pursuing the same policy,
using the same methods, but handicapped by the fact that he had not
originated but had inherited both, and with them the troubles brought in
their train.
Philip II. spent the first four years of his reign in the Netherlands,
and during that short period of personal rule his policy had brought
into being all the more important sources of dissatisfaction which ended
in the revolt. Yet his policy was the same, and his methods were not
different from those of his father. In one respect at least Charles had
never spared the Netherlands. That country had to pay, as no other part
of his vast possessions was asked to do, the price of his foreign
policy, and Charles had wrung unexampled sums from his people.
When Philip summoned the States General (March 12th, 1556) and asked
them for a very large grant (Fl. 1,300,000), he was only following his
father's example, and on that occasion was seeking money to liquidate
the deficit which his father had bequeathed. Was it that the people of
the Netherlands had resolved to end the practice of making them pay for
a foreign policy which had hitherto concerned them little, or was it
because they could not endure the young Spaniard who could not speak to
them in their own language? Would Charles have been refused as well as
Philip? Who can say?
When Philip obtained a Bull from Pope Paul IV. for creating a
territorial episcopate in the Netherlands, he was only carrying out the
policy which his father had sketched as early as 1522, and which but
for the shortness of the pontificate of Hadrian VI. would undoubtedly
have been executed in 1524 without any popular opposition. Charles'
scheme contemplated six bishoprics, Philip's fourteen; that was the sole
difference; and from the ecclesiastical point of view Philip's was
probably the better. Why then the bitter opposition to the change in
1557? Most historians seem to think that had Charles been ruling, there
would have been few murmurs. Is that so certain? The people feared the
institution of the bishoprics, because they dreaded and hated an
Inquisition which would override their local laws, rights, and
privileges; and Charles had been obliged to modify his "Placard" of 1549
against heresy, because towns and districts protested so loudly against
it. During these early years Philip made no alterations on his father's
proclamations against heresy. He contented himself with reissuing the
"Placard" of 1549 as that had been amended in 1550 after the popular
protests. The personality of Philip was no doubt objectionable to his
subjects in the Netherlands, but it cannot be certainly affirmed that
had Charles continued to reign there would have been no widespread
revolt against his financial, ecclesiastical, and religious policy. The
Regent Mary had been finding her task of ruling more and more difficult.
A few weeks before the abdication, when the Emperor wished his sister to
continue in the Regency, she wrote to him:
"I could not live among these people even as a private citizen, for
it would be impossible to do my duty towards God and my Prince. As
to governing them, I take God to witness that the task is so
abhorrent to me that I would rather earn my daily bread by labour
than attempt it."
In 1559 (Aug. 26th), Philip left the Netherlands never to return. He had
selected Margaret of Parma, his half-sister, the illegitimate daughter
of Charles V., for Regent. Margaret had been born and brought up in the
country; she knew the language, and she had been so long away from her
native land that she was not personally committed to any policy nor
acquainted with the leaders of any of the parties.
The power of the Regent, nominally extensive, was in reality limited by
secret instructions.[246] She was ordered to put in execution the edicts
against heresy without any modification; and she was directed to submit
to the advice given her by three Councils, a command which placed her
under the supervision of the three men selected by Philip to be the
presidents of these Councils. The Council of State was the most
important, and was entrusted with the management of the whole foreign
and home administration of the country. It consisted of the Bishop of
Arras (Antoine Perronet de Granvelle, afterwards Cardinal de
Granvelle);[247] the Baron de Barlaymont, who was President of the
Council of Finance; Vigilius van Aytta, a learned lawyer from Friesland,
"a small brisk man, with long yellow hair, glittering green eyes, fat
round rosy cheeks, and flowing beard," who was President of the Privy
Council, and controlled the administration of law and justice; and two
of the Netherland nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Prince of Gavre,
and William, Prince of Orange. The two nobles were seldom consulted or
even invited to be present. The three Presidents were the _Consulta_, or
secret body of confidential advisers imposed by Philip upon his Regent,
without whose advice nothing was to be attempted. Of the three, the
Bishop of Arras (Cardinal de Granvelle) was the most important, and the
government was practically placed in his hands by his master. Behind the
_Consulta_ was Philip II. himself, who in his business room in the
Escurial at Madrid issued his orders, repressing every tendency to treat
the people with moderation and humanity, thrusting aside all suggestions
of wise tolerance, and insisting that his own cold-blooded policy should
be carried out in its most objectionable details. It was not until the
publication of de Granvelle's State Papers and Correspondence that it
came to be known how much the Bishop of Arras has been misjudged by
history, how he remonstrated unavailingly with his master, how he was
forced to put into execution a sanguinary policy of repression which was
repugnant to himself, and how Philip compelled him to bear the obloquy
of his own misdeeds. The correspondence also reveals the curiously
minute information which Philip must have privately received, for he was
able to send to the Regent and the Bishop the names, ages, personal
appearance, occupations, residence of numbers of obscure people whom he
ordered to execution for their religious opinions.[248] No rigour of
persecution seemed able to prevent the spread of the Reformation.[249]
The Government--Margaret and her _Consulta_--offended grievously not
merely the people, but the nobility of the Netherlands. The nobles saw
their services and positions treated as things of no consequence, and
the people witnessed with alarm that the local charters and privileges
of the land--charters and rights which Philip at his coronation had
sworn to maintain--were totally disregarded. Gradually all classes of
the population were united in a silent opposition. The Prince of Orange
and Count Egmont became almost insensibly the leaders.
They had been dissatisfied with their position on the Council of State;
they had no real share in the business; the correspondence was not
submitted to them, and they knew such details only as Granvelle chose
to communicate to them. Their first overt act was to resign the
commissions they held in the Spanish troops stationed in the country;
their second, to write to the King asking him to relieve them of their
position on the Council of State, telling him that matters of great
importance were continually transacted without their knowledge or
concurrence, and that in the circumstances they could not
conscientiously continue to sustain the responsibilities of office.[250]
The opposition took their stand on three things, all of which hung
together--the presence of Spanish troops on the soil of the Netherlands,
the cruelties perpetrated in the execution of the _Placards_ against
heresy, and the institution of the new bishoprics in accordance with the
Bull of Pope Paul IV., reaffirmed by Pius IV. in 1560 (Jan.). The common
fighting ground for the opposition to all the three was the invasion of
the charters and privileges of the various provinces which these
measures necessarily involved, and the consequent violation of the
King's coronation oath.
