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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1578
+#31 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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+Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1578
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+Author: John Lothrop Motley
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+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4831]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1578 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 31
+
+THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1578
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+1855
+
+
+
+
+PART VI.
+
+ALEXANDER OF PARMA
+
+1578-1584.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     Birth, education, marriage, and youthful character of Alexander
+     Farnese--His private adventures--Exploits at Lepanto and at
+     Gemblours--He succeeds to the government--Personal appearance and
+     characteristics--Aspect of affairs--Internal dissensions--Anjou at
+     Mons--John Casimir's intrigues at Ghent--Anjou disbands his
+     soldiers--The Netherlands ravaged by various foreign troops--Anarchy
+     and confusion in Ghent--Imbize and Ryhove--Fate of Hessels and
+     Visch--New Pacification drawn up by Orange--Representations of Queen
+     Elizabeth--Remonstrance of Brussels Riots and image-breaking in
+     Ghent--Displeasure of Orange--His presence implored at Ghent, where
+     he establishes a Religious Peace--Painful situation of John Casimir
+     --Sharp rebukes of Elizabeth--He takes his departure--His troops
+     apply to Farnese, who allows them to leave the country--Anjou's
+     departure and manifesto--Elizabeth's letters to the states-general
+     with regard to him--Complimentary addresses by the Estates to the
+     Duke--Death of Bossu--Calumnies against Orange--Venality of the
+     malcontent grandees--La Motte's treason--Intrigues of the Prior of
+     Renty--Saint Aldegonde at Arras--The Prior of St. Vaast's exertions
+     --Opposition of the clergy in the Walloon provinces to the taxation
+     of the general government--Triangular contest--Municipal revolution
+     in Arras led by Gosson and others--Counter-revolution--Rapid trials
+     and executions--"Reconciliation" of the malcontent chieftains--
+     Secret treaty of Mount St. Eloi: Mischief made by the Prior of
+     Renty--His accusations against the reconciled lords--Vengeance taken
+     upon him--Counter movement by the liberal party--Union of Utrecht--
+     The Act analyzed and characterized.
+
+A fifth governor now stood in the place which had been successively
+vacated by Margaret of Parma, by Alva, by the Grand Commander, and by Don
+John of Austria.  Of all the eminent personages to whom Philip had
+confided the reins of that most difficult and dangerous administration,
+the man who was now to rule was by far the ablest and the best fitted for
+his post.  If there were living charioteer skilful enough to guide the
+wheels of state, whirling now more dizzily than ever through "confusum
+chaos," Alexander Farnese was the charioteer to guide--his hand the only
+one which could control.
+
+He was now in his thirty-third year--his uncle Don John, his cousin Don
+Carlos, and himself, having all been born within a few months of each
+other.  His father was Ottavio Farnese, the faithful lieutenant of
+Charles the Fifth, and grandson of Pope Paul the Third; his mother was
+Margaret of Parma, first Regent of the Netherlands after the departure of
+Philip from the provinces.  He was one of the twins by which the reunion
+of Margaret and her youthful husband had been blessed, and the only one
+that survived.  His great-grandfather, Paul, whose secular name of
+Alexander he had received, had placed his hand upon the new-born infant's
+head, and prophesied that he would grow up to become a mighty warrior.
+The boy, from his earliest years, seemed destined to verify the
+prediction.  Though apt enough at his studies, he turned with impatience
+from his literary tutors to military exercises and the hardiest sports.
+The din of arms surrounded his cradle.  The trophies of Ottavio,
+returning victorious from beyond the Alps, had dazzled the eyes of his
+infancy, and when but six years of age he had witnessed the siege of his
+native Parma, and its vigorous defence by his martial father.  When
+Philip was in the Netherlands--in the years immediately succeeding the
+abdication of the Emperor--he had received the boy from his parents as a
+hostage for their friendship.  Although but eleven years of age,
+Alexander had begged earnestly to be allowed to serve as a volunteer on
+the memorable day of Saint Quentin, and had wept bitterly when the amazed
+monarch refused his request.--His education had been, completed at
+Alcala, and at Madrid, under the immediate supervision of his royal
+uncle, and in the companionship of the Infante Carlos and the brilliant
+Don John.  The imperial bastard was alone able to surpass, or even to
+equal the Italian prince in all martial and manly pursuits.  Both were
+equally devoted to the chase and to the tournay; both longed impatiently
+for the period when the irksome routine of monkish pedantry, and the
+fictitious combats which formed their main recreation, should be
+exchanged for the substantial delights of war.  At the age of twenty he
+had been affianced to Maria of Portugal; daughter of Prince Edward,
+granddaughter of King Emanuel, and his nuptials with that peerless
+princess were; as we have seen, celebrated soon afterwards with much pomp
+in Brussels.  Sons and daughters were born to him in due time, during his
+subsequent residence in Parma.  Here, however, the fiery and impatient
+spirit of the future illustrious commander was doomed for a time to fret
+under restraint, and to corrode in distasteful repose.  His father, still
+in the vigor of his years, governing the family duchies of Parma and
+Piacenza, Alexander had no occupation in the brief period of peace which
+then existed.  The martial spirit, pining for a wide and lofty sphere of
+action, in which alone its energies could be fitly exercised, now sought
+delight in the pursuits of the duellist and gladiator.  Nightly did the
+hereditary prince of the land perambulate the streets of his capital,
+disguised, well armed, alone, or with a single confidential attendant.
+Every chance passenger of martial aspect whom he encountered in the
+midnight streets was forced to stand and measure swords with an unknown,
+almost unseen but most redoubtable foe, and many were the single combats
+which he thus enjoyed, so long as his incognito was preserved.
+Especially, it was his wont to seek and defy every gentleman whose skill
+or bravery had ever been commended in his hearing: At last, upon one
+occasion it was his fortune to encounter a certain Count Torelli, whose
+reputation as a swordsman and duellist was well established in Parma.
+The blades were joined, and the fierce combat had already been engaged in
+the darkness, when the torch of an accidental passenger gashed full in
+the face of Alexander.  Torelli, recognising thus suddenly his
+antagonist, dropped his sword and implored forgiveness, for the wily
+Italian was too keen not to perceive that even if the death of neither
+combatant should be the result of the fray, his own position was, in
+every event, a false one.  Victory would ensure him the hatred, defeat
+the contempt of his future sovereign.  The unsatisfactory issue and
+subsequent notoriety of this encounter put a termination to these
+midnight joys of Alexander, and for a season he felt obliged to assume
+more pacific habits, and to solace himself with the society of that
+"phoenix of Portugal," who had so long sat brooding on his domestic
+hearth.
+
+At last the holy league was formed, the new and last crusade proclaimed,
+his uncle and bosom friend appointed to the command of the united troops
+of Rome, Spain, and Venice.  He could no longer be restrained.
+Disdaining the pleadings of his mother and of his spouse, he extorted
+permission from Philip, and flew to the seat of war in the Levant.  Don
+John received him with open arms, just before the famous action of
+Lepanto, and gave him an, excellent position in the very front of the
+battle, with the command of several Genoese galleys.  Alexander's
+exploits on that eventful day seemed those of a fabulous hero of romance.
+He laid his galley alongside of the treasure-ship of the Turkish fleet, a
+vessel, on account of its importance, doubly manned and armed.  Impatient
+that the Crescent was not lowered, after a few broadsides, he sprang on
+board the enemy alone, waving an immense two-handed sword--his usual
+weapon--and mowing a passage right and left through the hostile ranks for
+the warriors who tardily followed the footsteps of their vehement chief.
+Mustapha Bey, the treasurer and commander of the ship, fell before his
+sword, besides many others, whom he hardly saw or counted.  The galley
+was soon his own, as well as another, which came to the rescue of the
+treasure-ship only to share its defeat.  The booty which Alexander's crew
+secured was prodigious, individual soldiers obtaining two and three
+thousand ducats each.  Don John received his nephew after the battle with
+commendations, not, however, unmingled with censure.  The successful
+result alone had justified such insane and desperate conduct, for had he
+been slain or overcome, said the commander-in-chief, there would have
+been few to applaud his temerity.  Alexander gaily replied by assuring
+his uncle that he had felt sustained by a more than mortal confidence,
+the prayers which his saintly wife was incessantly offering in his behalf
+since he went to the wars being a sufficient support and shield in even
+greater danger than he had yet confronted.
+
+This was Alexander's first campaign, nor was he permitted to reap any
+more glory for a few succeeding years.  At last, Philip was disposed to
+send both his mother and himself to the Netherlands; removing Don John
+from the rack where he had been enduring such slow torture.  Granvelle's
+intercession proved fruitless with the Duchess, but Alexander was all
+eagerness to go where blows were passing current, and he gladly led the
+reinforcements which were sent to Don John at the close of the year 1577.
+He had reached Luxemburg, on the 18th of December of that year, in time,
+as we have seen, to participate, and, in fact, to take the lead in the
+signal victory of Gemblours.  He had been struck with the fatal change
+which disappointment and anxiety had wrought upon the beautiful and
+haughty features of his illustrious kinsman.  He had since closed his
+eyes in the camp, and erected a marble tablet over his heart in the
+little church.  He now governed in his stead.
+
+His personal appearance corresponded with his character.  He had the head
+of a gladiator, round; compact, combative, with something alert and
+snake-like in its movements.  The black, closely-shorn hair was erect and
+bristling.  The forehead was lofty and narrow.  The features were,
+handsome, the nose regularly aquiline, the eyes well opened, dark
+piercing, but with something dangerous and sinister in their expression.
+There was an habitual look askance; as of a man seeking to parry or
+inflict a mortal blow--the look of a swordsman and professional fighter.
+The lower part of the face was swallowed in a bushy beard; the mouth and
+chin being quite invisible.  He was of middle stature, well formed, and
+graceful in person, princely in demeanor, sumptuous and stately in
+apparel.  His high ruff of point lace, his badge of the Golden Fleece,
+his gold-inlaid Milan armor, marked him at once as one of high degree.
+On the field of battle he possessed the rare gift of inspiring his
+soldiers with his own impetuous and chivalrous courage.  He ever led the
+way upon the most dangerous and desperate ventures, and, like his uncle
+and his imperial grandfather, well knew how to reward the devotion of his
+readiest followers with a poniard, a feather, a riband, a jewel, taken
+with his own hands from his own attire.
