V. DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS
The Reformation.--Its Progress in the Netherlands.--General Discontent.--William of Orange.
The middle of the sixteenth century presented one of those crises which have occurred at long intervals in the history of Europe, when the course of events has had a permanent influence on the destiny of nations. Scarcely forty years had elapsed since Luther had thrown down the gauntlet to the Vatican, by publicly burning the papal bull at Wittenberg. Since that time, his doctrines had been received in Denmark and Sweden. In England, after a state of vacillation for three reigns, Protestantism, in the peculiar form which it still wears, was become the established religion of the state. The fiery cross had gone round over the hills and valleys of Scotland, and thousands and tens of thousands had gathered to hear the word of life from the lips of Knox. The doctrines of Luther were spread over the northern parts of Germany, and freedom of worship was finally guarantied there, by the treaty of Passau. The Low Countries were the "debatable land," on which the various sects of Reformers, the Lutheran, the Calvinist, the English Protestant, contended for mastery with the established church. Calvinism was embraced by some of the cantons of Switzerland, and at Geneva its great apostle had fixed his head-quarters. His doctrines were widely circulated through France, till the divided nation was preparing to plunge into that worst of all wars, in which the hand of brother is raised against brother. The cry of reform had even passed the Alps, and was heard under the walls of the Vatican. It had crossed the Pyrenees. The king of Navarre declared himself a Protestant; and the spirit of the Reformation had secretly insinuated itself into Spain, and taken hold, as we have seen, of the middle and southern provinces of the kingdom.
A contemporary of the period, who reflected on the onward march of the new religion over every obstacle in its path, who had seen it gather under its banners states and nations once the most loyal and potent vassals of Rome, would have had little reason to doubt that, before the end of the century, the Reform would have extended its sway over the whole of Christendom. Fortunately for Catholicism, the most powerful empire in Europe was in the hands of a prince who was devoted with his whole soul to the interests of the Church. Philip the Second understood the importance of his position. His whole life proves that he felt it to be his especial mission to employ his great resources to restore the tottering fortunes of Catholicism, and stay the progress of the torrent which was sweeping away every landmark of the primitive faith.
We have seen the manner in which he crushed the efforts of the Protestants in Spain. This was the first severe blow struck at the Reformation. Its consequences cannot well be exaggerated; not the immediate results, which would have been little without the subsequent reforms and increased activity of the Church of Rome itself. But the moral influence of such a blow, when the minds of men had been depressed by a long series of reverses, is not to be estimated. In view of this, one of the most eminent Roman Catholic writers does not hesitate to remark, that "the power and abilities of Philip the Second afforded a counterpoise to the Protestant cause, which prevented it from making itself master of Europe."[491] The blow was struck; and from this period little beyond its present conquests was to be gained for the cause of the Reformation.
[Sidenote: REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.]
It was not to be expected that Philip, after having exterminated heresy in one part of his dominions, should tolerate its existence in any other, least of all, in a country so important as the Netherlands. Yet a little reflection might have satisfied him that the same system of measures could hardly be applied with a prospect of success to two countries so differently situated as Spain and the Netherlands. The Romish faith may be said to have entered into the being of the Spaniard. It was not merely cherished as a form of religion, but as a principle of honor. It was part of the national history. For eight centuries the Spaniard had been fighting at home the battles of the Church. Nearly every inch of soil in his own country was won by arms from the infidel. His wars, as I have more than once had occasion to remark, were all wars of religion. He carried the same spirit across the waters. There he was still fighting the infidel. His life was one long crusade. How could this champion of the Church desert her in her utmost need?
With this predisposition, it was easy for Philip to enforce obedience in a people naturally the most loyal to their princes, to whom, moreover, since the fatal war of the Comunidades, they had been accustomed to pay an almost Oriental submission. Intrenched behind the wall of the Pyrenees, Spain, we must bear in mind, felt little of the great shock which was convulsing France and the other states of Europe; and with the aid of so formidable an engine as the Inquisition, it was easy to exterminate, before they could take root, such seeds of heresy as had been borne by the storm across the mountains.
The Netherlands, on the other hand, lay like a valley among the hills, which drinks in all the waters of the surrounding country. They were a common reservoir for the various opinions which agitated the nations on their borders. On the south were the Lutherans of Germany. The French Huguenots pressed them on the west; and by the ocean they held communication with England and the nations of the Baltic. The soldier quartered on their territory, the seaman who visited their shores, the trader who trafficked in their towns, brought with them different forms of the new religion. Books from France and from Germany circulated widely among a people, nearly all of whom, as we have seen, were able to read.
The new doctrines were discussed by men accustomed to think and act for themselves. Freedom of speculation on religious topics soon extended to political. It was the natural tendency of reform. The same spirit of free inquiry which attacked the foundations of unity of faith, stood ready next to assail those of unity of government; and men began boldly to criticize the rights of kings and the duties of subjects.
The spirit of independence was fostered by the institutions of the country. The provinces of the Netherlands, if not republican in form, were filled with the spirit of republics. In many of their features they call to mind the free states of Italy in the Middle Ages. Under the petty princes who ruled over them in early days, they had obtained charters, as we have seen, which secured a certain degree of constitutional freedom. The province of Brabant, above all, gloried in its "Joyeuse Entrée," which guarantied privileges and immunities of a more liberal character than those possessed by the other states of the Netherlands. When the provinces passed at length under the sceptre of a single sovereign, he lived at a distance, and the government was committed to a viceroy. Since their connection with Spain, the administration had been for the most part in the hands of a woman; and the delegated authority of a woman pressed but lightly on the independent temper of the Flemings.
Yet Charles the Fifth, as we have seen, partial as he was to his countrymen in the Netherlands, could ill brook their audacious spirit, and made vigorous efforts to repress it. But his zeal for the spiritual welfare of his people never led him to overlook their material interests. He had no design by his punishments to cripple their strength, much less to urge them to extremity. When the regent, Mary of Hungary, his sister, warned him that his laws bore too heavily on the people to be endured, he was careful to mitigate their severity. His edicts in the name of religion were, indeed, written in blood. But the frequency of their repetition shows, as already remarked, the imperfect manner in which they were executed. This was still further proved by the prosperous condition of the people, the flourishing aspect of the various branches of industry, and the great enterprises to facilitate commercial intercourse and foster the activity of the country. At the close of Charles's reign, or rather at the commencement of his successor's, in 1560, was completed the grand canal extending from Antwerp to Brussels, the construction of which had consumed thirty years, and one million eight hundred thousand florins.[492] Such a work, at such a period,--the fruit, not of royal patronage, but of the public spirit of the citizens,--is evidence both of large resources and of wisdom in the direction of them. In this state of things, it is not surprising that the Flemings, feeling their own strength, should have assumed a free and independent tone little grateful to the ear of a sovereign. So far had this spirit of liberty or licence, as it was termed, increased, in the latter part of the emperor's reign, that the Regent Mary, when her brother abdicated, chose also to resign, declaring, in a letter to him, that "she would not continue to live with, much less to reign over, a people whose manners had undergone such a change,--in whom respect for God and man seemed no longer to exist."[493]
A philosopher who should have contemplated at that day the condition of the country, and the civilization at which it had arrived, might feel satisfied that a system of toleration in religious matters would be the one best suited to the genius of the people and the character of their institutions. But Philip was no philosopher; and toleration was a virtue not understood, at that time, by Calvinist any more than by Catholic. The question, therefore, is not whether the end he proposed was the best one;--on this, few at the present day will differ;--but whether Philip took the best means for effecting that end. This is the point of view from which his conduct in the Netherlands should be criticized.
Here, in the outset, he seems to have fallen into a capital error, by committing so large a share in the government to the hands of a foreigner,--Granvelle. The country was filled with nobles, some of them men of the highest birth, whose ancestors were associated with the most stirring national recollections, and who were endeared, moreover, to their countrymen by their own services. To several of these Philip himself was under no slight obligations for the aid they had afforded him in the late war,--on the fields of Gravelines and St. Quentin, and in the negotiation of the treaty which closed his hostilities with France. It was hardly to be expected that these proud nobles, conscious of their superior claims, and accustomed to so much authority and deference in their own land, would tamely submit to the control of a stranger, a man of obscure family, like his father indebted for his elevation to the royal favor.
[Sidenote: DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS.]
Besides these great lords, there was a numerous aristocracy, inferior nobles and cavaliers, many of whom had served under the standard of Charles in his long wars. They there formed those formidable companies of ordonnance, whose fame perhaps stood higher than that of any other corps of the imperial cavalry. The situation of these men, now disbanded, and, with their roving military habits, hanging loosely on the country, has been compared by a modern author to that which, on the accession of the Bourbons, was occupied by the soldiers whom Napoleon had so often led to victory.[494] To add to their restlessness, many of these, as well as of the higher nobility, were embarrassed by debts contracted in their campaigns, or by too ambitious expenditure at home, especially in rivalry with the ostentatious Spaniard. "The Flemish nobles," says a writer of the time, "were too many of them oppressed by heavy debts and the payment of exorbitant interest. They spent twice as much as they were worth on their palaces, furniture, troops of retainers, costly liveries, their banquets and sumptuous entertainments of every description,--in fine, in every form of luxury and superfluity that could be devised. Thus discontent became prevalent through the country, and men anxiously looked forward to some change."[495]
Still another element of discontent, and one that extended to all classes, was antipathy to the Spaniards. It had not been easy to repress this even under the rule of Charles the Fifth, who had shown such manifest preference for his Flemish subjects. But now it was more decidedly called out, under a monarch, whose sympathies lay altogether on the side of their rivals. No doubt this popular sentiment is to be explained partly by the contrast afforded by the characters of the two nations, so great as hardly to afford a point of contact between them. But it may be fairly charged, to a great extent, on the Spaniards themselves, who, while they displayed many noble and magnanimous traits at home, seemed desirous to exhibit only the repulsive side of their character to the eye of the stranger. Cold and impenetrable, assuming an arrogant tone of superiority over every other nation, in whatever land it was their destiny to be cast, England, Italy, or the Netherlands, as allies or as enemies, we find the Spaniards of that day equally detested. Brought with them, as the people of the Netherlands were, under a common sceptre, a spirit of comparison and rivalry grew up, which induced a thousand causes of irritation.
The difficulty was still further increased by the condition of the neighboring countries, where the minds of the inhabitants were now in the highest state of fermentation in matters of religion. In short, the atmosphere seemed everywhere to be in that highly electrified condition which bodes the coming tempest. In this critical state of things, it was clear that it was only by a most careful and considerate policy that harmony could be maintained in the Netherlands; a policy manifesting alike tenderness for the feelings of the nation and respect for its institutions.
Having thus shown the general aspect of things when the duchess of Parma entered on her regency, towards the close of 1559, it is time to go forward with the narrative of the prominent events which led to the War of the Revolution.
We have already seen that Philip, on leaving the country, lodged the administration nominally in three councils, although in truth it was on the council of state that the weight of government actually rested. Even here the nobles who composed it were of little account in matters of real importance, which were reserved for a consulta, consisting, besides the regent, of Granvelle, Count Barlaimont, and the learned jurist Viglius. As the last two were altogether devoted to Granvelle, and the regent was instructed to defer greatly to his judgment, the government of the Netherlands may be said to have been virtually deposited in the hands of the bishop of Arras.
At the head of the Flemish nobles in the council of state, and indeed in the country, taking into view their rank, fortune, and public services, stood Count Egmont and the prince of Orange. I have already given some account of the former, and the reader has seen the important part which he took in the great victories of Gravelines and St. Quentin. To the prince of Orange Philip had also been indebted for his counsel in conducting the war, and still more for the aid which he had afforded in the negotiations for peace. It will be proper, before going further, to give the reader some particulars of this celebrated man, the great leader in the war of the Netherlands.
William, prince of Orange, was born at Dillenburg, in the German duchy of Nassau, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1533. He was descended from a house, one of whose branches had given an emperor to Germany; and William's own ancestors were distinguished by the employments they had held, and the services they had rendered, both in Germany and the Low Countries. It was a proud vaunt of his, that Philip was under larger obligations to him than he to Philip; and that, but for the house of Nassau, the king of Spain would not be able to write as many titles as he now did after his name.[496]
When eleven years old, by the death of his cousin René he came into possession of a large domain in Holland, and a still larger property in Brabant, where he held the title of Lord of Breda. To these was added, the splendid inheritance of Chalons, and of the principality of Orange; which, however, situated at a distance, in the heart of France, might seem to be held by a somewhat precarious tenure.
William's parents were both Lutherans, and in their faith he was educated. But Charles saw with displeasure the false direction thus given to one who at a future day was to occupy so distinguished a position among his Flemish vassals. With the consent of his parents, the child, in his twelfth year, was removed to Brussels, to be brought up in the family of the emperor's sister, the Regent Mary of Hungary. However their consent to this step may be explained, it certainly seems that their zeal for the spiritual welfare of their son was not such as to stand in the way of his temporal. In the family of the regent the youth was bred a Catholic, while in all respects he received an education suited to his rank.[497] It is an interesting fact, that his preceptor was a younger brother of Granvelle,--the man with whom William was afterwards to be placed in an attitude of such bitter hostility.
[Sidenote: WILLIAM OF ORANGE.]
When fifteen years of age, the prince was taken into the imperial household, and became the page of Charles the Fifth. The emperor was not slow in discerning the extraordinary qualities of the youth; and he showed it by intrusting him, as he grew older, with various important commissions. He was accompanied by the prince on his military expeditions, and Charles gave a remarkable proof of his confidence in his capacity, by raising him, at the age of twenty-two, over the heads of veteran officers, and giving him the command of the imperial forces engaged in the siege of Marienburg. During the six months that William was in command, they were still occupied with this siege, and with the construction of a fortress for the protection of Flanders. There was little room for military display. But the troops were in want of food and of money, and their young commander's conduct under these embarrassments was such as to vindicate the wisdom of his appointment. Charles afterwards employed him on several diplomatic missions,--a more congenial field for the exercise of his talents, which appear to have been better suited to civil than to military affairs.
The emperor's regard for the prince seems to have increased with his years, and he gave public proof of it, in the last hour of his reign, by leaning on William's shoulder at the time of his abdication, when he made his parting address to the states of the Netherlands. He showed this still further by selecting him for the honorable mission of bearing the imperial crown to Ferdinand.
On his abdication, Charles earnestly commended William to his successor. Philip profited by his services in the beginning of his reign, when the prince of Orange, who had followed him in the French war, was made one of the four plenipotentiaries for negotiating the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, for the execution of which he remained as one of the hostages in France.
While at the court of Henry the Second, it will be remembered, the prince became acquainted with the secret designs of the French and Spanish monarchs against the Protestants in their dominions; and he resolved, from that hour, to devote all his strength to expel the "Spanish vermin" from the Netherlands. One must not infer from this, however, that William, at this early period, meditated the design of shaking off the rule of Spain altogether. The object he had in view went no further than to relieve the country from the odious presence of the Spanish troops, and to place the administration in those hands to which it rightfully belonged. They, however, who set a revolution in motion have not always the power to stop it. If they can succeed in giving it a direction, they will probably be carried forward by it beyond their intended limits, until, gathering confidence with success, they aim at an end far higher than that which they had originally proposed. Such, doubtless, was the case with William of Orange.
Notwithstanding the emperor's recommendation, the prince of Orange was not the man whom Philip selected for his confidence. Nor was it possible for William to regard the king with the same feelings which he had entertained for the emperor. To Charles the prince was under obvious obligations for his nurture in early life. His national pride, too, was not wounded by having a Spaniard for his sovereign, since Charles was not by birth, much less in heart, a Spaniard. All this was reversed in Philip, in whom William saw only the representative of a detested race. The prudent reserve which marked the character of each, no doubt, prevented the outward demonstration of their sentiments; but from their actions we may readily infer the instinctive aversion which the two parties entertained for each other.
At the early age of eighteen, William married Anne of Egmont, daughter of the count of Büren. The connection was a happy one, if we may trust the loving tone of their correspondence. Unhappily, in a few years their union was dissolved by the lady's death. The prince did not long remain a widower, before he made proposals to the daughter of the duchess of Lorraine. The prospect of such a match gave great dissatisfaction to Philip, who had no mind to see his Flemish vassal allied with the family of a great feudatory of France. Disappointed in this quarter, William next paid his addresses to Anne of Saxony, an heiress, whose large possessions made her one of the most brilliant matches in Germany. William's passion and his interest, it was remarked, kept time well together.
The course of love, however, was not destined to run smoothly on the present occasion. Anne was the daughter of Maurice, the great Lutheran champion, the implacable enemy of Charles the Fifth. Left early an orphan, she had been reared in the family of her uncle, the elector of Saxony, in the strictest tenets of the Lutheran faith. Such a connection was, of course, every way distasteful to Philip, to whom William was willing so far to defer as to solicit his approbation, though he did not mean to be controlled by it.[498] The correspondence on the subject, in which both the regent and Granvelle took an active part, occupies as much space in collections of the period as more important negotiations. The prince endeavored to silence the king's scruples, by declaring that he was too much a Catholic at heart to marry any woman who was not of the same persuasion as himself; and that he had received assurances from the elector that his wife in this respect should entirely conform to his wishes. The elector had scruples as to the match, no less than Philip, though on precisely the opposite grounds; and, after the prince's assurance to the king, one is surprised to find that an understanding must have existed with the elector that Anne should be allowed the undisturbed enjoyment of her own religion.[499] This double dealing leaves a disagreeable impression in regard to William's character. Yet it does not seem, to judge from his later life, to be altogether inconsistent with it. Machiavelli is the author whom he is said to have had most frequently in his hand;[500] and in the policy with which he shaped his course, we may sometimes fancy that we can discern the influence of the Italian statesman.
The marriage was celebrated with great pomp at Leipsic, on the twenty-fifth of August, 1561. The king of Denmark, several of the electors, and many princes and nobles of both Germany and the Low Countries, were invited guests; and the whole assembly present on the occasion was estimated at nearly six thousand persons.[501] The king of Spain complimented the bride by sending her a jewel worth three thousand ducats.[502] It proved, however, as Granvelle had predicted, an ill-assorted union. After living together for nearly thirteen years, the prince, weary of the irregularities of his wife, separated from her, and sent her back to her friends in Germany.
[Sidenote: WILLIAM OF ORANGE.]
