CHAPTER XIV

.

TRANQUILLITY RESTORED.

Oath imposed by Margaret.--Refused by Orange.--He leaves the Netherlands.--Submission of the Country.--New Edict.--Order restored.

1567.

The perplexities in which the regent had been involved had led her to conceive a plan, early in January, 1567, the idea of which may have been suggested by the similar plan of Viglius. This was to require an oath from the great nobles, the knights of the Golden Fleece, and those in high stations, civil or military, that they would yield implicit and unqualified obedience to the commands of the king, of whatever nature they might be. Her object in this measure was not to secure a test of loyalty. She knew full well who were the friends and who were the foes of the government. But she wished a decent apology for ridding herself of the latter; and it was made a condition, that those who refused to take the oath were to be dismissed from office.

The measure seems to have met with no opposition when first started in the council; where Mansfeldt, Arschot, Megen, Barlaimont, all signified their readiness to sign the oath. Egmont indeed raised some scruples. After the oath of allegiance he had once taken, a new one seemed superfluous. The bare word of a man of honor and a chevalier of the Toison ought to suffice.[886] But after a short correspondence on the subject, his scruples vanished before the arguments or persuasions of the regent.

Brederode, who held a military command, was not of so accommodating a temper. He indignantly exclaimed, that it was a base trick of the government, and he understood the drift of it. He refused to subscribe the oath, and at once threw up his commission. The Counts Hoorne and Hoogstraten declined also, but in more temperate terms, and resigning their employments, withdrew to their estates in the country.

The person of most importance was the prince of Orange; and it was necessary to approach him with the greatest caution. Margaret, it is true, had long since withdrawn from him her confidence. But he had too much consideration and authority in the country for her to wish to break with him. Nor would she willingly give him cause of disgust. She accordingly addressed him a note, couched in the most insinuating terms she had at her command.

She could not doubt he would be ready to set a good example, when his example would be so important in the perplexed condition of the country. Rumors had been circulated to the prejudice of his loyalty. She did not give them credit. She could not for a moment believe that he would so far dishonor his great name and his illustrious descent as to deserve such a reproach; and she had no doubt he would gladly avail himself of the present occasion to wipe away all suspicion.[887]

The despatch inclosed a form of the oath, by which the party was to bind himself to "serve the king, and act for or against whomever his majesty might command, without restriction or limitation,"[888] on pain of being dismissed from office.

William was not long in replying to a requisition, to obey which would leave him less freedom than might be claimed by the meanest peasant in the country. On the twenty-eighth of April, the same day on which he received the letter, he wrote to the regent, declining in the most positive terms to take the oath. Such an act, he said, would of itself imply that he had already violated the oath he had previously taken. Nor could he honorably take it, since it might bind him to do what would be contrary to the dictates of his own conscience, as well as to what he conceived to be the true interests of his majesty and the country.[889] He was aware that such a demand on the regent's part was equivalent to a dismissal from office. He begged her, therefore, to send some one fully empowered to receive his commissions, since he was ready forthwith to surrender them. As for himself, he should withdraw from the Netherlands, and wait until his sovereign had time to become satisfied of his fidelity. But wherever he might be, he should ever be ready to devote both life and property to the service of the king and the common weal of the country.[890]

Whatever hesitation the prince of Orange may have before felt as to the course he was to take, it was clear the time had now come for decisive

## action. Though the steady advocate of political reform, his policy, as

we have seen, had been to attempt this by constitutional methods, not by violence. But all his more moderate plans had been overthrown by the explosion of the iconoclasts. The outrages then perpetrated had both alienated the Catholics and disgusted the more moderate portion of the Protestants; while the divisions of the Protestants among themselves had so far paralyzed their action, that the whole strength of the party of reform had never been fairly exerted in the conflict. That conflict, unprepared as the nation was for it, had been most disastrous. Everywhere the arms of the regent had been victorious. It was evident the hour for resistance had not yet come.

[Sidenote: OATH REFUSED BY ORANGE.]

