READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

THE history of the revolt in the Netherlands has been carried down in a former chapter to the pacification of Ghent, November 8th, 1576. It was a mistake on the part of Philip II to leave the country eight months with only an ad interim government. Had he immediately filled up the vacancy occasioned by the death of Requesens, either by the appointment of his sister Margaret, or any other person, the States could not have seized upon the government, and the alliance established at Ghent would not have been effected, by which an almost independent commonwealth was established. But Philip seems to have been puzzled as to the choice of a successor; and his selection, at length, of his brother, Don John of Austria, caused a further considerable delay. Don John, the hero of Lepanto, was, at that time, Governor of the Milanese, where necessary arrangements compelled him to remain sometime after his appointment. He had then to proceed to Spain for instructions, whence he travelled through France into the Low Countries.

The state of the Netherlands compelled Don John to enter them not with the pomp and dignity becoming the lawful representative of a great Sovereign, but stealthily, like a traitor or conspirator. In Luxembourg alone, the only province which had not joined the new federation, could he expect to be received; and he entered its capital four days before the publication of the treaty of Ghent, in the disguise of a Moorish servant, and in the train of Don Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of the Prince of Melfi. Without money or arms, he was obliged to negotiate with the federal assembly, now removed from Ghent to Brussels, in order to procure the recognition of his authority. At the instance of the Prince of Orange, the congress insisted on the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, the maintenance of the treaty of Ghent, an act of amnesty for past offences, the convocation of the States-General, and an oath from Don John that he would respect all the charters and customs of the country. The new Governor was violent, but the deputies were firm; and in January, 1577, was formed the Union of Brussels, the professed objects of which were, the immediate expulsion of the Spaniards, and the execution of the Pacification of Ghent; while at the same time the Roman Catholic religion and the King’s authority were to be upheld. This Union, which was only a more popular repetition of the treaty of Ghent, soon obtained numberless signatures. By the stipulation in favour of Catholicism, it contained the seeds of its own dissolution; but it became the stepping-stone to the more important Union of Utrecht.

Meanwhile Rodolph II, the new Emperor, had offered his mediation, and appointed the Bishop of Liége to use his good offices between the parties; who, with the assistance of Duke William of Jülich brought, or seemed to bring, the new Governor to a more reasonable frame of mind. Don John, however, was perhaps in reality determined by instructions brought to him from Spain by his secretary Escovedo, recommending no doubt that duplicity which characterized the policy of the Spanish Court. When the negotiations were resumed at Marche-en-Famène, Don John yielded all the points in dispute, and embodied them in what was called the Perpetual Edict, published March 12th, 1577. The Prince of Orange suspected from the first that these concessions were a mere deception, intended to be violated on the first opportunity; and his suspicions of the Governor’s hypocrisy were afterwards confirmed by intercepted letters. Although, to the astonishment of those not in the secret, the Perpetual Edict was confirmed by Philip, the Prince of Orange refused to publish it in Holland and Zealand. To his secret motives we have referred; the chief objections, which he publicly alleged, were that no definite time had been fixed for the assembling of the States-General; that the ratification of the treaty of Ghent was not categorical; that the States were called upon to pay the foreign mercenaries who had oppressed them; and that his son, Count Buren, was still detained a prisoner. Don John endeavored to gain over the Prince by private negotiations, in which magnificent offers were made to him; but William was incorruptible.

The Perpetual Edict did not produce any immediate separation between the northern and southern provinces. Although the Spanish troops were actually sent away in April, the Catholics as well as Protestants still harbored suspicions of the Spaniards; and when Don John entered Brussels, May 1st, 1577, the citizens refused to give him possession of the citadel. Finding himself a Governor merely in name, and without any real authority, he resolved to seize by stealth the power which was withheld from him. On pretense of paying a visit to the consort of Henry of Navarre, who was on her way to the baths of Spa, Don John proceeded to Namur, where the citadel was commanded by two sons of Count Berlaimont, who were favorable to his views, and who gave him possession of that fortress. He soon after got possession of Charlemont and Marienburg, but failed in an attempt upon the citadel of Antwerp. These steps he excused on the ground that they were necessary to his security, pretending that a conspiracy had been formed to take his life. The Prince of Orange endeavored to prevail on the States to resent these encroachments, and to attack Don John with all their force; but this seemed too bold a step to the aristocratic and Catholic party, led by the Duke of Aerschot. The exertions of William were thus confined to his own provinces of Holland and Zealand, where a college of eighteen persons was appointed to promote the popular cause. Permission was obtained from the Catholic States for deputies from Holland and Zealand to enter the Brussels assembly, where they often gave the tone; and they even succeeded in effecting an alliance between the States and the Elector Palatine, a Prince much dreaded by the Catholic party. When the negotiations were resumed with Don John, the States demanded that the citadels of Ghent and Antwerp should be razed; but the popular party in those cities leveled them to the ground without waiting for his answer.

On the 23rd of September, 1577, the Prince of Orange, at the invitation of the States-General, entered Brussels amid great rejoicings and the acclamations of the people, who hailed him as "Father William". During his absence prayers were daily offered up for his safety in the churches of Holland and Zealand. The Prince immediately stopped all negotiations with Don John, and prescribed to him conditions so stringent, that he regarded them as a declaration of war, and retired to Luxembourg. Aerschot and the Catholic nobility were averse to these proceedings, though they were unable to hinder them. When they acceded to the Pacification of Ghent, they had hoped to obtain the leading influence in the government; they now saw with jealousy the chief power in the hands of Orange and his party, yet at the same time they hated and suspected the Spaniards. On the other hand William became the favorite of the people. The Brabanters elected him their Ruward, a dignity which was generally reserved for the heir to the sovereignty, and conferred upon him an almost dictatorial power. He was also offered the Stadholdership of Flanders, which, however, he declined. These marks of popular favour were bestowed upon Orange partly in consequence of a step taken by his opponents. The Catholic aristocrats, who disliked both Don John and the Prince of Orange, had called in as their Governor the Archduke Matthias, a youth of twenty years of age, brother of the Emperor Rodolph II. Matthias accepted the invitation, and came to Brussels without consulting his brother; but he had no talent, and was never anything more than a puppet in the hand of contending factions. To avoid useless contention, as well as not to give offence to the Germans, Orange accepted the nomination of Matthias, and received him with honor. On the 7th December, 1577, the States-General formally deposed Don John, and declared all who should assist him rebels and traitors; and on the 10th a fresh "Union of Brussels" was signed, by which Protestantism was placed on a more favorable footing than by the Pacification of Ghent. This, however, was the last time that the Netherlands were united, nor did their union prove of long duration. Matthias was inaugurated at Antwerp as Governor-General, January 18th, 1578, having first subscribed a constitution drawn up under the superintendence of the Prince of Orange. William was to be his Lieutenant-General; a step insisted on by Queen Elizabeth, who had now begun to afford the Netherlanders some substantial assistance. Her motives were somewhat selfish. She had discovered that Don John was plotting with the Pope and the Guises to depose her, to espouse Mary Queen of Scots, and to seize the Crown of England. Elizabeth's help to the Netherlanders had hitherto been confined to small grants of money; but, although Philip II appears to have disapproved of the scheme of Don John, she now adopted more warlike counsels, and in 1577 made a treaty with the States, by which she agreed to send 5,000 foot and 1,000 horse into the Low Countries, to be paid for by the States, but commanded by a general of her own, who was to be received into the Netherland Council. She also agreed to lend them her credit for £100,000, for which she was to receive the bonds of some of the chief towns in the Netherlands, and her liability was to cease within a year. This treaty was signed January 7th, 1578, and the English forces, under Sir John Norris, proceeded into the Netherlands.

It being now plain that the acceptance of Don John as Governor could be accomplished only by force, Philip II assembled an army of about 20,000 Spanish and Italian veterans, which he entrusted to the command of Alexander Farnese, son of Ottavio, Duke of Parma, and Margaret, the late Regent of the Netherlands. At the same time the Pope published a bull in favour of Don John, similar to those formerly issued during the crusades against the Saracens. The Netherlanders also assembled a considerable force under De Groignies, and towards the end of January, 1578, both armies were ready to take the field. As the soldiers of the States were mostly raw recruits. Orange advised an immediate attack upon Don John, then at Namur; but this council was overruled, and they waited to be assaulted near Gemblours, January 31st. A charge of cavalry led by Alexander Farnese decided the victory in favour of the Royalists. Vast numbers of the Netherlanders fell in the battle, and all the prisoners, to the number of about 600, were put to death. It was thought that Don John would now march upon Brussels, and the States, the Council, and the Prince of Orange fled to Antwerp; instead of which, however, the victorious general employed himself in taking some towns of less importance, as Louvain, Nivelles, Bovines, and others.

