John Lothrop Motley

“ On the other hand, although Bossu and Champagny were with the states' army, yet their hearts were hardly with the cause. Both had long been loyal, and had earned many laurels against the rebels, while Champagny was still devoutly a Papist, and wavered painfully between his hatred to heresy and to Spain. Egmont and De Heze were raw, unpractised lads, in whom genius did not come to supply the place of experience. The Commander, De Goignies, was a veteran, but a veteran who had never gained much glory, and the chiefs of the cavalry, infantry, and artillery, were absent at the Brussels wedding. ”

“ Rarely had a more brilliant exploit been performed by a handful of cavalry. To the distinguished Alexander of Parma, who improvised so striking and complete a victory out of a fortuitous circumstance, belonged the whole credit of the day, for his quick eye detected a passing weakness of the enemy, and turned it to terrible account with the promptness which comes from genius alone. A whole army was overthrown. Everything belonging to the enemy fell into the hands of the Spaniards. ”

“ If the sentiment of nationality, the cause of a common fatherland, could now overcome the attachment to a particular form of worship—if a common danger and a common destiny could now teach the great lesson of mutual toleration, it might yet be possible to create a united Netherland, and defy for ever the power of Spain. Since the Union of Brussels, of January, 1577, the internal cancer of religious discord had again begun to corrode the body politic. The Pacification of Ghent had found the door open to religious toleration. ”

“ They openly asserted that the men who were clamoring for privileges should obtain nothing but halters. The buried charters should never be resuscitated; but the spirit of the dead Emperor, who had once put a rope around the necks of the insolent Ghenters, still lived in that of his son. There was no lack of denunciation. Don John and the Duke of Aerschot would soon bring the turbulent burghers to their senses, and there would then be an end to this renewed clamor about musty parchments. ”

“ Don John was strengthening himself daily, through the secret agency of the Duke of Guise and his party. His warlike genius was well known, as well as the experience of the soldiers who were fast rallying under his banner. On the other hand, the Duke of Alencon had come to La Fere, and was also raising troops, while to oppose this crowd of rival enemies, to deal with this host of impending disasters, there was but one man in the Netherlands. On the Prince of Orange alone could the distracted states rely. ”

“ Although diminished in importance since the commercial decline which had been the inevitable result of Philip's bloody government, it, was still swarming with a vigorous and dangerous population and it had not forgotten the days when the iron tongue of Roland could call eighty thousand fighting men to the city banner. Even now, twenty thousand were secretly pledged to rise at the bidding of certain chieftains resident among them; noble by birth, warmly attached to the Reformed religion, and devoted to Orange. ”

“ His presence at that moment in Brussels was the triumph of the people and of religious toleration. He meant to make use of the crisis to extend and to secure popular rights, and to establish the supremacy of the states-general under the nominal sovereignty of some Prince, who was yet to be selected, while the executive body was to be a state-council, appointed by the states-general. So far as appears, he had not decided as to the future protector, but he had resolved that it should be neither himself nor Philip of Spain. ”

“ The subjects of the tableaux vivants were, of course, most classic, for the Netherlanders were nothing, if not allegorical; yet, as spectacles, provided by burghers and artisans for the amusement of their fellow-citizens, they certainly proved a considerable culture in the people who could thus be amused. All the groups were artistically arranged. Upon one theatre stood Juno with her peacock, presenting Matthias with the city of Brussels, which she held, beautifully modelled, in her hand. ”

“ These gentlemen were perfectly conscious that a reaction was to be attempted in favor of Don John and of Catholicism, through the agency of the newly-appointed governor of Flanders. Aerschot was trusted or respected by neither party. The only difference in the estimates formed of him was, that some considered him a deep and dangerous traitor; others that he was rather foolish than malicious, and more likely to ruin a good cause than to advance the interests of a bad one. The leaders of the popular party at Ghent believed him dangerous. ”

“ There could be no friendship between the destroyer and the protector of a people. Had the Prince desired only the reversal of his death-sentence, and the infinite aggrandizement of his family, we have seen how completely he had held these issues in his power. Never had it been more easy, plausible, tempting, for a proscribed patriot to turn his back upon an almost sinking cause. ”

“ He assured him that nothing could be more senseless than the reports that Philip and his Governor-General in the Netherlands were negotiating with France, for the purpose of alienating the provinces from the Austrian crown. Philip, being chief of the family, and sovereign of the Netherlands, could not commit the absurdity of giving away his own property to other people, nor would Don John choose to be an instrument in so foolish a transaction. ”

“ On the 7th of December, 1577, the states-general formally declared that Don John was no longer Stadholder, Governor, nor Captain-General, but an infractor of the peace which he had sworn to maintain, and an enemy of the fatherland. All natives of the country who should show him favor or assistance were declared rebels and traitors; and by a separate edict, issued the same day, it was ordained that an inventory of the estates of such persons should forthwith be taken. ”

“ The whole army bloke to pieces at once, and so great was the trepidation, that the conquered troops had hardly courage to run away. They were utterly incapable of combat. Not a blow was struck by the fugitives. Hardly a man in the Spanish ranks was wounded; while, in the course of an hour and a half, the whole force of the enemy was exterminated. It is impossible to state with accuracy the exact numbers slain. ”

“ They had asked him to guarantee that the exercise of the Reformed religion should not be "procured" in the rest of the country. He had merely promised that the Catholic worship should not be prevented. The difference between the terms of the request and the reply was sufficiently wide.
The consent to his journey was with difficulty accorded by the estates of Holland and Zealand, and his wife, with many tears and anxious forebodings, beheld him depart for a capital where the heads of his brave and powerful friends had fallen, and where still lurked so many of his deadly foes. ”