Philip had solemnly promised to withdraw the Spanish troops within three
or four months after he left the country. They had remained for
fourteen, and the whole land cried out against the pillage and rapine
which accompanied their presence. The people of Zeeland declared that
they would rather see the ocean submerge their country--that they would
rather perish, men, women, and children, in the waves--than endure
longer the outrages which these mercenaries inflicted upon them. They
refused to repair the Dykes. The presence of these troops had been early
seen to be a degradation to his country by William of Orange.[251] At
the States General held on the eve of Philip's departure, he had urged
the Assembly to make the departure of the troops a condition of
granting subsidies, and had roused Philip's wrath in consequence. He now
voiced the cry of the whole country. It was so strong that Granvelle
sent many an urgent request to the King to sanction their removal; and
at length he and the Regent, without waiting for orders, had the troops
embarked for Madrid.
The rigorous repression of heresy compelled the Government to override
the charters of the several provinces. Many of these charters contained
very strong provisions, and the King had sworn to maintain them. The
constitution of Brabant, known as the _joyeuse entrée_ (_blyde
inkomst_), provided that the clergy should not be given unusual powers;
and that no subject, nor even a foreign resident, could be prosecuted
civilly or criminally except in the ordinary courts of the land, where
he could answer and defend himself with the help of advocates. The
charter of Holland contained similar provisions. Both charters declared
that if the Prince transgressed these provisions the subjects were freed
from their allegiance. The inquisitorial courts violated the charters of
those and of the other provinces. The great objection taken to the
increase of the episcopate, according to the provisions of the Bulls of
Paul IV. and of Pius IV., was that it involved a still greater
infringement of the chartered rights of the land. For example, the Bulls
provided that the bishops were to appoint nine canons, who were to
assist them in all inquisitorial cases, while at least one of them was
to be an Inquisitor charged with ferreting out and punishing heresy.
This was apparently their great charm for Philip II. He desired an
instrument to extirpate heretics. He knew that the Reformation was
making great progress in the Netherlands, especially in the great
commercial cities. "I would lose all my States and a hundred lives if I
had them," he wrote to the Pope, "rather than be the lord of heretics."
The opposition at first contented itself with protesting against the
position and rule of Granvelle, and with demanding his recall. Philip
came to the reluctant conclusion to dismiss his Minister, and did so
with more than his usual duplicity. The nobles returned to the Council,
and the Regent affected to take their advice. But they were soon to
discover that the recall of the obnoxious Minister did not make any
change in the policy of Philip.
The Regent read them a letter from Philip ordering the publication and
enforcement of the Decrees of the Council of Trent in the
Netherlands.[252] The nobles protested vehemently on the ground that
this would mean a still further invasion of the privileges of the
provinces. After long deliberation, it was resolved to send Count Egmont
to Madrid to lay the opinions of the Council before the King. The debate
was renewed on the instructions to be given to the delegate. Those
suggested by the President, Vigilius, were colourless. Then William the
Silent spoke out. His speech, a long one, full of suppressed passionate
sympathy with his persecuted fellow-countrymen, made an extraordinary
impression. It is thus summarised by Brandt:
That they ought to speak their minds freely; that there were such
commotions and revolutions on account of religion in all the
neighbouring countries, that it was impossible to maintain the
present régime, and think to suppress disturbances by means of
_Placards_, Inquisitions, and Bishops; that the King was mistaken
if he proposed to maintain the Decrees of the Council of Trent in
these Provinces which lay so near Germany, where all the Princes,
Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, have justly rejected them;
that it would be better that His Majesty should tolerate these
things as other Princes were obliged to do, and annul or else
moderate the punishments proclaimed in the _Placards_; that though
he himself had resolved to adhere to the Catholic religion, yet he
could not approve that Princes should aim at dominion over the
souls of men, or deprive them of the freedom of their faith and
religion.[253]
The instructions given to Egmont were accordingly both full and
plain-spoken.
Count Egmont departed leisurely to Madrid, was well received by Philip,
and left thoroughly deceived, perhaps self-deceived, about the King's
intentions. He had a rude awakening when the sealed letter he bore was
opened and read in the Council. It announced no real change in policy,
and in the matter of heresy showed that the King's resolve was
unaltered. A despatch to the Regent (Nov. 5th, 1565) was still more
unbending. Philip would not enlarge the powers of the Council in the
Netherlands; he peremptorily refused to summon the States General; and
he ordered the immediate publication and enforcement of the Decrees of
the Council of Trent in every town and village in the seventeen
provinces. True to the policy of his house, the Decrees of Trent were to
be proclaimed in _his_ name, not in that of the Pope. It was the
beginning of the tragedy, as William of Orange remarked.
The effect of the order was immediate and alarming. The Courts of
Holland and Brabant maintained that the Decrees infringed their
charters, and refused to permit their publication. Stadtholders and
magistrates declared that they would rather resign office than execute
decrees which would compel them to burn over sixty thousand of their
fellow-countrymen. Trade ceased; industries died out; a blight fell on
the land. Pamphlets full of passionate appeals to the people to put an
end to the tyranny were distributed and eagerly read. In one of them,
which took the form of a letter to the King, it was said:
"We are ready to die for the Gospel, but we read therein, 'Render
unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things
that are God's.' We thank God that even our enemies are constrained
to bear witness to our piety and innocence, for it is a common
saying: 'He does not swear, for he is a Protestant. He is not an
immoral man, nor a drunkard, for he belongs to the new sect'; yet
we are subjected to every kind of punishment that can be invented
to torment us."[254]
The year 1566 saw the origin of a new confederated opposition to
Philip's mode of ruling the Netherlands. Francis Du Jon, a young
Frenchman of noble birth, belonging to Bourges, had studied for the
ministry at Geneva, and had been sent as a missioner to the Netherlands,
where his learning and eloquence had made a deep impression on young men
of the upper classes. His life was in constant peril, and he was
compelled to flit secretly from the house of one sympathiser to that of
another. During the festivities which accompanied the marriage of the
young Alexander of Parma with Maria of Portugal, he was concealed in the
house of the Count of Culemburg in Brussels. On the day of the wedding
he preached and prayed with a small company of young nobles, twenty in
all. There and at other meetings held afterwards it was resolved to form
a confederacy of nobles, all of whom agreed to bind themselves to
support principles laid down in a carefully drafted manifesto which went
by the name of the _Compromise_. It was mainly directed against the
Inquisition, which it calls a tribunal opposed to all laws, divine and
human. Copies passed from hand to hand soon obtained over two thousand
signatures among the lower nobility and landed gentry. Many substantial
burghers also signed. The leading spirits in the confederacy were Louis
of Nassau, the younger brother of the Prince of Orange, then a Lutheran;
Philip de Marnix, lord of Sainte Aldegonde, a Calvinist; and Henry
Viscount Brederode, a Roman Catholic. The confederates declared that
they were loyal subjects; but pledged themselves to protect each other
if any of them were attacked.