During his residence in Brussels, William easily fell into the way of life followed by the Flemish nobles. He was very fond of the healthy exercise of the chase, and especially of hawking. He was social, indeed convivial, in his habits, after the fashion of his countrymen;[503] and was addicted to gallantries, which continued long enough, it is said, to suggest an apology for the disorderly conduct of his wife. He occupied the ancient palace of his family at Brussels, where he was surrounded by lords and cavaliers, and a numerous retinue of menials.[504] He lived in great state, displaying a profuse magnificence in his entertainments; and few there were, natives or foreigners, who had any claim on his hospitality, that did not receive it.[505] By this expensive way of life, he encumbered his estate with a heavy debt; amounting, if we may take Granvelle's word, to nine hundred thousand florins.[506] Yet, if William's own account, but one year later, be true, the debt was then brought within a very moderate compass.[507]
With his genial habits and love of pleasure, and with manners the most attractive, he had not the free and open temper which often goes along with them. He was called by his contemporaries "William the Silent." Perhaps the epithet was intended to indicate not so much his taciturnity, as that impenetrable reserve which locked up his secrets closely within his bosom. No man knew better how to keep his counsel, even from those who acted with him. But while masking his own designs, no man was more sagacious in penetrating those of others. He carried on an extensive correspondence in foreign countries, and employed every means for getting information. Thus, while he had it in his power to outwit others, it was very rare that he became their dupe. Though on ordinary occasions frugal of words, when he did speak it was with effect. His eloquence was of the most persuasive kind;[508] and as towards his inferiors he was affable, and exceedingly considerate of their feelings, he acquired an unbounded ascendancy over his countrymen.[509] It must be admitted that the prince of Orange possessed many rare qualities for the leader of a great revolution.
The course William took in respect to his wife's religion might lead one to doubt whether he were at heart Catholic or Protestant; or indeed whether he were not equally indifferent to both persuasions. The latter opinion might be strengthened by a remark imputed to him, that "he would not have his wife trouble herself with such melancholy books as the Scriptures, but instead of them amuse herself with Amadis de Gaul, and other pleasant works of the kind."[510] "The prince of Orange," says a writer of the time, "passed for a Catholic among Catholics, a Lutheran among Lutherans. If he could, he would have had a religion compounded of both. In truth, he looked on the Christian religion like the ceremonies which Numa introduced, as a sort of politic invention."[511] Granvelle, in a letter to Philip, speaks much to the same purpose.[512] These portraits were by unfriendly hands. Those who take a different view of his character, while they admit that in his early days his opinions in matters of faith were unsettled, contend that in time he became sincerely attached to the doctrines which he defended with his sword. This seems to be no more than natural. But the reader will have an opportunity of judging for himself, when he has followed the great chief through the changes of his stormy career.
It would be strange, indeed, if the leader in a religious revolution should have been himself without any religious convictions. One thing is certain, he possessed a spirit of toleration, the more honorable that in that day it was so rare. He condemned the Calvinists as restless and seditious; the Catholics, for their bigoted attachment to a dogma. Persecution in matters of faith he totally condemned, for freedom of judgment in such matters he regarded as the inalienable right of man.[513] These conclusions, at which the world, after an incalculable amount of human suffering, has been three centuries in arriving, (has it altogether arrived at them yet?) must be allowed to reflect great credit on the character of William.
[Sidenote: GROUNDS OF COMPLAINT.]
VI. OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT
Grounds of Complaint.--The Spanish Troops.--The New Bishoprics.--Influence on Granvelle.--Opposed by the Nobles.--His Unpopularity.
1559-1562.
The first cause of trouble, after Philip's departure from the Netherlands, arose from the detention of the Spanish troops there. The king had pledged his word, it will be remembered, that they should leave the country by the end of four months, at farthest. Yet that period had long since passed, and no preparations were made for their departure. The indignation of the people rose higher and higher at the insult thus offered by the presence of these detested foreigners. It was a season of peace. No invasion was threatened from abroad; no insurrection existed at home. There was nothing to require the maintenance of an extraordinary force, much less of one composed of foreign troops. It could only be that the king, distrusting his Flemish subjects, designed to overawe them by his mercenaries, in sufficient strength to enforce his arbitrary acts. The free spirit of the Netherlanders was roused by these suggestions, and they boldly demanded the removal of the Spaniards.
Granvelle himself, who would willingly have pleased his master by retaining a force in the country on which he could rely, admitted that the project was impracticable. "The troops must be withdrawn," he wrote, "and that speedily, or the consequence will be an insurrection."[514] The states would not consent, he said, to furnish the necessary subsidies while they remained. The prince of Orange and Count Egmont threw up the commands intrusted to them by the king. They dared no longer hold them, as the minister added, it was so unpopular.[515]
The troops had much increased the difficulty by their own misconduct. They were drawn from the great mass, often the dregs, of the people; and their morals, such as they were, had not been improved in the life of the camp. However strict their discipline in time of active service, it was greatly relaxed in their present state of inaction; and they had full license, as well as leisure, to indulge their mischievous appetites, at the expense of the unfortunate districts in which they were quartered.
Yet Philip was slow in returning an answer to the importunate letters of the regent and the minister; and when he did reply, it was to evade their request, lamenting his want of funds, and declaring his purpose to remove the forces so soon as he could pay their arrears. The public exchequer was undoubtedly at a low ebb; lower in Spain than in the Netherlands.[516] But no one could believe the royal credit so far reduced as not to be able to provide for the arrears of three or four thousand soldiers. The regent, however, saw that, with or without instructions, it was necessary to act. Several of the members of the council became sureties for the payment of the arrears, and the troops were ordered to Zealand, in order to embark for Spain. But the winds proved unfavorable. Two months longer they were detained, on shore or on board the transports. They soon got into brawls with the workmen employed on the dikes; and the inhabitants, still apprehensive of orders from the king countermanding the departure of the Spaniards, resolved, in such an event, to abandon the dikes, and lay the country under water![517] Fortunately, they were not driven to this extremity. In January, 1561, more than a year after the date assigned by Philip, the nation was relieved of the presence of the intruders.[518]
Philip's conduct in this affair is not very easy to explain. However much he might have desired originally to maintain the troops in the Netherlands, as an armed police on which he could rely to enforce the execution of his orders, it had become clear that the good they might do in quelling an insurrection was more than counterbalanced by the probability of their exciting one. It was characteristic of the king, however, to be slow in retreating from any position he had taken; and, as we shall often have occasion to see, there was a certain apathy or sluggishness in his nature, which led him sometimes to leave events to take their own course, rather than to shape a course for them himself.
This difficulty was no sooner settled, than it was followed by another scarcely less serious. We have seen, in a former chapter, the arrangements made for adding thirteen new bishoprics to the four already existing in the Netherlands. The measure, in itself a good one, and demanded by the situation of the country, was, from the posture of affairs at that time, likely to meet with opposition, if not to occasion great excitement. For this reason, the whole affair had been kept profoundly secret by the government. It was not till 1561 that Philip disclosed his views, in a letter to some of the principal nobles in the council of state. But, long before that time, the project had taken wind, and created a general sensation through the country.
The people looked on it as an attempt to subject them to the same ecclesiastical system which existed in Spain. The bishops, by virtue of their office, were possessed of certain inquisitorial powers, and these were still further enlarged by the provisions of the royal edicts. Philip's attachment to the Inquisition was well understood, and there was probably not a child in the country who had not heard of the auto da fé which he had sanctioned by his presence on his return to his dominions. The present changes were regarded as part of a great scheme for introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.[519] However erroneous these conclusions, there is little reason to doubt they were encouraged by those who knew their fallacy.
[Sidenote: THE NEW BISHOPRICS.]
The nobles had other reasons for opposing the measure. The bishops would occupy in the legislature the place formerly held by the abbots, who were indebted for their election to the religious houses over which they presided. The new prelates, on the contrary, would receive their nomination from the crown; and the nobles saw with alarm their own independence menaced by the accession of an order of men who would naturally be subservient to the interests of the monarch. That the crown was not insensible to these advantages is evident from a letter of the minister, in which he sneers at the abbots, as "men fit only to rule over monasteries, ever willing to thwart the king, and as perverse as the lowest of the people."[520]
But the greatest opposition arose from the manner in which the new dignitaries were to be maintained. This was to be done by suppressing the offices of the abbots, and by appropriating the revenues of their houses to the maintenance of the bishops. For this economical arrangement Granvelle seems to have been chiefly responsible. Thus the income--amounting to fifty thousand ducats--of the Abbey of Afflighen, one of the wealthiest in Brabant, was to be bestowed on the archiepiscopal see of Mechlin, to be held by the minister himself.[521] In virtue of that dignity, Granvelle would become primate of the Netherlands.
Loud was the clamor excited by this arrangement among the members of the religious fraternities, and all those who directly or indirectly had any interest in them. It was a manifest perversion of the funds from the objects for which they had been given to the institutions. It was interfering with the economy of these institutions, protected by the national charters; and the people of Brabant appealed to the "Joyeuse Entrée." Jurists of the greatest eminence, in different parts of Europe, were consulted as to the legality of these proceedings. Thirty thousand florins were expended by Brabant alone in this matter, as well as in employing an agent at the court of Rome to exhibit the true state of the affair to his holiness, and to counteract the efforts of the Spanish government.[522]
The reader may remember, that, just before Philip's departure from the Netherlands, a bull arrived from Rome authorizing the erection of the new bishoprics. This was but the initiatory step. Many other proceedings were necessary before the consummation of the affair. Owing to impediments thrown in the way by the provinces, and the habitual tardiness of the court of Rome, nearly three years elapsed before the final briefs were expedited by Pius the Fourth. New obstacles were raised by the jealous temper of the Flemings, who regarded the whole matter as a conspiracy of the pope and the king against the liberties of the nation. Utrecht, Gueldres, and three other places, refused to receive their bishops; and they never obtained a footing there. Antwerp, which was to have been made an episcopal see, sent a commission to the king to represent the ruin this would bring on its trade, from the connection supposed to exist between the episcopal establishment and the Spanish Inquisition. For a year the king would not condescend to give any heed to the remonstrance. He finally consented to defer the decision of the question till his arrival in the country; and Antwerp was saved from its bishop.[523]
In another place we find the bishop obtaining an admission through the management of Granvelle, who profited by the temporary absence of the nobles. Nowhere were the new prelates received with enthusiasm, but, on the contrary, wherever they were admitted, it was with a coldness and silence that intimated too plainly the aversion of the inhabitants. Such was the case with the archbishop of Mechlin himself, who made his entry into the capital of his diocese with not a voice to cheer or to welcome him.[524] In fact, everywhere the newly elected prelate seemed more like the thief stealthily climbing into the fold, than the good shepherd who had come to guard it.
Meanwhile the odium of these measures fell on the head of the minister. No other man had been so active in enforcing them, and he had the credit universally with the people of having originated the whole scheme, and proposed it to the sovereign. But from this Philip expressly exonerates him in a letter to the regent, in which he says, that the whole plan had been settled long before it was communicated to Granvelle.[525] Indeed, the latter, with some show of reason, demanded whether, being already one of four bishops in the country, he should be likely to recommend a plan which would make him only one of seventeen.[526] This appeal to self-interest did not wholly satisfy those who thought that it was better to be the first of seventeen, than to be merely one of four where all were equal.
Whatever may have been Granvelle's original way of thinking in the matter, it is certain that, whether it arose from his accommodating temper, or from his perceptions of the advantages of the scheme being quickened by his prospect of the primacy, he soon devoted himself, heart as well as hand, to carry out the royal views. "I am convinced," he writes, in the spring of 1560, to Philip's secretary, Perez, "that no measure could be more advantageous to the country, or more necessary for the support of religion; and if necessary to the success of the scheme, I would willingly devote to it my fortune and my life."[527]
[Sidenote: INFLUENCE OF GRANVELLE.]
Accordingly we find him using all his strength to carry the project through, devising expedients for raising the episcopal revenues, and thus occupying a position which exposed him to general obloquy. He felt this bitterly, and at times, even with all his constancy, was hardly able to endure it. "Though I say nothing," he writes in the month of September, 1561, to the Spanish ambassador in Rome, "I feel the danger of the situation in which the king has placed me. All the odium of these measures falls on my head; and I only pray that a remedy for the evil may be found, though it should be by the sacrifice of myself. Would to God the erection of these bishoprics had never been thought of!"[528]
In February, 1561, Granvelle received a cardinal's hat from Pope Pius the Fourth. He did not show the alacrity usually manifested in accepting this distinguished honor. He had obtained it by the private intercession of the duchess of Parma; and he feared lest the jealousy of Philip might be alarmed, were it to any other than himself that his minister owed this distinction. But the king gave the proceeding his cordial sanction, declaring to Granvelle that the reward was no higher than his desert.
Thus clothed with the Roman purple, primate of the Netherlands, and first minister of state, Granvelle might now look down on the proudest noble in the land. He stood at the head of both the civil and the ecclesiastical administration of the country. All authority centred in his person. Indeed, such had been the organization of the council of state, that the minister might be said to be not so much the head of the government as the government itself.
The affairs of the council were conducted in the manner prescribed by Philip. Ordinary business passed through the hands of the whole body; but affairs of moment were reserved for the cardinal and his two coadjutors to settle with the regent. On such occasions the other ministers were not even summoned, or, if summoned, such only of the despatches from Spain as the minister chose to communicate were read, and the remainder reserved for the consulta. When, as did sometimes happen, the nobles carried a measure in opposition to Granvelle, he would refer the whole question to the court at Madrid.[529] By this expedient he gained time for the present, and probably obtained a decision in his favor at last. The regent conformed entirely to the cardinal's views. The best possible understanding seems to have subsisted between them, to judge from the tone of their correspondence with Philip, in which each of the parties bestows the most unqualified panegyric on the other. Yet there was a strange reserve in their official intercourse. Even when occupying the same palace, they are said to have communicated with each other by writing.[530] The reason suggested for this singular proceeding is, that it might not appear, from their being much together, that the regent was acting so entirely under the direction of the minister. It is certain that both Margaret and Granvelle had an uncommon passion for letter-writing, as is shown by the length and number of their epistles, particularly to the king. The cardinal especially went into a gossiping minuteness of detail, to which few men in his station would have condescended. But his master, to whom his letters at this period were chiefly addressed, had the virtue of patience in an extraordinary degree, as is evinced by the faithful manner in which he perused these despatches, and made notes upon them with his own hand.
The minister occupied a palace in Brussels, and had another residence at a short distance from the capital.[531] He maintained great pomp in his establishment, was attended by a large body of retainers, and his equipage and liveries were distinguished by their magnificence. He gave numerous banquets, held large levées, and, in short, assumed a state in his manner of living which corresponded with his station, and did no violence to his natural taste. We may well believe that the great lords of the country, whose ancestors had for centuries filled its highest places, must have chafed as they saw themselves thrown into the shade by one whose fortunes had been thus suddenly forced to this unnatural height by the sunshine of royal favor. Their indignation was heightened by the tricky arrangement, which, while it left them ciphers in the administration, made them responsible to the people for its measures. And if the imputation to Granvelle of arrogance, in the pride of his full-blown fortunes, was warranted, feelings of a personal nature may have mingled with those of general discontent.
But, however they may have felt, the Flemish lords must be allowed not to have been precipitate in the demonstration of their feelings. It is not till 1562 that we observe the cardinal, in his correspondence with Spain, noticing any discourtesy in the nobles, or intimating the existence of any misunderstanding with them. In the spring of the preceding year we find the prince of Orange "commending himself cordially and affectionately to the cardinal's good will;" and subscribing himself, "your very good friend to command."[532] In four months after this, on the twenty-third of July, we have a letter from this "very good friend" and count Egmont, addressed to Philip. In this epistle the writers complain bitterly of their exclusion from all business of importance in the council of state. They were only invited to take part in deliberations of no moment. This was contrary to the assurance of his majesty when they reluctantly accepted office; and it was in obedience to his commands to advise him if this should occur that they now wrote to him.[533] Nevertheless, they should have still continued to bear the indignity in silence, had they not found that they were held responsible by the people for measures in which they had no share.[534]--Considering the arrangement Philip had made for the consulta, one has little reason to commend his candor in this transaction, and not much to praise his policy. As he did not redress the evil, his implied disavowal of being privy to it would hardly go for anything with the injured party. In his answer, Philip thanked the nobles for their zeal in his service, and promised to reply to them more at large on the return of Count Hoorne to Flanders.[535]
There is no reason to suppose that Granvelle was ever acquainted with the fact of the letter having been written by the two lords. The privilege claimed by the novelist, who looks over the shoulders of his heroes and heroines when they are inditing their epistles, is also enjoyed by the historian. With the materials rescued from the mouldering archives of the past, he can present the reader with a more perfect view of the motives and opinions of the great actors in the drama three centuries ago, than they possessed in respect to one another. This is particularly true of the period before us, when the correspondence of the parties interested was ample in itself, and, through the care taken of it, in public and private collections, has been well preserved. Such care was seldom bestowed on historical documents of this class before the sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: OPPOSED BY THE NOBLES.]
It is not till long--nearly a year--after the date of the preceding letter, that anything appears to intimate the existence of a coldness, much less of an open rupture, between Granvelle and the discontented nobles. Meanwhile, the religious troubles in France had been fast gathering to a head; and the opposite factions ranged themselves under the banners of their respective chiefs, prepared to decide the question by arms. Philip the Second, who stood forth as the champion of Catholicism, not merely in his own dominions, but throughout Christendom, watched with anxiety the struggle going forward in the neighboring kingdom. It had the deeper interest for him, from its influence on the Low Countries. His Italian possessions were separated from France by the Alps; his Spanish, by the Pyrenees. But no such mountain barrier lay between France and Flanders. They were not even separated, in the border provinces, by difference of language. Every shock given to France must necessarily be felt in the remotest corner of the Netherlands. Granvelle was so well aware of this, that he besought the king to keep an eye on his French neighbors, and support them in the maintenance of the Roman Catholic religion. "That they should be maintained in this is quite as important to us as it is to them. Many here," he adds, "would be right glad to see affairs go badly for the Catholics in that kingdom. No noble as yet among us has openly declared himself. Should any one do so, God only could save the country from the fate of France."[536]
Acting on these hints, and conformably to his own views, Philip sent orders to the regent to raise two thousand men, and send them across the borders to support the French Catholics. The orders met with decided resistance in the council of state. The great Flemish lords, at this time, must have affected, if they did not feel, devotion to the established religion. But they well knew there was too large a leaven of heresy in the country to make these orders palatable. They felt no desire, moreover, thus unnecessarily to mix themselves up with the feuds of France. They represented that the troops could not safely be dispensed with in the present state of feeling at home; and that, if they marched against the Protestants of France, the German Protestants might be expected to march against them.
Granvelle, on the other hand, would have enforced the orders of Philip, as essential to the security of the Netherlands themselves. Margaret, thus pressed by the opposite parties, felt the embarrassment of either course. The alternative presented was, that of disobeying the king, or of incurring the resentment, perhaps the resistance, of the nation. Orange and Egmont besought her to convoke the states-general, as the only safe counsellors in such an emergency. The states had often been convened on matters of less moment by the former regent, Mary of Hungary. But the cardinal had no mind to invoke the interference of that "mischievous animal, the people."[537] He had witnessed a convocation of the states previous to the embarkation of Philip; and he had not forgotten the independent tone then assumed by that body. It had been, indeed, the last injunction of the king to his sister, on no account to call a meeting of the national legislature till his return to the country.
