No More Learning

A name decides
the whole issue of things. In Madrid that was called rebellion which in
Brussels was simply styled a lawful remonstrance. The complaints of
Brabant required a prudent mediator; Philip II. sent an executioner.
The signal for war was given. An unparalleled tyranny assailed both
property and life. The despairing citizens, to whom the choice of
deaths was all that was left, chose the nobler one on the battle-field.
A wealthy and luxurious nation loves peace, but becomes warlike as soon
as it becomes poor. Then it ceases to tremble for a life which is
deprived of everything that had made it desirable. In an instant the
contagion of rebellion seizes at once the most distant provinces; trade
and commerce are at a standstill, the ships disappear from the harbors,
the artisan abandons his workshop, the rustic his uncultivated fields.
Thousands fled to distant lands, a thousand victims fell on the bloody
field, and fresh thousands pressed on. Divine, indeed, must that
doctrine be for which men could die so joyfully. All that was wanting
was the last finishing hand, the enlightened, enterprising spirit, to
seize on this great political crisis and to mould the offspring of
chance into the ripe creation of wisdom. William the Silent, like a
second Brutus, devoted himself to the great cause of liberty. Superior
to all selfishness, he resigned honorable offices which entailed on him
obectionable duties, and, magnanimously divesting himself of all his
princely dignities, he descended to a state of voluntary poverty, and
became but a citizen of the world. The cause of justice was staked upon
the hazardous game of battle; but the newly-raised levies of mercenaries
and peaceful husbandmen were unable to withstand the terrible onset of
an experienced force. Twice did the brave William lead his dispirited
troops against the tyrant. Twice was he abandoned by them, but not by
his courage.

Philip II. sent as many reinforcements as the dreadful importunity of
his viceroy demanded. Fugitives, whom their country rejected, sought a
new home on the ocean, and turned to the ships of their enemy to satisfy
the cravings both of vengeance and of want. Naval heroes were now
formed out of corsairs, and a marine collected out of piratical vessels;
out of morasses arose a republic. Seven provinces threw off the yoke at
the same time, to form a new, youthful state, powerful by its waters and
its union and despair. A solemn decree of the whole nation deposed the
tyrant, and the Spanish name was erased from all its laws.

For such acts no forgiveness remained; the republic became formidable
only because it was impossible for her to retrace her steps. But
factions distracted her within; without, her terrible element, the sea
itself, leaguing with her oppressors, threatened her very infancy with a
premature grave. She felt herself succumb to the superior force of the
enemy, and cast herself a suppliant before the most powerful thrones of
Europe, begging them to accept a dominion which she herself could no
longer protect. At last, but with difficulty--so despised at first was
this state that even the rapacity of foreign monarchs spurned her
opening bloom--a stranger deigned to accept their importunate offer of a
dangerous crown. New hopes began to revive her sinking courage; but in
this new father of his country destiny gave her a traitor, and in the
critical emergency, when the foe was in full force before her very
gates, Charles of Anjou invaded the liberties which he had been called
to protect. In the midst of the tempest, too, the assassin's hand tore
the steersman from the helm, and with William of Orange the career of
the infant republic was seemingly at an end, and all her guardian angels
fled. But the ship continued to scud along before the storm, and the
swelling canvas carried her safe without the pilot's help.

Philip II. missed the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor,
and perhaps, also, his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with
despotism in obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were
fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of
glory, and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals
for the coming century. A long, devastating war laid waste the open
country; victor and vanquished alike waded through blood; while the
rising republic of the waters gave a welcome to fugitive industry, and
out of the ruins of despotism erected the noble edifice of its own
greatness. For forty years lasted the war whose happy termination was
not to bless the dying eye of Philip; which destroyed one paradise in
Europe to form a new one out of its shattered fragments; which destroyed
the choicest flower of military youth, and while it enriched more than a
quarter of the globe impoverished the possessor of the golden Peru.
This monarch, who could expend nine hundred tons of gold without
oppressing his subjects, and by tyrannical measures extorted far more,
heaped, moreover, on his exhausted people a debt of one hundred and
forty millions of ducats. An implacable hatred of liberty swallowed up
all these treasures, and consumed on the fruitless task the labor of a
royal life. But the Reformation throve amidst the devastations of the
sword, and over the blood of her citizens the banner of the new republic
floated victorious.

This improbable turn of affairs seems to border on a miracle; many
circumstances, however, combined to break the power of Philip, and to
favor the progress of the infant state. Had the whole weight of his
power fallen on the United Provinces there had been no hope for their
religion or their liberty. His own ambition, by tempting him to divide
his strength, came to the aid of their weakness. The expensive policy
of maintaining traitors in every cabinet of Europe; the support of the
League in France; the revolt of the Moors in Granada; the conquest of
Portugal, and the magnificent fabric of the Escurial, drained at last
his apparently inexhaustible treasury, and prevented his acting in the
field with spirit and energy. The German and Italian troops, whom the
hope of gain alone allured to his banner, mutinied when he could no
longer pay them, and faithlessly abandoned their leaders in the decisive
moment of action. These terrible instruments of oppression now turned
their dangerous power against their employer, and wreaked their
vindictive rage on the provinces which remained faithful to him.
The unfortunate armament against England, on which, like a desperate
gamester, he had staked the whole strength of his kingdom, completed his
ruin; with the armada sank the wealth of the two Indies, and the flower
of Spanish chivalry.

