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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1579-80
+#32 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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+Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1579-80
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+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4832]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 26, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1579-80 ***
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger
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+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 32
+
+THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1579-1580
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+1855
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Parma's feint upon Antwerp--He invests Maestricht--Deputation and
+     letters from the states-general, from Brussels, and from Parma, to
+     the Walloon provinces--Active negotiations by Orange and by Farnese
+     --Walloon envoys in Parma's camp before Maestricht--Festivities--The
+     Treaty of Reconciliation--Rejoicings of the royalist party--Comedy
+     enacted at the Paris theatres--Religious tumults in Antwerp,
+     Utrecht, and other cities--Religious Peace enforced by Orange--
+     Philip Egmont's unsuccessful attempt upon Brussels--Siege of
+     Maestricht--Failure at the Tongres gate--Mining and countermining--
+     Partial destruction of the Tongres ravelin--Simultaneous attack upon
+     the Tongres and Bolls-le-Duo gates--The Spaniards repulsed with
+     great loss--Gradual encroachments of the besiegers--Bloody contests
+     --The town taken--Horrible massacre--Triumphal entrance and solemn
+     thanksgiving--Calumnious attacks upon Orange--Renewed troubles in
+     Ghent--Imbue and Dathenus--The presence of the Prince solicited--
+     Coup d'etat of Imbue--Order restored, and Imbue expelled by Orange
+
+The political movements in both directions were to be hastened by the
+military operations of the opening season.  On the night of the 2nd of
+March, 1579, the Prince of Parma made a demonstration against Antwerp.
+A body of three thousand Scotch and English, lying at Borgerhout, was
+rapidly driven in, and a warm skirmish ensued, directly under the walls
+of the city.  The Prince of Orange, with the Archduke Matthias, being in
+Antwerp at the time, remained on the fortifications; superintending the
+action, and Parma was obliged to retire after an hour or two of sharp
+fighting, with a loss of four hundred men.  This demonstration was,
+however, only a feint.  His real design was upon Maestricht; before which
+important city he appeared in great force, ten days afterwards,
+when he was least expected.
+
+Well fortified, surrounded by a broad and deep moat; built upon both
+sides of the Meuse, upon the right bank of which river, however, the
+portion of the town was so inconsiderable that it was merely called the
+village of Wyk, this key to the German gate of the Netherlands was,
+unfortunately, in brave but feeble hands.  The garrison was hardly one
+thousand strong; the trained bands of burghers amounted to twelve hundred
+more; while between three and four thousand peasants; who had taken
+refuge within the city walls, did excellent service as sappers and
+miners.  Parma, on the other hand, had appeared before the walls with
+twenty thousand men; to which number he received constant reinforcements.
+The Bishop of Liege, too, had sent him four thousand pioneers--a most
+important service; for mining and countermining was to decide the fate of
+Maestricht.
+
+Early in January the royalists had surprised the strong chateau of
+Carpen, in the neighbourhood of the city, upon which occasion the
+garrison were all hanged by moonlight on the trees in the orchard.  The
+commandant shared their fate; and it is a curious fact that he had,
+precisely a year previously, hanged the royalist captain, Blomaert, on
+the same spot, who, with the rope around his neck, had foretold a like
+doom to his destroyer.
+
+The Prince of Orange, feeling the danger of Maestricht, lost no time in
+warning the states to the necessary measures, imploring them "not to fall
+asleep in the shade of a peace negotiation," while meantime Parma threw
+two bridges over the Meuse, above and below the city, and then invested
+the place so closely that all communication was absolutely suspended.
+Letters could pass to and fro only at extreme peril to the messengers,
+and all possibility of reinforcing the city at the moment was cut off.
+
+While this eventful siege was proceeding, the negotiations with the
+Walloons were ripening.  The siege and the conferences went hand in hand.
+Besides the secret arrangements already described for the separation of
+the Walloon provinces, there had been much earnest and eloquent
+remonstrance on the part of the states-general and of Orange--many solemn
+embassies and public appeals.  As usual, the Pacification of Ghent was
+the two-sided shield which hung between the parties to cover or to
+justify the blows which each dealt at the other.  There is no doubt as to
+the real opinion entertained concerning that famous treaty by the royal
+party.  "Through the peace of Ghent," said Saint Vaast, "all our woes
+have been brought upon us."  La Motte informed Parma that it was
+necessary to pretend a respect for the Pacification, however, on account
+of its popularity, but that it was well understood by the leaders of the
+Walloon movement, that the intention was to restore the system of Charles
+the Fifth.  Parma signified his consent to make use of that treaty as a
+basis, "provided always it were interpreted healthily, and not dislocated
+by cavillations and sinister interpolations, as had been done by the
+Prince of Orange."  The Malcontent generals of the Walloon troops were
+inexpressibly anxious lest the cause of religion should be endangered;
+but the arguments by which Parma convinced those military casuists as to
+the compatibility of the Ghent peace with sound doctrine have already
+been exhibited.  The influence of the reconciled nobles was brought to
+bear with fatal effect upon the states of Artois, Hainault, and of a
+portion of French Flanders.  The Gallic element in their blood, and an
+intense attachment to the Roman ceremonial, which distinguished the
+Walloon population from their Batavian brethren, were used successfully
+by the wily Parma to destroy the unity of the revolted Netherlands.
+Moreover, the King offered good terms.  The monarch, feeling safe on the
+religious point, was willing to make liberal promises upon the political
+questions.  In truth, the great grievance of which the Walloons
+complained was the insolence and intolerable outrages of the foreign
+soldiers.  This, they said, had alone made them malcontent.  It was;
+therefore, obviously the cue of Parma to promise the immediate departure
+of the troops.  This could be done the more easily, as he had no
+intention of keeping the promise.
+
+Meantime the efforts of Orange, and of the states-general, where his
+influence was still paramount, were unceasing to counteract the policy of
+Parma.  A deputation was appointed by the generality to visit the estates
+of the Walloon provinces.  Another was sent by the authorities of
+Brussels.  The Marquis of Havre, with several colleagues on behalf of
+the states-general, waited upon the Viscount of Ghent, by whom they were
+received with extreme insolence.  He glared upon them, without moving,
+as they were admitted to his presence; "looking like a dead man, from
+whom the soul had entirely departed."  Recovering afterwards from this
+stony trance of indignation, he demanded a sight of their instructions.
+This they courteously refused, as they were accredited not to him, but
+to the states of Artois.  At this he fell into a violent passion, and
+threatened them with signal chastisement for daring to come thither with
+so treasonable a purpose.  In short, according to their own expression;
+he treated them "as if they had been rogues and vagabonds."  The Marquis
+of Havre, high-born though he was, had been sufficiently used to such
+conduct.  The man who had successively served and betrayed every party,
+who had been the obsequious friend and the avowed enemy of Don John
+within the same fortnight, and who had been able to swallow and inwardly
+digest many an insult from that fiery warrior, was even fain to brook the
+insolence of Robert Melun.
+
+The papers which the deputation had brought were finally laid before
+the states of Artois, and received replies as prompt and bitter as the
+addresses were earnest and eloquent.  The Walloons, when summoned to hold
+to that aegis of national unity, the Ghent peace, replied that it was not
+they, but the heretic portion of the states-general, who were for dashing
+it to the ground.  The Ghent treaty was never intended to impair the
+supremacy of the Catholic religion, said those provinces, which were
+already on the point of separating for ever from the rest.  The Ghent
+treaty was intended expressly to destroy the inquisition and the
+placards, answered the national-party.  Moreover, the "very marrow of
+that treaty" was the-departure of the foreign soldiers, who were even
+then overrunning the land.  The Walloons answered that Alexander had
+expressly conceded the withdrawal of the troops.  "Believe not the
+fluting and the piping of the crafty foe," urged the patriots.  "Promises
+are made profusely enough--but only to lure you to perdition.  Your
+enemies allow you to slake your hunger and thirst with this idle hope of
+the troops' departure, but you are still in fetters, although the chain
+be of Spanish pinchbeck, which you mistake for gold."  "'Tis not we,"
+cried the Walloons, "who wish to separate from the generality; 'tis the
+generality which separates from us.  We had rather die the death than not
+maintain the union.  In the very same breath, however, they boasted of
+the excellent terms which the monarch was offering, and of their strong
+inclination to accept them."  "Kings, struggling to recover a lost
+authority, always promise golden mountains and every sort of miracles,"
+replied the patriots; but the warning was uttered in vain.
+
+Meantime the deputation from the city of Brussels arrived on the 28th of
+March at Mons, in Hainault, where they were received with great courtesy
+by Count de Lalain, governor of the province.  The enthusiasm with which
+he had espoused the cause of Queen Margaret and her brother Anjou had
+cooled, but the Count received the Brussels envoys with a kindness in
+marked contrast with the brutality of Melun.  He made many fine speeches
+--protesting his attachment to, the union, for which he was ready to shed
+the last drop of his blood--entertained the deputies at dinner, proposed
+toasts to the prosperity of the united provinces, and dismissed his
+guests at last with many flowery professions.  After dancing attendance
+for a few days, however, upon the estates of the Walloon provinces, both
+sets of deputies were warned to take their instant departure as mischief-
+makers and rebels.  They returned, accordingly, to Brussels, bringing the
+written answers which the estates had vouchsafed to send.
+
+The states-general, too, inspired by William of Orange, addressed a
+solemn appeal to their sister provinces, thus about to abjure the bonds
+of relationship for ever.  It seemed right, once for all, to grapple with
+the Ghent Pacification for the last time, and to strike a final blow in
+defence of that large statesmanlike interpretation, which alone could
+make the treaty live.  This was done eloquently and logically.  The
+Walloons were reminded that at the epoch of the Ghent peace the number of
+Reformers outside of Holland and Zealand was supposed small.  Now the new
+religion had spread its roots through the whole land, and innumerable
+multitudes desired its exercise.  If Holland and Zealand chose to
+reestablish the Catholic worship within their borders, they could
+manifestly do so without violating the treaty of Ghent.  Why then was
+it not competent to other provinces, with equal allegiance to the treaty,
+to sanction the Reformed religion within their limits?
+
+Parma, on his part, publicly invited the states-general, by letter, to
+sustain the Ghent treaty by accepting the terms offered to the Walloons,
+and by restoring the system of the Emperor Charles, of very lofty memory.
+To this superfluous invitation the states-general replied, on the 19th of
+March, that it had been the system of the Emperor Charles; of lofty
+memory, to maintain the supremacy of Catholicism and of Majesty in the
+Netherlands by burning Netherlanders--a custom which the states, with
+common accord, had thought it desirable to do away with.
+
+In various fervently-written appeals by Orange, by the states-general,
+and by other bodies, the wavering provinces were warned against
+seduction.  They were reminded that the Prince of Parma was using this
+minor negotiation "as a second string to his bow;" that nothing could be
+more puerile than to suppose the Spaniards capable, after securing
+Maestricht, of sending away their troops thus "deserting the bride in the
+midst of the honeymoon."  They expressed astonishment at being invited to
+abandon the great and general treaty which had been made upon the theatre
+of the whole world by the intervention of the principal princes of
+Christendom, in order to partake in underhand negotiation with the
+commissioners of Parma-men, "who, it would not be denied, were felons and
+traitors."  They warned their brethren not to embark on the enemy's ships
+in the dark, for that, while chaffering as to the price of the voyage,
+they would find that the false pilots had hoisted sail and borne them
+away in the night.  In vain would they then seek to reach the shore
+again.  The example of La Motte and others, "bird-limed with Spanish
+gold," should be salutary for all-men who were now driven forward with a
+whip, laughed to scorn by their new masters, and forced to drink the
+bitter draught of humiliation along with the sweet poison of bribery.
+They were warned to study well the intercepted letters of Curiel, in
+order fully to fathom the deep designs and secret contempt of the enemy.
+
+Such having been the result of the negotiations between the states-
+general and the Walloon provinces, a strong deputation now went forth
+from those provinces, towards the end of April, to hold a final colloquy
+with Parma, then already busied with the investment of Maestricht.  They
+were met upon the road with great ceremony, and escorted into the
+presence of Farnese with drum, trumpet, and flaunting banners.