+
+His military, abilities--now for the first time to be largely called into
+employment--were unquestionably superior to those of Don John; whose name
+had been surrounded with such splendor by the World-renowned battle of
+Lepanto.  Moreover, he possessed far greater power for governing men,
+whether in camp or cabinet.  Less attractive and fascinating, he was more
+commanding than his kinsman.  Decorous and self-poised, he was only
+passionate before the enemy, but he rarely permitted a disrespectful look
+or word to escape condign and deliberate chastisement.  He was no schemer
+or dreamer.  He was no knight errant.  He would not have crossed seas and
+mountains to rescue a captive queen, nor have sought to place her crown
+on his own head as a reward for his heroism.  He had a single and
+concentrated kind of character.  He knew precisely the work which Philip
+required, and felt himself to be precisely the workman that had so long
+been wanted.  Cool, incisive, fearless, artful, he united the
+unscrupulous audacity of a condottiere with the wily patience of a
+Jesuit.  He could coil unperceived through unsuspected paths, could
+strike suddenly, sting mortally.  He came prepared, not only to smite the
+Netherlanders in the open field, but to cope with them in tortuous
+policy; to outwatch and outweary them in the game to which his impatient
+predecessor had fallen a baked victim.  He possessed the art and the
+patience--as time was to prove--not only to undermine their most
+impregnable cities, but to delve below the intrigues of their most
+accomplished politicians.  To circumvent at once both their negotiators
+and their men-at-arms was his appointed task.  Had it not been for the
+courage, the vigilance, and the superior intellect of a single
+antagonist, the whole of the Netherlands would have shared the fate which
+was reserved for the more southern portion.  Had the life of William of
+Orange been prolonged, perhaps the evil genius of the Netherlands might
+have still been exorcised throughout the whole extent of the country.
+As for religion, Alexander Farnese was, of course, strictly Catholic,
+regarding all seceders from Romanism as mere heathen dogs.  Not that he
+practically troubled himself much with sacred matters--for, during the
+life-time of his wife, he had cavalierly thrown the whole burden of his
+personal salvation upon her saintly shoulders.  She had now flown to
+higher spheres, but Alexander was, perhaps, willing to rely upon her
+continued intercessions in his behalf.  The life of a bravo in time of
+peace--the deliberate project in war to exterminate whole cities full of
+innocent people, who had different notions on the subject of image-
+worship and ecclesiastical ceremonies from those entertained at Rome, did
+not seem to him at all incompatible with the precepts of Jesus.  Hanging,
+drowning, burning and butchering heretics were the legitimate deductions
+of his theology.  He was no casuist nor pretender to holiness: but in
+those days every man was devout, and Alexander looked with honest horror
+upon the impiety of the heretics, whom he persecuted and massacred.  He
+attended mass regularly--in the winter mornings by torch-light--and would
+as soon have foregone his daily tennis as his religious exercises.
+Romanism was the creed of his caste.  It was the religion of princes and
+gentlemen of high degree.  As for Lutheranism, Zwinglism, Calvinism, and
+similar systems, they were but the fantastic rites of weavers, brewers,
+and the like--an ignoble herd whose presumption in entitling themselves
+Christian, while rejecting the Pope; called for their instant
+extermination.  His personal habits were extremely temperate.  He was
+accustomed to say that he ate only to support life; and he rarely
+finished a dinner without having risen three or four times from table to
+attend to some public business which, in his opinion, ought not to be
+deferred.
+
+His previous connections in the Netherlands were of use to him, and he
+knew how to turn them to immediate account.  The great nobles, who had
+been uniformly actuated by jealousy of the Prince of Orange, who had been
+baffled in their intrigue with Matthias, whose half-blown designs upon
+Anjou had already been nipped in the bud, were now peculiarly in a
+position to listen to the wily tongue of Alexander Farnese.  The
+Montignys, the La Mottes, the Meluns, the Egmonts, the Aerschots, the
+Havres, foiled and doubly foiled in all their small intrigues and their
+base ambition, were ready to sacrifice their country to the man they
+hated, and to the ancient religion which they thought that they loved.
+The Malcontents ravaging the land of Hainault and threatening Ghent, the
+"Paternoster Jacks" who were only waiting for a favorable opportunity and
+a good bargain to make their peace with Spain, were the very instruments
+which Parma most desired to use at this opening stage of his career.  The
+position of affairs was far more favorable for him than it had been for
+Don John when he first succeeded to power.  On the whole, there seemed
+a bright prospect of success.  It seemed quite possible that it would be
+in Parma's power to reduce, at last, this chronic rebellion, and to
+reestablish the absolute supremacy of Church and King.  The pledges of
+the Ghent treaty had been broken, while in the unions of Brussels which
+had succeeded, the fatal religious cause had turned the instrument of
+peace into a sword.  The "religion-peace" which had been proclaimed at
+Antwerp had hardly found favor anywhere.  As the provinces, for an
+instant, had seemingly got the better of their foe, they turned madly
+upon each other, and the fires of religious discord, which had been
+extinguished by the common exertions of a whole race trembling for the
+destruction of their fatherland, were now re-lighted with a thousand
+brands plucked from the sacred domestic hearth.  Fathers and children,
+brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, were beginning to wrangle, and
+were prepared to persecute.  Catholic and Protestant, during the
+momentary relief from pressure, forgot their voluntary and most blessed
+Pacification, to renew their internecine feuds.  The banished Reformers,
+who had swarmed back in droves at the tidings of peace and good-will to
+all men, found themselves bitterly disappointed.  They were exposed in
+the Walloon provinces to the persecutions of the Malcontents, in the
+Frisian regions to the still powerful coercion of the royal stadholders.
+
+Persecution begat counter-persecution.  The city of Ghent became the
+centre of a system of insurrection, by which all the laws of God and man
+were outraged under the pretence of establishing a larger liberty in
+civil and religious matters.  It was at Ghent that the opening scenes,
+in Parma's administration took place.  Of the high-born suitors for the
+Netherland bride, two were still watching each other with jealous eyes.
+Anjou was at Mons, which city he had secretly but unsuccessfully
+attempted to master for, his, own purposes.  John Casimir was at Ghent,
+fomenting an insurrection which he had neither skill to guide, nor
+intelligence to comprehend.  There was a talk of making him Count of
+Flanders,--and his paltry ambition was dazzled by the glittering prize.
+Anjou, who meant to be Count of Flanders himself, as well as Duke or
+Count of all the other Netherlands, was highly indignant at this report,
+which he chose to consider true.  He wrote to the estates to express his
+indignation.  He wrote to Ghent to offer his mediation between the
+burghers and the Malcontents.  Casimir wanted money for his troops.  He
+obtained a liberal supply, but he wanted more.  Meantime, the mercenaries
+were expatiating on their own account throughout the southern provinces;
+eating up every green leaf, robbing and pillaging, where robbery and
+pillage had gone so often that hardly anything was left for rapine.  Thus
+dealt the soldiers in the open country, while their master at Ghent was
+plunging into the complicated intrigues spread over that unfortunate city
+by the most mischievous demagogues that ever polluted a sacred cause.
+Well had Cardinal Granvelle, his enemy, William of Hesse, his friend and
+kinsman, understood the character of John Casimir.  Robbery and pillage
+were his achievements, to make chaos more confounded was his destiny.
+Anjou--disgusted with the temporary favor accorded to a rival whom he
+affected to despise--disbanded his troops in dudgeon, and prepared to
+retire to France.  Several thousand of these mercenaries took service
+immediately with the Malcontents under Montigny, thus swelling the ranks
+of the deadliest foes to that land over which Anjou had assumed the title
+of protector.  The states' army, meanwhile, had been rapidly dissolving.
+There were hardly men enough left to make a demonstration in the field,
+or properly to garrison the more important towns.  The unhappy provinces,
+torn by civil and religious dissensions, were overrun by hordes of unpaid
+soldiers of all nations, creeds, and tongues-Spaniards, Italians,
+Burgundians, Walloons, Germans, Scotch and English; some who came to
+attack and others to protect, but who all achieved nothing and agreed in
+nothing save to maltreat and to outrage the defenceless peasantry and
+denizens of the smaller towns.  The contemporary chronicles are full of
+harrowing domestic tragedies, in which the actors are always the insolent
+foreign soldiery and their desperate victims.
+
+Ghent energetic, opulent, powerful, passionate, unruly Ghent--was now the
+focus of discord, the centre from whence radiated not the light and
+warmth of reasonable and intelligent liberty, but the bale-fires of
+murderous licence and savage anarchy.  The second city of the
+Netherlands, one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities of
+Christendom, it had been its fate so often to overstep the bounds of
+reason and moderation in its devotion to freedom, so often to incur
+ignominious chastisement from power which its own excesses had made more
+powerful, that its name was already becoming a bye-word.  It now, most
+fatally and for ever, was to misunderstand its true position.  The Prince
+of Orange, the great architect of his country's fortunes, would have made
+it the keystone of the arch which he was laboring to construct.  Had he
+been allowed to perfect his plan, the structure might have endured for
+ages, a perpetual bulwark against, tyranny and wrong.  The temporary and
+slender frame by which the great artist had supported his arch while
+still unfinished, was plucked away by rude and ribald hands; the keystone
+plunged into the abyss, to be lost for ever, and the great work of Orange
+remained a fragment from its commencement.  The acts of demagogues, the
+conservative disgust at licence, the jealousy of rival nobles, the
+venality of military leaders, threw daily fresh stumbling-blocks in his
+heroic path.  It was not six months after the advent of Farnese to power,
+before that bold and subtle chieftain had seized the double-edged sword
+of religious dissension as firmly as he had grasped his celebrated brand
+when he boarded the galley of Muatapha Bey, and the Netherlands were cut
+in twain, to be re-united nevermore.  The separate treaty of the Walloon
+provinces was soon destined to separate the Celtic and Romanesque
+elements from the Batavian and Frisian portion of a nationality, which;
+thoroughly fused in all its parts, would have formed as admirable a
+compound of fire and endurance as history has ever seen.
+
+Meantime, the grass was growing and the cattle were grazing in the
+streets of Ghent, where once the tramp of workmen going to and from their
+labor was like the movement of a mighty army.  The great majority of the
+burghers were of the Reformed religion, and disposed to make effectual
+resistance to the Malcontents, led by the disaffected nobles.  The city,
+considering itself the natural head of all the southern country, was
+indignant that the Walloon provinces should dare to reassert that
+supremacy of Romanism which had been so effectually suppressed, and to
+admit the possibility of friendly relations with a sovereign who had been
+virtually disowned.  There were two parties, however, in Ghent.  Both
+were led by men of abandoned and dangerous character.  Imbize, the worse
+of the two demagogues, was inconstant, cruel, cowardly, and treacherous,
+but possessed of eloquence and a talent for intrigue.  Ryhove was a
+bolder ruffian--wrathful, bitter, and unscrupulous.  Imbize was at the
+time opposed to Orange, disliking his moderation, and trembling at his
+firmness.  Ryhove considered himself the friend of the Prince.  We have
+seen that he had consulted him previously to his memorable attack upon
+Aerschot, in the autumn of the preceding year, and we know the result of
+that conference.