But while on this ground Margaret refused to summon the states-general, she called a meeting of the order of the Golden Fleece, to whom she was to apply for counsel on extraordinary occasions. The knights of the order consisted of persons of the highest consideration in the country, including the governors of the provinces. In May, 1562, they assembled at Brussels. Before meeting in public, the prince of Orange invited them to a conference in his own palace. He there laid before them the state of the country, and endeavored to concert with the members some regular system of resistance to the exclusive and arbitrary course of the minister. Although no definite action took place at that time, most of those present would seem to have fallen in with the views of the prince. There were some, however, who took opposite ground, and who declared themselves content with Granvelle, and not disposed to prescribe to their sovereign the choice of his ministers. The foremost of these were the duke of Arschot, a zealous Catholic, and Count Barlaimont, president of the council of finance, and, as we have already seen, altogether devoted to the minister. This nobleman communicated to Margaret the particulars of the meeting in the prince's palace; and the regent was careful to give the knights of the order such incessant occupation during the remainder of their stay in the capital, as to afford the prince of Orange no opportunity of pursuing his scheme of agitation.[538]
Before the assembly of the Golden Fleece had been dissolved, it was decided to send an envoy to the king to lay before him the state of the country, both in regard to the religious excitement, much stimulated in certain quarters by the condition of France, and to the financial embarrassments, which now pressed heavily on the government. The person selected for the office was Florence de Montmorency, lord of Montigny, a cavalier who had the boldness to avow his aversion to any interference with the rights of conscience, and whose sympathies, it will be believed, were not on the side of the minister.
Soon after his departure, the vexed question of aid to France was settled in the council by commuting personal service for money. It was decided to raise a subsidy of fifty thousand crowns, to be remitted at once to the French government.[539]
Montigny reached Spain in June, 1562. He was graciously received by Philip, who, in a protracted audience, gathered from him a circumstantial account of the condition of the Netherlands. In answer to the royal queries, the envoy also exposed the misunderstanding which existed between the minister and the nobles.
But the duchess of Parma did not trust this delicate affair to the representations of Montigny. She wrote herself to her brother, in Italian, which, when she would give her own views on matters of importance, she used instead of French, ordinarily employed by the secretaries. In Italian she expressed herself with the greatest fluency, and her letters in that language, for the purpose of secrecy, were written with her own hand.
[Sidenote: OPPOSED BY THE NOBLES.]
The duchess informed the king of the troubles that had arisen with the nobles; charging Orange and Egmont, especially, as the source of them. She accused them of maliciously circulating rumors that the cardinal had advised Philip to invade the country with an armed force, and to cut off the heads of some five or six of the principal malecontents.[540] She paid a high tribute to the minister's loyalty, and his talent for business; and she besought the king to disabuse Montigny in respect to the common idea of a design to introduce the Spanish Inquisition into the country, and to do violence to its institutions.
The war was now openly proclaimed between the cardinal and the nobles. Whatever decorum might be preserved in their intercourse, there was no longer any doubt as to the hostile attitude in which they were hereafter to stand in respect to each other. In a letter written a short time previous to that of the regent, the cardinal gives a brief view of his situation to the king. The letter is written in the courageous spirit of one who does not shrink from the dangers that menace him. After an observation intimating no great confidence in the orthodoxy of the prince of Orange, he remarks: "Though the prince shows me a friendly face, when absent he is full of discontent. They have formed a league against me," he continues, "and threaten my life. But I have little fear on that score, as I think they are much too wise to attempt any such thing. They complain of my excluding them from office, and endeavoring to secure an absolute authority for your majesty. All which they repeat openly at their banquets, with no good effect on the people. Yet never were there governors of the provinces who possessed so much power as they have, or who had all appointments more completely in their own hands. In truth, their great object is to reduce your majesty and the regent to the condition of mere ciphers in the government."
"They refuse to come to my table," he adds, "at which I smile. I find guests enough in the gentry of the country, the magistrates, and even the worthy burghers of the city, whose good-will it is well to conciliate against a day of trouble. These evils I bear with patience, as I can. For adversity is sent by the Almighty, who will recompense those who suffer for religion and justice." The cardinal was fond of regarding himself in the light of a martyr.
He concludes this curious epistle with beseeching the king to come soon to the Netherlands; "to come well attended, and with plenty of money; since, thus provided, he will have no lack of troops, if required to act abroad, while his presence will serve to calm the troubled spirits at home."[541] The politic minister says nothing of the use that might be made of these troops at home. Such an intimation would justify the charges already brought against him. He might safely leave his master to make that application for himself.
In December, 1562, Montigny returned from his mission, and straightway made his report to the council of state. He enlarged on the solicitude which Philip had shown for the interests of the country. Nothing had been further from his mind than to introduce into it the Spanish Inquisition. He was only anxious to exterminate the growing heresy from the land, and called on those in authority to aid in the good work with all their strength. Finally, though pressed by want of funds, he promised, so soon as he could settle his affairs in Spain, to return to Flanders.--It was not unusual for Philip to hold out the idea of his speedy return to the country. The king's gracious reception seems to have had some effect on Montigny. At all events, he placed a degree of confidence in the royal professions, in which the sceptical temper of William was far from acquiescing. He intimated as much to his friend, and the latter, not relishing the part of a dupe, which the prince's language seemed to assign to him, retorted in an angry manner; and something like altercation took place between the two lords, in the presence of the duchess. At least, such is the report of the historians.[542] But historians in a season of faction are not the best authorities. In the troubles before us we have usually a safer guide in the correspondence of the actors.
By Montigny despatches were also brought from Philip for the duchess of Parma. They contained suggestions as to her policy in reference to the factious nobles, whom the king recommended to her, if possible, to divide by sowing the seeds of jealousy among them.[543] Egmont was a stanch Catholic, loyal in his disposition, ambitious, and vain. It would not be difficult to detach him from his associates by a show of preference, which, while it flattered his vanity, would excite in them jealousy and distrust.
In former times there had been something of these feelings betwixt Egmont and the prince of Orange. At least there had been estrangement. This might, in some degree, be referred to the contrast in their characters. Certainly no two characters could be more strongly contrasted with each other. Egmont, frank, fiery, impulsive in his temper, had little in common with the cool, cautious, and calculating William. The showy qualities of the former, lying on the surface, more readily caught the popular eye. There was a depth in William's character not easy to be fathomed,--an habitual reserve, which made it difficult even for those who knew him best always to read him right. Yet the coolness between these two nobles may have arisen less from difference of character than from similarity of position. Both, by their rank and services, took the foremost ground in public estimation, so that it was scarcely possible they should not jostle each other in the career of ambition. But however divided formerly, they were now too closely united by the pressure of external circumstances to be separated by the subtle policy of Philip. Under the influence of a common disgust with the administration and its arbitrary measures, they continued to act in concert together, and, in their union, derived benefit from the very opposition of their characters. For what better augury of success than that afforded by the union of wisdom in council with boldness in execution?
The consequences of the troubles in France, as had been foreseen, were soon visible in the Low Countries. The Protestants of that time constituted a sort of federative republic, or rather a great secret association, extending through the different parts of Europe, but so closely linked together that a blow struck in one quarter instantly vibrated to every other. The Calvinists in the border provinces of the Low Countries felt, in particular, great sympathy with the movements of their French brethren. Many Huguenots took shelter among them. Others came to propagate their doctrines. Tracts in the French tongue were distributed and read with avidity. Preachers harangued in the conventicles; and the people, by hundreds and thousands, openly assembled, and, marching in procession, chanted the Psalms of David in the translation of Marot.[544]
[Sidenote: RESISTANCE TO THE EDICTS.]
This open defiance of the edicts called for the immediate interposition of the government. At Tournay two Calvinist preachers were arrested, and, after a regular trial, condemned and burned at the stake. In Valenciennes two others were seized, in like manner, tried, and sentenced to the same terrible punishment. But as the marquis of Bergen, the governor of the province, had left the place on a visit to a distant quarter, the execution was postponed till his return. Seven months thus passed, when the regent wrote to the marquis, remonstrating on his unseasonable absence from his post. He had the spirit to answer, that "it neither suited his station nor his character to play the part of an executioner."[545] The marquis of Bergen had early ranged himself on the side of the prince of Orange, and he is repeatedly noticed by Granvelle, in his letters, as the most active of the malecontents. It may well be believed he was no friend to the system of persecution pursued by the government. Urged by Granvelle, the magistrates of the city at length assumed the office of conducting the execution themselves. On the day appointed, the two martyrs were escorted to the stake. The funeral pile was prepared, and the torch was about to be applied, when, at a signal from one of the prisoners, the multitude around broke in upon the place of execution, trampled down the guards and officers of justice, scattered the fagots collected for the sacrifice, and liberated the victims. Then, throwing themselves into a procession, they paraded the streets of the city, singing their psalms and Calvinistic hymns.
Meanwhile the officers of justice succeeded in again arresting the unfortunate men, and carrying them back to prison. But it was not long before their friends, assembling in greater numbers than before, stormed the fortress, forced the gates, and, rescuing the prisoners, carried them off in triumph.
These high-handed measures caused, as may be supposed, great indignation at the court of the regent. She instantly ordered a levy of three thousand troops, and, placing them under the marquis of Bergen, sent them against the insurgents. The force was such as to overcome all resistance. Arrests were made in great numbers, and the majesty of the law was vindicated by the trial and punishment of the ringleaders.[546]
"Rigorous and severe measures," wrote Philip, "are the only ones to be employed in matters of religion. It is by fear only that the rabble"--meaning by this the Reformers--"can be made to do their duty, and not always then."[547] This liberal sentiment found less favor in the Low Countries than in Spain. "One must ponder well," writes the cardinal to Perez, the royal secretary, "before issuing those absolute decrees, which are by no means as implicitly received here as they are in Italy."[548] The Fleming appealed to his laws, and, with all the minister's zeal, it was found impossible to move forward at the fiery pace of the Spanish Inquisition.
"It would raise a tumult at once," he writes, "should we venture to arrest a man without the clearest evidence. No man can be proceeded against without legal proof."[549] But an insurmountable obstacle in the way of enforcing the cruel edicts lay in the feelings of the nation. No law repugnant to such feelings can long be executed. "I accuse none of the nobles of being heretics," writes the regent to her brother; "but they show little zeal in the cause of religion, while the magistrates shrink from their duty from fear of the people."[550] "How absurd is it," exclaims Granvelle, "for depositions to be taken before the Inquisition in Spain, in order to search out heretics in Antwerp, where thousands are every day walking about whom no one meddles with!"[551] "It is more than a year," he says, "since a single arrest on a charge of heresy has taken place in that city."[552] Yet whatever may have been the state of persecution at the present time, the vague dread of the future must have taken strong hold of people's minds, if, as a contemporary writes, there were no less than eighteen or twenty thousand refugees then in England, who had fled from Flanders for the sake of their religion.[553]
The odium of this persecution all fell on the head of Granvelle. He was the tool of Spain. Spain was under the yoke of the Inquisition. Therefore it was clearly the minister's design to establish the Spanish Inquisition over the Netherlands. Such was the concise logic by which people connected the name of Granvelle with that of the most dreaded of tribunals.[554] He was held responsible for the contrivance of the most unpopular measures of government, as well as for their execution. A thousand extravagant stories were circulated both of his private and his political life, which it is probably doing no injustice to the nobles to suppose they did not take much pains to correct. The favorite of the prince is rarely the favorite of the people. But no minister had ever been so unpopular as Granvelle in the Netherlands. He was hated by the nobles for his sudden elevation to power, and for the servile means, as they thought, by which he had risen to it. The people hated him, because he used that power for the ruin of their liberties. No administration--none certainly, if we except that of the iron Alva--was more odious to the nation.
[Sidenote: LEAGUE AGAINST GRANVELLE.]
Notwithstanding Granvelle's constancy, and the countenance he received from the regent and a few of the leading councillors, it was hard to bear up under this load of obloquy. He would gladly have had the king return to the country, and sustain him by his presence. It is the burden of his correspondence at this period. "It is a common notion here," he writes to the secretary, Perez, "that they are all ready in Spain to sacrifice the Low Countries. The lords talk so freely, that every moment I fear an insurrection.... For God's sake, persuade the king to come, or it will lie heavy on his conscience."[555] The minister complains to the secretary that he seems to be entirely abandoned by the government at home. "It is three months," he writes, "since I have received a letter from the court. We know as little of Spain here as of the Indies. Such delays are dangerous, and may cost the king dear."[556]--It is clear his majesty exercised his royal prerogative of having the correspondence all on one side. At least his own share in it, at this period, was small, and his letters were concise indeed in comparison with the voluminous epistles of his minister. Perhaps there was some policy in this silence of the monarch. His opinions, nay, his wishes, would have, to some extent, the weight of laws. He would not, therefore, willingly commit himself. He preferred to conform to his natural tendency to trust to the course of events, instead of disturbing them by too precipitate action. The cognomen by which Philip is recognized on the roll of Castilian princes is "the Prudent."
VII. GRANVELLE COMPELLED TO WITHDRAW
League against Granvelle.--Margaret desires his Removal.--Philip deliberates.--Granvelle dismissed.--Leaves the Netherlands.
1562-1564.
While the state of feeling towards Granvelle, in the nation generally, was such as is described in the preceding chapter, the lords who were in the council of state chafed more and more under their exclusion from business. As the mask was now thrown away, they no longer maintained the show of deference which they had hitherto paid to the minister. From opposition to his measures, they passed to irony, ridicule, sarcasm; till, finding that their assaults had little effect to disturb Granvelle's temper, and still less to change his policy, they grew at length less and less frequent in their attendance at the council, where they played so insignificant a part. This was a sore embarrassment to the regent, who needed the countenance of the great nobles to protect her with the nation, in the unpopular measures in which she was involved.
Even Granvelle, with all his equanimity, considered the crisis so grave as to demand some concession, or at least a show of it, on his own part, to conciliate the good-will of his enemies. He authorized the duchess to say that he was perfectly willing that they should be summoned to the consulta, and to absent himself from its meetings; indeed, to resign the administration altogether, provided the king approved of it.[557] Whether Margaret communicated this to the nobles does not appear; at all events, as nothing came of these magnanimous concessions of the minister, they had no power to soothe the irritation of his enemies.[558]
On the contrary, the disaffected lords were bending their efforts to consolidate their league, of which Granvelle, it may be recollected, noticed the existence in a letter of the preceding year. We now find the members binding themselves to each other by an oath of secrecy.[559] The persons who formed this confederacy were the governors of the provinces, the knights of the Golden Fleece, and, in short, most of the aristocracy of any consideration in the country. It seemed impossible that any minister could stand against such a coalition, resting, moreover, on the sympathies of the people. This formidable association, seeing that all attempts to work on the cardinal were ineffectual, resolved at length to apply directly to the king for his removal. They stated that, knowing the heavy cares which pressed on his majesty, they had long dissembled and kept silence, rather than aggravate these cares by their complaints. If they now broke this silence, it was from a sense of duty to the king, and to save the country from ruin. They enlarged on the lamentable condition of affairs, which, without specifying any particular charges, they imputed altogether to the cardinal, or rather to the position in which he stood in reference to the nation. It was impossible, they said, that the business of the country could prosper, where the minister who directed it was held in such general detestation by the people. They earnestly implored the king to take immediate measures for removing an evil which menaced the speedy ruin of the land. And they concluded with begging that they might be allowed to resign their seats in the council of state, where, in the existing state of affairs, their presence could be of no service.--This letter, dated the eleventh of March, 1563, was signed, on behalf of the coalition, by three lords who had places in the council of state,--the prince of Orange, Count Egmont, and Count Hoorne.[560]
The last nobleman was of an ancient and most honorable lineage. He held the high office of admiral of the Netherlands, and had been governor both of Zütphen and of Gueldres. He accompanied Philip to Spain, and during his absence the province of Gueldres was transferred to another, Count Megen, for which Hoorne considered that he was indebted to the good offices of the cardinal. On his return to his own country, he at once enrolled himself in the ranks of the opposition. He was a man of indisputable bravery, of a quick and impatient temper; one, on the whole, who seems to have been less indebted for his celebrity to his character, than to the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed.
On the day previous to this despatch of the nobles, we find a letter to the king from Granvelle, who does not seem to have been ignorant of what was doing by the lords. He had expostulated with them, he tells Philip, on the disloyalty of their conduct in thus banding against the government,--a proceeding which in other times might have subjected them to a legal prosecution.[561] He mentions no one by name except Egmont, whom he commends as more tractable and open to reason than his confederates. He was led away by evil counsellors, and Granvelle expresses the hope that he will one day open his eyes to his errors, and return to his allegiance.
[Sidenote: LEAGUE AGAINST GRANVELLE.]
It is difficult to conceive the detestation, he goes on to say, in which the Spaniards are held by the nation. The Spaniards only, it was everywhere said, were regarded by the court of Madrid as the lawful children; the Flemings, as illegitimate.[562] It was necessary to do away this impression to place the Flemings on the same footing with the Spaniards; to give them lucrative appointments, for they greatly needed them, in Spain or in Italy; and it might not be amiss to bestow the viceroyalty of Sicily on the prince of Orange.--Thus, by the same act, the politic minister would both reward his rivals and remove them from the country. But he greatly misunderstood the character of William, if he thought in this way to buy him off from the opposition.
It was four months before the confederates received an answer; during which time affairs continued to wear the same gloomy aspect as before. At length came the long-expected epistle from the monarch, dated on the sixth of June. It was a brief one. Philip thanked the lords for their zeal and devotion to his service. After well considering the matter, however, he had not found any specific ground of complaint alleged, to account for the advice given him to part with his minister. The king hoped before long to visit the Low Countries in person. Meanwhile, he should be glad to see any one of the nobles in Spain, to learn from him the whole state of the affair; as it was not his wont to condemn his ministers without knowing the grounds on which they were accused.[563]
The fact that the lords had not specified any particular subject of complaint against the cardinal gave the king an obvious advantage in the correspondence. It seemed to be too much to expect his immediate dismissal of the minister, on the vague pretext of his unpopularity, without a single instance of misconduct being alleged against him. Yet this was the position in which the enemies of Granvelle necessarily found themselves. The minister acted by the orders of the king. To have assailed the minister's acts, therefore, would have been to attack the king himself. Egmont, some time after this, with even more frankness than usual, is said to have declared at table to a friend of the cardinal, that "the blow was aimed not so much at the minister as at the monarch."[564]
The discontent of the lords at receiving this laconic epistle may be imagined. They were indignant that so little account should be made of their representations, and that both they and the country should be sacrificed to the king's partiality for his minister. The three lords waited on the regent, and extorted from her a reluctant consent to assemble the knights of the order, and to confer with them and the other nobles as to the course to be taken.