Yet for William to remain in his present position was hazardous in the extreme. Rumors had gone abroad that the duke of Alva would soon be in the Netherlands, at the head of a force sufficient to put down all opposition. "Beware of Alva," said his wife's kinsman, the landgrave of Hesse, to William; "I know him well."[891] The prince of Orange also knew him well,--too well to trust him. He knew the hard, inexorable nature of the man who was now coming with an army at his back, and clothed with the twofold authority of judge and executioner. The first blow would, he knew, be aimed at the highest mark. To await Alva's coming would be to provoke his fate. Yet the prince felt all the dreariness of his situation. "I am alone," he wrote to the Landgrave William of Hesse, "with dangers menacing me on all sides, yet without one trusty friend to whom I can open my heart."[892]

Margaret seems to have been less prepared than might have been expected for the decision of Orange. Yet she determined not to let him depart from the country without an effort to retain him. She accordingly sent her secretary, Berty, to the prince at Antwerp, to enter into the matter more freely, and, if possible, prevail on him to review the grounds of his decision. William freely, and at some length, stated his reasons for declining the oath. "If I thus blindly surrender myself to the will of the king, I may be driven to do what is most repugnant to my principles, especially in the stern mode of dealing with the sectaries. I may be compelled to denounce some of my own family, even my wife, as Lutherans, and to deliver them into the hands of the executioner. Finally," said he, "the king may send some one in his royal name to rule over us, to whom it would be derogatory for me to submit." The name of "Alva" escaped, as if involuntarily, from his lips,--and he was silent.[893]

Berty endeavored to answer the objections of the prince, but the latter, interrupting him before he had touched on the duke of Alva, bluntly declared that the king would never be content while one of his great vassals was wedded to a heretic. It was his purpose, therefore, to leave the country at once, and retire to Germany; and with this remark he abruptly closed the conference.

The secretary, though mortified at his own failure, besought William to consent to an interview, before his departure, with Count Egmont, who, Berty trusted, might be more successful. To this William readily assented. This celebrated meeting took place at Willbroek, a village between Antwerp and Brussels. Besides the two lords there were only present Count Mansfeldt and the secretary.

After some discussion, in which each of the friends endeavored to win over the other to his own way of thinking, William expressed the hope that Egmont would save himself in time from the bloody tempest that, he predicted, was soon to fall on the heads of the Flemish nobles.[894] "I trust in the clemency of my sovereign," answered the count; "he cannot deal harshly with men who have restored order to the country." "This clemency you so extol," replied William, "will be your ruin. Much I fear that the Spaniards will make use of you as a bridge to effect their entrance into the country!"[895] With this ominous prediction on his lips, he tenderly embraced the count, with tears in his eyes, bidding him a last farewell. And thus the two friends parted, like men who were never to meet again.

The different courses pursued by the two nobles were such as might be expected from the difference of both their characters and their circumstances. Egmont, ardent, hopeful, and confiding, easily surrendered himself to the illusions of his own fancy, as if events were to shape themselves according to his wishes. He had not the far-seeing eye of William, which seemed to penetrate into events as it did into characters. Nor had Egmont learned, like William, not to put his trust in princes. He was, doubtless, as sincerely attached to his country as the prince of Orange, and abhorred, like him, the system of persecution avowed by the government. But this persecution fell upon a party with whom he had little sympathy. William, on the other hand, was a member of that party. A blow aimed at them was aimed also at him. It is easy to see how different were the stakes of the two nobles in the coming contest, both in respect to their sympathies and their interests. Egmont was by birth a Fleming. His estates were in Flanders, and there, too, were his hopes of worldly fortune. Exile to him would have been beggary and ruin. But a large, if not the larger part of William's property, lay without the confines of the Netherlands. In withdrawing to Germany, he went to his native land. His kindred were still there. With them he had maintained a constant correspondence, and there he would be welcomed by troops of friends. It was a home, and no place of exile, that William was to find in Germany.

Shortly after this interview, the prince went to his estates at Breda, there to remain a few days before quitting the country.[896] From Breda he wrote to Egmont, expressing the hope that, when he had weighed them in his mind, he would be contented with the reasons assigned for his departure. The rest he would leave to God, who would order all for his own glory. "Be sure," he added, "you have no friend more warmly devoted to you than myself; for the love of you is too deeply rooted in my heart to be weakened either by time or distance."[897] It is pleasing to see that party spirit had not, as in the case of more vulgar souls, the power to rend asunder the ties which had so long bound these great men to each other; to see them still turning back, with looks of accustomed kindness, when they were entering the paths that were to lead in such opposite directions.