+
+The Prince, with the slight dissimulation which belonged less to his
+character than to his theory of politics, and which was perhaps not to be
+avoided, in that age of intrigue, by any man who would govern his fellow-
+men, whether for good or evil, had winked at a project which he would not
+openly approve.  He was not thoroughly acquainted, however, with the
+desperate character of the man, for he would have scorned an instrument
+so thoroughly base as Ryhove subsequently proved. The violence of that
+personage on the occasion of the arrest of Aerschot and his colleagues
+was mildness compared with the deed with which he now disgraced the cause
+of freedom.  He had been ordered out from Ghent to oppose a force of
+Malcontents which was gathering in the neighbourhood of Courtray; but he
+swore that he would not leave the gates so long as two of the gentlemen
+whom he had arrested on the twenty-eighth of the previous October, and
+who yet remained in captivity, were still alive.  These two prisoners
+were ex-procurator Visch and Blood-Councillor Hessels.  Hessels, it
+seemed, had avowed undying hostility to Ryhove for the injury sustained
+at his hands, and he had sworn, "by his grey beard," that the ruffian
+should yet hang for the outrage.  Ryhove, not feeling very safe in the
+position of affairs which then existed, and knowing that he could neither
+trust Imbize, who had formerly been his friend, nor the imprisoned
+nobles, who had ever been his implacable enemies, was resolved to make
+himself safe in one quarter at least, before he set forth against the
+Malcontents.  Accordingly, Hessels and Visch, as they sat together in
+their prison, at chess, upon the 4th of October, 1578, were suddenly
+summoned to leave the house, and to enter a carriage which stood at the
+door.  A force of armed men brought the order, and were sufficiently
+strong to enforce it.  The prisoners obeyed, and the coach soon rolled
+slowly through the streets, left the Courtray gate, and proceeded a short
+distance along the road towards that city.
+
+After a few minutes a halt was made.  Ryhove then made his appearance at
+the carriage-window, and announced to the astonished prisoners that, they
+were forthwith to be hanged upon a tree which stood by the road-side.  He
+proceeded to taunt the aged Hessels with his threat against himself, and
+with his vow "by his grey beard."  "Such grey beard shalt thou never live
+thyself to wear, ruffian," cried Hessels, stoutly-furious rather than
+terrified at the suddenness of his doom.  "There thou liest, false
+traitor!"  roared Ryhove in reply; and to prove the falsehood, he
+straightway tore out a handful of the old man's beard, and fastened it
+upon his own cap like a plume.  His action was imitated by several of his
+companions, who cut for themselves locks from the same grey beard, and
+decorated themselves as their leader had done.  This preliminary ceremony
+having been concluded, the two aged prisoners were forthwith hanged on a
+tree, without-the least pretence of trial or even sentence.
+
+Such was the end of the famous councillor who had been wont to shout
+"ad patibulum" in his sleep.  It was cruel that the fair face of civil
+liberty showing itself after years of total eclipse, should be insulted
+by such bloody deeds on the part of her votaries.  It was sad that the
+crimes of men like Imbize and Ryhove should have cost more to the cause
+of religious and political freedom than the lives of twenty thousand such
+ruffians were worth.  But for the influence of demagogues like these,
+counteracting the lofty efforts and pure life of Orange, the separation
+might never have occurred between the two portions of the Netherlands.
+The Prince had not power enough, however, nor the nascent commonwealth
+sufficient consistency, to repress the disorganizing tendency of a
+fanatical Romanism on the one side, and a retaliatory and cruel
+ochlocracy on the other.
+
+Such events, with the hatred growing daily more intense between the
+Walloons and the Ghenters, made it highly important that some kind
+of an accord should be concluded, if possible.  In the country, the
+Malcontents, under pretence of protecting the Catholic clergy, were
+daily abusing and plundering the people, while in Ghent the clergy were
+maltreated, the cloisters pillaged, under the pretence of maintaining
+liberty.  In this emergency the eyes of all honest men turned naturally
+to Orange.
+
+Deputies went to and fro between Antwerp and Ghent, Three points were
+laid down by the Prince as indispensable to any arrangement--firstly,
+that the Catholic clergy should be allowed the free use of their
+property; secondly, that they should not be disturbed in the exercise of
+their religion; thirdly, that the gentlemen kept in prison since the
+memorable twenty-eighth of October should be released.  If these points
+should be granted, the Archduke Matthias, the states-general, and the
+Prince of Orange would agree to drive off the Walloon soldiery, and to
+defend Ghent against all injury.  The two first points were granted, upon
+condition that sufficient guarantees should be established for the safety
+of the Reformed religion.  The third was rejected, but it was agreed that
+the prisoners, Champagny, Sweveghem, and the rest--who, after the horrid
+fate of Hessels and Visch, might be supposed to be sufficiently anxious
+as to their own doom--should have legal trial, and be defended in the
+meantime from outrage.
+
+On the 3rd of November, 1578, a formal act of acceptance of these terms
+was signed at Antwerp.  At the same time, there was murmuring at Ghent,
+the extravagant portion of the liberal party averring that they had no
+intention of establishing the "religious peace" when they agreed not to
+molest the Catholics.  On the 11th of November, the Prince of Orange sent
+messengers to Ghent in the name of the Archduke and the states-general,
+summoning the authorities to a faithful execution of the act of
+acceptance.  Upon the same day the English envoy, Davidson, made an
+energetic representation to the same magistrates, declaring that the
+conduct of the Ghenters was exciting regret throughout the world, and
+affording a proof that it was their object to protract, not suppress, the
+civil war which had so long been raging.  Such proceedings, he observed,
+created doubts whether they were willing to obey any law or any
+magistracy.  As, however, it might be supposed that the presence of John
+Casimir in Ghent at that juncture was authorized by Queen Elizabeth--
+inasmuch as it was known that he had received a subsidy from her--the
+envoy took occasion to declare that her Majesty entirely disavowed his
+proceedings.  He observed further that, in the opinion of her Majesty,
+it was still possible to maintain peace by conforming to the counsels
+of the Prince of Orange and of the states-general.  This, however, could
+be done only by establishing the three points which he had laid down.
+Her Majesty likewise warned the Ghenters that their conduct would soon
+compel her to abandon the country's cause altogether, and, in conclusion,
+she requested, with characteristic thriftiness, to be immediately
+furnished with a city bond for forty-five thousand pounds sterling.
+
+Two days afterwards, envoys arrived from Brussels to remonstrate, in
+their turn, with the sister city, and to save her, if possible, from the
+madness which had seized upon her.  They recalled to the memory of the
+magistrates the frequent and wise counsels of the Prince of Orange.  He
+had declared that he knew of no means to avert the impending desolation
+of the fatherland save union of all the provinces and obedience to the
+general government.  His own reputation, and the honor of his house, he
+felt now to be at stake; for, by reason of the offices which he now held,
+he had been ceaselessly calumniated as the author of all the crimes which
+had been committed at Ghent.  Against these calumnies he had avowed his
+intention of publishing his defence.  After thus citing the opinion of
+the Prince, the envoys implored the magistrates to accept the religious
+peace which he had proposed, and to liberate the prisoners as he had
+demanded.  For their own part, they declared that the inhabitants of
+Brussels would never desert him; for, next to God, there was no one who
+understood their cause so entirely, or who could point out the remedy so
+intelligently.
+
+Thus reasoned the envoys from the states-general and from Brussels, but
+even while they were reasoning, a fresh tumult occurred at Ghent.  The
+people had been inflamed by demagogues, and by the insane howlings of
+Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, who had been the
+servant and minister both of the Pope and of Orange, and who now hated
+each with equal fervor.  The populace, under these influences, rose in
+its wrath upon the Catholics, smote all their images into fragments,
+destroyed all their altar pictures, robbed them of much valuable
+property, and turned all the Papists themselves out of the city.  The
+riot was so furious that it seemed, says a chronicler, as if all the
+inhabitants had gone raving mad.  The drums beat the alarm, the
+magistrates went forth to expostulate, but no commands were heeded till
+the work of destruction had been accomplished, when the tumult expired at
+last by its own limitation.
+
+Affairs seemed more threatening than ever.  Nothing more excited the
+indignation of the Prince of Orange than such senseless iconomachy.  In
+fact, he had at one time procured an enactment by the Ghent authorities,
+making it a crime punishable with death.  He was of Luther's opinion,
+that idol-worship was to be eradicated from the heart, and that then the
+idols in the churches would fall of themselves.  He felt too with
+Landgrave William, that "the destruction of such worthless idols was ever
+avenged by torrents of good human blood."  Therefore it may be well
+supposed that this fresh act of senseless violence, in the very teeth of
+his remonstrances, in the very presence of his envoys, met with his stern
+disapprobation.  He was on the point of publishing his defence against
+the calumnies which his toleration had drawn upon him from both Catholic
+and Calvinist.  He was deeply revolving the question, whether it were not
+better to turn his back at once upon a country which seemed so incapable
+of comprehending his high purposes, or seconding his virtuous efforts.
+From both projects he was dissuaded; and although bitterly wronged by
+both friend and foe, although, feeling that even in his own Holland,
+there were whispers against his purity, since his favorable inclinations
+towards Anjou had become the general topic, yet he still preserved his
+majestic tranquillity, and smiled at the arrows which fell harmless at
+his feet.  "I admire his wisdom, daily more and more," cried Hubert
+Languet; "I see those who profess themselves his friends causing him more
+annoyance than his foes; while, nevertheless, he ever remains true to
+himself, is driven by no tempests from his equanimity, nor provoked by
+repeated injuries to immoderate action."
+
+The Prince had that year been chosen unanimously by the four "members"
+of Flanders to be governor of that province, but had again declined the
+office.  The inhabitants, notwithstanding the furious transactions at
+Ghent, professed attachment to his person, and respect for his authority.
+He was implored to go to the city.  His presence, and that alone, would
+restore the burghers to their reason, but the task was not a grateful
+one.  It was also not unattended with danger; although this was a
+consideration which never influenced him, from the commencement of his
+career to its close.  Imbize and his crew were capable of resorting to
+any extremity or any ambush; to destroy the man whom they feared and
+hated.  The presence of John Casimir was an additional complication; for
+Orange, while he despised the man, was unwilling to offend his friends.
+Moreover, Casimir had professed a willingness to assist the cause, and
+to, defer to the better judgment of the Prince: He had brought an army
+into the field, with which, however, he had accomplished nothing except a
+thorough pillaging of the peasantry, while, at the same time, he was loud
+in his demands upon the states to pay his soldiers' wages.  The soldiers
+of the different armies who now overran the country, indeed, vied with
+each other in extravagant insolence.  "Their outrages are most
+execrable," wrote Marquis Havre; "they demand the most exquisite food,
+and drink Champagne and Burgundy by the bucketfull."  Nevertheless, on
+the 4th of December, the Prince came to Ghent.  He held constant and
+anxious conferences with the magistrates.  He was closeted daily with
+John Casimir, whose vanity and extravagance of temper he managed with
+his usual skill.  He even dined with Imbue, and thus, by smoothing
+difficulties and reconciling angry passions, he succeeded at last in
+obtaining the consent of all to a religious peace, which was published on
+the 27th of December, 1578.  It contained the same provisions as those of
+the project prepared and proposed during the previous summer throughout
+the Netherlands.  Exercise of both religions was established; mutual
+insults and irritations--whether by word, book, picture, song, or
+gesture--were prohibited, under severe penalties, while all persons were
+sworn to protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life.  The
+Catholics, by virtue of this accord, re-entered into possession of their
+churches and cloisters, but nothing could be obtained in favor of the
+imprisoned gentlemen.
+
+The Walloons and Malcontents were now summoned to lay down their arms;
+but, as might be supposed, they expressed dissatisfaction with the
+religious peace, proclaiming it hostile to the Ghent treaty and the
+Brussels union.  In short, nothing would satisfy them but total
+suppression of the Reformed religion; as nothing would content Imbize
+and his faction but the absolute extermination of Romanism.  A strong
+man might well seem powerless in the midst of such obstinate and
+worthless fanatics.
+
+The arrival of the Prince in Ghent was, on the whole, a relief to John
+Casimir.  As usual, this addle-brained individual had plunged headlong
+into difficulties, out of which he was unable to extricate himself.  He
+knew not what to do, or which way to turn.  He had tampered with Imbue
+and his crew, but he had found that they were not the men for a person of
+his quality to deal with.  He had brought a large army into the field,
+and had not a stiver in his coffers.  He felt bitterly the truth of the
+Landgrave's warning--"that 'twas better to have thirty thousand devils at
+one's back than thirty thousand German troopers, with no money to give
+them;" it being possible to pay the devils with the sign of the cross,
+while the soldiers could be discharged only with money or hard knocks.
+Queen Elizabeth, too, under whose patronage he had made this most
+inglorious campaign, was incessant in her reproofs, and importunate in
+her demands for reimbursement.  She wrote to him personally, upbraiding
+him with his high pretensions and his shortcomings.  His visit to Ghent,
+so entirely unjustified and mischievous; his failure to effect that
+junction of his army with the states' force under Bossu, by which the
+royal army was to have been surprised and annihilated; his having given
+reason to the common people to suspect her Majesty and the Prince of
+Orange of collusion with his designs, and of a disposition to seek their
+private advantage and not the general good of the whole Netherlands; the
+imminent danger, which he had aggravated, that the Walloon provinces,
+actuated by such suspicions, would fall away from the "generality" and
+seek a private accord with Parma; these and similar sins of omission and
+commission were sharply and shrewishly set forth in the Queen's epistle.
+'Twas not for such marauding and intriguing work that she had appointed
+him her lieutenant, and furnished him with troops and subsidies.  She
+begged him forthwith to amend his ways, for the sake of his name and
+fame, which were sufficiently soiled in the places where his soldiers had
+been plundering the country which they came to protect.
+
+The Queen sent Daniel Rogers with instructions of similar import to the
+states-general, repeatedly and expressly disavowing Casimir's proceedings
+and censuring his character.  She also warmly insisted on her bonds.
+In short, never was unlucky prince more soundly berated by his superiors,
+more thoroughly disgraced by his followers.  In this contemptible
+situation had Casimir placed himself by his rash ambition to prove before
+the world that German princes could bite and scratch like griffins and
+tigers as well as carry them in their shields.  From this position Orange
+partly rescued him.  He made his peace with the states-general.  He
+smoothed matters with the extravagant Reformers, and he even extorted
+from the authorities of Ghent the forty-five thousand pounds bond, on
+which Elizabeth had insisted with such obduracy.  Casimir repaid these
+favors of the Prince in the coin with which narrow minds and jealous
+tempers are apt to discharge such obligations--ingratitude.  The
+friendship which he openly manifested at first grew almost immediately
+cool.  Soon afterwards he left Ghent and departed for Germany, leaving
+behind him a long and tedious remonstrance, addressed to the states-
+general, in which document he narrated the history of his exploits, and
+endeavored to vindicate the purity of his character.  He concluded this
+very tedious and superfluous manifesto by observing that--for reasons
+which he thought proper to give at considerable length--he felt himself
+"neither too useful nor too agreeable to the provinces."  As he had been
+informed, he said, that the states-general had requested the Queen of
+England to procure his departure, he had resolved, in order to spare her
+and them inconvenience, to return of his own accord, "leaving the issue
+of the war in the high and mighty hand of God."
+
+The estates answered this remonstrance with words of unlimited courtesy;
+expressing themselves "obliged to all eternity" for his services, and
+holding out vague hopes that the monies which he demanded on behalf of
+his troops should ere long be forthcoming.
+
+Casimir having already answered Queen Elizabeth's reproachful letter by
+throwing the blame of his apparent misconduct upon the states-general,
+and having promised soon to appear before her Majesty in person, tarried
+accordingly but a brief season in Germany, and then repaired to England.
+Here he was feasted, flattered, caressed, and invested with the order of
+the Garter.  Pleased with royal blandishments, and highly enjoying the
+splendid hospitalities of England he quite forgot the "thirty thousand
+devils" whom he had left running loose in the Netherlands, while these
+wild soldiers, on their part, being absolutely in a starving condition
+--for there was little left for booty in a land which had been so often
+plundered--now had the effrontery to apply to the Prince of Parma for
+payment of their wages.  Alexander Farnese laughed heartily at the
+proposition, which he considered an excellent jest.  It seemed in truth,
+a jest, although but a sorry one.  Parma replied to the messenger of
+Maurice of Saxony who had made the proposition, that the Germans must be
+mad to ask him for money, instead of offering to pay him, a heavy sum for
+permission to leave the country.  Nevertheless, he was willing to be so
+far indulgent as to furnish them with passports, provided they departed
+from the Netherlands instantly.  Should they interpose the least delay,
+he would set upon them without further preface, and he gave them notice,
+with the arrogance becoming a Spanish general; that the courier was
+already waiting to report to Spain the number of them left alive after
+the encounter.  Thus deserted by their chief, and hectored by the enemy,
+the mercenaries, who had little stomach for fight without wages, accepted
+the passports proffered by Parma.  They revenged themselves for the harsh
+treatment which they had received from Casimir and from the states-
+general, by singing, everywhere as they retreated, a doggerel ballad
+--half Flemish, half German--in which their wrongs were expressed with
+uncouth vigor.
+
+Casimir received the news of the departure of his ragged soldiery on the
+very day which witnessed his investment with the Garter by the fair hands
+of Elizabeth herself.   A few days afterwards he left England,
+accompanied by an escort of lords and gentlemen, especially appointed for
+that purpose by the Queen.  He landed in Flushing, where he was received
+with distinguished hospitality, by order of the Prince of Orange, and on
+the 14th of February, 1579, he passed through Utrecht.  Here he conversed
+freely at his lodgings in the "German House" on the subject of his
+vagabond troops, whose final adventures and departure seemed to afford
+him considerable amusement; and he, moreover, diverted his company by
+singing, after supper, a few verses of the ballad already mentioned.
+
+     O, have you been in Brabant, fighting for the states?
+     O, have you brought back anything except your broken pates?
+     O, I have been in Brabant, myself and all my mates.
+     We'll go no more to Brabant, unless our brains were addle,
+     We're coming home on foot, we went there in the saddle;
+     For there's neither gold nor glory got, in fighting for the states.
+
+The Duke of Anjou, meantime, after disbanding his troops, had lingered
+for a while near the frontier.  Upon taking his final departure, he sent
+his resident minister, Des Pruneaux, with a long communication to the
+states-general, complaining that they had not published their contract
+with himself, nor fulfilled its conditions.  He excused, as well as he
+could, the awkward fact that his disbanded troops had taken refuge with
+the Walloons, and he affected to place his own departure upon the ground
+of urgent political business in France, to arrange which his royal
+brother had required his immediate attendance.  He furthermore most
+hypocritically expressed a desire for a speedy reconciliation of the
+provinces with their sovereign, and a resolution that--although for their
+sake he had made himself a foe to his Catholic Majesty--he would still
+interpose no obstacle to so desirable a result.
+
+To such shallow discourse the states answered with infinite urbanity,
+for it was the determination of Orange not to make enemies, at that
+juncture, of France and England in the same breath.  They had foes enough
+already, and it seemed obvious at that moment, to all persons most
+observant of the course of affairs, that a matrimonial alliance was soon
+to unite the two crowns.  The probability of Anjou's marriage with
+Elizabeth was, in truth, a leading motive with Orange for his close
+alliance with the Duke.  The political structure, according to which he
+had selected the French Prince as protector of the Netherlands, was
+sagaciously planned; but unfortunately its foundation was the shifting
+sandbank of female and royal coquetry.  Those who judge only by the
+result, will be quick to censure a policy which might have had very
+different issue.  They who place themselves in the period anterior to
+Anjou's visit to England, will admit that it was hardly human not to be
+deceived by the apolitical aspects of that moment.  The Queen, moreover,
+took pains to upbraid the states-general, by letter, with their
+disrespect and ingratitude towards the Duke of Anjou--behaviour with
+which he had been "justly scandalized."  For her own part, she assured
+them of her extreme displeasure at learning that such a course of conduct
+had been held with a view to her especial contentment--"as if the person
+of Monsieur, son of France, brother of the King, were disagreeable to
+her, or as if she wished him ill;" whereas, on the contrary, they would
+best satisfy her wishes by showing him all the courtesy to which his high
+degree and his eminent services entitled him.
+
+The estates, even before receiving this letter, had, however, acted in
+its spirit.  They had addressed elaborate apologies and unlimited
+professions to the Duke.  They thanked him heartily for his achievements,
+expressed unbounded regret at his departure, with sincere hopes for his
+speedy return, and promised "eternal remembrance" of his heroic virtues.
+They assured him, moreover, that should the first of the following March
+arrive without bringing with it an honorable peace with his Catholic
+Majesty, they should then feel themselves compelled to declare that the
+King had forfeited his right to the sovereignty of these provinces.  In
+this case they concluded that, as the inhabitants would be then absolved
+from their allegiance to the Spanish monarch, it would then be in their
+power to treat with his Highness of Anjou concerning the sovereignty,
+according to the contract already existing.
+
+These assurances were ample, but the states, knowing the vanity of the
+man, offered other inducements, some of which seemed sufficiently
+puerile.  They promised that "his statue, in copper, should be placed in
+the public squares of Antwerp and Brussels, for the eternal admiration of
+posterity," and that a "crown of olive-leaves should be presented to him
+every year."  The Duke--not inexorable to such courteous solicitations--
+was willing to achieve both immortality and power by continuing his
+friendly relations with the states, and he answered accordingly in the
+most courteous terms.  The result of this interchange of civilities it
+will be soon our duty to narrate.
+
+At the close of the year the Count of Bossu died, much to the regret of
+the Prince of Orange, whose party--since his release from prison by
+virtue of the Ghent treaty--he had warmly espoused.  "We are in the
+deepest distress in the world," wrote the Prince to his brother, three
+days before the Count's death, "for the dangerous malady of M. de Bossu.
+Certainly, the country has much to lose in his death, but I hope that God
+will not so much afflict us."  Yet the calumniators of the day did not
+scruple to circulate, nor the royalist chroniclers to perpetuate, the
+most senseless and infamous fables on the subject of this nobleman's
+death.  He died of poison, they said, administered to him "in oysters,"
+by command of the Prince of Orange, who had likewise made a point of
+standing over him on his death-bed, for the express purpose of sneering
+at the Catholic ceremonies by which his dying agonies were solaced.  Such
+were the tales which grave historians have recorded concerning the death
+of Maximilian of Bossu, who owed so much to the Prince.  The command of
+the states' army, a yearly pension of five thousand florins, granted at
+the especial request of Orange but a few months before, and the profound
+words of regret in the private letter jest cited, are a sufficient answer
+to such slanders.
+
+The personal courage and profound military science of Parma were
+invaluable to the royal cause; but his subtle, unscrupulous, and
+subterranean combinations of policy were even more fruitful at this
+period.  No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly
+or practised it more skillfully.  He bought a politician, or a general,
+or a grandee, or a regiment of infantry, usually at the cheapest price
+at which those articles could be purchased, and always with the utmost
+delicacy with which such traffic could be conducted.  Men conveyed
+themselves to government for a definite price--fixed accurately in
+florins and groats, in places and pensions--while a decent gossamer
+of conventional phraseology was ever allowed to float over the nakedness
+of unblushing treason.  Men high in station, illustrious by ancestry,
+brilliant in valor, huckstered themselves, and swindled a confiding
+country for as ignoble motives as ever led counterfeiters or bravoes to
+the gallows, but they were dealt with in public as if actuated only by
+the loftiest principles.  Behind their ancient shields, ostentatiously
+emblazoned with fidelity to church and king, they thrust forth their
+itching palms with the mendicity which would be hardly credible, were it
+not attested by the monuments more perennial than brass, of their own
+letters and recorded conversations.
+
+Already, before the accession of Parma to power, the true way to dissever
+the provinces had been indicated by the famous treason of the Seigneur de
+la Motte.  This nobleman commanded a regiment in the service of the
+states-general, and was Governor of Gravelines.  On promise of
+forgiveness for all past disloyalty, of being continued in the same
+military posts under Philip which he then held for the patriots, and of a
+"merced" large enough to satisfy his most avaricious dreams, he went over
+to the royal government.  The negotiation was conducted by Alonzo Curiel,
+financial agent of the King, and was not very nicely handled.  The
+paymaster, looking at the affair purely as a money transaction--which in
+truth it was--had been disposed to drive rather too hard a bargain.  He
+offered only fifty thousand crowns for La Motte and his friend Baron
+Montigny, and assured his government that those gentlemen, with the
+soldiers under their command, were very dear at the price.  La Motte
+higgled very hard for more, and talked pathetically of his services and
+his wounds--for he had been a most distinguished and courageous
+campaigner--but Alonzo was implacable.  Moreover, one Robert Bien-Aime,
+Prior of Renty, was present at all the conferences.  This ecclesiastic
+was a busy intriguer, but not very adroit.  He was disposed to make
+himself useful to government, for he had set his heart upon putting the
+mitre of Saint Omer upon his head, and he had accordingly composed a very
+ingenious libel upon the Prince of Orange, in which production, "although
+the Prior did not pretend to be Apelles or Lysippus," he hoped that the
+Governor-General would recognize a portrait colored to the life.  This
+accomplished artist was, however, not so successful as he was picturesque
+and industrious.  He was inordinately vain of his services, thinking
+himself, said Alonzo, splenetically, worthy to be carried in a procession
+like a little saint, and as he had a busy brain, but an unruly tongue,
+it will be seen that he possessed a remarkable faculty of making himself
+unpleasant.  This was not the way to earn his bishopric.  La Motte,
+through the candid communications of the Prior, found himself the subject
+of mockery in Parma's camp and cabinet, where treachery to one's country
+and party was not, it seemed, regarded as one of the loftier virtues,
+however convenient it might be at the moment to the royal cause.  The
+Prior intimated especially that Ottavio Gonzaga had indulged in many
+sarcastic remarks at La Motte's expense.  The brave but venal warrior,
+highly incensed at thus learning the manner in which his conduct was
+estimated by men of such high rank in the royal service, was near
+breaking off the bargain.  He was eventually secured, however, by still
+larger offers--Don John allowing him three hundred florins a month,
+presenting him with the two best horses in his stable, and sending him an
+open form, which he was to fill out in the most stringent language which
+he could devise, binding the government to the payment of an ample and
+entirely satisfactory "merced."  Thus La Motte's bargain was completed
+a crime which, if it had only entailed the loss of the troops under his
+command, and the possession of Gravelines, would have been of no great
+historic importance.  It was, however, the first blow of a vast and
+carefully sharpened treason, by which the country was soon to be cut in
+twain for ever--the first in a series of bargains by which the noblest
+names of the Netherlands were to be contaminated with bribery and fraud.
+
+While the negotiations with La Notte were in progress, the government of
+the states-general at Brussels had sent Saint Aldegonde to Arras.  The
+states of Artois, then assembled in that city, had made much difficulty
+in acceding to an assessment of seven thousand florins laid upon them by
+the central authority.  The occasion was skillfully made use of by the
+agents of the royal party to weaken the allegiance of the province, and
+of its sister Walloon provinces, to the patriot cause.  Saint Aldegonde
+made his speech before the assembly, taking the ground boldly, that the
+war was made for liberty of conscience and of fatherland, and that all
+were bound, whether Catholic or Protestant, to contribute to the sacred
+fund.  The vote passed, but it was provided that a moiety of the
+assessment should be paid by the ecclesiastical branch, and the
+stipulation excited a tremendous uproar.  The clerical bench regarded
+the tax as both a robbery and an affront.  "We came nearly to knife-
+playing," said the most distinguished priest in the assembly, "and if we
+had done so, the ecclesiastics would not have been the first to cry
+enough."  They all withdrew in a rage, and held a private consultation
+upon "these exorbitant and more than Turkish demands."  John Sarrasin,
+Prior of Saint Yaast, the keenest, boldest, and most indefatigable of the
+royal partisans of that epoch, made them an artful harangue.  This man
+--a better politician than the other prior--was playing for a mitre too,
+and could use his cards better.  He was soon to become the most
+invaluable agent in the great treason preparing.  No one could, be more
+delicate, noiseless, or unscrupulous, and he was soon recognized both by
+Governor-General and King as the individual above all others to whom the
+re-establishment of the royal authority over the Walloon provinces was
+owing.  With the shoes of swiftness on his feet, the coat of darkness on
+his back, and the wishing purse in his hand, he sped silently and
+invisibly from one great Malcontent chieftain to another, buying up
+centurions, and captains, and common soldiers; circumventing Orangists,
+Ghent democrats, Anjou partisans; weaving a thousand intrigues,
+ventilating a hundred hostile mines, and passing unharmed through the
+most serious dangers and the most formidable obstacles.  Eloquent, too,
+at a pinch, he always understood his audience, and upon this occasion
+unsheathed the most incisive, if not the most brilliant weapon which
+could be used in the debate.  It was most expensive to be patriotic, he
+said, while silver was to be saved, and gold to be earned by being loyal.
+They ought to keep their money to defend themselves, not give it to the
+Prince of Orange, who would only put it into his private pocket on
+pretence of public necessities.  The Ruward would soon be slinking back
+to his lair, he observed, and leave them all in the fangs of their
+enemies.  Meantime, it was better to rush into the embrace of a bountiful
+king, who was still holding forth his arms to them.  They were
+approaching a precipice, said the Prior; they were entering a labyrinth;
+and not only was the "sempiternal loss of body and soul impending over
+them, but their property was to be taken also, and the cat to be thrown
+against their legs."  By this sudden descent into a very common
+proverbial expression, Sarrasin meant to intimate that they were getting
+themselves into a difficult position, in which they were sure to reap
+both danger and responsibility.
+
+The harangue had much effect upon his hearers, who were now more than
+ever determined to rebel against the government which they had so
+recently accepted, preferring, in the words of the Prior, "to be
+maltreated by their prince, rather than to be barbarously tyrannized
+over by a heretic."  So much anger had been excited in celestial minds
+by a demand of thirty-five hundred florins.
+
+Saint Aldegonde was entertained in the evening at a great banquet,
+followed by a theological controversy, in which John Sarrasin complained
+that "he had been attacked upon his own dunghill."  Next day the
+distinguished patriot departed on a canvassing tour among the principal
+cities; the indefatigable monk employing the interval of his absence in
+aggravating the hostility of the Artesian orders to the pecuniary demands
+of the general government.  He was assisted in his task by a peremptory
+order which came down from Brussels, ordering, in the name of Matthias, a
+levy upon the ecclesiastical property, "rings, jewels, and reliquaries,"
+unless the clerical contribution should be forthcoming.  The rage of the
+bench was now intense, and by the time of Saint Aldegonde's return a
+general opposition had been organized.  The envoy met with a chilling
+reception; there were no banquets anymore--no discussions of any kind.
+To his demands for money, "he got a fine nihil," said Saint Vaast; and
+as for polemics, the only conclusive argument for the country would be,
+as he was informed on the same authority, the "finishing of Orange and of
+his minister along with him."  More than once had the Prior intimated to
+government--as so many had done before him--that to "despatch Orange,
+author of all the troubles," was the best preliminary to any political
+arrangement.  From Philip and his Governor-General, down to the humblest
+partisan, this conviction had been daily strengthening.  The knife or
+bullet of an assassin was the one thing needful to put an end to this
+incarnated rebellion.
