The springs of this extraordinary occurrence are plainly not to be sought for so far back as many historians affect to trace them. It is certainly possible, and very probable, that the French Protestants did industriously exert themselves to raise in the Netherlands a nursery for their religion, and to prevent by all means in their power an amicable adjustment of differences between their brethren in the faith in that quarter and the King of Spain, in order to give that implacable foe of their party enough to do in his own country. It is natural, therefore, to suppose that their agents in the provinces left nothing undone to encourage their oppressed brethren with daring hopes, to nourish their animosity against the ruling church, and by exaggerating the oppression under which they sighed to hurry them imperceptibly into illegal courses. It is possible, too, that there were many among the confederates who thought to help out their own lost cause by increasing the number of their partners in guilt; who thought they could not otherwise maintain the legal character of their league unless the unfortunate results against which they had warned the king really came to pass, and who hoped in the general guilt of all to conceal their own individual criminality. It is, however, incredible that the outbreak of the Iconoclasts was the fruit of a deliberate plan, preconcerted, as it is alleged, at the convent of St. Truyen. It does not seem likely that in a solemn assembly of so many nobles and warriors, of whom the greater part were the adherents of popery, an individual should be found insane enough to propose an act of positive infamy, which did not so much injure any religious party in particular, as rather tread under foot all respect for religion in general, and even all morality too, and which could have been conceived only in the mind of the vilest reprobate. Besides, this outrage was too sudden in its outbreak, too vehement in its execution altogether, too monstrous to have been anything more than the offspring of the moment in which it saw the light; it seemed to flow so naturally from the circumstances which preceded it that it does not require to be traced far back to remount to its origin.
A rude mob, consisting of the very dregs of the populace, made brutal by harsh treatment, by sanguinary decrees which dogged them in every town, scared from place to place and driven almost to despair, were compelled to worship their God, and to hide like a work of darkness the universal, sacred privilege of humanity. Before their eyes proudly rose the temples of the dominant church, in which their haughty brethren indulged in ease their magnificent devotion, while they themselves were driven from the walls, expelled, too, by the weaker number perhaps, and forced, here in the wild woods, under the burning heat of noon, in disgraceful secrecy to worship the same God; cast out from civil society into a state of nature, and reminded in one dread moment of the rights of that state! The greater their superiority of numbers the more unnatural did their lot appear; with wonder they perceive the truth. The free heaven, the arms lying ready, the frenzy in their brains and fury in their hearts combine to aid the suggestions of some preaching fanatic; the occasion calls; no premeditation is necessary where all eyes at once declare consent; the resolution is formed ere yet the word is scarcely uttered; ready for any unlawful act, no one yet clearly knows what, the furious band rushes onwards. The smiling prosperity of the hostile religion insults the poverty of their own; the pomp of the authorized temples casts contempt on their proscribed belief; every cross they set up upon the highway, every image of the saints that they meet, is a trophy erected over their own humiliation, and they all must be removed by their avenging hands. Fanaticism suggests these detestable proceedings, but base passions carry them into execution.
1566. The commencement of the attack on images took place in West Flanders and Artois, in the districts between Lys and the sea. A frantic herd of artisans, boatmen, and peasants, mixed with prostitutes, beggars, vagabonds, and thieves, about three hundred in number, furnished with clubs, axes, hammers, ladders, and cords (a few only were provided with swords or fire arms), cast themselves, with fanatical fury, into the villages and hamlets near St. Omer, and breaking open the gates of such churches and cloisters as they find locked, overthrow everywhere the altars, break to pieces the images of the saints, and trample them under foot. With their excitement increased by its indulgence, and reinforced by newcomers, they press on by the direct road to Ypres, where they can count on the support of a strong body of Calvinists. Unopposed, they break into the cathedral, and mounting on ladders they hammer to pieces the pictures, hew down with axes the pulpits and pews, despoil the altars of their ornaments, and steal the holy vessels. This example was quickly followed in Menin, Comines, Verrich, Lille, and Oudenard; in a few days the same fury spreads through the whole of Flanders. At the very time when the first tidings of this occurrence arrived Antwerp was swarming with a crowd of houseless people, which the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin had brought together in that city. Even the presence of the Prince of Orange was hardly sufficient to restrain the licentious mob, who burned to imitate the doings of their brethren in St. Omer; but an order from the court which summoned him to Brussels, where the regent was just assembling her council of state, in order to lay before them the royal letters, obliged him to abandon Antwerp to the outrages of this band. His departure was the signal for tumult. Apprehensive of the lawless violence of which, on the very first day of the festival, the mob had given indications in derisory allusions, the priests, after carrying about the image of the Virgin for a short time, brought it for safety to the choir, without, as formerly, setting it up in the middle of the church. This incited some mischievous boys from among the people to pay it a visit there, and jokingly inquire why she had so soon absented herself from among them? Others mounting the pulpit, mimicked the preacher, and challenged the papists to a dispute. A Roman Catholic waterman, indignant at this jest, attempted to pull them down, and blows were exchanged in the preacher’s seat. Similar scenes occurred on the following evening. The numbers increased, and many came already provided with suspicious implements and secret weapons. At last it came into the head of one of them to cry, “Long live the Gueux!” immediately the whole band took up the cry, and the image of the Virgin was called upon to do the same. The few Roman Catholics who were present, and who had given up the hope of effecting anything against these desperadoes, left the church after locking all the doors except one. So soon as they found themselves alone it was proposed to sing one of the psalms in the new version, which was prohibited by the government. While they were yet singing they all, as at a given signal, rushed furiously upon the image of the Virgin, piercing it with swords and daggers, and striking off its head; thieves and prostitutes tore the great wax-lights from the altar, and lighted them to the work. The beautiful organ of the church, a masterpiece of the art of that period, was broken to pieces, all the paintings were effaced, the statues smashed to atoms. A crucifix, the size of life, which was set up between the two thieves, opposite the high altar, an ancient and highly valued piece of workmanship, was pulled to the ground with cords, and cut to pieces with axes, while the two malefactors at its side were respectfully spared. The holy wafers were strewed on the ground and trodden under foot; in the wine used for the Lord’s Supper, which was accidentally found there, the health of the Gueux was drunk, while with the holy oil they rubbed their shoes. The very tombs were opened, and the half-decayed corpses torn up and trampled on. All this was done with as much wonderful regularity as if each had previously had his part assigned to him; every one worked into his neighbor’s hands; no one, dangerous as the work was, met with injury; in the midst of thick darkness, which the tapers only served to render more sensible, with heavy masses falling on all sides, and though on the very topmost steps of the ladders, they scuffled with each other for the honors of demolition—yet no one suffered the least injury. In spite of the many tapers which lighted them below in their villanous work not a single individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity was the dark deed accomplished; a number of men, at most a hundred, despoiled in a few hours a temple of seventy altars—after St. Peter’s at Rome, perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.
The devastation of the cathedral did not content them; with torches and tapers purloined from it they set out at midnight to perform a similar work of havoc on the remaining churches, cloisters, and chapels. The destructive hordes increased with every fresh exploit of infamy, and thieves were allured by the opportunity. They carried away whatever they found of value—the consecrated vessels, altar-cloths, money, and vestments; in the cellars of the cloisters they drank to intoxication; to escape greater indignities the monks and nuns abandoned everything to them. The confused noises of these riotous acts had startled the citizens from their first sleep; but night made the danger appear more alarming than it really was, and instead of hastening to defend their churches the citizens fortified themselves in their houses, and in terror and anxiety awaited the dawn of morning. The rising sun at length revealed the devastation which had been going on during the night; but the havoc did not terminate with the darkness. Some churches and cloisters still remained uninjured; the same fate soon overtook them also. The work of destruction lasted three whole days. Alarmed at last lest the frantic mob, when it could no longer find anything sacred to destroy, should make a similar attack on lay property and plunder their ware houses; and encouraged, too, by discovering how small was the number of the depredators, the wealthier citizens ventured to show themselves in arms at the doors of their houses. All the gates of the town were locked but one, through which the Iconoclasts broke forth to renew the same atrocities in the rural districts. On one occasion only during all this time did the municipal officers venture to exert their authority, so strongly were they held in awe by the superior power of the Calvinists, by whom, as it was believed, this mob of miscreants was hired. The injury inflicted by this work of devastation was incalculable. In the church of the Virgin it was estimated at not less than four hundred thousand gold florins. Many precious works of art were destroyed; many valuable manuscripts; many monuments of importance to history and to diplomacy were thereby lost. The city magistrate ordered the plundered articles to be restored on pain of death; in enforcing this restitution he was effectually assisted by the preachers of the Reformers, who blushed for their followers. Much was in this manner recovered, and the ringleaders of the mob, less animated, perhaps, by the desire of plunder than by fanaticism and revenge, or perhaps being ruled by some unseen head, resolved for the future to guard against these excesses, and to make their attacks in regular bands and in better order.
The town of Ghent, meanwhile, trembled for a like destiny. Immediately on the first news of the outbreak of the Iconoclasts in Antwerp the magistrate of the former town with the most eminent citizens had bound themselves to repel by force the church spoilers; when this oath was proposed to the commonalty also the voices were divided, and many declared openly that they were by no means disposed to hinder so devout a work. In this state of affairs the Roman Catholic clergy found it advisable to deposit in the citadel the most precious movables of their churches, and private families were permitted in like manner to provide for the safety of offerings which had been made by their ancestors. Meanwhile all the services were discontinued, the courts of justice were closed; and, like a town in momentary danger of being stormed by the enemy, men trembled in expectation of what was to come. At last an insane band of rioters ventured to send delegates to the governor with this impudent message: “They were ordered,” they said, “by their chiefs to take the images out of the churches, as had been done in the other towns. If they were not opposed it should be done quietly and with as little injury as possible, but otherwise they would storm the churches;” nay, they went so far in their audacity as to ask the aid of the officers of justice therein. At first the magistrate was astounded at this demand; upon reflection, however, and in the hope that the presence of the officers of law would perhaps restrain their excesses, he did not scruple to grant their request.
In Tournay the churches were despoiled of their ornaments within sight of the garrison, who could not be induced to march against the Iconoclasts. As the latter had been told that the gold and silver vessels and other ornaments of the church were buried underground, they turned up the whole floor, and exposed, among others, the body of the Duke Adolph of Gueldres, who fell in battle at the head of the rebellious burghers of Ghent, and had been buried herein Tournay. This Adolph had waged war against his father, and had dragged the vanquished old man some miles barefoot to prison—an indignity which Charles the Bold afterwards retaliated on him. And now, again, after more than half a century fate avenged a crime against nature by another against religion; fanaticism was to desecrate that which was holy in order to expose once more to execration the bones of a parricide. Other Iconoclasts from Valenciennes united themselves with those of Tournay to despoil all the cloisters of the surrounding district, during which a valuable library, the accumulation of centuries, was destroyed by fire. The evil soon penetrated into Brabant, also Malines, Herzogenbusch, Breda, and Bergen-op-Zoom experienced the same fate. The provinces, Namur and Luxemburg, with a part of Artois and of Hainault, had alone the good fortune to escape the contagion of those outrages. In the short period of four or five days four hundred cloisters were plundered in Brabant and Flanders alone.
The northern Netherlands were soon seized with the same mania which had raged so violently through the southern. The Dutch towns, Amsterdam, Leyden, and Gravenhaag, had the alternative of either voluntarily stripping their churches of their ornaments, or of seeing them violently torn from there; the determination of their magistrates saved Delft, Haarlem, Gouda, and Rotterdam from the devastation. The same acts of violence were practised also in the islands of Zealand; the town of Utrecht and many places in Overyssel and Groningen suffered the same storms. Friesland was protected by the Count of Aremberg, and Gueldres by the Count of Megen from a like fate. An exaggerated report of these disturbances which came in from the provinces spread the alarm to Brussels, where the regent had just made preparations for an extraordinary session of the council of state. Swarms of Iconoclasts already penetrated into Brabant; and the metropolis, where they were certain of powerful support, was threatened by them with a renewal of the same atrocities then under the very eyes of majesty. The regent, in fear for her personal safety, which, even in the heart of the country, surrounded by provincial governors and Knights of the Fleece, she fancied insecure, was already meditating a flight to Mons, in Hainault, which town the Duke of Arschot held for her as a place of refuge, that she might not be driven to any undignified concession by falling into the power of the Iconoclasts. In vain did the knights pledge life and blood for her safety, and urgently beseech her not to expose them to disgrace by so dishonorable a flight, as though they were wanting in courage or zeal to protect their princess; to no purpose did the town of Brussels itself supplicate her not to abandon them in this extremity, and vainly did the council of state make the most impressive representations that so pusillanimous a step would not fail to encourage still more the insolence of the rebels; she remained immovable in this desperate condition. As messenger after messenger arrived to warn her that the Iconoclasts were advancing against the metropolis, she issued orders to hold everything in readiness for her flight, which was to take place quietly with the first approach of morning. At break of day the aged Viglius presented himself before her, whom, with the view of gratifying the nobles, she had been long accustomed to neglect. He demanded to know the meaning of the preparations he observed, upon which she at last confessed that she intended to make her escape, and assured him that he would himself do well to secure his own safety by accompanying her. “It is now two years,” said the old man to her, “that you might have anticipated these results. Because I have spoken more freely than your courtiers you have closed your princely ear to me, which has been open only to pernicious suggestions.” The regent allowed that she had been in fault, and had been blinded by an appearance of probity; but that she was now driven by necessity. “Are you resolved,” answered Viglius, “resolutely to insist upon obedience to the royal commands?” “I am,” answered the duchess. “Then have recourse to the great secret of the art of government, to dissimulation, and pretend to join the princes until, with their assistance, you have repelled this storm. Show them a confidence which you are far from feeling in your heart. Make them take an oath to you that they will make common cause in resisting these disorders. Trust those as your friends who show themselves willing to do it; but be careful to avoid frightening away the others by contemptuous treatment.” Viglius kept the regent engaged in conversation until the princes arrived, who he was quite certain would in nowise consent to her flight. When they appeared he quietly withdrew in order to issue commands to the town council to close the gates of the city and prohibit egress to every one connected with the court. This last measure effected more than all the representations had done. The regent, who saw herself a prisoner in her own capital, now yielded to the persuasions of the nobles, who pledged themselves to stand by her to the last drop of blood. She made Count Mansfeld commandant of the town, who hastily increased the garrison and armed her whole court.
The state council was now held, who finally came to a resolution that it was expedient to yield to the emergency; to permit the preachings in those places where they had already commenced; to make known the abolition of the papal Inquisition; to declare the old edicts against the heretics repealed, and before all things to grant the required indemnity to the confederate nobles, without limitation or condition. At the same time the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont and Horn, with some others, were appointed to confer on this head with the deputies of the league. Solemnly and in the most unequivocal terms the members of the league were declared free from all responsibility by reason of the petition which had been presented, and all royal officers and authorities were enjoined to act in conformity with this assurance, and neither now nor for the future to inflict any injury upon any of the confederates on account of the said petition. In return, the confederates bound themselves to be true and loyal servants of his majesty, to contribute to the utmost of their power to the re-establishment of order and the punishment of the Iconiclasts, to prevail on the people to lay down their arms, and to afford active assistance to the king against internal and foreign enemies. Securities, formally drawn up and subscribed by the plenipotentiaries of both sides, were exchanged between them; the letter of indemnity, in particular, was signed by the duchess with her own hand and attested by her seal. It was only after a severe struggle, and with tears in her eyes, that the regent, as she tremblingly confessed to the king, was at last induced to consent to this painful step. She threw the whole blame upon the nobles, who had kept her a prisoner in Brussels and compelled her to it by force. Above all she complained bitterly of the Prince of Orange.
This business accomplished, all the governors hastened to their provinces; Egmont to Flanders, Orange to Antwerp. In the latter city the Protestants had seized the despoiled and plundered churches, and, as if by the rights of war, had taken possession of them. The prince restored them to their lawful owners, gave orders for their repair, and re-established in them the Roman Catholic form of worship. Three of the Iconoclasts, who had been convicted, paid the penalty of their sacrilege on the gallows; some of the rioters were banished, and many others underwent punishment. Afterwards he assembled four deputies of each dialect, or nations, as they were termed, and agreed with them that, as the approaching winter made preaching in the open air impossible, three places within the town should be granted then, where they might either erect new churches, or convert private houses to that purpose. That they should there perform their service every Sunday and holiday, and always at the same hour, but on no other days. If, however, no holiday happened in the week, Wednesday should be kept by them instead. No religious party should maintain more than two clergymen, and these must be native Netherlanders, or at least have received naturalization from some considerable town of the provinces. All should take an oath to submit in civil matters to the municipal authorities and the Prince of Orange. They should be liable, like the other citizens, to all imposts. No one should attend sermons armed; a sword, however, should be allowed to each. No preacher should assail the ruling religion from the pulpit, nor enter upon controverted points, beyond what the doctrine itself rendered unavoidable, or what might refer to morals. No psalm should be sung by them out of their appointed district. At the election of their preachers, churchwardens, and deacons, as also at all their other consistorial meetings, a person from the government should on each occasion be present to report their proceedings to the prince and the magistrate. As to all other points they should enjoy the same protection as the ruling religion. This arrangement was to hold good until the king, with consent of the states, should determine otherwise; but then it should be free to every one to quit the country with his family and his property. From Antwerp the prince hastened to Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, in order to make there similar arrangements for the restoration of peace; Antwerp, however, was, during his absence, entrusted to the superintendence of Count Howstraten, who was a mild man, and although an adherent of the league, had never failed in loyalty to the king. It is evident that in this agreement the prince had far overstepped the powers entrusted to him, and though in the service of the king had acted exactly like a sovereign lord. But he alleged in excuse that it would be far easier to the magistrate to watch these numerous and powerful sects if he himself interfered in their worship, and if this took place under his eyes, than if he were to leave the sectarians to themselves in the open air.
In Gueldres Count Megen showed more severity, and entirely suppressed the Protestant sects and banished all their preachers. In Brussels the regent availed herself of the advantage derived from her personal presence to put a stop to the public preaching, even outside the town. When, in reference to this, Count Nassau reminded her in the name of the confederates of the compact which had been entered into, and demanded if the town of Brussels had inferior rights to the other towns? she answered, if there were public preachings in Brussels before the treaty, it was not her work if they were now discontinued. At the same time, however, she secretly gave the citizens to understand that the first who should venture to attend a public sermon should certainly be hung. Thus she kept the capital at least faithful to her.
It was more difficult to quiet Tournay, which office was committed to Count Horn, in the place of Montigny, to whose government the town properly belonged. Horn commanded the Protestants to vacate the churches immediately, and to content themselves with a house of worship outside the walls. To this their preachers objected that the churches were erected for the use of the people, by which terms, they said, not the heads but the majority were meant. If they were expelled from the Roman Catholic churches it was at least fair that they should be furnished with money for erecting churches of their own. To this the magistrate replied even if the Catholic party was the weaker it was indisputably the better. The erection of churches should not be forbidden them; they could not, however, after the injury which the town had already suffered from their brethren, the Iconoclasts, very well expect that it should be further burdened by the erection of their churches. After long quarrelling on both sides, the Protestants contrived to retain possession of some churches, which, for greater security, they occupied with guards. In Valenciennes, too, the Protestants refused submission to the conditions which were offered to them through Philip St. Aldegonde, Baron of Noircarmes, to whom, in the absence of the Marquis of Bergen, the government of that place was entrusted. A reformed preacher, La Grange, a Frenchman by birth, who by his eloquence had gained a complete command over them, urged them to insist on having churches of their own within the town, and to threaten in case of refusal to deliver it up to the Huguenots. A sense of the superior numbers of the Calvinists, and of their understanding with the Huguenots, prevented the governor adopting forcible measures against them.
Count Egmont, also to manifest his zeal for the king’s service, did violence to his natural kind-heartedness. Introducing a garrison into the town of Ghent, he caused some of the most refractory rebels to be put to death. The churches were reopened, the Roman Catholic worship renewed, and all foreigners, without exception, ordered to quit the province. To the Calvinists, but to them alone, a site was granted outside the town for the erection of a church. In return they were compelled to pledge themselves to the most rigid obedience to the municipal authorities, and to active co-operation in the proceedings against the Iconoclasts. He pursued similar measures through all Flanders and Artois. One of his noblemen, John Cassembrot, Baron of Beckerzeel, and a leaguer, pursuing the Iconoclasts at the head of some horsemen of the league, surprised a band of them just as they were about to break into a town of Hainault, near Grammont, in Flanders, and took thirty of them prisoners, of whom twenty-two were hung upon the spot, and the rest whipped out of the province.
Services of such importance one would have thought scarcely deserved to be rewarded with the displeasure of the king; what Orange, Egmont, and Horn performed on this occasion evinced at least as much zeal and had as beneficial a result as anything that was accomplished by Noircarmes, Megen, and Aremberg, to whom the king vouchsafed to show his gratitude both by words and deeds. But their zeal, their services came too late. They had spoken too loudly against his edicts, had been too vehement in their opposition to his measures, had insulted him too grossly in the person of his minister Granvella, to leave room for forgiveness. No time, no repentance, no atonement, however great, could efface this one offence from the memory of their sovereign.
Philip lay sick at Segovia when the news of the outbreak of the Iconoclasts and the uncatholic agreement entered into with the Reformers reached him. At the same time the regent renewed her urgent entreaty for his personal visit, of which also all the letters treated, which the President Viglius exchanged with his friend Hopper. Many also of the Belgian nobles addressed special letters to the king, as, for instance, Egmont, Mansfeld, Megen, Aremberg, Noircarmes, and Barlaimont, in which they reported the state of their provinces, and at once explained and justified the arrangements they had made with the disaffected. Just at this period a letter arrived from the German Emperor, in which he recommended Philip to act with clemency towards his Belgian subjects, and offered his mediation in the matter. He had also written direct to the regent herself in Brussels, and added letters to the several leaders of the nobility, which, however, were never delivered. Having conquered the first anger which this hateful occurrence had excited, the king referred the whole matter to his council.
The party of Granvella, which had the preponderance in the council, was diligent in tracing a close connection between the behavior of the Flemish nobles and the excesses of the church desecrators, which showed itself in similarity of the demands of both parties, and especially the time which the latter chose for their outbreak. In the same month, they observed, in which the nobles had sent in their three articles of pacification, the Iconoclasts had commenced their work; on the evening of the very day that Orange quitted Antwerp the churches too were plundered. During the whole tumult not a finger was lifted to take up arms; all the expedients employed were invariably such as turned to the advantage of the sects, while, on the contrary, all others were neglected which tended to the maintenance of the pure faith. Many of the Iconoclasts, it was further said, had confessed that all that they had done was with the knowledge and consent of the princes; though surely nothing was more natural, than for such worthless wretches to seek to screen with great names a crime which they had undertaken solely on their own account. A writing also was produced in which the high nobility were made to promise their services to the “Gueux,” to procure the assembly of the states general, the genuineness of which, however, the former strenuously denied. Four different seditious parties were, they said, to be noticed in the Netherlands, which were all more or less connected with one another, and all worked towards a common end. One of these was those bands of reprobates who desecrated the churches; a second consisted of the various sects who had hired the former to perform their infamous acts; the “Gueux,” who had raised themselves to be the defenders of the sects were the third; and the leading nobles who were inclined to the “Gueux” by feudal connections, relationship, and friendship, composed the fourth. All, consequently, were alike fatally infected, and all equally guilty. The government had not merely to guard against a few isolated members; it had to contend with the whole body. Since, then, it was ascertained that the people were the seduced party, and the encouragement to rebellion came from higher quarters, it would be wise and expedient to alter the plan hitherto adopted, which now appeared defective in several respects. Inasmuch as all classes had been oppressed without distinction, and as much of severity shown to the lower orders as of contempt to the nobles, both had been compelled to lend support to one another; a party had been given to the latter and leaders to the former. Unequal treatment seemed an infallible expedient to separate them; the mob, always timid and indolent when not goaded by the extremity of distress, would very soon desert its adored protectors and quickly learn to see in their fate well-merited retribution if only it was not driven to share it with them. It was therefore proposed to the king to treat the great multitude for the future with more leniency, and to direct all measures of severity against the leaders of the faction. In order, however, to avoid the appearance of a disgraceful concession, it was considered advisable to accept the mediation of the Emperor, and to impute to it alone and not to the justice of their demands, that the king out of pure generosity had granted to his Belgian subjects as much as they asked.
The question of the king’s personal visit to the provinces was now again mooted, and all the difficulties which had formerly been raised on this head appeared to vanish before the present emergency. “Now,” said Tyssenacque and Hopper, “the juncture has really arrived at which the king, according to his own declaration formerly made to Count Egmont, will be ready to risk a thousand lives. To restore quiet to Ghent Charles V. had undertaken a troublesome and dangerous journey through an enemy’s country. This was done for the sake of a single town; and now the peace, perhaps even the possession, of all the United Provinces was at stake.” This was the opinion of the majority; and the journey of the king was looked upon as a matter from which he could not possibly any longer escape.
The question now was, whether he should enter upon it with a numerous body of attendants or with few; and here the Prince of Eboli and Count Figueroa were at issue with the Duke of Alva, as their private interests clashed. If the king journeyed at the head of an army the presence of the Duke of Alva would be indispensable, who, on the other hand, if matters were peaceably adjusted, would be less required, and must make room for his rivals. “An army,” said Figueroa, who spoke first, “would alarm the princes through whose territories it must march, and perhaps even be opposed by them; it would, moreover, unnecessarily burden the provinces for whose tranquillization it was intended, and add a new grievance to the many which had already driven the people to such lengths. It would press indiscriminately upon all of the king’s subjects, whereas a court of justice, peaceably administering its office, would observe a marked distinction between the innocent and the guilty. The unwonted violence of the former course would tempt the leaders of the faction to take a more alarming view of their behavior, in which wantonness and levity had the chief share, and consequently induce them to proceed with deliberation and union; the thought of having forced the king to such lengths would plunge them into despair, in which they would be ready to undertake anything. If the king placed himself in arms against the rebels he would forfeit the most important advantage which he possessed over them, namely, his authority as sovereign of the country, which would prove the more powerful in proportion as he showed his reliance upon that alone. He would place himself thereby, as it were, on a level with the rebels, who on their side would not be at a loss to raise an army, as the universal hatred of the Spanish forces would operate in their favor with the nation. By this procedure the king would exchange the certain advantage which his position as sovereign of the country conferred upon him for the uncertain result of military operations, which, result as they might, would of necessity destroy a portion of his own subjects. The rumor of his hostile approach would outrun him time enough to allow all who were conscious of a bad cause to place themselves in a posture of defence, and to combine and render availing both their foreign and domestic resources. Here again the general alarm would do them important service; the uncertainty who would be the first object of this warlike approach would drive even the less guilty to the general mass of the rebels, and force those to become enemies to the king who otherwise would never have been so. If, however, he was coming among them without such a formidable accompaniment; if his appearance was less that of a sanguinary judge than of an angry parent, the courage of all good men would rise, and the bad would perish in their own security. They would persuade themselves what had happened was unimportant; that it did not appear to the king of sufficient moment to call for strong measures. They wished if they could to avoid the chance of ruining, by acts of open violence, a cause which might perhaps yet be saved; consequently, by this quiet, peaceable method everything would be gained which by the other would be irretrievably lost; the loyal subject would in no degree be involved in the same punishment with the culpable rebel; on the latter alone would the whole weight of the royal indignation descend. Lastly, the enormous expenses would be avoided which the transport of a Spanish army to those distant regions would occasion.
“But,” began the Duke of Alva, “ought the injury of some few citizens to be considered when danger impends over the whole? Because a few of the loyally-disposed may suffer wrong are the rebels therefore not to be chastised? The offence has been universal, why then should not the punishment be the same? What the rebels have incurred by their actions the rest have incurred equally by their supineness. Whose fault is it but theirs that the former have so far succeeded? Why did they not promptly oppose their first attempts? It is said that circumstances were not so desperate as to justify this violent remedy; but who will insure us that they will not be so by the time the king arrives, especially when, according to every fresh despatch of the regent, all is hastening with rapid strides to a-ruinous consummation? Is it a hazard we ought to run to leave the king to discover on his entrance into the provinces the necessity of his having brought with him a military force? It is a fact only too well-established that the rebels have secured foreign succors, which stand ready at their command on the first signal; will it then be time to think of preparing for war when the enemy pass the frontiers? Is it a wise risk to rely for aid upon the nearest Belgian troops when their loyalty is so little to be depended upon? And is not the regent perpetually reverting in her despatches to the fact that nothing but the want of a suitable military force has hitherto hindered her from enforcing the edicts, and stopping the progress of the rebels? A well-disciplined and formidable army alone will disappoint all their hopes of maintaining themselves in opposition to their lawful sovereign, and nothing but the certain prospect of destruction will make them lower their demands. Besides, without an adequate force, the king cannot venture his person in hostile countries; he cannot enter into any treaties with his rebellious subjects which would not be derogatory to his honor.”