But in the very same proportion that the Spanish power declined the
republic rose in fresh vigor. The ravages which the fanaticism of the
new religion, the tyranny of the Inquisition, the furious rapacity of
the soldiery, and the miseries of a long war unbroken by any interval of
peace, made in the provinces of Brabant, Flanders, and Hainault, at once
the arsenals and the magazines of this expensive contest, naturally
rendered it every year more difficult to support and recruit the royal
armies. The Catholic Netherlands had already lost a million of
citizens, and the trodden fields maintained their husbandmen no longer.
Spain itself had but few more men to spare. That country, surprised by
a sudden affluence which brought idleness with it, had lost much of its
population, and could not long support the continual drafts of men which
were required both for the New World and the Netherlands. Of these
conscripts few ever saw their country again; and these few having left
it as youths returned to it infirm and old. Gold, which had become more
common, made soldiers proportionately dearer; the growing charm of
effeminacy enhanced the price of the opposite virtues. Wholly different
was the posture of affairs with the rebels. The thousands whom the
cruelty of the viceroy expelled from the southern Netherlands, the
Huguenots whom the wars of persecution drove from France, as well as
every one whom constraint of conscience exiled from the other parts of
Europe, all alike flocked to unite themselves with the Belgian
insurgents. The whole Christian world was their recruiting ground.
The fanaticism both of the persecutor and the persecuted worked in their
behalf. The enthusiasm of a doctrine newly embraced, revenge, want, and
hopeless misery drew to their standard adventurers from every part of
Europe. All whom the new doctrine had won, all who had suffered, or had
still cause of fear from despotism, linked their own fortunes with those
of the new republic. Every injury inflicted by a tyrant gave a right of
citizenship in Holland. Men pressed towards a country where liberty
raised her spirit-stirring banner, where respect and security were
insured to a fugitive religion, and even revenge on the oppressor. If
we consider the conflux in the present day of people to Holland, seeking
by their entrance upon her territory to be reinvested in their rights as
men, what must it have been at a time when the rest of Europe groaned
under a heavy bondage, when Amsterdam was nearly the only free port for
all opinions? Many hundred families sought a refuge for their wealth in
a land which the ocean and domestic concord powerfully combined to
protect. The republican army maintained its full complement without the
plough being stripped of hands to work it. Amid the clash of arms trade
and industry flourished, and the peaceful citizen enjoyed in
anticipation the fruits of liberty which foreign blood was to purchase
for them. At the very time when the republic of Holland was struggling
for existence she extended her dominions beyond the ocean, and was
quietly occupied in erecting her East Indian Empire.

Moreover, Spain maintained this expensive war with dead, unfructifying
gold, that never returned into the hand which gave it away, while it
raised to her the price of every necessary. The treasuries of the
republic were industry and commerce. Time lessened the one whilst it
multiplied the other, and exactly in the same proportion that the
resources of the Spanish government became exhausted by the long
continuance of the war the republic began to reap a richer harvest. Its
field was sown sparingly with the choice seed which bore fruit, though
late, yet a hundredfold; but the tree from which Philip gathered fruit
was a fallen trunk which never again became verdant.

Philip's adverse destiny decreed that all the treasures which he
lavished for the oppression of the Provinces should contribute to enrich
them. The continual outlay of Spanish gold had diffused riches and
luxury throughout Europe; but the increasing wants of Europe were
supplied chiefly by the Netherlanders, who were masters of the commerce
of the known world, and who by their dealings fixed the price of all
merchandise. Even during the war Philip could not prohibit his own
subjects from trading with the republic; nay, he could not even desire
it. He himself furnished the rebels with the means of defraying the
expenses of their own defence; for the very war which was to ruin them
increased the sale of their goods. The enormous suns expended on his
fleets and armies flowed for the most part into the exchequer of the
republic, which was more or less connected with the commercial places of
Flanders and Brabant. Whatever Philip attempted against the rebels
operated indirectly to their advantage.

The sluggish progress of this war did the king as much injury as it
benefited the rebels. His army was composed for the most part of the
remains of those victorious troops which had gathered their laurels
under Charles V. Old and long services entitled them to repose; many of
them, whom the war had enriched, impatiently longed for their homes,
where they might end in ease a life of hardship. Their former zeal,
their heroic spirit, and their discipline relaxed in the same proportion
as they thought they had fully satisfied their honor and their duty, and
as they began to reap at last the reward of so many battles. Besides,
the troops which had been accustomed by their irresistible impetuosity
to vanquish all opponents were necessarily wearied out by a war which
was carried on not so much against men as against the elements; which
exercised their patience more than it gratified their love of glory; and
where there was less of danger than of difficulty and want to contend
with. Neither personal courage nor long military experience was of
avail in a country whose peculiar features gave the most dastardly the
advantage. Lastly, a single discomfiture on foreign ground did them
more injury than any victories gained over an enemy at home could profit
them. With the rebels the case was exactly the reverse. In so
protracted a war, in which no decisive battle took place, the weaker
party must naturally learn at last the art of defence from the stronger;
slight defeats accustomed him to danger; slight victories animated his
confidence.

At the beginning of the war the republican army scarcely dared to show
itself in the field; the long continuance of the struggle practised and
hardened it. As the royal armies grew wearied of victory, the
confidence of the rebels rose with their improved discipline and
experience. At last, at the end of half a century, master and pupil
separated, unsubdued, and equal in the fight.

Again, throughout the war the rebels acted with more concord and
unanimity than the royalists. Before the former had lost their first
leader the government of the Netherlands had passed through as many as
five hands. The Duchess of Parma's indecision soon imparted itself to
the cabinet of Madrid, which in a short time tried in succession almost
every system of policy. Duke Alva's inflexible sternness, the mildness
of his successor Requescens, Don John of Austria's insidious cunning,
and the active and imperious mind of the Prince of Parma gave as many
opposite directions to the war, while the plan of rebellion remained the
same in a single head, who, as he saw it clearly, pursued it with vigor.
The king's greatest misfortune was that right principles of action
generally missed the right moment of application. In the commencement
of the troubles, when the advantage was as yet clearly on the king's
side, when prompt resolution and manly firmness might have crushed the
rebellion in the cradle, the reigns of government were allowed to hang
loose in the hands of a woman. After the outbreak had come to an open
revolt, and when the strength of the factious and the power of the king
stood more equally balanced, and when a skilful flexible prudence could
alone have averted the impending civil war, the government devolved on a
man who was eminently deficient in this necessary qualification. So
watchful an observer as William the Silent failed not to improve every
advantage which the faulty policy of his adversary presented, and with
quiet silent industry he slowly but surely pushed on the great
enterprise to its accomplishment.

