CHAPTER 7

WILLIAM THE SILENT

 

ON January 24, 1568, William of Nassau had by sound of the trumpet before the palace in Brussels been proclaimed an outlaw, unless within the space of thrice fourteen days he submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the Council of Troubles; and this act of proscription had been followed by the kidnapping of William's eldest son from the University of Louvain. Before the allotted six weeks were out, the Prince, on March 3, replied to the proclamation by a manifesto in which, pleading his privileges as a Knight of the Fleece and a member of the Empire, he boldly refused to admit the competency of the tribunal before which he was summoned to appear. This was followed, a month later, by the publication of a lengthy defence of his conduct, entitled Justification of the Prince of Orange against his Calumniators. In this eloquent but somewhat prolix document, in the writing of which the well-known Protestant divine Languet had a share, William deals seriatim with the events of the previous years, which were the causes of the troubles in the Netherlands, and endeavours to prove that the whole blame for the disorders which had occurred lay at the door of the government. In saying this, he was careful to shield the King personally by throwing the whole responsibility upon his evil counsellors, and especially upon Granvelle. On the other hand, while upholding the loyal motives of the authors of the Compromise and the petition of the nobles, he declared positively that these steps were taken "sans son aveu et à son insu", and refused to admit that in anything that he had done, whether in the council, in his government, or at Antwerp, could he be accused of not serving his sovereign to the best of his power, or of being actuated by any other motives than the good of the country and the security of the public peace. This Justification, which was published in several languages, was, together with the previous refusal to obey Alva's summons, naturally regarded as an act of open defiance to the Spanish government.

Nor was the defiance confined to words only. At the very time when he wrote his Justification, Orange was busily occupied at Dillenburg organising an armed force to attack the dominions of the sovereign to whom in his published apology he professed fidelity. Roused by the arrest of Egmont and Hoorn and by the arbitrary and vindictive measures of Alva, he did not scruple to issue commissions to his brother Lewis and others to raise troops for the avowed purpose of expelling the King's armies from the Netherlands for the King's own good.

William's chief difficulty was the financial one. In the smaller German States there were always plenty of mercenaries at hand; but the raising of money to pay them was no easy matter for an exile whose estates were in the hands of his enemies. However, he managed to get together 200,000 florins; half of which sum was subscribed by Antwerp, Amsterdam, and certain towns of Holland and Zeeland, the other half by private individuals. The Prince himself gave 50,000 florins, Lewis of Nassau 10,000, Culemburg, Hoogstraeten, and van den Berg 30,000 each. John of Nassau pledged his estates on his brother's behalf; and William sold a large part of his plate and jewels. It seemed a mad attempt with such limited resources to venture to invade a land garrisoned by a large veteran army under the command of the most experienced general of the day, the representative of the mightiest and wealthiest monarch in existence. It might have been deemed impossible that so far-sighted and prudent a man as the Prince of Orange would embark upon so hazardous an adventure; and, in fact, his first efforts ended, as they were bound to end, in hopeless failure. That they were made at all is susceptible of only one explanation. A change had passed over the once gay, pleasure-loving, lavish young nobleman, who with half-mocking indifferentism had lightly promised that he would teach his Lutheran bride to read Amadis de Gaul and other such amusing books instead of the Holy Scriptures. His spirit had been moved within him by the sufferings and the constancy of the victims of persecution. By slow degrees the Reformed doctrine had been gaining a stronger hold upon him. Since his exile he had not only given himself to the once despised study of God's Word, but had asked the Landgrave of Hesse to send him an Evangelical preacher to help him in his task. The whole tenour of his letters proclaims that his course was henceforth moulded not chiefly, far less entirely, by political ambition, but by deep religious conviction that he was an instrument in the hands of God to rescue his countrymen from pitiless oppression at the hands of the Spanish tyranny. At times, amidst the stress and strain of his great struggle, the conduct of the Prince of Orange may be open to reproach, his methods liable to the charge of opportunism; but it is scarcely credible that the man did not believe he had a sacred mission to discharge who could thus write in his hour of darkest misfortune to his wife, "I am determined to place myself in the hands of the Almighty, that He may guide me, where it shall be His good pleasure, since I see well that I must needs pass this life in misery and travail, with which I am quite contented, for I know that I have deserved far greater chastisement; I pray Him only graciously to enable me to bear everything patiently, as I have done up to the present". His correspondence is full of similar passages.

1567-8] Triumph of Alva

William's plan in the spring of 1568 was to invade the oppressed provinces simultaneously from three directions. A force of Huguenots and refugees was to attack Artois from France; another, raised by Hoogstraeten, to cross the frontier on the south-east near Maastricht; another under Lewis of Nassau to enter Friesland from the Ems. The two first-mentioned corps, numbering respectively some 2000 and 3000 men, were ignominiously routed and dispersed by bodies of Spanish troops sent out by Alva to meet them. On the expedition of Lewis at the outset brighter fortune smiled. The Duke had ordered Count Aremberg, Governor of Friesland, to enroll a force of 2800 choice veteran troops; and he despatched Meghem with 1500 more to support him, giving strict orders that the two commanders were not to risk an action until they had united. Count Lewis, who had experienced much difficulty in keeping his undisciplined and irregularly paid mercenaries together, and had only succeeded in doing so by blackmailing the wretched inhabitants, had retreated before Aremberg to a strong position at Heiligerlee, approachable only by a single causeway across morasses. On the morning of May 23, the Spanish troops, pushing on in pursuit and feeling sure of an easy victory, found themselves suddenly floundering in the treacherous quagmire, and suffered a severe defeat with heavy loss. Aremberg himself was killed, as on the other side Adolphus of Nassau, the brave young brother of William and Lewis. The victory was a barren one, but it provoked Alva to take strong measures. The decree of May 28, announcing the confiscation of the possessions of the Prince of Orange and the other exiled nobles, was followed by a number of executions, culminating on June 5 in the deaths of Egmont and Hoorn on the scaffold.

The Governor-General then prepared to take the field himself in Friesland at the head of an admirably equipped army of 15,000 men. He drove the discontented and almost mutinous bands of Lewis before him, until he succeeded in penning them up, to the number of 10,000, at Jemmingen, in a small peninsula of land washed on all sides but one by the estuary of the Ems. The fight took place on July 21. The resistance was slight; there was no way of escape; and an absolute butchery ensued. Seven Spaniards perished, seven thousand of their hapless opponents. Lewis of Nassau himself escaped by swimming. Alva marched back in triumph, plundering and burning as he went, to Utrecht, where he held a magnificent review of 30,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry, with the view of striking terror into the minds of all would-be rebels. But though the Prince's forces had been shattered in detail, and all seemed lost, his indomitable spirit was not to be crushed even by a disaster like that of Jemmingen. "With God's help", he wrote to Lewis, "I am determined to go on". In a series of manifestoes he appealed to the Emperor, to the German Princes, to Elizabeth of England, protesting that he was not a rebel, but was fighting, in the best interests of his sovereign, to preserve the civil and religious liberties of his countrymen from being trampled under foot by an illegal and pernicious foreign tyranny. But his appeals fell upon deaf ears. Despairing of help in any of these directions, he next turned to the Huguenots of France; and in August was feeling his way towards an alliance with Coligny and Condé.

Meanwhile he had by strenuous exertions succeeded in the beginning of September in collecting near Römersdorf a force of 18,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry, Germans and Walloons. There being a lack of ready money, this army of mercenaries was in constant ill-humour and not seldom on the verge of mutiny, and was only kept together by the leader's personal importunity and address, sometimes exerted at no slight risk to himself. With these troops Orange crossed the Meuse on the night of October 5 and 6, and advanced into Brabant, where he was joined by a reinforcement of French Huguenots. Knowing that time was on his adversary's side, William was anxious, as soon as possible, to join issue. But the cautious Alva, with a smaller but far better disciplined force, dogged the Prince's steps, following him like his shadow, but always avoiding battle. On one occasion, however, he seized the opportunity of isolating a rear-guard of 3000 men, and cutting them to pieces. It was here that Hoogstraeten received a slight wound, from which he died shortly afterwards.

Admiral Gaspard de Coligny

Finding that nothing was to be done, William, whose army was clamoring for arrears of pay, withdrew on November 17 across the French frontier. He then disbanded his forces, after selling what effects he had at his disposal to satisfy their demands. Followed only by a few hundred horse, he with his brothers Henry and Lewis reached the camp of Admiral Coligny. The two younger Nassaus fought like heroes at the bloody defeats of Jarnac and Moncontour; but William was not present at either of these fights. For some unknown reason he left the Huguenot army, and made his way back through countless perils, disguised as a peasant, to German territory. His enemies have most unwarrantably seized upon this withdrawal from the forefront of danger as a sign that William was a coward at heart. He left the Huguenot camp probably because he saw that he was doing no good there to the cause which lay nearest to his heart. But though he returned to Germany, what could he do? Well might Alva write, "We may regard the Prince as a dead man; he has neither influence nor credit". His failures, moreover, had well-nigh destroyed any reputation he possessed for ability and leadership. Afraid of assassination by the agents of Alva, afraid of his creditors, afraid of being placed under the Ban of the Empire, he wandered about from place to place, not daring to take up his residence permanently at Dillenburg. And, all this time, his misfortunes were rendered doubly intolerable by the shameful conduct of his wife, Anne of Saxony. After the Prince's departure from the Netherlands in 1567 her occasional violent outbursts of passion had given place to a morbid state, bordering on frenzy. She poured forth incessant reproaches upon him; for some time she refused to live with him; and finally brought matters to a climax by absconding to Cologne, and giving herself up there to a disreputable life. Up to the last William had treated her with singular patience and kindliness; but all in vain. At last, in despair, her husband handed her over to the tender mercies of her own family. After an imprisonment of six years, she died insane. The name of Anne of Saxony may nevertheless be gratefully remembered in the Netherlands as that of the mother of Maurice of Nassau.

With the complete failure of Orange's military enterprises Alva's policy seemed triumphant. The man of blood and iron had tamed "the men of butter". His emissaries and executioners were still at work throughout the Provinces; but no one any longer dared to resist. It is indeed noteworthy how slight was the support given to the invading armies of the Nassaus, and how apathetic was the attitude of the population. The object of Alva's coming to the Netherlands was at least as much political as religious to crush out autonomy as a prelude to crushing out heresy. The first persons on whom the heavy hand of retribution fell were not the sectaries, but the great Catholic nobles, who had dared to make a stand on behalf of the time honored liberties of their native land; the conventual clergy, who had ventured to resist the taking away of their revenues for supplying incomes to Philip's new Bishops; and the magistrates of the great municipalities, Catholic almost to a man, who had upheld the immunities of the towns against arbitrary exactions. Emigrants fled away in crowds, yet these by no means consisted entirely of Protestant refugees, but comprised numbers of abbots and monks, and quite a considerable proportion of rich and influential burgesses, who had nothing to fear on the ground of their religious opinions. The fate of Egmont and Hoorn and of Antony van Straelen showed that the only way to escape the clutch of the Blood Council was to put oneself as speedily as possible out of the reach of its jurisdiction. Thousands therefore sought refuge from the tyrant in France, Germany, and England, while the bulk of the people bowed the neck to the yoke in the hopelessness of despair. But the very completeness of his triumph led the Governor to take a step which was to undo all his previous work.