The authority of the speaker gave preponderance to his arguments, and the next question was, when the king should commence his journey and what road he should take. As the voyage by sea was on every account extremely hazardous, he had no other alternative but either to proceed thither through the passes near Trent across. Germany, or to penetrate from Savoy over the Apennine Alps. The first route would expose him to the danger of the attack of the German Protestants, who were not likely to view with indifference the objects of his journey, and a passage over the Apennines was at this late season of the year not to be attempted. Moreover, it would be necessary to send for the requisite galleys from Italy, and repair them, which would take several months. Finally, as the assembly of the Cortes of Castile, from which he could not well be absent, was already appointed for December, the journey could not be undertaken before the spring. Meanwhile the regent pressed for explicit instructions how she was to extricate herself from her present embarrassment, without compromising the royal dignity too far; and it was necessary to do something in the interval till the king could undertake to appease the troubles by his personal presence. Two separate letters were therefore despatched to the duchess; one public, which she could lay before the states and the council chambers, and one private, which was intended for herself alone. In the first, the king announced to her his restoration to health, and the fortunate birth of the Infanta Clara Isabella Eugenia, afterwards wife of the Archduke Albert of Austria and Princess of the Netherlands. He declared to her his present firm intention to visit the Netherlands in person, for which he was already making the necessary preparations. The assembling of the states he refused, as he had previously done. No mention was made in this letter of the agreement which she had entered into with the Protestants and with the league, because he did not deem it advisable at present absolutely to reject it, and he was still less disposed to acknowledge its validity. On the other hand, he ordered her to reinforce the army, to draw together new regiments from Germany, and to meet the refractory with force. For the rest, he concluded, he relied upon the loyalty of the leading nobility, among whom he knew many who were sincere in their attachment both to their religion and their king. In the secret letter she was again enjoined to do all in her power to prevent the assembling of the states; but if the general voice should become irresistible, and she was compelled to yield, she was at least to manage so cautiously that the royal dignity should not suffer, and no one learn the king’s consent to their assembly.
While these consultations were held in Spain the Protestants in the Netherlands made the most extensive use of the privileges which had been compulsorily granted to them. The erection of churches wherever it was permitted was completed with incredible rapidity; young and old, gentle and simple, assisted in carrying stones; women sacrificed even their ornaments in order to accelerate the work. The two religious parties established in several towns consistories, and a church council of their own, the first move of the kind being made in Antwerp, and placed their form of worship on a well-regulated footing. It was also proposed to raise a common fund by subscription to meet any sudden emergency of the Protestant church in general. In Antwerp a memorial was presented by the Calvinists of that town to the Count of Hogstraten, in which they offered to pay three millions of dollars to secure the free exercise of their religion. Many copies of this writing were circulated in the Netherlands; and in order to stimulate others, many had ostentatiously subscribed their names to large sums. Various interpretations of this extravagant offer were made by the enemies of the Reformers, and all had some appearance of reason. For instance, it was urged that under the pretext of collecting the requisite sum for fulfilling this engagement they hoped, without suspicion, to raise funds for military purposes; for whether they should be called upon to contribute for or against they would, it was thought, be more ready to burden themselves with a view of preserving peace than for an oppressive and devasting war. Others saw in this offer nothing more than a temporary stratagem of the Protestants by which they hoped to bind the court and keep it irresolute until they should have gained sufficient strength to confront it. Others again declared it to be a downright bravado in order to alarm the regent, and to raise the courage of their own party by the display of such rich resources. But whatever was the true motive of this proposition, its originators gained little by it; the contributions flowed in scantily and slowly, and the court answered the proposal with silent contempt. The excesses, too, of the Iconoclasts, far from promoting the cause of the league and advancing the Protestants interests, had done irreparable injury to both. The sight of their ruined churches, which, in the language of Viglius, resembled stables more than houses of God, enraged the Roman Catholics, and above all the clergy. All of that religion, who had hitherto been members of the league, now forsook it, alleging that even if it had not intentionally excited and encouraged the excesses of the Iconoclasts it had beyond question remotely led to them. The intolerance of the Calvinists who, wherever they were the ruling party, cruelly oppressed the Roman Catholics, completely expelled the delusion in which the latter had long indulged, and they withdrew their support from a party from which, if they obtained the upper hand, their own religion had so much cause to fear. Thus the league lost many of its best members; the friends and patrons, too, which it had hitherto found amongst the well-disposed citizens now deserted it, and its character began perceptibly to decline. The severity with which some of its members had acted against the Iconoclasts in order to prove their good disposition towards the regent, and to remove the suspicion of any connection with the malcontents, had also injured them with the people who favored the latter, and thus the league was in danger of ruining itself with both parties at the same time. The regent had no sooner became acquainted with this change in the public mind than she devised a plan by which she hoped gradually to dissolve the whole league, or at least to enfeeble it through internal dissensions. For this end she availed herself of the private letters which the king had addressed to some of the nobles, and enclosed to her with full liberty to use them at her discretion. These letters, which overflowed with kind expressions were presented to those for whom they were intended, with an attempt at secrecy, which designedly miscarried, so that on each occasion some one or other of those who had received nothing of the sort got a hint of them. In order to spread suspicion the more widely numerous copies of the letters were circulated. This artifice attained its object. Many members of the league began to doubt the honesty of those to whom such brilliant promises were made; through fear of being deserted by their principal members and supporters, they eagerly accepted the conditions which were offered them by the regent, and evinced great anxiety for a speedy reconciliation with the court. The general rumor of the impending visit of the king, which the regent took care to have widely circulated, was also of great service to her in this matter; many who could not augur much good to themselves from the royal presence did not hesitate to accept a pardon, which, perhaps, for what they could tell, was offered them for the last time. Among those who thus received private letters were Egmont and Prince of Orange. Both had complained to the king of the evil reports with which designing persons in Spain had labored to brand their names, and to throw suspicion on their motives and intentions; Egmont, in particular, with the honest simplicity which was peculiar to his character, had asked the monarch only to point out to him what he most desired, to determine the particular action by which his favor could be best obtained and zeal in his service evinced, and it should, he assured him, be done. The king in reply caused the president, Von Tyssenacque, to tell him that he could do nothing better to refute his traducers than to show perfect submission to the royal orders, which were so clearly and precisely drawn up, that no further exposition of them was required, nor any particular instruction. It was the sovereign’s part to deliberate, to examine, and to decide; unconditionally to obey was the duty of the subject; the honor of the latter consisted in his obedence. It did not become a member to hold itself wiser than the head. He was assuredly to be blamed for not having done his utmost to curb the unruliness of his sectarians; but it was even yet in his power to make up for past negligence by at least maintaining peace and order until the actual arrival of the king. In thus punishing Count Egmont with reproofs like a disobedient child, the king treated him in accordance with what he knew of his character; with his friend he found it necessary to call in the aid of artifice and deceit. Orange, too, in his letter, had alluded to the suspicions which the king entertained of his loyalty and attachment, but not, like Egmont, in the vain hope of removing them; for this, he had long given up; but in order to pass from these complaints to a request for permission to resign his offices. He had already frequently made this request to the regent, but had always received from her a refusal, accompanied with the strongest assurance of her regard. The king also, to whom he now at last addressed a direct application, returned him the same answer, graced with similar strong assurances of his satisfaction and gratitude. In particular he expressed the high satisfaction he entertained of his services, which he had lately rendered the crown in Antwerp, and lamented deeply that the private affairs of the prince (which the latter had made his chief plea for demanding his dismissal) should have fallen into such disorder; but ended with the declaration that it was impossible for him to dispense with his valuable services at a crisis which demanded the increase, rather than diminution, of his good and honest servants. He had thought, he added, that the prince entertained a better opinion of him than to suppose him capable of giving credit to the idle talk of certain persons, who were friends neither to the prince nor to himself. But, at the same time, to give him a proof of his sincerity, he complained to him in confidence of his brother, the Count of Nassau, pretended to ask his advice in the matter, and finally expressed a wish to have the count removed for a period from the Netherlands.
But Philip had here to do with a head which in cunning was superior to his own. The Prince of Orange had for a long time held watch over him and his privy council in Madrid and Segovia, through a host of spies, who reported to him everything of importance that was transacted there. The court of this most secret of all despots had become accessible to his intriguing spirit and his money; in this manner he had gained possession of several autograph letters of the regent, which she had secretly written to Madrid, and had caused copies to be circulated in triumph in Brussels, and in a measure under her own eyes, insomuch that she saw with astonishment in everybody’s hands what she thought was preserved with so much care, and entreated the king for the future to destroy her despatches immediately they were read. William’s vigilance did not confine itself simply to the court of Spain; he had spies in France, and even at more distant courts. He is also charged with not being over scrupulous as to the means by which he acquired his intelligence. But the most important disclosure was made by an intercepted letter of the Spanish ambassador in France, Francis Von Alava, to the duchess, in which the former descanted on the fair opportunity which was now afforded to the king, through the guilt of the Netherlandish people, of establishing an arbitrary power in that country. He therefore advised her to deceive the nobles by the very arts which they had hitherto employed against herself, and to secure them through smooth words and an obliging behavior. The king, he concluded, who knew the nobles to be the hidden springs of all the previous troubles, would take good care to lay hands upon them at the first favorable opportunity, as well as the two whom he had already in Spain; and did not mean to let them go again, having sworn to make an example in them which should horrify the whole of Christendom, even if it should cost him his hereditary dominions. This piece of evil news was strongly corroborated by the letters which Bergen and Montigny wrote from Spain, and in which they bitterly complained of the contemptuous behavior of the grandees and the altered deportment of the monarch towards them; and the Prince of Orange was now fully sensible what he had to expect from the fair promises of the king.
The letter of the minister, Alava, together with some others from Spain, which gave a circumstantial account of the approaching warlike visit of the king, and of his evil intentions against the nobles, was laid by the prince before his brother, Count Louis of Nassau, Counts Egmont, Horn, and Hogstraten, at a meeting at Dendermonde in Flanders, whither these five knights had repaired to confer on the measures necessary for their security. Count Louis, who listened only to his feelings of indignation, foolhardily maintained that they ought, without loss of time, to take up arms and seize some strongholds. That they ought at all risks to prevent the king’s armed entrance into the provinces. That they should endeavor to prevail on the Swiss, the Protestant princes of Germany, and the Huguenots to arm and obstruct his passage through their territories; and if, notwithstanding, he should force his way through these impediments, that the Flemings should meet him with an army on the frontiers. He would take upon himself to negotiate a defensive alliance in France, in Switzerland, and in Germany, and to raise in the latter empire four thousand horse, together with a proportionate body of infantry. Pretexts would not be wanting for collecting the requisite supplies of money, and the merchants of the reformed sect would, he felt assured, not fail them. But William, more cautious and more wise, declared himself against this proposal, which, in the execution, would be exposed to numberless difficulties, and had as yet nothing to justify it. The Inquisition, he represented, was in fact abolished, the edicts were nearly sunk into oblivion, and a fair degree of religious liberty accorded. Hitherto, therefore, there existed no valid or adequate excuse for adopting this hostile method; he did not doubt, however, that one would be presented to them before long, and in good time for preparation. His own opinion consequently was that they should await this opportunity with patience, and in the meanwhile still keep a watchful eye upon everything, and contrive to give the people a hint of the threatened danger, that they might be ready to act if circumstances should call for their co-operation. If all present had assented to the opinion of the Prince of Orange, there is no doubt but so powerful a league, formidable both by the influence and the high character of its members, would have opposed obstacles to the designs of the king which would have compelled him to abandon them entirely. But the determination of the assembled knights was much shaken by the declaration with which Count Egmont surprised them. “Rather,” said he, “may all that is evil befall me than that I should tempt fortune so rashly. The idle talk of the Spaniard, Alava, does not move me; how should such a person be able to read the mind of a sovereign so reserved as Philip, and to decipher his secrets? The intelligence which Montigny gives us goes to prove nothing more than that the king has a very doubtful opinion of our zeal for his service, and believes he has cause to distrust our loyalty; and for this I for my part must confess that we have given him only too much cause. And it is my serious purpose, by redoubling my zeal, to regain his good opinion, and by my future behavior to remove, if possible, the distrust which my actions have hitherto excited. How could I tear myself from the arms of my numerous and dependent family to wander as an exile at foreign courts, a burden to every one who received me, the slave of every one who condescended to assist me, a servant of foreigners, in order to escape a slight degree of constraint at home? Never can the monarch act unkindly towards a servant who was once beloved and dear to him, and who has established a well-grounded claim to his gratitude. Never shall I be persuaded that he who has expressed such favorable, such gracious sentiments towards his Belgian subjects, and with his own mouth gave me such emphatic, such solemn assurances, can be now devising, as it is pretended, such tyrannical schemes against them. If we do but restore to the country its former repose, chastise the rebels, and re-establish the Roman Catholic form of worship wherever it has been violently suppressed, then, believe me, we shall hear no more of Spanish troops. This is the course to which I now invite you all by my counsel and my example, and to which also most of our brethren already incline. I, for my part, fear nothing from the anger of the king. My conscience acquits me. I trust my fate and fortunes to his justice and clemency.” In vain did Nassau, Horn, and Orange labor to shake his resolution, and to open his eyes to the near and inevitable danger. Egmont was really attached to the king; the royal favors, and the condescension with which they were conferred, were still fresh in his remembrance. The attentions with which the monarch had distinguished him above all his friends had not failed of their effect. It was more from false shame than from party spirit that he had defended the cause of his countrymen against him; more from temperament and natural kindness of heart than from tried principles that he had opposed the severe measures of the government. The love of the nation, which worshipped him as its idol, carried him away. Too vain to renounce a title which sounded so agreeable, he had been compelled to do something to deserve it; but a single look at his family, a harsher designation applied to his conduct, a dangerous inference drawn from it, the mere sound of crime, terrified him from his self-delusion, and scared him back in haste and alarm to his duty.
Orange’s whole plan was frustrated by Egmont’s withdrawal. The latter possessed the hearts of the people and the confidence of the army, without which it was utterly impossible to undertake anything effective. The rest had reckoned with so much certainty upon him that his unexpected defection rendered the whole meeting nugatory. They therefore separated without coming to a determination. All who had met in Dendermonde were expected in the council of state in Brussels; but Egmont alone repaired thither. The regent wished to sift him on the subject of this conference, but she could extract nothing further from him than the production of the letter of Alava, of which he had purposely taken a copy, and which, with the bitterest reproofs, he laid before her. At first she changed color at sight of it, but quickly recovering herself, she boldly declared that it was a forgery. “How can this letter,” she said, “really come from Alava, when I miss none? And would he who pretends to have intercepted it have spared the other letters? Nay, how can it be true, when not a single packet has miscarried, nor a single despatch failed to come to hand? How, too, can it be thought likely that the king would have made Alava master of a secret which he has not communicated even to me?”
CIVIL WAR
1566. Meanwhile the regent hastened to take advantage of the schism amongst the nobles to complete the ruin of the league, which was already tottering under the weight of internal dissensions. Without loss of time she drew from Germany the troops which Duke Eric of Brunswick was holding in readiness, augmented the cavalry, and raised five regiments of Walloons, the command of which she gave to Counts Mansfeld, Megen, Aremberg, and others. To the prince, likewise, she felt it necessary to confide troops, both because she did not wish, by withholding them pointedly, to insult him, and also because the provinces of which he was governor were in urgent need of them; but she took the precaution of joining with him a Colonel Waldenfinger, who should watch all his steps and thwart his measures if they appeared dangerous. To Count Egmont the clergy in Flanders paid a contribution of forty thousand gold florins for the maintenance of fifteen hundred men, whom he distributed among the places where danger was most apprehended. Every governor was ordered to increase his military force, and to provide himself with ammunition. These energetic preparations, which were making in all places, left no doubt as to the measures which the regent would adopt in future. Conscious of her superior force, and certain of this important support, she now ventured to change her tone, and to employ quite another language with the rebels. She began to put the most arbitrary interpretation on the concessions which, through fear and necessity, she had made to the Protestants, and to restrict all the liberties which she had tacitly granted them to the mere permission of their preaching. All other religious exercises and rites, which yet appeared to be involved in the former privilege, were by new edicts expressly forbidden, and all offenders in such matters were to be proceeded against as traitors. The Protestants were permitted to think differently from the ruling church upon the sacrament, but to receive it differently was a crime; baptism, marriage, burial, after their fashion, were probibited under pain of death. It was a cruel mockery to allow them their religion, and forbid the exercise of it; but this mean artifice of the regent to escape from the obligation of her pledged word was worthy of the pusillanimity with which she had submitted to its being extorted from her. She took advantage of the most trifling innovations and the smallest excesses to interrupt the preachings; and some of the preachers, under the charge of having performed their office in places not appointed to them, were brought to trial, condemned, and executed. On more than one occasion the regent publicly declared that the confederates had taken unfair advantage of her fears, and that she did not feel herself bound by an engagement which had been extorted from her by threats.
Of all the Belgian towns which had participated in the insurrection of the Iconoclasts none had caused the regent so much alarm as the town of Valenciennes, in Hainault. In no other was the party of the Calvinists so powerful, and the spirit of rebellion for which the province of Hainault had always made itself conspicuous, seemed to dwell here as in its native place. The propinquity of France, to which, as well by language as by manners, this town appeared to belong, rather than to the Netherlands, had from the first led to its being governed with great mildness and forbearance, which, however, only taught it to feel its own importance. At the last outbreak of the church-desecrators it had been on the point of surrendering to the Huguenots, with whom it maintained the closest understanding. The slightest excitement night renew this danger. On this account Valenciennes was the first town to which the regent proposed, as soon as should be in her power, to send a strong garrison. Philip of Noircarmes, Baron of St. Aldegonde, Governor of Hainault in the place of the absent Marquis of Bergen, had received this charge, and now appeared at the head of an army before its walls. Deputies came to meet him on the part of the magistrate from the town, to petition against the garrison, because the Protestant citizens, who were the superior number, had declared against it. Noircarnes acquainted them with the will of the regent, and gave them the choice between the garrison or a siege. He assured them that not more than four squadrons of horse and six companies of foot should be imposed upon the town; and for this he would give them his son as a hostage. These terms were laid before the magistrate, who, for his part, was much inclined to accept them. But Peregrine Le Grange, the preacher, and the idol of the populace, to whom it was of vital importance to prevent a submission of which he would inevitably become the victim, appeared at the head of his followers, and by his powerful eloquence excited the people to reject the conditions. When their answer was brought to Noircarmes, contrary to all law of nations, he caused the messengers to be placed in irons, and carried them away with him as prisoners; he was, however, by express command of the regent, compelled to set them free again. The regent, instructed by secret orders from Madrid to exercise as much forbearance as possible, caused the town to be repeatedly summoned to receive the garrison; when, however, it obstinately persisted in its refusal, it was declared by public edict to be in rebellion, and Noircarmes was authorized to commence the siege in form. The other provinces were forbidden to assist this rebellious town with advice, money, or arms. All the property contained in it was confiscated. In order to let it see the war before it began in earnest, and to give it time for rational reflection, Noircarmes drew together troops from all Hainault and Cambray (1566), took possession of St. Amant, and placed garrisons in all adjacent places.
The line of conduct adopted towards Valenciennes allowed the other towns which were similarly situated to infer the fate which was intended for them also, and at once put the whole league in motion. An army of the Gueux, between three thousand and four thousand strong, which was hastily collected from the rabble of fugitives, and the remaining bands of the Iconoclasts, appeared in the territories of Tournay and Lille, in order to secure these two towns, and to annoy the enemy at Valenciennes. The commandant of Lille was fortunate enough to maintain that place by routing a detachment of this army, which, in concert with the Protestant inhabitants, had made an attempt to get possession of it. At the same time the army of the Gueux, which was uselessly wasting its time at Lannoy, was surprised by Noircarmes and almost entirely annihilated. The few who with desperate courage forced their way through the enemy, threw themselves into the town of Tournay, which was immediately summoned by the victor to open its gates and admit a garrison. Its prompt obedience obtained for it a milder fate. Noircarmes contented himself with abolishing the Protestant consistory, banishing the preachers, punishing the leaders of the rebels, and again re-establishing the Roman Catholic worship, which he found almost entirely suppressed. After giving it a steadfast Roman Catholic as governor, and leaving in it a sufficient garrison, he again returned with his victorious army to Valenciennes to press the siege.
This town, confident in its strength, actively prepared for defence, firmly resolved to allow things to come to extremes before it surrendered. The inhabitants had not neglected to furnish themselves with ammunition and provisions for a long siege; all who could carry arms (the very artisans not excepted), became soldiers; the houses before the town, and especially the cloisters, were pulled down, that the besiegers might not avail themselves of them to cover their attack. The few adherents of the crown, awed by the multitude, were silent; no Roman Catholic ventured to stir himself. Anarchy and rebellion had taken the place of good order, and the fanaticism of a foolhardy priest gave laws instead of the legal dispensers of justice. The male population was numerous, their courage confirmed by despair, their confidence unbounded that the siege would be raised, while their hatred against the Roman Catholic religion was excited to the highest pitch. Many had no mercy to expect; all abhorred the general thraldom of an imperious garrison. Noircarmes, whose army had become formidable through the reinforcements which streamed to it from all quarters, and was abundantly furnished with all the requisites for a long blockade, once more attempted to prevail on the town by gentle means, but in vain. At last he caused the trenches to be opened and prepared to invest the place.
In the meanwhile the position of the Protestants had grown as much worse as that of the regent had improved. The league of the nobles had gradually melted away to a third of its original number. Some of its most important defenders, Count Egmont, for instance, had gone over to the king; the pecuniary contributions which had been so confidently reckoned upon came in but slowly and scantily; the zeal of the party began perceptibly to cool, and the close of the fine season made it necessary to discontinue the public preachings, which, up to this time, had been continued. These and other reasons combined induced the declining party to moderate its demands, and to try every legal expedient before it proceeded to extremities. In a general synod of the Protestants, which was held for this object in Antwerp, and which was also attended by some of the confederates, it was resolved to send deputies to the regent to remonstrate with her upon this breach of faith, and to remind her of her compact. Brederode undertook this office, but was obliged to submit to a harsh and disgraceful rebuff, and was shut out of Brussels. He had now recourse to a written memorial, in which,—in the name of the whole league, he complained that the duchess had, by violating her word, falsified in sight of all the Protestants the security given by the league, in reliance on which all of them had laid down their arms; that by her insincerity she had undone all the good which the confederates had labored to effect; that she had sought to degrade the league in the eyes of the people, had excited discord among its members, and had even caused many of them to be persecuted as criminals. He called upon her to recall her late ordinances, which deprived the Protestants of the free exercise of their religion, but above all to raise the siege of Valenciennes, to disband the troops newly enlisted, and ended by assuring her that on these conditions and these alone the league would be responsible for the general tranquillity.
To this the regent replied in a tone very different from her previous moderation. “Who these confederates are who address me in this memorial is, indeed, a mystery to me. The confederates with whom I had formerly to do, for ought I know to the contrary, have dispersed. All at least cannot participate in this statement of grievances, for I myself know of many, who, satisfied in all their demands, have returned to their duty. But still, whoever he may be, who without authority and right, and without name addresses me, he has at least given a very false interpretation to my word if he asserts that I guaranteed to the Protestants complete religious liberty. No one can be ignorant how reluctantly I was induced to permit the preachings in the places where they had sprung up unauthorized, and this surely cannot be counted for a concession of freedom in religion. Is it likely that I should have entertained the idea of protecting these illegal consistories, of tolerating this state within a state? Could I forget myself so far as to grant the sanction of law to an objectionable sect; to overturn all order in the church and in the state, and abominably to blaspheme my holy religion? Look to him who has given you such permission, but you must not argue with me. You accuse me of having violated the agreement which gave you impunity and security. The past I am willing to look over, but not what may be done in future. No advantage was to be taken of you on account of the petition of last April, and to the best of my knowledge nothing of the kind has as yet been done; but whoever again offends in the same way against the majesty of the king must be ready to bear the consequences of his crime. In fine, how can you presume to remind me of an agreement which you have been the first to break? At whose instigation were the churches plundered, the images of the saints thrown down, and the towns hurried into rebellion? Who formed alliances with foreign powers, set on foot illegal enlistments, and collected unlawful taxes from the subjects of the king? These are the reasons which have impelled me to draw together my troops, and to increase the severity of the edicts. Whoever now asks me to lay down my arms cannot mean well to his country or his king, and if ye value your own lives, look to it that your own actions acquit you, instead of judging mine.”
All the hopes which the confederates might have entertained of an amicable adjustment sank with this high-toned declaration. Without being confident of possessing powerful support, the regent would not, they argued, employ such language. An army was in the field, the enemy was before Valenciennes, the members who were the heart of the league had abandoned it, and the regent required unconditional submission. Their cause was now so bad that open resistance could not make it worse. If they gave themselves up defenceless into the hands of their exasperated sovereign their fate was certain; an appeal to arms could at least make it a matter of doubt; they, therefore, chose the latter, and began seriously to take steps for their defence. In order to insure the assistance of the German Protestants, Louis of Nassau attempted to persuade the towns of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Tournay, and Valenciennes to adopt the confession of Augsburg, and in this manner to seal their alliance with a religious union. But the proposition was not successful, because the hatred of the Calvinists to the Lutherans exceeded, if possible, that which they bore to popery. Nassau also began in earnest to negotiate for supplies from France, the Palatinate, and Saxony. The Count of Bergen fortified his castles; Brederode threw himself with a small force into his strong town of Vianne on the Leek, over which he claimed the rights of sovereignty, and which he hastily placed in a state of defense, and there awaited a reinforcement from the league, and the issue of Nassua’s negotiations. The flag of war was now unfurled, everywhere the drum was heard to beat; in all parts troops were seen on the march, contributions collected, and soldiers enlisted. The agents of each party often met in the same place, and hardly had the collectors and recruiting officers of the regent quitted a town when it had to endure a similar visit from the agents of the league.
From Valenciennes the regent directed her attention to Herzogenbusch, where the Iconoclasts had lately committed fresh excesses, and the party of the Protestants had gained a great accession of strength. In order to prevail on the citizens peaceably to receive a garrison, she sent thither, as ambassador, the Chancellor Scheiff, from Brabant, with counsellor Merode of Petersheim, whom she appointed governor of the town; they were instructed to secure the place by judicious means, and to exact from the citizens a new oath of allegiance. At the same time the Count of Megen, who was in the neighborhood with a body of troops, was ordered to support the two envoys in effecting their commission, and to afford the means of throwing in a garrison immediately. But Brederode, who obtained information of these movements in Viane, had already sent thither one of his creatures, a certain Anton von Bomber,— a hot Calvinist, but also a brave soldier, in order to raise the courage of his party, and to frustrate the designs of the regent. This Bomberg succeeded in getting possession of the letters which the chancellor brought with him from the duchess, and contrived to substitute in their place counterfeit ones, which, by their harsh and imperious language, were calculated to exasperate the minds of the citizens. At the same time he attempted to throw suspicion on both the ambassadors of the duchess as having evil designs upon the town. In this he succeeded so well with the mob that in their mad fury they even laid hands on the ambassadors and placed them in confinement. He himself, at the head of eight thousand men, who had adopted him as their leader, advanced against the Count of Megen, who was moving in order of battle, and gave him so warm a reception, with some heavy artillery, that he was compelled to retire without accomplishing his object. The regent now sent an officer of justice to demand the release of her ambassadors, and in case of refusal to threaten the place with siege; but Bomberg with his party surrounded the town hall and forced the magistrate to deliver to him the key of the town. The messenger of the regent was ridiculed and dismissed, and an answer sent through him that the treatment of the prisoners would depend upon Brederode’s orders. The herald, who was remaining outside before the town, now appeared to declare war against her, which, however, the chancellor prevented.
After his futile attempt on Herzogenhusch the Count of Megen threw himself into Utrecht in order to prevent the execution of a design which Count Brederode had formed against that town. As it had suffered much from the army of the confederates, which was encamped in its immediate neighborhood, near Viane, it received Megen with open arms as its protector, and conformed to all the alterations which he made in the religious worship. Upon this he immediately caused a redoubt to be thrown up on the bank of the Leek, which would command Viane. Brederode, not disposed to await his attack, quitted that rendezvous with the best part of his army and hastened to Amsterdam.
However unprofitably the Prince of Orange appeared to be losing his time in Antwerp during these operations he was, nevertheless, busily employed. At his instigation the league had commenced recruiting, and Brederode had fortified his castles, for which purpose he himself presented him with three cannons which he had had cast at Utrecht. His eye watched all the movements of the court, and he kept the league warned of the towns which were next menaced with attack. But his chief object appeared to be to get possession of the principal places in the districts under his own government, to which end he with all his power secretly assisted Brederode’s plans against Utrecht and Amsterdam. The most important place was the Island of Walcheren, where the king was expected to land; and he now planned a scheme for the surprise of this place, the conduct of which was entrusted to one of the confederate nobles, an intimate friend of the Prince of Orange, John of Marnix, Baron of Thoulouse, and brother of Philip of Aldegonde.
1567. Thoulouse maintained a secret understanding with the late mayor of Middleburg, Peter Haak, by which he expected to gain an opportunity of throwing a garrison into Middleburg and Flushing. The recruiting, however, for this undertaking, which was set on foot in Antwerp, could not be carried on so quietly as not to attract the notice of the magistrate. In order, therefore, to lull the suspicions of the latter, and at the same time to promote the success of the scheme, the prince caused the herald by public proclamation to order all foreign soldiers and strangers who were in the service of the state, or employed in other business, forthwith to quit the town. He might, say his adversaries, by closing the gates have easily made himself master of all these suspected recruits; but be expelled them from the town in order to drive them the more quickly to the place of their destination. They immediately embarked on the Scheldt, and sailed down to Rammekens; as, however, a market-vessel of Antwerp, which ran into Flushing a little before them had given warning of their design they were forbidden to enter the port. They found the same difficulty at Arnemuiden, near Middleburg, although the Protestants in that place exerted themselves to raise an insurrection in their favor. Thoulouse, therefore, without having accomplished anything, put about his ships and sailed back down the Scheldt as far as Osterweel, a quarter of a mile from Antwerp, where he disembarked his people and encamped on the shore, with the hope of getting men from Antwerp, and also in order to revive by his presence the courage of his party, which had been cast down by the proceedings of the magistrate. By the aid of the Calvinistic clergy, who recruited for him, his little army increased daily, so that at last he began to be formidable to the Antwerpians, whose whole territory he laid waste. The magistrate was for attacking him here with the militia, which, however, the Prince of Orange successfully opposed by the pretext that it would not be prudent to strip the town of soldiers.
