The Age of the Reformation Part 18

The greatest weakness of the Protestants was their {249} division.

Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist continued to compete for the leadership and hated each other cordially. The Calvinists themselves were divided into two parties, the "Rekkelijken" or "Compromisers" and the "Preciesen" or "Stalwarts." Moreover there were various other shades of opinion, not amounting quite to new churches. The pure Erasmians, under Ca.s.sander, advocated tolerance. More p.r.o.nounced was the movement of Dirck Volckertszoon Coornheert [Sidenote: Coornheert, 1522-90] a merchant of Amsterdam who, in addition to advising his followers to dissimulate their views rather than to court martyrdom, rejected the Calvinist dogma of predestination and tried to lay the emphasis in religion on the spirit of Jesus rather than on either dogma or ritual.

Though the undertow was slowly but surely carrying the Low Countries adrift from Spain, for the moment their new monarch, then at the age of twenty-eight, seemed to have the winds and waves of politics all in his favor. He was at peace with France; he had nothing to fear from Germany; his marriage with Mary of England made that country, always the best trader with the Netherlands, an ally. His first steps were to relieve Mary of Hungary of her regency and to give it to Emanuel Philibert, to issue a new edict against heresy and to give permission to the Jesuits to enter the Low Countries. [Sidenote: 1556]

The chief difficulties were financial. The increase in the yield of the taxes in the reign of Charles had been from 1,500,000 guilders[1]

to 7,000,000 guilders. In addition to this, immense loans had exhausted the credit of the government. The royal domain was mortgaged. As the floating debt of the Provinces rose rapidly the {250} government was in need of a grant to keep up the army. The only way to meet the situation was to call the States General. [Sidenote: March, 1556] When they met, they complained that they were taxed more heavily than Spain and demanded the removal of the Spanish troops, a force already so unpopular that William of Orange refused to take command of it. In presenting their several grievances one province only, Holland, mentioned the religious question to demand that the powers of the inquisitors be curtailed. To obtain funds Philip was obliged to promise, against his will, to withdraw the soldiers. This was only done, under pressure, on January 10, 1561.

[Sidenote: 1559]

Philip had left the Netherlands professing his intention of returning, but hoping and resolving in his heart never to do so. His departure made easier the unavoidable breach, but the struggle had already begun.

Wishing to leave a regent of royal blood Philip appointed Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V. Born in 1522, she had been married at the age of fourteen to Alexander de' Medici, a nephew of Clement VII; becoming a widow in the following year she was in 1538 married to Ottavio Farnese, a nephew of Paul III, at that time only fourteen years old. Given as her dower the cities of Parma and Piacenza, she had become thoroughly Italian in feeling.

[Sidenote: Anthony Perrenot Cardinal Granvelle, 1517-86]

To guide her Philip left, besides the Council of State, a special "consulta" or "kitchen cabinet" of three members, the chief of whom was Granvelle. The real fatherland of this native of the Free County of Burgundy was the court. As a pa.s.sionate servant of the crown and a clever and knowing diplomat, he was in constant correspondence with Philip, recommending measures over the head of Margaret. His acts made her intensely unpopular and her attempts to coax and cozen public opinion only aroused suspicion.

{251}

[Sidenote: Egmont, 1522-68]