It was there decided that the lords should address a second letter, in the name of the whole body, to Philip, and henceforth should cease to attend the council of state.[565]
In this letter, which bears the date of July the twenty-ninth, they express their disappointment that his majesty had not come to a more definite resolution, when prompt and decisive measures could alone save the country from ruin. They excuse themselves from visiting Spain in the critical state of affairs at home. At another time, and for any other purpose, did the king desire it, they would willingly do so. But it was not their design to appear as accusers, and institute a process against the minister. They had hoped their own word in such an affair would have sufficed with his majesty. It was not the question whether the minister was to be condemned, but whether he was to be removed from an office for which he was in no respect qualified.[566] They had hoped their attachment and tried fidelity to the crown would have made it superfluous for them to go into a specification of charges. These, indeed, could be easily made, but the discontent and disorder which now reigned throughout the country were sufficient evidence of the minister's incapacity.[567]
They stated that they had acquainted the regent with their intention to absent themselves in future from the council, where their presence could be no longer useful; and they trusted this would receive his majesty's sanction. They expressed their determination loyally and truly to discharge every trust reposed in them by the government; and they concluded by apologizing for the homely language of their epistle,--for they were no haranguers or orators, but men accustomed to act rather than to talk, as was suited to persons of their quality.[568]--This last shaft was doubtless aimed at the cardinal.--The letter was signed by the same triumvirate as the former. The abstract here given does no justice to the document, which is of considerable length, and carefully written. The language is that of men who to the habitual exercise of authority united a feeling of self-respect, which challenged the respect of their opponents. Such were not the men to be cajoled or easily intimidated. It was the first time that Philip had been addressed in this lofty tone by his great vassals. It should have opened his eyes to the condition and the character of his subjects in the Netherlands.
The coalition drew up, at the same time, an elaborate "remonstrance," which they presented to Margaret. In it they set forth the various disorders of the country, especially those growing out of the state of religion and the embarrassment of the finances. The only remedy for these evils is to be found in a meeting of the states-general. The king's prohibition of this measure must have proceeded, no doubt, from the evil counsels of persons hostile to the true interests of the nation. As their services can be of little use while they are thus debarred from a resort to their true and only remedy in their embarrassments, they trust the regent will not take it amiss, that, so long as the present policy is pursued, they decline to take their seats in the council of state, to be merely shadows there, as they have been for the last four years.[569]
[Sidenote: MARGARET DESIRES HIS REMOVAL.]
From this period the malecontent lords no more appeared in council. The perplexity of Margaret was great. Thus abandoned by the nobles in whom the country had the greatest confidence, she was left alone, as it were, with the man whom the country held in the greatest abhorrence. She had long seen with alarm the storm gathering round the devoted head of the minister. To attempt alone to uphold his falling fortunes would be probably to bury herself in their ruins. In her extremity, she appealed to the confederates, and, since she could not divide them, endeavored to divert them from their opposition. They, on the other hand, besought the regent no longer to connect herself with the desperate cause of a minister so odious to the country. Possibly they infused into her mind some suspicions of the subordinate part she was made to play, through the overweening ambition of the cardinal. At all events, an obvious change took place in her conduct, and while she deferred less and less to Granvelle, she entered into more friendly relations with his enemies. This was especially the case with Egmont, whose frank and courteous hearing and loyal disposition seem to have won greatly on the esteem of the duchess.
Satisfied, at last, that it would be impracticable to maintain the government much longer on its present basis, Margaret resolved to write to her brother on the subject, and at the same time to send her confidential secretary, Armenteros, to Spain, to acquaint the king with the precise state of affairs in the Netherlands.[570]
After enlarging on the disorders and difficulties of the country, the duchess came to the quarrel between the cardinal and the nobles. She had made every effort to reconcile the parties; but that was impossible. She was fully sensible of the merits of Granvelle, his high capacity, his experience in public affairs, his devotion to the interests both of the king and of religion.[571] But, on the other hand, to maintain him in the Netherlands, in opposition to the will of the nobles, was to expose the country, not merely to great embarrassments, but to the danger of insurrection.[572] The obligations of the high place which she occupied compelled her to lay the true state of the case before the king, and he would determine the course to be pursued.--With this letter, bearing the date of August twelfth, and fortified with ample instructions from the duchess, Armenteros was forthwith despatched on his mission to Spain.
It was not long before the state of feeling in the cabinet of Brussels was known, or at least surmised, throughout the country. It was the interest of some of the parties that it should not be kept secret. The cardinal, thus abandoned by his friends, became a more conspicuous mark for the shafts of his enemies. Libels, satires, pasquinades, were launched against him from every quarter. Such fugitive pieces, like the insect which dies when it has left its sting, usually perish with the occasion that gives them birth. But some have survived to the present day, or at least were in existence at the close of the last century, and are much commended by a critic for the merits of their literary execution.[573]
It was the custom, at the period of our narrative, for the young people to meet in the towns and villages, and celebrate what were called "academic games," consisting of rhetorical discussions on the various topics of the day, sometimes of a theological or a political character. Public affairs furnished a fruitful theme at this crisis; and the cardinal, in particular, was often roughly handled. It was in vain the government tried to curb this licence. It only served to stimulate the disputants to new displays of raillery and ridicule.[574]
Granvelle, it will be readily believed, was not slow to perceive his loss of credit with the regent, and the more intimate relations into which she had entered with his enemies. But whatever he may have felt, he was too proud or too politic to betray his mortification to the duchess. Thus discredited by all but an insignificant party, who were branded as the "Cardinalists," losing influence daily with the regent, at open war with the nobles, and hated by the people, never was there a minister in so forlorn a situation, or one who was able to maintain his post a day in such circumstances. Yet Granvelle did not lose heart; as others failed him, he relied the more on himself; and the courage which he displayed, when thus left alone, as it were, to face the anger of the nation, might have well commanded the respect of his enemies. He made no mean concession to secure the support of the nobles, or to recover the favor of the regent. He did not shrink from the dangers or the responsibilities of his station; though the latter, at least, bore heavily on him. Speaking of the incessant pressure of his cares, he writes to his correspondent, Perez, "My hairs have turned so white you would not recognize me."[575] He was then but forty-six. On one occasion, indeed, we do find him telling the king, that, "if his majesty does not soon come to the Netherlands, he must withdraw from them."[576] This seems to have been a sudden burst of feeling, as it was a solitary one, forced from him by the extremity of his situation. It was much more in character that he wrote afterwards to the secretary, Perez: "I am so beset with dangers on every side, that most people give me up for lost. But I mean to live as long, by the grace of God, as I can; and if they do take away my life, I trust they will not gain everything for all that."[577] He nowhere intimates a wish to be recalled. Nor would his ambition allow him to resign the helm; but the fiercer the tempest raged, the more closely did he cling to the wreck of his fortunes.
The arrival of Armenteros with the despatches, and the tidings that he brought, caused a great sensation in the court of Madrid. "We are on the eve of a terrible conflagration," writes one of the secretaries of Philip; "and they greatly err who think it will pass away as formerly." He expresses the wish that Granvelle would retire from the country, where, he predicts, they would soon wish his return. "But ambition," he adds, "and the point of honor are alike opposed to this. Nor does the king desire it."[578]
Yet it was not easy to say what the king did desire,--certainly not what course he would pursue. He felt a natural reluctance to abandon the minister, whose greatest error seemed to be that of too implicit an obedience to his master's commands. He declared he would rather risk the loss of the Netherlands than abandon him.[579] Yet how was that minister to be maintained in his place, in opposition to the will of the nation? In this perplexity, Philip applied for counsel to the man in whom he most confided,--the duke of Alva; the very worst counsellor possible in the present emergency.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S LETTER TO GRANVELLE.]
The duke's answer was eminently characteristic of the man. "When I read the letters of these lords," he says, "I am so filled with rage, that, did I not make an effort to suppress it, my language would appear to you that of a madman."[580] After this temperate exordium, he recommends the king on no account to remove Granvelle from the administration of the Netherlands. "It is a thing of course," he says, "that the cardinal should be the first victim. A rebellion against the prince naturally begins with an attack on his ministers. It would be better," he continues, "if all could be brought at once to summary justice. Since that cannot be, it may be best to divide the nobles; to win over Egmont and those who follow him by favors; to show displeasure to those who are the least offenders. For the greater ones, who deserve to lose their heads, your majesty will do well to dissemble, until you can give them their deserts."[581]
Part of this advice the king accepted; for to dissemble did no violence to his nature. But the more he reflected on the matter, the more he was satisfied that it would be impossible to retain the obnoxious minister in his place. Yet when he had come to this decision, he still shrunk from announcing it. Months passed, and yet Armenteros, who was to carry back the royal despatches, was still detained at Madrid. It seemed as if Philip here, as on other occasions of less moment, was prepared to leave events to take their own course, rather than direct them himself.
Early in January, 1564, the duchess of Parma admonished her brother that the lords chafed much under his long silence. It was a common opinion, she said, that he cared little for Flanders, and that he was under the influence of evil counsellors, who would persuade him to deal with the country as a conquered province. She besought him to answer the letter of the nobles, and especially to write in affectionate terms to Count Egmont, who well deserved this for the zeal he had always shown for his sovereign's interests.[582]
One is struck with the tone in which the regent here speaks of one of the leaders of the opposition, so little in unison with her former language. It shows how completely she was now under their influence. In truth, however, we see constantly, both in her letters and those of the cardinal, a more friendly tone of feeling towards Egmont than to either of his associates. On the score of orthodoxy in matters of religion he was unimpeachable. His cordial manners, his free and genial temper, secured the sympathy of all with whom he came in contact. It was a common opinion, that it would not be difficult to detach him from the party of malecontents with whom his lot was cast. Such were not the notions entertained of the prince of Orange.
In a letter from Granvelle to Philip, without a date, but written perhaps about this period,[583] we have portraits, or rather outlines, of the two great leaders of the opposition, touched with a masterly hand. Egmont he describes as firm in his faith, loyally disposed, but under the evil influence of William. It would not be difficult to win him over by flattery and favors.[584] The prince, on the other hand, is a cunning and dangerous enemy, of profound views, boundless ambition, difficult to change, and impossible to control.[585] In the latter character we see the true leader of the revolution.
Disgusted with the indifference of the king, shown in his long-protracted silence, the nobles, notwithstanding the regent's remonstrances, sent orders to their courier, who had been waiting in Madrid for the royal despatches, to wait no longer, but return without them to the Netherlands.[586] Fortunately Philip now moved, and at the close of January, 1564, sent back Armenteros with his instructions to Brussels. The most important of them was a letter of dismissal to the cardinal himself. It was very short. "On considering what you write," said the king, "I deem it best that you should leave the Low Countries for some days, and go to Burgundy to see your mother, with the consent of the duchess of Parma. In this way, both my authority and your own reputation will be preserved."[587]
It has been a matter of dispute how far the resignation of the cardinal was voluntary. The recent discovery of this letter of Philip determines that question.[588] It was by command of the sovereign. Yet that command was extorted by necessity, and so given as best to save the feelings and the credit of the minister. Neither party anticipated that Granvelle's absence would continue for a long time, much less that his dismissal was final. Even when inditing the letter to the cardinal, Philip cherished the hope that the necessity for his departure might be avoided altogether. This appears from the despatches sent at the same time to the regent.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S LETTER TO GRANVELLE.]
Shortly after his note to Granvelle, on the nineteenth of February, Philip wrote an answer to the lords in all the tone of offended majesty. He expressed his astonishment that they should have been led, by any motive whatever, to vacate their seats at the council, where he had placed them.[589] They would not fail to return there at once, and show that they preferred the public weal to all private considerations.[590] As for the removal of the minister, since they had not been pleased to specify any charges against him, the king would deliberate further before deciding on the matter. Thus, three weeks after Philip had given the cardinal his dismissal, did he write to his enemies as if the matter were still in abeyance; hoping, it would seem, by the haughty tone of authority, to rebuke the spirit of the refractory nobles, and intimidate them into a compliance with his commands. Should this policy succeed, the cardinal might still hold the helm of government.[591]
But Philip had not yet learned that he was dealing with men who had little of that spirit of subserviency to which he was accustomed in his Castilian vassals. The peremptory tone of his letter fired the blood of the Flemish lords, who at once waited on the regent, and announced their purpose not to reënter the council. The affair was not likely to end here; and Margaret saw with alarm the commotion that would be raised when the letter of the king should be laid before the whole body of the nobles.[592] Fearing some rash step, difficult to be retrieved, she resolved either that the cardinal should announce his intended departure, or that she would do so for him. Philip's experiment had failed. Nothing, therefore, remained but for the minister publicly to declare, that, as his brother, the late envoy to France, had returned to Brussels, he had obtained permission from the regent to accompany him on a visit to their aged mother, whom Granvelle had not seen for fourteen years.[593]
The news of the minister's resignation and speedy departure spread like wildfire over the country. The joy was universal; and the wits of the time redoubled their activity, assailing the fallen minister with libels, lampoons, and caricatures, without end. One of these caricatures, thrust into his own hand under the pretence of its being a petition, represented him as hatching a brood of young bishops, who were crawling out of their shells. Hovering above might be seen the figure of the Devil; while these words were profanely made to issue from his month: "This is my son; hear ye him!"[594]
It was at this time that, at a banquet at which many of the Flemish nobles were present, the talk fell on the expensive habits of the aristocracy, especially as shown in the number and dress of their domestics. It was the custom for them to wear showy and very costly liveries, intimating by the colors the family to which they belonged. Granvelle had set an example of this kind of ostentation. It was proposed to regulate their apparel by a more modest and uniform standard. The lot fell on Egmont to devise some suitable livery, of the simple kind used by the Germans. He proposed a dark-gray habit, which, instead of the aiguillettes commonly suspended from the shoulders, should have flat pieces of cloth, embroidered with the figure of a head and a fool's cap. The head was made marvellously like that of the cardinal, and the cap, being red, was thought to bear much resemblance to a cardinal's hat. This was enough. The dress was received with acclamation. The nobles instantly clad their retainers in the new livery, which had the advantage of greater economy. It became the badge of party. The tailors of Brussels could not find time to supply their customers. Instead of being confined to Granvelle, the heads occasionally bore the features of Arschot, Aremberg, or Viglius, the cardinal's friends. The duchess at first laughed at the jest, and even sent some specimens of the embroidery to Philip. But Granvelle looked more gravely on the matter, declaring it an insult to the government, and the king interfered to have the device given up. This was not easy, from the extent to which it had been adopted. But Margaret at length succeeded in persuading the lords to take another, not personal in its nature. The substitute was a sheaf of arrows. Even this was found to have an offensive application, as it intimated the league of the nobles. It was the origin, it is said, of the device afterwards assumed by the Seven United Provinces.[595]
[Sidenote: HE LEAVES THE NETHERLANDS.]
On the thirteenth of March, 1564, Granvelle quitted Brussels,--never to return.[596] "The joy of the nobles at his departure," writes one of the privy council, "was excessive. They seemed like boys let loose from school."[597] The three lords, members of the council of state, in a note to the duchess, declared that they were ready to resume their places at the board; with the understanding, however, that they should retire whenever the minister returned.[598] Granvelle had given out that his absence would be of no long duration. The regent wrote to her brother in warm commendation of the lords. It would not do for Granvelle ever to return. She was assured by the nobles, if he did return, he would risk the loss of his life, and the king the loss of the Netherlands.[599]
The three lords wrote each to Philip, informing him that they had reëntered the council, and making the most earnest protestations of loyalty. Philip, on his part, graciously replied to each, and in particular to the prince of Orange, who had intimated that slanderous reports respecting himself had found their way to the royal ear. The king declared "he never could doubt for a moment that William would continue to show the same zeal in his service that he had always done; and that no one should be allowed to cast a reproach on a person of his quality, and one whom Philip knew so thoroughly."[600] It might almost seem that a double meaning lurked under this smooth language. But whatever may have been felt, no distrust was exhibited on either side. To those who looked on the surface only,--and they were a hundred to one,--it seemed as if the dismissal of the cardinal had removed all difficulties; and they now confidently relied on a state of permanent tranquillity. But there were others whose eyes looked deeper than the calm sunshine that lay upon the surface; who saw, more distinctly than when the waters were ruffled by the tempest, the rocks beneath, on which the vessel of state was afterward to be wrecked.
The cardinal, on leaving the Low Countries, retired to his patrimonial estate at Besançon,--embellished with all that wealth and a cultivated taste could supply. In this pleasant retreat the discomfited statesman found a solace in those pursuits which in earlier, perhaps happier, days had engaged his attention.[601] He had particularly a turn for the physical sciences. But he was fond of letters, and in all his tastes showed the fruits of a liberal culture. He surrounded himself with scholars and artists, and took a lively interest in their pursuits. Justus Lipsius, afterwards so celebrated, was his secretary. He gave encouragement to Plantin, who rivalled in Flanders the fame of the Aldi in Venice. His generous patronage was readily extended to genius, in whatever form it was displayed. It is some proof how widely extended, that, in the course of his life, he is said to have received more than a hundred dedications. Though greedy of wealth, it was not to hoard it, and his large revenues were liberally dispensed in the foundation of museums, colleges, and public libraries. Besançon, the place of his residence, did not profit least by this munificence.[602]
Such is the portrait which historians have given to us of the minister in his retirement. His own letters show that, with these sources of enjoyment, he did not altogether disdain others of a less spiritual character. A letter to one of the regent's secretaries, written soon after the cardinal's arrival at Besançon, concludes in the following manner: "I know that God will recompense men according to their deserts. I have confidence that he will aid me; and that I shall yet be able to draw profit from what my enemies designed for my ruin. This is my philosophy, with which I endeavor to live as joyously as I can, laughing at the world, its calumnies and its passions."[603]
With all this happy mixture of the Epicurean and the Stoic, the philosophic statesman did not so contentedly submit to his fate as to forego the hope of seeing himself soon reinstated in authority in the Netherlands. "In the course of two months," he writes, "you may expect to see me there."[604] He kept up an active correspondence with the friends whom he had left in Brussels, and furnished the results of the information thus obtained, with his own commentaries, to the court at Madrid. His counsel was courted, and greatly considered, by Philip; so that from the shades of his retirement the banished minister was still thought to exercise an important influence on the destiny of Flanders.
* * * * *
A singular history is attached to the papers of Granvelle. That minister resembled his master, Philip the Second, in the fertility of his epistolary vein. That the king had a passion for writing, notwithstanding he could throw the burden of the correspondence, when it suited him, on the other party, is proved by the quantity of letters he left behind him. The example of the monarch seems to have had its influence on his courtiers; and no reign of that time is illustrated by a greater amount of written materials from the hands of the principal actors in it. Far from a poverty of materials, therefore, the historian has much more reason to complain of an embarras de richesses.
[Sidenote: THE GRANVELLE PAPERS.]
Granvelle filled the highest posts in different parts of the Spanish empire; and in each of these--in the Netherlands, where he was minister, in Naples, where he was viceroy, in Spain, where he took the lead in the cabinet, and in Besançon, whither he retired from public life--he left ample memorials under his own hand of his residence there. This was particularly the case with Besançon, his native town, and the favorite residence to which he turned, as he tells us, from the turmoil of office to enjoy the sweets of privacy,--yet not, in truth, so sweet to him as the stormy career of the statesman, to judge from the tenacity with which he clung to office.
The cardinal made his library at Besançon the depository, not merely of his own letters, but of such as were addressed to him. He preserved them all, however humble the sources whence they came, and, like Philip, he was in the habit of jotting down his own reflections in the margin. As Granvelle's personal and political relations connected him with the most important men of his time, we may well believe that the mass of correspondence which he gathered together was immense. Unfortunately, at his death, instead of bequeathing his manuscripts to some public body, who might have been responsible for the care of them, he left them to heirs who were altogether ignorant of their value. In the course of time the manuscripts found their way to the garret, where they soon came to be regarded as little better than waste paper. They were pilfered by the children and domestics, and a considerable quantity was sent off to a neighboring grocer, who soon converted the correspondence of the great statesman into wrapping-paper for his spices.
