"T)H
V
ALEXANDER FARNESE, PRINCE OF PARMA. From a scarce Engraving liy Wierix.
Il
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
FROM THl TO TH
. vVILLIAM THE SILENT YEARS' TRUCE^1609
BY
. . 1.0THR0P MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
COKKESPOXDIN'G MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FKANCE, ETC.
rv TWO A-QLUMES
,S-4 — S.9
WITH PORTRAITS
HARPER & BROTHERS P IT b i.. I S H E R S N^ E W YORK
i;<; Jingravi
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
FROM THE DEATH OF WILLIAM THE SILENT TO THE TWELVE YEARS' TRUCE— 1009
BY JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
COKKESPONDING MEMBER OK THE INSTITUTE OK KKANXE, ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I 1.W4— S9
WITH PORTRAITS
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred •■ and sixty, by
John Lothrop Motley,
lu the Clerk's Office of the Distiict Court of the District of Massachusetts.
Copyright, 1888, by Elizabeth Cabot Vernon Harcourt, Mary Lothrop SheridaN; SosAN Margaret Stackpole Mildmay.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
BOOKS I-II
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
PAOB
Murder of Orange — Extension of Protestantism — Vast Power of Spain — Re- ligious Origin of the Revolt — Disposal of the Sovereignty — Courage of the Estates of Holland — Children of William the Silent — Provisional Council of State — Firm Attitude of Holland and Zeeland — Weakness of Flanders — Pall of Ghent — Adroitness of Alexander Farnese 1
CHAPTER II.
Relations of the Republic to France — Queen Elizabeth's Severity towards Catholics and Calvinists — Relative Positions of England and France — Timidity of Germany — Apathy of Protestant Germany — Indignation of the Netherlanders — Henry III. of France — The King and his Minions — Henry of Guise — Henry of Navarre — Power of France — Embassy of tlie States to France — Ignominious Position of the Envoys — Views of the French Huguenots — Efforts to procure Annexation — Success of Des Pruneaux 25
CHAPTER III.
Policy of England — Schemes of the Pretender of Portugal — Hesitation of the French Court — Secret Wishes of France — Contradictory Views as to the Opinions of Netherlanders — Their Love for England and Elizabeth — Prom- inent Statesmen of the Provinces — Roger Williams the Welshman — Views of Walsingham, Burghley, and the Queen — An Embassy to Holland decided upon — Davison at the Hague — Cautious and Secret Measures of Burghley — Consequent Dissatisfaction of Walsingham — English and Dutch Suspicion of France — Increasing Aflfection of Holland for England 6^
CHAPTER IV.
PA9E
teception of the Dutch Envoys at the Louvre — Ignominious Result of the Embassy — Secret Influences at work — Bargaining between the French and Spanish Courts — Claims of Catharine de' Medici upon Portugal — Letters of Henry and Catharine — Secret Proposal by France to invade England — States' Mission to Henry of Navarre — Subsidies of Philip to Guise — Treaty of Joinville — Philip's Share in the League denied by Parma — Phihp in reality its Chief — Manifesto of the League — Attitude of Henry III. and of Navarre — The League demands a Royal Decree — Designs of France and Spain against England — Secret Interview of Men- doza and ViUeroy — Complaints of English Persecution — Edict of Nemours — Excommuoication of Navarre and his Reply 94
CHAPTER V.
Position and Character of Fameso — Preparations for Antwerp Siege — Its Characteristics — Foresight of William the Silent — Sainte Aldegonde, the Burgomaster — Anarchy in Antwerp — Character of Sainte Aldegonde — Admiral Treslong — Justinua de Nassau — Hohenlo — Opposition to the Plan of Orange — Lief kenshoek — Head-Quarters of Parma at Kalloo — Difficulty of supplying the City — Results of not piercing the Dykes — Prehminaries of the Siege — Successes of the Spaniards — Energy of Farnese with Sword and Pen — His Correspondence with the Antwerpers — Progress of the Bridge — Impoverished Condition of Parma — Patriots attempt Bois-le-Duc — Their Misconduct — Failure of the Enterprise — The Scheldt Bridge com- pleted— Description of the Structure — Position of Alexander and his Army — La Motte attempts in vain Ostend — Patriots gain Liefkenshoek — Pro- jects of Gianibelli — Alarm on the Bridge — The Fire-Ships — The Explosion — Its Results — Death of the Viscount of Ghent — Perpetual Anxiety of Farnese — Impoverished State of the Spaniards — Intended Attack on the Kowenstyn — Second Attack on the Kowenstyn — A Landing effected — A. sharp Combat — The Dyke pierced — Rally of the Spaniards — Parma comes to the Rescue — Fierce Struggle on the Dyke — The Spainards successful — Premature Triumph at Antwerp — Defeat of the Patriots — The Ship 'War's End' — Despair of the Citizens — Sainte Aldegonde Discouraged — His critical Position — His Negotiations with the Enemy — Correspondence with Richardot — Commotion in the City — Interview of Marnix with Parma — Suspicious Conduct of Marnix — Deputation to the Prince — Oration of Marnix — Private Views of Parma — Capitulation of Antwerp — Mistakes of Marnix — Philip on the Religious Question — Triumphal Entrance of Alex- ander— Rebuilding of the Citadel — Gratification of Philip — Note on Sainte Aldegonde 134
CHAPTER VI.
PASK
Policy of England — Diplomatic Coquetry — Dutch Envoys in England — Con- ference of Ortel and Walsingham — Interview with Leicester — Private Audience of the Queen — Letters of the States'-General — 111 Effects of Gilpin's Despatch — Close Bargaining of the Queen and States — Guarantees required by England — England's comparative "Weakness — The English characterized — Paul llentzner — The Envoys in London — Their Characters — Olden-Barneveld described — Reception at Greenwich — Speech of Menin — Reply of the Queen — Memorial of the Envoys — Discussions with the Ministers — Second Speech of the Queen — Third Speech of the Queen — Sir John Norris sent to Holland — Parsimony of Elizabeth — Energy of Davison — Protracted Negotiations — Friendly Sentiments of Count Maurice — Let- ters from him and Louisa de Coligny — Davison vexed by the Queen's Caprice — Dissatisfaction of Leicester — His vehement Complaints — The Queen's Avarice — Perplexity of Davison — Manifesto of Elizabeth — Sir Philip Sidney — His Arrival at Flushing 285
CHAPTER VII.
The Earl of Leicester — His Triumphal Entrance into Holland — English Spies about him — Importance of Holland to England — Spanish Schemes for invading England — Letter of the Grand Commander — Perilous Position of England — True Nature of the Contest — Wealth and Strength of the Provinces — Power of the Dutch and English People — Affection of the Hollanders for the Queen — Secret Purposes of Leicester — Wretched Con- dition of English Troops — The Nassaus and Hohenlo — The Earl's Opinion of them — Clerk and Killigrew — Interview with the States — Government- General offered to the Earl — Discussions on the Subject — The Earl accepts the Office — His Ambition and Mistakes — His Installation at the Hague — Intimations of the Queen's Displeasure — Deprecatory Letters of Leicester — Davison's Mission to England — Queen's Anger and Jealousy — Her Angry Letters to the Earl and the States — Arrival of Davison — Stormy Interview with the Queen — The second one is calmer — Queen's Wrath somewhat mitigated — Mission of Ileneage to the States — Shirley sent to England by tlie PJarl — His Interview with Ehzabeth — Leicester's Letters to his Friends — Paltry Conduct of the Earl to Davison — He excuses himself at Davison's Expense — His Letter to Burghley — Effect of the Queen's Letters to the States — Suspicion and Discontent in Holland — States excuse their Con- duct to the Queen — Leicester discredited in Holland — Evil Consequences to Holland and England — Magic Effect of a Letter from Leicester — The Queen appeased — Her Letters to the States and the Earl — She permits the jrantcd Authority — Unhappy Results of the Queen's Course — Her
PAOH
variable Moods — She attempts to deceive 'Walsingham — Her Injustice to Honeage — His Perplexity and Distre"s — Ilumiliating Position of Lei- cester— His melancholy Letters to the Queen — Ho receives a little Con- solation— And writes more cheerfully — The Queen is more benignant — The States less contented than the Earl — His Quarrels with them begin. . . 365
CHAPTER VIII.
Forlorn Condition of Flanders — Parma's secret Negotiations with the Queen — Grafigni and Bodman — Their Dealings with English Counsellors — Duplicity of Farnese — Secret Offers of the English Peace-Party — Letters and Intrigues of De Loo — Drake's Victories and their Effect — Parma's Perplexity and Anxiety — He is relieved by the News from England — Queen's secret Letters to Parma — His Letters and Instructions to Bodman — Bodman's secret Transactions at Greenwich — Walsingham detects and exposes the Plot — The Intriguers baffled — Queen's Letter to Parma and his to the King — Unlucky Results of the Peace-Intrigues — Unhandsome Treatment of Leicester — Indignation of the Earl and Walsingham — Secret Letter of Parma to Philip — Invasion of England recommended — Details of tlie Project ,-, 4{
BOOK 11.
CHAPTER IX.
PACE
Military Plans in the Netherlands — The Elector and Electorate of Cologne — Martin Schenk — His Career before serving the States — Franeker Univer- sity founded — Parma attempts Grave — Battle on the Meuse — Success and Vainglory of Leicester — St. George's Day triumphantly kept at Utrecht — Parma not so much appalled as it was thouglit — He besieges and reduces Grave — And is Master of the Meuse — Leicester's Rage at the Surrender of Grave — His Revenge — Parma on the Rhine — He besieges and assaults Neusz — Horrible Fate of the Garrison and City — Which Leicester was un- able to reheve — Axel surprised by Maurice and Sidney — The Zeeland Regiment given to Sidney — Condition of the Irish and English Troops — Leicester takes the Field — He reduces Doesburg — He lays siege to Zutphen — Which Parma prepares to relieve — The English intercept the Convoy — Battle of Warnsfeld — Sir Philip Sidney wounded — Results of the Encounter — Death of Sidney at ^.rnheim — Gallantry of Edward Stanley 1
CHAPTER X.
Should Elizabeth accept the Sovereignty? — The Effects of her Anger — Quarrels between the Earl and States — the Earl's three Counsellors — Leicester's Finance-Chamber — Discontent of the Mercantile Classes — Paul Buys and the Opposition — Keen Insight of Paul Buys — Truchsess becomes a Spy upon him — Intrigues of Buys with Denmark — His Imprisonment — The Earl's Unpopularity — His Quarrels with the States — And with the Norrises — ^His Counsellors Wilkes and Clerk — Letter from the Queen to Leicester — A Supper-Party at Hohenlo's — A drunken Quarrel — Hohenlo's Assault upon Edward Norris — 111 Eflects of the Riot 6i
CHAPTER XI.
Drake m the Netherlands — Good Results of his Visit — The Babington Con- spiracy— Leicester decides to visit England — Exchange of parting Com- pliments 100
CHAPTER XII.
PAcn
Ill-timed Interregnum in the Provinces — Firranesa of the English and Dutch
People — Factions during Leicester's Government — Democratic Theories of the Leicestrians — Suspicions as to the Earl's Designs — Extreme Views of the Calvinists — Political Ambition of the Church — Antagonism of the Church and States — The States inclined to Tolerance — Desolation of tlie Obedient Provinces — Pauperism and Famine — Prosperity of the Republic —The Year of Expectation Ill
CHAPTER XIII.
Bameveld's Influence in the Provinces — Unpopularity of Leicester — Intrigues of liis Servants — Gossip of his Secretary — Its mischievous Effects — The Quarrel of Norris and Hollock — The Earl's Participation in the Affair — His increased Anunosity to Norris — Seizure of Deventer — Stanley appointed its Governor — Yorlc and Stanley — Leicester's secret Instructions — Wilkes remonstrates with Stanley — Stanley's Insolence and Equivocation — Painful Rumours as to him and York — Duplicity of York — Stanley's Banquet at Deventer — He surrenders the City to Taasis — Terms of the Bargain — Feeble Defence of Stanley's Conduct — Subsequent Fate of Stanley and York — Betrayal of Gelder to Parma — These Treasons cast Odium on the English — Miserable Plight of the English Troops — Honesty and Energy of Wilkes — Indignant Discussion in the Assembly 136
CHAPTER XIV.
Leicester in England — Trial of the Queen of Scots — Fearful Perplexity at the English Court — Infatuation and Obstinacy of the Queen — Netherland En- voys in England — Queen's bitter Invective against them — Amazement of the Envoys — They consult with her chief Councillors — Remarks of Burghley and Davison — Fourth of February Letter from the States — Its severe Language towards Leicester — Painful position of the Envoys at Court — Queen's Parsimony towards Leicester o . . 189
CHAPTER XV.
Buckhurst sent to the Netherlands — Alarmmg state of Affairs on his Arrivd — His Efforts to concUiate — Democratic Tlieories of Wilkes — Sophistry of the Argument — Dispute between Wilkes and Barneveld — Religious Toler- ance by the States — Their Constitutional Theory — Deveuter's bad Counsels
PAOB
to Leicester— Their pernicious Eflfect— Real and supposed riots agninst Hohenlo— rMutual Suspicion and Distrust — Buckhurst seeks to restore good Feeling — The Queen angry and vindictive — She censures Buckhurst'a Course — Leicester's Wrath at Hohenlo's Charges of a Plot by the Earl to murder him — Buckhurst's Eloquent Appeals to the Queen — Her perplexing and contradictory Orders — Despair of Wilkes — Leicester announces his Return — His Instructions — Letter to Junius — Barneveld denounces him in the States 216
CHAPTER XVI.
Situation of Sluys— Its Dutch and English Garrison — Williams writes from Sluys to the Queen — Jealousy between the Earl and States — Schemes to relieve Sluys — Which are feeble and unsuccessful — ^The Town Capitulates — Parma enters — Leicester enraged — The Queen angry with the Anti- Leicestrians — Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst punished — Drake sails for Spain — His Exploits at Cadiz and Lisbon — He is rebuked by Elizabeth. . . 260
CHAPTER XVII.
Secret Treaty between Queen and Parma — Excitement and Alarm in the States — Religious Persecution in England — Queen's Sincerity toward Spain — Language and Letters of Parma — Negotiations of De Loo — En- glish Commissioners appointed — Parma's affectionate Letter to the Queen — Philip at his Writing-Table — His Plots with Parma against England^ Parma's secret Letters to the King — Philip's Letters to Parma — Wonderful Duplicity of Philip — His sanguine Views as to England — He is reluctant to hear of the Obstacles — and imagines Parma in England — But Alexander's Difficulties are great — He denounces Philip's wild Schemes — Waisingham aware of the Spanish Plot — which the States well understand — Leicester's groat Unpopularity — The Queen warned against Treating — Leicester's Schemes against Barneveld — Leicestrian Conspiracy at Leyden — The Plot to seize the City discovered — Three Ringleaders sentenced to Death — Civil War in France— Victory gained by Navarre, and one by Guise — Queen re- calls Leicester — Who retires on ill Terms with the States — Queen warned as to Spanish designs — Results of Leicester's Admioistratioa 286
CHAPTER XVIII.
Prophecies as to the Tear 1588^Distracted Condition of the Dutch Republic — Willoughby reluctantly takes Command — English Commissioners come to Ostend — Secretary Gamier and Robert Cecil — Cecil accompanies Dale to
Ghent — And finds the Desolation complete — Interview of Dale and Cecil with Parma — His fervent Expressions in favor of Peace — Cecil makes a Tour in Flanders — And sees much that is remarkable — Interviews of Dr. Rogers with Parma — Wonderful Harangues of the Envoy — Extraordinary Amenity of Alexander — With which Rogers is much touched — The Queea not pleased with her Envoy — Credulity of the EngUsh Commissioners — Ceremonious Meeting of all the Envoys — Consummate Art in wasting Time — Long Disputes about Commissions — The Spanish Commissions meant to deceive — Disputes about Cessation of Arms — Spanish Duplicity and Procrastination — Pedantry and Credulity of Dr. Dale — The Papal BuU and Dr. Allen's Pamphlet — Dale sent to ask Explanations — Parma denies all Knowledge of either — Croft believes to the last in Alexander — Dangerous Discord in North Holland — Leicester's Resignation arrives — Enmity of Willoughby and Maurice — Willoughby's dark Picture of AfiFairs — Hatred between States and Leicestrians — Maurice's Answer to the Queen's Charges — End of Sonoy's Rebellion — Philip foments the Civil War in France — League's Threats and Plots against Henry — Mucio arrives in Paris — He is received with Enthusiasm — The King flies, and Spain triumphs in Paris — States expostulate with the Queen — English Statesmen still deceived — Deputies from Netherland Churches — hold Conference with the Queen — and present long Memorials — More Conversations with the Queen — National Spirit of England and Holland — Dissatisfaction with Queen's Course — Bitter Complaints of Lord Howard — Want of Preparation in Army and Navy — Sanguine Statements of Leicester — Activity of Parma — ^The Painful Suspense continues 353
CHAPTER XIX.
PhiUp Second in his Cabinet — His System of Work and Deception — His vast but vague Schemes of Conquest — The Armada sails — Description of the Fleet — The Junction with Parma unprovided for — The Gale off Finisterre —Exploits of David Gwynn — First Engagement in the Enghsh Channel — Considerable Losses of the Spaniards — General Engagement near Portland —Superior Seamanship of the Enghsh — Both Fleets off Calais — A Night of Anxiety — Project of Howard and Winter — Impatience of the Spaniards — Fu-e-Ships sent against the Armada — A great Galeasse disabled — At- tacked and captured by English Boats — General Engagement of both Fleets — Loss of several Spanish Ships — Armada flies, followed by the Eng- lish— Enghsh insufficiently provided — are obhged to relinquish the Chase — A great Storm disperses the Armada — Great Energy of Parma — made fruitless by Phihp's Dulness — England readier at Sea than on Shore — The Lieutenant-General's Complaints — His Quarrels witli Norris and Williams — Harsh Statements as to the Ensrlish Troops — Want of Organization in England — Royal Parsimony and Delay — Quarrels of English Admirals —
PAOB
England's narrow Escape from great Peril — Various Rumours as to the Armada's Fate — Philip for a long time in Doubt — He beheves himself victorious — is tranquil when undeceived 458
CHAPTER XX.
Alexander besieges Bergen-op-Zoom — Pallavicini's Attempt to seduce Parma — Alexander's Fury — He is forced to raise the Siege of Bergen — Gertruy- denberg betrayed to Parma — Indignation of the States — Exploits of Schenk — His Attack on Nymegen — He is defeated and drowned — English-Dutch Expedition to Spain — Its meagre Results — Death of Guise and of the Queen- Mother — Combinations after the Murder of Henry III. — ^Tandem fit Surculus Arbor. 537
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
It was in 1860 that Motley* gave to the public the first two volumes of The United Netherlands. The field represented in this significant and enduring work he had harvested very naturally and logically after the completion of his great History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic, published in 1856.
A glimpse of Motley's scholarly methods and indefatigable power of research is afforded in a letter from Nice, in Decem- ber, 1857, when he was engrossed in the preparation of The United Netherlands.
In that month he wrote to his mother: "I can occupy my- self for a long time with several hundredweight of books, which I have brought with me, and which I nmst devour and turn into chyle before I can do much in the way of writing. My time in London was not lost for a single day, and I have now two persons employed there in copying for me, according to my mapping out when personally in the State Paper Office and British Museum. I was also hard at work in the Archives in Paris during the few weeks that we were there. I have, however, much to do in the subterranean way in Brussels,
^ John Lothrop Motley, historian and diplomatist, was horn in Dorchester, Mass., April 15, 1S14, graduated from Harvard in 1831, studied in Ger- many, was admitted to the bar in Boston, wrote two historical novels, and began his profound study of Dutch history in 1S51. Five years later his History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic was published, which was followed by The United Netherlands, and in 1874 by his John of Barneveld. He was Minister to Austria (1861-67), and Minister to Great Britain (1869-70). He died May 29, 1877. His Correspondence, edited by George William Curtis, is a work of peculiar interest on account of the personal and literary associations and the historical side-lights shown in its pages.
XVlll PUBLISHERS NOTE.
The Hague, London, and Paris. I do not write at all as yet, but am diving deep and staying under very long, but hoping not to come 'up too dry. My task is a very large and hard one. My canvas is very broad, and the massing and the com- position of the picture will give me more trouble than the more compact one which I have already painted."
Nearly a year later, in November, 1858, the evolution of The United Netherlands is sketched in a letter from Rome.
"I have a very good room for my study," he wrote, "and I am hard at work. I began my first volume about a fortnight ago and hope to have it done by April. My task is, however, rather a difficult one, more so, I think, than in my former book. I have to spread myself over a wide surface, for after the death of William the Silent the history of the provinces becomes for a time swallowed in the general current of European history. I do not mean by that that it loses its importance. On the contrary, the Netherlands question becomes the great question of Christendom. Netherlands history is for a time the only European history. France, England, Spain, and Holland being all mingled into one great conflicting mass, it is difficult to say who are friends and who are enemies, except as the dividing line is drawn according to religious opinion. I am obliged, therefore, in order to carry out my intention, to go more fully into English and French contemporaneous history than I did in the other book. This obliges me to take much greater care, because I come very often upon fields which have been more trodden before than the historical soil of the Netherlands. I have, however, made very extensive collec- tions of MSS. in England, Holland, and France, and whatever may be the success of the merits of the volumes when done, I am sure I shall have plenty of solid work in them, and from original and substantial materials."