+He received them with stately affability, in a magnificently decorated
+pavilion, carelessly inviting them to a repast, which he called an
+afternoon's lunch, but which proved a most sumptuous and splendidly
+appointed entertainment.  This "trifling foolish banquet" finished, the
+deputies were escorted, with great military parade, to the lodgings which
+had been provided for them in a neighbouring village.  During the period
+of their visit, all the chief officers of the army and the household were
+directed to entertain the Walloons with showy festivals, dinners,
+suppers, dances, and carousals of all kinds.  At one of the most
+brilliant of these revels--a magnificent ball, to which all the matrons
+and maids of the whole country round had been bidden--the Prince of Parma
+himself unexpectedly made his appearance.  He gently rebuked the
+entertainers for indulging in such splendid hospitality without,
+at least, permitting him to partake of it.  Charmingly affable to the
+ladies assembled in the ball-room, courteous, but slightly reserved,
+towards the Walloon envoys, he excited the admiration of all by the
+splendid decorum of his manners.  As he moved through the halls,
+modulating his steps in grave cadence to the music, the dignity and grace
+of his deportment seemed truly majestic; but when he actually danced a
+measure himself the enthusiasm was at its height.  They should, indeed,
+be rustics, cried the Walloon envoys in a breath, not to give the hand
+of fellowship at once to a Prince so condescending and amiable.  The
+exclamation seemed to embody the general wish, and to foreshadow a speedy
+conclusion.
+
+Very soon afterwards a preliminary accord was signed between the King's
+government and the Walloon provinces.  The provisions on his Majesty's
+part were sufficiently liberal.  The religious question furnishing no
+obstacle, it was comparatively easy for Philip to appear benignant.  It
+was stipulated that the provincial privileges should be respected; that a
+member of the King's own family, legitimately born, should always be
+Governor-General, and that the foreign troops should be immediately
+withdrawn.  The official exchange and ratification of this treaty were
+delayed till the 4th of the following September, but the news that, the
+reconciliation had been definitely settled soon spread through the
+country.  The Catholics were elated, the patriots dismayed.  Orange-the
+"Prince of Darkness," as the Walloons of the day were fond of calling
+him--still unwilling to despair, reluctant to accept this dismemberment,
+which he foresaw was to be a perpetual one, of his beloved country,
+addressed the most passionate and solemn adjurations to the Walloon
+provinces, and to their military chieftains.  He offered all his children
+as hostages for his good faith in keeping sacredly any covenant which his
+Catholic countrymen might be willing to close with him.  It was in vain.
+The step was irretrievably taken; religious bigotry, patrician jealousy,
+and wholesale bribery, had severed the Netherlands in twain for ever.
+The friends of Romanism, the enemies of civil and religious liberty,
+exulted from one end of Christendom to the other, and it was recognized
+that Parma had, indeed, achieved a victory which although bloodless, was
+as important to the cause of absolutism as any which even his sword was
+likely to achieve.
+
+The joy of the Catholic party in Paris manifested itself in a variety of
+ways.  At the principal theatre an uncouth pantomime was exhibited, in
+which his Catholic Majesty was introduced upon the stage, leading by a
+halter a sleek cow, typifying the Netherlands.  The animal by a sudden
+effort, broke the cord, and capered wildly about.  Alexander of Parma
+hastened to fasten the fragments together, while sundry personages,
+representing the states-general, seized her by the horns, some leaping
+upon her back, others calling upon the bystanders to assist in holding
+the restive beast.  The Emperor, the King of France, and the Queen of
+England--which last personage was observed now to smile upon one party,
+now to affect deep sympathy with the other--remained stationary; but the
+Duke of Alencon rushed upon the stage, and caught the cow by the tail.
+The Prince of Orange and Hans Casimir then appeared with a bucket, and
+set themselves busily to milk her, when Alexander again seized the
+halter.  The cow gave a plunge, upset the pail, prostrated Casimir with
+one kick and Orange with another, and then followed Parma with docility
+as be led her back to Philip.  This seems not very "admirable fooling,"
+but it was highly relished by the polite Parisians of the sixteenth
+century, and has been thought worthy of record by classical historians.
+
+The Walloon accord was an auspicious prelude, in the eyes of the friends
+of absolutism, to the negotiations which were opened in the month of May,
+at Cologne.  Before sketching, as rapidly as possible, those celebrated
+but barren conferences, it is necessary, for the sake of unity in the
+narrative, to cast a glance at certain synchronical events in different
+parts of the Netherlands.
+
+The success attained by the Catholic party in the Walloon negotiations
+had caused a corresponding bitterness in the hearts of the Reformers
+throughout the country.  As usual, bitterness had begot bitterness;
+intolerance engendered intolerance.  On the 28th of May, 1579, as the
+Catholics of Antwerp were celebrating the Ommegang--the same festival
+which had been the exciting cause of the memorable tumults of the year
+sixty-five--the irritation of the populace could not be repressed.  The
+mob rose in its wrath to put down these demonstrations--which, taken in
+connection with recent events, seemed ill-timed and insolent--of a
+religion whose votaries then formed but a small minority of the Antwerp
+citizens.  There was a great tumult.  Two persons were killed.  The
+Archduke Matthias, who was himself in the Cathedral of Notre Dame
+assisting at the ceremony, was in danger of his life.  The well known cry
+of "paapen uit" (out with the papists) resounded through the streets, and
+the priests and monks were all hustled out of town amid a tempest of
+execrations.  Orange did his utmost to quell the mutiny, nor were his
+efforts fruitless--for the uproar, although seditious and disgraceful,
+was hardly sanguinary.  Next day the Prince summoned the magistracy,
+the Monday council, the guild officers, with all the chief municipal
+functionaries, and expressed his indignation in decided terms.  He
+protested that if such tumults, originating in that very spirit of
+intolerance which he most deplored, could not be repressed for the
+future, he was determined to resign his offices, and no longer to affect
+authority in a city where his counsels were derided.  The magistrates,
+alarmed at his threats, and sympathizing with his anger, implored him not
+to desert them, protesting that if he should resign his offices, they
+would instantly lay down their, own.  An ordinance was then drawn up and
+immediately, proclaimed at the Town House, permitting the Catholics to
+re-enter the city, and to enjoy the privileges of religious worship.  At
+the same time, it was announced that a new draft of a religious peace
+would be forthwith issued for the adoption of every city.
+
+A similar tumult, arising from the same cause, at Utrecht, was attended
+with the like result.  On the other hand, the city of Brussels was
+astonished by a feeble and unsuccessful attempts at treason, made by a
+youth who bore an illustrious name.  Philip, Count of Egmont, eldest son
+of the unfortunate Lamoral, had command of a regiment in the service of
+the states.  He had, besides, a small body of cavalry  in immediate
+attendance upon his person.  He had for some time felt inclined--like the
+Lalains, Meluns, La Mottes, and others to reconcile himself with the
+Crown, and he wisely thought that the terms accorded to him would be more
+liberal if he could bring the capital of Brabant with him as a peace
+offering to his Majesty.  His residence was in Brussels.  His regiment
+was stationed outside the gates, but in the immediate neighbourhood of
+the city.  On the morning of the 4th of June he despatched his troopers--
+as had been frequently his custom--on various errands into the country.
+On their return, after having summoned the regiment, they easily mastered
+and butchered the guard at the gate through which they had re-entered,
+supplying their place with men from their own ranks.  The Egmont regiment
+then came marching through the gate in good order--Count Philip at their
+head--and proceeded to station themselves upon the Grande Place in the
+centre of the city.  All this was at dawn of day.  The burghers, who
+looked forth from their houses, were astounded and perplexed by this
+movement at so unwonted an hour, and hastened to seize their weapons.
+Egmont sent a detachment to take possession of the palace.  He was too
+late. Colonel Van der Tympel, commandant of the city, had been beforehand
+with him, had got his troops under arms, and now secured the rebellious
+detachment.  Meantime, the alarm had spread.  Armed burghers came from
+every house, and barricades were hastily thrown up across every one of
+the narrow streets leading to the square.  Every issue was closed.  Not a
+man of Egmont's adherents--if he indeed had adherents among the townsmen
+--dared to show his face.  The young traitor and his whole regiment,
+drawn up on the Grande Place, were completely entrapped.  He had not
+taken Brussels, but assuredly Brussels had taken him.  All day long he
+was kept in his self-elected prison and pillory, bursting with rage and
+shame.  His soldiers, who were without meat or drink, became insolent and
+uproarious, and he was doomed also to hear the bitter and well-merited
+taunts of the towns-people.  A thousand stinging gibes, suggested by his
+name and the locality, were mercilessly launched upon him.  He was asked
+if he came thither to seek his father's head.  He was reminded that the
+morrow was the anniversary of that father's murder upon that very spot--
+by those with whom the son would now make his treasonable peace.  He was
+bidden to tear up but a few stones from the pavement beneath his feet,
+that the hero's blood might cry out against him from the very ground.
+
+Tears of shame and fury sprang from the young man's eyes as he listened
+to these biting sarcasms, but the night closed upon that memorable
+square, and still the Count was a prisoner.  Eleven years before, the
+summer stars had looked down upon a more dense array of armed men within
+that place.  The preparations for the pompous and dramatic execution,
+which on the morrow was to startle all Europe, had been carried out in
+the midst of a hushed and overawed population; and now, on the very
+anniversary of the midnight in which that scaffold had risen, should not
+the grand spectre of the victim have started from the grave to chide his
+traitorous son?
+
+Thus for a whole day and night was the baffled conspirator compelled to
+remain in the ignominious position which he had selected for himself.  On
+the morning of the 5th of June he was permitted to depart, by a somewhat
+inexplicable indulgence, together with all his followers.  He rode out of
+the gate at early dawn, contemptible and crest-fallen, at the head of his
+regiment of traitors, and shortly afterwards--pillaging and levying black
+mail as he went--made his way to Montigny's quarters.
+
+It might have seemed natural, after such an exhibition, that Philip
+Egmont should accept his character of renegade, and confess his intention
+of reconciling himself with the murderers of his father.  On the
+contrary, he addressed a letter to the magistracy of Brussels, denying
+with vehemence "any intention of joining the party of the pernicious
+Spaniards," warmly protesting his zeal and affection for the states, and
+denouncing the "perverse inventors of these calumnies against him as the
+worst enemies of the poor afflicted country."  The magistrates replied by
+expressing their inability to comprehend how the Count, who had suffered
+villainous wrongs from the Spaniards, such as he could never sufficiently
+deplore or avenge, should ever be willing to enslave himself, to those
+tyrants.  Nevertheless, exactly at the moment of this correspondence,
+Egmont was in close negotiation with Spain, having fifteen days before
+the date of his letter to the Brussels senate, conveyed to Parma his
+resolution to "embrace the cause of his Majesty and the ancient
+religion"--an intention which he vaunted himself to have proved "by
+cutting the throats of three companies of states' soldiers at Nivelle,
+Grandmont, and Ninove."  Parma had already written to communicate the
+intelligence to the King, and to beg encouragement for the Count.  In
+September, the monarch wrote a letter to Egmont, full of gratitude and
+promises, to which the Count replied by expressing lively gratification
+that his Majesty was pleased with his little services, by avowing
+profound attachment to Church and King, and by asking eagerly for money,
+together with the government of Alost.  He soon became singularly
+importunate for rewards and promotion, demanding, among other posts, the
+command of the "band of ordnance," which had been his father's.  Parma,
+in reply, was prodigal of promises, reminding the young noble "that he
+was serving a sovereign who well knew how to reward the distinguished
+exploits of his subjects."  Such was the language of Philip the Second
+and his Governor to the son of the headless hero of Saint Quentin; such
+was the fawning obsequiousness with which Egmont could kiss that royal
+hand reeking with his father's blood.
+
+Meanwhile the siege of Maestricht had been advancing with steady
+precision.  To military minds of that epoch--perhaps of later ages--this
+achievement of Parma seemed a masterpiece of art.  The city commanded the
+Upper Meuse, and was the gate into Germany.  It contained thirty-four
+thousand inhabitants.  An army, numbering almost as many Souls, was
+brought against it; and the number of deaths by which its capture was at
+last effected, was probably equal to that of a moiety of the population.
+To the technical mind, the siege no doubt seemed a beautiful creation of
+human intelligence.  To the honest student of history, to the lover of
+human progress, such a manifestation of intellect seems a sufficiently
+sad exhibition.  Given, a city with strong walls and towers, a slender
+garrison and a devoted population on one side; a consummate chieftain on
+the other, with an army of veterans at his back, no interruption to fear,
+and a long season to work in; it would not seem to an unsophisticated
+mind a very lofty exploit for the soldier to carry the city at the end of
+four months' hard labor.