The confederates met privately at Breda and Hoogstraten (March 1566),
and resolved to present a petition to the Regent asking that the King
should be recommended to abolish the _Placards_ and the Inquisition, and
that the Regent should suspend their operation until the King's wishes
were known; also that the States General should be assembled to consider
other ordinances dangerous to the country. The Regent had called an
assembly of the Notables for March 28th, and it was resolved to present
the petition then. The confederation and its _Compromise_ were rather
dreaded by the great nobles who had been the leaders of the
constitutional opposition, and there was some debate about the
presentation of the _Request_. The Baron de Barlaymont went so far as to
recommend a massacre of the petitioners in the audience hall; but wiser
counsels prevailed. The confederates met and marshalled themselves,--two
hundred young nobles,--and marched through the streets to the Palace,
amid the acclamations of the populace, to present the _Request_.[255]
The Regent was somewhat dismayed by the imposing demonstration, but
Barlaymont reassured her with the famous words: "Madame, is your
Highness afraid of these beggars (_ces gueux_)?" The deputation was
dismissed with fair words, and the promise that although the Regent had
no power to suspend the _Placards_ or the Inquisition, there would be
some moderation used until the King's pleasure was known.
Before leaving Brussels, three hundred of the confederates met in the
house of the Count of Culemburg to celebrate their league at a banquet.
The Viscount de Brederode presided, and during the feast he recalled to
their memories the words of Barlaymont: "They call us beggars," he said;
"we accept the name. We pledge ourselves to resist the Inquisition, and
keep true to the King and the beggar's wallet." He then produced the
leathern sack of the wandering beggars, strapped it round his shoulder,
and drank prosperity to the cause from a beggar's wooden bowl. The name
and the emblem were adopted with enthusiasm, and spread far beyond the
circle of the confederacy.[256] Everywhere burghers, lawyers, peasants
as well as nobles appeared wearing the beggar's sack. Medals, made
first of wax set in a wooden cup, then of gold and silver, were adopted
by the confederated nobles. On the one side was the effigies of the
King, and on the obverse two hands clasped and the beggar's sack with
the motto, _Fidelles au Roi jusques à porter la besace_ (beggar's sack).
All these things were faithfully reported by the Regent to Philip, and
she besought him either to permit her to moderate the _Placards_ and the
Inquisition, or to come to the Netherlands himself. He answered,
promising to come, and permitted her some discretion in the matter of
repression of heresy.
Meanwhile the people were greatly encouraged by the success, or
appearance of success, attending the efforts of the confederates.
Refugees returned from France, Germany, and Switzerland. Missioners of
the Reformed faith came in great numbers. Field-preachings were held all
over the country. The men came armed, planted sentinels, placed their
women and children within the square, and thus listened to the services
conducted by the excommunicated ministers. They heard the Scriptures
read and prayers poured forth in their own tongue. They sang hymns and
psalms in French, Flemish, and Dutch. The crowds were so large, the
sentinels so wary, the men so well armed, that the soldiers dared not
attempt to disperse them. At first the meetings were held at night in
woods and desolate places, but immunity created boldness.
"On July 23rd (1566) the Reformed rendezvoused in great numbers in
a large meadow not far from Ghent. There they formed a sort of
camp, fortifying themselves with their waggons, and setting
sentinels at all the roads. Some brought pikes, some hatchets, and
others guns. In front of them were pedlars with prohibited books,
which they sold to such as came. They planted several along the
road whose business it was to invite people to come to the
preaching and to show them the way. They made a kind of pulpit of
planks, and set it upon a waggon, from which the minister preached.
When the sermon was ended, all the congregation sang several
psalms. They also drew water out of a well or brook near them, and
a child was baptized. Two days were spent there, and then they
adjourned to Deinsen, then to Ekelo near Bruges, and so through all
West Flanders."[257]
Growing bolder still, the Reformed met in the environs and suburbs of
the great towns. Bands of men marched through the streets singing
Psalms, either the French versions of Clement Marot or Bèze or the Dutch
one of Peter Dathenus. It was in vain that the Regent issued a new
_Placard_ against the preachers and the conventicles. It remained a dead
letter. In Antwerp, bands of the Reformed, armed, crowded to the
preachings in defiance of the magistrates, who were afraid of fighting
in the streets. In the emergency the Regent appealed to William of
Orange, and he with difficulty appeased the tumults and arranged a
compromise. The Calvinists agreed to disarm on the condition that they
were allowed the free exercise of their worship in the suburbs although
not within the towns.[258]
The confederates were so encouraged with their successes that they
thought of attempting more. A great conference was held at St. Trond in
the principality of Liège (July 1566), attended by nearly two thousand
members. The leader was Louis of Nassau. They resolved on another
deputation to the Regent, and twelve of their number were selected to
present their demands. These "Twelve Apostles," as the courtiers
contemptuously termed them, declared that the persecution had not been
mitigated as promised, and not obscurely threatened that if some remedy
were not found they might be forced to invoke foreign assistance. The
threat enraged the Regent; but she was helpless; she could only urge
that she had already made representations to the King, and had sent two
members of Council to inform the King about the condition of the
country.
It seemed as if some impression had been made on Philip. The Regent
received a despatch (July 31st, 1566) saying that he was prepared to
withdraw the papal Inquisition from the Netherlands, and that he would
grant what toleration was consistent with the maintenance of the
Catholic religion; only he would in no way consent to a summoning of the
States General.
There was great triumphing in the Netherlands at this news. Perhaps
every one but the Prince of Orange was more or less deceived by Philip's
duplicity. It is only since the archives of Simancas have yielded their
secrets that its depth has been known. They reveal that on Aug. 9th he
executed a deed in which he declared that the promise of pardon had been
won from him by force, and that he did not mean to keep it, and that on
Aug. 12th he wrote to the Pope that his declaration to withdraw the
Inquisition was a mere blind. William only knew that the King was
levying troops, and that he was blaming the great nobles of the
Netherlands for the check inflicted upon him by the confederates.