Other references from time to time show the zeal of the scholar and the absorption of the artist. At last the first two volumes were completed. Murray, the London pub-
PUBLISHERS NOTE. XIX
lisher, who, unlike Harper & Brothers in the United States, had been unwilHng to accept the History of the Rise of the D'uich Republic, had acknowledged his mistake, and asked to publish The United Netherlands. His offer was accepted. Since Motley was living abroad all this time, his Letters naturally dwell more at length upon the English edition than the American publication by Harper & Brothers.
In November, 1860, he wrote from London: ''You will be pleased to hear that Mr. Murray had his annual trade sale dinner last Thursday (15th). This is given by him in the City to the principal London booksellers, and after a three- o'clock dinner he offers them his new publications. You will be glad to know that my volumes quite took the lead, and that he disposed at once of about three thousand copies. As he only intended to publish two thousand, you ma}'' suppose that he was agreeably disappointed. He has now increased his edition to four thousand, and expects to sell the whole. After that he will sell a smaller and cheaper edition. The work is, however, not yet published, nor will it be for several weeks. I am very glad to hear that you are pleased with the opening pages."
The following March found him at work again in the State Paper Office in London, reading hard in the old MSS. for the third and fourth volumes of the Netherlands.
"I am delighted to find that the success of the United Netherlands gives you and my father so much pleasure," he wrote in March, 1861. "It is by far the pleasantest reward for the hard work I have gone through to think that the result has given you both so much satisfaction. Not that I grudge the work, for, to say the truth, I could not exist without hard labor, and if I were compelled to be idle for the rest of my days, I should esteem it the severest affliction pos- sible.
"My deepest regret is that my work should be for the present on the wrong side of the Atlantic. . . .
XX publisher's note.
"I received a line from Tom, showing that the book was selling very well [in the United States] considering the times."
In August, 1861, Motley was notified of his appointment as Minister to Austria, and his new responsibilities, rendered doubly acute by the strain of those years of war, interrupted the course of his literary work. But in October, 1864, he wrote from Vienna: ''I have been able to do a good spell of work on my History. Volume III. is done, and part of Volume IV." Then he added, with an outbreak of the patriotic feeling which characterized all his correspondence: "It seems almost like sacrilege for an American to write on any other subject than that of our own great struggle."
It was not until the close of 1866 that the United Netherlands was finished. Early in January, 1867, Motley wrote from Vienna to the Duchess of Argyll: "I have been, during the last few weeks, obliged to give every moment not taken up with official duties to finishing off my two concluding volumes of the United Netherlands. These are now in Mr. Murray's hands, and the labor of many years is brought to an end — 1 say it with a mingled feeling of sadness and relief."
In March he wrote to Dr. Holmes that these concluding volumes were "passing rapidly through the press."
The reception given to the completed History of the United Netherlands, and the permanence of the high place awarded to Motley's achievement, form an honored part of literary history. It is in recognition of the enduring interest and distinctive value of Motley's work that his publishers, who first placed his histories before American readers, have prepared this com- plete popular edition, in two volumes, the only authorized presentation of his great history.
PREFACE.
The indulgence with which the History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic was received has encouraged me to prosecute my task with renewed industry.
A single word seems necessary to explain the some- what increased proportions which the present work has assumed over the original design. The intimate connection which was formed between the Kingdom of England and the Republic of Holland, immediately after the death of William the Silent, rendered the history and the fate of the two commonwealths for a season almost identical. The years of anxiety and suspense during which the great Spanish project for subjugating England and reconquering the Nether- lands, by the same invasion, was slowly matured, were of deepest import for the future destiny of those two countries and for the cause of national liberty. The deep-laid conspiracy of Spain and Rome against human rights deserves to be patiently examined, for it is one of the great lessons of history. The crisis was long and doubtful, and the health — perhaps the existence— of England and Holland, and, with them, of a great part of Christendom, was on the issue.
History has few so fruitful examples of the dangers which come from superstition and despotism, and the
Xxii PREFACE.
blessings which flow from the maintenance of religious and political freedom, as those aftbrded by the struggle between England and Holland on the one side, and Spain and Rome on the other, during the epoch which I have attempted to describe. It is for this reason that I have thought it necessary to reveal, as minutely as pos- sible, the secret details of this conspiracy of king and priest against the people, and to show how it was baffled at last by the strong self-helping energy of two free nations combined.
The period occupied by these two volumes is therefore a short one, when counted by years, for it begins in 1584 and ends with the commencement of 1590. When estimated by the significance of events and their results for future ages, it will perhaps be deemed worthy of the close examination which it has received. With the year 1588 the crisis was past; England was safe, and the new Dutch com- monwealth was thoroughly organized. It is my design, in two additional volumes, which, with the two now published, will complete the present work, to carry the history of the Republic down to the Synod of Dort. After this epoch the Thirty Years' War broke out in Germany ; and it is my wish, at a future day, to retrace the history of that eventful struggle, and to combine with it the civil and mili- tary events in Holland, down to the epoch when the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War of the Netherlands were both brought to a close by the Peace of Westphalia.
The materials for the volumes now offered to the pubUc were so abundant that it was almost impossible
PREFACE. XXlll
to condense them into smaller compass without doing injustice to the subject. It was desirable to throw full light on these prominent points of the history, while the law of historical perspective will allow long stretches of shadow in the succeeding portions, in which less important objects may be more slightly indicated. That I may not be thought capable of abusing the reader's confidence by inventing conversa- tions, speeches, or letters, I would take this oppor- tunity of stating — although I have repeated the remark in the foot-notes — that no personage in these pages is made to write or speak any words save those which, on the best historical evidence, he is known to have writ- ten or spoken.
A brief allusion to my sources of information will not seem superfluous. I have carefully studied all the leading contemporary chronicles and pamphlets of Holland, Flanders, Spain, France, Germany, and England ; but, as the authorities are always indicated in the notes, it is unnecessary to give a list of them here. But by far my most valuable materials are entirely unpublished ones.
The archives of England are especially rich for the history of the sixteenth century ; and it will be seen, in the course of the narrative, how largely I have drawn from those mines of historical wealth, the State Paper Office and the MS. department of the British Museum. Although both these great national depositories are in admirable order, it is to be regretted that they are not all embraced in one collection, as much troul51e might then be spared to the historical student, who is now obUged to
XXIV PREFACE.
pass frequently from the one place to the other, in order to find diflerent portions of the same corre- spondence.
From the royal archives of Holland I have obtained many most important, entirely unpublished docu- ments, by the aid of which I have endeavoured to verify, to illustrate, or sometimes to correct, the recitals of the elder national chroniclers ; and I have derived the greatest profit from the invaluable series of Archives and Correspondence of the Orange- Nassau Family, given to the world by M. Groen van Prinsterer. I desire to renew to that distinguished gentleman, and to that eminent scholar M. Bakhuy- zen van den Brink, the expression of my gratitude for their constant kindness and advice during my residence at the Hague. Nothing can exceed the courtesy which has been extended to me in Holland, and I am deeply grateful for the indulgence with which my eiforts to illustrate the history of the country have been received where that history is best known.
I have also been much aided by the study of a por- tion of the Archives of Simancas, the originals of which are in the Archives de 1' Empire in Paris, and which were most liberally laid before me through the kindness of M. le Comte de La Borde.
I have, further, enjoyed an inestimable advantage in the perusal of the whole correspondence between Philip II., his ministers, and governors, relating to the aiTairs of the Netherlands, from the epoch at which this work commences down to that monarch's death. Copies of this correspondence have been
PREFACE. XXV
carefully made from the originals at Simancas by order of the Belgian Government, under the super- intendence of the eminent archivist M. Gachard, who has already published a synopsis or abridgment of a portion of it in a French translation. The translation and abridgment of so large a mass of papers, however, must necessarily occupy many years, and it may be long, therefore, before the whole of the correspondence — and particularly that portion of it relating to the epoch occupied by these volumes — ■ sees the light. It was, therefore, of the greatest importance for me to see the documents themselves unabridged and untranslated. This privilege has been accorded me, and I desire to express my thanks to his Excellency M. van de Weyer, the distin- guished representative of Belgium at the English Court, to whose friendly offices I am mainly indebted for the satisfaction of my wishes in this respect. A letter from him to his Excellency M. Rogier, Minister of the Interior in Belgium — who likewise took the most courteous interest in promoting my views — obtained for me the permission thoroughly to study this correspondence ; and I passed several months in Brussels, occupied with reading the whole of it from the year 1584 to the end of the reign of Philip II.
I was thus saved a long visit to the Archives of Si- mancas, for it would be impossible conscientiously to write the history of the epoch without a thorough exam- ination of the correspondence of the King and his min- isters. I venture to hope, therefore — whatever judg- ment may be passed upon my own labours — that this
XXvi PREFACE.
work may be thought to possess an intrinsic value ; for the various materials of which it is composed are ori- ginal, and — so far as I am aware — have not been made use of by any historical writer.
I would take this opportunity to repeat my thanks to M. Gachard, Archivist of the kingdom of Belgium, for the uniform courtesy and kindness which I have received at his hands, and to bear my testimony to the skill and critical accuracy with which he has illustrated so many passages of Belgian and Spanish history.
31, Hertford-Street, May-Faie, November llth, 1860.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
BOOK I
^:k
BIRDSE\E MEW OF THE SIEGE OF ANTW ERP -{rn m «n o/,/ Pn„/ )
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
CHAPTER I.
Murder of Orange — Extension of Protestantism — Vast Power of Spain — Religious Origin of the Revolt — Disposal of the Sovereignty — Courage of the Estates of Holland — Children of WOliara the Silent — Provisional Council of State — Firm attitude of Holland and Zeeland — Weakness of Flanders — Fall of Ghent — Adroitness of Alexander Famese.
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, had been murdered on the 10th of July, 1584. It is difficult to imagine a more universal disaster than the one thus brought about by the hand of a single obscure fanatic. For nearly twenty years the character of the Prince had been expanding steadily as the difficulties of his situation increased. Habit, necessity, and the natural gifts of the man, had combined to invest him at last with an authority which seemed more than human. There was such general confidence in his sagacity, courage, and purity, that the nation had come to think with his brain and to act with his hand. It was natural that, for an in- stant, there should be a feeling as of absolute and helpless paralysis.
Whatever his technical attributes in the polity of the Netherlands — and it would be difficult to define them with, perfect accuracy — there is no doubt that he stood there, the head of a commonwealtn, in an attitude such as had been maintained by but few of the kings, or chiefs, or high priests of history. Assassination, a regular and almost indispensable portion of the working machinery of Philip's government, had produced, in this instance, after repeated disappoint- ments, the result at lust wliicli liad been so anxiously desired.
VOL. J. — B
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. 1
The ban of the Poj^e and the offered gold of the King had accomplished a victory greater than any yet achieved by the armies of Spain, brilliant as had been their triumphs on the blood-stained soil of the Netherlands,
Had that "exceeding proud, neat, and spruce"^ Doctor of Laws, William Parry, who had been busying himself at about the same time with his memorable project against the Queen of England, proved as successful as Balthazar Gerard, the fate of Christendom would have been still darker. Fortunately, that member of Parliament had made the discovery in time — ■ not for himself, but for Elizabeth — that the " Lord was better pleased with adverbs than nouns ;"^ the well-known result being that the traitor was hanged and the Sovereign saved.
^-^et such was the condition of Europe at that day. A small, dull, elderly, imperfectly-educated, patient, plodding invalid, with white hair and protruding under-jaw, and dreary visage, was sitting day after day, seldom speaking, never smiling, seven or eight hours out of every twenty-four, at a writing table covered with heaps of interminable despatches, in a cabinet far away beyond the seas and mountains, in the very heart of Spain. A clerk or two, noiselessly opening and shutting the door, from time to time, fetching fresh bundles of letters and taking away others — all written and composed by secretaries or high functionaries — and all to be scrawled over in the margin by the diligent old man in a big school- boy's hand and style — if ever schoolboy, even in the six- teenth century, could write so illegibly or express himself 80 awkwardly f couriers in the court-yard arriving from or departing for the uttermost parts of earth — Asia, Africa, America, Europe — to fetch and caiTy these interminable epistles which contained the irresponsible commands of this one individual, and were freighted with the doom and destiny of countless millions of the world's inhabitants — such was the system of government against which the Netherlands had
' Camden's ' Elizabeth,' ed. 1688, p. 305.
2 Camdeu, p. 307.
' See vol. ii. of tliis work for in stances.
1584.
MURDER OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE.
protested and revolted. It was a system under which then' fields had been made desolate, their cities burned and pillaged, their men hanged, burned, drowned, or hacked to pieces ; their women subjected to every outrage ; and to put an end to which they had been devoting their treasure and their blood for nearly the length of one generation. It was a system, too, which, among other results, had just brought about the death of the foremost statesman of Europe, and had nearly effected simultaneously the murder of the most eminent sovereign in the world. The industrious Philip, safe and tranquil in the depths of the Escorial, saying his prayers three times a day with exemplary regularity, had just sent three bullets through the body of William the Silent at his dining-room door in Delft. " Had it only been done two years earlier," observed the patient old man, "much trouble might have been spared me ; but 'tis better late than never." Sir Edward Stafford, English envoy in Paris, wrote to his government — so soon as the news of the murder reached him — that, according to his information out of the Spanish minister's own house, " the same practice that had been exe- cuted upon the Prince of Orange, there were practisers more than two or three about to execute upon her Majesty, and that within two months." Without vouching for the absolute accuracy of this intelligence, he implored the Queen to be more upon her guard than ever. " For there is no doubt," said the envoy, " that she is a chief mark to shoot at ; and seeing that there were men cunning enough to inchant a man and to encourage him to kill the Prince of Orange, in the midst of Holland, and that there was a knave found desperate enough to do it, we must think hereafter that anything may be done. Therefore God preserve her Majesty."^
Invisible as the Grand Lama of Thibet, clothed with power
' Murdin's 'State Papers,' 412-415.
William Herle, too, wrote from Hol- land, immediately after the murder, warning the Queen to bo more than ever on her guard. The seminary at
Dieppe, placed "upon the brim of England," was constantly sending Scotch and English assasshis into their own countr}'. " 'Tis known to me," he said, " that there are entered
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. I.
as extensive and absolute as had ever been wielded by the most imperial Cgesar, Philip the Prudent, as he grew older and feebler in mind and body seemed to become more glut- tonous of work/ more ambitious to extend his sceptre over lands which he had never seen or dreamed of seeing, more fixed in his determination to annihilate that monster Pro- testantism, which it had been the business of his life to combat, more eager to put to death every human creature, whether anointed monarch or humble artizan, that defended heresy or opposed his progress to universal empire.
If this enormous power, this fabulous labour, had been wielded or performed with a beneficent intention ; if the man who seriously regarded himself as the owner of a third of the globe, with the inhabitants thereof, had attempted to deal with these extensive estates inherited from hia ancestors with the honest intention of a thrifty landlord, an intelligent slave-owner, it would have yet been possible for a little longer to smile at the delusion, and endure the practice.
But there was another old man, who lived in another palace in another remote land, who, in his capacity of representative of Saint Peter, claimed to dispose of all the kingdoms of the earth — and had been willing to bestow them upon the man who would go down and worship him. Philip stood enfeoffed, by divine decree, of all America, the East Indies, the whole Spanish Peninsula, the better portion of Italy, the seventeen Netherlands, and many other possessions far and near ; and he contemplated annexing to this extensive property the
above seven score lurking Jesuits into the realm of late, and they do secretly repair more and more to sow infection and rebellion among your subjects, and to conspire against your royal person, whom God alway, for his mercy's sake, preserve." (Herle to the Queen, 22nd July, 1584, State- Paper Office MS.) Moreover, another secret agent of "Walsingham, Stephen Le Sieur, wrote shortly afterwards from Antwerp, that the Prince of Orange had been warned by persons
resident in Cologne of the attempt about to be made upon his life, but had unfortunately not heeded the ad- monition. The same persons who had furnished that information now wrote to apprise Le Sieur that there was a similar plot on foot against the Queen. (Le Sieur to "Walsingham, 7 th Sep- tember, 1584, State-Paper Office MS.)
* Longlee au Roi de France, apud Groen van Prinsterer, ' Archives et Correspondence de la Maison d'Orang€ Nassau, deuxieme aerie,' torn. i. p. 29.
1584 EXTENSION OF PROTESTANTISM. 5
kingdoms of France, of England, and Ireland. The Holy League, maintained by the sword of Guise, the pope's ban, Spanish ducats, Italian condottieri, and German mercenaries, was to exterminate heresy and establish the Spanish dominion in France. The same machinery, aided by the pistol or poniard of the assassin, was to substitute for English pro- testantism and England's queen the Roman Catholic religion and a foreign sovereign. " The holy league," said Dujjlessis- Mornay, one of the noblest characters of the age, "has destined us all to the same sacrifice. The ambition of the Spaniard, which has overleaped so many lands and seas, thinks nothing inaccessible.'"
The Netherland revolt had therefore assumed world-wide proportions. Had it been merely the rebellion of pro- vinces against a sovereign, the importance of the struggle would have been more local and temporary. But the period was one in which the geograjjhical land-marks of countries were almost removed. The dividing-line ran through every state, city, and almost every family. There was a country which believed in the absolute power of the church to dictate the relations between man and his Maker, and to utterly exterminate all who disputed that position. There was another country which protested against that doctrine, and claimed, theoretically or practically, a liberty of conscience. The territory of these countries was mapped out by no visible lines, but the inhabitants of each, whether resident in France, Germany, England, or Flanders, recognised a relationship which took its root in deeper differences than those of race or language. It was not entirely a question of doctrine or dogma. A large portion of the world had become tired of the antiquated delusion of a papal supremacy over every land, and had recorded its determination, once for all, to have done with it. The transition to freedom of conscience became a necessary step, sooner or later to be taken. To establish the principle of toleration for all religions was an inevitable consequence of the Dutch revolt ; although thus far, perhaps * 'Memoirea ut Correspondeuce de Duplessia-Mornay, ' Paris, 1824, iii. 27
6 THE UNITED NETHERLANDa Chap. L
only one conspicuous man in advance of his age had boldly announced that doctrine and had died in its defence. But a great true thought never dies — though long buried in the earth — and the day was to come, after long years, when the seed was to ripen into a harvest of civil and religious eman- cipation, and when the very word toleration was to sound like an insult and an absurdity.
A vast responsibility rested upon ihe head of a monarch, placed as Philip II. found himself, at this great dividing point in modern history. To judge him, or any man in such a position, simply from his own point of view, is weak and illogical. History judges the man according to its point of view. It condemns or applauds the point of view itself The point of view of a malefactor is not to excuse robbery and murder. Nor is the spirit of the age to be jileaded in defence of the evil-doer at a time when mortals were divided into almost equal troops. The age of Philip II. was also the age of William of Orange and his four brethren, of Sainte Aldegonde, of Olden-Barneveldt, of Duplessis-Mornay, La Noue, Coligny, of Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, Walsingham, Sidney, Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth, of Michael Montaigne, and William Shakspeare. It was not an age of blindness, but of glorious light. If the man whom the Maker of the Universe had permitted to be born to such boundless functions, chose to jjut out his own eyes that he might grope along his great pathway of duty in perpetual darkness, by his deeds he must be judged. The King perhaps firmly believed that the heretics of the Netherlands, of France, or of England, could escape eternal perdition only by being extirpated from the earth by fire and sword, and therefore, perhaps, felt it his duty to devote his life to their extermination. But he believed, still more firmly, that his own political authority, throughout his dominions, and his road to almost universal empire, lay over the bodies of those heretics. Three centuries have nearly past since this memorable epoch ; and the world knows the fate of the states which accepted the dogma which it was Philip's life-work to enforce, and of those who protested
1584. EXTENSIVE POWER OP SPx^IN. 7
against the system. The Spanish and Italian Peninsulas have had a diflferent history from that which records the career of France, Prussia, the Dutch Commonwealth, the British Empire, the Transatlantic Republic.
Yet the contest between those Seven meagre Provinces upon the sand-banks of the North Sea, and the great Spanish Empire, seemed at the moment with which we are now occupied a sufficiently desperate one. Throw a glance upon the map of Eurojje. Look at the broad magnificent Spanish Peninsula, stretching across eight degrees of latitude and ten of longi- tude, commanding the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with a genial climate, warmed in winter by the vast furnace of Africa, and protected from the scorching heats of summer by shady mountain and forest, and temperate breezes from either ocean. A generous southern territory, flowing with wine and oil, and all the richest gifts of a bountiful nature — splendid cities — the new and daily expanding Madrid, rich in the trophies of the most artistic period of the modern world — Cadiz, as populous at that day as London, seated by the straits where the ancient and modern systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two oceans — Granada, the ancient wealthy seat of the fallen Moors — Toledo, Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently-conquered kingdom of Portugal, counting, with its suburbs, a larger population than any city, excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the capital of the rapidly-developing traffic with both the Indies — these were some of the treasures of Spain herself^ But she possessed Sicily also, the better portion of Italy, and important dependencies in Africa, while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all enured to her aggrandizement. The world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings from East to West, only to bear the for- tunate Spanish Empire to the most dizzy heights of wealth and power. The most accomplished generals, the most dis- ciplined and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best-equipped and most extensive navy, royal and mercantile,
Compare Guicciardini, 'Belgicae Descript.' Amst. 1660, p. 210 seq.
8 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. 1
of the age, were at tlie absolute command of the sovereign. Such was Spain.