Battle of Rymenants

Meanwhile Orange was drawing into the League those Dutch towns which had not yet renounced their allegiance to Philip II, and especially Amsterdam; the accession of which important city, February 8th, 1578, more than counter-balanced the defeat at Gemblours. Aerschot's party, who had discovered that the Archduke Matthias was entirely useless, applied to the weak Duke of Anjou, to accept the protectorate of the Netherlands; while Queen Elizabeth, who dreaded the extension by that means of French influence, by way of counterpoise, recommended the States to seek the assistance of John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine; and she advanced money to pay the German troops whom he might conduct into the Low Countries. John Casimir, however, who had little military talent, and had only distinguished himself by some marauding expeditions, did not join the patriots till near the end of August; who, meanwhile, chiefly through the valour of the English under Norris, had defeated Don John at Rymenants (August 1st). The allies were so strongly posted, being protected on one side by the river Demer, on another by a wood, and on a third by entrenchments, that Don John was counseled by his best captains not to attack them; but he was anxious to give battle before the arrival of John Casimir. The attack was repulsed, and Don John's army would have suffered greatly in its retreat, had not Alexander Farnese covered it in a masterly manner with his cavalry.

This was the last exploit of the victor of Lepanto. He retired under the cannon of Namur; Philip II sent him no assistance, and caused his secretary to be murdered in Spain for too zealously promoting his master's chimerical marriage with Mary Stuart. Bossu, the commander of the patriot army, threatening Nivelles, Don John broke up to attack him, but was seized on the way with a fatal illness (October 1st, 1578), at Bougy, a poor village near Namur. The short administration of Don John may appear to have produced no result; but he in reality initiated the system which preserved so large a portion of the Netherlands to the Spanish Crown. Although he began the war contrary to the wishes of Philip, yet it was evident that matters had gone too far to be accommodated by any reconciliation with the States : and he therefore determined on a gradual subjugation of the revolted provinces, partly by force and partly by negotiation. He revived the attachment of the Walloons to the House of Burgundy; he won over to his view Pardieu de la Motte, the commandant of Gravelines, and Matthew Moulart, Bishop of Arras, and employed them in his negotiations with singular success.

Don John was succeeded, both in the civil and military command, by his nephew Alexander Farnese, who was only a few months younger than his uncle, and had shared with him the glory of Lepanto. In personal appearance he formed a striking contrast to his relative. His head was round and covered with short, black, bristly hair; his forehead high but narrow; his nose aquiline; the lower part of his face covered with a bushy black beard; his features were handsome; but wore a somewhat sinister expression. His character was cool, artful, determined; and, though lacking the fascination of Don John, he had the power of inspiring confidence. Both as a politician and a military commander he was by far the ablest Governor that had yet been seen in the Netherlands.

Before the death of Don John, the Catholic party and Walloon provinces had virtually superseded the Archduke Matthias, by calling in the Duke of Anjou; nor had the Prince of Orange opposed their choice, though he dictated to the French Prince a convention which he signed at Mons, August 13th. Anjou’s vanity was tickled with the magnificent title of "Defender of the liberty of the Netherlands against the tyranny of the Spaniards and their adherents", but he was deprived of all real power. Anjou’s coming had been dreaded and opposed by Elizabeth on political grounds, although she still coquetted with him as a suitor. He entered the Netherlands in September, 1578, took Binche by assault, and Maubeuge by capitulation; but under pretense of a deference to the will of Elizabeth, refrained from further conquests and retired into France. The policy of the English Queen on this subject differed from that of her ministers, who would have gladly seen the Netherlands separated, even by a French conquest, from the Crown of Spain; while it was the wish of Elizabeth that they should be restored to Philip, though with security for the preservation of their ancient liberties. She had indeed too high an idea of the divine right of Kings to regard the successful revolt of subjects with approbation.

Union of Utrecht by Lucy M. Salmon.

Farnese pursued the same policy as his predecessor in endeavoring to conciliate the Catholic provinces; and the democratic violence of two demagogues at last enabled him to destroy the Pacification of Ghent. In the autumn of 1577 the nobles Imbize and Ryhove had incited an insurrection in Ghent, and had seized and imprisoned the Duke of Aerschot and ten gentlemen of his suite, because the Duke, who had been elected Stadholder of Flanders, had delayed the promised confirmation of the ancient privileges of the city. Of these two leaders Ryhove was bold, savage, and unscrupulous. Imbize, with equal cruelty, was treacherous and cowardly, but possessed more eloquence and talent. He had conceived the chimerical idea of establishing a Republic and converting Ghent into a second Rome. These demagogues had formed a democratic government consisting of an executive of eighteen citizens, while the legislative power was vested in the deans of the guilds and the council of war of the city train-bands. The example of Ghent was followed by those towns where a proletarian population abounded; as Dendermonde, Courtray, Hulst, Oudenarde, and at last also Bruges. These proceedings were viewed with great disapprobation by the Prince of Orange, as calculated materially to damage the patriot cause. He sent an envoy to remonstrate with the leaders, and in December proceeded himself to Ghent; but all that he could effect was the liberation of the Duke of Aerschot. The disorders in that city went on increasing, and in the course of 1578 attained to such a height that the Walloon aristocracy trembled for their religion and even for their lives. The democratic party raged against the Catholics, broke the images in the churches, and seized on the property of the monks and clergy. A sort of internecine war ensued. The Walloons, with a body of French, headed by Pardieu, lord of La Motte, robbed, murdered, and destroyed up to the very gates of Ghent; while on the other hand, Ryhove and La Noue, having got together a force of French Huguenots, desolated the Walloon territories. These disorders caused the dissolution of the Brussels Union and of the Pacification of Ghent. The Walloons, who complained that faith had not been kept with them, entered into negotiations with Farnese; and in January, 1579, they concluded a separate league among themselves at Arras. The Prince of Orange, on his side, united the Calvinist provinces together in an alliance called a perpetual union; which, from its being proclaimed at Utrecht, January 29th, 1579, obtained the name of the Union of Utrecht. It was subscribed by deputies from Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, and the rural districts of Groningen, and in the course of the same year was acceded to by Friesland, Overyssel, Drenthe, and the town of Groningen. The towns of Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, and Ypres were also members of the Union for a time. The Union of Utrecht must be regarded as the foundation of the Dutch Republic, although the various provinces and towns which subscribed it did not renounce their allegiance to Philip II; on the contrary, the professed intention of the union was to maintain the Pacification of Ghent, which acknowledge that Sovereign. The United Provinces did not propose in their corporate capacity to meddle with domestic politics or religion, but merely to drive the foreigner from the land; and though they were to remain perpetually united, each province and town was to retain its peculiar laws, privileges, and customs.

Ste. Aldegonde having been dispatched by the Netherland States to the Diet assembled at Worms to implore the assistance of the Empire against the tyranny of the Spaniards, an attempt was made at the instance of the Emperor, Rodolph II, whose brother Matthias was still the ostensible Governor of the Netherlands, to effect a reconciliation between the provinces and the Spanish King; and with that view a congress was held at Cologne in April, at which plenipotentiaries attended from the Pope, the Emperor, the Spanish King, and the Netherlands, as well as from France, England, and several of the German Princes. Cobham and Walsingham were the English envoys; but the negotiations had no result. The Papal Nuncio would of course listen to no proposals of toleration, and Philip II insisted that the Netherlands should remain in the same state as under Charles V. He promised, indeed, to remove the Spanish troops; but he would acknowledge the Protestant religion only in Holland and Zealand, and that only for a time; while on the other hand the States would relax none of the conditions on which the governorship had been conceded to Matthias. An appeal to arms became therefore again inevitable; hostilities, indeed, had not been interrupted during the congress, and Farnese, after threatening Antwerp, had laid siege to Maestricht. The Walloon provinces now entirely separated themselves from the rest, and concluded a treaty with Farnese in his camp before Maestricht, May 17th, 1579, by which the authority of the King was indeed restored, but under strict limitations. Philip promised to dismiss all foreign troops, and to confirm all present possessors in the offices which they had acquired during the disturbances. Of all the Walloon towns, Tournay, Cambray, and Bouchain alone adhered to the States. The leading Walloon nobles who negotiated this treaty made the Spaniards pay for their adhesion; the price of their loyalty being a military command, the government of a province, the order of the Golden Fleece, or even a payment in money. But as the Walloon provinces were as fanatical as Philip himself, they made no stipulations about religion. Thus the Netherlands became divided into three distinct parties : 1, the Calvinist provinces of the north which had entered into the Union of Utrecht; 2, the Dutch-speaking middle provinces, containing an almost equal number of Catholics and Protestants; and 3, the wholly Catholic Walloon provinces of the south which had resumed their obedience to the Spanish government.