Three members in the Council of State, Granvelle and two others, were partisans of the crown; three other members may be said to represent the people. One of them was Lamoral Count of Egmont, the most brilliant and popular of the high n.o.bility. Though a favorite of Charles V on account of his proved ability as a soldier, his frankness and generosity, he was neither a sober nor a weighty statesman. The popular proverb, "Egmont for action and Orange for counsel," well characterized the difference between the two leading members of the Council of State. William, prince of Orange, lacking the brilliant qualities of Egmont, far surpa.s.sed him in ac.u.men and in strength of character. From his father, William Count of Na.s.sau-Dillenburg, [Sidenote: William the Silent, 1533-84] he inherited important estates in Germany near the Netherlands, and by the death of a cousin he became, at the age of eleven, Prince of Orange--a small, independent territory in southern France--and Lord of Breda and Gertruidenberg in Holland. With an income of 150,000 guilders per annum he was by far the richest man in the Netherlands, Egmont coming next with an income of 62,000. William was well educated. Though he spoke seven languages and was an eloquent orator, he was called "the Silent" because of the rare discretion that never revealed a secret nor spoke an imprudent word. In religion he was indifferent, being first a Catholic, then a Lutheran, then a Calvinist, and always a man of the world. His broad tolerance found its best, or only, support in the Erasmian tendencies of Coornheert. His second wife, Anne of Saxony, having proved unfaithful to him, he married, while she was yet alive, Charlotte of Bourbon. This act, like the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, was approved by Protestant divines. Behind them Egmont and Orange had the hearty support of the patriotic and well educated native n.o.bility. {252} The rising generation of the aristocracy saw only the bad side of the reign of Charles; they had not shared in his earlier victories but had witnessed his failure to conquer either France or Protestantism.

[Sidenote: New bishoprics]

In order to deal more effectively with the religious situation Granvelle wished to bring the ecclesiastical territorial divisions into harmony with the political. Hitherto the Netherlands had been partly under the Archbishop of Cologne, partly under the Archbishop of Rheims.

But as these were both foreigners Granvelle applied for and secured a bull creating fourteen new bishoprics and three archbishoprics, [Sidenote: March 12, 1559] Cambrai, Utrecht, and Malines, of which the last held the primacy. His object was doubtless in large part to facilitate the extirpation of heresy, but it was also significant as one more instance of the nationalization of the church, a tendency so strong that neither Catholic nor Protestant countries escaped from it.

In this case all the appointments were to be made by the king with consent of the pope. The people resented the autocratic features of a plan they might otherwise have approved; a cry was raised throughout the provinces that their freedom was infringed upon, and that the plan furnished a new instrument to the hated inquisition.

[Sidenote: February, 1561]

Granvelle, more than ever detested when he received the cardinal's hat, was dubbed "the red devil," "the archrascal," "the red dragon," "the Spanish swine," "the pope's dung." In July Egmont and Orange sent their resignations from the Council of State to Philip, saying that they could no longer share the responsibility for Granvelle's policy, especially as everything was done behind their backs. Philip, however, was slow to take alarm. For the moment his attention was taken up with the growth of the Huguenot party in France and his efforts centered on helping the French Catholics against them. But the Netherlands were {253} importunate. In voicing the wishes of the people the province of Brabant, with the capital, Brussels, the metropolitan see, Malines, and the university, Louvain, took as decided a lead as the Parlement of Paris did in France. The estates of Brabant demanded that Orange be made their governor. The n.o.bles began to remember that they were legally a part of the Empire. The marriage of Orange, on August 26, 1561, with the Lutheran Anne of Saxony, was but one sign of the _rapprochment_. Though the prince continued to profess Catholicism, he entertained many Lutherans and emphasized as far as possible his position as va.s.sal of the Empire. Philip, indeed, believed that the whole trouble came from the wounded vanity of a few n.o.bles.

But Granvelle saw deeper. [Sidenote: 1561] When the Estates of Brabant stopped the payment of the princ.i.p.al tax or "Bede," [2] and when the people of Brussels took as a party uniform a costume derived from the carnival, a black cloak covered with red fool's heads, the cardinal, whose red hat was caricatured thereby, stated that nothing less than a republic was aimed at. This was true, though in the antic.i.p.ation of the n.o.bles, at least, the republic should have a decidedly aristocratic character. But Granvelle had no policy to propose but repression. In order to prevent condemned heretics from preaching and singing on the scaffold a gag was put into their mouths.

How futile a measure! The Calvinists no longer disguised, but armed--a new and significant fact--thronged to their conventicles. Emigration continued on a large scale. By 1556 it was estimated that thirty thousand Protestants from the Low Countries were settled in or near London. Elizabeth encouraged them to come, a.s.signing them {254} Norwich as a place of refuge. [Sidenote: 1563] She also began to tax imports from the Netherlands, a blow to which Philip replied by forbidding all English imports.

[Sidenote: Revolt]

Hitherto the resistance to the government had been mostly pa.s.sive and const.i.tutional. But from 1565 may be dated the beginning of the revolt that did not cease until it had freed the northern provinces forever from Spanish tyranny. The rise of the Dutch Republic is one of the most inspiring pages in history. Superficially it has many points of resemblance with the American War of Independence. In both there was the absentee king, the national hero, the local jealousies of the several provinces, the economic grievances, the rising national feeling and even the religious issue, though this had become very small in America. But the difference was in the ferocity of the tyranny and the intensity of the struggle. The two pictures are like the same landscape as it might be painted by Millet and by Turner: the one is decent and familiar, the other lurid and ghastly. With true Anglo-Saxon moderation the American war was fought like a game or an election, with humanity and attention to rules; but in Holland and Belgium was enacted the most terrible frightfulness in the world; over the whole land, mingled with the reek of candles carried in procession and of incense burnt to celebrate a ma.s.sacre, brooded the sultry miasma of human blood and tears. On the one side flashed the savage sword of Alva and the pitiless flame of the inquisitor Tapper; on the other were arrayed, behind their d.y.k.es and walls, men resolved to win that freedom which alone can give scope and n.o.bility to life.

[Sidenote: The Intellectuals]

And in the melee those suffered most who would fain have been bystanders, the humanists. Persecuted by both sides, the intellectuals, who had once deserted the Reform now turned again to it as the lesser of the two {255} evils. They would have been glad to make terms with any church that would have left them in liberty, but they found the whips of Calvin lighter than the scorpions of Philip.

Even those who, like Van Helmont, wished to defend the church and to reconcile the Tridentine decrees with philosophy, found that their labors brought them under suspicion and that what the church demanded was not harmony of thought but abnegation of it.

The first act of the revolt may be said to be a secret compact, known as the Compromise, [Sidenote: The Compromise, 1565] originally entered into by twenty n.o.bles at Brussels and soon joined by three hundred other n.o.bles elsewhere. The doc.u.ment signed by them denounced the Edicts as surpa.s.sing the greatest recorded barbarity of tyrants and as threatening the complete ruin of the country. To resist them the signers promised each other mutual support. In this as in subsequent developments the Calvinist minority took the lead, but was supported by strong Catholic forces. Among the latter was the Prince of Orange, not yet a Protestant. His conversion really made little difference in his program; both before and after it he wanted tolerance or reconciliation on Ca.s.sander's plan of compromise. He would have greatly liked to have seen the Peace of Augsburg, now the public law of the Empire, extended to the Low Countries, but this was made difficult even to advocate because the Peace of Augsburg provided liberty only for the Lutheran confession, whereas the majority of Protestants in the Netherlands were now Calvinists. For the same reason little help could be expected from the German princes, for the mutual animosity that was the curse of the Protestant churches prevented their making common cause against the same enemy.

As the Huguenots--for so they began to be called in Brabant as well as in France--were as yet too few {256} to rebel, the only course open was to appeal to the government once more. A pet.i.tion to make the Edicts milder was presented to Margaret in 1566. One of her advisers bade her not to be afraid of "those beggars." Originating in the scorn of enemies, like so many party names, the epithet "Beggars" (Gueux) presently became the designation and a proud one, of the n.o.bles who had signed the Compromise and later of all the rebels.

Encouraged by the regent's apparent lack of power to coerce them, the Calvinist preachers became daily bolder. Once again their religion showed its remarkable powers of organization. Lacking nothing in funds, derived from a const.i.tuency of wealthy merchants, the preachers of the Reformation were soon able to forge a machinery of propaganda and party action that stood them in good stead against the greater numbers of their enemies. Especially in critical times, discipline, unity, and enthusiasm make headway against the deadly hatred of enemies and the deadlier apathy and timidity of the ma.s.s of mankind. It is true that the methods of the preachers often aroused opposition.

[Sidenote: Iconoclasm]

The zeal of the Calvinists, inflamed by oppression and encouraged by the weakness of the government, burst into an iconoclastic riot, [Sidenote: August 11, 1566] first among the unemployed at Armentieres, but spreading rapidly to Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and then to the northern provinces, Holland and Zeeland. The English agent at Brussels wrote: "Coming into Oure Lady Church, yt looked like h.e.l.l wher were above 1000 torches brannyng and syche a noise as yf heven and erth had gone together with fallyng of images and fallyng down of costly works."

Books and ma.n.u.scripts as well as pictures were destroyed. The cry "Long live the Beggars" resounded from one end of the land to the {257} other. But withal there was no pillage and no robbery. The gold in the churches was left untouched. Margaret feared a _jacquerie_ but, lacking troops, had to look on with folded hands at least for the moment. By chance there arrived just at this time an answer from Philip to the earlier pet.i.tion of the Beggars. The king promised to abolish the Spanish inquisition and to soften the edicts. Freedom of conscience was tacitly granted, but the government made an exception, as soon as it dared, of those who had committed sacrilege in the recent riots. These men were outlawed.

[Sidenote: Civil war]

No longer fearing a religious war the Calvinists started it themselves.

Louis of Na.s.sau, a brother of Prince William, hired German mercenaries and invaded Flanders, where he won some slight successes. In Amsterdam the great Beggar Brederode entered into negotiations with Huguenots and English friends. The first battle between the Beggars and the government troops, [Sidenote: March 13, 1567] near Antwerp, ended in a rout for the former.

Philip now ordered ten thousand Spanish veterans, led by Alva, to march from Italy to the Netherlands. Making their way through the Free County of Burgundy and Lorraine they entered Brussels on August 9, 1567. [Sidenote: Alva 1508-83] Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, had won experience and reputation as a soldier in the German wars. Though self-controlled and courtly in manner, his pa.s.sionate patriotism and bigotry made him a fit instrument to execute Philip's orders to make the Netherlands Spanish and Catholic. He began with no uncertain hand, building forts at Antwerp and quartering his troops at Brussels where their foreign manners and Roman piety gave offence to the citizens. On September 9 he arrested the counts of Egmont and Horn, next to Orange the chief leaders of the patriotic party. Setting up a tribunal, called the Council of {258} Troubles, to deal with cases of rebellion and heresy, he inaugurated a reign of terror. He himself spent seven hours a day in this court trying cases and signing death-warrants. Not only heretics were punished but also agitators and those who had advocated tolerance. Sincere Catholics, indeed, noted that the crime of heresy was generally the mere pretext for dealing with patriots and all those obnoxious to the government. [Sidenote: Executions] For the first time we have definite statistics of the numbers executed. For instance, on January 4, 1568, 48 persons were sentenced to death, on February 20, 37; on February 21, 71; on March 20, 55; and so on for day after day, week in and week out. On March 3 at the same hour throughout the whole land 1500 men were executed. The total number put to death during the six years of Alva's administration has been variously estimated at from 6,000 to 18,000. The lower number is probably nearer the truth, though not high enough. Emigration on a hitherto unknown scale within the next thirty or forty years carried 400,000 persons from the Netherlands. Thousands of others fled to the woods and became freebooters. The people as a whole were prostrated with terror. The prosperity of the land was ruined by the wholesale confiscations of goods. Alva boasted that by such means he had added to the revenues of his territories 500,000 ducats per annum.

William of Orange retired to his estates at Dillenburg not to yield to the tyrant but to find a _point d'appui_ from which to fight. Wishing to avoid anything that might cause division among the people he kept the religious issue in the background and complained only of foreign tyranny. He tried to enlist the sympathies of the Emperor Maximilian II and to collect money and men. William's friend Villiers invaded the Burgundian State near Maastricht and Louis of Na.s.sau marched with troops into Friesland. {259} [Sidenote: April, 1568] By this time Alva had increased his army by 10,000 German cavalry and both the rebel leaders were severely defeated.

This triumph was followed by an act of power and defiance on Alva's part sometimes compared to the execution of Louis XVI by the French Republicans. Hitherto the sufferers from his reign of blood had not in any case been men of the highest rank. The first execution of n.o.bles took place at Brussels on June 1, that of the captured Villiers followed on June 2, and that of Egmont and Horn on June 5.

Orange himself now took the field with 25,000 troops, a motley aggregate of French, Flemish, and Walloon Huguenots and of German mercenaries. But he had no genius for war to oppose to the veterans of Alva. Continually hara.s.sed by the Spaniards he was kept in fear for his communications, dared not risk a general engagement and was humiliated by seeing his retreat, in November, turned into a rout.

[Sidenote: July 16, 1570]

Finding that severity did not pacify the provinces, Alva issued a proclamation that on the face of it was a general amnesty with pardon for all who submitted. But he excepted by name several hundred emigrants, all the Protestant clergy, all who had helped them, all iconoclasts, all who had signed pet.i.tions for religious liberty, and all who had rebelled. As these exceptions included the greater portion of those who stood in need of pardon the measure proved illusory as a means of reconciliation. Coupled with it were other measures, including the prohibition to subjects to attend foreign universities, intended to put a check on free trade in ideas.

[Sidenote: Taxation]

Alva's difficulties and the miseries of the unhappy land entrusted to his tender mercies were increased by want of money. Notwithstanding the privilege of {260} granting their own taxes the States General were summoned [Sidenote: March 21, 1569] and forced to accept new imposts of one per cent. on all property real and personal, ten per cent. on the sale of all movable goods and five per cent. on the sale of real estate. These were Spanish taxes, exorbitant in any case but absolutely ruinous to a commercial people. A terrible financial panic followed. Houses at Antwerp that had rented for 300 gulden could now be had for 50 gulden. Imports fell off to such an extent that at this port they yielded but 14,000 gulden per annum instead of 80,000 as formerly. The harbor was filled with empty boats; the market drugged with goods of all sorts that no one would buy.

[Sidenote: Beggars of the Sea]

The cause of the patriots looked hopeless. Orange, discredited by defeat, had retired to Germany. At one time, to avoid the clamors of his troops for pay, he was obliged to flee by night from Stra.s.sburg.

But in this dark hour help came from the sea. Louis of Na.s.sau, not primarily a statesman like his brother but a pa.s.sionate crusader for Protestantism, had been at La Roch.e.l.le and had there seen the excellent work done by privateers. In emulation of his French brethren he granted letters of marque to the sailors of Holland and Zeeland.

Recruits thronged to the ships, Huguenots, men from Liege, and the laborers of the Walloon provinces thrown out of work by the commercial crisis. These men promptly won striking successes in preying on Spanish commerce. Their many and rich prizes were taken to England or to Emden and sold. Often they landed on the coasts and attacked small Catholic forces, or murdered priests. On the night of March 31-April 1, 1572, these Beggars of the Sea seized the small town of Brielle on a large island at the mouth of the Meuse not far from the Hague. This success was immediately followed by the insurrection of Rotterdam and Flushing. The war was conducted with combined {261} heroism and frightfulness. Receiving no quarter the Beggars gave none, and to avenge themselves on the unspeakable wrongs committed by Alva they themselves at times ma.s.sacred the innocent. But their success spread like wildfire. The coast towns "fell away like beads from a rosary when one is gone." Fortifications in all of them were strengthened and, where necessary, d.y.k.es were opened. Reinforcements also came from England.

[Sidenote: Revolution]

By this time the revolt had become a veritable revolution. It found its battle hymn in the Wilhelmuslied and its Washington in William of Orange. As all the towns of Holland save Amsterdam were in his hands, in June the provincial Estates met--albeit illegally, for there was no one authorized to convene them--a.s.sumed sovereign power and made William their Stat-holder. They voted large taxes and forced loans from rich citizens, and raised money from the sale of prizes taken at sea. All defect in prescriptive and legal power was made up by the popularity of the prince, deeply loved by all cla.s.ses, not only on account of his affability to all, even the humblest, but still more because of confidence in his ability. Never did his versatility, patience and skill in management shine more brightly. Among the troops raised by the patriots he kept strict discipline, thus making by contrast more lurid the savage pillage by the Spaniards. He kept far from fanatics and swashbucklers of whom there were plenty attracted to the revolt. His master idea was to keep the Netherlands together and to free them from the foreigner. Complete independence of Spain was not at first planned, but it soon became inevitable.

For a moment there was a prospect of help from Coligny's policy of prosecuting a war with Spain, but these hopes were destroyed by the defeat of the French Huguenots near Mons [Sidenote: July 17, 1572] and by the ma.s.sacre of Saint {262} Bartholomew. [Sidenote: August 24, 1572] Freed from menace in this quarter and encouraged by his brilliant victory, Alva turned north with an army now increased to 40,000 veterans. First he took Malines and delivered it to his soldiers for "the most dreadful and inhuman sack of the day" as a contemporary wrote. The army then marched to Guelders and stormed Zutphen under express orders from their general "not to leave one man alive or one building unburnt." "With the help of G.o.d," as Alva piously reported, the same punishment was meted out to Naarden. Then he marched to the still royalist Amsterdam from which base he proceeded to invest Haarlem. The siege was a long and hard one for the Spaniards, hara.s.sed by the winter weather and by epidemics. Alva wrote Philip that it was "the bloodiest war known for long years" and begged for reinforcements. [Sidenote: July 12, 1573] At last famine overcame the brave defenders of the city and it capitulated. Finding that his cruelty had only nerved the people to the most desperate resistance, and wishing to give an example of clemency to a city that would surrender rather than await storming, Alva contented himself with putting to death to the last man 2300 French, English, and Walloon soldiers of the garrison, and five or six citizens. He also demanded a ransom of 100,000 dollars[3] in lieu of plunder. Not content with this meager largess the Spanish troops mutinied, and only the promise of further cities to sack quieted them. The fortunes of the patriots were a little raised by the defeat of the Spanish fleet in the Zuiderzee by the Beggars on October 12, 1573.

[Sidenote: Requesens]

For some time Philip had begun to suspect that Alva's methods were not the proper ones to win back the affectionate loyalty of his people.

Though he hesitated long he finally removed him late in 1573 and {263} appointed in his stead Don Louis Requesens. Had Philip come himself he might have been able to do something, for the majority professed personal loyalty to him, and in that age, as Shakespeare reminds us, divinity still hedged a king. But not having the decision to act in person Philip picked out a favorite, known from his constant attendance on his master as "the king's hour-gla.s.s," in whom he saw the slavishly obedient tool that he thought he wanted. The only difference between the new governor and the old was that Requesens lacked Alva's ability; he had all the other's narrowly Spanish views, his bigotry and absolutism.

Once arrived in the provinces committed to his charge, he had no choice but to continue the war. But on January 27, 1574, Orange conquered Middelburg and from that date the Spanish flag ceased to float over any portion of the soil of Holland or Zeeland. In open battle at Mook, however, [Sidenote: April 14, 1574] the Spanish veterans again achieved success, defeating the patriots under Louis of Na.s.sau, who lost his life. The beginning of the year saw the investment of Leyden in great force. The heroism of the defence has become proverbial. When, in September, the d.y.k.es were cut to admit the sea, so that the vessels of the Beggars were able to sail to the relief of the city, the siege was raised. It was the first important military victory for the patriots and marks the turning-point of the revolt. Henceforth the Netherlands could not be wholly subdued.

Requesens summoned the States General and offered a pardon to all who would submit. But the people saw in this only a sign of weakness. A flood of pamphlets calling to arms replied to the advances of the government. Among the pamphleteers the ablest was Philip van Marnix, [Sidenote: Marnix, 1538-98] a Calvinist who turned his powers of satire against Spain and the Catholic {264} church. William of Orange, now a Protestant, living at Delft, inspired the whole movement. Requesens, believing that if he were out of the way the revolt would collapse, like Alva offered public rewards for his a.s.sa.s.sination. That there was really no common ground was proved at a conference between the two foes, broken off without result. In the campaign of 1575 the Spanish army again achieved great things, taking Oudewater, Schoonhoven and other places. But the rebels would not give up.

[Sidenote: March 5, 1576]