Long before Philip's real intentions were unmasked, a series of
iconoclastic attacks not only gave the King the pretext he needed, but
did more harm to the cause of the Reformation in the Low Countries than
all the persecutions under Charles V. and his son. The origin of these
tumultuous proceedings is obscure. According to Brandt, who collects
information from all sides:
"Some few of the vilest of the mob ... were those who began the
dance, being hallooed on by nobody knows whom. Their arms were
staves, hatchets, hammers, ladders, ropes, and other tools more
proper to demolish than to fight with; some few were provided with
guns and swords. At first they attacked the crosses and the images
that had been erected on the great roads in the country; next,
those in the villages; and, lastly, those in the towns and cities.
All the chapels, churches, and convents which they found shut they
forced open, breaking, tearing, and destroying all the images,
pictures, shrines and other consecrated things they met with; nay,
some did not scruple to lay their hands upon libraries, books,
writings, monuments, and even on the dead bodies in churches and
churchyards."[259]
According to almost all accounts, the epidemic, for the madness
resembled a disease, first appeared at St. Omer (Aug. 14th, 1566), then
at Ypres, and extended rapidly to other towns. It came to a height at
Antwerp (16th and 17th Aug. 1566), when the mob sacked the great
cathedral and destroyed some of its richest treasures.[260] An
eye-witness declared that the rioters in the cathedral did not number
more than one hundred men, women, and boys, drawn from the dregs of the
population, and that the attacks on the other churches were made by
small parties of ten or twelve persons.
These outrages had a disastrous effect on the Reformation movement in
the Netherlands, both immediately and in the future. They at once
exasperated the more liberal-minded Roman Catholics and enraged the
Regent: they began that gradual cleavage which ended in the separation
of the Protestant North from the Romanist South. The Regent felt herself
justified in practically withdrawing all the privileges she had accorded
to the Reformed, and in raising German and Walloon troops to overawe the
Protestants. The presence of these troops irritated some of the
Calvinist nobles, and John de Marnix, elder brother of Sainte Aldegonde,
attempted to seize the Island of Walcheren in order to hold it as a city
of refuge for his persecuted brethren. He was unsuccessful; a fight took
place not far from Antwerp itself, in which de Marnix was routed and
slain (March 13th, 1567).
§ 5. _William of Orange._
Meanwhile William of Orange had come to the conclusion that Philip was
meditating the suppression of the rights and liberties of the Low
Countries by Spanish troops, and was convinced that the great nobles who
had hitherto headed the constitutional opposition would be the first to
be attacked. He had conferences with Egmont and Hoorn at Dendermonde
(Oct. 3rd, 1566), and at Willebroek (April 2nd, 1567), and endeavoured
to persuade them that the only course open to them was to resist by
force of arms. His arguments were unavailing, and William sadly
determined that he must leave the country and retire to his German
estates.
His forebodings were only too correct. Philip had resolved to send the
Duke of Alva to subdue the Netherlands. A force of nine thousand veteran
Spanish infantry with thirteen hundred Italian cavalry had been
collected from the garrisons of Lombardy and Naples, and Alva began a
long, difficult march over the Mt. Cenis and through Franche-Comté,
Lorraine, and Luxemburg. William had escaped just in time. When the Duke
arrived in Brussels and presented his credentials to the Council of
State, it was seen that the King had bestowed on him such extensive
powers that Margaret remained Regent in name only. One of his earliest
acts was to get possession of the persons of Counts Egmont and Hoorn,
with their private secretaries, and to imprison Antony van Straelen,
Burgomaster of Antwerp, and a confidential friend of the Prince of
Orange. Many other arrests were made; and Alva, having caught his
victims, invented an instrument to help him to dispose of them.
By the mere fiat of his will he created a judicial chamber, whose
decisions were to override those of any other court of law in the
Netherlands, and which was to be responsible to none, not even to the
Council of State. It was called the _Council of Tumults_, but is better
known by its popular name, _The Bloody Tribunal_. It consisted of twelve
members, among whom were Barlaymont and a few of the most violent
Romanists of the Netherlands; but only two, Juan de Vargas and del Rio,
both Spaniards, were permitted to vote and influence the decisions. Del
Rio was a nonentity; but de Vargas was a very stern reality--a man of
infamous life, equally notorious for the delight he took in slaughtering
his fellow-men and the facility with which he murdered the Latin
language! He brought the whole population of the Netherlands within the
grip of the public executioner by his indictment: _Hæretici fraxerunt
templa, boni nihil faxerunt contra; ergo debent omnes patibulure:_ by
which he meant, _The heretics have broken open churches, the orthodox
have done nothing to hinder them; therefore they ought all of them to be
hanged together._ Alva reserved all final decisions for his own
judgment, in order that the work might be thoroughly done. He wrote to
the King, "Men of law only condemn for crimes that are proved, whereas
your Majesty knows that affairs of State are governed by very different
rules from the laws which they have here."
At its earlier sittings this terrible tribunal defined the crime of
treason, and stated that its punishment was death. The definition
extended to eighteen articles, and declared it to be treason--to have
presented or signed any petition against the new bishoprics, the
Inquisition, or the _Placards_; to have tolerated public preaching under
any circumstances; to have omitted to resist iconoclasm, or
field-preaching, or the presentation of the _Request_; to have asserted
that the King had not the right to suspend the charters of the
provinces; or to maintain that the Council of Tumults had not a right to
override all the laws and privileges of the Netherlands. All these
things were treason, and all of them were capital offences. Proof was
not required; all that was needed was reasonable suspicion, or rather
what the Duke of Alva believed to be so. The Council soon got to work.
It sent commissioners through every part of the land--towns, villages,
districts--to search for any who might be suspected of having committed
any act which could be included within their definition of treason.
Informers were invited, were bribed, to come forward; and soon shoals of
denunciations and evidence flowed in to them. The accused were brought
before the Council, tried (if the procedure could be called a trial),
and condemned in batches. The records speak of ninety-five, eighty-four,
forty-six, thirty-five at a time. Alva wrote to Philip that no fewer
than fifteen hundred had been taken in their beds early on Ash-Wednesday
morning, and later he announces another batch of eight hundred. In each
case he adds, "I have ordered all of them to be executed." In view of
these records, the language of a contemporary chronicler does not
appeared exaggerated:
"The gallows, the wheel, stakes, trees along the highways, were
laden with carcasses or limbs of those who had been hanged,
beheaded, or roasted; so that the air which God made for the
respiration of the living, was now become the common grave or
habitation of the dead. Every day produced fresh objects of pity
and of mourning, and the noise of the bloody passing-bell was
continually heard, which by the martyrdom of this man's cousin, and
the other's brother or friend, rang dismal peals in the hearts of
the survivors."[261]
Whole families left their dwellings to shelter themselves in the woods,
and, goaded by their misery, pillaged and plundered. The priests had
been active as informers, and these _Wild-Beggars_, as they were called,
"made excursions on them, serving themselves of the darkest nights for
revenge and robbery, punishing them not only by despoiling them of their
goods, but by disfiguring their faces, cutting off ears and noses." The
country was in a state of anarchy.