Meanwhile the regent had hastily brought together a small army under the command of Philip of Launoy, which moved from Brussels to Antwerp by forced marches. At the same time Count Megen managed to keep the army of the Gueux shut up and employed at Viane, so that it could neither hear of these movements nor hasten to the assistance of its confederates. Launoy, on his arrival attacked by surprise the dispersed crowds, who, little expecting an enemy, had gone out to plunder, and destroyed them in one terrible carnage. Thoulouse threw himself with the small remnant of his troops into a country house, which had served him as his headquarters, and for a long time defended himself with the courage of despair, until Launoy, finding it impossible to dislodge him, set fire to the house. The few who escaped the flames fell on the swords of the enemy or were drowned in the Scheldt. Thoulouse himself preferred to perish in the flames rather than to fall into the hands of the enemy. This victory, which swept off more than a thousand of the enemy, was purchased by the conqueror cheaply enough, for he did not lose more than two men. Three hundred of the leaguers who surrendered were cut down without mercy on the spot, as a sally from Antwerp was momentarily dreaded.
Before the battle actually commenced no anticipation of such an event had been entertained at Antwerp. The Prince of Orange, who had got early information of it, had taken the precaution the day before of causing the bridge which unites the town with Osterweel to be destroyed, in order, as he gave out, to prevent the Calvinists within the town going out to join the army of Thoulouse. A more probable motive seems to have been a fear lest the Catholics should attack the army of the Gueux general in the rear, or lest Launoy should prove victorious, and try to force his way into the town. On the same pretext the gates of the city were also shut by his orders, arnd the inhabitants, who did not comprehend the meaning of all these movements, fluctuated between curiosity and alarm, until the sound of artillery from Osterweel announced to them what there was going on. In clamorous crowds they all ran to the walls and ramparts, from which, as the wind drove the smoke from the contending armies, they commanded a full view of the whole battle. Both armies were so near to the town that they could discern their banners, and clearly distinguish the voices of the victors and the vanquished. More terrible even than the battle itself was the spectacle which this town now presented. Each of the conflicting armies had its friends and its enemies on the wall. All that went on in the plain roused on the ramparts exultation or dismay; on the issue of the conflict the fate of each spectator seemed to depend. Every movement on the field could be read in the faces of the townsmen; defeat and triumph, the terror of the conquered, and the fury of the conqueror. Here a painful but idle wish to support those who are giving way, to rally those who fly; there an equally futile desire to overtake them, to slay them, to extirpate them. Now the Gueux fly, and ten thousand men rejoice; Thoulouse’s last place and refuge is in flames, and the hopes of twenty thousand citizens are consumed with him.
But the first bewilderment of alarm soon gave place to a frantic desire of revenge. Shrieking aloud, wringing her hands and with dishevelled hair, the widow of the slain general rushed amidst the crowds to implore their pity and help. Excited by their favorite preacher, Hermann, the Calvinists fly to arms, determined to avenge their brethren, or to perish with them; without reflection, without plan or leader, guided by nothing but their anguish, their delirium, they rush to the Red Gate of the city which leads to the field of battle; but there is no egress, the gate is shut and the foremost of the crowd recoil on those that follow. Thousands and thousands collect together, a dreadful rush is made to the Meer Bridge. We are betrayed! we are prisoners! is the general cry. Destruction to the papists, death to him who has betrayed us!—a sullen murmur, portentous of a revolt, runs through the multitude. They begin to suspect that all that has taken place has been set on foot by the Roman Catholics to destroy the Calvinists. They had slain their defenders, and they would now fall upon the defenceless. With fatal speed this suspicion spreads through the whole of Antwerp. Now they can, they think, understand the past, and they fear something still worse in the background; a frightful distrust gains possession of every mind. Each party dreads the other; every one sees an enemy in his neighbor; the mystery deepens the alarm and horror; a fearful condition for a populous town, in which every accidental concourse instantly becomes tumult, every rumor started amongst them becomes a fact, every small spark a blazing flame, and by the force of numbers and collision all passions are furiously inflamed. All who bore the name of Calvinists were roused by this report. Fifteen thousand of them take possession of the Meer Bridge, and plant heavy artillery upon it, which they had taken by force from the arsenal; the same thing also happens at another bridge; their number makes them formidable, the town is in their hands; to escape an imaginary danger they bring all Antwerp to the brink of ruin.
Immediately on the commencement of the tumult the Prince of Orange hastened to the Meer Bridge, where, boldly forcing his way through the raging crowd, he commanded peace and entreated to be heard. At the other bridge Count Hogstraten, accompanied by the Burgomaster Strahlen, made the same attempt; but not possessing a sufficient share either of eloquence or of popularity to command attention, he referred the tumultuous crowd to the prince, around whom all Antwerp now furiously thronged. The gate, he endeavored to explain to them, was shut simply to keep off the victor, whoever he might be, from the city, which would otherwise become the prey of an infuriated soldiery. In vain! the frantic people would not listen, and one more daring than the rest presented his musket at him, calling him a traitor. With tumultuous shouts they demanded the key of the Red Gate, which he was ultimately forced to deliver into the hands of the preacher Hermann. But, he added with happy presence of mind, they must take heed what they were doing; in the suburbs six hundred of the enemy’s horse were waiting to receive them. This invention, suggested by the emergency, was not so far removed from the truth as its author perhaps imagined; for no sooner had the victorious general perceived the commotion in Antwerp than he caused his whole cavalry to mount in the hope of being able, under favor of the disturbance, to break into the town. I, at least, continued the Prince of Orange, shall secure my own safety in time, and he who follows my example will save himself much future regret. These words opportunely spoken and immediately acted upon had their effect. Those who stood nearest followed him, and were again followed by the next, so that at last the few who had already hastened out of the city when they saw no one coming after them lost the desire of coping alone with the six hundred horse. All accordingly returned to the Meer Bridge, where they posted watches and videttes, and the night was passed tumultuously under arms.
The town of Antwerp was now threatened with fearful bloodshed and pillage. In this pressing emergency Orange assembled an extraordinary senate, to which were summoned all the best-disposed citizens of the four nations. If they wished, said he, to repress the violence of the Calvinists they must oppose them with an army strong enough and prepared to meet them. It was therefore resolved to arm with speed the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the town, whether natives, Italians, or Spaniards, and, if possible, to induce the Lutherans also to join them. The haughtiness of the Calvinists, who, proud of their wealth and confident in their numbers, treated every other religious party with contempt, had long made the Lutherans their enemies, and the mutual exasperation of these two Protestant churches was even more implacable than their common hatred of the dominant church. This jealousy the magistrate had turned to advantage, by making use of one party to curb the other, and had thus contrived to keep the Calvinists in check, who, from their numbers and insolence, were most to be feared. With this view, he had tacitly taken into his protection the Lutherans, as the weaker and more peaceable party, having moreover invited for them, from Germany, spiritual teachers, who, by controversial sermons, might keep up the mutual hatred of the two bodies. He encouraged the Lutherans in the vain idea that the king thought more favorably of their religious creed than that of the Calvinists, and exhorted them to be careful how they damaged their good cause by any understanding with the latter. It was not, therefore, difficult to bring about, for the moment, a union with the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans, as its object was to keep down their detested rivals. At dawn of day an army was opposed to the Calvinists which was far superior in force to their own. At the head of this army, the eloquence of Orange had far greater effect, and found far more attention than on the preceding evening, unbacked by such strong persuasion. The Calvinists, though in possession of arms and artillery, yet, alarmed at the superior numbers arrayed against them, were the first to send envoys, and to treat for an amicable adjustment of differences, which by the tact and good temper of the Prince of Orange, he concluded to the satisfaction of all parties. On the proclamation of this treaty the Spaniards and Italians immediately laid down their arms. They were followed by the Calvinists, and these again by the Roman Catholics; last of all the Lutherans disarmed.
Two days and two nights Antwerp had continued in this alarming state. During the tumult the Roman Catholics had succeeded in placing barrels of gunpowder under the Meer Bridge, and threatened to blow into the air the whole army of the Calvinists, who had done the same in other places to destroy their adversaries. The destruction of the town hung on the issue of a moment, and nothing but the prince’s presence of mind saved it.
Noircarmes, with his army of Walloons, still lay before Valenciennes, which, in firm reliance on being relieved by the Gueux, obstinately refused to listen to all the representations of the regent, and rejected every idea of surrender. An order of the court had expressly forbidden the royalist general to press the siege until he should receive reinforcements from Germany. Whether from forbearance or fear, the king regarded with abhorrence the violent measure of storming the place, as necessarily involving the innocent in the fate of the guilty, and exposing the loyal subject to the same ill-treatment as the rebel. As, however, the confidence of the besieged augmented daily, and emboldened by the inactivity of the besiegers, they annoyed him by frequent sallies, and after burning the cloisters before the town, retired with the plunder—as the time uselessly lost before this town was put to good use by the rebels and their allies, Noircarmes besought the duchess to obtain immediate permission from the king to take it by storm. The answer arrived more quickly than Philip was ever before wont to reply. As yet they must be content, simply to make the necessary preparations, and then to wait awhile to allow terror to have its effect; but if upon this they did not appear ready to capitulate, the storming might take place, but, at the same time, with the greatest possible regard for the lives of the inhabitants. Before the regent allowed Noircarmes to proceed to this extremity she empowered Count Egmont, with the Duke Arschot, to treat once more with the rebels amicably. Both conferred with the deputies of the town, and omitted no argument calculated to dispel their delusion. They acquainted them with the defeat of Thoulouse, their sole support, and with the fact that the Count of Megen had cut off the army of the Gueux from the town, and assured them that if they had held out so long they owed it entirely to the king’s forbearance. They offered them full pardon for the past; every one was to be free to prove his innocence before whatever tribunal he should chose; such as did not wish to avail themselves of this privilege were to be allowed fourteen days to quit the town with all their effects. Nothing was required of the townspeople but the admission of the garrison. To give time to deliberate on these terms an armistice of three days was granted. When the deputies returned they found their fellow-citizens less disposed than ever to an accommodation, reports of new levies by the Gueux having, in the meantime, gained currency. Thoulouse, it was pretended, had conquered, and was advancing with a powerful army to relieve the place. Their confidence went so far that they even ventured to break the armistice, and to fire upon the besiegers. At last the burgomaster, with difficulty, succeeded in bringing matters so far towards a peaceful settlement that twelve of the town counsellors were sent into the camp with the following conditions: The edict by which Valenciennes had been charged with treason and declared an enemy to the country was required to be recalled, the confiscation of their goods revoked, and the prisoners on both sides restored to liberty; the garrison was not to enter the town before every one who thought good to do so had placed himself and his property in security; and a pledge to be given that the inhabitants should not be molested in any manner, and that their expenses should be paid by the king.
Noircarmes was so indignant with these conditions that he was almost on the point of ill-treating the deputies. If they had not come, he told them, to give up the place, they might return forthwith, lest he should send them home with their hands tied behind their backs. Upon this the deputies threw the blame on the obstinacy of the Calvinists, and entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to keep them in the camp, as they did not, they said, wish to have anything more to do with their rebellious townsmen, or to be joined in their fate. They even knelt to beseech the intercession of Egmont, but Noircarmes remained deaf to all their entreaties, and the sight of the chains which he ordered to be brought out drove them reluctantly enough back to Valenciennes. Necessity, not severity, imposed this harsh procedure upon the general. The detention of ambassadors had on a former occasion drawn upon him the reprimand of the duchess; the people in the town would not have failed to have ascribed the non-appearance of their present deputies to the same cause as in the former case had detained them. Besides, he was loath to deprive the town of any out of the small residue of well-disposed citizens, or to leave it a prey to a blind, foolhardy mob. Egmont was so mortified at the bad report of his embassy that he the night following rode round to reconnoitre its fortifications, and returned well satisfied to have convinced himself that it was no longer tenable.
Valenciennes stretches down a gentle acclivity into the level plain, being built on a site as strong as it is delightful. On one side enclosed by the Scheldt and another smaller river, and on the other protected by deep ditches, thick walls, and towers, it appears capable of defying every attack. But Noircarmes had discovered a few points where neglect had allowed the fosse to be filled almost up to the level of the natural surface, and of these he determined to avail himself in storming. He drew together all the scattered corps by which he had invested the town, and during a tempestuous night carried the suburb of Berg without the loss of a single man. He then assigned separate points of attack to the Count of Bossu, the young Charles of Mansfeld, and the younger Barlaimont, and under a terrible fire, which drove the enemy from his walls, his troops were moved up with all possible speed. Close before the town, and opposite the gate under the eyes of the besiegers, and with very little loss, a battery was thrown up to an equal height with the fortifications. From this point the town was bombarded with an unceasing fire for four hours. The Nicolaus tower, on which the besieged had planted some artillery, was among the first that fell, and many perished under its ruins. The guns were directed against all the most conspicuous buildings, and a terrible slaughter was made amongst the inhabitants. In a few hours their principal works were destroyed, and in the gate itself so extensive a breach was made that the besieged, despairing of any longer defending themselves, sent in haste two trumpeters to entreat a parley. This was granted, but the storm was continued without intermission. The ambassador entreated Noircarmes to grant them the same terms which only two days before they had rejected. But circumstances had now changed, and the victor would hear no more of conditions. The unceasing fire left the inhabitants no time to repair the ramparts, which filled the fosse with their debris, and opened many a breach for the enemy to enter by. Certain of utter destruction, they surrendered next morning at discretion after a bombardment of six-and-thirty hours without intermission, and three thousand bombs had been thrown into the city. Noircarmes marched into the town with his victorious army under the strictest discipline, and was received by a crowd of women and children, who went to meet him, carrying green boughs, and beseeching his pity. All the citizens were immediately disarmed, the commandant and his son beheaded; thirty-six of the most guilty of the rebels, among whom were La Grange and another Calvinistic preacher, Guido de Bresse, atoned for their obstinacy at the gallows; all the municipal functionaries were deprived of their offices, and the town of all its privileges. The Roman Catholic worship was immediately restored in full dignity, and the Protestant abolished. The Bishop of Arras was obliged to quit his residence in the town, and a strong garrison placed in it to insure its future obedience.
The fate of Valenciennes, towards which all eyes had been turned, was a warning to the other towns which had similarly offended. Noircarmes followed up his victory, and marched immediately against Maestricht, which surrendered without a blow, and received a garrison. From thence he marched to Tornhut to awe by his presence the people of Herzogenbusch and Antwerp. The Gueux in this place, who under the command of Bomberg had carried all things before them, were now so terrified at his approach that they quitted the town in haste. Noircarmes was received without opposition. The ambassadors of the duchess were immediately set at liberty. A strong garrison was thrown into Tornhut. Cambray also opened its gates, and joyfully recalled its archbishop, whom the Calvinists had driven from his see, and who deserved this triumph as he did not stain his entrance with blood. Ghent, Ypres, and Oudenarde submitted and received garrisons. Gueldres was now almost entirely cleared of the rebels and reduced to obedience by the Count of Megen. In Friesland and Groningen the Count of Aremberg had eventually the same success; but it was not obtained here so rapidly or so easily, since the count wanted consistency and firmness, and these warlike republicans maintained more pertinaciously their privileges, and were greatly supported by the strength of their position. With the exception of Holland all the provinces had yielded before the victorious arms of the duchess. The courage of the disaffected sunk entirely, and nothing was left to them but flight or submission.
RESIGNATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE.
Ever since the establishment of the Guesen league, but more perceptibly since the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, the spirit of rebellion and disaffection had spread so rapidly among all classes, parties had become so blended and confused, that the regent had difficulty in distinguishing her own adherents, and at last hardly knew on whom to rely. The lines of demarcation between the loyal and the disaffected had grown gradually fainter, until at last they almost entirely vanished. The frequent alterations, too, which she had been obliged to make in the laws, and which were at most the expedients and suggestions of the moment, had taken from them their precision and binding force, and had given full scope to the arbitrary will of every individual whose office it was to interpret them. And at last, amidst the number and variety of the interpretations, the spirit was lost and the intention of the lawgiver baffled. The close connection which in many cases subsisted between Protestants and Roman Catholics, between Gueux and Royalists, and which not unfrequently gave them a common interest, led the latter to avail themselves of the loophole which the vagueness of the laws left open, and in favor of their Protestant friends and associates evaded by subtle distinctions all severity in the discharge of their duties. In their minds it was enough not to be a declared rebel, not one of the Gueux, or at least not a heretic, to be authorized to mould their duties to their inclinations, and to set the most arbitrary limits to their obedience to the king. Feeling themselves irresponsible, the governors of the provinces, the civil functionaries, both high and low, the municipal officers, and the military commanders had all become extremely remiss in their duty, and presuming upon this impunity showed a pernicious indulgence to the rebels and their adherents which rendered abortive all the regent’s measures of coercion. This general indifference and corruption of so many servants of the state had further this injurious result, that it led the turbulent to reckon on far stronger support than in reality they had cause for, and to count on their own side all who were but lukewarm adherents of the court. This way of thinking, erroneous as it was, gave them greater courage and confidence; it had the same effect as if it had been well founded; and the uncertain vassals of the king became in consequence almost as injurious to him as his declared enemies, without at the same time being liable to the same measures of severity. This was especially the case with the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont, Bergen, Hogstraten, Horn, and several others of the higher nobility. The regent felt the necessity of bringing these doubtful subjects to an explanation, in order either to deprive the rebels of a fancied support or to unmask the enemies of the king. And the latter reason was of the more urgent moment when being obliged to send an army into the field it was of the utmost importance to entrust the command of the troops to none but those of whose fidelity she was fully assured. She caused, therefore, an oath to be drawn up which bound all who took it to advance the Roman Catholic faith, to pursue and punish the Iconoclasts, and to help by every means in their power in extirpating all kinds of heresy. It also pledged them to treat the king’s enemies as their own, and to serve without distinction against all whom the regent in the king’s name should point out. By this oath she did not hope so much to test their sincerity, and still less to secure them, as rather to gain a pretext for removing the suspected parties if they declined to take it, and for wresting from their hands a power which they abused, or a legitimate ground for punishing them if they took it and broke it. This oath was exacted from all Knights of the Fleece, all civil functionaries and magistrates, all officers of the army—from every one in short who held any appointment in the state. Count Mansfeld was the first who publicly took it in the council of state at Brussels; his example was followed by the Duke of Arschot, Counts Egmont, Megen, and Barlaimont. Hogstraten and Horn endeavored to evade the necessity. The former was offended at a proof of distrust which shortly before the regent had given him. Under the pretext that Malines could not safely be left any longer without its governor, but that the presence of the count was no less necessary in Antwerp, she had taken from him that province and given it to another whose fidelity she could better reckon upon. Hostraten expressed his thanks that she had been pleased to release him from one of his burdens, adding that she would complete the obligation if she would relieve him from the other also. True to his determination Count Horn was living on one of his estates in the strong town of Weerdt, having retired altogether from public affairs. Having quitted the service of the state, he owed, he thought, nothing more either to the republic or to the king, and declined the oath, which in his case appears at last to have been waived.
The Count of Brederode was left the choice of either taking the prescribed oath or resigning the command of his squadron of cavalry. After many fruitless attempts to evade the alternative, on the plea that he did not hold office in the state, he at last resolved upon the latter course, and thereby escaped all risk of perjuring himself.
Vain were all the attempts to prevail on the Prince of Orange to take the oath, who, from the suspicion which had long attached to him, required more than any other this purification; and from whom the great power which it had been necessary to place in his hands fully justified the regent in exacting it. It was not, however, advisable to proceed against him with the laconic brevity adopted towards Brederode and the like; on the other hand, the voluntary resignation of all his offices, which he tendered, did not meet the object of the regent, who foresaw clearly enough how really dangerous he would become, as soon as he should feel himself independent, and be no longer checked by any external considerations of character or duty in the prosecution of his secret designs. But ever since the consultation in Dendermonde the Prince of Orange had made up his mind to quit the service of the King of Spain on the first favorable opportunity, and till better days to leave the country itself. A very disheartening experience had taught him how uncertain are hopes built on the multitude, and how quickly their zeal is cooled by the necessity of fulfilling its lofty promises. An army was already in the field, and a far stronger one was, he knew, on its road, under the command of the Duke of Alva. The time for remonstrances was past; it was only at the head of an army that an advantageous treaty could now be concluded with the regent, and by preventing the entrance of the Spanish general. But now where was he to raise this army, in want as he was of money, the sinews of warfare, since the Protestants had retracted their boastful promises and deserted him in this pressing emergency?
[How valiant the wish, and how sorry the deed was, is proved by the following instance amongst others. Some friends of the national liberty, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, had solemnly engaged in Amsterdam to subscribe to a common fund the hundredth penny of their estates, until a sum of eleven thousand florins should be collected, which was to be devoted to the common cause and interests. An alms-box, protected by three locks, was prepared for the reception of these contributions. After the expiration of the prescribed period it was opened, and a sum was found amounting to seven hundred florins, which was given to the hostess of the Count of Brederode, in part payment of his unliquidated score. Univ. Hist. of the N., vol. 3.]
Religious jealousy and hatred, moreover, separated the two Protestant churches, and stood in the way of every salutary combination against the common enemy of their faith. The rejection of the Confession of Augsburg by the Calvinists had exasperated all the Protestant princes of Germany, so that no support was to be looked for from the empire. With Count Egmont the excellent army of Walloons was also lost to the cause, for they followed with blind devotion the fortunes of their general, who had taught them at St. Quentin and Gravelines to be invincible. And again, the outrages which the Iconoclasts had perpetrated on the churches and convents had estranged from the league the numerous, wealthy, and powerful class of the established clergy, who, before this unlucky episode, were already more than half gained over to it; while, by her intrigues, the regent daily contrived to deprive the league itself of some one or other of its most influential members.
All these considerations combined induced the prince to postpone to a more favorable season a project for which the present juncture was little suited, and to leave a country where his longer stay could not effect any advantage for it, but must bring certain destruction on himself. After intelligence gleaned from so many quarters, after so many proofs of distrust, so many warnings from Madrid, he could be no longer doubtful of the sentiments of Philip towards him. If even he had any doubt, his uncertainty would soon have been dispelled by the formidable armament which was preparing in Spain, and which was to have for its leader, not the king, as was falsely given out, but, as he was better informed, the Duke of Alva, his personal enemy, and the very man he had most cause to fear. The prince had seen too deeply into Philip’s heart to believe in the sincerity of his reconciliation after having once awakened his fears. He judged his own conduct too justly to reckon, like his friend Egmont, on reaping a gratitude from the king to which he had not sown. He could therefore expect nothing but hostility from him, and prudence counselled him to screen himself by a timely flight from its actual outbreak. He had hitherto obstinately refused to take the new oath, and all the written exhortations of the regent had been fruitless. At last she sent to him at Antwerp her private secretary, Berti, who was to put the matter emphatically to his conscience, and forcibly remind him of all the evil consequences which so sudden a retirement from the royal service would draw upon the country, as well as the irreparable injury it would do to his own fair fame. Already, she informed him by her ambassador, his declining the required oath had cast a shade upon his honor, and imparted to the general voice, which accused him of an understanding with the rebels, an appearance of truth which this unconditional resignation would convert to absolute certainty. It was for the sovereign to discharge his servants, but it did not become the servant to abandon his sovereign. The envoy of the regent found the prince in his palace at Antwerp, already, as it appeared, withdrawn from the public service, and entirely devoted to his private concerns. The prince told him, in the presence of Hogstraten, that he had refused to take the required oath because he could not find that such a proposition had ever before been made to a governor of a province; because he had already bound himself, once for all, to the king, and therefore, by taking this new oath, he would tacitly acknowledge that he had broken the first. He had also refused because the old oath enjoined him to protect the rights and privileges of the country, but he could not tell whether this new one might not impose upon him duties which would contravene the first; because, too, the clause which bound him to serve, if required, against all without distinction, did not except even the emperor, his feudal lord, against whom, however, he, as his vassal, could not conscientiously make war. He had refused to take this oath because it might impose upon him the necessity of surrendering his friends and relations, his children, nay, even his wife, who was a Lutheran, to butchery. According to it, moreover, he must lend himself to every thing which it should occur to the king’s fancy or passion to demand. But the king might thus exact from him things which he shuddered even to think of, and even the severities which were now, and had been all along, exercised upon the Protestants, were the most revolting to his heart. This oath, in short, was repugnant to his feelings as a man, and he could not take it. In conclusion, the name of the Duke of Alva dropped from his lips in a tone of bitterness, and he became immediately silent.
All these objections were answered, point by point, by Berti. Certainly such an oath had never been required from a governor before him, because the provinces had never been similarly circumstanced. It was not exacted because the governors had broken the first, but in order to remind them vividly of their former vows, and to freshen their activity in the present emergency. This oath would not impose upon him anything which offended against the rights and privileges of the country, for the king had sworn to observe these as well as the Prince of Orange. The oath did not, it was true, contain any reference to a war with the emperor, or any other sovereign to whom the prince might be related; and if he really had scruples on this point, a distinct clause could easily be inserted, expressly providing against such a contingency. Care would be taken to spare him any duties which were repugnant to his feelings as a man, and no power on earth would compel him to act against his wife or against his children. Berti was then passing to the last point, which related to the Duke of Alva, but the prince, who did not wish to have this part of his discourse canvassed, interrupted him. “The king was coming to the Netherlands,” he said, “and he knew the king. The king would not endure that one of his servants should have wedded a Lutheran, and he had therefore resolved to go with his whole family into voluntary banishment before he was obliged to submit to the same by compulsion. But,” he concluded, “wherever he might be, he would always conduct himself as a subject of the king.” Thus far-fetched were the motives which the prince adduced to avoid touching upon the single one which really decided him.
Berti had still a hope of obtaining, through Egmont’s eloquence, what by his own he despaired of effecting. He therefore proposed a meeting with the latter (1567), which the prince assented to the more willingly as he himself felt a desire to embrace his friend once more before his departure, and if possible to snatch the deluded man from certain destruction. This remarkable meeting, at which the private secretary, Berti, and the young Count Mansfeld, were also present, was the last that the two friends ever held, and took place in Villebroeck, a village on the Rupel, between Brussels and Antwerp. The Calvinists, whose last hope rested on the issue of this conference, found means to acquaint themselves of its import by a spy, who concealed himself in the chimney of the apartment where it was held. All three attempted to shake the determination of the prince, but their united eloquence was unable to move him from his purpose. “It will cost you your estates, Orange, if you persist in this intention,” said the Prince of Gaure, as he took him aside to a window. “And you your life, Egmont, if you change not yours,” replied the former. “To me it will at least be a consolation in my misfortunes that I desired, in deed as well as in word, to help my country and my friends in the hour of need; but you, my friend, you are dragging friends and country with you to destruction.” And saying these words, he once again exhorted him, still more urgently than ever, to return to the cause of his country, which his arm alone was yet able to preserve; if not, at least for his own sake to avoid the tempest which was gathering against him from Spain.
But all the arguments, however lucid, with which a far-discerning prudence supplied him, and however urgently enforced, with all the ardor and animation which the tender anxiety of friendship could alone inspire, did not avail to destroy the fatal confidence which still fettered Egmont’s better reason. The warning of Orange seemed to come from a sad and dispirited heart; but for Egmont the world still smiled. To abandon the pomp and affluence in which he had grown up to youth and manhood; to part with all the thousand conveniences of life which alone made it valuable to him, and all this to escape an evil which his buoyant spirit regarded as remote, if not imaginary; no, that was not a sacrifice which could be asked from Egmont. But had he even been less given to indulgence than he was, with what heart could he have consigned a princess, accustomed by uninterrupted prosperity to ease and comfort, a wife who loved him as dearly as she was beloved, the children on whom his soul hung in hope and fondness, to privations at the prospect of which his own courage sank, and which a sublime philosophy alone can enable sensuality to undergo. “You will never persuade me, Orange,” said Egmont, “to see things in the gloomy light in which they appear to thy mournful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public preachings, and chastising the Iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels, and restoring peace and order in the provinces, what can the king lay to my charge? The king is good and just; I have claims upon his gratitude, and I must not forget what I owe to myself.” “Well, then,” cried Orange, indignantly and with bitter anguish, “trust, if you will, to this royal gratitude; but a mournful presentiment tells me—and may Heaven grant that I am deceived!—that you, Egmont, will be the bridge by which the Spaniards will pass into our country to destroy it.” After these words, he drew him to his bosom, ardently clasping him in his arms. Long, as though the sight was to serve for the remainder of his life, did he keep his eyes fixed upon him; the tears fell; they saw each other no more.
The very next day the Prince of Orange wrote his letter of resignation to the regent, in which he assured her of his perpetual esteem, and once again entreated her to put the best interpretation on his present step. He then set off with his three brothers and his whole family for his own town of Breda, where he remained only as long as was requisite to arrange some private affairs. His eldest son, Prince Philip William, was left behind at the University of Louvain, where he thought him sufficiently secure under the protection of the privileges of Brabant and the immunities of the academy; an imprudence which, if it was really not designed, can hardly be reconciled with the just estimate which, in so many other cases, he had taken of the character of his adversary. In Breda the heads of the Calvinists once more consulted him whether there was still hope for them, or whether all was irretrievably lost. “He had before advised them,” replied the prince, “and must now do so again, to accede to the Confession of Augsburg; then they might rely upon aid from Germany. If they would still not consent to this, they must raise six hundred thousand florins, or more, if they could.” “The first,” they answered, “was at variance with their conviction and their conscience; but means might perhaps be found to raise the money if he would only let them know for what purpose he would use it.” “No!” cried he, with the utmost displeasure, “if I must tell you that, it is all over with the use of it.” With these words he immediately broke off the conference and dismissed the deputies.