Maastricht, after an admirable defence of three months, during which numberless assaults were repulsed, was at length taken, June 29th, the inhabitants having been surprised in their sleep. During three days the Spaniards exercised the most abominable cruelties. Fortunately Farnese's treaty with the Walloons compelled him now to dismiss his Spanish troops, and he was consequently obliged to remain quiet for a period. The Prince of Orange availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded to strengthen his party by getting rid of the Archduke Matthias and the Ghent radicals. Matthias, as well as the Count Palatine John Casimir, were members of the Ghent democracy. Davidson, the English ambassador to the States, had complained bitterly of the Ghent demagogues, and especially of John Casimir, who was subsidized by England. The Count Palatine went to England to justify himself, and obtained from Elizabeth the Garter and a pension; but his troops in the Netherlands, which had done nothing but plunder, were dismissed. The Prince of Orange proceeded to Ghent in August, 1579, to put the affairs of that city in order in the name of the States-General. Imbize now fled into the Palatinate; but having ventured to return in 1584, was seized and executed. William restored in Ghent a mild and moderate government, established a toleration of both religions, and enforced a restitution of the spoils that had been committed both on private property and that of the Church.

After the taking of Maastricht and withdrawal of the Spanish troops, the war languished, Philip being fortunately occupied with other affairs. The Confederates, however, were not in a position to take advantage of this state of things, and it plainly appeared how difficult it is for a confederacy of this kind to make head against a powerful and united monarchy. The several provinces which composed it were more attentive to their own advantage than to the general good; while those who held commands in them were not always inaccessible to the influence of corruption. In March, 1580, a great Walloon noble, George de Lalaing, Count of Renneberg, who, although a Catholic, had served the Union of Utrecht with his mercenaries under John Casimir, and now occupied the town and fortress of Groningen, sold himself to the Spaniards for a pension of 20,000 florins and other advantages. Hence Groningen and Friesland were for some time lost to the league, and the Prince of Orange himself was put into considerable danger. His peril was increased by a step which Granvelle had advised Philip to adopt. A change of ministry had at length restored that Cardinal, who had languished many years in Italy, to the counsels of his Sovereign. His predecessor, Don Antonio Perez, who had taken the Princess of Eboli, a mistress of Philip's, for his own, was discovered and disgraced : he and the Princess were arrested July 28th, 1579, and on the same day Granvelle entered Madrid. One of his first steps was to propose the proscription of the Prince of Orange. William was accordingly placed under the royal ban, and a price of 25,000 gold crowns was set upon his head. In the preamble to this instrument all the various crimes imputed to Orange were recited; he was compared to Cain and Judas, and declared an enemy of the human race; and besides the proffered reward, whoever should kill him was promised, not only a pardon for any crime, however heinous, that he might have committed, but also that, if not already noble, he should be ennobled for his valou

Orange's Apologie

This proscription was answered by William in his celebrated Apologie, or Vindication; a paper drawn up with great eloquence and force of reasoning, though it sometimes oversteps the bounds of moderation, and brings charges against Philip, which, though the popular rumours of the day, the judgment of history has not always confirmed. The Prince rejoices in the opportunity of defending his character, not against an obscure libeller, but a great and powerful King. He recites the benefits which his family had conferred upon the House of Habsburg, who were obscure when his ancestors filled the Imperial throne. He observes that a Netherlander owed Philip no allegiance as King, but only as Duke, or Count, or Lord; and as Philip had violated the oath which he took to observe the privileges of the various provinces, both parties were released from their engagements. Philip, indeed, might plead the Pope's dispensation, and the Prince left it to divines to determine whether the arrogance of the Pope in presuming to release men from such obligations were not an invasion of the prerogative of heaven, and destructive of all faith among men. It was enough for him to remark the folly of such a proceeding; for, as the tie was mutual, the dispensation for Philip himself released also Philip's subjects, whom it was therefore absurd to reproach with disloyalty. He rebuts the charge of being the author of these disturbances, which were imputable solely to the cruelty and tyranny of the Spanish rule. He charges Philip with murder, and Granvelle with having administered poison to the Emperor Maximilian. To this paper Orange affixed his name and arms, with his motto, "Je maintiendrai"; and he sent a copy of it to most of the European Sovereigns. It alarmed even the boldest of his friends, and Ste. Aldegonde, when he read it in France, observed that the Prince was a dead man.

It was now plain that even that limited recognition of Philip's authority, which had hitherto prevailed in the Netherlands, could not much longer continue to be observed, and must be superseded by open rebellion and the assertion of independence. But such a step could not be ventured on without foreign assistance, and Orange determined on calling in the Duke of Anjou. That Prince, as we have said, had been named Protector of the Netherlands in 1578; but the state of affairs in France had prevented him from taking possession of his new dignity. Orange now persuaded the States to renew the negotiations with him, and to offer him the Stadholdership; but as the Netherlanders reposed even less confidence in Anjou than in Matthias, it was arranged that he should accept the office under the same limitations as the Archduke. The conditions were carried by a deputation from the States to the Duke, whom they found at Plessisles-Tours, where the treaty was concluded, September 29th, 1580. The chief stipulations were, that he was to maintain all the rights and privileges of the different provinces, of which he was to be Duke, Count, Margrave, or Lord, according to their different constitutions, and was to be succeeded by one of his children. He agreed to assemble the States-General at least once a year, to reside constantly in the Netherlands, and to bestow offices on none but natives. Holland and Zealand, however, which had put themselves specially under the authority of the Prince of Orange, were altogether excluded from this arrangement; and, indeed, Anjou signed a secret paper, entirely renouncing all pretensions to them. The Archduke Matthias laid down his office at Antwerp, and was mean enough to accept a retiring pension of 50,000 florins, which, however, does not seem to have been regularly paid; and in October, 1581, he returned to Austria, where he became the tool of those who were discontented with the government of his brother, the Emperor Rodolph II. In the Netherlands he had been simply insignificant.

Doctrine of Sovereignty of the People

Circumstances prevented the Duke of Anjou from being installed in his new dignity until 1582. On the 26th of July, 1581, the States-General of the United Provinces assembled at the Hague, formally renounced their allegiance to Philip by a solemn Act of Abjuration, and deposed him from his sovereignty. In this act his crimes against the people were elaborately enumerated; among which appear prominently the introduction of the Spanish troops, the creation of the new bishoprics, the establishment of the Inquisition, the cruelties of Alva, the "Spanish Fury", and finally, the proscription of the Prince of Orange. The act is justified by an appeal to the Law of Nature. Subjects, it is said, are not created by God to be the mere chattels of the Prince, to obey his commands, whether just or unjust, and to serve him like slaves; on the contrary, the Prince is appointed, like the shepherd of a flock, for the good of his subjects, to govern them according to law and reason. If he neglects to do this, if, instead of defending, he oppresses them, by depriving them of their ancient privileges and customs, he is no longer to be regarded as a Prince, but as a tyrant; and if his subjects cannot deter him from his oppressions by their prayers and their remonstrances, they are no longer bound, in law and reason, to recognize him for their Sovereign.

Thus was raised the first voice of political liberty proceeding from the spirit of the Reformation; thus was struck the first blow which shook the monarchical principle in its hitherto recognized foundation. Previous revolts had been mere instinctive risings against tyranny and oppression; but the enunciation, as a principle of natural law, of the right of resistance to tyrannous Sovereigns, proclaimed an age that had begun to feel and to reflect upon its civil as well as its religious privileges. The deliberate and solemn nature of the act produced all the more profound sensation in Europe; for the Declaration of Independence was not a democratic revolution, or an appeal to the people; the United Provinces did not style themselves a Republic, nor, in fact, make any change in their form of government; and the offer of their Sovereignty to Queen Elizabeth, and to the Duke of Anjou, shows that they were still inclined to be governed by a Prince. Still less was their formal connection with the Empire dissolved by this measure. The whole proceeding was managed by the regular assembly of the States, as if in the ordinary course of business; and so far from sanctioning a democracy, such as that attempted by Imbize and Ryhove, the divine right of Kings was acknowledged by the Act, and afterwards by the envoys of the States at the Diet of Augsburg, in 1582. In fact, it is remarkable that the doctrine of the Sovereignty of the people was first broached, not by the Protestants, but by the Jesuits and the high Catholic party. It formed part of their theory of the omnipotence of the Pope, who alone reigned by divine right, and that only in his spiritual capacity. Bellarmine was the first who attempted to establish this doctnne logically and systematically. He maintained that the people have, in extreme emergencies, a natural right to resume the government and alter its forms; and this view became the prevailing doctrine of all the Jesuit schools, and was by none more emphatically taught than by the Spanish Jesuits Suarez and Mariana. It was of course levelled against heretical sovereigns such as Queen Elizabeth in England, and Henry IV in France. Two days before the Act of Abjuration was published, the Prince of Orange accepted the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand, though limited at his own request to the period during which the war should last; a limitation, however, afterwards cancelled by the States without William's knowledge. He was to maintain in those provinces the public exercise of the reformed religion alone; but no inquiries were to be made into any man's belief, nor was any hindrance to be offered to him on the ground of his religion.