+
+The investment of Maestricht was commenced upon the 12th of March, 1579.
+In the city, besides the population, there were two thousand peasants,
+both men and women, a garrison of one thousand soldiers; and a trained
+burgher guard; numbering about twelve hundred.  The name of the military
+commandant was Melchior.  Sebastian Tappin, a Lorraine officer of much
+experience and bravery, was next in command, and was, in truth, the
+principal director of the operations.  He had been despatched thither by
+the Prince of Orange, to serve under La None, who was to have commanded
+in Maestricht, but had been unable to enter the city.  Feeling that the
+siege was to be a close one, and knowing how much depended upon the
+issue, Sebastian lost no time in making every needful preparation for
+coming events.  The walls were strengthened everywhere; shafts were sunk,
+preparatory to the countermining operations which were soon to become
+necessary; the moat was deepened and cleared, and the forts near the
+gates were put in thorough repair.  On the other hand, Alexander had
+encircled the city, and had thrown two bridges, well fortified, across
+the river.  There were six gates to the town, each provided with
+ravelins, and there was a doubt in what direction the first attack should
+be made.  Opinions wavered between the gate of Bois-le-Duc, next the
+river, and that of Tongres on the south-western side, but it was finally
+decided to attempt the gate of Tongres.
+
+Over against that point the platforms were accordingly constructed, and
+after a heavy cannonade from forty-six great guns continued for several
+days, it was thought, by the 25th of March, that an impression had been
+made upon the city.  A portion of the brick curtain had crumbled, but
+through the breach was seen a massive terreplein, well moated, which,
+after six thousand shots already delivered on the outer wall--still
+remained uninjured.  It was recognized that the gate of Tongres was not
+the most assailable, but rather the strongest portion of the defences,
+and Alexander therefore determined to shift his batteries to the gate of
+Bois-le-Duc.  At the same time, the attempt upon that of Tongres was to
+be varied, but not abandoned.  Four thousand miners, who had passed half
+their lives in burrowing for coal in that anthracite region, had been
+furnished by the Bishop of Liege, and this force was now set to their
+subterranean work.  A mine having been opened at a distance, the
+besiegers slowly worked their way towards the Tongres gate, while at the
+same time the more ostensible operations were in the opposite direction.
+The besieged had their miners also, for the peasants in the city had been
+used to work with mattock and pickaxe.  The women, too, enrolled
+themselves into companies, chose their officers--or "mine-mistresses," as
+they were called--and did good service daily in the caverns of the earth.
+Thus a whole army of gnomes were noiselessly at work to destroy and
+defend the beleaguered city.  The mine advanced towards the gate; the
+besieged delved deeper, and intersected it with a transverse excavation,
+and the contending forces met daily, in deadly encounter, within these
+sepulchral gangways.  Many stratagems were, mutually employed.  The
+citizens secretly constructed a dam across the Spanish mine, and then
+deluged their foe with hogsheads of boiling water.  Hundreds were thus
+scalded to death.  They heaped branches and light fagots in the hostile
+mine, set fire to the pile, and blew thick volumes of smoke along the
+passage with organ-bellows brought from the churches for the purpose.
+Many were thus suffocated.  The discomfited besiegers abandoned the mine
+where they had met with such able countermining, and sunk another shaft,
+at midnight, in secret, at a long distance from the Tongres gate.  Still
+towards that point, however, they burrowed in the darkness; guiding
+themselves to their destination with magnet, plumbline and level, as the
+mariner crosses the trackless ocean with compass and chart.  They worked
+their way, unobstructed, till they arrived at their subterranean port,
+directly beneath the doomed ravelin.  Here they constructed a spacious
+chamber, supporting it with columns, and making all their architectural
+arrangements with as much precision and elegance as if their object had
+been purely esthetic.  Coffers full of powder, to an enormous amount,
+were then placed in every direction across the floor, the train was laid,
+and Parma informed that all was ready.  Alexander, having already arrayed
+the troops destined for the assault, then proceeded in person to the
+mouth of the shaft, and gave orders to spring the mine.  The explosion
+was prodigious; a part of the tower fell with the concussion, and the
+moat was choked with heaps of rubbish.  The assailants sprang across the
+passage thus afforded, and mastered the ruined portion of the fort.  They
+were met in the breach, however, by the unflinching defenders of the
+city, and, after a fierce combat of some hours, were obliged to retire;
+remaining masters, however, of the moat, and of the ruined portion of the
+ravelin.  This was upon the 3rd of April.
+
+Five days afterwards, a general assault was ordered.  A new mine having
+been already constructed towards the Tongres ravelin, and a faithful
+cannonade having been kept up for a fortnight against the Bois-le-Duc
+gate, it was thought advisable to attack at both points at once.  On the
+8th of April, accordingly, after uniting in prayer, and listening to a
+speech from Alexander Farnese, the great mass of the Spanish army
+advanced to the breach.  The moat had been rendered practicable in many
+places by the heaps of rubbish with which it had been encumbered, and by
+the fagots and earth with which it had been filled by the besiegers.  The
+action at the Bois-le-Duc gate was exceedingly warm.  The tried veterans
+of Spain, Italy, and Burgundy, were met face to face by the burghers of
+Maestricht, together with their wives and children.  All were armed to
+the teeth, and fought with what seemed superhuman valor.  The women,
+fierce as tigresses defending their young, swarmed to the walls, and
+fought in the foremost rank.  They threw pails of boiling water on the
+besiegers, they hurled firebrands in their faces; they quoited blazing
+pitch-hoops with, unerring dexterity about their necks.  The rustics too,
+armed with their ponderous flails, worked as cheerfully at this bloody
+harvesting as if thrashing their corn at home.  Heartily did they winnow
+the ranks of the royalists who came to butcher them, and thick and fast
+fell the invaders, fighting bravely, but baffled by these novel weapons
+used by peasant and woman, coming to the aid of the sword; spear, and
+musket of trained soldiery.  More than a thousand had fallen at the Bois-
+le-Duc gate, and still fresh besiegers mounted the breach, only to be
+beaten back, or to add to the mangled heap of the slain.  At the Tongres
+gate, meanwhile, the assault had fared no better.  A herald had been
+despatched thither in hot haste, to shout at the top of his lungs,
+"Santiago!  Santiago!  the Lombards have the gate of Bois-le-Duc!"
+while the same stratagem was employed to persuade the invaders on the
+other side of the town that their comrades had forced the gate of
+Tongres.  The soldiers, animated by this fiction, and advancing with fury
+against the famous ravelin; which had been but partly destroyed, were
+received with a broadside from the great guns of the unshattered portion,
+and by a rattling discharge of musketry from the walls.  They wavered a
+little.  At the same instant the new mine--which was to have been sprung
+between the ravelin and the gate, but which had been secretly
+countermined by the townspeople, exploded with a horrible concussion,
+at a moment least expected by the besiegers.  Five hundred royalists were
+blown into the air.  Ortiz, a Spanish captain of engineers, who had been
+inspecting the excavations, was thrown up bodily from the subterranean
+depth.  He fell back again instantly into the same cavern, and was buried
+by the returning shower of earth which had spouted from the mine.  Forty-
+five years afterwards, in digging for the foundations of a new wall, his
+skeleton was found.  Clad in complete armor, the helmet and cuirass still
+sound, with his gold chain around his neck, and his mattock and pickaxe
+at his feet, the soldier lay unmutilated, seeming almost capable of
+resuming his part in the same war which--even after his half century's
+sleep--was still ravaging the land.
+
+Five hundred of the Spaniards, perished by the explosion, but none of the
+defenders were injured, for they, had been prepared.  Recovering from the
+momentary panic, the besiegers again rushed to the attack.  The battle
+raged.  Six hundred and seventy officers, commissioned or non-
+commissioned, had already fallen, more than half mortally wounded.  Four
+thousand royalists, horribly mutilated, lay on the ground.  It was time
+that the day's work should be finished, for Maastricht was not to be
+carried upon that occasion.  The best and bravest of the surviving
+officers besought Parma to put an end to the carnage by recalling the
+troops; but the gladiator heart of the commander was heated, not
+softened, by the savage spectacle.  "Go back to the breach," he cried,
+"and tell the soldiers that Alexander is coming to lead them into the
+city in triumph, or to perish with his comrades."  He rushed forward
+with the fury which had marked him when he boarded Mustapha's galley at
+Lepanto; but all the generals who were near him threw themselves upon his
+path, and implored him to desist from such insensate rashness.  Their
+expostulations would have probably been in vain, had not his confidential
+friend, Serbelloni, interposed with something like paternal authority,
+reminding him of the strict commands contained in his Majesty's recent
+letters, that the Governor-General, to whom so much was entrusted, should
+refrain, on pain of the royal displeasure, from exposing his life like a
+common fighter.
+
+Alexander reluctantly gave the signal of recal at last, and accepted the
+defeat.  For the future he determined to rely more upon the sapper and
+miner, and less upon the superiority of veterans to townsmen and rustics
+in open fight.  Sure to carry the city at last, according to line and
+rule, determined to pass the whole summer beneath the walls, rather
+than abandon his purpose, he calmly proceeded to complete his
+circumvallations.  A chain of eleven forts upon the left, and five upon
+the right side of the Meuse, the whole connected by a continuous wall,
+afforded him perfect security against interruptions, and allowed him to
+continue the siege at leisure.  His numerous army was well housed and
+amply supplied, and he had built a strong and populous city in order to
+destroy another.  Relief was impossible.  But a few thousand men were now
+required to defend Farnese's improvised town, while the bulk of his army
+could be marched at any moment against an advancing foe.  A force of
+seven thousand, painfully collected by the Prince of Orange, moved
+towards the place, under command of Hohenlo and John of Nassau, but
+struck with wonder at what they saw, the leaders recognized the
+hopelessness of attempting relief.  Maestricht was surrounded by
+a second Maestricht.
+
+The efforts of Orange were now necessarily directed towards obtaining,
+if possible, a truce of a few weeks from the negotiators at Cologne.
+Parma was too crafty, however, to allow Terranova to consent, and as the
+Duke disclaimed any power over the direct question of peace and war, the
+siege proceeded.  The gates of Bois-le-Duc and Tongres having thus far
+resisted the force brought against them, the scene was changed to the
+gate of Brussels.  This adjoined that of Tongres, was farthest from the
+river, and faced westwardly towards the open country.  Here the besieged
+had constructed an additional ravelin, which they had christened, in
+derision, "Parma," and against which the batteries of Parma were now
+brought to bear.  Alexander erected a platform of great extent and
+strength directly opposite the new work, and after a severe and constant
+cannonade from this elevation, followed by a bloody action, the "Parma"
+fort was carried.  One thousand, at least, of the defenders fell, as,
+forced gradually from one defence to another, they saw the triple walls
+of their ravelin crumble successively before their eyes.  The tower was
+absolutely annihilated before they abandoned its ruins, and retired
+within their last defences.  Alexander being now master of the fosa and
+the defences of the Brussels gate, drew up a large force on both aides of
+that portal, along the margin of the moat, and began mining beneath the
+inner wall of the city.
+
+Meantime, the garrison had been reduced to four hundred soldiers, nearly
+all of whom were wounded: wearied and driven to despair, these soldiers
+were willing to treat.  The townspeople, however, answered the
+proposition with a shout of fury, and protested that they would destroy
+the garrison with their own hands if such an insinuation were repeated.
+Sebastian Tappin, too, encouraged them with the hope of speedy relief,
+and held out to them the wretched consequences of trusting to the mercy
+of their foes.  The garrison took heart again, while that of the burghers
+and their wives had, never faltered.  Their main hope now was in a
+fortification which they had been constructing inside the Brussels gate
+--a demilune of considerable strength.  Behind it was a breastwork of
+turf and masonry, to serve as a last bulwark when every other defence
+should be forced.  The whole had been surrounded by a foss thirty feet in
+depth, and the besiegers, as they mounted upon the breaches which they
+had at last effected in the outer curtain, near the Brussels gate, saw
+for the first time this new fortification.
+
+The general condition of the defences, and the disposition of the
+inhabitants, had been revealed to Alexander by a deserter from the town.
+Against this last fortress the last efforts of the foe were now directed.
+Alexander ordered a bridge to be thrown across the city moat.  As it was
+sixty feet wide and as many deep, and lay directly beneath the guns of
+the new demilune, the enterprise was sufficiently hazardous.  Alexander
+led the way in person, with a mallet in one hand and a mattockin the
+other.  Two men fell dead instantly, one on his right hand and his left,
+while he calmly commenced, in his own person, the driving of the first
+piles for the bridge.  His soldiers fell fast around him.  Count
+Berlaymont was shot dead, many officers of distinction were killed or
+wounded, but no soldier dared recoil while their chieftain wrought amid
+the bullets like a common pioneer.  Alexander, unharmed, as by a miracle,
+never left the spot till the bridge had been constructed, and till ten
+great guns had been carried across it, and pointed against the demilune.
+The battery was opened, the mines previously excavated were sprung, a
+part of the demilune was blown into the air, and the assailants sprang
+into the breach.  Again a furious hand-to-hand conflict succeeded; again,
+after an obstinate resistance, the townspeople were forced to yield.
+Slowly abandoning the shattered fort, they retired behind the breastwork
+in its rear--their innermost and last defence.  To this barrier they
+clung as to a spar in shipwreck, and here at last they stood at bay,
+prepared dearly to sell their lives.
+
+The breastwork, being still strong, was not attempted upon that day.  The
+assailants were recalled, and in the mean time a herald was sent by
+Parma, highly applauding the courage of the defenders, and begging them
+to surrender at discretion.  They answered the messenger with words of
+haughty defiance, and, rushing in a mass to the breastwork, began with
+spade, pickax, and trowel, to add to its strength.  Here all the able-
+bodied men of the town took up their permanent position, and here they
+ate, drank, and slept upon their posts, while their food was brought to
+them by the women and children.
+
+A little letter, "written in a fine neat handwriting," now mysteriously
+arrived in the city, encouraging them in the name of the Archduke and the
+Prince of Orange, and assuring them of relief within fourteen days.  A
+brief animation was thus produced, attended by a corresponding languor
+upon the part of the besiegers, for Alexander had been lying ill with a
+fever since the day when the demilune had been carried.  From his sick
+bed he rebuked his officers severely that a temporary breastwork, huddled
+together by boors and burghers in the midst of a siege, should prove an
+insurmountable obstacle to men who had carried everything before them.
+The morrow was the festival of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and it was
+meet that so sacred a day should be hallowed by a Christian and Apostolic
+victory.  Saint Peter would be there with, his keys to open the gate;
+Saint Paul would lead them to battle with his invincible sword.  Orders
+were given accordingly, and the assault was assigned for the following
+morning.
+
+Meantime, the guards were strengthened and commanded to be more than
+usually watchful.  The injunction had a remarkable effect.  At the dead
+of night, a soldier of the watch was going his rounds on the outside of
+the breastwork, listening, if perchance he might catch, as was not
+unusual, a portion of the conversation among the beleaguered burghers
+within.  Prying about on every side, he at last discovered a chink in the
+wall, the result, doubtless, of the last cannonade, and hitherto
+overlooked.  He enlarged the gap with his fingers, and finally made an
+opening wide enough to admit his person.  He crept boldly through, and
+looked around in the clear starlight.  The sentinels were all slumbering
+at their posts.  He advanced stealthily in the dusky streets.  Not a
+watchman was going his rounds.  Soldiers, burghers, children, women,
+exhausted by incessant fatigue, were all asleep.  Not a footfall was
+heard; not a whisper broke the silence; it seemed a city of the dead.
+The soldier crept back through the crevice, and hastened to apprise his
+superiors of his adventure.
+
+Alexander, forthwith instructed as to the condition of the city, at once
+ordered the assault, and the last wall was suddenly stormed before the
+morning broke.  The soldiers forced their way through the breach or
+sprang over the breastwork, and surprised at last--in its sleep--the city
+which had so long and vigorously defended itself.  The burghers, startled
+from their slumber, bewildered, unprepared, found themselves engaged in
+unequal conflict with alert and savage foes.  The battle, as usual when
+Netherland towns were surprised by Philip's soldiers, soon changed to a
+massacre.  The townspeople rushed hither and thither, but there was
+neither escape, nor means of resisting an enemy who now poured into the
+town by thousands upon thousands.  An indiscriminate slaughter succeeded:
+Women, old men, and children, had all been combatants; and all,
+therefore, had incurred the vengeance of the conquerors.  A cry of agony
+arose which was distinctly heard at the distance of a league.  Mothers
+took their infants in their arms, and threw themselves by hundreds into
+the Meuse--and against women the blood-thirst of the assailants was
+especially directed.  Females who had fought daily in the trenches, who
+had delved in mines and mustered on the battlements, had unsexed
+themselves in the opinion of those whose comrades they had helped to
+destroy.  It was nothing that they had laid aside the weakness of women
+in order to defend all that was holy and dear to them on earth.  It was
+sufficient that many a Spanish, Burgundian, or Italian mercenary had died
+by their hands.  Women were pursued from house to house, and hurled from
+roof and window.  They were hunted into the river; they were torn limb
+from limb in the streets.  Men and children fared no better; but the
+heart sickens at the oft-repeated tale.  Horrors, alas, were commonplaces
+in the Netherlands.  Cruelty too monstrous for description, too vast to
+be believed by a mind not familiar with the outrages practised by the
+soldiers of Spain and Italy upon their heretic fellow-creatures, were now
+committed afresh in the streets of Maestricht.
+
+On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered.  The
+massacre lasted two days longer; nor would it be an exaggerated estimate,
+if we assume that the amount of victims upon the two last days was equal
+to half the number sacrificed on the first.  It was said that not four
+hundred citizens were left alive after the termination of the siege.
+These soon wandered away, their places being supplied by a rabble rout of
+Walloon sutlers and vagabonds.  Maestricht was depopulated as well as
+captured.  The booty obtained after the massacre was very large, for the
+city had been very thriving, its cloth manufacture extensive and
+important.  Sebastian Tappin, the heroic defender of the place, had been
+shot through the shoulder at the taking of the Parma ravelin, and had
+been afterwards severely injured at the capture of the demilune.  At the
+fall of the city he was mortally wounded, and carried a prisoner to the
+hostile camp, only to expire.  The governor, Swartsenberg, also lost his
+life.
+
+Alexander, on the contrary, was raised from his sick bed with the joyful
+tidings of victory, and as soon as he could be moved, made his appearance
+in the city.  Seated in a splendid chair of state, borne aloft on the
+shoulders of his veterans, with a golden canopy above his head to protect
+him from the summer's sun, attended by the officers of his staff, who
+were decked by his special command in, their gayest trappings, escorted
+by his body-guard, followed by his "plumed troops," to the number of
+twenty thousand, surrounded by all the vanities of war, the hero made his
+stately entrance into the town.  His way led through deserted streets of
+shattered houses.  The pavement ran red with blood.  Headless corpses,
+mangled limbs--an obscene mass of wretchedness and corruption, were
+spread on every side, and tainted the summer air.  Through the thriving
+city which, in the course of four months Alexander had converted into a
+slaughter-house and a solitude, the pompous procession took its course to
+the church of Saint Servais.  Here humble thanks were offered to the.
+God of Love, and to Jesus of Nazareth, for this new victory.  Especially
+was gratitude expressed to the Apostles Paul and Peter; upon whose
+festival, and by whose sword and key the crowning mercy had been
+accomplished,--and by whose special agency eight thousand heretics now
+lay unburied in the streets.  These acts of piety performed, the
+triumphal procession returned to the camp, where, soon afterwards, the
+joyful news of Alexander Farnese's entire convalescence was proclaimed.
+
+The Prince of Orange, as usual, was blamed for the tragical termination
+to this long drama.  All that one man could do, he had done to awaken his
+countrymen to the importance of the siege.  He had repeatedly brought the
+subject solemnly before the assembly, and implored for Maestricht, almost
+upon his knees.  Lukewarm and parsimonious, the states had responded to
+his eloquent appeals with wrangling addressee and insufficient votes.
+With a special subsidy obtained in April and May, he had organized the
+slight attempt at relief, which was all which he had been empowered to
+make, but which proved entirely unsuccessful.  Now that the massacre to
+be averted was accomplished, men were loud in reproof, who had been
+silent, and passive while there was yet time to speak and to work.  It
+was the Prince, they said, who had delivered so many thousands of his
+fellow-countrymen to, butchery.  To save himself, they insinuated he was
+now plotting to deliver the land into the power of the treacherous
+Frenchman, and he alone, they asserted, was the insuperable obstacle to
+an honorable peace with Spain.
+
+A letter, brought by an unknown messenger, was laid before the states'
+assembly, in full session, and sent to the clerk's table, to be read
+aloud.  After the first few sentences, that functionary faltered in his
+recital.  Several members also peremptorily ordered him to stop; for the
+letter proved to be a violent and calumnious libel upon Orange, together
+with a strong appeal in favor of the peace propositions then under debate
+at Cologne.  The Prince alone, of all the assembly, preserving his
+tranquillity, ordered the document to be brought to him, and forthwith
+read it aloud himself, from beginning to end.  Afterwards, he took
+occasion to express his mind concerning the ceaseless calumnies of which
+he was the mark.  He especially alluded to the oft-repeated accusation
+that he was the only obstacle to peace, and repeated that he was ready at
+that moment to leave the land, and to close his lips for ever, if by so
+doing he could benefit his country, and restore her to honorable repose.
+The outcry, with the protestations of attachment and confidence which at
+once broke from the assembly, convinced him, however, that he was deeply
+rooted in the hearts of all patriotic Netherlanders, and that it was
+beyond the power of slanderers to loosen his hold upon their affection.
+
+Meantime, his efforts had again and again been demanded to restore order
+in that abode of anarchy, the city of Ghent.  After his visit during the
+previous winter, and the consequent departure of John Casimir to the
+palatinate, the pacific arrangements made by the Prince had for a short
+time held good.  Early in March, however, that master of misrule, John
+van Imbize, had once more excited the populace to sedition.  Again the
+property of Catholics, clerical and lay, was plundered; again the persons
+of Catholics, of every degree, were maltreated.  The magistrates, with
+first senator Imbize at their head, rather encouraged than rebuked the
+disorder; but Orange, as soon as he received official intelligence of
+the event, hastened to address them in the words of earnest warning and
+wisdom.  He allowed that the inhabitants of the province had reason to
+be discontented with the presence and the misconduct of the Walloon
+soldiery.  He granted that violence and the menaces of a foreign tyranny
+made it difficult for honest burghers to gain a livelihood.  At the same
+time he expressed astonishment that reasonable men should seek a remedy
+for such evils in tumults which would necessarily bring utter destruction
+upon the land.  "It was," he observed, "as if a patient should from
+impatience, tear the bandages from his wounds, and, like a maniac,
+instead of allowing himself to be cured, plunge a dagger into his own
+heart."
+
+These exhortations exerted a wholesome effect for a moment, but matters
+soon went from bad to worse.  Imbize, fearing the influence of the
+Prince, indulged in open-mouthed abuse of a man whose character he was
+unable even to comprehend, He accused him of intriguing with France for
+his own benefit, of being a Papist in disguise, of desiring to establish
+what he called a "religious peace," merely to restore Roman idolatry.
+In all these insane ravings, the demagogue was most ably seconded by the
+ex-monk.  Incessant and unlicensed were the invectives hurled by Peter
+Dathenus from his pulpit upon William the Silent's head.  He denounced
+him--as he had often done before--as an atheist in heart; as a man who
+changed his religion as easily as his garments; as a man who knew no God
+but state expediency, which was the idol of his worship; a mere
+politician who would tear his shirt from his back and throw it in the
+fire, if he thought it were tainted with religion.
+
+Such witless but vehement denunciation from a preacher who was both
+popular and comparatively sincere, could, not but affect the imagination
+of the weaker portion of his, healers.  The faction of Imbize became
+triumphant.  Ryhove--the ruffian whose hands were stained with the recent
+blood of Visch and Hessels--rather did damage than service to the cause
+of order.  He opposed himself to the demagogue who was prating daily of
+Greece, Rome, and Geneva, while his clerical associate was denouncing
+William of Orange, but he opposed himself in vain.  An attempt to secure
+the person of Imbize failed, but by the influence of Ryhove, however, a
+messenger was despatched to Antwerp in the name of a considerable portion
+of the community of Ghent.  The counsel and the presence of the man to
+whom all hearts in every part of the Netherlands instinctively turned in
+the hour of need, were once more invoked.