The Prince of Orange was reproached with having squandered his fortune, and with favoring the innovations on account of his debts; but he asserted that he still enjoyed sixty thousand florins yearly rental. Before his departure he borrowed twenty thousand florins from the states of Holland on the mortgage of some manors. Men could hardly persuade themselves that he would have succumbed to necessity so entirely, and without an effort at resistance given up all his hopes and schemes. But what he secretly meditated no one knew, no one had read in his heart. Being asked how he intended to conduct himself towards the King of Spain, “Quietly,” was his answer, “unless he touches my honor or my estates.” He left the Netherlands soon afterwards, and betook himself in retirement to the town of Dillenburg, in Nassau, at which place he was born. He was accompanied to Germany by many hundreds, either as his servants or as volunteers, and was soon followed by Counts Hogstraten, Kuilemberg, and Bergen, who preferred to share a voluntary exile with him rather than recklessly involve themselves in an uncertain destiny. In his departure the nation saw the flight of its guardian angel; many had adored, all had honored him. With him the last stay of the Protestants gave way; they, however, had greater hopes from this man in exile than from all the others together who remained behind. Even the Roman Catholics could not witness his departure without regret. Them also had he shielded from tyranny; he had not unfrequently protected them against the oppression of their own church, and he had rescued many of them from the sanguinary jealousy of their religious opponents. A few fanatics among the Calvinists, who were offended with his proposal of an alliance with their brethren, who avowed the Confession of Augsburg, solemnized with secret thanksgivings the day on which the enemy left them. (1567).
DECAY AND DISPERSION OF THE GEUSEN LEAGUE.
Immediately after taking leave of his friend, the Prince of Gaure hastened back to Brussels, to receive from the regent the reward of his firmness, and there, in the excitement of the court and in the sunshine of his good fortune, to dispel the light cloud which the earnest warnings of the Prince of Orange had cast over his natural gayety. The flight of the latter now left him in possession of the stage. He had now no longer any rival in the republic to dim his glory. With redoubled zeal he wooed the transient favor of the court, above which he ought to have felt himself far exalted. All Brussels must participate in his joy. He gave splendid banquets and public entertainments, at which, the better to eradicate all suspicion from his mind, the regent herself frequently attended. Not content with having taken the required oath, he outstripped the most devout in devotion; outran the most zealous in zeal to extirpate the Protestant faith, and to reduce by force of arms the refractory towns of Flanders. He declared to his old friend, Count Hogstraten, as also to the rest of the Gueux, that he would withdraw from them his friendship forever if they hesitated any longer to return into the bosom of the church, and reconcile themselves with their king. All the confidential letters which had been exchanged between him and them were returned, and by this last step the breach between them was made public and irreparable. Egmont’s secession, and the flight of the Prince of Orange, destroyed the last hope of the Protestants and dissolved the whole league of the Gueux. Its members vied with each other in readiness—nay, they could not soon enough abjure the covenant and take the new oath proposed to them by the government. In vain did the Protestant merchants exclaim at this breach of faith on the part of the nobles; their weak voice was no longer listened to, and all the sums were lost with which they had supplied the league.
The most important places were quickly reduced and garrisoned; the rebels had fled, or perished by the hand of the executioner; in the provinces no protector was left. All yielded to the fortune of the regent, and her victorious army was advancing against Antwerp. After a long and obstinate contest this town had been cleared of the worst rebels; Hermann and his adherents took to flight; the internal storms had spent their rage. The minds of the people became gradually composed, and no longer excited at will by every furious fanatic, began to listen to better counsels. The wealthier citizens earnestly longed for peace to revive commerce and trade, which had suffered severely from the long reign of anarchy. The dread of Alva’s approach worked wonders; in order to prevent the miseries which a Spanish army would inflict upon the country, the people hastened to throw themselves on the gentler mercies of the regent. Of their own accord they despatched plenipotentiaries to Brussels to negotiate for a treaty and to hear her terms. Agreeably as the regent was surprised by this voluntary step, she did not allow herself to be hurried away by her joy. She declared that she neither could nor would listen to any overtures or representations until the town had received a garrison. Even this was no longer opposed, and Count Mansfeld marched in the day after with sixteen squadrons in battle array. A solemn treaty was now made between the town and duchess, by which the former bound itself to prohibit the Calvinistic form of worship, to banish all preachers of that persuasion, to restore the Roman Catholic religion to its former dignity, to decorate the despoiled churches with their former ornaments, to administer the old edicts as before, to take the new oath which the other towns had sworn to, and, lastly, to deliver into the hands of justice all who been guilty of treason, in bearing arms, or taking part in the desecration of the churches. On the other hand, the regent pledged herself to forget all that had passed, and even to intercede for the offenders with the king. All those who, being dubious of obtaining pardon, preferred banishment, were to be allowed a month to convert their property into money, and place themselves in safety. From this grace none were to be excluded but such as had been guilty of a capital offence, and who were excepted by the previous article. Immediately upon the conclusion of this treaty all Calvinist and Lutheran preachers in Antwerp, and the adjoining territory, were warned by the herald to quit the country within twenty-four hours. All the streets and gates were now thronged with fugitives, who for the honor of their God abandoned what was dearest to them, and sought a more peaceful home for their persecuted faith. Here husbands were taking an eternal farewell of their wives, fathers of their children; there whole families were preparing to depart. All Antwerp resembled a house of mourning; wherever the eye turned some affecting spectacle of painful separation presented itself. A seal was set on the doors of the Protestant churches; the whole worship seemed to be extinct. The 10th of April (1567) was the day appointed for the departure of the preachers. In the town hall, where they appeared for the last time to take leave of the magistrate, they could not command their grief; but broke forth into bitter reproaches. They had been sacrificed, they exclaimed, they had been shamefully betrayed; but a time would come when Antwerp would pay dearly enough for this baseness. Still more bitter were the complaints of the Lutheran clergy, whom the magistrate himself had invited into the country to preach against the Calvinists. Under the delusive representation that the king was not unfavorable to their religion they had been seduced into a combination against the Calvinists, but as soon as the latter had been by their co-operation brought under subjection, and their own services were no longer required, they were left to bewail their folly, which had involved themselves and their enemies in common ruin.
A few days afterwards the regent entered Antwerp in triumph, accompanied by a thousand Walloon horse, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, all the governors and counsellors, a number of municipal officers, and her whole court. Her first visit was to the cathedral, which still bore lamentable traces of the violence of the Iconoclasts, and drew from her many and bitter tears. Immediately afterwards four of the rebels, who had been overtaken in their flight, were brought in and executed in the public market-place. All the children who had been baptized after the Protestant rites were rebaptized by Roman Catholic priests; all the schools of heretics were closed, and their churches levelled to the ground. Nearly all the towns in the Netherlands followed the example of Antwerp and banished the Protestant preachers. By the end of April the Roman Catholic churches were repaired and embellished more splendidly than ever, while all the Protestant places of worship were pulled down, and every vestige of the proscribed belief obliterated in the seventeen provinces. The populace, whose sympathies are generally with the successful party, was now as active in accelerating the ruin of the unfortunate as a short time before it had been furiously zealous in its cause; in Ghent a large and beautiful church which the Calvinists had erected was attacked, and in less than an hour had wholly disappeared. From the beams of the roofless churches gibbets were erected for those who had profaned the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholics. The places of execution were filled with corpses, the prisons with condemned victims, the high roads with fugitives. Innumerable were the victims of this year of murder; in the smallest towns fifty at least, in several of the larger as many as three hundred, were put to death, while no account was kept of the numbers in the open country who fell into the hands of the provost-marshal and were immediately strung up as miscreants, without trial and without mercy.
The regent was still in Antwerp when ambassadors presented themselves from the Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemberg, and Baden to intercede for their fugitive brethren in the faith. The expelled preachers of the Augsburg Confession had claimed the rights assured to them by the religious peace of the Germans, in which Brabant, as part of the empire, participated, and had thrown themselves on the protection of those princes. The arrival of the foreign ministers alarmed the regent, and she vainly endeavored to prevent their entrance into Antwerp; under the guise, however, of showing them marks of honor, she continued to keep them closely watched lest they should encourage the malcontents in any attempts against the peace of the town. From the high tone which they most unreasonably adopted towards the regent it might almost be inferred that they were little in earnest in their demand. “It was but reasonable,” they said, “that the Confession of Augsburg, as the only one which met the spirit of the gospel, should be the ruling faith in the Netherlands; but to persecute it by such cruel edicts as were in force was positively unnatural and could not be allowed. They therefore required of the regent, in the name of religion, not to treat the people entrusted to her rule with such severity.” She replied through the Count of Staremberg, her minister for German affairs, that such an exordium deserved no answer at all. From the sympathy which the German princes had shown for the Belgian fugitives it was clear that they gave less credit to the letters of the king, in explanation of his measures, than to the reports of a few worthless wretches who, in the desecrated churches, had left behind them a worthier memorial of their acts and characters. It would far more become them to leave to the King of Spain the care of his own subjects, and abandon the attempt to foster a spirit of rebellion in foreign countries, from which they would reap neither honor nor profit. The ambassadors left Antwerp in a few days without having effected anything. The Saxon minister, indeed, in a private interview with the regent even assured her that his master had most reluctantly taken this step.
The German ambassadors had not quitted Antwerp when intelligence from Holland completed the triumph of the regent. From fear of Count Megen Count Brederode had deserted his town of Viane, and with the aid of the Protestants inhabitants had succeeded in throwing himself into Amsterdam, where his arrival caused great alarm to the city magistrate, who had previously found difficulty in preventing a revolt, while it revived the courage of the Protestants. Here Brederode’s adherents increased daily, and many noblemen flocked to him from Utrecht, Friesland, and Groningen, whence the victorious arms of Megen and Aremberg had driven them. Under various disguises they found means to steal into the city, where they gathered round Brederode, and served him as a strong body-guard. The regent, apprehensive of a new outbreak, sent one of her private secretaries, Jacob de la Torre, to the council of Amsterdam, and ordered them to get rid of Count Brederode on any terms and at any risk. Neither the magistrate nor de la Torre himself, who visited Brederode in person to acquaint him with the will of the duchess, could prevail upon him to depart. The secretary was even surprised in his own chamber by a party of Brederode’s followers, and deprived of all his papers, and would, perhaps, have lost his life also if he had not contrived to make his escape. Brederode remained in Amsterdam a full month after this occurrence, a powerless idol of the Protestants, and an oppressive burden to the Roman Catholics; while his fine army, which he had left in Viane, reinforced by many fugitives from the southern provinces, gave Count Megen enough to do without attempting to harass the Protestants in their flight. At last Brederode resolved to follow the example of Orange, and, yielding to necessity, abandon a desperate cause. He informed the town council that he was willing to leave Amsterdam if they would enable him to do so by furnishing him with the pecuniary means. Glad to get quit of him, they hastened to borrow the money on the security of the town council. Brederode quitted Amsterdam the same night, and was conveyed in a gunboat as far as Vlie, from whence he fortunately escaped to Embden. Fate treated him more mildly than the majority of those he had implicated in his foolhardy enterprise; he died the year after, 1568, at one of his castles in Germany, from the effects of drinking, by which he sought ultimately to drown his grief and disappointments. His widow, Countess of Moers in her own right, was remarried to the Prince Palatine, Friedrich III. The Protestant cause lost but little by his demise; the work which he had commenced, as it had not been kept alive by him, so it did not die with him.
The little army, which in his disgraceful flight he had deserted, was bold and valiant, and had a few resolute leaders. It disbanded, indeed, as soon as he, to whom it looked for pay, had fled; but hunger and courage kept its parts together some time longer. One body, under command of Dietrich of Battenburgh, marched to Amsterdam in the hope of carrying that town; but Count Megen hastened with thirteen companies of excellent troops to its relief, and compelled the rebels to give up the attempt. Contenting themselves with plundering the neighboring cloisters, among which the abbey of Egmont in particular was hardly dealt with, they turned off towards Waaterland, where they hoped the numerous swamps would protect them from pursuit. But thither Count Megen followed them, and compelled them in all haste to seek safety in the Zuyderzee. The brothers Van Battenburg, and two Friesan nobles, Beima and Galama, with a hundred and twenty men and the booty they had taken from the monasteries, embarked near the town of Hoorne, intending to cross to Friesland, but through the treachery of the steersman, who ran the vessel on a sand-bank near Harlingen, they fell into the hands of one of Aremberg’s captains, who took them all prisoners. The Count of Aremberg immediately pronounced sentence upon all the captives of plebeian rank, but sent his noble prisoners to the regent, who caused seven of them to be beheaded. Seven others of the most noble, including the brothers Van Battenburg and some Frieslanders, all in the bloom of youth, were reserved for the Duke of Alva, to enable him to signalize the commencement of his administration by a deed which was in every way worthy of him. The troops in four other vessels which set sail from Medenhlick, and were pursued by Count Megen in small boats, were more successful. A contrary wind had forced them out of their course and driven them ashore on the coast of Gueldres, where they all got safe to land; crossing the Rhine, near Heusen, they fortunately escaped into Cleves, where they tore their flags in pieces and dispersed. In North Holland Count Megen overtook some squadrons who had lingered too long in plundering the cloisters, and completely overpowered them. He afterwards formed a junction with Noircarmes and garrisoned Amsterdam. The Duke Erich of Brunswick also surprised three companies, the last remains of the army of the Gueux, near Viane, where they were endeavoring to take a battery, routed them and captured their leader, Rennesse, who was shortly afterwards beheaded at the castle of Freudenburg, in Utrecht. Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane, he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it with the garrison on the first alarm. He immediately razed the fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town without defences. All the originators of the league were now dispersed; Brederode and Louis of Nassau had fled to Germany, and Counts Hogstraten, Bergen, and Kuilemberg had followed their example. Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on the field of battle. Those of the confederates who had escaped the sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became at last a terrible reality.
Such was the inglorious end of the noble league, which in its beginning awakened such fair hopes and promised to become a powerful protection against oppression. Unanimity was its strength, distrust and internal dissension its ruin. It brought to light and developed many rare and beautiful virtues, but it wanted the most indispensable of all, prudence and moderation, without which any undertaking must miscarry, and all the fruits of the most laborious industry perish. If its objects had been as pure as it pretended, or even had they remained as pure as they really were at its first establishment, it might have defied the unfortunate combination of circumstances which prematurely overwhelmed it, and even if unsuccessful it would still have deserved an honorable mention in history. But it is too evident that the confederate nobles, whether directly or indirectly, took a greater share in the frantic excesses of the Iconoclasts than comported with the dignity and blamelessness of their confederation, and many among them openly exchanged their own good cause for the mad enterprise of these worthless vagabonds. The restriction of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the cruel inhumanity of the edicts must be laid to the credit of the league; but this transient relief was dearly purchased, at the cost of so many of the best and bravest citizens, who either lost their lives in the field, or in exile carried their wealth and industry to another quarter of the world; and of the presence of Alva and the Spanish arms. Many, too, of its peaceable citizens, who without its dangerous temptations would never have been seduced from the ranks of peace and order, were beguiled by the hope of success into the most culpable enterprises, and by their failure plunged into ruin and misery. But it cannot be denied that the league atoned in some measure for these wrongs by positive benefits. It brought together and emboldened many whom a selfish pusillanimity kept asunder and inactive; it diffused a salutary public spirit amongst the Belgian people, which the oppression of the government had almost entirely extinguished, and gave unanimity and a common voice to the scattered members of the nation, the absence of which alone makes despots bold. The attempt, indeed, failed, and the knots, too carelessly tied, were quickly unloosed; but it was through such failures that the nation was eventually to attain to a firm and lasting union, which should bid defiance to change.
The total destruction of the Geusen army quickly brought the Dutch towns also back to their obedience, and in the provinces there remained not a single place which had not submitted to the regent; but the increasing emigration, both of the natives and the foreign residents, threatened the country with depopulation. In Amsterdam the crowd of fugitives was so great that vessels were wanting to convey them across the North Sea and the Zuyderzee, and that flourishing emporium beheld with dismay the approaching downfall of its prosperity. Alarmed at this general flight, the regent hastened to write letters to all the towns, to encourage the citizens to remain, and by fair promises to revive a hope of better and milder measures. In the king’s name she promised to all who would freely swear to obey the state and the church complete indemnity, and by public proclamation invited the fugitives to trust to the royal clemency and return to their homes. She engaged also to relieve the nation from the dreaded presence of a Spanish army, even if it were already on the frontiers; nay, she went so far as to drop hints that, if necessary, means might be found to prevent it by force from entering the provinces, as she was fully determined not to relinquish to another the glory of a peace which it had cost her so much labor to effect. Few, however, returned in reliance upon her word, and these few had cause to repent it in the sequel; many thousands had already quitted the country, and several thousands more quickly followed them. Germany and England were filled with Flemish emigrants, who, wherever they settled, retained their usages and manners, and even their costume, unwilling to come to the painful conclusion that they should never again see their native land, and to give up all hopes of return. Few carried with them any remains of their former affluence; the greater portion had to beg their way, and bestowed on their adopted country nothing but industrious skill and honest citizens.
And now the regent hastened to report to the king tidings such as, during her whole administration, she had never before been able to gratify him with. She announced to him that she had succeeded in restoring quiet throughout the provinces, and that she thought herself strong enough to maintain it. The sects were extirpated, and the Roman Catholic worship re-established in all its former splendor; the rebels had either already met with, or were awaiting in prison, the punishment they deserved; the towns were secured by adequate garrisons. There was therefore no necessity for sending Spanish troops into the Netherlands, and nothing to justify their entrance. Their arrival would tend to destroy the existing repose, which it had cost so much to establish, would check the much-desired revival of commerce and trade, and, while it would involve the country in new expenses, would at the same time deprive them of the only means of supporting them. The mere rumor of the approach of a Spanish army had stripped the country of many thousands of its most valuable citizens; its actual appearance would reduce it to a desert. As there was no longer any enemy to subdue, or rebellion to suppress, the people would see no motive for the march of this army but punishment and revenge, and under this supposition its arrival would neither be welcomed nor honored. No longer excused by necessity, this violent expedient would assume the odious aspect of oppression, would exasperate the national mind afresh, drive the Protestants to desperation, and arm their brethren in other countries in their defence. The regent, she said, had in the king’s name promised the nation it should be relieved from this foreign army, and to this stipulation she was principally indebted for the present peace; she could not therefore guarantee its long continuance if her pledge was not faithfully fulfilled. The Netherlands would receive him as their sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them. Let him come to enjoy the peace which she had bestowed on the country, but not to destroy it afresh.
ALVA’S ARMAMENT AND EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.
But it was otherwise determined in the council at Madrid. The minister, Granvella, who, even while absent himself, ruled the Spanish cabinet by his adherents; the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor, Spinosa, and the Duke of Alva, swayed respectively by hatred, a spirit of persecution, or private interest, had outvoted the milder councils of the Prince Ruy Gomes of Eboli, the Count of Feria, and the king’s confessor, Fresneda. The insurrection, it was urged by the former, was indeed quelled for the present, but only because the rebels were awed by the rumor of the king’s armed approach; it was to fear of punishment alone, and not to sorrow for their crime, that the present calm was to be ascribed, and it would soon again be broken if that feeling were allowed to subside. In fact, the offences of the people fairly afforded the king the opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his despotic views with an appearance of justice. The peaceable settlement for which the regent took credit to herself was very far from according with his wishes, which sought rather for a legitimate pretext to deprive the provinces of their privileges, which were so obnoxious to his despotic temper.
With an impenetrable dissimulation Philip had hitherto fostered the general delusion that he was about to visit the provinces in person, while all along nothing could have been more remote from his real intentions. Travelling at any time ill suited the methodical regularity of his life, which moved with the precision of clockwork; and his narrow and sluggish intellect was oppressed by the variety and multitude of objects with which new scenes crowded it. The difficulties and dangers which would attend a journey to the Netherlands must, therefore, have been peculiarly alarming to his natural timidity and love of ease. Why should he, who, in all that he did, was accustomed to consider himself alone, and to make men accommodate themselves to his principles, not his principles to men, undertake so perilous an expedition, when he could see neither the advantage nor necessity of it. Moreover, as it had ever been to him an utter impossibility to separate, even for a moment, his person from his royal dignity, which no prince ever guarded so tenaciously and pedantically as himself, so the magnificence and ceremony which in his mind were inseparably connected with such a journey, and the expenses which, on this account, it would necessarily occasion, were of themselves sufficient motives to account for his indisposition to it, without its being at all requisite to call in the aid of the influence of his favorite, Ruy Gomes, who is said to have desired to separate his rival, the Duke of Alva, from the king. Little, however, as be seriously intended this journey, he still deemed it advisable to keep up the expectation of it, as well with a view of sustaining the courage of the loyal as of preventing a dangerous combination of the disaffected, and stopping the further progress of the rebels.
In order to carry on the deception as long as possible, Philip made extensive preparations for his departure, and neglected nothing which could be required for such an event. He ordered ships to be fitted out, appointed the officers and others to attend him. To allay the suspicion such warlike preparations might excite in all foreign courts, they were informed through his ambassadors of his real design. He applied to the King of France for a passage for himself and attendants through that kingdom, and consulted the Duke of Savoy as to the preferable route. He caused a list to be drawn up of all the towns and fortified places that lay in his march, and directed all the intermediate distances to be accurately laid down. Orders were issued for taking a map and survey of the whole extent of country between Savoy and Burgundy, the duke being requested to furnish the requisite surveyors and scientific officers. To such lengths was the deception carried that the regent was commanded to hold eight vessels at least in readiness off Zealand, and to despatch them to meet the king the instant she heard of his having sailed from Spain; and these ships she actually got ready, and caused prayers to be offered up in all the churches for the king’s safety during the voyage, though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the storms at sea. Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels with similar apprehensions. An attack of tertian ague, which about this time the king suffered, or perhaps feigned, in Segovia, afforded a plausible pretence for postponing his journey, while meantime the preparations for it were carried on with the utmost activity. At last, when the urgent and repeated solicitations of his sister compelled him to make a definite explanation of his plans, he gave orders that the Duke of Alva should set out forthwith with an army, both to clear the way before him of rebels, and to enhance the splendor of his own royal arrival. He did not yet venture to throw off the mask and announce the duke as his substitute. He had but too much reason to fear that the submission which his Flemish nobles would cheerfully yield to their sovereign would be refused to one of his servants, whose cruel character was well known, and who, moreover, was detested as a foreigner and the enemy of their constitution. And, in fact, the universal belief that the king was soon to follow, which long survived Alva’s entrance into the country, restrained the outbreak of disturbances which otherwise would assuredly have been caused by the cruelties which marked the very opening of the duke’s government.
The clergy of Spain, and especially the Inquisition, contributed richly towards the expenses of this expedition as to a holy war. Throughout Spain the enlisting was carried on with the utmost zeal. The viceroys and governors of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Milan received orders to select the best of their Italian and Spanish troops in the garrisons and despatch them to the general rendezvous in the Genoese territory, where the Duke of Alva would exchange them for the Spanish recruits which he should bring with him. At the same time the regent was commanded to hold in readiness a few more regiments of German infantry in Luxembourg, under the command of the Counts Eberstein, Schaumburg, and Lodrona, and also some squadrons of light cavalry in the Duchy of Burgundy to reinforce the Spanish general immediately on his entrance into the provinces. The Count of Barlaimont was commissioned to furnish the necessary provision for the armament, and a sum of two hundred thousand gold florins was remitted to the regent to enable her to meet these expenses and to maintain her own troops.
The French court, however, under pretence of the danger to be apprehended from the Huguenots, had refused to allow the Spanish army to pass through France. Philip applied to the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine, who were too dependent upon him to refuse his request. The former merely stipulated that he should be allowed to maintain two thousand infantry and a squadron of horse at the king’s expense in order to protect his country from the injuries to which it might otherwise be exposed from the passage of the Spanish army. At the same time he undertook to provide the necessary supplies for its maintenance during the transit.
The rumor of this arrangement roused the Huguenots, the Genevese, the Swiss, and the Grisons. The Prince of Conde and the Admiral Coligny entreated Charles IX. not to neglect so favorable a moment of inflicting a deadly blow on the hereditary foe of France. With the aid of the Swiss, the Genevese, and his own Protestant subjects, it would, they alleged, be an easy matter to destroy the flower of the Spanish troops in the narrow passes of the Alpine mountains; and they promised to support him in this undertaking with an army of fifty thousand Huguenots. This advice, however, whose dangerous object was not easily to be mistaken, was plausibly declined by Charles IX., who assured them that he was both able and anxious to provide for the security of his kingdom. He hastily despatched troops to cover the French frontiers; and the republics of Geneva, Bern, Zurich, and the Grisons followed his example, all ready to offer a determined opposition to the dreaded enemy of their religion and their liberty.
On the 5th of May, 1567, the Duke of Alva set sail from Carthagena with thirty galleys, which had been furnished by Andrew Doria and the Duke Cosmo of Florence, and within eight days landed at Genoa, where the four regiments were waiting to join him. But a tertian ague, with which he was seized shortly after his arrival, compelled him to remain for some days inactive in Lombardy—a delay of which the neighboring powers availed themselves to prepare for defence. As soon as the duke recovered he held at Asti, in Montferrat, a review of all his troops, who were more formidable by their valor than by their numbers, since cavalry and infantry together did not amount to much above ten thousand men. In his long and perilous march he did not wish to encumber himself with useless supernumeraries, which would only impede his progress and increase the difficulty of supporting his army. These ten thousand veterans were to form the nucleus of a greater army, which, according as circumstances and occasion might require, he could easily assemble in the Netherlands themselves.
This array, however, was as select as it was small. It consisted of the remains of those victorious legions at whose head Charles V. had made Europe tremble; sanguinary, indomitable bands, in whose battalions the firmness of the old Macedonian phalanx lived again; rapid in their evolutions from long practice, hardy and enduring, proud of their leader’s success, and confident from past victories, formidable by their licentiousness, but still more so by their discipline; let loose with all the passions of a warmer climate upon a rich and peaceful country, and inexorable towards an enemy whom the church had cursed. Their fanatical and sanguinary spirit, their thirst for glory and innate courage was aided by a rude sensuality, the instrument by which the Spanish general firmly and surely ruled his otherwise intractable troops. With a prudent indulgence he allowed riot and voluptuousness to reign throughout the camp. Under his tacit connivance Italian courtezans followed the standards; even in the march across the Apennines, where the high price of the necessaries of life compelled him to reduce his force to the smallest possible number, he preferred to have a few regiments less rather than to leave behind these instruments of voluptuousness.
[The bacchanalian procession of this army contrasted strangely enough with the gloomy seriousness and pretended sanctity of his aim. The number of these women was so great that to restrain the disorders and quarrelling among themselves they hit upon the expedient of establishing a discipline of their own. They ranged themselves under particular flags, marched in ranks and sections, and in admirable military order, after each battalion, and classed themselves with strict etiquette according to their rank and pay.]
But industriously as Alva strove to relax the morals of his soldiers, he enforced the more rigidly a strict military discipline, which was interrupted only by a victory or rendered less severe by a battle. For all this he had, he said, the authority of the Athenian General Iphicrates, who awarded the prize of valor to the pleasure-loving and rapacious soldier. The more irksome the restraint by which the passions of the soldiers were kept in check, the greater must have been the vehemence with which they broke forth at the sole outlet which was left open to them.
The duke divided his infantry, which was about nine thousand strong, and chiefly Spaniards, into four brigades, and gave the command of them to four Spanish officers. Alphonso of Ulloa led the Neapolitan brigade of nine companies, amounting to three thousand two hundred and thirty men; Sancho of Lodogno commanded the Milan brigade, three thousand two hundred men in ten companies; the Sicilian brigade, with the same number of companies, and consisting of sixteen hundred men, was under Julian Romero, an experienced warrior, who had already fought on Belgian ground.
[The same officer who commanded one of the Spanish regiments about which so much complaint had formerly been made in the States- General.]
Gonsalo of Braccamonte headed that of Sardinia, which was raised by three companies of recruits to the full complement of the former. To every company, moreover, were added fifteen Spanish musqueteers. The horse, in all twelve hundred strong, consisted of three Italian, two Albanian, and seven Spanish squadrons, light and heavy cavalry, and the chief command was held by Ferdinand and Friedrich of Toledo, the two sons of Alva. Chiappin Vitelli, Marquis of Cetona, was field-marshal; a celebrated general whose services had been made over to the King of Spain by Cosmo of Florence; and Gabriel Serbellon was general of artillery. The Duke of Savoy lent Alva an experienced engineer, Francis Pacotto, of Urbino, who was to be employed in the erection of new fortifications. His standard was likewise followed by a number of volunteers, and the flower of the Spanish nobility, of whom the greater part had fought under Charles V. in Germany, Italy, and before Tunis. Among these were Christopher Mondragone, one of the ten Spanish heroes who, near Mithlberg, swam across the Elbe with their swords between their teeth, and, under a shower of bullets from the enemy, brought over from the opposite shore the boats which the emperor required for the construction of a bridge. Sancho of Avila, who had been trained to war under Alva himself, Camillo of Monte, Francis Ferdugo, Karl Davila, Nicolaus Basta, and Count Martinego, all fired with a noble ardor, either to commence their military career under so eminent a leader, or by another glorious campaign under his command to crown the fame they had already won. After the review the army marched in three divisions across Mount Cenis, by the very route which sixteen centuries before Hannibal is said to have taken. The duke himself led the van; Ferdinand of Toledo, with whom was associated Lodogno as colonel, the centre; and the Marquis of Cetona the rear. The Commissary General, Francis of Ibarra, was sent before with General Serbellon to open the road for the main body, and get ready the supplies at the several quarters for the night. The places which the van left in the morning were entered in the evening by the centre, which in its turn made room on the following day for the rear. Thus the army crossed the Alps of Savoy by regular stages, and with the fourteenth day completed that dangerous passage. A French army of observation accompanied it side by side along the frontiers of Dauphins, and the course of the Rhone, and the allied army of the Genevese followed it on the right, and was passed by it at a distance of seven miles. Both these armies of observation carefully abstained from any act of hostility, and were merely intended to cover their own frontiers. As the Spanish legions ascended and descended the steep mountain crags, or while they crossed the rapid Iser, or file by file wound through the narrow passes of the rocks, a handful of men would have been sufficient to put an entire stop to their march, and to drive them back into the mountains, where they would have been irretrievably lost, since at each place of encampment supplies were provided for no more than a single day, and for a third part only of the whole force. But a supernatural awe and dread of the Spanish name appeared to have blinded the eyes of the enemy so that they did not perceive their advantage, or at least did not venture to profit by it. In order to give them as little opportunity as possible of remembering it, the Spanish general hastened through this dangerous pass.