+
+Thus matters grew worse and worse in Artois.  The Prior, busier than ever
+in his schemes, was one day arrested along with other royal emissaries,
+kept fifteen days "in a stinking cellar, where the scullion washed the
+dishes," and then sent to Antwerp to be examined by the states-general.
+He behaved with great firmness, although he had good reason to tremble
+for his neck.  Interrogated by Leoninus on the part of the central
+government, he boldly avowed that these pecuniary demands upon the
+Walloon estates, and particularly upon their ecclesiastical branches,
+would never be tolerated.  "In Alva's time," said Sarrasin, "men were
+flayed, but not shorn."  Those who were more attached to their skin than
+their fleece might have thought the practice in the good old times of the
+Duke still more objectionable.  Such was not the opinion of the Prior and
+the rest of his order.  After an unsatisfactory examination and a brief
+duresse, the busy ecclesiastic was released; and as his secret labors had
+not been detected, he resumed them after his return more ardently than
+ever.
+
+A triangular intrigue was now fairly established in the Walloon country.
+The Duke of Alencon's head-quarters were at Mons; the rallying-point of
+the royalist faction was with La Motte at Gravelines; while the
+ostensible leader of the states' party, Viscount Ghent, was governor of
+Artois, and supposed to be supreme in Arras.  La Motte was provided by
+government with a large fund of secret-service money, and was instructed
+to be very liberal in his bribes to men of distinction; having a tender
+regard, however, to the excessive demands of this nature now daily made
+upon the royal purse.  The "little Count," as the Prior called Lalain,
+together with his brother, Baron Montigny, were considered highly
+desirable acquisitions for government, if they could be gained.  It was
+thought, however, that they had the "fleur-de-lys imprinted too deeply
+upon their hearts," for the effect produced upon Lalain, governor of
+Hainault, by Margaret of Valois, had not yet been effaced.  His brother
+also had been disposed to favor the French prince, but his mind was more
+open to conviction.  A few private conferences with La Motte, and a
+course of ecclesiastical tuition from the Prior--whose golden opinions
+had irresistible resonance--soon wrought a change in the Malcontent
+chieftain's mind.  Other leading seigniors were secretly dealt with in
+the same manner.  Lalain, Heze, Havre, Capres, Egmont, and even the
+Viscount of Ghent, all seriously inclined their ears to the charmer, and
+looked longingly and lovingly as the wily Prior rolled in his tangles
+before them--"to mischief swift."  Few had yet declared themselves; but
+of the grandees who commanded large bodies of troops, and whose influence
+with their order was paramount, none were safe for the patriot cause
+throughout the Walloon country.
+
+The nobles and ecclesiastics were ready to join hands in support of
+church and king, but in the city of Arras, the capital of the whole
+country, there was a strong Orange and liberal party.  Gosson, a man of
+great wealth, one of the most distinguished advocates in the Netherlands,
+and possessing the gift of popular eloquence to a remarkable degree, was
+the leader of this burgess faction.  In the earlier days of Parma's
+administration, just as a thorough union of the Walloon provinces in
+favor of the royal government had nearly been formed, these Orangists of
+Arras risked a daring stroke.  Inflamed by the harangues of Gosson, and
+supported by five hundred foot soldiers and fifty troopers under one
+Captain Ambrose, they rose against the city magistracy, whose sentiments
+were unequivocally for Parma, and thrust them all into prison.  They then
+constituted a new board of fifteen, some Catholics and some Protestants,
+but all patriots, of whom Gosson was chief.  The stroke took the town by
+surprise; and was for a moment successful.  Meantime, they depended upon
+assistance from Brussels.  The royal and ecclesiastical party was,
+however, not so easily defeated, and an old soldier, named Bourgeois,
+loudly denounced Captain Ambrose, the general of the revolutionary
+movement, as a vile coward, and affirmed that with thirty good men-at-
+arms he would undertake to pound the whole rebel army to powder--" a pack
+of scarecrows," he said, "who were not worth as many owls for military
+purposes."
+
+Three days after the imprisonment of the magistracy, a strong Catholic
+rally was made in their behalf in the Fishmarket, the ubiquitous Prior
+of Saint Vaast flitting about among the Malcontents, blithe and busy as
+usual when storms were brewing.  Matthew Doucet, of the revolutionary
+faction--a man both martial and pacific in his pursuits, being eminent
+both as a gingerbread baker and a swordplayer--swore he would have the
+little monk's life if he had to take him from the very horns of the
+altar; but the Prior had braved sharper threats than these.  Moreover,
+the grand altar would have been the last place to look fox him on that
+occasion.  While Gosson was making a tremendous speech in favor of
+conscience and fatherland at the Hotel de Ville, practical John Sarrasin,
+purse in hand, had challenged the rebel general, Ambrose to private
+combat.  In half an hour, that warrior was routed, and fled from the
+field at the head of his scarecrows, for there was no resisting the power
+before which the Montignys and the La Mottes had succumbed.  Eloquent
+Gosson was left to his fate.  Having the Catholic magistracy in durance,
+and with nobody to guard them, he felt, as was well observed by an ill-
+natured contemporary, like a man holding a wolf by the ears, equally
+afraid to let go or to retain his grasp.
+
+His dilemma was soon terminated.  While he was deliberating with his
+colleagues--Mordacq, an old campaigner, Crugeot, Bertoul, and others--
+whether to stand or, fly, the drums and trumpets of the advancing
+royalists were heard.  In another instant the Hotel de Ville was swarming
+with men-at-arms, headed by Bourgeois, the veteran who had expressed so
+alighting an opinion as to the prowess of Captain Ambrose.  The tables
+were turned, the miniature revolution was at an end, the counter-
+revolution effected.  Gosson and his confederates escaped out of a back
+door, but were soon afterwards arrested.  Next morning, Baron Capres, the
+great Malcontent seignior, who was stationed with his regiment in the
+neighbourhood, and who had long been secretly coquetting with the Prior
+and Parma, marched into the city at the head of a strong detachment, and
+straightway proceeded to erect a very tall gibbet in front of the Hotel
+de Ville.  This looked practical in the eyes of the liberated and
+reinstated magistrates, and Gosson, Crugeot, and the rest were summoned
+at once before them.  The advocate thought, perhaps, with a sigh, that
+his judges, so recently his prisoners, might have been the fruit for
+another gallowstree, had he planted it when the ground was his own; but
+taking heart of grace, he encouraged his colleagues--now his fellow-
+culprits.  Crugeot, undismayed, made his appearance before the tribunal,
+arrayed in a corslet of proof, with a golden hilted sword, a scarf
+embroidered with pearls and gold, and a hat bravely plumaged with white,
+blue, and, orange feathers--the colors of William the Silent--of all
+which finery he was stripped, however, as soon as he entered the court.
+
+The process was rapid.  A summons from Brussels was expected every hour
+from the general government, ordering the cases to be brought before the
+federal tribunal; and as the Walloon provinces were not yet ready for
+open revolt, the order would be an inconvenient one.  Hence the necessity
+for haste.  The superior court of Artois, to which an appeal from the
+magistrates lay, immediately held a session in another chamber of the
+Hotel de Ville while the lower court was trying the prisoners, and
+Bertoul, Crugeot, Mordacq, with several others, were condemned in a few
+hours to the gibbet.  They were invited to appeal, if they chose, to the
+council of Artois, but hearing that the court was sitting next door, so
+that there was no chance of a rescue in the streets, they declared
+themselves satisfied with the sentence.  Gosson had not been tried, his
+case being reserved for the morrow.
+
+Meantime, the short autumnal day had drawn to a close.  A wild, stormy,
+rainy night then set in, but still the royalist party--citizens and
+soldiers intermingled--all armed to the teeth, and uttering fierce cries,
+while the whole scene was fitfully illuminated with the glare of
+flambeaux and blazing tar-barrels, kept watch in the open square around
+the city hall.  A series of terrible Rembrandt-like nightpieces
+succeeded--grim, fantastic, and gory.  Bertoul, an old man, who for years
+had so surely felt himself predestined to his present doom that he had
+kept a gibbet in his own house to accustom himself to the sight of the
+machine, was led forth the first, and hanged at ten in the evening.  He
+was a good man, of perfectly blameless life, a sincere Catholic, but a
+warm partisan of Orange.
+
+Valentine de Mordacq, an old soldier, came from the Hotel de Ville to
+the gallows at midnight.  As he stood on the ladder, amid the flaming
+torches, he broke forth into furious execrations, wagging his long white
+beard to and fro, making hideous grimaces, and cursing the hard fate
+which, after many dangers on the battle-field and in beleaguered cities,
+had left him to such a death.  The cord strangled his curses.  Crugeot
+was executed at three in the morning, having obtained a few hours'
+respite in order to make his preparations, which he accordingly occupied
+himself in doing as tranquilly as if he had been setting forth upon an
+agreeable journey.  He looked like a phantom, according to eye-witnesses,
+as he stood under the gibbet, making a most pious and, Catholic address
+to the crowd.
+
+The whole of the following day was devoted to the trial of Gosson.  He
+was condemned at nightfall, and heard by appeal before the superior court
+directly afterwards.  At midnight, of the 25th of October, 1578, he was
+condemned to lose his head, the execution to take place without delay.
+The city guards and the infantry under Capres still bivouacked upon the
+square; the howling storm still continued, but the glare of fagots and
+torches made the place as light as day.  The ancient advocate, with
+haggard eyes and features distorted by wrath, walking between the sheriff
+and a Franciscan monk, advanced through the long lane of halberdiers, in
+the grand hall of the Town House, and thence emerged upon the scaffold
+erected before the door.  He shook his fists with rage at the released
+magistrates, so lately his prisoners, exclaiming that to his misplaced
+mercy it was owing that his head, instead of their own, was to be placed
+upon the block.  He bitterly reproached the citizens for their cowardice
+in shrinking from dealing a blow for their fatherland, and in behalf of
+one who had so faithfully served them.  The clerk of the court then read
+the sentence amid a silence so profound that every syllable he uttered,
+and, every sigh and ejaculation of the victim were distinctly heard in
+the most remote corner of the square.  Gosson then, exclaiming that he
+was murdered without cause, knelt upon the scaffold.  His head fell while
+an angry imprecation was still upon his lips.
+
+Several other persons of lesser note were hanged daring the week-among
+others, Matthew Doucet, the truculent man of gingerbread, whose rage had
+been so judiciously but so unsuccessfully directed against the Prior of
+Saint Vaast.  Captain Ambrose, too, did not live long to enjoy the price
+of his treachery.  He was arrested very soon afterwards by the states'
+government in Antwerp, put to the torture, hanged and quartered.  In
+troublous times like those, when honest men found it difficult to keep
+their heads upon their shoulders, rogues were apt to meet their deserts,
+unless they had the advantage of lofty lineage and elevated position.
+
+          "Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema."
+
+This municipal revolution and counter-revolution, obscure though they
+seem, were in reality of very grave importance.  This was the last blow
+struck for freedom in the Walloon country.  The failure of the movement
+made that scission of the Netherlands certain, which has endured till our
+days, for the influence of the ecclesiastics in the states of Artois and
+Hainault, together with the military power of the Malcontent grandees,
+whom Parma and John Sarrasin had purchased, could no longer be resisted.
+The liberty of the Celtic provinces was sold, and a few high-born
+traitors received the price.  Before the end of the year (1578) Montigny
+had signified to the Duke of Alencon that a prince who avowed himself too
+poor to pay for soldiers was no master for him.  The Baron, therefore,
+came, to an understanding with La Motte and Sarrasin, acting for
+Alexander Farnese, and received the command of the infantry in the
+Walloon provinces, a merced of four thousand crowns a year, together with
+as large a slice of La Motte's hundred thousand florins for himself and
+soldiers, as that officer could be induced to part with.
+
+Baron Capres, whom Sarrasin--being especially enjoined to purchase him--
+had, in his own language, "sweated blood and water" to secure, at last
+agreed to reconcile himself with the King's party upon condition of
+receiving the government-general of Artois, together with the particular
+government of Hesdin--very lucrative offices, which the Viscount of Ghent
+then held by commission of the states-general.  That politic personage,
+however, whose disinclination to desert the liberty party which had
+clothed him with such high functions, was apparently so marked that the
+Prior had caused an ambush to be laid both for him and the Marquis Havre,
+in-order to obtain bodily possession of two such powerful enemies, now,
+at the last moment, displayed his true colors.  He consented to reconcile
+himself also, on condition of receiving the royal appointment to the same
+government which he then held from the patriot authorities, together with
+the title of Marquis de Richebourg, the command of all the cavalry in the
+royalist provinces, and certain rewards in money besides.  By holding
+himself at a high mark, and keeping at a distance, he had obtained his
+price.  Capres, for whom Philip, at Parma's suggestion, had sent the
+commission as governor of Artois and of Hesdin, was obliged to renounce
+those offices, notwithstanding his earlier "reconciliation," and the
+"blood and water" of John Sarrasin.  Ghent was not even contented with
+these guerdons, but insisted upon the command of all the cavalry,
+including the band of ordnance which, with handsome salary, had been
+assigned to Lalain as a part of the wages for his treason, while the
+"little Count"--fiery as his small and belligerent cousin whose exploits
+have been recorded in the earlier pages of this history--boldly taxed
+Parma and the King with cheating him out of his promised reward, in order
+to please a noble whose services had been less valuable than those of the
+Lalain family.  Having thus obtained the lion's share, due, as he
+thought, to his well known courage and military talents, as well as to
+the powerful family influence, which he wielded--his brother, the Prince
+of Espinoy, hereditary seneschal of Hainault, having likewise rallied to
+the King's party--Ghent jocosely intimated to Parma his intention of
+helping himself to the two best horses in the Prince's stables in
+exchange for those lost at Gemblours, in which disastrous action he
+had commanded the cavalry for the states.  He also sent two terriers
+to Farnese, hoping that they would "prove more useful than beautiful."
+The Prince might have thought, perhaps, as much of the Viscount's
+treason.
+
+John Sarrasin, the all-accomplished Prior, as the reward of his
+exertions, received from Philip the abbey of Saint Vaast, the richest
+and most powerful ecclesiastical establishment in the Netherlands.
+At a subsequent period his grateful Sovereign created him Archbishop
+of Cambray.
+
+Thus the "troubles of Arras"--as they were called--terminated.  Gosson
+the respected, wealthy, eloquent, and virtuous advocate; together with
+his colleagues--all Catholics, but at the same time patriots and
+liberals--died the death of felons for their unfortunate attempt to save
+their fatherland from an ecclesiastical and venal conspiracy; while the
+actors in the plot, having all performed well their parts, received their
+full meed of prizes and applause.
+
+The private treaty by which the Walloon provinces of Artois, Hainault,
+Lille, Douay, and Orchies, united themselves in a separate league was
+signed upon the 6th of January, 1579; but the final arrangements for the
+reconciliation of the Malcontent nobles and their soldiers were not
+completed until April 6th, upon which day a secret paper was signed at
+Mount Saint Eloi.
+
+The secret current of the intrigue had not, however, flowed on with
+perfect smoothness until this placid termination.  On the contrary,
+here had been much bickering, heart-burning, and mutual suspicions and
+recriminations.  There had been violent wranglings among the claimants
+of the royal rewards.  Lalain and Capres were not the only Malcontents
+who had cause to complain of being cheated of the promised largess.
+Montigny, in whose favor Parma had distinctly commanded La Motte to be
+liberal of the King's secret-service money, furiously charged the
+Governor of Gravelines with having received a large supply of gold from
+Spain, and of "locking the rascal counters from his friends," so that
+Parma was obliged to quiet the Baron, and many other barons in the same
+predicament, out of his own purse.  All complained bitterly, too, that
+the King, whose promises had been so profuse to the nobles while the
+reconciliation was pending, turned a deaf ear to their petitions and left
+their letters unanswered; after the deed was accomplished.
+
+The unlucky Prior of Renty, whose disclosures to La Motte concerning the
+Spanish sarcasms upon his venality, had so nearly caused the preliminary
+negotiation with that seignior to fail, was the cause of still further
+mischief through the interception of Alonzo Curiel's private letters.
+Such revelations of corruption, and of contempt on the part of the
+corrupters, were eagerly turned to account by the states' government.
+A special messenger was despatched to Montigny with the intercepted
+correspondence, accompanied by an earnest prayer that he would not
+contaminate his sword and his noble name by subserviency to men who
+despised even while they purchased traitors.  That noble, both confounded
+and exasperated, was for a moment inclined to listen to the voice of
+honor and patriotism, but reflection and solitude induced him to pocket
+up his wrongs and his "merced" together.  The states-general also sent
+the correspondence to the Walloon provincial authorities, with an
+eloquent address, begging them to study well the pitiful part which La
+Motte had enacted in the private comedy then performing, and to
+behold as in a mirror their own position, if they did not recede ere it
+was too late.
+
+The only important effect produced by the discovery was upon the Prior of
+Renty himself.  Ottavio Gonzaga, the intimate friend of Don John, and now
+high in the confidence of Parma, wrote to La Motte, indignantly denying
+the truth of Bien Aime's tattle, and affirming that not a word had ever
+been uttered by himself or by any gentleman in his presence to the
+disparagement of the Governor of Gravelines.  He added that if the Prior
+had worn another coat, and were of quality equal to his own, he would
+have made him eat his words or a few inches of steel.  In the same
+vehement terms he addressed a letter to Bien Aime himself.  Very soon
+afterwards, notwithstanding his coat and his quality, that unfortunate
+ecclesiastic found himself beset one dark night by two soldiers, who left
+him, severely wounded and bleeding nearly to death upon the high road,
+but escaping with life, he wrote to Parma, recounting his wrongs and the
+"sword-thrust in his left thigh," and made a demand for a merced.
+
+The Prior recovered from this difficulty only to fall into another,
+by publishing what he called an apologue, in which he charged that the
+reconciled nobles were equally false to the royal and to the rebel
+government, and that, although "the fatted calf had been killed for them,
+after they had so long been feeding with perverse heretical pigs," they
+were, in truth, as mutinous as ever, being bent upon establishing an
+oligarchy in the Netherlands, and dividing the territory among
+themselves, to the exclusion of the sovereign.  This naturally excited
+the wrath of the Viscount and others.  The Seigneur d'Auberlieu, in a
+letter written in what the writer himself called the "gross style of a
+gendarme," charged the Prior with maligning honorable lords and--in the
+favorite colloquial phrase of the day--with attempting "to throw the cat
+against their legs."  The real crime of the meddling priest, however, was
+to have let that troublesome animal out of the bag.  He was accordingly
+waylaid again, and thrown into prison by Count Lalain.  While in durance
+he published an abject apology for his apologue, explaining that his
+allusions to "returned prodigals," "heretic swine," and to "Sodom and
+Gomorrah," had been entirely misconstrued.  He was, however, retained in
+custody until Parma ordered his release on the ground that the punishment
+had been already sufficient for the offence.  He then requested to be
+appointed Bishop of Saint Omer, that see being vacant.  Parma advised the
+King by no means to grant the request--the Prior being neither endowed
+with the proper age nor discretion for such a dignity--but to bestow some
+lesser reward, in money or otherwise, upon the discomfited ecclesiastic,
+who had rendered so many services and incurred so many dangers.
+
+The states-general and the whole national party regarded, with prophetic
+dismay, the approaching dismemberment of their common country.  They sent
+deputation on deputation to the Walloon states, to warn them of their
+danger, and to avert, if possible, the fatal measure.  Meantime, as by
+the already accomplished movement, the "generality" was fast
+disappearing, and was indeed but the shadow of its former self, it seemed
+necessary to make a vigorous effort to restore something like unity to
+the struggling country.  The Ghent Pacification had been their outer
+wall, ample enough and strong enough to enclose and to protect all the
+provinces.  Treachery and religious fanaticism had undermined the bulwark
+almost as soon as reared.  The whole beleaguered country was in danger of
+becoming utterly exposed to a foe who grew daily more threatening.  As in
+besieged cities, a sudden breastwork is thrown up internally, when the
+outward defences are crumbling--so the energy of Orange had been silently
+preparing the Union of Utrecht, as a temporary defence until the foe
+should be beaten back, and there should be time to decide on their future
+course of action.
+
+During the whole month of December, an active correspondence had been
+carried on by the Prince and his brother John with various agents in
+Gelderland, Friesland, and Groningen, as well as with influential
+personages in the more central provinces and cities.  Gelderland, the
+natural bulwark to Holland and Zealand, commanding the four great rivers
+of the country, had been fortunately placed under the government of the
+trusty John of Nassau, that province being warmly in favor of a closer
+union with its sister provinces, and particularly with those more nearly
+allied to itself in religion and in language.
+
+Already, in December (1578), Count John, in behalf of his brother, had
+laid before the states of Holland and Zealand, assembled at Gorcum, the
+project of a new union with "Gelderland, Ghent, Friesland, Utrecht,
+Overyssel, and Groningen."  The proposition had been favorably
+entertained, and commissioners had been appointed to confer with other
+commissioners at Utrecht, whenever they should be summoned by Count John.
+The Prince, with the silence and caution which belonged to his whole
+policy, chose not to be the ostensible mover in the plan himself.  He did
+not choose to startle unnecessarily the Archduke Matthias--the cipher who
+had been placed by his side, whose sudden subtraction would occasion more
+loss than his presence had conferred benefit.  He did not choose to be
+cried out upon as infringing the Ghent Pacification, although the whole
+world knew that treaty to be hopelessly annulled.  For these and many
+other weighty motives, he proposed that the new Union should be the
+apparent work of other hands, and only offered to him and to the country,
+when nearly completed.  January, the deputies of Gelderland and Zutfelt,
+with Count John, stadholder of these provinces, at their head, met with
+the deputies of Holland, Zealand, and the provinces between the Ems and
+the Lauwers, early in January, 1579, and on the 23rd of that month,
+without waiting longer for the deputies of the other provinces, they
+agreed provisionally upon a treaty of union which was published
+afterwards on the 29th, from the Town House of Utrecht.
+
+This memorable document--which is ever regarded as the foundation of the
+Netherland Republic--contained twenty-six articles.
+
+The preamble stated the object of the union.  It was to strengthen, not
+to forsake the Ghent Pacification, already nearly annihilated by the
+force of foreign soldiery.  For this purpose, and in order more
+conveniently to defend themselves against their foes, the deputies of
+Gelderland, Zutfen, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and the Frisian provinces,
+thought it desirable to form a still closer union.  The contracting
+provinces agreed to remain eternally united, as if they were but one
+province.  At the same time, it was understood that each was to retain
+its particular privileges, liberties, laudable and traditionary customs,
+and other laws.  The cities, corporations, and inhabitants of every
+province were to be guaranteed as to their ancient constitutions.
+Disputes concerning these various statutes and customs were to be decided
+by the usual tribunals, by "good men," or by amicable compromise.  The
+provinces, by virtue of the Union, were to defend each other "with life,
+goods, and blood," against all force brought against them in the King's
+name or behalf.  They were also to defend each other against all foreign
+or domestic potentates, provinces, or cities, provided such defence were
+controlled by the "generality" of the union.  For the expense occasioned
+by the protection of the provinces, certain imposts and excises were
+to be equally assessed and collected.  No truce or peace was to be
+concluded, no war commenced, no impost established affecting the
+"generality," but by unanimous advice and consent of the provinces.
+Upon other matters the majority was to decide; the votes being taken in
+the manner then customary in the assembly of states-general.  In case of
+difficulty in coming to a unanimous vote when required, the matter was
+to be referred to the stadholders then in office.  In case cf their
+inability to agree, they were to appoint arbitrators, by whose decision
+the parties were to be governed.  None of the united provinces, or of
+their cities or corporations, were to make treaties with other potentates
+or states, without consent of their confederates.  If neighbouring
+princes, provinces, or cities, wished to enter into this confederacy,
+they were to be received by the unanimous consent of the united
+provinces.  A common currency was to be established for the confederacy.
+In the matter of divine worship, Holland and Zealand were to conduct
+themselves as they should think proper.  The other provinces of the
+union, however, were either to conform to the religious peace already
+laid down by Archduke Matthias and his council, or to make such other
+arrangements as each province should for itself consider appropriate for
+the maintenance of its internal tranquillity--provided always that every
+individual should remain free in his religion, and that no man should be
+molested or questioned on the subject of divine worship, as had been
+already established by the Ghent Pacification.  As a certain dispute
+arose concerning the meaning of this important clause, an additional
+paragraph was inserted a few days afterwards.  In this it was stated that
+there was no intention of excluding from the confederacy any province or
+city which was wholly Catholic, or in which the number of the Reformed
+was not sufficiently large to entitle them, by the religious peace, to
+public worship.  On the contrary, the intention was to admit them,
+provided they obeyed the articles of union, and conducted themselves
+as good patriots; it being intended that no province or city should
+interfere with another in the matter of divine service.  Disputes
+between two provinces were to be decided by the others, or--in case
+the generality were concerned--by the provisions of the ninth article.
+
+The confederates were to assemble at Utrecht whenever summoned by those
+commissioned for that purpose.  A majority of votes was to decide on
+matters then brought before them, even in case of the absence of some
+members of the confederacy, who might, however, send written proxies.
+Additions or amendments to these articles could only be made by unanimous
+consent.  The articles were to be signed by the stadholders, magistrates,
+and principal officers of each province and city, and by all the train-
+bands, fraternities, and sodalities which might exist in the cities or
+villages of the union.
+
+Such were the simple provisions of that instrument which became the
+foundation of the powerful Commonwealth of the United Netherlands.  On
+the day when it was concluded, there were present deputies from five
+provinces only.  Count John of Nassau signed first, as stadholder of
+Gelderland and Zutfen.  His signature was followed by those of four
+deputies from that double province; and the envoys of Holland, Zealand,
+Utrecht and the Frisian provinces, then signed the document.
+
+The Prince himself, although in reality the principal director of the
+movement, delayed appending his signature until May the 3rd, 1579.
+Herein he was actuated by the reasons already stated, and by the hope
+which he still entertained that a wider union might be established, with
+Matthias for its nominal chief.  His enemies, as usual, attributed this
+patriotic delay to baser motives.  They accused him of a desire to assume
+the governor-generalship himself, to the exclusion of the Archduke--
+an insinuation which the states of Holland took occasion formally to
+denounce as a calumny.  For those who have studied the character and
+history of the man, a defence against such slander is superfluous.
+Matthias was but the shadow, Orange the substance.  The Archduke had
+been accepted only to obviate the evil effects of a political intrigue,
+and with the express condition that the Prince should be his lieutenant-
+general in name, his master in fact.  Directly after his departure in the
+following year, the Prince's authority, which nominally departed also,
+was re-established in his own person, and by express act of the states-
+general.
+
+The Union of Utrecht was the foundation-stone of the Netherland Republic;
+but the framers of the confederacy did not intend the establishment of a
+Republic, or of an independent commonwealth of any kind.  They had not
+forsworn the Spanish monarch.  It was not yet their intention to forswear
+him.  Certainly the act of union contained no allusion to such an
+important step.  On the contrary, in the brief preamble they expressly
+stated their intention to strengthen the Ghent Pacification, and the
+Ghent Pacification acknowledged obedience to the King.  They intended no
+political innovation of any kind.  They expressly accepted matters as
+they were.  All statutes, charters, and privileges of provinces, cities,
+or corporations were to remain untouched.  They intended to form neither
+an independent state nor an independent federal system.  No doubt the
+formal renunciation of allegiance, which was to follow within two years,
+was contemplated by many as a future probability; but it could not be
+foreseen with certainty.
+
+The simple act of union was not regarded as the constitution of a
+commonwealth.  Its object was a single one--defence against a foreign
+oppressor.  The contracting parties bound themselves together to spend
+all their treasure and all their blood in expelling the foreign soldiery
+from their soil.  To accomplish this purpose, they carefully abstained
+from intermeddling with internal politics and with religion.  Every man
+was to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.  Every
+combination of citizens, from the provincial states down to the humblest
+rhetoric club, was to retain its ancient constitution.  The establishment
+of a Republic, which lasted two centuries, which threw a girdle of rich
+dependencies entirely round the globe, and which attained so remarkable a
+height of commercial prosperity and political influence, was the result
+of the Utrecht Union; but, it was not a premeditated result.  A state,
+single towards the rest of the world, a unit in its external relations,
+while permitting internally a variety of sovereignties and institutions--
+in many respects the prototype of our own much more extensive and
+powerful union--was destined to spring from the act thus signed by the
+envoys of five provinces.  Those envoys were acting, however, under the
+pressure of extreme necessity, and for what was believed an evanescent
+purpose.  The future confederacy was not to resemble the system of the
+German empire, for it was to acknowledge no single head.  It was to
+differ from the Achaian league, in the far inferior amount of power which
+it permitted to its general assembly, and in the consequently greater
+proportion of sovereign attributes which were retained by the individual
+states.  It was, on the other hand, to furnish a closer and more intimate
+bond than that of the Swiss confederacy, which was only a union for
+defence and external purposes, of cantons otherwise independent.  It was,
+finally, to differ from the American federal commonwealth in the great
+feature that it was to be merely a confederacy of sovereignties,
+not a representative Republic.  Its foundation was a compact, not a
+constitution.  The contracting parties were states and corporations,
+who considered themselves as representing small nationalities 'dejure et
+de facto', and as succeeding to the supreme power at the very instant in
+which allegiance to the Spanish monarch was renounced.  The general
+assembly was a collection of diplomatic envoys, bound by instructions
+from independent states.  The voting was not by heads, but by states.
+The deputies were not representatives of the people, but of the states;
+for the people of the United States of the Netherlands never assembled--
+as did the people of the United States of America two centuries later--to
+lay down a constitution, by which they granted a generous amount of power
+to the union, while they reserved enough of sovereign attributes to
+secure that local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty.
+
+The Union of Utrecht; narrowed as it was to the nether portion of that
+country which, as a whole, might have formed a commonwealth so much more
+powerful, was in origin a proof of this lamentable want of patriotism.
+Could the jealousy of great nobles, the rancour of religious differences,
+the Catholic bigotry of the Walloon population, on the one side,
+contending with the democratic insanity of the Ghent populace on the
+other, have been restrained within bounds by the moderate counsels of
+William of Orange, it would have been possible to unite seventeen
+provinces instead of seven, and to save many long and blighting years of
+civil war.
+
+The Utrecht Union was, however, of inestimable value.  It was time for
+some step to be taken, if anarchy were not to reign until the inquisition
+and absolutism were restored.  Already, out of Chaos and Night, the
+coming Republic was assuming substance and form.  The union, if it
+created nothing else, at least constructed a league against a foreign
+foe whose armed masses were pouring faster and faster into the territory
+of the provinces.  Farther than this it did not propose to go.
+It maintained what it found.  It guaranteed religious liberty, and
+accepted the civil and political constitutions already in existence.
+Meantime, the defects of those constitutions, although visible and
+sensible, had not grown to the large proportions which they were destined
+to attain.
+
+Thus by the Union of Utrecht on the one hand, and the fast approaching
+reconciliation of the Walloon provinces on the other, the work of
+decomposition and of construction went Land in hand.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Are apt to discharge such obligations--(by) ingratitude
+Like a man holding a wolf by the ears
+Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty
+No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly
+Not so successful as he was picturesque
+Plundering the country which they came to protect
+Presumption in entitling themselves Christian
+Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life
+Republic, which lasted two centuries
+Throw the cat against their legs
+Worship God according to the dictates of his conscience
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1578 ***
+
+****** This file should be named 4831.txt or 4831.zip *******
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