+
+The Prince again addressed them in language which none but he could
+employ with such effect.  He told them that his life, passed in service
+and sacrifice, ought to witness sufficiently for his fidelity.
+Nevertheless, he thought it necessary--in view of the calumnies which
+were circulated--to repeat once more his sentiment that no treaty of
+peace, war, or alliance, ought to be negotiated, save with the consent of
+the people.  His course in Holland and Zealand had proved, he said, his
+willingness always to consult the wishes of his countrymen.  As for the
+matter of religion it was almost incredible that there should be any who
+doubted the zeal which he bore the religion for which he had suffered so
+much.  "I desire," he continued, fervently, "that men should compare that
+which has been done by my accusers during ten years past with that which
+I have done.  In that which touches the true advancement of religion, I
+will yield to no man.  They who so boldly accuse me have no liberty of
+speech, save that which has been acquired for them by the blood of my
+kindred, by my labors, and my excessive expenditures.  To me they owe it
+that they dare speak at all."  This letter, (which was dated on the 24th
+of July, 1579) contained an assurance that the writer was about to visit
+Ghent.
+
+On the following day, Imbize executed a coup d'etat.  Having a body of
+near two thousand soldiers at his disposal, he suddenly secured the
+persons of all the magistrates and other notable individuals not friendly
+to his policy, and then, in violation of all law, set up a new board of
+eighteen irresponsible functionaries, according to a list prepared by
+himself alone.  This was his way of enforcing the democratic liberty
+of Greece, Rome, and Geneva, which was so near to his heart.  A
+proclamation, in fourteen articles, was forthwith issued, justifying this
+arbitrary proceeding.  It was declared that the object of the somewhat
+irregular measure "was to prevent the establishment of the religious
+peace, which was merely a method of replanting uprooted papistry and the
+extirpated tyranny of Spain."  Although the arrangement's had not been
+made in strict accordance with formal usage and ceremony, yet they were
+defended upon the ground that it had been impossible, by other means, to
+maintain their ancient liberties and their religious freedom.  At the
+same time a pamphlet, already prepared for the occasion by Dathenus,
+was extensively circulated.  In this production the arbitrary revolution
+effected by a demagogue was defended with effrontery, while the
+character, of Orange, was loaded with customary abuse.  To prevent
+the traitor from coming to Ghent, and establishing what he called his
+religious peace, these irregular measures, it was urged, had been wisely
+taken.
+
+Such were the efforts of John Imbize--such the calumnies of Peter
+Dathenus--in order to counteract the patriotic endeavors of the Prince;
+but neither the ruffianism of John nor the libels of Peter were destined
+upon this occasion to be successful.  William the Silent treated the
+slanders of the scolding monk with dignified contempt.  "Having been
+informed," said he to the magistrates of Ghent, "that Master Peter
+Dathenns has been denouncing me as a man without religion or fidelity,
+and full of ambition, with other propositions hardly becoming his cloth;
+I do not think it worth while to answer more at this time than that I
+willingly refer myself to the judgment of all who know me."
+
+The Prince came to Ghent, great as had been the efforts of Imbize and his
+partisans to prevent his coming.  His presence was like magic.  The
+demagogue and his whole flock vanished like unclean birds at the first
+rays of the sun.  Imbize dared not look the Father of his country in the
+face.  Orange rebuked the populace in the strong and indignant language
+that public and private virtue, energy, and a high purpose enabled such a
+leader of the people to use.  He at once set aside the board of eighteen
+--the Grecian-Roman-Genevese establishment of Imbize--and remained in the
+city until the regular election, in conformity with the privileges, had
+taken place.  Imbize, who had shrunk at his approach, was meantime
+discovered by his own companions.  He had stolen forth secretly on the
+night before the Prince's arrival, and was found cowering in the cabin of
+a vessel, half dead with fear, by an ale-house keeper who had been his
+warm partisan.  "No Skulking," cried the honest friend; seizing the
+tribune of the people by the shoulder;" no sailing away in the night-
+time.  You have got us all into this bog, and must come back, and abide
+the issue with your supporters."
+
+In this collapsed state was the windy demagogue, who had filled half
+Flanders with his sound and fury, conveyed before the patriot Prince.
+He met with grave and bitter rebukes, but felt sufficiently relieved when
+allowed to depart unharmed.  Judging of his probable doom by the usual
+practice of himself and his fellows in similar cases, he had anticipated
+nothing short of the gibbet.  That punishment, however, was to be
+inflicted at a later period, by other hands, and not until he had added
+treason to his country and a shameless recantation of all his violent
+professions in favor of civil and religious liberty to the list of his
+crimes.  On the present occasion he was permitted to go free.  In company
+with his clerical companion, Peter Dathenus, he fled to the abode of his
+excellent friend, John Casimir, who received both with open arms, and
+allowed them each a pension.
+
+Order being thus again restored in Ghent by the exertions of the Prince,
+when no other human hand could have dispelled the anarchy which seemed to
+reign supreme, William the Silent, having accepted the government of
+Flanders, which had again and again been urged upon him, now returned to
+Antwerp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     The Cologne conferences--Intentions of the parties--Preliminary
+     attempt by government to purchase the Prince of Orange--Offer and
+     rejection of various articles among the plenipotentiaries--Departure
+     of the imperial commissionere--Ultimatum of the States compared with
+     that of the royal government--Barren negotiations terminated--
+     Treason of De Bours, Governor of Mechlin--Liberal theories
+     concerning the nature of government--Abjuration of Philip imminent--
+     Self-denial of Orange--Attitude of Germany--of England--Marriage
+     negotiations between Elizabeth and Anjou--Orange favors the election
+     of the Duke as sovereign--Address and speeches of the Prince--
+     Parsimony and interprovincial jealousy rebuked----Secret
+     correspondence of Count Renneberg with the royal government--
+     His treason at Groningen.
+
+Since the beginning of May, the Cologne negotiations had been dragging
+their slow length along.  Few persons believed that any good was likely
+to result from these stately and ponderous conferences; yet men were so
+weary of war, so desirous that a termination might be put to the atrophy
+under which the country was languishing, that many an eager glance was
+turned towards the place where the august assembly was holding its
+protracted session.  Certainly, if wisdom were to be found in mitred
+heads--if the power to heal angry passions and to settle the conflicting
+claims of prerogative and conscience were to be looked for among men of
+lofty station, then the Cologne conferences ought to have made the rough
+places smooth and the crooked paths straight throughout all Christendom.
+There was the Archbishop of Rossano, afterwards Pope Urban VII, as
+plenipotentiary from Rome; there was Charles of Aragon, Duke of
+Terranova, supported by five councillors, as ambassador from his Catholic
+Majesty; there were the Duke of Aerschot, the Abbot of Saint Gertrude,
+the Abbot of Marolles, Doctor Bucho Aytta, Caspar Schetz, Lord of
+Grobbendonck, that learned Frisian, Aggeus van Albada, with seven other
+wise men, as envoys from the states-general: There were their Serene
+Highnesses the Elector and Archbishops of Cologne and Treves, with the
+Bishop of Wurtzburg.  There was also a numerous embassy from his Imperial
+Majesty, with Count Otto de Schwartzenburg at its head.
+
+Here then were holiness, serenity, dignity, law, and learning in
+abundance.  Here was a pope 'in posse', with archbishops, princes, dukes,
+jurisconsults, and doctors of divinity 'in esse', sufficient to remodel
+a world, if worlds were to be remodelled by such instruments.  If
+protocols, replications, annotations, apostilles, could heal a bleeding
+country, here were the physicians to furnish those drugs in unlimited
+profusion.  If reams of paper, scrawled over with barbarous
+technicalities, could smother and bury a quarrel which had its origin in
+the mutual antagonism of human elements, here were the men to scribble
+unflinchingly, till the reams were piled to a pyramid.  If the same idea
+presented in many aspects could acquire additional life, here were the
+word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought in a hundred
+thousand garments, till it attained all the majesty which decoration
+could impart.  In truth, the envoys came from Spain, Rome, and Vienna,
+provided with but two ideas.  Was it not a diplomatic masterpiece, that
+from this frugal store they could contrive to eke out seven mortal months
+of negotiation?  Two ideas--the supremacy of his Majesty's prerogative,
+the exclusive exercise of the Roman Catholic religion--these were the be-
+all and the end-all of their commission.  Upon these two strings they
+were to harp, at least till the walls of Maestricht had fallen.  The
+envoys did their duty well; they were sent to enact a solemn comedy, and
+in the most stately manner did they walk through their several parts.
+Not that the King was belligerent; on, the contrary, he was heartily
+weary of the war.  Prerogative was weary--Romanism was weary--Conscience
+was weary--the Spirit of Freedom was weary but the Prince of Orange was
+not weary.  Blood and treasure had been pouring forth so profusely during
+twelve flaming years, that all but that one tranquil spirit were
+beginning to flag.
+
+At the same time, neither party had more disposition to concede than
+stomach to fight.  Certainly the royal party had no inclination to yield.
+The King had granted easy terms to the Walloons, because upon the one
+great point of religion there was, no dispute, and upon the others there
+was no intention of keeping faith.  With regard to the present
+negotiation, it was desirable to gain a little time.  It was thought
+probable that the religious difference, judiciously managed at this
+juncture, might be used to effect a permanent severance of the provinces
+so lately banded together in a common union.  "To, divide them," wrote
+Tassis, in a very confidential letter, "no better method can be found
+than to amuse them with this peace negotiation.  Some are ready for a
+pacification from their desire of repose, some from their fear of war,
+some from the differences which exist among themselves, and which it is
+especially important to keep alive."  Above all things, it was desirable
+to maintain the religious distraction till Maestricht had been taken.
+That siege was the key to the whole situation.  If the separate Walloon
+accord could be quietly made in a corner, while Parma was battering that
+stronghold on the Meuse, and while decorous negotiation was smoothly
+holding its course on the Rhine, much disorganization, it was hoped,
+would be handsomely accomplished before the end of the year.
+
+"As for a suspension of arms," wrote Alexander to Terranova, on the 21st
+of May, "the longer 'tis deferred the better.  With regard to Maestricht,
+everything depends upon it that we possess, or desire to possess.  Truly,
+if the Prince of Orange can relieve the city he will do it.  If he does
+so, neither will this expedition of ours, nor any other expedition, be
+brought to a good end.  As soon as men are aware that our affairs are
+looking badly, they will come again to a true union, and all will join
+together, in hope to accomplish their boasts."  Therefore, it was natural
+that the peace-wrights of Cologne should industriously ply their task.
+
+It is not desirable to disturb much of that learned dust, after its three
+centuries' repose.  A rapid sketch of the course of the proceedings, with
+an indication of the spirit which animated the contending parties, will
+be all that is necessary.  They came and they separated with precisely
+opposite views.  "The desires of Terranova and of the estates," says the
+royalist, Tassis, "were diametrically contrary, to each other.  The King
+wished that the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion should be
+exclusively established, and the absolute prerogative preserved in its
+integrity."  On the other hand, the provinces desired their charters and
+a religious' peace.  In these perpetual lines and curves ran the
+asymptotical negotiation from beginning to end--and so it might have run
+for two centuries, without hope of coincidence.  Neither party was yet
+vanquished.  The freshly united provinces were no readier now than
+before to admit that the Holy Office formed part of their national
+institutions.  The despotic faction was not prepared to renounce that
+establishment.  Foiled, but not disheartened, sat the Inquisition, like a
+beldame, upon the border, impotently threatening the land whence she had
+been for ever excluded; while industrious as the Parcae, distaff in hand,
+sat, in Cologne, the inexorable three--Spain, the Empire, and Rome--
+grimly, spinning and severing the web of mortal destinies.