“ The bonds of a permanent union for the other sixteen could be constructed of but one material— religious toleration, and for a moment, the genius of Orange, always so far beyond his age, succeeded in raising the mass of his countrymen to the elevation upon which he had so long stood alone. ”

“ The army of Don John already numbered more than twenty thousand well-seasoned and disciplined veterans. He was himself the most illustrious chieftain in Europe. He was surrounded by lieutenants cf the most brilliant reputation. Alexander of Parma, who had fought with distinction at Lepanto, was already recognised as possessing that signal military genius which was soon to stamp him as the first soldier of his age, while Mansfeld, Mondragon, Mendoza, and other distinguished officers, who had already won so much fame in the Netherlands, had now returned to the scene of their former achievements. ”

“ At the same session, the commission of Aerschot was formally presented by Champagny and Sweveghem, deputed by the State Council for that purpose. Champagny was in a somewhat anomalous position. There was much doubt in men's minds concerning him. He had seemed lately the friend of Orange, but he was certainly the brother of Granvelle. His splendid but fruitless services during the Antwerp Fury had not been forgotten, but he was known to be a determined Catholic. He was a hater of Spaniards, but no lover of popular liberty. ”

“ I tell you this—were you ever so much hounded on by the Prince of Orange."
The violence of the new governor excited the wrath of Imbize. He broke from him abruptly, and rushed to a rendezvous of his confederates, every man of whom was ready for a desperate venture. Groups of excited people were seen vociferating in different places. A drum was heard to rattle from time to time. Nevertheless, the rising tumult seemed to subside again after a season, owing partly to the exertions of the magistrates, partly to the absence of Ryhove. ”

“ The Crescent-wearing Zealanders had been taken at their word, and the whole nation of Netherlanders were formally banned as unbelievers. The forces of Don John were mustered at Marche in Luxemburg; those of the states in a plain within a few miles of Namur. Both armies were nearly equal in number, amounting to nearly twenty thousand each, including a force of two thousand cavalry on each side. It had been the original intention of the patriots to attack Don John in Namur. ”

“ A treacherous peace, which would have ensured destruction, was averted, but a new obstacle to the development of his broad and energetic schemes arose in the intrigue which brought the Archduke from Vienna. The cabals of Orange's secret enemies were again thwarted with the same adroitness to which his avowed antagonists were forced to succumb. Matthias was made the exponent of the new policy, the standard-bearer of the new union which the Prince now succeeded in establishing ”

“ The Catholic nobles, jealous of the growing influence of Orange, and indignant at the expanding power of the people, had opened secret negotiations with the Archduke Matthias, then a mild, easy-tempered youth of twenty, brother of the reigning emperor, Rudolph. ”

“ The great nobles, who hated Philip on the one hand, and the Reformed religion on the other, were obliged, in obedience to the dictates of a people with whom they had little sympathy, to accept the ascendency of the Calvinist Prince, of whom they were profoundly jealous. ”

“ Don John, making a selection of some six hundred cavalry, all picked men, with a thousand infantry, divided the whole into two bodies, which he placed under command of Gonzaga and the famous old Christopher Mondragon. These officers received orders to hang on the rear of the enemy, to harass him, and to do him all possible damage consistent with the possibility of avoiding a general engagement, until the main army under Parma and Don John should arrive. ”

“ And so another proof was added—if proofs were still necessary of Spanish prowess. The Netherlanders may be pardoned if their foes seemed to them supernatural, and almost invulnerable. How else could these enormous successes be accounted for? How else could thousands fall before the Spanish swords, while hardly a single Spanish corpse told of effectual resistance? At Jemmingen, Alva had lost seven soldiers, and slain seven thousand; in the Antwerp Fury, two hundred Spaniards, at most, had fallen, while eight thousand burghers and states' troops had been butchered ”

“ War had again broken loose throughout these doomed provinces. A small but well- appointed army had been rapidly collecting under the banner of Don John at Luxemburg, Peter Ernest Mansfeld had brought many well-trained troops from France, and Prince Alexander of Parma had arrived with several choice and veteran regiments of Italy and Spain. ”

“ These troops were to be paid by the provinces, but furnished by the Queen. The estates were to form no treaty without her knowledge, nor undertake any movement of importance without her consent. In case she should be herself attacked by any foreign power, the provinces were to assist her to the same extent as the amount of aid now afforded to themselves; and in case of a naval war, with a fleet of at least forty ships. It had already been arranged that the appointment of the Prince of Orange as Lieutenant-General for Matthias was a 'sine qua non' in any treaty of assistance with England. ”

“ A remarkable pamphlet was now published, in seven different languages, Latin, French, Flemish, German, Italian, Spanish; and English, containing a succinct account of the proceedings between the Governor and the estates, together with copies of the intercepted letters of Don John and Escovedo to the King, to Perez, to the German colonels, and to the Empress. This work, composed and published by order of the estates- general, was transmitted with an accompanying address to every potentate in Christendom. ”

“ Flanders, moreover, swarmed with converts to the Reformed religion, and the Duke's strict Romanism was well known. The people, therefore, who hated the Pope and adored the Prince, were furious at the appointment of the new governor, but by dint of profuse promises regarding the instant restoration of privileges and charters which had long lain dormant, the friends of Aerschot succeeded in preparing the way for his installation. ”

“ The closer union had been accepted, and now thirty articles, which had been prepared under his superintendence, and had already on the 17th of December been accepted by Matthias, were established as the fundamental terms, according to which the Archduke was to be received as Governor-General. No power whatever was accorded to the young man, who had come so far with eager and ambitious views. ”