Convinced, too, that if his troops gave the slightest umbrage he was lost, the strictest discipline was maintained during the march; not a single peasant’s hut, not a single field was injured; and never, perhaps, in the memory of man was so numerous an army led so far in such excellent order.
[Once only on entering Lorraine three horsemen ventured to drive away a few sheep from a flock, of which circumstance the duke was no sooner informed than he sent back to the owner what had been taken from him and sentenced the offenders to be hung. This sentence was, at the intercession of the Lorraine general, who had come to the frontiers to pay his respects to the duke, executed on only one of the three, upon whom the lot fell at the drum-head.]
Destined as this army was for vengeance and murder, a malignant and baleful star seemed to conduct it safe through all dangers; and it would be difficult to decide whether the prudence of its general or the blindness of its enemies is most to be wondered at.
In Franche Comte, four squadrons of Burgundian cavalry, newly-raised, joined the main army, which, at Luxembourg, was also reinforced by three regiments of German infantry under the command of Counts Eberstein, Schaumburg, and Lodrona. From Thionville, where he halted a few days, Alva sent his salutations to the regent by Francis of Ibarra, who was, at the same time, directed to consult her on the quartering of the troops. On her part, Noircarmes and Barlairnont were despatched to the Spanish camp to congratulate the duke on his arrival, and to show him the customary marks of honor. At the same time they were directed to ask him to produce the powers entrusted to him by the king, of which, however, he only showed a part. The envoys of the regent were followed by swarms of the Flemish nobility, who thought they could not hasten soon enough to conciliate the favor of the new viceroy, or by a timely submission avert the vengeance which was preparing. Among them was Count Egmont. As he came forward the duke pointed him out to the bystanders. “Here comes an arch-heretic,” he exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by Egmont himself, who, surprised at these words, stopped and changed color. But when the duke, in order to repair his imprudence, went up to him with a serene countenance, and greeted him with a friendly embrace, the Fleming was ashamed of his fears, and made light of this warning, by putting some frivolous interpretation upon it. Egmont sealed this new friendship with a present of two valuable chargers, which Alva accepted with a grave condescension.
Upon the assurance of the regent that the provinces were in the enjoyment of perfect peace, and that no opposition was to be apprehended from any quarter, the duke discharged some German regiments, which had hitherto drawn their pay from the Netherlands. Three thousand six hundred men, under the command of Lodrona, were quartered in Antwerp, from which town the Walloon garrison, in which full reliance could not be placed, was withdrawn; garrisons proportionably stronger were thrown into Ghent and other important places; Alva himself marched with the Milan brigade towards Brussels, whither he was accompanied by a splendid cortege of the noblest in the land.
Here, as in all the other towns of the Netherlands, fear and terror had preceded him, and all who were conscious of any offences, and even those who were sensible of none, alike awaited his approach with a dread similar to that with which criminals see the coming of their day of trial. All who could tear themselves from the ties of family, property, and country had already fled, or now at last took to flight. The advance of the Spanish army had already, according to the report of the regent, diminished the population of the provinces by the loss of one hundred thousand citizens, and this general flight still continued. But the arrival of the Spanish general could not be more hateful to the people of the Netherlands than it was distressing and dispiriting to the regent. At last, after so many years of anxiety, she had begun to taste the sweets of repose, and that absolute-authority, which had been the long-cherished object of eight years of a troubled and difficult administration. This late fruit of so much anxious industry, of so many cares and nightly vigils, was now to be wrested from her by a stranger, who was to be placed at once in possession of all the advantages which she had been forced to extract from adverse circumstances, by a long and tedious course of intrigue and patient endurance. Another was lightly to bear away the prize of promptitude, and to triumph by more rapid success over her superior but less glittering merits. Since the departure of the minister, Granvella, she had tasted to the full the pleasures of independence. The flattering homage of the nobility, which allowed her more fully to enjoy the shadow of power, the more they deprived her of its substance, had, by degrees, fostered her vanity to such an extent, that she at last estranged by her coldness even the most upright of all her servants, the state counsellor Viglius, who always addressed her in the language of truth. All at once a censor of her actions was placed at her side, a partner of her power was associated with her, if indeed it was not rather a master who was forced upon her, whose proud, stubborn, and imperious spirit, which no courtesy could soften, threatened the deadliest wounds to her self-love and vanity. To prevent his arrival she had, in her representations to the king, vainly exhausted every political argument. To no purpose had she urged that the utter ruin of the commerce of the Netherlands would be the inevitable consequence of; this introduction of the Spanish troops; in vain had she assured the king that peace was universally restored, and reminded him of her own services in procuring it, which deserved, she thought, a better guerdon than to see all the fruits of her labors snatched from her and given to a foreigner, and more than all, to behold all the good which she had effected destroyed by a new and different line of conduct. Even when the duke had already crossed Mount Cenis she made one more attempt, entreating him at least to diminish his army; but that also failed, for the duke insisted upon acting up to the powers entrusted to him. In poignant grief she now awaited his approach, and with the tears she shed for her country were mingled those of offended self-love.
On the 22d of August, 1567, the Duke of Alva appeared before the gates of Brussels. His army immediately took up their quarters in the suburbs, and he himself made it his first duty to pay his respects to the sister of his king. She gave him a private audience on the plea of suffering from sickness. Either the mortification she had undergone had in reality a serious effect upon her health, or, what is not improbable, she had recourse to this expedient to pain his haughty spirit, and in some degree to lessen his triumph. He delivered to her letters from the king, and laid before her a copy of his own appointment, by which the supreme command of the whole military force of the Netherlands was committed to him, and from which, therefore, it would appear, that the administration of civil affairs remained, as heretofore, in the hands of the regent. But as soon as he was alone with her he produced a new commission, which was totally different from the former. According to this, the power was delegated to him of making war at his discretion, of erecting fortifications, of appointing and dismissing at pleasure the governors of provinces, the commandants of towns, and other officers of the king; of instituting inquiries into the past troubles, of punishing those who originated them, and of rewarding the loyal. Powers of this extent, which placed him almost on a level with a sovereign prince, and far surpassed those of the regent herself, caused her the greatest consternation, and it was with difficulty that she could conceal her emotion. She asked the duke whether he had not even a third commission, or some special orders in reserve which went still further, and were drawn up still more precisely, to which he replied distinctly enough in the affirmative, but at the same time gave her to understand that this commission might be too full to suit the present occasion, and would be better brought into play hereafter with due regard to time and circumstances. A few days after his arrival he caused a copy of the first instructions to be laid before the several councils and the states, and had them printed to insure their rapid circulation. As the regent resided in the palace, he took up his quarters temporarily in Kuilemberg house, the same in which the association of the Gueux had received its name, and before which, through a wonderful vicissitude, Spanish tyranny now planted its flag.
A dead silence reigned in Brussels, broken only at times by the unwonted clang of arms. The duke had entered the town but a few hours when his attendants, like bloodhounds that have been slipped, dispersed themselves in all directions. Everywhere foreign faces were to be seen; the streets were empty, all the houses carefully closed, all amusements suspended, all public places deserted. The whole metropolis resembled a place visited by the plague. Acquaintances hurried on without stopping for their usual greeting; all hastened on the moment a Spaniard showed himself in the streets. Every sound startled them, as if it were the knock of the officials of justice at their doors; the nobility, in trembling anxiety, kept to their houses; they shunned appearing in public lest their presence should remind the new viceroy of some past offence. The two nations now seemed to have exchanged characters. The Spaniard had become the talkative man and the Brabanter taciturn; distrust and fear had scared away the spirit of cheerfulness and mirth; a constrained gravity fettered even the play of the features. Every moment the impending blow was looked for with dread.
This general straining of expectation warned the duke to hasten the accomplishment of his plans before they should be anticipated by the timely flight of his victims. His first object was to secure the suspected nobles, in order, at once and forever, to deprive the faction of its leaders, and the nation, whose freedom was to be crushed, of all its supporters. By a pretended affability he had succeeded in lulling their first alarm, and in restoring Count Egmont in particular to his former perfect confidence, for which purpose he artfully employed his sons, Ferdinand and Friedrich of Toledo, whose companionableness and youth assimilated more easily with the Flemish character. By this skilful advice he succeeded also in enticing Count Horn to Brussels, who had hitherto thought it advisable to watch the first measures of the duke from a distance, but now suffered himself to be seduced by the good fortune of his friend. Some of the nobility, and Count Egmont at the head of them, even resumed their former gay style of living. But they themselves did not do so with their whole hearts, and they had not many imitators. Kuilemberg house was incessantly besieged by a numerous crowd, who thronged around the person of the new viceroy, and exhibited an affected gayety on their countenances, while their hearts were wrung with distress and fear. Egmont in particular assumed the appearance of a light heart, entertaining the duke’s sons, and being feted by them in return. Meanwhile, the duke was fearful lest so fair an opportunity for the accomplishment of his plans might not last long, and lest some act of imprudence might destroy the feeling of security which had tempted both his victims voluntarily to put themselves into his power; he only waited for a third; Hogstraten also was to be taken in the same net. Under a plausible pretext of business he therefore summoned him to the metropolis. At the same time that he purposed to secure the three counts in Brussels, Colonel Lodrona was to arrest the burgomaster, Strahlen, in Antwerp, an intimate friend of the Prince of Orange, and suspected of having favored the Calvinists; another officer was to seize the private secretary of Count Egmont, whose name was John Cassembrot von Beckerzeel, as also some secretaries of Count Horn, and was to possess themselves of their papers.
When the day arrived which had been fixed upon for the execution of this plan, the duke summoned all the counsellors and knights before him to confer with them upon matters of state. On this occasion the Duke of Arschot, the Counts Mansfeld, Barlaimont, and Aremberg attended on the part of the Netherlands, and on the part of the Spaniards besides the duke’s sons, Vitelli, Serbellon, and Ibarra. The young Count Mansfeld, who likewise appeared at the meeting, received a sign from his father to withdraw with all speed, and by a hasty flight avoid the fate which was impending over him as a former member of the Geusen league. The duke purposely prolonged the consultation to give time before he acted for the arrival of the couriers from Antwerp, who were to bring him the tidings of the arrest of the other parties. To avoid exciting any suspicion, the engineer, Pacotto, was required to attend the meeting to lay before it the plans for some fortifications. At last intelligence was brought him that Lodrona had successfully executed his commission. Upon this the duke dexterously broke off the debate and dismissed the council. And now, as Count Egmont was about to repair to the apartment of Don Ferdinand, to finish a game that he had commenced with him, the captain of the duke’s body guard, Sancho D’Avila, stopped him, and demanded his sword in the king’s name. At the same time he was surrounded by a number of Spanish soldiers, who, as had been preconcerted, suddenly advanced from their concealment. So unexpected a blow deprived Egmont for some moments of all powers of utterance and recollection; after a while, however, he collected himself, and taking his sword from his side with dignified composure, said, as he delivered it into the hands of the Spaniard, “This sword has before this on more than one occasion successfully defended the king’s cause.” Another Spanish officer arrested Count Horn as he was returning to his house without the least suspicion of danger. Horn’s first inquiry was after Egmont. On being told that the same fate had just happened to his friend he surrendered himself without resistance. “I have suffered myself to be guided by him,” he exclaimed, “it is fair that I should share his destiny.” The two counts were placed in confinement in separate apartments. While this was going on in the interior of Kuilemberg house the whole garrison were drawn out under arms in front of it. No one knew what had taken place inside, a mysterious terror diffused itself throughout Brussels until rumor spread the news of this fatal event. Each felt as if he himself were the sufferer; with many indignation at Egmont’s blind infatuation preponderated over sympathy for his fate; all rejoiced that Orange had escaped. The first question of the Cardinal Granvella, too, when these tidings reached him in Rome, is said to have been, whether they had taken the Silent One also. On being answered in the negative he shook his head “then as they have let him escape they have got nothing.” Fate ordained better for the Count of Hogstraten. Compelled by ill-health to travel slowly, he was met by the report of this event while he was yet on his way. He hastily turned back, and fortunately escaped destruction. Immediately after Egmont’s seizure a writing was extorted from him, addressed to the commandant of the citadel of Ghent, ordering that officer to deliver the fortress to the Spanish Colonel Alphonso d’Ulloa. Upon this the two counts were then (after they had been for some weeks confined in Brussels) conveyed under a guard of three thousand Spaniards to Ghent, where they remained imprisoned till late in the following year. In the meantime all their papers had been seized. Many of the first nobility who, by the pretended kindness of the Duke of Alva, had allowed themselves to be cajoled into remaining experienced the same fate. Capital punishment was also, without further delay, inflicted on all who before the duke’s arrival had been taken with arms in their hands. Upon the news of Egmont’s arrest a second body of about twenty thousand inhabitants took up the wanderer’s staff, besides the one hundred thousand who, prudently declining to await the arrival of the Spanish general, had already placed themselves in safety.
[A great part of these fugitives helped to strengthen the army of the Huguenots, who had taken occasion, from the passage of the Spanish army through Lorraine, to assemble their forces, and now pressed Charles IX. hard. On these grounds the French court thought it had a right to demand aid from the regent of the Netherlands. It asserted that the Huguenots had looked upon the march of the Spanish army as the result of a preconcerted plan which had been formed against them by the two courts at Bayonne and that this had roused them from their slumber. That consequently it behooved the Spanish court to assist in extricating the French king from difficulties into which the latter had been brought simply by the march of the Spanish troops. Alva actually sent the Count of Aremberg with a considerable force to join the army of the Queen Mother in France, and even offered to command these subsidiaries in person, which, however, was declined. Strada, 206. Thuan, 541.]
After so noble a life had been assailed no one counted himself safe any longer; but many found cause to repent that they had so long deferred this salutary step; for every day flight was rendered more difficult, for the duke ordered all the ports to be closed, and punished the attempt at emigration with death. The beggars were now esteemed fortunate, who had abandoned country and property in order to preserve at least their liberty and their lives.
ALVA’S FIRST MEASURES, AND DEPARTURE OF THE DUCHESS OF PARMA.
Alva’s first step, after securing the most suspected of the nobles, was to restore the Inquisition to its former authority, to put the decrees of Trent again in force, abolish the “moderation,” and promulgate anew the edicts against heretics in all their original severity. The court of Inquisition in Spain had pronounced the whole nation of the Netherlands guilty of treason in the highest degree, Catholics and heterodox, loyalists and rebels, without distinction; the latter as having offended by overt acts, the former as having incurred equal guilt by their supineness. From this sweeping condemnation a very few were excepted, whose names, however, were purposely reserved, while the general sentence was publicly confirmed by the king. Philip declared himself absolved from all his promises, and released from all engagements which the regent in his name had entered into with the people of the Netherlands, and all the justice which they had in future to expect from him must depend on his own good-will and pleasure. All who had aided in the expulsion of the minister, Granvella, who had taken part in the petition of the confederate nobles, or had but even spoken in favor of it; all who had presented a petition against the decrees of Trent, against the edicts relating to religion, or against the installation of the bishops; all who had permitted the public preachings, or had only feebly resisted them; all who had worn the insignia of the Gueux, had sung Geusen songs, or who in any way whatsoever had manifested their joy at the establishment of the league; all who had sheltered or concealed the reforming preachers, attended Calvinistic funerals, or had even merely known of their secret meetings, and not given information of them; all who had appealed to the national privileges; all, in fine, who had expressed an opinion that they ought to obey God rather than man; all these indiscriminately were declared liable to the penalties which the law imposed upon any violation of the royal prerogative, and upon high treason; and these penalties were, according to the instruction which Alva had received, to be executed on the guilty persons without forbearance or favor; without regard to rank, sex, or age, as an example to posterity, and for a terror to all future times. According to this declaration there was no longer an innocent person to be found in the whole Netherlands, and the new viceroy had it in his power to make a fearful choice of victims. Property and life were alike at his command, and whoever should have the good fortune to preserve one or both must receive them as the gift of his generosity and humanity. By this stroke of policy, as refined as it was detestable, the nation was disarmed, and unanimity rendered impossible. As it absolutely depended on the duke’s arbitrary will upon whom the sentence should be carried in force which had been passed without exception upon all, each individual kept himself quiet, in order to escape, if possible, the notice of the viceroy, and to avoid drawing the fatal choice upon himself. Every one, on the other hand, in whose favor he was pleased to make an exception stood in a degree indebted to him, and was personally under an obligation which must be measured by the value he set upon his life and property. As, however, this penalty could only be executed on the smaller portion of the nation, the duke naturally secured the greater by the strongest ties of fear and gratitude, and for one whom he sought out as a victim he gained ten others whom he passed over. As long as he continued true to this policy he remained in quiet possession of his rule, even amid the streams of blood which he caused to flow, and did not forfeit this advantage till the want of money compelled him to impose a burden upon the nation which oppressed all indiscriminately.
In order to be equal to this bloody occupation, the details of which were fast accumulating, and to be certain of not losing a single victim through the want of instruments; and, on the other hand, to render his proceedings independent of the states, with whose privileges they were so much at variance, and who, indeed, were far too humane for him, he instituted an extraordinary court of justice. This court consisted of twelve criminal judges, who, according to their instructions, to the very letter of which they must adhere, were to try and pronounce sentence upon those implicated in the past disturbances. The mere institution of such a board was a violation of the liberties of the country, which expressly stipulated that no citizen should be tried out of his own province; but the duke filled up the measure of his injustice when, contrary to the most sacred privileges of the nation, he proceeded to give seats and votes in that court to Spaniards, the open and avowed enemies of Belgian liberty. He himself was the president of this court, and after him a certain licentiate, Vargas, a Spaniard by birth, of whose iniquitous character the historians of both parties are unanimous; cast out like a plague-spot from his own country, where he had violated one of his wards, he was a shameless, hardened villain, in whose mind avarice, lust, and the thirst for blood struggled for ascendancy. The principal members were Count Aremberg, Philip of Noircarmes, and Charles of Barlaimont, who, however, never sat in it; Hadrian Nicolai, chancellor of Gueldres; Jacob Mertens and Peter Asset, presidents of Artois and Flanders; Jacob Hesselts and John de la Porte, counsellors of Ghent; Louis del Roi, doctor of theology, and by birth a Spaniard; John du Bois, king’s advocate; and De la’Torre, secretary of the court. In compliance with the representations of Viglius the privy council was spared any part in this tribunal; nor was any one introduced into it from the great council at Malines. The votes of the members were only recommendatory, not conclusive, the final sentence being reserved by the duke to himself. No particular time was fixed for the sitting of the court; the members, however, assembled at noon, as often as the duke thought good. But after the expiration of the third month Alva began to be less frequent in his attendance, and at last resigned his place entirely to his favorite, Vargas, who filled it with such odious fitness that in a short time all the members, with the exception merely of the Spanish doctor, Del Rio, and the secretary, De la Torre, weary of the atrocities of which they were compelled to be both eyewitnesses and accomplices, remained away from the assembly.
[The sentences passed upon the most eminent persons (for example, the sentence of death passed upon Strahlen, the burgomaster of Antwerp), were signed only by Vargas, Del Rio, and De la Torre.]
It is revolting to the feelings to think how the lives of the noblest and best were thus placed at the mercy of Spanish vagabonds, and how even the sanctuaries of the nation, its deeds and charters, were unscrupulously ransacked, the seals broken, and the most secret contracts between the sovereign and the state profaned and exposed.
[For an example of the unfeeling levity with which the most important matters, even decisions in cases of life and death, were treated in this sanguinary council, it may serve to relate what is told of the Counsellor Hesselts. He was generally asleep during the meeting, and when his turn came to vote on a sentence of death he used to cry out, still half asleep: “Ad patibulum! Ad patibulum!” so glibly did his tongue utter this word. It is further to be remarked of this Hesselts, that his wife, a daughter of the President Viglius, had expressly stipulated in the marriage- contract that he should resign the dismal office of attorney for the king, which made him detested by the whole nation. Vigl. ad Hopp. lxvii., L.]
From the council of twelve (which, from the object of its institution, was called the council for disturbances, but on account of its proceedings is more generally known under the appellation of the council of blood, a name which the nation in their exasperation bestowed upon it), no appeal was allowed. Its proceedings could not be revised. Its verdicts were irrevocable and independent of all other authority. No other tribunal in the country could take cognizance of cases which related to the late insurrection, so that in all the other courts justice was nearly at a standstill. The great council at Malines was as good as abolished; the authority of the council of state entirely ceased, insomuch that its sittings were discontinued. On some rare occasions the duke conferred with a few members of the late assembly, but even when this did occur the conference was held in his cabinet, and was no more than a private consultation, without any of the proper forms being observed. No privilege, no charter of immunity, however carefully protected, had any weight with the council for disturbances.
[Vargas, in a few words of barbarous Latin, demolished at once the boasted liberties of the Netherlands. “Non curamus vestros privilegios,” he replied to one who wished to plead the immunities of the University of Louvain.]
It compelled all deeds and contracts to be laid before it, and often forced upon them the most strained interpetations and alterations. If the duke caused a sentence to be drawn out which there was reason to fear might be opposed by the states of Brabant, it was legalized without the Brabant seal. The most sacred rights of individuals were assailed, and a tyranny without example forced its arbitrary will even into the circle of domestic life. As the Protestants and rebels had hitherto contrived to strengthen their party so much by marriages with the first families in the country, the duke issued an edict forbidding all Netherlanders, whatever might be their rank or office, under pain of death and confiscation of property, to conclude a marriage without previously obtaining his permission.
All whom the council for disturbances thought proper to summon before it were compelled to appear, clergy as well as laity; the most venerable heads of the senate, as well as the reprobate rabble of the Iconoclasts. Whoever did not present himself, as indeed scarcely anybody did, was declared an outlaw, and his property was confiscated; but those who were rash or foolish enough to appear, or who were so unfortunate as to be seized, were lost without redemption. Twenty, forty, often fifty were summoned at the same time and from the same town, and the richest were always the first on whom the thunderbolt descended. The meaner citizens, who possessed nothing that could render their country and their homes dear to them, were taken unawares and arrested without any previous citation. Many eminent merchants, who had at their disposal fortunes of from sixty thousand to one hundred thousand florins, were seen with their hands tied behind their backs, dragged like common vagabonds at the horse’s tail to execution, and in Valenciennes fifty-five persons were decapitated at one time. All the prisons—and the duke immediately on commencing his administration had built a great number of them—were crammed full with the accused; hanging, beheading, quartering, burning were the prevailing and ordinary occupations of the day; the punishment of the galleys and banishment were more rarely heard of, for there was scarcely any offence which was reckoned too trival to be punished with death. Immense sums were thus brought into the treasury, which, however, served rather to stimulate the new viceroy’s and his colleagues’ thirst for gold than to quench it. It seemed to be his insane purpose to make beggars of the whole people, and to throw all their riches into the hands of the king and his servants. The yearly income derived from these confiscations was computed to equal the revenues of the first kingdoms of Europe; it is said to have been estimated, in a report furnished to the king, at the incredible amount of twenty million of dollars. But these proceedings were the more inhuman, as they often bore hardest precisely upon the very persons who were the most peaceful subjects, and most orthodox Roman Catholics, whom they could not want to injure. Whenever an estate was confiscated all the creditors who had claims upon it were defrauded. The hospitals, too, and public institutions, which such properties had contributed to support, were now ruined, and the poor, who had formerly drawn a pittance from this source, were compelled to see their only spring of comfort dried up. Whoever ventured to urge their well-grounded claims on the forfeited property before the council of twelve (for no other tribunal dared to interfere with these inquiries), consumed their substance in tedious and expensive proceedings, and were reduced to beggary before they saw the end of them. The histories of civilized states furnish but one instance of a similar perversion of justice, of such violation of the rights of property, and of such waste of human life; but Cinna, Sylla, and Marius entered vanquished Rome as incensed victors, and practised without disguise what the viceroy of the Netherlands performed under the venerable veil of the laws.
Up to the end of the year 1567 the king’s arrival had been confidently expected, and the well-disposed of the people had placed all their last hopes on this event. The vessels, which Philip had caused to be equipped expressly for the purpose of meeting him, still lay in the harbor of Flushing, ready to sail at the first signal; and the town of Brussels had consented to receive a Spanish garrison, simply because the king, it was pretended, was to reside within its walls. But this hope gradually vanished, as he put off the journey from one season to the next, and the new viceroy very soon began to exhibit powers which announced him less as a precursor of royalty than as an absolute minister, whose presence made that of the monarch entirely superfluous. To compete the distress of the provinces their last good angel was now to leave them in the person of the regent. From the moment when the production of the duke’s extensive powers left no doubt remaining as to the practical termination of her own rule, Margaret had formed the resolution of relinquishing the name also of regent. To see a successor in the actual possession of a dignity which a nine years’ enjoyment had made indispensable to her; to see the authority, the glory, the splendor, the adoration, and all the marks of respect, which are the usual concomitants of supreme power, pass over to another; and to feel that she had lost that which she could never forget she had once held, was more than a woman’s mind could endure; moreover, the Duke of Alva was of all men the least calculated to make her feel her privation the less painful by a forbearing use of his newly-acquired dignity. The tranquillity of the country, too, which was put in jeopardy by this divided rule, seemed to impose upon the duchess the necessity of abdicating. Many governors of provinces refused, without an express order from the court, to receive commands from the duke and to recognize him as co-regent.
The rapid change of their point of attraction could not be met by the courtiers so composedly and imperturbably but that the duchess observed the alteration, and bitterly felt it. Even the few who, like State Counsellor Viglius, still firmly adhered to her, did so less from attachment to her person than from vexation at being displaced by novices and foreigners, and from being too proud to serve a fresh apprenticeship under a new viceroy. But far the greater number, with all their endeavors to keep an exact mean, could not help making a difference between the homage they paid to the rising sun and that which they bestowed on the setting luminary. The royal palace in Brussels became more and more deserted, while the throng at Kuilemberg house daily increased. But what wounded the sensitiveness of the duchess most acutely was the arrest of Horn and Egmont, which was planned and executed by the duke without her knowledge or consent, just as if there had been no such person as herself in existence. Alva did, indeed, after the act was done, endeavor to appease her by declaring that the design had been purposely kept secret from her in order to spare her name from being mixed up in so odious a transaction; but no such considerations of delicacy could close the wound which had been inflicted on her pride. In order at once to escape all risk of similar insults, of which the present was probably only a forerunner, she despatched her private secretary, Macchiavell, to the court of her brother, there to solicit earnestly for permission to resign the regency. The request was granted without difficulty by the king, who accompanied his consent with every mark of his highest esteem. He would put aside (so the king expressed himself) his own advantage and that of the provinces in order to oblige his sister. He sent a present of thirty thousand dollars, and allotted to her a yearly pension of twenty thousand.
[Which, however, does not appear to have been very punctually paid, if a pamphlet maybe trusted which was printed during her lifetime. (It bears the title: Discours sur la Blessure de Monseigneur Prince d’Orange, 1582, without notice of the place where it was printed, and is to be found in the Elector’s library at Dresden.) She languished, it is there stated, at Namur in poverty, and so ill- supported by her son (the then governor of the Netherlands), that her own secretary, Aldrobandin, called her sojourn there an exile. But the writer goes on to ask what better treatment could she expect from a son who, when still very young, being on a visit to her at Brussels, snapped his fingers at her behind her back.]
At the same time a diploma was forwarded to the Duke of Alva, constituting him, in her stead, viceroy of all the Netherlands, with unlimited powers.
Gladly would Margaret have learned that she was permitted to resign the regency before a solemn assembly of the states, a wish which she had not very obscurely hinted to the king. But she was not gratified. She was particularly fond of solemnity, and the example of the Emperor, her father, who had exhibited the extraordinary spectacle of his abdication of the crown in this very city, seemed to have great attractions for her. As she was compelled to part with supreme power, she could scarcely be blamed for wishing to do so with as much splendor as possible. Moreover, she had not failed to observe how much the general hatred of the duke had effected in her own favor, and she looked, therefore, the more wistfully forward to a scene, which promised to be at once so flattering to her and so affecting. She would have been glad to mingle her own tears with those which she hoped to see shed by the Netherlanders for their good regent. Thus the bitterness of her descent from the throne would have been alleviated by the expression of general sympathy. Little as she had done to merit the general esteem during the nine years of her administration, while fortune smiled upon her, and the approbation of her sovereign was the limit to all her wishes, yet now the sympathy of the nation had acquired a value in her eyes as the only thing which could in some degree compensate to her for the disappointment of all her other hopes. Fain would she have persuaded herself that she had become a voluntary sacrifice to her goodness of heart and her too humane feelings towards the Netherlanders. As, however, the king was very far from being disposed to incur any danger by calling a general assembly of the states, in order to gratify a mere caprice of his sister, she was obliged to content herself with a farewell letter to them. In this document she went over her whole administration, recounted, not without ostentation, the difficulties with which she had had to struggle, the evils which, by her dexterity, she had prevented, and wound up at last by saying that she left a finished work, and had to transfer to her successor nothing but the punishment of offenders. The king, too, was repeatedly compelled to hear the same statement, and she left nothing undone to arrogate to herself the glory of any future advantages which it might be the good fortune of the duke to realize. Her own merits, as something which did not admit of a doubt, but was at the same time a burden oppressive to her modesty, she laid at the feet of the king.
