John Lothrop Motley

“ A pelican tearing her breast to nourish her young with her life-blood was the pathetic emblem of others. It was his determination to force or entice the Duke of Alva into a general engagement. He was desirous to wipe out the disgrace of Jemmingen. Could he plant his victorious standard thus in the very heart of the country, he felt that thousands would rally around it. The country would rise almost to a man, could he achieve a victory over the tyrant, flushed as he was with victory, and sated with blood. ”

“ The religious Reformers became his brethren, whether in France, Germany, the Netherlands, or England. Yet his mind had taken a higher flight than that of the most eminent Reformers. His goal was not a new doctrine, but religious liberty. In an age when to think was a crime, and when bigotry and a persecuting spirit characterized Romanists and Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians, he had dared to announce freedom of conscience as the great object for which noble natures should strive. In an age when toleration was a vice, he had the manhood to cultivate it as a virtue. ”

“ Alva, inflamed, not with ardor for an impending triumph, but with rage, that his sagely-conceived plans could not be comprehended even by his son and by his favorite officers, answered the eager messenger with peremptory violence. "Go back to Vitelli," he cried. "Is he, or am I, to command in this campaign? Tell him not to suffer a single man to cross the river. Warn him against sending any more envoys to advise a battle; for should you or any other man dare to bring me another such message, I swear to you, by the head of the King, that you go not hence alive." ”

“ Brabant, on the contrary, was the heart of the Netherlands. Should the Prince achieve a decisive triumph then and there, he would be master of the nation's fate. The Viceroy knew himself to be odious, and he reigned by terror. The Prince was the object of the people's idolatry, and they would rally round him if they dared. A victory gained by the liberator over the tyrant, would destroy the terrible talisman of invincibility by which Alva governed. The Duke had sufficiently demonstrated his audacity in the tremendous chastisement which he had inflicted upon the rebels under Louis. ”

“ Not a single city opened its gates. All was crouching, silent, abject. The rising, which perhaps would have been universal had a brilliant victory been obtained, was, by the masterly tactics of Alva, rendered an almost inconceivable idea. The mutinous demonstrations in the Prince's camp became incessant; the soldiers were discontented and weary. What the Duke had foretold was coming to pass, for the Prince's army was already dissolving. ”

“ Don Carlos detested him with the whole force of his little soul. He hated him as only a virtuous person deserved to be hated by such a ruffian. The heir apparent had taken the Netherlands under his patronage. He had even formed the design of repairing secretly to the provinces, and could not, therefore, disguise his wrath at the appointment of the Duke. It is doubtful whether the country would have benefited by the gratification of his wishes. It is possible that the pranks of so malignant an ape might have been even more mischievous than the concentrated and vigorous tyranny of an Alva. ”

“ Thus triumphantly for Alva, thus miserably for Orange, ended the campaign. Thus hopelessly vanished the army to which so many proud hopes had attached themselves. Eight thousand teen had been slain in paltry encounters, thirty thousand were dispersed, not easily to be again collected. All the funds which the Prince could command had been wasted without producing a result. For the present, nothing seemed to afford a ground of hope for the Netherlands, but the war of freedom had been renewed in France. ”

“ With unpaid wages and disappointed hopes of plunder, the rebel army would disappear in a few weeks as totally as if defeated in the open field. In brief, Orange by a victory would gain new life and strength, while his defeat could no more than anticipate, by a few weeks, the destruction of his army, already inevitable. Alva, on the contrary, might lose the mastery of the Netherlands if unfortunate, and would gain no solid advantage if triumphant. The Prince had everything to hope, the Duke everything to fear, from the result of a general action. ”

“ One by one, those among the princes of the empire who had been most stanch in his cause, and were still most friendly to his person, grew colder as tyranny became stronger; but the ardor of the Prince was not more chilled by their despair than by the overthrow at Jemmingen, which had been its cause. In August, he answered the letter of the Emperor, respectfully but warmly. He still denounced the tyranny of Alva and the arts of Granvelle with that vigorous eloquence which was always at his command, while, as usual, he maintained a show of almost exaggerated respect for their monarch. ”

“ Villers had been entirely discomfited at Dalhena, Cocqueville had been cut to pieces in Picardy, and now the valiant and experienced Louis had met with an entire overthrow in Friesland. The brief success of the patriots at Heiliger Zee had been washed out in the blood-torrents of Jemmingen. Tyranny was more triumphant, the provinces more timidly crouching, than ever. The friends on whom William of Orange relied in Germany, never enthusiastic in his cause, although many of them true-hearted and liberal, now grew cold and anxious. ”

“ In all his documents he paid apparent reverence to the authority of the King. By a fiction, which was not unphilosophical, he assumed that the monarch was incapable of the crimes which he charged upon the Viceroy. Thus he did not assume the character of a rebel in arms against his prince, but in his own capacity of sovereign he levied troops and waged war against a satrap whom he chose to consider false to his master's orders. In the interest of Philip, assumed to be identical with the welfare of his people, he took up arms against the tyrant who was sacrificing both. ”

“ When the cause of the champion is that of human right against tyranny, of political ind religious freedom against an all-engrossing and absolute bigotry, it is still more difficult to restrain veneration within legitimate bounds. To liberate the souls and bodies of millions, to maintain for a generous people, who had well-nigh lost their all, those free institutions which their ancestors had bequeathed, was a noble task for any man. ”

“ At low water next day the Spaniards waded to them, and slew every man. Many found concealment in hovels, swamps, and thickets, so that the whole of the following day was occupied in ferreting out and despatching them. There was so much to be done, that there was work enough for all. "Not a soldier," says, with great simplicity, a Spanish historian who fought in the battle, "not a soldier, nor even a lad, who wished to share in the victory, but could find somebody to wound, to kill, to burn, or to drown." ”