Margaret, Duchess of Parma, the nominal Regent of the Netherlands, had
found her position intolerable since the arrival of the Duke of Alva,
and was permitted by Philip to resign (Oct. 6th, 1567). Alva henceforth
was untrammelled by even nominal restraint. A process was begun against
the Counts Egmont and Hoorn, and William of Orange was proclaimed an
outlaw (Jan. 24th, 1568) unless he submitted himself for trial before
the _Council of Tumults_. Some days afterwards, his eldest son, a boy of
fifteen and a student in the University of Louvain, was kidnapped and
carried off to Spain.[262]
William replied in his famous _Justification of the Prince of Orange
against his Calumniators_, in which he declared that he, a citizen of
Brabant, a Knight of the Golden Fleece, a Prince of the Holy Roman
Empire, one of the sovereign Princes of Europe (in virtue of the
principality of Orange), could not be summoned before an incompetent
tribunal. He reviewed the events in the Netherlands since the accession
of Philip II., and spoke plainly against the misgovernment caused, he
said diplomatically, by the evil counsels of the King's advisers. The
_Justification_ was published in several languages, and was not merely
an act of defiance to Philip, but a plea made on behalf of his country
to the whole of civilised Europe.
The earlier months of 1568 had been spent by the Prince of Orange in
military preparations for the relief of his countrymen, and in the
spring his army was ready. The campaign was a failure. Hoogstraten was
defeated. Louis of Nassau had a temporary success at Heiliger-Lee (May
23rd, 1568), only to be routed at Jemmingen (July 21st, 1568). After
William had issued a pathetic but unavailing manifesto to Protestant
Europe, a second expedition was sent forth only to meet defeat. The
cause of the Netherlands seemed hopeless.
But Alva was beginning to find himself in difficulties. On the news of
the repulse of his troops at Heiliger-Lee he had hastily beheaded the
Counts Egmont and Hoorn. Instead of striking terror into the hearts of
the Netherlanders, the execution roused them to an undying hatred of the
Spaniard. He was now troubled by lack of money to pay his troops. He had
promised Philip to make gold flow from the Low Countries to Spain; but
his rule had destroyed the commerce and manufactures of the country, the
source of its wealth. He was almost dependent on subsidies from Spain.
Elizabeth of England had been assisting her fellow Protestants in the
way she liked best, by seizing Spanish treasure ships; and Alva was
reduced to find the money he needed within the Netherlands.
It was then that he proposed to the States General, summoned to meet him
(March 20th, 1569), his notorious scheme of taxation, which finally
ruined him--a tax of one per cent. (the "hundredth penny") to be levied
once for all on all property; a tax of five per cent. (the "twentieth
penny") to be levied at every sale or transfer of landed property: and a
tax of ten per cent. (the "tenth penny") on all articles of commerce
each time they were sold. This scheme of taxation would have completely
ruined a commercial and manufacturing country. It met with universal
resistance. Provinces, towns, magistrates, guilds, the bishops and the
clergy--everyone protested against the taxation. Even Philip's Council
at Madrid saw the impossibility of exacting such taxes from a country.
Alva swore that he would have his own way. The town and district of
Utrecht had been the first to protest. Alva quartered the regiment of
Lombardy upon them; but not even the licence and brutality of the
soldiers could force the wretched people to pay. Alva proclaimed the
whole of the inhabitants to be guilty of high treason; he took from them
all their charters and privileges; he declared their whole property
confiscated to the King. But these were the acts of a furious madman,
and were unavailing. He then postponed the collection of the hundredth
and of the tenth pennies; but the need of money forced him on, and he
gave definite orders for the collection of the "tenth" and the
"twentieth pennies." The trade and manufactures of the country came to a
sudden standstill, and Alva at last knew that he was beaten. He had to
be satisfied with a payment of two millions of florins for two years.
The real fighting force among the Reformed Netherlanders was to be
found, not among the landsmen, but in the sailors and fishermen. It is
said that Admiral Coligny was the first to point this out to the Prince
of Orange. He acted upon the advice, and in 1569 he had given letters of
marque to some eighteen small vessels to cruise in the narrow seas and
attack the Spaniards. At first they were little better than
pirates,--men of various nationalities united by a fierce hatred of
Spaniards and Papists, feared by friends and foes alike. William
attempted, at first somewhat unsuccessfully, to reduce them to
discipline and order, by issuing with his letters of marque orders
limiting their indiscriminate pillage, insisting upon the maintenance of
religious services on board, and declaring that one-third of the booty
was to be given to himself for the common good of the country. In their
earlier days they were allowed to refit and sell their plunder in
English ports, but these were closed to them on strong remonstrances
from the Court of Spain. It was almost by accident that they seized and
held (April 1st, 1572) Brill or Brielle, a strongly fortified town on
Voorn, which was then an island at the mouth of the Maas, some twenty
miles west or seaward from Rotterdam. The inhabitants were forced to
take an oath of allegiance to William as Stadtholder under the King, and
the flag of what was afterwards to become the United Provinces was
hoisted on land for the first time. It was not William, but his brother
Louis of Nassau, who was the first to see the future possibilities in
this act. He urged the seizure of Flushing or Vlissingen, the chief
stronghold in Zeeland, situated on an island at the mouth of the Honte
or western Scheldt, and commanding the entrance to Antwerp. The citizens
rose in revolt against the Spanish garrison; the _Sea-Beggars_, as they
were called, hurried to assist them; the town was taken, and the Spanish
commander, Pachecho, was captured and hanged. This gave the seamen
possession of the whole island of Walcheren save the fortified town of
Middleburg. Delfshaven and Schiedam were seized. The news swept through
Holland, Zeeland, Guelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and town after
town declared for William of Orange the Stadtholder. The leaders were
marvellously encouraged to renewed exertions.[263] Proclamations in the
name of the new ruler were scattered broadcast through the country, and
the people were fired by a song said to be written by Sainte Aldegonde,
_Wilhelmus van Nassouwe_, which is still the national hymn of Holland.