From this ignominious fate the residue of the collection was happily rescued by the generous exertions of the Abbé Boissot. This excellent and learned man was the head of the Benedictines of St. Vincent in Besançon, of which town he was himself a native. He was acquainted with the condition of the Granvelle papers, and comprehended their importance. In the course of eighty years, which had elapsed since the cardinal's death, his manuscripts had come to be distributed among several heirs, some of whom consented to transfer their property gratuitously to the Abbé Boissot, while he purchased that of others. In this way he at length succeeded in gathering together all that survived of the large collection; and he made it the great business of his subsequent life to study its contents and arrange the chaotic mass of papers with reference to their subjects. To complete his labors, he caused the manuscripts thus arranged to be bound, in eighty-two volumes, folio, thus placing them in that permanent form which might best secure them against future accident.
The abbé did not live to publish to the world an account of his collection, which at his death passed by his will to his brethren of the abbey of St. Vincent, on condition that it should be for ever open for the use of the town of Besançon. It may seem strange that, notwithstanding the existence of this valuable body of original documents was known to scholars, they should so rarely have resorted to it for instruction. Its secluded situation, in the heart of a remote province, was doubtless regarded as a serious obstacle by the historical inquirer, in an age when the public took things too readily on trust to be very solicitous about authentic sources of information. It is more strange that Boissot's Benedictine brethren should have shown themselves so insensible to the treasures under their own roof. One of their body, Dom Prosper l'Evesque, did indeed profit by the Boissot collection to give to the world his Mémoires de Granvelle, a work in two volumes, duodecimo, which, notwithstanding the materials at the writer's command, contain little of any worth, unless it be an occasional extract from Granvelle's own correspondence.
At length, in 1834, the subject drew the attention of M. Guizot, then Minister of Public Instruction in France. By his direction a commission of five scholars was instituted, with the learned Weiss at its head, for the purpose of examining the Granvelle papers, with a view to their immediate publication. The work was performed in a prompt and accurate manner, that must have satisfied its enlightened projector. In 1839 the whole series of papers had been subjected to a careful analysis, and the portion selected that was deemed proper for publication. The first volume appeared in 1841; and the president of the commission, M. Weiss, expressed in his preface the confident hope that in the course of 1843 the remaining papers would all be given to the press. But these anticipations have not been realized. In 1854 only nine volumes had appeared. How far the publication has since advanced I am ignorant.
The Papiers d'Etat, besides Granvelle's own letters, contain a large amount of historical materials, such as official documents, state papers, and diplomatic correspondence of foreign ministers,--that of Renard, for example, so often quoted in these pages. There are, besides, numerous letters both of Philip and of Charles the Fifth, for the earlier volumes embrace the times of the emperor.--The minister's own correspondence is not the least valuable part of the collection. Granvelle stood so high in the confidence of his sovereign, that, when not intrusted himself with the conduct of affairs, ha was constantly consulted by the king as to the best mode of conducting them. With a different fate from that of most ministers, he retained his influence when he had lost his place. Thus there were few transactions of any moment in which he was not called on directly or indirectly to take part. And his letters furnish a clew for conducting the historical student through more than one intricate negotiation, by revealing the true motives of the parties who were engaged in it.
Granvelle was in such intimate relations with the most eminent persons of the time, that his correspondence becomes in some sort the mirror of the age, reflecting the state of opinion on the leading topics of the day. For the same reason it is replete with matters of personal as well as political interest; while the range of its application, far from being confined to Spain, embraces most of the states of Europe with which Spain held intercourse. The French government has done good service by the publication of a work which contains so much for the illustration of the history of the sixteenth century. M. Weiss, the editor, has conducted his labors on the true principles by which an editor should be guided; and, far from magnifying his office, and unseasonably obtruding himself on the reader's attention, he has sought only to explain what is obscure in the text, and to give such occasional notices of the writers as may enable the reader to understand their correspondence.
VIII. CHANGES DEMANDED BY THE LORDS
Policy of Philip.--Ascendancy of the Nobles.--The Regent's Embarrassments.--Egmont sent to Spain.
1564, 1565.
We have now arrived at an epoch in the history of the revolution, when, the spirit of the nation having been fully roused, the king had been compelled to withdraw his unpopular minister, and to intrust the reins of government to the hands of the nobles. Before proceeding further, it will be well to take a brief survey of the ground, that we may the better comprehend the relations in which the parties stood to each other at the commencement of the contest.
[Sidenote: ASCENDANCY OF THE NOBLES.]
In a letter to his sister, the regent, written some two years after this period, Philip says: "I have never had any other object in view than the good of my subjects. In all that I have done, I have but trod in the footsteps of my father, under whom the people of the Netherlands must admit they lived contented and happy. As to the Inquisition, whatever people may say of it, I have never attempted anything new. With regard to the edicts, I have been always resolved to live and die in the Catholic faith. I could not be content to have my subjects do otherwise. Yet I see not how this can be compassed without punishing the transgressors. God knows how willingly I would avoid shedding a drop of Christian blood,--above all, that of my people in the Netherlands; and I should esteem it one of the happiest circumstances of my reign to be spared this necessity."[605]
Whatever we may think of the sensibility of Philip, or of his tenderness for his Flemish subjects in particular, we cannot deny that the policy he had hitherto pursued was substantially that of his father. Yet his father lived beloved, and died lamented, by the Flemings; while Philip's course, from the very first, had encountered only odium and opposition. A little reflection will show us the reasons of these different results.
Both Charles and Philip came forward as the great champions of Catholicism. But the emperor's zeal was so far tempered by reason, that it could accommodate itself to circumstances. He showed this on more than one occasion, both in Germany and in Flanders. Philip, on the other hand, admitted of no compromise. He was the inexorable foe of heresy. Persecution was his only remedy, and the Inquisition the weapon on which he relied. His first act on setting foot on his native shore was to assist at an auto da fé. This proclaimed his purpose to the world, and associated his name indelibly with that of the terrible tribunal.
The free people of the Netherlands felt the same dread of the Inquisition that a free and enlightened people of our own day might be supposed to feel. They looked with gloomy apprehension to the unspeakable misery it was to bring to their firesides, and the desolation and ruin to their country. Everything that could in any way be connected with it took the dismal coloring of their fears. The edicts of Charles the Fifth, written in blood, became yet more formidable, as declaring the penalties to be inflicted by this tribunal. Even the erection of the bishoprics, so necessary a measure, was regarded with distrust on account of the inquisitorial powers which of old were vested in the bishops, thus seeming to give additional strength to the arm of persecution. The popular feeling was nourished by every new convert to the Protestant faith, as well as by those who, from views of their own, were willing to fan the flame of rebellion.
Another reason why Philip's policy met with greater opposition than that of his predecessor was the change in the condition of the people themselves. Under the general relaxation of the law, or rather of its execution, in the latter days of Charles the Fifth, the number of the Reformers had greatly multiplied. Calvinism predominated in Luxemburg, Artois, Flanders, and the states lying nearest to France. Holland, Zealand, and the North, were the chosen abode of the Anabaptists. The Lutherans swarmed in the districts bordering on Germany; while Antwerp, the commercial capital of Brabant, and the great mart of all nations, was filled with sectaries of every description. Even the Jew, the butt of persecution in the Middle Ages, is said to have lived there unmolested. For such a state of things, it is clear that very different legislation was demanded than for that which existed under Charles the Fifth. It was one thing to eradicate a few noxious weeds, and quite another to crush the sturdy growth of heresy, which in every direction now covered the land.
A further reason for the aversion to Philip, and one that cannot be too often repeated, was that he was a foreigner. Charles was a native Fleming; and much may be forgiven in a countryman. But Philip was a Spaniard,--one of a nation held in greatest aversion by the men of the Netherlands. It should clearly have been his policy, therefore, to cover up this defect in the eyes of the inhabitants by consulting their national prejudices, and by a show, at least, of confidence in their leaders. Far from this, Philip began with placing a Spanish army on their borders in time of peace. The administration he committed to the hands of a foreigner. And while he thus outraged the national feeling at home, it was remarked that into the royal council at Madrid, where the affairs of the Low Countries, as of the other provinces, were settled in the last resort, not a Fleming was admitted.[606] The public murmured. The nobles remonstrated and resisted. Philip was obliged to retrace his steps. He made first one concession, then another. He recalled his troops, removed his minister. The nobles triumphed, and the administration of the country passed into their hands. People thought the troubles were at an end. They were but begun. Nothing had been done towards the solution of the great problem of the rights of conscience. On this the king and the country were at issue as much as ever. All that had been done had only cleared the way to the free discussion of this question, and to the bloody contest that was to follow.
On the departure of Granvelle, the discontented lords, as we have seen, again took their seats in the council of state. They gave the most earnest assurances of loyalty to the king, and seemed as if desirous to make amends for the past by an extraordinary devotion to public business. Margaret received these advances in the spirit in which they were made; and the confidence which she had formerly bestowed on Granvelle, she now transferred in full measure to his successful rivals.[607]
It is amusing to read her letters at this period, and to compare them with those which she wrote to Philip the year preceding. In the new coloring given to the portraits it is hard to recognize a single individual. She cannot speak too highly of the services of the lords,--of the prince of Orange, and Egmont above all,--of their devotion to the public weal and the interests of the sovereign. She begs her brother again and again to testify his own satisfaction by the most gracious letters to those nobles that he can write.[608] The suggestion seems to have met with little favor from Philip. No language, however, is quite strong enough to express Margaret's disgust with the character and conduct of her former minister, Granvelle. It is he that has so long stood betwixt the monarch and the love of the people. She cannot feel easy that he should still remain so near the Netherlands. He should be sent to Rome.[609] She distrusts his influence, even now, over the cabinet at Madrid. He is perpetually talking, she understands, of the probability of his speedy return to Brussels. The rumor of this causes great uneasiness in the country. Should he be permitted to return, it would undoubtedly be the signal for an insurrection.[610]--It is clear the duchess had sorely suffered from the tyranny of Granvelle.[611]
[Sidenote: ASCENDANCY OF THE NOBLES.]
But notwithstanding the perfect harmony which subsisted between Margaret and the principal lords, it was soon seen that the wheels of government were not destined to run on too smoothly. Although the cardinal was gone, there still remained a faction of Cardinalists, who represented his opinions, and who, if few in number, made themselves formidable by the strength of their opposition. At the head of these were the viscount de Barlaimont and the President Viglius.
The former, head of the council of finance, was a Flemish noble of the first class,--yet more remarkable for his character than for his rank. He was a man of unimpeachable integrity, stanch in his loyalty both to the Church and to the crown, with a resolute spirit not to be shaken, for it rested on principle.
His coadjutor, Viglius, was an eminent jurist, an able writer, a sagacious statesman. He had been much employed by the emperor in public affairs, which he managed with a degree of caution that amounted almost to timidity. He was the personal friend of Granvelle, had adopted his views, and carried on with him a constant correspondence, which is among our best sources of information. He was frugal and moderate in his habits, not provoking criticism, like that minister, by his ostentation and irregularities of life. But he was nearly as formidable, from the official powers with which he was clothed, and the dogged tenacity with which he clung to his purposes. He filled the high office of president both of the privy council and of the council of state, and was also keeper of the great seal. It was thus obviously in his power to oppose a great check to the proceedings of the opposite party. That he did thus often thwart them is attested by the reiterated complaints of the duchess. "The president," she tells her brother, "makes me endure the pains of hell by the manner in which he traverses my measures."[612] His real object, like that of Granvelle and of their followers, she says on another occasion, is to throw the country into disorder. They would find their account in fishing in the troubled waters. They dread a state of tranquillity, which would afford opportunity for exposing their corrupt practices in the government.[613]
To these general charges of delinquency the duchess added others, of a more vulgar peculation. Viglius, who had taken priest's orders for the purpose, was provost of the church of St. Bavon. Margaret openly accused him of purloining the costly tapestries, the plate, the linen, the jewels, and even considerable sums of money belonging to the church.[614] She insisted on the impropriety of allowing such a man to hold office under the government.
Nor was the president silent on his part, and in his correspondence with Granvelle he retorts similar accusations in full measure on his enemies. He roundly taxes the great nobles with simony and extortion. Offices, both ecclesiastical and secular, were put up for sale in a shameless manner, and disposed of to the highest bidder. It was in this way that the bankrupt nobles paid their debts, by bestowing vacant places on their creditors. Nor are the regent's hands, he intimates, altogether clean from the stain of these transactions.[615] He accuses the lords, moreover, of using their authority to interfere perpetually with the course of justice. They had acquired an unbounded ascendancy over Margaret, and treated her with a deference which, he adds, "is ever sure to captivate the sex."[616] She was more especially under the influence of her secretary, Armenteros, a creature of the nobles, who profited by his position to fill his own coffers at the expense of the exchequer.[617] For himself, he is in such disgrace for his resistance to these disloyal proceedings, that the duchess excludes him as far as possible from the management of affairs, and treats him with undisguised coldness. Nothing but the desire to do his duty would induce him to remain a day longer in a post like this, from which his only wish is that his sovereign would release him.[618]
The president seems never to have written directly to Philip. It would only expose him, he said, to the suspicions and the cavils of his enemies. The wary statesman took warning by the fate of Granvelle. But as his letters to the banished minister were all forwarded to Philip, the monarch, with the despatches of his sister before him, had the means of contemplating both sides of the picture, and of seeing that, to whichever party he intrusted the government, the interests of the country were little likely to be served. Had it been his father, the emperor, who was on the throne, such knowledge would not have been in his possession four and twenty hours, before he would have been on his way to the Netherlands. But Philip was of a more sluggish temper. He was capable, indeed, of much passive exertion,--of incredible toil in the cabinet,--and from his palace, as was said, would have given law to Christendom. But rather than encounter the difficulties of a voyage, he was willing, it appears, to risk the loss of the finest of his provinces.[619]
[Sidenote: ASCENDANCY OF THE NOBLES.]
Yet he wrote to his sister to encourage her with the prospect of his visiting the country as soon as he could be released from a war in which he was engaged with the Turks. He invited her, at the same time, to send him further particulars of the misconduct of Viglius, and expressed the hope that some means might be found of silencing his opposition.[620]
It is not easy at this day to strike the balance between the hostile parties, so as to decide on the justice of these mutual accusations, and to assign to each the proper share of responsibility for the mismanagement of the government. That it was mismanaged is certain. That offices were put up for sale is undeniable; for the duchess frankly discusses the expediency of it, in a letter to her brother. This, at least, absolves the act from the imputation of secrecy. The conflict of the council of state with the two other councils often led to disorders, since the decrees passed by the privy council, which had cognizance of matters of justice, were frequently frustrated by the amnesties and pardons granted by the council of state. To remedy this, the nobles contended that it was necessary to subject the decrees of the other councils to the revision of the council of state, and, in a word, to concentrate in this last body the whole authority of government.[621] The council of state, composed chiefly of the great aristocracy, looked down with contempt on those subordinate councils, made up for the most part of men of humbler condition, pledged by their elevation to office to maintain the interests of the crown. They would have placed the administration of the country in the hands of an oligarchy, made up of the great Flemish nobles. This would be to break up that system of distribution into separate departments established by Charles the Fifth for the more perfect despatch of business. It would, in short, be such a change in the constitution of the country as would of itself amount to a revolution.
In the state of things above described, the Reformation gained rapidly in the country. The nobles generally, as has been already intimated, were loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the younger nobility, however, who had been educated at Geneva, returned tinctured with heretical doctrines from the school of Calvin.[622] But whether Catholic or Protestant, the Flemish aristocracy looked with distrust on the system of persecution, and held the Inquisition in the same abhorrence as did the great body of the people. It was fortunate for the Reformation in the Netherlands, that at its outset it received the support even of the Catholics, who resisted the Inquisition as an outrage on their political liberties.
Under the lax administration of the edicts, exiles who had fled abroad from persecution now returned to Flanders. Calvinist ministers and refugees from France crossed the borders, and busied themselves with the work of proselytism. Seditious pamphlets were circulated, calling on the regent to confiscate the ecclesiastical revenues, and apply them to the use of the state, as had been done in England.[623] The Inquisition became an object of contempt, almost as much as of hatred. Two of the principal functionaries wrote to Philip, that, without further support, they could be of no use in a situation which exposed them only to derision and danger.[624] At Bruges and at Brussels the mob entered the prisons, and released the prisoners. A more flagrant violation of justice occurred at Antwerp. A converted friar, named Fabricius, who had been active in preaching and propagating the new doctrines, was tried and sentenced to the stake. On the way to execution, the people called out to him, from the balconies and the doorways, to "take courage, and endure manfully to the last."[625] When the victim was bound to the stake, and the pile was kindled, the mob discharged such a volley of stones at the officers as speedily put them to flight. But the unhappy man, though unscathed by the fire, was stabbed to the heart by the executioner, who made his escape in the tumult. The next morning, placards written in blood were found affixed to the public buildings, threatening vengeance on all who had any part in the execution of Fabricius; and one of the witnesses against him, a woman, hardly escaped with life from the hands of the populace.[626]
The report of these proceedings caused a great sensation at Madrid; and Philip earnestly called on his sister to hunt out and pursue the offenders. This was not easy, where most, even of those who did not join in the act, fully shared in the feeling which led to it. Yet Philip continued to urge the necessity of enforcing the laws for the preservation of the Faith, as the thing dearest to his heart. He would sometimes indicate in his letters the name of a suspicious individual, his usual dress, his habits, and appearance,--descending into details which may well surprise us, considering the multitude of affairs of a weightier character that pressed upon his mind.[627] One cannot doubt that Philip was at heart an inquisitor.
Yet the fires of persecution were not permitted wholly to slumber. The historian of the Reformation enumerates seventeen who suffered capitally for their religious opinions in the course of the year 1564.[628] This, though pitiable, was a small number--if indeed it be the whole number--compared with the thousands who are said to have perished in the same space of time in the preceding reign. It was too small to produce any effect as a persecution, while the sight of the martyr, singing hymns in the midst of the flames, only kindled a livelier zeal in the spectators, and a deeper hatred for their oppressors.
[Sidenote: THE REGENT'S EMBARRASSMENTS.]
The finances naturally felt the effects of the general disorder of the country. The public debt, already large, as we have seen, was now so much increased, that the yearly deficiency in the revenue, according to the regent's own statement, amounted to six hundred thousand florins;[629] and she knew of no way of extricating the country from its embarrassments, unless the king should come to its assistance. The convocation of the states-general was insisted on as the only remedy for these disorders. That body alone, it was contended, was authorized to vote the requisite subsidies, and to redress the manifold grievances of the nation.--Yet, in point of fact, its powers had hitherto been little more than to propose the subsidies for the approbation of the several provinces, and to remonstrate on the grievances of the nation. To invest the states-general with the power of redressing these grievances would bestow on them legislative functions which they had rarely, if ever, exercised. This would be to change the constitution of the country, by the new weight it would give to the popular element; a change which the great lords, who had already the lesser nobles entirely at their disposal,[630] would probably know well how to turn to account.[631] Yet Margaret had now so entirely resigned herself to their influence, that, notwithstanding the obvious consequences of these measures, she recommended to Philip both to assemble the states-general and to remodel the council of state;[632]--and this to a monarch more jealous of his authority than any other prince in Europe!