Alva's taxation resisted

Philip and his Viceroy were always in want of funds. This perennial impecuniousness of the Spanish treasury was at this time accentuated by Queen Elizabeth's seizure at Plymouth, where they had sought refuge, of five Spanish vessels, bringing to the Duke 450,000 ducats. This unlooked-for loss was a most serious blow to Alva. His troops had long been without pay. Money must be had; and the only way to get it was in the form of taxes levied on the people. He therefore boldly proposed, at a meeting of the States General summoned at Brussels on March 20, 1569, that the delegates should agree to (1) a tax of one per cent., the 'hundredth penny', to be levied immediately, but once only, on all property, (2) a tax of five per cent., the 'twentieth penny', on all transfers of real estate, (3) a tax of ten per cent., the 'tenth penny', on all articles of commerce, to be paid each time they were sold. The twentieth and the tenth penny were to be granted in perpetuity. The Duke counted on thus raising an income of at least 500,000 florins; and, as the assent of the States was in future to be dispensed with, it could be relied on to come in year by year without further trouble. It was, as he was good enough to explain, the Spanish system of the alcabala which worked very well in his own town of Alva. But he forgot that what a despotic government might exact in a poor, thinly-populated agricultural country like Spain, not even armed tyranny could compel in a thriving mercantile and manufacturing community like the Netherlands. This was not a question of theological creeds, or of musty charters, but one which touched to the quick the interests of a population which lived by commerce. The matter was referred back from the States General to the provincial States, only to meet everywhere with the same strong opposition. Petitions poured in against the taxes from the magistracies, from public bodies, from commercial guilds, from private individuals. At last, by dint of threats, the States were terrorised into voting the payment of the 100th penny, once only. But on the question of the other two taxes they were obdurate; and not till after prolonged struggles was a compromise agreed upon. Alva had to be satisfied with a payment of 2,000,000 florins for two years, the term ending in August, 1571.

From this hour the Duke's supremacy began to wane. His proposed taxes roused to fury the feelings of hatred against him. He had henceforth no friends. Even the pliant Viglius strenuously resisted him in the Council; and such faithful adherents of the Spanish régime as Barlaymont, Noircarmes, and Aerschot joined with Viglius in the general chorus of condemnation. The Bishops and clergy were on the same side; so too was Philip's Council at Madrid. "Everybody turns against me", wrote the Duke, but he swore nevertheless that he would have his own way. When the town and district of Utrecht refused to pay the tax, Alva quartered the regiment of Lombardy upon them; and, when the insolence and brutality of the soldiery failed to bring the citizens to their knees, the city and district were declared guilty of high treason, their charters and privileges were abolished, and all their property, real and personal, declared to be confiscated to the King's use (December, 1569).

1569-70] Wesembeke raises funds for Orange. Death of Montigny

All this time the Prince of Orange was hard at work through his agents, striving to rouse the people to active resistance, and, as a first step, to help in providing the necessary funds for equipping an army of invasion. The chief of these agents was a certain Jacques de Wesembeke, formerly pensionary of Antwerp, between whom and William there was a constant interchange of letters. Wesembeke traveled from place to place, mainly in Holland and Zeeland, making collections for the rebel cause, and contriving plans for getting possession of various towns. In this correspondence we find William constantly expressing his willingness to come with an army, but reiterating that funds for paying the troops must first be raised, and Wesembeke as constantly regretting that his collections bring in little, that the rich give less than the poor, but promising that if once the Prince and his troops were actually in evidence they would be ready to open their purse-strings.

The general chorus of disapproval that arose against the continued brutality of Alva's treatment of the Netherlands led Philip, slowly as was his wont, to think that the time had come for proclaiming an amnesty. It was true that Alva himself, in claiming that he had restored the Provinces to their rightful obedience to their King, without the least intention of irony, added, "and all this without violence". Alva's views of violence were fortunately, even in that relentless age, quite exceptional. Granvelle from Naples pressed on the King the necessity of using clemency. Already in February, 1569, the subject of the amnesty had been broached with the Governor-General. It did not meet with his approval; and he found it easy to put forward, as soon as pressure was brought to bear upon him, various reasons for delay. At last the King formally announced to him his will that an amnesty should be proclaimed before the arrival of his fourth bride and niece, Anne of Austria, who was coming down the Rhine to embark at Antwerp for Spain. Accordingly, on July 16, 1570, in the great square of Antwerp, the Duke, seated on a throne covered with cloth of gold, and with the Bishops, Councillors of State and other dignitaries grouped around him, read before the assembled people the words of the royal proclamation. It was not a very indulgent document, since there were not less than six classes of offenders excepted; but to all others pardon was offered, on condition that they should within two months make their peace with the Church and receive absolution. This act of grace accomplished, Alva hastened to meet the new Queen. Anne, however, despite the brilliant festivities which greeted her at Brussels, was painfully reminded that the reign of terror had not yet ceased, when she was entreated by the Dowager Countess of Hoorn, to plead with Philip that her younger son, Montigny, might be spared from sharing his elder brother's doom of death. Anne promised that this should be one of her first requests to her husband. She kept her word, but it was too late. There is no act of Philip's that has cast a darker stain on his memory than the execution of Montigny.

From the moment when the Marquis of Berghen and Floris de Montmorency, lord of Montigny, set foot in Spain, in 1566, on their mission from Margaret of Parma, it had been the settled determination of Philip that they should not return. Their names had been entered in the King's book of remembrance as those of the leaders of the Netherland national party, with Orange, Egmont, and Hoorn; and all five had been marked down for destruction. From the first they were virtually captives. Berghen died in 1567, but his colleague lingered on in confinement in the castle of Segovia. His case, like that of other nobles charged with treason in their absence, had been brought before the Tribunal of Blood. Not till the unhappy man had been in prison three years was he sentenced to be beheaded as a traitor, his property being confiscated. For six months no action was taken, but Philip was alarmed at the armaments of Orange; he had received intimation of the new Queen's promise to the Countess of Hoorn; and he resolved that Floris de Montmorency must die before her arrival. Philip hereupon arranged in his own cabinet in its most minute details an elaborate scheme by which Montigny should in reality be privately strangled in the castle of Simancas, and yet that all the world should believe that he had died from fever. On the very same day (October 1, 1570) on which Philip drew up the programme of the splendid ceremonies that were to attend Anne of Austria's entry into Segovia, he penned an order to the Governor of Simancas for the killing of his prisoner. Arrangements were made that a medical man should call at the castle for several days, bringing medicines for the treatment of one suffering from fever. It was represented to Montigny that a private execution was an act of special grace from the King; and he was allowed to write out a will, as if he were a sick man lying on his death-bed, and also to send a letter of farewell to his wife. On October 16, between one and two o'clock in the morning an executioner arrived and did his office. Thereupon the Governor, acting on his secret instruction, solemnly informed His Majesty that, despite the utmost care of the doctors, Montigny had unhappily succumbed to his disease. Philip affected sorrow, and ordered that the obsequies of the defunct should be performed with all the respect due to his rank, and that his servants should be supplied with suits of mourning.

1570-1] The "Sea-Beggars"

In the years 1570 and 1571 William and Lewis of Nassau continued indefatigably active, the one at Dillenburg and Arnstadt, the other at La Rochelle and Paris, making preparations diplomatic and material for a new campaign. It was not however by military levies that the cause they championed was to gain its first solid successes. The year 1569 saw some eighteen vessels armed with letters of marque from the Prince of Orange in his capacity as a sovereign prince, cruising in the narrow seas under the command of the lord of Dolhain. It was the insignificant beginning of that sea-power which was destined ere long to cover the ocean with its fleets and to plant its colonies in every continent. These corsairs, for such they really were, were manned by crews of many nationalities, mostly wild and lawless desperadoes, hating papists and Spaniards with a fierce hatred, and caring nought for dangers and privations so long as they were provided with plenty of fighting and plundering. The "Sea-Beggars" (Gueux de Mer) as they were called, speedily made their presence felt. Already in February, 1570, three hundred vessels had fallen a prey to them, and enormous booty. In April the number of their ships had risen to eighty-four. One great difficulty from the first confronted them: the lack of ports in which to take refuge and land their plunder. Everywhere they spread terror and alarm to such an extent that William, who found that no share of the spoil ever reached him, while their reckless acts of cruelty and pillaging brought disrepute on his name, determined, if possible, to subject them to better control. He accordingly drew up strict regulations, as a condition to his issuing further letters of marque. One of these prescribed that one-third of the booty was to belong to the Prince; the others dealt with matters of discipline, order, and religious observances. With the view of carrying these rules into effect, the lord of Lumbres was appointed to be admiral in the place of Dolhain. The regulations remained a dead letter, no commander could control the crews, even if he wished, and the wild excesses of the Sea-Beggars continued to be the dread of friends and foes alike.

Under Lumbres, their chief leaders were William de Blois, lord of Treslong, a man as capable as he was fearless, and William de la Marck, lord of Lumey, a worthy descendant of the famous Wild Boar of the Ardennes, bold, cruel, revelling in deeds of blood. Terrible barbarities were executed upon the hapless priests and monks and Catholic magistrates by the rovers, as they sailed up and down the coasts and into the estuaries, in revenge for Alva's persecutions; and vast stores of plate, church ornaments and treasures, and money ransoms, were carried back by them to their ships. The difficulty as to finding harbors of refuge had been partly removed by the secret connivance of Queen Elizabeth. The Beggars were allowed to put in at various English ports, there to refit and revictual their vessels, to dispose of their plunder and beat up recruits. But suddenly this privilege came to an end. Strong representations were made to Elizabeth by the Spanish government; and, as the Queen at the moment had no desire to irritate Philip, a proclamation was issued forbidding the rebels the use of the English havens. The consequences of this prohibition were momentous. A fleet of some twenty-eight vessels under Lumbres and Treslong, having been denied refuge in England, was cruising off the shores of Holland, when a strong westerly wind forced it to seek refuge in the estuary of the Meuse, and to cast anchor off Brill. Finding that the Spanish garrison had marched out to quell a disturbance at Utrecht it was hastily determined (April 1, 1572) to seize the town. One of the gates was destroyed by fire; and the Beggars, to the number of six hundred, marched in, pillaging the churches and religious houses, and treating with their usual barbarity all priests, monks, and Catholic officials whom they met. After collecting all the spoil they could, the marauders were on the point of returning to their ships, when Treslong proposed that they should strengthen the fortifications, and continue to hold the town as a place of refuge. It was no sooner said than done. The inhabitants were forced to take the oath to the Prince of Orange, as Stadholder in the name of the King; and for the first time that flag was hoisted over the little port, which was the symbol of the new sea Power on that day born into the world.

Lewis of Nassau at Rochelle, with his keen and alert spirit, at once saw the importance of this bold stroke, and forthwith turned his eyes to the yet more important town of Flushing, the key of Zeeland, which commanded the approach to Antwerp. Alva, too, after in vain attempting to recover Brill, gave orders that the garrison and defences of Flushing should be strengthened, and that Pachecho, his famous Italian engineer, should do his utmost to complete the citadel, which he had already begun. But he was too late. The citizens, urged by a messenger from Lewis of Nassau rose in revolt. Treslong hastened to their assistance. His wild mariners forced an entrance into the town and put to the sword the scanty Spanish garrison. Pachecho himself was captured and hanged. The consequences of this success were enormous. The Sea-Beggars, whose ranks were now swollen by crowds of refugees, speedily made themselves supreme over the whole island of Walcheren, except the town of Middelburg. In a very short time they rendered themselves masters also of Delfshaven and Schiedam; and the movement of revolt spread like wildfire through Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland. The principal towns submitted themselves to the Prince of Orange as their lawful Stadholder, and acknowledged his authority.

Lewis of Nassau takes Valenciennes and Mons [1572

Meanwhile, Lewis of Nassau, who had been for a long time conducting elaborate and intricate negotiations with the view of obtaining help for the cause not merely from the Huguenots, but from Elizabeth of England and from Charles IX himself, had been to a considerable extent successful. The French King was persuaded that it was to his interest to assist the Nassaus, at least to the extent of giving them a free hand in raising troops, and in invading the Netherlands from French territory. Lewis, however, with all his high qualities, lacked something of his brother's prudence and caution. His first move, by its very suddenness and daring, was at the outset successful. With a small force, raised in France and paid for by French money, he dashed into Hainault with such unexpected rapidity that he seized Valenciennes, and then captured Mons (May 23) before Alva had made any move to oppose him. At Mons he fortified himself. But the population was doubtful and suspicious; and Lewis found himself looked upon as an enemy, as soon as he attempted to enforce discipline and raise supplies. An army under Don Frederick of Toledo, Alva's natural son, moved against him; and, unable to advance, as he had hoped, into Brabant, he found himself blockaded in Mons by a superior force. There was hope, however, that William would come to the rescue, and so Lewis prepared himself for sustained and vigorous defence. The almost simultaneous capture by the rebels of Brill and Flushing in the north, and of Valenciennes and Mons in the south, could not fail to distract and divide the Spanish forces, and open the way to the army which Orange had so long been collecting on the eastern frontier.

The Prince, with his usual circumspection, at first received the news of the capture of Brill with doubtful satisfaction. But the subsequent seizure of Flushing, followed as it was by a series of successes elsewhere, lent a different aspect to the operations of the Sea-Beggars. William now surpassed himself by the variety and activity of his correspondence. His agents and fellow-workers were to be found everywhere, many of their communications being written under feigned names and dealing apparently with ordinary business transactions. The two merchants George and Lambert Certain, for instance, were none other than William and Lewis of Nassau. Among those who toiled with the greatest zeal on his behalf were Sainte Aldegonde and Wesembeke, not only by their personal intercourse with others, as they moved about from place to place, but by their prolific pens, and by a skilled literary power, especially notable in Sainte Aldegonde. Two publications of this date had a great effect in stirring up the popular feeling in William's favor. The one was the famous war-song of the revolt, the Wilhelmus van Nassouwen, still the national hymn of the Netherlands, the authorship of which is almost universally assigned to Sainte Aldegonde. The other was the eloquent appeal to the people, which, soon after the taking of Brill was scattered broadcast through the country as if emanating from the Prince of Orange, but which recent evidence shows to have been written by Wesembeke in William's name and without his knowledge. But lack of funds was still the burden of the letters from Dillenburg. Contributions from Elizabeth and Charles IX had indeed helped to replenish the Prince's empty treasury, and to this had been added a portion of the booty captured by the Sea-Beggars; but the collections made in the provinces themselves had not as yet yielded much. But the sight of Brill and Flushing in the hands of Orange's followers not only caused other towns to throw open their gates, but led the rich burghers to open their purses. The first to offer from his private resources a large sum to William was Arend van Dorp, a man of position in Veere and Zevenbergen, who went in person to Dillenburg and on May 23 placed 10,000 florins at the Prince's disposal. It happened that at that very time a number of German Princes had met at the castle to discuss the question of raising troops to serve under Orange. The action of van Dorp had no small effect in increasing the Prince's credit and in inducing them to give the permission that was required.

William's army in Brabant [1572

Such was the vigor with which the enlisting was now pressed on that on June 29 William set out from Dillenburg at the head of 1000 horse, and on July 9 was able to cross the Rhine near Duisburg with some 20,000 men and to penetrate into Gelderland. He quickly took Roeremonde; but this success was marred by the sacking of churches and the barbarous treatment of the priests and monks in the town. Though in all his proclamations William always laid stress on his desire for religious toleration, his lack of ready money made him dependent upon his unpaid soldiery. From Roeremonde the Prince advanced into Brabant; but here the news reached him that a force of 5000 Huguenots, which the Seigneur de Genlis was leading to the relief of Mons, had been cut in pieces by the Spaniards. Always timid as a general, William retreated and pitched his camp at Hellarde on the banks of the Meuse, close to Roeremonde, and did not move again till August 27. He then marched into Limburg; and again his course was marked by excesses and destruction of property, the desecration of churches, and the killing and maltreating of ecclesiastics. Herenthal, Tirlemont, and Diest fell into his hands, but Louvain shut her gates against him. Passing on, he arrived within a league of Brussels; but, although the Spanish garrison was very small, such was the terror created by the misdeeds of William's mercenaries that the Duke of Aerschot had no difficulty in rousing the inhabitants to resist. The Prince did not feel himself strong enough to besiege the town, which he had hoped would welcome him. At this moment of discouragement information was brought to him of the Massacre of St Bartholomew. All his plans had been framed on the confident expectation that Coligny, according to the understanding with him to which the French King had been a party, would come to his help with 12,000 arquebusiers. And now his hopes were dashed to the ground. "Quel coup de massue cela nous ait esté!" he wrote to his brother; "my sole hope was from the side of France". A bold dash southwards might still have saved Mons, but Orange turned to the north, where for a while he seemed successful. Archiepiscopal Malines was surrendered to him; and shortly afterwards Termonde and Oudenarde shared the same fate. A considerable part of the southern provinces was already in his power. But Alva was pursuing a masterly game of his own. The issue of the campaign he knew well depended upon the capture of Mons, and to effect this he deliberately denuded the rest of the country of troops. William also saw that his successes elsewhere availed little if he allowed Lewis and his army to be taken prisoners, so at last he turned his steps towards Hainault.

On September 11 he reached the village of Harmignies, about a league from Mons. During the following night the Spanish captain, Julian de Romero, at the head of a body of six hundred men, who, to prevent mistakes in the dark, each wore a white shirt over his armor, made their way stealthily into the camp of Orange, where the Camisaders all but succeeded in capturing William himself asleep in his tent. He was however awakened by a favourite lap-dog that lay at his feet, and escaped just in time. But some eight hundred of his followers were slain; and the moral effect of the blow decided the issue of the campaign. On the following morning the Prince gave orders to retreat, and ignominiously made his way back to Malines. The expedition so long and laboriously prepared thus utterly collapsed; and William was pronounced to be not only incapable as a general, but pusillanimous as a man. Six days after the affair of Harmignies Mons surrendered. Alva granted the garrison most favorable conditions, and showed the most punctilious courtesy to the chivalrous and unfortunate Lewis of Nassau, who, prostrate with fever, was borne out on a litter. Slowly he made his way to Roeremonde, and thence to Dillenburg, where under the skilful nursing of his devoted mother he once more recovered his health.

William, meanwhile, saw that, so far as the southern provinces were concerned, the game was up. But in the north the spirit of resistance to Spanish tyranny was still vigorous; and the Prince now made up his mind to throw in his lot for good and all with the brave Hollanders and Zeelanders, who were so gallantly struggling against overwhelming odds, "being resolved", as he wrote (October 22) to his brother John, "to maintain the affair there as long as possible and decided to find there my grave". From henceforth William, though in name a Provençal Prince and a German Count, became a Netherlander pure and simple, and absolutely identified himself with the interests and fortunes of the people, to whom he was already bound by so many ties.

William summons the States of Holland [1572

After the success of the Sea-Beggars in capturing Brill and Flushing and the adhesion of a large number of towns to the cause of which the Prince of Orange was the champion, Alva's authority had practically ceased to exist in Zeeland, Utrecht, Overyssel, and Friesland, except in places garrisoned by Spanish troops. In the early summer of 1572 William, as Stadholder in the name of the King, had issued a summons to the States of Holland to assemble. Deputies were sent by eight towns, and met, on July 15, at Dort. Sainte Aldegonde, as the Prince's representative, addressed them in a long and eloquent speech, with the result that William was by a unanimous vote recognised as lawful Stadholder. Liberty of worship was to be established both for Protestant and Romanist. De la Marck was appointed to be Admiral; Paul Buys, so well known later, to be Advocate; and a large and liberal grant of supplies was voted for the prosecution of military operations. William, therefore, as he traveled from Enckhuysen through Haarlem and Leyden to Delft, where he fixed his permanent abode, found everywhere a resolute people, and all the elements of a regular government, in which he exercised an almost dictatorial authority.

At the beginning of the year 1572 Alva had fallen considerably in his master's esteem; and the Duke of Medina Coeli had been sent from Spain to enquire into his conduct of affairs, and no doubt finally to supersede him, as Alva had himself superseded the Duchess of Parma. But Medina Coeli, after narrowly escaping capture by the Sea-Beggars, found that the dangers of invasion, which threatened the provinces from so many quarters, demanded the strong hand of a military chief rather than of an administrator; and Alva retained his governorship. In denuding the country of garrisons in order to concentrate a great army round Mons, and in refusing to be tempted by Orange's advance and successes from the prosecution of the siege, the Duke played at once a bold and a cautious game. He staked everything on the venture; but, when Mons was captured, and the mutinous army of his adversary melted away before its first reverse, Alva's thoughts immediately turned to vengeance. The danger had been great, the retribution must be exemplary. Malines was the most important of the towns which had surrendered to the Prince of Orange; and on it fell the first brunt of his wrath. In vain the clergy begged the Governor to have pity; the town was for three days handed over to the tender mercies of a brutal soldiery, who tortured, pillaged, and maltreated the inhabitants, without making any distinction between Romanist and Protestant, loyalist and rebel. At length, gorged with plunder, the troops under Don Frederick of Toledo moved northwards in search of other prey.

Worse still was to follow. The sack of Zutphen was even more horrible than that of Malines; and the utter destruction of Naarden by fire and by sword was more inhuman in its cruelty than either. In this little town nearly the whole population, men, women, and children, were deliberately butchered. "It has been by the permission of God". Alva wrote to the King, "that they have been so blinded as to wish to resist in a town that no one in the world would have thought of defending, so weak was it."

Naarden was near to Amsterdam; and, while Don Frederick was forcing his way to the Zuyderzee, another Spanish force under Mondragon had reconquered the greater part of Zeeland. At the head of 3000 men, this intrepid leader had at the end of October, 1572, marched at the ebb tide across the shallow channel, ten miles broad, which separates the island of South Beveland from the mainland, and had seized by surprise its chief town, Tergoes. The water, as they crossed, rose to the breasts and shoulders of the soldiers. But their deeds of horror had filled the minds of the stern Hollanders and Zeelanders with the fierce and indomitable courage of despair; and the long narrow strip of swampy, half-submerged land stretching from the Scheldt to the Helder became the scene of one of the most prolonged and ferocious struggles that the world has ever seen.

1572-3] Siege of Haarlem

The great port of Amsterdam had remained loyal to the King; but only ten miles distant lay Haarlem, a very hotbed of fierce Calvinism. The road between the two towns passed along a narrow causeway following the dyke, which parted the vast mere, known as the Haarlem Sea, from the estuary of the Y, which was really an arm of the Zuyderzee. Haarlem was thus protected by two great sheets of shallow water to the east and north; on the south was a large wood, and, a few miles to the west beyond the sand dunes, the ocean. Against this rebel town, at the beginning of December, Don Frederick advanced from Amsterdam at the head of an apparently irresistible army of thirty thousand Spanish, Walloon, and German veterans, expecting that he could easily carry the weak defences of the place at the first assault. But the fate of Zutphen and Naarden had roused in the citizens a stubborn and almost frenzied spirit of resistance and defiance. The garrison numbered about 4000 men; and their commander, Ripperda, was a man of conspicuous bravery and unflagging energy and resourcefulness. After a fierce bombardment, the Spaniards on December 21 tried to effect a lodgment in the town by storm; but the assailing columns were beaten off after desperate hand to hand fighting with heavy loss. Thus foiled, Don Frederick changed his plans. His engineers set to work for a formal siege by regular approaches. Amidst the bitter cold and icy fogs of midwinter, by night as well as by day, the struggle went on, above ground and below, as besiegers and besieged mined and countermined, and breaches were made in the ramparts only to be repaired under cover of the darkness. At last, on January 31, 1573, Toledo ordered another great assault. It ended, like that of December 21, in grievous loss and failure. Toledo was now disposed to give up in despair; but Alva threatened to disown him as his son if he retired. The siege was therefore turned into a blockade. Since Haarlem could not be captured by the sword, it must be reduced by famine. As week after week passed, the investing army was for some time in an even more sorry plight than that within the walls. Spaniard and Hollander strove to outvie one another in deeds of savage cruelty and vengeance. The gibbets on the town walls and in the Spanish camp stood face to face, each garnished with its crop of victims, neither side giving quarter. Toledo announced the defeats of the relief armies, by throwing into the town the heads of captured leaders with suitable inscriptions; the citizens replied by rolling a barrel into the Spanish lines containing eleven heads, with the statement that ten were for payment of the tenth penny to Alva, the eleventh for interest for the delay in discharge of the debt. The besieged also did their utmost to shock the religious feelings of their adversaries by parodying the Catholic rites and ceremonies on the ramparts. Savage religious intolerance was equally rampant on both sides; and, if the Spaniards exacted bloody reprisals on the garrison, no small provocation had been given.

Meanwhile, the Prince of Orange had been exerting himself to the very utmost for the relief of the town, but in vain. A force of 3000 men under de La Marck was completely cut to pieces; a second under Batenburg subsequently met the same fate. At first, during the long, dark, foggy nights communication was kept up with the town by means of swift skaters over the frozen water; but as spring came on, this mode of approach had to be changed for that of shallow boats creeping through the rushes, protected by a flotilla on the lake. But the Spaniards succeeded in introducing a fleet under Bossu from the Y, which after a long and bloody engagement vanquished William's ships, and thus cut off all communication with the town from outside. A last despairing effort was made in July by a force of 4000 undisciplined volunteers, again under Batenburg; but these were easily routed by the veteran troops of Don Frederick, and their leader was killed. At last, on July 11, 1573, the town, after shoe-leather, vermin, and weeds had been consumed by the famishing inhabitants, surrendered. Of the four thousand men who formed the garrison only sixteen hundred survived. All of these, with the exception of the Germans, were deliberately butchered in cold blood; and their gallant leaders, Ripperda and Lancelot Brederode, were hanged. Some four hundred of the principal citizens were likewise put to death; but the rest were spared, and the town was saved from pillage on consenting to pay a fine of 250,000 guilders. The Spaniards had suffered even more terrible losses during this seven months' siege, at least 12,000 men having perished, more by disease and privation than by the sword. William had to endure many reproaches for his failure in relieving Haarlem and for not having taken the field in person. But he knew that the continuance of the struggle depended upon his life. He had, indeed, a difficult part to play. The very staunchest of the patriots began to despair ; but the spirit which breathes through all William's utterances at this time is that of absolute trust in God, and submission to His will. When his followers urged that the cause was hopeless without an alliance with some great potentate, he nobly replied, "When I took in hand to defend these oppressed Christians I made an alliance with the mightiest of all Potentates, the God of Hosts, who is able to save us if He choose."

The splendid defence of Haarlem had, however, wide-reaching effects; and Alva, already in bad odor with the King for his failure in pacifying the country, became more and more embittered when he found that the fall of that town, and what he was pleased to call his clemency to its inhabitants, did not lead to a general submission. He actually advised the King to allow him utterly to destroy and burn to the ground every town that showed resistance. In August he dispatched Don Frederick at the head of 16,000 troops to attack Alkmaar, with orders to put every living creature within the walls to death. But the burghers, about 2000 in number, valiantly defended themselves. An assault, after desperate fighting was driven off with heavy loss to the Spaniards. By the counsel of Orange the dykes were cut; and Don Frederick saw himself in danger of being hemmed in by the rising waters. So, after a seven weeks' siege, he abandoned the attempt to take the town. The retreat of his soldiers, mutinous for want of pay, was marked by rapine and disorders of every kind. With this defeat all hope of being able to advance victoriously through Holland was at an end. Even greater success attended the Beggars upon the sea. Off Enckhuysen the Spanish fleet was, on October 11, completely worsted by the Dutch; and Admiral Bossu himself was taken prisoner. William was thus able to make the admiral's life a hostage for that of Sainte Aldegonde, who had been surprised and seized by the Spaniards at Maaslandsluis.

1573] Alva leaves the Netherlands. Requesens

The Duke of Alva, detested throughout the Netherlands, accused by the royalists of bringing disaster on the country, ill-supported by the King, with no money to pay his mutinous soldiery and with the fleets of Orange riding triumphant on the Zuyderzee and the Meuse, now besought his master to appoint a successor to him in a post in which he had sacrificed health, strength, and reputation. His request was granted; and the Grand Commander, Don Luis Requesens, was appointed to take his place. On December 18, 1573, Alva left Brussels for Spain, having persisted to the last in the truculent and pitiless policy which had marked the six bloodstained years of his rule.

The coming of Requesens was marked by repeated efforts to bring about a settlement through direct negotiations. Marnix, in his captivity, was prevailed upon to urge the Prince to make terms. Various intermediaries, Dr Leoninus, Hugo Bonticus, Champagny, and others, engaged with him in correspondence or had interviews with him on the subject. But it was all in vain. William could never be moved from the inexorable three conditions which he always laid down as the basis for any accommodation: freedom of worship and liberty to preach the Gospel according to the Word of God; the restoration and maintenance of all the ancient charters, privileges, and liberties of the land; the withdrawal of all Spaniards and other foreigners from all posts and employments, civil and military. Unless these conditions were granted, the Hollanders and Zeelanders would fight to the last man; and, as he wrote to his brother John, "If these poor people should be abandoned by all the world, yet, if they are obstinate in resisting as they have been hitherto, it will cost our enemies the half of Spain, both in money and in men, before that they have triumphed over us." Meanwhile the Stadholder identified himself yet more closely with the cause he had made his own by publicly, October 23, declaring himself a member of the Calvinist communion. There can be little doubt that this step was taken by William of Orange from motives of high policy to strengthen his authority in the Provinces, which he had just induced to give him almost sovereign powers and to vote him, what they had refused to Philip II, a large fixed subsidy. The Prince was undoubtedly more sincerely religious than either Elizabeth of England or Henry of Navarre; but in him as in them, the instincts of the statesman and the patriot were stronger than his convictions in favor of any particular creed. The impulse that led him in an age of bigotry and persecution to uphold consistently liberty of conscience to the individual and toleration of all forms of belief in law-abiding citizens, influenced him to profess openly the predominant creed of his followers, that he might thus be enabled the more easily to control their fanaticism. The same spirit is to be discerned in all his negotiations with foreign Powers. His one object was to obtain help; and to get this he was willing to make almost any concession or sacrifice, and to bear patiently any amount of false dealing, chicanery, and even downright rebuffs. With Elizabeth, with Charles IX, with the Emperor and the German Princes, he was in constant communication, indefatigably striving to obtain their good offices to the Netherland cause, by playing off the hopes and fears of one against another, and those of all against Philip of Spain. He was ready to acknowledge Elizabeth as sovereign of the Low Countries, and to hand over to her several towns as pledges, if she would openly give the rebels armed assistance. But Elizabeth, though at times she allowed both men and money to be sent from England, would not take any definite steps of hostility against the Spanish King or give any positive promises. The same offer was made to Charles IX. Compensation was offered to France in the southern provinces, and the sovereignty to one of the King's brothers. Here again, however, though help was given secretly, little could be achieved. Charles was nearing the end of his days; the Duke of Anjou had just been elected King of Poland; the Duke of Alençon was suing for Elizabeth's hand and intriguing with the Huguenots. If Orange's methods do not always commend themselves for straightforwardness, if he met duplicity with duplicity, and cunningness with greater cunning, it must be remembered that he was reduced at times to almost desperate straits, and that those with whom he had to deal were absolutely unscrupulous. The volumes of Gachard are full of evidence as to the continual plots that were on foot to end his life by the knife or bullet of the assassin, and prove moreover that Philip and his chief councillors deemed that such an act, if consummated, would be not only excusable, but meritorious in the eyes of heaven. Requesens received repeated orders from Madrid to find some means of despatching both William and Lewis of Nassau; and, far from demurring, the Grand Commander only expressed regret "that there was small hope of success unless God should help him". The Prince on his part, fully informed through the agency of his paid spies of all that passed in Philip's inmost councils, was able to avoid all the traps laid for him; and, despite so much provocation to retaliate, there is not a shred of testimony to show that he ever stooped to employ against his adversaries the same base and cowardly weapons which so frequently threatened his own life.

1574] Conquest of Zeeland. Death of Lewis of Nassau

The beginning of the year 1574 saw Leyden invested by the Spaniards in great force, and Mondragon shut up in Middelburg, the last stronghold that remained to the King in Zeeland. The issue in the case of Middelburg depended upon the mastery of the sea; and its fate was determined by a bloody victory gained by the fierce Sea Beggars under the command of Admiral Boisot near Bergen over the Spanish fleet under the very eyes of the Governor General. Mondragon surrendered on honorable terms, after being reduced to the last extremity, on February 18; and Zeeland fell into the hands of the rebels. But this success was immediately counterbalanced by a heavy disaster. Lewis of Nassau had been busily engaged all the winter with his wonted energy in raising troops, with the intention of leading a force to the help of his brother, and of effecting a diversion for the relief of Leyden. He wrote personally to Charles IX, pleading eloquently for help, and not without effect. With a large sum of money received from the French King he hastily equipped a force of some seven thousand foot and three thousand horse, a force of mixed nationalities, partly volunteers, partly mercenaries, with no cohesion or discipline, and at once crossed the Rhine; with him were his brothers John and Henry, and Christopher, son of the Elector Palatine. After failing in an attempt to take Maestricht by surprise, he advanced along the right bank of the Meuse in the hope of being able to join William, who had set out to meet him at the head of six thousand men. But a strong body of royal troops under the command of the skilful and experienced old soldier, Sancho d'Avila, managed to fall unexpectedly upon the disorderly array of the Nassaus at Mookerheide near Nymegen, and with scarcely any loss utterly annihilated it. Count John escaped with his life; but his two brothers and Duke Christopher were never seen again. Scarcely less to be regretted than the chivalrous Lewis of Nassau, whose enthusiasm and restless energy had played so great a part in the stormy history of his times, was the gallant Henry, the youngest of the band of brothers and the third to lay down his life for the cause of liberty. The one was but thirty-six, the other twenty-four; and their loss was a grievous blow to William, who loved them both.

The invasion of Lewis, followed as it was by a mutiny of the royal troops, who, irritated by not receiving their arrears of pay, had chosen a general of their own and seized Antwerp, led to a suspension for two months of the siege of Leyden. Unfortunately the inhabitants failed to utilise this interval by laying in an adequate store of supplies. On May 26 a powerful Spanish army under Valdez again invested the town, and by means of a circle of redoubts completely shut out all hope of military relief. It was now that William conceived the desperate plan of submerging the land, and conducting a fleet across the flooded fields to attack the Spaniards in their entrenchments. He succeeded in persuading the States of Holland to order, on June 30, that the dykes should be cut and the sluices opened, thus allowing the pent-up waters of the sea, the Rhine, the Waal, and the Meuse to swallow up with their devastating flood the fruits of the painful labour of centuries. "It is better", he said, "to ruin the land than to lose the land", such was his convincing argument. The waters, however, spread but slowly, and hope began to sink in the hearts of the brave defenders of Leyden. At this critical moment, too, William was himself stricken down by a violent swamp fever. The report spread that he was dead; but his indomitable spirit even on his sick-bed never gave way, and he continued to write letters and dispatches and to urge on the preparations for relief. Two hundred vessels of light draught were collected under Admiral Boisot, armed and manned by Sea-Beggars of Zeeland. But contrary winds prevented the waters from rising sufficiently high to carry the ships to Leyden, through whose streets the gaunt spectre of famine was now stalking. Driven to despair, a number of the citizens gathered one day round the heroic burgomaster, van der Werff, who had been throughout the soul of the defence, and began reproaching him with their calamities. But he told the half-famished murmurers that he had taken an oath not to yield the city and would keep his word. "Here is my sword", he exclaimed, "plunge it, if you will, into my heart, and divide my flesh among you to appease your hunger; but expect no surrender as long as I am alive." From that day forth there was no more flinching. At last, on October 1, the wind changed; a furious westerly gale arose and drove the waters over the land; and Boisot's vessels, sailing through trees and farm-buildings across the intervening country, at length made their way to the Spanish lines. A succession of desperate combats placed the outermost forts in the assailants' hands. The strongest yet remained to be taken, but further fighting proved unnecessary. Seized by a panic, lest they should be overwhelmed by the rising flood, the Spaniards abandoned the rest of their defences during the night and fled. On October 3 the ships of Boisot, laden with provisions, entered Leyden in triumph. A letter was at once sent to the Stadholder and reached him at Delft in church. After the sermon was ended, the glad tidings were read out from the pulpit; and then William, still weak from his illness, hurried off to congratulate the citizens of Leyden on their marvellous defence, and yet more marvellous rescue. In honor of this great deliverance he founded the University which has since for three centuries made the name of Leyden illustrious in all branches of learning.

Relief of Leyden, (Otto van Veen), on the 3rd of October 1574.

 

1575] William's third marriage

During the nine months that followed there was practically a cessation of hostilities. The Spanish armies were mutinous for lack of pay, Requesens with his empty exchequer being unable to satisfy their demands and hampered by opposition even from among the Belgian loyalists. "As to hatred for our nation, those who are in the service of your Majesty do not yield in any way to the rebels," he wrote to the King. Requesens was a man neither of strong character nor of popular manners, and unable to speak the language of the country. Nor did Philip, who, after the death of his favorite, Ruy Gomez, had been seized by a distaste for affairs, do anything to make the Governor-General's task more easy. Something like a deadlock ensued. Requesens complained (April 7, 1575) that for five months he had not received a single communication from His Majesty. In these circumstances he endeavored to find a way out of his difficulties by negotiations. Envoys were sent to the Prince of Orange to try to win him over by favorable terms. Conferences were held at Breda, but with no result. The utmost concession that Philip would make to adherents of the Reformed faith was that they should be allowed an interval of time in which to sell their property and leave the land. Neither the States of Holland nor Zeeland nor the Stadholder would listen for a moment to such conditions. These months of comparative repose were not, however, spent by the Prince solely in futile negotiations.

Charlotte de Bourbon(1546/1547-1582)

On June 24, 1575, he married Charlotte de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Montpensier, and thus a member of the royal House of France. This event casts a peculiar light on William's temperament and character. His wife, Anne of Saxony, was still alive; and Charlotte de Bourbon was a runaway and renegade nun. Having secretly embraced the Reformed faith, she fled from the Abbey of Jouarre, of which she was head, to the Puritan Court of Heidelberg, to place herself under the protection of the Elector Palatine and his wife. It was soon after this that during a passing visit to Heidelberg (1572) William had made her acquaintance. He had never seen her since, but he now asked her to be his wife, and she consented. In vain Charlotte's father angrily refused his consent; in vain the Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Hesse stormed; in vain his own family remonstrated, and his only surviving brother wrote long letters of sorrowful reproach. Having obtained from five Protestant divines a formally attested statement that they held him "free to marry again by human and divine law", he sent Sainte Aldegonde to conduct his bride from Heidelberg to Emden, and thence to Brill. On the very day after her arrival on Dutch soil the wedding was celebrated with much ceremony and festivity at the church of Brill; and "la nonne" as his enemies called her, became Princess of Orange. The union proved to be one of the greatest happiness; and Charlotte was worthy, by her qualities of both head and heart, to share William's fortunes.

Spanish conquest of Duiveland and Schouwen [1575-6

After the failure of the conferences at Breda, hostilities were renewed by the Spaniards with energetic determination. The royalist forces amounted to 50,000 foot and 5000 horse, and were irresistible in the field. Oudewater and Schoonhoven were captured in August; and then Requesens conceived the bold project of emulating the great achievement of Mondragon in 1572, by marching a force through the shallow waters to seize the islands of Duiveland and Schouwen.

Close to Tholen, which had remained in Spanish hands since Mondragon's adventurous conquest, lay a small deserted islet known as Philipsland, which careful soundings had revealed to be connected with Schouwen by a narrow ridge of submerged land. By following this ridge at low water it was possible to wade across the strait, four miles wide, which separated the islands. A narrower and yet more shallow piece of water divided Duiveland from Schouwen. For this enterprise Requesens selected three thousand men, consisting in equal parts of Spaniards, Walloons, and Germans, all picked troops. Half were placed under the old hero Mondragon, the other half under the equally experienced Don Osorio d'Ulloa, who was the actual leader of the forlorn hope. On September 27, in the dead of night, amidst thunder and lightning, with the water rising at times up to their necks and the Zeeland mariners harassing them with cannon and musketry fire through the darkness, and even assailing them with harpoons and boathooks, the veterans struggled on through the waters. Many were killed and wounded by the Zeelanders; a still larger number missed their footing on the narrow spit and were drowned; but at length the main body reached the opposite shore and made good their landing. The garrison, whose leader, Charles Boisot, was shot by his own men, was seized with panic and abandoned Duiveland to the invaders. These pressed on to Schouwen, which, with the exception of the capital, Zierickzee, was quickly conquered. For nine months Zierickzee, which was well fortified and provisioned, held out against Mondragon; but after a brave resistance it surrendered in July, 1576. Thus the Spaniards once more became possessed of an outlet upon the ocean, and had moreover effectually cut off all communication between Walcheren and South Holland.

Orange accordingly found himself hemmed in on every side. His sea-power alone enabled him still to hold out in a little corner of land of which Delft was the centre; but he lacked both men and money, and without help from outside saw no prospect of effectual resistance to the overwhelming forces around him. In these desperate circumstances he once more turned for aid, first to France and then to England. His own inclinations were towards France; but Henry III, who had just succeeded to the throne, was too much embarrassed at the moment by the civil commotions in his own kingdom to be able to lend assistance to others. William therefore had no choice but to fall in with the wishes of the States of Holland, and make approaches to Elizabeth. An embassy had audience of the Queen on November 14. They were authorised to offer her the sovereignty of Holland and Zeeland, on condition that she would assist them with all her power in their struggle against Spain. But Elizabeth was not fond either of rebels or of Calvinists; and, when Champagny, as special envoy from Requesens, had arrived at her Court, she took care, as was her wont, to coquet with both parties without committing herself in any way to either. She declined the proffered sovereignty, but promised to the Dutch envoys her secret support. Elizabeth in fact looked at the matter from a purely English point of view. She wished to keep the insurrection alive, in order, first, that Philip might thus find his hands full and be prevented from taking any steps on behalf of Mary Stewart, and, secondly, that the Netherlanders might not offer in despair the sovereignty of the Provinces to the King of France. From William's letters at this time it is plain that, though resolved still to fight to the last, his hopes of prolonging resistance had sunk very low. But a gleam of light came unexpectedly amidst the darkness. Requesens caught a fever and died suddenly, March, 1576. This unforeseen demise of the Governor-General for awhile threw everything into confusion in the royalist ranks; and, before a successor could take up the reins of government, a breathing space was thus allowed to the Stadholder.

His first step was to summon a meeting of the States of Holland and Zeeland at Delft to consolidate the union between the two Provinces which had been provisionally effected the previous year. They met; and on April 25, 1576 (the Prince's birthday), an Act of Federation was agreed upon and duly signed. This Act, which consisted of eighteen articles, may be regarded as the germ of the Republic of the United Provinces. By this compact supreme authority was conferred upon the Prince of Orange, as sovereign and chief. He was invested in fact, as ad interim ruler, with all the prerogatives belonging to the Spanish monarch as successor to the Counts of Holland. Thus this little group of republics (for each municipality was practically an independent entity) agreed to place in his hands a power, such as they had been unwilling to concede to any of their actual sovereigns. Not only in military matters was he, as commander-in-chief by land and sea, absolutely supreme; but he had in his hands the final appointment to all political and judicial posts, and to vacant city magistracies. As regards religion, William undertook to maintain the Protestant Reformed faith, and to put down all forms of worship contrary to the Gospel. This last, somewhat elastic, expression was inserted in deference to the Stallholder's disinclination to sanction any measures of persecution against the very considerable number of Catholics who were to be found even in Calvinist Holland and Zeeland. Another article gave William authority, should he deem it needful for the safety of the land, to confer the Protectorate of the Confederacy upon a foreign Prince. With his position thus strengthened in his northern fastness, Orange issued a series of appeals to the patriotism of the other Provinces. In these appeals he called upon them to join with Holland and Zeeland in expelling the Spaniards from the country and in securing for the Netherlands, under the King, the enjoyment of those local liberties and immunities to which they were entitled by their ancient charters. In these skilfully drawn-up documents he laid particular stress on the necessity of allowing liberty of worship and of conscience to all, whether Catholics or Reformed. His arguments and pleadings met with the more favorable reception through the terror caused by the outrages of the Spanish and German troops, who were once more in a state of mutiny.

Don John of Austria Governor-General [1576

John of Austria (1547-1578)

On the death of Requesens, the Council of State had perforce to take upon themselves the government of the country, pending the arrival of a new Governor-General. All of them, with the single exception of Jerome de Roda, were natives of the Low Countries; and several, among whom was the Duke of Aerschot, made no secret of being heartily sick of the presence of foreign soldiers in the country and bitterly opposed to any further interference by Spaniards in the government of the Provinces. They urged upon Philip the importance of sending a member of his family as Governor, with full powers. The King accordingly, in April, nominated his half-brother, Don John of Austria, the famous victor of Lepanto, and directed the new Governor-General to repair at once to his post. But Don John, whose ambitious brain was filled with high-flown schemes of self-aggrandisement, and who probably regarded his appointment as due to the King's desire to remove him from Italy, did not obey. Instead of going to Brussels he made his way to Madrid; and many months passed before he could be persuaded to undertake his new duties. The delay was most injurious to the royalist cause in the Low Countries, where events had meanwhile been moving rapidly.

At the end of June a last effort made by the Prince of Orange for the relief of Zierickzee, in which the gallant Admiral Boisot lost his life, had failed; and nothing was left to the commandant but to surrender on the favorable terms offered by Mondragon. This capture, however, proved to be one of those victories that are worse than a defeat. The Spanish troops in Schouwen, to whom large arrears of pay were due, finding themselves defrauded by the conditions of the capitulation from the hoped-for pillage of the town, mutinied. They entered Flanders, were joined by other bands of mutineers, and finally seized Alost, which they made their head-quarters. The excesses and outrages of which they were guilty roused against them a violent feeling of indignation throughout the country. The excitement of the populace, especially in Brussels, was intense; troops were raised to protect the city; and the Council of State, impotent and trembling for its safety, was compelled to declare the mutineers, who were the soldiers and countrymen of the King, outlaws. But the Spanish veterans were in possession of the principal fortresses in the country, and defied the Council. Orange saw his opportunity, and opened friendly communications with the States of Brabant assembled at Brussels, and with those of Flanders at Ghent, with a view to taking common measures against the common enemy.

The people were on his side; and, through his reiterated undertaking not to attempt anything subversive of the Catholic religion, he was able to win the support of the great majority of the deputies to his views and proposals. Two events greatly strengthened his position. On September 4 Baron de Héze, who was godson of William and had been appointed by the States of Brabant to the command of their troops in Brussels, seized those members of the Council of State who were suspected of 'espagnolisme'. The leaders, Mansfeld and Barlaymont, were confined in the Broodhuis. On September 26, at the wish of the States of Flanders, the Prince sent from Flushing a body of picked troops with artillery to occupy Ghent and cooperate in the siege of its citadel, which was in the hands of a body of mutineers. Meanwhile the States General had met at Brussels, and, largely through the influence of the Duke of Aerschot, between whom and Orange intimate relations had for some time subsisted, entered readily into negotiations for a union of all the Provinces on the basis of exclusion of foreigners and non-interference with religious belief. It was arranged that a Congress should be held at Ghent, at which nine delegates from the Prince of Orange and the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland should meet nine from the States General representing the other fifteen Provinces, with the object of concluding a firm union and alliance for the pacification of the country. The chief difficulty proved to be the question of the toleration of the Catholic cult in the Calvinist Provinces, and of the Protestant conventicles in those adhering to the ancient faith. The Congress met on October 19. The discussions were protracting themselves when the terrible news of the sack of Antwerp caused all minor differences to sink into nothingness in the presence of a common danger.

The 'Spanish Fury' at Antwerp [1576

The mutiny of Spanish mercenaries in Antwerp

The famous citadel built by Alva to curb the great city of Antwerp was garrisoned in this month of October, 1576, by a body of mutinous Spanish troops under Sancho d'Avila, the victor of Mookerheide. Champagny was governor of the town; and, though he had with him a body of German mercenaries commanded by Count Oberstein, he represented to the States General that he could not answer for the security of the place in view of the threatening attitude of the Spaniards. A large reinforcement of militia, sent to his aid under the Marquis of Havre, the Duke of Aerschot's brother, arrived on November 2; and the preparations for defence were vigorously pressed on. But the garrison of the citadel on their side began to be alarmed for their safety. They lay under the ban of outlawry recently proclaimed, and an appeal was sent out to their fellow-countrymen in neighboring fortresses for assistance. Strong detachments of mutineers from Alost and other places at once by forced marches joined their comrades at Antwerp, arriving at nightfall on November 3. The following day at noon an attack was made by the united force upon the troops of Champagny. After a brief struggle behind their improvised defences, these were completely routed and dispersed. Champagny and Havre themselves escaped with difficulty to some ships of the Prince of Orange in the river. Oberstein was killed. The city with all its accumulated wealth lay at the mercy of the brutal conquerors, who for hours with unbridled rage and lust murdered, ravished, tortured, destroyed, and pillaged. Some seven thousand citizens miserably perished. Property of untold value was burnt or carried off as booty. Not in all the cruel and bloodstained annals of the Netherland troubles are any pages to be found more filled with horrors than those which tell the story of the "Spanish Fury" at Antwerp.

The report of what had happened reached the States General at Brussels on the very day when they were deliberating on the terms of a treaty provisionally agreed upon by the Congress at Ghent on October 28. The treaty was forthwith ratified both by the States General and by the Council of State. This treaty, known in history as the Pacification of Ghent, established a firm alliance and inviolable peace between the Provinces represented by the States General assembled at Brussels on the one part, and by the Prince of Orange and the States of Holland and Zeeland on the other. All were bound to unite their forces for the purpose of driving the Spanish soldiery and other foreigners out of the country. As soon as this should be accomplished, a new assembly of the States General of the seventeen Provinces after the likeness of that convoked by the Emperor Charles V at his abdication was to be summoned to consider the religious question. Meantime all the placards against heretics were declared abolished; the Prince of Orange was recognised as Governor with full powers and Admiral-General in Holland and Zeeland; and the confiscation of the possessions of the Houses of Nassau and Brederode was revoked.

At this very time Don John was posting through France in the disguise of a Moorish slave, to take up at last his duties in the Netherlands. On November 4 (the day of the Antwerp disaster) he wrote from Luxemburg to the Council of State to announce his arrival. Acting under the advice of the Prince of Orange, the States General declined to receive him as Governor, unless he would consent to the expulsion of all Spaniards from the country, approve the Pacification of Ghent, and swear to maintain the ancient privileges of the country and to employ none but Netherlander in his service. Angry and disappointed at such a reception, Don John chafed during the winter of 1576 and the spring of 1577, negotiating and discussing, but never able to move the States or Orange from the position which they had taken up.

1577] Union of Brussels. Perpetual Edict

In January, 1577, the compact of Ghent, which was of the nature of a treaty between Holland and Zeeland and the other Provinces, received a popular confirmation by means of an agreement, which met with large support especially throughout the southern Provinces, and to which was given the name of the Union of Brussels. The signatories proclaimed their determination, while maintaining the Catholic religion and the King's authority, to do all in their power to drive away the Spaniards from the Netherlands. This agreement, thus widely subscribed, strengthened enormously the influence of the Prince of Orange, who lent it his warm support. Don John saw that he must yield. Accordingly on January 17, at Huy he announced his readiness to accept the Pacification of Ghent; and on February 12, after much haggling on the one side, and firm insistence on the other, a treaty was signed, which bore the singularly inappropriate title of "the Perpetual Edict." By this Don John undertook that the foreign soldiery should depart at once by land, never to return, and that all the charters and liberties of the Provinces should be maintained; while the States agreed to receive the King's brother as Governor-General, and to uphold the Catholic faith. William thus found his authority in Holland and Zeeland confirmed in the name of the King; yet he did not see his way to recommend the northern Provinces to accept the Perpetual Edict. No one knew better than he, that neither Don John nor King Philip was in the very least sincere in the concessions they had granted, and that they only awaited a favourable moment to revoke them. At Dort he kept himself in constant touch with all parties and movements in the country, resolved that his enemies should not entrap him into sharing the fate of Egmont and Hoorn.

Don John made his state entry into Brussels on May 1, but found himself Governor only in name. "The Prince of Orange", he wrote to the King, "has bewitched the minds of all men. They love him and fear him, and wish to have him as their lord. They keep him informed of everything, and take no resolution without consulting him". On every side the impetuous and brilliant soldier found himself thwarted by the sleepless and indefatigable diplomatist. Don John, says a contemporary, "seemed like an apprentice defying his master". Irritated beyond measure, and unable either to intimidate his 'silent' adversary by threats or to win him by blandishments, the fiery young Governor wrote in his indignation to Madrid: "that which the Prince loathes most in the world is your Majesty; if he could, he would drink your Majesty's blood". Brussels, full of Orange partisans, was in fact far from being a comfortable place of residence for Philip II's representative. Don John speedily found it unendurable. His impatient spirit rebelled against the shackles in which he was held; and, professing to be afraid for his personal security, he suddenly in July put himself at the head of a body of Walloon soldiery, seized Namur, and defied the States General. This suicidal act irretrievably ruined his reputation, even with the southern Catholics. For a while all was confusion. But the voice of the people demanded the presence of the Prince of Orange. All these months he had been consolidating his position in the north. Zierickzee had been retaken, and the Zeeland islands freed from the Spanish yoke. The patriot flag floated over Breda, Utrecht, and Haarlem. The Spanish garrisons had been expelled from the citadels of Antwerp and Ghent. In Flanders and Brabant the Prince's influence was nearly as great as in Holland itself; and all men's eyes were turning to him as the saviour of the State. He was asked to come to Brussels; but not until after some dubitation, and with the express consent of the States of Holland and Zeeland, did he yield to the representations that were made to him. At length, however, on September 23, with every outward demonstration of joy, he made his triumphal entry into the capital, and once more took up his abode in the Nassau palace, from which he had been obliged to fly for his life ten years before. On this day William of Nassau, acclaimed as their leader by Catholic and Protestant, by south and north alike, undoubtedly reached the culminating point of his career. Yet the Catholic nobility, at whose head was the Duke of Aerschot, were jealous and suspicious of him; and it required all the tact and skill of the Prince not to ruffle their susceptibilities. Scarcely had he settled at Brussels, when the situation was farther complicated by the arrival at the Belgian capital (October 6), on the secret invitation of the Catholic party, of Archduke Matthias, brother of the Emperor.

1578] William, Matthias, and Anjou

Matthias, who thus came to assume the sovereignty of the Netherlands, was a foolish boy of twenty. That a member of the Imperial house of Habsburg should thus thrust himself into the troubled arena of the Low Countries was disconcerting not only to his relatives, Don John and King Philip, but even more so to the Prince of Orange. It was all-important that no split should take place which could injure the national cause; so William at once made up his mind to welcome the intruder, and to use him for his own purposes. The Orange partisans bestirred themselves (not without instigation from headquarters) to secure the nomination of their chief as Ruwaard or Governor of Brabant, and, as William was the idol of the populace, succeeded, despite the opposition of Aerschot and the Catholic nobility. By way of a counterpoise Aerschot had himself appointed Governor of Flanders by the States of that Province; but the townsfolk of Ghent, led by Ryhove and Hembyze, two revolutionary demagogues, took up arms, and even went so far as to seize the persons of the Duke and other Catholic leaders, and throw them into prison. William disclaimed any share in this act of violence, but it is difficult altogether to exculpate him. He certainly did not exert himself to procure the release of the prisoners, and he remained master of the situation. He treated the Archduke with the greatest courtesy and deference, and secured on his behalf the goodwill of Queen Elizabeth, who promised her help to Matthias in men and money, provided he made the Prince his lieutenant-general, "because of his great experience in affairs."

Matthias in his turn made his solemn state entry into Brussels in January, 1578, preceded by his lieutenant-general; and it seemed as if a real union of the entire Netherlands were now to be firmly and satisfactorily established under the nominal rule of a Habsburg Prince, but with all the reins of administration gathered together in the capable hands of William the Silent.

But, just as the sun of fortune, so long obscured, seemed at length to have begun to shine upon the Liberator's path, it was once more suddenly eclipsed. The King of Spain, at last aroused from his torpor by the urgent remonstrances of his half-brother, had been quietly preparing a vigorous counterstroke. A body of 20,000 veteran troops, Spanish and Italian, had been placed under the command of Alexander Farnese, the son of the Duchess of Parma, who had orders to conduct them to the Low Countries to the assistance of his uncle and old school-comrade, Don John. This time, Philip had found the right instrument for a difficult task; for Farnese proved himself to be the best general of his times, and at the same time a statesman and diplomatist scarcely inferior in astuteness and sagacity to the Prince of Orange himself. He joined Don John; and on January 31 the united force fell upon the federal army at Gemblours. A daring cavalry charge under the personal leadership of the Prince of Parma decided the day. The Netherlanders were utterly routed, with the loss of not less than 6000 men, while on the side of the victors there were scarcely any casualties. Several towns in a short time opened their gates to Don John; and the States General in terror withdrew from Brussels to Antwerp. Once more all was conflict and confusion. The Duke of Anjou crossed the southern frontier with an army of Frenchmen and made himself master of Mons; while on the eastern side John Casimir, brother of the Elector Palatine, at the head of a force of German reiters in the pay of the English Queen, also forced his way into the unhappy country. The one came as the champion of the 'malcontent' Catholics, the other as that of the ultra-Calvinist sectaries.

Amid so many contending parties William scarcely knew which way to turn. Matthias was already clearly played out. John Casimir and Anjou, representing contradictory interests, could scarcely be both countenanced. The antagonism between Catholic and Protestant was rapidly growing more acute, and it was essential to try and reconcile them; so Orange carried on negotiations with Germany, France, and England at the same time. Unless help came from without, nothing could be done against 30,000 royal troops; and to secure what was required he accomplished a task that might have been deemed impossible. He succeeded (August, 1578) in inducing the Duke of Anjou to accept the title of 'Defender of the Liberties of the Netherlands', and to promise to bring a force of 10,000 foot and 2000 horse to act against the Spaniards if the Provinces on their part undertook to raise a like number. At the same time he managed to secure the alliance of Elizabeth, of Henry of Navarre, and of John Casimir. This curious combination of selfish aims and rival aspirations formed a confederacy that was not likely to last; but at any rate it served the purpose of a makeshift. The defeat of Gemblours had been more than compensated by the acquisition of Amsterdam; the progress of the Spanish arms had been checked by the skilful tactics of Bossu, the General of the States; yet such is the disintegrating force of religious antipathies that nothing but the utmost personal efforts and the influence of the Prince was able to keep the national forces in line. All this time, however, Don John, though at the head of an imposing army, had been chafing for many months in compulsory inactivity, due to lack of funds. Disappointed at his ill-success, and deeply hurt by the coldness of his brother, he broke down in health, and, from his camp before Namur, sent despairing appeals to the King for money and for instructions. At last a malignant fever seized him; and, on October 1, 1578, the hero of Lepanto closed his brilliant and adventurous life at the early age of thirty-three. Philip at once appointed Alexander of Parma (Farnese) to take his place; and from that hour a new era commences which was to end in the formation of two groups of Netherland Provinces, each with a character and a history of its own.

Farnese at once began, deftly and subtly, to sow the seeds of dissension amongst the confederates; and he found the soil ready prepared to reward his labors by a speedy harvest. The seventeen Provinces which had been so laboriously bound together in defence of a common cause by the Pacification of Ghent were not homogeneous. In the Walloon Provinces of the south and south-east, the Reformed doctrines never succeeded in obtaining a firm and permanent foothold. Already, in 1576, the Walloon country had, under the stress of Alva's persecutions, practically reverted to Catholicism; but these very persecutions had inflamed the inhabitants with the same detestation of foreign tyranny with which they had filled the people of the Teutonic Provinces of the north and west. Orange, therefore, had been able to unite at Ghent all Netherlanders against the alien rule of the Spanish viceroys, so long as it was strictly provided by the "Pacification" that the Catholic religion should be maintained. Two years later, however, the schism, sure to arise sooner or later between allies so dissimilar in their views and aims, was hastened under Parma's fostering care by an outbreak of Calvinist fanaticism, which disgraced the capital of Flanders. This outbreak was in the first instance attributed to the encouragement given by William to the revolutionary leaders, Ryhove and Hembyze, who seized and imprisoned the Duke of Aerschot and other Catholic notables at Ghent. There can be no question that the Prince connived at this act of violence, only to repent bitterly what he had done. For, under the protection of John Casimir, a regular Calvinist tyranny was established at Ghent. Churches and cloisters were sacked and gutted; monks and friars were burnt alive in the market-place; and the old Blood-Councillor Hessels and the ex-Procurator Visch were hanged without form of trial. For long the Prince struggled in vain to appease these disorders. He was denounced by Peter Dathenus and other red-hot gospellers as a Papist in disguise. The principles of religious toleration, which Orange now as always advocated, were rejected by both parties alike persistently.

La Furia Iconoclasta, by Dirck van Delen

1578-9] The 'Malcontents'. Treaty of Arras

Naturally, this spectre of bigoted Calvinism, dominant and aggressive in so important a centre as Ghent, alarmed the southern Catholics. A party rapidly came into existence, known as the "Malcontents." At its head were a number of Catholic nobles, Montigny, Lalaing, Câpres, Héze, and others. These men were not moved by pure venality, as Protestant historians have frequently said, though no doubt the substantial rewards dangled before their eyes by the artful Farnese had some weight in influencing their decision to take the side of the King. Of the majority of them it may be asserted that they did not love their country less, but their religion more. Genuinely attached to the faith of their ancestors, they trembled at the thought of heresy rampant in the land, and preferred the risk of their political liberties being curtailed by their natural sovereign, to the prospect of seeing their dearest religious convictions flouted and outraged by the fierce Protestant sectaries. William of Orange, from his lofty standpoint of a universal liberty of worship and conscience, might still dream of reconciling the irreconcilable, but he only earned the condemnation of the zealots of both parties, who pronounced him an irreligious man, almost an atheist. Mutually repulsive forces were at work, and were not long in bringing about a cleavage.

On January 5, 1579, a defensive league was signed at Arras by the deputies of Hainault, Douay, and Artois, for the protection of the Catholic religion in those Provinces, and with the avowed purpose of effecting a reconciliation with the King on his approving the political stipulations of the Pacification of Ghent and the Union of Brussels. The treaty of Arras was of the nature of a challenge to the Protestants, and it was answered at once by the Union of Utrecht. On January 29, under the auspices and by the efforts of John of Nassau, now Governor of Gelderland, the representatives of the northern Provinces, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and its district, Gelderland and Zutphen, at a meeting at Utrecht, bound themselves together "as if they were one Province", for the defence of their rights and liberties "with life, blood, and goods" against all foreign potentates, including the King of Spain. There was to be complete freedom of worship in each Province, and no one was to be persecuted for his religious opinions. These two compacts mark the definitive parting of the ways between the northern and the southern Netherlands.

It is important and interesting to note that, despite the claims he himself puts forward in his Apology, William was not the active author of the Union of Utrecht. He was still struggling in the face of a hopeless situation for a larger confederacy on broader lines, nor was it until some months later (May 3) that he bowed to the inevitable, and appended his signature to the instrument of union which his brother had drawn up. The Malcontents on their part speedily took an equally decisive step. On May 19 their leaders concluded a treaty with the Prince of Parma, by which they submitted themselves to the authority of Philip II, and undertook to countenance in the Walloon Provinces no worship but the Catholic. All this time negotiations were being carried on in leisurely fashion at Cologne, under the mediation of the Emperor, at which the Prince was indirectly represented by his secretary Bruyninck. Interminable dispatches were exchanged; but, as the views of the principal parties in the discussion were diametrically opposed, no good result ensued. It was fully recognised at Madrid that the brain and the energy of William of Nassau constituted the real barrier to the reestablishment of the royal authority throughout the Netherlands. Through the agency of the Count of Schwarzenberg, one of the Imperial envoys at the Congress, to whom large rewards were promised if he would win over the Prince, secret negotiations were opened with him by the Duke of Terranova on the part of Philip II. It was hoped that William might be open to bribery, if only it were on a sufficiently large scale; and splendid offers were made to him on condition that he would quit the Netherlands, including the restoration of all his honors and estates and the payment of his debts. But William adhered firmly to the immutable terms which had so often on previous occasions been offered and refused. There can be little doubt that he deliberately prolonged negotiations which he knew from the first to be futile in order to gain time for his own projects. He had long come to the conclusion that the best hope of securing foreign aid for the struggling Provinces lay in the direction of France, and he wished to prepare men's minds for receiving the Duke of Anjou as their titular sovereign.

1581] William under the Ban. His Apology

Meanwhile, after a terrible siege of four months, Maestricht, the key of the eastern frontier, had been taken by storm by the royal troops, despite the utmost endeavors of the Prince to relieve it. Its loss made a great impression on men's minds in Brabant and Flanders, and aroused a strong feeling of dissatisfaction against Orange. Ghent indeed had at last been reduced to order, and the Calvinist leaders, Hembyze and Dathenus, forced to leave the town by the personal intervention of William at no slight risk to his life. The position of affairs, as 1579 drew to a close, was moving from bad to worse; and in the spring of 1580 the hold of the patriot party even upon the north was most seriously shaken by the unexpected defection of George Lalaing, Count of Renneberg, the Stadholder of Groningen. Only in faithful Holland and Zeeland did William retain his old unchallenged authority and the full confidence of the people. The continued secession of so many prominent Catholics unnerved the more timid and hesitating; and even the Protestants were not staunch in their support of a policy with which they did not sympathise. They could not understand the Prince's advocacy of the Catholic Duke of Anjou, and they were afraid lest a man so lukewarm in upholding the principles of the Reformation (at this time the Prince had deliberately abstained from attending any public worship for twelve months) might not after all be a Papist in disguise. From this suspicion he was once for all relieved by the promulgation of the Ban against him, dated Maestricht, March 15, 1581, by which he was denounced to the whole world by King Philip as a traitor and a miscreant and an enemy of the human race. After a recitation of the crimes of William of Nassau, a reward of 25,000 crowns in gold or land and a patent of nobility was offered to any one "who should deliver this pest to us, dead or alive, or take his life".

The instigator of this edict was Orange's old adversary, Cardinal Granvelle, who on the failure of the efforts of Terranova had not scrupled to suggest to his master the advisability of setting a price on the life of the arch-enemy. "Fear", he argued, "will unman the Prince and prevent him from quietly carrying out his plans". But King and Minister alike mistook the temper and character of their proposed victim. William was not content merely to take up the challenge. The famous Apology of the Prince of Orange, which was written under his direction by his chaplain, Pierre L'Oyseleur, Seigneur de Villiers, is, despite its prolixity and at times rhetorical verbiage, a most remarkable document. This defence, which was first presented to the States General at Delft on December 13, was afterwards published in French, Dutch, and Latin, and sent to every Court of Europe. In it the Apologist gives an account of his entire life and career, and not only rebuts seriatim the charges that had been made against him, but carries the war into the enemy's camp. With pride he dwells upon his Imperial descent, and points out that his ancestors were great lords in the Netherlands when those of Philip were still but petty Counts of Habsburg, and that in later times for a succession of generations they had performed great and memorable services to the Houses of Burgundy and of Austria. He further indulges in a scathing denunciation of the King's own misdeeds and crimes, even venturing to accuse him of the murder of his son and wife, of incest, adultery, and of an innate love of bloodshed and cruelty. He scoffs at the idea of being frightened at a price being set upon his head, as if he had not for years been surrounded by hired poisoners and assassins. He concludes by an impassioned address to the people for whom he had sacrificed his property, the lives of three brothers, and the liberty of his eldest son, and for whose sakes he had for years been holding his life in his hand day and night; and he protests that, if they think he can still serve them, then in God's name let them go forward together in defence of their wives and children and all they hold dear and sacred. Instead of a signature, this eloquent and touching declaration of William of Nassau's absolute fidelity to the cause of the freedom of the Netherlands is signed with his motto, so appropriate to the sentiments he had expressed, "Je le maintiendrai."

Many of the Prince's friends and relations, notably the excellent John of Nassau, who at this time relinquished the Stadholdership of Gelderland and returned to Dillenburg, thought the tone of the Apology too violent. But Orange was well aware of what he was doing; and even in his violence there lay concealed careful premeditation and reasoned motive. His aim was to stir up the minds of the Netherlanders against Spain, and at the same time to fill them with implicit trust in himself. The goal of all his striving was the severance of the ties which bound the United Provinces to the Spanish King. Already Holland and Zeeland had pressed him to become their Count instead of Philip; but William, anxious as yet to take no step which might alienate the Walloon Catholics, had refused. Now, however, that the southerners had proclaimed their reconciliation with their hereditary sovereign, he felt that circumstances had changed.

Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours. Abjuration of Philip [1580-2

On September 19, 1580, a treaty had been signed at Plessis-les-Tours (ratified at Bordeaux on January 23, 1581) with the Duke of Anjou, by which the Duke accepted the proffered sovereignty of the United Netherlands on certain conditions, one of which was that "Holland and Zeeland should have the privilege of remaining as they were in the matter of religion and otherwise". These Provinces in fact refused to have the French Prince as their sovereign. William therefore, unwillingly and with no little demur, on July 24, 1581, agreed to assume provisionally the title of Count. He did this in order that he might be able two days later to join in the name of Holland and Zeeland at the public abjuration of their allegiance to Philip II, which he had already persuaded the States General of the other Provinces to make. On July 26, at the Hague, this momentous Act of Abjuration, by which the representatives of Brabant, Flanders, Utrecht, Gelderland, Holland, and Zeeland solemnly declared that the Bang of Spain was deposed from his sovereignty over them on account of his tyranny and misrule, and that they were henceforth absolved from all allegiance to him, was duly carried into effect. But Orange knew well that the newly proclaimed commonwealth could not stand alone. He exerted therefore all his influence and persuasiveness to press forward the coming of the Duke of Anjou. He was aware that the Duke was false, fickle, and depraved, but he hoped to be able to keep him under his personal control, and through him to secure at the same time the good offices of France, to whose throne Anjou was heir, and the friendship of England, whose Queen was for the moment treating him as her favoured suitor.

1582] Attempted assassination of William at Antwerp

In January, 1582, the French Prince accordingly set sail from England for Flushing attended by a retinue of English nobles, and with Elizabeth's recommendation to the States to receive him as "her other self". On February 19 he was solemnly inaugurated at Antwerp as Duke of Brabant. The Prince of Orange fastened around his shoulders the ducal mantle. "Monseigneur", he said, "you must button on this mantle so firmly that no one can tear it from your Highness". At this very time, Gaspar Anastro, a Biscayan merchant resident at Antwerp, whose fortunes were at a low ebb, had been tempted to save himself from ruin by plotting to win the large sum placed upon William's head. He had not the nerve to venture upon the deed of blood himself, but he opened his mind first to his bookkeeper, Antonio de Venero, and then, when Venero showed unwillingness, to another of his clerks, a youth called Juan Jaureguy, likewise a Biscayan. This man, having armed himself with a pistol, on March 18 (Anjou's birthday) presented himself before Orange as he was leaving the dinner-table, with a paper in his hand that professed to be a petition. As the Prince took it he fired off the pistol so close to his head that the hair and beard were set on fire. The ball passed under the right ear, through the palate and out by the left jaw. Utterly stunned at first, William quickly recovered himself sufficiently to cry out, "Do not kill him. I pardon him my death"; and, turning to some French nobles near him he added, "What a faithful servant his Highness loses in me!" Already, however, the assassin had perished, pierced through and through by many swords. The sufferer, whose terrible wound had fortunately been cicatrised by the blaze of the explosion, survived. He himself believed that his end was come; but by the devoted care of his doctors and attendants, after lingering for weeks between life and death, he slowly but surely began to mend, and at the end of April was convalescent. On May 2 a solemn service of thanksgiving for his recovery was held at Antwerp, at which his wife was present. But on the very next day Charlotte of Bourbon, upon whom the shock of Jaureguy's murderous attack had come while she was still weak after child-birth, was seized with a violent fever. Her last strength had been sapped by her unremitting care at her husband's bedside; she quickly succumbed to her illness, and expired on May 5.

The spirit of William of Nassau, which had so long and so often braved misfortunes, once more, however, rose superior to his personal afflictions. By his exertions Anjou was, in July, duly accepted as Lord of Friesland and Duke of Gelderland, and publicly inaugurated at Bruges as Count of Flanders. But this false and feather-brained son of Catharine de' Medici was far from being content with the narrow limits of the sovereignties conferred upon him. He hated his dependence upon the good offices of Orange, his subjection to the authority of the States General, and the restraints placed upon him by the provincial charters. He declared that he felt insulted and humiliated, and that he had no intention of becoming a second Matthias. And he listened readily to the advice of his courtiers, who urged him to seize suddenly by force of arms the principal cities of his new dominions, and thus compel complete submission to his rule. To him the breaking of solemn oaths and the execrable treachery of leading his troops to the assault of peaceful towns, which had voluntarily placed themselves under his protection, counted as nothing.

The "French Fury" [1583

With elaborate secrecy the preparations for surprising some eight or ten places were carefully made. Antwerp, where Orange was residing, was to be the Duke's own special prey. The appointed day was January 17, 1583; and early in the morning Anjou paid a visit to the Prince. His object was to persuade him to be present at a review of the French troops at Bergenhout, just outside the gates, and so to get possession of his person. Rumors, however, were afloat, and William was suspicious and declined. Not long afterwards the town was aroused by a wild rush of armed men through the streets, crying, "The town is won! Long live the Mass! Long live the Duke of Anjou! Kill! Kill!". But the burghers, though taken by surprise, made a far more vigorous resistance to the "French Fury" than they had made to the "Spanish Fury" of 1576. Barricades were thrown up; missiles rained from the windows; and in the desperate fighting which ensued the French were utterly worsted. Nearly two thousand, among whom were two hundred and fifty nobles, perished, some fifteen hundred were taken prisoners. The grand coup which was to have placed absolute power in the hands of the Duke proved a ludicrous and disgraceful failure.

Henceforth the French protectorate, never loved by the people of the United Provinces, became an impossibility. And yet, despite his disillusionment and indignation, William still strove to effect a reconciliation between the States and Anjou, bringing thereby no small share of opprobrium upon himself.

At first sight it appears almost inexplicable that so sagacious a statesman should have committed so great a mistake, and persisted in it. But the perusal of William's correspondence, papers and speeches during this period show him to have been fully aware of all that was to be said against the French alliance and its graceless representative, but to have been unable, after an exhaustive survey, to discover in any other combination besides this the slightest hope of salvation for the Netherlands against the power of Spain, when directed by so consummate a leader of men as Alexander Farnese. "You must make your choice between the Spaniard and the Frenchman", was his argument to the obdurate Antwerp Council. "But if you wish for the Spaniard, kill me first." However, not even his influence and powers of persuasion could prevail. Such, indeed, was the feeling excited against him by his continued advocacy of the detested French alliance that William was publicly insulted, and even in peril of his life. An event now took place which gave fresh proof of his leaning towards France, and which considerably increased his unpopularity.

On April 7, 1583, he married, in fourth wedlock, Louise de Coligny, daughter of the famous Admiral of that name, and widow of the Seigneur de Téligny. Both the father and husband of the bride had perished in the Massacre of St Bartholomew. The new Princess of Orange was in her twenty-ninth year, beautiful, wise, full of a charm and tenderness, which were to endear her to her stepchildren and make her beloved in the country of her adoption for forty years to come. But, for the moment, it was only noted by the people of Antwerp that William had married a Frenchwoman; and this led to such renewed demonstrations of hostility against him that a further sojourn in the great commercial capital of Brabant became insupportable to him. He was deeply hurt by the want of confidence and gratitude shown to him; and, after enduring many outrages, on July 27 he quitted Antwerp and betook himself to Middelburg. Shortly afterwards he moved to Delft, where he once more made his settled residence in the midst of his loyal and sturdy Hollanders.

Meanwhile Parma had been taking full advantage of the dissensions among his enemies, and moving on from town to town had made himself master of Zutphen and the district of Waes. Had Orange been willing to accept for himself the dukedom of Brabant and the other sovereignties offered to him, and essayed to stir up a national resistance without the damaging assistance of the French, he might perhaps have longer held back the advancing Spanish tide. But he himself judged otherwise. On the ground that he would not accept any dignity unless he possessed the means to uphold it, he refused for some time to place any of the proffered coronets upon his head. But at last he made an exception. For more than a decade already he had ruled with sovereign power in Holland and Zeeland, and, as has been previously recorded, had provisionally some twelve months before accepted the title of Count from the States of those Provinces, in order to induce them to enter the French alliance. Now in changed circumstances he yielded to the urgent representations of the States, and agreed to accept from them the hereditary countship ; and in December, 1583, the necessary documents were already drawn up, ready to be sealed and ratified. He did this because he was resolved to identify himself and his fortunes with those of these two "Sea Provinces," as they were called, which were rebel and Calvinist to the core, determined to perish rather than submit to the yoke of Spain. They served the Prince as an inexpugnable fortress from which to watch and control the course of events outside.

William in Delft. Balthasar Gérard [1584

At Delft he fixed his residence, and thence mournfully watched the successive defection of the Catholic nobles and men of note drawn away by Parma's subtle fascination. Even his own brother-in-law, the Count van den Berg, who had succeeded John of Nassau as Stadholder of Gelderland, changed sides like the rest. But William still obstinately clung to the hope that the untrustworthy Anjou would belie all his antecedents by vigorous and straightforward action. Antwerp, with Marnix as its burgomaster, though it not unnaturally refused to acknowledge the author of the "French Fury" as its sovereign, had no thought, with the memories of 1576 still fresh in the minds of its citizens, of submitting to the detested Spaniards; and, so long as Antwerp remained in William's hands, the way to the sea was barred, and Brabant was not lost. But it was a time of anxious suspense, during which the Prince, ceaselessly toiling, remained at his modest dwelling, the former cloister of St Agatha, from this time onwards known as the Prinsenhof, on the banks of the quiet, tree-fringed canal which is the chief thoroughfare of old Delft. Homely and domestic in his habits, plain in his attire, always easy of access, he lived like a Dutch burgher among his fellow-burghers. His union with Louise de Coligny had been blessed with a son (Frederick Henry); and, as if with a presage that this son of his middle age would guide the storm-tossed vessel of his country's freedom into the haven of peace, William at this time adopted as his motto the words "Saevis tranquillus in undis"

Yet he was quite aware that the failure of Jaureguy's attempt on his life would not deter others from repeating it. By one means or another, poison, bullet, steel, assassins were always compassing his death. But it was not easy in Delft for suspicious strangers to find their way into the town, still less to the Prinsenhof, such was the care with which the citizens kept watch and ward over their beloved "Father William". A young Burgundian, Balthasar Gérard, in his devoted loyalty to His Most Catholic Majesty and the cause of which that monarch was the foremost champion, had long conceived a violent hatred of the man whom his training and principles had led him to look upon as an enemy alike to God and the King. The Ban was no sooner published than, fired with fanatical zeal to rid the world of the arch-heretic and rebel, "this monster and public pest", as he called him. Gérard set out for the Netherlands with the design of carrying into execution his holy purpose. Arrived at Luxemburg he there heard of Jaureguy's deed, and later of its failure. He thereupon proffered his services to Parma, and asked for money to enable him to follow in the steps of "the gentle Biscayan now defunct". But Farnese, though he promised the reward in event of success, had not sufficient faith in this insignificant, undergrown youth to advance him any cash in hand.

Gérard, however, was not deterred by the coolness of his reception. Under the pseudonym of François Guyon he made his way to Delft, and by means of a carefully prepared fictitious story managed to get access to the Prince of Orange.

His enterprise, however, well-nigh miscarried, for he was ordered to accompany the Seigneur de Caron, and repeat his tale to the Duke of Anjou. As they were journeying, information came of the Duke's death; and Gérard begged eagerly that he might carry back the news to Delft. On his arrival the would-be assassin was at once conducted to the Prince's chamber, but such was the suddenness of the summons that the Burgundian found himself close to his victim's bedside totally unarmed.

1584] Assassination of Orange

After this his needy condition was brought to the ears of William, who sent him a present of twelve crowns. On the following day (July 9) Balthasar with this money bought a pair of heavy pistols (mousquetons). On July 10 he again gained access into the Prinsenhof on the pretext of obtaining a passport, and, while Orange was at dinner with his family, contrived to conceal himself behind the main staircase, the foot of which was opposite the door of exit from the dining-hall. When William, accompanied by his wife and followed by his sister, the Countess of Schwarzburg, and three of his daughters, came out from dinner to go upstairs, he had scarcely placed his foot on the first step, when a man suddenly appeared and, pointing a pistol at his breast, fired. Three balls passed through his body. The Prince at once fell to the ground, crying out in French, "My God, have pity on my soul; I am badly wounded. My God, have pity on my soul and on this poor people!" He was mortally struck, and within a very short time expired.

The feelings of mingled gratitude and vengeance excited by Balthasar Gérard's deed found vent in the splendid public obsequies accorded to the 'Father of his Country', as William was affectionately called, and in the barbarous punishment of his murderer, who expired amidst inexpressible torments with courage and constancy. The interment of William took place in the Nieuwe Kerk at Delft at the charges of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and Friesland, with great pomp and amidst the tears of the assembled crowds. But the Prince had died almost penniless, and the States of Holland attested in a more practical form their deep obligations to the man, who had sacrificed all in their defence, by voting a provision for his widow and children, and by assigning to his son Maurice a position of high influence in the government of the country.

Thus tragically passed away from the midst of the scene of action its foremost figure. The Prince of Orange was but fifty-one years old; but from his earliest youth he had been in official harness and entrusted with important charges, and already appeared careworn and rapidly aging, in consequence of the ever-growing burden of a twenty years' struggle which would have crushed almost any other man. But at the time of his assassination, so his physicians said, he was thoroughly healthy and might have lived for many years. He had certainly shown no signs of decrepitude either in mind or body; and it is impossible to doubt that, had he been spared for another decade, he would have rendered almost incalculable services in organising and consolidating the infant State, which owed its existence to his courage and genius. Yet though cut off, with his task unfinished, William the Silent had really done his work. The foundations of that mighty Dutch Republic, which will ever be inseparably connected with his name, were already laid so strong and deep that on them men of his blood, successive Princes of Orange scarcely less great than he, were able to build up the edifice of a worldwide commercial and colonial empire.