History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 32

[Sidenote: NEW EDICT.]

A day was fixed for the regent's entry, which was to be made with all becoming pomp. Detachments of troops were stationed in the princ.i.p.al avenues, and on the thirtieth of April Margaret rode into Antwerp, escorted by twelve hundred Walloons, and accompanied by the knights of the Golden Fleece, the great lords, and the provincial magistrates. As the glittering procession pa.s.sed through the files of the soldiery, along the princ.i.p.al streets, it was greeted with the huzzas of the fickle populace. Thus cheered on her way, the regent proceeded first to the cathedral, where _Te Deum_ was chanted, and on her knees she returned thanks to the Almighty, that this great city had been restored without battle or bloodshed to the king and the true faith.[906] As her eyes wandered over the desecrated altars and the walls despoiled of their ornaments, their rich sculpture and paintings, by the rude hand of violence, Margaret could not restrain her tears. Her first care was to recover, as far as possible, the stolen property, and repair the injuries to the building; the next, to punish the authors of these atrocities; and the execution in the market-place of four of the ringleaders proclaimed to the people of Antwerp that the reign of anarchy was over.

Margaret next caused the churches of the reformed party to be levelled with the ground. Those of the Romish faith, after being purified, and the marks of violence, as far as practicable, effaced, were restored to their ancient occupants. The Protestant schools were everywhere closed.

The children who had been baptized with Protestant rites were now re-baptized after the Catholic.[907] In fine, the reformed wors.h.i.+p was interdicted throughout the city, and that of the Romish church, with its splendid ritual, was established in its place.

On occupying Antwerp, Margaret had allowed all who were not implicated in the late riots to leave the city with their effects. Great numbers now availed themselves of this permission, and the streets presented the melancholy spectacle of husbands parting from their wives, parents from their children, or, it might be, taking their families along with them to some kinder land, where they would be allowed to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d according to the dictates of their own consciences.

But even this glimmering of a tolerant spirit,--if so it can be called,--which Margaret exhibited at the outset, soon faded away before the dark spirit of the Inquisition. On the twenty-fourth of May, she published an edict, written in the characters of blood which distinguished the worst times of Charles and of Philip. By this edict, all who had publicly preached, or who had performed the religions exercises after the Protestant manner, all who had furnished the places of meeting, or had harbored or aided the preachers, all printers of heretical tracts, or artists who with their pencil had brought ridicule on the Church of Rome,--all, in short, who were guilty of these or similar iniquities, were to be punished with death and confiscation of property. Lighter offences were to be dealt with according to the measure of their guilt. The edict containing these humane provisions is of considerable length, and goes into a large specification of offences, from which few, if any, of the reformed could have been entirely exempt.[908] When this ordinance of the regent was known at Madrid, it caused great dissatisfaction. The king p.r.o.nounced it "indecorous, illegal, and altogether repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity;"[909] and he ordered Margaret forthwith to revoke the edict. It was accordingly repealed on the twenty-third of July following. The reader who may be disposed to join heartily in the malediction may not be prepared to learn that the cause of the royal indignation was not that the edict was too severe, but that it was too lenient! It nowhere denounced the right of private wors.h.i.+p. A man might still be a heretic at heart and at his own fireside, so long as he did not obtrude it on the public. This did not suit the Inquisition, whose jealous eye penetrated into the houses and the hearts of men, dragging forth their secret thoughts into open day, and punis.h.i.+ng these like overt acts. Margaret had something yet to learn in the school of persecution.[910]

While at Antwerp, the regent received an emba.s.sy from the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes of Germany, interceding for the oppressed Lutherans, and praying that she would not consent to their being so grievously vexed by the Catholic government.

Margaret, who was as little pleased with the plain terms in which this remonstrance was conveyed as with the object of it, coldly replied, that the late conduct of the Flemish Protestants doubtless ent.i.tled them to all this sympathy from the German princes; but she advised the latter to busy themselves with their own affairs, and leave the king of Spain to manage his as he thought best.[911]

Of all the provinces, Holland was the only one which still made resistance to the will of the regent. And here, as we have already seen, was gathered a military array of some strength. The head-quarters were at Brederode's town of Viana. But that chief had left his followers for the present, and had been secretly introduced into Amsterdam, where, as before noticed, he was busy in rousing a spirit of resistance in the citizens, already well prepared for it by their Protestant preachers.

The magistrates, sorely annoyed, would gladly have rid themselves of Brederode's presence, but he had too strong a hold on the people. Yet, as hour after hour brought fresh tidings of the disasters of his party, the chief himself became aware that all hopes of successful resistance must be deferred to another day. Quitting the city by night, he contrived, with the aid of his friends, to make his escape into Germany.

Some months he pa.s.sed in Westphalia, occupied with raising forces for a meditated invasion of the Netherlands, when, in the summer of 1568, he was carried off by a fever, brought on, it is said, by his careless, intemperate way of life.[912]

Brederode was a person of a free and fearless temper,--with the defects, and the merits too, that attach to that sort of character. The friends.h.i.+p with which he seems to have been regarded by some of the most estimable persons of his party--Louis of Na.s.sau, especially--speaks well for his heart. The reckless audacity of the man is shown in his correspondence; and the free manner in which he deals with persons and events makes his letters no less interesting than important for the light they throw on these troubled times. Yet it cannot be denied that, after all, Brederode is indebted much more to the circ.u.mstances of his situation than to his own character for the s.p.a.ce he occupies in the pages of history.[913]

[Sidenote: CRUEL REPRISALS.]

Thus left without a leader, the little army which Brederode had gathered under his banner soon fell to pieces. Detachments, scattering over the country, committed various depredations, plundering the religious houses and engaging in encounters with the royal troops under Megen and Aremberg, in which the insurgents fared the worst. Thus broken on all sides, those who did not fall into the enemy's hands, or on the field, were too glad to make their escape into Germany. One vessel, containing a great number of fugitives, was wrecked, and all on board were made prisoners. Among them were two brothers, of the name of Battenberg; they were of a n.o.ble family, and prominent members of the league. They were at once, with their princ.i.p.al followers, thrown into prison, to await their doom from the b.l.o.o.d.y tribunal of Alva.

Deprived of all support from without, the city of Amsterdam offered no further resistance, but threw open its gates to the regent, and consented to accept her terms. These were the same that had been imposed on all the other refractory towns. The immunities of the city were declared to be forfeited, a garrison was marched into the place, and preparations were made for building a fortress, to guard against future commotions. Those who chose--with the customary exceptions--were allowed to leave the city. Great numbers availed themselves of the permission.

The neighboring dikes were crowded with fugitives from the territory around, as well as from the city, anxiously waiting for vessels to transport them to Embden, the chief asylum of the exiles. There they stood, men, women, and children, a melancholy throng, without food, almost without raiment or any of the common necessaries of life, exciting the commiseration of even their Catholic adversaries.[914]

The example of Amsterdam was speedily followed by Delft, Haarlem, Rotterdam, Leyden, and the remaining towns of Holland, which now seemed to vie with one another in demonstrations of loyalty to the government.

The triumph of the regent was complete. Her arms had been everywhere successful, and her authority was fully recognized throughout the whole extent of the Netherlands. Doubtful friends and open foes, Catholics and Reformers, were alike prostrate at her feet.[915] With the hour of triumph came also the hour of vengeance. And we can hardly doubt that the remembrance of past humiliation gave a sharper edge to the sword of justice. Fortresses, to overawe the inhabitants, were raised in the princ.i.p.al towns;[916] and the expense of their construction, as well as of maintaining their garrison, was defrayed by fines laid on the refractory cities.[917] The regent's troops rode over the country, and wherever the reformed were gathered to hear the word, they were charged by the troopers, who trampled them under their horses' hoofs, shooting them down without mercy, or dragging them off by scores to execution. No town was so small that fifty at least did not perish in this way, while the number of the victims sometimes rose to two or even three hundred.[918] Everywhere along the road-side the traveller beheld the ghastly spectacle of bodies swinging from gibbets, or met with troops of miserable exiles flying from their native land.[919] Confiscation followed, as usual, in the train of persecution. At Tournay, the property of a hundred of the richest merchants was seized and appropriated by the government. Even the populace, like those animals who fall upon and devour one of their own number when wounded, now joined in the cry against the Reformers. They worked with the same alacrity as the soldiers in pulling down the Protestant churches; and from the beams, in some instances, formed the very gallows from which their unhappy victims were suspended.[920] Such is the picture, well charged with horrors, left to us by Protestant writers. We may be quite sure that it lost nothing of its darker coloring under their hands.

So strong was now the tide of emigration, that it threatened to depopulate some of the fairest provinces of the country. The regent, who at first rejoiced in this as the best means of ridding the land of its enemies, became alarmed, as she saw it was drawing off so large a portion of the industrious population. They fled to France, to Germany, and very many to England, where the wise Elizabeth provided them with homes, knowing well that, though poor, they brought with them a skill in the mechanic arts which would do more than gold and silver for the prosperity of her kingdom.

Margaret would have stayed this tide of emigration by promises of grace, if not by a general amnesty for the past. But though she had power to punish, Philip had not given her the power to pardon. And indeed promises of grace would have availed little with men flying from the dread presence of Alva.[921] It was the fear of him which gave wings to their flight, as Margaret herself plainly intimated in a letter to the duke, in which she deprecated his coming with an army, when nothing more was needed than a vigilant police.[922]

[Sidenote: TRANQUILLITY RESTORED.]

In truth, Margaret was greatly disgusted by the intended mission of the duke of Alva, of which she had been advised by the king some months before. She knew well the imperious temper of the man, and that, however high-sounding might be her own t.i.tles, the power would be lodged in his hands. She felt this to be a poor requital for her past services,--a personal indignity, no less than an injury to the state. She gave free vent to her feelings on the subject in more than one letter to her brother.

In a letter of the fifth of April she says: "You have shown no regard for my wishes or my reputation. By your extraordinary restrictions on my authority, you have prevented my settling the affairs of the country entirely to my mind. Yet, seeing things in so good a state, you are willing to give all the credit to another, and leave me only the fatigue and danger.[923] But I am resolved, instead of wasting the remainder of my days, as I have already done my health, in this way, to retire and dedicate myself to a tranquil life in the service of G.o.d." In another letter, dated four weeks later, on the third of May, after complaining that the king withdraws his confidence more and more from her, she asks leave to withdraw, as the country is restored to order, and the royal authority more a.s.sured than in the time of Charles the Fifth.[924]

In this a.s.surance respecting the public tranquillity, Margaret was no doubt sincere; as are also the historians who have continued to take the same view of the matter, down to the present time, and who consider the troubles of the country to have been so far composed by the regent, that, but for the coming of Alva, there would have been no revolution in the Netherlands. Indeed, there might have seemed to be good ground for such a conclusion. The revolt had been crushed. Resistance had everywhere ceased. The authority of the regent was recognized throughout the land. The league, which had raised so bold a front against the government, had crumbled away. Its members had fallen in battle, or lay waiting their sentence in dungeons, or were wandering as miserable exiles in distant lands. The name of _Gueux_, and the insignia of the bowl and the beggar's scrip, which they had a.s.sumed in derision, were now theirs by right. It was too true for a jest.

The party of reform had disappeared, as if by magic. Its wors.h.i.+p was everywhere proscribed. On its ruins the Catholic religion had risen in greater splendor than ever. Its temples were restored, its services celebrated with more than customary pomp. The more austere and uncompromising of the Reformers had fled the country. Those who remained purchased impunity by a compulsory attendance on ma.s.s; or the wealthier sort, by the aid of good cheer or more substantial largesses, bribed the priest to silence.[925] At no time since the beginning of the Reformation had the clergy been treated with greater deference, or enjoyed a greater share of authority in the land. The dark hour of revolution seemed, indeed, to have pa.s.sed away.

Yet a Fleming of that day might well doubt whether the prince of Orange were a man likely to resign his fair heritage and the land so dear to his heart without striking one blow in their defence. One who knew the wide spread of the principles of reform, and the st.u.r.dy character of the reformer, might distrust the permanence of a quiet which had been brought about by so much violence. He might rather think that, beneath the soil he was treading, the elements were still at work, which, at no distant time perhaps, would burst forth with redoubled violence, and spread ruin over the land!

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

ALVA SENT TO THE NETHERLANDS.

Alva's Appointment.--His remarkable March.--He arrives at Brussels.--Margaret disgusted.--Policy of the Duke.--Arrest of Egmont and Hoorne.

1567.

While Margaret was thus successful in bringing the country to a state of at least temporary tranquillity, measures were taken at the court of Madrid for s.h.i.+fting the government of the Netherlands into other hands, and for materially changing its policy.

We have seen how actively the rumors had been circulated, throughout the last year, of Philip's intended visit to the country. These rumors had received abundant warrant from his own letters, addressed to the regent and to his ministers at the different European courts. Nor did the king confine himself to professions. He applied to the French government to allow a free pa.s.sage for his army through its territories. He caused a survey to be made of that part of Savoy through which his troops would probably march, and a map of the proposed route to be prepared. He ordered fresh levies from Germany to meet him on the Flemish frontier.

And finally, he talked of calling the cortes together, to provide for the regency during his absence.

Yet whoever else might be imposed on, there was one potentate in Europe whose clear vision was not to be blinded by the professions of Philip, nor by all this bustle of preparation. This was the old pontiff, Pius the Fifth, who had always distrusted the king's sincerity. Pius had beheld with keen anguish the spread of heresy in the Low Countries. Like a true son of the Inquisition as he was, he would gladly have seen its fires kindled in every city of this apostate land. He had observed with vexation the apathy manifested by Philip. And he at length resolved to despatch a special emba.s.sy to Spain, to stimulate the monarch, if possible, to more decided action.

The person employed was the bishop of Ascoli, and the good father delivered his rebuke in such blunt terms as caused a sensation at the court of Madrid. In a letter to his amba.s.sador at Rome, Philip complained that the pope should have thus held him up to Christendom as one slack in the performance of his duty. The envoy had delivered himself in so strange a manner, Philip added, that, but for the respect and love he bore his holiness, he might have been led to take precisely the opposite course to the one he intended.[926]

[Sidenote: HIS APPOINTMENT.]

Yet notwithstanding this show of indignation, had it not been for the outbreak of the iconoclasts, it is not improbable that the king might still have continued to procrastinate, relying on his favorite maxim, that "Time and himself were a match for any other two."[927] But the event which caused such a sensation throughout Christendom roused every feeling of indignation in the royal bosom,--and this from the insult offered to the crown as well as to the Church. Contrary to his wont, the king expressed himself with so much warmth on the subject, and so openly, that the most sceptical began at last to believe that the long talked of visit was at hand. The only doubt was as to the manner in which it should be made; whether the king should march at the head of an army, or attended only by so much of a retinue as was demanded by his royal state.

The question was warmly discussed in the council. Ruy Gomez, the courtly favorite of Philip, was for the latter alternative. A civil war he deprecated, as bringing ruin even to the victor.[928] Clemency was the best attribute of a sovereign, and the people of Flanders were a generous race, more likely to be overcome by kindness than by arms.[929]

In these liberal and humane views the prince of Eboli was supported by the politic secretary, Antonio Perez, and by the duke of Feria, formerly amba.s.sador to London, a man who to polished manners united a most insinuating eloquence.

But very different opinions, as might be expected, were advanced by the duke of Alva. The system of indulgence, he said, had been that followed by the regent, and its fruits were visible. The weeds of heresy were not to be extirpated by a gentle hand; and his majesty should deal with his rebellious va.s.sals as Charles the Fifth had dealt with their rebel fathers at Ghent.[930] These stern views received support from the Cardinal Espinosa, who held the office of president of the council, as well as of grand inquisitor, and who doubtless thought the insult offered to the Inquisition not the least of the offences to be charged on the Reformers.

Each of the great leaders recommended the measures most congenial with his own character, and which, had they been adopted, would probably have required his own services to carry them into execution. Had the pacific course been taken, Feria, or more probably Ruy Gomez, would have been intrusted with the direction of affairs. Indeed, Montigny and Bergen, still detained in reluctant captivity at Madrid, strongly urged the king to send the prince of Eboli, as a man, who, by his popular manners and known discretion, would be most likely to reconcile opposite factions.[931] Were violent measures, on the other hand, to be adopted, to whom could they be so well intrusted as to the duke himself, the most experienced captain of his time?

The king, it is said, contrary to his custom, was present at the meeting of the council, and listened to the debate. He did not intimate his opinion. But it might be conjectured to which side he was most likely to lean, from his habitual preference for coercive measures.[932]

Philip came to a decision sooner than usual. In a few days he summoned the duke, and told him that he had resolved to send him forthwith, at the head of an army, to the Netherlands. It was only, however, to prepare the way for his own coming, which would take place as soon as the country was in a state sufficiently settled to receive him.

All was now alive with the business of preparation in Castile. Levies were raised throughout the country. Such was the zeal displayed, that even the Inquisition and the clergy advanced a considerable sum towards defraying the expenses of an expedition which they seemed to regard in the light of a crusade.[933] Magazines of provisions were ordered to be established at regular stations on the proposed line of march. Orders were sent, that the old Spanish garrisons in Lombardy, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, should be transported to the place of rendezvous in Piedmont, to await the coming of the duke, who would supply their places with the fresh recruits brought with him from Castile.

Philip meanwhile constantly proclaimed that Alva's departure was only the herald of his own. He wrote this to Margaret, a.s.suring her of his purpose to go by water, and directing her to have a squadron of eight vessels in readiness to convoy him to Zealand, where he proposed to land. The vessels were accordingly equipped. Processions were made, and prayers put up in all the churches, for the prosperous pa.s.sage of the king. Yet there were some in the Netherlands who remarked that prayers to avert the dangers of the sea were hardly needed by the monarch in his palace at Madrid![934] Many of those about the royal person soon indulged in the same scepticism in regard to the king's sincerity, as week after week pa.s.sed away, and no arrangements were made for his departure. Among the contradictory rumors at court in respect to the king's intention, the pope's nuncio wrote, it was impossible to get at the truth.[935] It was easy to comprehend the general policy of Philip, but impossible to divine the particular plans by which, it was to be carried out. If such was the veil which hid the monarch's purposes even from the eyes of those who had nearest access to his person, how can we hope at this distance of time to penetrate it? Yet the historian of the nineteenth century is admitted to the perusal of many an authentic doc.u.ment revealing the royal purpose, which never came under the eye of the courtier of Madrid.

[Sidenote: HIS APPOINTMENT.]

With all the light thus afforded, it is still difficult to say whether Philip ever was sincere in his professions of visiting the Netherlands.

If he were so at any time, it certainly was not after he had decided on the mission of Alva. Philip widely differed from his father in a sluggishness of body which made any undertaking that required physical effort exceedingly irksome. He shrunk from no amount of sedentary labor, would toil from morning till midnight in his closet, like the humblest of his secretaries. But a journey was a great undertaking. After his visits, during his father's lifetime, to England and the Low Countries, he rarely travelled farther, as his graceless son satirically hinted, than from Madrid to Aranjuez, or Madrid to the Escorial. A thing so formidable as an expedition to Flanders, involving a tedious journey through an unfriendly land, or a voyage through seas not less unfriendly, was what, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, the king would have never dreamed of.

The present aspect of affairs, moreover, had nothing in it particularly inviting,--especially to a prince of Philip's temper. Never was there a prince more jealous of his authority; and the indignities to which he might have been exposed, in the disorderly condition of the country, might well have come to the aid of his const.i.tutional sluggishness to deter him from the visit.

Under these circ.u.mstances, it is not strange that Philip, if he had ever entertained a vague project of a journey to the Netherlands, should have yielded to his natural habit of procrastination. The difficulties of a winter's voyage, the necessity of summoning the cortes and settling the affairs of the kingdom, his own protracted illness, furnished so many apologies for postponing the irksome visit, until the time had pa.s.sed when such a visit could be effectual.