Turn now to the north-western corner of Europe. A morsel of territory, attached by a slight sand-hook to the con- tinent, and half-submerged by the stormy waters of the Ger- man Ocean — this was Holland. A rude climate, with long, dark, rigorous, winters, and brief summers, a territory, the mere wash of three great rivers, which had fertilized happier portions of Europe only to desolate and overwhelm this less- favoured land, a soil so ungrateful, that if the whole of its four hundred thousand acres of arable land had been sowed with grain,' it could not feed the labourers alone, and a popu- lation largely estimated at one million of souls — these were the characteristics of the Province which already had begun to give its name to the new commonwealth. The isles of Zeeland — entangled in the coils of deep slow-moving rivers, or combating the ocean without — and the ancient episcopate of Utrecht, formed the only other Provinces that had quite shaken off the foreign yoke. In Friesland, the important city of Groningen was still held for the King, while Bois-le-Duc, Zutphcn, besides other places in Gelderland and North Bra- bant, also in possession of the royalists, made the position of those jjrovinces precarious.
The limit of the Spanish or " obedient " Provinces, on the one hand, and of the United Provinces on the other, cannot, therefore, be briefly and distinctly stated. The memorable treason — or, as it was called, the "reconciliation" of the Walloon Provinces in the year 1583-4 — had placed the Pro- vinces of Hainault, Arthois, Douay, with the flourishing cities Arras, Valenciennes, Lille, Tournay, and others — all Celtic Flanders, in short — in the grasp of Spain. Cambray was still held by the French governor. Seigneur de Balagny, who had taken advantage of the Duke of Anjou's treachery to the States, to establish himself in an unrecognized but practical petty sovereignty, in defiance both of France and Spain ; while East Flanders and South Brabant still remained a dis-
> 'Memoires de Jean de Wit,' La Haye, 1709-18-19.
1584. RKLIGlOtTS OUtGlN OF THE REVOLT. 9
j)uted territory, and the immediate field of contest. With these limitations, it may be assumed, for general purposes, that the territory of the United States was that of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the obedient Provinces occupied what is now the territory of Belgium.
Such, then, were the combatants in the great eighty years' war for civil and religious liberty ; sixteen of which had now passed away. On the one side, one of the most powerful and populous world-empires of history, then in the zenith of its prosperity ; on the other hand, a slender group of cities, governed by merchants and artisans, and planted precariously upon a meagre, unstable soil. A million and a half of souls against the autocrat of a third part of the known world. The contest seemed as desperate as the cause was certainly sacred ; but it had ceased to be a local contest. For the history which is to occupy us in these volumes is not exclusively the history of Holland. It is the story of the great combat between despotism, sacerdotal and regal, and the spirit of rational human liberty. The tragedy opened in the Netherlands, and its main scenes were long enacted there ; but as the ambition of Spain expanded, and as the resistance to the principle which she represented became more general, other nations were, of necessity, involved in the struggle. There came to be one country, the citizens of which were the Leaguers ; and another country, whose inhabitants were Protestants. And in this lay the distinction between freedom and absolutism. The religious question swallowed all the others. There was never a period in the early history of the Dutch revolt when the Provinces would not have returned to their obedience, could they have been assured of enjoying liberty of conscience or religious peace ; nor was there ever a single moment in Philip II.'s life in which he wavered in his fixed determina- tion never to listen to such a claim. The quarrel was in its nature irreconcilable and eternal as the warfare between wrong and right ; and the establishment of a comparative civil liberty in Europe and America was the result of the religious war of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Vol. I— a
10 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap 1.
The struggle lasted eighty years, but the prize was worth the contest.
The object of the war between the Netherlands and Spain was not, therefore, primarily, a rebellion against established authority for the maintenance of civil rights. To preserve these rights was secondary. The first cause was religion. The Provinces had been fighting for years against the Inquisition, Had they not taken arms, the Inquisition would have been established in the Netherlands, and very probaby in England, and England might have become in its turn a Province of tlie Spanish Empire.
The death of William the Silent produced a sudden change in the political arrangements of the liberated Netherlands. During the year 1583, the United Provinces had elected Francis, Duke of Anjou, to be Duke of Brabant and sove- reign of the whole country, under certain constitutional pro- visions enumerated in articles of solemn compact. That compact had been grossly violated. The Duke had made a treacherous attempt to possess himself of absolute power and to seize several important cities. He had been signally defeated in Antwerp, and obliged to leave the country, covered with ignominy. The States had then consulted Wil- liam of Orange as to the course to be taken in the emergency. The Prince had told them that their choice was triple. They might reconcile themselves with Spain, and abandon the contest for religious liberty which they had so long been waging ; they might reconcile themselves with Anjou, not- withstanding that he had so utterly forfeited all claims to their consideration ; or they might fight the matter out with Spain single-handed. The last course was, in his opinion, the most eligible one, and he was ready to sacrifice his life to its furtherance. It was, however, indispensable, should that policy be adopted, that much larger supplies should be voted than had hitherto been raised, and, in general, that a much more extensive and elevated spirit of patriotism should mani- fest itself than had hitherto been displayed.
It was, on the whole, decided to make a second arrange-
1584. DISPOSAL OF THE S0VP:REIGNTY. U
ment with the Duke of Anjou, Queen Elizabeth warmly urging that courseo At the same time, however, that articles of agreement were drawn up for the installation of Anjou aa sovereign of the United Provinces, the Prince had himself consented to accept the title of Count of Holland, under an ample constitutional charter, dictated by his own lips. Neither Anjou nor Orange lived to be inaugurated into the effices thus bestowed upon them. The Duke died at Chateau- Thierry on the 10th June, and the Prince was assassinated a month later at Delft.
What now was the political position of the United Provinces at this juncture ? The sovereignty which had been held by the Estates, ready to be conferred respectively upon Anjou and Orange, remained in the hands of the Estates. There was no opposition to this theory. No more enlarged view of the social compact had yet been taken. The people, as such, claimed no sovereignty. Had any champion claimed it for them they would hardly have understood him. The nation dealt with facts. After abjuring Philip in 1581 — an act which had been accomplished by the Estates — the same Estates in general assembly had exercised sovereign power, and had twice disposed of that sovereign power by electing a hereditary ruler. Their right and their power to do this had been disputed by none, save by the deposed monarch in Spain. Having the sovereignty to dispose of, it seemed logical that the Estates might keep it, if so inclined. They did keep it, but only in trust. While Orange lived, he might often have been elected sovereign of all the Provinces, could he have been induced to consent. After his death, the Estates retained, ex necessitate, the sovereignty ; and it will soon be related what they intended to do with it. One thing is very certain, that neither Orange, while he lived, nor the Estates, after his death, were actuated in their policy by personal ambition. It will be seen that the first object of the Estates was to dis- possess themselves of the sovereignty which had again fallen into their hands.
What were the Estates ? Without, at the present moment,
X2 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. I.
any farther inquiries into that constitutional system which had been long consolidating itself, and was destined to exist upon a firmer basis for centuries longer, it will be suffi- cient to observe, that the great characteristic of the Nether- land government was the municipality. Each Province con- tained a large number of cities, which were governed by a board of magistrates, varying in number from twenty to forty. This college, called the Vroedschap (Assembly of Sages), con- sisted of the most notable citizens, and was a self-electing body — a close corporation — the members being appointed for life, from the citizens at large. Whenever vacancies occurred from death or loss of citizenship, the college chose new mem- bers— sometimes immediately, sometimes by means of a double or triple selection of names, the choice of one from among which was offered to the stadtholder of the province. This functionary was appointed by the Count, as he was called, whether Duke of Bavaria or of Burgundy, Emperor, or King. After the abjuration of Philip, the governors were appointed by the Estates of each Province.
The Sage-Men chose annually a board of senators, or sche- pens, whose functions were mainly judicial ; and there were generally two, and sometimes three, burgomasters, appointed in the same way.' This was the popular branch of the Estates. But, besides this body of representatives, were the nobles, men of ancient lineage and large possessions, who had exer- cised, according to the general feudal law of Europe, high, low, and intermediate jurisdiction upon their estates, and had long been recognized as an integral part of the body politic, having the right to appear, through delegates of their order, in the provincial and in the general assemblies.
Regarded as a machine for bringing the most decided political capacities into the administration of public afiairs, and for organising the most practical opposition to the system of rehgious tyranny, the Netherland constitution was a healthy, and, for the age, an enlightened one. The office- holders, it is obvious, were not greedy for the spoils of office ;
' Meteren, loc. cit.
1584
COtTRAGE OF THE ESTATES OF HOLLAND.
13
for it was, unfortunately, often the case that their necessary expenses in the service of the state were not defrayed. The people raised enormous contributions for carrying on the war ; but they could not afford to be extremely generous to their faithful servants.
Thus constituted was the commonwealth upon the death of William the Silent. The gloom produced by that event was tragical. Never in human history was a more poignant and universal sorrow for the death of any individual. The despair was, for a brief season, absolute ; but it was soon succeeded by more lofty sentiments. It seemed, after they had laid their hero in the tomb, as though his spirit still hovered above the nation which he had loved so well, and was inspiring it with a portion of his own energy and wisdom.'
Even on the very day of the murder, the Estates of Holland, then sitting at Delft, passed a resolution " to maintain the good cause, with God's help, to the uttermost, with- loth July, out sparing gold or blood." This decree was com- iss^:. municated to Admiral de Warmont, to Count Hohenlo, to William Lewis of Nassau, and to other commanders by land and sea. At the same time, the sixteen members — for no
' "The people of that country," wrote Walsingham, ten days after the death of Orange, to Davison, "have hitherto shewed themselves but little amazed with the accident. Rather, the wickedness of the deed hath har- dened their stomachs to hold out as long as they shall have any means of defence." if j^ ^ g p ^^ ^^
22 .
William Herle, also, a secret and most capable emissary of the English government, was visiting the cities of Holland and Zeeland at the time of the tragic occurrence. He described, in vivid colours, the courageous attitude maintained by all persons in the midst of the general gloom. "The recent death of the Prince of Orange," he wrote to Queen Elizabeth, " has crea- ted no astonishment (dismay) at all, either of the people or magistrates, by fear or division, but rather generally animated them with a great resolution
of courage and hatred engraved in them, to revenge the foulness of the fact committed on the person of the prince by the tj'rant of Spain, and to defend their liberties advisedly against him and his adherents by all means that God has given them, to the utter- most portion of their substance, and the last drop of their blood." ^ July, 1584, S. P. Office MS. i Aug.,
In the city of Dort he was waited upon by the magistrates, and received by them with suigular respect, as the known, although secret, representative of the Queen. " They repaired to mo immediately," he wrote, "not as men condoling their estate, or craving courage to be instilled into them — though wanting now a head — but irri- tated above measure to be revenged. and to defend all their heads, so ap- parently sought for by the King of Spain, in murdering their head, the Prince of Orange." (Ibid.)
14 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. L
greater number happened to be present at the session — addressed letters to their absent colleagues, informing them of the calamity which had befallen them, summon- ing them at once to conference, and urging an immediate convocation of the Estates of all the Provinces in General Assembly. They also addressed strong letters of encou- ragement, mingled with manly condolence, upon the common affliction, to prominent military and naval com- manders and civil functionaries, begging them to "bear themselves manfully and valiantly, without faltering in the least on account of the great misfortune which had occurred, or allowing themselves to be seduced by any one from the union of the States.'" Among these sixteen were Van Zuylen, Van Nyvelt, the Seigneur de Warmont, the Advocate of Holland, Paul Buys, Joost de Menin, and John van Olden- Barneveldt. A noble example was thus set at once to their fellow citizens by these their representatives — a manful step taken forward in the path where Orange had so long been leading.
The next movement, after the last solemn obsequies had been rendered to the Prince was to provide for the immediate wants of his family. For the man who had gone into the revolt with almost royal revenues, left his estate so embar- rassed that his carpets, tapestries, household linen — nay, even his silver spoons, and the very clothes of his wardrobe — were disposed of at auction for the benefit of his creditors.* He left eleven children — a son and daughter by the first wife, a son and daughter by Anna of Saxony, six daughters by Charlotte of Bourbon, and an infant, Frederic Henry, born six months before his death. The eldest son, Philip William, had been a captive in Spain for seventeen years, having been kidnapped from school, in Leyden, in the year 1567. He
' 'Van Wyn et al. Aanmerkingen op Wagenaar,' viii. 1-5.
' His extensive estates were all deeply mortgaged, and he left abso- lutely no ready money. " Both Buis
to Queen Elizabeth, "that the prince had not in ready money at his deata one hundred guilders, which Avas a note of his popularity." ^ July, ,-„„ S. P. Office MS. 1 Aug., ^^°°'
and Meetkerk told me," wrote Herle ' Compare Wagenaar, viii. 12-16.
1584.
CHILDREN OF THE PRINCE OP ORANGE.
had already become so thoroughly Hispaniolized under the masterly treatment of the King and the Jesuits, that even liis face had lost all resemblance to the type of his heroic family, and had acquired a sinister, gloomy, forbidding ex- pression, most painful to contemplate. All of good that he had retained was a reverence for his father's name — a senti- ment which he had manifested to an extravagant extent on a memorable occasion in Madrid, by throwing out of window, and killing on the spot^ a Spanish ofl&cer who had dared to mention the great Prince with insult.
The next soe was Maurice, then seventeen years of age, a handsome youth, with dark blue eyes, well-chiselled features, and full red lips, who had already manifested a courage and concentration of character beyond his years. The son of William the Silent, the grandson of Maurice of Saxony, whom he resembled in visage and character, he was summoned by every drop of blood in his veins to do life-long battle with the spirit of Spanish absolutism, and he was already girding himself for his life's work. He assumed at once for his device a fallen oak, with a young sapling springing from its root. His motto, — " Tandem fit surculus arbor," " the twig shall yet become a tree" — was to be nobly justified by his career.^
The remaining son, then a six months' child, was also destined to high fortunes, and to win an enduring name in his country's history. For the present he remained with his mother, the noble Louisa de Coligny, who had thus seen, at long intervals, her father and two husbands fall victims to Ihe Spanish policy ; for it is as certain that Philip knew beforehand, and testified his approbation of, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as that he ivas the murderer of Orange.
The Estates of Holland implored the widowed Princess to remain in their territority, settling a liberal allowance
' " The Count Maurice, with whom I was, most gracious Sovereign," said Herle, "is a gentleman of the age of seventeen years, one of great toward- ness, good presence, and courage, flaxen-haired, endued with a singular
wit, and no less learned for his time. He somewhat resembles the counte- nance and spirit of his grandfather of the mother's side." (Herle to the Queen, MS. just cited.) Compare Meteren, xii. 214.
16
THE UNITED NETHERLANDa
Chap. L
upon herself and her child, and she fixed her residence at Leyden.'
But her position was most melancholy. Married in youth to the Seigneur de Teligny, a young noble of distinguished qualities, she had soon become both a widow and an orphan in the dread night of St. Bartholomew. She had made her own escape to Switzerland ; and ten years afterwards she had united herself in marriage with the Prince of Orange. At the age of thirty-two, she now found herself desolate and wretched in a foreign land, where she had never felfc thoroughly at home. The widow and children of William the Silent were almost without the necessaries of life. " I hardly know," wrote the Princess to her brother-in-law. Count John, "how the children and I are to maintain ourselves according to the honour of the house. May God provide for us in his bounty, and certainly we have much need of it."' Accustomed to the more luxurious civilisation of France, she had been amused rather than annoyed, when, on her first arrival in Holland for her nuptials, she found herself making the journey from Rotterdam to Delft in an open cart without springs, instead of the well-balanced coaches to which she had been used, arriving, as might have been expected, " much bruised and shaken." Such had become the primitive sim- plicity of William the Silent's household.* But on his death, in embarrassed circumstances, it was still more straightened. She had no cause either to love Leyden, for, after the assas- sination of her husband, a brutal preacher, Hakkius by name, had seized that opportunity for denouncing the French mar- riage, and the sumptuous christening of the infant in January as the deeds which had provoked the wrath of God and righteous chastisement.'* To remain there in her widowhood, with that six months' child, " sole pledge of her dead lord, her consolation and only pleasure,"' as she pathetically ex- pressed herself, was sufficiently painful, and she had been inclined to fix her residence in Flushing, in the edifice which
' "Wagenaar, 'Vaderlandsche His- torie,' viii. 8 seq. ; Yan Wyn op "Wa- genaar, viii. 5 seq., IQ seq.
" Groen v. Priasterer, ' Archives,' &c.
2 S., i. 98.
^ Du Maurier, ' Memoires,' 182. * Van Wyn op Wagenaar, viii. 19. ' Groe • V. Prinsterer ubi sup.
1584. PROVISIONAL COUNCIL. 17
had belonged to her husband, as Marquis of Vere. She had been persuaded, however, to remain in Holland, although "complaining, at first, somewhat of the unkindness of the people."^
A small well-formed woman, with delicate features, exqui- site complexion, and very beautiful dark eyes, that seemed in after-years, as they looked from beneath her coif, to be dim with unshed tears ; Avith remarkable powers of mind, angelic sweetness of disposition, a winning manner, and a gentle voice, Louisa de Coligny became soon dear to the rough Hollanders, and was ever a disinterested and valuable monitress both to her own child and to his elder brother Maurice.^
Very soon afterwards the States General established a State Council, as a provisional executive board, for the term of three months, for the Provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, and such jiarts of Flanders and Brabant as still remained in the Union. At the head of this body was placed young Maurice, who accepted the responsible position, after three days' deliberation. The young man had been completing his education, with a liberal allowance from Holland and Zeeland, at the University of Leyden ; and such had been their tender care for the child of so many hopes, that the Estates had given particular and solemn warning, by resolution, to his governor during the previous summer, on no account to allow him to approach the sea-shore, lest he should be kidnapped by the Prince of Parma, who had then some war-vessels cruising on the coast.*
The salary of Maurice was now fixed at thirty thousand
• MS. letter of Herle.
2 "I visited the Princess of Orange by her own request," said Herle, a few days after the death of the Prince, "and found her in a most dark me- lancholic little chamber. 'T was a twice sorrowful sight to behold her heaviness and apparel augmented by the woefulness of the place ; and truly the perplexity was great that I found her iU; not only for the consideration of things past, but for that which might
VOL. I. — C
follow hereafter, her afflictions having been great. She was accompanied by the Princess Chimay, who was newly come to Delft, and no less dolorous in another degree than she, but truly a virtuous and wise lady, whatsoever, under correction, hath been otherwise interpreted of her." (Herle's MS., before cited.)
^ 'Resol. Holl.,' 11th August, 1584 bl. 294 ; "Wagenaar, viii. 6.
jg TTTE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. I.
florins a year, while each of the councillors was allowed fifteen hundred annually, out of which stipend he was to support at least one servant, without making any claim for travelling or other incidental expenses.^
The Council consisted of three members from Brabant, two from Flanders, four from Holland, three from Zeeland, two from Utrecht, one from Mechlin, and three from Friesland — eighteen in all. They were empowered and enjoined to levy troops by land and sea, and to appoint naval and military officers ; to establish courts of admiralty, to expend the moneys voted by the States, to maintain the ancient privileges of the country, and to see that all troops in service of the Provinces made oath of fidelity to the Union. Diplomatic relations, questions of peace and war, the treaty-making •power, were not entrusted to the Council, without the know- ledge and consent of the States General, which body was to be convoked twice a year by the State Council.^
Thus the Provinces in the hour of danger and darkness were true to themselves, and were far from giving way to a despondency which under the circumstances would not have been unnatural.
For the waves of bitterness were rolling far and wide around them. A medal, struck in Holland at this period, represented a dismasted hulk reeling through the tempest. The motto, " incertum quo fata ferent " (who knows whither fate is sweeping her ?) expressed most vividly the ship- wrecked condition of the country. Alexander of Parma, the most accomplished general and one of the most adroit statesmen of the age, was swift to take advantage of the calamity which had now befallen the rebellious Provinces. Had he been better provided with men and money, the cause of the States might have seemed hopeless. He addressed many letters to the States General, to the magistracies of various cities, and to individuals, affecting to consider that with the death of Orange bad died all authority, as well as all motive for continuing the contest with Spain. Hei offered
' Wagenaar, viii. 8; Van "Wyn op Wagenaar, viii. 12. ^ Ibid.
1584. FIRM ATTITUDE OF HOLLAND. 19
easy terms of reconciliation with the discarded monarch — always reserving, however, as a matter of course, the religious question — for it was as well known to the States as to Parma that there was no hope of Philip making concessions upon that important point.
In Holland and Zeeland the Prince's blandishments were of no avail. His letters received in various towns of those Provinces, offered, said one who saw them, " almost every- thing they would have or demand, even till they should repent."^ But the bait was not taken. Individuals and municipalities were alike stanch, remembering well that faith was not to be kept with heretics. The example was followed by the Estates of other Provinces, and all sent in to the General Assembly, soon in session at Delft, "their absolute and irrevocable authority to their deputies to stand to that which they, the said States General, should dispose of as to their persons, goods and country ; a resolution and agreement which never concurred before among them, to this day, in what age or government soever."^
It was decreed that no motion of agreement " with the tyrant of Spain " should be entertained either publicly or privately, " under pain to be reputed ill patriots." It was also enacted in the city of Dort that any man that brought letter or message from the enemy to any private person "should be forthwith hanged." This was expeditious and business-like. The same city likewise took the lead in recording its deter- mination by public act, and proclaiming it by sound of trumpet, " to live and die in the cause now undertaken."^
In Flanders and Brabant the sj^irit was less noble. Those Provinces were nearly lost already. Bruges seconded Parma's efforts to induce its sister-city Ghent to imitate its own base- ness in surrendering without a struggle ; and that powerful, turbulent, but most anarchical little commonwealth was but too ready to listen to the voice of the tempter. " The ducats of Spain, Madam, are trotting about in such fashion," wrote envoy Dea Pruneaux to Catharine de' Medici, " that they have
» Herle lo» the Queen, MS. before cited, ' Ibid. ^ ibij.
c 3
20 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. L
vanquished a great quantity of courages. Your Majesties, too, must employ money if you wish to advance one step."^ No man knew better than Parma how to employ such golden rhetoric to win back a wavering rebel to his loyalty, but he was not always provided with a sufficient store of those practical arguments.
