Famous days and deeds in Holland and Belgium, by Charles Morris

Front matter

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Preface

Theke are few countries that have attracted more attention than those low-lying lands formerly known collectively as the Netherlands, but now nsnally designated by the two titles of Holland and Belgium. This is especially the case just at present with Belgium, which has been swept over by the desolating flood of war, its towns and cities ruined .or held by its enemies, its people made famishing fugitives, homeless, foodless and despairing.

The degree of prominence into which these countries, or Belgium at least, have recently been brought was much surpassed in former times, when they were the seats of almost incredible hosrors and frightful catastrophes. It is to depict for the reader of to-day the struggles and calamities of the ISTetherlands in the past that this work has been prepared.

Most of the sufferings spoken of took place in the reigns of two religious zealots, the Emperor Charles V. and the merciless bigot Philip II., who converted those unhappy realms into Gehennas of awful torment and terror. We are therefore obliged to deal at length with the events of those two reigns, while passing rapidly over the preceding and subsequent periods.

The two countries named have their romances of stirring deeds on sea and shore, their records of sack and plunder, their dreadful examples of the effects of fanatical bigotry, their frightful eras of

4 PREFACE

burnings and tortures, claimed to have been done in the service of Christ. So far as Holland is concerned, this period is also one of defiance of the most powerful monarch then reigning, an era of successful defence on land and victory on the seas, an age in which this small republic grew to occupy the position of the most active in commerce and manufacture and the most enterprising in maritime adventure of the countries then existing. Those were the days of its supremacy upon the ocean, the days in which bold Van Tromp, its great admiral, defied the fleets of England and Spain and swept the British Channel with a broom at his masthead as a signal that Holland ruled the waves.

This period of prominence has long since passed away. Holland, once the victorious, has lost its supremacy, while Belgium's title of the ^^Dattleground of Europe '^ has become one of infinite sorrow. But the past history of these countries is on record and is one full of tales of romantic daring and interesting achievement, tales amply worthy of being again told in these days of desolation and dismay in that once flourishing region of the earth.

Such is the purpose of this book, which proposes to give, not the history, but the more notable historical tales, of the countries concerned. It is hoped these sketches of past events will prove of interest and value in the present vital epoch in European history. ^ ^

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Early History op the Netherlands.. . 9 II. From the Rule of Rome to That op

Spain 18

Chapter I Early History Of The Netherlands

Europe is a continent made up of hills and plains, the hills mainly in the south, the plains forming one great level stretching from the Ural Mountains in the east, over Russia and Germany, to the small kingdoms of Holland and Belgium in the northwest. Here the plain dips down under the ocean, or would do so but for the many miles of dykes that rescue it from the waters of the North Sea/

This little triangle of half -wet and half-dry land, lying between France, Germany, and the salt sea, has long been known as the Netherlands, or lowlands, the northern half of it being now called Holland, the southern half forming the modern kingdom of Belgium. Here, in the southeast, the land rises into the hill country known as the Ardennes. In the northwest it sinks so low that part of it lies from sixteen to twenty feet below the level of the North Sea, nearly the whole of it being several feet below sea-level. Only its sand hills and strong dykes save it from being converted from a kingdom into a fishpond. As it stands it is a realm of water, for one is never out of sight of canals, which divide the farms and fields as fences do in our drier land.

This spongy realm, which has little need of rains to make it fertile, was born as the tribute of three rivers to the continent, or as the conquest of three rivers from the ocean. These are the Ehine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, which make their way from the highlands of the south to the lowlands of the north, where for ages they have been dropping their fertile slime among the dunes and hills of sand heaped up by the restless ocean waves.

Around the mouths of these streams most of the Netherlands have been built up, soil from the hills being laid upon sands from the seas, until oozy islands rose from the waves upon which man at length found support for his feet, and began his long labor of walling off the ocean and rescuing from its waters the " Hollow Land.'^

Such was the foundation laid by nature for the kingdoms which were in time to grow up around these river beds. Lagoons and shallows, islands of mud and ooze, dense thidkets and wild forests — such was the scene amid which dwelt the first wretched inhabitants of this region, living chiefly on fish, for there was little other food. There was nothing to show that here in time would grow up rich and fertile kingdoms, their inhabitants, conquerors of the ocean and daring navigators, with colonies reaching to the far ends of the earth.

Everywhere were forests, skirting the seacoast, spreading far to the east, their dense thickets holding back the sands cast up by the waves and forming the beginning of that great breastwork which the hands of busy delvers was to complete, fitting therealm of the Netherlands for the residence of civilized

EARLY HISTORY OF NETHERLANDS 11

man. Into two regions it grew, the low-lying Holland of the north, the higher Belgium of the south, with the Ardennes hills for its southeast border.

This low-lying land, thus built up, was the stage upon which was to be played the historical drama of Netherland history. It was long in growing into a united country, being for centuries divided up into the holdings of counts, barons, dukes and marquises. These were not brought under one strong hand until near the end of the fifteenth century, when the Duke of Burgundy became the lord of the whole array of minor provinces and the real history of the Netherlands began. As for the present kingdom of Belgium, its separate existence dates back only until 1830, though a degree of division between the two provinces had long existed.

All this is introductory to the actual history of the low countries ; but there was an earlier history, reaching back to the era of the Roman empire, of which there are tales of interest to tell. We first hear of the dwellers in this region in the writings of Julius Caesar, the first of the Romans to meet them in war, and of the historian Tacitus, who tells us of the struggle between these poor dwellers on the dunes and the armies of the mighty empire of the south. Greatly as they differed in power, the forest and island warriors held their own with sturdy courage against the armies of all-conquering Rome.

We must look upon these semi-savages in the dens in which they dwelt on the first appearance in history. On flowing into the lowlands the Rhine divides into two branches. The " two-horned Rhine '^ it is called by Virgil. Between these horns lay the island of Batavia, which formed the core of the country, its people divided in origin between the Celts of Gaul and the Teutons of Germany.

In early times, a century before the Christian era, the dwellers upon this island, probably Celts, were drowned out of their huts by an overflow of the ocean, which swept away the rude dwellings of the people and even the trees of the forest. Weary of their long contest with the sea, the drowned-out people left their island and joined the Cimbri and other tribes which at that time made a furious assault upon Eome. The island did not long remain empty. It was soon peopled again, this time by part of a German tribe who had fought with their fellows and been driven out to seek a new home. This they found on the deserted island, which they called Betaud, or " Good Meadow.^' From this name they received the title of Batavi, or Batavians, by which they were afterwards known.

This brings us to the first historical stage in the annals of the Low Countries. Previously unknown, they now enter upon the stage of history. The armies of Cassar, who had invaded Gaul, came in contact with them, and found them among the hardiest and most valorous of all with whom they had to deal. He tells us that the Belgians were the bravest of all the Celtic tribes, and Tacitus says the same of the Batavians, who in his view were the bravest of all the Germans.

While the Eomans conquered the Belgians and exacted tribute from other tribes, they laid no tax upon the Batavians. Probably they had nothiQg with which to pay taxes. At any rate the Eomans

EAKLY HISTORY OF NETHERLANDS 13

looked upon these hardy islanders as their friends. They took them into their armies, where the Batavian cavalry won fame for hardihood and courage. It was their daring that turned the tide in Cassar's favor at the battle of Pharsalia, and they were his favorites among all his soldiers. After his death the Batavian legion became the bodyguard of the emperors and the island of Batavia the center of the warlike movements of Eome in the west.

" Others go to battle/' Tacitus says of them ; " these go to war." Their young men let their hair and beards go unshorn until they had killed an enemy. On their necks they wore an iron ring, the emblem of sloth, which they threw away when they had made their mark in battle.

They were all men of giant size and strength, Gauls and Germans alike. The Eomans they contemned as pigmies. Both were sturdy of b^y and strong of limb, and both fair of skin and blue of eyes, but they differed in other particulars. The Celt had long locks of yellow hair, the Germans manes of fiery red which they twisted into a war knob on their heads. And while the Celts were fond of fine {dress and showy ornaments, the German had no thought of finery and his only ornament was his iron ring. The Gaul was of hasty temper, furious in his rage, but had less staying power than the German.

'' All the Gauls are of very high stature,'' says a Roman writer. " They are white, golden-haired, terrible in the fierceness of their eyes, greedy of quarrels, bragging and insolent. At all ages they are apt for military service. The old man goes forth to fight with equal strength of breast, with limbs as hardened by cold and assiduous labor, and as contemptuous of all dangers as the young. Not one of them, as in Italy is often the case, was ever known to cut off his thumbs to avoid the service of Mars."

Such is an introduction to the story of the Netherlands, the character of the country and of the two races of people, the Celts and the Germans, who inhabited it. As to their history, it begins with the story told by Cassar, their conqueror. He found them defiant. When he invaded Belgium, its tribes hastened to form a league against him. But it fell to pieces almost as soon as formed, and the tribes which formed it were quickly subdued.

One tribe, the Nervii, of German origin, proved sturdier foes, swearing to die rather than to surrender. The story of their vigorous defence is the first notable tale of warfare that comes to us from the Netherlands.

At the head of eight Eoman legions Cassar marched upon them in their camp on the Sambre. On a steep hill that sloped down to the river he pitched his tents and opened the battle by sending a body of cavalry across the stream. Down upon these, from the wooded hill opposite, rushed the Nervii, overthrowing horse and rider, plunging into and wading across the stream, and charging up the steep slope upon the camp of the legions. As Caesar says : " At the same time they seemed in the wood, in the river, and within our lines."

This furious onslaught caused a brief panic among the legions. But the trained soldiers soon regained their nerve. Cassar himself plunged into the midst of the fight, his only armor being a shield seized from

EARLY HISTORY OF NETHERLANDS 15

a soldier. Foot to foot, hand to hand, the battle went, discipline and cool valor gradually getting the better of the barbarian fury. But there was no thought of flight or surrender in the Nervii. They had vowed to die in the field, and they fought on with savage courage until the ground was strewn thick with their dead, leaping upon the fallen bodies, we are told, and hurling their javelins upon the foe as from a hill.

They were not defeated ; they died. Of their many thousands, only five hundred left the field. When Caesar reached the place where their women and children had been left, he found only three of their senators alive. With a warrior's regard for the undaunted courage of his enemies, the victor bade his soldiers to treat with all due respect the remnant of the Nervii, than whom he had met none braver in his career. 4

There is another story worth telling of the conflict between Rome and the Netherlands. C^sar had died by the hands of assassins. The empire succeeded the Roman republic, the Batavians becoming the lifeguards of the emperors. In the contest for the imperial throne between Otho and Vitellius, the decision fell into the hands of the Batavians, and they declared for the latter. But the new emperor grew to fear these turbulent emperor-makers and dismissed them from his service, sending them back to their island home. From this came a long and dangerous revolt, which nearly put an end to Roman rule in the Netherlands.

The leader in this revolt was a soldier who had long been one of the Batavian guards and bore the

Eoman name of Claudius Civilis. After serving for twenty-five years in the Eoman army he was sent in chains to Rome, falsely charged with conspiracy. His brother, under the same charge, was executed. Civilis escaped with life and made his way north, bitter at heart and bent on freeing his people from the Eoman yoke.

He was brave, eloquent and skilled in management, and in time organized a confederation of all the Netherland tribes, Celtic and German alike. His influence was aided by that of a woman oracle, who dwelt in a lofty town in a wide forest, and had great influence over the surrounding tribes. Her promise of success to Civilis and the fall of the Eoman power greatly increased his influence, and large subsidies were sent him by many of the German tribes.

The story of the revolt is ably told by Tacitus. It was the struggle of a brave man and a valiant nation against the mighty power of Eome. It is made up of battles, sieges, success, failure, daring and unyielding courage and patriotic spirit. Many victories there were, many defeats, but in the end the strength of Eome triumphed and dark clouds gathered around the patriot cause.

The tribes of Gaul begged for peace. Even the Batavians grew weary of the hopeless struggle. Emissaries from the Eoman camp made their way among the tribes, sapped their fidelity, and even induced the woman oracle to change her verdict and predict ruin to the hero's cause.

Had Civilis been an ordinary man his cause would have now been at an end. But he did not propose

EARLY HISTORY OF NETHERLANDS 17

to be sacrificed by those who had seceded from his service and sought his ruin. He agreed to hold a conference with Cerialis, the Roman general, who was ready to grant him a full pardon and eager to bring back so able a soldier to the Roman ranks.

As preparation for this conference the bridge across the Nabalia was broken in the middle, Cerialis and Civilis facing each other on the two sides. The stream flowed between the Roman and Batavian chieftains, and — there the story abruptly ends. The remainder of the narrative has been lost. Upon the broken bridge Civilis vanishes from history. Only his name survives. The final scene in the drama of a heroic life sinks into oblivion.

Chapter II From The Rule Op Rome To That Of Spain"

In" the centuries that followed the days of Caesar the Netherlands remained faithful subjects of Rome, and the Batavians held their old fame as warriors. When, in the fourth century, the Emperor Julian fought with the revolted Germans, the sturdy Batavian cavalry brought victory to his standard. But in the years that followed this famous tribe disappeared from history and the Netherlands became the marching ground of the hordes of bold barbarians who trampled the Roman empire under their feet. The Franks succeeded the Romans, holding Gaul and Belgium, but Holland was peopled by the ^^ Free Frisians," absorbers of the old Batavians and near relations of the Anglo-Saxons.

We are not here dealing with Netherland history as a whole, but with episodes in the career of the Low Country heroes and people ; yet a rapid survey of their story during the earlier centuries may be of interest as an introduction. This will serve as a topic for the present chapter.

While the Belgians formed part of the kingdom of the Franks, the Frisians dwelt under their own kings, defiant pagans, rugged and bold barbarians. They had the Franks to fight, but proved hard to subdue. In 692, Pepin, the Prankish " mayor of the palace," overcame Radbod, the Frisian leader, and made him change his title from king to duke. Pepin^s 18 son, Charles the Hammer, forced the Frisian chief to submit and even to agree to exchange the worship of the pagan gods for that of the Christian deity.

But the folly of Bishop Wolfram, who was chosen to baptize him, lost to Christianity this truculent heathen.

Eadbod had thrust one of his royal legs into the baptismal font, but before thrusting the other he turned to the bishop with a sudden question.

" Where are my dead forefathers ? " he asked.

" In hell, with all other unbelievers," said the incautious bishop.

Eadbod withdrew his leg.

" If that is so,^^ he said, '^ then will I rather feast with my ancestors in the hall of Woden than dwell in heaven with your little starveling band of Christians."

They pleaded with him, threatened him, cajoled him, alike in vain. He refused to be separated from the former heroes of his race and died in the bonds of paganism. It was found much easier to make him a duke than a Christian.

But Christianity was soon forced upon the Frisians. Charles Martel, whose hammer-like blows had routed the Saracens at Tours, turned his sword upon the Frisians, and in 750 defeated them utterly in a great battle. With him came Winfred, an Anglo- Saxon bishop. When the work of invasion ended about a hundred thousand Frisians had been slain and as many more converted, the sword and crozier uniting in this work. Thus were the Netherlanders made Christians.

Charlemagne, the supreme Frankish warrior, came next, fighting for years with the rebel Frisians and Saxons. This work of conquest ended in 785. After that date the Frisians remained peaceful subjects of the kings of France until the period of their final separation from that kingdom. The feudal system, however, took no root in their soil. ^^ Free Frisians^' they remained. In the words of their statute book, " The Frisians shall be free as long as the wind blows out of the clouds and the world stands."

In the year 922 Charles the Simple, one of the degenerate descendants of Charlemagne, presented to Count Dirk the territory of Holland, a narrow hook of land between the North Sea and the Zuyder Zee, which in the centuries to come was to be the cradle of the wide dominion of the Netherlands. He ranked as Dirk I., Count of Holland, which was long to remain the inheritance of his descendants. For century after century the Counts of Holland and the Bishop of Utrecht were to divide between them the moral and political sway over this territory. Its provinces were ruled by dukes, counts, barons, marquesses, and lords with other titles. After many years all these were to be merged into the United States of the Netherlands.

Now let us glance at another phase of Netherland history, aside from the political one. We began with these people as pagan barbarians. At the point we have reached they had become civilized Christians. Their miserable groups of huts and hovels had developed into crowded and well-built cities. From humble tillers of the soil they had become active artisans. Commerce arose and brought wealth to the Netherlands. Fishermen became sea rovers and merchant princes. Poor Flemish weavers rose to be rich manufacturers. Marts of trade and centers of manufacture grew into great and wealthy cities, and the handful of starvelings of the far past developed into numerous and thriving communities. In place of wandering barbarians, living in swamps and thickets, of the Roman period, the land now held some three millions of civilized people, noted everywhere for their industry, prosperity, and intelligence. The national industry was untiring, the splendid tapestries, silks, linens, and more common and needful fabrics of the Low Countries were widely prized. Their walled cities in time numbered more than 200, their chartered towns 150, their villages over 6000, and within these the people enjoyed a degree of liberty and self-government not elsewhere to be found in Europe, except perhaps in Switzerland. x\nd nowhere were to be found people more ready to strike for their rights, more pugnacious and excitable, more ready to resist tyranny.

Among the matters of interest worthy of mention were their guilds, these being societies for mutual support, recreation and improvement. Such societies, under other titles, are still numerous, but nowhere else have there been seen any that equalled in certain particulars those of Germany and the Netherlands, especially the Guilds of Rhetoric, which were to be found in all the principal cities. The members of these are better known as the Mastersingers, a fantastic outgrowth of the poetical Minnesingers. These societies devoted themselves to the art of poetry, and led the muse into a labyrinth of mechanical composition that formed one of the oddest phases in the history of literature.

Motley speaks thus of them : "To torture the Muses to madness, to wiredraw poetry through inextricable coils of difficult rhymes and impossible measures, to hammer one golden grain of wit into a sheet of infinite platitude, with frightful ingenuity to construct ponderous anagrams and preternatural acrostics, to dazzle the vulgar eye with tawdry costumes, and to tickle the vulgar ear with virulent personalities, were tendencies which perhaps smacked of the hammer, the yard-stick and the pincers, and gave sufficient proof, had proof been necessary, that literature is not one of the mechanical arts, and that poetry cannot be manufactured by joint stock companies."

This well indicates the character of one of the most fantastic and extraordinary episodes in literary development, one in which the guilds of burghers and craftsmen of the Netherlands indulged in poetrymaking as one of their trades, dealing with everyday subjects and hammering them out by mechanical rules, until every trace of real poetry was squeezed out of the verbal mass. For several centuries this song business went on in Germany and the Low Countries, only one name of merit surviving from the multitude of literary artificers, that of Hans Sachs, the famous shoemaker of Nuremberg.

To return to the political history of this region, it was, in the period with which we are now concerned, made up of the petty affairs of a considerable number of provinces, each under its titled ruler and each marked by a strong regard for the principles of human liberty. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, during which the neighboring people of France were reduced to serfdom under absolute lords, the province of Friesland was in everything except name a free republic. Self-government also prevailed largely in the provinces of Holland, Flanders, and Brabant. The coming republican commonwealth was clearly foreshadowed in the free spirit and resistance to despotism on all sides displayed.

Gradually, as the years passed on, union between the several provinces took place, though quarrels and commotions were common. After the death of William the Fourth, Count of Hainault, without an heir, in 1355, contests for power and rule set all the provinces by the ears. With Hainault were combined Holland and Zealand. In these arose two great parties, which were given the uncouth names of Hook and Kabbeljaw (fish-hook and cod-fish), and the whole country was divided between tneir adherents, city against city, duke against baron, in some cases father against son, the squabble going on for a century and a half. The Kabbeljaws were the representatives of the people, the popular element in the cities. The Hooks comprised the caste of nobles who sought to catch and control the cod-fish class, and the source of contest was that between the rights of the people and the claims of the counts and barons.

In 1417 the rule of these three provinces descended, in fault of a male heir, to Jacqueline, daughter of William the Fifth, then a damsel of seventeen. ^^ Unhappy lies the head which wears a crown.^' Such at least the hapless Jacqueline was to find. Married three times to brutes and cowards, struggling vehemently for thirteen years against her own kinsmen, who sought to wrest from her the throne, she has become the favorite heroine of ballad and romance in the Netherlands, and the misfortunes of ill-treated Jacqueline have been watered with innumerable tears.

Finally, exhausted and despondent, she was obliged to yield her heritage to her ambitious cousin, known in history by the ill-fitting name of Philip the Good. From being sovereign, Jacqueline was thrust down in rank to lady forester of her own broad domains. Fortunately a fourth marriage proved a happy one, but the hapless queen died in 1437, after twenty years of misfortune, and Philip became unquestioned lord of her realm.

This conquest put an end to the division of the [Netherlands into separate principalities, countships, and baronies. Philip had inherited the dukedom of Burgundy, was lord of Flanders and Artois, and had extended his rule over several of the Netherland provinces. His dispossession of his cousin Jacqueline made him lord of the whole land, master of so many rich cities and fruitful provinces that he ranked himself among the kings of the European nations.

Philip had some warrant for this claim, The N'etherlands formed a rich prize. Nowhere else in Europe were there greater industry and activity and more rapid accumulation of wealth. The fisheries of Holland alone were of immense value, and gave rise to a class of daring mariners who in time were to extend the fame of their fatherland far and wide.

As for the freedom and political privileges of the people of the Netherlands, they suffered at the hands of the "good'' duke of Burgundy. A despot by nature, he repudiated all the promises he had made and did his best to overthrow the liberties of his new subjects. In this he succeeded in a measure. But the traditions of the country and the inherited spirit of freedom in the people were possessions not easy to abolish, and the time was sure to come when they would regain the ascendency.

Philip died in 1467. His throne was left to his son Charles, a man whose daring, turbulent spirit and meteoric , career have brought him into fame under his historical title of Charles the Bold. Of fearless disposition and ambitious spirit, the master of one of the richest realms of Europe, it was his earnest desire to lift Burgundy to the rank of a kingdom. But in this he had to deal with the crafty Louis XI., the most subtle of French monarchs, against whose political artfulness the bold Duke of Burgundy was a feeble opponent.

We have little to do hexe with the career of Charles the Bold, the chief events of whose history lay outside the Netherlands and whose ambition led him to death in the Alpine realm of the Swiss. Mistaking courage for competence, he fancied himself a great soldier, which he was not, and set out on a career of conquest. In 1475 he conquered Lorraine and in the following year invaded Switzerland, where he met with a terrible defeat at Granson, losing his baggage and much of his treasures. Three months later, inspired by fury, he led a new army to Switzerland, and had it cut to pieces at Morat in a still more signal defeat. With redoubled fury he, in the early months of the next year, led a third army to the field, encountered his foes at Nancy, fought them with his old boldness and recklessness, and fell on the field, a victim to his overweening ambition and selfconfidence.