No More Learning

Shrieking aloud, wringing her hands and with dishevelled
hair, the widow of the slain general rushed amidst the crowds to implore
their pity and help. Excited by their favorite preacher, Hermann, the
Calvinists fly to arms, determined to avenge their brethren, or to
perish with them; without reflection, without plan or leader, guided by
nothing but their anguish, their delirium, they rush to the Red Gate of
the city which leads to the field of battle; but there is no egress, the
gate is shut and the foremost of the crowd recoil on those that follow.
Thousands and thousands collect together, a dreadful rush is made to the
Meer Bridge. We are betrayed! we are prisoners! is the general cry.
Destruction to the papists, death to him who has betrayed us! --a sullen
murmur, portentous of a revolt, runs through the multitude. They begin
to suspect that all that has taken place has been set on foot by the
Roman Catholics to destroy the Calvinists. They had slain their
defenders, and they would now fall upon the defenceless. With fatal
speed this suspicion spreads through the whole of Antwerp. Now they
can, they think, understand the past, and they fear something still
worse in the background; a frightful distrust gains possession of every
mind. Each party dreads the other; every one sees an enemy in his
neighbor; the mystery deepens the alarm and horror; a fearful condition
for a populous town, in which every accidental concourse instantly
becomes tumult, every rumor started amongst them becomes a fact, every
small spark a blazing flame, and by the force of numbers and collision
all passions are furiously inflamed. All who bore the name of
Calvinists were roused by this report. Fifteen thousand of them take
possession of the Meer Bridge, and plant heavy artillery upon it, which
they had taken by force from the arsenal; the same thing also happens at
another bridge; their number makes them formidable, the town is in their
hands; to escape an imaginary danger they bring all Antwerp to the brink
of ruin.

Immediately on the commencement of the tumult the Prince of Orange
hastened to the Meer Bridge, where, boldly forcing his way through the
raging crowd, he commanded peace and entreated to be heard. At the
other bridge Count Hogstraten, accompanied by the Burgomaster Strahlen,
made the same attempt; but not possessing a sufficient share either of
eloquence or of popularity to command attention, he referred the
tumultuous crowd to the prince, around whom all Antwerp now furiously
thronged. The gate, he endeavored to explain to them, was shut simply
to keep off the victor, whoever he might be, from the city, which would
otherwise become the prey of an infuriated soldiery. In vain! the
frantic people would not listen, and one more daring than the rest
presented his musket at him, calling him a traitor. With tumultuous
shouts they demanded the key of the Red Gate, which he was ultimately
forced to deliver into the hands of the preacher Hermann. But, he added
with happy presence of mind, they must take heed what they were doing;
in the suburbs six hundred of the enemy's horse were waiting to receive
them. This invention, suggested by the emergency, was not so far
removed from the truth as its author perhaps imagined; for no sooner had
the victorious general perceived the commotion in Antwerp than he caused
his whole cavalry to mount in the hope of being able, under favor of the
disturbance, to break into the town. I, at least, continued the Prince
of Orange, shall secure my own safety in time, and he who follows my
example will save himself much future regret. These words opportunely
spoken and immediately acted upon had their effect. Those who stood
nearest followed him, and were again followed by the next, so that at
last the few who had already hastened out of the city when they saw no
one coming after them lost the desire of coping alone with the six
hundred horse. All accordingly returned to the Meer Bridge, where they
posted watches and videttes, and the night was passed tumultuously under
arms.

The town of Antwerp was now threatened with fearful bloodshed and
pillage. In this pressing emergency Orange assembled an extraordinary
senate, to which were summoned all the best-disposed citizens of the
four nations. If they wished, said he, to repress the violence of the
Calvinists they must oppose them with an army strong enough and prepared
to meet them. It was therefore resolved to arm with speed the Roman
Catholic inhabitants of the town, whether natives, Italians, or
Spaniards, and, if possible, to induce the Lutherans also to join them.
The haughtiness of the Calvinists, who, proud of their wealth and
confident in their numbers, treated every other religious party with
contempt, had long made the Lutherans their enemies, and the mutual
exasperation of these two Protestant churches was even more implacable
than their common hatred of the dominant church. This jealousy the
magistrate had turned to advantage, by making use of one party to curb
the other, and had thus contrived to keep the Calvinists in check, who,
from their numbers and insolence, were most to be feared. With this
view, he had tacitly taken into his protection the Lutherans, as the
weaker and more peaceable party, having moreover invited for them, from
Germany, spiritual teachers, who, by controversial sermons, might keep
up the mutual hatred of the two bodies. He encouraged the Lutherans in
the vain idea that the king thought more favorably of their religious
creed than that of the Calvinists, and exhorted them to be careful how
they damaged their good cause by any understanding with the latter. It
was not, therefore, difficult to bring about, for the moment, a union
with the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans, as its object was to keep
down their detested rivals. At dawn of day an army was opposed to the
Calvinists which was far superior in force to their own. At the head of
this army, the eloquence of Orange had far greater effect, and found far
more attention than on the preceding evening, unbacked by such strong
persuasion. The Calvinists, though in possession of arms and artillery,
yet, alarmed at the superior numbers arrayed against them, were the
first to send envoys, and to treat for an amicable adjustment of
differences, which by the tact and good temper of the Prince of Orange,
he concluded to the satisfaction of all parties. On the proclamation of
this treaty the Spaniards and Italians immediately laid down their arms.
They were followed by the Calvinists, and these again by the Roman
Catholics; last of all the Lutherans disarmed.

Two days and two nights Antwerp had continued in this alarming state.
During the tumult the Roman Catholics had succeeded in placing barrels
of gunpowder under the Meer Bridge, and threatened to blow into the air
the whole army of the Calvinists, who had done the same in other places
to destroy their adversaries. The destruction of the town hung on the
issue of a moment, and nothing but the prince's presence of mind saved
it.

Noircarmes, with his army of Walloons, still lay before Valenciennes,
which, in firm reliance on being relieved by the Gueux, obstinately
refused to listen to all the representations of the regent, and rejected
every idea of surrender. An order of the court had expressly forbidden
the royalist general to press the siege until he should receive
reinforcements from Germany. Whether from forbearance or fear, the king
regarded with abhorrence the violent measure of storming the place, as
necessarily involving the innocent in the fate of the guilty, and
exposing the loyal subject to the same ill-treatment as the rebel. As,
however, the confidence of the besieged augmented daily, and emboldened
by the inactivity of the besiegers, they annoyed him by frequent
sallies, and after burning the cloisters before the town, retired with
the plunder--as the time uselessly lost before this town was put to good
use by the rebels and their allies, Noircarmes besought the duchess to
obtain immediate permission from the king to take it by storm. The
answer arrived more quickly than Philip was ever before wont to reply.
As yet they must be content, simply to make the necessary preparations,
and then to wait awhile to allow terror to have its effect; but if upon
this they did not appear ready to capitulate, the storming might take
place, but, at the same time, with the greatest possible regard for the
lives of the inhabitants. Before the regent allowed Noircarmes to
proceed to this extremity she empowered Count Egmont, with the Duke
Arschot, to treat once more with the rebels amicably. Both conferred
with the deputies of the town, and omitted no argument calculated to
dispel their delusion. They acquainted them with the defeat of
Thoulouse, their sole support, and with the fact that the Count of Megen
had cut off the army of the Gueux from the town, and assured them that
if they had held out so long they owed it entirely to the king's
forbearance. They offered them full pardon for the past; every one was
to be free to prove his innocence before whatever tribunal he should
chose; such as did not wish to avail themselves of this privilege were
to be allowed fourteen days to quit the town with all their effects.
Nothing was required of the townspeople but the admission of the
garrison. To give time to deliberate on these terms an armistice of
three days was granted. When the deputies returned they found their
fellow-citizens less disposed than ever to an accommodation, reports of
new levies by the Gueux having, in the meantime, gained currency.
Thoulouse, it was pretended, had conquered, and was advancing with a
powerful army to relieve the place. Their confidence went so far that
they even ventured to break the armistice, and to fire upon the
besiegers. At last the burgomaster, with difficulty, succeeded in
bringing matters so far towards a peaceful settlement that twelve of the
town counsellors were sent into the camp with the following conditions:
The edict by which Valenciennes had been charged with treason and
declared an enemy to the country was required to be recalled, the
confiscation of their goods revoked, and the prisoners on both sides
restored to liberty; the garrison was not to enter the town before every
one who thought good to do so had placed himself and his property in
security; and a pledge to be given that the inhabitants should not be
molested in any manner, and that their expenses should be paid by the
king.