To add to the existing troubles, orders were received from the court of Madrid to publish the decrees of the Council of Trent throughout the Netherlands. That celebrated council had terminated its long session in 1563, with the results that might have been expected,--those of widening the breach between Protestant and Catholic, and of enlarging, or at least more firmly establishing, the authority of the pope. One good result may be mentioned, that of providing for a more strict supervision of the morals and discipline of the clergy;--a circumstance which caused the decrees to be in extremely bad odor with that body.
It was hoped that Philip would imitate the example of France, and reject decrees which thus exalted the power of the pope. Men were led to expect this the more, from the mortification which the king had lately experienced from a decision of the pontiff on a question of precedence between the Castilian and French ambassadors at his court. This delicate matter, long pending, had been finally determined in favor of France by Pius the Fifth, who may have thought it more politic to secure a fickle ally than to reward a firm one. The decision touched Philip to the quick. He at once withdrew his ambassador from Rome, and refused to receive an envoy from his holiness.[633] It seemed that a serious rupture was likely to take place between the parties. But it was not in the nature of Philip to be long at feud with the court of Rome. In a letter to the duchess of Parma, dated August 6, 1564, he plainly intimated that in matters of faith he was willing at all times to sacrifice his private feelings to the public weal.[634] He subsequently commanded the decrees of the Council of Trent to be received as law throughout his dominions, saying that he could make no exception for the Netherlands, when he made none for Spain.[635]
The promulgation of the decrees was received, as had been anticipated, with general discontent. The clergy complained of the interference with their immunities. The men of Brabant stood stoutly on the chartered rights secured to them by the "Joyeuse Entrée". And the people generally resisted the decrees, from a vague idea of their connection with the Inquisition; while, as usual when mischief was on foot, they loudly declaimed against Granvelle as being at the bottom of it.
In this unhappy condition of affairs, it was determined by the council of state to send some one to Madrid to lay the grievances of the nation before the king, and to submit to him what in their opinion would be the most effectual remedy. They were the more induced to this by the unsatisfactory nature of the royal correspondence. Philip, to the great discontent of the lords, had scarcely condescended to notice their letters.[636] Even to Margaret's ample communications he rarely responded, and when he did, it was in vague and general terms, conveying little more than the necessity of executing justice and watching over the purity of the Faith.
The person selected for the unenviable mission to Madrid was Egmont, whose sentiments of loyalty, and of devotion to the Catholic faith, it was thought, would recommend him to the king; while his brilliant reputation, his rank, and his popular manners would find favor with the court and the people. Egmont himself was the less averse to the mission, that he had some private suits of his own to urge with the monarch.
This nomination was warmly supported by William, between whom and the count a perfectly good understanding seems to have subsisted, in spite of the efforts of the Cardinalists to revive their ancient feelings of jealousy. Yet these feelings still glowed in the bosoms of the wives of the two nobles, as was evident from the warmth with which they disputed the question of precedence with each other. Both were of the highest rank, and, as there was no umpire to settle the delicate question, it was finally arranged by the two ladies appearing in public always arm in arm,--an equality which the haughty dames were careful to maintain, in spite of the ridiculous embarrassments to which they were occasionally exposed by narrow passages and doorways.[637] If the question of precedence had related to character, it would have been easily settled. The troubles from the misconduct of Anne of Saxony bore as heavily on the prince, her husband, at this very time, as the troubles of the state.[638]
[Sidenote: EGMONT SENT TO SPAIN.]
Before Egmont's departure, a meeting of the council of state was called, to furnish him with the proper instructions. The president, Viglius, gave it as his opinion, that the mission was superfluous; and that the great nobles had only to reform their own way of living to bring about the necessary reforms in the country. Egmont was instructed by the regent to represent to the king the deplorable condition of the land, the prostration of public credit, the decay of religion, and the symptoms of discontent and disloyalty in the people. As the most effectual remedy for these evils, he was to urge the king to come in person, and that speedily, to Flanders. "If his majesty does not approve of this," said Margaret, "impress upon him the necessity of making further remittances, and of giving me precise instructions as to the course I am to pursue."[639]
The prince of Orange took part in the discussion with a warmth he had rarely shown. It was time, he said, that the king should be disabused of the errors under which he labored with respect to the Netherlands. The edicts must be mitigated. It was not possible, in the present state of feeling, either to execute the edicts or to maintain the Inquisition.[640] The Council of Trent was almost equally odious; nor could they enforce its decrees in the Netherlands while the countries on the borders rejected them. The people would no longer endure the perversion of justice, and the miserable wrangling of the councils.--This last blow was aimed at the president.--The only remedy was to enlarge the council of state, and to strengthen its authority. For his own part, he concluded, he could not understand how any prince could claim the right of interfering with the consciences of his subjects in matters of religion.[641]--The impassioned tone of his eloquence, so contrary to the usually calm manner of William the Silent, and the boldness with which he avowed his opinions, caused a great sensation in the assembly.[642] That night was passed by Viglius, who gives his own account of the matter, in tossing on his bed, painfully ruminating on his forlorn position in the council, with scarcely one to support him in the contest which he was compelled to wage, not merely with the nobles, but with the regent herself. The next morning, while dressing, he was attacked by a fit of apoplexy, which partially deprived him of the use of both his speech and his limbs.[643] It was some time before he could resume his place at the board. This new misfortune furnished him with a substantial argument for soliciting the king's permission to retire from office. In this he was warmly seconded by Margaret, who, while she urged the president's incapacity, nothing touched by his situation, eagerly pressed her brother to call him to account for his delinquencies, and especially his embezzlement of the church property.[644]
Philip, who seems to have shunned any direct intercourse with his Flemish subjects, had been averse to have Egmont, or any other envoy, sent to Madrid. On learning that the mission was at length settled, he wrote to Margaret that he had made up his mind to receive the count graciously, and to show no discontent with the conduct of the lords. That the journey, however, was not without its perils, may be inferred from a singular document that has been preserved to us. It is signed by a number of Egmont's personal friends, each of whom traced his signature in his own blood. In this paper the parties pledge their faith, as true knights and gentlemen, that if any harm be done to Count Egmont during his absence, they will take ample vengeance on Cardinal Granvelle, or whoever might be the author of it.[645] The cardinal seems to have been the personification of evil with the Flemings of every degree. This instrument, which was deposited with the Countess Egmont, was subscribed with the names of seven nobles, most of them afterwards conspicuous in the troubles of the country. One might imagine that such a document was more likely to alarm than to reassure the wife to whom it was addressed.[646]
In the beginning of January, Egmont set out on his journey. He was accompanied for some distance by a party of his friends, who at Cambray gave him a splendid entertainment. Among those present was the archbishop of Cambray, a prelate who had made himself unpopular by the zeal he had shown in the persecution of the Reformers. As the wine-cup passed freely round, some of the younger guests amused themselves with frequently pledging the prelate, and endeavoring to draw him into a greater degree of conviviality than was altogether becoming his station. As he at length declined their pledges, they began openly to taunt him; and one of the revellers, irritated by the archbishop's reply, would have thrown a large silver dish at his head, had not his arm been arrested by Egmont. Another of the company, however, succeeded in knocking off the prelate's cap;[647] and a scene of tumult ensued, from which the archbishop was extricated, not without difficulty, by the more sober and considerate part of the company. The whole affair--mortifying in the extreme to Egmont--is characteristic of the country at this period; when business of the greatest importance was settled at the banquet, as we often find in the earlier history of the revolution.
[Sidenote: EGMONT SENT TO SPAIN.]
Egmont's reception at Madrid was of the most flattering kind. Philip's demeanor towards his great vassal was marked by unusual benignity; and the courtiers, readily taking their cue from their sovereign, vied with one another in attentions to the man whose prowess might be said to have won for Spain the great victories of Gravelines and St. Quentin. In fine, Egmont, whose brilliant exterior and noble bearing gave additional lustre to his reputation, was the object of general admiration during his residence of several weeks at Madrid. It seemed as if the court of Castile was prepared to change its policy, from the flattering attentions it thus paid to the representative of the Netherlands.
During his stay, Egmont was admitted to several audiences, in which he exposed to the monarch the evils that beset the country, and the measures proposed for relieving them. As the two most effectual, he pressed him to mitigate the edicts, and to reorganize the council of state.[648] Philip listened with much benignity to these suggestions of the Flemish noble; and if he did not acquiesce, he gave no intimation to the contrary, except by assuring the count of his determination to maintain the integrity of the Catholic faith. To Egmont personally he showed the greatest indulgence, and the count's private suits sped as favorably as he could have expected. But a remarkable anecdote proves that Philip, at this very time, with all this gracious demeanor, had not receded one step from the ground he had always occupied.
Not long after Egmont's arrival, Philip privately called a meeting of the most eminent theologians in the capital. To this conclave he communicated briefly the state of the Low Countries, and their demand to enjoy freedom of conscience in matters of religion. He concluded by inquiring the opinion of his auditors on the subject. The reverend body, doubtless supposing that the king only wanted their sanction to extricate himself from the difficulties of his position, made answer, "that, considering the critical situation of Flanders, and the imminent danger, if thwarted, of its disloyalty to the crown and total defection from the Church, he might be justified in allowing the people freedom of worshipping in their own way." To this Philip sternly replied, "He had not called them to learn whether he might grant this to the Flemings, but whether he must do so."[649] The flexible conclave, finding they had mistaken their cue, promptly answered in the negative; on which Philip, prostrating himself on the ground before a crucifix, exclaimed, "I implore thy divine majesty, Ruler of all things, that thou keep me in the mind that I am in, never to allow myself either to become or to be called the lord of those who reject thee for their Lord."[650]--The story was told to the historian who records it by a member of the assembly, filled with admiration at the pious zeal of the monarch! From that moment the doom of the Netherlands was sealed.
Yet Egmont had so little knowledge of the true state of things, that he indulged in the most cheerful prognostications for the future. His frank and cordial nature readily responded to the friendly demonstrations he received, and his vanity was gratified by the homage universally paid to him. On leaving the country, he made a visit to the royal residences of Segovia and of the Escorial,--the magnificent pile already begun by Philip, and which continued to occupy more or less of his time during the remainder of his reign. Egmont, in a letter addressed to the king, declares himself highly delighted with what he has seen at both these places, and assures his sovereign that he returns to Flanders the most contented man in the world.[651]
When arrived there, early in April, 1565, the count was loud in his profession of the amiable dispositions of the Castilian court towards the Netherlands. Egmont's countrymen--William of Orange and a few persons of cooler judgment alone excepted--readily indulged in the same dream of sanguine expectation, flattering themselves with the belief that a new policy was to prevail at Madrid, and that their country was henceforth to thrive under the blessings of religious toleration.--It was a pleasing illusion, destined to be of no long duration.
IX. PHILIP'S INFLEXIBILITY
Philip's Duplicity.--His Procrastination.--Despatches from Segovia.--Effect on the Country.--The Compromise.--Orange and Egmont.
1565, 1566.
Shortly after Egmont's return to Brussels, Margaret called a meeting of the council of state, at which the sealed instructions brought by the envoy from Madrid were opened and read. They began by noticing the count's demeanor in terms so flattering as showed the mission had proved acceptable to the king. Then followed a declaration, strongly expressed and sufficiently startling. "I would rather lose a hundred thousand lives, if I had so many," said the monarch, "than allow a single change in matters of religion."[652] He, however, recommended that a commission be appointed, consisting of three bishops with a number of jurists, who should advise with the members of the council as to the best mode of instructing the people, especially in their spiritual concerns. It might be well, moreover, to substitute some secret methods for the public forms of execution, which now enabled the heretic to assume to himself the glory of martyrdom, and thereby produce a mischievous impression on the people.[653] No other allusion was made to the pressing grievances of the nation, though, in a letter addressed at the same time to the duchess, Philip said that he had come to no decision as to the council of state, where the proposed change seemed likely to be attended with inconvenience.[654]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S DUPLICITY.]
This, then, was the result of Egmont's mission to Madrid! This the change so much vaunted in the policy of Philip! "The count has been the dupe of Spanish cunning," exclaimed the prince of Orange. It was too true; and Egmont felt it keenly, as he perceived the ridicule to which he was exposed by the confident tone in which he had talked of the amiable dispositions of the Castilian court, and by the credit he had taken to himself for promoting them.[655]
A greater sensation was produced among the people; for their expectations had been far more sanguine than those entertained by William, and the few who, like him, understood the character of Philip too well to place great confidence in the promises of Egmont. They loudly declaimed against the king's insincerity, and accused their envoy of having shown more concern for his private interests than for those of the public. This taunt touched the honor of that nobleman, who bitterly complained that it was an artifice of Philip to destroy his credit with his countrymen; and the better to prove his good faith, he avowed his purpose of throwing up at once all the offices he held under government.[656]
The spirit of persecution, after a temporary lull, now again awakened. But everywhere the inquisitors were exposed to insult, and met with the same resistance as before; while their victims were cheered with expressions of sympathy from those who saw them led to execution. To avoid the contagion of example, the executions were now conducted secretly in the prisons.[657] But the mystery thus thrown around the fate of the unhappy sufferer only invested it with an additional horror. Complaints were made every day to the government by the states, the magistrates, and the people, denouncing the persecutions to which they were exposed. Spies, they said, were in every house, watching looks, words, gestures. No man was secure, either in person or property. The public groaned under an intolerable slavery.[658] Meanwhile, the Huguenot emissaries were busy as ever in propagating their doctrines; and with the work of reform was mingled the seed of revolution.
The regent felt the danger of this state of things, and her impotence to relieve it. She did all she could in freely exposing it to Philip, informing him at the same time of Egmont's disgust, and the general discontent of the nation, at the instructions from Spain. She ended, as usual, by beseeching her brother to come himself, if he would preserve his authority in the Netherlands.[659] To these communications the royal answers came but rarely; and, when they did come, were for the most part vague and unsatisfactory.
"Everything goes on with Philip," writes Chantonnay, formerly minister to France, to his brother Granvelle,--"Everything goes on from to-morrow to to-morrow; the only resolution is, to remain irresolute.[660] The king will allow matters to become so entangled in the Low Countries, that, if he ever should visit them, he will find it easier to conform to the state of things than to mend it. The lords there are more of kings than the king himself.[661] They have all the smaller nobles in leading-strings. It is impossible that Philip should conduct himself like a man.[662] His only object is to cajole the Flemish nobles, so that he may be spared the necessity of coming to Flanders."
"It is a pity," writes the secretary, Perez, "that the king will manage affairs as he does, now taking counsel of this man, and now of that; concealing some matters from those he consults, and trusting them with others, showing full confidence in no one. With this way of proceeding, it is no wonder that despatches should be contradictory in their tenor."[663]
It is doubtless true, that procrastination and distrust were the besetting sins of Philip, and were followed by their natural consequences. He had, moreover, as we have seen, a sluggishness of nature, which kept him in Madrid when he should have been in Brussels,--where his father, in similar circumstances, would long since have been, seeing with his own eyes what Philip saw only with the eyes of others. But still his policy, in the present instance, may be referred quite as much to deliberate calculation as to his natural temper. He had early settled it as a fixed principle never to concede religious toleration to his subjects. He had intimated this pretty clearly in his different communications to the government of Flanders. That he did not announce it in a more absolute and unequivocal form may well have arisen from the apprehension, that, in the present irritable state of the people, this might rouse their passions into a flame. At least, it might be reserved for a last resort. Meanwhile, he hoped to weary them out by maintaining an attitude of cold reserve; until, convinced of the hopelessness of resistance, they would cease altogether to resist. In short, he seemed to deal with the Netherlands like a patient angler, who allows the trout to exhaust himself by his own efforts, rather than by a violent movement risk the loss of him altogether. It is clear Philip did not understand the character of the Netherlander,--as dogged and determined as his own.
Considering the natural bent of the king's disposition, there seems no reason to charge Granvelle, as was commonly done in the Low Countries, with having given a direction to his policy. It is, however, certain, that, on all great questions, the minister's judgment seems to have perfectly coincided with that of his master. "If your majesty mitigates the edicts," writes the cardinal, "affairs will become worse in Flanders than they are in France."[664] No change should be allowed in the council of state.[665] A meeting of the states-general would inflict an injury which the king would feel for thirty years to come![666] Granvelle maintained a busy correspondence with his partisans in the Low Countries, and sent the results of it--frequently the original letters themselves--to Madrid. Thus Philip, by means of the reports of the great nobles on the one hand, and of the Cardinalists on the other, was enabled to observe the movements in Flanders from the most opposite points of view.
[Sidenote: HIS PROCRASTINATION.]
The king's replies to the letters of the minister were somewhat scanty, to judge from the complaints which Granvelle made of his neglect. With all this, the cardinal professes to be well pleased that he is rid of so burdensome an office as that of governing the Netherlands. "Here," he writes to his friend Viglius, "I make good cheer, busying myself with my own affairs, and preparing my despatches in quiet, seldom leaving the house, except to take a walk, to attend church, or to visit my mother."[667] In this simple way of life, the philosophic statesman seems to have passed his time to his own satisfaction, though it is evident, notwithstanding his professions, that he cast many a longing look back to the Netherlands, the seat of his brief authority. "The hatred the people of Flanders bear me," he writes to Philip, "afflicts me sorely; but I console myself that it is for the service of God and my king."[668] The cardinal, amid his complaints of the king's neglect, affected the most entire submission to his will. "I would go anywhere," he writes,--"to the Indies, anywhere in the world,--would even throw myself into the fire, did you desire it."[669] Philip, not long after, put these professions to the test. In October, 1565, he yielded to the regent's importunities, and commanded Granvelle to transfer his residence to Rome. The cardinal would not move. "Anywhere," he wrote to his master, "but to Rome. That is a place of ceremonies and empty show, for which I am nowise qualified. Besides, it would look too much like a submission on your part. My diocese of Mechlin has need of me; now, if I should go to Spain, it would look as if I went to procure the aid which it so much requires."[670] But the cabinet of Madrid were far from desiring the presence of so cunning a statesman to direct the royal counsels. The orders were reiterated, to go to Rome. To Rome, accordingly, the reluctant minister went; and we have a letter from him to the king, dated from that capital, the first of February, 1566, in which he counsels his master by no means to think of introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands.[671] It might seem as if, contrary to the proverb, change of climate had wrought some change in the disposition of the cardinal.--From this period, Granvelle, so long the terror of the Low Countries, disappears from the management of their affairs. He does not, however, disappear from the political theatre. We shall again meet with the able and ambitious prelate, first as viceroy of Naples, and afterwards at Madrid occupying the highest station in the councils of his sovereign.