“ Having thus been dragged across, they joined their comrades in the mad chase along the narrow dykes, and through the swampy and almost impassable country where the rebels were seeking shelter. The approach of night, too soon advancing, at last put an end to the hunt. The Duke with difficulty recalled his men, and compelled them to restrain their eagerness until the morrow. Three hundred of the patriots were left dead upon the field, besides at least an equal number who perished in the river and canals. The army of Louis was entirely routed, and the Duke considered it virtually destroyed. ”

“ It is not an easy task coldly to analyse a nature which contained so much of the self- sacrificing and the heroic, as well as of the adroit and the subtle; and it is almost impossible to give utterance to the emotions which naturally swell the heart at the contemplation of so much active virtue, without rendering oneself liable to the charge of excessive admiration. Through the mists of adversity, a human form may dilate into proportions which are colossal and deceptive. ”

“ When the campaign had been decided, and the Prince had again become an exile, Granvelle observed that it was now proved how incompetent he and all his companions were to contend in military skill with the Duke of Alva. With a cold sneer at motives which he assumed, as a matter of course, to be purely selfish, he said that the Prince had not taken the proper road to recover his property, and that he would now be much embarrassed to satisfy his creditors. Thus must those ever fall, he moralized, who would fly higher than they ought ”

“ He regretted such a demonstration in his favor as had now been made by the mission of the Archduke to Madrid. That which, however, had caused the King the deepest sorrow was, that his Imperial Majesty should wish to persuade him in religious matters to proceed with mildness. The Emperor ought to be aware that no human consideration, no regard for his realms, nothing in the world which could be represented or risked, would cause him to swerve by a single hair's breadth from his path in the matter of religion. ”

“ In Friesland, the rebels had just achieved a victory over the choice troops of Spain. Here they were suffering from the stigma of a crushing defeat. Then, the army of Louis Nassau was swelling daily by recruits, who poured in from all the country round. Now, neither peasant nor noble dared lift a finger for the Prince. The army of Louis had been sustained by the one which his brother was known to be preparing. ”

“ Not a soldier-horse, foot, or dragoon-shall be levied within the Empire. If you violate the peace of the realm, and embroil us with our excellent brother and cousin Philip, it is at your own peril. You have nothing to do but to keep quiet and await his answer to our letter. ”

“ If their movements had not been checked, a junction would have been effected. The armed revolt would then have assumed so formidable an aspect, that rebellion would seem, even for the timid, a safer choice than loyalty. The army of the Prince, on the contrary, was now the last hope of the patriots: The three by which it had been preceded had been successively and signally vanquished.
Friesland, again, was on the outskirts of the country. A defeat sustained by the government there did not necessarily imperil the possession of the provinces. ”

“ Such language, in letters the most private, never meant to be seen by other eyes than those to which they were addressed, gives touching testimony to the sincere piety of his character. No man was ever more devoted to a high purpose, no man had ever more right to imagine himself, or less inclination to pronounce himself, entrusted with a divine mission. ”

“ He had left a strong guard on the bridge at Reyden, and had thus closed carefully every avenue. The same fifteen hundred musketeers were now advanced further towards the camp. This small force, powerfully but secretly sustained, was to feel the enemy; to skirmish with him, and to draw him as soon as possible out of his trenches. The plan succeeded. Gradually the engagements between them and the troops sent out by Count Louis grew more earnest. Finding so insignificant a force opposed to them, the mutinous rebels took courage. The work waged hot. ”

“ The troops, already discontented, were clamorous for pay and plunder. During one mutinous demonstration, the Prince's sword was shot from his side, and it was with difficulty that a general outbreak was suppressed. The soldiery were maddened and tantalized by the tactics of Alva. They found themselves constantly in the presence of an enemy, who seemed to court a battle at one moment and to vanish like a phantom at the next They felt the winter approaching, and became daily more dissatisfied with the irritating hardships to which they were exposed. ”

“ Nevertheless, it could hardly be shown, as it was, to the princes and electors, and he had therefore modified many points which he thought might prove offensive.
Thus ended "in smoke," as Granvelle had foretold, the famous mission of Archduke Charles. The Holy Roman Emperor withdrew from his pompous intervention, abashed by a rebuke, but consoled by a promise. If it were good to be guardian of religious freedom in Upper and Nether Germany, it was better to be father-in-law to the King of Spain and both the Indies. ”

“ Such signal results might well make even a meeker nature proud. Such vast and fortunate efforts to fix for ever an impregnable military tyranny upon a constitutional country, might cause a more modest despot to exult. It was not wonderful that the haughty, and now apparently omnipotent Alva, should almost assume the god. On his return to Brussels he instituted a succession of triumphant festivals. ”

“ He now boldly proclaimed to the world, and especially to the inhabitants of the provinces, his motives, his purposes, and his hopes.
"We, by God's grace Prince of Orange," said his declaration of 31st August, 1568, "salute all faithful subjects of his Majesty. To few people is it unknown that the Spaniards have for a long time sought to govern the land according to their pleasure. Abusing his Majesty's goodness, they have persuaded him to decree the introduction of the inquisition into the Netherlands. ”

“ It was known that the Emperor had written an urgent letter to Philip on the subject of his policy in the Netherlands in general, and concerning the position of Orange in particular. All persons, from the Emperor down to the pettiest potentate, seemed now of opinion that the Prince had better pause; that he was, indeed, bound to wait the issue of that remonstrance. "Your highness must sit still," said Landgrave William. "Your highness must sit still," said Augustus of Saxony. "You must move neither hand nor foot in the cause of the perishing provinces," said the Emperor. ”