William wrote also to the king, acquainting him with what he had done, and explaining the grounds of it; at the same time renewing the declaration that, wherever he might be, he trusted never to be found wanting to the obligations of a true and faithful vassal. Before leaving Breda, the prince received a letter from the politic regent, more amiable in its import than might have been expected. Perhaps it was not wholly policy that made her unwilling to part with him in anger. She expressed her readiness to do him any favor in her power. She had always felt for him, she said, the same affection as for her own son, and should ever continue to do so.[898]

[Sidenote: WILLIAM LEAVES THE NETHERLANDS.]

On the last of April, William departed for Germany. He took with him all his household except his eldest son, the count of Buren, then a boy thirteen years old, who was pursuing his studies at the university of Louvain.[899] Perhaps William trusted to the immunities of Brabant, or to the tender age of the youth, for his protection. If so, he grievously miscalculated. The boy would serve as too important a hostage for his father, and Philip caused him to be transferred to Madrid; where, under the monarch's eye, he was educated in religious as well as in political sentiments very little in harmony with those of the prince of Orange. Fortunately, the younger brother, Maurice, who inherited the genius of his father, and was to carry down his great name to another generation, was allowed to receive his training under the paternal roof.[900]

Besides his family, William was accompanied by a host of friends and followers, some of them persons of high consideration, who preferred banishment with him to encountering the troubles that awaited them at home. Thus attended, he fixed his residence at Dillemburg, in Nassau, the seat of his ancestors, and the place of his own birth. He there occupied himself with studying the Lutheran doctrine under an experienced teacher of that persuasion;[901] and, while he kept a watchful eye on the events passing in his unhappy country, he endeavored to make himself acquainted with the principles of that glorious Reformation, of which, in connection with political freedom, he was one day to become the champion.

The departure of the prince of Orange caused general consternation in the Netherlands. All who were in anyway compromised by the late disturbances watched more anxiously than ever the signs of the coming tempest, as they felt they had lost the pilot who alone could enable them to weather it. Thousands prepared to imitate his example by quitting the country before it was too late. Among those who fled were the Counts Culemborg, Berg, Hoogstraten, Louis of Nassau, and others of inferior note, who passed into Germany, where they gathered into a little circle round the prince, waiting, like him, for happier days.

Some of the great lords, who had held out against the regent, now left alone, intimated their willingness to comply with her demands. "Count Hoorne," she writes to Philip, "has offered his services to me, and declares his readiness to take the oath. If he has spoken too freely, he says, it was not from any disaffection to the government, but from a momentary feeling of pique and irritation. I would not drive him to desperation, and from regard to his kindred I have consented that he should take his seat in the council again."[902] The haughty tone of the duchess shows that she felt herself now so strongly seated as to be nearly indifferent whether the person she dealt with were friend or foe.[903]

Egmont, at this time, was endeavoring to make amends for the past by such extraordinary demonstrations of loyalty as should efface all remembrance of it. He rode through the land at the head of his troops, breaking up the consistories, arresting the rioters, and everywhere reëstablishing the Catholic worship. He loudly declared that those who would remain his friends must give unequivocal proofs of loyalty to the crown and the Roman Catholic faith. Some of those with whom he had been most intimate, disgusted with, this course, and distrusting, perhaps, such a deposit for their correspondence, sent back the letters they had received from him, and demanded their own in return.[904]

At Brussels Egmont entered into all the gayeties of the court, displaying his usual magnificence in costly fêtes and banquets, which the duchess of Parma sometimes honored with her presence. The count's name appears among those which she mentions to Philip as of persons well affected to the government. "It is impossible," she says, "not to be satisfied with his conduct."[905] Thus elated by the favor of the regent--next in importance to that of royalty itself--the ill-fated nobleman cherished the fond hope that the past would now be completely effaced from the memory of his master,--a master who might forget a benefit, but who was never known to forgive an injury.

The great towns throughout the land had now generally intimated their willingness to submit to the requisitions of Margaret, and many of them had admitted garrisons within their walls. Antwerp only, of the cities of Brabant, remained intractable. At length it yielded to the general impulse, and a deputation was sent to the regent to sue for her forgiveness, and to promise that the leaders in the late disturbances should be banished from the city. This was a real triumph to the royal party, considering the motley character of the population, in which there was so large an infusion of Calvinism. But Margaret, far from showing her satisfaction, coolly answered that they must first receive a garrison; then she would intercede for them with the king, and would herself consent to take up her residence in the city. In this the inhabitants, now well humbled, affected willingly to acquiesce; and soon after Count Mansfeldt, at the head of sixteen companies of foot, marched into Antwerp in battle array, and there quartered his soldiers as in a conquered capital.

[Sidenote: NEW EDICT.]

A day was fixed for the regent's entry, which was to be made with all becoming pomp. Detachments of troops were stationed in the principal avenues, and on the thirtieth of April Margaret rode into Antwerp, escorted by twelve hundred Walloons, and accompanied by the knights of the Golden Fleece, the great lords, and the provincial magistrates. As the glittering procession passed through the files of the soldiery, along the principal streets, it was greeted with the huzzas of the fickle populace. Thus cheered on her way, the regent proceeded first to the cathedral, where _Te Deum_ was chanted, and on her knees she returned thanks to the Almighty, that this great city had been restored without battle or bloodshed to the king and the true faith.[906] As her eyes wandered over the desecrated altars and the walls despoiled of their ornaments, their rich sculpture and paintings, by the rude hand of violence, Margaret could not restrain her tears. Her first care was to recover, as far as possible, the stolen property, and repair the injuries to the building; the next, to punish the authors of these atrocities; and the execution in the market-place of four of the ringleaders proclaimed to the people of Antwerp that the reign of anarchy was over.

Margaret next caused the churches of the reformed party to be levelled with the ground. Those of the Romish faith, after being purified, and the marks of violence, as far as practicable, effaced, were restored to their ancient occupants. The Protestant schools were everywhere closed. The children who had been baptized with Protestant rites were now re-baptized after the Catholic.[907] In fine, the reformed worship was interdicted throughout the city, and that of the Romish church, with its splendid ritual, was established in its place.

On occupying Antwerp, Margaret had allowed all who were not implicated in the late riots to leave the city with their effects. Great numbers now availed themselves of this permission, and the streets presented the melancholy spectacle of husbands parting from their wives, parents from their children, or, it might be, taking their families along with them to some kinder land, where they would be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.

But even this glimmering of a tolerant spirit,--if so it can be called,--which Margaret exhibited at the outset, soon faded away before the dark spirit of the Inquisition. On the twenty-fourth of May, she published an edict, written in the characters of blood which distinguished the worst times of Charles and of Philip. By this edict, all who had publicly preached, or who had performed the religions exercises after the Protestant manner, all who had furnished the places of meeting, or had harbored or aided the preachers, all printers of heretical tracts, or artists who with their pencil had brought ridicule on the Church of Rome,--all, in short, who were guilty of these or similar iniquities, were to be punished with death and confiscation of property. Lighter offences were to be dealt with according to the measure of their guilt. The edict containing these humane provisions is of considerable length, and goes into a large specification of offences, from which few, if any, of the reformed could have been entirely exempt.[908] When this ordinance of the regent was known at Madrid, it caused great dissatisfaction. The king pronounced it "indecorous, illegal, and altogether repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity;"[909] and he ordered Margaret forthwith to revoke the edict. It was accordingly repealed on the twenty-third of July following. The reader who may be disposed to join heartily in the malediction may not be prepared to learn that the cause of the royal indignation was not that the edict was too severe, but that it was too lenient! It nowhere denounced the right of private worship. A man might still be a heretic at heart and at his own fireside, so long as he did not obtrude it on the public. This did not suit the Inquisition, whose jealous eye penetrated into the houses and the hearts of men, dragging forth their secret thoughts into open day, and punishing these like overt acts. Margaret had something yet to learn in the school of persecution.[910]

While at Antwerp, the regent received an embassy from the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes of Germany, interceding for the oppressed Lutherans, and praying that she would not consent to their being so grievously vexed by the Catholic government. Margaret, who was as little pleased with the plain terms in which this remonstrance was conveyed as with the object of it, coldly replied, that the late conduct of the Flemish Protestants doubtless entitled them to all this sympathy from the German princes; but she advised the latter to busy themselves with their own affairs, and leave the king of Spain to manage his as he thought best.[911]

Of all the provinces, Holland was the only one which still made resistance to the will of the regent. And here, as we have already seen, was gathered a military array of some strength. The head-quarters were at Brederode's town of Viana. But that chief had left his followers for the present, and had been secretly introduced into Amsterdam, where, as before noticed, he was busy in rousing a spirit of resistance in the citizens, already well prepared for it by their Protestant preachers. The magistrates, sorely annoyed, would gladly have rid themselves of Brederode's presence, but he had too strong a hold on the people. Yet, as hour after hour brought fresh tidings of the disasters of his party, the chief himself became aware that all hopes of successful resistance must be deferred to another day. Quitting the city by night, he contrived, with the aid of his friends, to make his escape into Germany. Some months he passed in Westphalia, occupied with raising forces for a meditated invasion of the Netherlands, when, in the summer of 1568, he was carried off by a fever, brought on, it is said, by his careless, intemperate way of life.[912]

Brederode was a person of a free and fearless temper,--with the defects, and the merits too, that attach to that sort of character. The friendship with which he seems to have been regarded by some of the most estimable persons of his party--Louis of Nassau, especially--speaks well for his heart. The reckless audacity of the man is shown in his correspondence; and the free manner in which he deals with persons and events makes his letters no less interesting than important for the light they throw on these troubled times. Yet it cannot be denied that, after all, Brederode is indebted much more to the circumstances of his situation than to his own character for the space he occupies in the pages of history.[913]

[Sidenote: CRUEL REPRISALS.]

Thus left without a leader, the little army which Brederode had gathered under his banner soon fell to pieces. Detachments, scattering over the country, committed various depredations, plundering the religious houses and engaging in encounters with the royal troops under Megen and Aremberg, in which the insurgents fared the worst. Thus broken on all sides, those who did not fall into the enemy's hands, or on the field, were too glad to make their escape into Germany. One vessel, containing a great number of fugitives, was wrecked, and all on board were made prisoners. Among them were two brothers, of the name of Battenberg; they were of a noble family, and prominent members of the league. They were at once, with their principal followers, thrown into prison, to await their doom from the bloody tribunal of Alva.

Deprived of all support from without, the city of Amsterdam offered no further resistance, but threw open its gates to the regent, and consented to accept her terms. These were the same that had been imposed on all the other refractory towns. The immunities of the city were declared to be forfeited, a garrison was marched into the place, and preparations were made for building a fortress, to guard against future commotions. Those who chose--with the customary exceptions--were allowed to leave the city. Great numbers availed themselves of the permission. The neighboring dikes were crowded with fugitives from the territory around, as well as from the city, anxiously waiting for vessels to transport them to Embden, the chief asylum of the exiles. There they stood, men, women, and children, a melancholy throng, without food, almost without raiment or any of the common necessaries of life, exciting the commiseration of even their Catholic adversaries.[914]

The example of Amsterdam was speedily followed by Delft, Haarlem, Rotterdam, Leyden, and the remaining towns of Holland, which now seemed to vie with one another in demonstrations of loyalty to the government. The triumph of the regent was complete. Her arms had been everywhere successful, and her authority was fully recognized throughout the whole extent of the Netherlands. Doubtful friends and open foes, Catholics and Reformers, were alike prostrate at her feet.[915] With the hour of triumph came also the hour of vengeance. And we can hardly doubt that the remembrance of past humiliation gave a sharper edge to the sword of justice. Fortresses, to overawe the inhabitants, were raised in the principal towns;[916] and the expense of their construction, as well as of maintaining their garrison, was defrayed by fines laid on the refractory cities.[917] The regent's troops rode over the country, and wherever the reformed were gathered to hear the word, they were charged by the troopers, who trampled them under their horses' hoofs, shooting them down without mercy, or dragging them off by scores to execution. No town was so small that fifty at least did not perish in this way, while the number of the victims sometimes rose to two or even three hundred.[918] Everywhere along the road-side the traveller beheld the ghastly spectacle of bodies swinging from gibbets, or met with troops of miserable exiles flying from their native land.[919] Confiscation followed, as usual, in the train of persecution. At Tournay, the property of a hundred of the richest merchants was seized and appropriated by the government. Even the populace, like those animals who fall upon and devour one of their own number when wounded, now joined in the cry against the Reformers. They worked with the same alacrity as the soldiers in pulling down the Protestant churches; and from the beams, in some instances, formed the very gallows from which their unhappy victims were suspended.[920] Such is the picture, well charged with horrors, left to us by Protestant writers. We may be quite sure that it lost nothing of its darker coloring under their hands.

So strong was now the tide of emigration, that it threatened to depopulate some of the fairest provinces of the country. The regent, who at first rejoiced in this as the best means of ridding the land of its enemies, became alarmed, as she saw it was drawing off so large a portion of the industrious population. They fled to France, to Germany, and very many to England, where the wise Elizabeth provided them with homes, knowing well that, though poor, they brought with them a skill in the mechanic arts which would do more than gold and silver for the prosperity of her kingdom.

Margaret would have stayed this tide of emigration by promises of grace, if not by a general amnesty for the past. But though she had power to punish, Philip had not given her the power to pardon. And indeed promises of grace would have availed little with men flying from the dread presence of Alva.[921] It was the fear of him which gave wings to their flight, as Margaret herself plainly intimated in a letter to the duke, in which she deprecated his coming with an army, when nothing more was needed than a vigilant police.[922]

[Sidenote: TRANQUILLITY RESTORED.]

In truth, Margaret was greatly disgusted by the intended mission of the duke of Alva, of which she had been advised by the king some months before. She knew well the imperious temper of the man, and that, however high-sounding might be her own titles, the power would be lodged in his hands. She felt this to be a poor requital for her past services,--a personal indignity, no less than an injury to the state. She gave free vent to her feelings on the subject in more than one letter to her brother.

In a letter of the fifth of April she says: "You have shown no regard for my wishes or my reputation. By your extraordinary restrictions on my authority, you have prevented my settling the affairs of the country entirely to my mind. Yet, seeing things in so good a state, you are willing to give all the credit to another, and leave me only the fatigue and danger.[923] But I am resolved, instead of wasting the remainder of my days, as I have already done my health, in this way, to retire and dedicate myself to a tranquil life in the service of God." In another letter, dated four weeks later, on the third of May, after complaining that the king withdraws his confidence more and more from her, she asks leave to withdraw, as the country is restored to order, and the royal authority more assured than in the time of Charles the Fifth.[924]

In this assurance respecting the public tranquillity, Margaret was no doubt sincere; as are also the historians who have continued to take the same view of the matter, down to the present time, and who consider the troubles of the country to have been so far composed by the regent, that, but for the coming of Alva, there would have been no revolution in the Netherlands. Indeed, there might have seemed to be good ground for such a conclusion. The revolt had been crushed. Resistance had everywhere ceased. The authority of the regent was recognized throughout the land. The league, which had raised so bold a front against the government, had crumbled away. Its members had fallen in battle, or lay waiting their sentence in dungeons, or were wandering as miserable exiles in distant lands. The name of _Gueux_, and the insignia of the bowl and the beggar's scrip, which they had assumed in derision, were now theirs by right. It was too true for a jest.

The party of reform had disappeared, as if by magic. Its worship was everywhere proscribed. On its ruins the Catholic religion had risen in greater splendor than ever. Its temples were restored, its services celebrated with more than customary pomp. The more austere and uncompromising of the Reformers had fled the country. Those who remained purchased impunity by a compulsory attendance on mass; or the wealthier sort, by the aid of good cheer or more substantial largesses, bribed the priest to silence.[925] At no time since the beginning of the Reformation had the clergy been treated with greater deference, or enjoyed a greater share of authority in the land. The dark hour of revolution seemed, indeed, to have passed away.

Yet a Fleming of that day might well doubt whether the prince of Orange were a man likely to resign his fair heritage and the land so dear to his heart without striking one blow in their defence. One who knew the wide spread of the principles of reform, and the sturdy character of the reformer, might distrust the permanence of a quiet which had been brought about by so much violence. He might rather think that, beneath the soil he was treading, the elements were still at work, which, at no distant time perhaps, would burst forth with redoubled violence, and spread ruin over the land!

## BOOK III.

##