Fortunately Philip was at this time occupied with the affairs of Portugal, and Alexander Farnese was not in a position to push the war with much vigour. He had not only dismissed his Spanish and Italian veterans, but was also involved in a quarrel with the Spanish King and with his own mother, Margaret, whom Philip II had sent back to rule the Netherlands. Farnese, however, refusing to share his power with her, Margaret at length withdrew her pretensions, and though she lived under an assumed name upwards of three years in the Netherlands, she forbore to take any ostensible part in public affairs. The Duke of Anjou, whom Henry III had pretended to disavow, entered the Low Countries about the middle of August (1581) with an army of some 15,000 men, and compelled Farnese to raise the siege of Cambray, one of the few Walloon towns which adhered to the Union of Utrecht. Anjou entered Cambray in triumph; but this was the extent of his exploits. Through his own improvidence, as well as for want of succour from the French Court, which was wasting its resources in dissipation and extravagance, Anjou found himself obliged to disband his army; and in November he went with a splendid retinue to England to press in person his suit to Queen Elizabeth. Being disappointed at Cambray, Farnese next turned his arms against Tournay, which after a brave defence of two months, conducted by Christine de Lalaing, Princess of Espinoy, in the absence of her husband, the commandant, was forced to surrender, November 30th.

Queen Elizabeth was at this period much embittered against the Spanish Court, on account of its intrigues with the discontented nobles and with Mary Stuart. When Farnese resumed hostilities, she sent some troops into the Netherlands under Colonel Norris, who proved of considerable service to the Dutch; yet she was not inclined to provoke an open war with Spain; and much to the regret of Leicester, she for the second time declined the offer made to her by the States of Holland and Zealand, early in 1582, of the sovereignty of these two provinces. How far her negotiations with Anjou were the result of policy or coquetry, it may not be easy to determine. The Duke, who was at that time twenty-eight years of age, possessed considerable grace and vivacity, though in person below the middle size, puny and ill-shaped. Elizabeth had always reserved for herself a loophole of escape; and to the contract for the marriage drawn up in June, 1581, was appended a provision for the exchange of certain mutual explanations. He soon after quitted the shores of England and landed at Flushing, February 10th, 1582. Hence he was conducted by the Prince of Orange, by water, to Antwerp, took the customary oaths upon his joyeuse entrée into that city, and was formally proclaimed Duke of Brabant.

About a month after the installation of Anjou, an attempt was made at Antwerp to murder the Prince of Orange. The Court of Spain followed up the diabolical policy adopted in the ban by entering into a regular contract with one Anastro, a bankrupt merchant of Antwerp, for the murder of William. This contract, which was signed by Philip with his own hand, and sealed with his seal, guaranteed to Anastro the sum of 80,000 ducats for the perpetration of the deed, besides the cross of St. Iago! Anastro entrusted the matter, as if it had been in the regular course of business, to his servant named Jauregui; who, being incited by a fanatical friar, and tempted with the offer of near three thousand crowns, undertook the assassination. Jauregui chose for that purpose the birthday of the Duke of Anjou (March 18th). The Prince of Orange, who had been dining at his own house, was just rising from table, when Jauregui approached under pretense of presenting a petition, and discharged a pistol at him. The ball entered the Prince's neck, under the right ear, passed through the roof of the mouth, and came out under the left jaw, carrying away two teeth in its passage. The pistol had been held so near that the flash cicatrized the wound, which otherwise would probably have been mortal. The assassin was instantly cut down. The more calculating Anastro had left Antwerp before the attempt, and escaped into the Prince of Parma's lines. William was in such danger during three weeks, that his wife, Charlotte of Bourbon, died of anxiety.

The French were not popular in the Netherlands, and a report was immediately spread that the crime had been committed at the instigation of Anjou. The infuriated populace crowded to the palace of St. Michael, the residence of this French Duke at Antwerp; and but for the presence of mind of William's son Maurice, then a mere youth, a fearful massacre would have ensued. Maurice had guessed at once that the crime had its origin in Spain, and the papers found in the assassin's pocket proved his suspicions to be correct. These papers he now showed to the people, and thus appeased them for the moment; but a lurking suspicion still remained, and all mutual confidence was lost. Anjou became daily more dissatisfied with his position, in which he felt that he had no real power, being constantly watched and controlled by the Prince of Orange. He told his followers that only two alternatives were left for him; either to retire into France, which would cover him with disgrace, or to assert his authority in the Netherlands with a strong hand. Adopting the latter design, he distributed his French forces in certain Flemish towns, which he wished to occupy, with directions to the commanders, when the opportunity should arrive, to overpower the magistrates and seize those places. It was in fact a repetition of the policy of Don John when he seized Namur. The plan succeeded at Ostend, Dendermonde, Dixmude, Dunkirk, and a few other towns; but it was frustrated at Bruges and Nieuport, while at Antwerp, which Anjou himself undertook to master, it occasioned a fearful massacre.

The French Fury at Antwerp, 1583

Except his body-guard, Anjou had no troops inside Antwerp; but his French soldiers lay at no great distance, and on the 17th January, 1583, having assembled them near the city on pretense of a review, he rode out with his guard to one of the gates; the burgher watch was suddenly over­powered, and the troops began to enter with cries of Ville gagnée! Vive la messe! Tue, tue! and then began to disperse themselves for plunder. Their triumph was premature. The inhabitants called to mind that several distinguished French officers had some time before been carefully examining the goldsmith's shops under pretense of purchasing: the object of the attack was plain; the native troops and citizens flew to arms, and a terrible conflict ensued. The streets were quickly secured with chains and barricades; the French were shot at from the windows; even women and children attacked them; and after a short struggle the 3,500 Frenchmen who had entered were driven out with the loss of more than half their number, while the chief nobles in the Duke's retinue were either killed or made prisoners. This treacherous attack which obtained the name of "the French Fury", was much less disastrous than the Spanish Fury. The French were not so well versed in the sacking of towns as the Spaniards, who proceeded more methodically, by first butchering the inhabitants and then appropriating their property; while the French began to plunder before they had secured their opponents. Anjou was bitterly reviled by many of his own officers, who were too honorable to partake in the plot and to whom he had not ventured to reveal it. When he saw its ill success, he withdrew towards Dendermonde; whereupon the citizens of Mechlin, by cutting a dyke, let out the waters of the Dyle, and drowned about 1,000 of his followers. After this act Anjou of course ceased to be regarded by the Nether- landers as their protector, and he retired to Dunkirk. The Prince of Orange nevertheless endeavored to effect a reconciliation with him; for which he had many reasons. If Anjou should be cast off, Henry III might perhaps reconcile himself with Spain, and the road through France would thus be opened to the troops of Philip II. Queen Elizabeth also urged a reconciliation, and it was dangerous to offend a Sovereign whose aid was of so much importance to the United Provinces. William, too, discovered that while the Duke was writing to him in the tone of injured innocence, he was at the same time treating with Farnese; and he hastened to close with an opponent whose enmity might prove more dangerous even than his friendship. A provisional arrangement was signed with Anjou in March, 1583, but towards the end of June the Duke left Dunkirk never to return.

Meanwhile the Prince of Parma, having been reinforced by Philip with fresh troops released by the termination of the war in Portugal, as well as by the return of the Spanish and Italian veterans, to which the Walloons had been persuaded to consent, had resumed more active operations. From July to November, 1583, the towns of Dixmude, Nieuport, Dunkirk, Zutphen, the Sas, or port of Ghent, Hulst, Axel, Rupelmonde, and Alost fell into the hands of the Spaniards; while the States, for want of friends, were able to make but little resistance. Besides military talent, Farnese displayed a wise and politic moderation and clemency. He endeavored, as much as possible, to spare the places which he attacked the evils which ordinarily accompany warfare. Rather than take them by storm he preferred to reduce them by blockade, or by diverting the course of streams and rivers, and he offered them the most favorable capitulations that his instructions from Philip would allow. But the inexorable bigotry of the Catholic King would not yield a jot in the matter of religion; and on this head all that the Protestants in the captured towns could obtain was the choice either of renouncing their faith or quitting the country within two years. Farnese pursued his successes in the following year (1584). Between March and August, Ypres, Mechlin, Brussels and Dendermonde were forced to capitulate; while Charles of Croy, Prince of Chimay, son of the Duke of Aerschot, treacherously betrayed Bruges to the Spaniards, in order to obtain the command of a division. Ghent, Sluys, Antwerp and Ostend were now the only southern Netherland towns that remained in the power of the States; and of these Ghent was no longer tenable after the taking of the Sas, by which it was cut off from the sea, and the fall of Dendermonde, which interrupted its communications with Antwerp and Brabant. Ghent was again in the hands of the demagogues, but after the execution of Imbize, it capitulated September 17th.