Noircarmes was so indignant with these conditions that he was almost on
the point of ill-treating the deputies. If they had not come, he told
them, to give up the place, they might return forthwith, lest he should
send them home with their hands tied behind their backs. Upon this the
deputies threw the blame on the obstinacy of the Calvinists, and
entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to keep them in the camp, as
they did not, they said, wish to have anything more to do with their
rebellious townsmen, or to be joined in their fate. They even knelt to
beseech the intercession of Egmont, but Noircarmes remained deaf to all
their entreaties, and the sight of the chains which he ordered to be
brought out drove them reluctantly enough back to Valenciennes.
Necessity, not severity, imposed this harsh procedure upon the general.
The detention of ambassadors had on a former occasion drawn upon him the
reprimand of the duchess; the people in the town would not have failed
to have ascribed the non-appearance of their present deputies to the
same cause as in the former case had detained them. Besides, he was
loath to deprive the town of any out of the small residue of
well-disposed citizens, or to leave it a prey to a blind, foolhardy mob.
Egmont was so mortified at the bad report of his embassy that he the
night following rode round to reconnoitre its fortifications, and
returned well satisfied to have convinced himself that it was no longer
tenable.

Valenciennes stretches down a gentle acclivity into the level plain,
being built on a site as strong as it is delightful. On one side
enclosed by the Scheldt and another smaller river, and on the other
protected by deep ditches, thick walls, and towers, it appears capable
of defying every attack. But Noircarmes had discovered a few points
where neglect had allowed the fosse to be filled almost up to the level
of the natural surface, and of these he determined to avail himself in
storming. He drew together all the scattered corps by which he had
invested the town, and during a tempestuous night carried the suburb of
Berg without the loss of a single man. He then assigned separate points
of attack to the Count of Bossu, the young Charles of Mansfeld, and the
younger Barlaimont, and under a terrible fire, which drove the enemy
from his walls, his troops were moved up with all possible speed. Close
before the town, and opposite the gate under the eyes of the besiegers,
and with very little loss, a battery was thrown up to an equal height
with the fortifications. From this point the town was bombarded with an
unceasing fire for four hours. The Nicolaus tower, on which the
besieged had planted some artillery, was among the first that fell, and
many perished under its ruins. The guns were directed against all the
most conspicuous buildings, and a terrible slaughter was made amongst
the inhabitants. In a few hours their principal works were destroyed,
and in the gate itself so extensive a breach was made that the besieged,
despairing of any longer defending themselves, sent in haste two
trumpeters to entreat a parley. This was granted, but the storm was
continued without intermission. The ambassador entreated Noircarmes to
grant them the same terms which only two days before they had rejected.
But circumstances had now changed, and the victor would hear no more of
conditions. The unceasing fire left the inhabitants no time to repair
the ramparts, which filled the fosse with their debris, and opened many
a breach for the enemy to enter by. Certain of utter destruction, they
surrendered next morning at discretion after a bombardment of
six-and-thirty hours without intermission, and three thousand bombs had
been thrown into the city. Noircarmes marched into the town with his
victorious army under the strictest discipline, and was received by a
crowd of women and children, who went to meet him, carrying green boughs,
and beseeching his pity. All the citizens were immediately disarmed, the
commandant and his son beheaded; thirty-six of the most guilty of the
rebels, among whom were La Grange and another Calvinistic preacher, Guido
de Bresse, atoned for their obstinacy at the gallows; all the municipal
functionaries were deprived of their offices, and the town of all its
privileges. The Roman Catholic worship was immediately restored in full
dignity, and the Protestant abolished. The Bishop of Arras was obliged to
quit his residence in the town, and a strong garrison placed in it to
insure its future obedience.

The fate of Valenciennes, towards which all eyes had been turned, was a
warning to the other towns which had similarly offended. Noircarmes
followed up his victory, and marched immediately against Maestricht,
which surrendered without a blow, and received a garrison. From thence
he marched to Tornhut to awe by his presence the people of Herzogenbusch
and Antwerp. The Gueux in this place, who under the command of Bomberg
had carried all things before them, were now so terrified at his
approach that they quitted the town in haste. Noircarmes was received
without opposition. The ambassadors of the duchess were immediately set
at liberty. A strong garrison was thrown into Tornhut. Cambray also
opened its gates, and joyfully recalled its archbishop, whom the
Calvinists had driven from his see, and who deserved this triumph as
he did not stain his entrance with blood. Ghent, Ypres, and Oudenarde
submitted and received garrisons. Gueldres was now almost entirely
cleared of the rebels and reduced to obedience by the Count of Megen.
In Friesland and Groningen the Count of Aremberg had eventually the same
success; but it was not obtained here so rapidly or so easily, since the
count wanted consistency and firmness, and these warlike republicans
maintained more pertinaciously their privileges, and were greatly
supported by the strength of their position. With the exception of
Holland all the provinces had yielded before the victorious arms of the
duchess. The courage of the disaffected sunk entirely, and nothing was
left to them but flight or submission.




RESIGNATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

Ever since the establishment of the Guesen league, but more perceptibly
since the outbreak of the Iconoclasts, the spirit of rebellion and
disaffection had spread so rapidly among all classes, parties had become
so blended and confused, that the regent had difficulty in
distinguishing her own adherents, and at last hardly knew on whom to
rely. The lines of demarcation between the loyal and the disaffected
had grown gradually fainter, until at last they almost entirely
vanished. The frequent alterations, too, which she had been obliged to
make in the laws, and which were at most the expedients and suggestions
of the moment, had taken from them their precision and binding force,
and had given full scope to the arbitrary will of every individual whose
office it was to interpret them. And at last, amidst the number and
variety of the interpretations, the spirit was lost and the intention of
the lawgiver baffled. The close connection which in many cases
subsisted between Protestants and Roman Catholics, between Gueux and
Royalists, and which not unfrequently gave them a common interest, led
the latter to avail themselves of the loophole which the vagueness of
the laws left open, and in favor of their Protestant friends and
associates evaded by subtle distinctions all severity in the discharge
of their duties. In their minds it was enough not to be a declared
rebel, not one of the Gueux, or at least not a heretic, to be authorized
to mould their duties to their inclinations, and to set the most
arbitrary limits to their obedience to the king. Feeling themselves
irresponsible, the governors of the provinces, the civil functionaries,
both high and low, the municipal officers, and the military commanders
had all become extremely remiss in their duty, and presuming upon this
impunity showed a pernicious indulgence to the rebels and their
adherents which rendered abortive all the regent's measures of coercion.
This general indifference and corruption of so many servants of the
state had further this injurious result, that it led the turbulent to
reckon on far stronger support than in reality they had cause for, and
to count on their own side all who were but lukewarm adherents of the
court. This way of thinking, erroneous as it was, gave them greater
courage and confidence; it had the same effect as if it had been well
founded; and the uncertain vassals of the king became in consequence
almost as injurious to him as his declared enemies, without at the same
time being liable to the same measures of severity. This was especially
the case with the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont, Bergen, Hogstraten,
Horn, and several others of the higher nobility. The regent felt the
necessity of bringing these doubtful subjects to an explanation, in
order either to deprive the rebels of a fancied support or to unmask the
enemies of the king. And the latter reason was of the more urgent
moment when being obliged to send an army into the field it was of the
utmost importance to entrust the command of the troops to none but those
of whose fidelity she was fully assured. She caused, therefore, an oath
to be drawn up which bound all who took it to advance the Roman Catholic
faith, to pursue and punish the Iconoclasts, and to help by every means
in their power in extirpating all kinds of heresy. It also pledged them
to treat the king's enemies as their own, and to serve without
distinction against all whom the regent in the king's name should point
out. By this oath she did not hope so much to test their sincerity, and
still less to secure them, as rather to gain a pretext for removing the
suspected parties if they declined to take it, and for wresting from
their hands a power which they abused, or a legitimate ground for
punishing them if they took it and broke it. This oath was exacted from
all Knights of the Fleece, all civil functionaries and magistrates, all
officers of the army--from every one in short who held any appointment
in the state. Count Mansfeld was the first who publicly took it in the
council of state at Brussels; his example was followed by the Duke of
Arschot, Counts Egmont, Megen, and Barlaimont. Hogstraten and Horn
endeavored to evade the necessity. The former was offended at a proof
of distrust which shortly before the regent had given him. Under the
pretext that Malines could not safely be left any longer without its
governor, but that the presence of the count was no less necessary in
Antwerp, she had taken from him that province and given it to another
whose fidelity she could better reckon upon. Hostraten expressed his
thanks that she had been pleased to release him from one of his burdens,
adding that she would complete the obligation if she would relieve him
from the other also. True to his determination Count Horn was living
on one of his estates in the strong town of Weerdt, having retired
altogether from public affairs. Having quitted the service of the
state, he owed, he thought, nothing more either to the republic or to
the king, and declined the oath, which in his case appears at last to
have been waived.

The Count of Brederode was left the choice of either taking the
prescribed oath or resigning the command of his squadron of cavalry.
After many fruitless attempts to evade the alternative, on the plea that
he did not hold office in the state, he at last resolved upon the latter
course, and thereby escaped all risk of perjuring himself.

Vain were all the attempts to prevail on the Prince of Orange to take
the oath, who, from the suspicion which had long attached to him,
required more than any other this purification; and from whom the great
power which it had been necessary to place in his hands fully justified
the regent in exacting it. It was not, however, advisable to proceed
against him with the laconic brevity adopted towards Brederode and the
like; on the other hand, the voluntary resignation of all his offices,
which he tendered, did not meet the object of the regent, who foresaw
clearly enough how really dangerous he would become, as soon as he
should feel himself independent, and be no longer checked by any
external considerations of character or duty in the prosecution of his
secret designs. But ever since the consultation in Dendermonde the
Prince of Orange had made up his mind to quit the service of the King of
Spain on the first favorable opportunity, and till better days to leave
the country itself. A very disheartening experience had taught him how
uncertain are hopes built on the multitude, and how quickly their zeal
is cooled by the necessity of fulfilling its lofty promises. An army
was already in the field, and a far stronger one was, he knew, on its
road, under the command of the Duke of Alva. The time for remonstrances
was past; it was only at the head of an army that an advantageous treaty
could now be concluded with the regent, and by preventing the entrance
of the Spanish general. But now where was he to raise this army, in
want as he was of money, the sinews of warfare, since the Protestants
had retracted their boastful promises and deserted him in this pressing
emergency?

[How valiant the wish, and how sorry the deed was, is proved by the
following instance amongst others. Some friends of the national
liberty, Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, had solemnly
engaged in Amsterdam to subscribe to a common fund the hundredth
penny of their estates, until a sum of eleven thousand florins
should be collected, which was to be devoted to the common cause
and interests. An alms-box, protected by three locks, was prepared
for the reception of these contributions. After the expiration of
the prescribed period it was opened, and a sum was found amounting
to seven hundred florins, which was given to the hostess of the
Count of Brederode, in part payment of his unliquidated score.
Univ. Hist. of the N. , vol. 3. ]

Religious jealousy and hatred, moreover, separated the two Protestant
churches, and stood in the way of every salutary combination against
the common enemy of their faith. The rejection of the Confession of
Augsburg by the Calvinists had exasperated all the Protestant princes of
Germany, so that no support was to be looked for from the empire. With
Count Egmont the excellent army of Walloons was also lost to the cause,
for they followed with blind devotion the fortunes of their general, who
had taught them at St. Quentin and Gravelines to be invincible. And
again, the outrages which the Iconoclasts had perpetrated on the
churches and convents had estranged from the league the numerous,
wealthy, and powerful class of the established clergy, who, before this
unlucky episode, were already more than half gained over to it; while,
by her intrigues, the regent daily contrived to deprive the league
itself of some one or other of its most influential members.

All these considerations combined induced the prince to postpone to
a more favorable season a project for which the present juncture was
little suited, and to leave a country where his longer stay could not
effect any advantage for it, but must bring certain destruction on
himself. After intelligence gleaned from so many quarters, after so
many proofs of distrust, so many warnings from Madrid, he could be no
longer doubtful of the sentiments of Philip towards him. If even he
had any doubt, his uncertainty would soon have been dispelled by the
formidable armament which was preparing in Spain, and which was to have
for its leader, not the king, as was falsely given out, but, as he was
better informed, the Duke of Alva, his personal enemy, and the very man
he had most cause to fear. The prince had seen too deeply into Philip's
heart to believe in the sincerity of his reconciliation after having
once awakened his fears. He judged his own conduct too justly to
reckon, like his friend Egmont, on reaping a gratitude from the king to
which he had not sown. He could therefore expect nothing but hostility
from him, and prudence counselled him to screen himself by a timely
flight from its actual outbreak. He had hitherto obstinately refused
to take the new oath, and all the written exhortations of the regent
had been fruitless. At last she sent to him at Antwerp her private
secretary, Berti, who was to put the matter emphatically to his
conscience, and forcibly remind him of all the evil consequences which
so sudden a retirement from the royal service would draw upon the
country, as well as the irreparable injury it would do to his own fair
fame. Already, she informed him by her ambassador, his declining the
required oath had cast a shade upon his honor, and imparted to the
general voice, which accused him of an understanding with the rebels, an
appearance of truth which this unconditional resignation would convert
to absolute certainty. It was for the sovereign to discharge his
servants, but it did not become the servant to abandon his sovereign.
The envoy of the regent found the prince in his palace at Antwerp,
already, as it appeared, withdrawn from the public service, and entirely
devoted to his private concerns. The prince told him, in the presence
of Hogstraten, that he had refused to take the required oath because he
could not find that such a proposition had ever before been made to a
governor of a province; because he had already bound himself, once for
all, to the king, and therefore, by taking this new oath, he would
tacitly acknowledge that he had broken the first. He had also refused
because the old oath enjoined him to protect the rights and privileges
of the country, but he could not tell whether this new one might not
impose upon him duties which would contravene the first; because, too,
the clause which bound him to serve, if required, against all without
distinction, did not except even the emperor, his feudal lord, against
whom, however, he, as his vassal, could not conscientiously make war.
He had refused to take this oath because it might impose upon him the
necessity of surrendering his friends and relations, his children, nay,
even his wife, who was a Lutheran, to butchery. According to it,
moreover, he must lend himself to every thing which it should occur to
the king's fancy or passion to demand. But the king might thus exact
from him things which he shuddered even to think of, and even the
severities which were now, and had been all along, exercised upon the
Protestants, were the most revolting to his heart. This oath, in short,
was repugnant to his feelings as a man, and he could not take it. In
conclusion, the name of the Duke of Alva dropped from his lips in a tone
of bitterness, and he became immediately silent.

All these objections were answered, point by point, by Berti. Certainly
such an oath had never been required from a governor before him, because
the provinces had never been similarly circumstanced. It was not
exacted because the governors had broken the first, but in order to
remind them vividly of their former vows, and to freshen their activity
in the present emergency. This oath would not impose upon him anything
which offended against the rights and privileges of the country, for the
king had sworn to observe these as well as the Prince of Orange. The
oath did not, it was true, contain any reference to a war with the
emperor, or any other sovereign to whom the prince might be related; and
if he really had scruples on this point, a distinct clause could easily
be inserted, expressly providing against such a contingency. Care would
be taken to spare him any duties which were repugnant to his feelings as
a man, and no power on earth would compel him to act against his wife or
against his children. Berti was then passing to the last point, which
related to the Duke of Alva, but the prince, who did not wish to have
this part of his discourse canvassed, interrupted him. "The king was
coming to the Netherlands," he said, "and he knew the king. The king
would not endure that one of his servants should have wedded a Lutheran,
and he had therefore resolved to go with his whole family into voluntary
banishment before he was obliged to submit to the same by compulsion.
But," he concluded, "wherever he might be, he would always conduct
himself as a subject of the king. " Thus far-fetched were the motives
which the prince adduced to avoid touching upon the single one which
really decided him.

Berti had still a hope of obtaining, through Egmont's eloquence, what by
his own he despaired of effecting. He therefore proposed a meeting with
the latter (1567), which the prince assented to the more willingly as he
himself felt a desire to embrace his friend once more before his
departure, and if possible to snatch the deluded man from certain
destruction. This remarkable meeting, at which the private secretary,
Berti, and the young Count Mansfeld, were also present, was the last
that the two friends ever held, and took place in Villebroeck, a village
on the Rupel, between Brussels and Antwerp. The Calvinists, whose last
hope rested on the issue of this conference, found means to acquaint
themselves of its import by a spy, who concealed himself in the chimney
of the apartment where it was held. All three attempted to shake the
determination of the prince, but their united eloquence was unable to
move him from his purpose. "It will cost you your estates, Orange, if
you persist in this intention," said the Prince of Gaure, as he took him
aside to a window. "And you your life, Egmont, if you change not
yours," replied the former. "To me it will at least be a consolation in
my misfortunes that I desired, in deed as well as in word, to help my
country and my friends in the hour of need; but you, my friend, you are
dragging friends and country with you to destruction. " And saying these
words, he once again exhorted him, still more urgently than ever, to
return to the cause of his country, which his arm alone was yet able to
preserve; if not, at least for his own sake to avoid the tempest which
was gathering against him from Spain.

But all the arguments, however lucid, with which a far-discerning
prudence supplied him, and however urgently enforced, with all the ardor
and animation which the tender anxiety of friendship could alone
inspire, did not avail to destroy the fatal confidence which still
fettered Egmont's better reason. The warning of Orange seemed to come
from a sad and dispirited heart; but for Egmont the world still smiled.
To abandon the pomp and affluence in which he had grown up to youth and
manhood; to part with all the thousand conveniences of life which alone
made it valuable to him, and all this to escape an evil which his
buoyant spirit regarded as remote, if not imaginary; no, that was not a
sacrifice which could be asked from Egmont. But had he even been less
given to indulgence than he was, with what heart could he have consigned
a princess, accustomed by uninterrupted prosperity to ease and comfort,
a wife who loved him as dearly as she was beloved, the children on whom
his soul hung in hope and fondness, to privations at the prospect of
which his own courage sank, and which a sublime philosophy alone can
enable sensuality to undergo. "You will never persuade me, Orange,"
said Egmont, "to see things in the gloomy light in which they appear to
thy mournful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, and chastising the Iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels, and
restoring peace and order in the provinces, what can the king lay to my
charge? The king is good and just; I have claims upon his gratitude,
and I must not forget what I owe to myself. " "Well, then," cried
Orange, indignantly and with bitter anguish, "trust, if you will, to
this royal gratitude; but a mournful presentiment tells me--and may
Heaven grant that I am deceived! --that you, Egmont, will be the bridge
by which the Spaniards will pass into our country to destroy it. " After
these words, he drew him to his bosom, ardently clasping him in his
arms. Long, as though the sight was to serve for the remainder of his
life, did he keep his eyes fixed upon him; the tears fell; they saw each
other no more.

The very next day the Prince of Orange wrote his letter of resignation
to the regent, in which he assured her of his perpetual esteem, and once
again entreated her to put the best interpretation on his present step.
He then set off with his three brothers and his whole family for his own
town of Breda, where he remained only as long as was requisite to
arrange some private affairs. His eldest son, Prince Philip William,
was left behind at the University of Louvain, where he thought him
sufficiently secure under the protection of the privileges of Brabant
and the immunities of the academy; an imprudence which, if it was really
not designed, can hardly be reconciled with the just estimate which, in
so many other cases, he had taken of the character of his adversary. In
Breda the heads of the Calvinists once more consulted him whether there
was still hope for them, or whether all was irretrievably lost.
"He had
before advised them," replied the prince, "and must now do so again, to
accede to the Confession of Augsburg; then they might rely upon aid from
Germany. If they would still not consent to this, they must raise six
hundred thousand florins, or more, if they could. " "The first," they
answered, "was at variance with their conviction and their conscience;
but means might perhaps be found to raise the money if he would only let
them know for what purpose he would use it. " "No! " cried he, with the
utmost displeasure, "if I must tell you that, it is all over with the
use of it. " With these words he immediately broke off the conference
and dismissed the deputies.

The Prince of Orange was reproached with having squandered his fortune,
and with favoring the innovations on account of his debts; but he
asserted that he still enjoyed sixty thousand florins yearly rental.
Before his departure he borrowed twenty thousand florins from the states
of Holland on the mortgage of some manors. Men could hardly persuade
themselves that he would have succumbed to necessity so entirely, and
without an effort at resistance given up all his hopes and schemes. But
what he secretly meditated no one knew, no one had read in his heart.
Being asked how he intended to conduct himself towards the King of
Spain, "Quietly," was his answer, "unless he touches my honor or my
estates. " He left the Netherlands soon afterwards, and betook himself
in retirement to the town of Dillenburg, in Nassau, at which place he
was born. He was accompanied to Germany by many hundreds, either as his
servants or as volunteers, and was soon followed by Counts Hogstraten,
Kuilemberg, and Bergen, who preferred to share a voluntary exile with
him rather than recklessly involve themselves in an uncertain destiny.
In his departure the nation saw the flight of its guardian angel; many
had adored, all had honored him. With him the last stay of the
Protestants gave way; they, however, had greater hopes from this man
in exile than from all the others together who remained behind. Even
the Roman Catholics could not witness his departure without regret.
Them also had he shielded from tyranny; he had not unfrequently
protected them against the oppression of their own church, and he had
rescued many of them from the sanguinary jealousy of their religious
opponents. A few fanatics among the Calvinists, who were offended with
his proposal of an alliance with their brethren, who avowed the
Confession of Augsburg, solemnized with secret thanksgivings the day on
which the enemy left them. (1567).




DECAY AND DISPERSION OF THE GEUSEN LEAGUE.

Immediately after taking leave of his friend, the Prince of Gaure
hastened back to Brussels, to receive from the regent the reward of his
firmness, and there, in the excitement of the court and in the sunshine
of his good fortune, to dispel the light cloud which the earnest
warnings of the Prince of Orange had cast over his natural gayety.
The flight of the latter now left him in possession of the stage.
He had now no longer any rival in the republic to dim his glory. With
redoubled zeal he wooed the transient favor of the court, above which he
ought to have felt himself far exalted. All Brussels must participate
in his joy. He gave splendid banquets and public entertainments, at
which, the better to eradicate all suspicion from his mind, the regent
herself frequently attended. Not content with having taken the required
oath, he outstripped the most devout in devotion; outran the most
zealous in zeal to extirpate the Protestant faith, and to reduce by
force of arms the refractory towns of Flanders. He declared to his old
friend, Count Hogstraten, as also to the rest of the Gueux, that he
would withdraw from them his friendship forever if they hesitated any
longer to return into the bosom of the church, and reconcile themselves
with their king. All the confidential letters which had been exchanged
between him and them were returned, and by this last step the breach
between them was made public and irreparable. Egmont's secession, and
the flight of the Prince of Orange, destroyed the last hope of the
Protestants and dissolved the whole league of the Gueux. Its members
vied with each other in readiness--nay, they could not soon enough
abjure the covenant and take the new oath proposed to them by the
government. In vain did the Protestant merchants exclaim at this breach
of faith on the part of the nobles; their weak voice was no longer
listened to, and all the sums were lost with which they had supplied the
league.

The most important places were quickly reduced and garrisoned; the
rebels had fled, or perished by the hand of the executioner; in the
provinces no protector was left. All yielded to the fortune of the
regent, and her victorious army was advancing against Antwerp. After a
long and obstinate contest this town had been cleared of the worst
rebels; Hermann and his adherents took to flight; the internal storms
had spent their rage. The minds of the people became gradually
composed, and no longer excited at will by every furious fanatic, began
to listen to better counsels. The wealthier citizens earnestly longed
for peace to revive commerce and trade, which had suffered severely from
the long reign of anarchy. The dread of Alva's approach worked wonders;
in order to prevent the miseries which a Spanish army would inflict upon
the country, the people hastened to throw themselves on the gentler
mercies of the regent. Of their own accord they despatched
plenipotentiaries to Brussels to negotiate for a treaty and to hear her
terms. Agreeably as the regent was surprised by this voluntary step,
she did not allow herself to be hurried away by her joy. She declared
that she neither could nor would listen to any overtures or
representations until the town had received a garrison. Even this was
no longer opposed, and Count Mansfeld marched in the day after with
sixteen squadrons in battle array. A solemn treaty was now made between
the town and duchess, by which the former bound itself to prohibit the
Calvinistic form of worship, to banish all preachers of that persuasion,
to restore the Roman Catholic religion to its former dignity, to
decorate the despoiled churches with their former ornaments, to
administer the old edicts as before, to take the new oath which the
other towns had sworn to, and, lastly, to deliver into the hands of
justice all who been guilty of treason, in bearing arms, or taking part
in the desecration of the churches. On the other hand, the regent
pledged herself to forget all that had passed, and even to intercede for
the offenders with the king. All those who, being dubious of obtaining
pardon, preferred banishment, were to be allowed a month to convert
their property into money, and place themselves in safety. From this
grace none were to be excluded but such as had been guilty of a capital
offence, and who were excepted by the previous article. Immediately
upon the conclusion of this treaty all Calvinist and Lutheran preachers
in Antwerp, and the adjoining territory, were warned by the herald to
quit the country within twenty-four hours. All the streets and gates
were now thronged with fugitives, who for the honor of their God
abandoned what was dearest to them, and sought a more peaceful home for
their persecuted faith. Here husbands were taking an eternal farewell
of their wives, fathers of their children; there whole families were
preparing to depart. All Antwerp resembled a house of mourning;
wherever the eye turned some affecting spectacle of painful separation
presented itself. A seal was set on the doors of the Protestant
churches; the whole worship seemed to be extinct. The 10th of April
(1567) was the day appointed for the departure of the preachers. In the
town hall, where they appeared for the last time to take leave of the
magistrate, they could not command their grief; but broke forth into
bitter reproaches. They had been sacrificed, they exclaimed, they had
been shamefully betrayed; but a time would come when Antwerp would pay
dearly enough for this baseness. Still more bitter were the complaints
of the Lutheran clergy, whom the magistrate himself had invited into the
country to preach against the Calvinists. Under the delusive
representation that the king was not unfavorable to their religion they
had been seduced into a combination against the Calvinists, but as soon
as the latter had been by their co-operation brought under subjection,
and their own services were no longer required, they were left to bewail
their folly, which had involved themselves and their enemies in common
ruin.

A few days afterwards the regent entered Antwerp in triumph, accompanied
by a thousand Walloon horse, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, all the
governors and counsellors, a number of municipal officers, and her whole
court. Her first visit was to the cathedral, which still bore
lamentable traces of the violence of the Iconoclasts, and drew from her
many and bitter tears. Immediately afterwards four of the rebels, who
had been overtaken in their flight, were brought in and executed in the
public market-place. All the children who had been baptized after the
Protestant rites were rebaptized by Roman Catholic priests; all the
schools of heretics were closed, and their churches levelled to the
ground. Nearly all the towns in the Netherlands followed the example of
Antwerp and banished the Protestant preachers. By the end of April the
Roman Catholic churches were repaired and embellished more splendidly
than ever, while all the Protestant places of worship were pulled down,
and every vestige of the proscribed belief obliterated in the seventeen
provinces. The populace, whose sympathies are generally with the
successful party, was now as active in accelerating the ruin of the
unfortunate as a short time before it had been furiously zealous in its
cause; in Ghent a large and beautiful church which the Calvinists had
erected was attacked, and in less than an hour had wholly disappeared.
From the beams of the roofless churches gibbets were erected for those
who had profaned the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholics. The places of
execution were filled with corpses, the prisons with condemned victims,
the high roads with fugitives. Innumerable were the victims of this
year of murder; in the smallest towns fifty at least, in several of the
larger as many as three hundred, were put to death, while no account was
kept of the numbers in the open country who fell into the hands of the
provost-marshal and were immediately strung up as miscreants, without
trial and without mercy.

The regent was still in Antwerp when ambassadors presented themselves
from the Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemberg, and Baden
to intercede for their fugitive brethren in the faith. The expelled
preachers of the Augsburg Confession had claimed the rights assured to
them by the religious peace of the Germans, in which Brabant, as part of
the empire, participated, and had thrown themselves on the protection of
those princes. The arrival of the foreign ministers alarmed the regent,
and she vainly endeavored to prevent their entrance into Antwerp; under
the guise, however, of showing them marks of honor, she continued to
keep them closely watched lest they should encourage the malcontents in
any attempts against the peace of the town. From the high tone which
they most unreasonably adopted towards the regent it might almost be
inferred that they were little in earnest in their demand. "It was but
reasonable," they said, "that the Confession of Augsburg, as the only
one which met the spirit of the gospel, should be the ruling faith in
the Netherlands; but to persecute it by such cruel edicts as were in
force was positively unnatural and could not be allowed. They therefore
required of the regent, in the name of religion, not to treat the people
entrusted to her rule with such severity. " She replied through the Count
of Staremberg, her minister for German affairs, that such an exordium
deserved no answer at all. From the sympathy which the German princes
had shown for the Belgian fugitives it was clear that they gave less
credit to the letters of the king, in explanation of his measures, than
to the reports of a few worthless wretches who, in the desecrated
churches, had left behind them a worthier memorial of their acts and
characters. It would far more become them to leave to the King of Spain
the care of his own subjects, and abandon the attempt to foster a spirit
of rebellion in foreign countries, from which they would reap neither
honor nor profit. The ambassadors left Antwerp in a few days without
having effected anything. The Saxon minister, indeed, in a private
interview with the regent even assured her that his master had most
reluctantly taken this step.

The German ambassadors had not quitted Antwerp when intelligence from
Holland completed the triumph of the regent. From fear of Count Megen
Count Brederode had deserted his town of Viane, and with the aid of the
Protestants inhabitants had succeeded in throwing himself into
Amsterdam, where his arrival caused great alarm to the city magistrate,
who had previously found difficulty in preventing a revolt, while it
revived the courage of the Protestants. Here Brederode's adherents
increased daily, and many noblemen flocked to him from Utrecht,
Friesland, and Groningen, whence the victorious arms of Megen and
Aremberg had driven them. Under various disguises they found means to
steal into the city, where they gathered round Brederode, and served him
as a strong body-guard. The regent, apprehensive of a new outbreak,
sent one of her private secretaries, Jacob de la Torre, to the council
of Amsterdam, and ordered them to get rid of Count Brederode on any
terms and at any risk. Neither the magistrate nor de la Torre himself,
who visited Brederode in person to acquaint him with the will of the
duchess, could prevail upon him to depart. The secretary was even
surprised in his own chamber by a party of Brederode's followers, and
deprived of all his papers, and would, perhaps, have lost his life also
if he had not contrived to make his escape. Brederode remained in
Amsterdam a full month after this occurrence, a powerless idol of the
Protestants, and an oppressive burden to the Roman Catholics; while his
fine army, which he had left in Viane, reinforced by many fugitives from
the southern provinces, gave Count Megen enough to do without attempting
to harass the Protestants in their flight. At last Brederode resolved
to follow the example of Orange, and, yielding to necessity, abandon a
desperate cause. He informed the town council that he was willing to
leave Amsterdam if they would enable him to do so by furnishing him with
the pecuniary means. Glad to get quit of him, they hastened to borrow
the money on the security of the town council. Brederode quitted
Amsterdam the same night, and was conveyed in a gunboat as far as Vlie,
from whence he fortunately escaped to Embden. Fate treated him more
mildly than the majority of those he had implicated in his foolhardy
enterprise; he died the year after, 1568, at one of his castles in
Germany, from the effects of drinking, by which he sought ultimately to
drown his grief and disappointments. His widow, Countess of Moers in
her own right, was remarried to the Prince Palatine, Frederick III. The
Protestant cause lost but little by his demise; the work which he had
commenced, as it had not been kept alive by him, so it did not die with
him.

The little army, which in his disgraceful flight he had deserted, was
bold and valiant, and had a few resolute leaders. It disbanded, indeed,
as soon as he, to whom it looked for pay, had fled; but hunger and
courage kept its parts together some time longer. One body, under
command of Dietrich of Battenburgh, marched to Amsterdam in the hope of
carrying that town; but Count Megen hastened with thirteen companies of
excellent troops to its relief, and compelled the rebels to give up the
attempt. Contenting themselves with plundering the neighboring
cloisters, among which the abbey of Egmont in particular was hardly
dealt with, they turned off towards Waaterland, where they hoped the
numerous swamps would protect them from pursuit. But thither Count
Megen followed them, and compelled them in all haste to seek safety in
the Zuyderzee. The brothers Van Battenburg, and two Friesan nobles,
Beima and Galama, with a hundred and twenty men and the booty they had
taken from the monasteries, embarked near the town of Hoorne, intending
to cross to Friesland, but through the treachery of the steersman, who
ran the vessel on a sand-bank near Harlingen, they fell into the hands
of one of Aremberg's captains, who took them all prisoners. The Count
of Aremberg immediately pronounced sentence upon all the captives of
plebeian rank, but sent his noble prisoners to the regent, who caused
seven of them to be beheaded. Seven others of the most noble, including
the brothers Van Battenburg and some Frieslanders, all in the bloom of
youth, were reserved for the Duke of Alva, to enable him to signalize
the commencement of his administration by a deed which was in every way
worthy of him. The troops in four other vessels which set sail from
Medenhlick, and were pursued by Count Megen in small boats, were more
successful. A contrary wind had forced them out of their course and
driven them ashore on the coast of Gueldres, where they all got safe to
land; crossing the Rhine, near Heusen, they fortunately escaped into
Cleves, where they tore their flags in pieces and dispersed. In North
Holland Count Megen overtook some squadrons who had lingered too long in
plundering the cloisters, and completely overpowered them. He
afterwards formed a junction with Noircarmes and garrisoned Amsterdam.
The Duke Erich of Brunswick also surprised three companies, the last
remains of the army of the Gueux, near Viane, where they were
endeavoring to take a battery, routed them and captured their leader,
Rennesse, who was shortly afterwards beheaded at the castle of
Freudenburg, in Utrecht. Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane,
he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it
with the garrison on the first alarm. He immediately razed the
fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town
without defences. All the originators of the league were now dispersed;
Brederode and Louis of Nassau had fled to Germany, and Counts
Hogstraten, Bergen, and Kuilemberg had followed their example.
Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an
ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on
the field of battle. Those of the confederates who had escaped the
sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but
their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became
at last a terrible reality.

Such was the inglorious end of the noble league, which in its beginning
awakened such fair hopes and promised to become a powerful protection
against oppression. Unanimity was its strength, distrust and internal
dissension its ruin. It brought to light and developed many rare and
beautiful virtues, but it wanted the most indispensable of all, prudence
and moderation, without which any undertaking must miscarry, and all the
fruits of the most laborious industry perish. If its objects had been
as pure as it pretended, or even had they remained as pure as they
really were at its first establishment, it might have defied the
unfortunate combination of circumstances which prematurely overwhelmed
it, and even if unsuccessful it would still have deserved an honorable
mention in history. But it is too evident that the confederate nobles,
whether directly or indirectly, took a greater share in the frantic
excesses of the Iconoclasts than comported with the dignity and
blamelessness of their confederation, and many among them openly
exchanged their own good cause for the mad enterprise of these worthless
vagabonds. The restriction of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the
cruel inhumanity of the edicts must be laid to the credit of the league;
but this transient relief was dearly purchased, at the cost of so many
of the best and bravest citizens, who either lost their lives in the
field, or in exile carried their wealth and industry to another quarter
of the world; and of the presence of Alva and the Spanish arms. Many,
too, of its peaceable citizens, who without its dangerous temptations
would never have been seduced from the ranks of peace and order, were
beguiled by the hope of success into the most culpable enterprises, and
by their failure plunged into ruin and misery. But it cannot be denied
that the league atoned in some measure for these wrongs by positive
benefits. It brought together and emboldened many whom a selfish
pusillanimity kept asunder and inactive; it diffused a salutary public
spirit amongst the Belgian people, which the oppression of the
government had almost entirely extinguished, and gave unanimity and a
common voice to the scattered members of the nation, the absence of
which alone makes despots bold. The attempt, indeed, failed, and the
knots, too carelessly tied, were quickly unloosed; but it was through
such failures that the nation was eventually to attain to a firm and
lasting union, which should bid defiance to change.

The total destruction of the Geusen army quickly brought the Dutch towns
also back to their obedience, and in the provinces there remained not a
single place which had not submitted to the regent; but the increasing
emigration, both of the natives and the foreign residents, threatened
the country with depopulation. In Amsterdam the crowd of fugitives was
so great that vessels were wanting to convey them across the North Sea
and the Zuyderzee, and that flourishing emporium beheld with dismay the
approaching downfall of its prosperity. Alarmed at this general flight,
the regent hastened to write letters to all the towns, to encourage the
citizens to remain, and by fair promises to revive a hope of better and
milder measures. In the king's name she promised to all who would
freely swear to obey the state and the church complete indemnity, and by
public proclamation invited the fugitives to trust to the royal clemency
and return to their homes. She engaged also to relieve the nation from
the dreaded presence of a Spanish army, even if it were already on the
frontiers; nay, she went so far as to drop hints that, if necessary,
means might be found to prevent it by force from entering the provinces,
as she was fully determined not to relinquish to another the glory of a
peace which it had cost her so much labor to effect. Few, however,
returned in reliance upon her word, and these few had cause to repent it
in the sequel; many thousands had already quitted the country, and
several thousands more quickly followed them. Germany and England were
filled with Flemish emigrants, who, wherever they settled, retained
their usages and manners, and even their costume, unwilling to come to
the painful conclusion that they should never again see their native
land, and to give up all hopes of return. Few carried with them any
remains of their former affluence; the greater portion had to beg their
way, and bestowed on their adopted country nothing but industrious skill
and honest citizens.

And now the regent hastened to report to the king tidings such as,
during her whole administration, she had never before been able to
gratify him with. She announced to him that she had succeeded in
restoring quiet throughout the provinces, and that she thought herself
strong enough to maintain it. The sects were extirpated, and the Roman
Catholic worship re-established in all its former splendor; the rebels
had either already met with, or were awaiting in prison, the punishment
they deserved; the towns were secured by adequate garrisons. There was
therefore no necessity for sending Spanish troops into the Netherlands,
and nothing to justify their entrance. Their arrival would tend to
destroy the existing repose, which it had cost so much to establish,
would check the much-desired revival of commerce and trade, and, while
it would involve the country in new expenses, would at the same time
deprive them of the only means of supporting them. The mere rumor of
the approach of a Spanish army had stripped the country of many
thousands of its most valuable citizens; its actual appearance would
reduce it to a desert. As there was no longer any enemy to subdue, or
rebellion to suppress, the people would see no motive for the march of
this army but punishment and revenge, and under this supposition its
arrival would neither be welcomed nor honored. No longer excused by
necessity, this violent expedient would assume the odious aspect of
oppression, would exasperate the national mind afresh, drive the
Protestants to desperation, and arm their brethren in other countries in
their defence. The regent, she said, had in the king's name promised
the nation it should be relieved from this foreign army, and to this
stipulation she was principally indebted for the present peace; she
could not therefore guarantee its long continuance if her pledge was not
faithfully fulfilled. The Netherlands would receive him as their
sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but
he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them.
Let him come to enjoy the peace which she had bestowed on the country,
but not to destroy it afresh.




ALVA'S ARMAMENT AND EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.

But it was otherwise determined in the council at Madrid. The minister,
Granvella, who, even while absent himself, ruled the Spanish cabinet by
his adherents; the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor, Spinosa, and the Duke of
Alva, swayed respectively by hatred, a spirit of persecution, or private
interest, had outvoted the milder councils of the Prince Ruy Gomes of
Eboli, the Count of Feria, and the king's confessor, Fresneda. The
insurrection, it was urged by the former, was indeed quelled for the
present, but only because the rebels were awed by the rumor of the
king's armed approach; it was to fear of punishment alone, and not to
sorrow for their crime, that the present calm was to be ascribed, and
it would soon again be broken if that feeling were allowed to subside.
In fact, the offences of the people fairly afforded the king the
opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his despotic views
with an appearance of justice. The peaceable settlement for which the
regent took credit to herself was very far from according with his
wishes, which sought rather for a legitimate pretext to deprive the
provinces of their privileges, which were so obnoxious to his despotic
temper.

With an impenetrable dissimulation Philip had hitherto fostered the
general delusion that he was about to visit the provinces in person,
while all along nothing could have been more remote from his real
intentions. Travelling at any time ill suited the methodical regularity
of his life, which moved with the precision of clockwork; and his narrow
and sluggish intellect was oppressed by the variety and multitude of
objects with which new scenes crowded it. The difficulties and dangers
which would attend a journey to the Netherlands must, therefore, have
been peculiarly alarming to his natural timidity and love of ease. Why
should he, who, in all that he did, was accustomed to consider himself
alone, and to make men accommodate themselves to his principles, not his
principles to men, undertake so perilous an expedition, when he could
see neither the advantage nor necessity of it. Moreover, as it had ever
been to him an utter impossibility to separate, even for a moment, his
person from his royal dignity, which no prince ever guarded so
tenaciously and pedantically as himself, so the magnificence and
ceremony which in his mind were inseparably connected with such a
journey, and the expenses which, on this account, it would necessarily
occasion, were of themselves sufficient motives to account for his
indisposition to it, without its being at all requisite to call in the
aid of the influence of his favorite, Ruy Gomes, who is said to have
desired to separate his rival, the Duke of Alva, from the king. Little,
however, as be seriously intended this journey, he still deemed it
advisable to keep up the expectation of it, as well with a view of
sustaining the courage of the loyal as of preventing a dangerous
combination of the disaffected, and stopping the further progress
of the rebels.

In order to carry on the deception as long as possible, Philip made
extensive preparations for his departure, and neglected nothing which
could be required for such an event. He ordered ships to be fitted out,
appointed the officers and others to attend him. To allay the suspicion
such warlike preparations might excite in all foreign courts, they were
informed through his ambassadors of his real design. He applied to the
King of France for a passage for himself and attendants through that
kingdom, and consulted the Duke of Savoy as to the preferable route. He
caused a list to be drawn up of all the towns and fortified places that
lay in his march, and directed all the intermediate distances to be
accurately laid down. Orders were issued for taking a map and survey of
the whole extent of country between Savoy and Burgundy, the duke being
requested to furnish the requisite surveyors and scientific officers.
To such lengths was the deception carried that the regent was commanded
to hold eight vessels at least in readiness off Zealand, and to despatch
them to meet the king the instant she heard of his having sailed from
Spain; and these ships she actually got ready, and caused prayers to be
offered up in all the churches for the king's safety during the voyage,
though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his
chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the
storms at sea. Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the
Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first
had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last
to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels with similar
apprehensions. An attack of tertian ague, which about this time the
king suffered, or perhaps feigned, in Segovia, afforded a plausible
pretence for postponing his journey, while meantime the preparations for
it were carried on with the utmost activity. At last, when the urgent
and repeated solicitations of his sister compelled him to make a
definite explanation of his plans, he gave orders that the Duke of Alva
should set out forthwith with an army, both to clear the way before him
of rebels, and to enhance the splendor of his own royal arrival. He did
not yet venture to throw off the mask and announce the duke as his
substitute. He had but too much reason to fear that the submission
which his Flemish nobles would cheerfully yield to their sovereign would
be refused to one of his servants, whose cruel character was well known,
and who, moreover, was detested as a foreigner and the enemy of their
constitution. And, in fact, the universal belief that the king was soon
to follow, which long survived Alva's entrance into the country,
restrained the outbreak of disturbances which otherwise would assuredly
have been caused by the cruelties which marked the very opening of the
duke's government.

The clergy of Spain, and especially the Inquisition, contributed richly
towards the expenses of this expedition as to a holy war. Throughout
Spain the enlisting was carried on with the utmost zeal. The viceroys
and governors of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Milan received orders to
select the best of their Italian and Spanish troops in the garrisons and
despatch them to the general rendezvous in the Genoese territory, where
the Duke of Alva would exchange them for the Spanish recruits which he
should bring with him. At the same time the regent was commanded to
hold in readiness a few more regiments of German infantry in Luxembourg,
under the command of the Counts Eberstein, Schaumburg, and Lodrona, and
also some squadrons of light cavalry in the Duchy of Burgundy to
reinforce the Spanish general immediately on his entrance into the
provinces. The Count of Barlaimont was commissioned to furnish the
necessary provision for the armament, and a sum of two hundred thousand
gold florins was remitted to the regent to enable her to meet these
expenses and to maintain her own troops.

The French court, however, under pretence of the danger to be
apprehended from the Huguenots, had refused to allow the Spanish army to
pass through France. Philip applied to the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine,
who were too dependent upon him to refuse his request. The former
merely stipulated that he should be allowed to maintain two thousand
infantry and a squadron of horse at the king's expense in order to
protect his country from the injuries to which it might otherwise be
exposed from the passage of the Spanish army. At the same time he
undertook to provide the necessary supplies for its maintenance during
the transit.

The rumor of this arrangement roused the Huguenots, the Genevese, the
Swiss, and the Grisons. The Prince of Conde and the Admiral Coligny
entreated Charles IX. not to neglect so favorable a moment of inflicting
a deadly blow on the hereditary foe of France. With the aid of the
Swiss, the Genevese, and his own Protestant subjects, it would, they
alleged, be an easy matter to destroy the flower of the Spanish troops
in the narrow passes of the Alpine mountains; and they promised to
support him in this undertaking with an army of fifty thousand
Huguenots. This advice, however, whose dangerous object was not easily
to be mistaken, was plausibly declined by Charles IX. , who assured them
that he was both able and anxious to provide for the security of his
kingdom. He hastily despatched troops to cover the French frontiers;
and the republics of Geneva, Bern, Zurich, and the Grisons followed his
example, all ready to offer a determined opposition to the dreaded enemy
of their religion and their liberty.

On the 5th of May, 1567, the Duke of Alva set sail from Carthagena with
thirty galleys, which had been furnished by Andrew Doria and the Duke
Cosmo of Florence, and within eight days landed at Genoa, where the four
regiments were waiting to join him. But a tertian ague, with which he
was seized shortly after his arrival, compelled him to remain for some
days inactive in Lombardy--a delay of which the neighboring powers
availed themselves to prepare for defence. As soon as the duke
recovered he held at Asti, in Montferrat, a review of all his troops,
who were more formidable by their valor than by their numbers, since
cavalry and infantry together did not amount to much above ten thousand
men. In his long and perilous march he did not wish to encumber himself
with useless supernumeraries, which would only impede his progress and
increase the difficulty of supporting his army. These ten thousand
veterans were to form the nucleus of a greater army, which, according as
circumstances and occasion might require, he could easily assemble in
the Netherlands themselves.

This array, however, was as select as it was small. It consisted of the
remains of those victorious legions at whose head Charles V. had made
Europe tremble; sanguinary, indomitable bands, in whose battalions the
firmness of the old Macedonian phalanx lived again; rapid in their
evolutions from long practice, hardy and enduring, proud of their
leader's success, and confident from past victories, formidable by their
licentiousness, but still more so by their discipline; let loose with
all the passions of a warmer climate upon a rich and peaceful country,
and inexorable towards an enemy whom the church had cursed. Their
fanatical and sanguinary spirit, their thirst for glory and innate
courage was aided by a rude sensuality, the instrument by which the
Spanish general firmly and surely ruled his otherwise intractable
troops. With a prudent indulgence he allowed riot and voluptuousness
to reign throughout the camp. Under his tacit connivance Italian
courtezans followed the standards; even in the march across the
Apennines, where the high price of the necessaries of life compelled him
to reduce his force to the smallest possible number, he preferred to
have a few regiments less rather than to leave behind these instruments
of voluptuousness.

[The bacchanalian procession of this army contrasted strangely
enough with the gloomy seriousness and pretended sanctity of his
aim. The number of these women was so great that to restrain the
disorders and quarrelling among themselves they hit upon the
expedient of establishing a discipline of their own. They ranged
themselves under particular flags, marched in ranks and sections,
and in admirable military order, after each battalion, and classed
themselves with strict etiquette according to their rank and pay. ]

But industriously as Alva strove to relax the morals of his soldiers,
he enforced the more rigidly a strict military discipline, which was
interrupted only by a victory or rendered less severe by a battle.
For all this he had, he said, the authority of the Athenian General
Iphicrates, who awarded the prize of valor to the pleasure-loving and
rapacious soldier. The more irksome the restraint by which the passions
of the soldiers were kept in check, the greater must have been the
vehemence with which they broke forth at the sole outlet which was left
open to them.

The duke divided his infantry, which was about nine thousand strong, and
chiefly Spaniards, into four brigades, and gave the command of them to
four Spanish officers. Alphonso of Ulloa led the Neapolitan brigade of
nine companies, amounting to three thousand two hundred and thirty men;
Sancho of Lodogno commanded the Milan brigade, three thousand two
hundred men in ten companies; the Sicilian brigade, with the same number
of companies, and consisting of sixteen hundred men, was under Julian
Romero, an experienced warrior, who had already fought on Belgian
ground.

[The same officer who commanded one of the Spanish regiments about
which so much complaint had formerly been made in the States-
General. ]

Gonsalo of Braccamonte headed that of Sardinia, which was raised by
three companies of recruits to the full complement of the former.