Early in July, 1565, the commission of reform appointed by Philip transmitted its report to Spain. It recommended no change in the present laws, except so far as to authorize the judges to take into consideration the age and sex of the accused, and in case of penitence to commute the capital punishment of the convicted heretic for banishment. Philip approved of the report in all particulars,--except the only particular that involved a change, that of mercy to the penitent heretic.[672]
At length, the king resolved on such an absolute declaration of his will as should put all doubts on the matter at rest, and relieve him from further importunity. On the seventeenth of October, 1565, he addressed that memorable letter to his sister, from the Wood of Segovia, which may be said to have determined the fate of the Netherlands. Philip, in this, intimates his surprise that his letters should appear to Egmont inconsistent with what he had heard from his lips at Madrid. His desire was not for novelty in anything. He would have the Inquisition conducted by the inquisitors, as it had hitherto been, and as by right, divine and human, belonged to them.[673] For the edicts, it was no time in the present state of religion to make any change; both his own and those of his father must be executed. The Anabaptists--a sect for which, as the especial butt of persecution, much intercession had been made--must be dealt with according to the rigor of the law. Philip concluded by conjuring the regent and the lords in the council faithfully to obey his commands, as in so doing they would render the greatest service to the cause of religion and of their country,--which last, he adds, without the execution of these ordinances, would be of little worth.[674]
In a private letter to the regent of nearly the same date with these public despatches, Philip speaks of the proposed changes in the council of state as a subject on which he had not made up his mind.[675] He notices also the proposed convocation of the states-general as a thing, in the present disorders of the country, altogether inexpedient.[676]--Thus the king's despatches covered nearly all the debatable ground on which the contest had been so long going on between the crown and the country. There could be no longer any complaint of ambiguity or reserve in the expression of the royal will. "God knows," writes Viglius, "what wry faces were made in the council on learning the absolute will of his majesty!"[677] There was not one of its members, not even the president or Barlaimont, who did not feel the necessity of bending to the tempest so far as to suspend, if not to mitigate, the rigor of the law. They looked to the future with gloomy apprehension. Viglius strongly urged, that the despatches should not be made public till some further communication should be had with Philip to warn him of the consequences. In this he was opposed by the prince of Orange. "It was too late," he said, "to talk of what was expedient to be done. Since the will of his majesty was so unequivocally expressed, all that remained for the government was to execute it."[678] In vain did Viglius offer to take the whole responsibility of the delay on himself. William's opinion, supported by Egmont and Hoorne, prevailed with the regent, too timid, by such an act of disobedience, to hazard the displeasure of her brother. As, late in the evening, the council broke up, William was heard to exclaim, "Now we shall see the beginning of a fine tragedy!"[679]
[Sidenote: EFFECT ON THE COUNTRY.]
In the month of December, the regent caused copies of the despatches, with extracts from the letters to herself, to be sent to the governors and the councils of the several provinces, with orders that they should see to their faithful execution. Officers, moreover, were to be appointed, whose duty it was to ascertain the manner in which these orders were fulfilled, and to report thereon to the government.
The result was what had been foreseen. The publication of the despatches--to borrow the words of a Flemish writer--created a sensation throughout the country little short of what would have been caused by a declaration of war.[680] Under every discouragement, men had flattered themselves, up to this period, with the expectation of some change for the better. The constantly increasing number of the Reformers, the persevering resistance to the Inquisition, the reiterated remonstrances to the government, the general persuasion that the great nobles, even the regent, were on their side, had all combined to foster the hope that toleration, to some extent, would eventually be conceded by Philip.[681] This hope was now crushed. Whatever doubts had been entertained were dispelled by these last despatches, which came like a hurricane, sweeping away the mists that had so long blinded the eyes of men, and laying open the policy of the crown, clear as day, to the dullest apprehension. The people passed to the extremity of despair. The Spanish Inquisition, with its train of horrors, seemed to be already in the midst of them. They called to mind all the tales of woe they had heard of it. They recounted the atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards in the New World, which, however erroneously, they charged on the Holy Office. "Do they expect," they cried, "that we shall tamely wait here, like the wretched Indians, to be slaughtered by millions?"[682] Men were seen gathering into knots, in the streets and public squares, discussing the conduct of the government, and gloomily talking of secret associations and foreign alliances. Meetings were stealthily held in the woods, and in the suburbs of the great towns, where the audience listened to fanatical preachers, who, while discussing the doctrines of religious reform, darkly hinted at resistance. Tracts were printed, and widely circulated, in which the reciprocal obligations of lord and vassal were treated, and the right of resistance was maintained; and, in some instances, these difficult questions were handled with decided ability. A more common form was that of satire and scurrilous lampoon,--a favorite weapon with the early Reformers. Their satirical sallies were levelled indifferently at the throne and the Church. The bishops were an obvious mark. No one was spared. Comedies were written to ridicule the clergy. Never since the discovery of the art of printing--more than a century before--had the press been turned into an engine of such political importance as in the earlier stages of the revolution in the Netherlands. Thousands of the seditious pamphlets thus thrown off were rapidly circulated among a people, the humblest of whom possessed what many a noble in other lands, at that day, was little skilled in,--the art of reading. Placards were nailed to the doors of the magistrates, in some of the cities, proclaiming that Rome stood in need of her Brutus. Others were attached to the gates of Orange and Egmont, calling on them to come forth and save their country.[683]
Margaret was filled with alarm at these signs of disaffection throughout the land. She felt the ground trembling beneath her. She wrote again and again to Philip, giving full particulars of the state of the public sentiment, and the seditious spirit which seemed on the verge of insurrection. She intimated her wish to resign the government.[684] She besought him to allow the states-general to be summoned, and, at all events, to come in person and take the reins from her hands, too weak to hold them.--Philip coolly replied, that "he was sorry the despatches from Segovia had given such offence. They had been designed only for the service of God and the good of the country."[685]
In this general fermentation, a new class of men came on the stage, important by their numbers, though they had taken no part as yet in political affairs. These were the lower nobility of the country; men of honorable descent, and many of them allied by blood or marriage with the highest nobles of the land. They were too often men of dilapidated fortunes, fallen into decay through their own prodigality, or that of their progenitors. Many had received their education abroad, some in Geneva, the home of Calvin, where they naturally imbibed the doctrines of the great Reformer. In needy circumstances, with no better possession than the inheritance of honorable traditions, or the memory of better days, they were urged by a craving, impatient spirit, which naturally made them prefer any change to the existing order of things. They were, for the most part, bred to arms; and, in the days of Charles the Fifth, had found an ample career opened to their ambition under the imperial banners. But Philip, with less policy than his father, had neglected to court this class of his subjects, who, without fixed principles or settled motives of action, seemed to float on the surface of events, prepared to throw their weight, at any moment, into the scale of revolution.
[Sidenote: THE COMPROMISE.]
Some twenty of these cavaliers, for the most part young men, met together in the month of November, in Brussels, at the house of Count Culemborg, a nobleman attached to the Protestant opinions. Their avowed purpose was to listen to the teachings of a Flemish divine, named Junius, a man of parts and learning, who had been educated in the school of Calvin, and who, having returned to the Netherlands, exercised, under the very eye of the regent, the dangerous calling of the missionary. At this meeting of the discontented nobles, the talk naturally turned on the evils of the land, and the best means of remedying them. The result of the conferences was the formation of a league, the principal objects of which are elaborately set forth in a paper known as the "Compromise."[686]
This celebrated document declares that the king had been induced by evil counsellors,--for the most part foreigners,--in violation of his oath, to establish the Inquisition in the country; a tribunal opposed to all law, divine and human, surpassing in barbarity anything ever yet practised by tyrants,[687] tending to bring the land to utter ruin, and the inhabitants to a state of miserable bondage. The confederates, therefore, in order not to become the prey of those who, under the name of religion, seek only to enrich themselves at the expense of life and property,[688] bind themselves by a solemn oath to resist the establishment of the Inquisition, under whatever form it may be introduced, and to protect each other against it with their lives and fortunes. In doing this, they protest that, so far from intending anything to the dishonor of the king, their only intent is to maintain the king in his estate, and to preserve the tranquillity of the realm. They conclude with solemnly invoking the blessing of the Almighty on this their lawful and holy confederation.
Such are some of the principal points urged in this remarkable instrument, in which little mention is made of the edicts, every other grievance being swallowed up in that of the detested Inquisition. Indeed, the translations of the "Compromise," which soon appeared, in various languages, usually bore the title of "League of the Nobles of Flanders against the Spanish Inquisition."[689]
It will hardly be denied that those who signed this instrument had already made a decided move in the game of rebellion. They openly arrayed themselves against the execution of the law and the authority of the crown. They charged the king with having violated his oath, and they accused him of abetting a persecution which, under the pretext of religion, had no other object than the spoil of its victims. It was of little moment that all this was done under professions of loyalty. Such professions are the decent cover with which the first approaches are always made in a revolution.--The copies of the instrument differ somewhat from each other. One of these, before me, as if to give the edge of personal insult to their remonstrance, classes in the same category "the vagabond, the priest, and the Spaniard."[690]
Among the small company who first subscribed the document, we find names that rose to eminence in the stormy scenes of the revolution. There was Count Louis of Nassau, a younger brother of the prince of Orange, the "bon chevalier," as William used to call him,--a title well earned by his generous spirit and many noble and humane qualities. Louis was bred a Lutheran, and was zealously devoted to the cause of reform, when his brother took but a comparatively languid interest in it. His ardent, precipitate temper was often kept in check, and more wisely directed, by the prudent counsels of William; while he amply repaid his brother by his devoted attachment, and by the zeal and intrepidity with which he carried out his plans. Louis, indeed, might be called the right hand of William.
Another of the party was Philip de Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde. He was the intimate friend of William of Orange. In the words of a Belgian writer, he was one of the beautiful characters of the time;[691] distinguished alike as a soldier, a statesman, and a scholar. It is to his pen that the composition of the "Compromise" has generally been assigned. Some critics have found its tone inconsistent with the sedate and tranquil character of his mind. Yet St. Aldegonde's device, "Repos ailleurs,"[692] would seem to indicate a fervid imagination and an impatient spirit of activity.
But the man who seems to have entered most heartily into these first movements of the revolution was Henry, viscount of Brederode. He sprung from an ancient line, boasting his descent from the counts of Holland. The only possession that remained to him, the lordship of Viana, he still claimed to hold as independent of the king of Spain, or any other potentate. His patrimony had been wasted in a course of careless indulgence, and little else was left than barren titles and pretensions,--which, it must be owned, he was not diffident in vaunting. He was fond of convivial pleasures, and had a free, reckless humor, that took with the people, to whom he was still more endeared by his sturdy hatred of oppression. Brederode was, in short, one of those busy, vaporing characters, who make themselves felt at the outset of a revolution, but are soon lost in the course of it; like those ominous birds which with their cries and screams herald in the tempest that soon sweeps them out of sight for ever.
Copies of the "Compromise," with the names attached to it, were soon distributed through all parts of the country, and eagerly signed by great numbers, not merely of the petty nobility and gentry, but of substantial burghers and wealthy merchants, men who had large interests at stake in the community. Hames, king-at-arms of the Golden Fleece, who was a zealous confederate, boasted that the names of two thousand such persons were on his paper.[693] Among them were many Roman Catholics; and we are again called to notice, that in the outset this Protestant revolution received important support from the Catholics themselves, who forgot all religious differences in a common hatred of arbitrary power.
[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE COUNTRY.]
Few, if any, of the great nobles seem to have been among the number of those who signed the "Compromise,"--certainly none of the council of state. It would hardly have done to invite one of the royal councillors--in other words, one of the government--to join the confederacy, when they would have been bound by the obligations of their office to disclose it to the regent.
But if the great lords did not become actual parties to the league, they showed their sympathy with the object of it, by declining to enforce the execution of the laws against which it was directed. On the twenty-fourth of January, 1566, the prince of Orange addressed, from Breda, a letter to the regent, on the occasion of her sending him the despatches from Segovia, for the rule of his government in the provinces. In this remarkable letter, William exposes, with greater freedom than he was wont, his reasons for refusing to comply with the royal orders. "I express myself freely and frankly," he says, "on a topic on which I have not been consulted; but I do so, lest by my silence I may incur the responsibility of the mischief that must ensue." He then briefly, and in a decided tone, touches on the evils of the Inquisition,--introduced, as he says, contrary to the repeated pledges of the king,--and on the edicts. Great indulgence had been of late shown in the interpretation of these latter; and to revive them on a sudden, so as to execute them with their ancient rigor, would be most disastrous. There could not be a worse time than the present, when the people were sorely pressed by scarcity of food, and in a critical state from the religious agitations on their borders. It might cost the king his empire in the Netherlands, and throw it into the hands of his neighbors.[694]
"For my own part," he concludes, "if his majesty insists on the execution of these measures, rather than incur the stain which must rest on me and my house by attempting it, I will resign my office into the hands of some one better acquainted with the humors of the people, and who will be better able to maintain order in the country."[695]
In the same tone several of the other provincial governors replied to Margaret, declaring that they could never coolly stand by and see fifty or sixty thousand of their countrymen burned to death for errors of religion.[696] The regent was sorely perplexed by this desertion of the men on whom she most relied. She wrote to them in a strain of expostulation, and besought the prince, in particular, not to add to the troubles of the time, by abandoning his post, where the attachment of the people gave him such unbounded influence.[697]
The agitations of the country, in the mean time, continued to increase. There was a scarcity of bread,--so often the forerunner of revolution,--and this article had risen to an enormous price. The people were menaced with famine, which might have led to serious consequences, but for a temporary relief from Spain.[698]
Rumors now began to be widely circulated of the speedy coming of Philip, with a large army, to chastise his vassals; and the rumors gained easy credit with those who felt they were already within the pale of rebellion. Duke Eric of Brunswick was making numerous levies on the German borders, and it was generally believed that their destination was Flanders. It was in vain that Margaret, who ascertained the falsehood of the report, endeavored to undeceive the people.[699]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S INFLEXIBILITY.]
A short time previously, in the month of June, an interview had taken place, at Bayonne, between the queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, and her daughter, Isabella of Spain. Instead of her husband, Isabella was accompanied at this interview by the counsellor in whom he most trusted, the duke of Alva. The two queens were each attended by a splendid retinue of nobles. The meeting was prolonged for several days, amidst a succession of balls, tourneys, and magnificent banquets, at which the costly dress and equipage of the French nobility contrasted strangely enough with the no less ostentatious simplicity of the Spaniards. This simplicity, so contrary to the usual pomp of the Castilian, was in obedience to the orders of Philip, who, foreseeing the national emulation, forbade the indulgence of it at a foolish cost, which in the end was severely felt by the shattered finances of France.
Amid the brilliant pageants which occupied the public eye, secret conferences were daily carried on between Catherine and the duke of Alva. The results were never published, but enough found its way into the light to show that the principal object was the extermination of heresy in France and the Netherlands. The queen-mother was for milder measures,--though slower not less sure. But the iron-hearted duke insisted that to grant liberty of conscience was to grant unbounded licence. The only way to exterminate the evil was by fire and sword! It was on this occasion that, when Catherine suggested that it was easier to deal with the refractory commons than with the nobles, Alva replied, "True, but ten thousand frogs are not worth the head of a single salmon."[700]--an ominous simile, which was afterwards remembered against its author, when he ruled over the Netherlands.[701]
The report of these dark conferences had reached the Low Countries, where it was universally believed that the object of them was to secure the coöperation of France in crushing the liberties of Flanders.[702]
[Sidenote: ALARM OF THE COUNTRY.]
In the panic thus spread throughout the country, the more timid or prudent, especially of those who dwelt in the seaports, began to take measures for avoiding these evils by emigration. They sought refuge in Protestant states, and especially in England, where no less than thirty thousand, we are told by a contemporary, took shelter under the sceptre of Elizabeth.[703] They swarmed in the cities of London and Sandwich, and the politic queen assigned them also the seaport of Norwich as their residence. Thus Flemish industry was transferred to English soil. The course of trade between the two nations now underwent a change. The silk and woollen stuffs, which had formerly been sent from Flanders to England, became the staple of a large export-trade from England to Flanders. "The Low Countries," writes the correspondent of Granvelle, "are the Indies of the English, who make war on our purses, as the French, some years since, made war on our towns."[704]
Some of the Flemish provinces, instead of giving way to despondency, appealed sturdily to their charters, to rescue them from the arbitrary measures of the crown. The principal towns of Brabant, with Antwerp at their head, intrenched themselves behind their Joyeuse Entrée. The question was brought before the council; a decree was given in favor of the applicants, and ratified by the regent; and the free soil of Brabant was no longer polluted by the presence of the Inquisition.[705]
The gloom now became deeper round the throne of the regent. Of all in the Netherlands, the person least to be envied was the one who ruled over them. Weaned from her attachment to Granvelle by the influence of the lords, Margaret now found herself compelled to resume the arbitrary policy which she disapproved, and to forfeit the support of the very party to which of late she had given all her confidence. The lords in the council withdrew from her, the magistrates in the provinces thwarted her, and large masses of the population were arrayed in actual resistance against the government. It may seem strange that it was not till the spring of 1566 that she received positive tidings of the existence of the league, when she was informed of it by Egmont, and some others of the council of state.[706] As usual, the rumor went beyond the truth. Twenty or thirty thousand men were said to be in arms, and half that number to be prepared to march on Brussels, and seize the person of the regent, unless she complied with their demands.[707]
For a moment Margaret thought of taking refuge in the citadel. But she soon rallied, and showed the spirit to have been expected in the daughter of Charles the Fifth. She ordered the garrisons to be strengthened in the fortresses throughout the country. She summoned the companies of ordonnance to the capital, and caused them to renew their oaths of fidelity to the king. She wrote to the Spanish ministers at the neighboring courts, informed them of the league, and warned them to allow no aid to be sent to it from the countries where they resided. Finally, she called a meeting of the knights of the Golden Fleece and the council of state, for the twenty-seventh of March, to deliberate on the perilous situation of the country. Having completed these arrangements, the duchess wrote to her brother, informing him exactly of the condition of things, and suggesting what seemed to her counsellors the most effectual remedy. She wrote the more freely, as her love of power had yielded to a sincere desire to extricate herself from the trials and troubles which attended it.[708]
There were but two courses, she said, force or concession.[709] The former, to say nothing of the ruin it would bring on the land, was rendered difficult by want of money to pay the troops, and by the want of trustworthy officers, to command them. Concessions must consist in abolishing the Inquisition,--a useless tribunal where sectaries swarmed openly in the cities,--in modifying the edicts, and in granting a free pardon to all who had signed the Compromise, provided they would return to their duty.[710] On these terms, the lords of the council were willing to guaranty the obedience of the people. At all events, they promised Margaret their support in enforcing it. She would not express her own preference for either of the alternatives presented to Philip; but would faithfully execute his commands, whatever they might be, to the best of her ability.--Without directly expressing her preference, it was pretty clear on which side it lay. Margaret concluded by earnestly beseeching her brother to return an immediate answer to her despatches by the courier who bore them.
[Sidenote: ORANGE AND EGMONT.]
The person who seems to have enjoyed the largest share of Margaret's confidence, at this time, was Egmont. He remained at Brussels, and still kept his seat in council after William had withdrawn to his estates in Breda. Yet the prince, although he had left Brussels in disgust, had not taken part with the confederates; much less--as was falsely rumored, and to his great annoyance--put himself at their head.[711] His brother, it is true, and some of his particular friends, had joined the league. But Louis declares that he did so without the knowledge of William. When the latter, a fortnight afterwards, learned the existence of the league, he expressed his entire disapprobation of it.[712] He even used his authority, we are told, to prevent the confederates from resorting to some violent measures, among others the seizure of Antwerp, promising that he would aid them to accomplish their ends in a more orderly way.[713] What he desired was, to have the states-general called together by the king. But he would not assume a hostile attitude, like that of the confederates, to force him into this unpalatable measure.[714] When convened, he would have had the legislature, without transcending its constitutional limits, remonstrate, and lay the grievances of the nation before the throne.
This temperate mode of proceeding did not suit the hot blood of the younger confederates. "Your brother," writes Hames to Louis, "is too slow and lukewarm. He would have us employ only remonstrance against these hungry wolves; against enemies who do nothing in return but behead, and banish, and burn us. We are to do the talking, and they the acting. We must fight with the pen, while they fight with the sword."[715]
The truth was, that William was not possessed of the fiery zeal which animated most of the Reformers. In his early years, as we have seen, he had been subjected to the influence of the Protestant religion at one period, and of the Roman Catholic at another. If the result of this had been to beget in him something like a philosophical indifference to the great questions in dispute, it had proved eminently favorable to a spirit of toleration. He shrunk from that system of persecution which proscribed men for their religious opinions. Soon after the arrival of the despatches from Segovia, William wrote to a friend: "The king orders, not only obstinate heretics, but even the penitent, to be put to death. I know not how I can endure this. It does not seem to me that such measures are either Christian-like or practicable."[716] In another letter he says: "I greatly fear these despatches will drive men into rebellion. I should be glad, if I could, to save my country from ruin, and so many innocent persons from slaughter. But when I say anything in the council, I am sure to be misinterpreted. So I am greatly perplexed; since speech and silence are equally bad."[717]
Acting with his habitual caution, therefore, he spoke little, and seldom expressed his sentiments in writing. "The less one puts in writing," he said to his less prudent brother, "the better."[718] Yet when the occasion demanded it, he did not shrink from a plain avowal of his sentiments, both in speaking and writing. Such was the speech he delivered in council before Egmont's journey to Spain; and in the same key was the letter which he addressed to the regent on receiving the despatches from Segovia. But, whatever might be his reserve, his real opinions were not misunderstood. He showed them too plainly by his actions. When Philip's final instructions were made known to him by Margaret, the prince, as he had before done under Granvelle, ceased to attend the meetings of the council, and withdrew from Brussels.[719] He met in Breda, and afterwards in Hoogstraten, in the spring of 1566, a number of the principal nobles, under cover, as usual, of a banquet. Discussions took place on the state of the country, and some of the confederates who were present at the former place were for more violent measures than William approved. As he could not bring them over to his own temperate policy, he acquiesced in the draft of a petition, which, as we shall see in the ensuing chapter, was presented to the regent.[720] On the whole, up to the period at which we are arrived, the conduct of the prince of Orange must be allowed to have been wise and consistent. In some respects it forms a contrast to that of his more brilliant rival, Count Egmont.
This nobleman was sincerely devoted to the Roman Catholic faith. He was stanch in his loyalty to the king. At the same time he was ardently attached to his country, and felt a generous indignation at the wrongs she suffered from her rulers. Thus Egmont was acted on by opposite feelings; and, as he was a man of impulse, his conduct, as he yielded sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other of these influences, might be charged with inconsistency. None charged him with insincerity.
There was that in Egmont's character which early led the penetrating Granvelle to point him out to Philip as a man who by politic treatment might be secured to the royal cause.[721] Philip and his sister, the regent, both acted on this hint. They would hardly have attempted as much with William. Egmont's personal vanity made him more accessible to their approaches. It was this, perhaps, quite as much as any feeling of loyalty, which, notwithstanding the affront put on him, as he conceived, by the king, induced him to remain at Brussels, and supply the place in the councils of the regent which William had left vacant. Yet we find one of Granvelle's correspondents speaking of Egmont as too closely united with the lords to be detached from them. "To say truth," says the writer, "he even falters in his religion; and whatever he may say to-day on this point, he will be sure to say the contrary to-morrow."[722] Such a man, who could not be true to himself, could hardly become the leader of others.
[Sidenote: DESIGN OF THE CONFEDERATES.]
"They put Egmont forward," writes the regent's secretary, "as the boldest, to say what other men dare not say."[723] This was after the despatches had been received. "He complains bitterly," continues the writer, "of the king's insincerity. The prince has more finesse. He has also more credit with the nation. If you could gain him, you will secure all."[724] Yet Philip did not try to gain him. With all his wealth, he was not rich enough to do it. He knew this, and he hated William with the hatred which a despotic monarch naturally bears to a vassal of such a temper. He perfectly understood the character of William. The nation understood it too; and, with all their admiration for the generous qualities of Egmont, it was to his greater rival that they looked to guide them in the coming struggle of the revolution.
X. THE CONFEDERATES
Design of the Confederates.--They enter Brussels.--The Petition.--The Gueux.
1566.
The party of the malecontents in the Netherlands comprehended persons of very different opinions, who were by no means uniformly satisfied with the reasonable objects proposed by the compromise. Some demanded entire liberty of conscience. Others would not have stopped short of a revolution that would enable the country to shake off the Spanish yoke. And another class of men without principle of any kind--such as are too often thrown up in strong political fermentations--looked to these intestine troubles as offering the means of repairing their own fortunes out of the wreck of their country's. Yet, with the exception of the last, there were few who would not have been content to accept the compromise as the basis of their demands.
The winter had passed away, however, and the confederacy had wrought no change in the conduct of the government. Indeed, the existence of the confederacy would not appear to have been known to the regent till the latter part of February, 1566. It was not till the close of the following month that it was formally disclosed to her by some of the great lords.[725] If it was known to her before, Margaret must have thought it prudent to affect ignorance, till some overt action on the part of the league called for her notice.
It became, then, a question with the members of the league what was next to be done. It was finally resolved to present a petition, in the name of the whole body, to the regent, a measure which, as already intimated, received the assent, if not the approbation, of the prince of Orange. The paper was prepared, as it would seem, in William's own house at Brussels, by his brother Louis; and was submitted, we are told, to the revision of the prince, who thus had it in his power to mitigate, in more than one instance the vehemence, or rather violence, of the expressions.[726]
To give greater effect to the petition, it was determined that a large deputation from the league should accompany its presentation to the regent. Notice was given to four hundred of the confederates to assemble at the beginning of April. They were to come well-mounted and armed, prepared at once to proceed to Brussels. Among the number thus enrolled, we find three gentlemen of Margaret's own household, as well as some members of the companies of ordonnance commanded by the prince, and by the Counts Egmont, Hoorne, and other great lords.[727]
The duchess, informed of these proceedings, called a meeting of the council of state and the knights of the Golden Fleece, to determine on the course to be pursued. The discussion was animated, as there was much difference of opinion. Some agreed with Count Barlaimont in regarding the measure in the light of a menace. Such a military array could have no other object than to overawe the government, and was an insult to the regent. In the present excited state of the people, it would be attended with the greatest danger to allow their entrance into the capital.[728]
The prince of Orange, who had yielded to Margaret's earnest entreaties that he would attend this meeting, took a different view of the matter. The number of the delegates, he said, only proved the interest taken in the petition. They were men of rank, some of them kinsmen or personal friends of those present. Their characters and position in the country were sufficient sureties that they meditated no violence to the state. They were the representatives of an ancient order of nobility; and it would be strange indeed, if they were to be excluded from the right of petition, enjoyed by the humblest individual.--In the course of the debate, William made some personal allusions to his own situation, delivering himself with great warmth. His enemies, he said, had the royal ear, and would persuade the king to kill him and confiscate his property.[729] He was even looked upon as the head of the confederacy. It was of no use for him to give his opinion in the council, where it was sure to be misinterpreted. All that remained for him was to ask leave to resign his offices, and withdraw to his estates.[730] Count Hoorne followed in much the same key, inveighing bitterly against the ingratitude of Philip. The two nobles yielded, at length, so far to Margaret's remonstrances, as to give their opinions on the course to be pursued. But when she endeavored to recall them to their duty by reminding them of their oaths to the king, they boldly replied, they would willingly lay down their lives for their country, but would never draw sword for the edicts or the Inquisition.[731]--William's views in regard to the admission of the confederates into Brussels were supported by much the greater part of the assembly, and finally prevailed with the regent.
[Sidenote: THE CONFEDERATES ENTER BRUSSELS.]
On the third of April, 1566, two hundred of the confederates entered the gates of Brussels. They were on horseback, and each man was furnished with a brace of pistols in his holsters, wearing in other respects only the usual arms of a private gentleman. The Viscount Brederode and Louis of Nassau rode at their head.[732] They prudently conformed to William's advice, not to bring any foreigners in their train, and to enter the city quietly, without attempting to stir the populace by any military display, or the report of fire-arms.[733] Their coming was welcomed with general joy by the inhabitants, who greeted them as a band of patriots ready to do battle for the liberties of the country. They easily found quarters in the houses of the principal citizens; and Louis and Brederode were lodged in the mansion of the prince of Orange.[734]
On the following day a meeting of the confederates was held at the hotel of Count Culemborg, where they listened to a letter which Brederode had just received from Spain, informing him of the death of Morone, a Flemish nobleman well known to them all, who had perished in the flames of the Inquisition.[735] With feelings exasperated by this gloomy recital, they renewed, in the most solemn manner, their oaths of fidelity to the league. An application was then made to Margaret for leave to lay their petition before her. The day following was assigned for the act; and at noon, on the fifth of April, the whole company walked in solemn procession through the streets of Brussels to the palace of the regent. She received them, surrounded by the lords, in the great hall adjoining the council-chamber. As they defiled before her, the confederates ranged themselves along the sides of the apartment. Margaret seems to have been somewhat disconcerted by the presence of so martial an array within the walls of her palace. But she soon recovered herself, and received them graciously.[736]
Brederode was selected to present the petition, and he prefaced it by a short address. They had come in such numbers, he said, the better to show their respect to the regent, and the deep interest they took in the cause. They had been accused of opening a correspondence with foreign princes, which he affirmed to be a malicious slander, and boldly demanded to be confronted with the authors of it.[737]--Notwithstanding this stout denial, it is very possible the audience did not place implicit confidence in the assertions of the speaker. He then presented the petition to the regent, expressing the hope that she would approve of it, as dictated only by their desire to promote the glory of the king and the good of the country. If this was its object, Margaret replied, she doubted not she should be content with it.[738] The following day was named for them again to wait on her, and receive her answer.
The instrument began with a general statement of the distresses of the land, much like that in the Compromise, but couched in more respectful language. The petitioners had hoped that the action of the great lords, or of the states-general, would have led to some reform. But finding these had not moved in the matter, while the evil went on increasing from day to day, until ruin was at the gate, they had come to beseech her highness to lay the subject herself before the king, and implore his majesty to save the country from perdition by the instant abolition of both the Inquisition and the edicts. Far from wishing to dictate laws to their sovereign, they humbly besought her to urge on him the necessity of convoking the states-general, and devising with them some effectual remedy for the existing evils. Meanwhile they begged of her to suspend the further execution of the laws in regard to religion until his majesty's pleasure could be known. If their prayer were not granted, they at least were absolved from all responsibility as to the consequences, now that they had done their duty as true and loyal subjects.[739]--The business-like character of this document forms a contrast to the declamatory style of the Compromise; and in its temperate tone, particularly, we may fancy we recognize the touches of the more prudent hand of the prince of Orange.
On the sixth, the confederates again assembled in the palace of the regent, to receive her answer. They were in greater force than before, having been joined by a hundred and fifty of their brethren, who had entered the city the night previous, under the command of Counts Culemborg and Berg. They were received by Margaret in the same courteous manner as on the preceding day, and her answer was made to them in writing, being endorsed on their own petition.
She announced in it her purpose of using all her influence with her royal brother to persuade him to accede to their wishes. They might rely on his doing all that was conformable to his natural and accustomed benignity.[740] She had herself, with the advice of her council and the knights of the Golden Fleece, prepared a scheme for moderating the edicts, to be laid before his majesty, which she trusted would satisfy the nation. They must however, be aware, that she herself had no power to suspend the execution of the laws. But she would send instructions to the inquisitors to proceed with all discretion in the exercise of their functions, until they should learn the king's pleasure.[741] She trusted that the confederates would so demean themselves as not to make it necessary to give different orders. All this she had done with the greater readiness, from her conviction that they had no design to make any innovation in the established religion of the country, but desired rather to uphold it in all its vigor.
To this reply, as gracious in its expressions, and as favorable in its import, as the league could possibly have expected, they made a formal answer in writing, which they presented in a body to the duchess, on the eighth of the month. They humbly thanked her for the prompt attention she had given to their petition, but would have been still more contented if her answer had been more full and explicit. They knew the embarrassments under which she labored, and they thanked her for the assurance she had given,--which, it may be remarked, she never did give,--that all proceedings connected with the Inquisition and the edicts should be stayed until his majesty's pleasure should be ascertained. They were most anxious to conform to whatever the king, with the advice and consent of the states-general, duly assembled, should determine in matters of religion,[742] and they would show their obedience by taking such order for their own conduct as should give entire satisfaction to her highness.
[Sidenote: MARGARET'S REPLY]
To this the duchess briefly replied, that, if there were any cause for offence hereafter, it would be chargeable, not on her, but on them. She prayed the confederates henceforth to desist from their secret practices, and to invite no new member to join their body.[743]
This brief and admonitory reply seems not to have been to the taste of the petitioners, who would willingly have drawn from Margaret some expression that might be construed into a sanction of their proceedings. After a short deliberation among themselves, they again addressed her by the mouth of one of their own number, the lord of Kerdes. The speaker, after again humbly thanking the regent for her favorable answer, said that it would have given still greater satisfaction to his associates, if she would but have declared, in the presence of the great lords assembled, that she took the union of the confederates in good part and for the service of the king;[744] and he concluded with promising that they would henceforth do all in their power to give contentment to her highness.
To all this the duchess simply replied, she had no doubt of it. When again pressed by the persevering deputy to express her opinion of this assembly, she bluntly answered, she could form no judgment in the matter.[745]--She gave pretty clear evidence, however, of her real opinion, soon after, by dismissing the three gentlemen of her household whom we have mentioned as having joined the league.[746]
As Margaret found that the confederates were not altogether satisfied with her response to their petition, she allowed Count Hoogstraten, one of her councillors, to inform some of them, privately, that she had already written to the provinces to have all processes in affairs of religion stayed until Philip's decision should be known. To leave no room for distrust, the count was allowed to show them copies of the letters.[747]
The week spent by the league in Brussels was a season of general jubilee. At one of the banquets given at Culemborg House, where three hundred confederates were present, Brederode presided. During the repast he related to some of the company, who had arrived on the day after the petition was delivered, the manner in which it had been received by the duchess. She seemed at first disconcerted, he said, by the number of the confederates, but was reassured by Barlaimont, who told her "they were nothing but a crowd of beggars."[748] This greatly incensed some of the company,--with whom, probably, it was too true for a jest. But Brederode, taking it more good-humoredly, said that he and his friends had no objection to the name, since they were ready at any time to become beggars for the service of their king and country.[749] This sally was received with great applause by the guests, who, as they drank to one another, shouted forth, "Vivent les Gueux!"--"Long live the beggars!"
Brederode, finding the jest took so well,--an event, indeed, for which he seems to have been prepared,--left the room, and soon returned with a beggar's wallet, and a wooden bowl, such as was used by the mendicant fraternity in the Netherlands. Then, pledging the company in a bumper, he swore to devote his life and fortune to the cause. The wallet and the bowl went round the table; and, as each of the merry guests drank in turn to his confederates, the shout arose of "Vivent les Gueux!" until the hall rang with the mirth of the revellers.[750]
It happened that at the time the prince of Orange and the Counts Egmont and Hoorne were passing by on their way to the council. Their attention was attracted by the noise, and they paused a moment, when William, who knew well the temper of the jovial company, proposed that they should go in, and endeavor to break up their revels. "We may have some business of the council to transact with these men this evening," he said, "and at this rate they will hardly be in a condition for it." The appearance of the three nobles gave a fresh impulse to the boisterous merriment of the company; and as the new-comers pledged their friends in the wine-cup, it was received with the same thundering acclamations of "Vivent les Gueux!"[751] This incident, of so little importance in itself, was afterwards made of consequence by the turn that was given to it in the prosecution of the two unfortunate noblemen who accompanied the prince of Orange.
Every one knows the importance of a popular name to a faction,--a nom de guerre, under which its members may rally and make head together as an independent party. Such the name of "Gueux" now became to the confederates. It soon was understood to signify those who were opposed to the government, and, in a wiser sense, to the Roman Catholic religion. In every language in which the history of these acts has been recorded,--the Latin, German, Spanish, or English,--the French term Gueux is ever employed to designate this party of malecontents in the Netherlands.[752]
[Sidenote: THE GUEUX.]
It now became common to follow out the original idea by imitations of the different articles used by mendicants. Staffs were procured, after the fashion of those in the hands of the pilgrims, but more elaborately carved. Wooden bowls, spoons, and knives became in great request, though richly inlaid with silver, according to the fancy or wealth of the possessor. Medals resembling those stuck by the beggars in their bonnets were worn as a badge; and the "Gueux penny," as it was called,--a gold or silver coin,--was hung from the neck, bearing on one side the effigy of Philip, with the inscription, "Fidèles au roi;" and on the other, two hands grasping a beggar's wallet, with the further legend, "jusques à porter la besace;"--"Faithful to the king, even to carrying the wallet."[753] Even the garments of the mendicant were affected by the confederates, who used them as a substitute for their family liveries; and troops of their retainers, clad in the ash-gray habiliments of the begging friars, might be seen in the streets of Brussels and the other cities of the Netherlands.[754]
On the tenth of April, the confederates quitted Brussels, in the orderly manner in which they had entered it; except that, on issuing from the gate, they announced their departure by firing a salute in honor of the city which had given them so hospitable a welcome.[755] Their visit to Brussels had not only created a great sensation in the capital itself, but throughout the country. Hitherto the league had worked in darkness, as it were, like a band of secret conspirators. But they had now come forward into the light of day, boldly presenting themselves before the regent, and demanding redress of the wrongs under which the nation was groaning. The people took heart, as they saw this broad ægis extended over them to ward off the assaults of arbitrary power. Their hopes grew stronger, as they became assured of the interposition of the regent and the great lords in their favor; and they could hardly doubt that the voice of the country, backed as it was by that of the government, would make itself heard at Madrid, and that Philip would at length be compelled to abandon a policy which menaced him with the loss of the fairest of his provinces.--They had yet to learn the character of their sovereign.