Murder of Orange, 1584

Before this event, both Anjou and the Prince of Orange had ceased to exist. William had succeeded in effecting a new treaty with Anjou, but before it was signed the Duke died at Chateau-Thierry, June 10th, 1584. Although the character of this Prince rendered him altogether insignificant and contemptible, yet, from his peculiar position, his death had a great effect upon the troubles both in the Netherlands and France. In the latter country, by opening the way for the succession of Henry of Navarre to the Crown, it served to stimulate the proceedings of the Guises and the League. In the Netherlands it caused a dissolution of the government in Flanders and Brabant; which provinces, as they did not belong to the Union of Utrecht, had no longer any head to whom they could look; and thus, at a critical moment, disunion was introduced into the counsels of the States. After the death of Anjou, the Prince of Orange, disgusted at the disunion which prevailed in Brabant and Flanders, returned into Holland after an absence of six years. Convinced in the present circumstances of the necessity of a strong government, he now accepted the dignity, which he had more than once refused, of Sovereign Count of Holland and Zealand; and he declared that he would in future rule those provinces with the same princely power as had been enjoyed by Charles V and Philip II. But before the arrangements for his installation could be completed he fell by the hand of an assassin.

After the abortive attempt on the Prince's life by Jauregui, four more had been made with the same ill-success; making five within two years, and all with the knowledge of the Spanish government. The sixth was destined to be more successful. William's murderer was one Balthazar Gérard, a native of Villefans, in Burgundy, and, like Jauregui, a religious fanatic. Gérard communicated his design to the Prince of Parma, by whom it was approved; for this cool-headed and cold-hearted tactician admitted assassination in his art of war. Farnese had, indeed, been long in search of a murderer, and had hired several, who, after pocketing his money, shirked the deed. Assuming the name of Francis Guion, and the aspect of a devout Calvinist, Gérard was sent to Delft with dispatches to the Prince, and thus obtained entrance into his bedchamber. It was not, however, till two days afterwards that Gerard was ready to perpetrate the diabolical act. On the 10th of July, 1584, as Orange was proceeding up stairs after dinner, Gérard shot him with a pistol loaded with three balls, and William almost instantly expired. The murderer was arrested in attempting to escape, and, before and at his execution, was subjected to tortures, which he endured with an almost superhuman fortitude. A commuted reward was paid to his parents, who received three lordships in Franche-Comté, the property of the murdered Prince, and took their place among the landed aristocracy. William the Silent was fifty-one years of age at the time of his death. He left twelve children, viz.: by his first wife, Anne of Egmont, a son, Philip Count Buren, a prisoner in Spain, and a daughter, Mary, afterwards married to Count Hohenlohe; by his second wife, Anne of Saxony, a son, Prince Maurice of Nassau, and two daughters; by his third wife, Charlotte of Bourbon, six daughters; and by his fourth wife, Louise, daughter of Admiral Coligni, and widow of Teligni, whom he had married in April, 1583, a son, Frederick Henry, afterwards the celebrated Stadholder.

William's place in history is among the greatest benefactors of mankind, the deliverers of their country. His untimely death, indeed, prevented him from fully accomplishing the great work of emancipation, but he had put it in such a train as ensured a successful result. Steadfastness, constancy of purpose, denial of self in the service of his country, for which he rendered himself almost a beggar, are the great traits in his character. As a commander he was outshone by other generals of the age; yet he possessed considerable military genius, and the relief of Leyden is a striking instance both of vastness of design and boldness of execution. As a states­man he was unquestionably the first in Europe. With great sagacity and power to penetrate the designs of others, he had the art, so necessary to a politician, of concealing his own. He was possessed of a singular eloquence, and his speeches and state papers are models of their kind. In public he exhibited an exemplary piety, and his enlightened and liberal toleration forms an agreeable contrast with the harsh and narrow bigotry then everywhere displayed, not only in the Roman Catholic, but also in the Protestant communions. A modern historian has well characterized him as "the head of the party of humanity", at that time a new party in the annals of Europe, but which has since gone on increasing. His company consisted of the burgesses of Delft, and there was no external sign to distinguish him from that multitude. The local States testified their respect for William's memory by naming his son Maurice, although then only eighteen years of age, Stadholder of Holland, Zealand and Utrecht, and High Admiral. Maurice was a quiet, steady young man, devoted to the study of mathematics, in the hope of one day making that science useful in the art of war; but as he had not of course yet displayed that military talent by which he was afterwards distinguished, Count Hohenlohe was appointed his lieutenant-general, to direct him in his enterprises as deputy of the States.

Siege of Antwerp, 1585

After the fall of Ghent, Farnese applied himself earnestly to the siege of Antwerp, one of the most memorable recorded in history. The citizens were animated in their defence by the valour and talent of Ste. Aldegonde. Farnese at once began to make a bridge, which he carried across the Scheld, below Antwerp, in order to cut off the communication of the city with the sea and with Zealand. From the depth and swiftness of the river, the difficulty of finding the requisite materials, and of transporting them to the selected place in the face of an enemy who was superior on the water, the project was loudly denounced by Farnese's officers as impracticable; yet, in spite of all these difficulties, as the place seemed unapproachable in the usual way, he steadily persevered, and at last succeeded.

During the construction of the bridge, which lasted half a year, the citizens of Antwerp viewed with dismay the progress of a work which was to deprive them of the supplies necessary for their subsistence and defence. At length they adopted a plan suggested by Giambelli, a Mantuan engineer, and resolved to destroy the bridge by means of fire-ships, which seem to have been first used on this occasion. Several such vessels were one night sent down the river with a favorable tide and wind, of which two were charged with 6,000 or 7,000 lbs. of gunpowder each, packed in solid masonry, with various destructive missiles. One of these vessels went ashore before reaching its destination; the other struck upon the bridge, and blew up with terrible effect. Curiosity to behold so novel a spectacle had attracted vast numbers of the Spaniards, who lined the shores as well as the bridge. Of these 800 were killed by the explosion, and by the implements of destruction discharged with the powder; a still greater number were terribly maimed and wounded, and the bridge itself was broken through. Farnese himself was thrown to the earth, and lay for a time insensible. The Zealand fleet, however, was not at hand to bring relief, nor did the besieged follow up their plan with vigour. They allowed Farnese time to repair the damage, and the Spaniards, being now on the alert, either diverted the course of the fireships that were subsequently sent against them or suffered them to pass the bridge through openings made for the purpose. In spite of the bridge, however, the beleaguered citizens might still have secured a transit down the river by breaking through the dykes between Antwerp and Lillo, and sailing over the plains thus laid under water, for which purpose it was necessary to obtain possession of the counter-dyke of Kowenstyn; but after a partial success, too quickly abandoned by Hohenlohe andSte. Aldegonde, they were defeated in a desperate battle fought upon the dyke. Antwerp was now obliged to capitulate; and as Farnese was anxious to put an end to so long a siege, it obtained more favorable terms than could have been anticipated (August 17th, 1585). The prosperity of this great commercial city received, however, a severe blow from its capture by the Spaniards. A great number of the citizens, as well as of the inhabitants of Brabant and Flanders, removed to Amsterdam and Middleburg, and so much augmented the population, as well as the trade, of those cities, that it became necessary to enlarge their walls. Ste. Aldegonde was vehemently suspected of having sold himself to the Spaniards, and though he lived down this calumny, his public career was now brought to an end.