Dispassionate posterity may, nevertheless; hesitate to subscribe unreservedly to this favorable opinion. Even though the united voice of her contemporaries, and the testimony of the Netherlands themselves vouch for it, a third party will not be denied the right to examine her claims with stricter scrutiny. The popular mind, easily affected, is but too ready to count the absence of a vice as an additional virtue, and, under the pressure of existing evil, to give excess of praise for past benefits.
The Netherlander seems to have concentrated all his hatred upon the Spanish name. To lay the blame of the national evils on the regent would tend to remove from the king and his minister the curses which he would rather shower upon them alone and undividedly; and the Duke of Alva’s government of the Netherlands was, perhaps, not the proper point of view from which to test the merits of his predecessor. It was undoubtedly no light task to meet the king’s expectations without infringing the rights of the people and the duties of humanity; but in struggling to effect these two contradictory objects Margaret had accomplished neither. She had deeply injured the nation, while comparatively she had done little service to the king. It is true that she at last crushed the Protestant faction, but the accidental outbreak of the Iconoclasts assisted her in this more than all her dexterity. She certainly succeeded by her intrigues in dissolving the league of the nobles, but not until the first blow had been struck at its roots by internal dissensions. The object, to secure which she had for many years vainly exhausted her whole policy, was effected at last by a single enlistment of troops, for which, however, the orders were issued from Madrid. She delivered to the duke, no doubt, a tranquillized country; but it cannot be denied that the dread of his approach had the chief share in tranquillizing it. By her reports she led the council in Spain astray; because she never informed it of the disease, but only of the occasional symptoms; never of the universal feeling and voice of the nation, but only of the misconduct of factions. Her faulty administration, moreover, drew the people into the crime, because she exasperated without sufficiently awing them. She it was that brought the murderous Alva into the country by leading the king to believe that the disturbances in the provinces were to be ascribed, not so much to the severity of the royal ordinances, as to the unworthiness of those who were charged with their execution. Margaret possessed natural capacity and intellect; and an acquired political tact enabled her to meet any ordinary case; but she wanted that creative genius which, for new and extraordinary emergencies, invents new maxims, or wisely oversteps old ones. In a country where honesty was the best policy, she adopted the unfortunate plan of practising her insidious Italian policy, and thereby sowed the seeds of a fatal distrust in the minds of the people. The indulgence which has been so liberally imputed to her as a merit was, in truth, extorted from her weakness and timidity by the courageous opposition of the nation; she had never departed from the strict letter of the royal commands by her own spontaneous resolution; never did the gentle feelings of innate humanity lead her to misinterpret the cruel purport of her instructions. Even the few concessions to which necessity compelled her were granted with an uncertain and shrinking hand, as if fearing to give too much; and she lost the fruit of her benefactions because she mutilated them by a sordid closeness. What in all the other relations of her life she was too little, she was on the throne too much—a woman! She had it in her power, after Granvella’s expulsion, to become the benefactress of the Belgian nation, but she did not. Her supreme good was the approbation of her king, her greatest misfortune his displeasure; with all the eminent qualities of her mind she remained an ordinary character because her heart was destitute of native nobility. She used a melancholy power with much moderation, and stained her government with no deed of arbitrary cruelty; nay, if it had depended on her, she would have always acted humanely. Years afterwards, when her idol, Philip II., had long forgotten her, the Netherlanders still honored her memory; but she was far from deserving the glory which her successor’s inhumanity reflected upon her.
She left Brussels about the end of December, 1567. The duke escorted her as far as the frontiers of Brabant, and there left her under the protection of Count Mansfeld in order to hasten back to the metropolis and show himself to the Netherlanders as sole regent.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF COUNTS EGMONT AND HORN.
The two counts were a few weeks after their arrest conveyed to Ghent under an escort of three thousand Spaniards, where they were confined in the citadel for more than eight months. Their trial commenced in due form before the council of twelve, and the solicitor-general, John Du Bois, conducted the proceedings. The indictment against Egmont consisted of ninety counts, and that against Horn of sixty. It would occupy too much space to introduce them here. Every action, however innocent, every omission of duty, was interpreted on the principle which had been laid down in the opening of the indictment, “that the two counts, in conjunction with the Prince of Orange, had planned the overthrow of the royal authority in the Netherlands, and the usurpation of the government of the country;” the expulsion of Granvella; the embassy of Egmont to Madrid; the confederacy of the Gueux; the concessions which they made to the Protestants in the provinces under their government—all were made to have a connection with, and reference to, this deliberate design. Thus importance was attached to the most insignificant occurrences, and one action made to darken and discolor another. By taking care to treat each of the charges as in itself a treasonable offence it was the more easy to justify a sentence of high treason by the whole.
The accusations were sent to each of the prisoners, who were required to reply to them within five days. After doing so they were allowed to employ solicitors and advocates, who were permitted free access to them; but as they were accused of treason their friends were prohibited from visiting them. Count Egmont employed for his solicitor Von Landas, and made choice of a few eminent advocates from Brussels.
The first step was to demur against the tribunal which was to try them, since by the privilege of their order they, as Knights of the Golden Fleece, were amenable only to the king himself, the grand master. But this demurrer was overruled, and they were required to produce their witnesses, in default of which they were to be proceeded against in contumaciam. Egmont had satisfactorily answered to eighty-two counts, while Count Horn had refuted the charges against him, article by article. The accusation and the defence are still extant; on that defence every impartial tribunal would have acquitted them both. The Procurator Fiscal pressed for the production of their evidence, and the Duke of Alva issued his repeated commands to use despatch. They delayed, however, from week to week, while they renewed their protests against the illegality of the court. At last the duke assigned them nine days to produce their proofs; on the lapse of that period they were to be declared guilty, and as having forfeited all right of defence.
During the progress of the trial the relations and friends of the two counts were not idle. Egmont’s wife, by birth a duchess of Bavaria, addressed petitions to the princes of the German empire, to the Emperor, and to the King of Spain. The Countess Horn, mother of the imprisoned count, who was connected by the ties of friendship or of blood with the principal royal families of Germany, did the same. All alike protested loudly against this illegal proceeding, and appealed to the liberty of the German empire, on which Horn, as a count of the empire, had special claims; the liberty of the Netherlands and the privileges of the Order of the Golden Fleece were likewise insisted upon. The Countess Egmont succeeded in obtaining the intercession of almost every German court in behalf of her husband. The King of Spain and his viceroy were besieged by applications in behalf of the accused, which were referred from one to the other, and made light of by both. Countess Horn collected certificates from all the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Spain, Germany, and Italy to prove the privileges of the order. Alva rejected them with a declaration that they had no force in such a case as the present. “The crimes of which the counts are accused relate to the affairs of the Belgian provinces, and he, the duke, was appointed by the king sole judge of all matters connected with those countries.”
Four months had been allowed to the solicitor-general to draw up the indictment, and five were granted to the two counts to prepare for their defence. But instead of losing their time and trouble in adducing their evidence, which, perhaps, would have profited then but little, they preferred wasting it in protests against the judges, which availed them still less. By the former course they would probably have delayed the final sentence, and in the time thus gained the powerful intercession of their friends might perhaps have not been ineffectual. By obstinately persisting in denying the competency of the tribunal which was to try them, they furnished the duke with an excuse for cutting short the proceedings. After the last assigned period had expired, on the 1st of June, 1658, the council of twelve declared them guilty, and on the 4th of that month sentence of death was pronounced against them.
The execution of twenty-five noble Netherlanders, who were beheaded in three successive days in the marketplace at Brussels, was the terrible prelude to the fate of the two counts. John Casembrot von Beckerzeel, secretary to Count Egmont, was one of the unfortunates, who was thus rewarded for his fidelity to his master, which he steadfastly maintained even upon the rack, and for his zeal in the service of the king, which he had manifested against the Iconoclasts. The others had either been taken prisoners, with arms in their hands, in the insurrection of the “Gueux,” or apprehended and condemned as traitors on account of having taken a part in the petition of the nobles.
The duke had reason to hasten the execution of the sentence. Count Louis of Nassau had given battle to the Count of Aremberg, near the monastery of Heiligerlee, in Groningen, and had the good fortune to defeat him. Immediately after his victory he had advanced against Groningen, and laid siege to it. The success of his arms had raised the courage of his faction; and the Prince of Orange, his brother, was close at hand with an army to support him. These circumstances made the duke’s presence necessary in those distant provinces; but he could not venture to leave Brussels before the fate of two such important prisoners was decided. The whole nation loved them, which was not a little increased by their unhappy fate. Even the strict papists disapproved of the execution of these eminent nobles. The slightest advantage which the arms of the rebels might gain over the duke, or even the report of a defeat, would cause a revolution in Brussels, which would immediately set the two counts at liberty. Moreover, the petitions and intercessions which came to the viceroy, as well as to the King of Spain, from the German princes, increased daily; nay, the Emperor, Maximilian II., himself caused the countess to be assured “that she had nothing to fear for the life of her spouse.” These powerful applications might at last turn the king’s heart in favor of the prisoners. The king might, perhaps, in reliance on his viceroy’s usual dispatch, put on the appearance of yielding to the representations of so many sovereigns, and rescind the sentence of death under the conviction that his mercy would come too late. These considerations moved the duke not to delay the execution of the sentence as soon as it was pronounced.
On the day after the sentence was passed the two counts were brought, under an escort of three thousand Spaniards, from Ghent to Brussels, and placed in confinement in the Brodhause, in the great market-place. The next morning the council of twelve were assembled; the duke, contrary to his custom, attended in person, and both the sentences, in sealed envelopes, were opened and publicly read by Secretary Pranz. The two counts were declared guilty of treason, as having favored and promoted the abominable conspiracy of the Prince of Orange, protected the confederated nobles, and been convicted of various misdemeanors against their king and the church in their governments and other appointments. Both were sentenced to be publicly beheaded, and their heads were to be fixed upon pikes and not taken down without the duke’s express command. All their possessions, fiefs, and rights escheated to the royal treasury. The sentence was signed only by the duke and the secretary, Pranz, without asking or caring for the consent of the other members of the council.
During the night between the 4th and 5th of June the sentences were brought to the prisoners, after they had already gone to rest. The duke gave them to the Bishop of Ypres, Martin Rithov, whom he had expressly summoned to Brussels to prepare the prisoners for death. When the bishop received this commission he threw himself at the feet of the duke, and supplicated him with tears in his eyes for mercy, at least for respite for the prisoners; but he was answered in a rough and angry voice that he had been sent for from Ypres, not to oppose the sentence, but by his spiritual consolation to reconcile the unhappy noblemen to it.
Egmont was the first to whom the bishop communicated the sentence of death. “That is indeed a severe sentence,” exclaimed the count, turning pale, and with a faltering voice. “I did not think that I had offended his majesty so deeply as to deserve such treatment. If, however, it must be so I submit to my fate with resignation. May this death atone for my offence, and save my wife and children from suffering. This at least I think I may claim for my past services. As for death, I will meet it with composure, since it so pleases God and my king.” He then pressed the bishop to tell him seriously and candidly if there was no hope of pardon. Being answered in the negative, he confessed and received the sacrament from the priest, repeating after him the mass with great devoutness. He asked what prayer was the best and most effective to recommend him to God in his last hour. On being told that no prayer could be more effectual than the one which Christ himself had taught, he prepared immediately to repeat the Lord’s prayer. The thoughts of his family interrupted him; he called for pen and ink, and wrote two letters, one to his wife, the other to the king. The latter was as follows:
“Sire,—This morning I have heard the sentence which your majesty has been pleased to pass upon me. Far as I have ever been from attempting anything against the person or service of your majesty, or against the true, old, and Catholic religion, I yet submit myself with patience to the fate which it has pleased God to ordain should suffer. If, during the past disturbances, I have omitted, advised, or done anything that seems at variance with my duty, it was most assuredly performed with the best intentions, or was forced upon me by the pressure of circumstances. I therefore pray your majesty to forgive me, and, in consideration of my past services, show mercy to my unhappy wife, my poor children, and servants. In a firm hope of this, I commend myself—to the infinite mercy of God.
“Your majesty’s most faithful vassal and servant,
“LAMORAL COUNT EGMONT.
“BRUSSELS, June 5, 1568, near my last moments.”
This letter he placed in the hands of the bishop, with the strongest injunctions for its safe delivery; and for greater security he sent a duplicate in his own handwriting to State Counsellor Viglius, the most upright man in the senate, by whom, there is no doubt, it was actually delivered to the king. The family of the count were subsequently reinstated in all his property, fiefs, and rights, which, by virtue of the sentence, had escheated to the royal treasury.
Meanwhile a scaffold had been erected in the marketplace, before the town hall, on which two poles were fixed with iron spikes, and the whole covered with black cloth. Two-and-twenty companies of the Spanish garrison surrounded the scaffold, a precaution which was by no means superfluous. Between ten and eleven o’clock the Spanish guard appeared in the apartment of the count; they were provided with cords to tie his hands according to custom. He begged that this might be spared him, and declared that he was willing and ready to die. He himself cut off the collar from his doublet to facilitate the executioner’s duty. He wore a robe of red damask, and over that a black Spanish cloak trimmed with gold lace. In this dress he appeared on the scaffold, and was attended by Don Julian Romero, maitre-de-camp; Salinas, a Spanish captain; and the Bishop of Ypres. The grand provost of the court, with a red wand in his hand, sat on horseback at the foot of the scaffold; the executioner was concealed beneath.
Egmont had at first shown a desire to address the people from the scaffold. He desisted, however, on the bishop’s representing to him that either he would not be heard, or that if he were, he might—such at present was the dangerous disposition of the people—excite them to acts of violence, which would only plunge his friends into destruction. For a few moments he paced the scaffold with noble dignity, and lamented that it had not been permitted him to die a more honorable death for his king and his country. Up to the last he seemed unable to persuade himself that the king was in earnest, and that his severity would be carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, and was silent.
He then closely clenched his teeth, threw off his mantle and robe, knelt upon the cushion, and prepared himself for the last prayer. The bishop presented him the crucifix to kiss, and administered to him extreme unction, upon which the count made him a sign to leave him. He drew a silk cap over his eyes, and awaited the stroke. Over the corpse and the streaming blood a black cloth was immediately thrown.
All Brussels thronged around the scaffold, and the fatal blow seemed to fall on every heart. Loud sobs alone broke the appalling silence. The duke himself, who watched the execution from a window of the townhouse, wiped his eyes as his victim died.
Shortly afterwards Count Horn advanced on the scaffold. Of a more violent temperament than his friend, and stimulated by stronger reasons for hatred against the king, he had received the sentence with less composure, although in his case, perhaps, it was less unjust. He burst forth in bitter reproaches against the king, and the bishop with difficulty prevailed upon him to make a better use of his last moments than to abuse them in imprecations on his enemies. At last, however, he became more collected, and made his confession to the bishop, which at first he was disposed to refuse.
He mounted the scaffold with the same attendants as his friend. In passing he saluted many of his acquaintances; his hands were, like Egmont’s, free, and he was dressed in a black doublet and cloak, with a Milan cap of the same color upon his head. When he had ascended, he cast his eyes upon the corpse, which lay under the cloth, and asked one of the bystanders if it was the body of his friend. On being answered in the affirmative, he said some words in Spanish, threw his cloak from him, and knelt upon the cushion. All shrieked aloud as he received the fatal blow.
The heads of both were fixed upon the poles which were set up on the scaffold, where they remained until past three in the afternoon, when they were taken down, and, with the two bodies, placed in leaden coffins and deposited in a vault.
In spite of the number of spies and executioners who surrounded the scaffold, the citizens of Brussels would not be prevented from dipping their handkerchiefs in the streaming blood, and carrying home with them these precious memorials.
SIEGE OF ANTWERP BY THE PRINCE OF PARMA, IN THE YEARS 1584 AND 1585.
It is an interesting spectacle to observe the struggle of man’s inventive genius in conflict with powerful opposing elements, and to see the difficulties which are insurmountable to ordinary capacities overcome by prudence, resolution, and a determined will. Less attractive, but only the more instructive, perhaps, is the contrary spectacle, where the absence of those qualities renders all efforts of genius vain, throws away all the favors of fortune, and where inability to improve such advantages renders hopeless a success which otherwise seemed sure and inevitable. Examples of both kinds are afforded by the celebrated siege of Antwerp by the Spaniards towards the close of the sixteenth century, by which that flourishing city was forever deprived of its commercial prosperity, but which, on the other hand, conferred immortal fame on the general who undertook and accomplished it.
Twelve years had the war continued which the northern provinces of Belgium had commenced at first in vindication simply of their religious freedom, and the privileges of their states, from the encroachments of the Spanish viceroy, but maintained latterly in the hope of establishing their independence of the Spanish crown. Never completely victors, but never entirely vanquished, they wearied out the Spanish valor by tedious operations on an unfavorable soil, and exhausted the wealth of the sovereign of both the Indies while they themselves were called beggars, and in a degree actually were so. The league of Ghent, which had united the whole Netherlands, Roman Catholic and Protestant, in a common and (could such a confederation have lasted) invincible body, was indeed dissolved; but in place of this uncertain and unnatural combination the northern provinces had, in the year 1579, formed among themselves the closer union of Utrecht, which promised to be more lasting, inasmuch as it was linked and held together by common political and religious interests. What the new republic had lost in extent through this separation from the Roman Catholic provinces it was fully compensated for by the closeness of alliance, the unity of enterprise, and energy of execution; and perhaps it was fortunate in thus timely losing what no exertion probably would ever have enabled it to retain.
The greater part of the Walloon provinces had, in the year 1584, partly by voluntary submission and partly by force of arms, been again reduced under the Spanish yoke. The northern districts alone had been able at all successfully to oppose it. A considerable portion of Brabant and Flanders still obstinately held out against the arms of the Duke Alexander of Parma, who at that time administered the civil government of the provinces, and the supreme command of the army, with equal energy and prudence, and by a series of splendid victories had revived the military reputation of Spain. The peculiar formation of the country, which by its numerous rivers and canals facilitated the connection of the towns with one another and with the sea, baffled all attempts effectually to subdue it, and the possession of one place could only be maintained by the occupation of another. So long as this communication was kept up Holland and Zealand could with little difficulty assist their allies, and supply them abundantly by water as well as by land with all necessaries, so that valor was of no use, and the strength of the king’s troops was fruitlessly wasted on tedious sieges.
Of all the towns in Brabant Antwerp was the most important, as well from, its wealth, its population, and its military force, as by its position on the mouth of the Scheldt. This great and populous town, which at this date contained more than eighty thousand inhabitants, was one of the most active members of the national league, and had in the course of the war distinguished itself above all the towns of Belgium by an untamable spirit of liberty. As it fostered within its bosom all the three Christian churches, and owed much of its prosperity to this unrestricted religious liberty, it had the more cause to dread the Spanish rule, which threatened to abolish this toleration, and by the terror of the Inquisition to drive all the Protestant merchants from its markets. Moreover it had had but too terrible experience of the brutality of the Spanish garrisons, and it was quite evident that if it once more suffered this insupportable yoke to be imposed upon it it would never again during the whole course of the war be able to throw it off.
But powerful as were the motives which stimulated Antwerp to resistance, equally strong were the reasons which determined the Spanish general to make himself master of the place at any cost. On the possession of this town depended in a great measure that of the whole province of Brabant, which by this channel chiefly derived its supplies of corn from Zealand, while the capture of this place would secure to the victor the command of the Scheldt. It would also deprive the league of Brabant, which held its meetings in the town, of its principal support; the whole faction of its dangerous influence, of its example, its counsels, and its money, while the treasures of its inhabitants would open plentiful supplies for the military exigencies of the king. Its fall would sooner or later necessarily draw after it that of all Brabant, and the preponderance of power in that quarter would decide the whole dispute in favor of the king. Determined by these grave considerations, the Duke of Parma drew his forces together in July, 1584, and advanced from his position at Dornick to the neighborhood of Antwerp, with the intention of investing it.
But both the natural position and fortifications of the town appeared to defy attacks. Surrounded on the side of Brabant with insurmountable works and moats, and towards Flanders covered by the broad and rapid stream of the Scheldt, it could not be carried by storm; and to blockade a town of such extent seemed to require a land force three times larger than that which the duke had, and moreover a fleet, of which he was utterly destitute. Not only did the river yield the town all necessary supplies from Ghent, it also opened an easy communication with the bordering province of Zealand. For, as the tide of the North Sea extends far up the Scheldt, and ebbs and flows regularly, Antwerp enjoys the peculiar advantage that the same tide flows past it at different times in two opposite directions. Besides, the adjacent towns of Brussels, Malines, Ghent, Dendermonde, and others, were all at this time in the hands of the league, and could aid the place from the land side also. To blockade, therefore, the town by land, and to cut off its communication with Flanders and Brabant, required two different armies, one on each bank of the river. A sufficient fleet was likewise needed to guard the passage of the Scheldt, and to prevent all attempts at relief, which would most certainly be made from Zealand. But by the war which he had still to carry on in other quarters, and by the numerous garrisons which he was obliged to leave in the towns and fortified places, the army of the duke was reduced to ten thousand infantry and seventeen hundred horse, a force very inadequate for an undertaking of such magnitude. Moreover, these troops were deficient in the most necessary supplies, and the long arrears of pay had excited them to subdued murmurs, which hourly threatened to break out into open mutiny. If, notwithstanding these difficulties, he should still attempt the siege, there would be much occasion to fear from the strongholds of the enemy, which were left in the rear, and from which it would be easy, by vigorous sallies, to annoy an army distributed over so many places, and to expose it to want by cutting off its supplies.
All these considerations were brought forward by the council of war, before which the Duke of Parrna now laid his scheme. However great the confidence which they placed in themselves, and in the proved abilities of such a leader, nevertheless the most experienced generals did not disguise their despair of a fortunate result. Two only were exceptions, Capizucchi and Mondragone, whose ardent courage placed them above all apprehensions; the rest concurred in dissuading the duke from attempting so hazardous an enterprise, by which they ran the risk of forfeiting the fruit of all their former victories and tarnishing the glory they had already earned.
But objections, which he had already made to himself and refuted, could not shake the Duke of Parma in his purpose. Not in ignorance of its inseparable dangers, not from thoughtless overvaluing his forces had he taken this bold resolve. But that instinctive genius which leads great men by paths which inferior minds either never enter upon or never finish, raised him above the influence of the doubts which a cold and narrow prudence would oppose to his views; and, without being able to convince his generals, he felt the correctness of his calculations in a conviction indistinct, indeed, but not on that account less indubitable. A succession of fortunate results had raised his confidence, and the sight of his army, unequalled in Europe for discipline, experience, and valor, and commanded by a chosen body of the most distinguished officers, did not permit him to entertain fear for a moment. To those who objected to the small number of his troops, he answered, that however long the pike, it is only the point that kills; and that in military enterprise, the moving power was of more importance than the mass to be moved. He was aware, indeed, of the discontent of his troops, but he knew also their obedience; and he thought, moreover, that the best means to stifle their murmurs was by keeping them employed in some important undertaking, by stimulating their desire of glory by the splendor of the enterprise, and their rapacity by hopes of the rich booty which the capture of so wealthy a town would hold out.
In the plan which he now formed for the conduct of the siege he endeavored to meet all these difficulties. Famine was the only instrument by which he could hope to subdue the town; but effectually to use this formidable weapon, it would be expedient to cut off all its land and water communications. With this view, the first object was to stop, or at least to impede, the arrival of supplies from Zealand. It was, therefore, requisite not only to carry all the outworks, which the people of Antwerp had built on both shores of the Scheldt for the protection of their shipping; but also, wherever feasible, to throw up new batteries which should command the whole course of the river; and to prevent the place from drawing supplies from the land side, while efforts were being made to intercept their transmission by sea, all the adjacent towns of Brabant and Flanders were comprehended in the plan of the siege, and the fall of Antwerp was based on the destruction of all those places. A bold and, considering the duke’s scanty force, an almost extravagant project, which was, however, justified by the genius of its author, and crowned by fortune with a brilliant result.
As, however, time was required to accomplish a plan of this magnitude, the Prince of Parma was content, for the present, with the erection of numerous forts on the canals and rivers which connected Antwerp with Dendermonde, Ghent, Malines, Brussels, and other places. Spanish garrisons were quartered in the vicinity, and almost at the very gates of those towns, which laid waste the open country, and by their incursions kept the surrounding territory in alarm. Thus, round Ghent alone were encamped about three thousand men, and proportionate numbers round the other towns. In this way, and by means of the secret understanding which he maintained with the Roman Catholic inhabitants of those towns, the duke hoped, without weakening his own forces, gradually to exhaust their strength, and by the harassing operations of a petty but incessant warfare, even without any formal siege, to reduce them at last to capitulate.
In the meantime the main force was directed against Antwerp, which he now closely invested. He fixed his headquarters at Bevern in Flanders, a few miles from Antwerp, where he found a fortified camp. The protection of the Flemish bank of the Scheldt was entrusted to the Margrave of Rysburg, general of cavalry; the Brabant bank to the Count Peter Ernest Von Mansfeld, who was joined by another Spanish leader, Mondragone. Both the latter succeeded in crossing the Scheldt upon pontoons, notwithstanding the Flemish admiral’s ship was sent to oppose them, and, passing Antwerp, took up their position at Stabroek in Bergen. Detached corps dispersed themselves along the whole Brabant side, partly to secure the dykes and the roads.
Some miles below Antwerp the Scheldt was guarded by two strong forts, of which one was situated at Liefkenshoek on the island Doel, in Flanders, the other at Lillo, exactly opposite the coast of Brabant. The last had been erected by Mondragone himself, by order of the Duke of Alvaa, when the latter was still master of Antwerp, and for this very reason the Duke of Parma now entrusted to him the attack upon it. On the possession of these two forts the success of the siege seemed wholly to depend, since all the vessels sailing from Zealand to Antwerp must pass under their guns. Both forts had a short time before been strengthened by the besieged, and the former was scarcely finished when the Margrave of Rysburg attacked it. The celerity with which he went to work surprised the enemy before they were sufficiently prepared for defence, and a brisk assault quickly placed Liefkenshoek in the hands of the Spaniards. The confederates sustained this loss on the same fatal day that the Prince of Orange fell at Delft by the hands of an assassin. The other batteries, erected on the island of Doel, were partly abandoned by their defenders, partly taken by surprise, so that in a short time the whole Flemish side was cleared of the enemy. But the fort at Lillo, on the Brabant shore, offered a more vigorous resistance, since the people of Antwerp had had time to strengthen its fortifications and to provide it with a strong garrison. Furious sallies of the besieged, led by Odets von Teligny, supported by the cannon of the fort, destroyed all the works of the Spaniards, and an inundation, which was effected by opening the sluices, finally drove them away from the place after a three weeks’ siege, and with the loss of nearly two thousand killed. They now retired into their fortified camp at Stabroek, and contented themselves with taking possession of the dams which run across the lowlands of Bergen, and oppose a breastwork to the encroachments of the East Scheldt.
The failure of his attempt upon the fort of Lillo compelled the Prince of Parma to change his measures. As he could not succeed in stopping the passage of the Scheldt by his original plan, on which the success of the siege entirely depended, he determined to effect his purpose by throwing a bridge across the whole breadth of the river. The thought was bold, and there were many who held it to be rash. Both the breadth of the stream, which at this part exceeds twelve hundred paces, as well as its violence, which is still further augmented by the tides of the neighboring sea, appeared to render every attempt of this kind impracticable. Moreover, he had to contend with a deficiency of timber, vessels, and workmen, as well as with the dangerous position between the fleets of Antwerp and of Zealand, to which it would necessarily be an easy task, in combination with a boisterous element, to interrupt so tedious a work. But the Prince of Parma knew his power, and his settled resolution would yield to nothing short of absolute impossibility. After he had caused the breadth as well as the depth of the river to be measured, and had consulted with two of his most skilful engineers, Barocci and Plato, it was settled that the bridge should be constructed between Calloo in Flanders and Ordain in Brabant. This spot was selected because the river is here narrowest, and bends a little to the right, and so detains vessels a while by compelling them to tack. To cover the bridge strong bastions were erected at both ends, of which the one on the Flanders side was named Fort St. Maria, the other, on the Brabant side, Fort St. Philip, in honor of the king.
While active preparations were making in the Spanish camp for the execution of this scheme, and the whole attention of the enemy was directed to it, the duke made an unexpected attack upon Dendermonde, a strong town between Ghent and Antwerp, at the confluence of the Dender and the Scheldt. As long as this important place was in the hands of the enemy the towns of Ghent and Antwerp could mutually support each other, and by the facility of their communication frustrate all the efforts of the besiegers. Its capture would leave the prince free to act against both towns, and might decide the fate of his undertaking. The rapidity of his attack left the besieged no time to open their sluices and lay the country under water. A hot cannonade was opened upon the chief bastion of the town before the Brussels gate, but was answered by the fire of the besieged, which made great havoc amongst the Spaniards. It increased, however, rather than discouraged their ardor, and the insults of the garrison, who mutilated the statue of a saint before their eyes, and after treating it with the most contumelious indignity, hurled it down from the rampart, raised their fury to the highest pitch. Clamorously they demanded to be led against the bastion before their fire had made a sufficient breach in it, and the prince, to avail himself of the first ardor of their impetuosity, gave the signal for the assault. After a sanguinary contest of two hours the rampart was mounted, and those who were not sacrificed to the first fury of the Spaniards threw themselves into the town. The latter was indeed now more exposed, a fire being directed upon it from the works which had been carried; but its strong walls and the broad moat which surrounded it gave reason to expect a protracted resistance. The inventive resources of the Prince of Parma soon overcame this obstacle also. While the bombardment was carried on night and day, the troops were incessantly employed in diverting the course of the Dender, which supplied the fosse with water, and the besieged were seized with despair as they saw the water of the trenches, the last defence of the town, gradually disappear. They hastened to capitulate, and in August, 1584, received a Spanish garrison. Thus, in the space of eleven days, the Prince of Parrna accomplished an undertaking which, in the opinion of competent judges, would require as many weeks.
The town of Ghent, now cut off from Antwerp and the sea, and hard pressed by the troops of the king, which were encamped in its vicinity, and without hope of immediate succor, began to despair, as famine, with all its dreadful train, advanced upon them with rapid steps. The inhabitants therefore despatched deputies to the Spanish camp at Bevern, to tender its submission to the king upon the same terms as the prince had a short time previously offered. The deputies were informed that the time for treaties was past, and that an unconditional submission alone could appease the just anger of the monarch whom they had offended by their rebellion. Nay, they were even given to understand that it would be only through his great mercy if the same humiliation were not exacted from them as their rebellious ancestors were forced to undergo under Charles V., namely, to implore pardon half-naked, and with a cord round their necks. The deputies returned to Ghent in despair, but three days afterwards a new deputation was sent to the Spanish camp, which at last, by the intercession of one of the prince’s friends, who was a prisoner in Ghent, obtained peace upon moderate terms. The town was to pay a fine of two hundred thousand florins, recall the banished papists, and expel the Protestant inhabitants, who, however, were to be allowed two years for the settlement of their affairs. All the inhabitants except six, who were reserved for capital punishment (but afterwards pardoned), were included in a general amnesty, and the garrison, which amounted to two thousand men, was allowed to evacuate the place with the honors of war. This treaty was concluded in September of the same year, at the headquarters at Bevern, and immediately three thousand Spaniards marched into the town as a garrison.
It was more by the terror of his name and the dread of famine than by the force of arms that the Prince of Parma had succeeded in reducing this city to submission, the largest and strongest in the Netherlands, which was little inferior to Paris within the barriers of its inner town, consisted of thirty-seven thousand houses, and was built on twenty islands, connected by ninety-eight stone bridges. The important privileges which in the course of several centuries this city had contrived to extort from its rulers fostered in its inhabitants a spirit of independence, which not unfrequently degenerated into riot and license, and naturally brought it in collision with the Austrian-Spanish government. And it was exactly this bold spirit of liberty which procured for the Reformation the rapid and extensive success it met with in this town, and the combined incentives of civil and religious freedom produced all those scenes of violence by which, during the rebellion, it had unfortunately distinguished itself. Besides the fine levied, the prince found within the walls a large store of artillery, carriages, ships, and building materials of all kinds, with numerous workmen and sailors, who materially aided him in his plans against Antwerp.
Before Ghent surrendered to the king Vilvorden and Herentals had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, and the capture of the block-houses near the village of Willebrock had cut off Antwerp from Brussels and Malines. The loss of these places within so short a period deprived Antwerp of all hope of succor from Brabant and Flanders, and limited all their expectations to the assistance which might be looked for from Zealand. But to deprive them also of this the Prince of Parma was now making the most energetic preparations.
The citizens of Antwerp had beheld the first operations of the enemy against their town with the proud security with which the sight of their invincible river inspired them. This confidence was also in a degree justified by the opinion of the Prince of Orange, who, upon the first intelligence of the design, had said that the Spanish army would inevitably perish before the walls of Antwerp. That nothing, however, might be neglected, he sent, a short time before his assassination, for the burgomaster of Antwerp, Philip Marnix of St. Aldegonde, his intimate friend, to Delft, where he consulted with him as to the means of maintaining defensive operations. It was agreed between then that it would be advisable to demolish forthwith the great dam between Sanvliet and Lillo called the Blaaugarendyk, so as to allow the waters of the East Scheldt to inundate, if necessary, the lowlands of Bergen, and thus, in the event of the Scheldt being closed, to open a passage for the Zealand vessels to the town across the inundated country. Aldegonde had, after his return, actually persuaded the magistrate and the majority of the citizens to agree to this proposal, when it was resisted by the guild of butchers, who claimed that they would be ruined by such a measure; for the plain which it was wished to lay under water was a vast tract of pasture land, upon which about twelve thousand oxen—were annually put to graze. The objection of the butchers was successful, and they managed to prevent the execution of this salutary scheme until the enemy had got possession of the dams as well as the pasture land.
At the suggestion of the burgomaster St. Aldegonde, who, himself a member of the states of Brabant, was possessed of great authority in that council, the fortifications on both sides the Scheldt had, a short time before the arrival of the Spaniards, been placed in repair, and many new redoubts erected round the town. The dams had been cut through at Saftingen, and the water of the West Scheldt let out over nearly the whole country of Waes. In the adjacent Marquisate of Bergen troops had been enlisted by the Count of Hohenlohe, and a Scotch regiment, under the command of Colonel Morgan, was already in the pay of the republic, while fresh reinforcements were daily expected from England and France. Above all, the states of Holland and Zealand were called upon to hasten their supplies. But after the enemy had taken strong positions on both sides of the river, and the fire of their batteries made the navigation dangerous, when place after place in Brabant fell into their hands, and their cavalry had cut off all communication on the land side, the inhabitants of Antwerp began at last to entertain serious apprehensions for the future. The town then contained eighty-five thousand souls, and according to calculation three hundred thousand quarters of corn were annually required for their support. At the beginning of the siege neither the supply nor the money was wanting for the laying in of such a store; for in spite of the enemy’s fire the Zealand victualling ships, taking advantage of the rising tide, contrived to make their way to the town. All that was requisite was to prevent any of the richer citizens from buying up these supplies, and, in case of scarcity, raising the price. To secure his object, one Gianibelli from Mantua, who had rendered important services in the course of the siege, proposed a property tax of one penny in every hundred, and the appointment of a board of respectable persons to purchase corn with this money, and distribute it weekly. And until the returns of this tax should be available the richer classes should advance the required sum, holding the corn purchased, as a deposit, in their own magazines; and were also to share in the profit. But this plan was unwelcome to the wealthier citizens, who had resolved to profit by the general distress. They recommended that every individual should be required to provide himself with a sufficient supply for two years; a proposition which, however it might suit their own circumstances, was very unreasonable in regard to the poorer inhabitants, who, even before the siege, could scarcely find means to supply themselves for so many months. They obtained indeed their object, which was to reduce the poor to the necessity of either quitting the place or becoming entirely their dependents. But when they afterwards reflected that in the time of need the rights of property would not be respected, they found it advisable not to be over-hasty in making their own purchases.
The magistrate, in order to avert an evil that would have pressed upon individuals only, had recourse to an expedient which endangered the safety of all. Some enterprising persons in Zealand had freighted a large fleet with provisions, which succeeded in passing the guns of the enemy, and discharged its cargo at Antwerp. The hope of a large profit had tempted the merchants to enter upon this hazardous speculation; in this, however, they were disappointed, as the magistrate of Antwerp had, just before their arrival, issued an edict regulating the price of all the necessaries of life. At the same time to prevent individuals from buying up the whole cargo and storing it in their magazines with a view of disposing of it afterwards at a dearer rate, he ordered that the whole should be publicly sold in any quantities from the vessels. The speculators, cheated of their hopes of profit by these precautions, set sail again, and left Antwerp with the greater part of their cargo, which would have sufficed for the support of the town for several months.
This neglect of the most essential and natural means of preservation can only be explained by the supposition that the inhabitants considered it absolutely impossible ever to close the Scheldt completely, and consequently had not the least apprehension that things would come to extremity. When the intelligence arrived in Antwerp that the prince intended to throw a bridge over the Scheldt the idea was universally ridiculed as chimerical. An arrogant comparison was drawn between the republic and the stream, and it was said that the one would bear the Spanish yoke as little as the other. “A river which is twenty-four hundred feet broad, and, with its own waters alone, above sixty feet deep, but which with the tide rose twelve feet more—would such a stream,” it was asked, “submit to be spanned by a miserable piece of paling? Where were beams to be found high enough to reach to the bottom and project above the surface? and how was a work of this kind to stand in winter, when whole islands and mountains of ice, which stone walls could hardly resist, would be driven by the flood against its weak timbers, and splinter them to pieces like glass? Or, perhaps, the prince purposed to construct a bridge of boats; if so, where would he procure the latter, and how bring them into his intrenchments? They must necessarily be brought past Antwerp, where a fleet was ready to capture or sink them.”
But while they were trying to prove the absurdity of the Prince of Parma’s undertaking he had already completed it. As soon as the forts St. Maria and St. Philip were erected, and protected the workmen and the work by their fire, a pier was built out into the stream from both banks, for which purpose the masts of the largest vessels were employed; by a skilful arrangement of the timbers they contrived to give the whole such solidity that, as the result proved, it was able to resist the violent pressure of the ice. These timbers, which rested firmly and securely on the bottom of the river, and projected a considerable height above it, being covered with planks, afforded a commodious roadway. It was wide enough to allow eight men to cross abreast, and a balustrade that ran along it on both sides, protected them from the fire of small-arms from the enemy’s vessels. This “stacade,” as it was called, ran from the two opposite shores as far as the increasing depth and force of the stream allowed. It reduced the breadth of the river to about eleven hundred feet; as, however, the middle and proper current would not admit of such a barrier, there remained, therefore, between the two stacades a space of more than six hundred paces through which a whole fleet of transports could sail with ease. This intervening space the prince designed to close by a bridge of boats, for which purpose the craft must be procured from Dunkirk. But, besides that they could not be obtained in any number at that place, it would be difficult to bring them past Antwerp without great loss. He was, therefore, obliged to content himself for the time with having narrowed the stream one-half, and rendered the passage of the enemy’s vessels so much the more difficult. Where the stacades terminated in the middle of the stream they spread out into parallelograms, which were mounted with heavy guns, and served as a kind of battery on the water. From these a heavy fire was opened on every vessel that attempted to pass through this narrow channel. Whole fleets, however, and single vessels still attempted and succeeded in passing this dangerous strait.
Meanwhile Ghent surrendered, and this unexpected success at once rescued the prince from his dilemma. He found in this town everything necessary to complete his bridge of boats; and the only difficulty now was its safe transport, which was furnished by the enemy themselves. By cutting the dams at Saftingen a great part of the country of Waes, as far as the village of Borcht, had been laid under water, so that it was not difficult to cross it with flat-bottomed boats. The prince, therefore, ordered his vessels to run out from Ghent, and after passing Dendermonde and Rupelmonde to pass through the left dyke of the Scheldt, leaving Antwerp to the right, and sail over the inundated fields in the direction of Borcht. To protect this passage a fort was erected at the latter village, which would keep the enemy in check. All succeeded to his wishes, though not without a sharp action with the enemy’s flotilla, which was sent out to intercept this convoy. After breaking through a few more dams on their route, they reached the Spanish quarters at Calloo, and successfully entered the Scheldt again. The exultation of the army was greater when they discovered the extent of the danger the vessels had so narrowly escaped. Scarcely had they got quit of the enemy’s vessels when a strong reinforcement from Antwerp got under weigh, commanded by the valiant defender of Lillo, Odets von Teligny. When this officer saw that the affair was over, and that the enemy had escaped, he took possession of the dam through which their fleet had passed, and threw up a fort on the spot in order to stop the passage of any vessels from Ghent which might attempt to follow them.
By this step the prince was again thrown into embarrassment. He was far from having as yet a sufficient number of vessels, either for the construction of the bridge or for its defence, and the passage by which the former convoy had arrived was now closed by the fort erected by Teligny. While he was reconnoitring the country to discover a new way for his, fleets an idea occurred to him which not only put an end to his present dilemma, but greatly accelerated the success of his whole plan. Not far from the village of Stecken, in Waes, which is within some five thousand paces of the commencement of the inundation, flows a small stream called the Moer, which falls into the Scheldt near Ghent. From this river he caused a canal to be dug to the spot where the inundations began, and as the water of these was not everywhere deep enough for the transit of his boats, the canal between Bevern and Verrebroek was continued to Calloo, where it was met by the Scheldt. At this work five hundred pioneers labored without intermission, and in order to cheer the toil of the soldiers the prince himself took part in it. In this way did he imitate the example of the two celebrated Romans, Drusus and Corbulo, who by similar works had united the Rhine with the Zuyder Zee, and the Maes with the Rhine?
This canal, which the army in honor of its projector called the canal of Parma, was fourteen thousand paces in length, and was of proportion able depth and breadth, so as to be navigable for ships of a considerable burden. It afforded to the vessels from Ghent not only a more secure, but also a much shorter course to the Spanish quarters, because it was no longer necessary to follow the many windings of the Scheldt, but entering the Moer at once near Ghent, and from thence passing close to Stecken, they could proceed through the canal and across the inundated country as far as Calloo. As the produce of all Flanders was brought to the town of Ghent, this canal placed the Spanish camp in communication with the whole province. Abundance poured into the camp from all quarters, so that during the whole course of the siege the Spaniards suffered no scarcity of any kind. But the greatest benefit which the prince derived from this work was an adequate supply of flat-bottomed vessels to complete his bridge.
These preparations were overtaken by the arrival of winter, which, as the Scheldt was filled with drift-ice, occasioned a considerable delay in the building of the bridge. The prince had contemplated with anxiety the approach of this season, lest it should prove highly destructive to the work he had undertaken, and afford the enemy a favorable opportunity for making a serious attack upon it. But the skill of his engineers saved him from the one danger, and the strange inaction of the enemy freed him from the other. It frequently happened, indeed, that at flood-time large pieces of ice were entangled in the timbers, and shook them violently, but they stood the assault of the furious element, which only served to prove their stability.
In Antwerp, meanwhile, important moments had been wasted in futile deliberations; and in a struggle of factions the general welfare was neglected. The government of the town was divided among too many heads, and much too great a share in it was held by the riotous mob to allow room for calmness of deliberation or firmness of action. Besides the municipal magistracy itself, in which the burgomaster had only a single voice, there were in the city a number of guilds, to whom were consigned the charge of the internal and external defence, the provisioning of the town, its fortifications, the marine, commerce, etc.; some of whom must be consulted in every business of importance. By means of this crowd of speakers, who intruded at pleasure into the council, and managed to carry by clamor and the number of their adherents what they could not effect by their arguments, the people obtained a dangerous influence in the public debates, and the natural struggle of such discordant interests retarded the execution of every salutary measure. A government so vacillating and impotent could not command the respect of unruly sailors and a lawless soldiery. The orders of the state consequently were but imperfectly obeyed, and the decisive moment was more than once lost by the negligence, not to say the open mutiny, both of the land and sea forces. The little harmony in the selection of the means by which the enemy was to be opposed would not, however, have proved so injurious had there but existed unanimity as to the end. But on this very point the wealthy citizens and poorer classes were divided; so the former, having everything to apprehend from allowing matters to be carried to extremity, were strongly inclined to treat with the Prince of Parma. This disposition they did not even attempt to conceal after the fort of Liefkenshoek had fallen into the enemy’s hands, and serious fears were entertained for the navigation of the Scheldt. Some of them, indeed, withdrew entirely from the danger, and left to its fate the town, whose prosperity they had been ready enough to share, but in whose adversity they were unwilling to bear a part. From sixty to seventy of those who remained memorialized the council, advising that terms should be made with the king. No sooner, however, had the populace got intelligence of it than their indignation broke out in a violent uproar, which was with difficulty appeased by the imprisonment and fining of the petitioners. Tranquillity could only be fully restored by publication of an edict, which imposed the penalty of death on all who either publicly or privately should countenance proposals for peace.
The Prince of Parma did not fail to take advantage of these disturbances; for nothing that transpired within the city escaped his notice, being well served by the agents with whom he maintained a secret understanding with Antwerp, as well as the other towns of Brabant and Flanders. Although he had already made considerable progress in his measures for distressing the town, still he had many steps to take before he could actually make himself master of it; and one unlucky moment might destroy the work of many months. Without, therefore, neglecting any of his warlike preparations, he determined to make one more serious attempt to get possession by fair means. With this object he despatched a letter in November to the great council of Antwerp, in which he skilfully made use of every topic likely to induce the citizens to come to terms, or at least to increase their existing dissensions. He treated them in this letter in the light of persons who had been led astray, and threw the whole blame of their revolt and refractory conduct hitherto upon the intriguing spirit of the Prince of Orange, from whose artifices the retributive justice of heaven had so lately liberated them. “It was,” he said, “now in their power to awake from their long infatuation and return to their allegiance to a monarch who was ready and anxious to be reconciled to his subjects. For this end he gladly offered himself as mediator, as he had never ceased to love a country in which he had been born, and where he had spent the happiest days of his youth. He therefore exhorted them to send plenipotentiaries with whom he could arrange the conditions of peace, and gave them hopes of obtaining reasonable terms if they made a timely submission, but also threatened them with the severest treatment if they pushed matters to extremity.”
This letter, in which we are glad to recognize a language very different from that which the Duke of Alva held ten years before on a similar occasion, was answered by the townspeople in a respectful and dignified tone. While they did full justice to the personal character of the prince, and acknowledged his favorable intentions towards them with gratitude, they lamented the hardness of the times, which placed it out of his power to treat them in accordance with his character and disposition. They declared that they would gladly place their fate in his hands if he were absolute master of his actions, instead of being obliged to obey the will of another, whose proceedings his own candor would not allow him to approve of. The unalterable resolution of the King of Spain, as well as the vow which he had made to the pope, were only too well known for them to have any hopes in that quarter. They at the same time defended with a noble warmth the memory of the Prince of Orange, their benefactor and preserver, while they enumerated the true cases which had produced this unhappy war, and had caused the provinces to revolt from the Spanish crown. At the same time they did not disguise from him that they had hopes of finding a new and a milder master in the King of France, and that, if only for this reason, they could not enter into any treaty with the Spanish king without incurring the charge of the most culpable fickleness and ingratitude.
The united provinces, in fact, dispirited by a succession of reverses, had at last come to the determination of placing themselves under the protection and sovereignty of France, and of preserving their existence and their ancient privileges by the sacrifice of their independence. With this view an embassy had some time before been despatched to Paris, and it was the prospect of this powerful assistance which principally supported the courage of the people of Antwerp. Henry III., King of France, was personally disposed to accept this offer; but the troubles which the intrigues of the Spaniards contrived to excite within his own kingdom compelled him against his will to abandon it. The provinces now turned for assistance to Queen Elizabeth of England, who sent them some supplies, which, however, came too late to save Antwerp. While the people of this city were awaiting the issue of these negotiations, and expecting aid from foreign powers, they neglected, unfortunately, the most natural and immediate means of defence; the whole winter was lost, and while the enemy turned it to greater advantage the more complete was their indecision and inactivity.
The burgomaster of Antwerp, St. Aldegonde, had, indeed, repeatedly urged the fleet of Zealand to attack the enemy’s works, which should be supported on the other side from Antwerp. The long and frequently stormy nights would favor this attempt, and if at the same time a sally were made by the garrison at Lillo, it seemed scarcely possible for the enemy to resist this triple assault. But unfortunately misunderstandings had arisen between the commander of the fleet, William von Blois von Treslong, and the admiralty of Zealand, which caused the equipment of the fleet to be most unaccountably delayed. In order to quicken their movements Teligny at last resolved to go himself to Middleburg, were the states of Zealand were assembled; but as the enemy were in possession of all the roads the attempt cost him his freedom and the republic its most valiant defender. However, there was no want of enterprising vessels, which, under the favor of the night and the floodtide, passing through the still open bridge in spite of the enemy’s fire, threw provisions into the town and returned with the ebb. But as many of these vessels fell into the hands of the enemy the council gave orders that they should never risk the passage unless they amounted to a certain number; and the result, unfortunately, was that none attempted it because the required number could not be collected at one time. Several attacks were also made from Antwerp on the ships of the Spaniards, which were not entirely unsuccessful; some of the latter were captured, others sunk, and all that was required was to execute similar attempts on a grand scale. But however zealously St. Aldegonde urged this, still not a captain was to be found who would command a vessel for that purpose.
Amid these delays the winter expired, and scarcely had the ice begun to disappear when the construction of the bridge of boats was actively resumed by the besiegers. Between the two piers a space of more than six hundred paces still remained to be filled up, which was effected in the following manner: Thirty-two flat-bottomed vessels, each sixty-six feet long and twenty broad, were fastened together with strong cables and iron chains, but at a distance from each other of about twenty feet to allow a free passage to the stream. Each boat, moreover, was moored with two cables, both up and down the stream, but which, as the water rose with the tide, or sunk with the ebb, could be slackened or tightened. Upon the boats great masts were laid which reached from one to another, and, being covered with planks, formed a regular road, which, like that along the piers, was protected with a balustrade. This bridge of boats, of which the two piers formed a continuation, had, including the latter, a length of twenty-four thousand paces. This formidable work was so ingeniously constructed, and so richly furnished with the instruments of destruction, that it seemed almost capable, like a living creature, of defending itself at the word of command, scattering death among all who approached. Besides the two forts of St. Maria and St. Philip, which terminated the bridge on either shore, and the two wooden bastions on the bridge itself, which were filled with soldiers and mounted with guns on all sides, each of the two-and-thirty vessels was manned with thirty soldiers and four sailors, and showed the cannon’s mouth to the enemy, whether he came up from Zealand or down from Antwerp. There were in all ninety-seven cannon, which were distributed beneath and above the bridge, and more than fifteen hundred men who were posted, partly in the forts, partly in the vessels, and, in case of necessity, could maintain a terrible fire of small-arms upon the enemy.
But with all this the prince did not consider his work sufficiently secure. It was to be expected that the enemy would leave nothing unattempted to burst by the force of his machines the middle and weakest part. To guard against this, he erected in a line with the bridge of boats, but at some distance from it, another distinct defence, intended to break the force of any attack that might be directed against the bridge itself. This work consisted of thirty-three vessels of considerable magnitude, which were moored in a row athwart the stream and fastened in threes by masts, so that they formed eleven different groups. Each of these, like a file of pikemen, presented fourteen long wooden poles with iron heads to the approaching enemy. These vessels were loaded merely with ballast, and were anchored each by a double but slack cable, so as to be able to give to the rise and fall of the tide. As they were in constant motion they got from the soldiers the name of “swimmers.” The whole bridge of boats and also a part of the piers were covered by these swimmers, which were stationed above as well as below the bridge. To all these defensive preparations was added a fleet of forty men-of-war, which were stationed on both coasts and served as a protection to the whole.
This astonishing work was finished in March, 1585, the seventh month of the siege, and the day on which it was completed was kept as a jubilee by the troops. The great event was announced to the besieged by a grand fete de joie, and the army, as if to enjoy ocular demonstration of its triumph, extended itself along the whole platform to gaze upon the proud stream, peacefully and obediently flowing under the yoke which had been imposed upon it. All the toil they had undergone was forgotten in the delightful spectacle, and every man who had had a hand in it, however insignificant he might be, assumed to himself a portion of the honor which the successful execution of so gigantic an enterprise conferred on its illustrious projector. On the other hand, nothing could equal the consternation which seized the citizens of Antwerp when intelligence was brought them that the Scheldt was now actually closed, and all access from Zealand cut off. To increase their dismay they learned the fall of Brussels also, which had at last been compelled by famine to capitulate. An attempt made by the Count of Hohenlohe about the same time on Herzogenbusch, with a view to recapture the town, or at least form a diversion, was equally unsuccessful; and thus the unfortunate city lost all hope of assistance, both by sea and land.
These evil tidings were brought them by some fugitives who had succeeded in passing the Spanish videttes, and had made their way into the town; and a spy, whom the burgomaster had sent out to reconnoitre the enemy’s works, increased the general alarm by his report. He had been seized and carried before the Prince of Parma, who commanded him to be conducted over all the works, and all the defences of the bridge to be pointed out to him. After this had been done he was again brought before the general, who dismissed him with these words: “Go,” said he, “and report what you have seen to those who sent you. And tell them, too, that it is my firm resolve to bury myself under the ruins of this bridge or by means of it to pass into your town.”
But the certainty of danger now at last awakened the zeal of the confederates, and it was no fault of theirs if the former half of the prince’s vow was not fulfilled. The latter had long viewed with apprehension the preparations which were making in Zealand for the relief of the town. He saw clearly that it was from this quarter that he had to fear the most dangerous blow, and that with all his works he could not make head against the combined fleets of Zealand and Antwerp if they were to fall upon him at the same time and at the proper moment. For a while the delays of the admiral of Zealand, which he had labored by all the means in his power to prolong, had been his security, but now the urgent necessity accelerated the expedition, and without waiting for the admiral the states at Middleburg despatched the Count Justin of Nassau, with as many ships as they could muster, to the assistance of the besieged. This fleet took up a position before Liefkenshoek, which was in possession of the Spaniards, and, supported by a few vessels from the opposite fort of Lillo, cannonaded it with such success that the walls were in a short time demolished, and the place carried by storm. The Walloons who formed the garrison did not display the firmness which might have been expected from soldiers of the Duke of Parma; they shamefully surrendered the fort to the enemy, who in a short time were in possession of the whole island of Doel, with all the redoubts situated upon it. The loss of these places, which were, however, soon retaken, incensed the Duke of Parma so much that he tried the officers by court-martial, and caused the most culpable among them to be beheaded. Meanwhile this important conquest opened to the Zealanders a free passage as far as the bridge, and after concerting with the people of Antwerp the time was fixed for a combined attack on this work. It was arranged that, while the bridge of boats was blown up by machines already prepared in Antwerp, the Zealand fleet, with a sufficient supply of provisions, should be in the vicinity, ready to sail to the town through the opening.
While the Duke of Parma was engaged in constructing his bridge an engineer within the walls was already preparing the materials for its destruction. Friedrich Gianibelli was the name of the man whom fate had destined to be the Archimedes of Antwerp, and to exhaust in its defence the same ingenuity with the same want of success. He was born in Mantua, and had formerly visited Madrid for the purpose, it was said, of offering his services to King Philip in the Belgian war. But wearied with waiting the offended engineer left the court with the intention of making the King of Spain sensibly feel the value of talents which he had so little known how to appreciate. He next sought the service of Queen Elizabeth of England, the declared enemy of Spain, who, after witnessing a few specimens of his skill, sent him to Antwerp. He took up his residence in that town, and in the present extremity devoted to its defence his knowledge, his energy, and his zeal.
As soon as this artist perceived that the project of erecting the bridge was seriously intended, and that the work was fast approaching to completion, he applied to the magistracy for three large vessels, from a hundred and fifty to five hundred tons, in which he proposed to place mines. He also demanded sixty boats, which, fastened together with cables and chains, furnished with projecting grappling-irons, and put in motion with the ebbing of the tide, were intended to second the operation of the mine-ships by being directed in a wedgelike form against the bridge. But he had to deal with men who were quite incapable of comprehending an idea out of the common way, and even where the salvation of their country was at stake could not forget the calculating habits of trade.
His scheme was rejected as too expensive, and with difficulty he at last obtained the grant of two smaller vessels, from seventy to eighty tons, with a number of flat-bottomed boats. With these two vessels, one of which he called the “Fortune” and the other the “Hope,” he proceeded in the following manner: In the hold of each he built a hollow chamber of freestone, five feet broad, three and a half high, and forty long. This magazine he filled with sixty hundredweight of the finest priming powder of his own compounding, and covered it with as heavy a weight of large slabs and millstones as the vessels could carry. Over these he further added a roof of similar stones, which ran up to a point and projected six feet above the ship’s side. The deck itself was crammed with iron chains and hooks, knives, nails, and other destructive missiles; the remaining space, which was not occupied by the magazine, was likewise filled up with planks. Several small apertures were left in the chamber for the matches which were to set fire to the mine. For greater certainty he had also contrived a piece of mechanism which, after the lapse of a given time, would strike out sparks, and even if the matches failed would set the ship on fire. To delude the enemy into a belief that these machines were only intended to set the bridge on fire, a composition of brimstone and pitch was placed in the top, which could burn a whole hour. And still further to divert the enemy’s attention from the proper seat of danger, he also prepared thirty-two flatbottomed boats, upon which there were only fireworks burning, and whose sole object was to deceive the enemy. These fire-ships were to be sent down upon the bridge in four separate squadrons, at intervals of half an hour, and keep the enemy incessantly engaged for two whole hours, so that, tired of firing and wearied by vain expectation, they might at last relax their vigilance before the real fire-ships came. In addition to all this he also despatched a few vessels in which powder was concealed in order to blow up the floating work before the bridge, and to clear a passage for the two principal ships. At the same time he hoped by this preliminary attack to engage the enemy’s attention, to draw them out, and expose them to the full deadly effect of the volcano.
The night between the 4th and 5th of April was fixed for the execution of this great undertaking. An obscure rumor of it had already diffused itself through the Spanish camp, and particularly from the circumstance of many divers from Antwerp having been detected endeavoring to cut the cables of the vessels. They were prepared, therefore, for a serious attack; they only mistook the real nature of it, and counted on having to fight rather with man than the elements. In this expectation the duke caused the guards along the whole bank to be doubled, and drew up the chief part of his troops in the vicinity of the bridge, where he was present in person; thus meeting the danger while endeavoring to avoid it.
No sooner was it dark than three burning vessels were seen to float down from the city towards the bridge, then three more, and directly after the same number. They beat to arms throughout the Spanish camp, and the whole length of the bridge was crowded with soldiers. Meantime the number of the fire-ships increased, and they came in regular order down the stream, sometimes two and sometimes three abreast, being at first steered by sailors on board them. The admiral of the Antwerp fleet, Jacob Jacobson (whether designedly or through carelessness is not known), had committed the error of sending off the four squadrons of fire-ships too quickly one after another, and caused the two large mine-ships also to follow them too soon, and thus disturbed the intended order of attack.
The array of vessels kept approaching, and the darkness of night still further heightened the extraordinary spectacle. As far as the eye could follow the course of the stream all was fire; the fire-ships burning as brilliantly as if they were themselves in the flames; the surface of the water glittered with light; the dykes and the batteries along the shore, the flags, arms, and accoutrements of the soldiers who lined the rivers as well as the bridges were clearly distinguishable in the glare. With a mingled sensation of awe and pleasure the soldiers watched the unusual sight, which rather resembled a fete than a hostile preparation, but from the very strangeness of the contrast filled the mind with a mysterious awe. When the burning fleet had come within two thousand paces of the bridge those who had the charge of it lighted the matches, impelled the two mine-vessels into the middle of the stream, and leaving the others to the guidance of the current of the waves, they hastily made their escape in boats which had been kept in readiness.
Their course, however, was irregular, and destitute of steersmen they arrived singly and separately at the floating works, where they continued hanging or were dashed off sidewise on the shore. The foremost powder-ships, which were intended to set fire to the floating works, were cast, by the force of a squall which arose at that instant, on the Flemish coast. One of the two, the “Fortune,” grounded in its passage before it reached the bridge, and killed by its explosion some Spanish soldiers who were at work in a neighboring battery. The other and larger fire-ship, called the “Hope,” narrowly escaped a similar fate. The current drove her against the floating defences towards the Flemish bank, where it remained hanging, and had it taken fire at that moment the greatest part of its effect would have been lost. Deceived by the flames which this machine, like the other vessels, emitted, the Spaniards took it for a common fire-ship, intended to burn the bridge of boats. And as they had seen them extinguished one after the other without further effect all fears were dispelled, and the Spaniards began to ridicule the preparations of the enemy, which had been ushered in with so much display and now had so absurd an end. Some of the boldest threw themselves into the stream in order to get a close view of the fire-ship and extinguish it, when by its weight it suddenly broke through, burst the floating work which had detained it, and drove with terrible force on the bridge of boats. All was now in commotion on the bridge, and the prince called to the sailors to keep the vessel off with poles, and to extinguish the flames before they caught the timbers.
At this critical moment he was standing at the farthest end of the left pier, where it formed a bastion in the water and joined the bridge of boats. By his side stood the Margrave of Rysburg, general of cavalry and governor of the province of Artois, who had formerly-served the states, but from a protector of the republic had become its worst enemy; the Baron of Billy, governor of Friesland and commander of the German regiments; the Generals Cajetan and Guasto, with several of the principal officers; all forgetful of their own danger and entirely occupied with averting the general calamity. At this moment a Spanish ensign approached the Prince of Parma and conjured him to remove from a place where his life was in manifest and imminent peril. No attention being paid to his entreaty he repeated it still more urgently, and at last fell at his feet and implored him in this one instance to take advice from his servant. While he said this he had laid hold of the duke’s coat as though he wished forcibly to draw him away from the spot, and the latter, surprised rather at the man’s boldness than persuaded by his arguments, retired at last to the shore, attended by Cajetan and Guasto. He had scarcely time to reach the fort St. Maria at the end of the bridge when an explosion took place behind him, just as if the earth had burst or the vault of heaven given way. The duke and his whole army fell to the ground as dead, and several minutes elapsed before they recovered their consciousness.
But then what a sight presented itself! The waters of the Scheldt had been divided to its lowest depth, and driven with a surge which rose like a wall above the dam that confined it, so that all the fortifications on the banks were several feet under water. The earth shook for three miles round. Nearly the whole left pier, on which the fire-ship had been driven, with a part of the bridge of boats, had been burst and shattered to atoms, with all that was upon it; spars, cannon, and men blown into the air. Even the enormous blocks of stone which had covered the mine had, by the force of the explosion, been hurled into the neighboring fields, so that many of them were afterwards dug out of the ground at a distance of a thousand paces from the bridge. Six vessels were buried, several had gone to pieces. But still more terrible was the carnage which the murderous machine had dealt amongst the soldiers. Five hundred, according to other reports even eight hundred, were sacrificed to its fury, without reckoning those who escaped with mutilated or injured bodies. The most opposite kinds of death were combined in this frightful moment. Some were consumed by the flames of the explosion, others scalded to death by the boiling water of the river, others stifled by the poisonous vapor of the brimstone; some were drowned in the stream, some buried under the hail of falling masses of rock, many cut to pieces by the knives and hooks, or shattered by the balls which were poured from the bowels of the machine. Some were found lifeless without any visible injury, having in all probability been killed by the mere concussion of the air. The spectacle which presented itself directly after the firing of the mine was fearful. Men were seen wedged between the palisades of the bridge, or struggling to release themselves from beneath ponderous masses of rock, or hanging in the rigging of the ships; and from all places and quarters the most heartrending cries for help arose, but as each was absorbed in his own safety these could only be answered by helpless wailings.
Many had escaped in the most wonderful manner. An officer named Tucci was carried by the whirlwind like a feather high into the air, where he was for a moment suspended, and then dropped into the river, where he saved himself by swimming. Another was taken up by the force of the blast from the Flanders shore and deposited on that of Brabant, incurring merely a slight contusion on the shoulder; he felt, as he afterwards said, during this rapid aerial transit, just as if he had been fired out of a cannon. The Prince of Parma himself had never been so near death as at that moment, when half a minute saved his life. He had scarcely set foot in the fort of St. Maria when he was lifted off his feet as if by a hurricane, and a beam which struck him on the head and shoulders stretched him senseless on the earth. For a long time he was believed to be actually killed, many remembering to have seen him on the bridge only a few minutes before the fatal explosion. He was found at last between his attendants, Cajetan and Guasto, raising himself up with his hand on his sword; and the intelligence stirred the spirits of the whole army. But vain would be the attempt to depict his feelings when he surveyed the devastation which a single moment had caused in the work of so many months. The bridge of boats, upon which all his hopes rested, was rent asunder; a great part of his army was destroyed; another portion maimed and rendered ineffective for many days; many of his best officers were killed; and, as if the present calamity were not sufficient, he had now to learn the painful intelligence that the Margrave of Rysburg, whom of all his officers he prized the highest, was missing. And yet the worst was still to come, for every moment the fleets of the enemy were to be expected from Antwerp and Lillo, to which this fearful position of the army would disable him from offering any effectual resistance. The bridge was entirely destroyed, and nothing could prevent the fleet from Zealand passing through in full sail; while the confusion of the troops in this first moment was so great and general that it would have been impossible to give or obey orders, as many corps had lost their commanding officers, and many commanders their corps; and even the places where they had been stationed were no longer to be recognized amid the general ruin. Add to this that all the batteries on shore were under water, that several cannon were sunk, that the matches were wet, and the ammunition damaged. What a moment for the enemy if they had known how to avail themselves of it!
It will scarcely be believed, however, that this success, which surpassed all expectation, was lost to Antwerp, simply because nothing was known of it. St. Aldegonde, indeed, as soon as the explosion of the mine was heard in the town, had sent out several galleys in the direction of the bridge, with orders to send up fire-balls and rockets the moment they had passed it, and then to sail with the intelligence straight on to Lillo, in order to bring up, without delay, the Zealand fleet, which had orders to co-operate. At the same time the admiral of Antwerp was ordered, as soon as the signal was given, to sail out with his vessels and attack the enemy in their first consternation. But although a considerable reward was promised to the boatmen sent to reconnoitre they did not venture near the enemy, but returned without effecting their purpose, and reported that the bridge of boats was uninjured, and the fire-ship had had no effect. Even on the following day also no better measures were taken to learn the true state of the bridge; and as the fleet at Lillo, in spite of the favorable wind, was seen to remain inactive, the belief that the fire-ships had accomplished nothing was confirmed. It did not seem to occur to any one that this very inactivity of the confederates, which misled the people of Antwerp, might also keep back the Zealanders at Lille, as in fact it did. So signal an instance of neglect could only have occurred in a government, which, without dignity of independence, was guided by the tumultuous multitude it ought to have governed. The more supine, however, they were themselves in opposing the enemy, the more violently did their rage boil against Gianibelli, whom the frantic mob would have torn in pieces if they could have caught him. For two days the engineer was in the most imminent danger, until at last, on the third morning, a courier from Lillo, who had swam under the bridge, brought authentic intelligence of its having been destroyed, but at the same time announced that it had been repaired.
This rapid restoration of the bridge was really a miraculous effort of the Prince of Parma. Scarcely had he recovered from the shock, which seemed to have overthrown all his plans, when he contrived, with wonderful presence of mind, to prevent all its evil consequences. The absence of the enemy’s fleet at this decisive moment revived his hopes. The ruinous state of the bridge appeared to be a secret to them, and though it was impossible to repair in a few hours the work of so many months, yet a great point would be gained if it could be done even in appearance. All his men were immediately set to work to remove the ruins, to raise the timbers which had been thrown down, to replace those which were demolished, and to fill up the chasms with ships. The duke himself did not refuse to share in the toil, and his example was followed by all his officers. Stimulated by this popular behavior, the common soldiers exerted themselves to the utmost; the work was carried on during the whole night under the constant sounding of drums and trumpets, which were distributed along the bridge to drown the noise of the work-people. With dawn of day few traces remained of the night’s havoc; and although the bridge was restored only in appearance, it nevertheless deceived the spy, and consequently no attack was made upon it. In the meantime the prince contrived to make the repairs solid, nay, even to introduce some essential alterations in the structure. In order to guard against similar accidents for the future, a part of the bridge of boats was made movable, so that in case of necessity it could be taken away and a passage opened to the fire-ships. His loss of men was supplied from the garrisons of the adjoining places, and by a German regiment which arrived very opportunely from Gueldres. He filled up the vacancies of the officers who were killed, and in doing this he did not forget the Spanish ensign who had saved his life.
The people of Antwerp, after learning the success of their mine-ship, now did homage to the inventor with as much extravagance as they had a short time before mistrusted him, and they encouraged his genius to new attempts. Gianibelli now actually obtained the number of flat-bottomed vessels which he had at first demanded in vain, and these he equipped in such a manner that they struck with irresistible force on the bridge, and a second time also burst and separated it. But this time, the wind was contrary to the Zealand fleet, so that they could not put out, and thus the prince obtained once more the necessary respite to repair the damage. The Archimedes of Antwerp was not deterred by any of these disappointments. Anew he fitted out two large vessels which were armed with iron hooks and similar instruments in order to tear asunder the bridge. But when the moment came for these vessels to get under weigh no one was found ready to embark in them. The engineer was therefore obliged to think of a plan for giving to these machines such a self-impulse that, without being guided by a steersman, they would keep the middle of the stream, and not, like the former ones, be driven on the bank by the wind. One of his workmen, a German, here hit upon a strange invention, if Strada’s description of it is to be credited. He affixed a sail under the vessel, which was to be acted upon by the water, just as an ordinary sail is by the wind, and could thus impel the ship with the whole force of the current. The result proved the correctness of his calculation; for this vessel, with the position of its sails reversed, not only kept the centre of the stream, but also ran against the bridge with such impetuosity that the enemy had not time to open it and was actually burst asunder. But all these results were of no service to the town, because the attempts were made at random and were supported by no adequate force. A new fire-ship, equipped like the former, which had succeeded so well, and which Gianibelli had filled with four thousand pounds of the finest powder was not even used; for a new mode of attempting their deliverance had now occurred to the people of Antwerp.
Terrified by so many futile attempts from endeavoring to clear a passage for vessels on the river by force, they at last came to the determination of doing without the stream entirely. They remembered the example of the town of Leyden, which, when besieged by the Spaniards ten years before, had saved itself by opportunely inundating the surrounding country, and it was resolved to imitate this example. Between Lillo and Stabroek, in the district of Bergen, a wide and somewhat sloping plain extends as far as Antwerp, being protected by numerous embankments and counter-embankments against the irruptions of the East Scheldt. Nothing more was requisite than to break these dams, when the whole plain would become a sea, navigable by flat-bottomed vessels almost to the very walls of Antwerp. If this attempt should succeed, the Duke of Parma might keep the Scheldt guarded with his bridge of boats as long as he pleased; a new river would be formed, which, in case of necessity, would be equally serviceable for the time. This was the very plan which the Prince of Orange had at the commencement of the siege recommended, and in which he had been strenuously, but unsuccessfully, seconded by St. Aldegonde, because some of the citizens could not be persuaded to sacrifice their own fields. In the present emergency they reverted to this last resource, but circumstances in the meantime had greatly changed.
The plain in question is intersected by a broad and high dam, which takes its name from the adjacent Castle of Cowenstein, and extends for three miles from the village of Stabroek, in Bergen, as far as the Scheldt, with the great dam of which it unites near Ordam. Beyond this dam no vessels can proceed, however high the tide, and the sea would be vainly turned into the fields as long as such an embankment remained in the way, which would prevent the Zealand vessels from descending into the plain before Antwerp. The fate of the town would therefore depend upon the demolition of this Cowenstein dam; but, foreseeing this, the Prince of Parma had, immediately on commencing the blockade, taken possession of it, and spared no pains to render it tenable to the last. At the village of Stabroek, Count Mansfeld was encamped with the greatest part of his army, and by means of this very Cowenstein dam kept open the communication with the bridge, the headquarters, and the Spanish magazines at Calloo. Thus the army formed an uninterrupted line from Stabroek in Brabant, as far as Bevern in Flanders, intersected indeed, but not broken by the Scheldt, and which could not be cut off without a sanguinary conflict. On the dam itself within proper distances five different batteries had been erected, the command of which was given to the most valiant officers in the army. Nay, as the Prince of Parma could not doubt that now the whole fury of the war would be turned to this point, he entrusted the defence of the bridge to Count Mansfeld, and resolved to defend this important post himself. The war, therefore, now assumed a different aspect, and the theatre of it was entirely changed.
Both above and below Lillo, the Netherlanders had in several places cut through the dam, which follows the Brabant shore of the Scheldt; and where a short time before had been green fields, a new element now presented itself, studded with masts and boats. A Zealand fleet, commanded by Count Hohenlohe, navigated the inundated fields, and made repeated movements against the Cowenstein dam, without, however, attempting a serious attack on it, while another fleet showed itself in the Scheldt, threatening the two coasts alternately with a landing, and occasionally the bridge of boats with an attack. For several days this manoeuvre was practised on the enemy, who, uncertain of the quarter whence an attack was to be expected, would, it was hoped, be exhausted by continual watching, and by degrees lulled into security by so many false alarms. Antwerp had promised Count Hohenlohe to support the attack on the dam by a flotilla from the town; three beacons on the principal tower were to be the signal that this was on the way. When, therefore, on a dark night the expected columns of fire really ascended above Antwerp, Count Hohenlohe immediately caused five hundred of his troops to scale the dam between two of the enemy’s redoubts, who surprised part of the Spanish garrison asleep, and cut down the others who attempted to defend themselves. In a short time they had gained a firm footing upon the dam, and were just on the point of disembarking the remainder of their force, two thousand in number, when the Spaniards in the adjoining redoubts marched out and, favored by the narrowness of the ground, made a desperate attack on the crowded Zealanders. The guns from the neighboring batteries opened upon the approaching fleet, and thus rendered the landing of the remaining troops impossible; and as there were no signs of co-operation on the part of the city, the Zealanders were overpowered after a short conflict and again driven down from the dam. The victorious Spaniards pursued them through the water as far as their boats, sunk many of the latter, and compelled the rest to retreat with heavy loss. Count Hohenlohe threw the blame of this defeat upon the inhabitants of Antwerp, who had deceived him by a false signal, and it certainly must be attributed to the bad arrangement of both parties that the attempt failed of better success.
But at last the allies determined to make a systematic assault on the enemy with their combined force, and to put an end to the siege by a grand attack as well on the dam as on the bridge. The 16th of May, 1585, was fixed upon for the execution of this design, and both armies used their utmost endeavors to make this day decisive. The force of the Hollanders and Zealanders, united to that of Antwerp, exceeded two hundred ships, to man which they had stripped their towns and citadels, and with this force they purposed to attack the Cowenstein dam on both sides. The bridge over the Scheldt was to be assailed with new machines of Gianibelli’s invention, and the Duke of Parma thereby hindered from assisting the defence of the dam.
Alexander, apprised of the danger which threatened him, spared nothing on his side to meet it with energy. Immediately after getting possession of the dam he had caused redoubts to be erected at five different, places, and had given the command of them to the most experienced officers of the army. The first of these, which was called the Cross battery, was erected on the spot where the Cowenstein darn enters the great embankment of the Scheldt, and makes with the latter the form of a cross; the Spaniard, Mondragone, was appointed to the command of this battery. A thousand paces farther on, near the castle of Cowenstein, was posted the battery of St. James, which was entrusted to the command of Camillo di Monte. At an equal distance from this lay the battery of St. George, and at a thousand paces from the latter, the Pile battery, under the command of Gamboa, so called from the pile-work on which it rested; at the farthest end of the darn, near Stabroek, was the fifth redoubt, where Count Mansfeld, with Capizuechi, an Italian, commanded. All these forts the prince now strengthened with artillery and men; on both sides of the dam, and along its whole extent, he caused piles to be driven, as well to render the main embankment firmer, as to impede the labor of the pioneers, who were to dig through it.
Early on the morning of the 16th of May the enemy’s forces were in motion. With the dusk of dawn there came floating down from Lillo, over the inundated country, four burning vessels, which so alarmed the guards upon the dams, who recollected the former terrible explosion, that they hastily retreated to the next battery. This was exactly what the enemy desired. In these vessels, which had merely the appearance of fire-ships, soldiers were concealed, who now suddenly jumped ashore, and succeeded in mounting the dam at the undefended spot, between the St. George and Pile batteries. Immediately afterward the whole Zealand fleet showed itself, consisting of numerous ships-of-war, transports, and a crowd of smaller craft, which were laden with great sacks of earth, wool, fascines, gabions, and the like, for throwing up breastworks wherever necessary, The ships-of-war were furnished with powerful artillery, and numerously and bravely manned, and a whole army of pioneers accompanied it in order to dig through the dam as soon as it should be in their possession.
The Zealanders had scarcely begun on their side to ascend the dam when the fleet of Antwerp advanced from Osterweel and attacked it on the other. A high breastwork was hastily thrown up between the two nearest hostile batteries, so as at once to divide the two garrisons and to cover the pioneers. The latter, several hundreds in number, now fell to work with their spades on both sides of the dam, and dug with such energy that hopes were entertained of soon seeing the two seas united. But meanwhile the Spaniards also had gained time to hasten to the spot from the two nearest redoubts, and make a spirited assault, while the guns from the battery of St. George played incessantly on the enemy’s fleet. A furious battle now raged in the quarter where they were cutting through the dike and throwing up the breastworks. The Zealanders had drawn a strong line of troops round the pioneers to keep the enemy from interrupting their work, and in this confusion of battle, in the midst of a storm of bullets from the enemy, often up to the breast in water, among the dead and dying, the pioneers pursued their work, under the incessant exhortations of the merchants, who impatiently waited to see the dam opened and their vessels in safety. The importance of the result, which it might be said depended entirely upon their spades, appeared to animate even the common laborers with heroic courage. Solely intent upon their task, they neither saw nor heard the work of death which was going on around them, and as fast as the foremost ranks fell those behind them pressed into their places. Their operations were greatly impeded by the piles which had been driven in, but still more by the attacks of the Spaniards, who burst with desperate courage through the thickest of the enemy, stabbed the pioneers in the pits where they were digging, and filled up again with dead bodies the cavities which the living had made. At last, however, when most of their officers were killed or wounded, and the number of the enemy constantly increasing, while fresh laborers were supplying the place of those who had been slain, the courage of these valiant troops began to give way, and they thought it advisable to retreat to their batteries. Now, therefore, the confederates saw themselves masters of the whole extent of the dam, from Fort St. George as far as the Pile battery. As, however, it seemed too long to wait for the thorough demolition of the dam, they hastily unloaded a Zealand transport, and brought the cargo over the dam to a vessel of Antwerp, with which Count Hohenlohe sailed in triumph to that city. The sight of the provisions at once filled the inhabitants with joy, and as if the victory was already won, they gave themselves up to the wildest exultation. The bells were rung, the cannon discharged, and the inhabitants, transported by their unexpected success, hurried to the Osterweel gate, to await the store-ships which were supposed to be at hand.
In fact, fortune had never smiled so favorably on the besieged as at that moment. The enemy, exhausted and dispirited, had thrown themselves into their batteries, and, far from being able to struggle with the victors for the post they had conquered, they found themselves rather besieged in the places where they had taken refuge. Some companies of Scots, led by their brave colonel, Balfour, attacked the battery of St. George, which, however, was relieved, but not without severe loss, by Camillo di Monte, who hastened thither from St. James’ battery. The Pile battery was in a much worse condition, it being hotly cannonaded by the ships, and threatened every moment to crumble to pieces. Gainboa, who commanded it, lay wounded, and it was unfortunately deficient in artillery to keep the enemy at a distance. The breastwork, too, which the Zealanders had thrown up between this battery and that of St. George cut off all hope of assistance from the Scheldt. If, therefore, the Belgians had only taken advantage of this weakness and inactivity of the enemy to proceed with zeal and perseverance in cutting through the dam, there is no doubt that a passage might have been made, and thus put an end to the whole siege. But here also the same want of consistent energy showed itself which had marked the conduct of the people of Antwerp during the whole course of the siege. The zeal with which the work had been commenced cooled in proportion to the success which attended it. It was soon found too tedious to dig through the dyke; it seemed far easier to transfer the cargoes from the large store-ships into smaller ones, and carry these to the town with the flood tide. St. Aldegonde and Hohenlohe, instead of remaining to animate the industry of the workmen by their personal presence, left the scene of action at the decisive moment, in order, by sailing to the town with a corn vessel, to win encomiums on their wisdom and valor.
While both parties were fighting on the dam with the most obstinate fury the bridge over the Scheldt had been attacked from Antwerp with new machines, in order to give employment to the prince in that quarter. But the sound of the firing soon apprised him of what was going on at the dyke, and as soon as he saw the bridge clear he hastened to support the defence of the dyke. Followed by two hundred Spanish pikemen, he flew to the place of attack, and arrived just in time to prevent the complete defeat of his troops. He hastily posted some guns which he had brought with him in the two nearest redoubts, and maintained from thence a heavy fire upon the enemy’s ships. He placed himself at the head of his men, and, with his sword in one hand and shield in the other, led them against the enemy. The news of his arrival, which quickly spread from one end of the dyke to the other, revived the drooping spirits of his troops, and the conflict recommenced with renewed violence, made still more murderous by the nature of the ground where it was fought. Upon the narrow ridge of the dam, which in many places was not more than nine paces broad, about five thousand combatants were fighting; so confined was the spot upon which the strength of both armies was assembled, and which was to decide the whole issue of the siege. With the Antwerpers the last bulwark of their city was at stake; with the Spaniards it was to determine the whole success of their undertaking. Both parties fought with a courage which despair alone could inspire. From both the extremities of the dam the tide of war rolled itself towards the centre, where the Zealanders and Antwerpers had the advantage, and where they had collected their whole strength. The Italians and Spaniards, inflamed by a noble emulation, pressed on from Stabroek; and from the Scheldt the Walloons and Spaniards advanced, with their general at their head. While the former endeavored to relieve the Pile battery, which was hotly pressed by the enemy, both by sea and land, the latter threw themselves on the breastwork, between the St. George and the Pile batteries, with a fury which carried everything before it. Here the flower of the Belgian troops fought behind a well-fortified rampart, and the guns of the two fleets covered this important post. The prince was already pressing forward to attack this formidable defence with his small army when he received intelligence that the Italians and Spaniards, under Capizucchi and Aquila, had forced their way, sword in hand, into the Pile battery, had got possession of it, and were now likewise advancing from the other side against the enemy’s breastwork. Before this intrenchment, therefore, the whole force of both armies was now collected, and both sides used their utmost efforts to carry and to defend this position. The Netherlanders on board the fleet, loath to remain idle spectators of the conflict, sprang ashore from their vessels. Alexander attacked the breastwork on one side, Count Mansfeld on the other; five assaults were made, and five times they were repulsed. The Netherlanders in this decisive moment surpassed themselves; never in the whole course of the war had they fought with such determination. But it was the Scotch and English in particular who baffled the attempts of the enemy by their valiant resistance. As no one would advance to the attack in the quarter where the Scotch fought, the duke himself led on the troops, with a javelin in his hand, and up to his breast in water. At last, after a protracted struggle, the forces of Count Mansfeld succeeded with their halberds and pikes in making a breach in the breastwork, and by raising themselves on one another’s shoulders scaled the parapet. Barthelemy Toralva, a Spanish captain, was the first who showed himself on the top; and almost at the same instant the Italian, Capizucchi, appeared upon the edge of it; and thus the contest of valor was decided with equal glory for both nations. It is worth while to notice here the manner in which the Prince of Parma, who was made arbiter of this emulous strife, encouraged this delicate sense of honor among his warriors. He embraced the Italian, Capizucchi, in presence of the troops, and acknowledged aloud that it was principally to the courage of this officer that he owed the capture of the breastwork. He caused the Spanish captain, Toralva, who was dangerously wounded, to be conveyed to his own quarters at Stabroek, laid on his own bed, and covered with the cloak which he himself had worn the day before the battle.
After the capture of the breastwork the victory no longer remained doubtful. The Dutch and Zealand troops, who had disembarked to come to close action with the enemy, at once lost their courage when they looked about them and saw the vessels, which were their last refuge, putting off from the shore.
For the tide had begun to ebb, and the commanders of the fleet, from fear of being stranded with their heavy transports, and, in case of an unfortunate issue to the engagement, becoming the prey of the enemy, retired from the dam, and made for deep water. No sooner did Alexander perceive this than he pointed out to his troops the flying vessels, and encouraged them to finish the action with an enemy who already despaired of their safety. The Dutch auxiliaries were the first that gave way, and their example was soon followed by the Zealanders. Hastily leaping from the dam they endeavored to reach the vessels by wading or swimming; but from their disorderly flight they impeded one another, and fell in heaps under the swords of the pursuers. Many perished even in the boats, as each strove to get on board before the other, and several vessels sank under the weight of the numbers who rushed into them. The Antwerpers, who fought for their liberty, their hearths, their faith, were the last who retreated, but this very circumstance augmented their disaster. Many of their vessels were outstripped by the ebb-tide, and grounded within reach of the enemy’s cannon, and were consequently destroyed with all on board. Crowds of fugitives endeavored by swimming to gain the other transports, which had got into deep water; but such was the rage and boldness of the Spaniards that they swam after them with their swords between their teeth, and dragged many even from the ships. The victory of the king’s troops was complete but bloody; for of the Spaniards about eight hundred, of the Netherlanders some thousands (without reckoning those who were drowned), were left on the field, and on both sides many of the principal nobility perished. More than thirty vessels, with a large supply of provisions for Antwerp, fell into the hands of the victors, with one hundred and fifty cannon and other military stores. The dam, the possession of which had been so dearly maintained, was pierced in thirteen different places, and the bodies of those who had cut through it were now used to stop up the openings.
The following day a transport of immense size and singular construction fell into the hands of the royalists. It formed a floating castle, and had been destined for the attack on the Cowenstein dam. The people of Antwerp had built it at an immense expense at the very time when the engineer Gianibelli’s useful proposals had been rejected on account of the cost they entailed, and this ridiculous monster was called by the proud title of “End of the War,” which appellation was afterwards changed for the more appropriate sobriquet of “Money lost!” When this vessel was launched it turned out, as every sensible person had foretold, that on account of its unwieldly size it was utterly impossible to steer it, and it could hardly be floated by the highest tide. With great difficulty it was worked as far as Ordain, where, deserted by the tide, it went aground, and fell a prey to the enemy.
The attack upon the Cowenstein dam was the last attempt which was made to relieve Antwerp. From this time the courage of the besieged sank, and the magistracy of the town vainly labored to inspirit with distant hopes the lower orders, on whom the present distress weighed heaviest. Hitherto the price of bread had been kept down to a tolerable rate, although the quality of it continued to deteriorate; by degrees, however, provisions became so scarce that a famine was evidently near at hand. Still hopes were entertained of being able to hold out, at least until the corn between the town and the farthest batteries, which was already in full ear, could be reaped; but before that could be done the enemy had carried the last outwork, and had appropriated the whole harvest to their use. At last the neighboring and confederate town of Malines fell into the enemy’s hands, and with its fall vanished the only remaining hope of getting supplies from Brabant. As there was, therefore, no longer any means of increasing the stock of provisions nothing was left but to diminish the consumers. All useless persons, all strangers, nay even the women and children were to be sent away out of the town, but this proposal was too revolting to humanity to be carried into execution. Another plan, that of expelling the Catholic inhabitants, exasperated them so much that it had almost ended in open mutiny. And thus St. Aldegonde at last saw himself compelled to yield to the riotous clamors of the populace, and on the 17th of August, 1585, to make overtures to the Duke of Parma for the surrender of the town.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg