James Edwin Thorold Rogers

“ He augmented his army in Italy, and had sent Alva and his troops thither. This man had been all his life engaged in war, was now sixty years old, and had the reputation, justly earned, of being the most accomplished and capable warrior in Europe. He had gained victories in Spain, in Africa, in Germany, in Italy, in France. He was, perhaps, the most bloodthirsty man who ever existed in what is called the civilized world, and he was sent to the Netherlands to satiate himself. The army was worthy of the general. He commanded the finest and the most merciless troops in Europe. ”

“ No doubt the King of Spain and his advisers had satisfied themselves that the acknowledgment of independence was an empty form, that no faith need be kept with heretics, and would not be kept as soon as it was possible or convenient to break it.
It may seem strange to us, that the Dutch Republic should have refused so obstinately to admit the principle of religious liberty or even of toleration. But, in the first place, it was outrageous for this to be forced on them by a foreign government, which had already declared them free, and was itself the most intolerant government in existence. ”

“ Even when the cowardly and arrogant pedant, James Stewart, succeeded Elizabeth on the English throne, and hastened to make peace with Spain, the peace in fact only extended to Europe; and the practice of the English, soon turned into a proverb, “No peace with Spain below the line,” constantly weakened the Spanish monarchy and finally ruined it. Spain was destroyed as a European Power by the dream of Philip after universal empire.
Still for a long time she was conceived to be dangerously powerful. The glamour of a great force often survives for a long time the reality. ”

“ This ocean burst over the land in the thirteenth century, and buried towns and villages permanently beneath its waters. These Batavians and Frisians came under the control of the great Charles, who left them their native customs, they obeying those chiefs whom the Emperor of the West put over them. The laws of the Frisians declare that the race shall be free, as long as the wind blows out of the clouds and the world stands. More than seven centuries after the reign of Charles the Great had come to an end, this charter of freedom was the rallying cry of the Dutch patriots. ”

“ Though Holland was constantly in danger from the ocean, it was from the ocean that she derived her wealth and her means for fighting in the struggle for independence. She chose with reason the symbol which she adopted for her flag—a lion struggling with the waves, and her motto, Luctor et emergo, “I struggle, I rise.”
For a time Philip had been the guardian of his cousin Jacqueline of Holland, and in this capacity he had sworn to maintain the privileges and institutions of the Netherlands. ”

“ No man at the time could have foreseen that the ambition and cupidity of Louis, the success with which he subdued his nobles and people at home, and the success with which he gratified his ambition abroad, would in time bring about by natural and traceable causes, the great catastrophe: which is known in history as the French Revolution. But of all European countries none had so reasonable a fear as the Dutch. The inheritance of Spain included those provinces which William the Silent had nearly gained to the great confederation, and Alva and Parma had securely recovered for Spain. ”

“ A century after the declaration of Dutch Independence, Hobbes, who believed nothing, laid down the doctrine that a subject ought to take that creed which the discretion of the king supplied him with.
It is impossible to over-estimate the timeliness, the significance, the value of the Act of Abjuration. The sturdy Hollanders, at a time when public liberty seemed entirely lost, and despotism had become a religious creed, began the political reformation. The teachers of Europe in everything, they are the first to argue that governments exist for nations, not nations for governments. ”

“ It is not, I think, too much to say, that had the Dutch stood entirely aloof in the war of the Austrian succession, and not suffered themselves to be embroiled in it, the Republic would have been saved, and though it might not have been possible to have resisted revolutionary France, it would not have collapsed so ignominiously as it did. During the disputes about the slave trade with the Spanish colonies, Holland had contrived to preserve her neutrality, though Dutch interests were so universal that no two nations could quarrel without Amsterdam suffering some heavy pecuniary loss. ”

“ At last, in the beginning of 1566, some of the Flemish nobles drew up the Compromise, by which they pledged themselves to resist the Inquisition. Orange took no part in it, but he did more. Remembering his conversation with Henry of France, he resolved to know Philip’s mind. He therefore established such a system of espionage over Philip, that he got copies of all Philip’s most secret despatches. It is the lot of despots to be ill served. Worse than that, it is their lot to be betrayed. Placing no trust in any man, they gain the genuine confidence of none. ”

“ The business of Europe was transacted on the Amsterdam Exchange, and the warehouses of this town, built on piles driven into the swampy soil, were stored with the products of the world. In their cities the Dutch were carrying on those manufactures of the finest fabrics for which Flanders and Italy had once been famous, and piling up the spices of the Indies, of which for a time they possessed the monopoly. The wealth and the trade of the Dutch East India Company was more fruitful than the treasures which the kings of Spain had extorted from their conquests. ”

“ Perfidy may not only make its victims cautious, it may make them equally' perfidious. At any rate, the man who secures agents by hire for evil ends, need not be surprised if his agents betray him, and he loses both money and reputation. No political system, which has been founded on lying, is discovered to be stable in the end. The ambitious schemes of Philip, and the arts he employed to effect them, were the ruin of Spain. For a long time she was the terror of the nations. Even when Holland pricked the bubble she still seemed formidable. ”

“ Calvinism was the creed of the French Huguenots, of the Swiss Protestants, of the Dutch patriots, of the Scottish people, of the English Puritans, and of the settlers in New England. These races are the pioneers of political liberty. They studied the Old Testament carefully, and found it very invigorating. And in Holland, believing that they owed much, aye, everything, to predestination, they looked upon any who disputed this cardinal doctrine as leagued with the foes of their liberty, or ready to league with them. ”

“ A wealthy, vigorous, and powerful monarch, who had trained all the commanders of Europe, even those who were to be opposed to him, Marlborough and Eugene, had taken the place of the poor, imbecile, and powerless kings of Spain of the Austrian family in the person of Philip's grandson, and the most able opponent of the French king had just died in what should have been the prime of life, worn out by the folly, short-sightedness, and factiousness of the English Parliament. ”

“ The Queen of England was perfectly alive to the necessity of curtailing or even of extinguishing Philip's power in the Netherlands. She knew what were the designs of the “prudent” king against her, open and secret. ”

“ It is true that towards the end of the eighteenth century, Holland was assailed by jealous rivals, into whose hands their own chief magistrate played. But it is also true that after sixty years of humiliation, the Dutch have reasserted themselves, and though a small people, hemmed in by large military governments, they hold a considerable place among nations. Some scribbler, the other day, who knows little of what they were, and nothing of what they are, has called them an effete nation. Nothing can be more untrue. ”

“ Still, Orange was so haunted with the idea that it was needful to propitiate the French, that he did not at once break with Anjou, and, to be sure, the effrontery of the French prince was equal to any emergency. What really determined him was the discovery that Anjou was willing to sell his position to Parma, and to restore Philip's reign over the United Provinces. Then he told them that there were only three courses open to them - to surrender to Philip and lose everything; to invite Anjou to return to his government; and to fight the thing out with all their means and with all their lives. ”

“ So on July 5, 1601, the Archduke began a siege which was the most memorable and protracted that modern warfare has ever heard of.
The peculiarity of the siege of Ostend was that the town was not and could not be blockaded. The Dutch were dominant on the water, destroying at their pleasure and with little loss to themselves, the huge, unwieldly galleons of their Spanish enemies. With small vessels and far fewer men, the Hollanders disabled and sank fleets which were constantly, and on the same clumsy lines, built with the object of subduing them. ”