Elizabeth helps the Hollanders, 1585-6

The Netherlands seemed at this time in imminent danger, being again brought under the dominion of Philip II, a fate, however, from which they were rescued partly by the succours afforded to them by Queen Elizabeth and partly by the impolicy of the Spanish King in diverting his resources in order to attack England and to help the League in France. After the murder of the Prince of Orange, Queen Elizabeth resolved no longer to afford the United Provinces a merely clandestine assistance, but to support them by a public alliance. She once more declined, indeed, the sovereignty; but she agreed to send 6,000 troops into the Netherlands, as securities for the repayment of whose expenses Flushing and Brille, the chief fortresses severally in Walcheren and Voorne, were to be placed in her hands; and she published her motives for this step in a declaration dated at Richmond, October 10th, 1585. They were chiefly grounded on the schemes of Philip II, who, incited by the Pope, was contemplating an invasion of her Kingdom, to the Crown of which he laid claim by virtue of his descent from John of Gaunt. The Queen's reasons for declining the sovereignty of the United Provinces seem to have been the expenditure it would require and the perpetual war which it would probably entail. She was anxious that her refusal should not be ascribed to fear, and at the conclusion of her address to the Dutch envoys, among whom was John of Olden Barneveld, she said: "Finally, gentlemen, I beg you to assure the States that I do not decline the sovereignty of your country from any dread of the King of Spain. For I take God to witness that I fear him not; and I hope, with the blessing of God, to make such demonstrations against him, that men shall say the Queen of England does not fear the Spaniards". But Elizabeth in a great measure marred the benefits which the Netherlander would otherwise have derived from her assistance by making her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, commander of the expedition; a man entirely unfitted for it by his want of military talent, his selfish and intriguing disposition, and his haughty and overbearing temper. Sir Philip Sidney was appointed Governor of Flushing, and on the 10th of December the Earl of Leicester, accompanied by his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex, and a brilliant staff, landed at that part to assume the command.

After Leicester's arrival, the States conferred upon him the dignity of Governor and Captain-General of the United Provinces, which he accepted without consulting the Queen, and he was solemnly inaugurated at the Hague, January 24th, 1586. As Elizabeth had refused the sovereignty, she was highly offended by this step. She threatened to recall him; she signified her will that the dignity conferred upon him should be revoked, and that he should exercise no more power than he had originally been invested with as commander-in-chief in the Netherlands, with a seat in the Council. She sent a special envoy to communicate her displeasure to the States publicly and in the presence of Leicester himself: an impolitic step, by which she not only placed her lieutenant in a humiliating position, and damaged his authority with the Hollanders, but even cast a suspicion upon her own sincerity.

Philip II naturally regarded Elizabeth's manifesto as a declaration of war, and ordered the seizure of all English vessels, as well as English subjects, in his dominions.

The campaign of 1586 was tolerably active. Farnese, now Duke of Parma through the death of his father, successfully laid siege to and captured Grave and Venlo on the Meuse. Norris would have succeeded in relieving the former place had not the commandant prematurely surrendered. In the western provinces Prince Maurice and Sir Philip Sidney surprised Axel, but failed at Gravelines; after which, Sidney joined Leicester at Arnheim. After the capture of Venlo, Parma took Neuss, on the Rhine, and invested Rheinberg; when, in order to occasion a diversion, Leicester, who was not strong enough to cope with the Duke in the open field, seized Duisburg and laid siege to Zutphen. It was during this siege that the gallant and chivalrous Sidney received his death wound, while charging at the head of only 200 horse a body of 1,100 of the enemy's cavalry, who were convoying provisions to the town (September 23rd, 1586). The humanity which he displayed on this occasion towards a wounded soldier, more conspicuous even than his courage, is well known. He died of his wound at Arnheim, October 16th. Parma hastened to Zutphen with all his forces, and Leicester was compelled to raise the siege; but he afterwards contrived to get possession of three forts on the opposite side of the Yssel.

Although Leicester was provided only with very inadequate forces, and those, through the niggardliness of Elizabeth, miserably paid, his campaign may be said to have preserved the Northern Netherlands from subjection. But his government was intolerable to the States. He treated the provinces like a conquered country, arbitrarily appointed governors of provinces and towns; laid restrictions upon trade, and tampered with the public money. He made two most injudicious appointments in giving the government of Deventer to Sir William Stanley, an English Catholic, and making Roland York, a man of tainted character, commandant of the principal fort near Zutphen. Nevertheless, when Leicester arrived at the Hague towards the close of the year, the States, unwilling to offend Elizabeth, received him with great honor, though they made a firm but modest remonstrance against his proceedings. Leicester then pretending that affairs required his presence in England, the States insisted on his executing a deed by which he transferred during his absence his authority as Governor to the Council of State; but, with an unworthy artifice, he secretly executed on the same day another deed, by which he not only reserved his power, but even intrenched upon that of the Council. Scarcely had Leicester departed for England, when Deventer and the fort near Zutphen were betrayed to the enemy by Stanley and York (February, 1587). Stanley sent for priests to convert his garrison, consisting of 1,300 English and Irish, in order that they might form a seminary regiment to serve against the Queen. The States, alarmed by these treacheries, decreed that, during Leicester's absence, the supreme authority should be transferred to Prince Maurice; and though in their public declarations they treated the English with forbearance, they addressed letters of warm remonstrance both to Elizabeth and Leicester. The Earl, however, who affected a puritanical behaviour, had a strong party in Holland, especially among the Calvinist ministers; and by this party the charges made against him were impugned. Puzzled by these conflicting representations, Elizabeth dispatched Lord Buckhurst into Holland to inquire into their truth; but when that nobleman honestly told the Queen that Leicester was in the wrong, and especially accused him of inciting the people against the States, in order to render his own authority absolute, he was immediately arrested, as if he, and not Leicester, had been the guilty party.

These disputes crippled the power of the States in all the provinces except Holland and Zealand, where alone Maurice could make his commands obeyed, and were a serious drawback to the aid afforded by England. Ostend and Sluys were now the only Flemish towns of much importance which had not been reduced by the Spaniards, and after a feint on Veluwe the Duke of Parma laid siege to Sluys early in June, 1587. Here he pursued the same plan as at Antwerp, by bridging over the large canal which communicated with the sea. Leicester, who had returned into the Netherlands with a reinforcement, being joined by Maurice, after some feeble and ineffectual attempts to relieve Sluys, retired into Zealand, and the town, which was bravely defended by the commandant, Arnold de Groenevelt, and by Sir Roger Williams, Sir Francis Vere, and Captain Nicholas Baskerville, after sustaining 17,000 rounds of shot and losing half its garrison, was forced to capitulate (August 4th). During this siege, Geldern was betrayed to the enemy by Colonel Paton, a Scotchman. Leicester, after an unsuccessful and inglorious attempt to reduce Hoogstraaten, went to meet the States assembled at Dort. That body had received secret intelligence of his designs either to usurp an unlimited power or to abandon the provinces altogether. He was suspected of an intention to occupy the chief cities in Holland and Zealand, and to seize and carry off to England Prince Maurice and Olden Barneveld. Leicester, finding himself the object of suspicion, became accuser in turn, and attributed his misfortunes partly to the States, who had neglected to furnish him with the necessary supplies, and partly to Maurice and Hohenlohe, who had refused to cooperate with him; but perceiving at length that he was unequal to the task he had undertaken, he returned to England in December. Queen Elizabeth transferred to Lord Willoughby the command of the English troops, subject, however, to the control of the States. The latter appointed Prince Maurice commander-in-chief, who, though inferior to his father as a statesman, had already given proofs of great military talent.

Death of Gregory XIII

The schemes of the Pope and the Catholic King to invade England and dethrone its Queen were at this time growing to maturity. A new Pontiff now occupied the Chair of Peter. Gregory XIII, whose long and insidious enmity against Elizabeth had proved abortive, died April 10th, 1585 : a Pope more generally and more favorably known to posterity by the reformation of the solar year and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, than by his miserable intrigues. He was succeeded by one of the most extraordinary men that ever wore the tiara.

Felix Peretti, the descendant of an Illyrian fugitive, and the son of a vinedresser, was born near Fermo, in the March of Ancona, December 15th, 1521. His early childhood was employed in tending sheep and swine. At the age of twelve his education was undertaken by the Franciscans, into whose order he in due time entered; and such was his devotion to study that, for want of a candle, he was accustomed to read in the church by the light that burnt before the tabernacle. He subsequently studied at the Universities of Bologna and Ferrara, where he exhibited much skill in dialectics, and took his degrees with great honor and applause. Proceeding at length to Rome, Friar Felix attracted much notice by his sermons, and won the favour of the Grand Inquisitor, Ghislieri, afterwards Pope Pius V. That Pontiff, who found in Peretti a congenial nature, made him successively General of the Franciscans, Bishop of Sta. Agata, and in 1570 a Cardinal and Archbishop of Fermo, when Peretti returned, clothed in the Roman purple, and with the title of Cardinal Montalto, to the scene of his childhood's humble labors. At the death of Gregory XIII, Cardinal Montalto, then a hale and hearty man of sixty-four, pretending utter feebleness and hopeless ill health, secured by a pious fraud his election to the Papal throne; and immediately convicted himself by throwing aside his crutch, holding himself erect, so as to look a foot taller, and intoning vigorously the Te Deum.

Sixtus V, for that was the title assumed by Montalto, displayed in his pontificate all the energy and enthusiasm of his patron Ghislieri. Educated like him in a convent, Sixtus V. could but ill distinguish between the practicable and impracticable. His head was filled with the most fantastic visions; plans that could hardly have been feasible during the Rome of the Middle Ages. He dreamt of annihilating the Turkish empire; of conquering Egypt; of opening a passage between the Red Sea and Mediterranean; of penetrating into Syria, bringing the Holy Sepulcher to Italy, and erecting it at Montalto in his native province, already the seat of our Lady of Loreto; which place was raised by Sixtus to a considerable town. His administration was strict and vigorous, nay, even cruel, yet in many respects beneficial. He hanged even venial criminals without remorse, and was zealous in exterminating the banditti that infested the Roman States. He instituted eight new congregations of Cardinals, and fixed the number of the College at seventy. He paid great attention to matters of finance, and accumulated a treasure whilst most other European States were in debt. Although he had no classical taste, and cared not for the remains of antiquity at Rome, he enlarged and adorned the city with new buildings, and again conducted the water to the Roman hills by means of the Aqua Felice, an aqueduct which feeds seven and twenty fountains.

Sixtus V felt a sort of respect for Queen Elizabeth, in whom he recognized some congenial qualities; and he is reported to have said that he and the English Queen should have married and begotten another Alexander. He actually sent her an invitation to return to the bosom of the Church, at which Elizabeth of course only laughed; and Sixtus then said he must devise some means to deprive her of her Kingdom. There was, however, a generosity in his nature which spurned the insidious methods of Gregory. He does not appear to have sanctioned any attempts to murder Elizabeth, though he renewed against her the bull of excommunication; but he openly proclaimed his intention of forwarding any military attack upon her dominions, declared that he would help Philip in such an enterprise, and early in 1587 loudly complained of the dilatoriness of the Spaniards, to whom he represented the advantages of the conquest of England with a view to the recovery of the Netherlands. The zeal of Sixtus was further inflamed by the beheading of the Queen of Scots (February 8th, 1587), the first idea of which seems to have been suggested by the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1587.

When the news of Mary's death arrived in Rome, Sixtus furiously declaimed in the Consistory against the English Jezebel, and by way of retaliation created Dr. William Allen a Cardinal. A formal treaty was soon afterwards concluded between Sixtus V and Philip II, by which the Pope promised the King of Spain a subsidy of a million scudi, to be paid as soon as Philip should be in actual possession of some English port. England, after its conquest, was to become a fief of the Church. Philip, however, with masterly dissimulation, appears to have kept the Pope, as well as everybody else, in the dark, respecting the actual time of the invasion.

The French King was solicited by Sixtus to join in the enterprise against Elizabeth, but Henry requested time for deliberation. The destruction of Elizabeth was not for his interest. He had, indeed, after the condemnation of Queen Mary, sent De Bellièvre on a special mission publicly to deprecate her execution, yet with secret instructions to solicit Elizabeth for her death, as the common enemy of both through her connection with the Guises. That family did all they could to forward the Pope's project, and had even recently undertaken on their own account a conspiracy against Elizabeth. The French ambassador in London, who belonged to the Guisian faction, had entered into a plot to blow up Elizabeth in her apartment: and his servant, Du Trapps, had solicited William Stafford, brother of the English ambassador at Paris, to join in the deed, promising to procure for him from the Pope a pension of 10,000 crowns; though it does not appear that he was authorized to make such a promise. The detection of this conspiracy in January, 1587, after the Scottish Queen had already been condemned to death for her participation in Babington's plot, seems to have been one of the causes which hastened on her execution. Guise and the League offered the roadstead of Boulogne to Philip for the convenience of his armament; but Henry III found means to frustrate their intention.

The execution of the Queen of Scots was an inducement to the King of Spain to strike the blow which he had long been meditating, not only on account of the indignation which the event excited in the breasts of all devoted Papists, but also because Mary's death strengthened the claims which he affected to the English Crown; and he now pretended, as heir of the House of Lancaster, to be the first Catholic Prince of the blood-royal of England. He had been several years preparing for the enterprise. He had been gradually increasing his forces in the Netherlands; and Leicester stated in November, 1587, that the Duke of Parma had under his command near 40,000 men. Philip's anxiety had been much increased by the footing which the English had gained in the Netherlands; and both his zeal and his hopes were stimulated by the cries for aid and relief addressed to him by some of the Catholics of England. Parma had obtained a plan of the English coasts, and Philip was pressing for the immediate accomplishment of the invasion. So sanguine were his hopes that he was even discussing the future government of his anticipated conquest; and a scheme was in agitation to marry the Queen of Scots after her deliverance to one of his nephews, and perhaps to the Prince of Parma.

Philip's resolution was further strengthened by the losses and insults which he suffered from the buccaneering expeditions of Sir Francis Drake and other English navigators. In the latter part of 1585, Drake, accompanied by Martin Frobisher, had plundered St. Iago, one of the Cape de Verd islands, the island of St. Domingo, and Cartagena on the Spanish Main. Sailing thence to Virginia, where a colony had lately been founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, Drake's fleet returned home with a large treasure, bringing also the Virginian colonists, who had begun to despair of their settlement.

Philip's plot against Protestantism and liberty was extensive and complicated. Its main outline was, to conquer England as a means of subduing the Dutch; to prevent France from opposing his designs, and even to gain the aid of the League in furthering them, by keeping alive the civil war in that country and subsidizing Guise; and at the same time to lull the English into a fatal security by entering into negotiations for a pretended peace. Philip's instructions to Parma for the accomplishment of the last object are worthy of Machiavelli and of himself. Seated at his desk in the Escorial, this plodding conspirator against human freedom wrote to his commander in the Netherlands, that he meant not the negotiations for a peace to have any result; that they were merely a deception and a snare, and that the preparations for invading England were to be pushed on with the greatest vigour. Philip found in Parma an able instrument of his treachery. Negotiations for the pretended peace were opened at Bourbourg near Gravelines, under the mediation of the King of Denmark, and were one of the reasons which induced Elizabeth not to lend that efficient help to the Netherlanders during the year 1587 which she might otherwise have done. Elizabeth's blindness in the following year, when the negotiations were continued at Ostend, was still greater, and, but for fortunate accidents, might have proved the destruction of her realm. After many weeks of fruitless talk, a ceremonious interview of the commissioners took place on the sands near Ostend, in May, which of course had no result; except that the Duke of Parma availed himself of the opportunity to visit Ostend in disguise, and view the fortifications. He succeeded for two months longer in throw­ing dust into the eyes of the English Queen, and it was not till towards the middle of July, on the very eve of the appear­ance of the Armada in the Channel, that she at last awoke from her dream of security.

The Invincible Armada

The preparations in the Spanish and Portuguese ports had been retarded by the attack of Drake on the Spanish coasts in 1587. It was an idea of the Spaniards that it would be easier to conquer England than Holland; but the exploits of Drake must have somewhat shaken them in this opinion. With a fleet of forty ships Drake burnt and destroyed, under the guns of Cadiz and Lisbon, about one hundred vessels laden with provisions and ammunition. He also captured off the Azores a rich Portuguese carrack. The papers found on board this vessel, by the details which they afforded of the value of the trade to the East Indies, and of the manner in which it was conducted, are said to have caused the foundation of the London East India Company. Drake acquainted Elizabeth with the vast preparations making in the Spanish harbours. The sailing of the Invincible Armada from Lisbon in May, 1588, its dispersion by a storm, its arrival in the English Channel (July 19th), the attacks upon it by Lord Howard of Effingham and Drake, the alarm and confusion into which it was thrown by means of fire-ships, when at anchor before Calais, its subsequent dispersion, its voyage round Great Britain by the Orkneys, the disastrous storms which it encountered, and finally the return of less than half its number to Spain, are facts so well known to the English reader that they need not to be here repeated. The Spaniards had relied so confidently on the conquest of England that the Armada was crowded with monks of every order destined to re-establish Papistry in that country.

The first accounts of the discomfiture of the Armada caused Philip, by his own confession, great anxiety, and more than a month elapsed before the return of its shattered remnant to Spain in October at length convinced him of the entire frustration of his hopes. During this eventful crisis the Dutch fleet contributed very materially to the safety of England by blockading the Duke of Parma in the Flemish harbours. This commander had with great labour constructed a fleet of 340 vessels of various sizes, the materials for which he had to bring from a vast distance; and he had cantoned near the coast an army of 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse ready for embarkation. The Duke of Guise was also prepared to assist the invasion with 12,000 men whom he had collected in Normandy.

Campaign of 1589.

In the following year (1589), in order to divert the Spanish King from another attack on England, the war was carried into his own dominions. An English armament under the command of Drake and Norris, accompanied by Dom Antonio, sailed for Portugal, in the hope that the population would declare in favour of the Prior of Crato on his landing. With her usual economy Queen Elizabeth conducted this affair on the principle of a joint-stock speculation. She herself ventured six ships and £60,000; the two commanders and their friends £50,000; and the remainder of the expedition was made up by London, the Cinque Ports and other maritime towns. But the enterprise was ill-conducted. The fleet had not been provided with sufficient provisions and ammunition; time was lost by an attack upon Coruna, when the lower town was captured; and though the expedition afterwards effected a landing near Lisbon, mastered the suburbs of that city, and captured sixty Hanse vessels freighted with supplies for a second Armada, it was soon discovered that the people were not inclined to take up Dom Antonio's cause. After great sufferings the expedition returned in June with their booty, leaving behind them an indelible impression of English valour.

Meanwhile, after the defeat of the Armada, the Duke of Parma had resumed his operations in the Netherlands. In August, 1588, he laid siege to Bergen-op-Zoom; whence he was obliged to withdraw by the great losses he had suffered through a stratagem of two English soldiers, and to put his army into winter-quarters. At the same time he dispatched Count Mansfeld with the German portion of his forces to attack Wachterdonck, a town in Upper Gelderland. The siege of this little place, which was bravely defended by the celebrated Colonel Schenck, possesses no interest, except from the fact that bombs were first used in it. They were the invention of a citizen of Venlo. The army of the Duke of Parma had suffered much in these two sieges; its pay was likewise in arrear, for the expenses of the Armada had emptied Philip's treasury; but the spirits of the Duke were somewhat revived by the acquisition of Gertruidenberg in North Brabant, which was betrayed to him by the seditious and discontented garrison. The campaign of 1589 presents little of importance. Farnese, who had fallen into bad health, repaired to Spa for the benefit of the waters, and his army was not in a condition to undertake any considerable enterprise. At the earnest desire of the Elector of Cologne, the Spaniards made an attempt upon Rheinberg, the conduct of which Parma intrusted to the Marquis of Varanbon. But that general was completely defeated in a bloody engagement by Colonel Vere, an English officer of high reputation, who entered Rheinberg and strongly fortified it.

In March, 1590, Prince Maurice obtained possession of Breda by a singular stratagem. One Adrian Vandenberg, a barge owner, who was accustomed to supply the garrison of that place with turf for fuel, undertook to introduce the troops of Maurice in the following manner. He erected a sort of deck, or flooring, at the height of several feet from the bottom of his vessel, thus forming a cabin capable of containing seventy persons, and covered it over carefully with turf. A body of picked men under an officer named Heraugière were then placed in this cabin, and after many delays, dangers and hair-breadth escapes, the barge entered the town as if laden with its usual freight. It happened that the garrison was at that time much in want of fuel, and a party of them began to unload the vessel with great alacrity, when Vandenberg invited them to drink, and amused them till it grew dark. In the night time the men concealed in the vessel rushed out, overpowered the guard, and admitted Prince Maurice's troops.

It was in this year that Philip II, much to the regret and disgust of the Duke of Parma, abandoning for the present the war in the Netherlands, directed that general to march with his army to the relief of Paris, besieged by Henry IV. Parma's operations in France are related in another chapter. He entrusted the command of the troops which he left for the defence of the Netherlands to Count Peter Ernest of Mansfeld, whom he directed to occupy Nymegen. Maurice finding the siege of that place impracticable, took possession of the tract called " the Bettuwe," or Bettaw, supposed to be the ancient Batavia, which lies opposite to the town, on the north bank of the Waal. Across this tract Maurice dug a canal from the Rhine to the Waal, which not only secured the navigation of this river by rendering it unnecessary for vessels to pass the town of Nymegen, but was also of advantage to the surrounding country by lessening the inundations. Out of gratitude for these benefits, the States of Gelderland and Overyssel elected Maurice their Governor. Maurice, in the absence of Parma, subsequently overran Brabant and Flanders, and by occupying some of the smaller frontier towns paved the way for future conquest. In 1591 the Duke of Parma was again obliged to resort to Spa for the benefit of his health, and Maurice pursued the advantages which he had gained in the previous year. In May and June he besieged and captured the towns of Zutphen and Deventer, and again united the county of Zutphen to the Seven Provinces. Colonel Vere, anxious to wipe out the disgrace of Stanley's treachery, highly distinguished himself at the siege of Deventer. Maurice afterwards occupied the district near Antwerp called the Waes, and took Hulst and Nymegen; and after these exploits he returned to the Hague, where he was received with every token of joy and gratitude as the deliverer of the Republic of the Seven Provinces. In this campaign Maurice had displayed some of the highest qualities of a general. By the celerity of his movements he had surprised Farnese, and compelled him to retire from the Waal. The quiet student of the art of war was become one of the most consummate captains of the age.

Death of the Duke of Parma, 1592.

In 1592 the Duke of Parma having been again ordered into France to relieve Rouen, Maurice captured Steenwyk and Coevorden. He had now not only rescued from the Spaniards the seven northern provinces, with the exception of Groningen, which, however, being so far separated from the other Spanish provinces, must necessarily fall in time, but he had also established himself on the left banks of the Meuse and the Scheld; where he occupied, in the name of the States-General, the Brabant towns of Breda and Bergen-op-Zoom, and the Flemish towns of Ostend, Axel, and Hulst.

The career of Alexander Farnese was now drawing to a close. After his return from France this year the state of his health became so alarming that he solicited Philip for his dismissal, but died at Arras without obtaining it, December 3rd, 1592, at the age of forty-six. It was, perhaps, only a lucky escape. Philip appears to have been meditating at this time the disgrace, if not the death, of Farnese. Yet it was to his military genius and his conciliating policy that Spain owed her retention of the Southern Netherlands. After his death Philip appointed the Austrian Archduke Ernest, son of the Emperor Maximilian II, to be Governor of the Netherlands; and in the interval before his arrival Count Peter Ernest of Mansfeld was entrusted with the administration.

About Spain itself there is little to relate. In that unhappy country all enterprise had been crushed by bigotry and tyranny, and its domestic affairs afford therefore but few materials for history. Philip, according to popular rumour, had become, in 1578, jealous of the intimacy of his secretary, Antonio Perez, with the Princess of Eboli. It was in the autumn of 1578 that Escovedo, the friend and confidant of Don John of Austria, arrived from the Netherlands to solicit Philip for the return of the Spanish and Italian forces. His designs were opposed by Perez, who used Escovedo to tempt Don John into rash statements which were at once communicated to the King. Philip conceived an implacable resentment against his half-brother; but he was also enraged against Escovedo, as the tool of Don John's inordinate ambition, and he determined to involve both in a common destruction. Perez received the King's written order to effect the assassination of Escovedo; and soon after, by Philip's permission, Perez and the widowed Princess of Eboli were arrested (July, 1579). The King's motives are unknown, and after a short time he seemed inclined to a lenient course, and Perez was even allowed to continue in office, though no longer admitted to the presence of the King. Philip's resentment, however, remained unassuaged, and after a lapse of six years the secretary was accused of malversation, fined heavily and imprisoned. Perez, seeing his destruction resolved on, contrived to escape into Aragon, his native country; and to avoid the pursuit of the King's officers he appealed to the Justicia, who ordered him to be confined in the state prison; but the Viceroy of Aragon caused it to be broken open and cast Perez into the dungeons of the Inquisition. The Aragonese, enraged at this breach of their constitution, rose and liberated Perez, who, after another narrow escape, succeeded in reaching France, where he gave the King some useful information respecting Philip's designs. Philip seized this opportunity to deprive the Aragonese of their ancient ties of privileges. Alfonso Vargas was ordered to lead to Saragossa a body of troops that had been destined for the invasion of France; the Aragonese, at the instance of Don Juan de la Nuza, the Justicia, flew to arms, but were soon overpowered; Vargas entered Saragossa, November 12th, 1591, sent the Duke de Villa Hermosa and the Count of Aranda, two of the principal leaders of the movement, to Madrid, and, agreeably to the instructions of Philip II, put the Justicia to death without trial. The palace of the Inquisition at Saragossa was now fortified, and filled with a garrison of Castilian troops; the royal scaffolds and the fires of the Inquisition rivalled one another in atrocity; the Cortes were assembled, and compelled to abrogate their fueros or national customs and privileges. The Justicia was made removable at the King's pleasure; his tribunal was subjected to that of the King; the power of the Cortes was abridged, and they were forbidden to assemble without a royal mandate; in short, the ancient Aragonese constitution was entirely destroyed.

CHAPTER XXVI

CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE