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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Holland, by Thomas Colley Grattan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Holland
+       The History of the Netherlands
+
+Author: Thomas Colley Grattan
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2004 [EBook #10583]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE DUKE OF ALVA DEPOSES MARGARET OF PARMA]
+
+
+
+
+HOLLAND
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+BY THOMAS COLLEY GRATTAN
+
+WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
+BY THE SALIAN FRANKS
+
+B.C. 50--A.D. 250
+
+Extent of the Kingdom--Description of the People--Ancient State
+of the Low Countries--Of the High Grounds--Contrasted with the
+present Aspect of the Country--Expedition of Julius Cćsar--The
+Belgć--The Menapians--Batavians--Distinguished among the Auxiliaries
+of Rome--Decrease of national Feeling in Part of the Country--
+Steady Patriotism of the Frisons and Menapians--Commencement of
+Civilization--Early Formation of the Dikes--Degeneracy of those
+who became united to the Romans--Invasion of the Netherlands
+by the Salian Franks.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND
+BY THE FRENCH
+
+A.D. 250--800
+
+Character of the Franks--The Saxon Tribes--Destruction of the
+Salians by a Saxon Tribe--Julian the Apostate--Victories of Clovis
+in Gaul--Contrast between the Low Countries and the Provinces of
+France--State of Friesland--Charles Martell--Friesland converted
+to Christianity--Finally subdued by France.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND
+
+A.D. 800--1000
+
+Commencement of the Feudal System in the Highlands--Flourishing State
+of the Low Countries--Counts of the Empire--Formation of the Gilden
+or Trades--Establishment of popular Privileges in Friesland--In
+what they consisted--Growth of Ecclesiastical Power--Baldwin of
+Flanders--Created Count--Appearance of the Normans--They ravage the
+Netherlands--Their Destruction, and final Disappearance--Division
+of the Empire into Higher and Lower Lorraine--Establishment of
+the Counts of Lorraine and Hainault--Increasing Power of the
+Bishops of Liege and Utrecht--Their Jealousy of the Counts; who
+resist their Encroachments.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE
+
+A.D. 1018--1384
+
+Origin of Holland--Its first Count--Aggrandizement of Flanders--Its
+growing Commerce--Fisheries--Manufactures--Formation of the County
+of Guelders, and of Brabant--State of Friesland--State of the
+Provinces--The Crusades--Their good Effects on the State of the
+Netherlands--Decline of the Feudal Power, and Growth of the Influence
+of the Towns--Great Prosperity of the Country--The Flemings take
+up Arms against the French--Drive them out of Bruges, and defeat
+them in the Battle of Courtrai--Popular Success in Brabant--Its
+Confederation with Flanders--Rebellion of Bruges against the
+Count, and of Ghent under James d' Artaveldt--His Alliance with
+England--His Power, and Death--Independence of Flanders--Battle
+of Roosbeke--Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, obtains the
+Sovereignty of Flanders.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS
+TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR
+
+A.D. 1384--1506
+
+Philip succeeds to the Inheritance of Brabant--Makes War on England
+as a French Prince, Flanders remaining neuter--Power of the Houses
+of Burgundy and Bavaria, and Decline of Public Liberty--Union of
+Holland, Hainault, and Brabant--Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and
+Hainault--Flies from the Tyranny of her Husband, John of Brabant,
+and takes Refuge in England--Murder of John the Fearless, Duke of
+Burgundy--Accession of his Son, Philip the Good--His Policy--Espouses
+the Cause of John of Brabant against Jacqueline--Deprives her
+of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand--Continues his Persecution,
+and despoils her of her last Possession and Titles--She marries
+a Gentleman of Zealand, and Dies--Peace or Arras--Dominions of
+the House of Burgundy equal to the present Extent of the Kingdom
+of the Netherlands--Rebellion of Ghent--Affairs of Holland and
+Zealand--Charles the Rash--His Conduct in Holland--Succeeds his
+Father--Effects of Philip's Reign on the Manners of the People--
+Louis XI.--Death of Charles, and Succession of Mary--Factions
+among her Subjects--Marries Maximilian of Austria--Battle of
+Guinegate--Death of Mary--Maximilian unpopular--Imprisoned by
+his Subjects--Released--Invades the Netherlands--Succeeds to
+the Imperial Throne by the Death of his Father--Philip the Fair
+proclaimed Duke and Count--His wise Administration--Affairs of
+Friesland--Of Guelders--Charles of Egmont--Death of Philip the
+Fair.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V
+
+A.D. 1506--1555
+
+Margaret of Austria invested with the Sovereignty--Her Character
+and Government--Charles, Son of Philip the Fair, created Duke of
+Brabant and Count of Flanders and Holland--The Reformation--Martin
+Luther--Persecution of the Reformers--Battle of Pavia--Cession of
+Utrecht to Charles V.--Peace of Cambray--The Anabaptists' Sedition
+at Ghent--Expedition against Tunis and Algiers--Charles becomes
+possessed of Friesland and Guelders--His increasing Severity
+against the Protestants--His Abdication and Death--Review--Progress
+of Civilization.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
+OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS
+
+A.D. 1555--1566
+
+Accession of Philip II.--His Character and Government--His Wars
+with France, and with the Pope--Peace with the Pope--Battle of St.
+Quentin--Battle of Gravelines--Peace of Câteau-Cambresis--Death
+of Mary of England--Philip's Despotism--Establishes a Provisional
+Government--Convenes the States--General at Ghent--His Minister
+Granvelle--Goes to Zealand--Embarks for Spain--Prosperity revives--
+Effects of the Provisional Government--Marguerite of Palma--
+Character of Granvelle--Viglius de Berlaimont--Departure of the
+spanish Troops--Clergy--Bishops--National Discontent--Granvelle
+appointed Cardinal--Edict against Heresy--Popular Indignation--
+Reformation--State of Brabant--Confederacy against Granvelle--
+Prince of Orange--Counts Egmont and Horn join the Prince against
+Granvelle--Granvelle recalled--Council of Trent--Its Decrees
+received with Reprobation--Decrees against Reformers--Philip's
+Bigotry--Establishment of the Inquisition--Popular Resistance.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION
+
+A.D. 1566
+
+Commencement of the Revolution--Defence of the Prince of
+Orange--Confederacy of the Nobles--Louis of Nassau--De
+Brederode--Philip de St. Aldegonde--Assembly of the Council of
+State--Confederates enter Brussels--Take the Title of _Gueux_--Quit
+Brussels, and disperse in the Provinces--Measures of Government--
+Growing Power of the Confederates--Progress of the Reformation--
+Field Preaching--Herman Stricker--Boldness of the Protestants--
+Peter Dathen--Ambrose Ville--Situation of Antwerp--The Prince
+repairs to it, and saves it--Meeting of the Confederates at St.
+Trond---The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont treat with them--
+Tyranny of Philip and Moderation of the Spanish Council--Image
+Breakers--Destruction of the Cathedral, of Antwerp--Terror of
+Government--Firmness of Viglius--Arbitration between the Court
+and the People--Concessions made by Government--Restoration of
+Tranquillity.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS
+
+A.D. 1566--1573
+
+Philip's Vindictiveness and Hypocrisy--Progress of
+Protestantism--Gradual Dissolution of the Conspiracy--Artifices
+of Philip and the Court to disunite the Protestants--Firmness of
+the Prince of Orange--Conference at Termonde--Egmont abandons
+the Patriot Cause--Fatal Effects of his Conduct--Commencement
+of Hostilities--Siege of Valenciennes--Protestant Synod at
+Antwerp--Haughty Conduct of the Government--Royalists Repulsed
+at Bois-le-duc--Battle of Osterweel, and Defeat of the
+Patriots--Antwerp again saved by the Firmness and Prudence of
+the Prince of Orange--Capitulation of Valenciennes--Success of
+the Royalists--Death of De Brederode--New Oath of Allegiance;
+Refused by the Prince of Orange and others--The Prince resolves
+on voluntary Banishment, and departs for Germany--His Example is
+followed by the Lords--Extensive Emigration--Arrival of the Duke of
+Orleans--Egmont's Humiliation--Alva's Powers--Arrest of Egmont and
+others---Alva's first Acts of Tyranny--Council of Blood--Recall of
+the Government--Alva's Character--He summons the Prince of Orange,
+who is tried by Contumacy--Horrors committed by Alva--Desolate State
+of the Country--Trial and Execution of Egmont and Horn--The Prince
+of Orange raises an Army in Germany, and opens his first Campaign
+in the Netherlands--Battle of Heiligerlee--Death of Adolphus of
+Nassau--Battle of Jemminghem--Success and skilful Conduct of
+Alva--Dispersion of the Prince of Orange's Army--Growth of the naval
+Power of the Patriots--Inundation in Holland and Friesland--Alva
+reproached by Philip--Duke of Medina-Celi appointed Governor--Is
+attacked, and his fleet destroyed by the Patriots--Demands his
+Recall--Policy of the English Queen, Elizabeth--The Dutch take
+Brille--General Revolt in Holland and Zealand--New Expedition of
+the Prince of Orange--Siege of Mons--Success of the Prince--Siege
+of Haarlem--Of Alkmaer--Removal of Alva--Don Luis Zanega y Requesens
+appointed Governor-General.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT
+
+A.D. 1573--1576
+
+Character of Requesens--His conciliating Conduct--Renews the
+War against the States--Siege of Middleburg--Generosity of the
+Prince of Orange--Naval Victory--State of Flanders--Count Louis of
+Nassau--Battle of Mookerheyde--Counts Louis and Henry slain--Mutiny
+of the Spanish Troops--Siege of Leyden--Negotiations for Peace at
+Breda--The Spaniards take Zuriczee--Requesens dies--The Government
+devolves on the Council of State--Miserable State of the Country,
+and Despair of the Patriots--Spanish Mutineers--The States-General
+are convoked, and the Council arrested by the Grand Bailiff of
+Brabant--The Spanish Mutineers sack and capture Maestricht, and
+afterward Antwerp--The States-General assemble at Ghent and assume
+the Government--The Pacification of Ghent.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION
+OF INDEPENDENCE
+
+A.D. 1576--1580
+
+Don John of Austria, Governor-General, arrives in the
+Netherlands--His Character and Conduct--The States send an Envoy
+to Elizabeth of England--She advances them a Loan of Money--The
+Union of Brussels--The Treaty of Marche-en-Famenne, called the
+Perpetual Edict--The impetuous Conduct of Don John excites the
+public Suspicion--He seizes on the Citadel of Namur--The Prince
+of Orange is named Protector of Brabant--The People destroy the
+Citadels of Antwerp and other Towns--The Duke of Arschot is named
+Governor of Flanders--He invites the Archduke Mathias to accept
+the Government of the Netherlands--Wise Conduct of the Prince of
+Orange--Ryhove and Hembyse possess themselves of supreme Power at
+Ghent--The Prince of Orange goes there and establishes Order--The
+Archduke Mathias is installed--The Prince of Parma arrives in
+the Netherlands, and gains the Battle of Gemblours--Confusion
+of the States-General--The Duke of Alencon comes to their
+Assistance--Dissensions among the Patriot Chiefs--Death of Don
+John of Austria--Suspicions of his having been Poisoned by Order of
+Philip II.--The Prince of Parma is declared Governor-General--The
+Union of Utrecht--The Prince of Parma takes the Field--The Congress
+of Cologne rendered fruitless by the Obstinacy of Philip--The
+States-General assemble at Antwerp, and issue a Declaration of
+National Independence--The Sovereignty of the Netherlands granted
+to the Duke of Alencon.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1580--1584
+
+Proscription of the Prince of Orange--His celebrated Apology--Philip
+proposes sending back the Duchess of Parma as Stadtholderess--Her
+son refuses to act jointly with her, and is left in the exercise
+of his Power--The Siege of Cambray undertaken by the Prince of
+Parma, and gallantly defended by the Princess of Epinoi--The
+Duke of Alencon created Duke of Anjou--Repairs to England, in
+hopes of marrying Queen Elizabeth--He returns to the Netherlands
+unsuccessful, and is inaugurated at Antwerp--The Prince of Orange
+desperately wounded by an Assassin--Details on John Jaureguay
+and his Accomplices--The People suspect the French of the Crime--
+Rapid Recovery of the Prince, who soon resumes his accustomed
+Activity--Violent Conduct of the Duke of Anjou, who treacherously
+attempts to seize on Antwerp--He is defeated by the Townspeople--
+His Disgrace and Death--Ungenerous Suspicions of the People against
+the Prince of Orange, who leaves Flanders in Disgust--Treachery
+of the Prince of Chimay and others--Treason of Hembyse--He is
+executed at Ghent--The States resolve to confer the Sovereignty
+on the Prince of Orange--He is murdered at Delft--Parallel between
+him and the Admiral Coligny--Execution of Balthazar Gerard, his
+Assassin--Complicity of the Prince of Parma.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA
+
+A.D. 1584--1592
+
+Effects of William's Death on the History of his Country--Firm
+Conduct of the United Provinces--They reject the Overtures of
+the Prince of Parma--He reduces the whole of Flanders--Deplorable
+Situation of the Country--Vigorous Measures of the Northern
+States--Antwerp besieged--Operations of the Siege--Immense Exertions
+of the Besiegers--The Infernal Machine--Battle on the Dike of
+Couvestien--Surrender of Antwerp--Extravagant Joy of Philip II.--The
+United Provinces solicit the Aid of France and England--Elizabeth
+sends them a supply of Troops under the Earl of Leicester--He returns
+to England--Treachery of some English and Scotch Officers--Prince
+Maurice commences his Career--The Spanish Armada--Justin of Nassau
+blocks up the Prince of Parma in the Flemish Ports--Ruin of the
+Armada--Philip's Mock Piety on hearing the News--Leicester
+dies--Exploits and Death of Martin Schenck--Breda surprised--The
+Duke of Parma leads his Army into France--His famous Retreat--His
+Death and Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILLIP II.
+
+A.D. 1592--1599
+
+Count Mansfield named Governor-General--State of Flanders and
+Brabant--The Archduke Ernest named Governor-General--Attempts
+against the Life of Prince Maurice--He takes Groningen--Death of
+the Archduke Ernest--Count Fuentes named Governor-General--He takes
+Cambray and other Towns--Is soon replaced by the Archduke Albert
+of Austria--His high Reputation--He opens his first Campaign in
+the Netherlands--His Successes--Prince Maurice gains the Battle
+of Turnhout--Peace of Vervins--Philip yields the Sovereignty of
+the Netherlands to Albert and Isabella--A new Plot against the
+Life of Prince Maurice--Albert sets out for Spain, and receives
+the News of Philip's Death--Albert arrives in Spain, and solemnizes
+his Marriage with the Infanta Isabella--Review of the State of
+the Netherlands.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA
+
+A.D. 1599--1604
+
+Cardinal Andrew of Austria Governor--Francisco Mendoza, Admiral
+of Aragon, invades the neutral States of Germany--His atrocious
+Conduct--Prince Maurice takes the Field--His masterly
+Movements--Sybilla of Cleves raises an Army, which is, quickly
+destroyed--Great Exertions of the States-General--Naval Expedition
+under Vander Goes--Its complete Failure--Critical Situation of the
+United Provinces--Arrival of the Archduke in Brussels--Success
+of Prince Maurice--His Expedition into Flanders--Energy of the
+Archduke--Heroism of Isabella--Progress of Albert's Army--Its
+first Success--Firmness of Maurice--The Battle of Nieuport--Total
+Defeat of the Royalists--Consequences of the Victory--Prince
+Maurice returns to Holland--Negotiations for Peace--Siege of
+Ostend--Death of Elizabeth of England--United Provinces send
+Ambassadors to James I.--Successful Negotiations of Barneveldt
+and the Duke of Sully in London--Peace between England and
+Spain--Brilliant Campaign between Spinola and Prince Maurice--Battle
+of Roeroord--Naval Transactions--Progress of Dutch Influence in
+India--Establishment of the East India Company.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+TO THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT
+
+A.D. 1600--1619
+
+Spinola proposes to invade the United Provinces--Successfully
+opposed by Prince Maurice--The Dutch defeated at Sea--Desperate
+Conduct of Admiral Klagoon--Great naval Victory of the Dutch,
+and Death of their Admiral Heemskirk--Overtures of the Archdukes
+for Peace--How received in Holland--Prudent Conduct of
+Barneveldt--Negotiations opened at The Hague--John de Neyen,
+Ambassador for the Archdukes--Armistice for Eight Months--Neyen
+attempts to bribe D'Aarsens, the Greffier of the States-General--His
+Conduct disclaimed by Verreiken, Counsellor to the Archdukes--Great
+Prejudices in Holland against King James I. and the English,
+and Partiality toward France--Rupture of the Negotiations--They
+are renewed--Truce for Twelve Years signed at Antwerp--Gives
+great Satisfaction in the Netherlands--Important Attitude of
+the United Provinces--Conduct of the Belgian Provinces--Disputes
+relative to Cleves and Juviers--Prince Maurice and Spinola remove
+their Armies into the contested states--Intestine Troubles in
+the United Provinces--Assassination of Henry IV. of France--His
+Character--Change in Prince Maurice's Character and Conduct--He
+is strenuously opposed by Barneveldt--Religious Disputes--King
+James enters the Lists of Controversy--Barneveldt and Maurice
+take Opposite sides--The cautionary Towns released from the
+Possession of England--Consequences of this Event--Calumnies
+against Barneveldt--Ambitious Designs of Prince Maurice--He is
+baffled by Barneveldt--The Republic assists its Allies with Money
+and Ships--Its great naval Power--Outrages of some Dutch Sailors in
+Ireland--Unresented by King James--His Anger at the manufacturing
+Prosperity of the United Provinces--Excesses of the Gomarists--The
+Magistrates call out the National Militia--Violent Conduct of
+Prince Maurice--Uncompromising Steadiness of Barneveldt--Calumnies
+against him--Maurice succeeds to the Title of Prince of Orange,
+and Acts with increasing Violence--Arrest of Barneveldt and his
+Friends--Synod of Dort--Its Consequences--Trial, Condemnation,
+and Execution of Barneveldt--Grotius and Hoogerbeets sentenced
+to perpetual Imprisonmemt--Ledenburg commits Suicide.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE
+
+A.D. 1619--1625
+
+The Parties Of Arminianism quite subdued--Emigrations--Grotius
+resolves to attempt an Escape from Prison--Succeeds in his
+Attempt--He repairs to Paris, and publishes his "Apology"--Expiration
+of the Twelve Years' Truce--Death of Philip III. And of the Archduke
+Albert--War in Germany--Campaign between Prince Maurice and
+Spinola--Conspiracy against the Life of Prince Maurice--Its
+Failure--Fifteen of the Conspirators executed--Great Unpopularity
+of Maurice--Death of Maurice.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
+
+A.D. 1625--1648
+
+Frederick Henry succeeds his Brother--Charles I. King of England--War
+between France and England--Victories of Admiral Hein--Brilliant
+Success of Frederick Henry--Fruitless Enterprise in Flanders--Death
+of the Archduchess Isabella--Confederacy in Brabant--Its Failure,
+and Arrest of the Nobles--Ferdinand, Prince-Cardinal,
+Governor-General--Treaty between France and Holland--Battle of
+Avein--Naval Affairs--Battle of the Downs--Van Tromp--Negotiations
+for the Marriage of Prince William with the Princess Mary of
+England--Death of the Prince-Cardinal--Don Francisco de Mello
+Governor-General--Battle of Rocroy--Gallantry of Prince
+William--Death of Cardinal Richelieu and of Louis XIII.--English
+Politics--Affairs of Germany--Negotiations for Peace--Financial
+Embarrassment of the Republic--The Republic negotiates with
+Spain--Last Exploits of Frederick Henry--His Death, and
+Character--William II. Stadtholder--Peace of Munster--Resentment
+of Louis XIII.--Peace of Westphalia--Review of the Progress of
+Art, Science, and Manners--Literature-- Painting--Engraving--
+Sculpture--Architecture--Finance--Population--Commercial
+Companies--Manners.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN
+
+A.D. 1648--1678
+
+State of the Republic after the Peace of Munster--State of
+England--William II. Stadtholder--His ambitious Designs and Violent
+Conduct--Attempts to seize on Amsterdam--His Death--Different
+Sensations caused by his Death--The Prerogatives of the Stadtholder
+assumed by the People--Naval War with England--English Act of
+Navigation--Irish Hostilities--Death of Tromp--A Peace with
+England--Disturbed State of the Republic--War with Denmark--Peace
+concluded--Charles II. restored to the English Throne--Declares
+War against Holland--Naval Actions--Charles endeavors to excite all
+Europe against the Dutch--His Failure--Renewed Hostilities--De Ruyter
+defeated--Peace of Breda--Invasion of Flanders by Louis XIV.--He
+overruns Brabant and Flanders--Triple League, 1668--Perfidious
+Conduct of Charles II.--He declares War against Holland, etc.,
+as does Louis XIV.--Unprepared State of United Provinces--William
+III. Prince of Orange--Appointed Captain-General and High
+Admiral--Battle of Solebay--The French Invade the Republic--The
+States-General implore Peace--Terms demanded by Louis XIV. and
+by Charles II.--Desperation of the Dutch--The Prince of Orange
+proclaimed Stadtholder--Massacre of the De Witts--Fine Conduct of
+the Prince of Orange--He takes the Field--Is reinforced by Spain,
+the Emperor, and Brandenburg--Louis XIV. forced to abandon his
+Conquests--Naval Actions with the English--A Peace, 1674--Military
+Affairs--Battle of Senef--Death of De Ruyter--Congress for Peace
+at Nimeguen--Battle of Mont Cassel--Marriage of the Prince of
+Orange--Peace of Nimeguen.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
+
+A.D. 1678--1713
+
+State of Europe subsequently to the Peace of Nimeguen--Arrogant
+Conduct of Louis XIV.--Truce for Twenty Years--Death of Charles
+II. of England--League of Augsburg--The Conduct of William--He
+invades England--James II. Deposed--William III. proclaimed King of
+England--King William puts himself at the Head of the Confederacy
+against Louis XIV., and enters on the War--Military Operations--Peace
+of Ryswyk--Death of Charles II. of Spain--War of Succession--Death
+of William III.--His Character--Duke of Marlborough--Prince
+Eugene--Successes of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain and
+Portugal--Louis XIV. solicits Peace--Conferences for Peace--Peace
+of Utrecht--Treaty of the Barrier.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
+THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
+
+A.D. 1713--1794
+
+Quadruple Alliance--General Peace of Europe--Wise Conduct of the
+Republic--Great Danger from the bad State of the Dikes--Death
+of the Emperor Charles VI.--Maria Theresa Empress--Her heroic
+Conduct--Battle of Dettingen--Louis XV. invades the
+Netherlands--Conferences for Peace at Breda--Battle of
+Fontenoy--William IV. Stadtholder and Captain-General--Peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle--Death of the Stadtholder, who is succeeded by his
+Son William V.--War of Seven Years--State of the Republic--William
+V. Stadtholder--Dismemberment of Poland--Joseph II. Emperor--His
+attempted Reforms in Religion--War with England--Sea-Fight on
+the Doggerbank--Peace with England, 1784--Progress of Public
+Opinion in Europe, in Belgium, and Holland--Violent Opposition
+to the Stadtholder--Arrest of the Princess of Orange--Invasion
+of Holland by the Prussian Army--Agitation in Belgium--Vander
+Noot--Prince Albert of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria
+Theresa joint Governors-General--Succeeded by Count
+Murray--Riots--Meetings of the Provisional States--General
+Insurrection--Vonckists--Vander Mersch--Takes the Command of
+the Insurgents--His Skilful Conduct--He gains the Battle of
+Turnhout--Takes Possession of Flanders--Confederation of the
+Belgian Provinces--Death of Joseph II.--Leopold Emperor--Arrest
+of Vander Mersch--Arrogance of the States-General of Belgium--The
+Austrians overrun the Country--Convention at The Hague--Death
+of Leopold--Battle of Jemmappes--General Dumouriez--Conquest of
+Belgium by the French--Recovered by the Austrians--The Archduke
+Charles Governor-General--War in the Netherlands--Duke of York--The
+Emperor Francis--The Battle of Fleurus--Incorporation of Belgium
+with the French Republic--Peace of Leoben--Treaty of Campo-Formio.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE
+PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1794--1818
+
+Pichegru invades Holland--Winter Campaign--The Duke of York vainly
+resists the French Army--Abdication of the Stadtholder--Batavian
+Republic--War with England--Unfortunate Situation of Holland--Naval
+Fight--English Expedition to the Helder--Napoleon Bonaparte--Louis
+Bonaparte named King of Holland--His popular Conduct--He abdicates
+the Throne--Annexation of Holland to the French Empire--Ruinous
+to the Prosperity of the Republic--The people desire the Return
+of the Prince of Orange--Confederacy to effect this Purpose--The
+Allied Armies advance toward Holland--The Nation rises to throw
+off the Yoke of France--Count Styrum and his Associates lead
+on that Movement, and proclaim the Prince of Orange, who lands
+from England--His first Proclamation--His second Proclamation.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE-SOVEREIGN OF THE
+NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
+
+A.D. 1813--1815
+
+Rapid Organization of Holland--The Constitution formed--Accepted by
+the People--Objections made to it by some Individuals--Inauguration
+of the Prince-Sovereign--Belgium is occupied by the Allies--Treaty
+of Paris--Treaty of London--Formation of the Kingdom of the
+Netherlands--Basis of the Government--Relative Character and
+Situation of Holland and Belgium--The Prince-Sovereign of Holland
+arrives in Belgium as Governor-General--The fundamental Law--Report
+of the Commissioners by whom it was framed--Public Feeling in
+Holland, and in Belgium--The Emperor Napoleon invades France,
+and Belgium--The Prince of Orange takes the Field--The Duke of
+Wellington--Prince Blucher--Battle of Ligny--Battle of Quatre
+Bras--Battle of Waterloo--Anecdote of the Prince of Orange, who
+is wounded--Inauguration of the King.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER (A.D. 1810--1899).
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+HOLLAND
+
+  The Duke of Alva Deposes Margaret of Parma.
+
+  Storming the Barricades at Brussels During the Revolution of 1848.
+
+  William the Silent of Orange.
+
+  A Holland Beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
+BY THE SALIAN FRANKS
+
+B.C. 50--A.D. 200
+
+The Netherlands form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on
+the borders of the ocean, opposite to the southeast coast of
+England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those
+of Hanover. The country is principally composed of low and humid
+grounds, presenting a vast plain, irrigated by the waters from
+all those neighboring states which are traversed by the Rhine,
+the Meuse, and the Scheldt. This plain, gradually rising toward
+its eastern and southern extremities, blends on the one hand
+with Prussia, and on the other with France. Having, therefore,
+no natural or strongly marked limits on those sides, the extent
+of the kingdom could only be determined by convention; and it must
+be at all times subject to the arbitrary and varying influence
+of European policy. Its greatest length, from north to south, is
+about two hundred and twenty English miles; and its breadth,
+from east to west, is nearly one hundred and forty.
+
+Two distinct kinds of men inhabit this kingdom. The one occupying
+the valleys of the Meuse and the Scheldt, and the high grounds
+bordering on France, speak a dialect of the language of that
+country, and evidently belong to the Gallic race. They are called
+Walloons, and are distinguished from the others by many peculiar
+qualities. Their most prominent characteristic is a propensity
+for war, and their principal source of subsistence the working
+of their mines. They form nearly one-fourth of the population of
+the whole kingdom, or about one million three hundred thousand
+persons. All the rest of the nation speak Low German, in its
+modifications of Dutch and Flemish; and they offer the distinctive
+characteristics of the Saxon race--talents for agriculture,
+navigation, and commerce; perseverance rather than vivacity;
+and more courage than taste for the profession of arms. They
+are subdivided into Flemings--those who were the last to submit
+to the House of Austria; and Dutch--those who formed the republic
+of the United Provinces. But there is no difference between these
+two subdivisions, except such as has been produced by political
+and religious institutions. The physical aspect of the people
+is the same; and the soil, equally law and moist, is at once
+fertilized and menaced by the waters.
+
+The history of this last-mentioned portion of the nation is
+completely linked to that of the soil which they occupy. In remote
+times, when the inhabitants of this plain were few and uncivilized,
+the country formed but one immense morass, of which the chief
+part was incessantly inundated and made sterile by the waters of
+the sea. Pliny the naturalist, who visited the northern coasts,
+has left us a picture of their state in his days. "There," says
+he, "the ocean pours in its flood twice every day, and produces
+a perpetual uncertainty whether the country may be considered as
+a part of the continent or of the sea. The wretched inhabitants
+take refuge on the sand-hills, or in little huts, which they
+construct on the summits of lofty stakes, whose elevation is
+conformable to that of the highest tides. When the sea rises,
+they appear like navigators; when it retires, they seem as though
+they had been shipwrecked. They subsist on the fish left by the
+refluent waters, and which they catch in nets formed of rushes
+or seaweed. Neither tree nor shrub is visible on these shores.
+The drink of the people is rain-water, which they preserve with
+great care; their fuel, a sort of turf, which they gather and
+form with the hand. And yet these unfortunate beings dare to
+complain against their fate, when they fall under the power and
+are incorporated with the empire of Rome!"
+
+The picture of poverty and suffering which this passage presents
+is heightened when joined to a description of the country. The
+coasts consisted only of sand-banks or slime, alternately overflowed
+or left imperfectly dry. A little further inland, trees were
+to be found, but on a soil so marshy that an inundation or a
+tempest threw down whole forests, such as are still at times
+discovered at either eight or ten feet depth below the surface.
+The sea had no limits; the rivers no beds nor banks; the earth
+no solidity; for according to an author of the third century
+of our era, there was not, in the whole of the immense plain,
+a spot of ground that did not yield under the footsteps of
+man.--Eumenius.
+
+It was not the same in the southern parts, which form at present
+the Walloon country. These high grounds suffered much less from
+the ravages of the waters. The ancient forest of the Ardennes,
+extending from the Rhine to the Scheldt, sheltered a numerous though
+savage population, which in all things resembled the Germans, from
+whom they derived their descent. The chase and the occupations of
+rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and
+less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen
+of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a
+tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of
+the country; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining
+parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have
+traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an existence
+which any other people must have considered insupportable.
+
+This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the
+inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present
+situation of the country. The high grounds, formerly so preferable,
+are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards
+their agriculture; while the ancient marshes have been changed
+by human industry into rich and fertile tracts, the best parts
+of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the
+ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation
+which once reigned where we now see the most richly cultivated
+fields, the most thriving villages, and the wealthiest towns
+of the continent, the imagination must go back to times which
+have not left one monument of antiquity and scarcely a vestige
+of fact.
+
+The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of
+a patient and industrious population struggling against every
+obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being; and, in
+this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements
+in those places where they offered the greatest resistance. This
+extraordinary result was due to the hardy stamp of character
+imprinted by suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for
+their foe; to the nature of their country, which presented no
+lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the justice,
+and the liberty nourished among men left to themselves, and who
+found resources in their social state which rendered change neither
+an object of their wants nor wishes.
+
+About half a century before the Christian era, the obscurity
+which enveloped the north of Europe began to disperse; and the
+expedition of Julius Cćsar gave to the civilized world the first
+notions of the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Cćsar, after
+having subjugated the chief part of Gaul, turned his arms against
+the warlike tribes of the Ardennes, who refused to accept his
+alliance or implore his protection. They were called Belgć by
+the Romans; and at once pronounced the least civilized and the
+bravest of the Gauls. Cćsar there found several ignorant and poor
+but intrepid clans of warriors, who marched fiercely to encounter
+him; and, notwithstanding their inferiority in numbers, in weapons,
+and in tactics, they nearly destroyed the disciplined armies of
+Rome. They were, however, defeated, and their country ravaged
+by the invaders, who found less success when they attacked the
+natives of the low grounds. The Menapians, a people who occupied
+the present provinces of Flanders and Antwerp, though less numerous
+than those whom the Romans had last vanquished, arrested their
+progress both by open fight and by that petty and harassing
+contest--that warfare of the people rather than of the soldiery--so
+well adapted to the nature of the country. The Roman legions
+retreated for the first time, and were contented to occupy the
+higher parts, which now form the Walloon provinces.
+
+But the policy of Cćsar made greater progress than his arms. He
+had rather defeated than subdued those who had dared the contest.
+He consolidated his victories without new battles; he offered peace
+to his enemies, in proposing to them alliance; and he required
+their aid, as friends, to carry on new wars in other lands. He
+thus attracted toward him, and ranged under his banners, not only
+those people situated to the west of the Rhine and the Meuse,
+but several other nations more to the north, whose territory he
+had never seen; and particularly the Batavians--a valiant tribe,
+stated by various ancient authors, and particularly by Tacitus,
+as a fraction of the Catti, who occupied the space comprised
+between these rivers. The young men of these warlike people, dazzled
+by the splendor of the Roman armies, felt proud and happy in
+being allowed to identify themselves with them. Cćsar encouraged
+this disposition, and even went so far on some occasions as to
+deprive the Roman cavalry of their horses, on which he mounted
+those new allies, who managed them better than their Italian
+riders. He had no reason to repent these measures; almost all
+his subsequent victories, and particularly that of Pharsalia,
+being decided by the valor of the auxiliaries he obtained from
+the Low Countries.
+
+These auxiliaries were chiefly drawn from Hainault, Luxemburg,
+and the country of the Batavians, and they formed the best cavalry
+of the Roman armies, as well as their choicest light infantry
+force. The Batavians also signalized themselves on many occasions,
+by the skill with which they swam across several great rivers
+without breaking their squadrons ranks. They were amply rewarded
+for their military services and hazardous exploits, and were treated
+like stanch and valuable allies. But this unequal connection of
+a mighty empire with a few petty states must have been fatal to
+the liberty of the weaker party. Its first effect was to destroy
+all feeling of nationality in a great portion of the population.
+The young adventurer of this part of the Low Countries, after
+twenty years of service under the imperial eagles, returned to
+his native wilds a Roman. The generals of the empire pierced
+the forests of the Ardennes with causeways, and founded towns
+in the heart of the country. The result of such innovations was
+a total amalgamation of the Romans and their new allies; and
+little by little the national character of the latter became
+entirely obliterated. But to trace now the precise history of
+this gradual change would be as impossible as it will be one
+day to follow the progress of civilization in the woods of North
+America.
+
+But it must be remarked that this metamorphosis affected only
+the inhabitants of the high grounds, and the Batavians (who were
+in their origin Germans) properly so called. The scanty population
+of the rest of the country, endowed with that fidelity to their
+ancient customs which characterizes the Saxon race, showed no
+tendency to mix with foreigner, rarely figured in their ranks,
+and seemed to revolt from the southern refinement which was so
+little in harmony with their manners and ways of life. It is
+astonishing, at the first view, that those beings, whose whole
+existence was a contest against famine or the waves, should show
+less inclination than their happier neighbors to receive from
+Rome an abundant recompense for their services. But the greater
+their difficulty to find subsistence in their native land, the
+stronger seemed their attachment; like that of the Switzer to
+his barren rocks, or of the mariner to the frail and hazardous
+home that bears him afloat on the ocean. This race of patriots
+was divided into two separate peoples. Those to the north of
+the Rhine were the Frisons; those to the west of the Meuse, the
+Menapians, already mentioned.
+
+The Frisons differed little from those early inhabitants of the
+coast, who, perched on their high-built huts, fed on fish and
+drank the water of the clouds. Slow and successive improvements
+taught them to cultivate the beans which grew wild among the
+marshes, and to tend and feed a small and degenerate breed of
+horned cattle. But if these first steps toward civilization were
+slow, they were also sure; and they were made by a race of men
+who could never retrograde in a career once begun.
+
+The Menapians, equally repugnant to foreign impressions, made, on
+their part, a more rapid progress. They were already a maritime
+people, and carried on a considerable commerce with England. It
+appears that they exported thither salt, the art of manufacturing
+which was well known to them; and they brought back in return
+marl, a most important commodity for the improvement of their
+land. They also understood the preparation of salting meat, with
+a perfection that made it in high repute even in Italy; and,
+finally, we are told by Ptolemy that they had established a colony
+on the eastern coast of Ireland, not far from Dublin.
+
+The two classes of what forms at present the population of the
+Netherlands thus followed careers widely different, during the
+long period of the Roman power in these parts of Europe. While
+those of the high lands and the Batavians distinguished themselves
+by a long-continued course of military service or servitude, those
+of the plains improved by degrees their social condition, and fitted
+themselves for a place in civilized Europe. The former received
+from Rome great marks of favor in exchange for their freedom.
+The latter, rejecting the honors and distinctions lavished on
+their neighbors, secured their national independence, by trusting
+to their industry alone for all the advantages they gradually
+acquired.
+
+Were the means of protecting themselves and their country from
+the inundations of the sea known and practiced by these ancient
+inhabitants of the coast? or did they occupy only those elevated
+points of land which stood out like islands in the middle of the
+floods? These questions are among the most important presented
+by their history; since it was the victorious struggle of man
+against the ocean that fixed the extent and form of the country.
+It appears almost certain that in the time of Cćsar they did not
+labor at the construction of dikes, but that they began to be
+raised during the obscurity of the following century; for the
+remains of ancient towns are even now discovered in places at
+present overflowed by the sea. These ruins often bring to light
+traces of Roman construction, and Latin inscriptions in honor
+of the Menapian divinities. It is, then, certain that they had
+learned to imitate those who ruled in the neighboring countries: a
+result by no means surprising; for even England, the mart of their
+commerce, and the nation with which they had the most constant
+intercourse, was at that period occupied by the Romans. But the
+nature of their country repulsed so effectually every attempt at
+foreign domination that the conquerors of the world left them
+unmolested, and established arsenals and formed communications
+with Great Britain only at Boulogne and in the island of the
+Batavians near Leyden.
+
+This isolation formed in itself a powerful and perfect barrier
+between the inhabitants of the plain and those of the high grounds.
+The first held firm to their primitive customs and their ancient
+language; the second finished by speaking Latin, and borrowing
+all the manners and usages of Italy. The moral effect of this
+contrast was that the people, once so famous for their bravery,
+lost, with their liberty, their energy and their courage. One of
+the Batavian chieftains, named Civilis, formed an exception to
+this degeneracy, and, about the year 70 of our era, bravely took
+up arms for the expulsion of the Romans. He effected prodigies of
+valor and perseverance, and boldly met and defeated the enemy
+both by land and sea. Reverses followed his first success, and he
+finally concluded an honorable treaty, by which his countrymen
+once more became the allies of Rome. But after this expiring effort
+of valor, the Batavians, even though chosen from all nations for
+the bodyguards of the Roman emperors, became rapidly degenerate;
+and when Tacitus wrote, ninety years after Christ, they were
+already looked on as less brave than the Frisons and the other
+peoples beyond the Rhine. A century and a half later saw them
+confounded with the Gauls; and the barbarian conquerors said
+that "they were not a nation, but merely a _prey_."
+
+Reduced into a Roman province, the southern portion of the
+Netherlands was at this period called Belgic Gaul; and the name
+of Belgium, preserved to our days, has until lately been applied
+to distinguish that part of the country situated to the south of
+the Rhine and the Meuse, or nearly that which formed the Austrian
+Netherlands.
+
+During the establishment of the Roman power in the north of Europe,
+observation was not much excited toward the rapid effects of this
+degeneracy, compared with the fast-growing vigor of the people of
+the low lands. The fact of the Frisons having, on one occasion,
+near the year 47 of our era, beaten a whole army of Romans, had
+confirmed their character for intrepidity. But the long stagnation
+produced in these remote countries by the colossal weight of
+the empire was broken, about the year 250, by an irruption of
+Germans or Salian Franks, who, passing the Rhine and the Meuse,
+established themselves in the vicinity of the Menapians, near
+Antwerp, Breda and Bois-le-duc. All the nations that had been
+subjugated by the Roman power appear to have taken arms on this
+occasion and opposed the intruders. But the Menapians united
+themselves with these newcomers, and aided them to meet the shock
+of the imperial armies. Carausius, originally a Menapian pilot,
+but promoted to the command of a Roman fleet, made common cause
+with his fellow-citizens, and proclaimed himself emperor of Great
+Britain, where the naval superiority of the Menapians left him
+no fear of a competitor. In recompense of the assistance given
+him by the Franks, he crossed the sea again from his new empire,
+to aid them in their war with the Batavians, the allies of Rome;
+and having seized on their islands, and massacred nearly the whole
+of its inhabitants, he there established his faithful friends the
+Salians. Constantius and his son Constantine the Great vainly
+strove, even after the death of the brave Carausius, to regain
+possession of the country; but they were forced to leave the
+new inhabitants in quiet possession of their conquest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND
+
+A.D. 250--800
+
+From this epoch we must trace the progress of a totally new and
+distinct population in the Netherlands. The Batavians being
+annihilated, almost without resistance, the low countries contained
+only the free people of the German race. But these people did not
+completely sympathize together so as to form one consolidated
+nation. The Salians, and the other petty tribes of Franks, their
+allies, were essentially warlike, and appeared precisely the same
+as the original inhabitants of the high grounds. The Menapians
+and the Frisons, on the contrary, lost nothing of their spirit
+of commerce and industry. The result of this diversity was a
+separation between the Franks and the Menapians. While the latter,
+under the name of Armoricans, joined themselves more closely
+with the people who bordered the Channel, the Frisons associated
+themselves with the tribes settled on the limits of the German
+Ocean, and formed with them a connection celebrated under the
+title of the Saxon League. Thus was formed on all points a union
+between the maritime races against the inland inhabitants; and
+their mutual antipathy became more and more developed as the
+decline of the Roman empire ended the former struggle between
+liberty and conquest.
+
+The Netherlands now became the earliest theatre of an entirely
+new movement, the consequences of which were destined to affect
+the whole world. This country was occupied toward the sea by
+a people wholly maritime, excepting the narrow space between
+the Rhine and the Vahal, of which the Salian Franks had become
+possessed. The nature of this marshy soil, in comparison with the
+sands of Westphalia, Guelders, and North Brabant, was not more
+strikingly contrasted than was the character of their population.
+The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed
+a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption
+of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but
+made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened
+between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank
+might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the
+Middle Ages. The Saxon (and this name comprehends all the tribes
+of the coast from the Rhine as far north as Denmark), uniting in
+himself the distinctive qualities of German and navigator, was
+moderate and sincere, but implacable in his rage. Neither of
+these two races of men was excelled in point of courage; but
+the number of Franks who still entered into the service of the
+empire diminished the real force of this nation, and naturally
+tended to disunite it. Therefore, in the subsequent shock of
+people against people, the Saxons invariably gained the final
+advantage.
+
+They had no doubt often measured their strength in the most remote
+times, since the Franks were but the descendants of the ancient
+tribes of Sicambers and others, against whom the Batavians had
+offered their assistance to Cćsar. Under Augustus, the inhabitants
+of the coast had in the same way joined themselves with Drusus,
+to oppose these their old enemies. It was also after having been
+expelled by the Frisons from Guelders that the Salians had passed
+the Rhine and the Meuse; but, in the fourth century, the two
+peoples, recovering their strength, the struggle recommenced,
+never to terminate--at least between the direct descendants of
+each. It is believed that it was the Varni, a race of Saxons
+nearly connected with those of England (and coming, like them,
+from the coast of Denmark), who on this occasion struck the decisive
+blow on the side of the Saxons. Embarking on board a numerous
+fleet, they made a descent in the ancient isle of the Batavians,
+at that time inhabited by the Salians, whom they completely
+destroyed. Julian the Apostate, who was then with a numerous
+army pursuing his career of early glory in these countries,
+interfered for the purpose of preventing the expulsion, or at
+least the utter destruction, of the vanquished; but his efforts
+were unavailing. The Salians appear to have figured no more in
+this part of the Low Countries.
+
+The defeat of the Salians by a Saxon tribe is a fact on which no
+doubt rests. The name of the victors is, however, questionable.
+The Varni having remained settled near the mouths of the Rhine
+till near the year 500, there is strong probability that they
+were the people alluded to. But names and histories, which may on
+this point appear of such little importance, acquire considerable
+interest when we reflect that these Salians, driven from their
+settlement, became the conquerors of France; that those Saxons
+who forced them on their career of conquest were destined to
+become the masters of England; and that these two petty tribes,
+who battled so long for a corner of marshy earth, carried with
+them their reciprocal antipathy while involuntarily deciding
+the destiny of Europe.
+
+The defeat of the Franks was fatal to those peoples who had become
+incorporated with the Romans; for it was from them that the exiled
+wanderers, still fierce in their ruin, and with arms in their hands,
+demanded lands and herds; all, in short, which they themselves had
+lost. From the middle of the fourth century to the end of the
+fifth, there was a succession of invasions in this spirit, which
+always ended by the subjugation of a part of the country; and which
+was completed about the year 490, by Clovis making himself master
+of almost the whole of Gaul. Under this new empire not a vestige
+of the ancient nations of the Ardennes was left. The civilized
+population either perished or was reduced to slavery, and all
+the high grounds were added to the previous conquests of the
+Salians.
+
+But the maritime population, when once possessed of the whole
+coast, did not seek to make the slightest progress toward the
+interior. The element of their enterprise and the object of their
+ambition was the ocean; and when this hardy and intrepid race
+became too numerous for their narrow limits, expeditions and
+colonies beyond the sea carried off their redundant population.
+The Saxon warriors established themselves near the mouths of the
+Loire; others, conducted by Hengist and Horsa, settled in Great
+Britain. It will always remain problematical from what point
+of the coast these adventurers departed; but many circumstances
+tend to give weight to the opinion which pronounces those old
+Saxons to have started from the Netherlands.
+
+Paganism not being yet banished from these countries, the obscurity
+which would have enveloped them is in some degree dispelled by the
+recitals of the monks who went among them to preach Christianity.
+We see in those records, and by the text of some of their early
+laws, that this maritime people were more industrious, prosperous,
+and happy, than those of France. The men were handsome and richly
+clothed; and the land well cultivated, and abounding in fruits,
+milk, and honey. The Saxon merchants carried their trade far
+into the southern countries. In the meantime, the parts of the
+Netherlands which belonged to France resembled a desert. The
+monasteries which were there founded were established, according
+to the words of their charters, amid immense solitudes; and the
+French nobles only came into Brabant for the sport of bear-hunting
+in its interminable forests. Thus, while the inhabitants of the
+low lands, as far back as the light of history penetrates, appear
+in a continual state of improvement, those of the high grounds,
+after frequent vicissitudes, seem to sink into utter degeneracy
+and subjugation. The latter wished to denaturalize themselves,
+and become as though they were foreigners even on their native
+soil; the former remained firm and faithful to their country
+and to each other.
+
+But the growth of French power menaced utter ruin to this interesting
+race. Clovis had succeeded about the year 485 of our era, in
+destroying the last remnants of Roman domination in Gaul. The
+successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the
+Pyrenees to the Rhine. They had continual contests with the free
+population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors. In the
+commencement of the seventh century, the French king, Clotaire II.,
+exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and Westphalia;
+and the historians of those barbarous times unanimously relate
+that he caused to be beheaded every inhabitant of the vanquished
+tribes who exceeded the height of his sword. The Saxon name was
+thus nearly extinguished in those countries; and the remnant of
+these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either
+because they became really incorporated with that nation, or
+merely that they recognized it for the most powerful of their
+tribes. Friesland, to speak in the language of that age, extended
+then from the Scheldt to the Weser, and formed a considerable
+state. But the ascendency of France was every year becoming more
+marked; and King Dagobert extended the limits of her power even
+as far as Utrecht. The descendants of the Menapians, known at
+that epoch by the different names of Menapians, Flemings, and
+Toxandirans, fell one after another directly or indirectly under
+the empire of the Merovingian princes; and the noblest family
+which existed among the French--that which subsequently took the
+name of Carlovingians--comprised in its dominions nearly the
+whole of the southern and western parts of the Netherlands.
+
+Between this family, whose chief was called duke of the Frontier
+Marshes (_Dux_Brabantioe_), and the free tribes, united under
+the common name of Frisons, the same struggle was maintained as
+that which formerly existed between the Salians and the Saxons.
+Toward the year 700, the French monarchy was torn by anarchy,
+and, under "the lazy kings," lost much of its concentrated power;
+but every dukedom formed an independent sovereignty, and of all
+those that of Brabant was the most redoubtable. Nevertheless
+the Frisons, under their king, Radbod, assumed for a moment the
+superiority; and Utrecht, where the French had established
+Christianity, fell again into the power of the pagans. Charles
+Martell, at that time young, and but commencing his splendid
+career, was defeated by the hostile king in the forest of the
+Ardennes; and though, in subsequent conquests, he took an ample
+revenge, Radbod still remained a powerful opponent. It is related
+of this fierce monarch that he was converted by a Christian
+missionary; but, at the moment in which he put his foot in the
+water for the ceremony of baptism, he suddenly asked the priest
+where all his old Frison companions in arms had gone after their
+death? "To hell," replied the priest. "Well, then," said Radbod,
+drawing back his foot from the water, "I would rather go to hell
+with them, than to paradise with you and your fellow foreigners!"
+and he refused to receive the rite of baptism, and remained a
+pagan.
+
+After the death of Radbod, in 719, Charles Martell, now become
+duke of the Franks, mayor of the palace, or by whatever other of
+his several titles he may be distinguished, finally triumphed over
+the long-resisting Frisons. He labored to establish Christianity
+among them; but they did not understand the French language, and
+the lot of converting them was consequently reserved for the
+English. St. Willebrod was the first missionary who met with
+any success, about the latter end of the seventh century; but
+it was not till toward the year 750 that this great mission was
+finally accomplished by St. Boniface, archbishop of Mayence,
+and the apostle of Germany. Yet the progress of Christianity,
+and the establishment of a foreign sway, still met the partial
+resistance which a conquered but not enervated people are always
+capable of opposing to their masters. St. Boniface fell a victim
+to this stubborn spirit. He perished a martyr to his zeal, but
+perhaps a victim as well to the violent measures of his colleagues,
+in Friesland, the very province which to this day preserves the
+name.
+
+The last avenger of Friesland liberty and of the national idols
+was the illustrious Witikind, to whom the chronicles of his country
+give the title of first azing, or judge. This intrepid chieftain
+is considered as a compatriot, not only by the historians of
+Friesland, but by those of Saxony; both, it would appear, having
+equal claims to the honor; for the union between the two peoples
+was constantly strengthened by intermarriages between the noblest
+families of each. As long as Witikind remained a pagan and a
+freeman, some doubt existed as to the final fate of Friesland;
+but when by his conversion he became only a noble of the court
+of Charlemagne, the slavery of his country was consummated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND
+
+A.D. 800--1000
+
+Even at this advanced epoch of foreign domination, there remained
+as great a difference as ever between the people of the high
+grounds and the inhabitants of the plain. The latter were, like
+the rest, incorporated with the great monarchy; but they preserved
+the remembrance of former independence, and even retained their
+ancient names. In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still
+found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not
+extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But
+in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost.
+Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or
+towns. They were classified as accessories to inanimate things;
+and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin,
+they became as it were without recollections or associations;
+and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without
+ancestry.
+
+The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the
+times of Cćsar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest
+of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization
+had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like
+a delicate plant in an ungenial clime; but it seemed to have
+sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people
+no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the
+desperate courage of the warriors of Germany. A race of serfs now
+cultivated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests.
+The clergy had immense possessions in this country; an act of
+the following century recognizes fourteen thousand families of
+vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and
+Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less
+oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but
+they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.
+
+The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement
+of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had
+arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared
+in every part of the interior. The Meuse and the Scheldt no longer
+joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lands; whether
+this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the
+accumulation of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers
+to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp,
+Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The
+last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five
+churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence,
+the extent of the population may be conjectured. The formation of
+dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already
+well understood, and regulated by uniform custom. The plains
+thus reconquered from the waters were distributed in portions,
+according to their labor, by those who reclaimed them, except
+the parts reserved for the chieftain, the church, and the poor.
+This vital necessity for the construction of dikes had given to
+the Frison and Flemish population a particular habit of union,
+goodwill, and reciprocal justice, because it was necessary to make
+common cause in this great work for their mutual preservation.
+In all other points, the detail of the laws and manners of this
+united people presents a picture similar to that of the Saxons of
+England, with the sole exception that the people of the Netherlands
+were milder than the Saxon race properly so called--their long
+habit of laborious industry exercising its happy influence on
+the martial spirit original to both. The manufacturing arts were
+also somewhat more advanced in this part of the continent than in
+Great Britain. The Frisons, for example, were the only people
+who could succeed in making the costly mantles in use among the
+wealthy Franks.
+
+The government of Charlemagne admitted but one form, borrowed
+from that of the empire in the period of its decline--a mixture
+of the spiritual and temporal powers, exercised in the first place
+by the emperor, and at second-hand by the counts and bishops. The
+counts in those times were not the heads of noble families, as
+they afterward became, but officers of the government, removable
+at will, and possessing no hereditary rights. Their incomes did
+not arise from salaries paid in money, but consisted of lands,
+of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their
+authority. These lands being situated in the limits of their
+administration, each regarded them as his property only for the
+time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will. How
+unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be
+well imagined. The force of possession was, however, frequently
+opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though
+all civil dignity and the revenues attached to it were but personal
+and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage
+of the barbarous state of the country in which their isolated
+cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render
+their power and prerogatives inalienable and real. The force
+of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its
+centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention
+of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the
+empire to its limits. Thus it was only by perpetually interposing
+his personal efforts, and flying, as it were, from one end to the
+other of his dominions, that Charlemagne succeeded in preserving
+his authority. As for the people, without any sort of guarantee
+against the despotism of the government, they were utterly at
+the mercy of the nobles or of the sovereign. But this state of
+servitude was quite incompatible with the union of social powers
+necessary to a population that had to struggle against the tyranny
+of the ocean. To repulse its attacks with successful vigor, a
+spirit of complete concert was absolutely required; and the nation
+being thus united, and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign
+tyrants were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the
+sea that broke against the dikes by which it was defied.
+
+From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia,
+now become a prosperous commonwealth, formed political associations
+to raise a barrier against the despotic violence of the Franks.
+These associations were called Gilden, and in the Latin of the
+times Gildonia. They comprised, besides their covenants for mutual
+protection, an obligation which bound every member to give succor
+to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck.
+But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the
+quick-sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently,
+prohibited both by him and his successors. To give a notion of
+the importance of this prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is
+only necessary to state that the most ancient corporations (all
+which had preceded and engendered the most valuable municipal
+rights) were nothing more than gilden. Thus, to draw an example
+from Great Britain, the corporative charter of Berwick still
+bears the title of Charta Gildonić. But the ban of the sovereigns
+was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden
+stood their ground, and within a century after the death of
+Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.
+
+This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern
+parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland;
+for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded
+in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it
+were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms
+of government. The fact is undoubted; but the means which they
+employed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great
+privilege was the price of their military services; for they held
+a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin,
+the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of
+his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with
+the most heroic valor.
+
+These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own
+statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some
+one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the
+freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of
+property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign
+to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason;
+thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and
+according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow
+limitation of the military services which they owed to the king;
+fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct
+line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal
+articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect,
+totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their
+privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited,
+the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed
+down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages
+produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta
+was the means of founding at a later period in England.
+
+The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority
+by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means
+the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those
+countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and
+enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege,
+and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages
+on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over
+the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical
+removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more
+considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves
+more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were
+soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts,
+used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength
+to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the
+monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign;
+for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors:
+France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country
+to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole
+of the Netherlands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.
+
+In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith,
+daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived
+her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a
+powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain
+whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the
+frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title,
+considerable authority in the country; since the pope on one
+occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him,
+lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance
+into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders.
+The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced
+to consent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the
+title of count, the hereditary government of all the country
+between the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was
+the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this
+Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer
+(iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.
+
+The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this
+epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But
+though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought
+then, as at all times, to shake off the yoke, the epoch of their
+independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they
+obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their
+titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds,
+and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous
+privilege of continuance in their rank. Several foreigners had
+gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others
+Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the
+counts of Holland, and Heriold, a Norman prince who had been
+banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known
+before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It
+designated the pagan inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
+who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas.
+The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of
+those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these
+latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands
+of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory
+descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior
+of the country. Flanders alone successfully resisted them during
+the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave
+chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that
+was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions
+threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed,
+any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respecting the
+relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect
+data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief
+cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly
+interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally,
+an agreement was entered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the
+king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased
+on condition of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the
+government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period,
+the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had
+thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration
+of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France.
+The emperor Charles the Fat, anticipating the consequence of a
+rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he
+caused him to be assassinated. His followers, attacked on all points
+by the people of Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their
+destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From
+that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually
+less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the
+coast; and their last expedition appears to have taken place
+about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed
+in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.
+
+It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hundred and
+fifty years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion
+and devastation by these northern barbarians, the political state
+of the country underwent no important changes. The emperors of
+Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of
+Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine,
+as well as all which they possessed of what is now called France,
+and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the
+Lotheringian kings. The great difficulty of maintaining subordination
+among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958,
+to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and
+Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole
+of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieutenant of
+the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled
+this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The
+other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted
+into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald,
+were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and
+after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year
+985, they gained a species of imperfect independence--Lambert
+becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Louvain, and
+Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.
+
+The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant,
+Godfrey, became convinced that the imperial power was too weak
+to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country.
+He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of
+duke to a young prince of the royal house of France; and we thus
+see the duchy of Lower Lorraine governed, in the name of the
+emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne,
+the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis
+d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on
+as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his
+residence. After several years of tranquil government, the death
+of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that
+time he bravely contended for the crown of his ancestors, against
+the usurpation of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in
+battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put
+to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor
+justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously
+perished the name of the Carlovingians.
+
+The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vassals once
+more in opposition. The German monarch insisted on naming some
+creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II.,
+count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the
+sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance
+to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders,
+joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to
+the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the
+only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself
+obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin.
+The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.
+
+Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to
+rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing
+up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate
+the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no
+temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by
+the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly
+the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power
+being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices
+of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the
+aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather
+than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance
+and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and
+anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every
+laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired
+new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not
+portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved
+to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful,
+and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of
+the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.
+
+Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure
+of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times
+jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain
+from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on
+whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new
+privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch,
+at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts,
+little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in
+the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first
+effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count
+of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which
+took place at the little village of Stongarde. And five years
+later, the count of the Friesland marshes (_comes_Frisonum_
+_Morsatenorum_) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop
+of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention from the
+nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE
+
+A.D. 1018--1384
+
+The district in which Dordrecht is situated, and the grounds
+in its environs which are at present submerged, formed in those
+times an island just raised above the waters, and which was called
+Holland or Holtland (which means _wooded_ land, or, according to
+some, _hollow_ land). The formation of this island, or rather its
+recovery from the waters, being only of recent date, the right to
+its possession was more disputable than that of long-established
+countries. All the bishops and abbots whose states bordered the
+Rhine and the Meuse had, being equally covetous and grasping,
+and mutually resolved to pounce on the prey, made it their common
+property. A certain Count Thierry, descended from the counts
+of Ghent, governed about this period the western extremity of
+Friesland--the country which now forms the province of Holland;
+and with much difficulty maintained his power against the Frisons,
+by whom his right was not acknowledged. Beaten out of his own
+territories by these refractory insurgents, he sought refuge in
+the ecclesiastical island, where he intrenched himself, and founded
+a town which is believed to have been the origin of Dordrecht.
+
+This Count Thierry, like all the feudal lords, took advantage
+of his position to establish and levy certain duties on all the
+vessels which sailed past his territory, dispossessing in the
+meantime some vassals of the church, and beating, as we have
+stated, the bishop of Utrecht himself. Complaints and appeals
+without number were laid at the foot of the imperial throne.
+Godfrey of Eenham, whom the emperor had created duke of Lower
+Lorraine, was commanded to call the whole country to arms. The
+bishop of Liege, though actually dying, put himself at the head
+of the expedition, to revenge his brother prelate, and punish
+the audacious spoiler of the church property. But Thierry and
+his fierce Frisons took Godfrey prisoner, and cut his army in
+pieces. The victor had the good sense and moderation to spare
+his prisoners, and set them free without ransom. He received
+in return an imperial amnesty; and from that period the count
+of Holland and his posterity formed a barrier against which the
+ecclesiastical power and the remains of the imperial supremacy
+continually struggled, to be only shattered in each new assault.
+John Egmont, an old chronicler, says that the counts of Holland
+were "a sword in the flanks of the bishops of Utrecht."
+
+As the partial independence of the great vassals became consolidated,
+the monarchs were proportionally anxious to prevent its perpetuation
+in the same families. In pursuance of this system, Godfrey of Eenham
+obtained the preference over the Counts Lambert and Robert; and
+Frederick of Luxemburg was named duke of Lower Lorraine in 1046,
+instead of a second Godfrey, who was nephew and expectant heir to
+the first. But this Godfrey, upheld by Baldwin of Flanders, forced
+the emperor to concede to him the inheritance of the dukedom.
+Baldwin secured for his share the country of Alost and Waas, and the
+citadel of Ghent; and he also succeeded in obtaining in marriage
+for his son the Countess Richilde, heiress of Hainault and Namur.
+Thus was Flanders incessantly gaining new aggrandizement, while
+the duchy of Lorraine was crumbling away on every side.
+
+In the year 1066 this state of Flanders, even then flourishing
+and powerful, furnished assistance, both in men and ships, to
+William the Bastard of Normandy, for the conquest of England.
+William was son-in-law to Count Baldwin, and recompensed the
+assistance of his wife's father by an annual payment of three
+hundred silver marks. It was Mathilda, the Flemish princess and
+wife of the conqueror, who worked with her own hands the celebrated
+tapestry of Bayeux, on which is embroidered the whole history
+of the conquest, and which is the most curious monument of the
+state of the arts in that age.
+
+Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superiority over all
+the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment
+of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer,
+after having valiantly repulsed the Normans toward the end of
+the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an
+industrious and energetic people. They had built towns, cut down
+and cleared away forests, and reclaimed inundated lands: above
+all things, they had understood and guarded against the danger
+of parcelling out their states at every succeeding generation;
+and the county of Flanders passed entire into the hands of the
+first-born of the family. The stability produced by this state
+of things had allowed the people to prosper. The Normans now
+visited the coasts, not as enemies, but as merchants; and Bruges
+became the mart of the booty acquired by these bold pirates in
+England and on the high seas. The fisheries had begun to acquire
+an importance sufficient to establish the herring as one of the
+chief aliments of the population. Maritime commerce had made such
+strides that Spain and Portugal were well known to both sailors
+and traders, and the voyage from Flanders to Lisbon was estimated
+at fifteen days' sail. Woollen stuffs formed the principal wealth
+of the country; but salt, corn, and jewelry were also important
+branches of traffic; while the youth of Flanders were so famous for
+their excellence in all martial pursuits that foreign sovereigns
+were at all times desirous of obtaining bodies of troops from
+this nation.
+
+The greatest part of Flanders was attached, as has been seen, to
+the king of France, and not to Lorraine; but the dependence was
+little more than nominal. In 1071 the king of France attempted
+to exercise his authority over the country, by naming to the
+government the same Countess Richilde who had received Hainault
+and Namur for her dower, and who was left a widow, with sons
+still in their minority. The people assembled in the principal
+towns, and protested against this intervention of the French
+monarch. But we must remark that it was only the population of
+the low lands (whose sturdy ancestors had ever resisted foreign
+domination) that now took part in this opposition. The vassals
+which the counts of Flanders possessed in the Gallic provinces
+(the high grounds), and in general all the nobility, pronounced
+strongly for submission to France; for the principles of political
+freedom had not yet been fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of
+those parts of the country. But the lowlanders joined together
+under Robert, surnamed the Frison, brother of the deceased count;
+and they so completely defeated the French, the nobles and their
+unworthy associates of the high ground, that they despoiled the
+usurping Countess Richilde of even her hereditary possessions.
+In this war perished the celebrated Norman, William Fitz-Osborn,
+who had flown to the succor of the defeated countess, of whom
+he was enamored.
+
+Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of
+France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson
+of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced
+from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor
+and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain,
+who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having
+successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all
+the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of
+Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of
+Guelders. Finally, in 1086, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant
+of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant; and
+from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as
+it was destined to remain for several centuries.
+
+In the midst of this gradual organization of the various counties,
+history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime
+people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of
+two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which
+at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than
+these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended
+from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder Zee, but not quite
+to the Rhine; and it became usual to consider no longer as Frisons
+the subjects of the counts of Holland, whom we may now begin
+to distinguish as Hollanders or Dutch. The Frison race alone
+refused to recognize the sovereign counts. They boasted of being
+self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the emperor, and regarding
+the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require
+obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged
+in all things to respect them. But the counts of Holland, the
+bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from
+time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted
+that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that
+of the sovereign they represented. The descendants of the Count
+Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent
+in this assumption of power. Defeat after defeat, however, punished
+their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the
+pikes of their Frison opponents. The latter had no regular leaders;
+but at the approach of the enemy the inhabitants of each canton
+flew to arms, like the members of a single family; and all the
+feudal forces brought against them failed to subdue this popular
+militia.
+
+The frequent result of these collisions was the refusal of the
+Frisons to recognize any authority whatever but that of the national
+judges. Each canton was governed according to its own laws. If
+a difficulty arose, the deputies of the nation met together on
+the borders of the Ems, in a place called "the Trees of Upstal"
+(_Upstall-boomen_), where three old oaks stood in the middle of
+an immense plain. In this primitive council-place chieftains
+were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose
+the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary
+authority.
+
+It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with
+the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled
+those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up
+within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling
+in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We
+read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of
+Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor
+who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look elsewhere
+for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust
+the whole stock of the monastery.
+
+In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively
+opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days.
+The Frisons successfully resisted the payment of tithes; and as a
+punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted
+upon them repeated inundations. They forced their priests to
+marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought
+for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesiastical
+decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did
+not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth
+in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling
+themselves _Vri-Vriesen_, Free-Frisons.
+
+No nation is more interested than England in the examination of
+all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in
+its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was
+there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first
+developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment
+in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits,
+we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may
+we enter on many mysteries of social government which the most
+learned find a difficulty in solving. What were the rights of
+the nobles in their connection with these freemen? What ties of
+reciprocal interest bound the different cantons to each other?
+What were the privileges of the towns?--These are the minute
+but important points of detail which are overshadowed by the
+grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in
+fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little
+knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it
+were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the
+history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic
+nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to
+the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of
+Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the vague and
+imposing title of "the great Frison," applied to some popular
+leader. All this confusion tends to prove, on the authority of the
+historians of the epoch, and the charters so carefully collected
+by the learned, that this question, now so impossible to solve,
+was even then not rightly understood--what were really those
+fierce and redoubtable Frisons in their popular and political
+relations? The fact is, that liberty was a matter so difficult
+to be comprehended by the writers of those times that Froissart
+gave as his opinion, about the year 1380, that the Frisons were
+a most unreasonable race, for not recognizing the authority and
+power of the great lords.
+
+The eleventh century had been for the Netherlands (with the exception
+of Friesland and Flanders) an epoch of organization; and had nearly
+fixed the political existence of the provinces, which were so long
+confounded in the vast possessions of the empire. It is therefore
+important to ascertain under what influence and on what basis
+these provinces became consolidated at that period. Holland and
+Zealand, animated by the spirit which we may fairly distinguish
+under the mingled title of Saxon and maritime, countries scarcely
+accessible, and with a vigorous population, possessed, in the
+descendants of Thierry I., a race of national chieftains who
+did not attempt despotic rule over so unconquerable a people. In
+Brabant, the maritime towns of Berg-op-Zoom and Antwerp formed, in
+the Flemish style, so many republics, small but not insignificant;
+while the southern parts of the province were under the sway of
+a nobility who crushed, trampled on, or sold their vassals at
+their pleasure or caprice. The bishopric of Liege offered also
+the same contrast; the domains of the nobility being governed
+with the utmost harshness, while those prince-prelates lavished on
+their plebeian vassals privileges which might have been supposed
+the fruits of generosity, were it not clear that the object was
+to create an opposition in the lower orders against the turbulent
+aristocracy, whom they found it impossible to manage single-handed.
+The wars of these bishops against the petty nobles, who made their
+castles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the
+foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain
+that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than
+those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences
+preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the
+old romance writers. But in all the rest of the Netherlands,
+excepting the provinces already mentioned, no form of government
+existed, but that fierce feudality which reduced the people into
+serfs, and turned the social state of man into a cheerless waste
+of bondage.
+
+It was then that the Crusades, with wild and stirring fanaticism,
+agitated, in the common impulse given to all Europe, even those
+little states which seemed to slumber in their isolated independence.
+Nowhere did the voice of Peter the Hermit find a more sympathizing
+echo than in these lands, still desolated by so many intestine
+struggles. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, took the
+lead in this chivalric and religious frenzy. With him set out
+the counts of Hainault and Flanders; the latter of whom received
+from the English crusaders the honorable appellation of Fitz
+St. George. But although the valor of all these princes was
+conspicuous, from the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem by
+Godfrey of Bouillon in 1098, until that of the Latin empire of
+Constantinople by Baldwin of Flanders in 1203, still the simple
+gentlemen and peasants of Friesland did not less distinguish
+themselves. They were, on all occasions, the first to mount the
+breach or lead the charge; and the pope's nuncio found himself
+forced to prohibit the very women of Friesland from embarking
+for the Holy Land--so anxious were they to share the perils and
+glory of their husbands and brothers in combating the Saracens.
+
+The outlet given by the crusaders to the overboiling ardor of
+these warlike countries was a source of infinite advantage to
+their internal economy; under the rapid progress of civilization,
+the population increased and the fields were cultivated. The
+nobility, reduced to moderation by the enfeebling consequences
+of extensive foreign wars, became comparatively impotent in their
+attempted efforts against domestic freedom. Those of Flanders and
+Brabant, also, were almost decimated in the terrible battle of
+Bouvines, fought between the Emperor Othon and Philip Augustus,
+king of France. On no occasion, however, had this reduced but
+not degenerate nobility shown more heroic valor. The Flemish
+knights, disdaining to mount their horses or form their ranks for
+the repulse of the French cavalry, composed of common persons,
+contemptuously received their shock on foot and in the disorder
+of individual resistance. The brave Buridan of Ypres led his
+comrades to the fight, with the chivalric war-cry, "Let each
+now think of her he loves!" But the issue of this battle was
+ruinous to the Belgians, in consequence of the bad generalship
+of the emperor, who had divided his army into small portions,
+which were defeated in detail.
+
+While the nobility thus declined, the towns began rapidly to
+develop the elements of popular force. In 1120, a Flemish knight
+who might descend so far as to marry a woman of the plebeian
+ranks incurred the penalty of degradation and servitude. In 1220,
+scarcely a serf was to be found in all Flanders. The Countess Jane
+had enfranchised all those belonging to her as early as 1222.
+In 1300, the chiefs of the gilden, or trades, were more powerful
+than the nobles. These dates and these facts must suffice to mark
+the epoch at which the great mass of the nation arose from the
+wretchedness in which it was plunged by the Norman invasion, and
+acquired sufficient strength and freedom to form a real political
+force. But it is remarkable that the same results took place in
+all the counties or dukedoms of the Lowlands precisely at the
+same period. In fact, if we start from the year 1200 on this
+interesting inquiry, we shall see the commons attacking, in the
+first place, the petty feudal lords, and next the counts and the
+dukes themselves, often as justice was denied them. In 1257,
+the peasants of Holland and the burghers of Utrecht proclaimed
+freedom and equality, drove out the bishop and the nobles, and
+began a memorable struggle which lasted full two hundred years.
+In 1260, the townspeople of Flanders appealed to the king of
+France against the decrees of their count, who ended the quarrel
+by the loss of his county. In 1303, Mechlin and Louvain, the chief
+towns of Brabant, expelled the patrician families. A coincidence
+like this cannot be attributed to trifling or partial causes,
+such as the misconduct of a single count, or other local evil;
+but to a great general movement in the popular mind, the progress
+of agriculture and industry in the whole country, superinducing
+an increase of wealth and intelligence, which, when unrestrained
+by the influence of a corrupt government, must naturally lead
+to the liberty and the happiness of a people.
+
+The weaving of woollen and linen cloths was one of the chief
+sources of this growing prosperity. A prodigious quantity of
+cloth and linen was manufactured in all parts of the Netherlands.
+The maritime prosperity acquired an equal increase by the carrying
+trade, both in imports and exports. Whole fleets of Dutch and
+Flemish merchant ships repaired regularly to the coasts of Spain
+and Languedoc. Flanders was already become the great market for
+England and all the north of Europe. The great increase of population
+forced all parts of the country into cultivation; so much so,
+that lands were in those times sold at a high price, which are
+to-day left waste from imputed sterility.
+
+Legislation naturally followed the movements of those positive
+and material interests. The earliest of the towns, after the
+invasion of the Normans, were in some degree but places of refuge.
+It was soon however, established that the regular inhabitants
+of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any
+servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who
+might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was
+considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about
+the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of
+regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges
+and magistrates, and attached to their authority the old custom of
+ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the summons
+of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assemblage or
+service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal
+of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population
+of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of
+the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made
+war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the
+chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for
+life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary struggles,
+almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen,
+forced to tear themselves from every association of home and
+its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the
+contest; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of
+that still greater to be found in a prolonged struggle. It is this
+that it may be remarked, during the memorable conflicts of the
+thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights
+advised their counts or dukes to grant or demand a truce, the
+citizen militia never knew but one cry--"To the charge!"
+
+Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation,
+when it became forced to take up arms against enemies still more
+redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned
+their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king
+of France, began to repent of their newly-formed allegiance,
+and to be weary of the master they had chosen. Two citizens of
+Bruges, Peter de Koning, a draper, and John Breydel, a butcher,
+put themselves at the head of their fellow-townsmen, and completely
+dislodged the French troops who garrisoned it. The following year
+the militia of Bruges and the immediate neighborhood sustained
+alone, at the battle of Courtrai, the shock of one of the finest
+armies that France ever sent into the field. Victory soon declared
+for the gallant men of Bruges; upward of three thousand of the
+French chivalry, besides common soldiers, were left dead on the
+field. In 1304, after a long contested battle, the Flemings forced
+the king of France to release their count, whom he had held prisoner.
+"I believe it rains Flemings!" said Philip, astonished to see them
+crowd on him from all sides of the field. But this multitude
+of warriors, always ready to meet the foe, were provided for
+the most part by the towns. In the seigniorial system a village
+hardly furnished more than four or five men, and these only on
+important occasions; but in that of the towns every citizen was
+enrolled as a soldier to defend the country at all times.
+
+The same system established in Brabant forced the duke of that
+province to sanction and guarantee the popular privileges, and
+the superiority of the people over the nobility. Such was the
+result of the famous contract concluded in 1312 at Cortenbergh,
+by which the duke created a legislative and judicial assembly to
+meet every twenty-one days for the, provincial business; and to
+consist of fourteen deputies, of whom only four were to be nobles,
+and ten were chosen from the people. The duke was bound by this
+act to hold himself in obedience to the legislative decisions
+of the council, and renounced all right of levying arbitrary
+taxes or duties on the state. Thus were the local privileges
+of the people by degrees secured and ratified; but the various
+towns, making common cause for general liberty, became strictly
+united together, and progressively extended their influence and
+power. The confederation between Flanders and Brabant was soon
+consolidated. The burghers of Bruges, who had taken the lead in
+the grand national union, and had been the foremost to expel
+the foreign force, took umbrage in 1323 at an arbitrary measure
+of their count, Louis (called of Cressy by posthumous nomination,
+from his having been killed at that celebrated fight), by which
+he ceded to the count of Namur, his great-uncle, the port of
+Ecluse, and authorized him to levy duties there in the style of
+the feudal lords of the high country. It was but the affair of
+a day to the intrepid citizens to attack the fortress of Ecluse,
+carry it by assault, and take prisoner the old count of Namur.
+They destroyed in a short time almost all the strong castles of
+the nobles throughout the province; and having been joined by
+all the towns of western Flanders, they finally made prisoners
+of Count Louis himself, with almost the whole of the nobility,
+who had taken refuge with him in the town of Courtrai. But Ghent,
+actuated by the jealousy which at all times existed between it and
+Bruges, stood aloof at this crisis. The latter town was obliged
+to come to a compromise with the count, who soon afterward, on a
+new quarrel breaking out, and supported by the king of France,
+almost annihilated his sturdy opponents at the battle of Cassel,
+where the Flemish infantry, commanded by Nicholas Zannekin and
+others, were literally cut to pieces by the French knights and
+men-at-arms.
+
+This check proved the absolute necessity of union among the rival
+cities. Ten years after the battle of Cassel, Ghent set the example
+of general opposition; this example was promptly followed, and
+the chief towns flew to arms. The celebrated James d'Artaveldt,
+commonly called the brewer of Ghent, put himself at the head of
+this formidable insurrection. He was a man of a distinguished
+family, who had himself enrolled among the guild of brewers, to
+entitle him to occupy a place in the corporation of Ghent, which
+he soon succeeded in managing and leading at his pleasure. The
+tyranny of the count, and the French party which supported him,
+became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail
+them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law,
+Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt,
+and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native
+city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable. The
+Flemings had sworn allegiance to the crown of France; and they
+revolted at the idea of perjury, even from an extorted oath.
+But to overcome their scruples, Artaveldt proposed to acknowledge
+the claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown. The
+Flemings readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed
+Count Louis of Cressy and his French partisans; and then joined,
+with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had
+landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's
+army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English
+fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior
+force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive
+of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of
+fighting, until a Flemish squadron, hastening to the aid of the
+English, fixed the fate of the combat by the utter defeat of
+the enemy.
+
+A truce between the two kings did not deprive Artaveldt of his
+well-earned authority. He was invested with the title of ruward,
+or conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and governed the whole
+province with almost sovereign sway. It was said that King Edward
+used familiarly to call him "his dear gossip"; and it is certain
+that there was not a feudal lord of the time whose power was
+not eclipsed by this leader of the people. One of the principal
+motives which cemented the attachment of the Flemings to Artaveldt
+was the advantage obtained through his influence with Edward for
+facilitating the trade with England, whence they procured the
+chief supply of wool for their manufactories. Edward promised
+them seventy thousand sacks as the reward of their alliance. But
+though greatly influenced by the stimulus of general interest,
+the Flemings loved their domestic liberty better than English
+wool; and when they found that their ruward degenerated from a
+firm patriot into the partisan of a foreign prince, they became
+disgusted with him altogether; and he perished in 1345, in a
+tumult raised against him by those by whom he had been so lately
+idolized. The Flemings held firm, nevertheless, in their alliance
+with England, only regulating the connection by a steady principle
+of national independence.
+
+Edward knew well how to conciliate and manage these faithful
+and important auxiliaries during all his continental wars. A
+Flemish army covered the siege of Calais in 1348; and, under
+the command of Giles de Rypergherste, a mere weaver of Ghent,
+they beat the dauphin of France in a pitched battle. But Calais
+once taken, and a truce concluded, the English king abandoned
+his allies. These, left wholly to their own resources, forced
+the French and the heir of their count, young Louis de Male,
+to recognize their right to self-government according to their
+ancient privileges, and of not being forced to give aid to France
+in any war against England. Flanders may therefore be pronounced
+as forming, at this epoch, both in right and fact, a truly
+independent principality.
+
+But such struggles as these left a deep and immovable sentiment
+of hatred in the minds of the vanquished. Louis de Male longed
+for the re-establishment and extension of his authority; and
+had the art to gain over to his views not only all the nobles,
+but many of the most influential guilds or trades. Ghent, which
+long resisted his attempts, was at length reduced by famine; and
+the count projected the ruin, or at least the total subjection,
+of this turbulent town. A son of Artaveldt started forth at this
+juncture, when the popular cause seemed lost, and joining with
+his fellow-citizens, John Lyons and Peter du Bois, he led seven
+thousand resolute burghers against forty thousand feudal vassals.
+He completely defeated the count, and took the town of Bruges,
+where Louis de Male only obtained safety by hiding himself under
+the bed of an old woman who gave him shelter. Thus once more
+feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.
+
+The consequences of this event were immense. They reached to the
+very heart of France, where the people bore in great discontent
+the feudal yoke; and Froissart declares that the success of the
+people of Gheut had nearly overthrown the superiority of the
+nobility over the people in France. But the king, Charles VI.,
+excited by his uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, took arms
+in support of the defeated count, and marched with a powerful army
+against the rebellious burghers. Though defeated in four successive
+combats, in the latter of which, that of Roosbeke, Artaveldt
+was killed, the Flemings would not submit to their imperious
+count, who used every persuasion with Charles to continue his
+assistance for the punishment of these refractory subjects. But
+the duke of Burgundy was aware that a too great perseverance would
+end, either in driving the people to despair and the possible
+defeat of the French, or the entire conquest of the country and
+its junction to the crown of France. He, being son-in-law to
+Louis de Male, and consequently aspiring to the inheritance of
+Flanders, saw with a keen glance the advantage of a present
+compromise. On the death of Louis, who is stated to have been
+murdered by Philip's brother, the duke of Berri, be concluded
+a peace with the rebel burghers, and entered at once upon the
+sovereignty of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS,
+TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR
+
+A.D. 1384--1506
+
+Thus the house of Burgundy, which soon after became so formidable
+and celebrated, obtained this vast accession to its power. The
+various changes which had taken place in the neighboring provinces
+during the continuance of these civil wars had altered the state
+of Flanders altogether. John d'Avesnes, count of Hainault, having
+also succeeded in 1299 to the county of Holland, the two provinces,
+though separated by Flanders and Brabant, remained from that
+time under the government of the same chief, who soon became
+more powerful than the bishops of Utrecht, or even than their
+formidable rivals the Frisons.
+
+During the wars which desolated these opposing territories, in
+consequence of the perpetual conflicts for superiority, the power
+of the various towns insensibly became at least as great as that
+of the nobles to whom they were constantly opposed. The commercial
+interests of Holland, also, were considerably advanced by the
+influx of Flemish merchants forced to seek refuge there from the
+convulsions which agitated their province. Every day confirmed
+and increased the privileges of the people of Brabant; while at
+Liege the inhabitants gradually began to gain the upper hand,
+and to shake off the former subjection to their sovereign bishops.
+
+Although Philip of Burgundy became count of Flanders, by the
+death of his father-in-law, in the year 1384, it was not till
+the following year that he concluded a peace with the people
+of Ghent, and entered into quiet possession of the province.
+In the same year the duchess of Brabant, the last descendant
+of the duke of that province, died, leaving no nearer relative
+than the duchess of Burgundy; so that Philip obtained in right
+of his wife this new and important accession to his dominions.
+But the consequent increase of the sovereign's power was not,
+as is often the case, injurious to the liberties or happiness
+of the people. Philip continued to govern in the interest of the
+country, which he had the good sense to consider as identified
+with his own. He augmented the privileges of the towns, and
+negotiated for the return into Flanders of those merchants who
+had emigrated to Germany and Holland during the continuance of
+the civil wars. He thus by degrees accustomed his new subjects,
+so proud of their rights, to submit to his authority; and his
+peaceable reign was only disturbed by the fatal issue of the
+expedition of his son, John the Fearless, count of Nevers, against
+the Turks. This young prince, filled with ambition and temerity,
+was offered the command of the force sent by Charles III. of France
+to the assistance of Sigismund of Hungary in his war against
+Bajazet. Followed by a numerous body of nobles, he entered on
+the contest, and was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks
+at the battle of Nicopolis. His army was totally destroyed, and
+himself only restored to liberty on the payment of an immense
+ransom.
+
+John the Fearless succeeded in 1404 to the inheritance of all
+his father's dominions, with the exception of Brabant, of which
+his younger brother, Anthony of Burgundy, became duke. John, whose
+ambitious and ferocious character became every day more strongly
+developed, now aspired to the government of France during the
+insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little
+with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired
+to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in
+his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent
+to the rivalry of England and France, which now began so fearfully
+to affect the latter kingdom, forced their ambitious count to
+declare their province a neutral country; so that the English
+merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of
+Flanders, and the Flemings equally well received in England,
+while the duke made open war against Great Britain in his quality
+of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably
+the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction
+between the prince and the people.
+
+Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely
+restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles
+of the province to take part in the quarrels of France; and he
+suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in
+the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this
+event, for the militia of the country had not followed their
+duke and his nobles to the war; and a national council was now
+established, consisting of eleven persons, two of whom were
+ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners.
+This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted
+the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the
+young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself
+upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could
+not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game
+of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his
+claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over
+Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated
+the demand with derision.
+
+The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which
+now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the
+history of the time by two striking and characteristic incidents.
+At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb
+her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token
+of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her
+rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In
+the same year (1404) the widow of Albert, count of Holland and
+Hainault, finding herself in similar circumstances, required of
+the bailiff of Holland and the judges of his court permission to
+make a like renunciation. The claim was granted; and, to fulfil
+the requisite ceremony, she walked at the head of the funeral
+procession, carrying in her hand a blade of straw, which she
+placed on the coffin. We thus find that in such cases the reigning
+families were held liable to follow the common usages of the
+country. From such instances there required but little progress
+in the principle of equality to reach the republican contempt for
+rank which made the citizens of Bruges in the following century
+arrest their count for his private debts.
+
+The spirit of independence had reached the same point at Liege.
+The families of the counts of Holland and Hainault, which were at
+this time distinguished by the name of Bavaria, because they were
+only descended from the ancient counts of Netherland extraction in
+the female line, had sufficient influence to obtain the nomination
+to the bishopric for a prince who was at the period in his infancy.
+John of Bavaria--for so he was called, and to his name was afterward
+added the epithet of "the Pitiless"--on reaching his majority,
+did not think it necessary to cause himself to be consecrated a
+priest, but governed as a lay sovereign. The indignant citizens
+of Liege expelled him, and chose another bishop. But the Houses
+of Burgundy and Bavaria, closely allied by intermarriages, made
+common cause in his quarrel; and John, duke of Burgundy, and
+William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, brother of the bishop,
+replaced by force this cruel and unworthy prelate.
+
+This union of the government over all the provinces in two families
+so closely connected rendered the preponderance of the rulers
+too strong for that balance hitherto kept steady by the popular
+force. The former could on each new quarrel join together, and
+employ against any particular town their whole united resources;
+whereas the latter could only act by isolated efforts for the
+maintenance of their separate rights. Such was the cause of a
+considerable decline in public liberty during the fifteenth century.
+It is true that John the Fearless gave almost his whole attention
+to his French political intrigues, and to the fierce quarrels
+which he maintained with the House of Orleans. But his nephew,
+John, duke of Brabant, having married, in 1416, his cousin
+Jacqueline, daughter and heiress of William IV., count of Holland
+and Hainault, this branch of the House of Burgundy seemed to get
+the start of the elder in its progressive influence over the
+provinces of the Netherlands. The dukes of Guelders, who had
+changed their title of counts for one of superior rank, acquired
+no accession of power proportioned to their new dignity. The
+bishops of Utrecht became by degrees weaker; private dissensions
+enfeebled Friesland; Luxemburg was a poor, unimportant dukedom;
+but Holland, Hainault, and Brabant formed the very heart of the
+Netherlands; while the elder branch of the same family, under
+whom they were united, possessed Flanders, Artois, and the two
+Burgundies. To complete the prosperity and power of this latter
+branch, it was soon destined to inherit the entire dominions
+of the other.
+
+A fact the consequences of which were so important for the entire
+of Europe merits considerable attention; but it is most difficult
+to explain at once concisely and clearly the series of accidents,
+manoeuvres, tricks, and crimes by which it was accomplished. It
+must first be remarked that this John of Brabant, become the
+husband of his cousin Jacqueline, countess of Holland and Hainault,
+possessed neither the moral nor physical qualities suited to
+mate with the most lovely, intrepid, and talented woman of her
+times; nor the vigor and firmness required for the maintenance
+of an increased, and for those days a considerable, dominion.
+Jacqueline thoroughly despised her insignificant husband; first
+in secret, and subsequently by those open avowals forced from
+her by his revolting combination of weakness, cowardice, and
+tyranny. He tamely allowed the province of Holland to be invaded
+by the same ungrateful bishop of Liege, John the Pitiless, whom
+his wife's father and his own uncle had re-established in his
+justly forfeited authority. But John of Brabant revenged himself
+for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic persecutions so
+odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection.
+Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest
+with a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels,
+where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under
+the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of
+his fame and power.
+
+England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European
+affairs. John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of
+his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the
+bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and
+in his presence. Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor
+of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge
+his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he
+married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to
+the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent
+of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI. But besides
+the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip
+also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline,
+his cousin. As soon as he had learned that this princess, so
+well received in England, was taking measures for having her
+marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester,
+also the brother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the
+appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented by a
+double anxiety. He, in the first place, dreaded that Jacqueline
+might have children by her projected marriage with Gloucester (a
+circumstance neither likely nor even possible, in the opinion of
+some historians, to result from her union with John of Brabant:
+Hume, vol. iii., p. 133), and thus deprive him of his right of
+succession to her states; and in the next, he was jealous of
+the possible domination of England in the Netherlands as well
+as in France. He therefore soon became self-absolved from all
+his vows of revenge in the cause of his murdered father, and
+labored solely for the object of his personal aggrandizement.
+To break his connection with Bedford; to treat secretly with
+the dauphin, his father's assassin, or at least the witness and
+warrant for his assassination; and to shuffle from party to party
+as occasion required, were movements of no difficulty to Philip,
+surnamed "the Good." He openly espoused the cause of his infamous
+relative, John of Brabant; sent a powerful army into Hainault,
+which Gloucester vainly strove to defend in right of his affianced
+wife; and next seized on Holland and Zealand, where he met with
+a long but ineffectual resistance on the part of the courageous
+woman he so mercilessly oppressed. Jacqueline, deprived of the
+assistance of her stanch but ruined friends,[1] and abandoned
+by Gloucester (who, on the refusal of Pope Martin V. to sanction
+her divorce, had married another woman, and but feebly aided
+the efforts of the former to maintain her rights), was now left
+a widow by the death of John of Brabant. But Philip, without a
+shadow of justice, pursued his designs against her dominions,
+and finally despoiled her of her last possessions, and even of
+the title of countess, which she forfeited by her marriage with
+Vrank Van Borselen, a gentleman of Zealand, contrary to a compact
+to which Philip's tyranny had forced her to consent. After a career
+the most checkered and romantic which is recorded in history, the
+beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacqueline found repose and
+happiness in the tranquillity of private life, and her death
+in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from
+Philip's thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which
+he drowned his remorse. As if fortune had conspired for the rapid
+consolidation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of
+St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of
+Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province;
+and his dominions soon extended to the very limits of Picardy,
+by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become
+Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance
+with France.
+
+[Footnote 1: We must not omit to notice the existence of two
+factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated
+the whole population of Holland and Zealand. One bore the title
+of _Hoeks_ (fishing-hooks); the other was called _Kaabel-jauws_
+(cod-fish). The origin of these burlesque denominations was a
+dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish
+took the hook or the hook the cod-fish? This apparently frivolous
+dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel; and the partisans
+of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either
+side, and assumed different badges of distinction. The _Hoeks_,
+partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the _Kaabeljauws_ wore
+gray ones. In Jacqueline's quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she
+was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492
+that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck
+a final blow to the dissensions of both.]
+
+Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so
+extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain
+from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though
+almost nominal, rights as lord paramount. He next purchased the
+title of the duchess of Luxemburg to that duchy; and thus the
+states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to
+that of the existing kingdom of the Netherlands. For although on
+the north and east they did not include Friesland, the bishopric
+of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south
+and west they comprised French Flanders, the Boulonnais, Artois,
+and a part of Picardy, besides Burgundy. But it has been already
+seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the
+maritime provinces. Flanders in particular, the most populous
+and wealthy, strictly preserved its republican institutions.
+Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and
+each maintained its individual authority over its respective
+territory, with great indifference to the will or the wishes of
+the sovereign duke. Philip, however, had the policy to divide
+most effectually these rival towns. After having fallen into
+the hands of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt
+to surprise, and who massacred numbers of his followers before
+his eyes, he forced them to submission by the assistance of the
+citizens of Ghent, who sanctioned the banishment of the chief
+men of the vanquished town. But some years later Ghent was in
+its turn oppressed and punished for having resisted the payment
+of some new tax. It found no support from the rest of Flanders.
+Nevertheless this powerful city singly maintained the war for
+the space of two years; but the intrepid burghers finally yielded
+to the veterans of the duke, formed to victory in the French
+wars. The principal privileges of Ghent were on this occasion
+revoked and annulled.
+
+During these transactions the province of Holland, which enjoyed
+a degree of liberty almost equal to Flanders, had declared war
+against the Hanseatic towns on its own proper authority. Supported
+by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united
+to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the
+pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce,
+and soon forced them to submission. Philip in the meantime contrived
+to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety.
+Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic character, he conducted
+himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed
+his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given
+to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least. Age
+and exhaustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration
+which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of
+some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant
+over any.
+
+Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that
+ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine
+right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become
+his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely
+to look well in the sight of Heaven. This son was Charles, count of
+Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash.
+He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen
+of despotism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of
+that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important
+successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of
+dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a
+word, conducted himself as an absolute master. Soon afterward he
+broke out into open opposition to his father, who had complained of
+this undutiful and impetuous son to the states of the provinces,
+venting his grief in lamentations instead of punishing his people's
+wrongs. But his private rage burst forth one day in a manner as
+furious as his public expressions were tame. He went so far as
+to draw his sword on Charles and pursue him through his palace;
+and a disgusting yet instructive spectacle it was, to see this
+father and son in mutual and disgraceful discord, like two birds
+of prey quarrelling in the same eyry; the old count outrageous
+to find he was no longer undisputed sovereign, and the young
+one in feeling that he had not yet become so. But Philip was
+declining daily. Yet even when dying he preserved his natural
+haughtiness and energy; and being provoked by the insubordination
+of the people of Liege, he had himself carried to the scene of
+their punishment. The refractory town of Dinant, on the Meuse,
+was utterly destroyed by the two counts, and six hundred of the
+citizens drowned in the river, and in cold blood. The following
+year Philip expired, leaving to Charles his long-wished-for
+inheritance.
+
+The reign of Philip had produced a revolution in Belgian manners;
+for his example and the great increase of wealth had introduced
+habits of luxury hitherto quite unknown. He had also brought into
+fashion romantic notions of military honor, love, and chivalry;
+which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility,
+contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and
+extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which
+was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds
+of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion
+for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a
+contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest
+of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted
+to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit so fair
+an opportunity for levying new taxes on his people. And it is
+undoubted that the splendor of his court and the immorality of
+his example were no slight sources of corruption to the countries
+which he governed.
+
+In this respect, at least, a totally different kind of government
+was looked for on the part of his son and successor, who was by
+nature and habit a mere soldier. Charles began his career by
+seizing on all the money and jewels left by his father; he next
+dismissed the crowd of useless functionaries who had fed upon,
+under the pretence of managing, the treasures of the state. But
+this salutary and sweeping reform was only effected to enable the
+sovereign to pursue uncontrolled the most fatal of all passions,
+that of war. Nothing can better paint the true character of this
+haughty and impetuous prince than his crest (a branch of holly),
+and his motto, "Who touches it, pricks himself." Charles had
+conceived a furious and not ill-founded hatred for his base yet
+formidable neighbor and rival, Louis XI. of France. The latter
+had succeeded in obtaining from Philip the restitution of some
+towns in Picardy; cause sufficient to excite the resentment of
+his inflammable successor, who, during his father's lifetime,
+took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary
+struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a
+combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand
+in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and
+intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles
+was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that
+ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness;
+Louis the most subtle, dissimulating, and treacherous king that
+ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad
+faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was
+unequal only in respect to this difference of character; for
+France, subdivided as it still was, and exhausted by the wars
+with England, was not comparable, either as regarded men, money,
+or the other resources of the state, to the compact and prosperous
+dominions of Burgundy.
+
+Charles showed some symptoms of good sense and greatness of mind,
+soon after his accession to power, that gave a false coloring to
+his disposition, and encouraged illusory hopes as to his future
+career. Scarcely was he proclaimed count of Flanders at Ghent,
+when the populace, surrounding his hotel, absolutely insisted
+on and extorted his consent to the restitution of their ancient
+privileges. Furious as Charles was at this bold proof of
+insubordination, he did not revenge it; and he treated with equal
+indulgence the city of Mechlin, which had expelled its governor
+and razed the citadel. The people of Liege, having revolted against
+their bishop, Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with
+the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but
+he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event,
+in February, 1468, he concluded with Edward IV. of England an
+alliance, offensive and defensive, against France.
+
+The real motive of this alliance was rivalry and hatred against
+Louis. The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war
+against the duke of Brittany, Charles's old ally in the short
+contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength
+with his rival after he became king. The present union between
+England and Burgundy was too powerful not to alarm Louis; he
+demanded an explanatory conference with Charles, and the town
+of Peronne in Picardy was fixed on for their meeting. Louis,
+willing to imitate the boldness of his rival, who had formerly
+come to meet him in the very midst of his army, now came to the
+rendezvous almost alone. But he was severely mortified and near
+paying a greater penalty than fright for this hazardous conduct.
+The duke, having received intelligence of a new revolt at Liege
+excited by some of the agents of France, instantly made Louis
+prisoner, in defiance of every law of honor or fair dealing. The
+excess of his rage and hatred might have carried him to a more
+disgraceful extremity, had not Louis, by force of bribery, gained
+over some of his most influential counsellors, who succeeded in
+appeasing his rage. He contented himself with humiliating, when
+he was disposed to punish. He forced his captive to accompany him
+to Liege, and witness the ruin of this unfortunate town, which
+he delivered over to plunder; and having given this lesson to
+Louis, he set him at liberty.
+
+From this period there was a marked and material change in the
+conduct of Charles. He had been previously moved by sentiments
+of chivalry and notions of greatness. But sullied by his act of
+public treachery and violence toward the monarch who had, at
+least in seeming, manifested unlimited confidence in his honor,
+a secret sense of shame embittered his feelings and soured his
+temper. He became so insupportable to those around him that he
+was abandoned by several of his best officers, and even by his
+natural brother, Baldwin of Burgundy, who passed over to the side
+of Louis. Charles was at this time embarrassed by the expense
+of entertaining and maintaining Edward IV. and numerous English
+exiles, who were forced to take refuge in the Netherlands by
+the successes of the earl of Warwick, who had replaced Henry
+VI. on the throne. Charles at the same time held out to several
+princes in Europe hopes of bestowing on them in marriage his
+only daughter and heiress Mary, while he privately assured his
+friends, if his courtiers and ministers may be so called, "that
+he never meant to have a son-in-law until he was disposed to
+make himself a monk." In a word, he was no longer guided by any
+principle but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.
+
+In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles
+and of the national militia, who only maintained toward him a
+forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights
+of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts
+of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as
+their absolute master. When the taxes necessary for the support
+and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur,
+Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some
+of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of
+his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the moment when
+nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition
+he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his
+easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais; and thus made
+of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block
+on his path of conquest.
+
+The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin
+of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally,
+who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's
+presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage
+and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders
+from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of
+it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in
+this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their
+parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found his justification
+on the argument that his father having reigned forty-four years,
+he was fully entitled to his share--a fine practical authority
+for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this
+reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles
+cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing
+on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul
+the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.
+
+After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart
+the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands
+were considered sufficiently important and consolidated to entitle
+their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered
+to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his
+son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and
+repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance
+his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter
+put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of
+a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a
+train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial
+retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage,
+from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law
+who might embitter his old age as he had done that of his own
+father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon,
+and the projected kingdom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.
+
+Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for aggrandizement
+and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of
+some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and
+its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same
+time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his
+brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recovered possession of England.
+But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied
+him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its
+succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the
+dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the
+pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping.
+This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from
+destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous
+force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace
+with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till
+after the treaty was signed, upbraided and abused the English
+king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.
+
+Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions,
+now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggrandizement, and to
+recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately
+belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would
+be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The
+infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying,
+abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the
+constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his
+independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and
+who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to
+either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine.
+Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies
+to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive
+dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles
+that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether
+worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the
+more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness
+raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the
+project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions
+of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries
+traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke
+of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.
+
+Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the
+rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered.
+The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in
+the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally
+crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached
+from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after
+this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied
+his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had
+despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss--a force in which they
+were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted
+to thirty-four thousand men. They took up a position, skilfully
+chosen, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, where they were
+attacked by Charles at the head of sixty thousand soldiers of
+all ranks. The result was the total defeat of the latter, with
+the loss of ten thousand killed, whose bones, gathered into an
+immense heap, and bleaching in the winds, remained for above
+three centuries; a terrible monument of rashness and injustice
+on the one hand, and of patriotism and valor on the other.
+
+Charles was now plunged into a state of profound melancholy;
+but he soon burst from this gloomy mood into one of renewed
+fierceness and fatal desperation. Nine months after the battle
+of Morat he re-entered Lorraine, at the head of an army, not
+composed of his faithful militia of the Netherlands, but of those
+mercenaries in whom it was madness to place trust. The reinforcements
+meant to be despatched to him by those provinces were kept back
+by the artifices of the count of Campo Basso, an Italian who
+commanded his cavalry, and who only gained his confidence basely
+to betray it. Rene, duke of Lorraine, at the head of the confederate
+forces, offered battle to Charles under the walls of Nancy; and
+the night before the combat Campo Basso went over to the enemy
+with the troops under his command. Still Charles had the way
+open for retreat. Fresh troops from Burgundy and Flanders were
+on their march to join him; but he would not be dissuaded from
+his resolution to fight, and he resolved to try his fortune once
+more with his dispirited and shattered army. On this occasion the
+fate of Charles was decided, and the fortune of Louis triumphant.
+The rash and ill-fated duke lost both the battle and his life.
+His body, mutilated with wounds, was found the next day, and
+buried with great pomp in the town of Nancy, by the orders of
+the generous victor, the duke of Lorraine.
+
+Thus perished the last prince of the powerful House of Burgundy.
+Charles left to his only daughter, then eighteen years of age,
+the inheritance of his extensive dominions, and with them that of
+the hatred and jealousy which he had so largely excited. External
+spoliation immediately commenced, and internal disunion quickly
+followed. Louis XI. seized on Burgundy and a part of Artois, as
+fiefs devolving to the crown in default of male issue. Several
+of the provinces refused to pay the new subsidies commanded in
+the name of Mary; Flanders alone showing a disposition to uphold
+the rights of the young princess. The states were assembled at
+Ghent, and ambassadors sent to the king of France in the hopes
+of obtaining peace on reasonable terms. Louis, true to his system
+of subtle perfidy, placed before one of those ambassadors, the
+burgomaster of Ghent, a letter from the inexperienced princess,
+which proved her intention to govern by the counsel of her father's
+ancient ministers rather than by that of the deputies of the
+nation. This was enough to decide the indignant Flemings to render
+themselves at once masters of the government and get rid of the
+ministers whom they hated. Two Burgundian nobles, Hugonet and
+Imbercourt, were arrested, accused of treason, and beheaded under
+the very eyes of their agonized and outraged mistress, who threw
+herself before the frenzied multitude, vainly imploring mercy
+for these innocent men. The people having thus completely gained
+the upper hand over the Burgundian influence, Mary was sovereign
+of the Netherlands but in name.
+
+It would have now been easy for Louis XI. to have obtained for
+the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but
+interesting princess; but he thought himself sufficiently strong
+and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an
+alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not
+actually rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended
+husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick
+III.; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his
+father's parsimony, that she was obliged to borrow money from
+the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite.
+Nevertheless he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his
+new subjects. They not only supplied all his wants, but enabled
+him to maintain the war against Louis XI., whom they defeated at
+the battle of Guinegate in Picardy, and forced to make peace on
+more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy
+provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent
+on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian
+little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the
+school of absolute despotism; and his duchess having met with
+a too early death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he
+could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to
+his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His
+power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly
+attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and
+Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The
+turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking
+umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether
+hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on
+his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and
+put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent
+and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked
+as a favor from his rebel subjects of Bruges to be guarded while
+a prisoner by them alone. He was then king of the Romans, and
+all Europe became interested in his fate. The pope addressed
+a brief to the town of Bruges, demanding his deliverance. But
+the burghers were as inflexible as factious; and they at length
+released him, but not until they had concluded with him and the
+assembled states a treaty which most amply secured the enjoyment
+of their privileges and the pardon of their rebellion.
+
+But these kind of compacts were never observed by the princes of
+those days beyond the actual period of their capacity to violate
+them. The emperor having entered the Netherlands at the head of
+forty thousand men, Maximilian, so supported, soon showed his
+contempt for the obligations he had sworn to, and had recourse
+to force for the extension of his authority. The valor of the
+Flemings and the military talents of their leader, Philip of
+Cleves, thwarted all his projects, and a new compromise was entered
+into. Flanders paid a large subsidy, and held fast her rights.
+The German troops were sent into Holland, and employed for the
+extinction of the Hoeks; who, as they formed by far the weaker
+faction, were now soon destroyed. That province, which had been so
+long distracted by its intestine feuds, and which had consequently
+played but an insignificant part in the transactions of the
+Netherlands, now resumed its place; and acquired thenceforth new
+honor, till it at length came to figure in all the importance
+of historical distinction.
+
+The situation of the Netherlands was now extremely precarious
+and difficult to manage, during the unstable sway of a government
+so weak as Maximilian's. But he having succeeded his father on the
+imperial throne in 1493, and his son Philip having been proclaimed
+the following year duke and count of the various provinces at
+the age of sixteen, a more pleasing prospect was offered to the
+people. Philip, young, handsome, and descended by his mother
+from the ancient sovereigns of the country, was joyfully hailed
+by all the towns. He did not belie the hopes so enthusiastically
+expressed. He had the good sense to renounce all pretensions to
+Friesland, the fertile source of many preceding quarrels and
+sacrifices. He re-established the ancient commercial relations with
+England, to which country Maximilian had given mortal-offence by
+sustaining the imposture of Perkin Warbeck. Philip also consulted
+the states-general on his projects of a double alliance between
+himself and his sister with the son and daughter of Ferdinand,
+king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; and from this wise
+precaution the project soon became one of national partiality instead
+of private or personal interest. In this manner complete harmony
+was established between the young prince and the inhabitants of
+the Netherlands. All the ills produced by civil war disappeared
+with immense rapidity in Flanders and Brabant, as soon as peace
+was thus consolidated. Even Holland, though it had particularly
+felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely
+from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this,
+Philip can be scarcely called a good prince: his merits were
+negative rather than real. But that sufficed for the nation;
+which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to the
+resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by
+the despotism of the House of Burgundy, and the attempts of
+Maximilian to continue the same system.
+
+The reign of Philip, unfortunately a short one was rendered
+remarkable by two intestine quarrels; one in Friesland, the other
+in Guelders. The Frisons, who had been so isolated from the more
+important affairs of Europe that they were in a manner lost sight
+of by history for several centuries, had nevertheless their full
+share of domestic disputes; too long, too multifarious, and too
+minute, to allow us to give more than this brief notice of their
+existence. But finally, about the period of Philip's accession,
+eastern Friesland had chosen for its count a gentleman of the
+country surnamed Edzart, who fixed the headquarters of his military
+government at Embden. The sight of such an elevation in an individual
+whose pretensions he thought far inferior to his own induced Albert
+of Saxony, who had well served Maximilian against the refractory
+Flemings, to demand as his reward the title of stadtholder or
+hereditary governor of Friesland. But it was far easier for the
+emperor to accede to this request than for his favorite to put
+the grant into effect. The Frisons, true to their old character,
+held firm to their privileges, and fought for their maintenance
+with heroic courage. Albert, furious at this resistance, had the
+horrid barbarity to cause to be impaled the chief burghers of the
+town of Leuwaarden, which he had taken by assault. But he himself
+died in the year 1500, without succeeding in his projects of an
+ambition unjust in its principle and atrocious in its practice.
+
+The war of Guelders was of a totally different nature. In this
+case it was not a question of popular resistance to a tyrannical
+nomination, but of patriotic fidelity to the reigning family.
+Adolphus, the duke who had dethroned his father, had died in
+Flanders, leaving a son who had been brought up almost a captive
+as long as Maximilian governed the states of his inheritance.
+This young man, called Charles of Egmont, and who is honored in
+the history of his country under the title of the Achilles of
+Guelders, fell into the hands of the French during the combat
+in which he made his first essay in arms. The town of Guelders
+unanimously joined to pay his ransom; and as soon as he was at
+liberty they one and all proclaimed him duke. The emperor Philip
+and the Germanic diet in vain protested against this measure,
+and declared Charles a usurper. The spirit of justice and of
+liberty spoke more loudly than the thunders of their ban; and the
+people resolved to support to the last this scion of an ancient
+race, glorious in much of its conduct, though often criminal in
+many of its members. Charles of Egmont found faithful friends
+in his devoted subjects; and he maintained his rights, sometimes
+with, sometimes without, the assistance of France--making up for
+his want of numbers by energy and enterprise. We cannot follow this
+warlike prince in the long series of adventures which consolidated
+his power; nor stop to depict his daring adherents on land, who
+caused the whole of Holland to tremble at their deeds; nor his
+pirates--the chief of whom, Long Peter, called himself king of
+the Zuyder Zee. But amid all the consequent troubles of such a
+struggle, it is marvellous to find Charles of Egmont upholding
+his country in a state of high prosperity, and leaving it at his
+death almost as rich as Holland itself.
+
+The incapacity of Philip the Fair doubtless contributed to cause
+him the loss of this portion of his dominions. This prince, after
+his first acts of moderation and good sense, was remarkable only
+as being the father of Charles V. The remainder of his life was
+worn out in undignified pleasures; and he died almost suddenly,
+in the year 1506, at Burgos in Castile, whither he had repaired
+to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, the king of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+
+A.D. 1506--1555
+
+Philip being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become
+mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from
+jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted
+to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret
+stadtholderess of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven
+years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria,
+already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first
+husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract
+of marriage before its consummation; her second, the Infante
+of Spain, died immediately after their union; and her third,
+the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of
+wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved
+by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very
+moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey
+into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.
+
+  "Ci-git Margot la genre demoiselle,
+  Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."
+
+  "Here gentle Margot quietly is laid,
+  Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid."
+
+She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the
+Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances
+allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority
+against the threats of France; and she carried on in person all
+the negotiations between Louis XII., Maximilian, the pope Julius
+II., and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice.
+These negotiations took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret,
+if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her
+letters, was more than once on the point of having serious
+differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII.
+But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on
+this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the
+rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the
+interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up
+some places in Holland which he illegally held.
+
+From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised
+the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the
+Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern
+parts of the country were still kept down by their various
+dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The
+Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of
+Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and
+finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The
+consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start
+in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become
+common to the whole nation.
+
+A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret,
+and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and
+Belgian army, in which Maximilian figured as a spectator (taking
+care to be paid by England), marched for the destruction of
+Therouenne, and defeated and dispersed the French at the battle
+of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a separate
+peace; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made Margaret and
+the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He
+pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the country to
+recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town; while
+the duke of Saxony at length renounced to another his unjust claim
+on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.
+
+About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the
+Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated
+duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased
+the presumed right of Saxony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In
+the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in
+right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal
+power--a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles
+procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard
+of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on
+him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance
+on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected
+by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in
+Germany. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances
+of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of
+the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole diocese, and
+the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular.
+It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced
+the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of
+the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated
+Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation.
+While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself
+a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates
+to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.
+
+We may here remark that, during the government of the House of
+Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable
+disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of
+the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the
+enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The
+Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight
+obstacle in the opposition of a slavish and ignorant clergy,
+and its progress was all at once prodigious. The refusal of the
+dignity of emperor by Frederick "the Wise," duke of Saxony, to
+whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly
+favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and
+Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands,
+both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum
+deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy
+hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism. At
+length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson
+of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate
+rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a
+while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.
+
+From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign
+of so many states, having to establish his authority at the two
+extremities of Europe, could not efficiently occupy himself in
+resisting the doctrines which, despite their dishonoring epithet
+of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great
+part of the Continent. While Charles vigorously put down the
+revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so
+that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his
+impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered
+the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safeguard
+of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly venturing to appear
+and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany
+assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee
+of the emperor; unlike the celebrated and unfortunate John Huss;
+who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of
+Sigismund, in the year 1415.
+
+Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the
+Low Countries, where his authority was undisputed, he proscribed
+the heretics, and even violated the privileges of the country
+by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their
+pursuit and punishment. This imprudent stretch of power fostered
+a rising spirit of opposition; for, though entertaining the best
+disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and
+loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a
+mighty revolution gradually began to be developed.
+
+Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power,
+and they now became implacable personal enemies. Young, ambitious,
+and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue
+in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short
+but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over
+to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest
+of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impression on
+Henry VIII.; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle
+against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. War was
+declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it
+for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately
+bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the
+triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial
+troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the
+Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during
+the war; for the French cruisers having, on repeated occasions,
+taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources
+of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable
+distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which
+desolated these provinces in 1524.
+
+While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the
+Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flourish, in spite
+of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died,
+his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his
+new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism;
+and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice
+of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of
+his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the
+city of Utrecht, redoubled his hostility at this intelligence;
+and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay
+down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured
+an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term
+of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray,
+between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August,
+1529.
+
+This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the
+inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils
+caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but
+in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little,
+however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite
+the people against each other on the score of religious dissension.
+The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of
+all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural
+decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in
+the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of
+the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem;
+and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his
+disciples to preach in the neighboring countries. Mary, sister
+of Charles V., and queen-dowager of Hungary, the stadtholderess
+of the Netherlands, proposed a crusade against this fanatic; which
+was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged
+by impunity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from
+the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion
+for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they
+marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their
+sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution,
+they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly
+against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without
+mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions
+that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon
+held out at Munster, which was besieged by the bishop and the
+neighboring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married
+no less than seventeen women, had gained considerable influence
+over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and
+imprisoned in an iron cage--an event which undeceived the greater
+number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.
+
+The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rapidly and
+uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic
+of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their
+goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and
+India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to
+Bruges as the general mart of commerce, and was the most opulent
+town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred
+and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city voluntarily
+incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles
+V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool
+annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from
+England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold.
+Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on
+whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition
+with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the
+south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general
+burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than
+Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen
+out of twenty-one parts of the general contribution; and all
+the rest combined but eight. A search for further or minuter
+proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the
+country would be superfluous.
+
+The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles
+of Guelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of
+exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people
+recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles
+rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in
+Spain, and leaving to his sister the regulation of those distant
+provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of
+inflicting a terrible example upon them. The people of Ghent,
+suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds
+they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to
+march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their
+quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected
+this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the moment when
+Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary
+reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring
+resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take
+into his own hands the settlement of this affair--trusting to
+the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the
+confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Ghent, taken
+by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor,
+when he appeared before the walls; and the city was punished
+with extreme severity. Twenty-seven leaders of the sedition were
+beheaded; the principal privileges of the city were withdrawn,
+and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles
+met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so
+prospered under his sway, and was so flattered by the greatness of
+the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished,
+that his acts of despotic harshness were borne without a murmur. But
+in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently;
+and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest
+in the different divisions of the nation.
+
+Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all
+his other subjects on the occasion of two expeditions which Charles
+undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces
+furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of
+all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did
+not lead him to do anything in return as peculiarly favorable
+to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great
+advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Guelders on
+the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter,
+which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars of
+the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look
+for a futurity of union and peace; and thus the latter years of
+Charles promised better for his country than his early ones,
+though he obtained less success in his new wars with France,
+which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either
+side.
+
+Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities
+against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species
+of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward
+the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings
+between his only son Philip and Mary of England, whom he had
+induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young
+prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the
+victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis I.,
+and the successful dissimulation of Maurice, elector of Saxony,
+by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated.
+Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and
+must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating
+the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels
+as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the
+25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence
+of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens
+of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense
+assemblage of nobility from various countries. Charles resigned
+the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans;
+and all the rest of his dominions to his son. Soon after the
+ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain.
+He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of
+Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February,
+1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the
+fifty-ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence,
+contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a
+melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.
+
+The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the
+first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks
+the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a
+presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined
+as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose
+in these countries during a period of one thousand years. The
+extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the
+state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch
+at which we are now arrived must be referred to, to judge of
+the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the
+dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand
+system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles
+V. The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other
+considerations, the cause of the growth of liberty in the
+Netherlands. The Reformation opened the minds of men to that
+intellectual freedom without which political enfranchisement is
+a worthless privilege. The invention of printing opened a thousand
+channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out
+from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the
+whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct
+of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to
+the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made
+subservient to those great principles of policy in which society
+began to perceive its only chance of durable good. Manufactures
+attained a state of high perfection, and went on progressively
+with the growth of wealth and luxury. The opulence of the towns
+of Brabant and Flanders was without any previous example in the
+state of Europe. A merchant of Bruges took upon himself alone
+the security for the ransom of John the Fearless, taken at the
+battle of Nicopolis, amounting to two hundred thousand ducats.
+A provost of Valenciennes repaired to Paris at one of the great
+fairs periodically held there, and purchased on his own account
+every article that was for sale. At a repast given by one of the
+counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates the seats they
+occupied were unfurnished with cushions. Those proud burghers
+folded their sumptuous cloaks and sat on them. After the feast
+they were retiring without retaining these important and costly
+articles of dress; and on a courtier reminding them of their
+apparent neglect, the burgomaster of Bruges replied, "We Flemings
+are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner!"
+The meetings of the different towns for the sports of archery were
+signalized by the most splendid display of dress and decoration.
+The archers were habited in silk, damask, and the finest linen,
+and carried chains of gold of great weight and value. Luxury
+was at its height among women. The queen of Philip the Fair of
+France, on a visit to Bruges, exclaimed, with astonishment not
+unmixed with envy, "I thought myself the only queen here; but
+I see six hundred others who appear more so than I."
+
+The court of Phillip the Good seemed to carry magnificence and
+splendor to their greatest possible height. The dresses of both
+men and women at this chivalric epoch were of almost incredible
+expense. Velvet, satin, gold, and precious stones seemed the
+ordinary materials for the dress of either sex; while the very
+housings of the horses sparkled with brilliants and cost immense
+sums. This absurd extravagance was carried so far that Charles
+V. found himself forced at length to proclaim sumptuary laws
+for its repression.
+
+The style of the banquets given on grand occasions was regulated
+on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given
+at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations
+entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new
+crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly
+fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness
+(Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but
+unluckily too long to find a place in our pages.
+
+Such excessive luxury naturally led to great corruption of manners
+and the commission of terrible crimes. During the reign of Philip de
+Male, there were committed in the city of Ghent and its outskirts, in
+less than a year, above fourteen hundred murders in gambling-houses
+and other resorts of debauchery. As early as the tenth century,
+the petty sovereigns established on the ruins of the empire of
+Charlemagne began the independent coining of money; and the various
+provinces were during the rest of this epoch inundated with a most
+embarrassing variety of gold, silver, and copper. Even in ages of
+comparative darkness, literature made feeble efforts to burst
+through the entangled weeds of superstition, ignorance, and war.
+In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, history was greatly
+cultivated; and Froissart, Monstrelet, Olivier de la Marche, and
+Philip de Comines, gave to their chronicles and memoirs a charm
+of style since their days almost unrivalled. Poetry began to be
+followed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish,
+and French languages; and even before the institution of the
+Floral Games in France, Belgium possessed its chambers of rhetoric
+(_rederykkamers_) which labored to keep alive the sacred flame
+of poetry with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost
+every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing
+several at once.
+
+The arts in their several branches made considerable progress
+in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architecture was greatly
+cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of
+the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age.
+Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution,
+make them still speaking monuments of the stern magnificence
+and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the
+Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music
+into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree.
+The first musicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other
+professors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy
+for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.
+
+Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth century,
+sprung at once into a new existence from the invention of John Van
+Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental
+discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe,
+and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius
+which has bequeathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting
+on glass, polishing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry,
+were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands
+in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new
+channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world
+by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful
+impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for
+its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles
+V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle
+for the productions of all the nations of the earth. Its port
+was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet
+was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain
+admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of
+Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and
+served greatly to the spread of knowledge, although it degenerated
+into the hotbed of those fierce disputes which stamped on theology
+the degradation of bigotry, and drew down odium on a study that,
+if purely practiced, ought only to inspire veneration.
+
+Charles V. was the first to establish a solid plan of government,
+instead of the constant fluctuations in the management of justice,
+police, and finance. He caused the edicts of the various sovereigns,
+and the municipal usages, to be embodied into a system of laws; and
+thus gave stability and method to the enjoyment of the prosperity
+in which he left his dominions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
+OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS
+
+A.D. 1555--1566
+
+It has been shown that the Netherlands were never in a more
+flourishing state than at the accession of Philip II. The external
+relations of the country presented an aspect of prosperity and
+peace. England was closely allied to it by Queen Mary's marriage
+with Philip; France, fatigued with war, had just concluded with it
+a five years truce; Germany, paralyzed by religious dissensions,
+exhausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were
+too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and nothing
+appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was
+something dangerous and alarming in the situation of the Low
+Countries; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection
+between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded
+till the mischief was beyond remedy.
+
+From the time that Charles V. was called to reign over Spain,
+he may be said to have been virtually lost to the country of
+his birth. He was no longer a mere duke of Brabant or Limberg,
+a count of Flanders or Holland; he was also king of Castile,
+Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, of Naples, and of Sicily. These various
+kingdoms had interests evidently opposed to those of the Low
+Countries, and forms of government far different. It was scarcely
+to be doubted that the absolute monarch of so many peoples would
+look with a jealous eye on the institutions of those provinces
+which placed limits to his power; and the natural consequence was
+that he who was a legitimate king in the south soon degenerated
+into a usurping master in the north.
+
+But during the reign of Charles the danger was in some measure
+lessened, or at least concealed from public view, by the apparent
+facility with which he submitted to and observed the laws and
+customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far
+different, and the results too obvious. Uninformed on the Belgian
+character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the
+language, no sympathy attached him to the people. He brought
+with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner,
+without one of the kindly or considerate feelings of a compatriot.
+
+Spain, where this young prince had hitherto passed his life, was
+in some degree excluded from European civilization. A contest of
+seven centuries between the Mohammedan tribes and the descendants
+of the Visigoths, cruel, like all civil wars, and, like all those
+of religion, not merely a contest of rulers, but essentially of
+the people, had given to the manners and feelings of this unhappy
+country a deep stamp of barbarity. The ferocity of military
+chieftains had become the basis of the government and laws. The
+Christian kings had adopted the perfidious and bloody system of
+the despotic sultans they replaced. Magnificence and tyranny,
+power and cruelty, wisdom and dissimulation, respect and fear,
+were inseparably associated in the minds of a people so governed.
+They comprehended nothing in religion but a God armed with
+omnipotence and vengeance, or in politics but a king as terrible
+as the deity he represented.
+
+Philip, bred in this school of slavish superstition, taught that he
+was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading
+tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible
+and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to
+appear superior to those beyond whom his station had placed him,
+he was insensible to the affections which soften and ennoble
+human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea--that of
+his greatness; he had but one ambition--that of command; but
+one enjoyment--that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting
+selfishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter
+melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing,
+which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood
+were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal
+which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty;
+and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest
+contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.
+
+Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration
+and unusual self-command; the first revealing to him the views
+of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of
+counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself. Although
+ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning. He wanted
+courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of
+wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar
+to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at
+the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the
+bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.
+
+Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced
+utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. His
+father had already sapped its foundations, by encouraging foreign
+manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the
+hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad.
+His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the
+nation to religious discords and hatred. Philip soon enlarged
+on what Charles had commenced, and he unmercifully sacrificed
+the well-being of a people to the worst objects of his selfish
+ambition.
+
+Philip had only once visited the Netherlands before his accession
+to sovereign power. Being at that time twenty-two years of age, his
+opinions were formed and his prejudices deeply rooted. Everything
+that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both. The
+frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression
+of popular rights sounded like the voice of rebellion. Even the
+magnificence displayed in his honor offended his jealous vanity.
+From that moment he seems to have conceived an implacable aversion
+to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he
+could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism.
+
+The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his
+subjects. His haughty severity and vexatious etiquette revolted
+their pride as well as their plain dealing; and the moral qualities
+of their new sovereign were considered with loathing. The commercial
+and political connection between the Netherlands and Spain had
+given the two people ample opportunities for mutual acquaintance.
+The dark, vindictive dispositions of the latter inspired a deep
+antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty
+rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to
+embody all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which
+he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to
+make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent
+consideration for a few points of political interest and individual
+privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts
+against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct
+had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the
+despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them
+an easier prey.
+
+Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce
+such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states
+to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid
+by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining
+a great step toward his designs, as it superseded the necessity
+of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of
+the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to
+Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious
+but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in
+dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards
+and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France;
+and although he did not remove from their employments the
+functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new
+appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.
+
+In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip
+was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of
+France, and by Pope Paul IV. A prince less obstinate than Philip
+would in such circumstances have renounced, or at least postponed,
+his designs against the liberties of so important a part of his
+dominions, as those to which he was obliged to have recourse
+for aid in support of this double war. But he seemed to make
+every foreign consideration subservient to the object of domestic
+aggression which he had so much at heart.
+
+He, however, promptly met the threatened dangers from abroad. He
+turned his first attention toward his contest with the pope; and
+he extricated himself from it with an adroitness that proved the
+whole force and cunning of his character. Having first publicly
+obtained the opinion of several doctors of theology, that he
+was justified in taking arms against the pontiff (a point on
+which there was really no doubt), he prosecuted the war with
+the utmost vigor, by the means of the afterward notorious duke
+of Alva, at that time viceroy of his Italian dominions. Paul soon
+yielded to superior skill and force, and demanded terms of peace,
+which were granted with a readiness and seeming liberality that
+astonished no one more than the defeated pontiff. But Philip's
+moderation to his enemy was far outdone by his perfidy to his
+allies. He confirmed Alva's consent to the confiscation of the
+domains of the noble Romans who had espoused his cause; and thus
+gained a stanch and powerful supporter to all his future projects
+in the religious authority of the successor of St. Peter.
+
+His conduct in the conclusion of the war with France was not
+less base. His army, under the command of Philibert Emmanuel,
+duke of Savoy, consisting of Belgians, Germans, and Spaniards,
+with a considerable body of English, sent by Mary to the assistance
+of her husband, penetrated into Picardy, and gained a complete
+victory over the French forces. The honor of this brilliant affair,
+which took place near St. Quintin, was almost wholly due to the
+count d'Egmont, a Belgian noble, who commanded the light cavalry;
+but the king, unwilling to let anyone man enjoy the glory of
+the day, piously pretended that he owed the entire obligation
+to St. Lawrence, on whose festival the battle was fought. His
+gratitude or hypocrisy found a fitting monument in the celebrated
+convent and palace of the Escurial, which he absurdly caused to
+be built in the form of a gridiron, the instrument of the saint's
+martyrdom. When the news of the victory reached Charles V. in his
+retreat, the old warrior inquired if Philip was in Paris? but
+the cautious victor had no notion of such prompt manoeuvring; nor
+would he risk against foreign enemies the exhaustion of forces
+destined for the enslavement of his people.
+
+The French in some measure retrieved their late disgrace by the
+capture of Calais, the only town remaining to England of all its
+French conquests, and which, consequently, had deeply interested
+the national glory of each people. In the early part of the year
+1558, one of the generals of Henry II. made an irruption into
+western Flanders; but the gallant count of Egmont once more proved
+his valor and skill by attacking and totally defeating the invaders
+near the town of Gravelines.
+
+A general peace was concluded in April, 1559, which bore the
+name of Câteau-Cambresis, from that of the place where it was
+negotiated. Philip secured for himself various advantages in the
+treaty; but he sacrificed the interests of England, by consenting
+to the retention of Calais by the French king--a cession deeply
+humiliating to the national pride of his allies; and, if general
+opinion be correct, a proximate cause of his consort's death. The
+alliance of France and the support of Rome, the important results
+of the two wars now brought to a close, were counterbalanced
+by the well-known hostility of Elizabeth, who had succeeded to
+the throne of England; and this latter consideration was an
+additional motive with Philip to push forward the design of
+consolidating his despotism in the Low Countries.
+
+To lead his already deceived subjects the more surely into the
+snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to
+Spain; and created for the period of his absence a provisional
+government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian
+nobility. He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the
+illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to
+this provisional government the right of levying taxes during
+the temporary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the
+influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the
+revival of the edicts against heresy, which he had gained the
+merit of suspending. These, with many minor details of profound
+duplicity, formed the principal features of a plan, which, if
+successful, would have reduced the Netherlands to the wretched
+state of colonial dependence by which Naples and Sicily were
+held in the tenure of Spain.
+
+As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of
+government in the hands of the new administration for the period
+of the king's absence, the royal hypocrite believed his scheme
+secure, and flattered himself he had established an instrument of
+durable despotism. The composition of this new government was
+a masterpiece of political machinery. It consisted of several
+councils, in which the most distinguished citizens were entitled
+to a place, in sufficient numbers to deceive the people with a
+show of representation, but not enough to command a majority,
+which was sure on any important question to rest with the titled
+creatures of the court. The edicts against heresy, soon adopted,
+gave to the clergy an almost unlimited power over the lives and
+fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the
+church being men of great respectability and moderation, chosen
+by the body of the inferior clergy, these extraordinary powers
+excited little alarm. Philip's project was suddenly to replace
+these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice, as
+soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for
+this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority
+of the court of Rome.
+
+In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely
+broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. The
+whole of this force, so redoubtable to the fears of despotism,
+consisted of only three thousand cavalry. It was now divided
+into fourteen companies (or squadrons in the modern phraseology),
+under the command of as many independent chiefs, so as to leave
+little chance of any principle of union reigning among them. But
+the German and Spanish troops in Philip's pay were cantoned on the
+frontiers, ready to stifle any incipient effort in opposition to
+his plans. In addition to these imposing means for their execution,
+he had secured a still more secret and more powerful support: a
+secret article in the treaty of Câteau-Cambresis obliged the
+king of France to assist him with the whole armies of France
+against his Belgian subjects, should they prove refractory. Thus
+the late war, of which the Netherlands had borne all the weight,
+and earned all the glory, only brought about the junction of the
+defeated enemy with their own king for the extinction of their
+national independence.
+
+To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened
+an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of July,
+1559. This meeting of the representatives of the three orders
+of the state offered no apparent obstacle to Philip's views. The
+clergy, alarmed at the progress of the new doctrines, gathered
+more closely round the government of which they required the
+support. The nobles had lost much of their ancient attachment
+to liberty; and had become, in various ways, dependent on the
+royal favor. Many of the first families were then represented by
+men possessed rather of courage and candor than of foresight and
+sagacity. That of Nassau, the most distinguished of all, seemed
+the least interested in the national cause. A great part of its
+possessions were in Germany and France, where it had recently
+acquired the sovereign principality of Orange. It was only from
+the third order--that of the commons--that Philip had to expect
+any opposition. Already, during the war, it had shown some
+discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners
+to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies.
+But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would
+be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of
+the king, and disconcerting his designs.
+
+Anthony Perrenotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, who was considered
+as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reality no more
+than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly
+in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration
+was one of cautious deception, and contained the most flattering
+assurances of Philip's attachment to the people of the Netherlands.
+It excused the king for not having nominated his only son, Don
+Carlos, to reign over them in his name; alleging, as a proof
+of his royal affection, that he preferred giving them as
+stadtholderess a Belgian princess, Madame Marguerite, duchess
+of Parma, the natural daughter of Charles V. by a young lady,
+a native of Audenarde. Fair promises and fine words were thus
+lavished in profusion to gain the confidence of the deputies.
+
+But notwithstanding all the talent, the caution, and the mystery
+of Philip and his minister, there was among the nobles one man
+who saw through all. This individual, endowed with many of the
+highest attributes of political genius, and pre-eminently with
+judgment, the most important of all, entered fearlessly into
+the contest against tyranny--despising every personal sacrifice
+for the country's good. Without making himself suspiciously
+prominent, he privately warned some members of the states of
+the coming danger. Those in whom he confided did not betray the
+trust. They spread among the other deputies the alarm, and pointed
+out the danger to which they had been so judiciously awakened.
+The consequence was a reply to Philip's demand; in vague and
+general terms, without binding the nation by any pledge; and a
+unanimous entreaty that he would diminish the taxes, withdraw
+the foreign troops, and intrust no official employments to any
+but natives of the country. The object of this last request was
+the removal of Granvelle, who was born in Franche-Comte.
+
+Philip was utterly astounded at all this. In the first moment
+of his vexation he imprudently cried out, "Would ye, then, also
+bereave _me_ of my place; I, who am a Spaniard?" But he soon
+recovered his self-command, and resumed his usual mask; expressed
+his regret at not having sooner learned the wishes of the states;
+promised to remove the foreign troops within three months; and
+set off for Zealand, with assumed composure, but filled with
+the fury of a discovered traitor and a humiliated despot.
+
+A fleet under the command of Count Horn, the admiral of the United
+Provinces, waited at Flessingue to form his escort to Spain. At
+the very moment of his departure, William of Nassau, prince of
+Orange and governor of Zealand, waited on him to pay his official
+respects. The king, taking him apart from the other attendant
+nobles, recommended him to hasten the execution of several gentlemen
+and wealthy citizens attached to the newly introduced religious
+opinions. Then, quite suddenly, whether in the random impulse of
+suppressed rage, or that his piercing glance discovered William's
+secret feelings in his countenance, he accused him with having
+been the means of thwarting his designs. "Sire," replied Nassau,
+"it was the work of the national states."--"No!" cried Philip,
+grasping him furiously by the arm; "it was not done by the states,
+but by you, and you alone!"--Schiller. The words of Philip were:
+"_No,_no_los_estados_; _ma_vos,_vos,_vos!_" Vos thus used in
+Spanish is a term of contempt, equivalent to _toi_ in French.
+
+This glorious accusation was not repelled. He who had saved his
+country in unmasking the designs of its tyrant admitted by his
+silence his title to the hatred of the one and the gratitude
+of the other. On the 20th of August, Philip embarked and set
+sail; turning his back forever on the country which offered the
+first check to his despotism; and, after a perilous voyage, he
+arrived in that which permitted a free indulgence to his ferocious
+and sanguinary career.
+
+For some time after Philip's departure, the Netherlands continued
+to enjoy considerable prosperity. From the period of the Peace
+of Câteau-Cambresis, commerce and navigation had acquired new
+and increasing activity. The fisheries, but particularly that of
+herrings, became daily more important; that one alone occupying
+two thousand boats. While Holland, Zealand and Friesland made this
+progress in their peculiar branches of industry, the southern
+provinces were not less active or successful. Spain and the colonies
+offered such a mart for the objects of their manufacture that
+in a single year they received from Flanders fifty large ships
+filled with articles of household furniture and utensils. The
+exportation of woollen goods amounted to enormous sums. Bruges
+alone sold annually to the amount of four million florins of
+stuffs of Spanish, and as much of English, wool; and the least
+value of the florin then was quadruple its present worth. The
+commerce with England, though less important than that with Spain,
+was calculated yearly at twenty-four million florins, which was
+chiefly clear profit to the Netherlands, as their exportations
+consisted almost entirely of objects of their own manufacture.
+Their commercial relations with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
+and the Levant, were daily increasing. Antwerp was the centre of
+this prodigious trade. Several sovereigns, among others Elizabeth
+of England, had recognized agents in that city, equivalent to
+consuls of the present times; and loans of immense amount were
+frequently negotiated by them with wealthy merchants, who furnished
+them, not in negotiable bills or for unredeemable debentures,
+but in solid gold, and on a simple acknowledgment.
+
+Flanders and Brabant were still the richest and most flourishing
+portions of the state. Some municipal fętes given about this time
+afford a notion of their opulence. On one of these occasions
+the town of Mechlin sent a deputation to Antwerp, consisting
+of three hundred and twenty-six horsemen dressed in velvet and
+satin with gold and silver ornaments; while those of Brussels
+consisted of three hundred and forty, as splendidly equipped, and
+accompanied by seven huge triumphal chariots and seventy-eight
+carriages of various constructions--a prodigious number for those
+days.
+
+But the splendor and prosperity which thus sprung out of the
+national industry and independence, and which a wise or a generous
+sovereign would have promoted, or at least have established on a
+permanent basis, was destined speedily to sink beneath the bigoted
+fury of Philip II. The new government which he had established
+was most ingeniously adapted to produce every imaginable evil
+to the state. The king, hundreds of leagues distant, could not
+himself issue an order but with a lapse of time ruinous to any
+object of pressing importance. The stadtholderess, who represented
+him, having but a nominal authority, was forced to follow her
+instructions, and liable to have all her acts reversed; besides
+which, she had the king's orders to consult her private council
+on all affairs whatever, and the council of state on any matter
+of paramount importance. These two councils, however, contained
+the elements of a serious opposition to the royal projects, in
+the persons of the patriot nobles sprinkled among Philip's devoted
+creatures. Thus the influence of the crown was often thwarted, if
+not actually balanced; and the proposals which emanated from it
+frequently opposed by the stadtholderess herself. She, although
+a woman of masculine appearance and habits,[2] was possessed
+of no strength of mind. Her prevailing sentiment seemed to be
+dread of the king; yet she was at times influenced by a sense
+of justice, and by the remonstrances of the well-judging members
+of her councils. But these were not all the difficulties that
+clogged the machinery of the state. After the king, the government,
+and the councils, had deliberated on any measure, its execution
+rested with the provincial governors or stadtholders, or the
+magistrates of the towns. Almost everyone of these, being strongly
+attached to the laws and customs of the nation, hesitated, or
+refused to obey the orders conveyed to them, when those orders
+appeared illegal. Some, however, yielded to the authority of
+the government; so it often happened that an edict, which in one
+district was carried into full effect, was in others deferred,
+rejected, or violated, in a way productive of great confusion
+in the public affairs.
+
+[Footnote 2: Strada.]
+
+Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent
+disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had
+overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty
+that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence
+of the restive members, he had left Granvelle the first place
+in the administration. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an
+eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician,
+bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real
+head of the government.[3] Next to him among the royalist party
+was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman,
+attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter
+of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of
+the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of
+the financial department--a stern and intolerant satellite of the
+court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which
+operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed
+the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of
+the king were mere subaltern agents.
+
+[Footnote 3: Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and therefore a fair
+witness on this point, uses the following words in portraying the
+character of this odious minister: _Animum_avidum_invidumque,_ac_
+_simultates_inter_principem_et_populos_occulti_foventum_.]
+
+A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent
+and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity
+was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the
+Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired,
+and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the country, living
+in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess.
+Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government
+to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards
+were removed to Zealand; but instead of being embarked at any of
+its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money,
+ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting
+for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in
+every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime
+those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple
+natives at length declared they would open the sluices of their
+dikes; preferring to be swallowed by the waters rather than remain
+exposed to the cruelty and rapacity of those Spaniards. Still
+the embarkation was postponed; until the king, requiring his
+troops in Spain for some domestic project, they took their
+long-desired departure in the beginning of the year 1561.
+
+The public discontent at this just cause was soon, however,
+overwhelmed by one infinitely more important and lasting. The
+Belgian clergy had hitherto formed a free and powerful order in
+the state, governed and represented by four bishops, chosen by
+the chapters of the towns or elected by the monks of the principal
+abbeys. These bishops, possessing an independent territorial
+revenue, and not directly subject to the influence of the crown,
+had interests and feelings in common with the nation. But Philip
+had prepared, and the pope had sanctioned, the new system of
+ecclesiastical organization before alluded to, and the provisional
+government now put it into execution. Instead of four bishops, it
+was intended to appoint eighteen, their nomination being vested
+in the king. By a wily system of trickery, the subserviency of
+the abbeys was also aimed at. The new prelates, on a pretended
+principle of economy, were endowed with the title of abbots of
+the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses. Thus not
+only would they enjoy the immense wealth of these establishments,
+but the political rights of the abbots whom they were to succeed;
+and the whole of the ecclesiastical order become gradually
+represented (after the death of the then living abbots) by the
+creatures of the crown.
+
+The consequences of this vital blow to the integrity of the national
+institutions were evident; and the indignation of both clergy
+and laity was universal. Every legal means of opposition was
+resorted to, but the people were without leaders; the states
+were not in session. While the authority of the pope and the king
+combined, the reverence excited by the very name of religion, and
+the address and perseverance of the government, formed too powerful
+a combination, and triumphed over the national discontents which
+had not yet been formed into resistance. The new bishops were
+appointed; Granvelle securing for himself the archiepiscopal
+see of Mechlin, with the title of primate of the Low Countries.
+At the same time Paul IV. put the crowning point to the capital
+of his ambition, by presenting him with a cardinal's hat.
+
+The new bishops were to a man most violent, intolerant, and it
+may be conscientious, opponents to the wide-spreading doctrines
+of reform. The execution of the edicts against heresy was confided
+to them. The provincial governors and inferior magistrates were
+commanded to aid them with a strong arm; and the most unjust and
+frightful persecution immediately commenced. But still some of
+these governors and magistrates, considering themselves not only
+the officers of the prince, but the protectors of the people,
+and the defenders of the laws rather than of the faith, did not
+blindly conform to those harsh and illegal commands. The Prince
+of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, and
+the count of Egmont, governor of Flanders and Artois, permitted
+no persecutions in those five provinces. But in various places
+the very people, even when influenced by their superiors, openly
+opposed it. Catholics as well as Protestants were indignant at
+the atrocious spectacles of cruelty presented on all sides. The
+public peace was endangered by isolated acts of resistance, and
+fears of a general insurrection soon became universal.
+
+The apparent temporizing or seeming uncertainty of the champions
+of the new doctrines formed the great obstacle to the reformation,
+and tended to prolong the dreadful struggle which was now only
+commencing in the Low Countries. It was a matter of great difficulty
+to convince the people that popery was absurd, and at the same time
+to set limits to the absurdity. Had the change been from blind
+belief to total infidelity, it would (as in a modern instance)
+have been much easier, though less lasting. Men might, in a time
+of such excitement, have been persuaded that _all_ religion
+productive of abuses such as then abounded was a farce, and that
+common sense called for its abolition. But when the boundaries
+of belief became a question; when the world was told it ought to
+reject some doctrines, and retain others which seemed as difficult
+of comprehension; when one tenet was pronounced idolatry, and
+to doubt another declared damnation--the world either exploded
+or recoiled: it went too far or it shrank back; plunged into
+atheism, or relapsed into popery. It was thus the reformation
+was checked in the first instance. Its supporters were the
+strong-minded and intelligent; and they never, and least of all
+in those days, formed the mass. Superstition and bigotry had
+enervated the intellects of the majority; and the high resolve
+of those with whom the great work commenced was mixed with a
+severity that materially retarded its progress. For though personal
+interests, as with Henry VIII. of England, and rigid enthusiasm,
+as with Calvin, strengthened the infant reformation; the first
+led to violence which irritated many, the second to austerity
+which disgusted them; and it was soon discovered that the change
+was almost confined to forms of practice, and that the essentials
+of abuse were likely to be carefully preserved. All these, and
+other arguments, artfully modified to distract the people, were
+urged by the new bishops in the Netherlands, and by those whom
+they employed to arrest the progress of reform.
+
+Among the various causes of the general confusion, the situation
+of Brabant gave to that province a peculiar share of suffering.
+Brussels, its capital, being the seat of government, had no
+particular chief magistrate, like the other provinces. The executive
+power was therefore wholly confided to the municipal authorities
+and the territorial proprietors. But these, though generally
+patriotic in their views, were divided into a multiplicity of
+different opinions. Rivalry and resentment produced a total want
+of union, ended in anarchy, and prepared the way for civil war.
+William of Nassau penetrated the cause, and proposed the remedy
+in moving for the appointment of a provincial governor. This
+proposition terrified Granvelle, who saw, as clearly as did his
+sagacious opponent in the council, that the nomination of a special
+protector between the people and the government would have paralyzed
+all his efforts for hurrying on the discord and resistance which
+were meant to be the plausible excuses for the introduction of
+arbitrary power. He therefore energetically dissented from the
+proposed measure, and William immediately desisted from his demand.
+But he at the same time claimed, in the name of the whole country,
+the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone was
+competent to decide what was just, legal, and obligatory for
+each province and every town. Governors, magistrates, and simple
+citizens, would thus have some rule for their common conduct;
+and the government would be at least endowed with the dignity
+of uniformity and steadiness. The ministers endeavored to evade
+a demand which they were at first unwilling openly to refuse.
+But the firm demeanor and persuasive eloquence of the Prince
+of Orange carried before them all who were not actually bought
+by the crown; and Granvelle found himself at length forced to
+avow that an express order from the king forbade the convocation
+of the states, on any pretext, during his absence.
+
+The veil was thus rent asunder which had in some measure concealed
+the deformity of Philip's despotism. The result was a powerful
+confederacy, among all who held it odious, for the overthrow of
+Granvelle, to whom they chose to attribute the king's conduct; thus
+bringing into practical result the sound principle of ministerial
+responsibility, without which, except in some peculiar case of
+local urgency or political crisis, the name of constitutional
+government is but a mockery. Many of the royalist nobles united
+for the national cause; and even the stadtholderess joined her
+efforts to theirs, for an object which would relieve her from
+the tyranny which none felt more than she did. Those who composed
+this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great
+variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic
+spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as
+an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride.
+The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him
+as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is
+doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange
+clearly saw that they were putting themselves in direct and personal
+opposition to the king himself. William alone, clear-sighted
+in politics and profound in his views, knew, in thus devoting
+himself to the public cause, the adversary with whom he entered
+the lists.
+
+This great man, for whom the national traditions still preserve
+the sacred title of "father" (Vader-Willem), and who was in truth
+not merely the parent but the political creator of the country,
+was at this period in his thirtieth year. He already joined the
+vigor of manhood to the wisdom of age. Brought up under the eye
+of Charles V., whose sagacity soon discovered his precocious
+talents, he was admitted to the councils of the emperor at a
+time of life which was little advanced beyond mere boyhood. He
+alone was chosen by this powerful sovereign to be present at
+the audiences which he gave to foreign ambassadors, which proves
+that in early youth he well deserved by his discretion the surname
+of "the taciturn." It was on the arm of William, then twenty
+years of age, and already named by him to the command of the
+Belgian troops, that this powerful monarch leaned for support on
+the memorable day of his abdication; and he immediately afterward
+employed him on the important mission of bearing the imperial
+crown to his brother Ferdinand, in whose favor he had resigned
+it. William's grateful attachment to Charles did not blind him
+to the demerits of Philip. He repaired to France, as one of the
+hostages on the part of the latter monarch for the fulfilment
+of the peace of Câteau-Cambresis; and he then learned from the
+lips of Henry II., who soon conceived a high esteem for him,
+the measures reciprocally agreed on by the two sovereigns for
+the oppression of their subjects. From that moment his mind was
+made up on the character of Philip, and on the part which he
+had himself to perform; and he never felt a doubt on the first
+point, nor swerved from the latter.
+
+But even before his patriotism was openly displayed, Philip had
+taken a dislike to one in whom his shrewdness quickly discovered
+an intellect of which he was jealous. He could not actually remove
+William from all interference with public affairs; but he refused
+him the government of Flanders, and opposed, in secret, his projected
+marriage with a princess of the House of Lorraine, which was
+calculated to bring him a considerable accession of fortune,
+and consequently of influence. It may be therefore said that
+William, in his subsequent conduct, was urged by motives of personal
+enmity against Philip. Be it so. We do not seek to raise him
+above the common feelings of humanity; and we should risk the
+sinking him below them, if we supposed him insensible to the
+natural effects of just resentment.
+
+The secret impulses of conduct can never be known beyond the
+individual's own breast; but actions must, however questionable,
+be taken as the tests of motives. In all those of William's
+illustrious career we can detect none that might be supposed to
+spring from vulgar or base feelings. If his hostility to Philip
+was indeed increased by private dislike, he has at least set an
+example of unparalleled dignity in his method of revenge; but in
+calmly considering and weighing, without deciding on the question,
+we see nothing that should deprive William of an unsullied title
+to pure and perfect patriotism. The injuries done to him by Philip
+at this period were not of a nature to excite any violent hatred.
+Enough of public wrong was inflicted to arouse the patriot, but
+not of private ill to inflame the man. Neither was William of
+a vindictive disposition. He was never known to turn the knife
+of an assassin against his royal rival, even when the blade hired
+by the latter glanced from him reeking with his blood. And though
+William's enmity may have been kept alive or strengthened by the
+provocations he received, it is certain that, if a foe to the
+king, he was, as long as it was possible, the faithful counsellor
+of the crown. He spared no pains to impress on the monarch who
+hated him the real means for preventing the coming evils; and
+had not a revolution been absolutely inevitable, it is he who
+would have prevented it.
+
+Such was the chief of the patriot party, chosen by the silent
+election of general opinion, and by that involuntary homage to
+genius which leads individuals in the train of those master-minds
+who take the lead in public affairs. Counts Egmont and Horn,
+and some others, largely shared with him the popular favor. The
+multitude could not for some time distinguish the uncertain and
+capricious opposition of an offended courtier from the determined
+resistance of a great man. William was still comparatively young;
+he had lived long out of the country; and it was little by little
+that his eminent public virtues were developed and understood.
+
+The great object of immediate good was the removal of Cardinal
+Granvelle. William boldly put himself at the head of the confederacy.
+He wrote to the king, conjointly with Counts Egmont and Horn,
+faithfully portraying the state of affairs. The duchess of Parma
+backed this remonstrance with a strenuous request for Granvelle's
+dismission. Philip's reply to the three noblemen was a mere tissue
+of duplicity to obtain delay, accompanied by an invitation to
+Count Egmont to repair to Madrid, to hear his sentiments at large
+by word of mouth. His only answer to the stadtholderess was a
+positive recommendation to use every possible means to disunite
+and breed ill-will among the three confederate lords. It was
+difficult to deprive William of the confidence of his friends,
+and impossible to deceive him. He saw the trap prepared by the
+royal intrigues, restrained Egmont for a while from the fatal
+step he was but too well inclined to take, and persuaded him and
+Horn to renew with him their firm but respectful representations;
+at the same time begging permission to resign their various
+employments, and simultaneously ceasing to appear at the court
+of the stadtholderess.
+
+In the meantime every possible indignity was offered to the cardinal
+by private pique and public satire. Several lords, following
+Count Egmont's example, had a kind of capuchon or fool's-cap
+embroidered on the liveries of their varlets; and it was generally
+known that this was meant as a practical parody on the cardinal's
+hat. The crowd laughed heartily at this stupid pleasantry; and
+the coarse satire of the times may be judged by a caricature,
+which was forwarded to the cardinal's own hands, representing him
+in the act of hatching a nest full of eggs, from which a crowd
+of bishops escaped, while overhead was the devil _in_propriâ_
+_personâ_, with the following scroll: "This is my well-beloved
+son--listen to him!"
+
+Philip, thus driven before the popular voice, found himself forced
+to the choice of throwing off the mask at once, or of sacrificing
+Granvelle. An invincible inclination for manoeuvring and deceit
+decided him on the latter measure; and the cardinal, recalled
+but not disgraced, quitted the Netherlands on the 10th of March,
+1564. The secret instructions to the stadtholderess remained
+unrevoked; the president Viglius succeeded to the post which
+Granvelle had occupied; and it was clear that the projects of
+the king had suffered no change.
+
+Nevertheless some good resulted from the departure of the unpopular
+minister. The public fermentation subsided; the patriot lords
+reappeared at court; and the Prince of Orange acquired an increasing
+influence in the council and over the stadtholderess, who by his
+advice adopted a conciliatory line of conduct--a fallacious but
+still a temporary hope for the nation. But the calm was of short
+duration. Scarcely was this moderation evinced by the government,
+when Philip, obstinate in his designs, and outrageous in his
+resentment, sent an order to have the edicts against heresy put
+into most rigorous execution, and to proclaim throughout the
+seventeen provinces the furious decree of the Council of Trent.
+
+The revolting cruelty and illegality of the first edicts were
+already admitted. As to the decrees of this memorable council,
+they were only adapted for countries in submission to an absolute
+despotism. They were received in the Netherlands with general
+reprobation. Even the new bishops loudly denounced them as unjust
+innovations; and thus Philip found zealous opponents in those on
+whom he had reckoned as his most servile tools. The stadtholderess
+was not the less urged to implicit obedience to the orders of the
+king by Viglius and De Berlaimont, who took upon themselves an
+almost menacing tone. The duchess assembled a council of state,
+and asked its advice as to her proceedings. The Prince of Orange
+at once boldly proposed disobedience to measures fraught with
+danger to the monarchy and ruin to the nation. The council could
+not resist his appeal to their best feelings. His proposal that
+fresh remonstrances should be addressed to the king met with
+almost general support. The president Viglius, who had spoken
+in the opening of the council in favor of the king's orders, was
+overwhelmed by William's reasoning, and demanded time to prepare
+his reply. His agitation during the debate, and his despair of
+carrying the measures against the patriot party, brought on in
+the night an attack of apoplexy.
+
+It was resolved to despatch a special envoy to Spain, to explain
+to Philip the views of the council, and to lay before him a plan
+proposed by the Prince of Orange for forming a junction between
+the two councils and that of finance, and forming them into one
+body. The object of this measure was at once to give greater
+union and power to the provisional government, to create a central
+administration in the Netherlands, and to remove from some obscure
+and avaricious financiers the exclusive management of the national
+resources. The Count of Egmont, chosen by the council for this
+important mission, set out for Madrid in the month of February,
+1565. Philip received him with profound hypocrisy; loaded him
+with the most flattering promises; sent him back in the utmost
+elation: and when the credulous count returned to Brussels, he
+found that the written orders, of which he was the bearer, were
+in direct variance with every word which the king had uttered.
+
+These orders were chiefly concerning the reiterated subject of
+the persecution to be inflexibly pursued against the religious
+reformers. Not satisfied with the hitherto established forms of
+punishment, Philip now expressly commanded that the more revolting
+means decreed by his father in the rigor of his early zeal, such
+as burning, living burial, and the like, should be adopted; and
+he somewhat more obscurely directed that the victims should be no
+longer publicly immolated, but secretly destroyed. He endeavored,
+by this vague phraseology, to avoid the actual utterance of the word
+"inquisition"; but he thus virtually established that atrocious
+tribunal, with attributes still more terrific than even in Spain;
+for there the condemned had at least the consolation of dying
+in open day, and of displaying the fortitude which is rarely
+proof against the horror of a private execution. Philip had thus
+consummated his treason against the principles of justice and the
+practices of jurisprudence, which had heretofore characterized
+the country; and against the most vital of those privileges which
+he had solemnly sworn to maintain.
+
+His design of establishing this horrible tribunal, so impiously
+named "holy" by its founders, had been long suspected by the
+people of the Netherlands. The expression of those fears had
+reached him more than once. He as often replied by assurances
+that he had formed no such project, and particularly to Count
+d'Egmont during his recent visit to Madrid. But at that very time
+he assembled a conclave of his creatures, doctors of theology,
+of whom he formally demanded an opinion as to whether he could
+conscientiously tolerate two sorts of religion in the Netherlands.
+The doctors, hoping to please him, replied, that "he might, for
+the avoidance of a greater evil." Philip trembled with rage,
+and exclaimed, with a threatening tone, "I ask not if I _can_,
+but if I _ought_." The theologians read in this question the
+nature of the expected reply; and it was amply conformable to
+his wish. He immediately threw himself on his knees before a
+crucifix, and raising his hands toward heaven, put up a prayer
+for strength in his resolution to pursue as deadly enemies all
+who viewed that effigy with feelings different from his own. If
+this were not really a sacrilegious farce, it must be that the
+blaspheming bigot believed the Deity to be a monster of cruelty
+like himself.
+
+Even Viglius was terrified by the nature of Philip's commands;
+and the patriot lords once more withdrew from all share in the
+government, leaving to the duchess of Parma and her ministers the
+whole responsibility of the new measures. They were at length put
+into actual and vigorous execution in the beginning of the year
+1566. The inquisitors of the faith, with their familiars, stalked
+abroad boldly in the devoted provinces, carrying persecution
+and death in their train. Numerous but partial insurrections
+opposed these odious intruders. Every district and town became
+the scene of frightful executions or tumultuous resistance. The
+converts to the new doctrines multiplied, as usual, under the
+effects of persecution. "There was nowhere to be seen," says a
+contemporary author, "the meanest mechanic who did not find a
+weapon to strike down the murderers of his compatriots." Holland,
+Zealand and Utrecht alone escaped from those fast accumulating
+horrors. William of Nassau was there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION
+
+A.D. 1566
+
+The stadtholderess and her ministers now began to tremble. Philip's
+favorite counsellors advised him to yield to the popular despair;
+but nothing could change his determination to pursue his bloody
+game to the last chance. He had foreseen the impossibility of
+reducing the country to slavery as long as it maintained its
+tranquillity, and that union which forms in itself the elements
+and the cement of strength. It was from deep calculation that
+he had excited the troubles, and now kept them alive. He knew
+that the structure of illegal power could only be raised on the
+ruins of public rights and national happiness; and the materials
+of desolation found sympathy in his congenial mind.
+
+And now in reality began the awful revolution of the Netherlands
+against their tyrant. In a few years this so lately flourishing
+and happy nation presented a frightful picture; and in the midst
+of European peace, prosperity, and civilization, the wickedness
+of one prince drew down on the country he misgoverned more evils
+than it had suffered for centuries from the worst effects of
+its foreign foes.
+
+William of Nassau has been accused of having at length urged
+on the stadtholderess to promulgate the final edicts and the
+resolutions of the Council of Trent, and then retiring from the
+council of state. This line of conduct may be safely admitted and
+fairly defended by his admirers. He had seen the uselessness of
+remonstrance against the intentions of the king. Every possible
+means had been tried, without effect, to soften his pitiless
+heart to the sufferings of the country. At length the moment
+came when the people had reached that pitch of despair which is
+the great force of the oppressed, and William felt that their
+strength was now equal to the contest he had long foreseen. It
+is therefore absurd to accuse him of artifice in the exercise of
+that wisdom which rarely failed him on any important crisis. A
+change of circumstances gives a new name to actions and motives;
+and it would be hard to blame William of Nassau for the only point
+in which he bore the least resemblance to Philip of Spain--that
+depth of penetration, which the latter turned to every base and
+the former to every noble purpose.
+
+Up to the present moment the Prince of Orange and the Counts
+Egmont and Horn, with their partisans and friends, had sincerely
+desired the public peace, and acted in the common interest of
+the king and the people. But all the nobles had not acted with
+the same constitutional moderation. Many of those, disappointed
+on personal accounts, others professing the new doctrines, and
+the rest variously affected by manifold motives, formed a body
+of violent and sometimes of imprudent malcontents. The marriage
+of Alexander, prince of Parma, son of the stadtholderess, which
+was at this time celebrated at Brussels, brought together an
+immense number of these dissatisfied nobles, who became thus drawn
+into closer connection, and whose national candor was more than
+usually brought out in the confidential intercourse of society.
+Politics and patriotism were the common subjects of conversation
+in the various convivial meetings that took place. Two German
+nobles, Counts Holle and Schwarzemberg, at that period in the
+Netherlands, loudly proclaimed the favorable disposition of the
+princes of the empire toward the Belgians. It was supposed even
+thus early that negotiations had been opened with several of
+those sovereigns. In short, nothing seemed wanting but a leader,
+to give consistency and weight to the confederacy which was as
+yet but in embryo. This was doubly furnished in the persons of
+Louis of Nassau and Henry de Brederode. The former, brother of
+the Prince of Orange, was possessed of many of those brilliant
+qualities which mark men as worthy of distinction in times of
+peril. Educated at Geneva, he was passionately attached to the
+reformed religion, and identified in his hatred the Catholic
+Church and the tyranny of Spain. Brave and impetuous, he was,
+to his elder brother, but as an adventurous partisan compared
+with a sagacious general. He loved William as well as he did
+their common cause, and his life was devoted to both.
+
+Henry de Brederode, lord of Vienen and marquis of Utrecht, was
+descended from the ancient counts of Holland. This illustrious
+origin, which in his own eyes formed a high claim to distinction,
+had not procured him any of those employments or dignities which
+he considered his due. He was presumptuous and rash, and rather
+a fluent speaker than an eloquent orator. Louis of Nassau was
+thoroughly inspired by the justice of the cause he espoused; De
+Brederode espoused it for the glory of becoming its champion. The
+first only wished for action; the latter longed for distinction. But
+neither the enthusiasm of Nassau, nor the vanity of De Brederode,
+was allied with those superior attributes required to form a
+hero.
+
+The confederation acquired its perfect organization in the month
+of February, 1566, on the tenth of which month its celebrated
+manifesto was signed by its numerous adherents. The first name
+affixed to this document was that of Philip de Marnix, lord of
+St. Aldegonde, from whose pen it emanated; a man of great talents
+both as soldier and writer. Numbers of the nobility followed him
+on this muster-roll of patriotism, and many of the most zealous
+royalists were among them. This remarkable proclamation of general
+feeling consisted chiefly in a powerful reprehension of the illegal
+establishment of the Inquisition in the Low Countries, and a
+solemn obligation on the members of the confederacy to unite
+in the common cause against this detested nuisance. Men of all
+ranks and classes offered their signatures, and several Catholic
+priests among the rest. The Prince of Orange, and the Counts
+Egmont, Horn, and Meghem, declined becoming actual parties to
+this bold measure; and when the question was debated as to the
+most appropriate way of presenting an address to the stadtholderess
+these noblemen advised the mildest and most respectful demeanor
+on the part of the purposed deputation.
+
+At the first intelligence of these proceedings, the duchess of
+Parma, absorbed by terror, had no resource but to assemble hastily
+such members of the council of state as were at Brussels; and she
+entreated, by the most pressing letters, the Prince of Orange
+and Count Horn to resume their places at this council. But three
+courses of conduct seemed applicable to the emergency: to take up
+arms; to grant the demands of the confederates; or to temporize
+and to amuse them with a feint of moderation, until the orders
+of the king might be obtained from Spain. It was not, however,
+till after a lapse of four months that the council finally met
+to deliberate on these important questions; and during this long
+interval at such a crisis the confederates gained constant accessions
+to their numbers, and completely consolidated their plans. The
+opinions in the council were greatly divided as to the mode of
+treatment toward those whom one party considered as patriots
+acting in their constitutional rights, and the other as rebels
+in open revolt against the king. The Prince of Orange and De
+Berlaimont were the principal leaders and chief speakers on either
+side. But the reasonings of the former, backed by the urgency of
+events, carried the majority of the suffrages; and a promised
+redress of grievances was agreed on beforehand as the anticipated
+answer to the coming demands.
+
+Even while the council of state held its sittings, the report was
+spread through Brussels that the confederates were approaching.
+And at length they did enter the city, to the amount of some
+hundreds of the representatives of the first families in the
+country. On the following day, the 5th of April, 1566, they walked
+in solemn procession to the palace. Their demeanor was highly
+imposing, from their mingled air of forbearance and determination.
+All Brussels thronged out to gaze and sympathize with this
+extraordinary spectacle of men whose resolute step showed they
+were no common suppliants, but whose modest bearing had none
+of the seditious air of faction. The stadtholderess received
+the distinguished petitioners with courtesy, listened to their
+detail of grievances, and returned a moderate, conciliatory,
+but evasive answer.
+
+The confederation, which owed its birth to, and was cradled in
+social enjoyments, was consolidated in the midst of a feast.
+The day following this first deputation to the stadtholderess,
+De Brederode gave a grand repast to his associates in the Hotel
+de Culembourg. Three hundred guests were present. Inflamed by
+joy and hope, their spirits rose high under the influence of
+wine, and temperance gave way to temerity. In the midst of their
+carousing, some of the members remarked that when the stadtholderess
+received the written petition, Count Berlaimont observed to her
+that "she had nothing to fear from such a band of beggars"
+(_tas_de_GUEUX_). The fact was that many of the confederates
+were, from individual extravagance and mismanagement, reduced to
+such a state of poverty as to justify in some sort the sarcasm.
+The chiefs of the company being at that very moment debating on
+the name which they should choose for this patriotic league,
+the title of Gueux was instantly proposed, and adopted with
+acclamation. The reproach it was originally intended to convey
+became neutralized, as its general application to men of all
+ranks and fortunes concealed its effect as a stigma on many to
+whom it might be seriously applied. Neither were examples wanting
+of the most absurd and apparently dishonoring nicknames being
+elsewhere adopted by powerful political parties. "Long live the
+Gueux!" was the toast given and tumultuously drunk by this
+mad-brained company; and Brederode, setting no bounds to the
+boisterous excitement which followed, procured immediately, and
+slung across his shoulders, a wallet such as was worn by pilgrims
+and beggars; drank to the health of all present, in a wooden cup
+or porringer; and loudly swore that he was ready to sacrifice
+his fortune and life for the common cause. Each man passed round
+the bowl, which he first put to his lips, repeated the oath,
+and thus pledged himself to the compact. The wallet next went
+the rounds of the whole assembly, and was finally hung upon a
+nail driven into the wall for the purpose; and gazed on with
+such enthusiasm as the emblems of political or religious faith,
+however worthless or absurd, never fail to inspire in the minds
+of enthusiasts.
+
+The tumult caused by this ceremony, so ridiculous in itself, but
+so sublime in its results, attracted to the spot the Prince of
+Orange and Counts Egmont and Horn, whose presence is universally
+attributed by the historians to accident, but which was probably
+that kind of chance that leads medical practitioners in our days
+to the field where a duel is fought. They entered; and Brederode,
+who did the honors of the mansion, forced them to be seated, and
+to join in the festivity. The following was Egmont's account of
+their conduct: "We drank a single glass of wine each, to shouts
+of 'Long live the king! Long live the Gueux!' It was the first
+time I had heard the confederacy so named, and I avow that it
+displeased me; but the times were so critical that people were
+obliged to tolerate many things contrary to their inclinations, and
+I believed myself on this occasion to act with perfect innocence."
+The appearance of three such distinguished personages heightened
+the general excitement; and the most important assemblage that
+had for centuries met together in the Netherlands mingled the
+discussion of affairs of state with all the burlesque extravagance
+of a debauch. But this frantic scene did not finish the affair. What
+they resolved on while drunk, they prepared to perform when sober.
+Rallying signs and watchwords were adopted and soon displayed. It
+was thought that nothing better suited the occasion than the
+immediate adoption of the costume as well as the title of beggary.
+In a very few days the city streets were filled with men in gray
+cloaks, fashioned on the model of those used by mendicants and
+pilgrims. Each confederate caused this uniform to be worn by every
+member of his family, and replaced with it the livery of his
+servants. Several fastened to their girdles or their sword-hilts
+small wooden drinking-cups, clasp-knives, and other symbols of the
+begging fraternity; while all soon wore on their breasts a medal
+of gold or silver, representing on one side the effigy of Philip,
+with the words, "Faithful to the king"; and on the reverse, two
+hands clasped, with the motto, "Jusqu' ŕ la besace" (Even to
+the wallet). From this origin arose the application of the word
+Gueux, in its political sense, as common to all the inhabitants
+of the Netherlands who embraced the cause of the Reformation and
+took up arms against their tyrant. Having presented two subsequent
+remonstrances to the stadtholderess, and obtained some consoling
+promises of moderation, the chief confederates quitted Brussels,
+leaving several directors to sustain their cause in the capital;
+while they themselves spread into the various provinces, exciting
+the people to join the legal and constitutional resistance with
+which they were resolved to oppose the march of bigotry and
+despotism.
+
+A new form of edict was now decided on by the stadtholderess
+and her council; and after various insidious and illegal but
+successful tricks, the consent of several of the provinces was
+obtained to the adoption of measures that, under a guise of
+comparative moderation, were little less abominable than those
+commanded by the king. These were formally signed by the council,
+and despatched to Spain to receive Philip's sanction, and thus
+acquire the force of law. The embassy to Madrid was confided to
+the marquis of Bergen and the baron de Montigny; the latter of
+whom was brother to Count Horn, and had formerly been employed
+on a like mission. Montigny appears to have had some qualms of
+apprehension in undertaking this new office. His good genius seemed
+for a while to stand between him and the fate which awaited him.
+An accident which happened to his colleague allowed an excuse
+for retarding his journey. But the stadtholderess urged him away:
+he set out, and reached his destination; not to defend the cause
+of his country at the foot of the throne, but to perish a victim
+to his patriotism.
+
+The situation of the patriot lords was at this crisis peculiarly
+embarrassing. The conduct of the confederates was so essentially
+tantamount to open rebellion, that the Prince of Orange and his
+friends found it almost impossible to preserve a neutrality between
+the court and the people. All their wishes urged them to join at
+once in the public cause; but they were restrained by a lingering
+sense of loyalty to the king, whose employments they still held,
+and whose confidence they were, therefore, nominally supposed
+to share. They seemed reduced to the necessity of coming to an
+explanation, and, perhaps, a premature rupture with the government;
+of joining in the harsh measures it was likely to adopt against
+those with whose proceedings they sympathized; or, as a last
+alternative, to withdraw, as they had done before, wholly from all
+interference in public affairs. Still their presence in the council
+of state was, even though their influence had greatly decreased,
+of vast service to the patriots, in checking the hostility of the
+court; and the confederates, on the other hand, were restrained
+from acts of open violence, by fear of the disapprobation of
+these their best and most powerful friends. Be their individual
+motives of reasoning what they might, they at length adopted
+the alternative above alluded to, and resigned their places.
+Count Horn retired to his estates; Count Egmont repaired to
+Aix-la-Chapelle, under the pretext of being ordered thither by
+his physicians; the Prince of Orange remained for a while at
+Brussels.
+
+In the meanwhile, the confederation gained ground every day. Its
+measures had totally changed the face of affairs in all parts
+of the nation. The general discontent now acquired stability,
+and consequent importance. The chief merchants of many of the
+towns enrolled themselves in the patriot band. Many active and
+ardent minds, hitherto withheld by the doubtful construction of
+the association, now freely entered into it when it took the
+form of union and respectability. Energy, if not excess, seemed
+legitimatized. The vanity of the leaders was flattered by the
+consequence they acquired; and weak minds gladly embraced an
+occasion of mixing with those whose importance gave both protection
+and concealment to their insignificance.
+
+An occasion so favorable for the rapid promulgation of the new
+doctrines was promptly taken advantage of by the French Huguenots
+and their Protestant brethren of Germany. The disciples of reform
+poured from all quarters into the Low Countries, and made prodigious
+progress, with all the energy of proselytes, and too often with
+the fury of fanatics. The three principal sects into which the
+reformers were divided, were those of the Anabaptists, the
+Calvinists, and the Lutherans. The first and least numerous were
+chiefly established in Friesland. The second were spread over
+the eastern provinces. Their doctrines being already admitted
+into some kingdoms of the north, they were protected by the most
+powerful princes of the empire. The third, and by far the most
+numerous and wealthy, abounded in the southern provinces, and
+particularly in Flanders. They were supported by the zealous
+efforts of French, Swiss, and German ministers; and their dogmas
+were nearly the same with those of the established religion of
+England. The city of Antwerp was the central point of union for
+the three sects; but the only principle they held in common was
+their hatred against popery, the Inquisition, and Spain.
+
+The stadtholderess had now issued orders to the chief magistrates
+to proceed with moderation against the heretics; orders which were
+obeyed in their most ample latitude by those to whose sympathies
+they were so congenial. Until then, the Protestants were satisfied
+to meet by stealth at night; but under this negative protection
+of the authorities they now boldly assembled in public.
+Field-preachings commenced in Flanders; and the minister who
+first set this example was Herman Stricker, a converted monk, a
+native of Overyssel, a powerful speaker, and a bold enthusiast.
+He soon drew together an audience of seven thousand persons. A
+furious magistrate rushed among this crowd, and hoped to disperse
+them sword in hand; but he was soon struck down, mortally wounded,
+with a shower of stones. Irritated and emboldened by this rash
+attempt, the Protestants assembled in still greater numbers near
+Alost; but on this occasion they appeared with poniards, guns, and
+halberds. They intrenched themselves under the protection of wagons
+and all sorts of obstacles to a sudden attack; placed outposts and
+videttes; and thus took the field in the doubly dangerous aspect of
+fanaticism and war. Similar assemblies soon spread over the whole
+of Flanders, inflamed by the exhortations of Stricker and another
+preacher, called Peter Dathen, of Poperingue. It was calculated
+that fifteen thousand men attended at some of these preachings;
+while a third apostle of Calvinism, Ambrose Ville, a Frenchman,
+successfully excited the inhabitants of Tournay, Valenciennes,
+and Antwerp, to form a common league for the promulgation of
+their faith. The sudden appearance of De Brederode at the latter
+place decided their plan, and gave the courage to fix on a day
+for its execution. An immense assemblage simultaneously quitted
+the three cities at a pre-concerted time; and when they united
+their forces at the appointed rendezvous, the preachings,
+exhortations, and psalm-singing commenced, under the auspices of
+several Huguenot and German ministers, and continued for several
+days in all the zealous extravagance which may be well imagined
+to characterize such a scene.
+
+The citizens of Antwerp were terrified for the safety of the place,
+and courier after courier was despatched to the stadtholderess at
+Brussels to implore her presence. The duchess, not daring to
+take such a step without the authority of the king, sent Count
+Meghem as her representative, with proposals to the magistrates
+to call out the garrison. The populace soon understood the object
+of this messenger; and assailing him with a violent outcry, forced
+him to fly from the city. Then the Calvinists petitioned the
+magistrates for permission to openly exercise their religion,
+and for the grant of a temple in which to celebrate its rites.
+The magistrates in this conjuncture renewed their application to
+the stadtholderess, and entreated her to send the Prince of Orange,
+as the only person capable of saving the city from destruction.
+The duchess was forced to adopt this bitter alternative; and the
+prince, after repeated refusals to mix again in public affairs,
+yielded, at length, less to the supplications of the stadtholderess
+than to his own wishes to do another service to the cause of his
+country. At half a league from the city he was met by De Brederode,
+with an immense concourse of people of all sects and opinions,
+who hailed him as a protector from the tyranny of the king, and
+a savior from the dangers of their own excess. Nothing could
+exceed the wisdom, the firmness, and the benevolence, with which
+he managed all conflicting interests, and preserved tranquillity
+amid a chaos of opposing prejudices and passions.
+
+From the first establishment of the field-preachings the
+stadtholderess had implored the confederate lords to aid her for
+the re-establishment of order. De Brederode seized this excuse for
+convoking a general meeting of the associates which consequently
+took place at the town of St. Trond, in the district of Liege.
+Full two thousand of the members appeared on the summons. The
+language held in this assembly was much stronger and less equivocal
+than that formerly used. The delay in the arrival of the king's
+answer presaged ill as to his intentions; while the rapid growth
+of the public power seemed to mark the present as the time for
+successfully demanding all that the people required. Several of
+the Catholic members, still royalists at heart, were shocked
+to hear a total liberty of conscience spoken of as one of the
+privileges sought for. The young count of Mansfield, among others,
+withdrew immediately from the confederation; and thus the first
+stone seemed to be removed from this imperfectly constructed
+edifice.
+
+The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont were applied to, and appointed
+by the stadtholderess, with full powers to treat with the
+confederates. Twelve of the latter, among whom were Louis of
+Nassau, De Brederode, and De Culembourg, met them by appointment
+at Duffle, a village not far from Mechlin. The result of the
+conference was a respectful but firm address to the stadtholderess,
+repelling her accusations of having entered into foreign treaties;
+declaring their readiness to march against the French troops should
+they set foot in the country; and claiming, with the utmost force
+of reasoning, the convocation of the states-general. This was
+replied to by an entreaty that they would still wait patiently for
+twenty-four days, in hopes of an answer from the king; and she sent
+the marquess of Bergen in all speed to Madrid, to support Montigny
+in his efforts to obtain some prompt decision from Philip. The
+king, who was then at Segovia, assembled his council, consisting
+of the duke of Alva and eight other grandees. The two deputies
+from the Netherlands attended at the deliberations, which were
+held for several successive days; but the king was never present.
+The whole state of affairs being debated with what appears a calm
+and dispassionate view, considering the hostile prejudices of this
+council, it was decided to advise the king to adopt generally a
+more moderate line of conduct in the Netherlands, and to abolish
+the inquisition; at the same time prohibiting under the most
+awful threats all confederation assemblage, or public preachings,
+under any pretext whatever.
+
+The king's first care on, receiving this advice was to order, in
+all the principal towns of Spain and the Netherlands, prayer and
+processions to implore the divine approbation on the resolutions
+which he had formed. He appeared then in person at the council of
+state, and issued a decree, by which he refused his consent to
+the convocation of the states-general, and bound himself to take
+several German regiments into his pay. He ordered the duchess
+of Parma, by a private letter, to immediately cause to be raised
+three thousand cavalry and ten thousand foot, and he remitted to
+her for this purpose three hundred thousand florins in gold. He
+next wrote with his own hand to several of his partisans in the
+various towns, encouraging them in their fidelity to his purpose,
+and promising them his support. He rejected the adoption of the
+moderation recommended to him; but he consented to the abolition
+of the inquisition in its most odious sense, re-establishing
+that modified species of ecclesiastical tyranny which had been
+introduced into the Netherlands by Charles V. The people of that
+devoted country were thus successful in obtaining one important
+concession from the king, and in meeting unexpected consideration
+from this Spanish council. Whether these measures had been calculated
+with a view to their failure, it is not now easy to determine;
+at all events they came too late. When Philip's letters reached
+Brussels, the iconoclasts or image-breakers were abroad.
+
+It requires no profound research to comprehend the impulse which
+leads a horde of fanatics to the most monstrous excesses. That
+the deeds of the iconoclasts arose from the spontaneous outburst
+of mere vulgar fury, admits of no doubt. The aspersion which
+would trace those deeds to the meeting of St. Trond, and fix
+the infamy on the body of nobility there assembled, is scarcely
+worthy of refutation. The very lowest of the people were the
+actors as well as the authors of the outrages, which were at
+once shocking to every friend of liberty, and injurious to that
+sacred cause. Artois and western Flanders were the scenes of the
+first exploits of the iconoclasts. A band of peasants, intermixed
+with beggars and various other vagabonds, to the amount of about
+three hundred, urged by fanaticism and those baser passions which
+animate every lawless body of men, armed with hatchets, clubs, and
+hammers, forced open the doors of some of the village churches
+in the neighborhood of St. Omer, and tore down and destroyed not
+only the images and relics of saints, but those very ornaments
+which Christians of all sects hold sacred, and essential to the
+most simple rites of religion.
+
+The cities of Ypres, Lille, and other places of importance, were
+soon subject to similar visitations; and the whole of Flanders
+was in a few days ravaged by furious multitudes, whose frantic
+energy spread terror and destruction on their route. Antwerp was
+protected for a while by the presence of the Prince of Orange;
+but an order from the stadtholderess having obliged him to repair
+to Brussels, a few nights after his departure the celebrated
+cathedral shared the fate of many a minor temple, and was utterly
+pillaged. The blind fury of the spoilers was not confined to
+the mere effigies which they considered the types of idolatry,
+nor even to the pictures, the vases, the sixty-six altars, and
+their richly wrought accessories; but it was equally fatal to the
+splendid organ, which was considered the finest at that time in
+existence. The rapidity and the order with which this torch-light
+scene was acted, without a single accident among the numerous
+doers, has excited the wonder of almost all its early historians.
+One of them does not hesitate to ascribe the "miracle" to the
+absolute agency of demons. For three days and nights these revolting
+scenes were acted, and every church in the city shared the fate
+of the cathedral, which next to St. Peter's at Rome was the most
+magnificent in Christendom.
+
+Ghent, Tournay, Valenciennes, Mechlin, and other cities, were next
+the theatres of similar excesses; and in an incredibly short space
+of time above four hundred churches were pillaged in Flanders and
+Brabant. Zealand, Utrecht, and others of the northern provinces,
+suffered more or less; Friesland, Guelders, and Holland alone
+escaped, and even the latter but in partial instances.
+
+These terrible scenes extinguished every hope of reconciliation
+with the king. An inveterate and interminable hatred was now
+established between him and the people; for the whole nation
+was identified with deeds which were in reality only shared by
+the most base, and were loathsome to all who were enlightened.
+It was in vain that the patriot nobles might hope or strive to
+exclupate themselves; they were sure to be held criminal either
+in fact or by implication. No show of loyalty, no efforts to
+restore order, no personal sacrifice, could save them from the
+hatred or screen them from the vengeance of Philip.
+
+The affright of the stadtholderess during the short reign of
+anarchy and terror was without bounds. She strove to make her
+escape from Brussels, and was restrained from so doing only by
+the joint solicitations of Viglius and the various knights of
+the order of the golden Fleece, consisting of the first among
+the nobles of all parties. But, in fact, a species of violence
+was used to restrain her from this most fatal step; for Viglius
+gave orders that the gates of the city should be shut, and egress
+refused to anyone belonging to the court. The somewhat less terrified
+duchess now named Count Mansfield governor of the town, reinforced
+the garrison, ordered arms to be distributed to all her adherents,
+and then called a council to deliberate on the measures to be
+adopted. A compromise with the confederates and the reformers
+was unanimously agreed to. The Prince of Orange and Counts Egmont
+and Horn were once more appointed to this arduous arbitration
+between the court and the people. Necessity now extorted almost
+every concession which had been so long denied to justice and
+prudence. The confederates were declared absolved from all
+responsibility relative to their proceedings. The suppression of
+the Inquisition, the abolition of the edicts against heresy, and
+a permission for the preachings, were simultaneously published.
+
+The confederates on their side undertook to remain faithful to
+the service of the king, to do their best for the establishment
+of order, and to punish the iconoclasts. A regular treaty to
+this effect was drawn up and executed by the respective
+plenipotentiaries, and formally approved by the stadtholderess,
+who affixed her sign-manual to the instrument. She only consented
+to this measure after a long struggle, and with tears in her
+eyes; and it was with a trembling hand that she wrote an account
+of these transactions to the king.
+
+Soon after this the several governors repaired to their respective
+provinces, and their efforts for the re-establishment of tranquillity
+were attended with various degrees of success. Several of the
+ringleaders in the late excesses were executed; and this severity
+was not confined to the partisans of the Catholic Church. The
+Prince of Orange and Count Egmont, with others of the patriot
+lords, set the example of this just severity. John Casambrot,
+lord of Beckerzeel, Egmont's secretary, and a leading member
+of the confederation, put himself at the head of some others
+of the associated gentlemen, fell upon a refractory band of
+iconoclasts near Gramont, in Flanders, and took thirty prisoners,
+of whom he ordered twenty-eight to be hanged on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS
+
+A.D. 1566--1573
+
+All the services just related in the common cause of the country
+and the king produced no effect on the vindictive spirit of the
+latter. Neither the lapse of time, the proofs of repentance, nor
+the fulfilment of their duty, could efface the hatred excited
+by a conscientious opposition to even one design of despotism.
+
+Philip was ill at Segovia when he received accounts of the excesses
+of the image-breakers, and of the convention concluded with the
+heretics. Despatches from the stadtholderess, with private advice
+from Viglius, Egmont, Mansfield, Meghem, De Berlaimont, and others,
+gave him ample information as to the real state of things, and they
+thus strove to palliate their having acceded to the convention. The
+emperor even wrote to his royal nephew, imploring him to treat his
+wayward subjects with moderation, and offered his mediation between
+them. Philip, though severely suffering, gave great attention to
+the details of this correspondence, which he minutely examined,
+and laid before his council of state, with notes and observations
+taken by himself. But he took special care to send to them only
+such parts as he chose them to be well informed upon; his natural
+distrust not suffering him to have any confidential communication
+with men.
+
+Again the Spanish council appears to have interfered between
+the people of the Netherlands and the enmity of the monarch;
+and the offered mediation of the emperor was recommended to his
+acceptance, to avoid the appearance of a forced concession to
+the popular will. Philip was also strongly urged to repair to
+the scene of the disturbances; and a main question of debate was,
+whether he should march at the head of an army or confide himself
+to the loyalty and good faith of his Belgian subjects. But the
+indolence or the pride of Philip was too strong to admit of his
+taking so vigorous a measure; and all these consultations ended
+in two letters to the stadtholderess. In the first he declared
+his firm intention to visit the Netherlands in person; refused
+to convoke the states-general; passed in silence the treaties
+concluded with the Protestants and the confederates; and finished
+by a declaration that he would throw himself wholly on the fidelity
+of the country. In his second letter, meant for the stadtholderess
+alone, he authorized her to assemble the states-general if public
+opinion became too powerful for resistance, but on no account
+to let it transpire that he had under any circumstances given
+his consent.
+
+During these deliberations in Spain, the Protestants in the
+Netherlands amply availed themselves of the privileges they had
+gained. They erected numerous wooden churches with incredible
+activity. Young and old, noble and plebeian, of these energetic
+men, assisted in the manual labors of these occupations; and the
+women freely applied the produce of their ornaments and jewels
+to forward the pious work. But the furious outrages of the
+iconoclasts had done infinite mischief to both political and
+religious freedom; many of the Catholics, and particularly the
+priests, gradually withdrew themselves from the confederacy,
+which thus lost some of its most firm supporters. And, on the
+other hand, the severity with which some of its members pursued
+the guilty offended and alarmed the body of the people, who could
+not distinguish the shades of difference between the love of
+liberty and the practice of licentiousness.
+
+The stadtholderess and her satellites adroitly took advantage of
+this state of things to sow dissension among the patriots. Autograph
+letters from Philip to the principal lords were distributed among
+them with such artful and mysterious precautions as to throw the
+rest into perplexity, and give each suspicions of the other's
+fidelity. The report of the immediate arrival of Philip had also
+considerable effect over the less resolute or more selfish; and
+the confederation was dissolving rapidly under the operations
+of intrigue, self-interest, and fear. Even the Count of Egmont
+was not proof against the subtle seductions of the wily monarch,
+whose severe yet flattering letters half frightened and half
+soothed him into a relapse of royalism. But with the Prince of
+Orange Philip had no chance of success. It is unquestionable
+that, be his means of acquiring information what they might,
+he did succeed in procuring minute intelligence of all that was
+going on in the king's most secret council. He had from time to
+time procured copies of the stadtholderess's despatches; but
+the document which threw the most important light upon the real
+intentions of Philip was a confidential epistle to the stadtholderess
+from D'Alava, the Spanish minister at Paris, in which he spoke in
+terms too clear to admit any doubt as to the terrible example
+which the king was resolved to make among the patriot lords.
+Bergen and Montigny confirmed this by the accounts they sent
+home from Madrid of the alteration in the manner with which they
+were treated by Philip and his courtiers; and the Prince of Orange
+was more firmly decided in his opinions of the coming vengeance
+of the tyrant.
+
+William summoned his brother Louis, the Counts Egmont, Horn,
+and Hoogstraeten, to a secret conference at Termonde; and he
+there submitted to them this letter of Alava's, with others which
+he had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears.
+Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William
+recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government,
+not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the
+most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a
+death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious
+amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to
+devote himself wholly to the service of the king, and on no
+inducement whatever to risk the perils of rebellion. He expressed
+his perfect reliance on the justice and the goodness of Philip
+when once he should see the determined loyalty of those whom he
+had hitherto had so much reason to suspect; and he extorted the
+others to follow his example. The two brothers and Count Horn
+implored him in their turn to abandon this blind reliance on
+the tyrant; but in vain. His new and unlooked-for profession of
+faith completely paralyzed their plans. He possessed too largely
+the confidence of both the soldiery and the people to make it
+possible to attempt any serious measure of resistance in which
+he would not take a part. The meeting broke up without coming to
+any decision. All those who bore a part in it were expected at
+Brussels to attend the council of state; Egmont alone repaired
+thither. The stadtholderess questioned him on the object of the
+conference at Termonde: he only replied by an indignant glance,
+at the same time presenting a copy of Alava's letter.
+
+The stadtholderess now applied her whole efforts to destroy the
+union among the patriot lords. She, in the meantime, ordered
+levies of troops to the amount of some thousands, the command
+of which was given to the nobles on whose attachment she could
+reckon. The most vigorous measures were adopted. Noircarmes,
+governor of Hainault, appeared before Valenciennes, which, being
+in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined
+attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission,
+and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate
+refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble
+of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the
+direction of John de Soreas, gathered together in the neighborhood
+of Lille and Tournay, with a show of attacking these places. But
+the governor of the former town dispersed one party of them; and
+Noircarmes surprised and almost destroyed the main body--their
+leader falling in the action. These were the first encounters
+of the civil war, which raged without cessation for upward of
+forty years in these devoted countries, and which is universally
+allowed to be the most remarkable that ever desolated any isolated
+portion of Europe. The space which we have already given to the
+causes which produced this memorable revolution, now actually
+commenced, will not allow us to do more than rapidly sketch the
+fierce events that succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.
+
+While Valenciennes prepared for a vigorous resistance, a general
+synod of the Protestants was held at Antwerp, and De Brederode
+undertook an attempt to see the stadtholderess, and lay before
+her the complaints of this body; but she refused to admit him into
+the capital. He then addressed to her a remonstrance in writing,
+in which he reproached her with her violation of the treaties;
+on the faith of which the confederates had dispersed, and the
+majority of the Protestants laid down their arms. He implored
+her to revoke the new proclamations, by which she prohibited them
+from the free exercise of their religion; and, above all things,
+he insisted on the abandonment of the siege of Valenciennes, and
+the disbanding of the new levies. The stadtholderess's reply
+was one of haughty reproach and defiance. The gauntlet was now
+thrown down; no possible hope of reconciliation remained; and the
+whole country flew to arms. A sudden attempt on the part of the
+royalists, under Count Meghem, against Bois-le-duc, was repulsed
+by eight hundred men, commanded by an officer named Bomberg, in
+the immediate service of De Brederode, who had fortified himself
+in his garrison town of Vienen.
+
+The Prince of Orange maintained at Antwerp an attitude of extreme
+firmness and caution. His time for action had not yet arrived;
+but his advice and protection were of infinite importance on
+many occasions. John de Marnix, lord of Toulouse, brother of
+Philip de St. Aldegonde, took possession of Osterweel on the
+Scheldt, a quarter of a league from Antwerp, and fortified himself
+in a strong position. But he was impetuously attacked by the
+Count de Lannoy with a considerable force, and perished, after
+a desperate defence, with full one thousand of his followers.
+Three hundred who laid down their arms were immediately after
+the action butchered in cold blood. Antwerp was on this occasion
+saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens,
+and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and
+intrepidity of the Prince of Orange. Valenciennes at length
+capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and
+death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six
+hours. The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens
+were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited.
+Noircarmes promptly followed up his success. Maestricht, Turnhout,
+and Bois-le-duc submitted at his approach; and the insurgents
+were soon driven from all the provinces, Holland alone excepted.
+Brederode fled to Germany, where he died the following year.
+
+The stadtholderess showed, in her success, no small proofs of
+decision. She and her counsellors, acting under orders from the
+king, were resolved on embarrassing to the utmost the patriot lords;
+and a new oath of allegiance, to be proposed to every functionary
+of the state, was considered as a certain means for attaining
+this object without the violence of an unmerited dismissal. The
+terms of this oath were strongly opposed to every principle of
+patriotism and toleration. Count Mansfield was the first of the
+nobles who took it. The duke of Arschot, Counts Meghem, Berlaimont,
+and Egmont followed his example. The counts of Horn, Hoogstraeten,
+De Brederode, and others, refused on various pretexts. Every
+artifice and persuasion was tried to induce the Prince of Orange
+to subscribe to this new test; but his resolution had been for
+some time formed. He saw that every chance of constitutional
+resistance to tyranny was for the present at an end. The time
+for petitioning was gone by. The confederation was dissolved. A
+royalist army was in the field; the Duke of Alva was notoriously
+approaching at the head of another, more numerous. It was worse than
+useless to conclude a hollow convention with the stadtholderess
+of mock loyalty on his part and mock confidence on hers. Many
+other important considerations convinced William that his only
+honorable, safe, and wise course was to exile himself from the
+Netherlands altogether, until more propitious circumstances allowed
+of his acting openly, boldly, and with effect.
+
+Before he put this plan of voluntary banishment into execution,
+he and Egmont had a parting interview at the village of Willebroek,
+between Antwerp and Brussels. Count Mansfield, and Berti, secretary
+to the stadtholderess, were present at this memorable meeting.
+The details of what passed were reported to the confederates
+by one of their party, who contrived to conceal himself in the
+chimney of the chamber. Nothing could exceed the energetic warmth
+with which the two illustrious friends reciprocally endeavored
+to turn each other from their respective line of conduct; but
+in vain. Egmont's fatal confidence in the king was not to be
+shaken; nor was Nassau's penetrating mind to be deceived by the
+romantic delusion which led away his friend. They separated with
+most affectionate expressions; and Nassau was even moved to tears.
+His parting words were to the following effect: "Confide, then,
+since it must be so, in the gratitude of the king; but a painful
+presentiment (God grant it may prove a false one!) tells me that
+you will serve the Spaniards as the bridge by which they will
+enter the country, and which they will destroy as soon as they
+have passed over it!"
+
+On the 11th of April, a few days after this conference, the Prince
+of Orange set out for Germany, with his three brothers and his
+whole family, with the exception of his eldest son Philip William,
+count de Beuren, whom he left behind a student in the University
+of Louvain. He believed that the privileges of the college and
+the franchises of Brabant would prove a sufficient protection to
+the youth; and this appears the only instance in which William's
+vigilant prudence was deceived. The departure of the prince seemed
+to remove all hope of protection or support from the unfortunate
+Protestants, now left the prey of their implacable tyrant. The
+confederation of the nobles was completely broken up. The counts
+of Hoogstraeten, Bergen, and Culembourg followed the example of
+the Prince of Orange, and escaped to Germany; and, the greater
+number of those who remained behind took the new oath of allegiance,
+and became reconciled to the government.
+
+This total dispersion of the confederacy brought all the towns
+of Holland into obedience to the king. But the emigration which
+immediately commenced threatened the country with ruin. England
+and Germany swarmed with Dutch and Belgian refugees; and all the
+efforts of the stadtholderess could not restrain the thousands
+that took to flight. She was not more successful in her attempts to
+influence the measures of the king. She implored him, in repeated
+letters, to abandon his design of sending a foreign army into
+the country, which she represented as being now quite reduced
+to submission and tranquillity. She added that the mere report
+of this royal invasion (so to call it) had already deprived the
+Netherlands of many thousands of its best inhabitants; and that
+the appearance of the troops would change it into a desert. These
+arguments, meant to dissuade, were the very means of encouraging
+Philip in his design. He conceived his project to be now ripe
+for the complete suppression of freedom; and Alva soon began
+his march.
+
+On the 5th of May, 1567, this celebrated captain, whose reputation
+was so quickly destined to sink into the notoriety of an executioner,
+began his memorable march; and on the 22d of August he, with
+his two natural sons, and his veteran army consisting of about
+fifteen thousand men, arrived at the walls of Brussels. The
+discipline observed on this march was a terrible forewarning to
+the people of the Netherlands of the influence of the general and
+the obedience of the troops. They had little chance of resistance
+against such soldiers so commanded.
+
+Several of the Belgian nobility went forward to meet Alva, to
+render him the accustomed honors, and endeavor thus early to
+gain his good graces. Among them was the infatuated Egmont, who
+made a present to Alva of two superb horses, which the latter
+received with a disdainful air of condescension. Alva's first
+care was the distribution of his troops--several thousands of
+whom were placed in Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns,
+and the remainder reserved under his own immediate orders at
+Brussels. His approach was celebrated by universal terror; and
+his arrival was thoroughly humiliating to the duchess of Parma.
+He immediately produced his commission as commander-in-chief
+of the royal armies in the Netherlands; but he next showed her
+another, which confided to him powers infinitely more extended
+than any Marguerite herself had enjoyed, and which proved to her
+that the almost sovereign power over the country was virtually
+vested in him.
+
+Alva first turned his attention to the seizure of those patriot
+lords whose pertinacious infatuation left them within his reach.
+He summoned a meeting of all the members of the council of state
+and the knights of the order of the Golden Fleece, to deliberate
+on matters of great importance. Counts Egmont and Horn attended,
+among many others; and at the conclusion of the council they
+were both arrested (some historians assert by the hands of Alva
+and his eldest son), as was also Van Straeten, burgomaster of
+Antwerp, and Casambrot, Egmont's secretary. The young count of
+Mansfield appeared for a moment at this meeting; but, warned by
+his father of the fate intended him, as an original member of
+the confederation, he had time to fly. The count of Hoogstraeten
+was happily detained by illness, and thus escaped the fate of
+his friends. Egmont and Horn were transferred to the citadel
+of Ghent, under an escort of three thousand Spanish soldiers.
+Several other persons of the first families were arrested; and
+those who had originally been taken in arms were executed without
+delay.
+
+[Illustration: STORMING THE BARRICADES AT BRUSSELS DURING THE
+REVOLUTION OF 1848.]
+
+The next measures of the new governor were the reestablishment of
+the Inquisition, the promulgation of the decrees of the Council
+of Trent, the revocation of the duchess of Parma's edicts, and
+the royal refusal to recognize the terms of her treaties with
+the Protestants. He immediately established a special tribunal,
+composed of twelve members, with full powers to inquire into
+and pronounce judgment on every circumstance connected with the
+late troubles. He named himself president of this council, and
+appointed a Spaniard, named Vargas, as vice-president--a wretch
+of the most diabolical cruelty. Several others of the judges
+were also Spaniards, in direct infraction of the fundamental
+laws of the country. This council, immortalized by its infamy,
+was named by the new governor (for so Alva was in fact, though
+not yet in name), the Council of Troubles. By the people it was
+soon designed the Council of Blood. In its atrocious proceedings
+no respect was paid to titles, contracts, or privileges, however
+sacred. Its judgments were without appeal. Every subject of the
+state was amenable to its summons; clergy and laity, the first
+individuals of the country, as well as the most wretched outcasts
+of society. Its decrees were passed with disgusting rapidity
+and contempt of form. Contumacy was punished with exile and
+confiscation. Those who, strong in innocence, dared to brave
+a trial were lost without resource. The accused were forced to
+its bar without previous warning. Many a wealthy citizen was
+dragged to trial four leagues' distance, tied to a horse's tail.
+The number of victims was appalling. On one occasion, the town
+of Valenciennes alone saw fifty-five of its citizens fall by
+the hands of the executioner. Hanging, beheading, quartering and
+burning were the every-day spectacles. The enormous confiscations
+only added to the thirst for gold and blood by which Alva and his
+satellites were parched. History offers no example of parallel
+horrors; for while party vengeance on other occasions has led to
+scenes of fury and terror, they arose, in this instance, from
+the vilest cupidity and the most cold-blooded cruelty.
+
+After three months of such atrocity, Alva, fatigued rather than
+satiated with butchery, resigned his hateful functions wholly
+into the hands of Vargas, who was chiefly aided by the members
+Delrio and Dela Torre. Even at this remote period we cannot repress
+the indignation excited by the mention of those monsters, and
+it is impossible not to feel satisfaction in fixing upon their
+names the brand of historic execration. One of these wretches,
+called Hesselts, used at length to sleep during the mock trials
+of the already doomed victims; and as often as he was roused
+up by his colleagues, he used to cry out mechanically, "To the
+gibbet! to the gibbet!" so familiar was his tongue with the sounds
+of condemnation.
+
+The despair of the people may be imagined from the fact that,
+until the end of the year 1567, their only consolation was the
+prospect of the king's arrival! He never dreamed of coming. Even
+the delight of feasting in horrors like these could not conquer
+his indolence. The good duchess of Parma--for so she was in
+comparison with her successor--was not long left to oppose the
+feeble barrier of her prayers between Alva and his victims. She
+demanded her dismissal from the nominal dignity, which was now
+but a title of disgrace. Philip granted it readily, accompanied
+by a hypocritical letter, a present of thirty thousand crowns,
+and the promise of an annual pension of twenty thousand more.
+She left Brussels in the month of April, 1568, raised to a high
+place in the esteem and gratitude of the people, less by any
+actual claims from her own conduct than by its fortuitous contrast
+with the infamy of her successor. She retired to Italy, and died
+at Naples in the month of February, 1586.
+
+Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, duke of Alva, was of a distinguished
+family in Spain, and even boasted of his descent from one of the
+Moorish monarchs who had reigned in the insignificant kingdom of
+Toledo. When he assumed the chief command in the Netherlands, he
+was sixty years of age; having grown old and obdurate in pride,
+ferocity, and avarice. His deeds must stand instead of a more
+detailed portrait, which, to be thoroughly striking, should be
+traced with a pen dipped in blood. He was a fierce and clever
+soldier, brought up in the school of Charles V., and trained
+to his profession in the wars of that monarch in Germany, and
+subsequently in that of Philip II. against France. In addition
+to the horrors acted by the Council of Blood, Alva committed many
+deeds of collateral but minor tyranny; among others, he issued
+a decree forbidding, under severe penalties, any inhabitant of
+the country to marry without his express permission. His furious
+edicts against emigration were attempted to be enforced in vain.
+Elizabeth of England opened all the ports of her kingdom to the
+Flemish refugees, who carried with them those abundant stores of
+manufacturing knowledge which she wisely knew to be the elements
+of national wealth.
+
+Alva soon summoned the Prince of Orange, his brothers, and all
+the confederate lords, to appear before the council and answer
+to the charge of high treason. The prince gave a prompt and
+contemptuous answer, denying the authority of Alva and his council,
+and acknowledging for his judges only the emperor, whose vassal
+he was, or the king of Spain in person, as president of the order
+of the Golden Fleece. The other lords made replies nearly similar.
+The trials of each were, therefore, proceeded on, by contumacy;
+confiscation of property being an object almost as dear to the
+tyrant viceroy as the death of his victims. Judgments were promptly
+pronounced against those present or absent, alive or dead. Witness
+the case of the unfortunate marquess of Bergues, who had previously
+expired at Madrid, as was universally believed, by poison; and his
+equally ill-fated colleague in the embassy, the Baron Montigny,
+was for a while imprisoned at Segovia, where he was soon after
+secretly beheaded, on the base pretext of former disaffection.
+
+The departure of the duchess of Parma having left Alva undisputed
+as well as unlimited authority, he proceeded rapidly in his terrible
+career. The count of Beuren was seized at Louvain, and sent prisoner
+to Madrid; and wherever it was possible to lay hands on a suspected
+patriot, the occasion was not neglected. It would be a revolting
+task to enter into a minute detail of all the horrors committed,
+and impossible to record the names of the victims who so quickly
+fell before Alva's insatiate cruelty. The people were driven to
+frenzy. Bands of wretches fled to the woods and marshes; whence,
+half famished and perishing for want, they revenged themselves with
+pillage and murder. Pirates infested and ravaged the coast; and
+thus, from both sea and land, the whole extent of the Netherlands
+was devoted to carnage and ruin. The chronicles of Brabant and
+Holland, chiefly written in Flemish by contemporary authors,
+abound in thrilling details of the horrors of this general
+desolation, with long lists of those who perished. Suffice it
+to say, that, on the recorded boast of Alva himself, he caused
+eighteen thousand inhabitants of the Low Countries to perish by
+the hands of the executioner, during his less than six years'
+sovereignty in the Netherlands.
+
+The most important of these tragical scenes was now soon to be
+acted. The Counts Egmont and Horn, having submitted to some previous
+interrogatories by Vargas and others, were removed from Ghent to
+Brussels, on the 3d of June, under a strong escort. The following
+day they passed through the mockery of a trial before the Council
+of Blood; and on the 5th they were both beheaded in the great
+square of Brussels, in the presence of Alva, who gloated on the
+spectacle from a balcony that commanded the execution. The same day
+Van Straeten, and Casambrot shared the fate of their illustrious
+friends, in the castle of Vilvorde; with many others whose names
+only find a place in the local chronicles of the times. Egmont
+and Horn met their fate with the firmness expected from their
+well-proved courage.
+
+These judicial murders excited in the Netherlands an agitation
+without bounds. It was no longer hatred or aversion that filled
+men's minds, but fury and despair. The outbursting of a general
+revolt was hourly watched for. The foreign powers, without exception,
+expressed their disapproval of these executions. The emperor
+Maximilian II., and all the Catholic princes, condemned them.
+The former sent his brother expressly to the king of Spain, to
+warn him that without a cessation of his cruelties he could not
+restrain a general declaration from the members of the empire,
+which would, in all likelihood, deprive him of every acre of
+land in the Netherlands. The princes of the Protestant states
+held no terms in the expression of their disgust and resentment;
+and everything seemed now ripe, both at home and abroad, to favor
+the enterprise on which the Prince of Orange was determined to
+risk his fortune and his life. But his principal resources were
+to be found in his genius and courage, and in the heroic devotion
+partaken by his whole family in the cause of their country. His
+brother, Count John, advanced him a considerable sum of money;
+the Flemings and Hollanders, in England and elsewhere, subscribed
+largely; the prince himself, after raising loans in every possible
+way on his private means, sold his jewels, his plate, and even
+the furniture of his houses, and threw the amount into the common
+fund.
+
+Two remarkable events took place this year in Spain, and added
+to the general odium entertained against Philip's character
+throughout Europe. The first was the death of his son Don Carlos,
+whose sad story is too well known in connection with the annals
+of his country to require a place here; the other was the death
+of the queen. Universal opinion assigned poison as the cause;
+and Charles IX. of France, her brother, who loved her with great
+tenderness, seems to have joined in this belief. Astonishment
+and horror filled all minds on the double denouement of this
+romantic tragedy; and the enemies of the tyrant reaped all the
+advantages it was so well adapted to produce them.
+
+The Prince of Orange, having raised a considerable force in Germany,
+now entered on the war with all the well-directed energy by which
+he was characterized. The queen of England, the French Huguenots,
+and the Protestant princes of Germany, all lent him their aid
+in money or in men; and he opened his first campaign with great
+advantage. He formed his army into four several corps, intending
+to enter the country on as many different points, and by a sudden
+irruption on that most vulnerable to rouse at once the hopes and
+the co-operation of the people. His brothers Louis and Adolphus,
+at the head of one of these divisions, penetrated into Friesland,
+and there commenced the contest. The count of Aremberg, governor
+of this province, assisted by the Spanish troops under Gonsalvo
+de Bracamonte, quickly opposed the invaders. They met on the 24th
+of May near the abbey of Heiligerlee, which gave its name to
+the battle; and after a short contest the royalists were defeated
+with great loss. The count of Aremberg and Adolphus of Nassau
+encountered in single combat, and fell by each other's hands.
+The victory was dearly purchased by the loss of this gallant
+prince, the first of his illustrious family who have on so many
+occasions, down to these very days, freely shed their blood for the
+freedom and happiness of the country which may be so emphatically
+called their own.
+
+Alva immediately hastened to the scene of this first action, and
+soon forced Count Louis to another at a place called Jemminghem,
+near the town of Embden, on the 21st of July. Their forces were
+nearly equal, about fourteen thousand on either side; but all the
+advantage of discipline and skill was in favor of Alva; and the
+consequence was, the total rout of the patriots with a considerable
+loss in killed and the whole of the cannon and baggage. The entire
+province of Friesland was thus again reduced to obedience, and
+Alva hastened back to Brabant to make head against the Prince
+of Orange. The latter had now under his command an army of
+twenty-eight thousand men--an imposing force in point of numbers,
+being double that which his rival was able to muster. He soon
+made himself master of the towns of Tongres and St. Trond, and
+the whole province of Liege was in his power. He advanced boldly
+against Alva, and for several months did all that manoeuvring
+could do to force him to a battle. But the wily veteran knew
+his trade too well; he felt sure that in time the prince's force
+would disperse for want of pay and supplies; and he managed his
+resources so ably that with little risk and scarcely any loss
+he finally succeeded in his object. In the month of October the
+prince found himself forced to disband his large but undisciplined
+force; and he retired into France to recruit his funds and consider
+on the best measures for some future enterprise.
+
+The insolent triumph of Alva knew no bounds. The rest of the
+year was consumed in new executions. The hotel of Culembourg,
+the early cradle of De Brederode's confederacy, was razed to the
+ground, and a pillar erected on the spot commemorative of the
+deed; while Alva, resolved to erect a monument of his success as
+well as of his hate, had his own statue in brass, formed of the
+cannons taken at Jemminghem, set up in the citadel of Antwerp,
+with various symbols of power and an inscription of inflated
+pride.
+
+The following year was ushered in by a demand of unwonted and
+extravagant rapacity; the establishment of two taxes on property,
+personal and real, to the amount of the hundredth penny (or denier)
+on each kind; and at every transfer or sale ten per cent on personal
+and five per cent for real property. The states-general, of whom
+this demand was made, were unanimous in their opposition, as well
+as the ministers; but particularly De Berlaimont and Viglius.
+Alva was so irritated that he even menaced the venerable president
+of the council, but could not succeed in intimidating him. He
+obstinately persisted in his design for a considerable period;
+resisting arguments and prayers, and even the more likely means
+tried for softening his cupidity, by furnishing him with sums
+from other sources equivalent to those which the new taxes were
+calculated to produce. To his repeated threats against Viglius
+the latter replied, that "he was convinced the king would not
+condemn him unheard; but that at any rate his gray hairs saved
+him from any ignoble fear of death."
+
+A deputation was sent from the states-general to Philip explaining
+the impossibility of persevering in the attempted taxes, which
+were incompatible with every principle of commercial liberty.
+But Alva would not abandon his design till he had forced every
+province into resistance, and the king himself commanded him to
+desist. The events of this and the following year, 1570, may
+be shortly summed up; none of any striking interest or eventual
+importance having occurred. The sufferings of the country were
+increasing from day to day under the intolerable tyranny which
+bore it down. The patriots attempted nothing on land; but their
+naval force began from this time to acquire that consistency
+and power which was so soon to render it the chief means of
+resistance and the great source of wealth. The privateers or
+corsairs, which began to swarm from every port in Holland and
+Zealand, and which found refuge in all those of England, sullied
+many gallant exploits by instances of culpable excess; so much
+so that the Prince of Orange was forced to withdraw the command
+which he had delegated to the lord of Dolhain, and to replace
+him by Gislain de Fiennes: for already several of the exiled
+nobles and ruined merchants of Antwerp and Amsterdam had joined
+these bold adventurers; and purchased or built, with the remnant
+of their fortunes, many vessels, in which they carried on a most
+productive warfare against Spanish commerce through the whole
+extent of the English Channel, from the mouth of the Embs to
+the harbor of La Rochelle.
+
+One of those frightful inundations to which the northern provinces
+were so constantly exposed occurred this year, carrying away
+the dikes, and destroying lives and properly to a considerable
+amount. In Friesland alone twenty thousand men were victims to this
+calamity. But no suffering could affect the inflexible sternness of
+the duke of Alva; and to such excess did he carry his persecution
+that Philip himself began to be discontented, and thought his
+representative was overstepping the bounds of delegated tyranny.
+He even reproached him sharply in some of his despatches. The
+governor replied in the same strain; and such was the effect of
+this correspondence that Philip resolved to remove him from his
+command. But the king's marriage with Anne of Austria, daughter
+of the emperor Maximilian, obliged him to defer his intentions
+for a while; and he at length named John de la Cerda, duke of
+Medina-Celi, for Alva's successor. Upward of a year, however,
+elapsed before this new governor was finally appointed; and he
+made his appearance on the coast of Flanders with a considerable
+fleet, on the 11th of May, 1572. He was afforded on this very
+day a specimen of the sort of people he came to contend with;
+for his fleet was suddenly attacked by that of the patriots,
+and many of his vessels burned and taken before his eyes, with
+their rich cargoes and considerable treasures intended for the
+service of the state.
+
+The duke of Medina-Celi proceeded rapidly to Brussels, where
+he was ceremoniously received by Alva, who, however, refused
+to resign the government, under the pretext that the term of
+his appointment had not expired, and that he was resolved first
+to completely suppress all symptoms of revolt in the northern
+provinces. He succeeded in effectually disgusting La Cerda, who
+almost immediately demanded and obtained his own recall to Spain.
+Alva, left once more in undisputed possession of his power, turned
+it with increased vigor into new channels of oppression. He was soon
+again employed in efforts to effect the levying of his favorite
+taxes; and such was the resolution of the tradesmen of Brussels,
+that, sooner than submit, they almost universally closed their
+shops altogether. Alva, furious at this measure, caused sixty of
+the citizens to be seized, and ordered them to be hanged opposite
+their own doors. The gibbets were actually erected, when, on the
+very morning of the day fixed for the executions, he received
+despatches that wholly disconcerted him and stopped their completion.
+
+To avoid an open rupture with Spain, the queen of England had
+just at this time interdicted the Dutch and Flemish privateers
+from taking shelter in her ports. William de la Marck, count of
+Lunoy, had now the chief command of this adventurous force. He
+was distinguished by an inveterate hatred against the Spaniards,
+and had made a wild and romantic vow never to cut his hair or
+beard till he had avenged the murders of Egmont and Horn. He was
+impetuous and terrible in all his actions, and bore the surname
+of "the wild boar of the Ardennes." Driven out of the harbors of
+England, he resolved on some desperate enterprise; and on the
+1st of April he succeeded in surprising the little town of Brille,
+in the island of Voorn, situate between Zealand and Holland. This
+insignificant place acquired great celebrity from this event,
+which may be considered the first successful step toward the
+establishment of liberty and the republic.
+
+Alva was confounded by the news of this exploit, but with his
+usual activity he immediately turned his whole attention toward
+the point of greatest danger. His embarrassment, however, became
+every day more considerable. Lunoy's success was the signal of a
+general revolt. In a few days every town in Holland and Zealand
+declared for liberty, with the exception of Amsterdam and Middleburg,
+where the Spanish garrisons were too strong for the people to
+attempt their expulsion.
+
+The Prince of Orange, who had been ou the watch for a favorable
+moment, now entered Brabant at the head of twenty thousand men,
+composed of French, German, and English, and made himself master
+of several important places; while his indefatigable brother
+Louis, with a minor force, suddenly appeared in Hainault, and,
+joined by a large body of French Huguenots under De Genlis, he
+seized on Mons, the capital of the province, on the 25th of May.
+
+Alva turned first toward the recovery of this important place,
+and gave the command of the siege to his son Frederic of Toledo,
+who was assisted by the counsels of Noircarmes and Vitelli; but
+Louis of Nassau held out for upward of three months, and only
+surrendered on an honorable capitulation in the month of September;
+his French allies having been first entirely defeated, and their
+brave leader De Genlis taken prisoner. The Prince of Orange had
+in the meantime secured possession of Louvain, Ruremonde, Mechlin,
+and other towns, carried Termonde and Oudenarde by assault, and
+made demonstrations which seemed to court Alva once more to try
+the fortune of the campaign in a pitched battle. But such were
+not William's real intentions, nor did the cautious tactics of
+his able opponent allow him to provoke such a risk. He, however,
+ordered his son Frederic to march with all his force into Holland,
+and he soon undertook the siege of Haerlem. By the time that Mons
+fell again into the power of the Spaniards, sixty-five towns
+and their territories, chiefly in the northern provinces, had
+thrown off the yoke. The single port of Flessingue contained
+one hundred and fifty patriot vessels, well armed and equipped;
+and from that epoch may be dated the rapid growth of the first
+naval power in Europe, with the single exception of Great Britain.
+
+It is here worthy of remark, that all the horrors of which the
+people of Flanders were the victims, and in their full proportion,
+had not the effect of exciting them to revolt; but they rose up
+with fury against the payment of the new taxes. They sacrificed
+everything sooner than pay these unjust exactions--_Omnia_dabant_,
+_ne_decimam_darant_. The next important event in these wars
+was the siege of Haerlem, before which place the Spaniards were
+arrested in their progress for seven months, and which they at
+length succeeded in taking with a loss of ten thousand men.
+
+The details of this memorable siege are calculated to arouse
+every feeling of pity for the heroic defenders, and of execration
+against the cruel assailants. A widow, named Kenau Hasselaer,
+gained a niche in history by her remarkable valor at the head of
+a battalion of three hundred of her townswomen, who bore a part
+in all the labors and perils of the siege. After the surrender,
+and in pursuance of Alva's common system, his ferocious son caused
+the governor and the other chief officers to be beheaded; and
+upward of two thousand of the worn-out garrison and burghers
+were either put to the sword, or tied two and two and drowned
+in the lake which gives its name to the town. Tergoes in South
+Beveland, Mechlin, Naerden, and other towns, were about the same
+period the scenes of gallant actions, and of subsequent cruelties
+of the most revolting nature as soon as they fell into the power
+of the Spaniards. Strada, with all his bigotry to the Spanish
+cause, admits that these excesses were atrocious crimes rather
+than just punishments: _non_poena,_sed_flagitium_. Horrors like
+these were sure to force reprisals on the part of the maddened
+patriots. De la Marck carried on his daring exploits with a cruelty
+which excited the indignation of the Prince of Orange, by whom
+he was removed from his command. The contest was for a while
+prosecuted with a decrease of vigor proportioned to the serious
+losses on both sides; money and the munitions of war began to
+fail; and though the Spaniards succeeded in taking The Hague,
+they were repulsed before Alkmaer with great loss, and their
+fleet was almost entirely destroyed in a naval combat on the
+Zuyder Zee. The count Bossu, their admiral, was taken in this
+fight, with about three hundred of his best sailors.
+
+Holland was now from one end to the other the theatre of the
+most shocking events. While the people performed deeds of the
+greatest heroism, the perfidy and cruelty of the Spaniards had
+no bounds. The patriots saw more danger in submission than in
+resistance; each town, which was in succession subdued, endured
+the last extremities of suffering before it yielded, and victory
+was frequently the consequence of despair. This unlooked-for
+turn in affairs decided the king to remove Alva, whose barbarous
+and rapacious conduct was now objected to even by Philip, when
+it produced results disastrous to his cause. Don Luis Zanega y
+Requesens, commander of the order of Malta, was named to the
+government of the Netherlands. He arrived at Brussels on the
+17th of November, 1573; and on the 18th of that following month,
+the monster whom he succeeded set out for Spain, loaded with the
+booty to which he had waded through oceans of blood, and with
+the curses of the country, which, however, owed its subsequent
+freedom to the impulse given by his intolerable cruelty. He repaired
+to Spain; and after various fluctuations of favor and disgrace
+at the hands of his congenial master, he died in his bed, at
+Lisbon, in 1582, at the advanced age of seventy-four years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT
+
+A.D. 1573--1576
+
+The character of Requesens was not more opposed to that of his
+predecessor, than were the instructions given to him for his
+government. He was an honest, well-meaning, and moderate man,
+and the king of Spain hoped that by his influence and a total
+change of measures he might succeed in recalling the Netherlands
+to obedience. But, happily for the country, this change was adopted
+too late for success; and the weakness of the new government
+completed the glorious results which the ferocity of the former
+had prepared.
+
+Requesens performed all that depended on him, to gain the confidence
+of the people. He caused Alva's statue to be removed; and hoped
+to efface the memory of the tyrant by dissolving the Council of
+Blood and abandoning the obnoxious taxes which their inventor
+had suspended rather than abolished. A general amnesty was also
+promulgated against the revolted provinces; they received it
+with contempt and defiance. Nothing then was left to Requesens
+but to renew the war; and this he found to be a matter of no
+easy execution. The finances were in a state of the greatest
+confusion; and the Spanish troops were in many places seditious,
+in some openly mutinous, Alva having left large arrears of pay
+due to almost all, notwithstanding the immense amount of his
+pillage and extortion. Middleburg, which had long sustained a
+siege against all the efforts of the patriots, was now nearly
+reduced by famine, notwithstanding the gallant efforts of its
+governor, Mondragon. Requesens turned his immediate attention
+to the relief of this important place; and he soon assembled,
+at Antwerp and Berg-op-Zoom, a fleet of sixty vessels for that
+purpose. But Louis Boisot, admiral of Zealand, promptly repaired
+to attack this force; and after a severe action he totally defeated
+it, and killed De Glimes, one of its admirals, under the eyes of
+Requesens himself, who, accompanied by his suite, stood during
+the whole affair on the dike of Schakerloo. This action took place
+the 29th of January, 1574; and, on the 19th of February following,
+Middleburg surrendered, after a resistance of two years. The Prince
+of Orange granted such conditions as were due to the bravery of
+the governor; and thus set an example of generosity and honor
+which greatly changed the complexion of the war. All Zealand was
+now free; and the intrepid Admiral Boisot gained another victory
+on the 30th of May--destroying several of the Spanish vessels, and
+taking some others, with their Admiral Von Haemstede. Frequent
+naval enterprises were also undertaken against the frontiers of
+Flanders; and while the naval forces thus harassed the enemy on
+every vulnerable point, the unfortunate provinces of the interior
+were ravaged by the mutinous and revolted Spaniards, and by the
+native brigands, who pillaged both royalists and patriots with
+atrocious impartiality.
+
+To these manifold evils was now added one more terrible, in the
+appearance of the plague, which broke out at Ghent in the month
+of October, and devastated a great part of the Netherlands; not,
+however, with that violence with which it rages in more southern
+climates.
+
+Requesens, overwhelmed by difficulties, yet exerted himself to
+the utmost to put the best face on the affairs of government.
+His chief care was to appease the mutinous soldiery: he even
+caused his plate to be melted, and freely gave the produce toward
+the payment of their arrears. The patriots, well informed of this
+state of things, labored to turn it to their best advantage. They
+opened the campaign in the province of Guelders, where Louis of
+Nassau, with his younger brother Henry, and the prince Palatine,
+son of the elector Frederick III., appeared at the head of eleven
+thousand men; the Prince of Orange prepared to join him with an
+equal number; but Requesens promptly despatched Sanchez d'Avila
+to prevent this junction. The Spanish commander quickly passed
+the Meuse near Nimeguen; and on the 14th of April he forced Count
+Louis to a battle, on the great plain called Mookerheyde, close
+to the village of Mook. The royalists attacked with their usual
+valor; and, after two hours of hard fighting, the confederates
+were totally defeated. The three gallant princes were among the
+slain, and their bodies were never afterward discovered. It has
+been stated, on doubtful authority, that Louis of Nassau, after
+having lain some time among the heaps of dead, dragged himself
+to the side of the river Meuse, and while washing his wounds
+was inhumanly murdered by some straggling peasants, to whom he
+was unknown. The unfortunate fate of this enterprising prince
+was a severe blow to the patriot cause, and a cruel affliction
+to the Prince of Orange. He had now already lost three brothers
+in the war; and remained alone, to revenge their fate and sustain
+the cause for which they had perished.
+
+D'Avila soon found his victory to be as fruitless as it was
+brilliant. The ruffian troops, by whom it was gained, became
+immediately self-disbanded; threw off all authority; hastened
+to possess themselves of Antwerp; and threatened to proceed to
+the most horrible extremities if their pay was longer withheld.
+The citizens succeeded with difficulty in appeasing them, by
+the sacrifice of some money in part payment of their claims.
+Requesens took advantage of their temporary calm, and despatched
+them promptly to take part in the siege of Leyden.
+
+This siege formed another of those numerous instances which became
+so memorable from the mixture of heroism and horror. Jean Vanderdoes,
+known in literature by the name of Dousa, and celebrated for his
+Latin poems, commanded the place. Valdez, who conducted the siege,
+urged Dousa to surrender; when the latter replied, in the name of
+the inhabitants, "that when provisions failed them, they would
+devour their left hands, reserving the right to defend their
+liberty." A party of the inhabitants, driven to disobedience and
+revolt by the excess of misery to which they were shortly reduced,
+attempted to force the burgomaster, Vanderwerf, to supply them with
+bread, or yield up the place. But he sternly made the celebrated
+answer, which, cannot be remembered without shuddering--"Bread I
+have none; but if my death can afford you relief, tear my body
+in pieces, and let those who are most hungry devour it!"
+
+But in this extremity relief at last was afforded by the decisive
+measures of the Prince of Orange, who ordered all the neighboring
+dikes to be opened and the sluices raised, thus sweeping away the
+besiegers on the waves of the ocean: the inhabitants of Leyden
+were apprised of this intention by means of letters intrusted
+to the safe carriage of pigeons trained for the purpose. The
+inundation was no sooner effected than hundreds of flat-bottomed
+boats brought abundance of supplies to the half-famished town;
+while a violent storm carried the sea across the country for
+twenty leagues around, and destroyed the Spanish camp, with above
+one thousand soldiers, who were overtaken by the flood. This
+deliverance took place on the 3d of October, on which day it
+is still annually celebrated by the descendants of the grateful
+citizens.
+
+It was now for the first time that Spain would consent to listen
+to advice or mediation, which had for its object the termination
+of this frightful war. The emperor Maximilian II. renewed at
+this epoch his efforts with Philip; and under such favorable
+auspices conferences commenced at Breda, where the counts
+Swartzenberg and Hohenloe, brothers-in-law of the Prince of Orange,
+met, on the part of the emperor, the deputies from the king of
+Spain and the patriots; and hopes of a complete pacification
+were generally entertained. But three months of deliberation
+proved their fallacy. The patriots demanded toleration for the
+reformed religion. The king's deputies obstinately refused it.
+The congress was therefore broken up; and both oppressors and
+oppressed resumed their arms with increased vigor and tenfold
+desperation.
+
+Requesens had long fixed his eyes on Zealand as the scene of an
+expedition by which he hoped to repair the failure before Leyden;
+and he caused an attempt to be made on the town of Zuriczee, in
+the island of Scauwen, which merits record as one of the boldest
+and most original enterprises of the war.
+
+The little islands of Zealand are separated from each other by
+narrow branches of the sea, which are fordable at low water;
+and it was by such a passage, two leagues in breadth, and till
+then untried, that the Spanish detachment of one thousand seven
+hundred and fifty men, under Ulloa and other veteran captains,
+advanced to their exploit in the midst of dangers greatly increased
+by a night of total darkness. Each man carried round his neck
+two pounds of gunpowder, with a sufficient supply of biscuit
+for two days; and holding their swords and muskets high over
+their heads, they boldly waded forward, three abreast, in some
+places up to their shoulders in water. The alarm was soon given;
+and a shower of balls was poured upon the gallant band, from
+upward of forty boats which the Zealanders sent rapidly toward
+the spot. The only light afforded to either party was from the
+flashes of their guns; and while the adventurers advanced with
+undaunted firmness, their equally daring assailants, jumping
+from their boats into the water, attacked them with oars and
+hooked handspikes, by which many of the Spaniards were destroyed.
+The rearguard, in this extremity, cut off from their companions,
+was obliged to retreat; but the rest, after a considerable loss,
+at length reached the land, and thus gained possession of the
+island, on the night of the 28th of September, 1575.
+
+Requesens quickly afterward repaired to the scene of this gallant
+exploit, and commenced the siege of Zuriczee, which he did not
+live to see completed. After having passed the winter months
+in preparation for the success of this object which he had so
+much at heart, he was recalled to Brussels by accounts of new
+mutinies in the Spanish cavalry; and the very evening before
+he reached the city he was attacked by a violent fever, which
+carried him off five days afterward, on the 5th of March, 1516.
+
+The suddenness of Requesen's illness had not allowed time for
+even the nomination of a successor, to which he was authorized by
+letters patent from the king. It is believed that his intention
+was to appoint Count Mansfield to the command of the army, and De
+Berlaimont to the administration of civil affairs. The government,
+however, now devolved entirely into the hands of the council of
+state, which was at that period composed of nine members. The
+principal of these was Philip de Croi, duke of Arschot; the other
+leading members were Viglius, Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont; and
+the council was degraded by numbering, among the rest, Debris
+and De Roda, two of the notorious Spaniards who had formed part
+of the Council of Blood.
+
+The king resolved to leave the authority in the hands of this
+incongruous mixture, until the arrival of Don John of Austria,
+his natural brother, whom he had already named to the office of
+governor-general. But in the interval the government assumed an
+aspect of unprecedented disorder; and widespread anarchy embraced
+the whole country. The royal troops openly revolted, and fought
+against each other like deadly enemies. The nobles, divided in
+their views, arrogated to themselves in different places the
+titles and powers of command. Public faith and private probity
+seemed alike destroyed. Pillage, violence and ferocity were the
+commonplace characteristics of the times.
+
+Circumstances like these may be well supposed to have revived
+the hopes of the Prince of Orange, who quickly saw amid this
+chaos the elements of order, strength, and liberty. Such had
+been his previous affliction at the harrowing events which he
+witnessed and despaired of being able to relieve, that he had
+proposed to the patriots of Holland and Zealand to destroy the
+dikes, submerge the whole country, and abandon to the waves the
+soil which refused security to freedom. But Providence destined
+him to be the savior, instead of the destroyer, of his country. The
+chief motive of this excessive desperation had been the apparent
+desertion by Queen Elizabeth of the cause which she had hitherto
+so mainly assisted. Offended at the capture of some English ships
+by the Dutch, who asserted that they carried supplies for the
+Spaniards, she withdrew from them her protection; but by timely
+submission they appeased her wrath; and it is thought by some
+historians that even thus early the Prince of Orange proposed to
+place the revolted provinces wholly under her protection. This,
+however, she for the time refused; but she strongly solicited
+Philip's mercy for these unfortunate countries, through the Spanish
+ambassador at her court.
+
+In the meantime the council of state at Brussels seemed disposed
+to follow up as far as possible the plans of Requesens. The siege
+of Zuriczee was continued; but speedy dissensions among the members
+of the government rendered their authority contemptible, if not
+utterly extinct, in the eyes of the people. The exhaustion of
+the treasury deprived them of all power to put an end to the
+mutinous excesses of the Spanish troops, and the latter carried
+their licentiousness to the utmost bounds. Zuriczee, admitted to
+a surrender, and saved from pillage by the payment of a large
+sum, was lost to the royalists within three months, from the
+want of discipline in its garrison; and the towns and burghs
+of Brabant suffered as much from the excesses of their nominal
+protectors as could have been inflicted by the enemy. The mutineers
+at length, to the number of some thousands, attacked and carried
+by force the town of Alost, at equal distances between Brussels,
+Ghent, and Antwerp, imprisoned the chief citizens, and levied
+contributions on all the country round. It was then that the
+council of state found itself forced to proclaim them rebels,
+traitors, and enemies to the king and the country, and called
+on all loyal subjects to pursue and exterminate them wherever
+they were found in arms.
+
+This proscription of the Spanish mutineers was followed by the
+convocation of the states-general, and the government thus hoped
+to maintain some show of union and some chance of authority.
+But a new scene of intestine violence completed the picture of
+executive inefficiency. On the 4th of September, the grand bailiff
+of Brabant, as lieutenant of the Baron de Hesse, governor of
+Brussels, entered the council chamber by force, and arrested all
+the members present, on suspicion of treacherously maintaining
+intelligence with the Spaniards. Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont
+were imprisoned, with some others. Viglius escaped this indignity
+by being absent froth indisposition. This bold measure was hailed
+by the people with unusual joy, as the signal for that total
+change in the government which they reckoned on as the prelude
+to complete freedom.
+
+The states-general were all at this time assembled, with the
+exception of those of Flanders, who joined the others with but
+little delay. The general reprobation against the Spaniards procured
+a second decree of proscription; and their desperate conduct
+justified the utmost violence with which they might be pursued.
+They still held the citadels of Ghent and Antwerp, as well as
+Maestricht, which they had seized on, sacked, and pillaged with
+all the fury which a barbarous enemy inflicts on a town carried
+by assault. On the 3d of November, the other body of mutineers,
+in possession of Alost, marched to the support of their fellow
+brigands in the citadel of Antwerp; and both, simultaneously
+attacking this magnificent city, became masters of it in all
+points, in spite of a vigorous resistance on the part of the
+citizens. They then began a scene of rapine and destruction
+unequalled in the annals of these desperate wars. More than five
+hundred private mansions and the splendid town-house were delivered
+to the flames: seven thousand citizens perished by the sword or
+in the waters of the Scheldt. For three days the carnage and
+the pillage went on with unheard-of fury; and the most opulent
+town in Europe was thus reduced to ruin and desolation by a few
+thousand frantic ruffians. The loss was valued at above two million
+golden crowns. Vargas and Romero were the principal leaders of
+this infernal exploit; and De Roda gained a new title to his
+immortality of shame by standing forth as its apologist.
+
+The states-general, assembled at Ghent, were solemnly opened on
+the 14th of September. Being apprehensive of a sudden attack from
+the Spanish troops in the citadel, they proposed a negotiation,
+and demanded a protecting force from the Prince of Orange, who
+immediately entered into a treaty with their envoy, and sent to
+their assistance eight companies of infantry and seventeen pieces
+of cannon, under the command of the English colonel, Temple.
+In the midst of this turmoil and apparent insecurity, the
+states-general proceeded in their great work, and assumed the
+reins of government in the name of the king. They allowed the
+council of state still nominally to exist, but they restricted
+its powers far within those it had hitherto exercised; and the
+government, thus absolutely assuming the form of a republic,
+issued manifestoes in justification of its conduct, and demanded
+succor from all the foreign powers. To complete the union between
+the various provinces, it was resolved to resume the negotiations
+commenced the preceding year at Breda; and the 10th of October
+was fixed for this new congress to be held in the town-house
+of Ghent.
+
+On the day appointed, the congress opened its sittings; and rapidly
+arriving at the termination of its important object, the celebrated
+treaty known by the title of "The Pacification of Ghent" was
+published on the 8th of November, to the sound of bells and trumpets;
+while the ceremony was rendered still more imposing by the thunder
+of the artillery which battered the walls of the besieged citadel.
+It was even intended to have delivered a general assault against the
+place at the moment of the proclamation; but the mutineers demanded
+a capitulation and finally surrendered three days afterward. It
+was the wife of the famous Mondragon who commanded the place
+in her husband's absence; and by her heroism gave a new proof
+of the capability of the sex to surpass the limits which nature
+seems to have fixed for their conduct.
+
+The Pacification contained twenty-five articles. Among others,
+it was agreed:
+
+That a full amnesty should be passed for all offences whatsoever.
+
+That the estates of Brabant, Flanders, Hainault, Artois, and
+others, on the one part; the Prince of Orange, and the states of
+Holland and Zealand and their associates, on the other; promised
+to maintain good faith, peace, and friendship, firm and inviolable;
+to mutually assist each other, at all times, in council and action;
+and to employ life and fortune, above all things, to expel from
+the country the Spanish soldiers and other foreigners.
+
+That no one should be allowed to injure or insult, by word or
+deed, the exercise of the Catholic religion, on pain of being
+treated as a disturber of the public peace.
+
+That the edicts against heresy and the proclamations of the duke
+of Alva should be suspended.
+
+That all confiscations, sentences, and judgments rendered since
+1566 should be annulled.
+
+That the inscriptions, monuments, and trophies erected by the
+duke of Alva should be demolished.
+
+Such were the general conditions of the treaty; the remaining
+articles chiefly concerned individual interests. The promulgation
+of this great charter of union, which was considered as the
+fundamental law of the country, was hailed in all parts of the
+Netherlands with extravagant demonstrations of joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION
+OF INDEPENDENCE
+
+A.D. 1576--1580
+
+On the very day of the sack of Antwerp, Don John of Austria arrived
+at Luxemburg. This ominous commencement of his viceregal reign
+was not belied by the events which followed; and the hero of
+Lepanto, the victor of the Turks, the idol of Christendom, was
+destined to have his reputation and well-won laurels tarnished in
+the service of the insidious despotism to which he now became an
+instrument. Don John was a natural son of Charles V., and to fine
+talents and a good disposition united the advantages of hereditary
+courage and a liberal education. He was born at Ratisbon on the
+24th of February, 1543. His reputed mother was a young lady of
+that place named Barbara Blomberg; but one historian states that
+the real parent was of a condition too elevated to have her rank
+betrayed; and that, to conceal the mystery, Barbara Blomberg had
+voluntarily assumed the distinction, or the dishonor, according
+to the different constructions put upon the case. The prince,
+having passed through France, disguised, for greater secrecy or
+in a youthful frolic, as a negro valet to Prince Octavo Gonzaga,
+entered on the limits of his new government, and immediately
+wrote to the council of state in the most condescending terms to
+announce his arrival.
+
+Nothing could present a less promising aspect to the prince than
+the country at the head of which he was now placed. He found all
+its provinces, with the sole exception of Luxemburg, in the anarchy
+attendant on a ten years' civil war, and apparently resolved on
+a total breach of their allegiance to Spain. He found his best,
+indeed his only, course to be that of moderation and management;
+and it is most probable that at the outset his intentions were
+really honorable and candid.
+
+The states-general were not less embarrassed than the prince.
+His sudden arrival threw them into great perplexity, which was
+increased by the conciliatory tone of his letter. They had now
+removed from Ghent to Brussels; and first sending deputies to
+pay the honors of a ceremonious welcome to Don John, they wrote
+to the Prince of Orange, then in Holland, for his advice in this
+difficult conjuncture. The prince replied by a memorial of
+considerable length, dated Middleburg, the 30th of November, in
+which he gave them the most wise and prudent advice; the substance
+of which was to receive any propositions coming from the wily
+and perfidious Philip with the utmost suspicion, and to refuse
+all negotiation with his deputy, if the immediate withdrawal of
+the foreign troops was not at once conceded, and the acceptance
+of the Pacification guaranteed in its most ample extent.
+
+This advice was implicitly followed; the states in the meantime
+taking the precaution of assembling a large body of troops at
+Wavre, between Brussels and Namur, the command of which was given
+to the count of Lalain. A still more important measure was the
+despatch of an envoy to England, to implore the assistance of
+Elizabeth. She acted on this occasion with frankness and intrepidity;
+giving a distinguished reception to the envoy, De Sweveghem, and
+advancing a loan of one hundred thousand pounds sterling, on
+condition that the states made no treaty without her knowledge
+or participation.
+
+To secure still more closely the federal union that now bound the
+different provinces, a new compact was concluded by the deputies
+on the 9th of January, 1577, known by the title of The Union of
+Brussels, and signed by the prelates, ecclesiastics, lords,
+gentlemen, magistrates, and others, representing the estates of
+the Netherlands. A copy of this act of union was transmitted to
+Don John, to enable him thoroughly to understand the present state
+of feeling among those with whom he was now about to negotiate.
+He maintained a general tone of great moderation throughout the
+conference which immediately took place; and after some months
+of cautious parleying, in the latter part of which the candor
+of the prince seemed doubtful, and which the native historians
+do not hesitate to stigmatize as merely assumed, a treaty was
+signed at Marche-en-Famenne, a place between Namur and Luxemburg,
+in which every point insisted on by the states was, to the surprise
+and delight of the nation, fully consented to and guaranteed.
+This important document is called The Perpetual Edict, bears
+date the 12th of February, 1577, and contains nineteen articles.
+They were all based on the acceptance of the Pacification; but
+one expressly stipulated that the count of Beuren should be set
+at liberty as soon as the Prince of Orange, his father, had on
+his part ratified the treaty.
+
+Don John made his solemn entry into Brussels on the 1st of May,
+and assumed the functions of his limited authority. The conditions
+of the treaty were promptly and regularly fulfilled. The citadels
+occupied by the Spanish soldiers were given up to the Flemish and
+Walloon troops; and the departure of these ferocious foreigners
+took place at once. The large sums required to facilitate this
+measure made it necessary to submit for a while to the presence
+of the German mercenaries. But Don John's conduct soon destroyed
+the temporary delusion which had deceived the country. Whether
+his projects were hitherto only concealed, or that they were
+now for the first time excited by the disappointment of those
+hopes of authority held out to him by Philip, and which his
+predecessors had shared, it is certain that he very early displayed
+his ambition, and very imprudently attempted to put it in force.
+He at once demanded from the council of state the command of
+the troops and the disposal of the revenues. The answer was a
+simple reference to the Pacification of Ghent; and the prince's
+rejoinder was an apparent submission, and the immediate despatch
+of letters in cipher to the king, demanding a supply of troops
+sufficient to restore his ruined authority. These letters were
+intercepted by the king of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. of France,
+who immediately transmitted them to the Prince of Orange, his
+old friend and fellow-soldier.
+
+Public opinion, to the suspicions of which Don John had been
+from the first obnoxious, was now unanimous in attributing to
+design all that was unconstitutional and unfair. His impetuous
+character could no longer submit to the restraint of dissimulation,
+and he resolved to take some bold and decided measure. A very
+favorable opportunity was presented in the arrival of the queen
+of Navarre, Marguerite of Valois, at Namur, on her way to Spa.
+The prince, numerously attended, hastened to the former town
+under pretence of paying his respects to the queen. As soon as
+she left the place, he repaired to the glacis of the town, as if
+for the mere enjoyment of a walk, admired the external appearance
+of the citadel, and expressed a desire to be admitted inside.
+The young count of Berlaimont, in the absence of his father,
+the governor of the place, and an accomplice in the plot with
+Don John, freely admitted him. The prince immediately drew forth
+a pistol, and exclaimed that "that was the first moment of his
+government"; took possession of the place with his immediate
+guard, and instantly formed them into a devoted garrison.
+
+The Prince of Orange immediately made public the intercepted
+letters; and, at the solicitation of the states-general, repaired
+to Brussels; into which city he made a truly triumphant entry on
+the 23d of September, and was immediately nominated governor,
+protector or _ruward_ of Brabant--a dignity which had fallen
+into disuse, but was revived on this occasion, and which was
+little inferior in power to that of the dictators of Rome. His
+authority, now almost unlimited, extended over every province
+of the Netherlands, except Namur and Luxemburg, both of which
+acknowledged Don John.
+
+The first care of the liberated nation was to demolish the various
+citadels rendered celebrated and odious by the excesses of the
+Spaniards. This was done with an enthusiastic industry in which
+every age and sex bore a part, and which promised well for liberty.
+Among the ruins of that of Antwerp the statue of the duke of
+Alva was discovered; dragged through the filthiest streets of
+the town; and, with all the indignity so well merited by the
+original, it was finally broken into a thousand pieces.
+
+The country, in conferring such extensive powers on the Prince
+of Orange, had certainly gone too far, not for his desert, but
+for its own tranquillity. It was impossible that such an elevation
+should not excite the discontent and awaken the enmity of the
+haughty aristocracy of Flanders and Brabant; and particularly
+of the House of Croi, the ancient rivals of that of Nassau. The
+then representative of that family seemed the person most suited
+to counterbalance William's excessive power. The duke of Arschot
+was therefore named governor of Flanders; and he immediately put
+himself at the head of a confederacy of the Catholic party, which
+quickly decided to offer the chief government of the country,
+still in the name of Philip, to the archduke Mathias, brother of
+the emperor Rodolf II., and cousin-german to Philip of Spain, a
+youth but nineteen years of age. A Flemish gentleman named Maelsted
+was intrusted with the proposal. Mathias joyously consented;
+and, quitting Vienna with the greatest secrecy, he arrived at
+Maestricht, without any previous announcement, and expected only
+by the party that had invited him, at the end of October, 1577.
+
+The Prince of Orange, instead of showing the least symptom of
+dissatisfaction at this underhand proceeding aimed at his personal
+authority, announced his perfect approval of the nomination, and
+was the foremost in recommending measures for the honor of the
+archduke and the security of the country. He drew up the basis of
+a treaty for Mathias's acceptance, on terms which guaranteed to the
+council of state and the states-general the virtual sovereignty,
+and left to the young prince little beyond the fine title which
+had dazzled his boyish vanity. The Prince of Orange was appointed
+his lieutenant, in all the branches of the administration, civil,
+military, or financial; and the duke of Arschot, who had hoped
+to obtain an entire domination over the puppet he had brought
+upon the stage, saw himself totally foiled in his project, and
+left without a chance or a pretext for the least increase to
+his influence.
+
+But a still greater disappointment attended this ambitious nobleman
+in the very stronghold of his power. The Flemings, driven by
+persecution to a state of fury almost unnatural, had, in their
+antipathy to Spain, adopted a hatred against Catholicism, which had
+its source only in political frenzy, while the converts imagined it
+to arise from reason and conviction. Two men had taken advantage
+of this state of the public mind and gained over it an unbounded
+ascendency. They were Francis de Kethulle, lord of Ryhove, and
+John Hembyse, who each seemed formed to realize the beau-ideal
+of a factious demagogue. They had acquired supreme power over
+the people of Ghent, and had at their command a body of twenty
+thousand resolute and well-armed supporters. The duke of Arschot
+vainly attempted to oppose his authority to that of these men;
+and he on one occasion imprudently exclaimed that "he would have
+them hanged, even though they were protected by the Prince of
+Orange himself." The same night Ryhove summoned the leaders of
+his bands; and quickly assembling a considerable force, they
+repaired to the duke's hotel, made him prisoner, and, without
+allowing him time to dress, carried him away in triumph. At the
+same time the bishops of Bruges and Ypres, the high bailiffs of
+Ghent and Courtrai, the governor of Oudenarde, and other important
+magistrates, were arrested--accused of complicity with the duke,
+but of what particular offence the lawless demagogues did not
+deign to specify. The two tribunes immediately divided the whole
+honors and authority of administration; Ryhove as military, and
+Hembyse as civil, chief.
+
+The latter of these legislators completely changed the forms
+of the government; he revived the ancient privileges destroyed
+by Charles V., and took all preliminary measures for forcing the
+various provinces to join with the city of Ghent in forming a
+federative republic. The states-general and the Prince of Orange
+were alarmed, lest these troubles might lead to a renewal of
+the anarchy from the effects of which the country had but just
+obtained breathing-time. Ryhove consented, at the remonstrance
+of the Prince of Orange, to release the duke of Arschot; but
+William was obliged to repair to Ghent in person, in the hope
+of establishing order. He arrived on the 29th of December, and
+entered on a strict inquiry with his usual calmness and decision.
+He could not succeed in obtaining the liberty of the other prisoners,
+though he pleaded for them strongly. Having severely reprimanded
+the factious leaders, and pointed out the dangers of their illegal
+course, he returned to Brussels, leaving the factious city in a
+temporary tranquillity which his firmness and discretion could
+alone have obtained.
+
+The archduke Mathias, having visited Antwerp, and acceded to
+all the conditions required of him, made his public entry into
+Brussels on the 18th of January, 1578, and was installed in his
+dignity of governor-general amid the usual fetes and rejoicings.
+Don John of Austria was at the same time declared an enemy to
+the country, with a public order to quit it without delay; and
+a prohibition was issued against any inhabitant acknowledging
+his forfeited authority.
+
+War was now once more openly declared; some fruitless negotiations
+having afforded a fair pretext for hostilities. The rapid appearance
+of a numerous army under the orders of Don John gave strength to
+the suspicions of his former dissimulation. It was currently
+believed that large bodies of the Spanish troops had remained
+concealed in the forests of Luxemburg and Lorraine; while several
+regiments, which had remained in France in the service of the
+League, immediately re-entered the Netherlands. Alexander Farnese,
+prince of Parma, son of the former stadtholderess, came to the aid
+of his uncle, Don John, at the head of a large force of Italians;
+and these several reinforcements, with the German auxiliaries
+still in the country, composed an army of twenty thousand men.
+The army of the states-general was still larger; but far inferior
+in point of discipline. It was commanded by Antoine de Goignies,
+a gentleman of Hainault, and an old soldier of the school of
+Charles V.
+
+After a sharp affair at the village of Riminants, in which the
+royalists had the worst, the two armies met at Gemblours, on the
+31st of January, 1578; and the prince of Parma gained a complete
+victory, almost with his cavalry only, taking De Goignies prisoner,
+with the whole of his artillery and baggage. The account of his
+victory is almost miraculous. The royalists, if we are to credit
+their most minute but not impartial historian, had only one thousand
+two hundred men engaged; by whom six thousand were put to the
+sword, with the loss of but twelve men and little more than an
+hour's labor.
+
+The news of this battle threw the states into the utmost
+consternation. Brussels being considered insecure, the archduke
+Mathias and his council retired to Antwerp; but the victors did
+not feel their forces sufficient to justify an attack upon the
+capital. They, however, took Louvain, Tirlemont, and several other
+towns; but these conquests were of little import in comparison with
+the loss of Amsterdam, which declared openly and unanimously for
+the patriot cause. The states-general recovered their courage, and
+prepared for a new contest. They sent deputies to the diet of Worms,
+to ask succor from the princes of the empire. The count palatine
+John Casimir repaired to their assistance with a considerable
+force of Germans and English, all equipped and paid by Queen
+Elizabeth. The duke of Alençon, brother of Henry III. of France,
+hovered on the frontiers of Hainault with a respectable army;
+and the cause of liberty seemed not quite desperate.
+
+But all the various chiefs had separate interests and opposite
+views; while the fanatic violence of the people of Ghent sapped
+the foundations of the pacification to which the town had given
+its name. The Walloon provinces, deep-rooted in their attachment
+to religious bigotry, which they loved still better than political
+freedom, gradually withdrew from the common cause; and without yet
+openly becoming reconciled with Spain, they adopted a neutrality
+which was tantamount to it. Don John was, however, deprived of
+all chance of reaping any advantage from these unfortunate
+dissensions. He was suddenly taken ill in his camp at Bougy;
+and died, after a fortnight's suffering, on the 1st of October,
+1578, in the thirty-third year of his age.
+
+This unlooked-for close to a career which had been so brilliant,
+and to a life from which so much was yet to be expected, makes
+us pause to consider for a moment the different opinions of his
+times and of history on the fate of a personage so remarkable.
+The contemporary Flemish memoirs say that he died of the plague;
+those of Spain call his disorder the purple fever. The examination
+of his corpse caused an almost general belief that he was poisoned.
+"He lost his life," says one author, "with great suspicion of
+poison." "Acabo su vida, con gran sospecho de veneno."--Herrera.
+Another speaks of the suspicious state of his intestines, but
+without any direct opinion. An English historian states the fact
+of his being poisoned, without any reserve. Flemish writers do
+not hesitate to attribute his murder to the jealousy of Philip
+II., who, they assert, had discovered a secret treaty of marriage
+about to be concluded between Don John and Elizabeth of England,
+securing them the joint sovereignty of the Netherlands. An Italian
+historian of credit asserts that this ambitious design was attributed
+to the prince; and admits that his death was not considered as
+having arisen from natural causes. "E quindi nacque l'opinione
+dispersa allora, ch'egli mancasse di morte aiutata piů tosto
+che naturale."--Bentivoglio. It was also believed that Escovedo,
+his confidential secretary, being immediately called back to
+Spain, was secretly assassinated by Antonio Perez, Philip's
+celebrated minister, and by the special orders of the king. Time
+has, however, covered the affair with impenetrable mystery; and
+the death of Don John was of little importance to the affairs
+of the country he governed so briefly and so ingloriously, if
+it be not that it added another motive to the natural hatred
+for his assumed murderer.
+
+The prince of Parma, who now succeeded, by virtue of Don John's
+testament, to the post of governor-general in the name of the
+king, remained intrenched in his camp. He expected much from
+the disunion of his various opponents; and what he foresaw very
+quickly happened. The duke of Alençon disbanded his troops and
+retired to France; and the prince Palatine, following his example,
+withdrew to Germany, having first made an unsuccessful attempt to
+engage the queen of England as a principal in the confederacy. In
+this perplexity, the Prince of Orange saw that the real hope for
+safety was in uniting still more closely the northern provinces
+of the union; for he discovered the fallacy of reckoning on the
+cordial and persevering fidelity of the Walloons. He therefore
+convoked a new assembly at Utrecht; and the deputies of Holland,
+Guelders, Zealand, Utrecht, and Groningen, signed, on the 29th
+of January, 1579, the famous act called the Union of Utrecht,
+the real basis or fundamental pact of the republic of the United
+Provinces. It makes no formal renunciation of allegiance to Spain,
+but this is virtually done by the omission of the king's name.
+The twenty-six articles of this act consolidate the indissoluble
+connection of the United Provinces; each preserving its separate
+franchises, and following its own good pleasure on the subject
+of religion. The towns of Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and Ypres,
+soon after acceded to and joined the union.
+
+The prince of Parma now assumed the offensive, and marched against
+Maestricht with his whole army. He took the place in the month
+of June, 1579, after a gallant resistance, and delivered it to
+sack and massacre for three entire days. About the same time
+Mechlin and Bois-le-duc returned to their obedience to the king.
+Hembyse having renewed his attempts against the public peace at
+Ghent, the Prince of Orange repaired to that place, re-established
+order, frightened the inveterate demagogue into secret flight,
+and Flanders was once more restored to tranquillity.
+
+An attempt was made this year at a reconciliation between the
+king and the states. The emperor Rodolf II. and Pope Gregory XIII.
+offered their mediation; and on the 5th of April a congress assembled
+at Cologne, where a number of the most celebrated diplomatists in
+Europe were collected. But it was early seen that no settlement
+would result from the apparently reciprocal wish for peace. One
+point--that of religion, the main, and indeed the only one in
+debate--was now maintained by Philip's ambassador in the same
+unchristian spirit as if torrents of blood and millions of treasure
+had never been sacrificed in the cause. Philip was inflexible in
+his resolution never to concede the exercise of the reformed
+worship; and after nearly a year of fruitless consultation, and
+the expenditure of immense sums of money, the congress separated
+on the 17th of November, without having effected anything. There
+were several other articles intended for discussion, had the
+main one been adjusted, on which Philip was fully as determined
+to make no concession; but his obstinacy was not put to these
+new tests.
+
+The time had now arrived for the execution of the great and decisive
+step for independence, the means of effecting which had been so
+long the object of exertion and calculation on the part of the
+Prince of Orange. He now resolved to assemble the states of the
+United Provinces, solemnly abjure the dominion of Spain, and depose
+King Philip from the sovereignty he had so justly forfeited. Much
+has been written both for and against this measure, which involved
+every argument of natural rights and municipal privilege. The
+natural rights of man may seem to comprise only those which he
+enjoys in a state of nature; but he carries several of those
+with him into society, which is based upon the very principle of
+their preservation. The great precedent which so many subsequent
+revolutions have acknowledged and confirmed is that which we now
+record. The states-general assembled at Antwerp early in the
+year 1580; and, in spite of all the opposition of the Catholic
+deputies, the authority of Spain was revoked forever, and the
+United Provinces declared a free and independent state. At the
+same time was debated the important question as to whether the
+protection of the new state should be offered to England or to
+France. Opinions were divided on this point; but that of the Prince
+of Orange being in favor of the latter country, from many motives
+of sound policy, it was decided to offer the sovereignty to the
+duke of Alençon. The archduke Mathias, who was present at the
+deliberations, was treated with little ceremony; but he obtained
+the promise of a pension when the finances were in a situation to
+afford it. The definite proposal to be made to the duke of Alençon
+was not agreed upon for some months afterward; and it was in the
+month of August following that St. Aldegonde and other deputies
+waited on the duke at the chateau of Plessis-le-Tours, when he
+accepted the offered sovereignty on the proposed conditions,
+which set narrow bounds to his authority, and gave ample security
+to the United Provinces. The articles were formally signed on the
+29th day of September; and the duke not only promised quickly
+to lead a numerous army to the Netherlands, but he obtained a
+letter from his brother, Henry III., dated December 26th, by
+which the king pledged himself to give further aid, as soon as
+he might succeed in quieting his own disturbed and unfortunate
+country. The states-general, assembled at Delft, ratified the
+treaty on the 30th of December; and the year which was about to
+open seemed to promise the consolidation of freedom and internal
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1580--1584
+
+Philip might be well excused the utmost violence of resentment on
+this occasion, had it been bounded by fair and honorable efforts
+for the maintenance of his authority. But every general principle
+seemed lost in the base inveteracy of private hatred. The ruin
+of the Prince of Orange was his main object, and his industry
+and ingenuity were taxed to the utmost to procure his murder.
+Existing documents prove that he first wished to accomplish this
+in such a way as that the responsibility and odium of the act
+might rest on the prince of Parma; but the mind of the prince
+was at that period too magnanimous to allow of a participation
+in the crime. The correspondence on the subject is preserved
+in the archives, and the date of Philip's first letter (30th
+of November, 1579) proves that even before the final disavowal
+of his authority by the United Provinces he had harbored his
+diabolical design. The prince remonstrated, but with no effect.
+It even appears that Philip's anxiety would not admit of the
+delay necessary for the prince's reply. The infamous edict of
+proscription against William bears date the 15th of March; and
+the most pressing letters commanded the prince of Parma to make
+it public. It was not, however, till the 15th of June that he
+sent forth the fatal ban.
+
+This edict, under Philip's own signature, is a tissue of invective
+and virulence. The illustrious object of its abuse is accused of
+having engaged the heretics to profane the churches and break the
+images; of having persecuted and massacred the Catholic priests; of
+hypocrisy, tyranny, and perjury; and, as the height of atrocity,
+of having introduced liberty of conscience into his country! For
+these causes, and many others, the king declares him "proscribed
+and banished as a public pest"; and it is permitted to all persons
+to assail him "in his fortune, person, and life, as an enemy
+to human nature." Philip also, "for the recompense of virtue
+and the punishment of crime," promises to whoever will deliver
+up William of Nassau, dead or alive, "in lands or money, at his
+choice, the sum of twenty-five thousand golden crowns; to grant
+a free pardon to such person for all former offences of what kind
+soever, and to invest him with letters patent of nobility."
+
+In reply to this brutal document of human depravity, William
+published all over Europe his famous "Apology," of which it is
+enough to say that language could not produce a more splendid
+refutation of every charge or a more terrible recrimination against
+the guilty tyrant. It was attributed to the pen of Peter de Villiers,
+a Protestant minister. It is universally pronounced one of the
+noblest monuments of history. William, from the hour of his
+proscription, became at once the equal in worldly station, as
+he had ever been the superior in moral worth, of his royal
+calumniator. He took his place as a prince of an imperial family,
+not less ancient or illustrious than that of the House of Austria;
+and he stood forward at the supreme tribunal of public feeling
+and opinion as the accuser of a king who disgraced his lineage
+and his throne.
+
+By a separate article in the treaty with the states, the duke
+of Alençon secured to William the sovereignty of Holland and
+Zealand, as well as the lordship of Friesland, with his title
+of stadtholder, retaining to the duke his claim on the prince's
+faith and homage. The exact nature of William's authority was
+finally ratified on the 24th of July, 1581; on which day he took
+the prescribed oath, and entered on the exercise of his well-earned
+rights.
+
+Philip now formed the design of sending back the duchess of Parma
+to resume her former situation as stadtholderess, and exercise
+the authority conjointly with her son. But the latter positively
+declined this proposal of divided power; and he, consequently,
+was left alone to its entire exercise. Military affairs made
+but slow progress this year. The most remarkable event was the
+capture of La Noue, a native of Bretagne, one of the bravest, and
+certainly the cleverest, officers in the service of the states,
+into which he had passed after having given important aid to
+the Huguenots of France. He was considered so important a prize
+that Philip refused all proposals for his exchange, and detained
+him in the castle of Limburg for five years.
+
+The siege of Cambray was now undertaken by the prince of Parma
+in person; while the duke of Alençon, at the head of a large army
+and the flower of the French nobility, advanced to its relief, and
+soon forced his rival to raise the siege. The new sovereign of the
+Netherlands entered the town, and was received with tumultuous joy
+by the half-starved citizens and garrison. The prince of Parma sought
+an equivalent for this check in the attack of Tournay, which he
+immediately afterward invested. The town was but feebly garrisoned;
+but the Protestant inhabitants prepared for a desperate defence,
+under the exciting example of the princess of Epinoi, wife of the
+governor, who was himself absent. This remarkable woman furnishes
+another proof of the female heroism which abounded in these wars.
+Though wounded in the arm, she fought in the breach sword in hand,
+braving peril and death. And when at length it was impossible to
+hold out longer, she obtained an honorable capitulation, and
+marched out, on the 29th of November, on horseback, at the head
+of the garrison, with an air of triumph rather than of defeat.
+
+The duke of Alençon, now created duke of Anjou, by which title
+we shall hereafter distinguish him, had repaired to England,
+in hopes of completing his project of marriage with Elizabeth.
+After three months of almost confident expectation, the virgin
+queen, at this time fifty years of age, with a caprice not quite
+justifiable, broke all her former engagements; and, happily for
+herself and her country, declined the marriage. Anjou burst out
+into all the violence of his turbulent temper, and set sail for
+the Netherlands. Elizabeth made all the reparation in her power,
+by the honors paid him on his dismissal. She accompanied him as
+far as Canterbury, and sent him away under the convoy of the earl
+of Leicester, her chief favorite; and with a brilliant suite and a
+fleet of fifteen sail. Anjou was received at Antwerp with equal
+distinction; and was inaugurated there on the 19th of February
+as duke of Brabant, Lothier, Limburg, and Guelders, with many
+other titles, of which he soon proved himself unworthy. When
+the Prince of Orange, at the ceremony, placed the ducal mantle
+on his shoulders, Anjou said to him, "Fasten it so well, prince,
+that they cannot take it off again!"
+
+During the rejoicings which followed this inauspicious ceremony,
+Philip's proscription against the Prince of Orange put forth its
+first fruits. The latter gave a grand dinner in the chateau of
+Antwerp, which he occupied, on the 18th of March, the birthday
+of the duke of Anjou; and, as he was quitting the dining-room,
+on his way to his private chamber, a young man stepped forward
+and offered a pretended petition, William being at all times of
+easy access for such an object. While he read the paper, the
+treacherous suppliant discharged a pistol at his head: the ball
+struck him under the left ear, and passed out at the right cheek.
+As he tottered and fell, the assassin drew a poniard to add suicide
+to the crime, but he was instantly put to death by the attendant
+guards. The young Count Maurice, William's second son, examined
+the murderer's body; and the papers found on him, and subsequent
+inquiries, told fully who and what he was. His name was John
+Jaureguay, his age twenty-three years; he was a native of Biscay,
+and clerk to a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, called Gaspar Anastro.
+This man had instigated him to the crime; having received a promise
+signed by King Philip, engaging to give him twenty-eight thousand
+ducats and other advantages, if he would undertake to assassinate
+the Prince of Orange. The inducements held out by Anastro to his
+simple dupe, were backed strongly by the persuasions of Antony
+Timmerman, a Dominican monk; and by Venero, Anastro's cashier, who
+had from fear declined becoming himself the murderer. Jaureguay
+had duly heard mass, and received the sacrament, before executing
+his attempt; and in his pockets were found a catechism of the
+Jesuits, with tablets filled with prayers in the Spanish language;
+one in particular being addressed to the Angel Gabriel, imploring
+his intercession with God and the Virgin, to aid him in the
+consummation of his object. Other accompanying absurdities seem
+to pronounce this miserable wretch to be as much an instrument
+in the hands of others as the weapon of his crime was in his own.
+Timmerman and Venero made a full avowal of their criminality, and
+suffered death in the usual barbarous manner of the times. The
+Jesuits, some years afterward, solemnly gathered the remains of
+these three pretended martyrs, and exposed them as holy relics
+for public veneration. Anastro effected his escape.
+
+The alarm and indignation of the people of Antwerp knew no bounds.
+Their suspicions at first fell on the duke of Anjou and the French
+party; but the truth was soon discovered; and the rapid recovery
+of the Prince of Orange from his desperate wound set everything
+once more to rights. But a premature report of his death flew
+rapidly abroad; and he had anticipated proofs of his importance
+in the eyes of all Europe, in the frantic delight of the base,
+and the deep affliction of the good. Within three months, William
+was able to accompany the duke of Anjou in his visits to Ghent,
+Bruges, and the other chief towns of Flanders; in each of which the
+ceremony of inauguration was repeated. Several military exploits
+now took place, and various towns fell into the hands of the
+opposing parties; changing masters with a rapidity, as well as a
+previous endurance of suffering, that must have carried confusion
+and change on the contending principles of allegiance into the
+hearts and heads of the harassed inhabitants.
+
+The duke of Anjou, intemperate, inconstant, and unprincipled,
+saw that his authority was but the shadow of power, compared to
+the deep-fixed practices of despotism which governed the other
+nations of Europe. The French officers, who formed his suite and
+possessed all his confidence, had no difficulty in raising his
+discontent into treason against the people with whom he had made
+a solemn compact. The result of their councils was a deep-laid
+plot against Flemish liberty; and its execution was ere-long
+attempted. He sent secret orders to the governors of Dunkirk,
+Bruges, Termonde, and other towns, to seize on and hold them
+in his name; reserving for himself the infamy of the enterprise
+against Antwerp. To prepare for its execution, he caused his
+numerous army of French and Swiss to approach the city; and they
+were encamped in the neighborhood, at a place called Borgerhout.
+
+On the 17th of January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier
+than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review
+his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his
+guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second
+drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal
+for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had
+fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers,
+"Courage, courage! the town is ours!" The guard at the gate was
+all soon despatched; and the French troops, which waited outside
+to the number of three thousand, rushed quickly in, furiously
+shouting the war-cry, "Town taken! town taken! kill! kill!" The
+astonished but intrepid citizens, recovering from their confusion,
+instantly flew to arms. All differences in religion or politics
+were forgotten in the common danger to their freedom. Catholics
+and Protestants, men and women, rushed alike to the conflict.
+The ancient spirit of Flanders seemed to animate all. Workmen,
+armed with the instruments of their various trades, started from
+their shops and flung themselves upon the enemy. A baker sprang
+from the cellar where he was kneading his dough, and with his
+oven shovel struck a French dragoon to the ground. Those who
+had firearms, after expending their bullets, took from their
+pouches and pockets pieces of money, which they bent between
+their teeth, and used for charging their arquebuses. The French
+were driven successively from the streets and ramparts, and the
+cannons planted on the latter were immediately turned against
+the reinforcements which attempted to enter the town. The French
+were everywhere beaten; the duke of Anjou saved himself by flight,
+and reached Termonde, after the perilous necessity of passing
+through a large tract of inundated country. His loss in this
+base enterprise amounted to one thousand five hundred; while
+that of the citizens did not exceed eighty men. The attempts
+simultaneously made on the other towns succeeded at Dunkirk and
+Termonde; but all the others failed.
+
+The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly
+great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled
+and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between
+the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the
+former from excess, and the latter from execration. The disgraced
+and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as
+they were hypocritical; and his brother, the king of France, sent
+a special envoy to intercede for him. But it was the influence of
+William that screened the culprit from public reprobation and
+ruin, and regained for him the place and power which he might
+easily have secured for himself, had he not prized the welfare
+of his country far above all objects of private advantage. A new
+treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station,
+with renewed security against any future treachery on his part. He
+in the meantime retired to France, to let the public indignation
+subside; but before he could assume sufficient confidence again to
+face the country he had so basely injured his worthless existence
+was suddenly terminated, some thought by poison--the common solution
+of all such doubtful questions in those days--in the month of June
+in the following year. He expired in his twenty-ninth year.
+
+A disgusting proof of public ingratitude and want of judgment
+was previously furnished by the conduct of the people of Antwerp
+against him who had been so often their deliverer from such various
+dangers. Unable to comprehend the greatness of his mind, they
+openly accused the Prince of Orange of having joined with the
+French for their subjugation, and of having concealed a body
+of that detested nation in the citadel. The populace rushed to
+the place, and having minutely examined it, were convinced of
+their own absurdity and the prince's innocence. He scorned to
+demand their punishment for such an outrageous calumny; but he was
+not the less afflicted at it. He took the resolution of quitting
+Flanders, as it turned out, forever; and he retired into Zealand,
+where he was better known and consequently better trusted.
+
+In the midst of the consequent confusion in the former of these
+provinces, the prince of Parma, with indefatigable vigor, made
+himself master of town after town; and turned his particular
+attention to the creation of a naval force, which was greatly
+favored by the possession of Dunkirk, Nieuport, and Gravelines.
+Native treachery was not idle in this time of tumult and confusion.
+The count of Renneberg, governor of Friesland and Groningen,
+had set the basest example, and gone over to the Spaniards. The
+prince of Chimay, son of the duke of Arschot, and governor of
+Bruges, yielded to the persuasions of his father, and gave up
+the place to the prince of Parma. Hembyse also, amply confirming
+the bad opinion in which the Prince of Orange always held him,
+returned to Ghent, where he regained a great portion of his former
+influence, and immediately commenced a correspondence with the
+prince of Parma, offering to deliver up both Ghent and Termonde.
+An attempt was consequently made by the Spaniards to surprise
+the former town; but the citizens were prepared for this, having
+intercepted some of the letters of Hembyse; and the traitor was
+seized, tried, condemned, and executed on the 4th of August, 1584.
+He was upward of seventy years of age. Ryhove, his celebrated
+colleague, died in Holland some years later.
+
+But the fate of so insignificant a person as Hembyse passed almost
+unnoticed, in the agitation caused by an event which shortly
+preceded his death.
+
+From the moment of their abandonment by the duke of Anjou, the
+United Provinces considered themselves independent; and although
+they consented to renew his authority over the country at large,
+at the solicitation of the Prince of Orange, they were resolved
+to confirm the influence of the latter over their particular
+interests, which they were now sensible could acquire stability
+only by that means. The death of Anjou left them without a sovereign;
+and they did not hesitate in the choice which they were now called
+upon to make. On whom, indeed, could they fix but William of
+Nassau, without the utmost injustice to him, and the deepest
+injury to themselves? To whom could they turn, in preference to
+him who had given consistency to the early explosion of their
+despair; to him who first gave the country political existence,
+then nursed it into freedom, and now beheld it in the vigor and
+prime of independence? He had seen the necessity, but certainly
+overrated the value, of foreign support, to enable the new state
+to cope with the tremendous tyranny from which it had broken.
+He had tried successively Germany, England and France. From the
+first and the last of these powers he had received two governors,
+to whom he cheerfully resigned the title. The incapacity of both,
+and the treachery of the latter, proved to the states that their
+only chance for safety was in the consolidation of William's
+authority; and they contemplated the noblest reward which a grateful
+nation could bestow on a glorious liberator. And is it to be
+believed that he who for twenty years had sacrificed his repose,
+lavished his fortune, and risked his life, for the public cause,
+now aimed at absolute dominion, or coveted a despotism which
+all his actions prove him to have abhorred? Defeated bigotry
+has put forward such vapid accusations. He has been also held
+responsible for the early cruelties which, it is notorious, he
+used every means to avert, and frequently punished. But while
+these revolting acts can only be viewed in the light of reprisals
+against the bloodiest persecution that ever existed, by exasperated
+men driven to vengeance by a bad example, not one single act of
+cruelty or bad faith has ever been made good against William,
+who may be safely pronounced one of the wisest and best men that
+history has held up as examples to the species.
+
+The authority of one author has been produced to prove that,
+during the lifetime of his brother Louis, offers were made to
+him by France of the sovereignty of the northern provinces, on
+condition of the southern being joined to the French crown. That
+he ever accepted those offers is without proof; that he never
+acted on them is certain. But he might have been justified in
+purchasing freedom for those states which had so well earned
+it, at the price even of a qualified independence under another
+power, to the exclusion of those which had never heartily struggled
+against Spain. The best evidence, however, of William's real views
+is to be found in the Capitulation, as it is called; that is to
+say, the act which was on the point of being executed between him
+and the states, when a base fanatic, instigated by a bloody tyrant,
+put a period to his splendid career. This capitulation exists at
+full length, but was never formally executed. Its conditions
+are founded on the same principles, and conceived in nearly the
+same terms, as those accepted by the duke of Anjou; and the whole
+compact is one of the most thoroughly liberal that history has
+on record. The prince repaired to Delft for the ceremony of his
+inauguration, the price of his long labors; but there, instead
+of anticipated dignity, he met the sudden stroke of death.
+
+On the 10th of July, as he left his dining-room, and while he
+placed his foot on the first step of the great stair leading to
+the upper apartments of his house, a man named Balthazar Gerard
+(who, like the former assassin, waited for him at the moment of
+convivial relaxation), discharged a pistol at his body. Three
+balls entered it. He fell into the arms of an attendant, and
+cried out faintly, in the French language, "God pity me! I am
+sadly wounded--God have mercy on my soul, and on this unfortunate
+nation!" His sister, the countess of Swartzenberg, who now hastened
+to his side, asked him in German if he did not recommend his
+soul to God? He answered, "Yes," in the same language, but with
+a feeble voice. He was carried into the dining-room, where he
+immediately expired. His sister closed his eyes; his wife, too,
+was on the spot--Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny,
+and widow of the gallant count of Teligny, both of whom were also
+murdered almost in her sight, in the frightful massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. We may not enter on a description of the afflicting
+scene which followed; but the mind is pleased in picturing the
+bold solemnity with which Prince Maurice, then eighteen years
+of age, swore--not vengeance or hatred against his father's
+murderers--but that he would faithfully and religiously follow
+the glorious example he had given him.
+
+Whoever would really enjoy the spirit of historical details should
+never omit an opportunity of seeing places rendered memorable by
+associations connected with the deeds, and especially with the
+death, of great men; the spot, for instance, where William was
+assassinated at Delft; the old staircase he was just on the point
+of ascending; the narrow pass between that and the dining-hall
+whence he came out, of scarcely sufficient extent for the murderer
+to held forth his arm and his pistol, two and a half feet long.
+This weapon, and its fellow, are both preserved in the museum
+of The Hague, together with two of the fatal bullets, and the
+very clothes which the victim wore. The leathern doublet, pierced
+by the balls and burned by the powder, lies beside the other
+parts of the dress, the simple gravity of which, in fashion and
+color, irresistibly brings the wise, great man before us, and
+adds a hundred-fold to the interest excited by a recital of his
+murder.
+
+There is but one important feature in the character of William
+which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances
+of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the
+same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall
+despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate,
+indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When
+he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated
+into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought
+up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his
+profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His
+whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian
+principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and
+that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of
+the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal
+toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as
+subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious
+liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down
+his life. His assassin was taken alive, and four days afterward
+executed with terrible circumstances of cruelty, which he bore
+as a martyr might have borne them. He was a native of Burgundy,
+and had for some months lingered near his victim, and insinuated
+himself into his confidence by a feigned attachment to liberty,
+and an apparent zeal for the reformed faith. He was nevertheless
+a bigoted Catholic and, by his own confession, he had communicated
+his design to, and received encouragement to its execution from,
+more than one minister of the sect to which he belonged. But his
+avowal criminated a more important accomplice, and one whose
+character stands so high in history that it behooves us to examine
+thoroughly the truth of the accusation, and the nature of the
+collateral proofs by which it is supported. Most writers on this
+question have leaned to the side which all would wish to adopt,
+for the honor of human nature and the integrity of a celebrated
+name. But an original letter exists in the archives of Brussels,
+from the prince of Parma himself to Philip of Spain, in which he
+admits that Balthazar Gerard had communicated to him his intention
+of murdering the Prince of Orange some months before the deed was
+done; and he mixes phrases of compassion for "the poor man" (the
+murderer) and of praise for the act; which, if the document be
+really authentic, sinks Alexander of Parma as low as the wretch
+with whom he sympathized.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA
+
+A.D. 1584--1592
+
+The death of William of Nassau not only closes the scene of his
+individual career, but throws a deep gloom over the history of a
+revolution that was sealed by so great a sacrifice. The animation
+of the story seems suspended. Its events lose for a time their
+excitement. The last act of the political drama is performed. The
+great hero of the tragedy is no more. The other most memorable
+actors have one by one passed away. A whole generation has fallen
+in the contest; and it is with exhausted interest, and feelings
+less intense, that we resume the details of war and blood, which
+seem no longer sanctified by the grander movements of heroism.
+The stirring impulse of slavery breaking its chains yields to
+the colder inspiration of independence maintaining its rights.
+The men we have now to depict were born free; and the deeds they
+did were those of stern resolve rather than of frantic despair.
+The present picture may be as instructive as the last, but it is
+less thrilling. Passion gives place to reason; and that which
+wore the air of fierce romance is superseded by what bears the
+stamp of calm reality.
+
+The consternation caused by the news of William's death soon
+yielded to the firmness natural to a people inured to suffering
+and calamity. The United Provinces rejected at once the overtures
+made by the prince of Parma to induce them to obedience. They
+seemed proud to show that their fate did not depend on that of
+one man. He therefore turned his attention to the most effective
+means of obtaining results by force which he found it impossible
+to secure by persuasion. He proceeded vigorously to the reduction
+of the chief towns of Flanders, the conquest of which would give
+him possession of the entire province, no army now remaining
+to oppose him in the field. He soon obliged Ypres and Termonde
+to surrender; and Ghent, forced by famine, at length yielded on
+reasonable terms. The most severe was the utter abolition of
+the reformed religion; by which a large portion of the population
+was driven to the alternative of exile; and they passed over
+in crowds to Holland and Zealand, not half of the inhabitants
+remaining behind. Mechlin, and finally Brussels, worn out by
+a fruitless resistance, followed the example of the rest; and
+thus, within a year after the death of William of Nassau, the
+power of Spain was again established in the whole province of
+Flanders, and the others which comprise what is in modern days
+generally denominated Belgium.
+
+But these domestic victories of the prince of Parma were barren
+in any of those results which humanity would love to see in the
+train of conquest. The reconciled provinces presented the most
+deplorable spectacle. The chief towns were almost depopulated. The
+inhabitants had in a great measure fallen victims to war, pestilence
+and famine. Little inducement existed to replace by marriage the
+ravages caused by death, for few men wished to propagate a race
+which divine wrath seemed to have marked for persecution. The
+thousands of villages which had covered the face of the country
+were absolutely abandoned to the wolves, which had so rapidly
+increased that they attacked not merely cattle and children,
+but grown-up persons. The dogs, driven abroad by hunger, had
+become as ferocious as other beasts of prey, and joined in large
+packs to hunt down brutes and men. Neither fields, nor woods, nor
+roads, were now to be distinguished by any visible limits. All
+was an entangled mass of trees, weeds, and grass. The prices of
+the necessaries of life were so high that people of rank, after
+selling everything to buy bread, were obliged to have recourse
+to open beggary in the streets of the great towns.
+
+From this frightful picture, and the numerous details which
+imagination may readily supply, we gladly turn to the contrast
+afforded by the northern states. Those we have just described
+have a feeble hold upon our sympathies; we cannot pronounce their
+sufferings to be unmerited. The want of firmness or enlightenment,
+which preferred such an existence to the risk of entire destruction,
+only heightens the glory of the people whose unyielding energy
+and courage gained them so proud a place among the independent
+nations of Europe.
+
+The murder of William seemed to carry to the United Provinces
+conviction of the weakness as well as the atrocity of Spain;
+and the indecent joy excited among the royalists added to their
+courage. An immediate council was created, composed of eighteen
+members, at the head of which was unanimously placed Prince Maurice
+of Nassau (who even then gave striking indications of talent and
+prudence); his elder brother, the count of Beuren, now Prince
+of Orange, being still kept captive in Spain. Count Hohenloe
+was appointed lieutenant-general; and several other measures
+were promptly adopted to consolidate the power of the infant
+republic. The whole of its forces amounted but to five thousand
+five hundred men. The prince of Parma had eighty thousand at
+his command. With such means of carrying on his conquests, he
+sat down regularly before Antwerp, and commenced the operations
+of one of the most celebrated among the many memorable sieges of
+those times. He completely surrounded the city with troops; placing
+a large portion of his army on the left bank of the Scheldt, the
+other on the right; and causing to be attacked at the same time
+the two strong forts of Liefkinshoek and Lillo. Repulsed on the
+latter important point, his only hope of gaining the command of
+the navigation of the river, on which the success of the siege
+depended, was by throwing a bridge across the stream. Neither
+its great rapidity, nor its immense width, nor the want of wood
+and workmen, could deter him from this vast undertaking. He was
+assisted, if not guided, in all his projects on the occasion, by
+Barroccio, a celebrated Italian engineer sent to him by Philip;
+and the merit of all that was done ought fairly to be, at least,
+divided between the general and the engineer. If enterprise and
+perseverance belonged to the first, science and skill were the
+portion of the latter. They first caused two strong forts to
+be erected at opposite sides of the river; and adding to their
+resources by every possible means, they threw forward a pier
+on each side of, and far into, the stream. The stakes, driven
+firmly into the bed of the river and cemented with masses of
+earth and stones, were at a proper height covered with planks
+and defended by parapets. These estoccades, as they were called,
+reduced the river to half its original breadth; and the cannon with
+which they were mounted rendered the passage extremely dangerous
+to hostile vessels. But to fill up this strait a considerable
+number of boats were fastened together by chain-hooks and anchors;
+and being manned and armed with cannon, they were moored in the
+interval between the estoccades. During these operations, a canal
+was cut between the Moer and Calloo; by which means a communication
+was formed with Ghent, which insured a supply of ammunition and
+provisions. The works of the bridge, which was two thousand four
+hundred feet in length, were constructed with such strength and
+solidity that they braved the winds, the floods, and the ice
+of the whole winter.
+
+The people of Antwerp at first laughed to scorn the whole of
+these stupendous preparations; but when they found that the bridge
+resisted the natural elements, by which they doubted not it would
+have been destroyed, they began to tremble in the anticipation
+of famine; yet they vigorously prepared for their defence, and
+rejected the overtures made by the prince of Parma even at this
+advanced stage of his proceedings. Ninety-seven pieces of cannon
+now defended the bridge; besides which thirty large barges at
+each side of the river guarded its extremities; and forty ships
+of war formed a fleet of protection, constantly ready to meet any
+attack from the besieged. They, seeing the Scheldt thus really
+closed up, and all communication with Zealand impossible, felt
+their whole safety to depend on the destruction of the bridge. The
+states of Zealand now sent forward an expedition, which, joined
+with some ships from Lillo, gave new courage to the besieged;
+and everything was prepared for their great attempt. An Italian
+engineer named Giambelli was at this time in Antwerp, and by
+his talents had long protracted the defence. He has the chief
+merit of being the inventor of those terrible fire-ships which
+gained the title of "infernal machines"; and with some of these
+formidable instruments and the Zealand fleet, the long-projected
+attack was at length made.
+
+Early on the night of the 4th of April, the prince of Parma and
+his army were amazed by the spectacle of three huge masses of
+flame floating down the river, accompanied by numerous lesser
+appearances of a similar kind, and bearing directly against the
+prodigious barrier, which had cost months of labor to him and
+his troops, and immense sums of money to the state. The whole
+surface of the Scheldt presented one sheet of fire; the country
+all round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the
+soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the
+forts, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of
+the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all.
+Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the
+three machines burst with a terrific noise before they reached
+their intended mark, but time enough to offer a sample of their
+nature. The prince of Parma, with numerous officers and soldiers
+rushed to the bridge, to witness the effects of this explosion;
+and just then a second and still larger fire-ship, having burst
+through the flying bridge of boats, struck against one of the
+estoccades. Alexander, unmindful of danger, used every exertion
+of his authority to stimulate the sailors in their attempts to
+clear away the monstrous machine which threatened destruction to
+all within its reach. Happily for him, an ensign who was near,
+forgetting in his general's peril all rules of discipline and
+forms of ceremony, actually forced him from the estoccade. He had
+not put his foot on the river bank when the machine blew up. The
+effects were such as really baffle description. The bridge was burst
+through; the estoccade was shattered almost to atoms, and, with all
+that it supported--men, cannon, and the huge machinery employed
+in the various works--dispersed in the air. The cruel marquis
+of Roubais, many other officers, and eight hundred soldiers,
+perished in all varieties of death--by flood, or flame, or the
+horrid wounds from the missiles with which the terrible machine
+was overcharged. Fragments of bodies and limbs were flung far
+and wide; and many gallant soldiers were destroyed, without a
+vestige of the human form being left to prove that they had ever
+existed. The river, forced from its bed at either side, rushed
+into the forts and drowned numbers of their garrisons; while
+the ground far beyond shook as in an earthquake. The prince was
+struck down by a beam, and lay for some time senseless, together
+with two generals, Delvasto and Gajitani, both more seriously
+wounded than he; and many of the soldiers were burned and mutilated
+in the most frightful manner. Alexander soon recovered; and by
+his presence of mind, humanity, and resolution, he endeavored
+with incredible quickness to repair the mischief, and raised the
+confidence of his army as high as ever. Had the Zealand fleet
+come in time to the spot, the whole plan might have been crowned
+with success; but by some want of concert, or accidental delay,
+it did not appear; and consequently the beleaguered town received
+no relief.
+
+One last resource was left to the besieged; that which had formerly
+been resorted to at Leyden, and by which the place was saved.
+To enable them to inundate the immense plain which stretched
+between Lillo and Strabrock up to the walls of Antwerp, it was
+necessary to cut through the dike which defended it against the
+irruptions of the eastern Scheldt. This plain was traversed by
+a high and wide counter-dike, called the dike of Couvestien; and
+Alexander, knowing its importance, had early taken possession
+of and strongly defended it by several forts. Two attacks were
+made by the garrison of Antwerp on this important construction;
+the latter of which led to one of the most desperate encounters
+of the war. The prince, seeing that on the results of this day
+depended the whole consequences of his labors, fought with a
+valor that even he had never before displayed, and he was finally
+victorious. The confederates were forced to abandon the attack,
+leaving three thousand dead upon the dike or at its base; and
+the Spaniards lost full eight hundred men.
+
+One more fruitless attempt was made to destroy the bridge and
+raise the siege, by means of an enormous vessel bearing the
+presumptuous title of The End of the War. But this floating citadel
+ran aground, without producing any effect; and the gallant governor
+of Antwerp, the celebrated Philip de Saint Aldegonde, was forced
+to capitulate on the 16th of August, after a siege of fourteen
+months. The reduction of Antwerp was considered a miracle of
+perseverance and courage. The prince of Parma was elevated by
+his success to the highest pinnacle of renown; and Philip, on
+receiving the news, displayed a burst of joy such as rarely varied
+his cold and gloomy reserve.
+
+Even while the fate of Antwerp was undecided, the United Provinces,
+seeing that they were still too weak to resist alone the undivided
+force of the Spanish monarchy, had opened negotiations with France
+and England at once, in the hope of gaining one or the other for
+an ally and protector. Henry III. gave a most honorable reception
+to the ambassadors sent to his court, and was evidently disposed
+to accept their offers, had not the distracted state of his own
+country, still torn by civil war, quite disabled him from any
+effective co-operation. The deputies sent to England were also
+well received. Elizabeth listened to the proposals of the states,
+sent them an ambassador in return, and held out the most flattering
+hopes of succor. But her cautious policy would not suffer her
+to accept the sovereignty; and she declared that she would in
+nowise interfere with the negotiations, which might end in its
+being accepted by the king of France. She gave prompt evidence
+of her sincerity by an advance of considerable sums of money,
+and by sending to Holland a body of six thousand troops, under
+the command of her favorite, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester; and
+as security for the repayment of her loan, the towns of Flushing
+and Brille, and the castle of Rammekins, were given up to her.
+
+The earl of Leicester was accompanied by a splendid retinue of
+noblemen, and a select troop of five hundred followers. He was
+received at Flushing by the governor, Sir Philip Sidney, his
+nephew, the model of manners and conduct for the young men of
+his day. But Leicester possessed neither courage nor capacity
+equal to the trust reposed in him; and his arbitrary and indolent
+conduct soon disgusted the people whom he was sent to assist.
+They had, in the first impulse of their gratitude, given him
+the title of governor and captain-general of the provinces, in
+the hope of flattering Elizabeth. But this had a far contrary
+effect: she was equally displeased with the states and with
+Leicester; and it was with difficulty that, after many humble
+submissions, they were able to appease her.
+
+To form a counterpoise to the power so lavishly conferred on
+Leicester, Prince Maurice was, according to the wise advice of
+Olden Barnevelt, raised to the dignity of stadtholder,
+captain-general, and admiral of Holland and Zealand. This is
+the first instance of these states taking on themselves the
+nomination to the dignity of stadtholder, for even William has
+held his commission from Philip, or in his name; but Friesland,
+Groningen, and Guelders had already appointed their local governors,
+under the same title, by the authority of the states-general,
+the archduke Mathias, or even of the provincial states. Holland
+had now also at the head of its civil government a citizen full
+of talent and probity, who was thus able to contend with the
+insidious designs of Leicester against the liberty he nominally
+came to protect. This was Barnevelt, who was promoted from his
+office of pensionary of Rotterdam to that of Holland, and who
+accepted the dignity only on condition of being free to resign
+it if any accommodation of differences should take place with
+Spain.
+
+Alexander of Parma had, by the death of his mother, in February,
+1586, exchanged his title of prince for the superior one of duke
+of Parma, and soon resumed his enterprises with his usual energy
+and success; various operations took place, in which the English
+on every opportunity distinguished themselves; particularly in
+an action near the town of Grave, in Brabant; and in the taking
+of Axel by escalade, under the orders of Sir Philip Sidney. A
+more important affair occurred near Zutphen, at a place called
+Warnsfeld, both of which towns have given names to the action. On
+this occasion the veteran Spaniards, under the marquis of Guasto,
+were warmly attacked and completely defeated by the English;
+but the victory was dearly purchased by the death of Sir Philip
+Sidney, who was mortally wounded in the thigh, and expired a
+few days afterward, at the early age of thirty-two years. In
+addition to the valor, talent, and conduct, which had united to
+establish his fame, he displayed, on this last opportunity of
+his short career, an instance of humanity that sheds a new lustre
+on even a character like his. Stretched on the battlefield, in all
+the agony of his wound, and parched with thirst, his afflicted
+followers brought him some water, procured with difficulty at a
+distance, and during the heat of the fight. But Sidney, seeing a
+soldier lying near, mangled like himself, and apparently expiring,
+refused the water, saying, "Give it to that poor man; his sufferings
+are greater than mine."
+
+Leicester's conduct was now become quite intolerable to the states.
+His incapacity and presumption were every day more evident and
+more revolting. He seemed to consider himself in a province wholly
+reduced to English authority, and paid no sort of attention to the
+very opposite character of the people. An eminent Dutch author
+accounts for this, in terms which may make an Englishman of this age
+not a little proud of the contrast which his character presents to
+what it was then considered. "The Englishman," says Grotius, "obeys
+like a slave, and governs like a tyrant; while the Belgian knows
+how to serve and to command with equal moderation." The dislike
+between Leicester and those he insulted and misgoverned soon became
+mutual. He retired to the town of Utrecht; and pushed his injurious
+conduct to such an extent that he became an object of utter hatred
+to the provinces. All the friendly feelings toward England were
+gradually changed into suspicion and dislike. Conferences took
+place at The Hague between Leicester and the states, in which
+Barnevelt overwhelmed his contemptible shuffling by the force of
+irresistible eloquence and well-deserved reproaches; and after
+new acts of treachery, still more odious than his former, this
+unworthy favorite at last set out for England, to lay an account
+of his government at the feet of the queen.
+
+The growing hatred against England was fomented by the true patriots,
+who aimed at the liberty of their country; and may be excused, from
+the various instances of treachery displayed, not only by the
+commander-in-chief, but by several of his inferiors in command. A
+strong fort, near Zutphen, under the government of Roland York, the
+town of Deventer, under that of William Starily, and subsequently
+Guelders, under a Scotchman named Pallot, were delivered up to
+the Spaniards by these men; and about the same time the English
+cavalry committed some excesses in Guelders and Holland, which
+added to the prevalent prejudice against the nation in general. This
+enmity was no longer to be concealed. The partisans of Leicester
+were, one by one, under plausible pretexts, removed from the
+council of state; and Elizabeth having required from Holland
+the exportation into England of a large quantity of rye, it was
+firmly but respectfully refused, as inconsistent with the wants
+of the provinces.
+
+Prince Maurice, from the caprice and jealousy of Leicester, now
+united in himself the whole power of command, and commenced that
+brilliant course of conduct which consolidated the independence
+of his country and elevated him to the first rank of military
+glory. His early efforts were turned to the suppression of the
+partiality which in some places existed for English domination;
+and he never allowed himself to be deceived by the hopes of peace
+held out by the emperor and the kings of Denmark and Poland. Without
+refusing their mediation, he labored incessantly to organize
+every possible means for maintaining the war. His efforts were
+considerably favored by the measures of Philip for the support
+of the league formed by the House of Guise against Henry III. and
+Henry IV. of France; but still more by the formidable enterprise
+which the Spanish monarch was now preparing against England.
+
+Irritated and mortified by the assistance which Elizabeth had
+given to the revolted provinces, Philip resolved to employ his
+whole power in attempting the conquest of England itself; hoping
+afterward to effect with ease the subjugation of the Netherlands.
+He caused to be built, in almost every port of Spain and Portugal,
+galleons, carricks, and other ships of war of the largest dimensions;
+and at the same time gave orders to the duke of Parma to assemble
+in the harbors of Flanders as many vessels as he could collect
+together.
+
+The Spanish fleet, consisting of more than one hundred and forty
+ships of the line, and manned by twenty thousand sailors, assembled
+at Lisbon under the orders of the duke of Medina Sidonia; while
+the duke of Parma, uniting his forces, held himself ready on the
+coast of Flanders, with an army of thirty thousand men and four
+hundred transports. This prodigious force obtained, in Spain,
+the ostentatious title of the Invincible Armada. Its destination
+was for a while attempted to be concealed, under pretext that
+it was meant for India, or for the annihilation of the United
+Provinces; but the mystery was soon discovered. At the end of
+May, the principal fleet sailed from the port of Lisbon; and
+being reinforced off Corunna by a considerable squadron, the
+whole armament steered its course, for the shores of England.
+
+The details of the progress and the failure of this celebrated
+attempt are so thoroughly the province of English history that they
+would be in this place superfluous. But it must not be forgotten
+that the glory of the proud result was amply shared by the new
+republic, whose existence depended on it. While Howard and Drake
+held the British fleet in readiness to oppose the Spanish Armada,
+that of Holland, consisting of but twenty-five ships, under the
+command of Justin of Nassau, prepared to take a part in the conflict.
+This gallant though illegitimate scion of the illustrious house,
+whose name he upheld on many occasions, proved himself on the
+present worthy of such a father as William, and such a brother as
+Maurice. While the duke of Medina Sidonia, ascending the Channel
+as far as Dunkirk, there expected the junction of the duke of
+Parma with his important reinforcement, Justin of Nassau, by a
+constant activity, and a display of intrepid talent, contrived
+to block up the whole expected force in the ports of Flanders
+from Lillo to Dunkirk. The duke of Parma found it impossible
+to force a passage on any one point; and was doomed to the
+mortification of knowing that the attempt was frustrated, and the
+whole force of Spain frittered away, discomfited, and disgraced,
+from the want of a co-operation, which he could not, however,
+reproach himself for having withheld. The issue of the memorable
+expedition, which cost Spain years of preparation, thousands
+of men, and millions or treasure, was received in the country
+which sent it forth with consternation and rage. Philip alone
+possessed or affected an apathy which he covered with a veil
+of mock devotion that few were deceived by. At the news of the
+disaster, he fell on his knees, and rendering thanks for that
+gracious dispensation of Providence, expressed his joy that the
+calamity was not greater.
+
+The people, the priests, and the commanders of the expedition
+were not so easily appeased, or so clever as their hypocritical
+master in concealing their mortification. The priests accounted
+for this triumph of heresy as a punishment on Spain for suffering
+the existence of the infidel Moors in some parts of the country.
+The defeated admirals threw the whole blame on the duke of Parma.
+He, on his part, sent an ample remonstrance to the king; and
+Philip declared that he was satisfied with the conduct of his
+nephew. Leicester died four days after the final defeat and
+dispersion of the Armada.
+
+The war in the Netherlands had been necessarily suffered to languish,
+while every eye was fixed on the progress of the Armada, from
+formation to defeat. But new efforts were soon made by the duke
+of Parma to repair the time he had lost, and soothe, by his
+successes, the disappointed pride of Spain. Several officers now
+came into notice, remarkable for deeds of great gallantry and
+skill. None among those was so distinguished as Martin Schenck,
+a soldier of fortune, a man of ferocious activity, who began
+his career in the service of tyranny, and ended it by chance
+in that of independence. He changed sides several times, but,
+no matter who he fought for, he did his duty well, from that
+unconquerable principle of pugnacity which seemed to make his
+sword a part of himself.
+
+Schenck had lately, for the last time, gone over to the side
+of the states, and had caused a fort to be built in the isle
+of Betewe--that possessed of old by the Batavians--which was
+called by his name, and was considered the key to the passage
+of the Rhine. From this stronghold he constantly harassed the
+archbishop of Cologne, and had as his latest exploit surprised and
+taken the strong town of Bonn. While the duke of Parma took prompt
+measures for the relief of the prelate, making himself master in
+the meantime of some places of strength, the indefatigable Schenck
+resolved to make an attempt on the important town of Nimeguen. He
+with great caution embarked a chosen body of troops on the Wahal,
+and arrived under the walls of Nimeguen at sunrise on the morning
+chosen for the attack. His enterprise seemed almost crowned with
+success; when the inhabitants, recovering from their fright,
+precipitated themselves from the town; forced the assailants to
+retreat to their boats; and, carrying the combat into those
+overcharged and fragile vessels, upset several, and among others
+that which contained Schenck himself, who, covered with wounds,
+and fighting to the last gasp, was drowned with the greater part
+of his followers. His body, when recovered, was treated with
+the utmost indignity, quartered, and hung in portions over the
+different gates of the city.
+
+The following year was distinguished by another daring attempt on
+the part of the Hollanders, but followed by a different result.
+A captain named Haranguer concerted with one Adrien Vandenberg
+a plan for the surprise of Breda, on the possession of which
+Prince Maurice had set a great value. The associates contrived
+to conceal in a boat laden with turf (which formed the principal
+fuel of the inhabitants of that part of the country), and of
+which Vandenberg was master, eighty determined soldiers, and
+succeeded in arriving close to the city without any suspicion
+being excited. One of the soldiers, named Matthew Helt, being
+suddenly afflicted with a violent cough, implored his comrades
+to put him to death, to avoid the risk of a discovery. But a
+corporal of the city guard having inspected the cargo with
+unsuspecting carelessness, the immolation of the brave soldier
+became unnecessary, and the boat was dragged into the basin by
+the assistance of some of the very garrison who were so soon to
+fall victims to the stratagem. At midnight the concealed soldiers
+quitted their hiding-places, leaped on shore, killed the sentinels,
+and easily became masters of the citadel. Prince Maurice, following
+close with his army, soon forced the town to submit, and put it
+into so good a state of defence that Count Mansfield, who was
+sent to retake it, was obliged to retreat after useless efforts
+to fulfil his mission.
+
+The duke of Parma, whose constitution was severely injured by
+the constant fatigues of war and the anxieties attending on the
+late transactions, had snatched a short interval for the purpose
+of recruiting his health at the waters of Spa. While at that place
+he received urgent orders from Philip to abandon for a while all
+his proceedings in the Netherlands, and to hasten into France
+with his whole disposable force, to assist the army of the League.
+The battle of Yvri (in which the son of the unfortunate Count
+Egmont met his death while fighting in the service of his father's
+royal murderer) had raised the prospects and hopes of Henry IV.
+to a high pitch; and Paris, which he closely besieged, was on
+the point of yielding to his arms. The duke of Parma received his
+uncle's orders with great repugnance; and lamented the necessity
+of leaving the field of his former exploits open to the enterprise
+and talents of Prince Maurice. He nevertheless obeyed; and leaving
+Count Mansfield at the head of the government, he conducted his
+troops against the royal opponent, who alone seemed fully worthy
+of coping with him.
+
+The attention of all Europe was now fixed on the exciting spectacle
+of a contest between these two greatest captains of the age. The
+glory of success, the fruit of consummate skill, was gained by
+Alexander; who, by an admirable manoeuvre, got possession of
+the town of Lagny-sur-Seine, under the very eyes of Henry and
+his whole army, and thus acquired the means of providing Paris
+with everything requisite for its defence. The French monarch saw
+all his projects baffled, and his hopes frustrated; while his
+antagonist, having fully completed his object, drew off his army
+through Champagne, and made a fine retreat through an enemy's
+country, harassed at every step, but with scarcely any loss.
+
+But while this expedition added greatly to the renown of the
+general, it considerably injured the cause of Spain in the Low
+Countries. Prince Maurice, taking prompt advantage of the absence
+of his great rival, had made himself master of several fortresses;
+and some Spanish regiments having mutinied against the commanders
+left behind by the duke of Parma, others, encouraged by the impunity
+they enjoyed, were ready on the slightest pretext to follow their
+example. Maurice did not lose a single opportunity of profiting by
+circumstances so favorable; and even after the return of Alexander
+he seized on Zutphen, Deventer, and Nimeguen, despite all the
+efforts of the Spanish army. The duke of Parma, daily breaking
+down under the progress of disease, and agitated by these reverses,
+repaired again to Spa, taking at once every possible means for
+the recruitment of his army and the recovery of his health, on
+which its discipline and the chances of success now so evidently
+depended.
+
+But all his plans were again frustrated by a renewal of Philip's
+peremptory orders to march once more into France, to uphold the
+failing cause of the League against the intrepidity and talent
+of Henry IV. At this juncture the emperor Rodolf again offered
+his mediation between Spain and the United Provinces. But it
+was not likely that the confederated States, at the very moment
+when their cause began to triumph, and their commerce was every
+day becoming more and more flourishing, would consent to make
+any compromise with the tyranny they were at length in a fair
+way of crushing.
+
+The duke of Parma again appeared in France in the beginning of
+the year 1592; and, having formed his communications with the
+army of the League, marched to the relief of the city of Rouen,
+at that period pressed to the last extremity by the Huguenot
+forces. After some sharp skirmishes--and one in particular, in
+which Henry IV. suffered his valor to lead him into a too rash
+exposure of his own and his army's safety--a series of manoeuvres
+took place, which displayed the talents of the rival generals in
+the most brilliant aspect. Alexander at length succeeded in raising
+the siege of Rouen, and made himself master of Condebec, which
+commanded the navigation of the Seine. Henry, taking advantage
+of what appeared an irreparable fault on the part of the duke,
+invested his army in the hazardous position he had chosen; but
+while believing that he had the whole of his enemies in his power,
+he found that Alexander had passed the Seine with his entire
+force--raising his military renown to the utmost possible height
+by a retreat which it was deemed utterly impossible to effect.
+
+On his return to the Netherlands, the duke found himself again
+under the necessity of repairing to Spa, in search of some relief
+from the suffering which was considerably increased by the effects
+of a wound received in this last campaign. In spite of his shattered
+constitution, he maintained to the latest moment the most active
+endeavors for the reorganization of his army; and he was preparing
+for a new expedition into France, when, fortunately for the good
+cause in both countries, he was surprised by death on the 3d
+of December, 1592, at the abbey of St. Vaast, near Arras, at
+the age of forty-seven years. As it was hard to imagine that
+Philip would suffer anyone who had excited his jealousy to die
+a natural death, that of the duke of Parma was attributed to
+slow poison.
+
+Alexander of Parma was certainly one of the most remarkable, and,
+it may be added, one of the greatest, characters of his day. Most
+historians have upheld him even higher perhaps than he should
+be placed on the scale; asserting that he can be reproached with
+very few of the vices of the age in which he lived. Others consider
+this judgment too favorable, and accuse him of participation
+in all the crimes of Philip, whom he served so zealously. His
+having excited the jealousy of the tyrant, or even had he been
+put to death by his orders, would little influence the question;
+for Philip was quite capable of ingratitude or murder, to either
+an accomplice or an opponent of his baseness. But even allowing
+that Alexander's fine qualities were sullied by his complicity
+in these odious measures, we must still in justice admit that
+they were too much in the spirit of the times, and particularly
+of the school in which he was trained; and while we lament that
+his political or private faults place him on so low a level, we
+must rank him as one of the very first masters in the art of
+war in his own or any other age.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP II.
+
+A.D. 1592--1599
+
+The duke of Parma had chosen the count of Mansfield for his
+successor, and the nomination was approved by the king. He entered
+on his government under most disheartening circumstances. The rapid
+conquests of Prince Maurice in Brabant and Flanders were scarcely
+less mortifying than the total disorganization into which those
+two provinces had fallen. They were ravaged by bands of robbers
+called Picaroons, whose audacity reached such a height that they
+opposed in large bodies the forces sent for their suppression
+by the government. They on one occasion killed the provost of
+Flanders, and burned his lieutenant in a hollow tree; and on
+another they mutilated a whole troop of the national militia,
+and their commander, with circumstances of most revolting cruelty.
+
+The authority of governor-general, though not the title, was now
+fully shared by the count of Fuentes, who was sent to Brussels by
+the king of Spain; and the ill effects of this double viceroyalty
+was soon seen, in the brilliant progress of Prince Maurice, and
+the continual reverses sustained by the royalist armies. The king,
+still bent on projects of bigotry, sacrificed without scruple men
+and treasure for the overthrow of Henry IV. and the success of
+the League. The affairs of the Netherlands seemed now a secondary
+object; and he drew largely on his forces in that country for
+reinforcements to the ranks of his tottering allies. A final
+blow was, however, struck against the hopes of intolerance in
+France, and to the existence of the League, by the conversion
+of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion; he deeming theological
+disputes, which put the happiness of a whole kingdom in jeopardy,
+as quite subordinate to the public good.
+
+Such was the prosperity of the United Provinces, that they had
+been enabled to send a large supply, both of money and men, to the
+aid of Henry, their constant and generous ally. And notwithstanding
+this, their armies and fleets, so far from suffering diminution,
+were augmented day by day. Philip, resolved to summon up all
+his energy for the revival of the war against the republic, now
+appointed the archduke Ernest, brother of the emperor Rodolf,
+to the post which the disunion of Mansfield and Fuentes rendered
+as embarrassing as it had become inglorious. This prince, of
+a gentle and conciliatory character, was received at Brussels
+with great magnificence and general joy; his presence reviving
+the deep-felt hopes of peace entertained by the suffering people.
+Such were also the cordial wishes of the prince; but more than
+one design, formed at this period against the life of Prince
+Maurice, frustrated every expectation of the kind. A priest of
+the province of Namur, named Michael Renichon, disguised as a
+soldier, was the new instrument meant to strike another blow
+at the greatness of the House of Nassau, in the person of its
+gallant representative, Prince Maurice; as also in that of his
+brother, Frederic Henry, then ten years of age. On the confession
+of the intended assassin, he was employed by Count Berlaimont to
+murder the two princes. Renichon happily mismanaged the affair,
+and betrayed his intention. He was arrested at Breda, conducted
+to The Hague, and there tried and executed on the 3d of June,
+1594. This miserable wretch accused the archduke Ernest of having
+countenanced his attempt; but nothing whatever tends to criminate,
+while every probability acquits, that prince of such a participation.
+
+In this same year a soldier named Peter Dufour embarked in a
+like atrocious plot. He, too, was seized and executed before
+he could carry it into effect; and to his dying hour persisted
+in accusing the archduke of being his instigator. But neither
+the judges who tried, nor the best historians who record, his
+intended crime, gave any belief to this accusation. The mild and
+honorable disposition of the prince held a sufficient guarantee
+against its likelihood; and it is not less pleasing to be able
+fully to join in the prevalent opinion, than to mark a spirit
+of candor and impartiality break forth through the mass of bad
+and violent passions which crowd the records of that age.
+
+But all the esteem inspired by the personal character of Ernest
+could not overcome the repugnance of the United Provinces to
+trust to the apparent sincerity of the tyrant in whose name he
+made his overtures for peace. They were all respectfully and
+firmly rejected; and Prince Maurice, in the meantime, with his
+usual activity, passed the Meuse and the Rhine, and invested
+and quickly took the town of Groningen, by which he consummated
+the establishment of the republic, and secured its rank among
+the principal powers of Europe.
+
+The archduke Ernest, finding all his efforts for peace frustrated,
+and all hopes of gaining his object by hostility to be vain, became
+a prey to disappointment and regret, and died, from the effects
+of a slow fever, on the 21st of February, 1595; leaving to the
+count of Fuentes the honors and anxieties of the government,
+subject to the ratification of the king. This nobleman began
+the exercise of his temporary functions by an irruption into
+France, at the head of a small army; war having been declared
+against Spain by Henry IV., who, on his side, had despatched the
+Admiral de Villars to attack Philip's possessions in Hainault
+and Artois. This gallant officer lost a battle and his life in
+the contest; and Fuentes, encouraged by the victory, took some
+frontier towns, and laid siege to Cambray, the great object of
+his plans. The citizens, who detested their governor, the marquis
+of Bologni, who had for some time assumed an independent tyranny
+over them, gave up the place to the besiegers; and the citadel
+surrendered some days later. After this exploit Fuentes returned
+to Brussels, where, notwithstanding his success, he was extremely
+unpopular. He had placed a part of his forces under the command
+of Mondragon, one of the oldest and cleverest officers in the
+service of Spain. Some trifling affairs took place in Brabant; but
+the arrival of the archduke Albert, whom the king had appointed
+to succeed his brother Ernest in the office of governor-general,
+deprived Fuentes of any further opportunity of signalizing his
+talents for supreme command. Albert arrived at Brussels on the
+11th of February, 1596, accompanied by the Prince of Orange, who,
+when count of Beuren, had been carried off from the university
+of Louvain, twenty-eight years previously, and held captive in
+Spain during the whole of that period.
+
+The archduke Albert, fifth son of the emperor Maximilian II., and
+brother of Rodolf, stood high in the opinion of Philip, his uncle,
+and merited his reputation for talents, bravery, and prudence. He
+had been early made archbishop of Toledo, and afterward cardinal;
+but his profession was not that of these nominal dignities. He was
+a warrior and politician of considerable capacity; and had for
+some years faithfully served the king, as viceroy of Portugal. But
+Philip meant him for the more independent situation of sovereign
+of the Netherlands, and at the same time destined him to be the
+husband of his daughter Isabella. He now sent him, in the capacity
+of governor-general, to prepare the way for the important change;
+at once to gain the good graces of the people, and soothe, by
+this removal from Philip's too close neighborhood, the jealousy
+of his son, the hereditary prince of Spain. Albert brought with
+him to Brussels a small reinforcement for the army, with a large
+supply of money, more wanting at this conjuncture than men. He
+highly praised the conduct of Fuentes in the operations just
+finished; and resolved to continue the war on the same plan, but
+with forces much superior.
+
+He opened his first campaign early; and, by a display of clever
+manoeuvring, which threatened an attempt to force the French to
+raise the siege of La Fere, in the heart of Picardy, he concealed
+his real design--the capture of Calais; and he succeeded in its
+completion almost before it was suspected. The Spanish and Walloon
+troops, led on by Rone, a distinguished officer, carried the
+first defences: after nine days of siege the place was forced to
+surrender; and in a few more the citadel followed the example.
+The archduke soon after took the towns of Ardres and Hulst; and by
+prudently avoiding a battle, to which he was constantly provoked by
+Henry IV., who commanded the French army in person, he established
+his character for military talent of no ordinary degree.
+
+He at the same time made overtures of reconciliation to the United
+Provinces, and hoped that the return of the Prince of Orange
+would be a means of effecting so desirable a purpose. But the
+Dutch were not to be deceived by the apparent sincerity of Spanish
+negotiation. They even doubted the sentiments of the Prince of
+Orange, whose attachments and principles bad been formed in so
+hated a school; and nothing passed between them and him but mutual
+civilities. They clearly evinced their disapprobation of his
+intended visit to Holland; and he consequently fixed his residence
+in Brussels, passing his life in an inglorious neutrality.
+
+A naval expedition formed in this year by the English and Dutch
+against Cadiz, commanded by the earl of Essex, and Counts Louis
+and William of Nassau, cousins of Prince Maurice, was crowned
+with brilliant success, and somewhat consoled the provinces for
+the contemporary exploits of the archduke. But the following
+year opened with an affair which at once proved his unceasing
+activity, and added largely to the reputation of his rival, Prince
+Maurice. The former had detached the count of Varas, with about
+six thousand men, for the purpose of invading the province of
+Holland; but Maurice, with equal energy and superior talent,
+followed big movements, came up with him near Turnhout, on the
+24th of January, 1597; and after a sharp action, of which the
+Dutch cavalry bore the whole brunt, Varas was killed, and his
+troops defeated with considerable loss.
+
+This action may be taken as a fair sample of the difficulty with
+which any estimate can be formed of the relative losses on such
+occasions. The Dutch historians state the loss of the royalists,
+in killed, at upward of two thousand. Meteren, a good authority,
+says the peasants buried two thousand two hundred and fifty;
+while Bentivoglio, an Italian writer in the interest of Spain,
+makes the number exactly half that amount. Grotius says that
+the loss of the Dutch was four men killed. Bentivoglio states
+it at one hundred. But, at either computation, it is clear that
+the affair was a brilliant one on the part of Prince Maurice.
+
+This was in its consequences a most disastrous affair to the
+archduke. His army was disorganized, and his finances exhausted;
+while the confidence of the states in their troops and their
+general was considerably raised. But the taking of Amiens by
+Portocarrero, one of the most enterprising of the Spanish captains,
+gave a new turn to the failing fortunes of Albert. This gallant
+officer, whose greatness of mind, according to some historians,
+was much disproportioned to the smallness of his person, gained
+possession of that important town by a well-conducted stratagem,
+and maintained his conquest valiantly till he was killed in its
+defence. Henry IV. made prodigious efforts to recover the place,
+the chief bulwark on that side of France; and having forced
+Montenegro, the worthy successor of Portocarrero, to capitulate,
+granted him and his garrison most honorable conditions. Henry,
+having secured Amiens against any new attack, returned to Paris
+and made a triumphal entry into the city.
+
+During this year Prince Maurice took a number of towns in rapid
+succession; and the states, according to their custom, caused
+various medals, in gold, silver, and copper, to be struck, to
+commemorate the victories which had signalized their arms.
+
+Philip II., feeling himself approaching the termination of his
+long and agitating career, now wholly occupied himself in
+negotiations for peace with France. Henry IV. desired it as
+anxiously. The pope, Clement VIII., encouraged by his exhortations
+this mutual inclination. The king of Poland sent ambassadors to
+The Hague and to London, to induce the states and Queen Elizabeth
+to become parties in a general pacification. These overtures
+led to no conclusion; but the conferences between France and
+Spain went on with apparent cordiality and great promptitude,
+and a peace was concluded between these powers at Vervins, on
+the 2d of May, 1598.
+
+Shortly after the publication of this treaty, another important
+act was made known to the world, by which Philip ceded to Albert
+and Isabella, on their being formally affianced--a ceremony which
+now took place--the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Netherlands.
+This act bears date the 6th of May, and was proclaimed with all
+the solemnity due to so important a transaction. It contained
+thirteen articles; and was based on the misfortunes which the
+absence of the sovereign had hitherto caused to the Low Countries.
+The Catholic religion was declared that of the state, in its full
+integrity. The provinces were guaranteed against dismemberment.
+The archdukes, by which title the joint sovereigns were designated
+without any distinction of sex, were secured in the possession,
+with right of succession to their children; and a provision was
+added, that in default of posterity their possessions should
+revert to the Spanish crown. The infanta Isabella soon sent her
+procuration to the archduke, her affianced husband, giving him
+full power and authority to take possession of the ceded dominions
+in her name as in his own; and Albert was inaugurated with great
+pomp at Brussels, on the 22d of August. Having put everything in
+order for the regulation of the government during his absence, he
+set out for Spain for the purpose of accomplishing his spousals,
+and bringing back his bride to the chief seat of their joint power.
+But before his departure he wrote to the various states of the
+republic, and to Prince Maurice himself, strongly recommending
+submission and reconciliation. These letters received no answer;
+a new plot against the life of Prince Maurice, by a wretched
+individual named Peter Pann, having aroused the indignation of
+the country, and determined it to treat with suspicion and contempt
+every insidious proposition from the tyranny it defied.
+
+Albert placed his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of Austria, at the
+head of the temporary government, and set out on his journey;
+taking the little town of Halle in his route, and placing at
+the altar of the Virgin, who is there held in particular honor,
+his cardinal's hat as a token of his veneration. He had not made
+much progress when he received accounts of the demise of Philip
+II., who died, after long suffering, and with great resignation,
+on the 13th of September, 1598, at the age of seventy-two. Albert
+was several months on his journey through Germany; and the
+ceremonials of his union with the infanta did not take place
+till the 18th of April, 1599, when it was finally solemnized in
+the city of Valencia in Spain.
+
+This transaction, by which the Netherlands were positively erected
+into a separate sovereignty, seems naturally to make the limits
+of another epoch in their history. It completely decided the
+division between the northern and southern provinces, which,
+although it had virtually taken place long previous to this period,
+could scarcely be considered as formally consummated until now.
+Here then we shall pause anew, and take a rapid review of the
+social state of the Netherlands during the last half century,
+which was beyond all doubt the most important period of their
+history, from the earliest times till the present.
+
+It has been seen that when Charles V. resigned his throne and
+the possession of his vast dominions to his son, arts, commerce,
+and manufactures had risen to a state of considerable perfection
+throughout the Netherlands. The revolution, of which we have traced
+the rise and progress, naturally produced to those provinces
+which relapsed into slavery a most lamentable change in every
+branch of industry, and struck a blow at the general prosperity,
+the effects of which are felt to this very day. Arts, science,
+and literature were sure to be checked and withered in the blaze
+of civil war; and we have now to mark the retrograde movements
+of most of those charms and advantages of civilized life, in
+which Flanders and the other southern states were so rich.
+
+The rapid spread of enlightenment on religious subjects soon
+converted the manufactories and workshops of Flanders into so
+many conventicles of reform; and the clear-sighted artisans fled
+in thousands from the tyranny of Alva into England, Germany, and
+Holland--those happier countries, where the government adopted and
+went hand in hand with the progress of rational belief. Commerce
+followed the fate of manufactures. The foreign merchants one
+by one abandoned the theatre of bigotry and persecution; and
+even Antwerp, which had succeeded Bruges as the great mart of
+European traffic, was ruined by the horrible excesses of the
+Spanish soldiery, and never recovered from the shock. Its trade,
+its wealth, and its prosperity, were gradually transferred to
+Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the towns of Holland and Zealand; and
+the growth of Dutch commerce attained its proud maturity in the
+establishment of the India Company in 1596, the effects of which
+we shall have hereafter more particularly to dwell on.
+
+The exciting and romantic enterprises of the Portuguese and Spanish
+navigators in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries roused all
+the ardor of other nations for those distant adventures; and the
+people of the Netherlands were early influenced by the general
+spirit of Europe. If they were not the discoverers of new worlds,
+they were certainly the first to make the name of European respected
+and venerated by the natives.
+
+Animated by the ardor which springs from the spirit of freedom
+and the enthusiasm of success, the United Provinces labored for
+the discovery of new outlets for their commerce and navigation.
+The government encouraged the speculations of individuals, which
+promised fresh and fertile sources of revenue, so necessary for
+the maintenance of the war. Until the year 1581 the merchants of
+Holland and Zealand were satisfied to find the productions of
+India at Lisbon, which was the mart of that branch of trade ever
+since the Portuguese discovered the passage by the Cape of Good
+Hope. But Philip II., having conquered Portugal, excluded the United
+Provinces from the ports of that country; and their enterprising
+mariners were from that period driven to those efforts which
+rapidly led to private fortune and general prosperity. The English
+had opened the way in this career; and the states-general having
+offered a large reward for the discovery of a northwest passage,
+frequent and most adventurous voyages took place. Houtman, Le
+Maire, Heemskirk, Ryp, and others, became celebrated for their
+enterprise, and some for their perilous and interesting adventures.
+
+The United Provinces were soon without any rival on the seas.
+In Europe alone they had one thousand two hundred merchant ships
+in activity, and upward of seventy thousand sailors constantly
+employed. They built annually two thousand vessels. In the year
+1598, eighty ships sailed from their ports for the Indies or
+America. They carried on, besides, an extensive trade on the coast
+of Guinea, whence they brought large quantities of gold-dust;
+and found, in short, in all quarters of the globe the reward of
+their skill, industry, and courage.
+
+The spirit of conquest soon became grafted on the habits of trade.
+Expedition succeeded to expedition. Failure taught wisdom to
+those who did not want bravery. The random efforts of individuals
+were succeeded by organized plans, under associations well
+constituted and wealthy; and these soon gave birth to those eastern
+and western companies before alluded to. The disputes between
+the English and the Hanseatic towns were carefully observed by
+the Dutch, and turned to their own advantage. The English
+manufacturers, who quickly began to flourish, from the influx
+of Flemish workmen under the encouragement of Elizabeth, formed
+companies in the Netherlands, and sent their cloths into those
+very towns of Germany which formerly possessed the exclusive
+privilege of their manufacture. These towns naturally felt
+dissatisfied, and their complaints were encouraged by the king
+of Spain. The English adventurers received orders to quit the
+empire; and, invited by the states-general, many of them fixed
+their residence in Middleburg, which became the most celebrated
+woollen market in Europe.
+
+The establishment of the Jews in the towns of the republic forms
+a remarkable epoch in the annals of trade. This people, so outraged
+by the loathsome bigotry which Christians have not blushed to
+call religion, so far from being depressed by the general
+persecution, seemed to find it a fresh stimulus to the exertion
+of their industry. To escape death in Spain and Portugal they
+took refuge in Holland, where toleration encouraged and just
+principles of state maintained them. They were at first taken
+for Catholics, and subjected to suspicion; but when their real
+faith was understood they were no longer molested.
+
+Astronomy and geography, two sciences so closely allied with and
+so essential to navigation, flourished now throughout Europe.
+Ortilius of Antwerp, and Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde, were two
+of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century; and the
+reform in the calendar at the end of that period gave stability
+to the calculations of time, which had previously suffered all
+the inconvenient fluctuations attendant on the old style.
+
+Literature had assumed during the revolution in the Netherlands
+the almost exclusive and repulsive aspect of controversial learning.
+The university of Douay, installed in 1562 as a new screen against
+the piercing light of reform, quickly became the stronghold of
+intolerance. That of Leyden, established by the efforts of the
+Prince of Orange, soon after the famous siege of that town in
+1574, was on a less exclusive plan--its professors being in the
+first instance drawn from Germany. Many Flemish historians succeeded
+in this century to the ancient and uncultivated chroniclers of
+preceding times; the civil wars drawing forth many writers, who
+recorded what they witnessed, but often in a spirit of partisanship
+and want of candor, which seriously embarrasses him who desires
+to learn the truth on both sides of an important question. Poetry
+declined and drooped in the times of tumult and suffering; and the
+chambers of rhetoric, to which its cultivation had been chiefly
+due, gradually lost their influence, and finally ceased to exist.
+
+In fixing our attention on the republic of the United Provinces
+during the epoch now completed, we feel the desire, and lament the
+impossibility, of entering on the details of government in that most
+remarkable state. For these we must refer to what appears to us the
+best authority for clear and ample information on the prerogative
+of the stadtholder, the constitution of the states-general, the
+privileges of the tribunals and local assemblies, and other points
+of moment concerning the principles of the Belgic confederation.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: See Cerisier, Hist. Gen. des Prov. Unies.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA
+
+A.D. 1599--1604
+
+Previous to his departure for Spain, the archduke Albert had
+placed the government of the provinces which acknowledged his
+domination in the hands of his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of
+Austria, leaving in command of the army Francisco Mendoza, admiral
+of Aragon. The troops at his disposal amounted to twenty-two
+thousand fighting men--a formidable force, and enough to justify
+the serious apprehensions of the republic. Albert, whose finances
+were exhausted by payments made to the numerous Spanish and Italian
+mutineers, had left orders with Mendoza to secure some place on
+the Rhine, which might open a passage for free quarters in the
+enemy's country. But this unprincipled officer forced his way
+into the neutral districts of Cleves and Westphalia; and with a
+body of executioners ready to hang up all who might resist, and
+of priests to prepare them for death, he carried such terror on
+his march that no opposition was ventured. The atrocious cruelties
+of Mendoza and his troops baffle all description: on one occasion
+they murdered, in cold blood, the count of Walkenstein, who
+surrendered his castle on the express condition of his freedom;
+and they committed every possible excess that may be imagined
+of ferocious soldiery encouraged by a base commander.
+
+Prince Maurice soon put into motion, to oppose this army of brigands,
+his small disposable force of about seven thousand men. With these,
+however, and a succession of masterly manoeuvres, he contrived to
+preserve the republic from invasion, and to paralyze and almost
+destroy an army three times superior in numbers to his own. The
+horrors committed by the Spaniards, in the midst of peace, and
+without the slightest provocation, could not fail to excite the
+utmost indignation in a nation so fond of liberty and so proud
+as Germany. The duchy of Cleves felt particularly aggrieved; and
+Sybilla, the sister of the duke, a real heroine in a glorious
+cause, so worked on the excited passions of the people by her
+eloquence and her tears that she persuaded all the orders of
+the state to unite against the odious enemy. Some troops were
+suddenly raised; and a league was formed between several princes
+of the empire to revenge the common cause. The count de la Lippe
+was chosen general of their united forces; and the choice could
+not have fallen on one more certainly incapable or more probably
+treacherous.
+
+The German army, with their usual want of activity, did not open
+the campaign till the month of June. It consisted of fourteen
+thousand men; and never was an army so badly conducted. Without
+money, artillery, provisions, or discipline, it was at any moment
+ready to break up and abandon its incompetent general; and on
+the very first encounter with the enemy, and after a loss of
+a couple of hundred men, it became self-disbanded; and, flying
+in every direction, not a single man could be rallied to clear
+away this disgrace.
+
+The states-general, cruelly disappointed at this result of measures
+from which they had looked for so important a diversion in their
+favor, now resolved on a vigorous exertion of their own energies,
+and determined to undertake a naval expedition of a magnitude
+greater than any they had hitherto attempted. The force of public
+opinion was at this period more powerful than it had ever yet been
+in the United Provinces; for a great number of the inhabitants,
+who, during the life of Philip II., conscientiously believed that
+they could not lawfully abjure the authority once recognized and
+sworn to, became now liberated from those respectable, although
+absurd, scruples; and the death of one unfeeling despot gave
+thousands of new citizens to the state.
+
+A fleet of seventy-three vessels, carrying eight thousand men,
+was soon equipped, under the order of Admiral Vander Goes; and,
+after a series of attempts on the coasts of Spain, Portugal,
+Africa, and the Canary Isles, this expedition, from which the
+most splendid results were expected, was shattered, dispersed,
+and reduced to nothing by a succession of unheard-of mishaps.
+
+To these disappointments were now added domestic dissensions in
+the republic, in consequence of the new taxes absolutely necessary
+for the exigencies of the state. The conduct of Queen Elizabeth
+greatly added to the general embarrassment: she called for the
+payment of her former loans; insisted on the recall of the English
+troops, and declared her resolution to make peace with Spain.
+Several German princes promised aid in men and money, but never
+furnished either; and in this most critical juncture, Henry IV.
+was the only foreign sovereign who did not abandon the republic.
+He sent them one thousand Swiss troops, whom he had in his pay;
+allowed them to levy three thousand more in France; and gave
+them a loan of two hundred thousand crowns--a very convenient
+supply in their exhausted state.
+
+The archdukes Albert and Isabella arrived in the Netherlands in
+September, and made their entrance into Brussels with unexampled
+magnificence. They soon found themselves in a situation quite as
+critical as was that of the United Provinces, and both parties
+displayed immense energy to remedy their mutual embarrassments.
+The winter was extremely rigorous; so much so as to allow of
+military operations being undertaken on the ice. Prince Maurice soon
+commenced a Christmas campaign by taking the town of Wachtendenck;
+and he followed up his success by obtaining possession of the
+important forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, in the island of
+Bommel. A most dangerous mutiny at the same time broke out in
+the army of the archdukes; and Albert seemed left without troops
+or money at the very beginning of his sovereignty.
+
+But these successes of Prince Maurice were only the prelude to
+an expedition of infinitely more moment, arranged with the utmost
+secrecy, and executed with an energy scarcely to be looked for from
+the situation of the states. This was nothing less than an invasion
+poured into the very heart of Flanders, thus putting the archdukes
+on the defence of their own most vital possessions, and changing
+completely the whole character of the war. The whole disposable
+troops of the republic, amounting to about seventeen thousand
+men, were secretly assembled in the island of Walcheren, in the
+month of June; and setting sail for Flanders, they disembarked
+near Ghent, and arrived on the 20th of that month under the walls
+of Bruges. Some previous negotiations with that town had led
+the prince to expect that it would have opened its gates at his
+approach. In this he was, however, disappointed; and after taking
+possession of some forts in the neighborhood, he continued his
+march to Nieuport, which place he invested on the 1st of July.
+
+At the news of this invasion the archdukes, though taken by surprise,
+displayed a promptness and decision that proved them worthy of
+the sovereignty which seemed at stake. With incredible activity
+they mustered, in a few days, an army of twelve thousand men,
+which they passed in review near Ghent. On this occasion Isabella,
+proving her title to a place among those heroic women with whom
+the age abounded, rode through the royalist ranks, and harangued
+them in a style of inspiring eloquence that inflamed their courage
+and secured their fidelity. Albert, seizing the moment of this
+excitement, put himself at their head, and marched to seek the
+enemy, leaving his intrepid wife at Bruges, the nearest town to
+the scene of the action he was resolved on. He gained possession
+of all the forts taken and garrisoned by Maurice a few days before;
+and pushing forward with his apparently irresistible troops, he
+came up on the morning of the 2d of July with a large body of
+those of the states, consisting of about three thousand men, sent
+forward under the command of Count Ernest of Nassau to reconnoitre
+and judge of the extent of this most unexpected movement: for
+Prince Maurice was, in his turn, completely surprised; and not
+merely by one of those manoeuvres of war by which the best generals
+are sometimes deceived, but by an exertion of political vigor and
+capacity of which history offers few more striking examples. Such
+a circumstance, however, served only to draw forth a fresh display
+of those uncommon talents which in so many various accidents of
+war had placed Maurice on the highest rank for military talent.
+The detachment under Count Ernest of Nassau was chiefly composed
+of Scottish infantry; and this small force stood firmly opposed
+to the impetuous attack of the whole royalist army--thus giving
+time to the main body under the prince to take up a position, and
+form in order of battle. Count Ernest was at length driven back,
+with the loss of eight hundred men killed, almost all Scottish;
+and being cut off from the rest of the army, was forced to take
+refuge in Ostend, which town was in possession of the troops
+of the states.
+
+The army of Albert now marched on, flushed with this first success
+and confident of final victory. Prince Maurice received them
+with the courage of a gallant soldier and the precaution of a
+consummate general. He had caused the fleet of ships of war and
+transports, which had sailed along the coast from Zealand, and
+landed supplies of ammunition and provisions, to retire far from
+the share, so as to leave to his army no chance of escape but in
+victory. The commissioners from the states, who always accompanied
+the prince as a council of observation rather than of war, had
+retired to Ostend in great consternation, to wait the issue of
+the battle which now seemed inevitable. A scene of deep feeling
+and heroism was the next episode of this memorable day, and throws
+the charm of natural affection over those circumstances in which
+glory too seldom leaves a place for the softer emotions of the
+heart. When the patriot army was in its position, and firmly
+waiting the advance of the foe, Prince Maurice turned to his
+brother, Frederick Henry, then sixteen years of age, and several
+young noblemen, English, French, and German, who like him attended
+on the great captain to learn the art of war: he pointed out
+in a few words the perilous situation in which he was placed;
+declared his resolution to conquer or perish on the battlefield,
+and recommended the boyish band to retire to Ostend, and wait
+for some less desperate occasion to share his renown or revenge
+his fall. Frederick Henry spurned the affectionate suggestion,
+and swore to stand by his brother to the last; and all his young
+companions adopted the same generous resolution.
+
+The army of the states was placed in order of battle, about a
+league in front of Nieuport, in the sand hills with which the
+neighborhood abounds, its left wing resting on the seashore. Its
+losses of the morning, and of the garrisons left in the forts
+near Bruges, reduced it to an almost exact equality with that of
+the archduke. Each of these armies was composed of that variety
+of troops which made them respectively an epitome of the various
+nations of Europe. The patriot force contained Dutch, English,
+French, German, and Swiss, under the orders of Count Louis of
+Nassau, Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere, brothers and English
+officers of great celebrity, with other distinguished captains.
+The archduke mustered Spaniards, Italians, Walloons, and Irish in
+his ranks, led on by Mendoza, La Berlotta, and their fellow-veterans.
+Both armies were in the highest state of discipline, trained to
+war by long service, and enthusiastic in the several causes which
+they served; the two highest principles of enthusiasm urging them
+on--religious fanaticism on the one hand, and the love of freedom
+on the other. The rival generals rode along their respective
+lines, addressed a few brief sentences of encouragement to their
+men, and presently the bloody contest began.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the archduke commenced
+the attack. His advanced guard, commanded by Mendoza and composed
+of those former mutineers who now resolved to atone for their
+misconduct, marched across the sand-hills with desperate resolution.
+They soon came into contact with the English contingent under Francis
+Vere, who was desperately wounded in the shock. The assault was
+almost irresistible. The English, borne down by numbers, were
+forced to give way; but the main body pressed on to their support.
+Horace Vere stepped forward to supply his brother's place. Not
+an inch of ground more was gained or lost; the firing ceased,
+and pikes and swords crossed each other in the resolute conflict
+of man to man. The action became general along the whole line.
+The two commanders-in-chief were at all points. Nothing could
+exceed their mutual display of skill and courage. At length the
+Spanish cavalry, broken by the well-directed fire of the patriot
+artillery, fell back on their infantry and threw it into confusion.
+The archduke at the same instant was wounded by a lance in the
+cheek, unhorsed, and forced to quit the field. The report of
+his death, and the sight of his war-steed galloping alone across
+the field, spread alarm through the royalist ranks. Prince Maurice
+saw and seized on the critical moment. He who had so patiently
+maintained his position for three hours of desperate conflict
+now knew the crisis for a prompt and general advance. He gave
+the word and led on to the charge, and the victory was at once
+his own.
+
+The defeat of the royalist army was complete. The whole of the
+artillery, baggage, standards, and ammunition, fell into the
+possession of the conquerors. Night coming on saved those who
+fled, and the nature of the ground prevented the cavalry from
+consummating the destruction of the whole. As far as the conflicting
+accounts of the various historians may be compared and calculated
+on, the royalists had three thousand killed, and among them several
+officers of rank; while the patriot army, including those who fell
+in the morning action, lost something more than half the number.
+The archduke, furnished with a fresh horse, gained Bruges in safety;
+but he only waited there long enough to join his heroic wife,
+with whom he proceeded rapidly to Ghent, and thence to Brussels.
+Mendoza was wounded and taken prisoner, and with difficulty saved
+by Prince Maurice from the fury of the German auxiliaries.
+
+The moral effect produced by this victory on the vanquishers
+and vanquished, and on the state of public opinion throughout
+Europe, was immense; but its immediate consequences were incredibly
+trifling. Not one result in a military point of view followed
+an event which appeared almost decisive of the war. Nieuport
+was again invested three days after the battle; but a strong
+reinforcement entering the place saved it from all danger, and
+Maurice found himself forced for want of supplies to abandon the
+scene of his greatest exploit. He returned to Holland, welcomed
+by the acclamations of his grateful country, and exciting the
+jealousy and hatred of all who envied his glory or feared his
+power. Among the sincere and conscientious republicans who saw
+danger to the public liberty in the growing influence of a successful
+soldier, placed at the head of affairs and endeared to the people
+by every hereditary and personal claim, was Olden Barneveldt,
+the pensionary; and from this period may be traced the growth
+of the mutual antipathy which led to the sacrifice of the most
+virtuous statesman of Holland, and the eternal disgrace of its
+hitherto heroic chief.
+
+The states of the Catholic provinces assembled at Brussels now
+gave the archdukes to understand that nothing but peace could
+satisfy their wishes or save the country from exhaustion and
+ruin. Albert saw the reasonableness of their remonstrances, and
+attempted to carry the great object into effect. The states-general
+listened to his proposals. Commissioners were appointed on both
+sides to treat of terms. They met at Berg-op-Zoom; but their
+conferences were broken up almost as soon as commenced. The Spanish
+deputies insisted on the submission of the republic to its ancient
+masters. Such a proposal was worse than insulting; it proved the
+inveterate insincerity of those with whom it originated, and
+who knew it could not be entertained for a moment. Preparations
+for hostilities were therefore commenced on both sides, and the
+whole of the winter was thus employed.
+
+Early in the spring Prince Maurice opened the campaign at the
+head of sixteen thousand men, chiefly composed of English and
+French, who seemed throughout the contest to forget their national
+animosities, and to know no rivalry but that of emulation in the
+cause of liberty. The town of Rhinberg soon fell into the hands
+of the prince. His next attempt was against Bois-le-duc; and the
+siege of this place was signalized by an event that flavored of the
+chivalric contests now going out of fashion. A Norman gentleman of
+the name of Breaute, in the service of Prince Maurice, challenged
+the royalist garrison to meet him and twenty of his comrades
+in arms under the walls of the place. The cartel was accepted
+by a Fleming named Abramzoom, but better known by the epithet
+Leckerbeetje (savory bit), who, with twenty more, met Breaute
+and his friends. The combat was desperate. The Flemish champion
+was killed at the first shock by his Norman challenger; but the
+latter falling into the hands of the enemy, they treacherously
+and cruelly put him to death, in violation of the strict conditions
+of the fight. Prince Maurice was forced to raise the siege of
+Bois-le-duc, and turn his attention in another direction.
+
+The archduke Albert had now resolved to invest Ostend, a place
+of great importance to the United Provinces, but little worth to
+either party in comparison with the dreadful waste of treasure
+and human life which was the consequence of its memorable siege.
+Sir Francis Vere commanded in the place at the period of its final
+investment; but governors, garrisons, and besieging forces, were
+renewed and replaced with a rapidity which gives one of the most
+frightful instances of the ravages of war. The siege of Ostend lasted
+upward of three years. It became a school for the young nobility
+of all Europe, who repaired to either one or the other party to
+learn the principles and the practice of attack and defence.
+Everything that the art of strategy could devise was resorted to on
+either side. The slaughter in the various assaults, sorties, and
+bombardments was enormous. Squadrons at sea gave a double interest
+to the land operations; and the celebrated brothers Frederick
+and Ambrose Spinola founded their reputation on these opposing
+elements. Frederick was killed in one of the naval combats with
+the Dutch galleys, and the fame of reducing Ostend was reserved
+for Ambrose. This afterward celebrated general had undertaken
+the command at the earnest entreaties of the archduke and the
+king of Spain, and by the firmness and vigor of his measures
+he revived the courage of the worn-out assailants of the place.
+Redoubled attacks and multiplied mines at length reduced the town
+to a mere mass of ruin, and scarcely left its still undaunted
+garrison sufficient footing on which to prolong their desperate
+defence. Ostend at length surrendered, on the 22d of September,
+1604, and the victors marched in over its crumbled walls and
+shattered batteries. Scarcely a vestige of the place remained
+beyond those terrible evidences of destruction. Its ditches,
+filled up with the rubbish of ramparts, bastions, and redoubts,
+left no distinct line of separation between the operations of
+its attack and its defence. It resembled rather a vast sepulchre
+than a ruined town, a mountain of earth and rubbish, without a
+single house in which the wretched remnant of the inhabitants
+could hide their heads--a monument of desolation on which victory
+might have sat and wept.
+
+During the progress of this memorable siege Queen Elizabeth of
+England had died, after a long and, it must be pronounced, a
+glorious reign; though the glory belongs rather to the nation
+than to the monarch, whose memory is marked with indelible stains
+of private cruelty, as in the cases of Essex and Mary Queen of
+Scots, and of public wrongs, as in that of her whole system of
+tyranny in Ireland. With respect to the United Provinces she was
+a harsh protectress and a capricious ally. She in turns advised
+them to remain faithful to the old impurities of religion and to
+their intolerable king; refused to incorporate them with her
+own states; and then used her best efforts for subjecting them to
+her sway. She seemed to take pleasure in the uncertainty to which
+she reduced them, by constant demands for payment of her loans,
+and threats of making peace with Spain. Thus the states-general
+were not much affected by the news of her death; and so rejoiced
+were they at the accession of James I. to the throne of England
+that all the bells of Holland rang out merry peals; bonfires
+were set blazing all over the country; a letter of congratulation
+was despatched to the new monarch; and it was speedily followed
+by a solemn embassy composed of Prince Frederick Henry, the grand
+pensionary De Barneveldt, and others of the first dignitaries of
+the republic. These ambassadors were grievously disappointed at
+the reception given to them by James, who treated them as little
+better than rebels to their lawful king. But this first disposition
+to contempt and insult was soon overcome by the united talents
+of Barneveldt and the great duke of Sully, who were at the same
+period ambassadors from France at the English court. The result
+of the negotiations was an agreement between those two powers to
+take the republic under their protection, and use their best
+efforts for obtaining the recognition of its independence by
+Spain.
+
+The states-general considered themselves amply recompensed for
+the loss of Ostend by the taking of Ecluse, Rhinberg, and Grave,
+all of which had in the interval surrendered to Prince Maurice;
+but they were seriously alarmed on finding themselves abandoned
+by King James, who concluded a separate peace with Philip III.
+of Spain in the month of August this year.
+
+This event gives rise to a question very important to the honor
+of James, and consequently to England itself, as the acts of
+the absolute monarchs of those days must be considered as those
+of the nations which submitted to such a form of government.
+Historians of great authority have asserted that it appeared
+that, by a secret agreement, the king had expressly reserved the
+power of sending assistance to Holland. Others deny the existence
+of this secret article; and lean heavily on the reputation of
+James for his conduct in the transaction. It must be considered
+a very doubtful point, and is to be judged rather by subsequent
+events than by any direct testimony.
+
+The two monarchs stipulated in the treaty that "neither was to
+give support of any kind to the revolted subjects of the other."
+It is nevertheless true that James did not withdraw his troops
+from the service of the states; but he authorized the Spaniards
+to levy soldiers in England. The United Provinces were at once
+afflicted and indignant at this equivocal conduct. Their first
+impulse was to deprive the English of the liberty of navigating
+the Scheldt. They even arrested the progress of several of their
+merchant-ships. But soon after, gratified at finding that James
+received their deputy with the title of ambassador, they resolved
+to dissimulate their resentment.
+
+Prince Maurice and Spinola now took the field with their respective
+armies; and a rapid series of operations placing them in direct
+contact, displayed their talents in the most striking points
+of view. The first steps on the part of the prince were a new
+invasion of Flanders, and an attempt on Antwerp, which he hoped
+to carry before the Spanish army could arrive to its succor.
+But the promptitude and sagacity of Spinola defeated this plan,
+which Maurice was obliged to abandon after some loss; while the
+royalist general resolved to signalize himself by some important
+movement, and, ere his design was suspected, he had penetrated
+into the province of Overyssel, and thus retorted his rival's
+favorite measure of carrying the war into the enemy's country.
+Several towns were rapidly reduced; but Maurice flew toward the
+threatened provinces, and by his active measures forced Spinola
+to fall back on the Rhine and take up a position near Roeroord,
+where he was impetuously attacked by the Dutch army. But the
+cavalry having followed up too slowly the orders of Maurice,
+his hope of surprising the royalists was frustrated; and the
+Spanish forces, gaining time by this hesitation, soon changed
+the fortune of the day. The Dutch cavalry shamefully took to
+flight, despite the gallant endeavors of both Maurice and his
+brother Frederick Henry; and at this juncture a large reinforcement
+of Spaniards arrived under the command of Velasco. Maurice now
+brought forward some companies of English and French infantry
+under Horatio Vere and D'Omerville, also a distinguished officer.
+The battle was again fiercely renewed; and the Spaniards now
+gave way, and had been completely defeated, had not Spinola put
+in practice an old and generally successful stratagem. He caused
+almost all the drums of his army to beat in one direction, so
+as to give the impression that a still larger reinforcement was
+approaching. Maurice, apprehensive that the former panic might
+find a parallel in a fresh one, prudently ordered a retreat, which
+he was able to effect in good order, in preference to risking the
+total disorganization of his troops. The loss on each side was
+nearly the same; but the glory of this hard-fought day remained
+on the side of Spinola, who proved himself a worthy successor of
+the great duke of Parma, and an antagonist with whom Maurice
+might contend without dishonor.
+
+The naval transactions of this year restored the balance which
+Spinola's successes had begun to turn in favor of the royalist
+cause. A squadron of ships, commanded by Hautain, admiral of
+Zealand, attacked a superior force of Spanish vessels close to
+Dover, and defeated them with considerable loss. But the victory
+was sullied by an act of great barbarity. All the soldiers found
+on board the captured ships were tied two and two and mercilessly
+flung into the sea. Some contrived to extricate themselves, and
+gained the shore by swimming; others were picked up by the English
+boats, whose crews witnessed the scene and hastened to their
+relief. The generous British seamen could not remain neuter in
+such a moment, nor repress their indignation against those whom
+they had hitherto so long considered as friends. The Dutch vessels
+pursuing those of Spain which fled into Dover harbor, were fired
+on by the cannon of the castle and forced to give up the chase.
+The English loudly complained that the Dutch had on this occasion
+violated their territory; and this transaction laid the foundation
+of the quarrel which subsequently broke out between England and
+the republic, and which the jealousies of rival merchants in
+either state unceasingly fomented. In this year also the Dutch
+succeeded in capturing the chief of the Dunkirk privateers, which
+had so long annoyed their trade; and they cruelly ordered sixty
+of the prisoners to be put to death. But the people, more humane
+than the authorities, rescued them from the executioners and
+set them free.
+
+But these domestic instances of success and inhumanity were trifling
+in comparison with the splendid train of distant events, accompanied
+by a course of wholesale benevolence, that redeemed the traits
+of petty guilt. The maritime enterprises of Holland, forced by
+the imprudent policy of Spain to seek a wider career than in the
+narrow seas of Europe, were day by day extended in the Indies.
+To ruin if possible their increasing trade, Philip III. sent
+out the admiral Hurtado, with a fleet of eight galleons and
+thirty-two galleys. The Dutch squadron of five vessels, commanded
+by Wolfert Hermanszoon, attacked them off the coast of Malabar,
+and his temerity was crowned with great success. He took two
+of their vessels, and completely drove the remainder from the
+Indian seas. He then concluded a treaty with the natives of the
+isle of Banda, by which he promised to support them against the
+Spaniards and Portuguese, on condition that they were to give his
+fellow-countrymen the exclusive privilege of purchasing the spices
+of the island. This treaty was the foundation of the influence
+which the Dutch so soon succeeded in forming in the East Indies;
+and they established it by a candid, mild, and tolerant conduct,
+strongly contrasted with the pride and bigotry which had signalized
+every act of the Portuguese and Spaniards.
+
+The prodigious success of the Indian trade occasioned numerous
+societies to be formed all through the republic. But by their
+great number they became at length injurious to each other. The
+spirit of speculation was pushed too far; and the merchants, who
+paid enormous prices for India goods, found themselves forced
+to sell in Europe at a loss. Many of those societies were too
+weak, in military force as well as in capital, to resist the
+armed competition of the Spaniards, and to support themselves
+in their disputes with the native princes. At length the
+states-general resolved to unite the whole of these scattered
+partnerships into one grand company, which was soon organized
+on a solid basis that led ere long to incredible wealth at home
+and a rapid succession of conquests in the East.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+TO THE SYNOD AT DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT
+
+A.D. 1606--1619
+
+The states-general now resolved to confine their military operations
+to a war merely defensive. Spinola had, by his conduct during the
+late campaign, completely revived the spirits of the Spanish
+troops, and excited at least the caution of the Dutch. He now
+threatened the United Provinces with invasion; and he exerted his
+utmost efforts to raise the supplies necessary for the execution
+of his plan. He not only exhausted the resources of the king
+of Spain and the archduke, but obtained money on his private
+account from all those usurers who were tempted by his confident
+anticipations of conquest. He soon equipped two armies of about
+twelve thousand men each. At the head of one of those he took
+the field; the other, commanded by the count of Bucquoi, was
+destined to join him in the neighborhood of Utrecht; and he was
+then resolved to push forward with the whole united force into
+the very heart of the republic.
+
+Prince Maurice in the meantime concentrated his army, amounting
+to twelve thousand men, and prepared to make head against his
+formidable opponents. By a succession of the most prudent manoeuvres
+he contrived to keep Spinola in check, disconcerted all his projects,
+and forced him to content himself with the capture of two or
+three towns--a comparatively insignificant conquest. Desiring
+to wipe away the disgrace of this discomfiture, and to risk
+everything for the accomplishment of his grand design, Spinola
+used every method to provoke the prince to a battle, even though a
+serious mutiny among his troops, and the impossibility of forming a
+junction with Bucquoi, had reduced his force below that of Maurice;
+but the latter, to the surprise of all who expected a decisive
+blow, retreated from before the Italian general--abandoning the
+town of Groll, which immediately fell into Spinola's power, and
+giving rise to manifold conjectures and infinite discontent at
+conduct so little in unison with his wonted enterprise and skill.
+Even Henry IV. acknowledged it did not answer the expectation he
+had formed from Maurice's splendid talents for war. The fact
+seems to be that the prince, much as he valued victory, dreaded
+peace more; and that he was resolved to avoid a decisive blow,
+which, in putting an end to the contest, would at the same time
+have decreased the individual influence in the state which his
+ambition now urged him to augment by every possible means.
+
+The Dutch naval expeditions this year were not more brilliant than
+those on land. Admiral Hautain, with twenty ships, was surprised
+off Cape St. Vincent by the Spanish fleet. The formidable appearance
+of their galleons inspired on this occasion a perfect panic among
+the Dutch sailors. They hoisted their sails and fled, with the
+exception of one ship, commanded by Vice-Admiral Klaazoon, whose
+desperate conduct saved the national honor. Having held out until
+his vessel was quite unmanageable, and almost his whole crew
+killed or wounded, he prevailed on the rest to agree to the
+resolution he had formed, knelt down on the deck, and putting up
+a brief prayer for pardon for the act, thrust a light into the
+powder-magazine, and was instantly blown up with his companions.
+Only two men were snatched from the sea by the Spaniards; and
+even these, dreadfully burned and mangled, died in the utterance
+of curses on the enemy.
+
+This disastrous occurrence was soon, however, forgotten in the
+rejoicings for a brilliant victory gained the following year by
+Heemskirk, so celebrated for his voyage to Nova Zembla, and by
+his conduct in the East. He set sail from the ports of Holland
+in the month of March, determined to signalize himself by some
+great exploit, now necessary to redeem the disgrace which had
+begun to sully the reputation of the Dutch navy. He soon got
+intelligence that the Spanish fleet lay at anchor in the bay
+of Gibraltar, and he speedily prepared to offer them battle.
+Before the combat began he held a council of war, and addressed
+the officers in an energetic speech, in which he displayed the
+imperative call on their valor to conquer or die in the approaching
+conflict. He led on to the action in his own ship; and, to the
+astonishment of both fleets, he bore right down against the enormous
+galleon in which the flag of the Spanish admiral-in-chief was
+hoisted. D'Avila could scarcely believe the evidence of his eyes
+at this audacity: he at first burst into laughter at the notion;
+but as Heemskirk approached, he cut his cables and attempted
+to escape under the shelter of the town. The heroic Dutchman
+pursued him through the whole of the Spanish fleet, and soon
+forced him to action. At the second broadside Heemskirk had his
+left leg carried off by a cannon-ball, and he almost instantly
+died, exhorting his crew to seek for consolation in the defeat
+of the enemy. Verhoef, the captain of the ship, concealed the
+admiral's death; and the whole fleet continued the action with
+a valor worthy the spirit in which it was commenced. The victory
+was soon decided: four of the Spanish galleons were sunk or burned,
+the remainder fled; and the citizens of Cadiz trembled with the
+apprehension of sack and pillage. But the death of Heemskirk,
+when made known to the surviving victors, seemed completely to
+paralyze them. They attempted nothing further; but sailing back
+to Holland with the body of their lamented chief, thus paid a
+greater tribute to his importance than was to be found in the
+mausoleum erected to his memory in the city of Amsterdam.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM THE SILENT OF ORANGE.]
+
+The news of this battle reaching Brussels before it was known
+in Holland, contributed not a little to quicken the anxiety of
+the archdukes for peace. The king of Spain, worn out by the war
+which drained his treasury, had for some time ardently desired it.
+The Portuguese made loud complaints of the ruin that threatened
+their trade and their East Indian colonies. The Spanish ministers
+were fatigued with the apparently interminable contest which
+baffled all their calculations. Spinola, even, in the midst of
+his brilliant career, found himself so overwhelmed with debts
+and so oppressed by the reproaches of the numerous creditors
+who were ruined by his default of payment, that he joined in the
+general demand for repose. In the month of May, 1607, proposals
+were made by the archdukes, in compliance with the general desire;
+and their two plenipotentiaries, Van Wittenhorst and Gevaerts,
+repaired to The Hague.
+
+Public opinion in the United Provinces was divided on this important
+question. An instinctive hatred against the Spaniards, and long
+habits of warfare, influenced the great mass of the people to
+consider any overture for peace as some wily artifice aimed at
+their religion and liberty. War seemed to open inexhaustible
+sources of wealth; while peace seemed to threaten the extinction
+of the courage which was now as much a habit as war appeared to
+be a want. This reasoning was particularly convincing to Prince
+Maurice, whose fame, with a large portion of his authority and
+revenues, depended on the continuance of hostilities: it was
+also strongly relished and supported in Zealand generally, and
+in the chief towns, which dreaded the rivalry of Antwerp. But
+those who bore the burden of the war saw the subject under a
+different aspect. They feared that the present state of things
+would lead to their conquest by the enemy, or to the ruin of
+their liberty by the growing power of Maurice. They hoped that
+peace would consolidate the republic and cause the reduction
+of the debt, which now amounted to twenty-six million florins.
+At the head of the party who so reasoned was De Barneveldt; and
+his name is a guarantee with posterity for the wisdom of the
+opinion.
+
+To allow the violent opposition to subside, and to prevent any
+explosion of party feuds, the prudent Barneveldt suggested a
+mere suspension of arms, during which the permanent interests
+of both states might be calmly discussed. He even undertook to
+obtain Maurice's consent to the armistice. The prince listened
+to his arguments, and was apparently convinced by them. He, at
+any rate, sanctioned the proposal; but he afterward complained
+that Barneveldt had deceived him, in representing the negotiation
+as a feint for the purpose of persuading the kings of France and
+England to give greater aid to the republic. It is more than
+likely that Maurice reckoned on the improbability of Spain's
+consenting to the terms of the proposed treaty; and, on that
+chance, withdrew an opposition which could scarcely be ascribed
+to any but motives of personal ambition. It is, however, certain
+that his discontent at this transaction, either with himself
+or Barneveldt, laid the foundation of that bitter enmity which
+proved fatal to the life of the latter, and covered his own name,
+otherwise glorious, with undying reproach.
+
+The United Provinces positively refused to admit even the
+commencement of a negotiation without the absolute recognition
+of their independence by the archdukes. A new ambassador was
+accordingly chosen on the part of these sovereigns, and empowered
+to concede this important admission. This person attracted
+considerable attention, from his well-known qualities as an able
+diplomatist. He was a monk of the order of St. Francis, named
+John de Neyen, a native of Antwerp, and a person as well versed
+in court intrigue as in the studies of the cloister. He, in the
+first instance, repaired secretly to The Hague; and had several
+private interviews with Prince Maurice and Barneveldt, before he
+was regularly introduced to the states-general in his official
+character. Two different journeys were undertaken by this agent
+between The Hague and Brussels, before he could succeed in obtaining
+a perfect understanding as to the specific views of the archdukes.
+The suspicions of the states-general seem fully justified by
+the dubious tone of the various communications, which avoided
+the direct admission of the required preliminary as to the
+independence of the United Provinces. It was at length concluded
+in explicit terms; and a suspension of arms for eight months
+was the immediate consequence.
+
+But the negotiation for peace was on the point of being completely
+broken, in consequence of the conduct of Neyen, who justified
+every doubt of his sincerity by an attempt to corrupt Aarsens
+the greffier of the states-general, or at least to influence
+his conduct in the progress of the treaty. Neyen presented him,
+in the name of the archdukes, and as a token of his esteem, with
+a diamond of great value and a bond for fifty thousand crowns.
+Aarsens accepted these presents with the approbation of Prince
+Maurice, to whom he had confided the circumstance, and who was no
+doubt delighted at what promised a rupture to the negotiations.
+Verreiken, a councillor of state, who assisted Neyen in his
+diplomatic labors, was formally summoned before the assembled
+states-general, and there Barneveldt handed to him the diamond
+and the bond; and at the same time read him a lecture of true
+republican severity on the subject. Verreiken was overwhelmed
+by the violent attack: he denied the authority of Neyen for the
+measure he had taken; and remarked, "that it was not surprising
+that monks, naturally interested and avaricious, judged others
+by themselves." This repudiation of Neyen's suspicious conduct
+seems to have satisfied the stern resentment of Barneveldt; and
+the party which so earnestly labored for peace. In spite of all
+the opposition of Maurice and his partisans, the negotiation
+went on.
+
+In the month of January, 1608, the various ambassadors were assembled
+at The Hague. Spinola was the chief of the plenipotentiaries
+appointed by the king of Spain; and Jeannin, president of the
+parliament of Dijon, a man of rare endowments, represented France.
+Prince Maurice, accompanied by his brother Frederick Henry, the
+various counts of Nassau his cousins, and a numerous escort,
+advanced some distance to meet Spinola, conveyed him to The Hague
+in his own carriage, and lavished on him all the attentions
+reciprocally due between two such renowned captains during the
+suspension of their rivalry. The president Richardst was, with
+Neyen and Verreiken, ambassador from the archdukes; but Barneveldt
+and Jeannin appear to have played the chief parts in the important
+transaction which now filled all Europe with anxiety. Every state
+was more or less concerned in the result; and the three great
+monarchies of England, France, and Spain, had all a vital interest
+at stake. The conferences were therefore frequent; and the debates
+assumed a great variety of aspects, which long kept the civilized
+world in suspense.
+
+King James was extremely jealous of the more prominent part taken
+by the French ambassadors, and of the sub-altern consideration
+held by his own envoys, Winwood and Spencer, in consequence of
+the disfavor in which he himself was held by the Dutch people.
+It appears evident that, whether deservedly or the contrary,
+England was at this period unpopular in the United Provinces,
+while France was looked up to with the greatest enthusiasm. This
+is not surprising, when we compare the characters of Henry IV.
+and James I., bearing in mind how much of national reputation
+at the time depended on the personal conduct of kings; and how
+political situations influence, if they do not create, the virtues
+and vices of a people. Independent of the suspicions of his being
+altogether unfavorable to the declaration required by the United
+Provinces from Spain, to which James's conduct had given rise, he
+had established some exactions which greatly embarrassed their
+fishing expeditions on the coasts of England.
+
+The main points for discussion, and on which depended the decision
+for peace or war, were those which concerned religion; and the
+demand, on the part of Spain, that the United Provinces should
+renounce all claims to the navigation of the Indian seas. Philip
+required for the Catholics of the United Provinces the free exercise
+of their religion; this was opposed by the states-general: and
+the archduke Albert, seeing the impossibility of carrying that
+point, despatched his confessor, Fra Inigo de Briznella, to Spain.
+This Dominican was furnished with the written opinion of several
+theologians, that the king might conscientiously slur over the
+article of religion; and he was the more successful with Philip, as
+the duke of Lerma, his prime minister, was resolved to accomplish
+the peace at any price. The conferences at The Hague were therefore
+not interrupted on this question; but they went on slowly, months
+being consumed in discussions on articles of trifling importance.
+They were, however, resumed in the month of August with greater
+vigor. It was announced that the king of Spain abandoned the
+question respecting religion; but that it was in the certainty
+that his moderation would be recompensed by ample concessions
+on that of the Indian trade, on which he was inexorable. This
+article became the rock on which the whole negotiation eventually
+split. The court of Spain on the one hand, and the states-general
+on the other, inflexibly maintained their opposing claims. It
+was in vain that the ambassadors turned and twisted the subject
+with all the subtleties of diplomacy. Every possible expedient was
+used to shake the determination of the Dutch. But the influence
+of the East India Company, the islands of Zealand, and the city
+of Amsterdam, prevailed over all. Reports of the avowal on the
+part of the king of Spain, that he would never renounce his title
+to the sovereignty of the United Provinces, unless they abandoned
+the Indian navigation and granted the free exercise of religion,
+threw the whole diplomatic corps into confusion; and, on the
+25th of August, the states-general announced to the marquis of
+Spinola and the other ambassadors that the congress was dissolved,
+and that all hopes of peace were abandoned.
+
+Nothing seemed now likely to prevent the immediate renewal of
+hostilities, when the ambassadors of France and England proposed
+the mediation of their respective masters for the conclusion of
+a truce for several years. The king of Spain and the archdukes
+were well satisfied to obtain even this temporary cessation of
+the war; but Prince Maurice and a portion of the Provinces
+strenuously opposed the proposition. The French and English
+ambassadors, however, in concert with Barneveldt, who steadily
+maintained his influence, labored incessantly to overcome those
+difficulties; and finally succeeded in overpowering all opposition
+to the truce. A new congress was agreed on, to assemble at Antwerp
+for the consideration of the conditions; and the states-general
+agreed to remove from The Hague to Berg-or-Zoom, to be more within
+reach, and ready to co-operate in the negotiation.
+
+But, before matters assumed this favorable turn, discussions and
+disputes had intervened on several occasions to render fruitless
+every effort of those who so incessantly labored for the great causes
+of humanity and the general good. On one occasion, Barneveldt,
+disgusted with the opposition of Prince Maurice and his partisans,
+had actually resigned his employments; but brought back by the
+solicitations of the states-general, and reconciled to Maurice by
+the intervention of Jeannin, the negotiations for the truce were
+resumed; and, under the auspices of the ambassadors, they were
+happily terminated. After two years' delay, this long-wished-for
+truce was concluded, and signed on the 9th of April, 1609, to
+continue for the space of twelve years.
+
+This celebrated treaty contained thirty-two articles; and its
+fulfilment on either side was guaranteed by the kings of France
+and England. Notwithstanding the time taken up in previous
+discussions, the treaty is one of the most vague and unspecific
+state papers that exists. The archdukes, in their own names and
+in that of the king of Spain, declared the United Provinces to
+be free and independent states, on which they renounced all claim
+whatever. By the third article each party was to hold respectively
+the places which they possessed at the commencement of the armistice.
+The fourth and fifth articles grant to the republic, but in a
+phraseology obscure and even doubtful, the right of navigation
+and free trade to the Indies. The eighth contains all that regards
+the exercise of religion; and the remaining clauses are wholly
+relative to points of internal trade, custom-house regulations,
+and matters of private interest.
+
+Ephemeral and temporary as this peace appeared, it was received
+with almost universal demonstrations of joy by the population of
+the Netherlands in their two grand divisions. Everyone seemed
+to turn toward the enjoyment of tranquillity with the animated
+composure of tired laborers looking forward to a day of rest and
+sunshine. This truce brought a calm of comparative happiness upon
+the country, which an almost unremitting tempest had desolated for
+nearly half a century; and, after so long a series of calamity,
+all the national advantages of social life seemed about to settle
+on the land. The attitude which the United Provinces assumed at
+this period was indeed a proud one. They were not now compelled
+to look abroad and solicit other states to become their masters.
+They had forced their old tyrants to acknowledge their independence;
+to come and ask for peace on their own ground; and to treat with
+them on terms of no doubtful equality. They had already become
+so flourishing, so powerful, and so envied, that they who had
+so lately excited but compassion from the neighboring states
+were now regarded with such jealousy as rivals, unequivocally
+equal, may justly inspire in each other.
+
+The ten southern provinces, now confirmed under the sovereignty of
+the House of Austria, and from this period generally distinguished
+by the name of Belgium, immediately began, like the northern division
+of the country, to labor for the great object of repairing the
+dreadful sufferings caused by their long and cruel war. Their
+success was considerable. Albert and Isabella, their sovereigns,
+joined, to considerable probity of character and talents for
+government, a fund of humanity which led them to unceasing acts of
+benevolence. The whole of their dominions quickly began to recover
+from the ravages of war. Agriculture and the minor operations of
+trade resumed all their wonted activity. But the manufactures
+of Flanders were no more; and the grander exercise of commerce
+seemed finally removed to Amsterdam and the other chief towns
+of Holland.
+
+This tranquil course of prosperity in the Belgian provinces was
+only once interrupted during the whole continuance of the twelve
+years' truce, and that was in the year following its commencement.
+The death of the duke of Cleves and Juliers, in this year, gave
+rise to serious disputes for the succession to his states, which
+was claimed by several of the princes of Germany. The elector
+of Brandenburg and the duke of Neuburg were seconded both by
+France and the United Provinces; and a joint army of both nations,
+commanded by Prince Maurice and the marshal de la Chatre, was
+marched into the county of Cleves. After taking possession of the
+town of Juliers, the allies retired, leaving the two princes above
+mentioned in a partnership possession of the disputed states. But
+this joint sovereignty did not satisfy the ambition of either,
+and serious divisions arose between them, each endeavoring to
+strengthen himself by foreign alliances. The archdukes Albert
+and Isabella were drawn into the quarrel; and they despatched
+Spinola at the head of twenty thousand men to support the duke
+of Neuburg, whose pretensions they countenanced. Prince Maurice,
+with a Dutch army, advanced on the other hand to uphold the claims
+of the elector of Brandenburg. Both generals took possession of
+several towns; and this double expedition offered the singular
+spectacle of two opposing armies, acting in different interests,
+making conquests, and dividing an important inheritance, without
+the occurrence of one act of hostility to each other. But the
+interference of the court of Madrid had nearly been the cause
+of a new rupture. The greatest alarm was excited in the Belgic
+provinces; and nothing but the prudence of the archdukes and
+the forbearance of the states-general could have succeeded in
+averting the threatened evil.
+
+With the exception of this bloodless mimicry of war, the United
+Provinces presented for the space of twelve years a long-continued
+picture of peace, as the term is generally received; but a peace
+so disfigured by intestine troubles, and so stained by actions
+of despotic cruelty, that the period which should have been that
+of its greatest happiness becomes but an example of its worst
+disgrace.
+
+The assassination of Henry IV., in the year 1609, was a new instance
+of the bigoted atrocity which reigned paramount in Europe at the
+time; and while robbing France of one of its best monarchs, it
+deprived the United Provinces of their truest and most powerful
+friend. Henry has, from his own days to the present, found a
+ready eulogy in all who value kings in proportion as they are
+distinguished by heroism, without ceasing to evince the feelings
+of humanity. Henry seems to have gone as far as man can go, to
+combine wisdom, dignity and courage with all those endearing
+qualities of private life which alone give men a prominent hold
+upon the sympathies of their kind. We acknowledge his errors,
+his faults, his follies, only to love him the better. We admire
+his valor and generosity, without being shocked by cruelty or
+disgusted by profusion. We look on his greatness without envy;
+and in tracing his whole career we seem to walk hand in hand
+beside a dear companion, rather than to follow the footsteps of
+a mighty monarch.
+
+But the death of this powerful supporter of their efforts for
+freedom, and the chief guarantee for its continuance, was a trifling
+calamity to the United Provinces, in comparison with the rapid
+fall from the true point of glory so painfully exhibited in the
+conduct of their own domestic champion. It had been well for
+Prince Maurice of Nassau that the last shot fired by the defeated
+Spaniards in the battle of Nieuport had struck him dead in the
+moment of his greatest victory and on the summit of his fame.
+From that celebrated day he had performed no deed of war that
+could raise his reputation as a soldier, and all his acts as
+stadtholder were calculated to sink him below the level of civil
+virtue and just government. His two campaigns against Spinola
+had redounded more to the credit of his rival than to his own;
+and his whole conduct during the negotiation for the truce too
+plainly betrayed the unworthy nature of his ambition, founded on
+despotic principles. It was his misfortune to have been completely
+thrown out of the career for which he had been designed by nature
+and education. War was his element. By his genius, he improved
+it as a science: by his valor, he was one of those who raised
+it from the degradation of a trade to the dignity of a passion.
+But when removed from the camp to the council room, he became all
+at once a common man. His frankness degenerated into roughness;
+his decision into despotism; his courage into cruelty. He gave a
+new proof of the melancholy fact that circumstances may transform
+the most apparent qualities of virtue into those opposite vices
+between which human wisdom is baffled when it attempts to draw
+a decided and invariable line.
+
+Opposed to Maurice in almost every one of his acts, was, as we
+have already seen, Barneveldt, one of the truest patriots of any
+time or country; and, with the exception of William the Great,
+prince of Orange, the most eminent citizen to whom the affairs
+of the Netherlands have given celebrity. A hundred pens have
+labored to do honor to this truly virtuous man. His greatness
+has found a record in every act of his life; and his death, like
+that of William, though differently accomplished, was equally
+a martyrdom for the liberties of his country. We cannot enter
+minutely into the train of circumstances which for several years
+brought Maurice and Barneveldt into perpetual concussion with
+each other. Long after the completion of the truce, which the
+latter so mainly aided in accomplishing, every minor point in the
+domestic affairs of the republic seemed merged in the conflict
+between the stadtholder and the pensionary. Without attempting
+to specify these, we may say, generally, that almost every one
+redounded to the disgrace of the prince and the honor of the
+patriot. But the main question of agitation was the fierce dispute
+which soon broke out between two professors of theology of the
+university of Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Arminius. We do
+not regret on this occasion that our confined limits spare us the
+task of recording in detail controversies on points of speculative
+doctrine far beyond the reach of the human understanding, and
+therefore presumptuous, and the decision of which cannot be regarded
+as of vital importance by those who justly estimate the grand
+principles of Christianity. The whole strength of the intellects
+which had long been engaged in the conflict for national and
+religious liberty, was now directed to metaphysical theology,
+and wasted upon interminable disputes about predestination and
+grace. Barneveldt enrolled himself among the partisans of Arminius;
+Maurice became a Gomarist.
+
+It was, however, scarcely to be wondered at that a country so
+recently delivered from slavery both in church and state should
+run into wild excesses of intolerance, before sectarian principles
+were thoroughly understood and definitively fixed. Persecutions
+of various kinds were indulged in against Papists, Anabaptists,
+Socinians, and all the shades of doctrine into which Christianity
+had split. Every minister who, in the milder spirit of Lutheranism,
+strove to moderate the rage of Calvinistic enthusiasm, was openly
+denounced by its partisans; and one, named Gaspard Koolhaas,
+was actually excommunicated by a synod, and denounced in plain
+terms to the devil. Arminius had been appointed professor at
+Leyden in 1603, for the mildness of his doctrines, which were
+joined to most affable manners, a happy temper, and a purity
+of conduct which no calumny could successfully traduce.
+
+His colleague Gomar, a native of Bruges, learned, violent, and
+rigid in sectarian points, soon became jealous of the more popular
+professor's influence. A furious attack on the latter was answered
+by recrimination; and the whole battery of theological authorities
+was reciprocally discharged by one or other of the disputants.
+The states-general interfered between them: they were summoned to
+appear before the council of state; and grave politicians listened
+for hours to the dispute. Arminius obtained the advantage, by the
+apparent reasonableness of his creed, and the gentleness and
+moderation of his conduct. He was meek, while Gomar was furious;
+and many of the listeners declared that they would rather die
+with the charity of the former than in the faith of the latter.
+A second hearing was allowed them before the states of Holland.
+Again Arminius took the lead; and the controversy went on
+unceasingly, till this amiable man, worn out by his exertions
+and the presentiment of the evil which these disputes were
+engendering for his country, expired in his forty-ninth year,
+piously persisting in his opinions.
+
+The Gomarists now loudly called for a national synod, to regulate
+the points of faith. The Arminians remonstrated on various grounds,
+and thus acquired the name of Remonstrants, by which they were
+soon generally distinguished. The most deplorable contests ensued.
+Serious riots occurred in several of the towns of Holland; and
+James I. of England could not resist the temptation of entering
+the polemical lists, as a champion of orthodoxy and a decided
+Gomarist. His hostility was chiefly directed against Vorstius,
+the successor and disciple of Arminius. He pretty strongly
+recommended to the states-general to have him burned for heresy.
+His inveterate intolerance knew no bounds; and it completed the
+melancholy picture of absurdity which the whole affair presents
+to reasonable minds.
+
+In this dispute, which occupied and agitated all, it was impossible
+that Barneveldt should not choose the congenial temperance and
+toleration of Arminius. Maurice, with probably no distinct conviction
+or much interest in the abstract differences on either side, joined
+the Gomarists. His motives were purely temporal; for the party
+he espoused was now decidedly as much political as religious.
+King James rewarded him by conferring on him the ribbon of the
+Order of the Garter, vacant by the death of Henry IV. of France.
+The ceremony of investment was performed with great pomp by the
+English ambassador at The Hague; and James and Maurice entered
+from that time into a closer and more uninterrupted correspondence
+than before.
+
+During the long continuance of the theological disputes, the
+United Provinces had nevertheless made rapid strides toward
+commercial greatness; and the year 1616 witnessed the completion
+of an affair which was considered the consolidation of their
+independence. This important matter was the recovery of the towns
+of Brille and Flessingue, and the fort of Rammekins, which had
+been placed in the hands of the English as security for the loan
+granted to the republic by Queen Elizabeth. The whole merit of
+the transaction was due to the perseverance and address, of
+Barneveldt acting on the weakness and the embarrassments of King
+James. Religious contention did not so fully occupy Barneveldt
+but that he kept a constant eye on political concerns. He was
+well informed on all that passed in the English court; he knew
+the wants of James, and was aware of his efforts to bring about
+the marriage of his son with the infanta of Spain. The danger
+of such an alliance was evident to the penetrating Barneveldt,
+who saw in perspective the probability of the wily Spaniards
+obtaining from the English monarch possession of the strong places
+in question. He therefore resolved on obtaining their recovery; and
+his great care was to get them back with a considerable abatement
+of the enormous debt for which they stood pledged, and which now
+amounted to eight million florins.
+
+Barneveldt commenced his operations by sounding the needy monarch
+through the medium of Noel Caron, the ambassador from the
+states-general; and he next managed so as that James himself
+should offer to give up the towns, thereby allowing a fair pretext
+to the states for claiming a diminution of the debt. The English
+garrisons were unpaid and their complaints brought down a strong
+remonstrance from James, and excuses from the states, founded
+on the poverty of their financial resources. The negotiation
+rapidly went on, in the same spirit of avidity on the part of
+the king, and of good management on that of his debtors. It was
+finally agreed that the states should pay in full of the demand
+two million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand florins (about
+two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling), being about
+one-third of the debt. Prince Maurice repaired to the cautionary
+towns in the month of June, and received them at the hands of
+the English governors; the garrisons at the same time entering
+into the service of the republic.
+
+The accomplishment of this measure afforded the highest satisfaction
+to the United Provinces. It caused infinite discontent in England;
+and James, with the common injustice of men who make a bad bargain
+(even though its conditions be of their own seeking and suited to
+their own convenience), turned his own self-dissatisfaction into
+bitter hatred against him whose watchful integrity had successfully
+labored for his country's good. Barneveldt's leaning toward France
+and the Arminians filled the measure of James's unworthy enmity.
+Its effects were soon apparent, on the arrival at The Hague of
+Carleton, who succeeded Winwood as James's ambassador. The haughty
+pretensions of this diplomatist, whose attention seemed turned to
+theological disputes rather than politics, gave great disgust;
+and he contributed not a little to the persecution which led to
+the tragical end of Barneveldt's valuable life.
+
+While this indefatigable patriot was busy in relieving his country
+from its dependence on England, his enemies accused him of the
+wish to reduce it once more to Spanish tyranny. Francis Aarsens,
+son to him who proved himself so incorruptible when attempted
+to be bribed by Neyen, was one of the foremost of the faction
+who now labored for the downfall of the pensionary. He was a
+man of infinite dissimulation; versed in all the intrigues of
+courts; and so deep in all their tortuous tactics that Cardinal
+Richelieu, well qualified to prize that species of talent, declared
+that he knew only three great political geniuses, of whom Francis
+Aarsens was one.
+
+Prince Maurice now almost openly avowed his pretensions to absolute
+sovereignty: he knew that his success wholly depended on the
+consent of Barneveldt. To seduce him to favor his designs he had
+recourse to the dowager princess of Orange, his mother-in-law,
+whose gentle character and exemplary conduct had procured her
+universal esteem and the influence naturally attendant on it.
+Maurice took care to make her understand that her interest in
+his object was not trifling. Long time attached to Gertrude van
+Mechlen, his favorite mistress, who had borne him several children,
+he now announced his positive resolution to remain unmarried;
+so that his brother Frederick Henry, the dowager's only son,
+would be sure to succeed to the sovereignty he aimed at. The
+princess, not insensible to this appeal, followed the instructions
+of Maurice, and broached the affair to Barneveldt; but he was
+inexorable. He clearly explained to her the perilous career on
+which the prince proposed to enter; he showed how great, how
+independent, how almost absolute, he might continue, without
+shocking the principles of republicanism by grasping at an empty
+dignity, which could not virtually increase his authority, and
+would most probably convulse the state to its foundation and
+lead to his own ruin. The princess, convinced by his reasoning,
+repaired to Maurice; but instead of finding him as ready a convert
+as she herself had been, she received as cold an answer as was
+compatible with a passionate temper, wounded pride, and disappointed
+ambition. The princess and Barneveldt recounted the whole affair
+to Maurier, the French ambassador; and his son has transmitted
+it to posterity.
+
+We cannot follow the misguided prince in all the winding ways
+of intrigue and subterfuge through which he labored to reach his
+object. Religion, the holiest of sentiments, and Christianity,
+the most sacred of its forms, were perpetually degraded by being
+made the pretexts for that unworthy object. He was for a while
+diverted from its direct pursuit by the preparation made to afford
+assistance to some of the allies of the republic. Fifty thousand
+florins a month were granted to the duke of Savoy, who was at
+war with Spain; and seven thousand men, with nearly forty ships,
+were despatched to the aid of the republic of Venice, in its
+contest with Ferdinand, archduke of Gratz, who was afterward
+elected emperor. The honorary empire of the seas seems at this
+time to have been successfully claimed by the United Provinces.
+They paid back with interest the haughty conduct with which they
+had been long treated by the English; and they refused to pay
+the fishery duties to which the inhabitants of Great Britain
+were subject. The Dutch sailors had even the temerity, under
+pretext of pursuing pirates, to violate the British territory.
+They set fire to the town of Crookhaven, in Ireland, and massacred
+several of the inhabitants. King James, immersed in theological
+studies, appears to have passed slightly over this outrage. More
+was to have been expected from his usual attention to the affairs
+of Ireland; his management of which ill-fated country is the
+best feature of his political character, and ought, to Irish
+feelings at least, to be considered to redeem its many errors.
+But he took fire at the news that the states had prohibited the
+importation of cloth dyed and dressed in England. It required
+the best exertion of Barneveldt's talents to pacify him; and
+it was not easy to effect this through the jaundiced medium of
+the ambassador Carleton. But it was unanswerably argued by the
+pensionary that the manufacture of cloth was one of those ancient
+and natural sources of wealth which England had ravished from the
+Netherlands, and which the latter was justified in recovering by
+every effort consistent with national honor and fair principles
+of government.
+
+The influence of Prince Maurice had gained complete success for
+the Calvinist party, in its various titles of Gomarists,
+non-remonstrants, etc. The audacity and violence of these ferocious
+sectarians knew no bounds. Outrages, too many to enumerate, became
+common through the country; and Arminianism was on all sides assailed
+and persecuted. Barneveldt frequently appealed to Maurice without
+effect; and all the efforts of the former to obtain justice by
+means of the civil authorities were paralyzed by the inaction in
+which the prince retained the military force. In this juncture,
+the magistrates of various towns, spurred on by Barneveldt, called
+out the national militia, termed Waardegelders, which possessed
+the right of arming at its own expense for the protection of the
+public peace. Schism upon schism was the consequence, and the
+whole country was reduced to that state of anarchy so favorable
+to the designs of an ambitious soldier already in the enjoyment
+of almost absolute power. Maurice possessed all the hardihood and
+vigor suited to such an occasion. At the head of two companies
+of infantry, and accompanied by his brother Frederick Henry, he
+suddenly set out at night from The Hague; arrived at the Brille;
+and in defiance of the remonstrances of the magistrates, and
+in violation of the rights of the town, he placed his devoted
+garrison in that important place. To justify this measure, reports
+were spread that Barneveldt intended to deliver it up to the
+Spaniards; and the ignorant, insensate, and ungrateful people
+swallowed the calumny.
+
+This and such minor efforts were, however, all subservient to the
+one grand object of utterly destroying, by a public proscription,
+the whole of the patriot party, now identified with Arminianism.
+A national synod was loudly clamored for by the Gomarists; and in
+spite of all opposition on constitutional grounds, it was finally
+proclaimed. Uitenbogaard, the enlightened pastor and friend of
+Maurice, who on all occasions labored for the general good, now
+moderated, as much as possible, the violence of either party; but
+he could not persuade Barneveldt to render himself, by compliance,
+a tacit accomplice with a measure that he conceived fraught with
+violence to the public privileges. He had an inflexible enemy
+in Carleton, the English ambassador. His interference carried
+the question; and it was at his suggestion that Dordrecht, or
+Dort, was chosen for the assembling of the synod. Du Maurier,
+the French ambassador, acted on all occasions as a mediator; but
+to obtain influence at such a time it was necessary to become
+a partisan. Several towns--Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam, and some
+others--made a last effort for their liberties, and formed a
+fruitless confederation.
+
+Barneveldt solicited the acceptance of his resignation of all
+his offices. The states-general implored him not to abandon the
+country at such a critical moment: he consequently maintained
+his post. Libels the most vindictive and atrocious were published
+and circulated against him; and at last, forced from his silence
+by these multiplied calumnies, he put forward his "Apology,"
+addressed to the States of Holland.
+
+This dignified vindication only produced new outrages; Maurice,
+now become Prince of Orange by the death of his elder brother
+without children, employed his whole authority to carry his object,
+and crush Barneveldt. At the head of his troops he seized on
+towns, displaced magistrates, trampled under foot all the ancient
+privileges of the citizens, and openly announced his intention to
+overthrow the federative constitution. His bold conduct completely
+terrified the states-general. They thanked him; they consented to
+disband the militia; formally invited foreign powers to favor
+and protect the synod about to be held at Dort. The return of
+Carleton from England, where he had gone to receive the more
+positive promises of support from King James, was only wanting,
+to decide Maurice to take the final step; and no sooner did the
+ambassador arrive at The Hague than Barneveldt and his most able
+friends, Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and Ledenberg, were arrested in
+the name of the states-general.
+
+The country was taken by surprise; no resistance was offered.
+The concluding scenes of the tragedy were hurried on; violence
+was succeeded by violence, against public feeling and public
+justice. Maurice became completely absolute in everything but
+in name. The supplications of ambassadors, the protests of
+individuals, the arguments of statesmen, were alike unavailing
+to stop the torrent of despotism and injustice. The synod of
+Dort was opened on the 13th of November, 1618. Theology was
+mystified; religion disgraced; Christianity outraged. And after
+one hundred and fifty-two sittings, during six months' display
+of ferocity and fraud, the solemn mockery was closed on the 9th
+of May, 1619, by the declaration of its president, that "its
+miraculous labors had made hell tremble."
+
+Proscriptions, banishments, and death were the natural consequences
+of this synod. The divisions which it had professed to extinguish
+were rendered a thousand times more violent than before. Its
+decrees did incalculable ill to the cause they were meant to
+promote. The Anglican Church was the first to reject the canons
+of Dort with horror and contempt. The Protestants of France and
+Germany, and even Geneva, the nurse and guardian of Calvinism,
+were shocked and disgusted, and unanimously softened down the
+rigor of their respective creeds. But the moral effects of this
+memorable conclave were too remote to prevent the sacrifice which
+almost immediately followed the celebration of its rites. A trial
+by twenty-four prejudiced enemies, by courtesy called judges,
+which in its progress and its result throws judicial dignity into
+scorn, ended in the condemnation of Barneveldt and his fellow
+patriots, for treason against the liberties they had vainly labored
+to save. Barneveldt died on the scaffold by the hands of the
+executioner on the 13th of May, 1619, in the seventy-second year
+of his age. Grotius and Hoogerbeets were sentenced to perpetual
+imprisonment. Ledenberg committed suicide in his cell, sooner
+than brave the tortures which he anticipated at the hands of
+his enemies.
+
+Many more pages than we are able to afford sentences might be
+devoted to the details of these iniquitous proceedings, and an
+account of their awful consummation. The pious heroism of Barneveldt
+was never excelled by any martyr to the most holy cause. He appealed
+to Maurice against the unjust sentence which condemned him to death;
+but he scorned to beg his life. He met his fate with such temperate
+courage as was to be expected from the dignified energy of his
+life. His last words were worthy a philosopher whose thoughts,
+even in his latest moments, were superior to mere personal hope
+or fear, and turned to the deep mysteries of his being. "O God!"
+cried De Barneveldt, "what then is man?" as he bent his head to
+the sword that severed it from his body, and sent the inquiring
+spirit to learn the great mystery for which it longed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE
+
+A.D. 1619--1625
+
+The princess-dowager of Orange, and Du Maurier, the French
+ambassador, had vainly implored mercy for the innocent victim at
+the hands of the inexorable stadtholder. Maurice refused to see
+his mother-in-law: he left the ambassador's appeal unanswered.
+This is enough for the rigid justice of history that cannot be
+blinded by partiality, but hands over to shame, at the close
+of their career, even those whom she nursed in the very cradle
+of heroism. But an accusation has become current, more fatal
+to the fame of Prince Maurice, because it strikes at the root
+of his claims to feeling, which could not be impugned by a mere
+perseverance in severity that might have sprung from mistaken
+views. It is asserted, but only as general belief, that he witnessed
+the execution of Barneveldt. The little window of an octagonal
+tower, overlooking the square of the Binnenhof at The Hague,
+where the tragedy was acted, is still shown as the spot from
+which the prince gazed on the scene. Almost concealed from view
+among the clustering buildings of the place, it is well adapted
+to give weight to the tradition; but it may not, perhaps, even
+now be too late to raise a generous incredulity as to an assertion
+of which no eye-witness attestation is recorded, and which might
+have been the invention of malignity. There are many statements
+of history which it is immaterial to substantiate or disprove.
+Splendid fictions of public virtue have often produced their
+good if once received as fact; but, when private character is
+at stake, every conscientious writer or reader will cherish his
+"historic doubts," when he reflects on the facility with which
+calumny is sent abroad, the avidity with which it is received,
+and the careless ease with which men credit what it costs little
+to invent and propagate, but requires an age of trouble and an
+almost impossible conjunction of opportunities effectually to
+refute.
+
+Grotius and Hoogerbeets were confined in the castle of Louvestein.
+Moersbergen, a leading patriot of Utrecht, De Haan, pensionary
+of Haarlem, and Uitenbogaard, the chosen confidant of Maurice,
+but the friend of Barneveldt, were next accused and sentenced
+to imprisonment or banishment. And thus Arminianism, deprived of
+its chiefs, was for the time completely stifled. The Remonstrants,
+thrown into utter despair, looked to emigration as their last
+resource. Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and Frederick, duke
+of Holstein, offered them shelter and protection in their respective
+states. Several availed themselves of these offers; but the
+states-general, alarmed at the progress of self-expatriation,
+moderated their rigor, and thus checked the desolating evil.
+Several of the imprisoned Arminians had the good fortune to elude
+the vigilance of their jailers; but the escape of Grotius is
+the most remarkable of all, both from his own celebrity as one
+of the first writers of his age in the most varied walks of
+literature, and from its peculiar circumstances, which only found
+a parallel in European history after a lapse of two centuries.
+We allude to the escape of Lavalette from the prison of the
+Conciergerie in Paris in 1815, which so painfully excited the
+interest of all Europe for the intended victim's wife, whose
+reason was the forfeit of her exertion.
+
+Grotius was freely allowed during his close imprisonment all the
+relaxations of study. His friends supplied him with quantities of
+books, which were usually brought into the fortress in a trunk two
+feet two inches long, which the governor regularly and carefully
+examined during the first year. But custom brought relaxation in
+the strictness of the prison rules; and the wife of the illustrious
+prisoner, his faithful and constant visitor, proposed the plan of
+his escape, to which he gave a ready and, all hazards considered,
+a courageous assent. Shut up in this trunk for two hours, and
+with all the risk of suffocation, and of injury from the rude
+handling of the soldiers who carried it out of the fort, Grotius
+was brought clear off by the very agents of his persecutors,
+and safely delivered to the care of his devoted and discreet
+female servant, who knew the secret and kept it well. She attended
+the important consignment in the barge to the town of Gorcum;
+and after various risks of discovery, providentially escaped,
+Grotius at length found himself safe beyond the limits of his
+native land. His wife, whose torturing suspense may be imagined
+the while, concealed the stratagem as long as it was possible
+to impose on the jailer with the pardonable and praiseworthy
+fiction of her husband's illness and confinement to his bed.
+The government, outrageous at the result of the affair, at first
+proposed to hold this interesting prisoner in place of the prey
+they had lost, and to proceed criminally against her. But after
+a fortnight's confinement she was restored to liberty, and the
+country saved from the disgrace of so ungenerous and cowardly
+a proceeding. Grotius repaired to Paris, where he was received
+in the most flattering manner, and distinguished by a pension
+of one thousand crowns allowed by the king. He soon published
+his vindication--one of the most eloquent and unanswerable
+productions of its kind, in which those times of unjust accusations
+and illegal punishments were so fertile.
+
+The expiration of the twelve years' truce was now at hand; and
+the United Provinces, after that long period of intestine trouble
+and disgrace, had once more to recommence a more congenial struggle
+against foreign enemies; for a renewal of the war with Spain
+might be fairly considered a return to the regimen best suited
+to the constitution of the people. The republic saw, however,
+with considerable anxiety, the approach of this new contest. It
+was fully sensible of its own weakness. Exile had reduced its
+population; patriotism had subsided; foreign friends were dead;
+the troops were unused to warfare; the hatred against Spanish
+cruelty had lost its excitement; the finances were in confusion;
+Prince Maurice had no longer the activity of youth; and the still
+more vigorous impulse of fighting for his country's liberty was
+changed to the dishonoring task of upholding his own tyranny.
+
+The archdukes, encouraged by these considerations, had hopes
+of bringing back the United Provinces to their domination. They
+accordingly sent an embassy to Holland with proposals to that
+effect. It was received with indignation; and the ambassador,
+Peckius, was obliged to be escorted back to the frontiers by
+soldiers, to protect him from the insults of the people. Military
+operations were, however, for a while refrained from on either
+side, in consequence of the deaths of Philip III. of Spain and
+the archduke Albert. Philip IV. succeeded his father at the age
+of sixteen; and the archduchess Isabella found herself alone at
+the head of the government in the Belgian provinces. Olivarez
+became as sovereign a minister in Spain, as his predecessor the
+duke of Lerma had been; but the archduchess, though now with
+only the title of stadtholderess of the Netherlands, held the
+reins of power with a firm and steady hand.
+
+In the celebrated thirty years' war which had commenced between
+the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, the former had met with
+considerable assistance from the United Provinces. Barneveldt, who
+foresaw the embarrassments which the country would have to contend
+with on the expiration of that truce, had strongly opposed its
+meddling in the quarrel; but his ruin and death left no restraint
+on the policy which prompted the republic to aid the Protestant
+cause. Fifty thousand florins a month to the revolted Protestants,
+and a like sum to the princes of the union, were for some time
+advanced. Frederick, the elector palatine, son-in-law of the
+king of England, and nephew of the prince, was chosen by the
+Bohemians for their king; but in spite of the enthusiastic wishes
+of the English nation, James persisted in refusing to interfere
+in Frederick's favor. France, governed by De Luynes, a favorite
+whose influence was deeply pledged, and, it is said, dearly sold to
+Spain, abandoned the system of Henry IV., and upheld the House of
+Austria. Thus the new monarch, only aided by the United Provinces,
+and that feebly, was soon driven from his temporary dignity;
+his hereditary dominions in the palatinate were overrun by the
+Spanish army under Spinola; and Frederick, utterly defeated at
+the battle of Prague, was obliged to take refuge in Holland.
+James's abandonment of his son-in-law has been universally blamed
+by almost every historian. He certainly allowed a few generous
+individuals to raise a regiment in England of two thousand four
+hundred chosen soldiers, who, under the command of the gallant
+Sir Horace Vere, could only vainly regret the impossibility of
+opposition to ten times their number of veteran troops.
+
+This contest was carried on at first with almost all the advantages
+on the side of the House of Austria. Two men of extraordinary
+character, which presented a savage parody of military talent,
+and a courage chiefly remarkable for the ferocity into which it
+degenerated, struggled for a while against the imperial arms.
+These were the count of Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick. At
+the head of two desperate bands, which, by dint of hard fighting,
+acquired something of the consistency of regular armies, they
+maintained a long resistance; but the duke of Bavaria, commanding
+the troops of the emperor, and Count Tilly at the head of those
+of Spain, completed in the year 1622 the defeat of their daring
+and semi-barbarous opponents.
+
+Spinola was resolved to commence the war against the republic by
+some important exploit. He therefore laid siege to Berg-op-Zoom,
+a place of great consequence, commanding the navigation of the
+Meuse and the coasts of all the islands of Zealand. But Maurice,
+roused from the lethargy of despotism which seemed to have wholly
+changed his character, repaired to the scene of threatened danger;
+and succeeded, after a series of desperate efforts on both sides,
+to raise the siege, forcing Spinola to abandon his attempt with
+a loss of upward of twelve thousand men. Frederick Henry in the
+meantime had made an incursion into Brabant with a body of light
+troops; and ravaging the country up to the very gates of Mechlin,
+Louvain, and Brussels, levied contributions to the amount of
+six hundred thousand florins. The states completed this series
+of good fortune by obtaining the possession of West Friesland,
+by means of Count Mansfield, whom they had despatched thither
+at the head of his formidable army, and who had, in spite of the
+opposition of Count Tilly, successfully performed his mission.
+
+We must now turn from these brief records of military affairs,
+the more pleasing theme for the historian of the Netherlands
+in comparison with domestic events, which claim attention but
+to create sensations of regret and censure. Prince Maurice had
+enjoyed without restraint the fruits of his ambitious daring.
+His power was uncontrolled and unopposed, but it was publicly
+odious; and private resentments were only withheld by fear, and,
+perhaps, in some measure by the moderation and patience which
+distinguished the disciples of Arminianism. In the midst, however,
+of the apparent calm, a deep conspiracy was formed against the
+life of the prince. The motives, the conduct, and the termination
+of this plot, excite feelings of many opposite kinds. We cannot,
+as in former instances, wholly execrate the design and approve
+the punishment. Commiseration is mingled with blame, when we
+mark the sons of Barneveldt, urged on by the excess of filial
+affection to avenge their venerable father's fate; and despite
+our abhorrence for the object in view, we sympathize with the
+conspirators rather than the intended victim. William von
+Stoutenbourg and Renier de Groeneveld were the names of these
+two sons of the late pensionary. The latter was the younger;
+but, of more impetuous character than his brother, he was the
+principal in the plot. Instead of any efforts to soften down
+the hatred of this unfortunate family, these brothers had been
+removed from their employments, their property was confiscated,
+and despair soon urged them to desperation. In such a time of
+general discontent it was easy to find accomplices. Seven or
+eight determined men readily joined in the plot; of these, two
+were Catholics, the rest Arminians; the chief of whom was Henry
+Slatius, a preacher of considerable eloquence, talent, and energy.
+It was first proposed to attack the prince at Rotterdam; but
+the place was soon after changed for Ryswyk, a village near The
+Hague, and afterward celebrated by the treaty of peace signed
+there and which bears its name. Ten other associates were soon
+engaged by the exertions of Slatius: these were Arminian artisans
+and sailors, to whom the actual execution of the murder was to
+be confided; and they were persuaded that it was planned with
+the connivance of Prince Frederick Henry, who was considered
+by the Arminians as the secret partisan of their sect. The 6th
+of February was fixed on for the accomplishment of the deed.
+The better to conceal the design, the conspirators agreed to go
+unarmed to the place, where they were to find a box containing
+pistols and poniards in a spot agreed upon. The death of the
+Prince of Orange was not the only object intended. During the
+confusion subsequent to the hoped-for success of that first blow,
+the chief conspirators intended to excite simultaneous revolts
+at Leyden, Gouda, and Rotterdam, in which towns the Arminians
+were most numerous. A general revolution throughout Holland was
+firmly reckoned on as the infallible result; and success was
+enthusiastically looked for to their country's freedom and their
+individual fame.
+
+But the plot, however cautiously laid and resolutely persevered
+in, was doomed to the fate of many another; and the horror of
+a second murder (but with far different provocation from the
+first) averted from the illustrious family to whom was still
+destined the glory of consolidating the country it had formed.
+Two brothers named Blansaart, and one Parthy, having procured a
+considerable sum of money from the leading conspirators, repaired
+to The Hague, as they asserted, for the purpose of betraying the
+plot; but they were forestalled in this purpose: four of the
+sailors had gone out to Ryswyk the preceding evening, and laid the
+whole of the project, together with the wages of their intended
+crime, before the prince; who, it would appear, then occupied the
+ancient chateau, which no longer exists at Ryswyk. The box of arms
+was found in the place pointed out by the informers, and measures
+were instantly taken to arrest the various accomplices. Several
+were seized. Groeneveld had escaped along the coast disguised as
+a fisherman, and had nearly effected his passage to England,
+when he was recognized and arrested in the island of Vlieland.
+Slatius and others were also intercepted in their attempts at
+escape.--Stoutenbourg, the most culpable of all, was the most
+fortunate; probably from the energy of character which marks
+the difference between a bold adventurer and a timid speculator.
+He is believed to have passed from The Hague in the same manner
+as Grotius quitted his prison; and, by the aid of a faithful
+servant, he accomplished his escape through various perils, and
+finally reached Brussels, where the archduchess Isabella took him
+under her special protection. He for several years made efforts to
+be allowed to return to Holland; but finding them hopeless, even
+after the death of Maurice, he embraced the Catholic religion, and
+obtained the command of a troop of Spanish cavalry, at the head
+of which he made incursions into his native country, carrying
+before him a black flag with the effigy of a death's head, to
+announce the mournful vengeance which he came to execute.
+
+Fifteen persons were executed for the conspiracy. If ever mercy
+was becoming to a man, it would have been pre-eminently so to
+Maurice on this occasion; but he was inflexible as adamant. The
+mother, the wife, and the son of Groeneveld, threw themselves at
+his feet, imploring pardon. Prayers, tears and sobs were alike
+ineffectual. It is even said that Maurice asked the wretched
+mother "why she begged mercy for her son, having refused to do
+as much for her husband?" To which cruel question she is reported
+to have made the sublime answer--"Because my son is guilty, and
+my husband was not."
+
+These bloody executions caused a deep sentiment of gloom. The
+conspiracy excited more pity for the victims than horror for the
+intended crime. Maurice, from being the idol of his countrymen, was
+now become an object of their fear and dislike. When he moved from
+town to town, the people no longer hailed him with acclamations; and
+even the common tokens of outward respect were at times withheld. The
+Spaniards, taking advantage of the internal weakness consequent on
+this state of public feeling in the States, made repeated incursions
+into the provinces, which were now united but in title, not in
+spirit. Spinola was once more in the field, and had invested the
+important town of Breda, which was the patrimonial inheritance
+of the princes of Orange. Maurice was oppressed with anxiety
+and regret; and, for the sake of his better feelings, it may be
+hoped, with remorse. He could effect nothing against his rival;
+and he saw his own laurels withering from his careworn brow. The
+only hope left of obtaining the so much wanted supplies of money
+was in the completion of a new treaty with France and England.
+Cardinal Richelieu, desirous of setting bounds to the ambition
+and the successes of the House of Austria, readily came into
+the views of the States; and an obligation for a loan of one
+million two hundred thousand livres during the year 1624, and one
+million more for each of the two succeeding years, was granted
+by the king of France, on condition that the republic made no
+new truce with Spain without his mediation.
+
+An alliance nearly similar was at the same time concluded with
+England. Perpetual quarrels on commercial questions loosened
+the ties which bound the States to their ancient allies. The
+failure of his son's intended marriage with the infanta of Spain
+had opened the eyes of King James to the way in which he was
+despised by those who seemed so much to respect him. He was highly
+indignant; and he undertook to revenge himself by aiding the
+republic. He agreed to furnish six thousand men, and supply the
+funds for their pay, with a provision for repayment by the States
+at the conclusion of a peace with Spain.
+
+Prince Maurice had no opportunity of reaping the expected advantages
+from these treaties. Baffled in all his efforts for relieving
+Breda, and being unsuccessful in a new attempt upon Antwerp,
+he returned to The Hague, where a lingering illness, that had
+for some time exhausted him, terminated in his death on the 23d
+of April, 1625, in his fifty-ninth year. Most writers attribute
+this event to agitation at being unable to relieve Breda from
+the attack of Spinola. It is in any case absurd to suppose that
+the loss of a single town could have produced so fatal an effect
+on one whose life had been an almost continual game of the chances
+of war. But cause enough for Maurice's death may be found in the
+wearing effects of thirty years of active military service, and
+the more wasting ravages of half as many of domestic despotism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
+
+A.D. 1625--1648
+
+Frederick Henry succeeded to almost all his brother's titles and
+employments, and found his new dignities clogged with an accumulation
+of difficulties sufficient to appall the most determined spirit.
+Everything seemed to justify alarm and despondency. If the affairs
+of the republic in India wore an aspect of prosperity, those in
+Europe presented a picture of past disaster and approaching peril.
+Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation,
+and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed
+the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation
+harassed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost
+defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions
+of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head
+against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly,
+and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did
+nothing toward the common cause of Protestantism, in consequence
+of the weakness of the monarch; and civil dissensions for a while
+disabled France from resuming the system of Henry IV. for humbling
+the House of Austria.
+
+Frederick Henry was at this period in his forty-second year.
+His military reputation was well established; he soon proved his
+political talents. He commenced his career by a total change in
+the tone of government on the subject of sectarian differences.
+He exercised several acts of clemency in favor of the imprisoned
+and exiled Arminians, at the same time that he upheld the dominant
+religion. By these measures he conciliated all parties; and by
+degrees the fierce spirit of intolerance became subdued. The foreign
+relations of the United Provinces now presented the anomalous
+policy of a fleet furnished by the French king, manned by rigid
+Calvinists, and commanded by a grandson of Admiral Coligny, for
+the purpose of combating the remainder of the French Huguenots,
+whom they considered as brothers in religion, though political
+foes; and during the joint expedition which was undertaken by the
+allied French and Dutch troops against Rochelle, the stronghold
+of Protestantism, the preachers of Holland put up prayers for the
+protection of those whom their army was marching to destroy. The
+states-general, ashamed of this unpopular union, recalled their
+fleet, after some severe fighting with that of the Huguenots.
+Cardinal Richelieu and the king of France were for a time furious
+in their displeasure; but interests of state overpowered individual
+resentments, and no rupture took place.
+
+Charles I. had now succeeded his father on the English throne.
+He renewed the treaty with the republic, which furnished him
+with twenty ships to assist his own formidable fleet in his war
+against Spain. Frederick Henry had, soon after his succession
+to the chief command, commenced an active course of martial
+operations, and was successful in almost all his enterprises.
+He took Groll and several other towns; and it was hoped that
+his successes would have been pushed forward upon a wider field
+of action against the imperial arms; but the States prudently
+resolved to act on the defensive by land, choosing the sea for
+the theatre of their more active operations. All the hopes of a
+powerful confederation against the emperor and the king of Spain
+seemed frustrated by the war which now broke out between France
+and England. The states-general contrived by great prudence to
+maintain a strict neutrality in this quarrel. They even succeeded
+in mediating a peace between the rival powers, which was concluded
+the following year; and in the meantime they obtained a more
+astonishing and important series of triumphs against the Spanish
+fleets than had yet been witnessed in naval conflicts.
+
+The West India Company had confided the command of their fleet to
+Peter Hein, a most intrepid and intelligent sailor, who proved his
+own merits, and the sagacity of his employers on many occasions,
+two of them of an extraordinary nature. In 1627, he defeated a
+fleet of twenty-six vessels, with a much inferior force. In the
+following year, he had the still more brilliant good fortune,
+near Havana, in the island of Cuba, in an engagement with the
+great Spanish armament, called the Money Fleet, to indicate the
+immense wealth which it contained. The booty was safely carried
+to Amsterdam, and the whole of the treasure, in money, precious
+stones, indigo, etc., was estimated at the value of twelve million
+florins. This was indeed a victory worth gaining, won almost
+without bloodshed, and raising the republic far above the manifold
+difficulties by which it had been embarrassed. Hein perished
+in the following year, in a combat with some of the pirates of
+Dunkirk--those terrible freebooters whose name was a watchword
+of terror during the whole continuance of the war.
+
+The year 1629 brought three formidable armies at once to the
+frontiers of the republic, and caused a general dismay all through
+the United Provinces; but the immense treasures taken from the
+Spaniards enabled them to make preparations suitable to the danger;
+and Frederick Henry, supported by his cousin William of Nassau, his
+natural brother Justin, and other brave and experienced officers,
+defeated every effort of the enemy. He took many towns in rapid
+succession; and finally forced the Spaniards to abandon all notion
+of invading the territories of the republic. Deprived of the
+powerful talents of Spinola, who was called to command the Spanish
+troops in Italy, the armies of the archduchess, under the count
+of Berg, were not able to cope with the genius of the Prince of
+Orange. The consequence was the renewal of negotiations for a
+second truce. But these were received on the part of the republic
+with a burst of opposition. All parties seemed decided on that
+point; and every interest, however opposed on minor questions,
+combined to give a positive negative on this.
+
+The gratitude of the country for the services of Frederick Henry
+induced the provinces of which he was stadtholder to grant the
+reversion in this title to his son, a child of three years old;
+and this dignity had every chance of becoming as absolute, as it
+was now pronounced almost hereditary, by the means of an army
+of one hundred and twenty thousand men devoted to their chief.
+However, few military occurrences took place, the sea being still
+chosen as the element best suited to the present enterprises
+of the republic. In the widely-distant settlements of Brazil
+and Batavia, the Dutch were equally successful; and the East
+and West India companies acquired eminent power and increasing
+solidity.
+
+The year 1631 was signalized by an expedition into Flanders,
+consisting of eighteen thousand men, intended against Dunkirk,
+but hastily abandoned, in spite of every probability of success,
+by the commissioners of the states-general, who accompanied the
+army, and thwarted all the ardor and vigor of the Prince of Orange.
+But another great naval victory in the narrow seas of Zealand
+recompensed the disappointments of this inglorious affair.
+
+The splendid victories of Augustus Adolphus against the imperial
+arms in Germany changed the whole face of European affairs.
+Protestantism began once more to raise its head; and the important
+conquests by Frederick Henry of almost all the strong places
+on the Meuse, including Maestricht, the strongest of all, gave
+the United Provinces their ample share in the glories of the
+war. The death of the archduchess Isabella, which took place at
+Brussels in the year 1633, added considerably to the difficulties
+of Spain in the Belgian provinces. The defection of the count
+of Berg, the chief general of their armies, who was actuated
+by resentment on the appointment of the marquis of St. Croix
+over his head, threw everything into confusion, in exposing a
+widespread confederacy among the nobility of these provinces
+to erect themselves into an independent republic, strengthened
+by a perpetual alliance with the United Provinces against the
+power of Spain. But the plot failed, chiefly, it is said, by
+the imprudence of the king of England, who let the secret slip,
+from some motives vaguely hinted at, but never sufficiently
+explained. After the death of Isabella, the prince of Brabancon
+was arrested. The prince of Epinoi and the duke of Burnonville
+made their escape; and the duke of Arschot, who was arrested in
+Spain, was soon liberated, in consideration of some discoveries
+into the nature of the plot. An armistice, published in 1634,
+threw this whole affair into complete oblivion.
+
+The king of Spain appointed his brother Ferdinand, a cardinal
+and archbishop of Toledo, to the dignity of governor-general of
+the Netherlands. He repaired to Germany at the head of seventeen
+thousand men, and bore his share in the victory of Nordlingen;
+after which he hastened to the Netherlands, and made his entry
+into Brussels in 1634. Richelieu had hitherto only combated the
+house of Austria in these countries by negotiation and intrigue;
+but he now entered warmly into the proposals made by Holland for
+a treaty offensive and defensive between Louis XIII. and the
+republic. By a treaty soon after concluded (February 8, 1635)
+the king of France engaged to invade the Belgian provinces with
+an army of thirty thousand men, in concert with a Dutch force
+of equal number. It was agreed that if Belgium would consent
+to break from the Spanish yoke it was to be erected into a free
+state; if, on the contrary, it would not co-operate for its own
+freedom, France and Holland were to dismember, and to divide
+it equally.
+
+The plan of these combined measures was soon acted on. The French
+army took the field under the command of the marshals De Chatillon
+and De Breeze; and defeated the Spaniards in a bloody battle,
+near Avein, in the province of Luxemburg, on the 20th of May,
+1635, with the loss of four thousand men. The victors soon made
+a junction with the Prince of Orange; and the towns of Tirlemont,
+St. Trond, and some others, were quickly reduced. The former of
+these places was taken by assault, and pillaged with circumstances
+of cruelty that recall the horrors of the early transactions of
+the war. The Prince of Orange was forced to punish severely the
+authors of these offences. The consequences of this event were
+highly injurious to the allies. A spirit of fierce resistance was
+excited throughout the invaded provinces. Louvain set the first
+example. The citizens and students took arms for its defence; and
+the combined forces of France and Holland were repulsed, and forced
+by want of supplies to abandon the siege, and rapidly retreat. The
+prince-cardinal, as Ferdinand was called, took advantage of this
+reverse to press the retiring French; recovered several towns;
+and gained all the advantages as well as glory of the campaign.
+The remains of the French army, reduced by continual combats,
+and still more by sickness, finally embarked at Rotterdam, to
+return to France in the ensuing spring, a sad contrast to its
+brilliant appearance at the commencement of the campaign.
+
+The military events for several ensuing years present nothing
+of sufficient interest to induce us to record them in detail. A
+perpetual succession of sieges and skirmishes afford a monotonous
+picture of isolated courage and skill; but we see none of those
+great conflicts which bring out the genius of opposing generals, and
+show war in its grand results, as the decisive means of enslaving
+or emancipating mankind. The prince-cardinal, one of the many who
+on this bloody theatre displayed consummate military talents,
+incessantly employed himself in incursions into the bordering
+provinces of France, ravaged Picardy, and filled Paris with fear
+and trembling. He, however, reaped no new laurels when he came
+into contact with Frederick Henry, who, on almost every occasion,
+particularly that of the siege of Breda, in 1637, carried his object
+in spite of all opposition. The triumphs of war were balanced; but
+Spain and the Belgian provinces, so long upheld by the talent
+of the governor-general, were gradually become exhausted. The
+revolution in Portugal, and the succession of the duke of Braganza,
+under the title of John IV., to the throne of his ancestors,
+struck a fatal blow to the power of Spain. A strict alliance
+was concluded between the new monarch of France and Holland; and
+hostilities against the common enemy were on all sides vigorously
+continued.
+
+The successes of the republic at sea and in their distant enterprises
+were continual, and in some instances brilliant. Brazil was gradually
+falling into the power of the West India Company. The East India
+possessions were secure. The great victory of Van Tromp, known
+by the name of the battle of the Downs, from being fought off
+the coast of England, on the 21st of October, 1639, raised the
+naval reputation of Holland as high as it could well be carried.
+Fifty ships taken, burned, and sunk, were the proofs of their
+admiral's triumph; and the Spanish navy never recovered the loss.
+The victory was celebrated throughout Europe, and Van Tromp was
+the hero of the day. The king of England was, however, highly
+indignant at the hardihood with which the Dutch admiral broke
+through the etiquette of territorial respect, and destroyed his
+country's bitter foes under the very sanction of English neutrality.
+But the subjects of Charles I. did not partake their monarch's
+feelings. They had no sympathy with arbitrary and tyrannic
+government; and their joy at the misfortune of their old enemies
+the Spaniards gave a fair warning of the spirit which afterward
+proved so fatal to the infatuated king, who on this occasion
+would have protected and aided them.
+
+In an unsuccessful enterprise in Flanders, Count Henry Casimir
+of Nassau was mortally wounded, adding another to the list of
+those of that illustrious family whose lives were lost in the
+service of their country. His brother, Count William Frederick,
+succeeded him in his office of stadtholder of Friesland; but the
+same dignity in the provinces of Groningen and Drent devolved
+on the Prince of Orange. The latter had conceived the desire of a
+royal alliance for his son William. Charles I. readily assented
+to the proposal of the states-general that this young prince
+should receive the hand of his daughter Mary. Embassies were
+exchanged; the conditions of the contract agreed on; but it was
+not till two years later that Van Tromp, with an escort of twenty
+ships, conducted the princess, then twelve years old, to the
+country of her future husband. The republic did not view with an
+eye quite favorable this advancing aggrandizement of the House
+of Orange. Frederick Henry had shortly before been dignified by
+the king of France, at the suggestion of Richelieu, with the
+title of "highness," instead of the inferior one of "excellency";
+and the states-general, jealous of this distinction granted to
+their chief magistrate, adopted for themselves the sounding
+appellation of "high and mighty lords." The Prince of Orange,
+whatever might have been his private views of ambition, had however
+the prudence to silence all suspicion, by the mild and moderate
+use which he made of the power, which he might perhaps have wished
+to increase, but never attempted to abuse.
+
+On the 9th of November, 1641, the prince-cardinal Ferdinand died
+at Brussels in his thirty-third year; another instance of those
+who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly
+dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties
+of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a
+nobleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this
+onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of
+military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he
+is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely
+noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with
+the exception of the archduke Albert, seems to have valued the
+internal interests of the government; and he alone, perhaps,
+because they were declared and secured as his own. De Mello,
+after taking some towns, and defeating the marshal De Guiche in
+the battle of Hannecourt, tarnished all his fame by the great
+faults which he committed in the famous battle of Rocroy. The
+duke of Enghien, then twenty-one years of age, and subsequently
+so celebrated as the great Condé, completely defeated De Mello,
+and nearly annihilated the Spanish and Walloon infantry. The
+military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable
+by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of
+Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst,
+under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very
+warm skirmish.
+
+Considerable changes were now insensibly operating in the policy
+of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu had finished his dazzling but
+tempestuous career of government, in which the hand of death
+arrested him on the 4th of December, 1642. Louis XIII. soon followed
+to the grave him who was rather his master than his minister. Anne
+of Austria was declared regent during the minority of her son,
+Louis XIV., then only five years of age; and Cardinal Mazarin
+succeeded to the station from which death alone had power to
+remove his predecessor.
+
+The civil wars in England now broke out, and their terrible results
+seemed to promise to the republic the undisturbed sovereignty of
+the seas. The Prince of Orange received with great distinction
+the mother-in-law of his son, when she came to Holland under
+pretext of conducting her daughter; but her principal purpose was
+to obtain, by the sale of the crown jewels and the assistance of
+Frederick Henry, funds for the supply of her unfortunate husband's
+cause.
+
+The prince and several private individuals contributed largely
+in money; and several experienced officers passed over to serve
+in the royalist army of England. The provincial states of Holland,
+however, sympathizing wholly with the parliament, remonstrated
+with the stadtholder; and the Dutch colonists encouraged the
+hostile efforts of their brethren, the Puritans of Scotland,
+by all the absurd exhortations of fanatic zeal. Boswell, the
+English resident in the name of the king, and Strickland, the
+ambassador from the parliament, kept up a constant succession
+of complaints and remonstrances on occasion of every incident
+which seemed to balance the conduct of the republic in the great
+question of English politics. Considerable differences existed:
+the province of Holland, and some others, leaned toward the
+parliament; the Prince of Orange favored the king; and the
+states-general endeavored to maintain a neutrality.
+
+The struggle was still furiously maintained in Germany. Generals
+of the first order of military talent were continually appearing,
+and successively eclipsing each other by their brilliant actions.
+Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the midst of his glorious career,
+at the battle of Lutzen; the duke of Weimar succeeded to his
+command, and proved himself worthy of the place; Tilly and the
+celebrated Wallenstein were no longer on the scene. The emperor
+Ferdinand II. was dead, and his son Ferdinand III. saw his victorious
+enemies threaten, at last, the existence of the empire. Everything
+tended to make peace necessary to some of the contending powers,
+as it was at length desirable for all. Sweden and Denmark were
+engaged in a bloody and wasteful conflict. The United Provinces
+sent an embassy, in the month of June, 1644, to each of those
+powers; and by a vigorous demonstration of their resolution to
+assist Sweden, if Denmark proved refractory, a peace was signed
+the following year, which terminated the disputes of the rival
+nations.
+
+Negotiations were now opened at Munster between the several
+belligerents. The republic was, however, the last to send its
+plenipotentiaries there; having signed anew treaty with France,
+by which they mutually stipulated to make no peace independent
+of each other. It behooved the republic, however, to contribute
+as much as possible toward the general object; for, among other
+strong motives to that line of conduct, the finances of Holland
+were in a state perfectly deplorable.
+
+Every year brought the necessity of a new loan; and the public
+debt of the provinces now amounted to one hundred and fifty million
+florins, bearing interest at six and a quarter per cent. Considerable
+alarm was excited at the progress of the French army in the Belgian
+provinces; and escape from the tyranny of Spain seemed only to
+lead to the danger of submission to a nation too powerful and
+too close at hand not to be dangerous, either as a foe or an
+ally. These fears were increased by the knowledge that Cardinal
+Mazarin projected a marriage between Louis XIV. and the infanta
+of Spain, with the Belgian provinces, or Spanish Netherlands as
+they were now called, for her marriage portion. This project
+was confided to the Prince of Orange, under the seal of secrecy,
+and he was offered the marquisate of Antwerp as the price of
+his influence toward effecting the plan. The prince revealed
+the whole to the states-general. Great fermentation was excited;
+the stadtholder himself was blamed, and suspected of complicity
+with the designs of the cardinal. Frederick Henry was deeply
+hurt at this want of confidence, and the injurious publications
+which openly assailed his honor in a point where he felt himself
+entitled to praise instead of suspicion.
+
+The French labored to remove the impression which this affair
+excited in the republic; but the states-general felt themselves
+justified by the intriguing policy of Mazarin in entering into
+a secret negotiation with the king of Spain, who offered very
+favorable conditions. The negotiations were considerably advanced
+by the marked disposition evinced by the Prince of Orange to
+hasten the establishment of peace. Yet, at this very period, and
+while anxiously wishing this great object, he could not resist
+the desire for another campaign; one more exploit, to signalize
+the epoch at which he finally placed his sword in the scabbard.
+
+Frederick Henry was essentially a soldier, with all the spirit
+of his race; and this evidence of the ruling passion, while he
+touched the verge of the grave, is one of the most striking points
+of his character. He accordingly took the field; but, with a
+constitution broken by a lingering disease, he was little fitted
+to accomplish any feat worthy of his splendid reputation. He failed
+in an attempt on Venlo, and another on Antwerp, and retired to The
+Hague, where for some months he rapidly declined. On the 14th of
+March, 1647, he expired, in his sixty-third year; leaving behind
+him a character of unblemished integrity, prudence, toleration,
+and valor. He was not of that impetuous stamp which leads men
+to heroic deeds, and brings danger to the states whose liberty
+is compromised by their ambition. He was a striking contrast to
+his brother Maurice, and more resembled his father in many of
+those calmer qualities of the mind, which make men more beloved
+without lessening their claims to admiration. Frederick Henry had
+the honor of completing the glorious task which William began
+and Maurice followed up. He saw the oppression they had combated
+now humbled and overthrown; and he forms the third in a sequence
+of family renown, the most surprising and the least checkered
+afforded by the annals of Europe.
+
+William II. succeeded his father in his dignities; and his ardent
+spirit longed to rival him in war. He turned his endeavors to
+thwart all the efforts for peace. But the interests of the nation
+and the dying wishes of Frederick Henry were of too powerful
+influence with the states, to be overcome by the martial yearnings
+of an inexperienced youth. The negotiations were pressed forward;
+and, despite the complaints, the murmurs, and the intrigues of
+France, the treaty of Munster was finally signed by the respective
+ambassadors of the United Provinces and Spain, on the 30th of
+January, 1648. This celebrated treaty contains seventy-nine articles.
+Three points were of main and vital importance to the republic:
+the first acknowledges an ample and entire recognition of the
+sovereignty of the states-general, and a renunciation forever of
+all claims on the part of Spain; the second confirms the rights
+of trade and navigation in the East and West Indies, with the
+possession of the various countries and stations then actually
+occupied by the contracting powers; the third guarantees a like
+possession of all the provinces and towns of the Netherlands, as
+they then stood in their respective occupation--a clause highly
+favorable to the republic, which had conquered several considerable
+places in Brabant and Flanders. The ratifications of the treaty
+were exchanged at Munster with great solemnity on the 15th of
+May following the signature; the peace was published in that
+town and in Osnaburg on the 19th, and in all the different states
+of the king of Spain and the United Provinces as soon as the
+joyous intelligence could reach such various and widely separated
+destinations. Thus after eighty years of unparalleled warfare,
+only interrupted by the truce of 1609, during which hostilities
+had not ceased in the Indies, the new republic rose from the
+horrors of civil war and foreign tyranny to its uncontested rank
+as a free and independent state among the most powerful nations
+of Europe. No country had ever done more for glory; and the result
+of its efforts was the irrevocable guarantee of civil and religious
+liberty, the great aim and end of civilization.
+
+The king of France alone had reason to complain of this treaty:
+his resentment was strongly pronounced. But the United Provinces
+flung back the reproaches of his ambassador on Cardinal Mazarin;
+and the anger of the monarch was smothered by the policy of the
+minister.
+
+The internal tranquillity of the republic was secured from all
+future alarm by the conclusion of the general peace of Westphalia,
+definitively signed on the 24th of October, 1648. This treaty was
+long considered not only as the fundamental law of the empire,
+but as the basis of the political system of Europe. As numbers of
+conflicting interests were reconciled, Germanic liberty secured,
+and a just equilibrium established between the Catholics and
+Protestants, France and Sweden obtained great advantages; and
+the various princes of the empire saw their possessions regulated
+and secured, at the same time that the powers of the emperor
+were strictly defined.
+
+This great epoch in European history naturally marks the conclusion
+of another in that of the Netherlands; and this period of general
+repose allows a brief consideration of the progress of arts,
+sciences, and manners, during the half century just now completed.
+
+The archdukes Albert and Isabella, during the whole course of
+their sovereignty, labored to remedy the abuses which had crowded
+the administration of justice. The Perpetual Edict, in 1611,
+regulated the form of judicial proceedings; and several provinces
+received new charters, by which the privileges of the people were
+placed on a footing in harmony with their wants. Anarchy, in short,
+gave place to regular government; and the archdukes, in swearing
+to maintain the celebrated pact known by the name of the Joyeuse
+Entree, did all in their power to satisfy their subjects, while
+securing their own authority. The piety of the archdukes gave an
+example to all classes. This, although degenerating in the vulgar
+to superstition and bigotry, formed a severe check, which allowed
+their rulers to restrain popular excesses, and enabled them in
+the internal quiet of their despotism to soften the people by
+the encouragement of the sciences and arts. Medicine, astronomy,
+and mathematics, made prodigious progress during this epoch.
+Several eminent men flourished in the Netherlands. But the glory
+of others, in countries presenting a wider theatre for their
+renown, in many instances eclipsed them; and the inventors of
+new methods and systems in anatomy, optics and music were almost
+forgotten in the splendid improvements of their followers.
+
+In literature, Hugo de Groot, or Grotius (his Latinized name,
+by which he is better known), was the most brilliant star of his
+country or his age, as Erasmus was of that which preceded. He was
+at once eminent as jurist, poet, theologian, and historian. His
+erudition was immense; and he brought it to bear in his political
+capacity, as ambassador from Sweden to the court of France, when
+the violence of party and the injustice of power condemned him
+to perpetual imprisonment in his native land. The religious
+disputations in Holland had given a great impulse to talent.
+They were not mere theological arguments; but with the wild and
+furious abstractions of bigotry were often blended various
+illustrations from history, art, and science, and a tone of keen
+and delicate satire, which at once refined and made them readable.
+It is remarkable that almost the whole of the Latin writings of
+this period abound in good taste, while those written in the
+vulgar tongue are chiefly coarse and trivial. Vondel and Hooft,
+the great poets of the time, wrote with genius and energy, but
+were deficient in judgment founded on good taste. The latter
+of these writers was also distinguished for his prose works;
+in honor of which Louis XIII. dignified him with letters patent
+of nobility, and decorated him with the order of St. Michael.
+
+But while Holland was more particularly distinguished by the
+progress of the mechanical arts, to which Prince Maurice afforded
+unbounded patronage, the Belgian provinces gave birth to that
+galaxy of genius in the art of painting, which no equal period
+of any other country has ever rivalled. A volume like this would
+scarcely suffice to do justice to the merits of the eminent artists
+who now flourished in Belgium; at once founding, perfecting, and
+immortalizing the Flemish school of painting. Rubens, Vandyck,
+Teniers, Crayer, Jordaens, Sneyders, and a host of other great
+names, crowd on us with claims for notice that almost make the
+mention of any an injustice to the rest. But Europe is familiar
+with their fame; and the widespread taste for their delicious art
+makes them independent of other record than the combination of
+their own exquisite touch, undying tints, and unequalled knowledge
+of nature. Engraving, carried at the same time to great perfection,
+has multiplied some of the merits of the celebrated painters,
+while stamping the reputation of its own professors. Sculpture,
+also, had its votaries of considerable note. Among these, Des
+Jardins and Quesnoy held the foremost station. Architecture also
+produced some remarkable names.
+
+The arts were, in short, never held in higher honor than at this
+brilliant epoch. Otto Venire, the master of Rubens, held most
+important employments. Rubens himself, appointed secretary to
+the privy council of the archdukes, was subsequently sent to
+England, where he negotiated the peace between that country and
+Spain. The unfortunate King Charles so highly esteemed his merit
+that he knighted him in full parliament, and presented him with the
+diamond ring he wore on his own finger, and a chain enriched with
+brilliants. David Teniers, the great pupil of this distinguished
+master, met his due share of honor. He has left several portraits of
+himself; one of which hands him down to posterity in the costume,
+and with the decorations of the belt and key, which he wore in his
+capacity of chamberlain to the archduke Leopold, governor-general
+of the Spanish Netherlands.
+
+The intestine disturbances of Holland during the twelve years'
+truce, and the enterprises against Friesland and the duchy of
+Cleves, had prevented that wise economy which was expected from
+the republic. The annual ordinary cost of the military establishment
+at that period amounted to thirteen million florins. To meet
+the enormous expenses of the state, taxes were raised on every
+material. They produced about thirty million florins a year,
+independent of five million each for the East and West India
+companies. The population in 1620, in Holland, was about six
+hundred thousand, and the other provinces contained about the
+same number.
+
+It is singular to observe the fertile erections of monopoly in
+a state founded on principles of commercial freedom. The East
+and West India companies, the Greenland company, and others,
+were successively formed. By the effect of their enterprise,
+industry and wealth, conquests were made and colonies founded
+with surprising rapidity. The town of Amsterdam, now New York,
+was founded in 1624; and the East saw Batavia rise up from the
+ruins of Jacatra, which was sacked and razed by the Dutch
+adventurers.
+
+The Dutch and English East India companies, repressing their
+mutual jealousy, formed a species of partnership in 1619 for the
+reciprocal enjoyment of the rights of commerce. But four years
+later than this date an event took place so fatal to national
+confidence that its impressions are scarcely yet effaced--this
+was the torturing and execution of several Englishmen in the
+island of Amboyna, on pretence of an unproved plot, of which every
+probability leads to the belief that they were wholly innocent. This
+circumstance was the strongest stimulant to the hatred so evident
+in the bloody wars which not long afterward took place between
+the two nations; and the lapse of two centuries has not entirely
+effaced its effects. Much has been at various periods written
+for and against the establishment of monopolizing companies,
+by which individual wealth and skill are excluded from their
+chances of reward. With reference to those of Holland at this
+period of its history, it is sufficient to remark that the great
+results of their formation could never have been brought about
+by isolated enterprises; and the justice or wisdom of their
+continuance are questions wholly dependent on the fluctuations
+in trade, and the effects produced on that of any given country
+by the progress and the rivalry of others.
+
+With respect to the state of manners in the republic, it is clear
+that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely
+to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been
+reproached. The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot,
+however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of
+some disputed points between the Dutch and English maritime
+tribunals--"The decisions of our courts cause much ill-will among
+these people, whose hearts' blood is their purse."[5] While
+drunkenness was a vice considered scarcely scandalous, the intrigues
+of gallantry were concealed with the most scrupulous mystery--giving
+evidence of at least good taste, if not of pure morality. Court
+etiquette began to be of infinite importance. The wife of Count
+Ernest Casimir of Nassau was so intent on the preservation of
+her right of precedence that on occasion of Lady Carleton, the
+British ambassadress, presuming to dispute the _pas_, she forgot
+true dignity so far as to strike her. We may imagine the vehement
+resentment of such a man as Carleton for such an outrage. The
+lower orders of the people had the rude and brutal manners common
+to half-civilized nations which fight their way to freedom. The
+unfortunate king of Bohemia, when a refugee in Holland, was one
+day hunting; and, in the heat of the chase, he followed his dogs,
+which had pursued a hare, into a newly sown corn-field: he was
+quickly interrupted by a couple of peasants armed with pitchforks.
+He supposed his rank and person to be unknown to them; but he
+was soon undeceived, and saluted with unceremonious reproaches.
+"King of Bohemia! King of Bohemia!" shouted one of the boors,
+"why do you trample on my wheat which I have so lately had the
+trouble of sowing?" The king made many apologies, and retired,
+throwing the whole blame on his dogs. But in the life of Marshal
+Turenne we find a more marked trait of manners than this, which
+might be paralleled in England at this day. This great general
+served his apprenticeship in the art of war under his uncles, the
+princes Maurice and Frederick Henry. He appeared one day on the
+public walk at The Hague, dressed in his usual plain and modest
+style. Some young French lords, covered with gold, embroidery, and
+ribbons, met and accosted him: a mob gathered round; and while
+treating Turenne, although unknown to them, with all possible
+respect, they forced the others to retire, assailed with mockery
+and the coarsest abuse.
+
+[Footnote 5: Carleton.]
+
+But one characteristic, more noble and worthy than any of those
+thus briefly cited, was the full enjoyment of the liberty of
+the press in the United Provinces. The thirst of gain, the fury
+of faction, the federal independence of the minor towns, the
+absolute power of Prince Maurice, all the combinations which
+might carry weight against this grand principle, were totally
+ineffectual to prevail over it. And the republic was, on this
+point, proudly pre-eminent among surrounding nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN
+
+A.D. 1648--1678
+
+The completion of the peace of Munster opens a new scene in the
+history of the republic. Its political system experienced
+considerable changes. Its ancient enemies became its most ardent
+friends, and its old allies loosened the bonds of long-continued
+amity. The other states of Europe, displeased at its imperious
+conduct, or jealous of its success, began to wish its humiliation;
+but it was little thought that the consummation was to be effected
+at the hands of England.
+
+While Holland prepared to profit by the peace so brilliantly
+gained, England, torn by civil war, was hurried on in crime and
+misery to the final act which has left an indelible stain on her
+annals. Cromwell and the parliament had completely subjugated
+the kingdom. The unfortunate king, delivered up by the Scotch,
+was brought to a mock trial, and condemned to an ignominious
+death. Great as were his faults, they are almost lost sight of
+in the atrocity of his opponents; so surely does disproportioned
+punishment for political offences produce a reaction in the minds
+that would approve a commensurate penalty. The United Provinces
+had preserved a strict neutrality while the contest was undecided.
+The Prince of Orange warmly strove to obtain a declaration in
+favor of his father-in-law, Charles I. The Prince of Wales and
+the Duke of York, his sons, who had taken refuge at The Hague,
+earnestly joined in the entreaty; but all that could be obtained
+from the states-general was their consent to an embassy to interpose
+with the ferocious bigots who doomed the hapless monarch to the
+block. Pauw and Joachimi, the one sixty-four years of age, the
+other eighty-eight, the most able men of the republic, undertook
+the task of mediation. They were scarcely listened to by the
+parliament, and the bloody sacrifice took place.
+
+The details of this event, and its immediate consequences, belong
+to English history; and we must hurry over the brief, turbid,
+and inglorious stadtholderate of William II., to arrive at the
+more interesting contest between the republic which had honorably
+conquered its freedom, and that of the rival commonwealth, which
+had gained its power by hypocrisy, violence, and guilt.
+
+William II. was now in his twenty-fourth year. He had early evinced
+that heroic disposition which was common to his race. He panted
+for military glory. All his pleasures were those usual to ardent
+and high-spirited men, although his delicate constitution seemed
+to forbid the indulgence of hunting, tennis, and the other violent
+exercises in which he delighted. He was highly accomplished;
+spoke five different languages with elegance and fluency, and
+had made considerable progress in mathematics and other abstract
+sciences. His ambition knew no bounds. Had he reigned over a
+monarchy as absolute king, he would most probably have gone down
+to posterity a conqueror and a hero. But, unfitted to direct a
+republic as its first citizen, he has left but the name of a
+rash and unconstitutional magistrate. From the moment of his
+accession to power, he was made sensible of the jealousy and
+suspicion with which his office and his character were observed
+by the provincial states of Holland. Many instances of this
+disposition were accumulated to his great disgust; and he was
+not long in evincing his determination to brave all the odium
+and reproach of despotic designs, and to risk everything for
+the establishment of absolute power. The province of Holland,
+arrogating to itself the greatest share in the reforms of the
+army, and the financial arrangements called for by the transition
+from war to peace, was soon in fierce opposition with the
+states-general, which supported the prince in his early views.
+Cornelius Bikker, one of the burgomasters of Amsterdam, was the
+leading person in the states of Holland; and a circumstance soon
+occurred which put him and the stadtholder in collision, and
+quickly decided the great question at issue.
+
+The admiral Cornellizon de Witt arrived from Brazil with the
+remains of his fleet, and without the consent of the council of
+regency there established by the states-general. He was instantly
+arrested by order of the Prince of Orange, in his capacity of
+high-admiral. The admiralty of Amsterdam was at the same time
+ordered by the states-general to imprison six of the captains
+of this fleet. The states of Holland maintained that this was a
+violation of their provincial rights, and an illegal assumption
+of power on the part of the states-general; and the magistrates
+of Amsterdam forced the prison doors, and set the captains at
+liberty. William, backed by the authority of the states-general,
+now put himself at the head of a deputation from that body, and
+made a rapid tour of visitation to the different chief towns of
+the republic, to sound the depths of public opinion on the matters
+in dispute. The deputation met with varied success; but the result
+proved to the irritated prince that no measures of compromise were
+to be expected, and that force alone was to arbitrate the question.
+The army was to a man devoted to him. The states-general gave
+him their entire, and somewhat servile, support. He, therefore,
+on his own authority, arrested the six deputies of Holland, in
+the same way that his uncle Maurice had seized on Barneveldt,
+Grotius, and the others; and they were immediately conveyed to
+the castle of Louvestein.
+
+In adopting this bold and unauthorized measure, he decided on an
+immediate attempt to gain possession of the city of Amsterdam,
+the central point of opposition to his violent designs. William
+Frederick, count of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland, at the
+head of a numerous detachment of troops, marched secretly and
+by night to surprise the town; but the darkness and a violent
+thunderstorm having caused the greater number to lose their way,
+the count found himself at dawn at the city gates with a very
+insufficient force; and had the further mortification to see the
+walls well manned, the cannon pointed, the draw-bridges raised,
+and everything in a state of defence. The courier from Hamburg,
+who had passed through the scattered bands of soldiers during the
+night, had given the alarm. The first notion was that a roving
+band of Swedish or Lorraine troops, attracted by the opulence
+of Amsterdam, had resolved on an attempt to seize and pillage
+it. The magistrates could scarcely credit the evidence of day,
+which showed them the count of Nassau and his force on their
+hostile mission. A short conference with the deputies from the
+citizens convinced him that a speedy retreat was the only measure
+of safety for himself and his force, as the sluices of the dikes
+were in part opened, and a threat of submerging the intended
+assailants only required a moment more to be enforced.
+
+Nothing could exceed the disappointment and irritation of the
+Prince of Orange consequent on this transaction. He at first
+threatened, then negotiated, and finally patched up the matter in
+a mariner the least mortifying to his wounded pride. Bikker nobly
+offered himself for a peace-offering, and voluntarily resigned
+his employments in the city he had saved; and De Witt and his
+officers were released. William was in some measure consoled for
+his disgrace by the condolence of the army, the thanks of the
+province of Zealand, and a new treaty with France, strengthened by
+promises of future support from Cardinal Mazarin; but, before he
+could profit by these encouraging symptoms, domestic and foreign,
+a premature death cut short all his projects of ambition.
+Over-violent exercise in a shooting party in Guelders brought
+on a fever, which soon terminated in an attack of smallpox. On
+the first appearance of his illness, he was removed to The Hague;
+and he died there on the 6th of November, 1650, aged twenty-four
+years and six months.
+
+The death of this prince left the state without a stadtholder,
+and the army without a chief. The whole of Europe shared more or
+less in the joy or the regret it caused. The republican party,
+both in Holland and in England, rejoiced in a circumstance which
+threw back the sovereign power into the hands of the nation;
+the partisans of the House of Orange deeply lamented the event.
+But the birth of a son, of which the widowed princess of Orange
+was delivered within a week of her husbands death, revived the
+hopes of those who mourned his loss, and offered her the only
+consolation which could assuage her grief. This child was, however,
+the innocent cause of a breach between his mother and grandmother,
+the dowager-princess, who had never been cordially attached to
+each other. Each claimed the guardianship of the young prince;
+and the dispute was at length decided by the states, who adjudged
+the important office to the elector of Brandenburg and the two
+princesses jointly. The states of Holland soon exercised their
+influence on the other provinces. Many of the prerogatives of
+the stadtholder were now assumed by the people; and, with the
+exception of Zealand, which made an ineffectual attempt to name
+the infant prince to the dignity of his ancestors under the title
+of William III., a perfect unanimity seemed to have reconciled
+all opposing interests. The various towns secured the privileges
+of appointing their own magistrates, and the direction of the
+army and navy devolved to the states-general.
+
+The time was now arrived when the wisdom, the courage, and the
+resources of the republic were to be put once more to the test,
+in a contest hitherto without example, and never since equalled in
+its nature. The naval wars between Holland and England had their
+real source in the inveterate jealousies and unbounded ambition
+of both countries, reciprocally convinced that a joint supremacy
+at sea was incompatible with their interests and their honor, and
+each resolved to risk everything for their mutual pretensions--to
+perish rather than yield. The United Provinces were assuredly
+not the aggressors in this quarrel. They had made sure of their
+capability to meet it, by the settlement of all questions of
+internal government, and the solid peace which secured them against
+any attack on the part of their old and inveterate enemy; but they
+did not seek a rupture. They at first endeavored to ward off the
+threatened danger by every effort of conciliation; and they met,
+with temperate management, even the advances made by Cromwell, at
+the instigation of St. John, the chief justice, for a proposed,
+yet impracticable coalition between the two republics, which was
+to make them one and indivisible. An embassy to The Hague, with
+St. John and Strickland at its head, was received with all public
+honors; but the partisans of the families of Orange and Stuart,
+and the populace generally, openly insulted the ambassadors.
+About the same time Dorislas, a Dutchman naturalized in England,
+and sent on a mission from the parliament, was murdered at The
+Hague by some Scotch officers, friends of the banished king;
+the massacre of Amboyna, thirty years before, was made a cause of
+revived complaint; and altogether a sum of injuries was easily
+made up to turn the proposed fantastic coalition into a fierce
+and bloody war.
+
+The parliament of England soon found a pretext in an outrageous
+measure, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce.
+They passed the celebrated act of navigation, which prohibited all
+nations from importing into England in their ships any commodity
+which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country.
+This law, though worded generally, was aimed directly at the
+Dutch, who were the general factors and carriers of Europe. Ships
+were seized, reprisals made, the mockery of negotiation carried
+on, fleets equipped, and at length the war broke out.
+
+In the month of May, 1652, the Dutch admiral, Tromp, commanding
+forty-two ships of war, met with the English fleet under Blake
+in the Straits of Dover; the latter, though much inferior in
+number, gave a signal to the Dutch admiral to strike, the usual
+salutation of honor accorded to the English during the monarchy.
+Totally different versions have been given by the two admirals of
+what followed. Blake insisted that Tromp, instead of complying,
+fired a broadside at his vessel; Tromp stated that a second and
+a third bullet were sent promptly from the British ship while
+he was preparing to obey the admiral's claim. The discharge of
+the first broadside is also a matter of contradiction, and of
+course of doubt. But it is of small consequence; for whether
+hostilities had been hurried on or delayed, they were ultimately
+inevitable. A bloody battle began: it lasted five hours. The
+inferiority in number on the side of the English was balanced
+by the larger size of their ships. One Dutch vessel was sunk;
+another taken; and night parted the combatants.
+
+The states-general heard the news with consternation: they despatched
+the grand pensionary Pauw on a special embassy to London. The
+imperious parliament would hear of neither reason nor remonstrance.
+Right or wrong, they were resolved on war. Blake was soon at
+sea again with a numerous fleet; Tromp followed with a hundred
+ships; but a violent tempest separated these furious enemies,
+and retarded for a while the rencounter they mutually longed
+for. On the 16th of August a battle took place between Sir George
+Ayscue and the renowned De Ruyter, near Plymouth, each with about
+forty ships; but with no decisive consequences. On the 28th of
+October, Blake, aided by Bourn and Pen, met a Dutch squadron
+of nearly equal force off the coast of Kent, under De Ruyter
+and De Witt. The fight which followed was also severe, but not
+decisive, though the Dutch had the worst of the day. In the
+Mediterranean, the Dutch admiral Van Galen defeated the English
+captain Baddely, but bought the victory with his life. And, on
+the 29th of November, another bloody conflict took place between
+Blake and Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, near the Goodwin Sands.
+In this determined action Blake was wounded and defeated; five
+English ships, taken, burned, or sunk; and night saved the fleet
+from destruction. After this victory Tromp placed a broom at
+his masthead, as if to intimate that he would sweep the Channel
+free of all English ships.
+
+Great preparations were made in England to recover this disgrace;
+eighty sail put to sea under Blake, Dean, and Monk, so celebrated
+subsequently as the restorer of the monarchy. Tromp and De Ruyter,
+with seventy-six vessels, were descried on the 18th of February,
+escorting three hundred merchantmen up Channel. Three days of
+desperate fighting ended in the defeat of the Dutch, who lost
+ten ships of war and twenty-four merchant vessels. Several of
+the English ships were disabled, one sunk; and the carnage on
+both sides was nearly equal. Tromp acquired prodigious honor
+by this battle; having succeeded, though defeated, in saving,
+as has been seen, almost the whole of his immense convoy. On
+the 12th of June and the day following two other actions were
+fought: in the first of which the English admiral Dean was killed;
+in the second, Monk, Pen, and Lawson amply revenged his death
+by forcing the Dutch to regain their harbors with great loss.
+
+The 21st of July was the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts
+for superiority. Tromp issued out once more, determined to conquer
+or die. He met the enemy off Scheveling, commanded by Monk. Both
+fleets rushed to the combat. The heroic Dutchman, animating his
+sailors with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a
+musket-ball. This event, and this alone, won the battle, which
+was the most decisive of the whole war. The enemy captured or sunk
+nearly thirty ships. The body of Tromp was carried with great
+solemnity to the church of Delft, where a magnificent mausoleum was
+erected over the remains of this eminently brave and distinguished
+man.
+
+This memorable defeat, and the death of this great naval hero,
+added to the injury done to their trade, induced the states-general
+to seek terms from their too powerful enemy. The want of peace
+was felt throughout the whole country. Cromwell was not averse to
+grant it; but he insisted on conditions every way disadvantageous
+and humiliating. He had revived his chimerical scheme of a total
+conjunction of government, privileges, and interests between
+the two republics. This was firmly rejected by John de Witt,
+now grand pensionary of Holland, and by the States under his
+influence. But the Dutch consented to a defensive league; to
+punish the survivors of those concerned in the massacre of Amboyna;
+to pay nine thousand pounds of indemnity for vessels seized in
+the Sound, five thousand pounds for the affair of Amboyna, and
+eighty-five thousand pounds to the English East India Company,
+to cede to them the island of Polerone in the East; to yield
+the honor of the national flag to the English; and, finally,
+that neither the young Prince of Orange nor any of his family
+should ever be invested with the dignity of stadtholder. These
+two latter conditions were certainly degrading to Holland; and
+the conditions of the treaty prove that an absurd point of honor
+was the only real cause for the short but bloody and ruinous war
+which plunged the Provinces into overwhelming difficulties.
+
+For several years after the conclusion of this inglorious peace,
+universal discontent and dissension spread throughout the republic.
+The supporters of the House of Orange, and every impartial friend
+of the national honor, were indignant at the act of exclusion.
+Murmurs and revolts broke out in several towns; and all was once
+more tumult, agitation, and doubt. No event of considerable
+importance marks particularly this epoch of domestic trouble.
+A new war was at last pronounced inevitable, and was the means
+of appeasing the distractions of the people, and reconciling by
+degrees contending parties. Denmark, the ancient ally of the
+republic, was threatened with destruction by Charles Gustavus,
+king of Sweden, who held Copenhagen in blockade. The interests
+of Holland were in imminent peril should the Swedes gain the
+passage of the Sound. This double motive influenced De Witt;
+and he persuaded the states-general to send Admiral Opdam with
+a considerable fleet to the Baltic. This intrepid successor of
+the immortal Tromp soon came to blows with a rival worthy to
+meet him. Wrangel, the Swedish admiral, with a superior force,
+defended the passage of the Sound; and the two castles of Cronenberg
+and Elsenberg supported his fleet with their tremendous fire.
+But Opdam resolutely advanced; though suffering extreme anguish
+from an attack of gout, he had himself carried on deck, where he
+gave his orders with the most admirable coolness and precision,
+in the midst of danger and carnage. The rival monarchs witnessed
+the battle; the king of Sweden from the castle of Cronenberg,
+and the king of Denmark from the summit of the highest tower in
+his besieged capital. A brilliant victory crowned the efforts
+of the Dutch admiral, dearly bought by the death of his second in
+command, the brave De Witt, and Peter Florizon, another admiral
+of note. Relief was poured into Copenhagen. Opdam was replaced
+in the command, too arduous for his infirmities, by the still
+more celebrated De Ruyter, who was greatly distinguished by his
+valor in several successive affairs: and after some months more
+of useless obstinacy, the king of Sweden, seeing his army perish
+in the island of Funen, by a combined attack of those of Holland
+and Denmark, consented to a peace highly favorable to the latter
+power.
+
+These transactions placed the United Provinces on a still higher
+pinnacle of glory than they had ever reached. Intestine disputes
+were suddenly calmed. The Algerines and other pirates were swept
+from the seas by a succession of small but vigorous expeditions.
+The mediation of the States re-established peace in several of
+the petty states of Germany. England and France were both held
+in check, if not preserved in friendship, by the dread of their
+recovered power. Trade and finance were reorganized. Everything
+seemed to promise a long-continued peace and growing greatness,
+much of which was owing to the talents and persevering energy of
+De Witt; and, to complete the good work of European tranquillity,
+the French and Spanish monarchs concluded in this year the treaty
+known by the name of the "peace of the Pyrenees."
+
+Cromwell had now closed his career, and Charles II. was restored
+to the throne from which he had so long been excluded. The
+complimentary entertainments rendered to the restored king in
+Holland were on the proudest scale of expense. He left the country
+which had given him refuge in misfortune, and done him honor in
+his prosperity, with profuse expressions of regard and gratitude.
+Scarcely was he established in his recovered kingdom, when a still
+greater testimony of deference to his wishes was paid, by the
+states-general formally annulling the act of exclusion against
+the House of Orange. A variety of motives, however, acting on the
+easy and plastic mind of the monarch, soon effaced whatever of
+gratitude he had at first conceived. He readily entered into the
+views of the English nation, which was irritated by the great
+commercial superiority of Holland, and a jealousy excited by
+its close connection with France at this period.
+
+It was not till the 22d of February, 1665, that war was formally
+declared against the Dutch; but many previous acts of hostility
+had taken place in expeditions against their settlements on the
+coast of Africa and in America, which were retaliated by De Ruyter
+with vigor and success. The Dutch used every possible means of
+avoiding the last extremities. De Witt employed all the powers
+of his great capacity to avert the evil of war; but nothing could
+finally prevent it, and the sea was once more to witness the
+conflict between those who claimed its sovereignty. A great battle
+was fought on the 31st of June. The duke of York, afterward James
+II., commanded the British fleet, and had under him the earl of
+Sandwich and Prince Rupert. The Dutch were led on by Opdam; and
+the victory was decided in favor of the English by the blowing
+up of that admiral's ship, with himself and his whole crew. The
+loss of the Dutch was altogether nineteen ships. De Witt the
+pensionary then took in person the command of the fleet, which
+was soon equipped; and he gave a high proof of the adaptation of
+genius to a pursuit previously unknown, by the rapid knowledge
+and the practical improvements he introduced into some of the
+most intricate branches of naval tactics.
+
+Immense efforts were now made by England, but with a very
+questionable policy, to induce Louis XIV. to join in the war.
+Charles offered to allow of his acquiring the whole of the Spanish
+Netherlands, provided he would leave him without interruption to
+destroy the Dutch navy (and, consequently, their commerce), in the
+by no means certain expectation that its advantages would all fall
+to the share of England. But the king of France resolved to support
+the republic. The king of Denmark, too, formed an alliance with
+them, after a series of the most strange tergiversations. Spain,
+reduced to feebleness, and menaced with invasion by France, showed
+no alacrity to meet Charles's overtures for an offensive treaty.
+Van Galen, bishop of Munster, a restless prelate, was the only
+ally he could acquire. This bishop, at the head of a tumultuous
+force of twenty thousand men, penetrated into Friesland; but six
+thousand French were despatched by Louis to the assistance of the
+republic, and this impotent invasion was easily repelled.
+
+The republic, encouraged by all these favorable circumstances,
+resolved to put forward its utmost energies. Internal discords
+were once more appeased; the harbors were crowded with merchant
+ships; the young Prince of Orange had put himself under the tuition
+of the states of Holland and of De Witt, who faithfully executed
+his trust; and De Ruyter was ready to lead on the fleet. The
+English, in spite of the dreadful calamity of the great fire of
+London, the plague which desolated the city, and a declaration
+of war on the part of France, prepared boldly for the shock.
+
+The Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter and Tromp, the gallant
+successor of his father's fame, was soon at sea. The English,
+under Prince Rupert and Monk, now duke of Albemarle, did not
+lie idle in port. A battle of four days continuance, one of the
+most determined and terrible up to this period on record, was
+the consequence. The Dutch claim, and it appears with justice,
+to have had the advantage. But a more decisive conflict took
+place on the 25th of July,[6] when a victory was gained by the
+English, the enemy having three of their admirals killed. "My God!"
+exclaimed De Ruyter; during this desperate fight, and seeing the
+certainty of defeat; "what a wretch I am! Among so many thousand
+bullets, is there not one to put an end to my miserable life?"
+
+[Footnote 6: In all these naval battles we have followed Hume
+and the English historians as to dates, which, in almost every
+instance, are strangely at variance with those given by the Dutch
+writers.]
+
+The king of France hastened forward in this crisis to the assistance
+of the republic and De Witt, by a deep stroke of policy, amused
+the English with negotiation while a powerful fleet was fitted
+out. It suddenly appeared in the Thames, under the command of De
+Ruyter, and all England was thrown into consternation. The Dutch
+took Sheerness, and burned many ships of war; almost insulting
+the capital itself in their predatory incursion. Had the French
+power joined that of the Provinces at this time, and invaded
+England, the most fatal results to that kingdom might have taken
+place. But the alarm soon subsided with the disappearance of the
+hostile fleet; and the signing the peace of Breda, on the 10th
+of July, 1667, extricated Charles from his present difficulties.
+The island of Polerone was restored to the Dutch, and the point of
+maritime superiority was, on this occasion, undoubtedly theirs.
+
+While Holland was preparing to indulge in the luxury of national
+repose, the death of Philip IV. of Spain, and the startling ambition
+of Louis XIV., brought war once more to their very doors, and
+soon even forced it across the threshold of the republic. The
+king of France, setting at naught his solemn renunciation at the
+peace of the Pyrenees of all claims to any part of the Spanish
+territories in right of his wife, who was daughter of the late
+king, found excellent reasons (for his own satisfaction) to invade
+a material portion of that declining monarchy. Well prepared by
+the financial and military foresight of Colbert for his great
+design, he suddenly poured a powerful army, under Turenne, into
+Brabant and Flanders; quickly overran and took possession of these
+provinces; and, in the space of three weeks, added Franche-Comte to
+his conquests. Europe was in universal alarm at these unexpected
+measures; and no state felt more terror than the republic of the
+United Provinces. The interest of all countries seemed now to
+require a coalition against the power which had abandoned the
+House of Austria only to settle on France. The first measure to
+this effect was the signing of the triple league between Holland,
+Sweden, and England, at The Hague, on the 13th of January, 1668.
+But this proved to be one of the most futile confederations on
+record. Charles, with almost unheard-of perfidy throughout the
+transaction, fell in with the designs of his pernicious, and
+on this occasion purchased, cabinet, called the Cabal; and he
+entered into a secret treaty with France, in the very teeth of
+his other engagements. Sweden was dissuaded from the league by
+the arguments of the French ministers; and Holland in a short
+time found itself involved in a double war with its late allies.
+
+A base and piratical attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet by a large
+force under Sir Robert Holmes, on the 13th of March, 1672, was
+the first overt act of treachery on the part of the English
+government. The attempt completely failed, through the prudence
+and valor of the Dutch admirals; and Charles reaped only the double
+shame of perfidy and defeat. He instantly issued a declaration of
+war against the republic, on reasoning too palpably false to
+require refutation, and too frivolous to merit record to the
+exclusion of more important matter from our narrow limits.
+
+Louis at least covered with the semblance of dignity his unjust
+co-operation in this violence. He soon advanced with his army,
+and the contingents of Munster and Cologne, his allies, amounting
+altogether to nearly one hundred and seventy thousand men, commanded
+by Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, and others of the greatest generals
+of France. Never was any country less prepared than were the
+United Provinces to resist this formidable aggression. Their
+army was as naught; their long cessation of military operations
+by land having totally demoralized that once invincible branch
+of their forces. No general existed who knew anything of the
+practice of war. Their very stores of ammunition had been delivered
+over, in the way of traffic, to the enemy who now prepared to
+overwhelm them. De Witt was severely, and not quite unjustly,
+blamed for having suffered the country to be thus taken by surprise,
+utterly defenceless, and apparently without resource. Envy of
+his uncommon merit aggravated the just complaints against his
+error. But, above all things, the popular affection to the young
+prince threatened, in some great convulsion, the overthrow of
+the pensionary, who was considered eminently hostile to the
+illustrious House of Orange.
+
+[Illustration: A HOLLAND BEAUTY]
+
+William III., prince of Orange, now twenty-two years of age,
+was amply endowed with those hereditary qualities of valor and
+wisdom which only required experience to give him rank with the
+greatest of his ancestors. The Louvenstein party, as the adherents
+of the House of Orange were called, now easily prevailed in their
+long-conceived design of placing him at the head of affairs,
+with the titles of captain-general and high admiral. De Witt,
+anxious from personal considerations, as well as patriotism, to
+employ every means of active exertion, attempted the organization
+of an army, and hastened the equipment of a formidable fleet of
+nearly a hundred ships of the line and half as many fire-ships.
+De Ruyter, now without exception the greatest commander of the
+age, set sail with this force in search of the combined fleets
+of England and France, commanded by the duke of York and Marshal
+D'Etrees. He encountered them, on the 6th of May, 1672, at Solebay.
+A most bloody engagement was the result of this meeting. Sandwich,
+on the side of the English, and Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, were
+slain. The glory of the day was divided; the victory doubtful;
+but the sea was not the element on which the fate of Holland
+was to be decided.
+
+The French armies poured like a torrent into the territories
+of the republic. Rivers were passed, towns taken, and provinces
+overrun with a rapidity much less honorable to France than
+disgraceful to Holland. No victory was gained--no resistance
+offered; and it is disgusting to look back on the fulsome panegyrics
+with which courtiers and poets lauded Louis for those facile
+and inglorious triumphs. The Prince of Orange had received the
+command of a nominal army of seventy thousand men; but with this
+undisciplined and discouraged mass he could attempt nothing. He
+prudently retired into the province of Holland, vainly hoping
+that the numerous fortresses on the frontiers would have offered
+some resistance to the enemy. Guelders, Overyssel and Utrecht
+were already in Louis's hands. Groningen and Friesland were
+threatened. Holland and Zealand opposed obstruction to such rapid
+conquest from their natural position; and Amsterdam set a noble
+example to the remaining towns--forming a regular and energetic
+plan of defence, and endeavoring to infuse its spirit into the
+rest. The sluices, those desperate sources at once of safety
+and desolation, were opened; the whole country submerged; and
+the other provinces following this example, extensive districts
+of fertility and wealth were given to the sea, for the exclusion
+of which so many centuries had scarcely sufficed.
+
+The states-general now assembled, and it was decided to supplicate
+for peace at the hands of the combined monarchs. The haughty
+insolence of Louvois, coinciding with the temper of Louis himself,
+made the latter propose the following conditions as the price
+of peace: To take off all duties on commodities exported into
+Holland; to grant the free exercise of the Romish religion in
+the United Provinces; to share the churches with the Catholics,
+and to pay their priests; to yield up all the frontier towns, with
+several in the heart of the republic; to pay him twenty million
+livres; to send him every year a solemn embassy, accompanied by
+a present of a golden medal, as an acknowledgment that they owed
+him their liberty; and, finally, that they should give entire
+satisfaction to the king of England.
+
+Charles, on his part, after the most insulting treatment of the
+ambassadors sent to London, required, among other terms, that
+the Dutch should give up the honor of the flag without reserve,
+whole fleets being expected, even on the coasts of Holland, to
+lower their topsails to the smallest ship under British colors;
+that the Dutch should pay one million pounds sterling toward the
+charges of the war, and ten thousand pounds a year for permission
+to fish in the British seas; that they should share the Indian
+trade with the English; and that Walcheren and several other
+islands should be put into the king's hands as security for the
+performance of the articles.
+
+The insatiable monarchs overshot the mark. Existence was not
+worth preserving on these intolerable terms. Holland was driven
+to desperation; and even the people of England were inspired
+with indignation at this monstrous injustice. In the republic a
+violent explosion of popular excess took place. The people now
+saw no safety but in the courage and talents of the Prince of
+Orange. He was tumultuously proclaimed stadtholder. De Witt and
+his brother Cornelis, the conscientious but too obstinate opponents
+of this measure of salvation, fell victims to the popular frenzy.
+The latter, condemned to banishment on an atrocious charge of
+intended assassination against the Prince of Orange, was visited
+in his prison at The Hague by the grand pensionary. The rabble,
+incited to fury by the calumnies spread against these two virtuous
+citizens, broke into the prison, forced the unfortunate brothers
+into the street, and there literally tore them to pieces with
+circumstances of the most brutal ferocity. This horrid scene
+took place on the 27th of August, 1672.
+
+The massacre of the De Witts completely destroyed the party of
+which they were the head. All men now united under the only leader
+left to the country. William showed himself well worthy of the
+trust, and of his heroic blood. He turned his whole force against
+the enemy. He sought nothing for himself but the glory of saving
+his country; and taking his ancestors for models, in the best
+points of their respective characters, he combined prudence with
+energy, and firmness with moderation. His spirit inspired all
+ranks of men. The conditions of peace demanded by the partner
+kings were rejected with scorn. The whole nation was moved by
+one concentrated principle of heroism; and it was even resolved
+to put the ancient notion of the first William into practice,
+and abandon the country to the waves, sooner than submit to the
+political annihilation with which it was threatened. The capability
+of the vessels in their harbors was calculated; and they were
+found sufficient to transport two hundred thousand families to
+the Indian settlements. We must hasten from this sublime picture
+of national desperation. The glorious hero who stands in its
+foreground was inaccessible to every overture of corruption.
+Buckingham, the English ambassador, offered him, on the part
+of England and France, the independent sovereignty of Holland,
+if he would abandon the other provinces to their grasp; and,
+urging his consent, asked him if he did not see that the republic
+was ruined? "There is one means," replied the Prince of Orange,
+"which will save me from the sight of my country's ruin--I will
+die in the last ditch."
+
+Action soon proved the reality of the prince's profession. He
+took the field; having first punished with death some of the
+cowardly commanders of the frontier towns. He besieged and took
+Naarden, an important place; and, by a masterly movement, formed
+a junction with Montecuculi, whom the emperor Leopold had at
+length sent to his assistance with twenty thousand men. Groningen
+repulsed the bishop of Munster, the ally of France, with a loss
+of twelve thousand men. The king of Spain (such are the strange
+fluctuations of political friendship and enmity) sent the count
+of Monterey, governor of the Belgian provinces, with ten thousand
+men to support the Dutch army. The elector of Brandenburg also
+lent them aid. The whole face of affairs was changed; and Louis
+was obliged to abandon all his conquests with more rapidity than
+he had made them. Two desperate battles at sea, on the 28th of
+May and the 4th of June, in which De Ruyter and Prince Rupert
+again distinguished themselves, only proved the valor of the
+combatants, leaving victory still doubtful. England was with
+one common feeling ashamed of the odious war in which the king
+and his unworthy ministers had engaged the nation. Charles was
+forced to make peace on the conditions proposed by the Dutch.
+The honor of the flag was yielded to the English; a regulation
+of trade was agreed to; all possessions were restored to the
+same condition as before the war; and the states-general agreed
+to pay the king eight hundred thousand patacoons, or nearly three
+hundred thousand pounds.
+
+With these encouraging results from the Prince of Orange's influence
+and example, Holland persevered in the contest with France. He, in
+the first place, made head, during a winter campaign in Holland,
+against Marshal Luxemburg, who had succeeded Turenne in the Low
+Countries, the latter being obliged to march against the imperialists
+in Westphalia. He next advanced to oppose the great Conde, who
+occupied Brabant with an army of forty-five thousand men. After
+much manoeuvring, in which the Prince of Orange displayed consummate
+talent, he on only one occasion exposed a part of his army to a
+disadvantageous contest. Conde seized on the error; and of his
+own accord gave the battle to which his young opponent could
+not succeed in forcing him. The battle of Senef is remarkable
+not merely for the fury with which it was fought, or for its
+leaving victory undecided, but as being the last combat of one
+commander and the first of the other. "The Prince of Orange,"
+said the veteran Conde (who had that day exposed his person more
+than on any previous occasion), "has acted in everything like an
+old captain, except venturing his life too like a young soldier."
+
+The campaign of 1675 offered no remarkable event; the Prince
+of Orange with great prudence avoiding the risk of a battle.
+But the following year was rendered fatally remarkable by the
+death of the great De Ruyter,[7] who was killed in an action
+against the French fleet in the Mediterranean; and about the
+same time the not less celebrated Turenne met his death from a
+cannon-ball in the midst of his triumphs in Germany. This year
+was doubly occupied in a negotiation for peace and an active
+prosecution of the war. Louis, at the head of his army, took
+several towns in Belgium: William was unsuccessful in an attempt
+on Maestricht. About the beginning of winter, the plenipotentiaries
+of the several belligerents assembled at Nimeguen, where the
+congress for peace was held. The Hollanders, loaded with debts
+and taxes, and seeing the weakness and slowness of their allies,
+the Spaniards and Germans, prognosticated nothing but misfortunes.
+Their commerce languished; while that of England, now neutral
+amid all these quarrels, flourished extremely. The Prince of
+Orange, however, ambitious of glory, urged another campaign;
+and it commenced accordingly. In the middle of February, Louis
+carried Valenciennes by storm, and laid siege to St. Omer and
+Cambray. William, though full of activity, courage, and skill,
+was, nevertheless, almost always unsuccessful in the field, and
+never more so than in this campaign. Several towns fell almost
+in his sight; and he was completely defeated in the great battle
+of Mount Cassel by the duke of Orleans and Marshal Luxemburg. But
+the period for another peace was now approaching. Louis offered
+fair terms for the acceptance of the United Provinces at the
+congress of Nimeguen, April, 1678, as he now considered his chief
+enemies Spain and the empire, who had at first only entered into
+the war as auxiliaries. He was, no doubt, principally impelled
+in his measures by the marriage of the Prince of Orange with
+the lady Mary, eldest daughter of the duke of York, and heir
+presumptive to the English crown, which took place on the 23d of
+October, to the great joy of both the Dutch and English nations.
+Charles was at this moment the arbiter of the peace of Europe;
+and though several fluctuations took place in his policy in the
+course of a few months, as the urgent wishes of the parliament
+and the large presents of Louis differently actuated him, still
+the wiser and more just course prevailed, and he finally decided
+the balance by vigorously declaring his resolution for peace; and
+the treaty was consequently signed at Nimeguen, on the 10th of
+August, 1678. The Prince of Orange, from private motives of spleen,
+or a most unjustifiable desire for fighting, took the extraordinary
+measure of attacking the French troops under Luxemburg, near Mons,
+on the very day after the signing of this treaty. He must have
+known it, even though it were not officially notified to him; and
+he certainly had to answer for all the blood so wantonly spilled in
+the sharp though undecisive action which ensued. Spain, abandoned
+to her fate, was obliged to make the best terms she could; and on
+the 17th of September she also concluded a treaty with France,
+on conditions entirely favorable to the latter power.
+
+[Footnote 7: The council of Spain gave De Ruyter the title and
+letters patent of duke. The latter arrived in Holland after his
+death; and his children, with true republican spirit, refused
+to adopt the title.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
+
+A.D. 1678--1713
+
+A few years passed over after this period, without the occurrence
+of any transaction sufficiently important to require a mention
+here. Each of the powers so lately at war followed the various
+bent of their respective ambition. Charles of England was
+sufficiently occupied by disputes with parliament, and the discovery,
+fabrication, and punishment of plots, real or pretended. Louis
+XIV., by a stretch of audacious pride hitherto unknown, arrogated
+to himself the supreme power of regulating the rest of Europe, as
+if all the other princes were his vassals. He established courts,
+or chambers of reunion as they were called, in Metz and Brisac,
+which cited princes, issued decrees, and authorized spoliation,
+in the most unjust and arbitrary manner. Louis chose to award to
+himself Luxemburg, Chiny, and a considerable portion of Brabant
+and Flanders. He marched a considerable army into Belgium, which
+the Spanish governors were unable to oppose. The Prince of Orange,
+who labored incessantly to excite a confederacy among the other
+powers of Europe against the unwarrantable aggressions of France,
+was unable to arouse his countrymen to actual war; and was forced,
+instead of gaining the glory he longed for, to consent to a truce
+for twenty years, which the states-general, now wholly pacific
+and not a little cowardly, were too happy to obtain from France.
+The emperor and the king of Spain gladly entered into a like
+treaty. The fact was that the peace of Nimeguen had disjointed
+the great confederacy which William had so successfully brought
+about; and the various powers were laid utterly prostrate at the
+feet of the imperious Louis, who for a while held the destinies
+of Europe in his hands.
+
+Charles II. died most unexpectedly in the year 1685; and his
+obstinately bigoted and unconstitutional successor, James II.,
+seemed, during a reign of not four years' continuance, to rush
+wilfully headlong to ruin. During this period, the Prince of
+Orange had maintained a most circumspect and unexceptionable
+line of conduct; steering clear of all interference with English
+affairs; giving offence to none of the political factions; and
+observing in every instance the duty and regard which he owed to
+his father-in-law. During Monmouth's invasion he had despatched
+to James's assistance six regiments of British troops which were
+in the Dutch service, and he offered to take the command of the
+king's forces against the rebels. It was from the application
+of James himself that William took any part in English affairs;
+for he was more widely and much more congenially employed in the
+establishment of a fresh league against France. Louis had aroused
+a new feeling throughout Protestant Europe by the revocation
+of the Edict of Nantes. The refugees whom he had driven from
+their native country inspired in those in which they settled
+hatred of his persecution as well as alarm of his power. Holland
+now entered into all the views of the Prince of Orange. By his
+immense influence he succeeded in forming the great confederacy
+called the League of Augsburg, to which the emperor, Spain, and
+almost every European power but England became parties.
+
+James gave the prince reason to believe that he too would join
+in this great project, if William would in return concur in his
+views of domestic tyranny; but William wisely refused. James, much
+disappointed, and irritated by the moderation which showed his
+own violence in such striking contrast, expressed his displeasure
+against the prince, and against the Dutch generally, by various
+vexatious acts. William resolved to maintain a high attitude;
+and many applications were made to him by the most considerable
+persons in England for relief against James's violent measures,
+and which there was but one method of making effectual. That method
+was force. But as long as the Princess of Orange was certain of
+succeeding to the crown on her father's death, William hesitated
+to join in an attempt that might possibly have failed and lost
+her her inheritance. But the birth of a son, which, in giving
+James a male heir, destroyed all hope of redress for the kingdom,
+decided the wavering, and rendered the determined desperate.
+The prince chose the time for his enterprise with the sagacity,
+arranged its plan with the prudence, and put it into execution
+with the vigor, which were habitual qualities of his mind.
+
+Louis XIV., menaced by the League of Augsburg, had resolved to
+strike the first blow against the allies. He invaded Germany; so
+that the Dutch preparations seemed in the first instance intended
+as measures of defence against the progress of the French. But
+Louis's envoy at The Hague could not be long deceived. He gave
+notice to his master, who in his turn warned James. But that
+infatuated monarch not only doubted the intelligence, but refused
+the French king's offers of assistance and co-operation. On the
+21st of October, the Prince of Orange, with an army of fourteen
+thousand men, and a fleet of five hundred vessels of all kinds,
+set sail from Helvoetsluys; and after some delays from bad weather,
+he safely landed his army in Torbay, on the 5th of November, 1688.
+The desertion of James's best friends; his own consternation,
+flight, seizure, and second escape; and the solemn act by which he
+was deposed; were the rapid occurrences of a few weeks: and thus
+the grandest revolution that England had ever seen was happily
+consummated. Without entering here on legislative reasonings or
+party sophisms, it is enough to record the act itself; and to
+say, in reference to our more immediate subject, that without
+the assistance of Holland and her glorious chief, England might
+have still remained enslaved, or have had to purchase liberty
+by oceans of blood. By the bill of settlement, the crown was
+conveyed jointly to the Prince and Princess of Orange, the sole
+administration of government to remain in the prince; and the
+new sovereigns were proclaimed on the 23d of February, 1689.
+The convention, which had arranged this important point, annexed
+to the settlement a declaration of rights, by which the powers
+of royal prerogative and the extent of popular privilege were
+defined and guaranteed.
+
+William, now become king of England, still preserved his title
+of stadtholder of Holland; and presented the singular instance
+of a monarchy and a republic being at the same time governed by
+the same individual. But whether as a king or a citizen, William
+was actuated by one grand and powerful principle, to which every
+act of private administration was made subservient, although
+it certainly called for no sacrifice that was not required for
+the political existence of the two nations of which he was the
+head. Inveterate opposition to the power of Louis XIV. was this
+all-absorbing motive. A sentiment so mighty left William but
+little time for inferior points of government, and everything
+but that seems to have irritated and disgusted him. He was soon
+again on the Continent, the chief theatre of his efforts. He
+put himself in front of the confederacy which resulted from the
+congress of Utrecht in 1690. He took the command of the allied
+army; and till the hour of his death, he never ceased his
+indefatigable course of hostility, whether in the camp or the
+cabinet, at the head of the allied armies, or as the guiding
+spirit of the councils which gave them force and motion.
+
+Several campaigns were expended, and bloody combats fought, almost
+all to the disadvantage of William, whose genius for war was
+never seconded by that good fortune which so often decides the
+fate of battles in defiance of all the calculations of talent.
+But no reverse had power to shake the constancy and courage of
+William. He always appeared as formidable after defeat as he
+was before action. His conquerors gained little but the honor
+of the day. Fleurus, Steinkerk, Herwinde, were successively the
+scenes of his evil fortune, and the sources of his fame. His
+retreats were master-strokes of vigilant activity and profound
+combinations. Many eminent sieges took place during this war.
+Among other towns, Mons and Namur were taken by the French, and
+Huy by the allies; and the army of Marshal Villeroi bombarded
+Brussels during three days, in August, 1695, with such fury that
+the town-house, fourteen churches, and four thousand houses,
+were reduced to ashes. The year following this event saw another
+undecisive campaign. During the continuance of this war, the naval
+transactions present no grand results. Du Bart, a celebrated
+adventurer of Dunkirk, occupies the leading place in those affairs,
+in which he carried on a desultory but active warfare against the
+Dutch and English fleets, and generally with great success.
+
+All the nations which had taken part in so many wars were now
+becoming exhausted by the contest, but none so much so as France.
+The great despot who had so long wielded the energies of that
+country with such wonderful splendor and success found that his
+unbounded love of dominion was gradually sapping all the real
+good of his people, in chimerical schemes of universal conquest.
+England, though with much resolution voting new supplies, and in
+every way upholding William in his plans for the continuance of
+war, was rejoiced when Louis accepted the mediation of Charles
+XI., king of Sweden, and agreed to concessions which made peace
+feasible. The emperor and Charles II. of Spain, were less satisfied
+with those concessions; but everything was finally arranged to meet
+the general views of the parties, and negotiations were opened
+at Ryswyk. The death of the king of Sweden, and the minority of
+his son and successor, the celebrated Charles XII., retarded
+them on points of form for some time. At length, on the 20th of
+September, 1697, the articles of the treaty were subscribed by
+the Dutch, English, Spanish, and French ambassadors. The treaty
+consisted of seventeen articles. The French king declared he
+would not disturb or disquiet the king of Great Britain, whose
+title he now for the first time acknowledged. Between France
+and Holland were declared a general armistice, perpetual amity,
+a mutual restitution of towns, a reciprocal renunciation of all
+pretensions upon each other, and a treaty of commerce which was
+immediately put into execution. Thus, after this long, expensive,
+and sanguinary war, things were established just on the footing they
+had been by the peace of Nimeguen; and a great, though unavailable
+lesson, read to the world on the futility and wickedness of those
+quarrels in which the personal ambition of kings leads to the
+misery of the people. Had the allies been true to each other
+throughout, Louis would certainly have been reduced much lower
+than he now was. His pride was humbled, and his encroachments
+stopped. But the sufferings of the various countries engaged in
+the war were too generally reciprocal to make its result of any
+material benefit to either. The emperor held out for a while,
+encouraged by the great victory gained by his general, Prince
+Eugene of Savoy, over the Turks at Zenta in Hungary; but he finally
+acceded to the terms offered by France; the peace, therefore,
+became general, but, unfortunately for Europe, of very short
+duration.
+
+France, as if looking forward to the speedy renewal of hostilities,
+still kept her armies undisbanded. Let the foresight of her
+politicians have been what it might, this negative proof of it was
+justified by events. The king of Spain, a weak prince, without any
+direct heir for his possessions, considered himself authorized to
+dispose of their succession by will. The leading powers of Europe
+thought otherwise, and took this right upon themselves. Charles
+died on the 1st of November, 1700, and thus put the important
+question to the test. By a solemn testament he declared Philip,
+duke of Anjou, second son of the dauphin, and grandson of Louis
+XIV., his successor to the whole of the Spanish monarchy. Louis
+immediately renounced his adherence to the treaties of partition,
+executed at The Hague and in London, in 1698 and 1700, and to which
+he had been a contracting party; and prepared to maintain the act
+by which the last of the descendants of Charles V. bequeathed
+the possessions of Spain and the Indies to the family which had
+so long been the inveterate enemy and rival of his own.
+
+The emperor Leopold, on his part, prepared to defend his claims;
+and thus commenced the new war between him and France, which took
+its name from the succession which formed the object of dispute.
+Hostilities were commenced in Italy, where Prince Eugene, the
+conqueror of the Turks, commanded for Leopold, and every day
+made for himself a still more brilliant reputation. Louis sent
+his grandson to Spain to take possession of the inheritance,
+for which so hard a fight was yet to be maintained, with the
+striking expression at parting--"My child, there are no longer
+any Pyrenees!" an expression most happily unprophetic for the
+future independence of Europe; for the moral force of the barrier
+has long existed after the expiration of the family compact which
+was meant to deprive it of its force.
+
+Louis prepared to act vigorously. Among other measures, he caused
+part of the Dutch army that was quartered in Luxemburg and Brabant
+to be suddenly made prisoners of war, because they would not own
+Philip V. as king of Spain. The states-general were dreadfully
+alarmed, immediately made the required acknowledgment, and in
+consequence had their soldiers released. They quickly reinforced
+their garrisons, purchased supplies, solicited foreign aid, and
+prepared for the worst that might happen. They wrote to King
+William, professing the most inviolable attachment to England;
+and he met their application by warm assurances of support and
+an immediate reinforcement of three regiments.
+
+William followed up these measures by the formation of the celebrated
+treaty called the Grand Alliance, by which England, the States,
+and the emperor covenanted for the support of the pretensions
+of the latter to the Spanish monarchy. William was preparing,
+in spite of his declining health, to take his usual lead in the
+military operations now decided on, and almost all Europe was
+again looking forward to his guidance, when he died on the 8th of
+March, 1701, leaving his great plans to receive their execution
+from still more able adepts in the art of war.
+
+William's character has been traced by many hands. In his capacity
+of king of England, it is not our province to judge him in this
+place. As stadtholder of Holland, he merits unqualified praise.
+Like his great ancestor William I., whom he more resembled than
+any other of his race, he saved the country in a time of such
+imminent peril that its abandonment seemed the only resource
+left to the inhabitants, who preferred self-exile to slavery.
+All his acts were certainly merged in the one overwhelming object
+of a great ambition--that noble quality, which, if coupled with
+the love of country, is the very essence of true heroism. William
+was the last of that illustrious line which for a century and a
+half had filled Europe with admiration. He never had a child;
+and being himself an only one, his title as Prince of Orange
+passed into another branch of the family. He left his cousin,
+Prince Frison of Nassau, the stadtholder of Friesland, his sole
+and universal heir, and appointed the states-general his executors.
+
+William's death filled Holland with mourning and alarm. The meeting
+of the states-general after this sad intelligence was of a most
+affecting description; but William, like all master-minds, had
+left the mantle of his inspiration on his friends and followers.
+Heinsius, the grand pensionary, followed up the views of the
+lamented stadtholder with considerable energy, and was answered
+by the unanimous exertions of the country. Strong assurances
+of support from Queen Anne, William's successor, still further
+encouraged the republic, which now vigorously prepared for war.
+But it did not lose this occasion of recurring to the form of
+government of 1650. No new stadtholder was now appointed; the
+supreme authority being vested in the general assembly of the
+states, and the active direction of affairs confided to the grand
+pensionary. This departure from the form of government which had
+been on various occasions proved to be essential to the safety,
+although at all times hazardous to the independence, of the States,
+was not attended with any evil consequences. The factions and
+the anarchy which had before been the consequence of the course
+now adopted were prevented by the potent influence of national
+fear lest the enemy might triumph, and crush the hopes, the
+jealousies, and the enmities of all parties in one general ruin.
+Thus the common danger awoke a common interest, and the splendid
+successes of her allies kept Holland steady in the career of
+patriotic energy which had its rise in the dread of her redoubtable
+foe.
+
+The joy in France at William's death was proportionate to the
+grief it created in Holland; and the arrogant confidence of Louis
+seemed to know no bounds. "I will punish these audacious merchants,"
+said he, with an air of disdain, when he read the manifesto of
+Holland; not foreseeing that those he affected to despise so
+much would, ere long, command in a great measure the destinies
+of his crown. Queen Anne entered upon the war with masculine
+intrepidity, and maintained it with heroic energy. Efforts were
+made by the English ministry and the states-general to mediate
+between the kings of Sweden and Poland. But Charles XII., enamored
+of glory, and bent on the one great object of his designs against
+Russia, would listen to nothing that might lead him from his
+immediate career of victory. Many other of the northern princes
+were withheld, by various motives, from entering into the contest
+with France, and its whole brunt devolved on the original members
+of the Grand Alliance. The generals who carried it on were
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The former, at its commencement
+an earl, and subsequently raised to the dignity of duke, was
+declared generalissimo of the Dutch and English forces. He was
+a man of most powerful genius, both as warrior and politician.
+A pupil of the great Turenne, his exploits left those of his
+master in the shade. No commander ever possessed in a greater
+degree the faculty of forming vast designs, and of carrying them
+into effect with consummate skill; no one displayed more coolness
+and courage in action, saw with a keener eye the errors of the
+enemy, or knew better how to profit by success. He never laid
+siege to a town that he did not take, and never fought a battle
+that he did not gain.
+
+Prince Eugene joined to the highest order of personal bravery a
+profound judgment for the grand movements of war, and a capacity
+for the most minute of the minor details on which their successful
+issue so often depends. United in the same cause, these two great
+generals pursued their course without the least misunderstanding.
+At the close of each of those successive campaigns, in which they
+reaped such a full harvest of renown, they retired together to The
+Hague, to arrange, in the profoundest secrecy, the plans for the
+next year's operations, with one other person, who formed the great
+point of union between them, and completed a triumvirate without
+a parallel in the history of political affairs. This third was
+Heinsius, one of those great men produced by the republic whose
+names are tantamount to the most detailed eulogium for talent
+and patriotism. Every enterprise projected by the confederates
+was deliberately examined, rejected, or approved by these three
+associates, whose strict union of purpose, disowning all petty
+rivalry, formed the centre of counsels and the source of
+circumstances finally so fatal to France.
+
+Louis XIV., now sixty years of age, could no longer himself command
+his armies, or probably did not wish to risk the reputation he
+was conscious of having gained by the advice and services of
+Turenne, Conde, and Luxemburg. Louvois, too, was dead; and Colbert
+no longer managed his finances. A council of rash and ignorant
+ministers hung like a dead weight on the talent of the generals
+who succeeded the great men above mentioned. Favor and not merit
+too often decided promotion, and lavished command. Vendome, Villars,
+Boufflers, and Berwick were set aside, to make way for Villeroi,
+Tallard, and Marsin, men every way inferior.
+
+The war began in 1702 in Italy, and Marlborough opened his first
+campaign in Brabant also in that year. For several succeeding
+years the confederates pursued a career of brilliant success,
+the details of which do not properly belong to this work. A mere
+chronology of celebrated battles would be of little interest, and
+the pages of English history abound in records of those deeds.
+Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, are names that
+speak for themselves, and tell their own tale of glory. The utter
+humiliation of France was the result of events, in which the
+undying fame of England for inflexible perseverance and unbounded
+generosity was joined in the strictest union with that of Holland;
+and the impetuous valor of the worthy successor to the title
+of Prince of Orange was, on many occasions, particularly at
+Malplaquet, supported by the devotion and gallantry of the Dutch
+contingent in the allied armies. The naval affairs of Holland
+offered nothing very remarkable. The states had always a fleet
+ready to support the English in their enterprises; but no eminent
+admiral arose to rival the renown of Rooke, Byng, Benbow, and others
+of their allies. The first of those admirals took Gibraltar, which
+has ever since remained in the possession of England. The great
+earl of Peterborough carried on the war with splendid success in
+Portugal and Spain, supported occasionally by the English fleet
+under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and that of Holland under Admirals
+Allemonde and Wapenaer.
+
+During the progress of the war, the haughty and longtime imperial
+Louis was reduced to a state of humiliation that excited a compassion
+so profound as to prevent its own open expression--the most galling
+of all sentiments to a proud mind. In the year 1709 he solicited
+peace on terms of most abject submission. The states-general,
+under the influence of the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene,
+rejected all his supplications, retorting unsparingly the insolent
+harshness with which he had formerly received similar proposals
+from them. France, roused to renewed exertions by the insulting
+treatment experienced by her humiliated but still haughty despot,
+made prodigious but vain efforts to repair her ruinous losses.
+In the following year Louis renewed his attempts to obtain some
+tolerable conditions; offering to renounce his grandson, and to
+comply with all the former demands of the confederates. Even these
+overtures were rejected; Holland and England appearing satisfied
+with nothing short of--what was after all impracticable--the total
+destruction of the great power which Louis had so long proved
+to be incompatible with their welfare.
+
+The war still went on; and the taking of Bouchain on the 30th
+of August, 1711, closed the almost unrivalled military career
+of Marlborough, by the success of one of his boldest and best
+conducted exploits. Party intrigue had accomplished what, in
+court parlance, is called the disgrace, but which, in the language
+of common sense, means only the dismissal of this great man. The
+new ministry, who hated the Dutch, now entered seriously into
+negotiations with France. The queen acceded to these views, and
+sent special envoys to communicate with the court of Versailles.
+The states-general found it impossible to continue hostilities if
+England withdrew from the coalition; conferences were consequently
+opened at Utrecht in the month of January, 1712. England took
+the important station of arbiter in the great question there
+debated. The only essential conditions which she demanded
+individually were the renunciation of all claims to the crown of
+France by Philip V., and the demolition of the harbor of Dunkirk.
+The first of these was the more readily acceded to, as the great
+battles of Almanza and Villaviciosa, gained by Philip's generals,
+the dukes of Berwick and Vendome, had steadily fixed him on the
+throne of Spain--a point still more firmly secured by the death
+of the emperor Joseph I., son of Leopold, and the elevation of
+his brother Charles, Philip's competitor for the crown of Spain,
+to the imperial dignity, by the title of Charles VI.
+
+The peace was not definitively signed until the 11th of April,
+1713; and France obtained far better conditions than those which
+were refused her a few years previously. The Belgian provinces
+were given to the new emperor, and must henceforth be called
+the Austrian instead of the Spanish Netherlands. The gold and
+the blood of Holland had been profusely expended during this
+contest; it might seem for no positive results; but the exhaustion
+produced to every one of the other belligerents was a source
+of peace and prosperity to the republic. Its commerce was
+re-established; its financial resources recovered their level;
+and altogether we must fix on the epoch now before us as that
+of its utmost point of influence and greatness. France, on the
+contrary, was now reduced from its palmy state of almost European
+sovereignty to one of the deepest misery; and its monarch, in
+his old age, found little left of his former power but those
+records of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture which
+tell posterity of his magnificence, and the splendor of which
+throw his faults and his misfortunes into the shade.
+
+The great object now to be accomplished by the United Provinces
+was the regulation of a distinct and guaranteed line of frontier
+between the republic and France. This object had become by degrees,
+ever since the peace of Munster, a fundamental maxim of their
+politics. The interposition of the Belgian provinces between the
+republic and France was of serious inconvenience to the former in
+this point of view. It was made the subject of a special article in
+"the grand alliance." In the year 1707 it was particularly discussed
+between England and the States, to the great discontent of the
+emperor, who was far from wishing its definitive settlement. But
+it was now become an indispensable item in the total of important
+measures whose accomplishment was called for by the peace of
+Utrecht. Conferences were opened on this sole question at Antwerp
+in the year 1714; and, after protracted and difficult discussions,
+the treaty of the Barrier was concluded on the 15th of November,
+1715.
+
+This treaty was looked on with an evil eye in the Austrian
+Netherlands. The clamor was great and general; jealousy of the
+commercial prosperity of Holland being the real motive. Long
+negotiations took place on the subject of the treaty; and in
+December, 1718, the republic consented to modify some of the
+articles. The Pragmatic Sanction, published at Vienna in 1713
+by Charles VI., regulated the succession to all the imperial
+hereditary possessions; and, among the rest, the provinces of
+the Netherlands. But this arrangement, though guaranteed by the
+chief powers of Europe, was, in the sequel, little respected,
+and but indifferently executed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
+THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
+
+A.D. 1713--1795
+
+During a period of thirty years following the treaty of Utrecht,
+the republic enjoyed the unaccustomed blessing of profound peace.
+While the discontents of the Austrian Netherlands on the subject
+of the treaty of the Barrier were in debate, the quadruple alliance
+was formed between Holland, England, France and the emperor, for
+reciprocal aid against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It was
+in virtue of this treaty that the pretender to the English throne
+received orders to remove from France; and the states-general
+about the same time arrested the Swedish ambassador, Baron Gortz,
+whose intrigues excited some suspicion. The death of Louis XIV.
+had once more changed the political system of Europe; and the
+commencement of the eighteenth century was fertile in negotiations
+and alliances in which we have at present but little direct interest.
+The rights of the republic were in all instances respected; and
+Holland did not cease to be considered as a power of the first
+distinction and consequence. The establishment of an East India
+Company at Ostend, by the emperor Charles VI., in 1722, was the
+principal cause of disquiet to the United Provinces, and the most
+likely to lead to a rupture. But, by the treaty of Hanover in
+1726, the rights of Holland resulting from the treaty of Munster
+were guaranteed; and in consequence the emperor abolished the
+company of his creation, by the treaty of Seville in 1729, and
+that of Vienna in 1731.
+
+The peace which now reigned in Europe allowed the United Provinces
+to direct their whole efforts toward the reform of those internal
+abuses resulting from feudality and fanaticism. Confiscations
+were reversed, and property secured throughout the republic.
+It received into its protection the persecuted sectarians of
+France, Germany, and Hungary; and the tolerant wisdom which it
+exercised in these measures gives the best assurance of its justice
+and prudence in one of a contrary nature, forming a solitary
+exception to them. This was the expulsion of the Jesuits, whose
+dangerous and destructive doctrines had been long a warrant for
+this salutary example to the Protestant states of Europe.
+
+In the year 1732 the United Provinces were threatened with imminent
+peril, which accident alone prevented from becoming fatal to
+their very existence. It was perceived that the dikes, which
+had for ages preserved the coasts, were in many places crumbling
+to ruin, in spite of the enormous expenditure of money and labor
+devoted to their preservation. By chance it was discovered that the
+beams, piles and other timber works employed in the construction
+of the dikes were eaten through in all parts by a species of
+sea-worm hitherto unknown. The terror of the people was, as may
+be supposed, extreme. Every possible resource was applied which
+could remedy the evil; a hard frost providentially set in and
+destroyed the formidable reptiles; and the country was thus saved
+from a danger tenfold greater than that involved in a dozen wars.
+
+The peace of Europe was once more disturbed in 1733. Poland,
+Germany, France, and Spain, were all embarked in the new war.
+Holland and England stood aloof; and another family alliance
+of great consequence drew still closer than ever the bonds of
+union between them. The young Prince of Orange, who in 1728 had
+been elected stadtholder of Groningen and Guelders, in addition
+to that of Friesland which had been enjoyed by his father, had
+in the year 1734 married the princess Anne, daughter of George
+II. of England; and by thus adding to the consideration of the
+House of Nassau, had opened a field for the recovery of all its
+old distinctions.
+
+The death of the emperor Charles VI., in October, 1740, left his
+daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, heiress of his throne
+and possessions. Young, beautiful, and endowed with qualities of
+the highest order, she was surrounded with enemies whose envy
+and ambition would have despoiled her of her splendid rights.
+Frederick of Prussia, surnamed the Great, in honor of his abilities
+rather than his sense of justice, the electors of Bavaria and
+Saxony, and the kings of Spain and Sardinia, all pressed forward
+to the spoliation of an inheritance which seemed a fair play for
+all comers. But Maria Theresa, first joining her husband, Duke
+Francis of Lorraine, in her sovereignty, but without prejudice to
+it, under the title of co-regent, took an attitude truly heroic.
+When everything seemed to threaten the dismemberment of her states,
+she threw herself upon the generous fidelity of her Hungarian
+subjects with a dignified resolution that has few examples. There
+was imperial grandeur even in her appeal to their compassion.
+The results were electrical; and the whole tide of fortune was
+rapidly turned.
+
+England and Holland were the first to come to the aid of the
+young and interesting empress. George II., at the head of his
+army, gained the victory of Dettingen, in support of her quarrel,
+in 1743; the states-general having contributed twenty thousand
+men and a large subsidy to her aid. Louis XV. resolved to throw
+his whole influence into the scale against these generous efforts
+in the princess's favor; and he invaded the Austrian Netherlands
+in the following year. Marshal Saxe commanded under him, and at
+first carried everything before him. Holland, having furnished
+twenty thousand troops and six ships of war to George II. on
+the invasion of the young pretender, was little in a state to
+oppose any formidable resistance to the enemy that threatened
+her own frontiers. The republic, wholly attached for so long
+a period to pursuits of peace and commerce, had no longer good
+generals nor effective armies; nor could it even put a fleet of
+any importance to sea. Yet with all these disadvantages it would
+not yield to the threats nor the demands of France; resolved
+to risk a new war rather than succumb to an enemy it had once
+so completely humbled and given the law to.
+
+Conferences were opened at Breda, but interrupted almost as soon
+as commenced. Hostilities were renewed. The memorable battle of
+Fontenoy was offered and gloriously fought by the allies; accepted
+and splendidly won by the French. Never did the English and Dutch
+troops act more nobly in concert than on this remarkable occasion.
+The valor of the French was not less conspicuous; and the success
+of the day was in a great measure decided by the Irish battalions,
+sent, by the lamentable politics of those and much later days,
+to swell the ranks and gain the battles of England's enemies.
+Marshal Saxe followed up his advantage the following year, taking
+Brussels and many other towns. Almost the whole of the Austrian
+Netherlands being now in the power of Louis XV., and the United
+Provinces again exposed to invasion and threatened with danger,
+they had once more recourse to the old expedient of the elevation
+of the House of Orange, which in times of imminent peril seemed
+to present a never-failing palladium. Zealand was the first to
+give the impulsion; the other provinces soon followed the example;
+and William IV. was proclaimed stadtholder and captain-general,
+amid the almost unanimous rejoicings of all. These dignities
+were soon after declared hereditary both in the male and female
+line of succession of the House of Orange Nassau.
+
+The year 1748 saw the termination of the brilliant campaigns of
+Louis XV. during this bloody war of eight years' continuance.
+The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, definitively signed on the 18th of
+October, put an end to hostilities; Maria Theresa was established
+in her rights and power; and Europe saw a fair balance of the
+nations, which gave promise of security and peace. But the United
+Provinces, when scarcely recovering from struggles which had so
+checked their prosperity, were employed in new and universal
+grief and anxiety by the death of their young stadtholder, which
+happened at The Hague, October 13, 1751. He had long been kept
+out of the government, though by no means deficient in the talents
+suited to his station. His son, William V., aged but three years
+and a half, succeeded him, under the guardianship of his mother,
+Anne of England, daughter of George II., a princess represented
+to be of a proud and ambitious temper, who immediately assumed
+a high tone of authority in the state.
+
+The war of seven years, which agitated the north of Europe, and
+deluged its plains with blood, was almost the only one in which the
+republic was able to preserve a strict neutrality throughout. But
+this happy state of tranquillity was not, as on former occasions,
+attended by that prodigious increase of commerce, and that
+accumulation of wealth, which had so often astonished the world.
+Differing with England on the policy which led the latter to
+weaken and humiliate France, jealousies sprung up between the
+two countries, and Dutch commerce became the object of the most
+vexatious and injurious efforts on the part of England. Remonstrance
+was vain; resistance impossible; and the decline of the republic
+hurried rapidly on. The Hanseatic towns, the American colonies, the
+northern states of Europe, and France itself, all entered into the
+rivalry with Holland, in which, however, England carried off the
+most important prizes. Several private and petty encounters took
+place between the vessels of England and Holland, in consequence
+of the pretensions of the former to the right of search; and had
+the republic possessed the ability of former periods, and the
+talents of a Tromp or a De Ruyter, a new war would no doubt have
+been the result. But it was forced to submit; and a degrading but
+irritating tranquillity was the consequence for several years;
+the national feelings receiving a salve for home-decline by some
+extension of colonial settlements in the East, in which the island
+of Ceylon was included.
+
+In the midst of this inglorious state of things, and the domestic
+abundance which was the only compensation for the gradual loss
+of national influence, the installation of William V., in 1766;
+his marriage with the princess of Prussia, niece of Frederick
+the Great, in 1768; and the birth of two sons, the eldest on
+the 24th of August, 1772; successively took place. Magnificent
+fetes celebrated these events; the satisfied citizens little
+imagining, amid their indolent rejoicings, the dismal futurity of
+revolution and distress which was silently but rapidly preparing
+for their country.
+
+Maria Theresa, reduced to widowhood by the death of her husband,
+whom she had elevated to the imperial dignity by the title of
+Francis I., continued for a while to rule singly her vast
+possessions; and had profited so little by the sufferings of her
+own early reign that she joined in the iniquitous dismemberment
+of Poland, which has left an indelible stain on her memory, and on
+that of Frederick of Prussia and Catherine of Russia. In her own
+dominions she was adored; and her name is to this day cherished
+in Belgium among the dearest recollections of the people.
+
+The impulsion given to the political mind of Europe by the revolution
+in North America was soon felt in the Netherlands. The wish for
+reform was not merely confirmed to the people. A memorable instance
+was offered by Joseph II., son and successor of Maria Theresa,
+that sovereigns were not only susceptible of rational notions
+of change, but that the infection of radical extravagance could
+penetrate even to the imperial crown. Disgusted by the despotism
+exercised by the clergy of Belgium, Joseph commenced his reign
+by measures that at once roused a desperate spirit of hostility
+in the priesthood, and soon spread among the bigoted mass of the
+people, who were wholly subservient to their will. Miscalculating
+his own power, and undervaluing that of the priests, the emperor
+issued decrees and edicts with a sweeping violence that shocked
+every prejudice and roused every passion perilous to the country.
+Toleration to the Protestants, emancipation of the clergy from the
+papal yoke, reformation in the system of theological instruction,
+were among the wholesale measures of the emperor's enthusiasm,
+so imprudently attempted and so virulently opposed.
+
+But ere the deep-sown seeds of bigotry ripened to revolt, or
+produced the fruit of active resistance in Belgium, Holland had
+to endure the mortification of another war with England. The
+republic resolved on a futile imitation of the northern powers,
+who had adopted the difficult and anomalous system of an armed
+neutrality, for the prevention of English domination on the seas.
+The right of search, so proudly established by this power, was not
+likely to be wrenched from it by manifestoes or remonstrances;
+and Holland was not capable of a more effectual warfare. In the
+year 1781, St. Eustache, Surinam, Essequibo, and Demerara, were
+taken by British valor; and in the following year several of the
+Dutch colonies in the East, well fortified but ill defended,
+also fell into the hands of England. Almost the whole of those
+colonies, the remnants of prodigious power acquired by such
+incalculable instances of enterprise and courage, were one by one
+assailed and taken. But this did not suffice for the satisfaction
+of English objects in the prosecution of the war. It was also
+resolved to deprive Holland of the Baltic trade. A squadron of
+seven vessels, commanded by Sir Hyde Parker, was encountered on
+the Dogher Bank by a squadron of Dutch ships of the same force
+under Admiral Zoutman. An action of four hours was maintained
+with all the ancient courage which made so many of the memorable
+sea-fights between Tromp, De Ruyter, Blake, and Monk drawn battles.
+A storm separated the combatants, and saved the honor of each;
+for both had suffered alike, and victory had belonged to neither.
+The peace of 1784 terminated this short, but, to Holland, fatal
+war; the two latter years of which had been, in the petty warfare
+of privateering, most disastrous to the commerce of the republic.
+Negapatam, on the coast of Coromandel, and the free navigation of
+the Indian seas, were ceded to England, who occupied the other
+various colonies taken during the war.
+
+Opinion was now rapidly opening out to that spirit of intense
+inquiry which arose in France, and threatened to sweep before
+it not only all that was corrupt, but everything that tended
+to corruption. It is in the very essence of all kinds of power
+to have that tendency, and, if not checked by salutary means,
+to reach that end. But the reformers of the last century, new
+in the desperate practice of revolutions, seeing its necessity,
+but ignorant of its nature, neither did nor could place bounds
+to the careering whirlwind that they raised. The well-meaning
+but intemperate changes essayed by Joseph II. in Belgium had a
+considerable share in the development of free principles, although
+they at first seemed only to excite the resistance of bigotry and
+strengthen the growth of superstition. Holland was always alive
+to those feelings of resistance, to established authority which
+characterize republican opinions; and the general discontent at the
+result of the war with England gave a good excuse to the pretended
+patriotism which only wanted change, while it professed reform.
+The stadtholder saw clearly the storm which was gathering, and
+which menaced his power. Anxious for the present, and uncertain
+for the future, he listened to the suggestions of England, and
+resolved to secure and extend by foreign force the rights of
+which he risked the loss from domestic faction.
+
+In the divisions which were now loudly proclaimed among the states
+in favor of or opposed to the House of Orange, the people, despising
+all new theories which they did not comprehend, took open part
+with the family so closely connected with every practical feeling
+of good which their country had yet known. The states of Holland
+soon proceeded to measures of violence. Resolved to limit the
+power of the stadtholder, they deprived him of the command of
+the garrison of The Hague, and of all the other troops of the
+province; and, shortly afterward, declared him removed from all
+his employments. The violent disputes and vehement discussions
+consequent upon this measure throughout the republic announced
+an inevitable commotion. The advance of a Prussian army toward
+the frontiers inflamed the passions of one party and strengthened
+the confidence of the other. An incident which now happened brought
+about the crisis even sooner than was expected. The Princess
+of Orange left her palace at Loo to repair to The Hague; and
+travelling with great simplicity and slightly attended, she was
+arrested and detained by a military post on the frontiers of the
+province of Holland. The neighboring magistrates of the town of
+Woesden refused her permission to continue her journey, and forced
+her to return to Loo under such surveillance as was usual with a
+prisoner of state. The stadtholder and the English ambassador
+loudly complained of this outrage. The complaint was answered
+by the immediate advance of the duke of Brunswick with twenty
+thousand Prussian soldiers. Some demonstrations of resistance
+were made by the astonished party whose outrageous conduct had
+provoked the measure; but in three weeks' time the whole of the
+republic was in perfect obedience to the authority of the
+stadtholder, who resumed all his functions of chief magistrate,
+with the additional influence which was sure to result from a
+vain and unjustifiable attempt to reduce his former power. We
+regret to be beyond the reach of Mr. Ellis's interesting but
+unpublished work, detailing the particulars of this revolution.
+The former persual of a copy of it only leaves a recollection
+of its admirable style and the leading facts, but not of the
+details with sufficient accuracy to justify more than a general
+reference to the work itself.
+
+By this time the discontent and agitation in Belgium had attained
+a most formidable height. The attempted reformation in religion
+and judicial abuses persisted in by the emperor were represented,
+by a party whose existence was compromised by reform, as nothing
+less than sacrilege and tyranny, and blindly rejected by a people
+still totally unfitted for rational enlightenment in points of
+faith, or practices of civilization. Remonstrances and strong
+complaints were soon succeeded by tumultuous assemblages and
+open insurrection. A lawyer of Brussels, named Vander Noot, put
+himself at the head of the malcontents. The states-general of
+Brabant declared the new measures of the emperor to be in opposition
+to the constitution and privileges of the country. The other
+Belgian provinces soon followed this example. The prince Albert
+of Saxe-Teschen, and the archduchess Maria Theresa, his wife,
+were at this period joint governors-general of the Austrian
+Netherlands. At the burst of rebellion they attempted to temporize;
+but this only strengthened the revolutionary party, while the
+emperor wholly disapproved their measures and recalled them to
+Vienna.
+
+Count Murray was now named governor-general; and it was evident
+that the future fate of the provinces was to depend on the issue
+of civil war. Count Trautmansdorff, the imperial minister at
+Brussels, and General D'Alton, who commanded the Austrian troops,
+took a high tone, and evinced a peremptory resolution. The soldiery
+and the citizens soon came into contact on many points; and blood
+was spilled at Brussels, Mechlin, and Antwerp.
+
+The provincial states were convoked, for the purpose of voting
+the usual subsidies. Brabant, after some opposition, consented; but
+the states of Hainault unanimously refused the vote. The emperor
+saw, or supposed, that the necessity for decisive measures was
+now inevitable. The refractory states were dissolved, and arrests
+and imprisonments were multiplied in all quarters. Vander Noot,
+who had escaped to England, soon returned to the Netherlands,
+and established a committee at Breda, which conferred on him the
+imposing title of agent plenipotentiary of the people of Brabant.
+He hoped, under this authority, to interest the English, Prussian,
+and Dutch governments in favor of his views; but his proposals
+were coldly received: Protesiant states had little sympathy for
+a people whose resistance was excited, not by tyrannical efforts
+against freedom, but by broad measures of civil and religious
+reformation; the only fault of which was their attempted application
+to minds wholly incompetent to comprehend their value.
+
+Left to themselves, the Belgians soon gave a display of that
+energetic valor which is natural to them, and which would be
+entitled to still greater admiration had it been evinced in a
+worthier cause. During the fermentation which led to a general
+rising in the provinces, on the impulse of fanatic zeal, the
+truly enlightened portion of the people conceived the project of
+raising, on the ruins of monkish superstition and aristocratical
+power, an edifice of constitutional freedom. Vonck, also an advocate
+of Brussels, took the lead in this splendid design; and he and
+his friends proved themselves to have reached the level of that
+true enlightenment which distinguished the close of the eighteenth
+century. But the Vonckists, as they were called, formed but a
+small minority compared with the besotted mass; and, overwhelmed
+by fanaticism on the one hand, and despotism on the other, they
+were unable to act effectually for the public good. Vander Mersch,
+a soldier of fortune, and a man of considerable talents, who had
+raised himself from the ranks to the command of a regiment, and
+had been formed in the school of the seven years' war, was appointed
+to the command of the patriot forces. Joseph II. was declared
+to have forfeited his sovereignty in Brabant; and hostilities
+soon commenced by a regular advance of the insurgent army upon
+that province. Vander Mersch displayed consummate ability in
+this crisis, where so much depended upon the prudence of the
+military chief. He made no rash attempt, to which commanders are
+sometimes induced by reliance upon the enthusiasm of a newly
+revolted people. He, however, took the earliest safe opportunity
+of coming to blows with the enemy; and, having cleverly induced
+the Austrians to follow him into the very streets of the town
+of Turnhout, he there entered on a bloody contest, and finally
+defeated the imperialists with considerable loss. He next manoeuvred
+with great ability, and succeeded in making his way into the
+province of Flanders, took Ghent by assault, and soon reduced
+Bruges, Ypres, and Ostend. At the news of these successes, the
+governors-general quitted Brussels in all haste. The states of
+Flanders assembled, in junction with those of Brabant. Both provinces
+were freed from the presence of the Austrian troops. Vander Noot
+and the committee of Breda made an entrance into Brussels with
+all the pomp of royalty; and in the early part of the following
+year (1790) a treaty of union was signed by the seven revolted
+provinces, now formed into a confederation under the name of
+the United Belgian States.
+
+All the hopes arising from these brilliant events were soon,
+however, to be blighted by the scorching heats of faction. Joseph
+II., whose temperament appears to have been too sensitive to
+support the shock of disappointment in plans which sprung from the
+purest motives, saw, in addition to this successful insurrection
+against his power, his beloved sister, the queen of France, menaced
+with the horrors of an inevitable revolution. His over-sanguine
+expectations of successfully rivalling the glory of Frederick
+and Catherine, and the ill success of his war against the Turks,
+all tended to break down his enthusiastic spirit, which only
+wanted the elastic resistance of fortitude to have made him a
+great character. He for some time sunk into a profound melancholy;
+and expired on the 20th of January, 1791, accusing his Belgian
+subjects of having caused his premature death.
+
+Leopold, the successor of his brother, displayed much sagacity
+and moderation in the measures which he adopted for the recovery
+of the revolted provinces; but their internal disunion was the
+best ally of the new emperor. The violent party which now ruled
+at Brussels had ungratefully forgotten the eminent services of
+Vander Mersch, and accused him of treachery, merely from his
+attachment to the noble views and principles of the widely-increasing
+party of the Vonckists. Induced by the hope of reconciling the
+opposing parties, he left his army in Namur, and imprudently
+ventured into the power of General Schoenfeld, who commanded
+the troops of the states. Vander Mersch was instantly arrested
+and thrown into prison, where he lingered for months, until set
+free by the overthrow of the faction he had raised to power; but
+he did not recover his liberty to witness the realization of
+his hopes for that of his country. The states-general, in their
+triumph over all that was truly patriotic, occupied themselves
+solely in contemptible labors to establish the monkish absurdities
+which Joseph had suppressed. The overtures of the new emperor were
+rejected with scorn; and, as might be expected from this combination
+of bigotry and rashness, the imperial troops under General Bender
+marched quietly to the conquest of the whole country; town after
+town opening their gates, while Vander Noot and his partisans
+betook themselves to rapid and disgraceful flight. On the 10th
+of December, 1791, the ministers of the emperor concluded a
+convention with those of England, Russia, and Holland (which
+powers guaranteed its execution), by which Leopold granted an
+amnesty for all past offences, and confirmed to all his recovered
+provinces their ancient constitution and privileges; and, thus
+returning under the domination of Austria, Belgium saw its best
+chance for successfully following the noble example of the United
+Provinces paralyzed by the short-sighted bigotry which deprived
+the national courage of all moral force.
+
+Leopold enjoyed but a short time the fruits of his well-measured
+indulgence: he died, almost suddenly, March 1, 1792; and was
+succeeded by his son Francis II., whose fate it was to see those
+provinces of Belgium, which had cost his ancestors so many struggles
+to maintain, wrested forever from the imperial power. Belgium
+presented at this period an aspect of paramount interest to the
+world; less owing to its intrinsic importance than to its becoming
+at once the point of contest between the contending powers, and
+the theatre of the terrible struggle between republican France and
+the monarchs she braved and battled with. The whole combinations
+of European policy were staked on the question of the French
+possession of this country.
+
+This war between France and Austria began its earliest operations
+on the very first days after the accession of Francis II. The
+victory of Jemappes, gained by Dumouriez, was the first great
+event of the campaign. The Austrians were on all sides driven
+out. Dumouriez made his triumphal entry into Brussels on the
+13th of November; and immediately after the occupation of this
+town the whole of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, with the other
+Belgian provinces, were subjected to France. Soon afterward several
+pretended deputies from the Belgian people hastened to Paris, and
+implored the convention to grant them a share of that liberty
+and equality which was to confer such inestimable blessings on
+France. Various decrees were issued in consequence; and after
+the mockery of a public choice, hurried on in several of the
+towns by hired Jacobins and well-paid patriots, the incorporation
+of the Austrian Netherlands with the French republic was formally
+pronounced.
+
+The next campaign destroyed this whole fabric of revolution.
+Dumouriez, beaten at Nerwinde by the prince of Saxe-Coburg, abandoned
+not only his last year's conquest, but fled from his own army to
+pass the remainder of his life on a foreign soil, and leave his
+reputation a doubtful legacy to history. Belgium, once again in
+the possession of Austria, was placed under the government of
+the archduke Charles, the emperor's brother, who was destined
+to a very brief continuance in this precarious authority.
+
+During this and the succeeding year the war was continued with
+unbroken perseverance and a constant fluctuation in its results.
+In the various battles which were fought, and the sieges which took
+place, the English army was, as usual, in the foremost ranks, under
+the Duke of York, second son of George III. The Prince of Orange,
+at the head of the Dutch troops, proved his inheritance of the
+valor which seems inseparable from the name of Nassau. The archduke
+Charles laid the foundation of his subsequent high reputation.
+The emperor Francis himself fought valiantly at the head of his
+troops. But all the coalesced courage of these princes and their
+armies could not effectually stop the progress of the republican
+arms. The battle of Fleurus rendered the French completely masters
+of Belgium; and the representatives of the city of Brussels once
+more repaired to the national convention of France, to solicit
+the reincorporation of the two countries. This was not, however,
+finally pronounced till the 1st of October, 1795, by which time
+the violence of an arbitrary government had given the people a
+sample of what they were to expect. The Austrian Netherlands and
+the province of Liege were divided into nine departments, forming
+an integral part of the French republic; and this new state of
+things was consolidated by the preliminaries of peace, signed
+at Leoben in Styria, between the French general Bonaparte and the
+archduke Charles, and confirmed by the treaty of Campo-Formio
+on the 17th of October, 1797.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE
+PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1794--1818
+
+While the fate of Belgium was decided on the plains of Fleurus,
+Pichegru prepared to carry the triumphant arms of France into
+the heart of Holland. He crossed the Meuse at the head of one
+hundred thousand men, and soon gained possession of most of the
+chief places of Flanders. An unusually severe winter was setting
+in; but a circumstance which in common cases retards the operations
+of war was, in the present instance, the means of hurrying on the
+conquest on which the French general was bent. The arms of the
+sea, which had hitherto been the best defences of Holland, now
+became solid masses of ice; battlefields, on which the soldiers
+manoeuvred and the artillery thundered, as if the laws of the
+elements were repealed to hasten the fall of the once proud and
+long flourishing republic. Nothing could arrest the ambitious
+ardor of the invaders. The Duke of York and his brave army resisted
+to the utmost; but, borne down by numbers, he was driven from
+position to position. Batteries, cannons, and magazines were
+successfully taken; and Pichegru was soon at the term of his
+brilliant exploits.
+
+But Holland speedily ceased to be a scene of warfare. The
+discontented portion of the citizens, now the majority, rejoiced
+to retaliate the revolution of 1787 by another, received the French
+as liberators. Reduced to extremity, yet still capable by the aid
+of his allies of making a long and desperate resistance, the
+stadtholder took the nobler resolution of saving his fellow-citizens
+from the horrors of prolonged warfare. He repaired to The Hague;
+presented himself in the assembly of the states-general; and
+solemnly deposited in their hands the exercise of the supreme
+power, which he found he could no longer wield but to entail
+misery and ruin on his conquered country. After this splendid
+instance of true patriotism and rare virtue, he quitted Holland and
+took refuge in England. The states-general dissolved a national
+assembly installed at The Hague; and, the stadtholderate abolished,
+the United Provinces now changed their form of government, their
+long-cherished institutions, and their very name, and were christened
+the Batavian Republic.
+
+Assurances of the most flattering nature were profusely showered
+on the new state, by the sister republic which had effected this
+new revolution. But the first measure of regeneration was the
+necessity of paying for the recovered independence, which was
+effected for the sum of one hundred million florins. The new
+constitution was almost entirely modelled on that of France,
+and the promised independence soon became a state of deplorable
+suffering and virtual slavery. Incalculable evils were the portion
+of Holland in the part which she was forced to take in the war
+between France and England. Her marine was nearly annihilated,
+and some of her most valuable possessions in the Indies ravished
+from her by the British arms. She was at the same time obliged
+to cede to her ally the whole of Dutch Flanders, Maestricht,
+Venloo, and their dependencies; and to render free and common
+to both nations the navigation of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the
+Scheldt.
+
+The internal situation of the unfortunate republic was deplorable.
+Under the weight of an enormous and daily increasing debt, all
+the resources of trade and industry were paralyzed. Universal
+misery took place of opulence, and not even the consolation of a
+free constitution remained to the people. They vainly sought that
+blessing from each new government of the country whose destinies
+they followed, but whose advantages they did not share. They saw
+themselves successively governed by the states-general, a national
+assembly, and the directory. But these ephemeral authorities had
+not sufficient weight to give the nation domestic happiness,
+nor consideration among the other powers.
+
+On the 11th of October, 1797, the English admiral, Sir Adam Duncan,
+with a superior force, encountered the Dutch fleet under De Winter
+off Camperdown; and in spite of the bravery of the latter he was
+taken prisoner, with nine ships of the line and a frigate. An
+expedition on an extensive scale was soon after fitted out in
+England, to co-operate with a Russian force for the establishment
+of the House of Orange. The Helder was the destination of this
+armament, which was commanded by Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The Duke of
+York soon arrived in the Texel with a considerable reinforcement.
+A series of severe, and well-contested actions near Bergen ended
+in the defeat of the allies and the abandonment of the enterprise;
+the only success of which was the capture of the remains of the
+Dutch fleet, which was safely conveyed to England.
+
+From this period the weight of French oppression became every
+day more intolerable in Holland. Ministers, generals, and every
+other species of functionary, with swarms of minor tyrants, while
+treating the country as a conquered province, deprived it of all
+share in the brilliant though checkered glories gained by that
+to which it was subservient. The Dutch were robbed of national
+independence and personal freedom. While the words "liberty" and
+"equality" were everywhere emblazoned, the French ambassador
+assumed an almost Oriental despotism. The language and forms of a
+free government were used only to sanction a foreign tyranny; and
+the Batavian republic, reduced to the most hopeless and degraded
+state, was in fact but a forced appendage chained to the triumphal
+car of France.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte, creating by the force of his prodigious talents
+the circumstances of which inferior minds are but the creatures, now
+rapidly rose to the topmost height of power. He not only towered
+above the mass of prejudices which long custom had legalized,
+but spurned the multitude by whom these prejudices had been
+overthrown. Yet he was not of the first order of great minds;
+for he wanted that grand principle of self-control which is the
+supreme attribute of greatness. Potent, and almost irresistible
+in every conflict with others, and only to be vanquished by his
+own acts, he possessed many of the higher qualities of genius.
+He was rapid, resolute, and daring, filled with contempt for
+the littleness of mankind, yet molding every atom which composed
+that littleness to purposes at utter variance with its nature.
+In defiance of the first essence of republican theory, he built
+himself an imperial throne on the crushed privileges of a prostrate
+people; and he lavished titles and dignities on men raised from
+its very dregs, with a profusion which made nobility a byword of
+scorn. Kingdoms were created for his brothers and his friends;
+and the Batavian republic was made a monarchy, to give Louis a
+dignity, or at least a title, like the rest.
+
+The character of Louis Bonaparte was gentle and amiable, his
+manners easy and affable. He entered on his new rank with the
+best intentions toward the country which he was sent to reign
+over; and though he felt acutely when the people refused him
+marks of respect and applause, which was frequently the case,
+his temper was not soured, and he conceived no resentment. He
+endeavored to merit popularity; and though his power was scanty,
+his efforts were not wholly unsuccessful. He labored to revive the
+ruined trade, which he knew to be the staple of Dutch prosperity:
+but the measures springing from this praiseworthy motive were
+totally opposed to the policy of Napoleon; and in proportion as
+Louis made friends and partisans among his subjects, he excited
+bitter enmity in his imperial brother. Louis was so averse from
+the continental system, or exclusion of British manufactures, that
+during his short reign every facility was given to his subjects
+to elude it, even in defiance of the orders conveyed to him from
+Paris through the medium of the French ambassador at The Hague.
+He imposed no restraints on public opinion, nor would he establish
+the odious system of espionage cherished by the French police;
+but he was fickle in his purposes, and prodigal in his expenses.
+The profuseness of his expenditure was very offensive to the
+Dutch notions of respectability in matters of private finance,
+and injurious to the existing state of the public means. The
+tyranny of Napoleon became soon quite insupportable to him; so
+much so, that it is believed that had the ill-fated English
+expedition to Walcheren in 1809 succeeded, and the army advanced
+into the country, he would have declared war against France.
+After an ineffectual struggle of more than three years, he chose
+rather to abdicate his throne than retain it under the degrading
+conditions of proconsulate subserviency. This measure excited
+considerable regret, and much esteem for the man who preferred
+the retirement of private life to the meanness of regal slavery.
+But Louis left a galling memento of misplaced magnificence, in
+an increase of ninety millions of florins (about nine millions
+sterling) to the already oppressive amount of the national debt
+of the country.
+
+The annexation of Holland to the French empire was immediately
+pronounced by Napoleon. Two-thirds of the national debt were
+abolished, the conscription law was introduced, and the Berlin
+and Milan decrees against the introduction of British manufactures
+were rigidly enforced. The nature of the evils inflicted on the
+Dutch people by this annexation and its consequences demand a
+somewhat minute examination. Previous to it all that part of
+the territory of the former United Provinces had been ceded to
+France. The kingdom of Holland consisted of the departments of
+the Zuyder Zee, the mouths of the Maese, the Upper Yssel, the
+mouths of the Yssel, Friesland, and the Western and Eastern Ems;
+and the population of the whole did not exceed one million eight
+hundred thousand souls. When Louis abdicated his throne, he left
+a military and naval force of eighteen thousand men, who were
+immediately taken into the service of France; and in three years
+and a half after that event this number was increased to fifty
+thousand, by the operation of the French naval and military code:
+thus about a thirty-sixth part of the whole population was employed
+in arms. The forces included in the maritime conscription were
+wholly employed in the navy. The national guards were on constant
+duty in the garrisons or naval establishments. The cohorts were
+by law only liable to serve in the _interior_ of the French
+empire--that is to say, from Hamburg to Rome; but after the Russian
+campaign, this limitation was disregarded, and they formed a
+part of Napoleon's army at the battle of Bautzen.
+
+The conscription laws now began to be executed with the greatest
+rigor; and though the strictest justice and impartiality were
+observed in the ballot and other details of this most oppressive
+measure, yet it has been calculated that, on an average, nearly
+one-half of the male population of the age of twenty years was
+annually taken off. The conscripts were told that their service was
+not to extend beyond the term of five years; but as few instances
+occurred of a French soldier being discharged without his being
+declared unfit for service, it was always considered in Holland
+that the service of a conscript was tantamount to an obligation
+during life. Besides, the regulations respecting the conscription
+were annually changed, by which means the code became each year
+more intricate and confused; and as the explanation of any doubt
+rested with the functionaries, to whom the execution of the law
+was confided, there was little chance of their constructions
+mitigating its severity.
+
+But the conscription, however galling, was general in its operation.
+Not so the formation of the emperor's guard of honor. The members
+of this patrician troop were chosen from the most noble and opulent
+families, particularly those who were deemed inimical to the French
+connection. The selection depended altogether on the prefect, who
+was sure to name those most obnoxious to his political or personal
+dislike, without regard to their rank or occupation, or even the
+state of their health. No exemption was admitted--not even to
+those who from mental or bodily infirmity, or other cause, had
+been declared unfit for general military duty. The victims were
+forced to the mockery of volunteering their services; obliged to
+provide themselves with horses, arms, and accoutrements; and when
+arrived at the depot appointed for their assembling, considered
+probably but as hostages for the fidelity of their relatives.
+
+The various taxes were laid on and levied in the most oppressive
+manner; those on land usually amounting to twenty-five, and those
+on houses to thirty per cent of the clear annual rent. Other
+direct taxes were levied on persons and movable property, and
+all were regulated on a scale of almost intolerable severity. The
+whole sum annually obtained from Holland by these means amounted
+to about thirty millions of florins (or three million pounds
+sterling), being at the rate of about one pound thirteen shillings
+four pence from every soul inhabiting the country.
+
+The operation of what was called the continental system created
+an excess of misery in Holland, only to be understood by those who
+witnessed its lamentable results. In other countries, Belgium for
+instance, where great manufactories existed, the loss of maritime
+communication was compensated by the exclusion of English goods. In
+states possessed of large and fertile territories, the population
+which could no longer be employed in commerce might be occupied
+in agricultural pursuits. But in Holland, whose manufactures were
+inconsiderable, and whose territory is insufficient to support
+its inhabitants, the destruction of trade threw innumerable
+individuals wholly out of employment, and produced a graduated
+scale of poverty in all ranks. A considerable part of the population
+had been employed in various branches of the traffic carried on
+by means of the many canals which conveyed merchandise from the
+seaports into the interior, and to the different continental
+markets. When the communication with England was cut off, principals
+and subordinates were involved in a common ruin.
+
+In France, the effect of the continental system was somewhat
+alleviated by the license trade, the exportation of various
+productions forced on the rest of continental Europe, and the
+encouragement given to home manufactures. But all this was reversed
+in Holland: the few licenses granted to the Dutch were clogged
+with duties so exorbitant as to make them useless; the duties on
+one ship which entered the Maese, loaded with sugar and coffee,
+amounting to about fifty thousand pounds sterling. At the same
+time every means was used to crush the remnant of Dutch commerce
+and sacrifice the country to France. The Dutch troops were clothed
+and armed from French manufactories; the frontiers were opened
+to the introduction of French commodities duty free; and the
+Dutch manufacturer undersold in his own market.
+
+The population of Amsterdam was reduced from two hundred and
+twenty thousand souls to one hundred and ninety thousand, of which
+a fourth part derived their whole subsistence from charitable
+institutions, while another fourth part received partial succor
+from the same sources. At Haarlem, where the population had been
+chiefly employed in bleaching and preparing linen made in Brabant,
+whole streets were levelled with the ground, and more than five
+hundred houses destroyed. At The Hague, at Delft, and in other
+towns, many inhabitants had been induced to pull down their houses,
+from inability to keep them in repair or pay the taxes. The
+preservation of the dikes, requiring an annual expense of six
+hundred thousand pounds sterling, was everywhere neglected. The
+sea inundated the country, and threatened to resume its ancient
+dominion. No object of ambition, no source of professional wealth
+or distinction, remained to which a Hollander could aspire. None
+could voluntarily enter the army or navy, to fight for the worst
+enemy of Holland. The clergy were not provided with a decent
+competency. The ancient laws of the country, so dear to its pride
+and its prejudices, were replaced by the Code Napoleon; so that
+old practitioners had to recommence their studies, and young
+men were disgusted with the drudgery of learning a system which
+was universally pronounced unfit for a commercial country.
+
+Independent of this mass of positive ill, it must be borne in
+mind that in Holland trade was not merely a means of gaining
+wealth, but a passion long and deeply grafted on the national
+mind: so that the Dutch felt every aggravation of calamity,
+considering themselves degraded and sacrificed by a power which
+had robbed them of all which attaches a people to their native
+land; and, for an accumulated list of evils, only offered them
+the empty glory of appertaining to the country which gave the
+law to all the nations of Europe, with the sole exception of
+England.
+
+Those who have considered the events noted in this history for
+the last two hundred years, and followed the fluctuations of
+public opinion depending on prosperity or misfortune, will have
+anticipated that, in the present calamitous state of the country,
+all eyes were turned toward the family whose memory was revived by
+every pang of slavery, and associated with every throb for freedom.
+The presence of the Prince of Orange, William IV., who had, on
+the death of his father, succeeded to the title, though he had
+lost the revenues of his ancient house, and the re-establishment
+of the connection with England, were now the general desire.
+Some of the principal partisans of the House of Nassau were for
+some time in correspondence with his most serene highness. The
+leaders of the various parties into which the country was divided
+became by degrees more closely united. Approaches toward a better
+understanding were reciprocally made; and they ended in a general
+anxiety for the expulsion of the French, with the establishment
+of a free constitution, and a cordial desire that the Prince of
+Orange should be at its head. It may be safely affirmed, that,
+at the close of the year 1813, these were the unanimous wishes
+of the Dutch nation.
+
+Napoleon, lost in the labyrinths of his exorbitant ambition,
+afforded at length a chance of redress to the nations he had
+enslaved. Elevated so suddenly and so high, he seemed suspended
+between two influences, and unfit for either. He might, in a
+moral view, be said to have breathed badly, in a station which
+was beyond the atmosphere of his natural world, without being
+out of its attraction; and having reached the pinnacle, he soon
+lost his balance and fell. Driven from Russia by the junction of
+human with elemental force, in 1812, he made some grand efforts
+in the following year to recover from his irremediable reverses.
+The battles of Bautzen and Lutzen were the expiring efforts of
+his greatness. That of Leipzig put a fatal negative upon the
+hopes that sprang from the two former; and the obstinate ambition,
+which at this epoch made him refuse the most liberal offers of
+the allies, was justly punished by humiliation and defeat. Almost
+all the powers of Europe now leagued against him; and France
+itself being worn out by his wasteful expenditure of men and
+money, he had no longer a chance in resistance. The empire was
+attacked at all points. The French troops in Holland were drawn
+off to reinforce the armies in distant directions; and the whole
+military force in that country scarcely exceeded ten thousand
+men. The advance of the combined armies toward the frontiers
+became generally known: parties of Cossacks had entered the north
+of Holland in November, and were scouring the country beyond the
+Yssel. The moment for action on the part of the Dutch confederate
+patriots had now arrived; and it was not lost or neglected.
+
+A people inured to revolutions for upward of two centuries, filled
+with proud recollections, and urged on by well-digested hopes,
+were the most likely to understand the best period and the surest
+means for success. An attempt that might have appeared to other
+nations rash was proved to be wise, both by the reasonings of its
+authors and its own results. The intolerable tyranny of France
+had made the population not only ripe, but eager for revolt.
+This disposition was acted on by a few enterprising men, at once
+partisans of the House of Orange and patriots in the truest sense
+of the word. It would be unjust to omit the mention of some of
+their names in even this sketch of the events which sprang from
+their courage and sagacity. Count Styrum, Messieurs Repelaer
+d'Jonge, Van Hogendorp, Vander Duyn van Maasdam, and Changuion,
+were the chiefs of the intrepid junta which planned and executed
+the bold measures of enfranchisement, and drew up the outlines
+of the constitution which was afterward enlarged and ratified.
+Their first movements at The Hague were totally unsupported by
+foreign aid. Their early checks from the exasperated French and
+their overcautious countrymen would have deterred most men embarked
+in so perilous a venture; but they never swerved nor shrank back.
+At the head of a force, which courtesy and policy called an army,
+of three hundred national guards badly armed, fifty citizens
+carrying fowling-pieces, fifty soldiers of the old Dutch guard,
+four hundred auxiliary citizens armed with pikes, and a cavalry
+force of twenty young men, the confederates oddly proclaimed
+the Prince of Orange, on the 17th of November, 1813, in their
+open village of The Hague, and in the teeth of a French force of
+full ten thousand men, occupying every fortress in the country.
+
+While a few gentlemen thus boldly came forward, at their own
+risk, with no funds but their private fortunes, and only aided by
+an unarmed populace, to declare war against the French emperor,
+they did not even know the residence of the exiled prince in
+whose cause they were now so completely compromised. The other
+towns of Holland were in a state of the greatest incertitude:
+Rotterdam had not moved; and the intentions of Admiral Kickert,
+who commanded there, were (mistakenly) supposed to be decidedly
+hostile to the national cause. Amsterdam had, on the preceding
+day, been the scene of a popular commotion, which, however, bore
+no decided character; the rioters having been fired on by the
+national guard, no leader coming forward, and the proclamation
+of the magistrates cautiously abstaining from any allusion to
+the Prince of Orange. A brave officer, Captain Falck, had made
+use of many strong but inefficient arguments to prevail on the
+timid corporation to declare for the prince; the presence of
+a French garrison of sixty men seeming sufficient to preserve
+their patriotism from any violent excess.
+
+The subsequent events at The Hague furnish an inspiring lesson for
+all people who would learn that to be free they must be resolute
+and daring. The only hope of the confederates was from the British
+government, and the combined armies then acting in the north of
+Europe. But many days were to be lingered through before troops
+could be embarked, and make their way from England in the teeth
+of the easterly winds then prevailing; while a few Cossacks,
+hovering on the confines of Holland, gave the only evidence of
+the proximity of the allied forces.
+
+In this crisis, it was most fortunate that the French prefect
+at The Hague, M. de Stassart, had stolen away on the earliest
+alarm; and the French garrison of four hundred chasseurs, aided
+by one hundred well-armed custom-house officers, under the command
+of General Bouvier des Eclats, caught the contagious fears of the
+civil functionary. This force had retired to the old palace--a
+building in the centre of the town, the depot of all the arms and
+ammunition then at The Hague, and, from its position, capable
+of some defence. But the general and his garrison soon felt a
+complete panic from the bold attitude of Count Styrum, who made
+the most of his little means, and kept up, during the night, a
+prodigious clatter by his twenty horsemen; sentinels challenging,
+amid incessant singing and shouting, cries of "Oranje boven!"
+"Vivat Oranje!" and clamorous patrols of the excited citizens.
+At an early hour on the 18th, the French general demanded terms,
+and obtained permission to retire on Gorcum, his garrison being
+escorted as far as the village of Ryswyk by the twenty cavaliers
+who composed the whole mounted force of the patriots.
+
+Unceasing efforts were now made to remedy the want of arms and
+men. A quantity of pikes were rudely made and distributed to
+the volunteers who crowded in; and numerous fishing-boats were
+despatched in different directions to inform the British cruisers
+of the passing events. An individual named Pronck, an inhabitant
+of Schćvening, a village of the coast, rendered great services
+in this way, from his influence among the sailors and fishermen
+in the neighborhood.
+
+The confederates spared no exertion to increase the confidence
+of the people under many contradictory and disheartening
+contingencies. An officer who had been despatched for advice
+and information to Baron Bentinck, at Zwolle, who was in
+communication with the allies, returned with the discouraging
+news that General Bulow had orders not to pass the Yssel, the
+allies having decided not to advance into Holland beyond the
+line of that river. A meeting of the ancient regents of The Hague
+was convoked by the proclamation of the confederates, and took
+place at the house of Mr. Van Hogendorp, the ancient residence
+of the De Witts. The wary magistrates absolutely refused all
+co-operation in the daring measures of the confederates, who
+had now the whole responsibility on their heads, with little to
+cheer them on in their perilous career but their own resolute
+hearts and the recollection of those days when their ancestors,
+with odds as fearfully against them, rose up and shivered to
+atoms the yoke of their oppressors.
+
+Some days of intense anxiety now elapsed; and various incidents
+occurred to keep up the general excitement. Reinforcements came
+gradually in; no hostile measure was resorted to by the French
+troops; yet the want of success, as rapid as was proportioned
+to the first movements of the revolution, threw a gloom over
+all. Amsterdam and Rotterdam still held back; but the nomination
+of Messrs. Van Hogendorp and Vander Duyn van Maasdam to be heads
+of the government, until the arrival of the Prince of Orange,
+and a formal abjuration of the emperor Napoleon, inspired new
+vigor into the public mind. Two nominal armies were formed, and
+two generals appointed to the command; and it is impossible to
+resist a smile of mingled amusement and admiration on reading the
+exact statement of the forces, so pompously and so effectively
+announced as forming the armies of Utrecht and Gorcum.
+
+The first of these, commanded by Major-General D'Jonge, consisted
+of three hundred infantry, thirty-two volunteer cavalry, with two
+eight-pounders. The latter, under the orders of Major-General
+Sweertz van Landas, was composed of two hundred and fifty of The
+Hague Orange Guard, thirty Prussian deserters from the French
+garrison, three hundred volunteers, forty cavalry, with two
+eight-pounders.
+
+The "army of Gorcum" marched on the 22d on Rotterdam: its arrival
+was joyfully hailed by the people, who contributed three hundred
+volunteers to swell its ranks. The "army of Utrecht" advanced
+on Leyden, and raised the spirits of the people by the display
+of even so small a force. But still the contrary winds kept back
+all appearance of succor from England, and the enemy was known to
+meditate a general attack on the patriot lines from Amsterdam to
+Dordrecht. The bad state of the roads still retarded the approach
+of the far-distant armies of the allies; alarms, true and false,
+were spread on all hands--when the appearance of three hundred
+Cossacks, detached from the Russian armies beyond the Yssel,
+prevailed over the hesitation of Amsterdam and the other towns,
+and they at length declared for the Prince of Orange.
+
+But this somewhat tardy determination seemed to be the signal for
+various petty events, which at an epoch like that were magnified
+into transactions of the most fatal import. A reinforcement of one
+thousand five hundred French troops reached Gorcum from Antwerp:
+a detachment of twenty-five Dutch, with a piece of cannon, were
+surprised at one of the outposts of Woerden, which had been
+previously evacuated by the French, and the recapture of the town
+was accompanied by some excesses. The numbers and the cruelties of
+the enemy were greatly exaggerated. Consternation began to spread
+all over the country. The French, who seemed to have recovered
+from their panic, had resumed on all sides offensive operations.
+The garrison of Gorcum made a sortie, repulsed the force under
+General Van Landas, entered the town of Dordrecht, and levied
+contributions; but the inhabitants soon expelled them, and the
+army was enabled to resume its position.
+
+Still the wind continued adverse to arrivals from the English
+coast; the Cossacks, so often announced, had not yet reached
+The Hague; and the small unsupported parties in the neighborhood
+of Amsterdam were in daily danger of being cut off.
+
+In this crisis the confederates were placed in a most critical
+position. On the eve of failure, and with the certainty, in such
+a result, of being branded as rebels and zealots, whose rashness
+had drawn down ruin on themselves, their families, and their
+country, it required no common share of fortitude to bear up
+against the danger that threatened them. Aware of its extent,
+they calmly and resolutely opposed it; and each seemed to vie
+with the others in energy and firmness.
+
+The anxiety of the public had reached the utmost possible height.
+Every shifting of the wind was watched with nervous agitation.
+The road from The Hague to the sea was constantly covered with
+a crowd of every age and sex. Each sail that came in sight was
+watched and examined with intense interest; and at length, on the
+26th of November, a small boat was seen to approach the shore,
+and the inquiring glances of the observers soon discovered that
+it contained an Englishman. This individual, who had come over
+on a mercantile adventure, landed amid the loudest acclamation,
+and was conducted by the populace in triumph to the governor's.
+Dressed in an English volunteer uniform, he showed himself in
+every part of the town, to the great delight of the people, who
+hailed him as the precursor and type of an army of deliverers.
+
+The French soon retreated before the marvellous exaggerations
+which the coming of this single Englishman gave rise to. The
+Dutch displayed great ability in the transmission of false
+intelligence to the enemy. On the 27th Mr. Fagel arrived from
+England with a letter from the Prince of Orange, announcing his
+immediate coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred
+English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the
+landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the
+open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and
+every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable
+enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country.
+No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation,
+and no prince ever gave a nobler example of gratitude. As the
+people everywhere proclaimed William I. sovereign prince, it
+was proposed that he should everywhere assume that title. It
+was, however, after some consideration, decided that no step of
+this nature should be taken till his most serene highness had
+visited the capital. On the 1st of December the prince issued a
+proclamation to his countrymen, in which he states his hopes of
+becoming, by the blessing of Providence, the means of restoring
+them to their former state of independence and prosperity. "This,"
+continued he, "is my only object; and I have the satisfaction of
+assuring you that it is also the object of the combined powers.
+This is particularly the wish of the prince regent and the British
+nation; and it will be proved to you by the succor which that
+powerful people will immediately afford you, and which will, I
+hope, restore those ancient bonds of alliance and friendship which
+were a source of prosperity and happiness to both countries." This
+address being distributed at Amsterdam, a proclamation, signed
+by the commissioners of the confederate patriots, was published
+there the same day. It contained the following passages, remarkable
+as being the first authentic declaration of the sovereignty
+subsequently conferred on the Prince of Orange: "The uncertainty
+which formerly existed as to the executive power will no longer
+paralyze your efforts. It is not William, the sixth stadtholder,
+whom the nation recalls, without knowing what to hope or expect
+from him; but William I. who offers himself as sovereign prince
+of this free country." The following day, the 2d of December,
+the prince made his entry into Amsterdam. He did not, like some
+other sovereigns, enter by a breach through the constitutional
+liberties of his country, in imitation of the conquerors from
+the Olympic games, who returned to the city by a breach in its
+walls: he went forward borne on the enthusiastic greetings of
+his fellow-countrymen, and meeting their confidence by a full
+measure of magnanimity. On the 3d of December he published an
+address, from which we shall quote one paragraph: "You desire,
+Netherlands! that I should be intrusted with a greater share
+of power than I should have possessed but for my absence. Your
+confidence, your affection, offer me the sovereignty; and I am
+called upon to accept it, since the state of my country and the
+situation of Europe require it. I accede to your wishes. I overlook
+the difficulties which may attend such a measure; I accept the
+offer which you have made me; but I accept it only on one
+condition--that it shall be accompanied by a wise constitution,
+which shall guarantee your liberties and secure them against
+every attack. My ancestors sowed the seeds of your independence:
+the preservation of that independence shall be the constant object
+of the efforts of myself and those around me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE SOVEREIGN OF THE
+NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
+
+A.D. 1814--1815
+
+The regeneration of Holland was rapid and complete. Within four
+months, an army of twenty-five thousand men was raised; and in
+the midst of financial, judicial, and commercial arrangements,
+the grand object of the constitution was calmly and seriously
+debated. A committee, consisting of fourteen persons of the first
+importance in the several provinces, furnished the result of
+three months' labors in the plan of a political code, which was
+immediately printed and published for the consideration of the
+people at large. Twelve hundred names were next chosen from among
+the most respectable householders in the different towns and
+provinces, including persons of every religious persuasion, whether
+Jews or Christians. A special commission was then formed, who
+selected from this number six hundred names; and every housekeeper
+was called on to give his vote for or against their election. A
+large majority of the six hundred notables thus chosen met at
+Amsterdam on the 28th of March, 1814. The following day they
+assembled with an immense concourse of people in the great church,
+which was splendidly fitted up for the occasion; and then and
+there the prince, in an impressive speech, solemnly offered the
+constitution for acceptance or rejection. After a few hours'
+deliberation, a discharge of artillery announced to the anxious
+population that the constitution had been accepted. The numbers
+present were four hundred and eighty-three, and the votes as
+follows: Ayes, four hundred and fifty-eight; Noes, twenty-five.
+
+There were one hundred and seventeen members absent; several
+of these were kept away by unavoidable obstacles. The majority
+among them was considered as dissentients; but it was calculated
+that if the whole body of six hundred had voted, the adoption
+of the constitution would have been carried by a majority of
+five-sixths. The dissentients chiefly objected to the power of
+declaring war and concluding treaties of peace being vested in
+the sovereign. Some individuals urged that the Protestant interest
+was endangered by the admission of persons of every persuasion
+to all public offices; and the Catholics complained that the
+state did not sufficiently contribute to the support of their
+religious establishments.
+
+Such objections as these were to be expected, from individual
+interest or sectarian prejudices. But they prove that the whole
+plan was fairly considered and solemnly adopted; that so far from
+being the dictation of a government, it was the freely chosen
+charter of the nation at large, offered and sworn to by the prince,
+whose authority was only exerted in restraining and modifying
+the overardent generosity and confidence of the people.
+
+Only one day more elapsed before the new sovereign was solemnly
+inaugurated, and took the oath prescribed by the constitution:
+"I swear that first and above all things I will maintain the
+constitution of the United Netherlands, and that I will promote,
+to the utmost of my power, the independence of the state and
+the liberty and prosperity of its inhabitants." In the eloquent
+simplicity of this pledge, the Dutch nation found an ample guarantee
+for their freedom and happiness. With their characteristic wisdom
+and moderation, they saw that the obligation it imposed embraced
+everything they could demand; and they joined in the opinion
+expressed by the sovereign in his inaugural address, that "no
+greater degree of liberty could be desired by rational subjects,
+nor any larger share of power by the sovereign, than that allotted
+to them respectively by the political code."
+
+While Holland thus resumed its place among free nations, and France
+was restored to the Bourbons by the abdication of Napoleon, the
+allied armies had taken possession of and occupied the remainder of
+the Low Countries, or those provinces distinguished by the name of
+Belgium (but then still forming departments of the French empire),
+and the provisional government was vested in Baron Vincent, the
+Austrian general. This choice seemed to indicate an intention
+of restoring Austria to her ancient domination over the country.
+Such was certainly the common opinion among those who had no means
+of penetrating the secrets of European policy at that important
+epoch. It was, in fact, quite conformable to the principle of
+_statu_quo_ante_bellum_, adopted toward France. Baron Vincent
+himself seemed to have been impressed with the false notion;
+and there did not exist a doubt throughout Belgium of the
+re-establishment of the old institutions.
+
+But the intentions of the allied powers were of a nature far
+different. The necessity of a consolidated state capable of offering
+a barrier to French aggression on the Flemish frontier was evident
+to the various powers who had so long suffered from its want. By
+England particularly, such a field was required for the operations
+of her armies; and it was also to the interest of that nation that
+Holland, whose welfare and prosperity are so closely connected
+with her own, should enjoy the blessings of national independence
+and civil liberty, guaranteed by internal strength as well as
+friendly alliances.
+
+The treaty of Paris (30th May, 1814), was the first act which
+gave an open manifestation of this principle. It was stipulated
+by its sixth article; that "Holland, placed under the sovereignty
+of the House of Orange, should receive an increase of territory."
+In this was explained the primitive notion of the creation of the
+kingdom of the Netherlands, based on the necessity of augmenting
+the power of a nation which was destined to turn the balance
+between France and Germany. The following month witnessed the
+execution of the treaty of London, which prescribed the precise
+nature of the projected increase.
+
+It was wholly decided, without subjecting the question to the
+approbation of Belgium, that that country and Holland should form
+one United State; and the rules of government in the chief branches
+of its administration were completely fixed. The Prince of Orange
+and the plenipotentiaries of the great allied powers covenanted
+by this treaty: first, that the union of the two portions forming
+the kingdom of the Netherlands should be as perfect as possible,
+forming one state, governed in conformity with the fundamental law
+of Holland, which might be modified by common consent; secondly,
+that religious liberty, and the equal right of citizens of all
+persuasions to fill all the employments of the state, should
+be maintained; thirdly, that the Belgian provinces should be
+fairly represented in the assembly of the states-general, and
+that the sessions of the states in time of peace should be held
+alternately in Belgium and in Holland; fourthly and fifthly, that
+all the commercial privileges of the country should be common
+to the citizens at large; that the Dutch colonies should be
+considered as belonging equally to Belgium; and, finally, that
+the public debt of the two countries, and the expenses of its
+interest, should be borne in common.
+
+We shall now briefly recapitulate some striking points in the
+materials which were thus meant to be amalgamated. Holland, wrenched
+from the Spanish yoke by the genius and courage of the early
+princes of Orange, had formed for two centuries an independent
+republic, to which the extension of maritime commerce had given
+immense wealth. The form of government was remarkable. It was
+composed of seven provinces, mutually independent of each other.
+These provinces possessed during the Middle Ages constitutions
+nearly similar to that of England: a sovereign with limited power;
+representatives of the nobles and commons, whose concurrence
+with the prince was necessary for the formation of laws; and,
+finally, the existence of municipal privileges, which each town
+preserved and extended by means of its proper force. This state
+of things had known but one alteration--but that a mighty one--the
+forfeiture of Philip II. at the latter end of the sixteenth century,
+and the total abolition of monarchical power.
+
+The remaining forms of the government were hardly altered; so
+that the state was wholly regulated by its ancient usages; and,
+like some Gothic edifice, its beauty and solidity were perfectly
+original, and different from the general rules and modern theories
+of surrounding nations. The country loved its liberty such as
+it found it, and not in the fashion of any Utopian plan traced
+by some new-fangled system of political philosophy. Inherently
+Protestant and commercial, the Dutch abhorred every yoke but
+that of their own laws, of which they were proud even in their
+abuse. They held in particular detestation all French customs,
+in remembrance of the wretchedness they had suffered from French
+tyranny; they had unbounded confidence in the House of Orange,
+from long experience of its hereditary virtues. The main strength
+of Holland was, in fact, in its recollections; but these, perhaps,
+generated a germ of discontent, in leading it to expect a revival
+of all the influence it had lost, and was little likely to recover,
+in the total change of systems and the variations of trade. There
+nevertheless remained sufficient capital in the country, and the
+people were sufficiently enlightened, to give just and extensive
+hope for the future which now dawned on them. The obstacles offered
+by the Dutch character to the proposed union were chiefly to be
+found in the dogmatical opinions, consequent on the isolation of
+the country from all the principles that actuated other states, and
+particularly that with which it was now joined: while long-cherished
+sentiments of opposition to the Catholic religion was little
+likely to lead to feelings of accommodation and sympathy with
+its new fellow-citizens.
+
+The inhabitants of Belgium, accustomed to foreign domination, were
+little shocked by the fact of the allied powers having disposed
+of their fate with consulting their wishes. But they were not so
+indifferent to the double discovery of finding themselves the
+subjects of a Dutch and a protestant king. Without entering at
+large into any invidious discussion on the causes of the natural
+jealousy which they felt toward Holland, it may suffice to state
+that such did exist, and in no very moderate degree. The countries
+had hitherto had but little community of interests with each
+other; and they formed elements so utterly discordant as to afford
+but slight hope that they would speedily coalesce. The lower
+classes of the Belgian population were ignorant as well as
+superstitious (not that these two qualities are to be considered
+as inseparable); and if they were averse to the Dutch, they were
+perhaps not more favorably disposed to the French and Austrians.
+The majority of the nobles may be said to have leaned more, at
+this period, to the latter than to either of the other two peoples.
+But the great majority of the industrious and better informed
+portions of the middle orders felt differently from the other
+two, because they had found tangible and positive advantages in
+their subjection to France, which overpowered every sentiment
+of political degradation.
+
+We thus see there was little sympathy between the members of the
+national family. The first glance at the geographical position
+of Holland and Belgium might lead to a belief that their interests
+were analogous. But we have traced the anomalies in government
+and religion in the two countries, which led to totally different
+pursuits and feelings. Holland had sacrificed manufactures to
+commerce. The introduction, duty free, of grain from the northern
+parts of Europe, though checking the progress of agriculture,
+had not prevented it to flourish marvellously, considering this
+obstacle to culture; and, faithful to their traditional notions,
+the Dutch saw the elements of well-being only in that liberty of
+importation which had made their harbors the marts and magazines
+of Europe. But the Belgian, to use the expressions of an acute
+and well-informed writer, "restricted in the thrall of a less
+liberal religion, is bounded in the narrow circle of his actual
+locality. Concentrated in his home, he does not look beyond the
+limits of his native land, which he regards exclusively. Incurious,
+and stationary in a happy existence, he has no interest in what
+passes beyond his own doors."
+
+Totally unaccustomed to the free principles of trade, so cherished
+by the Dutch, the Belgians had found under the protection of the
+French custom-house laws, an internal commerce and agricultural
+advantages which composed their peculiar prosperity. They found
+a consumption for the produce of their well-cultivated lands, at
+high prices, in the neighboring provinces of France. The webs
+woven by the Belgian peasantry, and generally all the manufactures
+of the country, met no rivalry from those of England, which were
+strictly prohibited; and being commonly superior to those of
+France, the sale was sure and the profit considerable.
+
+Belgium was as naturally desirous of the state of things as Holland
+was indifferent to it; but in could only have been accomplished
+by the destruction of free trade, and the exclusive protection
+of internal manufactures. Under such discrepancies as we have
+thus traced in religion, character, and local interests, the
+two countries were made one; and on the new monarch devolved
+the hard and delicate task of reconciling each party in the
+ill-assorted match, and inspiring them with sentiments of mutual
+moderation.
+
+Under the title of governor-general of the Netherlands (for his
+intended elevation to the throne and the definitive junction of
+Holland and Belgium were still publicly unknown), the Prince of
+Orange repaired to his new state. He arrived at Brussels in the
+month of August, 1814, and his first effort was to gain the hearts
+and the confidence of the people, though he saw the nobles and
+the higher orders of the inferior classes (with the exception of
+the merchants) intriguing all around him for the re-establishment
+of the Austrian power. Petitions on this subject were printed and
+distributed; and the models of those anti-national documents may
+still be referred to in a work published at the time.[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: History of the Low Countries, by St. Genoist.]
+
+As soon as the moment came for promulgating the decision of the
+sovereign powers as to the actual extent of the new kingdom--that
+is to say, in the month of February, 1815--the whole plan was made
+public; and a commission, consisting of twenty-seven members,
+Dutch and Belgian, was formed, to consider the modifications
+necessary in the fundamental law of Holland, in pursuance of
+the stipulation of the treaty of London. After due deliberation
+these modifications were formed, and the great political pact
+was completed for the final acceptance of the king and people.
+
+As a document so important merits particular consideration, in
+reference to the formation of the new monarchy, we shall briefly
+condense the reasonings of the most impartial and well-informed
+classes in the country on the constitution now about to be framed.
+Every one agreed that some radical change in the whole form of
+government was necessary, and that its main improvement should
+be the strengthening of the executive power. That possessed by
+the former stadtholders of Holland was often found to be too much
+for the chief of a republic, too little for the head of a monarchy.
+The assembly of the states-general, as of old constructed, was
+defective in many points; in none so glaringly as in that condition
+which required unanimity in questions of peace or war, and in the
+provision, from which they had no power to swerve, that all the
+taxes should be uniform. Both these stipulations were, of sheer
+necessity, continually disregarded; so that the government could be
+carried on at all only by repeated violations of the constitution.
+In order to excuse measures dictated by this necessity, each
+stadtholder was perpetually obliged to form partisans, and he
+thus became the hereditary head of a faction. His legitimate
+power was trifling: but his influence was capable of fearful
+increase; for the principle which allowed him to infringe the
+constitution, even on occasions of public good, might be easily
+warped into a pretext for encroachments that had no bounds but
+his own will.
+
+Besides, the preponderance of the deputies from the commercial
+towns in the states-general caused the others to become mere
+ciphers in times of peace; only capable of clogging the march
+of affairs, and of being, on occasions of civil dissensions,
+the mere tools of whatever party possessed the greatest tact
+in turning them to their purpose. Hence a wide field was open
+to corruption. Uncertainty embarrassed every operation of the
+government. The Hague became an arena for the conflicting intrigues
+of every court in Europe. Holland was dragged into almost every
+war; and thus, gradually weakened from its rank among independent
+nations, it at length fell an easy prey to the French invaders.
+
+To prevent the recurrence of such evils as those, and to establish
+a kingdom on the solid basis of a monarchy, unequivocal in its
+essence yet restrained in its prerogative, the constitution we
+are now examining was established. According to the report of
+the commissioners who framed it, "It is founded on the manners
+and habits of the nation, on its public economy and its old
+institutions, with a disregard for the ephemeral constitutions
+of the age. It is not a mere abstraction, more or less ingenious,
+but a law adapted to the state of the country in the nineteenth
+century. It did not reconstruct what was worn out by time; but
+it revived all that was worth preserving. In such a system of
+laws and institutions well adapted to each other, the members
+of the commission belonging to the Belgian provinces recognized
+the basis of their ancient charters, and the principles of their
+former liberty. They found no difficulty in adapting this law,
+so as to make it common to the two nations, united by ties which
+had been broken only for their own misfortune and that of Europe,
+and which it was once more the interest of Europe to render
+indissoluble."
+
+The news of the elevation of William I. to the throne was received
+in the Dutch provinces with great joy, in as far as it concerned
+him personally; but a joy considerably tempered by doubt and
+jealousy, as regarded their junction with a country sufficiently
+large to counterbalance Holland, oppose interests to interests,
+and people to people. National pride and oversanguine expectations
+prevented a calm judgment on the existing state of Europe, and on
+the impossibility of Holland, in its ancient limits, maintaining
+the influence which it was hoped it would acquire.
+
+In Belgium the formation of the new monarchy excited the most
+lively sensation. The clergy and the nobility were considerably
+agitated and not slightly alarmed; the latter fearing the resentment
+of the king for their avowed predilection in favor of Austria,
+and perceiving the destruction of every hope of aristocratical
+domination. The more elevated of the middle clases also saw an
+end to their exclusive occupation of magisterial and municipal
+employments. The manufacturers, great and small, saw the ruin of
+monopoly staring them in the face. The whole people took fright
+at the weight of the Dutch debt, which was considerably greater
+than that of Belgium. No one seemed to look beyond the present
+moment. The advantage of colonial possessions seemed remote and
+questionable to those who possessed no maritime commerce; and
+the pride of national independence was foreign to the feelings
+of those who had never yet tasted its blessings.
+
+It was in this state of public feeling that intelligence was
+received in March, 1815, of the reappearance in France of the
+emperor Napoleon. At the head of three hundred men he had taken
+the resolution, without parallel even among the grandest of his
+own powerful conceptions, of invading a country containing thirty
+millions of people, girded by the protecting armies of coalesced
+Europe, and imbued, beyond all doubt, with an almost general
+objection to the former despot who now put his foot on its shores,
+with imperial pretensions only founded on the memory of his bygone
+glory. His march to Paris was a miracle; and the vigor of his
+subsequent measures redeems the ambitious imbecility with which
+he had hurried on the catastrophe of his previous fall.
+
+The flight of Louis XVIII. from Paris was the sure signal to
+the kingdom of the Netherlands, in which he took refuge, that it
+was about to become the scene of another contest for the life or
+death of despotism. Had the invasion of Belgium, which now took
+place, been led on by one of the Bourbon family, it is probable
+that the priesthood, the people, and even the nobility, would
+have given it not merely a negative support. But the name of
+Napoleon was a bugbear for every class; and the efforts of the
+King and government, which met with most enthusiastic support
+in the northern provinces, were seconded with zeal and courage
+by the rest of the kingdom.
+
+The national force was soon in the field, under the command of
+the Prince of Orange, the king's eldest son, and heir-apparent
+to the throne for which he now prepared to fight. His brother,
+Prince Frederick, commanded a division under him. The English army,
+under the duke of Wellington, occupied Brussels and the various
+cantonments in its neighborhood; and the Prussians, commanded by
+Prince Blucher, were in readiness to co-operate with their allies
+on the first movement of the invaders.
+
+Napoleon, hurrying from Paris to strike some rapid and decisive
+blow, passed the Sambre on the 15th of June, at the head of the
+French army, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, driving the
+Prussians before him beyond Charleroi and back on the plain of
+Fleurus with some loss. On the 16th was fought the bloody battle
+of Ligny, in which the Prussians sustained a decided defeat; but
+they retreated in good order on the little river Lys, followed
+by Marshal Grouchy with thirty thousand men detached by Napoleon
+in their pursuit. On the same day the British advanced position
+at Quatre Bras, and the _corps_d'armée_ commanded by the Prince
+of Orange, were fiercely attacked by Marshal Ney; a battalion of
+Belgian infantry and a brigade of horse artillery having been
+engaged in a skirmish the preceding evening at Frasnes with the
+French advanced troops.
+
+The affair of Quatre Bras was sustained with admirable firmness
+by the allied English and Netherland forces, against an enemy
+infinitely superior in number, and commanded by one of the best
+generals in France. The Prince of Orange, with only nine thousand
+men, maintained his position till three o'clock in the afternoon,
+despite the continual attacks of Marshal Ney, who commanded the
+left of the French army, consisting of forty-three thousand men.
+But the interest of this combat, and the details of the loss
+in killed and wounded, are so merged in the succeeding battle,
+which took place on the 18th, that they form in most minds a
+combination of exploits which the interval of a day can scarcely
+be considered to have separated.
+
+The 17th was occupied by a retrograde movement of the allied
+army, directed by the duke of Wellington, for the purpose of
+taking its stand on the position he had previously fixed on for
+the pitched battle, the decisive nature of which his determined
+foresight had anticipated. Several affairs between the French
+and English cavalry took place during this movement; and it is
+pretty well established that the enemy, flushed with the victory
+over Blucher of the preceding day, were deceived by this short
+retreat of Wellington, and formed a very mistaken notion of its
+real object, or of the desperate reception destined for the morrow's
+attack.
+
+The battle of Waterloo has been over and over described and
+profoundly felt, until its records may be said to exist in the
+very hearts and memories of the nations. The fiery valor of the
+assault, and the unshakable firmness of the resistance, are perhaps
+without parallel in the annals of war. The immense stake depending
+on the result, the grandeur of Napoleon's isolated efforts against
+the flower of the European forces, and the awful responsibility
+resting on the head of their great leader, give to this conflict
+a romantic sublimity, unshared by all the manoeuvring of science
+in a hundred commonplace combats of other wars. It forms an epoch
+in the history of battles. It is to the full as memorable, as an
+individual event, as it is for the consequences which followed
+it. It was fought by no rules, and gained by no tactics. It was a
+fair stand-up fight on level ground, where downright manly courage
+was alone to decide the issue. This derogates in nothing from the
+splendid talents and deep knowledge of the rival commanders.
+Their reputation for all the intricate qualities of generalship
+rests on the broad base of previous victories. This day was to
+be won by strength of nerve and steadiness of heart; and a moral
+grandeur is thrown over its result by the reflection that human
+skill had little to do where so much was left to Providence.
+
+We abstain from entering on details of the battle. It is enough
+to state that throughout the day the troops of the Netherlands
+sustained the character for courage which so many centuries had
+established. Various opinions have gone forth as to the conduct of
+the Belgian troops on this memorable occasion. Isolated instances
+were possibly found, among a mass of several thousands, of that
+nervous weakness which neither the noblest incitements nor the
+finest examples can conquer. Old associations and feelings not
+effaced might have slackened the efforts of a few, directed against
+former comrades or personal friends whom the stern necessity of
+politics had placed in opposing ranks. Raw troops might here
+and there have shrunk from attacks the most desperate on record;
+but that the great principle of public duty, on grounds purely
+national, pervaded the army, is to be found in the official reports
+of its loss; two thousand and fifty-eight men killed and one
+thousand nine hundred and thirty-six wounded prove indelibly
+that the troops of the Netherlands had their full share in the
+honor of the day. The victory was cemented by the blood of the
+Prince of Orange, who stood the brunt of the fight with his gallant
+soldiers. His conduct was conformable to the character of his
+whole race, and to his own reputation during a long series of
+service with the British army in the Spanish peninsula. He stood
+bravely at the head of his troops during the murderous conflict;
+or, like Wellington, in whose school he was formed and whose
+example was beside him, rode from rank to rank and column to
+column, inspiring his men by the proofs of his untiring courage.
+
+Several anecdotes are related of the prince's conduct throughout
+the day. One is remarkable as affording an example of those pithy
+epigrams of the battlefield with which history abounds, accompanied
+by an act that speaks a fine knowledge of the soldier's heart. On
+occasion of one peculiarly desperate charge, the prince, hurried
+on by his ardor, was actually in the midst of the French, and was
+in the greatest danger; when a Belgian battalion rushed forward,
+and, after a fierce struggle, repulsed the enemy and disengaged the
+prince. In the impulse of his admiration and gratitude, he tore
+from his breast one of those decorations gained by his own conduct
+on some preceding occasion, and flung it among the battalion,
+calling out, "Take it, take it, my lads! you have all earned it!"
+This decoration was immediately grappled for, and tied to the
+regimental standard, amid loud shouts of "Long live the prince!"
+and vows to defend the trophy, in the very utterance of which
+many a brave fellow received the stroke of death.
+
+A short time afterward, and just half an hour before that terrible
+charge of the whole line, which decided the victory, the prince
+was struck by a musket-ball in the left shoulder. He was carried
+from the field, and conveyed that evening to Brussels, in the
+same cart with one of his wounded aides-de-camp, supported by
+another, and displaying throughout as much indifference to pain
+as he had previously shown contempt of danger.
+
+The battle of Waterloo consolidated the kingdom of the Netherlands.
+The wound of the Prince of Orange was perhaps one of the most
+fortunate that was ever received by an individual, or sympathized
+in by a nation. To a warlike people, wavering in their allegiance,
+this evidence of the prince's valor acted like a talisman against
+disaffection. The organization of the kingdom was immediately
+proceeded on. The commission, charged with the revision of the
+fundamental law, and the modification required by the increase
+of territory, presented its report on the 31st of July. The
+inauguration of the king took place at Brussels on the 21st of
+September, in presence of the states-general: and the ceremony
+received additional interest from the appearance of the sovereign
+supported by his two sons who had so valiantly fought for the
+rights he now swore to maintain; the heir to the crown yet bearing
+his wounded arm in a scarf, and showing in his countenance the
+marks of recent suffering.
+
+The constitution was finally accepted by the nation, and the
+principles of the government were stipulated and fixed in one
+grand view--that of the union, and, consequently, the force of
+the new state.
+
+It has been asked by a profound and sagacious inquirer, or at
+least the question is put forth on undoubted authority in his
+name, "Why did England create for herself a difficulty, and what
+will be by and by a natural enemy, in uniting Holland and Belgium,
+in place of managing those two immense resources to her commerce
+by keeping them separate? For Holland, without manufactures,
+was the natural mart for those of England, while Belgium under
+an English prince had been the route for constantly inundating
+France and Germany."
+
+So asked Napoleon, and England may answer and justify her conduct
+so impugned, on principles consistent with the general wishes
+and the common good of Europe. The discussion of the question
+is foreign to our purpose, which is to trace the circumstances,
+not to argue on the policy, that led to the formation of the
+Netherlands as they now exist. But it appears that the different
+integral parts of the nation were amalgamated from deep-formed
+designs for their mutual benefit. Belgium was not given to Holland,
+as the already-cited article of the treaty of Paris might at
+first sight seem to imply; nor was Holland allotted to Belgium.
+But they were grafted together, with all the force of legislative
+wisdom; not that one might be dominant and the other oppressed,
+but that both should bend to form an arch of common strength,
+able to resist the weight of such invasions as had perpetually
+periled, and often crushed, their separate independence.
+
+
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
+
+A.D. 1815--1899
+
+In the preceding chapters we have seen the history of Holland
+carried down to the treaty which joined together what are now
+known as the separate countries of Holland and Belgium. And it is
+at this point that the interest of the subject for the historian
+practically ceases. The historian differs from the annalist in
+this--that he selects for treatment those passages in the career
+of nations which possess a dramatic form and unity, and therefore
+convey lessons for moral guidance, or for constituting a basis
+for reasonable prognostications of the future. But there are in
+the events of the world many tracts of country (as we might term
+them) which have no special character or apparent significance, and
+which therefore, though they may extend over many years in time,
+are dismissed with bare mention in the pages of the historian;
+just as, in travelling by rail, the tourist will keep his face
+at the window only when the scenery warrants it; at other times
+composing himself to other occupations.
+
+The scenery of Dutch history has episodes as stirring and instructive
+as those of any civilized people since history began; but it
+reached its dramatic and moral apogee when the independence of
+the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. The Netherlands
+then reached their loftiest pinnacle of power and prosperity;
+their colonial possessions were vast and rich; their reputation
+as guardians of liberty and the rights of man was foremost in the
+world. But further than this they could not go; and the moment
+when a people ceases to advance may generally be regarded as
+the moment when, relatively speaking at least, it begins to go
+backward. The Dutch could in no sense become the masters of Europe;
+not only was their domain too small, but it was geographically at
+a disadvantage with the powerful and populous nations neighboring
+it, and it was compelled ever to fight for its existence against
+the attacks of nature itself. The stormy waves of the North Sea
+were ever moaning and threatening at the gates, and ever and anon
+a breach would be made, and the labor of generations annulled.
+Holland could never enter upon a career of conquest, like France
+or Russia; neither could she assume the great part which Britain
+has played; for although the character of the Dutchmen is in
+many respects as strong and sound as that of the English, and
+in some ways its superior, yet the Dutch had not been dowered
+with a sea-defended isle for their habitation, which might enable
+them to carry out enterprises abroad without the distraction and
+weakness involved in maintaining adequate guards at home. They
+were mighty in self-defence and in resistance against tyranny;
+and they were unsurpassed in those virtues and qualities which go
+to make a nation rich and orderly; but aggression could not be
+for them. They took advantage of their season of power to confirm
+themselves in the ownership of lands in the extreme East and in
+the West, which should be a continual source of revenue; but
+they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and
+strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from
+the grasp of others. But this was the sum of their possibility;
+they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the
+consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered
+factor in the European problem. In some respects, their territorial
+insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action,
+preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth
+conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished
+by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They
+became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral
+region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let
+alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand,
+they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed
+into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct
+to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature,
+their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired. They are,
+in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and
+they have the good sense to be content with their condition.
+They are liberal and progressive, and yet conservative; they are
+even with modern ideas as regards education and civilization,
+and yet the tourist within their boundaries continually finds
+himself reminded of their past. The costumes and the customs of
+the mass of the people have undergone singularly little change;
+they mind their own affairs, and are wisely indifferent to the
+affairs of others. Both as importers and as exporters they are
+useful to the world, and if the prophecies of those who foretell
+a general clash of the European powers should be fulfilled, it
+is likely that the Dutch will be onlookers merely, or perhaps
+profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors to increase their
+own well-being.
+
+As we have seen in the foregoing pages, Belgium did not unite
+with the Hollanders in their revolt of the sixteenth century;
+but appertained to Burgundy, and was afterward made a domain
+of France. But after Napoleon had been overthrown at Waterloo,
+the nations who had been so long harried and terrorized by him
+were not satisfied with banishing the ex-conqueror to his island
+exile, but wished to present any possibility of another Napoleon
+arising to renew the wars which had devastated and impoverished
+them. Consequently they agreed to make a kingdom which might act
+as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe; and to this
+end they decreed that Belgium and Holland should be one. But in
+doing this, the statesmen or politicians concerned failed to take
+into account certain factors and facts which must inevitably, in
+the course of time, undermine their arrangements. Nations cannot
+be arbitrarily manufactured to suit the convenience of others.
+There is a chemistry in nationalities which has laws of its own,
+and will not be ignored. Between the Hollanders and the Belgians
+there existed not merely a negative lack of homogeneity, but a
+positive incompatibility. The Hollanders had for generations been
+fighters and men of enterprise; the Belgians had been the appanage
+of more powerful neighbors. The Hollanders were Protestants; the
+Belgians were adherents of the Papacy. The former were seafarers;
+the latter, farmers. The sympathies or affiliations of the Dutch
+were with the English and the Germans; those of the Belgians
+were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act
+oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made
+the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid,
+narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a
+request made of him was reason sufficient for resisting it.
+
+But over and above all these causes for disintegration of the new
+kingdom lay facts of the broadest significance and application.
+The arbiters of 1815 did not sufficiently apprehend the meaning of
+the French Revolution. The wars of Napoleon had made them forget
+it; his power had seemed so much more formidable and positive
+that the deeper forces which had brought about the events of the
+last decade of the eighteenth century were ignored. But they
+still continued profoundly active, and were destined ere long
+to announce themselves anew. They were in truth the generative
+forces of the nineteenth century.
+
+They have not yet spent themselves; but as we look back upon
+the events of the past eighty or ninety years, we perceive what
+vast differences there are between what we were in Napoleon's day
+and what we are now. A long period of intrigue and misrule, of
+wars and revolutions, has been followed by material, mental and
+social changes affecting every class of the people, and especially
+that class which had hitherto been almost entirely unconsidered.
+The wars of this century have been of another character than
+those of the past; they have not involved basic principles of
+human association, but have been the result of attempts to gain
+comparatively trifling political advantages, or else were the
+almost inevitable consequence of adjustments of national relations.
+Several small new kingdoms have appeared; but their presence
+has not essentially altered the political aspect of Europe. It
+is the conquests of mind that have been, in this century, far
+more important than the struggles of arms. Steam, as applied
+to locomotion on sea and land, and to manufactures, has brought
+about modifications in social and industrial conditions that
+cannot be exaggerated. Steamboats and railroads have not only
+given a different face to commerce and industry, but they have
+united the world in bonds of mutual knowledge and sympathy, which
+cannot fail to profoundly affect the political relations of mankind.
+Isolation is ignorance; as soon as men begin to discover, by actual
+intercourse, the similarities and dissimilarities of their several
+conditions, these will begin to show improvements. To be assured
+that people in one part of the world are better off than those in
+another, will tend inevitably to bring about ameliorations for
+the latter. The domain of evil will be continually restricted,
+and that of good enlarged. In the dissemination of intelligence
+and the spread of sympathy, the telegraph, and other applications
+of electricity, have enormously aided the work of steam. Every
+individual of civilized mankind may now be cognizant, at any
+moment, of what is taking place at any point of the earth's surface
+to which the appliances of civilization have penetrated. This
+unprecedented spread of common acquaintanceship of the world
+has been supplemented by discoveries of science in many other
+directions. We know more of the moon to-day than Europe did of
+this planet a few centuries ago. The industrial arts are now
+prosecuted by machinery with a productiveness which enables one
+man to do the work formerly performed by hundreds, and which more
+than keeps up the supply with the demand. Conquests of natural
+forces are constantly making, and each one of them adds to the
+comfort and enlightenment of man. Men, practically, live a dozen
+lives such as those of the past in their single span of seventy
+years; and we are even finding means of prolonging the Scriptural
+limit of mortal existence physically as well as mentally.
+
+But is all this due to that great moral and social earthquake
+to which we give the name of the French Revolution? Yes; for
+that upheaval, like the plow of some titanic husbandman, brought
+to the surface elements of good and use which had been lying
+fallow for unnumbered ages. It brought into view the People,
+as against mere rulers and aristocrats, who had hitherto lived
+upon what the People produced, without working themselves, and
+without caring for anything except to conserve things as they
+were. Human progress will never be advanced by oligarchies, no
+matter how gentle and well-disposed. We see their results to-day
+in Spain and in Turkey, which are still medićval, or worse, in
+their condition and methods. It is the brains of the common people
+that have wrought the mighty change; their personal interests
+demand that they go forward, and their fresh and unencumbered
+minds show them the way. The great scientists, the inventors,
+the philanthropists, the reformers, are all of the common people;
+the statesmen who have really governed the world in this century
+have sprung from the common stock. The French Revolution destroyed
+the dominance of old ideas, and with them the forms in which
+they were embodied. Political, personal and religious freedom
+are now matters of course; but a hundred years ago they were
+almost unheard of, save in the dreams of optimists and fanatics.
+The rights of labor have been vindicated; and the right of every
+human being to the benefit of what he produces has been claimed
+and established. Along with this improvement has come, of course,
+a train of evils and abuses, due to our ignorance of how best
+to manage and apply our new privileges and advantages; but such
+evils are transient, and the conditions which created them will
+suffice, ere long, to remove them. The conflict between labor
+and capital is not permanent; it will yield to better knowledge
+of the true demands of political economy. The indifference or
+corruption of law makers and dispensers will disappear when men
+realize that personal selfishness is self-destructive, and that
+only care for the commonweal can bring about prosperity for the
+individual. The democracy is still in its swaddling clothes,
+and its outward aspect is in many ways ugly and unwelcome, and
+we sigh for the elegance and composure of old days; but these
+discomforts are a necessary accompaniment of growth, and will
+vanish when the growing pains are past. The Press is the mirror of
+the aspirations, the virtues and the faults of the new mankind; its
+power is stupendous and constantly increasing; many are beginning
+to dread it as a possible agent of ill; but in truth its real
+power can only be for good, since the mass of mankind, however
+wedded to selfishness as individuals, are united in desiring
+honesty and good in the general trend of things; and it is to
+the generality, and not to the particular, that the Press, to
+be successful, must appeal. It is the great critic and the great
+recorder; and in the face of such criticism and record abuses
+cannot long maintain themselves. Men will be free, first of external
+tyrannies, and then of that more subtle but not less dangerous
+tyranny which they impose upon themselves. As might have been
+expected, extremists have arisen who sought to find a short road
+to perfection, and they have met with disappointment. The dreams
+of the socialists have not been realized; men will not work for one
+another unless they are at the same time working for themselves.
+The communist and the nihilist are yet further from the true
+ideal; there will always remain in human society certain persons
+who rule, and others who obey. There must always, in all affairs,
+be a head to direct as well as hands to execute. Men are born
+unequal in intelligence and ability; and it will never be possible
+to reduce leaders to the level of followers. The form of society
+must take its model from the human form, in which one part is
+subordinate to another, yet all work together in harmony. Only
+time--and probably no very long time--is required to bring a
+recognition of these facts. Meanwhile, the very violence of the
+revolts against even the suspicion of oppression are but symptoms
+of the vigorous vitality which, in former centuries, seemed to have
+no existence at all. On the other hand, industrial co-operation
+seems to promise successful development; it involves immense
+economies, and consequent profit to producers. The middleman has
+his uses, and especially is he a convenience; but it is easy to
+pay too dear for conveniences; and there seems no reason why the
+producer should not, as time goes on, become constantly better
+equipped for dealing direct with the consumer, to the manifest
+advantage of both.
+
+All these and many other triumphs of civilization, which we see
+now in objective form, were present in potency at the beginning
+of this century, though, as we have said, they were not duly
+taken into account by the framers of the agreement which sought
+to make Holland and Belgium one flesh. Had the sun not yet risen
+upon the human horizon, the attempt might have had a quasi success;
+but the light was penetrating the darkened places, and men were
+no longer willing to accept subjection as their inevitable doom.
+It might be conducive to the comfort of the rest of Europe that
+Batavian and Belgian should dwell together under one political
+roof; but it did not suit the parties themselves; and therefore
+they soon began to make their incompatibility known. But nothing
+was heard beyond the grumblings of half-awakened discontent until,
+in 1830, the new revolution in Paris sent a sympathetic thrill
+through all the dissatisfied of Europe. A generation had now
+passed since the first great upheaval, and men had had time to
+digest the lesson which it conveyed, and to draw various more or
+less reasonable inferences as to future possibilities. It had been
+determined that, broadly speaking, what the people heartily wanted,
+the people might have; and the disturbances in Paris indicated
+that the people were prepared to resent any attempt on the part
+of their rulers to bring back the old abuses. When the Pentarchy,
+in 1815, had made its division of the spoils of Napoleon, the
+Bourbons were reseated on the throne which Louis XIV. had made
+famous; but Louis XVIII. was but a degenerate representative
+of the glories that had been. He adopted a reactionary policy
+against the Napoleonic (or imperialist), the republican and the
+Protestant elements in France; and outrages and oppressions occurred.
+As a consequence, secret societies were formed to counteract
+the ultra-royalist policy. When Louis died, it was hoped that
+his successor, Charles X., might introduce improvements; but
+on the contrary he only made matters worse. The consequence was
+the gradual growth of a liberal party, seeking a monarchy based
+on the support of the great middle class of the population. In
+1827 Charles disbanded the National Guard; and in the following
+year the liberals elected a majority in the Chamber. Charles
+foolishly attempted to meet this step by making the prince de
+Polignac his minister, who stood for all that the people had
+in abhorrence. The prince issued ordinances declaring the late
+elections illegal, narrowing down the rights of suffrage to the
+large landowners, and forbidding all liberty to the press. Hereupon
+the populace of Paris erected barricades and took up arms; and
+in the "Three Days" from the 27th to the 29th of July, 1830,
+they defeated the forces of the king, and after capturing the
+Hotel de Ville and the Louvre, sent him into exile, and made
+the venerable and faithful Lafayette commander of the National
+Guard. But the revolutionists showed forbearance; and instead of
+beheading Charles, as they might have done, they let him go, and
+punished the ministers by imprisonment only. This put an end to
+the older line of the Bourbons in France, and the representative
+of the younger branch, Louis Philippe ("Philippe Egalite"), was
+set on the throne, in the hope that he would be willing to carry
+out the people's will.
+
+All this was interesting to the Belgians, and they profited by
+the example. They regarded William as another Charles, and deemed
+themselves justified in revolting against his rule. They declared
+that they were no longer subject to his control, and issue was
+joined on that point. But the Powers were not ready to permit the
+dissolution of their anxiously constructed edifice; and they met
+together with a view to arranging some secure modus vivendi. The
+issue of their deliberations took the form of proposing that the
+duchy of Luxemburg, at the southeast corner of Belgium, should be
+ceded to Holland on the north. This suggestion was favorably received
+by the Hollanders, but was not so agreeable to the Belgians; and an
+assembly at Brussels devised and adopted a liberal constitution,
+and invited Leopold of Saxe-Coburg to occupy their throne. Leopold
+was at this time about forty years of age; he was the youngest
+son of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg; he had married, in 1816,
+the daughter of George IV. of England, the princess Charlotte,
+and had, a few months before the Belgians' proposal, been offered
+and had refused the crown of Greece. But the Belgian throne was
+more to his liking; and after taking measures to sound the Powers
+on the subject, and to assure himself of their good will, he
+accepted the proffer, and was crowned under the title of Leopold
+I. His reign lasted thirty-four years, and was comparatively
+uneventful and prosperous.
+
+But the Dutch refused to tolerate this change of sovereignty
+without a struggle; William raised an army and suddenly threw
+it into Belgium; and the chanees are that he would have made
+short work of Belgian resistance had the two been permitted to
+fight out their quarrel undisturbed. This, however, could not
+happen; since the independence of Belgium had been recognized by
+England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia; and the triumphal march
+of the Dutch was arrested by a French army which happened to
+be in the place where they could be most effective in the
+circumstances. The Dutch had occupied Antwerp, a town on the
+borderland of Belgium and Holland. It had been in the possession
+of the French in 1794, but had been taken from them at the
+Restoration in 1814. The French now laid siege to it, being under
+the command of Gérard, while the Dutch were led by Chassč. The
+citadel was taken in 1832, and the resistance of the Dutch to
+the decree of Europe was practically at an end, though William
+the Obstinate refused for several years to accept the fact. The
+duchy of Luxemburg had sided with the Belgians all along, as
+might have been anticipated from its position and natural
+affiliations; and though no immediate action was taken relative
+to its ownership till 1839, it remained during the interval in
+Belgian hands. Matters remained in this ambiguous condition for
+some time; but though the Dutch might grumble, they could not
+fight. At length the treaty of 1839 was signed in London, on
+the 19th of April, according to the terms of which part of the
+duchy of Luxemburg was retained by the Belgians, and part was
+ruled by the king of Holland as grand duke. In other respects,
+the status quo ante was preserved, and the partition of Holland
+and Belgium was confirmed, as it has ever since remained. The
+history of Belgium thenceforward has been almost wholly devoid of
+incidents; the little nation may quite too apothegm as applying
+to themselves, "Short are the annals of a happy people!" Their
+insignificance and their geographical position secure them against
+all disturbance. They live in their tiny quarters with economy
+and industry; the most densely populous community in Europe, and
+one of the most prosperous. Around their borders rises the sullen
+murmur of threatening armies and hostile dynasties; but Belgium
+is free from menace, and their sunshine of peace is without a
+cloud. It is of course conceivable that in the great struggle which
+seems impending, the Belgian nation may suddenly vanish from the
+map, and become but a memory in the minds of a future generation;
+but their end, if it come, is likely to be in the nature of a
+euthanasia, and so far as they are physically concerned, they
+will survive their political annihilation. The only ripples which
+have varied the smooth surface of their career since the treaty,
+have been disputes between the liberal and clerical parties on
+questions of education, and disturbances and occasional riots
+instigated by socialists over industrial questions. Leopold,
+dying at the age of seventy-six, was succeeded by his son as
+Leopold II., and his reign continued during the remainder of the
+century.
+
+The treaty of 1839, in addition to its provisions already mentioned,
+gave Limburg, on the Prussian border, to the Dutch, and opened
+the Scheldt under heavy tolls. In October of the year following
+the treaty, William I. abdicated the throne of Holland in favor
+of his son. He had not enjoyed his reign, and he retired in an
+ill humor, which was not without some excuse. His career had
+been a worthy one; he had been a soldier in the field from his
+twenty-first year till the battle of Wagram in 1809, when he was
+near forty; after that he dwelt in retirement in Berlin until
+he was called to the throne of the Netherlands. At that time
+he had exchanged his German possessions for the grand duchy of
+Luxemburg; and was therefore naturally reluctant to be deprived
+of the latter. The old soldier survived his abdication only a
+few years, dying in 1843 at Berlin.
+
+William II. was a soldier like his father. He had gained distinction
+under Wellington in the Spanish campaign, and in the struggle
+against Napoleon during the Hundred Days he commanded the Dutch
+contingent. He married Anne, sister of Alexander I. of Russia,
+in 1816, and at the outbreak of the revolution of 1830 he was
+sent to Belgium to bring about an arrangement. On the 16th of
+October of that year he took the step, which was repudiated by
+his rigid old father, of acknowledging Belgian independence; but
+he subsequently commanded the Dutch army against the Belgians,
+and was forced to yield to the French in August, 1832. After his
+accession, he behaved with firmness and liberality, and died
+in 1849 leaving a good reputation behind him.
+
+Meanwhile, the new revolution of 1848 was approaching. Insensibly,
+the states of Europe had ranged themselves under two principles.
+There were on one side the states governed by constitutions,
+including Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland,
+Sweden and, Norway, Denmark, and, for the time being, Spain and
+Portugal. On the other side were Russia, Prussia, Austria, the
+Italian States, and some of those of Germany, who held that the
+right of rule and the making of laws belonged absolutely to certain
+dynasties, which were, indeed, morally bound to consult the interests
+of their populations, yet were not responsible to their subjects
+for the manner in which they might choose to do it. In the last
+mentioned states there existed a chronic strife between the people
+and their rulers. It was an irrepressible conflict, and its crisis
+was reached in 1848.
+
+It was in France that things first came to a head. Louis Philippe
+and his minister, Guizot, tried to render the government gradually
+independent of the nation, in imitation of the absolutist empires;
+and the uneasiness caused by this policy was emphasized by the
+scarcity that prevailed during the years 1846 and 1847. The Liberals
+began to demand electoral reform; but the king, on opening the
+Chambers, intimated that he was convinced that no reform was
+needed. Angry debates ensued, and finally the opposition arranged
+for a great banquet in the Champs Elysee on February 22, 1848,
+in support of the reform movement. This gathering, however, was
+forbidden by Guizot. The order was regarded as arbitrary, and
+the Republicans seized the opportunity. Barricades appeared in
+Paris, the king was forced to abdicate, and took refuge with
+his family in England. France was thereupon declared to be a
+Republic, and the government was intrusted to Lamartine and others.
+There was now great danger of excesses similar to those of the
+first great revolution; but the elements of violence were kept
+under by the opposition of the middle and higher classes. The
+communistic clubs were overawed by the National Guards, and on
+April 16th the Communistic party was defeated. General Cavaignac,
+who had been made dictator during the struggle, laid down his
+office after the battle which began on the 23d of June between
+the rabble of idle mechanics, eighty thousand in number, and
+the national forces had been decided in favor of the latter,
+who slew no less than sixteen thousand of the enemy. Cavaignac
+was now appointed chief of the Executive Commission with the
+title of President of the Council. A reaction favoring a monarchy
+was indicated; but meanwhile a new constitution provided for
+a quadriennial presidency, with a single legislature of seven
+hundred and fifty members. Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the
+great emperor, was chosen by a majority vote for the office in
+December of 1848. Four years later he was declared emperor under
+the title of Napoleon III.
+
+The revolutionary movement spread to other countries of Europe,
+with varying results. In Hungary, Kossuth in the Diet demanded
+of the emperor-king a national government. Prince Metternich,
+prime minister, attempted to resist the demand with military
+force, but an insurrection in Vienna drove him into exile, and
+the Hungarians gained a temporary advantage, and were granted
+a constitution. The Slavs met at Prague, at the instigation of
+Polocky, and held a congress; but it was broken up by the impatience
+of the inhabitants, and a success of the imperialists was followed
+by the rising of the southern Slavs in favor of the emperor.
+A battle took place in Hungary on September 11, 1848, but the
+imperialists under Jellachich were routed and driven toward the
+Austrian frontier. The war became wider in its scope; the
+insurrectionists at first met with success; but in spite of their
+desperate valor the Hungarian forces were finally overthrown by the
+aid of a Russian army; and their leader, Goergy, was compelled to
+surrender to the Russians on August 13, 1849. It was thought that
+the Czar might annex Hungary; but he handed it back to Francis
+Joseph, who, by way of vengeance, permitted the most hideous
+cruelties.
+
+In Germany, the issue had no definite feature. The people demanded
+freedom of the Press and a German parliament, and the various
+princes seemed acquiescent; but when it was proposed that Prussia
+should become Germany, there was opposition on all sides; a Diet
+of the Confederation was held, but Frederick William IV., king
+of Prussia, refused to accept the title of hereditary emperor
+which was offered him. Austria and Prussia came into opposition;
+two rival congresses were sitting at the same time in 1850; and
+war between the two states was only averted by the interference
+of Russia. Czar Nicholas, then virtually dictator of Europe,
+ordered Prussia's troops back, and the Convention of Olmutz, in
+November, seemed to put a final end to Prussia's hopes of German
+hegemony.
+
+All the local despotisms of Italy collapsed before the breath
+of revolution; but the country then found itself face to face
+with Austria. Charles Albert of Sardinia had the courage to head
+the revolt; but was defeated, and abdicated in favor of his son
+Victor Emmanuel. Venice was taken after a severe siege by the
+Austrians; and King Bomba managed to repossess himself of Naples,
+after a terrible massacre. Sicily was subdued. In the Papal States,
+Pio Nono was deposed; but after a time a reaction set in, the
+provisional government under Mazzini was overthrown, and the
+French occupied Rome and recalled the Pope.
+
+The question as to the Danish or German ownership of the duchies
+of Schleswig-Holstein had already been agitated, and they became
+acute at this time; but the spirit of the new revolution had no
+direct bearing upon the matter. By the end of the first half
+of the nineteenth century, Europe was outwardly quiet once more.
+
+And what part had Holland taken in these proceedings? A very
+small one. The phlegmatic Dutchmen found themselves fairly well
+off, and were nowise tempted to embark in troubles for sentiment's
+sake. The constitution given them in 1814 was revised, with the
+consent of the king, and the changes, which involved various
+political reforms, went into effect on April 17, 1848. William
+II. died just eleven months afterward, and was succeeded by his
+son William III., at that time a man of two-and-thirty. He favored
+the reforms granted by his father, and showed himself to be in
+harmony with such sober ideas of progress as belonged to the
+nation over which he ruled. His aim in all things was peace, and
+the development of the resources of the country; he understood his
+people, and they placed confidence in him, and Holland steadily
+grew in wealth and comfort. In 1853, after the establishment by
+the papacy of Catholic bishoprics had been allowed, there was
+a period of some excitement; for Roman Catholicism had found a
+stern and unconquerable foe in the Dutch; when it had come with
+the bloody tyranny of Spain. But those evil days were past, and
+the Dutch, who had pledged themselves to welcome religious freedom
+in their dominions, were disposed to let bygones be bygones, and
+to permit such of their countrymen as preferred the Catholic
+ceremonial to have their way. It was evident that no danger existed
+of Holland's becoming subject to the papacy; and, indeed, the
+immediate political sequel of the establishment of the bishoprics
+was the election of a moderate, liberal, Protestant cabinet,
+which thoroughly represented the country, and which represented
+its tone thereafter, with such modifications as new circumstances
+might suggest. The Dutch were philosophic, and were victims to
+no vague and costly ambitions. They felt that they had given
+sufficient proofs of their quality in the past; the glory which
+they had won as champions of liberty could never fade; and now
+they merited the repose which we have learned to associate with
+our conception of the Dutch character. Their nature seems to
+partake of the scenic traits of their country; its picturesque,
+solid serenity, its unemotional levels, its flavor of the antique:
+and yet beneath that composure we feel the strength and steadfastness
+which can say to the ocean, Thus far and no further, and can build
+their immaculate towns, and erect their peaceful windmills, and
+navigate their placid canals, and smoke their fragrant pipes on
+land which, by natural right, should be the bottom of the sea.
+Holland is a perennial type of human courage and industry, common
+sense and moderation. As we contemplate them to-day, it requires
+an effort of the imagination to picture them as the descendants
+of a race of heroes who defied and overcame the strongest and
+most cruel Power on earth in their day, and then taught the rest
+of Europe how to unite success in commerce with justice and honor.
+But the heroism is still there, and, should need arise, we need
+not doubt that it would once more be manifested.
+
+Because Holland is so quiet, some rash critics fancy that she
+may be termed effete. But this is far from the truth. The absence
+of military burdens, rendered needless by the intelligent
+selfishness, if not the conscience, of the rest of Europe, implies
+no decadence of masculine spirit in the Dutch. In no department
+of enterprise, commercial ability, or intellectual energy are
+they inferior to any of their contemporaries, or to their own
+great progenitors. "Holland," says Professor Thorold Rogers, "is
+the origin of scientific medicine and rational therapeutics. From
+Holland came the first optical instruments, the best mathematicians,
+the most intelligent philosophers, as well as the boldest and most
+original thinkers. Amsterdam and Rotterdam held the printing
+presses of Europe in the early days of the republic; the Elzevirs
+were the first publishers of cheap editions, and thereby aided
+in disseminating the new learning. From Holland came the new
+agriculture, which has done so much for social life, horticulture
+and floriculture. The Dutch taught modern Europe navigation. They
+were the first to explore the unknown seas, and many an island
+and cape which their captains discovered has been renamed after
+some one who got his knowledge by their research, and appropriated
+the fruit of his predecessor's labors. They have been as much
+plundered in the world of letters as they have been in commerce
+and politics. Holland taught the Western nations finance--perhaps
+no great boon. But they also taught commercial honor, the last
+and hardest lesson which nations learn. They inculcated free
+trade, a lesson nearly as hard to learn, if not harder, since
+the conspiracy against private right is watchful, incessant,
+and, as some would make us believe, respectable. They raised
+a constant and for a long time ineffectual protest against the
+barbarous custom of privateering, and the dangerous doctrine of
+contraband of war, a doctrine which, if carried out logically,
+would allow belligerents to interdict the trade of the world. The
+Dutch are the real founders of what people call international law,
+or the rights of nations. They made mistakes, but they made fewer
+than their neighbors made. The benefits which they conferred were
+incomparably greater than the errors they committed. There is nothing
+more striking than the fact that, after a brief and discreditable
+episode, the states were an asylum for the persecuted. The Jews,
+who were condemned because they were thrifty, plundered because
+they were rich, and harassed because they clung tenaciously to
+their ancient faith and customs, found an asylum in Holland;
+and some of them perhaps, after they originated and adopted,
+with the pliability of their race, a Teutonic alias, have not
+been sufficiently grateful to the country which sheltered them.
+The Jansenists, expelled from France, found a refuge in Utrecht,
+and more than a refuge, a recognition, when recognition was a
+dangerous offence.
+
+"There is no nation in Europe," continues the professor, "which
+owes more to Holland than Great Britain does. The English were
+for a long time, in the industrial history of modern civilization,
+the stupidest and most backward nation in Europe. There was, to
+be sure, a great age in England during the reign of Elizabeth
+and that of the first Stuart king. But it was brief indeed. In
+every other department of art, of agriculture, of trade, we learned
+our lesson from the Hollanders. I doubt whether any other small
+European race, after passing through the trials which it endured
+after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the conclusion of the
+continental war, ever had so entire a recovery. The chain of its
+history, to be sure, was broken, and can never, in the nature
+of things, be welded together. But there is still left to Holland
+the boast and the reality of her motto, 'Luctor et emergo.'"
+
+The events of Holland's history since the Catholic concessions
+can be briefly told. In 1863 slavery was abolished in the Dutch
+West Indies, the owners being compensated; and forty-two thousand
+slaves were set free, chiefly in Dutch Guiana. In the same year
+the navigation of the Scheldt was freed, by purchase from Holland
+by the European powers, of the right to levy tolls. In 1867, Louis
+Napoleon raised the question of Luxemburg by negotiating to buy
+the grand duchy from Holland; but Prussia objected to the scheme,
+and the matter was finally settled by a Conference in London; the
+Prussian garrison evacuating the fortifications, which were then
+dismantled, and Luxemburg was declared neutral territory. Capital
+punishment was abolished in 1869; and on the 15th of July of the
+same year the Amsterdam National Exposition was opened by Prince
+Henry. In 1870, at the outbreak of war between Germany and France,
+the neutrality of Holland as to both belligerents was secured by
+the other Powers. In 1871 the Hollanders ceded Dutch Guinea to
+England, and in 1876 the canal between Amsterdam and the North
+Sea, which had been begun in 1865, was completed, and the passage
+through it was accomplished by a monitor. Another Exposition was
+opened in 1883, and in the same year the constitution underwent
+a further revision. On the 24th of June, 1884, the Prince of
+Orange, heir-apparent to the throne, died, and the succession
+thus devolved upon the princess Wilhelmina, then a child of four
+years. William III. himself died in 1890, and Queen Emma thereupon
+assumed the regency, which she was to hold until Wilhelmina came
+of age in 1898; an agreeable consummation which we have just
+witnessed.
+
+A word may here be said concerning the physical and political
+constitution of the present kingdom of Holland. The country is
+divided into eleven provinces--North and South Holland, Zealand,
+North Brabant, Utrecht, Limburg, Gelderland, Overyssel, Drenthe,
+Groningen, and Friesland. There are three large rivers--the Rhine,
+the Meuse, and the Scheldt. The inhabitants are Low Germans (Dutch),
+Frankish, Saxon, Frisian, and Jews, the latter numbering some
+sixty thousand, though their influence is, owing to their wealth
+and activity, larger than these figures would normally represent.
+The leading religion of the country is Lutheran; but there are
+also many Catholics and persons of other faiths, all of whom
+are permitted the enjoyment of their creeds. Holland was at one
+time second to no country in the extent of its colonies; and
+it still owns Java, the Moluccas, part of Borneo, New Guinea,
+Sumatra and Celebes, in the East; and in the West, Dutch Guiana
+and Curacoa. In Roman times the Low Countries were inhabited by
+various peoples, chiefly of Germanic origin; and in the Middle
+Ages were divided into several duchies and counties--such as
+Brabant, Flanders, Gelderland, Holland, Zealand, etc. The present
+government is a hereditary monarchy, consisting of a king or
+queen and states-general; the upper chamber of fifty members,
+the lower of one hundred. It is essentially a country of large
+towns, of five thousand inhabitants and upward. The Frisians are
+in North Holland, separated by the river Meuse from the Franks;
+the Saxons extend to the Utrecht Veldt. The Semitic race is
+represented by the Portuguese Jews; and there is an admixture
+of other nationalities. In no part of the country do the Dutch
+present a marked physical type, but, on the other hand, they
+are sharply differenced, in various localities, by their laws,
+their customs, and particularly by their dialects; indeed the
+Frisians have a distinct language of their own.
+
+The constitution of 1815, though more than once revised, remains
+practically much the same as at first. The son of the monarch, the
+heir-apparent, is called the Prince of Orange. The administration
+of the Provinces is in the hands of the provincial states; these
+meet but a few times in the year. The Communes have their communal
+councils, under the control of the burgomasters. There is a high
+court of justice, and numerous minor courts.
+
+The population is divided between about two million two hundred
+thousand Protestants, and half as many Roman Catholics, together
+with others. There are four thousand schools, with six hundred
+thousand pupils, and about fourteen thousand teachers. Not more
+than ten per cent of the people are illiterate, and the women are
+as carefully educated the men. There are four great universities:
+Leyden, founded in 1575; Utrecht, founded in 1636; Groningen, in
+1614; and Amsterdam, which has existed since 1877. These seats of
+learning give instruction to from three hundred to seven hundred
+students each. The total expenses of the universities average
+about six hundred thousand dollars. There are also in Holland
+excellent institutions of art, science, and industry.
+
+Agriculture is generally pursued, but without the extreme science
+and economy shown in Belgium. The cultivation and produce vary,
+in part, according as the soil is sand or clay; but the same kind
+of soil, in different parts of the country, produces different
+results. Cattle are largely raised and are of first-rate quality;
+Friesland produces the best, but there are also excellent stocks in
+North Holland and South Holland. In Drenthe, owing to the extensive
+pasturage, great numbers of sheep are raised. But perhaps the most
+important industry of Holland is the fisheries, both those of the
+deep sea, and those carried on in the great Zuyder Zee, which
+occupies a vast area within the boundaries of the country. These
+fisheries, however, are not in all years successful, owing to
+the ungovernable vagaries of ocean currents, and other causes.
+
+Holland has taken a prominent part in European thought since about
+1820. The Dutch language, instead of yielding to the domination
+of the German, has been cultivated and enriched. The writers who
+have achieved distinction could hardly even be named in space
+here available, and any approach to a critical estimate of them
+would require volumes. One of the earlier but best-known names
+is that of Jacobus Van Lennep, who is regarded as the leader
+of the Dutch Romantic school. He was born in Amsterdam on the
+24th of March, 1802, and died at Oosterbeek, near Arnheim, August
+25, 1868. His father, David, was a professor and a poet; Jacobus
+studied jurisprudence at Leyden, and afterward practiced law at
+Amsterdam. For a while he took some part in politics as a member
+of the second chamber; but his heart was bent on the pursuit
+of literature, and he gradually abandoned all else for that.
+His first volume of poems was published when he was but
+four-and-twenty; and he was the author of several dramas. But
+his strongest predilections were for romantic novel-writing;
+and his works in this direction show signs of the influence of
+Walter Scott, who dominated the romantic field in the first half
+of this century, and was known in Holland as well as throughout
+the rest of Europe. "The Foster Son" was published in 1829; the
+"Rose of Dekama" in 1836; "The Adventures of Claus Sevenstars" in
+1865. His complete works, in prose and poetry, fill six-and-thirty
+volumes. A younger contemporary of Van Lennep was Nikolas Beets,
+born at Haarlem in 1814; he also was both poet and prose writer,
+and his "Camara Obscura," published in 1839, is accounted a
+masterpiece of character and humor, though it was composed when
+the author was barely twenty-four years of age. Van den Brink
+was a leading critic of the Romanticists; Hasebrock, author of
+a volume of essays called "Truth and Dream," has been likened
+to the English Charles Lamb. Vosmaer is another eminent figure
+in Dutch literature; he wrote a "Life of Rembrandt" which is a
+masterpiece of biography. Kuenen, who died but ten years ago,
+was a biblical critic of European celebrity. But the list of
+contemporary Dutch writers is long and brilliant, and the time
+to speak critically of them must be postponed.
+
+Nothing impresses the visitor to Holland more than the vast dikes
+or dams which restrain the sea from overwhelming the country.
+They have to be constantly watched and renewed, and to those
+unused to the idea of dwelling in the presence of such constant
+peril, the phlegm of the Hollanders is remarkable. M. Havard, who
+has made a careful study of the country and its people, and who
+writes of them in a lively style, has left excellent descriptions
+of these unique works. "We know," he says, "what the Zealand
+soil is--how uncertain, changing, and mutable; nevertheless,
+a construction is placed upon it, one hundred and twenty yards
+long, sixteen yards wide at the entrance, and more than seven
+and a half yards deep below high water. Add to this, that the
+enormous basin (one thousand nine hundred square yards) is enclosed
+within granite walls of extraordinary thickness, formed of solid
+blocks of stone of tremendous weight. To what depth must the
+daring workmen who undertook the Cyclopean task have gone in
+search of a stable standpoint, on which to lay the foundation
+of such a mass! In what subterranean layer could they have had
+such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of
+a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace--that
+they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice! And observe
+that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid
+Beveland and Walcheren a dozen have been constructed. There are
+two at Wormeldingen. In the presence of these achievements, of
+problems faced with such courage and solved with such success,
+one is almost bewildered."
+
+Elsewhere, in speaking of Kampveer, one of the towns which suffered
+an inundation, he says, "Poor little port! once so famous, lively,
+populous, and noisy, and now so solitary and still! Traces of
+its former military and mercantile character are yet to be seen.
+On the left stands a majestic building with thick walls and few
+apertures, terminating on the sea in a crenelated round tower;
+and these elegant houses, with their arched and trefoiled windows,
+and their decorated gables, on the right, once formed the ancient
+Scotschhuis. Every detail of the building recalls the great trade
+in wool done by the city at that period. Far off, at the entrance
+of the port, stands a tower, the last remnant of the ramparts,
+formerly a fortification; it is now a tavern. In vain do we look
+for the companion tower; it has disappeared with the earth on
+which its foundations stood deep and strong for ages. If, from
+the summit of the surviving tower, you search for that mysterious
+town upon the opposite bank, you will look for it in vain where
+it formerly stood and mirrored its houses and steeples in the
+limpid waters. Kampen also has been swallowed up forever, leaving
+no trace that it ever existed in this world. The land that stretches
+out before us is all affected by that subtle, cancerous disease,
+the _val_, whose ravages are so terrible. Two centuries ago this
+great bay was so filled up with sand that it was expected the
+two islands would in a short time be reunited and thenceforth
+form but one. Then, on a sudden, the gulf yawned anew. That huge
+rent, the Veer Gat, opened once again, more deeply than before;
+whole towns were buried, and their inhabitants drowned. Then the
+water retired, the earth rose, shaking off its humid winding
+sheet, and the old task was resumed; man began once more to dispute
+the soil with the invading waves. A portion of the land, which
+seemed to have been forever lost, was regained; but at the cost
+of what determined strife, after how many battles, with what
+dire alternations! Within a century, three entire polders on
+the north coast of Noordbeveland have again vanished, and in
+the place where they were there flows a stream forty yards deep.
+In 1873, the polder of Borselen, thirty-one acres in extent, sank
+into the waters. Each year the terrible _val_ devours some space
+or other, carrying away the land in strips. The Sophia polder is
+now attacked by the _val_. Every possible means is being employed
+for its defence; no sacrifice is spared. The game is almost up;
+already one dike has been swallowed, and a portion of the conquered
+ground has had to be abandoned. The dams are being strengthened
+in the rear, while every effort is being made to fix the soil so
+as to prevent the slipping away of the reclaimed land. To effect
+this, not only are the dams, reinforced and complicated by an
+inextricable network of stones and interlaced tree-branches; but
+_Zinkstukken_ are sunk far off in the sea, which by squeezing down
+the shifting bottom avert those sudden displacements which bring
+about such disasters. The Zinkstukken--enormous constructions in
+wicker work--are square rafts, made of reeds and boughs twisted
+together, sometimes two or three hundred feet long on a side.
+They are made on the edge of the coast and pushed into the sea;
+and no sooner is one afloat than it is surrounded by a crowd of
+barges and boats, big and little, laden with stones and clods
+of earth. The boats are then attached to the Zinkstuk, and this
+combined flotilla is so disposed along shore that the current
+carries it to the place where the Zinkstuk is to be sunk. When
+the current begins to make itself felt, the raft is loaded by
+the simple process of heaping the contents of the barges upon
+the middle of it. The men form in line from the four corners
+to the centre, and the loads of stone and earth are passed on to
+the centre of the raft, on which they are flung; then the middle
+of the Zinkstuk begins to sink gently, and to disappear under the
+water. As it goes down, the operators withdraw; the stones and
+clods are then flung upon it from boats. At this stage of the
+proceedings the Zinkstuk is so heavy that all the vessels, dragged
+by its weight, lean over, and their masts bend above it. But now
+the decisive moment approaches, and the foreman, standing on
+the poop of the largest boat, in the middle of the flotilla, on
+the side furthest from the shore, awaits the instant when the
+Zinkstuk shall come into precisely the foreordained position.
+At that instant he utters a shout and makes a signal; the ropes
+are cut, the raft plunges downward, and disappears forever, while
+the boats recover their proper position."
+
+M. Havard merits the space we have given him; for he describes
+a work the like of which has never been seen elsewhere in the
+world, any more than have the conditions which necessitated it.
+But the picturesqueness of the actual scene can hardly be conveyed
+in words. Under an azure sky we behold outstretched a sparkling
+sea, its waters shading from green to blue and from yellow to
+violet, harmoniously blending. In the distance, as though marking
+the horizon, stretches a long, green strip of land, with the
+spires of the churches standing out in strong relief against the
+sky. At our feet is the Zinkstuk, surrounded by its flotilla.
+The great red sails furled upon the masts, the green poops, the
+rudders sheathed with burnished copper, the red streaks along
+the sides of the boats, the colored shirts, brown vests, and
+blue girdles of the men, touched by the warm rays of the sun,
+compose a striking picture. On all sides the men are in motion,
+and five hundred brawny arms are flinging the contents of the
+boats upon the great raft; a truly Titanic stoning! Projectiles
+rain from all sides without pause, until the moment comes when
+the decisive command is to be given. Then silence, absolute and
+impressive, falls upon the multitude. Suddenly the signal is
+given; a creaking noise is heard; the fifty boats right themselves
+at the same instant, and turn toward the point where the great
+raft which had separated them has just disappeared. They bump
+against one another, they get entangled, they group themselves in
+numberless different ways. The swarming men, stooping and raising
+up, the uplifted arms, the flying stones, the spurting water
+covering the boats with foam; and in the midst of the confusion the
+polder-jungens flinging the clods of earth with giant strength and
+swiftness upon the raft. At certain points the tumult declines;
+flags are hoisted from the tops of masts, the large sails are
+shaken out, and aided by the breeze some vessels get loose, sail
+out, and desert the field of battle. These are they whose task
+is done, and which are empty. They retire one by one upon the
+great expanse of water, which, save in one spot, was a little
+while ago deserted, and is now overspread with the vessels making
+their various ways toward that green line on the horizon.
+
+This is a conflict not of days, nor of years, nor of generations,
+but of all time; and what the end will be none can foretell.
+It is the concrete symbol of the everlasting fight of man with
+nature, which means civilization. The day may come when, where
+once Holland was, will be outspread the serene waters of the
+sea, hiding beneath them the records of the stupendous struggle
+of so many centuries. Or, perhaps, some mysterious shifting of
+the ocean bottom may not only lift Holland out of peril, but
+uncover mighty tracts of land which, in the prehistoric past,
+belonged to Europe. Meanwhile it is easy to understand that the
+people who can wage this ceaseless war for their homes and lives,
+are the sons of those heroes who curbed the might of Spain, and
+taught the world the lessons of freedom and independence.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Holland, by Thomas Colley Grattan
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diff --git a/old/10583-8.zip b/old/10583-8.zip
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+++ b/old/10583-8.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Holland, by Thomas Colley Grattan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Holland
+       The History of the Netherlands
+
+Author: Thomas Colley Grattan
+
+Release Date: January 3, 2004 [EBook #10583]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE DUKE OF ALVA DEPOSES MARGARET OF PARMA]
+
+
+
+
+HOLLAND
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+BY THOMAS COLLEY GRATTAN
+
+WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
+BY THE SALIAN FRANKS
+
+B.C. 50--A.D. 250
+
+Extent of the Kingdom--Description of the People--Ancient State
+of the Low Countries--Of the High Grounds--Contrasted with the
+present Aspect of the Country--Expedition of Julius Caesar--The
+Belgae--The Menapians--Batavians--Distinguished among the Auxiliaries
+of Rome--Decrease of national Feeling in Part of the Country--
+Steady Patriotism of the Frisons and Menapians--Commencement of
+Civilization--Early Formation of the Dikes--Degeneracy of those
+who became united to the Romans--Invasion of the Netherlands
+by the Salian Franks.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND
+BY THE FRENCH
+
+A.D. 250--800
+
+Character of the Franks--The Saxon Tribes--Destruction of the
+Salians by a Saxon Tribe--Julian the Apostate--Victories of Clovis
+in Gaul--Contrast between the Low Countries and the Provinces of
+France--State of Friesland--Charles Martell--Friesland converted
+to Christianity--Finally subdued by France.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND
+
+A.D. 800--1000
+
+Commencement of the Feudal System in the Highlands--Flourishing State
+of the Low Countries--Counts of the Empire--Formation of the Gilden
+or Trades--Establishment of popular Privileges in Friesland--In
+what they consisted--Growth of Ecclesiastical Power--Baldwin of
+Flanders--Created Count--Appearance of the Normans--They ravage the
+Netherlands--Their Destruction, and final Disappearance--Division
+of the Empire into Higher and Lower Lorraine--Establishment of
+the Counts of Lorraine and Hainault--Increasing Power of the
+Bishops of Liege and Utrecht--Their Jealousy of the Counts; who
+resist their Encroachments.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE
+
+A.D. 1018--1384
+
+Origin of Holland--Its first Count--Aggrandizement of Flanders--Its
+growing Commerce--Fisheries--Manufactures--Formation of the County
+of Guelders, and of Brabant--State of Friesland--State of the
+Provinces--The Crusades--Their good Effects on the State of the
+Netherlands--Decline of the Feudal Power, and Growth of the Influence
+of the Towns--Great Prosperity of the Country--The Flemings take
+up Arms against the French--Drive them out of Bruges, and defeat
+them in the Battle of Courtrai--Popular Success in Brabant--Its
+Confederation with Flanders--Rebellion of Bruges against the
+Count, and of Ghent under James d' Artaveldt--His Alliance with
+England--His Power, and Death--Independence of Flanders--Battle
+of Roosbeke--Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, obtains the
+Sovereignty of Flanders.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS
+TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR
+
+A.D. 1384--1506
+
+Philip succeeds to the Inheritance of Brabant--Makes War on England
+as a French Prince, Flanders remaining neuter--Power of the Houses
+of Burgundy and Bavaria, and Decline of Public Liberty--Union of
+Holland, Hainault, and Brabant--Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and
+Hainault--Flies from the Tyranny of her Husband, John of Brabant,
+and takes Refuge in England--Murder of John the Fearless, Duke of
+Burgundy--Accession of his Son, Philip the Good--His Policy--Espouses
+the Cause of John of Brabant against Jacqueline--Deprives her
+of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand--Continues his Persecution,
+and despoils her of her last Possession and Titles--She marries
+a Gentleman of Zealand, and Dies--Peace or Arras--Dominions of
+the House of Burgundy equal to the present Extent of the Kingdom
+of the Netherlands--Rebellion of Ghent--Affairs of Holland and
+Zealand--Charles the Rash--His Conduct in Holland--Succeeds his
+Father--Effects of Philip's Reign on the Manners of the People--
+Louis XI.--Death of Charles, and Succession of Mary--Factions
+among her Subjects--Marries Maximilian of Austria--Battle of
+Guinegate--Death of Mary--Maximilian unpopular--Imprisoned by
+his Subjects--Released--Invades the Netherlands--Succeeds to
+the Imperial Throne by the Death of his Father--Philip the Fair
+proclaimed Duke and Count--His wise Administration--Affairs of
+Friesland--Of Guelders--Charles of Egmont--Death of Philip the
+Fair.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V
+
+A.D. 1506--1555
+
+Margaret of Austria invested with the Sovereignty--Her Character
+and Government--Charles, Son of Philip the Fair, created Duke of
+Brabant and Count of Flanders and Holland--The Reformation--Martin
+Luther--Persecution of the Reformers--Battle of Pavia--Cession of
+Utrecht to Charles V.--Peace of Cambray--The Anabaptists' Sedition
+at Ghent--Expedition against Tunis and Algiers--Charles becomes
+possessed of Friesland and Guelders--His increasing Severity
+against the Protestants--His Abdication and Death--Review--Progress
+of Civilization.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
+OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS
+
+A.D. 1555--1566
+
+Accession of Philip II.--His Character and Government--His Wars
+with France, and with the Pope--Peace with the Pope--Battle of St.