The Prince of Orange thought he might venture on another invasion, and
was already near Brussels when the news of the Massacre of Saint
Bartholomew reached him. His plans had been based on assistance from
France, urged by Coligny and promised by Charles IX. "What a
sledge-hammer blow (_coup de massue_) that has been," he wrote to his
brother; "my only hope was from France."[264] Mons, which Louis had
seized in the south with his French troops, had to be abandoned; and
William, after some vain efforts, had to disband his troops.
Then Alva came out from Brussels to wreak a fearful vengeance on Mons,
Mechlin, Tergoes, Naarden, Haarlem, and Zutphen. The terms of the
capitulation of Mons were violated. Mechlin was plundered and set on
fire by the Spanish troops. The Spanish commander sent against Zutphen
had orders to burn every house, and to slay men, women, and children.
Haarlem was invested, resisted desperately, and then capitulated on
promise of lenient treatment. When the Spaniards entered they butchered
in cold blood all the Dutch soldiers and some hundreds of the citizens;
and, tying the bodies two and two together, they cast them into the
Haarlem lake. It seemed as if the Papists had determined to exterminate
the Protestants when they found that they could not convert them.
Some towns, however, held out. Don Frederick, the son of Alva and the
butcher of Haarlem, was beaten back from the little town of Alkmaar. The
_Sea-Beggars_ met the Spanish fleet sent to crush them, sank or
scattered the ships, and took the Admiral prisoner. The nation of
fishermen and shopkeepers, once the scorn of Spain and of Europe for
their patient endurance of indignities, were seen at last to be a race
of heroes, determined never again to endure the yoke of the Spaniard.
Alva had soon to face a soldiery mutinous for want of pay, and to see
all his sea approaches in the hands of Dutch sailors, whom the strongest
fleets of Spain could not subdue. The iron pitiless man at last
acknowledged that he was beaten, and demanded his recall. He left
Brussels on Dec. 18th, 1573, and did not again see the land he had
deluged with blood during a space of six years. Like all tyrants, he had
great faith in his system, even when it had broken in his hand. Had he
been a little more severe, added a few more drops to the sea of blood he
had spilled, all would have gone well. The only advice he could give to
his successor was, to burn down every town he could not garrison with
Spanish troops.
The new Spanish Regent was Don Louis Requesens-y-Zuniga, a member of the
higher nobility of Spain, and a Grand Commander of the Knights of Malta.
He was high-minded, and of a generous disposition. Had he been sent to
the Netherlands ten years sooner, and allowed to act with a free hand,
the history of the Netherlands might have been different. His earlier
efforts at government were marked by attempts to negotiate, and he was
at pains to give Philip his reasons for his conduct.
"Before my arrival," he wrote, "I could not comprehend how the
rebels contrived to maintain fleets so considerable, while your
Majesty could not maintain one. Now I see that men who are fighting
for their lives, their families, their property, and their false
religion, in short, for their own cause, are content if they
receive only rations without pay."
He immediately reversed the policy of Alva: he repealed the hated taxes;
dissolved the Council of Blood, and published a general amnesty. But he
could not come to terms with the "rebels." William of Orange refused
all negotiation which was not based on three preliminary
conditions--freedom of conscience, and liberty to preach the Gospel
according to the Word of God; the restoration of all the ancient
charters; and the withdrawal of all Spaniards from all posts military
and civil. He would accept no truce nor amnesty without these. "We have
heard too often," he said, "the words _Agreed_ and _Eternal_. If I have
your word for it, who will guarantee that the King will not deny it, and
be absolved for his breach of faith by the Pope?" Requesens, hating the
necessity, had to carry on the struggle which the policy of his King and
of the Regents who preceded him had provoked.
The fortune of war seemed to be unchanged. The patriots were always
victorious at sea and tenacious in desperate defence of their fortified
towns when they were besieged, but they went down before the veteran
Spanish infantry in almost every battle fought on land. In the beginning
of 1574 two fortresses were invested. The patriots were besieging
Middleburg, and the Spaniards had invested Leyden. The _Sea-Beggars_
routed the Spanish fleet in a bloody fight in the mouth of the Scheldt,
and Middleburg had to surrender. Leyden had two months' respite owing to
a mutiny among the Spanish soldiers, but the citizens neglected the
opportunity thus given them to revictual their town. It was again
invested (May 26th), and hardly pressed. Louis of Nassau, leading an
army to its assistance, was totally routed at Mookerheide, and he and
his younger brother Henry were among the slain. The fate of Leyden
seemed to be sealed, when William suggested to the Estates of Holland to
cut the dykes and let in the sea. The plan was adopted. But the dykes
took long to cut, and when they were opened and the water began to flow
in slowly, violent winds swept it back to the sea. Within Leyden the
supply of food was melting away; and the famished and anxious burghers,
looking over the plain from the steeples of the town, saw help coming so
slowly that it seemed as if it could arrive only when it was too late.
The Spaniards knew also of the coming danger, and, calculating on the
extremities of the townsfolk, urged on them to surrender, with promises
of an honourable capitulation. "We have two arms," one of the defenders
on the walls shouted back, "and when hunger forces us we will eat the
one and fight you with the other." Four weary months passed amidst
indescribable sufferings, when at last the sea reached the walls. With
it came the patriotic fleet, sailing over buried corn fields and
gardens, piloted through orchards and villages. The Spaniards fled in
terror, for the _Sea-Beggars_ were upon them, shouting their battle-cry,
"Sooner Turks than Papists." Townsmen and sailors went to the great
church to offer thanksgiving for the deliverance which had been brought
them from the sea. When the vast audience was singing a psalm of
deliverance, the voices suddenly ceased, and nothing was heard but low
sobbing; the people, broken by long watching and famine, overcome by
unexpected deliverance, could only weep.
The good news was brought to Delft by Hans Brugge, who found William in
church at the afternoon service. When the sermon was ended, the
deliverance of Leyden was announced from the pulpit. William, weak with
illness as he was, rode off to Leyden at once to congratulate the
citizens on their heroic defence and miraculous deliverance. There he
proposed the foundation of what became the famous University of Leyden,
which became for Holland what Wittenberg had been to Germany, Geneva to
Switzerland, and Saumur to France.
The siege of Leyden was the turning-point in the war for independence.
The Spanish Regent saw that a new Protestant State was slowly and almost
imperceptibly forming. His troops were almost uniformly victorious in
the field, but the victories did not seem to be of much value. He
decided once more to attempt negotiation. The conferences came to
nothing. The utmost that Philip II. would concede was that the
Protestants should have time to sell their possessions and leave the
country. The war was again renewed, when death came to relieve
Requesens of his difficulties (March 1575). His last months were
disgraced by the recommendation he made to his master to offer a reward
for the assassination of the Prince of Orange.
The history of the next few years is a tangled story which would take
too long to tell. When Requesens died the treasury was empty, and no
public money was forthcoming. The Spanish soldiers mutinied, clamouring
for their pay. They seized on some towns and laid hold on the citadel of
Antwerp. Then occurred the awful pillage of the great city, when, during
three terrible November days, populous and wealthy Antwerp suffered all
the horrors that could be inflicted upon it.
The sudden death of Requesens had left everything in confusion; and
leading men, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, conceived that
advantage should be taken of the absence of any Spanish Governor to see
whether all the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands could not combine
on some common programme which would unite the country in spite of their
religious differences. Delegates met together at Ghent (Oct. 28th, 1576)
and drafted a treaty. A meeting of States General for the southern
provinces was called to assemble at Brussels in November, and the
members were discussing the terms of the treaty when the news of the
"Spanish Fury" at Antwerp reached them. The story of the ghastly horrors
perpetrated on their countrymen doubtless hastened their decision, and
the treaty was ratified both by the States General and by the Council of
State. The _Pacification of Ghent_ cemented an alliance between the
southern provinces represented in the States General which met at
Brussels and the northern provinces of Holland and Zeeland. Its chief
provisions were that all should combine to drive the Spanish and other
foreign troops out of the land, and that a formal meeting of delegates
from all the seventeen provinces should be called to deliberate upon the
religious question. In the meantime the Roman Catholic religion was to
be maintained; the _Placards_ were to be abolished; the Prince of
Orange was declared to be the Governor of the seventeen provinces and
the Admiral-General of Holland and Zeeland; and the confiscation of the
properties of the houses of Nassau and Brederode was rescinded.
Don John of Austria had been appointed by Philip Regent of the
Netherlands, and was in Luxemburg early in November. His arrival there
was intimated to the States General, who refused to acknowledge him as
Regent unless he would approve of the _Pacification of Ghent_ and swear
to maintain the ancient privileges of the various provinces. Months were
spent in negotiations, but the States General were unmovable. He yielded
at length, and made his State entry into Brussels on May 1st, 1577. When
once there he found himself overshadowed by William, who had been
accepted as leader by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. But Philip
with great exertions had got together an army of twenty thousand veteran
Spanish and Italian troops, and sent them to the Netherlands under the
command of Alexander Farnese, the son of the former Regent, Margaret
Duchess of Parma. The young Duke of Parma was a man of consummate
abilities, military and diplomatic, and was by far the ablest agent
Philip ever had in the Low Countries. He defeated the patriotic army at
Gemblours (Jan. 31st, 1578), and several towns at once opened their
gates to Parma and Don John. To increase the confusion, John Casimir,
brother of the Elector Palatine, invaded the land from the east at the
head of a large body of German mercenary soldiers to assist the
Calvinists; the Archduke Matthias, brother of the Emperor Rudolph, was
already in the country, invited by the Roman Catholics; and the Duke of
Anjou had invaded the Netherlands from the south to uphold the interests
of those Romanists who did not wish to tolerate Protestantism but hated
the Spaniards. These foreigners represented only too well the latent
divisions of the country--divisions which were skilfully taken advantage
of by the Duke of Parma. After struggling in vain for a union of the
whole seventeen provinces on the basis of complete religious toleration,
William saw that his task was hopeless. Neither the majority of the
Romanists nor the majority of the Protestants could understand
toleration. Delegates of the Romanist provinces of Hainault, Douai, and
Artois met at Arras (Jan. 5th, 1579) to form a league which had for its
ultimate intention a reconciliation with Spain on the basis of the
_Pacification of Ghent_, laying stress on the provision for the
maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion. Thus challenged, the
northern provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelderland, and
Zutphen met at Utrecht (Jan. 29th, 1579), and formed a league to
maintain themselves against all foreign Princes, including the King of
Spain. These two leagues mark the definite separation of the Romanist
South from the Protestant North, and the creation of a new Protestant
State, the United Provinces. William did not sign the Treaty of Utrecht
until May 3rd.
In 1581, Philip made a last attempt to overcome his indomitable
antagonist. He published the Ban against him, denouncing him as a
traitor and an enemy of the human race, and offering a reward of
twenty-five thousand crowns and a patent of nobility to anyone who
should deliver him to the King dead or alive. William answered in his
famous _Apology_, which gives an account of his whole career, and
contains a scathing exposure of Philip's misdeeds. The _Apology_ was
translated into several languages, and sent to all the Courts of Europe.
Brabant, Flanders, Utrecht, Guelderland, Holland, and Zeeland answered
Philip by the celebrated Act of Abjuration (July 26th, 1581), in which
they solemnly renounced allegiance to the King of Spain, and constituted
themselves an independent republic.
The date of the abjuration may be taken as the beginning of the new era,
the birth of another Protestant nation. Its young life had been
consecrated in a baptism of blood and fire such as no other nation in
Europe had to endure. Its Declaration of Independence did not procure
immediate relief. Nearly thirty years of further struggle awaited it;
and it was soon to mourn the loss of its heroic leader. The rewards
promised by Philip II. were a spur to the zeal of Romanist fanatics. In
1582 (March 18th), Juan Jaureguy, a Biscayan, made a desperate attempt
at assassination, which for the moment was thought to be successful. The
pistol was so close to the Prince that his hair and beard were set on
fire, and the ball entering under the right ear, passed through the
palate and out by the left jaw. Two years later (July 9th, 1584),
William fell mortally wounded by Balthasar Gerard, whose heirs claimed
the reward for assassination promised by Philip, and received part of it
from the King. The Prince's last words were: "My God, have mercy on my
soul and on these poor people."
The sixteenth century produced no nobler character than that of William,
Prince of Orange. His family were Lutherans, but they permitted the lad
to be brought up in the Roman Catholic religion--the condition which
Charles v. had imposed before he would consent to give effect to the
will of René, Prince of Orange,[265] who, dying at the early age of
twenty-six, had left his large possessions to his youthful cousin,
William of Nassau. In an intolerant age he stands forth as the one great
leader who rose above the religious passions of the time, and who strove
all his life to secure freedom of conscience and right of public worship
for men of all creeds.[266] He was a consistent liberal Roman Catholic
down to the close of 1555. His letter (January 24th, 1566) to Margaret
of Parma perhaps reveals the beginnings of a change. He called himself
"a good Christian," not a "good Catholic." Before the end of that year
he had said privately that he was ready to return to the faith of his
childhood and subscribe the Augsburg Confession. During his exile in
1568 he had made a daily study of the Holy Scriptures, and, whatever the
exact shade of his theological opinions, had become a deeply religious
man, animated with the lofty idea that God had called him to do a great
work for Him and for His persecuted people. His private letters, meant
for no eyes but those of his wife or of his most familiar friends, are
full of passages expressing a quiet faith in God and in the leadings of
His Providence.[267] During the last years of his life the teachings of
Calvin had more and more taken hold on his intellect and sympathy, and
he publicly declared himself a Calvinist in 1573 (October 23rd). A
hatred of every form of oppression was his ruling passion, and he
himself has told us that it was when he learnt that the Kings of France
and Spain had come to a secret understanding to extirpate heresy by fire
and sword, that he made the silent resolve to drive "This vermin of
Spaniards out of his country."[268]
The Protestant Netherlands might well believe themselves lost when he
fell under the pistol of the assassin; but he left them a legacy in the
persons of his confidential friend Johan van Oldenbarneveldt and of his
son Maurice. Oldenbarneveldt's patient diplomatic genius completed the
political work left unfinished by William; and Maurice,[269] a lad of
seventeen at his father's death, was acknowledged only a few years
afterwards as the greatest military leader in Europe. The older man in
the politician's study, and the boy-general in the field, were able to
keep the Spaniards at bay, until at length, in 1607 (October), a
suspension of arms was agreed to. This resulted in a truce for twelve
years (April 9th, 1609), which was afterwards prolonged indefinitely.
The Dutch had won their independence, and had become a strong Protestant
power whose supremacy at sea was challenged only by England.
Notwithstanding the severity of the persecutions which they endured, the
Protestants of the Netherlands organised themselves into churches, and
as early as 1563 the delegates from the various churches met in a synod
to settle the doctrine and discipline which was to bind them together.
This was not done without internal difficulties. The people of the
Netherlands had received the Evangelical faith from various sources, and
the converts tenaciously clung to the creed and ecclesiastical system
with which they were first acquainted. The earliest Reformation
preachers in the Low Countries were followers of Luther, and many of
them had been trained at Wittenberg. Lutherans were numerous among the
lesser nobility and the more substantial burghers. Somewhat later the
opinions of Zwingli also found their way into the Netherlands, and were
adopted by many very sincere believers. The French-speaking provinces
in the south had been evangelised for the most part by missioners
trained under Calvin at Geneva, and they brought his theology with them.
Thus Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin had all attached followers in the Low
Countries. The differences found expression, not so much in matters of
doctrine as in preferences for different forms of Church government; and
although they were almost overcome, they reappeared later in the contest
which emerged in the beginning of the seventeenth century about the
relation which ought to subsist between the civil and the ecclesiastical
authorities. In the end, the teaching of Geneva displaced both
Lutheranism and Zwinglianism, and the Reformed in the Netherlands became
Calvinist in doctrine and discipline.
Accordingly, most of the churches were early organised on the principles
of the churches in France, with a minister and a consistory of elders
and deacons; and when delegates from the churches met to deliberate upon
an organisation which would bind all together, the system which was
adopted was the Presbyterian or Conciliar. The meeting was at Emden
(1569), as it was too dangerous to assemble within the jurisdiction of
the Government of the Netherlands. It was resolved that the Church
should be ruled by _consistories, classes_, and _synods_. This Conciliar
organisation, thus adopted at Emden in 1569, might not have met with
unanimous support had not the Reformed been exposed to the full fury of
Alva's persecution. The consistorial system of the Lutheran Church, and
the position which Zwingli assigned to the magistracy, are possible only
when the civil government is favourably disposed towards the Church
within the land which it rules; but Presbyterianism, as France,
Scotland, and the Netherlands have proved, is the best suited for "a
Church under the Cross." Nor need this be wondered at, for the
Presbyterian or Conciliar is the revival of the government of the Church
of the early centuries while still under the ban of the Roman
Empire.[270]
A synod which met at Dordrecht (Dort) in 1572 revised, enlarged, and
formally adopted the articles of this Emden synod or conference.
Two peculiarities of the Dutch organisation ought to be explained. The
_consistory_ or kirk-session is the court which rules the individual
congregation in Holland as in all other Presbyterian lands; but in the
Dutch Church all Church members inhabiting a city are regarded as one
congregation; the ministers are the pastors of the city, preaching in
turn in all its buildings set apart for public worship, and the people
are not considered to be specially attached to any one of the buildings,
nor to belong to the flock of any one of the ministers; and therefore
there is one consistory for the whole city. This peculiarity was also
seen in the early centuries. Then it must be noticed that, owing to the
political organisation of the United Provinces, it was difficult to
arrange for a National Synod. The civil constitution was a federation of
States, in many respects independent of each other, who were bound to
protect each other in war, to maintain a common army, and to contribute
to a common military treasury. When William of Orange was elected
Stadtholder for life, one of the laws which bound him was that he should
not acknowledge any ecclesiastical assembly which had not the approval
of the civil authorities of the province in which it proposed to meet.
This implied that each province was entitled to regulate its own
ecclesiastical affairs. There could be no meeting of a National Synod
unless all the United Provinces gave their approval. Hence the tendency
was to prevent corporate and united action.
According to the articles of Emden, and the revised and enlarged edition
approved at Dordrecht in 1572, it was agreed that office-bearers in the
Church were to sign the _Confession of Faith_. This creed had been
prepared by Guido de Brès (born at Mons in 1540) in 1561, and had been
revised by several of his friends. It was based on the Confession of the
French Church, and was originally written in French. It was approved by
a series of Synods, and was translated into Dutch, German, and Latin.
It is known as the Belgic Confession. Its original title was, _A
Confession of Faith, generally and unanimously maintained by Believers
dispersed throughout the Low Countries who desire to live according to
the purity of the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ._[271] The Church
also adopted the _Heidelberg Catechism_[272] for the instruction of the
young.
The long fight against Spain and the Inquisition had stimulated the
energies of the Church and the people of the Netherlands, and their
Universities and theological schools soon rivalled older seats of
learning. The University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful
deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575; Franecker, ten years
later, in 1585; and there followed in rapid succession the Universities
of Gronningen (1612), Utrecht (1636), and Harderwyk (1648). Dutch
theologians and lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century for
their learning and acumen.