But why did not Philip II. himself appear in the Netherlands? Why did
he prefer to employ every other means, however improbable, rather than
make trial of the only remedy which could insure success? To curb the
overgrown power and insolence of the nobility there was no expedient
more natural than the presence of their master. Before royalty itself
all secondary dignities must necessarily have sunk in the shade, all
other splendor be dimmed. Instead of the truth being left to flow
slowly and obscurely through impure channels to the distant throne, so
that procrastinated measures of redress gave time to ripen ebullitions
of the moment into acts of deliberation, his own penetrating glance
would at once have been able to separate truth from error; and cold
policy alone, not to speak of his humanity, would have saved the land a
million citizens. The nearer to their source the more weighty would his
edicts have been; the thicker they fell on their objects the weaker and
the more dispirited would have become the efforts of the rebels. It
costs infinitely more to do an evil to an enemy in his presence than in
his absence. At first the rebellion appeared to tremble at its own
name, and long sheltered itself under the ingenious pretext of defending
the cause of its sovereign against the arbitrary assumptions of his own
viceroy. Philip's appearance in Brussels would have put an end at once
to this juggling. In that case, the rebels would have been compelled to
act up to their pretence, or to cast aside the mask, and so, by
appearing in their true shape, condemn themselves. And what a relief
for the Netherlands if the king's presence had only spared them those
evils which were inflicted upon them without his knowledge, and contrary
to his will. [1] What gain, too, even if it had only enabled him to
watch over the expenditure of the vast sums which, illegally raised on
the plea of meeting the exigencies of the war, disappeared in the
plundering hands of his deputies.

What the latter were compelled to extort by the unnatural expedient of
terror, the nation would have been disposed to grant to the sovereign
majesty. That which made his ministers detested would have rendered the
monarch feared; for the abuse of hereditary power is less painfully
oppressive than the abuse of delegated authority. His presence would
have saved his exchequer thousands had he been nothing more than an
economical despot; and even had he been less, the awe of his person
would have preserved a territory which was lost through hatred and
contempt for his instruments.

In the same manner, as the oppression of the people of the Netherlands
excited the sympathy of all who valued their own rights, it might have
been expected that their disobedience and defection would have been a
call to all princes to maintain their own prerogatives in the case of
their neighbors. But jealousy of Spain got the better of political
sympathies, and the first powers of Europe arranged themselves more or
less openly on the side of freedom.

Although bound to the house of Spain by the ties of relationship, the
Emperor Maximilian II. gave it just cause for its charge against him
of secretly favoring the rebels. By the offer of his mediation he
implicitly acknowledged the partial justice of their complaints, and
thereby encouraged them to a resolute perseverance in their demands.
Under an emperor sincerely devoted to the interests of the Spanish
house, William of Orange could scarcely have drawn so many troops and so
much money from Germany. France, without openly and formally breaking
the peace, placed a prince of the blood at the head of the Netherlandish
rebels; and it was with French gold and French troops that the
operations of the latter were chiefly conducted. [2] Elizabeth of
England, too, did but exercise a just retaliation and revenge in
protecting the rebels against their legitimate sovereign; and although
her meagre and sparing aid availed no farther than to ward off utter
ruin from the republic, still even this was infinitely valuable at a
moment when nothing but hope could have supported their exhausted
courage. With both these powers Philip at the time was at peace, but
both betrayed him. Between the weak and the strong honesty often ceases
to appear a virtue; the delicate ties which bind equals are seldom
observed towards him whom all men fear. Philip had banished truth from
political intercourse; he himself had dissolved all morality between
kings, and had made artifice the divinity of cabinets. Without once
enjoying the advantages of his preponderating greatness, he had,
throughout life, to contend with the jealousy which it awakened in
others. Europe made him atone for the possible abuses of a power of
which in fact he never had the full possession.

If against the disparity between the two combatants, which, at first
sight, is so astounding, we weigh all the incidental circumstances which
were adverse to Spain, but favorable to the Netherlands, that which is
supernatural in this event will disappear, while that which is
extraordinary will still remain--and a just standard will be furnished
by which to estimate the real merit of these republicans in working out
their freedom. It must not, however, be thought that so accurate a
calculation of the opposing forces could have preceded the undertaking
itself, or that, on entering this unknown sea, they already knew the
shore on which they would ultimately be landed. The work did not
present itself to the mind of its originator in the exact form which it
assumed when completed, any more than the mind of Luther foresaw the
eternal separation of creeds when he began to oppose the sale of
indulgences. What a difference between the modest procession of those
suitors in Brussels, who prayed for a more humane treatment as a favor,
and the dreaded majesty of a free state, which treated with kings as
equals, and in less than a century disposed of the throne of its former
tyrant. The unseen hand of fate gave to the discharged arrow a higher
flight, and quite a different direction from that which it first
received from the bowstring. In the womb of happy Brabant that liberty
had its birth which, torn from its mother in its earliest infancy, was
to gladden the so despised Holland. But the enterprise must not be less
thought of because its issue differed from the first design. Man works
up, smooths, and fashions the rough stone which the times bring to him;
the moment and the instant may belong to him, but accident develops the
history of the world. If the passions which co-operated actively in
bringing about this event were only not unworthy of the great work to
which they were unconsciously subservient--if only the powers which
aided in its accomplishment were intrinsically noble, if only the single
actions out of whose great concatenation it wonderfully arose were
beautiful then is the event grand, interesting, and fruitful for us, and
we are at liberty to wonder at the bold offspring of chance, or rather
offer up our admiration to a higher intelligence.

The history of the world, like the laws of nature, is consistent with
itself, and simple as the soul of man. Like conditions produce like
phenomena. On the same soil where now the Netherlanders were to resist
their Spanish tyrants, their forefathers, the Batavi and Belgee, fifteen
centuries before, combated against their Roman oppressors. Like the
former, submitting reluctantly to a haughty master, and misgoverned by
rapacious satraps, they broke off their chain with like resolution, and
tried their fortune in a similar unequal combat. The same pride of
conquest, the same national grandeur, marked the Spaniard of the
sixteenth century and the Roman of the first; the same valor and
discipline distinguished the armies of both, their battle array inspired
the same terror. There as here we see stratagem in combat with superior
force, and firmness, strengthened by unanimity, wearying out a mighty
power weakened by division; then as now private hatred armed a whole
nation; a single man, born for his times, revealed to his fellow-slaves
the dangerous Secret of their power, and brought their mute grief to a
bloody announcement. "Confess, Batavians," cries Claudius Civilis to
his countrymen in the sacred grove, "we are no longer treated, as
formerly, by these Romans as allies, but rather as slaves. We are
handed over to their prefects and centurions, who, when satiated with
our plunder and with our blood, make way for others, who, under
different names, renew the same outrages. If even at last Rome deigns
to send us a legate, he oppresses us with an ostentatious and costly
retinue, and with still more intolerable pride. The levies are again at
hand which tear forever children from their parents, brothers from
brothers. Now, Batavians, is our time. Never did Rome lie so prostrate
as now. Let not their names of legions terrify you. There is nothing
in their camps but old men and plunder. Our infantry and horsemen are
strong; Germany is allied to us by blood, and Gaul is ready to throw off
its yoke. Let Syria serve them, and Asia and the East, who are used to
bow before kings; many still live who were born among us before tribute
was paid to the Romans. The gods are ever with the brave. " Solemn
religious rites hallowed this conspiracy, like the League of the Gueux;
like that, it craftily wrapped itself in the veil of submissiveness, in
the majesty of a great name. The cohorts of Civilis swear allegiance on
the Rhine to Vespasian in Syria, as the League did to Philip II. The
same arena furnished the same plan of defence, the same refuge to
despair. Both confided their wavering fortunes to a friendly element;
in the same distress Civilis preserves his island, as fifteen centuries
after him William of Orange did the town of Leyden--through an
artificial inundation. The valor of the Batavi disclosed the impotency
of the world's ruler, as the noble courage of their descendants revealed
to the whole of Europe the decay of Spanish greatness. The same
fecundity of genius in the generals of both times gave to the war a
similarly obstinate continuance, and nearly as doubtful an issue; one
difference, nevertheless, distinguishes them: the Romans and Batavians
fought humanely, for they did not fight for religion.

[1] More modern historians, with access to the records of the Spanish
Inquisition and the private communications between Phillip II. and his
various appointees to power in the Netherlands, rebut Shiller's kind but
naive thought. To the contrary, Phillip II. was most critical of his
envoys lack of severity. See in particular the "Rise of the Dutch
Republic" and the other works of John Motley on the history of the
Netherlands all of which are available at Project Gutenberg. --D. W.

[2] A few French generals who were by and large ineffective; and many
promises of gold which were undelivered. --D. W.






BOOK I.

EARLIER HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS UP TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Before we consider the immediate history of this great revolution, it
will be advisable to go a few steps back into the ancient records of the
country, and to trace the origin of that constitution which we find it
possessed of at the time of this remarkable change.

The first appearance of this people in the history of the world is the
moment of its fall; their conquerors first gave them a political
existence. The extensive region which is bounded by Germany on the
east, on the south by France, on the north and northwest by the North
Sea, and which we comprehend under the general name of the Netherlands,
was, at the time when the Romans invaded Gaul, divided amongst three
principal nations, all originally of German descent, German
institutions, and German spirit. The Rhine formed its boundaries. On
the left of the river dwelt the Belgae, on its right the Frisii, and the
Batavi on the island which its two arms then formed with the ocean. All
these several nations were sooner or later reduced into subjection by
the Romans, but the conquerors themselves give us the most glorious
testimony to their valor. The Belgae, writes Caesar, were the only
people amongst the Gauls who repulsed the invasion of the Teutones and
Cimbri. The Batavi, Tacitus tells us, surpassed all the tribes on the
Rhine in bravery. This fierce nation paid its tribute in soldiers, and
was reserved by its conquerors, like arrow and sword, only for battle.
The Romans themselves acknowledged the Batavian horsemen to be their
best cavalry. Like the Swiss at this day, they formed for a long time
the body-guard of the Roman Emperor; their wild courage terrified the
Dacians, as they saw them, in full armor, swimming across the Danube.
The Batavi accompanied Agricola in his expedition against Britain, and
helped him to conquer that island. The Frieses were, of all, the last
subdued, and the first to regain their liberty. The morasses among
which they dwelt attracted the conquerors later, and enhanced the price
of conquest. The Roman Drusus, who made war in these regions, had a
canal cut from the Rhine into the Flevo, the present Zuyder Zee, through
which the Roman fleet penetrated into the North Sea, and from thence,
entering the mouths of the Ems and the Weser, found an easy passage into
the interior of Germany.

Through four centuries we find Batavian troops in the Roman armies, but
after the time of Honorius their name disappears from history.
Presently we discover their island overrun by the Franks, who again lost
themselves in the adjoining country of Belgium. The Frieses threw off
the yoke of their distant and powerless rulers, and again appearad as a
free, and even a conquering people, who governed themselves by their own
customs and a remnant of Roman laws, and extended their limits beyond
the left bank of the Rhine. Of all the provinces of the Netherlands,
Friesland especially had suffered the least from the irruptions of
strange tribes and foreign customs, and for centuries retained traces of
its original institutions, of its national spirit and manners, which
have not, even at the present day, entirely disappeared.

The epoch of the immigration of nations destroyed the original form of
most of these tribes; other mixed races arose in their place, with other
constitutions. In the general irruption the towns and encampments of
the Romans disappeared, and with them the memorials of their wise
government, which they had employed the natives to execute. The
neglected dikes once more yielded to the violence of the streams and to
the encroachments of the ocean. Those wonders of labor, and creations
of human skill, the canals, dried up, the rivers changed their course,
the continent and the sea confounded their olden limits, and the nature
of the soil changed with its inhabitants. So, too, the connection of
the two eras seems effaced, and with a new race a new history commences.

The monarchy of the Franks, which arose out of the ruins of Roman Gaul,
had, in the sixth and seventh centuries, seized all the provinces of the
Netherlands, and planted there the Christian faith. After an obstinate
war Charles Martel subdued to the French crown Friesland, the last of
all the free provinces, and by his victories paved a way for the gospel.
Charlemagne united all these countries, and formed of them one division
of the mighty empire which he had constructed out of Germany, France,
and Lombardy. As under his descendants this vast dominion was again
torn into fragments, so the Netherlands became at times German, at
others French, or then again Lotheringian Provinces; and at last we find
them under both the names of Friesland and Lower Lotheringia.

With the Franks the feudal system, the offspring of the North, also came
into these lands, and here, too, as in all other countries, it
degenerated. The more powerful vassals gradually made themselves
independent of the crown, and the royal governors usurped the countries
they were appointed to govern. But the rebellions vassals could not
maintain their usurpations without the aid of their own dependants,
whose assistance they were compelled to purchase by new concessions.
At the same time the church became powerful through pious usurpations
and donations, and its abbey lands and episcopal sees acquired an
independent existence. Thus were the Netherlands in the tenth,
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries split up into several small
sovereignties, whose possessors did homage at one time to the German
Emperor, at another to the kings of France. By purchase, marriages,
legacies, and also by conquest, several of these provinces were often
united under one suzerain, and thus in the fifteenth century we see the
house of Burgundy in possession of the chief part of the Netherlands.
With more or less right Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, had united
as many as eleven provinces under his authority, and to these his son,
Charles the Bold, added two others, acquired by force of arms. Thus
imperceptibly a new state arose in Europe, which wanted nothing but the
name to be the most flourishing kingdom in this quarter of the globe.
These extensive possessions made the Dukes of Burgundy formidable
neighbors to France, and tempted the restless spirit of Charles the Bold
to devise a scheme of conquest, embracing the whole line of country from
the Zuyder Zee and the mouth of the Rhine down to Alsace. The almost
inexhaustible resources of this prince justify in some measure this bold
project. A formidable army threatened to carry it into execution.
Already Switzerland trembled for her liberty; but deceitful fortune
abandoned him in three terrible battles, and the infatuated hero was
lost in the melee of the living and the dead.

[A page who had seen him fall a few days after the battle conducted
the victors to the spot, and saved his remains from an ignominious
oblivion. His body was dragged from out of a pool, in which it was
fast frozen, naked, and so disfigured with wounds that with great
difficulty he was recognized, by the well-known deficiency of some
of his teeth, and by remarkably long finger-nails. But that,
notwithstanding the marks, there were still incredulous people who
doubted his death, and looked for his reappearance, is proved by
the missive in which Louis XI. called upon the Burgundian States to
return to their allegiance to the Crown of France. "If," the
passage runs, "Duke Charles should still be living, you shall be
released from your oath to me. " Comines, t. iii. , Preuves des
Memoires, 495, 497. ]

The sole heiress of Charles the Bold, Maria, at once the richest
princess and the unhappy Helen of that time, whose wooing brought misery
on her inheritance, was now the centre of attraction to the whole known
world. Among her suitors appeared two great princes, King Louis XI. of
France, for his son, the young Dauphin, and Maximilian of Austria, son
of the Emperor Frederic III. The successful suitor was to become the
most powerful prince in Europe; and now, for the first time, this
quarter of the globe began to fear for its balance of power. Louis, the
more powerful of the two, was ready to back his suit by force of arms;
but the people of the Netherlands, who disposed of the hand of their
princess, passed by this dreaded neighbor, and decided in favor of
Maximilian, whose more remote territories and more limited power seemed
less to threaten the liberty of their country. A deceitful, unfortunate
policy, which, through a strange dispensation of heaven, only
accelerated the melancholy fate which it was intended to prevent.

To Philip the Fair, the son of Maria and Maximilian, a Spanish bride
brought as her portion that extensive kingmdom which Ferdinand and
Isabella had recently founded; and Charles of Austria, his son, was born
lord of the kingdoms of Spain, of the two Sicilies, of the New World,
and of the Netherlands. In the latter country the commonalty
emancipated themselves much earlier than in other; feudal states, and
quickly attained to an independent political existence. The favorable
situation of the country on the North Sea and on great navigable rivers
early awakened the spirit of commerce, which rapidly peopled the towns,
encouraged industry and the arts, attracted foreigners, and diffused
prosperity and affluence among them. However contemptuously the warlike
policy of those times looked down upon every peaceful and useful
occupation, the rulers of the country could not fail altogether to
perceive the essential advantages they derived from such pursuits. The
increasing population of their territories, the different imposts which
they extorted from natives and foreigners under the various titles of
tolls, customs, highway rates, escort money, bridge tolls, market fees,
escheats, and so forth, were too valuable considerations to allow them
to remain indifferent to the sources from which they were derived. .
Their own rapacity made them promoters of trade, and, as often happens,
barbarism itself rudely nursed it, until at last a healthier policy
assumed its place. In the course of time they invited the Lombard
merchants to settle among them, and accorded to the towns some valuable
privileges and an independent jurisdiction, by which the latter acquired
uncommon extraordinary credit and influence. The numerous wars which
the counts and dukes carried on with one another, or with their
neighbors, made them in some measure dependent on the good-will of the
towns, who by their wealth obtained weight and consideration, and for
the subsidies which they afforded failed not to extort important
privileges in return. These privileges of the commonalties increased as
the crusades with their expensive equipment augumented the necessities
of the nobles; as a new road to Europe was opened for the productions of
the East, and as wide-spreading luxury created new wants to their
princes. Thus as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find in
these lands a mixed form of governmeut, in which the prerogative of the
sovereign is greatly limited by the privileges of the estates; that is
to say, of the nobility, the clergy, and the municipalities.

These, under the name of States, assembled as often as the wants of the
province required it. Without their consent no new laws were valid, no
war could be carried on, and no taxes levied, no change made in the
coinage, and no foreigner admitted to any office of government. All the
provinces enjoyed these privileges in common; others were peculiar to
the various districts. The supreme government was hereditary, but the
son did not enter on the rights of his father before he had solemnly
sworn to maintain the existing constitution.

Necessity is the first lawgiver; all the wants which had to be met by
this constitution were originally of a commercial nature. Thus the
whole constitution was founded on commerce, and the laws of the nation
were adapted to its pursuits. The last clause, which excluded
foreigners from all offices of trust, was a natural consequence of the
preceding articles. So complicated and artificial a relation between
the sovereign and his people, which in many provinces was further
modified according to the peculiar wants of each, and frequently of some
single city, required for its maintenance the liveliest zeal for the
liberties of the country, combined with an intimate acquaintance with
them. From a foreigner neither could well be expected. This law,
besides, was enforced reciprocally in each particular province; so that
in Brabant no Fleming, in Zealand no Hollander, could hold office; and
it continued in force even after all these provinces were united under
one government.

Above all others, Brabant enjoyed the highest degree of freedom. Its
privileges were esteemed so valuable that many mothers from the adjacent
provinces removed thither about the time of their accouchment, in order
to entitle their children to participate, by birth, in all the
immunities of that favored country; just as, says Strada, one improves
the plants of a rude climate by removing them to the soil of a milder.

After the House of Burgundy had united several provinces under its
dominion, the separate provincial assemblies which, up to that time, had
been independent tribunals, were made subject to a supreme court at
Malines, which incorporated the various judicatures into one body, and
decided in the last resort all civil and criminal appeals. The separate
independence of the provinces was thus abolished, and the supreme power
vested in the senate at Malines.

After the death of Charles the Bold the states did not neglect to avail
themselves of the embarassment of their duchess, who, threatened by
France, was consequently in their power. Holland and Zealand compelled
her to sign a great charter, which secured to them the most important
sovereign rights. The people of Ghent carried their insolence to such a
pitch that they arbitrarily dragged the favorites of Maria, who had the
misfortune to displease them, before their own tribunals, and beheaded
them before the eyes of that princess. During the short government of
the Duchess Maria, from her father's death to her marriage, the commons
obtained powers which few free states enjoyed. After her death her
husband, Maximilian, illegally assumed the government as guardian of his
son. Offended by this invasion of their rights, the estates refused to
acknowledge his authority, and could only be brought to receive him as a
viceroy for a stated period, and under conditions ratified by oath.

Maximilian, after he became Roman Emperor, fancied that he might safely
venture to violate the constitution. He imposed extraordinary taxes on
the provinces, gave official appointments to Burgundians and Germans,
and introduced foreign troops into the provinces. But the jealousy of
these republicans kept pace with the power of their regent. As he
entered Bruges with a large retinue of foreigners, the people flew to
arms, made themselves masters of his person, and placed him in
confinement in the castle. In spite of the intercession of the Imperial
and Roman courts, he did not again obtain his freedom until security had
been given to the people on all the disputed points.

The security of life and property arising from mild laws, and, an equal
administration of justice, had encouraged activity and industry. In
continual contest with the ocean and rapid rivers, which poured their
violence on the neighboring lowlands, and whose force it was requisite
to break by embankments and canals, this people had early learned to
observe the natural objects around them; by industry and perseverance to
defy an element of superior power; and like the Egyptian, instructed by
his Nile, to exercise their inventive genius and acuteness in
self-defence. The natural fertility of their soil, which favored
agriculture and the breeding of cattle, tended at the same time to
increase the population. Their happy position on the sea and the great
navigable rivers of Germany and France, many of which debouched on their
coasts; the numerous artificial canals which intersected the land in all
directions, imparted life to navigation; and the facility of internal
communication between the provinces, soon created and fostered a
commercial spirit among these people.

The neighboring coasts, Denmark and Britain, were the first visited by
their vessels. The English wool which they brought back employed
thousands of industrious hands in Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp; and as
early as the middle of the twelfth century cloths of Flanders were
extensively worn in France and Germany. In the eleventh century we find
ships of Friesland in the Belt, and even in the Levant. This
enterprising people ventured, without a compass, to steer under the
North Pole round to the most northerly point of Russia. From the
Wendish towns the Netherlands received a share in the Levant trade,
which, at that time, still passed from the Black Sea through the Russian
territories to the Baltic. When, in the thirteenth century, this trade
began to decline, the Crusades having opened a new road through the
Mediterranean for Indian merchandise, and after the Italian towns had
usurped this lucrative branch of commerce, and the great Hanseatic
League had been formed in Germany, the Netherlands became the most
important emporium between the north and south. As yet the use of
the compass was not general, and the merchantmen sailed slowly and
laboriously along the coasts. The ports on the Baltic were, during the
winter months, for the most part frozen and inaccessible. Ships,
therefore, which could not well accomplish within the year the long
voyage from the Mediterranean to the Belt, gladly availed themselves of
harbors which lay half-way between the two.

With an immense continent behind them with which navigable streams kept
up their communication, and towards the west and north open to the ocean
by commodious harbors, this country appeared to be expressly formed for
a place of resort for different nations, and for a centre of commerce.
The principal towns of the Netherlands were established marts.
Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, French, Britons, Germans, Danes, and
Swedes thronged to them with the produce of every country in the world.
Competition insured cheapness; industry was stimulated as it found a
ready market for its productions. With the necessary exchange of money
arose the commerce in bills, which opened a new and fruitful source of
wealth. The princes of the country, acquainted at last with their true
interest, encouraged the merchant by important immunities, and neglected
not to protect their commerce by advantageous treaties with foreign
powers. When, in the fifteenth century, several provinces were united
under one rule, they discontinued their private wars, which had proved
so injurious, and their separate interests were now more intimately
connected by a common government. Their commerce and affluence
prospered in the lap of a long peace, which the formidable power of
their princes extorted from the neighboring monarchs. The Burgundian
flag was feared in every sea, the dignity of their sovereign gave
support to their undertakings, and the enterprise of a private
individual became the affair of a powerful state. Such vigorous
protection soon placed them in a position even to renounce the Hanseatic
League, and to pursue this daring enemy through every sea. The
Hanseatic merchants, against whom the coasts of Spain were closed,
were compelled at last, however reluctantly, to visit the Flemish fairs,
and purchase their Spanish goods in the markets of the Netherlands.

Bruges, in Flanders, was, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
central point of the whole commerce of Europe, and the great market of
all nations. In the year 1468 a hundred and fifty merchant vessels were
counted entering the harbor of Sluys it one time. Besides the rich
factories of the Hanseatic League, there were here fifteen trading
companies, with their countinghouses, and many factories and merchants'
families from every European country. Here was established the market
of all northern products for the south, and of all southern and
Levantine products for the north. These passed through the Sound, and
up the Rhine, in Hanseatic vessels to Upper Germany, or were transported
by landcarriage to Brunswick and Luneburg.

As in the common course of human affairs, so here also a licentious
luxury followed prosperity. The seductive example of Philip the Good
could not but accelerate its approach. The court of the Burgundian
dukes was the most voluptuous and magnificent in Europe, Italy itself
not excepted. The costly dress of the higher classes, which afterwards
served as patterns to the Spaniards, and eventually, with other
Burgundian customs, passed over to the court of Austria, soon descended
to the lower orders, and the meanest citizen nursed his person in velvet
and silk.

[Philip the Good was too profuse a prince to amass treasures;
nevertheless Charles the Bold found accumulated among his effects,
a greater store of table services, jewels, carpets, and linen than
three rich princedoms of that time together possessed, and over and
above all a treasure of three hundred thousand dollars in ready
money. The riches of this prince, and of the Burgundian people,
lay exposed on the battle-fields of Granson, Murten and Nancy.
Here a Swiss soldier drew from the finger of Charles the Bold, that
celebrated diamond which was long esteemed the largest in Europe,
which even now sparkles in the crown of France as the second in
size, but which the unwitting finder sold for a florin. The Swiss
exchanged the silver they found for tin, and the gold for copper,
and tore into pieces the costly tents of cloth of gold. The value
of the spoil of silver, gold, and jewels which was taken has been
estimated at three millions. Charles and his army had advanced to
the combat, not like foes who purpose battle, but like conquerors
who adorn themselves after victory. ]

Comines, an author who travelled through the Netherlands about the
middle of the fifteenth century, tells us that pride had already
attended their prosperity. The pomp and vanity of dress was carried by
both sexes to extravagance. The luxury of the table had never reached
so great a height among any other people. The immoral assemblage of
both sexes at bathing-places, and such other places of reunion for
pleasure and enjoyment, had banished all shame--and we are not here
speaking of the usual luxuriousness of the higher ranks; the females of
the common class abandoned themselves to such extravagances without
limit or measure.

But how much more cheering to the philanthropist is this extravagance
than the miserable frugality of want, and the barbarous virtues of
ignorance, which at that time oppressed nearly the whole of Europe!
The Burgundian era shines pleasingly forth from those dark ages, like
a lovely spring day amid the showers of February. But this flourishing
condition tempted the Flemish towns at last to their ruin; Ghent and
Bruges, giddy with liberty and success, declared war against Philip the
Good, the ruler of eleven provinces, which ended as unfortunately as it
was presumptuously commenced. Ghent alone lost many thousand men in an
engagement near Havre, and was compelled to appease the wrath of the
victor by a contribution of four hundred thousand gold florins. All the
municipal functionaries, and two thousand of the principal citizens,
went, stripped to their shirts, barefooted, and with heads uncovered, a
mile out of the town to meet the duke, and on their knees supplicated
for pardon. On this occasion they were deprived of several valuable
privileges, all irreparable loss for their future commerce. In the year
1482 they engaged in a war, with no better success, against Maximilian
of Austria, with a view to, deprive him of the guardianship of his son,
which, in contravention of his charter, he had unjustly assumed. In
1487 the town of Bruges placed the archduke himself in confinement, and
put some of his most eminent ministers to death. To avenge his son the
Emperor Frederic III. entered their territory with an army, and,
blockading for ten years the harbor of Sluys, put a stop to their entire
trade. On this occasion Amsterdam and Antwerp, whose jealousy had long
been roused by the flourishing condition of the Flemish towns, lent him
the most important assistance. The Italians began to bring their own
silk-stuffs to Antwerp for sale, and the Flemish cloth-workers likewise,
who had settled in England, sent their goods thither; and thus the town
of Bruges lost two important branches of trade. The Hanseatic League
had long been offended at their overweening pride; and it now left them
and removed its factory to Antwerp. In the year 1516 all the foreign
merchants left the town except only a few Spaniards; but its prosperity
faded as slowly as it had bloomed.

Antwerp received, in the sixteenth century, the trade which the
luxuriousness of the Flemish towns had banished; and under the
government of Charles V. Antwerp was the most stirring and splendid
city in the Christian world. A stream like the Scheldt, whose broad
mouth, in the immediate vicinity, shared with the North Sea the ebb and
flow of the tide, and could carry vessels of the largest tonnage under
the walls of Antwerp, made it the natural resort for all vessels which
visited that coast. Its free fairs attracted men of business from all
countries.

[Two such fairs lasted forty days, and all the goods sold there
were duty free. ]

The industry of the nation had, in the beginning of this century,
reached its greatest height. The culture of grain, flax, the breeding
of cattle, the chase, and fisheries, enriched the peasant; arts,
manufactures, and trade gave wealth to the burghers. Flemish and
Brabantine manufactures were long to be seen in Arabia, Persia, and
India. Their ships covered the ocean, and in the Black Sea contended
with the Genoese for supremacy. It was the distinctive characteristic
of the seaman of the Netherlands that he made sail at all seasons of the
year, and never laid up for the winter.

When the new route by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, and the East
India trade of Portugal undermined that of the Levant, the Netherlands
did not feel the blow which was inflicted on the Italian republics. The
Portuguese established their mart in Brabant, and the spices of Calicut
were displayed for sale in the markets of Antwerp. Hither poured the
West Indian merchandise, with which the indolent pride of Spain repaid
the industry of the Netherlands. The East Indian market attracted the
most celebrated commercial houses from Florence, Lucca, and Genoa; and
the Fuggers and Welsers from Augsburg. Here the Hanse towns brought the
wares of the north, and here the English company had a factory. Here
art and nature seemed to expose to view all their riches; it was a
splendid exhibition of the works of the Creator and of the creature.

Their renown soon diffused itself through the world. Even a company of
Turkish merchants, towards the end of this century, solicited permission
to settle here, and to supply the products of the East by way of Greece.
With the trade in goods they held also the exchange of money. Their
bills passed current in the farthest parts of the globe. Antwerp, it is
asserted, then transacted more extensive and more important business in
a single month than Venice, at its most flourishing period, in two whole
years.

In the year 1491 the Hanseatic League held its solemn meetings in this
town, which had formerly assembled in Lubeck alone. In 1531 the
exchange was erected, at that time the most splendid in all Europe, and
which fulfilled its proud inscription. The town now reckoned one
hundred thousand inhabitants. The tide of human beings, which
incessantly poured into it, exceeds all belief. Between two hundred and
two hundred and fifty ships were often seen loading at one time in its
harbor; no day passed on which the boats entering inwards and outwards
did not amount to more than five hundred; on market days the number
amounted to eight or nine hundred. Daily more than two hundred
carriages drove through its gates; above two thousand loaded wagons
arrived every week from Germany, France, and Lorraine, without reckoning
the farmers' carts and corn-vans, which were seldom less than ten
thousand in number. Thirty thousand hands were employed by the English
company alone. The market dues, tolls, and excise brought millions to
the government annually. We can form some idea of the resources of the
nation from the fact that the extraordinary taxes which they were
obliged to pay to Charles V. towards his numerous wars were computed at
forty millions of gold ducats.

For this affluence the Netherlands were as much indebted to their
liberty as to the natural advantages of their country. Uncertain laws
and the despotic sway of a rapacious prince would quickly have blighted
all the blessings which propitious nature had so abundantly lavished on
them. The inviolable sanctity of the laws can alone secure to the
citizen the fruits of his industry, and inspire him with that happy
confidence which is the soul of all activity.

The genius of this people, developed by the spirit of commerce, and by
the intercourse with so many nations, shone in useful inventions; in the
lap of abundance and liberty all the noble arts were carefully
cultivated and carried to perfection. From Italy, to which Cosmo de
Medici had lately restored its golden age, painting, architecture, and
the arts of carving and of engraving on copper, were transplanted into
the Netherlands, where, in a new soil, they flourished with fresh vigor.
The Flemish school, a daughter of the Italian, soon vied with its mother
for the prize; and, in common with it, gave laws to the whole of Europe
in the fine arts. The manufactures and arts, on which the Netherlanders
principally founded their prosperity, and still partly base it, require
no particular enumeration. The weaving of tapestry, oil painting, the
art of painting on glass, even pocketwatches and sun-dials were, as
Guicciardini asserts, originally invented in the Netherlands. To them
we are indebted for the improvement of the compass, the points of which
are still known by Flemish names. About the year 1430 the invention of
typography is ascribed to Laurence Koster, of Haarlem; and whether or
not he is entitled to this honorable distinction, certain it is that the
Dutch were among the first to engraft this useful art among them; and
fate ordained that a century later it should reward its country with
liberty. The people of the Netherlands united with the most fertile
genius for inventions a happy talent for improving the discoveries of
others; there are probably few mechanical arts and manufactures which
they did not either produce or at least carry to a higher degree of
perfection.

Up to this time these provinces had formed the most enviable state in
Europe. Not one of the Burgundian dukes had ventured to indulge a
thought of overturning the constitution; it had remained sacred even to
the daring spirit of Charles the Bold, while he was preparing fetters
for foreign liberty. All these princes grew up with no higher hope than
to be the heads of a republic, and none of their territories afforded
them experience of a higher authority. Besides, these princes possessed
nothing but what the Netherlands gave them; no armies but those which
the nation sent into the field; no riches but what the estates granted
to them. Now all was changed. The Netherlands had fallen to a master
who had at his command other instruments and other resources, who could
arm against them a foreign power.

[The unnatural union of two such different nations as the Belgians
and Spaniards could not possibly be prosperous. I cannot here
refrain from quoting the comparison which Grotius, in energetic
language, has drawn between the two. "With the neighboring
nations," says he, "the people of the Netherlands could easily
maintain a good understanding, for they were of a similar origin
with themselves, and had grown up in the same manner. But the
people of Spain and of the Netherlands differed in almost every
respect from one another, and therefore, when they were brought
together clashed the more violently. Both had for many centuries
been distinguished in war, only the latter had, in luxurious
repose, become disused to arms, while the former had been inured to
war in the Italian and African campaigns; the desire of gain made
the Belgians more inclined to peace, but not less sensitive of
offence. No people were more free from the lust of conquest, but
none defended its own more zealously. Hence the numerous towns,
closely pressed together in a confined tract of country; densely
crowded with a foreign and native population; fortified near the
sea and the great rivers. Hence for eight centuries after the
northern immigration foreign arms could not prevail against them.
Spain, on the contrary, often changed its masters; and when at last
it fell into the hands of the Goths, its character and its manners
had suffered more or less from each new conqueror. The people thus
formed at last out of these several admixtures is described as
patient in labor, imperturbable in danger, equally eager for riches
and honor, proud of itself even to contempt of others, devout and
grateful to strangers for any act of kindness, but also revengeful,
and of such ungovernable passions in victory as so regard neither
conscience nor honor in the case of an enemy. All this is foreign
to the character of the Belgian, who is astute but not insidious,
who, placed midway between France and Germany, combines in
moderation the faults and good qualities of both. He is not easily
to be imposed upon, nor is he to be insulted with impunity. In
veneration for the Deity, too, he does not yield to the Spaniard;
the arms of the Northmen could not make him apostatize from
Christianity when he had once professed it. No opinion which the
church condemns had, up to this time, empoisoned the purity of his
faith. Nay, his pious extravagance went so far that it became
requisite to curb by laws the rapacity of his clergy. In both
people loyalty to their rulers is equally innate, with this
difference, that the Belgian places the law above kings. Of all
the Spaniards the Castilians require to be, governed with the most
caution; but the liberties which they arrogate for themselves they
do not willingly accord to others. Hence the difficult task to
their common ruler, so to distribute his attention, and care
between the two nations that neither the preference shown to the
Castilian should offend the Belgian, nor the equal treatment of the
Belgian affront the haughty spirit of the Castilian. "--Grotii
Annal. Belg. L. 1. 4. 5. seq. ]

Charles V. was an absolute monarch in his Spanish dominions; in the
Netherlands he was no more than the first citizen. In the southern
portion of his empire he might have learned contempt for the rights of
individuals; here he was taught to respect them. The more he there
tasted the pleasures of unlimited power, and the higher he raised his
opinion of his own greatness, the more reluctant he must have felt to
descend elsewhere to the ordinary level of humanity, and to tolerate any
check upon his arbitrary authority. It requires, indeed, no ordinary
degree of virtue to abstain from warring against the power which imposes
a curb on our most cherished wishes.

The superior power of Charles awakened at the same time in the
Netherlands that distrust which always accompanies inferiority. Never
were they so alive to their constitutional rights, never so jealous of
the royal prerogative, or more observant in their proceedings. Under,
his reign we see the most violent outbreaks of republican spirit, and
the pretensions of the people carried to an excess which nothing but the
increasing encroachments of the royal power could in the least justify.
A Sovereign will always regard the freedom of the citizen as an
alienated fief, which he is bound to recover. To the citizen the
authority of a sovereign is a torrent, which, by its inundation,
threatens to sweep away his rights. The Belgians sought to protect
themselves against the ocean by embankments, and against their princes
by constitutional enactments. The whole history of the world is a
perpetually recurring struggle between liberty and the lust of power and
possession; as the history of nature is nothing but the contest of the
elements and organic bodies for space.