+Quentin--Battle of Gravelines--Peace of Cateau-Cambresis--Death
+of Mary of England--Philip's Despotism--Establishes a Provisional
+Government--Convenes the States--General at Ghent--His Minister
+Granvelle--Goes to Zealand--Embarks for Spain--Prosperity revives--
+Effects of the Provisional Government--Marguerite of Palma--
+Character of Granvelle--Viglius de Berlaimont--Departure of the
+spanish Troops--Clergy--Bishops--National Discontent--Granvelle
+appointed Cardinal--Edict against Heresy--Popular Indignation--
+Reformation--State of Brabant--Confederacy against Granvelle--
+Prince of Orange--Counts Egmont and Horn join the Prince against
+Granvelle--Granvelle recalled--Council of Trent--Its Decrees
+received with Reprobation--Decrees against Reformers--Philip's
+Bigotry--Establishment of the Inquisition--Popular Resistance.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION
+
+A.D. 1566
+
+Commencement of the Revolution--Defence of the Prince of
+Orange--Confederacy of the Nobles--Louis of Nassau--De
+Brederode--Philip de St. Aldegonde--Assembly of the Council of
+State--Confederates enter Brussels--Take the Title of _Gueux_--Quit
+Brussels, and disperse in the Provinces--Measures of Government--
+Growing Power of the Confederates--Progress of the Reformation--
+Field Preaching--Herman Stricker--Boldness of the Protestants--
+Peter Dathen--Ambrose Ville--Situation of Antwerp--The Prince
+repairs to it, and saves it--Meeting of the Confederates at St.
+Trond---The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont treat with them--
+Tyranny of Philip and Moderation of the Spanish Council--Image
+Breakers--Destruction of the Cathedral, of Antwerp--Terror of
+Government--Firmness of Viglius--Arbitration between the Court
+and the People--Concessions made by Government--Restoration of
+Tranquillity.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS
+
+A.D. 1566--1573
+
+Philip's Vindictiveness and Hypocrisy--Progress of
+Protestantism--Gradual Dissolution of the Conspiracy--Artifices
+of Philip and the Court to disunite the Protestants--Firmness of
+the Prince of Orange--Conference at Termonde--Egmont abandons
+the Patriot Cause--Fatal Effects of his Conduct--Commencement
+of Hostilities--Siege of Valenciennes--Protestant Synod at
+Antwerp--Haughty Conduct of the Government--Royalists Repulsed
+at Bois-le-duc--Battle of Osterweel, and Defeat of the
+Patriots--Antwerp again saved by the Firmness and Prudence of
+the Prince of Orange--Capitulation of Valenciennes--Success of
+the Royalists--Death of De Brederode--New Oath of Allegiance;
+Refused by the Prince of Orange and others--The Prince resolves
+on voluntary Banishment, and departs for Germany--His Example is
+followed by the Lords--Extensive Emigration--Arrival of the Duke of
+Orleans--Egmont's Humiliation--Alva's Powers--Arrest of Egmont and
+others---Alva's first Acts of Tyranny--Council of Blood--Recall of
+the Government--Alva's Character--He summons the Prince of Orange,
+who is tried by Contumacy--Horrors committed by Alva--Desolate State
+of the Country--Trial and Execution of Egmont and Horn--The Prince
+of Orange raises an Army in Germany, and opens his first Campaign
+in the Netherlands--Battle of Heiligerlee--Death of Adolphus of
+Nassau--Battle of Jemminghem--Success and skilful Conduct of
+Alva--Dispersion of the Prince of Orange's Army--Growth of the naval
+Power of the Patriots--Inundation in Holland and Friesland--Alva
+reproached by Philip--Duke of Medina-Celi appointed Governor--Is
+attacked, and his fleet destroyed by the Patriots--Demands his
+Recall--Policy of the English Queen, Elizabeth--The Dutch take
+Brille--General Revolt in Holland and Zealand--New Expedition of
+the Prince of Orange--Siege of Mons--Success of the Prince--Siege
+of Haarlem--Of Alkmaer--Removal of Alva--Don Luis Zanega y Requesens
+appointed Governor-General.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT
+
+A.D. 1573--1576
+
+Character of Requesens--His conciliating Conduct--Renews the
+War against the States--Siege of Middleburg--Generosity of the
+Prince of Orange--Naval Victory--State of Flanders--Count Louis of
+Nassau--Battle of Mookerheyde--Counts Louis and Henry slain--Mutiny
+of the Spanish Troops--Siege of Leyden--Negotiations for Peace at
+Breda--The Spaniards take Zuriczee--Requesens dies--The Government
+devolves on the Council of State--Miserable State of the Country,
+and Despair of the Patriots--Spanish Mutineers--The States-General
+are convoked, and the Council arrested by the Grand Bailiff of
+Brabant--The Spanish Mutineers sack and capture Maestricht, and
+afterward Antwerp--The States-General assemble at Ghent and assume
+the Government--The Pacification of Ghent.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION
+OF INDEPENDENCE
+
+A.D. 1576--1580
+
+Don John of Austria, Governor-General, arrives in the
+Netherlands--His Character and Conduct--The States send an Envoy
+to Elizabeth of England--She advances them a Loan of Money--The
+Union of Brussels--The Treaty of Marche-en-Famenne, called the
+Perpetual Edict--The impetuous Conduct of Don John excites the
+public Suspicion--He seizes on the Citadel of Namur--The Prince
+of Orange is named Protector of Brabant--The People destroy the
+Citadels of Antwerp and other Towns--The Duke of Arschot is named
+Governor of Flanders--He invites the Archduke Mathias to accept
+the Government of the Netherlands--Wise Conduct of the Prince of
+Orange--Ryhove and Hembyse possess themselves of supreme Power at
+Ghent--The Prince of Orange goes there and establishes Order--The
+Archduke Mathias is installed--The Prince of Parma arrives in
+the Netherlands, and gains the Battle of Gemblours--Confusion
+of the States-General--The Duke of Alencon comes to their
+Assistance--Dissensions among the Patriot Chiefs--Death of Don
+John of Austria--Suspicions of his having been Poisoned by Order of
+Philip II.--The Prince of Parma is declared Governor-General--The
+Union of Utrecht--The Prince of Parma takes the Field--The Congress
+of Cologne rendered fruitless by the Obstinacy of Philip--The
+States-General assemble at Antwerp, and issue a Declaration of
+National Independence--The Sovereignty of the Netherlands granted
+to the Duke of Alencon.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1580--1584
+
+Proscription of the Prince of Orange--His celebrated Apology--Philip
+proposes sending back the Duchess of Parma as Stadtholderess--Her
+son refuses to act jointly with her, and is left in the exercise
+of his Power--The Siege of Cambray undertaken by the Prince of
+Parma, and gallantly defended by the Princess of Epinoi--The
+Duke of Alencon created Duke of Anjou--Repairs to England, in
+hopes of marrying Queen Elizabeth--He returns to the Netherlands
+unsuccessful, and is inaugurated at Antwerp--The Prince of Orange
+desperately wounded by an Assassin--Details on John Jaureguay
+and his Accomplices--The People suspect the French of the Crime--
+Rapid Recovery of the Prince, who soon resumes his accustomed
+Activity--Violent Conduct of the Duke of Anjou, who treacherously
+attempts to seize on Antwerp--He is defeated by the Townspeople--
+His Disgrace and Death--Ungenerous Suspicions of the People against
+the Prince of Orange, who leaves Flanders in Disgust--Treachery
+of the Prince of Chimay and others--Treason of Hembyse--He is
+executed at Ghent--The States resolve to confer the Sovereignty
+on the Prince of Orange--He is murdered at Delft--Parallel between
+him and the Admiral Coligny--Execution of Balthazar Gerard, his
+Assassin--Complicity of the Prince of Parma.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA
+
+A.D. 1584--1592
+
+Effects of William's Death on the History of his Country--Firm
+Conduct of the United Provinces--They reject the Overtures of
+the Prince of Parma--He reduces the whole of Flanders--Deplorable
+Situation of the Country--Vigorous Measures of the Northern
+States--Antwerp besieged--Operations of the Siege--Immense Exertions
+of the Besiegers--The Infernal Machine--Battle on the Dike of
+Couvestien--Surrender of Antwerp--Extravagant Joy of Philip II.--The
+United Provinces solicit the Aid of France and England--Elizabeth
+sends them a supply of Troops under the Earl of Leicester--He returns
+to England--Treachery of some English and Scotch Officers--Prince
+Maurice commences his Career--The Spanish Armada--Justin of Nassau
+blocks up the Prince of Parma in the Flemish Ports--Ruin of the
+Armada--Philip's Mock Piety on hearing the News--Leicester
+dies--Exploits and Death of Martin Schenck--Breda surprised--The
+Duke of Parma leads his Army into France--His famous Retreat--His
+Death and Character.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILLIP II.
+
+A.D. 1592--1599
+
+Count Mansfield named Governor-General--State of Flanders and
+Brabant--The Archduke Ernest named Governor-General--Attempts
+against the Life of Prince Maurice--He takes Groningen--Death of
+the Archduke Ernest--Count Fuentes named Governor-General--He takes
+Cambray and other Towns--Is soon replaced by the Archduke Albert
+of Austria--His high Reputation--He opens his first Campaign in
+the Netherlands--His Successes--Prince Maurice gains the Battle
+of Turnhout--Peace of Vervins--Philip yields the Sovereignty of
+the Netherlands to Albert and Isabella--A new Plot against the
+Life of Prince Maurice--Albert sets out for Spain, and receives
+the News of Philip's Death--Albert arrives in Spain, and solemnizes
+his Marriage with the Infanta Isabella--Review of the State of
+the Netherlands.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA
+
+A.D. 1599--1604
+
+Cardinal Andrew of Austria Governor--Francisco Mendoza, Admiral
+of Aragon, invades the neutral States of Germany--His atrocious
+Conduct--Prince Maurice takes the Field--His masterly
+Movements--Sybilla of Cleves raises an Army, which is, quickly
+destroyed--Great Exertions of the States-General--Naval Expedition
+under Vander Goes--Its complete Failure--Critical Situation of the
+United Provinces--Arrival of the Archduke in Brussels--Success
+of Prince Maurice--His Expedition into Flanders--Energy of the
+Archduke--Heroism of Isabella--Progress of Albert's Army--Its
+first Success--Firmness of Maurice--The Battle of Nieuport--Total
+Defeat of the Royalists--Consequences of the Victory--Prince
+Maurice returns to Holland--Negotiations for Peace--Siege of
+Ostend--Death of Elizabeth of England--United Provinces send
+Ambassadors to James I.--Successful Negotiations of Barneveldt
+and the Duke of Sully in London--Peace between England and
+Spain--Brilliant Campaign between Spinola and Prince Maurice--Battle
+of Roeroord--Naval Transactions--Progress of Dutch Influence in
+India--Establishment of the East India Company.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+TO THE SYNOD OF DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT
+
+A.D. 1600--1619
+
+Spinola proposes to invade the United Provinces--Successfully
+opposed by Prince Maurice--The Dutch defeated at Sea--Desperate
+Conduct of Admiral Klagoon--Great naval Victory of the Dutch,
+and Death of their Admiral Heemskirk--Overtures of the Archdukes
+for Peace--How received in Holland--Prudent Conduct of
+Barneveldt--Negotiations opened at The Hague--John de Neyen,
+Ambassador for the Archdukes--Armistice for Eight Months--Neyen
+attempts to bribe D'Aarsens, the Greffier of the States-General--His
+Conduct disclaimed by Verreiken, Counsellor to the Archdukes--Great
+Prejudices in Holland against King James I. and the English,
+and Partiality toward France--Rupture of the Negotiations--They
+are renewed--Truce for Twelve Years signed at Antwerp--Gives
+great Satisfaction in the Netherlands--Important Attitude of
+the United Provinces--Conduct of the Belgian Provinces--Disputes
+relative to Cleves and Juviers--Prince Maurice and Spinola remove
+their Armies into the contested states--Intestine Troubles in
+the United Provinces--Assassination of Henry IV. of France--His
+Character--Change in Prince Maurice's Character and Conduct--He
+is strenuously opposed by Barneveldt--Religious Disputes--King
+James enters the Lists of Controversy--Barneveldt and Maurice
+take Opposite sides--The cautionary Towns released from the
+Possession of England--Consequences of this Event--Calumnies
+against Barneveldt--Ambitious Designs of Prince Maurice--He is
+baffled by Barneveldt--The Republic assists its Allies with Money
+and Ships--Its great naval Power--Outrages of some Dutch Sailors in
+Ireland--Unresented by King James--His Anger at the manufacturing
+Prosperity of the United Provinces--Excesses of the Gomarists--The
+Magistrates call out the National Militia--Violent Conduct of
+Prince Maurice--Uncompromising Steadiness of Barneveldt--Calumnies
+against him--Maurice succeeds to the Title of Prince of Orange,
+and Acts with increasing Violence--Arrest of Barneveldt and his
+Friends--Synod of Dort--Its Consequences--Trial, Condemnation,
+and Execution of Barneveldt--Grotius and Hoogerbeets sentenced
+to perpetual Imprisonmemt--Ledenburg commits Suicide.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE
+
+A.D. 1619--1625
+
+The Parties Of Arminianism quite subdued--Emigrations--Grotius
+resolves to attempt an Escape from Prison--Succeeds in his
+Attempt--He repairs to Paris, and publishes his "Apology"--Expiration
+of the Twelve Years' Truce--Death of Philip III. And of the Archduke
+Albert--War in Germany--Campaign between Prince Maurice and
+Spinola--Conspiracy against the Life of Prince Maurice--Its
+Failure--Fifteen of the Conspirators executed--Great Unpopularity
+of Maurice--Death of Maurice.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
+
+A.D. 1625--1648
+
+Frederick Henry succeeds his Brother--Charles I. King of England--War
+between France and England--Victories of Admiral Hein--Brilliant
+Success of Frederick Henry--Fruitless Enterprise in Flanders--Death
+of the Archduchess Isabella--Confederacy in Brabant--Its Failure,
+and Arrest of the Nobles--Ferdinand, Prince-Cardinal,
+Governor-General--Treaty between France and Holland--Battle of
+Avein--Naval Affairs--Battle of the Downs--Van Tromp--Negotiations
+for the Marriage of Prince William with the Princess Mary of
+England--Death of the Prince-Cardinal--Don Francisco de Mello
+Governor-General--Battle of Rocroy--Gallantry of Prince
+William--Death of Cardinal Richelieu and of Louis XIII.--English
+Politics--Affairs of Germany--Negotiations for Peace--Financial
+Embarrassment of the Republic--The Republic negotiates with
+Spain--Last Exploits of Frederick Henry--His Death, and
+Character--William II. Stadtholder--Peace of Munster--Resentment
+of Louis XIII.--Peace of Westphalia--Review of the Progress of
+Art, Science, and Manners--Literature-- Painting--Engraving--
+Sculpture--Architecture--Finance--Population--Commercial
+Companies--Manners.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN
+
+A.D. 1648--1678
+
+State of the Republic after the Peace of Munster--State of
+England--William II. Stadtholder--His ambitious Designs and Violent
+Conduct--Attempts to seize on Amsterdam--His Death--Different
+Sensations caused by his Death--The Prerogatives of the Stadtholder
+assumed by the People--Naval War with England--English Act of
+Navigation--Irish Hostilities--Death of Tromp--A Peace with
+England--Disturbed State of the Republic--War with Denmark--Peace
+concluded--Charles II. restored to the English Throne--Declares
+War against Holland--Naval Actions--Charles endeavors to excite all
+Europe against the Dutch--His Failure--Renewed Hostilities--De Ruyter
+defeated--Peace of Breda--Invasion of Flanders by Louis XIV.--He
+overruns Brabant and Flanders--Triple League, 1668--Perfidious
+Conduct of Charles II.--He declares War against Holland, etc.,
+as does Louis XIV.--Unprepared State of United Provinces--William
+III. Prince of Orange--Appointed Captain-General and High
+Admiral--Battle of Solebay--The French Invade the Republic--The
+States-General implore Peace--Terms demanded by Louis XIV. and
+by Charles II.--Desperation of the Dutch--The Prince of Orange
+proclaimed Stadtholder--Massacre of the De Witts--Fine Conduct of
+the Prince of Orange--He takes the Field--Is reinforced by Spain,
+the Emperor, and Brandenburg--Louis XIV. forced to abandon his
+Conquests--Naval Actions with the English--A Peace, 1674--Military
+Affairs--Battle of Senef--Death of De Ruyter--Congress for Peace
+at Nimeguen--Battle of Mont Cassel--Marriage of the Prince of
+Orange--Peace of Nimeguen.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
+
+A.D. 1678--1713
+
+State of Europe subsequently to the Peace of Nimeguen--Arrogant
+Conduct of Louis XIV.--Truce for Twenty Years--Death of Charles
+II. of England--League of Augsburg--The Conduct of William--He
+invades England--James II. Deposed--William III. proclaimed King of
+England--King William puts himself at the Head of the Confederacy
+against Louis XIV., and enters on the War--Military Operations--Peace
+of Ryswyk--Death of Charles II. of Spain--War of Succession--Death
+of William III.--His Character--Duke of Marlborough--Prince
+Eugene--Successes of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain and
+Portugal--Louis XIV. solicits Peace--Conferences for Peace--Peace
+of Utrecht--Treaty of the Barrier.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
+THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
+
+A.D. 1713--1794
+
+Quadruple Alliance--General Peace of Europe--Wise Conduct of the
+Republic--Great Danger from the bad State of the Dikes--Death
+of the Emperor Charles VI.--Maria Theresa Empress--Her heroic
+Conduct--Battle of Dettingen--Louis XV. invades the
+Netherlands--Conferences for Peace at Breda--Battle of
+Fontenoy--William IV. Stadtholder and Captain-General--Peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle--Death of the Stadtholder, who is succeeded by his
+Son William V.--War of Seven Years--State of the Republic--William
+V. Stadtholder--Dismemberment of Poland--Joseph II. Emperor--His
+attempted Reforms in Religion--War with England--Sea-Fight on
+the Doggerbank--Peace with England, 1784--Progress of Public
+Opinion in Europe, in Belgium, and Holland--Violent Opposition
+to the Stadtholder--Arrest of the Princess of Orange--Invasion
+of Holland by the Prussian Army--Agitation in Belgium--Vander
+Noot--Prince Albert of Saxe-Teschen and the Archduchess Maria
+Theresa joint Governors-General--Succeeded by Count
+Murray--Riots--Meetings of the Provisional States--General
+Insurrection--Vonckists--Vander Mersch--Takes the Command of
+the Insurgents--His Skilful Conduct--He gains the Battle of
+Turnhout--Takes Possession of Flanders--Confederation of the
+Belgian Provinces--Death of Joseph II.--Leopold Emperor--Arrest
+of Vander Mersch--Arrogance of the States-General of Belgium--The
+Austrians overrun the Country--Convention at The Hague--Death
+of Leopold--Battle of Jemmappes--General Dumouriez--Conquest of
+Belgium by the French--Recovered by the Austrians--The Archduke
+Charles Governor-General--War in the Netherlands--Duke of York--The
+Emperor Francis--The Battle of Fleurus--Incorporation of Belgium
+with the French Republic--Peace of Leoben--Treaty of Campo-Formio.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE
+PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1794--1818
+
+Pichegru invades Holland--Winter Campaign--The Duke of York vainly
+resists the French Army--Abdication of the Stadtholder--Batavian
+Republic--War with England--Unfortunate Situation of Holland--Naval
+Fight--English Expedition to the Helder--Napoleon Bonaparte--Louis
+Bonaparte named King of Holland--His popular Conduct--He abdicates
+the Throne--Annexation of Holland to the French Empire--Ruinous
+to the Prosperity of the Republic--The people desire the Return
+of the Prince of Orange--Confederacy to effect this Purpose--The
+Allied Armies advance toward Holland--The Nation rises to throw
+off the Yoke of France--Count Styrum and his Associates lead
+on that Movement, and proclaim the Prince of Orange, who lands
+from England--His first Proclamation--His second Proclamation.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE-SOVEREIGN OF THE
+NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
+
+A.D. 1813--1815
+
+Rapid Organization of Holland--The Constitution formed--Accepted by
+the People--Objections made to it by some Individuals--Inauguration
+of the Prince-Sovereign--Belgium is occupied by the Allies--Treaty
+of Paris--Treaty of London--Formation of the Kingdom of the
+Netherlands--Basis of the Government--Relative Character and
+Situation of Holland and Belgium--The Prince-Sovereign of Holland
+arrives in Belgium as Governor-General--The fundamental Law--Report
+of the Commissioners by whom it was framed--Public Feeling in
+Holland, and in Belgium--The Emperor Napoleon invades France,
+and Belgium--The Prince of Orange takes the Field--The Duke of
+Wellington--Prince Blucher--Battle of Ligny--Battle of Quatre
+Bras--Battle of Waterloo--Anecdote of the Prince of Orange, who
+is wounded--Inauguration of the King.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER (A.D. 1810--1899).
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+HOLLAND
+
+  The Duke of Alva Deposes Margaret of Parma.
+
+  Storming the Barricades at Brussels During the Revolution of 1848.
+
+  William the Silent of Orange.
+
+  A Holland Beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS BY THE ROMANS TO THE INVASION
+BY THE SALIAN FRANKS
+
+B.C. 50--A.D. 200
+
+The Netherlands form a kingdom of moderate extent, situated on
+the borders of the ocean, opposite to the southeast coast of
+England, and stretching from the frontiers of France to those
+of Hanover. The country is principally composed of low and humid
+grounds, presenting a vast plain, irrigated by the waters from
+all those neighboring states which are traversed by the Rhine,
+the Meuse, and the Scheldt. This plain, gradually rising toward
+its eastern and southern extremities, blends on the one hand
+with Prussia, and on the other with France. Having, therefore,
+no natural or strongly marked limits on those sides, the extent
+of the kingdom could only be determined by convention; and it must
+be at all times subject to the arbitrary and varying influence
+of European policy. Its greatest length, from north to south, is
+about two hundred and twenty English miles; and its breadth,
+from east to west, is nearly one hundred and forty.
+
+Two distinct kinds of men inhabit this kingdom. The one occupying
+the valleys of the Meuse and the Scheldt, and the high grounds
+bordering on France, speak a dialect of the language of that
+country, and evidently belong to the Gallic race. They are called
+Walloons, and are distinguished from the others by many peculiar
+qualities. Their most prominent characteristic is a propensity
+for war, and their principal source of subsistence the working
+of their mines. They form nearly one-fourth of the population of
+the whole kingdom, or about one million three hundred thousand
+persons. All the rest of the nation speak Low German, in its
+modifications of Dutch and Flemish; and they offer the distinctive
+characteristics of the Saxon race--talents for agriculture,
+navigation, and commerce; perseverance rather than vivacity;
+and more courage than taste for the profession of arms. They
+are subdivided into Flemings--those who were the last to submit
+to the House of Austria; and Dutch--those who formed the republic
+of the United Provinces. But there is no difference between these
+two subdivisions, except such as has been produced by political
+and religious institutions. The physical aspect of the people
+is the same; and the soil, equally law and moist, is at once
+fertilized and menaced by the waters.
+
+The history of this last-mentioned portion of the nation is
+completely linked to that of the soil which they occupy. In remote
+times, when the inhabitants of this plain were few and uncivilized,
+the country formed but one immense morass, of which the chief
+part was incessantly inundated and made sterile by the waters of
+the sea. Pliny the naturalist, who visited the northern coasts,
+has left us a picture of their state in his days. "There," says
+he, "the ocean pours in its flood twice every day, and produces
+a perpetual uncertainty whether the country may be considered as
+a part of the continent or of the sea. The wretched inhabitants
+take refuge on the sand-hills, or in little huts, which they
+construct on the summits of lofty stakes, whose elevation is
+conformable to that of the highest tides. When the sea rises,
+they appear like navigators; when it retires, they seem as though
+they had been shipwrecked. They subsist on the fish left by the
+refluent waters, and which they catch in nets formed of rushes
+or seaweed. Neither tree nor shrub is visible on these shores.
+The drink of the people is rain-water, which they preserve with
+great care; their fuel, a sort of turf, which they gather and
+form with the hand. And yet these unfortunate beings dare to
+complain against their fate, when they fall under the power and
+are incorporated with the empire of Rome!"
+
+The picture of poverty and suffering which this passage presents
+is heightened when joined to a description of the country. The
+coasts consisted only of sand-banks or slime, alternately overflowed
+or left imperfectly dry. A little further inland, trees were
+to be found, but on a soil so marshy that an inundation or a
+tempest threw down whole forests, such as are still at times
+discovered at either eight or ten feet depth below the surface.
+The sea had no limits; the rivers no beds nor banks; the earth
+no solidity; for according to an author of the third century
+of our era, there was not, in the whole of the immense plain,
+a spot of ground that did not yield under the footsteps of
+man.--Eumenius.
+
+It was not the same in the southern parts, which form at present
+the Walloon country. These high grounds suffered much less from
+the ravages of the waters. The ancient forest of the Ardennes,
+extending from the Rhine to the Scheldt, sheltered a numerous though
+savage population, which in all things resembled the Germans, from
+whom they derived their descent. The chase and the occupations of
+rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and
+less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen
+of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a
+tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of
+the country; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining
+parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have
+traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an existence
+which any other people must have considered insupportable.
+
+This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the
+inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present
+situation of the country. The high grounds, formerly so preferable,
+are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards
+their agriculture; while the ancient marshes have been changed
+by human industry into rich and fertile tracts, the best parts
+of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the
+ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation
+which once reigned where we now see the most richly cultivated
+fields, the most thriving villages, and the wealthiest towns
+of the continent, the imagination must go back to times which
+have not left one monument of antiquity and scarcely a vestige
+of fact.
+
+The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of
+a patient and industrious population struggling against every
+obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being; and, in
+this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements
+in those places where they offered the greatest resistance. This
+extraordinary result was due to the hardy stamp of character
+imprinted by suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for
+their foe; to the nature of their country, which presented no
+lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the justice,
+and the liberty nourished among men left to themselves, and who
+found resources in their social state which rendered change neither
+an object of their wants nor wishes.
+
+About half a century before the Christian era, the obscurity
+which enveloped the north of Europe began to disperse; and the
+expedition of Julius Caesar gave to the civilized world the first
+notions of the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Caesar, after
+having subjugated the chief part of Gaul, turned his arms against
+the warlike tribes of the Ardennes, who refused to accept his
+alliance or implore his protection. They were called Belgae by
+the Romans; and at once pronounced the least civilized and the
+bravest of the Gauls. Caesar there found several ignorant and poor
+but intrepid clans of warriors, who marched fiercely to encounter
+him; and, notwithstanding their inferiority in numbers, in weapons,
+and in tactics, they nearly destroyed the disciplined armies of
+Rome. They were, however, defeated, and their country ravaged
+by the invaders, who found less success when they attacked the
+natives of the low grounds. The Menapians, a people who occupied
+the present provinces of Flanders and Antwerp, though less numerous
+than those whom the Romans had last vanquished, arrested their
+progress both by open fight and by that petty and harassing
+contest--that warfare of the people rather than of the soldiery--so
+well adapted to the nature of the country. The Roman legions
+retreated for the first time, and were contented to occupy the
+higher parts, which now form the Walloon provinces.
+
+But the policy of Caesar made greater progress than his arms. He
+had rather defeated than subdued those who had dared the contest.
+He consolidated his victories without new battles; he offered peace
+to his enemies, in proposing to them alliance; and he required
+their aid, as friends, to carry on new wars in other lands. He
+thus attracted toward him, and ranged under his banners, not only
+those people situated to the west of the Rhine and the Meuse,
+but several other nations more to the north, whose territory he
+had never seen; and particularly the Batavians--a valiant tribe,
+stated by various ancient authors, and particularly by Tacitus,
+as a fraction of the Catti, who occupied the space comprised
+between these rivers. The young men of these warlike people, dazzled
+by the splendor of the Roman armies, felt proud and happy in
+being allowed to identify themselves with them. Caesar encouraged
+this disposition, and even went so far on some occasions as to
+deprive the Roman cavalry of their horses, on which he mounted
+those new allies, who managed them better than their Italian
+riders. He had no reason to repent these measures; almost all
+his subsequent victories, and particularly that of Pharsalia,
+being decided by the valor of the auxiliaries he obtained from
+the Low Countries.
+
+These auxiliaries were chiefly drawn from Hainault, Luxemburg,
+and the country of the Batavians, and they formed the best cavalry
+of the Roman armies, as well as their choicest light infantry
+force. The Batavians also signalized themselves on many occasions,
+by the skill with which they swam across several great rivers
+without breaking their squadrons ranks. They were amply rewarded
+for their military services and hazardous exploits, and were treated
+like stanch and valuable allies. But this unequal connection of
+a mighty empire with a few petty states must have been fatal to
+the liberty of the weaker party. Its first effect was to destroy
+all feeling of nationality in a great portion of the population.
+The young adventurer of this part of the Low Countries, after
+twenty years of service under the imperial eagles, returned to
+his native wilds a Roman. The generals of the empire pierced
+the forests of the Ardennes with causeways, and founded towns
+in the heart of the country. The result of such innovations was
+a total amalgamation of the Romans and their new allies; and
+little by little the national character of the latter became
+entirely obliterated. But to trace now the precise history of
+this gradual change would be as impossible as it will be one
+day to follow the progress of civilization in the woods of North
+America.
+
+But it must be remarked that this metamorphosis affected only
+the inhabitants of the high grounds, and the Batavians (who were
+in their origin Germans) properly so called. The scanty population
+of the rest of the country, endowed with that fidelity to their
+ancient customs which characterizes the Saxon race, showed no
+tendency to mix with foreigner, rarely figured in their ranks,
+and seemed to revolt from the southern refinement which was so
+little in harmony with their manners and ways of life. It is
+astonishing, at the first view, that those beings, whose whole
+existence was a contest against famine or the waves, should show
+less inclination than their happier neighbors to receive from
+Rome an abundant recompense for their services. But the greater
+their difficulty to find subsistence in their native land, the
+stronger seemed their attachment; like that of the Switzer to
+his barren rocks, or of the mariner to the frail and hazardous
+home that bears him afloat on the ocean. This race of patriots
+was divided into two separate peoples. Those to the north of
+the Rhine were the Frisons; those to the west of the Meuse, the
+Menapians, already mentioned.
+
+The Frisons differed little from those early inhabitants of the
+coast, who, perched on their high-built huts, fed on fish and
+drank the water of the clouds. Slow and successive improvements
+taught them to cultivate the beans which grew wild among the
+marshes, and to tend and feed a small and degenerate breed of
+horned cattle. But if these first steps toward civilization were
+slow, they were also sure; and they were made by a race of men
+who could never retrograde in a career once begun.
+
+The Menapians, equally repugnant to foreign impressions, made, on
+their part, a more rapid progress. They were already a maritime
+people, and carried on a considerable commerce with England. It
+appears that they exported thither salt, the art of manufacturing
+which was well known to them; and they brought back in return
+marl, a most important commodity for the improvement of their
+land. They also understood the preparation of salting meat, with
+a perfection that made it in high repute even in Italy; and,
+finally, we are told by Ptolemy that they had established a colony
+on the eastern coast of Ireland, not far from Dublin.
+
+The two classes of what forms at present the population of the
+Netherlands thus followed careers widely different, during the
+long period of the Roman power in these parts of Europe. While
+those of the high lands and the Batavians distinguished themselves
+by a long-continued course of military service or servitude, those
+of the plains improved by degrees their social condition, and fitted
+themselves for a place in civilized Europe. The former received
+from Rome great marks of favor in exchange for their freedom.
+The latter, rejecting the honors and distinctions lavished on
+their neighbors, secured their national independence, by trusting
+to their industry alone for all the advantages they gradually
+acquired.
+
+Were the means of protecting themselves and their country from
+the inundations of the sea known and practiced by these ancient
+inhabitants of the coast? or did they occupy only those elevated
+points of land which stood out like islands in the middle of the
+floods? These questions are among the most important presented
+by their history; since it was the victorious struggle of man
+against the ocean that fixed the extent and form of the country.
+It appears almost certain that in the time of Caesar they did not
+labor at the construction of dikes, but that they began to be
+raised during the obscurity of the following century; for the
+remains of ancient towns are even now discovered in places at
+present overflowed by the sea. These ruins often bring to light
+traces of Roman construction, and Latin inscriptions in honor
+of the Menapian divinities. It is, then, certain that they had
+learned to imitate those who ruled in the neighboring countries: a
+result by no means surprising; for even England, the mart of their
+commerce, and the nation with which they had the most constant
+intercourse, was at that period occupied by the Romans. But the
+nature of their country repulsed so effectually every attempt at
+foreign domination that the conquerors of the world left them
+unmolested, and established arsenals and formed communications
+with Great Britain only at Boulogne and in the island of the
+Batavians near Leyden.
+
+This isolation formed in itself a powerful and perfect barrier
+between the inhabitants of the plain and those of the high grounds.
+The first held firm to their primitive customs and their ancient
+language; the second finished by speaking Latin, and borrowing
+all the manners and usages of Italy. The moral effect of this
+contrast was that the people, once so famous for their bravery,
+lost, with their liberty, their energy and their courage. One of
+the Batavian chieftains, named Civilis, formed an exception to
+this degeneracy, and, about the year 70 of our era, bravely took
+up arms for the expulsion of the Romans. He effected prodigies of
+valor and perseverance, and boldly met and defeated the enemy
+both by land and sea. Reverses followed his first success, and he
+finally concluded an honorable treaty, by which his countrymen
+once more became the allies of Rome. But after this expiring effort
+of valor, the Batavians, even though chosen from all nations for
+the bodyguards of the Roman emperors, became rapidly degenerate;
+and when Tacitus wrote, ninety years after Christ, they were
+already looked on as less brave than the Frisons and the other
+peoples beyond the Rhine. A century and a half later saw them
+confounded with the Gauls; and the barbarian conquerors said
+that "they were not a nation, but merely a _prey_."
+
+Reduced into a Roman province, the southern portion of the
+Netherlands was at this period called Belgic Gaul; and the name
+of Belgium, preserved to our days, has until lately been applied
+to distinguish that part of the country situated to the south of
+the Rhine and the Meuse, or nearly that which formed the Austrian
+Netherlands.
+
+During the establishment of the Roman power in the north of Europe,
+observation was not much excited toward the rapid effects of this
+degeneracy, compared with the fast-growing vigor of the people of
+the low lands. The fact of the Frisons having, on one occasion,
+near the year 47 of our era, beaten a whole army of Romans, had
+confirmed their character for intrepidity. But the long stagnation
+produced in these remote countries by the colossal weight of
+the empire was broken, about the year 250, by an irruption of
+Germans or Salian Franks, who, passing the Rhine and the Meuse,
+established themselves in the vicinity of the Menapians, near
+Antwerp, Breda and Bois-le-duc. All the nations that had been
+subjugated by the Roman power appear to have taken arms on this
+occasion and opposed the intruders. But the Menapians united
+themselves with these newcomers, and aided them to meet the shock
+of the imperial armies. Carausius, originally a Menapian pilot,
+but promoted to the command of a Roman fleet, made common cause
+with his fellow-citizens, and proclaimed himself emperor of Great
+Britain, where the naval superiority of the Menapians left him
+no fear of a competitor. In recompense of the assistance given
+him by the Franks, he crossed the sea again from his new empire,
+to aid them in their war with the Batavians, the allies of Rome;
+and having seized on their islands, and massacred nearly the whole
+of its inhabitants, he there established his faithful friends the
+Salians. Constantius and his son Constantine the Great vainly
+strove, even after the death of the brave Carausius, to regain
+possession of the country; but they were forced to leave the
+new inhabitants in quiet possession of their conquest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRANKS TO THE SUBJUGATION OF FRIESLAND
+
+A.D. 250--800
+
+From this epoch we must trace the progress of a totally new and
+distinct population in the Netherlands. The Batavians being
+annihilated, almost without resistance, the low countries contained
+only the free people of the German race. But these people did not
+completely sympathize together so as to form one consolidated
+nation. The Salians, and the other petty tribes of Franks, their
+allies, were essentially warlike, and appeared precisely the same
+as the original inhabitants of the high grounds. The Menapians
+and the Frisons, on the contrary, lost nothing of their spirit
+of commerce and industry. The result of this diversity was a
+separation between the Franks and the Menapians. While the latter,
+under the name of Armoricans, joined themselves more closely
+with the people who bordered the Channel, the Frisons associated
+themselves with the tribes settled on the limits of the German
+Ocean, and formed with them a connection celebrated under the
+title of the Saxon League. Thus was formed on all points a union
+between the maritime races against the inland inhabitants; and
+their mutual antipathy became more and more developed as the
+decline of the Roman empire ended the former struggle between
+liberty and conquest.
+
+The Netherlands now became the earliest theatre of an entirely
+new movement, the consequences of which were destined to affect
+the whole world. This country was occupied toward the sea by
+a people wholly maritime, excepting the narrow space between
+the Rhine and the Vahal, of which the Salian Franks had become
+possessed. The nature of this marshy soil, in comparison with the
+sands of Westphalia, Guelders, and North Brabant, was not more
+strikingly contrasted than was the character of their population.
+The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed
+a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption
+of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but
+made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened
+between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank
+might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the
+Middle Ages. The Saxon (and this name comprehends all the tribes
+of the coast from the Rhine as far north as Denmark), uniting in
+himself the distinctive qualities of German and navigator, was
+moderate and sincere, but implacable in his rage. Neither of
+these two races of men was excelled in point of courage; but
+the number of Franks who still entered into the service of the
+empire diminished the real force of this nation, and naturally
+tended to disunite it. Therefore, in the subsequent shock of
+people against people, the Saxons invariably gained the final
+advantage.
+
+They had no doubt often measured their strength in the most remote
+times, since the Franks were but the descendants of the ancient
+tribes of Sicambers and others, against whom the Batavians had
+offered their assistance to Caesar. Under Augustus, the inhabitants
+of the coast had in the same way joined themselves with Drusus,
+to oppose these their old enemies. It was also after having been
+expelled by the Frisons from Guelders that the Salians had passed
+the Rhine and the Meuse; but, in the fourth century, the two
+peoples, recovering their strength, the struggle recommenced,
+never to terminate--at least between the direct descendants of
+each. It is believed that it was the Varni, a race of Saxons
+nearly connected with those of England (and coming, like them,
+from the coast of Denmark), who on this occasion struck the decisive
+blow on the side of the Saxons. Embarking on board a numerous
+fleet, they made a descent in the ancient isle of the Batavians,
+at that time inhabited by the Salians, whom they completely
+destroyed. Julian the Apostate, who was then with a numerous
+army pursuing his career of early glory in these countries,
+interfered for the purpose of preventing the expulsion, or at
+least the utter destruction, of the vanquished; but his efforts
+were unavailing. The Salians appear to have figured no more in
+this part of the Low Countries.
+
+The defeat of the Salians by a Saxon tribe is a fact on which no
+doubt rests. The name of the victors is, however, questionable.
+The Varni having remained settled near the mouths of the Rhine
+till near the year 500, there is strong probability that they
+were the people alluded to. But names and histories, which may on
+this point appear of such little importance, acquire considerable
+interest when we reflect that these Salians, driven from their
+settlement, became the conquerors of France; that those Saxons
+who forced them on their career of conquest were destined to
+become the masters of England; and that these two petty tribes,
+who battled so long for a corner of marshy earth, carried with
+them their reciprocal antipathy while involuntarily deciding
+the destiny of Europe.
+
+The defeat of the Franks was fatal to those peoples who had become
+incorporated with the Romans; for it was from them that the exiled
+wanderers, still fierce in their ruin, and with arms in their hands,
+demanded lands and herds; all, in short, which they themselves had
+lost. From the middle of the fourth century to the end of the
+fifth, there was a succession of invasions in this spirit, which
+always ended by the subjugation of a part of the country; and which
+was completed about the year 490, by Clovis making himself master
+of almost the whole of Gaul. Under this new empire not a vestige
+of the ancient nations of the Ardennes was left. The civilized
+population either perished or was reduced to slavery, and all
+the high grounds were added to the previous conquests of the
+Salians.
+
+But the maritime population, when once possessed of the whole
+coast, did not seek to make the slightest progress toward the
+interior. The element of their enterprise and the object of their
+ambition was the ocean; and when this hardy and intrepid race
+became too numerous for their narrow limits, expeditions and
+colonies beyond the sea carried off their redundant population.
+The Saxon warriors established themselves near the mouths of the
+Loire; others, conducted by Hengist and Horsa, settled in Great
+Britain. It will always remain problematical from what point
+of the coast these adventurers departed; but many circumstances
+tend to give weight to the opinion which pronounces those old
+Saxons to have started from the Netherlands.
+
+Paganism not being yet banished from these countries, the obscurity
+which would have enveloped them is in some degree dispelled by the
+recitals of the monks who went among them to preach Christianity.
+We see in those records, and by the text of some of their early
+laws, that this maritime people were more industrious, prosperous,
+and happy, than those of France. The men were handsome and richly
+clothed; and the land well cultivated, and abounding in fruits,
+milk, and honey. The Saxon merchants carried their trade far
+into the southern countries. In the meantime, the parts of the
+Netherlands which belonged to France resembled a desert. The
+monasteries which were there founded were established, according
+to the words of their charters, amid immense solitudes; and the
+French nobles only came into Brabant for the sport of bear-hunting
+in its interminable forests. Thus, while the inhabitants of the
+low lands, as far back as the light of history penetrates, appear
+in a continual state of improvement, those of the high grounds,
+after frequent vicissitudes, seem to sink into utter degeneracy
+and subjugation. The latter wished to denaturalize themselves,
+and become as though they were foreigners even on their native
+soil; the former remained firm and faithful to their country
+and to each other.
+
+But the growth of French power menaced utter ruin to this interesting
+race. Clovis had succeeded about the year 485 of our era, in
+destroying the last remnants of Roman domination in Gaul. The
+successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the
+Pyrenees to the Rhine. They had continual contests with the free
+population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors. In the
+commencement of the seventh century, the French king, Clotaire II.,
+exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and Westphalia;
+and the historians of those barbarous times unanimously relate
+that he caused to be beheaded every inhabitant of the vanquished
+tribes who exceeded the height of his sword. The Saxon name was
+thus nearly extinguished in those countries; and the remnant of
+these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either
+because they became really incorporated with that nation, or
+merely that they recognized it for the most powerful of their
+tribes. Friesland, to speak in the language of that age, extended
+then from the Scheldt to the Weser, and formed a considerable
+state. But the ascendency of France was every year becoming more
+marked; and King Dagobert extended the limits of her power even
+as far as Utrecht. The descendants of the Menapians, known at
+that epoch by the different names of Menapians, Flemings, and
+Toxandirans, fell one after another directly or indirectly under
+the empire of the Merovingian princes; and the noblest family
+which existed among the French--that which subsequently took the
+name of Carlovingians--comprised in its dominions nearly the
+whole of the southern and western parts of the Netherlands.
+
+Between this family, whose chief was called duke of the Frontier
+Marshes (_Dux_Brabantioe_), and the free tribes, united under
+the common name of Frisons, the same struggle was maintained as
+that which formerly existed between the Salians and the Saxons.
+Toward the year 700, the French monarchy was torn by anarchy,
+and, under "the lazy kings," lost much of its concentrated power;
+but every dukedom formed an independent sovereignty, and of all
+those that of Brabant was the most redoubtable. Nevertheless
+the Frisons, under their king, Radbod, assumed for a moment the
+superiority; and Utrecht, where the French had established
+Christianity, fell again into the power of the pagans. Charles
+Martell, at that time young, and but commencing his splendid
+career, was defeated by the hostile king in the forest of the
+Ardennes; and though, in subsequent conquests, he took an ample
+revenge, Radbod still remained a powerful opponent. It is related
+of this fierce monarch that he was converted by a Christian
+missionary; but, at the moment in which he put his foot in the
+water for the ceremony of baptism, he suddenly asked the priest
+where all his old Frison companions in arms had gone after their
+death? "To hell," replied the priest. "Well, then," said Radbod,
+drawing back his foot from the water, "I would rather go to hell
+with them, than to paradise with you and your fellow foreigners!"
+and he refused to receive the rite of baptism, and remained a
+pagan.
+
+After the death of Radbod, in 719, Charles Martell, now become
+duke of the Franks, mayor of the palace, or by whatever other of
+his several titles he may be distinguished, finally triumphed over
+the long-resisting Frisons. He labored to establish Christianity
+among them; but they did not understand the French language, and
+the lot of converting them was consequently reserved for the
+English. St. Willebrod was the first missionary who met with
+any success, about the latter end of the seventh century; but
+it was not till toward the year 750 that this great mission was
+finally accomplished by St. Boniface, archbishop of Mayence,
+and the apostle of Germany. Yet the progress of Christianity,
+and the establishment of a foreign sway, still met the partial
+resistance which a conquered but not enervated people are always
+capable of opposing to their masters. St. Boniface fell a victim
+to this stubborn spirit. He perished a martyr to his zeal, but
+perhaps a victim as well to the violent measures of his colleagues,
+in Friesland, the very province which to this day preserves the
+name.
+
+The last avenger of Friesland liberty and of the national idols
+was the illustrious Witikind, to whom the chronicles of his country
+give the title of first azing, or judge. This intrepid chieftain
+is considered as a compatriot, not only by the historians of
+Friesland, but by those of Saxony; both, it would appear, having
+equal claims to the honor; for the union between the two peoples
+was constantly strengthened by intermarriages between the noblest
+families of each. As long as Witikind remained a pagan and a
+freeman, some doubt existed as to the final fate of Friesland;
+but when by his conversion he became only a noble of the court
+of Charlemagne, the slavery of his country was consummated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND
+
+A.D. 800--1000
+
+Even at this advanced epoch of foreign domination, there remained
+as great a difference as ever between the people of the high
+grounds and the inhabitants of the plain. The latter were, like
+the rest, incorporated with the great monarchy; but they preserved
+the remembrance of former independence, and even retained their
+ancient names. In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still
+found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not
+extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But
+in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost.
+Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or
+towns. They were classified as accessories to inanimate things;
+and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin,
+they became as it were without recollections or associations;
+and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without
+ancestry.
+
+The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the
+times of Caesar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest
+of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization
+had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like
+a delicate plant in an ungenial clime; but it seemed to have
+sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people
+no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the
+desperate courage of the warriors of Germany. A race of serfs now
+cultivated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests.
+The clergy had immense possessions in this country; an act of
+the following century recognizes fourteen thousand families of
+vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and
+Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less
+oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but
+they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.
+
+The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement
+of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had
+arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared
+in every part of the interior. The Meuse and the Scheldt no longer
+joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lands; whether
+this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the
+accumulation of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers
+to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp,
+Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The
+last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five
+churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence,
+the extent of the population may be conjectured. The formation of
+dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already
+well understood, and regulated by uniform custom. The plains
+thus reconquered from the waters were distributed in portions,
+according to their labor, by those who reclaimed them, except
+the parts reserved for the chieftain, the church, and the poor.
+This vital necessity for the construction of dikes had given to
+the Frison and Flemish population a particular habit of union,
+goodwill, and reciprocal justice, because it was necessary to make
+common cause in this great work for their mutual preservation.
+In all other points, the detail of the laws and manners of this
+united people presents a picture similar to that of the Saxons of
+England, with the sole exception that the people of the Netherlands
+were milder than the Saxon race properly so called--their long
+habit of laborious industry exercising its happy influence on
+the martial spirit original to both. The manufacturing arts were
+also somewhat more advanced in this part of the continent than in
+Great Britain. The Frisons, for example, were the only people
+who could succeed in making the costly mantles in use among the
+wealthy Franks.
+
+The government of Charlemagne admitted but one form, borrowed
+from that of the empire in the period of its decline--a mixture
+of the spiritual and temporal powers, exercised in the first place
+by the emperor, and at second-hand by the counts and bishops. The
+counts in those times were not the heads of noble families, as
+they afterward became, but officers of the government, removable
+at will, and possessing no hereditary rights. Their incomes did
+not arise from salaries paid in money, but consisted of lands,
+of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their
+authority. These lands being situated in the limits of their
+administration, each regarded them as his property only for the
+time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will. How
+unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be
+well imagined. The force of possession was, however, frequently
+opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though
+all civil dignity and the revenues attached to it were but personal
+and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage
+of the barbarous state of the country in which their isolated
+cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render
+their power and prerogatives inalienable and real. The force
+of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its
+centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention
+of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the
+empire to its limits. Thus it was only by perpetually interposing
+his personal efforts, and flying, as it were, from one end to the
+other of his dominions, that Charlemagne succeeded in preserving
+his authority. As for the people, without any sort of guarantee
+against the despotism of the government, they were utterly at
+the mercy of the nobles or of the sovereign. But this state of
+servitude was quite incompatible with the union of social powers
+necessary to a population that had to struggle against the tyranny
+of the ocean. To repulse its attacks with successful vigor, a
+spirit of complete concert was absolutely required; and the nation
+being thus united, and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign
+tyrants were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the
+sea that broke against the dikes by which it was defied.
+
+From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia,
+now become a prosperous commonwealth, formed political associations
+to raise a barrier against the despotic violence of the Franks.
+These associations were called Gilden, and in the Latin of the
+times Gildonia. They comprised, besides their covenants for mutual
+protection, an obligation which bound every member to give succor
+to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck.
+But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the
+quick-sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently,
+prohibited both by him and his successors. To give a notion of
+the importance of this prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is
+only necessary to state that the most ancient corporations (all
+which had preceded and engendered the most valuable municipal
+rights) were nothing more than gilden. Thus, to draw an example
+from Great Britain, the corporative charter of Berwick still
+bears the title of Charta Gildoniae. But the ban of the sovereigns
+was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden
+stood their ground, and within a century after the death of
+Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.
+
+This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern
+parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland;
+for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded
+in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it
+were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms
+of government. The fact is undoubted; but the means which they
+employed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great
+privilege was the price of their military services; for they held
+a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin,
+the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of
+his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with
+the most heroic valor.
+
+These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own
+statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some
+one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the
+freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of
+property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign
+to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason;
+thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and
+according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow
+limitation of the military services which they owed to the king;
+fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct
+line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal
+articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect,
+totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their
+privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited,
+the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed
+down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages
+produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta
+was the means of founding at a later period in England.
+
+The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority
+by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means
+the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those
+countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and
+enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege,
+and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages
+on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over
+the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical
+removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more
+considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves
+more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were
+soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts,
+used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength
+to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the
+monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign;
+for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors:
+France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country
+to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole
+of the Netherlands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.
+
+In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith,
+daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived
+her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a
+powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain
+whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the
+frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title,
+considerable authority in the country; since the pope on one
+occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him,
+lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance
+into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders.
+The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced
+to consent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the
+title of count, the hereditary government of all the country
+between the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was
+the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this
+Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer
+(iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.
+
+The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this
+epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But
+though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought
+then, as at all times, to shake off the yoke, the epoch of their
+independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they
+obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their
+titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds,
+and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous
+privilege of continuance in their rank. Several foreigners had
+gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others
+Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the
+counts of Holland, and Heriold, a Norman prince who had been
+banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known
+before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It
+designated the pagan inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
+who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas.
+The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of
+those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these
+latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands
+of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory
+descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior
+of the country. Flanders alone successfully resisted them during
+the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave
+chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that
+was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions
+threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed,
+any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respecting the
+relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect
+data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief
+cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly
+interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally,
+an agreement was entered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the
+king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased
+on condition of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the
+government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period,
+the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had
+thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration
+of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France.
+The emperor Charles the Fat, anticipating the consequence of a
+rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he
+caused him to be assassinated. His followers, attacked on all points
+by the people of Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their
+destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From
+that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually
+less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the
+coast; and their last expedition appears to have taken place
+about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed
+in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.
+
+It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hundred and
+fifty years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion
+and devastation by these northern barbarians, the political state
+of the country underwent no important changes. The emperors of
+Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of
+Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine,
+as well as all which they possessed of what is now called France,
+and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the
+Lotheringian kings. The great difficulty of maintaining subordination
+among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958,
+to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and
+Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole
+of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieutenant of
+the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled
+this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The
+other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted
+into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald,
+were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and
+after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year
+985, they gained a species of imperfect independence--Lambert
+becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Louvain, and
+Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.
+
+The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant,
+Godfrey, became convinced that the imperial power was too weak
+to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country.
+He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of
+duke to a young prince of the royal house of France; and we thus
+see the duchy of Lower Lorraine governed, in the name of the
+emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne,
+the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis
+d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on
+as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his
+residence. After several years of tranquil government, the death
+of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that
+time he bravely contended for the crown of his ancestors, against
+the usurpation of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in
+battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put
+to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor
+justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously
+perished the name of the Carlovingians.
+
+The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vassals once
+more in opposition. The German monarch insisted on naming some
+creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II.,
+count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the
+sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance
+to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders,
+joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to
+the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the
+only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself
+obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin.
+The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.
+
+Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to
+rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing
+up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate
+the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no
+temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by
+the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly
+the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power
+being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices
+of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the
+aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather
+than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance
+and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and
+anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every
+laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired
+new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not
+portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved
+to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful,
+and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of
+the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.
+
+Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure
+of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times
+jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain
+from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on
+whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new
+privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch,
+at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts,
+little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in
+the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first
+effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count
+of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which
+took place at the little village of Stongarde. And five years
+later, the count of the Friesland marshes (_comes_Frisonum_
+_Morsatenorum_) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop
+of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention from the
+nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE
+
+A.D. 1018--1384
+
+The district in which Dordrecht is situated, and the grounds
+in its environs which are at present submerged, formed in those
+times an island just raised above the waters, and which was called
+Holland or Holtland (which means _wooded_ land, or, according to
+some, _hollow_ land). The formation of this island, or rather its
+recovery from the waters, being only of recent date, the right to
+its possession was more disputable than that of long-established
+countries. All the bishops and abbots whose states bordered the
+Rhine and the Meuse had, being equally covetous and grasping,
+and mutually resolved to pounce on the prey, made it their common
+property. A certain Count Thierry, descended from the counts
+of Ghent, governed about this period the western extremity of
+Friesland--the country which now forms the province of Holland;
+and with much difficulty maintained his power against the Frisons,
+by whom his right was not acknowledged. Beaten out of his own
+territories by these refractory insurgents, he sought refuge in
+the ecclesiastical island, where he intrenched himself, and founded
+a town which is believed to have been the origin of Dordrecht.
+
+This Count Thierry, like all the feudal lords, took advantage
+of his position to establish and levy certain duties on all the
+vessels which sailed past his territory, dispossessing in the
+meantime some vassals of the church, and beating, as we have
+stated, the bishop of Utrecht himself. Complaints and appeals
+without number were laid at the foot of the imperial throne.
+Godfrey of Eenham, whom the emperor had created duke of Lower
+Lorraine, was commanded to call the whole country to arms. The
+bishop of Liege, though actually dying, put himself at the head
+of the expedition, to revenge his brother prelate, and punish
+the audacious spoiler of the church property. But Thierry and
+his fierce Frisons took Godfrey prisoner, and cut his army in
+pieces. The victor had the good sense and moderation to spare
+his prisoners, and set them free without ransom. He received
+in return an imperial amnesty; and from that period the count
+of Holland and his posterity formed a barrier against which the
+ecclesiastical power and the remains of the imperial supremacy
+continually struggled, to be only shattered in each new assault.
+John Egmont, an old chronicler, says that the counts of Holland
+were "a sword in the flanks of the bishops of Utrecht."
+
+As the partial independence of the great vassals became consolidated,
+the monarchs were proportionally anxious to prevent its perpetuation
+in the same families. In pursuance of this system, Godfrey of Eenham
+obtained the preference over the Counts Lambert and Robert; and
+Frederick of Luxemburg was named duke of Lower Lorraine in 1046,
+instead of a second Godfrey, who was nephew and expectant heir to
+the first. But this Godfrey, upheld by Baldwin of Flanders, forced
+the emperor to concede to him the inheritance of the dukedom.
+Baldwin secured for his share the country of Alost and Waas, and the
+citadel of Ghent; and he also succeeded in obtaining in marriage
+for his son the Countess Richilde, heiress of Hainault and Namur.
+Thus was Flanders incessantly gaining new aggrandizement, while
+the duchy of Lorraine was crumbling away on every side.
+
+In the year 1066 this state of Flanders, even then flourishing
+and powerful, furnished assistance, both in men and ships, to
+William the Bastard of Normandy, for the conquest of England.
+William was son-in-law to Count Baldwin, and recompensed the
+assistance of his wife's father by an annual payment of three
+hundred silver marks. It was Mathilda, the Flemish princess and
+wife of the conqueror, who worked with her own hands the celebrated
+tapestry of Bayeux, on which is embroidered the whole history
+of the conquest, and which is the most curious monument of the
+state of the arts in that age.
+
+Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superiority over all
+the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment
+of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer,
+after having valiantly repulsed the Normans toward the end of
+the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an
+industrious and energetic people. They had built towns, cut down
+and cleared away forests, and reclaimed inundated lands: above
+all things, they had understood and guarded against the danger
+of parcelling out their states at every succeeding generation;
+and the county of Flanders passed entire into the hands of the
+first-born of the family. The stability produced by this state
+of things had allowed the people to prosper. The Normans now
+visited the coasts, not as enemies, but as merchants; and Bruges
+became the mart of the booty acquired by these bold pirates in
+England and on the high seas. The fisheries had begun to acquire
+an importance sufficient to establish the herring as one of the
+chief aliments of the population. Maritime commerce had made such
+strides that Spain and Portugal were well known to both sailors
+and traders, and the voyage from Flanders to Lisbon was estimated
+at fifteen days' sail. Woollen stuffs formed the principal wealth
+of the country; but salt, corn, and jewelry were also important
+branches of traffic; while the youth of Flanders were so famous for
+their excellence in all martial pursuits that foreign sovereigns
+were at all times desirous of obtaining bodies of troops from
+this nation.
+
+The greatest part of Flanders was attached, as has been seen, to
+the king of France, and not to Lorraine; but the dependence was
+little more than nominal. In 1071 the king of France attempted
+to exercise his authority over the country, by naming to the
+government the same Countess Richilde who had received Hainault
+and Namur for her dower, and who was left a widow, with sons
+still in their minority. The people assembled in the principal
+towns, and protested against this intervention of the French
+monarch. But we must remark that it was only the population of
+the low lands (whose sturdy ancestors had ever resisted foreign
+domination) that now took part in this opposition. The vassals
+which the counts of Flanders possessed in the Gallic provinces
+(the high grounds), and in general all the nobility, pronounced
+strongly for submission to France; for the principles of political
+freedom had not yet been fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of
+those parts of the country. But the lowlanders joined together
+under Robert, surnamed the Frison, brother of the deceased count;
+and they so completely defeated the French, the nobles and their
+unworthy associates of the high ground, that they despoiled the
+usurping Countess Richilde of even her hereditary possessions.
+In this war perished the celebrated Norman, William Fitz-Osborn,
+who had flown to the succor of the defeated countess, of whom
+he was enamored.
+
+Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of
+France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson
+of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced
+from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor
+and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain,
+who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having
+successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all
+the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of
+Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of
+Guelders. Finally, in 1086, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant
+of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant; and
+from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as
+it was destined to remain for several centuries.
+
+In the midst of this gradual organization of the various counties,
+history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime
+people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of
+two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which
+at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than
+these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended
+from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder Zee, but not quite
+to the Rhine; and it became usual to consider no longer as Frisons
+the subjects of the counts of Holland, whom we may now begin
+to distinguish as Hollanders or Dutch. The Frison race alone
+refused to recognize the sovereign counts. They boasted of being
+self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the emperor, and regarding
+the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require
+obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged
+in all things to respect them. But the counts of Holland, the
+bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from
+time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted
+that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that
+of the sovereign they represented. The descendants of the Count
+Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent
+in this assumption of power. Defeat after defeat, however, punished
+their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the
+pikes of their Frison opponents. The latter had no regular leaders;
+but at the approach of the enemy the inhabitants of each canton
+flew to arms, like the members of a single family; and all the
+feudal forces brought against them failed to subdue this popular
+militia.
+
+The frequent result of these collisions was the refusal of the
+Frisons to recognize any authority whatever but that of the national
+judges. Each canton was governed according to its own laws. If
+a difficulty arose, the deputies of the nation met together on
+the borders of the Ems, in a place called "the Trees of Upstal"
+(_Upstall-boomen_), where three old oaks stood in the middle of
+an immense plain. In this primitive council-place chieftains
+were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose
+the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary
+authority.
+
+It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with
+the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled
+those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up
+within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling
+in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We
+read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of
+Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor
+who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look elsewhere
+for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust
+the whole stock of the monastery.
+
+In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively
+opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days.
+The Frisons successfully resisted the payment of tithes; and as a
+punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted
+upon them repeated inundations. They forced their priests to
+marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought
+for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesiastical
+decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did
+not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth
+in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling
+themselves _Vri-Vriesen_, Free-Frisons.
+
+No nation is more interested than England in the examination of
+all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in
+its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was
+there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first
+developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment
+in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits,
+we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may
+we enter on many mysteries of social government which the most
+learned find a difficulty in solving. What were the rights of
+the nobles in their connection with these freemen? What ties of
+reciprocal interest bound the different cantons to each other?
+What were the privileges of the towns?--These are the minute
+but important points of detail which are overshadowed by the
+grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in
+fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little
+knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it
+were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the
+history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic
+nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to
+the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of
+Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the vague and
+imposing title of "the great Frison," applied to some popular
+leader. All this confusion tends to prove, on the authority of the
+historians of the epoch, and the charters so carefully collected
+by the learned, that this question, now so impossible to solve,
+was even then not rightly understood--what were really those
+fierce and redoubtable Frisons in their popular and political
+relations? The fact is, that liberty was a matter so difficult
+to be comprehended by the writers of those times that Froissart
+gave as his opinion, about the year 1380, that the Frisons were
+a most unreasonable race, for not recognizing the authority and
+power of the great lords.
+
+The eleventh century had been for the Netherlands (with the exception
+of Friesland and Flanders) an epoch of organization; and had nearly
+fixed the political existence of the provinces, which were so long
+confounded in the vast possessions of the empire. It is therefore
+important to ascertain under what influence and on what basis
+these provinces became consolidated at that period. Holland and
+Zealand, animated by the spirit which we may fairly distinguish
+under the mingled title of Saxon and maritime, countries scarcely
+accessible, and with a vigorous population, possessed, in the
+descendants of Thierry I., a race of national chieftains who
+did not attempt despotic rule over so unconquerable a people. In
+Brabant, the maritime towns of Berg-op-Zoom and Antwerp formed, in
+the Flemish style, so many republics, small but not insignificant;
+while the southern parts of the province were under the sway of
+a nobility who crushed, trampled on, or sold their vassals at
+their pleasure or caprice. The bishopric of Liege offered also
+the same contrast; the domains of the nobility being governed
+with the utmost harshness, while those prince-prelates lavished on
+their plebeian vassals privileges which might have been supposed
+the fruits of generosity, were it not clear that the object was
+to create an opposition in the lower orders against the turbulent
+aristocracy, whom they found it impossible to manage single-handed.
+The wars of these bishops against the petty nobles, who made their
+castles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the
+foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain
+that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than
+those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences
+preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the
+old romance writers. But in all the rest of the Netherlands,
+excepting the provinces already mentioned, no form of government
+existed, but that fierce feudality which reduced the people into
+serfs, and turned the social state of man into a cheerless waste
+of bondage.
+
+It was then that the Crusades, with wild and stirring fanaticism,
+agitated, in the common impulse given to all Europe, even those
+little states which seemed to slumber in their isolated independence.
+Nowhere did the voice of Peter the Hermit find a more sympathizing
+echo than in these lands, still desolated by so many intestine
+struggles. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, took the
+lead in this chivalric and religious frenzy. With him set out
+the counts of Hainault and Flanders; the latter of whom received
+from the English crusaders the honorable appellation of Fitz
+St. George. But although the valor of all these princes was
+conspicuous, from the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem by
+Godfrey of Bouillon in 1098, until that of the Latin empire of
+Constantinople by Baldwin of Flanders in 1203, still the simple
+gentlemen and peasants of Friesland did not less distinguish
+themselves. They were, on all occasions, the first to mount the
+breach or lead the charge; and the pope's nuncio found himself
+forced to prohibit the very women of Friesland from embarking
+for the Holy Land--so anxious were they to share the perils and
+glory of their husbands and brothers in combating the Saracens.
+
+The outlet given by the crusaders to the overboiling ardor of
+these warlike countries was a source of infinite advantage to
+their internal economy; under the rapid progress of civilization,
+the population increased and the fields were cultivated. The
+nobility, reduced to moderation by the enfeebling consequences
+of extensive foreign wars, became comparatively impotent in their
+attempted efforts against domestic freedom. Those of Flanders and
+Brabant, also, were almost decimated in the terrible battle of
+Bouvines, fought between the Emperor Othon and Philip Augustus,
+king of France. On no occasion, however, had this reduced but
+not degenerate nobility shown more heroic valor. The Flemish
+knights, disdaining to mount their horses or form their ranks for
+the repulse of the French cavalry, composed of common persons,
+contemptuously received their shock on foot and in the disorder
+of individual resistance. The brave Buridan of Ypres led his
+comrades to the fight, with the chivalric war-cry, "Let each
+now think of her he loves!" But the issue of this battle was
+ruinous to the Belgians, in consequence of the bad generalship
+of the emperor, who had divided his army into small portions,
+which were defeated in detail.
+
+While the nobility thus declined, the towns began rapidly to
+develop the elements of popular force. In 1120, a Flemish knight
+who might descend so far as to marry a woman of the plebeian
+ranks incurred the penalty of degradation and servitude. In 1220,
+scarcely a serf was to be found in all Flanders. The Countess Jane
+had enfranchised all those belonging to her as early as 1222.
+In 1300, the chiefs of the gilden, or trades, were more powerful
+than the nobles. These dates and these facts must suffice to mark
+the epoch at which the great mass of the nation arose from the
+wretchedness in which it was plunged by the Norman invasion, and
+acquired sufficient strength and freedom to form a real political
+force. But it is remarkable that the same results took place in
+all the counties or dukedoms of the Lowlands precisely at the
+same period. In fact, if we start from the year 1200 on this
+interesting inquiry, we shall see the commons attacking, in the
+first place, the petty feudal lords, and next the counts and the
+dukes themselves, often as justice was denied them. In 1257,
+the peasants of Holland and the burghers of Utrecht proclaimed
+freedom and equality, drove out the bishop and the nobles, and
+began a memorable struggle which lasted full two hundred years.
+In 1260, the townspeople of Flanders appealed to the king of
+France against the decrees of their count, who ended the quarrel
+by the loss of his county. In 1303, Mechlin and Louvain, the chief
+towns of Brabant, expelled the patrician families. A coincidence
+like this cannot be attributed to trifling or partial causes,
+such as the misconduct of a single count, or other local evil;
+but to a great general movement in the popular mind, the progress
+of agriculture and industry in the whole country, superinducing
+an increase of wealth and intelligence, which, when unrestrained
+by the influence of a corrupt government, must naturally lead
+to the liberty and the happiness of a people.
+
+The weaving of woollen and linen cloths was one of the chief
+sources of this growing prosperity. A prodigious quantity of
+cloth and linen was manufactured in all parts of the Netherlands.
+The maritime prosperity acquired an equal increase by the carrying
+trade, both in imports and exports. Whole fleets of Dutch and
+Flemish merchant ships repaired regularly to the coasts of Spain
+and Languedoc. Flanders was already become the great market for
+England and all the north of Europe. The great increase of population
+forced all parts of the country into cultivation; so much so,
+that lands were in those times sold at a high price, which are
+to-day left waste from imputed sterility.
+
+Legislation naturally followed the movements of those positive
+and material interests. The earliest of the towns, after the
+invasion of the Normans, were in some degree but places of refuge.
+It was soon however, established that the regular inhabitants
+of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any
+servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who
+might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was
+considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about
+the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of
+regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges
+and magistrates, and attached to their authority the old custom of
+ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the summons
+of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assemblage or
+service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal
+of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population
+of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of
+the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made
+war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the
+chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for
+life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary struggles,
+almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen,
+forced to tear themselves from every association of home and
+its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the
+contest; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of
+that still greater to be found in a prolonged struggle. It is this
+that it may be remarked, during the memorable conflicts of the
+thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights
+advised their counts or dukes to grant or demand a truce, the
+citizen militia never knew but one cry--"To the charge!"
+
+Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation,
+when it became forced to take up arms against enemies still more
+redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned
+their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king
+of France, began to repent of their newly-formed allegiance,
+and to be weary of the master they had chosen. Two citizens of
+Bruges, Peter de Koning, a draper, and John Breydel, a butcher,
+put themselves at the head of their fellow-townsmen, and completely
+dislodged the French troops who garrisoned it. The following year
+the militia of Bruges and the immediate neighborhood sustained
+alone, at the battle of Courtrai, the shock of one of the finest
+armies that France ever sent into the field. Victory soon declared
+for the gallant men of Bruges; upward of three thousand of the
+French chivalry, besides common soldiers, were left dead on the
+field. In 1304, after a long contested battle, the Flemings forced
+the king of France to release their count, whom he had held prisoner.
+"I believe it rains Flemings!" said Philip, astonished to see them
+crowd on him from all sides of the field. But this multitude
+of warriors, always ready to meet the foe, were provided for
+the most part by the towns. In the seigniorial system a village
+hardly furnished more than four or five men, and these only on
+important occasions; but in that of the towns every citizen was
+enrolled as a soldier to defend the country at all times.
+
+The same system established in Brabant forced the duke of that
+province to sanction and guarantee the popular privileges, and
+the superiority of the people over the nobility. Such was the
+result of the famous contract concluded in 1312 at Cortenbergh,
+by which the duke created a legislative and judicial assembly to
+meet every twenty-one days for the, provincial business; and to
+consist of fourteen deputies, of whom only four were to be nobles,
+and ten were chosen from the people. The duke was bound by this
+act to hold himself in obedience to the legislative decisions
+of the council, and renounced all right of levying arbitrary
+taxes or duties on the state. Thus were the local privileges
+of the people by degrees secured and ratified; but the various
+towns, making common cause for general liberty, became strictly
+united together, and progressively extended their influence and
+power. The confederation between Flanders and Brabant was soon
+consolidated. The burghers of Bruges, who had taken the lead in
+the grand national union, and had been the foremost to expel
+the foreign force, took umbrage in 1323 at an arbitrary measure
+of their count, Louis (called of Cressy by posthumous nomination,
+from his having been killed at that celebrated fight), by which
+he ceded to the count of Namur, his great-uncle, the port of
+Ecluse, and authorized him to levy duties there in the style of
+the feudal lords of the high country. It was but the affair of
+a day to the intrepid citizens to attack the fortress of Ecluse,
+carry it by assault, and take prisoner the old count of Namur.
+They destroyed in a short time almost all the strong castles of
+the nobles throughout the province; and having been joined by
+all the towns of western Flanders, they finally made prisoners
+of Count Louis himself, with almost the whole of the nobility,
+who had taken refuge with him in the town of Courtrai. But Ghent,
+actuated by the jealousy which at all times existed between it and
+Bruges, stood aloof at this crisis. The latter town was obliged
+to come to a compromise with the count, who soon afterward, on a
+new quarrel breaking out, and supported by the king of France,
+almost annihilated his sturdy opponents at the battle of Cassel,
+where the Flemish infantry, commanded by Nicholas Zannekin and
+others, were literally cut to pieces by the French knights and
+men-at-arms.
+
+This check proved the absolute necessity of union among the rival
+cities. Ten years after the battle of Cassel, Ghent set the example
+of general opposition; this example was promptly followed, and
+the chief towns flew to arms. The celebrated James d'Artaveldt,
+commonly called the brewer of Ghent, put himself at the head of
+this formidable insurrection. He was a man of a distinguished
+family, who had himself enrolled among the guild of brewers, to
+entitle him to occupy a place in the corporation of Ghent, which
+he soon succeeded in managing and leading at his pleasure. The
+tyranny of the count, and the French party which supported him,
+became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail
+them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law,
+Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt,
+and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native
+city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable. The
+Flemings had sworn allegiance to the crown of France; and they
+revolted at the idea of perjury, even from an extorted oath.
+But to overcome their scruples, Artaveldt proposed to acknowledge
+the claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown. The
+Flemings readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed
+Count Louis of Cressy and his French partisans; and then joined,
+with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had
+landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's
+army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English
+fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior
+force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive
+of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of
+fighting, until a Flemish squadron, hastening to the aid of the
+English, fixed the fate of the combat by the utter defeat of
+the enemy.
+
+A truce between the two kings did not deprive Artaveldt of his
+well-earned authority. He was invested with the title of ruward,
+or conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and governed the whole
+province with almost sovereign sway. It was said that King Edward
+used familiarly to call him "his dear gossip"; and it is certain
+that there was not a feudal lord of the time whose power was
+not eclipsed by this leader of the people. One of the principal
+motives which cemented the attachment of the Flemings to Artaveldt
+was the advantage obtained through his influence with Edward for
+facilitating the trade with England, whence they procured the
+chief supply of wool for their manufactories. Edward promised
+them seventy thousand sacks as the reward of their alliance. But
+though greatly influenced by the stimulus of general interest,
+the Flemings loved their domestic liberty better than English
+wool; and when they found that their ruward degenerated from a
+firm patriot into the partisan of a foreign prince, they became
+disgusted with him altogether; and he perished in 1345, in a
+tumult raised against him by those by whom he had been so lately
+idolized. The Flemings held firm, nevertheless, in their alliance
+with England, only regulating the connection by a steady principle
+of national independence.
+
+Edward knew well how to conciliate and manage these faithful
+and important auxiliaries during all his continental wars. A
+Flemish army covered the siege of Calais in 1348; and, under
+the command of Giles de Rypergherste, a mere weaver of Ghent,
+they beat the dauphin of France in a pitched battle. But Calais
+once taken, and a truce concluded, the English king abandoned
+his allies. These, left wholly to their own resources, forced
+the French and the heir of their count, young Louis de Male,
+to recognize their right to self-government according to their
+ancient privileges, and of not being forced to give aid to France
+in any war against England. Flanders may therefore be pronounced
+as forming, at this epoch, both in right and fact, a truly
+independent principality.
+
+But such struggles as these left a deep and immovable sentiment
+of hatred in the minds of the vanquished. Louis de Male longed
+for the re-establishment and extension of his authority; and
+had the art to gain over to his views not only all the nobles,
+but many of the most influential guilds or trades. Ghent, which
+long resisted his attempts, was at length reduced by famine; and
+the count projected the ruin, or at least the total subjection,
+of this turbulent town. A son of Artaveldt started forth at this
+juncture, when the popular cause seemed lost, and joining with
+his fellow-citizens, John Lyons and Peter du Bois, he led seven
+thousand resolute burghers against forty thousand feudal vassals.
+He completely defeated the count, and took the town of Bruges,
+where Louis de Male only obtained safety by hiding himself under
+the bed of an old woman who gave him shelter. Thus once more
+feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.
+
+The consequences of this event were immense. They reached to the
+very heart of France, where the people bore in great discontent
+the feudal yoke; and Froissart declares that the success of the
+people of Gheut had nearly overthrown the superiority of the
+nobility over the people in France. But the king, Charles VI.,
+excited by his uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, took arms
+in support of the defeated count, and marched with a powerful army
+against the rebellious burghers. Though defeated in four successive
+combats, in the latter of which, that of Roosbeke, Artaveldt
+was killed, the Flemings would not submit to their imperious
+count, who used every persuasion with Charles to continue his
+assistance for the punishment of these refractory subjects. But
+the duke of Burgundy was aware that a too great perseverance would
+end, either in driving the people to despair and the possible
+defeat of the French, or the entire conquest of the country and
+its junction to the crown of France. He, being son-in-law to
+Louis de Male, and consequently aspiring to the inheritance of
+Flanders, saw with a keen glance the advantage of a present
+compromise. On the death of Louis, who is stated to have been
+murdered by Philip's brother, the duke of Berri, be concluded
+a peace with the rebel burghers, and entered at once upon the
+sovereignty of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS,
+TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR
+
+A.D. 1384--1506
+
+Thus the house of Burgundy, which soon after became so formidable
+and celebrated, obtained this vast accession to its power. The
+various changes which had taken place in the neighboring provinces
+during the continuance of these civil wars had altered the state
+of Flanders altogether. John d'Avesnes, count of Hainault, having
+also succeeded in 1299 to the county of Holland, the two provinces,
+though separated by Flanders and Brabant, remained from that
+time under the government of the same chief, who soon became
+more powerful than the bishops of Utrecht, or even than their
+formidable rivals the Frisons.
+
+During the wars which desolated these opposing territories, in
+consequence of the perpetual conflicts for superiority, the power
+of the various towns insensibly became at least as great as that
+of the nobles to whom they were constantly opposed. The commercial
+interests of Holland, also, were considerably advanced by the
+influx of Flemish merchants forced to seek refuge there from the
+convulsions which agitated their province. Every day confirmed
+and increased the privileges of the people of Brabant; while at
+Liege the inhabitants gradually began to gain the upper hand,
+and to shake off the former subjection to their sovereign bishops.
+
+Although Philip of Burgundy became count of Flanders, by the
+death of his father-in-law, in the year 1384, it was not till
+the following year that he concluded a peace with the people
+of Ghent, and entered into quiet possession of the province.
+In the same year the duchess of Brabant, the last descendant
+of the duke of that province, died, leaving no nearer relative
+than the duchess of Burgundy; so that Philip obtained in right
+of his wife this new and important accession to his dominions.
+But the consequent increase of the sovereign's power was not,
+as is often the case, injurious to the liberties or happiness
+of the people. Philip continued to govern in the interest of the
+country, which he had the good sense to consider as identified
+with his own. He augmented the privileges of the towns, and
+negotiated for the return into Flanders of those merchants who
+had emigrated to Germany and Holland during the continuance of
+the civil wars. He thus by degrees accustomed his new subjects,
+so proud of their rights, to submit to his authority; and his
+peaceable reign was only disturbed by the fatal issue of the
+expedition of his son, John the Fearless, count of Nevers, against
+the Turks. This young prince, filled with ambition and temerity,
+was offered the command of the force sent by Charles III. of France
+to the assistance of Sigismund of Hungary in his war against
+Bajazet. Followed by a numerous body of nobles, he entered on
+the contest, and was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks
+at the battle of Nicopolis. His army was totally destroyed, and
+himself only restored to liberty on the payment of an immense
+ransom.
+
+John the Fearless succeeded in 1404 to the inheritance of all
+his father's dominions, with the exception of Brabant, of which
+his younger brother, Anthony of Burgundy, became duke. John, whose
+ambitious and ferocious character became every day more strongly
+developed, now aspired to the government of France during the
+insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little
+with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired
+to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in
+his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent
+to the rivalry of England and France, which now began so fearfully
+to affect the latter kingdom, forced their ambitious count to
+declare their province a neutral country; so that the English
+merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of
+Flanders, and the Flemings equally well received in England,
+while the duke made open war against Great Britain in his quality
+of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably
+the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction
+between the prince and the people.
+
+Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely
+restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles
+of the province to take part in the quarrels of France; and he
+suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in
+the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this
+event, for the militia of the country had not followed their
+duke and his nobles to the war; and a national council was now
+established, consisting of eleven persons, two of whom were
+ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners.
+This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted
+the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the
+young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself
+upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could
+not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game
+of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his
+claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over
+Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated
+the demand with derision.
+
+The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which
+now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the
+history of the time by two striking and characteristic incidents.
+At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb
+her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token
+of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her
+rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In
+the same year (1404) the widow of Albert, count of Holland and
+Hainault, finding herself in similar circumstances, required of
+the bailiff of Holland and the judges of his court permission to
+make a like renunciation. The claim was granted; and, to fulfil
+the requisite ceremony, she walked at the head of the funeral
+procession, carrying in her hand a blade of straw, which she
+placed on the coffin. We thus find that in such cases the reigning
+families were held liable to follow the common usages of the
+country. From such instances there required but little progress
+in the principle of equality to reach the republican contempt for
+rank which made the citizens of Bruges in the following century
+arrest their count for his private debts.
+
+The spirit of independence had reached the same point at Liege.
+The families of the counts of Holland and Hainault, which were at
+this time distinguished by the name of Bavaria, because they were
+only descended from the ancient counts of Netherland extraction in
+the female line, had sufficient influence to obtain the nomination
+to the bishopric for a prince who was at the period in his infancy.
+John of Bavaria--for so he was called, and to his name was afterward
+added the epithet of "the Pitiless"--on reaching his majority,
+did not think it necessary to cause himself to be consecrated a
+priest, but governed as a lay sovereign. The indignant citizens
+of Liege expelled him, and chose another bishop. But the Houses
+of Burgundy and Bavaria, closely allied by intermarriages, made
+common cause in his quarrel; and John, duke of Burgundy, and
+William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, brother of the bishop,
+replaced by force this cruel and unworthy prelate.
+
+This union of the government over all the provinces in two families
+so closely connected rendered the preponderance of the rulers
+too strong for that balance hitherto kept steady by the popular
+force. The former could on each new quarrel join together, and
+employ against any particular town their whole united resources;
+whereas the latter could only act by isolated efforts for the
+maintenance of their separate rights. Such was the cause of a
+considerable decline in public liberty during the fifteenth century.
+It is true that John the Fearless gave almost his whole attention
+to his French political intrigues, and to the fierce quarrels
+which he maintained with the House of Orleans. But his nephew,
+John, duke of Brabant, having married, in 1416, his cousin
+Jacqueline, daughter and heiress of William IV., count of Holland
+and Hainault, this branch of the House of Burgundy seemed to get
+the start of the elder in its progressive influence over the
+provinces of the Netherlands. The dukes of Guelders, who had
+changed their title of counts for one of superior rank, acquired
+no accession of power proportioned to their new dignity. The
+bishops of Utrecht became by degrees weaker; private dissensions
+enfeebled Friesland; Luxemburg was a poor, unimportant dukedom;
+but Holland, Hainault, and Brabant formed the very heart of the
+Netherlands; while the elder branch of the same family, under
+whom they were united, possessed Flanders, Artois, and the two
+Burgundies. To complete the prosperity and power of this latter
+branch, it was soon destined to inherit the entire dominions
+of the other.
+
+A fact the consequences of which were so important for the entire
+of Europe merits considerable attention; but it is most difficult
+to explain at once concisely and clearly the series of accidents,
+manoeuvres, tricks, and crimes by which it was accomplished. It
+must first be remarked that this John of Brabant, become the
+husband of his cousin Jacqueline, countess of Holland and Hainault,
+possessed neither the moral nor physical qualities suited to
+mate with the most lovely, intrepid, and talented woman of her
+times; nor the vigor and firmness required for the maintenance
+of an increased, and for those days a considerable, dominion.
+Jacqueline thoroughly despised her insignificant husband; first
+in secret, and subsequently by those open avowals forced from
+her by his revolting combination of weakness, cowardice, and
+tyranny. He tamely allowed the province of Holland to be invaded
+by the same ungrateful bishop of Liege, John the Pitiless, whom
+his wife's father and his own uncle had re-established in his
+justly forfeited authority. But John of Brabant revenged himself
+for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic persecutions so
+odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection.
+Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest
+with a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels,
+where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under
+the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of
+his fame and power.
+
+England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European
+affairs. John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of
+his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the
+bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and
+in his presence. Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor
+of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge
+his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he
+married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to
+the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent
+of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI. But besides
+the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip
+also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline,
+his cousin. As soon as he had learned that this princess, so
+well received in England, was taking measures for having her
+marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester,
+also the brother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the
+appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented by a
+double anxiety. He, in the first place, dreaded that Jacqueline
+might have children by her projected marriage with Gloucester (a
+circumstance neither likely nor even possible, in the opinion of
+some historians, to result from her union with John of Brabant:
+Hume, vol. iii., p. 133), and thus deprive him of his right of
+succession to her states; and in the next, he was jealous of
+the possible domination of England in the Netherlands as well
+as in France. He therefore soon became self-absolved from all
+his vows of revenge in the cause of his murdered father, and
+labored solely for the object of his personal aggrandizement.
+To break his connection with Bedford; to treat secretly with
+the dauphin, his father's assassin, or at least the witness and
+warrant for his assassination; and to shuffle from party to party
+as occasion required, were movements of no difficulty to Philip,
+surnamed "the Good." He openly espoused the cause of his infamous
+relative, John of Brabant; sent a powerful army into Hainault,
+which Gloucester vainly strove to defend in right of his affianced
+wife; and next seized on Holland and Zealand, where he met with
+a long but ineffectual resistance on the part of the courageous
+woman he so mercilessly oppressed. Jacqueline, deprived of the
+assistance of her stanch but ruined friends,[1] and abandoned
+by Gloucester (who, on the refusal of Pope Martin V. to sanction
+her divorce, had married another woman, and but feebly aided
+the efforts of the former to maintain her rights), was now left
+a widow by the death of John of Brabant. But Philip, without a
+shadow of justice, pursued his designs against her dominions,
+and finally despoiled her of her last possessions, and even of
+the title of countess, which she forfeited by her marriage with
+Vrank Van Borselen, a gentleman of Zealand, contrary to a compact
+to which Philip's tyranny had forced her to consent. After a career
+the most checkered and romantic which is recorded in history, the
+beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacqueline found repose and
+happiness in the tranquillity of private life, and her death
+in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from
+Philip's thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which
+he drowned his remorse. As if fortune had conspired for the rapid
+consolidation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of
+St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of
+Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province;
+and his dominions soon extended to the very limits of Picardy,
+by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become
+Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance
+with France.
+
+[Footnote 1: We must not omit to notice the existence of two
+factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated
+the whole population of Holland and Zealand. One bore the title
+of _Hoeks_ (fishing-hooks); the other was called _Kaabel-jauws_
+(cod-fish). The origin of these burlesque denominations was a
+dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish
+took the hook or the hook the cod-fish? This apparently frivolous
+dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel; and the partisans
+of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either
+side, and assumed different badges of distinction. The _Hoeks_,
+partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the _Kaabeljauws_ wore
+gray ones. In Jacqueline's quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she
+was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492
+that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck
+a final blow to the dissensions of both.]
+
+Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so
+extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain
+from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though
+almost nominal, rights as lord paramount. He next purchased the
+title of the duchess of Luxemburg to that duchy; and thus the
+states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to
+that of the existing kingdom of the Netherlands. For although on
+the north and east they did not include Friesland, the bishopric
+of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south
+and west they comprised French Flanders, the Boulonnais, Artois,
+and a part of Picardy, besides Burgundy. But it has been already
+seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the
+maritime provinces. Flanders in particular, the most populous
+and wealthy, strictly preserved its republican institutions.
+Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and
+each maintained its individual authority over its respective
+territory, with great indifference to the will or the wishes of
+the sovereign duke. Philip, however, had the policy to divide
+most effectually these rival towns. After having fallen into
+the hands of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt
+to surprise, and who massacred numbers of his followers before
+his eyes, he forced them to submission by the assistance of the
+citizens of Ghent, who sanctioned the banishment of the chief
+men of the vanquished town. But some years later Ghent was in
+its turn oppressed and punished for having resisted the payment
+of some new tax. It found no support from the rest of Flanders.
+Nevertheless this powerful city singly maintained the war for
+the space of two years; but the intrepid burghers finally yielded
+to the veterans of the duke, formed to victory in the French
+wars. The principal privileges of Ghent were on this occasion
+revoked and annulled.
+
+During these transactions the province of Holland, which enjoyed
+a degree of liberty almost equal to Flanders, had declared war
+against the Hanseatic towns on its own proper authority. Supported
+by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united
+to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the
+pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce,
+and soon forced them to submission. Philip in the meantime contrived
+to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety.
+Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic character, he conducted
+himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed
+his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given
+to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least. Age
+and exhaustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration
+which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of
+some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant
+over any.
+
+Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that
+ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine
+right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become
+his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely
+to look well in the sight of Heaven. This son was Charles, count of
+Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash.
+He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen
+of despotism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of
+that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important
+successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of
+dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a
+word, conducted himself as an absolute master. Soon afterward he
+broke out into open opposition to his father, who had complained of
+this undutiful and impetuous son to the states of the provinces,
+venting his grief in lamentations instead of punishing his people's
+wrongs. But his private rage burst forth one day in a manner as
+furious as his public expressions were tame. He went so far as
+to draw his sword on Charles and pursue him through his palace;
+and a disgusting yet instructive spectacle it was, to see this
+father and son in mutual and disgraceful discord, like two birds
+of prey quarrelling in the same eyry; the old count outrageous
+to find he was no longer undisputed sovereign, and the young
+one in feeling that he had not yet become so. But Philip was
+declining daily. Yet even when dying he preserved his natural
+haughtiness and energy; and being provoked by the insubordination
+of the people of Liege, he had himself carried to the scene of
+their punishment. The refractory town of Dinant, on the Meuse,
+was utterly destroyed by the two counts, and six hundred of the
+citizens drowned in the river, and in cold blood. The following
+year Philip expired, leaving to Charles his long-wished-for
+inheritance.
+
+The reign of Philip had produced a revolution in Belgian manners;
+for his example and the great increase of wealth had introduced
+habits of luxury hitherto quite unknown. He had also brought into
+fashion romantic notions of military honor, love, and chivalry;
+which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility,
+contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and
+extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which
+was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds
+of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion
+for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a
+contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest
+of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted
+to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit so fair
+an opportunity for levying new taxes on his people. And it is
+undoubted that the splendor of his court and the immorality of
+his example were no slight sources of corruption to the countries
+which he governed.
+
+In this respect, at least, a totally different kind of government
+was looked for on the part of his son and successor, who was by
+nature and habit a mere soldier. Charles began his career by
+seizing on all the money and jewels left by his father; he next
+dismissed the crowd of useless functionaries who had fed upon,
+under the pretence of managing, the treasures of the state. But
+this salutary and sweeping reform was only effected to enable the
+sovereign to pursue uncontrolled the most fatal of all passions,
+that of war. Nothing can better paint the true character of this
+haughty and impetuous prince than his crest (a branch of holly),
+and his motto, "Who touches it, pricks himself." Charles had
+conceived a furious and not ill-founded hatred for his base yet
+formidable neighbor and rival, Louis XI. of France. The latter
+had succeeded in obtaining from Philip the restitution of some
+towns in Picardy; cause sufficient to excite the resentment of
+his inflammable successor, who, during his father's lifetime,
+took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary
+struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a
+combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand
+in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and
+intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles
+was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that
+ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness;
+Louis the most subtle, dissimulating, and treacherous king that
+ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad
+faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was
+unequal only in respect to this difference of character; for
+France, subdivided as it still was, and exhausted by the wars
+with England, was not comparable, either as regarded men, money,
+or the other resources of the state, to the compact and prosperous
+dominions of Burgundy.
+
+Charles showed some symptoms of good sense and greatness of mind,
+soon after his accession to power, that gave a false coloring to
+his disposition, and encouraged illusory hopes as to his future
+career. Scarcely was he proclaimed count of Flanders at Ghent,
+when the populace, surrounding his hotel, absolutely insisted
+on and extorted his consent to the restitution of their ancient
+privileges. Furious as Charles was at this bold proof of
+insubordination, he did not revenge it; and he treated with equal
+indulgence the city of Mechlin, which had expelled its governor
+and razed the citadel. The people of Liege, having revolted against
+their bishop, Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with
+the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but
+he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event,
+in February, 1468, he concluded with Edward IV. of England an
+alliance, offensive and defensive, against France.
+
+The real motive of this alliance was rivalry and hatred against
+Louis. The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war
+against the duke of Brittany, Charles's old ally in the short
+contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength
+with his rival after he became king. The present union between
+England and Burgundy was too powerful not to alarm Louis; he
+demanded an explanatory conference with Charles, and the town
+of Peronne in Picardy was fixed on for their meeting. Louis,
+willing to imitate the boldness of his rival, who had formerly
+come to meet him in the very midst of his army, now came to the
+rendezvous almost alone. But he was severely mortified and near
+paying a greater penalty than fright for this hazardous conduct.
+The duke, having received intelligence of a new revolt at Liege
+excited by some of the agents of France, instantly made Louis
+prisoner, in defiance of every law of honor or fair dealing. The
+excess of his rage and hatred might have carried him to a more
+disgraceful extremity, had not Louis, by force of bribery, gained
+over some of his most influential counsellors, who succeeded in
+appeasing his rage. He contented himself with humiliating, when
+he was disposed to punish. He forced his captive to accompany him
+to Liege, and witness the ruin of this unfortunate town, which
+he delivered over to plunder; and having given this lesson to
+Louis, he set him at liberty.
+
+From this period there was a marked and material change in the
+conduct of Charles. He had been previously moved by sentiments
+of chivalry and notions of greatness. But sullied by his act of
+public treachery and violence toward the monarch who had, at
+least in seeming, manifested unlimited confidence in his honor,
+a secret sense of shame embittered his feelings and soured his
+temper. He became so insupportable to those around him that he
+was abandoned by several of his best officers, and even by his
+natural brother, Baldwin of Burgundy, who passed over to the side
+of Louis. Charles was at this time embarrassed by the expense
+of entertaining and maintaining Edward IV. and numerous English
+exiles, who were forced to take refuge in the Netherlands by
+the successes of the earl of Warwick, who had replaced Henry
+VI. on the throne. Charles at the same time held out to several
+princes in Europe hopes of bestowing on them in marriage his
+only daughter and heiress Mary, while he privately assured his
+friends, if his courtiers and ministers may be so called, "that
+he never meant to have a son-in-law until he was disposed to
+make himself a monk." In a word, he was no longer guided by any
+principle but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.
+
+In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles
+and of the national militia, who only maintained toward him a
+forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights
+of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts
+of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as
+their absolute master. When the taxes necessary for the support
+and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur,
+Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some
+of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of
+his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the moment when
+nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition
+he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his
+easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais; and thus made
+of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block
+on his path of conquest.
+
+The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin
+of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally,
+who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's
+presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage
+and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders
+from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of
+it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in
+this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their
+parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found his justification
+on the argument that his father having reigned forty-four years,
+he was fully entitled to his share--a fine practical authority
+for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this
+reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles
+cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing
+on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul
+the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.
+
+After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart
+the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands
+were considered sufficiently important and consolidated to entitle
+their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered
+to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his
+son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and
+repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance
+his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter
+put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of
+a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a
+train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial
+retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage,
+from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law
+who might embitter his old age as he had done that of his own
+father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon,
+and the projected kingdom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.
+
+Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for aggrandizement
+and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of
+some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and
+its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same
+time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his
+brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recovered possession of England.
+But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied
+him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its
+succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the
+dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the
+pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping.
+This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from
+destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous
+force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace
+with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till
+after the treaty was signed, upbraided and abused the English
+king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.
+
+Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions,
+now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggrandizement, and to
+recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately
+belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would
+be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The
+infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying,
+abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the
+constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his
+independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and
+who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to
+either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine.
+Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies
+to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive
+dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles
+that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether
+worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the
+more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness
+raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the
+project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions
+of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries
+traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke
+of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.
+
+Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the
+rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered.
+The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in
+the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally
+crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached
+from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after
+this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied
+his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had
+despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss--a force in which they
+were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted
+to thirty-four thousand men. They took up a position, skilfully
+chosen, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, where they were
+attacked by Charles at the head of sixty thousand soldiers of
+all ranks. The result was the total defeat of the latter, with
+the loss of ten thousand killed, whose bones, gathered into an
+immense heap, and bleaching in the winds, remained for above
+three centuries; a terrible monument of rashness and injustice
+on the one hand, and of patriotism and valor on the other.
+
+Charles was now plunged into a state of profound melancholy;
+but he soon burst from this gloomy mood into one of renewed
+fierceness and fatal desperation. Nine months after the battle
+of Morat he re-entered Lorraine, at the head of an army, not
+composed of his faithful militia of the Netherlands, but of those
+mercenaries in whom it was madness to place trust. The reinforcements
+meant to be despatched to him by those provinces were kept back
+by the artifices of the count of Campo Basso, an Italian who
+commanded his cavalry, and who only gained his confidence basely
+to betray it. Rene, duke of Lorraine, at the head of the confederate
+forces, offered battle to Charles under the walls of Nancy; and
+the night before the combat Campo Basso went over to the enemy
+with the troops under his command. Still Charles had the way
+open for retreat. Fresh troops from Burgundy and Flanders were
+on their march to join him; but he would not be dissuaded from
+his resolution to fight, and he resolved to try his fortune once
+more with his dispirited and shattered army. On this occasion the
+fate of Charles was decided, and the fortune of Louis triumphant.
+The rash and ill-fated duke lost both the battle and his life.
+His body, mutilated with wounds, was found the next day, and
+buried with great pomp in the town of Nancy, by the orders of
+the generous victor, the duke of Lorraine.
+
+Thus perished the last prince of the powerful House of Burgundy.
+Charles left to his only daughter, then eighteen years of age,
+the inheritance of his extensive dominions, and with them that of
+the hatred and jealousy which he had so largely excited. External
+spoliation immediately commenced, and internal disunion quickly
+followed. Louis XI. seized on Burgundy and a part of Artois, as
+fiefs devolving to the crown in default of male issue. Several
+of the provinces refused to pay the new subsidies commanded in
+the name of Mary; Flanders alone showing a disposition to uphold
+the rights of the young princess. The states were assembled at
+Ghent, and ambassadors sent to the king of France in the hopes
+of obtaining peace on reasonable terms. Louis, true to his system
+of subtle perfidy, placed before one of those ambassadors, the
+burgomaster of Ghent, a letter from the inexperienced princess,
+which proved her intention to govern by the counsel of her father's
+ancient ministers rather than by that of the deputies of the
+nation. This was enough to decide the indignant Flemings to render
+themselves at once masters of the government and get rid of the
+ministers whom they hated. Two Burgundian nobles, Hugonet and
+Imbercourt, were arrested, accused of treason, and beheaded under
+the very eyes of their agonized and outraged mistress, who threw
+herself before the frenzied multitude, vainly imploring mercy
+for these innocent men. The people having thus completely gained
+the upper hand over the Burgundian influence, Mary was sovereign
+of the Netherlands but in name.
+
+It would have now been easy for Louis XI. to have obtained for
+the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but
+interesting princess; but he thought himself sufficiently strong
+and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an
+alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not
+actually rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended
+husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick
+III.; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his
+father's parsimony, that she was obliged to borrow money from
+the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite.
+Nevertheless he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his
+new subjects. They not only supplied all his wants, but enabled
+him to maintain the war against Louis XI., whom they defeated at
+the battle of Guinegate in Picardy, and forced to make peace on
+more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy
+provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent
+on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian
+little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the
+school of absolute despotism; and his duchess having met with
+a too early death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he
+could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to
+his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His
+power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly
+attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and
+Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The
+turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking
+umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether
+hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on
+his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and
+put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent
+and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked
+as a favor from his rebel subjects of Bruges to be guarded while
+a prisoner by them alone. He was then king of the Romans, and
+all Europe became interested in his fate. The pope addressed
+a brief to the town of Bruges, demanding his deliverance. But
+the burghers were as inflexible as factious; and they at length
+released him, but not until they had concluded with him and the
+assembled states a treaty which most amply secured the enjoyment
+of their privileges and the pardon of their rebellion.
+
+But these kind of compacts were never observed by the princes of
+those days beyond the actual period of their capacity to violate
+them. The emperor having entered the Netherlands at the head of
+forty thousand men, Maximilian, so supported, soon showed his
+contempt for the obligations he had sworn to, and had recourse
+to force for the extension of his authority. The valor of the
+Flemings and the military talents of their leader, Philip of
+Cleves, thwarted all his projects, and a new compromise was entered
+into. Flanders paid a large subsidy, and held fast her rights.
+The German troops were sent into Holland, and employed for the
+extinction of the Hoeks; who, as they formed by far the weaker
+faction, were now soon destroyed. That province, which had been so
+long distracted by its intestine feuds, and which had consequently
+played but an insignificant part in the transactions of the
+Netherlands, now resumed its place; and acquired thenceforth new
+honor, till it at length came to figure in all the importance
+of historical distinction.
+
+The situation of the Netherlands was now extremely precarious
+and difficult to manage, during the unstable sway of a government
+so weak as Maximilian's. But he having succeeded his father on the
+imperial throne in 1493, and his son Philip having been proclaimed
+the following year duke and count of the various provinces at
+the age of sixteen, a more pleasing prospect was offered to the
+people. Philip, young, handsome, and descended by his mother
+from the ancient sovereigns of the country, was joyfully hailed
+by all the towns. He did not belie the hopes so enthusiastically
+expressed. He had the good sense to renounce all pretensions to
+Friesland, the fertile source of many preceding quarrels and
+sacrifices. He re-established the ancient commercial relations with
+England, to which country Maximilian had given mortal-offence by
+sustaining the imposture of Perkin Warbeck. Philip also consulted
+the states-general on his projects of a double alliance between
+himself and his sister with the son and daughter of Ferdinand,
+king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; and from this wise
+precaution the project soon became one of national partiality instead
+of private or personal interest. In this manner complete harmony
+was established between the young prince and the inhabitants of
+the Netherlands. All the ills produced by civil war disappeared
+with immense rapidity in Flanders and Brabant, as soon as peace
+was thus consolidated. Even Holland, though it had particularly
+felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely
+from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this,
+Philip can be scarcely called a good prince: his merits were
+negative rather than real. But that sufficed for the nation;
+which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to the
+resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by
+the despotism of the House of Burgundy, and the attempts of
+Maximilian to continue the same system.
+
+The reign of Philip, unfortunately a short one was rendered
+remarkable by two intestine quarrels; one in Friesland, the other
+in Guelders. The Frisons, who had been so isolated from the more
+important affairs of Europe that they were in a manner lost sight
+of by history for several centuries, had nevertheless their full
+share of domestic disputes; too long, too multifarious, and too
+minute, to allow us to give more than this brief notice of their
+existence. But finally, about the period of Philip's accession,
+eastern Friesland had chosen for its count a gentleman of the
+country surnamed Edzart, who fixed the headquarters of his military
+government at Embden. The sight of such an elevation in an individual
+whose pretensions he thought far inferior to his own induced Albert
+of Saxony, who had well served Maximilian against the refractory
+Flemings, to demand as his reward the title of stadtholder or
+hereditary governor of Friesland. But it was far easier for the
+emperor to accede to this request than for his favorite to put
+the grant into effect. The Frisons, true to their old character,
+held firm to their privileges, and fought for their maintenance
+with heroic courage. Albert, furious at this resistance, had the
+horrid barbarity to cause to be impaled the chief burghers of the
+town of Leuwaarden, which he had taken by assault. But he himself
+died in the year 1500, without succeeding in his projects of an
+ambition unjust in its principle and atrocious in its practice.
+
+The war of Guelders was of a totally different nature. In this
+case it was not a question of popular resistance to a tyrannical
+nomination, but of patriotic fidelity to the reigning family.
+Adolphus, the duke who had dethroned his father, had died in
+Flanders, leaving a son who had been brought up almost a captive
+as long as Maximilian governed the states of his inheritance.
+This young man, called Charles of Egmont, and who is honored in
+the history of his country under the title of the Achilles of
+Guelders, fell into the hands of the French during the combat
+in which he made his first essay in arms. The town of Guelders
+unanimously joined to pay his ransom; and as soon as he was at
+liberty they one and all proclaimed him duke. The emperor Philip
+and the Germanic diet in vain protested against this measure,
+and declared Charles a usurper. The spirit of justice and of
+liberty spoke more loudly than the thunders of their ban; and the
+people resolved to support to the last this scion of an ancient
+race, glorious in much of its conduct, though often criminal in
+many of its members. Charles of Egmont found faithful friends
+in his devoted subjects; and he maintained his rights, sometimes
+with, sometimes without, the assistance of France--making up for
+his want of numbers by energy and enterprise. We cannot follow this
+warlike prince in the long series of adventures which consolidated
+his power; nor stop to depict his daring adherents on land, who
+caused the whole of Holland to tremble at their deeds; nor his
+pirates--the chief of whom, Long Peter, called himself king of
+the Zuyder Zee. But amid all the consequent troubles of such a
+struggle, it is marvellous to find Charles of Egmont upholding
+his country in a state of high prosperity, and leaving it at his
+death almost as rich as Holland itself.
+
+The incapacity of Philip the Fair doubtless contributed to cause
+him the loss of this portion of his dominions. This prince, after
+his first acts of moderation and good sense, was remarkable only
+as being the father of Charles V. The remainder of his life was
+worn out in undignified pleasures; and he died almost suddenly,
+in the year 1506, at Burgos in Castile, whither he had repaired
+to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, the king of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.
+
+A.D. 1506--1555
+
+Philip being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become
+mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from
+jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted
+to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret
+stadtholderess of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven
+years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria,
+already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first
+husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract
+of marriage before its consummation; her second, the Infante
+of Spain, died immediately after their union; and her third,
+the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of
+wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved
+by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very
+moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey
+into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.
+
+  "Ci-git Margot la genre demoiselle,
+  Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."
+
+  "Here gentle Margot quietly is laid,
+  Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid."
+
+She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the
+Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances
+allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority
+against the threats of France; and she carried on in person all
+the negotiations between Louis XII., Maximilian, the pope Julius
+II., and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice.
+These negotiations took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret,
+if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her
+letters, was more than once on the point of having serious
+differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII.
+But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on
+this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the
+rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the
+interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up
+some places in Holland which he illegally held.
+
+From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised
+the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the
+Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern
+parts of the country were still kept down by their various
+dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The
+Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of
+Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and
+finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The
+consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start
+in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become
+common to the whole nation.
+
+A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret,
+and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and
+Belgian army, in which Maximilian figured as a spectator (taking
+care to be paid by England), marched for the destruction of
+Therouenne, and defeated and dispersed the French at the battle
+of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a separate
+peace; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made Margaret and
+the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He
+pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the country to
+recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town; while
+the duke of Saxony at length renounced to another his unjust claim
+on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.
+
+About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the
+Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated
+duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased
+the presumed right of Saxony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In
+the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in
+right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal
+power--a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles
+procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard
+of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on
+him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance
+on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected
+by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in
+Germany. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances
+of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of
+the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole diocese, and
+the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular.
+It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced
+the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of
+the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated
+Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation.
+While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself
+a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates
+to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.
+
+We may here remark that, during the government of the House of
+Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable
+disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of
+the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the
+enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The
+Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight
+obstacle in the opposition of a slavish and ignorant clergy,
+and its progress was all at once prodigious. The refusal of the
+dignity of emperor by Frederick "the Wise," duke of Saxony, to
+whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly
+favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and
+Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands,
+both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum
+deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy
+hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism. At
+length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson
+of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate
+rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a
+while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.
+
+From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign
+of so many states, having to establish his authority at the two
+extremities of Europe, could not efficiently occupy himself in
+resisting the doctrines which, despite their dishonoring epithet
+of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great
+part of the Continent. While Charles vigorously put down the
+revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so
+that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his
+impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered
+the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safeguard
+of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly venturing to appear
+and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany
+assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee
+of the emperor; unlike the celebrated and unfortunate John Huss;
+who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of
+Sigismund, in the year 1415.
+
+Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the
+Low Countries, where his authority was undisputed, he proscribed
+the heretics, and even violated the privileges of the country
+by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their
+pursuit and punishment. This imprudent stretch of power fostered
+a rising spirit of opposition; for, though entertaining the best
+disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and
+loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a
+mighty revolution gradually began to be developed.
+
+Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power,
+and they now became implacable personal enemies. Young, ambitious,
+and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue
+in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short
+but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over
+to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest
+of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impression on
+Henry VIII.; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle
+against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. War was
+declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it
+for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately
+bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the
+triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial
+troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the
+Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during
+the war; for the French cruisers having, on repeated occasions,
+taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources
+of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable
+distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which
+desolated these provinces in 1524.
+
+While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the
+Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flourish, in spite
+of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died,
+his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his
+new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism;
+and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice
+of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of
+his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the
+city of Utrecht, redoubled his hostility at this intelligence;
+and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay
+down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured
+an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term
+of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray,
+between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August,
+1529.
+
+This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the
+inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils
+caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but
+in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little,
+however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite
+the people against each other on the score of religious dissension.
+The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of
+all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural
+decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in
+the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of
+the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem;
+and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his
+disciples to preach in the neighboring countries. Mary, sister
+of Charles V., and queen-dowager of Hungary, the stadtholderess
+of the Netherlands, proposed a crusade against this fanatic; which
+was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged
+by impunity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from
+the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion
+for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they
+marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their
+sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution,
+they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly
+against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without
+mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions
+that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon
+held out at Munster, which was besieged by the bishop and the
+neighboring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married
+no less than seventeen women, had gained considerable influence
+over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and
+imprisoned in an iron cage--an event which undeceived the greater
+number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.
+
+The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rapidly and
+uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic
+of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their
+goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and
+India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to
+Bruges as the general mart of commerce, and was the most opulent
+town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred
+and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city voluntarily
+incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles
+V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool
+annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from
+England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold.
+Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on
+whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition
+with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the
+south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general
+burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than
+Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen
+out of twenty-one parts of the general contribution; and all
+the rest combined but eight. A search for further or minuter
+proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the
+country would be superfluous.
+
+The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles
+of Guelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of
+exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people
+recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles
+rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in
+Spain, and leaving to his sister the regulation of those distant
+provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of
+inflicting a terrible example upon them. The people of Ghent,
+suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds
+they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to
+march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their
+quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected
+this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the moment when
+Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary
+reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring
+resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take
+into his own hands the settlement of this affair--trusting to
+the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the
+confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Ghent, taken
+by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor,
+when he appeared before the walls; and the city was punished
+with extreme severity. Twenty-seven leaders of the sedition were
+beheaded; the principal privileges of the city were withdrawn,
+and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles
+met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so
+prospered under his sway, and was so flattered by the greatness of
+the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished,
+that his acts of despotic harshness were borne without a murmur. But
+in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently;
+and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest
+in the different divisions of the nation.
+
+Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all
+his other subjects on the occasion of two expeditions which Charles
+undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces
+furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of
+all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did
+not lead him to do anything in return as peculiarly favorable
+to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great
+advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Guelders on
+the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter,
+which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars of
+the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look
+for a futurity of union and peace; and thus the latter years of
+Charles promised better for his country than his early ones,
+though he obtained less success in his new wars with France,
+which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either
+side.
+
+Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities
+against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species
+of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward
+the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings
+between his only son Philip and Mary of England, whom he had
+induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young
+prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the
+victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis I.,
+and the successful dissimulation of Maurice, elector of Saxony,
+by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated.
+Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and
+must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating
+the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels
+as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the
+25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence
+of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens
+of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense
+assemblage of nobility from various countries. Charles resigned
+the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans;
+and all the rest of his dominions to his son. Soon after the
+ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain.
+He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of
+Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February,
+1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the
+fifty-ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence,
+contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a
+melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.
+
+The whole of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the
+first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks
+the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a
+presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined
+as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose
+in these countries during a period of one thousand years. The
+extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the
+state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to the epoch
+at which we are now arrived must be referred to, to judge of
+the gradual progress of civilization through the gloom of the
+dark ages, till the dawn of enlightenment which led to the grand
+system of European politics commenced during the reign of Charles
+V. The amazing increase of commerce was, above all other
+considerations, the cause of the growth of liberty in the
+Netherlands. The Reformation opened the minds of men to that
+intellectual freedom without which political enfranchisement is
+a worthless privilege. The invention of printing opened a thousand
+channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out
+from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the
+whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct
+of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to
+the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made
+subservient to those great principles of policy in which society
+began to perceive its only chance of durable good. Manufactures
+attained a state of high perfection, and went on progressively
+with the growth of wealth and luxury. The opulence of the towns
+of Brabant and Flanders was without any previous example in the
+state of Europe. A merchant of Bruges took upon himself alone
+the security for the ransom of John the Fearless, taken at the
+battle of Nicopolis, amounting to two hundred thousand ducats.
+A provost of Valenciennes repaired to Paris at one of the great
+fairs periodically held there, and purchased on his own account
+every article that was for sale. At a repast given by one of the
+counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates the seats they
+occupied were unfurnished with cushions. Those proud burghers
+folded their sumptuous cloaks and sat on them. After the feast
+they were retiring without retaining these important and costly
+articles of dress; and on a courtier reminding them of their
+apparent neglect, the burgomaster of Bruges replied, "We Flemings
+are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner!"
+The meetings of the different towns for the sports of archery were
+signalized by the most splendid display of dress and decoration.
+The archers were habited in silk, damask, and the finest linen,
+and carried chains of gold of great weight and value. Luxury
+was at its height among women. The queen of Philip the Fair of
+France, on a visit to Bruges, exclaimed, with astonishment not
+unmixed with envy, "I thought myself the only queen here; but
+I see six hundred others who appear more so than I."
+
+The court of Phillip the Good seemed to carry magnificence and
+splendor to their greatest possible height. The dresses of both
+men and women at this chivalric epoch were of almost incredible
+expense. Velvet, satin, gold, and precious stones seemed the
+ordinary materials for the dress of either sex; while the very
+housings of the horses sparkled with brilliants and cost immense
+sums. This absurd extravagance was carried so far that Charles
+V. found himself forced at length to proclaim sumptuary laws
+for its repression.
+
+The style of the banquets given on grand occasions was regulated
+on a scale of almost puerile splendor. The Banquet of Vows given
+at Lille, in the year 1453, and so called from the obligations
+entered into by some of the nobles to accompany Philip in a new
+crusade against the infidels, showed a succession of costly
+fooleries, most amusing in the detail given by an eye-witness
+(Olivier de la Marche), the minutest of the chroniclers, but
+unluckily too long to find a place in our pages.
+
+Such excessive luxury naturally led to great corruption of manners
+and the commission of terrible crimes. During the reign of Philip de
+Male, there were committed in the city of Ghent and its outskirts, in
+less than a year, above fourteen hundred murders in gambling-houses
+and other resorts of debauchery. As early as the tenth century,
+the petty sovereigns established on the ruins of the empire of
+Charlemagne began the independent coining of money; and the various
+provinces were during the rest of this epoch inundated with a most
+embarrassing variety of gold, silver, and copper. Even in ages of
+comparative darkness, literature made feeble efforts to burst
+through the entangled weeds of superstition, ignorance, and war.
+In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, history was greatly
+cultivated; and Froissart, Monstrelet, Olivier de la Marche, and
+Philip de Comines, gave to their chronicles and memoirs a charm
+of style since their days almost unrivalled. Poetry began to be
+followed with success in the Netherlands, in the Dutch, Flemish,
+and French languages; and even before the institution of the
+Floral Games in France, Belgium possessed its chambers of rhetoric
+(_rederykkamers_) which labored to keep alive the sacred flame
+of poetry with more zeal than success. In the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, these societies were established in almost
+every burgh of Flanders and Brabant; the principal towns possessing
+several at once.
+
+The arts in their several branches made considerable progress
+in the Netherlands during this epoch. Architecture was greatly
+cultivated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; most of
+the cathedrals and town houses being constructed in that age.
+Their vastness, solidity, and beauty of design and execution,
+make them still speaking monuments of the stern magnificence
+and finished taste of the times. The patronage of Philip the
+Good, Charles the Rash, and Margaret of Austria, brought music
+into fashion, and led to its cultivation in a remarkable degree.
+The first musicians of France were drawn from Flanders; and other
+professors from that country acquired great celebrity in Italy
+for their scientific improvements in their delightful art.
+
+Painting, which had languished before the fifteenth century,
+sprung at once into a new existence from the invention of John Van
+Eyck, known better by the name of John of Bruges. His accidental
+discovery of the art of painting in oil quickly spread over Europe,
+and served to perpetuate to all time the records of the genius
+which has bequeathed its vivid impressions to the world. Painting
+on glass, polishing diamonds, the Carillon, lace, and tapestry,
+were among the inventions which owed their birth to the Netherlands
+in these ages, when the faculties of mankind sought so many new
+channels for mechanical development. The discovery of a new world
+by Columbus and other eminent navigators gave a fresh and powerful
+impulse to European talent, by affording an immense reservoir for
+its reward. The town of Antwerp was, during the reign of Charles
+V., the outlet for the industry of Europe, and the receptacle
+for the productions of all the nations of the earth. Its port
+was so often crowded with vessels that each successive fleet
+was obliged to wait long in the Scheldt before it could obtain
+admission for the discharge of its cargoes. The university of
+Louvain, that great nursery of science, was founded in 1425, and
+served greatly to the spread of knowledge, although it degenerated
+into the hotbed of those fierce disputes which stamped on theology
+the degradation of bigotry, and drew down odium on a study that,
+if purely practiced, ought only to inspire veneration.
+
+Charles V. was the first to establish a solid plan of government,
+instead of the constant fluctuations in the management of justice,
+police, and finance. He caused the edicts of the various sovereigns,
+and the municipal usages, to be embodied into a system of laws; and
+thus gave stability and method to the enjoyment of the prosperity
+in which he left his dominions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
+OF THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS
+
+A.D. 1555--1566
+
+It has been shown that the Netherlands were never in a more
+flourishing state than at the accession of Philip II. The external
+relations of the country presented an aspect of prosperity and
+peace. England was closely allied to it by Queen Mary's marriage
+with Philip; France, fatigued with war, had just concluded with it
+a five years truce; Germany, paralyzed by religious dissensions,
+exhausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were
+too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and nothing
+appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was
+something dangerous and alarming in the situation of the Low
+Countries; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection
+between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded
+till the mischief was beyond remedy.
+
+From the time that Charles V. was called to reign over Spain,
+he may be said to have been virtually lost to the country of
+his birth. He was no longer a mere duke of Brabant or Limberg,
+a count of Flanders or Holland; he was also king of Castile,
+Aragon, Leon, and Navarre, of Naples, and of Sicily. These various
+kingdoms had interests evidently opposed to those of the Low
+Countries, and forms of government far different. It was scarcely
+to be doubted that the absolute monarch of so many peoples would
+look with a jealous eye on the institutions of those provinces
+which placed limits to his power; and the natural consequence was
+that he who was a legitimate king in the south soon degenerated
+into a usurping master in the north.
+
+But during the reign of Charles the danger was in some measure
+lessened, or at least concealed from public view, by the apparent
+facility with which he submitted to and observed the laws and
+customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far
+different, and the results too obvious. Uninformed on the Belgian
+character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the
+language, no sympathy attached him to the people. He brought
+with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner,
+without one of the kindly or considerate feelings of a compatriot.
+
+Spain, where this young prince had hitherto passed his life, was
+in some degree excluded from European civilization. A contest of
+seven centuries between the Mohammedan tribes and the descendants
+of the Visigoths, cruel, like all civil wars, and, like all those
+of religion, not merely a contest of rulers, but essentially of
+the people, had given to the manners and feelings of this unhappy
+country a deep stamp of barbarity. The ferocity of military
+chieftains had become the basis of the government and laws. The
+Christian kings had adopted the perfidious and bloody system of
+the despotic sultans they replaced. Magnificence and tyranny,
+power and cruelty, wisdom and dissimulation, respect and fear,
+were inseparably associated in the minds of a people so governed.
+They comprehended nothing in religion but a God armed with
+omnipotence and vengeance, or in politics but a king as terrible
+as the deity he represented.
+
+Philip, bred in this school of slavish superstition, taught that he
+was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading
+tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible
+and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to
+appear superior to those beyond whom his station had placed him,
+he was insensible to the affections which soften and ennoble
+human nature. He was perpetually filled with one idea--that of
+his greatness; he had but one ambition--that of command; but
+one enjoyment--that of exciting fear. Victim to this revolting
+selfishness, his heart was never free from care; and the bitter
+melancholy of his character seemed to nourish a desire of evil-doing,
+which irritated suffering often produces in man. Deceit and blood
+were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal
+which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty;
+and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest
+contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity.
+
+Nature had endowed this ferocious being with wonderful penetration
+and unusual self-command; the first revealing to him the views
+of others, and the latter giving him the surest means of
+counteracting them, by enabling him to control himself. Although
+ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning. He wanted
+courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of
+wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar
+to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at
+the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the
+bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged.
+
+Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced
+utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. His
+father had already sapped its foundations, by encouraging foreign
+manners and ideas among the nobility, and dazzling them with the
+hope of the honors and wealth which he had at his disposal abroad.
+His severe edicts against heresy had also begun to accustom the
+nation to religious discords and hatred. Philip soon enlarged
+on what Charles had commenced, and he unmercifully sacrificed
+the well-being of a people to the worst objects of his selfish
+ambition.
+
+Philip had only once visited the Netherlands before his accession
+to sovereign power. Being at that time twenty-two years of age, his
+opinions were formed and his prejudices deeply rooted. Everything
+that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both. The
+frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression
+of popular rights sounded like the voice of rebellion. Even the
+magnificence displayed in his honor offended his jealous vanity.
+From that moment he seems to have conceived an implacable aversion
+to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he
+could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism.
+
+The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his
+subjects. His haughty severity and vexatious etiquette revolted
+their pride as well as their plain dealing; and the moral qualities
+of their new sovereign were considered with loathing. The commercial
+and political connection between the Netherlands and Spain had
+given the two people ample opportunities for mutual acquaintance.
+The dark, vindictive dispositions of the latter inspired a deep
+antipathy in those whom civilization had softened and liberty
+rendered frank and generous; and the new sovereign seemed to
+embody all that was repulsive and odious in the nation of which
+he was the type. Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to
+make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent
+consideration for a few points of political interest and individual
+privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts
+against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct
+had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the
+despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them
+an easier prey.
+
+Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce
+such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states
+to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid
+by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining
+a great step toward his designs, as it superseded the necessity
+of a yearly application to the three orders, the guardians of
+the public liberty. At the same time he sent secret agents to
+Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious
+but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in
+dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards
+and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France;
+and although he did not remove from their employments the
+functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new
+appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands.
+
+In the midst of these cunning preparations for tyranny, Philip
+was suddenly attacked in two quarters at once; by Henry II. of
+France, and by Pope Paul IV. A prince less obstinate than Philip
+would in such circumstances have renounced, or at least postponed,
+his designs against the liberties of so important a part of his
+dominions, as those to which he was obliged to have recourse
+for aid in support of this double war. But he seemed to make
+every foreign consideration subservient to the object of domestic
+aggression which he had so much at heart.
+
+He, however, promptly met the threatened dangers from abroad. He
+turned his first attention toward his contest with the pope; and
+he extricated himself from it with an adroitness that proved the
+whole force and cunning of his character. Having first publicly
+obtained the opinion of several doctors of theology, that he
+was justified in taking arms against the pontiff (a point on
+which there was really no doubt), he prosecuted the war with
+the utmost vigor, by the means of the afterward notorious duke
+of Alva, at that time viceroy of his Italian dominions. Paul soon
+yielded to superior skill and force, and demanded terms of peace,
+which were granted with a readiness and seeming liberality that
+astonished no one more than the defeated pontiff. But Philip's
+moderation to his enemy was far outdone by his perfidy to his
+allies. He confirmed Alva's consent to the confiscation of the
+domains of the noble Romans who had espoused his cause; and thus
+gained a stanch and powerful supporter to all his future projects
+in the religious authority of the successor of St. Peter.
+
+His conduct in the conclusion of the war with France was not
+less base. His army, under the command of Philibert Emmanuel,
+duke of Savoy, consisting of Belgians, Germans, and Spaniards,
+with a considerable body of English, sent by Mary to the assistance
+of her husband, penetrated into Picardy, and gained a complete
+victory over the French forces. The honor of this brilliant affair,
+which took place near St. Quintin, was almost wholly due to the
+count d'Egmont, a Belgian noble, who commanded the light cavalry;
+but the king, unwilling to let anyone man enjoy the glory of
+the day, piously pretended that he owed the entire obligation
+to St. Lawrence, on whose festival the battle was fought. His
+gratitude or hypocrisy found a fitting monument in the celebrated
+convent and palace of the Escurial, which he absurdly caused to
+be built in the form of a gridiron, the instrument of the saint's
+martyrdom. When the news of the victory reached Charles V. in his
+retreat, the old warrior inquired if Philip was in Paris? but
+the cautious victor had no notion of such prompt manoeuvring; nor
+would he risk against foreign enemies the exhaustion of forces
+destined for the enslavement of his people.
+
+The French in some measure retrieved their late disgrace by the
+capture of Calais, the only town remaining to England of all its
+French conquests, and which, consequently, had deeply interested
+the national glory of each people. In the early part of the year
+1558, one of the generals of Henry II. made an irruption into
+western Flanders; but the gallant count of Egmont once more proved
+his valor and skill by attacking and totally defeating the invaders
+near the town of Gravelines.
+
+A general peace was concluded in April, 1559, which bore the
+name of Cateau-Cambresis, from that of the place where it was
+negotiated. Philip secured for himself various advantages in the
+treaty; but he sacrificed the interests of England, by consenting
+to the retention of Calais by the French king--a cession deeply
+humiliating to the national pride of his allies; and, if general
+opinion be correct, a proximate cause of his consort's death. The
+alliance of France and the support of Rome, the important results
+of the two wars now brought to a close, were counterbalanced
+by the well-known hostility of Elizabeth, who had succeeded to
+the throne of England; and this latter consideration was an
+additional motive with Philip to push forward the design of
+consolidating his despotism in the Low Countries.
+
+To lead his already deceived subjects the more surely into the
+snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to
+Spain; and created for the period of his absence a provisional
+government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian
+nobility. He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the
+illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to
+this provisional government the right of levying taxes during
+the temporary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the
+influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the
+revival of the edicts against heresy, which he had gained the
+merit of suspending. These, with many minor details of profound
+duplicity, formed the principal features of a plan, which, if
+successful, would have reduced the Netherlands to the wretched
+state of colonial dependence by which Naples and Sicily were
+held in the tenure of Spain.
+
+As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of
+government in the hands of the new administration for the period
+of the king's absence, the royal hypocrite believed his scheme
+secure, and flattered himself he had established an instrument of
+durable despotism. The composition of this new government was
+a masterpiece of political machinery. It consisted of several
+councils, in which the most distinguished citizens were entitled
+to a place, in sufficient numbers to deceive the people with a
+show of representation, but not enough to command a majority,
+which was sure on any important question to rest with the titled
+creatures of the court. The edicts against heresy, soon adopted,
+gave to the clergy an almost unlimited power over the lives and
+fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the
+church being men of great respectability and moderation, chosen
+by the body of the inferior clergy, these extraordinary powers
+excited little alarm. Philip's project was suddenly to replace
+these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice, as
+soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for
+this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority
+of the court of Rome.
+
+In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely
+broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. The
+whole of this force, so redoubtable to the fears of despotism,
+consisted of only three thousand cavalry. It was now divided
+into fourteen companies (or squadrons in the modern phraseology),
+under the command of as many independent chiefs, so as to leave
+little chance of any principle of union reigning among them. But
+the German and Spanish troops in Philip's pay were cantoned on the
+frontiers, ready to stifle any incipient effort in opposition to
+his plans. In addition to these imposing means for their execution,
+he had secured a still more secret and more powerful support: a
+secret article in the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis obliged the
+king of France to assist him with the whole armies of France
+against his Belgian subjects, should they prove refractory. Thus
+the late war, of which the Netherlands had borne all the weight,
+and earned all the glory, only brought about the junction of the
+defeated enemy with their own king for the extinction of their
+national independence.
+
+To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened
+an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of July,
+1559. This meeting of the representatives of the three orders
+of the state offered no apparent obstacle to Philip's views. The
+clergy, alarmed at the progress of the new doctrines, gathered
+more closely round the government of which they required the
+support. The nobles had lost much of their ancient attachment
+to liberty; and had become, in various ways, dependent on the
+royal favor. Many of the first families were then represented by
+men possessed rather of courage and candor than of foresight and
+sagacity. That of Nassau, the most distinguished of all, seemed
+the least interested in the national cause. A great part of its
+possessions were in Germany and France, where it had recently
+acquired the sovereign principality of Orange. It was only from
+the third order--that of the commons--that Philip had to expect
+any opposition. Already, during the war, it had shown some
+discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners
+to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies.
+But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would
+be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of
+the king, and disconcerting his designs.
+
+Anthony Perrenotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras, who was considered
+as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reality no more
+than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly
+in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration
+was one of cautious deception, and contained the most flattering
+assurances of Philip's attachment to the people of the Netherlands.
+It excused the king for not having nominated his only son, Don
+Carlos, to reign over them in his name; alleging, as a proof
+of his royal affection, that he preferred giving them as
+stadtholderess a Belgian princess, Madame Marguerite, duchess
+of Parma, the natural daughter of Charles V. by a young lady,
+a native of Audenarde. Fair promises and fine words were thus
+lavished in profusion to gain the confidence of the deputies.
+
+But notwithstanding all the talent, the caution, and the mystery
+of Philip and his minister, there was among the nobles one man
+who saw through all. This individual, endowed with many of the
+highest attributes of political genius, and pre-eminently with
+judgment, the most important of all, entered fearlessly into
+the contest against tyranny--despising every personal sacrifice
+for the country's good. Without making himself suspiciously
+prominent, he privately warned some members of the states of
+the coming danger. Those in whom he confided did not betray the
+trust. They spread among the other deputies the alarm, and pointed
+out the danger to which they had been so judiciously awakened.
+The consequence was a reply to Philip's demand; in vague and
+general terms, without binding the nation by any pledge; and a
+unanimous entreaty that he would diminish the taxes, withdraw
+the foreign troops, and intrust no official employments to any
+but natives of the country. The object of this last request was
+the removal of Granvelle, who was born in Franche-Comte.
+
+Philip was utterly astounded at all this. In the first moment
+of his vexation he imprudently cried out, "Would ye, then, also
+bereave _me_ of my place; I, who am a Spaniard?" But he soon
+recovered his self-command, and resumed his usual mask; expressed
+his regret at not having sooner learned the wishes of the states;
+promised to remove the foreign troops within three months; and
+set off for Zealand, with assumed composure, but filled with
+the fury of a discovered traitor and a humiliated despot.
+
+A fleet under the command of Count Horn, the admiral of the United
+Provinces, waited at Flessingue to form his escort to Spain. At
+the very moment of his departure, William of Nassau, prince of
+Orange and governor of Zealand, waited on him to pay his official
+respects. The king, taking him apart from the other attendant
+nobles, recommended him to hasten the execution of several gentlemen
+and wealthy citizens attached to the newly introduced religious
+opinions. Then, quite suddenly, whether in the random impulse of
+suppressed rage, or that his piercing glance discovered William's
+secret feelings in his countenance, he accused him with having
+been the means of thwarting his designs. "Sire," replied Nassau,
+"it was the work of the national states."--"No!" cried Philip,
+grasping him furiously by the arm; "it was not done by the states,
+but by you, and you alone!"--Schiller. The words of Philip were:
+"_No,_no_los_estados_; _ma_vos,_vos,_vos!_" Vos thus used in
+Spanish is a term of contempt, equivalent to _toi_ in French.
+
+This glorious accusation was not repelled. He who had saved his
+country in unmasking the designs of its tyrant admitted by his
+silence his title to the hatred of the one and the gratitude
+of the other. On the 20th of August, Philip embarked and set
+sail; turning his back forever on the country which offered the
+first check to his despotism; and, after a perilous voyage, he
+arrived in that which permitted a free indulgence to his ferocious
+and sanguinary career.
+
+For some time after Philip's departure, the Netherlands continued
+to enjoy considerable prosperity. From the period of the Peace
+of Cateau-Cambresis, commerce and navigation had acquired new
+and increasing activity. The fisheries, but particularly that of
+herrings, became daily more important; that one alone occupying
+two thousand boats. While Holland, Zealand and Friesland made this
+progress in their peculiar branches of industry, the southern
+provinces were not less active or successful. Spain and the colonies
+offered such a mart for the objects of their manufacture that
+in a single year they received from Flanders fifty large ships
+filled with articles of household furniture and utensils. The
+exportation of woollen goods amounted to enormous sums. Bruges
+alone sold annually to the amount of four million florins of
+stuffs of Spanish, and as much of English, wool; and the least
+value of the florin then was quadruple its present worth. The
+commerce with England, though less important than that with Spain,
+was calculated yearly at twenty-four million florins, which was
+chiefly clear profit to the Netherlands, as their exportations
+consisted almost entirely of objects of their own manufacture.
+Their commercial relations with France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,
+and the Levant, were daily increasing. Antwerp was the centre of
+this prodigious trade. Several sovereigns, among others Elizabeth
+of England, had recognized agents in that city, equivalent to
+consuls of the present times; and loans of immense amount were
+frequently negotiated by them with wealthy merchants, who furnished
+them, not in negotiable bills or for unredeemable debentures,
+but in solid gold, and on a simple acknowledgment.
+
+Flanders and Brabant were still the richest and most flourishing
+portions of the state. Some municipal fetes given about this time
+afford a notion of their opulence. On one of these occasions
+the town of Mechlin sent a deputation to Antwerp, consisting
+of three hundred and twenty-six horsemen dressed in velvet and
+satin with gold and silver ornaments; while those of Brussels
+consisted of three hundred and forty, as splendidly equipped, and
+accompanied by seven huge triumphal chariots and seventy-eight
+carriages of various constructions--a prodigious number for those
+days.
+
+But the splendor and prosperity which thus sprung out of the
+national industry and independence, and which a wise or a generous
+sovereign would have promoted, or at least have established on a
+permanent basis, was destined speedily to sink beneath the bigoted
+fury of Philip II. The new government which he had established
+was most ingeniously adapted to produce every imaginable evil
+to the state. The king, hundreds of leagues distant, could not
+himself issue an order but with a lapse of time ruinous to any
+object of pressing importance. The stadtholderess, who represented
+him, having but a nominal authority, was forced to follow her
+instructions, and liable to have all her acts reversed; besides
+which, she had the king's orders to consult her private council
+on all affairs whatever, and the council of state on any matter
+of paramount importance. These two councils, however, contained
+the elements of a serious opposition to the royal projects, in
+the persons of the patriot nobles sprinkled among Philip's devoted
+creatures. Thus the influence of the crown was often thwarted, if
+not actually balanced; and the proposals which emanated from it
+frequently opposed by the stadtholderess herself. She, although
+a woman of masculine appearance and habits,[2] was possessed
+of no strength of mind. Her prevailing sentiment seemed to be
+dread of the king; yet she was at times influenced by a sense
+of justice, and by the remonstrances of the well-judging members
+of her councils. But these were not all the difficulties that
+clogged the machinery of the state. After the king, the government,
+and the councils, had deliberated on any measure, its execution
+rested with the provincial governors or stadtholders, or the
+magistrates of the towns. Almost everyone of these, being strongly
+attached to the laws and customs of the nation, hesitated, or
+refused to obey the orders conveyed to them, when those orders
+appeared illegal. Some, however, yielded to the authority of
+the government; so it often happened that an edict, which in one
+district was carried into full effect, was in others deferred,
+rejected, or violated, in a way productive of great confusion
+in the public affairs.
+
+[Footnote 2: Strada.]
+
+Philip was conscious that he had himself to blame for the consequent
+disorder. In nominating the members of the two councils, he had
+overreached himself in his plan for silently sapping the liberty
+that was so obnoxious to his designs. But to neutralize the influence
+of the restive members, he had left Granvelle the first place
+in the administration. This man, an immoral ecclesiastic, an
+eloquent orator, a supple courtier, and a profound politician,
+bloated with pride, envy, insolence, and vanity, was the real
+head of the government.[3] Next to him among the royalist party
+was Viglius, president of the privy council, an erudite schoolman,
+attached less to the broad principles of justice than to the letter
+of the laws, and thus carrying pedantry into the very councils of
+the state. Next in order came the count de Berlaimont, head of
+the financial department--a stern and intolerant satellite of the
+court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which
+operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed
+the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of
+the king were mere subaltern agents.
+
+[Footnote 3: Strada, a royalist, a Jesuit, and therefore a fair
+witness on this point, uses the following words in portraying the
+character of this odious minister: _Animum_avidum_invidumque,_ac_
+_simultates_inter_principem_et_populos_occulti_foventum_.]
+
+A government so composed could scarcely fail to excite discontent
+and create danger to the public weal. The first proof of incapacity
+was elicited by the measures required for the departure of the
+Spanish troops. The period fixed by the king had already expired,
+and these obnoxious foreigners were still in the country, living
+in part on pillage, and each day committing some new excess.
+Complaints were carried in successive gradation from the government
+to the council, and from the council to the king. The Spaniards
+were removed to Zealand; but instead of being embarked at any of
+its ports, they were detained there on various pretexts. Money,
+ships, or, on necessity, a wind, was professed to be still wanting
+for their final removal, by those who found excuses for delay in
+every element of nature or subterfuge of art. In the meantime
+those ferocious soldiers ravaged a part of the country. The simple
+natives at length declared they would open the sluices of their
+dikes; preferring to be swallowed by the waters rather than remain
+exposed to the cruelty and rapacity of those Spaniards. Still
+the embarkation was postponed; until the king, requiring his
+troops in Spain for some domestic project, they took their
+long-desired departure in the beginning of the year 1561.
+
+The public discontent at this just cause was soon, however,
+overwhelmed by one infinitely more important and lasting. The
+Belgian clergy had hitherto formed a free and powerful order in
+the state, governed and represented by four bishops, chosen by
+the chapters of the towns or elected by the monks of the principal
+abbeys. These bishops, possessing an independent territorial
+revenue, and not directly subject to the influence of the crown,
+had interests and feelings in common with the nation. But Philip
+had prepared, and the pope had sanctioned, the new system of
+ecclesiastical organization before alluded to, and the provisional
+government now put it into execution. Instead of four bishops, it
+was intended to appoint eighteen, their nomination being vested
+in the king. By a wily system of trickery, the subserviency of
+the abbeys was also aimed at. The new prelates, on a pretended
+principle of economy, were endowed with the title of abbots of
+the chief monasteries of their respective dioceses. Thus not
+only would they enjoy the immense wealth of these establishments,
+but the political rights of the abbots whom they were to succeed;
+and the whole of the ecclesiastical order become gradually
+represented (after the death of the then living abbots) by the
+creatures of the crown.
+
+The consequences of this vital blow to the integrity of the national
+institutions were evident; and the indignation of both clergy
+and laity was universal. Every legal means of opposition was
+resorted to, but the people were without leaders; the states
+were not in session. While the authority of the pope and the king
+combined, the reverence excited by the very name of religion, and
+the address and perseverance of the government, formed too powerful
+a combination, and triumphed over the national discontents which
+had not yet been formed into resistance. The new bishops were
+appointed; Granvelle securing for himself the archiepiscopal
+see of Mechlin, with the title of primate of the Low Countries.
+At the same time Paul IV. put the crowning point to the capital
+of his ambition, by presenting him with a cardinal's hat.
+
+The new bishops were to a man most violent, intolerant, and it
+may be conscientious, opponents to the wide-spreading doctrines
+of reform. The execution of the edicts against heresy was confided
+to them. The provincial governors and inferior magistrates were
+commanded to aid them with a strong arm; and the most unjust and
+frightful persecution immediately commenced. But still some of
+these governors and magistrates, considering themselves not only
+the officers of the prince, but the protectors of the people,
+and the defenders of the laws rather than of the faith, did not
+blindly conform to those harsh and illegal commands. The Prince
+of Orange, stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, and
+the count of Egmont, governor of Flanders and Artois, permitted
+no persecutions in those five provinces. But in various places
+the very people, even when influenced by their superiors, openly
+opposed it. Catholics as well as Protestants were indignant at
+the atrocious spectacles of cruelty presented on all sides. The
+public peace was endangered by isolated acts of resistance, and
+fears of a general insurrection soon became universal.
+
+The apparent temporizing or seeming uncertainty of the champions
+of the new doctrines formed the great obstacle to the reformation,
+and tended to prolong the dreadful struggle which was now only
+commencing in the Low Countries. It was a matter of great difficulty
+to convince the people that popery was absurd, and at the same time
+to set limits to the absurdity. Had the change been from blind
+belief to total infidelity, it would (as in a modern instance)
+have been much easier, though less lasting. Men might, in a time
+of such excitement, have been persuaded that _all_ religion
+productive of abuses such as then abounded was a farce, and that
+common sense called for its abolition. But when the boundaries
+of belief became a question; when the world was told it ought to
+reject some doctrines, and retain others which seemed as difficult
+of comprehension; when one tenet was pronounced idolatry, and
+to doubt another declared damnation--the world either exploded
+or recoiled: it went too far or it shrank back; plunged into
+atheism, or relapsed into popery. It was thus the reformation
+was checked in the first instance. Its supporters were the
+strong-minded and intelligent; and they never, and least of all
+in those days, formed the mass. Superstition and bigotry had
+enervated the intellects of the majority; and the high resolve
+of those with whom the great work commenced was mixed with a
+severity that materially retarded its progress. For though personal
+interests, as with Henry VIII. of England, and rigid enthusiasm,
+as with Calvin, strengthened the infant reformation; the first
+led to violence which irritated many, the second to austerity
+which disgusted them; and it was soon discovered that the change
+was almost confined to forms of practice, and that the essentials
+of abuse were likely to be carefully preserved. All these, and
+other arguments, artfully modified to distract the people, were
+urged by the new bishops in the Netherlands, and by those whom
+they employed to arrest the progress of reform.
+
+Among the various causes of the general confusion, the situation
+of Brabant gave to that province a peculiar share of suffering.
+Brussels, its capital, being the seat of government, had no
+particular chief magistrate, like the other provinces. The executive
+power was therefore wholly confided to the municipal authorities
+and the territorial proprietors. But these, though generally
+patriotic in their views, were divided into a multiplicity of
+different opinions. Rivalry and resentment produced a total want
+of union, ended in anarchy, and prepared the way for civil war.
+William of Nassau penetrated the cause, and proposed the remedy
+in moving for the appointment of a provincial governor. This
+proposition terrified Granvelle, who saw, as clearly as did his
+sagacious opponent in the council, that the nomination of a special
+protector between the people and the government would have paralyzed
+all his efforts for hurrying on the discord and resistance which
+were meant to be the plausible excuses for the introduction of
+arbitrary power. He therefore energetically dissented from the
+proposed measure, and William immediately desisted from his demand.
+But he at the same time claimed, in the name of the whole country,
+the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone was
+competent to decide what was just, legal, and obligatory for
+each province and every town. Governors, magistrates, and simple
+citizens, would thus have some rule for their common conduct;
+and the government would be at least endowed with the dignity
+of uniformity and steadiness. The ministers endeavored to evade
+a demand which they were at first unwilling openly to refuse.
+But the firm demeanor and persuasive eloquence of the Prince
+of Orange carried before them all who were not actually bought
+by the crown; and Granvelle found himself at length forced to
+avow that an express order from the king forbade the convocation
+of the states, on any pretext, during his absence.
+
+The veil was thus rent asunder which had in some measure concealed
+the deformity of Philip's despotism. The result was a powerful
+confederacy, among all who held it odious, for the overthrow of
+Granvelle, to whom they chose to attribute the king's conduct; thus
+bringing into practical result the sound principle of ministerial
+responsibility, without which, except in some peculiar case of
+local urgency or political crisis, the name of constitutional
+government is but a mockery. Many of the royalist nobles united
+for the national cause; and even the stadtholderess joined her
+efforts to theirs, for an object which would relieve her from
+the tyranny which none felt more than she did. Those who composed
+this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great
+variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic
+spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as
+an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride.
+The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him
+as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is
+doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange
+clearly saw that they were putting themselves in direct and personal
+opposition to the king himself. William alone, clear-sighted
+in politics and profound in his views, knew, in thus devoting
+himself to the public cause, the adversary with whom he entered
+the lists.
+
+This great man, for whom the national traditions still preserve
+the sacred title of "father" (Vader-Willem), and who was in truth
+not merely the parent but the political creator of the country,
+was at this period in his thirtieth year. He already joined the
+vigor of manhood to the wisdom of age. Brought up under the eye
+of Charles V., whose sagacity soon discovered his precocious
+talents, he was admitted to the councils of the emperor at a
+time of life which was little advanced beyond mere boyhood. He
+alone was chosen by this powerful sovereign to be present at
+the audiences which he gave to foreign ambassadors, which proves
+that in early youth he well deserved by his discretion the surname
+of "the taciturn." It was on the arm of William, then twenty
+years of age, and already named by him to the command of the
+Belgian troops, that this powerful monarch leaned for support on
+the memorable day of his abdication; and he immediately afterward
+employed him on the important mission of bearing the imperial
+crown to his brother Ferdinand, in whose favor he had resigned
+it. William's grateful attachment to Charles did not blind him
+to the demerits of Philip. He repaired to France, as one of the
+hostages on the part of the latter monarch for the fulfilment
+of the peace of Cateau-Cambresis; and he then learned from the
+lips of Henry II., who soon conceived a high esteem for him,
+the measures reciprocally agreed on by the two sovereigns for
+the oppression of their subjects. From that moment his mind was
+made up on the character of Philip, and on the part which he
+had himself to perform; and he never felt a doubt on the first
+point, nor swerved from the latter.
+
+But even before his patriotism was openly displayed, Philip had
+taken a dislike to one in whom his shrewdness quickly discovered
+an intellect of which he was jealous. He could not actually remove
+William from all interference with public affairs; but he refused
+him the government of Flanders, and opposed, in secret, his projected
+marriage with a princess of the House of Lorraine, which was
+calculated to bring him a considerable accession of fortune,
+and consequently of influence. It may be therefore said that
+William, in his subsequent conduct, was urged by motives of personal
+enmity against Philip. Be it so. We do not seek to raise him
+above the common feelings of humanity; and we should risk the
+sinking him below them, if we supposed him insensible to the
+natural effects of just resentment.
+
+The secret impulses of conduct can never be known beyond the
+individual's own breast; but actions must, however questionable,
+be taken as the tests of motives. In all those of William's
+illustrious career we can detect none that might be supposed to
+spring from vulgar or base feelings. If his hostility to Philip
+was indeed increased by private dislike, he has at least set an
+example of unparalleled dignity in his method of revenge; but in
+calmly considering and weighing, without deciding on the question,
+we see nothing that should deprive William of an unsullied title
+to pure and perfect patriotism. The injuries done to him by Philip
+at this period were not of a nature to excite any violent hatred.
+Enough of public wrong was inflicted to arouse the patriot, but
+not of private ill to inflame the man. Neither was William of
+a vindictive disposition. He was never known to turn the knife
+of an assassin against his royal rival, even when the blade hired
+by the latter glanced from him reeking with his blood. And though
+William's enmity may have been kept alive or strengthened by the
+provocations he received, it is certain that, if a foe to the
+king, he was, as long as it was possible, the faithful counsellor
+of the crown. He spared no pains to impress on the monarch who
+hated him the real means for preventing the coming evils; and
+had not a revolution been absolutely inevitable, it is he who
+would have prevented it.
+
+Such was the chief of the patriot party, chosen by the silent
+election of general opinion, and by that involuntary homage to
+genius which leads individuals in the train of those master-minds
+who take the lead in public affairs. Counts Egmont and Horn,
+and some others, largely shared with him the popular favor. The
+multitude could not for some time distinguish the uncertain and
+capricious opposition of an offended courtier from the determined
+resistance of a great man. William was still comparatively young;
+he had lived long out of the country; and it was little by little
+that his eminent public virtues were developed and understood.
+
+The great object of immediate good was the removal of Cardinal
+Granvelle. William boldly put himself at the head of the confederacy.
+He wrote to the king, conjointly with Counts Egmont and Horn,
+faithfully portraying the state of affairs. The duchess of Parma
+backed this remonstrance with a strenuous request for Granvelle's
+dismission. Philip's reply to the three noblemen was a mere tissue
+of duplicity to obtain delay, accompanied by an invitation to
+Count Egmont to repair to Madrid, to hear his sentiments at large
+by word of mouth. His only answer to the stadtholderess was a
+positive recommendation to use every possible means to disunite
+and breed ill-will among the three confederate lords. It was
+difficult to deprive William of the confidence of his friends,
+and impossible to deceive him. He saw the trap prepared by the
+royal intrigues, restrained Egmont for a while from the fatal
+step he was but too well inclined to take, and persuaded him and
+Horn to renew with him their firm but respectful representations;
+at the same time begging permission to resign their various
+employments, and simultaneously ceasing to appear at the court
+of the stadtholderess.
+
+In the meantime every possible indignity was offered to the cardinal
+by private pique and public satire. Several lords, following
+Count Egmont's example, had a kind of capuchon or fool's-cap
+embroidered on the liveries of their varlets; and it was generally
+known that this was meant as a practical parody on the cardinal's
+hat. The crowd laughed heartily at this stupid pleasantry; and
+the coarse satire of the times may be judged by a caricature,
+which was forwarded to the cardinal's own hands, representing him
+in the act of hatching a nest full of eggs, from which a crowd
+of bishops escaped, while overhead was the devil _in_propria_
+_persona_, with the following scroll: "This is my well-beloved
+son--listen to him!"
+
+Philip, thus driven before the popular voice, found himself forced
+to the choice of throwing off the mask at once, or of sacrificing
+Granvelle. An invincible inclination for manoeuvring and deceit
+decided him on the latter measure; and the cardinal, recalled
+but not disgraced, quitted the Netherlands on the 10th of March,
+1564. The secret instructions to the stadtholderess remained
+unrevoked; the president Viglius succeeded to the post which
+Granvelle had occupied; and it was clear that the projects of
+the king had suffered no change.
+
+Nevertheless some good resulted from the departure of the unpopular
+minister. The public fermentation subsided; the patriot lords
+reappeared at court; and the Prince of Orange acquired an increasing
+influence in the council and over the stadtholderess, who by his
+advice adopted a conciliatory line of conduct--a fallacious but
+still a temporary hope for the nation. But the calm was of short
+duration. Scarcely was this moderation evinced by the government,
+when Philip, obstinate in his designs, and outrageous in his
+resentment, sent an order to have the edicts against heresy put
+into most rigorous execution, and to proclaim throughout the
+seventeen provinces the furious decree of the Council of Trent.
+
+The revolting cruelty and illegality of the first edicts were
+already admitted. As to the decrees of this memorable council,
+they were only adapted for countries in submission to an absolute
+despotism. They were received in the Netherlands with general
+reprobation. Even the new bishops loudly denounced them as unjust
+innovations; and thus Philip found zealous opponents in those on
+whom he had reckoned as his most servile tools. The stadtholderess
+was not the less urged to implicit obedience to the orders of the
+king by Viglius and De Berlaimont, who took upon themselves an
+almost menacing tone. The duchess assembled a council of state,
+and asked its advice as to her proceedings. The Prince of Orange
+at once boldly proposed disobedience to measures fraught with
+danger to the monarchy and ruin to the nation. The council could
+not resist his appeal to their best feelings. His proposal that
+fresh remonstrances should be addressed to the king met with
+almost general support. The president Viglius, who had spoken
+in the opening of the council in favor of the king's orders, was
+overwhelmed by William's reasoning, and demanded time to prepare
+his reply. His agitation during the debate, and his despair of
+carrying the measures against the patriot party, brought on in
+the night an attack of apoplexy.
+
+It was resolved to despatch a special envoy to Spain, to explain
+to Philip the views of the council, and to lay before him a plan
+proposed by the Prince of Orange for forming a junction between
+the two councils and that of finance, and forming them into one
+body. The object of this measure was at once to give greater
+union and power to the provisional government, to create a central
+administration in the Netherlands, and to remove from some obscure
+and avaricious financiers the exclusive management of the national
+resources. The Count of Egmont, chosen by the council for this
+important mission, set out for Madrid in the month of February,
+1565. Philip received him with profound hypocrisy; loaded him
+with the most flattering promises; sent him back in the utmost
+elation: and when the credulous count returned to Brussels, he
+found that the written orders, of which he was the bearer, were
+in direct variance with every word which the king had uttered.
+
+These orders were chiefly concerning the reiterated subject of
+the persecution to be inflexibly pursued against the religious
+reformers. Not satisfied with the hitherto established forms of
+punishment, Philip now expressly commanded that the more revolting
+means decreed by his father in the rigor of his early zeal, such
+as burning, living burial, and the like, should be adopted; and
+he somewhat more obscurely directed that the victims should be no
+longer publicly immolated, but secretly destroyed. He endeavored,
+by this vague phraseology, to avoid the actual utterance of the word
+"inquisition"; but he thus virtually established that atrocious
+tribunal, with attributes still more terrific than even in Spain;
+for there the condemned had at least the consolation of dying
+in open day, and of displaying the fortitude which is rarely
+proof against the horror of a private execution. Philip had thus
+consummated his treason against the principles of justice and the
+practices of jurisprudence, which had heretofore characterized
+the country; and against the most vital of those privileges which
+he had solemnly sworn to maintain.
+
+His design of establishing this horrible tribunal, so impiously
+named "holy" by its founders, had been long suspected by the
+people of the Netherlands. The expression of those fears had
+reached him more than once. He as often replied by assurances
+that he had formed no such project, and particularly to Count
+d'Egmont during his recent visit to Madrid. But at that very time
+he assembled a conclave of his creatures, doctors of theology,
+of whom he formally demanded an opinion as to whether he could
+conscientiously tolerate two sorts of religion in the Netherlands.
+The doctors, hoping to please him, replied, that "he might, for
+the avoidance of a greater evil." Philip trembled with rage,
+and exclaimed, with a threatening tone, "I ask not if I _can_,
+but if I _ought_." The theologians read in this question the
+nature of the expected reply; and it was amply conformable to
+his wish. He immediately threw himself on his knees before a
+crucifix, and raising his hands toward heaven, put up a prayer
+for strength in his resolution to pursue as deadly enemies all
+who viewed that effigy with feelings different from his own. If
+this were not really a sacrilegious farce, it must be that the
+blaspheming bigot believed the Deity to be a monster of cruelty
+like himself.
+
+Even Viglius was terrified by the nature of Philip's commands;
+and the patriot lords once more withdrew from all share in the
+government, leaving to the duchess of Parma and her ministers the
+whole responsibility of the new measures. They were at length put
+into actual and vigorous execution in the beginning of the year
+1566. The inquisitors of the faith, with their familiars, stalked
+abroad boldly in the devoted provinces, carrying persecution
+and death in their train. Numerous but partial insurrections
+opposed these odious intruders. Every district and town became
+the scene of frightful executions or tumultuous resistance. The
+converts to the new doctrines multiplied, as usual, under the
+effects of persecution. "There was nowhere to be seen," says a
+contemporary author, "the meanest mechanic who did not find a
+weapon to strike down the murderers of his compatriots." Holland,
+Zealand and Utrecht alone escaped from those fast accumulating
+horrors. William of Nassau was there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION
+
+A.D. 1566
+
+The stadtholderess and her ministers now began to tremble. Philip's
+favorite counsellors advised him to yield to the popular despair;
+but nothing could change his determination to pursue his bloody
+game to the last chance. He had foreseen the impossibility of
+reducing the country to slavery as long as it maintained its
+tranquillity, and that union which forms in itself the elements
+and the cement of strength. It was from deep calculation that
+he had excited the troubles, and now kept them alive. He knew
+that the structure of illegal power could only be raised on the
+ruins of public rights and national happiness; and the materials
+of desolation found sympathy in his congenial mind.
+
+And now in reality began the awful revolution of the Netherlands
+against their tyrant. In a few years this so lately flourishing
+and happy nation presented a frightful picture; and in the midst
+of European peace, prosperity, and civilization, the wickedness
+of one prince drew down on the country he misgoverned more evils
+than it had suffered for centuries from the worst effects of
+its foreign foes.
+
+William of Nassau has been accused of having at length urged
+on the stadtholderess to promulgate the final edicts and the
+resolutions of the Council of Trent, and then retiring from the
+council of state. This line of conduct may be safely admitted and
+fairly defended by his admirers. He had seen the uselessness of
+remonstrance against the intentions of the king. Every possible
+means had been tried, without effect, to soften his pitiless
+heart to the sufferings of the country. At length the moment
+came when the people had reached that pitch of despair which is
+the great force of the oppressed, and William felt that their
+strength was now equal to the contest he had long foreseen. It
+is therefore absurd to accuse him of artifice in the exercise of
+that wisdom which rarely failed him on any important crisis. A
+change of circumstances gives a new name to actions and motives;
+and it would be hard to blame William of Nassau for the only point
+in which he bore the least resemblance to Philip of Spain--that
+depth of penetration, which the latter turned to every base and
+the former to every noble purpose.
+
+Up to the present moment the Prince of Orange and the Counts
+Egmont and Horn, with their partisans and friends, had sincerely
+desired the public peace, and acted in the common interest of
+the king and the people. But all the nobles had not acted with
+the same constitutional moderation. Many of those, disappointed
+on personal accounts, others professing the new doctrines, and
+the rest variously affected by manifold motives, formed a body
+of violent and sometimes of imprudent malcontents. The marriage
+of Alexander, prince of Parma, son of the stadtholderess, which
+was at this time celebrated at Brussels, brought together an
+immense number of these dissatisfied nobles, who became thus drawn
+into closer connection, and whose national candor was more than
+usually brought out in the confidential intercourse of society.
+Politics and patriotism were the common subjects of conversation
+in the various convivial meetings that took place. Two German
+nobles, Counts Holle and Schwarzemberg, at that period in the
+Netherlands, loudly proclaimed the favorable disposition of the
+princes of the empire toward the Belgians. It was supposed even
+thus early that negotiations had been opened with several of
+those sovereigns. In short, nothing seemed wanting but a leader,
+to give consistency and weight to the confederacy which was as
+yet but in embryo. This was doubly furnished in the persons of
+Louis of Nassau and Henry de Brederode. The former, brother of
+the Prince of Orange, was possessed of many of those brilliant
+qualities which mark men as worthy of distinction in times of
+peril. Educated at Geneva, he was passionately attached to the
+reformed religion, and identified in his hatred the Catholic
+Church and the tyranny of Spain. Brave and impetuous, he was,
+to his elder brother, but as an adventurous partisan compared
+with a sagacious general. He loved William as well as he did
+their common cause, and his life was devoted to both.
+
+Henry de Brederode, lord of Vienen and marquis of Utrecht, was
+descended from the ancient counts of Holland. This illustrious
+origin, which in his own eyes formed a high claim to distinction,
+had not procured him any of those employments or dignities which
+he considered his due. He was presumptuous and rash, and rather
+a fluent speaker than an eloquent orator. Louis of Nassau was
+thoroughly inspired by the justice of the cause he espoused; De
+Brederode espoused it for the glory of becoming its champion. The
+first only wished for action; the latter longed for distinction. But
+neither the enthusiasm of Nassau, nor the vanity of De Brederode,
+was allied with those superior attributes required to form a
+hero.
+
+The confederation acquired its perfect organization in the month
+of February, 1566, on the tenth of which month its celebrated
+manifesto was signed by its numerous adherents. The first name
+affixed to this document was that of Philip de Marnix, lord of
+St. Aldegonde, from whose pen it emanated; a man of great talents
+both as soldier and writer. Numbers of the nobility followed him
+on this muster-roll of patriotism, and many of the most zealous
+royalists were among them. This remarkable proclamation of general
+feeling consisted chiefly in a powerful reprehension of the illegal
+establishment of the Inquisition in the Low Countries, and a
+solemn obligation on the members of the confederacy to unite
+in the common cause against this detested nuisance. Men of all
+ranks and classes offered their signatures, and several Catholic
+priests among the rest. The Prince of Orange, and the Counts
+Egmont, Horn, and Meghem, declined becoming actual parties to
+this bold measure; and when the question was debated as to the
+most appropriate way of presenting an address to the stadtholderess
+these noblemen advised the mildest and most respectful demeanor
+on the part of the purposed deputation.
+
+At the first intelligence of these proceedings, the duchess of
+Parma, absorbed by terror, had no resource but to assemble hastily
+such members of the council of state as were at Brussels; and she
+entreated, by the most pressing letters, the Prince of Orange
+and Count Horn to resume their places at this council. But three
+courses of conduct seemed applicable to the emergency: to take up
+arms; to grant the demands of the confederates; or to temporize
+and to amuse them with a feint of moderation, until the orders
+of the king might be obtained from Spain. It was not, however,
+till after a lapse of four months that the council finally met
+to deliberate on these important questions; and during this long
+interval at such a crisis the confederates gained constant accessions
+to their numbers, and completely consolidated their plans. The
+opinions in the council were greatly divided as to the mode of
+treatment toward those whom one party considered as patriots
+acting in their constitutional rights, and the other as rebels
+in open revolt against the king. The Prince of Orange and De
+Berlaimont were the principal leaders and chief speakers on either
+side. But the reasonings of the former, backed by the urgency of
+events, carried the majority of the suffrages; and a promised
+redress of grievances was agreed on beforehand as the anticipated
+answer to the coming demands.
+
+Even while the council of state held its sittings, the report was
+spread through Brussels that the confederates were approaching.
+And at length they did enter the city, to the amount of some
+hundreds of the representatives of the first families in the
+country. On the following day, the 5th of April, 1566, they walked
+in solemn procession to the palace. Their demeanor was highly
+imposing, from their mingled air of forbearance and determination.
+All Brussels thronged out to gaze and sympathize with this
+extraordinary spectacle of men whose resolute step showed they
+were no common suppliants, but whose modest bearing had none
+of the seditious air of faction. The stadtholderess received
+the distinguished petitioners with courtesy, listened to their
+detail of grievances, and returned a moderate, conciliatory,
+but evasive answer.
+
+The confederation, which owed its birth to, and was cradled in
+social enjoyments, was consolidated in the midst of a feast.
+The day following this first deputation to the stadtholderess,
+De Brederode gave a grand repast to his associates in the Hotel
+de Culembourg. Three hundred guests were present. Inflamed by
+joy and hope, their spirits rose high under the influence of
+wine, and temperance gave way to temerity. In the midst of their
+carousing, some of the members remarked that when the stadtholderess
+received the written petition, Count Berlaimont observed to her
+that "she had nothing to fear from such a band of beggars"
+(_tas_de_GUEUX_). The fact was that many of the confederates
+were, from individual extravagance and mismanagement, reduced to
+such a state of poverty as to justify in some sort the sarcasm.
+The chiefs of the company being at that very moment debating on
+the name which they should choose for this patriotic league,
+the title of Gueux was instantly proposed, and adopted with
+acclamation. The reproach it was originally intended to convey
+became neutralized, as its general application to men of all
+ranks and fortunes concealed its effect as a stigma on many to
+whom it might be seriously applied. Neither were examples wanting
+of the most absurd and apparently dishonoring nicknames being
+elsewhere adopted by powerful political parties. "Long live the
+Gueux!" was the toast given and tumultuously drunk by this
+mad-brained company; and Brederode, setting no bounds to the
+boisterous excitement which followed, procured immediately, and
+slung across his shoulders, a wallet such as was worn by pilgrims
+and beggars; drank to the health of all present, in a wooden cup
+or porringer; and loudly swore that he was ready to sacrifice
+his fortune and life for the common cause. Each man passed round
+the bowl, which he first put to his lips, repeated the oath,
+and thus pledged himself to the compact. The wallet next went
+the rounds of the whole assembly, and was finally hung upon a
+nail driven into the wall for the purpose; and gazed on with
+such enthusiasm as the emblems of political or religious faith,
+however worthless or absurd, never fail to inspire in the minds
+of enthusiasts.
+
+The tumult caused by this ceremony, so ridiculous in itself, but
+so sublime in its results, attracted to the spot the Prince of
+Orange and Counts Egmont and Horn, whose presence is universally
+attributed by the historians to accident, but which was probably
+that kind of chance that leads medical practitioners in our days
+to the field where a duel is fought. They entered; and Brederode,
+who did the honors of the mansion, forced them to be seated, and
+to join in the festivity. The following was Egmont's account of
+their conduct: "We drank a single glass of wine each, to shouts
+of 'Long live the king! Long live the Gueux!' It was the first
+time I had heard the confederacy so named, and I avow that it
+displeased me; but the times were so critical that people were
+obliged to tolerate many things contrary to their inclinations, and
+I believed myself on this occasion to act with perfect innocence."
+The appearance of three such distinguished personages heightened
+the general excitement; and the most important assemblage that
+had for centuries met together in the Netherlands mingled the
+discussion of affairs of state with all the burlesque extravagance
+of a debauch. But this frantic scene did not finish the affair. What
+they resolved on while drunk, they prepared to perform when sober.
+Rallying signs and watchwords were adopted and soon displayed. It
+was thought that nothing better suited the occasion than the
+immediate adoption of the costume as well as the title of beggary.
+In a very few days the city streets were filled with men in gray
+cloaks, fashioned on the model of those used by mendicants and
+pilgrims. Each confederate caused this uniform to be worn by every
+member of his family, and replaced with it the livery of his
+servants. Several fastened to their girdles or their sword-hilts
+small wooden drinking-cups, clasp-knives, and other symbols of the
+begging fraternity; while all soon wore on their breasts a medal
+of gold or silver, representing on one side the effigy of Philip,
+with the words, "Faithful to the king"; and on the reverse, two
+hands clasped, with the motto, "Jusqu' a la besace" (Even to
+the wallet). From this origin arose the application of the word
+Gueux, in its political sense, as common to all the inhabitants
+of the Netherlands who embraced the cause of the Reformation and
+took up arms against their tyrant. Having presented two subsequent
+remonstrances to the stadtholderess, and obtained some consoling
+promises of moderation, the chief confederates quitted Brussels,
+leaving several directors to sustain their cause in the capital;
+while they themselves spread into the various provinces, exciting
+the people to join the legal and constitutional resistance with
+which they were resolved to oppose the march of bigotry and
+despotism.
+
+A new form of edict was now decided on by the stadtholderess
+and her council; and after various insidious and illegal but
+successful tricks, the consent of several of the provinces was
+obtained to the adoption of measures that, under a guise of
+comparative moderation, were little less abominable than those
+commanded by the king. These were formally signed by the council,
+and despatched to Spain to receive Philip's sanction, and thus
+acquire the force of law. The embassy to Madrid was confided to
+the marquis of Bergen and the baron de Montigny; the latter of
+whom was brother to Count Horn, and had formerly been employed
+on a like mission. Montigny appears to have had some qualms of
+apprehension in undertaking this new office. His good genius seemed
+for a while to stand between him and the fate which awaited him.
+An accident which happened to his colleague allowed an excuse
+for retarding his journey. But the stadtholderess urged him away:
+he set out, and reached his destination; not to defend the cause
+of his country at the foot of the throne, but to perish a victim
+to his patriotism.
+
+The situation of the patriot lords was at this crisis peculiarly
+embarrassing. The conduct of the confederates was so essentially
+tantamount to open rebellion, that the Prince of Orange and his
+friends found it almost impossible to preserve a neutrality between
+the court and the people. All their wishes urged them to join at
+once in the public cause; but they were restrained by a lingering
+sense of loyalty to the king, whose employments they still held,
+and whose confidence they were, therefore, nominally supposed
+to share. They seemed reduced to the necessity of coming to an
+explanation, and, perhaps, a premature rupture with the government;
+of joining in the harsh measures it was likely to adopt against
+those with whose proceedings they sympathized; or, as a last
+alternative, to withdraw, as they had done before, wholly from all
+interference in public affairs. Still their presence in the council
+of state was, even though their influence had greatly decreased,
+of vast service to the patriots, in checking the hostility of the
+court; and the confederates, on the other hand, were restrained
+from acts of open violence, by fear of the disapprobation of
+these their best and most powerful friends. Be their individual
+motives of reasoning what they might, they at length adopted
+the alternative above alluded to, and resigned their places.
+Count Horn retired to his estates; Count Egmont repaired to
+Aix-la-Chapelle, under the pretext of being ordered thither by
+his physicians; the Prince of Orange remained for a while at
+Brussels.
+
+In the meanwhile, the confederation gained ground every day. Its
+measures had totally changed the face of affairs in all parts
+of the nation. The general discontent now acquired stability,
+and consequent importance. The chief merchants of many of the
+towns enrolled themselves in the patriot band. Many active and
+ardent minds, hitherto withheld by the doubtful construction of
+the association, now freely entered into it when it took the
+form of union and respectability. Energy, if not excess, seemed
+legitimatized. The vanity of the leaders was flattered by the
+consequence they acquired; and weak minds gladly embraced an
+occasion of mixing with those whose importance gave both protection
+and concealment to their insignificance.
+
+An occasion so favorable for the rapid promulgation of the new
+doctrines was promptly taken advantage of by the French Huguenots
+and their Protestant brethren of Germany. The disciples of reform
+poured from all quarters into the Low Countries, and made prodigious
+progress, with all the energy of proselytes, and too often with
+the fury of fanatics. The three principal sects into which the
+reformers were divided, were those of the Anabaptists, the
+Calvinists, and the Lutherans. The first and least numerous were
+chiefly established in Friesland. The second were spread over
+the eastern provinces. Their doctrines being already admitted
+into some kingdoms of the north, they were protected by the most
+powerful princes of the empire. The third, and by far the most
+numerous and wealthy, abounded in the southern provinces, and
+particularly in Flanders. They were supported by the zealous
+efforts of French, Swiss, and German ministers; and their dogmas
+were nearly the same with those of the established religion of
+England. The city of Antwerp was the central point of union for
+the three sects; but the only principle they held in common was
+their hatred against popery, the Inquisition, and Spain.
+
+The stadtholderess had now issued orders to the chief magistrates
+to proceed with moderation against the heretics; orders which were
+obeyed in their most ample latitude by those to whose sympathies
+they were so congenial. Until then, the Protestants were satisfied
+to meet by stealth at night; but under this negative protection
+of the authorities they now boldly assembled in public.
+Field-preachings commenced in Flanders; and the minister who
+first set this example was Herman Stricker, a converted monk, a
+native of Overyssel, a powerful speaker, and a bold enthusiast.
+He soon drew together an audience of seven thousand persons. A
+furious magistrate rushed among this crowd, and hoped to disperse
+them sword in hand; but he was soon struck down, mortally wounded,
+with a shower of stones. Irritated and emboldened by this rash
+attempt, the Protestants assembled in still greater numbers near
+Alost; but on this occasion they appeared with poniards, guns, and
+halberds. They intrenched themselves under the protection of wagons
+and all sorts of obstacles to a sudden attack; placed outposts and
+videttes; and thus took the field in the doubly dangerous aspect of
+fanaticism and war. Similar assemblies soon spread over the whole
+of Flanders, inflamed by the exhortations of Stricker and another
+preacher, called Peter Dathen, of Poperingue. It was calculated
+that fifteen thousand men attended at some of these preachings;
+while a third apostle of Calvinism, Ambrose Ville, a Frenchman,
+successfully excited the inhabitants of Tournay, Valenciennes,
+and Antwerp, to form a common league for the promulgation of
+their faith. The sudden appearance of De Brederode at the latter
+place decided their plan, and gave the courage to fix on a day
+for its execution. An immense assemblage simultaneously quitted
+the three cities at a pre-concerted time; and when they united
+their forces at the appointed rendezvous, the preachings,
+exhortations, and psalm-singing commenced, under the auspices of
+several Huguenot and German ministers, and continued for several
+days in all the zealous extravagance which may be well imagined
+to characterize such a scene.
+
+The citizens of Antwerp were terrified for the safety of the place,
+and courier after courier was despatched to the stadtholderess at
+Brussels to implore her presence. The duchess, not daring to
+take such a step without the authority of the king, sent Count
+Meghem as her representative, with proposals to the magistrates
+to call out the garrison. The populace soon understood the object
+of this messenger; and assailing him with a violent outcry, forced
+him to fly from the city. Then the Calvinists petitioned the
+magistrates for permission to openly exercise their religion,
+and for the grant of a temple in which to celebrate its rites.
+The magistrates in this conjuncture renewed their application to
+the stadtholderess, and entreated her to send the Prince of Orange,
+as the only person capable of saving the city from destruction.
+The duchess was forced to adopt this bitter alternative; and the
+prince, after repeated refusals to mix again in public affairs,
+yielded, at length, less to the supplications of the stadtholderess
+than to his own wishes to do another service to the cause of his
+country. At half a league from the city he was met by De Brederode,
+with an immense concourse of people of all sects and opinions,
+who hailed him as a protector from the tyranny of the king, and
+a savior from the dangers of their own excess. Nothing could
+exceed the wisdom, the firmness, and the benevolence, with which
+he managed all conflicting interests, and preserved tranquillity
+amid a chaos of opposing prejudices and passions.
+
+From the first establishment of the field-preachings the
+stadtholderess had implored the confederate lords to aid her for
+the re-establishment of order. De Brederode seized this excuse for
+convoking a general meeting of the associates which consequently
+took place at the town of St. Trond, in the district of Liege.
+Full two thousand of the members appeared on the summons. The
+language held in this assembly was much stronger and less equivocal
+than that formerly used. The delay in the arrival of the king's
+answer presaged ill as to his intentions; while the rapid growth
+of the public power seemed to mark the present as the time for
+successfully demanding all that the people required. Several of
+the Catholic members, still royalists at heart, were shocked
+to hear a total liberty of conscience spoken of as one of the
+privileges sought for. The young count of Mansfield, among others,
+withdrew immediately from the confederation; and thus the first
+stone seemed to be removed from this imperfectly constructed
+edifice.
+
+The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont were applied to, and appointed
+by the stadtholderess, with full powers to treat with the
+confederates. Twelve of the latter, among whom were Louis of
+Nassau, De Brederode, and De Culembourg, met them by appointment
+at Duffle, a village not far from Mechlin. The result of the
+conference was a respectful but firm address to the stadtholderess,
+repelling her accusations of having entered into foreign treaties;
+declaring their readiness to march against the French troops should
+they set foot in the country; and claiming, with the utmost force
+of reasoning, the convocation of the states-general. This was
+replied to by an entreaty that they would still wait patiently for
+twenty-four days, in hopes of an answer from the king; and she sent
+the marquess of Bergen in all speed to Madrid, to support Montigny
+in his efforts to obtain some prompt decision from Philip. The
+king, who was then at Segovia, assembled his council, consisting
+of the duke of Alva and eight other grandees. The two deputies
+from the Netherlands attended at the deliberations, which were
+held for several successive days; but the king was never present.
+The whole state of affairs being debated with what appears a calm
+and dispassionate view, considering the hostile prejudices of this
+council, it was decided to advise the king to adopt generally a
+more moderate line of conduct in the Netherlands, and to abolish
+the inquisition; at the same time prohibiting under the most
+awful threats all confederation assemblage, or public preachings,
+under any pretext whatever.
+
+The king's first care on, receiving this advice was to order, in
+all the principal towns of Spain and the Netherlands, prayer and
+processions to implore the divine approbation on the resolutions
+which he had formed. He appeared then in person at the council of
+state, and issued a decree, by which he refused his consent to
+the convocation of the states-general, and bound himself to take
+several German regiments into his pay. He ordered the duchess
+of Parma, by a private letter, to immediately cause to be raised
+three thousand cavalry and ten thousand foot, and he remitted to
+her for this purpose three hundred thousand florins in gold. He
+next wrote with his own hand to several of his partisans in the
+various towns, encouraging them in their fidelity to his purpose,
+and promising them his support. He rejected the adoption of the
+moderation recommended to him; but he consented to the abolition
+of the inquisition in its most odious sense, re-establishing
+that modified species of ecclesiastical tyranny which had been
+introduced into the Netherlands by Charles V. The people of that
+devoted country were thus successful in obtaining one important
+concession from the king, and in meeting unexpected consideration
+from this Spanish council. Whether these measures had been calculated
+with a view to their failure, it is not now easy to determine;
+at all events they came too late. When Philip's letters reached
+Brussels, the iconoclasts or image-breakers were abroad.
+
+It requires no profound research to comprehend the impulse which
+leads a horde of fanatics to the most monstrous excesses. That
+the deeds of the iconoclasts arose from the spontaneous outburst
+of mere vulgar fury, admits of no doubt. The aspersion which
+would trace those deeds to the meeting of St. Trond, and fix
+the infamy on the body of nobility there assembled, is scarcely
+worthy of refutation. The very lowest of the people were the
+actors as well as the authors of the outrages, which were at
+once shocking to every friend of liberty, and injurious to that
+sacred cause. Artois and western Flanders were the scenes of the
+first exploits of the iconoclasts. A band of peasants, intermixed
+with beggars and various other vagabonds, to the amount of about
+three hundred, urged by fanaticism and those baser passions which
+animate every lawless body of men, armed with hatchets, clubs, and
+hammers, forced open the doors of some of the village churches
+in the neighborhood of St. Omer, and tore down and destroyed not
+only the images and relics of saints, but those very ornaments
+which Christians of all sects hold sacred, and essential to the
+most simple rites of religion.
+
+The cities of Ypres, Lille, and other places of importance, were
+soon subject to similar visitations; and the whole of Flanders
+was in a few days ravaged by furious multitudes, whose frantic
+energy spread terror and destruction on their route. Antwerp was
+protected for a while by the presence of the Prince of Orange;
+but an order from the stadtholderess having obliged him to repair
+to Brussels, a few nights after his departure the celebrated
+cathedral shared the fate of many a minor temple, and was utterly
+pillaged. The blind fury of the spoilers was not confined to
+the mere effigies which they considered the types of idolatry,
+nor even to the pictures, the vases, the sixty-six altars, and
+their richly wrought accessories; but it was equally fatal to the
+splendid organ, which was considered the finest at that time in
+existence. The rapidity and the order with which this torch-light
+scene was acted, without a single accident among the numerous
+doers, has excited the wonder of almost all its early historians.
+One of them does not hesitate to ascribe the "miracle" to the
+absolute agency of demons. For three days and nights these revolting
+scenes were acted, and every church in the city shared the fate
+of the cathedral, which next to St. Peter's at Rome was the most
+magnificent in Christendom.
+
+Ghent, Tournay, Valenciennes, Mechlin, and other cities, were next
+the theatres of similar excesses; and in an incredibly short space
+of time above four hundred churches were pillaged in Flanders and
+Brabant. Zealand, Utrecht, and others of the northern provinces,
+suffered more or less; Friesland, Guelders, and Holland alone
+escaped, and even the latter but in partial instances.
+
+These terrible scenes extinguished every hope of reconciliation
+with the king. An inveterate and interminable hatred was now
+established between him and the people; for the whole nation
+was identified with deeds which were in reality only shared by
+the most base, and were loathsome to all who were enlightened.
+It was in vain that the patriot nobles might hope or strive to
+exclupate themselves; they were sure to be held criminal either
+in fact or by implication. No show of loyalty, no efforts to
+restore order, no personal sacrifice, could save them from the
+hatred or screen them from the vengeance of Philip.
+
+The affright of the stadtholderess during the short reign of
+anarchy and terror was without bounds. She strove to make her
+escape from Brussels, and was restrained from so doing only by
+the joint solicitations of Viglius and the various knights of
+the order of the golden Fleece, consisting of the first among
+the nobles of all parties. But, in fact, a species of violence
+was used to restrain her from this most fatal step; for Viglius
+gave orders that the gates of the city should be shut, and egress
+refused to anyone belonging to the court. The somewhat less terrified
+duchess now named Count Mansfield governor of the town, reinforced
+the garrison, ordered arms to be distributed to all her adherents,
+and then called a council to deliberate on the measures to be
+adopted. A compromise with the confederates and the reformers
+was unanimously agreed to. The Prince of Orange and Counts Egmont
+and Horn were once more appointed to this arduous arbitration
+between the court and the people. Necessity now extorted almost
+every concession which had been so long denied to justice and
+prudence. The confederates were declared absolved from all
+responsibility relative to their proceedings. The suppression of
+the Inquisition, the abolition of the edicts against heresy, and
+a permission for the preachings, were simultaneously published.
+
+The confederates on their side undertook to remain faithful to
+the service of the king, to do their best for the establishment
+of order, and to punish the iconoclasts. A regular treaty to
+this effect was drawn up and executed by the respective
+plenipotentiaries, and formally approved by the stadtholderess,
+who affixed her sign-manual to the instrument. She only consented
+to this measure after a long struggle, and with tears in her
+eyes; and it was with a trembling hand that she wrote an account
+of these transactions to the king.
+
+Soon after this the several governors repaired to their respective
+provinces, and their efforts for the re-establishment of tranquillity
+were attended with various degrees of success. Several of the
+ringleaders in the late excesses were executed; and this severity
+was not confined to the partisans of the Catholic Church. The
+Prince of Orange and Count Egmont, with others of the patriot
+lords, set the example of this just severity. John Casambrot,
+lord of Beckerzeel, Egmont's secretary, and a leading member
+of the confederation, put himself at the head of some others
+of the associated gentlemen, fell upon a refractory band of
+iconoclasts near Gramont, in Flanders, and took thirty prisoners,
+of whom he ordered twenty-eight to be hanged on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF REQUESENS
+
+A.D. 1566--1573
+
+All the services just related in the common cause of the country
+and the king produced no effect on the vindictive spirit of the
+latter. Neither the lapse of time, the proofs of repentance, nor
+the fulfilment of their duty, could efface the hatred excited
+by a conscientious opposition to even one design of despotism.
+
+Philip was ill at Segovia when he received accounts of the excesses
+of the image-breakers, and of the convention concluded with the
+heretics. Despatches from the stadtholderess, with private advice
+from Viglius, Egmont, Mansfield, Meghem, De Berlaimont, and others,
+gave him ample information as to the real state of things, and they
+thus strove to palliate their having acceded to the convention. The
+emperor even wrote to his royal nephew, imploring him to treat his
+wayward subjects with moderation, and offered his mediation between
+them. Philip, though severely suffering, gave great attention to
+the details of this correspondence, which he minutely examined,
+and laid before his council of state, with notes and observations
+taken by himself. But he took special care to send to them only
+such parts as he chose them to be well informed upon; his natural
+distrust not suffering him to have any confidential communication
+with men.
+
+Again the Spanish council appears to have interfered between
+the people of the Netherlands and the enmity of the monarch;
+and the offered mediation of the emperor was recommended to his
+acceptance, to avoid the appearance of a forced concession to
+the popular will. Philip was also strongly urged to repair to
+the scene of the disturbances; and a main question of debate was,
+whether he should march at the head of an army or confide himself
+to the loyalty and good faith of his Belgian subjects. But the
+indolence or the pride of Philip was too strong to admit of his
+taking so vigorous a measure; and all these consultations ended
+in two letters to the stadtholderess. In the first he declared
+his firm intention to visit the Netherlands in person; refused
+to convoke the states-general; passed in silence the treaties
+concluded with the Protestants and the confederates; and finished
+by a declaration that he would throw himself wholly on the fidelity
+of the country. In his second letter, meant for the stadtholderess
+alone, he authorized her to assemble the states-general if public
+opinion became too powerful for resistance, but on no account
+to let it transpire that he had under any circumstances given
+his consent.
+
+During these deliberations in Spain, the Protestants in the
+Netherlands amply availed themselves of the privileges they had
+gained. They erected numerous wooden churches with incredible
+activity. Young and old, noble and plebeian, of these energetic
+men, assisted in the manual labors of these occupations; and the
+women freely applied the produce of their ornaments and jewels
+to forward the pious work. But the furious outrages of the
+iconoclasts had done infinite mischief to both political and
+religious freedom; many of the Catholics, and particularly the
+priests, gradually withdrew themselves from the confederacy,
+which thus lost some of its most firm supporters. And, on the
+other hand, the severity with which some of its members pursued
+the guilty offended and alarmed the body of the people, who could
+not distinguish the shades of difference between the love of
+liberty and the practice of licentiousness.
+
+The stadtholderess and her satellites adroitly took advantage of
+this state of things to sow dissension among the patriots. Autograph
+letters from Philip to the principal lords were distributed among
+them with such artful and mysterious precautions as to throw the
+rest into perplexity, and give each suspicions of the other's
+fidelity. The report of the immediate arrival of Philip had also
+considerable effect over the less resolute or more selfish; and
+the confederation was dissolving rapidly under the operations
+of intrigue, self-interest, and fear. Even the Count of Egmont
+was not proof against the subtle seductions of the wily monarch,
+whose severe yet flattering letters half frightened and half
+soothed him into a relapse of royalism. But with the Prince of
+Orange Philip had no chance of success. It is unquestionable
+that, be his means of acquiring information what they might,
+he did succeed in procuring minute intelligence of all that was
+going on in the king's most secret council. He had from time to
+time procured copies of the stadtholderess's despatches; but
+the document which threw the most important light upon the real
+intentions of Philip was a confidential epistle to the stadtholderess
+from D'Alava, the Spanish minister at Paris, in which he spoke in
+terms too clear to admit any doubt as to the terrible example
+which the king was resolved to make among the patriot lords.
+Bergen and Montigny confirmed this by the accounts they sent
+home from Madrid of the alteration in the manner with which they
+were treated by Philip and his courtiers; and the Prince of Orange
+was more firmly decided in his opinions of the coming vengeance
+of the tyrant.
+
+William summoned his brother Louis, the Counts Egmont, Horn,
+and Hoogstraeten, to a secret conference at Termonde; and he
+there submitted to them this letter of Alava's, with others which
+he had received from Spain, confirmatory of his worst fears.
+Louis of Nassau voted for open and instant rebellion; William
+recommended a cautious observance of the projects of government,
+not doubting but a fair pretext would be soon given to justify the
+most vigorous overt acts of revolt; but Egmont at once struck a
+death-blow to the energetic project of one brother, and the cautious
+amendment of the other, by declaring his present resolution to
+devote himself wholly to the service of the king, and on no
+inducement whatever to risk the perils of rebellion. He expressed
+his perfect reliance on the justice and the goodness of Philip
+when once he should see the determined loyalty of those whom he
+had hitherto had so much reason to suspect; and he extorted the
+others to follow his example. The two brothers and Count Horn
+implored him in their turn to abandon this blind reliance on
+the tyrant; but in vain. His new and unlooked-for profession of
+faith completely paralyzed their plans. He possessed too largely
+the confidence of both the soldiery and the people to make it
+possible to attempt any serious measure of resistance in which
+he would not take a part. The meeting broke up without coming to
+any decision. All those who bore a part in it were expected at
+Brussels to attend the council of state; Egmont alone repaired
+thither. The stadtholderess questioned him on the object of the
+conference at Termonde: he only replied by an indignant glance,
+at the same time presenting a copy of Alava's letter.
+
+The stadtholderess now applied her whole efforts to destroy the
+union among the patriot lords. She, in the meantime, ordered
+levies of troops to the amount of some thousands, the command
+of which was given to the nobles on whose attachment she could
+reckon. The most vigorous measures were adopted. Noircarmes,
+governor of Hainault, appeared before Valenciennes, which, being
+in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined
+attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission,
+and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate
+refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble
+of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the
+direction of John de Soreas, gathered together in the neighborhood
+of Lille and Tournay, with a show of attacking these places. But
+the governor of the former town dispersed one party of them; and
+Noircarmes surprised and almost destroyed the main body--their
+leader falling in the action. These were the first encounters
+of the civil war, which raged without cessation for upward of
+forty years in these devoted countries, and which is universally
+allowed to be the most remarkable that ever desolated any isolated
+portion of Europe. The space which we have already given to the
+causes which produced this memorable revolution, now actually
+commenced, will not allow us to do more than rapidly sketch the
+fierce events that succeeded each other with frightful rapidity.
+
+While Valenciennes prepared for a vigorous resistance, a general
+synod of the Protestants was held at Antwerp, and De Brederode
+undertook an attempt to see the stadtholderess, and lay before
+her the complaints of this body; but she refused to admit him into
+the capital. He then addressed to her a remonstrance in writing,
+in which he reproached her with her violation of the treaties;
+on the faith of which the confederates had dispersed, and the
+majority of the Protestants laid down their arms. He implored
+her to revoke the new proclamations, by which she prohibited them
+from the free exercise of their religion; and, above all things,
+he insisted on the abandonment of the siege of Valenciennes, and
+the disbanding of the new levies. The stadtholderess's reply
+was one of haughty reproach and defiance. The gauntlet was now
+thrown down; no possible hope of reconciliation remained; and the
+whole country flew to arms. A sudden attempt on the part of the
+royalists, under Count Meghem, against Bois-le-duc, was repulsed
+by eight hundred men, commanded by an officer named Bomberg, in
+the immediate service of De Brederode, who had fortified himself
+in his garrison town of Vienen.
+
+The Prince of Orange maintained at Antwerp an attitude of extreme
+firmness and caution. His time for action had not yet arrived;
+but his advice and protection were of infinite importance on
+many occasions. John de Marnix, lord of Toulouse, brother of
+Philip de St. Aldegonde, took possession of Osterweel on the
+Scheldt, a quarter of a league from Antwerp, and fortified himself
+in a strong position. But he was impetuously attacked by the
+Count de Lannoy with a considerable force, and perished, after
+a desperate defence, with full one thousand of his followers.
+Three hundred who laid down their arms were immediately after
+the action butchered in cold blood. Antwerp was on this occasion
+saved from the excesses of its divided and furious citizens,
+and preserved from the horrors of pillage, by the calmness and
+intrepidity of the Prince of Orange. Valenciennes at length
+capitulated to the royalists, disheartened by the defeat and
+death of De Marnix, and terrified by a bombardment of thirty-six
+hours. The governor, two preachers, and about forty of the citizens
+were hanged by the victors, and the reformed religion prohibited.
+Noircarmes promptly followed up his success. Maestricht, Turnhout,
+and Bois-le-duc submitted at his approach; and the insurgents
+were soon driven from all the provinces, Holland alone excepted.
+Brederode fled to Germany, where he died the following year.
+
+The stadtholderess showed, in her success, no small proofs of
+decision. She and her counsellors, acting under orders from the
+king, were resolved on embarrassing to the utmost the patriot lords;
+and a new oath of allegiance, to be proposed to every functionary
+of the state, was considered as a certain means for attaining
+this object without the violence of an unmerited dismissal. The
+terms of this oath were strongly opposed to every principle of
+patriotism and toleration. Count Mansfield was the first of the
+nobles who took it. The duke of Arschot, Counts Meghem, Berlaimont,
+and Egmont followed his example. The counts of Horn, Hoogstraeten,
+De Brederode, and others, refused on various pretexts. Every
+artifice and persuasion was tried to induce the Prince of Orange
+to subscribe to this new test; but his resolution had been for
+some time formed. He saw that every chance of constitutional
+resistance to tyranny was for the present at an end. The time
+for petitioning was gone by. The confederation was dissolved. A
+royalist army was in the field; the Duke of Alva was notoriously
+approaching at the head of another, more numerous. It was worse than
+useless to conclude a hollow convention with the stadtholderess
+of mock loyalty on his part and mock confidence on hers. Many
+other important considerations convinced William that his only
+honorable, safe, and wise course was to exile himself from the
+Netherlands altogether, until more propitious circumstances allowed
+of his acting openly, boldly, and with effect.
+
+Before he put this plan of voluntary banishment into execution,
+he and Egmont had a parting interview at the village of Willebroek,
+between Antwerp and Brussels. Count Mansfield, and Berti, secretary
+to the stadtholderess, were present at this memorable meeting.
+The details of what passed were reported to the confederates
+by one of their party, who contrived to conceal himself in the
+chimney of the chamber. Nothing could exceed the energetic warmth
+with which the two illustrious friends reciprocally endeavored
+to turn each other from their respective line of conduct; but
+in vain. Egmont's fatal confidence in the king was not to be
+shaken; nor was Nassau's penetrating mind to be deceived by the
+romantic delusion which led away his friend. They separated with
+most affectionate expressions; and Nassau was even moved to tears.
+His parting words were to the following effect: "Confide, then,
+since it must be so, in the gratitude of the king; but a painful
+presentiment (God grant it may prove a false one!) tells me that
+you will serve the Spaniards as the bridge by which they will
+enter the country, and which they will destroy as soon as they
+have passed over it!"
+
+On the 11th of April, a few days after this conference, the Prince
+of Orange set out for Germany, with his three brothers and his
+whole family, with the exception of his eldest son Philip William,
+count de Beuren, whom he left behind a student in the University
+of Louvain. He believed that the privileges of the college and
+the franchises of Brabant would prove a sufficient protection to
+the youth; and this appears the only instance in which William's
+vigilant prudence was deceived. The departure of the prince seemed
+to remove all hope of protection or support from the unfortunate
+Protestants, now left the prey of their implacable tyrant. The
+confederation of the nobles was completely broken up. The counts
+of Hoogstraeten, Bergen, and Culembourg followed the example of
+the Prince of Orange, and escaped to Germany; and, the greater
+number of those who remained behind took the new oath of allegiance,
+and became reconciled to the government.
+
+This total dispersion of the confederacy brought all the towns
+of Holland into obedience to the king. But the emigration which
+immediately commenced threatened the country with ruin. England
+and Germany swarmed with Dutch and Belgian refugees; and all the
+efforts of the stadtholderess could not restrain the thousands
+that took to flight. She was not more successful in her attempts to
+influence the measures of the king. She implored him, in repeated
+letters, to abandon his design of sending a foreign army into
+the country, which she represented as being now quite reduced
+to submission and tranquillity. She added that the mere report
+of this royal invasion (so to call it) had already deprived the
+Netherlands of many thousands of its best inhabitants; and that
+the appearance of the troops would change it into a desert. These
+arguments, meant to dissuade, were the very means of encouraging
+Philip in his design. He conceived his project to be now ripe
+for the complete suppression of freedom; and Alva soon began
+his march.
+
+On the 5th of May, 1567, this celebrated captain, whose reputation
+was so quickly destined to sink into the notoriety of an executioner,
+began his memorable march; and on the 22d of August he, with
+his two natural sons, and his veteran army consisting of about
+fifteen thousand men, arrived at the walls of Brussels. The
+discipline observed on this march was a terrible forewarning to
+the people of the Netherlands of the influence of the general and
+the obedience of the troops. They had little chance of resistance
+against such soldiers so commanded.
+
+Several of the Belgian nobility went forward to meet Alva, to
+render him the accustomed honors, and endeavor thus early to
+gain his good graces. Among them was the infatuated Egmont, who
+made a present to Alva of two superb horses, which the latter
+received with a disdainful air of condescension. Alva's first
+care was the distribution of his troops--several thousands of
+whom were placed in Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns,
+and the remainder reserved under his own immediate orders at
+Brussels. His approach was celebrated by universal terror; and
+his arrival was thoroughly humiliating to the duchess of Parma.
+He immediately produced his commission as commander-in-chief
+of the royal armies in the Netherlands; but he next showed her
+another, which confided to him powers infinitely more extended
+than any Marguerite herself had enjoyed, and which proved to her
+that the almost sovereign power over the country was virtually
+vested in him.
+
+Alva first turned his attention to the seizure of those patriot
+lords whose pertinacious infatuation left them within his reach.
+He summoned a meeting of all the members of the council of state
+and the knights of the order of the Golden Fleece, to deliberate
+on matters of great importance. Counts Egmont and Horn attended,
+among many others; and at the conclusion of the council they
+were both arrested (some historians assert by the hands of Alva
+and his eldest son), as was also Van Straeten, burgomaster of
+Antwerp, and Casambrot, Egmont's secretary. The young count of
+Mansfield appeared for a moment at this meeting; but, warned by
+his father of the fate intended him, as an original member of
+the confederation, he had time to fly. The count of Hoogstraeten
+was happily detained by illness, and thus escaped the fate of
+his friends. Egmont and Horn were transferred to the citadel
+of Ghent, under an escort of three thousand Spanish soldiers.
+Several other persons of the first families were arrested; and
+those who had originally been taken in arms were executed without
+delay.
+
+[Illustration: STORMING THE BARRICADES AT BRUSSELS DURING THE
+REVOLUTION OF 1848.]
+
+The next measures of the new governor were the reestablishment of
+the Inquisition, the promulgation of the decrees of the Council
+of Trent, the revocation of the duchess of Parma's edicts, and
+the royal refusal to recognize the terms of her treaties with
+the Protestants. He immediately established a special tribunal,
+composed of twelve members, with full powers to inquire into
+and pronounce judgment on every circumstance connected with the
+late troubles. He named himself president of this council, and
+appointed a Spaniard, named Vargas, as vice-president--a wretch
+of the most diabolical cruelty. Several others of the judges
+were also Spaniards, in direct infraction of the fundamental
+laws of the country. This council, immortalized by its infamy,
+was named by the new governor (for so Alva was in fact, though
+not yet in name), the Council of Troubles. By the people it was
+soon designed the Council of Blood. In its atrocious proceedings
+no respect was paid to titles, contracts, or privileges, however
+sacred. Its judgments were without appeal. Every subject of the
+state was amenable to its summons; clergy and laity, the first
+individuals of the country, as well as the most wretched outcasts
+of society. Its decrees were passed with disgusting rapidity
+and contempt of form. Contumacy was punished with exile and
+confiscation. Those who, strong in innocence, dared to brave
+a trial were lost without resource. The accused were forced to
+its bar without previous warning. Many a wealthy citizen was
+dragged to trial four leagues' distance, tied to a horse's tail.
+The number of victims was appalling. On one occasion, the town
+of Valenciennes alone saw fifty-five of its citizens fall by
+the hands of the executioner. Hanging, beheading, quartering and
+burning were the every-day spectacles. The enormous confiscations
+only added to the thirst for gold and blood by which Alva and his
+satellites were parched. History offers no example of parallel
+horrors; for while party vengeance on other occasions has led to
+scenes of fury and terror, they arose, in this instance, from
+the vilest cupidity and the most cold-blooded cruelty.
+
+After three months of such atrocity, Alva, fatigued rather than
+satiated with butchery, resigned his hateful functions wholly
+into the hands of Vargas, who was chiefly aided by the members
+Delrio and Dela Torre. Even at this remote period we cannot repress
+the indignation excited by the mention of those monsters, and
+it is impossible not to feel satisfaction in fixing upon their
+names the brand of historic execration. One of these wretches,
+called Hesselts, used at length to sleep during the mock trials
+of the already doomed victims; and as often as he was roused
+up by his colleagues, he used to cry out mechanically, "To the
+gibbet! to the gibbet!" so familiar was his tongue with the sounds
+of condemnation.
+
+The despair of the people may be imagined from the fact that,
+until the end of the year 1567, their only consolation was the
+prospect of the king's arrival! He never dreamed of coming. Even
+the delight of feasting in horrors like these could not conquer
+his indolence. The good duchess of Parma--for so she was in
+comparison with her successor--was not long left to oppose the
+feeble barrier of her prayers between Alva and his victims. She
+demanded her dismissal from the nominal dignity, which was now
+but a title of disgrace. Philip granted it readily, accompanied
+by a hypocritical letter, a present of thirty thousand crowns,
+and the promise of an annual pension of twenty thousand more.
+She left Brussels in the month of April, 1568, raised to a high
+place in the esteem and gratitude of the people, less by any
+actual claims from her own conduct than by its fortuitous contrast
+with the infamy of her successor. She retired to Italy, and died
+at Naples in the month of February, 1586.
+
+Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, duke of Alva, was of a distinguished
+family in Spain, and even boasted of his descent from one of the
+Moorish monarchs who had reigned in the insignificant kingdom of
+Toledo. When he assumed the chief command in the Netherlands, he
+was sixty years of age; having grown old and obdurate in pride,
+ferocity, and avarice. His deeds must stand instead of a more
+detailed portrait, which, to be thoroughly striking, should be
+traced with a pen dipped in blood. He was a fierce and clever
+soldier, brought up in the school of Charles V., and trained
+to his profession in the wars of that monarch in Germany, and
+subsequently in that of Philip II. against France. In addition
+to the horrors acted by the Council of Blood, Alva committed many
+deeds of collateral but minor tyranny; among others, he issued
+a decree forbidding, under severe penalties, any inhabitant of
+the country to marry without his express permission. His furious
+edicts against emigration were attempted to be enforced in vain.
+Elizabeth of England opened all the ports of her kingdom to the
+Flemish refugees, who carried with them those abundant stores of
+manufacturing knowledge which she wisely knew to be the elements
+of national wealth.
+
+Alva soon summoned the Prince of Orange, his brothers, and all
+the confederate lords, to appear before the council and answer
+to the charge of high treason. The prince gave a prompt and
+contemptuous answer, denying the authority of Alva and his council,
+and acknowledging for his judges only the emperor, whose vassal
+he was, or the king of Spain in person, as president of the order
+of the Golden Fleece. The other lords made replies nearly similar.
+The trials of each were, therefore, proceeded on, by contumacy;
+confiscation of property being an object almost as dear to the
+tyrant viceroy as the death of his victims. Judgments were promptly
+pronounced against those present or absent, alive or dead. Witness
+the case of the unfortunate marquess of Bergues, who had previously
+expired at Madrid, as was universally believed, by poison; and his
+equally ill-fated colleague in the embassy, the Baron Montigny,
+was for a while imprisoned at Segovia, where he was soon after
+secretly beheaded, on the base pretext of former disaffection.
+
+The departure of the duchess of Parma having left Alva undisputed
+as well as unlimited authority, he proceeded rapidly in his terrible
+career. The count of Beuren was seized at Louvain, and sent prisoner
+to Madrid; and wherever it was possible to lay hands on a suspected
+patriot, the occasion was not neglected. It would be a revolting
+task to enter into a minute detail of all the horrors committed,
+and impossible to record the names of the victims who so quickly
+fell before Alva's insatiate cruelty. The people were driven to
+frenzy. Bands of wretches fled to the woods and marshes; whence,
+half famished and perishing for want, they revenged themselves with
+pillage and murder. Pirates infested and ravaged the coast; and
+thus, from both sea and land, the whole extent of the Netherlands
+was devoted to carnage and ruin. The chronicles of Brabant and
+Holland, chiefly written in Flemish by contemporary authors,
+abound in thrilling details of the horrors of this general
+desolation, with long lists of those who perished. Suffice it
+to say, that, on the recorded boast of Alva himself, he caused
+eighteen thousand inhabitants of the Low Countries to perish by
+the hands of the executioner, during his less than six years'
+sovereignty in the Netherlands.
+
+The most important of these tragical scenes was now soon to be
+acted. The Counts Egmont and Horn, having submitted to some previous
+interrogatories by Vargas and others, were removed from Ghent to
+Brussels, on the 3d of June, under a strong escort. The following
+day they passed through the mockery of a trial before the Council
+of Blood; and on the 5th they were both beheaded in the great
+square of Brussels, in the presence of Alva, who gloated on the
+spectacle from a balcony that commanded the execution. The same day
+Van Straeten, and Casambrot shared the fate of their illustrious
+friends, in the castle of Vilvorde; with many others whose names
+only find a place in the local chronicles of the times. Egmont
+and Horn met their fate with the firmness expected from their
+well-proved courage.
+
+These judicial murders excited in the Netherlands an agitation
+without bounds. It was no longer hatred or aversion that filled
+men's minds, but fury and despair. The outbursting of a general
+revolt was hourly watched for. The foreign powers, without exception,
+expressed their disapproval of these executions. The emperor
+Maximilian II., and all the Catholic princes, condemned them.
+The former sent his brother expressly to the king of Spain, to
+warn him that without a cessation of his cruelties he could not
+restrain a general declaration from the members of the empire,
+which would, in all likelihood, deprive him of every acre of
+land in the Netherlands. The princes of the Protestant states
+held no terms in the expression of their disgust and resentment;
+and everything seemed now ripe, both at home and abroad, to favor
+the enterprise on which the Prince of Orange was determined to
+risk his fortune and his life. But his principal resources were
+to be found in his genius and courage, and in the heroic devotion
+partaken by his whole family in the cause of their country. His
+brother, Count John, advanced him a considerable sum of money;
+the Flemings and Hollanders, in England and elsewhere, subscribed
+largely; the prince himself, after raising loans in every possible
+way on his private means, sold his jewels, his plate, and even
+the furniture of his houses, and threw the amount into the common
+fund.
+
+Two remarkable events took place this year in Spain, and added
+to the general odium entertained against Philip's character
+throughout Europe. The first was the death of his son Don Carlos,
+whose sad story is too well known in connection with the annals
+of his country to require a place here; the other was the death
+of the queen. Universal opinion assigned poison as the cause;
+and Charles IX. of France, her brother, who loved her with great
+tenderness, seems to have joined in this belief. Astonishment
+and horror filled all minds on the double denouement of this
+romantic tragedy; and the enemies of the tyrant reaped all the
+advantages it was so well adapted to produce them.
+
+The Prince of Orange, having raised a considerable force in Germany,
+now entered on the war with all the well-directed energy by which
+he was characterized. The queen of England, the French Huguenots,
+and the Protestant princes of Germany, all lent him their aid
+in money or in men; and he opened his first campaign with great
+advantage. He formed his army into four several corps, intending
+to enter the country on as many different points, and by a sudden
+irruption on that most vulnerable to rouse at once the hopes and
+the co-operation of the people. His brothers Louis and Adolphus,
+at the head of one of these divisions, penetrated into Friesland,
+and there commenced the contest. The count of Aremberg, governor
+of this province, assisted by the Spanish troops under Gonsalvo
+de Bracamonte, quickly opposed the invaders. They met on the 24th
+of May near the abbey of Heiligerlee, which gave its name to
+the battle; and after a short contest the royalists were defeated
+with great loss. The count of Aremberg and Adolphus of Nassau
+encountered in single combat, and fell by each other's hands.
+The victory was dearly purchased by the loss of this gallant
+prince, the first of his illustrious family who have on so many
+occasions, down to these very days, freely shed their blood for the
+freedom and happiness of the country which may be so emphatically
+called their own.
+
+Alva immediately hastened to the scene of this first action, and
+soon forced Count Louis to another at a place called Jemminghem,
+near the town of Embden, on the 21st of July. Their forces were
+nearly equal, about fourteen thousand on either side; but all the
+advantage of discipline and skill was in favor of Alva; and the
+consequence was, the total rout of the patriots with a considerable
+loss in killed and the whole of the cannon and baggage. The entire
+province of Friesland was thus again reduced to obedience, and
+Alva hastened back to Brabant to make head against the Prince
+of Orange. The latter had now under his command an army of
+twenty-eight thousand men--an imposing force in point of numbers,
+being double that which his rival was able to muster. He soon
+made himself master of the towns of Tongres and St. Trond, and
+the whole province of Liege was in his power. He advanced boldly
+against Alva, and for several months did all that manoeuvring
+could do to force him to a battle. But the wily veteran knew
+his trade too well; he felt sure that in time the prince's force
+would disperse for want of pay and supplies; and he managed his
+resources so ably that with little risk and scarcely any loss
+he finally succeeded in his object. In the month of October the
+prince found himself forced to disband his large but undisciplined
+force; and he retired into France to recruit his funds and consider
+on the best measures for some future enterprise.
+
+The insolent triumph of Alva knew no bounds. The rest of the
+year was consumed in new executions. The hotel of Culembourg,
+the early cradle of De Brederode's confederacy, was razed to the
+ground, and a pillar erected on the spot commemorative of the
+deed; while Alva, resolved to erect a monument of his success as
+well as of his hate, had his own statue in brass, formed of the
+cannons taken at Jemminghem, set up in the citadel of Antwerp,
+with various symbols of power and an inscription of inflated
+pride.
+
+The following year was ushered in by a demand of unwonted and
+extravagant rapacity; the establishment of two taxes on property,
+personal and real, to the amount of the hundredth penny (or denier)
+on each kind; and at every transfer or sale ten per cent on personal
+and five per cent for real property. The states-general, of whom
+this demand was made, were unanimous in their opposition, as well
+as the ministers; but particularly De Berlaimont and Viglius.
+Alva was so irritated that he even menaced the venerable president
+of the council, but could not succeed in intimidating him. He
+obstinately persisted in his design for a considerable period;
+resisting arguments and prayers, and even the more likely means
+tried for softening his cupidity, by furnishing him with sums
+from other sources equivalent to those which the new taxes were
+calculated to produce. To his repeated threats against Viglius
+the latter replied, that "he was convinced the king would not
+condemn him unheard; but that at any rate his gray hairs saved
+him from any ignoble fear of death."
+
+A deputation was sent from the states-general to Philip explaining
+the impossibility of persevering in the attempted taxes, which
+were incompatible with every principle of commercial liberty.
+But Alva would not abandon his design till he had forced every
+province into resistance, and the king himself commanded him to
+desist. The events of this and the following year, 1570, may
+be shortly summed up; none of any striking interest or eventual
+importance having occurred. The sufferings of the country were
+increasing from day to day under the intolerable tyranny which
+bore it down. The patriots attempted nothing on land; but their
+naval force began from this time to acquire that consistency
+and power which was so soon to render it the chief means of
+resistance and the great source of wealth. The privateers or
+corsairs, which began to swarm from every port in Holland and
+Zealand, and which found refuge in all those of England, sullied
+many gallant exploits by instances of culpable excess; so much
+so that the Prince of Orange was forced to withdraw the command
+which he had delegated to the lord of Dolhain, and to replace
+him by Gislain de Fiennes: for already several of the exiled
+nobles and ruined merchants of Antwerp and Amsterdam had joined
+these bold adventurers; and purchased or built, with the remnant
+of their fortunes, many vessels, in which they carried on a most
+productive warfare against Spanish commerce through the whole
+extent of the English Channel, from the mouth of the Embs to
+the harbor of La Rochelle.
+
+One of those frightful inundations to which the northern provinces
+were so constantly exposed occurred this year, carrying away
+the dikes, and destroying lives and properly to a considerable
+amount. In Friesland alone twenty thousand men were victims to this
+calamity. But no suffering could affect the inflexible sternness of
+the duke of Alva; and to such excess did he carry his persecution
+that Philip himself began to be discontented, and thought his
+representative was overstepping the bounds of delegated tyranny.
+He even reproached him sharply in some of his despatches. The
+governor replied in the same strain; and such was the effect of
+this correspondence that Philip resolved to remove him from his
+command. But the king's marriage with Anne of Austria, daughter
+of the emperor Maximilian, obliged him to defer his intentions
+for a while; and he at length named John de la Cerda, duke of
+Medina-Celi, for Alva's successor. Upward of a year, however,
+elapsed before this new governor was finally appointed; and he
+made his appearance on the coast of Flanders with a considerable
+fleet, on the 11th of May, 1572. He was afforded on this very
+day a specimen of the sort of people he came to contend with;
+for his fleet was suddenly attacked by that of the patriots,
+and many of his vessels burned and taken before his eyes, with
+their rich cargoes and considerable treasures intended for the
+service of the state.
+
+The duke of Medina-Celi proceeded rapidly to Brussels, where
+he was ceremoniously received by Alva, who, however, refused
+to resign the government, under the pretext that the term of
+his appointment had not expired, and that he was resolved first
+to completely suppress all symptoms of revolt in the northern
+provinces. He succeeded in effectually disgusting La Cerda, who
+almost immediately demanded and obtained his own recall to Spain.
+Alva, left once more in undisputed possession of his power, turned
+it with increased vigor into new channels of oppression. He was soon
+again employed in efforts to effect the levying of his favorite
+taxes; and such was the resolution of the tradesmen of Brussels,
+that, sooner than submit, they almost universally closed their
+shops altogether. Alva, furious at this measure, caused sixty of
+the citizens to be seized, and ordered them to be hanged opposite
+their own doors. The gibbets were actually erected, when, on the
+very morning of the day fixed for the executions, he received
+despatches that wholly disconcerted him and stopped their completion.
+
+To avoid an open rupture with Spain, the queen of England had
+just at this time interdicted the Dutch and Flemish privateers
+from taking shelter in her ports. William de la Marck, count of
+Lunoy, had now the chief command of this adventurous force. He
+was distinguished by an inveterate hatred against the Spaniards,
+and had made a wild and romantic vow never to cut his hair or
+beard till he had avenged the murders of Egmont and Horn. He was
+impetuous and terrible in all his actions, and bore the surname
+of "the wild boar of the Ardennes." Driven out of the harbors of
+England, he resolved on some desperate enterprise; and on the
+1st of April he succeeded in surprising the little town of Brille,
+in the island of Voorn, situate between Zealand and Holland. This
+insignificant place acquired great celebrity from this event,
+which may be considered the first successful step toward the
+establishment of liberty and the republic.
+
+Alva was confounded by the news of this exploit, but with his
+usual activity he immediately turned his whole attention toward
+the point of greatest danger. His embarrassment, however, became
+every day more considerable. Lunoy's success was the signal of a
+general revolt. In a few days every town in Holland and Zealand
+declared for liberty, with the exception of Amsterdam and Middleburg,
+where the Spanish garrisons were too strong for the people to
+attempt their expulsion.
+
+The Prince of Orange, who had been ou the watch for a favorable
+moment, now entered Brabant at the head of twenty thousand men,
+composed of French, German, and English, and made himself master
+of several important places; while his indefatigable brother
+Louis, with a minor force, suddenly appeared in Hainault, and,
+joined by a large body of French Huguenots under De Genlis, he
+seized on Mons, the capital of the province, on the 25th of May.
+
+Alva turned first toward the recovery of this important place,
+and gave the command of the siege to his son Frederic of Toledo,
+who was assisted by the counsels of Noircarmes and Vitelli; but
+Louis of Nassau held out for upward of three months, and only
+surrendered on an honorable capitulation in the month of September;
+his French allies having been first entirely defeated, and their
+brave leader De Genlis taken prisoner. The Prince of Orange had
+in the meantime secured possession of Louvain, Ruremonde, Mechlin,
+and other towns, carried Termonde and Oudenarde by assault, and
+made demonstrations which seemed to court Alva once more to try
+the fortune of the campaign in a pitched battle. But such were
+not William's real intentions, nor did the cautious tactics of
+his able opponent allow him to provoke such a risk. He, however,
+ordered his son Frederic to march with all his force into Holland,
+and he soon undertook the siege of Haerlem. By the time that Mons
+fell again into the power of the Spaniards, sixty-five towns
+and their territories, chiefly in the northern provinces, had
+thrown off the yoke. The single port of Flessingue contained
+one hundred and fifty patriot vessels, well armed and equipped;
+and from that epoch may be dated the rapid growth of the first
+naval power in Europe, with the single exception of Great Britain.
+
+It is here worthy of remark, that all the horrors of which the
+people of Flanders were the victims, and in their full proportion,
+had not the effect of exciting them to revolt; but they rose up
+with fury against the payment of the new taxes. They sacrificed
+everything sooner than pay these unjust exactions--_Omnia_dabant_,
+_ne_decimam_darant_. The next important event in these wars
+was the siege of Haerlem, before which place the Spaniards were
+arrested in their progress for seven months, and which they at
+length succeeded in taking with a loss of ten thousand men.
+
+The details of this memorable siege are calculated to arouse
+every feeling of pity for the heroic defenders, and of execration
+against the cruel assailants. A widow, named Kenau Hasselaer,
+gained a niche in history by her remarkable valor at the head of
+a battalion of three hundred of her townswomen, who bore a part
+in all the labors and perils of the siege. After the surrender,
+and in pursuance of Alva's common system, his ferocious son caused
+the governor and the other chief officers to be beheaded; and
+upward of two thousand of the worn-out garrison and burghers
+were either put to the sword, or tied two and two and drowned
+in the lake which gives its name to the town. Tergoes in South
+Beveland, Mechlin, Naerden, and other towns, were about the same
+period the scenes of gallant actions, and of subsequent cruelties
+of the most revolting nature as soon as they fell into the power
+of the Spaniards. Strada, with all his bigotry to the Spanish
+cause, admits that these excesses were atrocious crimes rather
+than just punishments: _non_poena,_sed_flagitium_. Horrors like
+these were sure to force reprisals on the part of the maddened
+patriots. De la Marck carried on his daring exploits with a cruelty
+which excited the indignation of the Prince of Orange, by whom
+he was removed from his command. The contest was for a while
+prosecuted with a decrease of vigor proportioned to the serious
+losses on both sides; money and the munitions of war began to
+fail; and though the Spaniards succeeded in taking The Hague,
+they were repulsed before Alkmaer with great loss, and their
+fleet was almost entirely destroyed in a naval combat on the
+Zuyder Zee. The count Bossu, their admiral, was taken in this
+fight, with about three hundred of his best sailors.
+
+Holland was now from one end to the other the theatre of the
+most shocking events. While the people performed deeds of the
+greatest heroism, the perfidy and cruelty of the Spaniards had
+no bounds. The patriots saw more danger in submission than in
+resistance; each town, which was in succession subdued, endured
+the last extremities of suffering before it yielded, and victory
+was frequently the consequence of despair. This unlooked-for
+turn in affairs decided the king to remove Alva, whose barbarous
+and rapacious conduct was now objected to even by Philip, when
+it produced results disastrous to his cause. Don Luis Zanega y
+Requesens, commander of the order of Malta, was named to the
+government of the Netherlands. He arrived at Brussels on the
+17th of November, 1573; and on the 18th of that following month,
+the monster whom he succeeded set out for Spain, loaded with the
+booty to which he had waded through oceans of blood, and with
+the curses of the country, which, however, owed its subsequent
+freedom to the impulse given by his intolerable cruelty. He repaired
+to Spain; and after various fluctuations of favor and disgrace
+at the hands of his congenial master, he died in his bed, at
+Lisbon, in 1582, at the advanced age of seventy-four years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TO THE PACIFICATION OF GHENT
+
+A.D. 1573--1576
+
+The character of Requesens was not more opposed to that of his
+predecessor, than were the instructions given to him for his
+government. He was an honest, well-meaning, and moderate man,
+and the king of Spain hoped that by his influence and a total
+change of measures he might succeed in recalling the Netherlands
+to obedience. But, happily for the country, this change was adopted
+too late for success; and the weakness of the new government
+completed the glorious results which the ferocity of the former
+had prepared.
+
+Requesens performed all that depended on him, to gain the confidence
+of the people. He caused Alva's statue to be removed; and hoped
+to efface the memory of the tyrant by dissolving the Council of
+Blood and abandoning the obnoxious taxes which their inventor
+had suspended rather than abolished. A general amnesty was also
+promulgated against the revolted provinces; they received it
+with contempt and defiance. Nothing then was left to Requesens
+but to renew the war; and this he found to be a matter of no
+easy execution. The finances were in a state of the greatest
+confusion; and the Spanish troops were in many places seditious,
+in some openly mutinous, Alva having left large arrears of pay
+due to almost all, notwithstanding the immense amount of his
+pillage and extortion. Middleburg, which had long sustained a
+siege against all the efforts of the patriots, was now nearly
+reduced by famine, notwithstanding the gallant efforts of its
+governor, Mondragon. Requesens turned his immediate attention
+to the relief of this important place; and he soon assembled,
+at Antwerp and Berg-op-Zoom, a fleet of sixty vessels for that
+purpose. But Louis Boisot, admiral of Zealand, promptly repaired
+to attack this force; and after a severe action he totally defeated
+it, and killed De Glimes, one of its admirals, under the eyes of
+Requesens himself, who, accompanied by his suite, stood during
+the whole affair on the dike of Schakerloo. This action took place
+the 29th of January, 1574; and, on the 19th of February following,
+Middleburg surrendered, after a resistance of two years. The Prince
+of Orange granted such conditions as were due to the bravery of
+the governor; and thus set an example of generosity and honor
+which greatly changed the complexion of the war. All Zealand was
+now free; and the intrepid Admiral Boisot gained another victory
+on the 30th of May--destroying several of the Spanish vessels, and
+taking some others, with their Admiral Von Haemstede. Frequent
+naval enterprises were also undertaken against the frontiers of
+Flanders; and while the naval forces thus harassed the enemy on
+every vulnerable point, the unfortunate provinces of the interior
+were ravaged by the mutinous and revolted Spaniards, and by the
+native brigands, who pillaged both royalists and patriots with
+atrocious impartiality.
+
+To these manifold evils was now added one more terrible, in the
+appearance of the plague, which broke out at Ghent in the month
+of October, and devastated a great part of the Netherlands; not,
+however, with that violence with which it rages in more southern
+climates.
+
+Requesens, overwhelmed by difficulties, yet exerted himself to
+the utmost to put the best face on the affairs of government.
+His chief care was to appease the mutinous soldiery: he even
+caused his plate to be melted, and freely gave the produce toward
+the payment of their arrears. The patriots, well informed of this
+state of things, labored to turn it to their best advantage. They
+opened the campaign in the province of Guelders, where Louis of
+Nassau, with his younger brother Henry, and the prince Palatine,
+son of the elector Frederick III., appeared at the head of eleven
+thousand men; the Prince of Orange prepared to join him with an
+equal number; but Requesens promptly despatched Sanchez d'Avila
+to prevent this junction. The Spanish commander quickly passed
+the Meuse near Nimeguen; and on the 14th of April he forced Count
+Louis to a battle, on the great plain called Mookerheyde, close
+to the village of Mook. The royalists attacked with their usual
+valor; and, after two hours of hard fighting, the confederates
+were totally defeated. The three gallant princes were among the
+slain, and their bodies were never afterward discovered. It has
+been stated, on doubtful authority, that Louis of Nassau, after
+having lain some time among the heaps of dead, dragged himself
+to the side of the river Meuse, and while washing his wounds
+was inhumanly murdered by some straggling peasants, to whom he
+was unknown. The unfortunate fate of this enterprising prince
+was a severe blow to the patriot cause, and a cruel affliction
+to the Prince of Orange. He had now already lost three brothers
+in the war; and remained alone, to revenge their fate and sustain
+the cause for which they had perished.
+
+D'Avila soon found his victory to be as fruitless as it was
+brilliant. The ruffian troops, by whom it was gained, became
+immediately self-disbanded; threw off all authority; hastened
+to possess themselves of Antwerp; and threatened to proceed to
+the most horrible extremities if their pay was longer withheld.
+The citizens succeeded with difficulty in appeasing them, by
+the sacrifice of some money in part payment of their claims.
+Requesens took advantage of their temporary calm, and despatched
+them promptly to take part in the siege of Leyden.
+
+This siege formed another of those numerous instances which became
+so memorable from the mixture of heroism and horror. Jean Vanderdoes,
+known in literature by the name of Dousa, and celebrated for his
+Latin poems, commanded the place. Valdez, who conducted the siege,
+urged Dousa to surrender; when the latter replied, in the name of
+the inhabitants, "that when provisions failed them, they would
+devour their left hands, reserving the right to defend their
+liberty." A party of the inhabitants, driven to disobedience and
+revolt by the excess of misery to which they were shortly reduced,
+attempted to force the burgomaster, Vanderwerf, to supply them with
+bread, or yield up the place. But he sternly made the celebrated
+answer, which, cannot be remembered without shuddering--"Bread I
+have none; but if my death can afford you relief, tear my body
+in pieces, and let those who are most hungry devour it!"
+
+But in this extremity relief at last was afforded by the decisive
+measures of the Prince of Orange, who ordered all the neighboring
+dikes to be opened and the sluices raised, thus sweeping away the
+besiegers on the waves of the ocean: the inhabitants of Leyden
+were apprised of this intention by means of letters intrusted
+to the safe carriage of pigeons trained for the purpose. The
+inundation was no sooner effected than hundreds of flat-bottomed
+boats brought abundance of supplies to the half-famished town;
+while a violent storm carried the sea across the country for
+twenty leagues around, and destroyed the Spanish camp, with above
+one thousand soldiers, who were overtaken by the flood. This
+deliverance took place on the 3d of October, on which day it
+is still annually celebrated by the descendants of the grateful
+citizens.
+
+It was now for the first time that Spain would consent to listen
+to advice or mediation, which had for its object the termination
+of this frightful war. The emperor Maximilian II. renewed at
+this epoch his efforts with Philip; and under such favorable
+auspices conferences commenced at Breda, where the counts
+Swartzenberg and Hohenloe, brothers-in-law of the Prince of Orange,
+met, on the part of the emperor, the deputies from the king of
+Spain and the patriots; and hopes of a complete pacification
+were generally entertained. But three months of deliberation
+proved their fallacy. The patriots demanded toleration for the
+reformed religion. The king's deputies obstinately refused it.
+The congress was therefore broken up; and both oppressors and
+oppressed resumed their arms with increased vigor and tenfold
+desperation.
+
+Requesens had long fixed his eyes on Zealand as the scene of an
+expedition by which he hoped to repair the failure before Leyden;
+and he caused an attempt to be made on the town of Zuriczee, in
+the island of Scauwen, which merits record as one of the boldest
+and most original enterprises of the war.
+
+The little islands of Zealand are separated from each other by
+narrow branches of the sea, which are fordable at low water;
+and it was by such a passage, two leagues in breadth, and till
+then untried, that the Spanish detachment of one thousand seven
+hundred and fifty men, under Ulloa and other veteran captains,
+advanced to their exploit in the midst of dangers greatly increased
+by a night of total darkness. Each man carried round his neck
+two pounds of gunpowder, with a sufficient supply of biscuit
+for two days; and holding their swords and muskets high over
+their heads, they boldly waded forward, three abreast, in some
+places up to their shoulders in water. The alarm was soon given;
+and a shower of balls was poured upon the gallant band, from
+upward of forty boats which the Zealanders sent rapidly toward
+the spot. The only light afforded to either party was from the
+flashes of their guns; and while the adventurers advanced with
+undaunted firmness, their equally daring assailants, jumping
+from their boats into the water, attacked them with oars and
+hooked handspikes, by which many of the Spaniards were destroyed.
+The rearguard, in this extremity, cut off from their companions,
+was obliged to retreat; but the rest, after a considerable loss,
+at length reached the land, and thus gained possession of the
+island, on the night of the 28th of September, 1575.
+
+Requesens quickly afterward repaired to the scene of this gallant
+exploit, and commenced the siege of Zuriczee, which he did not
+live to see completed. After having passed the winter months
+in preparation for the success of this object which he had so
+much at heart, he was recalled to Brussels by accounts of new
+mutinies in the Spanish cavalry; and the very evening before
+he reached the city he was attacked by a violent fever, which
+carried him off five days afterward, on the 5th of March, 1516.
+
+The suddenness of Requesen's illness had not allowed time for
+even the nomination of a successor, to which he was authorized by
+letters patent from the king. It is believed that his intention
+was to appoint Count Mansfield to the command of the army, and De
+Berlaimont to the administration of civil affairs. The government,
+however, now devolved entirely into the hands of the council of
+state, which was at that period composed of nine members. The
+principal of these was Philip de Croi, duke of Arschot; the other
+leading members were Viglius, Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont; and
+the council was degraded by numbering, among the rest, Debris
+and De Roda, two of the notorious Spaniards who had formed part
+of the Council of Blood.
+
+The king resolved to leave the authority in the hands of this
+incongruous mixture, until the arrival of Don John of Austria,
+his natural brother, whom he had already named to the office of
+governor-general. But in the interval the government assumed an
+aspect of unprecedented disorder; and widespread anarchy embraced
+the whole country. The royal troops openly revolted, and fought
+against each other like deadly enemies. The nobles, divided in
+their views, arrogated to themselves in different places the
+titles and powers of command. Public faith and private probity
+seemed alike destroyed. Pillage, violence and ferocity were the
+commonplace characteristics of the times.
+
+Circumstances like these may be well supposed to have revived
+the hopes of the Prince of Orange, who quickly saw amid this
+chaos the elements of order, strength, and liberty. Such had
+been his previous affliction at the harrowing events which he
+witnessed and despaired of being able to relieve, that he had
+proposed to the patriots of Holland and Zealand to destroy the
+dikes, submerge the whole country, and abandon to the waves the
+soil which refused security to freedom. But Providence destined
+him to be the savior, instead of the destroyer, of his country. The
+chief motive of this excessive desperation had been the apparent
+desertion by Queen Elizabeth of the cause which she had hitherto
+so mainly assisted. Offended at the capture of some English ships
+by the Dutch, who asserted that they carried supplies for the
+Spaniards, she withdrew from them her protection; but by timely
+submission they appeased her wrath; and it is thought by some
+historians that even thus early the Prince of Orange proposed to
+place the revolted provinces wholly under her protection. This,
+however, she for the time refused; but she strongly solicited
+Philip's mercy for these unfortunate countries, through the Spanish
+ambassador at her court.
+
+In the meantime the council of state at Brussels seemed disposed
+to follow up as far as possible the plans of Requesens. The siege
+of Zuriczee was continued; but speedy dissensions among the members
+of the government rendered their authority contemptible, if not
+utterly extinct, in the eyes of the people. The exhaustion of
+the treasury deprived them of all power to put an end to the
+mutinous excesses of the Spanish troops, and the latter carried
+their licentiousness to the utmost bounds. Zuriczee, admitted to
+a surrender, and saved from pillage by the payment of a large
+sum, was lost to the royalists within three months, from the
+want of discipline in its garrison; and the towns and burghs
+of Brabant suffered as much from the excesses of their nominal
+protectors as could have been inflicted by the enemy. The mutineers
+at length, to the number of some thousands, attacked and carried
+by force the town of Alost, at equal distances between Brussels,
+Ghent, and Antwerp, imprisoned the chief citizens, and levied
+contributions on all the country round. It was then that the
+council of state found itself forced to proclaim them rebels,
+traitors, and enemies to the king and the country, and called
+on all loyal subjects to pursue and exterminate them wherever
+they were found in arms.
+
+This proscription of the Spanish mutineers was followed by the
+convocation of the states-general, and the government thus hoped
+to maintain some show of union and some chance of authority.
+But a new scene of intestine violence completed the picture of
+executive inefficiency. On the 4th of September, the grand bailiff
+of Brabant, as lieutenant of the Baron de Hesse, governor of
+Brussels, entered the council chamber by force, and arrested all
+the members present, on suspicion of treacherously maintaining
+intelligence with the Spaniards. Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont
+were imprisoned, with some others. Viglius escaped this indignity
+by being absent froth indisposition. This bold measure was hailed
+by the people with unusual joy, as the signal for that total
+change in the government which they reckoned on as the prelude
+to complete freedom.
+
+The states-general were all at this time assembled, with the
+exception of those of Flanders, who joined the others with but
+little delay. The general reprobation against the Spaniards procured
+a second decree of proscription; and their desperate conduct
+justified the utmost violence with which they might be pursued.
+They still held the citadels of Ghent and Antwerp, as well as
+Maestricht, which they had seized on, sacked, and pillaged with
+all the fury which a barbarous enemy inflicts on a town carried
+by assault. On the 3d of November, the other body of mutineers,
+in possession of Alost, marched to the support of their fellow
+brigands in the citadel of Antwerp; and both, simultaneously
+attacking this magnificent city, became masters of it in all
+points, in spite of a vigorous resistance on the part of the
+citizens. They then began a scene of rapine and destruction
+unequalled in the annals of these desperate wars. More than five
+hundred private mansions and the splendid town-house were delivered
+to the flames: seven thousand citizens perished by the sword or
+in the waters of the Scheldt. For three days the carnage and
+the pillage went on with unheard-of fury; and the most opulent
+town in Europe was thus reduced to ruin and desolation by a few
+thousand frantic ruffians. The loss was valued at above two million
+golden crowns. Vargas and Romero were the principal leaders of
+this infernal exploit; and De Roda gained a new title to his
+immortality of shame by standing forth as its apologist.
+
+The states-general, assembled at Ghent, were solemnly opened on
+the 14th of September. Being apprehensive of a sudden attack from
+the Spanish troops in the citadel, they proposed a negotiation,
+and demanded a protecting force from the Prince of Orange, who
+immediately entered into a treaty with their envoy, and sent to
+their assistance eight companies of infantry and seventeen pieces
+of cannon, under the command of the English colonel, Temple.
+In the midst of this turmoil and apparent insecurity, the
+states-general proceeded in their great work, and assumed the
+reins of government in the name of the king. They allowed the
+council of state still nominally to exist, but they restricted
+its powers far within those it had hitherto exercised; and the
+government, thus absolutely assuming the form of a republic,
+issued manifestoes in justification of its conduct, and demanded
+succor from all the foreign powers. To complete the union between
+the various provinces, it was resolved to resume the negotiations
+commenced the preceding year at Breda; and the 10th of October
+was fixed for this new congress to be held in the town-house
+of Ghent.
+
+On the day appointed, the congress opened its sittings; and rapidly
+arriving at the termination of its important object, the celebrated
+treaty known by the title of "The Pacification of Ghent" was
+published on the 8th of November, to the sound of bells and trumpets;
+while the ceremony was rendered still more imposing by the thunder
+of the artillery which battered the walls of the besieged citadel.
+It was even intended to have delivered a general assault against the
+place at the moment of the proclamation; but the mutineers demanded
+a capitulation and finally surrendered three days afterward. It
+was the wife of the famous Mondragon who commanded the place
+in her husband's absence; and by her heroism gave a new proof
+of the capability of the sex to surpass the limits which nature
+seems to have fixed for their conduct.
+
+The Pacification contained twenty-five articles. Among others,
+it was agreed:
+
+That a full amnesty should be passed for all offences whatsoever.
+
+That the estates of Brabant, Flanders, Hainault, Artois, and
+others, on the one part; the Prince of Orange, and the states of
+Holland and Zealand and their associates, on the other; promised
+to maintain good faith, peace, and friendship, firm and inviolable;
+to mutually assist each other, at all times, in council and action;
+and to employ life and fortune, above all things, to expel from
+the country the Spanish soldiers and other foreigners.
+
+That no one should be allowed to injure or insult, by word or
+deed, the exercise of the Catholic religion, on pain of being
+treated as a disturber of the public peace.
+
+That the edicts against heresy and the proclamations of the duke
+of Alva should be suspended.
+
+That all confiscations, sentences, and judgments rendered since
+1566 should be annulled.
+
+That the inscriptions, monuments, and trophies erected by the
+duke of Alva should be demolished.
+
+Such were the general conditions of the treaty; the remaining
+articles chiefly concerned individual interests. The promulgation
+of this great charter of union, which was considered as the
+fundamental law of the country, was hailed in all parts of the
+Netherlands with extravagant demonstrations of joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TO THE RENUNCIATION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SPAIN AND THE DECLARATION
+OF INDEPENDENCE
+
+A.D. 1576--1580
+
+On the very day of the sack of Antwerp, Don John of Austria arrived
+at Luxemburg. This ominous commencement of his viceregal reign
+was not belied by the events which followed; and the hero of
+Lepanto, the victor of the Turks, the idol of Christendom, was
+destined to have his reputation and well-won laurels tarnished in
+the service of the insidious despotism to which he now became an
+instrument. Don John was a natural son of Charles V., and to fine
+talents and a good disposition united the advantages of hereditary
+courage and a liberal education. He was born at Ratisbon on the
+24th of February, 1543. His reputed mother was a young lady of
+that place named Barbara Blomberg; but one historian states that
+the real parent was of a condition too elevated to have her rank
+betrayed; and that, to conceal the mystery, Barbara Blomberg had
+voluntarily assumed the distinction, or the dishonor, according
+to the different constructions put upon the case. The prince,
+having passed through France, disguised, for greater secrecy or
+in a youthful frolic, as a negro valet to Prince Octavo Gonzaga,
+entered on the limits of his new government, and immediately
+wrote to the council of state in the most condescending terms to
+announce his arrival.
+
+Nothing could present a less promising aspect to the prince than
+the country at the head of which he was now placed. He found all
+its provinces, with the sole exception of Luxemburg, in the anarchy
+attendant on a ten years' civil war, and apparently resolved on
+a total breach of their allegiance to Spain. He found his best,
+indeed his only, course to be that of moderation and management;
+and it is most probable that at the outset his intentions were
+really honorable and candid.
+
+The states-general were not less embarrassed than the prince.
+His sudden arrival threw them into great perplexity, which was
+increased by the conciliatory tone of his letter. They had now
+removed from Ghent to Brussels; and first sending deputies to
+pay the honors of a ceremonious welcome to Don John, they wrote
+to the Prince of Orange, then in Holland, for his advice in this
+difficult conjuncture. The prince replied by a memorial of
+considerable length, dated Middleburg, the 30th of November, in
+which he gave them the most wise and prudent advice; the substance
+of which was to receive any propositions coming from the wily
+and perfidious Philip with the utmost suspicion, and to refuse
+all negotiation with his deputy, if the immediate withdrawal of
+the foreign troops was not at once conceded, and the acceptance
+of the Pacification guaranteed in its most ample extent.
+
+This advice was implicitly followed; the states in the meantime
+taking the precaution of assembling a large body of troops at
+Wavre, between Brussels and Namur, the command of which was given
+to the count of Lalain. A still more important measure was the
+despatch of an envoy to England, to implore the assistance of
+Elizabeth. She acted on this occasion with frankness and intrepidity;
+giving a distinguished reception to the envoy, De Sweveghem, and
+advancing a loan of one hundred thousand pounds sterling, on
+condition that the states made no treaty without her knowledge
+or participation.
+
+To secure still more closely the federal union that now bound the
+different provinces, a new compact was concluded by the deputies
+on the 9th of January, 1577, known by the title of The Union of
+Brussels, and signed by the prelates, ecclesiastics, lords,
+gentlemen, magistrates, and others, representing the estates of
+the Netherlands. A copy of this act of union was transmitted to
+Don John, to enable him thoroughly to understand the present state
+of feeling among those with whom he was now about to negotiate.
+He maintained a general tone of great moderation throughout the
+conference which immediately took place; and after some months
+of cautious parleying, in the latter part of which the candor
+of the prince seemed doubtful, and which the native historians
+do not hesitate to stigmatize as merely assumed, a treaty was
+signed at Marche-en-Famenne, a place between Namur and Luxemburg,
+in which every point insisted on by the states was, to the surprise
+and delight of the nation, fully consented to and guaranteed.
+This important document is called The Perpetual Edict, bears
+date the 12th of February, 1577, and contains nineteen articles.
+They were all based on the acceptance of the Pacification; but
+one expressly stipulated that the count of Beuren should be set
+at liberty as soon as the Prince of Orange, his father, had on
+his part ratified the treaty.
+
+Don John made his solemn entry into Brussels on the 1st of May,
+and assumed the functions of his limited authority. The conditions
+of the treaty were promptly and regularly fulfilled. The citadels
+occupied by the Spanish soldiers were given up to the Flemish and
+Walloon troops; and the departure of these ferocious foreigners
+took place at once. The large sums required to facilitate this
+measure made it necessary to submit for a while to the presence
+of the German mercenaries. But Don John's conduct soon destroyed
+the temporary delusion which had deceived the country. Whether
+his projects were hitherto only concealed, or that they were
+now for the first time excited by the disappointment of those
+hopes of authority held out to him by Philip, and which his
+predecessors had shared, it is certain that he very early displayed
+his ambition, and very imprudently attempted to put it in force.
+He at once demanded from the council of state the command of
+the troops and the disposal of the revenues. The answer was a
+simple reference to the Pacification of Ghent; and the prince's
+rejoinder was an apparent submission, and the immediate despatch
+of letters in cipher to the king, demanding a supply of troops
+sufficient to restore his ruined authority. These letters were
+intercepted by the king of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. of France,
+who immediately transmitted them to the Prince of Orange, his
+old friend and fellow-soldier.
+
+Public opinion, to the suspicions of which Don John had been
+from the first obnoxious, was now unanimous in attributing to
+design all that was unconstitutional and unfair. His impetuous
+character could no longer submit to the restraint of dissimulation,
+and he resolved to take some bold and decided measure. A very
+favorable opportunity was presented in the arrival of the queen
+of Navarre, Marguerite of Valois, at Namur, on her way to Spa.
+The prince, numerously attended, hastened to the former town
+under pretence of paying his respects to the queen. As soon as
+she left the place, he repaired to the glacis of the town, as if
+for the mere enjoyment of a walk, admired the external appearance
+of the citadel, and expressed a desire to be admitted inside.
+The young count of Berlaimont, in the absence of his father,
+the governor of the place, and an accomplice in the plot with
+Don John, freely admitted him. The prince immediately drew forth
+a pistol, and exclaimed that "that was the first moment of his
+government"; took possession of the place with his immediate
+guard, and instantly formed them into a devoted garrison.
+
+The Prince of Orange immediately made public the intercepted
+letters; and, at the solicitation of the states-general, repaired
+to Brussels; into which city he made a truly triumphant entry on
+the 23d of September, and was immediately nominated governor,
+protector or _ruward_ of Brabant--a dignity which had fallen
+into disuse, but was revived on this occasion, and which was
+little inferior in power to that of the dictators of Rome. His
+authority, now almost unlimited, extended over every province
+of the Netherlands, except Namur and Luxemburg, both of which
+acknowledged Don John.
+
+The first care of the liberated nation was to demolish the various
+citadels rendered celebrated and odious by the excesses of the
+Spaniards. This was done with an enthusiastic industry in which
+every age and sex bore a part, and which promised well for liberty.
+Among the ruins of that of Antwerp the statue of the duke of
+Alva was discovered; dragged through the filthiest streets of
+the town; and, with all the indignity so well merited by the
+original, it was finally broken into a thousand pieces.
+
+The country, in conferring such extensive powers on the Prince
+of Orange, had certainly gone too far, not for his desert, but
+for its own tranquillity. It was impossible that such an elevation
+should not excite the discontent and awaken the enmity of the
+haughty aristocracy of Flanders and Brabant; and particularly
+of the House of Croi, the ancient rivals of that of Nassau. The
+then representative of that family seemed the person most suited
+to counterbalance William's excessive power. The duke of Arschot
+was therefore named governor of Flanders; and he immediately put
+himself at the head of a confederacy of the Catholic party, which
+quickly decided to offer the chief government of the country,
+still in the name of Philip, to the archduke Mathias, brother of
+the emperor Rodolf II., and cousin-german to Philip of Spain, a
+youth but nineteen years of age. A Flemish gentleman named Maelsted
+was intrusted with the proposal. Mathias joyously consented;
+and, quitting Vienna with the greatest secrecy, he arrived at
+Maestricht, without any previous announcement, and expected only
+by the party that had invited him, at the end of October, 1577.
+
+The Prince of Orange, instead of showing the least symptom of
+dissatisfaction at this underhand proceeding aimed at his personal
+authority, announced his perfect approval of the nomination, and
+was the foremost in recommending measures for the honor of the
+archduke and the security of the country. He drew up the basis of
+a treaty for Mathias's acceptance, on terms which guaranteed to the
+council of state and the states-general the virtual sovereignty,
+and left to the young prince little beyond the fine title which
+had dazzled his boyish vanity. The Prince of Orange was appointed
+his lieutenant, in all the branches of the administration, civil,
+military, or financial; and the duke of Arschot, who had hoped
+to obtain an entire domination over the puppet he had brought
+upon the stage, saw himself totally foiled in his project, and
+left without a chance or a pretext for the least increase to
+his influence.
+
+But a still greater disappointment attended this ambitious nobleman
+in the very stronghold of his power. The Flemings, driven by
+persecution to a state of fury almost unnatural, had, in their
+antipathy to Spain, adopted a hatred against Catholicism, which had
+its source only in political frenzy, while the converts imagined it
+to arise from reason and conviction. Two men had taken advantage
+of this state of the public mind and gained over it an unbounded
+ascendency. They were Francis de Kethulle, lord of Ryhove, and
+John Hembyse, who each seemed formed to realize the beau-ideal
+of a factious demagogue. They had acquired supreme power over
+the people of Ghent, and had at their command a body of twenty
+thousand resolute and well-armed supporters. The duke of Arschot
+vainly attempted to oppose his authority to that of these men;
+and he on one occasion imprudently exclaimed that "he would have
+them hanged, even though they were protected by the Prince of
+Orange himself." The same night Ryhove summoned the leaders of
+his bands; and quickly assembling a considerable force, they
+repaired to the duke's hotel, made him prisoner, and, without
+allowing him time to dress, carried him away in triumph. At the
+same time the bishops of Bruges and Ypres, the high bailiffs of
+Ghent and Courtrai, the governor of Oudenarde, and other important
+magistrates, were arrested--accused of complicity with the duke,
+but of what particular offence the lawless demagogues did not
+deign to specify. The two tribunes immediately divided the whole
+honors and authority of administration; Ryhove as military, and
+Hembyse as civil, chief.
+
+The latter of these legislators completely changed the forms
+of the government; he revived the ancient privileges destroyed
+by Charles V., and took all preliminary measures for forcing the
+various provinces to join with the city of Ghent in forming a
+federative republic. The states-general and the Prince of Orange
+were alarmed, lest these troubles might lead to a renewal of
+the anarchy from the effects of which the country had but just
+obtained breathing-time. Ryhove consented, at the remonstrance
+of the Prince of Orange, to release the duke of Arschot; but
+William was obliged to repair to Ghent in person, in the hope
+of establishing order. He arrived on the 29th of December, and
+entered on a strict inquiry with his usual calmness and decision.
+He could not succeed in obtaining the liberty of the other prisoners,
+though he pleaded for them strongly. Having severely reprimanded
+the factious leaders, and pointed out the dangers of their illegal
+course, he returned to Brussels, leaving the factious city in a
+temporary tranquillity which his firmness and discretion could
+alone have obtained.
+
+The archduke Mathias, having visited Antwerp, and acceded to
+all the conditions required of him, made his public entry into
+Brussels on the 18th of January, 1578, and was installed in his
+dignity of governor-general amid the usual fetes and rejoicings.
+Don John of Austria was at the same time declared an enemy to
+the country, with a public order to quit it without delay; and
+a prohibition was issued against any inhabitant acknowledging
+his forfeited authority.
+
+War was now once more openly declared; some fruitless negotiations
+having afforded a fair pretext for hostilities. The rapid appearance
+of a numerous army under the orders of Don John gave strength to
+the suspicions of his former dissimulation. It was currently
+believed that large bodies of the Spanish troops had remained
+concealed in the forests of Luxemburg and Lorraine; while several
+regiments, which had remained in France in the service of the
+League, immediately re-entered the Netherlands. Alexander Farnese,
+prince of Parma, son of the former stadtholderess, came to the aid
+of his uncle, Don John, at the head of a large force of Italians;
+and these several reinforcements, with the German auxiliaries
+still in the country, composed an army of twenty thousand men.
+The army of the states-general was still larger; but far inferior
+in point of discipline. It was commanded by Antoine de Goignies,
+a gentleman of Hainault, and an old soldier of the school of
+Charles V.
+
+After a sharp affair at the village of Riminants, in which the
+royalists had the worst, the two armies met at Gemblours, on the
+31st of January, 1578; and the prince of Parma gained a complete
+victory, almost with his cavalry only, taking De Goignies prisoner,
+with the whole of his artillery and baggage. The account of his
+victory is almost miraculous. The royalists, if we are to credit
+their most minute but not impartial historian, had only one thousand
+two hundred men engaged; by whom six thousand were put to the
+sword, with the loss of but twelve men and little more than an
+hour's labor.
+
+The news of this battle threw the states into the utmost
+consternation. Brussels being considered insecure, the archduke
+Mathias and his council retired to Antwerp; but the victors did
+not feel their forces sufficient to justify an attack upon the
+capital. They, however, took Louvain, Tirlemont, and several other
+towns; but these conquests were of little import in comparison with
+the loss of Amsterdam, which declared openly and unanimously for
+the patriot cause. The states-general recovered their courage, and
+prepared for a new contest. They sent deputies to the diet of Worms,
+to ask succor from the princes of the empire. The count palatine
+John Casimir repaired to their assistance with a considerable
+force of Germans and English, all equipped and paid by Queen
+Elizabeth. The duke of Alencon, brother of Henry III. of France,
+hovered on the frontiers of Hainault with a respectable army;
+and the cause of liberty seemed not quite desperate.
+
+But all the various chiefs had separate interests and opposite
+views; while the fanatic violence of the people of Ghent sapped
+the foundations of the pacification to which the town had given
+its name. The Walloon provinces, deep-rooted in their attachment
+to religious bigotry, which they loved still better than political
+freedom, gradually withdrew from the common cause; and without yet
+openly becoming reconciled with Spain, they adopted a neutrality
+which was tantamount to it. Don John was, however, deprived of
+all chance of reaping any advantage from these unfortunate
+dissensions. He was suddenly taken ill in his camp at Bougy;
+and died, after a fortnight's suffering, on the 1st of October,
+1578, in the thirty-third year of his age.
+
+This unlooked-for close to a career which had been so brilliant,
+and to a life from which so much was yet to be expected, makes
+us pause to consider for a moment the different opinions of his
+times and of history on the fate of a personage so remarkable.
+The contemporary Flemish memoirs say that he died of the plague;
+those of Spain call his disorder the purple fever. The examination
+of his corpse caused an almost general belief that he was poisoned.
+"He lost his life," says one author, "with great suspicion of
+poison." "Acabo su vida, con gran sospecho de veneno."--Herrera.
+Another speaks of the suspicious state of his intestines, but
+without any direct opinion. An English historian states the fact
+of his being poisoned, without any reserve. Flemish writers do
+not hesitate to attribute his murder to the jealousy of Philip
+II., who, they assert, had discovered a secret treaty of marriage
+about to be concluded between Don John and Elizabeth of England,
+securing them the joint sovereignty of the Netherlands. An Italian
+historian of credit asserts that this ambitious design was attributed
+to the prince; and admits that his death was not considered as
+having arisen from natural causes. "E quindi nacque l'opinione
+dispersa allora, ch'egli mancasse di morte aiutata piu tosto
+che naturale."--Bentivoglio. It was also believed that Escovedo,
+his confidential secretary, being immediately called back to
+Spain, was secretly assassinated by Antonio Perez, Philip's
+celebrated minister, and by the special orders of the king. Time
+has, however, covered the affair with impenetrable mystery; and
+the death of Don John was of little importance to the affairs
+of the country he governed so briefly and so ingloriously, if
+it be not that it added another motive to the natural hatred
+for his assumed murderer.
+
+The prince of Parma, who now succeeded, by virtue of Don John's
+testament, to the post of governor-general in the name of the
+king, remained intrenched in his camp. He expected much from
+the disunion of his various opponents; and what he foresaw very
+quickly happened. The duke of Alencon disbanded his troops and
+retired to France; and the prince Palatine, following his example,
+withdrew to Germany, having first made an unsuccessful attempt to
+engage the queen of England as a principal in the confederacy. In
+this perplexity, the Prince of Orange saw that the real hope for
+safety was in uniting still more closely the northern provinces
+of the union; for he discovered the fallacy of reckoning on the
+cordial and persevering fidelity of the Walloons. He therefore
+convoked a new assembly at Utrecht; and the deputies of Holland,
+Guelders, Zealand, Utrecht, and Groningen, signed, on the 29th
+of January, 1579, the famous act called the Union of Utrecht,
+the real basis or fundamental pact of the republic of the United
+Provinces. It makes no formal renunciation of allegiance to Spain,
+but this is virtually done by the omission of the king's name.
+The twenty-six articles of this act consolidate the indissoluble
+connection of the United Provinces; each preserving its separate
+franchises, and following its own good pleasure on the subject
+of religion. The towns of Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and Ypres,
+soon after acceded to and joined the union.
+
+The prince of Parma now assumed the offensive, and marched against
+Maestricht with his whole army. He took the place in the month
+of June, 1579, after a gallant resistance, and delivered it to
+sack and massacre for three entire days. About the same time
+Mechlin and Bois-le-duc returned to their obedience to the king.
+Hembyse having renewed his attempts against the public peace at
+Ghent, the Prince of Orange repaired to that place, re-established
+order, frightened the inveterate demagogue into secret flight,
+and Flanders was once more restored to tranquillity.
+
+An attempt was made this year at a reconciliation between the
+king and the states. The emperor Rodolf II. and Pope Gregory XIII.
+offered their mediation; and on the 5th of April a congress assembled
+at Cologne, where a number of the most celebrated diplomatists in
+Europe were collected. But it was early seen that no settlement
+would result from the apparently reciprocal wish for peace. One
+point--that of religion, the main, and indeed the only one in
+debate--was now maintained by Philip's ambassador in the same
+unchristian spirit as if torrents of blood and millions of treasure
+had never been sacrificed in the cause. Philip was inflexible in
+his resolution never to concede the exercise of the reformed
+worship; and after nearly a year of fruitless consultation, and
+the expenditure of immense sums of money, the congress separated
+on the 17th of November, without having effected anything. There
+were several other articles intended for discussion, had the
+main one been adjusted, on which Philip was fully as determined
+to make no concession; but his obstinacy was not put to these
+new tests.
+
+The time had now arrived for the execution of the great and decisive
+step for independence, the means of effecting which had been so
+long the object of exertion and calculation on the part of the
+Prince of Orange. He now resolved to assemble the states of the
+United Provinces, solemnly abjure the dominion of Spain, and depose
+King Philip from the sovereignty he had so justly forfeited. Much
+has been written both for and against this measure, which involved
+every argument of natural rights and municipal privilege. The
+natural rights of man may seem to comprise only those which he
+enjoys in a state of nature; but he carries several of those
+with him into society, which is based upon the very principle of
+their preservation. The great precedent which so many subsequent
+revolutions have acknowledged and confirmed is that which we now
+record. The states-general assembled at Antwerp early in the
+year 1580; and, in spite of all the opposition of the Catholic
+deputies, the authority of Spain was revoked forever, and the
+United Provinces declared a free and independent state. At the
+same time was debated the important question as to whether the
+protection of the new state should be offered to England or to
+France. Opinions were divided on this point; but that of the Prince
+of Orange being in favor of the latter country, from many motives
+of sound policy, it was decided to offer the sovereignty to the
+duke of Alencon. The archduke Mathias, who was present at the
+deliberations, was treated with little ceremony; but he obtained
+the promise of a pension when the finances were in a situation to
+afford it. The definite proposal to be made to the duke of Alencon
+was not agreed upon for some months afterward; and it was in the
+month of August following that St. Aldegonde and other deputies
+waited on the duke at the chateau of Plessis-le-Tours, when he
+accepted the offered sovereignty on the proposed conditions,
+which set narrow bounds to his authority, and gave ample security
+to the United Provinces. The articles were formally signed on the
+29th day of September; and the duke not only promised quickly
+to lead a numerous army to the Netherlands, but he obtained a
+letter from his brother, Henry III., dated December 26th, by
+which the king pledged himself to give further aid, as soon as
+he might succeed in quieting his own disturbed and unfortunate
+country. The states-general, assembled at Delft, ratified the
+treaty on the 30th of December; and the year which was about to
+open seemed to promise the consolidation of freedom and internal
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TO THE MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1580--1584
+
+Philip might be well excused the utmost violence of resentment on
+this occasion, had it been bounded by fair and honorable efforts
+for the maintenance of his authority. But every general principle
+seemed lost in the base inveteracy of private hatred. The ruin
+of the Prince of Orange was his main object, and his industry
+and ingenuity were taxed to the utmost to procure his murder.
+Existing documents prove that he first wished to accomplish this
+in such a way as that the responsibility and odium of the act
+might rest on the prince of Parma; but the mind of the prince
+was at that period too magnanimous to allow of a participation
+in the crime. The correspondence on the subject is preserved
+in the archives, and the date of Philip's first letter (30th
+of November, 1579) proves that even before the final disavowal
+of his authority by the United Provinces he had harbored his
+diabolical design. The prince remonstrated, but with no effect.
+It even appears that Philip's anxiety would not admit of the
+delay necessary for the prince's reply. The infamous edict of
+proscription against William bears date the 15th of March; and
+the most pressing letters commanded the prince of Parma to make
+it public. It was not, however, till the 15th of June that he
+sent forth the fatal ban.
+
+This edict, under Philip's own signature, is a tissue of invective
+and virulence. The illustrious object of its abuse is accused of
+having engaged the heretics to profane the churches and break the
+images; of having persecuted and massacred the Catholic priests; of
+hypocrisy, tyranny, and perjury; and, as the height of atrocity,
+of having introduced liberty of conscience into his country! For
+these causes, and many others, the king declares him "proscribed
+and banished as a public pest"; and it is permitted to all persons
+to assail him "in his fortune, person, and life, as an enemy
+to human nature." Philip also, "for the recompense of virtue
+and the punishment of crime," promises to whoever will deliver
+up William of Nassau, dead or alive, "in lands or money, at his
+choice, the sum of twenty-five thousand golden crowns; to grant
+a free pardon to such person for all former offences of what kind
+soever, and to invest him with letters patent of nobility."
+
+In reply to this brutal document of human depravity, William
+published all over Europe his famous "Apology," of which it is
+enough to say that language could not produce a more splendid
+refutation of every charge or a more terrible recrimination against
+the guilty tyrant. It was attributed to the pen of Peter de Villiers,
+a Protestant minister. It is universally pronounced one of the
+noblest monuments of history. William, from the hour of his
+proscription, became at once the equal in worldly station, as
+he had ever been the superior in moral worth, of his royal
+calumniator. He took his place as a prince of an imperial family,
+not less ancient or illustrious than that of the House of Austria;
+and he stood forward at the supreme tribunal of public feeling
+and opinion as the accuser of a king who disgraced his lineage
+and his throne.
+
+By a separate article in the treaty with the states, the duke
+of Alencon secured to William the sovereignty of Holland and
+Zealand, as well as the lordship of Friesland, with his title
+of stadtholder, retaining to the duke his claim on the prince's
+faith and homage. The exact nature of William's authority was
+finally ratified on the 24th of July, 1581; on which day he took
+the prescribed oath, and entered on the exercise of his well-earned
+rights.
+
+Philip now formed the design of sending back the duchess of Parma
+to resume her former situation as stadtholderess, and exercise
+the authority conjointly with her son. But the latter positively
+declined this proposal of divided power; and he, consequently,
+was left alone to its entire exercise. Military affairs made
+but slow progress this year. The most remarkable event was the
+capture of La Noue, a native of Bretagne, one of the bravest, and
+certainly the cleverest, officers in the service of the states,
+into which he had passed after having given important aid to
+the Huguenots of France. He was considered so important a prize
+that Philip refused all proposals for his exchange, and detained
+him in the castle of Limburg for five years.
+
+The siege of Cambray was now undertaken by the prince of Parma
+in person; while the duke of Alencon, at the head of a large army
+and the flower of the French nobility, advanced to its relief, and
+soon forced his rival to raise the siege. The new sovereign of the
+Netherlands entered the town, and was received with tumultuous joy
+by the half-starved citizens and garrison. The prince of Parma sought
+an equivalent for this check in the attack of Tournay, which he
+immediately afterward invested. The town was but feebly garrisoned;
+but the Protestant inhabitants prepared for a desperate defence,
+under the exciting example of the princess of Epinoi, wife of the
+governor, who was himself absent. This remarkable woman furnishes
+another proof of the female heroism which abounded in these wars.
+Though wounded in the arm, she fought in the breach sword in hand,
+braving peril and death. And when at length it was impossible to
+hold out longer, she obtained an honorable capitulation, and
+marched out, on the 29th of November, on horseback, at the head
+of the garrison, with an air of triumph rather than of defeat.
+
+The duke of Alencon, now created duke of Anjou, by which title
+we shall hereafter distinguish him, had repaired to England,
+in hopes of completing his project of marriage with Elizabeth.
+After three months of almost confident expectation, the virgin
+queen, at this time fifty years of age, with a caprice not quite
+justifiable, broke all her former engagements; and, happily for
+herself and her country, declined the marriage. Anjou burst out
+into all the violence of his turbulent temper, and set sail for
+the Netherlands. Elizabeth made all the reparation in her power,
+by the honors paid him on his dismissal. She accompanied him as
+far as Canterbury, and sent him away under the convoy of the earl
+of Leicester, her chief favorite; and with a brilliant suite and a
+fleet of fifteen sail. Anjou was received at Antwerp with equal
+distinction; and was inaugurated there on the 19th of February
+as duke of Brabant, Lothier, Limburg, and Guelders, with many
+other titles, of which he soon proved himself unworthy. When
+the Prince of Orange, at the ceremony, placed the ducal mantle
+on his shoulders, Anjou said to him, "Fasten it so well, prince,
+that they cannot take it off again!"
+
+During the rejoicings which followed this inauspicious ceremony,
+Philip's proscription against the Prince of Orange put forth its
+first fruits. The latter gave a grand dinner in the chateau of
+Antwerp, which he occupied, on the 18th of March, the birthday
+of the duke of Anjou; and, as he was quitting the dining-room,
+on his way to his private chamber, a young man stepped forward
+and offered a pretended petition, William being at all times of
+easy access for such an object. While he read the paper, the
+treacherous suppliant discharged a pistol at his head: the ball
+struck him under the left ear, and passed out at the right cheek.
+As he tottered and fell, the assassin drew a poniard to add suicide
+to the crime, but he was instantly put to death by the attendant
+guards. The young Count Maurice, William's second son, examined
+the murderer's body; and the papers found on him, and subsequent
+inquiries, told fully who and what he was. His name was John
+Jaureguay, his age twenty-three years; he was a native of Biscay,
+and clerk to a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, called Gaspar Anastro.
+This man had instigated him to the crime; having received a promise
+signed by King Philip, engaging to give him twenty-eight thousand
+ducats and other advantages, if he would undertake to assassinate
+the Prince of Orange. The inducements held out by Anastro to his
+simple dupe, were backed strongly by the persuasions of Antony
+Timmerman, a Dominican monk; and by Venero, Anastro's cashier, who
+had from fear declined becoming himself the murderer. Jaureguay
+had duly heard mass, and received the sacrament, before executing
+his attempt; and in his pockets were found a catechism of the
+Jesuits, with tablets filled with prayers in the Spanish language;
+one in particular being addressed to the Angel Gabriel, imploring
+his intercession with God and the Virgin, to aid him in the
+consummation of his object. Other accompanying absurdities seem
+to pronounce this miserable wretch to be as much an instrument
+in the hands of others as the weapon of his crime was in his own.
+Timmerman and Venero made a full avowal of their criminality, and
+suffered death in the usual barbarous manner of the times. The
+Jesuits, some years afterward, solemnly gathered the remains of
+these three pretended martyrs, and exposed them as holy relics
+for public veneration. Anastro effected his escape.
+
+The alarm and indignation of the people of Antwerp knew no bounds.
+Their suspicions at first fell on the duke of Anjou and the French
+party; but the truth was soon discovered; and the rapid recovery
+of the Prince of Orange from his desperate wound set everything
+once more to rights. But a premature report of his death flew
+rapidly abroad; and he had anticipated proofs of his importance
+in the eyes of all Europe, in the frantic delight of the base,
+and the deep affliction of the good. Within three months, William
+was able to accompany the duke of Anjou in his visits to Ghent,
+Bruges, and the other chief towns of Flanders; in each of which the
+ceremony of inauguration was repeated. Several military exploits
+now took place, and various towns fell into the hands of the
+opposing parties; changing masters with a rapidity, as well as a
+previous endurance of suffering, that must have carried confusion
+and change on the contending principles of allegiance into the
+hearts and heads of the harassed inhabitants.
+
+The duke of Anjou, intemperate, inconstant, and unprincipled,
+saw that his authority was but the shadow of power, compared to
+the deep-fixed practices of despotism which governed the other
+nations of Europe. The French officers, who formed his suite and
+possessed all his confidence, had no difficulty in raising his
+discontent into treason against the people with whom he had made
+a solemn compact. The result of their councils was a deep-laid
+plot against Flemish liberty; and its execution was ere-long
+attempted. He sent secret orders to the governors of Dunkirk,
+Bruges, Termonde, and other towns, to seize on and hold them
+in his name; reserving for himself the infamy of the enterprise
+against Antwerp. To prepare for its execution, he caused his
+numerous army of French and Swiss to approach the city; and they
+were encamped in the neighborhood, at a place called Borgerhout.
+
+On the 17th of January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier
+than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review
+his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his
+guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second
+drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal
+for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had
+fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers,
+"Courage, courage! the town is ours!" The guard at the gate was
+all soon despatched; and the French troops, which waited outside
+to the number of three thousand, rushed quickly in, furiously
+shouting the war-cry, "Town taken! town taken! kill! kill!" The
+astonished but intrepid citizens, recovering from their confusion,
+instantly flew to arms. All differences in religion or politics
+were forgotten in the common danger to their freedom. Catholics
+and Protestants, men and women, rushed alike to the conflict.
+The ancient spirit of Flanders seemed to animate all. Workmen,
+armed with the instruments of their various trades, started from
+their shops and flung themselves upon the enemy. A baker sprang
+from the cellar where he was kneading his dough, and with his
+oven shovel struck a French dragoon to the ground. Those who
+had firearms, after expending their bullets, took from their
+pouches and pockets pieces of money, which they bent between
+their teeth, and used for charging their arquebuses. The French
+were driven successively from the streets and ramparts, and the
+cannons planted on the latter were immediately turned against
+the reinforcements which attempted to enter the town. The French
+were everywhere beaten; the duke of Anjou saved himself by flight,
+and reached Termonde, after the perilous necessity of passing
+through a large tract of inundated country. His loss in this
+base enterprise amounted to one thousand five hundred; while
+that of the citizens did not exceed eighty men. The attempts
+simultaneously made on the other towns succeeded at Dunkirk and
+Termonde; but all the others failed.
+
+The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly
+great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled
+and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between
+the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the
+former from excess, and the latter from execration. The disgraced
+and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as
+they were hypocritical; and his brother, the king of France, sent
+a special envoy to intercede for him. But it was the influence of
+William that screened the culprit from public reprobation and
+ruin, and regained for him the place and power which he might
+easily have secured for himself, had he not prized the welfare
+of his country far above all objects of private advantage. A new
+treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station,
+with renewed security against any future treachery on his part. He
+in the meantime retired to France, to let the public indignation
+subside; but before he could assume sufficient confidence again to
+face the country he had so basely injured his worthless existence
+was suddenly terminated, some thought by poison--the common solution
+of all such doubtful questions in those days--in the month of June
+in the following year. He expired in his twenty-ninth year.
+
+A disgusting proof of public ingratitude and want of judgment
+was previously furnished by the conduct of the people of Antwerp
+against him who had been so often their deliverer from such various
+dangers. Unable to comprehend the greatness of his mind, they
+openly accused the Prince of Orange of having joined with the
+French for their subjugation, and of having concealed a body
+of that detested nation in the citadel. The populace rushed to
+the place, and having minutely examined it, were convinced of
+their own absurdity and the prince's innocence. He scorned to
+demand their punishment for such an outrageous calumny; but he was
+not the less afflicted at it. He took the resolution of quitting
+Flanders, as it turned out, forever; and he retired into Zealand,
+where he was better known and consequently better trusted.
+
+In the midst of the consequent confusion in the former of these
+provinces, the prince of Parma, with indefatigable vigor, made
+himself master of town after town; and turned his particular
+attention to the creation of a naval force, which was greatly
+favored by the possession of Dunkirk, Nieuport, and Gravelines.
+Native treachery was not idle in this time of tumult and confusion.
+The count of Renneberg, governor of Friesland and Groningen,
+had set the basest example, and gone over to the Spaniards. The
+prince of Chimay, son of the duke of Arschot, and governor of
+Bruges, yielded to the persuasions of his father, and gave up
+the place to the prince of Parma. Hembyse also, amply confirming
+the bad opinion in which the Prince of Orange always held him,
+returned to Ghent, where he regained a great portion of his former
+influence, and immediately commenced a correspondence with the
+prince of Parma, offering to deliver up both Ghent and Termonde.
+An attempt was consequently made by the Spaniards to surprise
+the former town; but the citizens were prepared for this, having
+intercepted some of the letters of Hembyse; and the traitor was
+seized, tried, condemned, and executed on the 4th of August, 1584.
+He was upward of seventy years of age. Ryhove, his celebrated
+colleague, died in Holland some years later.
+
+But the fate of so insignificant a person as Hembyse passed almost
+unnoticed, in the agitation caused by an event which shortly
+preceded his death.
+
+From the moment of their abandonment by the duke of Anjou, the
+United Provinces considered themselves independent; and although
+they consented to renew his authority over the country at large,
+at the solicitation of the Prince of Orange, they were resolved
+to confirm the influence of the latter over their particular
+interests, which they were now sensible could acquire stability
+only by that means. The death of Anjou left them without a sovereign;
+and they did not hesitate in the choice which they were now called
+upon to make. On whom, indeed, could they fix but William of
+Nassau, without the utmost injustice to him, and the deepest
+injury to themselves? To whom could they turn, in preference to
+him who had given consistency to the early explosion of their
+despair; to him who first gave the country political existence,
+then nursed it into freedom, and now beheld it in the vigor and
+prime of independence? He had seen the necessity, but certainly
+overrated the value, of foreign support, to enable the new state
+to cope with the tremendous tyranny from which it had broken.
+He had tried successively Germany, England and France. From the
+first and the last of these powers he had received two governors,
+to whom he cheerfully resigned the title. The incapacity of both,
+and the treachery of the latter, proved to the states that their
+only chance for safety was in the consolidation of William's
+authority; and they contemplated the noblest reward which a grateful
+nation could bestow on a glorious liberator. And is it to be
+believed that he who for twenty years had sacrificed his repose,
+lavished his fortune, and risked his life, for the public cause,
+now aimed at absolute dominion, or coveted a despotism which
+all his actions prove him to have abhorred? Defeated bigotry
+has put forward such vapid accusations. He has been also held
+responsible for the early cruelties which, it is notorious, he
+used every means to avert, and frequently punished. But while
+these revolting acts can only be viewed in the light of reprisals
+against the bloodiest persecution that ever existed, by exasperated
+men driven to vengeance by a bad example, not one single act of
+cruelty or bad faith has ever been made good against William,
+who may be safely pronounced one of the wisest and best men that
+history has held up as examples to the species.
+
+The authority of one author has been produced to prove that,
+during the lifetime of his brother Louis, offers were made to
+him by France of the sovereignty of the northern provinces, on
+condition of the southern being joined to the French crown. That
+he ever accepted those offers is without proof; that he never
+acted on them is certain. But he might have been justified in
+purchasing freedom for those states which had so well earned
+it, at the price even of a qualified independence under another
+power, to the exclusion of those which had never heartily struggled
+against Spain. The best evidence, however, of William's real views
+is to be found in the Capitulation, as it is called; that is to
+say, the act which was on the point of being executed between him
+and the states, when a base fanatic, instigated by a bloody tyrant,
+put a period to his splendid career. This capitulation exists at
+full length, but was never formally executed. Its conditions
+are founded on the same principles, and conceived in nearly the
+same terms, as those accepted by the duke of Anjou; and the whole
+compact is one of the most thoroughly liberal that history has
+on record. The prince repaired to Delft for the ceremony of his
+inauguration, the price of his long labors; but there, instead
+of anticipated dignity, he met the sudden stroke of death.
+
+On the 10th of July, as he left his dining-room, and while he
+placed his foot on the first step of the great stair leading to
+the upper apartments of his house, a man named Balthazar Gerard
+(who, like the former assassin, waited for him at the moment of
+convivial relaxation), discharged a pistol at his body. Three
+balls entered it. He fell into the arms of an attendant, and
+cried out faintly, in the French language, "God pity me! I am
+sadly wounded--God have mercy on my soul, and on this unfortunate
+nation!" His sister, the countess of Swartzenberg, who now hastened
+to his side, asked him in German if he did not recommend his
+soul to God? He answered, "Yes," in the same language, but with
+a feeble voice. He was carried into the dining-room, where he
+immediately expired. His sister closed his eyes; his wife, too,
+was on the spot--Louisa, daughter of the illustrious Coligny,
+and widow of the gallant count of Teligny, both of whom were also
+murdered almost in her sight, in the frightful massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. We may not enter on a description of the afflicting
+scene which followed; but the mind is pleased in picturing the
+bold solemnity with which Prince Maurice, then eighteen years
+of age, swore--not vengeance or hatred against his father's
+murderers--but that he would faithfully and religiously follow
+the glorious example he had given him.
+
+Whoever would really enjoy the spirit of historical details should
+never omit an opportunity of seeing places rendered memorable by
+associations connected with the deeds, and especially with the
+death, of great men; the spot, for instance, where William was
+assassinated at Delft; the old staircase he was just on the point
+of ascending; the narrow pass between that and the dining-hall
+whence he came out, of scarcely sufficient extent for the murderer
+to held forth his arm and his pistol, two and a half feet long.
+This weapon, and its fellow, are both preserved in the museum
+of The Hague, together with two of the fatal bullets, and the
+very clothes which the victim wore. The leathern doublet, pierced
+by the balls and burned by the powder, lies beside the other
+parts of the dress, the simple gravity of which, in fashion and
+color, irresistibly brings the wise, great man before us, and
+adds a hundred-fold to the interest excited by a recital of his
+murder.
+
+There is but one important feature in the character of William
+which we have hitherto left untouched, but which the circumstances
+of his death seemed to sanctify, and point out for record in the
+same page with it. We mean his religious opinions; and we shall
+despatch a subject which is, in regard to all men, so delicate,
+indeed so sacred, in a few words. He was born a Lutheran. When
+he arrived, a boy, at the court of Charles V., he was initiated
+into the Catholic creed, in which he was thenceforward brought
+up. Afterward, when he could think for himself and choose his
+profession of faith, he embraced the doctrine of Calvin. His
+whole public conduct seems to prove that he viewed sectarian
+principles chiefly in the light of political instruments; and
+that, himself a conscientious Christian, in the broad sense of
+the term, he was deeply imbued with the spirit of universal
+toleration, and considered the various shades of belief as
+subservient to the one grand principle of civil and religious
+liberty, for which he had long devoted and at length laid down
+his life. His assassin was taken alive, and four days afterward
+executed with terrible circumstances of cruelty, which he bore
+as a martyr might have borne them. He was a native of Burgundy,
+and had for some months lingered near his victim, and insinuated
+himself into his confidence by a feigned attachment to liberty,
+and an apparent zeal for the reformed faith. He was nevertheless
+a bigoted Catholic and, by his own confession, he had communicated
+his design to, and received encouragement to its execution from,
+more than one minister of the sect to which he belonged. But his
+avowal criminated a more important accomplice, and one whose
+character stands so high in history that it behooves us to examine
+thoroughly the truth of the accusation, and the nature of the
+collateral proofs by which it is supported. Most writers on this
+question have leaned to the side which all would wish to adopt,
+for the honor of human nature and the integrity of a celebrated
+name. But an original letter exists in the archives of Brussels,
+from the prince of Parma himself to Philip of Spain, in which he
+admits that Balthazar Gerard had communicated to him his intention
+of murdering the Prince of Orange some months before the deed was
+done; and he mixes phrases of compassion for "the poor man" (the
+murderer) and of praise for the act; which, if the document be
+really authentic, sinks Alexander of Parma as low as the wretch
+with whom he sympathized.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER, PRINCE OF PARMA
+
+A.D. 1584--1592
+
+The death of William of Nassau not only closes the scene of his
+individual career, but throws a deep gloom over the history of a
+revolution that was sealed by so great a sacrifice. The animation
+of the story seems suspended. Its events lose for a time their
+excitement. The last act of the political drama is performed. The
+great hero of the tragedy is no more. The other most memorable
+actors have one by one passed away. A whole generation has fallen
+in the contest; and it is with exhausted interest, and feelings
+less intense, that we resume the details of war and blood, which
+seem no longer sanctified by the grander movements of heroism.
+The stirring impulse of slavery breaking its chains yields to
+the colder inspiration of independence maintaining its rights.
+The men we have now to depict were born free; and the deeds they
+did were those of stern resolve rather than of frantic despair.
+The present picture may be as instructive as the last, but it is
+less thrilling. Passion gives place to reason; and that which
+wore the air of fierce romance is superseded by what bears the
+stamp of calm reality.
+
+The consternation caused by the news of William's death soon
+yielded to the firmness natural to a people inured to suffering
+and calamity. The United Provinces rejected at once the overtures
+made by the prince of Parma to induce them to obedience. They
+seemed proud to show that their fate did not depend on that of
+one man. He therefore turned his attention to the most effective
+means of obtaining results by force which he found it impossible
+to secure by persuasion. He proceeded vigorously to the reduction
+of the chief towns of Flanders, the conquest of which would give
+him possession of the entire province, no army now remaining
+to oppose him in the field. He soon obliged Ypres and Termonde
+to surrender; and Ghent, forced by famine, at length yielded on
+reasonable terms. The most severe was the utter abolition of
+the reformed religion; by which a large portion of the population
+was driven to the alternative of exile; and they passed over
+in crowds to Holland and Zealand, not half of the inhabitants
+remaining behind. Mechlin, and finally Brussels, worn out by
+a fruitless resistance, followed the example of the rest; and
+thus, within a year after the death of William of Nassau, the
+power of Spain was again established in the whole province of
+Flanders, and the others which comprise what is in modern days
+generally denominated Belgium.
+
+But these domestic victories of the prince of Parma were barren
+in any of those results which humanity would love to see in the
+train of conquest. The reconciled provinces presented the most
+deplorable spectacle. The chief towns were almost depopulated. The
+inhabitants had in a great measure fallen victims to war, pestilence
+and famine. Little inducement existed to replace by marriage the
+ravages caused by death, for few men wished to propagate a race
+which divine wrath seemed to have marked for persecution. The
+thousands of villages which had covered the face of the country
+were absolutely abandoned to the wolves, which had so rapidly
+increased that they attacked not merely cattle and children,
+but grown-up persons. The dogs, driven abroad by hunger, had
+become as ferocious as other beasts of prey, and joined in large
+packs to hunt down brutes and men. Neither fields, nor woods, nor
+roads, were now to be distinguished by any visible limits. All
+was an entangled mass of trees, weeds, and grass. The prices of
+the necessaries of life were so high that people of rank, after
+selling everything to buy bread, were obliged to have recourse
+to open beggary in the streets of the great towns.
+
+From this frightful picture, and the numerous details which
+imagination may readily supply, we gladly turn to the contrast
+afforded by the northern states. Those we have just described
+have a feeble hold upon our sympathies; we cannot pronounce their
+sufferings to be unmerited. The want of firmness or enlightenment,
+which preferred such an existence to the risk of entire destruction,
+only heightens the glory of the people whose unyielding energy
+and courage gained them so proud a place among the independent
+nations of Europe.
+
+The murder of William seemed to carry to the United Provinces
+conviction of the weakness as well as the atrocity of Spain;
+and the indecent joy excited among the royalists added to their
+courage. An immediate council was created, composed of eighteen
+members, at the head of which was unanimously placed Prince Maurice
+of Nassau (who even then gave striking indications of talent and
+prudence); his elder brother, the count of Beuren, now Prince
+of Orange, being still kept captive in Spain. Count Hohenloe
+was appointed lieutenant-general; and several other measures
+were promptly adopted to consolidate the power of the infant
+republic. The whole of its forces amounted but to five thousand
+five hundred men. The prince of Parma had eighty thousand at
+his command. With such means of carrying on his conquests, he
+sat down regularly before Antwerp, and commenced the operations
+of one of the most celebrated among the many memorable sieges of
+those times. He completely surrounded the city with troops; placing
+a large portion of his army on the left bank of the Scheldt, the
+other on the right; and causing to be attacked at the same time
+the two strong forts of Liefkinshoek and Lillo. Repulsed on the
+latter important point, his only hope of gaining the command of
+the navigation of the river, on which the success of the siege
+depended, was by throwing a bridge across the stream. Neither
+its great rapidity, nor its immense width, nor the want of wood
+and workmen, could deter him from this vast undertaking. He was
+assisted, if not guided, in all his projects on the occasion, by
+Barroccio, a celebrated Italian engineer sent to him by Philip;
+and the merit of all that was done ought fairly to be, at least,
+divided between the general and the engineer. If enterprise and
+perseverance belonged to the first, science and skill were the
+portion of the latter. They first caused two strong forts to
+be erected at opposite sides of the river; and adding to their
+resources by every possible means, they threw forward a pier
+on each side of, and far into, the stream. The stakes, driven
+firmly into the bed of the river and cemented with masses of
+earth and stones, were at a proper height covered with planks
+and defended by parapets. These estoccades, as they were called,
+reduced the river to half its original breadth; and the cannon with
+which they were mounted rendered the passage extremely dangerous
+to hostile vessels. But to fill up this strait a considerable
+number of boats were fastened together by chain-hooks and anchors;
+and being manned and armed with cannon, they were moored in the
+interval between the estoccades. During these operations, a canal
+was cut between the Moer and Calloo; by which means a communication
+was formed with Ghent, which insured a supply of ammunition and
+provisions. The works of the bridge, which was two thousand four
+hundred feet in length, were constructed with such strength and
+solidity that they braved the winds, the floods, and the ice
+of the whole winter.
+
+The people of Antwerp at first laughed to scorn the whole of
+these stupendous preparations; but when they found that the bridge
+resisted the natural elements, by which they doubted not it would
+have been destroyed, they began to tremble in the anticipation
+of famine; yet they vigorously prepared for their defence, and
+rejected the overtures made by the prince of Parma even at this
+advanced stage of his proceedings. Ninety-seven pieces of cannon
+now defended the bridge; besides which thirty large barges at
+each side of the river guarded its extremities; and forty ships
+of war formed a fleet of protection, constantly ready to meet any
+attack from the besieged. They, seeing the Scheldt thus really
+closed up, and all communication with Zealand impossible, felt
+their whole safety to depend on the destruction of the bridge. The
+states of Zealand now sent forward an expedition, which, joined
+with some ships from Lillo, gave new courage to the besieged;
+and everything was prepared for their great attempt. An Italian
+engineer named Giambelli was at this time in Antwerp, and by
+his talents had long protracted the defence. He has the chief
+merit of being the inventor of those terrible fire-ships which
+gained the title of "infernal machines"; and with some of these
+formidable instruments and the Zealand fleet, the long-projected
+attack was at length made.
+
+Early on the night of the 4th of April, the prince of Parma and
+his army were amazed by the spectacle of three huge masses of
+flame floating down the river, accompanied by numerous lesser
+appearances of a similar kind, and bearing directly against the
+prodigious barrier, which had cost months of labor to him and
+his troops, and immense sums of money to the state. The whole
+surface of the Scheldt presented one sheet of fire; the country
+all round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the
+soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the
+forts, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of
+the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all.
+Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the
+three machines burst with a terrific noise before they reached
+their intended mark, but time enough to offer a sample of their
+nature. The prince of Parma, with numerous officers and soldiers
+rushed to the bridge, to witness the effects of this explosion;
+and just then a second and still larger fire-ship, having burst
+through the flying bridge of boats, struck against one of the
+estoccades. Alexander, unmindful of danger, used every exertion
+of his authority to stimulate the sailors in their attempts to
+clear away the monstrous machine which threatened destruction to
+all within its reach. Happily for him, an ensign who was near,
+forgetting in his general's peril all rules of discipline and
+forms of ceremony, actually forced him from the estoccade. He had
+not put his foot on the river bank when the machine blew up. The
+effects were such as really baffle description. The bridge was burst
+through; the estoccade was shattered almost to atoms, and, with all
+that it supported--men, cannon, and the huge machinery employed
+in the various works--dispersed in the air. The cruel marquis
+of Roubais, many other officers, and eight hundred soldiers,
+perished in all varieties of death--by flood, or flame, or the
+horrid wounds from the missiles with which the terrible machine
+was overcharged. Fragments of bodies and limbs were flung far
+and wide; and many gallant soldiers were destroyed, without a
+vestige of the human form being left to prove that they had ever
+existed. The river, forced from its bed at either side, rushed
+into the forts and drowned numbers of their garrisons; while
+the ground far beyond shook as in an earthquake. The prince was
+struck down by a beam, and lay for some time senseless, together
+with two generals, Delvasto and Gajitani, both more seriously
+wounded than he; and many of the soldiers were burned and mutilated
+in the most frightful manner. Alexander soon recovered; and by
+his presence of mind, humanity, and resolution, he endeavored
+with incredible quickness to repair the mischief, and raised the
+confidence of his army as high as ever. Had the Zealand fleet
+come in time to the spot, the whole plan might have been crowned
+with success; but by some want of concert, or accidental delay,
+it did not appear; and consequently the beleaguered town received
+no relief.
+
+One last resource was left to the besieged; that which had formerly
+been resorted to at Leyden, and by which the place was saved.
+To enable them to inundate the immense plain which stretched
+between Lillo and Strabrock up to the walls of Antwerp, it was
+necessary to cut through the dike which defended it against the
+irruptions of the eastern Scheldt. This plain was traversed by
+a high and wide counter-dike, called the dike of Couvestien; and
+Alexander, knowing its importance, had early taken possession
+of and strongly defended it by several forts. Two attacks were
+made by the garrison of Antwerp on this important construction;
+the latter of which led to one of the most desperate encounters
+of the war. The prince, seeing that on the results of this day
+depended the whole consequences of his labors, fought with a
+valor that even he had never before displayed, and he was finally
+victorious. The confederates were forced to abandon the attack,
+leaving three thousand dead upon the dike or at its base; and
+the Spaniards lost full eight hundred men.
+
+One more fruitless attempt was made to destroy the bridge and
+raise the siege, by means of an enormous vessel bearing the
+presumptuous title of The End of the War. But this floating citadel
+ran aground, without producing any effect; and the gallant governor
+of Antwerp, the celebrated Philip de Saint Aldegonde, was forced
+to capitulate on the 16th of August, after a siege of fourteen
+months. The reduction of Antwerp was considered a miracle of
+perseverance and courage. The prince of Parma was elevated by
+his success to the highest pinnacle of renown; and Philip, on
+receiving the news, displayed a burst of joy such as rarely varied
+his cold and gloomy reserve.
+
+Even while the fate of Antwerp was undecided, the United Provinces,
+seeing that they were still too weak to resist alone the undivided
+force of the Spanish monarchy, had opened negotiations with France
+and England at once, in the hope of gaining one or the other for
+an ally and protector. Henry III. gave a most honorable reception
+to the ambassadors sent to his court, and was evidently disposed
+to accept their offers, had not the distracted state of his own
+country, still torn by civil war, quite disabled him from any
+effective co-operation. The deputies sent to England were also
+well received. Elizabeth listened to the proposals of the states,
+sent them an ambassador in return, and held out the most flattering
+hopes of succor. But her cautious policy would not suffer her
+to accept the sovereignty; and she declared that she would in
+nowise interfere with the negotiations, which might end in its
+being accepted by the king of France. She gave prompt evidence
+of her sincerity by an advance of considerable sums of money,
+and by sending to Holland a body of six thousand troops, under
+the command of her favorite, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester; and
+as security for the repayment of her loan, the towns of Flushing
+and Brille, and the castle of Rammekins, were given up to her.
+
+The earl of Leicester was accompanied by a splendid retinue of
+noblemen, and a select troop of five hundred followers. He was
+received at Flushing by the governor, Sir Philip Sidney, his
+nephew, the model of manners and conduct for the young men of
+his day. But Leicester possessed neither courage nor capacity
+equal to the trust reposed in him; and his arbitrary and indolent
+conduct soon disgusted the people whom he was sent to assist.
+They had, in the first impulse of their gratitude, given him
+the title of governor and captain-general of the provinces, in
+the hope of flattering Elizabeth. But this had a far contrary
+effect: she was equally displeased with the states and with
+Leicester; and it was with difficulty that, after many humble
+submissions, they were able to appease her.
+
+To form a counterpoise to the power so lavishly conferred on
+Leicester, Prince Maurice was, according to the wise advice of
+Olden Barnevelt, raised to the dignity of stadtholder,
+captain-general, and admiral of Holland and Zealand. This is
+the first instance of these states taking on themselves the
+nomination to the dignity of stadtholder, for even William has
+held his commission from Philip, or in his name; but Friesland,
+Groningen, and Guelders had already appointed their local governors,
+under the same title, by the authority of the states-general,
+the archduke Mathias, or even of the provincial states. Holland
+had now also at the head of its civil government a citizen full
+of talent and probity, who was thus able to contend with the
+insidious designs of Leicester against the liberty he nominally
+came to protect. This was Barnevelt, who was promoted from his
+office of pensionary of Rotterdam to that of Holland, and who
+accepted the dignity only on condition of being free to resign
+it if any accommodation of differences should take place with
+Spain.
+
+Alexander of Parma had, by the death of his mother, in February,
+1586, exchanged his title of prince for the superior one of duke
+of Parma, and soon resumed his enterprises with his usual energy
+and success; various operations took place, in which the English
+on every opportunity distinguished themselves; particularly in
+an action near the town of Grave, in Brabant; and in the taking
+of Axel by escalade, under the orders of Sir Philip Sidney. A
+more important affair occurred near Zutphen, at a place called
+Warnsfeld, both of which towns have given names to the action. On
+this occasion the veteran Spaniards, under the marquis of Guasto,
+were warmly attacked and completely defeated by the English;
+but the victory was dearly purchased by the death of Sir Philip
+Sidney, who was mortally wounded in the thigh, and expired a
+few days afterward, at the early age of thirty-two years. In
+addition to the valor, talent, and conduct, which had united to
+establish his fame, he displayed, on this last opportunity of
+his short career, an instance of humanity that sheds a new lustre
+on even a character like his. Stretched on the battlefield, in all
+the agony of his wound, and parched with thirst, his afflicted
+followers brought him some water, procured with difficulty at a
+distance, and during the heat of the fight. But Sidney, seeing a
+soldier lying near, mangled like himself, and apparently expiring,
+refused the water, saying, "Give it to that poor man; his sufferings
+are greater than mine."
+
+Leicester's conduct was now become quite intolerable to the states.
+His incapacity and presumption were every day more evident and
+more revolting. He seemed to consider himself in a province wholly
+reduced to English authority, and paid no sort of attention to the
+very opposite character of the people. An eminent Dutch author
+accounts for this, in terms which may make an Englishman of this age
+not a little proud of the contrast which his character presents to
+what it was then considered. "The Englishman," says Grotius, "obeys
+like a slave, and governs like a tyrant; while the Belgian knows
+how to serve and to command with equal moderation." The dislike
+between Leicester and those he insulted and misgoverned soon became
+mutual. He retired to the town of Utrecht; and pushed his injurious
+conduct to such an extent that he became an object of utter hatred
+to the provinces. All the friendly feelings toward England were
+gradually changed into suspicion and dislike. Conferences took
+place at The Hague between Leicester and the states, in which
+Barnevelt overwhelmed his contemptible shuffling by the force of
+irresistible eloquence and well-deserved reproaches; and after
+new acts of treachery, still more odious than his former, this
+unworthy favorite at last set out for England, to lay an account
+of his government at the feet of the queen.
+
+The growing hatred against England was fomented by the true patriots,
+who aimed at the liberty of their country; and may be excused, from
+the various instances of treachery displayed, not only by the
+commander-in-chief, but by several of his inferiors in command. A
+strong fort, near Zutphen, under the government of Roland York, the
+town of Deventer, under that of William Starily, and subsequently
+Guelders, under a Scotchman named Pallot, were delivered up to
+the Spaniards by these men; and about the same time the English
+cavalry committed some excesses in Guelders and Holland, which
+added to the prevalent prejudice against the nation in general. This
+enmity was no longer to be concealed. The partisans of Leicester
+were, one by one, under plausible pretexts, removed from the
+council of state; and Elizabeth having required from Holland
+the exportation into England of a large quantity of rye, it was
+firmly but respectfully refused, as inconsistent with the wants
+of the provinces.
+
+Prince Maurice, from the caprice and jealousy of Leicester, now
+united in himself the whole power of command, and commenced that
+brilliant course of conduct which consolidated the independence
+of his country and elevated him to the first rank of military
+glory. His early efforts were turned to the suppression of the
+partiality which in some places existed for English domination;
+and he never allowed himself to be deceived by the hopes of peace
+held out by the emperor and the kings of Denmark and Poland. Without
+refusing their mediation, he labored incessantly to organize
+every possible means for maintaining the war. His efforts were
+considerably favored by the measures of Philip for the support
+of the league formed by the House of Guise against Henry III. and
+Henry IV. of France; but still more by the formidable enterprise
+which the Spanish monarch was now preparing against England.
+
+Irritated and mortified by the assistance which Elizabeth had
+given to the revolted provinces, Philip resolved to employ his
+whole power in attempting the conquest of England itself; hoping
+afterward to effect with ease the subjugation of the Netherlands.
+He caused to be built, in almost every port of Spain and Portugal,
+galleons, carricks, and other ships of war of the largest dimensions;
+and at the same time gave orders to the duke of Parma to assemble
+in the harbors of Flanders as many vessels as he could collect
+together.
+
+The Spanish fleet, consisting of more than one hundred and forty
+ships of the line, and manned by twenty thousand sailors, assembled
+at Lisbon under the orders of the duke of Medina Sidonia; while
+the duke of Parma, uniting his forces, held himself ready on the
+coast of Flanders, with an army of thirty thousand men and four
+hundred transports. This prodigious force obtained, in Spain,
+the ostentatious title of the Invincible Armada. Its destination
+was for a while attempted to be concealed, under pretext that
+it was meant for India, or for the annihilation of the United
+Provinces; but the mystery was soon discovered. At the end of
+May, the principal fleet sailed from the port of Lisbon; and
+being reinforced off Corunna by a considerable squadron, the
+whole armament steered its course, for the shores of England.
+
+The details of the progress and the failure of this celebrated
+attempt are so thoroughly the province of English history that they
+would be in this place superfluous. But it must not be forgotten
+that the glory of the proud result was amply shared by the new
+republic, whose existence depended on it. While Howard and Drake
+held the British fleet in readiness to oppose the Spanish Armada,
+that of Holland, consisting of but twenty-five ships, under the
+command of Justin of Nassau, prepared to take a part in the conflict.
+This gallant though illegitimate scion of the illustrious house,
+whose name he upheld on many occasions, proved himself on the
+present worthy of such a father as William, and such a brother as
+Maurice. While the duke of Medina Sidonia, ascending the Channel
+as far as Dunkirk, there expected the junction of the duke of
+Parma with his important reinforcement, Justin of Nassau, by a
+constant activity, and a display of intrepid talent, contrived
+to block up the whole expected force in the ports of Flanders
+from Lillo to Dunkirk. The duke of Parma found it impossible
+to force a passage on any one point; and was doomed to the
+mortification of knowing that the attempt was frustrated, and the
+whole force of Spain frittered away, discomfited, and disgraced,
+from the want of a co-operation, which he could not, however,
+reproach himself for having withheld. The issue of the memorable
+expedition, which cost Spain years of preparation, thousands
+of men, and millions or treasure, was received in the country
+which sent it forth with consternation and rage. Philip alone
+possessed or affected an apathy which he covered with a veil
+of mock devotion that few were deceived by. At the news of the
+disaster, he fell on his knees, and rendering thanks for that
+gracious dispensation of Providence, expressed his joy that the
+calamity was not greater.
+
+The people, the priests, and the commanders of the expedition
+were not so easily appeased, or so clever as their hypocritical
+master in concealing their mortification. The priests accounted
+for this triumph of heresy as a punishment on Spain for suffering
+the existence of the infidel Moors in some parts of the country.
+The defeated admirals threw the whole blame on the duke of Parma.
+He, on his part, sent an ample remonstrance to the king; and
+Philip declared that he was satisfied with the conduct of his
+nephew. Leicester died four days after the final defeat and
+dispersion of the Armada.
+
+The war in the Netherlands had been necessarily suffered to languish,
+while every eye was fixed on the progress of the Armada, from
+formation to defeat. But new efforts were soon made by the duke
+of Parma to repair the time he had lost, and soothe, by his
+successes, the disappointed pride of Spain. Several officers now
+came into notice, remarkable for deeds of great gallantry and
+skill. None among those was so distinguished as Martin Schenck,
+a soldier of fortune, a man of ferocious activity, who began
+his career in the service of tyranny, and ended it by chance
+in that of independence. He changed sides several times, but,
+no matter who he fought for, he did his duty well, from that
+unconquerable principle of pugnacity which seemed to make his
+sword a part of himself.
+
+Schenck had lately, for the last time, gone over to the side
+of the states, and had caused a fort to be built in the isle
+of Betewe--that possessed of old by the Batavians--which was
+called by his name, and was considered the key to the passage
+of the Rhine. From this stronghold he constantly harassed the
+archbishop of Cologne, and had as his latest exploit surprised and
+taken the strong town of Bonn. While the duke of Parma took prompt
+measures for the relief of the prelate, making himself master in
+the meantime of some places of strength, the indefatigable Schenck
+resolved to make an attempt on the important town of Nimeguen. He
+with great caution embarked a chosen body of troops on the Wahal,
+and arrived under the walls of Nimeguen at sunrise on the morning
+chosen for the attack. His enterprise seemed almost crowned with
+success; when the inhabitants, recovering from their fright,
+precipitated themselves from the town; forced the assailants to
+retreat to their boats; and, carrying the combat into those
+overcharged and fragile vessels, upset several, and among others
+that which contained Schenck himself, who, covered with wounds,
+and fighting to the last gasp, was drowned with the greater part
+of his followers. His body, when recovered, was treated with
+the utmost indignity, quartered, and hung in portions over the
+different gates of the city.
+
+The following year was distinguished by another daring attempt on
+the part of the Hollanders, but followed by a different result.
+A captain named Haranguer concerted with one Adrien Vandenberg
+a plan for the surprise of Breda, on the possession of which
+Prince Maurice had set a great value. The associates contrived
+to conceal in a boat laden with turf (which formed the principal
+fuel of the inhabitants of that part of the country), and of
+which Vandenberg was master, eighty determined soldiers, and
+succeeded in arriving close to the city without any suspicion
+being excited. One of the soldiers, named Matthew Helt, being
+suddenly afflicted with a violent cough, implored his comrades
+to put him to death, to avoid the risk of a discovery. But a
+corporal of the city guard having inspected the cargo with
+unsuspecting carelessness, the immolation of the brave soldier
+became unnecessary, and the boat was dragged into the basin by
+the assistance of some of the very garrison who were so soon to
+fall victims to the stratagem. At midnight the concealed soldiers
+quitted their hiding-places, leaped on shore, killed the sentinels,
+and easily became masters of the citadel. Prince Maurice, following
+close with his army, soon forced the town to submit, and put it
+into so good a state of defence that Count Mansfield, who was
+sent to retake it, was obliged to retreat after useless efforts
+to fulfil his mission.
+
+The duke of Parma, whose constitution was severely injured by
+the constant fatigues of war and the anxieties attending on the
+late transactions, had snatched a short interval for the purpose
+of recruiting his health at the waters of Spa. While at that place
+he received urgent orders from Philip to abandon for a while all
+his proceedings in the Netherlands, and to hasten into France
+with his whole disposable force, to assist the army of the League.
+The battle of Yvri (in which the son of the unfortunate Count
+Egmont met his death while fighting in the service of his father's
+royal murderer) had raised the prospects and hopes of Henry IV.
+to a high pitch; and Paris, which he closely besieged, was on
+the point of yielding to his arms. The duke of Parma received his
+uncle's orders with great repugnance; and lamented the necessity
+of leaving the field of his former exploits open to the enterprise
+and talents of Prince Maurice. He nevertheless obeyed; and leaving
+Count Mansfield at the head of the government, he conducted his
+troops against the royal opponent, who alone seemed fully worthy
+of coping with him.
+
+The attention of all Europe was now fixed on the exciting spectacle
+of a contest between these two greatest captains of the age. The
+glory of success, the fruit of consummate skill, was gained by
+Alexander; who, by an admirable manoeuvre, got possession of
+the town of Lagny-sur-Seine, under the very eyes of Henry and
+his whole army, and thus acquired the means of providing Paris
+with everything requisite for its defence. The French monarch saw
+all his projects baffled, and his hopes frustrated; while his
+antagonist, having fully completed his object, drew off his army
+through Champagne, and made a fine retreat through an enemy's
+country, harassed at every step, but with scarcely any loss.
+
+But while this expedition added greatly to the renown of the
+general, it considerably injured the cause of Spain in the Low
+Countries. Prince Maurice, taking prompt advantage of the absence
+of his great rival, had made himself master of several fortresses;
+and some Spanish regiments having mutinied against the commanders
+left behind by the duke of Parma, others, encouraged by the impunity
+they enjoyed, were ready on the slightest pretext to follow their
+example. Maurice did not lose a single opportunity of profiting by
+circumstances so favorable; and even after the return of Alexander
+he seized on Zutphen, Deventer, and Nimeguen, despite all the
+efforts of the Spanish army. The duke of Parma, daily breaking
+down under the progress of disease, and agitated by these reverses,
+repaired again to Spa, taking at once every possible means for
+the recruitment of his army and the recovery of his health, on
+which its discipline and the chances of success now so evidently
+depended.
+
+But all his plans were again frustrated by a renewal of Philip's
+peremptory orders to march once more into France, to uphold the
+failing cause of the League against the intrepidity and talent
+of Henry IV. At this juncture the emperor Rodolf again offered
+his mediation between Spain and the United Provinces. But it
+was not likely that the confederated States, at the very moment
+when their cause began to triumph, and their commerce was every
+day becoming more and more flourishing, would consent to make
+any compromise with the tyranny they were at length in a fair
+way of crushing.
+
+The duke of Parma again appeared in France in the beginning of
+the year 1592; and, having formed his communications with the
+army of the League, marched to the relief of the city of Rouen,
+at that period pressed to the last extremity by the Huguenot
+forces. After some sharp skirmishes--and one in particular, in
+which Henry IV. suffered his valor to lead him into a too rash
+exposure of his own and his army's safety--a series of manoeuvres
+took place, which displayed the talents of the rival generals in
+the most brilliant aspect. Alexander at length succeeded in raising
+the siege of Rouen, and made himself master of Condebec, which
+commanded the navigation of the Seine. Henry, taking advantage
+of what appeared an irreparable fault on the part of the duke,
+invested his army in the hazardous position he had chosen; but
+while believing that he had the whole of his enemies in his power,
+he found that Alexander had passed the Seine with his entire
+force--raising his military renown to the utmost possible height
+by a retreat which it was deemed utterly impossible to effect.
+
+On his return to the Netherlands, the duke found himself again
+under the necessity of repairing to Spa, in search of some relief
+from the suffering which was considerably increased by the effects
+of a wound received in this last campaign. In spite of his shattered
+constitution, he maintained to the latest moment the most active
+endeavors for the reorganization of his army; and he was preparing
+for a new expedition into France, when, fortunately for the good
+cause in both countries, he was surprised by death on the 3d
+of December, 1592, at the abbey of St. Vaast, near Arras, at
+the age of forty-seven years. As it was hard to imagine that
+Philip would suffer anyone who had excited his jealousy to die
+a natural death, that of the duke of Parma was attributed to
+slow poison.
+
+Alexander of Parma was certainly one of the most remarkable, and,
+it may be added, one of the greatest, characters of his day. Most
+historians have upheld him even higher perhaps than he should
+be placed on the scale; asserting that he can be reproached with
+very few of the vices of the age in which he lived. Others consider
+this judgment too favorable, and accuse him of participation
+in all the crimes of Philip, whom he served so zealously. His
+having excited the jealousy of the tyrant, or even had he been
+put to death by his orders, would little influence the question;
+for Philip was quite capable of ingratitude or murder, to either
+an accomplice or an opponent of his baseness. But even allowing
+that Alexander's fine qualities were sullied by his complicity
+in these odious measures, we must still in justice admit that
+they were too much in the spirit of the times, and particularly
+of the school in which he was trained; and while we lament that
+his political or private faults place him on so low a level, we
+must rank him as one of the very first masters in the art of
+war in his own or any other age.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP II.
+
+A.D. 1592--1599
+
+The duke of Parma had chosen the count of Mansfield for his
+successor, and the nomination was approved by the king. He entered
+on his government under most disheartening circumstances. The rapid
+conquests of Prince Maurice in Brabant and Flanders were scarcely
+less mortifying than the total disorganization into which those
+two provinces had fallen. They were ravaged by bands of robbers
+called Picaroons, whose audacity reached such a height that they
+opposed in large bodies the forces sent for their suppression
+by the government. They on one occasion killed the provost of
+Flanders, and burned his lieutenant in a hollow tree; and on
+another they mutilated a whole troop of the national militia,
+and their commander, with circumstances of most revolting cruelty.
+
+The authority of governor-general, though not the title, was now
+fully shared by the count of Fuentes, who was sent to Brussels by
+the king of Spain; and the ill effects of this double viceroyalty
+was soon seen, in the brilliant progress of Prince Maurice, and
+the continual reverses sustained by the royalist armies. The king,
+still bent on projects of bigotry, sacrificed without scruple men
+and treasure for the overthrow of Henry IV. and the success of
+the League. The affairs of the Netherlands seemed now a secondary
+object; and he drew largely on his forces in that country for
+reinforcements to the ranks of his tottering allies. A final
+blow was, however, struck against the hopes of intolerance in
+France, and to the existence of the League, by the conversion
+of Henry IV. to the Catholic religion; he deeming theological
+disputes, which put the happiness of a whole kingdom in jeopardy,
+as quite subordinate to the public good.
+
+Such was the prosperity of the United Provinces, that they had
+been enabled to send a large supply, both of money and men, to the
+aid of Henry, their constant and generous ally. And notwithstanding
+this, their armies and fleets, so far from suffering diminution,
+were augmented day by day. Philip, resolved to summon up all
+his energy for the revival of the war against the republic, now
+appointed the archduke Ernest, brother of the emperor Rodolf,
+to the post which the disunion of Mansfield and Fuentes rendered
+as embarrassing as it had become inglorious. This prince, of
+a gentle and conciliatory character, was received at Brussels
+with great magnificence and general joy; his presence reviving
+the deep-felt hopes of peace entertained by the suffering people.
+Such were also the cordial wishes of the prince; but more than
+one design, formed at this period against the life of Prince
+Maurice, frustrated every expectation of the kind. A priest of
+the province of Namur, named Michael Renichon, disguised as a
+soldier, was the new instrument meant to strike another blow
+at the greatness of the House of Nassau, in the person of its
+gallant representative, Prince Maurice; as also in that of his
+brother, Frederic Henry, then ten years of age. On the confession
+of the intended assassin, he was employed by Count Berlaimont to
+murder the two princes. Renichon happily mismanaged the affair,
+and betrayed his intention. He was arrested at Breda, conducted
+to The Hague, and there tried and executed on the 3d of June,
+1594. This miserable wretch accused the archduke Ernest of having
+countenanced his attempt; but nothing whatever tends to criminate,
+while every probability acquits, that prince of such a participation.
+
+In this same year a soldier named Peter Dufour embarked in a
+like atrocious plot. He, too, was seized and executed before
+he could carry it into effect; and to his dying hour persisted
+in accusing the archduke of being his instigator. But neither
+the judges who tried, nor the best historians who record, his
+intended crime, gave any belief to this accusation. The mild and
+honorable disposition of the prince held a sufficient guarantee
+against its likelihood; and it is not less pleasing to be able
+fully to join in the prevalent opinion, than to mark a spirit
+of candor and impartiality break forth through the mass of bad
+and violent passions which crowd the records of that age.
+
+But all the esteem inspired by the personal character of Ernest
+could not overcome the repugnance of the United Provinces to
+trust to the apparent sincerity of the tyrant in whose name he
+made his overtures for peace. They were all respectfully and
+firmly rejected; and Prince Maurice, in the meantime, with his
+usual activity, passed the Meuse and the Rhine, and invested
+and quickly took the town of Groningen, by which he consummated
+the establishment of the republic, and secured its rank among
+the principal powers of Europe.
+
+The archduke Ernest, finding all his efforts for peace frustrated,
+and all hopes of gaining his object by hostility to be vain, became
+a prey to disappointment and regret, and died, from the effects
+of a slow fever, on the 21st of February, 1595; leaving to the
+count of Fuentes the honors and anxieties of the government,
+subject to the ratification of the king. This nobleman began
+the exercise of his temporary functions by an irruption into
+France, at the head of a small army; war having been declared
+against Spain by Henry IV., who, on his side, had despatched the
+Admiral de Villars to attack Philip's possessions in Hainault
+and Artois. This gallant officer lost a battle and his life in
+the contest; and Fuentes, encouraged by the victory, took some
+frontier towns, and laid siege to Cambray, the great object of
+his plans. The citizens, who detested their governor, the marquis
+of Bologni, who had for some time assumed an independent tyranny
+over them, gave up the place to the besiegers; and the citadel
+surrendered some days later. After this exploit Fuentes returned
+to Brussels, where, notwithstanding his success, he was extremely
+unpopular. He had placed a part of his forces under the command
+of Mondragon, one of the oldest and cleverest officers in the
+service of Spain. Some trifling affairs took place in Brabant; but
+the arrival of the archduke Albert, whom the king had appointed
+to succeed his brother Ernest in the office of governor-general,
+deprived Fuentes of any further opportunity of signalizing his
+talents for supreme command. Albert arrived at Brussels on the
+11th of February, 1596, accompanied by the Prince of Orange, who,
+when count of Beuren, had been carried off from the university
+of Louvain, twenty-eight years previously, and held captive in
+Spain during the whole of that period.
+
+The archduke Albert, fifth son of the emperor Maximilian II., and
+brother of Rodolf, stood high in the opinion of Philip, his uncle,
+and merited his reputation for talents, bravery, and prudence. He
+had been early made archbishop of Toledo, and afterward cardinal;
+but his profession was not that of these nominal dignities. He was
+a warrior and politician of considerable capacity; and had for
+some years faithfully served the king, as viceroy of Portugal. But
+Philip meant him for the more independent situation of sovereign
+of the Netherlands, and at the same time destined him to be the
+husband of his daughter Isabella. He now sent him, in the capacity
+of governor-general, to prepare the way for the important change;
+at once to gain the good graces of the people, and soothe, by
+this removal from Philip's too close neighborhood, the jealousy
+of his son, the hereditary prince of Spain. Albert brought with
+him to Brussels a small reinforcement for the army, with a large
+supply of money, more wanting at this conjuncture than men. He
+highly praised the conduct of Fuentes in the operations just
+finished; and resolved to continue the war on the same plan, but
+with forces much superior.
+
+He opened his first campaign early; and, by a display of clever
+manoeuvring, which threatened an attempt to force the French to
+raise the siege of La Fere, in the heart of Picardy, he concealed
+his real design--the capture of Calais; and he succeeded in its
+completion almost before it was suspected. The Spanish and Walloon
+troops, led on by Rone, a distinguished officer, carried the
+first defences: after nine days of siege the place was forced to
+surrender; and in a few more the citadel followed the example.
+The archduke soon after took the towns of Ardres and Hulst; and by
+prudently avoiding a battle, to which he was constantly provoked by
+Henry IV., who commanded the French army in person, he established
+his character for military talent of no ordinary degree.
+
+He at the same time made overtures of reconciliation to the United
+Provinces, and hoped that the return of the Prince of Orange
+would be a means of effecting so desirable a purpose. But the
+Dutch were not to be deceived by the apparent sincerity of Spanish
+negotiation. They even doubted the sentiments of the Prince of
+Orange, whose attachments and principles bad been formed in so
+hated a school; and nothing passed between them and him but mutual
+civilities. They clearly evinced their disapprobation of his
+intended visit to Holland; and he consequently fixed his residence
+in Brussels, passing his life in an inglorious neutrality.
+
+A naval expedition formed in this year by the English and Dutch
+against Cadiz, commanded by the earl of Essex, and Counts Louis
+and William of Nassau, cousins of Prince Maurice, was crowned
+with brilliant success, and somewhat consoled the provinces for
+the contemporary exploits of the archduke. But the following
+year opened with an affair which at once proved his unceasing
+activity, and added largely to the reputation of his rival, Prince
+Maurice. The former had detached the count of Varas, with about
+six thousand men, for the purpose of invading the province of
+Holland; but Maurice, with equal energy and superior talent,
+followed big movements, came up with him near Turnhout, on the
+24th of January, 1597; and after a sharp action, of which the
+Dutch cavalry bore the whole brunt, Varas was killed, and his
+troops defeated with considerable loss.
+
+This action may be taken as a fair sample of the difficulty with
+which any estimate can be formed of the relative losses on such
+occasions. The Dutch historians state the loss of the royalists,
+in killed, at upward of two thousand. Meteren, a good authority,
+says the peasants buried two thousand two hundred and fifty;
+while Bentivoglio, an Italian writer in the interest of Spain,
+makes the number exactly half that amount. Grotius says that
+the loss of the Dutch was four men killed. Bentivoglio states
+it at one hundred. But, at either computation, it is clear that
+the affair was a brilliant one on the part of Prince Maurice.
+
+This was in its consequences a most disastrous affair to the
+archduke. His army was disorganized, and his finances exhausted;
+while the confidence of the states in their troops and their
+general was considerably raised. But the taking of Amiens by
+Portocarrero, one of the most enterprising of the Spanish captains,
+gave a new turn to the failing fortunes of Albert. This gallant
+officer, whose greatness of mind, according to some historians,
+was much disproportioned to the smallness of his person, gained
+possession of that important town by a well-conducted stratagem,
+and maintained his conquest valiantly till he was killed in its
+defence. Henry IV. made prodigious efforts to recover the place,
+the chief bulwark on that side of France; and having forced
+Montenegro, the worthy successor of Portocarrero, to capitulate,
+granted him and his garrison most honorable conditions. Henry,
+having secured Amiens against any new attack, returned to Paris
+and made a triumphal entry into the city.
+
+During this year Prince Maurice took a number of towns in rapid
+succession; and the states, according to their custom, caused
+various medals, in gold, silver, and copper, to be struck, to
+commemorate the victories which had signalized their arms.
+
+Philip II., feeling himself approaching the termination of his
+long and agitating career, now wholly occupied himself in
+negotiations for peace with France. Henry IV. desired it as
+anxiously. The pope, Clement VIII., encouraged by his exhortations
+this mutual inclination. The king of Poland sent ambassadors to
+The Hague and to London, to induce the states and Queen Elizabeth
+to become parties in a general pacification. These overtures
+led to no conclusion; but the conferences between France and
+Spain went on with apparent cordiality and great promptitude,
+and a peace was concluded between these powers at Vervins, on
+the 2d of May, 1598.
+
+Shortly after the publication of this treaty, another important
+act was made known to the world, by which Philip ceded to Albert
+and Isabella, on their being formally affianced--a ceremony which
+now took place--the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Netherlands.
+This act bears date the 6th of May, and was proclaimed with all
+the solemnity due to so important a transaction. It contained
+thirteen articles; and was based on the misfortunes which the
+absence of the sovereign had hitherto caused to the Low Countries.
+The Catholic religion was declared that of the state, in its full
+integrity. The provinces were guaranteed against dismemberment.
+The archdukes, by which title the joint sovereigns were designated
+without any distinction of sex, were secured in the possession,
+with right of succession to their children; and a provision was
+added, that in default of posterity their possessions should
+revert to the Spanish crown. The infanta Isabella soon sent her
+procuration to the archduke, her affianced husband, giving him
+full power and authority to take possession of the ceded dominions
+in her name as in his own; and Albert was inaugurated with great
+pomp at Brussels, on the 22d of August. Having put everything in
+order for the regulation of the government during his absence, he
+set out for Spain for the purpose of accomplishing his spousals,
+and bringing back his bride to the chief seat of their joint power.
+But before his departure he wrote to the various states of the
+republic, and to Prince Maurice himself, strongly recommending
+submission and reconciliation. These letters received no answer;
+a new plot against the life of Prince Maurice, by a wretched
+individual named Peter Pann, having aroused the indignation of
+the country, and determined it to treat with suspicion and contempt
+every insidious proposition from the tyranny it defied.
+
+Albert placed his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of Austria, at the
+head of the temporary government, and set out on his journey;
+taking the little town of Halle in his route, and placing at
+the altar of the Virgin, who is there held in particular honor,
+his cardinal's hat as a token of his veneration. He had not made
+much progress when he received accounts of the demise of Philip
+II., who died, after long suffering, and with great resignation,
+on the 13th of September, 1598, at the age of seventy-two. Albert
+was several months on his journey through Germany; and the
+ceremonials of his union with the infanta did not take place
+till the 18th of April, 1599, when it was finally solemnized in
+the city of Valencia in Spain.
+
+This transaction, by which the Netherlands were positively erected
+into a separate sovereignty, seems naturally to make the limits
+of another epoch in their history. It completely decided the
+division between the northern and southern provinces, which,
+although it had virtually taken place long previous to this period,
+could scarcely be considered as formally consummated until now.
+Here then we shall pause anew, and take a rapid review of the
+social state of the Netherlands during the last half century,
+which was beyond all doubt the most important period of their
+history, from the earliest times till the present.
+
+It has been seen that when Charles V. resigned his throne and
+the possession of his vast dominions to his son, arts, commerce,
+and manufactures had risen to a state of considerable perfection
+throughout the Netherlands. The revolution, of which we have traced
+the rise and progress, naturally produced to those provinces
+which relapsed into slavery a most lamentable change in every
+branch of industry, and struck a blow at the general prosperity,
+the effects of which are felt to this very day. Arts, science,
+and literature were sure to be checked and withered in the blaze
+of civil war; and we have now to mark the retrograde movements
+of most of those charms and advantages of civilized life, in
+which Flanders and the other southern states were so rich.
+
+The rapid spread of enlightenment on religious subjects soon
+converted the manufactories and workshops of Flanders into so
+many conventicles of reform; and the clear-sighted artisans fled
+in thousands from the tyranny of Alva into England, Germany, and
+Holland--those happier countries, where the government adopted and
+went hand in hand with the progress of rational belief. Commerce
+followed the fate of manufactures. The foreign merchants one
+by one abandoned the theatre of bigotry and persecution; and
+even Antwerp, which had succeeded Bruges as the great mart of
+European traffic, was ruined by the horrible excesses of the
+Spanish soldiery, and never recovered from the shock. Its trade,
+its wealth, and its prosperity, were gradually transferred to
+Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the towns of Holland and Zealand; and
+the growth of Dutch commerce attained its proud maturity in the
+establishment of the India Company in 1596, the effects of which
+we shall have hereafter more particularly to dwell on.
+
+The exciting and romantic enterprises of the Portuguese and Spanish
+navigators in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries roused all
+the ardor of other nations for those distant adventures; and the
+people of the Netherlands were early influenced by the general
+spirit of Europe. If they were not the discoverers of new worlds,
+they were certainly the first to make the name of European respected
+and venerated by the natives.
+
+Animated by the ardor which springs from the spirit of freedom
+and the enthusiasm of success, the United Provinces labored for
+the discovery of new outlets for their commerce and navigation.
+The government encouraged the speculations of individuals, which
+promised fresh and fertile sources of revenue, so necessary for
+the maintenance of the war. Until the year 1581 the merchants of
+Holland and Zealand were satisfied to find the productions of
+India at Lisbon, which was the mart of that branch of trade ever
+since the Portuguese discovered the passage by the Cape of Good
+Hope. But Philip II., having conquered Portugal, excluded the United
+Provinces from the ports of that country; and their enterprising
+mariners were from that period driven to those efforts which
+rapidly led to private fortune and general prosperity. The English
+had opened the way in this career; and the states-general having
+offered a large reward for the discovery of a northwest passage,
+frequent and most adventurous voyages took place. Houtman, Le
+Maire, Heemskirk, Ryp, and others, became celebrated for their
+enterprise, and some for their perilous and interesting adventures.
+
+The United Provinces were soon without any rival on the seas.
+In Europe alone they had one thousand two hundred merchant ships
+in activity, and upward of seventy thousand sailors constantly
+employed. They built annually two thousand vessels. In the year
+1598, eighty ships sailed from their ports for the Indies or
+America. They carried on, besides, an extensive trade on the coast
+of Guinea, whence they brought large quantities of gold-dust;
+and found, in short, in all quarters of the globe the reward of
+their skill, industry, and courage.
+
+The spirit of conquest soon became grafted on the habits of trade.
+Expedition succeeded to expedition. Failure taught wisdom to
+those who did not want bravery. The random efforts of individuals
+were succeeded by organized plans, under associations well
+constituted and wealthy; and these soon gave birth to those eastern
+and western companies before alluded to. The disputes between
+the English and the Hanseatic towns were carefully observed by
+the Dutch, and turned to their own advantage. The English
+manufacturers, who quickly began to flourish, from the influx
+of Flemish workmen under the encouragement of Elizabeth, formed
+companies in the Netherlands, and sent their cloths into those
+very towns of Germany which formerly possessed the exclusive
+privilege of their manufacture. These towns naturally felt
+dissatisfied, and their complaints were encouraged by the king
+of Spain. The English adventurers received orders to quit the
+empire; and, invited by the states-general, many of them fixed
+their residence in Middleburg, which became the most celebrated
+woollen market in Europe.
+
+The establishment of the Jews in the towns of the republic forms
+a remarkable epoch in the annals of trade. This people, so outraged
+by the loathsome bigotry which Christians have not blushed to
+call religion, so far from being depressed by the general
+persecution, seemed to find it a fresh stimulus to the exertion
+of their industry. To escape death in Spain and Portugal they
+took refuge in Holland, where toleration encouraged and just
+principles of state maintained them. They were at first taken
+for Catholics, and subjected to suspicion; but when their real
+faith was understood they were no longer molested.
+
+Astronomy and geography, two sciences so closely allied with and
+so essential to navigation, flourished now throughout Europe.
+Ortilius of Antwerp, and Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde, were two
+of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century; and the
+reform in the calendar at the end of that period gave stability
+to the calculations of time, which had previously suffered all
+the inconvenient fluctuations attendant on the old style.
+
+Literature had assumed during the revolution in the Netherlands
+the almost exclusive and repulsive aspect of controversial learning.
+The university of Douay, installed in 1562 as a new screen against
+the piercing light of reform, quickly became the stronghold of
+intolerance. That of Leyden, established by the efforts of the
+Prince of Orange, soon after the famous siege of that town in
+1574, was on a less exclusive plan--its professors being in the
+first instance drawn from Germany. Many Flemish historians succeeded
+in this century to the ancient and uncultivated chroniclers of
+preceding times; the civil wars drawing forth many writers, who
+recorded what they witnessed, but often in a spirit of partisanship
+and want of candor, which seriously embarrasses him who desires
+to learn the truth on both sides of an important question. Poetry
+declined and drooped in the times of tumult and suffering; and the
+chambers of rhetoric, to which its cultivation had been chiefly
+due, gradually lost their influence, and finally ceased to exist.
+
+In fixing our attention on the republic of the United Provinces
+during the epoch now completed, we feel the desire, and lament the
+impossibility, of entering on the details of government in that most
+remarkable state. For these we must refer to what appears to us the
+best authority for clear and ample information on the prerogative
+of the stadtholder, the constitution of the states-general, the
+privileges of the tribunals and local assemblies, and other points
+of moment concerning the principles of the Belgic confederation.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: See Cerisier, Hist. Gen. des Prov. Unies.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PRINCE MAURICE AND SPINOLA
+
+A.D. 1599--1604
+
+Previous to his departure for Spain, the archduke Albert had
+placed the government of the provinces which acknowledged his
+domination in the hands of his uncle, the cardinal Andrew of
+Austria, leaving in command of the army Francisco Mendoza, admiral
+of Aragon. The troops at his disposal amounted to twenty-two
+thousand fighting men--a formidable force, and enough to justify
+the serious apprehensions of the republic. Albert, whose finances
+were exhausted by payments made to the numerous Spanish and Italian
+mutineers, had left orders with Mendoza to secure some place on
+the Rhine, which might open a passage for free quarters in the
+enemy's country. But this unprincipled officer forced his way
+into the neutral districts of Cleves and Westphalia; and with a
+body of executioners ready to hang up all who might resist, and
+of priests to prepare them for death, he carried such terror on
+his march that no opposition was ventured. The atrocious cruelties
+of Mendoza and his troops baffle all description: on one occasion
+they murdered, in cold blood, the count of Walkenstein, who
+surrendered his castle on the express condition of his freedom;
+and they committed every possible excess that may be imagined
+of ferocious soldiery encouraged by a base commander.
+
+Prince Maurice soon put into motion, to oppose this army of brigands,
+his small disposable force of about seven thousand men. With these,
+however, and a succession of masterly manoeuvres, he contrived to
+preserve the republic from invasion, and to paralyze and almost
+destroy an army three times superior in numbers to his own. The
+horrors committed by the Spaniards, in the midst of peace, and
+without the slightest provocation, could not fail to excite the
+utmost indignation in a nation so fond of liberty and so proud
+as Germany. The duchy of Cleves felt particularly aggrieved; and
+Sybilla, the sister of the duke, a real heroine in a glorious
+cause, so worked on the excited passions of the people by her
+eloquence and her tears that she persuaded all the orders of
+the state to unite against the odious enemy. Some troops were
+suddenly raised; and a league was formed between several princes
+of the empire to revenge the common cause. The count de la Lippe
+was chosen general of their united forces; and the choice could
+not have fallen on one more certainly incapable or more probably
+treacherous.
+
+The German army, with their usual want of activity, did not open
+the campaign till the month of June. It consisted of fourteen
+thousand men; and never was an army so badly conducted. Without
+money, artillery, provisions, or discipline, it was at any moment
+ready to break up and abandon its incompetent general; and on
+the very first encounter with the enemy, and after a loss of
+a couple of hundred men, it became self-disbanded; and, flying
+in every direction, not a single man could be rallied to clear
+away this disgrace.
+
+The states-general, cruelly disappointed at this result of measures
+from which they had looked for so important a diversion in their
+favor, now resolved on a vigorous exertion of their own energies,
+and determined to undertake a naval expedition of a magnitude
+greater than any they had hitherto attempted. The force of public
+opinion was at this period more powerful than it had ever yet been
+in the United Provinces; for a great number of the inhabitants,
+who, during the life of Philip II., conscientiously believed that
+they could not lawfully abjure the authority once recognized and
+sworn to, became now liberated from those respectable, although
+absurd, scruples; and the death of one unfeeling despot gave
+thousands of new citizens to the state.
+
+A fleet of seventy-three vessels, carrying eight thousand men,
+was soon equipped, under the order of Admiral Vander Goes; and,
+after a series of attempts on the coasts of Spain, Portugal,
+Africa, and the Canary Isles, this expedition, from which the
+most splendid results were expected, was shattered, dispersed,
+and reduced to nothing by a succession of unheard-of mishaps.
+
+To these disappointments were now added domestic dissensions in
+the republic, in consequence of the new taxes absolutely necessary
+for the exigencies of the state. The conduct of Queen Elizabeth
+greatly added to the general embarrassment: she called for the
+payment of her former loans; insisted on the recall of the English
+troops, and declared her resolution to make peace with Spain.
+Several German princes promised aid in men and money, but never
+furnished either; and in this most critical juncture, Henry IV.
+was the only foreign sovereign who did not abandon the republic.
+He sent them one thousand Swiss troops, whom he had in his pay;
+allowed them to levy three thousand more in France; and gave
+them a loan of two hundred thousand crowns--a very convenient
+supply in their exhausted state.
+
+The archdukes Albert and Isabella arrived in the Netherlands in
+September, and made their entrance into Brussels with unexampled
+magnificence. They soon found themselves in a situation quite as
+critical as was that of the United Provinces, and both parties
+displayed immense energy to remedy their mutual embarrassments.
+The winter was extremely rigorous; so much so as to allow of
+military operations being undertaken on the ice. Prince Maurice soon
+commenced a Christmas campaign by taking the town of Wachtendenck;
+and he followed up his success by obtaining possession of the
+important forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, in the island of
+Bommel. A most dangerous mutiny at the same time broke out in
+the army of the archdukes; and Albert seemed left without troops
+or money at the very beginning of his sovereignty.
+
+But these successes of Prince Maurice were only the prelude to
+an expedition of infinitely more moment, arranged with the utmost
+secrecy, and executed with an energy scarcely to be looked for from
+the situation of the states. This was nothing less than an invasion
+poured into the very heart of Flanders, thus putting the archdukes
+on the defence of their own most vital possessions, and changing
+completely the whole character of the war. The whole disposable
+troops of the republic, amounting to about seventeen thousand
+men, were secretly assembled in the island of Walcheren, in the
+month of June; and setting sail for Flanders, they disembarked
+near Ghent, and arrived on the 20th of that month under the walls
+of Bruges. Some previous negotiations with that town had led
+the prince to expect that it would have opened its gates at his
+approach. In this he was, however, disappointed; and after taking
+possession of some forts in the neighborhood, he continued his
+march to Nieuport, which place he invested on the 1st of July.
+
+At the news of this invasion the archdukes, though taken by surprise,
+displayed a promptness and decision that proved them worthy of
+the sovereignty which seemed at stake. With incredible activity
+they mustered, in a few days, an army of twelve thousand men,
+which they passed in review near Ghent. On this occasion Isabella,
+proving her title to a place among those heroic women with whom
+the age abounded, rode through the royalist ranks, and harangued
+them in a style of inspiring eloquence that inflamed their courage
+and secured their fidelity. Albert, seizing the moment of this
+excitement, put himself at their head, and marched to seek the
+enemy, leaving his intrepid wife at Bruges, the nearest town to
+the scene of the action he was resolved on. He gained possession
+of all the forts taken and garrisoned by Maurice a few days before;
+and pushing forward with his apparently irresistible troops, he
+came up on the morning of the 2d of July with a large body of
+those of the states, consisting of about three thousand men, sent
+forward under the command of Count Ernest of Nassau to reconnoitre
+and judge of the extent of this most unexpected movement: for
+Prince Maurice was, in his turn, completely surprised; and not
+merely by one of those manoeuvres of war by which the best generals
+are sometimes deceived, but by an exertion of political vigor and
+capacity of which history offers few more striking examples. Such
+a circumstance, however, served only to draw forth a fresh display
+of those uncommon talents which in so many various accidents of
+war had placed Maurice on the highest rank for military talent.
+The detachment under Count Ernest of Nassau was chiefly composed
+of Scottish infantry; and this small force stood firmly opposed
+to the impetuous attack of the whole royalist army--thus giving
+time to the main body under the prince to take up a position, and
+form in order of battle. Count Ernest was at length driven back,
+with the loss of eight hundred men killed, almost all Scottish;
+and being cut off from the rest of the army, was forced to take
+refuge in Ostend, which town was in possession of the troops
+of the states.
+
+The army of Albert now marched on, flushed with this first success
+and confident of final victory. Prince Maurice received them
+with the courage of a gallant soldier and the precaution of a
+consummate general. He had caused the fleet of ships of war and
+transports, which had sailed along the coast from Zealand, and
+landed supplies of ammunition and provisions, to retire far from
+the share, so as to leave to his army no chance of escape but in
+victory. The commissioners from the states, who always accompanied
+the prince as a council of observation rather than of war, had
+retired to Ostend in great consternation, to wait the issue of
+the battle which now seemed inevitable. A scene of deep feeling
+and heroism was the next episode of this memorable day, and throws
+the charm of natural affection over those circumstances in which
+glory too seldom leaves a place for the softer emotions of the
+heart. When the patriot army was in its position, and firmly
+waiting the advance of the foe, Prince Maurice turned to his
+brother, Frederick Henry, then sixteen years of age, and several
+young noblemen, English, French, and German, who like him attended
+on the great captain to learn the art of war: he pointed out
+in a few words the perilous situation in which he was placed;
+declared his resolution to conquer or perish on the battlefield,
+and recommended the boyish band to retire to Ostend, and wait
+for some less desperate occasion to share his renown or revenge
+his fall. Frederick Henry spurned the affectionate suggestion,
+and swore to stand by his brother to the last; and all his young
+companions adopted the same generous resolution.
+
+The army of the states was placed in order of battle, about a
+league in front of Nieuport, in the sand hills with which the
+neighborhood abounds, its left wing resting on the seashore. Its
+losses of the morning, and of the garrisons left in the forts
+near Bruges, reduced it to an almost exact equality with that of
+the archduke. Each of these armies was composed of that variety
+of troops which made them respectively an epitome of the various
+nations of Europe. The patriot force contained Dutch, English,
+French, German, and Swiss, under the orders of Count Louis of
+Nassau, Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere, brothers and English
+officers of great celebrity, with other distinguished captains.
+The archduke mustered Spaniards, Italians, Walloons, and Irish in
+his ranks, led on by Mendoza, La Berlotta, and their fellow-veterans.
+Both armies were in the highest state of discipline, trained to
+war by long service, and enthusiastic in the several causes which
+they served; the two highest principles of enthusiasm urging them
+on--religious fanaticism on the one hand, and the love of freedom
+on the other. The rival generals rode along their respective
+lines, addressed a few brief sentences of encouragement to their
+men, and presently the bloody contest began.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the archduke commenced
+the attack. His advanced guard, commanded by Mendoza and composed
+of those former mutineers who now resolved to atone for their
+misconduct, marched across the sand-hills with desperate resolution.
+They soon came into contact with the English contingent under Francis
+Vere, who was desperately wounded in the shock. The assault was
+almost irresistible. The English, borne down by numbers, were
+forced to give way; but the main body pressed on to their support.
+Horace Vere stepped forward to supply his brother's place. Not
+an inch of ground more was gained or lost; the firing ceased,
+and pikes and swords crossed each other in the resolute conflict
+of man to man. The action became general along the whole line.
+The two commanders-in-chief were at all points. Nothing could
+exceed their mutual display of skill and courage. At length the
+Spanish cavalry, broken by the well-directed fire of the patriot
+artillery, fell back on their infantry and threw it into confusion.
+The archduke at the same instant was wounded by a lance in the
+cheek, unhorsed, and forced to quit the field. The report of
+his death, and the sight of his war-steed galloping alone across
+the field, spread alarm through the royalist ranks. Prince Maurice
+saw and seized on the critical moment. He who had so patiently
+maintained his position for three hours of desperate conflict
+now knew the crisis for a prompt and general advance. He gave
+the word and led on to the charge, and the victory was at once
+his own.
+
+The defeat of the royalist army was complete. The whole of the
+artillery, baggage, standards, and ammunition, fell into the
+possession of the conquerors. Night coming on saved those who
+fled, and the nature of the ground prevented the cavalry from
+consummating the destruction of the whole. As far as the conflicting
+accounts of the various historians may be compared and calculated
+on, the royalists had three thousand killed, and among them several
+officers of rank; while the patriot army, including those who fell
+in the morning action, lost something more than half the number.
+The archduke, furnished with a fresh horse, gained Bruges in safety;
+but he only waited there long enough to join his heroic wife,
+with whom he proceeded rapidly to Ghent, and thence to Brussels.
+Mendoza was wounded and taken prisoner, and with difficulty saved
+by Prince Maurice from the fury of the German auxiliaries.
+
+The moral effect produced by this victory on the vanquishers
+and vanquished, and on the state of public opinion throughout
+Europe, was immense; but its immediate consequences were incredibly
+trifling. Not one result in a military point of view followed
+an event which appeared almost decisive of the war. Nieuport
+was again invested three days after the battle; but a strong
+reinforcement entering the place saved it from all danger, and
+Maurice found himself forced for want of supplies to abandon the
+scene of his greatest exploit. He returned to Holland, welcomed
+by the acclamations of his grateful country, and exciting the
+jealousy and hatred of all who envied his glory or feared his
+power. Among the sincere and conscientious republicans who saw
+danger to the public liberty in the growing influence of a successful
+soldier, placed at the head of affairs and endeared to the people
+by every hereditary and personal claim, was Olden Barneveldt,
+the pensionary; and from this period may be traced the growth
+of the mutual antipathy which led to the sacrifice of the most
+virtuous statesman of Holland, and the eternal disgrace of its
+hitherto heroic chief.
+
+The states of the Catholic provinces assembled at Brussels now
+gave the archdukes to understand that nothing but peace could
+satisfy their wishes or save the country from exhaustion and
+ruin. Albert saw the reasonableness of their remonstrances, and
+attempted to carry the great object into effect. The states-general
+listened to his proposals. Commissioners were appointed on both
+sides to treat of terms. They met at Berg-op-Zoom; but their
+conferences were broken up almost as soon as commenced. The Spanish
+deputies insisted on the submission of the republic to its ancient
+masters. Such a proposal was worse than insulting; it proved the
+inveterate insincerity of those with whom it originated, and
+who knew it could not be entertained for a moment. Preparations
+for hostilities were therefore commenced on both sides, and the
+whole of the winter was thus employed.
+
+Early in the spring Prince Maurice opened the campaign at the
+head of sixteen thousand men, chiefly composed of English and
+French, who seemed throughout the contest to forget their national
+animosities, and to know no rivalry but that of emulation in the
+cause of liberty. The town of Rhinberg soon fell into the hands
+of the prince. His next attempt was against Bois-le-duc; and the
+siege of this place was signalized by an event that flavored of the
+chivalric contests now going out of fashion. A Norman gentleman of
+the name of Breaute, in the service of Prince Maurice, challenged
+the royalist garrison to meet him and twenty of his comrades
+in arms under the walls of the place. The cartel was accepted
+by a Fleming named Abramzoom, but better known by the epithet
+Leckerbeetje (savory bit), who, with twenty more, met Breaute
+and his friends. The combat was desperate. The Flemish champion
+was killed at the first shock by his Norman challenger; but the
+latter falling into the hands of the enemy, they treacherously
+and cruelly put him to death, in violation of the strict conditions
+of the fight. Prince Maurice was forced to raise the siege of
+Bois-le-duc, and turn his attention in another direction.
+
+The archduke Albert had now resolved to invest Ostend, a place
+of great importance to the United Provinces, but little worth to
+either party in comparison with the dreadful waste of treasure
+and human life which was the consequence of its memorable siege.
+Sir Francis Vere commanded in the place at the period of its final
+investment; but governors, garrisons, and besieging forces, were
+renewed and replaced with a rapidity which gives one of the most
+frightful instances of the ravages of war. The siege of Ostend lasted
+upward of three years. It became a school for the young nobility
+of all Europe, who repaired to either one or the other party to
+learn the principles and the practice of attack and defence.
+Everything that the art of strategy could devise was resorted to on
+either side. The slaughter in the various assaults, sorties, and
+bombardments was enormous. Squadrons at sea gave a double interest
+to the land operations; and the celebrated brothers Frederick
+and Ambrose Spinola founded their reputation on these opposing
+elements. Frederick was killed in one of the naval combats with
+the Dutch galleys, and the fame of reducing Ostend was reserved
+for Ambrose. This afterward celebrated general had undertaken
+the command at the earnest entreaties of the archduke and the
+king of Spain, and by the firmness and vigor of his measures
+he revived the courage of the worn-out assailants of the place.
+Redoubled attacks and multiplied mines at length reduced the town
+to a mere mass of ruin, and scarcely left its still undaunted
+garrison sufficient footing on which to prolong their desperate
+defence. Ostend at length surrendered, on the 22d of September,
+1604, and the victors marched in over its crumbled walls and
+shattered batteries. Scarcely a vestige of the place remained
+beyond those terrible evidences of destruction. Its ditches,
+filled up with the rubbish of ramparts, bastions, and redoubts,
+left no distinct line of separation between the operations of
+its attack and its defence. It resembled rather a vast sepulchre
+than a ruined town, a mountain of earth and rubbish, without a
+single house in which the wretched remnant of the inhabitants
+could hide their heads--a monument of desolation on which victory
+might have sat and wept.
+
+During the progress of this memorable siege Queen Elizabeth of
+England had died, after a long and, it must be pronounced, a
+glorious reign; though the glory belongs rather to the nation
+than to the monarch, whose memory is marked with indelible stains
+of private cruelty, as in the cases of Essex and Mary Queen of
+Scots, and of public wrongs, as in that of her whole system of
+tyranny in Ireland. With respect to the United Provinces she was
+a harsh protectress and a capricious ally. She in turns advised
+them to remain faithful to the old impurities of religion and to
+their intolerable king; refused to incorporate them with her
+own states; and then used her best efforts for subjecting them to
+her sway. She seemed to take pleasure in the uncertainty to which
+she reduced them, by constant demands for payment of her loans,
+and threats of making peace with Spain. Thus the states-general
+were not much affected by the news of her death; and so rejoiced
+were they at the accession of James I. to the throne of England
+that all the bells of Holland rang out merry peals; bonfires
+were set blazing all over the country; a letter of congratulation
+was despatched to the new monarch; and it was speedily followed
+by a solemn embassy composed of Prince Frederick Henry, the grand
+pensionary De Barneveldt, and others of the first dignitaries of
+the republic. These ambassadors were grievously disappointed at
+the reception given to them by James, who treated them as little
+better than rebels to their lawful king. But this first disposition
+to contempt and insult was soon overcome by the united talents
+of Barneveldt and the great duke of Sully, who were at the same
+period ambassadors from France at the English court. The result
+of the negotiations was an agreement between those two powers to
+take the republic under their protection, and use their best
+efforts for obtaining the recognition of its independence by
+Spain.
+
+The states-general considered themselves amply recompensed for
+the loss of Ostend by the taking of Ecluse, Rhinberg, and Grave,
+all of which had in the interval surrendered to Prince Maurice;
+but they were seriously alarmed on finding themselves abandoned
+by King James, who concluded a separate peace with Philip III.
+of Spain in the month of August this year.
+
+This event gives rise to a question very important to the honor
+of James, and consequently to England itself, as the acts of
+the absolute monarchs of those days must be considered as those
+of the nations which submitted to such a form of government.
+Historians of great authority have asserted that it appeared
+that, by a secret agreement, the king had expressly reserved the
+power of sending assistance to Holland. Others deny the existence
+of this secret article; and lean heavily on the reputation of
+James for his conduct in the transaction. It must be considered
+a very doubtful point, and is to be judged rather by subsequent
+events than by any direct testimony.
+
+The two monarchs stipulated in the treaty that "neither was to
+give support of any kind to the revolted subjects of the other."
+It is nevertheless true that James did not withdraw his troops
+from the service of the states; but he authorized the Spaniards
+to levy soldiers in England. The United Provinces were at once
+afflicted and indignant at this equivocal conduct. Their first
+impulse was to deprive the English of the liberty of navigating
+the Scheldt. They even arrested the progress of several of their
+merchant-ships. But soon after, gratified at finding that James
+received their deputy with the title of ambassador, they resolved
+to dissimulate their resentment.
+
+Prince Maurice and Spinola now took the field with their respective
+armies; and a rapid series of operations placing them in direct
+contact, displayed their talents in the most striking points
+of view. The first steps on the part of the prince were a new
+invasion of Flanders, and an attempt on Antwerp, which he hoped
+to carry before the Spanish army could arrive to its succor.
+But the promptitude and sagacity of Spinola defeated this plan,
+which Maurice was obliged to abandon after some loss; while the
+royalist general resolved to signalize himself by some important
+movement, and, ere his design was suspected, he had penetrated
+into the province of Overyssel, and thus retorted his rival's
+favorite measure of carrying the war into the enemy's country.
+Several towns were rapidly reduced; but Maurice flew toward the
+threatened provinces, and by his active measures forced Spinola
+to fall back on the Rhine and take up a position near Roeroord,
+where he was impetuously attacked by the Dutch army. But the
+cavalry having followed up too slowly the orders of Maurice,
+his hope of surprising the royalists was frustrated; and the
+Spanish forces, gaining time by this hesitation, soon changed
+the fortune of the day. The Dutch cavalry shamefully took to
+flight, despite the gallant endeavors of both Maurice and his
+brother Frederick Henry; and at this juncture a large reinforcement
+of Spaniards arrived under the command of Velasco. Maurice now
+brought forward some companies of English and French infantry
+under Horatio Vere and D'Omerville, also a distinguished officer.
+The battle was again fiercely renewed; and the Spaniards now
+gave way, and had been completely defeated, had not Spinola put
+in practice an old and generally successful stratagem. He caused
+almost all the drums of his army to beat in one direction, so
+as to give the impression that a still larger reinforcement was
+approaching. Maurice, apprehensive that the former panic might
+find a parallel in a fresh one, prudently ordered a retreat, which
+he was able to effect in good order, in preference to risking the
+total disorganization of his troops. The loss on each side was
+nearly the same; but the glory of this hard-fought day remained
+on the side of Spinola, who proved himself a worthy successor of
+the great duke of Parma, and an antagonist with whom Maurice
+might contend without dishonor.
+
+The naval transactions of this year restored the balance which
+Spinola's successes had begun to turn in favor of the royalist
+cause. A squadron of ships, commanded by Hautain, admiral of
+Zealand, attacked a superior force of Spanish vessels close to
+Dover, and defeated them with considerable loss. But the victory
+was sullied by an act of great barbarity. All the soldiers found
+on board the captured ships were tied two and two and mercilessly
+flung into the sea. Some contrived to extricate themselves, and
+gained the shore by swimming; others were picked up by the English
+boats, whose crews witnessed the scene and hastened to their
+relief. The generous British seamen could not remain neuter in
+such a moment, nor repress their indignation against those whom
+they had hitherto so long considered as friends. The Dutch vessels
+pursuing those of Spain which fled into Dover harbor, were fired
+on by the cannon of the castle and forced to give up the chase.
+The English loudly complained that the Dutch had on this occasion
+violated their territory; and this transaction laid the foundation
+of the quarrel which subsequently broke out between England and
+the republic, and which the jealousies of rival merchants in
+either state unceasingly fomented. In this year also the Dutch
+succeeded in capturing the chief of the Dunkirk privateers, which
+had so long annoyed their trade; and they cruelly ordered sixty
+of the prisoners to be put to death. But the people, more humane
+than the authorities, rescued them from the executioners and
+set them free.
+
+But these domestic instances of success and inhumanity were trifling
+in comparison with the splendid train of distant events, accompanied
+by a course of wholesale benevolence, that redeemed the traits
+of petty guilt. The maritime enterprises of Holland, forced by
+the imprudent policy of Spain to seek a wider career than in the
+narrow seas of Europe, were day by day extended in the Indies.
+To ruin if possible their increasing trade, Philip III. sent
+out the admiral Hurtado, with a fleet of eight galleons and
+thirty-two galleys. The Dutch squadron of five vessels, commanded
+by Wolfert Hermanszoon, attacked them off the coast of Malabar,
+and his temerity was crowned with great success. He took two
+of their vessels, and completely drove the remainder from the
+Indian seas. He then concluded a treaty with the natives of the
+isle of Banda, by which he promised to support them against the
+Spaniards and Portuguese, on condition that they were to give his
+fellow-countrymen the exclusive privilege of purchasing the spices
+of the island. This treaty was the foundation of the influence
+which the Dutch so soon succeeded in forming in the East Indies;
+and they established it by a candid, mild, and tolerant conduct,
+strongly contrasted with the pride and bigotry which had signalized
+every act of the Portuguese and Spaniards.
+
+The prodigious success of the Indian trade occasioned numerous
+societies to be formed all through the republic. But by their
+great number they became at length injurious to each other. The
+spirit of speculation was pushed too far; and the merchants, who
+paid enormous prices for India goods, found themselves forced
+to sell in Europe at a loss. Many of those societies were too
+weak, in military force as well as in capital, to resist the
+armed competition of the Spaniards, and to support themselves
+in their disputes with the native princes. At length the
+states-general resolved to unite the whole of these scattered
+partnerships into one grand company, which was soon organized
+on a solid basis that led ere long to incredible wealth at home
+and a rapid succession of conquests in the East.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+TO THE SYNOD AT DORT AND THE EXECUTION OF BARNEVELDT
+
+A.D. 1606--1619
+
+The states-general now resolved to confine their military operations
+to a war merely defensive. Spinola had, by his conduct during the
+late campaign, completely revived the spirits of the Spanish
+troops, and excited at least the caution of the Dutch. He now
+threatened the United Provinces with invasion; and he exerted his
+utmost efforts to raise the supplies necessary for the execution
+of his plan. He not only exhausted the resources of the king
+of Spain and the archduke, but obtained money on his private
+account from all those usurers who were tempted by his confident
+anticipations of conquest. He soon equipped two armies of about
+twelve thousand men each. At the head of one of those he took
+the field; the other, commanded by the count of Bucquoi, was
+destined to join him in the neighborhood of Utrecht; and he was
+then resolved to push forward with the whole united force into
+the very heart of the republic.
+
+Prince Maurice in the meantime concentrated his army, amounting
+to twelve thousand men, and prepared to make head against his
+formidable opponents. By a succession of the most prudent manoeuvres
+he contrived to keep Spinola in check, disconcerted all his projects,
+and forced him to content himself with the capture of two or
+three towns--a comparatively insignificant conquest. Desiring
+to wipe away the disgrace of this discomfiture, and to risk
+everything for the accomplishment of his grand design, Spinola
+used every method to provoke the prince to a battle, even though a
+serious mutiny among his troops, and the impossibility of forming a
+junction with Bucquoi, had reduced his force below that of Maurice;
+but the latter, to the surprise of all who expected a decisive
+blow, retreated from before the Italian general--abandoning the
+town of Groll, which immediately fell into Spinola's power, and
+giving rise to manifold conjectures and infinite discontent at
+conduct so little in unison with his wonted enterprise and skill.
+Even Henry IV. acknowledged it did not answer the expectation he
+had formed from Maurice's splendid talents for war. The fact
+seems to be that the prince, much as he valued victory, dreaded
+peace more; and that he was resolved to avoid a decisive blow,
+which, in putting an end to the contest, would at the same time
+have decreased the individual influence in the state which his
+ambition now urged him to augment by every possible means.
+
+The Dutch naval expeditions this year were not more brilliant than
+those on land. Admiral Hautain, with twenty ships, was surprised
+off Cape St. Vincent by the Spanish fleet. The formidable appearance
+of their galleons inspired on this occasion a perfect panic among
+the Dutch sailors. They hoisted their sails and fled, with the
+exception of one ship, commanded by Vice-Admiral Klaazoon, whose
+desperate conduct saved the national honor. Having held out until
+his vessel was quite unmanageable, and almost his whole crew
+killed or wounded, he prevailed on the rest to agree to the
+resolution he had formed, knelt down on the deck, and putting up
+a brief prayer for pardon for the act, thrust a light into the
+powder-magazine, and was instantly blown up with his companions.
+Only two men were snatched from the sea by the Spaniards; and
+even these, dreadfully burned and mangled, died in the utterance
+of curses on the enemy.
+
+This disastrous occurrence was soon, however, forgotten in the
+rejoicings for a brilliant victory gained the following year by
+Heemskirk, so celebrated for his voyage to Nova Zembla, and by
+his conduct in the East. He set sail from the ports of Holland
+in the month of March, determined to signalize himself by some
+great exploit, now necessary to redeem the disgrace which had
+begun to sully the reputation of the Dutch navy. He soon got
+intelligence that the Spanish fleet lay at anchor in the bay
+of Gibraltar, and he speedily prepared to offer them battle.
+Before the combat began he held a council of war, and addressed
+the officers in an energetic speech, in which he displayed the
+imperative call on their valor to conquer or die in the approaching
+conflict. He led on to the action in his own ship; and, to the
+astonishment of both fleets, he bore right down against the enormous
+galleon in which the flag of the Spanish admiral-in-chief was
+hoisted. D'Avila could scarcely believe the evidence of his eyes
+at this audacity: he at first burst into laughter at the notion;
+but as Heemskirk approached, he cut his cables and attempted
+to escape under the shelter of the town. The heroic Dutchman
+pursued him through the whole of the Spanish fleet, and soon
+forced him to action. At the second broadside Heemskirk had his
+left leg carried off by a cannon-ball, and he almost instantly
+died, exhorting his crew to seek for consolation in the defeat
+of the enemy. Verhoef, the captain of the ship, concealed the
+admiral's death; and the whole fleet continued the action with
+a valor worthy the spirit in which it was commenced. The victory
+was soon decided: four of the Spanish galleons were sunk or burned,
+the remainder fled; and the citizens of Cadiz trembled with the
+apprehension of sack and pillage. But the death of Heemskirk,
+when made known to the surviving victors, seemed completely to
+paralyze them. They attempted nothing further; but sailing back
+to Holland with the body of their lamented chief, thus paid a
+greater tribute to his importance than was to be found in the
+mausoleum erected to his memory in the city of Amsterdam.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM THE SILENT OF ORANGE.]
+
+The news of this battle reaching Brussels before it was known
+in Holland, contributed not a little to quicken the anxiety of
+the archdukes for peace. The king of Spain, worn out by the war
+which drained his treasury, had for some time ardently desired it.
+The Portuguese made loud complaints of the ruin that threatened
+their trade and their East Indian colonies. The Spanish ministers
+were fatigued with the apparently interminable contest which
+baffled all their calculations. Spinola, even, in the midst of
+his brilliant career, found himself so overwhelmed with debts
+and so oppressed by the reproaches of the numerous creditors
+who were ruined by his default of payment, that he joined in the
+general demand for repose. In the month of May, 1607, proposals
+were made by the archdukes, in compliance with the general desire;
+and their two plenipotentiaries, Van Wittenhorst and Gevaerts,
+repaired to The Hague.
+
+Public opinion in the United Provinces was divided on this important
+question. An instinctive hatred against the Spaniards, and long
+habits of warfare, influenced the great mass of the people to
+consider any overture for peace as some wily artifice aimed at
+their religion and liberty. War seemed to open inexhaustible
+sources of wealth; while peace seemed to threaten the extinction
+of the courage which was now as much a habit as war appeared to
+be a want. This reasoning was particularly convincing to Prince
+Maurice, whose fame, with a large portion of his authority and
+revenues, depended on the continuance of hostilities: it was
+also strongly relished and supported in Zealand generally, and
+in the chief towns, which dreaded the rivalry of Antwerp. But
+those who bore the burden of the war saw the subject under a
+different aspect. They feared that the present state of things
+would lead to their conquest by the enemy, or to the ruin of
+their liberty by the growing power of Maurice. They hoped that
+peace would consolidate the republic and cause the reduction
+of the debt, which now amounted to twenty-six million florins.
+At the head of the party who so reasoned was De Barneveldt; and
+his name is a guarantee with posterity for the wisdom of the
+opinion.
+
+To allow the violent opposition to subside, and to prevent any
+explosion of party feuds, the prudent Barneveldt suggested a
+mere suspension of arms, during which the permanent interests
+of both states might be calmly discussed. He even undertook to
+obtain Maurice's consent to the armistice. The prince listened
+to his arguments, and was apparently convinced by them. He, at
+any rate, sanctioned the proposal; but he afterward complained
+that Barneveldt had deceived him, in representing the negotiation
+as a feint for the purpose of persuading the kings of France and
+England to give greater aid to the republic. It is more than
+likely that Maurice reckoned on the improbability of Spain's
+consenting to the terms of the proposed treaty; and, on that
+chance, withdrew an opposition which could scarcely be ascribed
+to any but motives of personal ambition. It is, however, certain
+that his discontent at this transaction, either with himself
+or Barneveldt, laid the foundation of that bitter enmity which
+proved fatal to the life of the latter, and covered his own name,
+otherwise glorious, with undying reproach.
+
+The United Provinces positively refused to admit even the
+commencement of a negotiation without the absolute recognition
+of their independence by the archdukes. A new ambassador was
+accordingly chosen on the part of these sovereigns, and empowered
+to concede this important admission. This person attracted
+considerable attention, from his well-known qualities as an able
+diplomatist. He was a monk of the order of St. Francis, named
+John de Neyen, a native of Antwerp, and a person as well versed
+in court intrigue as in the studies of the cloister. He, in the
+first instance, repaired secretly to The Hague; and had several
+private interviews with Prince Maurice and Barneveldt, before he
+was regularly introduced to the states-general in his official
+character. Two different journeys were undertaken by this agent
+between The Hague and Brussels, before he could succeed in obtaining
+a perfect understanding as to the specific views of the archdukes.
+The suspicions of the states-general seem fully justified by
+the dubious tone of the various communications, which avoided
+the direct admission of the required preliminary as to the
+independence of the United Provinces. It was at length concluded
+in explicit terms; and a suspension of arms for eight months
+was the immediate consequence.
+
+But the negotiation for peace was on the point of being completely
+broken, in consequence of the conduct of Neyen, who justified
+every doubt of his sincerity by an attempt to corrupt Aarsens
+the greffier of the states-general, or at least to influence
+his conduct in the progress of the treaty. Neyen presented him,
+in the name of the archdukes, and as a token of his esteem, with
+a diamond of great value and a bond for fifty thousand crowns.
+Aarsens accepted these presents with the approbation of Prince
+Maurice, to whom he had confided the circumstance, and who was no
+doubt delighted at what promised a rupture to the negotiations.
+Verreiken, a councillor of state, who assisted Neyen in his
+diplomatic labors, was formally summoned before the assembled
+states-general, and there Barneveldt handed to him the diamond
+and the bond; and at the same time read him a lecture of true
+republican severity on the subject. Verreiken was overwhelmed
+by the violent attack: he denied the authority of Neyen for the
+measure he had taken; and remarked, "that it was not surprising
+that monks, naturally interested and avaricious, judged others
+by themselves." This repudiation of Neyen's suspicious conduct
+seems to have satisfied the stern resentment of Barneveldt; and
+the party which so earnestly labored for peace. In spite of all
+the opposition of Maurice and his partisans, the negotiation
+went on.
+
+In the month of January, 1608, the various ambassadors were assembled
+at The Hague. Spinola was the chief of the plenipotentiaries
+appointed by the king of Spain; and Jeannin, president of the
+parliament of Dijon, a man of rare endowments, represented France.
+Prince Maurice, accompanied by his brother Frederick Henry, the
+various counts of Nassau his cousins, and a numerous escort,
+advanced some distance to meet Spinola, conveyed him to The Hague
+in his own carriage, and lavished on him all the attentions
+reciprocally due between two such renowned captains during the
+suspension of their rivalry. The president Richardst was, with
+Neyen and Verreiken, ambassador from the archdukes; but Barneveldt
+and Jeannin appear to have played the chief parts in the important
+transaction which now filled all Europe with anxiety. Every state
+was more or less concerned in the result; and the three great
+monarchies of England, France, and Spain, had all a vital interest
+at stake. The conferences were therefore frequent; and the debates
+assumed a great variety of aspects, which long kept the civilized
+world in suspense.
+
+King James was extremely jealous of the more prominent part taken
+by the French ambassadors, and of the sub-altern consideration
+held by his own envoys, Winwood and Spencer, in consequence of
+the disfavor in which he himself was held by the Dutch people.
+It appears evident that, whether deservedly or the contrary,
+England was at this period unpopular in the United Provinces,
+while France was looked up to with the greatest enthusiasm. This
+is not surprising, when we compare the characters of Henry IV.
+and James I., bearing in mind how much of national reputation
+at the time depended on the personal conduct of kings; and how
+political situations influence, if they do not create, the virtues
+and vices of a people. Independent of the suspicions of his being
+altogether unfavorable to the declaration required by the United
+Provinces from Spain, to which James's conduct had given rise, he
+had established some exactions which greatly embarrassed their
+fishing expeditions on the coasts of England.
+
+The main points for discussion, and on which depended the decision
+for peace or war, were those which concerned religion; and the
+demand, on the part of Spain, that the United Provinces should
+renounce all claims to the navigation of the Indian seas. Philip
+required for the Catholics of the United Provinces the free exercise
+of their religion; this was opposed by the states-general: and
+the archduke Albert, seeing the impossibility of carrying that
+point, despatched his confessor, Fra Inigo de Briznella, to Spain.
+This Dominican was furnished with the written opinion of several
+theologians, that the king might conscientiously slur over the
+article of religion; and he was the more successful with Philip, as
+the duke of Lerma, his prime minister, was resolved to accomplish
+the peace at any price. The conferences at The Hague were therefore
+not interrupted on this question; but they went on slowly, months
+being consumed in discussions on articles of trifling importance.
+They were, however, resumed in the month of August with greater
+vigor. It was announced that the king of Spain abandoned the
+question respecting religion; but that it was in the certainty
+that his moderation would be recompensed by ample concessions
+on that of the Indian trade, on which he was inexorable. This
+article became the rock on which the whole negotiation eventually
+split. The court of Spain on the one hand, and the states-general
+on the other, inflexibly maintained their opposing claims. It
+was in vain that the ambassadors turned and twisted the subject
+with all the subtleties of diplomacy. Every possible expedient was
+used to shake the determination of the Dutch. But the influence
+of the East India Company, the islands of Zealand, and the city
+of Amsterdam, prevailed over all. Reports of the avowal on the
+part of the king of Spain, that he would never renounce his title
+to the sovereignty of the United Provinces, unless they abandoned
+the Indian navigation and granted the free exercise of religion,
+threw the whole diplomatic corps into confusion; and, on the
+25th of August, the states-general announced to the marquis of
+Spinola and the other ambassadors that the congress was dissolved,
+and that all hopes of peace were abandoned.
+
+Nothing seemed now likely to prevent the immediate renewal of
+hostilities, when the ambassadors of France and England proposed
+the mediation of their respective masters for the conclusion of
+a truce for several years. The king of Spain and the archdukes
+were well satisfied to obtain even this temporary cessation of
+the war; but Prince Maurice and a portion of the Provinces
+strenuously opposed the proposition. The French and English
+ambassadors, however, in concert with Barneveldt, who steadily
+maintained his influence, labored incessantly to overcome those
+difficulties; and finally succeeded in overpowering all opposition
+to the truce. A new congress was agreed on, to assemble at Antwerp
+for the consideration of the conditions; and the states-general
+agreed to remove from The Hague to Berg-or-Zoom, to be more within
+reach, and ready to co-operate in the negotiation.
+
+But, before matters assumed this favorable turn, discussions and
+disputes had intervened on several occasions to render fruitless
+every effort of those who so incessantly labored for the great causes
+of humanity and the general good. On one occasion, Barneveldt,
+disgusted with the opposition of Prince Maurice and his partisans,
+had actually resigned his employments; but brought back by the
+solicitations of the states-general, and reconciled to Maurice by
+the intervention of Jeannin, the negotiations for the truce were
+resumed; and, under the auspices of the ambassadors, they were
+happily terminated. After two years' delay, this long-wished-for
+truce was concluded, and signed on the 9th of April, 1609, to
+continue for the space of twelve years.
+
+This celebrated treaty contained thirty-two articles; and its
+fulfilment on either side was guaranteed by the kings of France
+and England. Notwithstanding the time taken up in previous
+discussions, the treaty is one of the most vague and unspecific
+state papers that exists. The archdukes, in their own names and
+in that of the king of Spain, declared the United Provinces to
+be free and independent states, on which they renounced all claim
+whatever. By the third article each party was to hold respectively
+the places which they possessed at the commencement of the armistice.
+The fourth and fifth articles grant to the republic, but in a
+phraseology obscure and even doubtful, the right of navigation
+and free trade to the Indies. The eighth contains all that regards
+the exercise of religion; and the remaining clauses are wholly
+relative to points of internal trade, custom-house regulations,
+and matters of private interest.
+
+Ephemeral and temporary as this peace appeared, it was received
+with almost universal demonstrations of joy by the population of
+the Netherlands in their two grand divisions. Everyone seemed
+to turn toward the enjoyment of tranquillity with the animated
+composure of tired laborers looking forward to a day of rest and
+sunshine. This truce brought a calm of comparative happiness upon
+the country, which an almost unremitting tempest had desolated for
+nearly half a century; and, after so long a series of calamity,
+all the national advantages of social life seemed about to settle
+on the land. The attitude which the United Provinces assumed at
+this period was indeed a proud one. They were not now compelled
+to look abroad and solicit other states to become their masters.
+They had forced their old tyrants to acknowledge their independence;
+to come and ask for peace on their own ground; and to treat with
+them on terms of no doubtful equality. They had already become
+so flourishing, so powerful, and so envied, that they who had
+so lately excited but compassion from the neighboring states
+were now regarded with such jealousy as rivals, unequivocally
+equal, may justly inspire in each other.
+
+The ten southern provinces, now confirmed under the sovereignty of
+the House of Austria, and from this period generally distinguished
+by the name of Belgium, immediately began, like the northern division
+of the country, to labor for the great object of repairing the
+dreadful sufferings caused by their long and cruel war. Their
+success was considerable. Albert and Isabella, their sovereigns,
+joined, to considerable probity of character and talents for
+government, a fund of humanity which led them to unceasing acts of
+benevolence. The whole of their dominions quickly began to recover
+from the ravages of war. Agriculture and the minor operations of
+trade resumed all their wonted activity. But the manufactures
+of Flanders were no more; and the grander exercise of commerce
+seemed finally removed to Amsterdam and the other chief towns
+of Holland.
+
+This tranquil course of prosperity in the Belgian provinces was
+only once interrupted during the whole continuance of the twelve
+years' truce, and that was in the year following its commencement.
+The death of the duke of Cleves and Juliers, in this year, gave
+rise to serious disputes for the succession to his states, which
+was claimed by several of the princes of Germany. The elector
+of Brandenburg and the duke of Neuburg were seconded both by
+France and the United Provinces; and a joint army of both nations,
+commanded by Prince Maurice and the marshal de la Chatre, was
+marched into the county of Cleves. After taking possession of the
+town of Juliers, the allies retired, leaving the two princes above
+mentioned in a partnership possession of the disputed states. But
+this joint sovereignty did not satisfy the ambition of either,
+and serious divisions arose between them, each endeavoring to
+strengthen himself by foreign alliances. The archdukes Albert
+and Isabella were drawn into the quarrel; and they despatched
+Spinola at the head of twenty thousand men to support the duke
+of Neuburg, whose pretensions they countenanced. Prince Maurice,
+with a Dutch army, advanced on the other hand to uphold the claims
+of the elector of Brandenburg. Both generals took possession of
+several towns; and this double expedition offered the singular
+spectacle of two opposing armies, acting in different interests,
+making conquests, and dividing an important inheritance, without
+the occurrence of one act of hostility to each other. But the
+interference of the court of Madrid had nearly been the cause
+of a new rupture. The greatest alarm was excited in the Belgic
+provinces; and nothing but the prudence of the archdukes and
+the forbearance of the states-general could have succeeded in
+averting the threatened evil.
+
+With the exception of this bloodless mimicry of war, the United
+Provinces presented for the space of twelve years a long-continued
+picture of peace, as the term is generally received; but a peace
+so disfigured by intestine troubles, and so stained by actions
+of despotic cruelty, that the period which should have been that
+of its greatest happiness becomes but an example of its worst
+disgrace.
+
+The assassination of Henry IV., in the year 1609, was a new instance
+of the bigoted atrocity which reigned paramount in Europe at the
+time; and while robbing France of one of its best monarchs, it
+deprived the United Provinces of their truest and most powerful
+friend. Henry has, from his own days to the present, found a
+ready eulogy in all who value kings in proportion as they are
+distinguished by heroism, without ceasing to evince the feelings
+of humanity. Henry seems to have gone as far as man can go, to
+combine wisdom, dignity and courage with all those endearing
+qualities of private life which alone give men a prominent hold
+upon the sympathies of their kind. We acknowledge his errors,
+his faults, his follies, only to love him the better. We admire
+his valor and generosity, without being shocked by cruelty or
+disgusted by profusion. We look on his greatness without envy;
+and in tracing his whole career we seem to walk hand in hand
+beside a dear companion, rather than to follow the footsteps of
+a mighty monarch.
+
+But the death of this powerful supporter of their efforts for
+freedom, and the chief guarantee for its continuance, was a trifling
+calamity to the United Provinces, in comparison with the rapid
+fall from the true point of glory so painfully exhibited in the
+conduct of their own domestic champion. It had been well for
+Prince Maurice of Nassau that the last shot fired by the defeated
+Spaniards in the battle of Nieuport had struck him dead in the
+moment of his greatest victory and on the summit of his fame.
+From that celebrated day he had performed no deed of war that
+could raise his reputation as a soldier, and all his acts as
+stadtholder were calculated to sink him below the level of civil
+virtue and just government. His two campaigns against Spinola
+had redounded more to the credit of his rival than to his own;
+and his whole conduct during the negotiation for the truce too
+plainly betrayed the unworthy nature of his ambition, founded on
+despotic principles. It was his misfortune to have been completely
+thrown out of the career for which he had been designed by nature
+and education. War was his element. By his genius, he improved
+it as a science: by his valor, he was one of those who raised
+it from the degradation of a trade to the dignity of a passion.
+But when removed from the camp to the council room, he became all
+at once a common man. His frankness degenerated into roughness;
+his decision into despotism; his courage into cruelty. He gave a
+new proof of the melancholy fact that circumstances may transform
+the most apparent qualities of virtue into those opposite vices
+between which human wisdom is baffled when it attempts to draw
+a decided and invariable line.
+
+Opposed to Maurice in almost every one of his acts, was, as we
+have already seen, Barneveldt, one of the truest patriots of any
+time or country; and, with the exception of William the Great,
+prince of Orange, the most eminent citizen to whom the affairs
+of the Netherlands have given celebrity. A hundred pens have
+labored to do honor to this truly virtuous man. His greatness
+has found a record in every act of his life; and his death, like
+that of William, though differently accomplished, was equally
+a martyrdom for the liberties of his country. We cannot enter
+minutely into the train of circumstances which for several years
+brought Maurice and Barneveldt into perpetual concussion with
+each other. Long after the completion of the truce, which the
+latter so mainly aided in accomplishing, every minor point in the
+domestic affairs of the republic seemed merged in the conflict
+between the stadtholder and the pensionary. Without attempting
+to specify these, we may say, generally, that almost every one
+redounded to the disgrace of the prince and the honor of the
+patriot. But the main question of agitation was the fierce dispute
+which soon broke out between two professors of theology of the
+university of Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Arminius. We do
+not regret on this occasion that our confined limits spare us the
+task of recording in detail controversies on points of speculative
+doctrine far beyond the reach of the human understanding, and
+therefore presumptuous, and the decision of which cannot be regarded
+as of vital importance by those who justly estimate the grand
+principles of Christianity. The whole strength of the intellects
+which had long been engaged in the conflict for national and
+religious liberty, was now directed to metaphysical theology,
+and wasted upon interminable disputes about predestination and
+grace. Barneveldt enrolled himself among the partisans of Arminius;
+Maurice became a Gomarist.
+
+It was, however, scarcely to be wondered at that a country so
+recently delivered from slavery both in church and state should
+run into wild excesses of intolerance, before sectarian principles
+were thoroughly understood and definitively fixed. Persecutions
+of various kinds were indulged in against Papists, Anabaptists,
+Socinians, and all the shades of doctrine into which Christianity
+had split. Every minister who, in the milder spirit of Lutheranism,
+strove to moderate the rage of Calvinistic enthusiasm, was openly
+denounced by its partisans; and one, named Gaspard Koolhaas,
+was actually excommunicated by a synod, and denounced in plain
+terms to the devil. Arminius had been appointed professor at
+Leyden in 1603, for the mildness of his doctrines, which were
+joined to most affable manners, a happy temper, and a purity
+of conduct which no calumny could successfully traduce.
+
+His colleague Gomar, a native of Bruges, learned, violent, and
+rigid in sectarian points, soon became jealous of the more popular
+professor's influence. A furious attack on the latter was answered
+by recrimination; and the whole battery of theological authorities
+was reciprocally discharged by one or other of the disputants.
+The states-general interfered between them: they were summoned to
+appear before the council of state; and grave politicians listened
+for hours to the dispute. Arminius obtained the advantage, by the
+apparent reasonableness of his creed, and the gentleness and
+moderation of his conduct. He was meek, while Gomar was furious;
+and many of the listeners declared that they would rather die
+with the charity of the former than in the faith of the latter.
+A second hearing was allowed them before the states of Holland.
+Again Arminius took the lead; and the controversy went on
+unceasingly, till this amiable man, worn out by his exertions
+and the presentiment of the evil which these disputes were
+engendering for his country, expired in his forty-ninth year,
+piously persisting in his opinions.
+
+The Gomarists now loudly called for a national synod, to regulate
+the points of faith. The Arminians remonstrated on various grounds,
+and thus acquired the name of Remonstrants, by which they were
+soon generally distinguished. The most deplorable contests ensued.
+Serious riots occurred in several of the towns of Holland; and
+James I. of England could not resist the temptation of entering
+the polemical lists, as a champion of orthodoxy and a decided
+Gomarist. His hostility was chiefly directed against Vorstius,
+the successor and disciple of Arminius. He pretty strongly
+recommended to the states-general to have him burned for heresy.
+His inveterate intolerance knew no bounds; and it completed the
+melancholy picture of absurdity which the whole affair presents
+to reasonable minds.
+
+In this dispute, which occupied and agitated all, it was impossible
+that Barneveldt should not choose the congenial temperance and
+toleration of Arminius. Maurice, with probably no distinct conviction
+or much interest in the abstract differences on either side, joined
+the Gomarists. His motives were purely temporal; for the party
+he espoused was now decidedly as much political as religious.
+King James rewarded him by conferring on him the ribbon of the
+Order of the Garter, vacant by the death of Henry IV. of France.
+The ceremony of investment was performed with great pomp by the
+English ambassador at The Hague; and James and Maurice entered
+from that time into a closer and more uninterrupted correspondence
+than before.
+
+During the long continuance of the theological disputes, the
+United Provinces had nevertheless made rapid strides toward
+commercial greatness; and the year 1616 witnessed the completion
+of an affair which was considered the consolidation of their
+independence. This important matter was the recovery of the towns
+of Brille and Flessingue, and the fort of Rammekins, which had
+been placed in the hands of the English as security for the loan
+granted to the republic by Queen Elizabeth. The whole merit of
+the transaction was due to the perseverance and address, of
+Barneveldt acting on the weakness and the embarrassments of King
+James. Religious contention did not so fully occupy Barneveldt
+but that he kept a constant eye on political concerns. He was
+well informed on all that passed in the English court; he knew
+the wants of James, and was aware of his efforts to bring about
+the marriage of his son with the infanta of Spain. The danger
+of such an alliance was evident to the penetrating Barneveldt,
+who saw in perspective the probability of the wily Spaniards
+obtaining from the English monarch possession of the strong places
+in question. He therefore resolved on obtaining their recovery; and
+his great care was to get them back with a considerable abatement
+of the enormous debt for which they stood pledged, and which now
+amounted to eight million florins.
+
+Barneveldt commenced his operations by sounding the needy monarch
+through the medium of Noel Caron, the ambassador from the
+states-general; and he next managed so as that James himself
+should offer to give up the towns, thereby allowing a fair pretext
+to the states for claiming a diminution of the debt. The English
+garrisons were unpaid and their complaints brought down a strong
+remonstrance from James, and excuses from the states, founded
+on the poverty of their financial resources. The negotiation
+rapidly went on, in the same spirit of avidity on the part of
+the king, and of good management on that of his debtors. It was
+finally agreed that the states should pay in full of the demand
+two million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand florins (about
+two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling), being about
+one-third of the debt. Prince Maurice repaired to the cautionary
+towns in the month of June, and received them at the hands of
+the English governors; the garrisons at the same time entering
+into the service of the republic.
+
+The accomplishment of this measure afforded the highest satisfaction
+to the United Provinces. It caused infinite discontent in England;
+and James, with the common injustice of men who make a bad bargain
+(even though its conditions be of their own seeking and suited to
+their own convenience), turned his own self-dissatisfaction into
+bitter hatred against him whose watchful integrity had successfully
+labored for his country's good. Barneveldt's leaning toward France
+and the Arminians filled the measure of James's unworthy enmity.
+Its effects were soon apparent, on the arrival at The Hague of
+Carleton, who succeeded Winwood as James's ambassador. The haughty
+pretensions of this diplomatist, whose attention seemed turned to
+theological disputes rather than politics, gave great disgust;
+and he contributed not a little to the persecution which led to
+the tragical end of Barneveldt's valuable life.
+
+While this indefatigable patriot was busy in relieving his country
+from its dependence on England, his enemies accused him of the
+wish to reduce it once more to Spanish tyranny. Francis Aarsens,
+son to him who proved himself so incorruptible when attempted
+to be bribed by Neyen, was one of the foremost of the faction
+who now labored for the downfall of the pensionary. He was a
+man of infinite dissimulation; versed in all the intrigues of
+courts; and so deep in all their tortuous tactics that Cardinal
+Richelieu, well qualified to prize that species of talent, declared
+that he knew only three great political geniuses, of whom Francis
+Aarsens was one.
+
+Prince Maurice now almost openly avowed his pretensions to absolute
+sovereignty: he knew that his success wholly depended on the
+consent of Barneveldt. To seduce him to favor his designs he had
+recourse to the dowager princess of Orange, his mother-in-law,
+whose gentle character and exemplary conduct had procured her
+universal esteem and the influence naturally attendant on it.
+Maurice took care to make her understand that her interest in
+his object was not trifling. Long time attached to Gertrude van
+Mechlen, his favorite mistress, who had borne him several children,
+he now announced his positive resolution to remain unmarried;
+so that his brother Frederick Henry, the dowager's only son,
+would be sure to succeed to the sovereignty he aimed at. The
+princess, not insensible to this appeal, followed the instructions
+of Maurice, and broached the affair to Barneveldt; but he was
+inexorable. He clearly explained to her the perilous career on
+which the prince proposed to enter; he showed how great, how
+independent, how almost absolute, he might continue, without
+shocking the principles of republicanism by grasping at an empty
+dignity, which could not virtually increase his authority, and
+would most probably convulse the state to its foundation and
+lead to his own ruin. The princess, convinced by his reasoning,
+repaired to Maurice; but instead of finding him as ready a convert
+as she herself had been, she received as cold an answer as was
+compatible with a passionate temper, wounded pride, and disappointed
+ambition. The princess and Barneveldt recounted the whole affair
+to Maurier, the French ambassador; and his son has transmitted
+it to posterity.
+
+We cannot follow the misguided prince in all the winding ways
+of intrigue and subterfuge through which he labored to reach his
+object. Religion, the holiest of sentiments, and Christianity,
+the most sacred of its forms, were perpetually degraded by being
+made the pretexts for that unworthy object. He was for a while
+diverted from its direct pursuit by the preparation made to afford
+assistance to some of the allies of the republic. Fifty thousand
+florins a month were granted to the duke of Savoy, who was at
+war with Spain; and seven thousand men, with nearly forty ships,
+were despatched to the aid of the republic of Venice, in its
+contest with Ferdinand, archduke of Gratz, who was afterward
+elected emperor. The honorary empire of the seas seems at this
+time to have been successfully claimed by the United Provinces.
+They paid back with interest the haughty conduct with which they
+had been long treated by the English; and they refused to pay
+the fishery duties to which the inhabitants of Great Britain
+were subject. The Dutch sailors had even the temerity, under
+pretext of pursuing pirates, to violate the British territory.
+They set fire to the town of Crookhaven, in Ireland, and massacred
+several of the inhabitants. King James, immersed in theological
+studies, appears to have passed slightly over this outrage. More
+was to have been expected from his usual attention to the affairs
+of Ireland; his management of which ill-fated country is the
+best feature of his political character, and ought, to Irish
+feelings at least, to be considered to redeem its many errors.
+But he took fire at the news that the states had prohibited the
+importation of cloth dyed and dressed in England. It required
+the best exertion of Barneveldt's talents to pacify him; and
+it was not easy to effect this through the jaundiced medium of
+the ambassador Carleton. But it was unanswerably argued by the
+pensionary that the manufacture of cloth was one of those ancient
+and natural sources of wealth which England had ravished from the
+Netherlands, and which the latter was justified in recovering by
+every effort consistent with national honor and fair principles
+of government.
+
+The influence of Prince Maurice had gained complete success for
+the Calvinist party, in its various titles of Gomarists,
+non-remonstrants, etc. The audacity and violence of these ferocious
+sectarians knew no bounds. Outrages, too many to enumerate, became
+common through the country; and Arminianism was on all sides assailed
+and persecuted. Barneveldt frequently appealed to Maurice without
+effect; and all the efforts of the former to obtain justice by
+means of the civil authorities were paralyzed by the inaction in
+which the prince retained the military force. In this juncture,
+the magistrates of various towns, spurred on by Barneveldt, called
+out the national militia, termed Waardegelders, which possessed
+the right of arming at its own expense for the protection of the
+public peace. Schism upon schism was the consequence, and the
+whole country was reduced to that state of anarchy so favorable
+to the designs of an ambitious soldier already in the enjoyment
+of almost absolute power. Maurice possessed all the hardihood and
+vigor suited to such an occasion. At the head of two companies
+of infantry, and accompanied by his brother Frederick Henry, he
+suddenly set out at night from The Hague; arrived at the Brille;
+and in defiance of the remonstrances of the magistrates, and
+in violation of the rights of the town, he placed his devoted
+garrison in that important place. To justify this measure, reports
+were spread that Barneveldt intended to deliver it up to the
+Spaniards; and the ignorant, insensate, and ungrateful people
+swallowed the calumny.
+
+This and such minor efforts were, however, all subservient to the
+one grand object of utterly destroying, by a public proscription,
+the whole of the patriot party, now identified with Arminianism.
+A national synod was loudly clamored for by the Gomarists; and in
+spite of all opposition on constitutional grounds, it was finally
+proclaimed. Uitenbogaard, the enlightened pastor and friend of
+Maurice, who on all occasions labored for the general good, now
+moderated, as much as possible, the violence of either party; but
+he could not persuade Barneveldt to render himself, by compliance,
+a tacit accomplice with a measure that he conceived fraught with
+violence to the public privileges. He had an inflexible enemy
+in Carleton, the English ambassador. His interference carried
+the question; and it was at his suggestion that Dordrecht, or
+Dort, was chosen for the assembling of the synod. Du Maurier,
+the French ambassador, acted on all occasions as a mediator; but
+to obtain influence at such a time it was necessary to become
+a partisan. Several towns--Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam, and some
+others--made a last effort for their liberties, and formed a
+fruitless confederation.
+
+Barneveldt solicited the acceptance of his resignation of all
+his offices. The states-general implored him not to abandon the
+country at such a critical moment: he consequently maintained
+his post. Libels the most vindictive and atrocious were published
+and circulated against him; and at last, forced from his silence
+by these multiplied calumnies, he put forward his "Apology,"
+addressed to the States of Holland.
+
+This dignified vindication only produced new outrages; Maurice,
+now become Prince of Orange by the death of his elder brother
+without children, employed his whole authority to carry his object,
+and crush Barneveldt. At the head of his troops he seized on
+towns, displaced magistrates, trampled under foot all the ancient
+privileges of the citizens, and openly announced his intention to
+overthrow the federative constitution. His bold conduct completely
+terrified the states-general. They thanked him; they consented to
+disband the militia; formally invited foreign powers to favor
+and protect the synod about to be held at Dort. The return of
+Carleton from England, where he had gone to receive the more
+positive promises of support from King James, was only wanting,
+to decide Maurice to take the final step; and no sooner did the
+ambassador arrive at The Hague than Barneveldt and his most able
+friends, Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and Ledenberg, were arrested in
+the name of the states-general.
+
+The country was taken by surprise; no resistance was offered.
+The concluding scenes of the tragedy were hurried on; violence
+was succeeded by violence, against public feeling and public
+justice. Maurice became completely absolute in everything but
+in name. The supplications of ambassadors, the protests of
+individuals, the arguments of statesmen, were alike unavailing
+to stop the torrent of despotism and injustice. The synod of
+Dort was opened on the 13th of November, 1618. Theology was
+mystified; religion disgraced; Christianity outraged. And after
+one hundred and fifty-two sittings, during six months' display
+of ferocity and fraud, the solemn mockery was closed on the 9th
+of May, 1619, by the declaration of its president, that "its
+miraculous labors had made hell tremble."
+
+Proscriptions, banishments, and death were the natural consequences
+of this synod. The divisions which it had professed to extinguish
+were rendered a thousand times more violent than before. Its
+decrees did incalculable ill to the cause they were meant to
+promote. The Anglican Church was the first to reject the canons
+of Dort with horror and contempt. The Protestants of France and
+Germany, and even Geneva, the nurse and guardian of Calvinism,
+were shocked and disgusted, and unanimously softened down the
+rigor of their respective creeds. But the moral effects of this
+memorable conclave were too remote to prevent the sacrifice which
+almost immediately followed the celebration of its rites. A trial
+by twenty-four prejudiced enemies, by courtesy called judges,
+which in its progress and its result throws judicial dignity into
+scorn, ended in the condemnation of Barneveldt and his fellow
+patriots, for treason against the liberties they had vainly labored
+to save. Barneveldt died on the scaffold by the hands of the
+executioner on the 13th of May, 1619, in the seventy-second year
+of his age. Grotius and Hoogerbeets were sentenced to perpetual
+imprisonment. Ledenberg committed suicide in his cell, sooner
+than brave the tortures which he anticipated at the hands of
+his enemies.
+
+Many more pages than we are able to afford sentences might be
+devoted to the details of these iniquitous proceedings, and an
+account of their awful consummation. The pious heroism of Barneveldt
+was never excelled by any martyr to the most holy cause. He appealed
+to Maurice against the unjust sentence which condemned him to death;
+but he scorned to beg his life. He met his fate with such temperate
+courage as was to be expected from the dignified energy of his
+life. His last words were worthy a philosopher whose thoughts,
+even in his latest moments, were superior to mere personal hope
+or fear, and turned to the deep mysteries of his being. "O God!"
+cried De Barneveldt, "what then is man?" as he bent his head to
+the sword that severed it from his body, and sent the inquiring
+spirit to learn the great mystery for which it longed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE
+
+A.D. 1619--1625
+
+The princess-dowager of Orange, and Du Maurier, the French
+ambassador, had vainly implored mercy for the innocent victim at
+the hands of the inexorable stadtholder. Maurice refused to see
+his mother-in-law: he left the ambassador's appeal unanswered.
+This is enough for the rigid justice of history that cannot be
+blinded by partiality, but hands over to shame, at the close
+of their career, even those whom she nursed in the very cradle
+of heroism. But an accusation has become current, more fatal
+to the fame of Prince Maurice, because it strikes at the root
+of his claims to feeling, which could not be impugned by a mere
+perseverance in severity that might have sprung from mistaken
+views. It is asserted, but only as general belief, that he witnessed
+the execution of Barneveldt. The little window of an octagonal
+tower, overlooking the square of the Binnenhof at The Hague,
+where the tragedy was acted, is still shown as the spot from
+which the prince gazed on the scene. Almost concealed from view
+among the clustering buildings of the place, it is well adapted
+to give weight to the tradition; but it may not, perhaps, even
+now be too late to raise a generous incredulity as to an assertion
+of which no eye-witness attestation is recorded, and which might
+have been the invention of malignity. There are many statements
+of history which it is immaterial to substantiate or disprove.
+Splendid fictions of public virtue have often produced their
+good if once received as fact; but, when private character is
+at stake, every conscientious writer or reader will cherish his
+"historic doubts," when he reflects on the facility with which
+calumny is sent abroad, the avidity with which it is received,
+and the careless ease with which men credit what it costs little
+to invent and propagate, but requires an age of trouble and an
+almost impossible conjunction of opportunities effectually to
+refute.
+
+Grotius and Hoogerbeets were confined in the castle of Louvestein.
+Moersbergen, a leading patriot of Utrecht, De Haan, pensionary
+of Haarlem, and Uitenbogaard, the chosen confidant of Maurice,
+but the friend of Barneveldt, were next accused and sentenced
+to imprisonment or banishment. And thus Arminianism, deprived of
+its chiefs, was for the time completely stifled. The Remonstrants,
+thrown into utter despair, looked to emigration as their last
+resource. Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and Frederick, duke
+of Holstein, offered them shelter and protection in their respective
+states. Several availed themselves of these offers; but the
+states-general, alarmed at the progress of self-expatriation,
+moderated their rigor, and thus checked the desolating evil.
+Several of the imprisoned Arminians had the good fortune to elude
+the vigilance of their jailers; but the escape of Grotius is
+the most remarkable of all, both from his own celebrity as one
+of the first writers of his age in the most varied walks of
+literature, and from its peculiar circumstances, which only found
+a parallel in European history after a lapse of two centuries.
+We allude to the escape of Lavalette from the prison of the
+Conciergerie in Paris in 1815, which so painfully excited the
+interest of all Europe for the intended victim's wife, whose
+reason was the forfeit of her exertion.
+
+Grotius was freely allowed during his close imprisonment all the
+relaxations of study. His friends supplied him with quantities of
+books, which were usually brought into the fortress in a trunk two
+feet two inches long, which the governor regularly and carefully
+examined during the first year. But custom brought relaxation in
+the strictness of the prison rules; and the wife of the illustrious
+prisoner, his faithful and constant visitor, proposed the plan of
+his escape, to which he gave a ready and, all hazards considered,
+a courageous assent. Shut up in this trunk for two hours, and
+with all the risk of suffocation, and of injury from the rude
+handling of the soldiers who carried it out of the fort, Grotius
+was brought clear off by the very agents of his persecutors,
+and safely delivered to the care of his devoted and discreet
+female servant, who knew the secret and kept it well. She attended
+the important consignment in the barge to the town of Gorcum;
+and after various risks of discovery, providentially escaped,
+Grotius at length found himself safe beyond the limits of his
+native land. His wife, whose torturing suspense may be imagined
+the while, concealed the stratagem as long as it was possible
+to impose on the jailer with the pardonable and praiseworthy
+fiction of her husband's illness and confinement to his bed.
+The government, outrageous at the result of the affair, at first
+proposed to hold this interesting prisoner in place of the prey
+they had lost, and to proceed criminally against her. But after
+a fortnight's confinement she was restored to liberty, and the
+country saved from the disgrace of so ungenerous and cowardly
+a proceeding. Grotius repaired to Paris, where he was received
+in the most flattering manner, and distinguished by a pension
+of one thousand crowns allowed by the king. He soon published
+his vindication--one of the most eloquent and unanswerable
+productions of its kind, in which those times of unjust accusations
+and illegal punishments were so fertile.
+
+The expiration of the twelve years' truce was now at hand; and
+the United Provinces, after that long period of intestine trouble
+and disgrace, had once more to recommence a more congenial struggle
+against foreign enemies; for a renewal of the war with Spain
+might be fairly considered a return to the regimen best suited
+to the constitution of the people. The republic saw, however,
+with considerable anxiety, the approach of this new contest. It
+was fully sensible of its own weakness. Exile had reduced its
+population; patriotism had subsided; foreign friends were dead;
+the troops were unused to warfare; the hatred against Spanish
+cruelty had lost its excitement; the finances were in confusion;
+Prince Maurice had no longer the activity of youth; and the still
+more vigorous impulse of fighting for his country's liberty was
+changed to the dishonoring task of upholding his own tyranny.
+
+The archdukes, encouraged by these considerations, had hopes
+of bringing back the United Provinces to their domination. They
+accordingly sent an embassy to Holland with proposals to that
+effect. It was received with indignation; and the ambassador,
+Peckius, was obliged to be escorted back to the frontiers by
+soldiers, to protect him from the insults of the people. Military
+operations were, however, for a while refrained from on either
+side, in consequence of the deaths of Philip III. of Spain and
+the archduke Albert. Philip IV. succeeded his father at the age
+of sixteen; and the archduchess Isabella found herself alone at
+the head of the government in the Belgian provinces. Olivarez
+became as sovereign a minister in Spain, as his predecessor the
+duke of Lerma had been; but the archduchess, though now with
+only the title of stadtholderess of the Netherlands, held the
+reins of power with a firm and steady hand.
+
+In the celebrated thirty years' war which had commenced between
+the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, the former had met with
+considerable assistance from the United Provinces. Barneveldt, who
+foresaw the embarrassments which the country would have to contend
+with on the expiration of that truce, had strongly opposed its
+meddling in the quarrel; but his ruin and death left no restraint
+on the policy which prompted the republic to aid the Protestant
+cause. Fifty thousand florins a month to the revolted Protestants,
+and a like sum to the princes of the union, were for some time
+advanced. Frederick, the elector palatine, son-in-law of the
+king of England, and nephew of the prince, was chosen by the
+Bohemians for their king; but in spite of the enthusiastic wishes
+of the English nation, James persisted in refusing to interfere
+in Frederick's favor. France, governed by De Luynes, a favorite
+whose influence was deeply pledged, and, it is said, dearly sold to
+Spain, abandoned the system of Henry IV., and upheld the House of
+Austria. Thus the new monarch, only aided by the United Provinces,
+and that feebly, was soon driven from his temporary dignity;
+his hereditary dominions in the palatinate were overrun by the
+Spanish army under Spinola; and Frederick, utterly defeated at
+the battle of Prague, was obliged to take refuge in Holland.
+James's abandonment of his son-in-law has been universally blamed
+by almost every historian. He certainly allowed a few generous
+individuals to raise a regiment in England of two thousand four
+hundred chosen soldiers, who, under the command of the gallant
+Sir Horace Vere, could only vainly regret the impossibility of
+opposition to ten times their number of veteran troops.
+
+This contest was carried on at first with almost all the advantages
+on the side of the House of Austria. Two men of extraordinary
+character, which presented a savage parody of military talent,
+and a courage chiefly remarkable for the ferocity into which it
+degenerated, struggled for a while against the imperial arms.
+These were the count of Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick. At
+the head of two desperate bands, which, by dint of hard fighting,
+acquired something of the consistency of regular armies, they
+maintained a long resistance; but the duke of Bavaria, commanding
+the troops of the emperor, and Count Tilly at the head of those
+of Spain, completed in the year 1622 the defeat of their daring
+and semi-barbarous opponents.
+
+Spinola was resolved to commence the war against the republic by
+some important exploit. He therefore laid siege to Berg-op-Zoom,
+a place of great consequence, commanding the navigation of the
+Meuse and the coasts of all the islands of Zealand. But Maurice,
+roused from the lethargy of despotism which seemed to have wholly
+changed his character, repaired to the scene of threatened danger;
+and succeeded, after a series of desperate efforts on both sides,
+to raise the siege, forcing Spinola to abandon his attempt with
+a loss of upward of twelve thousand men. Frederick Henry in the
+meantime had made an incursion into Brabant with a body of light
+troops; and ravaging the country up to the very gates of Mechlin,
+Louvain, and Brussels, levied contributions to the amount of
+six hundred thousand florins. The states completed this series
+of good fortune by obtaining the possession of West Friesland,
+by means of Count Mansfield, whom they had despatched thither
+at the head of his formidable army, and who had, in spite of the
+opposition of Count Tilly, successfully performed his mission.
+
+We must now turn from these brief records of military affairs,
+the more pleasing theme for the historian of the Netherlands
+in comparison with domestic events, which claim attention but
+to create sensations of regret and censure. Prince Maurice had
+enjoyed without restraint the fruits of his ambitious daring.
+His power was uncontrolled and unopposed, but it was publicly
+odious; and private resentments were only withheld by fear, and,
+perhaps, in some measure by the moderation and patience which
+distinguished the disciples of Arminianism. In the midst, however,
+of the apparent calm, a deep conspiracy was formed against the
+life of the prince. The motives, the conduct, and the termination
+of this plot, excite feelings of many opposite kinds. We cannot,
+as in former instances, wholly execrate the design and approve
+the punishment. Commiseration is mingled with blame, when we
+mark the sons of Barneveldt, urged on by the excess of filial
+affection to avenge their venerable father's fate; and despite
+our abhorrence for the object in view, we sympathize with the
+conspirators rather than the intended victim. William von
+Stoutenbourg and Renier de Groeneveld were the names of these
+two sons of the late pensionary. The latter was the younger;
+but, of more impetuous character than his brother, he was the
+principal in the plot. Instead of any efforts to soften down
+the hatred of this unfortunate family, these brothers had been
+removed from their employments, their property was confiscated,
+and despair soon urged them to desperation. In such a time of
+general discontent it was easy to find accomplices. Seven or
+eight determined men readily joined in the plot; of these, two
+were Catholics, the rest Arminians; the chief of whom was Henry
+Slatius, a preacher of considerable eloquence, talent, and energy.
+It was first proposed to attack the prince at Rotterdam; but
+the place was soon after changed for Ryswyk, a village near The
+Hague, and afterward celebrated by the treaty of peace signed
+there and which bears its name. Ten other associates were soon
+engaged by the exertions of Slatius: these were Arminian artisans
+and sailors, to whom the actual execution of the murder was to
+be confided; and they were persuaded that it was planned with
+the connivance of Prince Frederick Henry, who was considered
+by the Arminians as the secret partisan of their sect. The 6th
+of February was fixed on for the accomplishment of the deed.
+The better to conceal the design, the conspirators agreed to go
+unarmed to the place, where they were to find a box containing
+pistols and poniards in a spot agreed upon. The death of the
+Prince of Orange was not the only object intended. During the
+confusion subsequent to the hoped-for success of that first blow,
+the chief conspirators intended to excite simultaneous revolts
+at Leyden, Gouda, and Rotterdam, in which towns the Arminians
+were most numerous. A general revolution throughout Holland was
+firmly reckoned on as the infallible result; and success was
+enthusiastically looked for to their country's freedom and their
+individual fame.
+
+But the plot, however cautiously laid and resolutely persevered
+in, was doomed to the fate of many another; and the horror of
+a second murder (but with far different provocation from the
+first) averted from the illustrious family to whom was still
+destined the glory of consolidating the country it had formed.
+Two brothers named Blansaart, and one Parthy, having procured a
+considerable sum of money from the leading conspirators, repaired
+to The Hague, as they asserted, for the purpose of betraying the
+plot; but they were forestalled in this purpose: four of the
+sailors had gone out to Ryswyk the preceding evening, and laid the
+whole of the project, together with the wages of their intended
+crime, before the prince; who, it would appear, then occupied the
+ancient chateau, which no longer exists at Ryswyk. The box of arms
+was found in the place pointed out by the informers, and measures
+were instantly taken to arrest the various accomplices. Several
+were seized. Groeneveld had escaped along the coast disguised as
+a fisherman, and had nearly effected his passage to England,
+when he was recognized and arrested in the island of Vlieland.
+Slatius and others were also intercepted in their attempts at
+escape.--Stoutenbourg, the most culpable of all, was the most
+fortunate; probably from the energy of character which marks
+the difference between a bold adventurer and a timid speculator.
+He is believed to have passed from The Hague in the same manner
+as Grotius quitted his prison; and, by the aid of a faithful
+servant, he accomplished his escape through various perils, and
+finally reached Brussels, where the archduchess Isabella took him
+under her special protection. He for several years made efforts to
+be allowed to return to Holland; but finding them hopeless, even
+after the death of Maurice, he embraced the Catholic religion, and
+obtained the command of a troop of Spanish cavalry, at the head
+of which he made incursions into his native country, carrying
+before him a black flag with the effigy of a death's head, to
+announce the mournful vengeance which he came to execute.
+
+Fifteen persons were executed for the conspiracy. If ever mercy
+was becoming to a man, it would have been pre-eminently so to
+Maurice on this occasion; but he was inflexible as adamant. The
+mother, the wife, and the son of Groeneveld, threw themselves at
+his feet, imploring pardon. Prayers, tears and sobs were alike
+ineffectual. It is even said that Maurice asked the wretched
+mother "why she begged mercy for her son, having refused to do
+as much for her husband?" To which cruel question she is reported
+to have made the sublime answer--"Because my son is guilty, and
+my husband was not."
+
+These bloody executions caused a deep sentiment of gloom. The
+conspiracy excited more pity for the victims than horror for the
+intended crime. Maurice, from being the idol of his countrymen, was
+now become an object of their fear and dislike. When he moved from
+town to town, the people no longer hailed him with acclamations; and
+even the common tokens of outward respect were at times withheld. The
+Spaniards, taking advantage of the internal weakness consequent on
+this state of public feeling in the States, made repeated incursions
+into the provinces, which were now united but in title, not in
+spirit. Spinola was once more in the field, and had invested the
+important town of Breda, which was the patrimonial inheritance
+of the princes of Orange. Maurice was oppressed with anxiety
+and regret; and, for the sake of his better feelings, it may be
+hoped, with remorse. He could effect nothing against his rival;
+and he saw his own laurels withering from his careworn brow. The
+only hope left of obtaining the so much wanted supplies of money
+was in the completion of a new treaty with France and England.
+Cardinal Richelieu, desirous of setting bounds to the ambition
+and the successes of the House of Austria, readily came into
+the views of the States; and an obligation for a loan of one
+million two hundred thousand livres during the year 1624, and one
+million more for each of the two succeeding years, was granted
+by the king of France, on condition that the republic made no
+new truce with Spain without his mediation.
+
+An alliance nearly similar was at the same time concluded with
+England. Perpetual quarrels on commercial questions loosened
+the ties which bound the States to their ancient allies. The
+failure of his son's intended marriage with the infanta of Spain
+had opened the eyes of King James to the way in which he was
+despised by those who seemed so much to respect him. He was highly
+indignant; and he undertook to revenge himself by aiding the
+republic. He agreed to furnish six thousand men, and supply the
+funds for their pay, with a provision for repayment by the States
+at the conclusion of a peace with Spain.
+
+Prince Maurice had no opportunity of reaping the expected advantages
+from these treaties. Baffled in all his efforts for relieving
+Breda, and being unsuccessful in a new attempt upon Antwerp,
+he returned to The Hague, where a lingering illness, that had
+for some time exhausted him, terminated in his death on the 23d
+of April, 1625, in his fifty-ninth year. Most writers attribute
+this event to agitation at being unable to relieve Breda from
+the attack of Spinola. It is in any case absurd to suppose that
+the loss of a single town could have produced so fatal an effect
+on one whose life had been an almost continual game of the chances
+of war. But cause enough for Maurice's death may be found in the
+wearing effects of thirty years of active military service, and
+the more wasting ravages of half as many of domestic despotism.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
+
+A.D. 1625--1648
+
+Frederick Henry succeeded to almost all his brother's titles and
+employments, and found his new dignities clogged with an accumulation
+of difficulties sufficient to appall the most determined spirit.
+Everything seemed to justify alarm and despondency. If the affairs
+of the republic in India wore an aspect of prosperity, those in
+Europe presented a picture of past disaster and approaching peril.
+Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation,
+and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed
+the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation
+harassed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost
+defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions
+of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head
+against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly,
+and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did
+nothing toward the common cause of Protestantism, in consequence
+of the weakness of the monarch; and civil dissensions for a while
+disabled France from resuming the system of Henry IV. for humbling
+the House of Austria.
+
+Frederick Henry was at this period in his forty-second year.
+His military reputation was well established; he soon proved his
+political talents. He commenced his career by a total change in
+the tone of government on the subject of sectarian differences.
+He exercised several acts of clemency in favor of the imprisoned
+and exiled Arminians, at the same time that he upheld the dominant
+religion. By these measures he conciliated all parties; and by
+degrees the fierce spirit of intolerance became subdued. The foreign
+relations of the United Provinces now presented the anomalous
+policy of a fleet furnished by the French king, manned by rigid
+Calvinists, and commanded by a grandson of Admiral Coligny, for
+the purpose of combating the remainder of the French Huguenots,
+whom they considered as brothers in religion, though political
+foes; and during the joint expedition which was undertaken by the
+allied French and Dutch troops against Rochelle, the stronghold
+of Protestantism, the preachers of Holland put up prayers for the
+protection of those whom their army was marching to destroy. The
+states-general, ashamed of this unpopular union, recalled their
+fleet, after some severe fighting with that of the Huguenots.
+Cardinal Richelieu and the king of France were for a time furious
+in their displeasure; but interests of state overpowered individual
+resentments, and no rupture took place.
+
+Charles I. had now succeeded his father on the English throne.
+He renewed the treaty with the republic, which furnished him
+with twenty ships to assist his own formidable fleet in his war
+against Spain. Frederick Henry had, soon after his succession
+to the chief command, commenced an active course of martial
+operations, and was successful in almost all his enterprises.
+He took Groll and several other towns; and it was hoped that
+his successes would have been pushed forward upon a wider field
+of action against the imperial arms; but the States prudently
+resolved to act on the defensive by land, choosing the sea for
+the theatre of their more active operations. All the hopes of a
+powerful confederation against the emperor and the king of Spain
+seemed frustrated by the war which now broke out between France
+and England. The states-general contrived by great prudence to
+maintain a strict neutrality in this quarrel. They even succeeded
+in mediating a peace between the rival powers, which was concluded
+the following year; and in the meantime they obtained a more
+astonishing and important series of triumphs against the Spanish
+fleets than had yet been witnessed in naval conflicts.
+
+The West India Company had confided the command of their fleet to
+Peter Hein, a most intrepid and intelligent sailor, who proved his
+own merits, and the sagacity of his employers on many occasions,
+two of them of an extraordinary nature. In 1627, he defeated a
+fleet of twenty-six vessels, with a much inferior force. In the
+following year, he had the still more brilliant good fortune,
+near Havana, in the island of Cuba, in an engagement with the
+great Spanish armament, called the Money Fleet, to indicate the
+immense wealth which it contained. The booty was safely carried
+to Amsterdam, and the whole of the treasure, in money, precious
+stones, indigo, etc., was estimated at the value of twelve million
+florins. This was indeed a victory worth gaining, won almost
+without bloodshed, and raising the republic far above the manifold
+difficulties by which it had been embarrassed. Hein perished
+in the following year, in a combat with some of the pirates of
+Dunkirk--those terrible freebooters whose name was a watchword
+of terror during the whole continuance of the war.
+
+The year 1629 brought three formidable armies at once to the
+frontiers of the republic, and caused a general dismay all through
+the United Provinces; but the immense treasures taken from the
+Spaniards enabled them to make preparations suitable to the danger;
+and Frederick Henry, supported by his cousin William of Nassau, his
+natural brother Justin, and other brave and experienced officers,
+defeated every effort of the enemy. He took many towns in rapid
+succession; and finally forced the Spaniards to abandon all notion
+of invading the territories of the republic. Deprived of the
+powerful talents of Spinola, who was called to command the Spanish
+troops in Italy, the armies of the archduchess, under the count
+of Berg, were not able to cope with the genius of the Prince of
+Orange. The consequence was the renewal of negotiations for a
+second truce. But these were received on the part of the republic
+with a burst of opposition. All parties seemed decided on that
+point; and every interest, however opposed on minor questions,
+combined to give a positive negative on this.
+
+The gratitude of the country for the services of Frederick Henry
+induced the provinces of which he was stadtholder to grant the
+reversion in this title to his son, a child of three years old;
+and this dignity had every chance of becoming as absolute, as it
+was now pronounced almost hereditary, by the means of an army
+of one hundred and twenty thousand men devoted to their chief.
+However, few military occurrences took place, the sea being still
+chosen as the element best suited to the present enterprises
+of the republic. In the widely-distant settlements of Brazil
+and Batavia, the Dutch were equally successful; and the East
+and West India companies acquired eminent power and increasing
+solidity.
+
+The year 1631 was signalized by an expedition into Flanders,
+consisting of eighteen thousand men, intended against Dunkirk,
+but hastily abandoned, in spite of every probability of success,
+by the commissioners of the states-general, who accompanied the
+army, and thwarted all the ardor and vigor of the Prince of Orange.
+But another great naval victory in the narrow seas of Zealand
+recompensed the disappointments of this inglorious affair.
+
+The splendid victories of Augustus Adolphus against the imperial
+arms in Germany changed the whole face of European affairs.
+Protestantism began once more to raise its head; and the important
+conquests by Frederick Henry of almost all the strong places
+on the Meuse, including Maestricht, the strongest of all, gave
+the United Provinces their ample share in the glories of the
+war. The death of the archduchess Isabella, which took place at
+Brussels in the year 1633, added considerably to the difficulties
+of Spain in the Belgian provinces. The defection of the count
+of Berg, the chief general of their armies, who was actuated
+by resentment on the appointment of the marquis of St. Croix
+over his head, threw everything into confusion, in exposing a
+widespread confederacy among the nobility of these provinces
+to erect themselves into an independent republic, strengthened
+by a perpetual alliance with the United Provinces against the
+power of Spain. But the plot failed, chiefly, it is said, by
+the imprudence of the king of England, who let the secret slip,
+from some motives vaguely hinted at, but never sufficiently
+explained. After the death of Isabella, the prince of Brabancon
+was arrested. The prince of Epinoi and the duke of Burnonville
+made their escape; and the duke of Arschot, who was arrested in
+Spain, was soon liberated, in consideration of some discoveries
+into the nature of the plot. An armistice, published in 1634,
+threw this whole affair into complete oblivion.
+
+The king of Spain appointed his brother Ferdinand, a cardinal
+and archbishop of Toledo, to the dignity of governor-general of
+the Netherlands. He repaired to Germany at the head of seventeen
+thousand men, and bore his share in the victory of Nordlingen;
+after which he hastened to the Netherlands, and made his entry
+into Brussels in 1634. Richelieu had hitherto only combated the
+house of Austria in these countries by negotiation and intrigue;
+but he now entered warmly into the proposals made by Holland for
+a treaty offensive and defensive between Louis XIII. and the
+republic. By a treaty soon after concluded (February 8, 1635)
+the king of France engaged to invade the Belgian provinces with
+an army of thirty thousand men, in concert with a Dutch force
+of equal number. It was agreed that if Belgium would consent
+to break from the Spanish yoke it was to be erected into a free
+state; if, on the contrary, it would not co-operate for its own
+freedom, France and Holland were to dismember, and to divide
+it equally.
+
+The plan of these combined measures was soon acted on. The French
+army took the field under the command of the marshals De Chatillon
+and De Breeze; and defeated the Spaniards in a bloody battle,
+near Avein, in the province of Luxemburg, on the 20th of May,
+1635, with the loss of four thousand men. The victors soon made
+a junction with the Prince of Orange; and the towns of Tirlemont,
+St. Trond, and some others, were quickly reduced. The former of
+these places was taken by assault, and pillaged with circumstances
+of cruelty that recall the horrors of the early transactions of
+the war. The Prince of Orange was forced to punish severely the
+authors of these offences. The consequences of this event were
+highly injurious to the allies. A spirit of fierce resistance was
+excited throughout the invaded provinces. Louvain set the first
+example. The citizens and students took arms for its defence; and
+the combined forces of France and Holland were repulsed, and forced
+by want of supplies to abandon the siege, and rapidly retreat. The
+prince-cardinal, as Ferdinand was called, took advantage of this
+reverse to press the retiring French; recovered several towns;
+and gained all the advantages as well as glory of the campaign.
+The remains of the French army, reduced by continual combats,
+and still more by sickness, finally embarked at Rotterdam, to
+return to France in the ensuing spring, a sad contrast to its
+brilliant appearance at the commencement of the campaign.
+
+The military events for several ensuing years present nothing
+of sufficient interest to induce us to record them in detail. A
+perpetual succession of sieges and skirmishes afford a monotonous
+picture of isolated courage and skill; but we see none of those
+great conflicts which bring out the genius of opposing generals, and
+show war in its grand results, as the decisive means of enslaving
+or emancipating mankind. The prince-cardinal, one of the many who
+on this bloody theatre displayed consummate military talents,
+incessantly employed himself in incursions into the bordering
+provinces of France, ravaged Picardy, and filled Paris with fear
+and trembling. He, however, reaped no new laurels when he came
+into contact with Frederick Henry, who, on almost every occasion,
+particularly that of the siege of Breda, in 1637, carried his object
+in spite of all opposition. The triumphs of war were balanced; but
+Spain and the Belgian provinces, so long upheld by the talent
+of the governor-general, were gradually become exhausted. The
+revolution in Portugal, and the succession of the duke of Braganza,
+under the title of John IV., to the throne of his ancestors,
+struck a fatal blow to the power of Spain. A strict alliance
+was concluded between the new monarch of France and Holland; and
+hostilities against the common enemy were on all sides vigorously
+continued.
+
+The successes of the republic at sea and in their distant enterprises
+were continual, and in some instances brilliant. Brazil was gradually
+falling into the power of the West India Company. The East India
+possessions were secure. The great victory of Van Tromp, known
+by the name of the battle of the Downs, from being fought off
+the coast of England, on the 21st of October, 1639, raised the
+naval reputation of Holland as high as it could well be carried.
+Fifty ships taken, burned, and sunk, were the proofs of their
+admiral's triumph; and the Spanish navy never recovered the loss.
+The victory was celebrated throughout Europe, and Van Tromp was
+the hero of the day. The king of England was, however, highly
+indignant at the hardihood with which the Dutch admiral broke
+through the etiquette of territorial respect, and destroyed his
+country's bitter foes under the very sanction of English neutrality.
+But the subjects of Charles I. did not partake their monarch's
+feelings. They had no sympathy with arbitrary and tyrannic
+government; and their joy at the misfortune of their old enemies
+the Spaniards gave a fair warning of the spirit which afterward
+proved so fatal to the infatuated king, who on this occasion
+would have protected and aided them.
+
+In an unsuccessful enterprise in Flanders, Count Henry Casimir
+of Nassau was mortally wounded, adding another to the list of
+those of that illustrious family whose lives were lost in the
+service of their country. His brother, Count William Frederick,
+succeeded him in his office of stadtholder of Friesland; but the
+same dignity in the provinces of Groningen and Drent devolved
+on the Prince of Orange. The latter had conceived the desire of a
+royal alliance for his son William. Charles I. readily assented
+to the proposal of the states-general that this young prince
+should receive the hand of his daughter Mary. Embassies were
+exchanged; the conditions of the contract agreed on; but it was
+not till two years later that Van Tromp, with an escort of twenty
+ships, conducted the princess, then twelve years old, to the
+country of her future husband. The republic did not view with an
+eye quite favorable this advancing aggrandizement of the House
+of Orange. Frederick Henry had shortly before been dignified by
+the king of France, at the suggestion of Richelieu, with the
+title of "highness," instead of the inferior one of "excellency";
+and the states-general, jealous of this distinction granted to
+their chief magistrate, adopted for themselves the sounding
+appellation of "high and mighty lords." The Prince of Orange,
+whatever might have been his private views of ambition, had however
+the prudence to silence all suspicion, by the mild and moderate
+use which he made of the power, which he might perhaps have wished
+to increase, but never attempted to abuse.
+
+On the 9th of November, 1641, the prince-cardinal Ferdinand died
+at Brussels in his thirty-third year; another instance of those
+who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly
+dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties
+of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a
+nobleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this
+onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of
+military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he
+is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely
+noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with
+the exception of the archduke Albert, seems to have valued the
+internal interests of the government; and he alone, perhaps,
+because they were declared and secured as his own. De Mello,
+after taking some towns, and defeating the marshal De Guiche in
+the battle of Hannecourt, tarnished all his fame by the great
+faults which he committed in the famous battle of Rocroy. The
+duke of Enghien, then twenty-one years of age, and subsequently
+so celebrated as the great Conde, completely defeated De Mello,
+and nearly annihilated the Spanish and Walloon infantry. The
+military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable
+by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of
+Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst,
+under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very
+warm skirmish.
+
+Considerable changes were now insensibly operating in the policy
+of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu had finished his dazzling but
+tempestuous career of government, in which the hand of death
+arrested him on the 4th of December, 1642. Louis XIII. soon followed
+to the grave him who was rather his master than his minister. Anne
+of Austria was declared regent during the minority of her son,
+Louis XIV., then only five years of age; and Cardinal Mazarin
+succeeded to the station from which death alone had power to
+remove his predecessor.
+
+The civil wars in England now broke out, and their terrible results
+seemed to promise to the republic the undisturbed sovereignty of
+the seas. The Prince of Orange received with great distinction
+the mother-in-law of his son, when she came to Holland under
+pretext of conducting her daughter; but her principal purpose was
+to obtain, by the sale of the crown jewels and the assistance of
+Frederick Henry, funds for the supply of her unfortunate husband's
+cause.
+
+The prince and several private individuals contributed largely
+in money; and several experienced officers passed over to serve
+in the royalist army of England. The provincial states of Holland,
+however, sympathizing wholly with the parliament, remonstrated
+with the stadtholder; and the Dutch colonists encouraged the
+hostile efforts of their brethren, the Puritans of Scotland,
+by all the absurd exhortations of fanatic zeal. Boswell, the
+English resident in the name of the king, and Strickland, the
+ambassador from the parliament, kept up a constant succession
+of complaints and remonstrances on occasion of every incident
+which seemed to balance the conduct of the republic in the great
+question of English politics. Considerable differences existed:
+the province of Holland, and some others, leaned toward the
+parliament; the Prince of Orange favored the king; and the
+states-general endeavored to maintain a neutrality.
+
+The struggle was still furiously maintained in Germany. Generals
+of the first order of military talent were continually appearing,
+and successively eclipsing each other by their brilliant actions.
+Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the midst of his glorious career,
+at the battle of Lutzen; the duke of Weimar succeeded to his
+command, and proved himself worthy of the place; Tilly and the
+celebrated Wallenstein were no longer on the scene. The emperor
+Ferdinand II. was dead, and his son Ferdinand III. saw his victorious
+enemies threaten, at last, the existence of the empire. Everything
+tended to make peace necessary to some of the contending powers,
+as it was at length desirable for all. Sweden and Denmark were
+engaged in a bloody and wasteful conflict. The United Provinces
+sent an embassy, in the month of June, 1644, to each of those
+powers; and by a vigorous demonstration of their resolution to
+assist Sweden, if Denmark proved refractory, a peace was signed
+the following year, which terminated the disputes of the rival
+nations.
+
+Negotiations were now opened at Munster between the several
+belligerents. The republic was, however, the last to send its
+plenipotentiaries there; having signed anew treaty with France,
+by which they mutually stipulated to make no peace independent
+of each other. It behooved the republic, however, to contribute
+as much as possible toward the general object; for, among other
+strong motives to that line of conduct, the finances of Holland
+were in a state perfectly deplorable.
+
+Every year brought the necessity of a new loan; and the public
+debt of the provinces now amounted to one hundred and fifty million
+florins, bearing interest at six and a quarter per cent. Considerable
+alarm was excited at the progress of the French army in the Belgian
+provinces; and escape from the tyranny of Spain seemed only to
+lead to the danger of submission to a nation too powerful and
+too close at hand not to be dangerous, either as a foe or an
+ally. These fears were increased by the knowledge that Cardinal
+Mazarin projected a marriage between Louis XIV. and the infanta
+of Spain, with the Belgian provinces, or Spanish Netherlands as
+they were now called, for her marriage portion. This project
+was confided to the Prince of Orange, under the seal of secrecy,
+and he was offered the marquisate of Antwerp as the price of
+his influence toward effecting the plan. The prince revealed
+the whole to the states-general. Great fermentation was excited;
+the stadtholder himself was blamed, and suspected of complicity
+with the designs of the cardinal. Frederick Henry was deeply
+hurt at this want of confidence, and the injurious publications
+which openly assailed his honor in a point where he felt himself
+entitled to praise instead of suspicion.
+
+The French labored to remove the impression which this affair
+excited in the republic; but the states-general felt themselves
+justified by the intriguing policy of Mazarin in entering into
+a secret negotiation with the king of Spain, who offered very
+favorable conditions. The negotiations were considerably advanced
+by the marked disposition evinced by the Prince of Orange to
+hasten the establishment of peace. Yet, at this very period, and
+while anxiously wishing this great object, he could not resist
+the desire for another campaign; one more exploit, to signalize
+the epoch at which he finally placed his sword in the scabbard.
+
+Frederick Henry was essentially a soldier, with all the spirit
+of his race; and this evidence of the ruling passion, while he
+touched the verge of the grave, is one of the most striking points
+of his character. He accordingly took the field; but, with a
+constitution broken by a lingering disease, he was little fitted
+to accomplish any feat worthy of his splendid reputation. He failed
+in an attempt on Venlo, and another on Antwerp, and retired to The
+Hague, where for some months he rapidly declined. On the 14th of
+March, 1647, he expired, in his sixty-third year; leaving behind
+him a character of unblemished integrity, prudence, toleration,
+and valor. He was not of that impetuous stamp which leads men
+to heroic deeds, and brings danger to the states whose liberty
+is compromised by their ambition. He was a striking contrast to
+his brother Maurice, and more resembled his father in many of
+those calmer qualities of the mind, which make men more beloved
+without lessening their claims to admiration. Frederick Henry had
+the honor of completing the glorious task which William began
+and Maurice followed up. He saw the oppression they had combated
+now humbled and overthrown; and he forms the third in a sequence
+of family renown, the most surprising and the least checkered
+afforded by the annals of Europe.
+
+William II. succeeded his father in his dignities; and his ardent
+spirit longed to rival him in war. He turned his endeavors to
+thwart all the efforts for peace. But the interests of the nation
+and the dying wishes of Frederick Henry were of too powerful
+influence with the states, to be overcome by the martial yearnings
+of an inexperienced youth. The negotiations were pressed forward;
+and, despite the complaints, the murmurs, and the intrigues of
+France, the treaty of Munster was finally signed by the respective
+ambassadors of the United Provinces and Spain, on the 30th of
+January, 1648. This celebrated treaty contains seventy-nine articles.
+Three points were of main and vital importance to the republic:
+the first acknowledges an ample and entire recognition of the
+sovereignty of the states-general, and a renunciation forever of
+all claims on the part of Spain; the second confirms the rights
+of trade and navigation in the East and West Indies, with the
+possession of the various countries and stations then actually
+occupied by the contracting powers; the third guarantees a like
+possession of all the provinces and towns of the Netherlands, as
+they then stood in their respective occupation--a clause highly
+favorable to the republic, which had conquered several considerable
+places in Brabant and Flanders. The ratifications of the treaty
+were exchanged at Munster with great solemnity on the 15th of
+May following the signature; the peace was published in that
+town and in Osnaburg on the 19th, and in all the different states
+of the king of Spain and the United Provinces as soon as the
+joyous intelligence could reach such various and widely separated
+destinations. Thus after eighty years of unparalleled warfare,
+only interrupted by the truce of 1609, during which hostilities
+had not ceased in the Indies, the new republic rose from the
+horrors of civil war and foreign tyranny to its uncontested rank
+as a free and independent state among the most powerful nations
+of Europe. No country had ever done more for glory; and the result
+of its efforts was the irrevocable guarantee of civil and religious
+liberty, the great aim and end of civilization.
+
+The king of France alone had reason to complain of this treaty:
+his resentment was strongly pronounced. But the United Provinces
+flung back the reproaches of his ambassador on Cardinal Mazarin;
+and the anger of the monarch was smothered by the policy of the
+minister.
+
+The internal tranquillity of the republic was secured from all
+future alarm by the conclusion of the general peace of Westphalia,
+definitively signed on the 24th of October, 1648. This treaty was
+long considered not only as the fundamental law of the empire,
+but as the basis of the political system of Europe. As numbers of
+conflicting interests were reconciled, Germanic liberty secured,
+and a just equilibrium established between the Catholics and
+Protestants, France and Sweden obtained great advantages; and
+the various princes of the empire saw their possessions regulated
+and secured, at the same time that the powers of the emperor
+were strictly defined.
+
+This great epoch in European history naturally marks the conclusion
+of another in that of the Netherlands; and this period of general
+repose allows a brief consideration of the progress of arts,
+sciences, and manners, during the half century just now completed.
+
+The archdukes Albert and Isabella, during the whole course of
+their sovereignty, labored to remedy the abuses which had crowded
+the administration of justice. The Perpetual Edict, in 1611,
+regulated the form of judicial proceedings; and several provinces
+received new charters, by which the privileges of the people were
+placed on a footing in harmony with their wants. Anarchy, in short,
+gave place to regular government; and the archdukes, in swearing
+to maintain the celebrated pact known by the name of the Joyeuse
+Entree, did all in their power to satisfy their subjects, while
+securing their own authority. The piety of the archdukes gave an
+example to all classes. This, although degenerating in the vulgar
+to superstition and bigotry, formed a severe check, which allowed
+their rulers to restrain popular excesses, and enabled them in
+the internal quiet of their despotism to soften the people by
+the encouragement of the sciences and arts. Medicine, astronomy,
+and mathematics, made prodigious progress during this epoch.
+Several eminent men flourished in the Netherlands. But the glory
+of others, in countries presenting a wider theatre for their
+renown, in many instances eclipsed them; and the inventors of
+new methods and systems in anatomy, optics and music were almost
+forgotten in the splendid improvements of their followers.
+
+In literature, Hugo de Groot, or Grotius (his Latinized name,
+by which he is better known), was the most brilliant star of his
+country or his age, as Erasmus was of that which preceded. He was
+at once eminent as jurist, poet, theologian, and historian. His
+erudition was immense; and he brought it to bear in his political
+capacity, as ambassador from Sweden to the court of France, when
+the violence of party and the injustice of power condemned him
+to perpetual imprisonment in his native land. The religious
+disputations in Holland had given a great impulse to talent.
+They were not mere theological arguments; but with the wild and
+furious abstractions of bigotry were often blended various
+illustrations from history, art, and science, and a tone of keen
+and delicate satire, which at once refined and made them readable.
+It is remarkable that almost the whole of the Latin writings of
+this period abound in good taste, while those written in the
+vulgar tongue are chiefly coarse and trivial. Vondel and Hooft,
+the great poets of the time, wrote with genius and energy, but
+were deficient in judgment founded on good taste. The latter
+of these writers was also distinguished for his prose works;
+in honor of which Louis XIII. dignified him with letters patent
+of nobility, and decorated him with the order of St. Michael.
+
+But while Holland was more particularly distinguished by the
+progress of the mechanical arts, to which Prince Maurice afforded
+unbounded patronage, the Belgian provinces gave birth to that
+galaxy of genius in the art of painting, which no equal period
+of any other country has ever rivalled. A volume like this would
+scarcely suffice to do justice to the merits of the eminent artists
+who now flourished in Belgium; at once founding, perfecting, and
+immortalizing the Flemish school of painting. Rubens, Vandyck,
+Teniers, Crayer, Jordaens, Sneyders, and a host of other great
+names, crowd on us with claims for notice that almost make the
+mention of any an injustice to the rest. But Europe is familiar
+with their fame; and the widespread taste for their delicious art
+makes them independent of other record than the combination of
+their own exquisite touch, undying tints, and unequalled knowledge
+of nature. Engraving, carried at the same time to great perfection,
+has multiplied some of the merits of the celebrated painters,
+while stamping the reputation of its own professors. Sculpture,
+also, had its votaries of considerable note. Among these, Des
+Jardins and Quesnoy held the foremost station. Architecture also
+produced some remarkable names.
+
+The arts were, in short, never held in higher honor than at this
+brilliant epoch. Otto Venire, the master of Rubens, held most
+important employments. Rubens himself, appointed secretary to
+the privy council of the archdukes, was subsequently sent to
+England, where he negotiated the peace between that country and
+Spain. The unfortunate King Charles so highly esteemed his merit
+that he knighted him in full parliament, and presented him with the
+diamond ring he wore on his own finger, and a chain enriched with
+brilliants. David Teniers, the great pupil of this distinguished
+master, met his due share of honor. He has left several portraits of
+himself; one of which hands him down to posterity in the costume,
+and with the decorations of the belt and key, which he wore in his
+capacity of chamberlain to the archduke Leopold, governor-general
+of the Spanish Netherlands.
+
+The intestine disturbances of Holland during the twelve years'
+truce, and the enterprises against Friesland and the duchy of
+Cleves, had prevented that wise economy which was expected from
+the republic. The annual ordinary cost of the military establishment
+at that period amounted to thirteen million florins. To meet
+the enormous expenses of the state, taxes were raised on every
+material. They produced about thirty million florins a year,
+independent of five million each for the East and West India
+companies. The population in 1620, in Holland, was about six
+hundred thousand, and the other provinces contained about the
+same number.
+
+It is singular to observe the fertile erections of monopoly in
+a state founded on principles of commercial freedom. The East
+and West India companies, the Greenland company, and others,
+were successively formed. By the effect of their enterprise,
+industry and wealth, conquests were made and colonies founded
+with surprising rapidity. The town of Amsterdam, now New York,
+was founded in 1624; and the East saw Batavia rise up from the
+ruins of Jacatra, which was sacked and razed by the Dutch
+adventurers.
+
+The Dutch and English East India companies, repressing their
+mutual jealousy, formed a species of partnership in 1619 for the
+reciprocal enjoyment of the rights of commerce. But four years
+later than this date an event took place so fatal to national
+confidence that its impressions are scarcely yet effaced--this
+was the torturing and execution of several Englishmen in the
+island of Amboyna, on pretence of an unproved plot, of which every
+probability leads to the belief that they were wholly innocent. This
+circumstance was the strongest stimulant to the hatred so evident
+in the bloody wars which not long afterward took place between
+the two nations; and the lapse of two centuries has not entirely
+effaced its effects. Much has been at various periods written
+for and against the establishment of monopolizing companies,
+by which individual wealth and skill are excluded from their
+chances of reward. With reference to those of Holland at this
+period of its history, it is sufficient to remark that the great
+results of their formation could never have been brought about
+by isolated enterprises; and the justice or wisdom of their
+continuance are questions wholly dependent on the fluctuations
+in trade, and the effects produced on that of any given country
+by the progress and the rivalry of others.
+
+With respect to the state of manners in the republic, it is clear
+that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely
+to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been
+reproached. The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot,
+however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of
+some disputed points between the Dutch and English maritime
+tribunals--"The decisions of our courts cause much ill-will among
+these people, whose hearts' blood is their purse."[5] While
+drunkenness was a vice considered scarcely scandalous, the intrigues
+of gallantry were concealed with the most scrupulous mystery--giving
+evidence of at least good taste, if not of pure morality. Court
+etiquette began to be of infinite importance. The wife of Count
+Ernest Casimir of Nassau was so intent on the preservation of
+her right of precedence that on occasion of Lady Carleton, the
+British ambassadress, presuming to dispute the _pas_, she forgot
+true dignity so far as to strike her. We may imagine the vehement
+resentment of such a man as Carleton for such an outrage. The
+lower orders of the people had the rude and brutal manners common
+to half-civilized nations which fight their way to freedom. The
+unfortunate king of Bohemia, when a refugee in Holland, was one
+day hunting; and, in the heat of the chase, he followed his dogs,
+which had pursued a hare, into a newly sown corn-field: he was
+quickly interrupted by a couple of peasants armed with pitchforks.
+He supposed his rank and person to be unknown to them; but he
+was soon undeceived, and saluted with unceremonious reproaches.
+"King of Bohemia! King of Bohemia!" shouted one of the boors,
+"why do you trample on my wheat which I have so lately had the
+trouble of sowing?" The king made many apologies, and retired,
+throwing the whole blame on his dogs. But in the life of Marshal
+Turenne we find a more marked trait of manners than this, which
+might be paralleled in England at this day. This great general
+served his apprenticeship in the art of war under his uncles, the
+princes Maurice and Frederick Henry. He appeared one day on the
+public walk at The Hague, dressed in his usual plain and modest
+style. Some young French lords, covered with gold, embroidery, and
+ribbons, met and accosted him: a mob gathered round; and while
+treating Turenne, although unknown to them, with all possible
+respect, they forced the others to retire, assailed with mockery
+and the coarsest abuse.
+
+[Footnote 5: Carleton.]
+
+But one characteristic, more noble and worthy than any of those
+thus briefly cited, was the full enjoyment of the liberty of
+the press in the United Provinces. The thirst of gain, the fury
+of faction, the federal independence of the minor towns, the
+absolute power of Prince Maurice, all the combinations which
+might carry weight against this grand principle, were totally
+ineffectual to prevail over it. And the republic was, on this
+point, proudly pre-eminent among surrounding nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN
+
+A.D. 1648--1678
+
+The completion of the peace of Munster opens a new scene in the
+history of the republic. Its political system experienced
+considerable changes. Its ancient enemies became its most ardent
+friends, and its old allies loosened the bonds of long-continued
+amity. The other states of Europe, displeased at its imperious
+conduct, or jealous of its success, began to wish its humiliation;
+but it was little thought that the consummation was to be effected
+at the hands of England.
+
+While Holland prepared to profit by the peace so brilliantly
+gained, England, torn by civil war, was hurried on in crime and
+misery to the final act which has left an indelible stain on her
+annals. Cromwell and the parliament had completely subjugated
+the kingdom. The unfortunate king, delivered up by the Scotch,
+was brought to a mock trial, and condemned to an ignominious
+death. Great as were his faults, they are almost lost sight of
+in the atrocity of his opponents; so surely does disproportioned
+punishment for political offences produce a reaction in the minds
+that would approve a commensurate penalty. The United Provinces
+had preserved a strict neutrality while the contest was undecided.
+The Prince of Orange warmly strove to obtain a declaration in
+favor of his father-in-law, Charles I. The Prince of Wales and
+the Duke of York, his sons, who had taken refuge at The Hague,
+earnestly joined in the entreaty; but all that could be obtained
+from the states-general was their consent to an embassy to interpose
+with the ferocious bigots who doomed the hapless monarch to the
+block. Pauw and Joachimi, the one sixty-four years of age, the
+other eighty-eight, the most able men of the republic, undertook
+the task of mediation. They were scarcely listened to by the
+parliament, and the bloody sacrifice took place.
+
+The details of this event, and its immediate consequences, belong
+to English history; and we must hurry over the brief, turbid,
+and inglorious stadtholderate of William II., to arrive at the
+more interesting contest between the republic which had honorably
+conquered its freedom, and that of the rival commonwealth, which
+had gained its power by hypocrisy, violence, and guilt.
+
+William II. was now in his twenty-fourth year. He had early evinced
+that heroic disposition which was common to his race. He panted
+for military glory. All his pleasures were those usual to ardent
+and high-spirited men, although his delicate constitution seemed
+to forbid the indulgence of hunting, tennis, and the other violent
+exercises in which he delighted. He was highly accomplished;
+spoke five different languages with elegance and fluency, and
+had made considerable progress in mathematics and other abstract
+sciences. His ambition knew no bounds. Had he reigned over a
+monarchy as absolute king, he would most probably have gone down
+to posterity a conqueror and a hero. But, unfitted to direct a
+republic as its first citizen, he has left but the name of a
+rash and unconstitutional magistrate. From the moment of his
+accession to power, he was made sensible of the jealousy and
+suspicion with which his office and his character were observed
+by the provincial states of Holland. Many instances of this
+disposition were accumulated to his great disgust; and he was
+not long in evincing his determination to brave all the odium
+and reproach of despotic designs, and to risk everything for
+the establishment of absolute power. The province of Holland,
+arrogating to itself the greatest share in the reforms of the
+army, and the financial arrangements called for by the transition
+from war to peace, was soon in fierce opposition with the
+states-general, which supported the prince in his early views.
+Cornelius Bikker, one of the burgomasters of Amsterdam, was the
+leading person in the states of Holland; and a circumstance soon
+occurred which put him and the stadtholder in collision, and
+quickly decided the great question at issue.
+
+The admiral Cornellizon de Witt arrived from Brazil with the
+remains of his fleet, and without the consent of the council of
+regency there established by the states-general. He was instantly
+arrested by order of the Prince of Orange, in his capacity of
+high-admiral. The admiralty of Amsterdam was at the same time
+ordered by the states-general to imprison six of the captains
+of this fleet. The states of Holland maintained that this was a
+violation of their provincial rights, and an illegal assumption
+of power on the part of the states-general; and the magistrates
+of Amsterdam forced the prison doors, and set the captains at
+liberty. William, backed by the authority of the states-general,
+now put himself at the head of a deputation from that body, and
+made a rapid tour of visitation to the different chief towns of
+the republic, to sound the depths of public opinion on the matters
+in dispute. The deputation met with varied success; but the result
+proved to the irritated prince that no measures of compromise were
+to be expected, and that force alone was to arbitrate the question.
+The army was to a man devoted to him. The states-general gave
+him their entire, and somewhat servile, support. He, therefore,
+on his own authority, arrested the six deputies of Holland, in
+the same way that his uncle Maurice had seized on Barneveldt,
+Grotius, and the others; and they were immediately conveyed to
+the castle of Louvestein.
+
+In adopting this bold and unauthorized measure, he decided on an
+immediate attempt to gain possession of the city of Amsterdam,
+the central point of opposition to his violent designs. William
+Frederick, count of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland, at the
+head of a numerous detachment of troops, marched secretly and
+by night to surprise the town; but the darkness and a violent
+thunderstorm having caused the greater number to lose their way,
+the count found himself at dawn at the city gates with a very
+insufficient force; and had the further mortification to see the
+walls well manned, the cannon pointed, the draw-bridges raised,
+and everything in a state of defence. The courier from Hamburg,
+who had passed through the scattered bands of soldiers during the
+night, had given the alarm. The first notion was that a roving
+band of Swedish or Lorraine troops, attracted by the opulence
+of Amsterdam, had resolved on an attempt to seize and pillage
+it. The magistrates could scarcely credit the evidence of day,
+which showed them the count of Nassau and his force on their
+hostile mission. A short conference with the deputies from the
+citizens convinced him that a speedy retreat was the only measure
+of safety for himself and his force, as the sluices of the dikes
+were in part opened, and a threat of submerging the intended
+assailants only required a moment more to be enforced.
+
+Nothing could exceed the disappointment and irritation of the
+Prince of Orange consequent on this transaction. He at first
+threatened, then negotiated, and finally patched up the matter in
+a mariner the least mortifying to his wounded pride. Bikker nobly
+offered himself for a peace-offering, and voluntarily resigned
+his employments in the city he had saved; and De Witt and his
+officers were released. William was in some measure consoled for
+his disgrace by the condolence of the army, the thanks of the
+province of Zealand, and a new treaty with France, strengthened by
+promises of future support from Cardinal Mazarin; but, before he
+could profit by these encouraging symptoms, domestic and foreign,
+a premature death cut short all his projects of ambition.
+Over-violent exercise in a shooting party in Guelders brought
+on a fever, which soon terminated in an attack of smallpox. On
+the first appearance of his illness, he was removed to The Hague;
+and he died there on the 6th of November, 1650, aged twenty-four
+years and six months.
+
+The death of this prince left the state without a stadtholder,
+and the army without a chief. The whole of Europe shared more or
+less in the joy or the regret it caused. The republican party,
+both in Holland and in England, rejoiced in a circumstance which
+threw back the sovereign power into the hands of the nation;
+the partisans of the House of Orange deeply lamented the event.
+But the birth of a son, of which the widowed princess of Orange
+was delivered within a week of her husbands death, revived the
+hopes of those who mourned his loss, and offered her the only
+consolation which could assuage her grief. This child was, however,
+the innocent cause of a breach between his mother and grandmother,
+the dowager-princess, who had never been cordially attached to
+each other. Each claimed the guardianship of the young prince;
+and the dispute was at length decided by the states, who adjudged
+the important office to the elector of Brandenburg and the two
+princesses jointly. The states of Holland soon exercised their
+influence on the other provinces. Many of the prerogatives of
+the stadtholder were now assumed by the people; and, with the
+exception of Zealand, which made an ineffectual attempt to name
+the infant prince to the dignity of his ancestors under the title
+of William III., a perfect unanimity seemed to have reconciled
+all opposing interests. The various towns secured the privileges
+of appointing their own magistrates, and the direction of the
+army and navy devolved to the states-general.
+
+The time was now arrived when the wisdom, the courage, and the
+resources of the republic were to be put once more to the test,
+in a contest hitherto without example, and never since equalled in
+its nature. The naval wars between Holland and England had their
+real source in the inveterate jealousies and unbounded ambition
+of both countries, reciprocally convinced that a joint supremacy
+at sea was incompatible with their interests and their honor, and
+each resolved to risk everything for their mutual pretensions--to
+perish rather than yield. The United Provinces were assuredly
+not the aggressors in this quarrel. They had made sure of their
+capability to meet it, by the settlement of all questions of
+internal government, and the solid peace which secured them against
+any attack on the part of their old and inveterate enemy; but they
+did not seek a rupture. They at first endeavored to ward off the
+threatened danger by every effort of conciliation; and they met,
+with temperate management, even the advances made by Cromwell, at
+the instigation of St. John, the chief justice, for a proposed,
+yet impracticable coalition between the two republics, which was
+to make them one and indivisible. An embassy to The Hague, with
+St. John and Strickland at its head, was received with all public
+honors; but the partisans of the families of Orange and Stuart,
+and the populace generally, openly insulted the ambassadors.
+About the same time Dorislas, a Dutchman naturalized in England,
+and sent on a mission from the parliament, was murdered at The
+Hague by some Scotch officers, friends of the banished king;
+the massacre of Amboyna, thirty years before, was made a cause of
+revived complaint; and altogether a sum of injuries was easily
+made up to turn the proposed fantastic coalition into a fierce
+and bloody war.
+
+The parliament of England soon found a pretext in an outrageous
+measure, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce.
+They passed the celebrated act of navigation, which prohibited all
+nations from importing into England in their ships any commodity
+which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country.
+This law, though worded generally, was aimed directly at the
+Dutch, who were the general factors and carriers of Europe. Ships
+were seized, reprisals made, the mockery of negotiation carried
+on, fleets equipped, and at length the war broke out.
+
+In the month of May, 1652, the Dutch admiral, Tromp, commanding
+forty-two ships of war, met with the English fleet under Blake
+in the Straits of Dover; the latter, though much inferior in
+number, gave a signal to the Dutch admiral to strike, the usual
+salutation of honor accorded to the English during the monarchy.
+Totally different versions have been given by the two admirals of
+what followed. Blake insisted that Tromp, instead of complying,
+fired a broadside at his vessel; Tromp stated that a second and
+a third bullet were sent promptly from the British ship while
+he was preparing to obey the admiral's claim. The discharge of
+the first broadside is also a matter of contradiction, and of
+course of doubt. But it is of small consequence; for whether
+hostilities had been hurried on or delayed, they were ultimately
+inevitable. A bloody battle began: it lasted five hours. The
+inferiority in number on the side of the English was balanced
+by the larger size of their ships. One Dutch vessel was sunk;
+another taken; and night parted the combatants.
+
+The states-general heard the news with consternation: they despatched
+the grand pensionary Pauw on a special embassy to London. The
+imperious parliament would hear of neither reason nor remonstrance.
+Right or wrong, they were resolved on war. Blake was soon at
+sea again with a numerous fleet; Tromp followed with a hundred
+ships; but a violent tempest separated these furious enemies,
+and retarded for a while the rencounter they mutually longed
+for. On the 16th of August a battle took place between Sir George
+Ayscue and the renowned De Ruyter, near Plymouth, each with about
+forty ships; but with no decisive consequences. On the 28th of
+October, Blake, aided by Bourn and Pen, met a Dutch squadron
+of nearly equal force off the coast of Kent, under De Ruyter
+and De Witt. The fight which followed was also severe, but not
+decisive, though the Dutch had the worst of the day. In the
+Mediterranean, the Dutch admiral Van Galen defeated the English
+captain Baddely, but bought the victory with his life. And, on
+the 29th of November, another bloody conflict took place between
+Blake and Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, near the Goodwin Sands.
+In this determined action Blake was wounded and defeated; five
+English ships, taken, burned, or sunk; and night saved the fleet
+from destruction. After this victory Tromp placed a broom at
+his masthead, as if to intimate that he would sweep the Channel
+free of all English ships.
+
+Great preparations were made in England to recover this disgrace;
+eighty sail put to sea under Blake, Dean, and Monk, so celebrated
+subsequently as the restorer of the monarchy. Tromp and De Ruyter,
+with seventy-six vessels, were descried on the 18th of February,
+escorting three hundred merchantmen up Channel. Three days of
+desperate fighting ended in the defeat of the Dutch, who lost
+ten ships of war and twenty-four merchant vessels. Several of
+the English ships were disabled, one sunk; and the carnage on
+both sides was nearly equal. Tromp acquired prodigious honor
+by this battle; having succeeded, though defeated, in saving,
+as has been seen, almost the whole of his immense convoy. On
+the 12th of June and the day following two other actions were
+fought: in the first of which the English admiral Dean was killed;
+in the second, Monk, Pen, and Lawson amply revenged his death
+by forcing the Dutch to regain their harbors with great loss.
+
+The 21st of July was the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts
+for superiority. Tromp issued out once more, determined to conquer
+or die. He met the enemy off Scheveling, commanded by Monk. Both
+fleets rushed to the combat. The heroic Dutchman, animating his
+sailors with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a
+musket-ball. This event, and this alone, won the battle, which
+was the most decisive of the whole war. The enemy captured or sunk
+nearly thirty ships. The body of Tromp was carried with great
+solemnity to the church of Delft, where a magnificent mausoleum was
+erected over the remains of this eminently brave and distinguished
+man.
+
+This memorable defeat, and the death of this great naval hero,
+added to the injury done to their trade, induced the states-general
+to seek terms from their too powerful enemy. The want of peace
+was felt throughout the whole country. Cromwell was not averse to
+grant it; but he insisted on conditions every way disadvantageous
+and humiliating. He had revived his chimerical scheme of a total
+conjunction of government, privileges, and interests between
+the two republics. This was firmly rejected by John de Witt,
+now grand pensionary of Holland, and by the States under his
+influence. But the Dutch consented to a defensive league; to
+punish the survivors of those concerned in the massacre of Amboyna;
+to pay nine thousand pounds of indemnity for vessels seized in
+the Sound, five thousand pounds for the affair of Amboyna, and
+eighty-five thousand pounds to the English East India Company,
+to cede to them the island of Polerone in the East; to yield
+the honor of the national flag to the English; and, finally,
+that neither the young Prince of Orange nor any of his family
+should ever be invested with the dignity of stadtholder. These
+two latter conditions were certainly degrading to Holland; and
+the conditions of the treaty prove that an absurd point of honor
+was the only real cause for the short but bloody and ruinous war
+which plunged the Provinces into overwhelming difficulties.
+
+For several years after the conclusion of this inglorious peace,
+universal discontent and dissension spread throughout the republic.
+The supporters of the House of Orange, and every impartial friend
+of the national honor, were indignant at the act of exclusion.
+Murmurs and revolts broke out in several towns; and all was once
+more tumult, agitation, and doubt. No event of considerable
+importance marks particularly this epoch of domestic trouble.
+A new war was at last pronounced inevitable, and was the means
+of appeasing the distractions of the people, and reconciling by
+degrees contending parties. Denmark, the ancient ally of the
+republic, was threatened with destruction by Charles Gustavus,
+king of Sweden, who held Copenhagen in blockade. The interests
+of Holland were in imminent peril should the Swedes gain the
+passage of the Sound. This double motive influenced De Witt;
+and he persuaded the states-general to send Admiral Opdam with
+a considerable fleet to the Baltic. This intrepid successor of
+the immortal Tromp soon came to blows with a rival worthy to
+meet him. Wrangel, the Swedish admiral, with a superior force,
+defended the passage of the Sound; and the two castles of Cronenberg
+and Elsenberg supported his fleet with their tremendous fire.
+But Opdam resolutely advanced; though suffering extreme anguish
+from an attack of gout, he had himself carried on deck, where he
+gave his orders with the most admirable coolness and precision,
+in the midst of danger and carnage. The rival monarchs witnessed
+the battle; the king of Sweden from the castle of Cronenberg,
+and the king of Denmark from the summit of the highest tower in
+his besieged capital. A brilliant victory crowned the efforts
+of the Dutch admiral, dearly bought by the death of his second in
+command, the brave De Witt, and Peter Florizon, another admiral
+of note. Relief was poured into Copenhagen. Opdam was replaced
+in the command, too arduous for his infirmities, by the still
+more celebrated De Ruyter, who was greatly distinguished by his
+valor in several successive affairs: and after some months more
+of useless obstinacy, the king of Sweden, seeing his army perish
+in the island of Funen, by a combined attack of those of Holland
+and Denmark, consented to a peace highly favorable to the latter
+power.
+
+These transactions placed the United Provinces on a still higher
+pinnacle of glory than they had ever reached. Intestine disputes
+were suddenly calmed. The Algerines and other pirates were swept
+from the seas by a succession of small but vigorous expeditions.
+The mediation of the States re-established peace in several of
+the petty states of Germany. England and France were both held
+in check, if not preserved in friendship, by the dread of their
+recovered power. Trade and finance were reorganized. Everything
+seemed to promise a long-continued peace and growing greatness,
+much of which was owing to the talents and persevering energy of
+De Witt; and, to complete the good work of European tranquillity,
+the French and Spanish monarchs concluded in this year the treaty
+known by the name of the "peace of the Pyrenees."
+
+Cromwell had now closed his career, and Charles II. was restored
+to the throne from which he had so long been excluded. The
+complimentary entertainments rendered to the restored king in
+Holland were on the proudest scale of expense. He left the country
+which had given him refuge in misfortune, and done him honor in
+his prosperity, with profuse expressions of regard and gratitude.
+Scarcely was he established in his recovered kingdom, when a still
+greater testimony of deference to his wishes was paid, by the
+states-general formally annulling the act of exclusion against
+the House of Orange. A variety of motives, however, acting on the
+easy and plastic mind of the monarch, soon effaced whatever of
+gratitude he had at first conceived. He readily entered into the
+views of the English nation, which was irritated by the great
+commercial superiority of Holland, and a jealousy excited by
+its close connection with France at this period.
+
+It was not till the 22d of February, 1665, that war was formally
+declared against the Dutch; but many previous acts of hostility
+had taken place in expeditions against their settlements on the
+coast of Africa and in America, which were retaliated by De Ruyter
+with vigor and success. The Dutch used every possible means of
+avoiding the last extremities. De Witt employed all the powers
+of his great capacity to avert the evil of war; but nothing could
+finally prevent it, and the sea was once more to witness the
+conflict between those who claimed its sovereignty. A great battle
+was fought on the 31st of June. The duke of York, afterward James
+II., commanded the British fleet, and had under him the earl of
+Sandwich and Prince Rupert. The Dutch were led on by Opdam; and
+the victory was decided in favor of the English by the blowing
+up of that admiral's ship, with himself and his whole crew. The
+loss of the Dutch was altogether nineteen ships. De Witt the
+pensionary then took in person the command of the fleet, which
+was soon equipped; and he gave a high proof of the adaptation of
+genius to a pursuit previously unknown, by the rapid knowledge
+and the practical improvements he introduced into some of the
+most intricate branches of naval tactics.
+
+Immense efforts were now made by England, but with a very
+questionable policy, to induce Louis XIV. to join in the war.
+Charles offered to allow of his acquiring the whole of the Spanish
+Netherlands, provided he would leave him without interruption to
+destroy the Dutch navy (and, consequently, their commerce), in the
+by no means certain expectation that its advantages would all fall
+to the share of England. But the king of France resolved to support
+the republic. The king of Denmark, too, formed an alliance with
+them, after a series of the most strange tergiversations. Spain,
+reduced to feebleness, and menaced with invasion by France, showed
+no alacrity to meet Charles's overtures for an offensive treaty.
+Van Galen, bishop of Munster, a restless prelate, was the only
+ally he could acquire. This bishop, at the head of a tumultuous
+force of twenty thousand men, penetrated into Friesland; but six
+thousand French were despatched by Louis to the assistance of the
+republic, and this impotent invasion was easily repelled.
+
+The republic, encouraged by all these favorable circumstances,
+resolved to put forward its utmost energies. Internal discords
+were once more appeased; the harbors were crowded with merchant
+ships; the young Prince of Orange had put himself under the tuition
+of the states of Holland and of De Witt, who faithfully executed
+his trust; and De Ruyter was ready to lead on the fleet. The
+English, in spite of the dreadful calamity of the great fire of
+London, the plague which desolated the city, and a declaration
+of war on the part of France, prepared boldly for the shock.
+
+The Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter and Tromp, the gallant
+successor of his father's fame, was soon at sea. The English,
+under Prince Rupert and Monk, now duke of Albemarle, did not
+lie idle in port. A battle of four days continuance, one of the
+most determined and terrible up to this period on record, was
+the consequence. The Dutch claim, and it appears with justice,
+to have had the advantage. But a more decisive conflict took
+place on the 25th of July,[6] when a victory was gained by the
+English, the enemy having three of their admirals killed. "My God!"
+exclaimed De Ruyter; during this desperate fight, and seeing the
+certainty of defeat; "what a wretch I am! Among so many thousand
+bullets, is there not one to put an end to my miserable life?"
+
+[Footnote 6: In all these naval battles we have followed Hume
+and the English historians as to dates, which, in almost every
+instance, are strangely at variance with those given by the Dutch
+writers.]
+
+The king of France hastened forward in this crisis to the assistance
+of the republic and De Witt, by a deep stroke of policy, amused
+the English with negotiation while a powerful fleet was fitted
+out. It suddenly appeared in the Thames, under the command of De
+Ruyter, and all England was thrown into consternation. The Dutch
+took Sheerness, and burned many ships of war; almost insulting
+the capital itself in their predatory incursion. Had the French
+power joined that of the Provinces at this time, and invaded
+England, the most fatal results to that kingdom might have taken
+place. But the alarm soon subsided with the disappearance of the
+hostile fleet; and the signing the peace of Breda, on the 10th
+of July, 1667, extricated Charles from his present difficulties.
+The island of Polerone was restored to the Dutch, and the point of
+maritime superiority was, on this occasion, undoubtedly theirs.
+
+While Holland was preparing to indulge in the luxury of national
+repose, the death of Philip IV. of Spain, and the startling ambition
+of Louis XIV., brought war once more to their very doors, and
+soon even forced it across the threshold of the republic. The
+king of France, setting at naught his solemn renunciation at the
+peace of the Pyrenees of all claims to any part of the Spanish
+territories in right of his wife, who was daughter of the late
+king, found excellent reasons (for his own satisfaction) to invade
+a material portion of that declining monarchy. Well prepared by
+the financial and military foresight of Colbert for his great
+design, he suddenly poured a powerful army, under Turenne, into
+Brabant and Flanders; quickly overran and took possession of these
+provinces; and, in the space of three weeks, added Franche-Comte to
+his conquests. Europe was in universal alarm at these unexpected
+measures; and no state felt more terror than the republic of the
+United Provinces. The interest of all countries seemed now to
+require a coalition against the power which had abandoned the
+House of Austria only to settle on France. The first measure to
+this effect was the signing of the triple league between Holland,
+Sweden, and England, at The Hague, on the 13th of January, 1668.
+But this proved to be one of the most futile confederations on
+record. Charles, with almost unheard-of perfidy throughout the
+transaction, fell in with the designs of his pernicious, and
+on this occasion purchased, cabinet, called the Cabal; and he
+entered into a secret treaty with France, in the very teeth of
+his other engagements. Sweden was dissuaded from the league by
+the arguments of the French ministers; and Holland in a short
+time found itself involved in a double war with its late allies.
+
+A base and piratical attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet by a large
+force under Sir Robert Holmes, on the 13th of March, 1672, was
+the first overt act of treachery on the part of the English
+government. The attempt completely failed, through the prudence
+and valor of the Dutch admirals; and Charles reaped only the double
+shame of perfidy and defeat. He instantly issued a declaration of
+war against the republic, on reasoning too palpably false to
+require refutation, and too frivolous to merit record to the
+exclusion of more important matter from our narrow limits.
+
+Louis at least covered with the semblance of dignity his unjust
+co-operation in this violence. He soon advanced with his army,
+and the contingents of Munster and Cologne, his allies, amounting
+altogether to nearly one hundred and seventy thousand men, commanded
+by Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, and others of the greatest generals
+of France. Never was any country less prepared than were the
+United Provinces to resist this formidable aggression. Their
+army was as naught; their long cessation of military operations
+by land having totally demoralized that once invincible branch
+of their forces. No general existed who knew anything of the
+practice of war. Their very stores of ammunition had been delivered
+over, in the way of traffic, to the enemy who now prepared to
+overwhelm them. De Witt was severely, and not quite unjustly,
+blamed for having suffered the country to be thus taken by surprise,
+utterly defenceless, and apparently without resource. Envy of
+his uncommon merit aggravated the just complaints against his
+error. But, above all things, the popular affection to the young
+prince threatened, in some great convulsion, the overthrow of
+the pensionary, who was considered eminently hostile to the
+illustrious House of Orange.
+
+[Illustration: A HOLLAND BEAUTY]
+
+William III., prince of Orange, now twenty-two years of age,
+was amply endowed with those hereditary qualities of valor and
+wisdom which only required experience to give him rank with the
+greatest of his ancestors. The Louvenstein party, as the adherents
+of the House of Orange were called, now easily prevailed in their
+long-conceived design of placing him at the head of affairs,
+with the titles of captain-general and high admiral. De Witt,
+anxious from personal considerations, as well as patriotism, to
+employ every means of active exertion, attempted the organization
+of an army, and hastened the equipment of a formidable fleet of
+nearly a hundred ships of the line and half as many fire-ships.
+De Ruyter, now without exception the greatest commander of the
+age, set sail with this force in search of the combined fleets
+of England and France, commanded by the duke of York and Marshal
+D'Etrees. He encountered them, on the 6th of May, 1672, at Solebay.