He was, moreover, not strong in the field, although he was far superior to the States at this contingency. He had, besides his garrisons, something above 18,000 men. The Provinces had hardly 3000 foot and 2500 horse, and these were mostly lying in the neighbourhood of Zutphen.^ Alexander was threatening at the same time Ghent, Dender- monde, Mechlin, Brussels, and Antwerp. These five powerful cities lie in a narrow circle, at distances varying from six miles to thirty, and are, as it were, strung together upon the Scheldt, by which river, or its tributary, the Senne, they are all threaded. It would have been impossible for Parma, with 100,000 men at his back, to undertake a regular and simultaneous siege of these important places. His purpose was to isolate them from each other and from the rest of the country, by obtaining the control of the great river, and so to reduce them by famine. The scheme was a masterly one, but even the consummate ability of Farnese would have proved inadequate to the under- taking, had not the preliminary assassination of Orange made the task comparatively easy. Treason, faint-heartedness, jealousy, were the fatal allies that the Governor-General had reckoned upon, and with reason, in the council-rooms of these cities. The terms he offered were liberal. Pardon, permission for soldiers to retreat with technical honour, liberty to choose between apostacy to the reformed religion or exile, with a period of two years granted to the conscientious for the winding up of their affairs; these were the conditions, which seemed flattering, now that the well-known voice which had so often silenced the Flemish palterers and intriguers was for ever hushed. 17th Aug., Upon the 17th August Dendermonde surren- 1584. dered, and no lives were taken save those of two
» ^iroew Y. Prinsterer, 'Archives,' &g., 4, ' "Wagenaar, vUi. 13.
1B84. WEAKNESS OP FLANDERS. 21
preachers, one of whom was hanged, while the other was drowned. Upon the 7th September Vilvoorde capitulated, by which event the water-communication between Brussels and Antwerp was cut off. Ghent, now thoroughly disheartened, treated with Parma likewise ; and upon the 17th September made its reconciliation with the King.' The surrender of so strong and important a place was as disastrous to the cause of the patriots as it was disgraceful to the citizens themselves. It was, however, the result of an intrigue which had been long spinning, although the thread had been abruptly, and, as it was hoped, conclusively, severed several months before. During the early part of the year, after the reconciliation of Bruges with the King — an event brought about by the duplicity and adroitness of Prince Chimay — the same ma- chinery had been diligently and almost successfully em- ployed to produce a like result in Ghent. Champagny, brother of the famous Cardinal Granvelle, had been under arrest for six years in that city. His imprisonment was not a strict one however, and he avenged himself for what he considered very unjust treatment at the hands of the patriots, by completely abandoning a cause which he had once begun to favour. A man of singular ability, courage, and energy, distinguished both for military and diplomatic services, he was a formidable enemy to the party from which he was now for ever estranged. As early as April of this year, secret emissaries of Parma, dealing with Champagny in his nominal prison, and with the disaffected burghers at large, had been on the point of effecting an arrangement with the royal governor. The negotiation had been suddenly brought to a close by the discovery of a flagrant attempt by Imbize, one of the secret adherents of the King, to sell the city of Den- dermonde, of which he was governor, to Parma.'' For this crime he had been brought to Ghent for trial, and then publicly beheaded. The incident came in aid of the eloquence of Orange, who, up to the latest moment of his life, had been
' Meteren, xii. 216, 217. * See ' Rise of the Dutch Republic,' Tol. 'il chap, vi., and the authorities
there cited ; Everhard van Reyd, ' His- toric der Nederlandscher Oorlogen,' ed. 1650; iii. 4.1.
22 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. I
moet urgent in his aj)j)eals to the patriotic hearts of Ghent, not to abandon the great cause of the union and of liberty. William the Silent knew full well, that after the withdrawal of the great keystone7city of Ghent, the chasm between the Celtic-Catholic and the Flemish-Calvinist Netherlands could hardly be bridged again. Orange was now dead. The nego- tiations with France, too, on which those of the Ghenters who still held true to the national cause had fastened their hopes, had previously been brought to a stand-still by the death of Anjou ; and Champagny, notwithstanding the disa.ster to Imbize, became more active than ever. A private agent, whom the municipal government had despatched to the French court for assistance, was not more successful than his character and course of conduct would have seemed to warrant ; for during his residence in Paris, he had been always drunk, and generally abusive. This was not good diplomacy, particularly on the part of an agent from a weak municipality to a haughty and most undecided government.
" They found at this court," wrote Stafford to Walsingham, "great fault with his manner of dealing that was sent from Gaunt. He was scarce sober from one end of the week to the other, and stood so much on his tiptoes to have present answer within three days, or else that they of Gaunt could tell where to bestow themselves. They sent him away after keep- ing him three weeks, and he went off in great dudgeon, swear- ing by yea and nay that he will make report thereafter." *
Accordingly, they of Ghent did bestow themselves very soon thereafter upon the King of Spain. The terms were considered liberal, but there was, of course, no thought of conceding the great object for which the patriots were con- tending— religious liberty. The municipal privileges — such as they might prove to be worth under the interpretation of a royal governor and beneath the guns of a citadel filled with Spanish troops — were to be guaranteed ; those of the inha- bitants who did not choose to go to mass were allowed two years to wind up their affairs before going into perpetual
' Stafford to 'Walsingham, 27lii July, 1584, in Murdin, iL pp. 412-415.
1584. FALL OF GHENT. 23
exile, provided they behaved themselves "without scandal;" while on the other hand, the King's authority as Count of Flanders was to be fully recognised, and all the disj^ossessed monks and abbots to be restored to their property.'
Accordingly, Charapagny was rewarded for his exertions by being released from prison and receiving the appointment of governor of the city : and, after a very brief interval, about one-half of the j)opulation, the most enterprising of its mer- chants and manufacturers, the most industrious of its artizans, emigrated to Holland and Zeeland.'' The noble city of Ghent — then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, con- structed of earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year — was ignomiuiously surrendered. The population, already a very reduced and slender one for the great extent of the place and its former importance, had been estimated at 70,000." The number of houses was 35,000, so that as the inhabitants were soon farther reduced to one- half, there remained but one individual to each house. On the other hand, the twenty-five monasteries and convents in the town were repeopled — with how much advantage as a set-ofi" to the thousands of spinners and weavers who had wandered away, and who in the flourishing days of Ghent had sent gangs of workmen through the streets " whose tramp was like that of an army " — may be sufficiently estimated by the result.
The fall of Brussels was deferred till March, and that of Mechlin (19th July, 1585) and of Antwerp (19th August, 1585), till Midsummer of the following year ; but loth March, the surrender of Ghent foreshadowed the fate of ^^'^^• Flanders and Brabant. Ostend and Sluys, however, were still in the hands of the patriots, and with them the control of the whole Flemish coast. The Command of the sea was destined to remain for centuries with the new republic.
' Meteren, xii. 217; V. Reyd, iii. I • Meteren, ttbi sup. 47; Le Petit, ' Grande Chronique de ' Guicciardini, p. 207.
HoUande,' ed. 1601, xiv. 409, 500. ]
24 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. I.
The Prince of Parma, thus encouraged by the great success of his intrigues, was determined to achieve still greater triumphs with his arms, and steadily proceeded with his large design of closing the Scheldt and bringing about the fall of Antwerp. The details of that siege — one of the most brilliant raiUtary operations of the age and one of the most memorable in its results — will be given, as a connected whole, in a subse- quent series of chapters. For the present, it will be better for the reader who wislies a clear view of European politics at this epoch, and of the i)Osition of the Netherlands, to give his attention to the web of diplomatic negotiation and court- intrigue which had been slowly spreading over the leading states of Christendom, and in which the fate of the world was involved. If diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive, never were more adroit dijjlomatists than those of the sixteenth century. It would, however, be absurd to deny them a various range of abilities ; and the history of no other age can show more subtle, comprehensive, inde-- fatigable — but, it must also be added, often unscrupulous — in- tellects engaged in the great game of politics in which the highest interests of millions were the stakes, than were those of several leading minds in England, France, Germany, and Spain. With such statesmen the burgher-diplomatists of the new-born commonwealth had to measure themselves ; and the result was to show whether or not they could hold their own in the cabinet as on the field.
For the present, however, the new state was unconscious of its latent importance. The new-risen republic remained for a season nebulous, and ready to unsphere itself so soon as the relative attraction of other great powers should determine its absorption. By the death of Anjou and of Orange the United Netherlands had become a sovereign state, an independent republic ; but they stood" with that sovereignty in their hands, offering it alternately, not to the highest bidder, but to the power that would be willing to accept their allegiance, on the sole condition of assisting them in the maintenance of their religious freedom.
1584. KELATIONa OJ^' TtlE KEPUliLIC TO FRANCE. 25
CHAPTER II.
tlelations of the Republic to France — Queen's Severity towards Catholics and Calvinists — Relative Positions of England and France — Timidity of Germany — Apathy of Protestant Germany — Indignation of the Nether- landers — Henry III. of France — The King and his Minions — Henry of Guise — Henry of Navarre — Power of France — Embassy of the States to France — Ignominious position of the Envoys — Views of the French Huguenots — Eftbrts to procure Annexation — Success of Des Pruneaux.
The Prince of Orange had always favoured a French policy. He had ever felt a stronger reliance upon the support of France than upon that of any other power. This was not unreasonable, and so long as he lived, the tendency of the Netherlands had been in that direction. It had never been the wish of England to acquire the sovereignty of the Pro- vinces. In France on the contrary, the Queen Dowager, Catharine de' Medici, had always coveted that sovereignty for her darling Francis of Alengon ; and the design had been favoured, so far as any policy could be favoured, by the impo- tent monarch who occupied the French throne.
The religion of the United Netherlands was Calvinistic. There were also many Anabaptists in the country. The Queen of England hated Anabaptists, Calvinists, and other sectarians, and banished them from her realms on pain of imprisonment and confiscation of property.' As firmly op- posed as was her father to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, she felt much of the paternal reluctance to accept the spirit of the Reformation. Henry Tudor hanged the men who believed in the Pope, and burnt alive those who disbe- lieved in transubstantiation, auricular confession, and the other 'Six Articles.' His daughter, whatever her secret religious convictions, was stanch in her resistance to Rome,
* Camden, i. 48.
26 THE UNITKO NKTIIKRLANDS. Chap. II.
and too enlightened a monarch not to see wherein the great- ness and glory of England were to be found ; but she had no thought of tolerating liberty of conscience. All opposed to the Church of England, whether Papists or Puritans, were denounced as heretics, and as such imprisoned or banished. " To allow churches with contrary rites and ceremonies," said Elizabeth, "were nothing else but to sow religion out of religion, to distract good men's minds, to cherish ftictious men's humours, to disturb religion and commonwealth, and mingle divine and human things ; which were a thing in deed evil, in example worst of all ; to our own subjects hurtful^ and to themselves to whom it is granted, neither greatly com- modious, nor yet at all safe."' The words were addressed, it is true, to Papists, but there is very little doubt that Ana- baptists or any other heretics would have received a similar reply, had they, too, ventured to demand the right of public worship. It may even be said that the Romanists in the earlier days of Elizabeth's reign fared better than the Cal- vinists. The Queen neither banished nor imprisoned the Catholics. She did not enter their houses to disturb their private religious ceremonies, or to inquire into their con- sciences. This was milder treatment than the burning alive, burying alive, hanging, and drowning, which had been dealt out to the English and the Netherland heretics by Philijj and by Mary, but it was not the spirit which William the Silent had been wont to manifest in his measures towards Anabaptists and Papists alike. Moreover, the Prince could hardly forget that of the nine thousand four hundred Catholic ecclesiastics who held benefices at the death of Queen Mary, all had renounced the Pope on the accession of Queen Eliza- beth, and acknowledged her as the head of the church, saving only one hundred and eighty-nine individuals. ** In the hearts of the nine thousand two hundred and eleven others, it might be thought perhaps that some tenderness for the religion from which they had so suddenly been converted, might linger, while it could hardly be hoped that they would seek to incul-
' Camden, L 32. ' Ibid., i. 28.
1584 SEVERITY TOWARDS CATHOLICS AND CALVINISTS. 27
cate in the minds of their flocks or of their sovereign any connivance with the doctrines of Geneva.
When, at a later period, the plotting of Catholics, suborned by the Pope and Philip, against the throne and person of the Queen, made more rigorous measures necessary ; when it was thought indispensable to execute as traitors those Roman seedlings — seminary priests and their disciples — who went about preaching to the Queen's subjects the duty of carrying out the bull by which the Bishop of Rome had deposed and excommunicated their sovereign, and that "it was a merito- rious act to kill such princes as were excommunicate,"^ even then, the men who preached and practised treason and murder experienced no severer treatment than that which other "heretics" had met with at the Queen's hands. Jesuits and Popish priests were, by Act of Parliament, ordered to depart the realm within forty days.' Those who should afterwards return to the kingdom were to be held guilty of high treason. Students in the foreign seminaries were com- manded to return vrithin six months and recant, or be held guilty of high treason. Parents and guardians supplying money to such students abroad were to incur the penalty of a praemunire — perpetual exile, namely, with loss of all theirgoods.
Many seminary priests and others were annually executed in England under these laws, throughout the Queen's reign, but nominally at least they were hanged not as Papists, but as traitors ; not because they taught transubstantiation, ecclesiastical celibacy, auricular confession, or even Papal supremacy, but because they taught treason and murder — because they preached the necessity of killing the Queen. It was not so easy, however, to defend or even compre- hend the banishment and imprisonment of those who without conspiring against the Queen's life or throne, desired to see the Church of England reformed according to the Church of Geneva. Yet there is no doubt that many sectaries experienced much inhuman treatment for such delinquency, both in the early and the later years of Elizabeth's reign.*
' Camden, iii. 336. '"' Ibid, iii. 309. ' Ibid. < Ibid. 107, -169.
28 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
There was another consideration, which had its due weight in this balance, and that was the respective succession to the throne in the two kingdoms of France and England. Mary Stuart, the Catholic, the niece of the Guises, emblem and exponent of all that was most Roman in Europe, the sworn friend of Philip, the mortal foe to all heresy, was the legiti- mate successor to Elizabeth. Although that sovereign had ever refused to recognize that claim ; holding that to confirm Mary in the succession was to " lay her own winding sheet before her eyes, yea, to make her own grave, while she liveth and looketh on ;"' and although the unfortunate claimant of two thrones was a prisoner in her enemy's hands, yet, so long as she lived, there was little security for Protestantism, even in Elizabeth's lifetime, and less still in case of her sudden death. On the other hand, not only were the various politico- religious forces of France kept in equilibrium by their action upon each other — so that it was reasonable to believe that the House of Valois, however Catholic itself, would be always compelled by the fast-expanding strength of French Calvin- ism, to observe faithfully a compact to tolerate the Netherland churches — but, upon the death of Henry III. the crown would be legitimately placed upon the head of the great champion and chief of the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre.
It was not unnatural, therefore, that the Prince of Orange, a Calvinist himself, should expect more sympathy with the Netherland reformers in France than in England. A large proportion of the population of that kingdom, including an influential part of the nobility, was of the Huguenot persua- sion, and the religious peace, established by royal edict, had endured so long, that the reformers of France and the Nether- lands had begun to believe in the royal clemency, and to confide in the royal word. Orange did not live to see the actual formation of the Holy League, and could only guess at its secrets.
Moreover, it should be remembered that France at that day was a more formidable state than England, a more
' Camden, i. 54.
1584. KKLATIVE POSITIONS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 29
dangerous enemy, and, as it was believed, a more efficient protector. The England of the period, glorious as it was for its own and all future ages, was not the gieat British Empire of to-day. On the contrary, it was what would now be con- sidered, statistically speaking, a rather petty power. The England of Elizabeth, Walsingham, Burghley, Drake, and Raleigh, of Spenser and Shakspeare, hardly numbered a larger population than now dwells in its capital and imme- diate suburbs. It had neither standing army nor considerable royal navy. It was full of conspirators, daring and unscru- pulous, loyal to none save to Mary of Scotland, Philip of Spain, and the Pope of Rome, and untiring in their eiforts to bring about a general rebellion. With Ireland at its side, nominally a subject province, but in a state of chronic insur- rection— a perpetual hot-bed for Spanish conspiracy and stratagem ; with Scotland at its back, a foreign country, with half its population exasperated enemies of England, and the rest but doubtful friends, and with the legitimate sovereign of that country, " the daughter of debate, who discord still did sow,"^ a prisoner in Elizabeth's hands, the central point around which treason was constantly crystallizing itself, — it was not strange that with the known views of the Queen on the subject of the reformed Dutch religion, England should seem less desirable as a protector for the Netherlands than the neighbouring kingdom of France.
Elizabeth was a great sovereign, whose genius Orange always appreciated, in a comparatively feeble realm. Henry of Valois was the contemptible monarch of a powerful state, and might be led by others to produce incalculable mischief or considerable good. Notwithstanding the massacre of St. Bartholomew, therefore, and the more recent "French fury" of Antwerp, Orange had been willing to countenance fresh negociations with France.
Elizabeth, too, it should never be forgotten, was, if not over generous, at least consistent and loyal in her policy towards the Provinces. She was not precisely jealous of France, aa
' Sonnet by Queen Elizabeth.
30
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. IL
has been unjustly intimated on distinguished authority/ for she strongly advocated the renewed offer of the sovereignty to Anjou, after his memorable expulsion from the Provinces.^ At that period, moreover, not only her own love-coquetries with Anjou were over, but he was endeavouring with all his might, though in secret, to make a match with the younger Infanta of Spain;^ Elizabeth furthered the negociation with France, both publicly and privately. It will soon be narrated how those negociations prospered.
If then England were out of the question, where, except in France, should the Netherlander s, not deeming themselves capable of standing alone, seek for protection and support ?
We have seen the extensive and almost ubiquitous power of Spain. Where she did not command as sovereign, she was almost equally formidable as an ally. The Emperor of Germany was the nephew and the brother-in-law of Philip, and a strict Catholic besides. Little aid was to be expected from him or the lands under his control for the cause of the Netherland revolt. Rudolph hated his brother-in-law, but lived in mortal fear of him. He was also in perpetual dread of the Grand Turk. That formidable potentate, not then the " sick man " whose precarious condition and territorial in- heritance cause so much anxiety in modern days, was, it is true, sufficiently occupied for the moment in Persia, and had been sustaining there a series of sanguinary defeats. He was all the more anxious to remain upon good terms with Philip, and had recently sent him a complimentary embassy, together with some rather choice presents, among which were " four lions, twelve unicorns, and two horses coloured white, black, and blue."^ Notwithstanding these pacific manifesta-
' 'H. Grotii Annalium,' v. 126, ed. 1658, Amst.
' 'Rise of the Dutch RepubUc,' iii. chap, vi., and MS. Letter of Queen Elizabeth, cited in note.
3 ' Collection de Lettres relatives aux Negotiations sur le Project de Mariage du Due d'Anjou avec une des Inl'antes d'Espagne, et aux Aflfains
traictees de part et d'autre pour lea Pays Bas, Cambray, la succession de Portugal,' &c. Bib. Imp. de France, Brienne MS.
* De Thou, -Hist. Univ.' ix. 209 seq.
' Meteren, xiiL 233 ; Le Petit, xiv. 515.
1584. TIMIDITY OF GKRMANT. 31
tions towards the West, however, and in spite of the truce with the German Empire which the Turk had just renewed for nine years, — Rudolph and his servants still trembled at every report from the East.
"He is much deceived," wrote Busbecq, Rudolph's am- bassador in Paris, " who doubts that the Turk has sought any thing by this long Persian war, but to protect his back, and prepare the way, after subduing that enemy, to the extermi- nation of all Christendom, and that he will then, with all his might, wage an unequal warfare with us, in which the exis- tence of the Empire will be at stake." '
The envoy expressed, at the same period, however, still greater awe of Spain. '' It is to no one," he wrote, " endowed with good judgment, in the least obscure, that the Spanish nation, greedy of empire, will never be quiet, even with their great power, but will seek for the dominion of the rest of Christendom. How much remains beyond what they have already acquired ? Afterwards, there will soon be no liberty, no dignity, for other princes and republics. That single nation will be arbiter of all things, than which nothing can be more miserable, nothing more degrading. It cannot be doubted that all kings, princes, and states, whose safety or dignity is dear to them, would willingly associate in arms to extinguish the common conflagration. The death of the Catholic king would seem the great opportunity miscendis rebus." '
Unfortunately neither Busbecq's master nor any other king or prince manifested any of this commendable alacrity to " take up arms against the conflagration." Germany was in a shiver at every breeze from East or West — trembling alike before Philip and Amurath. The Papists were making rapid progress, the land being undermined by the steady and stealthy encroachments of the Jesuits. Lord Burghley sent many copies of his pamphlet, in Latin, French, and Italian, against the Seminaries, to Gebhard Truchsess ; and the de-
* 'Buabequii Epistolae ad Rudol- ) ' Ibid., p. 124-126. phum II.,' Brux., 1631, p. 152-3.
32 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
posed archbishop made himself busy in translating that wholesome production into German, and in dispersing it " all Germany over." The work, setting duly forth " that the executions of priests in England were not for religion but for treason," was " marvellously liked " in the Netherlands. " In uttering the truth," said Herle, " 'tis likely to do great good ; " and he added, that Duke Augustus of Saxony " did now see so far into the sect of Jesuits, and to their inward mischiefs, as to become their open enemy, and to make friends against them in the Empire." ^
The love of Truchsess for Agnes Mansfeld had created disaster not only for himself but for Germany. The whole electorate of Cologne had become the constant seat of partisan, warfare, and the resort of organised bands of brigands. Villages were burned and rifled, highways infested, cities threatened, and the whole country subjected to perpetual black mail (brandschatzung) — fire-insurance levied by the incendiaries in person — by the supporters of the rival bishops. Truchsess had fled to Delft, where he had been countenanced and supported by Orange. Two cities still held for him. Rheinberg and Neuss. On the other hand, his rival, Ernest of Bavaria, supported by Philip II., and the occasional guest of Alexander of Parma, had not yet succeeded in establishing a strong foothold in the territory. Two pauper archbishops, without men or means of their own, were thus pushed forward and back, like puppets, by the contending highwaymen on either side ; while robbery and murder, under the name of Protestantism or Catholicism, were for a time the only motive or result of the contest.
Thus along the Rhine, as well as the Maas and the Scheldt, the fires of civil war were ever burning. Deeper within the heart of Germany, there was more tranquillity ; but it was the tranquillity rather of paralysis than of health. A fearful account was slowly accumulating, which was evidently to be settled only by one of the most horrible wars which history has ever recorded. Meantime there was apathy where there
' Herle to Queen Elizabeth, 22nd July, 1584, MS. before cited.
1584. APATHY OF PROTESTANT GERMANY. 33
should have been enthusiasm ; parsimony and cowardice where generous and combined eflbrt were more necessary than ever ; sloth without security. The Protestant princes, growing fiit and contented on the spoils of the church, lent but a deaf ear to the moans of Truchsess, forgetting that their neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own. " They understand better, proxirnus sum egomet mihi," wrote Lord Willoughby from Kronenburg, " than they have learned, humani nihil a me alienum puto. These German princes continue still in their lethargy, careless of the state of others, and dreaming of their ubiquity, and some of them, it is thought, inclining to be Spanish or Popish more of late than heretofore." '
The beggared archbishop:*, more forlorn than ever since the death of his great patron, cried woe from his resting-place in Delft, upon Protestant Germany. His tones seemed almost prophetic of the thirty years' wrath to blaze forth in the next generation. " Courage is wanting to the people throughout Germany," he wrote to William Lewis of Nassau. " We are becoming the laughing-stock of the nations. Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf will eat you. We shall find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace. Spain is making a Papistical league in Germany. Therefore is Asson- leville despatched thither, and that's the reason why our trash of priests are so insolent in the empire. 'Tis astonishing how they are triumphing on all sides. God will smite them. Thou dear God ! What are our evangelists about in Germany ? Asleep on both ears. Dormiunt in utramque aurem. I doubt they will be suddenly enough awakened one day, and the cry will be, ' Who'd have thought it ? ' Then they will be for getting oil for the lamp, for shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen," '^ and so on, with a string of homely proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza, or landgrave William of Hesse.'
* Willoughby to Burghley, in "Wright's 'Queen Elizabeth and her Times,' vol. li. 275
VOL, I.— T)
'^ Groen v. Prlnsterer, ' Archives^ &c., i. 9. 3 The statesmen of Eiigluu'4 wer«
34
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. II.
In truth, one of the most painful features in the general aspect of affairs was the coldness of the German Protestants towards the Netherlands. The enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists was almost as fatal as that between Protestants and Papists. There was even a talk, at a little later period, of excluding those of the "reformed" church from the benefits
too sagacious not to see the impor- tance to Protestant Germany of sus- taining tlie ex-elector, if to sustain Lim were possible. But to this end it was necessary that the German princes, whom it most nearly con- cerned, should unite in his support. Queen Elizabeth had authorized a subsidy to enable Truchsess to carry on the war; but his Bavarian com- petitor was backed by the power of Spain, and was himself of higher rank and larger resources.
" No man," wrote Walsingham to DavLson, "wishes better success than myself to the elector, knowing how greatly it importeth the common cause of religion that he should be upholden, and the beneht that those distressed countries, where you now are, may re- ceive by way of diversion through his employment; for that Spaiu, and his minister the Prince of Parma, must not see the Bishop of Liege quail. Yet when I consider, uiDon view of the report of the conference between you and the said elector, how little appearance is of any great assistance that we shall have, and that the prince- electors whom the cause doth touch, especially Saxony and Brandenburg, have as yet no disposition to deal therein, as though the conservation of the liberty of Germany did in no re- sped touch t/iem, I see no great reason to hope that this enterprize will be accompanied with that good success that both I wish and is also looked for here." (30th Dec, 1584. S. P. Office MS.)
It was therefore necessary, in the opinion of the EngUsh government, to move warily in the matter. For re- mote allies to expend their strength in sustaiuiug the sinking elector, while the Protestants nearest him looked upon his struggles with folded arms, seemed euperlluous and unreasonable.
"For it is hard," said Walsingham, " for men of judgment to think that he, having no great likelihood of sup- port thau yet appeareth he hath, shall be able to prevail against a bishop of Liege, by birth more noble thau him- self^ already possessed of the most part of the bishopric, who will not lack any assistance that the Catholic princes can yield him. As for the supports promised by the kings of Denmark and of Navarre, being in respect of tlie others but weak and far distant in place, 'tis very doubtful, before the Elector can take any profit thereof, that his cause may miscarry, unless it shall be through God's goodness up- holden." (Ibid.)
But, in truth, the Protestant princes of Germany were most lukewarm in the matter, and the complaints of poor Truchsess were founded upon very accurate knowledge as to the senti- ments of his compatriots. " By letters received from Germany, as well froui Casimir (elector-palatine) as others," continued Walsingham, " I do not find any other forwardness in those that are thought the best affected towards him there, than to wish well unto him. But because that help which consists in well-wishing groweth fruitless, un- less it be accompanied by effects, which the dulness of the Almaine nature easily yieldeth not until the disease grow desperate, I cannot but advise you, for the Queen's honour, to induce him to make it very pro- bable unto you, that the support now yielded by her Majesty is like to work that effect which he pretendeth." (Ibid.)
Otherwise it was cautiously sug- gested by tlie secretary, that the envoy would "do well to forbear to be over-forward in delivering of the money."
1584. INDIGKATION OF THE NETHERLA.NDERS. 35
of the peace of Passau. The princes had got the Augsburg confession and the abbey-lands into the bargain ; the peasants had got the Augsburg confession without the abbey-lands, and were to believe exactly what their masters believed. This was the German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea of religious freedom. Neither prince nor peasant stirred in behalf of the struggling Christians in the United Provinces, battling, year after year, knee-deep in blood, amid blazing cities and inundated fields, breast to breast with the yellow-jerkined pikemen of Spain and Italy, with the axe and the faggot and the rack of the Holy Inquisition distinctly visible behind them. Such were the realities which occupied the Netherlanders in those days, not watery beams of theological moonshine, fantastical catechism-making, intermingled with scenes of riot and wantonness, which drove old John of Nassau half frantic; " with banquetting and guzzling, drinking and devouring, with unchristian flaunting and wastefulness of apparel, with extravagant and wanton dancing, and other lewd abomina- tions ;" * all which, the firm old reformer prophesied, would lead to the destruction of Grermany.
For the mass, slow moving but apparently irresistible, of Spanish and papistical absolutism was gradually closing over Christendom. The Netherlands were the wedge by which alone the solid bulk could be riven asunder. It was the cause of German, of French, of English liberty, for which the Provinces were contending. It was not surprising that they were bitter, getting nothing in their hour of distress from the land of Luther but dogmas and Augsburg catechisms instead of money and gunpowder, and seeing German reiters galloping daily to reinforce the army of Parma in exchange for Sjianish ducats.
Brave old La None, with the iron arm, noblest of Frenchmen and Huguenots — who had just spent five years in Spanish bondage, writing military discourses in a reeking dungeon, filled with toads and vermin, after fighting the battle of liberty for a life-time, and with his brave son already in the
' Groen v. Priusterer, 'Archives,' &c., i. 227.
36 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
Netherlands emulating his father's valour on the same field — denounced at a little later day, the lukewarmness of Protestant Germany with whimsical vehemence: — "I am astounded," he cried, " that these princes are not ashamed of themselves ; doing nothing while they see the oppressed cut to pieces at their gates. When will God grant me grace to place me among those who are doing their duty, and afar from those who do nothing, and who ought to know that the cause is a common one. If I am ever caught dancing the German cotillon, or playing the German flute, or eating pike with German sauce, I hope it may be flung in my teeth." '
The great league of the Pope and Philip was steadily con- solidating itself, and there were but gloomy prospects for the counter-league in Germany. There was no hope but in England and France. For the reasons already indicated, the Prince of Orange, taking counsel with the Estates, had resolved to try the French policy once more. The balance of power in Europe, which no man in Christendom so well understood as he, was to be established by maintaining (he thought) the equilibrium between France and Spain. In the antagonism of those two great realms lay the only hope for Dutch or European liberty. Notwithstanding the treason of Anjou, therefore, it had been decided to renew negociations with that Prince. On the death of the Duke, the envoys of the States were accordingly instructed to make the offer to King Henry III, which had been intended for his brother. That proposition was the sovereignty of all the Netherlands, save Holland and Zeeland, under a constitution maintaining the reformed religion and the ancient laws and privileges of the respective provinces.
But the death of Francis of Anjou had brought about a considerable change in French policy. It was now more sharply defined than ever, a right-angled triangle of almost mathematical precision. The three Henrys and their partizans divided the realm into three hostile camps — threatening each
* Groeu v. Priusterer, ' Archives,' &c., i. 86.
1584. HENRY TIL OF FRANCE. 37
other in simulated peace since tlie treaty of Fleix (1580), which had put an end to the " lover's war " of the preceding year, — Henry of Valois, Henry of Guise, and Henry of Navarre.
Henry III., last of the Valois line, was now thirty-three years of age. Less than king, less even than man, he was one of those unfortunate personages who seem as if born to make the idea of royalty ridiculous, and to test the capacity of mankind to eat and drink humiliation as if it were wholesome food. It proved how deeply engraved in men's minds of that century was the necessity of kingship, when the hardy Netherlanders, who had abjured one tyrant, and had been fighting a generation long rather than return to him, were now willing to accept the sovereignty of a thing like Henry of Valois.
He had not been born without natural gifts, such as Heaven rarely denies to prince or peasant ; but the courage which he once possessed had been exhausted on the field of Mon- contour, his manhood had been left behind him at Venice, and such wit as Heaven had endowed him withal was now expended in darting viperous epigrams at court-ladies whom he was only capable of dishonouring by calumny, and whose charms he burned to outrival in the estimation of his minions. For the monarch of France was not unfrequently pleased to attire himself like a woman and a harlot. With silken flounces, jewelled stomacher, and painted face, with pearls of great price adorning his bared neck and breast, and satin- slippered feet, of whose delicate shape and size he was justly vain, it was his delight to pass his days and nights in a ceaseless round of gorgeous festivals, tourneys, processions, masquerades, banquets, and balls, the cost of which glittering frivolities caused the popular burthen and the popular execra- tion to grow, from day to day, more intolerable and more audible. Surrounded by a gang of "minions," the most debauched and the most desperate of France, whose be- dizened dresses exhaled perfumes throughout Paris, and whose sanguinary encounters dyed every street iu blood, Henry
38 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
lived a life of what lie called pleasure, careless of what might come after, for he was the last of his race. The fortunes of his minions rose higher and higher, as their crimes rendered them more and more estimable in the eyes of a King who took a woman's pride in the valour of such champions to his weakness, and more odious to a people whose miserable homes were made even more miserable, that the coffers of a few court-favourites might be filled. Now sauntering, full- dressed, in the public promenades, with ghastly little death's heads strung upon his sumptuous garments, and fragments of human bones dangling among his orders of knighthood — playing at cup and ball as he walked, and followed by a few select courtiers who gravely pursued the same exciting occupation — now presiding like a queen of beauty at a tournament to assign the prize of valour, and now, by the advice of his mother, going about the streets in robes of penitence, telling his beads as he went, that the populace might be edified by his piety, and solemnly offering up prayers in the churches that the blessing of an heir might be vouchsafed to him, — Henry of Valois seemed straining every nerve in order to bring himself and his great office into contempt.
As orthodox as he was profligate, he hated the Huguenots, who sought his protection and who could have saved his throne, as cordially as he loved the Jesuits, who passed their lives in secret plottings against his authority and his person, or in fierce denunciations from the Paris pulpits against his manifold crimes. Next to an exquisite and sanguinary fop, he dearly loved a monk. The presence of a friar, he said, exerted as agreeable an effect upon his mind as the most delicate and gentle tickling could produce upon his body ;* and he was destined to have a fuller dose of that charming presence than he coveted.
His party — for he was but the nominal chief of a faction, tanquam unus ex nobis — was the party in possession — the office-holders' party ; the spoilsmen, whose purpose was to rob
' De Thou, X. 667,
1584.
THE KING AND ttlS MtNlO^JS.
39
the exchequer and to enrich themselves. His minions — for the favourites were called by no other name — were even more hated, because less despised than the King. Attired in cloth of gold — for silk and satin were grown too coarse a material for them — with their little velvet porringer-caps stuck on the sides of their heads, with their long hair stiff with pomatum, and their heads set inside a well-starched rutr a foot wide, "like St. John's head in a charger," as a splenetic contemporary observed,^ with a nimbus of musk and violet-powder enveloping them as they passed before vulgar mortals, these rapacious and insolent courtiers were the im- personation of extortion and oppression to the Parisian popu- lace. They were supposed, not unjustly, to pass their lives in dancing, blasphemy, duelling, dicing, and intrigue, in following the King about like hounds, fawning at bis feet, and showing their teeth to all besides ; and for virtues such as these they were rewarded by the highest offices in church, camp, and state, while new taxes and imposts were invented almost daily to feed their avarice and supply their extrava- gance. France, doomed to feel the beak and talons of these harpies in its entrails, impoverished by a government that robbed her at home while it humiliated her abroad, struggled vainly in its misery, and was now on the verge of another series of internecine combats — civil war seem- ing the only alternative to a voluptuous and licentious peace.^
" We all stood here at gaze," wrote ambassador Stafford to Walsingham, " looking for some great matter to come of this sudden journey to Lyons ; but, as far as men can find, par- turmnt monies, for there hath been nothing but dancing and banquet ting from one house to another, bravery in
* 'L'Estoile, Registre Journal de Henry HI.,' ei Michaud et Poujoulat, p. 72, .seq. ' "Quant a lenr habit il excede
Tout leur bien et tout leur treaor, Car le, mignon qui tout coiisoinme, Ne se vest plus en gentilbotnnie, Mais comnie un prince tie drap d'or • £t pour mieuz contenter
Leur jeu, leur pompe, leur bobance, Et leur trop prodigue depense, II faut tons les jours inventer Nouveaux irapots, nouvelles tallies, Qu'il faut du profond des entrailles Des pauvres sujets arracher, Qui trainent leurs chetives vies Sous la griffe de ces harpies, Qui avalent tout sans inaclier," Ac.
L Entoile, ubi titfi.
40
THU UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. 11
apparel, glittering like the sun."^ He mentioned that the Duke of Epernon's horse, taking fright at a red cloak, had backed over a precipice, breaking his own neck, while his master's shoulder merely was put out of joint. At the same time the Duke of Joyeuse, coming over Mount Cenis, on his return from Savoy, had broken his wrist. The people, he said, would rather they had both broken their necks " than any other joint, the King having racked the nation for their sakes, as he hath done."^ Stafford expressed much compas- sion for the French in the plight in which they found them- selves. " Unhappy people ! " he cried, " to have such a King, who seeketh nothing but to impoverish them to enrich a couple, and who careth not what cometh after his death, so that he may rove on while he liveth, and careth neither for doing his own estate good nor his neighbour's state harm." Sir Edward added, however, in a philosophizing vein, worthy of Corporal Nym, that, " seeing we cannot be so happy as to have a King to concur with us to do us any good, yet we are happy to have one that his humour serveth him not to concur with others to do us harm ; and "tis a wisdom for us to follow these humours, that we may keep him still in that humour, and from hearkening to others that may egg him on to worse." ^
It was a dark hour for France, and rarely has a great nation been reduced to a lower level by a feeble and aban- doned government than she was at that moment under the distaff of Henry III. Society was corrupted to its core. " There is no more truth, no more justice, no more mercy," moaned President L'Etoile. " To slander, to lie, to rob, to wench, to steal ; all things are permitted save to do right and to speak the truth." Impiety the most cynical, de- bauchery the most unveiled, public and unpunished homi- cides, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preter- natural, were the common characteristics of the time.^ All
' Stafford to Walsingham, 24th Aug., 1584, in Murdin, ii. 415-419. ' Ibid. ' Stafford to Walsingham, ubi sup.
* 'L'Estoile,' 97, 98; Perefixe, 'His- toire du Roi Henri le Grand,' ed. 1816, p. 29.
1684. HENRY OF GUISE. 41
posts and charges were venal. G-reat offices of justice were sold to the highest bidder, and that which was thus purchased by wholesale was retailed in the same fashion. Unhappy the pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law. The great ecclesiastical benefices were equally matter of merchandise, and married men, women, unborn children, en- joyed revenues as dignitaries of the church. Infants came into the world, it was said, like the mitre-fish, stamped with the emblems of place.'
' " 'T was impossible," said L'Etoile, "to find a crab so tor- tuous and backsliding as the government." '
This was the aspect of the first of the three factions in France. Such was the Henry at its head, the representative of royalty.
Henry with the Scar, Duke of Gruise, the well-known chief of the house of Lorraine, was the chief of the extreme papis- tical party. He was now thirty-four years of age, tall, stately, with a dark, martial face and dangerous eyes, which Antonio Moro loved to paint ; a 2)hysiognomy made still more expressive by the arquebus-shot which had damaged his left cheek at the fight near Chiiteau-Thierry and gained him his name of Balafre. Although one of the most turbulent and restless plotters of that plotting age, he was yet thought more slow and heavy in character than subtle, Teutonic rather than Italian. He was the idol of the Parisian burghers. The grocers, the market-men, the members of the arquebus and crossbow clubs, all doated on him. The fishwomen wor- shipped him as a god. He was the defender of the good old religion under which Paris and the other cities of France had thriven, the uncompromising opponent of the new-fangled doctrines which western clothiers, and dyers, and tapestry- workers, had adopted, and which the nobles of the mountain- country, the penniless chevaliers of Beam and Gascony and Guienne, were ceaselessly taking the field and plunging France into misery and bloodshed to support. But for the Balafre and Madam League — as the great Spanish Catholic
1 Perefixe, ' L'Estoile,' ubi sup. "^ ' L'Estoilo,' ubi sup.
VOL. J.— 3
42 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. IL
conspiracy against the liberties of France, and of England, and of all Europe, was affectionately termed by the Paris populace — honest Catholics would fare no better in France than they did in England, where, as it was well known, they were every day subjected to fearful tortures. The shop- windows were filled with coloured engravings, represent- ing, in exaggerated fashion, the sufferings of the English Catholics under bloody Elizabeth, or Jezebel, as she was called ; and as the gaping burghers stopped to ponder over these works of art, there were ever present, as if by accident, some persons of superior information who would condescend- ingly explain the various pictures, pointing out with a long stick the phenomena most worthy of notice.* These cari- catures proving highly successful, and being suppressed by order of government, they were repeated upon canvas on a larger scale, in still more conspicuous situations, as if in con- tempt of the royal authority, which sullied itself by compro- mise with Calvinism.'' The pulpits, meanwhile, thundered denunciations on the one hand against the weak and wicked King, who worshipped idols, and who sacrificed the dearly- earned pittance of his subjects to feed the insolent pomp of his pampered favourites ; and on the other, upon the arch- heretic, the arch-apostate, the Bearnese Huguenot, who, after the death of the reigning monarch, would have the efii'ontery to claim his throne, and to introduce into France the perse- cutions and the horrors under which unhappy England was already groaning.
The scarce-concealed instigator of these assaults upon the royal and upon the Huguenot faction was, of course, the Duke of Guise, — the man whose most signal achievement had been the Massacre of St, Bartholomew — all the preliminary details of that transaction having been arranged by his skill. So long as Charles IX. was living, the Balafre had created the confusion which was his element, by entertaining and foment- ing the perpetual intrigues of Anjou and Alengon against their brother ; while the altercations between them and the Queen-
» De Thou, ix., 269, 270, seq, * Ibid.
1584. HENRY OF GUISE. 43
Mother and the furious madman who then sat upon the throne, had been the cause of sufficient disorder and calamity for France. On the death of Charles IX. Guise had sought the intimacy of Henry of Navarre, that by his means he might frustrate the hopes of Alengon for the succession. During the early period of the Bearnese's residence at the French court the two had been inseparable, living together, going to the same festivals, tournaments, and masquerades, and even sleejnng in the same bed. "My master," was ever Guise's address to Henry; "my gossip," the young King of Navarre's reply. But the crafty Bearnese had made use of the intimacy only to read the secrets of the Balafr^'s heart ; and on Navarre's flight from the court, and his return to Huguenotism, Guise knew that he had been played upon by a subtler spirit than his own. The simulated affection was now changed into undisguised hatred. Moreover, by the death of Alengon, Navarre now stood next the throne, and Guise's plots became still more extensive and more open as his own ambition to usurp the crown on the death of the childless Henry III. became more fervid.'
Thus, by artfully inflaming the populace of Paris, and — through his organized bands of confederates — that of all the large towns of France, against the Huguenots and their chief, by appeals to the religious sentiment ; and at the same time by stimulating the disgust and indignation of the tax-payers everywhere at the imposts and heavy burthens which the boundless extravagance of the court engendered. Guise paved the way for the advancement of the great League Avhich he represented. The other two jjolitical divisions were in- geniously represented as mere insolent factions, while his own was the true national and patriotic party, by which alone the ancient religion and the cherished institutions of France could be preserved.'
And the great chief of this national patriotic party was not Henry of Guise, but the industrious old man who sat writing despatches in the depths of the Escorial. Spanish
I Perefixe, 28, se^, i Pe Thou, Perefixe, tiM sup.
44 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II
counsels, Spanish promises, Spanish ducats — these were the real machinery by which the plots of Guise against the peace of France and of Europe were supported. Madam League was simply Philip II. Nothing was written, officially or unoffici- ally, to the French government by the Spanish com*t that was not at the same time communicated to "Mucio" — as the Duke of Guise was denominated in the secret correspondence of Philip, — and Mucio was in Philip's pay, his confidential agent, spy, and confederate, long before the actual existence of the League was generally suspected.
The Queen-Mother, Catharine de' Medici, played into the Duke's hands. Throughout the whole period of her widow- hood, having been accustomed to govern her sons, she had, in a certain sense, been used to govern the kingdom. By sowing dissensions among her own children, by inflaming party against party, by watching with care the oscillations of Prance — so that none of the great divisions should obtain preponderance — by alternately caressing and massacring the Huguenots, by cajoling or confronting Philip, by keeping, as she boasted, a spy in every family that possessed the annual income of two thousand livres, by making herself the head of an organized system of harlotry, by which the soldiers and politicians of France were inveigled, their secrets faithfully revealed to her by her well-disciplined maids of honour, by surrounding her unfortunate sons with temptation from earliest youth, and plunging them by cold calculation into deepest de- bauchery, that their enervated faculties might be ever forced to rely in political affairs on the maternal counsel, and to abandon the administration to the maternal will ; such were the arts by which Catharine had maintained her influence, and a great country been governed for a generation — Machiavellian state-craft blended with the more simple wiles of a procuress.
Now that Alengon was dead, and Henry III. hopeless of issue, it was her determination that the children of her daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine, should succeed to the throne. The matter was discussed as if the throne were already vacant, and Guise and the Queen-Mother, if they
1584. HENRY OF NAVARRE. 45
agreed in nothing else, were both cordial in their detestation of Henry of Navarre. The Duke affected to support the schemes in favour of his relatives, the Princes of Lorraine, while he secretly informed the Spanish court that this policy was only a pretence. He was not likely, he said, to advance the interests of the younger branch of a house of which he was himself the chief, nor were their backs equal to the burthen. It was necessary to amuse the old queen, but he was profoundly of opinion that the only sovereign for France, upon the death of Henry, was Philip II. himself This was the Duke's plan of arriving, by means of Spanish assistance, at the throne of France ; and such was Henry le Balafre, chief of the League.*
And the other Henry, the Huguenot, the Bearnese, Henry of Bourbon, Henry of Navarre, the chieftain of the Gascon chivalry, the king errant, the hope and the darling of the oppressed Protestants in every land — of him it is scarce needful to say a single word. At his very name a figure seems to leap forth from the mist of three centuries, instinct with ruddy vigorous life. Such was the intense vitality of the Bearnese prince, that even now he seems more thoroughly alive and recognizable than half the actual personages who are fretting their hour upon the stage.
We see, at once, a man of moderate stature, light, sinewy, and strong ; a face browned with continual exposure ; small, mirthful, yet commanding blue eyes, glittering from beneath an arching brow, and prominent cheekbones ; a long hawk's nose, almost resting upon a salient chin, a pendent moustache, and a thick, brown, curly beard, prematurely grizzled ; we see the mien of frank authority and magnificent good humour, we hear the ready sallies of the shrewd Gascon mother-wit, we feel the electricity which flashes out of him, and sets all hearts around him on fire, when the trumpet sounds to battle. The headlong desperate charge, the snow-white plume waving where the fire is hottest, the large capacity for enjoyment of the man, rioting without affectation in the certaminis gaudia,
' De Thou, ix. 267.
4(3 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Cuap. IL
the insane gallop, after the eombat, to lay its trophies at the feet of the Cynthia of the minute, and thus to forfeit its fruits; all are as familiar to us as if the seven distinct wars, the hundred pitched battles, the two hundred sieges, in which the Bearnese was personally present, had been occurrences of our own day.
He at least was both king and man, if the monarch who occupied the throne was neither. He was the man to prove, too, for the instruction of the patient letter-writer of the Escorial, that the crown of France was to be won with foot in stinrup and carbine in hand, rather than to be caught by the weaving and casting of the most intricate nets of diplomatic intrigue, though thoroughly weighted with Mexican gold.
The King of Navarre was now thirty-one years old ; for the three Henrys were nearly of the same age. The first indications of his existence had been recognized amid the cannon and trumpets of a camp in Picardy, and his mother had sung a gay Bearnese song as he was coming into the world at Pau. Thus, said his grandfather, Henry of Navarre, thou shalt not bear to us a morose and sulky child. The good king, without a kingdom, taking the child, as soon as born, in the lappel of his dressing-gown, had brushed his infant lips with a clove of garlic, and moistened them with a drop of generous Gascon wine. Thus, said the grandfather again, shall the boy be both merry and bold. There was some- thing mythologically prophetic in the incidents of his birth.
The best part of Navarre had been long since appropriated by Ferdinand of Aragon. In France there reigned a young and warlike sovereign with four healthy boys. But the new-born infant had inherited the lilies of France from St. Louis, and a later ancestor had added to the escutcheon the motto "Espoir." His grandfather believed that the boy was born to revenge upon Spain the wrongs of the House of Albret, and Henry's nature seemed ever pervaded with Kobert of Clermont's device.
The same sensible grandfather, having different views on
1584. HENRY OF NAVARRE. 47
the subject of education from those manifested by Catharine de' Medici towards her children, had the boy taught to run about bare-headed and bare-footed, like a peasant, among the mountains and rocks of Beam, till he became as rugged as a young bear, and as nimble as a kid. Black bread, and beef, and garlic, were his simple fare ; and he was taught by his mother and his gi-andfather to hate lies and liars, and to read tlie Bible,
When he was fifteen, the third religious war broke out. Both his father and grandfather were dead. His mother, who had 02)enly 23rofessed the reformed faith, since the death of her husband, who hated it, brought her boy to the camp at Rochelle, where he was received as the chief of the Huguenots. His culture was not extensive. He had learned to speak the truth, to ride, to shoot, to do with little sleep and less food. He could also construe a little Latin, and had read a few military treatises ; but the mighty hours of an eventful life were now to take him by the hand, and to teach him much good and much evil, as they bore him onward. He now saw military treatises expounded practically by professors, like his uncle Conde, and Admiral Coligny, and Lewis Nassau, in such lecture-rooms as Laudun, and Jarnac, and Montcontour, and never was apter scholar.
The peace of Arnay-le-Duc succeeded, and then the fatal Bartholomew marriage with the Messalina of Valois. The faith taught in the mountains of Beam was no buckler against the demand of " the mass or death," thundered at his breast by the lunatic Charles, as he pointed to thousands of massacred Huguenots. Henry yielded to such conclusive arguments, and became a Catholic. Four years of court- imprisonment succeeded, and the young King of Navarre, though proof to the artifices of his gossip Guise, was not adamant to the temptations spread for him by Catharine de' Medici. In the harem entertained for him in the Louvre many pitfalls entrapped him ; and he became a stock-performer in the state comedies and tragedies of that plotting age.
A silken web of palace-politics, palace-diplomacy, palace-
48 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. U
revolutions, enveloped him. Schemes and counter-schemes, stratagems and conspiracies, assassinations and poisonings ; all the state-machinery which worked so exquisitely in fair ladies' chambers, to spread havoc and desolation over a king- dom, were displayed before his eyes. Now campaigning with one royal brother against Huguenots, now fighting with another on their side, now solicited by the Queen-Mother to attempt the life of her son,' now implored by Henry III. to assassinate his brother,'- the Bearnese, as fresh antagonisms, affinities, combinations, were developed, detected, neutralized almost daily, became rapidly an adept in Medicean state- chemistry. Charles IX. in his grave, Henry III. on the throne, Alengon in the Huguenot camp — Henry at last made his escape. The brief war and peace of Monsieur succeeded, and the King of Navarre formally abjured the Catholic creed. The parties were now sharply defined. Guise mounted upon the League, Henry astride upon the Reformation, were pre- pared to do battle to the death. The temporary "war of the amorous " was followed by the peace of Fleix.
Four years of peace again ; four fat years of wantonness and riot preceding fourteen hungry famine-stricken years of bloodiest civil war. The voluptuousness and infamy of the Louvre v/ere almost paralleled in vice, if not in splendour, by the miniature court at Pau. Henry's Spartan grandfather would scarce have approved the courses of the youth, whose education he had commenced on so simple a scale. For Margaret of Valois, hating her husband, and living in most undisguised and promiscuous infidelity to him, had profited by her mother's lesssons. A seraglio of maids of honour ministered to Henry's pleasures, and were carefully instructed that the peace and war of the kingdom were playthings in their hands. While at Paris royalty was hopelessly sinkinr' in a poisonous marsh, there was danger that even the hardy nature of the Bearnese would be mortally enervated by the atmosphere in which he lived.^
» Perefixe, 28. I ' 'M^moires d'Agrippa d'Aubign6,'
* Ibid., 38. 39. | ed. 1854. Appendix, xvii. p. 237.
1584-
HENRY OF NAVARRE.
49
Tlie unhappy Henry III., baited by the Guises, worried by Alen^on and his mother, implored the King of Navarre to return to Paris and the Catholic faith. M. de Sci^ur, chief of Navarre's council, who had been won over during a visit to the capital, where he had made the discovery that " Henry III. was an angel, and his ministers devils," came back to Pau, urging his master's acceptance of the royal invitation.' Henry wavered. Bold D'Aubigne, stanchest of Huguenots, and of his friends, next day j^rivately showed Segur a palace-window opening on a very steep precipice over the Bayse, and cheerfully assured him that he should be flung from it did he not instantly reverse his proceedings, and give his master different advice. If I am not able to do the deed myself, said D'Aubigne, here are a dozen more to help me. The chief of the council cast a glance behind him, saw a number of grim Puritan soldiers, with their hats plucked down upon their brows, looking very serious ; so made his bow, and quite changed his line of conduct.'
At about the same time, Philip II. confidentially offered Henry of Navarre four hundred thousand crowns in hand, and twelve hundred thousand yearly, if he would consent to make war upon Henry III.* Mucio, or the Duke of Guise, being still in Philip's pay, the combination of Leaguers and Huguenots against the unfortunate Valois would, it was thought, be a good triangular contest.
But Henry — no longer the unsophisticated youth who had been used to run barefoot among the cliffs of Coarasse — was grown too crafty a politician to be entangled by Spanish or Medicean wiles. The Duke of Anjou was now dead. Of all the princes who had stood between him and the throne, them
' D'Aubigne, 'Memoiros,' p. 61, 68.
* Ibid.
3 "The Abp. of Colein told me that the Prince of Orange had ac- quainted him with a practice of the King of Spain's, which was an oft'er made to the King of Navarre of 400,000 A* in ready monej', and a 100,000 A* monthly, if he would make wars with tiie French king — where-
VOL. I. — E
unto I answered, that I thought it done with a Spanish mind and cunninjj to draw the King of Navarre, as Se- bastian of Portagal was, to his ruin and loss of life and kingdom, and bv this means to destroy also the religion and churches in France," kc. (Herle to Queen Elizabeth, 2 2d Julv, 1584. S. P. Office MS.)
50 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. IL
was none remaining save the helpless, childless, superannuated youth, who was its present occupant. The King of Navarre was legitimate heir to the crown of France. " Espoir " was now in letters of light upon his shield, but he knew that his path to greatness led through manifold dangers, and that it was only at the head of his Huguenot chivalry that he could cut his way. He was the leader of the nobles of Gascony, and Dauphiny, and Guienne, in their mountain fastnesses, of the weavers, cutlers, and artizans, in their thriving manu- facturing and trading towns. It was not Spanish gold, but carbines and cutlasses, bows and bills, which could bring him to the throne of his ancestors.
And thus he stood the chieftain of that great austere party of Huguenots, the men who went on their knees before the battle, beating their breasts with their iron gauntlets, and singing in full chorus a psalm of David, before smiting the Philistines hip and thigh.
Their chieftain, scarcely their representative — fit to lead his Puritans on the battle-field, was hardly a model for them elsewhere. Yet, though profligate in one respect, he was tem- perate in every other. In food, wine, and sleep, he was always moderate. Subtle and crafty in self-defence, he retained something of his old love of truth, of his hatred for liars. Hardly generous perhaps, he was a friend of justice, while economy in a wandering King, like himself, was a necessary virtue, of which France one day was to feel the beneficent action. Reckless and headlong in appearance, he was in truth the most careful of men. On the religious question, most cautious of all, he always left the door open behind him, disclaimed all bigotry of opinion, and earnestly implored the Papists to seek, not his destruction, but his instruction. Yet prudent as he was by nature in every other regard, he was all his life the slave of one woman or another, and it was by good luck rather than by sagacity that he did not repeatedly forfeit the fruits of his courage and conduct, in obedience to his master-passion.
Always open to conviction on the subject of his faith, he
1584. HENRY OF NAVARRE. 51
repudiated the appellation of heretic. A creed, he said, was not to be changed like a shirt, but only on due deliberation, and under special advice. In his secret heart he probably regarded the two religions as his chargers, and was ready to mount alternately the one or the other, as each seemed the more likely to bear him safely in the battle. The Bearnese was no Puritan, but he was most true to himself and to his own advancement. His highest principle of action was to reach his goal, and to that principle he was ever loyal. Feel- insr, too, that it was the interest of France that he should succeed, he was even inspired — compared with others on the stage — by an almost lofty patriotism.
Amiable by nature and by habit, he had preserved the most unimpaired good-humour throughout the horrible years which succeeded St. Bartholomew, during which he carried his life in his hand, and learned not to wear his heart upon his sleeve. Without gratitude, without resentment, without fear, without remorse, entirely arbitrary, yet with the capacity to use all men's judgments ; without convictions, save in regard to his dynastic interests, he possessed all the qualities necessary to success. He knew how to use his enemies. He knew how to use his friends, to abuse them, and to throw them away. He refused to assassinate Francis Alengon at the bidding of Henry III., but he attempted to procure the murder of the truest of his own friends, one of the noblest characters of the age — whose breast showed twelve scars received in his service — Agrippa D'Aubigne, because the honest soldier had refused to become his pimp — a service the King had implored upon his knees. ^
Beneath the mask of perpetual careless good-humour, lurked the keenest eye, a subtle, restless, widely combining brain, and an iron will. Native sagacity had been tempered into consummate elasticity by the fiery atmosphere in which feebler natures had been dissolved. His wit was as flashing and as quickly unsheathed as his sword. Desperate, apparently reckless temerity on the battle-field was deliberately indulged ' P'Aubigoe, 'Memoires,' pp. 38-44.
52 THE UNITED NETHERLANDa Chap. II.
in, that the world miglit be brought to recognise a hero and chieftain in a King. The do-nothings of the Merovingian line had been succeeded by the Pepins ; to the effete Carlo- vingians had come a Capet ; to the impotent Valois should come a worthier descendant of St. Louis. This was shrewd Gascon calculation, aided by constitutional fearlessness. When despatch-writing, invisible Philips, star-gazing Rudolphs, and petticoated Henrys, sat upon the thrones of Europe, it was wholesome to show the world that there was a King left who could move about in the bustle and business of the age, and could charge as well as most soldiers at the head of his cavalry ; that there was one more sovereign fit to reign over men, besides the glorious Virgin who governed England.
Thus courageous, crafty, far-seeing, consistent, untiring, imperturbable, he was born to command, and had a right to reign. He had need of the throne, and the throne had still more need of him..
This then was the third Henry, representative of the third side of the triangle, the reformers of the kingdom.
And before this bubbling cauldron of France, where in- trigues, foreign and domestic, conflicting ambitions, strata- gems, and hopes, were whirling in never-ceasing tumult, was it strange if the plain Netherland envoys should stand some- what aghast ?
Yet it was necessary that they should ponder well the aspect of affairs ; for all their hopes, the very existence of themselves and of their religion, depended upon the organiza- tion which should come of this chaos.
It must be remembered, however, that those statesmen — even the wisest or the best-informed of them — could not take so correct a view of France and its politics as it is possible for us, after the lapse of three centuries, to do. The interior leagues, subterranean schemes, conflicting factions, could only be guessed at ; nor could the immediate future be predicted, even by such far-seeing politicians as William of Orange, at a distance, or Henry of Navarre, upon the spot.
It was obvious to the Netherlanders that France, although
1584. POWER OF FRANCE. 53
torn by faction, was a great and powerful realm. There had now been, with the brief exception of the lovers' war in 1580, a religious peace of eight years' duration. The Huguenots had enjoyed tranquil exercise of their worship during that period, and they expressed perfect confidence in the good faith of the King. That the cities were inordinately taxed to supply the luxury of the court could hardly be unknown to the Netherlanders. Nevertheless they knew that the kingdom was the richest and most populous of Christendom, after that of Spain. Its capital, already called by contemporaries the " compendium of the world," was described by travellers as " stupendous in extent and miraculous for its numbers." It was even said to contain eight hundred thousand souls, and although its actual population did not probably exceed three hundred and twenty thousand, yet this was more than double the number of London's inhabitants, and thrice as many as Antwerp could then boast, now that a great propor- tion of its foreign denizens had been scared away. Paris was at least by one hundred thousand more populous than any city of Europe, except perhaps the remote and barbarous Moscow, while the secondary cities of France, Rouen in the north, Lyons in the centre, and Marseilles in the south, almost equalled in size, business, wealth, and numbers, the capitals of other countries. In the whole kingdom were probably ten or twelve millions of inhabitants, nearly as many as in Spain, without her colonies, and perhaps three times the number that dwelt in England.
In a military point of view, too, the alliance of France was most valuable to the contiguous Netherlands. A few regi- ments of French troops, under the command of one of their experienced Marshals, could block up the Spaniards in the Walloon Provinces, effectually stop their operations against Ghent, Antwerp, and the other great cities of Flanders and Brabant, and, with the combined action of the United Pro- vinces on the north, so surround and cripple the forces of Parma, as to reduce the power of Philip, after a few vigorous and well-concerted blows, to an absolute nullity in the Low
54 TlIK UNITED NKTHKRLAXDS. Chap. II.
Countries. As this result was of as vital importance to the real interests of France and of Europe, whctlier Protestant or Catholic, as it was to the Provinces, and as the French government had privately manifested a strong desire to oppose the progress of Spain towards universal empire, it was not surprising that the States Greneral, not feeling capable of standing alone, should make their application to France. This they had done with the knowledge and concurrence of the English government. What lay upon the surface the Netherland statesmen saw and pondered well. What lurked beneath, they surmised as shrewdly as they could, but it was impossible, with plummet and fathom-line ever in hand, to sound the way with perfect accuracy, where the quicksands were ever shifting, and the depth or shallowness of the course perpetually varying. It was not easy to discover the inten- tions of a government which did not know its own intentions, and whose changing policy was controlled by so many hidden /Currents.
Moreover, as already indicated, the envoys and those whom they represented had not the same means of arriving at a result as are granted to us. Thanks to the liberality of many modern governments of Europe, the archives where the state-secrets of the buried centuries have so long mouldered, are now open to the student of history. To him who has patience and industry many mysteries are thus revealed, which no political sagacity or critical acumen could have divined. He leans over the shoulder of Philij) the Second at his writing-table, as the King spells j^atiently out, with cipher- key in hand, the most concealed hieroglyphics of Parma or Guise or Mendoza. He reads the secret thoughts of " Fabius," ' as that cunctative Roman scrawls his marginal apostilles on each despatch ; he pries into all the stratagems of Camillus, Hortensius, Mucins, Julius, Tullius, and the rest of those ancient heroes who lent their names to the diplomatic masque- raders of the 16 th century ; he enters the cabinet of the
* The name usually assigned to Philip himself ia the Paria-Simancaa Correspondence.
1584. EMBASSY OF THE STATES TO FRANCE. 55
deeply-pondering Burghley, and takes from the most private drawer the memoranda which record that minister's unutter- able doubtings ; he pulls from the dressing-gown folds of the stealthy, softly-gliding Walsingham the last secret which he has picked from the Emperor's pigeon-holes, or the Pope's pocket, and which, not Hatton, nor Buckhurst, nor Leicester, nor the Lord Treasurer, is to see ; nobody but Elizabeth herself ; he sits invisible at the most secret councils of the Nassaus and Barneveldt and Buys, or pores with Farnese over coming vic- tories, and vast schemes of universal conquest ; he reads the latest bit of scandal, the minutest characteristic of king or minister, chronicled by the gossiping Venetians for the edifi- cation of the Forty ; and, after all this prying and eavesdrop- ping, having seen the cross-purposes, the bribings, the wind- ings, the fencings in the dark, he is not surprised, if those who were systematically deceived did not always arrive at correct conclusions.
Noel de Caron, Seigneur de Schoneval, had been agent of the States at the French court at the time of the death of the Duke of Anjou. Upon the occurrence of that event. La Mouillerie and Asseliers were deputed by the Provinces to King Henry III., in order to offer him the sovereignty, which they had intended to confer upon his brother.' Meantime that brother, just before his death, and with the privity of Henry, had been negotiating for a marriage with the younger daughter of Philip II. — an arrangement somewhat incom- patible with his contemporaneous scheme to assume the sovereignty of Philip's revolted Provinces. An attempt had been made at the same time to conciliate the Duke of Savoy, and invite him to the French court ; but the Due de Joyeuse, then on his return from Turin, was bringing the news, not only that the match with Anjou was not favored — which, as Anjou was dead, was of no great consequence — but that the Duke of Savoy was himself to espouse the Infanta, and was therefore
J ' Yerhael van 't gene de heeren de i naer Yrankryck aen den Coninck
la Mouillerie ends van Asseliers liab- racckende den last hen gegeven op
ben gedaan ende gebesoigneert, midts- niijne heeren de Generale Stalen.'
gaders verstaen in henluyden reise j (Royal Archives at the Hague, MS.)
50-
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. II.
compelled to decline the invitation to Paris, for fear of offending his father-in-law.' Other matters were in progress, to be afterwards indicated, very much interfering with the negotiations of the Netherland envoys.
When La Mouillerie and Asseliers arrived at Rouen, on their road from Dieppe to Paris, they received a peremjitory order from the Queen-Mother to proceed no farther. This proliibition was brought by an unofficial personage, and was delivered, not to them, but to Des Pruneaux, French envoy to the States General, who had accompanied the envoys to France.-
After three weeks' time, during which they " kept them- selves continually concealed in Rouen," there arrived in that city a young nephew of Secretary Brulart, who brought letters empowering him to hear what they had in charge for the King. The envoys, not much flattered by such cavalier treatment on the part of him to whom they were offering a crown, determined to digest the affront as they best might, and, to save time, opened the whole business to this sub- ordinate stripling. He received from them accordingly an ample memoir to be laid before his Majesty, and departed by the post the same night. Then they waited ten days longer, concealed as if they had been thieves or spies, rather than the representatives of a friendly power, on a more than friendly errand.
At last, on the 24th July, after the deputies had been thus 24tii July, shut up a whole month. Secretary Brulart himself ^ ■ arrived from Fontainebleau.*
He stated that the King sent his royal thanks to the States for the offer which they had made him, and to the deputies in particular for taking the trouble of so long a journey ; but
1 Stafford to Walsingham, 29th Aug., 1584, in Murdin, ii. 419, 420.
" ' Lettre des Deputes en France au Prince d'Oranges du 16 Juillet, 1584,' (Hague Archives MS.) This letter to WilHam the Silent was written six days after his death.
3 MS. Letter in Hague Archives, be- fore cited.
* ' Rapport faict par Noel de Caron, aiant este depute de la part de Mes- seigneurs les Etats geueraux vers la Majeste du Roy de France, en I'as- semblee des diets Estats a Delft, le 5 Aoust, 1584.' (Hague Archives MS.i
158 i IGNOMINIOUS POSITION OF THE ENVOYS. 57
that he did not find his realm in condition to undertake a foreign war so inopportunely. In every other regard, his Majesty offered the States ''all possible favours and plea- sures."'
Certainly, after having been thus kept in prison for a month, the ambassadors had small cause to be contented with this very cold communication. To be forbidden the royal presence, and to be turned out of the country without even an official and accredited answer to a communication in which they had offered the sovereignty of their fatherland, was not flattering to their dignity. "We little thought," said they to Brulart, after a brief consultation among themselves, " to receive such a reply as this. It displeases us infinitely that his Majesty will not do us the honour to grant us an audience. We must take the liberty of saying, that 'tis treating the States, our masters, with too much contempt. Who ever heard before of refusing audience to public personages ? Kings often grant audience to mere letter-carriers. Even the King of Spain never refused a hearing to the deputies from the Netherlands when they came to Spain to comj^lain of his own government. The States General have sent envoys to many other kings and princes, and they have instantly granted audience in every case. His Majesty, too, has been very ill-informed of the contracts which we formerly made with the Duke of Anjou, and therefore a personal interview is the more necessary."^ As the envoys were obstinate on the point of Paris, Brulart said "that the King, although he should himself be at Lyons, would not prevent any one from going to the capital on his own private affairs ; but would unquestionably take it very ill if they should visit that city in a public manner, and as deputies." ^
Des Pruneaux professed himself " very grievous at this result, and desirous of a hundred deaths in consequence."
They stated that they should be ready within a month to
' Report of Noel de Caron, MS. be- I * " Dont le diet Sr. des Epruneaux
fore cited. estoit en son particulier fort doleut, es
* Ibid. se soubhaila cent fois estre luort," &c.
3 Ibid. I (MS. Report before cited.)
58 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. III.
bring an army of 3,000 horse and 13,000 foot into the field for the relief of Ghent, besides their military operations against Zutphen ; and that the enemy had recently been ignominiously defeated in his attack upon Fort Lillo, and had lost 2,000 of his best soldiers.'
Here were encouraging facts ; and it certainly was worth the while of the French sovereign to pause a moment before rejecting without a hearing, the offer of such powerful and conveniently-situated provinces.
Des Pruneaux, a man of probity and earnestness, but perhaps of insufficient ability to deal with such grave matters as now fell almost entirely upon his shoulders," soon afterwards obtained audience of the King. Being most sincerely in favour of the annexation of the Netherlands to France, and feeling that now or never was the opportunity of bringing it about, he persuaded the King to send him back to the Provinces, in order to continue the negotiation directly with the States General. The timidity and procrastination of the court could be overcome no further.
The two Dutch envoys, who had stolen secretly to Paris, were indulged in a most barren and unmeaning interview with the Queen-Mother. Before their departure from France, however, they had the advantage of much conversation with leading members of the royal council, of the parliaments of Paris and Rouen, and also with various persons professing the reformed religion. They endeavoured thus to inform them- selves, as well as they could, why the King made so much difficulty in accepting their propositions, and whether, and by what means, his Majesty could be induced to make war in their behalf upon the King of Spain. ^
They were informed that, should Holland and Zetland unite ivitli the rest of the Netherlands, the King "without any doubt would undertake the cause most earnestly." His councillors, also — even those who had been most active in dissuading his Majesty from such a policy — would then be
" MS. Letter to the States-General I ' De Thou, ix. 251. before cited. ' MS. Yerhael before cited.
1584.
VIEWS OF THE FRENCH HUGUENOTS.
59
unanimous in supporting the annexation of the Provinces and the war with Spain, In such a contingency, with the potent assistance of Holland and Zeeland, the King would have little difficulty, within a very short time, in chasing every single Spaniard out of the Netherlands. To further this end, many leading personages in France avowed to the envoys their de- termination "to venture their lives and their fortunes, and to use all the influence which they possessed at court."
The same persons expressed their conviction that {he King, once satisfied by the Provinces as to conditions and reasons, would cheerfully go into the war, without being deterred by any apprehension as to the power of Spain. It was, however, fitting that each Province should chaffer as little as possible about details, but should give his Majesty every reasonable advantage. They should remember that they were dealing with " a great, powerful monarch, who was putting his realm in jeopardy, and not with a Duke of Anjou, who had every thing to gain and nothing to lose." '
All the Huguenots, with whom the envoys conversed, were excessively sanguine. Could the King be once brought they said, to promise the Netherlands his protection, there was not the least fear but that he would keep his word. He would use all the means within his power ; " yea, he would take the crown from his head," rather than turn back. Although reluctant to commence a war with so powerful a sovereign, having once promised his help, he would keep his pledge to the utmost, "fo7' he was a King of his word," and had never broken and would never break his faith with those of the reformed religion.*
' MouiUerie and Asseliers, MS. be- fore cited.
* " Dus Verclarende oick bezunder die van de Religie, die wy gesproken hebben, dat zoo verre wy consten den Coninck zoo verre bringen dat hy ona beloofde te beschermen, wy niot en dorfden vreesen oft hy en zoudt ons houden ende zoude gebmycken alio zyne middelen, jae die crone van zynen hoofde, seggende dat hoe wel by zeer
qualycken es, ora totter oirlooge to brengen-nict zonder oirzaecke, mids bet es tegen eenen alzulcken macbti- gen Prince, dat bebbende belooft ons te helpen, dat hy uyet laten en zoude tzelfdo int neersto te houden, want hy es (zoo zy ons verclaerden) eenen Coninck van zynen woorde zyn be- loofte houdende, ende zelver die van der religie' seyden ons, dat hy hen nemmermeer en hadde gefailleert van
CO THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
Thus spoke the leading Huguenots of France, in con- fidential communication with the Netherland envoys, not many months before the famous edict of extermination, published at Nemours.
At that moment the reformers were full of confidence ; not foreseeing the long procession of battles and sieges whicli was soon to sweep through the land. Notwithstanding the urgency of the Papists for their extirpation, they extolled loudly the liberty of religious worship which Calvinists, as well as Catholics, were enjoying in France, and pointed to the fact that the adherents of both religions were well re- ceived at court, and that they shared equally in offices of trust and dignity throughout the kingdom.'
The Netherland envoys themselves bore testimony to the undisturbed tranquillity and harmony in which the professors of both religions were living and worshipping side by side " without reproach or quarrel " in all the great cities which they had visited. They expressed the conviction that the same toleration would be extended to all the Provinces when under French dominion ; and, so far as their ancient constitutions and privileges were concerned, they were assured that the King of France would respect and maintain them with as much fidelity as the States could possibly desire.^
Des Pruneaux, accompanied by the two States' envoys, departed forthwith for the Netherlands. On the 24th August, 24th Aug., 1584, he delivered a discourse before the States 1584. Greneral, in which he disclosed, in very general terms, the expectations of Henry III., and intimated very clearly that the different Provinces were to lose no time in making an unconditional offer to that monarch. With regard to Holland and Zeeland he observed that he was provided with a special commission to those Estates.^
It was not long before one Province after the other came
tgene hy hen belooft hadde." (Mouil- lerie and AsseUers, Verhael, &c. MS. before cited.)
Ibid. Ibid. Wagenaar, viii. 31. seq.
1584. EFFORTS TO PROCURE ANNEXATION. Ql
to the conclusion to oiFer the sovereignty to the King without written conditions, but with a general understanding that their religious freedom and their ancient constitutions were to be sacredly respected. MeantimCj Des Pruneaux made his appearance in Holland and Zeeland, and declared the King's intentions of espousing the cause of the States, and of accepting the sovereignty of all the Provinces. He distinctly observed, however, that it was as sovereign, not as protector, that his Majesty must be recognised in Holland and Zeeland as well as in the rest of the country.
Upon this gi-ave question there was much debate and much difference of opinion. Holland and Zeeland had never con- templated the jjossibility of accepting any foreign sovereignty, and the opponents of the present scheme were loud and angry, but very reasonable in their remarks.^
The French, they said, were no respecters of privileges nor of persons. The Duke of Anjou had deceived William of Orange and betrayed the Provinces. Could they hope to see farther than that wisest and most experienced prince ? Had not the stout hearts of the . Antwerp burghers proved a stronger defence to Brabant liberties than the "joyous entry" on the dread day of the " French fury," it would have fared ill then and for ever with the cause of freedom and religion in the Netherlands. The King of France was a Papist, a Jesuit. He was incapable of keeping his pledges. Should they make the arrangement now proposed and confer the sovereignty upon him, he would forthwith make peace with Spain, and transfer the Provinces back to that crown in exchange for the duchy of Milan, which France had ever coveted. The Netherlands, after a quarter of a century of fighting in defence of their hearths and altars, would find themselves handed over again, bound and fettered, to the tender mercies of the Spanish Inquisition.*
The Kings of France and of Spain always acted in concert, for religion was the most potent of bonds. Witness the
> Wagenaar, Bor, xix. 462. I handel met Frankryk' apud Bor, 11. 489
' ' Yertoog vau Gouda tegen den | seq. ; "Wagenaar, viii. 41, seq.
62
THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
Chap. IF.
sacrifice of tliousands of Frencli soldiers to Alva by their own sovereign at Mons, witness the fate of Geulis, witness the bloody night of St. Bartholomew, witness the Antwerp fury. Men cited and relied upon the advice of William of Orange as to this negociation with France. But Orange never dreamed of going so far as now proposed. He was ever careful to keep the Provinces of Holland and Zeeland safe from every foreign master. That spot was to be holy ground. Not out of personal ambition, God forbid that they should accuse his memory of any such impurity, but because he wished one safe refuge for the spirit of freedom.
Many years long they had held out by land and sea against the Spaniards, and should they now, because this Des Pruneaux shrugged his shoulders, be so alarmed as to open the door to the same Spaniard wearing the disguise of a Frenchman ?^
Prince Maurice also made a brief representation to the States' Assembly of Holland, in which, without distinctly opposing the negociation with France, he warned them not to proceed too hastily with so grave a matter. He reminded them how far they had gone in the presentation of the sovereignty to his late father, and requested them, in their dealings with France, not to forget his interests and those of his family. He reminded them of the position of that family, overladen with debt contracted in their service alone. He concluded by offering most affectionately his service in any way in which he, young and inexperienced as he knew himself to be, might be thought useful ; as he was long since resolved to devote his life to the welfare of his country.'
These passionate appeals were answered with equal vehe- mence by those who had made up their minds to try the chances of the French sovereignty. Des Pruneaux, meanwhile, was travelling from province to province, and from city to city, using the arguments which have already been sufficiently
- " En zou ons nu 't gerugt van zyne aankomst, en dat Pruneaux de scliouders optrok, dennaate verbaazen, dftt vfy hem zelv' als een FmnsoUuiw
vermond, gingen inhaalen ?" (Ibid.)
- Bor, II. (xix.) 488, seq.; Wag©- naar, viii. 39, 40.
1584. SUCCESS OF DKS PRUNEACX, 63
indicated, and urging a speedy compliance with the Frencli King's propositions. At the same time, in accordance with his instructions, he was very cautious to confine himself to generalities, and to avoid hampering his royal master with the restrictions which had proved so irksome to the Duke of Anjou.
" The States G-eneral demanded a copy of my speech," he wrote the day after that harangue had been delivered, " but I only gave them a brief outline ; extending myself 25th Aug., as little as I possibly could, according to the i^^'^ intention and command of your Majesty. When I got here, I found them without hope of our assistance, and terribly agitated by the partizans of Spain. There was some danger of their going over in a panic to the enemy. They are now •much changed again, and the Spanish partizans are beginning to lose their tongues. I invite them, if they intend to address your Majesty, to proceed as they ought towards a veritably grand monarch, without hunting up any of their old quibbles, or reservations of provinces, or any thing else which could inspire suspicion. I have sent into Gelderland and Friesland, for I find I must stay here in Holland and Zeeland myself. These two provinces are the gates and ramparts through which we must enter. 'Tis, in my opinion, what could be called superb, to command all the sea, thus subject to the crown of France. And France, too, with assistance of this country, will command the land as well. They are much astonished here, however, that I communicate nothing of the intention of your Majesty. They say that if your Majesty does not accept this ofier of their country, your Majesty puts the rope around their necks." *
The French envoy was more and more struck with the brilliancy of the prize offered to his master. " If the King gets these Provinces," said he to Catharine, " 't will be the most splendid inheritance which Prince has ever conquered." '
In a very few weeks the assiduity of the envoy and of the
' Groen v. Prinsterer, 'Archives,' I * Groen v. Prinsterer, 'Archives.' &c., I 1-3. j i 4.
64 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. II.
French party was successful. All the other provinces had very soon repeated the ofter which they had previously made through Asseliers and La Mouillerie. By the beginning of October the opposition of Holland was vanquished. The estates of that Province — three cities excepted, however — determined " to request England and France to assume a joint protectorate over the Netherlands. In case the King of France should refuse this proposition, they were then ready to receive him as prince and master, with knowledge and consent of the Queen of England, and on such conditions as the United States should approve." '
Immediately afterwards, the General Assembly of all the States determined to offer the sovereignty to King Henry on conditions to be afterwards settled." *
Des Pruneaux, thus triumphant, received a gold chain of the value of two thousand florins, and departed before the end of October for France,'
The departure of the solemn embassy to that country, for the purpose of offering the sovereignty to the King, was delayed till the beginning of January. Meantime it is necessary to cast a glance at the position of England in relation to these important transactions.
' Wagenaar, viii. 49. I ' Wageaaar, viii. 51 ; 'Resol. Holl,'
* Ibid.; Bor, IL 495, Hoofd, xxl 945. | 24th Oct., 1584, bL 651.
1684. POLICY OF ENGLAND. 65
CHAPTER III.
Policy of England — Schemes of the Pretender of Portugal — Hesitation of the French Court — Secret Wishes of France — Contradictory Views as to tlie Opinions of Netherlanders — Their Love for England and Elizabeth- Prominent Statesmen of the Provinces — Roger Williams the Welshman — ^Views of Walsingham, Burghley, and the Queen — An Embassy to Hol- land decided upon — Davison at the Hague — Cautious and Secret Measures of Burghley — Consequent Dissatisfaction of Walsingham — English and Dutch Suspicion of France — Increasing Affection of Holland for England.
The policy of England towards the Provinces had been some- what hesitating, but it had not been disloyal. It was almost inevitable that there should be timidity in the councils of Elizabeth, when so grave a question as that of confronting the vast power of Spain was forcing itself day by day more distinctly upon the consideration of herself and her statesmen. It was very clear, now that Orange was dead, that some new and decided step would be taken. Elizabeth w^as in favour of combined action by the French and English governments, in behalf of the Netherlands — a joint protectorate of the Provinces, until such time as adequate concessions on the religious question could be obtained from Spain. She was unwilling to plunge into the peril and expense of a war with the strongest power in the world. She disliked the necessity under which she should be placed of making repeated appli- cations to her parliament^ and of thus fostering the political importance of the Commons ; she was reluctant to encourage rebellious subjects in another land, however just the cause of their revolt. She felt herself vulnerable in Ireland and on the Scottish border. Nevertheless, the Spanish power was becoming so preponderant, that if the Netherlands were con- quered, she could never feel a moment's security within her own territory. If the Provinces were annexed to Francej on VOL. I. — F
6(5 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap IH.
tlio other hand, she could not contemplate with complacency the increased power thus placed in the hands of the treach^ erous and Jesuitical house of Valois.
The path of the Queen was thickly strewed with peril : her advisers were shrewd, far-seeing, patriotic, but some of them were perhaps over cautious. The time had, however, arrived when the danger was to be faced, if the whole balance of power in Europe were not to come to an end, and weak states, like England and the Netherlands, to submit to the tyranny of an overwhelming absolutism. The instinct of the Englisli sovereign, of English statesmen, of the English, nation, taught them that the cause of the Netherlands was their own. Nevertheless, they were inclined to look oii yet a little longer, although the part of spectator had become an impossible one. The policy of the English government was not treacherous, although it was timid. That of the French court was both the one and the other, and it would have been better both for England and the Provinces, had they more justly appreciated the character of Catharine de' Medici and her son.
The first covert negotiations between Henry and the States had caused much anxiety among the foreign envoys in France. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who had recently returned from Spain after his compulsory retreat from his post of English ambassador, was now established in Paris, as representative of Philip. He succeeded Tassis — a Netherlander by birth, and one of the ablest diplomatists in the Spanish sei-vice — and his house soon became the focus of intrigue against the govern- ment to which he was accredited — the very head-quarters of the League. His salary was large, his way of living magni- ficent, his insolence intolerable.
" Tassis is gone to the Netherlands," wrote envoy Busbecq to the Emperor, " and thence is to proceed to Spain. Don Bernardino has arrived in his place. If it be the duty of a good ambassador to expend largely, it would be difficult to find a better one than he ; for they say 'tis his intention to spend sixteen thousand dollars yearly in his embassy. I
1584. - SCHEMES OF THE PRETENDER OF PORTUGAL. 67
wouM that all things were in correspondence, and that ho were not in other respects so inferior to Tassis." ^
It is, however, very certain that Mendoza was not only a brave soldier, but a man of very considerable capacity in civil affairs, although his inordinate arrogance interfered most seriously with his skill as a negotiator. He was, of course, watching with much fierceness the progress of these underhand proceedings between the French court and the rebellious subjects of his master, and using threats and ex- postulations in great profusion, " Mucio," too, the great stipendiary of Philip, was becoming daily more dangerous, and the adherents of the League were multiplying with great celerity.
The pretender of Portugal, Don Antonio, prior of Crato, was also in Paris ; and it was the policy of both the French and the English governments to protect bis person, and to make use of him as a rod over the head of Philip. Having escaped, after the most severe sufferings, in the mountains of Spain, where he had been tracked like a wild beast, with a price of thirty thousand crowns placed upon his head, he was now most anxious to stir the governments of Europe into espousing his cause, and into attacking Spain through the re- cently acquired kingdom of Portugal. Meantime, he was very desirous of some active employment, to keep himself from starving, and conceived the notion, that it would be an excellent thing for the Netherlands and himself, were he to make good to them the loss of William the Silent.
" Don Antonio," wrote Stafford, " made a motion to me yesterday, to move her Majesty, that now upon the Prince of Orange's death, as it is a necessaiy thing for them to have a governor and head, and him to be at her Majesty's devotion, if her Majesty would be at the means to work it for him, she should be assured nobody should be more faithfully tied in devotion to her than he. Truly you would pity the poor man's case, who is almost next door to stai-ving in effect."*
' Busbecqui. 'Epist. ad Rud.' ii. p. 132.
* Stafford to Walsingham, Murdin h. 412-415.
G8 THE UNITKD NKTHERLANDS. Chap. III.
A starving condition being, however, not the only requisite in a governor and head to replace the Prince of Orange, nothing came of this motion. Don Antonio remained in Paris, in a pitiable plight, and very much environed by dangers ; for the Duke of Guise and his brother had under- taken to deliver him into the hands of Philip the Second, or those of his ministers, before the feast of St. John of the coming year. Fifty thousand dollars were to be the reward of this piece of work, combined with other services ; "and the sooner they set about it the better," said Philip, writing a few months later, "for the longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it." '
The money was never earned, however, and meantime Don Antonio made himself as useful as he could, in picking up information for Sir Edward Stafibrd and the other oppo- nents of Spanish policy in Paris.
The English envoy was much embarrassed by the position of affairs. He felt sure that the French monarch would never dare to enter the lists against the king of Spain, yet he was accurately informed of the secret negotiations with the Netherlands, while in the dark as to the ultimate intentions of his own government.
" I was never set to school so much," he wrote to Wal- singham (27th July, 1584), "as I have been to decipher the cause of the deputies of the Low Countries coming hither, the ofiiers that they made the King here, and the King's manner of dealing with them.^
He expressed great jealousy at the mystery which enve- loped the whole transaction ; and much annoyance with Noel de Caron, who "kept very secret, and was angry at the motion," when he endeavoured to discover the business in which they were engaged. Yet he had the magnanimity to request Walsingham not to mention the fact to the Queen, lest she should be thereby prejudiced against the States.
" For my part," said he, " I would be glad in any thing to
' Philip II. to J. E. Tassis, 15 and 28 I Simancas. Negociado de Estado ilarch, 1585. (Archivo general de j Flandes. MS.j • HuTdin ubi supra,
2584. HESITATION OP THE FRENCH COlTItT. gg
further tliem, rather tlian to hinder theui — though they do not deserve it — yet for the good the helping theui at this time may bring ourselves."^
Meantime, the deputies went away from France, and the King went to Lyons, where he had hoped to meet both the Duke of Savoy and the King of Navarre. But Joyeuse, who had been received at Chambery with " great triumphs and tourneys," brouglit back only a broken wrist, without bring- ing the Duke of Savoy ; that potentate sending word that the " King of Spain had done him the honour to give him his daughter, and that it was not fit for him to do any thing that might bring jealousy." ^
Henry of Navarre also, as we have seen, declined the invitation sent him, M, de Segur not feeling disposed for the sudden flight out of window suggested by Agrippa D' Aubigne ; so that, on the whole, the King and his mother, with all the court, returned from Lyons in marvellous ill humour.
" The King storms greatly," said Stafford, " and is in a great dump."* It was less practicable than ever to discover the intentions of the government; for although it was now very certain that active exertions were making by Des Pru- neaux in the Provinces, it was not believed by the most saga- cious that a serious resolution against Spain had been taken in France. There was even a talk of a double matrimonial alliance, at that very moment, between the two courts.
"It is for certain here said," wrote Stafford, "that the King of Spain doth presently marry the dowager of France, and 'tis thought that if the King of Spain marry, he will not live a year. Whensoever the marriage be," added the envoy, " I would to God the effect were true, for if it be not by some such handy work of God, I am afraid things will not go so well as I could wish." *
There was a lull on the surface of affairs, and it was not easy to sound the depths of unseen combinations and intrigues.
' Murdiu. ubi supra. ^ ^[urdm, il 419, 420 ' Ibid.
< Ibid
70 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. Ill
There was also considerable delay in the appointment and the arrival of the new deputies from the Netherlands ; and Staf- ford was as doubtful as ever as to the intentions of his own government.
" They look daily here for the States/' he wrote to Wal- singham (29th Dec. 1584), " and I pray that I may hear from you as soon as you may, what course I shall take when they be here, either hot or cold or lukewarm in the matter, and in what sort I shall behave myself. Some badly affected have gone about to put into the King's head, that they never meant to offer the sovereignty, which, though the King be not thoroughly persuaded of, yet so much is won by this means that the King hearkeneth to see the end, and then to believe as he seeth cause, and in the meantime to speak no more of any such matter than if it had never been moved." ^
While his Majesty was thus hearkening in order to see more, according to Sir Edward's somewhat Hibernian mode of expressing himself, and keeping silent that he might see the better, it was more difficult than ever for the envoy to know what course to pursue. Some persons went so far as to sug- gest that the whole negotiation was a mere phantasmagoria devised by Queen Elizabeth — her purpose being to breed, a quarrel between Henry and Philip for her own benefit ; and " then, seeing them together by the ears, as her accustomed manner was, to let them go alone, and sit still to look on." '
The King did not appear to be much afiected by these insinuations against Elizabeth ; but the doubt and the delav were very harrassing. " I would to God," wrote the English envoy, "that if the States mean to do anything here with the King, and if her Majesty and the council think it fit, they would delay no time, but go roundly either to an agreement or to a breach with the King. Otherwise, as the matter now sleepeth, so it will die, for the King must be taken in his humour when he begins to nibble at any bait, for else he will come away, and never bite a full bite while he liveth,"*
There is no doubt that the bait, at which Henry nibbled
' Uwim, it, 43}., * Jbia. 8 Ibid.
1584.
SECRET WISHES OF FRANCE.
71
with much avidity, was the maritime part of the Netherlands. Holland and Zeeland in the possession of either England or Spain, was a perpetual inconvenience to France. The King, or rather the Queen- Mother and her advisers — for Henry himself hardly indulged in any profound reflections on state- affairs, — desired and had made a sine qua nan of those Pro- vinces. It had been the French policy, from the beginning, to delay matters, in order to make the States feel the peril of their position to the full.
" The King, differing and temporising," wrote Herle to the Queen, "would have them fall into that necessity and danger, as that they should offer unto him simply the possession of all their estates. Otherwise, they were to see, as in a glass, their evident and hasty ruin." ^
Even before the death of Orange, Henry had been deter- mined, if possible, to obtain possession of the island of Walcheren, which controlled the whole country. " To give him that," said Herle, " would be to turn the hot end of the poker towards themselves, and put the cold part in the King's hand.'^ He had accordingly made a secret offer to William of Orange, through the Princess, of two millions of livres in ready money, or, if he preferred it, one hundred thousand livres yearly of perpetual inheritance, if he would secure to him the island of Walcheren. In that case he promised to declare war upon the King of Spain, to confirm to the States their privileges, and to guarantee to the Prince the earldoms of Holland and Zeeland, with aU his other lands and titles." 2
* Herle to Queen Elizabeth, MS. be- fore cited.
- Ibid.
^ " The French king's inward inten- tion being discovered in some manner to them, and his faith holden suspect- ed, Paul Buys at Delft to this effect willed mo under secrecy and assurance to say • unto your Majesty from him, that the said French King had two months since sounded the Prince of Orange by the Princess his wife, that in case he could be content to put into his hands the island of "Walcheren, the
said King would immediately declare Spain his enemy, confirm to the States their privileges, and unto the Prince of Orange the earldoms of Holland and Zeeland, with all his other lands and titles, and give him over and above lOOjOOOA* yearly of perpetual inheri- tance, well assured to him and his, where he would choose the same ; or, if he thought better, he should stow in ready money 2,000,OOOA* to behave at his pleasure.
"But, saith Buys (his scope being once seen), he shall never be trusted
72 THE UNITKD NETHERLANDS. Cuap. m.
It is superfluous to say that such offers were only regarded by the Prince as an affront. It was, however, so necessary, in his opinion, to maintain the cause of the reformed churches in France, and to keep up the antagonism between that country and Spain, that the French policy was not abandoned, although the court was always held in suspicion.
But on the death of William, there was a strong reaction against France and in favour of England. Paul Buys, one of the ablest statesmen of the Netherlands, Advocate of Holland, and a confidential friend of William the Silent up to the time of his death, now became the leader of the English party, and employed his most strenuous efforts against the French treaty — having "seen the scope of that court.'"
With regard to the other leading personages, there was a strong inclination in favom' of Queen Elizabeth, whose com- manding character inspired great respect. At the same time warmer sentiments of adhesion seem to have been expressed towards the French court, by the same individuals, than the mere language of compliment justified.
Thus, the widowed Princess of Orange was described by Des Pruneaux to his sovereign, as " very desolate, but never- theless doing all in her power to advance his interests ; the Count Maurice, of gentle hopes, as also most desirous of remaining his Majesty's humble servant, while Elector Truch- sess was said to be employing himself, in the same cause, with very great affection." ^
A French statesman resident in the Provinces, whose name has not been preserved, but who was evidently on intimate terms with many eminent Netherlanders, declared that Maurice, "who had a mind entirely French, deplored infi- nitely the misfortunes of France, and regretted that all the Provinces could not be annexed to so fair a kingdom. I do assure you," he added, " that he is in no wise English."^
by us, what hazard and extremety whereof the defence and reUcf of those
soever we run into ; yet he excused the Prince that he was not French in mind, but for necessity and conni- vency, to conser\'e the churches in France, and to breed jealousy and pique between those great kings,
countries and religion might ensue and be continued." (Herle to Q. Elizabeth, MS. ubi sup.)
^ "Wagenaar, viii. 50.
"^ Groen v. Prinsterer, ' Archivea,' kc. i. 2, 3. * Ibid. 15.
1584. VIEWS AS TO OPINIONS OF NETHERLANDERS. 73
Of Count Hohenlo, general-in-chief of the States* army under Prince Maurice, and afterwards his brother-in-law, the same gentleman spoke with even greater confidence. " Count d'Oloc," said he (for by that ridiculous transformation of his name the Grerman general was known to French and English), ^ with whom I have passed three weeks on board the fleet of the States, is now wholly French, and does not love the English at all. The very first time I saw him, he protested twice or thrice, in presence of members of the States General and of the State Council, that if he had no Frenchmen he could never carry on the war. He made more account," he said, " of two thousand French than of six thousand others, English, or Glermans." '
Yet all these distinguished persons — the widowed Princess of Orange, Count Maurice, ex-elector Truchsess, Count Ho- henlo— were described to Queen Elizabeth by her confidential agent, then employed in the Provinces, as entirely at that sovereign's devotion.
" Count Maurice holds nothing of the French, nor esteems them," said Herle, " but humbly desired me to signify unto your Majesty that he had in his mind and determination faithfully vowed his service to your Majesty, which should be continued in his actions with all duty, and sealed with his blood ; for he knew how much his father and the cause were beholden ever to your Highness's goodness."^
The Princess, together with her sister-in-law Countess Schwartzenburg, and the young daughters of the late Prince were described on the same occasion "as recommending their service unto her Majesty with a most tender affection, as to a lady of all ladies." " Especially," said Herle, " did the two Princesses in most humble and wise sort, express a certain fervent devotion towards your Majesty." ^
Elector Truchsess was spoken of as " a prince well quaHfied and greatly devoted to her Majesty ; who, after many grave and sincere words had of her Majesty's virtue, calling her
'Ibid. « Letter of I lorle, before cited, "Ibid.
VOL. :i. — 4
74 . THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. IIL
la fille unique de Dieu, and le bien heureuse Princesse, desired of G-od that he might do her service as she merited."'
And, finally, Count Hollock — who seemed to " be reformed in sundry things, if it hold" (a delicate allusion to the Count's propensity for strong potations), was said " to desire humbly to be known for one that would obey the commandment of her Majesty more than of any earthly prince living besides." ^
There can be no doubt that there was a strong party in favour of an appeal to England rather than to France. The Netherlanders were too shrewd a people not to recognize the difference between the king of a great realm, who painted his face and wore satin petticoats, and the woman who enter- tained ambassadors, each in his own language, on gravest affairs of state, who matched in her wit and wisdom the deepest or the most sparkling intellects of her council, who made extemporaneous Latin orations to her universities, and who rode on horseback among her generals along the lines of her troops in battle-array, and yet was only the unmarried queen of a petty and turbulent state.
" The reverend respect that is borne to your Majesty throughout these countries is great," said William Herle. They would have thrown themselves into her arms, heart and soul, had they been cordially extended at that moment of their distress ; but she was coy, hesitating, and, for reasons already sufficiently indicated, although not so conclusive as they seemed, disposed to temporize and to await the issue of the negotiations between the Provinces and France.
In Holland and Zeeland especially, there was an enthusiastic feeling in favour of the English alliance. " They recom- mend themselves," said Herle, " throughout the country ia their consultations and assemblies, as also in their common and private speeches, to the Queen of England's only favour and goodness, whom they call their saviour, and the Princess of greatest perfection in wisdom and sincerity that ever governed. Notwithstanding their treaty now on foot by their deputies with France, they are not more disposed to be
1 Letter of Herle, before cited. * Ibid.
1584.
THEIR LOVE FOR ENGLAND AND ELIZABETH.
75
governed by the French than to be tyrannized over by the Spaniard ; concluding it to be alike ; and even commutare non sortem sed servitutem."^
Paul Buys was indefatigable in his exertions against the treaty with France, and in stimulating the enthusiasm for England and Elizabeth. He expressed sincere and unaffected devotion to the Queen on all occasions, and promised that no negotiations should take place, however secret and confiden- tial, that were not laid before her Majesty.^ " He has the chief administration among the States," said Herle, " and to his credit and dexterity they attribute the despatch of most things. He showed unto me the state of the enemy throughout the provinces, and of the negotiation in France, whereof he had no opinion at all of success, nor any will of his own part but to please the Prince of Orange in his life-time."^
It will be seen in the sequel whether or not the views of this experienced and able statesman were lucid and compre- hensive. It will also be seen whether his strenuous exertions in favour of the English alliance were rewarded as bountifully as they deserved, by those most indebted to him.
Meantime he was busily employed in making the English
1 Ibid.
Sainte Aldegonde and Villiers fa- voured the French polic3^ Sainte Al- degonde was burgomaster of Antwerp, but even in that city, although so many influential persons looked to France, the people generally had more confi- dence in England. ''The accepting of the French king as prince of these countries," wrote Le Sieur to "VValsing- ham, " is much sought by some that govern this day here ; but in the ears of the common people it soundeth but evil, though the report be here that Holland and Zeeland have almost ac- cepted him. If it would please her Majesty to give ear unto it, she could have the country cheap enough. Jo juge que Sa Majeste auroit bon marche de ce pays." (Le Sieur to Walsingham, 7 Sept. 1584. S. P. Office MS.)
- Treslong, too, Admiral of Holland and Zeeland, and Governor of Ostend, made no secret of his preference for England, He avowed bimself publicly
her Majesty's faithful servant. Enter- taining hospitably, at his table in Os- tend, Captain Richards and other Eng- lish officers who had come with troops from Flushing, he pledged a bumper to the Queen's health, and another to that of Walsingham, praying that Eli- zabeth might yet be his sovereign.
"Nevertheless," said he, "I have letters from Zeeland, by which it appears that that province is about to deliver itself to the queen-mother of France."
"And begging your pardon," said Richards, " what towns will you give them for garrison ?"
"No towns at all," answered the Admiral, "let them lie on the dykes 1" After dinner he conducted the Eng- lish officers over the town, showing them the fortifications and renewing his protestations of devotion to her Majesty. (Richards to "Walsingham, 9 Sept., 1684, S. P. Office MS.)
3 Letter of Herle, before cited,
rjQ THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. IIL
government acquainted with the capacity, disposition, and general plans of the Netherlanders.
"They have certain other things in consultation amongst the States to determine of/' wrote Herle, " which they were sworn not to reveal to any, but Buys protested that nothing should pass but to your liking and surety, and the same to be altered and disposed as should seem good to your Highness's own authority ; affirming to me sincerely that Holland and Zeeland, with the rest of the provinces, for the estimation they had of your high virtue and temperancy, would yield them- selves absolutely to your Majesty and crown for ever, or to none other (their liberties only reserved), whereof you should have immediate possession, without reservation of place or privilege."*
The important point of the capability of the Provinces to defend themselves, about which Elizabeth was most anxious to be informed, was also fully elucidated by the Advocate. " The means should be such, proceeding from the Provinces," said he, " as your Majesty might defend your interest therein with facility against the whole world." He then indicated a plan, which had been proposed by the States of Brabant to the States General, according to which they were to keep on foot an army of 15,000 foot and 5000 horse, with which they should be able, " to expulse the enemy and to reconquer their towns and country lost, within three months." Of this army they hoped to induce the Queen to furnisli 5000 English footmen and 500 horse, to be paid monthly by a treasurer of her own ; and for the assistance thus to be furnished they proposed to give Ostend and Sluys as pledge of payment. According to this scheme the elector palatine, John Casimir, had promised to furnish, equip, and pay 2000 cavalry, taking the town of Maestricht and the country of Limburg, when freed from the enemy, in pawn for his disbursements ; while Antwerp and Brabant had agreed to supply 300,000 crowns in ready money for immediate use. Many powerful politi- cians opposed this policy, however, and urged reliance upon
' Letter of Herle, before cited.
1684. PROMINENT STATESMEN OF THE PROVINCES. 77
France, "so that this course seemed to he lame in many- parts.'"
Agents had already been sent both to England and France, to procure, if possible, a levy of troops for immediate necessity. The attempt was unsuccessful in France, but the Dutch com- munity of the reformed religion in London subscribed nine thousand and five florins.^ This sum, with other contribu- tions, proved sufficient to set Morgan's regiment on foot, which soon after began to arrive in the Netherlands by com- panies, " But if it were all here at once," said Stephen Le Sieur, " 't would be but a breakfast for the enemy."^
The agent for the matter in England was De G-riyse, formerly bailiff of Bruges ; and although tolerably successful in his mission, he was not thought competent for so important a post, nor officially authorised for the undertaking. While pro- curing this assistance in English troo2)S he had been very urgent with the Queen to further the negotiations between the States and France ;" and Paul Buys was offended with liim as a mischief-maker and an intriguer. He complained of him as having " thrust himself in, to deal and intermeddle in the affairs of the Low Countries unavowed," and desired that he might be closely looked after. ^
After the Advocate, the next most important statesman in the provinces was, perhaps, Meetkerk, President of the High Court of Flanders, a man of much learning, sincerity, and earnestness of character ; having had great experience in the diplomatic service of the country on many important occa- sions. " He stands second in reputation here," said Herle, " and both Buys and he have one special care in all practises that are discovered, to examine how near anything may con- cern your person or kingdom, whereof they will advertise as matter shall fall out in importance."*
John van Olden- Barneveldt, afterwards so conspicuous in the history of the country, was rather inclined, at this period, to
' Letter of Herle, before cited. ' Meteren, xiL 217. 3 Le Sieur lo "Walsingham, 7 Sept. 1584. (S. P. Office MS.)
* Meteren, xii. 217.
* Letter of Herle, MS- «Ibid.
78 THE UNITED NETHERLANDS. Chap. Ill
favour the French party ; a policy which was strenuously furthered by Villiers and by Sainte Aldegonde.
Besides the information furnished to the English govern- ment, as to the state of feeling and resources of the Nether- lands, by Buys, Meetkerk, and William Herle, Walsingham relied much upon the experienced eye and the keen biting humour of Roger Williams.
A frank open-hearted Welshman, with no fortune but his sword, but as true as its steel, he had done the States much important service in the hard-fighting days of Grand Com- mander Requesens and of Don John of Austria. With a shrewd Welsh head under his iron morion, and a stout Welsh heart under his tawny doublet, he had gained little but hard knocks and a dozen wounds in his campaigning, and had but recently been ransomed, rather grudgingly by his govern- ment, from a Spanish prison in Brabant. He was suffering in health from its effects, but was still more distressed in mind, from his sagacious reading of the signs of the times. Fearing that England was growing lukewarm, and the Provinces desperate, he was beginning to find himself out of work, and was already casting about him for other employment. Poor, honest, and proud, he had repeatedly declined to enter the Spanish service. Bribes, such as at a little later period were sufficient to sully conspicuous reputations and noble names, among his countrymen in better circumstances than his own, had been freely but unsuccessfully offered him. To serve under any but the English or States' flag in the Provinces he scorned ; and he thought the opportunity fast slipping away there for taking the Papistical party in Europe handsomely by the beard. He had done much manful work in tha Netherlands, and was destined to do much more ; but he was now discontented, and thought himself slighted. In more remote regions of the world, the thrifty soldier thought that there might be as good harvesting for his sword as in the thrice-trampled stubble of Flanders.
" I would refuse no hazard that is possible to be done in the Queen's service/' he said to Walsingham ; " but I do
1584. ROGER WILLIAMS. 79
persuade myself she makes no account of me. Had it not been for the duty that nature bound me towards her and my country, I needed not to have been in that case that I am in. Perhaps I could have fingered more pistoles than Mr. Newell, the late Latiner, and had better usage and pension of the Spaniards than he. Some can tell that I refused large offers, in the misery of Alost, of the Prince of Parma. Last of all, Verdugo offered me very fair, being in Loccum, to quit the States' service, and accept theirs, without treachery or betraying of place or man." ^
Not feeling inclined to teach Latin in Spain, like the late Mr. Newell, or to violate oaths and surrender fortresses, like brave soldiers of fortune whose deeds will be afterwards chronicled, he was disposed to cultivate the ''acquaintance of divers Pollacks," from which he had received invitations. " Find I nothing there," said he, " Duke Matthias has promised me courtesy if I would serve in Hungary. If not, I will offer service to one of the Turk's bashaws against the Persians." *
Fortunately, work was found for the trusty Welshman in the old fields. His brave honest face often reappeared ; his sharp sensible tongue uttered much sage counsel ; and his ready sword did various solid service, in leaguer, battle-field, and martial debate, in Flanders, Holland, Spain, and France.
For the present, he was casting his keen glances upon the negotiations in progress, and cavilling at the general policy which seemed predominant.
He believed that the object of the French was to trifle with the States, to protract interminably their negotiations, to prevent the English government from getting auy hold upon the Provinces, and then to leave them to their fate.
He advised Walsingham to advance men and money, upon the security of Sluys and