+
+The first step in the proceedings had been a secret one.  If by any means
+the Prince of Orange could be detached from his party--if by bribery,
+however enormous, he could be induced--to abandon a tottering cause, and
+depart for the land of his birth--he was distinctly but indirectly given
+to understand that he had but to name his terms.  We have seen the issue
+of similar propositions made by Don John of Austria.  Probably there was
+no man living who would care to make distinct application of this
+dishonorable nature to the Father of his country.  The Aerschots, the
+Meluns, the Lalains, and a swarm of other nobles, had their price, and
+were easily transferable from one to another, but it was not easy to make
+a direct offer to William of Orange.  They knew--as he said shortly
+afterwards in his famous Apology--that "neither for property nor for
+life, neither for wife nor for children, would he mix in his cup a single
+drop of treason."  Nevertheless, he was distinctly given to understand
+that "there was nothing he could demand for himself personally that would
+not be granted."  All his confiscated property, restoration of his
+imprisoned son, liberty of worship for himself, payment of all his debts,
+reimbursement of all his past expenses, and anything else which he could
+desire, were all placed within his reach.  If he chose to retire into
+another land, his son might be placed in possession of all his cities,
+estates, and dignities, and himself indemnified in Germany; with a
+million of money over and above as a gratuity.  The imperial envoy, Count
+Schwartzenburg, pledged his personal honor and reputation that every
+promise which might be made to the Prince should be most sacredly
+fulfilled.
+
+It was all in vain.  The indirect applications of the imperial
+commissioners made to his servants and his nearest relations were
+entirely unsuccessful.  The Prince was not to be drawn into a negotiation
+in his own name or for his own benefit.  If the estates were satisfied,
+he was satisfied.  He wanted no conditions but theirs; "nor would he
+directly, or indirectly," he said, "separate himself from the cause on
+which hung all his evil or felicity."  He knew that it was the object of
+the enemy to deprive the country of its head, and no inducements were
+sufficient to make him a party to the plot.  At the same time, he was
+unwilling to be an obstacle, in his own person, to the conclusion of an
+honorable peace.  He would resign his offices which he held at the
+solicitation of the whole country, if thus a negotiation were likely to
+be more successful.  "The Prince of Parma and the disunited provinces,"
+said he to the states-general, "affect to consider this war as one waged
+against me and in my name--as if the question alone concerned the name
+and person of the general.  If it be so, I beg you to consider whether it
+is not because I have been ever faithful to the land.  Nevertheless, if I
+am an obstacle, I am ready to remove it.  If you, therefore, in order to
+deprive the enemy of every right to inculpate us, think proper to choose
+another head and conductor of your affairs, I promise you to serve and to
+be obedient to him with all my heart.  Thus shall we leave the enemy no
+standing-place to work dissensions among us."  Such was his language to
+friend and foe, and here, at least, was one man in history whom kings
+were not rich enough to purchase.
+
+On the 18th of May, the states' envoys at Cologne presented fourteen
+articles, demanding freedom of religion and the ancient political
+charters.  Religion, they said, was to be referred; not to man, but to
+God.  To him the King was subject as well as the people.  Both King and
+people--"and by people was meant every individual in the land"--were
+bound to serve God according to their conscience.
+
+The imperial envoys found such language extremely reprehensible, and
+promptly refused, as umpires, to entertain the fourteen articles.  Others
+drawn up by Terranova and colleagues, embodying the claims of the royal
+and Roman party, were then solemnly presented, and as promptly rejected.
+Then the imperial umpires came forward with two bundles of
+proposisitions--approved beforehand by the Spanish plenipotentiaries.
+In the political bundle; obedience due to the King was insisted upon,
+"as in the time of the Emperor Charles."  The religious category declared
+that "the Roman religion--all others excluded--should thenceforth be
+exercised in all the provinces."  Both these categories were considered
+more objectionable by the states' envoys than the terms of Terranova, and
+astonishment was expressed that "mention should again be made of the
+edicts--as if blood enough had not been shed already in the cause of
+religion."
+
+The Netherland envoys likewise gave the imperial commissioners distinctly
+to understand that--in case peace were not soon made--"the states would
+forthwith declare the King fallen from his sovereignty;" would for ever
+dispense the people from their oaths of allegiance to him, and would
+probably accept the Duke of Anjou in his place.  The states-general, to
+which body the imperial propositions had been sent, also rejected the
+articles in a logical and historical argument of unmerciful length.
+
+An appeal secretly made by the imperial and Spanish commissioners, from
+the states' envoys to the states themselves, and even to the people of
+the various provinces, had excited the anger of the plenipotentiaries.
+They complained loudly of this violation of all diplomatic etiquette, and
+the answer of the states-general, fully confirming the views of their
+ambassadors, did not diminish their wrath.
+
+On the 13th of November, 1579, the states' envoys were invited into the
+council chamber of the imperial commissioners, to hear the last solemn
+commonplaces of those departing, functionaries.  Seven months long they
+had been waiting in vain, they said, for the states' envoys to accede to
+moderate demands.  Patience was now exhausted.  Moreover, their mediatory
+views had been the subject of bitter lampooning throughout the country,
+while the authorities of many cities had publicly declared that all the
+inhabitants would rather, die the death than accept such terms.  The
+peace-makers, accordingly, with endless protestations as to, their own
+purity, wisdom, and benevolence, left the whole "in the hands of God and
+the parties concerned."
+
+The reply to this elaborate farewell was curt and somewhat crusty.  "Had
+they known," said the states' envoys, "that their transparencies and
+worthinesses had no better intention, and the Duke of Terranova no ampler
+commission, the whole matter might have been despatched, not in six
+months, but in six days."
+
+Thus ended the conferences, and the imperial commissioners departed.
+Nevertheless, Schwartzenburg remained yet a little time at Cologne, while
+five of the states' envoys also protracted their stay, in order to make
+their private peace with the King.  It is hardly necessary to observe
+that the chief of these penitents was the Duke of Aerschot.  The
+ultimatum of the states was deposited by the departing envoys with
+Schwartzenburg, and a comparison of its terms with those offered by the
+imperial mediators, as the best which could be obtained from Spain, shows
+the hopelessness of the pretended negotiation.  Departure of the foreign
+troops, restitution of all confiscated property, unequivocal recognition
+of the Ghent treaty and the perpetual edict, appointment to office of
+none but natives, oaths of allegiance to the King and the states-general,
+exercise of the Reformed religion and of the Confession of Augsburg in
+all places where it was then publicly practised: such were the main
+demands of the patriot party.
+
+In the secret instructions furnished by the states to their envoys, they
+were told to urge upon his Majesty the absolute necessity, if he wished
+to retain the provinces, of winking at the exercise of the Reformed and
+the Augsburg creeds.  "The new religion had taken too deep root," it was
+urged, "ever to be torn forth, save with the destruction of the whole
+country."
+
+Thus, after seven dreary months of negotiation, after protocols and
+memoranda in ten thousand folia, the august diplomatists had travelled
+round to the points from which they had severally started.  On the one
+side, unlimited prerogative and exclusive Catholicism; on the other,
+constitutional liberty, with freedom of conscience for Catholic and
+Protestant alike: these were the claims which each party announced at the
+commencement, and to which they held with equal firmness at the close of
+the conferences.
+
+The congress had been expensive.  Though not much had been accomplished
+for the political or religious advancement of mankind, there had been
+much excellent eating and drinking at Cologne during the seven months.
+Those drouthy deliberations had needed moistening.  The Bishop of
+Wurtzburg had consumed "eighty hogsheads of Rhenish wine and twenty great
+casks of beer."  The expense of the states' envoys were twenty-four
+thousand guldens.  The Archbishop of Cologne had expended forty thousand
+thalers.  The deliberations were, on the whole, excessively detrimental
+to the cause of the provinces, "and a great personage" wrote to the
+states-general, that the King had been influenced by no motive save to
+cause dissension.  This was an exaggeration, for his Majesty would have
+been well pleased to receive the whole of the country on the same terms
+which had been accepted by the Walloons.  Meantime, those southern
+provinces had made their separate treaty, and the Netherlands were
+permanently dissevered.  Maestricht had fallen.  Disunion and dismay had
+taken possession of the country.
+
+During the course of the year other severe misfortunes had happened to
+the states.  Treachery, even among the men who had done good service to
+the cause of freedom, was daily showing her hateful visage.  Not only
+the great chieftains who had led the Malcontent Walloon party, with the
+fickle Aerschot and the wavering Havre besides, had made their separate
+reconciliation with Parma, but the epidemic treason had mastered such
+bold partisans as the Seigneur de Bours, the man whose services in
+rescuing the citadel of Antwerp had been so courageous and valuable.  He
+was governor of Mechlin; Count Renneberg was governor of Friesland.  Both
+were trusted implicitly by Orange and by the estates; both were on the
+eve of repaying the confidence reposed in them by the most venal treason.
+
+It was already known that Parma had tampered with De Bours; but Renneberg
+was still unsuspected.  "The Prince," wrote Count John, "is deserted by
+all the noblemen; save the stadholder of Friesland and myself, and has no
+man else in whom he can repose confidence."  The brothers were doomed to
+be rudely awakened from the repose with regard to Renneberg, but
+previously the treason of a less important functionary was to cause a
+considerable but less lasting injury to the national party.
+
+In Mechlin was a Carmelite friar, of audacious character and great
+eloquence; a man who, "with his sweet, poisonous tongue, could ever
+persuade the people to do his bidding."  This dangerous monk, Peter
+Lupus, or Peter Wolf, by name, had formed the design of restoring
+Mechlin to the Prince of Parma, and of obtaining the bishopric of Namur
+as the reward of his services.  To this end he had obtained a complete
+mastery over the intellect of the bold but unprincipled De Bours.
+A correspondence was immediately opened between Parma and the governor,
+and troops were secretly admitted into the city.  The Prince of Orange,
+in the name of the Archduke and the estates, in vain endeavoured to recal
+the infatuated governor to his duty.  In vain he conjured him, by letter
+after letter, to be true to his own bright fame so nobly earned.  An old
+friend of De Bours, and like himself a Catholic, was also employed to
+remonstrate with him.  This gentleman, De Fromont by name, wrote him many
+letters; but De Bours expressed his surprise that Fromont, whom he had
+always considered a good Catholic and a virtuous gentleman, should wish
+to force him into a connection with the Prince of Orange and his heretic
+supporters.  He protested that his mind was quite made up, and that he
+had been guaranteed by Parma not only the post which he now held, but
+even still farther advancement.
+
+De Fromont reminded him, in reply, of the frequent revolutions of
+fortune's wheel, and warned him that the advancement of which he boasted
+would probably be an entire degradation.  He bitterly recalled to the
+remembrance of the new zealot for Romanism his former earnest efforts to
+establish Calvinism.  He reproached him, too, with having melted up the
+silver images of the Mechlin churches, including even the renowned shrine
+of Saint Rombout, which the Prince of Orange had always respected.
+"I don't say how much you took of that plunder for your own share,"
+continued the indignant De Fromont, "for the very children cry it in your
+ears as you walk the streets.  'Tis known that if God himself had been
+changed into gold you would have put him in your pocket."
+
+This was plain language, but as just as it was plain.  The famous shrine
+of Saint Rombout--valued at seventy thousand guldens, of silver gilt, and
+enriched with precious stones--had been held sacred alike by the
+fanatical iconoclasts and the greedy Spaniards who had successively held
+the city.  It had now been melted up, and appropriated by Peter Lupin;
+the Carmelite, and De Bours, the Catholic convert, whose mouths were full
+of devotion to the ancient Church and of horror for heresy.
+
+The efforts of Orange and of the states were unavailing.  De Bours
+surrendered the city, and fled to Parma, who received him with
+cordiality, gave him five thousand florins--the price promised for his
+treason, besides a regiment of infantry--but expressed surprise that he
+should have reached the camp alive.  His subsequent career was short, and
+he met his death two years afterwards, in the trenches before Tournay.
+The archiepiscopal city was thus transferred to the royal party, but the
+gallant Van der Tympel, governor of Brussels, retook it by surprise
+within six months of its acquisition by Parma, and once more restored it
+to the jurisdiction of the states.  Peter Lupus, the Carmelite, armed to
+the teeth, and fighting fiercely at the head of the royalists, was slain
+in the street, and thus forfeited his chance for the mitre of Namur.
+
+During the weary progress of the Cologne negotiations, the Prince
+had not been idle, and should this august and slow-moving congress be
+unsuccessful in restoring peace, the provinces were pledged to an act of
+abjuration.  They would then be entirely without a head.  The idea of a
+nominal Republic was broached by none.  The contest had not been one of
+theory, but of facts; for the war had not been for revolution, but for
+conservation, so far as political rights were concerned.  In religion,
+the provinces had advanced from one step to another, till they now
+claimed the largest liberty--freedom of conscience--for all.  Religion,
+they held, was God's affair, not man's, in which neither people nor king
+had power over each other, but in which both were subject to God alone.
+In politics it was different.  Hereditary sovereignty was acknowledged as
+a fact, but at the same time, the spirit of freedom was already learning
+its appropriate language.  It already claimed boldly the natural right of
+mankind to be governed according to the laws of reason and of divine
+justice.  If a prince were a shepherd, it was at least lawful to deprive
+him of his crook when he butchered the flock which he had been appointed
+to protect.
+
+"What reason is there," said the states-general, "why the provinces
+should suffer themselves to be continually oppressed by their sovereign,
+with robbings, burnings, stranglings, and murderings?  Why, being thus
+oppressed, should they still give their sovereign--exactly as if he were
+well conducting himself--the honor and title of lord of the land?"  On
+the other hand, if hereditary rule were an established fact, so also were
+ancient charters.  To maintain, not to overthrow, the political compact,
+was the purpose of the states.  "Je maintiendrai" was the motto of
+Orange's escutcheon.  That a compact existed between prince and people,
+and that the sovereign held office only on condition of doing his duty,
+were startling truths which men were beginning, not to whisper to each
+other in secret, but to proclaim in the market-place.  "'Tis well known
+to all," said the famous Declaration of Independence, two years
+afterwards, "that if a prince is appointed by God over the land, 'tis to
+protect them from harm, even as a shepherd to the guardianship of his
+flock.  The subjects are not appointed by God for the behoof of the
+prince, but the prince for his subjects, without whom he is no prince.
+Should he violate the laws, he is to be forsaken by his meanest subject,
+and to be recognized no longer as prince."
+
+William of Orange always recognized these truths, but his scheme of
+government contemplated a permanent chief, and as it was becoming obvious
+that the Spanish sovereign would soon be abjured, it was necessary to fix
+upon a substitute.  "As to governing these provinces in the form of a
+republic," said he, speaking for the states-general, "those who know the
+condition, privileges, and ordinances of the country, can easily
+understand that 'tis hardly possible to dispense with a head or
+superintendent."  At the same time, he plainly intimated that this "head
+or superintendent" was to be, not a monarch--a one-ruler--but merely the
+hereditary chief magistrate of a free commonwealth.
+
+Where was this hereditary chief magistrate to be found?  His own claims
+he absolutely withdrew.  The office was within his grasp, and he might
+easily have constituted himself sovereign of all the Netherlands.
+Perhaps it would have been better at that time had he advanced his claims
+and accepted the sovereignty which Philip had forfeited.  As he did not
+believe in the possibility of a republic, he might honestly have taken
+into his own hands the sceptre which he considered indispensable.  His
+self-abnegation was, however, absolute.  Not only did he decline
+sovereignty, but he repeatedly avowed his readiness to, lay down all the
+offices which he held, if a more useful substitute could be found.  "Let
+no man think," said he, in a remarkable speech to the states-general,"
+that my good-will is in any degree changed or diminished.  I agree to
+obey--as the least of the lords or gentlemen of the land could do--
+whatever person it may, please you to select.  You have but to command
+my services wheresoever they are most wanted; to guard a province or a
+single city, or in any capacity in which I may be found most useful.
+I promise to do my duty, with all my strength and skill, as God and my
+conscience are witnesses that I have done it hitherto."
+
+The negotiations pointed to a speedy abjuration of Philip; the Republic
+was contemplated by none; the Prince of Orange absolutely refused to
+stretch forth his own hand; who then was to receive the sceptre which was
+so soon to be bestowed?  A German Prince--had been tried--in a somewhat
+abnormal position--but had certainly manifested small capacity for aiding
+the provinces.  Nothing could well be more insignificant than the figure
+of Matthias; and, moreover, his imperial brother was anything but
+favorably disposed.  It was necessary to manage Rudolph.  To treat the
+Archduke with indignity, now that he had been partly established in the
+Netherlands, would be to incur the Emperor's enmity.  His friendship,
+however, could hardly be secured by any advancement bestowed upon his
+brother; for Rudolph's services against prerogative and the Pope were in
+no case to be expected.  Nor was there much hope from the Protestant
+princes of Germany.  The day had passed for generous sympathy with those
+engaged in the great struggle which Martin Luther had commenced.  The
+present generation of German Protestants were more inclined to put down
+the Calvinistic schism at home than to save it from oppression abroad.
+Men were more disposed to wrangle over the thrice-gnawed bones of
+ecclesiastical casuistry, than to assist their brethren in the field.
+"I know not," said Gaultherus, "whether the calamity of the Netherlands,
+or the more than bestial stupidity of the Germans, be most deplorable.
+To the insane contests on theological abstractions we owe it that many
+are ready to breathe blood and slaughter against their own brethren.  The
+hatred of the Lutherans has reached that point that they can rather
+tolerate Papists than ourselves."
+
+In England, there was much sympathy for the provinces and there--although
+the form of government was still arbitrary--the instincts for civil and
+religious freedom, which have ever characterized the Anglo-Saxon race,
+were not to be repressed.  Upon many a battle-field for liberty in the
+Netherlands, "men whose limbs were made in England" were found contending
+for the right.  The blood and treasure of Englishmen flowed freely in the
+cause of their relatives by religion and race, but these were the efforts
+of individuals.  Hitherto but little assistance had been rendered by the
+English Queen, who had, on the contrary, almost distracted the provinces
+by her fast-and-loose policy, both towards them and towards Anjou.  The
+political rivalry between that Prince and herself in the Netherlands had,
+however, now given place to the memorable love-passage from which
+important results were expected, and it was thought certain that
+Elizabeth would view with satisfaction any dignity conferred upon her
+lover.
+
+Orange had a right to form this opinion.  At the same time, it is well
+known that the chief councillors of Elizabeth--while they were all in
+favor of assisting the provinces--looked with anything but satisfaction
+upon the Anjou marriage.  "The Duke," wrote Davidson to Walsingham in
+July, 1579, "seeks, forsooth, under a pretext of marriage with her
+Highness, the rather to espouse the Low Countries--the chief ground and
+object of his pretended love, howsoever it be disguised."  The envoy
+believed both Elizabeth and the provinces in danger of taking unto
+themselves a very bad master.  "Is there any means," he added, "so apt to
+sound the very bottom of our estate, and to hinder and breake the neck of
+all such good purpose as the necessity of the tyme shall set abroch?"
+
+The provinces of Holland and Zealand, notwithstanding the love they bore
+to William of Orange, could never be persuaded by his arguments into
+favoring Anjou.  Indeed, it was rather on account of the love they bore
+the Prince--whom they were determined to have for their sovereign--that
+they refused to listen to any persuasion in favor of his rival, although
+coming from his own lips.  The states-general, in a report to the states
+of Holland, drawn up under the superintendence of the Prince, brought
+forward all the usual arguments for accepting the French duke, in case
+the abjuration should take place.  They urged the contract with Anjou (of
+August 13th, 1578), the great expenses he had already incurred in their
+behalf; the danger of offending him; the possibility that in such case
+he would ally himself with Spain; the prospect that, in consequence of
+such a result, there would be three enemies in the field against them--
+the Walloons, the Spaniards, and the French, all whose forces would
+eventually be turned upon Holland and Zealand alone.  It was represented
+that the selection of Anjou would, on the other hand, secure the
+friendship of France--an alliance which would inspire both the Emperor
+and the Spanish monarch with fear; for they could not contemplate without
+jealousy a possible incorporation of the provinces with that kingdom.
+Moreover, the geographical situation of France made its friendship
+inexpressibly desirable.  The states of Holland and Zealand were,
+therefore, earnestly invited to send deputies to an assembly of the
+states-general, in order to conclude measures touching the declaration
+of independence to be made against the King, and concerning the election
+of the Duke of Anjou.
+
+The official communications by speech or writing of Orange to the
+different corporations and assemblies, were at this period of enormous
+extent.  He was moved to frequent anger by the parsimony, the inter-
+provincial jealousy, the dull perception of the different estates, and he
+often expressed his wrath in unequivocal language.  He dealt roundly with
+all public bodies.  His eloquence was distinguished by a bold,
+uncompromising, truth-telling spirit, whether the words might prove
+palatable or bitter to his audience.  His language rebuked his hearers
+more frequently than it caressed them, for he felt it impossible, at all
+times, to consult both the humors and the high interests of the people,
+and he had no hesitation, as guardian of popular liberty, in denouncing
+the popular vices by which it was endangered.
+
+By both great parties, he complained, his shortcomings were all noted,
+the good which he had accomplished passed over in silence.
+
+     [Letter to the States-general, August, 1579, apud Bor, xiv.  97,
+     sqq.  This was the opinion frequently expressed by Languet: "Cherish
+     the friendship of the Prince, I beseech you," he writes to Sir
+     Philip Sydney, "for there is no man like him in all Christendom.
+     Nevertheless, his is the lot of all men of prudence--to be censured
+     by all parties.  The people complain that he despises them; the
+     nobility declare that it is their order which he hates; and this is
+     as sensible as if you were to tell me that you were the son of a
+     clown."]
+
+He solemnly protested that he desired, out of his whole heart, the
+advancement of that religion which he publicly professed, and with God's
+blessing, hoped to profess to the end of his life, but nevertheless, he
+reminded the states that he had sworn, upon taking office as Lieutenant-
+General, to keep "all the subjects of the land equally under his
+protection," and that he had kept his oath.  He rebuked the parsimony
+which placed the accepted chief of the provinces in a sordid and
+contemptible position.  "The Archduke has been compelled," said he, in
+August, to the states-general, "to break up housekeeping, for want of
+means.  How shameful and disreputable for the country, if he should be
+compelled, for very poverty, to leave the land!"  He offered to lay down
+all the power with which he had himself been clothed, but insisted, if he
+were to continue in office, upon being provided with, larger means of
+being useful.  "'Twas impossible," he said, "for him to serve longer on
+the same footing as heretofore; finding himself without power or
+authority, without means, without troops, without money, without
+obedience."  He reminded the states-general that the enemy--under pretext
+of peace negotiations--were ever circulating calumnious statements to the
+effect that he was personally the only obstacle to peace.  The real
+object of these hopeless conferences was to sow dissension through the
+land, to set burgher against burgher, house against house.  As in Italy,
+Guelphs and Ghibellines--as in Florence, the Neri and Bianchi--as in
+Holland, the Hooks and Cabbeljaws had, by their unfortunate quarrels,
+armed fellow countrymen and families against each other--so also, nothing
+was so powerful as religious difference to set friend against friend,
+father against son, husband against wife.
+
+He warned the States against the peace propositions of the enemy.  Spain
+had no intention to concede, but was resolved to extirpate.  For himself;
+he had certainly everything to lose by continued war.  His magnificent
+estates were withheld, and--added he with simplicity--there is no man who
+does not desire to enjoy his own.  The liberation of his son, too, from
+his foreign captivity, was, after the glory of God and the welfare of the
+fatherland, the dearest object of his heart.  Moreover, he was himself
+approaching the decline of life.  Twelve years he had spent in perpetual
+anxiety and labor for the cause.  As he approached old age, he had
+sufficient reason to desire repose.  Nevertheless, considering the great
+multitude of people who were leaning upon him, he should account himself
+disgraced if, for the sake of his own private advantage, he were to
+recommend a peace which was not perfectly secure.  As regarded his own
+personal interests, he could easily place himself beyond danger--yet it
+would be otherwise with the people.  The existence of the religion which,
+through the mercy of God he professed, would be sacrificed, and countless
+multitudes of innocent men would, by his act, be thrown bodily into the
+hands of the blood-thirsty inquisitors who, in times past, had murdered
+so many persons, and so utterly desolated the land.  In regard to the
+ceaseless insinuations against his character which men uttered "over
+their tables and in the streets," he observed philosophically, that
+"mankind were naturally inclined to calumny, particularly against those
+who exercised government over them.  His life was the best answer to
+those slanders.  Being overwhelmed with debt, he should doubtless do
+better in a personal point of view to accept the excellent and profitable
+offers which were daily made to him by the enemy."  He might be justified
+in such a course, when it was remembered how many had deserted him and
+forsworn their religion.  Nevertheless, he had ever refused, and should
+ever refuse to listen to offers by which only his own personal interests
+were secured.  As to the defence of the country, he had thus far done all
+in his power, with the small resources placed at his command.  He was
+urged by the "nearer-united states" to retain the poet of Lieutenant-
+General.  He was ready to consent.  He was, however, not willing to hold
+office a moment, unless he had power to compel cities to accept
+garrisons, to enforce the collection of needful supplies throughout the
+provinces, and in general to do everything which he judged necessary for
+the best interests of the country.
+
+Three councils were now established--one to be in attendance upon the
+Archduke and the Prince of Orange, the two others to reside respectively
+in Flanders and in Utrecht.  They were to be appointed by Matthias and
+the Prince, upon a double nomination from the estates of the united
+provinces.  Their decisions were to be made according to a majority of
+votes,--and there was to be no secret cabinet behind and above their
+deliberations.  It was long, however, before these councils were put into
+working order.  The fatal jealousy of the provincial authorities, the,
+small ambition of local magistrates, interposed daily obstacles to the
+vigorous march of the generality.  Never was jealousy more mischievous,
+never circumspection more misapplied.  It was not a land nor a crisis in
+which there was peril of centralization: Local municipal government was
+in truth the only force left.  There was no possibility of its being
+merged in a central authority which did not exist.  The country was
+without a centre.  There was small chance of apoplexy where there was no
+head.  The danger lay in the mutual repulsiveness of these atoms of
+sovereignty--in the centrifugal tendencies which were fast resolving a
+nebulous commonwealth into chaos.  Disunion and dissension would soon
+bring about a more fatal centralization--that of absorption in a distant
+despotism.
+
+At the end of November, 1579, Orange made another remarkable speech in
+the states-general at Antwerp.  He handled the usual topics with his
+customary vigor, and with that grace and warmth of delivery which always
+made his eloquence so persuasive and impressive.  He spoke of the
+countless calumnies against himself, the chaffering niggardliness of the
+provinces, the slender result produced by his repeated warnings.  He told
+them bluntly the great cause of all their troubles.  It was the absence
+of a broad patriotism; it was the narrow power grudged rather than given
+to the deputies who sat in the general assembly.  They were mere envoys,
+tied by instructions.  They were powerless to act, except after tedious
+reference to the will of their masters, the provincial boards.  The
+deputies of the Union came thither, he said, as advocates of their
+provinces or their cities, not as councillors of a commonwealth--and
+sought to further those narrow interests, even at the risk of destruction
+to their sister states.  The contributions, he complained, were assessed
+unequally, and expended selfishly.  Upon this occasion, as upon all
+occasions, he again challenged inquiry into the purity of his government,
+demanded chastisement, if any act of mal-administration on his part could
+be found, and repeated his anxious desire either to be relieved from his
+functions, or to be furnished with the means of discharging them with
+efficiency.
+
+On the 12th of December, 1579, he again made a powerful speech in the
+states-general.  Upon the 9th of January 1580, following, he made an
+elaborate address upon the state of the country, urging the necessity of
+raising instantly a considerable army of good and experienced soldiers.
+He fixed the indispensable number of such a force at twelve thousand
+foot, four thousand horse, and at least twelve hundred pioneers.  "Weigh
+well the matters," said he, in conclusion; "which I have thus urged, and
+which are of the most extreme necessity.  Men in their utmost need are
+daily coming to me for refuge, as if I held power over all things in my
+hand."  At the same time he complained that by reason of the dilatoriness
+of the states, he was prevented from alleviating misery when he knew the
+remedy to be within reach.  "I beg you, however, my masters," he
+continued, "to believe that this address of mine is no simple discourse.
+'Tis a faithful presentment of matters which, if not reformed, will cause
+the speedy and absolute ruin of the land.  Whatever betide, however, I
+pray you to hold yourselves assured, that with God's help, I am
+determined to live with you or to die with you."
+
+Early in the year 1580, the Prince was doomed to a bitter disappointment,
+and the provinces to a severe loss, in the treason of Count Renneberg,
+governor of Friesland.  This young noble was of the great Lalain family.
+He was a younger brother of: Anthony, Count of Hoogstraaten--the
+unwavering friend of Orange.  He had been brought up in the family of his
+cousin, the Count de Lalain, governor of Hainault, and had inherited the
+title of Renneberg from an uncle, who was a dignitary of the church.
+For more than a year there had been suspicions of his fidelity.  He was
+supposed to have been tampered with by the Duke of Terranova, on the
+first arrival of that functionary in the Netherlands.  Nevertheless, the
+Prince of Orange was unwilling to listen to the whispers against him.
+Being himself the mark of calumny, and having a tender remembrance of the
+elder brother, he persisted in reposing confidence in a man who was in
+reality unworthy of his friendship.  George Lalain, therefore, remained
+stadholder of Friesland and Drenthe, and in possession of the capital
+city, Groningen.
+
+The rumors concerning him proved correct.  In November, 1579, he entered
+into a formal treaty with Terranova, by which he was to receive--as the
+price of "the virtuous resolution which he contemplated"--the sum of ten
+thousand crowns in hand, a further sum of ten thousand crowns within
+three months, and a yearly pension of ten thousand florins.  Moreover,
+his barony of Ville was to be erected into a marquisate, and he was to
+receive the order of the Golden Fleece at the first vacancy.  He was
+likewise to be continued in the same offices under the King which he now
+held from the estates.  The bill of sale, by which he agreed with a
+certain Quislain le Bailly to transfer himself to Spain, fixed these
+terms with the technical scrupulousness of any other mercantile
+transaction.  Renneberg sold himself as one would sell a yoke of oxen,
+and his motives were no whit nobler than the cynical contract would
+indicate.  "See you not," said he in a private letter to a friend, "that
+this whole work is brewed by the Nassaus for the sake of their own
+greatness, and that they are everywhere provided with the very best
+crumbs.  They are to be stadholders of the principal provinces; we are
+to content ourselves with Overyssel and Drente.  Therefore I have thought
+it best to make my peace with the King, from whom more benefits are to be
+got."
+
+Jealousy and selfishness; then, were the motives of his "virtuous
+resolution."  He had another, perhaps a nobler incentive.  He was in love
+with the Countess Meghen, widow of Lancelot Berlaymont, and it was
+privately stipulated that the influence of his Majesty's government
+should be employed to bring about his marriage with the lady.  The
+treaty, however, which Renneberg had made with Quislain le Bailly was not
+immediately carried out.  Early in February, 1580, his sister and evil
+genius, Cornelia Lalain, wife of Baron Monceau, made him a visit at
+Groningen.  She implored him not to give over his soul to perdition by
+oppressing the Holy Church.  She also appealed to his family pride, which
+should keep him, she said, from the contamination of companionship with
+"base-born weavers and furriers."  She was of opinion that to contaminate
+his high-born fingers with base bribes were a lower degradation.  The
+pension, the crowns in hand, the marquisate, the collar of the Golden
+Fleece, were all held before his eyes again.  He was persuaded, moreover,
+that the fair hand of the wealthy widow would be the crowning prize of
+his treason, but in this he was destined to disappointment.  The Countess
+was reserved for a more brilliant and a more bitter fate.  She was to
+espouse a man of higher rank, but more worthless character, also a
+traitor to the cause of freedom, to which she was herself devoted, and
+who was even accused of attempting her life in her old age, in order to
+supply her place with a younger rival.
+
+The artful eloquence of Cornelia de Lalain did its work, and Renneberg
+entered into correspondence with Parma.  It is singular with how much
+indulgence his conduct and character were regarded both before and
+subsequently to his treason.  There was something attractive about the
+man.  In an age when many German and Netherland nobles were given to
+drunkenness and debauchery, and were distinguished rather for coarseness
+of manner and brutality of intellect than for refinement or learning,
+Count Renneberg, on the contrary, was an elegant and accomplished
+gentleman--the Sydney of his country in all but loyalty of character.
+He was a classical scholar, a votary of music and poetry, a graceful
+troubadour, and a valiant knight.  He was "sweet and lovely of
+conversation," generous and bountiful by nature.  With so many good
+gifts, it was a thousand pities that the gift of truth had been denied
+him.  Never did treason look more amiable, but it was treason of the
+blackest die.  He was treacherous, in the hour of her utmost need, to the
+country which had trusted him.  He was treacherous to the great man who
+had leaned upon his truth, when all others had abandoned him.  He was
+treacherous from the most sordid of motives jealousy of his friend and
+love of place and pelf; but his subsequent remorse and his early death
+have cast a veil over the blackness of his crime.
+
+While Cornelia de Lalain was in Groningen, Orange was in Holland.
+Intercepted letters left no doubt of the plot, and it was agreed that the
+Prince, then on his way to Amsterdam, should summon the Count to an
+interview.  Renneberg's trouble at the proximity of Orange could not be
+suppressed.  He felt that he could never look his friend in the face
+again.  His plans were not ripe; it was desirable to dissemble for a
+season longer; but how could he meet that tranquil eye which "looked
+quite through the deeds of men?"  It was obvious to Renneberg that his
+deed was to be done forthwith, if he would escape discomfiture.  The
+Prince would soon be in Groningen, and his presence would dispel the
+plots which had been secretly constructed.
+
+On the evening of March the 3rd, 1580, the Count entertained a large
+number of the most distinguished families of the place at a ball and
+banquet.  At the supper-table, Hildebrand, chief burgomaster of the city,
+bluntly interrogated his host concerning the calumnious reports which
+were in circulation, expressing the hope that there was no truth in these
+inventions of his enemies.  Thus summoned, Renneberg, seizing the hands
+of Hildebrand in both his own, exclaimed, "Oh; my father! you whom I
+esteem as my father, can you suspect me of such guilt?  I pray you,
+trust me, and fear me not!"
+
+With this he restored the burgomaster and all the other guests to
+confidence.  The feast and dance proceeded, while Renneberg was quietly
+arranging his plot.  During the night all the leading patriots were taken
+out of their beds, and carried to prison, notice being at the same time
+given to the secret adherents of Renneberg.  Before dawn, a numerous mob
+of boatmen and vagrants, well armed, appeared upon the public square.
+They bore torches and standards, and amazed the quiet little city with
+their shouts.  The place was formally taken into possession, cannon were
+planted in front of the Town House to command the principal streets, and
+barricades erected at various important points.  Just at daylight,
+Renneberg himself, in complete armor, rode into the square, and it was
+observed that he looked ghastly as a corpse.  He was followed by thirty
+troopers, armed like himself, from head to foot.  "Stand by me now," he
+cried to the assembled throng; "fail me not at this moment, for now I am
+for the first time your stadholder."
+
+While he was speaking, a few citizens of the highest class forced their
+way through the throng and addressed the mob in tones of authority.  They
+were evidently magisterial persons endeavoring to quell the riot.  As
+they advanced, one of Renneberg's men-at-arms discharged his carabine at
+the foremost gentleman, who was no other than burgomaster Hildebrand.  He
+fell dead at the feet of the stadholder--of the man who had clasped his
+hands a few hours before, called him father, and implored him to
+entertain no suspicions of his honor.  The death of this distinguished
+gentleman created a panic, during which Renneberg addressed his
+adherents, and stimulated them to atone by their future zeal in the
+King's service for their former delinquency.  A few days afterwards the
+city was formally reunited to the royal government; but the Count's
+measures had been precipitated to such an extent, that he was unable to
+carry the province with him, as he had hoped.  On the contrary, although
+he had secured the city, he had secured nothing else.  He was immediately
+beleaguered by the states' force in the province under the command of
+Barthold Entes, Hohenlo, and Philip Louis Nassau, and it was necessary to
+send for immediate assistance from Parma.
+
+The Prince of Orange, being thus bitterly disappointed.  by the treachery
+of his friend, and foiled in his attempt to avert the immediate
+consequences, continued his interrupted journey to Amsterdam.  Here he
+was received with unbounded enthusiasm.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All the majesty which decoration could impart
+Amuse them with this peace negotiation
+Conflicting claims of prerogative and conscience
+It is not desirable to disturb much of that learned dust
+Logical and historical argument of unmerciful length
+Mankind were naturally inclined to calumny
+Men were loud in reproof, who had been silent
+More easily, as he had no intention of keeping the promise
+Not to fall asleep in the shade of a peace negotiation
+Nothing was so powerful as religious difference
+On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered
+Power grudged rather than given to the deputies
+The disunited provinces
+There is no man who does not desire to enjoy his own
+To hear the last solemn commonplaces
+Word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1579-80 ***
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