+A most bloody engagement was the result of this meeting. Sandwich,
+on the side of the English, and Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, were
+slain. The glory of the day was divided; the victory doubtful;
+but the sea was not the element on which the fate of Holland
+was to be decided.
+
+The French armies poured like a torrent into the territories
+of the republic. Rivers were passed, towns taken, and provinces
+overrun with a rapidity much less honorable to France than
+disgraceful to Holland. No victory was gained--no resistance
+offered; and it is disgusting to look back on the fulsome panegyrics
+with which courtiers and poets lauded Louis for those facile
+and inglorious triumphs. The Prince of Orange had received the
+command of a nominal army of seventy thousand men; but with this
+undisciplined and discouraged mass he could attempt nothing. He
+prudently retired into the province of Holland, vainly hoping
+that the numerous fortresses on the frontiers would have offered
+some resistance to the enemy. Guelders, Overyssel and Utrecht
+were already in Louis's hands. Groningen and Friesland were
+threatened. Holland and Zealand opposed obstruction to such rapid
+conquest from their natural position; and Amsterdam set a noble
+example to the remaining towns--forming a regular and energetic
+plan of defence, and endeavoring to infuse its spirit into the
+rest. The sluices, those desperate sources at once of safety
+and desolation, were opened; the whole country submerged; and
+the other provinces following this example, extensive districts
+of fertility and wealth were given to the sea, for the exclusion
+of which so many centuries had scarcely sufficed.
+
+The states-general now assembled, and it was decided to supplicate
+for peace at the hands of the combined monarchs. The haughty
+insolence of Louvois, coinciding with the temper of Louis himself,
+made the latter propose the following conditions as the price
+of peace: To take off all duties on commodities exported into
+Holland; to grant the free exercise of the Romish religion in
+the United Provinces; to share the churches with the Catholics,
+and to pay their priests; to yield up all the frontier towns, with
+several in the heart of the republic; to pay him twenty million
+livres; to send him every year a solemn embassy, accompanied by
+a present of a golden medal, as an acknowledgment that they owed
+him their liberty; and, finally, that they should give entire
+satisfaction to the king of England.
+
+Charles, on his part, after the most insulting treatment of the
+ambassadors sent to London, required, among other terms, that
+the Dutch should give up the honor of the flag without reserve,
+whole fleets being expected, even on the coasts of Holland, to
+lower their topsails to the smallest ship under British colors;
+that the Dutch should pay one million pounds sterling toward the
+charges of the war, and ten thousand pounds a year for permission
+to fish in the British seas; that they should share the Indian
+trade with the English; and that Walcheren and several other
+islands should be put into the king's hands as security for the
+performance of the articles.
+
+The insatiable monarchs overshot the mark. Existence was not
+worth preserving on these intolerable terms. Holland was driven
+to desperation; and even the people of England were inspired
+with indignation at this monstrous injustice. In the republic a
+violent explosion of popular excess took place. The people now
+saw no safety but in the courage and talents of the Prince of
+Orange. He was tumultuously proclaimed stadtholder. De Witt and
+his brother Cornelis, the conscientious but too obstinate opponents
+of this measure of salvation, fell victims to the popular frenzy.
+The latter, condemned to banishment on an atrocious charge of
+intended assassination against the Prince of Orange, was visited
+in his prison at The Hague by the grand pensionary. The rabble,
+incited to fury by the calumnies spread against these two virtuous
+citizens, broke into the prison, forced the unfortunate brothers
+into the street, and there literally tore them to pieces with
+circumstances of the most brutal ferocity. This horrid scene
+took place on the 27th of August, 1672.
+
+The massacre of the De Witts completely destroyed the party of
+which they were the head. All men now united under the only leader
+left to the country. William showed himself well worthy of the
+trust, and of his heroic blood. He turned his whole force against
+the enemy. He sought nothing for himself but the glory of saving
+his country; and taking his ancestors for models, in the best
+points of their respective characters, he combined prudence with
+energy, and firmness with moderation. His spirit inspired all
+ranks of men. The conditions of peace demanded by the partner
+kings were rejected with scorn. The whole nation was moved by
+one concentrated principle of heroism; and it was even resolved
+to put the ancient notion of the first William into practice,
+and abandon the country to the waves, sooner than submit to the
+political annihilation with which it was threatened. The capability
+of the vessels in their harbors was calculated; and they were
+found sufficient to transport two hundred thousand families to
+the Indian settlements. We must hasten from this sublime picture
+of national desperation. The glorious hero who stands in its
+foreground was inaccessible to every overture of corruption.
+Buckingham, the English ambassador, offered him, on the part
+of England and France, the independent sovereignty of Holland,
+if he would abandon the other provinces to their grasp; and,
+urging his consent, asked him if he did not see that the republic
+was ruined? "There is one means," replied the Prince of Orange,
+"which will save me from the sight of my country's ruin--I will
+die in the last ditch."
+
+Action soon proved the reality of the prince's profession. He
+took the field; having first punished with death some of the
+cowardly commanders of the frontier towns. He besieged and took
+Naarden, an important place; and, by a masterly movement, formed
+a junction with Montecuculi, whom the emperor Leopold had at
+length sent to his assistance with twenty thousand men. Groningen
+repulsed the bishop of Munster, the ally of France, with a loss
+of twelve thousand men. The king of Spain (such are the strange
+fluctuations of political friendship and enmity) sent the count
+of Monterey, governor of the Belgian provinces, with ten thousand
+men to support the Dutch army. The elector of Brandenburg also
+lent them aid. The whole face of affairs was changed; and Louis
+was obliged to abandon all his conquests with more rapidity than
+he had made them. Two desperate battles at sea, on the 28th of
+May and the 4th of June, in which De Ruyter and Prince Rupert
+again distinguished themselves, only proved the valor of the
+combatants, leaving victory still doubtful. England was with
+one common feeling ashamed of the odious war in which the king
+and his unworthy ministers had engaged the nation. Charles was
+forced to make peace on the conditions proposed by the Dutch.
+The honor of the flag was yielded to the English; a regulation
+of trade was agreed to; all possessions were restored to the
+same condition as before the war; and the states-general agreed
+to pay the king eight hundred thousand patacoons, or nearly three
+hundred thousand pounds.
+
+With these encouraging results from the Prince of Orange's influence
+and example, Holland persevered in the contest with France. He, in
+the first place, made head, during a winter campaign in Holland,
+against Marshal Luxemburg, who had succeeded Turenne in the Low
+Countries, the latter being obliged to march against the imperialists
+in Westphalia. He next advanced to oppose the great Conde, who
+occupied Brabant with an army of forty-five thousand men. After
+much manoeuvring, in which the Prince of Orange displayed consummate
+talent, he on only one occasion exposed a part of his army to a
+disadvantageous contest. Conde seized on the error; and of his
+own accord gave the battle to which his young opponent could
+not succeed in forcing him. The battle of Senef is remarkable
+not merely for the fury with which it was fought, or for its
+leaving victory undecided, but as being the last combat of one
+commander and the first of the other. "The Prince of Orange,"
+said the veteran Conde (who had that day exposed his person more
+than on any previous occasion), "has acted in everything like an
+old captain, except venturing his life too like a young soldier."
+
+The campaign of 1675 offered no remarkable event; the Prince
+of Orange with great prudence avoiding the risk of a battle.
+But the following year was rendered fatally remarkable by the
+death of the great De Ruyter,[7] who was killed in an action
+against the French fleet in the Mediterranean; and about the
+same time the not less celebrated Turenne met his death from a
+cannon-ball in the midst of his triumphs in Germany. This year
+was doubly occupied in a negotiation for peace and an active
+prosecution of the war. Louis, at the head of his army, took
+several towns in Belgium: William was unsuccessful in an attempt
+on Maestricht. About the beginning of winter, the plenipotentiaries
+of the several belligerents assembled at Nimeguen, where the
+congress for peace was held. The Hollanders, loaded with debts
+and taxes, and seeing the weakness and slowness of their allies,
+the Spaniards and Germans, prognosticated nothing but misfortunes.
+Their commerce languished; while that of England, now neutral
+amid all these quarrels, flourished extremely. The Prince of
+Orange, however, ambitious of glory, urged another campaign;
+and it commenced accordingly. In the middle of February, Louis
+carried Valenciennes by storm, and laid siege to St. Omer and
+Cambray. William, though full of activity, courage, and skill,
+was, nevertheless, almost always unsuccessful in the field, and
+never more so than in this campaign. Several towns fell almost
+in his sight; and he was completely defeated in the great battle
+of Mount Cassel by the duke of Orleans and Marshal Luxemburg. But
+the period for another peace was now approaching. Louis offered
+fair terms for the acceptance of the United Provinces at the
+congress of Nimeguen, April, 1678, as he now considered his chief
+enemies Spain and the empire, who had at first only entered into
+the war as auxiliaries. He was, no doubt, principally impelled
+in his measures by the marriage of the Prince of Orange with
+the lady Mary, eldest daughter of the duke of York, and heir
+presumptive to the English crown, which took place on the 23d of
+October, to the great joy of both the Dutch and English nations.
+Charles was at this moment the arbiter of the peace of Europe;
+and though several fluctuations took place in his policy in the
+course of a few months, as the urgent wishes of the parliament
+and the large presents of Louis differently actuated him, still
+the wiser and more just course prevailed, and he finally decided
+the balance by vigorously declaring his resolution for peace; and
+the treaty was consequently signed at Nimeguen, on the 10th of
+August, 1678. The Prince of Orange, from private motives of spleen,
+or a most unjustifiable desire for fighting, took the extraordinary
+measure of attacking the French troops under Luxemburg, near Mons,
+on the very day after the signing of this treaty. He must have
+known it, even though it were not officially notified to him; and
+he certainly had to answer for all the blood so wantonly spilled in
+the sharp though undecisive action which ensued. Spain, abandoned
+to her fate, was obliged to make the best terms she could; and on
+the 17th of September she also concluded a treaty with France,
+on conditions entirely favorable to the latter power.
+
+[Footnote 7: The council of Spain gave De Ruyter the title and
+letters patent of duke. The latter arrived in Holland after his
+death; and his children, with true republican spirit, refused
+to adopt the title.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
+
+A.D. 1678--1713
+
+A few years passed over after this period, without the occurrence
+of any transaction sufficiently important to require a mention
+here. Each of the powers so lately at war followed the various
+bent of their respective ambition. Charles of England was
+sufficiently occupied by disputes with parliament, and the discovery,
+fabrication, and punishment of plots, real or pretended. Louis
+XIV., by a stretch of audacious pride hitherto unknown, arrogated
+to himself the supreme power of regulating the rest of Europe, as
+if all the other princes were his vassals. He established courts,
+or chambers of reunion as they were called, in Metz and Brisac,
+which cited princes, issued decrees, and authorized spoliation,
+in the most unjust and arbitrary manner. Louis chose to award to
+himself Luxemburg, Chiny, and a considerable portion of Brabant
+and Flanders. He marched a considerable army into Belgium, which
+the Spanish governors were unable to oppose. The Prince of Orange,
+who labored incessantly to excite a confederacy among the other
+powers of Europe against the unwarrantable aggressions of France,
+was unable to arouse his countrymen to actual war; and was forced,
+instead of gaining the glory he longed for, to consent to a truce
+for twenty years, which the states-general, now wholly pacific
+and not a little cowardly, were too happy to obtain from France.
+The emperor and the king of Spain gladly entered into a like
+treaty. The fact was that the peace of Nimeguen had disjointed
+the great confederacy which William had so successfully brought
+about; and the various powers were laid utterly prostrate at the
+feet of the imperious Louis, who for a while held the destinies
+of Europe in his hands.
+
+Charles II. died most unexpectedly in the year 1685; and his
+obstinately bigoted and unconstitutional successor, James II.,
+seemed, during a reign of not four years' continuance, to rush
+wilfully headlong to ruin. During this period, the Prince of
+Orange had maintained a most circumspect and unexceptionable
+line of conduct; steering clear of all interference with English
+affairs; giving offence to none of the political factions; and
+observing in every instance the duty and regard which he owed to
+his father-in-law. During Monmouth's invasion he had despatched
+to James's assistance six regiments of British troops which were
+in the Dutch service, and he offered to take the command of the
+king's forces against the rebels. It was from the application
+of James himself that William took any part in English affairs;
+for he was more widely and much more congenially employed in the
+establishment of a fresh league against France. Louis had aroused
+a new feeling throughout Protestant Europe by the revocation
+of the Edict of Nantes. The refugees whom he had driven from
+their native country inspired in those in which they settled
+hatred of his persecution as well as alarm of his power. Holland
+now entered into all the views of the Prince of Orange. By his
+immense influence he succeeded in forming the great confederacy
+called the League of Augsburg, to which the emperor, Spain, and
+almost every European power but England became parties.
+
+James gave the prince reason to believe that he too would join
+in this great project, if William would in return concur in his
+views of domestic tyranny; but William wisely refused. James, much
+disappointed, and irritated by the moderation which showed his
+own violence in such striking contrast, expressed his displeasure
+against the prince, and against the Dutch generally, by various
+vexatious acts. William resolved to maintain a high attitude;
+and many applications were made to him by the most considerable
+persons in England for relief against James's violent measures,
+and which there was but one method of making effectual. That method
+was force. But as long as the Princess of Orange was certain of
+succeeding to the crown on her father's death, William hesitated
+to join in an attempt that might possibly have failed and lost
+her her inheritance. But the birth of a son, which, in giving
+James a male heir, destroyed all hope of redress for the kingdom,
+decided the wavering, and rendered the determined desperate.
+The prince chose the time for his enterprise with the sagacity,
+arranged its plan with the prudence, and put it into execution
+with the vigor, which were habitual qualities of his mind.
+
+Louis XIV., menaced by the League of Augsburg, had resolved to
+strike the first blow against the allies. He invaded Germany; so
+that the Dutch preparations seemed in the first instance intended
+as measures of defence against the progress of the French. But
+Louis's envoy at The Hague could not be long deceived. He gave
+notice to his master, who in his turn warned James. But that
+infatuated monarch not only doubted the intelligence, but refused
+the French king's offers of assistance and co-operation. On the
+21st of October, the Prince of Orange, with an army of fourteen
+thousand men, and a fleet of five hundred vessels of all kinds,
+set sail from Helvoetsluys; and after some delays from bad weather,
+he safely landed his army in Torbay, on the 5th of November, 1688.
+The desertion of James's best friends; his own consternation,
+flight, seizure, and second escape; and the solemn act by which he
+was deposed; were the rapid occurrences of a few weeks: and thus
+the grandest revolution that England had ever seen was happily
+consummated. Without entering here on legislative reasonings or
+party sophisms, it is enough to record the act itself; and to
+say, in reference to our more immediate subject, that without
+the assistance of Holland and her glorious chief, England might
+have still remained enslaved, or have had to purchase liberty
+by oceans of blood. By the bill of settlement, the crown was
+conveyed jointly to the Prince and Princess of Orange, the sole
+administration of government to remain in the prince; and the
+new sovereigns were proclaimed on the 23d of February, 1689.
+The convention, which had arranged this important point, annexed
+to the settlement a declaration of rights, by which the powers
+of royal prerogative and the extent of popular privilege were
+defined and guaranteed.
+
+William, now become king of England, still preserved his title
+of stadtholder of Holland; and presented the singular instance
+of a monarchy and a republic being at the same time governed by
+the same individual. But whether as a king or a citizen, William
+was actuated by one grand and powerful principle, to which every
+act of private administration was made subservient, although
+it certainly called for no sacrifice that was not required for
+the political existence of the two nations of which he was the
+head. Inveterate opposition to the power of Louis XIV. was this
+all-absorbing motive. A sentiment so mighty left William but
+little time for inferior points of government, and everything
+but that seems to have irritated and disgusted him. He was soon
+again on the Continent, the chief theatre of his efforts. He
+put himself in front of the confederacy which resulted from the
+congress of Utrecht in 1690. He took the command of the allied
+army; and till the hour of his death, he never ceased his
+indefatigable course of hostility, whether in the camp or the
+cabinet, at the head of the allied armies, or as the guiding
+spirit of the councils which gave them force and motion.
+
+Several campaigns were expended, and bloody combats fought, almost
+all to the disadvantage of William, whose genius for war was
+never seconded by that good fortune which so often decides the
+fate of battles in defiance of all the calculations of talent.
+But no reverse had power to shake the constancy and courage of
+William. He always appeared as formidable after defeat as he
+was before action. His conquerors gained little but the honor
+of the day. Fleurus, Steinkerk, Herwinde, were successively the
+scenes of his evil fortune, and the sources of his fame. His
+retreats were master-strokes of vigilant activity and profound
+combinations. Many eminent sieges took place during this war.
+Among other towns, Mons and Namur were taken by the French, and
+Huy by the allies; and the army of Marshal Villeroi bombarded
+Brussels during three days, in August, 1695, with such fury that
+the town-house, fourteen churches, and four thousand houses,
+were reduced to ashes. The year following this event saw another
+undecisive campaign. During the continuance of this war, the naval
+transactions present no grand results. Du Bart, a celebrated
+adventurer of Dunkirk, occupies the leading place in those affairs,
+in which he carried on a desultory but active warfare against the
+Dutch and English fleets, and generally with great success.
+
+All the nations which had taken part in so many wars were now
+becoming exhausted by the contest, but none so much so as France.
+The great despot who had so long wielded the energies of that
+country with such wonderful splendor and success found that his
+unbounded love of dominion was gradually sapping all the real
+good of his people, in chimerical schemes of universal conquest.
+England, though with much resolution voting new supplies, and in
+every way upholding William in his plans for the continuance of
+war, was rejoiced when Louis accepted the mediation of Charles
+XI., king of Sweden, and agreed to concessions which made peace
+feasible. The emperor and Charles II. of Spain, were less satisfied
+with those concessions; but everything was finally arranged to meet
+the general views of the parties, and negotiations were opened
+at Ryswyk. The death of the king of Sweden, and the minority of
+his son and successor, the celebrated Charles XII., retarded
+them on points of form for some time. At length, on the 20th of
+September, 1697, the articles of the treaty were subscribed by
+the Dutch, English, Spanish, and French ambassadors. The treaty
+consisted of seventeen articles. The French king declared he
+would not disturb or disquiet the king of Great Britain, whose
+title he now for the first time acknowledged. Between France
+and Holland were declared a general armistice, perpetual amity,
+a mutual restitution of towns, a reciprocal renunciation of all
+pretensions upon each other, and a treaty of commerce which was
+immediately put into execution. Thus, after this long, expensive,
+and sanguinary war, things were established just on the footing they
+had been by the peace of Nimeguen; and a great, though unavailable
+lesson, read to the world on the futility and wickedness of those
+quarrels in which the personal ambition of kings leads to the
+misery of the people. Had the allies been true to each other
+throughout, Louis would certainly have been reduced much lower
+than he now was. His pride was humbled, and his encroachments
+stopped. But the sufferings of the various countries engaged in
+the war were too generally reciprocal to make its result of any
+material benefit to either. The emperor held out for a while,
+encouraged by the great victory gained by his general, Prince
+Eugene of Savoy, over the Turks at Zenta in Hungary; but he finally
+acceded to the terms offered by France; the peace, therefore,
+became general, but, unfortunately for Europe, of very short
+duration.
+
+France, as if looking forward to the speedy renewal of hostilities,
+still kept her armies undisbanded. Let the foresight of her
+politicians have been what it might, this negative proof of it was
+justified by events. The king of Spain, a weak prince, without any
+direct heir for his possessions, considered himself authorized to
+dispose of their succession by will. The leading powers of Europe
+thought otherwise, and took this right upon themselves. Charles
+died on the 1st of November, 1700, and thus put the important
+question to the test. By a solemn testament he declared Philip,
+duke of Anjou, second son of the dauphin, and grandson of Louis
+XIV., his successor to the whole of the Spanish monarchy. Louis
+immediately renounced his adherence to the treaties of partition,
+executed at The Hague and in London, in 1698 and 1700, and to which
+he had been a contracting party; and prepared to maintain the act
+by which the last of the descendants of Charles V. bequeathed
+the possessions of Spain and the Indies to the family which had
+so long been the inveterate enemy and rival of his own.
+
+The emperor Leopold, on his part, prepared to defend his claims;
+and thus commenced the new war between him and France, which took
+its name from the succession which formed the object of dispute.
+Hostilities were commenced in Italy, where Prince Eugene, the
+conqueror of the Turks, commanded for Leopold, and every day
+made for himself a still more brilliant reputation. Louis sent
+his grandson to Spain to take possession of the inheritance,
+for which so hard a fight was yet to be maintained, with the
+striking expression at parting--"My child, there are no longer
+any Pyrenees!" an expression most happily unprophetic for the
+future independence of Europe; for the moral force of the barrier
+has long existed after the expiration of the family compact which
+was meant to deprive it of its force.
+
+Louis prepared to act vigorously. Among other measures, he caused
+part of the Dutch army that was quartered in Luxemburg and Brabant
+to be suddenly made prisoners of war, because they would not own
+Philip V. as king of Spain. The states-general were dreadfully
+alarmed, immediately made the required acknowledgment, and in
+consequence had their soldiers released. They quickly reinforced
+their garrisons, purchased supplies, solicited foreign aid, and
+prepared for the worst that might happen. They wrote to King
+William, professing the most inviolable attachment to England;
+and he met their application by warm assurances of support and
+an immediate reinforcement of three regiments.
+
+William followed up these measures by the formation of the celebrated
+treaty called the Grand Alliance, by which England, the States,
+and the emperor covenanted for the support of the pretensions
+of the latter to the Spanish monarchy. William was preparing,
+in spite of his declining health, to take his usual lead in the
+military operations now decided on, and almost all Europe was
+again looking forward to his guidance, when he died on the 8th of
+March, 1701, leaving his great plans to receive their execution
+from still more able adepts in the art of war.
+
+William's character has been traced by many hands. In his capacity
+of king of England, it is not our province to judge him in this
+place. As stadtholder of Holland, he merits unqualified praise.
+Like his great ancestor William I., whom he more resembled than
+any other of his race, he saved the country in a time of such
+imminent peril that its abandonment seemed the only resource
+left to the inhabitants, who preferred self-exile to slavery.
+All his acts were certainly merged in the one overwhelming object
+of a great ambition--that noble quality, which, if coupled with
+the love of country, is the very essence of true heroism. William
+was the last of that illustrious line which for a century and a
+half had filled Europe with admiration. He never had a child;
+and being himself an only one, his title as Prince of Orange
+passed into another branch of the family. He left his cousin,
+Prince Frison of Nassau, the stadtholder of Friesland, his sole
+and universal heir, and appointed the states-general his executors.
+
+William's death filled Holland with mourning and alarm. The meeting
+of the states-general after this sad intelligence was of a most
+affecting description; but William, like all master-minds, had
+left the mantle of his inspiration on his friends and followers.
+Heinsius, the grand pensionary, followed up the views of the
+lamented stadtholder with considerable energy, and was answered
+by the unanimous exertions of the country. Strong assurances
+of support from Queen Anne, William's successor, still further
+encouraged the republic, which now vigorously prepared for war.
+But it did not lose this occasion of recurring to the form of
+government of 1650. No new stadtholder was now appointed; the
+supreme authority being vested in the general assembly of the
+states, and the active direction of affairs confided to the grand
+pensionary. This departure from the form of government which had
+been on various occasions proved to be essential to the safety,
+although at all times hazardous to the independence, of the States,
+was not attended with any evil consequences. The factions and
+the anarchy which had before been the consequence of the course
+now adopted were prevented by the potent influence of national
+fear lest the enemy might triumph, and crush the hopes, the
+jealousies, and the enmities of all parties in one general ruin.
+Thus the common danger awoke a common interest, and the splendid
+successes of her allies kept Holland steady in the career of
+patriotic energy which had its rise in the dread of her redoubtable
+foe.
+
+The joy in France at William's death was proportionate to the
+grief it created in Holland; and the arrogant confidence of Louis
+seemed to know no bounds. "I will punish these audacious merchants,"
+said he, with an air of disdain, when he read the manifesto of
+Holland; not foreseeing that those he affected to despise so
+much would, ere long, command in a great measure the destinies
+of his crown. Queen Anne entered upon the war with masculine
+intrepidity, and maintained it with heroic energy. Efforts were
+made by the English ministry and the states-general to mediate
+between the kings of Sweden and Poland. But Charles XII., enamored
+of glory, and bent on the one great object of his designs against
+Russia, would listen to nothing that might lead him from his
+immediate career of victory. Many other of the northern princes
+were withheld, by various motives, from entering into the contest
+with France, and its whole brunt devolved on the original members
+of the Grand Alliance. The generals who carried it on were
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The former, at its commencement
+an earl, and subsequently raised to the dignity of duke, was
+declared generalissimo of the Dutch and English forces. He was
+a man of most powerful genius, both as warrior and politician.
+A pupil of the great Turenne, his exploits left those of his
+master in the shade. No commander ever possessed in a greater
+degree the faculty of forming vast designs, and of carrying them
+into effect with consummate skill; no one displayed more coolness
+and courage in action, saw with a keener eye the errors of the
+enemy, or knew better how to profit by success. He never laid
+siege to a town that he did not take, and never fought a battle
+that he did not gain.
+
+Prince Eugene joined to the highest order of personal bravery a
+profound judgment for the grand movements of war, and a capacity
+for the most minute of the minor details on which their successful
+issue so often depends. United in the same cause, these two great
+generals pursued their course without the least misunderstanding.
+At the close of each of those successive campaigns, in which they
+reaped such a full harvest of renown, they retired together to The
+Hague, to arrange, in the profoundest secrecy, the plans for the
+next year's operations, with one other person, who formed the great
+point of union between them, and completed a triumvirate without
+a parallel in the history of political affairs. This third was
+Heinsius, one of those great men produced by the republic whose
+names are tantamount to the most detailed eulogium for talent
+and patriotism. Every enterprise projected by the confederates
+was deliberately examined, rejected, or approved by these three
+associates, whose strict union of purpose, disowning all petty
+rivalry, formed the centre of counsels and the source of
+circumstances finally so fatal to France.
+
+Louis XIV., now sixty years of age, could no longer himself command
+his armies, or probably did not wish to risk the reputation he
+was conscious of having gained by the advice and services of
+Turenne, Conde, and Luxemburg. Louvois, too, was dead; and Colbert
+no longer managed his finances. A council of rash and ignorant
+ministers hung like a dead weight on the talent of the generals
+who succeeded the great men above mentioned. Favor and not merit
+too often decided promotion, and lavished command. Vendome, Villars,
+Boufflers, and Berwick were set aside, to make way for Villeroi,
+Tallard, and Marsin, men every way inferior.
+
+The war began in 1702 in Italy, and Marlborough opened his first
+campaign in Brabant also in that year. For several succeeding
+years the confederates pursued a career of brilliant success,
+the details of which do not properly belong to this work. A mere
+chronology of celebrated battles would be of little interest, and
+the pages of English history abound in records of those deeds.
+Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, are names that
+speak for themselves, and tell their own tale of glory. The utter
+humiliation of France was the result of events, in which the
+undying fame of England for inflexible perseverance and unbounded
+generosity was joined in the strictest union with that of Holland;
+and the impetuous valor of the worthy successor to the title
+of Prince of Orange was, on many occasions, particularly at
+Malplaquet, supported by the devotion and gallantry of the Dutch
+contingent in the allied armies. The naval affairs of Holland
+offered nothing very remarkable. The states had always a fleet
+ready to support the English in their enterprises; but no eminent
+admiral arose to rival the renown of Rooke, Byng, Benbow, and others
+of their allies. The first of those admirals took Gibraltar, which
+has ever since remained in the possession of England. The great
+earl of Peterborough carried on the war with splendid success in
+Portugal and Spain, supported occasionally by the English fleet
+under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and that of Holland under Admirals
+Allemonde and Wapenaer.
+
+During the progress of the war, the haughty and longtime imperial
+Louis was reduced to a state of humiliation that excited a compassion
+so profound as to prevent its own open expression--the most galling
+of all sentiments to a proud mind. In the year 1709 he solicited
+peace on terms of most abject submission. The states-general,
+under the influence of the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene,
+rejected all his supplications, retorting unsparingly the insolent
+harshness with which he had formerly received similar proposals
+from them. France, roused to renewed exertions by the insulting
+treatment experienced by her humiliated but still haughty despot,
+made prodigious but vain efforts to repair her ruinous losses.
+In the following year Louis renewed his attempts to obtain some
+tolerable conditions; offering to renounce his grandson, and to
+comply with all the former demands of the confederates. Even these
+overtures were rejected; Holland and England appearing satisfied
+with nothing short of--what was after all impracticable--the total
+destruction of the great power which Louis had so long proved
+to be incompatible with their welfare.
+
+The war still went on; and the taking of Bouchain on the 30th
+of August, 1711, closed the almost unrivalled military career
+of Marlborough, by the success of one of his boldest and best
+conducted exploits. Party intrigue had accomplished what, in
+court parlance, is called the disgrace, but which, in the language
+of common sense, means only the dismissal of this great man. The
+new ministry, who hated the Dutch, now entered seriously into
+negotiations with France. The queen acceded to these views, and
+sent special envoys to communicate with the court of Versailles.
+The states-general found it impossible to continue hostilities if
+England withdrew from the coalition; conferences were consequently
+opened at Utrecht in the month of January, 1712. England took
+the important station of arbiter in the great question there
+debated. The only essential conditions which she demanded
+individually were the renunciation of all claims to the crown of
+France by Philip V., and the demolition of the harbor of Dunkirk.
+The first of these was the more readily acceded to, as the great
+battles of Almanza and Villaviciosa, gained by Philip's generals,
+the dukes of Berwick and Vendome, had steadily fixed him on the
+throne of Spain--a point still more firmly secured by the death
+of the emperor Joseph I., son of Leopold, and the elevation of
+his brother Charles, Philip's competitor for the crown of Spain,
+to the imperial dignity, by the title of Charles VI.
+
+The peace was not definitively signed until the 11th of April,
+1713; and France obtained far better conditions than those which
+were refused her a few years previously. The Belgian provinces
+were given to the new emperor, and must henceforth be called
+the Austrian instead of the Spanish Netherlands. The gold and
+the blood of Holland had been profusely expended during this
+contest; it might seem for no positive results; but the exhaustion
+produced to every one of the other belligerents was a source
+of peace and prosperity to the republic. Its commerce was
+re-established; its financial resources recovered their level;
+and altogether we must fix on the epoch now before us as that
+of its utmost point of influence and greatness. France, on the
+contrary, was now reduced from its palmy state of almost European
+sovereignty to one of the deepest misery; and its monarch, in
+his old age, found little left of his former power but those
+records of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture which
+tell posterity of his magnificence, and the splendor of which
+throw his faults and his misfortunes into the shade.
+
+The great object now to be accomplished by the United Provinces
+was the regulation of a distinct and guaranteed line of frontier
+between the republic and France. This object had become by degrees,
+ever since the peace of Munster, a fundamental maxim of their
+politics. The interposition of the Belgian provinces between the
+republic and France was of serious inconvenience to the former in
+this point of view. It was made the subject of a special article in
+"the grand alliance." In the year 1707 it was particularly discussed
+between England and the States, to the great discontent of the
+emperor, who was far from wishing its definitive settlement. But
+it was now become an indispensable item in the total of important
+measures whose accomplishment was called for by the peace of
+Utrecht. Conferences were opened on this sole question at Antwerp
+in the year 1714; and, after protracted and difficult discussions,
+the treaty of the Barrier was concluded on the 15th of November,
+1715.
+
+This treaty was looked on with an evil eye in the Austrian
+Netherlands. The clamor was great and general; jealousy of the
+commercial prosperity of Holland being the real motive. Long
+negotiations took place on the subject of the treaty; and in
+December, 1718, the republic consented to modify some of the
+articles. The Pragmatic Sanction, published at Vienna in 1713
+by Charles VI., regulated the succession to all the imperial
+hereditary possessions; and, among the rest, the provinces of
+the Netherlands. But this arrangement, though guaranteed by the
+chief powers of Europe, was, in the sequel, little respected,
+and but indifferently executed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
+THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
+
+A.D. 1713--1795
+
+During a period of thirty years following the treaty of Utrecht,
+the republic enjoyed the unaccustomed blessing of profound peace.
+While the discontents of the Austrian Netherlands on the subject
+of the treaty of the Barrier were in debate, the quadruple alliance
+was formed between Holland, England, France and the emperor, for
+reciprocal aid against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It was
+in virtue of this treaty that the pretender to the English throne
+received orders to remove from France; and the states-general
+about the same time arrested the Swedish ambassador, Baron Gortz,
+whose intrigues excited some suspicion. The death of Louis XIV.
+had once more changed the political system of Europe; and the
+commencement of the eighteenth century was fertile in negotiations
+and alliances in which we have at present but little direct interest.
+The rights of the republic were in all instances respected; and
+Holland did not cease to be considered as a power of the first
+distinction and consequence. The establishment of an East India
+Company at Ostend, by the emperor Charles VI., in 1722, was the
+principal cause of disquiet to the United Provinces, and the most
+likely to lead to a rupture. But, by the treaty of Hanover in
+1726, the rights of Holland resulting from the treaty of Munster
+were guaranteed; and in consequence the emperor abolished the
+company of his creation, by the treaty of Seville in 1729, and
+that of Vienna in 1731.
+
+The peace which now reigned in Europe allowed the United Provinces
+to direct their whole efforts toward the reform of those internal
+abuses resulting from feudality and fanaticism. Confiscations
+were reversed, and property secured throughout the republic.
+It received into its protection the persecuted sectarians of
+France, Germany, and Hungary; and the tolerant wisdom which it
+exercised in these measures gives the best assurance of its justice
+and prudence in one of a contrary nature, forming a solitary
+exception to them. This was the expulsion of the Jesuits, whose
+dangerous and destructive doctrines had been long a warrant for
+this salutary example to the Protestant states of Europe.
+
+In the year 1732 the United Provinces were threatened with imminent
+peril, which accident alone prevented from becoming fatal to
+their very existence. It was perceived that the dikes, which
+had for ages preserved the coasts, were in many places crumbling
+to ruin, in spite of the enormous expenditure of money and labor
+devoted to their preservation. By chance it was discovered that the
+beams, piles and other timber works employed in the construction
+of the dikes were eaten through in all parts by a species of
+sea-worm hitherto unknown. The terror of the people was, as may
+be supposed, extreme. Every possible resource was applied which
+could remedy the evil; a hard frost providentially set in and
+destroyed the formidable reptiles; and the country was thus saved
+from a danger tenfold greater than that involved in a dozen wars.
+
+The peace of Europe was once more disturbed in 1733. Poland,
+Germany, France, and Spain, were all embarked in the new war.
+Holland and England stood aloof; and another family alliance
+of great consequence drew still closer than ever the bonds of
+union between them. The young Prince of Orange, who in 1728 had
+been elected stadtholder of Groningen and Guelders, in addition
+to that of Friesland which had been enjoyed by his father, had
+in the year 1734 married the princess Anne, daughter of George
+II. of England; and by thus adding to the consideration of the
+House of Nassau, had opened a field for the recovery of all its
+old distinctions.
+
+The death of the emperor Charles VI., in October, 1740, left his
+daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, heiress of his throne
+and possessions. Young, beautiful, and endowed with qualities of
+the highest order, she was surrounded with enemies whose envy
+and ambition would have despoiled her of her splendid rights.
+Frederick of Prussia, surnamed the Great, in honor of his abilities
+rather than his sense of justice, the electors of Bavaria and
+Saxony, and the kings of Spain and Sardinia, all pressed forward
+to the spoliation of an inheritance which seemed a fair play for
+all comers. But Maria Theresa, first joining her husband, Duke
+Francis of Lorraine, in her sovereignty, but without prejudice to
+it, under the title of co-regent, took an attitude truly heroic.
+When everything seemed to threaten the dismemberment of her states,
+she threw herself upon the generous fidelity of her Hungarian
+subjects with a dignified resolution that has few examples. There
+was imperial grandeur even in her appeal to their compassion.
+The results were electrical; and the whole tide of fortune was
+rapidly turned.
+
+England and Holland were the first to come to the aid of the
+young and interesting empress. George II., at the head of his
+army, gained the victory of Dettingen, in support of her quarrel,
+in 1743; the states-general having contributed twenty thousand
+men and a large subsidy to her aid. Louis XV. resolved to throw
+his whole influence into the scale against these generous efforts
+in the princess's favor; and he invaded the Austrian Netherlands
+in the following year. Marshal Saxe commanded under him, and at
+first carried everything before him. Holland, having furnished
+twenty thousand troops and six ships of war to George II. on
+the invasion of the young pretender, was little in a state to
+oppose any formidable resistance to the enemy that threatened
+her own frontiers. The republic, wholly attached for so long
+a period to pursuits of peace and commerce, had no longer good
+generals nor effective armies; nor could it even put a fleet of
+any importance to sea. Yet with all these disadvantages it would
+not yield to the threats nor the demands of France; resolved
+to risk a new war rather than succumb to an enemy it had once
+so completely humbled and given the law to.
+
+Conferences were opened at Breda, but interrupted almost as soon
+as commenced. Hostilities were renewed. The memorable battle of
+Fontenoy was offered and gloriously fought by the allies; accepted
+and splendidly won by the French. Never did the English and Dutch
+troops act more nobly in concert than on this remarkable occasion.
+The valor of the French was not less conspicuous; and the success
+of the day was in a great measure decided by the Irish battalions,
+sent, by the lamentable politics of those and much later days,
+to swell the ranks and gain the battles of England's enemies.
+Marshal Saxe followed up his advantage the following year, taking
+Brussels and many other towns. Almost the whole of the Austrian
+Netherlands being now in the power of Louis XV., and the United
+Provinces again exposed to invasion and threatened with danger,
+they had once more recourse to the old expedient of the elevation
+of the House of Orange, which in times of imminent peril seemed
+to present a never-failing palladium. Zealand was the first to
+give the impulsion; the other provinces soon followed the example;
+and William IV. was proclaimed stadtholder and captain-general,
+amid the almost unanimous rejoicings of all. These dignities
+were soon after declared hereditary both in the male and female
+line of succession of the House of Orange Nassau.
+
+The year 1748 saw the termination of the brilliant campaigns of
+Louis XV. during this bloody war of eight years' continuance.
+The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, definitively signed on the 18th of
+October, put an end to hostilities; Maria Theresa was established
+in her rights and power; and Europe saw a fair balance of the
+nations, which gave promise of security and peace. But the United
+Provinces, when scarcely recovering from struggles which had so
+checked their prosperity, were employed in new and universal
+grief and anxiety by the death of their young stadtholder, which
+happened at The Hague, October 13, 1751. He had long been kept
+out of the government, though by no means deficient in the talents
+suited to his station. His son, William V., aged but three years
+and a half, succeeded him, under the guardianship of his mother,
+Anne of England, daughter of George II., a princess represented
+to be of a proud and ambitious temper, who immediately assumed
+a high tone of authority in the state.
+
+The war of seven years, which agitated the north of Europe, and
+deluged its plains with blood, was almost the only one in which the
+republic was able to preserve a strict neutrality throughout. But
+this happy state of tranquillity was not, as on former occasions,
+attended by that prodigious increase of commerce, and that
+accumulation of wealth, which had so often astonished the world.
+Differing with England on the policy which led the latter to
+weaken and humiliate France, jealousies sprung up between the
+two countries, and Dutch commerce became the object of the most
+vexatious and injurious efforts on the part of England. Remonstrance
+was vain; resistance impossible; and the decline of the republic
+hurried rapidly on. The Hanseatic towns, the American colonies, the
+northern states of Europe, and France itself, all entered into the
+rivalry with Holland, in which, however, England carried off the
+most important prizes. Several private and petty encounters took
+place between the vessels of England and Holland, in consequence
+of the pretensions of the former to the right of search; and had
+the republic possessed the ability of former periods, and the
+talents of a Tromp or a De Ruyter, a new war would no doubt have
+been the result. But it was forced to submit; and a degrading but
+irritating tranquillity was the consequence for several years;
+the national feelings receiving a salve for home-decline by some
+extension of colonial settlements in the East, in which the island
+of Ceylon was included.
+
+In the midst of this inglorious state of things, and the domestic
+abundance which was the only compensation for the gradual loss
+of national influence, the installation of William V., in 1766;
+his marriage with the princess of Prussia, niece of Frederick
+the Great, in 1768; and the birth of two sons, the eldest on
+the 24th of August, 1772; successively took place. Magnificent
+fetes celebrated these events; the satisfied citizens little
+imagining, amid their indolent rejoicings, the dismal futurity of
+revolution and distress which was silently but rapidly preparing
+for their country.
+
+Maria Theresa, reduced to widowhood by the death of her husband,
+whom she had elevated to the imperial dignity by the title of
+Francis I., continued for a while to rule singly her vast
+possessions; and had profited so little by the sufferings of her
+own early reign that she joined in the iniquitous dismemberment
+of Poland, which has left an indelible stain on her memory, and on
+that of Frederick of Prussia and Catherine of Russia. In her own
+dominions she was adored; and her name is to this day cherished
+in Belgium among the dearest recollections of the people.
+
+The impulsion given to the political mind of Europe by the revolution
+in North America was soon felt in the Netherlands. The wish for
+reform was not merely confirmed to the people. A memorable instance
+was offered by Joseph II., son and successor of Maria Theresa,
+that sovereigns were not only susceptible of rational notions
+of change, but that the infection of radical extravagance could
+penetrate even to the imperial crown. Disgusted by the despotism
+exercised by the clergy of Belgium, Joseph commenced his reign
+by measures that at once roused a desperate spirit of hostility
+in the priesthood, and soon spread among the bigoted mass of the
+people, who were wholly subservient to their will. Miscalculating
+his own power, and undervaluing that of the priests, the emperor
+issued decrees and edicts with a sweeping violence that shocked
+every prejudice and roused every passion perilous to the country.
+Toleration to the Protestants, emancipation of the clergy from the
+papal yoke, reformation in the system of theological instruction,
+were among the wholesale measures of the emperor's enthusiasm,
+so imprudently attempted and so virulently opposed.
+
+But ere the deep-sown seeds of bigotry ripened to revolt, or
+produced the fruit of active resistance in Belgium, Holland had
+to endure the mortification of another war with England. The
+republic resolved on a futile imitation of the northern powers,
+who had adopted the difficult and anomalous system of an armed
+neutrality, for the prevention of English domination on the seas.
+The right of search, so proudly established by this power, was not
+likely to be wrenched from it by manifestoes or remonstrances;
+and Holland was not capable of a more effectual warfare. In the
+year 1781, St. Eustache, Surinam, Essequibo, and Demerara, were
+taken by British valor; and in the following year several of the
+Dutch colonies in the East, well fortified but ill defended,
+also fell into the hands of England. Almost the whole of those
+colonies, the remnants of prodigious power acquired by such
+incalculable instances of enterprise and courage, were one by one
+assailed and taken. But this did not suffice for the satisfaction
+of English objects in the prosecution of the war. It was also
+resolved to deprive Holland of the Baltic trade. A squadron of
+seven vessels, commanded by Sir Hyde Parker, was encountered on
+the Dogher Bank by a squadron of Dutch ships of the same force
+under Admiral Zoutman. An action of four hours was maintained
+with all the ancient courage which made so many of the memorable
+sea-fights between Tromp, De Ruyter, Blake, and Monk drawn battles.
+A storm separated the combatants, and saved the honor of each;
+for both had suffered alike, and victory had belonged to neither.
+The peace of 1784 terminated this short, but, to Holland, fatal
+war; the two latter years of which had been, in the petty warfare
+of privateering, most disastrous to the commerce of the republic.
+Negapatam, on the coast of Coromandel, and the free navigation of
+the Indian seas, were ceded to England, who occupied the other
+various colonies taken during the war.
+
+Opinion was now rapidly opening out to that spirit of intense
+inquiry which arose in France, and threatened to sweep before
+it not only all that was corrupt, but everything that tended
+to corruption. It is in the very essence of all kinds of power
+to have that tendency, and, if not checked by salutary means,
+to reach that end. But the reformers of the last century, new
+in the desperate practice of revolutions, seeing its necessity,
+but ignorant of its nature, neither did nor could place bounds
+to the careering whirlwind that they raised. The well-meaning
+but intemperate changes essayed by Joseph II. in Belgium had a
+considerable share in the development of free principles, although
+they at first seemed only to excite the resistance of bigotry and
+strengthen the growth of superstition. Holland was always alive
+to those feelings of resistance, to established authority which
+characterize republican opinions; and the general discontent at the
+result of the war with England gave a good excuse to the pretended
+patriotism which only wanted change, while it professed reform.
+The stadtholder saw clearly the storm which was gathering, and
+which menaced his power. Anxious for the present, and uncertain
+for the future, he listened to the suggestions of England, and
+resolved to secure and extend by foreign force the rights of
+which he risked the loss from domestic faction.
+
+In the divisions which were now loudly proclaimed among the states
+in favor of or opposed to the House of Orange, the people, despising
+all new theories which they did not comprehend, took open part
+with the family so closely connected with every practical feeling
+of good which their country had yet known. The states of Holland
+soon proceeded to measures of violence. Resolved to limit the
+power of the stadtholder, they deprived him of the command of
+the garrison of The Hague, and of all the other troops of the
+province; and, shortly afterward, declared him removed from all
+his employments. The violent disputes and vehement discussions
+consequent upon this measure throughout the republic announced
+an inevitable commotion. The advance of a Prussian army toward
+the frontiers inflamed the passions of one party and strengthened
+the confidence of the other. An incident which now happened brought
+about the crisis even sooner than was expected. The Princess
+of Orange left her palace at Loo to repair to The Hague; and
+travelling with great simplicity and slightly attended, she was
+arrested and detained by a military post on the frontiers of the
+province of Holland. The neighboring magistrates of the town of
+Woesden refused her permission to continue her journey, and forced
+her to return to Loo under such surveillance as was usual with a
+prisoner of state. The stadtholder and the English ambassador
+loudly complained of this outrage. The complaint was answered
+by the immediate advance of the duke of Brunswick with twenty
+thousand Prussian soldiers. Some demonstrations of resistance
+were made by the astonished party whose outrageous conduct had
+provoked the measure; but in three weeks' time the whole of the
+republic was in perfect obedience to the authority of the
+stadtholder, who resumed all his functions of chief magistrate,
+with the additional influence which was sure to result from a
+vain and unjustifiable attempt to reduce his former power. We
+regret to be beyond the reach of Mr. Ellis's interesting but
+unpublished work, detailing the particulars of this revolution.
+The former persual of a copy of it only leaves a recollection
+of its admirable style and the leading facts, but not of the
+details with sufficient accuracy to justify more than a general
+reference to the work itself.
+
+By this time the discontent and agitation in Belgium had attained
+a most formidable height. The attempted reformation in religion
+and judicial abuses persisted in by the emperor were represented,
+by a party whose existence was compromised by reform, as nothing
+less than sacrilege and tyranny, and blindly rejected by a people
+still totally unfitted for rational enlightenment in points of
+faith, or practices of civilization. Remonstrances and strong
+complaints were soon succeeded by tumultuous assemblages and
+open insurrection. A lawyer of Brussels, named Vander Noot, put
+himself at the head of the malcontents. The states-general of
+Brabant declared the new measures of the emperor to be in opposition
+to the constitution and privileges of the country. The other
+Belgian provinces soon followed this example. The prince Albert
+of Saxe-Teschen, and the archduchess Maria Theresa, his wife,
+were at this period joint governors-general of the Austrian
+Netherlands. At the burst of rebellion they attempted to temporize;
+but this only strengthened the revolutionary party, while the
+emperor wholly disapproved their measures and recalled them to
+Vienna.
+
+Count Murray was now named governor-general; and it was evident
+that the future fate of the provinces was to depend on the issue
+of civil war. Count Trautmansdorff, the imperial minister at
+Brussels, and General D'Alton, who commanded the Austrian troops,
+took a high tone, and evinced a peremptory resolution. The soldiery
+and the citizens soon came into contact on many points; and blood
+was spilled at Brussels, Mechlin, and Antwerp.
+
+The provincial states were convoked, for the purpose of voting
+the usual subsidies. Brabant, after some opposition, consented; but
+the states of Hainault unanimously refused the vote. The emperor
+saw, or supposed, that the necessity for decisive measures was
+now inevitable. The refractory states were dissolved, and arrests
+and imprisonments were multiplied in all quarters. Vander Noot,
+who had escaped to England, soon returned to the Netherlands,
+and established a committee at Breda, which conferred on him the
+imposing title of agent plenipotentiary of the people of Brabant.
+He hoped, under this authority, to interest the English, Prussian,
+and Dutch governments in favor of his views; but his proposals
+were coldly received: Protesiant states had little sympathy for
+a people whose resistance was excited, not by tyrannical efforts
+against freedom, but by broad measures of civil and religious
+reformation; the only fault of which was their attempted application
+to minds wholly incompetent to comprehend their value.
+
+Left to themselves, the Belgians soon gave a display of that
+energetic valor which is natural to them, and which would be
+entitled to still greater admiration had it been evinced in a
+worthier cause. During the fermentation which led to a general
+rising in the provinces, on the impulse of fanatic zeal, the
+truly enlightened portion of the people conceived the project of
+raising, on the ruins of monkish superstition and aristocratical
+power, an edifice of constitutional freedom. Vonck, also an advocate
+of Brussels, took the lead in this splendid design; and he and
+his friends proved themselves to have reached the level of that
+true enlightenment which distinguished the close of the eighteenth
+century. But the Vonckists, as they were called, formed but a
+small minority compared with the besotted mass; and, overwhelmed
+by fanaticism on the one hand, and despotism on the other, they
+were unable to act effectually for the public good. Vander Mersch,
+a soldier of fortune, and a man of considerable talents, who had
+raised himself from the ranks to the command of a regiment, and
+had been formed in the school of the seven years' war, was appointed
+to the command of the patriot forces. Joseph II. was declared
+to have forfeited his sovereignty in Brabant; and hostilities
+soon commenced by a regular advance of the insurgent army upon
+that province. Vander Mersch displayed consummate ability in
+this crisis, where so much depended upon the prudence of the
+military chief. He made no rash attempt, to which commanders are
+sometimes induced by reliance upon the enthusiasm of a newly
+revolted people. He, however, took the earliest safe opportunity
+of coming to blows with the enemy; and, having cleverly induced
+the Austrians to follow him into the very streets of the town
+of Turnhout, he there entered on a bloody contest, and finally
+defeated the imperialists with considerable loss. He next manoeuvred
+with great ability, and succeeded in making his way into the
+province of Flanders, took Ghent by assault, and soon reduced
+Bruges, Ypres, and Ostend. At the news of these successes, the
+governors-general quitted Brussels in all haste. The states of
+Flanders assembled, in junction with those of Brabant. Both provinces
+were freed from the presence of the Austrian troops. Vander Noot
+and the committee of Breda made an entrance into Brussels with
+all the pomp of royalty; and in the early part of the following
+year (1790) a treaty of union was signed by the seven revolted
+provinces, now formed into a confederation under the name of
+the United Belgian States.
+
+All the hopes arising from these brilliant events were soon,
+however, to be blighted by the scorching heats of faction. Joseph
+II., whose temperament appears to have been too sensitive to
+support the shock of disappointment in plans which sprung from the
+purest motives, saw, in addition to this successful insurrection
+against his power, his beloved sister, the queen of France, menaced
+with the horrors of an inevitable revolution. His over-sanguine
+expectations of successfully rivalling the glory of Frederick
+and Catherine, and the ill success of his war against the Turks,
+all tended to break down his enthusiastic spirit, which only
+wanted the elastic resistance of fortitude to have made him a
+great character. He for some time sunk into a profound melancholy;
+and expired on the 20th of January, 1791, accusing his Belgian
+subjects of having caused his premature death.
+
+Leopold, the successor of his brother, displayed much sagacity
+and moderation in the measures which he adopted for the recovery
+of the revolted provinces; but their internal disunion was the
+best ally of the new emperor. The violent party which now ruled
+at Brussels had ungratefully forgotten the eminent services of
+Vander Mersch, and accused him of treachery, merely from his
+attachment to the noble views and principles of the widely-increasing
+party of the Vonckists. Induced by the hope of reconciling the
+opposing parties, he left his army in Namur, and imprudently
+ventured into the power of General Schoenfeld, who commanded
+the troops of the states. Vander Mersch was instantly arrested
+and thrown into prison, where he lingered for months, until set
+free by the overthrow of the faction he had raised to power; but
+he did not recover his liberty to witness the realization of
+his hopes for that of his country. The states-general, in their
+triumph over all that was truly patriotic, occupied themselves
+solely in contemptible labors to establish the monkish absurdities
+which Joseph had suppressed. The overtures of the new emperor were
+rejected with scorn; and, as might be expected from this combination
+of bigotry and rashness, the imperial troops under General Bender
+marched quietly to the conquest of the whole country; town after
+town opening their gates, while Vander Noot and his partisans
+betook themselves to rapid and disgraceful flight. On the 10th
+of December, 1791, the ministers of the emperor concluded a
+convention with those of England, Russia, and Holland (which
+powers guaranteed its execution), by which Leopold granted an
+amnesty for all past offences, and confirmed to all his recovered
+provinces their ancient constitution and privileges; and, thus
+returning under the domination of Austria, Belgium saw its best
+chance for successfully following the noble example of the United
+Provinces paralyzed by the short-sighted bigotry which deprived
+the national courage of all moral force.
+
+Leopold enjoyed but a short time the fruits of his well-measured
+indulgence: he died, almost suddenly, March 1, 1792; and was
+succeeded by his son Francis II., whose fate it was to see those
+provinces of Belgium, which had cost his ancestors so many struggles
+to maintain, wrested forever from the imperial power. Belgium
+presented at this period an aspect of paramount interest to the
+world; less owing to its intrinsic importance than to its becoming
+at once the point of contest between the contending powers, and
+the theatre of the terrible struggle between republican France and
+the monarchs she braved and battled with. The whole combinations
+of European policy were staked on the question of the French
+possession of this country.
+
+This war between France and Austria began its earliest operations
+on the very first days after the accession of Francis II. The
+victory of Jemappes, gained by Dumouriez, was the first great
+event of the campaign. The Austrians were on all sides driven
+out. Dumouriez made his triumphal entry into Brussels on the
+13th of November; and immediately after the occupation of this
+town the whole of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, with the other
+Belgian provinces, were subjected to France. Soon afterward several
+pretended deputies from the Belgian people hastened to Paris, and
+implored the convention to grant them a share of that liberty
+and equality which was to confer such inestimable blessings on
+France. Various decrees were issued in consequence; and after
+the mockery of a public choice, hurried on in several of the
+towns by hired Jacobins and well-paid patriots, the incorporation
+of the Austrian Netherlands with the French republic was formally
+pronounced.
+
+The next campaign destroyed this whole fabric of revolution.
+Dumouriez, beaten at Nerwinde by the prince of Saxe-Coburg, abandoned
+not only his last year's conquest, but fled from his own army to
+pass the remainder of his life on a foreign soil, and leave his
+reputation a doubtful legacy to history. Belgium, once again in
+the possession of Austria, was placed under the government of
+the archduke Charles, the emperor's brother, who was destined
+to a very brief continuance in this precarious authority.
+
+During this and the succeeding year the war was continued with
+unbroken perseverance and a constant fluctuation in its results.
+In the various battles which were fought, and the sieges which took
+place, the English army was, as usual, in the foremost ranks, under
+the Duke of York, second son of George III. The Prince of Orange,
+at the head of the Dutch troops, proved his inheritance of the
+valor which seems inseparable from the name of Nassau. The archduke
+Charles laid the foundation of his subsequent high reputation.
+The emperor Francis himself fought valiantly at the head of his
+troops. But all the coalesced courage of these princes and their
+armies could not effectually stop the progress of the republican
+arms. The battle of Fleurus rendered the French completely masters
+of Belgium; and the representatives of the city of Brussels once
+more repaired to the national convention of France, to solicit
+the reincorporation of the two countries. This was not, however,
+finally pronounced till the 1st of October, 1795, by which time
+the violence of an arbitrary government had given the people a
+sample of what they were to expect. The Austrian Netherlands and
+the province of Liege were divided into nine departments, forming
+an integral part of the French republic; and this new state of
+things was consolidated by the preliminaries of peace, signed
+at Leoben in Styria, between the French general Bonaparte and the
+archduke Charles, and confirmed by the treaty of Campo-Formio
+on the 17th of October, 1797.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE
+PRINCE OF ORANGE
+
+A.D. 1794--1818
+
+While the fate of Belgium was decided on the plains of Fleurus,
+Pichegru prepared to carry the triumphant arms of France into
+the heart of Holland. He crossed the Meuse at the head of one
+hundred thousand men, and soon gained possession of most of the
+chief places of Flanders. An unusually severe winter was setting
+in; but a circumstance which in common cases retards the operations
+of war was, in the present instance, the means of hurrying on the
+conquest on which the French general was bent. The arms of the
+sea, which had hitherto been the best defences of Holland, now
+became solid masses of ice; battlefields, on which the soldiers
+manoeuvred and the artillery thundered, as if the laws of the
+elements were repealed to hasten the fall of the once proud and
+long flourishing republic. Nothing could arrest the ambitious
+ardor of the invaders. The Duke of York and his brave army resisted
+to the utmost; but, borne down by numbers, he was driven from
+position to position. Batteries, cannons, and magazines were
+successfully taken; and Pichegru was soon at the term of his
+brilliant exploits.
+
+But Holland speedily ceased to be a scene of warfare. The
+discontented portion of the citizens, now the majority, rejoiced
+to retaliate the revolution of 1787 by another, received the French
+as liberators. Reduced to extremity, yet still capable by the aid
+of his allies of making a long and desperate resistance, the
+stadtholder took the nobler resolution of saving his fellow-citizens
+from the horrors of prolonged warfare. He repaired to The Hague;
+presented himself in the assembly of the states-general; and
+solemnly deposited in their hands the exercise of the supreme
+power, which he found he could no longer wield but to entail
+misery and ruin on his conquered country. After this splendid
+instance of true patriotism and rare virtue, he quitted Holland and
+took refuge in England. The states-general dissolved a national
+assembly installed at The Hague; and, the stadtholderate abolished,
+the United Provinces now changed their form of government, their
+long-cherished institutions, and their very name, and were christened
+the Batavian Republic.
+
+Assurances of the most flattering nature were profusely showered
+on the new state, by the sister republic which had effected this
+new revolution. But the first measure of regeneration was the
+necessity of paying for the recovered independence, which was
+effected for the sum of one hundred million florins. The new
+constitution was almost entirely modelled on that of France,
+and the promised independence soon became a state of deplorable
+suffering and virtual slavery. Incalculable evils were the portion
+of Holland in the part which she was forced to take in the war
+between France and England. Her marine was nearly annihilated,
+and some of her most valuable possessions in the Indies ravished
+from her by the British arms. She was at the same time obliged
+to cede to her ally the whole of Dutch Flanders, Maestricht,
+Venloo, and their dependencies; and to render free and common
+to both nations the navigation of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the
+Scheldt.
+
+The internal situation of the unfortunate republic was deplorable.
+Under the weight of an enormous and daily increasing debt, all
+the resources of trade and industry were paralyzed. Universal
+misery took place of opulence, and not even the consolation of a
+free constitution remained to the people. They vainly sought that
+blessing from each new government of the country whose destinies
+they followed, but whose advantages they did not share. They saw
+themselves successively governed by the states-general, a national
+assembly, and the directory. But these ephemeral authorities had
+not sufficient weight to give the nation domestic happiness,
+nor consideration among the other powers.
+
+On the 11th of October, 1797, the English admiral, Sir Adam Duncan,
+with a superior force, encountered the Dutch fleet under De Winter
+off Camperdown; and in spite of the bravery of the latter he was
+taken prisoner, with nine ships of the line and a frigate. An
+expedition on an extensive scale was soon after fitted out in
+England, to co-operate with a Russian force for the establishment
+of the House of Orange. The Helder was the destination of this
+armament, which was commanded by Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The Duke of
+York soon arrived in the Texel with a considerable reinforcement.
+A series of severe, and well-contested actions near Bergen ended
+in the defeat of the allies and the abandonment of the enterprise;
+the only success of which was the capture of the remains of the
+Dutch fleet, which was safely conveyed to England.
+
+From this period the weight of French oppression became every
+day more intolerable in Holland. Ministers, generals, and every
+other species of functionary, with swarms of minor tyrants, while
+treating the country as a conquered province, deprived it of all
+share in the brilliant though checkered glories gained by that
+to which it was subservient. The Dutch were robbed of national
+independence and personal freedom. While the words "liberty" and
+"equality" were everywhere emblazoned, the French ambassador
+assumed an almost Oriental despotism. The language and forms of a
+free government were used only to sanction a foreign tyranny; and
+the Batavian republic, reduced to the most hopeless and degraded
+state, was in fact but a forced appendage chained to the triumphal
+car of France.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte, creating by the force of his prodigious talents
+the circumstances of which inferior minds are but the creatures, now
+rapidly rose to the topmost height of power. He not only towered
+above the mass of prejudices which long custom had legalized,
+but spurned the multitude by whom these prejudices had been
+overthrown. Yet he was not of the first order of great minds;
+for he wanted that grand principle of self-control which is the
+supreme attribute of greatness. Potent, and almost irresistible
+in every conflict with others, and only to be vanquished by his
+own acts, he possessed many of the higher qualities of genius.
+He was rapid, resolute, and daring, filled with contempt for
+the littleness of mankind, yet molding every atom which composed
+that littleness to purposes at utter variance with its nature.
+In defiance of the first essence of republican theory, he built
+himself an imperial throne on the crushed privileges of a prostrate
+people; and he lavished titles and dignities on men raised from
+its very dregs, with a profusion which made nobility a byword of
+scorn. Kingdoms were created for his brothers and his friends;
+and the Batavian republic was made a monarchy, to give Louis a
+dignity, or at least a title, like the rest.
+
+The character of Louis Bonaparte was gentle and amiable, his
+manners easy and affable. He entered on his new rank with the
+best intentions toward the country which he was sent to reign
+over; and though he felt acutely when the people refused him
+marks of respect and applause, which was frequently the case,
+his temper was not soured, and he conceived no resentment. He
+endeavored to merit popularity; and though his power was scanty,
+his efforts were not wholly unsuccessful. He labored to revive the
+ruined trade, which he knew to be the staple of Dutch prosperity:
+but the measures springing from this praiseworthy motive were
+totally opposed to the policy of Napoleon; and in proportion as
+Louis made friends and partisans among his subjects, he excited
+bitter enmity in his imperial brother. Louis was so averse from
+the continental system, or exclusion of British manufactures, that
+during his short reign every facility was given to his subjects
+to elude it, even in defiance of the orders conveyed to him from
+Paris through the medium of the French ambassador at The Hague.
+He imposed no restraints on public opinion, nor would he establish
+the odious system of espionage cherished by the French police;
+but he was fickle in his purposes, and prodigal in his expenses.
+The profuseness of his expenditure was very offensive to the
+Dutch notions of respectability in matters of private finance,
+and injurious to the existing state of the public means. The
+tyranny of Napoleon became soon quite insupportable to him; so
+much so, that it is believed that had the ill-fated English
+expedition to Walcheren in 1809 succeeded, and the army advanced
+into the country, he would have declared war against France.
+After an ineffectual struggle of more than three years, he chose
+rather to abdicate his throne than retain it under the degrading
+conditions of proconsulate subserviency. This measure excited
+considerable regret, and much esteem for the man who preferred
+the retirement of private life to the meanness of regal slavery.
+But Louis left a galling memento of misplaced magnificence, in
+an increase of ninety millions of florins (about nine millions
+sterling) to the already oppressive amount of the national debt
+of the country.
+
+The annexation of Holland to the French empire was immediately
+pronounced by Napoleon. Two-thirds of the national debt were
+abolished, the conscription law was introduced, and the Berlin
+and Milan decrees against the introduction of British manufactures
+were rigidly enforced. The nature of the evils inflicted on the
+Dutch people by this annexation and its consequences demand a
+somewhat minute examination. Previous to it all that part of
+the territory of the former United Provinces had been ceded to
+France. The kingdom of Holland consisted of the departments of
+the Zuyder Zee, the mouths of the Maese, the Upper Yssel, the
+mouths of the Yssel, Friesland, and the Western and Eastern Ems;
+and the population of the whole did not exceed one million eight
+hundred thousand souls. When Louis abdicated his throne, he left
+a military and naval force of eighteen thousand men, who were
+immediately taken into the service of France; and in three years
+and a half after that event this number was increased to fifty
+thousand, by the operation of the French naval and military code:
+thus about a thirty-sixth part of the whole population was employed
+in arms. The forces included in the maritime conscription were
+wholly employed in the navy. The national guards were on constant
+duty in the garrisons or naval establishments. The cohorts were
+by law only liable to serve in the _interior_ of the French
+empire--that is to say, from Hamburg to Rome; but after the Russian
+campaign, this limitation was disregarded, and they formed a
+part of Napoleon's army at the battle of Bautzen.
+
+The conscription laws now began to be executed with the greatest
+rigor; and though the strictest justice and impartiality were
+observed in the ballot and other details of this most oppressive
+measure, yet it has been calculated that, on an average, nearly
+one-half of the male population of the age of twenty years was
+annually taken off. The conscripts were told that their service was
+not to extend beyond the term of five years; but as few instances
+occurred of a French soldier being discharged without his being
+declared unfit for service, it was always considered in Holland
+that the service of a conscript was tantamount to an obligation
+during life. Besides, the regulations respecting the conscription
+were annually changed, by which means the code became each year
+more intricate and confused; and as the explanation of any doubt
+rested with the functionaries, to whom the execution of the law
+was confided, there was little chance of their constructions
+mitigating its severity.
+
+But the conscription, however galling, was general in its operation.
+Not so the formation of the emperor's guard of honor. The members
+of this patrician troop were chosen from the most noble and opulent
+families, particularly those who were deemed inimical to the French
+connection. The selection depended altogether on the prefect, who
+was sure to name those most obnoxious to his political or personal
+dislike, without regard to their rank or occupation, or even the
+state of their health. No exemption was admitted--not even to
+those who from mental or bodily infirmity, or other cause, had
+been declared unfit for general military duty. The victims were
+forced to the mockery of volunteering their services; obliged to
+provide themselves with horses, arms, and accoutrements; and when
+arrived at the depot appointed for their assembling, considered
+probably but as hostages for the fidelity of their relatives.
+
+The various taxes were laid on and levied in the most oppressive
+manner; those on land usually amounting to twenty-five, and those
+on houses to thirty per cent of the clear annual rent. Other
+direct taxes were levied on persons and movable property, and
+all were regulated on a scale of almost intolerable severity. The
+whole sum annually obtained from Holland by these means amounted
+to about thirty millions of florins (or three million pounds
+sterling), being at the rate of about one pound thirteen shillings
+four pence from every soul inhabiting the country.
+
+The operation of what was called the continental system created
+an excess of misery in Holland, only to be understood by those who
+witnessed its lamentable results. In other countries, Belgium for
+instance, where great manufactories existed, the loss of maritime
+communication was compensated by the exclusion of English goods. In
+states possessed of large and fertile territories, the population
+which could no longer be employed in commerce might be occupied
+in agricultural pursuits. But in Holland, whose manufactures were
+inconsiderable, and whose territory is insufficient to support
+its inhabitants, the destruction of trade threw innumerable
+individuals wholly out of employment, and produced a graduated
+scale of poverty in all ranks. A considerable part of the population
+had been employed in various branches of the traffic carried on
+by means of the many canals which conveyed merchandise from the
+seaports into the interior, and to the different continental
+markets. When the communication with England was cut off, principals
+and subordinates were involved in a common ruin.
+
+In France, the effect of the continental system was somewhat
+alleviated by the license trade, the exportation of various
+productions forced on the rest of continental Europe, and the
+encouragement given to home manufactures. But all this was reversed
+in Holland: the few licenses granted to the Dutch were clogged
+with duties so exorbitant as to make them useless; the duties on
+one ship which entered the Maese, loaded with sugar and coffee,
+amounting to about fifty thousand pounds sterling. At the same
+time every means was used to crush the remnant of Dutch commerce
+and sacrifice the country to France. The Dutch troops were clothed
+and armed from French manufactories; the frontiers were opened
+to the introduction of French commodities duty free; and the
+Dutch manufacturer undersold in his own market.
+
+The population of Amsterdam was reduced from two hundred and
+twenty thousand souls to one hundred and ninety thousand, of which
+a fourth part derived their whole subsistence from charitable
+institutions, while another fourth part received partial succor
+from the same sources. At Haarlem, where the population had been
+chiefly employed in bleaching and preparing linen made in Brabant,
+whole streets were levelled with the ground, and more than five
+hundred houses destroyed. At The Hague, at Delft, and in other
+towns, many inhabitants had been induced to pull down their houses,
+from inability to keep them in repair or pay the taxes. The
+preservation of the dikes, requiring an annual expense of six
+hundred thousand pounds sterling, was everywhere neglected. The
+sea inundated the country, and threatened to resume its ancient
+dominion. No object of ambition, no source of professional wealth
+or distinction, remained to which a Hollander could aspire. None
+could voluntarily enter the army or navy, to fight for the worst
+enemy of Holland. The clergy were not provided with a decent
+competency. The ancient laws of the country, so dear to its pride
+and its prejudices, were replaced by the Code Napoleon; so that
+old practitioners had to recommence their studies, and young
+men were disgusted with the drudgery of learning a system which
+was universally pronounced unfit for a commercial country.
+
+Independent of this mass of positive ill, it must be borne in
+mind that in Holland trade was not merely a means of gaining
+wealth, but a passion long and deeply grafted on the national
+mind: so that the Dutch felt every aggravation of calamity,
+considering themselves degraded and sacrificed by a power which
+had robbed them of all which attaches a people to their native
+land; and, for an accumulated list of evils, only offered them
+the empty glory of appertaining to the country which gave the
+law to all the nations of Europe, with the sole exception of
+England.
+
+Those who have considered the events noted in this history for
+the last two hundred years, and followed the fluctuations of
+public opinion depending on prosperity or misfortune, will have
+anticipated that, in the present calamitous state of the country,
+all eyes were turned toward the family whose memory was revived by
+every pang of slavery, and associated with every throb for freedom.
+The presence of the Prince of Orange, William IV., who had, on
+the death of his father, succeeded to the title, though he had
+lost the revenues of his ancient house, and the re-establishment
+of the connection with England, were now the general desire.
+Some of the principal partisans of the House of Nassau were for
+some time in correspondence with his most serene highness. The
+leaders of the various parties into which the country was divided
+became by degrees more closely united. Approaches toward a better
+understanding were reciprocally made; and they ended in a general
+anxiety for the expulsion of the French, with the establishment
+of a free constitution, and a cordial desire that the Prince of
+Orange should be at its head. It may be safely affirmed, that,
+at the close of the year 1813, these were the unanimous wishes
+of the Dutch nation.
+
+Napoleon, lost in the labyrinths of his exorbitant ambition,
+afforded at length a chance of redress to the nations he had
+enslaved. Elevated so suddenly and so high, he seemed suspended
+between two influences, and unfit for either. He might, in a
+moral view, be said to have breathed badly, in a station which
+was beyond the atmosphere of his natural world, without being
+out of its attraction; and having reached the pinnacle, he soon
+lost his balance and fell. Driven from Russia by the junction of
+human with elemental force, in 1812, he made some grand efforts
+in the following year to recover from his irremediable reverses.
+The battles of Bautzen and Lutzen were the expiring efforts of
+his greatness. That of Leipzig put a fatal negative upon the
+hopes that sprang from the two former; and the obstinate ambition,
+which at this epoch made him refuse the most liberal offers of
+the allies, was justly punished by humiliation and defeat. Almost
+all the powers of Europe now leagued against him; and France
+itself being worn out by his wasteful expenditure of men and
+money, he had no longer a chance in resistance. The empire was
+attacked at all points. The French troops in Holland were drawn
+off to reinforce the armies in distant directions; and the whole
+military force in that country scarcely exceeded ten thousand
+men. The advance of the combined armies toward the frontiers
+became generally known: parties of Cossacks had entered the north
+of Holland in November, and were scouring the country beyond the
+Yssel. The moment for action on the part of the Dutch confederate
+patriots had now arrived; and it was not lost or neglected.
+
+A people inured to revolutions for upward of two centuries, filled
+with proud recollections, and urged on by well-digested hopes,
+were the most likely to understand the best period and the surest
+means for success. An attempt that might have appeared to other
+nations rash was proved to be wise, both by the reasonings of its
+authors and its own results. The intolerable tyranny of France
+had made the population not only ripe, but eager for revolt.
+This disposition was acted on by a few enterprising men, at once
+partisans of the House of Orange and patriots in the truest sense
+of the word. It would be unjust to omit the mention of some of
+their names in even this sketch of the events which sprang from
+their courage and sagacity. Count Styrum, Messieurs Repelaer
+d'Jonge, Van Hogendorp, Vander Duyn van Maasdam, and Changuion,
+were the chiefs of the intrepid junta which planned and executed
+the bold measures of enfranchisement, and drew up the outlines
+of the constitution which was afterward enlarged and ratified.
+Their first movements at The Hague were totally unsupported by
+foreign aid. Their early checks from the exasperated French and
+their overcautious countrymen would have deterred most men embarked
+in so perilous a venture; but they never swerved nor shrank back.
+At the head of a force, which courtesy and policy called an army,
+of three hundred national guards badly armed, fifty citizens
+carrying fowling-pieces, fifty soldiers of the old Dutch guard,
+four hundred auxiliary citizens armed with pikes, and a cavalry
+force of twenty young men, the confederates oddly proclaimed
+the Prince of Orange, on the 17th of November, 1813, in their
+open village of The Hague, and in the teeth of a French force of
+full ten thousand men, occupying every fortress in the country.
+
+While a few gentlemen thus boldly came forward, at their own
+risk, with no funds but their private fortunes, and only aided by
+an unarmed populace, to declare war against the French emperor,
+they did not even know the residence of the exiled prince in
+whose cause they were now so completely compromised. The other
+towns of Holland were in a state of the greatest incertitude:
+Rotterdam had not moved; and the intentions of Admiral Kickert,
+who commanded there, were (mistakenly) supposed to be decidedly
+hostile to the national cause. Amsterdam had, on the preceding
+day, been the scene of a popular commotion, which, however, bore
+no decided character; the rioters having been fired on by the
+national guard, no leader coming forward, and the proclamation
+of the magistrates cautiously abstaining from any allusion to
+the Prince of Orange. A brave officer, Captain Falck, had made
+use of many strong but inefficient arguments to prevail on the
+timid corporation to declare for the prince; the presence of
+a French garrison of sixty men seeming sufficient to preserve
+their patriotism from any violent excess.
+
+The subsequent events at The Hague furnish an inspiring lesson for
+all people who would learn that to be free they must be resolute
+and daring. The only hope of the confederates was from the British
+government, and the combined armies then acting in the north of
+Europe. But many days were to be lingered through before troops
+could be embarked, and make their way from England in the teeth
+of the easterly winds then prevailing; while a few Cossacks,
+hovering on the confines of Holland, gave the only evidence of
+the proximity of the allied forces.
+
+In this crisis, it was most fortunate that the French prefect
+at The Hague, M. de Stassart, had stolen away on the earliest
+alarm; and the French garrison of four hundred chasseurs, aided
+by one hundred well-armed custom-house officers, under the command
+of General Bouvier des Eclats, caught the contagious fears of the
+civil functionary. This force had retired to the old palace--a
+building in the centre of the town, the depot of all the arms and
+ammunition then at The Hague, and, from its position, capable
+of some defence. But the general and his garrison soon felt a
+complete panic from the bold attitude of Count Styrum, who made
+the most of his little means, and kept up, during the night, a
+prodigious clatter by his twenty horsemen; sentinels challenging,
+amid incessant singing and shouting, cries of "Oranje boven!"
+"Vivat Oranje!" and clamorous patrols of the excited citizens.
+At an early hour on the 18th, the French general demanded terms,
+and obtained permission to retire on Gorcum, his garrison being
+escorted as far as the village of Ryswyk by the twenty cavaliers
+who composed the whole mounted force of the patriots.
+
+Unceasing efforts were now made to remedy the want of arms and
+men. A quantity of pikes were rudely made and distributed to
+the volunteers who crowded in; and numerous fishing-boats were
+despatched in different directions to inform the British cruisers
+of the passing events. An individual named Pronck, an inhabitant
+of Schaevening, a village of the coast, rendered great services
+in this way, from his influence among the sailors and fishermen
+in the neighborhood.
+
+The confederates spared no exertion to increase the confidence
+of the people under many contradictory and disheartening
+contingencies. An officer who had been despatched for advice
+and information to Baron Bentinck, at Zwolle, who was in
+communication with the allies, returned with the discouraging
+news that General Bulow had orders not to pass the Yssel, the
+allies having decided not to advance into Holland beyond the
+line of that river. A meeting of the ancient regents of The Hague
+was convoked by the proclamation of the confederates, and took
+place at the house of Mr. Van Hogendorp, the ancient residence
+of the De Witts. The wary magistrates absolutely refused all
+co-operation in the daring measures of the confederates, who
+had now the whole responsibility on their heads, with little to
+cheer them on in their perilous career but their own resolute
+hearts and the recollection of those days when their ancestors,
+with odds as fearfully against them, rose up and shivered to
+atoms the yoke of their oppressors.
+
+Some days of intense anxiety now elapsed; and various incidents
+occurred to keep up the general excitement. Reinforcements came
+gradually in; no hostile measure was resorted to by the French
+troops; yet the want of success, as rapid as was proportioned
+to the first movements of the revolution, threw a gloom over
+all. Amsterdam and Rotterdam still held back; but the nomination
+of Messrs. Van Hogendorp and Vander Duyn van Maasdam to be heads
+of the government, until the arrival of the Prince of Orange,
+and a formal abjuration of the emperor Napoleon, inspired new
+vigor into the public mind. Two nominal armies were formed, and
+two generals appointed to the command; and it is impossible to
+resist a smile of mingled amusement and admiration on reading the
+exact statement of the forces, so pompously and so effectively
+announced as forming the armies of Utrecht and Gorcum.
+
+The first of these, commanded by Major-General D'Jonge, consisted
+of three hundred infantry, thirty-two volunteer cavalry, with two
+eight-pounders. The latter, under the orders of Major-General
+Sweertz van Landas, was composed of two hundred and fifty of The
+Hague Orange Guard, thirty Prussian deserters from the French
+garrison, three hundred volunteers, forty cavalry, with two
+eight-pounders.
+
+The "army of Gorcum" marched on the 22d on Rotterdam: its arrival
+was joyfully hailed by the people, who contributed three hundred
+volunteers to swell its ranks. The "army of Utrecht" advanced
+on Leyden, and raised the spirits of the people by the display
+of even so small a force. But still the contrary winds kept back
+all appearance of succor from England, and the enemy was known to
+meditate a general attack on the patriot lines from Amsterdam to
+Dordrecht. The bad state of the roads still retarded the approach
+of the far-distant armies of the allies; alarms, true and false,
+were spread on all hands--when the appearance of three hundred
+Cossacks, detached from the Russian armies beyond the Yssel,
+prevailed over the hesitation of Amsterdam and the other towns,
+and they at length declared for the Prince of Orange.
+
+But this somewhat tardy determination seemed to be the signal for
+various petty events, which at an epoch like that were magnified
+into transactions of the most fatal import. A reinforcement of one
+thousand five hundred French troops reached Gorcum from Antwerp:
+a detachment of twenty-five Dutch, with a piece of cannon, were
+surprised at one of the outposts of Woerden, which had been
+previously evacuated by the French, and the recapture of the town
+was accompanied by some excesses. The numbers and the cruelties of
+the enemy were greatly exaggerated. Consternation began to spread
+all over the country. The French, who seemed to have recovered
+from their panic, had resumed on all sides offensive operations.
+The garrison of Gorcum made a sortie, repulsed the force under
+General Van Landas, entered the town of Dordrecht, and levied
+contributions; but the inhabitants soon expelled them, and the
+army was enabled to resume its position.
+
+Still the wind continued adverse to arrivals from the English
+coast; the Cossacks, so often announced, had not yet reached
+The Hague; and the small unsupported parties in the neighborhood
+of Amsterdam were in daily danger of being cut off.
+
+In this crisis the confederates were placed in a most critical
+position. On the eve of failure, and with the certainty, in such
+a result, of being branded as rebels and zealots, whose rashness
+had drawn down ruin on themselves, their families, and their
+country, it required no common share of fortitude to bear up
+against the danger that threatened them. Aware of its extent,
+they calmly and resolutely opposed it; and each seemed to vie
+with the others in energy and firmness.
+
+The anxiety of the public had reached the utmost possible height.
+Every shifting of the wind was watched with nervous agitation.
+The road from The Hague to the sea was constantly covered with
+a crowd of every age and sex. Each sail that came in sight was
+watched and examined with intense interest; and at length, on the
+26th of November, a small boat was seen to approach the shore,
+and the inquiring glances of the observers soon discovered that
+it contained an Englishman. This individual, who had come over
+on a mercantile adventure, landed amid the loudest acclamation,
+and was conducted by the populace in triumph to the governor's.
+Dressed in an English volunteer uniform, he showed himself in
+every part of the town, to the great delight of the people, who
+hailed him as the precursor and type of an army of deliverers.
+
+The French soon retreated before the marvellous exaggerations
+which the coming of this single Englishman gave rise to. The
+Dutch displayed great ability in the transmission of false
+intelligence to the enemy. On the 27th Mr. Fagel arrived from
+England with a letter from the Prince of Orange, announcing his
+immediate coming; and finally, the disembarkation of two hundred
+English marines, on the 29th, was followed the next day by the
+landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the
+open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and
+every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable
+enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country.
+No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation,
+and no prince ever gave a nobler example of gratitude. As the
+people everywhere proclaimed William I. sovereign prince, it
+was proposed that he should everywhere assume that title. It
+was, however, after some consideration, decided that no step of
+this nature should be taken till his most serene highness had
+visited the capital. On the 1st of December the prince issued a
+proclamation to his countrymen, in which he states his hopes of
+becoming, by the blessing of Providence, the means of restoring
+them to their former state of independence and prosperity. "This,"
+continued he, "is my only object; and I have the satisfaction of
+assuring you that it is also the object of the combined powers.
+This is particularly the wish of the prince regent and the British
+nation; and it will be proved to you by the succor which that
+powerful people will immediately afford you, and which will, I
+hope, restore those ancient bonds of alliance and friendship which
+were a source of prosperity and happiness to both countries." This
+address being distributed at Amsterdam, a proclamation, signed
+by the commissioners of the confederate patriots, was published
+there the same day. It contained the following passages, remarkable
+as being the first authentic declaration of the sovereignty
+subsequently conferred on the Prince of Orange: "The uncertainty
+which formerly existed as to the executive power will no longer
+paralyze your efforts. It is not William, the sixth stadtholder,
+whom the nation recalls, without knowing what to hope or expect
+from him; but William I. who offers himself as sovereign prince
+of this free country." The following day, the 2d of December,
+the prince made his entry into Amsterdam. He did not, like some
+other sovereigns, enter by a breach through the constitutional
+liberties of his country, in imitation of the conquerors from
+the Olympic games, who returned to the city by a breach in its
+walls: he went forward borne on the enthusiastic greetings of
+his fellow-countrymen, and meeting their confidence by a full
+measure of magnanimity. On the 3d of December he published an
+address, from which we shall quote one paragraph: "You desire,
+Netherlands! that I should be intrusted with a greater share
+of power than I should have possessed but for my absence. Your
+confidence, your affection, offer me the sovereignty; and I am
+called upon to accept it, since the state of my country and the
+situation of Europe require it. I accede to your wishes. I overlook
+the difficulties which may attend such a measure; I accept the
+offer which you have made me; but I accept it only on one
+condition--that it shall be accompanied by a wise constitution,
+which shall guarantee your liberties and secure them against
+every attack. My ancestors sowed the seeds of your independence:
+the preservation of that independence shall be the constant object
+of the efforts of myself and those around me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FROM THE INSTALLATION OF WILLIAM I. AS PRINCE SOVEREIGN OF THE
+NETHERLANDS TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
+
+A.D. 1814--1815
+
+The regeneration of Holland was rapid and complete. Within four
+months, an army of twenty-five thousand men was raised; and in
+the midst of financial, judicial, and commercial arrangements,
+the grand object of the constitution was calmly and seriously
+debated. A committee, consisting of fourteen persons of the first
+importance in the several provinces, furnished the result of
+three months' labors in the plan of a political code, which was
+immediately printed and published for the consideration of the
+people at large. Twelve hundred names were next chosen from among
+the most respectable householders in the different towns and
+provinces, including persons of every religious persuasion, whether
+Jews or Christians. A special commission was then formed, who
+selected from this number six hundred names; and every housekeeper
+was called on to give his vote for or against their election. A
+large majority of the six hundred notables thus chosen met at
+Amsterdam on the 28th of March, 1814. The following day they
+assembled with an immense concourse of people in the great church,
+which was splendidly fitted up for the occasion; and then and
+there the prince, in an impressive speech, solemnly offered the
+constitution for acceptance or rejection. After a few hours'
+deliberation, a discharge of artillery announced to the anxious
+population that the constitution had been accepted. The numbers
+present were four hundred and eighty-three, and the votes as
+follows: Ayes, four hundred and fifty-eight; Noes, twenty-five.
+
+There were one hundred and seventeen members absent; several
+of these were kept away by unavoidable obstacles. The majority
+among them was considered as dissentients; but it was calculated
+that if the whole body of six hundred had voted, the adoption
+of the constitution would have been carried by a majority of
+five-sixths. The dissentients chiefly objected to the power of
+declaring war and concluding treaties of peace being vested in
+the sovereign. Some individuals urged that the Protestant interest
+was endangered by the admission of persons of every persuasion
+to all public offices; and the Catholics complained that the
+state did not sufficiently contribute to the support of their
+religious establishments.
+
+Such objections as these were to be expected, from individual
+interest or sectarian prejudices. But they prove that the whole
+plan was fairly considered and solemnly adopted; that so far from
+being the dictation of a government, it was the freely chosen
+charter of the nation at large, offered and sworn to by the prince,
+whose authority was only exerted in restraining and modifying
+the overardent generosity and confidence of the people.
+
+Only one day more elapsed before the new sovereign was solemnly
+inaugurated, and took the oath prescribed by the constitution:
+"I swear that first and above all things I will maintain the
+constitution of the United Netherlands, and that I will promote,
+to the utmost of my power, the independence of the state and
+the liberty and prosperity of its inhabitants." In the eloquent
+simplicity of this pledge, the Dutch nation found an ample guarantee
+for their freedom and happiness. With their characteristic wisdom
+and moderation, they saw that the obligation it imposed embraced
+everything they could demand; and they joined in the opinion
+expressed by the sovereign in his inaugural address, that "no
+greater degree of liberty could be desired by rational subjects,
+nor any larger share of power by the sovereign, than that allotted
+to them respectively by the political code."
+
+While Holland thus resumed its place among free nations, and France
+was restored to the Bourbons by the abdication of Napoleon, the
+allied armies had taken possession of and occupied the remainder of
+the Low Countries, or those provinces distinguished by the name of
+Belgium (but then still forming departments of the French empire),
+and the provisional government was vested in Baron Vincent, the
+Austrian general. This choice seemed to indicate an intention
+of restoring Austria to her ancient domination over the country.
+Such was certainly the common opinion among those who had no means
+of penetrating the secrets of European policy at that important
+epoch. It was, in fact, quite conformable to the principle of
+_statu_quo_ante_bellum_, adopted toward France. Baron Vincent
+himself seemed to have been impressed with the false notion;
+and there did not exist a doubt throughout Belgium of the
+re-establishment of the old institutions.
+
+But the intentions of the allied powers were of a nature far
+different. The necessity of a consolidated state capable of offering
+a barrier to French aggression on the Flemish frontier was evident
+to the various powers who had so long suffered from its want. By
+England particularly, such a field was required for the operations
+of her armies; and it was also to the interest of that nation that
+Holland, whose welfare and prosperity are so closely connected
+with her own, should enjoy the blessings of national independence
+and civil liberty, guaranteed by internal strength as well as
+friendly alliances.
+
+The treaty of Paris (30th May, 1814), was the first act which
+gave an open manifestation of this principle. It was stipulated
+by its sixth article; that "Holland, placed under the sovereignty
+of the House of Orange, should receive an increase of territory."
+In this was explained the primitive notion of the creation of the
+kingdom of the Netherlands, based on the necessity of augmenting
+the power of a nation which was destined to turn the balance
+between France and Germany. The following month witnessed the
+execution of the treaty of London, which prescribed the precise
+nature of the projected increase.
+
+It was wholly decided, without subjecting the question to the
+approbation of Belgium, that that country and Holland should form
+one United State; and the rules of government in the chief branches
+of its administration were completely fixed. The Prince of Orange
+and the plenipotentiaries of the great allied powers covenanted
+by this treaty: first, that the union of the two portions forming
+the kingdom of the Netherlands should be as perfect as possible,
+forming one state, governed in conformity with the fundamental law
+of Holland, which might be modified by common consent; secondly,
+that religious liberty, and the equal right of citizens of all
+persuasions to fill all the employments of the state, should
+be maintained; thirdly, that the Belgian provinces should be
+fairly represented in the assembly of the states-general, and
+that the sessions of the states in time of peace should be held
+alternately in Belgium and in Holland; fourthly and fifthly, that
+all the commercial privileges of the country should be common
+to the citizens at large; that the Dutch colonies should be
+considered as belonging equally to Belgium; and, finally, that
+the public debt of the two countries, and the expenses of its
+interest, should be borne in common.
+
+We shall now briefly recapitulate some striking points in the
+materials which were thus meant to be amalgamated. Holland, wrenched
+from the Spanish yoke by the genius and courage of the early
+princes of Orange, had formed for two centuries an independent
+republic, to which the extension of maritime commerce had given
+immense wealth. The form of government was remarkable. It was
+composed of seven provinces, mutually independent of each other.
+These provinces possessed during the Middle Ages constitutions
+nearly similar to that of England: a sovereign with limited power;
+representatives of the nobles and commons, whose concurrence
+with the prince was necessary for the formation of laws; and,
+finally, the existence of municipal privileges, which each town
+preserved and extended by means of its proper force. This state
+of things had known but one alteration--but that a mighty one--the
+forfeiture of Philip II. at the latter end of the sixteenth century,
+and the total abolition of monarchical power.
+
+The remaining forms of the government were hardly altered; so
+that the state was wholly regulated by its ancient usages; and,
+like some Gothic edifice, its beauty and solidity were perfectly
+original, and different from the general rules and modern theories
+of surrounding nations. The country loved its liberty such as
+it found it, and not in the fashion of any Utopian plan traced
+by some new-fangled system of political philosophy. Inherently
+Protestant and commercial, the Dutch abhorred every yoke but
+that of their own laws, of which they were proud even in their
+abuse. They held in particular detestation all French customs,
+in remembrance of the wretchedness they had suffered from French
+tyranny; they had unbounded confidence in the House of Orange,
+from long experience of its hereditary virtues. The main strength
+of Holland was, in fact, in its recollections; but these, perhaps,
+generated a germ of discontent, in leading it to expect a revival
+of all the influence it had lost, and was little likely to recover,
+in the total change of systems and the variations of trade. There
+nevertheless remained sufficient capital in the country, and the
+people were sufficiently enlightened, to give just and extensive
+hope for the future which now dawned on them. The obstacles offered
+by the Dutch character to the proposed union were chiefly to be
+found in the dogmatical opinions, consequent on the isolation of
+the country from all the principles that actuated other states, and
+particularly that with which it was now joined: while long-cherished
+sentiments of opposition to the Catholic religion was little
+likely to lead to feelings of accommodation and sympathy with
+its new fellow-citizens.
+
+The inhabitants of Belgium, accustomed to foreign domination, were
+little shocked by the fact of the allied powers having disposed
+of their fate with consulting their wishes. But they were not so
+indifferent to the double discovery of finding themselves the
+subjects of a Dutch and a protestant king. Without entering at
+large into any invidious discussion on the causes of the natural
+jealousy which they felt toward Holland, it may suffice to state
+that such did exist, and in no very moderate degree. The countries
+had hitherto had but little community of interests with each
+other; and they formed elements so utterly discordant as to afford
+but slight hope that they would speedily coalesce. The lower
+classes of the Belgian population were ignorant as well as
+superstitious (not that these two qualities are to be considered
+as inseparable); and if they were averse to the Dutch, they were
+perhaps not more favorably disposed to the French and Austrians.
+The majority of the nobles may be said to have leaned more, at
+this period, to the latter than to either of the other two peoples.
+But the great majority of the industrious and better informed
+portions of the middle orders felt differently from the other
+two, because they had found tangible and positive advantages in
+their subjection to France, which overpowered every sentiment
+of political degradation.
+
+We thus see there was little sympathy between the members of the
+national family. The first glance at the geographical position
+of Holland and Belgium might lead to a belief that their interests
+were analogous. But we have traced the anomalies in government
+and religion in the two countries, which led to totally different
+pursuits and feelings. Holland had sacrificed manufactures to
+commerce. The introduction, duty free, of grain from the northern
+parts of Europe, though checking the progress of agriculture,
+had not prevented it to flourish marvellously, considering this
+obstacle to culture; and, faithful to their traditional notions,
+the Dutch saw the elements of well-being only in that liberty of
+importation which had made their harbors the marts and magazines
+of Europe. But the Belgian, to use the expressions of an acute
+and well-informed writer, "restricted in the thrall of a less
+liberal religion, is bounded in the narrow circle of his actual
+locality. Concentrated in his home, he does not look beyond the
+limits of his native land, which he regards exclusively. Incurious,
+and stationary in a happy existence, he has no interest in what
+passes beyond his own doors."
+
+Totally unaccustomed to the free principles of trade, so cherished
+by the Dutch, the Belgians had found under the protection of the
+French custom-house laws, an internal commerce and agricultural
+advantages which composed their peculiar prosperity. They found
+a consumption for the produce of their well-cultivated lands, at
+high prices, in the neighboring provinces of France. The webs
+woven by the Belgian peasantry, and generally all the manufactures
+of the country, met no rivalry from those of England, which were
+strictly prohibited; and being commonly superior to those of
+France, the sale was sure and the profit considerable.
+
+Belgium was as naturally desirous of the state of things as Holland
+was indifferent to it; but in could only have been accomplished
+by the destruction of free trade, and the exclusive protection
+of internal manufactures. Under such discrepancies as we have
+thus traced in religion, character, and local interests, the
+two countries were made one; and on the new monarch devolved
+the hard and delicate task of reconciling each party in the
+ill-assorted match, and inspiring them with sentiments of mutual
+moderation.
+
+Under the title of governor-general of the Netherlands (for his
+intended elevation to the throne and the definitive junction of
+Holland and Belgium were still publicly unknown), the Prince of
+Orange repaired to his new state. He arrived at Brussels in the
+month of August, 1814, and his first effort was to gain the hearts
+and the confidence of the people, though he saw the nobles and
+the higher orders of the inferior classes (with the exception of
+the merchants) intriguing all around him for the re-establishment
+of the Austrian power. Petitions on this subject were printed and
+distributed; and the models of those anti-national documents may
+still be referred to in a work published at the time.[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: History of the Low Countries, by St. Genoist.]
+
+As soon as the moment came for promulgating the decision of the
+sovereign powers as to the actual extent of the new kingdom--that
+is to say, in the month of February, 1815--the whole plan was made
+public; and a commission, consisting of twenty-seven members,
+Dutch and Belgian, was formed, to consider the modifications
+necessary in the fundamental law of Holland, in pursuance of
+the stipulation of the treaty of London. After due deliberation
+these modifications were formed, and the great political pact
+was completed for the final acceptance of the king and people.
+
+As a document so important merits particular consideration, in
+reference to the formation of the new monarchy, we shall briefly
+condense the reasonings of the most impartial and well-informed
+classes in the country on the constitution now about to be framed.
+Every one agreed that some radical change in the whole form of
+government was necessary, and that its main improvement should
+be the strengthening of the executive power. That possessed by
+the former stadtholders of Holland was often found to be too much
+for the chief of a republic, too little for the head of a monarchy.
+The assembly of the states-general, as of old constructed, was
+defective in many points; in none so glaringly as in that condition
+which required unanimity in questions of peace or war, and in the
+provision, from which they had no power to swerve, that all the
+taxes should be uniform. Both these stipulations were, of sheer
+necessity, continually disregarded; so that the government could be
+carried on at all only by repeated violations of the constitution.
+In order to excuse measures dictated by this necessity, each
+stadtholder was perpetually obliged to form partisans, and he
+thus became the hereditary head of a faction. His legitimate
+power was trifling: but his influence was capable of fearful
+increase; for the principle which allowed him to infringe the
+constitution, even on occasions of public good, might be easily
+warped into a pretext for encroachments that had no bounds but
+his own will.
+
+Besides, the preponderance of the deputies from the commercial
+towns in the states-general caused the others to become mere
+ciphers in times of peace; only capable of clogging the march
+of affairs, and of being, on occasions of civil dissensions,
+the mere tools of whatever party possessed the greatest tact
+in turning them to their purpose. Hence a wide field was open
+to corruption. Uncertainty embarrassed every operation of the
+government. The Hague became an arena for the conflicting intrigues
+of every court in Europe. Holland was dragged into almost every
+war; and thus, gradually weakened from its rank among independent
+nations, it at length fell an easy prey to the French invaders.
+
+To prevent the recurrence of such evils as those, and to establish
+a kingdom on the solid basis of a monarchy, unequivocal in its
+essence yet restrained in its prerogative, the constitution we
+are now examining was established. According to the report of
+the commissioners who framed it, "It is founded on the manners
+and habits of the nation, on its public economy and its old
+institutions, with a disregard for the ephemeral constitutions
+of the age. It is not a mere abstraction, more or less ingenious,
+but a law adapted to the state of the country in the nineteenth
+century. It did not reconstruct what was worn out by time; but
+it revived all that was worth preserving. In such a system of
+laws and institutions well adapted to each other, the members
+of the commission belonging to the Belgian provinces recognized
+the basis of their ancient charters, and the principles of their
+former liberty. They found no difficulty in adapting this law,
+so as to make it common to the two nations, united by ties which
+had been broken only for their own misfortune and that of Europe,
+and which it was once more the interest of Europe to render
+indissoluble."
+
+The news of the elevation of William I. to the throne was received
+in the Dutch provinces with great joy, in as far as it concerned
+him personally; but a joy considerably tempered by doubt and
+jealousy, as regarded their junction with a country sufficiently
+large to counterbalance Holland, oppose interests to interests,
+and people to people. National pride and oversanguine expectations
+prevented a calm judgment on the existing state of Europe, and on
+the impossibility of Holland, in its ancient limits, maintaining
+the influence which it was hoped it would acquire.
+
+In Belgium the formation of the new monarchy excited the most
+lively sensation. The clergy and the nobility were considerably
+agitated and not slightly alarmed; the latter fearing the resentment
+of the king for their avowed predilection in favor of Austria,
+and perceiving the destruction of every hope of aristocratical
+domination. The more elevated of the middle clases also saw an
+end to their exclusive occupation of magisterial and municipal
+employments. The manufacturers, great and small, saw the ruin of
+monopoly staring them in the face. The whole people took fright
+at the weight of the Dutch debt, which was considerably greater
+than that of Belgium. No one seemed to look beyond the present
+moment. The advantage of colonial possessions seemed remote and
+questionable to those who possessed no maritime commerce; and
+the pride of national independence was foreign to the feelings
+of those who had never yet tasted its blessings.
+
+It was in this state of public feeling that intelligence was
+received in March, 1815, of the reappearance in France of the
+emperor Napoleon. At the head of three hundred men he had taken
+the resolution, without parallel even among the grandest of his
+own powerful conceptions, of invading a country containing thirty
+millions of people, girded by the protecting armies of coalesced
+Europe, and imbued, beyond all doubt, with an almost general
+objection to the former despot who now put his foot on its shores,
+with imperial pretensions only founded on the memory of his bygone
+glory. His march to Paris was a miracle; and the vigor of his
+subsequent measures redeems the ambitious imbecility with which
+he had hurried on the catastrophe of his previous fall.
+
+The flight of Louis XVIII. from Paris was the sure signal to
+the kingdom of the Netherlands, in which he took refuge, that it
+was about to become the scene of another contest for the life or
+death of despotism. Had the invasion of Belgium, which now took
+place, been led on by one of the Bourbon family, it is probable
+that the priesthood, the people, and even the nobility, would
+have given it not merely a negative support. But the name of
+Napoleon was a bugbear for every class; and the efforts of the
+King and government, which met with most enthusiastic support
+in the northern provinces, were seconded with zeal and courage
+by the rest of the kingdom.
+
+The national force was soon in the field, under the command of
+the Prince of Orange, the king's eldest son, and heir-apparent
+to the throne for which he now prepared to fight. His brother,
+Prince Frederick, commanded a division under him. The English army,
+under the duke of Wellington, occupied Brussels and the various
+cantonments in its neighborhood; and the Prussians, commanded by
+Prince Blucher, were in readiness to co-operate with their allies
+on the first movement of the invaders.
+
+Napoleon, hurrying from Paris to strike some rapid and decisive
+blow, passed the Sambre on the 15th of June, at the head of the
+French army, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, driving the
+Prussians before him beyond Charleroi and back on the plain of
+Fleurus with some loss. On the 16th was fought the bloody battle
+of Ligny, in which the Prussians sustained a decided defeat; but
+they retreated in good order on the little river Lys, followed
+by Marshal Grouchy with thirty thousand men detached by Napoleon
+in their pursuit. On the same day the British advanced position
+at Quatre Bras, and the _corps_d'armee_ commanded by the Prince
+of Orange, were fiercely attacked by Marshal Ney; a battalion of
+Belgian infantry and a brigade of horse artillery having been
+engaged in a skirmish the preceding evening at Frasnes with the
+French advanced troops.
+
+The affair of Quatre Bras was sustained with admirable firmness
+by the allied English and Netherland forces, against an enemy
+infinitely superior in number, and commanded by one of the best
+generals in France. The Prince of Orange, with only nine thousand
+men, maintained his position till three o'clock in the afternoon,
+despite the continual attacks of Marshal Ney, who commanded the
+left of the French army, consisting of forty-three thousand men.
+But the interest of this combat, and the details of the loss
+in killed and wounded, are so merged in the succeeding battle,
+which took place on the 18th, that they form in most minds a
+combination of exploits which the interval of a day can scarcely
+be considered to have separated.
+
+The 17th was occupied by a retrograde movement of the allied
+army, directed by the duke of Wellington, for the purpose of
+taking its stand on the position he had previously fixed on for
+the pitched battle, the decisive nature of which his determined
+foresight had anticipated. Several affairs between the French
+and English cavalry took place during this movement; and it is
+pretty well established that the enemy, flushed with the victory
+over Blucher of the preceding day, were deceived by this short
+retreat of Wellington, and formed a very mistaken notion of its
+real object, or of the desperate reception destined for the morrow's
+attack.
+
+The battle of Waterloo has been over and over described and
+profoundly felt, until its records may be said to exist in the
+very hearts and memories of the nations. The fiery valor of the
+assault, and the unshakable firmness of the resistance, are perhaps
+without parallel in the annals of war. The immense stake depending
+on the result, the grandeur of Napoleon's isolated efforts against
+the flower of the European forces, and the awful responsibility
+resting on the head of their great leader, give to this conflict
+a romantic sublimity, unshared by all the manoeuvring of science
+in a hundred commonplace combats of other wars. It forms an epoch
+in the history of battles. It is to the full as memorable, as an
+individual event, as it is for the consequences which followed
+it. It was fought by no rules, and gained by no tactics. It was a
+fair stand-up fight on level ground, where downright manly courage
+was alone to decide the issue. This derogates in nothing from the
+splendid talents and deep knowledge of the rival commanders.
+Their reputation for all the intricate qualities of generalship
+rests on the broad base of previous victories. This day was to
+be won by strength of nerve and steadiness of heart; and a moral
+grandeur is thrown over its result by the reflection that human
+skill had little to do where so much was left to Providence.
+
+We abstain from entering on details of the battle. It is enough
+to state that throughout the day the troops of the Netherlands
+sustained the character for courage which so many centuries had
+established. Various opinions have gone forth as to the conduct of
+the Belgian troops on this memorable occasion. Isolated instances
+were possibly found, among a mass of several thousands, of that
+nervous weakness which neither the noblest incitements nor the
+finest examples can conquer. Old associations and feelings not
+effaced might have slackened the efforts of a few, directed against
+former comrades or personal friends whom the stern necessity of
+politics had placed in opposing ranks. Raw troops might here
+and there have shrunk from attacks the most desperate on record;
+but that the great principle of public duty, on grounds purely
+national, pervaded the army, is to be found in the official reports
+of its loss; two thousand and fifty-eight men killed and one
+thousand nine hundred and thirty-six wounded prove indelibly
+that the troops of the Netherlands had their full share in the
+honor of the day. The victory was cemented by the blood of the
+Prince of Orange, who stood the brunt of the fight with his gallant
+soldiers. His conduct was conformable to the character of his
+whole race, and to his own reputation during a long series of
+service with the British army in the Spanish peninsula. He stood
+bravely at the head of his troops during the murderous conflict;
+or, like Wellington, in whose school he was formed and whose
+example was beside him, rode from rank to rank and column to
+column, inspiring his men by the proofs of his untiring courage.
+
+Several anecdotes are related of the prince's conduct throughout
+the day. One is remarkable as affording an example of those pithy
+epigrams of the battlefield with which history abounds, accompanied
+by an act that speaks a fine knowledge of the soldier's heart. On
+occasion of one peculiarly desperate charge, the prince, hurried
+on by his ardor, was actually in the midst of the French, and was
+in the greatest danger; when a Belgian battalion rushed forward,
+and, after a fierce struggle, repulsed the enemy and disengaged the
+prince. In the impulse of his admiration and gratitude, he tore
+from his breast one of those decorations gained by his own conduct
+on some preceding occasion, and flung it among the battalion,
+calling out, "Take it, take it, my lads! you have all earned it!"
+This decoration was immediately grappled for, and tied to the
+regimental standard, amid loud shouts of "Long live the prince!"
+and vows to defend the trophy, in the very utterance of which
+many a brave fellow received the stroke of death.
+
+A short time afterward, and just half an hour before that terrible
+charge of the whole line, which decided the victory, the prince
+was struck by a musket-ball in the left shoulder. He was carried
+from the field, and conveyed that evening to Brussels, in the
+same cart with one of his wounded aides-de-camp, supported by
+another, and displaying throughout as much indifference to pain
+as he had previously shown contempt of danger.
+
+The battle of Waterloo consolidated the kingdom of the Netherlands.
+The wound of the Prince of Orange was perhaps one of the most
+fortunate that was ever received by an individual, or sympathized
+in by a nation. To a warlike people, wavering in their allegiance,
+this evidence of the prince's valor acted like a talisman against
+disaffection. The organization of the kingdom was immediately
+proceeded on. The commission, charged with the revision of the
+fundamental law, and the modification required by the increase
+of territory, presented its report on the 31st of July. The
+inauguration of the king took place at Brussels on the 21st of
+September, in presence of the states-general: and the ceremony
+received additional interest from the appearance of the sovereign
+supported by his two sons who had so valiantly fought for the
+rights he now swore to maintain; the heir to the crown yet bearing
+his wounded arm in a scarf, and showing in his countenance the
+marks of recent suffering.
+
+The constitution was finally accepted by the nation, and the
+principles of the government were stipulated and fixed in one
+grand view--that of the union, and, consequently, the force of
+the new state.
+
+It has been asked by a profound and sagacious inquirer, or at
+least the question is put forth on undoubted authority in his
+name, "Why did England create for herself a difficulty, and what
+will be by and by a natural enemy, in uniting Holland and Belgium,
+in place of managing those two immense resources to her commerce
+by keeping them separate? For Holland, without manufactures,
+was the natural mart for those of England, while Belgium under
+an English prince had been the route for constantly inundating
+France and Germany."
+
+So asked Napoleon, and England may answer and justify her conduct
+so impugned, on principles consistent with the general wishes
+and the common good of Europe. The discussion of the question
+is foreign to our purpose, which is to trace the circumstances,
+not to argue on the policy, that led to the formation of the
+Netherlands as they now exist. But it appears that the different
+integral parts of the nation were amalgamated from deep-formed
+designs for their mutual benefit. Belgium was not given to Holland,
+as the already-cited article of the treaty of Paris might at
+first sight seem to imply; nor was Holland allotted to Belgium.
+But they were grafted together, with all the force of legislative
+wisdom; not that one might be dominant and the other oppressed,
+but that both should bend to form an arch of common strength,
+able to resist the weight of such invasions as had perpetually
+periled, and often crushed, their separate independence.
+
+
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
+
+A.D. 1815--1899
+
+In the preceding chapters we have seen the history of Holland
+carried down to the treaty which joined together what are now
+known as the separate countries of Holland and Belgium. And it is
+at this point that the interest of the subject for the historian
+practically ceases. The historian differs from the annalist in
+this--that he selects for treatment those passages in the career
+of nations which possess a dramatic form and unity, and therefore
+convey lessons for moral guidance, or for constituting a basis
+for reasonable prognostications of the future. But there are in
+the events of the world many tracts of country (as we might term
+them) which have no special character or apparent significance, and
+which therefore, though they may extend over many years in time,
+are dismissed with bare mention in the pages of the historian;
+just as, in travelling by rail, the tourist will keep his face
+at the window only when the scenery warrants it; at other times
+composing himself to other occupations.
+
+The scenery of Dutch history has episodes as stirring and instructive
+as those of any civilized people since history began; but it
+reached its dramatic and moral apogee when the independence of
+the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. The Netherlands
+then reached their loftiest pinnacle of power and prosperity;
+their colonial possessions were vast and rich; their reputation
+as guardians of liberty and the rights of man was foremost in the
+world. But further than this they could not go; and the moment
+when a people ceases to advance may generally be regarded as
+the moment when, relatively speaking at least, it begins to go
+backward. The Dutch could in no sense become the masters of Europe;
+not only was their domain too small, but it was geographically at
+a disadvantage with the powerful and populous nations neighboring
+it, and it was compelled ever to fight for its existence against
+the attacks of nature itself. The stormy waves of the North Sea
+were ever moaning and threatening at the gates, and ever and anon
+a breach would be made, and the labor of generations annulled.
+Holland could never enter upon a career of conquest, like France
+or Russia; neither could she assume the great part which Britain
+has played; for although the character of the Dutchmen is in
+many respects as strong and sound as that of the English, and
+in some ways its superior, yet the Dutch had not been dowered
+with a sea-defended isle for their habitation, which might enable
+them to carry out enterprises abroad without the distraction and
+weakness involved in maintaining adequate guards at home. They
+were mighty in self-defence and in resistance against tyranny;
+and they were unsurpassed in those virtues and qualities which go
+to make a nation rich and orderly; but aggression could not be
+for them. They took advantage of their season of power to confirm
+themselves in the ownership of lands in the extreme East and in
+the West, which should be a continual source of revenue; but
+they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and
+strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from
+the grasp of others. But this was the sum of their possibility;
+they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the
+consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered
+factor in the European problem. In some respects, their territorial
+insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action,
+preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth
+conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished
+by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They
+became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral
+region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let
+alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand,
+they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed
+into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct
+to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature,
+their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired. They are,
+in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and
+they have the good sense to be content with their condition.
+They are liberal and progressive, and yet conservative; they are
+even with modern ideas as regards education and civilization,
+and yet the tourist within their boundaries continually finds
+himself reminded of their past. The costumes and the customs of
+the mass of the people have undergone singularly little change;
+they mind their own affairs, and are wisely indifferent to the
+affairs of others. Both as importers and as exporters they are
+useful to the world, and if the prophecies of those who foretell
+a general clash of the European powers should be fulfilled, it
+is likely that the Dutch will be onlookers merely, or perhaps
+profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors to increase their
+own well-being.
+
+As we have seen in the foregoing pages, Belgium did not unite
+with the Hollanders in their revolt of the sixteenth century;
+but appertained to Burgundy, and was afterward made a domain
+of France. But after Napoleon had been overthrown at Waterloo,
+the nations who had been so long harried and terrorized by him
+were not satisfied with banishing the ex-conqueror to his island
+exile, but wished to present any possibility of another Napoleon
+arising to renew the wars which had devastated and impoverished
+them. Consequently they agreed to make a kingdom which might act
+as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe; and to this
+end they decreed that Belgium and Holland should be one. But in
+doing this, the statesmen or politicians concerned failed to take
+into account certain factors and facts which must inevitably, in
+the course of time, undermine their arrangements. Nations cannot
+be arbitrarily manufactured to suit the convenience of others.
+There is a chemistry in nationalities which has laws of its own,
+and will not be ignored. Between the Hollanders and the Belgians
+there existed not merely a negative lack of homogeneity, but a
+positive incompatibility. The Hollanders had for generations been
+fighters and men of enterprise; the Belgians had been the appanage
+of more powerful neighbors. The Hollanders were Protestants; the
+Belgians were adherents of the Papacy. The former were seafarers;
+the latter, farmers. The sympathies or affiliations of the Dutch
+were with the English and the Germans; those of the Belgians
+were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act
+oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made
+the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid,
+narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a
+request made of him was reason sufficient for resisting it.
+
+But over and above all these causes for disintegration of the new
+kingdom lay facts of the broadest significance and application.
+The arbiters of 1815 did not sufficiently apprehend the meaning of
+the French Revolution. The wars of Napoleon had made them forget
+it; his power had seemed so much more formidable and positive
+that the deeper forces which had brought about the events of the
+last decade of the eighteenth century were ignored. But they
+still continued profoundly active, and were destined ere long
+to announce themselves anew. They were in truth the generative
+forces of the nineteenth century.
+
+They have not yet spent themselves; but as we look back upon
+the events of the past eighty or ninety years, we perceive what
+vast differences there are between what we were in Napoleon's day
+and what we are now. A long period of intrigue and misrule, of
+wars and revolutions, has been followed by material, mental and
+social changes affecting every class of the people, and especially
+that class which had hitherto been almost entirely unconsidered.
+The wars of this century have been of another character than
+those of the past; they have not involved basic principles of
+human association, but have been the result of attempts to gain
+comparatively trifling political advantages, or else were the
+almost inevitable consequence of adjustments of national relations.
+Several small new kingdoms have appeared; but their presence
+has not essentially altered the political aspect of Europe. It
+is the conquests of mind that have been, in this century, far
+more important than the struggles of arms. Steam, as applied
+to locomotion on sea and land, and to manufactures, has brought
+about modifications in social and industrial conditions that
+cannot be exaggerated. Steamboats and railroads have not only
+given a different face to commerce and industry, but they have
+united the world in bonds of mutual knowledge and sympathy, which
+cannot fail to profoundly affect the political relations of mankind.
+Isolation is ignorance; as soon as men begin to discover, by actual
+intercourse, the similarities and dissimilarities of their several
+conditions, these will begin to show improvements. To be assured
+that people in one part of the world are better off than those in
+another, will tend inevitably to bring about ameliorations for
+the latter. The domain of evil will be continually restricted,
+and that of good enlarged. In the dissemination of intelligence
+and the spread of sympathy, the telegraph, and other applications
+of electricity, have enormously aided the work of steam. Every
+individual of civilized mankind may now be cognizant, at any
+moment, of what is taking place at any point of the earth's surface
+to which the appliances of civilization have penetrated. This
+unprecedented spread of common acquaintanceship of the world
+has been supplemented by discoveries of science in many other
+directions. We know more of the moon to-day than Europe did of
+this planet a few centuries ago. The industrial arts are now
+prosecuted by machinery with a productiveness which enables one
+man to do the work formerly performed by hundreds, and which more
+than keeps up the supply with the demand. Conquests of natural
+forces are constantly making, and each one of them adds to the
+comfort and enlightenment of man. Men, practically, live a dozen
+lives such as those of the past in their single span of seventy
+years; and we are even finding means of prolonging the Scriptural
+limit of mortal existence physically as well as mentally.
+
+But is all this due to that great moral and social earthquake
+to which we give the name of the French Revolution? Yes; for
+that upheaval, like the plow of some titanic husbandman, brought
+to the surface elements of good and use which had been lying
+fallow for unnumbered ages. It brought into view the People,
+as against mere rulers and aristocrats, who had hitherto lived
+upon what the People produced, without working themselves, and
+without caring for anything except to conserve things as they
+were. Human progress will never be advanced by oligarchies, no
+matter how gentle and well-disposed. We see their results to-day
+in Spain and in Turkey, which are still mediaeval, or worse, in
+their condition and methods. It is the brains of the common people
+that have wrought the mighty change; their personal interests
+demand that they go forward, and their fresh and unencumbered
+minds show them the way. The great scientists, the inventors,
+the philanthropists, the reformers, are all of the common people;
+the statesmen who have really governed the world in this century
+have sprung from the common stock. The French Revolution destroyed
+the dominance of old ideas, and with them the forms in which
+they were embodied. Political, personal and religious freedom
+are now matters of course; but a hundred years ago they were
+almost unheard of, save in the dreams of optimists and fanatics.
+The rights of labor have been vindicated; and the right of every
+human being to the benefit of what he produces has been claimed
+and established. Along with this improvement has come, of course,
+a train of evils and abuses, due to our ignorance of how best
+to manage and apply our new privileges and advantages; but such
+evils are transient, and the conditions which created them will
+suffice, ere long, to remove them. The conflict between labor
+and capital is not permanent; it will yield to better knowledge
+of the true demands of political economy. The indifference or
+corruption of law makers and dispensers will disappear when men
+realize that personal selfishness is self-destructive, and that
+only care for the commonweal can bring about prosperity for the
+individual. The democracy is still in its swaddling clothes,
+and its outward aspect is in many ways ugly and unwelcome, and
+we sigh for the elegance and composure of old days; but these
+discomforts are a necessary accompaniment of growth, and will
+vanish when the growing pains are past. The Press is the mirror of
+the aspirations, the virtues and the faults of the new mankind; its
+power is stupendous and constantly increasing; many are beginning
+to dread it as a possible agent of ill; but in truth its real
+power can only be for good, since the mass of mankind, however
+wedded to selfishness as individuals, are united in desiring
+honesty and good in the general trend of things; and it is to
+the generality, and not to the particular, that the Press, to
+be successful, must appeal. It is the great critic and the great
+recorder; and in the face of such criticism and record abuses
+cannot long maintain themselves. Men will be free, first of external
+tyrannies, and then of that more subtle but not less dangerous
+tyranny which they impose upon themselves. As might have been
+expected, extremists have arisen who sought to find a short road
+to perfection, and they have met with disappointment. The dreams
+of the socialists have not been realized; men will not work for one
+another unless they are at the same time working for themselves.
+The communist and the nihilist are yet further from the true
+ideal; there will always remain in human society certain persons
+who rule, and others who obey. There must always, in all affairs,
+be a head to direct as well as hands to execute. Men are born
+unequal in intelligence and ability; and it will never be possible
+to reduce leaders to the level of followers. The form of society
+must take its model from the human form, in which one part is
+subordinate to another, yet all work together in harmony. Only
+time--and probably no very long time--is required to bring a
+recognition of these facts. Meanwhile, the very violence of the
+revolts against even the suspicion of oppression are but symptoms
+of the vigorous vitality which, in former centuries, seemed to have
+no existence at all. On the other hand, industrial co-operation
+seems to promise successful development; it involves immense
+economies, and consequent profit to producers. The middleman has
+his uses, and especially is he a convenience; but it is easy to
+pay too dear for conveniences; and there seems no reason why the
+producer should not, as time goes on, become constantly better
+equipped for dealing direct with the consumer, to the manifest
+advantage of both.
+
+All these and many other triumphs of civilization, which we see
+now in objective form, were present in potency at the beginning
+of this century, though, as we have said, they were not duly
+taken into account by the framers of the agreement which sought
+to make Holland and Belgium one flesh. Had the sun not yet risen
+upon the human horizon, the attempt might have had a quasi success;
+but the light was penetrating the darkened places, and men were
+no longer willing to accept subjection as their inevitable doom.
+It might be conducive to the comfort of the rest of Europe that
+Batavian and Belgian should dwell together under one political
+roof; but it did not suit the parties themselves; and therefore
+they soon began to make their incompatibility known. But nothing
+was heard beyond the grumblings of half-awakened discontent until,
+in 1830, the new revolution in Paris sent a sympathetic thrill
+through all the dissatisfied of Europe. A generation had now
+passed since the first great upheaval, and men had had time to
+digest the lesson which it conveyed, and to draw various more or
+less reasonable inferences as to future possibilities. It had been
+determined that, broadly speaking, what the people heartily wanted,
+the people might have; and the disturbances in Paris indicated
+that the people were prepared to resent any attempt on the part
+of their rulers to bring back the old abuses. When the Pentarchy,
+in 1815, had made its division of the spoils of Napoleon, the
+Bourbons were reseated on the throne which Louis XIV. had made
+famous; but Louis XVIII. was but a degenerate representative
+of the glories that had been. He adopted a reactionary policy
+against the Napoleonic (or imperialist), the republican and the
+Protestant elements in France; and outrages and oppressions occurred.
+As a consequence, secret societies were formed to counteract
+the ultra-royalist policy. When Louis died, it was hoped that
+his successor, Charles X., might introduce improvements; but
+on the contrary he only made matters worse. The consequence was
+the gradual growth of a liberal party, seeking a monarchy based
+on the support of the great middle class of the population. In
+1827 Charles disbanded the National Guard; and in the following
+year the liberals elected a majority in the Chamber. Charles
+foolishly attempted to meet this step by making the prince de
+Polignac his minister, who stood for all that the people had
+in abhorrence. The prince issued ordinances declaring the late
+elections illegal, narrowing down the rights of suffrage to the
+large landowners, and forbidding all liberty to the press. Hereupon
+the populace of Paris erected barricades and took up arms; and
+in the "Three Days" from the 27th to the 29th of July, 1830,
+they defeated the forces of the king, and after capturing the
+Hotel de Ville and the Louvre, sent him into exile, and made
+the venerable and faithful Lafayette commander of the National
+Guard. But the revolutionists showed forbearance; and instead of
+beheading Charles, as they might have done, they let him go, and
+punished the ministers by imprisonment only. This put an end to
+the older line of the Bourbons in France, and the representative
+of the younger branch, Louis Philippe ("Philippe Egalite"), was
+set on the throne, in the hope that he would be willing to carry
+out the people's will.
+
+All this was interesting to the Belgians, and they profited by
+the example. They regarded William as another Charles, and deemed
+themselves justified in revolting against his rule. They declared
+that they were no longer subject to his control, and issue was
+joined on that point. But the Powers were not ready to permit the
+dissolution of their anxiously constructed edifice; and they met
+together with a view to arranging some secure modus vivendi. The
+issue of their deliberations took the form of proposing that the
+duchy of Luxemburg, at the southeast corner of Belgium, should be
+ceded to Holland on the north. This suggestion was favorably received
+by the Hollanders, but was not so agreeable to the Belgians; and an
+assembly at Brussels devised and adopted a liberal constitution,
+and invited Leopold of Saxe-Coburg to occupy their throne. Leopold
+was at this time about forty years of age; he was the youngest
+son of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg; he had married, in 1816,
+the daughter of George IV. of England, the princess Charlotte,
+and had, a few months before the Belgians' proposal, been offered
+and had refused the crown of Greece. But the Belgian throne was
+more to his liking; and after taking measures to sound the Powers
+on the subject, and to assure himself of their good will, he
+accepted the proffer, and was crowned under the title of Leopold
+I. His reign lasted thirty-four years, and was comparatively
+uneventful and prosperous.
+
+But the Dutch refused to tolerate this change of sovereignty
+without a struggle; William raised an army and suddenly threw
+it into Belgium; and the chanees are that he would have made
+short work of Belgian resistance had the two been permitted to
+fight out their quarrel undisturbed. This, however, could not
+happen; since the independence of Belgium had been recognized by
+England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia; and the triumphal march
+of the Dutch was arrested by a French army which happened to
+be in the place where they could be most effective in the
+circumstances. The Dutch had occupied Antwerp, a town on the
+borderland of Belgium and Holland. It had been in the possession
+of the French in 1794, but had been taken from them at the
+Restoration in 1814. The French now laid siege to it, being under
+the command of Gerard, while the Dutch were led by Chasse. The
+citadel was taken in 1832, and the resistance of the Dutch to
+the decree of Europe was practically at an end, though William
+the Obstinate refused for several years to accept the fact. The
+duchy of Luxemburg had sided with the Belgians all along, as
+might have been anticipated from its position and natural
+affiliations; and though no immediate action was taken relative
+to its ownership till 1839, it remained during the interval in
+Belgian hands. Matters remained in this ambiguous condition for
+some time; but though the Dutch might grumble, they could not
+fight. At length the treaty of 1839 was signed in London, on
+the 19th of April, according to the terms of which part of the
+duchy of Luxemburg was retained by the Belgians, and part was
+ruled by the king of Holland as grand duke. In other respects,
+the status quo ante was preserved, and the partition of Holland
+and Belgium was confirmed, as it has ever since remained. The
+history of Belgium thenceforward has been almost wholly devoid of
+incidents; the little nation may quite too apothegm as applying
+to themselves, "Short are the annals of a happy people!" Their
+insignificance and their geographical position secure them against
+all disturbance. They live in their tiny quarters with economy
+and industry; the most densely populous community in Europe, and
+one of the most prosperous. Around their borders rises the sullen
+murmur of threatening armies and hostile dynasties; but Belgium
+is free from menace, and their sunshine of peace is without a
+cloud. It is of course conceivable that in the great struggle which
+seems impending, the Belgian nation may suddenly vanish from the
+map, and become but a memory in the minds of a future generation;
+but their end, if it come, is likely to be in the nature of a
+euthanasia, and so far as they are physically concerned, they
+will survive their political annihilation. The only ripples which
+have varied the smooth surface of their career since the treaty,
+have been disputes between the liberal and clerical parties on
+questions of education, and disturbances and occasional riots
+instigated by socialists over industrial questions. Leopold,
+dying at the age of seventy-six, was succeeded by his son as
+Leopold II., and his reign continued during the remainder of the
+century.
+
+The treaty of 1839, in addition to its provisions already mentioned,
+gave Limburg, on the Prussian border, to the Dutch, and opened
+the Scheldt under heavy tolls. In October of the year following
+the treaty, William I. abdicated the throne of Holland in favor
+of his son. He had not enjoyed his reign, and he retired in an
+ill humor, which was not without some excuse. His career had
+been a worthy one; he had been a soldier in the field from his
+twenty-first year till the battle of Wagram in 1809, when he was
+near forty; after that he dwelt in retirement in Berlin until
+he was called to the throne of the Netherlands. At that time
+he had exchanged his German possessions for the grand duchy of
+Luxemburg; and was therefore naturally reluctant to be deprived
+of the latter. The old soldier survived his abdication only a
+few years, dying in 1843 at Berlin.
+
+William II. was a soldier like his father. He had gained distinction
+under Wellington in the Spanish campaign, and in the struggle
+against Napoleon during the Hundred Days he commanded the Dutch
+contingent. He married Anne, sister of Alexander I. of Russia,
+in 1816, and at the outbreak of the revolution of 1830 he was
+sent to Belgium to bring about an arrangement. On the 16th of
+October of that year he took the step, which was repudiated by
+his rigid old father, of acknowledging Belgian independence; but
+he subsequently commanded the Dutch army against the Belgians,
+and was forced to yield to the French in August, 1832. After his
+accession, he behaved with firmness and liberality, and died
+in 1849 leaving a good reputation behind him.
+
+Meanwhile, the new revolution of 1848 was approaching. Insensibly,
+the states of Europe had ranged themselves under two principles.
+There were on one side the states governed by constitutions,
+including Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland,
+Sweden and, Norway, Denmark, and, for the time being, Spain and
+Portugal. On the other side were Russia, Prussia, Austria, the
+Italian States, and some of those of Germany, who held that the
+right of rule and the making of laws belonged absolutely to certain
+dynasties, which were, indeed, morally bound to consult the interests
+of their populations, yet were not responsible to their subjects
+for the manner in which they might choose to do it. In the last
+mentioned states there existed a chronic strife between the people
+and their rulers. It was an irrepressible conflict, and its crisis
+was reached in 1848.
+
+It was in France that things first came to a head. Louis Philippe
+and his minister, Guizot, tried to render the government gradually
+independent of the nation, in imitation of the absolutist empires;
+and the uneasiness caused by this policy was emphasized by the
+scarcity that prevailed during the years 1846 and 1847. The Liberals
+began to demand electoral reform; but the king, on opening the
+Chambers, intimated that he was convinced that no reform was
+needed. Angry debates ensued, and finally the opposition arranged
+for a great banquet in the Champs Elysee on February 22, 1848,
+in support of the reform movement. This gathering, however, was
+forbidden by Guizot. The order was regarded as arbitrary, and
+the Republicans seized the opportunity. Barricades appeared in
+Paris, the king was forced to abdicate, and took refuge with
+his family in England. France was thereupon declared to be a
+Republic, and the government was intrusted to Lamartine and others.
+There was now great danger of excesses similar to those of the
+first great revolution; but the elements of violence were kept
+under by the opposition of the middle and higher classes. The
+communistic clubs were overawed by the National Guards, and on
+April 16th the Communistic party was defeated. General Cavaignac,
+who had been made dictator during the struggle, laid down his
+office after the battle which began on the 23d of June between
+the rabble of idle mechanics, eighty thousand in number, and
+the national forces had been decided in favor of the latter,
+who slew no less than sixteen thousand of the enemy. Cavaignac
+was now appointed chief of the Executive Commission with the
+title of President of the Council. A reaction favoring a monarchy
+was indicated; but meanwhile a new constitution provided for
+a quadriennial presidency, with a single legislature of seven
+hundred and fifty members. Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the
+great emperor, was chosen by a majority vote for the office in
+December of 1848. Four years later he was declared emperor under
+the title of Napoleon III.
+
+The revolutionary movement spread to other countries of Europe,
+with varying results. In Hungary, Kossuth in the Diet demanded
+of the emperor-king a national government. Prince Metternich,
+prime minister, attempted to resist the demand with military
+force, but an insurrection in Vienna drove him into exile, and
+the Hungarians gained a temporary advantage, and were granted
+a constitution. The Slavs met at Prague, at the instigation of
+Polocky, and held a congress; but it was broken up by the impatience
+of the inhabitants, and a success of the imperialists was followed
+by the rising of the southern Slavs in favor of the emperor.
+A battle took place in Hungary on September 11, 1848, but the
+imperialists under Jellachich were routed and driven toward the
+Austrian frontier. The war became wider in its scope; the
+insurrectionists at first met with success; but in spite of their
+desperate valor the Hungarian forces were finally overthrown by the
+aid of a Russian army; and their leader, Goergy, was compelled to
+surrender to the Russians on August 13, 1849. It was thought that
+the Czar might annex Hungary; but he handed it back to Francis
+Joseph, who, by way of vengeance, permitted the most hideous
+cruelties.
+
+In Germany, the issue had no definite feature. The people demanded
+freedom of the Press and a German parliament, and the various
+princes seemed acquiescent; but when it was proposed that Prussia
+should become Germany, there was opposition on all sides; a Diet
+of the Confederation was held, but Frederick William IV., king
+of Prussia, refused to accept the title of hereditary emperor
+which was offered him. Austria and Prussia came into opposition;
+two rival congresses were sitting at the same time in 1850; and
+war between the two states was only averted by the interference
+of Russia. Czar Nicholas, then virtually dictator of Europe,
+ordered Prussia's troops back, and the Convention of Olmutz, in
+November, seemed to put a final end to Prussia's hopes of German
+hegemony.
+
+All the local despotisms of Italy collapsed before the breath
+of revolution; but the country then found itself face to face
+with Austria. Charles Albert of Sardinia had the courage to head
+the revolt; but was defeated, and abdicated in favor of his son
+Victor Emmanuel. Venice was taken after a severe siege by the
+Austrians; and King Bomba managed to repossess himself of Naples,
+after a terrible massacre. Sicily was subdued. In the Papal States,
+Pio Nono was deposed; but after a time a reaction set in, the
+provisional government under Mazzini was overthrown, and the
+French occupied Rome and recalled the Pope.
+
+The question as to the Danish or German ownership of the duchies
+of Schleswig-Holstein had already been agitated, and they became
+acute at this time; but the spirit of the new revolution had no
+direct bearing upon the matter. By the end of the first half
+of the nineteenth century, Europe was outwardly quiet once more.
+
+And what part had Holland taken in these proceedings? A very
+small one. The phlegmatic Dutchmen found themselves fairly well
+off, and were nowise tempted to embark in troubles for sentiment's
+sake. The constitution given them in 1814 was revised, with the
+consent of the king, and the changes, which involved various
+political reforms, went into effect on April 17, 1848. William
+II. died just eleven months afterward, and was succeeded by his
+son William III., at that time a man of two-and-thirty. He favored
+the reforms granted by his father, and showed himself to be in
+harmony with such sober ideas of progress as belonged to the
+nation over which he ruled. His aim in all things was peace, and
+the development of the resources of the country; he understood his
+people, and they placed confidence in him, and Holland steadily
+grew in wealth and comfort. In 1853, after the establishment by
+the papacy of Catholic bishoprics had been allowed, there was
+a period of some excitement; for Roman Catholicism had found a
+stern and unconquerable foe in the Dutch; when it had come with
+the bloody tyranny of Spain. But those evil days were past, and
+the Dutch, who had pledged themselves to welcome religious freedom
+in their dominions, were disposed to let bygones be bygones, and
+to permit such of their countrymen as preferred the Catholic
+ceremonial to have their way. It was evident that no danger existed
+of Holland's becoming subject to the papacy; and, indeed, the
+immediate political sequel of the establishment of the bishoprics
+was the election of a moderate, liberal, Protestant cabinet,
+which thoroughly represented the country, and which represented
+its tone thereafter, with such modifications as new circumstances
+might suggest. The Dutch were philosophic, and were victims to
+no vague and costly ambitions. They felt that they had given
+sufficient proofs of their quality in the past; the glory which
+they had won as champions of liberty could never fade; and now
+they merited the repose which we have learned to associate with
+our conception of the Dutch character. Their nature seems to
+partake of the scenic traits of their country; its picturesque,
+solid serenity, its unemotional levels, its flavor of the antique:
+and yet beneath that composure we feel the strength and steadfastness
+which can say to the ocean, Thus far and no further, and can build
+their immaculate towns, and erect their peaceful windmills, and
+navigate their placid canals, and smoke their fragrant pipes on
+land which, by natural right, should be the bottom of the sea.
+Holland is a perennial type of human courage and industry, common
+sense and moderation. As we contemplate them to-day, it requires
+an effort of the imagination to picture them as the descendants
+of a race of heroes who defied and overcame the strongest and
+most cruel Power on earth in their day, and then taught the rest
+of Europe how to unite success in commerce with justice and honor.
+But the heroism is still there, and, should need arise, we need
+not doubt that it would once more be manifested.
+
+Because Holland is so quiet, some rash critics fancy that she
+may be termed effete. But this is far from the truth. The absence
+of military burdens, rendered needless by the intelligent
+selfishness, if not the conscience, of the rest of Europe, implies
+no decadence of masculine spirit in the Dutch. In no department
+of enterprise, commercial ability, or intellectual energy are
+they inferior to any of their contemporaries, or to their own
+great progenitors. "Holland," says Professor Thorold Rogers, "is
+the origin of scientific medicine and rational therapeutics. From
+Holland came the first optical instruments, the best mathematicians,
+the most intelligent philosophers, as well as the boldest and most
+original thinkers. Amsterdam and Rotterdam held the printing
+presses of Europe in the early days of the republic; the Elzevirs
+were the first publishers of cheap editions, and thereby aided
+in disseminating the new learning. From Holland came the new
+agriculture, which has done so much for social life, horticulture
+and floriculture. The Dutch taught modern Europe navigation. They
+were the first to explore the unknown seas, and many an island
+and cape which their captains discovered has been renamed after
+some one who got his knowledge by their research, and appropriated
+the fruit of his predecessor's labors. They have been as much
+plundered in the world of letters as they have been in commerce
+and politics. Holland taught the Western nations finance--perhaps
+no great boon. But they also taught commercial honor, the last
+and hardest lesson which nations learn. They inculcated free
+trade, a lesson nearly as hard to learn, if not harder, since
+the conspiracy against private right is watchful, incessant,
+and, as some would make us believe, respectable. They raised
+a constant and for a long time ineffectual protest against the
+barbarous custom of privateering, and the dangerous doctrine of
+contraband of war, a doctrine which, if carried out logically,
+would allow belligerents to interdict the trade of the world. The
+Dutch are the real founders of what people call international law,
+or the rights of nations. They made mistakes, but they made fewer
+than their neighbors made. The benefits which they conferred were
+incomparably greater than the errors they committed. There is nothing
+more striking than the fact that, after a brief and discreditable
+episode, the states were an asylum for the persecuted. The Jews,
+who were condemned because they were thrifty, plundered because
+they were rich, and harassed because they clung tenaciously to
+their ancient faith and customs, found an asylum in Holland;
+and some of them perhaps, after they originated and adopted,
+with the pliability of their race, a Teutonic alias, have not
+been sufficiently grateful to the country which sheltered them.
+The Jansenists, expelled from France, found a refuge in Utrecht,
+and more than a refuge, a recognition, when recognition was a
+dangerous offence.
+
+"There is no nation in Europe," continues the professor, "which
+owes more to Holland than Great Britain does. The English were
+for a long time, in the industrial history of modern civilization,
+the stupidest and most backward nation in Europe. There was, to
+be sure, a great age in England during the reign of Elizabeth
+and that of the first Stuart king. But it was brief indeed. In
+every other department of art, of agriculture, of trade, we learned
+our lesson from the Hollanders. I doubt whether any other small
+European race, after passing through the trials which it endured
+after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the conclusion of the
+continental war, ever had so entire a recovery. The chain of its
+history, to be sure, was broken, and can never, in the nature
+of things, be welded together. But there is still left to Holland
+the boast and the reality of her motto, 'Luctor et emergo.'"
+
+The events of Holland's history since the Catholic concessions
+can be briefly told. In 1863 slavery was abolished in the Dutch
+West Indies, the owners being compensated; and forty-two thousand
+slaves were set free, chiefly in Dutch Guiana. In the same year
+the navigation of the Scheldt was freed, by purchase from Holland
+by the European powers, of the right to levy tolls. In 1867, Louis
+Napoleon raised the question of Luxemburg by negotiating to buy
+the grand duchy from Holland; but Prussia objected to the scheme,
+and the matter was finally settled by a Conference in London; the
+Prussian garrison evacuating the fortifications, which were then
+dismantled, and Luxemburg was declared neutral territory. Capital
+punishment was abolished in 1869; and on the 15th of July of the
+same year the Amsterdam National Exposition was opened by Prince
+Henry. In 1870, at the outbreak of war between Germany and France,
+the neutrality of Holland as to both belligerents was secured by
+the other Powers. In 1871 the Hollanders ceded Dutch Guinea to
+England, and in 1876 the canal between Amsterdam and the North
+Sea, which had been begun in 1865, was completed, and the passage
+through it was accomplished by a monitor. Another Exposition was
+opened in 1883, and in the same year the constitution underwent
+a further revision. On the 24th of June, 1884, the Prince of
+Orange, heir-apparent to the throne, died, and the succession
+thus devolved upon the princess Wilhelmina, then a child of four
+years. William III. himself died in 1890, and Queen Emma thereupon
+assumed the regency, which she was to hold until Wilhelmina came
+of age in 1898; an agreeable consummation which we have just
+witnessed.
+
+A word may here be said concerning the physical and political
+constitution of the present kingdom of Holland. The country is
+divided into eleven provinces--North and South Holland, Zealand,
+North Brabant, Utrecht, Limburg, Gelderland, Overyssel, Drenthe,
+Groningen, and Friesland. There are three large rivers--the Rhine,
+the Meuse, and the Scheldt. The inhabitants are Low Germans (Dutch),
+Frankish, Saxon, Frisian, and Jews, the latter numbering some
+sixty thousand, though their influence is, owing to their wealth
+and activity, larger than these figures would normally represent.
+The leading religion of the country is Lutheran; but there are
+also many Catholics and persons of other faiths, all of whom
+are permitted the enjoyment of their creeds. Holland was at one
+time second to no country in the extent of its colonies; and
+it still owns Java, the Moluccas, part of Borneo, New Guinea,
+Sumatra and Celebes, in the East; and in the West, Dutch Guiana
+and Curacoa. In Roman times the Low Countries were inhabited by
+various peoples, chiefly of Germanic origin; and in the Middle
+Ages were divided into several duchies and counties--such as
+Brabant, Flanders, Gelderland, Holland, Zealand, etc. The present
+government is a hereditary monarchy, consisting of a king or
+queen and states-general; the upper chamber of fifty members,
+the lower of one hundred. It is essentially a country of large
+towns, of five thousand inhabitants and upward. The Frisians are
+in North Holland, separated by the river Meuse from the Franks;
+the Saxons extend to the Utrecht Veldt. The Semitic race is
+represented by the Portuguese Jews; and there is an admixture
+of other nationalities. In no part of the country do the Dutch
+present a marked physical type, but, on the other hand, they
+are sharply differenced, in various localities, by their laws,
+their customs, and particularly by their dialects; indeed the
+Frisians have a distinct language of their own.
+
+The constitution of 1815, though more than once revised, remains
+practically much the same as at first. The son of the monarch, the
+heir-apparent, is called the Prince of Orange. The administration
+of the Provinces is in the hands of the provincial states; these
+meet but a few times in the year. The Communes have their communal
+councils, under the control of the burgomasters. There is a high
+court of justice, and numerous minor courts.
+
+The population is divided between about two million two hundred
+thousand Protestants, and half as many Roman Catholics, together
+with others. There are four thousand schools, with six hundred
+thousand pupils, and about fourteen thousand teachers. Not more
+than ten per cent of the people are illiterate, and the women are
+as carefully educated the men. There are four great universities:
+Leyden, founded in 1575; Utrecht, founded in 1636; Groningen, in
+1614; and Amsterdam, which has existed since 1877. These seats of
+learning give instruction to from three hundred to seven hundred
+students each. The total expenses of the universities average
+about six hundred thousand dollars. There are also in Holland
+excellent institutions of art, science, and industry.
+
+Agriculture is generally pursued, but without the extreme science
+and economy shown in Belgium. The cultivation and produce vary,
+in part, according as the soil is sand or clay; but the same kind
+of soil, in different parts of the country, produces different
+results. Cattle are largely raised and are of first-rate quality;
+Friesland produces the best, but there are also excellent stocks in
+North Holland and South Holland. In Drenthe, owing to the extensive
+pasturage, great numbers of sheep are raised. But perhaps the most
+important industry of Holland is the fisheries, both those of the
+deep sea, and those carried on in the great Zuyder Zee, which
+occupies a vast area within the boundaries of the country. These
+fisheries, however, are not in all years successful, owing to
+the ungovernable vagaries of ocean currents, and other causes.
+
+Holland has taken a prominent part in European thought since about
+1820. The Dutch language, instead of yielding to the domination
+of the German, has been cultivated and enriched. The writers who
+have achieved distinction could hardly even be named in space
+here available, and any approach to a critical estimate of them
+would require volumes. One of the earlier but best-known names
+is that of Jacobus Van Lennep, who is regarded as the leader
+of the Dutch Romantic school. He was born in Amsterdam on the
+24th of March, 1802, and died at Oosterbeek, near Arnheim, August
+25, 1868. His father, David, was a professor and a poet; Jacobus
+studied jurisprudence at Leyden, and afterward practiced law at
+Amsterdam. For a while he took some part in politics as a member
+of the second chamber; but his heart was bent on the pursuit
+of literature, and he gradually abandoned all else for that.
+His first volume of poems was published when he was but
+four-and-twenty; and he was the author of several dramas. But
+his strongest predilections were for romantic novel-writing;
+and his works in this direction show signs of the influence of
+Walter Scott, who dominated the romantic field in the first half
+of this century, and was known in Holland as well as throughout
+the rest of Europe. "The Foster Son" was published in 1829; the
+"Rose of Dekama" in 1836; "The Adventures of Claus Sevenstars" in
+1865. His complete works, in prose and poetry, fill six-and-thirty
+volumes. A younger contemporary of Van Lennep was Nikolas Beets,
+born at Haarlem in 1814; he also was both poet and prose writer,
+and his "Camara Obscura," published in 1839, is accounted a
+masterpiece of character and humor, though it was composed when
+the author was barely twenty-four years of age. Van den Brink
+was a leading critic of the Romanticists; Hasebrock, author of
+a volume of essays called "Truth and Dream," has been likened
+to the English Charles Lamb. Vosmaer is another eminent figure
+in Dutch literature; he wrote a "Life of Rembrandt" which is a
+masterpiece of biography. Kuenen, who died but ten years ago,
+was a biblical critic of European celebrity. But the list of
+contemporary Dutch writers is long and brilliant, and the time
+to speak critically of them must be postponed.
+
+Nothing impresses the visitor to Holland more than the vast dikes
+or dams which restrain the sea from overwhelming the country.
+They have to be constantly watched and renewed, and to those
+unused to the idea of dwelling in the presence of such constant
+peril, the phlegm of the Hollanders is remarkable. M. Havard, who
+has made a careful study of the country and its people, and who
+writes of them in a lively style, has left excellent descriptions
+of these unique works. "We know," he says, "what the Zealand
+soil is--how uncertain, changing, and mutable; nevertheless,
+a construction is placed upon it, one hundred and twenty yards
+long, sixteen yards wide at the entrance, and more than seven
+and a half yards deep below high water. Add to this, that the
+enormous basin (one thousand nine hundred square yards) is enclosed
+within granite walls of extraordinary thickness, formed of solid
+blocks of stone of tremendous weight. To what depth must the
+daring workmen who undertook the Cyclopean task have gone in
+search of a stable standpoint, on which to lay the foundation
+of such a mass! In what subterranean layer could they have had
+such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of
+a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace--that
+they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice! And observe
+that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid
+Beveland and Walcheren a dozen have been constructed. There are
+two at Wormeldingen. In the presence of these achievements, of
+problems faced with such courage and solved with such success,
+one is almost bewildered."
+
+Elsewhere, in speaking of Kampveer, one of the towns which suffered
+an inundation, he says, "Poor little port! once so famous, lively,
+populous, and noisy, and now so solitary and still! Traces of
+its former military and mercantile character are yet to be seen.
+On the left stands a majestic building with thick walls and few
+apertures, terminating on the sea in a crenelated round tower;
+and these elegant houses, with their arched and trefoiled windows,
+and their decorated gables, on the right, once formed the ancient
+Scotschhuis. Every detail of the building recalls the great trade
+in wool done by the city at that period. Far off, at the entrance
+of the port, stands a tower, the last remnant of the ramparts,
+formerly a fortification; it is now a tavern. In vain do we look
+for the companion tower; it has disappeared with the earth on
+which its foundations stood deep and strong for ages. If, from
+the summit of the surviving tower, you search for that mysterious
+town upon the opposite bank, you will look for it in vain where
+it formerly stood and mirrored its houses and steeples in the
+limpid waters. Kampen also has been swallowed up forever, leaving
+no trace that it ever existed in this world. The land that stretches
+out before us is all affected by that subtle, cancerous disease,
+the _val_, whose ravages are so terrible. Two centuries ago this
+great bay was so filled up with sand that it was expected the
+two islands would in a short time be reunited and thenceforth
+form but one. Then, on a sudden, the gulf yawned anew. That huge
+rent, the Veer Gat, opened once again, more deeply than before;
+whole towns were buried, and their inhabitants drowned. Then the
+water retired, the earth rose, shaking off its humid winding
+sheet, and the old task was resumed; man began once more to dispute
+the soil with the invading waves. A portion of the land, which
+seemed to have been forever lost, was regained; but at the cost
+of what determined strife, after how many battles, with what
+dire alternations! Within a century, three entire polders on
+the north coast of Noordbeveland have again vanished, and in
+the place where they were there flows a stream forty yards deep.
+In 1873, the polder of Borselen, thirty-one acres in extent, sank
+into the waters. Each year the terrible _val_ devours some space
+or other, carrying away the land in strips. The Sophia polder is
+now attacked by the _val_. Every possible means is being employed
+for its defence; no sacrifice is spared. The game is almost up;
+already one dike has been swallowed, and a portion of the conquered
+ground has had to be abandoned. The dams are being strengthened
+in the rear, while every effort is being made to fix the soil so
+as to prevent the slipping away of the reclaimed land. To effect
+this, not only are the dams, reinforced and complicated by an
+inextricable network of stones and interlaced tree-branches; but
+_Zinkstukken_ are sunk far off in the sea, which by squeezing down
+the shifting bottom avert those sudden displacements which bring
+about such disasters. The Zinkstukken--enormous constructions in
+wicker work--are square rafts, made of reeds and boughs twisted
+together, sometimes two or three hundred feet long on a side.
+They are made on the edge of the coast and pushed into the sea;
+and no sooner is one afloat than it is surrounded by a crowd of
+barges and boats, big and little, laden with stones and clods
+of earth. The boats are then attached to the Zinkstuk, and this
+combined flotilla is so disposed along shore that the current
+carries it to the place where the Zinkstuk is to be sunk. When
+the current begins to make itself felt, the raft is loaded by
+the simple process of heaping the contents of the barges upon
+the middle of it. The men form in line from the four corners
+to the centre, and the loads of stone and earth are passed on to
+the centre of the raft, on which they are flung; then the middle
+of the Zinkstuk begins to sink gently, and to disappear under the
+water. As it goes down, the operators withdraw; the stones and
+clods are then flung upon it from boats. At this stage of the
+proceedings the Zinkstuk is so heavy that all the vessels, dragged
+by its weight, lean over, and their masts bend above it. But now
+the decisive moment approaches, and the foreman, standing on
+the poop of the largest boat, in the middle of the flotilla, on
+the side furthest from the shore, awaits the instant when the
+Zinkstuk shall come into precisely the foreordained position.
+At that instant he utters a shout and makes a signal; the ropes
+are cut, the raft plunges downward, and disappears forever, while
+the boats recover their proper position."
+
+M. Havard merits the space we have given him; for he describes
+a work the like of which has never been seen elsewhere in the
+world, any more than have the conditions which necessitated it.
+But the picturesqueness of the actual scene can hardly be conveyed
+in words. Under an azure sky we behold outstretched a sparkling
+sea, its waters shading from green to blue and from yellow to
+violet, harmoniously blending. In the distance, as though marking
+the horizon, stretches a long, green strip of land, with the
+spires of the churches standing out in strong relief against the
+sky. At our feet is the Zinkstuk, surrounded by its flotilla.
+The great red sails furled upon the masts, the green poops, the
+rudders sheathed with burnished copper, the red streaks along
+the sides of the boats, the colored shirts, brown vests, and
+blue girdles of the men, touched by the warm rays of the sun,
+compose a striking picture. On all sides the men are in motion,
+and five hundred brawny arms are flinging the contents of the
+boats upon the great raft; a truly Titanic stoning! Projectiles
+rain from all sides without pause, until the moment comes when
+the decisive command is to be given. Then silence, absolute and
+impressive, falls upon the multitude. Suddenly the signal is
+given; a creaking noise is heard; the fifty boats right themselves
+at the same instant, and turn toward the point where the great
+raft which had separated them has just disappeared. They bump
+against one another, they get entangled, they group themselves in
+numberless different ways. The swarming men, stooping and raising
+up, the uplifted arms, the flying stones, the spurting water
+covering the boats with foam; and in the midst of the confusion the
+polder-jungens flinging the clods of earth with giant strength and
+swiftness upon the raft. At certain points the tumult declines;
+flags are hoisted from the tops of masts, the large sails are
+shaken out, and aided by the breeze some vessels get loose, sail
+out, and desert the field of battle. These are they whose task
+is done, and which are empty. They retire one by one upon the
+great expanse of water, which, save in one spot, was a little
+while ago deserted, and is now overspread with the vessels making
+their various ways toward that green line on the horizon.
+
+This is a conflict not of days, nor of years, nor of generations,
+but of all time; and what the end will be none can foretell.
+It is the concrete symbol of the everlasting fight of man with
+nature, which means civilization. The day may come when, where
+once Holland was, will be outspread the serene waters of the
+sea, hiding beneath them the records of the stupendous struggle
+of so many centuries. Or, perhaps, some mysterious shifting of
+the ocean bottom may not only lift Holland out of peril, but
+uncover mighty tracts of land which, in the prehistoric past,
+belonged to Europe. Meanwhile it is easy to understand that the
+people who can wage this ceaseless war for their homes and lives,
+are the sons of those heroes who curbed the might of Spain, and
+taught the world the lessons of freedom and independence.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Holland, by Thomas Colley Grattan
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